Ironman: Icewind Dale II

[Atreides]

They come through for each other when it gets tough!

[Tigranes]

Page 6, wunderbar. We continue on, and judging from screenies I'm pretty sure IWD2 is a bit longer than its predecessor. Or perhaps it's packed with more 'notable' fights. At this stage in IWD1 we were the Hastemeisters mowing down everything in our way - in IWD2 it's still challenging, as we've seen with Gromnir the slayer of driders.

 

In our bid to escape the laggiest area in the game we run into Beelthot ze Illithid.

 

We open with Malison & Chaos to turn those giants on each other, but realise that we're being attacked from behnd as well, and Feargus proves himself susceptible to domination.

 

So we go back to deal with the ambush first...

 

And also celebrate our very first successful Disintegrate.(Wait, did we already have one?)

 

The early Chaos played a very big role and eventually it wasn't too much trouble.

 

Next we come to a fortress full of illithids, in true Underdark tradition. Let it forever be known that it was the hand of Monte Carlo that laid low Ecktarr'ilsen'ularr.

 

The Elder Brain is surrounded by a lot of critters, but as usual the spellcasters are easy to pick off and it's all fairly manageable.

 

Glorious Goo.

 

After that it's straight through the exit up to the surface, and predictably, to an ambush by the Red Wizards. I always forget about this one, and you can see that we're not really prepared, half our health and spells gone...

 

We take the opportunity to use a spell that I rarely memorise, but turns out pretty useful here - Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, on an earth elemental.Meanwhile we Web one of the wizards, another one stupidly remains out of sight. We lose Monty but take down the 2 other elementals.

[Tigranes]

We lose Feargus as well, but eventually prove the golden rule in IWD2: enemy spellcasters suck at protecting themselves.

 

Plot Recap: Thus, having survived the underdark, we rendezvous with Oswald's repaired airship and return to Kuldahar, only to find it under attack. Isair and Madae pursue (again) the heartstone Gem, now protected by Iselore. We first contact some holed up defenders in a tower, and Grommy demonstrates his diplomacy once again.

 

Time to spend all our money. The awesomely named Every God Ring gives a whopping +5 to wisdom. I'm guessing it was a joint venture.

 

The undead around are no real trouble, but Kuldahar really is quite pretty.

 

First we deal with Hiepherus, the undead servant of... oh, hell, I don't know anymore. We start with Malison+Chaos again to take advantage of low-save foes.

 

Badumpsh.

 

It's good to know that more things change, more things stay the same.

 

What Purkake didn't have, though, was a necklace of missiles. Since he has 3E evasion he can do the lure and the hit both by himself.

 

Evil, meet sword, SWORD, MEET EEEEVIIIL

 

Reaching Kuldahar, we find it's infested with Yuan-ti. This is the last 'town' in the game as well, which means +4 weapons for sale in all their glory. We sell all our remaining redundant gear, raising the 100k to get this beast. No more beetle armour for you Monty.

[Tigranes]

Isair / Madae backstory. It's quite good, actually.

 

One would argue that racial discrimination is more a fact of life in a world with such strong racially set tendencies, but hey, why not.

 

Yadda yadda.

 

In the end we're still sent off to fight more crap - this time the tropical home plane of the Yuan-Ti, via portal. Feargus scouts around hidden, and comes across some initiates.

 

I'll take those robes, thank you.

 

Uh... oh. I guess even though you're all dead, you can still carry on your conversation designed to reveal the secret passcodes of your organisation on to those listening. It's very nice of you all.

 

And so it's time to do some infiltration, stop an evil ritual, and fight a dragon. Woo!

[Atreides]

Are you fighting the seriously tough battle at the graveyard for the Holy Avenger?

[Gorth]

Are you fighting the seriously ridiculous tough battle at the graveyard for the Holy Avenger?

Less than literal quote of your post

 

Never managed to survive that one without cheating. If Tigranes beats it in one go without reloading, I'm going to be not just impressed by his skill, but ask him to fill out my lotto coupon

[Tigranes]

Ah, I actually forgot about that, I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure it would be the death of the party, but it feels bad to leave a fight hanging.

[Tigranes]

We proceed, in our quest to make this page as long as possible. We are in the yuan-ti temple and we have to move quickly to disrupt the ritual. Thankfully, the Obsidianites receive some otherwordly inspiration on what to do...

 

First, Feargus sneaks into the ritual chamber and steals the dessicated hearts, using an invisibility potion (rare in IWD2) to remain undetected.

 

He passes them on to Mkreku, who is waiting at the back, to place them behind the chamber - this will be the lure.

 

Finally, we raise the pit prison and let out the heartless zombies, who will pursue their removed hearts and kill anything in the way...

 

Which is, of course, the yuan-ti. We let them fight it out for a while then rush in before the zombies are killed, for maximum effect. We loves them pretty colours, we does.

 

We keep getting them while retreating, and soon the yuan-ti temple is cleared.

