Tigranes

I'm trying to edit my thesis, but it's pretty impossible. It's too done. It's like you've already built a house and finished everything, but you're being forced to look at it and think "wouldn't it be better if the bathroom was on the other side of the house?". The idea of tearing it down is too traumatic for my brain to contemplate in a detailed manner.

You should really be playing at Core for the proper experience I feel - Normal gets rid of friendly fire which really makes it cheeseable, and enemies actually get damage handicap, which I'd argue isn't "normal" at all. I'm always disappointed by the lack of utility full rogues have in IE games, but I just have a liking to them - Purkake hardly did any damage in this IWD run but he was important in terms of recon, poison backstabbing mages and even the lure + fireball tactic. We'll see though... I wonder if 2Pal/Sorc can actually hold his own in melee. Anyway, going to set this up soon and see.

OK, I've just installed IWD2 and have designed a party which I think is sufficiently powergamey enough to survive. Feedback? I'll set this up soon... mostly the same party butwith some changes. (3 Rogue) + Fighter, Dwarf (1 Sorc) + Monk, Half-Orc (2 Pal) + Sorc, Aasimar Druid + (1Barb), Half-Elf Wiz, Drow Rogue + (1Ranger), Halfling Maybe take out 1 Sorc for the monk as it gets the XP penalaty.

I seem to remember Insect Plague becoming less useful after late SOA, because casters get their spell shields up or make saves.

Yep, Core Belhifet died too fast so I tried Insane. I'm gonna need you guys to help me tinker the party for IWD2, I'm still not very good with 3E rules and often make crippled characters. I really suck at mixing matching different class levels. I think Wals will definitely convert to druid, and as Monty says we can give him a couple rogue levels, what else? We might consider changing/ditching Volo into a different type of character altogether, and Purk needs to change form pure rogue as well. In my previous walkthroughs I've identified a few trouble spots (for me): the game seems to be designed with a couple of 'checkpoint' hurdles where if you've designed a bad party or have done a couple of dumb things you really can't beat them. Sherincal is one, the child-kidnapping witch-dragon is another. Hell, even Targos is dangerous.

...but he doesn't make it. He had gone through 2 haste spells and an oil of speed by this time, so that cumulative fatigue struck again, and he was just making a lot of Critical Misses. I think if Wals was a bit more prudent with the Raise Dead and one more fighter had survived we'd have made it, or if Monty had landed one or two more hits, though - a heroic attempt on Insane. And thus ends the heroic adventures of the Obsidianites, who, in canon, live to see another day. The final body-count (before Belhifet fight) reveals an incredible 689 kills for Monty, now labelled the Genocide Machine. Volourn comes second, with a respectable 467 kills, and of course a lot of laying on of hands, on himself and others. A true hero of the cause. The big surprise is Sir Mkreku Diesalot, clocking in at 455. He did grow more useful after we got Haste, I suppose, but a real dark horse nonetheless. After that it's numbers at 233, not bad for a pure mage - and also has the credit of felling Yxunomei, who has sent many an ironman party to their graves. He did hog all the area damage spells, so that would have helped. Unlucky Purkake comes just behind at 226, and he surely would have been fourth if not for his inability to do anything more than nick people by the end of the journey. I guess that's what you get with pure thieves, but his recon really was valuable all throughout. And finally - we have wals at 115. I was quite surprised by how low it was, he had his fair share of melee combat. I guess he just showed up then didn't do much there. I really don't know what I was thinking - he should have been a treehugger instead. And there you have it gentlemen. Icewind Dale Ironman is complete. Depending on the weather and bird entrails, the party might resurface for an icewind dale 2 run in the near future - probably with the same or similar party. In fact, feel free to comment on your favourite members from this run that should be kept, and new ones you'd like to see!

