Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Butter]

one of star ones is Hammer Bow, a 4 apr bow you can only get if you kill Emmerich btw

Holy shit, that's insanely good. +2 APR and it's a +4 weapon to boot. Can't imagine how broken the already overpowered Archer kit would be if you snapped that up early. You could probably solo Yxunomei in a single round.

Is it even possible to get to HoW before completing Dragon's Eye?

 

[agris]

I wonder if the global quest/kill XP reduction mod in… BGtweaks? works for IWD.

 

[Average Manatee]

Is it even possible to get to HoW before completing Dragon's Eye?

You need a level 9 character to go over. Either playing with the (original) 2x XP for insane mode or with a reduced party size makes that fairly easy to obtain before Yxun.

Or you can just import a level 1 party to HoW then export to IWD after killing Emmerich

Funny thing is, while the 2nd option is obviously blatantly cheating the 1st option is actually more broken because HoW quest XP is insane and you'll get like 5M XP before you can get back to IWD, which is also doable almost entirely without fighting by just casting invisibility and running through the areas. Hence why I said there's no good order to do them and the main game in. Either you go early and get vastly overleveled or you go late and are already overleveled and overgeared for them and they just skyrocket you to level 30.

 

[Shadenuat]

Spider Crusher

Spider Crusher is addon ( i think), all these weapons were added to smith with HoW, as well as ability to forge white dragon armor (don't remember if armor is restored content tho).
that makes it ~4 addon clubs (another being +5 in burial, and 2 in icasaracth lair).
spears also aren't that great, with first decent drop being one from ice salamander leader.
i can't count addon weapons for sale because they re just blatantly overpowered for money you can buy them for and stick out from vanilla itemization. Like vecna robe in BG2.

oh and btw, Beast Master can't wear polar wyrm armor from Tiernon and armor from umberhulks, you'd think it should count as hide armor but nah.
had to give bonk girl armor made from Icasaracht in the end.

There is a LOT of extra XP in some of that stuff. Durdel Anatha if solved properly is like 500k XP

that's a problem, too much xp. even with 2 multis in party I felt overleveled all the time.

Holy shit, that's insanely good. +2 APR and it's a +4 weapon to boot. Can't imagine how broken the already overpowered Archer kit

note that killin him makes you Fallen Pal/Ranger.

 

[Average Manatee]

i can't count addon weapons for sale because they re just blatantly overpowered for money you can buy them for and stick out from vanilla itemization. Like vecna robe in BG2.

I don't see how a +2 club is blatantly overpowered when it costs ~13k gold. Sure it sticks out that one guy in the whole game has a bunch of generic +2 and +3 variants of every weapon type though. It's absolutely nowhere near the vecna robe.

 

[Shadenuat]

13k gold is pocket change in this game. some nice thefts and you go with one of those weapons already to Kresselack tomb.
and it's not 13k when you are err 23 charisma with 18+friends
generic high enchant weapons are overpowered when you consider that say yxunomei needs +2 to hit, and you easily roll with +3 or +4 when meeting her on party with smiths help.
it's supposed to be omg i have like +2 sword one guy how do I make him kill evil bich

It's just less a dozen of weapons. was it really so difficult to scatter them around the game in a bunch of chests in reasonable manner?

in AD&D i demand to be weak and armed with dagger+1 die to xvarts

 

[Average Manatee]

Well, there should be SOMETHING worth buying. Sure you can buy one character a +2-4 weapon pre-yxun but that's a solution to the problem of a party not getting a +2 item for that proficiency and being unable to damage yxun. It's not like you can afford to outfit multiple characters with great items before the power level of dropped items has reached the +3/+4 stage.

 

[Shadenuat]

idk what u r doing with moneyz I had spida crusher, spear +3 and love of black bess before yxun I think
ee adds some other weapon types after all to game, like I found magick katana in kreselack tomb (lol) and since you have no use for them, into piggybank it all goes
eh lilura was right best iwd is vanilla 640 480 no addon, almost like bg1

 

[Average Manatee]

One of the things that HoW does though is move a lot of the more overpowered items out of the main game and into HoW. Which is part of what you are complaining about, getting overpowered items too soon. I think at least some of the most overpowered items in IWD1 vanilla actually just got removed from the game entirely.

