Battles, HP

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I played IWD2 twice. The last game has been finished in July 2003.

Battles. In my opinion, the battles which are supposed to be hard are only HP-eater, long drawn-out, slow ones. Few tricks needed, only "do not send the mage to kill the iron golem in melee" style. The final battle: you kill that idiot summoner mage and no creatures will come.
And the battles have no style, no good feeling like in BG1.There might be some exceptions, but only few.

 

My favorite class is Rogue. Hence my playing style is based on scouting. I like specop games and solutions.

IWDII has some places where a good positioned party members make a situation a piece of cake.

For example: my rogue destroyed 3 from 4 war drums before the horde fortress without alerting enemies - sneak to a location not seen by any enemy from where you can see a drum. Shoot it with a bow. Continue with another drum.

There are ONLY FEW such things in IWDII.

Somebody could call this cheating. I call it problem solution.

 

That is absolutely not cheating.
And most of the drums can be destroyed from the other side of the rift.

 

Well at the end of the day, IWD2 is still hack n' slash. Jagged Alliance 2 it's not. Still great fun though (right, Boo?). Only found two difficult battles. First was at the Fields of Slaughter where there was no chance to pre-buff, and there were swarms of opposition. Ended up having to use a few invisibility potions and position myself at a point where only 2 creatures could strike me at a time (was going solo). The guardian was the other one. Used call lightning (x 5), and ran around like I was being chased by a large black dragon thing.

 

@Tassadar-
Strange, I found those two battles fun, but not hard with my party . I managed to disintegrate the guardian after just one try (and a preemptive lower resist, of course) and the Crossroads battle was fun and (I think) impossible to lose since Iselore has like a million touch spells and i don't think he can die.
@Baronius
Yah, this game is a lot less plot and a lot more haaaiiiyahhh! than the BG series, that's for sure. But I fell in love when I defeated the Lost Followers tactically. I think IWD 2 is less clunky in fighting than BG (I remember Imoen and my PC traveling so slooooow I turned my comp off and watched TV ) but don't expect a romance novel that is timeless throughout the ages. IWD 2 is very enjoyable in batlle, IMO, because of the sheer variety of spells and way to do things. I too, do not want to stand through this game again in HOF, let's leave it at that.

 

@Imost
Yeah, moral of this story - don't solo a druid!! Everything I summoned got destroyed with one hit by the guardian, so the call lightning tactic was really a last resort, which worked very well, I might add. I also agree that the battles are a lot more fun in IWD2, less "clunky", and a lot more intense. Enemies throw the kitchen sink at you.

Eagerly awaiting Icewind Gate II!!

 

I think you have to remember guys the reason Icewind Dale is lacking in plot is the lack of NPCs. You have to remember this is a party created by you so the game reallly doesn't give a crap about inter-party relations or romances etc. When you think about it, it's quite difficult to incorporate NPCs into a game that uses 3rd edition rules.If you consider the multi-classing options, NPCs would just become another party member instead of an individual like they were in Baldur's Gate.