I'm new to 3rd ed D&D, but not to RPG. I've completed the entire NG & IWD series including expansions. Here's what Ive decided on so far for my IWD2 party:

Barbarian - main tank, pack mule
Cleric - healer, secondary tank
Sorceror - offensive artillery, diplomat, party spokesperson
Wizard - seconadry spellcaster, alchemist/loremaster

Need some suggestions for the last 2 slots. I want a detrapper & lock picker, and scout for #5. I haven't decided on #6, but perhaps another fighter with some spellcasting abilites, or a magekiller?

Suggestions & comment welcome.

Get a rogue, they're good archers as well as scouts and lockpickers/trapdisablers. Maybe multiclass with ranger so you have some more archering usefulness... Their skills mostly stack

Thank you.
So #5 - rogue/ranger mc. Just a few levels in rogue & most in ranger, I would think.

I wonder about #6... [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img]

I would go for a pure tank for #6 - a paladin or a dwarven fighter. The barbarian's inability to use heavy armor is a liability in my mind, and you will want someone who is better able to resist damage. In fact, I would dump the barbarian and replace it with a paladin and then add the dwarven fighter.

Personally, if you are going for multiple spellcasters, I would swap out the sorceror for a druid! Druids have some great spells and can be used as a secondary tank if necessary in some situations.

Also, if you are looking for simple scouting abilities, consider only taking a couple of ranger levels and focus on the rogue sides. Those 1d6 damage bonuses start to really add up at high levels!

One additional tip: If you are planning on going to Heart of Fury mode with your party, you are going to want to have a LOT of spellcasting and summoning ability. Adding the Paladin gives you some good defensive spells, while the druid gives you a great mix of offensive, defensive AND summoning spells. In addition, don't forget to add points in the Use Magic Device skill for the rogue, and you'll get a bonus spellcaster. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Hayashi, for slot #5, I'd suggest either a ranger/rogue MC or a fighter/rogue MC. Both are excellent multiclass combos. I prefer about a rogue 10/ranger or fighter 6 mix. The ranger/rogue combo will be a little better when it comes to skills while the fighter/rogue combo will be better when it comes to feats.

A couple more points about the ranger/rogue combo. One, taking that first level of ranger gives you the free dual wielding, which is a nice thing for a rogue. Two, unless you intend on taking boatload of ranger levels, forget about ranger spellcasting. You won't have enough levels to get any decent ranger spellcasting.


For slot #6, I'd suggest another warrior, either another tank or perhaps a pure ranger. Another tank (paladin or fighter) will strengthen your party's melee capability. Having a pure ranger to team up with your rogue can be a great addition to the party. A 2 person scouting team can be very powerful and very dangerous on search and destroy missions.


Micah, I've play a party with a Sorc and a Wizzy. It can work out just fine. I've never played a druid in IWD2 (IWD1, yes, but not IWD2). However, I can agree that druids are probably excellent summoners, particularly in HOF. I played a pure ranger in a party thru Normal then HOF mode and he was a solid summoner in his own right. I have to imagine that a Druid would be even better in that regard. Animal summons are surprisingly excellent allies in HOF.


BTW, Hayashi, what kind of cleric are you thinking about? And what is the general alignment of your party?

Thanks for all your replies, some food for thought.

I'm decided on the barbarian as it's one class I've never played before in any of the other games (BG1/BG2/IWD1). I've played paladins to death. Unless there's a cool pally-only weapon in the game? ;)

So as it stands now the party is:

Barbarian - main tank, pack mule
Cleric - healer, secondary tank
Sorceror - offensive artillery, diplomat, party spokesperson
Wizard - secondary spellcaster, alchemist/loremaster
Ranger/Rogue - detrapper, lockpicker, scout
Pure fighter - main tank, pack mule

Magness,
Cleric will probably take Tempus as domain.
General party alignment - I've not thought about it, does it matter? I tend to have parties leaning towards the good side, but I intend to have an evil character or two in my party.

As for my ranger/rogue, what I really want is for just enough skills to be able to open locks and detrap; so I'm thinking a rouge 1/ranger x combo, just to get the skill points at 1st rogue level, then concentrate on the ranger.

What do you think?

