Icewind Dale II Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Tiamat)

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Dunn family: No word from the Dunns in IWD2. However, you do get to encounter Jemeliah pretty early in the game. He's working for Deirdre Galloway.

Static charge: Even in indoor environments, you can use Static Charge.

Spell stacking: Penalties always stack, and the only the highest bonus per stat of a given type applies at any given time. Since the vast majority of stat bonuses are of the Enhancement type, and creating different sub-types per bonus would have been a pain, only the highest bonus to any given stat applies at one time. So, casting Bull's Strength on a raging barbarian in IWD2 will not result in cumulative effects. However, the effects do still remain on a character, so casting Bull's Strength on a barbarian immediately before he/she leaves rage would still be beneficial.
There are two types of bonuses that affect ability scores: Inherent and Enhancement (well, Englargement affects Str and Con as well, but obviously we don't have those effects in the I.E.). The barbarian's rage is one of the only "unnamed" ability score bonuses out of all the various spells, items, and abilities that modify ability scores. So, going through the effort required to separate the two just for the barbarian's rage isn't a good use of time. If you look through the various effects from spells and items in the PH that affect ability scores, you will find very few that are not Enhancement. Barbarian rage is the only one I can think of, and even that is simply "unnamed".
Rage also raises Constitution by 4 and gives a +2 bonus to Will saves, while lowering AC by 2.

Spell Focus and Spell Penetration: The Spell Focus and Spell Penetration feats genuinely make a significant difference. Saving Throws and Magic Resistance are contested checks -- not just a stand-alone number that the targeted character needs to make.
Spells have a Difficulty Class (DC) that starts at 10. To this are added the level of the spell, the caster's ability score modifier (for wizards, Intelligence, for clerics, Wisdom, etc.), and miscellaneous bonuses (Spell Focus, Dreadmaster bonus to Will-based spells). The target must then roll a d20 and add his or her total saving throw bonus to resist. The base bonus is derived from class levels. Fighters are generally good at resisting physical attacks, but suck against mental attacks, for instance. They add the appropriate ability score modifier to their roll as well (Dex bonus for Reflex, Con for Fortitude, Wisdom for Will). If they meet or exceed the DC of the spell, they save. Otherwise, they lose.
Now, if the caster has Spell Focus or Greater Spell Focus, that's a +2 or +4 to the DCs of all spells they cast from that school. That can definitely make a big difference in the game (and often does).

Spell Resistance: Spell Resistance is also a contested check. A creature has spell resistance, which the caster tries to overcome with a d20 roll + their caster level. Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus add +2 and +4, respectively. And yes, it is often useful when fighting drow, duergar, or various other bad creatures. However, they're not as useful as the Spell Focus feats, IMO.

Saving Throws: Usually, a creature's saving throws follow the type of creature they are. "Class/leveled" monsters like enemy NPCs should be easy to figure out. Barbarian warriors have junky Will saves. Serpent's Fangs assassins have excellent Reflex saves. Sometimes, it won't be so obvious. Like -- what are a feyr's good saves?

Ninth Level Spells: You find 9th level spells with enough time before the end of the game that you can make good use of them.

Base attack bonus: It is also important to note that BAB is derived ONLY from your classes and levels, not from strength, magic, or any other foolery. If you get +5 to hit from Strength, it won't increase your number of attacks, for instance.

World Maps: There are three world maps in IWD2. That shot of the world map does not show the gray tinting on the place locations (Easthaven, Redwaters, etc.) very well. Grey tinting = landmark, not a game location. They were put in to give players a greater sense of where they are in the world.

How do you justify the existence of Dark Moon monks? In the same way that we justify the existence of the Arcane Brotherhood in IWD2: we never received an advanced copy of the book that defined these orders in greater detail (Lords of Darkness) and no one at WotC commented on their inclusion when we told them about it.
I was pretty cheery when I opened Lords of Darkness and discovered that the founder of the Arcane Brotherhood didn't even arrive in Luskan until the year in which our game takes place. Of course, Heart of Winter had Hosttower wizards running around, too, and that was around 1281. No one commented about that, either.

