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enemies is surely a thing appreciated by most adventurers. Besides, there's no need to carry gazillions of Sanctuaries either, and the other first-level spells aren't too good, so why not?
Bane - The namesake spell of the Dreadmasters, this spell can be seen as a universal, stackable +1 AC bonus for the whole party. Together with the freakishly high spell DCs available for Dreadmasters, it's not very likely that many monsters make their saving throws.
Draw Upon Holy Might - Commonly abbreviated as DUHM, this spell is very weak at low levels, but becomes a major booster once the Cleric casting it hits the level 12 or so. Mostly useful because it gives a hefty boost in hit points, although only temporarily. Remember to cast Heal before this wears out if you're below your normal hit point minimum - otherwise your character dies.
Bull's Strength - Gaining possibly +3 to attack and damage for several hours is certainly a respectable boost for anyone that does melee. It also allows weak characters to carry surprisingly large amounts of loot when needed.
Animate Dead - While the JUPP is designed so that this spell should not be necessary to get through the game, having extra melee units most certainly has many benefits, especially since they also protect other, more fragile characters. Undead summons are also immune to Horrid Wilting, making them de facto decoys when that spell is used for massive bombardment.
Prayer - A +1 or -1 to everything doesn't seem like much, but since it has no save and the area of effect is huge, the effect on combat is guaranteed.
Besides, it stacks with everything else, so why not?
Protection from Evil - While the other bonuses aren't too shiny and can, in most cases, be replicated by other means, the fact that the whole group becomes immune to charm & domination and that demons & elementals won't attack such characters is something that just shouldn't be forgotten about.
Recitation - A Prayer but with double effects.
Holy Power - While having a rather short duration and the spell being a caster only type has certain limitations, the damage bonus is almost equal to having Power Attack feat on full, but without suffering the minuses to hitting things. This is also THE reason why any warrior class (yes, including fighters) pales in comparison when seeking for extreme damage output rates.
Giant Vermin - Summons rather worthless insects early on, but those insects keep on getting better and better as the caster increases in level. The final "insect" happens to be Rhinoceros Beetle, a 10 meter huge beast with tough shell and huge tusks to bite enemies with. Plenty of hit points for tanking, that is.
Champion's Strength - Up to +4 to attack and damage for a very long time is nice for anyone that does melee.
Greater Command - Power Word: Sleep on steroids and only a 5th level spell!
Especially in HOF mode where Power Word: XYZ spells have very little effect due to monster's increased Hit Points, this still works like a charm. (Pun intended.)
Heal - Once you get this, forget about all the other healing spells. With almost instant casting time this spell is a lifesaver for any tank.. not to mention other, more fragile characters! Remember, though, that it only has touch range, so you need to GET to the injured person first.
Resurrection - The fear of losing a character goes away with this spell. I still wouldn't let characters die in every battle, as they don't receive
EXP when dead and picking up the equipment takes a while if you have to do it once a minute. This spell works also as a Heal substitute if you've run out of those, albeit much slower.
Greater Shield of Lathander - Even with the pathetic duration and rather extreme casting time, this spell gives a total immunity against almost all attacks. Make sure to utilize those three rounds to pull your other tricks from your sleeve - they might be your last.
Holy Aura - While the other bonuses aren't too noticeable, the +25 spell resistance bonus for everyone is. After this spell has been cast, all the characters in your party with natural spell resistance become totally immune to all spells that can be resisted in the first place. This makes it possible to bombard even own party members with area effect spells!
Symbol of Hopelessness - Same as for arcane casters, but divine casters have the advantage of being able to find items that boost Wisdom (and thus spell
DC), making this even more useful.
Fire Storm - The one and only divine spell that has the required area of effect and damage improvement with sufficiently large damage cap to contend with the showstopper arcane blasting spells. Too bad that acquiring several 8th level spells isn't all that easy.
I won't touch on the 9th level spells as they're both crappy. Yes, you read right. There's only TWO spells for Clerics to choose from in 9th level! If you really have to pick, the Summon Monsters IX does give weaker monsters, but the ability to control them makes them surprisingly good.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.11 - Spell combinations
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While it's useful to know what the various spells do on their own, some spells have certain undocumented aspects that make them work better in tandem with some other spell. Here are a few of such combinations.
