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Wizard Spells:
1: Mage Armor(2-4), Chromatic Orb(0+), Identify(0-3)
2: Cat's Grace(0-2), Mirror Image, Luck(0-2)
3: Haste(0-2), Blink(0-2), Fireball(0-2), Knock(0-1), Ghost Armor
4: Spirit Armor(1-4), Emotion: Hope, Malison(0-2)
5: Sunfire
6: Tenser's Transformation(1-2), Acid Storm, Chain Lightning
7: Delayed Blast Fireball, Mordenkainen's Sword(1-2)
8: Power Word: Blind, Symbol of Hopelessness
9: Executioner's Eyes
Various armor spells (Mage, Ghost, Spirit) are needed for buffing up so that the Sorcerer doesn't have to use up his spells for those. Identify is a good spell during the early game when the Sorcerer hasn't yet mastered
Knowledge: Arcana, but use Chromatic Orb to stun enemies later on.
Cat's Grace and Luck might be good spells to have on this character as well to speed up the buffing up process, otherwise use Mirror Image. Haste might be useful during some extremely tough fights, but its usefulness is rather limited due to the short duration, and it becomes obsolete after the Sorc learns Mass Haste. Blink might be useful if you really can't afford being hit for a while, but remember that it hurts your casting ability as well.
Fireball is a good blasting spell in Normal but the damage isn't very useful in HOF mode. Knock is a good spell to keep "just in case", if the Berserker fails to open some lock. Emotion: Hope is a good buff spell and also frees slots from the sorcerer, and Malison is a great spell to toss in the middle of enemies to reduce saves. Sunfire is a great spell for a decoy. Tenser's
Transformation gives the final AC boost when necessary and also makes this character a workable tank. Otherwise use Acid Storm and Chain Lightning, depending on if single-target or area effect spell is more needed. Delayed
Blast Fireball greatly enhances the blasting potential of this character, and
Mord's Sword enhances melee capability when melee is more preferable. Power
Word: Blind enhances the survivability of everyone as blinded creatures have a flat 50% chance to miss with their blows. Symbol of Hopelessness does allow for a Will saving throw, but some specific monster types aren't too good at it. And finally, Executioner's Eyes is *THE* buffing spell to make the melee power of this group shine, and it also reduces the need for the Sorc to keep on casting it.
Druid Spells:
1: Sunscorch, Entangle(0-2)
2: Barkskin
3: Call Lightning, Storm Shell(0-1), Spike Growth
4: Flame Strike, Thorn Spray, Freedom of Movement(0-1)
5: Static Charge, Smashing Wave
6: Sol's Searing Orb, Fire Seeds
Sunscorch is a respectable 1st level blaster spell. Entangle can make some encounters easier by reducing the amount of monsters that needs to be fought at one time. Barkskin is the ONLY reason why a Druid was included into the party, so don't even consider using the 2nd level slots for anything else.
Call Lightning works wonders OUTDOORS, Storm Shell is a bonus against
Will'o'Wisps in Fellwood and Spike Growth is OK spell to use when the party is adventuring indoors. Flame Strike and Thorn Spray are both good spells, and Flame Strike benefits from the Spirit of Flame feat for extra damage.
Freedom of Movement is an important ability for a decoy, so keep this spell memorized until the ring of Freedom of Movement is found. Static Charge is very good but you don't need to cast it repeatedly for it to work, and thus
Smashing Wave can be cast while the SC is zapping enemies. Sol's Searing Orb and Fire Seeds provide single-target or area effect destruction, choose whichever is needed more.
Alternate Character Choices:
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By having someone else in this group take those Druid levels (the
Berserker, for example) it could be possible to add a second level of Rogue for the Evasion ability, and it would also make it possible to drop the WIS stat in favor of more STR, creating another tank for this team. However, as taking 12+ Druid levels makes it tough to reach high-level spells for primary spell caster classes, the hurt would just be felt somewhere else. Also, as
Druid isn't a favored class for any of the races, it would make the problems with multiclassing EXP penalties even worse than it is. Furthermore, having a low WIS score would make Will saving throws poor, and we most certainly don't want to have our decoy to become charmed easily, do we?