Why do ECL races start with XP? The ECL races have enough experience that they will reach level 2 at about the same time as other classes. This was done because in playtesting, the ECL races were simply slaughtered in the first few areas.
Think about how much a 2nd level character can take on that a 1st level character cannot. They have twice the hit points, for one thing, and that's a big deal. For casters, they often have one extra spell, which can make a huge difference at low level. I insisted that the testers try to tough it out "by the roolz", but man, they just got wasted over and over again. So, ECL races do get to 2nd level as fast as everyone else, but that's just to keep them alive.
It may have been that the testers believed svirfneblin had a particularly effective set of defensive powers that justified keeping their starting XP lower. Certainly, drow and duergar are pretty tough, but svirfneblin have +4 AC, blur, mirror image, and a bunch of other festive abilities. They seemed to suffer less in the first few areas than the other ECL races. In a lot of cases, they simply couldn't be hit at all.

Scimitars: You should be able to find plenty o' scimitars. They do less damage than longswords (1d6), but they have a greater threat range for critical hits (18-20).

Release date and new projects: No new release date yet. I asked our producer if he knew when Vivendi/Interplay PR were planning on announcing a new release date. The hope is, obviously, "soon".
We haven't announced any new projects yet, but we do have two groups working right now. I really hope we can announce Jefferson in the near future.

Yuan-ti: There are three types of yuan-ti: purebloods, halfbreeds, and abominations. Purebloods look very similar to humans, and are often mistaken for humans (like the "Eldathyn" clerics in IWD). They sometimes have features that can reveal their yuan-ti heritage, like snake eyes or scaly patches of skin. Halfbreed yuan-ti look sort of like lizardmen. They usually have scaled skin, long necks, fangs, and similar obvious snaky traits. Abomination yuan-ti are almost entirely snake, with only a few human features. Abominations were the most "obvious" yuan-ti in IWD (priests, champions, archers, etc.). All three ranks have different roles in yuan-ti society.

Weapon and spell speed: Weapon speed and casting times are still in the game. It would have been nice to change them all to the static values in 3E, but it was "risky" to say the least.
Most cleric spells will still be pretty slow, for better or worse. Since most of the boardies seem to believe that clerics have it made and wizards/sorcs sit in the doldrums of weakness, this should be good news, I guess.

Weapon focus: Any character with +1 BAB and proficiency in weapon X can take Weapon Focus with weapon X.

Release date woes: IWD2 is the only PC title that is scheduled for release before the last quarter of this year. I don't think many of us were exactly confident that IWD2 was going to ship in late May, but we didn't receive any new information about a projected release date until mid-to-late June. And then that date shifted around a bit. It's "supposedly" been settled, but again, there hasn't been an official announcement about it. In May, Interplay and Vivendi were having negotiations with each other about a) when the game would actually be ready to ship and b) based off of that, when the game would ship. Considering those conversations were ongoing at the time of Herve's "special meeting", why would he commit to something that could slip between quarters in the very near future?

We went to great pains to make the game better on a number of levels. These improvements range from the massive overhaul of the engine to accept 3E rules (which you ignore as irrelevant) to the revision of the entire interface graphically and mechanically. On top of engine changes, the designers spent a great deal of time making the dialogues deeper, more varied, and more reactive to the characters speaking. A large number of interesting puzzles and quests, interactive environment elements, and varied ways to solve problems have all been put in the game to make it better than Icewind Dale on a number of levels.

When we announced Icewind Dale II it certainly did have a May 29th release date. It also still had kits, 2nd Ed. rules, the Icewind Dale interface, and an estimated 30-40 hours of gameplay.

If you don't believe us, check out the previews of the game. These are some of the same people who slammed Heart of Winter. They definitely criticize the aged look of the Infinity Engine, but they almost all have good things to say about the improvements we made to the underlying ruleset and overall changes to gameplay focus.

We made mistakes, changed our minds on some things, debated back and forth with our consumers and each other. But very little was left to the imagination. I will go out on a limb to suggest that the Icewind Dale II community knows more about the development process of this title than any other game I've heard of. We've addressed almost every single question about rules implementation, game focus, engine structure, and related issues that players have brought up.

In May, it seemed unlikely (but still possible) to release IWD2 at the end of the month. However, there was no new release date forthcoming. None. Feargus gave estimates for the end the product's testing to the IPLY people that deal with Vivendi. These figures went back and forth and were debated and compared to the release dates of NWN and Warcraft III by Vivendi. Through all of June, I don't think I ever heard a new release date from anyone. In early July, I believe we were told Vivendi's current release date. I then heard that number change sometime in mid-July, then go back to the previous date. That's the date that should "really for reals" be the actual ship date. I could tell you that date, but it wouldn't really accomplish anything.

