Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[IncendiaryDevice]

You need someone with Snowball and nuke the damned drums from out of visual range. That would stop the teleporting warg-riders.

Dude, I know how to beat them, lol, they're just tedious & mark a point of no continuation for an awful lot of build varieties.

 

[Cael]

You need someone with Snowball and nuke the damned drums from out of visual range. That would stop the teleporting warg-riders.

Dude, I know how to beat them, lol, they're just tedious & mark a point of no continuation for an awful lot of build varieties.

I don't see a problem with them unless you have a bunch of ranged combatants. Even then, you may eat 2 or 3 waves of warg riders, but you can still kill the damned drum. Just charge your strongest melee guy right into the drum and kill it. You can't tell me that your party doesn't have melee combatants...

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I don't see a problem with them unless you have a bunch of ranged combatants. Even then, you may eat 2 or 3 waves of warg riders, but you can still kill the damned drum. Just charge your strongest melee guy right into the drum and kill it. You can't tell me that your party doesn't have melee combatants...

If the strongest guy is dealing with the drum, who's holding back the waves of warg riders...

 

[Cael]

I don't see a problem with them unless you have a bunch of ranged combatants. Even then, you may eat 2 or 3 waves of warg riders, but you can still kill the damned drum. Just charge your strongest melee guy right into the drum and kill it. You can't tell me that your party doesn't have melee combatants...

If the strongest guy is dealing with the drum, who's holding back the waves of warg riders...

The other 5...

 

[Jigby]

You can also destroy the drums stealthily with an invisible druid and call lightning and the drums inside the fortress can be destroyed with a stealthy character. In fact, you also get bonus xp points for sneaking past the goblin camps inside the fortress. Generally, that area is less painful and more fun with stealth. And chromatic orb + evocation focus always helps.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Uh-huh. Try going with 6 all-different Clerics one day & get back to me. They haven't levelled enough by that point to have much useful spell-wise & they're attacks are too slow to deal with the wargs before the next wave appears. Even magical Bane dude is still quite puny at that point.

 

[Cael]

Uh-huh. Try going with 6 all-different Clerics one day & get back to me. They haven't levelled enough by that point to have much useful spell-wise & they're attacks are too slow to deal with the wargs before the next wave appears. Even magical Bane dude is still quite puny at that point.

... You did take a level of Monk with your Clerics? And yes, I regularly play with Clerics as my main melee combatants:
2x Monk 1/Paladin 1/Cleric Ilmater x
Monk 1/Cleric Bane x
Cleric Oghma 1/Wizard Transmuter x
Sorcerer x
Bard x

However, your original point was that the drums "mark a point of no continuation for an awful lot of build varieties". 6 Clerics is ONE party build that MAY have a problem with it.

Still, I think it is a matter of tactics. A party of level 4 Clerics shouldn't have that much of a problem, though. Buff yourself (Bull Strength), debuff the enemy (Bane), rush the drum. The key is rushing the drum and not get bogged down by the warg riders. Kill the drum first, then kick ass. You seem to be bogged down by fighting the warg riders, which is a massive trap for young players.

 

[laclongquan]

This just prove, again, that Codex are not very tactical gamers. I dont even mention shits like minmaxing like a bunch of munchkins, but just pure tactics.

1. Targos is hard simply because you are starting with a new party so you lack options. Ranged attacks or melee, the end. So how to make it easier? Open your wallet for a wand of grease from the elf chick Dinnsmore, that will open up your options. With an arcane caster and a wand of grease you can launch more grease which can stagger the enemy waves and make them easier. And/or Flaming oils from Oswald which make for poor man's fireball. It's about the only time in game where Flaming Oils pay off, as later enemies are too tough to bother with it.

2. The drums are a great source of enemies when you just get two of them a time. And the key to get that is to NOT poke your nose too near the main concentration of hostiles. Get out, and lure them back to your waiting party and kill them. BEFORE you get near the drums. If you play like storyfags, as with most players of BG, you will get your asses holed by having two riders drop on your weakest characters while others are delaying your melee protectors. But if it's your six against two of them: xp+loots.

3. Clerics are pure casters without need of scrolls so need to be as high level as possible. Why would you dilute caster's DC and arsenal by dipping into other classes? Plus they are heavy armor wearer, which should play merry hell with monk's bonus.

