Do you know some potent spell combinations?

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For defense and offense, clerics druids and mages...
Also intended to be used with the iwd2tactics mod

 

Greater Malison + Prayer + Recitation + Emotion: Despair - any combination of these works well, get them all off and your enemies incur a whopping total of -7 saving throws.

Call Lightning & Static Charge + Invisibility
Cheeeeeeeese basically walk around near the enemies, having call lighting and static charge shock them periodically. works against anything that doesn't have any way of dispelling your invisibility/immunity to lightning damage.

Grease + Web + Entangle + Stinking Cloud - combine 2 or 3 of these to effectively lock down an area, anything walking through it without free action will probably get stuck and die before reaching you. be sure to give your characters free action if you want to move in for the kill.

a higher level combo would be Acid Fog + Spike Growth + Spike Stones - while not grounding the enemy, all these spells have considerable slow effects, making sure the enemy isn't going to get to you in a hurry. on top of that, they also damage the enemy. can be combined with some of the above spells to ensure the enemy cannot escape.

any (combination) of the above + Cloudkill/Fiery Cloud - as long as enemies are stuck, might as well lay down an area of effect spell to damage them down.

 

Do all those buffs and debuffs in the game stack?

 

Greater Malison + Prayer + Recitation + Emotion: Despair should stack just fine, yeah.

same for Grease/Web/Entangle/Stinking Cloud, they all have debilitating effects but work in different ways.

with the Acid Fog + Spike Growth + Spike Stones combo, as i understand it - if two spells cut move speed in half, 100% movespeed / 2 is 50, then again, 50% movespeed /2 = 25% move speed.

 

I didn't think the slow stacked, but the damage definitely does as does the save penalty. Also chant stacks, but has side effects to the cleric.

Always throw out a damage over time spell with the grease, web, entangle, and stinking cloud spells, and never throw a DoT spell without a crowd control spell.

 

i'm not a 100% sure about the slow as well, but it's what i remember from a previous thread, to lazy to test it at any rate

I sometimes forego the crowd conrol spell, and just root the enemy in place with animated skeletons, since they're nearly impervious to magic anyway, and they don't care about standing inside a cloudkill.

 

Was it BG or IWD1 that had the skeletons go hostile if exposed to cloudkill or stinking cloud?
I recall that surprised and annoyed me. I'm not sure if I tried it in IWD2 because of that.
I almost want to say it was BG2 & skeleton warriors.

 

Yeah, as i recall it was in bg2, i can't remember ever having skeletons go hostile on me in iwd1 using this tactic, and i've used it quite a bit

 

Poor man's decoy bombardment: Sic a bunch of undead summons at your enemy, let the undead get surrounded by the angry mob and start tossing Cloudkills around. Or even better, Horrid Wiltings.

Spells with slowing effects do not stack, all you get is them constantly overwriting each other's effects.

 

They may not stack, but they do increase the chance of the enemy being affected. Even grease, with its easier save due to being a 1st level spell, can give you an extra chance to slow the enemy. It's smaller AoE in this game is the main disadvantage.
If you're layering the spells and have the time, go ahead and add grease even if you are using a higher level slowing spell.
Also, since unless you're playing HoF mode, you're probably not going to be able to cast 6th & 7th level spells for some time, I should point out that Grease, web, and entangle do stack. You want them to be webbed, but grease can slow them down and keep them in the "kill zone" longer, as can entangle.
Stinking cloud also stacks.
Each spell requires a separate save, so it's a separate chance for them to fail. In fact, all the persistent spells work that way. Even if the effect doesn't stack, it's extra chances to get a failed save. Combine that with the damage dealing type of persistent AoE spells and it sets up a rather lethal "kill zone", so adding more disablers that keep them in the kill zone even if the effects don't stack is still a good idea.
If you aren't using spells like spike growth, cloud kill, and the improved higher level versions of them, then it's not so necessary to add the extra slow spells since you don't really need to keep them in one area, just break up the formations.

 

Yes, that's true as well. Multiple persistent spells = more saving throws that could fail. Also, disablers such as Web and Stinking Cloud do "stack" in the sense that you can be both webbed and nauseated, but the net effect is the same: that particular mob isn't going anywhere fast.

 

Summons + Area buffs (especially Mass Haste)

Slowing effect + Damage over time, take your combo pick

Save-lowering debuffers + Chromatic Orbs (monsters & clerics often have low reflex saves)
- debuffers as above, then Greater Command or Mass Dominate

My personal favourite:
Finger on the pause button whenever you're not doing something, then....
Long-term: Bless + Bull's Str + Cat's Grace + Magic Circle Against Evil + Iron/Stoneskin + Mage Armor

set "AutoPause: after Spell is Cast"

Then before difficult encounters: Prayer + Recitation + Holy Aura + Emotion: Hope + Mirror Image + Mass Haste + Eagle's Splendor + Aura of Vitality

There are more buffs, but these are the best ones. With the "Finger on spacebar + AutoPause" combo, this pre-buffed party can rarely make a wrong step, and will rush to chapter 6 like they're out to break a speed record! That is, in-game passage of time.