 

And now it's time for the big one. We rest, buff up, even drink some potions, and summon several monsters. Dragon time.

 

We open with a Lower Magic resistance and Malison while the summons hold the fort, then start dishing it out. Ironically, magic missile is the most effective for the spellcasters.

 

Steadily the dragon's HP goes down, but by now he's really doing a number on our tanks. Wals runs in with a Heal spell and such but the tanks end up running away half the time, leaving the other members in jeopardy. It's a good thing that between mkreku and Chris Avellone we have about 16 magic missiles...

 

Mkreku the Dragon-Slayer. Via Magic Missile.

 

After that one we relax a little by beating up on some yuan-ti, and now it's off to Dragon's Eye. We'll go through this one pretty quickish...

[Tigranes]

..and we celebrate our first Finger of Death, there in the right corner.

 

Ancient Wyvern got nothin on Mkreku the Dragon Slayer.

 

I thought we could expose the very obviously fake Nathaniel with Mkreu's Pally Powers, but I guess he doesn't have enough wisdom or something. We forget to come back afterwards, and let him live to see another day.

 

Feargus is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

 

It's good to know that severe physical damage helps Feargus sleep. I guess he's used to abuse.

 

Anyway, that particular corridor held the ghost of one poor adventurer, and we are able to put him to rest...

 

...and threaten some deus ex machina character to make potions for us...

 

...so that his weird academic friend can experiment with being a freaking histachii for four hours. Dude. Not cool.

 

I'm skipping a few thousand filler fights here, but to be honest they were sort of mowed down by the party. We quickly proceed to the third level of Dragon's Eye. Gromnir takes a modified histachii potion himself to proceed...

 

Allowing us to access the room of the yuan-ti high priest. Who apparently keeps a lot of efreeti. Like, a dozen. That many bodies and that many fire shields naturally meant that the entire battle took place at 3fps. Since we were still missing one tank in histachii'd Gromnir, we sent in some undead to hold the efreeti, and unleashed about 6 ice storms. I love sorcerers.

[Tigranes]

After that, Thorasskus is small fish, and Monty demonstrates his camera friendliness by chunking the big man.

 

Now we come to the infamous Time Stasis level. Everyone seems to hate it, but I always thought it was alright. IWD2 is certainly the most imaginative, at least. For those who never got this far - well, you enter the level to see Inspector Venomin throw himself into the lava. We speak to Ambassador Jasper, learning that this is the realm of fire, governed by one Lord Pyros, who has been assassinated by the said Venomin. So now we have to talk to the right people, learn the facts, and go back in time day by day until we can stop the Time Stasis spell from being cast.

 

Day 5 simply sets us up for that background stuff - then we fight a beholder on an inaccessible plateau (typically) to go back a day. Malison + Circle of Death is fairly useful at thinning the mob...

 

...and what do you know, even beholders can be FoD'd.

 

We go back to Day 4 to witness Venomin assassinating Lord Pyros, who was apparently a big fan of theatre.

 

Pyros' deputy, the Fire Giant, gets pissed. I suppose these are the efreeti we had to fight before, having been sent to kill Thorasskus.

 

Going back to Day 3, we offer an antidote to Lord Melodramaros... not that it would do much, I suppose, as we keep going back?

 

We learn that it was High Sorceress Izbelah of the yuan-ti that cast the time stasis spell, and was imprisoned for this. Venomin comes to negotiate on behalf of Thoraskus, saying that the spell was to prevent some explosive thing going on with the lava. Pyros agrees to this, but the Giant gets angry and kills the priest anyway... then persuades Venomin that it was Pyros' doing, thus leading to the assassination.

 

Finally, we go back to Day 1, and racing to the scene of the crime, skewer Izbelah before she casts the spell. Obviously, then the entire level starts going to hell, so we high-tail it out of there... to the Fields of Slaughter.

 

I actually forgot to go back to get the Holy Avenger here, so again, I might just use the teleport cheat to go back and do that fight. It might wipe the party out, though...

[Monte Carlo]

I'd completely forgotten the Time Stasis Level, which I hated.

 

But I'd forgotten how otherwise awesome IWD2 is.

[Slowtrain]

But I'd forgotten how otherwise awesome IWD2 is.

 

 

All that tunnel fighting has addled your brain.

[Hassat Hunter]

What, people hated the time travelling?

 

I guess that's why we get generic stories these days .

[Tigranes]

There are two more updates to go and I'll get on those shortly, over the next 2-3 days. Maybe get this up to p7.

[mrmud]

There are two more updates to go and I'll get on those shortly, over the next 2-3 days. Maybe get this up to p7.

What do you want us to say other than "MOAR!"

[I want teh kotor 3]

MOAR

[Tigranes]

Yes, there you go. Now we have a new short page for easier reading.

 

We forgot about the Holy Avenger battle last time, and proceeded through Dragon's Eye - so we teleported back to Kuldahar to deal with this big battle first. We're pretty nervous about this, so Mkreku sits and stoneskins the entire party, we buff up, and summon some monsters before beginning.