And so the battle begins. We know that iron giants pack a punch and will take a while to bring down - they present the immediate threat. We recast the standard Haste + Hopefulness + Recitation combo, then retreat to a corner. As predicted they are hefty, but Wals does a good job healing up Monty and we can use all our remaining potions of heroism / invulnerability. After a Greater Malison, Numbers FOD's a Cornugon. Soon, the critters are dead and we can focus on Belhifet - who seems to be immune to all ranged weapons I have, rendering Purkake useless (which he sadly has been for the last ~3 updates, really). The traps are very annoying as Purk can't disable with max traps, and they dispel our buffs. We face a dangerous moment when Numbers' Horrid Wilting (item ability) kills our own summons, and leaves Belhifet unharmed... but Monty swings and swings and swings... And he's down. Too easy. The game gives a longwinded ending with a nice photo shoot of the brave Obsidianites. The artist's creative license, it seems, has extended to giving Numbers a pair of gazongas. OK, that was a bit too anticlimactic - HOW & TOTLM really overlevelled us for this, maybe. So here, just a treat, we're going to try this again on Insane (we played on Core, remember). Same spells and same opening - but that 2x damage really hurts and the Iron Giants knock out Volourn in the first 3 turns (50 freaking damage!). With the increased damage we just can't hold on long enough to keep up a steady front, and are forced to run amok getting hits in when we can. Unfortunately, Belhifet then decides to teleport behind our spellcasters and issue his periodic flame blast, killing off mkreku and numbers. Well, it's not the end of the world. Wals has 2 scrolls of Raise dead and we should be able to get it back together. He goes for Numbers first... bad idea. the casting takes longer than I thought and the iron giants squish Wals with one hit just as numbers is back. Now we can't revive any more, and Monty remains the only real melee damage-dealer. We get the cornugons down pretty quick, as Purk's piercing arrows can damage them, and Monty manages to actually bring down the iron giants on his own, with some shielding from numbers' earth elementals. That's where our luck ends, though, as belhifet casts a fire storm (does he only do that in insane?) and takes out Purk. After that, well, not even finger of death did a thing against Belhifet - I really hate hyper MR enemies, it takes the fun out of boss fights. So I have numbers distract while Monty heals and swings and heals and swings. Belhifet's down to Almost Dead here, Numbers is dead, and it's the Tunnel Fighter against the Final Boss, mano e mano...

And so we come to the end of our IWD adventure. An LP that reaches the end - yeah, I know, I'm shocked as well. I guess Haste really makes miracles. Thanks for the support guys, the monkeys are really really appreciative. The Obsidianites are pretty confident going into the final encounter - they've managed to beat off the dragon and other tough enemies fairly well. The downside is that I really can't remember anything about what happens in here, so I can't really prepare. Is this actually a safe place, I can't remember? Of course, every death-defying, seasoned adventurer knows that you judge the safety of a resting spot by the puffiness of the pillows. We appreciate how the game likes to tell us what's going on when there are imposters, people with hidden agendas or backstabbers in our midst with helpful labels. Games were sure dumbed down back before 2006. We get a group of false pomabs. I think this is simple, but we are forced to revise our opinion: the Pomabs won't take damage. I soon work out that the sentry has to be down knocked out before the respective pomab can be killed off. Thankfully, the lightnning bolts are easy to avoid... Bye, False Pomab. I'd have prefered a good old high level mage, actually, maybe, say, an 18th or 19th level one that casts Minor Globe of Invulnerability, Mirror Image & Stoneskin before battle. IWD really lacks a good magefight. We commit a potentially fatal error here by clicking on a mirror in the next area, which immediately teleports us to the final battle. We hardly cast a spell against Pomab, but this is still bad news... Poquelin/Belhifet gives the exposition. A long exposition. Monty tries to use his razor sharp wit again to confuse his demented enemies. However, it doesn't work, and Everard is forced to intervene, giving his life to... well, seal the portal that Poquelin JUST unsealed. Talk about futility.

Are we on 11?

