Is there anything i can do at level 1 besides just hoping for the enemy arrows to not hit my characters?
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Is there anything i can do at level 1 besides just hoping for the enemy arrows to not hit my characters?
Play a better game.
Equip your front line tank with large shields.
The game compels you to create a custom party. Clerics work well with a lot of healing spells.
Make a full party of elven archer-kit rangers and just delete everything with your own arrows.
>archer-kit
>playing EE
Absolutely disgusting.
I swear it was in the original IWD. If it wasn't then I don't know what I played.
>archer-kit
just use shadow keeper while you're at it
Get enemies to engage on a hardended target, pick them off with your own ranged.
If they have missles, have one of your guys engage in melee. If they are melee types, use missles exclusively until they close. Break line of sight to bring archers to you if at all possible.
indeed anon, there is a complex series of events that allows you to take on archers in relative safety.
it goes:
>have mage
>cast sleep
>win fight
Send your tank in with a shield, let them engage. Wait 3 seconds. Move the rest of the party into the screen
How do i make my guy use a shield? I put the shield on the off-hand slot but the character is not shown weaeing it in-game.
You need to have a one-handed weapon equipped and as the active mainhand slot. The off-hand slot can be filled with a shield (or a weapon), but it won't be used if you're using a two-handed weapon like a halberd or a longbow.
(Some magic spell weapons or polymorphing can also temporarily override your equipped items.)
Also note that the off-hand slot is the one on the right of your character paperdoll picture in inventory. All the slots on the left row are for mainhand weapons.
I recently got this for my Android, and I know exactly getting to that first dungeon was. Eventually, I decided on giving longbows to my fighters and having my thief creep up in shadows to discover the targets for them.
The problem is that a lot of times there is no room for tactics in this game. I run into a room (with he whole party, because the game doesn't allow me to scout with just one) and there's a bunch of enemies in there. And If i try to get out to use the exterior my guys get all clumped up and unabke to exit, if we do get out, the enemies just teleport in the midst of my group.
Is this design constant in the game? (A bunch of enemies just as you enter a room, leaving no room for you to manauver your party)
just play it like oldschool D&D - careful preparation, swift and efficient engagement, frequent rests (even more frequent than oldschool D&D since you don't have to care about rations)
>designate two forward guys, ideally Fighters of Clerics with good Dexterity and Constitution
>make sure they wear large shield, helmet (very important), and the best body armor you can afford
>make sure everyone else has ranged weapon (at least throwing darts or slingshot)
>let your thief or ranger hide and scout where enemies are, then retreat back
>position your forward guys just out of sight of the enemy and stack your other character behind them
>buff your forward guys with Bless + Armor of Faith + Protection From Evil (in this exact order)
>rush them to engage the enemy, when enemy opens fire at them, move forward the rest of the characters forward to provide supporting fire
>after two rounds (12 seconds) pause and look at the situation, if you think you can finish the nenemies off within next round (6 seconds) before support spells wear off, keep pushing forward, otherwise disenagage and retreat
>make sure you're retreating your shooting characters first, then the melee fighters (otherwise enemy might switch fire on the shooting characters and drop them in one shot)
>once you've won or retreated sleep to recover your spell and hitpoints
>rinse repeat
this should work for initial part of the game up to level 3 or maybe 4 (giving you access to more spells) before you inevitably hit the dungens and have to battle whole rooms at a time as points out
there the strategy is still pretty simular, always rest and buff up before opening new room, always keep your designsated frontlines well protected and everyone else with ranged weapon
you can also use offensive spells (early on Sleep, Command, Charm Person) to disable individual enemies temporarily, deal with the rest and then finish off the stragglers
Properly utilizing tactics in the infinity engine games takes more micro(managing) than is usually mentioned. The system is surprisingly robust and has hidden features that are not instantly obvious, for example the delay between ordering a character to do something (like moving) and them starting to do it is intentional. This delay can be reduced by some spells/gear/abilities like having the Luck effect from some source. Being fatigued increases this. There's also a hidden cleave mechanic (google for more).
My point for this tangential example is that you should be very mindful of your party formation and position and engaging enemies is always a risk (even with the worst accuracy enemies always hit with a crit, i.e. roll a 20).