If it winds up actually being the release date, big deal -- it has no effect. However, if it doesn't wind up being the release date, I could get yelled at by fans and other people in my company. There's absolutely no point to announcing a release date through anything but Vivendi/Interplay PR.

The game wasn't done at the end of May. There's no denying that fact. We weren't done with it. Our fault. But the release date -- it's not even a matter of assigning "fault". Vivendi isn't at fault for shifting dates around. That's their business, literally and figuratively. They wanted a May release, that didn't happen, so it took Interplay and Vivendi a while to determine exactly when it should ship. Hopefully those dates will be forthcoming. There's no Machiavellian reason for a release date not being announced other than two large, sprawling groups of people going, "Hey, is this going to be done by N?" "Yeah." "Really? That's not what I heard from B." "Definitely. A says so." "Okay, well we have to deal with X, Y, Z. So, blah, blah, blah."

I would also like to point out a precedent for Interplay releasing titles in close proximity to direct competition: Icewind Dale. The original Icewind Dale was shipped on the same day as Diablo II. More than NWN and Warcraft III are to Icewind Dale II, Diablo II was a direct competitor to Icewind Dale. We had absolutely no problem releasing it on the same day. Icewind Dale has sold well over 300,000 units to date.

"HAW, HAW! THAT'S NOTHING COMPARED TO BALDUR'S GATE!" That's absolutely correct. It also took a year to make with a smaller development team and had a very high wholesale price. If you think Icewind Dale is nothing compared to Baldur's Gate or BG:II, rock on, brother -- but the fact is that it did make a lot of money for Interplay.

Even Heart of Winter, the ill-fated expansion to IWD, made a load of money for IPLY. Unfortunately, it did it in a kind of crummy way. Did you know that Sacrifice and Heart of Winter sold roughly the same number of units? That's right -- the Heart of Winter expansion, on one disk, with a very short development time and low cost of goods, sold at a high wholesale (too high, by many reviewer and fan estimates), got fair to bad reviews, but still sold about as much as Sacrifice. Sacrifice was in development for years, got excellent reviews, had a great looking engine, and was very high-concept. It just didn't sell very well. You may believe that Sacrifice is a much better game than HoW. If so -- that's perfectly fine. It doesn't change the facts of how profitable both titles were. Hey -- I think MDK2 is the best game BioWare's made to date. It also happens to be one of their lowest selling titles.

I suppose it is possible that everyone in Black Isle is incompetent, but our products still continue to sell. There's no reason for us to expect that IWD2 would bomb if it were released today or next week. If the original IWD could sell head-to-head with Diablo II (a more direct competitor to IWD than NWN and WCIII are to IWDII), why would we (IPLY) have any reservations about shipping IWDII as soon as reasonably possible?

Voice Acting: Tony Jay's voice lives on in my favorite IWD1 voice set -- Male Fighter 2 (the dwarf one). His voice is almost too distinctive. He was the Transcendant One in Torment and Kresselack in IWD. The narrator for all of Icewind Dale II is Kath Soucie. The character is Maralie Fiddlebender, Oswald's niece.
It's pretty amazing how well Kath Soucie does the narrator as an adult and the in-game character as a child.
The only one I might expect people to know by name is Peter Stormare. He played the head of the German nihilist techno band in The Big Lebowski and was recently in Minority Report (or so I hear).
He has a thicker Swedish accent than I expected. WOW. It's thick.

Math time: Do some math. In a round with three attacks, the fighter will do an additional six points of damage. Over three rounds, that's eighteen points. That can easily mark the difference between a dead enemy and a live one. For even stronger characters, the difference becomes more pronounced. If you have a barbarian using a spear while raging, his or her strength is up to 22 (+6). That changes the bonus to +9 total. Over three rounds with three attacks, he or she will do an additional twenty-seven points of damage.
If you're up against slashing-resistant enemies in IWD2 (and there are plenty), you have two options for alternate two-handed weapons: quarterstaff and spear. Quarterstaffs do even less damage. However, both are simple weapons, so it's not like any character is going to "lose out" -- almost everyone's proficient with spears.

Spear range: Spears actually do have a range of 2. They did in IWD as well. You can attack a creature from the behind another medium or small character. Nine Paces, however, has a range of 3. They do 1d8 damage and are two-handed, so they get the 1.5x Strength damage bonus.

