I really like the atmosphere of the cold tundra. Nice change of pace from the usual "warm & sunny skies" of traditional fantasy rpgs.

I'd forgotten how limited some classes are in early D&D. I went with pure classes from the start, and now I'm wishing I started each as a Fighter so I could multi/dual later. It just seems like a lot of weak missile fire from my spellcasters once they use their spells for the day.

I'm not loving the pseudo-turn-based combat, having a hard time adjusting to it.

I do love that its more dungeon-crawly, as I enjoy less story & more fighting from time to time. And speaking of story, I also like how its cut into Chapters with narrated intervals. Very cool.

I'm with you, but I'm enjoying it more now. Read up on the D&D rules, it'll help you understand what's going on. The narration is well done, voice work is superb.

While the game is definitely story-light, there is as story there and it's actually not that bad. Glad to see you're at least getting some enjoyment out of it though, Chauncey. As your casters grab more and more levels, I think you'll find the lack of spells will become a thing of the past.

It does take me time to warm up to some games, like Arcanum for instance...now I absolutely love the game.

But yeah, I remember the days of tabletop gaming when my mage would cast his one magic missile spell & spend the rest of the encounter cowering in a corner, occasionally poking a dagger at whatever no-goodnik got close to him. And then several levels down the road he'd be the life of the party, shooting off fireballs & lightning bolts & ice storms. 4E is soooo not like that anymore...everyone starts out pretty even, whereas in ye olden days of D&D, if you wanted an all-powerful high-level mage, you might have 2 or 3 of them die first before finally getting one that made it. Kind of a "If you want to be powerful later, you've gotta take your chances being a weakling now" concept. 4E? That concept is deader than Amy Winehouse (oh yeah, I went there!). ;-)

LOL - Okay, in my present state of mind (abetted by a bottle of Talisker), that struck me pretty funny. I must say though, that there are aspects of 4E that I really like, one of which is the fact that mages aren't the 'one spell, then hide until you can rest' character anymore.

Anyway, I digress. I hope you enjoy the hell out of your game. Personally, for some reason, IWD1 is one of my all time favorite games.

I remember those days lol. My Mages sucked, but give me a fighter with a good sword and shield and I could mow down the enemy. Though, my party really only had three fighters(Me - Elven Fighter, A Paladin and a Ranger)

I decided to go forward with my party as-is & tinker with the turn-based/auto-pause settings. Without going into detail (because we all have our own preferences) I've found a combination that I like better for combat. I certainly tip my hat to the way they handled it for this game...allowing the player to set exactly what forces a pause during combat, including presets to be enabled/disabled by the player to dictate how the party members fight (with AI or completely manual by the player), and allowing the player to pause at any time by simply pressing the space bar. Its not my favorite combat system of all the rpgs I've played, but it does work well & I'm enjoying it more now that I've tinkered with it a bit & gotten a better feel for it.