Icewind Dale II Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Tiamat)

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

To buy or not to buy: I said it at the beginning of the project, and I'll say it again: if you have any doubts about Aspect X of Icewind Dale II, wait for a number of reviews to come out. Wait for friends to buy the game and ask them what they think. I don't really mind if people don't like our games, but I hate it when people buy our games and expect it to be something it is not.

Returning Items: There are a few "returning arrows" (and bolts, etc.) that you can find.

Half-orc PnP stats: In PnP, I think that +2 to Strength, -2 to Intelligence, +2 to Intimidate, with Scent, and Endurance feats for free make as much sense as any of the other racial benefits enjoyed by other races.

Scent: Have you even read the Scent description in the DMG? Page 81:
Variant Rule: Characters with Scent
Half-orcs and gnomes, as well as many types of NPC humanoids such as orcs and gnolls, can take Scent as a feat.
I wrote this in a previous thread: THE USEFULNESS OF STATS CAN ONLY BE MEASURED ON A PER-CHARACTER BASIS. When someone says that Strength grants bonuses to hit and damage "for all characters" and dismisses the role of Intelligence because "only wizards and rogues really need it", they miss the point entirely. Wizards with a 20 Strength certainly have a better chance of hitting in melee than a wizard with a 10 Strength, but who sends their wizards into melee when they can still cast spells?
A bonus that is never used isn't a bonus. Stacking on penalties for stats that have more class-specific bonuses doesn't do anything but pigeonhole a race even more. Half-orcs only "work" when you go with the grain. More than any other race, going against the grain (like making a half-orc bard, for instance) ends in ruin. I've also pointed out that ONLY character generation and race "balancing" use special scales and systems for how stats work. Spells, magic items, and other effects that modify ability scores do not discriminate on what stat they are modifying, nor on what the final score will be after the modifier is added.

Clerics alignments and undead spells: Good and neutral clerics turn/destroy, evil clerics rebuke/command.

When to announce golden finger: When our games go gold, we usually wait a few days to make sure everything is "absolutely good for reals" before announcing it. NOBODY likes false starts.
Huh? Mumbo jumbo talk? I was telling people that we often don't announce that our game has gone gold until a few days after the fact. If the game goes gold and then some strange circumstance reverses that status, it gets people all worked up for no good reason. There's no point in telling someone that there's a gold master ready until that gold master has actually been double/triple/quadruple verified for duplication.
There's nothing diplomatic about saying it; it's a matter-of-fact statement.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Can Barbarians Rage in heavy armor? In IWD2 they can, and mine often do. The only penalty is they lose their speed benefit when wearing heavy armor.

Random treasure and bosses: There are creatures in the game, particularly the boss creatures, that will drop the weapon they are wielding (a unique item). On that same token, the mini-bosses will sometimes drop a random item. Some mini-bosses have a random drop script that will have them drop one of a selection of armors, or a script just for weapons, or potions, etc. Usually these drops correspond to what the creature is. If the mini-boss is a warrior, then you'll probably get some sort of weapon or armor. If it's a magic user, then maybe a high level scroll or potion. Of course I'm summarizing, but this is basically how it works for bosses and mini-bosses.

Darren Monahan, Producer

Game Length: One nice thing about IWD2 is it is much longer than IWD was. There is a lot more going on as well. I hope you guys won't be disappointed.

Chad Nicholas, Sciptor

All stats are created equal: I'd say it's the developer's responsibility to make sure each stat is just as important as the others. Otherwise, if one stat isn't very important, a race that gets a penalty or bonus to it is no longer penalized/rewarded as much. Furthermore, it only serves to pigeonhole that race into stereotyped classes.

I've reloaded games after having my low CHA druid talk to someone instead of my high CHA cleric due to the aftermath of dialog choices present. Seems like CHA is pretty useful in IwD2 ('a dungeon crawl') as well.

One other point I'd like to make is that I really don't give a rat's a** how many people plan to make a party that is physical-stat heavy. What I care about is that everyone has the OPTION to have the freedom to create the character(s) that they want. I often see this mentioned on the boards; that there are going to be a million Drizzts or whatever. So far, I'm not surprised to have not seen one Drizzt clone. People are playing what they want to play, and not everyone wants to play the same munchkin characters you'll see posted on various fora.

Torment didn't focus on mechanics, so I don't see why every CRPG is relegated to ONLY mechanics. Granted, IwD2 is a pretty mechanics heavy game, but there ARE dialog options that can make your characters' life easier or more difficult. If a CRPG can't find a balance between mechanics and actual role-playing, then it's not much of a Computer Role Playing Game as it is a Computer Roll Playing Game.

Sorcerer vs. wizard on spell selection: Whenever I've played a sorcerer, I've thought about the spell selection FAR MORE than with a wizard. Why? Because a sorcerer only has one recurring point in their career when they can choose a new spell, and that's a level up. Make a bad choice and you're stuck for what could seem like a very LONG time.

Here's an Example: Pick Negative Energy Ray as an offensive spell, then you come to find out that you're going to be going up against undead for a very long time.

- Sorcerer = screwed
- Wizard = "Wait a few seconds while I swap this spell out for another one, folks."

Sorcerer and dialogue skills: One thing people seem to be forgetting is that none of the dialog skills are class skills for sorcerers. They're cross-class skills. That, coupled with the fact that sorcerer's get the same base skill points per level as a wizard, means that their Persuasion skill is going to be just as high as a Bard's, but will quickly fall behind what with the cross-class skill max ranks limit. Two skill points per level means ONE of the dialog skills can be raised ONE point every time the sorcerer levels (assuming an INT modifier of 0). This of course means that the sorcerer is going to give up on Spellcraft and/or Concentration.