If you feel like you don't need any of the thieving skills (traps in this game aren't very strong and could just be set off and locks can be bashed open by brute force or the Knock spell), you might consider replacing this character with the decoy character from the Arcane party. Using a high WIS instead of DEX to boost AC makes the Druid side of this character a much stronger one and would also remove the need to wear body armor & shield.
However, this option was NOT selected because that would set rather exorbitant needs for the Sorcerer - having to keep *two* high-AC characters buffed up at all times, leaving almost no spells to use for anything else!
While this character does learn those buff-up spells later on, they wouldn't become available until very late into the HOF mode - unless, of course, one wishes to take the Illusionist levels first with a poor spell DC to go with all of the spells! Also, with only one buff character, the buffing process would become very long, leaving some of the buffs with very little remaining duration time once they're all cast and in place.
The choice between having Monk/Druid/Wizard or Rogue/Druid/Wizard is a tradeoff between rather hellish micromanagement and no thieving skills vs. a little less AC and no evasion - I'll let you decide which one of these two is the smaller evil. The JUPP has opted to go for less micromanagement.
Duo option:
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By tossing out the third and fourth character from the party, it would be possible to play the "Untouchable Duo". Having only two characters in the party would net so much experience that taking, say, three druid levels to gain an early access to the Barkskin spell would be OK even though it gives the 20% EXP penalty. However, having just one arcane caster doing all the buffing up is going to be rather slow, and the Illusionist class wouldn't be able to access spells like Shield, Stoneskin, Mind Blank, Horrid Wilting or most notably Wail of the Banshee at all. Therefore, selecting either
Enchanter or Conjurer as the specialist class would be preferable, even though this gives an extra 20% multiclassing EXP penalty on top of the ones we already have. But hey, that'd also ensure that the party keeps on getting
EXP quite a bit longer as well!
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3.3 - Berserker & healer & buffer & bombardier
Drow Stormlord of Talos(18)/
Fighter(4)/
Barbarian(3)/
Sorcerer(5)
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NOTE: This character must be a female to avoid multiclassing EXP penalties.
This character is the party's most powerful meat grinder. With maximized
STR, specialization and Stormlord's special damage boosters and Barbarian's
Rage it's unlikely that anything or anyone could do more damage. (Okay, Half-
Orcs get +2 STR, but they'd also suffer from heavy EXP penalties through most of the game and would be strapped for stat points.)
But, instead of being just dumb meat grinder with muscles, this is a dumb meat grinder with rather respectable selection of spells, some of which rival the destructive power of the party's sorcerer. Even more importantly, this character serves as an extra pool of various clerical buff spells, freeing the Dreadmaster to use his more offensive spells instead of concentrating too much on buffing up. As a nice side bonus, a rather respectable amount of healing power is most certainly appreciated during the early chapters.
This character is also a decent archer, and due to the high STR figure, perfect candidate for using the Flying Death two-handed throwing axe. This allows the character to keep on chopping enemies even when being in melee becomes too dangerous. Of course the ranged damage can't quite compare to melee damage, but better that than a dead berserker, right?
As for leveling strategy, I would start the career as a Stormlord to maximize the amount of skill levels that can be put into Concentration. As a second level-up, a level in Barbarian gives both Rage and the ability to use all weapons which is crucial for this character. Levels after that should be put into Stormlord so that the important clerical buffs come into play as soon as possible. However, once the level 18 has been reached, the next important level-up would be 24, where DUHM would give an extra +2 in STR for
+1 extra damage but we don't care about that since we already have Champion's
Strength to boost STR by up to 8 points. Therefore, from there on, adding levels in Sorcerer, Barbarian and Fighter so that they remain even ultimately gives a great melee character with some defensive ability from Sorcerer levels thrown in.