Lots of werewolves, and I think the one getting hit by purple there was a glazebru... I think IWD favours our type of brawn-parties, because of the sheer number of enemies that are quite resistant to disabling spells like hopelessness and confusion. Much better to have fast and strong swordarms that mow them down. There's some back and forth putting macguffins in right places and getting new macguffins... And finally, a portal back up to the final showdown. The Luremaster reveals the entire story, congratulates us on a job well done, and then, well, wants to fight us to go out with a bang. Look, if you really want to go out with a bang, blow something up - don't take it out on us. We quickly target the spellcasting shadows, who wanted to cast hopelessness and other such annoying spells. We manage to disrupt 5 or 6 dispel magic castings, and eventually get them down first. After that it's not too much trouble (the Luremaster doesn't seem to have special abilities or magic), and the Trial is over. We are thus back in Easthaven - such a comprehensive run giving us something like 2mil XP. We still only have 7th level arcane spells, but I'm reasonably confident we can actually do this.

We even run into an adventuring party - and for once the enemies have a genuine magical threat, opening by dispelling everything we have. We win out in the end, however, and pick up a truckload of magical items - I guess these guys were protagonists, too. Unfortunately, we already have enough money to buy the entire Dale by now. Look, a riddle! Answer is , though I don't think it makes too much sense... And finally, piecing together the story, we free the helmites. Basically they were in the service of a lord, and died while on a dragonslaying mission all together. But something shady was going on and (I think) the Lord lets the knights die and takes the credit of slaying a dragon. Bard threatens to reveal, lord gets mad and anxious and paranoid and crazy, things go nuts. If you haven't guessed yet, the Luremaster is the bitter resentful spirit of the said Bard. Entering the interior of the castle, we find Hobart again - but this time he is even stranger, and reveals himself to be Hassat... uh, rakshasa. You'd think for professional shapechangers they'd practice their lying a bit more. I really hate these guys for their magic resistance, but thankfully this particular party is based on brawns, not magic. Hasted brawns. The castle even contains beholders, who can dispel our buffs and do other nice things. We get to show off our Finger of Death, though - I'm quite surprised it didn't make the save. The spirit of the mad Lord is much more annoying, opening with a Power Word Kill, which in IWD is AOE for some reasona nd gives our two weakest party members no chance at all. A second casting lops off Mkreku before we're able to kill him. Revived and rested, we continue... the castle dungeons aren't too bad, but just a lot of mid-difficulty fights. We do get to use a lot of spells that aren't too effective vs. the undead and such.

Pox on you all - the monkeys demand you get us to page 11 for the next and final update. In any case, the Trials of the Luremaster beckons. Once again teleporting us back to Lonelywood (because bloody HOW puts you back in kuldahar), we speak to one Hobart Stubbletoes. The trusting bunch we are, we choose to ignore his theatrical evasiveness and sign up for the magical teleport. Which serves us right, really, to end up in a cursed castle. I don't understand this fixation with poetry and songs by storytellers, RPGs, RPG fan fiction, whoever wrote Leliana, etc etc - poetry is a lot more difficult to write and its really hard to make it (a) make sense and (b) not sound utterly stupidly incompetent. At least we can understand what he's saying here. We start going round the towers and digging up dirt. You wonder why there are so many monsters in cursed locations where nothing can get in or out - I mean, what, they don't eat? They don't get claustrophobic? We meet a man who wants Monty to join him in some pretend action, but thats not what we're into, sorry. Got any whips? You'd think they'd lay three thousand traps round important plot items, instead of a few thousand gold. Especially if you only need to bypass a couple to open up a route. The sight of the fiersome Obsidianites is enough to instill fear even into the hearts of ghosts. It's like inverse Casper. They really went all out on this particular dungeon. Seriously, this level, it's like doing your taxes. We finally reach the end, and loot some dead Helmites. We'll be back later. But first it's the remaining towers. The Harpy Queen has no answer to our gamebreaker, Haste. Beneath each tower, the Luremaster presents a riddle and a challenge - most of them chopping up baddies. Here only one chest contains the goodie but all are trapped; with no potions of perception Purkake can't disarm any of them, so we just open it all up. Amazingly, Purkake survives a horrid wilting, soul eater, incendiary cloud and something else, as the party looks on. Mkreku loses 10 gold after betting on the halfling's demise.

