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for a particular spell. Therefore, a sorcerer can cast a chain lightning, another chain lightning, another chain lightning and again and again. The hard part is, what spell should they learn, in what order? Different with Neverwinter Nights version, you cannot unlearn learnt spells. so you really need to consider which spells will benefit in a long run and which cannot.
Beside casting spells, sorcerer can play an important part as diplomat/speaker of the party. You could give a sorcerer extra
INT to gain extra skill points in order to learn all the needed 'talking skills'. Together with their high CHA and the fact that they don't refuse reward like paladins, they are a good choice for speakers.
As you adventuring under HoF mode, you'll notice that it is your sorcerer and wizard who do the most damage. Your tankers will be shouting for medic every few hits by enemies. But sorcerer and wizard, they never need to heal. If they die, you can bring them back to life and they can jump into fight without pick back their stuff.
Considering a sorcerer abilities is an easy task. First of all, max CHA. then, max INT. adjust other abilities as you like, it is not that crucial. The reason you want a high INT is that it gives you extra skill points to upgrade your skills.
5 >>> Wizard
Level 1 summon? Yes i can do that.
Different to sorcerer, a wizard offers you versatility and flexibility. You can almost learn any spell under the sun (specialized wizard has restrictions), and you are not afraid of doing so. You wouldn't give a sorcerer to learn 'Summon Creature lvl 1', but you can do that for a wizard. Summon Creature lvl x is always useful until you have animate undead.
Furthermore, there are these i called 'one time spell', like 'Mass
Haste'. You only need it once (twice at most), before or during a fight. there is no need for you to keep casting mass haste right? so why let a sorcerer to learn 'Mass Haste' which she/he will only use it once before the next rest.
For me there is no need to take specialization because my sorcerer is already specialized enough. i'll need a person who can cast every spells rather a person who can cast a kind of spell more times.
Distributing a wizard abilities is even simpler. max INT, which is the prime abilities and gives you tons of extra skill points.
Then you can distribute other abilities points to anywhere you want.
Generally, high CON and DEX.
>>[Yorien Dragonard] has another view on sorcerer and wizard.
"I usually play with rather specialised casters. Have a main wizard (pure), a main healer (usually pure) and then some support casters (for example a male Drow rogue-wiz with a lot of protection and enhancers learnt) and commonly some other chara with support spells . That's why I use more disablers than direct damage."
"Well, the main idea here is to have a rather specialised spellcaster, whose main role is to cast some party enhacers pre-combat and make a quick first move just before combat by casting one or two area disables before party rushes. As caster is specialised, he'd have skills/feats conveniently arranged so his spell's DC is sufficiently high to connect on many creatures. So, caster's job is to disable lower menaces while party can focus in the big foes (and commonly, you'll find that some big foes also fall to the disabler).
Since it uses only a little variety of spells, sorcerers are pretty capable of being disablers."
==CONCLUSION==
Keeping a fulltime spellcaster might just be a good idea simply because the highier the level, the more spell slots available.
But remember, the game sets the level cap at 30 (which is a lot).
By the time a spellcaster reaches level 20 ~ 25, there will be enough spell ammo for any fight. So, starting from level 20 ~ 25, a spellcaster can multiclass to another class for example fighter (for feats), barbarian (for hp), rogue (for evasion). a special case is, monk benefits their armor class from their WIS.
You can start your cleric/druid as a monk, then multiclass to cleric/druid after level 1 monk. Take note on the alignment restriction, if you want to do so. Also, similar to this is to start a sorcerer as paladin. Paladin uses CHA modifier in saving throw, so your sorcerer who are weak at saving throws (due to low
CON, DEX, WILL) can benefits from this.
A druid and a cleric will have similiar ablilities. As i played the game, i found out that during many fights, my cleric was just standing and waiting for anyone who call for medic. By multiclassing and druid to a cleric or vice versa according to 20major/10minor, you'll have a druid that can bring back your fallen members into life and a cleric that can call down lightning to strike enemies.
