Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[Jigby]

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?

With the point buy system IWD2 uses you can start off with 4 18s, i.e. a monk can start off with maxed out strength,dex,con,wis. I'm not sure if it's a consequence of IWD2 being a 3.0 game, or if it's a faulty implementation, I assume the latter. Compared to 3.5 you can lower your dump stats all the way to 3 (instead of 8), and the price of stat points does not increase.

 

[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?

With the point buy system IWD2 uses you can start off with 4 18s, i.e. a monk can start off with maxed out strength,dex,con,wis. I'm not sure if it's a consequence of IWD2 being a 3.0 game, or if it's a faulty implementation, I assume the latter. Compared to 3.5 you can lower your dump stats all the way to 3 (instead of 8), and the price of stat points does not increase.

Not 3.0, but neither is IWD2 really. That is just how the game is. That said, 14 Con and 16 Str is more than enough for this kind of game. However, for humans, there is no real difference between 3 and 9 Int, so you might as well go all the way down.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

So Cael , are you going to take up my six different clerics with no class finagling challenge? At least until you've beaten my record?

 

[Micormic]

So Cael , are you going to take up my six different clerics with no class finagling challenge? At least until you've beaten my record?

You seriously have no life, lmao

 

[Cael]

So Cael , are you going to take up my six different clerics with no class finagling challenge? At least until you've beaten my record?

What record? What challenge? And why should I waste my time trying to complete something a random guy on the Internet dares me to?

EDIT: I am not going to spend tens of hours getting through Targos then Shaengarn and then the Horde Fort. I got better things to do.

However, if I were to run that party, I would have 2 designated tanks (probably deep gnomes) and 4 casters/archers. Run 1 of the tanks into the bridge traps at the south bridge, then come back and get healed. Run the second tank straight for the drum and blow it up. Then bring in the rest of the groups to party. Then it is a choice between doing the same with the upper bridge or approaching the third drum from the south and blow it up with archers.

 

[the_shadow]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

Care to put yer money where yer mouth is.....?

 

[laclongquan]

Man, you just went around having a nice weekend and people shitting all around the neighborhood~

About Cleric versus Monk1Cleric: (Insane diff)

A Cleric3 can cast Aid and Bull Strength on his self or others while Monk1Cleric2 cant. This matters for Targos, where the lack of everything is strongest. An aided Cleric3 is better than Monk1Cleric2, when you consider the former has armour, can use weapon, with +2dmg and +2hit .
(Obviously we are not talking about having others casting buffs)

About Human 3INT vs 9INT:

It only matter if you plan to take Elemental feats for spells or weapon damage, or wand usage.
If you have 3INT, you are going to need 14 spellcraft to counter the -4 modifier before you can take them. This is a change in one of the patch so it's different from earlier.

 

[Cael]

This matters for Targos, where the lack of everything is strongest. An aided Cleric3 is better than Monk1Cleric2, when you consider the former has armour, can use weapon, with +2dmg and +2hit .

Targos with +2 to hit and damage and armour better than +4 AC and unlimited Dex bonus. You heard it here first, gentlemen.

 

[the_shadow]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

Care to put yer money where yer mouth is.....?

I'm actually tempted. It's always a mistake to read a thread about Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, because I crave another playthrough even though I have dozens of unplayed games in my backlog.

 

[laclongquan]

This matters for Targos, where the lack of everything is strongest. An aided Cleric3 is better than Monk1Cleric2, when you consider the former has armour, can use weapon, with +2dmg and +2hit .

Targos with +2 to hit and damage and armour better than +4 AC and unlimited Dex bonus. You heard it here first, gentlemen.

Targos is where you started. Level 3 is about max you can with a party. Maaaaaaybe 5 or 6 if you do it solo. Where the hell do you pull that unlimited Dex bonus business out of?

 

[Cael]

This matters for Targos, where the lack of everything is strongest. An aided Cleric3 is better than Monk1Cleric2, when you consider the former has armour, can use weapon, with +2dmg and +2hit .

Targos with +2 to hit and damage and armour better than +4 AC and unlimited Dex bonus. You heard it here first, gentlemen.