Grease & Web & Entangle:
------------------------
Three low-level spells with one thing in common - they hamper enemy movement. Tossing all three on top of each others creates a sticky mess of stuff that is pretty much impossible to wade through within any reasonable time - without the Freedom of Movement spell effect active, that is. Enemies do not seem to like to use this spell, whereas player characters can find
Rings of Freedom of Movement in quite large numbers. Immobilizing enemy troops has humongous tactical advantages, of which getting the possibility of fighting them one at a time and utilizing area of effect spells without the need of having someone stand in the middle of it to attract enemies are two most obvious ones. Since the spells are of so low level, there's really not much to lose either - low level artillery spells aren't too flashy, IMHO. A rather severe drawback of this approach is that it doesn't really work too well in HOF mode, where enemies have so high saving throw bonuses. But don't worry, these can of course be augmented with..
Acid Fog & Spike Growth & Spike Stones:
---------------------------------------
Exactly same idea as above, just utilizing higher level spells. However, now the affected area isn't exactly safe to walk in, even with the Freedom of
Movement ring, as the spells cause (minor) damage every round. Combine with the first for even greater effect.
Acid Fog & Grease:
------------------
Still the same idea as above two examples, but with much less spells to cast. The idea is that both Acid Fog and Grease halve enemy speed even on a successful save, bringing the actual movement speed to one quarter. Not quite a stand-still, but much less hassle as well.
Insect Plague & Cloudkill & Acid Fog & Suffocate & Incendiary Cloud:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Setting all of these spells on top of each others into one area creates a quite dangerous kill zone, inflicting good damage each combat round. There is one problem, however - how to ensure that the enemies won't leave this hell hole? Well, you guessed right - utilizing the above mentioned combos to tie up the enemies in place once they enter the area. Getting enemies to ENTER the kill zone isn't really that hard as they walk directly towards their locked target. Or, one can utilize an expendable summon with enough hit points to stand the punishment while setting up. (Decoy character won't work as the decoy will also take damage when inside the kill zone.)
It should be noted that setting up such a kill zone takes a LOT of time - one has to cast both the kill zone itself and the spells that make the unlucky victims to stick to the area once they enter it. Thus, it's not a good idea to try this tactic on an enemy group that has already spotted the player group and is charging in. However, it's possible to set up the kill zone and have one decoy character run forward, taunting the enemies into charging and running back to the party. The enemy AI isn't smart enough to note the goo pile on the way and they'll (try) to run right through it. A
Hasted character with the Ring of Freedom of Movement and good spell resistance can expect to run right through this kill zone without taking any significant damage, luring enemies into the trap.
As one can imagine, this approach is quite spell-intensive. Setting up the sticky area can take 5-10 castings alone, and the kill zone takes yet another
5-10. The kill zone should also have wider area than the sticky zone so that the enemies don't get stuck outside it. Considering the efficiency alone, casting a couple expendable summons (or placing a decoy with good Spell
Resistance) followed with various area damage spells is much more effective and faster, too. However, it's nowhere near as satisfying as seeing the enemies roast themselves slowly and painfully. Monsters in HOF tend to have enough HPs so that the duration of the various cloud spells start to expire around the time the enemies are dead. One can, of course, hasten their demise with a couple area-damage spells if the damage rate of the cloud spells seems lacking. Using the kill zone tactic gives some use for the otherwise mostly unused low-level spell slots.
Mirror Image & both Fire Shields & Death Armor:
-----------------------------------------------
Fire shields are nice spells, but they have one rather severe drawback - arcane casters don't usually have the hit points to take continuous beating, and mixing in warrior classes to gain hit points makes the shields considerably weaker.
However, arcane casters have the Mirror Image spell to protect them. One rather unknown feature of this spell is that even if the enemies hit just one of the images, it is still counted as a hit when the fire shields are concerned. Thus, when the fire shields (plus Death Armor that has similar effect) are active, the enemy that needs to pound through max 8 images will get max 8 times the damage from all of the shields. At caster level 30, this can net up to 24d6 + 520 points of damage. (Fire Shields are 1d6+caster level each and Death Armor is 1d6+5 max.) Even the toughest of the monsters in HOF mode will feel this sting - all at the cost of having to recast the expended
Mirror Image spell if one wishes to continue dealing damage. The caster is also protected from harm during this process, as long as the monsters can't penetrate all the images before the caster can produce new ones. Getting swarmed in HOF mode is a sure-fire way of doing this, resulting in a dead character in a split second. So beware!