Ok, after some thought & research, here's what I think I'll create:
NB: CON & DEX set as high as points allow for all members

Human Barbarian
===============
STR-based fighter, DEX 12, low INT & CHA, Ave WIS, CON as high as points allow

Shield Dwarf Fighter
====================
Another STR-based fighter, stats similar to barb

These are the main tanks (melee fighters)

Aasimar Cleric of Tempus
========================
High WIS, mid-high CHA (for turning undead); mid-high STR; ave INT (10)
Primary healer

Moon Elf Fighter 1/Wizard X
===========================
Fighter build to gain HPs and initial weapon proficiencies, then MC to wizard. High INT, Dex, CON (12 min) low CHA
Loremaster, alchemist, generalist spellcaster

Wild Elf Fighter 1/Socreror X
=============================
High CHA, DEX, CON (12); ave STR, INT, low WIS
Offensive spellcaster, diplomat, trader

Lightfoot Halfling Ranger 1/Rogue X
===================================
High DEX, CON, ave STR, low CHA, WIS
1 level of ranger to get 2 weapon feats, thereafter MC to rogue
Lockpicker, etc, scout, mage killer

There - 1st draft done. Any suggestions on how to improve?

Hayashi, that's a good looking party.

Personally, I don't really see the point in taking that 1 fighter level with your mages. Yes, I realize that you said that it's for the HP and the weapons profs. But I don't really see that as being all that big a deal and just doesn't seem worth giving up 1 level of spellcasting goodness off the top (so to speak) of your mage.

Also, you've got me a bit confused with the ranger/rogue. In your previous post, you say that you want to build a rogue 1/ranger X. But in this post, you talk about a ranger 1/rogue X. IMHO, 1 level of rogue really doesn't provide enough thieving skills to be useful deeper into the game. OTOH, a ranger 1/rogue X will get you the nice ranger virtual dual wielding, which is very nice for a rogue. BTW, don't forget to take the Weapon Finesse feat so that you can use your higher DEX instead of your STR for melee attack rolls. Also, BTW, I always suggest starting any rogue MC combo with the rogue class to get the initial burst of skill points (IIRC, you get 4x the standard number of SP/level at character creation).


I've also noticed that both of your mages are elves. This should be good for ranged combat, when you're not casting spells, since elves get 1 point in Bow just for being elves.

Another point on your mages. Have your wizard and sorceror focus on different spells. Wizards tend to be excellent generalists since they can memorize so many spells, while sorcerors tend to be more focused due to thier limited number of spells. In a party with a sorc and a wizzy, the sorcs tend to make great nukers, specializing in mostly attack spells, while the wizards are great for buffing and summoning, with a little nuking on the side. A wizzy-sorc duo can make a very potent spellacasting combo in a party.


Regarding general party alignment, I was only asking out of curiosity.


Good luck!

[ 10-24-2003, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Magness ]

Just one thing: with sorcerer as your spokesperson it means he'll be always in front. thats why I always have tanks as my spokespersons.... unless you know some way to solve this i.e keep weak spokesperson not in the frontlines in the battles... in that case i would be glad to hear it... (note: i use mostly the default formation... but spokesperson is in the fron in all formations AFAIK)

Also consider:
Monk in place of dwarf...
bard (or even better druid) in place of fighter/mage

Magness
Thank you for your suggestions & tips. Yes, ranger 1/rogue X is what I've finally decided.

ZFR
The sorc won't fill the #1 slot. When it comes to conversation I'll just pick his portrait (which is what I did for BG2 - my char was a ranger; Minsc & Keldorn were in #1 & #2 slots).

Monk/thief is a great Fight/Thief class.It got some awesom imunetis and mage res+alot more.

My suggestion is another one completely. Drop the thief and add another spell caster. And drop one tank. Barbarian preferably.
Sounds crazy? It is not (tested and verified). Your party is of 5 persons.
3 spell casters= LOADS of damage. My suggestion is another sorcerer.
Get him walking always with mirror image and stoneskin, and all the traps will be known.
One cleric and one tank-paladin.
In HoF- untested.
spoilers


There is one weapon pladain usage only. It is gooooood.

Yawn. Such spellcaster-heavy parties are a bore. I always prefer a well-balanced party over any alternative. Balanced between physical and spellcasting, balanced between melee and ranged, balanced between brute force and stealth. I like having lots of options.


Hayashi, your party is a nice one with more than enough spellcasting. Two mages and a cleric is more than enough spellcasting for any party.

Thank you for all suggestions.