Multiclassed Rogues: Towards the end of the game, multiclassed rogues can suffer. I had a dwarf rogue that took two levels of fighter (he was 15th level total at the end). It did make some of his skills suffer in noticeable ways.
The way the D&D system is set up, focused characters ultimately are more effective, overall, at higher levels. Though this might sound odd considering the "free and easy" multiclassing and skill selection in 3E, the fact is that high level DCs are set against such high values that the margin between a "focused" character and a "casual" character is much greater than at low levels.

Saving in HoF mode: Uh, I'm pretty confident that you can still save the game in Heart of Fury mode.

Maze in the following screenshot: That is the Z'hinda Citadel, once a drow blockade/fortification for the forces of Rilauven. It is occupied by something else when you arrive.

Darren Monahan, Producer

3D Support: So I'm getting myself ready for flaming, but unfortunately in the retail version of Icewind Dale II, 3D mode will not be supported. Based on the schedule of the game, we had to make decisions about what we wanted to focus our limited bug-fixing energy on and we felt that that energy should be put onto making sure the new rules and features we implemented worked as best as possible. Converting from 2E w/kits to 3E was a big gigantic undertaking - one that made the programming team put in 16-18 hour days with almost no days off for nearly four months. (I suppose that's normal for development sometimes... yikes)
Icewind Dale II took under a year to make from start to finish, and we made so many fixes and changes to the engine in that period of time. 3D, albeit interesting, still had a number of graphical and speed issues that would have required a fair amount of attention, so we took 3D support out of it in the final version.
Hopefully this won't discourage your impressions of the game, it's just one of those decisions we hate to make that had to be made.

Coming soon: It's coming soon, so very soon! Sadly that's all we can say at the moment. Until Interplay Proper announces it has gone gold, we can't give out any dates or guesses or anything like that. Just one of those things about being developers and not marketing, sales or PR folks.
Sorry - I can promise you will hear news soon though.

Outsiders and Monks level 20+: For the purposes of some effects that care if you're an outsider or not, yes we did make Monks 20+ outsiders.
We had made it so Monks 20+, Tieflings and Aasimar characters were outsiders by the 3E definition. One of the problems outsiders face is that they can get banished out of the Prime Material plane with certain spells. Some of the effects in the game that would normally get rid of elementals, extraplanar critters and other non-PC type outsiders would end up banishing your PC's too, which was just not a lot of fun as later in the game some big guys will take out your summoned critters quick.
We decided that PC outsiders will have some certain "immunities" to the outsider limitations that allow them to not be considered outsiders "by the r00lz" for the player's sake (and benefit).

Heart of Fury: Just wanted to give you some clarification on how the Heart of Fury mode works in Icewind Dale II.
ENABLING HOF: First off, you do not have to beat the game to enable it. During a period through the development of the game, we had set it up so that you'd have to beat the game through once to allow HoF to be enabled. We decided that since this is a single player game foremost, that emulating the Diablo II method was not something we felt was best for the players.
In the final version of IWD2, HoF can be turned on at any time. One notable difference is that once you turn it on, any NEW games you start in HoF mode, will ALWAYS stay in HoF mode, regardless if you turn it off in the Config program or not. Also, any previous games started that are NOT in HoF mode, will not suddenly become HoF mode games.
Why we did this is because HoF in Heart of Winter could be badly abused which we felt messed up the balance of the game too much not to deal with in IWD2.
WHAT IT DOES: It doesn't just set the difficulty to Insane and set the area difficulty to max, it does much much more to enemy stats and some critters combat AI behavior. Chickens have over 70 hit points for example and have a mean peck.
Also IWD2 now has HoF-unique items that can only be found playing in this mode.

Scott Everts, Technical Designer

Lack of 3D support in Icewind Dale II: 3D mode has always been a problem in Infinity games. Unlike 2D mode, it was problematic on various cards. Many times it caused massive slowdown or weird graphic problems. From a game standpoint it really doesn't make much difference. The fog of war looks slightly better but otherwise everything looks the same. If you were one of the lucky ones that had a card that worked, great! Otherwise you got substandard performance.

So for those of you that don't want to buy it now that you know there's no 3D mode, that is fine. I think you'll be missing out though. I don't think a slightly inferior fog of war affects enjoyment radically.

Actually in the IWD series we didn't use the water effect. We do have custom static animations for pools and such in both games but static animations are completely unaffected by 2D or 3D settings as they are sprite art.

