My latest creation - Two casters duo HOF :D

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Hi guys

My goal is to make a two man party that will play through normal, and then HOF. As has been stated before, IWD2 is all about spells - divine and arcane. So my duo is going to consist of a pair of dedicated, full fledged casters; one arcane and one divine. But since damage spells aren't really enough in HOF mode, I'll need someone to actually swing an axe and kill the monsters the old fashioned way. I chose the wizard for this task. I could have gone the opposite way and made the cleric the melee and then had the wizard take 11 levels of bard or 12 of druid, or something like that, but I didn't. Which one is more optimal? I don't know, but I chose a spellsword/fighter mage as one of my guys, and a high wisdom, monk/cleric as the other.

Oh - I almost forgot, both of these guys will be able to get to 72 AC late in the HOF playthrough. And they can actually get there at the same time, no swapping of gear or any other cheese.


Behold, I bring you Zenatis Kum-Kaushadi!

Drow Rogue 1/Bard 11/Illusionist 18

Starting Endgame
STR 18 34
DEX 20 40
CON 16 19
INT 18 19
WIS 3 3
CHA 5 7

Strength - This guy's job is to do damage, so pumping strength up is a priority. However, the name of the game with a duo is compromise - everything but armor class, that has to get to 72. So we're only going to get 34 strength, 18 base, up to +8 from Tenser's Transformation and +8 from Champion's Strength.

Constitution - A very hard stat to buff in IWD2 unless you're a high level cleric for a powerful DUHM. But this guys isn't, so he'll be using the best CON item in the game, the Death Shroud of Bankao. It's a cloak that gives +3, for a total of 19 endgame. There's also a shortbow that gives +4, but this guy has other things to do with his hands, like... wield axes of course There's only three spells in the entire game that buff constitution without drawbacks. DUHM is self cast, and a divine spell, and Aura of Vitality is a 7th level druid spell, or an 8th level Lathlander domain spell, so both of those are out. Which leaves Emotion: Rage - A nice spell, but it gives a flat +2 constitution bonus, which doesn't stack with items, so that's also bested by wearing that cape.

Dexterity - Another thing this guy is supposed to be doing is is not getting hit, with only two guys to start with, it simply won't do to have them dying all the time. So we're going to hit 72 AC, and dexterity is critical to that goal. 20 Base, up to +8 from Tenser's Transformation, 5 from Chimandrea's Warded Slippers, and seven points from level ups puts us right at 40.

Intelligence - With illusionist as our primary class, you'd think intelligence would be a priority, but it's actually not that big a deal. This guy is mostly going to be casting spells without saves (buffs), so his DC isn't a big deal. What about bonus spells? You need 28 intelligence to get a bonus casting at ninth level, and 28 isn't even possible in this game without putting level up points into intelligence. There aren't any spells that boost intelligence, so you're left with items and level ups. As for level ups, The first priority is getting enough dexterity to hit 72 AC, and that sucks up all 7 of them. Since there's no intelligence boosting spells, on to items. Like constitution, the best intelligence item is a weapon - two of them, ironically both are bows (wtf devs?). Unless it's actually extremely good at doing damage (it's not), that option is out. There are a few options to get a +3 bonus though, none of which we can use. The High Master's Robe gives us +3, but we need to be wearing the Chain of Drakkas' Fury. The Intriguing School Cap is out because we need to wear Swing from the Masts, for the AC and the charisma. Lastly you could use Phean's Iron Shod Staff, and that's incompatible with our goal of tons of melee damage. So, we'll end up using a ring or amulet of +1 intelligence, there's a few different ones to chose from, available in normal mode.

Wisdom - We don't need any, and the abysmal will saves can be nullified with something like Chaotic Commands or Mind Blank.

