IWD2 speedrun?

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After the threads posted by Elvenblade on speedruns in SoA (71 min) and IWD (58 min), I was wondering if anyone here had considered a speedrun in IWD2.

Given, say, the Ice Palace, etc, it certainly couldn't be done nearly as quickly as these others (and perhaps not quick enough to make sense as video for speeddemosarchive.com). Even the required targos quests (from shawford) require lots of pointless running around. But still...

Some initial thoughts:

The game would be at core with the 2.01 patch, nothing more. Of course, cheese is encouraged, but unpatched imp invisibility is outrageous...

Main character could (perhaps) be a deep gnome sorc (!), something like S16 D20 C16 I3 W5 Ch14. Thus, some melee power, and even low level thieving skills. Concentration might be the only skill, but possibly it would make sense to take one point in pick pocket (thought I'm not sure where). The ECL and Ch hits would be offset by the AC bonus, MR, non-detection, and the innate spell abilities (blur, invisibility, mirror image: all very useful)... First feat would be combat casting, and then perhaps focus, enchantment...? For spells, start with charm person and chrome orb?

IWD2 party mechanics would also be abused; I would imagine also creating, say, a barbarian with maxed Str, Dex, Con (and high Wis) as muscle when needed (almost like a free summoning spell... plus, they move pretty quick)... These could then be dismissed whenever they aren't useful... It might even make sense to export one version after so as to save experience... the first level versions could be kept around to increase the experience flowing to the party... other characters might be created as well when a particular skill is called for (say, when having a bard would allow one to bypass a large part of a quest...) Once one is created, they're relatively quick to import...

I started out in targos with the gnome and three barbs, in order to quickly wipe out the goblin opposition... the gnome (with an unarmored AC of 19 and decent str) could easily solo the goblins, but that would take alot more time...

the main question is budget; what's the minimum of equipment (esp potions) needed to get by, and then what are the quickest ways to get cash? i.e., is it worth the time to do the phaen quest (you have to kill him anyway), etc?

what should one come out of targos with, in terms of equipment, potions, spells, etc?

 

I'm famous!

Anyway, a speedrun of IwD 2 would be really hard since it's a whole lot longer than IwD and there's not a lot of shortcuts in the game that you can take. Usually you just get stuck in a place and can't leave untill you've done all the necessary quests. e.g. Targos and the nomad village.

So a IwD ll speedrun would at least take well over 3 hours.

A whole lot of fireball potions. They'll save you plenty of time against the orcs.

How about once you've gotten to the area exactly after Targos? Do you have to wipe out the first group of orcs before taking on the next one?
Or can you simply rush through the level and listen to Torak whining about how you've killed all of his men? Even though you haven't even killed any of his orcs.

 

*all bow to the everlasting fame of elvenblade!*

yeah, kinda makes you wonder if they designed IWD2 to make it impossible to do a real speed run...

I tried the non-violent approach with the orcs, but it's impossible... especially with the orcs scripted to follow you around even if you've gone invisible and non-detectable (so you might find yourself invisible but completely blocked in by a whole pack of orcs, apparently waiting for you to become visible again... The main issue is that the druid guy won't talk unless you kill all the orcs in the immediate area... However, you can sneak past the first group, and Torak will come up to you and whine...