Hello
IWD2 is one of my most played RPGs of all time. I've always liked its gameplay. However, I've always felt that the basic 6 person party the game was designed around is not fit for the game. Some areas such as the Ice Temple cause pain due to bad pathfinding. Also the vanilla game doesn't have enough experience to let the characters reach their highest potential.
Some time ago I decided to find out the easiest and simpliest way to play through the vanilla IWD2 (with bonus merchants though, Genie in Nym's bottle etc) The difficulty level is from easy to insane. No HoF.
I personally had my best playthrough of IWD2 ever using this party, so I decided to share my experience in case somebody else would be interested in such information.
WARNING: These characters are a bit powergamish.
1. Character
Race: Deep Gnome
Stats: STR 16 CON 14 DEX 20 INT 3 WIS 20 CHA 1
Class: Monk 1/Dreadmaster of Bane 24/ Fighter X (you might reach level 30 if you squat)
Skills: All into concentration
Feats: ( if you make it to level 30) Combat Casting, Dash, Blind-Fight, Dirty Fighting, Cleave, Dodge, Heretic's Bane, Improved Critical, Weapon Focus Axes ( 3 points if you reach high enough fighter levels) Power Attack, Spell Focus: Enchantment and Subvocal Casting.
Character Development:
The most important feats out of these are Imp. Critical, Dash,Dodge and Spell Focus: Enchantment. If you never make it to the fighter levels you can drop out Heretic's Bane and Blind-Fight easily.
Start as a Monk, from level 2 and onwards level as Dreadmaster, putting all points you get into wisdom. Use axes, in my experience, axes are one of the best weapons to use, and you'll use 2-handers anyways since you'll lose the Monk wis bonus to AC if you use shields. At Dreadmaster level 24, you'll have gained everything a cleric class can offer, and you can only benefit from extra feats and hp, fighter is an excellent choice for that.
Spells
You can always change your spells to match the opponent, for example, if you are running into highly magic resistant enemies such as drow, choose more buff type spells. Here's a list of spells I used the most. Domain spells are in parenthesis.
Level 1 (Command) Bless. Protection from Evil, Remove Fear, Sanctuary
Level 2 (Horror) Aid, Hold Person, Draw Upon Holy Might
Level 3 (Dire Charm) Dispel Magic, Invisibility Purge, Animate Dead, Magic Circle Against Evil
Level 4 (Emotion: Despair) Recitation, Death Ward, Holy Power, Freedom of Movement
Level 5 (Greater Command) Champion's Strength, Insect Plague, Chaotic Commands
Level 6 (Feeblemind) Divine Shell, ----->Heal<------(the most important spell of all)
Level 7 (Gate) Greater Shield of Lathander, Resurrection
Level 8 (Flaying) Tremor, Holy Aura, Mass Heal, Symbol of Hopelessness
Level 9 (Mass Dominate) Summon Monster 9/Gate this is a personal choice, but I usually favor Gate.
Strategy: This character the melee character. He buffs, he fights, he wins. His armor class reaches 40 near endgame and can climb even higher to 50 and more with the right buffs. He also has innate Mirror Image which is a boon at lower levels. Insect Plague ruins enemy spellcasting. Gate is gained at cleric level 7, which is quite early. Heal spells keep your duo moving onwards and they can clear entire maps without resting. Last but not least, Symbol of Hopelessness stops any enemy in their tracks, except for some bosses with immunities.
Through the game you'll have a very high magic resistance and evasion with high reflex saving throws. Your Will saving throws will be extremely high and your spells will wreack havoc on enemy hordes. Your second character can go bonkers and toss Acid Storms on you and only a few of them will hit you, since the spells will have to pass your Magic Resistance check and then you Reflex saving throw check. Your enemies, however, will usually be toast.
