Please share some battle strategies with me

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Hello everyone!

I decided the other day to blow the dust off my IWD2 cd's and play the game again. When I bought it (right when it came out) I never even made it past Targos before going on a gaming hiatus.

I'm an experienced Infinity Engine gamer, I've played through half of BG1, all of BG2 and all of IWD1. I'm also quite comfortable with DnD 3e rules (man I wish this game was 3.5e ).

I'm currently working on clearing out the goblin fortress and I'm having MAJOR problems! This game is HARD! I'm looking for advice because whenever my party faces a room full of warg riders and shamans, I end up seeing the "Your party is dead" screen.


Here's my party. Playing on normal (default) difficulty:

Paladin of Helm (Human) lvl 7
My main hero and leader/speaker
- Luck of Heroes
- Focus Longsword (using Moonblade)
- Extra Smiting (1)
- Memorized Bless and Cure Light Wounds
- Wearing Half-Plate

Barbarian (Human) lvl 7
My lieutenant and super-warrior
- Focus Greatsword
- 19 str
- Extra Rage (1)
- Power Atk / Cleave (1)
- Wearing chainmail

Cleric of Tempus (Human)(Good) lvl 7
My healer / backup fighter
- Focus Axe (granted by domain)
- Combat Casting / Spell Penetration (1)
- Has up to level 3 cleric spells
- Gets owned regularly
(thank the gods for Sanctuary)

Wizard (Elf)(General Wizard) lvl 6
The party's spell-slinger
- Uses returning frost dart
- Can cast 3rd level spells.
- Combat Casting / Spell Pen. / Focus Enchant
(finally got Fireball)

Rogue/Ranger (Human) lvl 3/3
The party's archer and scout / locksmith
- Uses a magical +1 composite bow
- Focus bow
- Favored Enemy Orcs
- Maxed stealth for his level

Fighter (Human) lvl 6
My rear-guard and mage/thief protector
- Specialization Polearms
- 19 str
- Wearing Chainmail armor
- Power Atk / Cleave


A pretty standard 6-man party. A bit heavy on the tank side, but I did this hoping to cut down the amount of times I rest. I think my gears are appropriately equiped. My mage has almost all of the level 1 and 2 spells in his spell book. I think I'm playing these characters appropriately, but I'm regularly getting owned. Is this game just that much harder than any of the other Black Isle games? I'm finding this goblin fortress to be SUPER HARD (the outside part was brutal).

Thanks in advance for any tactics. I prefer to play semi-realistically (not resting after every encounter) but I'm finding it hard to win fights unless I've rested for a day in between encounters.

 

Hey, Im just getting the game back myself, never made it trhoguh the first time either so i dont know how much help i can be, but i do remember that part and i HATED the outside

Maybe you could tell us exactly what type of damage your facing, what buffing spells your using, type and number of things your facing and current stragaties? and dont feel bad, il be in your same position before too long, soon as my game arrives :/

 

Efficiency depends on stats as well. Even if you don't powergame, having high stats is unavoidable.

Looks like a lot of tanks and no sorcerers (still doable in normal mode).

Potions and items help a lot (don't sell potions if you don't need the cash, they can be helpful).
Buffs are great. If you are stuck change tactics.

Creatures have some better saves and some weaker saves use spells accordingly (like your characters: tanks tend to have low will saves and high fortitude saves).

Spell penetration works against foes who are resistant to magic (not that useful so early in the game).

The fortress is hard if you rush in. Target the drums (otherwise you'll face the sumoned worg riders) and/or the shamans who use them. Goblin sorcerers and shamans can be a nuisance with their spells (especially Hold Person). Once you've disabled enemy spellcasters it's easy to finish the rest (try to block the archers so they can't disrupt your spellcasting). A high AC character can be very useful to distract enemies. Even charm person can be very useful -especially with Spell focus Enchantment!

 

Thanks for the quick reply. I finally just finished that story arc, but it was a PAIN in the rear! I openly fear what awaits my party next.

All in all, I probably had to restore from a save about 30 times throughout the whole ordeal. This game seems way harder than any of the other similar titles I've played.

As stated before, my party is listed in the original post (above). Please keep in mind that they were on average, level 5 when they began this chapter and are now all level 7.

I typically do the following right after resting:

Cleric buffs Paladin and Barbarian with Bull's Strength. Mage buffs Rogue/Ranger with Cat's Grace. Then, just before I know we're about to enter battle my cleric uses her once-a-day Tempus prayer book that grants Bless on the party. Then she casts magic circle vs evil. My mage throws on a mirror image spell.

