Ironman: Icewind Dale

[Tigranes]

Well done gentlemen, the monkey is pleased. More than pleased, he's sort of oozing around in a puddle of happy. So let's have a big fat oopdat. I actually remember Icewind Dale being a lot longer than this - I think ironman is making me a lot more careful, and that ironically means I don't sit there reloading after stupid deaths.

 

Oner, Fraps, then office pic mgr to mass resize, then photobucket mass upload. It's not the best but it's the fastest for me.

 

Anyway, where were we? Yes, Dragon's Eye. We plough through the second level, where my policy of only resting after a level is cleared is sorely tested. This is less than halfway through - trolls and lizardmen are fine but those Wraith Spiders are hard to take down. The party's firepower has a sort of half-life because every time I take a guy off melee and go into ranged because of the HP, well, I don't have good enough bows / ammo to damage Wraith Spiders. Mainly Monty takes the brunt.

 

So we do rest here before the big room full of trolls and priests. Rushing into the small gap we open with stinking cloud & web to seal the northern pathway, which works nicely. Numbers & Mkreku are often always on magic missile duty, disrupting every spell cast at our party - I'm finding that this party generally depends on spellcasters simply ensuring Monty is able to hack and slash without interruption.

 

For the first time we give Walsingham the talky-talky rights. He decides to talk to his mother.

 

Next level is where it starts getting insane. I really hate this level. Not only do we get undead again, we have massive swarms of them that can quickly overrun even a Monty-led party. We run in with Haste & Recitation, and use the familiar Fireball/Web combo. This seems to make sure not all of them can rush at once - so it's rinse & repeat for most of the level.

 

Unfortunately, I forgot about blast skeletons, and someone is a wussy and decides to die AGAIN. At least Egenia can resurrect.

 

Finally we come to Presio. One of the mods had some sort of tweak on him but I didn't notice anything. Again the key is Web + Fireball, we want to deal with the minions without Presio if possible. Missed the trap though, it got half the party.

 

Wals throws a good ol' Silence, but Pres makes the save. I'm beginning to think it, along with burning hands, has become obsolete.

 

Luckily, Presio is caught by web and doesn't advance forward, letting us backtrack a bit then pile zombie corpses on top of another. You know, if they made a 3D version of this with physics, then maybe a grab button for corpses, we could rearrange them to form naughty words. It would be totally awesome, I don't know why nobody has done it yet.

 

It turns out Presio's not that tough on his own, after all.

 

Just one of the great greeeeedy guts... uh, sacks of loot we're amassing. This will hopefully make the Purkstab relevant again - in BG my favourite tactic is to poison backstab the mage first.

[Tigranes]

Next level we have a masterfully implemented merger of gameplay & story interests in a highly cost-efficient manner. Nice people let you heal and sleep, then you find their softcore pornography collection and get to kill them all! Pity they talk like somebody from some cheap free-to-play browser MMO.

 

They also have Sailor Moon powers. I'm waiting to see if they've joined up to form some sort of Giant Love Gundam.

 

Nope, just regular critters.

 

Next is the high priest, who is of course too important to actually chase me with everyone else, and would rather divide his forces. I oblige him by coming in from the north entrance and clobbering him to death before he can cast a single spell.

 

Same with the high summoner. Perhaps Yxunomei will be thankful I'm cutting down on his bloated bureaucracy. Everyone's a president and king around here.

 

We pop back up, rest, and come to the final bloody level. If I can beat Yxunomei perhaps I can get to the end! But first, Cryptic Gurl.

 

There are a lot of normal lizardmen to go through, but they're not too bad for our party now. You level up more than you get taxed in this game.

 

It's good to know Purk is always willing to learn. I just wish he'd learn to hit people in the neck or something when he backstabs, instead of the pinky.

 

Silence has its final, sad hurrah of Save Vs., and disappears promptly from our repertoire.

 

Oddly, none of those priests cast anything, which is very good, because they were still annoying to deal with. Mkreku's actually pretty good with his sword (+2 of confusion, 4 star proficiency) but is just so fragile. Why are you so fragile?

[Tigranes]

Rest up, come back, we can now cast Ice Storm too.

 

Geometric Immolation never goes out of style. Never.

 

Alright, this is the big one. I go back up AGAIN, rest up, come back, buff up. This must be the first battle where I actually had the spells to buff up properly - even though I've been spending most of my cash on scrolls. Mirror Image, Blur, Haste, Recitation, wand of armour, the lot. You can see a Glyph of Warding and Stinking Cloud I precast, Web will go in too. Not my fault the yuan-ti all need glasses, right?