As for transparency effects, some look better, some look worse. The artists that made the spells originally did them for 2D mode transparency. The transparency effect is calculated differently between 2D & 3D. Actually it has changed several times. Torment used one algorithm, while IWD1 used another. Even IWD2 has been changed some to speed up rendering which affected the look some. So I can't really say if one is better than the other. It really depends on which spells are going off at the time. And the greater compatibility in 2D mode is a big plus. Many people are not super familiar with drivers and video card settings. 2D mode will basically run on almost any driver or card which is not the case with 3D mode. And I think the programmer time spent fixing game bugs in the 3rd Edition conversion and adding the totally revamped interface were much more important. When you have limited resources you have to make judgment calls on what is more important. I think Darren made the right decision and chose things that actually affect gameplay.

The 3D option is removed entirely. I checked with the lead programmer and the release version has it removed. The beta floating around still has it active if you edit the INI file but the release version will not.

As I mentioned above, the 3D mode has many problems and minor improvements. I think a less buggy game was the better decision.

Resolutions: There are 4 resolutions the program supports.
800x600 is the default and is "supported"
1024x768, 1600x1200, & 2048x1536 are the other 3 modes that you can play at. These are not supported.
800 & 1024 work great and I've had no problems. 1600 & 2048 can have some problems depending on the amount of memory you have on your card. Truthfully those resolutions are so high that characters and monsters are just too small to see well. I'd recommend people play in 800 or 1024. I personally like 800 best because all the menus were designed for it and the characters seem about right sizewise. It's all personal preference of course.

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

Call Lightning: Call lightning is still the same as it was in IWD1. Outdoors only.
Oh, by the way, just thought I'd say, there are a few enemies who use that spell as well.

Do acid arrows affect feats? Yes, there are acid arrows, but they will not be affected by the feat - aqua mortis (and also spirit of flame, scion of storms, and aegis of rime) is something attained through physical and mental skill, so it wouldn't affect weapons and such.

Clerical summoned monster limit: Same applies. Clerics can only control up to 6 undead at a time.

Are ammo stacks the same as in IWD? Stacks are still the same ones in IWD1. There are no magic quivers, but there's some magical ammo which returns to the user when fired.

Sneak attack: If the rogue(s) get out of all the monster's field of vision, they can come back and sneak attack the monster again.
There's no limit, if you want to spend all that time sneak attacking a monster to death, more power to you.
One limitation, however, is that multiple rogues cannot sneak attack an enemy right after the other (they need to leave the field of vision and come back as well).

Soloing: A word to the wise: You will need to know the game very well and plan your character equally well to have a standing chance at all when soloing.

Stat requirements for weapons: Weapons do not have stat requirements in IWD2. Characters can wield a great sword with a strength of 3 if they want, just not very effectively.

Kuldahar screenshot: Link. Amazing how things change in 30 years eh?

Abundant Step: Monks do not get abundant step, but they do get empty body at level 19. It also goes with the whole 'discipline' motif mentioned above, for multiclassing into a spellcasting class.

Dual Wielding: Sorry, but no dual wielding of ranged weapons.

Dual wielding Melf's Minute Meteors and a long sword: Characters that dual wielded because of that technicality would get attacks with their offhand (melee) weapons when standing outside of melee range lobbing magical missiles. That is no longer the case - any magical projectiles overrides both main and offhand weapons now, so that they won't get a long sword attack 40 feet away, for example.

Kits: There's no 2E kits in IWD2. The 'kits' that most previews seem to be pointing at are the paladin and monk orders, I'm assuming.

Recharging wands: There is really no way to recharge wands/charged items.

Weapon finesse: No, weapon finesse only applies to the small blades proficiency.

Power word kill: This spell will kill an enemy who has less than 100 (current) hit points or multiple ones who have less than 20. Multiple creatures killed can add up to a sum of 200 hit points.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

3D support: Actually, 3D support was never officially supported in any IE game, but the option was indeed there to use it in the Config settings. There's even a little blurb next to the check box stating it wasn't supported, if I recall correctly.
I agree it would have been nice to implement again, but considering all the other things that we tried to put in the game - like gameplay and the new roolz - unsupported 3D was not high on the list. I don't know what might be shipped with a future patch.

Saving in HoF mode: Your save file will still be there in HOF mode and if anyone (or all) in your party dies. It's this way in IWD and IWD2. This whole thing about save files disappearing, game ending, etc. in HOF mode is incorrect.

