I finished iwd (with how installed) previously with tactics such as summoning, holding & excellent range support. All my melee guys are on bows except the cleric/druid on slings.

From reading the posts here, you are talking about making tanks out of paladins and other melee class and putting them in the front row. I did that for my paladin and my gnome fighter and they don’t last 10-15 seconds as tank on insane mode. I’ve already reloaded many times in dragons eye and before that in temple of the forgotten something. Somehow I am doing something wrong. I cannot survive without summons.

Please help.

Short of easier modes, I do not think many people play at the higher level difficulties without summons. :eek:

In general, the tank just needs to distract the enemy long enough for the casters to conjure their summons; then the summons take over the role of beating bags.

The only time you should make the enemy focus on one party member is when that party member is immuned to the enemies' attacks.

The thing that stinks is that it's pretty hard to get summons in IWD. I'm having trouble finding scrolls early on in the game, and Clerics and Druids don't get the option either.

I miss Sorcerers in these early games!

<font color = lightgreen>Clerics get Animate Dead at 5th level, and Druids have all sorts of animal summoning spells. In HoF, I rely on the animated skeletons to do the grunt work, until I can get my fighter up to >= 85% resistance to either slashing or crushing attacks.

Short of that, lots of Hold Person, Horror, Hold Monster, Web, Stinking Cloud, etc. Any spell that incapacitates your foes. Acid Fog is the best. [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] </font>

You aren't doing anything wrong, specifically, but you may need some tweaking in your spell usage. It's normal for monsters at higher difficulty levels to go through an unprepared party like a laser through swiss cheese.

In tanking on Insane, you need some serious spell and item support, which is why only certain characters make adequate tanks. It's all about damage resistance and/or great AC. Because of the reliance on items and spells, sometimes you won't reach optimum tanking capacity until lvl 10 or better.

Paladin - use the innate protection from evil (under the special abilities tab), have protection from evil 10' radius, the best shield you can find or buy, preferably the Blur belt obtainable from Orrick, and the best combination of armor and other artifacts (it may be normal plate mail with a ring of protection in the early-to-mid game). A bard singing War Chant of the Sith gives a +2 AC bonus also. Draw Upon Holy Might increases your Dexterity for better AC. Ideally, your best (often only) tank should have an AC better than -15, preferably -20, including its spell buffs.

Fighter/Cleric - use as much of the above strategy as possible, DUHM is a must for offensive as well as defensive reasons, and Shield of Lathander (no weapon-based damage for 3 rounds) and Entropy Shield (+6 AC, immunity to missiles, saving throw bonuses) are dynamite when you get them.

Fighter/Mage - use Stoneskin, Mirror Image (with additional ones memorized), and any other spells that can better your AC - Spirit Armor, Blur, etc. This character probably shouldn't try tanking until after finding a suit of elven chain in the Hand or acquiring one of the high (er, low) AC robes from HoW or Lower Dorn's.

Fighter/Druid - this character is only a successful tank for two reasons: Static Charge and water elemental shapechange. Multiple Static Charges gives you a good chance to zap 'em before they get you, and the druid's water elemental (but not the water elemental summons, strangely) has good slashing resistance.

The key to successful tanking, as implied by Dundee and Azred, is to control how much you are getting hit by a) having great AC or resistances and b) controlling how many enemies can hit you at any one time by the use of spells or summons and c) weakening your melee enemies with spells, summons, or concentrated missile fire before, during, and after they get to your tanks. Against unweakened enemies (those not already damaged or Slowed, Held, cursed, etc), you should be trying to do far more damage with ranged weapons than melee weapons. Once they are weakened, the job of your tanks is to pound them into mush while avoiding much damage.

Note that many of the spells I've listed above do not have long durations, and even the best tank at higher difficulty levels without dominant damage resistances cannot fight for hours or ignore tactical placement (e.g. in a doorway where only one or two melee enemies can attack). In a really tough fight, you might only be able to take full-strength attacks for a few rounds, but that time should be enough for your spellcasters and/or archers to cripple the offensive ability of your enemies. Non-tanks should be concentrating missile fire on damaged enemies or the greatest threat to your party (spellcasters, superb melee threats). The above strategies are obviously most effective when using parties that are heavy on both spellcasters and warriors, even if the warriors "only" shoot.

Problem is, Druids don't get any summoning spells until 4th level spellcasting (9th level Druid, IIRC). Then they get TONS of spells like that, but it's still a decent wait.

Well, your living on a prayer until then I guess, until you hit lvl 9.

Actually, it's 7th level, which is not too long to wait. The giant insect summons is actually better than the animal summons at that level; just beware of having your own tanks stunned by bombardier beetles. Don't be shy about hasting your own summons. ;)

Because of the lack of summons in the early going, you should be casting Web or Entangle in almost any fight against 3+ opponents, as your tanks will not be able to take much of a beating.

I prefer to put all my best AC items on a single tank; once the primary tank is engaged and targeted, secondary tanks can enter the fray. However, it is generally safer and more efficient to focus-fire on single enemies with your remaining characters.