2. Character:
Race: Drow
Stats: STR 14 CON 16 DEX 6 INT 12 WIS 12 CHA 20
Class: Paladin 1/Sorcerer 23/Fighter x (Again, it is possible to reach lvl 30)
Skills: Max concentration, any leftovers into spellcraft
Feats: Improved Critical, Aegis of Rime, Aqua Mortis, Sprit of Flame, Combat Casting, Dash, Weapon Focus: Greatsword, Spell Focus: Evocation, Spell Focus: Necromancy, Subvocal Casting.
Out of those feats, the magic based feats are the most important ones, the melee feats are for Mordenkainen's sword and Holy Avenger. This character shouldn't have to resort to meleeing, but if the opportunity presents itself, go for it, you have a LOT of Mirror Images to spend. If you don't reach the fighter levels you can leave the melee feats out no problemo. Note that I left out Scion of Storms, since I feel that this game lacks a very strong lightning based spell which would benefit from the feat. It's always seemed as if Chain Lightning were bugged in some way..
Character Development
Start as a Paladin, and at level 2 go Sorcerer. At level 24 sorceres stop gaining any more vital spells so fighter is the choice for the last levels. Put all skill points into charisma
Spells: (Note, this is just my own opinion, use your own discretion)
Level 1 Magic Missile, Chromatic Orb, Grease, Shield, Protection from Evil
Level 2 Mirror Image, Cat's Grace, Melf's Acid Arrow, Blur, Web, Protection from Arrows
Level 3 Skull Trap, Dispel Magic, Slow, Flame Arrow, Ghost Armor
Level 4 Improved Invis, Malison, Stoneskin, Emotion: Hope, Spirit Armor
Level 5 Sunfire, Chaos, Lower Resistance, Cone of Cold
Level 6 Improved Haste, Shades, Acid Storm, Disintegrate
Level 7 Malavon's Rage, ----->Mordenkainen's Sword<----(the most important spell on this char), Finger of Death, Delayed Blast Fireball
Level 8 Power Word Blind, Symbol of Hopelessness, Horrid Wilting
Level 9 Wail of The Banshee, Mass Dominate, Meteor Swarm
Strategy
While this character will have to stand back in the first chapters, as soon as he gains level 7 spells he becomes an extremely strong damage dealer. All he needs is the melee tank to distract the enemies while he rains fires on the enemies and slices them into cubes with the Mordy Sword. He has insane saving throws since his charisma increases them and his high magic resistance keeps him safe from enemy mages. (with Holy Avenger it can reach 50)
Mule/Squat (if you don't detest powergaming)
One of the easiest ways to gain experience is to mule and squat. You should mainly use mules after your main characters reach level 10 or more and when you know there's a big battle oncoming.
Race: Deep Gnome (innate invis)
Amount: 4
That's all you need, make them invisible and hide them in a corner, if they die, create new ones if you wish or resurrect them with your cleric char.
One of the best places to mule is the fight with demons at Ice Temple after Dragon's Eye. If you feel mules are dragging you down, kill them and delete them.
Also, If you wish to have higher levels near the end of the game you can squat your main characters, simply don't level when you have the opportunity, the best times to squat are after your sorcerer gets Mord Sword and your cleric gets Heal.
This duo covers each other's weaknesses very well. The melee character soaks up the damage from enemies and heals himself if needed. The magic user stands back and lets his partner and their summons stall the enemy while he does heavy damage.
Well, this is it, comments are appriciated and if there are any clear mistakes or if this "mini guide" violates anything, please let me know.
A Strong Duo Party [spoilers]
I admit I might have emphasized squat/mule a bit too much. The way I see it, it's just a gimmick in case you want a bit higher level near the endgame.kmonster wrote:Why do you cripple your characters so much that you have to cheat via level squatting and muling ?
A pure class cleric/sorcerer duo can get through the game easily without exploiting the game mechanics.
By crippled characters you mean the multiclass and race experience penalty, yes?
This is just my opinion, but I think the experience system penalizes quick leveling a lot, so much that races and classes with experience penalty can catch up with faster leveling races and pure classes. Still, my classes do need a lot more experience than ordinary classes.