Targos is where you started. Level 3 is about max you can with a party. Maaaaaaybe 5 or 6 if you do it solo. Where the hell do you pull that unlimited Dex bonus business out of?

Why don't you try and figure it out, since you are such a master of the game.

 

[laclongquan]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

Care to put yer money where yer mouth is.....?

I'm actually tempted. It's always a mistake to read a thread about Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, because I crave another playthrough even though I have dozens of unplayed games in my backlog.

The biggest limit of such party (6cleric both pure and variant) is the skill investment. You are going to need a talker because there's a few dialog checks in this game that make a dialog specialist a reasonable investment.

Dialog specialist: Charisma and 3dialog investment. A pure throwaway build. At least 10 INT or more and all invested into three skills. Might mix in other class to make it slightly more effective. Seriously, cleric mix is not good for a talker, unless you go for weird combo like Cleric1BardX, and that still mean throw away 1 level of Cleric. Or you can do the craziest thing and spread to 3 talkers. Invest into one dialog skill each. That way you have three bad builds instead of one horrible build. You decide.

Two melee: Cleric Fighter4 for twohander and shield user. This is easy build and very effective. Spellcraft investment for elemental feats.

A pure caster. Classic build. maybe 2.

You need a Rogue for disarm and search. Combo of Rogue and Cleric is horrible, even with Demarch of Mask, because invi sphere at tier 3 is no help. Another throwaway build.

 

[Cael]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

Care to put yer money where yer mouth is.....?

I'm actually tempted. It's always a mistake to read a thread about Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, because I crave another playthrough even though I have dozens of unplayed games in my backlog.

The biggest limit of such party (6cleric both pure and variant) is the skill investment. You are going to need a talker because there's a few dialog checks in this game that make a dialog specialist a reasonable investment.

Dialog specialist: Charisma and 3dialog investment. A pure throwaway build. At least 10 INT or more and all invested into three skills. Might mix in other class to make it slightly more effective. Seriously, cleric mix is not good for a talker, unless you go for weird combo like Cleric1BardX, and that still mean throw away 1 level of Cleric. Or you can do the craziest thing and spread to 3 talkers. Invest into one dialog skill each. That way you have three bad builds instead of one horrible build. You decide.

Two melee: Cleric Fighter4 for twohander and shield user. This is easy build and very effective. Spellcraft investment for elemental feats.

A pure caster. Classic build. maybe 2.

You need a Rogue for disarm and search. Combo of Rogue and Cleric is horrible, even with Demarch of Mask, because invi sphere at tier 3 is no help. Another throwaway build.

Don't listen to him. The challenge is 6 pure Clerics.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

Care to put yer money where yer mouth is.....?

I'm actually tempted. It's always a mistake to read a thread about Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, because I crave another playthrough even though I have dozens of unplayed games in my backlog.

This would be awesome. It wouldn't take too long either as you'd only have to get past the Orc Fortress to beat me.

Just to clarify though, it would have to be core rules, no tweaking the difficulty for optimisation cheesing, each cleric must be a different cleric from a different school of preaching.

The self-made backstory for the characters was that they were on a mission to raise funds for charity & that any spending of earned funds was extremely sinful and purchasing items could only be acceptable if progression was literally impossible without spending that money. But I'll let you off this aspect as I don't remember it being much of an issue & would just result in lots of backtracking. However, if you beat the Orc Fortress with zero gold in your wallet, or close too, then the mission would be a failure, obviously. If this did prove to be a particularly hard challenge then the amount of Gold left upon defeating the Orc Fortress could be used as a scoring system.

 

[Cael]

Six clerics wouldn't be that much harder than a normal balanced party anyway. Clerics are a pretty solid class in IWD 2.

Care to put yer money where yer mouth is.....?

I'm actually tempted. It's always a mistake to read a thread about Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, because I crave another playthrough even though I have dozens of unplayed games in my backlog.

This would be awesome. It wouldn't take too long either as you'd only have to get past the Orc Fortress to beat me.

Just to clarify though, it would have to be core rules, no tweaking the difficulty for optimisation cheesing, each cleric must be a different cleric from a different school of preaching.

