Ironman: Icewind Dale

[Hassat Hunter]

so Black Isle released more content for it free of charge

Weren't the pre-DLC days great?

 

See also: Morrowind vs. Oblivion.

[Monte Carlo]

I don't have ToTL installed as I forgot about it - I'm worried what impact installing now might have?

 

None, it'll be fine. It's pretty robust, I installed it off of a seven-year old freebie disc from a gaming magazine on top of a clean install and it was fine. I like Windows 7.

[Sargallath Abraxium]

How far is a dragon's flight from Lac Dinneshire?

 

 

EDIT: damnable thing dunno wanna work...

 

 

 

...WHO LUVS YA, BABY!!...

Edited August 27, 2010 by Sargallath Abraxium

[Monte Carlo]

Hilarious. The link is FUBAR.

[Sargallath Abraxium]

Hilarious. The link is FUBAR.

 

 

...damnable ol' thing...OK, 'ere goes:

 

 

The Coconut Connection

 

The action of IWD/HOW begins with the return of Icasaracht who as a dragon, must have dropped a coconut as she rose from the depths of Lac Dinneshire and flew up north. This coconut that Icasaracht dropped was from a sparrow that she killed with the help of her mate (a hard fought battle indeed).

Meanwhile the rivals Yxunomei and Belhifet were fighting for the control of the coconut trade. Well the fight got too heavy, so the fiends threw them out of the abyss to carry on their fighting elsewhere (Spine of the World). Well it ended up that Belhifet found the legendary item Crenshinibon. Thanks to Crenshinibon, Belhifet found the sacred coconut in the bottom of Lac Dinneshire, which was dropped by Icasaracht, after the legendary Aihonen killed her. He enlisted the services of a trader named Pomab who shipped coconuts from the warm climate of Calimshan to the Dale. Belhifet soon allowed one of his lieutenants to be turned into a coconut cracker (Saablic Tan as the Umber Hulk). As word of the coconut smorgasbord spread the Frost Giants and other creatures of cold swarmed to Belhifets' side in hopes of sampling the foreign fruit. While further north the barbarians fell into a coconut-envying rage, with the revival of Icasaracht, whom you helped free. Meanwhile, in an effort to protect the Ten Towns, a displaced gnome by the name of Oswald Fiddlebender experimented with the lost art of bovine warfare.

A virgin's fascination with coconuts is well known so it was not long before the maiden Ilmadia found herself aligned with Belhifet as well. However, Ilmadia's true quest was to eliminate a drow city. Why, because a drow named Nym that hailed from that city and was known to consort with sparrows. It is a well-known fact that coconut-bearing sparrows have undone many virgins.

Meanwhile Yxunomei gained control of Dragon

[Nepenthe]

so Black Isle released more content for it free of charge

Weren't the pre-DLC days great?

 

I was under the impression that Trials was released because HoW was so small for the price, even Black Isle felt bad about it afterwards.

[Hassat Hunter]

Still, don't really see that happening these days with $8,95 Horse Armors or $15 for 5 bloody map (of which 2 are recycle too)...

[Tigranes]

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.

[Tigranes]

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.

[Tigranes]

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.

[mr insomniac]

Lord, those drowned dead were a pain.

 

I'm playing through DA:O right now, with the hopes of finally getting around to finishing up Awakenings, and just looking at these screens brings home how awesome those 2D painted backgrounds really were.

[Nepenthe]

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.

 

I think length is overrated.

 

On a more serious note, the time taken to complate a quest/expansion/DLC is not really a metric for how good it is, or even how much value one is getting for their money, in spite of a lot of people apparently imagining it is.

[Tigranes]

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.

[Tigranes]

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.

[Tigranes]

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

wind

, 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.

[Tigranes]

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.

[Gorth]

*Sigh*

 

They just don't make dungeons like that anymore

 

Yeah, as hard as a tax return form and just as deadly by even the slightest misstep,

 

A bit lacking in the sewer department, but at least there was plenty of dungeon to go around. Wasn't there a beholder somewhere along the way? I seem to remember suddenly going eye to eye with one in TotLM.

[Hassat Hunter]

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.

:D

 

Although the very next update was . Poor little rakshasa.

[Oner]

A bit lacking in the sewer department, but at least there was plenty of dungeon to go around. Wasn't there a beholder somewhere along the way? I seem to remember suddenly going eye to eye with one in TotLM.

There was at least one that got Finger of Death'd.

[Monte Carlo]

I'd forgotten the sheer tunnel-awesomeness of TotL.

 

Whyohwhyohwhy can't they make games like this anymore?

[HoonDing]

Beholders, Glabrezu... awesome.

Edited August 29, 2010 by virumor

[Hassat Hunter]

Oh come on, guys, post so we get this thread to page 11 and see the glorious demise against the boss .

[sorophx]

I'm halfway through IWD2 and it's awesome. I wanted to take screenshots but kinda forgot because the game just won't let me breathe for a second in-between epic fights

[Slowtrain]

Tig, I stand in considerable of awe of your ability. Not just in playing the game through in IM, but also managing to push all the way through with this LP thread. They are a ton of work.

 

Given your apparent enjoyment with tactical combat, you should try Jagged Alliance 2. Iron Man. Tis most fun.

[Tigranes]

Are we on 11?