My 30th playthrough

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This is my 30th (or something) playtrough of IWD with HOW and TotLm. I have tweakpack and fixpack installed. Thanks to the gibberlings for these mods. It was a real relief to get stackable items, and loads of small fixes.

I am NOT tired of this game yet. Some call it too linear, too much hack'n'slash. I still love it. The areas are just beautiful. The story is linear, yes, but it is still a great story. I even get to create all the npc-bantering myself - In my head (lol).

I wanted to make some multi-class, in the past i mostly played the game with no multi classes, 4-6 members. Well this time i will go with max. 3 members. I was thinking a Fighter/Thief, and a Cleric/Mage could do the job. And perhaps a Bard, as third??? (Can i multiclass a Bard?)

The game is running so fast. 60 AI updates, it's a pleasure to run through Easthaven in this speed (and in 1024x768). I had to turn of static animations, and some spell effects, that was slowing down the pace. Now it's great- Like everyone in Forgotten Realms has got a pair of "Boots of Speed". Even loading and saving is ultra-fast... -
But i have to pause a lot in the combat, if i want to read all the text.

By the way: I'm playing casual (with "rest everywhere"), and most of the time on easy. Then i level up faster, and the game won't have me reload all the time, and i already did hardcore runs in the past... In the days before HOW.

I'm just gonna speed-run through the game in a couple of days, as i know of all the quests, and don't have to read all the dialogue again It's gonna be fun to see all the awesome areas again.

I will post my adventures here, in case it will be my last re-run (Erhm ...But i doubt that, really...)

Thank you for reading, my friend

 

multiclass

This is fun. The first part was easy. I made a Fighter/Thief, Missy and a Cleric/Mage, Grynthyr. Started with these two, and later i made a Bard.

I plyed the game last night, it went smooth until i reached Dorn's Deep.

Here comes a few spoilers, if you haven't played the game yet, stop reading now:

Spoiler

We started out in fine shape from Easthaven, but after our meeting with the giants things started to go wrong. We were freezing our toes off and just needed to get to Kuldahar, so we could meet this Druid person. He convinced us to help, though. Seems to be the only way to get away from this hellhole.

We fought Lysan and I really wanted to put my hands around that Kresselack dude's neck. Then the druid send us off on a journey to some old temple. It took us several days to get there, only to find we were too late. Back in Kuldahar we were told to go to Dragons Eye, and that was where we met the third member of the party, the Bard Maya. She was lost i guess. She would have gotten eaten on her own, so we took her in the party and in no time she proved valuable. Funny how we are all half-elves. We made it out of Dragons Eye alive, but back in Kuldahar, evil was afoot. We got tricked, but i almost knew something was wrong. We proceeded to Severed Hand, an old elven fortress.

Here we met some evil spirits, and a few nice ones too. Missy got a nice pair of boots, and Grynthyr found an old, but enhanced morning star. We helped Laurel repair the machine, and he agreed to help us find the source of evil.

But now we are getting beat up pretty bad. We're in Dorn's Deep. Almost got killed by those drow scum. The game is hard now, with only half the party members i am used to. Got some cool spells to help me out, but i'm not sure it's enough.

I will find out later today
Thanks for reading, friends

 

Are you using your Bard in the fights? Or is he/she mainly supporting with Bard songs?

 

Myrkul- i know that name from somewhere...

BOTH!

Maya is awesome with bow or crossbow, but mostly she is casting spells. And she has got the most wonderful voice, it can heal almost any wound.

 

internal server error

Hi guys, I'm having troubles with connecting to the BOM

I wanted to post more updates, but the server is very very slow.

Anyway, my party is still alive, we are now in Lower Dorn's Deep.

Muliclassing is strange, my Cleric/Mage is getting far behind the F/T, and Maya the Bard is on her way to "Godlike"

Spoiler

We almost got killed by all the nasty thieves that ambushed us, and the archers in the tower almost got Maya. She is a tough little one, though and once again we survived.

Thank you for reading,

(Really hope the Boards will stop acting this slow)

 

Thank You Taluntain.

If i had anything, i would support you, perhaps after christmas

And now for my playthrough:


Things are going fine for my little 3-person party. I had to change to "easy" at some places.

Spoiler

But things are a bit easier now, after defeating Kontik and getting his magic ring, and Joril's Axe isn't that bad. We also went to see a thief named Marketh, and some of his friends had some cool gear we could borrow.

Then we met this evil wizard, he almost eliminated us all with his stupid spells. First he sent his golems after us, and then he casted web-spells all over, so we couldn't move. And he had a spell that gave us lots of damage. A good thing my C/M had a few heal spells.

Now the Fire Giants was annoying, 'cos they stood in the way of Ilmadia, i couldn't attack her. Had to find my precious potions in the bag of holding we bought in Kuldahar. With the Giants down, it didn't take too long to finish Ilmadia. So now we are going to that last room, to see if we can find an exit.

We also found some stuff to give Larrel and his friend in the Severed Hand. Have to go back there soon.