Magness
I prefer well-balanced parties too (just my style of play).

Next issue would be character creation, & skills/feats to take.

What would be critical stats for the various classes?
My take:

STR - high STR only needed for fighter & barb (for damage bonus, carrying capacity)
DEX - I think I'll set it at ~12 for all party members except for ranger/rogue where it will be set high, and for weaker party members (less hps, ie wiz, sorc) it will be ~14 or so.
CON - As high as possible for all chars, since it affects how many hps they gan when they level up.
WIS - A must for cleric & ranger/rogue (although for the latter I won't be planning on using him/her even as a secondary spellcaster), I think the rest can get by with ave/low stats (10 or less)
CHA - High CHA for sorc & mid-high (say, 15/16?) for cleric. Everyone else's CHA stats gets gutted for points to be placed in other stats
INT - High WIS for wiz, rogue (does a rouge/ranger need WIS), every one else gets ave or low.

BTW, which stats affect saving throws? Are they critical in the game, or can the party get by with low stats (say, low INT for fighters)?

Stats:

STR: high for the barb and fighter (duh.) I suggest a medium STR for the ranger/rogue and cleric.


DEX: Max out the DEX for the R/R. I wouldn't worry overly much about a 10 or 12 DEX for the mages. Their best defenses will be magical. And there's nothing wrong with a DEX of 10 for a cleric or a tank, although a DEX of 12 will be a bit better.

CON: As much as can be spared. CON bonus adds to HP for all characters at every level up. It is also used as the basis for spellcasters' Concentration rolls.

INT: Obviously needed to be maxed out for the wizard. An INT of 14 is excellent for a rogue. Just enough for plenty of skill points/level.

WIS: Obviously needs to be maxed out for the cleric. Try to keep it at 10 for every other character.

CHA: Obviously the Sorceror will need a maxed out CHA. You don't need to increase your cleric's CHA. There aren't enough undead in the game to make having an uber powerful turn undead ability a necessity.

Fort save is CON based
Will save is WIS based
Reflex save is DEX based

Yes, a fighter or a barb can get by with a lowish INT. Also, since you have a wizard in your party, your sorceror doesn't need a great INT. You don't need to have both mages taking all of the arcane related skills.


Skills: Here are some basic suggestions

Fighter: Intimidate
Barbarian: Intimidate, and some Wilderness Lore
Cleric: Concentration, Spellcraft
Sorceror: Diplomacy, Concentration, Spellcraft
Wizard: Concentration, Alchemy, Knowledge Arcana, Spellcraft
Ranger/Rogue: Hide, Move Silently, Disable Device, Open Locks, Search

The question is- do you want power gaming? If yes-destroy charisma for every one, excluding sorcerer, paladin and maybe cleric. It will make your charachters powerfull...brutes, that do not allow poor grandma to cross the street.
Fighters can work well with only 3 intelligense too. They do not need anything anyway.
Max strength and constitution wherever you can. max dex for rogue and max int for wizard, etc. IMPORTANT-sorcerer also needs high int. A 16 will do the trick or even 14. but no lower please. His magic boosting skills that he chooses are a blessing.

Yes. Drag the character portrait of the sorceror to the front or back as needed. There's no real reason to have the weak "negotiator" at the front of the party all the time.

Turn off scripts when walking around dungeons. Scout areas first with your rogue so you have a sense of what kind of enemies are in the area (as soon as you see somebody, pause and move your mouse around to see if any of the visible enemies have a "talk" cursor, then unpause and get the heck out of there before anyone sees you). Get used to selecting individual characters and moving them manually to good/safe positions, while you move other characters into blocking positions, or other characters cast blocking spells-- basically set your party in fighting formation out of range, send the "talker" forward alone, then make them run to the back of the party when the fight starts, leading the enemies right to your waiting group of destroyers. And never forget to PAUSE the very second that you get control back after the encounter, so you can scope out what's going on in the area and plan appropriately.

It's not as if you don't (usually) know when you're going to need to speak to someone, and that is usually in town where there are no battles (stores, town Fed-Ex quests). Even in town, you usually have a clue if someone you need to talk to is going to become an enemy when you do so.

