Prosper Roqua vs the Codex: Is select-all-and-attack enough to kill anything in the IE games? DISCUSS!

[Roqua]

I don't know about the beamdog crap, but at least in originals, IWD had one win button - Haste. It's a win button in all IE games, but it just made a massive difference in IWD. Whether full party or solo, in most difficulty settings, you end up not bothering with most of your spells afterwards because you're smashing people into bits so fast.

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy. You don't need haste to steamroll in any of the IE games. You just need a mouse and the ability to click on a bad guy and you win if you aren't retarded and have a competent party. Just click and watch - super fun for people with attention surplus disorder.

But, just think if IWD was as good as it's portraits. that would be a great game.

 

[Theldaran]

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy. You don't need haste to steamroll in any of the IE games. You just need a mouse and the ability to click on a bad guy and you win if you aren't retarded and have a competent party. Just click and watch - super fun for people with attention surplus disorder.

You need pretty impressive equipment and levels to do an effective all-out melee attack, which begs the question of how you attained them in the previous fights. Possibly not going all-out melee, probably you had to... you know... make some strategy.

Heart of Fury is interesting and there aren't lots of games with that approach.

 

[Konjad]

Here's the most boring, yet the most successful strategy in IE games:

1. Make all party members use ranged weapons.
2. Click on enemy
3. Wait until it dies
4. Click another enemy
5. Repeat until all enemies drop dead

Make sure you have a thief in the party to disable traps, otherwise might go full warrior-with-a-bow party. Or have a mage or a cleric not to get bored to uninstall.exe.

 

[Sykar]

Here's the most boring, yet the most successful strategy in IE games:

1. Make all party members use ranged weapons.
2. Click on enemy
3. Wait until it dies
4. Click another enemy
5. Repeat until all enemies drop dead

Make sure you have a thief in the party to disable traps, otherwise might go full warrior-with-a-bow party. Or have a mage or a cleric not to get bored to uninstall.exe.

 

[Theldaran]

Have a full bow warrior party, yes. That nonwithstanding that not all warriors have ranged proficiencies and there aren't enough warriors of a single alignment, so you will have party frictions.

Of course, you can roll your full party, but then there are far more abusive combos.

 

[hell bovine]

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy. You don't need haste to steamroll in any of the IE games. You just need a mouse and the ability to click on a bad guy and you win if you aren't retarded and have a competent party. Just click and watch - super fun for people with attention surplus disorder.

You need pretty impressive equipment and levels to do an effective all-out melee attack, which begs the question of how you attained them in the previous fights. Possibly not going all-out melee, probably you had to... you know... make some strategy.

Heart of Fury is interesting and there aren't lots of games with that approach.

There is also the Tactics4IWD2 mod, but I have yet to try it. The "click and wait until it dies" approach would have some problems with the undead Targos mod, though.

 

[Theldaran]

If we're talking about IWD2 here, I think that a full sorcerer party is more powerful than a full ranged party.

Like has been said for ages: "linear warriors, quadratic wizards".

 

[Roqua]

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy. You don't need haste to steamroll in any of the IE games. You just need a mouse and the ability to click on a bad guy and you win if you aren't retarded and have a competent party. Just click and watch - super fun for people with attention surplus disorder.

You need pretty impressive equipment and levels to do an effective all-out melee attack, which begs the question of how you attained them in the previous fights. Possibly not going all-out melee, probably you had to... you know... make some strategy.

Heart of Fury is interesting and there aren't lots of games with that approach.

Range characters also attack when you click. But, I am melee heavy and spell ultra light. In any game my goal is self sustainability and no characters I have to carry through the game that suck 95% of the time because of limited resources and my OCD hoarding. Unless you are wasting a ton of time traveling back and forth all over east kabeesh you aren't resting a lot and your casters suck at having reliable sustained damage in AD&D. I hate filler. I hate wasting walking and resting and other nonsense so I build a party that has the highest sustained output through 95% of the battles and that way I have a little tougher time on 5% of the battles. I don't understand people saying they needed to do this and that or whatever in IWD or BG 1 & 2. I just destroyed. Also, HO start with almost enough con to regen. I'm no expert on the IE games, and I've never played the IWD expansion, but they are retardedly easy if you do not have a retard party built for the few boss fights where you have to carry a bunch of useless bitches around for most of the game.