EDIT: One of the removed items was Morningstar of Action +4, which has +1 APR and 5% chance of stun for 4 rounds (no save). Think it was a guaranteed drop in lower dorn's deep? And from what I can tell it seems that it was originally 15% chance of stun too.

 

[Shadenuat]

lower dorns deep is ch6 so I don't see it as big deal?

 

[vortex]

What is fastest way to kill snake lady?

 

[Melcar]

Yes. HoW changes loot tables and removes many of the more insane and overpowered items.

 

[razvedchiki]

hit her untill she dies.

 

[Average Manatee]

lower dorns deep is ch6 so I don't see it as big deal?

I mean it's a +1 APR +4 weapon which also has the stun chance. That makes it the strongest weapon in the game by far.

What is fastest way to kill snake lady?

6 fighters with grandmastery in a weapon that is at least +2. Literally did an all fighter group a few pages back, kills her in under 2 rounds while shes attempting to cast her initial spells

Tried a few strategies for Yxunomei. Turns out when you have 6 characters with low THAC0, 2 APR, dealing 16-20 damage per hit, the best one is to just run in and hit her. She fails in her initial spell and goes down like a bitch before starting a single attack.

Course you could probably add in an a mage casting haste or something. Point is IWD is a game where you want physical damage, at least 3 18/76 strength or higher characters that are some sort of martial class with high APR and low THAC0.

 

[octavius]

What is fastest way to kill snake lady?

Chromatic Orb.

 

[Shadenuat]

I mean it's a +1 APR +4 weapon which also has the stun chance. That makes it the strongest weapon in the game

its a celestial fury u get before final boss with weapon proficiency most players probably would overlook and isnt as useful rest of game cause lol flails.

6 fighters with grandmastery in a weapon

wow you hate fun.

Chromatic Orb.

70 mr means you need like 3.
but yes you can make her not reach melee, returning axe +2 and bunch of other stuff burns her 90 hp very quickly.

 

[Average Manatee]

its a celestial fury u get before final boss with weapon proficiency most players probably would overlook and isnt as useful rest of game cause lol flails.

If you're a multiclass you'll be able to specialize in 3 or 4 weapons and fighter/clerics especially are basically guaranteed to have it. Also remember that IWD1 non-EE had far fewer weapon proficiency groups that covered more weapons in each one. Maces and Morning Stars were the same proficiency, for example You're close to guaranteed to be able to use it in a decently formed party. There's a +2 morning star with stun that can drop in dragon's eye and a +4 defender that gives +2 AC and +20% slashing/piercing resistance, so it's a good type to be able to use. Plus its a crushing damage weapon which is by far the best damage type.

Celestial fury has a save, which means it does far less at high levels or nothing at all vs. strong enemies/bosses. % stun no save is basically guaranteed to destroy even bosses when a fighter with 10 APR is hitting them. Celestial fury also doesn't have +1 APR, which is the other god-tier weapon modifier. And IWD1 in general has far weaker items and itemization than BG2 in most instances, except for weapons like this.

There's also other weapons that were moved or removed, this is just one I'm familiar with (because fighter/clerics are godly and this is the best weapon for them).

 

[Shadenuat]

celestial fury has chance to proc 20 electrical and its base damage is higher a little.

And IWD1 in general has far weaker items and itemization

that is "balanced" out by much stronger buffs: 2 emotion spells, and stacking cleric spells, and if you want to be totally degenerate, wrath of faithful and bard song on top.
in fact, IWD spells are so obnoxiously overpowered, that mod that brings them to BG completely blows SCS out with select>left click.

I would argue that due to that IWD party consistent damage overshadows BG, be it vanilla vs vanilla, or ee vs ee.

 

[Average Manatee]

celestial fury has chance to proc 20 electrical and its base damage is higher a little.