 

[Jigby]

6 clerics is obviously a very uneven party, although you could most likely use gimmicky tactics. Maybe using 1 cleric to aggro the group and pull them away, then cast sanctuary on him. Meanwhile, the other 5 can go kill the shaman with the drums. One of the clerical domains has invisibility sphere, so you could probably position those 5 next to the drums even before the guarding group is aggroed. Like I said, gimmicky and quite tiresome, but it should work. You could maybe chain it across all the drums.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

My point was "it's a blocker for certain builds", the answer to that point is not to say "but if you changed that build by building it differently, AKA, buy multiclassing", by doing that your then going into the other part I mentioned, that of "Yeah, lol, I know how to beat the game bro, I'm only making a point about quirky replays", kay, got that now? etc etc.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

It's been perhaps over a decade since I played IWD II, but I remember mining the drums the last time I played it. I can't remember how many spawns it takes for each drum, but eventually you pile the corpses high enough to where they stop coming. This yields far more XP and loot than sneaking into the Fortress.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

You should have noted down how many it takes, that's some very useful information that no-one has yet recorded AFAIK. Or maybe they have?

 

[Cael]

This just prove, again, that Codex are not very tactical gamers. I dont even mention shits like minmaxing like a bunch of munchkins, but just pure tactics.

1. Targos is hard simply because you are starting with a new party so you lack options. Ranged attacks or melee, the end. So how to make it easier? Open your wallet for a wand of grease from the elf chick Dinnsmore, that will open up your options. With an arcane caster and a wand of grease you can launch more grease which can stagger the enemy waves and make them easier. And/or Flaming oils from Oswald which make for poor man's fireball. It's about the only time in game where Flaming Oils pay off, as later enemies are too tough to bother with it.

2. The drums are a great source of enemies when you just get two of them a time. And the key to get that is to NOT poke your nose too near the main concentration of hostiles. Get out, and lure them back to your waiting party and kill them. BEFORE you get near the drums. If you play like storyfags, as with most players of BG, you will get your asses holed by having two riders drop on your weakest characters while others are delaying your melee protectors. But if it's your six against two of them: xp+loots.

3. Clerics are pure casters without need of scrolls so need to be as high level as possible. Why would you dilute caster's DC and arsenal by dipping into other classes? Plus they are heavy armor wearer, which should play merry hell with monk's bonus.

That is because you think like a robot: Only one way.

You claim to be a tactical master when really, all you do is buy this, buy that, and not bother with trying other ways of playing or giving yourself restrictions to see how things play out under those restrictions. In both the Fallout Tactics and this thread, you advocate the same thing: Spend everything and use all possible advantages to win the game, when it is obvious that the other guy had put in place artificial restrictions in order to make the game more interesting for himself.

You call it "tactics". I call it "playing on easy mode".

 

[the_shadow]

This just prove, again, that Codex are not very tactical gamers. I dont even mention shits like minmaxing like a bunch of munchkins, but just pure tactics.

1. Targos is hard simply because you are starting with a new party so you lack options. Ranged attacks or melee, the end. So how to make it easier? Open your wallet for a wand of grease from the elf chick Dinnsmore, that will open up your options. With an arcane caster and a wand of grease you can launch more grease which can stagger the enemy waves and make them easier. And/or Flaming oils from Oswald which make for poor man's fireball. It's about the only time in game where Flaming Oils pay off, as later enemies are too tough to bother with it.

That's decent advice, except I'd recommend hording the Flaming Oil for the Ice Temple, as they do huge amounts of damage to the Ice Golems.

2. The drums are a great source of enemies when you just get two of them a time. And the key to get that is to NOT poke your nose too near the main concentration of hostiles. Get out, and lure them back to your waiting party and kill them. BEFORE you get near the drums. If you play like storyfags, as with most players of BG, you will get your asses holed by having two riders drop on your weakest characters while others are delaying your melee protectors. But if it's your six against two of them: xp+loots.

Yeah, that's reasonable advice too. You can also hit the drums off screen with Snilloc's, or use Call Lightning as recommended by another poster.

3. Clerics are pure casters without need of scrolls so need to be as high level as possible.
Why would you dilute caster's DC and arsenal by dipping into other classes? Plus they are heavy armor wearer, which should play merry hell with monk's bonus.

You can make a strong argument for not mixing in any other class levels for you cleric if you're not playing HoF, as opening up the next spell tier one level earlier is pretty significant. On the other hand, the benefits offered by a level of monk is pretty good. You gain an AC boost from Wisdom (which a cleric is going to pump anyway), and Evasion as well. Heavy armor isn't that great since it detracts from the Dex AC bonus.

 

[Cael]

You can make a strong argument for not mixing in any other class levels for you cleric if you're not playing HoF, as opening up the next spell tier one level earlier is pretty significant. On the other hand, the benefits offered by a level of monk is pretty good. You gain an AC boost from Wisdom (which a cleric is going to pump anyway), and Evasion as well. Heavy armor isn't that great since it detracts from the Dex AC bonus.

Deep Gnome Monk 1/Cleric x pumping Wis.

