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Stumiester posted:So, can I have some advice about IWD 2? I'm determined to have a go, but I don't really know the 3ed system - too much BG2 for me! I've made a party with some tips from the internet, but I'm sure I've made some glaring errors - any advice would be much appreciated: The biggest worry here is your first guy. He's not a bad build at all, but once you start taking paladin levels, you're locked into that class. The minute you take a level in a class that isn't paladin, you can never go back. It's perfectly fine if you take some fighter levels, THEN go into paladin, but if you start with one paladin level, and then take some fighter levels, you can never go back to paladin. So just take your four fighter levels first. You'll be fine without paladin stuff that early anyway. Make sure your fighter is lawful good though, you still need to fulfill the paladin prerequisites. Power attack is a great feat, good choice there. Dwarf looks great, but he doesn't need charisma. Give him a little extra Wis to shore up his saves. With those two heavy tanks on the front line, you don't need to dilute your cleric with fighter levels. Make him a heavy divine spellcaster, some of their late spells get awesome. Tempus is a great deity for buffs, so even without fighter levels he'll be a fine frontline asset. Consider Draw Upon Holy Might. For feats, I'd give him Combat Casting, Power attack, and then maybe Subvocal Casting so that a silence spell can't shut down your healer. Luck of Heroes isn't that great a feat, since with a little planning or experience you can usually prebuff to counter any status effects coming your way, while feats that amplify your offense let you murder things before you ever have to make that saving throw. The rogue/wizard is a great build, but you don't need to waste feats on things that give you skill points. With a wizard's high INT, and a rogue's massive starting skill total, you'll have plenty on that guy. Give him Combat Casting and then Spell Focus: Enchantment or Necromancy instead and make him a fountain of curses and debuffs to support your front line. I'd ditch the charisma and social skills on this guy and put all his points into dexterity instead, to help his defense and reflex saves. Your high-charisma sorcerer can be the social one. Consider making this guy a (male) Drow instead of a human, starting with 20 dex and 20 int is right in line with what you want this guy to do. A human is fine though, humans are good at everything. I'm not sure if the monk skills carry over into shapeshifted form: but I would just run straight druid anyway. He'll be a (literal!) beast in melee early on, when fighting is more important, and he'll have stronger spells later on when casting is more important. I haven't played much with monks though, he might be fine. Sorcerer looks fine. You'll want to pick up Spell penetration eventually, but spell focus (and combat casting!) will be more helpful early on. This character can be your social face. Mercantile background isn't necessary - you'll have plenty of money. You don't need an evil guy.
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Nov 20, 2013 21:09
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 02:38 |
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Rookersh posted:It's mainly a question of how much you care. BGEE fixes up BG, getting rid of most of the bugs, Haha what? The extended editions are buggy as all get out, and not the fun kind of bugs. The very first quest in the very first area of the first game is literally impossible to complete.
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Nov 24, 2013 09:43
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I've been considering adding an "Ironman Tactics" section to my ongoing LP, but given my terrible update schedule any ironman thread would probably peter out long before I got to the really hard stuff.
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Nov 27, 2013 18:46
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Shadeoses posted:When should I dual-class Imoen to Mage for my two-char run? I've got her to Thief 3 now, mostly for the hp and lockpicking. Thief doesn't really have any major breakpoints you need to hold out for, so basically however long it takes for you to get the skills you want. Level 5 or 6 is probably fine if you just want locks and traps, especially if you're willing to give Imoen the Dexterity tome to raise her skills a bit more.
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Nov 29, 2013 08:02
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MrTheDevious posted:Replacing Hexxat with Jan is the best thing that ever happened to me. Best character in the game hands down. Everything he says is pure gold. Not really, no. That said, there's no such thing as too many arcane casters in the party, so feel free to boot someone else and have both.
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Nov 29, 2013 22:52
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I think you can still attack the petrified body and smash it to get the loot.
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Nov 29, 2013 23:54
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As far as I know there isn't any way to check if a given item exists anywhere. The game only loads your current area (and sub-areas like individual houses in a town) and doesn't access distant areas. You might need to CLUA it. As far as I know every single chest, barrel, drawer, sarcophagus and spider pit is safe. Any container at all. Items are cleaned up off the floor after a few in-game days, but chests are never altered. There is a large chest just to the right of the entrance in the Friendly Arm that I've used for storage. I've also safely used clusters of barrels outside the Jovial Juggler on the streets of Beregost. The enhanced edition might be different, but I seriously doubt it.
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Jul 4, 2014 08:55
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He wasn't saying that the broken mod is Beamdog's fault. It doesn't matter whose fault the forum sticky is. He was saying that since he prefers the modded game, EE is the inferior experience.
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Jul 23, 2014 14:47
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We DO first meet Elminster on the same map as the belt ogre, not 50 meters away. Coincidence? 
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Jul 31, 2014 15:44
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Arivia posted:Doesn't he actually come up to you right at the beginning of the game? like the first wilderness map? That's right, and that's the same map as the belt ogre.