Now, admittedly, there are several battles where there will be a "speaking" encounter beforehand (or during), many of which include chances for extra XP, a chance to get more information, or to change the course of battle (convince an enemy to go away, for instance). A lot of the time, you know when this is going to happen as well, since many of the "boss-type" characters you can speak to are behind locked doors, or a cutscene reveals their position, so you have a general idea where they are going to be, and can set your "negotiator" to the front before entering the area.

There are a couple of speaking encounters that catch one "off-guard" (thinking most notably of the Goblin Warrens). Since I advise saving once you've cleared an area (even an area so small as a single room or stretch of hallway), this is not such a problem, since if my scout then takes two steps and runs into a speaking encounter with her CHA of 8 (-1), it's easy enough to reload and then have the charming character take those two steps instead.

Alternatively, you could always have a paladin in your party-- good tank, and doesn't need to be moved to another position in the formation except for accepting quest rewards, which is again going to happen in "safe" areas, so it's not stressful to remember to do. Actually, I use a paladin(3)/barbarian(x) for this, though my main "negotiator" is my wizard-- paladins naturally have a charisma bonus, and some diplomacy (though they're too honest to bluff), and barbarians are very intimidating. So even though my ranger(4)/wizard(x) is overall a better talker, the pally/barb does OK if I get caught off guard. Plus being a paladin and an Aasimar can get some conversation options that the ranger doesn't get-- though, depending on the encounter, sometimes the ranger (being a devotee of nature, and evil) sometimes gets options that the pally doesn't. Generally, I find the advice given by the game to be good-- "give more than one character a few ranks in the Diplomacy, Bluff and Intimidate skills...".

Black Baron, a sorceror on really needs a high INT is he is the only mage ina party. However, my experience is that in a party with a wizard AND a sorc, the wizard is more than capable of handling the arcane skills. The only skills that a wizard-supported sorceror than needs to worry about are Concentration, Spellcraft, and perhaps, Diplomacy. The wizzy can handle the Alchemy and Knowledge Arcana.


Excessive power gaming is not necessary to beat the game. I always discourage it. All that excessive power gaming (i.e. driving fighter INT's down to 3 and CHA's down to 3) is make the game unbalanced and overly easy.

I always try to create characters that have realistic levels of INT and CHA. And I can truthfully say that I've never found that my characters' stats were too low to be successful.

motub, nice post.

A couple of points. You mention a that you've used a paladin/barbarian. You must be using the Weimur Ease of Use mod that eliminates class limitations, because paladin/barb is an otherwise illegal class combo (pallys are LG and barbs must be non-lawful). That said, paladins are indeed excellent lead characters for nearly every conversation except those that collect a reward.

I've played a couple of parties with both a paladin in the lead position and a sorc that would handle the reward converstations and the stores. BTW, bards are great talkers, cuz they have both a good CHA (tho not as high as a great sorc) and a good selection of talking skills. Also, if you really want to get cute, cast an Eagle's Splendor on your talker prior to any important converstation to boost CHA.

Yeah, you're right, I am using the Weimer E-o-U mod. I forgot to say so, so thanks for pointing it out. My pally/barb is Chaotic Good (which is why she couldn't hack the Paladin gig-- too independent of thought).

Actually, I'm using this mod as a "cheat" in order to roleplay-- my four characters are almost all half-breeds (an Aasimar, Tiefling and Half-Elf, plus a Human), and they were brought together by the charismatic Human Ranger/Wizard-- whose beloved half-sister was a half-breed, and is now dead because of it-- who has organized them into a sort of Half-Breed support group to prevent such tragedies happening again. This is the bond that allows the characters of varying alignments to co-exist. This is also why they're all multiclassed, because of the confusion and lack of direction they have suffered as outsiders from both halves of their various cultures. Together, they have found a direction, support, and acceptance of their odd lifestyle.

It's too small a party to afford triple-classing anyone as a bard, though, and my backstory doesn't give me a way to make it worthwhile without having an additional character. I do miss having a bard, however (I loved them in IWD, but then again, there you got a better discount than a measly 5% in stores), so maybe next time through I'll have a 5 character party, or come up with a whole different scheme for 4 characters (or less ;) ). I really really want to see how this "War Chant of The Sith" plays out for a party.

Motub, it sounds like your half-breed party should sign up with the Legion of the Chimera, not fight against them! ;)

Sorcerer needs intelligence. Spelcraft-10 leads to certain bonuses...
aqua mortis etc. They are too nice to be left behind.

The amount of INT that a sorc needs kinda depends on the composition of the party.

