Going back to town often?

[Lymond]

I'm a convert from Diablo 2, where you essentially live in town, and in IWD I've happily never looked back to Kalduhar except to follow up on quests. However, my party is loaded with some good stuff that I'd like to unload in exchange for spells or whatever. How often do people go back? Is there a penalty or reward depending on the time it takes to finish the game? I'm about to enter Lower Dorn's Deep and won't go back if there's a marketplace around the corner- is there or should I return to Kalduhar? Finally, is it worth carrying all those gems (even stacked) or do weapons sell for more? What about potions- I rarely use them, but have a good collection of them? In guess what I'm asking is what items give you the most gold for your inventory slot buck?

[pritchke]

I usually go back to town when I am loaded down with goods and just cannot carry anymore.

As far as I know there is no penalty or reward on the time it takes to finish the game. Just bragging rights that you finished in such a time, but I don't think anyone cares about this. Most people just like playing to have fun and experiment with different classes and parties.

In lower dorms deep there is a merchant by the name of Nym, just ask if you don't want to search around for him. He has some items that make it worth returning to The Severed Hand with. If your stacked right now return to the severed hand rather than Kalduhar because after you sell your stuff Larrel can teleport you back to Dorms Deep were you can then go to the Wurn Tooth Glacier at almost half the time.

gems and potions usually give more gold than weapons unless it is a special weapons. If you have fighters and you haven't already done so you can place weapons in the weapon slots to free up some slots but make sure you have the one you want to use selected.

I hope this answers some of your questions.

By the way, Welcome to the boards.

[ 03-03-2003, 01:02 PM: Message edited by: pritchke ]

[Dundee Slaytern]

If you have the Heart of Winter( HoW) expansion installed, you can buy containers from various merchants. These include Gem Bags, Potion Bags and Scroll Cases.

Each container can hold 20 items, so a Gem Bag can contain 20 pieces of any type of jewelry, and so forth for the rest of the containers.

Note though, that it will be wiser to stack 20 gems of the same type in one slot rather than stuff them all in a Gem Bag. Gem Bags are meant more for those odds and ends gems.

If you have the mod, Trials of the Luremaster( TotL), you will gain the ability to obtain a Bag of Holding which can hold up to a hundred items of any type within it.

If you only got the default game, you can choose to set aside a pre-determined number of slots for gems and collect the most common ones like Sunstone Gems or Andar Gems. Reason being, since they are so common, they are easy to stack and save space.

Certain gems and jewelry are very valuable though, and you should always try to collect them for sale later. The most obvious ones are those that are magical and have a blue outline. Those in the following lists are non-magical.

Extremely valuable gems( sells for hundreds) include in no particular order,

• Diamond
• Emerald
• King's Tears
• Laeral's Tear Necklace( sell these and you can buy everybody a round of ale )
• Pearl Necklace
• Rogue Stone
• Star Sapphire

Moderately valuable gems( sells for above 50 gold each) include in no particular order,

• Angel Skin Ring
• Bloodstone Necklace
• Flamedance Ring
• Jade Ring
• Moonstone Gem
• Pearl
• Ruby Ring

[Charlak The Axeman]

Nym the merchant needs a good to be spoken to nicely or he will dissapear and wont come back so be nice!

The scroll Merchant in the top left of kuldahar is a personal favorite of spells and he gets new (higher level) stock as you progress

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If HoW is installed - on the isle where hjollder is banished to there is a magic man in a tower, he will sell you lots of cool magic stuff, cloaks weapons, scrolls - he has alot

[Lemmy]

Lymond:
However, my party is loaded with some good stuff that I'd like to unload in exchange for spells or whatever.

Well, this is sort of along the same vein. If you're absolutely loaded with items but you're *really* not in the mood to return to town yet...

(WARNING: If you have a party of 6 you'll need to export an existing character *before* doing this.)

You can use Character Arbitration to bring "mules" into the game at any time. Hit the Character Arbitration button
"Modify Characters"
Create a new character in an empty slot
Hit "Done"
Saddle the character with all the loot you've found
Export the mule
Return to Character Arbitration
Remove the mule from the party

Now just import the mule when you're back in town and ready to pawn all the goodies.

*Very* handy for soloing. I can't tell you how many trips up and down through Dragon's Eye this saved me. (I didn't return to town until the end of it. Used three mules. *g*) You could even use mules to carry extra ammo.

How often do people go back?

With mules, only when I feel like it.

-Lem

[Lymond]

Thanks for the welcome. It's a nice change from the Diablo boards where all people pretty much do is talk about how their characters are better than eveyone else's.

Also thanks for the good advice. I ended up going back to Kalduhar twice, because I forgot to reload on arrows.

[Irongrinder]

The first time I played IWD there was a bug which made my mage unable to learn identify spell so I had to go back for stuff as I needed the unidentified +2 weapons in Dragon's Eye Cave to kill off Xunomei.

[Dragonshadow]

I ought to go and live over there!
It'll be easier than going back and foreards all the time!

[Reeka]

Well there is neither a reward or punishment for going back to town. I go when I have gotten loaded down with stuff so I can sell it and buy any cool stuff available.

[Dragonshadow]

Whenever you got to town it wastes your time.
That's why one group didn't clear out the vale for two years +
they still hadn't finished then
And they were broke: they all died