Newbie needs help

[Xen]

Hi! Could someone introduce me to 3ed rules set and new party please. I have searched the forum but would still like you advice.

[Bozos of Bones]

Having completed Icewind Dale 2 fourteen times, I think I can call myself knowledgable in the ways of the Third Edition. Ask Away!

[motub]

First piece of advice is: don't get too caught up in learning the 3rd. ed rules.

Yes, it's important to know some of it-- no point in planning a character who's going to suffer a 40% XP penalty, or (like me) having a whole lot of custom armor made without realizing that only one party member had the heavy armor feat.

So, yes, it is important to get familiar with the rules. But a lot of the fun of this game is actually making mistakes, and finding ways to turn your weaknesses into strengths. Otherwise, it's really easy to get obsessed by trying to plan the "perfect" character/party-- much more so than with 2nd ed. rules games, imo.

But yeah, ask away. Character creation is fun for the whole family .

[Xen]

Well there are these new Feats and Skills. What is the difference between them and how do I know wich class gets one.

[Dar'tanian]

Let me put it this way..use common sense. A theif would use something like search and pick pocketing and pick lock, while a mage would use something like lore or alchemy or spell craft. spell craft is big for mages and use magic device is big for bards and theifs. But that is how it kind of works...

[Timber Loftis]

3rd Edition is basically more free-form. No more "dual-classing" and "multiclassing" stuff. All characters can buy up levels in different classes is the first lesson. Be careful, though, pay attention to the "favored class" rules so you don't lose 15% XP. The IWD2 rulebook is quite good as an intro. Also, the game itself is very good about defining what is what. Right click when choosing feats to know what they do. Not everything follows 3Ed. rules -- for instance I noticed today that "improved initiative" in IWD2 only benefits spellcasters.

[Pirengle]

Originally posted by Xen: Hi! Could someone introduce me to 3ed rules set and new party please. I have searched the forum but would still like you advice.

GameFAQs has character guides and powergaming party stuff. Don't know if this appeals to you, Xen, but thought I'd post it.

I agree with Timber Loftis. You can play any character with any class/kit with 3rd edition rules. However, some races have preferred classes and gain bonuses with those classes, and strange race/class combos suffer certain penalties. (Want to make a Tiefling ranger? No problem! Need to balance out the CHA penalty, though.) Powerful sub-races take a long time to level up. You can make Aasamir (half-celesial), Tiefling (half-demonic), and Drow characters, and they get fantastic bonuses. To counter those bonuses, it takes Aasamir and Tieflings two levels of experience to level up, as opposed to other classes' one level, and takes Drow three levels of experience to level up.

It's all in the manual. Gets very tedious, but it's worth a skim.

Three items of note: stat rolls, skills, and feats.

Stats are rolled differently in IWD2. Instead of the BG system of rolling all your stats for hours trying to come up with the best numbers possible, IWD2 sets every stat at 10, adds or subtracts racial bonuses, and you get a certain number of points to add to the stats. You can also subtract as much as you want to add to other stats. Balances out the character a bit so you don't have some bizarre 18/18/18/3/18/18 combination.

Skill points are pretty basic. The number varies depending on class. Any skill considered useful to the class is a class skill. Any skill considered not as useful to the class is a cross-class skill. For example, rogues and monks have Move Silently as a class skill. They don't wear armor (or they wear light armor), and they're used to sneaking around. For every skill point a rogue or monk puts into the Move Silently skill, they recieve one rank in that skill. Fighter classes can take Move Silently as a class skill, but they need two skill points to get a rank in it. It's all that heavy metal armor and such.

Feats are kinda like ToB's HLAs. They're these super-powerful abilities that characters recieve once per level up (humans and a few other classes get two feats in character creation instead of just one) and gain new feats for every three levels. Not every race or class get the same feat pool, and there are combos to be had, like Power Attack/Cleave for fighters.

Another nifty thing about 3rd edition rules is that dual-classing is nonexistant. Any character, human or demihuman, can multiclass. Some classes can multiclass in other classes and still level in their original classes. (For example, a Paladin of Mystra can multiclass as a wizard and still gain paladin levels. If the multiclass was, say, rogue, the character couldn't gain paladin levels because rogue isn't the preferred multiclass.)

My advice? Build a party with three fighter classes and three non-fighter classes. My first IWD2 party was a fighter/rogue, two paladins, a fighter/cleric, a mage, and a bard. Rogues aren't crucial to IWD and IWD2--bards are.

(Where's Arundel's Comeuppance when you need it? [img]tongue.gif[/img] )

[ 11-02-2003, 03:23 AM: Message edited by: Pirengle ]

[Peytin of Rothmire]

I was there with you Xen, but I got lots of help from the forum too. See my post "I need Dale II/3rd ed newbie advice" a little down the page. One big difference is the Dex to AC relationship. Give your fighter stats in strength and constitution. A fighter should do fine with a dexterity of 10-12 as they will have heavy armor. Also take advantage of the skills that certain classes get for free. For example, my main melee character is a barbarian, who gets medium armor (level 2) for free. He gets penalized if he wears heavy armor. But if I dual him to fighter for just one level, he gets heavy armor for free and no penalties, provided he just keeps doing his barbarian melee-orientated job and doesn't go sneaking around or anything.

I'm not far along at all and have gotten used to the gameplay of IWD2. It was actually harder to adjust to the new interface than to get the rules down. If you've been through some of the 2ed rules games, you'll be fine.

[Hayashi]

Hmmm... Dan Simpson (a frequent contributor to GameGAQs) wrote a FAQ for 3rd Ed D&D rules. It used to be posted under the IWD2 part of GameFAQs, but I see it has been removed (no idea why).

I still have a copy I d'ld some time ago (it's edited to remove unimportant stuff like credits, version hostory, etc). If you want it I can email it. It's in MS Word format (I can resave into RTF or TXT if you want).

[Xen]

Originally posted by Hayashi: Hmmm... Dan Simpson (a frequent contributor to GameGAQs) wrote a FAQ for 3rd Ed D&D rules. It used to be posted under the IWD2 part of GameFAQs, but I see it has been removed (no idea why). I still have a copy I d'ld some time ago (it's edited to remove unimportant stuff like credits, version hostory, etc). If you want it I can email it. It's in MS Word format (I can resave into RTF or TXT if you want).

Yes please do. My E-mail is in my profile.