This game is very hard.

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Crucis,

I wasn't inferring that you did. I'm not a modder, just a big fan of the game, so my background on what type of content, changes and additions you can and can't add to the game as a modder is very limited. I was simply wondering if that was a possible reason for your previous statement, as I wasn't sure where it came from in the 1st place. But no biggie, you answered my initial question now.

 

No need to use comments like that. You and I disagree both on the use of Rogues in PC D&D games and whether any LG can engage in rogue-like behaviour, whether they have the rogue class or not. No need to be rude.

Lawful Good characters dont believe in the idea of greater good anyway. Try telling a lawful good character that its okay to perform a devious or morally questionable act if it means servicing the idea of good. A warrior who smites evil has the law on his side, much as a modern day policeman does.

There are circumstances where I suppose it could be lawful, to engage in such behaviour, but a lawful good character definitely wouldnt want to make a profession out of it.

 

Ok, Blades. no prob.

I was just frustrated at how you could apparently misconstrue my earlier comments that I thought were about as clear as possible.

At this point, from memory, I might be able to tell you what abilities might be able to be adjusted easily on a level by level basis (vs. stacked up at level 1). And I'm pretty sure that I'd know which ones are beyond my abilities or might simply be impossible (like creating new feats). But there might be a pretty fair number of things that lay in between....

 

I didn't mean to be rude, actually I don't see what was rude about my comment. I'm truly sorry you were offended I was just making a point.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then.

Although I'd like to point at similarities between your "modern day policeman" and Déise's "geeky CIA agent"

 

I'm not sure that I agree with your first statement about LG not believing in the greater good. What I'd say is that LG people see "the greater good" differently than NG or CG people. I'd say that LG people see "the greater good" as being served by a greater degree of adherence to "the law" and Order.


Also, I think that we have different definitions of "devious". I don't see "devious" as being non-good, or even being non-lawful. I see "devious" as being more of thinking outside the box, being unconventional yet effective. This isn't to say that a devious act couldn't be evil. But it could also be entirely good. I don't see LG combat as requiring you to fight according to some set rules of fair play, like boxers in a ring, or two people in a pistol duel. I think that it's entirely possible for one to be LG and yet come up with some inventive, effective, and intelligent tactic that one might think of as "devious". A "devious" tactic may simply be something that nobody has ever used.

 

Agreeing with crucis, I will add:

A Lawful Evil character will keep his word, but stab you in the back if you write the contract wrong. (See "The Monkey's Paw.") Ergo, deviousness != "Chaotic." A Lawful Good character, once engaged in combat, may not feel the need to walk right up and challenge the foe to single combat--he may be perfectly happy sniping the foe from 300 yards away. However, he views law (/order/obedience/cooperation) as an important element of the greater good, and he's unlikely to initiate combat without the agreement of the others on his side who would be affected, i.e. allies. In a civilized context, this means he won't start the fighting without a declaration of war or other legal sanction--he's neither a Batman vigilante nor a John Brown abolitionist, but perhaps more of a William T. Sherman. But combat is not a civilized context, so outside a culture where non-single-combat is viewed with the same horror we reserve for biological/chemical weapons, he's not going to have any particular problems killing OrcBob while OrcBob is concentrating on killing ElfFred. Ergo, sneak attacks on a flanking character are fine, but gratuitous killings are not. He would probably let the Aurilite postulants in the ice temple go after they surrender, for instance.

Not that enemies surrendering or fleeing is much of an ethical dilemma in IWD2, since it happens so seldom. Imagine if enemies often fled from losing battles, and if fleeing enemies (still) gave you no XP unless you chased them down and killed them. I think many people would discover that even if their characters are LG, the player controlling them is actually CE.

-Max

 

@spmdw45: like in that book in the Black Raven Monastery, let's face it you're NE!

@Crucis: I agree with you but I have reservations about the use of the word devious in such a context I'd prefer the word unconventional since it has a much more neutral connotation. Although devious doesn't have an explicitly negative denotation, the connotation of the word is quite negative.

 

I think that the half plate is the best armour you can get. There is a magical chain armour for any fighters with good dex. That would give the best AC for your party. Get the best shields as well.

As for the bridge, the best thing to do is to kill the first group and then go northeast and save the bridge. Kill anything in your way. Do not move west or you will draw too many enemies. There will be a few archers from the west, use your archers to kill them. Keep your melee character focused on anything between you and the bridge. Once you make it to the bridge, you need to take down that big boss as fast as you can, just charge her. After that, you can mop up anything on the bridge. Once you've killed the enemies on the bridge, you can actually rest there on the bridge before going out and clearing the rest of the map to the west.