The damage difference is completely irrelevant when most damage is coming from strength or buffs. Celestial fury is 1d10 + 3 + 5% chance of 20 (which equates to +1 average) = 9.5 average base damage while morning star of action is 2d4 + 4 = 9 average base damage. Meanwhile +1 APR will add something like 20-40 damage per round because that's what your fighter is hitting for on average. And a cleric is casting righteous magic for maximum damage on every hit and DuHM for 25 strength. A 10 APR 25 strength buffed cleric can expect to dish out around 300-350 damage per round. Only way to beat that is something like F/M/C using all the buffs + Black Blade of Disaster to hit for over 50 damage per hit. And again crushing is by far the best damage type, tons of enemies will resist 25-50% slashing.

that is "balanced" out by much stronger buffs: 2 emotion spells, and stacking cleric spells, and if you want to be totally degenerate, wrath of faithful and bard song on top.
in fact, IWD spells are so obnoxiously overpowered, that mod that brings them to BG completely blows SCS out with select>left click.

Not sure about this. Chant in BG is actually usable while in IWD its useless because it disables spellcasting and reduces movement by half. BG2 has vastly better bard songs that give +4 damage +4 THAC0 +4 AC (either skald or HLAs). There's also obviously BG2 HLAs like critical strike. BG2 also has a lot of items that raise strength to 21-25 which are entirely absent from IWD (only clerics can get high strength). Righteous Wrath of the Faithful is kind of useless in most instances because it causes fatigue when it wears off and the APR bonus doesn't stack with haste.

 

[Shadenuat]

Come on enough with ineffect circus already, it's not about endgame cleric comparisons to blades of disasters.
The reality is that some endgame flail removal doesn't do anything to the problem: with HoW and all the xp and whatever ee shit, you are too strong relative to originally designed content. Game needs a cut to gained XP, to gold, itemization change and buff of content past the Hand. That is all.
I'd rather play vanilla with broken flail than bring shit like contingencies into iwd.

Not sure about this

I am sure about this because I played BG1 with SCS and IWDmod and IWD buffs push u above the curve very quickly.
Fukken hla and endgame gear is not comparable, BG2 and TOB actually throws things at you to kill with them; in IWD you just chunk trolls polar worms and various pathetic umberhulks and bosses that get 1 rounded even without HLAs.

 

[Average Manatee]

Come on enough with ineffect circus already, it's not about endgame cleric comparisons to blades of disasters.

This isn't really endgame stuff, Fighter/Clerics dominate from like level 9 onwards due to how good DuHM is. I was just using black blade of disaster to point how how you need to be a ridiculous multiclass at a ridiculous level to deal more damage than a fighter cleric wielding literally anything and spamming their level 2 spell slots with DuHM.

The reality is that some endgame flail removal doesn't do anything to the problem: with HoW and all the xp and whatever ee shit, you are too strong relative to originally designed content. Game needs a cut to gained XP, to gold, itemization change and buff of content past the Hand. That is all.

HoW doesn't add any XP to the main game AFAIK, just don't go there if you don't want to be come out level 30.

You can already cut XP by disabling the double XP from insane difficulty in EE. That's more than enough of a difficulty increase to counteract most of what EE adds IMO. Like don't make a whole party of berserkers, archers, a skald and a sorcerer if you don't want to break the game but otherwise most of the kits aren't really that imbalancing and a lot are actually plain bad.

I don't see how the game needs a cut to gold. You're already saying that the HoW weapons should be removed from the smith, at that point what do you even spend gold on? There's basically nothing to buy except unenchanted plate mail which is <1k gold. If anything IWD just needs more gold sinks.

I'd rather play vanilla with broken flail than bring shit like contingencies into iwd.

Why would you even use contingencies in IWD? It's not worth the time. I don't even know if they are available in the main game, I think the EE has most of the new high level BG2 spells stuffed in HoW. I know stuff like Timestop is right before Icasaracht, meaning that it's basically only usable for two fights in the whole three games (since you need to finish ToTL first, then finish HoW, then finish IWD).

