Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Jigby]

The higher level animate dead summons are patched out in the official Interplay patch. Tactics weakened animate dead even further.

 

[NecroLord]

The higher level animate dead summons are patched out in the official Interplay patch.

Right. Forgot about that.
The apocalyptic boneguards are nuts. I guess it makes sense.
The normal boneguards are still great summons.

 

[Jigby]

The higher level animate dead summons are patched out in the official Interplay patch.

Right. Forgot about that.
The apocalyptic boneguards are nuts. I guess it makes sense.
The normal boneguards are still great summons.

Yes, even with the official patch it's still strong. A single zombie can easily tank and take on those ice golem champions in the ice temple. Tactics makes animate dead quite weak though.

 

[razvedchiki]

Tactics is a pain to play through.

 

[Jvegi]

Tactics is a pain to play through.

Is it? I remember the old tactics for bg2 being hard, but fair. The overall opinion seems to be it's actually not that good, at least compared to scs. I'd love to play iwd on a hard mode, be it the old tactics or scs style.

 

[razvedchiki]

it was hard, but i play melee heavy parties with minimal arcane support (also try to not rest spam). i quess if you have acess to more cc and damage spells it gets a bit better.

 

[Jigby]

Tactics is a pain to play through.

Is it? I remember the old tactics for bg2 being hard, but fair. The overall opinion seems to be it's actually not that good, at least compared to scs. I'd love to play iwd on a hard mode, be it the old tactics or scs style.

I'd try it at least up to the Shaengarne Bridge fight. That one I think is significantly better than in vanilla, way more opposition - some new enemies, but also Xuki calls for reinforcements and the rest of the map joins. A solo sorcerer can run out of spells there very easily, you have to bring with you those flamable throwing oil potions from Oswald and even then it's barely enough.

 

[Sykar]

Party composition doesn't matter when you have Animate Dead. I remember using it at the battle squares to grind massive amounts of experience. As you level up, Animate Dead grows with you in a positive feedback loop--allowing you to grind higher and higher. Considering how Soyer is about magic, I have no idea how this spell flew under the radar.

Level 4: skeleton warrior or greater zombie
Level 7: boneguard or shadow
Level 10: wraith or wight
Level 13: greater boneguard or zombie lord
Level 16: cold bones or drowned dead
Level 19: mummy king or barrow wight
Level 22: boneguard lord or greater drowned dead
Level 25: apocalyptic boneguard or festering drowned dead

I almost never got the festering drowned undead or apocalyptic boneguard.
I only got normal boneguards and used them to great effect in Heart of Fury.
Even in the normal game, they are quite tanky.

That is because either one of the mods or a later patch removed them so you cannot get those anymore.

Tactics is a pain to play through.

Is it? I remember the old tactics for bg2 being hard, but fair. The overall opinion seems to be it's actually not that good, at least compared to scs. I'd love to play iwd on a hard mode, be it the old tactics or scs style.

It is not good because it is cheap and cheesy just giving enemies all manners of high resistances, immunities and stat bloat. SCS overall plays fair and outside of some rare exceptions does not do what you cannot do, it simply optimizes spell selections and target selection for the most part.
Just look up what they did to that fucktarded Breudayael encounter. Absolutely bananas.

 

[Cael]

It is not good because it is cheap and cheesy just giving enemies all manners of high resistances, immunities and stat bloat.

That has been always the complaint about paiturd's kangmaker bugfinder game.

Wait... This isn't that thread...

 

[razvedchiki]

I had great difficulty trying to keep the Shaengarne Bridge intact with the tactics mod, the mage xuci gets new defensive and offensive spells plus the moment you set foot at the bridge big snakes and druids spawn on your back.

 

[BruceVC]

Well there are enough old companion mods written by russian housewives of 56k modem era even for iwd1. I remember at least one that had whole group to recruit. If your level of tolerance is above bad bg1npc mod writing can try em and tell us the story. But idk why would you torment yourself such.

Yes there is a good NPC mod that allows party interaction and Romance amongst the mod characters but I looked at the available classes and skills and I prefer to create own party specific to my requirements

https://www.gibberlings3.net/mods/npcs/iwd2npc/

 

[octavius]

I have a feeling Brucie boy would even like the IWD1 NPC Project made by a Russian housewife.

Spoiler

Admittedly, the IWD2 version was not too bad, as I recall.

 

[NecroLord]

Never had a trouble with the lack of companion interactions in Icewind Dale.
It's not Baldur's Gate or Arcanum, but you can always write their own stories and backgrounds, as I sometimes do.
Toee had Party Alignment and even reactions when finding great treasure or when encumbered.

 

[BruceVC]

Never had a trouble with the lack of companion interactions in Icewind Dale.
It's not Baldur's Gate or Arcanum, but you can always write their own stories and backgrounds, as I sometimes do.
Toee had Party Alignment and even reactions when finding great treasure or when encumbered.

I have mentioned I use to DM for years in the tabletop D&D game so I have no issue using my imagination when I RP in a game like IWD2

But there is difference between using your imagination while you play and having actual banter and party interaction. But some would argue its better not to have the BG type banter. I like both

 

[Slaver1]

Well there are enough old companion mods written by russian housewives of 56k modem era even for iwd1. I remember at least one that had whole group to recruit. If your level of tolerance is above bad bg1npc mod writing can try em and tell us the story. But idk why would you torment yourself such.

