Ironman: Icewind Dale II

[Tigranes]

Following on from our surprisingly successful Icewind Dale Ironman, the Obsidianites return for another round at the brutal IWD2.

 

After defeating the demon Belhifet, the party soon tore itself apart from the inside. Jealous of Monty's inhuman kill-count and the fame he accrued as the face of the Obsidianites, Purkake attempted to assassinate him and run off with the loot. Unfortunately, he failed to consider that if he couldn't damage any of our enemies, he definitely couldn't hit a heavily armed fighter with -9 AC, and was chunkified in 3 turns. Meanwhile, Volourn gave up the life of adventure to become a fisherman, and Numbers returned to Lonelywood to chase up that tavern wench. In the blink of an eye our intrepid heroes were reduced to half in number.

 

Nevertheless, that half went on to many exciting filler adventures and lived a long and happy life. Now, decades later, Icewind Dale is again in danger, and we see the sons of that half return on an adventure of the ages - please join Monte Carlo junior, Mkreku junior, Walsingham junior and their new friends for Icewind dale II!

 

First up is the Dwarven progeny of the great tunnel fighter, Monte Carlo. He has begun his career as a rogue, but will soon come home to the ways of tunnel fighterdom - just after he gets his sneak attack upgrades. Will he beat his dad's record of some six hundred kills? Only time will tell.

 

Second up is a new member of the party, none other than the irascible Gromnir. Seventy years ago he applied for the party but was told half-orcs could not be admitted to a band of heroes: the laws of adventuring have since become more racially tolerant. His love of half-naked, muscular men have led him to a career as a Monk. It's only a happy coincidence that he will allow us to get a free ticket past a very hairy encounter later on in the game. I might give him a level of Barbarian, not sure if it's redundant or not.

 

Third is Mkreku II, Paladin of Mystra. Actually, he's just gearing up to be a sorcerer, but this gives him some nice buffs. He is hoping that by trading in his Central Icewind Dale heritage and peddling in dastardy paladindom, he will increase his chances of survival and avoid the many gruesome fates of his ancestor. In fact, he has gone so far as to make a deal with the powers that be and revoke his half-elven ancestry, in return for an extra level 1 feat.

 

Walsingham junior is much like Walsingham in every way, except he has really been swindled by the pro-environment propaganda in his youth. He now pursues a career as a professional tree-hugger, moonlighting as a barbarian (will take 1 level) as part of his anger management program.

 

Reprising Purkake's role in the party is Feargus, a loveable yet dangerous halfling rogue. He's begun as a ranger to take Ambidexterity and 2Wpn Fighting feats, and will soon show the world the power of dual-wielding short sword backstabs. He's out to prove that rogues can make a difference in a world filled with big angry men wielding big phallic symbols.

 

Our final recruit is slightly megalomaniac, because he insists on being referred to by his full name, Chris Avellone. He has a badass leather jacket and he will steal your women with his sly sideways grin. He will serve as full time wizard, dedicating himself to the art of blowing things up.

 

Right, so there we have the Munchkinised Obsidianites - if they make it past Targos they might go a good way. I'm now working on the technical side - I have got widescreen mod working but the game is slow and stuttery, a common issue in IWD2 in newer comps/GPUs. I forgot how I fixed it last time but I'm going to look at what I can do.

[WorstUsernameEver]

Wait, no you include developers too? Why not Josh then? Oh yeah. I get why.

[HoonDing]

Wait, no you include developers too? Why not Josh then? Oh yeah. I get why.

Josh is Ao?

[Oner]

Ao is Josh, duh.

[mkreku]

I don't understand multi-classing. At all.

[sorophx]

poor Mkreku for the only tank in the party he has vey low constitution. I can already see how this is gonna end

[Gorth]

poor Mkreku for the only tank in the party he has vey low constitution. I can already see how this is gonna end

Umm... why would you use a sorcerer as tank?

[Gfted1]

Mkreku is a paladin of Mystra.

[Nepenthe]

Second up is a new member of the party, none other than the irascible Gromnir. Seventy years ago he applied for the party but was told half-orcs could not be admitted to a band of heroes: the laws of adventuring have since become more racially tolerant. His love of half-naked, muscular men have led him to a career as a Monk. It's only a happy coincidence that he will allow us to get a free ticket past a very hairy encounter later on in the game. I might give him a level of Barbarian, not sure if it's redundant or not.

 

Too bad Vol's no longer around to lay hands on him...

[Enoch]

Don't alignment issues prevent Monks from taking Barbarian levels? (i.e., the former must be Lawful, while the latter cannot.)