 

I'd hold off on Prayer and Recitation until after the battle is joined.
Those not only buff party members, but they inflict the reverse on the enemy.
Prayer in particular has a great AoE.
Recitation doesn't seem as powerful as it did in IWD1, when it was just nasty when you first got it, especially combined with Prayer, but it's still effective.

I don't understand why so many people overlook the fact that those two affect enemies and waste half the spell's power by using it to pre-buff the party before encountering the enemy.
Use it so the enemy gets hit with it as well and it effectively doubles the effect.

 

Excellent point. My party has 2 clerics to do exactly this.

Personally, I found the initial combat round to be too vital for attack spells. It's a cost-benefit judgement I made for my own playstyle. Most of the time, I sacrifice -3 to enemy rolls for safer casting of initial attack spells.

Prayer and Recitation both center around the caster IIRC, which means that in order to get enough enemies within its radius, they need to be almost on top of you. If you cast a high-level offensive spell after this, a few concentration checks will be made due to melee. But casting them when battle is joined, as you say, will be quite effective i.c.w. enchantments and other party-friendly offensive spells.

There are occasions where every penalty inflicted is vital. Like with powerful enemies that need to be taken down. In some cases, I do make the effort of Prayer/Recitation during combat. I may even pull out Chant as well, if I'm confident I won't need one of my clerics to cast anything for the next 10 rounds.

 

I'll often prebuff with the party-only spells, then lay in with the attack spells, often having a druid lead with entangle if I'm going for a kill zone since most of the other spells that hinder movement like that are mage spells. If I'm doing the kill zone, I'll cast Entangle, then spike/thorn growth and then I'll use the Prayer or Recitation spells to enhance save penalties and bolster the party further.

If I'm not using a kill zone for whatever reason (and I generally only do that for major battles) I'll lead with an attack spell that doesn't rely too much on saves and then use prayer/recitation in the second or third round before casting more attack spells.

Oh, for kill zones, I'll generally have all but the tank start taking pot-shots at the "stuck" enemies with ranged weapons, while the tanks form a shield wall at the edge of the kill zone to try to keep them in it.
The shield wall isn't always successful because I never really have more than two true tanks. I have clerics, druids and bards that I sometimes melee but it isn't the same.

 

My high-CON clerics are my tanks, together with my high-AC druidX/monk1. Perhaps I've undervalued the importance of Prayer & Recitation as in-battle debuffs. Since they last decently long as buffs, I'll often rush ahead to the next mob before they wear out.

This gets me in the mood for ID2 again... if only I had the time.

 

I learned about Prayer in the Gold Box games.
In those, it simultaneously casts bless on your party and curse on all the enemies.
The Icewind Dale games were the first CRPG games I saw with Recitation, and I don't recall it in Neverwinter Nights either. It was basically a prayer on steroids. Actually, I don't recall seeing it elsewhere besides the book "Spells and Magic" by Richard Baker.
For some reason, Recitation seemed disproportionately powerful in Icewind Dale I, but not quite as powerful in IWD2.
In IWD1, it seemed to be as effective as Malison was in Baldur's Gate II, plus seeming to have more effect on the enemy's hit rates than a mere +2 THAC0 should.

Recitation doesn't seem quite as effective in IWD2, but it does increase the chance that the enemy will miss a save, and gives a -2 to hit. Every little bit helps.

 

I'm surprised no one's mentioned summons + Mold Touch. 2-3 castings could wipe out anything from a few groups to an entire zone if you have a stealthed character shadow your summoned minions. Cheap alternative to a kill zone at lower levels, and just incredibly fun to watch at higher levels.

 

I think the reason why this spell is less powerful in IWD2 might have something to do with the differences between the rule set ( such as THAC0 and AB , or HD and HP……..).

IMHO many players prefer to casting the spells before the battle because IWD2 is more “real-time” than “turn-based” and the spell Prayer/Recitation needs too much time to cast . Without DM you can hardly find an “appropriate encounter” in the game . This means if your party is overwhelmed by enemies Prayer/Recitation won’t help too much ,and if you can easily dispatch them with swords then the two spells seem to be a little … lavish .Still, Prayer and Recitation are very good in spell fight ,since caster can always find ways to hold enemies in place…...

 

Actually, 2nd edition used HD as well. Not as often, but look at the first level wizard spell sleep.

I hope that English isn't your first language, as this grammar is atrocious.
I'm honestly not sure what you mean by "Without DM" since I usually associate "DM" with "Dungeon Master", and if that is the meaning, I'm still not sure what you are trying to say.

As for how to make it help when you are overwhelmed, have the cleric cast Recitation, then have him immediately start on prayer while every other caster in the party starts casting those spells that require failed saves. Try to time it so the prayer goes off first, and the enemies have a -3 to all their saving throws, making the other caster's spells more likely to succeed. This can turn the tide with something like Greater Command, Horror, symbol: stun, hold person, confusion, slow, emotion, and many others.
If the cleric doesn't have many other useful combat spells left, in theory throwing in a chant to make it -4 might be worth it, but that's three rounds to lower saving throws, and if you're overwhelmed, you might not last that long before firing off your "big guns". I've only done that once, and that was because the battle lasted too long and many of my other spells had worn off, chant helped turn the tide as I had the others empty their spell books and I squeaked out a Pyrrhic victory.
Of course, I probably reloaded to bring back the dead and try again with better preparation.