IWD2 gets an HD Let's Play!

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Coin: As one of the goals for the LP is to show the game unmodded, i.e. the way the designers intended, I'm afraid your party guide would have never made it.

I always find it incredible how much thought some people have put in character creation. I use a guide precisly to avoid having to worry about it, and so that whenever people ask me "why did you do this" I can just say "read the FAQ". Making videos takes enough time as it is.

Haven't got time to put up any new material as of late, but should soon. Some Serious Sam : Second Encounter stuff coming up in the meantime.

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Great idea, will have to use it at some point. I've been playing quite conservatively (except for the Shaengarne Bridge segment) up until now, might try some more fun stuff later on. If you make suggestions before I actually record stuff maybe they'll make it.

I'm from Quebec, Canada.

 

I totally agree.

Took me a while to realize that just because a mage is supposed to concentrate on spells, there's no actual need to artificially limit his abilities in physical combat to get there. You can easily have both.

Although it DOES create a rather humorous catch 22 -situation when your Sling/Flying Death/Kitchen sink of throwing +5 (tm) does more damage than the spells you could be casting instead...

 

Aight, The Crash Site is all recorded and should get on Youtube in the next 24 hours or so. Following kmonster's advice, I've chosen to arrange a meeting with Illium through Odea.

Next areas where your input can make a difference (and is appreciated):

- The Ice Wall: battle with Sherincal. How would you approach this?
- The Ice Temple: the battle square. Is it possible to finish all ten on normal difficulty the first time you get there? Any particular strategies? Remember I'm using the UPP.

 

Try clearing as much of the Ice Wall and Ice Temple areas before cashing in the quests for those areas. That way you won't get reduced kill exp for the monsters in those areas.

 

The smart (coward's) tactic for fighting Sherenical is killing everyone else first and then running away so you only have to fight her alone.

The battlesquares can be won on your first visit, but you'll need a lot of cheesy saving and reloading. I recommend doing the first ranks (until you get the club of disruption) when you've cleared the temple and returning after clearing the underdark unless you get stuck before.

Don't forget to get a favor from Nikademus (the items are most beneficial) so he can summon you in chapter 5.

 

About the quests in Chapter Two:

Although it is powergaming to the last minutiae details, it's not really any stranger than taking a long route in doing ALL of the quest stuff in one fell swoop instead of doing it in small portions.

 

Let summons keeps her minions preoccupied. Cast Web, Grease and Entangle to keep any stragglers from following. I believe Sherincal teleports to you if you try to move away. So buff to the max, and wail at her. Hopefully nobody will die, coz she's a real meatgrinder. This is a challenging battle, one where you're forced to utilize the spells to the best of your abilities. Try to explain your strategy beforehand, and don't worry about pausing too often - that's what the button's for.
Autopause:Spell Cast is a great option, so you don't wast time between castings. The Drow's Faerie Fire casts instantly, bypasses spell resistance and has no save, effectively lowering Sherincal's Armour Class by 2, which really helps. The best buff spells are up to spell level 4, so you should have full access to them already. Summon, then Bless, Prayer, Recitation, Magic Circle and Emotion: Hope. You should do fine.
Oh, and look out for a surprise attack from behind...

 

I would suggest doing only the minimum 1 rank of battle squares -- its no fun to watch.

If you do all ten ranks, definitely edit it down.

 

Yes, IMHO the most important part of fighting Sherincal is to kill her reinforcements before the battle starts, i.e. after she retreats and before you charge in after her.

Also IMHO the way the game designers set things up to sucker you into being pincer-attacked when she retreats is pure genius.

-Max

 

I appreciate your input, Sir Rechet, but in case you haven't figured it out by now, I am not powergaming by any stretch of the imagination. I use the UPP for convenience, not because it has "powergaming" in the name. Choosing a path that shows the logical connections between quests, their most entertaining resolutions, and that minimizes walking around is much more important for my LP than getting the maximum xp out of an area.

To all: many thanks for the comments, you help keep me motivated.

 

Now I'm confused. In vid 62, 04:43, I swear i saw a pair of gloves from that mod merchant that hangs around at the inn (the one that refuses to trade with paladins). I believe the item is called Lightfingers, with +1 to Pick Pocket and Open Lock.
The item is quite innocuous, and isn't going to spoil your gameplay. But now I'm not sure if she isn't a collector's edition bonus merchant, that I had to install through a mod...

 

I don't know, I assure you I didn't install any mod. I use the "Ultimate Collection" edition patched to 2.01.

 

IIRC, the bonus merchants are enabled in the Ultimate Edition. The mod lets people who didn't buy the ultimate edition get the same experience without falling for the cheap marketing trick of a "bonus edition".

-Max

 

While you're correct that reaching the "zero exp per kill" point will, in fact, erase any prior exp differences, it's also proper to note that such situation should never even exist in the first place. The Dungeon Master's guide points it out explicitly in that if a party ever meets monsters that are more than seven CR higher or lower than the party itself, it should be put under SERIOUS sanity check*. Also, reaching the zero exp per kill plateau is a feat of accomplishment (ie. "you're maxed out, congratulations") rather than something you should be worried about.

