Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Tiamat)

JE Sawyer, Lead Designer

IWD2 Logo: I figured some of you guys might like to see the IWD2 logo at a decent resolution. Here ye go: http://feedback.blackisle.com/images/iwd2logo.jpg


Sub-Races are Overpowered: The testers have, to date, disagreed with you. People play standard elves as often as dark elves, shield dwarves as often as duergar, humans as often as tieflings.
Being a level lower than everyone else as a single classed character is annoying.

How big a difference will the XP penalty make? It will make exactly one level of difference, actually. A moon elf fighter with 250,000 XP can be 9th level with his or her standard bonuses. A dark elf fighter with 125,000 XP is 8th level and gets an additional +2 to intelligence, faerie fire 3/day, magic resistance, day blindness, and vulnerability to fire spells.
BTW, the reason the penalty ends at 10th level is to keep dark elves and other races one level behind everyone else, instead of many levels behind everyone else. If they kept their penalties, the moon elf fighter above would be 20th level with 3,000,000 XP and the dark elf would be 14th level with 1,500,000 XP. That's a little severe.

Racial Bonuses: We're not bowing at an altar, here. Not all racial bonuses and penalties can be implemented according to the FRCS totem pole. In fact, the deep gnome's Non-Detection power (and Non-Detection in general) downright screws up the whole game when combined with Invisibility. Drow cannot levitate or cause globes of darkness to appear. Ghostwise halflings cannot telepathically communicate with other halflings (and even if they could, how often would that come into play?). In the course of adding and subtracting the various powers that sub-races can and cannot have, we find ourselves balancing according to what is left of their abilities.

2nd Edition Multiclassing: 2nd edition multiclassed characters will, in the vast majority of cases, be superior to any single classed character you can come up with.
A 7/7 fighter/mage is better than an 8th level fighter AND an 8th level mage -- even if you take high mastery into account. A dual-classed fighter/mage is superior to that, since you can milk all the grandmastery benefits as well. This is why so many people dual-class characters from fighter to another class. This is also why I loathe 2nd Ed. multiclassing. Kits should be compared to the base class, not to multiclassing. If you do that, you may make the startling revelation that 2nd ed. multiclassing is really really really really dumb.

The Captain Kit: It seems to be pretty useful in IWD2. There aren't as many undead creatures in our game. I can ask the testers again, but they seemed to like it.

The Ninja kit is mammals-only: It simply limits the ninja kit to mammal races. Only mammals possess the ability to a) be totally awesome b) flip out and kill anyone.

Realistic Weapon Purchase: "Realistically", a mopey blacksmith in Kuldahar shouldn't even have +3 weapons to sell you. If he did, he wouldn't be in Kuldahar. We suspended that bit of realism to give the player access to nice store weapons. In exchange, we took away the "realism" of being able to slaughter him and take all of his items.

Magical Armor: There are very few suits of magical armor in the game greater than chain mail.

Point Buy: The point totals aren't finalized yet.

Why IWD2 is not a 3E game: 1) Feats. Take a lot of time, hard to implement well.
2) Skills. Not so much programming time, a lot of designer time.
3) True 3E multiclassing. A hell of a lot of programming, design, and QA time.
Those are the three main reasons. If we could implement those, we'd only be missing bits and pieces -- oh, and attacks of opportunity, which I doubt many people would miss.

Stat Increases: The vast majority of statistic increasing effects in 3E are enhancement bonuses. Instead of subdividing effects for those 10% of items and spells that grant goofy bonuses, we just lumped them all together.
Besides, some of those different bonus types are often used in the most cheesy ways imaginable. Check out the Armor of Command in Defenders of the Faith. That's just ripe for abuse by a paladin or blackguard with a Cloak of Charisma.

The Haste Spell: Haste will give one character one additional attack. Improved Haste (6th or 7th level, I believe) will give all allies in an area of effect one additional attack.

Does Defensive Harmony render Defensive Coordination redundant? No, since generic AC bonuses always stack with each other. We may place a cap on generic AC bonuses to keep AC within the realm of the sane, but generic AC bonuses need to stack to be the "catch-all" of bonuses.

The Captain Kit: Would you guys rather have an Improved Forced March as a 9th level ability instead of Defensive Coordination? Defensive Coordination would be removed entirely. I think the captain is reasonably balanced, as written. Adding another power on would stretch that.

Saving Throws: Did I mention that we are using 3E saves and DCs? When a spell is cast at a character, their saving throw must meet or exceed the DC of the spell being cast. The spell DC is 10 + spell level + ability score bonus.
Ability score bonus is the 1 for every two points above 10, -1 for every two points below 11. It is based on your class. A mage with an 18 intelligence increases the DC of his or her spells by +4. A bard with a 16 charisma increases the DC of his or her spells by +3.
A mage with a 20 intelligence casting Abi-D's Horrid Wilting would force a save with a 10 + 5 + 8 = 23 DC. High level characters have a good chance of making the save, but the difficulty does increase.

Kevin Osburn, Line Producer

Interface Screenshots: Once the interface is done we will release some screenshots detailing the functions of the buttons. The interface is coming together now, and it looks great.