We start the conflict. My Paladin, Barbarian and Cleric all form strong front line to face any oncoming melee-based foes. My barbarian rages, and my paladin casts smite evil.

Often if the enemy is humanoid, my cleric will cast hold person. If the enemy is a lower level foe, my mage will cast sleep. Otherwise I use my mage and rog/rng to fire upon any ranged or caster-type enemies that may be off to the side of the battle. Typically I'll have my mage throw a magic-missle or melf's acid arrow at the enemy spellcaster. Recently my mage learned fireball (which he's memorized three times ...cheesy, I know), to which he will often spam so that it kills any casters/archers that might be harassing the party.

If one of my character's gets charmed (barbarian seems to be especially prone to being charmed), my cleric casts dispel magic, but I hate doing this cause it erases the bull's strength buff too.

Admittedly, my mage doesn't know web, which I think could be very helpful, but frankly, sometimes web annoys me. It lasts forever and it has a tendancy to trap my front-liners more than it does my foes.

When my characters get hurt, I tend to use healing potions (I have a ton of them), and if that fails my paladin casts either Cure Light Wounds or Lay on Hands while my Cleric spontaneously casts the highest heal spell she can. This often means that I don't get to cast summon monster III, but frankly, that spell seems rather worthless, as my summons die VERY quickly.

From a strategic standpoint, I think I'm doing things pretty by the book, however, I find that I get in situations where I face maybe 4-5 tough melee creatures, 2-3 archers and usually 2 caster types. After the enemy mages cast web or hold person and unholy blight or some other AoE spell, my chances at winning the battle seem to go out the window.

I will confess that I HATE having any of my characters die in a battle. If I lose a character, I will often reload immediately and try the fight again. I just can't see myself gathering all of his gear, trudging back to a healer and dropping 800 gold just to bring him back. In the future when my cleric can raise the dead I will likely not reload after a character or two dies.

I think a big problem might be my characters' armor classes. There doesn't seem to be all that many pieces of heavy armor in this game. I think my best AC in the group is 17. I find scouting ahead annoying in this game because if my rog/rng stumbles upon a boss character, instantly his invis is dropped and the boss starts talking to him (which is annoying because my Paladin is my group's designated speaker, and he gets a lot of great Paladin-only dialogue choices).

Overall I would say that I'm "surviving" this game so far, but I do feel like I'm doing something wrong when I have to reload each major fight 2-3 times...

 

I hate the bosses seeing through invisibility... It sucks.

Anyway having your pally do the talk can be nice but paladins don't accept money for quests.

17 AC is not really high. Low DEX? At character creation you can max stats (contrary to NWN in which raising a stat above 14 cost a lot). That may be the cause of your problems.

 

Quick update. I was a little off in my AC estimates. My paladin has an AC of 20, and my barbarian has an AC of 18. Not that bad. Not stellar, but for a typical party of level 7's I would say that's pretty standard (and if this was PnP... down right good).

Any additional advice would be greatly appriciated!

 

Duraska,

I have a few thoughts about "battle strategies" and your party.

First of all, I think that having a pure fighter as your "mage/thief protector" seems like overkill. Oh, it doesn't hurt when you're in a situation where you are getting lots of attacks from the rear, but generally it's just overkill. (Your ranger/rogue should generally be more than enough of a bodyguard for your mage.) That said, in the past, I've used a pure ranger as an archer and mage bodyguard, as well as a partner to my rogue when I'm doing stealthy scouting.

When it comes to battle tactics, let me reference a couple of your comments.

Web is a great spell, but it's better used at greater range as the enemy is approaching you, not after the melee is joined and you're trying to get cute webbing some of the enemy. The key usage of a web spell is to create a "kill zone", where you immobilize a bunch of enemies, then start bombing them with ranged weapons fire and area effect damage spells.


When the enemy force has spellcasters, you need to put a lot of effort into surpressing them, in any way possible. Ranged fire is good for this purpose. In the goblin warrens, a great yet simple spell for dealing with spellcasters and archers is Charm Person. Simply charm an archer who's near a spellcaster and that enemy archer will start attacking the spellcaster, and visa versa. On charmed archer often keeps a group of archers and spellcasters focused on the traitor in their midst, rather than on you.

