Calling to all who...

[Aerich]

I started my F/M off with Charm and Grease, and didn't regret it. I wouldn't pick Sleep because the spell effects depend on Hit Dice. HoF goblins are immune to it because they have way, way more HD than the spell can affect.

Charm gives you a meatshield, even if you lose out on its XP - I like to Charm an archer that is standing next to other archers, thus causing all of them to stop using their bows. Alternately, just Charm the first onrushing orc. Note that if you focus fire on your Charmed orc or goblin or whatever when it becomes "Almost Dead", you have about a 50-50 chance of killing it and getting the XP, even though you only did 5% of the total damage it took.

Grease is good because it is a perfect complement to Entangle. It does a great job of slowing up the ogres. The only other spells I would consider taking as "starters" are Armor and Shield. Spells that require your mage to be close to the target are too risky. I might make an exception for Color Spray, except that every creature you meet early on will be so far superior to you in levels that you will only ever cause the minimum effect with the Spray.

Don't take Chromatic Orb as a starting spell, because there's a scroll of it upstairs in Pomab's shop. It doesn't really become useful until you are sufficient level to stun with it (lvl 5).

I still prefer the multi mage to dual for HoF. Your limited spell selection doesn't mean that those spells can't be useful in the right places. Charm, for example, is ridiculously useful in the Pass. I also make a point of visiting Orrick's tower very soon after I hit Kuldahar.

Yeah, Azred modifies his Chromatic Orb. In vanilla IWD (without HoW), Chromatic Orb is an instant-kill spell at very high levels; you still get whatever the target was carrying - it was more like a single-target Power Word: Kill than a Disintegrate. HoW modified it so that it "only" paralyzes the target for 13 rounds. The in-game spell description is accurate.

Four stars in missile weapons is an oddity. Apparently the game treats missile weapons as melee weapons, not ranged. There has been some discussion of this on the forum. One more reason to play around with a DC warrior/spellcaster.

I suspect your F/M/T cannot use composite longbows because those bows require a 15 Str, which you may not have. Any fighter multi or dual class should be able to use them if they have the appropriate Str and are not barred by the weapon restrictions of their non-fighter class.

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Aerich: I suspect your F/M/T cannot use composite longbows because those bows require a 15 Str, which you may not have.

Doh. that's indeed the problem. forgot about it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Azred]

Quite right. Plain old IWD had the spell effect for Chromatic Orb at high level set to "slay", but it was never normally obtainable in the game for some reason. I made it accessible, then kept the effect in place when HoW came out. The pencil-and-paper version of Chromatic Orb always had a save-or-die effect for 13th level mages; I kept true to this version of the spell.

HoF from scratch is always the way to go! Thank goodness Auril's Bane adds some extra spell scrolls in Easthaven. [img]graemlins/petard.gif[/img]

[ZFR]

Right then.
Dundee, I believe you're right about direct damage spells. Later when my mage becomes of higher level, they will become useful. I remeber on IWD 2 I used to use direct damage spells quite a lot. Even now, Call lightning is quite useful like I said.

In the mill, instead of getting the nice girdle of bless, I got a crappy medium shield +1. Don't want to reaload since I follow the "don't reload for batter random items" policy. Still pretty annoying to get such piece of junk. Unless my memory fails me and the girdle was somewhere else? Not on the orc boss in the mill?

I hope all those nice magic bows are considered longbows and not composite long ones, so my 14-STR F/T/M can use them.

[Aerich]

The bless-effect girdle is a random drop in the Easthaven orc caves, iirc. The location is the chest in the northwest dead-end passage.

Many of the magical bows are considered "just" longbows. Even so, consider casting the 2nd lvl mage spell Strength on yourself. It should work, as just about everything in IWD references modified stat scores, not the base (in contrast to IWD2).

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Aerich: The bless-effect girdle is a random drop in the Easthaven orc caves, iirc. The location is the chest in the northwest dead-end passage.

Well, in that chest I got boots that add 7% to stealth.

[Aerich]

Yeah, woohoo. Just about everything you can get out of that chest is better than the stealth boots. You can also get a dagger or a ring of protection.

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Aerich: Yeah, woohoo. Just about everything you can get out of that chest is better than the stealth boots. You can also get a dagger or a ring of protection.

grrr... All the random items I have gotten so far are crappy. Boots of Stealth +7%, medium shield +1, leather armor +1, halberd of sparks +1 (the only person with a halberd proficiency is my bard). Not a single decent one.

Well, the only good thing is that I can sell this for cash and buy what I really need from Orrick. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Azred]

You're in the caves to the east of Easthaven, right? If so, then you'll never find any "great" item like a Static Shortsword +4.

[ZFR]

Originally posted by Azred: You're in the caves to the east of Easthaven, right? If so, then you'll never find any "great" item like a Static Shortsword +4.

Finished Vale of Shadows (about to enter Kresslack's Tomb). And I agree about the items not being great, but they couldve been more useful (like girdle of bless).
Anyway got my first useful item from Therik (the undead skeleton Lord in a cave in VoS) - Ring of warrior +1 thaco. Better than the usual potion of +1 CHA -1 DEX permanent that I usually get there.

Anyway, one more question. Do the skeletons in these caves respawn every time you re-enter?? I remeber there were very few areas where monsters respawned, and then even if they did, it depended on time passage, not the fact that you exited and reentered.
The reason I'm asking is because in Therik's cave they seemed to respawan. I would exit and re-enter (without resting!) and they would seem to respawn. Now I'm not 100% sure, but there seemed an endless supply of them. In the end, I just went ahead in and killed them all. But still am not sure if it was natural or they respawned. In the orc-caves, the only other place I used this technique (re-entering) their number was fixed and they didn't respawn...