Charisma – Here's where I get to explain to you why I chose to take 11 levels as bard, but not even get enough charisma to cast the associated spells. First, you should know the leveling plan, it's explained in more detail later, but here's the gist. Start as rogue for the skill points, and then take all 18 wizard levels, mixing one level of bard in whenever desired to use instruments. Finally, squat and take the last 10 bard levels in one go to avoid XP penalties. So, by the time he gets those bard spells, he's already a full grown wizard with 9th level spells, in he's in HOF by now. So what exactly is he going to do with a few weak level 1-3, and one level 4 bard spells? To make things even worse, the DC would be absurdly low, with such a low charisma. True, he could use them as extra slots for low level buffs, but remember, his caster level would be only 11, so the durations would be short. I value freeing up the 7 stat points and putting one in strength (for 18), and the other 6 in constitution, to hit the racial cap of 16.

Leveling Strategy and Playstyle

Rogue Weapon Proficiency: Axes
Wizard Dodge
Wizard Iron Will
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard Combat Casting, Great Fortitude
Wizard
Bard
Wizard Lingering Song
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard Discipline, Power Attack
Wizard
Wizard
Wizard Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Swords
Wizard
Wizard Improved Critical
Wizard Expertise
Wizard
Wizard
Bard Armored Arcana
Bard
Bard
Bard Spirit of Flame
Bard
Bard
Bard Dirty Fighting
Bard
Bard
Bard Subvocal Casting

Squat for the last 10 Bard levels to avoid XP penalty. Taking the first mix in Bard level lets you use instruments and use the Lingering Song feat to sing while you fight. This also delivers all the arcane spells before normal is over.

Remember to play this guys as a melee DPS, not a caster. His spell slots are for buffs, not fireballs. He'll also have to primary loadouts, a two handed axe for maximum dps, and bastard sword+shield for tanking. I went with bastard swords because I installed the "Improved Bastard Swords" component of the Ease of Use mod, and that makes them at least sort of competitive with two handed weapons. But don't worry, they still lag behind because of the 1.5x strength bonus that two handed weapons get.


And the girl, Esri Im Nanathraluli.

Drow Monk 1/Rogue 1/Druid 12/Dreadmaster of Bane 16

Starting Endgame
STR 8 16
DEX 20 23
CON 16 17
INT 13 13
WIS 18 40
CHA 5 5

Strength - Just not much we can do to increase strength, so it's 8 base, +8 from Champion's Strength. With such a low strength, you might be tempted to just tank it completely, use a bow, and put the points somewhere else. But there's really nowhere to put them. Dexterity, constitution, and wisdom are all at racial limits, and there's nothing to get from intelligence or charisma. Plus having 8 strength means melee isn't out of the question, and you can actually carry you stuff around.

Constitution – DUHM gives +5 at 15th Dreadmaster level, which will be 17th character level, which is the best bonus available. But, we need to use the Potions of Clear Purpose to get in that last bit of wisdom, so constitution drops back down to 17.

Dexterity – Again, I'd really like better dexterity, but the best we can do is +5 from Chimandrea's Slippers/DUHM/Cat's Grace. And we lose two points from drinking two Potions of Holy Transference.

Intelligence – I had to put 13 points here for Expertise. I think it makes more sense to “waste” the stat points on intelligence for expertise than it does to make up the 5 AC with other methods. I wanted to avoid an experience penalty, so no Deep Gnome.

Wisdom – Unfortunately we don't get to get 40 wisdom without drinking two Potions of Clear Purpose. But at least we get to start with 16 constitution, and get +5 from DUHM, so we still have decent constitution. 18 Base wisdom, +5 from Every God's Ring, All 7 level up points, +4 from two Potions of Holy Transference, +2 from both Potions of Clear Purpose, and finally +4 from both instances of the Dreadmaster quest come to a total of 40 wisdom.

Charisma – She's an ******* and she knows it.

 

Um I see some problems with your calculations for your first party member. As far as I know, tenser's transformation is the only buff to strength and dexterity that stacks with any other buffer. In other words, the buff from Champion's Strength will not stack with Dwarven Ogre but it will stack with Tenser's. Likewise, the buff from Cat's Grace will not stack with Chimandrae's Slippers but it will stack with Tenser's.

Unfortunately that is a net -2 to AC for him.

