Ironman: Icewind Dale II

[Tigranes]

You can see him right there, making an acrobatic dive for safety. One frame later he's as dead as a dodo, and against all odds, beats Mkreku junior to being the first death in the party.

 

This stirs the competitive spirit in our Central Icewind Daler, who follows suit within 5 turns. The kegs only got 1 orc and we're being pressed from all sides.

 

Eventually we made it out, but damn, they don't screw around with resurrection costs.

 

We try the keg trick one last time. This time the more hardy Monty (at the moment 2 Rogue / 1 Fighter) is sent off to backstab the shaman..

 

And what do you know, it worked. With everyone levelled up to 3 we buy Web and Aganazzar's Scorcher for Chris Avellone.

 

We move on to the next area where Torak sends us more critters. After a web spell they're pretty harmless, however.

 

We are given a mission to sneak and rescue the villagers, and of course conveniently find a potion of invisibility in the ruins. We'll save it and try our luck, however.

 

Feargus sneaks.

 

And this time does better, opening the door then quickly Hiding in Shadows again.

 

Orcs present little challenge on their own, and we rescue the villagers.

[Tigranes]

In fact, neither did Torak: A carefully placed web spell then a backup sleep disabled most orcs, and Torak could not keep up with all of us sticking it to him. So far Mkreku's one paladin level also makes him quite a good contributor to damage.

 

And then its the caves behind the camp. Slimes suck. No piercing damage, no blunt damage (i think), and we basically rely on Monty and Mkreku (with his +1 scimitar).

 

We pull off our world famous triplestab on a carrion crawler.

 

It strikes me that Vrek is probably the most intelligent villain in the game so far. He identifies threats, pursues strategies to nullify those threats, then works on a long-term, sustainable production chain of goods designed to maximise profit. Feargus can't help but feel a small pang of sadness as we disrupt his operation.

 

Web & Sleep, as usual, but vrek packs a punch and Monty's forced to gulp some potions.

 

And then it's our last remaining lamp oil to finish him off, and bring us to level 4.

 

Right, that's that, we'll continue on tomorrow or so. Shaengarne bridge is a lot farther off than I remember.

[Hassat Hunter]

What's up with the awful looking fog of war borders? Ouch...

[Nightshape]

What's up with the awful looking fog of war borders? Ouch...

 

He's using software rendering.

[Big Bottom]

IWD2 didn't feature hardware rendering for some reason.

[Nightshape]

IWD2 didn't feature hardware rendering for some reason.

 

I don't recall... So I'm not going to argue, but that "ugly" look is definately what you got with software rendering, I don't remember it looking so tired when I did play it, I should take a look.

[Monte Carlo]

^ You're probably right of course, but as an aside I've often ascribed the harsh look of parts of IWD2 to the snowy white backgrounds, it looks perfectly okay in tunnels.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, it sucks - I'm pretty sure it's the software rendering that's causing the lag, too. Anyway...

 

We progress towards Shaengarne bridge. I never understood the 'sealing off the path' bit here, since all it makes you do is take a slightly longer path, and still fight all the same enemies. As in IWD, web is our early-level friend... though 3rd edition (or just IWD2?) nerfed it, too, because web is now the same as entangle - caught opponents can still do stuff, just can't move.

 

It's not easy, and we are beset on two fronts here, but thankfully nobody dies.

 

Next area has more fighting, this time against Malarites. Disrupting their castings of Beast Claw and other spells is key - unfortuntely our ranged attacks aren't very reliable to hit yet, and even worse, Monty's still mostly rogue and can't tank as well. Here we catch most of the Malarites with the web but a snow leopard gets through and mauls him.

 

We prevail, but it's a sobering lesson - I'm pretty rubbish at IWD2.

 

I never understood what this is supposed to do. I'd have expected this to flood the river or something, but... does something happen if you don't do it?

 

Here we are at the big showdown. Ironically, the river below looks pretty crossable even without the bridge.

 

We start off with sleep & web. We want to conserve our best spells for later, but we want to be pretty quick - I'm not sure, but doesn't saving the bridge mean extra XP? Say what you like about IWD2, I always felt it provided the best tactical combat situations out of all IE games.