Another lame way to exploit the game mistake would be taking a specialist wizard and take a level in sorcerer. That way, the wizard will have access to all schools of spell.
Of course there is this ever popular fighter and wizard combination. Fighter+wizard don't have to worry about armor since a lot of spell will balance off the disadvantage.
Useful spells for a fighter+wizard would be 'Mirror Image',
'Blink', 'Fire Shield', 'Tenser's Transformation', 'Antimagic
Field', 'Trollish Fortitude', 'Seven Eyes', 'Aegis' and 'Black
Blade of Disaster'. Abilities for this multiclass would be max
STR or DEx and INT, min WIS and CHA, what is left distribute to
CON and DEX or STR.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II.3 alignment ppgcr5
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surprise to see alignment in here? Usually alignment isn't that important because ultimately, alignment is a role-playing thing. But alignment in this game has a very significant effect in a matter of life and death.
Spoilers--
At the end of the game when you finally meet the bosses, one of them is able to cast 'Blasphemy', this area effective spell will instantly stuns anyone that is non-evil alignment for 1 turn, which is very long.
So, you must have some members as evil alignment, if not all. i would suggest that at least your spellcasters be evil alignment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II.4 constructing a band ppgcr6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solo would be challenging but i think IWD2 was initially designed as an adventure for a band. You can have maximum six people in a team, so you can really specialize them. Ultimately, it all falls down to 2 things, a) Playing style
Some would find that a certain combination is very strong and they can just 'walk' through the game. But when that combination falls into others hand, it will not work at all. That is why whenever my friends ask me about what is the best character in Diablo, what is the best combination in Final Fantasy N, i would always give them the same answer 'there is no best sword in the world, only best swordman'. Any combination would work. How would the combination works is totally dependent on how you control its members. b) Role playing
Some classes are not that usefull in the game. It does not really matter if you have them in your band or not, like bard, druid and ranger.
However, there are people out there, insist certain class be included in the band. For me, it is druid. Partly because i am an environmentalist and partly i just don't know how a band without a druid can adventure into the wild. Yes, sure, a durid isn't that useful. There wasn't a time that i am thankful for having to bring a druid along, but there was time when i curse myself for not bringing an extra cleric. But then, i still like druid.
If you are not a newbie in the game, you don't have the need to look at the uninspire team suggestion below.
A simple combination for newbie,
1 - fighter with paladin 2 - rogue with fighter
3 - wizard 4 - sorcerer
5 - cleric 6 - cleric
With a combination like this, you'll have two person for each category of class.
Fighter/paladin will be the main tanker and rogue/fighter will be the support tanker. It seems that 2 tankers is rather weak but don't forget that you have 4 summoners which means 4 summons in a time. So most of the time the two tankers would carry the task of protecting the spellcasters rather then dealing damage and take the pain. Rogue is a must because you need someone to detrap, and only rogue can do that. There are traps in the game that will not go away even you triggered it. Paladin is an 'almost must' because the Holy Avenger you get under HoF mode offers +10 enchantment, you don't want to miss that, do you? On top of that, how about the idea of dual-wielding Holy Avengers? A +5 and +10.
Sorcerer is the main arcane spellcaster. Sorcerer learns all the main damage spells, all spells that is going to be used again and again. Wizard on the other hand provides the 'clean out' job.
Whatever usefull spells that the sorcerer don't or haven't learn, the wizard can help out.
Two cleric can carry out two different kinds of job, to make the band looks pretty and to make the enemies look ugly. Above all, you have two people that cast provide quick 'Heal' and crucial
'Resurrection'. Accident happens, if one cleric dies, another can bring her/him back.
[Arachree Mae] has a suggestion of a band consisting of all classes,
Paladin(mystra)/wizard (8/22) aasimar 8 lvl paladin to get their cavalier (i forget their name) feat (author: the feat is called 'Fiendslayer'), 22 lvl wizard didn't hurt their spell to level 9.
Ranger/rogue/fighter (5/21/4) tiefling 5 lvl ranger to get 2 racial enemy, 4 lvl fighter to get weapon specialization, 21 lvl rogue to detrap of course.
