Just wanted to see if there were some folks that wanted to try a no-reload challenge similar to what many have been doing with Baldur's Gate 1 & 2. The idea here being that you play through the game without ANY deaths chronicling your adventures here with text and pics. Difficulty should at least be on core rules I suspect. What do you guys think?

I've made a no-reload run with the original IWD (without expansions) a few weeks ago with the following party

gnome fighter
half-elf fighter/druid
half-elf fighter/cleric
human fighter3/thief
human fighter3/mage
human bard

without max HP at level up enabled. I only got into trouble when I was careless, "raise dead" had to be used only 3 times during the whole game. (2 of them because I accidentally pushed the rest button while characters were diseased).

I'd be into that once I finish my current run. One thing though: I've got my game modded:

- bags of holding added to Orrick and Bandoth
- bottomless bags of holding
- infinite ammo/gem/potion/scroll stacks
- Unfinished Business mod
- loosened item restrictions for multi/dual-classed Clerics and Druids
- rest anywhere

I can easily change that though.

What about party size/makeup and game settings? Is it whatever takes our fancy or is it a standard party size and composition and on Normal setting?

Well I say you can use and mods that ya want. Just list what your running with and go for it. I think it would be fun and a challenge. I've never done it and Kmonster, that doesn't surprise me that you've done it. Your a beast! lol. But yea I think it would be fun and would give others a chance to look at party compositions as well as tactics used throughout the game. I mean I definitely would get something out of watching you pros play. I'm always looking to learn something new so I suspect others are as well. So rules could be as follows:

1. The no-reload challenge itself can go one of two ways I think:
-Nobody in the party can die...ever.
-Or make it where you can keep playing as long as you have at least one character alive but you CAN'T resurrect anybody.
-Or just make where you just can't ever reload the game unless its cause of a bug. This way your whole party would have to die and you can resurrect.
-These are my 2 ideas but I'm open to other suggestions

2. Play on at least core rules (normal)

3. You can use any party composition that you want.

4. Chronicle your run through here using text and pics in any manner that you want.

5. List any mods that your using

That's it. I just started a brand new game but I may restart as a no-reload since I've never done it before. If anyone else is interested, climb aboard!

Nice K though I'm not surprised. I noticed you did a dual class thief. How did that work for you? I've always gone multi class but I have been thinking of trying a dual one. Also do you perfer sneak attack or backstab or do you even use those abilities?

Dualclass thief is far inferior to multiclass thief. No racial bonuses, worse thac0, less attacks, less flexibility. But he was able to disarm traps, shoot some arrows and melee in emergencies. I think he never tried to backstab anything.

I didn't try to build the most powerful party for this playthrough, I wanted to test how difficult the original IWD is (I have original UK CDs, the corrupted ones which need an extra patch) without the upgraded enemy AI, without the new spells and other additions from the expansions. Trying to avoid reloads was only added for the extra challenge and tension.

Kmonster, what was your conclusion on the difficulty of the original release?

I'd say at normal difficulty the officially patched original release is less difficult. Main reason is the less smart AI, with HoW installed you often get swarmed and can't fight the monsters one by one any more, the cold wight armies in DE level 3 are an example for this. In the Yxunomej battle without expansions the door doesn't close.
On the other hand you have more spells, more bard songs and other spcial abilities available with HoW. HoW also adds a lot of useful shop equipment (which is especially useful when you need +3 weapons) but removes the chance to get more powerful random items in a few situations.

At other difficulty settings than normal the game is harder without expansions since you don't get an XP bonus, you even get a penalty at easier difficulty settings, easy without HoW is harder than hardest with HoW installed, play the hardest difficulty without expansion installed for the biggest challenge.

Kmonster, thanks for the analysis. Very informative.

Re the no reload challenge itself, I'll just post what I posted in my 'Insane in the Brain' thread with a couple extra thoughts:

Just finished this run last night. It was good fun with the mages and they did well, but overall I think I'd go with a melee oriented party, if I were concerned about the end game. There were no real big issues until the final battle with Belhifet. For some reason (I figure it's a problem with the mods) the two Iron Golems do not change faction when they go hostile (the circles under them remain blue and do not turn red), although they still attack, but it makes them harder to target. These guys keyed on my two mages and would not give up, so I ended up running them around separately from the main force that was taking on the demon. Due to the dispel traps in the central area of that last room, this meant I had to run them around the perimeter in order to keep their Haste spell active, and it also necessitated me running them in the opposite direction from the other part of the party.

