How much & party recomendations

Salabesh · Post by **Salabesh** » Thu Feb 07, 2002 7:17 pm

Hey All!!

I'm thinking of buying Icewind Dale, but I need to know how much it is in Australia, with the expansion.

I've also been thinking about what party to use when I get it.
So far I think I'll take:
A Human Palidan
An elven Ranger (archer)
A Fighter, Human or Dwarven
A Fighter-Cleric (multi-class)
An Elven Mage-Theif
A Mage (not sure if I want a specialist)

Any alterations or weapon tips would be appriciated.
Thanks!!

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Fri Feb 08, 2002 1:41 am

Ranged weapons:

Ranged-weapon capability is a must in this game. Have your fighter-types specialize in bows. Have your mage-thief also choose the bow proficiency. Give your cleric proficiency in slings.

Melee Weapons:

Due to the rarity of enchanted weapons in the early game, it is a mistake to have your party all specialize in the same weapon type at the beginning. So, do something like this:

Paladin - Great swords
Ranger - Large swords (take advantage of racial bonus)
Fighter - Axes
Cleric - Hammer, Mace, or Flail
Mage-thief - Small Swords
Mage - Quarterstaff

Later, as your party gains proficiency points, make sure your fighter-types specialize in both slashing and blunt weapons. Give your thief a proficiency in clubs or staves. You'll be encountering creatures for which you'll need the blunt weapons to maximize damage, and others against which it is better to use slashing weapons.

Spell scrolls are rare in this game. You may prefer to have a fighter-thief, instead of a mage-thief, for the serious backstab damage he can do. However, if you get the HoW expansion, you may wish to replace the straight mage with a bard, because of the bard songs.

Clerics and druids, esp. with the HoW expansion, have the ability to create spell-weapons. Using some of these are affected by weapon proficiency, so check the spell descriptions if you plan to be using something like Spiritual Hammer.

On magic arrows/bullets/etc. - these are rare. Save them for enemies for which you need magical weapons to hit.

Invincible121 · Post by **Invincible121** » Fri Feb 08, 2002 6:54 pm

Well i have something to add to that.

there is a nice dagger that when equiped gives your mage loads more spell slots, so i think that profiencys in daggers would be a good idea as well

Cybot · Post by **Cybot** » Sun Mar 03, 2002 7:02 pm

First of all. I would avoid taking elves. Elves can't be raised with the "raise dead" spell. You don't KNOW how many times I have been cursing that fact.

Second. Magedaggers are all fine and dandy. But remember that to gain advantage from that mage dagger he can't use a missile dagger as he MUST keep it drawn. That means that taking advantage of that dagger means that you can't use a missile weapon. TOO much of a disadvantage in my mind.

My own recommendation for a party is:

Human Paladin: Greatswords and Crossbows.

Dwarven Fighter: Axes and missile weapons(yes, its cliche. But I enjoy cliches. And if you should have a Dwarf in your party why not one with axes).

Half-Elf/Human/Dwarf Fighter: Maces and Missile weapons. You need maceskill for both maces and morningstars.

Gnomish Illusionist/thief: Bows and Large swords. Since he is a gnome he gets the extra spells. Alot of Lowlevel spells. JUST what you need from a secondary spellcaster.

Cleric(no race prefered, perhaps even a Fighter/Cleric):Maces and Missile weapons. Later also Flails and Hammers.

Mage(Necromancer perhaps.. Perfect compliment to an Illusionist): Missile weapons and later in the game daggers and staffs. Probally Dagger first as good staffs are quite rare.

As for variations. Consider replacing a fighter with a Bard and go "fighter-thief" instead of fighter illusionist. If you go for that option Dwarves make GREAT fighter/Thieves.

Also, have a nice time playing with the weapon combinations. Just make sure someone can wield axes(as there are ALOT of superb axes in icewind dale) and somebody has the capability to gain grandmastery in somekind of blunt weapon(too many skeletal undead for you to ignore that).

Also you might not necessarily give the Paladin the Great Sword ability. its just one of my habits from always having the nasty Paladin twohander whose name I can't remember. You might just as well give the Paladin the Axe skill and fill up with missile weapons and later Hammers or maces. In that case I could recommend experimenting with this Teamlist

Paladin: Axe/Missile weapons
Fighter: Maces/Missile weapons
Fighter/Thief: Large sword/Bow
Bard: Great swords/Crossbow
Cleric: Maces, missileweapons
Mage: Missile weapons.