Also in a serious fight when you cant just kite from afar you should always have a main AC tank(s) (with decent hp as well) that has good armor, shield, good dex, maybe some buffs (protection from evil) taking the majority of the enemy attention and blocking the enemy from targeting your backline. After the tank(s) you need someone doing crowd control/debuffs (usually mage) to make the battlefield positioning more favourable (curse, web, entangle, turn undead etc.). Then you need someone doing the dps and secondary tanking (usually another fighter-type with dual-wielding/twohander/bow) to take down the nearest/most threatening enemies. Then come the utility characters like midfight buffers, AoE damagers and ranged attackers. Healing (with a spell) midfight is usually a lost opportunity, not recommended.
tl;dr: mind your positioning and party setup, have a tank-cc-dps roles filled as a minimum.
P.S. Sometimes the cc can be substituted by good buffing.
All those nice little features are great and all, but trash mobs ruin it every time.
I don't know why RPG devs can't see it.
I do agree iwd could do with somewhat less trash mobs and more midtier encounters, but it varies from location to location. Alse it gives opportunities for (newer) players so try out different things with small risk.
Cleric with sanctuary and find trap make great scout, if you're a Cleric/thief I think you can even disable trap or pick lock without breaking the spell
>I run into a room (with he whole party, because the game doesn't allow me to scout with just one
What
Yes it does. Youve got some auto regroup feature or formation on
first of all, what the frick are blabbing about?
it's absolutely possible to scout ahead
also if you can't exploit the single tactic you know -- door bottlenecks (which you actually can), it doesn't mean there isn't room for tactics
PS look the captcha knows who (you) are ni
Most of times i get the message "you need to gather your party before venturing foward" whenever i try to enter somewhere.
That's to change maps but it never cold drops you into a fight.
>That's to change maps but it never cold drops you into a fight
Yes it does. The cave in the prologue has a three orcs right in the intro. The landmill in Kuldahar Passage drops you in a small room with three enemies. The cave in Kuldahar Passage has a bunch of goblins just as you enter. And every entrance in the Valley of Shadows cold drops you into a fight.
None of those places require you to gather your party.
That triggers a conversation where you can easily avoid combat and then jump the goblins, not a straight fight. You never get cold dropped into combat from a "gather your party" transition.
>That's to change maps but it never cold drops you into a fight.
the other side
That's from BG1
Holy cope.
You're literally just pulling pages from the BG1 wiki at this point.
>That moment when you realise they were just being moronic the whole time
Nah, BG1 is actually good.
No. That's Icewind Dale. It's one of the rooms in the Forgotten Vale.
The picture has the Icewind Dale: "Enhanced" Edition UI.
>Click turn undead
>Fight is over
Sorry OP I think you just need to play better.
Even if they jump you if half decently built your party should not be shredded. Like really half decently, far from min-maxing
How does Turn Undead even work? I never did anything for me.
depending on your cleric's level undead either frick off or get destroyed on successful roll
it's almost certainty not going to work early game, but does wonders mid and late game
there is a progression table in the manual
Its always worked fine for me, you just turn it on and sit next to undead, you may be cancelling it by attacking
Unless you play a pure cleric through double XP difficulty or have a small party you'll probably not get much use out of it. If you do you can literally cast sanctuary and walk through whole levels instantly killing undead but otherwise if you're playing a more normal game you're probably better off just killing them because undead are fairly weak anyway.
My friend and I played years ago, he was a fighter and I was a cleric. Turn undead worked for me very well.
With only 2 characters? Then yeah you should outlevel undead and destroy them easily.
According to the baldur's gate wiki the turn undead check is
Your level (-2 if paladin) + 1d4 vs. enemy level + 1d4 + 5
So being just 2 levels ahead of another cleric from more XP or because one of you multiclassed or is a paladin can change your chance to kill undead from 0% to 50%.
First of all, changing screens? Save
Level up you got two guys leveling up
Go in, pause game
Engage on melee the skellies that are attacking via Melee with your tankiest characters.
Kill clerics if any then archers. If you are good at killing mages kill those first.
There, done, fights over
>enters combat without processing lvlups first
>enters combat without resting or buffing up
>cries that the game is hard
you're tripping on hurdles of your own making
I just rushed this party to this part so i could get the screenshots. This saved was abandoned since i made a new party based on the tips i received ITT.
My point is that the encounters should be scoutable, so we don't have to maniacally save and rest before entering every building or cave in the game. I remember Baldurs Gate being much more fair in that regard.
I checked the stats on these skeletons and they have a THAC0 of 18. A fighter with splint mail and a shield from Easthaven has an AC of -1, meaning they miss you 90% of the time. If you have plate mail from Kuldahar you have an AC of -2 (-5 vs slashing) which means they hit you only on natural 20s.
You're complaining about one of the most trivial fights in the game, anon. Note that when you go to the main tomb with actual encounters that are slightly dangerous they won't ambush you like this.