If the sorc is the only mage in a party, then the sorc will probably want to be strong in all of the arcane skills (alchemy, concentration, Knowledge Arcana, spellcraft) as well as diplomacy. However, if the sorc is in a party with a wizard, the wizard can take care of most of the arcane skills, leaving the sorc to concentrate on ... well, concentration and spellcraft.

Why would a sorcerer need Spellcraft if that can be taken up by a mage?
I'd put the sorcerer as the party leader, invest in communication skills and protective spells and constitution.

Why spellcraft? Because you need 10 ranks in Spellcraft as a prerequisite for taking the Elemental Magic feats of Spirit of Flame, Scion of Storms, Aqua Mortis, and Aegis of Rime. These are excellent feats for any bombardier type of sorceror, particularly Spirit of Flame and Scion of Storms

Well, they're Chaotic Good (2 members), Lawful Evil (1) and Neutral Evil (1), so most of them wouldn't really want to join. Even those who might consider it, do realize that it is the actions of groups like the Legion that are the source of their troubles anyway, which give a bad name to extraplanar and non-human creatures.

In any case, groups that kill humans are going to target one or both of the parents of any of these party members as well, so it's in all their interests to put a stop to the Legion's activities.

You hear that, guys? That's a role-player!
RESPECT, motub!

BoB, you want to see a roleplaying party, check out this link...

Shara's Excellent Adventure

This is a party that I've just created. I haven't even created them within the game yet. That party is (not so) serious roleplaying!!!

Nice link. Nice character generation. Who's is it?

Sorry for not making that more clear. That's my latest party. Just completed it last night.


They're about to finish the prologue tonight.

Nice picture for the black witch. What are your other parties?

Go to Defenders of the Dale and check out the "Adventuring Parties" section.

Parties #2, 3, 4 are parties with which I completed IWD2. Party #1 I never played. Parties #5 and 6 are parties that I've created fairly recently and played well into chapter 1, but got bored with.

I really liked and still do like the concept behind party #4, The Ravens, i.e. the incognito heroes that travel about the Ten Towns as a merchant caravan. I created Zatar, the spellsword, for a change of pace. I'd never played a fighter/mage sort of spellsword and wanted to give it a try. However, I got bored with him. It was tiring having to always buff him up before EVERY single battle. I also included a bard in the party for change of pace reasons. That was a mistake, because I just don't like bards.


Party #5, The Furies, was a concept party based on the Furies from Greek mythology, named Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megarea. The fighter/rogue, named "Tisifon", was very capable. And the Sorceress, Megara, was capable enough. But the Pally/Cleric, Alecta, was a real disappointment. She was a real damage magnet. If there was damage to be had, Alecta absorbed it. Besides, I got bored of having only 3 characters to use. Some people dislike "large" parties. I'm the reverse. I find small parties boring and have too much of an unrealistic feel to them.


On this current party, "Shara's Excellent Adventure", I actually created nearly 20 various characters each with a custom edit, before I could settle on which 6 to use. The Black Witch pic was the first that I created for this party, and I initially was building a party to fit around her. In fact, the Black Witch, the ranger Kurak, and the rogue Sharaz, were the the first 3 that I created and were the core of the party.

Sharaz was actually a character that I created a few months ago, but never played. Also, I had about 3 different versions of her. One was the current skills/archer/talker version. Another was just about the absolute opposite, a rogue/tank with uber high STR and DEX and low WIS and CHA, and only moderate skills. The third one was my normal middle of the road rogue with high DEX, medium STR and CON, and an INT of 12 or 14 and CHA lowered to match. I went with the talker version because (a) I wanted a change of pace and (b) I wanted a rogue to be my party's leader/talker, instead of my sorcerer. Obviouosly, if you look at her stats, Sharaz is clearly a very fragile character, but that's OK. Like I say in the back story, she's got friends. ;)

I added the druid because I've never played a druid in one of my IWD2 parties, although I have played one in my last IWD1 party. The dwarven fighter was also a bit of a change of pace, racially.

And the Aasimar battle-cleric was a late addition. I originally had an elven or half-elven Lorekeeper named Kelthys in that slot (with a nice portrait edit), but I just couldn't see him in the role that I wanted him to fill, ie. a strong warrior-cleric. However, I had that nice edit of a woman in silvery plate and I *could* see HER filling the role I wanted for the 6th slot, particularly if she was either a Battleguard of Tempus or a watcher of Helm. I selected Helm because the domain description was a better fit for the character. I wanted a good battle cleric who cared about defending the Ten Towns aginst its enemies, not one that was looking for a good fight.