I honestly never got IWD 2 besides in the last year or two when someone mentioned it was 3rd edition D&D. It has the same shitty and boring combat of the IE games, but I at least had to pay attention during a lot of filler fights. Like with those fucking banner holding dog rider things. I pretty deep in I want to say an ice level but they are all ice levels, but it is the one you crash your flying ship at. It held my attention longer than the other IE games, I can say that.


Have any of you guys played Aarklash Legacy? How would you compare the two systems of RTwP? Imagine a game with Aarklash Legacy's combat system but with a much more robust chardev system with the IWD1/2/ToEE/WL2 crpg formula. That would be a great game.

 

[hell bovine]

I don't understand people saying they needed to do this and that or whatever in IWD or BG 1 & 2. I just destroyed.

Lots of people playing BG modded, that's why.

 

[Theldaran]

Roqua, nice try to convince us casters are useless. You're 30 years late!

Also a way to improve your team would be bringing a buffer like a Cleric and bolstering your warriors. That class you despise has the spell "Haste" that can turn the tide of the battle and can be extended to the whole party.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Roqua, nice try to convince us casters are useless. You're 30 years late!

Also a way to improve your team would be bringing a buffer like a Cleric and bolstering your warriors. That class you despise has the spell "Haste" that can turn the tide of the battle and can be extended to the whole party.

I wouldn't waste your time with Roqua on the topic of IWD, he hasn't even played it. He has a script of nonsense he spews about the IE games and doesn't require experience of the games to relentlessly bang his drum.

In case no-one's noticed, practically all RPGs can be munchkined once one is in full knowledge of the game's whatnots and howyoudos. If someone's already very experienced with D&D then games that involve D&D will be easier for them first time out more so than someone who has never even heard of a Thac0 nor how many legs it has. IWD is suitably hard for people who are fresh to it, a fun challenge for experienced RPGers and fully munchkinable for those that enjoy steamrolling.

When I tried to explain to Roqua about how the whole point of IWD is that you can make the game as hard or difficult as you like via it's extensive options at the start of the game he replied that he doesn't care about all that, he was just basing his judgement on how the game was meant to be played on standard settings which, for most games, might the right mindset to take but for IWD that's like saying "I've defeated Minecraft because I've dug a mine and built a house, and it was well easy", because IWD is pretty much just a module which you can do shit with rather than simply a game in and of itself.

The big set pieces will always have complications and the henchmen are usually manageable whatever you do. If you buy all the AC gear off of Pomab at the start then fighters can trivialise a lot of early encounters. Picking sleep for a mage can trivialise a lot of early encounters. Having everyone use bows can trivialise early encounters. Haste can trivialise encounters from the half-way pointish, as can the Cleric's heal spells. If you save scum for the rings with your rogue's/Bard's pickpocket skill this can give you great advantages. The Sorcerer can totally abuse improved invisibility. And all this is before you even start debating dual and multi-classing.

But the majority of people wont be playing like this the first time out. They wont be sure that they have enough money to buy the AC equipment, they wont pick sleep but instead something with a more exciting name, they'll vary their team, they wont be bothered to keep resting to haste everything (quality of life), same with the Cleric's heals, they wont know who to pickpocket and why, they might not even pick improved invisibility and hardly any will dual or multi-class. So when Roqua says "play it as it was meant to be played", it's a different "as it was meant to be played" than most will experience - because he's set his stall and is more interested in holding a verbal position than actually being objective, something which has inevitably exposed him to all the munchkins over the years even before he sets off for the first time.