The hoard fortress is difficult if you do not know how to take out the drums first. The drum to the south can be taken out with any stealthy character with a bow, crossbow or sling. Just sneak past the camp. You will trigger the traps, but will survive. Go north of the camp so that you are out of view of the camp. You should just see the drum on the bottom of the screen. Take it out with your ranged weapon and then sneak back to your group. Then you should be able to take out that camp easily without drawing and worg riders.

The camp with the drum to the northwest can be done the same way. Sneak past the camp via the bridge (triggering the traps) and then go east of the camp. Take out the drum. Then that camp is easy.

The drum on the NE camp can be taken out by ranged weapons by shooting across the chasm. This one is the easiest drum to take out.

The NE camp is hard if you draw too many enemies at once. An easy way to defeat it is to draw only a few enemies at the time. After you have taken out the NW camp. Keep your guys there. Send one guy east towards the NE camp. Once you see an enemy just lead them back to the rest of the group and take out those enemies that follow. Then repeat again and again. Once you feel you have weakened them enough, you can just do an all out assault. Sometimes the rest of them come. You should be able to weaken them enough with your divide and conquer tactics that by the time the rest of the camp shows up, the battle will be easier.

A few things to note is that the enemy spellcaster needs to be taken down quickly. Once he shows up, just send everyone to attack him ignoring anyone else. The call lighting is bad even after he dies. Make sure you take him out before he can cast it. If you have chromatic orb, use it on that guy ASAP and hope he fails his save. Also, the ice troll needs to be hit with blunt weapons or it would take a long time to kill. After the druid dies, send your guys with blunt weapons after him. He will go down quickly. The rest is easy.

The spellcaster usually casts entangle. This will limit who you can use to attack him. Just do your best and hope enough melee guys get to him. Always attack him with your ranged guys until he goes down.

Mage Armor does not stack with armour worn. I find that Mage Armour is only really useful if you have a monk. The other characters who cannot wear good armour are usually at the back and rarely get attacked.

Sleep is only useful against lower level monsters. Chromatic Orb should be used on single dangerous targets like enemy spellcasters. I find the Orb to be really useful once you are able to stun an paralise.

If you want better crowd control for higher level creatures, use Horror.

A tip to improve your AC is to ensure that your characters have at least 13 Dex and take the Dodge feat. All of my melee character take this feat ASAP.

If you want to dual wield, you can either take one level of ranger and then take fighter levels form then on or go straight fighter and blow two feats on TWF and Ambidexterity. A human or dwarf (or even half-elf) is best for the multiclass Ranger 1/Fighter X because of the multiclassing penalties. If you are going straight fighter, you can take a half-orc for the +2 Str. Multiclassing to fighter also allows you to wear heavy armour so you don't need that high of Dex. Just make sure you have enough Dex to take the TWF and AD feats.

If your cleric is useless in combat you could either have him use ranged weapons or improve his Str. An elf cleric can use bows so does not need much strength. I personally prefer to give him high Str since I like to have someone who uses blunt, melee weapons. None of the other melee types use blunt weapons.

Like a few others, I personally do not really care for the rogue. I never sneak attack as it is just too much trouble for me. In my first run through the game, I just gave him a bow and let him pick away. I don't think I have ever sneak attacked with my rogue. Normal attacks deem to do enough damage anyway. In my second run through the game, I am not using one at all. The wizard does the trap finding/disarming. The monk does the scouting (since he is also a deep gnome, he can cast invisibility as well). I do admit that the wizard does miss the odd trap here and there. In general, none of the traps that I have triggered are leathal enough to make me feel I need a rogue. Sometimes I can't be bothered to search and I just trigger them and rest later.

 

There's a rather nasty trap I just hit today in Chult which smashes you for 50 points of damage and then resets itself for the next time you have to come across. Worse yet, my rogue is still squatting at level 3 (rogue1/monk1/paladin1) and she can't even detect the trap, let alone disarm it or survive it.

And yet, it's still not worth it to me to take more rogue levels. Traps are weak IMO.

-Max

 

The drums can also be used as a source of XP if you don't mind fighting the worg riders.

I think it's already been pointed out before but slings are good for high strength characters because the bonus to damage applies.

By the way if you play the Light of Selune mod by Crucis you'll find that traps become more than a minor inconvenience.

 

Ah, yes, the buzzsaw traps.

There are a couple more traps around the game that are even more deadly.

Try playing with the Light of Selune mod. One of its lesser features is a significant upgrade to trap damage.

Traps should be a LOT more dangerous, IMHO. In BG2, no one would consider simply ignoring traps, and hardly anyone would go without a thief to disable traps. But in IWD2, traps are far, far too weak.