Will do. I suggest halfling with 18 dex, chaotic neutral, assassin kit, as I say HLAs on 1 Assassination then as many Time/Spike traps as possible. Items could include Asyferund Elven Chain +5, then Celestial Fury or that whatsitsname Shadow Thief sword of backstabbin'.

Actually, you'd be dead if you right clicked all the time. To the first goblin. ROOFLES!

HOW is particularly beautiful, there is a very surreal feeling coupled with fantastic detail that brings it to life. I don't tend to like IWD's spell effects as they are too shiny and plasticky, but man it looks very nice. TOTLM update coming soon. I think I will go on to IWD2 at some point, though god, ironman will be impossible with that one.

Why not Durlag's Tower? Longer, better, and not so many high level spells. But then, if you start at TOB you might nto even need to use shadowkeeper. Dope an Assassin up on Time & Spike traps + 1 Assassination for HLA, then go nuts with the combo, preferably with a high attack rate & at least +3 weapon. Very useful in the final seals before Demogorgon particularly. A Keldorn style inquisitor with dispel magic / etc could be useful, but since you don't want pallies, I suppose we need a Cleric. Maybe a Fighter-Cleric, high level pure clerics always seemed redundant to me in TOB. Wild Mage is surely a must.

As I said elsewhere, I'm surprised by how good the game looks. It's a bit too clean in that low-budget 3D kind of way, but there are interesting things going on with a large number of placeables and some lighting, and if they can get some grit in there it's going to look really really good, certainly good enough to carry thea tmosphere. I'm really excited because I think they're on the right track to creating very interesting and difficult moral/pragmatic decisions for players, a game where you don't ride the troubles and save the day but a game where you have to do the ugly and the terrible, but you'll choose what ugly and terrible. Also, its Mitsoda. It's also the kind of 'post-Fallout' setting that I'm very interested in seeing, that we haven't seen much of outside FPS's and the FO franchise itself. I love the posters, even though right now they look way too out of place.

After her discourse on life, death and love, we use the mirror to expose the fake Wylfdene... I do believe that is a unique special effect just for him. If we had a bottle we could catch her right there and end the bloody quest. And so we come to the final area of HOW and the dragon showdown. I did say HOW was short. THe multifatigue again caught us out, so here we summon some Ogres and use a scroll of thorn things. I really miss the IWD2 druid, they get some really cool spells there, like the Smashing Wave thing and Static Charge. Wals is pretty pitiful in comparison, his 7th level slot is used on Symbol of HOpelessness. Inside is a lot of undead and some wyrms, but with the 70k zombiekiller we prevail. ...okay, seriously? You'll heal us? This is like Tamoko offering to let us rest for 16 hours and memorise all spells before we fight Sarevok. The room yonder is absolutely filled with elementals that fire Sol's Searing Orb for massive damage, golems, sahuagin (WTF) and even spellcasting sahuagin. Of course, the fact that we're facing humanoids opens up strategic possibilities. Greater Malison + Slow + Chaos + Symbol of Hopelessness = every sahuagin you see there is immobile. Purkake steps on a flesh to stone trap, and our scroll turns him back but also kills him. I really hate that in IWD, now we have to use a raise dead spell and pick up all his loot. Why would the stone shatter? In any case, after some rest it's time for the mighty dragon, Icharachasachathing. We quickly divide up into the melee group smashing at the dragon and keeping her occupied, and the ranged/magic group that immobilises then takes down the Sahuagin. Surprisingly, our fighters, buffed to the max, takes down the dragon before the sahuagin are even gone - this guy's a wuss compared to the IWD2 dragon. We almost forget about his regenerative shell... But the end is quick. So that's it for HOW, we nearly nearly copped it at Burial Isle but reaffirm our fighting prowess against the dragon. I think 2 more updates - one for Luremaster, one for the final battle, then we'll be done.