[ 01-07-2006, 06:02 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

Problem is, Druids don't get any summoning spells until 4th level spellcasting (9th level Druid, IIRC). Then they get TONS of spells like that, but it's still a decent wait. </font>[/QUOTE]<font color = lightgreen>Your point is well taken. I can't clearly recall the last time I used a druid in IWD. [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] I think I tried one out once, just to see what they were like, but didn't focus on the animal summons. </font>

It's 7th level, which is a mere 35 000 XP (or 70 000 XP, I suppose, if you are using a multiclass F/D). With decent party balance, you can keep 'em off you at the start with other spells until you hit this level.

Druid is the FASTEST class to achieve lvl 7, even beating out rogues! (35 K compared to 40 K)

Clerics are even faster at getting summons. They only need 13000XP, or 26000XP if multiclassed, to start casting Animate Dead.

[ 01-07-2006, 10:49 PM: Message edited by: Dundee Slaytern ]

True, which is why access to a cleric from the beginning is so nice, especially on higher difficulty levels which make your tanks correspondingly more vulnerable to melee attacks.

However, the fairly low XP requirements to hit druid level 7 means that there is no need to moan about how long it takes to get druid summons. Sufficient attention to tactics will preserve the party until then.

All time, I end up with a dc f3/druid. Due to the huge advantage of druids getting entangle and early access to lvl4/5/6 summons.

I've played around with dalekeeper (a nice tool i found from one of the older post) on the effectiveness of a mc vs a dc f/cleric. Seems that a dc Fig7>Cleric has the same melee thaco as a mc f/c. So it makes sense to use a dc f/c as a more effective tank. Would I be right?
(I've never tried playing this and my clerics don't survive long in the front line anyway. Sigh ...)

Since most melee class dont last 10-15seconds in the front line without summons, would a MC cleric/mage be a better idea for a front line tank?

On mc vs dc - a F[7]/Cl will have the same effective thaco as what level of mc F/Cl? If you play on high level difficulties, and/or the entire HoW and TotL expansions, a mc should end up with a better adjusted thaco than a lvl 7 (or even lvl 9) dc.

A cleric/mage might survive as a defensive tank, but would be terrible at dealing out damage, except at quite high levels. I wouldn't recommend it - the spell usage it would require to be defensively and offensively effective is quite heavy. Look at it this way; a lvl 7 paladin specialized in longsword attacks twice per round with +1 to attack, +2 to damage, exceptional strength bonuses to attack and damage ranging from +1/+3 to +3/+6, and a warrior's thaco of 14. A lvl 7/7 cleric mage (I haven't compared the XP required for each) has thaco 16, one attack per round, no specialization bonuses, and at most a +1/+2 att/dmg strength bonus for 18 Str. It's a big hit to the natural offensive capacity of a frontline tank. Paladins can also use all of the warrior-specific items (especially potions of giant str and heroism), and can wear armor without worrying about spellcasting.

I view my tanks not so much as a front line, but as a front character that takes the brunt and a few other characters who jump in as necessary to deal out damage and take a bit of pressure off the main tank.

The three keys to tanking are 1) physical placement 2) spell tactics and 3) concentration of items and defensive spells on the tank.

Draw enemies back to a narrow bridge or doorway where they engage your best-protected tank first, and give your tank plenty of missile and spell support. Make them run through webs first so only a few get through at a time, and try to damage the stuck ones with spells and missiles so they are hurt by the time they can attack your front line - summons and charms can prevent enemies from even getting that far. Make sure the main tank has suitable protective spells cast upon it.

Thanks. I'll try all this tactics out.

Does anyone play without summons?

Not lately. I pretty much did in my first jaunts through the game on normal, but tactics predicated on summons and missiles are less stressful than those based on charging and in-melee healing.

There are plenty of spots where I play without summons, but any fight against tough or numerous enemies is far easier with summons to take some pain and help keep your tanks alive and casters out of melee.

Not a fan of summons in BG2 (limit?! WTF?), but in the older IE games I love 'em. Tell me, I've forgotten, does IWD have a summon limit? I find summons works best as primary damage early on, or when there's only 1 opponent with high AC (mages and such)

The limit is 6 creatures. The limit is only on creatures, not on HP or anything like that. The game doesn't care if you've summoned 6 goblins or 6 elementals.

I use summons almost entirely as meat shields to save my party from taking melee damage. I will also summon and move them to distract spellcasters and archers.

Edit: and you generally don't have access to summons early enough that they are capable of handing out more than say 40% of the damage your party causes: berserkers may be an exception.

In contrast to BG2, most of the difficult fights in IWD2 are difficult because of numbers of difficult enemies, not because of one uber-enemy. In these cases, summons are incredibly useful for distracting either the most dangerous enemy or the lesser enemies while your party focus-attacks on the targets not distracted by the summons.

[ 01-09-2006, 10:05 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]