A few tidbits on the new IWD II

[Larry_OHF]

On the Black Isle Developer Boards
Wednesday, March 20, 2002, 17:23 | MageDragon
From the Black Isle Developer message boards.

Doug Avery (Associate Producer)

3E Weapons: I don't know if this is answering your question or not, but all of our items have been changed to reflect their correct 3E counterparts. For one example, two-handed swords are now called Greatswords and they do 2d6 points of damage instead of their usual 1d10. Is that what you were looking for?

We have redone a whole bunch of the icons for items in inventory, but we are still using some of the older ones from Icewind Dale.

J.E. Sawyer (Lead Designer)

Spellcraft skill: In turn-based 3E, Spellcraft is only useful for identifying a spell if a) its casting time is one round (which it usually isn't) or b) you're going to counterspell it. In IWD2, it should be useful for moving your characters and/or attacking casters based on the spells that they are casting.

E.g.: There's a bad, bad priest of Bane in IWD2 who casts a variety of necromancy spells. All of the necromancy spells use the same casting animation. If he casts something like Inflict Moderate Wounds or Poison, I'm not particularly concerned about it. However, if he's badly wounded and he steps away to cast Heal, I want to make sure I disrupt that guy as quickly as possible.

Backstab: You will be able to activate backstab by editing icewind2.ini. "Backstab" and all terms and tables relating to "backstab" will appear nowhere in the game, nor in the documentation.

Sarcasim “useless” spells: Hmm. This has been an interesting thread.

Since you guys have it all worked out, don't play wizards, since they "suck" so "bad". Executioner's Eyes is a really "horrible" spell. It's so god-awful, I can't stand having the first three characters in my party critically hitting left and right every round.

Keen Weapon + Improved Critical + Executioner's Eyes = Critical Hit on a roll of 13-20 = 40% chance per successful attack.

Also, keep in mind that while your high level fighters, rangers, and paladins will almost always land their first attack, there is no guarantee that they will land their second, third, or fourth -- especially against a "boss" character.

Remember, a 20th level fighter has +20/+15/+10/+5. That's the equivalent of a 0, 5, 10, and 15 THAC0. If you want to bank on that and ignore a +4 bonus to hit (which is, BTW, the largest to-hit bonus granted by any spell in IWD2), feel free to do so.

Low Wisdom fighters: If you make a party full of fighters and rangers with low wisdom, you will blow a lot of Will Saves. Really.

I watched a funny scenario involving a QA tester and six gold dwarf fighters. They mowed through almost every melee battle. After he gleefully made his way through the area, he encountered the exit battle -- which happened to feature a high level wizard and several underling casters. Within two or three rounds, his entire party was held, dominated, or confused.

General Feedback

Feargus Urquhart (President – Black Isle Studios)

Rights to make an IWD2 sequel: We have the rights to make an IWD2 expansion both with the use of the engine and through the D&D license. This is not saying we are going to do an expansion, since we are not planning on doing one at this point in time.

Making more AD&D games: We probably won't make anymore AD&D games.

Sorry, I was so caught up in having fun with the AD&D thing that I didn't answer the SPECIAL comment. I am going to be vague, so I just want to warn you. Black Isle does not have plans to only make D&D games and since we have SPECIAL we would probably use that in future games (whatever their genre). It is also possible that we would consider another game system as well.

[Larry_OHF]

Movie Trailer to IWD II:

Good stuff here.

[zakharak]

its driving me nuts not being able to view that trailor. In other words it doesn't show anything past "Black Isle Studios presents"

Is that all. ???

Zakharak

[Larry_OHF]

Originally posted by zakharak: its driving me nuts not being able to view that trailor. In other words it doesn't show anything past "Black Isle Studios presents" Is that all. ??? Zakharak

Hehe!!! That is pretty funny! You get all ready to see some action and it just leaves you hanging!

Ok...let's talk about Mpeg movie viewers. What are you using to view movies with? Quicktime, Realplayer, or Windows Media? Do you have the most current download? I have been able to view it on Quicktime and Windows Media.

[Larry_OHF]

On the Black Isle Developer Boards
Thursday, March 21, 2002, 17:41 | MageDragon
From the Black Isle Developer message boards.

Kevin Osburn (Line Producer)

Pre-generated characters: We will have pre-generated characters, but those characters will have the same stats as any other character that is created by the user. No super pre-gens

J.E. Sawyer (Lead Designer)

Point blank feat: 95% of all battles in IWD take place within 30 feet, so that's basically Weapon Focus + an extra point of damage. No.

Yes, and it is an inconsequential measurement when missile weapons are involved. However, archers frequently do wind up in melee, whether they like it or not.

We already did; we took a PnP feat that made no sense in our engine and made it into something very worthwhile in our engine.

It's for firing the bow when the archer is in melee, not when the archer is firing into melee.

In almost all (if not all) IE games, characters firing missile weapons when an enemy is in melee range results in a -8 penalty. In 3E, the penalty actually results in an attack of opportunity from every threatening enemy.

Mage battles: Prepare for the Beastlord Harshom.

Vampires: There are no vampires in IWD2.

Implementing more skills: we probably wouldn't have time to implement any more skills than the ones we have lifted. Unlike feats, the implementation of skills is very "designer dependent" -- it requires the designers to revise their areas to make use of the new skills.