Barbarian/fighter (20/10) dwarf
20 lvl barbarian to get tireless rage.
Monk (30) human
They just rock with high wisdom (you could stun 30 wizard a day if you could find that many) just hide them and sneak attack the wizard (throw in some rogue would help (to sneak attack). (author: not too much rogue as it will destroy the basic attack bonus of armed attack, 3 lvl is enough)
Bard/sorcerer (11/19) wood elf
On my exp with IWD 1 you just need bard that's why i'm putting in a bard,
11 lvl to get their best song. If you think the song didn't that great (on
IWD 1 that song could regenerate hp all the time i hardly need a cleric to heal, but IWD 2 ruin it by only activate this regeneration in combat), still you get 2nd healer (from bardic spell).
Druid/cleric ((?/?) depends on defensive or offensive playing) female drow this one like i said depends on playing style. i really wish i could split the cleric in to some one else (like monk) but i really like high level monk. and that ruins clerics ability.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III skills ppgskl
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is about skills. If feats give you the extra edge fighting enemies, then skills give you an upper hand interact with the NPCs and surrounding. As you level up, you'll gain skill points, how many skill points you gain is dependent on your class and INT. Class provides you the basic skill points each level, INT modifier gives you the bonus skill points. That's why in 3ed rules, INT is generally important. If you really don't want to invest heavily on INT, at least don't let your INT modifier becomes negative value. It will hurts. Beside class and INT, human also gains extra skill point per level.
Rule number one in distributing skill points, give them to class skills first. When you distributing your skill points you will notice that some skills require 2 points to move up a level but some only need 1 point.
Those that need 1 point would be the class skill for the class that you level up now.
Rule number two, give some points to talking skills (bluff, diplomacy and intiminate). You cannot always select who to initiate a conversation. So, you would want all of your members to have some points in major talking skills just in case.
And lastly, every skill has association with your abilities. The Ability modifier will affect if you make a successful skill check aganist a situation. The ability followed every skill title incidates that the ability modifier will be applied while throwing a check. Related ability will be indicated after each skill title.
Beside casting spells, sorcerer can play an important part as diplomat/speaker of the party. You could give a sorcerer extra
INT to gain extra skill points in order to learn all the needed 'talking skills'. Together with their high CHA and the fact that they don't refuse reward like paladins, they are a good choice for speakers.
As you adventuring under HoF mode, you'll notice that it is your sorcerer and wizard who do the most damage. Your tankers will be shouting for medic every few hits by enemies. But sorcerer and wizard, they never need to heal. If they die, you can bring them back to life and they can jump into fight without pick back their stuff.
Considering a sorcerer abilities is an easy task. First of all, max CHA. then, max INT. adjust other abilities as you like, it is not that crucial. The reason you want a high INT is that it gives you extra skill points to upgrade your skills.
5 >>> Wizard
Level 1 summon? Yes i can do that.
Different to sorcerer, a wizard offers you versatility and flexibility. You can almost learn any spell under the sun (specialized wizard has restrictions), and you are not afraid of doing so. You wouldn't give a sorcerer to learn 'Summon Creature lvl 1', but you can do that for a wizard. Summon Creature lvl x is always useful until you have animate undead.
Furthermore, there are these i called 'one time spell', like 'Mass
Haste'. You only need it once (twice at most), before or during a fight. there is no need for you to keep casting mass haste right? so why let a sorcerer to learn 'Mass Haste' which she/he will only use it once before the next rest.
For me there is no need to take specialization because my sorcerer is already specialized enough. i'll need a person who can cast every spells rather a person who can cast a kind of spell more times.
Distributing a wizard abilities is even simpler. max INT, which is the prime abilities and gives you tons of extra skill points.
Then you can distribute other abilities points to anywhere you want.
Generally, high CON and DEX.
>>[Yorien Dragonard] has another view on sorcerer and wizard.