Also, it can be quite useful to summon a monster right next to a spellcaster to harass him, rather than trying to use it to help out your tanks in your melee wall. BTW, laster in the game, this becomes an awesome tactic when you have stronger and nastier summons available to you. Dumping a fire elemental or demon right next to a nasty mage who's been hiding behind a mob of his own tanks can create all kinds of havoc behind the lines!


Regarding summons, when you're using lesser summoning spells, you don't need to worry about them being awesome tanks. You just need them to absorb damage, maybe harass an enemy spellcaster, or even the odds for a short time when you're outnumbered.

Don't worry about it. If you aren't reloading 2-3 times for major battles the very first time you play this game, either you're really, really, REALLY good or you have the difficulty set too low. IWD2 is meant to be challenging. Enjoy the challenge.


BTW, the entire goblin warrens area is, from my experience, best managed when you try to be as stealthy as possible. Scout around and try to take out any drum before reinforcements can be summoned. If reinforcements are summoned, you end up fighting waves of goblins and wrogs that can easily wear your party down.

 

Heh, I kinda threw worrying to the wind in my own first playtrough and bombed the battle with my two sorcerers AFTER my melee characters had tied them down. Sure, the fireballs did damage them, but usually they also killed the enemies
Not saying anyone else should do this, though.

 

I have three sugestions.

First meat shields. Your cleric should max out on animate dead. They last 8 hrs, way longer than any other summons. Have them lead the way at least to thew edge of the fog of war. Let the enemy target them instead of you. After exhausting ADs, then use Monsrer Summonings, Vermin, Shades, etc. Heck, I like to cast AD before resting if available, if attacked by random monsters, you got help thats always awake, and sometimes they last an hour after you get up.

Get everyone in the party missle weapons, slings, bows, and crossbows. Dump that dart, it has less range. Arrows, bolts, and bullets are cheap and plentiful throughout the game, use them. Why melee and a chance to get hurt when you can take out alot of enemies from afar. Only after they weaken monster close with you, switch to melee.

Finally, take avantage of your ranger/rogue. He was made for sneaking!! Explore each map ahead of the party, know where the enemies are and move slowly though the ranks of tougher fights. Remember, if they cant see you they dont attack you, even if their buddy just got riddled with arrows, they just wait their turn. Also, level the ranger up now, you have enough rogue skills to disarm most traps, so get a backup spellcaster. Grease, entangle, and web might be low level spells, but they are quite useful late into the game, even better piled ontop of one another, so if one save is made another chance to fail.

In the warrens, use the R/R to find the drums, sneak the party up and let the mage try out his fireball. Target the drum, it never seems to save then block the bridges with summons. Stand back and fire away.

Good luck.

 

You seem to be heavy on melee with just one divine and one arcane caster. Therefore you need to adjust your magic use and other strategies accordingly. Put heavy emphasis on group buffs. Forget small healing. It doesn't change battles and afterwards, you can rest anyway. Once you have that covered, you can experiment with immobilisation (all sorts of Hold stuff) to pin folks down so that your four warriors and your big cleric could chop them into pieces. Alternatively, you may want to experiment with area damage spells, or, better still, spells that simply target enemies, strategically applied walls of fire and the like. It wouldn't be bad to summon some help, either. Make sure you have Cleave on your strong guys. Perhaps even Great Cleave. And if you have Great Cleave, you want two-handed weapons because they deal more damage (making killing stuff and getting a free attack more likely, and making a free attack more painful) and they have extended range (so that your crowd control extends and you don't miss on free attacks). You may want to cast Silence on enemy spellcasters to even the odds if you run into a heavy-magic battle. At least for the moment before you focus fire on them with those four warriors and a cleric.

 

It would be hepful to know your party members' exact stats to give more specific advice.

It's important to pause the game often during hard battles. The seconds a character takes for targeting the next monster after a kill or other delays can be crucial.

I wouldn't bother much about healing in battle before you get the really useful spells, this takes a round which you could use to kill an enemy.

For your wizard you can also use "mage armor" (maybe also on the rogue) and "shield" to make him nearly invulnerable. He doesn't need a fighter to guard his back.

Buffs like "bless" and "magic circle against evil" should always be cast on your party, rest if neccessary, there's no time limit in the game.

I'd rather give bull's strength to all characters instead of casting "hold person".


The best to method to avoid getting killed is not letting the monsters get close to you. Use your cleric and mage spells (animate dead, giant vermin) to summon the maximum number of allowed helpers. While the enemies are busy fighting them your characters can shoot holes into them, everyone should have a good missile weapon.