[Serrano]

A monk/barbarian is basically Brock Sampson isn't it?

[Tigranes]

Remember, mkreku will only take a level of Pally, maybe two, for the bonuses - then go full sorc. I still have doubts about how viable he will be in melee, though.

 

Obsidianites II disembark their junk and enter the quaint little old town of Targos. Immediately, we are asked for assistance. You'd think we were all wearing neon jackets and holding up a big sign with a giant i. Walsingham's dress doesn't help, actually.

 

Naturally, when you hear a town is in danger, that means all of its valuables are up for grabs. Naturally, our only rogue, Feargie, hasn't actually taken a rogue level yet, so I end up getting Monty to bash everything. Works well. (Only now do I realise... well, Monty has a rogue level!)

 

We meet the infamous Cat Woman. Monty may be the face of the party, but he sure ain't gonna put up with BS like his father did.

 

He says like he sees it, brother.

 

We then come across a goblin-infested warehouse. We're not going to let some other chumps beat us to that place, it must be choked full of gold. Brogan doesn't recognise the progeny of the famous tunnel fighter, but we'll let him get away with it, for now. Next person to do so gets an axe to the face.

 

Monty's instincts are not wrong and there are indeed tunnels to be had below the warehouse. You know, this is suspiciously easy... it's just small numbers of low hit die goblins everywhere. IWD2, of course, coming a year or two after IWD1, boasts many of the groundbreaking improvements in modern gaming. I believe this is called a 'tutorial level', where everything is so easy as to make you both confident and bored, so that the illusion can be suddenly and cruelly shattered as you go out into the real gameworld. I suppose it's a statement about the designers' real lives. That's what Chris Avellone said, anyway.

 

The goblins are easily dispatched.

 

Healing potions are very rare, but we decide to give one to this guy for the XP. After all, mkreku is a paladin now, we need to be Good and RIghteous. We can't ever let him talk though, or he'll refuse all rewards.

 

IWD2 is very fast with these things. We meet Ulbrec, a professional questgiver. He will take care of us and give us all our quests from now until the end of time.

 

And of course there is the return of Oswald Fiddlebender. I think IWD could have benefited from some more crazy potions, actually, the range is smaller than BG. We do make use of all our spare cash to get a couple of lamp oils, though. Emergency backup for the invasion.

[Tigranes]

Because this is a tutorial level, Ulbrec is not going to stoop to giving us level 1 adventurers quests. Instead, he outsources the task to Shawford Crale.

 

Targos really, really sucks. I decided to enable the console just to Ctrl+J teleport around it, because you need to go back and forth about 70 times. The highlight is when we have the privilege of providing some jerk with his arrows.

 

Monty demonstrates that a well-rounded education is the key to a long and fulfilling life. Varok urk gruk grah.

 

We also negotiate to get a ghost to shut the hell up and go away. I really don't get these symbolic people - I mean if you feel the need to wail from the afterlife to get your husband's killer brought to justice or something, sure. But a piece of his ship? She was probably pretty anally retentive in life.

 

Finally, tasked with bringing some mercenaries back, we turn to Mkreku, who has the highest charisma. His honeyed words soothe the hardened hearts oft he mercenaries, and they sigh with contentment as they shuffle off to their deaths.

 

And so begins the goblin invasion of Targos. There is a very real possibility of death...

 

We begin by fighting Phaen (who I forgot to kill before), and his burning hands nearly fries Chris Avellone in one go. In fact, it would have killed Llyranor, but MCA is badass and has five hit points, and thus survives.

 

A blur spell of some sort makes Phaen difficult to hit and he gets off a few first level spells, but our party is surprisingly effective in melee combat.

 

We quickly move and help chunk a Vghotan. It's good to be as fast as you can so that the other defenders are alive for you to help (i.e. use as meat shield), and also to steal their kills and get XP.

 

This is incredible, because he wastes a fireball here to break down the walls, then teleports the goblins in anyway. I mean, wouldn't you want to use that third level spell on us? No? Okay then.

[Tigranes]

As it is, a first level entangle is enough to dispose of them.

 

This is the most difficult group of goblins, right by the main gate.

 

We decide to use Monty, Grommy and Feargus, who can all sneak, and then pounce on the mage. Unfortunately, I press a button wrong and they screw it up. Chris Avellone casts sleep, which gets most of the other goblins, but then the mage puts up Protection against Normal Missiles. Here you see Feargus eating up the ground due to a.. colour spray.

 

Caballus lasts a bit longer, but soon the goblin threat is eradicated. A little too easy, actually - maybe I should have gone with Undead Targos.