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

Pre-made Party Descriptions: Here are the party descriptions for the adventuring companies that come with Icewind Dale II. I will post the other two in just a sec. It seems I ran out of room. I will put up a list of designers later on in the week and you can guess which designer wrote which description. Enjoy...

LADY'S LAMENT
The Lady's Lament is a group of adventurers that hails from the City of Splendors, Waterdeep. They have a reputation for being soft spoken, reserved, and somewhat melancholy. However, they are also known for championing the underdog, and often accept difficult assignments that other groups pass up. Hearing of the beleaguered town of Targos, they quickly traveled to Luskan and joined the throngs of mercenaries heading for Icewind Dale. The group is named after their leader, Sheris Lyricist.
Sheris was the spoiled daughter of a Waterdeep noble. She took advantage of her family's wealth and power to live a pampered, unproductive life. Her only true love was music, and this was the one thing that she tried to excel at. Sheris fled her home when she discovered that her father had arranged a marriage for her. Unsuited for any other profession, she became a bard.
Geldin and Khatja, a half-orc couple, are the muscle of the Lady's Lament. Geldin follows the orderly path of the warrior, while Khatja believes in the ferocity and chaos of the barbarian. Together they pose a mighty force. Neither will speak much of their past, only saying that they are not accepted by orc or human alike.
Laeris, the cleric of Ilmater, is the spiritual guiding force of the party. He is a humble man who speaks little, and asks even less. He often uses his great wisdom to complement Sheris' charisma.
Vraedna, the sorcerer, is the arcane power of the party. As a drow maiden, she turned away from the worship of Llolth and fled the underdark. She stays with the Lady's Lament hoping to share in their good reputation. Her greatest fear is to be deserted and left on her own in the surface world.
Kylie, the halfling rogue, is the prankster of the party. His life's goal is to wipe the frown from his teammate's faces, or at the very least, make them laugh once in a while. Having been with the Lady's Lament for several years, he fully understands the meaning of 'misery loves company.'

SISTERS OF THE BLOOD MOON
Drawn together under the watchful and accepting eye of Selune, more-so for their differences than similarities, the young adventuring party known as the Sisters of the Blood Moon have made it their mission to help those that are oppressed, abused, and in dire need of aid.
Their leader, S'feria Ranul, a drow Silverstar of Selune who normally resides in the city of Silverymoon, gathered her adventuring sisters together one day, and presented them the note of requested aid from the troubled town of Targos. The promise of gold from Targos was not the motivating factor for the party to go and help. It was their bond and their oath to help all those who asked, and they did not hesitate to charter a ship to take the Sisters of the Blood Moon to Targos.
"This isn't a proper place for a band of ladies." How many times had S'feria Ranul heard this phrase, and those like it? More than she cared to count. But those that uttered such phrases of warning knew little of S'feria, and her Sisters of the Blood Moon.
Born in the Underdark city of Sshamath, but raised by Moon Elves within the surface city of Silverymoon, S'feria Ranul grew to be a sophisticated, driven, and caring priest of Selune - also known as a Silverstar of Selune. She is able to push aside most people's discriminatory comments, and change their minds in favor of acceptance and tolerance. It was these qualities, and her strength of leadership, that brought together other women of similar thinking, tenacity and strength, to form the Sisters of the Blood Moon.
Oagla'ta is a half-orc barbarian female of great size and strength, even for her male counterparts of the breed. Her female gray dwarf companion, Nyzeil Nighthammer, is equally formidable for her kind. However, neither shared the dark hearts that their heritage usually elicited. They both joined the Sisters of the Blood Moon when S'feria showed an act of kindness by interfering with the Silverymoon guards' intolerable, and discriminatory behavior towards the two women. Oagla'ta and Nyzeil are both extremely proficient with axes and warhammers, and usually exceed any male warriors of their race.
Nevae Quar is a female half-elf, a gifted archer, and a young ranger who was befriended by twin female gnomes; Hylei Shadowhand, an illusionist who favors deception over harm, and Kylei Shadowhand, a rogue with a propensity towards pick pocketing. The three women had a chance meeting with S'feria and her troupe when S'feria, Oagla'ta and Nyzeil were ambushed by a dozen goblins in the forest outside of Silverymoon. Nevae and her friends did not hesitate to help the ambushed women when they came upon them.
Thanks to Nevae and the Shadowhand twins, the battle was over before it really had a chance to begin, much to the disappointment of Oagla'ta and Nyzeil. However, S'feria was enthralled with how well all the women worked together in the battle with the goblins, and knew that the Sisters of the Blood Moon would be complete with Nevae and the Shadowhand twins - who were overjoyed at the chance of joining an official adventuring party.