I am sure about this because I played BG1 with SCS and IWDmod and IWD buffs push u above the curve very quickly.
Fukken hla and endgame gear is not comparable, BG2 and TOB actually throws things at you to kill with them; in IWD you just chunk trolls polar worms and various pathetic umberhulks and bosses that get 1 rounded even without HLAs.

It's basically only the IWD1 emotion spells that are substantial buffs. And they are good. But this is more an artifact of how BG1 has a low level cap and so you are forced to stay capped at level 4 spells for like 20 hours of gameplay.

Also chunking hordes of enemies in IWD1 is more a symptom of having 6 perfectly designed characters with min-maxed stats than anything else IMO. Like if you play BG1 you have 10 fighter-type companions to choose from and yet only 3 of them have 18/xx strength, while in IWD1 I roll for 18/91 strength. That's +2 THAC0 +5 damage per hit or more from the start of the game, probably a 150% damage increase for a level 1 character. Add in 18 dex and con and you're probably 100% more durable too. Then include the fact that you are choosing better than average kits and classes (like who does a pure class thief when they could take a fighter/thief lmao?)

 

[Shadenuat]

I don't see how the game needs a cut to gold. You're already saying that the HoW weapons should be removed from the smith, at that point what do you even spend gold on?

if you can buy anything and still left with hundreds of thousands of gold = too much gold
put these weapons to other traders you meet.

You can already cut XP by disabling the double XP from insane difficulty in EE

without xp boosts, no trials of luremaster, with 2 multiclasses in party my wizard reached 8th level spells.
that's too much xp.

I know stuff like Timestop is right before Icasaracht

9th level spells aren't just in HOW no, I think Malavon at least has some as well
i think there are 2 Wishes scrolls, for example? i mostly shoved all of that into scroll case so can't confirm.

Like if you play BG1 you have 10 fighter-type companions to choose from and yet only 3 of them have 18/xx strength

aoe strength buff and str pots make it non issue; and you can have 19 str in IWD too (ring, helmet) and use pots and spell enhancement to buff yourself to 18/00, there are multiple ogre gloves available as well.

Why would you even use contingencies in IWD? It's not worth the time

...are you a sorcerer player by any chance?
if you feel it aint worth the time, it's damning in its own way: indeed, party is strong enough to overcome everything without em.
but i, well i just don't play 6 fighters with gm bro.

 

[Average Manatee]

if you can buy anything and still left with hundreds of thousands of gold = too much gold
put these weapons to other traders you meet.

What other traders? There's... uhh... Nym in lower dorns deep, which you might not even find because it's optional and in the semi-hidden dreugar camp.

without xp boosts, no trials of luremaster, with 2 multiclasses in party my wizard reached 8th level spells.
that's too much xp.

HoW does give way too much free XP, but I don't think reaching level 8 spells is a problem? Do you think being able to use high level spells with a single class wizard should require playing HoF?

9th level spells aren't just in HOW no, I think Malavon at least has some as well

Of course there are 9th level spells in IWD, because the original game had them. But I think most/all of the overpowered BG2 spells added through the EE are in HoW. At least both Wish and Timestop are.

EDIT: just checked malavon's lair and the high level spells added by the EE are completely useless shit like spell trap, power word kill, absolute immunity, and monster summoning viii. Stuff probably not even worth memorizing even if you had level 9 slots. Not even sure if all of those are EE.

aoe strength buff and str pots make it non issue; and you can have 19 str in IWD too (ring, helmet) and use pots and spell enhancement to buff yourself to 18/00, there are multiple ogre gloves available as well.

Not sure what you're going on about here. I'm saying that in BG1 your companions have way less strength than IWD1 party members. BG1 doesn't have an AoE strength buff, and rather than a cleric spell its a mage spell. Also the AoE strength buff is weak as fuck, it only adds 1d8 points (average 4.5) and each point above a strength of 18 only adds +10%. So if you have 17 you're only converting that to 18/30. Still significantly behind rolling an 18/91.

 

[Shadenuat]

What other traders?

dragon eye cultists, elves in the Hand, from top of my head, wizard in hiding in Upper Dorn keep (who wants extract).