Size limitations of small creatures: We aren't implementing any of the size rules for Small creatures. This includes:

* AC Bonuses
* To-Hit Bonuses
* Weapon Size Restrictions
* Movement Rates

This is a sort of "hand in hand" thing. If you want size bonuses for your characters, you're going to suffer the appropriate size penalties, which include movement and restricted weapon use. People aren't too fond of movement penalties (just look at how the suggestion I made for the Landsknecht went over) or restricted weapon use. Besides, our weapons currently don't have size categories, just an animation spec.

Metamagic: It is possible that there may be some meta-magic or pseudo meta-magic feats implemented before all is said and done. However, I'm going to wait for the current batch to be implemented before I speculate on anything else. Sorry.

Spells: Currently, bards, sorcerers, and wizards all pick spells from the same list. Druids and rangers pick spells from the same list. Clerics and paladins pick spells from the same list.

Damien Foletto (Junior Designer)

Stealth missions: There are some stealth missions. Of course, you may choose to forgo stealth and bull rush your way through the mission(s) - it's up to you.

3E in IWD2 and PnP games: The great thing about 3E (despite the running debates) is that with all the feats and multi-classing options, you can emulate any kit you want from previous IE games - and make them better.

I just started in a new campaign three weeks ago. I finished up in a 18 month campaign a couple of months ago. I really enjoy the 3E rules, especially since I spent years running campaigns using GURPS. The similarities make transferring my old campaigns a breeze.

True. It really boils down to playing styles. Some people prefer to be able to take more hits; some prefer to deal more damage; blah, blah, etc., etc. There really is no one super-fantastic-no-way-to-beat-this-set-up way to play the game/create your characters since everyone plays differently. That's one of the great things about the IWD series (non-biased commercial plug).

Chad Nicholas (Sciptor)

Real time anti-aliasing: An IE game won't look any better because the sprites are all drawn using an "alpha" that is on or off. For anti-aliasing to work, you either need to oversample the image (not really possible in a 2D game) or build it into the engine by using an alpha channel for your sprites that have a bit depth higher than 1.

Sorcerer skill points: In IWD2, Sorcerers get 4 skill points per level + Int bonus.

General Feedback

Feargus Urquhart (President – Black Isle Studios)

Making more D&D games: I did not say that we would probably not do anymore D&D games. I said two things:

1) We would not make anymore AD&D games. I was just being silly because a 3E game is D&D and not AD&D.

2) In the future we would not just work on D&D games. Not, I repeat not, that we would stop making D&D games.

About people recently leaving Black Isle Studios reported at Fatbabies: A lot of the people that left Black Isle were very talented and number of them are going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to replace because of who they were. I miss seeing a lot of those people every day.

However, there are a few inaccuracies in some of the things that have been stated:

1) Black Isle has been and continues to be very competitive when it comes to the salaries that we offer.

2) We are able to hire people as we had two very talented people join Black Isle this Monday.

3) While we have had to make some business decisions as to the games that we work on - the last decision concerning which products we would go onto next was voted on by all of the Leads (Designers, Artists, Programmers) and Producers in the division. The vote was unanimous - I did not vote.

Interestingly, I have had a fairly steady stream of people coming into my office and asking why we don't use the Infinity Engine again now that we have upgraded it so much for IWD2. If people's morale was completely crushed - things like this would not be brought up.

And lastly, as I have continued to say, there are still Forty people in Black Isle that are working directly on projects. That does not include myself, our web girl, our Audio and Localization producer, our two QA guys, and the Hick - who manages all our equipment, software and desert burials.

[SecretMaster]

The one thing that i don't like is this feats thingy. I just wanted kits like shadows of Amn. Ow, all these feats thingy and 3rd edition hurt my head.

[Memnoch]

Originally posted by SecretMaster: The one thing that i don't like is this feats thingy. I just wanted kits like shadows of Amn. Ow, all these feats thingy and 3rd edition hurt my head.

SecretMaster, you ever played Fallout? Feats are kind of like Perks that you can use to customize your character. All kits did was precustomize it for you - you can still do this in 3rd Ed. All you need to do is select the appropriate skills and feats to get what you want.

Think of them as Lego blocks, with each block being a different skill.

[Larry_OHF]

On the Black Isle Developer Boards
Friday, March 22, 2002, 21:02 | MageDragon
From the Black Isle Developer message boards.


Skull Trap: Skull Trap is still in the game, doing slashing damage, halved by a reflex save. The damage you take from a Skull Trap is from hundreds of bone shards shooting towards your character at high speed. Thus, you take slashing damage.

Technically, I'd consider most random chunks of bone coming at you to cause lacerations, which are tears.

Damien Foletto (Junior Designer)

Items that give magic resistance: There are several items in the game that give magic resistance. In fact, there are a few sub-races that have natural magic resistances as well. The Drow start with a 25% magic resistance and get +1% additional resistance every level.

Okay, perhaps I wasn't specific enough - there are plenty of items in the game that provide not only magic resistance, but also spell resistances as well. As to what items do what etc., you'll have to wait and see it in the game.

[SecretMaster]

Thanks memnoch. That explains it for me. I did play Fallout once, at my friends house. Very odd game.

[marco]

just would like some clarifification on "feats". the "feats" setting for char., are they like the pen and paper AD&D game where you choose extra skills like climbing, swimming, weapon repair, etc....? I s this what we are saying? So for IWD II, the options would be more for either skills in attacking or defending.

yes/no, am i close?