Sorry for going on so long.

How on earth do you people create such great parties? lol I have tried so many different party combinations and races and the farthest I've gotten was finishing the prologue. After that none of my parties have been strong enough to survive any battles in chapter one. I must not be developing my characters properly because they have all been terrible and do more dying then killing! lol

I am getting so frustrated with this game, I have actually thought about uninstalling it and giving it away, but I really hate giving up on something so I keep trying lol

Starfire, do you have much or any experience playing D&D based CRPG's? Have you played BG2 or IWD1, for example?

All of these games are about party management and party tactics in battle. People who know what they're doing can usually take even a piece of crap party and make it work out, after a fashion.

Also, are you using the computer AI to control your party in combat or have you turned it off and are you controlling every member of your party yourself. IMHO, most experienced players turn OFF the computer's party AI and control their party's actions in combat themself. This is what I do. I keep a tight reign on every party member and tell them exactly what I want them to do. My parties fight like a well-oiled machine. I run a tight ship! ;)


What kind of tactics do you use in combat? Do you just charge at the enemy? Or do you try to maintain your party's defensive formation?

I'm a strong believer in maintaining a good defensive formation (most of the time) and letting the enemy come to me, not the reverse. This lets me get off a volley or 2 of ranged fire at the incoming enemies before they hit my "melee wall", i.e. my 2 tanks.

In a party of 6, I keep by 2 best tanks in the first 2 slots, so that they can form the melee wall to keep the enemy from trying to pass thru to the mage. I keep my cleric and mage in the #3 and #4 slots, and I keep my ranger and rogue in the back 2 slots. Of course, with varying party compositions, this order will change, but I like keeping my mage in the #4 slot so that he has a couple of party members covering his back. In many parties where I keep the cleric in the #4 slot, he will become the party's 3rd tank and will join the meat wall if needed.

Depending on your style of play/combat, the purpose of your party's tanks is either as the primary fighting force or the primary protection for the mage(s).
Either way, it is the job of the tanks to keep the enemy from penetrating the line and getting to your mage(s). Tanks should do their best to maintain their formation, their wall. Use additional characters from your party or summoned monsters in the wall, if necessary, to prevent any breaks in the wall. A well maintained meat wall will both protect the mage(s) and keep the enemy bunched up for more efficient killing.


Ohhhh, BTW, a KEY to efficient battle tactics in D&D combat, particularly for your tanks, is to focus on KILLING the each enemy, then moving to the next target. It's OK for your mage to chuck a fireball at the incoming enemy and wound a bunch of them. In fact, it's a good thing to use magic to thin out (like using a web or entangle spell) the number of monsters getting to you or using an area effect damaging spell to wound a bunch of approaching enemies. It's like a pre-battle bombardment to soften the enemy up.

A slightly more advanced tactic is what I call the "kill zone". Use immobilizing spells, like web, entangle, or grease *OR* stunning spells like horror, hold person, or Holy Word or Symbol of Hopelessness later in the game, to immobilize a large bunch of the enemy. They cast area effect damaging spells onto the immobilized enemies. They can't do a thing to evade the damage. A bit later in the game, there are some long duration, area effect damaging spells, like spike growth and spike stones (druid spells) or cloudkill, acid fog (arcane spells) that are awesome for dumping on a group of immobilized enemies. That's when you really start to appreaciate a truly deadly "kill zone". Have a couple of active immobilizing spells to keep'em pinned in place and a deadly fog slowly killing them. And all the while, your party sits back outside of the kill zone and laughs, firing their ranged weapons at just about any target in the kill zone. (The best targets are either the nearly dead or ones that have regained mobility.)

But once the melee begins, focus on killing 1 or 2 targets, then move on to the next. The reason is that a monster with even a single HP hits just as hard as a fully healthy one. If you have ten 100 HP enemies and you spread out 100 HP evenly across those 10 enemies, you still have ten enemies hitting just as hard. However, if you focus a good amount of damage on 1 enemy, and those same 100 HP of damage will kill 1 enemy and reduce the enemy force by 1.