When the HoW expansion was released there was even more munchkin stuff available via Bard songs and Druid's spells, let alone whatever new classes Beamdog brought to the show.

For me, how I play IWD is purely Quality of Life. I watched a Sensuki let's play of IWD when Sensuki was doing the whole PoE stuff and I don't play anything like him, he just zoomed his characters around, all melee unless it was a harder battle, health dropping to nearly dead as each battle hacked away a few more drops of red, then one dies and he just reloads a save and rests them before continuing. Now, to me, that's just a really ugly way to play. I like to have each character play their role, do a bit of positioning for each encounter and try to pass each encounter with zero lost HP. I barely ever rest in IWD, to which barely ever means only when I return to Kuldahar and deposit my loot in my loot chest in the hotel room I can rent for free because I solved the Inn quest. I only use Haste for the big set-pieces, usually at the end of a long crawl which would give me a full backpack anyway. I am at the point where I can easily steamroll the game if I want to, but the carte-blanche copy-paste criticisms are usually something I never encounter nor recommend. 'Playing properly' provides a very enjoyable experience that doesn't even involve hardly any pathfinding issues... I'll do a vid sometime.

 

[J_C]

For me, how I play IWD is purely Quality of Life. I watched a Sensuki let's play of IWD when Sensuki was doing the whole PoE stuff and I don't play anything like him, he just zoomed his characters around, all melee unless it was a harder battle, health dropping to nearly dead as each battle hacked away a few more drops of red, then one dies and he just reloads a save and rests them before continuing. Now, to me, that's just a really ugly way to play. I like to have each character play their role, do a bit of positioning for each encounter and try to pass each encounter with zero lost HP. I barely ever rest in IWD, to which barely ever means only when I return to Kuldahar and deposit my loot in my loot chest in the hotel room I can rent for free because I solved the INN quest. I only use Haste for the big set-pieces, usually at the end of a long crawl which would give me a full backpack anyway. I am at the point where I can easily steamroll the game if I want to, but the carte-blanche copy-paste criticisms are usually something I never encounter nor recommend. 'Playing properly' provides a very enjoyable experience that doesn't even involve hardly any pathfinding issues... I'll do a vid sometime.

 

[Gauldur's Bait]

Just finsished this on Core with two characters - an FMT and an Inquisitor.

On the whole, soloing with a monk on insane felt like cheesing the game, since the XP rewards are unreasonably large.

Yeah. IWD as duo felt even easier than BG 1-2 + expansions with a four-player party, precisely because the xp rewards per player become so huge.

Finished the Burial Isle in HoW now, and even though my FMT feels a bit more vulnerable without buffs, it is still not hard at all.

 

[Roqua]

Roqua, nice try to convince us casters are useless. You're 30 years late!

Also a way to improve your team would be bringing a buffer like a Cleric and bolstering your warriors. That class you despise has the spell "Haste" that can turn the tide of the battle and can be extended to the whole party.

Casting spells slows you down. Pasuing slows things down. Trying to fight the shitty AI to get off an AOE drastically slows thinsg down and is very annoying. I don't want to have to click on a million things in order to safely cast an AOE. I don't need haste to easily win a fight and I bet with my party comp versus your party comp I would be much more successful, much faster,

In good games I usually go caster heavy, like ToEE or D:OS. Especially with the combat mod for DOS that gives bonuses for specialization in spell schools and with the 4 party chargen mod.

In TB games that are good you have to think at each fight. It isn't one big long boring super easy suck fest like IWD where doing things slows you down. Doing things, like casting spells and especially AoEs makes combat go by faster in good games.

This is game dependent. I usually go melee heavy in most games that are RTwP. But in the case of the IE games, nothing substitutes the 5 points a fighter gets in a weapon, and the three points in DW or 2H, or the speed of acquisition. I didn't design the game.

Roqua, nice try to convince us casters are useless. You're 30 years late!

Also a way to improve your team would be bringing a buffer like a Cleric and bolstering your warriors. That class you despise has the spell "Haste" that can turn the tide of the battle and can be extended to the whole party.

