Playing the game with just 2 characters

Remove all ads!

Suddenly I got a feeling that I should play IWD2 one more time.
I don't want to play a 4 man party again and playing a 6 man party seems boring to me. What I'd like to do is play with just 2 characters.

I know that one should be a cleric and the other one a sorcerer.
I just don't know how to build them exactly. (I'd like to play HoF using them after normal game) I've already started the game but the first fight in act 1 was really difficult and I also had to use cheats to add one level before battle for the bridge to even stand a chance. (and it was still difficult, barely made it)

I'd like to start the campaign again but with optimised characters.
And that's where you're gonna help me.

How should I build my 2 characters to run the campaign smoothly?
Or should I use different classes?

 

Quite a challenge, and it needs a long long story to discuss strategy. I believe kmonster was a bit of a solo expert, so he'd do a better job at explaining hit-and-run options than I could.

You got a winning combo with cleric and sorcerer. Use summons a lot, rest often, and learn all about the available buff spells. Sorcerer spell picks are vital here, perhaps you can read my IWD2_4dummies for the evaluation of spells, and judge for yourself what you'll be needing.

The early game is actually quite challenging, but you will gain levels at a fast pace, so things should get easier. Good luck!

 

I played IWD2 with a 2 person party a few months ago. (It was my second IWD2 game, the first one had been with a full 6 person party).

I chose a Sorcerer and a Monk, who complemented each other nicely (see "Party Roles & Tactics" below).

It worked pretty well, however - full disclosure - I did power-game and indulge in some cheese tactics, and also installed the following mods which are effectively cheats (but made the experience so much less annoying):

1. "Bottomless Containers"
2. "Infinite Stacking" (from Ease-of-Use mod)
3. "Skip Battle Square" (from Ease-of-Use mod)

Character Builds

Shamelessly min/max'ed, and supposed to be optimized (although I'm not an expert).

The Sorcerer

Class: Paladin 2 / Sorcerer X

Started with 2 levels of Paladin, and after that always leveled up as Sorcerer. [Reasoning.] [Actually, just 1 level of Paladin might make more sense.]​

Race: Aasimar

Reasoning: Can start with 20 CHA, favored class is Paladin (hence gets rid of the multiclass penalty for our build), can have high Concentration and Spellcraft skills even with low INT, gets +4 stat bonus on character creation, and comes with some nice elemental resistances.​

Abilities: STR 11 / DEX 18 / CON 18 / INT 3 / WIS 10 / CHA 20 (on character creation)

On level-up: CHA +1 every 4 levels (except once on level 12, I chose INT +1 instead, don't remember why)​

Skills:

Concentration - as much as possible
Spellcraft - try to get at least 10 (required for elemental damage boosting feats)
Alchemy, Knowledge (Arcana) - some can't hurt​

Feats:

Spell Focus: Evocation x2, Spell Focus: Enchantment x2, Spell Focus: Necromancy, Improved Initiative, Lightning Refexes, Discipline, Iron Will, Subvocal Casting, Spirit of Flame, Aqua Mortis, Combat Casting, Scion of Storms​

The Monk

Class: Monk

Reasoning: No real advantage in adding in another class. Also, the choice of Race (see below) already makes him level up slower, so let's not delay the high Monk levels any further.​

Race: Deep Gnome

Reasoning: +4 to AC, +2 to saving throws, extra spell resistance, +2/+4 to Hide skill, can cast Mirror Image/Invisibility/Blur once per day each. In short, very good defenses.​

Abilities: STR 16 / DEX 18 / CON 18 / INT 3 / WIS 18 / CHA 3 (on character creation)

On level-up: WIS +1 every 4 levels (except once I chose CON +1 instead, don't remember why)​

Skills:

Hide - as much as possible
Move Silently - as much as possible​

Feats:

Dodge, Blind-Fight, Power Attack, Cleave, Dirty Fighting, Improved Critical, Improved Initiative, Greater Cleave, Great Fortitude, Toughness.
(If you have the "Improved Monk Fists" component from the Ease-of-use mod installed, taking the Simple Weapon: Small Blade and Weapon Finesse feats early on would make sense.)​

Party Roles & Tactics

Tank: The Monk filled this role very well. Enemy fighters found it difficult to hit him, and enemy Mages had a hard time putting him down as well (due to his his magic resistance, good saves, and Monk Evasion).