I tried a couple of the more recent NPC mods in my last IWD playthrough until I got bored of it. IWD is just as monotonous as the Diablo2Remake after a while; can only handle strictly hack&slash games in small doses at this point.

The voice recordings are still as scratchy as ever. The Genassi pyromancer wanted to jump my characters bones as soon as we reached Kulduhar but was useful with her fire magic. Also tried an elven fighter who came with a lot of elven lore dumps and a fancy sword she couldn't use yet. If anyone dares visit the Beamdog forums for IWDEE mods they'll find the links over there.

 

[Average Manatee]

It is not good because it is cheap and cheesy just giving enemies all manners of high resistances, immunities and stat bloat.

That has been always the complaint about paiturd's kangmaker bugfinder game.

Wait... This isn't that thread...

I think higher difficulties on the pathfinder games only give stats/AB/saves, not really immunities or resistances. It's probably pretty similar to vanilla IWD2 insane difficulty actually.

I don't know tactics for IWD2, but if its like BG2 then I assume is nuts as fuck. Expect 90% resistance to everything level 20 bosses at the orc encampment.

 

[Gromoer]

I had difficulties creating a whole party from scratch for my recent IWD2 playthrough (which sadly I didn’t finish) so I rolled my main char and then during the playthrough I‘ve been rolling other members which I deemed necessary for the process and whom I tried to fill with at least some degree of backstories. I overall liked this method, because I find making 6 chars in a row a little bit a chore. I also tried to randomize their stats a bit, so I used my self-made system which prevented me from min maxing, while allowing to still make them good for their purpose.
My main char was Lathander Paladin, he’s been joined by a mercenary dwarf fighter specializing in crossbows and heavy armor, then by halfling dual-wielding ranger, and later by elvish cutie cleric waifu. But then I stumbled upon some terrible quest design later in game (something about shooting barrels) and that overall area was a bit boring so I dropped it. Although in my younger years I’ve finished IWD2 at least once.

 

[BruceVC]

I have encountered a really strange bug and Im not sure if anyone else has experienced it

Im in Chapter 2 and I am trying to find the items for Oswalds ship repair, items like thyme and diamonds are suppose to be found in a crate in the ship. But when I open the crate the diamond isnt there but a scroll of neutralize poison is. If I use console cheats with the correct code for the thyme or diamonds it spawns the scrolls instead of the correct items

So the item codes are incorrect and dont appear in the game as the right item even outside of using cheat commands. Anyway once I complete the ice temple I will use console commands to advance to chapter 3 so its not a big deal. But I am interested if anyone else has seen something like this?

 

[Cael]

I have encountered a really strange bug and Im not sure if anyone else has experienced it

Im in Chapter 2 and I am trying to find the items for Oswalds ship repair, items like thyme and diamonds are suppose to be found in a crate in the ship. But when I open the crate the diamond isnt there but a scroll of neutralize poison is. If I use console cheats with the correct code for the thyme or diamonds it spawns the scrolls instead of the correct items

So the item codes are incorrect and dont appear in the game as the right item even outside of using cheat commands. Anyway once I complete the ice temple I will use console commands to advance to chapter 3 so its not a big deal. But I am interested if anyone else has seen something like this?

Do you have mods installed? One of them might have changed the item numbers?

 

[BruceVC]

I have encountered a really strange bug and Im not sure if anyone else has experienced it

Im in Chapter 2 and I am trying to find the items for Oswalds ship repair, items like thyme and diamonds are suppose to be found in a crate in the ship. But when I open the crate the diamond isnt there but a scroll of neutralize poison is. If I use console cheats with the correct code for the thyme or diamonds it spawns the scrolls instead of the correct items

So the item codes are incorrect and dont appear in the game as the right item even outside of using cheat commands. Anyway once I complete the ice temple I will use console commands to advance to chapter 3 so its not a big deal. But I am interested if anyone else has seen something like this?

Do you have mods installed? One of them might have changed the item numbers?

Yes I do have mods and I assume it is caused by that, I will reinstall the ones relevant to items

 

[Jigby]

The other diamond is in the druid village

Spoiler

You can CTRL+J there and check it.

 

[BruceVC]

The other diamond is in the druid village

Spoiler

You can CTRL+J there and check it.

Thanks, I had the same problem with that diamond. Only a scroll and no diamond

Its one or two items so I assume its a mod bug

 

[Jigby]

With mods install order can matter. As far as item mods go I only tried Light of Selune and Weimer had a general mod (ease of use?) that had some items in it. Gibberlings3 tweaks anthology should be installed as the last one.

 

[razvedchiki]

Does light of selune unbalance the game in favor of the player?

 

[Jigby]

Vanilla IWD2 is easy, you're cutting through the opposition with or without new items, I don't think LoS makes a qualitative difference in terms of difficulty. The main difference that you'll notice is the traps being more dangerous.

Tactics IWD2 I'd have to differentiate between casters/noncasters. Casters aren't as item dependent so nothing changes I suppose. Noncasters probably have it easier in Tactics, items in general in LoS have a much higher DC. Mace of disruption in vanilla had its DC so low, that you were disrupting only on critical failures. In LoS, the disruption effect there works all the time. But there are very few undeads/outsiders in iwd2, it really only makes a difference in the battle square against elementals. Arrows of dispelling are stronger. Vampiric weapons can be very strong. But it's all very situational, overall I'd say Tactics is only slightly less difficult with LoS.