Priest-heavy parties (expect spoilers)

[JayS]

Would a priest-heavy party be worth it in regular Icewind Dale with no HoW? Most of the spells you are referencing are not in regular Icewind Dale.

It seems like there would be too much overlap.

[Aerich]

Well... I'd say not. HoW gave druids some amazing new attack spells, and gave clerics some good new spells also. You could do it, but it wouldn't be as fun. Druids are nothing special without HoW, aside from the summoning spells and a few of the high-level attack spells. Their lower level spell selection without HoW is quite poor compared to the selection with HoW.

[NobleNick]

JayS,

You could always do a watered down version of the Cleric Dual Classes. You could get some kicks out of characters like DC Fighter[6]/Cleric and Fighter[6]/Druid. But HoW really makes the Druid interesting and gives you the extra playing area (e.g. extra XP) to make the spectacular DC characters. It also harbors areas where the Cleric really saves the party's bacon.

--------------------
What's a party,
without a song?
Bards ROCK!
Party On!!

[Aerich]

Overconfidence kills (in combination with drow).

I played a bit, and had some problems with the dark-skinned ones. I broke the cardinal rule (save after every fight) and had to go back to my last save, which was the one I started out with tonight.

I wanted to wipe out the whole level without resting, and that turned out to be a bad idea. I took down all the orcs, all the orogs, and most of the drow, but Insane mode adds more drow in unexpected places. I ran into some where I wasn't expecting any (3 sellswords, 2 vanguards and a sorceror in the table room), and they killed my tank and had two of my spellcasters down to 20% HP - without killing any of the opposition. Whoops.

That magic resistance really bites. They fought off a Vitriolic Sphere, Ice Storm, MM, and Sunscorch without taking more than minor damage. Next time I'm going to lead myself in with the toughest summons I can get, and Shield of Lathander on the tank. What irks me is that I still had a SoL spell to cast, but I was caught off guard by the extra drow.

[Aerich]

Fresh update.

Second time against the drow was not a huge problem. I used plenty of Shield of Lathander on my tank and ran down those drow vanguards with the speed boots. Also used undead against them, because they are immune to poison. On insane, bolts of biting do double damage - 60 HP worth! Good thing I had so many antidotes stocked up. The Fighter/Mage took down the drow sorcerors' Mirror Image with the ubiquitous Magic Missile, and it wasn't too tough from there.

Krilag's caves were very easy. I only had to scramble once, and that was when some late-arriving orogs most ungraciously didn't walk into the Entangle, but came around the other side and surprised my spellcasters. Krilag was darn easy, like always. I summoned some nice fat bears who blocked the passageway for more than long enough for me to missile and spell the enemy into oblivion.

The Tiers of the Dead was fun. As I've mentioned previously, I've never played on insane the whole way through, so I often get a little startled by additional creatures added in by the difficulty level. This time, I found out that Terikan brought a couple friends... two greater mummies, camped out on his flanks. Despite all my spell buffs, I had to reload this fight TWICE. I had nothing to protect me from the Symbols of the mummies. I finally managed to kill all the undead, then had my F/C (who was buffed to the rafters with magic resistance, shield of lathander, and about 10 other spells) and F/M take down Terikan 4 times as he reappeared. I had to wait that long for the Hopelessness affecting my other characters to wear off.

Anyway, I busted into the Hall of Heroes and got rid of Terikan, finding a few more greater mummies where none had been previously. They're not difficult at close range when you can focus fire on them and use heavy-hitting tanks. Just don't give them time and space. 16 000 XP each. I cleared the Hall, then went to pick up my just rewards. I even went all the way back to the Severed Hand, because I had a huge amount of expensive stuff that I wanted to sell, and I needed more ammo. Money is not a problem now; I made about 80 000 gold for my graverobbing.

Now to Wyrm's Tooth. Just for fun (and because I can), I'm going to see if I can clear the entire outside with an invisible druid. It's about the only place in the main game where you can use Call Lightning, and I've never actually used the spell much.

Enough hack'n'slash against magic-resistant enemies, I want some cheese. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Aerich]

So, the Call Lightning idea didn't work out, but no worries. [img]smile.gif[/img]

The outside of Wyrm's Tooth was easy, as usual. I memorized as many fire spells as possible, cast Protection from Fire on the F/C, and went at it. Trolls and yeti at this stage are easy pickings, even without the spells. I put the boots of speed on my tank, and tried to draw 10-20 trolls at a time so I could get the most out of my AoE fire spells. Worked like a charm.

Went inside, talked to Kerish and the slaves, got the key, gave it to the slaves, and rested. Came back up and had the usual nasty battle at the steps that is unavoidable. I decided to be cheesy and do something I've never done before, that is, clear 4/5 of the aquarium with an invisible druid and Static Charges (six of them ). Worked fine, but they expired before I got to Kerish. No problem, just drew him and his bodyguards into a hail of spells and stones with a couple fire elementals for good measure. The druid's proportion of the kills went from 12% to 20%!