I wouldn't waste your time with Roqua on the topic of IWD, he hasn't even played it. He has a script of nonsense he spews about the IE games and doesn't require experience of the games to relentlessly bang his drum.

In case no-one's noticed, practically all RPGs can be munchkined once one is in full knowledge of the game's whatnots and howyoudos. If someone's already very experienced with D&D then games that involve D&D will be easier for them first time out more so than someone who has never even heard of a Thac0 nor how many legs it has. IWD is suitably hard for people who are fresh to it, a fun challenge for experienced RPGers and fully munchkinable for those that enjoy steamrolling.

When I tried to explain to Roqua about how the whole point of IWD is that you can make the game as hard or difficult as you like via it's extensive options at the start of the game he replied that he doesn't care about all that, he was just basing his judgement on how the game was meant to be played on standard settings which, for most games, might the right mindset to take but for IWD that's like saying "I've defeated Minecraft because I've dug a mine and built a house, and it was well easy", because IWD is pretty much just a module which you can do shit with rather than simply a game in and of itself.

The big set pieces will always have complications and the henchmen are usually manageable whatever you do. If you buy all the AC gear off of Pomab at the start then fighters can trivialise a lot of early encounters. Picking sleep for a mage can trivialise a lot of early encounters. Having everyone use bows can trivialise early encounters. Haste can trivialise encounters from the half-way pointish, as can the Cleric's heal spells. If you save scum for the rings with your rogue's/Bard's pickpocket skill this can give you great advantages. The Sorcerer can totally abuse improved invisibility. And all this is before you even start debating dual and multi-classing.

But the majority of people wont be playing like this the first time out. They wont be sure that they have enough money to buy the AC equipment, they wont pick sleep but instead something with a more exciting name, they'll vary their team, they wont be bothered to keep resting to haste everything (quality of life), same with the Cleric's heals, they wont know who to pickpocket and why, they might not even pick improved invisibility and hardly any will dual or multi-class. So when Roqua says "play it as it was meant to be played", it's a different "as it was meant to be played" than most will experience - because he's set his stall and is more interested in holding a verbal position than actually being objective, something which has inevitably exposed him to all the munchkins over the years even before he sets off for the first time.

When the HoW expansion was released there was even more munchkin stuff available via Bard songs and Druid's spells, let alone whatever new classes Beamdog brought to the show.

For me, how I play IWD is purely Quality of Life. I watched a Sensuki let's play of IWD when Sensuki was doing the whole PoE stuff and I don't play anything like him, he just zoomed his characters around, all melee unless it was a harder battle, health dropping to nearly dead as each battle hacked away a few more drops of red, then one dies and he just reloads a save and rests them before continuing. Now, to me, that's just a really ugly way to play. I like to have each character play their role, do a bit of positioning for each encounter and try to pass each encounter with zero lost HP. I barely ever rest in IWD, to which barely ever means only when I return to Kuldahar and deposit my loot in my loot chest in the hotel room I can rent for free because I solved the Inn quest. I only use Haste for the big set-pieces, usually at the end of a long crawl which would give me a full backpack anyway. I am at the point where I can easily steamroll the game if I want to, but the carte-blanche copy-paste criticisms are usually something I never encounter nor recommend. 'Playing properly' provides a very enjoyable experience that doesn't even involve hardly any pathfinding issues... I'll do a vid sometime.

What you call being a munchkin or expert I call not being retarded. I do not research the systems, especially systems I do not like. I read the pertinent sections of the manual or tooltips in game.

Also, I want to play a game as it was intended to be played. ToEE was intended for Ironman so I only play Ironman. I do install mods to these games, especially improvement mods or the like and I do use the tactics mod for all IE games there is one for. I do not save spam. These games throw healing pots at you at a high frequency. I try to only drink them out of combat because the only opportunity costs these games have is waste time doing something that doesn't cause damage or do damage. I choose to always do damage when possible.

people say having to switch to range to kill the blow up things is good strategy. It is just a time waste in my opinion. It isn't good, it isn't fun, it just slows down a really easy and boring combat system.

