Newbie Question

[Sir Frank]

Well, after playing IWD, HOW, and ToL and maxing out my charaters I decided to get into IWD2. I love it thus far but since I suck at CRPG's I was getting the crap kicked out of me by the end of the first chapter. In order to beef up my charaters I exported my charaters and imported them back into a new game.
Question: Do I or do I Not receive experiance points for killing monsters? I receive the points for doing the quests but I don't see as many yellow XP's messages while killing things.

[Micah Foehammer]

That's a 3rd edition rule effect. The way XP is calculated in 3rd edition rules is based on the total party levels. A party with all 5th level characters will get MORE xp than a similiar sized party of all 10th level monsters. If you get high enough level, you can end up doing a LOT of fighting for NO xp. It's not a bug, just the way the "Challenge rating" system in #rd edition works. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Sir Frank]

Well, that sucks! I guess I agree with it but it still sucks. Looks like I need to spring for a 3rd ed. D&D players manual. I'm sure if any new CRPG's come out they'll be based upon 3rd ed rules. Thanks for the help.

[Micah Foehammer]

No problem. [img]smile.gif[/img]

Actually, the challenge rating system makes sense. Killing a handful of kobolds is no challenge for a high level party, but can be challenging for a 1st level character. The old system gave the same xp in either situation, but the new system adjust the xp to reflect the relative difficulty. [img]smile.gif[/img] It just takes some geting used to.

What can REALLY suck is when you summon monsters as a mage (a necessary step in a LOT of cases) and watch the xp drop even FURTHER because the summoned monsters will affect total party level.

There are some differences in the way the IWD2 and NWN do this, and I may have the two games confused on the EXACT way that the XP is caculated. I believe the NWN uses TOTAL levels in the party, while IWD2 uses AVERAGE level.

[Azred]

The simple fix for this is to edit the .2da file that governs the xp correction for party level; if you have Near Infinity this is quite easily accomplished. However, I do not recommend this unless you a) have made a copy of the original .2da file for safe keeping and b) you are comfortable editing the game files. Threat or no threat, when I kill a goblin I want my xp, all 15 of them. [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

Or you could play in Heart of Fury mode, in which case even a goblin can be a threat. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]