THE WINTER ROSE
Named for the Frostrose, whose petals remain crimson in even the harshest climates, this fellowship is founded on the unwavering commitment to duty. Just as it is the duty of the Frostrose to keep its scarlet hue against the snow-covered wastes, so too must the fellows of the Winter Rose hold to their covenant as self-proclaimed guardians of the North.
The Watcher, Sirge de La Sunya of Amn, is the founder of the fellowship. His father, Don Di'Armos, was a respected noble and Watcher of Helm in the city of Athkatla. On his deathbed, the Don told his son of a sister he had in the far off land of Damara.
During a very long and lonely expedition, he found companionship with a strange woman in the wilderness. When the woman gave birth to their child, she revealed herself as a demon. Don Di'Armos destroyed the demon but could not bring himself to murdering a child, even a demon child. He took the abomination to a monastery and left it for the monks to care for.
The revelation caused Sirge to question all that he had ever believed. He abandoned his duties to the church and to House de La Sunya and determined to search for his sister.
Kebb Trapmaster is The Watcher's squire. He earned his name as a member of the infamous Shadow Thief Guild. Uncomfortable with the Shadow Thieves' penchant for killing, he saw it as a blessing when he was sentenced to indentured servitude. More than a mere squire, Kebb is Sirge's teacher and closest friend. Naturally, he joined the knight when he left Amn.
Tianya is a beautiful half-elf druid. She was left to the whims of nature when she was just a child, abandoned by parents who wished to keep her from spoiling their "perfect" lives. It was by chance that she joined the fellowship.
Sirge found his sister, the tiefling Naleen, at the Monastery of the Yellow Rose. He could not bring himself to revealing his true relationship to her. So, he introduced himself as "The Watcher" and invited her to join the Winter Rose. With a deep desire to see the world beyond the walls of the monastery, she accepted.
Llendril and Dalwynd are the newest members of the Winter Rose. Llendril is a descendent of the Elves of the Hand. She has decided to return to her ancestral home, hoping to fill the once beautiful halls with the music that was born there. Dalwynd was the greatest pie thief of his hamlet. From an early age he could talk his way out of what most halflings had to sneak their way out of. When Dalwynd left his Shire in the company of these adventurers, one would think the little people of the Shire would have been happy to see the little pie smuggler go, but as is always the case with family they miss him more than they missed those pies. The two have done much to lighten the hearts of this band of adventurers.

ANNALS OF HALGREN
This weary band has sprouted up in the shadow of Halgren Death's Head, a dwarf from the Bruenghor Clan in the Sunset Mountains, a mountain range far to the south of Icewind Dale. Their leader, Halgren, seeks enough wealth so that he may erase the stain of his family name from the bloody crimes of one his ancestors, a vicious dwarf known as Kaervas.
The troop gathered in Luskan barely a tenday ago. Neither evil nor especially law-abiding, the group tends to honor their word and stick to their cause, which is furthering their own name... and erase the stain from Halgren's.
Halgren Death's Head, the party leader, is a dwarven warrior with impressive skills with the axe and crossbow; his strength and toughness allow him to be a front line all to himself. He is haunted by the crimes of his ancestor, who was rumored to be a dark dwarf, and he is forever seeking to amass wealth (and fame), so that he may redeem his family's name.
Bastinado claims to have wandered all over the Realms as a pirate, fisherman, mercenary, tinker, scout, and a forester. He is skilled with all manner of weapons, and his great strength, endurance, and tendency to remain in good spirits no matter what the situation has been the glue that has kept the band together on their long journey from Luskan. When battle calls, he takes Halgren's left side in confrontations, watching out for his leader.
Halgren's wife, Alia the Shield-Maiden, has traveled with him for nearly a decade, and she has turned from the dwarven gods to serve Tempus, lending her clerical powers to Halgren's cause. She believes the path the band walks will be a bloody one, and she keeps a journal of their travels. When blades are drawn, she typically covers Halgren's right, earning her the name "Shield-Maiden."
Silence-Before-Iron is a monk from Amn. She has the touch of the lower planes about her, and her monastic vows and fiendish blood make her keep to herself. Silence-Before-Iron follows an order of monks who wield ideals in the place of weapons, embracing such aspects as silence, shadow, ice, fear, or wind before the iron of a mace or edge of a sword.
Mordakai of Thay turned from his Thayan kin and fled north and west after his sorcererous powers were discovered by his fellow Red Wizards. Abandoning his apprenticeship, the sorcerer welcomed a journey into the North where he felt he could be at home amongst the ice and snow. He is far less bloodthirsty than his fellow Red Wizards, and he is constantly seeking to set himself apart from them with his own actions.
Kei the Wooden Idol claims she was once nothing more than a wooden sculpture that was animated and turned into a living, breathing woman - one of her many tales that tends to raise a skeptical eyebrow over a tavern meal, since her ears mark her as having elven blood. She is a pleasant rogue, always quick with a joke - or to jig a lock or slip out at night to peek at what the local rich merchants are up to. Her skills tend to keep her a discrete distance from front-line fighting.