"Rapid shot" is by far the best of all feats, it's as good as ambidexterity and 2-weapon fighting combined while wearing a shield.
It works with any missile weapon except crossbows which don't allow more than 1 attack/round even for level 30 fighters.
Any missile weapon except bow and crossbow grants a strength bonus to damage, my battleguard with 18 str, 16 dex and rapid shot had the most kills of the party with his throwing axe.

Now more specific advice:

Don't take more "extra rage" feats with your barbarian, "rage" becomes useless once you get enough bull's and champion's strength spells. Better take "rapid shot", "improved critical" and "heroic inspiration".

Don't take "greater spell penetration" with your casters, I recommend taking combat feats like "rapid shot" and "improved critical" for your cleric and greater spell focusses (enchantment, evocation, maybe necromancy) and elemental feats (like spirit of flame) later for your wizard.

For your rogue/ranger:
More skill points in stealth aren't needed, I had a DG druid with 13 dex and no points spent in stealth who could hide quite well. Your RR probably has spent enough skill points in all skills for the rest of the game already.
Since bows don't grant a strength bonus and do therefore low damage I recommend taking 4 fighter levels to specialise in them for extra +2 damage. Take also rapid shot. If your ranger/rogue has high strength you might want to use another missile weapon instead.
You might get a little XP penalty until you have 2 fighter levels (you can avoid it by taking both fighter levels together), but this isn't a long term disadvantadge because of the dynamic XP calculation.

 

Kmonster, you make a lot of good points. But I thought that I'd give a counterpoint on a few.

Letting the enemy get close...

For me, this depends on how many and how tough the enemies are. And what spells I have available. I'm a big proponent of "kill zone" tactics, wherein you use immobilizing spells to stop an incoming enemy force, then use ranged fire and area effect damage spells to take them out. That said, early in the game, you don't really have much in the way of area effect damage spells.

However, there are times when you cannot create a good kill zone because the baddies are coming at you from many angles and you can't get them close enough together for an efficient kill zone. This can be a good time for the summoned monster decoy, IF you have time to summon one in front of you or IF you already have one with you.

However, there will be times (like when you enter a new area) when you don't have such a decoy and don't have time to summon one before the enemy is on you. I find that in these times, you have to hold a good formation, try to attack any spellcasters within range of ranged fire or spells, before the enemy tanks are on you and they get off any nasty spells of their own, and then do your best to hold that formation and guard your mage(s). Such a battle occurs when you first enter the 2nd level of the goblin warrens and a mob of orcs (?) are waiting.


Regarding feats for clerics, I think that it can depend on the cleric's domain and your spellcasting preferences. A Lathander cleric should probably try to get the Spirit of Flame feat, as soon as he meets the prereqs. And if you like using some enchantment type spells, like Symbol of Hopelessness, the enchantment spell focus and greater spell focus aren't a bad thing, since they'll make it harder for the enemy to save against such spells. Improved Critical is a must have feat for any character who uses physical weaponry most of the time.

As for his ranger/rogue, I'd use him as the mage's bodyguard, rather than the pure fighter. R/R's generally don't want to be in your melee wall, and are more than capable of playing the role of bodyguard.


I agree that all characters should have a ranged weapon. There will be times when ranged fire is your best tactic. And darts (and throwing daggers) are an absolute no-no for mages. Their short range can cause a character to have to move closer to the target to use them. And if everyone else in your party has longer ranged weapons, a dart using mage may suddenly find himself standing out in front of the rest of the part. Oooops. OTOH, I don't mind having a strong tank use darts in some circumstances, such as having some immobilized enemies that are at relatively close range, i.e. inside dart range, but I want to use ranged fire to stay outside of melee range or some fog or web effect.


Regarding mage armor and shield, strangely (or not), I rarely have used these spells on my mages. In part, I suppose that it's because I work so hard to maintain a solid formation to keep enemy tanks away from my mages. And because I tend to use mirror image as my mages' primary defense.

I don't worry much about having a Bless buff always on my party, but I try my darnedest to have a Magic Circle against Evil buff always on. In part because it's a better buff and because it has such a long duration.


Pausing in the midst of battle is your friend. It can help you switch targets efficiently after killing an enemy. It can help you seek out those enemies that are near death. I like to have a dedicated archer whose job is to target those enemies that are near death to speed their way to the afterlife.