 

After the Purkster again pops out to trigger the battle, we go in strong with fireballs, oils of fiery burning and ice storm. There are actually a few undead of mine right next to Yxunomei here - and they somehow lasted half of those spells. Yxunomei makes most of the saves, but the priests go down and that's important.

 

While Purkake runs around distracting Yxunomei we take down the other Yuan-Ti, then gang up. I have a feeling we're still under-levelled and/or under-equipped for some reason: this thing needs +2 to hit but I only have some +2 arrows, and in melee, none of Monty's weapons are actually +2. We give him a +5 to hit xbow but with n ormal bolts it hardly seems to do much, even when it hits. Without our brave tunnel fighter surely the party will be hacked to pices by the big booby-monster...

 

Ayup, no. This actually looks a lot better than it was, I used about 10 poitions on Wals who was the only one getting hit. Haste/Recitation still lasted and that was probably the big thing, Yxunomei really really deals a lot of damage.

 

Let's wrap up then. We return to Kuldahar, take care of some orogs who seem perfectly positioned to fight me but not rape and pillage anything else...

 

And then the annoying old man turns out to be a spy. He could have given us XP before doing that, at least.

 

Having learned from the last fight we invest the party's entire gold (36k, what the hell is it with the prices) on a +3 halberd. Monty better chop like he ain't never chopped before with this.

 

And finally, the Severed Hand... where Monty may become more of a liability again. I really should make him a club-wielding naked warrior and just send him on alone.

[Oner]

Yxi is my favorite boss ever.

1:Give Paladin best armor and the returning throwing axe

2:Let Yxi summon skeletons

3:Backtrack a bit, let the skeletons clog up a side room's entrance separating you from Yxi

4:Set Paladin to attack Yxi

5:Go eat something

6:PROFIT

[Slowtrain]

I remember the first time I played IWD. When I got to the battle with Yxy I didn't have any +2 weapons. Not fun.

[greylord]

Severed hand, wasn't that in the IWII as well? I have to admit it's been awhile since I played through them.

[Hassat Hunter]

Yup, final there (I know because I still have a save just before the final battle, which I never finished 0_0).

 

Can't recall where it's in the IWD-line though. Mid-way right? Or earlier?

[mkreku]

Only one death? I'd call that a good session! Well done, little virtual me!

[HoonDing]

First time I played IWD I thought Yxunomei would cast Protection from magical weapons & Stoneskin, like all mariliths in BG2 do. Would've been an impossible fight if it were so.

[Walsingham]

Just came back to the thread. Awesome stuff. Go me!

 

"I say, you chaps over there with the whatnots. Bugger off, will you?"

[Enoch]

Man, I'm actually playing BG1 right now, and those XP rewards have me drooling. I'm in early Chapter 5 (post-Cloakwood), and I think the most my party has gotten in one shot is 4,000.

 

(Also, I am reminded of how much better the IWD background and character art is. Too bad that I never have the patience to actually plow through those levels. I've finished IWD once, and my only attempt to replay sputtered out somewhere in the Tomb of Endless Skeletons.)

[Nepenthe]

Man, I'm actually playing BG1 right now, and those XP rewards have me drooling. I'm in early Chapter 5 (post-Cloakwood), and I think the most my party has gotten in one shot is 4,000.

 

(Also, I am reminded of how much better the IWD background and character art is. Too bad that I never have the patience to actually plow through those levels. I've finished IWD once, and my only attempt to replay sputtered out somewhere in the Tomb of Endless Skeletons.)

 

Yeah, I think that my only issue with BG1 is that the XP rewards are pitiful... which results in very slow progression. Coupled with the attempted nonlinearity and the fact that at low levels you basically double in power every time you level up, scratching that xp together from a multitude of areas while avoiding the encounters that would decimate you... shiver.

[Enoch]

I'm currently working my way up to taking on the Basilisks to the far East. IIRC, the "Greater" one brings in 7,000 XP.

 

Korax the Ghoul is one of my favorite little episodes in the game.

[HoonDing]

You can endlessly farm flesh golems in the cave near the sirines in the lighthouse area. Great way to level up provided you have magical weapons.

[Tigranes]

If you take your time and clear everything then BG1 XP isn't a problem - the wands you find in hollowed tree trunks and such are great at letting you take out some higher level opponents in early game. What I really hated was the Cloakwood random encounters with the instant webs, they'd probably kill any ironman attempt.

 

Anyway, the Severed Hand is probably around midpoint of IWD or a bit after, yes. The party decideds to enter: the place is pretty gutted inside, but you know, shadow goblins, how bad can they be? (The plot tell us they are real goblins who were screwed by the mythal, I didn't know that involved getting extra XP.)

 

Apparently because they are so shadow-y, they can completely surround us before we know it. I hate the way enemies spawn behind you in here, but I guess it's sort of justified.