Uh and that stupid drow, NYM. He started all of this - We killed him quick, after getting all his magic arrows

Thanks for reading

 

The End

My party of three could not survive....

Spoiler

... In the dungeons of the Luremaster...

They should have had more companions. They simply had no chance against the Harpies. This has always been the toughest fight in IWD (IMO), and i tried every option this time. Regardless Grynthyr, Maya and Missy are now dead and gone. They never made it out alive. Hobart was really sad. And back in the Babarian Camp, the old Seer was waiting in vain.

The End

(Until i make my 31. playthrough)

 

Did you get bored or you really couldn't win the fight (even on the easiest difficulty) ?

 

BORED?
The Luremasters Dungeon is a place, where you don't get bored.

Spoiler

No- I really couldn't win.

With only three in the party, and not really high enough level it was too hard, even on easy... And i just hate harpies, they really are the most annoying monsters in the game ...

No sweat, i started a new party again. This time, we'll get them

 

Hi Hugin!

i could not agree more with your opinions on IWD getting the feedback of being linear and dull.
the fact that you can create the main protagonist from scratch and even all the party members they way YOU want is a relief. what other game has that i ask?

IWD is for the hardcore players who don´t need their hand held and can think for themselves. when i read on the iwd wiki that players compared it to Diablo i had to laugh in mockery. how is it possible? hack´n slash ? HAHAHA. how about tactical combat you can always find ways to improve, with spells/equipment for the task at hand and ever challenging encounters.


when playing IWD my imagination is thriving and developing in a way i never tough possible. The lack of party dialogue compared to BG1 is just refreshing and is just what makes IWD non-linear. you can make your own goddamn dialogue and fantasy. BG1 has just as much killing as IWD by my measure. PPL do not know what they are talking about - the bandwagon force majure.

my rant for now. more to come.

 

I love IWD but I am not sure I can agree with you here. My reasoning is that many of the things you are trying to say IWD is not or how it compares to other games are the opposite of how I feel or they are what I like about the game. LEt me just go through what you are saying piece by piece and see wher I agree or disagree.

1. The ability to create the whole party by scratch is a great boon for the game but it is also a limitation. By making the whole party you do not get the party interactions and conversations that you get from BG or Torment. The saving grace of course is that IWD is not trying to be those games and so the loss of this is minor so long as tactical D&D combat is your goal. My wife will not come close to finishing IWD because she finds it lacking in these areas as those are the sort of things she likes. On the other hand I have completed IWD a bunch of times because I like the fights and getting loot. I like the other style too but most of the Bioware games have that so IWD is oddly the change of pace game for hack and slash. I do not mind the loss of conversations too much because in many ways they would be a distraction since there really are not that many opportunities in IWD for conversations with NPCs unlike say BG2 where individual quests can involve a bunch of NPCs all around the game. The simplicity at times is a real featrue as it lets me stop talking and get fighting.

2. First not holding your hand seems to be quite derogatory and I don't think it is necessary. I know plenty of people that would not like IWD and it has nothing to do with difficulty. It is due to its linear hack and slash type game play which is a very good description of the game. Personally I find that to be a bonus. Sometimes I want to play a game with the simple task of "Kill all monsters" and this game fits that desire. Hack and Slash is not a dirty term if that is what you want from a game. As for comparisons to Diablo in what they said it does fit. They are both straight forward monster killing games and both are excellent. I do think you hit the key difference between the two as Diablo is by far more of an individual against the horde (though you may bring some friends along) while IWD is a small group tactical fighting game. I want both in my library depending on my mood.

I would also say that in Diablo you get the improvements as you go and add skills/spells and it actually does an even better job of changing up the experience. IWD never changes Diablo 2 will give you a different map every time and different sets of enemies in different spots every time. Once again though you will not control a full party directly in Diablo so IWD has a unique option where it shines.

3. Lack of dialogue does not make the game less linear. The lack or presence of dialogue has nothing to do with that. It is a very linear game because you play the game in a set order of areas with really no branching out. Dragon Age is not so linear. When you play the game you can choose what faction to try to recruit and often you can choose how you handle a situation and that changes how the game progresses. BG2 is also not so linear because you can choose from a bunch of quests to get the money you need and therefor many ways to do what you want to do. There are only a couple of quests that are mandatory in the game and you have a lot of freedom of when to complete them. Oddly the expansion is much less so. It has more freedom than IWD but compared to SoA ToB just does not give you as many options. IWD lacks that almost entirely outside of having some side quests for some XP and items (but do not really change the game play or story).

Also I say you are also incorrect on the amount of killing in BG to IWD. IWD has far more combat and monsters to kill. Heck I might have killed more cold wights in that one cave than I did wandering monsters in BG all game put together.

On the plus side the fights in IWD are also more involved especially in HoW mode. Fighting the late game battles in HoW (such as against the fire giants or drowned dead) become epic contests which BG does not even come close to trying to do. Even BG2 does not come close in that regard as most fights in BG2 can be decided fairly quickly especially at high level if you know what you are doing. This makes sense though as combat is the selling point of IWD hence why I think they gave it a HoW mode in the first place while BG2 does not.

