This game is very hard.

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Well, there is a mod out there (don't remember which one) which allows you to skip Battle Squares, but gives you all of the various possible rewards, gold, and XP. Definitely worth using, cuz like you said, BS is just sooooooooo tedious.

 

IMHO, the biggest problem with battle squares isn't even the number of fights you have to go through, it's the awkward UI for choosing a square. Sometimes you have to click on a square multiple times for it to count, etc.

The teleporting demons don't help either. All in all I'd say either install the mod to skip the squares or just do the one or two levels you're most interested in and skip the rest. The experience loss will even out eventually.

-Max

 

The teleporting demons thing is annoying, but can be gotten around. Just run your BS combatant over close to the room where the rest of your part is sequestered. The BS Golem will follow you. The rest of your party can wail on the demon that is dumped in the room with them, BUT don't kill that demon until the Golem is close enough to the room to recognize that you've killed it. Frankly, really annoying, but not a total game killer. (I think that if you kill the demon before the Golem is close enough, the Golem will say that you've lost the square, though I don't actually remember this for sure.)


I never had any problem with selecting squares on the grid myself, but I suppose that others could.

I always found the number of battles to be the most annoying thing. Just too tedious and makes replay much less fun (and makes the skip B.S. mod oh so useful).

 

Are you by any chance thinking of Robert Hardy's book on the history of the longbow? That's the great Robert Hardy (the actor -- as in, Cornelius Fudge from Harry Potter or Sigfried Farnon from All Creatures Great and Small? He wrote the definitive book on that subject.

Also, I'd like to give a giant recommendation to the LOS mod. I honestly can't play without it now. The new weapons and armors are great without being overpowered (for the most part ). And the nasty traps--eww!

 

Well, I never had any issues with selecting squares. Don't know where that came from.

I don't bother with the teleporting demons. I just reload if I cannot kill them quickly. It's too much maintenance to make the rest of my group run around and not kill it before I can lead the golum close enough.

Not sure if I'm going to use the mod. So far, I'm not bored enough to bother with it yet. There are quite a lot of other boring battles everywhere anyway. I just turn down the difficulty after level 5 or 6.

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Regarding slings, I don't think you get the Str bonus to damage with them in IWD2. When I check the stats after equipping my sling, it doesn't indicate there is any damage due to Str.

 

Stuntman, I just checked in DLTCEP and slings do add STR bonus to damage.

 

Crucis is right, it doesn't show but it's there.

 

It's also dirt simple to test. Just take character with a high STR and use a non-enchanted sling and bullets, which should normally do 1d4 damage. But if using a STR 18 "slinger", you should get 1d4+4 damage.

 

Funny how it doesn't actually show up when you check the character. I see it showing up when using a throwing axe or dart. I'll try it out tonight.

 

I'm sure you have heard of the infamous LCS of Diablo II? That's short for Lying Character Screen, as it most often shows misleading, incomplete or just outright wrong info, most often on the damage display.

IWD2's record is miles and miles ahead of D2's, but there's still the occasional quirk here and there. Slings not showing STR bonus when you, in fact, get it (it's even easy to test as pointed above) is one, and getting non-limited attacks per round (ie. not just one) with a couple specific crossbows is another. Not the ones that specifically state a number of attacks per round like the Hell Bolter series from Dragu, mind you, just seemingly normal ones.

Edit: On the subject of using slings IRL - once you get the hang of the timing of the rotation, doing the actual toss is just a minor extension to that. Getting it down to anything even remotely resembling accuracy shouldn't be any harder than trying to hit things with a normal thrown rock.

Crossbow seems such a natural for today's people just because it resembles our everyday firearms the most. But a bow with "scope" (whaddya call a sight on a bow anyway?) isn't all that far behind in my experience.

 

I know Hagnen's Folly is one such crossbow (which makes it actually better than Dragu's crossbows for a mid-level character since it has a higher bonus to damage). Are there others?

-Max

 

There are some (perhap 1 or 2?) crossbows in Light of Selune that allow for multiple shots per round.

 

Well, gosh darn it. I've been playing this game for several years without realising slings add Str bonus to damage. I decided to restart it again. My wild elf cleric of Oghma is doing awesome damage with his sling. He's starting out better than my previous archer.

 

Well, now you know and it's time for some Rapid Shot /sling + shield goodness!

 

Later on, when slings start losing their punch due to limited availability of high-grade ammo*, the thrown weapons show their true colours.