The normal game in IWD2 is pretty much easy mode. Captain Garlic's LP of it was with a completely unoptimised party (except Urggzob the Scene Stealing Lovable Psycho (just don't get him wet)) and he completed it easily. Seriously, his primary healer was a Druid who had something like 14 stat across the board, a Sorcerer who likes fire, setting things on fire, setting his own party members on fire and leading from the front with his d4 HD, a female Monk with a penchant for punching people in the "chi" (a.k.a., groin), and then we have the fantastically fabulous elf Bard and the only sane man of the lot, the wallflower half-orc Wizard...

You don't need minmaxing shenannigans to complete the game, which is why it is a lot of fun to play kooky builds and/or put restrictions on yourself when you play.

 

[laclongquan]

You are going to find more Flaming Oils in the Fortress, in the Temple, etc... But the Oils you buy in Targos is the best oil you can spend. Because at that time you have too few options, and the precious precious Oils offer best help. In the Fortress your casters can use Web, Entangle, even Stinky Cloud and Glyph Warding. The oils are not that desperatedly needed.

Remember: Targos is hard because you fight at level 1 or 2, and your choices are sharply limited.

Monk's bonus? isnt that Wisdom bonus are eliminated if you wear heavy armor, and cleric wear heavy armor all the time? So It's moot point anyway? Except that it held back your Cleric one level.

You can only play kooky builds if you set the difficulty to normal or easy. At insane diff (hardest non HoF), kooky builds get your characters killed at unfunny pace. And if you play at normal and easy mode, you are storyfags~ Ie non tactical gamers.

 

[Cael]

Monk's bonus? isnt that Wisdom bonus are eliminated if you wear heavy armor, and cleric wear heavy armor all the time? So It's moot point anyway? Except that it held back your Cleric one level.

Are you fucking retarded? If you put in a level of Monk, then you are not going to be wearing armour. That we have to spell it out to you to this detail proves that you are complete shit at lateral thinking and by extension, complete shit at tactics which require lateral thinking.

 

[the_shadow]

Remember: Targos is hard because you fight at level 1 or 2, and your choices are sharply limited.

Targos is relatively easy because Sleep is effective.

Monk's bonus? isnt that Wisdom bonus are eliminated if you wear heavy armor, and cleric wear heavy armor all the time? So It's moot point anyway? Except that it held back your Cleric one level.

You get a much better AC if you take a single level of monk on a cleric that doesn't wear armour, rather than a single-class cleric that wears heavy plate. With the single class cleric you only get the AC bonus from your plate armour, whereas a monk will get a full Dex AC bonus, a Wis AC bonus, and you can cast Armor/Spirit Armor to give a pretty solid armor AC bonus anyway. It's one of the few reliable ways to get an AC high enough to dodge hits reliably on Insane difficulty. Some people take the Deep Gnome class to add a further +4 generic AC.

 

[Cael]

Remember: Targos is hard because you fight at level 1 or 2, and your choices are sharply limited.

Targos is relatively easy because Sleep is effective.

Monk's bonus? isnt that Wisdom bonus are eliminated if you wear heavy armor, and cleric wear heavy armor all the time? So It's moot point anyway? Except that it held back your Cleric one level.

You get a much better AC if you take a single level of monk on a cleric that doesn't wear armour, rather than a single-class cleric that wears heavy plate. With the single class cleric you only get the AC bonus from your plate armour, whereas a monk will get a full Dex AC bonus, a Wis AC bonus, and you can cast Armor/Spirit Armor to give a pretty solid armor AC bonus anyway. It's one of the few reliable ways to get an AC high enough to dodge hits reliably on Insane difficulty. Some people take the Deep Gnome class to add a further +4 generic AC.

A sorcerer doling out Mage Armour to all the Monks in the party meant that their AC is in the region of 20 right off the boat. That is before taking into account things like Deep Gnome bonuses. A heavy armour anything would struggle to match that AC.

 

[the_shadow]

Remember: Targos is hard because you fight at level 1 or 2, and your choices are sharply limited.

Targos is relatively easy because Sleep is effective.

Monk's bonus? isnt that Wisdom bonus are eliminated if you wear heavy armor, and cleric wear heavy armor all the time? So It's moot point anyway? Except that it held back your Cleric one level.

You get a much better AC if you take a single level of monk on a cleric that doesn't wear armour, rather than a single-class cleric that wears heavy plate. With the single class cleric you only get the AC bonus from your plate armour, whereas a monk will get a full Dex AC bonus, a Wis AC bonus, and you can cast Armor/Spirit Armor to give a pretty solid armor AC bonus anyway. It's one of the few reliable ways to get an AC high enough to dodge hits reliably on Insane difficulty. Some people take the Deep Gnome class to add a further +4 generic AC.