Baldur's Gate was happening like 70% outdoors (not counting DLC), and the other 30% that happened indoors did have similar "ambushes" starting combat as soon as you entered a building / initiated dialogue.
But BG had less combat overall than IWD, so it was not so frequent.
that's because you are switching a map
did you intentionally lead everyone astray when choosing the word 'room'? perhaps
Yes, separate maps require your full party, that is a known engine limitation.
But how does it stay in your way of maneuvering your party or tactics?
ggahr it's not jrpg, move your dudes around!
You can't scout the inside of a building. You must enter with your full party and engage with whatever is in there, trying to retreat from the bulding will result in your guys failing to leave and receiving free damage from the enemies; or you leave the building but the enemies teleport right in the middle of your party.
>enter with your full party and engage with whatever is in there
You told Brandt on the phone.He told me. I know what happened. Yes? Yes
That's the challenge
Once again
>how does it stay in your way of maneuvering your party or using tactics?
just use tactics suitable for this out-of-your-comfort-zone situation
>Unlike Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale doesn't feature npc companions, but instead the player builds their own party from scratch. Other than that there are only very minor differences in gameplay, such as spells and the like.
So, if one of my characters die i HAVE to save scam. Were they actively trying to make the worst CRPG of all?
You can add new characters at any time
You can make your own party, you have to actually try to make them shit enough to be killed.
>Head canon the two lead party members as husband and wife
>Wife character dies halfway through Kuldahar pass
Literally in tears bros....
As anyone tried the npc mod? I didn't play long with it but it seemed mediocre
I'm trying this for the first time
I can't figure how you are having such a hard time, it's been a breeze of a begining so far.
I'm at the dragon's eye or whatever and only enemy that slightly needed a specifically troublesome tactic was the shades cause you needed a powerful enough weapon to hit it.
For reference I got as a party a dwarf tank, a melee off tank cleric, a elf that shreds anything with his bow (this three would be enough for going through the content so far IMO, a mage cause magic, a bard cause buffs (i don't really know what to do with him apart from that) and a sneaky fighter/thief if I want to backstab something, which I usually don't, the archer sufices
>a bard cause buffs (i don't really know what to do with him apart from that
if you are playing complete edition (or EE) which you probably are, where would you get the original version w/o Heart of winter nowdays anyway?
bard will have a complete OP song by level 11
>an AC bonus that stacks with everything
>regen per round, never have to rest for healing ever again
Honestly War Chant of Sith is pretty meh considering you sacrifice a whole character slot for it. In almost all instances you'd be better off with another fighter or fighter/cleric to just kill things faster (and the fighter/cleric also gives you more buffs which are as good or better than the bard).
Skald though, that's a fairly powerful song
I wouldn't say you are sacrificing a slot since bards are still decent with spells
you can summon first then switch to the song
I also don't think there is a single substitute for that regen rate in any iwd games
>I wouldn't say you are sacrificing a slot since bards are still decent with spells
>you can summon first then switch to the song
Arcane casters really don't get great summoning spells, what they do get is late, and bards will be slow to get them and have few slots. Fighter/Clerics get animate dead way earlier and can spam tons of aerial servants later on (best summon in IWD imo).
>I also don't think there is a single substitute for that regen rate in any iwd games
2 HP/round isn't going to save you in-battle when Belhifet can hit 6 times a round for 40 damage and out of battle you can buy 500 healing potions from kuldahar by the time you finish dragon's eye.
I agree that from a powergaming level bards may not be the best choice
What you are missing however is that the dude already had one in party, and just how much the bard make everything more relaxed. It's not about healing mid boss fight, it's about not having to worry while you are getting to the boss. Walk from one encounter to the next, you are already at full health again, no hassle with rest or portions required. Also an extra 2 ac bonus that stacks with everything is pretty good regardless
Im doing my first run in any BG games with a bard and Ive never seen a more boring class, not only does it do nothing but have to actively micro it to do nothing because if I send an attack command with it selected it stops singing.
The buffs are nice but its not a fun class at all, wish I had another tank or ranged instead.
BG bard != IWD bard
BG bard really does suck though
By BG games I meat old CRPGs, but I am indeed doing it in IWD.
Its just boring, not saying it might not be good and the buffs worth it.
Bard does get their HLA song in BG2.
