Icewind Dale II Forum Update

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(Originally posted by Tiamat)

Feargus Urquhart, President - Black Isle Studios

Weapon specialization: It works the same way in IWD2. You need to have 4 levels of Fighter to get Weapon Specialization, not just some levels of Fighter and other levels from other classes that add up to 4.

Darren Monahan, Producer

Helms and critical hits: Nope – helmets in IWD2 don't protect you from critical hits like they did in BG or IWD. We also didn't hack critters that are immune to critical hits, we added a nice little flag for that in our creature files.

Paladins of Ilmater: If you multiclass into a Cleric of Ilmater, then yes, you would get the domain spells, but unfortunately Paladins of Ilmater on their own do not get special domain spells. After multiclassing this way, when you go to your spellbook, you'll see three tabs: one for Cleric, one for Domain, and one for Paladin spells.

Dave Maldonado, Designer

Duergar Tidbits: Duergar "generics" tend come in three flavors: hammer-heftin' male warriors, crossbow-carryin' female bolters, and the oh-so-grumpy clerics of Laduguer, dour-faced Duergar Deity of Grumpiness (well not really, but he might as well be).

Do helms protect from critical hits? Helmets no longer protect from critical hits. As in 3E, they are considered just "part of the armor" unless they're magic.

Creeping Doom: It's currently the same.

Bard-Only Feats: This list was recently modified - currently only Lingering Song and Heroic Inspiration (previously a Skald ability) are "bard exclusive.

Number of Feats: There's between 60-70 right now, not counting the various weapon specialization and focus feats.

Traps: I don't have a handy table listing the every single trap in the game's Detect and Disarm rating, but the worst they get on the "balancing guidelines" sheet makes for DC's of 18-28 in the final areas. There are always exceptions to such, of course.
There is a random element; the PC "rolls" a 1d20 and adds his or her total skill (so plus statistics and item bonuses, etc.); meeting or beating the trap's DC means YOU = WINNER.

Stoneskin: The warded creature gains resistance to blows, cuts, stabs, and slashes. The subject gains damage reduction 10/+5 (it ignores the first 10 points of damage, though a weapon with a +5 enhancement bonus or any magical attack bypasses the reduction). Once the spell has prevented a total of 10 points of damage per caster level (maximum 150 points), it is discharged. This is how it currently works. However, there is the intent to switch it over to "10/everything" when possible.

Multiclass BaB: It appears that those wacky programmers finally got them stacking; a 3rd/2nd Barbarian/Fighter has a BAB of 5, for instance. Yey!

Summoning Elementals: Currently E, A, F, & W, and the spell's now called "Elemental Legion."

Shapeshifting: I will say that the shambler form is available as feat. The prereq is currently eight levels o' druid. There are a few more "extra forms" in there, too, but not werewolf.

High-Level Spell Progression Chart:
BARD
20 4 4 4 4 4 4 0 0
21 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 0
22 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 0
23 4 4 4 4 4 4 2 0
24 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 0
25 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 0
26 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 1
27 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 2
28 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 3
29 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4
30 5 5 5 5 5 5 4 4

PALADIN/RANGER
20 3 3 3 3 0 0
21 4 3 3 3 1 0
22 4 3 3 3 1 0
23 4 4 3 3 1 0
24 4 4 4 3 1 0
25 4 4 4 4 1 0
26 4 4 4 4 2 0
27 5 4 4 4 2 0
28 5 5 4 4 2 0
29 5 5 5 4 2 1
30 5 5 5 5 3 1

CLERIC/DRUID
20 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4
21 6 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4
22 6 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4
23 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 4 4
24 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 4
25 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 4
26 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5
27 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5
28 7 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5
29 7 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5
30 7 7 6 6 6 5 5 5 5

SORCERER
20 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
21 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
22 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
23 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
24 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6
25 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6
26 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6
27 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6
28 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 6 6
29 8 7 7 7 7 6 6 6 6
30 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 6

WIZARD
20 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
21 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
22 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
23 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
24 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
25 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4
26 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4 4
27 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4
28 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4 4
29 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4
30 5 5 5 5 5 4 4 4 4

Druid Alignment Restrictions: Yes: N, NG, or NE.

Monster AI attacking other party members across the map if the attacker goes invisible: Depends on how the area's scripted. Much of the pre-fight scripting/AI will be very similar to IWD/HOW; it's the in-fight stuff that's been fiddled with the most.

Goblin Avatar: The goblin avatar colors haven't changed.

Malarites avatar: The Malarites use the Curst Townie avatar, as did Blackrose.

Interface dropping: The interface doesn't drop by the left or right half; it drops by the upper (portraits & customizable buttons) or lower bar (dialog box and interface buttons), or both.

Are there random encounters? No. And if there were, I certainly wouldn't tell everyone about them here and spoil the delight of coming upon it themselves.

Planescape: Torment Connections: Aside from some creature avatars, no, I don't think so.

