Is the "Pseudo 3E Conversion Pack" recommended?

[HandsomeDevil]

Hey, talk about coming late to the party.

After a miserable dalliance with Atari's TOEE, I dusted off my copy of IWD that I never really gave a decent shot. I've been agonizing over the party make-up. Confusing the issue is that my rather weak knowledge of 2E rules. Plus, I don't have my manual - nor can I find my BG2 manual.

So I was thinking that 3E rules might be just the ticket.

Has anyone tried the "Pseudo 3E conversion pack"? If so, do you recommend it?

[HandsomeDevil]

This might be a moot point - the two sites that had the 3E conversion pack are dead and I'm not finding it anywhere else using Google. Nevertheless, I'd like to hear any opinions from anyone who's used it.

[kmonster]

Both the IWD manual and the Pseudo 3E Conversion Pack can be downloaded at the IWD section of Sorcerer's Place - Neverwinter Nights 2, Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, Dragon Age News .
I don't recommend the pseudo 3E conversion pack, especially the 3E experience tables will lead to an unbalanced game due to far too fast levelling and you don't get real 3E rules either..

IWD is good as is, you don't have to breed hours over 2e rules in order to play the game successfully, it's probably sufficient to know that thac0 and AC have to be as low as possible, only extreme stat values make a difference and multiclassing does work differently.
If you don't mess up the party creation (you can ask for advice here) you shouldn't get into trouble.

[HandsomeDevil]

I've started without the 3E conversion - I did find a thread on a different forum that cited the same problem you mentioned with the XP and hyper-accelerated leveling.

Thank you for the link and the tips. I did recall from BG2 that extreme stats gave the results, so I sort of winged it. Still, after playing PnP and CRPG (TOEE) using 3E rules, it just seems weird to have a "6" in a stat go essentially unpunished.

Cheers.

[kmonster]

In 3e games you can dump some stats unpunisghed as well, powergaming stats for a half-orc barbarian in IWD2, which uses 3E rules and a point-buy system, include 1 int and 1 cha for example.
The weird thing abot 2e is rather that there is no difference between having 7 or 14 in most stats.

[HandsomeDevil]

I don't think I totally agree that 3E allows dump stats - except, perhaps, Charisma. With Int tied to skills and Wis tied to Will saves, I didn't want a negative adjustment there.

Then again, if you're a fighter or cleric, if you're going to have a 9 Int, you may as well have a 3 Int, because you still only get 1 skill point per level. Maybe you have a point there. But if you've got a 3 Int, you're only 1 point smarter than a squirrel, and only 2 points smarter than a dandelion.

[Aerich]

My, those are some ugly dandelions I have in my party.

What is the composition of the party you're using? Is it working out fine?

[Rabain]

IWD1Tutu is currently in beta testing at G3 if anyone wants to lend a hand.

This attempts to convert IWD1 to the same 3E version of the Infinity Engine used in IWD2.

The Gibberlings Three Forums -> IWD1Tutu

[HandsomeDevil]

My party composition

My, those are some ugly dandelions I have in my party.

What is the composition of the party you're using? Is it working out fine?

Well, if you like your PCs dumb as sticks, then a 3 Int is the way to go. As I mentioned, there's no real difference for a fighter between 3 and 9 Int. But I always worry that a character with a 3 Int would forget to breathe or something.

Funny you should ask about party composition, because I was just pondering that. I'm going with a 3-person party because I wanted to level up quickly:

Human Pal: I thought fighting + healing was good. Aura of courage, too. I'd use one again, but I think I'll try some other fighter next time, so I can stick in an evil character to use some of the alignment-specific loot.

Half-elf Clr/Rgr: I'm not really seeing the appeal here. Entangle is nice, but it's not a showstopper. Next time around, it'll be a dwarven ftr/clr.

Elven (I think) Ftr/Mage/Thief: I always wanted to try this out. So far (6/5/6 or thereabouts), I'm not really impressed. The ftr levels are robbing me of spells I need, I think. Next time out, it'll be a mage/thief.

Also, I think I'll go with 4 characters next time. 3 cuts it a little too fine, I think.

[Aerich]

3 characters? I'd get bored.

The appeal of the Cleric/Ranger is in its versatility. With no shield, it's a superior offensive melee unit, and in terms of spell selection it has the healing and buffing of a cleric with nearly the offensive capacity of a druid.

What difficulty level are you playing on? I wouldn't use a F/M/T on anything less than Insane, even though you're only using 3 characters. It's also better off as a supplemental caster, not the sole arcane caster of a party.

If using 3 characters is bothering you, you could just add another. I'd recommend a F/D or a F/M.

[HandsomeDevil]

I was going to start another thread about party composition, but I hereby give myself permission to hijack my own.

