So, I finally got around buying Icewind Dale 1. I really like it so far, but I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask. I might ask more later if I run into something puzzling, but these are the initial ones.

1. I decided to try out a bard (after previously deciding against it), but where do I see what songs he knows? I see there's one song available from the get-go and I can access it in the bottom bar, but I'd like to know if he learned something new when he got to level 2, or if the only improvement was getting more hit points. Also, I cannot for the life of me find a page where it says what the level 1 song does. I guess it boosts the party's combat abilities but I'd like to know exactly by how much.
2. Is there an easy way to know which spells can be used by which character? I've picked up a couple of scrolls: petrification protection and cure moderate wounds but I don't think it says in the scrolls who can use them (besides the scroll having red color if the character in possession cannot use it). That or I'm blind. I've got a Human Druid and an Elf Diviner in my ranks. I also plan to dual class a Human Fighter into a Cleric a little bit later. I rather not recycle the scrolls for each character to see if somebody can use it if there's another way.
3. There's no spontaneous spell casting (turn any spell into a healing spell via shift-click) in this game, right?
4. Bracers. In Icewind Dale 2, the armor bonuses didn't stack with regular armor (with an armor that gives, say, +5 AC and bracers of defense with +1 AC, the combined AC bonus was still +5); does the same thing apply here? Bracers should only be worn by mages?
5. I already forgot, that's why I need to ask: Can a cleric wear any armor without losing the ability to cast spells? Even leather?

I guess that is all for now. Thanks for answering any of these!

Just to add to the previous answer, here are the Bard Song notes:

Bards have a number of new songs in addition to their starting song (The
Ballad of the Three Heroes). Unless otherwise noted, all bard songs have
a radius of 30 feet.

The Ballad of Three Heroes: Bards start the game with the ability to
play this ballad. When the Ballad of Three Heroes is played, all the bard’s
allies gain +1 to hit, +1 damage, and +1 saving throws.

The Tale of Curran Strongheart: Bards gain this song at 3rd level.
When the Tale of Curran Strongheart is being played, any fear effect on
the bard’s allies are removed, and they gain an immunity to fear effects for
as long as the song lasts.

Tymora’s Melody: Bards gain this song at 5th level. When played,
Tymora’s Melody gives the bard’s allies +1 luck, +3 saving throws, and
+10% to their lore skill and thief skills.

The Song of Kaudies: Bards gain this song at 7th level. When the Song
of Kaudies is played, the bard’s allies have a 50% chance to shrug off the
effects of spells such as Silence, Shout, Great Shout, Command, or any
other sound-based attack.

The Siren’s Yearning: Bards gain the Siren’s Yearning at 9th level.
When played, the bard’s enemies must save vs. spell or be enthralled,
unable to take action until 1 turn passes or they take damage.

War Chant of Sith: The War Chant of Sith becomes available to bards
when they reach 11th level. When played, the bard’s allies gain -2 bonus
to AC, +10% Resistance to slashing, piercing, crushing, and missile
attacks, and the ability to regenerate 2 hit points every round.

You can find their new songs by right-clicking on the Bard Song icon at the bottom of the screen or, I believe, but clicking on the 'star' icon for special abilities.


Lots more info can be found in the Icewind Dale section of Planet Baldur's Gate.

Shit...that's 200 gold wasted. I bought a cure moderate wounds scroll from a shopkeeper priest, thinking my druid would be able to write it in his spellbook in level 2 since he can also cast cure light wounds from there.

Anyway, thanks for your answers, and you too Coelocanth!

No worries. Just to add a bit more about divine spells: when a Cleric or Druid gains access to a new spell level, they automatically know all spells of that level. So there's no worries about having to find a scroll in order to learn divine spells. So when your Druid gets to the level where he/she can cast level 2 spells, he/she will know all the spells of that level. You just need to decide which spells you want them to memorize before each rest period. Just be aware that while some of their spells overlap, there are some that Clerics get that Druids don't and vise versa.

Also, re armor. There is the possibility of finding Elven Chain mail, which can be worn by Thieves and Mages without penalty. You can possibly get 2 suits of the Elven chain, but there's some randomness in the loot tables, so you may or may not get it at the two locations where it can be found.

Thieves can't use scrolls in IWD, btw (just to clarify Petrus' earlier uncertainty).

Hope that helps.