As for lack of dialogue being a benefit I don't know if I would go that far. I think that the idea of imagining your own dialogues in game is a happy coincidence and not something that was actually planned in the game but good on you for finding something like that to make yourself happy.


I love IWD but I don't really understand why we would want to make it something it is not. It is the great AD&D dungeon crawl, with some small amount of plot (at least it tries many old school dungeon crawls had no real story what so ever outside of you want the stuff that is there), and many great fights. It really isn't trying to be the BG series (the mid ground game of plenty of fights just not quite as much and a bit more story) or Torment (lots of story and fighting can be very much in the minority) but that is OK as being a part of this triumvirate it allows you to feed your desire to destroy your enemies when the other games just won't cut it.

 

By today's standards I'm an old-time gamer. I think I'm second generation RPG player, as I didn't discover RPGs until the late 1980's, although I did have a first generation Intellivision video game system growing up.

The lack of banter is nothing new. I can't really recall any party banters before Final Fantasy IV/IIUS (I only knew it as Final Fantasy II when playing on a friend's SNES, I wouldn't learn about the IV for another six to eight years, I just can't recall the dates), and those were only in cut-scenes.

Liner gameplay isn't that bad either. I can name tons of GREAT RPGs that had liner gameplay. In fact, for many years it was the norm, with only a few side quests to divert you from the liner gameplay.
Bard's Tale is an example of liner gameplay.
Final Fantasy I-IV is also mostly liner with only sidequests for branching out. They didn't get true nonliner gameplay until the 5th, and then pretty much only in the second half. Heck, it was more like Baldur's Gate with the main quest being liner but with plenty of side quests.

Creating the entire party is neither a plus nor a minus, it's a preference. There are times in BG & BG2 when I like to make my own party instead of having to find the appropriate NPCs. Some like being forced to make due with what the game designers pick, others like being able to customize their party. It's a gameplay choice, and personal preferences. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Different strokes for different folks.

Overall, I found the Icewind Dale games to be equal to the Baldur's Gate games, but slightly different. Much like most don't lop Planescape:Torment into being the same as the BG series, Icewind Dale has its own style.

The one thing I do find disconcerting is that the magic spells are often implemented subtly differently in IWD1 than in the Baldur's Gate games, such that some spells are more effective in IWD than in BG and vice-versa. The Druid spell Entangle is the most obvious, but there are others. This necessitates different spell picks and usages from the different games, even they are all supposed to be using the same AD&D 2nd edition rules and mechanics.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but something that sometimes catches me off guard if I've been playing one game then switch to the other.

 

To Yoshi

Thank you for taking the time to post an insightful reply.
You have shined some new light on my view of IWD.

I agree now on the fact that IWD is linear as it offers no free roam etc. but not as far as calling it hack and slash just because we don't have party banter and so forth. (wich is similar to diablo games) as you said in your post IWD offers a different experience than BG. i can see a similarity to Diablo, vaguely.. if only for the isometric view.

i feel there is a lot more depth to IWD and i cannot say my experience playing diablo is anything similar or as rewarding as my understanding and love for the game grows. (IWD) It is set in the Forgotten Realms setting as we all know which is more rich on lore than a dragons cache. I haven't really missed the dialogue because all other RPG´s are full of it.

as it is somewhat a trademark for a game to be called an RPG. So i guess IWD is called hack and slash for the lack of.

The fact that IWD is turn based confuses me when the wiki can compare it to diablo. if it where compared to Chess i would agree.

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To Slick

You are right, it all comes down to preference and what you feel like playing.

 

There have always been non-linear RPGs. Realms of Arkania series is a good example. But you are right, lack of party banter has been a norm until BG, etc....

 

Might and Magic I and II are the first open-sandbox games I can think of. They were published in 1986 and 1988, over five years before Realms of Arkania.
It takes forever just to find the main quest in Might and Magic II. IIRC (since I haven't played in a long time) The manual tells you about the setting, but doesn't give you much of a hint as to what your overall goal is, just that you're a bunch of adventurers looking for adventure. It gives you a wonderful backstory on the world that contains hints, but it all seemed like flavor text to me.

If you can deal with really dated graphics, I'd strongly recommend them. I've got the Apple II versions and somebody gave me the MS-DOS version in 1996 along with an ancient laptop with CGA graphics and some old games.

The graphics are bad by today's standards, especially the first one which is CGA only (I'd actually recommend the Apple II version on Asimov as the Apple II's graphics are better than CGA)

I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but I'm just saying that open sandbox games have been around even longer.

It's not an RPG, but an Adventure game (nowadays it's probably called interactive fiction), but I recall that Sierra On-Line made a big deal about the three possible paths to take in their game Gold Rush back when I was new to computer gaming in 1988 or 1989 (when the Apple IIGS port came out).
The covers can be see here.
http://www.sierragamers.com/aspx/m/643921

Might and Magic came out around the same time.