Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Sigourn]

To prove my point: the game already allows you to break open containers without needing a Thief to unlock them. So much for "but it's the thieves who should unlock containers!". I'm just asking the game to be consistent.

 

[octavius]

Maybe the traps are magical, so even if you trip them they are still in effect? Like photocells, for example. But you need a specialist to disable them.

 

[Sigourn]

Maybe the traps are magical, so even if you trip them they are still in effect? Like photocells, for example. But you need a specialist to disable them.

That's what I headcanon to make it more acceptable. Still, it would make much more sense for a mage to be able to learn a spell to disable them. Thieves disabling traps makes me think they are mechanical in nature. Anyhow, I already disabled those pesky traps in the corridor with Yennefer.

 

[Sigourn]

That's it for this stupid dungeon at last. It was a great decision to create two new characters.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I didn't want a Thief. The game clearly encourages you to play in a very specific way, which would be fine if it wasn't because it doesn't make much sense. Again, justify being unable to trigger traps without resorting to headcanon.

It has never once crossed my mind that there should be some reason why anyone other than an expert in traps should be able to disarm traps, nor that the game is being silly for suggesting the point of having thieves in the party is so you can disarm traps. I don't require that kind of logical dissection to play cRPGs.

You'll be delighted to hear that the next version of D&D, 3 and 3.5, which covers such games as Neverwinter Nights and Temple of Elemental Evil, altered the spell "find traps" to include disarming them as well. Which I guess was from people bitching about the thief class in AD&D, and in 3 and 3.5 its less about being a thief and more about being a ninja/assassin.

 

[Sigourn]

It has never once crossed my mind that there should be some reason why anyone other than an expert in traps should be able to disarm traps, nor that the game is being silly for suggesting the point of having thieves in the party is so you can disarm traps. I don't require that kind of logical dissection to play cRPGs.

You don't need to be an "expert" in order to trigger a landmine.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It has never once crossed my mind that there should be some reason why anyone other than an expert in traps should be able to disarm traps, nor that the game is being silly for suggesting the point of having thieves in the party is so you can disarm traps. I don't require that kind of logical dissection to play cRPGs.

You don't need to be an "expert" in order to trigger a landmine.

Icewind Dale doesn't have any land mines.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

You'll probably post something in reply to the last post before or after this one goes up about "real world traps" or whatever, but this post will answer that as well.

You seem to think you need headcannon to rationalise the traps in a Dungeons and Dragons universe:

Maybe the traps are magical, so even if you trip them they are still in effect? Like photocells, for example. But you need a specialist to disable them.

That's what I headcanon to make it more acceptable. Still, it would make much more sense for a mage to be able to learn a spell to disable them. Thieves disabling traps makes me think they are mechanical in nature. Anyhow, I already disabled those pesky traps in the corridor with Yennefer.

However, let me show you the detailed "lore" of traps in Dungeons and Dragons:

Traps


Traps can be found almost anywhere. One wrong step in an ancient tomb might trigger a series of scything blades, which cleave through armor and bone. The seemingly innocuous vines that hang over a cave entrance might grasp and choke anyone who pushes through them. A net hidden among the trees might drop on travelers who pass underneath. In a fantasy game, unwary adventurers can fall to their deaths, be burned alive, or fall under a fusillade of Poisoned darts.

A trap can be either mechanical or magical in nature. Mechanical traps include pits, arrow traps, Falling blocks, water-filled rooms, whirling blades, and anything else that depends on a mechanism to operate. Magic traps are either magical device traps or spell traps. Magical device traps initiate spell effects when activated. Spell traps are Spells such as Glyph of Warding and Symbol that function as traps.

You're only thinking in terms of mechanical traps. Sure in P&P with a DM, we can have lots of detail about what kind of trap we are dealing with. However, in computer games no-one's ever gone into that much detail with them, they're just traps. And you need to perform whichever action is required to remove them. Games like Skyrim and the new Fallouts or Witcher games don't have the same kind of emphasis on magic that D&D has, a trap in those games is always considered mechanical, or something that can be treated as a mechanical trap. In the D&D computer game universe its the opposite, all traps are presumed to be magical for the purposes of getting on with the game without over-detailing the world (and production time).

So it's not really about head-cannon as much as about understanding the universe in which you're playing.

 

[Sigourn]

Icewind Dale doesn't have any land mines.