I'm saying that in BG1 your companions have way less strength than IWD1 party members. BG1 doesn't have an AoE strength buff

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Strength_of_One
good on level 1 dogs

I'm saying that in BG1 your companions have way less strength than IWD1 party members.

sorry but that's just nonsense. it depends on party comp, who your main is, and very easy to overcome.
I don't think in the end any of your team in IWD would reach strength of buffed Kagain, for example.
I played IWD with just rolling for stats randomly, some more micromanagement but with IWD buffs still fairly chunky.
and BG is more of an encounter based game. IWD is kill dozens of monsters one after another one.
i think my current iwd party had: 2 strengths of 19, and two of 18/00 from ogre gloves. there are also gloves from Hand even if they are weak. maybe I miss some cause well I just kinda sold some ogre gloves, didn't need them.
so even without rolling 6 chars with 18/00 str you are still grand.

HoW does give way too much free XP, but I don't think reaching level 8 spells is a problem? Do you think being able to use high level spells with a single class wizard should require playing HoF?

If you are able to use high level spells, enemy casters should also be upgraded to BG2 tier. and there should be more of em, instead of polar worms.
as is, the meta/encounters of IWD just doesn't suit your ability to reach such spells.

HoW should net you an extra level or two not much more. 200-500k xp rewards from some dialogues should be toned down. (must be avellone who did this i swear.)

 

[Average Manatee]

dragon eye cultists, elves in the Hand, from top of my head, wizard in hiding in Upper Dorn keep (who wants extract).

None of those are people you'd expect to carry high level magical weapons though. They are basically resting/healing stops. One you just released from being a captive, another is a long dead shade with half his items decayed to nothing, another is a long mage who ain't running a shop. Only Nym is really a legitimate high magic power level merchant.

I'm saying that in BG1 your companions have way less strength than IWD1 party members. BG1 doesn't have an AoE strength buff

https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Strength_of_One
good on level 1 dogs

My bad, forgot about this. Still it only lasts 1 turn and you aren't casting this for every battle in BG1 when you are churning your way through a map of baddies.

sorry but that's just nonsense. it depends on party comp, who your main is, and very easy to overcome.
I don't think in the end any of your team in IWD would reach strength of buffed Kagain, for example.
I played IWD with just rolling for stats randomly, some more micromanagement but with IWD buffs still fairly chunky.
and BG is more of an encounter based game. IWD is kill dozens of monsters one after another one.
i think my current iwd party had: 2 strengths of 19, and two of 18/00 from ogre gloves. there are also gloves from Hand even if they are weak. maybe I miss some cause well I just kinda sold some ogre gloves, didn't need them.
so even without rolling 6 chars with 18/00 str you are still grand.

Uhh, what do you mean "buffed Kagain"? He's a fighter, he can't compare to a fighter/cleric in this. And he has a strength of 16 and a dex of 12. You can fix that with some rare items but that's also taking up valuable item slots.

Didn't say that you had to have max strength for your whole party in IWD1, just that you're going to have better stats on average when you are determining stats vs. the absolute trash in BG1.

If you are able to use high level spells, enemy casters should also be upgraded to BG2 tier. and there should be more of em, instead of polar worms.
as is, the meta/encounters of IWD just doesn't suit your ability to reach such spells.

HoW should net you an extra level or two not much more. 200-500k xp rewards from some dialogues should be toned down. (must be avellone who did this i swear.)

I don't really see why you have this complaint. Mages are already pretty weak in IWD thanks to how much combat and how many encounters there are, unless you rest an absolute ton. There's also a huge lack of spell scrolls which means more than 1 mage is kind of pointless (granted sorcerers added in the EE break this). There's also powerful spells that get significantly nerfed in IWD compared to BG2. e.g. Horrid Wilting, which is almost useless in IWD1 (causes FF), compared to the absolute god tier spell it is in BG2 which allows you to trivialize 90% of fights from mid BG2 to ToB, and which you can just wish for free rests or abuse other mage exploits to have infinite spells.

HoW is just generally badly designed and balanced, no arguments here. There's a reason they had to release TotL after people complained and even then its still badly paced with no good sequence to go through the content.