This is where it gets brutal - Mebdinga, the head honcho round here, has too many virgins with her to take care of and they start hurling some deadly spells. Purkake and wals lose the Make the Saving Throw competition. This is really bad. I discover that in IWD at least, fatigue is cumulative. The Hastemeisters carry 4 hastes memorised with the party at all times, and we've cast them all - I think this must be the reason, because soon the party can't hit ANYTHING, even stunned targets, and keep making critical misses. We use good ol' web to delay monsters, but soon Numbers and Monty are the only ones left and we still can't hit the virgins fast enough. Monty does take down the virgins, but then the drown dead rip him apart as soon as web is off. Numbers doesn't have any spells left. Well, that's not exactly true, he has Detect Invisibility and... Emotion: Hopelessness. And obviously he has no chance of hitting anything. I actually thought we were dead here, but luckily we had visited the wizard merchant in the isle overland and bought some nifty items. Numbers runs to mkreku's corpse, picks up a magical helm,a nd uses its special ability... Which gets both drowned dead, after some tricky maneuvring (obviously the whirlwind moves randomly). We rock, baby. Moving on, we find the only freaking use for Contact Other Plane in the entire game - to get the real name of this guy and thus get the good (not cursed) armour. The one-time self-destructive demon summoning ability it has will come useful, in the final battle hopefully. We now find Hjollder and get the directions to the next Macguffin trail... The Gloomfrost. I remember the Remorhazz in IWD1 being pretty difficult, but the Hastemeisters dispose of them like ants. We make it to the blind old dwarf... and Monty's dwarven dwarviness persuades him to make his magnum opus. Except we get to choose which weapon, then we get it for free. I'm not sure eyes are the only thing this guy's missing... we make it a nice dagger to hopefully make Purkake relevant again. The golems packed a bit more punch, though. We mostly relied on mkreku and numbers running around throwing fire spells. Pity I don't have a mage/thief, Sunfire works best that way. And finally, the Gloomfrost Seer. You get to see her nekkid in the movie, but god, I won't inflict you with that.

Awesome, thanks for that - I think it's just before my time, I only started lurking BIS ~2003. Armed with fresh knowledge of the coconut economy, our party lands in Lonelywood, beginning the adventures of Heart of Winter. It's so short, we're gonna do it in one update. The Obsidianites are just hardcore that way. First, we find the typical boy in well dilemma. Except this little bastard already knows exactly where to get rope, why didn't she go herself? Kids these days, they don't wanna move an inch, they want everything delivered right to the freakin door. And of course, the daddy then tells us she's a big fat liar as well. Mkreku was going to magic missile her ass, but Monty persuades him to do it after we're done here. Here Monty utilises the same keen intelligence that allowed him to trick Joril and Kerish in Wyrm's Tooth. Whaddaya know, it works. Our reward is... well, you guessed it, Robe of Evil Archimagi. Seriously, aren't there any Good ones? Or rather, Neutral? We do decide to keep one for mkreku - he basically wears the robe while spellcasting, then switches into heavy armour for the melee, because in IWD you can do that in the middle of the battle. Bit cheesy, but I like to think it reflects his inner crossdressing urges. A tavern harlot makes wink winks at Monty, no doubt lured by his bulging, well-toned muscles cultivated through months of tunnel fighting. She doesn't like football, though, so Monty tells her to get lost. Say what you like about HOW being short, it's beautiful. Surely good graphics make up for lack of playing time, right? HOW was truly ahead of the times. We pick up this little beast for 70,000 gold. Is this modded or vanilla? The undead killing is to come in very very useful over the coming fights, and meh, I think it's fair, that money could have bought an island somewhere... or a very good transgender operation for somebody. We reach the Barbarian Camp. I love the models on these barbs, they look so short and fat and adorable. Sadly, mkreku concludes that these must be the dreaded Eastern Icewind Dalers, reknowned for their filthy lack of personal hygiene and low level of intelligence. This is not his countrymen, surely. The Wylfdene conv is actually quite impressive - it reminds me of speaking to that lizard(?) king in the swamps of Arcanum, one of the few instances in which NPCs are actually intelligent and have thought things out long before you've come along, and you can't persuade them by quoting Philosophy 101. In any case, the Chosen One crap doesn't work here, Hjollder our guide is banished, and we follow to the Burial Isle. The wights aren't too bad but the Drowned Dead pack a punch, and the wailing virgins need to be put down quickly. Here Volo shows off a new item ability, Undead ward... pity it sucks.

