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Icewind Dale II
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT GUIDE
Version 1.11

Written by: Mike Malone
E-mail: christopher.malone2@gte.net

This document copyright (c) 2002 by Mike Malone. All rights reserved.

I) Introduction

This guide provides an overview of the Icewind Dale II (IWD2) races and
character classes, with extensive tips about how to build interesting and
successful heroes. IWD2 represents an evolution in the Infinity Engine (IE)
game series (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Plan escape: Torment) in that it uses
the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition game rules (D&D), which offer distinctly more
options for customizing your characters. However, this increased flexibility
also means that there are more ways to construct a character who will, perhaps,
not turn out to be as satisfactory a hero as had been hoped. Thus, a primary
goal of this document is to offer a framework in which you can approach the task
of building a set of characters who are both powerful and fun.

The target audience of this guide is both new players and those who have already
played IWD2 some (perhaps completing it) and who want to play again with a more
carefully constructed, diverse, or whimsical set of characters. In fact,
because of the rich possibilities for character design, the author considers
IWD2 to be well worth playing through more than once, and in some ways the
advice in this guide may be more useful the second time through the game than
the first. However, note that this guide emphasizes normal play, and some of
the advice herein may not carry over to Heart of Fury (Hoof) mode. (A future
version of the guide may have a special section on character design
considerations for playing Heart of Fury.)

The material in this guide can't replace a careful perusal of the IWD2
Instruction Manual and the information that appears in game during the character
design process (the latter information does not appear in the printed manual but
is crucial to know when planning your characters' careers). This in-game
information on classes and race can also be accessed by pushing the
"Information" button that appears near the middle of the character display
screens. If you are new to IWD2, before building a custom party of your own it
may be useful to start the game with one of the pre-built parties in order to
look at the character displays and review the information screens on races,
classes, orders, feats, and skills.

Although in a guide of this sort some generic D&D party design lore is
unavoidable as background, this document tries to focus on issues that are
specific to optimizing IWD2 characters. Moreover, the emphasis of this document
is on the practical rather than on the kinds of aesthetic concerns that might be
associated with roleplaying in the strictest sense. Thus, the classes, races,
and abilities that seem less useful than others are ruthlessly critiqued.
However, this should not deter people from using those classes, races, or
abilities if that is what they want to do. The point of playing IWD2 is to have
fun, after all, and the author is a solid proponent of enjoying the roleplaying
aspects of the game, which include playing quirky or "theme" characters and
parties. Furthermore, none of the races or classes is so seriously
disadvantaged that it would be a horrible mistake to use them. Still, this
guide would not be worth reading if it did not try to make clear what are the
best practices for character and party design, and that requires saying which
types of hero are strongest and which are not.

This guide is best viewed using a 12 pt fixed-width font (e.g., Courier).

Note also that this document contains a few spoilers, which are always marked as
follows:

**********SPOILER**********
This is a sample spoiler.
***************************


II) Revision History

11/15/02 Version 1.11--Spelling corrections and formatting fixes

11/08/02 Version 1.1--Added section on sample characters; numerous corrections; expanded and tuned
some material

10/07/02 Version 1.01--Minor additions and corrections

10/02/02 Version 1.0--Initial version


III) Legal Stuff & Contact Information

This document is copyrighted by Mike Malone. The guide is made available to
selected web sites who are given permission to post it by the author. Visitors
to these sites are welcome to download and print out the document, but are not
permitted to reprint, post, or plagiarize its contents for their own documents
or web sites. Please e-mail me if you want permission to use all or some of
this guide elsewhere.

If you have a question, comment or correction, please e-mail me
(christopher.malone2@gte.net), and be sure to put something in the subject line
that makes it clear that it is IWD2-related.


IV) Terminology

This document uses some jargon that the author has adopted as well as
terminology from the domain of D&D and roleplaying games, both computer-based
ones and traditional pen-and-paper ones. Although many people will be familiar
with most of these terms, they are defined here for clarity and reference.

Str, Int, Wis, Dex, Con, Cha -- these are the short forms of the six main
attributes: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution, and
Charisma, respectively. This document uses the short and long versions
interchangeably.

Build -- A "build" is a way of referring to a particular selection of race,
classes, abilities, feats, etc. that together comprise an IWD2 character. Two
pure fighters might have very different builds (e.g., one might have massive
Strength and rely on feats like Power Attack and Cleave in order to excel in
hand-to-hand combat, whereas another might have high Dexterity and use Rapid
Shot, Precise Shot, and Weapon Specialization in bows in order to serve as a
master archer).

Role -- A job or related set of tasks performed by a party member. For example,
"tank" or "healer." See "Party Composition and Character Roles."

Favored class -- Every race has a favored class that affects their ability to
multiclass. This is described in detail under "Multiclassing Basics."

Order -- This is an IWD2 term that refers to a variant of some class, usually
because of a religious or quasi-religious affiliation (for example, Stormlord of
Talos). Clerics, paladins, and monks all have different orders to choose from,
and their choice of order provides additional special abilities (for clerics) or
affects their ability to multiclass (for monks or paladins).

Mix In -- This is not a standard RPG term, but one adopted by the author to
denote the addition of a few levels of some support class to augment a build's
main class. E.g., an elf rogue/wizard might have only three levels of rogue as
a "mix in" and the rest of her levels in wizard.