What I do not like, and what I am dead against, is artificial challenge. Playing with only one character or on the highest difficulty just because. I started being a little more open to this with some caveats. For instance, in my last playthrough of WL2 I played on the second highest difficulty but I gave my team some extra skill points at the start to further define their role. I played this on the one save option. I do the same with PoE. I enjoy Ironman for games that it fits on because I like the risk/reward and having to pay attention and live with my decisions.

The only time I look at a walkthrough is when I am looking for specific information and the search engine turns up a link. Some information I look up is usually helps me make a decision. For instance - in Dragon Age Origins, I looked up if the little demon kid quest was time sensitive. That is what I have hate in games, is when you do not know and it isn't clear what the repercussions will be. I only started using mods around 2010 or so, before that ever single game of FO 2 I played ended because of the time limit of the main quest. Now, with mods, I can get rid of that part of the game or extend the time limit by a lot.

I love Tim Cain but he loves to put some shit that annoys me in his games, like time limits or time sensitivity. Granted, he has a pnp background and time makes sense in general, but I have an OCD like need to complete every square inch of everything and time limits mean I lose.

 

[Sacred82]

Best times I've had with IWD were actually 4 character parties w/ ironman saving and ironman attribute rolling (I took the first roll and didn't increase scores but changed values around). Definitely didn't go in swords blazing with that setup.

 

[Tigranes]

IncendiaryDevice is entirely reasonable and correct.

If you're going to Ctrl+A & Left Click, sure, it's the 'fault' of the game that it is so easy to do that, but then you might as well stop wasting yoru time playing it. Also applies to 90% of RPGs. If you still want to have fun playing RPGs, then you're probably going to find different ways to give yourself challenges or play in ways that is actually enjoyable, as opposed to being an unpaid chinese gold farmer abusing glitches or just 'winning' the game in the most 'efficient' way possible and then complaining it's shit.

I think 6 player parties actually are too large for enjoyable plays by veterans in the absence of other obstacles. You have so many HP sponges, and you have so many different skillsets, that you can distribute risks to negligibility and somehow make it through every kind of fight, no matter the difficulty and other house rules. Smaller parties of course get more XP which can break the game after the first 1/3 or 1/2. I like to go with smaller parties with XP adjustment (e.g. so you get XP as much as you would with 6), or with other thematic restrictions. And unlike IWD2, you can easily be missing some major elements in your party, e.g. a mage, and not feel like you have to cheese to win the fights; the enemies tend to, for better or for worse, play it pretty straight, even the likes of Yxunomei.

 

[Delterius]

Lol people 'having trouble casting AoEs'.

 

[hell bovine]

Also, I want to play a game as it was intended to be played. ToEE was intended for Ironman so I only play Ironman. I do install mods to these games, especially improvement mods or the like and I do use the tactics mod for all IE games there is one for.

Funny, because in all IE mods that I've tried (Tactics, Ascension and SCS) going magic-lite isn't easy. So, which mods dd you play with, that

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy.

?

 

[Roqua]

Also, I want to play a game as it was intended to be played. ToEE was intended for Ironman so I only play Ironman. I do install mods to these games, especially improvement mods or the like and I do use the tactics mod for all IE games there is one for.

Funny, because in all IE mods that I've tried (Tactics, Ascension and SCS) going magic-lite isn't easy. So, which mods dd you play with, that

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy.

?

I know I think its the SCS, whatever one was updated for the EE. The only other one I use is the portrait packs (for the EE games, when I played IWD 2 I used a bunch like widescreen or whatever the list on the forum on GoG said I should use). If there is a restored content patch for a game I use that. If a game has a shitty combat system and lite chardev I look for a combat overhaul/ability mod. Like for Dragon Age Origins there is one that adds a bunch of new specialties and a couple new classes (I never played a new class but love the new specialties) and a mod that makes combat less geared towards monkey retards. For Dragon Age 2 I use the one called like something like "lots of extra talents." For FONV there is this mod that actually makes the game really good. The combat is very difficult and money is rare so taking crafting talents to up your dps actually works.