Melee killing machine: The Monk, kind of. An optimized Paladin/Fighter could have probably done more damage per round on average. But if surrounded by a group of monsters that were already softened up by area-of-effect spells, the Monk did like to use his "Greater Cleave" skill to impressive effect...

Ranged killing machine: No-one. The Monk used darts and the Sorcerer slings when needed, but they were not optimized for it nor did it overall become an important part of combat.

Decoy: The Deep Gnome Monk was born for this. He would run forward towards enemies, and start hitting/stunning/quivering palm'ing. All the while the Sorcerer would keep his distance, and when all enemies had crowded around the Monk, start to layer them all with damaging area-of-effect spells. The Monk, thanks to MR/saves/evasion, wouldn't take much damage from this friendly fire.

Scout: The Monk aced this as well, thanks to his Hide in Shadows mastery. He scouted ahead often, especially since it coincided with the following role:

Trap Disabler / Lock Picker: In absence of a rogue, the Monk took over these duties. He opened locks by smashing them in (this usually worked after a couple of tries), and found & disabled traps by walking ahead and simply setting them off. Thanks to his good MR/saves/evasion, he survived them all. In fact the only traps that gave me any real grief, were the mechanical wall traps in the Yuan-ti Temple that would continue to work even after having being set off, did lots of damage without saving throw, and had to be passed multiple times. A lot of healing potions were consumed making up for their damage...

Offensive Spellcaster: Oh boy, did the Sorcerer excel in this role... I made it a priority to have him learn mass-damage spells like Fireball/Acid Storm, and boss-disabling spells like Feeblemind/Finger of Death. And it paid off, his firepower became really impressive... By the middle of chapter 2, he had already exceeded the Monk's kill count, and his kill percentage only increased after that.

Buff Spellcaster: Another strong suit of the Sorcerer. Stoneskin, Armor and Cat's Grace at the beginning of the day cast on both the Monk and himself made a big difference, as did short-duration buffs for selected battles. Don't underestimate the utility of these kinds of spells, they are well worth spending several of the Sorcerer's spellbook slots on.

Summoning Spellcaster: No-one. I didn't have the Sorcerer learn any summoning spells, because it didn't fit in with my combat strategy (why summon creatures only to fry them with area-of-effect spells in the next round?) and because I didn't have many spellbook slots to spare. All in all I didn't miss them. I did let the Sorcerer cast a few summoning spells directly from scrolls during especially difficult battles.

Healer: No-one. Healing Potions and resting did the trick well enough though.

Undead Smiter: No-one. Just fought them like any other enemy.

Speaker: No-one. Both characters had terrible INT, and both refused to accept monetary rewards (due to Paladin and Monk classes). This meant I missed out on some gold and probably a few side-quests. Annoying, but not a game-breaker...

Observations

Well, the game was clearly not balanced for a 2 character party.

They gained much more XP per character, and thus leveled up and become powerful much faster (the fact that both of them were ECL races worked slightly against this, but not all that much).
On the other hand, in many encounters the game scaled up the number and strength of enemies to match my character's level, but not in all encounters and not in a consistent way.

Thus I found some encounters easier than with a 6 person party, and others harder. Especially difficult were groups of tough fighters/monsters that ambushed my party and forced the Sorcerer to defend himself in melee:

Spoiler

In Targos, I took care to do every possible side-quest in order to gain enough XP to quickly overcome the inherent initial disadvantage of a small party. And indeed, the final Targos prologue battle did already seem easier than with my previous 6-person party.