Or even skip the Paladin all together and replace him with a ranger which in case you could have something like this:

Ranger: Large sword/Bow
Fighter: Axes/missile weapon
Fighter/Thief: Short or Longswords/Bow(There are so many large swords that you never have any lack of good weapons)
Bard: Great sword/Crossbow
Fighter/Cleric: Mace/Missile weapon(you have to have at least specialized in maces. Too important)
Mage: Missile weapon

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 7:49 am

My favorite party (current one):

Paladin: large sword, flail, bow
Dwarven fighter-cleric: mace, hammer, sling
Half-elven fighter-druid: club, large sword, sling
Halfling fighter-thief: short sword, club, bow
Half-elven bard: large sword, staff, axe, bow
Human conjurer: staff, sling

So far, this party has been rolling over everything in its path.

Cybot · Post by **Cybot** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 4:35 pm

No crossbows sojourner? If you get your hands on the Heavy Repeating crossbow that is just purely unbeatable.
But on the other hand the best missile weapons in IWD are longbows...but the lack of good Shortbows is just so irritating.

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Mon Mar 04, 2002 11:23 pm

Oh, eventually I'll give one or two party members crossbow proficiencies - the problem with crossbows is their lower rate of fire, good ones are part of random loot so you can go the whole way through IWD (not the expansion) without finding one, and the good one that Conlan sells is currently out of my party's price range.

Skuld · Post by **Skuld** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 12:36 am

I think that Multiclassing with a party of 6 is pointless and a waste of XP. My current party is:
Half-Elf Cleric
Half-Elf Bard
Halfling Thief
I just got Kresslack's Sword(gave it to my Bard), and I'm gonna move on to the Dragon's Eye tomorrow night. This is so far my favorite party, and the most fun to play because I'm leveling up twice as fast as well as hoarding all the good items. By the time I left Easthaven all of my characters were level 3. The strategy in this game is to send in my Cleric as a tank(-5 AC) and have the Thief and Bard shoot till thier hearts' content. When dealing with undead I cast Invisibility on the Cleric and have him turn undead while the others hunt down the frightened skellies.

Onyx · Post by **Onyx** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 3:10 am

@Skuld. Small parties, nice, 3 or 4, just the way i like it.
My favorite party for IWD & co was :
Elf fighter - hammers & axes, very weird
Elf druid - long swords, clubs & slings
Halfling thief - swords,daggers & bows
Gnome Illusionist - don't really care about weapons
...and no one could stop them

And 'cause it's only a party of 4 with no multi class, lot's of XP.

Onyx

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 9:09 am

My current party consists of

Cleric
Mage
Thief
Ranger
Paladin
Fighter.

My most powerful character, as in number of kills and experience of kills - is my mage, those area effect spells are so important. The next most powerful is tied between Ranger and Cleric

I had reached the final battle of HoW and realised my party level was not high enough, so restarted with the same level chars but playing in heart of fury mode *laughs* 2000 exp for a skeleton!

I am very tempted to drop the Thief (hopeless, even at level 21 - and the few traps around in IWD for this level characters barely bruise) The Paladin and Fighter have also proven disappointing in comparison to the Cleric, Mage and Ranger...

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 9:37 am

Mage?! Most powerful! Heresy!!!

Yshania · Post by **Yshania** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 9:41 am

Yep!

Cybot · Post by **Cybot** » Tue Mar 05, 2002 5:16 pm

Naaah!!

Its not that much of a heresy in Icewinddale. Icewinddale favors the "loads of small bad guys" instead of the baldurs gate "Big huge bastards with magic resistance like there is no tomorrow".

In such cases a cone of cold, prismatic spray, Lance of Disruption or the common fireball can work wonders. Hell, even burning hands has had alot of use from me(being the secondly most used spell after magic missile).

Hell, In trials of the Luremaster, Undead level of Dragons Eye as well as the both the salamander and Giant caverns my mages did almost all of the dirty work, them and a few big hulking elementals to block the enemies access.

Invincible121 · Post by **Invincible121** » Wed Mar 06, 2002 12:09 pm

my most useful spell is chromatic orb....there is something very satisfying about tiny little mage 'throwing' a pinkish ball at a big enemy (like an ettin...hee hee) and then it is held there for ages while she slashes it with her small little dagger awwww.

lol

Gruntboy · Post by **Gruntboy** » Thu Mar 07, 2002 10:03 am

@Cybot, you're welcome to your opinion. But I find the MR is just as bad in IWD. And with those waves of small enemies, mages just get swamped. Its usually the area-types spells that end up not affecting the wave-types anyway.