Eventually it meant they were getting hit by the golems (an inevitability), which do a ton of damage on Insane. Basically two hits and my mages were out. I tried this battle three times and every time was the same. The golems chewed through my Stoneskin and Mirror image spells in no time and my mages ended up dead. I could never put enough distance between them and my mages to get off spells that had longer casting times so, in the final aftermath, the spell chuckers sacrificed themselves in order to facilitate sending the demon back to the abyss. A shame, but it was a noble purpose. They will be honored in the rebuilt Easthaven.


In view of the above, I think for the no reload challenge, I'd still play on Insane, but I wouldn't go with the heavy arcane magic party. Probably go with a Paladin, Dwarf Fighter, Human Fighter who would dual to Druid, Gnome FTR/Thief or perhaps Elf FTR/Mage/Thief, 1/2 Elf Bard, Elf Mage.

Started the run last night. Decided to go with the following:

Human Paladin
Dwarf Fighter
Human Fighter -> dual to Druid at level 3
Human Fighter -> dual to Mage at level 7
Gnome Fighter/Thief
1/2 Elf Bard

I decided to stay with the Insane setting, as I love XPs. :P

Anyway, we're through all but one of the tombs in the Vale of Shadows (also have to do Kresselack's Tomb as well). So far, so good. I did have one scare where I got pelted by some goblin archers in Kuldahar Pass and my Dwarf was down to 2 HPs. Luckily, he managed to quaff a potion of healing and the rest of the party took out the offending ranged mobs. Damned close call though. I'll try to update later.

Hey Coel,

Sweet man. I've had a busy week so far so I'm hoping to start my no-reload this weekend. I had already started a new game but I'm going to just start over and do the challenge instead. Now I gotta figure out what kind of party to go with. I don't know if I can do it on insane. I'm not as good as you guys. I tried it briefly and I had issues in the first orc cave. Those damn archers were tough and hit hard. We'll see. I brainstorm a party and then post it soon. Best of luck to ya bud. Peace

Ok, I've been thinking about what party I'm going to go with and I'll actually create them hopefully tomorrow. I'm thinking:

Human Ranger3/Cleric
Elf Fighter/Thief
Gnome Illusionist
Half-Elf Fighter/Druid or Human Fighter3/Druid
Dwarven Fighter
Human Fighter

I'm going to be playing on normal so I should probably only have one multi class especially with 6 characters.

Cbarchuk, actually Insane isn't that bad. You gain double experience from both monsters and quests, so you level faster this compensates nicely for the increase in difficulty, even with the mobs doing double damage. Overall, I think it's about the same difficulty, with a few exceptions where you run into some extra mobs (the Orc Caves is one area that's tougher, since you have to deal with 4 Ogres, not just one). However, judicious use of spells like sleep will put paid to those Ogres and Orc Archers, and remember that ranged weapons are a must as well.

Anyway, I'm about to fire up my session for the evening. Just wanted to take the opportunity to lay out my party:

Justinian Regulos: Human Paladin, currently at level 4
Khergh Ironfist: Dwarf Fighter, currently at level 5
Urtola Malavore: Human Fighter, currently at level 5. Will dual class to mage at level 7
Deirdhra Taprit: Gnome FTR.Thief, currently level 4 in each class
Allenda Firefern: Human Fighter 3 dual classed to Druid and at level 5 Druid right now
Fyrra Starlight: 1/2 Elf Bard, currently at level 5

We have one tomb left in the Vale of Shadows, and then it's into Kresselack's tomb. Hoping to get through both this evening.

Do you play characters with optimized stats and do you enable max HP at level up in your attempts ?

Hey K, I'm not sure who the question was directed to but I usually do simply cause I like my characters to be powerful and my skill level, overall, isn't as high as say yours or Coels.