 

We resist the mage's tricks and push forth.

 

Unfortunately, our own web/entangle hinders as as we try to get to the ogres bashing the bridge down. In our haste we ignore the mage, but she(he?) seems to pack some third level spells. A lightning spell fries her own teammate the orc archer...

 

...and Monty couldn't get out of the way. Bloody hell, I didn't think it would kill him. Wuss.

[Tigranes]

She has fireball as well? This is bad, with a mirror image up we're unlikely to be able to disrupt casting...

 

Run, Forest, Run!

 

Grommy gets caught but survives at 1hp. You'd think Monks would have good reflex saves. Good part is that it immolates one of the ogres as well.

 

...aaaand the bridge is saved. The fireball was last of the big spells and the mage goes down quickly, too.

 

We nip back with the good news. Ulbrec should have a floating exclamation mark over his head, bloody archaic games. We almost didn't realise we were meant to talk to him.

 

Party invests most of the budget on giving Monty a big sword. Hey, it worked for their predecessors.

 

On to our next mission. Mkreku enjoys riling up nearly dead allies recently estranged from their lovers, but stops before it gets too hot. XP is more important than our momentary satisfaction.

 

This is quite possibly one of the most evil parts of IWD2, in my opinion. The map is filled with shamans, half-goblins that pack a lot of damage, and fast, strong worg riders - and then there are three war drums that can summon reinforcements. That means party wipe.

 

The great thing is that, with our crazy multi-classing scheme, Monty, Grommy and Feargus can all Hide in Shadows pretty well. Luckily they all make it to the three drum spots shown here without being detected.

 

...aaand it begins. Each of them open up with a lamp oil then pound the crap out of the drum.

[Tigranes]

Monty is on the most dangerous one, near all the trolls, in the hopes that he will survive to get it down.

 

They're onto him...

 

...but of course, we presciently saved that one potion of invisibility, and Feargus lives to see another day.

 

Meanwhile, Grommy had done his drum in quick, and had joined the rest of the party to form a front at the bridge. This is working reasonably well, but of course now Monty needs to cross it from the other side with worgs behind him.

 

We need to open up a second front, but we're running out of spells. This is bad.

 

Those half-goblins really are overpowered - a crit for 24 and Monty dies again. I think he's overtaken mkreku now. With Grommy low on HP too that means we can't really keep up a melee front anymore.

 

With our last entangle we get some breathing space, and shift everyone onto ranged spells. In depseration we even lob our only flaming bottle thing (the big fireball ones, not the tiny 1D4 damage ones).

 

And finally, only the trolls remain - who are immune to arrows and such. We end up luring them back to Ennelia, while downing something like 8 potions between us, and do indeed make it. That was very very close.

 

Rested up & revived we return... and find orcs who were too dumb to leave their posts the previous battle. I suppose that's why we're still alive. They pose little threat on their own.

 

Hell, look who it is! Trugnuk, the leader! Where were you, buddy? We missed your XP.

 

And there we are for this update. Next it's the Goblin Warrens, which are all about (a) trying not to wake an impossibly large force of goblins and orcs, (b) dealing with the worst lag we'll get all game.

[mkreku]

I'M AN INVINCIBLE GOLDEN GOD!!

[Monte Carlo]

The reason I keep dying is because you front-loaded the rogue levels.

 

Rog 1 / Ftr 1 every other level increases survival.

[Slowtrain]

You can take out those drums by having an archer sidle up just to where the for of war edges past the drum and shoot the drums full of arrows. Most times you won't get attacked. Cheese yes, but IWD2 is a game that deserves as much cheese as you can throw at it.

[sorophx]

not like it's needed. it's very easy to take out that one monster, who sounds the alarm, grease worked like a charm for me

[mr insomniac]

I loved the game up to... well, just a little past this point. Targos, the drums, the bridge. It was like one long battle without a chance to catch your breath, and yet it had great maps and atmosphere, and never really felt like a grind. Then... the ice temple. I'm happy to just be a spectator now.