Recommendations: Replace Fighter 5 with Paladin 5, because if you do the Lost Followers quest (the one where you fight in the graveyard against the 6 for the Holy Avenger), all Paladins in your party get +1 to strength and wisdom. By the end of HoF, that will mean he will get +2 to strength and wisdom. Sure, you lose out on a few feats and weapon specialisation, but increased strength partly makes up for that, and you get 9 base wisdom, 14 with an every god's ring.

EDIT: In your Party Aid section, you have Destructive Blow. I thought that was a Talos only ability?

 

I'm pretty sure buffs from items and spells stack. Am I that rusty?

Regarding Destructive blow - yes, that's why there's not a 1 next to it, because I'm not using it.

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wow......... I can't believe that. I don't have any words >.<

also, why do greatswords suck so much in this game >.<

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Looking over my characters, and adjusting stats that I had erroneously used an item and a spell on, my Wizard will come out ok. I had put 2 level up points into STR and 3 into CON, I can pull all of those and put them into DEX to make up for the loss of Cat's Graces/Slippers. That leaves him with an end game max of only 15 CON, and 32 STR. Annoying, but no drastic changes, as his AC will stay the same.

The drow cleric loses 5 DEX from slipper not stacking with DUHM, dropping him from 32 to 27 DEX, which drops him from 73 to 70 AC. I could get one point back with the two potions of clear purpose that I haven't allocated, but if there's a better way, I'm going to find it.


I've had enough for right now, time to work on my solo monk IWD:EE playthrough.

 

Rather than wasting 5+6 Fighter/Druid levels on your Illusionist tank and getting pitifully low duration for your Barkskins, I'd rather make the Banite split the levels with Druid. This way you'll get the final +1 AC from it. Also, since you're keeping the levels similar, you could opt for a Deep Gnome instead for +5 AC (+1 from WIS included). You'll get a MC penalty, yes, but it only kicks in AFTER you've already passed clvl 20++ (Chapter Four in HOF mode) so it hardly matters any more.

 

Or a human Monk 1/Rogue 1/Dreadmaster of Bane 1/ Druid 27.

Your AC will be slightly worse, but you will have long duration barkskin that gives +5 to AC, and iron skin can be of some help.

I add a ranger level to my Druids for the weapon feats and early dual wielding.

 

Currently looking at learning how to make some basic mods for this game. I'm not new to modding - I made some mods for TES IV: Oblivion and Escape Velocity Nova back in the day, but totally new to IE games.

Reason being, I'd like to add/adjust some spells and items.

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Well I succeeded in making 00POTN90.ITM (Potion of Aura Enhancement), which was in the game, but not attainable, purchasable from Elytharra. For some reason, it was priced at 1 gold piece when the .ITM says it should be 4000, and 11ELYTHA.STO (the store file), has a value of 120 in the "sell markup" field. So it should cost 4800 gold before counting character price modifiers.


My intentions right now are to alter some of the weapons already in the game, add some new ones, make weapons/potions/items that were left out of the game now attainable via drops or stores, and finally to add some spells that were left out of the game. For example we have Eagle's Splendor, but no Fox's Cunning. And no Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, and many others.

That's the plan anyways. Anyone know which one of the resources is drop tables?

 

There are two drop files, one for normal mode and one for heart of fury. I believe they are called loot_norm.2da and loot_fury.2da, but I'm not sure. It's something like that.

 

.2da Ok, thanks!

Also, I've come up with a heavily revised party, and updated the first character, but not the second.

Now we've got romantic pair of drow

Male drow rogue 1/bard 11/wizard 18

Female Drow monk 1/rogue 1/druid 12/dreadmaster 16

Both can hit 72 AC, with my updated knowledge of the rules >.< and neither will have any XP penalties

I'm glad to have been able to include the goodies from having a druid and bard in the party, while keeping my two main casters. Well, mostly in tact. I don't get 9th level spells for the girl, but she only really loses out on that lovely super high DC Mass Dominate domain spell, as the other two level 9 cleric spells are summons.