It has pressure plates, which are triggered with... pressure!

And your quote says there are mechanical traps and magical traps. But only the Thief can disarm traps, which means they are all mechanical in-game. Yet paradoxically, you can't trigger them. In other words: the traps are shit and your message is shit.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Icewind Dale doesn't have any land mines.

It has pressure plates, which are triggered with... pressure!

And your quote says there are mechanical traps and magical traps. But only the Thief can disarm traps, which means they are all mechanical in-game. Yet paradoxically, you can't trigger them. In other words: the traps are shit and your message is shit.

Thieves in AD&D have the ability to use magical devices:

"They are allowed to use a wide variety of magical items, weapons, and armor" (Rogue)

The pressure plate does indeed sound mechanical and you will find lots of traps that sound like they should be mechanical, but, as I said, for the purposes of getting a game out the door that kind of detail was likely scarified and one just assumes they are all magical in nature. I've yet to play a computer game where they make the distinction a specific mechanic of variety.

So do you feel better now, having had your vent and rage about Yxunomei being a tough battle?

 

[Sigourn]

So do you feel better now, having had your vent and rage about Yxunomei being a tough battle?

I beat Yxunomei in my first try, so I don't know why you keep changing the subject away from the traps in the corridor. That said, it's behind me so I don't see any reason to continue with this discussion.

 

[Tigranes]

Aaaaaaaanyway. I've now had some time to spare to return to the Level One challenge, undertaken by the Jansen School of Philosophy.

The Temple of the Forgotten God remains forgiving to the Level 1s. Plate Mailed Ludwig's -3 AC can front the Verbeegs, and the 6 Jansens' arrow-fire takes down the unarmoured acolytes. (It's weird how useless their spell selection is for the most part.) It's more that the battles become a bit more tedious, because you don't really have any toys to play with. On the upside, finding a Scroll of Skull Trap feels like a Carsomyr moment in terms of added value.

Dragon's Eye Level 1 was again fine - it really emphasises how gear-driven AD&D IE games are, in stark contrast to, say, POE, which made the inferior decision of tying accuracy to levels. The flatter progression & gear dependency means that the Jansens aren't run out of town simply because, say, they aren't getting -5 THAC0 per level.

Ludwig Jansen observes that we learn languages by observing them in use, rather than learning their abstract rules. The lizard king, bereft of this proper context, has nevertheless adapted the social customs of his people into his Common.

The lizard king was also a pushover, primarily because the shitty peons that can't hit Ludwig pile into the front, and the shamans aren't well protected and die quickly to arrows. They did manage to put Hold Person on two Jansens for the whole battle, but it didn't make much of a difference.

After many playthroughs with Insane & 4-man parties, I think Core & 6-men, even at Level 1, becomes a breeze. But now we're going to start to see trolls (who we can only finish off with the little alchemist fire consumables the lizards drop, really), mages who actually cast spells worth worrying about, especially the yuan-ti mages. Not sure how that will go.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It has pressure plates, which are triggered with... pressure!

And, anyway, pressure plates don't necessarily mean land mines. Do you remember that scene in Indiana Jones where he has to carefully and quickly replace the statue with the exact same weight. That was a pressure plate and just shooting an arrow at it wouldn't have worked. Who's to say what level of pressure the pressure plate outside Yxunomei's room would require? Why would an arrow set it off necessarily? Maybe it requires a specific weight to trigger it? It would likely be a weight that would be very difficult to throw from a distance.

 

[Sigourn]

It has pressure plates, which are triggered with... pressure!

And, anyway, pressure plates don't necessarily mean land mines. Do you remember that scene in Indiana Jones where he has to carefully and quickly replace the statue with the exact same weight. That was a pressure plate and just shooting an arrow at it wouldn't have worked. Who's to say what level of pressure the pressure plate outside Yxunomei's room would require? Why would an arrow set it off necessarily? Maybe it requires a specific weight to trigger it? It would likely be a weight that would be very difficult to throw from a distance.

It is true. Then again, it doesn't explain why enemies don't trigger traps, which makes us go back to the "are they mechanical or are they magical?" argument which I'm tired of. Let's leave it at "I don't like that only thieves can't disarm traps" and call it a day.