"I usually play with rather specialised casters. Have a main wizard (pure), a main healer (usually pure) and then some support casters (for example a male Drow rogue-wiz with a lot of protection and enhancers learnt) and commonly some other chara with support spells . That's why I use more disablers than direct damage."
"Well, the main idea here is to have a rather specialised spellcaster, whose main role is to cast some party enhacers pre-combat and make a quick first move just before combat by casting one or two area disables before party rushes. As caster is specialised, he'd have skills/feats conveniently arranged so his spell's DC is sufficiently high to connect on many creatures. So, caster's job is to disable lower menaces while party can focus in the big foes (and commonly, you'll find that some big foes also fall to the disabler).
Since it uses only a little variety of spells, sorcerers are pretty capable of being disablers."
==CONCLUSION==
Keeping a fulltime spellcaster might just be a good idea simply because the highier the level, the more spell slots available.
But remember, the game sets the level cap at 30 (which is a lot).
By the time a spellcaster reaches level 20 ~ 25, there will be enough spell ammo for any fight. So, starting from level 20 ~ 25, a spellcaster can multiclass to another class for example fighter (for feats), barbarian (for hp), rogue (for evasion). a special case is, monk benefits their armor class from their WIS.
You can start your cleric/druid as a monk, then multiclass to cleric/druid after level 1 monk. Take note on the alignment restriction, if you want to do so. Also, similar to this is to start a sorcerer as paladin. Paladin uses CHA modifier in saving throw, so your sorcerer who are weak at saving throws (due to low
CON, DEX, WILL) can benefits from this.
A druid and a cleric will have similiar ablilities. As i played the game, i found out that during many fights, my cleric was just standing and waiting for anyone who call for medic. By multiclassing and druid to a cleric or vice versa according to 20major/10minor, you'll have a druid that can bring back your fallen members into life and a cleric that can call down lightning to strike enemies.
Another lame way to exploit the game mistake would be taking a specialist wizard and take a level in sorcerer. That way, the wizard will have access to all schools of spell.
Of course there is this ever popular fighter and wizard combination. Fighter+wizard don't have to worry about armor since a lot of spell will balance off the disadvantage.
Useful spells for a fighter+wizard would be 'Mirror Image',
'Blink', 'Fire Shield', 'Tenser's Transformation', 'Antimagic
Field', 'Trollish Fortitude', 'Seven Eyes', 'Aegis' and 'Black
Blade of Disaster'. Abilities for this multiclass would be max
STR or DEx and INT, min WIS and CHA, what is left distribute to
CON and DEX or STR.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II.3 alignment ppgcr5
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surprise to see alignment in here? Usually alignment isn't that important because ultimately, alignment is a role-playing thing. But alignment in this game has a very significant effect in a matter of life and death.
Spoilers--
At the end of the game when you finally meet the bosses, one of them is able to cast 'Blasphemy', this area effective spell will instantly stuns anyone that is non-evil alignment for 1 turn, which is very long.
So, you must have some members as evil alignment, if not all. i would suggest that at least your spellcasters be evil alignment.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
II.4 constructing a band ppgcr6
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Solo would be challenging but i think IWD2 was initially designed as an adventure for a band. You can have maximum six people in a team, so you can really specialize them. Ultimately, it all falls down to 2 things, a) Playing style
Some would find that a certain combination is very strong and they can just 'walk' through the game. But when that combination falls into others hand, it will not work at all. That is why whenever my friends ask me about what is the best character in Diablo, what is the best combination in Final Fantasy N, i would always give them the same answer 'there is no best sword in the world, only best swordman'. Any combination would work. How would the combination works is totally dependent on how you control its members. b) Role playing
Some classes are not that usefull in the game. It does not really matter if you have them in your band or not, like bard, druid and ranger.
However, there are people out there, insist certain class be included in the band. For me, it is druid. Partly because i am an environmentalist and partly i just don't know how a band without a druid can adventure into the wild. Yes, sure, a durid isn't that useful. There wasn't a time that i am thankful for having to bring a druid along, but there was time when i curse myself for not bringing an extra cleric. But then, i still like druid.