 

The party takes some hits, but haste carries the day. That's going to repeat itself about 70 times - haste, Emotion: Hope, Recitation, va va voom. This tactic actually makes mkreku very useful, because he can finally hit things with his superior sword proficiency/THAC0 before he gets hit.

 

And just as I get a new spell to show off, everyone is immune to it. Figures, this is like Dragon Ball. Numbers will need to go on another personal journey of self-mastery and come back with Disintegrate or something.

 

Sneaky super-intelligent goblin undead camp themselves behind barricades, but we summon beetles behind them behind barricades. Take that, clever goblins.

 

We are relieved to find some regular undead, though mkreku lives ever on the fringes of doomy doomy doom.

 

The thing you see ont he left here is an elevator-thing. I forgot what it did and clicked on it, and before we knew it our injured and spelless Obsidianites were facing a lot of enemies. Firing our last web spell we did manage to get by, but Purkake sacrificed his life going round the back to take out the ghosts. May he rest in peace.

 

Actually, no, we'll just go back and bring him back. It ain't over yet, you lily-livered goat.

 

The top of the Severed Hand is when it gets all Durlag's Towerish. We have the little girl who is unaware of her death. Volourn's heart is stirred by this tragedy, and he decides that a stern but kind word is necessary to make her realise the truth. For some reason, she doesn't respond well to this, though, and Volo is forced to move on. Some people...

 

The various mini-towers are once again pretty, but also filled with angry Shadow Elves. I think this is just an excuse to make us fight some elves. I'm not complaining, mkreku is the only half-elf in the party and he's more Central Icewind Dale than elf anyway.

[Tigranes]

At the top of one tower, we realise that this elf has dedicated his entire freaking undead life to waiting for someone to bring him the right combination of four rare items that will restore his precious garden. Look, seriously? This isn't the freaking industrial age. Go outside, there are plants everywhere.

 

Crazies don't get less crazy in the other tower. Mkreku is asked to kill some elves, by an elf, cause "they're dead already". Uh-huh, whatever you wanna tell yourself, honey.

 

Religious fanatics trapped in undeath is kind of ironic in an ironic way.

 

The elves were simple, but up top we found a family of wraith spiders. What? It must be about a hundred meters above ground by now.

 

The final tower has been made inaccessible by Larrel's crazy magics. I thought if you drew pretty patterns between the islands you'd get to go up, but I guess that will have to wait for a sequel.

 

Instead we find another way in, and get to the library. It's good to know that even in such a prestigious library of rare and valuable texts, it's the romantic softcore novella which take up the most shelfspace.

 

Finally we get to Larrel. We give the other guy some parts to repair to astrolabe, then ask him about what happened here. He seems a little bit unstable and gets angry when we ask about his daughter... but that's alright, he's a cool guy, he gets over it real quick-like.

 

Oof, that's a lot. Since we have screenies remainign let's go to Dorn's Deep anyway. We get a nice change in decor.

 

Ettins make a return, but the Hastemeisters can deal with them in about half a second.

 

We come across some orcs around a campfire, but they attack. Why do they attack all the time? Goblins, orcs, all we wanted to do was hang out.

[Tigranes]

We proceed further and finally get a challenge: lots of orc archers on plaforms, orogs charging, spiders, drow. We retreat to separate them and even use cloudkill in addition to our normal repertoire.

 

With undead summons to block the way we thought we'd plough through, but I forgot about poison and Monty dies his first death of the game. Sorry mate, we won't tell anyone.

 

Things go from bad to worse, as without Monty we don't have anyone to suck up the damage or dish them out the same way. Being out of spells we can't really disrupt the spells of mirror-imaged drow sorcerers, and mkreku takes a familiar journey down below.

 

Volourn dies too, and we're really up crap creek without a paddle...

 

All out of spells, both sides spend a couple of minutes mostly missing each other. Then I get this great idea about using the scroll of flame strike in my backpack - unfortunately I forgot the IWD version has an AOE, and to make things worse, the Drow save with their MR. I blame Wals.

 

In the end we do get through it all, but that was surely the closest to the end the party had come to. Hell, I had to throw some stuff away because 3 of us couldn't carry it all back to town to resurrect. Anyway, we begin again, with a promising Purkstab...

 

More Ettins...

 

And take care of the lieutenant of the Big Baddie quite nicely, obtaining his badge. You'd think he'd have picked himself a nicer place to live if he was the boss round here.

 

We rescue Saablic Tan before venturing deeper into Dorn's Deep. I have a feeling we'll regret that, oh, about one game later...