A sorcerer doling out Mage Armour to all the Monks in the party meant that their AC is in the region of 20 right off the boat. That is before taking into account things like Deep Gnome bonuses. A heavy armour anything would struggle to match that AC.

The only problem is that an AC of 20 isn't really sufficient on Insane non-HoF. Monsters get a +9 modifier to hit, so they are going to hit your decoy about 40% of the time at the beginning. I rely more on recasting mirror image early on if I want to draw fire.

 

[Cael]

The only problem is that an AC of 20 isn't really sufficient on Insane non-HoF. Monsters get a +9 modifier to hit, so they are going to hit your decoy about 40% of the time at the beginning. I rely more on recasting mirror image early on if I want to draw fire.

Oh, it has little to do with how easy it is for the opponent to hit. It has more to do with the idiot screaming about heavy armour and how that level of Monk is useless.

And he claims he is a "master of tactics".

When you face up against that kind of numbers, you will need to use other methods. Mirror Image is a level 2 spell, so you won't be casting it for a while. Even longer if you play with +LA races. I know, I know, Minor Image exists, but it is a complete waste of a spell known for your Sorcerer and your Wizard won't have enough prepared to be worth a damn. At level 1, your go-to tactic would be ranged weapons + Sleep or Colour Spray for crowd control. Melee would be risky, but if all else fails, an AC of 20 is far better than an AC of 15.

That is always the problem with high difficulty. BG and NWN had the same problem: Higher difficulties invariably ends up being rocket tag straight from level 1 because of NPC stat/damage bloat. As I said in the Bugmaker thread: you might as well play AoE2:C vs 7 AI on Hardest difficulty and call it "fun".

It isn't. It is merely stupid, as is evidenced by his screamings of "storyfag" as if that validates his retarded nonsense. There is a difference between "challenging" and "play perfectly with all metagaming and every AI exploit used or die, and you can still die if you play that way".

 

[Average Manatee]

The big thing for 1 level of monk (and paladin) is that IWD2 fairly quickly ensures everyone is decked out in stat boosters, so even a moderate 14 DEX and 14 WIS becomes 18 of each. At level 1 it isn't that impressive since you have to absolutely dump everything else to have 2 high stats in point buy systems, and if you have 8 strength/8 constitution why even put your cleric on the front line to begin with?

You know what are examples of a starting area done wrong? NWN and NWN2. The silver lining? You could skip them on subsequent runthroughs. Done wrong but can't skip because you will end up weaker? The worst of all worlds? Fucking Temple of Trials in FO2.

Does ending up temporarily weaker in FO2 even matter though? You're fighting rats for the next hour.

 

[Cael]

The big thing for 1 level of monk (and paladin) is that IWD2 fairly quickly ensures everyone is decked out in stat boosters, so even a moderate 14 DEX and 14 WIS becomes 18 of each. At level 1 it isn't that impressive since you have to absolutely dump everything else to have 2 high stats in point buy systems, and if you have 8 strength/8 constitution why even put your cleric on the front line to begin with?

You know what are examples of a starting area done wrong? NWN and NWN2. The silver lining? You could skip them on subsequent runthroughs. Done wrong but can't skip because you will end up weaker? The worst of all worlds? Fucking Temple of Trials in FO2.

Does ending up temporarily weaker in FO2 even matter though? You're fighting rats for the next hour.

Ask Pope Amole II. He built a character for his LP that is all about gaining XP, especially in the ultra early game.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Ask Pope Amole II. He built a character for his LP that is all about gaining XP, especially in the ultra early game.

Well, I'm mostly LPing Fallout 2 Ironman and that's a different story - there you need HP bloat to maximize your chances of surviving the unlucky crit. Considering that 5% of incoming attacks are crits (minimum), that matters a lot. Outside of such consideration, F2 is not a very demanding game - if you're playing as an eye sniper, you barely need anything above level 9 (for better criticals).

 

[Cael]

Ask Pope Amole II. He built a character for his LP that is all about gaining XP, especially in the ultra early game.

Well, I'm mostly LPing Fallout 2 Ironman and that's a different story - there you need HP bloat to maximize your chances of surviving the unlucky crit. Considering that 5% of incoming attacks are crits (minimum), that matters a lot. Outside of such consideration, F2 is not a very demanding game - if you're playing as an eye sniper, you barely need anything above level 9 (for better criticals).

Yes. Level matter mainly because of HP gain. However, it also helps a few early skill checks (Speech in particular) considerably. Starting the game at level 1 rather than the 3 you are supposed to be would make a big difference in the early game.

Mind you, I have RP installed so level 1 is basically Restart City if you run into Kaga early.