Pure -- When used as in the phrase "pure fighter," refers to a single-class
character (i.e., a hero who puts all his levels into a single class for his
entire IWD2 career).

Effective Character Level -- Races with more powerful starting attributes and
abilities (assumer, tiefling, drow, gray dwarf, and deep gnome) are penalized by
having an "effective character level" (or ECL), the effect of which is to
increase the amount of experience they need to go up levels.


V) Party Composition and Character Roles

A great deal has been written about creating well-balanced parties for D&D, and
I'm not going to rehash a lot of tired lore in this section. Instead, I will
briefly summarize the various necessary roles for a party so that I can refer to
them later on. By focusing on roles (such as "tank") rather than classes (such
as fighter), a player can decide for herself how she wants to fill those roles,
and this encourages creativity and diversity. Although a party need not have
characters that fill every role, having at least one hero with good coverage for
each of the major roles is a surefire way to ensure that you will have the
flexibility to deal with a wide variety of encounters.

A) Tank

The job of the tank is to engage monsters in toe-to-toe melee combat in order to
dispatch them and also to keep them occupied so that they don't harm the other,
more fragile characters. Fighters, barbarians, and paladins are good tanks.
Rangers, druids, clerics, and high-level monks can be almost as good, given the
right equipment and stat selection.

Tank is one of the roles that rewards having coverage from multiple characters.
A party with only one tank will often find itself flanked, with the result that
the frail spellcasters are now engaged in melee (and the IWD2 monster AI can be
rather persistent about pursuing your heroes when they try to flee). A party
with no tanks is very challenging to play.

B) Healer

With a few rare, plot-driven exceptions, it is easy to heal damage in IWD2
between major battles by simply resting, going back to town, or visiting one of
the many NPC healers and "rest stops" who appear at various convenient locations
throughout the game. So, the role of a healer in the party is mostly to provide
medical services during the heat of battle or between skirmishes in a major
ongoing engagement during which resting is not possible or would be
inconvenient. In terms of what a healer does, the ability to remove nasty
effects like paralysis is at least as important as the ability to simply restore
lost hit points. Moreover, a top-notch healer build will also incorporate
features aimed at keeping the healer herself alive and well, since an
incapacitated healer is of little use to other party members.

In any case, and as is well known, clerics make the best healers, as they have a
wide range of curative magic and are themselves quite sturdy. Druids and
(surprisingly) bards can also be successful in this role. Paladins and rangers
can also serve as adjunct healers once they are higher in level.

C) Scout

The game is much easier if you have a character whose Hide and Move Silently
skill ranks are high enough that they can reliably sneak around the area and
check out the lay of the land. Rogues, rangers, and monks all have excellent
potential here. Note that whereas it is possible to have your scout and your
thief (see below) be the same hero, that may not be the best use of your
characters.

D) Thief

A thief is a character that specializes in the Open Locks, Disable Device,
Search, and (if you so desire) Pick Pocket skills. If a hero puts lots of
levels into the rogue class, it is easy for her to cover all these skills, since
rogues receive a hefty allotment of skill points. However, sometimes it is
desirable to split these skills across multiple characters. Furthermore,
although rogues are the canonical base class for a thief, any character can
serve adequately in this role if they have sufficient Dex (for Open Locks and
Pick Pocket) or Int (for Search and Disable Device) and will have enough skill
points to keep investing in those skills regularly as the game progresses.

E) Bombardier

There's nothing quite like a Fireball for starting out a big fight on the right
footing. The job of lobbing Fireballs and other spells of mass destruction
belongs to the bombardier. Sorcerers make the best bombardiers, followed by
wizards, druids, and clerics, in roughly that order.

F) Sniper

An optional, but useful, role. The sniper specializes in ranged combat.
Fighters make the best snipers, by virtue of their superior base attack bonuses
and the fact that only a fighter of level four or higher can obtain the Weapon
Specialization feat (+2 damage) for their missile weapon of choice (usually bows
or slings). However, any character with good Dexterity and the right weapon
proficiency can be enlisted for sniper-style tactics.

G) Mage Killer

The mage killer is a character designed specifically to go after and
incapacitate enemy mages and magic-using bosses. Usually the mage killer will
also serve as a scout, since one of the best ways to terminate opposing spell
casters is to sneak up on them and attack them unawares. Having one or more
solid mage killers is not a requirement for success in IWD2, but is useful if
you prefer stealth and skirmish-oriented tactics.

A good choice for a mage killer is a build with innate Spell Resistance, which
means either a drow, deep gnome, or high-level monk. Gray dwarves are also a
good choice, with solid saving throw bonuses and immunity to paralysis
(specifically, the dreaded Hold Person). To a lesser extent, aasimar and
tiefling characters can also serve in this role because of their built-in
resistance to most elements. Finally, paladins with high Charisma receive
enormous bonuses to their saving throws, which also makes them suitable for mage
killer applications.

If you are building a mage killer based on their racial qualities, you will want
to choose at least one warrior-style class and build up enough levels to get a
high number of attacks per round. This gives you additional opportunities to
disrupt the enemy's spellcasting. Also, getting the Evasion special ability can
be very useful for a mage killer; this can be achieved automatically if you are
a monk or by having at least two levels of rogue.

H) Diplomat