Call Lightning & Static Charge & Invisibility:
----------------------------------------------
Also known as the "invisible bug zapper", this is a specialty of the
Druids. Casting all the Call Lightning & Static Charge spells and following up with Invisibility from the party's mage (or just hiding) makes the character spew out strong lightning bolts with frightening frequency, while at the same time being undetectable by the monsters. This works because the lightning bolts aren't considered as attacks by the character, they're effects that just happen passively. After that, one just needs to take a stroll amidst the enemies and see them getting zapped. Maybe not the fastest way of killing enemies, especially in HOF mode, but surely a lot of fun.
Any summon spell & Invisibility Sphere:
---------------------------------------
The problem with using the summoning spells against a charging enemy is that the enemies lock on the party characters before the summons become ready, and they won't change targets just because a new summon appears beside them. So, making the party disappear from the enemy's sight forces them to concentrate their attacks on the fresh summons. In case a summoned creature happens to be within the area of effect, just attacking with it makes it visible again, so that the enemies may target it. This tactic is especially useful when there's a forced encounter right after an area change, especially if there's a long travel time associated, making pre-buffing impossible.
Prayer & Recitation & Malison & Emotion: Despair:
-------------------------------------------------
The monsters in HOF mode have ridiculously high saving throw bonuses, and thus scoring big effects with spells becomes a lot tougher. However, there's no need to just settle for having over half of the spell potential taken away. Casting these four spells prior to starting the actual bombardment imposes an impressive -7 penalty to all saving throws. (Note that the Emotion
Despair spell displays that it has a Will save, but I've never seen anyone resist this spell.) In ideal case, having two Clerics and two mages allows one to toss all four spells at once, delaying the actual bombardment by only one combat round. In case a decoy character is used, this first round would usually be wasted anyway, waiting for the enemies to gather in a clump around the decoy, so there's no real effectivity drop - quite the opposite.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.12 - Things that might be nice but were left out
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the JUPP tries to take a rather different approach to things than the original UPP by Ken J. Egervari, some things were left out, even if they were "better" in some way. However, as this is also an UPP, none of those choices were made without giving a thought on the consequences of doing so.
Usage of ECL heavy party instead of no ECL: As pointed out in "The power of four" chapter, the ECL will be an actual penalty only in the very first stages of the game, and the high-AC tanks that avoid being hit pretty much completely will most certainly carry the party over the tough initial stages of the game. This was a conscious choice between a bit easier time at the very beginning vs. much higher profits in the long run.
Dropping the pure melee Fighter(4)/Barbarian(x) build : As the whole point
Bane - The namesake spell of the Dreadmasters, this spell can be seen as a universal, stackable +1 AC bonus for the whole party. Together with the freakishly high spell DCs available for Dreadmasters, it's not very likely that many monsters make their saving throws.
Draw Upon Holy Might - Commonly abbreviated as DUHM, this spell is very weak at low levels, but becomes a major booster once the Cleric casting it hits the level 12 or so. Mostly useful because it gives a hefty boost in hit points, although only temporarily. Remember to cast Heal before this wears out if you're below your normal hit point minimum - otherwise your character dies.
Bull's Strength - Gaining possibly +3 to attack and damage for several hours is certainly a respectable boost for anyone that does melee. It also allows weak characters to carry surprisingly large amounts of loot when needed.
Animate Dead - While the JUPP is designed so that this spell should not be necessary to get through the game, having extra melee units most certainly has many benefits, especially since they also protect other, more fragile characters. Undead summons are also immune to Horrid Wilting, making them de facto decoys when that spell is used for massive bombardment.
Prayer - A +1 or -1 to everything doesn't seem like much, but since it has no save and the area of effect is huge, the effect on combat is guaranteed.
Besides, it stacks with everything else, so why not?
Protection from Evil - While the other bonuses aren't too shiny and can, in most cases, be replicated by other means, the fact that the whole group becomes immune to charm & domination and that demons & elementals won't attack such characters is something that just shouldn't be forgotten about.
Recitation - A Prayer but with double effects.
Holy Power - While having a rather short duration and the spell being a caster only type has certain limitations, the damage bonus is almost equal to having Power Attack feat on full, but without suffering the minuses to hitting things. This is also THE reason why any warrior class (yes, including fighters) pales in comparison when seeking for extreme damage output rates.
Giant Vermin - Summons rather worthless insects early on, but those insects keep on getting better and better as the caster increases in level. The final "insect" happens to be Rhinoceros Beetle, a 10 meter huge beast with tough shell and huge tusks to bite enemies with. Plenty of hit points for tanking, that is.
Champion's Strength - Up to +4 to attack and damage for a very long time is nice for anyone that does melee.
Greater Command - Power Word: Sleep on steroids and only a 5th level spell!