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Jul 31, 2014 15:54
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IWD2 has a worse plot than the Baldur's Gate series, and since all player-controlled characters are also player-created, they're all generics with no personality. If you enjoyed those aspects of Baldur's Gate most then IWD2 is a worse game. I like them both though, IWD2's combat and ruleset is lovely.
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Nov 8, 2014 04:48
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What do you prefer as your IWD2 party? I tend to go really caster-heavy, but I'm not sure that's the really best option. I usually go 2 sorcerers, one wizard with a bit of rogue as my skill monkey, a fighter, and either two clerics or one cleric and a druid.
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Nov 10, 2014 22:37
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I'm not a fan of monks in the 2nd edition ruleset (which IWD1 uses). At their high-level best they are nice fighters, but the vast majority of the game they will be dead weight draining xp from your other party members. Even once they reach parity, weapon-using classes are still more than viable. I guess I just don't see it being worth it to have a terrible party member for 80% of the game, just to get a slightly above-average one for the last 10%. It sounds like you're set on having one anyway, so I would suggest speccing the rest of your party to be high damage dealers to make up for the monk's anemic offense. A single-class thief is fine in this game, since thieves are the best class for alpha striking with high damage. Once you get their locks/traps raised, you can invest heavily in stealth and open every fight by sticking a blade in an enemy wizard's spleen. I think it's generally better to have two arcane casters than it is to have two divine casters, so if you want both a monk and no multiclass party members, my party suggestion would be something like Monk Paladin OR Ranger OR Fighter Thief Mage, conjurer is my favorite subclass Sorcerer Cleric OR Druid
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Nov 11, 2014 01:32
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There isn't a ring that raises your intelligence (unless they added one in the EE). If you mean the ring that increases your mage spell slots, Kontik has it in the frost giant cave.
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Nov 15, 2014 22:37
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For a mod that claims to increase difficulty, why would they remove the classic Dread Wolf ambush 2 seconds after Imoen joins your party?
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Nov 18, 2014 21:25
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Oh well as long as she apologized.
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Nov 28, 2014 09:56
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To be fair, a single sleep will win practically any fight that isn't a quest boss until you hit level 5 and start getting 3 magic missiles per cast. Good mage spells for the early-midgame are something like this: 1: - Sleep until mage is level 5, then - Magic Missile - Blindness is decent too if you're rolling with Xan who can't magic missile. - Resist Petrification. Clear the basilisk map early at zero risk and rake in like 20,000 free xp. 2: - Web, especially if using Minsc with Spider's Bane - Horror. Party friendly, wins fights. - Invisibility - lasts literally all day. Lets your thief scout ahead and find all the traps before getting into fights, emergency escape for a wizard under fire. - Mirror Image, if using a fighter/mage. Best defensive spell in the game until BG2. - Strength, makes Jaheira into a murder machine, lasts for a really long time. - Resist fear, only if you don't have a cleric. 3: - Skull trap, better than fireballs all day. This is where wizards start to output damage. - Dispel Magic, your tank will get mind controlled sooner or later and you'll want this to not explode. - Haste, it's like a summon spell that doubles all your tanks. - Slow, no friendly fire, -4 penalty to enemy saves, ruins their chances to hit and dodge. Great against beefy melee fights like the Doomguards in Durlag's or high level adventurer fights of any sort.
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Dec 5, 2014 19:18
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Depends, what class is your solo guy?
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Dec 10, 2014 23:48
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The Ilmater priest outside of Firewine bridge has a scroll of magic immunity on him that you can only get by murder/pickpocketing.
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Dec 12, 2014 08:43
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Bards can be good, yes, but Garrick has appallingly bad stats and poorly chosen weapon proficiencies.
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Dec 16, 2014 06:40
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The statement was "Bards are good in BG1", which is true. Bards level faster than mages, which means any spells that scale with caster level will be stronger. Mages certainly catch up at the end of the game, but for much of the game bards will have stronger casts than a mage will, although not nearly so many casts. They also can make decent archers, at the point in the game when archery is strongest (the very beginning). Once you hit BG2 you're right, bards without kits look worse and worse, but they have their niche.
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Dec 16, 2014 09:20
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Bring Minsc to make best use of a special treasure there!
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Dec 18, 2014 22:55
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It's not the most fun part of the game, but I never thought it was that bad. What is your party?
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Dec 19, 2014 07:24
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Skwirl posted:Edwin's not that Evil he's just a selfish rear end in a top hat. Nalia's a fine replacement, you just need to equip her with all the thief enhancing gear available if she's your main thief. No one who levels up as a mage is dead weight, in fact she can cast the most damaging non epic spell and Edwin can't, which is kinda important at later level. What spell are you referring to? Edwin's a Conjurer, which locks him out of Divination magic. Divination doesn't have any damaging spells at all.
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Dec 20, 2014 07:48
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I liked the idea the previous threads had to give out achievements for completing the game in certain ways. Things like Iron Man for winning BG1 or BG2, Iron King for winning BG1 & 2 with a single character, Iron Throne for winning everything through Throne of Bhaal, etc. There were also a bunch of weird ones like winning with an underpowered class like Jester or Wizard Slayer, joke-shame awards like winning with an overpowered class like Inquisitor or winning on a lower difficulty. Canoneer award for winning with the canon party of Imoen, Jaheira & Khalid, Minsc & Dynaheir, etc.