 

[Tigranes]

Dragon's Eye wasn't too bad for Level One Jansens. Trolls, regular Yuan-ti and other mooks proved overcomeable by standard means; the likes of Cold Wights, for example, could only hit Ludwig with a 20 roll. The hairiest moment came from the Sword Spiders, who can basically shred a Jansen a round, but apparently they are well susceptible to Colour Spray and Command. Presio was a cakewalk, except the Jansens then chased her towards a trap that killed three of them (and her). Heh.

The big shift came with Level 5; the Yuan-ti Elite can hit my characters regularly, all of whom are two hits from death (three for Ludwig). Getting the Messenger of Sseth required getting lucky - the High Archer was near the door and was the only one to be lured out - and then pumping Ludwig with the Blur Deck and the Snakeoil Potion for -9 AC. Even then he was getting regularly hit, and really, the High Archer alone could have taken the entire party out (though I guess I could have whipped out some spell scrolls). Of course, then I still had to go in the room for the bloody +2 arrows...

Yxunomei herself. Well, the first time, a single cloudkill wiped the party.

Second time, lured away cloudkill with a precious Monster Summoning I scroll & shot away with Sseth bow, but -9AC Ludwig was chopped out by a Yxunomei nat 20 roll, and in any case there are too many spellcasters to stop.

Several tries later:

Pretty standard routine. Runner lures them round a corner so they bunch up, a monster summoning scroll set up a buffer while a horror scroll took out one of the priests. Rene Jansen, with his two Bow pips and the Gauntlets of Weapon Skill, went all in with Sseth on Yxunomei while others arrowed down the priests. Yxu went down early (as she tends to do when I fight her), but the sheer number of Yuan-ti Elite means the Level One Jansens can't keep up; once Ludwig goes down, almost everybody else dies to arrows within a round each.

Ultimately, Rene was left kiting like a motherfucker firing arrows at the last three Yuan-ti, using the party's only potion of heroism and even a pot of regeneration. Eventually their arrows ran out, but of course, the Jansens have about 8,000 arrows.

I'm sure there's easier ways to beat them, and this is nothing on the original Insane Level One run, but it's good to know the Jansens made it through with only two spell scrolls, three rare potions and a dozen healing potions.

 

[Neanderthal]

Never knew you could talk to Lizard Man King in Dragons Eye, always just fought me way up there and bombarded em with spells and shit after scouting.

 

[Jaesun]

 

[laclongquan]

Or an invincible DG monk with AC 50+

That was too meta powergame for me. I tried that kind of approach once and my party barely make it out of the initial fortress and I borequit.

I am not saying it's a bad approach, it just not fit my taste.

 

[Sigourn]

I absolutely love the art on this game. Compared to Baldur's Gate at least, it is miles, miles ahead. Each dungeon looks very unique (as opposed to "caves" which basically plagued Baldur's Gate from start to finish) and reminds me a lot of Durlag's Tower, visually speaking. I'm at the Severed Hand restoring the machinery, and the machine room itself is gorgeous.

 

[Sigourn]

I really liked this chapter. I think the worst chapter was easily number 2, as I didn't enjoy Dragon's Eye for the most part, BUT it got much better once I created my Thief and thus I returned to slower exploration.

I also like that despite there being so few NPCs in the game, all of them feel so unique and special. And lastly, for a game which is literally "kill everything" there are far more nuanced quests than "kill me a pack of hobgoblins and return". Really defied my expectations.

EDIT: Can't emphasize enough how much I like the art of this game. Portraits, interface (easily the most beautiful IMO, I just don't dig BG2's and PS:T's is just a different style altogether that also brilliantly matches its settings), locations. All of them very unique. Again, Chapter 2 is the outlier, though the very final map looked cool enough.

EDIT2: Can't believe how short the game may turn out to be either, but I much prefer this over my Baldur's Gate longwinded and not really enjoyable playthrough.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Well, well, the man is a learning beast it appears.

Glad you're enjoying IWD, it really is the most underappreciated of the IE games, and it does indeed have some of the most stunning art to ever grace a cRPG. Are you planning on playing HoW and TotL? Both are definitely worth playing if you've enjoyed the base game.

You might also enjoy IWDII, just keep your expectations low. It has a few notoriously grindy, trashmob filled dungeons, far worse than Dragon's Eye (none have anywhere near the enemy variety of it), but it also has some great fights, and the bastardized version of 3E works surprisingly well.

 

[Sigourn]

Well, well, the man is a learning beast it appears.