[sorophx]

I liked the Ice Temple (for tons of xp), it's mini-puzzles and the Battle Square especially, a great concept.

[Tigranes]

Let's see... can we get up to page 4?

[Slowtrain]

The Ice Palace should be interesting to watch. So let's move to page 4.

[Nepenthe]

I never got even this far in the game, so I'm following this with great interest.

[Tigranes]

I'mr eady, so let's get it over...

[Tigranes]

Yuss!

 

The Goblin Warrens are full of enemies that magically wake up as soon as you are spotted nearby. This is 3rd ed, don't they make listen checks or something? In any case, we can't sneak past every camp, so we might as well get a few out of the way.

 

We experiment with our latest spell, Lightning. Unfortunately, Chris Avellone isn't the best at aiming, and takes out Grommy in one go. I guess we take that spell out of rotation.

 

We still make it through alright with Web, Wals escaping with 1hp.

 

We meet Pondmuk, the goblin who aspires to be questgiver.

 

We are glad to oblige. If you rest with him though, he ambushes you, so best to leave the area and come back refreshed...

 

There is only one war drum in this level, and Feargus can easily take care of it from a sneaky alcove.

 

We continue the Obsidianite tradition of masterful deception.

 

The replacement, Skull Trap, is a lot more satisfactory. I hope we pick up a fireball scroll soon, though.

 

This is Yquog. Usually he gives you a quest - this is the first time I haven't had the option and I'm not sure why, Mkreku as sorc is loaded up with balls of charisma.

 

Well the balls haven't helped, he's dead. Yquog packs quite a punch. If you can see we did manage to put the litle ones to sleep, though, and prevail in teh end. Monty is starting to be a better fighter now as he gets the levels.

[Tigranes]

So we progress to the second level, and somewhere (I forget) we picked up fireball as well. It certainly makes it a bit easier... now we can breeze past one or two battles before it becomes a fight for our lives.

 

Feargus spots yet another war drum. But it's only defended by two trolls, so...

 

A triple sneak attack takes the drum out, then they bring down the trolls. Monty's rogue levels really are doing wodners.

 

Moving on there is a long corridor of various enemies 'training' by hacking up inanimate objects. We use Feargus as bait to lure all of them at once, and then get them with AOE spells. Most low level critters can't handle a fireball, much less a skull trap afterwards.

 

This is the guy we need to get a letter off if we took Yquog's quest. As it is, we can simply give him Yquog's bracers (only +1 AC, meh) and avoid some annoying fights.

 

I have nothing more to say to you, Chris Avellone. You must leave.

 

Trying to avoid attacking everyone as much as we can, we again use the triple sneak to get to these guys here.

 

Unfortunately, I clicked the bloody gate to the Otyughs by mistake... luckily they fought the ogres as well (come to think of it, Feargus could probably have sneaked the door open and let them fight in the first place) and we get through alright.

 

Finally, we emerge at the exterior of the fortress. By now with our arsenal of third level spells and decent BAB, we are starting to become a reasonably efficient party.

 

We find the very first returning frost dart. As per a reader's wish, it is equipped on Monty.

[Tigranes]

Look, Call Lightning! Finally Wals can do some real damage. He also gets some Wild Shapes now, and I gave him Panther as a feat, which seems quite effective.

 

Inside, the Old Orc who somehow has the HP of 4 ordinary orcs. I guess they're like wine, get better with age.

 

We spy on some plot-relevant squabbling between Sherincal and Guthma. For those who never apparently got this far, Sherincal is the superior ranting about Guthma's incompetence. Biting social commentary about office culture today.

 

Aaaand now it's time to take this fortress down. To avoid being overwhelmed we'll use Feargie-bait and get them one by one at a place of our choosing. First, he kicks off a trap, but thankfully makes the save...

 

And then we clear the first batch with some typical tactics. I did cheese a bit and rest between fights in this section - there's just too much to handle otherwise.

 

Feargus nearly gets a Witch Doctor with a nice backstab, but not enough...