Speaking of Dragon Age. I noticed that there have been to combat overhauls besides ones making combat easier (removing cooldowns and cost requirements). But there are about 7 gazillion graphics mods. Does this say anything about Bioware's current audience or was the combat system just so good it didn't need to be improved. I just verified on nexus if there are any new combat mods and there isn't besides a couple that change what is already there for the current base classes, like making sword & shield do better damage and increasing the power of what he felt were weaker mage abilities and passives/etc. Nothing adding new abilities or functionality or improving combat and/or enemy AI.

Lastly, since I sued it recently. There is a mod for Skyrim called Requiem, and I don't know if it was added in the base game or in a mod for it called "behind the curtains" but the blessings are a big deal and you can't get them if you pick locks, murder, steal, or do bad things the main god's would dislike. This is a small thing, but huge if you think about it. I wonder why I cannot think of another example of a game where your belief affects your behavior in the game and limits the activities you engage in like this. Sure, Darklands and RoA had scripted events that hurt you if you did X (like loot the thief god alter in the first dungeon in BoD), but nothing overarching like this. In Bioware games it may effect a companions liking of you, but their companion system is more about romance for horny kids than behavior modification. And tha paladin choice in PoE has a type of paladin that would suite your playstyle and doesn't limit content to my knowledge. I hope people that can actually make games have heard of this or tried it and love it and want to expand on it.

Edit: wow, I had a lot of errors and confusion in this. The Dragon Age with no combat overhauls I was referring to is DAI, 1 and 2 both have a bunch of good ones.

 

[Roqua]

Also, I want to play a game as it was intended to be played. ToEE was intended for Ironman so I only play Ironman. I do install mods to these games, especially improvement mods or the like and I do use the tactics mod for all IE games there is one for.

Funny, because in all IE mods that I've tried (Tactics, Ascension and SCS) going magic-lite isn't easy. So, which mods dd you play with, that

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy.

?

But to further reply - yes it is easy, and fast, and not hard, and doesn't make the game's combat suck much less. I have a rogue that can use wands and scrolls. The game dumps healing potions on you, and a minimum of 4 HO fighters is necessary. I tried IWD twice since the EE came out - once with a Dwarven defender and once with the anti-mage fighter class. Neither impressed me. If I do it again I am going 5 HO fighters and maybe a dual class mage/rogue. Bards can't do anything besides buff or do shitty damage. In 3.5 they do both, which is good. Wizards/sorcs/clerics have to be carried and waste a space in most fights in order to cast spells in certain fights. Are they necessary in those fights? No. It just makes them easier. Pausing to cast spells just wastes time if you have a good party that can do sustained damage. And warriors aren't linear since, again, their attacks increase and they get five dots in weapons, and full to go in the type (dw, 2h, one hand, S&B). Add in equipment upgrades and you have no weak links (besides the necessary rogue). All can take a hit and give it back real nice and good. But chances are I will play the superior in every way IWD 2 if I am going to try and replay an IWD.

And again, this strategy isn't for games with good combat that are sped up by using AoE spells and buffs. this strategy only works on monkey games with shit combat for idiots and people that like to pretend wasting time stealthing and setting up, and turning the AI off to cast an AoE that doesn't kill your party, etc, is needed in the IE games.

 

[hell bovine]

Also, I want to play a game as it was intended to be played. ToEE was intended for Ironman so I only play Ironman. I do install mods to these games, especially improvement mods or the like and I do use the tactics mod for all IE games there is one for.

Funny, because in all IE mods that I've tried (Tactics, Ascension and SCS) going magic-lite isn't easy. So, which mods dd you play with, that

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy.

?