In chapter 1 on the way to the Shaengarne bridge, some of the battles (like the Orc parties) also seemed easier, while others (like the Malarites & pets guarding the Dam) seemed harder and I had to rest more often. Saving the bridge was darn difficult with both parties, not much difference there.
The way through the Horde Fortress was mostly easier for the Monk+Sorcerer party, except for some hardened trolls whom I had frustratingly big trouble defeating (can't remember having any trouble with them at all with my 6 char party).

The Ice Temple (chapter 2) was definitely easier. Most notably the Golems - enemies to be reckoned with during my previous 6-character game - now didn't stand a chance against my (well-buffed) Monk...

In chapter 3, fighting the Winter Wolf packs (now in increased numbers and mostly with "Ferocious" and "Dire" in their names) seemed harder than before. I had to reload when they ambushed me and quickly killed the Sorcerer (they tore down Mirror Images quicker than he could cast a new set, it was brutal). Letting the Monk scout ahead alone and using some hit-and-run worked though.

After that, almost all battles of the remaining game were easier than during the 6 characters playthrough.
The "Eight Chambers" challenge in the Black Raven Monastery was completed by the Monk pretty risk-free, and even the mighty Raven Tomb Golems were nothing more than a routine fight for him.
The Driders were of course a challenge (too many spellcasters to take care of at once), but not more so than with the 6-person party.

When I reached Kuldahar, the Yuan-Ti war parties were disappointing. Previously a pretty exhausting series of fights, now they couldn't land any hits on the monk at all (I think), and were easily fried by the Sorcerer's spells.

After that the game became kind of boring, because most battles played out in a similar way, and combat wasn't all that challenging anymore, just routine.

I didn't play Heart of Fury.

Conclusion

Playing the game with 2 characters is entirely possible, and my Sorcerer and Monk did work well together.

However, for maximum enjoyment I would recommend slightly larger parties. For one thing, to lessen the imbalances caused by the scaling system, and for another - and more importantly - to make combat more diverse.

There just aren't all that many viable tactical possibilities with just two characters, especially if only one of them is a spellcaster.
Even if the combat tactics the characters were optimized for are lots of fun (as they definitely were, with my Sorcerer + Monk duo), they do get old after a while.

With a Cleric + Sorcerer duo like the OP envisions (frontline fighter is also a capable spellcaster), this problem might be lessened, but probably not disappear.

 

What levels did your 2-man party characters end up with at the end of Normal mode? And how much XP did they have?

 

One of the main advantages of having a small party is that you have less people to cast Invisibility on/more Invisibility spells to cast on people. This makes it easier to reposition party members to more tactically advantageous terrain. The faster leveling is also nice earlier on, up until you start getting significantly less XP from kills.

The main disadvantage is the general lack of spells, which can limit the number of difficult encounters you can manage per day/rest. One can try to make up for this by luring various groups of monsters into death zones (ie, areas steeped in various persistent effect spells like entangle/web/cloudkill) or by simply avoiding monster groups (no item rewards, no XP - why not?). Getting more partymates is the simplest solution though. I have never beaten the game with just two characters, but I'm no stranger to starting the game with only two PCs.

 

Don't remember, and unfortunately I don't have a record anymore either.

Most of the statistics I listed above, are from a planning spreadsheet I created before starting the game, and then updated to reflect actual choices while I went along. However, towards the later chapters I didn't update it regularly anymore, so I'm not sure whether I actually reached the last of the feats listed, and at which level I ended up.

Another nice thing is that you have less hassle with inventory management and path-finding.

Yes, getting little or no XP for low-level monsters even though it takes a bunch of time to killing them (because they come in groups) can of course be discouraging. But it wasn't really crippling from a numbers perspective, there was still enough quest XP to take and high-level monsters to kill to keep the level-up's coming.

 

drow is just flat better than aasimar in such a small party.

Actually, because of dynamic xp, it's better in just about any party.