And the damage numbers go up, not down with the move from 4 fighter levels on the wizard to 11 bard levels. You lose out on the fighter's BaB, HP, the free proficiency feats, the fighter bonus feats, and weapon specialization, But you gain the bard songs. Tymora's Melody alone almost makes up for all that.

Anyways time for sleep

 

Add an extra level of rogue to your first character for evasion. I'm a big fan of evasion!

Both characters will get an experience penalty - I think the Female Drow may get as much as a 40% penalty.

 

yes, still xp penalties:

the favourite class gets ignored and every level difference greater then 1 that remains adds 20%.

DG (illusionist x) / monk 1 / warrior 4 / druid 3 = 20% (monk to warrior) + 20% (monk to druid)
Aasimar (Pala 1) / sorcerer 15 / bard 14 = 0%
Human Pala 1 / (sorcerer 15) / bard 14 = 20% (bard to pala)

 

The order in which the levels are taken matters.

Her level progression:

rogue
monk
dreadmaster x 16
druid x 12

She can squat if desired while taking the cleric levels, there's no restrictions. But once the 16th cleric level is taken, she will be squatting and taking the 12 druid levels all at once. So technically yes, she'll get a 40% Xp penalty, but not until she's already level 30.

Same idea for the guy, he starts with the one rogue level, and then takes all the wizard levels, then squats for the 11 bard levels. And he'll have a meaningless 20% penalty that kicks into effect just as he can no longer gain XP anyways.

This leveling plan is also practical, as it brings the most effective levels into play soonest, while simultaneously allowing them to squat as desired up until they take the last level in their preferred class (wizard/dreadmaster).

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Not a bad idea, but that would mean moving from 11 levels of bard to 10... which makes the whole bard thing pretty pointless without WCotS, or going from 18 levels of wizard to 17, which means only one 9th level casting - and I really want two. If I had the option of getting high enough INT for bonus 9th level castings, I might go for rogue 2, but I don't. Lots of compromises in this party, getting a duo to both get 72 AC isn't easy.

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I really don't enjoy using like 8% of my screen real estate to edit a post.

I wish the world could move on to higher standard resolutions...

Did the math, and it's actually 3.6% of my screen. And I'm not on 4k or anything... just 27" 1440p.

 

We're drifting off-topic, but while my 24" monitor can handle higher resolutions, I have it set to 1280x1024 to avoid squinting.

 

lol. You may want to try the text scaling feature that comes with windows. I've never used it, so I can't offer any advice I'm afraid.








Also, updated the second character and added the first's level plan and feats.

More to come later.

 

I play IWD2 on my PC upstairs, which is connected to my 40" TV. I set the resolution to 1280x720. Looks good.

 

If you're going to resort to level-squatting, your first character doesn't even need to be a Drow but you can go Deep Gnome for +4 AC. You're not going cast anything from your Bard spells with the stated Charisma, so it's not like you're losing any more than you're already.

And while avoiding exp penalties is one thing, losing out on racial WIS bonus AND free +4 AC for a WIS-based tank is just not worth it. Especially since you also need to dump STR to be able to pick Expertise just to compensate.

 

Without putting too much thought into it, what level would a duo get to if they didn't squat? I was under the impression that since their APl would rise rather quickly, that they'd get seriously gimped XP gains, and end up not hitting 30 by the end of HOF.

For the record, I haven't played a duo through. If I don't have to squat then I won't, I just want to do a duo, and adding characters (mules or legit additional party members) kind of kills the duo thing.

 

Duo will get to level 30 no problem. If it only depended on kill exp it would be tough but you have more than 300k in just HOF mode to fetch and bosses are good for a few k more on your way there.

 

I have it set to 120%. Any higher and it starts messing up various programs, often pushing controls off-screen or off-window in the non-scrollable potion of the window while making other things just look bad.

As for how to use it, this depends on what version of Windows.
In 95-XP, right-click on the desktop, click properties, display, advanced, and adjust the display DPI.
In Vista and later, type "display dpi" into the search box. In 7 and later, it is called "make text and other items larger or smaller", but typing display DPI will make that option appear.

 

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