If you are not a newbie in the game, you don't have the need to look at the uninspire team suggestion below.
A simple combination for newbie,
1 - fighter with paladin 2 - rogue with fighter
3 - wizard 4 - sorcerer
5 - cleric 6 - cleric
With a combination like this, you'll have two person for each category of class.
Fighter/paladin will be the main tanker and rogue/fighter will be the support tanker. It seems that 2 tankers is rather weak but don't forget that you have 4 summoners which means 4 summons in a time. So most of the time the two tankers would carry the task of protecting the spellcasters rather then dealing damage and take the pain. Rogue is a must because you need someone to detrap, and only rogue can do that. There are traps in the game that will not go away even you triggered it. Paladin is an 'almost must' because the Holy Avenger you get under HoF mode offers +10 enchantment, you don't want to miss that, do you? On top of that, how about the idea of dual-wielding Holy Avengers? A +5 and +10.
Sorcerer is the main arcane spellcaster. Sorcerer learns all the main damage spells, all spells that is going to be used again and again. Wizard on the other hand provides the 'clean out' job.
Whatever usefull spells that the sorcerer don't or haven't learn, the wizard can help out.
Two cleric can carry out two different kinds of job, to make the band looks pretty and to make the enemies look ugly. Above all, you have two people that cast provide quick 'Heal' and crucial
'Resurrection'. Accident happens, if one cleric dies, another can bring her/him back.
[Arachree Mae] has a suggestion of a band consisting of all classes,
Paladin(mystra)/wizard (8/22) aasimar 8 lvl paladin to get their cavalier (i forget their name) feat (author: the feat is called 'Fiendslayer'), 22 lvl wizard didn't hurt their spell to level 9.
Ranger/rogue/fighter (5/21/4) tiefling 5 lvl ranger to get 2 racial enemy, 4 lvl fighter to get weapon specialization, 21 lvl rogue to detrap of course.
Barbarian/fighter (20/10) dwarf
20 lvl barbarian to get tireless rage.
Monk (30) human
They just rock with high wisdom (you could stun 30 wizard a day if you could find that many) just hide them and sneak attack the wizard (throw in some rogue would help (to sneak attack). (author: not too much rogue as it will destroy the basic attack bonus of armed attack, 3 lvl is enough)
Bard/sorcerer (11/19) wood elf
On my exp with IWD 1 you just need bard that's why i'm putting in a bard,
11 lvl to get their best song. If you think the song didn't that great (on
IWD 1 that song could regenerate hp all the time i hardly need a cleric to heal, but IWD 2 ruin it by only activate this regeneration in combat), still you get 2nd healer (from bardic spell).
Druid/cleric ((?/?) depends on defensive or offensive playing) female drow this one like i said depends on playing style. i really wish i could split the cleric in to some one else (like monk) but i really like high level monk. and that ruins clerics ability.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
III skills ppgskl
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This section is about skills. If feats give you the extra edge fighting enemies, then skills give you an upper hand interact with the NPCs and surrounding. As you level up, you'll gain skill points, how many skill points you gain is dependent on your class and INT. Class provides you the basic skill points each level, INT modifier gives you the bonus skill points. That's why in 3ed rules, INT is generally important. If you really don't want to invest heavily on INT, at least don't let your INT modifier becomes negative value. It will hurts. Beside class and INT, human also gains extra skill point per level.
Rule number one in distributing skill points, give them to class skills first. When you distributing your skill points you will notice that some skills require 2 points to move up a level but some only need 1 point.
Those that need 1 point would be the class skill for the class that you level up now.
Rule number two, give some points to talking skills (bluff, diplomacy and intiminate). You cannot always select who to initiate a conversation. So, you would want all of your members to have some points in major talking skills just in case.
And lastly, every skill has association with your abilities. The Ability modifier will affect if you make a successful skill check aganist a situation. The ability followed every skill title incidates that the ability modifier will be applied while throwing a check. Related ability will be indicated after each skill title.
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- 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
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- 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
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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