 

After getting a lot of XP our entire party is safely in level 2. So we proceed with our crazy multiclassing. Monty is Rogue 2, but after one more will go full fighter. Mkreku now goes 1 Pal / 1 Sor and will go full time on the latter. Wals is now 1 Druid 1 Barb, and to continue in Druid; Feargus is 1 Ranger 1 Rogue, and will continue as Rogue. We should get these guys properly set up by level 5 or so, so hopefully they will be fully effective by Sherincal, if not Shaengarne Bridge. Anyway, we cclean up a couple of loose ends: we try to win the drinking game for the barb's wolf charm, but he won't do it with Monty because he's a dwarf, and Feargus can't take his drink. Ah well.

 

And we also go on a little detour to expose the doppleganger and speak to a visionary. Monty only sat there mocking the poor guy, so Chris Avellone had to step in. With his brilliant intelligence he works out that the man's crazed ravings just might be related to divination.

 

And finally, we are ready. Just a pinch of XP off level 3, with several lamp oils / flaming oils, and some tolerable regular equipment, we are off to Shaengarne bridge.

 

Beautiful.

[Slowtrain]

If the whole game had been as solid as Targos, it would have been a fab game.

 

Much like Lionheart, a good opening area that degenerates into pretty tedious combat later.

[mkreku]

Beautiful game. I wonder why I've never played it. Probably because by then the D&D rules had become so convoluted that it was more like playing an Excel sheet than a game..

[Nepenthe]

I have the discs somewhere, starting to think I might need to give this a play at some point. I got it at a point when I wasn't too interested in gaming and lost all my save progress (think it was still early days in the game, though) in one of the multiple crashes my only non-Apple manufactured computer suffered...

[Walsingham]

Oi! You forgot the sodding stuffed cat!

[Gorth]

Oi! You forgot the sodding stuffed cat!

Whats with the stuffed cats anyway?

 

I once had a sack full (figure of speech) and never let one out, but there doesn't seem to be any use for them.

[Hassat Hunter]

Heh, IWD2. I have the same issues with framerate, but I just bit the dust and went through despite it. Did you find a fix though (for if I want to replay it due to you?)

 

I suppose if I post my party most would agree it totally sucks, but then again, I don't understand all that multi-leveling either, so mostly pure, and went with a Paladin as main, getting screwed out of many a reward . That's what one get for first run through the game I guess. Stopped at the boss-battle and never completed that though.

We can't ever let him talk though, or he'll refuse all rewards.

. Poor mkreku.

[Tigranes]

This thread is a good databank for possible solutions, the fix in the OP does help even if it doesn't get rid of everything, and turning off software rendering optiosn like translucent shadows helps. It's pretty good at the moment, only a few random times, such as when there's a big block of floating text (i imagine the transparent backdrop to floating texts taxes the renderer or something).

 

I did get the stuffed cat but I forgot to take it back to the cat lady, I'll do that before going onto the Shaengarne.

[Majek]

IWD2. Obsidianites II should've been facing HoF mode from lvl1 to make this real Ironman. :D

[Slowtrain]

It's going to be fun watchiing Tig play through this, but the thought of having to actually play through the game myself leaves me feeling vaguely ill.

 

Although, I don't know if I can even look at an inventory screenie filled with returning frost darts without suffering adverse reactions.

 

Some wounds never heal.

[Monte Carlo]

Monty needs to sneak attack with the returning frost dart at least once.

[Tigranes]

Here we go again. Before going off to the bridge we nip back and return the dead cat to the nice old lady. Feargus handles this, having the most experience in the group with dealing with cranky old bastards.

 

At least his son is more grateful. Monty understands the value of being properly rewarded for our services. We also get to keep the cat, which will come in useful later on.

 

And now, finally, some real opponents in Torak's orcs. Nothing unusual here - Sleep + Entangle and then all ranged on Shaman.

 

Monty Junior appears a bit more susceptible to taking damage than his predecessor, which is a pity because now we actually have to use healing pots.

 

Feargus tries a Fergstab but discovers it's not as easy as it looks. You and me both, buddy.

 

Thankfully, that means the Orc Runner places the Keg of Blasting in the middle of their own group, and Feargus gets away just in time to watch them immolate each other.

 

We get to use the same trick here, there's 2 orcs and a shaman beneath that ball of fire.

 

We rescue the girl.

 

And now it's time for the big one. If we lure it right we can set off the chain reaction to kill pretty much all the orcs waiting to ambush us in the area.

 

Unfortunately, Feargus fails his Move Silently check as soon as he steps out, and the orcs are quick to respond..