Fresh start

[Serak Moonblade]

Hi,

I'm giving the Dale another go in a couple of days and was thinking how I could make it interesting.

I've finished upto HoW on Normal with a party of 6; and IWD on insane soloing as an F/M/T. The latter was quite boring due to having got all the good stuff early on and then taking everyone apart with an army of elementals. All the fights became formulaic and dull.

Can someone suggest a new or different take like perhaps a different class to solo as or a smaller party that would be cool? If there is something new, the fun would be different. Also I'm not that into thievery nor do I support bards all that much. One thought I had however is to have an F/M or an F/M/C and have 5 bards tag along to basically carry the loot along faster.

Thoughts?

[Serak Moonblade]

So after a couple of days of thinking and attempts to get HoW installed on Win 7 (yet to succeed on the latter), I decided against soloing for 5 reasons:
1. Soloing after Dragon Eye gets so boring since I would have the best gear till then and sufficient gold to upgrade at the first opportunity.
2. I used to wipe out my enemies with an army of Elementals and that led to it becoming even easier.
3. My classes of choice were: F/M/T (been there done that), F/M/C (can't use sharp weapons so limits my choices too much), Paladin (just for getting the Pale Justice)
4. I always wanted to try out the bard and see why some people praise it so much with HoW and TotL.
5. The secret to having so much gold to get the best gear early on is that I sold of all, and I mean ALL, the loot from my kills. And if you haven't done it with 1 character yet, you have no idea how tedious it is to transport all of it trip after trip after trip after...

So I got hold of TotL and all the relevant mods. Once i get HoW to install properly, will set out. Meanwhile have created a party of 3:
1. Paladin
2. F/M/C (coz my Paladin will use the sharp weapons and I've already almost finished on F/M/T)
3. Bard

Currently have wrapped up the Orc cave next door to Easthaven within 20 min of starting.

Would appreciate thoughts on:
1. the party selection
2. any pit falls I should avoid/suggestion on how to go about, installing HoW on Win 7 along with TotL and the mods (I plan to put in this order: Auril's Bane, IWD Fixpack, Improved BAMs, Item Upgrade, Unfinished Business, IWD NPCs, IWD Tweakpack and finally Widescreen Mod)
3. Also I am finding it pretty easy on the highest level of difficulty (Very Hard). Is my party that good? Think I need HoW to push it up to HoF mode or is there a secret Insane level difficulty (while on that is Insane = Very Hard?)

End post *deep breath*

[Serak Moonblade]

But wait there's more!

I finally managed to install HoW and TotL (will be able to confirm the latter when I reach that part of HoW). Pushed the difficulty level to HoF and got my posterior gift wrapped and handed to me by the first set of goblins after the "avalanche". Decide to quit while I was ahead but then installed the NPC mod.

Yet to try it out as I happen to be working today (Saturday!!). I shall be a F/M again.

Now if I were to just get the widescreen mod to work. Think it needs BG2SoA or something to be installed first.

(Also apparently this trip in IWF is turning out to be more blog entry than forum. Is playing IWD dead?)

[ZFR]

Yes these forums are a bit dead. Pity, I used to love the BG/IWD ones.

I check from time to time, and would be happy to read some updates if you can post.

[Raistlin Majere]

Something to consider also would be having some form of druidic magic in the party. Fighter/Druid and Ranger/Clerics seem to be praised alot.

I used to spend a lot of time on these forums, but unfortunately in the past few years, I have not had that much time so many distractions these days compared to when I first started here!

[Serak Moonblade]

@ZFR: Happened to swing by here today and I must say your post has given me some motivation. Had put the game on hold after my last post 2 months back. Now to just convert that motivation to action...

[Serak Moonblade]

@Raistlin Majere: I'm not really a fan of druids and rangers but am okay with clerics. My issue is that they have more defensive spells than offensive spells. I'd rather obliterate the enemy with well placed (and i mean really well placed) fireballs, flaming skulls rather than casting the druid equivalent of web (the name of which I can't remember for the life of me, the one with the yellow vines) or summons and then shooting them down from a safe distance. Having said that, I'm open to using this as an opportunity to play with these characters, as a handicap of sorts, but could you please help me with some spell suggestions that would push me to want to try these characters? Would really appreciate it.

[ZFR]

The druids have some offensive spells, but they are of the type "little steady damage every round". There are 2 of them (forgot their names) I really loved them, combined with web/or summons.

The other excellent druidic spell is the highest level Creeping Doom. Very handy against some high level tough enemies.

[Serak Moonblade]

@ ZFR: Thanks for the indicative spells. Unfortunately was bogged down by work till now. Work is still hanging over my head but I have decided to get some control over my life and invest some time in this as well...

I got my old trusty IBM from back home which still runs Win XP to help me play something. All the effort of researching and acquiring the mods, getting the right order, installing them in sequence while my heart is in my mouth hoping for no error message is too much for me. I just want to get around to playing the game now. And my Win 7 machines will not give me that piece of mind.

My priority list is now: IWD2 (so I can finish this game at least once). Then BG1 (again want to finish this game at least once), export character and move into BG2 (which I have finished before) and then open the Dragon Age game that I have had for the last 4 years!

Motivation would be greatly appreciated!