It does, thanks. Cleric + Druid = automatic knowledge, Bard + Diviner = scrolls, gotcha. Probably doesn't hurt to have that one-time extra cure moderate either so maybe it wasn't a complete waste. Besides, I already had given Pomab (was it Pomab?) some extra gold by doing a couple of stupid purchases anyway...such as getting a medium shield....no-one can use....and having difficulty making up my mind of what armor everyone should use and therefor having purchased an extra set of studded leather, so I guess another 200 can be shrugged off. I can't believe I'm starting off so noobish, even though I did beat IWD2 earlier. Well, now that the stuff's sorted, I'm off to a beginning of a fantastic story! Let us make a journey to the cave of monsters!*

*(after I've come home from work)

Alright, here's another one. Recently I found out I'm in a bit of a pickle. I learned basic stats (str, dex, con, etc.) do not increase naturally in this game, whereas in IWD2 you could put one point into a stat every 4th level I think. I wouldn't mind this otherwise, but one of my characters is dependent of one extra skill point...here's the deal. One of my party members is a fighter, who I was planning on dual classing to a cleric after he has reached level 5 in fighter class. However, to be able to dual class him, his strength needs to be 15 or higher, but it's only 14 as this was something I completely overlooked during character creation.

I browsed the net and learned there are these tomes which can permanently raise a stat when read. So my question is, and while the answer will surely be a spoiler I don't care, is there a tome that I can use to raise that character's strength by one before he has reached level 5, or will he be forever stuck as a sub-par fighter? And if there is, then where exactly? I'm not sure I want to dual class him after fighter level 5, because it would take ages to get the fighter abilities back.

He's level 2 at the moment, and I just arrived at Kuldahar. Finished the two yetis that were in the eastern part of town, but haven't gotten any other xp in there yet.

There's no tome like that in IWD that I'm aware of (and I've played through it well over a dozen times). There are a couple potions you can find that will raise WIS and DEX (at the expense of other abilities), but nothing that raises STR.

I can see only two options:

1) Use Dalekeeper* to 'cheat' your character's STR up by one point. (If you want to feel like you're not cheating the system, just lower one of your other abilities by one point to compensate).

2) Create a new game. Create a new fighter character with the stats you want. When you start the new game, export the character (Make sure you give the exported character a name you'll recognize). Start up your old game. Give all your old Fighter's gear to another character. Save the game. Start up the saved game and delete the old Fighter from your party. Import the newly made one. Give the new one the old one's gear. Continue on.

2b) You can use the console to give your new character the XP your old one had.

Hope that makes sense. Post back if you need further clarification.

*Dalekeeper is a save game editor. It's pretty slick and easy to use and allows you to fix/cheat/customize characters pretty much any way you want/need to.

You have a 33,33 percent chance to find a potion which raises str in exchange for con in chapter 5 but your fighter will have about 400,000 XP then.

Since you're very early in the game (on the long run an additional cleric level requires 225,000 XP) you can simply kick out your fighter and replace him with a better one able to dual to cleric.

You can even start a solo game with him first, do the easy quests in Easthaven and export him afterwards if you want him to start with more XP.

I racked my brain trying to remember if there was one. I thought there was but couldn't for the life of me remember the details or the name of it. Even google searched and got nothing. Do you recall what it's called offhand?

Thank you all for your answers. What I think I'm going to do, is to save the characters I feel like I didn't mess up during character creation (fighter/rogue, druid and diviner) and create the other three (aforementioned "fighter"/cleric, another fighter and the bard) from scratch and start a whole new game since I'm only about three hours in anyway. I understood the three characters I choose to keep are already level 2 when I begin the campaign anew? This isn't seen as "cheating" is it? Because I don't want to cheat in anyway, not even use the Dalekeeper for that reason. But if it's universally thought okay to do this, then I can think the others are just a little bit more battle-hardened from the start compared to the others.

(Two of the three aren't _totally_ messed-up, but I think I should've have given Bard more wisdom, since I went to the game thinking it was a sort of fighterlike class. Also the other fighter started with a STR of 18/07, I guess that number could be higher)

I'm just going to nip this in the bud right now: Bards don't need wisdom. They actually need a decently high intelligence to help with their arcane spell casting.

It's called "potion of life transference".

Ah, thanks. I was actually just pondering whether it was actually wisdom or intelligence. Higher intelligence it is, then.

Characters are now done. It appeared that the game decided to crash every time when I tried to import characters, so I ended up doing them all again. But I guess they're pretty good now, especially the two main fighters, the druid, and the diviner. Although I again made a small error in party creation I noticed later; it seems higher strength is required when using a long bow or a composite bow. I was planning on giving the bard one of these bows, but with his strength of 8 he can only use the shortbow. Well, shortbow it is then. I really should've read the manual of this game better in order to avoid these beginner's mistakes, but I guessed they weren't going to be too much different from the rules seen in IWD2. I was wrong. Well, now I believe everything's finally sorted the way I like (mostly), so now the adventure may finally fully begin!