I know I think its the SCS, whatever one was updated for the EE. The only other one I use is the portrait packs (for the EE games, when I played IWD 2 I used a bunch like widescreen or whatever the list on the forum on GoG said I should use). If there is a restored content patch for a game I use that. If a game has a shitty combat system and lite chardev I look for a combat overhaul/ability mod.

SCS isn't currently compatible with the ee. And if you use only selected elements and play without ascension, then it doesn't increase the difficulty much anyway. But had you played it with "all the bells and whistles" (and ascension) then the prebufing mages component alone would send a magic-lite team packing. (which from the sound of it you didn't)

Either way, using only scs isn't using "a tactics mod for every ie game " like you've claimed. (and I honestly don't care about dao, poe or new fo) Iwd is unfortunately the only one that doesn't have a mod.
edit: actually, there aren't any combat mods for ps:t that I know of, but that's not a game you play for the combat

 

[Tigranes]

" a minimum of 4 HO fighters is necessary"

I don't know what HO fighter is, but what the hell is this

 

[hoverdog]

wowzers, roqua is seriously retarded.

 

[Roqua]

" a minimum of 4 HO fighters is necessary"

I don't know what HO fighter is, but what the hell is this

Half Orc, they get +1 to Str (skipping the rerolls to get high 18/**) and +1 con.

Also, I want to play a game as it was intended to be played. ToEE was intended for Ironman so I only play Ironman. I do install mods to these games, especially improvement mods or the like and I do use the tactics mod for all IE games there is one for.

Funny, because in all IE mods that I've tried (Tactics, Ascension and SCS) going magic-lite isn't easy. So, which mods dd you play with, that

The other win button was just clicking on an enemy.

?

I know I think its the SCS, whatever one was updated for the EE. The only other one I use is the portrait packs (for the EE games, when I played IWD 2 I used a bunch like widescreen or whatever the list on the forum on GoG said I should use). If there is a restored content patch for a game I use that. If a game has a shitty combat system and lite chardev I look for a combat overhaul/ability mod.

SCS isn't currently compatible with the ee. And if you use only selected elements and play without ascension, then it doesn't increase the difficulty much anyway. But had you played it with "all the bells and whistles" (and ascension) then the prebufing mages component alone would send a magic-lite team packing. (which from the sound of it you didn't)

Either way, using only scs isn't using "a tactics mod for every ie game " like you've claimed. (and I honestly don't care about dao, poe or new fo) Iwd is unfortunately the only one that doesn't have a mod.
edit: actually, there aren't any combat mods for ps:t that I know of, but that's not a game you play for the combat

I just looked into it and there doesn't seem to be any difficulty mods for IWD EE at all. One called balanced something or other changes the core functioning such as intelligence giving crit, getting rid of the 18/** (so a non-fighter type gets the same thaco and damage bonus as a fghter if they are both at 18 strength), charisma giving luck and spell saves, dex lowered by armor, the weapon specializations changing, etc. The other big ones are for kits and seem to just go crazy and make every non-fighter almost as good as fighters with almost every class getting a kit with up to 4 in a weapon and 2 in a spec or 3 in DW. The rule change ones just make the game easier.

The balance one is very interesting and I like them addressing all dump stats (besides wisdom it seems), and the itemization changes. This would actually make a non-melee heavy party more viable. Swashbuckler and Bard aren't ass, and it looks like pretty much everyone besides druids (and monks, and the kits not allowing ranged, etc) use bows. I may load up IWD to check this out. But, it kind of guts all interesting race selections since int and cha are no longer dumb stats, and for plate wearers it would now be dex and wisdom, since the crit increase is too good for damage and the save increase is too good for survivability. With how they have classes now, HO only get +1 str. And since str only gives a very minimal increase going from 18 to 19, but losing out on both int and 2 points of charisma make them one of the worse races now. It seems like humans and HE for melee, elf for ranged as an alternative.

wowzers, roqua is seriously retarded.