 

We open by sticking the summons on the more troublesome guys, and quickly backstabbing Atalaclys, the spellcaster. He goes down in a couple of turns and our plan is to prevent them from getting stronger through spells/summons...

 

It works fairly well, especially with Chris Avellone wielding the special IWD-version Mordekainen's Sword (or is it how it works in 3E?), and another Man-With-Terrible-Name goes down.

 

Now it's time to reinforce the summons, who are taking a beating. Gromnir goes down to help but gets beaten up pretty bad himself.

 

But having killed the spellcaster and the summoner there's not a lot extra the enemy party can offer...

 

And we emerge victorious without too much trouble.

 

Remember Mkreku is a long sword specialist - and has 1 level in paladin. Never has the Holy Avenger been in better hands.

 

Now it's back to the Fields of Slaughter and there are quite a few tricky battles here. The big Thayvian is out to get us and you can see the best of the Legion of the Chimera here - half-dragons, arcane and divine spellcasters, the lot.

 

But of course, they can't deal with our pretty colours.

 

This encounter is a little more tricky - a lich and his corrupted elven cohorts. The elves in and of themselves have good saves and pack a punch, and even with Malison they resist the easy Disintegrate.

[Tigranes]

The lich has memorised 2 power word kills. We somehow disrupt this one with a wand of flamestrike, and in another one let summons take the flack.

 

He nearly gets mkreku with a Horrid Wilting (88 freaking damage!), but we take him down eventually.

 

It's sort of battle after battle in this area, and we finally fight whatshisname the Thayvian wizard. Saablic Tan? We tried to get the mages down first but our own spells were disrupted, and Chris Avellone falls almost instantly under concentrated fire.

 

Wals transforms into the shambling mound to try and take out the mages, but in that form he can't heal, and he goes down just before taking out Saablic Tan.

 

Feargus joins the dead even as we finally defeat the wizard. At this point it's not a question of running out of spells, but staying alive long enough to use them all.

 

It turns out that we do get to stop in Kuldahar before the end anyway, so we restock - by this point you have so much money from all the redundant magic items, you can just stock up on everything you need and more. We squeeze out the last bit of XP by completing this quest - you speak to the ghost of Mother Egenia, the one who raised Isair and Madae. She fulfills the Poetry Quota.

 

Be true, Mkreku. Be brave, Mkreku!

 

And now we are in the final dungeon of this long journey, the Severed Hand. It's been a bit spiced up from the IWD1 days... isn't it funny how nobody's ever ready for us in RPGs? They're always talking about stopping us the exact moment we enter.

 

Yxbudur'zmutkimdu is quite justified in his anger, I feel. Pfinik'millillin and Tutup'limbobo really have no business arguing while Yxbudur'zmutkimdu is around, do they?

 

He dies quicker than it takes to say his name.

[Tigranes]

After accepting several small quests (which are quite welcome after this dungeoneering) - we speak to Riki. As a Paladin Mkreku must refuse the option of poisoning his enemies - everyone knows that the only honourable way to fight is to walk in, announce your name and swing your assorted phallic symbols around.

 

Funnily enough, the alternative 'sleeping potion' is suspiciously lethal. I guess Mkreku will need a Confessional after this.

 

Mkreku just got done by an NPC.

 

We clean up some quests, finding that drawing stars open up wizards' towers....

 

Return a natural elementalist to sanity...

 

...and catch a food-thieving semi-ethereal monster. It's good to know that our party is so skilled at stealth, they can hide to catch the thief by standing in the middle of the corridor.

 

And now it's time for the four Towers and Endgame. We speak to Ormis Dohor, the real leader of the Black Raven Monastery from before. He's been inflicted with the side effects of a rather drastic botox operation and needs our help.

 

Climbing up, we take the shiny teleport to Tyrannis Brute Mar's sanctum... next time. It's going to be pretty confusing, but essentially all we have to do is hop around the 4 towers picking up various McGuffins, killing lieutenants, rescuing the slaves, foiling the Legion's alliance with the dragonkin and finally tackling the big villains. All that in the final update!

[Atreides]

Mad props on the Holy Avenger fight. That was almost too perfect!

[mkreku]

Well, he did have little virtual mkreku so it wasn't that impressive. I mean, that's almost like cheating.

[I want teh kotor 3]

Well, he did have little virtual mkreku so it wasn't that impressive. I mean, that's almost like cheating.

 

[Tigranes]

I was going to update but I'm on dialup for now and I just can't upload. I'll do it in a couple of days - one big update to finisht he series off!

[Gorth]

That leaves us a few days to get to the next page

 

I need to go back re-read the part where he got the holy avenger. The fight can't be that easy (or maybe I'm that bad) >_

[Hassat Hunter]

So you actually already finished it all? Completed IWD2 in Ironmode? Man... Wow.