It's all about tactics, tactics, tactics. This game is not that difficult with good tactics.

Magness: The only RPG's I've played that possibly come close to this one is the old dungeon and dragons, such as pool of radiance series. I have also played daggerfall, so I would have to say that I am not very familiar with this type of game and I am not used to real time combat at all which is why I am having such a difficult time. This game was a gift from my husband who knows I like RPG's so he thought I'd have a lot of fun with this one.

Thank you for all the suggestions, especially about turning the AI off, I had no idea you could do that lol In fact I discovered quite by accident that I could actually pause the game during combat to issue orders. I really do not want to give up on this game. I managed to get a party all the way to the goblin fortress the other day and I was actually starting to have a lot of fun with it. Basically I guess I just need to keep playing and practising until I am familiar with it and become more experienced with the real time combat. I've mostly been playing RPG's like Wizardry 8 over the last few years, which is turn based combat and much easier for me lol

One of the things I truly enjoy about this game is it has true potential for role playing. I had a party theme in mind based on a series of novels I've read and I discovered a lot of the weapons that were used by the characters in the novels are actually in this game.

I will take all of your suggestions to heart and keep playing, I'm sure given some time and patience I will get better at this lol

Thank you so much for posting back and offering suggestions [img]smile.gif[/img]

Ah, yes, pausing. I didn't even think of that. It's totally 2nd nature to me. Pause a lot to issue orders, when you've turned the AI off. It doesn't take long to issue simple attack orders. Sometimes you don't need to bother pausing for simple melee-ing attack orders. However, if you are going to cast a spell and need to look thru your mage's spell menu, you might want to consider pausing. Right now, with the number of spells in your mage's spell book so few, it's not an issue. But later in the game, when you have a LOT of spells, looking for just the right one, can take 2-3 precious seconds and a pause is really useful.

Also, I wouldn't think of this as true "real time combat". The existance of a pause, combined with the ability to issue orders during a pause, tends to make IWD2 (like all IE games) fairly similar to a turn based game. You can pause as often as you like.

The space bar is my favourite control in IWD2. Sometimes in real life, when things happen too fast, I think for a fraction of a second 'Where's teh space bar!?'. Be carefull with spells, though. If you for any reason doubt an enemy is resistant to an attack, like cold, first throw a dagger of cold before casting a freezing sphere or something like that. It helps to conserve spells ALOT. Just one more hint for me: lower resistance is INVALUABLE!

LOL... for me the favourite control is 'Q'. Sometimes in real life before making important decisions I think for a fraction of second "Time to quicksave now." :D

The biggest problem is remembering to turn it off when you've just reloaded a game after a battle *cough* didn't go as well as planned *cough* ;) , because the AI is turned on by default when a game is loaded. I can't count how many times I reloaded, sent my hidden scout back into the battle area and got trashed because the AI was on, and she started shooting ranged weapons before the rest of the party was correctly placed.

Turning off AI is essential (the scripts are OK, but not very deep or detailed strategically), as long as you remember to pay attention to whether it's on or off. And of course, if you don't have the AI on, you have to pause a lot to issue orders manually-- especially when things go south. For instance, the Neo-Orog gets out of the Entangle with a lucky saving throw and comes after the Wizard who just hit it with a Magic Missile....yes, you're going to have to pause and give that Wizard instructions to RUN!!!! instead of cast whatever you had planned, and possibly instruct a tank to block and attack the Neo-Orog until it gets p.o.'d and gives up chasing the Wiz (who is running in circles around the party trying to get behind the tank) in order to beat up the Pally who is smacking it with a sword/mace/axe/spear/etc-- at which point the Wiz can go back to spellcasting. That sort of thing. It's a huge amount of fun, really, no joke.

One thing I like about IWD2 is that it is (mostly) very good about indicating who is attacking who (on both sides), so you do have the opportunity to save a character who has wandered into harm's way.

[ 11-05-2003, 06:13 AM: Message edited by: motub ]

It's also not a bad idea to turn the unit circles to maximum. Helps count enemies faster and when view is obscured by a building or a spell. And about party AI, you can always leave it on, like me, but go with no AI in the character settings. That way the party won't attack anyone untill an attack order is directed, and once it has, they'll kill the target and then find new ones without your intervention. You can issue single orders to certain units and leave other ones killing next closest strongest enemy. A move order will cancel attack and the characters will stand down.