Unless you're playing with extremely low average ECL parties, you practically never meet such monsters in IWD2, giving yet another reason to use at least one high ECL party member. And even when you DO meet such mobs, they're the ones that give the least exp anyway so you'll need more than just a few to even out possibly thousands of exp difference gained earlier.

* = Now that the "perfectly balanced exp table" is available (do a forum search), it single-handedly solves this design FAILURE of IWD2.

 

Heheh, the item that I thought came from a mod merchant is in fact the Elven Sewn Gloves, sold by Ulbrec's wife. I noticed it as you examine the items in video 74. The picture used is the same. It's not a mod item, my apologies.

I see in vid 75 that you took my advice of using Faerie Fire when battling Sherincal. But it doesn't seem to have helped much, since you used mostly damage spells to defeat her. Sometimes I forget how effective damage spells can be in normal mode; Sherincal doesn't even save against most spells, let alone have Spell Resistance!
It's also ssurprising that she retreats afer taking some damage. I play the Tactics mod, and in there, she actually uses teleport to follow you if *you* retreat.

 

Yeah it turns out that either UPP is stronger than I thought, or IWD2 is easier than what I remember (and I used to play on easy, for the LP I play on normal). Sherincal fell easily, I barely took a scratch. And in the whole temple area I'm basically just mowing everything down without even looking (videos will be uploaded soon ).

The battle squares are challenging though. Ranks 5 and 6 were hell, especially the Water Elementals and Rhemoraz; the former seem to resist everything, while the latter can easily do 40+ damage per hit. With 160hp and nothing better than extra healing potions, Xavven had a hard time cutting it.

Once I got the mace of disruption I was seriously fed up (one rank = 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 = 25 battles, times 6 = 150, + all the deaths and screw ups), but I tried rank 10 with it just by curiosity, and it made a HUGE difference. I one-shot killed everything that was thrown at me, from Apocalyptic Boneguards to Glabezus. What does "outsiders" really mean? It seems to apply to elementals and demons, but does it apply to all summons? Does it apply to all monsters summoned in the battle squares? If so, I will probably start with rank 6 to get the mace of disruption asap and speed up the whole process this way.

 

Outsiders refers to them originating from a different plane of existence. Undead are from the negative energy plane, demons from the Abyss, devils from the Nine Hells, elementals from their respective planes. Even devas and angels would qualify as Outsiders. High level monks gain Outsider status late in game, but how that comes about is uncertain.
There are certain monsters that aren't Outsiders though, Remorhaz are indigenous to Faerun, and I think Feyrs are considered local too. So the disruption effect doesn't apply to all monsters, or to all summons. At least, that's the idea.

P.S. you picked up items from Sherincal's body, and commented that the potions were worthless. I assume that you don't consider a permanent 2/- slashing resistance to be worthless...

 

I know none of the guys in the UPP use short swords as their weapon of choice, but you should consider pushing for the Rank 10 reward. It's a Shortsword +5 that ignores armor, far better than anything before Kuldahar, and debatable even there. Ice Spear +4 ain't bad either.

Also: I haven't seen you use the Power Attack feat yet, not even when fighting stunned or otherwise incapacitated mobs?

 

Outsiders are beings that are at least partially composed of the essence of another plane - not of the Material Plane or the 'Prime Material Plane' which is where Faerun is.

This is 'Essence' and not 'Material' as planar travel (including summoning) is sometimes referred to as the body one one plane is broken down and reconstructed in the material of the destination plane.

Angels are Outsiders (Good), Demons are Outsiders (Evil, Chaos) and Tieflings and Aasimar are Outsiders (Native) - the brackets indicate subtypes which in the greater 3.5e ruleset has rules for each one in terms of banishment and spell affects.

Elementals are Outsiders with (Earth), (Water), (Air) etc subtypes.

Monks attain a spiritual level where they become a part of the greater surrounding thus attaining the status Outsider as their awareness leads to an ascension of sorts, they are beyond human into a state of greater attunement to the world and themselves - they become a PART of their world, their essence is no longer a seperate, unique, aspect but part of something greater.

 

Yeah I'm probably going to go for all 10 ranks. With some editing the segment should be shorter than a full day.

Even with it on the taskbar, I can hardly be bothered to use that, given how we already rip through everything with relative ease; it feels like a worthless micro-optimization. However for the Battle Squares you are definitely going to see me use every asset in my arsenal.

Here's a list of the buffs I use for the Battle Squares (Xavven the Figher(4) Barbarian(x) does all the killing):

Bless
Protection from Evil
Emotion: Hope
Champion's Strength
Cat's Grace
Stoneskin
Prayer
Recitation
Haste
Improved Invisibility
Invisibility Sphere (for the party, in case of a teleport)

+ the occasional Power Attack, Barbarian Rage and Maximized Attacks, and gobs of healing potions.

@coineineagh & 8people: thanks for the detailed description about the outsiders, much appreciated.

Gee, thanks for pointing that out ! The potion I picked up actually gives magic resistance, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless. Thank God I didn't sell it already. I've added an annotation to correct my statement. You officially have your name in my LP now.