It's also worth noting that the difference between HP totals in BG1/2 & IWD1 (2e) vs. IWD2 (3e) make ignoring most traps in IWD2 entirely possible. That 50 dp traps would be massively painful in 2e, but 50 HP of damage is barely a flesh wound for higher level 3e characters in IWD2 (particularly if you are using the Max HP/level option).

 

In my second time through, I've just made it to the Ice Temple. My interest has since switched to other things.

I can think of many more less annoying ways to gain more XP. The worg riders wouldn't be an issue for me if I don't have to deal with everything else. After having gone through IWD2, the most annoying time I had was with the area outside of the hoard fortress. The first two camps are difficult. The last one is annoying because if you accidentally trigger the monsters into summoning them, you have no choice but to reload.

Yeah. I have a wild elf fighter who is dedicated to using ranged weapons.

I think the only patches I used are the official ones. I'm not sure I have them all because there are a few items mentioned in one of the walkthroughs that I cannot get. I think it was some item that Nym was supposed to have available to sell. When I talked to him, I didn't see it on the list of items for sale.

 

I've found that most or all of the drums can be taken out quietly with ranged fire, usually across a chasm.

However, if you're looking for more action, you can just bring on the worg riders!!!

Thanks for the plug, Carad.

It's also worth noting in the LoS mod, that there's a bow (magical, of course) that does add STR bonus damage. Also, IIRC, all bows now have min STR requirements, though they're not particularly high for standard bow types.


As for slings, it seems a bit odd to me that slings should get the STR bonus. Slings just don't seem like "thrown" weapons to me. They seem more like a weapon for lower STR characters.

 

I'd rather play the game as it is, thanks just the same, rather than altering it to make it more tedious.

-Max

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Some of the items are only (officially) available in the "Collection's Edition" of IWD2. It turns out though that the code is already there and you can enable the "Collector's Edition" special stuff through the cheat console (i.e. it's a marketing gimmick not a real expansion to the game), but that's why the items don't show up for you.

-Max

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The whole point of a sling is to act as a lever arm to throw things harder than you could with just your natural strength--same as an atl-atl. The part that surprises me is that slings do bludgeoning damage when I'm used to thinking of sling bullets as piercing weapons with a very small impact surface area.

-Max

P.S. You're aware that a sling is nothing like a slingshot, right?

 

Honestly, I find the base game rather boring due to the weakness of traps and the non-need of rogues.

It should be noted that Light of Selune adds a TON more than simply making traps nastier. LoS adds in many dozens of new items; new weapons, armors, and many lesser items. A number of those items are aimed at certain classes. For example, there are a number of items for rangers (or rangers and druids) only.

The "collector's edition" special store download is available on Sorcerers.net in the IWD2 section.

Uhhhh, yeah.

As physically simple as slings are, they seem to require more skill to use than other ranged weapons. They're not exactly "point and shoot", like crossbows or regular bows. (I remember watching some History Channel (?) show that happened to talk about slings. It was surprisingly difficult to learn how to use a sling properly. Makes one wonder if they should have been "martial" weapons.)


As to the damage type (blunt vs. piercing), I suppose that it depends on how large or small the actual sling bullet is. I do agree that it's a debatable point. My guess is that they may be considered blunt simply to provide a different damage type for ranged weaponry.

 

Okay, I was just unsure because it WOULD make sense for slingshots to not have a STR bonus.

I agree that slings are hard to use. I've heard stories of Roman-era slingers who were amazingly deadly, but also had to be trained from childhood. (Supposedly, among that people, parents would sometimes refuse to let their children eat that which they had not killed with their own slings.) I could even see slings as an Exotic weapon even though that doesn't fit the D&D sword-and-polearm fetish.

-Max

 

How do I activate it? I haven't seen any info on what cheat code activates these items. It would be nice to get them as I was rather disappointed when I looked through the walkthrough and saw some cool stuff that I could not find.

Edit: Nevermined. I found it.

Do I have to enter it every time or just once?

 

@crucis

While it may take a few weeks or even months of solid training to master a sling, I remember reading that it took literally years to master the longbow. And those that did use longbows ended up with physical deformities due to the strain placed on the body when drawing the bow.

Bows from the age when they were in use apparently required something like twice the effort to draw back than a modern bow, and could thus shoot something like twice as far. The bows themselves took years to make, too. Truly a specialized weapon.

I remember also watching a show that compared a well armored knight to a modern tank in terms of their cost and effect on the battle field.

 

IIRC, just when you're about to buy from Nym/Sheemish, i.e. twice per game.

-Max

 

Well, I downloaded that collectors edition patch. Just entered the Ice Temple this morning, so I'm not that far away from Nym. Dreading the hours I have to spend to go through the battle squares again. Just soooooo tedious at times.