People always need to remember that in DnD a fully healthy monster and that same monster who is down to his last HP will hit equally hard. Therefore, it is always more important to kill those monsters that are near death than to attack an unwounded one.

 

kmonster, I've never played a IWD2 barbarian, but I am almost certain that their rage stacks with Bull's Strength. If not, the class is worthless except for fast movement.

 

I remember that fortress being especially tough because your mages haven't got level 3 spells yet (at least my party didn't). Fireballs would make it so much easier.

Once your mage is able to toss fireballs the game gets much easier.

 

@JT: I'm certain barbarian rage doesn't stack with bull's strength.

 

Kmonster is right. It doesn't stack.

 

Thanks for the tips everyone. My party is now long past the goblin fortress, and doing much better. I don't want to post any major spoilers, but I figure the game is several years old now so most people probably know about the plot points...

At any rate... SPOILERS BELOW ---


We're in the Ice Palace now, I've just killed Sherincal (sp) which was a strangely easy fight, no one came close to death and I did it on the first try with no reloads.

My party consists of level 8's and 9's now. My mage is a fireball-tossing machine while my cleric (my god I forgot how powerful clerics are in 3e) seems to be the main reason for my party's newfound success.

I'm starting to agree with you all about my rear-guard fighter. He's helpful in certain situations (especially with his extended polearm reach), but I do kind of wish I had either separated the rogue/ranger into a rogue and a ranger, or just gone with a 5 man party w/ rogue. Still, he's come this far with my team, so I won't abandon him. Heck, he's a dependable and nice enough guy. It would be wrong to leave him behind in the snowy mountains.

I'm very interested in hearing more tips. The one's I've read so far are very enlightening. It's a shame that barbarian rage and bull's strength doesn't stack. Kind of ruins one of the barbarian's class features (until greater rage). I think the barbarian is, right now, one of my most fun party members. She sees a monster, gets really ticked off, and then charges in and criticals it for like 34 damage. It's great fun. Reminds me of Minsc...

 

The strength bonuses wont stack but the constitution and dex bonuses will (unless you cast other similar spells).

Enough buffs can really improve your parties lot. What stats do your fighter, paladin, barbarian and cleric have? Cos it can be useful to dual them to gain other benefits. For instance, dual your paladin to a watcher of helm to get some additional battlefield healing and buffs, or your barbarian to fighter to get weapon focus for increased damage, and some feats that may be useful.

Some classes like wizard and cleric shouldnt be dualled early because they really gain in power a lot with higher levels. But barbarians and paladins are prime candidates for dualling. In particular I wouldnt level a paladin past 3 because their spells are useful.

But if you want a pure class from a role playing point of view, or if you just plain like them, thats fine.

Otherwise there are only a few general strategies in these games:

1) Buff and attack while your spellcasters disable, cause pandemonium and destruction.
2) Buff and summon and attack while your spellcasters do their thing again.
3) Summon, buff the summons and stand back.
4) Get your spellcasters to launch area of effect spells out of the enemies sight range. Like web and stinking cloud followed by malison, a few fireballs and abi dalzims horrid wilting if you have it.

Since you are obviously a melee player, play to your strong points, namely use your magic to enhance your fighters prowess rather than replace them. I like buffs like Bless, Mass Haste, Aura of Vitality and Emotion: Hope because they are low on micromanagement and high on duration.

 

Thanks kmonster. So... any good reason for a powergamer to take barb levels?

 

"Any good reason for a powergamer to take barb levels?"

For a character who's mostly a Fighter? Maybe not. Is the ability to use a Rage or 2 a day and a few extra HP really worth the loss of the extra feats? Maybe not. It should be remembered that, IIRC, if a barb wears heavy armor, he loses his barbarian speed, so that's something to consider as well.


OTOH, a barbarian/rogue combo might have some advantages. Don't think that I'm saying that it's the best combo around, but it does have some interesting possibilities, both in terms of role playing and the symbiosis of the 2 classes' native abilities.
Barb speed would work well with a rogue, since rogues normally wear light armor. The extra HP certainly would come in handy for a rogue. And I suppose that a certain type of rogue might be able to get some value from a barbarian rage.


I suppose that there might be some other interesting combos. Barbarian/Ranger? Barb/Cleric? Barb/Druid? (Yes, the latter 2 would end up laming the divine spellcasting, but there might be RP reasons for creating such a combo.)