Still, I always have a mage and usually a bard too - 1 1/2 spellcasters is more than enough for me (and more than I'd usually admit too).

That's more cursing than I like to hear in a retort too.

DarkOmen · Post by **DarkOmen** » Fri Mar 22, 2002 8:56 pm

I have to argue against using paladins and rangers in IWD. Sure they sound good but rationalise why you choose them - 1st - paladin for Charisma and priest spells. IWD is too linear and combat oriented for the charisma to be of any use. What you need in IWD is beefy fighters able to do massive coronary damage......and extra proficiency slots help. Having some weaklings means you have to rest more when what you want is to ba able to go from fight to fight without having to rest all the time

Demis · Post by **Demis** » Fri Mar 22, 2002 10:26 pm

Welding Pale Justice is good enough reason to have a Paladin in my Party other form the fact that i favor Paladins.

curviceps · Post by **curviceps** » Sat Mar 23, 2002 12:37 am

re: party creation

The last time I played thru I used characters from the Baldur's Gate series--specifically, Harpers: Jaheira and Khalid , Gorion , Cadderly, Entillis Fulsom, Reviane. Used the stats/classes (except I had to change one into a thief--I forget who) from their .cre files, pulled out their sound files (incomplete in some cases). I know that the timeline's all wrong, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.

True that bows are killers in Icewind. I never liked Khalid in BG1, but he had by far the most kills in that party.

Starting a new game soon, as soon as I finish downloading Trials of the Luremaster. I'm going to play as the Slave Lords from BG2 this time (Sion, Koshi, et. al.) Guess I'll have to make Celestial Fury.

That brings up a question--I want to change the animations for Maferan and Olaf to the proper minotaur (if there is one)/orog. Has anyone run into problems using different animations?

Phantax · Post by **Phantax** » Sun Mar 31, 2002 8:33 am

'ello mate,

Making a party is one of the most, if not the most, important part of IWD/HoW. It is also the best part, in my opinion.

A selection of my parties:

This first one is pretty basic and all-round:

Blayze - Human Paladin (long sword & shield), 'tank' with some good special abilities.
Thur - Human Fighter (battle axe & shield), pure 'tank'.
Lylo - Halfling Fighter/Thief (short sword & shield), with voice 'male fighter 5', funny guy and trap remover.
Rurik - Dwarf Cleric (mace & shield), healer, backup fighter, plus dwarven clerics just look great.
Silaqui - Elf Fighter/Mage/Thief (longbow), sniper, backup mage, scout.
Vandric Human Transmuter (sling), artillery & special effects.

It would have been better to make Silaqui just Fighter/Mage, without the thief class. Lylo turned out to be capable of handeling all the thieving by himself. Rurik could also have been a druid, since turning undead can also be done by Blayze (if not at a lower level) It would have made a worse backup fighter (no metal armor), but better offensive spell capability.

This is a more magic-oriented party:

Lheodar - Human Ranger(9)/Cleric (warhammer & shield), 'tank', healer.
Ydurg - Dwarf Fighter (bastard sword & shield), 'tank' extraordinair.
Scytha - Elf Druid (spear), healer and offensive spellcaster.
Tulkin - Half-Elf Bard (longbow), backup mage, musician
Ulgin - Gnome Thief/Illusionist (shortbow), backup mage, trap remover & lockpicker, scout
Riddly Quickbrains - Gnome Illusionist (throwing dagger), main mage, comedian, personal favorite.

A lot of magic users here, but it turned out to be less effective then I expected, since the amount of spell scrolls you find is limited. The druid has some real cool spells, a good choice for any party. Lheodar proved to be an excellent fighter, despite the dual class.

In general:
-Make sure everyone has a good ranged weapon, and use variation, try to use as many different weapons as possible (not six slings). This will ensure that everyone has a good magic version of the weapon.
-I consider two mage-types to be enough, since using more than two will result in a lack of spells to learn for everyone. You can try it though, but you'll have to plan very carefully who gets what.
-The most effective party isn't always the most FUN party, so consider that.

Well, that's about it I guess (phew). And for now: "Have fun, that's an order!"

Thanks for reading this far...

Skuld · Post by **Skuld** » Sun Mar 31, 2002 9:42 am

Since IWD is pretty linear with little roleplaying I usually opt to power game. Here's a party I'd play.
Gnome Thief/Illusionist (Shortbow, Shortsword)
Elf Druid (Sling, Spear)
Dwarf Fighter (Axe, Sling)
Elf Ranger (Composite Longbow, Bastard Sword)

I think I might actually try this party. I surprise myself sometimes.