Viciscamera Heart

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Tried a search with the thread title but couldn't find it exactly.

A couple of things I am in the laboratory and I just forget how to interact such to make potions etc. How to 'do things' in the laboratory. I have a Wizard (diviner) with plenty of intelligence and skills (alchemy, knowledge arcana, spell craft). The only thing I read online is to do dialogue with the golem to activate it.

And the second question: I have usually not really realized that sneaking to the Viciscamera Heart and dumping the potion in will kill all the cacoons. My question is would that be a great xp loss? How much xp do you get for directly killing the Heart (before they hatch) as compared to letting them hatch and killing them all. I think with my party right now I am getting about 400 xp for a Drider so if I miss out on killing 20 Driders (don't know how many) that would be a loss to the party of about 8000 xp. Every play through I have done I always killed the whole room of spawns without sneaking. I can't see the amount of xp awarded on the sneak/potionkill because my game is not modded to see quest xp awards.

Thanks!

 

you can activate to see quest xp in the (ingame) game options, iirc.

 

"you can activate to see quest xp in the (ingame) game options, iirc."

I don't think so. I'm on mac with game from gog.com.. No option for this in gameplay, keyboard, sound, or graphics. I think it is a Weidu mod thing that adds the actual numbers instead of 'experienced gained'. I don't want to install that in case problems with running the Weidu mod on a mac. I'm not very computer skilled here.

 

I'm pretty sure that it is in the separate config program, but I've only used the original Windows version that came on two CDs.
Either that, or you edit the .ini file, I don't remember.
The computer IWD2 is installed on is busy at the moment with somebody using Word on it because they like Word 2003 better than the modern versions. I'll post back soon.

In any case, back to the original question, I don't recall the details on the answer, but I can tell you that the amount of XP you gain for killing monsters varies depending on the average level of your party. If you are too high a level you can get nothing, if you are low level you can get extremely high amounts of experience. That is why the practice of taking level 1 "mules" along sprange up, to cheat the system by using only 5 or less characters and having some dead weight that would just hide in the shadows and not participate in the adventure. It resulted in more XP than just taking 4-5 characters because (5 characters)*(level of characters)+(1 level 1 mule, making it +1)/6 is less than 5*(level)/5.
Note that with ECL characters, only your actual levels count, so they too help bring down the average level.

The point is, we can't give you a percise answer of how much XP you get for the driders without knowing your party composition and level, or at least what the average level of the party is, and note what I said about ECL levels not counting.

 

I just checked again. It is not ingame but the external config.exe. this was one of the few differences between internal and external config. I'm also using the gog version but on linux.

 

Thanks for the information people. I was getting 412 xp per Drider. I believe I had average party level just under 12. I know about level squatting and about ECL doesn't count towards it. I didn't know about the idea of adding new party members as you go. I read about that here at sorcerer's place. Next time I might try that. For this run I do use 'lite' level squatting. I don't like to have invisible mules and I don't like to squat a long time and then level a huge amount. For me 'squatting lite' is I don't level up before resting on casters etc. Also in certain select cases I might wait until leveling levels up 2 levels but only in certain cases where I evaluate that 1 level gain doesn't help much and if I 'feel like it'. I also usually level up all characters fully before opening a new map of spawns but not always.

Oh and also I never figured out how to see the xp granted but I just went and cleared all the spawns out of the cocoons as it seemed 412 xp was pretty good per kill.

Thanks.

 

Ok, It is in the configuration program included with the Windows version.
In the Windows version, the old version from over 10 years ago, goto the Game tab, and it is the first option under "Game Settings".




Also, in the Icewind2.ini file, under game options, there should be a

Code:

Show Quest XP=0

Changing the 0 to a 1 will enable showing quest XP.
It may not be present, there are at least two "hidden" options you have to add:

Code:

DefaultCharGenPointsPool=16
DefaultCharGenPoints=10

I don't know if the Mac version uses an .ini file since that was a Windows 3.1 and 9X (and to a lessor extent 2000/XP) thing that Microsoft has depreciated starting with XP and really hindered starting with Vista.

 

I do a form of "lite" level squatting when I use cross-class skills, I wait until the character can go up two levels and spend my skill points on a cross-class skill. Mostly because I can't save the points I need than for any XP exploits.