The self-made backstory for the characters was that they were on a mission to raise funds for charity & that any spending of earned funds was extremely sinful and purchasing items could only be acceptable if progression was literally impossible without spending that money. But I'll let you off this aspect as I don't remember it being much of an issue & would just result in lots of backtracking. However, if you beat the Orc Fortress with zero gold in your wallet, or close too, then the mission would be a failure, obviously. If this did prove to be a particularly hard challenge then the amount of Gold left upon defeating the Orc Fortress could be used as a scoring system.

Let's be clear here:
1. Are +LA races allowed?
2. Are we allowed to dip into other classes (e.g., Monk)?

What other restrictions do you have there?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

No alternative class dipping, they are all of pure cloth. You can have any race you want IIRC, but I'm unsure what LA means, other than it being a region of the USA, so you'll have to clarify what you mean here. No other restrictions, just a simple backstory with simple rules.

Edit: Oh yeah, no hosing down NPCs...

 

[Cael]

No alternative class dipping, they are all of pure cloth. You can have any race you want IIRC, but I'm unsure what LA means, other than it being a region of the USA, so you'll have to clarify what you mean here. No other restrictions, just a simple backstory with simple rules.

LA = level adjustment. Like Drow, Aasimar, Tiefling, Deep Gnome, etc.

EDIT: What do you mean "hosing down NPCs"?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Sure, those sound fine, I thought for a minute you might be talking about mods.

 

[Cael]

Sure, those sound fine, I thought for a minute you might be talking about mods.

Nah. I didn't mod IWD2.

How do you define "hosing down NPCs"? Killing them all for the giggles?

 

[the_shadow]

Just to clarify though, it would have to be core rules,

So the middle difficulty?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Just to clarify though, it would have to be core rules,

So the middle difficulty?

Whatever you want to call it. I call it "the proper rules"

 

[Jigby]

Dialog specialist: Charisma and 3dialog investment. A pure throwaway build. At least 10 INT or more and all invested into three skills. Might mix in other class to make it slightly more effective. Seriously, cleric mix is not good for a talker, unless you go for weird combo like Cleric1BardX, and that still mean throw away 1 level of Cleric. Or you can do the craziest thing and spread to 3 talkers. Invest into one dialog skill each. That way you have three bad builds instead of one horrible build. You decide.

For the purposes of this challenge I think you could have 2 Human clerics, 1 of them goes for concentration/diplomacy, the other concentration/bluff. Stats 18/10/18/3/18/9. Use Oghma's Eagle Splendor to bump Charisma modifier from -1 to +2. Combat stats are solid. Intimidate is sort of useless.

 

[Cael]

Just to clarify though, it would have to be core rules,

So the middle difficulty?

Whatever you want to call it. I call it "the proper rules"

I'd suggest Tempus, Bane and Lothander for 3 of your Clerics. Tempus is an offensive melee guy, Bane your talker and offensive Enchantment based caster. Lothander for healing and offensive fire spells.

You might also want Ilmater as a defensive tank and Talos for offensive electrical caster. Oghma for Identify or Mask for Sleep.

I'll look into this further when I have time (hahahaha! Time.. good joke!)

 

[the_shadow]

Just to clarify though, it would have to be core rules,

So the middle difficulty?

Whatever you want to call it. I call it "the proper rules"

I'd suggest Tempus, Bane and Lothander for 3 of your Clerics. Tempus is an offensive melee guy, Bane your talker and offensive Enchantment based caster. Lothander for healing and offensive fire spells.

Yeah, those would be my first 3 picks as well. Banites also get the +2 Wis bonus late in the game.

You might also want Ilmater as a defensive tank

Eh, Ilmater doesn't seem like such a good pick, their domain spells are pretty sub-par, especially at low to mid level.

and Talos for offensive electrical caster.

Yeah, Talos is a solid pick, they are one of the few that get a useful 'once a day' power, apart from Helmites.

Oghma for Identify or Mask for Sleep.

Mask has a far better Domain spell repertoire. Mirror Image, Invis. sphere, Shadow Conjuration, Improved Invisibility.

My make up would be:

Bane
Tempus
Mask
Helm (for the power that gives +2 to generic AC)
Lathander
Talos