Especially in HOF mode where Power Word: XYZ spells have very little effect due to monster's increased Hit Points, this still works like a charm. (Pun intended.)
Heal - Once you get this, forget about all the other healing spells. With almost instant casting time this spell is a lifesaver for any tank.. not to mention other, more fragile characters! Remember, though, that it only has touch range, so you need to GET to the injured person first.
Resurrection - The fear of losing a character goes away with this spell. I still wouldn't let characters die in every battle, as they don't receive
EXP when dead and picking up the equipment takes a while if you have to do it once a minute. This spell works also as a Heal substitute if you've run out of those, albeit much slower.
Greater Shield of Lathander - Even with the pathetic duration and rather extreme casting time, this spell gives a total immunity against almost all attacks. Make sure to utilize those three rounds to pull your other tricks from your sleeve - they might be your last.
Holy Aura - While the other bonuses aren't too noticeable, the +25 spell resistance bonus for everyone is. After this spell has been cast, all the characters in your party with natural spell resistance become totally immune to all spells that can be resisted in the first place. This makes it possible to bombard even own party members with area effect spells!
Symbol of Hopelessness - Same as for arcane casters, but divine casters have the advantage of being able to find items that boost Wisdom (and thus spell
DC), making this even more useful.
Fire Storm - The one and only divine spell that has the required area of effect and damage improvement with sufficiently large damage cap to contend with the showstopper arcane blasting spells. Too bad that acquiring several 8th level spells isn't all that easy.
I won't touch on the 9th level spells as they're both crappy. Yes, you read right. There's only TWO spells for Clerics to choose from in 9th level! If you really have to pick, the Summon Monsters IX does give weaker monsters, but the ability to control them makes them surprisingly good.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.11 - Spell combinations
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
While it's useful to know what the various spells do on their own, some spells have certain undocumented aspects that make them work better in tandem with some other spell. Here are a few of such combinations.
Grease & Web & Entangle:
------------------------
Three low-level spells with one thing in common - they hamper enemy movement. Tossing all three on top of each others creates a sticky mess of stuff that is pretty much impossible to wade through within any reasonable time - without the Freedom of Movement spell effect active, that is. Enemies do not seem to like to use this spell, whereas player characters can find
Rings of Freedom of Movement in quite large numbers. Immobilizing enemy troops has humongous tactical advantages, of which getting the possibility of fighting them one at a time and utilizing area of effect spells without the need of having someone stand in the middle of it to attract enemies are two most obvious ones. Since the spells are of so low level, there's really not much to lose either - low level artillery spells aren't too flashy, IMHO. A rather severe drawback of this approach is that it doesn't really work too well in HOF mode, where enemies have so high saving throw bonuses. But don't worry, these can of course be augmented with..
Acid Fog & Spike Growth & Spike Stones:
---------------------------------------
Exactly same idea as above, just utilizing higher level spells. However, now the affected area isn't exactly safe to walk in, even with the Freedom of
Movement ring, as the spells cause (minor) damage every round. Combine with the first for even greater effect.
Acid Fog & Grease:
------------------
Still the same idea as above two examples, but with much less spells to cast. The idea is that both Acid Fog and Grease halve enemy speed even on a successful save, bringing the actual movement speed to one quarter. Not quite a stand-still, but much less hassle as well.
Insect Plague & Cloudkill & Acid Fog & Suffocate & Incendiary Cloud:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Setting all of these spells on top of each others into one area creates a quite dangerous kill zone, inflicting good damage each combat round. There is one problem, however - how to ensure that the enemies won't leave this hell hole? Well, you guessed right - utilizing the above mentioned combos to tie up the enemies in place once they enter the area. Getting enemies to ENTER the kill zone isn't really that hard as they walk directly towards their locked target. Or, one can utilize an expendable summon with enough hit points to stand the punishment while setting up. (Decoy character won't work as the decoy will also take damage when inside the kill zone.)
It should be noted that setting up such a kill zone takes a LOT of time - one has to cast both the kill zone itself and the spells that make the unlucky victims to stick to the area once they enter it. Thus, it's not a good idea to try this tactic on an enemy group that has already spotted the player group and is charging in. However, it's possible to set up the kill zone and have one decoy character run forward, taunting the enemies into charging and running back to the party. The enemy AI isn't smart enough to note the goo pile on the way and they'll (try) to run right through it. A
Hasted character with the Ring of Freedom of Movement and good spell resistance can expect to run right through this kill zone without taking any significant damage, luring enemies into the trap.