 

And avoids a flame arrow fired at his butt as he runs away.

 

Finally, it's Guthma and his retinue, whom we again lure to our favuored spot. There are a lot of spellcasters in the group so we did use some flaming oils and a lot of spells to disrupt and get them down.

 

And we make it! We did take more damage than that, and healed it back, but it went quite well. I guess things are finally looking up for the group!

 

Tomorrow I'll upload the Ice Temple update. To be honest there was a lot of tedious fighting - there are a lot of groups of 2-3 aurilites who really posed no challenge by that point - so I streamlined to a single update.

[Tigranes]

Monkeys are dropping like flies without your moral support, gentlemen. I don't want to resort to undead monkeys, but I will, you hear me?

 

Returning after our exploits at the fortress, we do some shopping, then get on board Oswald's airship... with predictable results. See the evul druids calling up storms in the back there? Nice touch.

 

Oswald is a heavy sleeper.

 

Outside where we must gather ingredients to mend Oswald's ship, we find some new enemies. Of course, we now have some spiffy new spells, like Lance of Disruption. Mkreku is willing to get down to 1hp just to get a better angle. He's dedicated, that man.

 

Gawd i love Call Lightning.

 

Having stopped the giants we can rescue Captain Yurst. We generously give him a magic item to stop his bleeding, because y'know what, he'll die anyway and we'll get it back. This is the life of the munchkin.

 

Mkreku goes all Paladinic on the poor werewolf-masquerading-as-merchant, but in the end we have no option but to say RARGH SMASH EVIL. Pity. We made sure to spend all our money on a Necklace of Missiles before we killed him; very important, it has 50 bloody charges. Feargus puts it on.

 

I didn't get a screen capture but we also failed at diplomacy with the Aurilites(?) blocking the pass. I think you need to be a ranger or something to persuade them, but Feargus was the one scouting... I hate how in IWD2 all conversations kick off even if you're invisible. In any case, we're now done here.

 

IWD2 surprises you with the writing sometimes.

 

If only Purkake was this good, we might have kept him around.

[Tigranes]

And so begins our trek through the Ice Temple. You all know how gruelling it is so I'm going to save you a lot of the filler fighting. To be honest, our party is looking pretty good and most of the fights against Aurilites and such were just whack whack done. Only the Crystal Golems here caused a bit of trouble, Mkreku as usual getting the worst of it.

 

We also ran into the Queen Remorhaz by mistake, who packs a punch, and is immediately followed by a lieutenant, but our whacks are faster than their whacks.

 

We rescue Zack Boosenburry (Seriously? Boose & Burry?) from inside a remorhaz. I suppose the thing doesn't havea ny digestive systems in place.

 

He's quite useful, however, as we can 'buy' castings of Stoneskin off him. In preparation for Sherincal we decide to cough up and Stoneskin the entire party.

 

Sherincal is one of those 'threshold fights' in IWD2, at least for me; if you have a badly screwed up party by this point she's the way the game is telling you you're not doing it right. But if you have built a decent party like I have here then it's not too bad. She actually gets caught by Web, and on the top right we Dire Charmed a Barb Warrior to further cause chaos in their ranks.

 

This allows us to pick off most of the underlings at our leisure, and by the time Sherincal swings her first blow at us we can focus on her exclusively. She dies quickly.

 

I was looking for best way to screencap the insides of the Ice Temple, and ended up, well, not getting a lot at all. Sorry if you were looking forward to it, but really, it's just a long series of filler fights. We go from room to room, clearing and looting methodically. High Priestess Cathin is the first to fall....

 

Then we take on Lysara, who compliments Gromnir's talent with words. Truly, a lawyer is ever a lawyer.

 

There's an antimagic field throughout most of the area, though oddly it stops when you enter the room or so, I think. Nevertheless it is very annoying, and Lysara has quite a few spells as well. Monty has to hold off the Crystal Golem while everyone else heals back up.

 

Feargus and Chrsi Avellone are tasked with bringing Lysara down, but she has some buff up against spells and also casts fear on Feargus. Meanwhile the Golem just won't go down...