Here's a suggested order of leveling up:
20 : Fighter 1
21 : Sorcerer 1 (+2 concentration)
22 : Fighter 2
23 : Sorcerer 2 (+2 concentration)
24 : Barbarian 2
25 : Sorcerer 3 (+2 concentration)
26 : Fighter 3
27 : Barbarian 3 (+1 conc., can't take Sorc due to EXP penalty)
28 : Fighter 4
29 : Sorcerer 4 (+2 concentration)
30 : Sorcerer 5 (+1 concentration and EXP penalty but we don't care anymore)
Starting statistics:
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STR 18 (we're maxing it so better start at max)
DEX 12 (Allows for some ranged capability)
CON 16 (Low AC means we'll get hurt a lot)
INT 5 (what? stupid? me? you must be kidding)
WIS 18 (Use Ring of Wisdom or similar to take this up to 19 or over)
CHA 11 (Required for Sorcerer spells later on, use wolf hat to boost it)
If you don't want to min-max, use 16/10/14/10/18/12 instead.
Use your level-up points to boost STR. You might also consider putting three points into WIS so that when you finally buy the second Every God's
Ring in HOF, you'd get an extra casting at the very important 8th level.
Here are the skills and Feats you should take for this character. When adding levels as Fighter or Barbarian, save your skill point for later use and remember to level up as a spell caster next if at all possible.
Skills : Concentration
Feats : 1 - Combat Casting
3 - Power Attack
6 - Cleave
9 - Subvocal Casting
12 - Improved Critical
15 - Weapon Focus: Axe
18 - Discipline
20 - Iron Will (Fighter extra)
21 - Great Fortitude
22 - Lightning Reflexes (Fighter extra)
24 - Heroic Inspiration
27 - Greater Cleave
28 - Weapon Specialization : Axe (Fighter extra)
30 - Dash
Combat casting is a good pick since this is a melee-oriented Cleric. Power
Attack and Cleave are a must and Subvocal Casting makes sure that our casting ability won't be compromised. Improved Critical is picked as soon as it comes up, followed by a focus in our weapon of choice, Axes. Discipline helps with concentration checks as they start to matter soon. Three saving throw boosters are natural filler feats, but after that the feats become more or less useless for this character - except for the Weapon Specialization which finally gives this character all the damage that could be had. If you wish to utilize the Massive Halberd of Hate that can be bought in Kuldahar to maximum, feel free to take focus & specialization for it as well instead of picking these rather useless feats.
Comments, strategies & notes:
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During normal mode, use this as you would use any normal melee tank, just keep her protected with a Stoneskin when it comes available. Later on as the monsters start hitting the low AC no matter what you do, it's time to change tactics into a more cautious one. Have the tank/decoy charge into combat while this character casts a spell or two in order to have the enemy concentrate on the others first. THEN charge into combat, filled to gills with various buffs. Remember also that when you cast the Greater Shield of
Lathander, you'll become totally protected from almost any harm for a short while - be sure to chunk your enemies into pieces while it lasts!
Finding the Massive Greataxe of Flame +5 sure isn't easy as it is a random drop, but if you DO find it, congratulations. Furthermore, if you find those
+Luck items, this is the character that benefits the most from them. The
Massive Halberd of Hate isn't quite as good weapon, but since it can always be bought in the same place, getting & using it is a guaranteed success.
As the character was already trying hard to find useful feats to pick, it was decided that the few extra hit points and early Rage ability from being
a Barbarian would be more beneficial than a few extra levels as a Fighter and
a Sorc. This also gave a few extra hit points for this character.
Once we start to take levels as Sorc, it could be worth the while to wear the Chain of Drakkas as soon as our utility infielder doesn't need it anymore. Remember that heavy armor doesn't mix too well with arcane spell casting.
Should you get lucky and find the Tymoran Loop ring, this is the character
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Other files from this game:
- Icewind Dale 2 trainer by System on 09/12/2007, 05:07
- Icewind Dale 2 document by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
All inventory codes as Word doc - Icewind Dale 2 document by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
All cheats as Word file - Icewind Dale 2 document by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
Items listing (zipped due to its size, v2.0) - Icewind Dale 2 editor by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
Character + Savegame Editor - Icewind Dale 2 document by System on 14/03/2006, 06:30
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- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
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- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
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Cleric Spell List - Icewind Dale 2 hints by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
Druid Spell List - Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50






