Hey :)


This is more of a fun thread tbh, gameplay related.

I just bought both IWD1 and 2 and am having fun with both, playing each for an hour before switching to the other.

I already owned these games years ago and decided that they have a really good replay value, so this time through I decided to have a tad bit more fun with them, trying things I didn't think of 10 years ago.

So I'm running a 1 person fighter party in IWD and a 1 person monk party in IWD2. Fun part is you're leveling like crazy, I think I entered the Vale of shadows at level 5 or 6 already in IWD and I'm on level 4 in IWD2 and barely left the docks.

Anyone else tried anything similar? What was your experience experimenting with parties?

By one-person party, I assume you mean solo? If so, yeah, I know I've read many threads in various forums where people talk about soloing the game(s). I've done it with a FTR/Mage/Thief in IWD 1. Some tough stretched there, but it can be done. And yeah, you do level pretty fast. Especially if you switch the difficulty to either Very Easy or Insane (both give you double XP awards for kills and quests).

I like to experiment with 'themed' parties as well. Things like an all Gnome party or an all Dwarf party. Or things like a 3 member party with a backstory (all from the same family perhaps), or perhaps a multiclass party with all the same second class (i.e. FTR/Thief + Mage/Thief + Cleric/Thief).

You chose some of the harder classes for soloing, but it's doable nevertheless if you have the skill.

We had a thread similar to this a while back - If I remember correct kmonster was playing solo ironman and I was running a brother sister team ironman.

Keep us informed how it goes - regular updates - screen shot etc...

Good Luck

Hey :)


IWD1:

with the fighter I reached the first dungeons in vale of the shadows. The full plate is pretty decent defence against skeletons and even jetis had some trouble hitting me. However once the ghast (or ghoul, the 1300 xp one) got une lucky paralyze on me, it was game over :) had to run it twice =)

IWD2:
Monk reached that level where he gets the wisdom bonus to AC at which point u basically have to drop all armor and shields. Right after that I had the boss fight in Targos: impervious to goblin and goblin elite attacks, only bosses had a small hit chance. And i think the boss1's wolf hit me once. The only problem was the thrid boss (shaman). Had to fight 3x because of him. I succeded killing all on first try (succeded all saving throws against shaman magic, which I realised only on the second try) but one of the flaming potion accidentally hit friendly NPCs meddling in affairs they shouldn't, which made the whole town kinda angry at me. Shawford or wtvr his name is, had to finish my misery.
The second time I found out that the shaman was dishing out paralyze and other nasty stuff and because I got focused on him, once the paralyze dropped on my head, the henchmen finished me fast.
The third time through I dropped that flaiming oil right into the middle of the spawning henchmen bunch, killing all of them but one elite. The shaman cast some color spray or what that spell is that makes stuff go ZZZzzz with some random chance. That spell hit the goblin elite that fell down snoring. Noticing that I immediately switched from evade-magic-mode to kill-the-sleeping-monster-mode. It died in one hit :) After that the shaman was left alone. I couldn't hurt him in the short run (low hit chance) but knew that the shaman probably won't kill me even if paralyze lands. That acutally happened. Paralyze, enfeeblement, and I was pressing the damn "1" button the whole time through as the beast started hitting me with its stick.
Anyhow Paralyze wore off after about a minute, at which point I took a healing potion, but couldn't move due to enfeeblement :)) after about another minute, I could move, then it took me another minute to finish Cedasomethingorother off.

Definitely a fun fight :)
And yes, it's on easy mode. I like to have hedo fun.

I got through Icewind Dale and Heart of Winter with an Elf F/M/T, but gave up some way into Trials of the Luremaster. IIRC there were some instant Game Over spells that there was no protections against, so when it's down to pure luck if you make your saving throws or not I lost interest.

Solo runs usually go like this:
Early game - Hard
Mid game - EAAASY PEEEZY!
Late game - Hard
End game - Super Hard


In between all that some spells are instant game enders. Ring of Free Movement also becomes your most valuable item.

What about a 2 person party of a fighter type class (ranger or paladin for spells) and a thief or bard class for a 2 man combo? I thought it would be a lot of fun to do what I did with planescape torment-N.O. and morte-2 fighters combo. If it can be done in torment it should be done in iwd1. Although Icewind dale is easily the hardest of the d and d infinity engine games. Probably a waste of time.

I'd imagine you'd be able to do it with that combo. The Bard will give you arcane spells and (eventually) healing with the Song, so you're good there. The Paladin or Ranger is your warrior angle, and if you get some of the Druid spells (with the Ranger), you got some pretty decent firepower there as well (and access to healing too, I believe). The only thing you'd miss is traps/locks, but you can just spring/force them.

A single classed warrior makes soloing the game extremely difficult.

Two single class characters, especially if one of them is a Bard, means that you are going to be nearing maximum level quite early on.

Personally, I'm very partial to multi-class or dual-class characters. IWD + HoW + TotLM was actually pretty easy with a half-elf fighter/mage/cleric solo (though the first few levels were rather rough), while two manning it with a ranger/cleric and illusionist/thief was a blast.

There really aren't that many "instant game enders".