Well, if I am retarded and I have no issue blowing through this game, just what level below retarded are you since you struggle and need to employ useless strategy that even a lowly retard like me doesn't need? Just what kind of sub-retard are you?

For you and everyone else even more retarded than I am who struggle with the combat in the IE games - AD&D isn't a complex system, and the THACO and other mechanics are easy to figure out for even retards like me. Specialization up to grandmaster is explained in the tooltips, along with stats and what they do. The information on how to steamroll is there for you. If you have fun in retardoworld being all retarded and wasting your slots on useless characters requiring you to fight poor AI to utilize, thus making it seem like you are doing something when you have gone from a to b, and I'm all the way down to f because I just click and watch the shitty combat play out, only having to click again when one of the characters in my party decides he doesn't feel like fighting the mob two feet away for no reason, or if a mage shows up or cleric and there is a better target than what was currently on my screen. That isn't fun for people of even my level of retardation, only sub-retards like hoverdog. I like games that cause my stupid retard brain to be forced to think, and devise a strategy, and not have the biggest challenge be fighting pathing and AI even stupider than I am. I like games that are not easier with a melee heavy party because the target audience isn't hoverdog or the monkey games made by subretards for even bigger subretards that can't read or understand simple, basic mechanics of one of the most basic and lite rpg systems around.

Just why would anyone that is of normal intelligence ever by a game from you? What is your hook? Do you also fight clicker hero difficult? Is going peepee like a big boy difficult? Do you have a hard time resisting the urge to lick windows and shack socks at people? Does your mother and school officals force you to wear a helmet? I'm very interested in knowing specifically what your functioning level is.

 

[coldcrow]

Hilarious.
Could you please beat IWD1/2 on Heart of Fury/Winter mode with that party?

Also the question comes to mind how many of your dudes are actually fighting and not walking towards new enemies. suppose in IWD there are few ranged encounters, but in BG2 you get destroyed with such a party.
Not having a haste dispenser in a fighter party thus slows you down even more because your dudes have to walk around instead of running. A dualclassed/multiclassed fighter/mage would add like 50% killpower and is competent with a ranged weapon, so you can safely ignore the more fiddly spells.
On normal diff you will probably not need a cleric, but no mage is just dumb.

 

[hell bovine]

I just looked into it and there doesn't seem to be any difficulty mods for IWD EE at all. One called balanced something or other changes the core functioning such as intelligence giving crit, getting rid of the 18/** (so a non-fighter type gets the same thaco and damage bonus as a fghter if they are both at 18 strength), charisma giving luck and spell saves, dex lowered by armor, the weapon specializations changing, etc. The other big ones are for kits and seem to just go crazy and make every non-fighter almost as good as fighters with almost every class getting a kit with up to 4 in a weapon and 2 in a spec or 3 in DW. The rule change ones just make the game easier.

The balance one is very interesting and I like them addressing all dump stats (besides wisdom it seems), and the itemization changes. This would actually make a non-melee heavy party more viable. Swashbuckler and Bard aren't ass, and it looks like pretty much everyone besides druids (and monks, and the kits not allowing ranged, etc) use bows. I may load up IWD to check this out. But, it kind of guts all interesting race selections since int and cha are no longer dumb stats, and for plate wearers it would now be dex and wisdom, since the crit increase is too good for damage and the save increase is too good for survivability. With how they have classes now, HO only get +1 str. And since str only gives a very minimal increase going from 18 to 19, but losing out on both int and 2 points of charisma make them one of the worse races now. It seems like humans and HE for melee, elf for ranged as an alternative.

A non-melee party is already viable. It was viable in the original, which is a bit more difficult due to the lack of kits, and it is even more viable in the EE, which introduced BG2 kits and spells. If you actually want a challenge, use the "no murder xp" from the balance mod; your party will be be leveling far more slowly. (the game is still doable with it, thanks to potions & items) Or just play IWD2 with Tactics4IWD2, since you liked the sequel better.