Icewind Dale II - Spells Reference

Remove all ads!

Or at least, my subjective ratings of them.

http://iwd2spellsreference.wikispaces.com/

It's still a draft. I'll be updating sporadically, since I'm snowed under at the moment.

 

Nice work, I read through the level 1 and 2 spells, and it has some useful stuff in there. I didn't know that no enemies are immune to Ray of Enfeeblement; I always assumed certain creatures would have immunity to necromancy.

 

I've never encountered anything which is immune to Ray of Enfeeblement. This is why I'd place it at the same level as Chromatic Orb. The stun effect is significantly better than the enfeeblement effect, but I'd say that about 20-25% of the enemies in the game are immune to it. Charm person is even worse, given that only about 75% of your enemies are small-medium humanoids, and a significant proportion of them are immune to charm.

 

Sleep should NOT be underestimated. It's an amazing spell for the first couple of levels. Granted, it becomes 100% useless, but the sheer power of it early on makes it a must-have.

 

Yeah, I acknowledged that it was quite powerful early game (non-HOF). And to be fair, that's the hardest part of the game.

But still, I don't think a spell which becomes redundant 10% of the way through the game should be given a high rating.

 

Perhaps it deserves a higher rating than 1. You gave spells that require touching and do pitiful damage 2s. At least Sleep has uses at some point in the game. Personally, I'm not a big Sleep user but I feel you underrated it.

 

I couldn't see a homepage, only the spell lists. Is this supposed to be a general guide? It seems biased for a sorcerer in HOF. Sleep has been mentioned but fireball also deserves more than 4/10. It's better than skulltrap for nearly all of normal mode I would think. Even if a sorcerer only wants spells he/she'll use in HOF a mage won't have any problem with it. I don't know if giving multiple scores is a good idea but maybe you could comment where spells are more useful for a mage/sorcerer or normal/HOF?

I found Confusion and Chaos to be very useful as disablers against a big mob of enemies. It'll take a few enemies out of the fight from the start and it's party friendly. Obviously there are better disablers if you've a particular foe you want to take out.

Very good work so far, it was a good read.

 

You are right. I will increase the rating.

Yes, it's a wiki style page.

It's a draft at the moment. The reason I posted something which is a draft is because:

1. It allows for feedback from other IWDII members. So when I go to polish it, I can edit my opinions and ratings at the same time.

2. Putting *something* up on the web gives me the motivation to continue with the project. Otherwise I would sit on it, and the material would stagnate on my hard-drive (as it has done for 6 months!)

I must confess that I'm biased to a solo sorcerer playing style. What I would like to do is consider the usefulness of each spell in many different playing styles.

Highly recommended spells would be useful no matter what your playing style.

Worth considering spells may be very useful depending on your playing style. For example, Tensor's Transformation is useless for some wizard/sorcerer builds. However, if you want a decoy or melee sorcerer, then it is a godsend. Therefore Tensor's would be a 'Worth considering' spell.

The reason I do this is because I don't want to lock people into pre-set build.

Even if you ignore the extra damage at higher levels, Skull trap has the 'trap' feature. That alone puts is way over Fireball, IMHO. Also remember that skull trap does slashing damage, which is rarely resisted.

I plan to make such comments.

Confusion and Chaos effects never seem to work to my advantage. I'll have to experiment, I guess.

Thanks!

 

I find the trap feature annoying for blasting as if you miss it remains there to get in the way.

Fireball's main advantages are the larger radius and the fact Spirit of Flame can be applied to it, giving it a 20% increase in damage versus skull trap. I'd recommend it for a mage until you hit the damage cap, if you meet fire resistant enemies you can swap it out.

 

The solution to this is obvious. Don't miss.

As I target groups of enemies with Skull Trap, I actually find it difficult *not* to miss.

A larger radius is a double edged sword. Skull Trap's narrow radius allows you to target it closer to the party.

By the time you can access Spirit of Flame, Skull Trap would have passed Fireball's damage cap and evened any discrepancy out. Not to mention that fire damage is the second most commonly resisted damage output in the game.

Yes, that's an option.

 

Spirit of Flame is available at level 7 Mage or 8 Sorcerer. It then makes fireball more powerful up to level 11. At 12 the damage is equivalent and at 13 skull trap does more damage. You should be finishing normal mode at level 17.