Yeah, pure cleric/sorcerer duo is a very strong combination. It's just that by throwing in 1 Monk level for the cleric gave me very high AC values, since there is a great lack of decent high level armor. The saving throw bonuses gained by giving the sorcerer 1 Paladin level meant a lot in my own playthroughs.
I also weighed having normal races vs Deep Gnome and Drow, and In my opinion the innate Magic Resistance was worth the loss of some endgame levels.
With the 20 percent penalty and the ECL penalty combined your 2 characters should level about as fast as a party of 3 on the long run, I guess that's about 2 levels lower than 2 humans without penalty.
In combination with the paladin or monk level they'll be 3 casting levels lower than a standard duo, being able to cast spells 1-2 levels higher does make a huge difference, far more than a little AC and saving throws.
At least you can be sure not having spells available long before you're supposed to if you don't level squat.
Both mix-in benefits are overrated and less useful than a caster level.
The paladin's saving throw bonus is useless, there are hardly any spells cast at you, the drow spell resistance absorbs nearly all of those, most save chances are perfect even without the added bonus and there are even ways to gain immunity.
The monk level slows down BAB progression and armor can grant more than just AC, it can also grant extra hit points or damage reduction.
Your deep gnome has 2 attribute points less than allowed and your drow could put 9 stat points wasted for wis into an useful stat.
I doubt that raising your concentration skill with combat casting will make the success chances for the few checks you'll have higher than the 95 percent you can get just by spending skill points.
In combination with the paladin or monk level they'll be 3 casting levels lower than a standard duo, being able to cast spells 1-2 levels higher does make a huge difference, far more than a little AC and saving throws.
At least you can be sure not having spells available long before you're supposed to if you don't level squat.
Both mix-in benefits are overrated and less useful than a caster level.
The paladin's saving throw bonus is useless, there are hardly any spells cast at you, the drow spell resistance absorbs nearly all of those, most save chances are perfect even without the added bonus and there are even ways to gain immunity.
The monk level slows down BAB progression and armor can grant more than just AC, it can also grant extra hit points or damage reduction.
Your deep gnome has 2 attribute points less than allowed and your drow could put 9 stat points wasted for wis into an useful stat.
I doubt that raising your concentration skill with combat casting will make the success chances for the few checks you'll have higher than the 95 percent you can get just by spending skill points.
Point takenkmonster wrote:
The paladin's saving throw bonus is useless, there are hardly any spells cast at you, the drow spell resistance absorbs nearly all of those, most save chances are perfect even without the added bonus and there are even ways to gain immunity.
I'm not sure why, but Dalekeeper has revealed me there's a lot of magical armor with their HoF counterparts in the game files. However, I've never found Air Genesi, Diamond Cut, Aasimar's Aura.Baalor's plate and many other armors in the vanilla game, all of those are strong endgame gear. In normal play the best I've come across is Mithril Plate +2. (+12 AC). Normally I've ended up with 34 wis or more with the cleric. That's 12 AC from wis and 4 AC from Dex. (Potion of Holy Trans.)The monk level slows down BAB progression and armor can grant more than just AC, it can also grant extra hit points or damage reduction.
I'll fix that mistake with the DG.Your deep gnome has 2 attribute points less than allowed and your drow could put 9 stat points wasted for wis into an useful stat.
About the drow, you're right. He'll never enter melee zone so will saves aren't important. Would you suggest more INT/CON?
You're right on that.I doubt that raising your concentration skill with combat casting will make the success chances for the few checks you'll have higher than the 95 percent you can get just by spending skill points.
Thanks for your input, it's good to hear other opinions. It would seem that a better option would be to keep the ECL races but drop the Monk/Pala levels.
I'd shift the 9 points from wis into dex, drow can't have more than 16 con and even with 12 int you get more than enough skill points. With good physical stats and spell protection the sorc should be able to tank quite well.
It's even worth considering dumping int to 5 for even higher str and dex, you can still get enough skill points for the elemental feats and some concentration.
It's even worth considering dumping int to 5 for even higher str and dex, you can still get enough skill points for the elemental feats and some concentration.