I'm only playing on normal/default difficulty, so that may clarify the situation for you. (I think the only game I have *ever* beefed up the difficulty is my Hitman game on XBox.)

I'm not finding the Clr/Rgr to be a great fighter at all. In fact, he's getting his head handed to him regularly. I have a lot of PnP experience in 1E and 3/3.5E D&D, but I kind of skipped 2E. Maybe that's my problem. Although, the Clr/Rgr I have in BG2 seems to be a whole lot better (with way worse stats). I just don't know...

I think you're right about the F/M/T and supplementary casting. My rationale was that since I only had 3 characters, he should level up sufficiently quickly to still be an arcane force.

Maybe I'll drop a 'primary' arcane caster into the mix, but he'll be hard to keep alive, I bet - although if I can protect him, he should rocket up levels. Or maybe I'll just start up a new party...

Right now my 3-character party is in Dragon's Eye looking for Yxunomei. I tried to send my thief in to see if I could just steal the Heartstone Gem, but I ended up running away, resting in the hallway, and then *poof* she was gone from her room. I gather from an older thread I found that she's lurking around somewhere else on the level.

[kmonster]

It's no use changing the difficulty, only with the expansion you get double XP for playing "very easy" or "insane" level.

The fighter's main advantadge over the ranger in IWD2 is the ability to assign more than two points in a weapon, but since multiclasses are limited to 2 points, the only remaining advantadge is a little faster level progression, worth 1/5 of a level.
Therefore a dwarven fighter/cleric wouldn't survive longer than a ranger/cleric, the con bonus isn't more useful than the dex penalty, only the racial +5 bonus in the important saving throws does matter against enemy spellcasters, but is it as nice as the druid spells ?
In IWD rangers get an extra attack per round if they don't wear a shield and can therefore do more damage than paladins, but with a party of 3 not getting hit is more important so you might prefer wearing a shield.
It's obvious that a paladin can survive longer, he gets +2 AC from his PfE and more HP because of faster levelling. But he can't cast spells to heal and support the party like a cleric.

Your F/M/T is better than a F/T, since the XP required to go up a level is usually doubled you are never more than mage 1 level behind, often you are on the same level.
But for your fighter levels you get many HP, more attacks per round which hit more often and do more damage and the ability to use any weapon and armor.

If you want to add a 'primary' arcane caster I recommend to take a conjurer for the extra spell per level. The only useful spell you'll miss is 'identify' which can be handled by the F/M/T.
For the HP I recommend starting as human fighter and dualclassing to conjurer after 3 or 7 fighter levels. You need at least 15 str, 17 int and 17 con for this, but you'll want to set each stat except wis and cha to 18 anyway.
Since advancing a mage level after 375,000 XP requires another 375,000 XP, even the 64,000 XP for 7 fighter levels aren't a big deal, but you can dualclass earlier if you are not patient enough. You can store a few scrolls in the inn in Kuldahar to scribe them when he starts gaining mage levels.
For the fighter levels you get weapon specialisation, the ability to use more weapons and armor, and with 18 con you get 8 extra HP for each fighter level you take before dualing. Fighter level 7 grants even another half attack per round on top of the one you get for weapon specialisation.

You can divide about 6,600,000 XP among your party members during the game and the XP cap is 1,800,000 per character so you can afford adding a 4th character. Since you'll need 375,000 XP for a mage level later starting with 200,000 less won't be so so dramatic. The first levels will be gained very fast.

[HandsomeDevil]

Holy moley, kmonster, I think my head just exploded. That is a lot of information to digest.

In the interest of full disclosure of my own IWD/AD&D2E ignorance, I bring you the rest of my post.

It sounds like my party makeup is ok. I figured I had all the bases covered, anyway. I guess what's really getting me is the game itself - I think I expected it to be easier. I didn't think I'd have to rest so often and I thought that the dungeons would supply more useful gear (especially missile ammo in Dragon's Eye). And even though my characters are at a decent level, I find that Dragon's Eye takes a pretty big jump in difficulty from 3rd to 4th dungeon levels. I still haven't cleared out that last room on level 3 with all the undead and the wizard.

Thanks for clearing up the issue with game difficulty.

I know a paladin is no replacement for a cleric. I just view them as tanks with benefits (except for in TOEE, where you can become 'fallen' for drinking, but not for allowing your party to steal from innocents).

I also didn't know that bit about rangers and shields. I've had my guy using a shield, and his AC is decent (-1, I think), but he still seems to get hit an awful lot. He'd probably be doing better if I had a decent weapon for him.

I was just thinking about my F/M/T. I had never tried one, and I kind of figured he would be a superbard without all the poncy singing. Once again, it might be the difficulty of the game itself that's throwing me off. I'm used to getting more bang for my buck out of the spells. I've tried to select spells that will always be good (i.e. no spells that are affected by target HD). But not having played through before, it's hard to know which spells will be most useful.