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Dec 22, 2014 00:45
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It's kind of a downside since you miss out on a cool wizard fight.
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Dec 23, 2014 09:05
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Anomen is good-aligned once you complete his quest, so he probably wouldn't be the best choice in that party.
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Dec 29, 2014 17:18
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If you screw it up he doesn't get the giant permanent +4 to his wisdom, so he gets a lot fewer casting slots. That and Viconia's innate magic resistance makes her pretty much the optimal choice for evil cleric.
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Dec 29, 2014 20:56
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The absolute pinnacle of Ironman BG was the wild mage PC's death to an accidentally summoned pit fiend in the middle of the Carbos fight.
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Dec 30, 2014 22:39
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GOG is probably the best, yeah. It's only  and GOG is good about making sure their stuff runs on modern hardware.
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Jan 6, 2015 02:32
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If it's any help, I can confirm that the GOG version of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 work swimmingly on my Windows 7. Not sure about Icewind though.
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Jan 6, 2015 03:27
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FairGame posted:I really wish I could get into IWD2 but it's so loving difficult unless you are resting ALL the time, at which point I find it really immersion-breaking. The xp scaling thing irks me too. This is a problem with 3rd edition D&D (and 2nd edition, really). If you design encounters around players needing to use their spells, then they need to rest between each one. If you don't, then players will just destroy the encounter if they do use them (and then die on the encounter they were supposed to use them on). There's too wide a gap between the combat potential of a party going all-out and a party being resource conservative.
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Jan 6, 2015 07:41
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So I have a question. Normally in BG2 I take my time in chapter 2, screw around, do lots of quests, and then go rescue Imoen after I'm late and buff, but this time I'm actually intending to keep her, so if I rush off to spellhold ASAP, am I going to lock myself out of any quests in the long term? Are there any quests and/or items that are ONLY available if you go after them before you get Imoen back?
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Jan 10, 2015 19:01
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Bards DO get a ton of skill points, so if you're willing to, say, put your first level in rogue, you can keep the rogue skill maximum as you level and just sink your bard skill points into the thieving skills of your choice.
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Jan 14, 2015 01:26
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Bort Bortles posted:They do get a ton of skillpoints, but my human bard that started with 1 level in rogue with 14 int still doesnt have enough SP to have Diplomacy, Intimidate (cross-class), and all of the hide, move silently, open locks, disable device, ect up to max. Though I dont know if you need them at max to be effective. Heavens, yeah that's a bit much for one character to handle. Considered putting the diplomacy skills on another character perhaps? A sorcerer works well.
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Jan 14, 2015 07:56
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Flip Yr Wig posted:So I'm playing through BG Trilogy. Just beat Sarevok, and the game tells me to teleport to the Duchal Palace. Is this actually an ability I can dig up from somewhere, or is the game expecting me to walk through that dumb maze again? Baldur's Gate is from before the Mass-Effect era of tracking every single outcome of all your decisions. You can hire an NPC in BG1, get them chunked by an ogre, and then encounter them in BG2 just fine. There's some dialogue you can pick (which is there no matter what happened to them) that goes something along the lines of "uh, weren't you dead?", which gets instantly handwaved away by some reference to priest magic.
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Jan 28, 2015 07:32
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Hughlander posted:Doing my first full play through of BG2 since it came out. Couldn't figure out the party to make but with one small tweak of EE Keeper I think I have my 'good' party till the end of the game: I'm pretty sure Minsc and Edwin hate each other and will eventually come to blows since Edwin can't shut up over the Dynaheir issue. The only way to keep them both in the party together is to make sure Edwin never gets his Netheril Scroll issue reversed.
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Feb 2, 2015 15:59
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Can you enable cheat keys and teleport her to the rest of the party with Ctrl-J?
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Feb 5, 2015 17:43
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I've never really messed with Detect Illusion on thieves, what is the range like? Whole vision? Half-vision, like finding traps? If I cast Find Traps as a cleric/thief, does it also passively attempt to detect illusions using my thief skill level?
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Feb 11, 2015 21:15
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| # ¿ Apr 26, 2024 02:38 |
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attackmole posted:Been binge playing Throne of Baahl since the start of reading week. Played BG2 over Christmas. Just killed Balathazar, gonna try to power through it the rest of this night. I've been enjoying it, battling hordes of stuff is fun, but is it just me or is the writing way worse than than in BG2? It suffers way more from the "Mother Theresa vs. Hitler" moral choice dichotomy than the base game did, there's a bunch of poorly done awkward humour in dialogue choices, and the characters and dialogue in general just feel a lot more stereotypical and cringe-worthy. Yeah the writing isn't as good. There's a few good moments but not as many as in base BG2. I don't agree that the moral presentation is more black-and-white though, it was always like that, as you would expect from a setting where you can literally cast the spell "Detect Evil".
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Feb 17, 2015 05:13
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