Glad you're enjoying IWD, it really is the most underappreciated of the IE games, and it does indeed have some of the most stunning art to ever grace a cRPG. Are you planning on playing HoW and TotL? Both are definitely worth playing if you've enjoyed the base game.

I've unironically disliked all RPGs I ended up enjoying. Interestingly, I've come to dislike all RPGs which I enjoyed from the get go. It seems as I find the annoyances very quickly, but finding the strengths takes some time, so it would explain why at first I dislike a game, but end up liking it later.

I plan on playing all IE games with all their expansions. Then I will play Pillars of Eternity + expansions, and afterwards Tyranny (or Deadfire, which will have probably released by then). And afterwards a bunch of other cRPGs I wanted to play, like Underrail, Age of Decadence, Shadowrun series, Divinity series, and more.

 

[Tigranes]

Level One Jansens march on.

The Severed Hand was interesting. Given that the party is entirely dependent on Ludwig tanking it, anything that flanks them or beats his defences means one-hit-kills for everybody. Over half the fights/rooms are avoidable in SH, though you do miss out on a bit of loot, so we mostly tried to clear a critical path, letting Francis Jansen empirically test the presence of ghostly ambushes in each area.

The Severed Soul on the second floor dropped the special plate mail, bumping Ludwig to -9 (+3 vs missiles) before any buffs, and -13 if we use the Blur Deck and our last Snakeoil potion in a pinch. Running on level 1 really emphasises how strategic loot placement is in IWD, and how the relative paucity of magical gear (compared to fucking 9000 generic pieces in some modern RPGs) helps designers really control power progression and give players notable bumps.

One of the Towers did give us some trouble - the partially broken down one where, in two floors, you enter into an open area full of archers that you have no way of stopping from aiming at the non-Ludwigs. I'm sure I didn't need it, but I cracked open a couple of oils of fiery burning to get them down quicker, since I haven't needed to use them so far (we will see how much I regret this later on). Kaylessa, the ghost captain on the first floor who commissions you to kill the other ghosts then herself, also introduced a new problem: everyone's THAC0 is basically 17-15 or so, except for Rene at 13(?), and only he could occasionally land a hit. I'm surprised it took so long for this to happen, but it'll be a big problem if we start to see higher AC enemies now; the Jansens simply have no way of counteracting this, except for the Bless spell then a couple of rarer potion/scroll options.

The Hand conquered, the party was finally able to amass and spend some cash. A Shimmering Sash and Rogue's Cowl, all dumped into Ludwig, gives him a credible -13 AC unbuffed; and if necessary, the items can be handed out to someone else to field two ~-7 Jansens in melee. Everyone has great melee weapons, but have very rarely used them because they are so squishy. The rest of the gold goes into what is now a very nice array of spell scrolls, including Animate Dead, Cone of Cold and Cloudkill, but of course they are all being saved for the rainy days.

Sadly, not too much upgrades to be had on the weapons front. Since getting Sseth bow, Rene had been responsible for something like 70% of the party's kills. We can't be sure, of course, because all those monsters he killed may simply be illusions conjured by the cunning devil. Ironically, the Hand also supplies us with another great magical longbow, but none of the other Cleric/Thieves and Illusionist/Thieves can use it. We also have a good crossbow, but only Ludwig is proficient with them and he's usually shields up front.

So now to Dorn's Deep. Traditionally I actually don't really enjoy this part, probably because the amount of battles are starting to wear me down rather than a problem of the level design. We'll see how the Jansens fare.

 

[Sigourn]

Geralt perished to Malavon. Apparently he was petrified and then shattered into pieces...

This upsets me a lot.

 

[Sigourn]

Turns out he wasn't dead. I was able to resurrect him.

Collected the six badges, decided to do Trials of the Luremaster first (and then Hearts of Winter, before proceeding to the end). There are two things that are really pissing me off about this game, and there's no way to justify them.

1. Retarded "you must gather your party before venturing forth". I get it when I'm moving from location to location, or when a very specific cutscene demands it. NOT when it would have been much better to go ahead with just two or three characters for strategic purposes. FFS I literally had to enter the watchtower in Lower Dorn's Deep with my entire party and had my mage killed because of that.
2. Likewise, certain spells wearing off on area transitions, like my bard's songs. Particularly annoying when you enter a room full of Harpies and must play the song again.

I do admit that it feels good when you get past a tough fight.