How do you get around the casting in armour issue? Is it just a matter of pausing in combat, taking off the armour and letting him cast? Or is there a cleverer way around this?

You mentioned "setting" the ability scores - do you mean keep re-rolling until the numbers turn up or did you mean using an editor to change the character stats?

Finally, what's the big deal with druids? I've always thought they were a poor man's treehugging cleric (this might be my PnP bias creeping in) and I've never really gotten much out of their spells, except entangle. In BG2, the only reason I keep the ftr/druid around is to see if I can get into her lederhosen.

And by the way, you guys rock. Not too many people would hang around to chat about a 7 year old computer game.

[kmonster]

If a battle gets too hard you can turn down the game difficulty to very easy as last resort, but don't forget to switch it back up again since you get less XP on easy levels.
It's obvious that you'll have a harder time with only 3 party members.
Dragon's Eye is one of the most difficult parts of the game, the following chapters were easier for me.

Some combat advice: Buff your party up before combat, "protection from evil 10'" helps a lot for example, "strength" lasts very long and with "animate dead" you can get long lasting summons with many immunities.

The game has no time limit, you can return to Kuldahar, sell your stuff and buy missiles as often as you want.

About your ranger/cleric's weapon: It's more important that you are specialised in the weapon type you use than having +2 instead of +1. If you specialised in flails you get a very good one from the wizard in DE level 3 you haven't beaten yet.
AC -1 isn't very good, you can easily get an AC of -5 or better: AC3 for wearing plate, +4 for 18 dex, +2 for the PfE 10' spell, +2 (or more) for a shield, later you'll even get better equipment.

About the "casting in armor" issue: I'm too lazy to put the armor off and on.
There are mage robes in the game, one owned by the wizard in DE level 3, you'll get better ones later. There are also the level 1 spells "armor" (AC6 for hours) and "shield" (AC4 for quite a long time) , you can get a great AC if you combine the "shield" spell with the "Robe of Enfusing" Orrick sells during the first two chapters. You also get bracers AC6 in chapter 2 if you don't want to cast armor.

About ability scores: I don't use an editor, I just reroll until the numbers fit. A ranger/cleric with 18 in all important stats is usually achieveable with the first roll, just lower int and cha to be able to set all other stats to 18. I rerolled until I got 18/00 strength also.

About druids: It's like in BG2, since cleric/rangers gets both druid and cleric spells, you don't really need a druid.
One druid advantadge is the faster levelling in mid-game, druids reach level 12 long before clerics reach level 10.
The other advantadge is the ability to shapeshift, as boring beetle or winter wolf you get one extra attack per round, as polar bear even twice as many. In boring beetle form you can even get immune to slashing damage if you happen to find a certain random item.
A pure druid is also hard to play since he can't wear proper armor, dual- or multiclassed ones are easier.

With the expansion druids get better spells and elemental shapeshift forms, ranger/clerics get only druid spells if their ranger level is high enough to cast them. Without expansion druids aren't really worth playing except for roleplaying reasons.

[zippythezip]

Great posts here
I too have loaded up IWD after getting cheesed off with TOEE. Years ago I tried IWD and found it too hard. From reading these forums I just had the wrong party ,spells and weapons. I am now at Dragons eye, and I am having to save\load every few feet. Glad you say it was easier after as I was wondering if I would ever get through the game. Any way I have enjoyed the read here

[Aerich]

There's plenty more info if you need it, all you have to do is ask.

DE lvl 5 is plenty hard; there's about six different places to get whupped if you're not careful. Web, Entangle, Slow, and even Grease are critical spells to prevent your front-line characters from being overwhelmed. DE lvl 4 isn't too bad if you can survive the initial onslaught and get to the summoner quickly.

There's a great, but unfortunately random-drop, item in the Severed Hand for fighter/mages and bards.

[HandsomeDevil]

I had to restart, but I put together a party with 6 characters. I'm not sure if it's the additional characters or the fact that I've known what was around most corners, but I'm kicking ass right now. I just finished Dragon's Eye and nailed Yxunomei on the first go.

Knowledge is power. I'm starting to get the hang of how to use my characters. I'm a D&Der from way back, but I find the game much different. For example, I've only recently figured out that instead of just blundering on into everything, sending an invisible thief to scout can be very helpful to get the lay of the land and get rid of the pesky traps before we get there.

However, I haven't been to the Severed Hand, so I expect that I'll start getting whupped again.

[Aerich]

I'm glad your second party is working better.

The early part of the SH isn't bad, but there's a few triggered events that can cause difficulty. I'd recommend scouting with one character (preferably one that can hide or has some way to go invisible) while the others are drawn up in defensive formation. The towers and the other side of lvls 1-3 can be... interesting. Save often.