THE HANDS OF FURY
A group of unpleasant adventurers from along the Sword Coast, the Hands of Fury have a tendency to bully and brutalize people they encounter in their travels. After traveling to Luskan with a group of pirates, their planned expedition with the crew fell through. Stranded in Luskan, they decided to seek out their fortune with the packs of mercenaries sent to aid Targos. Their overbearing leader, Makados, gave the group its name.
Makados, a proud Stormlord of Talos, is an intimidating, charismatic figure. Though he is a priest, he is perfectly fit for front-line battle. This is good, since Makados usually picks fights with people the party encounters.
Dahel Bloody-Four, a barbarian from the Western Heartlands, is even more bloodthirsty than Makados. Though he's a bit dim and not particularly strong for a barbarian, his speed and incredible endurance make him a dangerous opponent. He earned his nickname from a barfight where he killed four combatants out of sheer malice after he had already beat them into unconsciousness.
The dispossessed elven noble, Amraith, is a cool and efficient warrior. Quicker than anyone else in the Hands of Fury, he is often the last one standing at the end of their "disputes". He also has a quick mind, making him a bit more versatile than simple Dahel.
Mirai Wainwright is the lone woman in the Hands of Fury, but her position as the party's only arcane spellcaster makes her quite valuable. A half-elf, she does not have the terrific speed of Amraith, but nor does she suffer his frailty. She is quite intelligent, strong-willed, and surprisingly, physically strong.
The other dispossessed outcast in the party, Harbesh Carver, is a capable dwarven rogue and all-around thug. Strong, smart, and tough, he leaves discussion to Makados and the others. He is a grumpy individual who warms up more to a difficult lock than a friendly stranger.
The last member of the group, Fissera, is an angry, aggressive druid who makes a terrible companion for Makados. Wise and profound in all the worst ways, Fissera waits for Makados to give the signal, then unleashes nature's worst wrath on anyone who stands in their way. Unlike Makados and the rest of the "front-line", Fissera does not consider himself particularly well-suited for front-line combat.

"Gone Gold": What the term "Gone Gold" means: A game is finaled in two steps: silver and gold. Silver is when we send our final version to the duplicator and they do a test run. They then send us back their silver candidate and we compare all of the files and their locations to our original master. After we sign off on the silver, it is considered gold and the duplicator begins their official production run.

Bastard swords and katanas: A bastard sword is almost the same size as a two-handed sword (think of Conan the Barbarian's sword). Most "normal" folk need two hands to wield it because of its size. However, those that have been specially trained in the weapon can use the bastard sword with one hand, thus making it an exotic weapon to use with one hand.
A katana, while essentially a two-handed weapon that can also be used one-handed when need be, is a much lighter weapon than a bastard sword. Bastard swords, like two-handed swords, were used against heavy armor. A katana was not designed to be used against heavy armor and would break against armors like plate.

Number of CDs and a demo: The game is finally fitting on two CDs. We found a few redundant files that we were able to delete that enabled us to scrunch it down. Don't worry, no content was cut. As far as a demo is concerned, we have no current plans for one.

Chris Avellone, Designer

Harlots: No harlots.

Danien Chee, Programmer

Number of attacks and cleave: You get a max of 4 primary attacks + 1 off hand for a total of 5 attacks. With Cleave, you can get additional primary attacks when used successfully. e.g. On your 3rd primary attack, you roll cleave successfully. You will get an additional attack before your 4th attack.
You will ALWAYS only have 1 off hand attack and it will always be the last attack.