Didn't bother resting, but went straight to the Frost Giant Caverns. Drank a cold protection potion with the tank, hammered on the winter wolves, then moved on to more trolls. No problems whatsoever. Then I took on Kontik's knights, which were not so tough against Entangle and a swarm of cave bears to take the hits. Finally, I buffed myself up with my remaining spells and charged down on Kontik. My druids focused their remaining Sunscorches on the last two knights (because Kontik had a Globe of Invulnerability up), and two tanks went at Kontik herself - one with Shield of Lathander (F/C) and the other with Mirror Image (F/M). Kontik managed to take down my F/C with a Color Spray, of all things, but the Shield of Lathander protected him even while down. Kontik went down quickly under the hail of stones and the gentle axe caresses of my F/M. The two slingers (C/T and C) switched to Magical Stones against the last knights, and they went down before getting a hit on either tank. Waited a little while for my tank dwarf to recover from the shame of failing a save vs. spell and continued on. A horde of yeti fell to my last fireball, and I withdrew outside to rest.

Came back in, crunched the dragonlets with the aid of Cloudkills and undead, sweet-talked Joril out of his badge, and initiated the fight against the giant closest to my party. I had an elemental and a few rounds of undead summons take the brunt of the damage, and set up a kill zone with a Stinking Cloud, four Spike Growths, and Grease. As the giants, drawn by my fast-moving tank, came into the zone, they were pelted by spells until their HP got quite low, and finished off by slings or the Spike Growths.

After that, I just went rampaging through the caverns taking out the remainder of the giants. They were scattered as usual, so there were no troubles. I sent the speedy tank in, fired off a couple stones to get something's attention, then pulled back to a line of undead backed up by the remainder of the party. That worked well, as the undead were immune to the cold damage of the winter wolves, and the skeletons' resistance to slashing damage meant that they were usually able to take two hits from a frost giant, by which time said giant was dead. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Now I'll just set the prisoners free and pick up my loot before resting and memorizing the appropriate spells to take out those nasty sentries in Lower Dorn's.

Quick update otherwise - the C/T has now regained his thief skills (dualed to cleric at Thief[12] on the 5th level of Dragon's Eye) by getting to cleric lvl 13. The proposed Cleric/Necromancer is getting close to dualing, as he has hit lvl 13 as well, and is about 200 000 XP short of lvl 14, which is where I will make the switch. I'm thinking he'll be ready to dual after I take out my first "boss" in LDD, and I'm looking forward to seeing how fast a beginner Necromancer will level up down there.

Each member of my team has around 1 200 000 total XP at the moment. Considering that you can expect to have about that much at the end of the game and this crew is playing for double XP on insane, I should have 2 000 000+ when I go to HoW. If I'm correct in my assessment, the C/N should have about 12-3 levels of necromancer before I get to HoW; once this puppy regains his cleric levels he will be one bad dude. It'll be all attack spells, all the time.

Currently the C/N, playing as an evil cleric, has a meagre 5% of the kills. That will change as soon as he gets to a high enough wizardly level. I plan to give this guy Sunfire and all the nasty necromantic spells + Stoneskin, and let him run out in front and mow down the enemy. It will be nice to have more balance between priest spells and mage spells. As it is right now, I have 5 characters casting priest spells, and just the F/M casting mage spells. I have two scroll cases full of spells for the C/N to learn.

[ 12-23-2004, 04:35 AM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[Azred]

It's good to see someone so enthusiastic about their IWD game! [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

I'm still working my way through an evil BG1, working towards porting that into BG2. However, IWD remains my favorite!

[Marty4]

So, Aerich, finding a happy medium between IWD 1 and 2?

Your party is looking real nice! I am eager to hear of the heroic (or mabye not-so-heroic) deads of you C/N once he regains priest levels. Good luck!

[Aerich]

My IWD 2 game got stalled a bit in the Ice Temple, so I'll work on this game for a while.

I forgot how insanely much XP you can get in the Frost Giant Caverns. Releasing the prisoners by itself is worth a cool 360 000 (180 000 on normal), and that's not including the amount you get from them for killing Frostbite. My Cleric/Necro ended up 80 000 over lvl 14 - I'll still dual him right now, even though it wastes XP. I'll leave him by the entrance while I get after those tarnished sentries - he should level up every time I kill one. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 12-23-2004, 08:24 PM: Message edited by: Aerich ]

[Aerich]

So I had to go back to the Severed Hand to get the Stoneskin spell after clearing Wyrm's Tooth. That didn't turn out to be a problem, because I figured out that I forgot to pick up the elf-killing flail while I was there - I triggered some shadowed orc-kin and levelled up my newly dualed necromancer a couple of times. I also went back to the LDD entrance via Upper Dorn's, so that I could take advantage of the easy XP of the spawning ettins and myconids.

So the necromancer is up to lvl 7 after clearing the tarnished sentries and fire salamanders at the entrance to LDD; I was more careful than normal, but still had to reload once - I had my single-classed druid in the thick of things with Static Charge and Entropy Shield - however, the ES expired and the druid was killed in two hits.

So I took it slower after that - the F/C and F/D took on the sentries with Entropy Shield, Shield of Lathander (for the first few rounds), Strength potions, Protection from Normal Missiles, Protection from Fire, and Haste. The rest of the party and the summons - undead, earth elementals, wolves - took out the fire salamanders. I had to go outside to rest a couple of times, because I wasn't able to take out all the sentries before Haste wore off.

I'm LOVING the necromancer right now - having a second mage instead of a 3rd cleric entirely changes the dynamic of the party. The only thing he's memorized so far are direct damage spells. It's been Chromatic Orb, Melf's Magic Missile, and Icelance the whole way.

He's a potent offensive force even at half the level of my other characters. My pureclass druid is very close to getting 7th level spells - she's also a nasty caster. Anything that's vulnerable to fire is in a LOT of trouble. [img]graemlins/heee.gif[/img]