Robes as armor: Plate mail that's as light as leather still isn't as flexible (and thus arguably shouldn't allow the virtual feats), and junk like elven chain or whatever should be considered "light armor" in the engine (e.g. we set it up so that the game thinks they're just robes with a good AC bonus or something).

Dispel Magic: Currently, I believe an enemy may make a Will save in order to resist having his, her, or its affects removed. It doesn't take the caster or casting levels of the various effects into account - I'm not sure if that'd even be possible within the engine. That is, I think that once the effect hits and is determined and applied, it's not really tied to the original spell or caster.

Spellcraft: Whenever an NPC starts to cast a spell, any PC in line of sight with the Spellcraft skill makes a check to determine what the coming spell will be.

New potions: There's the occasionally wacky thing like "iron rations" (which are basically minor healing potions), but nothing major or significantly game-play affecting.

Item distribution: The item distribution is still being tweaked, so I couldn't say at the moment. I don't think there are an exceptional number of "caster" items, though... most creatures that have them expend them (on your party!) before adventurers can get their grubby little hands on them, but there is a pretty wide variety and many are available in stores.

Doug Avery, Associate Producer

CD number: We are trying to get everything to fit on 2 CDs. Let me re-iterate that. We are TRYING to get everything to fit on 2 CDs. It is looking more like it will be three, but Darren may have a few tricks up his sleeve to make it fit on two.

Will there be new weapon types? There will be no "new" weapons, but there are new variants of existing weapons. For example, we have implemented throwing hammers as weapons now.

Hammers: The hammers are not all magical and can be bought in stores. They do use the axe animation, but it is a pretty quick animation and it works well for either weapon.

Chad Nicholas, Sciptor

Script Speed: Right now it's like IwD1. I'm not sure if we're going to have enough time to look into this before we ship.

Heart of Fury: You can always start a new game in HoF after beating the game, and use the character arbitration screen to make a party of newbies

Can clerics cast heal when you rest? It's be nice, but the difference is only between: "You have rested for 16 hours." and: "You have rested for 8 hours." It's not like it will seriously affect your clerics power or usefulness in your party.

Can your cleric not have a domain? You must choose a domain.

TCP vs. UDP: TCP is terrible for games. When you send a UDP packet, you can forget about it and resend error-correction packets later whenever it is convenient (which is a few milliseconds later). With TCP, you can't send anything else to the client until the first transmission gets there completely. If the data hits a bump on the ol' Information Super Highway, the server can't send any new updates to the client until the original message gets there first. TCP actually ends up creating more lag in MP games than UDP.

Throwing hammer animations: The animation for throwing hammers looks the same as throwing axes. This is because we can't do new animations for the player avatars.

Can you begin a game in Heart of Fury mode? No. You'll have to beat the game before you can play in HoF mode.

Saved games: I'm 99.99999% sure that the save game files are not saved any differently than IwD1, just in a different order/format.

Dual Wielding: One other thing to consider with DW is that you can gain the benefits of two magic weapons. There are weapons that have some pretty nice abilities, and being able to use both at the same time is very nice.

Elven chainmail: Basically, we set elven chainmail up in the engine as "robes", so you can do anything you can normally do wearing robes while wearing "elven chainmail".

Turn Undead: Turn Undead now has a limited number of uses, just as it says in 3E roolz.

Damien Foletto, Junior Designer

Monster Summoning: I was only talking about the monster summoning spells 1-9. One casting, one monster. Five castings, five monsters. There are other spells in the game that have a chance of summoning more than one critter at a time per casting, but I'm not going to list them here. When the final spell list shows up, you can read it there, and then tear through the PHB and see how they stack up. IE limits the amount of PC summoned creatures to 5.

Can you import IWD1 characters? While, in theory it might seem cool to bring in your bad-ass party of level 20-somethings, it would be nearly impossible to play balance. Since play balance is a big part of the game-play experience, it just made sense to set the timeline 30 or so years later, and have a new party of adventurers.

Horrid Wilting: Here's the reasoning why Abi Dalzim's horrid wilting can hurt the party if they're in the way: Powerful spells should have powerful consequences/repercussions, otherwise anyone with an IQ of 2 could fire them off. You should think before you fire, and plan you're attack. Having a spell that sucks the life (fluids, actually) out of living critters is damn powerful, and if it hurt only enemies, then it makes it too easy to use all the time. What can I say, we like to make you think instead of just react. Now, you may not agree with this, and that's fine, but that is pretty much our reasoning for making powerful spells like horrid wilting have consequences. So, the moral of this tale - make sure your party is the hell out of the way before you pop this spell off!

Monster summoning: There are nine Monster Summoning spells, one for each spell level.

Power Word: Kill: Power Word: Kill should be whatever level it is supposed to be in 3E. You can snuff out any creature that has its current hit points at less than 60. A goblin or a god, it makes no difference.