* With the exception of

Spoiler

buying unlimited quantities from Riki at Severed Hand for your HOF playthrough due to the bug that makes you pay for only one stack, no matter how many you purchase at once.

 

That's true, Rechet, though to be fair, what I tend to do is to save my very best (and most expensive) ammo for the very toughest monsters, and use cheaper, more common ammo against the average monsters. Even late in the game, there are plenty of cannon-fodder monsters that don't require high level ammo to hit and you can handle easily enough with cheap ammo. Or better yet, returning ammo. IIRC, there's a +1 returning sling (flaming?) bullet in the unmodded game, although I think that it's a random drop.

As for true thrown weapons, I'll agree as long as you're talking about thrown returning weapons. Nothing's a bigger waste than enchanted, NON-returning throwing axes and daggers. Crap, if I were enchanting throwing weapons, the first enchantment I'd put on a throwing axe or dagger would be a returning enchantment so that you'd never have to have more than one. The value of only having to carry a single throwing axe or dagger seems worth more than spending bucket loads of gold on non-returning throwing ammo that also happens to be rather heavy (particularly throwing axes).

 

My only two ranged characters are my wild elf cleric and tiefling wizard. My wizard is limited to crossbows and my cleric can use bows. I don't have proficiency in hammer or axe. I'm starting from level 1, so I'm not playing HOF yet.

I'm probably going to give HOF a shot after going through it with these characters. What I'm contemplating is multiclassing these spellcasters to fighters shortly after getting level 9 spells (somewhere between levels 17 to 20). I figured that after getting access to level 9 spells, the additional number of prepared spells I gain is going to be negligeable. I'll only lose caster levels. The only thing I can see that may be an issue is spell resistance and damage die for some damaging spells.

I haven't tried HOF before and it's a long ways away at this point. (I'm just finishing up the Hoard Fortress with my current party.) From what I heard about HOF, it appears that spells that take out enemies (even temporarily) like Chaos and Confusion tend to be more useful than straight damage spells. I figured that losing a few damage dice is not going to be that big of an issue.

 

Oh yeah, the returning qualifier is what makes or breaks the deal. I assumed that'd be obvious but good that you pointed it out.

Edit: Stuntman, anyone can use darts and slings. You don't need to waste feats to become a decent tosser.. apart from Rapid Shot, of course, and even that can be often skipped since most character builds can reach the 5 attacks/round hard cap without it.

 

The first time I went through the game, I had two bow users and a crossbow user. I was really stingy with my money, so I sold most of my magical ammo. I didn't recall what bullets I have as I sold them for gold as no one uses slings as bows were superior and my ranged characters tend to have low strength. This second time through, I'm using up my magical ammo. I found that at least by the mid game, there appeared to be enough that I didn't need to buy any ammo. Sparkling bolts are awesome. The only ammo I'm going to save are flaming and corrosive ammo for trolls.

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I think that wizards cannot use darts and slings. They do not have simple weapon missile proficiency. They only have simple weapon crossbow, IIRC. I remember not taking rapid shot because it was useless when I can only use a crossbow.

 

Rechet, I've always assumed that it was a game balance thing, but the idea of high level enchantment non-returning ammo always seems odd to me. Oh, for throwing axes in particular due to their weight, returning enchantments are critical. But even for such lightweight ammo as bullets, arrows, and bolts, I'd think that adding a returning enchantment at some point would become important. If I were an adventurer that used enchanted ranged ammo, I'd hate the idea of spending big bucks on +5 arrows that were expendable. I'd rather pay more gold for a single returning +5 arrow (or bolt or bullet).


BTW, on that late game merchant that sells unlimited numbers of high level ammo, there's actually a great use for that ammo aside from combat. When you make the final party export for your characters that you'll use in HOF, as most know, you lose all of your gold. But a great exploit for carrying over a lot of your gold to HOF is to dump nearly all of your gold into this high level ammo, since it WILL be exported to HOF. You can then just sell the ammo for gold. Oh, you'll probably lose some gold in the exchange, but you'll have a LOT more than none at all. Frankly, if you intend to play HOF with your party, there's no point in saving any of your gold. It's better to turn it into exportable items, and expensive, stackable ammo is best since it won't use up all of your inventory slots of strain your carrying capacity. (I've had one poor character that was loaded up for an export, and happened to be under some STR enhancing spell. When I started HOF, the poor character was no longer under the STR enhancing spell and was unable to move due to the extreme load he was under. Ooops.)