Playing IWD2 after a long long while

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Hello everyone, I installed iwd 2 during christmas to replay it after many many years and also installed ease of use and tactics mods and have enjoyed the game very much. So many thanks for the makers of those mods if they still hang around.


Components that I installed from ease are bugfixes, forgotten armors, improved moonblade, improved basties, inf stacking and faster oswald.
From tactics I installed the core and summons hp scaling though that only applies to hof I guess.

My impression is that the basties are way strong for their level and improved moonblade seems very strong for a light weapon. The basties I don't use, but the moonblade is used by my bard and has been better than any light weapon I've found (currently about to enter snake temple in chult).


Tactics is great, in addition to fixing bard song stacking (which is why I installed it in the first place) the fights are tough but not overly tough.
At first I was afraid it would be more like bg 2 tactics, but thankfully less caster centric. Though magic definitively matters a lot, yours and the enemies. Still chaos or even confusion (long duration) felt a bit too much like save or lose the fight when cast by high level enemy (Harshom).


To conclude my basic tactics are focus fire on one enemy, lots of pausing, long term buffs on party (on tanks in particular), disabling normal casters quickly (chroma orb or kill with damage) and disabling helpers quickly in boss fights (horror, hold, chaos, cloak of fear, greater command) and focusing on boss. Which feel very necessary to win and don't feel like I'm overdoing a fight.
Also using consumables feels very important, particularly using oils in the early game to strip off mirror images quickly by having everyone cast oils at the same time or even using them to kill a high ac nearly dead opponent. Never remember using them for anything else but finishing trolls before.

I just wanted to say I'm liking it very much.

 

Tactics really is a great mod. I enjoy that enemy casters are actually a threat now, but not ridiculously overpowered like Weimer's mods.

You might also be interested in Mindchild's mod (IWD2 Custom) and Light of Selune.

IWD2 is the Infinity Engine game I come back to again and again. The 3E rule set makes things much more interesting for me.

 

Yes, the sensible enemy caster ai adds a nice tactical element. Particularly when facing arcane casters with layered defensive buffs. You want to take them down fast, but then you need to focus on the caster and either ignore their helpers or disable them.

Mods wise I've got the ligh of selune downloaded and I'm planning on installing it for a future playthrough. What is the iwd 2 custom mod like? Also are there any mods that add new areas? I'm thinking something like recycling maps (dorn's deep etc) from iwd 1 or other ie games.

I'm wondering what the tactics mod is like in hof mode, do the added stat and ac gains balance it to play more normal like (fight in melee)? I only played a bit of the beginning in hof mode in vanilla iwd 2.

 

I've also just picked up this game again after quite a few years of it sitting on the bookshelf. For some reason I've never played it all the way through, though can't actually remember why...

 

Hmmm Beren... in Canada... that reminds me of a name from the dim and distant past - you didn't used to go by the name of Barren Fischer, did you?

 

Ok, a slight update. I'm retracting some of my praise for tactics mod, the game does become more caster centric and the difficulty really ramps up towards the end of chapter 5. I'm mainly thinking of the lich fight and the saablic fight. I had to rest before the lich fight even though I had a bunch of spells left. Still enjoying it though.

Also it's embarrassing to notice after the fight against slayer knights and priests on the hand's third floor, that the paladin has been swinging the healing longsword for the whole fight. I reloaded out of shame.