Honestly though BG1 kind of sucks in general if you aren't a martial class since the one advantage of the MC in Baldur's Gate is that you have maxed str/dex/con (and eventually 19 thanks to tomes), which gives you a massive advantage over all the fighters/clerics/thieves with shit stat lines. But Arcane casters get no advantage from stats, so the MC is at best the same as all the wizards and bards you find and at worst actually behind them do to them getting special bonuses (e.g. edwin getting free spells). And it's not like BG2 where you want a party of 4 wizards and 2 fighter/clerics, BG1 is more like IWD where the ideal party is more like 4 fighter/clerics and 2 wizards.
>Arcane casters get no advantage from stats, so the MC is at best the same as all the wizards and bards you find
INT spell scribe success and max spells per level
DEX AC
CON HP
Few NPC casters have good stat distribution in BG1 or 2.
Int above 12 doesn't matter for a straight mage since it doesn't affect spell damage, spell slots, or spell success. It only affects spell scribble success, and you can get around that by temporarily Int-boosting potions.
Int matters for dual-classing into a mage though (I believe you need like 17+)
That's why the best NPC mage happens to be Imoen, even in BG1.
You can just reload or drink a potion to scribe scrolls.
Mages shouldn't be getting attacked so dex and con don't matter.
Being targeted by AoE bullshit means that extra hp might be the difference between being able to take a single hit or not. For non warriors the hp gains are maxed at 16 con. Dex is nice for AC and that little bit of occasional extra damage with missile weapons. I do agree that dex doesn't matter that much for mages, but the con score comes into play surprisingly often when shit hits the fan. That extra ~20hp might just save you.
>For non warriors the hp gains are maxed at 16 con
you might astill want to go for 18, because the +1 you can get from BG1 combined with +1 from BG2 puts you at 20 which gives passive regeneration (like Kagain has)
>puts you at 20 which gives passive regeneration
It's 1 hp/minute. Other than being able to rest without needing to use spells for that specific character or to regain all your hp during map transitions (just press R on entering the map does the same thing), it makes no difference in combat. Getting it to 24 or 25 if you import the character and replay through BG1 repeatedly can be nicer since it's 1 hp/10 second. But that's still not that useful when enemies can easily do 20-30 damage or more in a round if you're unlucky. It's kind of like the vampiric regeneration +1 you might see in NWN weapons. Cool idea. It's never enough healing to amount to anything tangible when you need to heal. If you need to heal, you'll have to use spells anyways.
If you need the points elsewhere for a non-warrior, stop at 16 CON unless you want to get the full shorty bonus.
>AoE
In BG1? Yeah there's like 4 dangerous mages in the whole game outside of TotSC areas. And by the late game like TotSC you can pop a potion or use a spell to get lightning or fire immunity.
This is totally not comparable at all to player fighters who will literally deal like 200% more damage than a companion with worse strength and not optimized proficiencies. And you're also getting better dex and con usually. And you can run better classes/kits than companions, doing a berserker or a fighter/cleric or whatever. And you've got inherent abilities like Draw Upon Holy Might which will give you 21/21/21 str/dex/con by lategame.
Learn how to build characters.
CHA is only needed on possibly one character for better prices. You simply have that character do all the bartering. If you run a Paladin, you probably want to just use that, he'll have either 17 or 18 Cha.
WIS only gives bonus spells for wis casters and a bonus to a character's lore. Not a big deal with a bard or when you can simply just use identify spells. Though it is nice on a character like a bard to get free identifies. The magic resistance and saves are not implemented in this game (or any AD&D 2e infinity engine game). Spell failure is also not implemented.
>https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Wisdom
Unless you're playing a Cleric/Druid and want bonus spells or you're playing a class that has minimum WIS and CHA requirements like Paladin, WIS and CHA are dump stats.
INT is only needed by mages and the minimum INT score of 9 is for caster who want to use scrolls. You can treat this as a dump stat as well if you are not playing a mage character or a caster which you intend to use scrolls with.
CON for warriors should go to 18 since warrior classes have a bonus for each point above 14 (15 is +1, 16 is +2, 17 is +3, and 18 is +4). For non-warrior classes, there is no benefit to con above 16. Unlike WIS, if you're playing a midget race, the shorty saves bonus does apply.
https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Constitution
DEX doesn't give any bonuses until 15 and after. It is -1 AC (negative AC is good in THAC0) for each point above 14 like with the con bonuses. For ranged character, only get bonuses to ranged attack at 16 (+1) and 17 (+2). For a melee, you want this at 18 to Maximize AC.
STR gives carry weight. But it's bonuses to hit chance and to damage only occur after 15 following the table in the link.
>https://baldursgate.fandom.com/wiki/Strength
Though links posted are for Baldur's gate, the attribute tables are the same for Icewind Dale.