Small party of 2 - questions

Remove all ads!

Since this is your first playthrough, I'd really advise against too much powergaming. You'll need *some* since you're going duo, but don't spoil it too much. Honestly.

About Rapid Shot: it's gotta be one of the best feats available, period. Even more so if you have good STR score to back it up.

Any party below six members is going to do a major crashlanding into the "no exp per kill" zone sooner or later. That's just the way the dynamic exp system works.

Also, I suggested Sorcerer just BECAUSE you're going with a small party. Wizards often find they can cast spells of higher level than what they have scrolls for already in a large party, and it's going to get much worse in a duo. Trust me on this.

 

Yeah, he's right on that. You'll have to start buying scrolls, because they don't appear in the game soon enough. With a duo, you *might* have the added problem of merchants not selling high enough level scrolls.

 

For a Rogue1/Wizard X Human is slightly superior to elf, but for your party I'd choose elf so you can use darkvision.
Take 20 dex. 9 wis is not a good idea, 9 doesn't make a difference compared to 8 and the benefits of having more than 3 is low. For this character the elven +2 vs enchantments bonus alone is as useful as +4 wis and if you're worried about will saves you can take feats. "Iron will" is as useful as +4 wis for this character, "bullheaded" adds another +2 (I'd take other feats since you don't have to save often), there's not even a single feat which evens out -1 strength however. So dump wis to 3 or 4 for higher strength. Higher carrying capacity and damage will be more fun.

For the Barbarian1/Cleric the wisest choice at creation would be putting 4 skill points into hide and 2 at move silently at creation. But for roleplaying reasons you can afford to put 4 skill points into wilderness lore, that's enough for the whole game.

A disadvantage of your party is that you don't have a diplomat, so some of the non-combat quests in the prologue will be less rewarding, but that's not important on the long run. It's not worth investing anything into diplomatic skills.

 

about spells, i think iwd ease-of-use added more high lvl scrolls so even playing with party of 2 i had access to a lot of hi-lvl spells, does iwd2 ease-of-use provide that as well? I see the feature list and it wasn't listed for iwd2, but neither it was for iwd1 but i think it was there(could be wrong tho)

 

Hey if I won't squat how much exp im gonna lose
tbh I'm in the goblin fortress at level 8 and my spells work good it's just
there's so few of them and well we have to rest like after 3-4 groups of enemies. So I gladly took more levels now we have access to 4th level spells with both wizard and druid(I finally picked monk1/druid x, since dunno cleric doesn't really suit me i'd rather see myself as a duid plus I want to fight in bear form and use more offensive spells). Problem is I get very little exp now(would get none I guess if not for 'always get some xp for the kill') so any advice on squatting in my case?

 

Having to rest often is in the Goblin Fortress is normal, you're not attacked by single monsters, you're attacked by goblin armies there.
You're already higher level than you're supposed to be at this point of the game. If you level faster the game will become too easy. So just be patient, you'll reach higher levels soon enough.
The boar form is quite powerful, especially if you let the wizard cast bull's strength (and maybe cat's grace) at it after shapeshifting.

 

Squatting is a long-term planning thing, and since you've already taken level-ups to the point where you no longer get much exp for kills, it's pretty much too late to do any squatting anymore unless you drag it all the way to Chapter five or thereabouts.

You don't "lose" any exp by not squatting, you just choose to abstain from exp you shouldn't be able to get in the first place. But depending on how much squatting you're willing to endure, the end result can be anything between a few extra exp to several extra average levels to your whole party at the point where you finally cash in the extra levels. In either case, your kill exp goes down considerably and you'll start losing the advantage little by little the longer the game goes on.

 

Plus its cheating.

 

What is so good about boar form? I have better stats in human form :S
does it give extra attack attack or smth ?

and I heard this guy in other thread talking about panther form, do I need to
select it from feat or I just get it later on ?

thanks for help, i think I will give up on this whole idea of squatting and see how it goes without it


Story-wise

Spoiler

I don't really like the idea of small team taking out goblin fortress..., in iwd1 you had to complete objectives wiping out entire squads was something that came as the by-product and it somehow felt more right

 

Boar form has some damage resistance and you get 2 attacks per round, 1 level before pure warrior classes do. If you also have a Monk level, you'll get to 20+ AC unbuffed, 25+ with Mage Armor and Cat's Grace that last for hours. That's better than your average warrior gets with Full Plate Mail and all...

 

well im all happy because I got another level and got polar bear
and it owns took out whole courtyard in fortress with no problems without haste , just love this bear thing when i'm out of spells(which is pretty fast), i go bear get buffed by wizard and work from there^^ sucks that cant be healed by my mage and can't heal myself either

 

Wild boar form is powerful. You get damage resistance, a weapon which does 3d4 base damage + strength bonus and an extra attack per round (boar, bear and panther forms don't set the number of attacks you get per round to a given value, they add an attack at the best BAB).
Polar bear form gets only 1-10 base damage per round (higher strength bonus for more damage however) and no damage resistance.
Don't spend a feat for additional shapeshift forms, they are weak compared to the ones you'll get in the game later.

 

well i gotta try a boar then, i was kinda skeptical looking at it stats but i figured now that DEX isn't as important as in 2E for melee, i mean form fixing your DEX at 10 would be tragic in BG for example ^^, this Boar looks nice too i don't get it why it moves so slow , but i see they finally figured that bear in fact doesn't move slower than a human! I like wolf form for speed when i get hurt i can runaway and cast a spell.

spoiler question

Spoiler

btw, about that quest that gives +2 to WIS, do I have to be cleric of bane at that time or is it ok if i take a level now(end of goblin fortess) and they will still give me a quest later on?"

 

You are a Banite from the point you take a level in it. There's no such thing has having an "Active Class" in IWD2, apart from the limitations on multiclassing imposed by Monk and Paladin orders, ie. if you take a level in something they don't allow, you can't keep on leveling in them later on.

 

You won't benefit from the priest level before chapter 5 so I wouldn't take it before chapter 4, maybe after getting the 3rd base attack per round at druid level 15. The spells of a level 1 cleric aren't very useful, the spell power you loose because of a missing druid level does make a big difference. You don't even get BAB for the first cleric level, so the BAB progression and gaining of additional attacks per round is slowed down, you'll also want to get the dire bear (better stats and weapon than polar bear form) shapeshift fast.