GameBanshee Forums

Hi, I've had a few questions about the game...

For example: How come that everyone says Rangers are soo bad? I mean, they have a good BAB progression at least, and I guess the only thing that pure fighters have above them are more feats, right? And perhaps weapon specialization.

A pure fighter on the other hand, seems to be a really bad choice. I played till after the Underdark and before Kuldahar I think, the place that is more or less overrun by undead. Probably you could kill them quite well with a fighter wielding the mace of disruption from the tic tac toe game, but I didn't have the patience to sit that through.

When I sent my fighter forward, he can do a fair amount of damage with his axe, that is right... but takes a LOT in return. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with equipment and stats, but I wouldn't know how to improve the AC considerably. I guess it's okay if I buff him up a lot, but well... the sorceress on the other hand I could self-buff with and walk around the map, rounding up enemies and blasting them all away with sunfire like in some MMO where you grind monsters endlessly.
And, funny enough, with Mordenkainen's Sword the sorceress actually makes a better melee fighter than the actual fighter.

But getting back to the ranger: When I look at the spells available I get the feeling they're not really that helpful. I think the Paladin is similar to the ranger but they get more self buffs, right? I mean a fighter who's also able to summon some animals... that's not really more useful than just letting someone else summon the animals.

So in the end, I feel a bit dissatisfied with the fact that it's actually easiest to just walk off with the sorceress killing everything on her own, because when I use the other characters as well they'd only get in the way or get killed by the enemies because they lack defensive spells.

So, luckily, my fighter is also a wizard. I lose some BAB, but wizard also get extra feats (even though less than fighters, but they're enough) and I have defensive spells. They're really required, because when I don't use them (because I ran out or so) he gets beat up badly. However I don't see how a higher fighter level would benefit his defensive qualities.

How do you do this? Does anyone actually use more or less pure fighters, and how do you prevent them from being cut up?

And then: What do you think is the most enjoyable party setup? I'm thinking about not using a sorcerer anymore. They are strong and I love magic, but maybe they're a bit too strong, actually? The wizard in comparison isn't that strong because of the much more limited spells. Maybe in PnP a wizard has some advantages, but in a game like this I don't see many, because there are so few spells on each level that are actually useful.

Although... I haven't tried Tenser's transformation yet, because I didn't chose it for the sorceress and found no wizard scroll yet.
Maybe the wizard will be as strong as an equal level fighter with it? But then I don't think BAB needs to be improved much more when wielding Mordenkainen's Sword. Does Tenser's grant more attacks?

Oh and another thing: Can I use Power attack with Mordenkainen's sword? Does any weapon proficiency apply, or strength bonus? The spell descriptions says it's mentally wielded, so I'd guess those things don't apply, because the sword works so different from a usual sword.
But what about improved critical?

And lastly: I read that if you use the eyes from Seven Eyes (Wiz7) offensively, there is no saving throw. Is that true and if so, is that intended? Or is it actually a bug?

many questions - so I try to keep it short:

sad but truen, rangers are the weakest PC-Choice - every fighter-druid or even better fighter wizard multi-class choice is by far better!

btw. all single-class builds are weaker then multi-class builds in IWDII...

...same thing for all non-caster classes!

add 2, 3 or max. 4 classes of a non-caster class to a caster class and this build is by far better.

...and yes - Sorcs are extremly powerfull (especially as wizards don't find scrolls early enough - at the point where L7 spells for a SC-Wiz would be availabel you just have found a few L5 and if your are lucky 1 or 2 L6 spells)...

...add 2 Pal levels to a Sorc and you get one of the most powerfull build possible...

btw. if IWDII seems to easy go on a hard or very hard setting, try the "undead targos mod" or try HOF!

Hey, thanks for your reply.
It's sad to see how all these forums are kind of dead. I've only started playing IWD recently and since none of my friends are really into it, I kind of miss talking about the game and exchanging ideas and opinions.
Does maybe anyone know a forum that is still more active?

Ah and yes, it seems to me that fighters aren't really worthwhile. Today I finally got to try Tenser's Transformation and my Wizard really rocked. =)
The AC went up to 40 (with other buffs), which is more than I had on my fighters, decent BAB and everything... I used Dual Wield with a Dagger that gives +AC in the off hand even though I didn't have any feats for it and only 10 Strength (+buff), but it was still decent damage. Next time I'm going to make a Wizard with more Strength.
Also my Fighter is now Fighter6/Wizard7, that makes him more of a Wizard actually. I'm looking forward to Tenser's, although that's still a long way to go... but at least this character has strength and combat feats and everything.

About Undead Targos: Doesn't that just change the prologue? I was thinking about Tactics4IWD2 or something.
Harder Difficulty level, well... the thing about that is, that it only seems to push the balance more in favor of casters. For a 40 HP Sorc/Wiz it's not so important how much damage the monsters deal - every hit means one less mirror image and once they're all up you better cast new ones or you're dead, even on normal. The only ones actually taking damage are the fighters, who are already worse off I think.

Another thing I noticed: Although one might argue in favour of fighters that they can't run out of spells like casters do, they're actually just as dependend on spells, that is on buffs and healing from the wizards and clerics. An unbuffed fighter gets mashed by the monsters, while a buffed wizard can mash monsters in melee by himself.
The only advantage of a fighter oriented build seems to be, that it isn't dependend on Tenser's and can therefore recast defensive spells like mirror image when they run out.

peachadelic wrote:Hey, thanks for your reply.
It's sad to see how all these forums are kind of dead. I've only started playing IWD recently and since none of my friends are really into it, I kind of miss talking about the game and exchanging ideas and opinions.
Does maybe anyone know a forum that is still more active?

First of all welcome to Game Banshee
I'm reasonably sure that the Game Banshee IWD forums are actually amongst the most active you will find. These are old games, and made in a style no longer especially popular with developers and an increasingly younger player base. Game Banshee actually has its origins in these old Black Isle titles, most notably with Baldur's Gate 2, and there are still many here who bemoan the passing of games like this.

Anyway, to answer your question somewhat, I personally wouldn't recommend a pure fighter build. Beyond any of the more technical issues in terms of power and such, pure fighters are pretty one dimensional, and a bit boring to play. Of course, that is just my personal and highly subjective opinion, others may well disagree

I had a fighter-type character in the party and she was useful although she wasn't created as optimally as the other characters. (wasted 20 points for cha, had only 10 dex, one level lower than the rest of the party, ...)

Fighter characters might look bad if you compare level 30 characters who rest and spend a minute casting self-buffs before each combat, but in a normal game you don't want to rest and pause the game to cast spells so often and proceed only from level 1-16, so the faster BAB progression and the faster gain of extra attacks does matter.

A ranger can be an useful addition to the party if you don't make the mistake to use the weakling stereotype (low strength, weapon finesse, dualwielding small baldes).
Create a half-orc ranger with stats 20-18-18-1-16-1 (other races or stats like 18-14-18-6-14-6 for weakness haters are playable too).
At the beginning (which is most important since it is the hardest part of the game) he'll be powerful like no one else. The bonuses you get for choosing goblinoids as favored enemy will matter. You'll have two damaging melee attacks per round dualwielding.

If you raise only strength at level up and switch to 2-handed weapons once you get additional attacks per round and dualwielding becomes useless he can play the role of the high damage dealer who justs laughs at bosses with 15 damage resistance.