As one can imagine, this approach is quite spell-intensive. Setting up the sticky area can take 5-10 castings alone, and the kill zone takes yet another
5-10. The kill zone should also have wider area than the sticky zone so that the enemies don't get stuck outside it. Considering the efficiency alone, casting a couple expendable summons (or placing a decoy with good Spell
Resistance) followed with various area damage spells is much more effective and faster, too. However, it's nowhere near as satisfying as seeing the enemies roast themselves slowly and painfully. Monsters in HOF tend to have enough HPs so that the duration of the various cloud spells start to expire around the time the enemies are dead. One can, of course, hasten their demise with a couple area-damage spells if the damage rate of the cloud spells seems lacking. Using the kill zone tactic gives some use for the otherwise mostly unused low-level spell slots.
Mirror Image & both Fire Shields & Death Armor:
-----------------------------------------------
Fire shields are nice spells, but they have one rather severe drawback - arcane casters don't usually have the hit points to take continuous beating, and mixing in warrior classes to gain hit points makes the shields considerably weaker.
However, arcane casters have the Mirror Image spell to protect them. One rather unknown feature of this spell is that even if the enemies hit just one of the images, it is still counted as a hit when the fire shields are concerned. Thus, when the fire shields (plus Death Armor that has similar effect) are active, the enemy that needs to pound through max 8 images will get max 8 times the damage from all of the shields. At caster level 30, this can net up to 24d6 + 520 points of damage. (Fire Shields are 1d6+caster level each and Death Armor is 1d6+5 max.) Even the toughest of the monsters in HOF mode will feel this sting - all at the cost of having to recast the expended
Mirror Image spell if one wishes to continue dealing damage. The caster is also protected from harm during this process, as long as the monsters can't penetrate all the images before the caster can produce new ones. Getting swarmed in HOF mode is a sure-fire way of doing this, resulting in a dead character in a split second. So beware!
Call Lightning & Static Charge & Invisibility:
----------------------------------------------
Also known as the "invisible bug zapper", this is a specialty of the
Druids. Casting all the Call Lightning & Static Charge spells and following up with Invisibility from the party's mage (or just hiding) makes the character spew out strong lightning bolts with frightening frequency, while at the same time being undetectable by the monsters. This works because the lightning bolts aren't considered as attacks by the character, they're effects that just happen passively. After that, one just needs to take a stroll amidst the enemies and see them getting zapped. Maybe not the fastest way of killing enemies, especially in HOF mode, but surely a lot of fun.
Any summon spell & Invisibility Sphere:
---------------------------------------
The problem with using the summoning spells against a charging enemy is that the enemies lock on the party characters before the summons become ready, and they won't change targets just because a new summon appears beside them. So, making the party disappear from the enemy's sight forces them to concentrate their attacks on the fresh summons. In case a summoned creature happens to be within the area of effect, just attacking with it makes it visible again, so that the enemies may target it. This tactic is especially useful when there's a forced encounter right after an area change, especially if there's a long travel time associated, making pre-buffing impossible.
Prayer & Recitation & Malison & Emotion: Despair:
-------------------------------------------------
The monsters in HOF mode have ridiculously high saving throw bonuses, and thus scoring big effects with spells becomes a lot tougher. However, there's no need to just settle for having over half of the spell potential taken away. Casting these four spells prior to starting the actual bombardment imposes an impressive -7 penalty to all saving throws. (Note that the Emotion
Despair spell displays that it has a Will save, but I've never seen anyone resist this spell.) In ideal case, having two Clerics and two mages allows one to toss all four spells at once, delaying the actual bombardment by only one combat round. In case a decoy character is used, this first round would usually be wasted anyway, waiting for the enemies to gather in a clump around the decoy, so there's no real effectivity drop - quite the opposite.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.12 - Things that might be nice but were left out
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since the JUPP tries to take a rather different approach to things than the original UPP by Ken J. Egervari, some things were left out, even if they were "better" in some way. However, as this is also an UPP, none of those choices were made without giving a thought on the consequences of doing so.
Usage of ECL heavy party instead of no ECL: As pointed out in "The power of four" chapter, the ECL will be an actual penalty only in the very first stages of the game, and the high-AC tanks that avoid being hit pretty much completely will most certainly carry the party over the tough initial stages of the game. This was a conscious choice between a bit easier time at the very beginning vs. much higher profits in the long run.
Dropping the pure melee Fighter(4)/Barbarian(x) build : As the whole point
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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
- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
Character Development Guide - Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Icewind Dale 2 FAQ by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
- Icewind Dale 2 hints by System on 09/03/2006, 09:50
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