[Gorth]

At the top of one tower, we realise that this elf has dedicated his entire freaking undead life to waiting for someone to bring him the right combination of four rare items that will restore his precious garden

It's his own fault for relying on a star map scattered over four different planets... oh, wait

[HoonDing]

IIRC you can get conjure fire/earth elemental scrolls in Dorn's deep. Considering the big fights of the next chapters, pretty important.

[mr insomniac]

Ahh, Severed Hand with all those shadowy orcs and goblins, and then regular undead. Tough but fun times.

[mkreku]

Icewind Dale is the only Infinity game I've ever played through to the end, so why is it I don't remember any of this?

[Oner]

'Cause you were most of the time dead?

[Pope]

Man I loved Dorn's Deep.

[Tigranes]

The Obsidianites hurtle towards the end of their journey. Dorn's Deep really wears me out, and the party is surely due more near-death experiences...

 

We solve what must be the only puzzle in the entire game to open up the staircase here. If you ask me they really need to get over puzzles that require you to go back and forth.

 

The new area has a talky ghost, but nothing to smash. Monty is disappointed, but listens to the sappy story anyway. He wonders why the Elves and Dwarves couldn't have just gone to the tunnels and killed all the orcs before they started attacking, but not everyone is a man of action like he is.

 

In any case, the ghost gives us a new target, the half-lich-thing that wanted to be a lich but screwed up and isn't really a lich. The thing about liches is that they like to cast really powerful spells that take a long time to cast, and in Icewind Dale, they don't have contingencies. The Hastemeisters pretty much sit on his face and crushes him instantly.

 

The big stone dwarf is so happy to see us back, he can't control the fiery liquid flowing out of his bowels. Monty goes down to find some nice loot beneath it all.

 

After that it's through to Wyrm's Tooth, and another pretty chapter screen. I'm not sure what they were thinking with the chapter division, you get one every half-dungeon at this point.

 

As someone mentioned, by now we have summon elemental scrolls (can't remember where, though). We picked earth, because it's good to have a big chunky smasher with you on the road. Unfortunately, we don't really have any fire damage weapons, which means half the time we had to knock the trolls down then run away before they got up again. Or make sure they die in neat little rows so numbers can scorch them.

 

Inside the Aquatic Museum we have a situation with runaway slaves and Kerish the ice salamander head honcho. Monty has a great test of intelligence and wit ahead of him to trick him and try and get the key.

 

To everyone's surprise, Monty succeeds. The deception nearly failed when Monty dropped the key on the ground, asking someone else to pick it up, but all's well that ends well.

 

We are Obsidianites and we save the world. Call us now and get a free Swede Body Part.

 

We come back out to find some enemies angry that we've let the slaves go. I'm not sure how they know this, so let's just say it was magic.

[Tigranes]

No reason to hang around Kerish any longer, we go across and visit Joril the giant. Got to collect all 6 badges so we can win a ticket to happy magical fairy land. Monty once again shows he is smarter than... well, than the monster manual.

 

There are some tough fights to be had around here, including this mage with about 5 death knight things. I forgot to take any screenies because I was too busy kiting everyone. As usual the mage was down quickly thanks to the hastemeisters, but the party was low on HP to begin with and the death knights really pack a punch. Had to keep running around my own web spell hoping they'd fail saves. Volo, Mkreku and Wals died, but we got them in the end.

 

The loot is not quite what we were hoping for. What was I thinking? Why is numbers not evil? GRAGH.

 

We rest up and come back, but take a massive beating from the wyrms as well. Hell they look like baby wyverns from BG1, I didn't know they'd be so bloody tough.

 

At least the frost giant is a walkover...

 

And we've saved the villagers. For 180k XP. The Obsidianites are seriously considering opening up a villager kidnapping / rescuing business operation after this quest. You kidnap a few, stick a few monsters around, rush in and save the day. 180k a pop. Numbers could become a lich in no time!

 

We push through straight on to Lower Dorn's Deep, the last dungeon in normal IWD. I considered doing HOW, but I'll leave it till the end and see how lucky I feel. I'm not sure I'll survive this place, though - this is the first fight and already tarnished sentries are very powerful. Most enemies by now are immune to normal missiles and I'm having to put everyone up to the front lines, which is more risky. Plus, this means Purkake is virtually useless in open combat now.

 

3 Tarnished sentries nearly take down half the party. Thankfully numbers has a ring of wizardy now, and can spam 9 magic missiles a day to help even the odds.

 

Lower Dorn's Deep is also very confusing to me, because there are so many areas and it's not always clear where is where or even what exits are available. First we pop down to the pit and visit a bitter gnome. Purkake gives him more reasons to be bitter.

 

We do take care of their giant beetle problem, however. I wish we could domesticate them, actually, they're big enough to ride on.