Gamebanshee is awesome, they have good walkthroughs, good reviews and a layout that doesn't kick you in the balls, mostly. Good stuff Buck.

It's 70mb and I had no bandwidth when I started, so I didn't patch at all. In any case, I just installed it and it seems to be okay, so yes, I'll do TOTLM as well.

I don't have ToTL installed as I forgot about it - I'm worried what impact installing now might have? I do have a couple of mods like Tweaks, we shall see. But then, maybe not - in my current session the party was actually reduced to one out-of-spells mage...

Step Four: Finally, the Idol. Most of our spells are gone by this point, though... Step Five: Profit. We rock. After that, I must say Poquelin is a joke: He falls in about 3 seconds and gets us to Easthaven. I'm not complaining, though, the black temple was insane. Always thought IWD cutscenes were as well done as could be given the budget, but pretty boring. I'd have prefered ingame cutscenes. Anyway, we arrive at Easthaven and find things all hairy. It's at this point I realise that you can't actually go to Kuldahar again... but it'd be a shame to skip out on HOW, so I decide to use the console to teleport us to Kuldahar. We can just pretend I did it just before Poquelin, right? Our ironman e-degree should be safe. Besides, I'm kind of scared of the final battle... So we decide to run away: after all, nothing bad can happen while we're away, right? We're the heroes. We stop by the Severed Hand to restore the garden (which gives about 400k XP total, bloody hell), pushing us past the million XP mark... Then accept the trip to NorseLand. Mkreku is quivering with excitement: finally, some good old Central Icewind Dalers! And so we are at Lonelywood, and the Obsidianites live to see another day. But will they survive the Heart of Winter, or was it a mistake not to finish their quest right then and there? Dum dum dum.

Now we have 4 badges, and just 2 to go. Malavon is probably just about the only proper mage villain in the game, and we loaded up with spells and summons in preparation. He uses his spotlight raving about something. ...and the fight is over in exactly half a turn. Seriously? The bloody giants aren't even hostile yet. Aha. Simulacrum. If I were him, I'd have used my 8th level slot on Horrid Wilting instead. Nevertheless, he's literally covered with magical protections, so the real fight is on. We don't really have any breach-type spells (never seem to get 'em in IWDs) and can't do anything to him, so we have to wait it out. Elementals come after us, but Wals makes two Dire Charm saves and it's not so bad. He fails his third, but by then the buffs have run dry and the Real Malavon proves just as fragile as the Fake Slim Shady. Bolstered by this success, we are ready for the Black Temple. I find this area ludicrous, to be honest. Not only do you have about 40 boneguard skeletons and zombies, there are greater mummies with disabling spells, and the Idol which can cast Power Word Kill and Flesh to Stone and all kinds of evil things. But this is Ironman and we are Obsidianites! We can do this! Step One: Hastemeisters make a nice carpet of bone. Step Two: keeping out of mummy LOS they destroy all the boneguards first. We do get caught out by a couple of mummies here, but Purkake's arrows and Numbers' magic missiles manage to disrupt them every single turn, until they drop dead. Step Three: Finally it's the zombies, though we send summons up ahead and try to avoid the idol. You see our newest spell in action here, Chain Lightning. It hits allies in IWD for some reason, but it's still a very useful spell in terms of sheer damage. Mkreku joins the Mummy Disruption Squad and we disrupt every single Hopelessness casting - this is the difference between life and death.