Update to JUPP

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Circonflexe, as far as I know the game doesn't care much what alignment your party as a whole is. There are a few items and spells which care about individual character alignment, but you could cover all your bases with a mix of alignments.

 

Yet, those few spells are good reasons to want an alignment-homogeneous party; mainly being able to throw Holy Word at enemies, or to ignore their Blasphemies and Unholy Blights. (You also get the benefit of being immune to your own Holy Wrath, but this spell is a joke).

 

While I see the point you're trying to make, there's one thing you overlooked. A mixed-alignment party with both the pally/illusionist and dreadmaster/monk DG protectors doesn't need to take Holy Word and/or Blasphemy into consideration due to the protectors' considerable Spell Resistance.

Alignment just doesn't come into play often enough for it to weigh into the considerations. While a miniscule bonus to STR and/or WIS most certainly isn't as important to everyone as it can be to the protector characters, I don't see any other considerations trumping them either. I happen to like the domain spells of a Dreadmaster as well - f.ex. Lathander becomes a bit superfluous by the time I've seen to my party's Druidic and Sorcerous needs.

 

I did one final polishing round to the guide, incorporating most of the stuff discussed in this thread and some new info, such as a greatly expanded list of monster CR's. Submitted the 2.01 version a minute ago.

 

Back to the topic of attainable max level.

I have been doing a complete run-through using an exp table that gives both double exp for kills AND locks the minimum exp at what you'd get at being 7 levels above the monsters. Even then, I haven't reached higher than average level 28 at the early stages of Chapter Six, HOF mode, and won't reach 29 before the game is over by my calculations.

Therefore, it's IMHO rather safe to conclude that reaching average level 26, much less 27 normally should be considered quite a feat, not to be tested by the faint of heart. Getting your kill exp rate about halved for every two levels you reach above 18 is just a total killer...

 

Shouldn't the Ultimate Party field ~5 at least level 5 bards? Luck +5 for everyone makes a huge difference in damage output, not to mention few extra mirror images for each character.

I was planning to have fun with the next party:
LG Drow Pal3/Fter4/Monk3/Sorc20
Fear & Disease immunity, speed, weapon specialization, pal save boni, evasion, magic resistance
Level progression: Pal3-fter4-monk3-sorc4-squat, after squatting 20% exp penalty

CG Drow Bard5/Rog4/Sorc20/Barb1
Songs, evasion, MR & extra fun speed and proficiencies @ lvl 30
Level progression: Bard5-rog4-sorc5-squat, after squatting 20% exp penalty

NG Drow Druid17-Bard11-Rog2
All songs, evasion, all druid spells, bard lvl4 spells, MR
Level progression: squat after lvl 17, gain bard levels all at once or suffer exp penalty (and anyway suffer it afterwards)

NG Drow Sorc20/Bard5/Rog4/Barb1
A copy of character 2, only different level prog.
Level progression: Sorc20-Bard5-Rog4-Bard. Squat when seems necessary.

CG Bard5/Fter4/Rog4/Cleric17
Songs, evasion, specialization, all cleric spells, MR.
Level progression: Bard5-Cler17-Rog4-Fter4. No real reason to squat before lvl 22.

NG Bard5/Fter4/Rog4/Cleric17
Copy of char 5, different level progression.
Level progression: cler17-rog4-bard5-fter4. No real reason to squat before level 21.

Everyone has magic resistance, access to mirror image, some HOF melee capability and evasion. Received magic damage is thus minimised and thanks to the luck bonus the party's magic damage output doesn't suffer that much.

The luck really makes this party: 500% the critical hits, more mirror images, high damage output from spells, full attack rate for everyone, simply insane saving throws.

This party starts showing its true potential rather late in the normal mode, but shouldn't suffer much difficulties early on either. It has some exp penalty, true, and if one does not squat one does not reap its true potential at all.

 

No. Bard songs stacking is a bug (or higly likely one at least), and if you're to abuse it with Lingering Song, just one bard can do it. Just quintuple-double-click on the song icon. But at that point, why not click it 30 times more for a solid +20 luck, ie. maxed everything?

You'll have 60% exp penalty, since you have three classes more than 1 level away from your HIGHEST non-favored level. You could try a Wizard with a male Drow instead.

Here again, not 20% exp penalty but 60%. Replacing sorc with Wizard would reduce it to 20%.

Nice on paper, but not realizable without heavy level-squatting. Plus, you can't "squat" at all at level 28, with 20% exp penalty no less, for the last two Rogue levels.

Rather heavy on the mix-in levels, even for a cleric, but why not?

Luck only affects your PHYSICAL attacks. I haven't noticed it affecting *anything* that has to do with spells, and believe me, I've been checking and double-checking.

Critical hits, yes. Rest of it, no. See above. When you say "Attack Rate", I assume attacks per round? That is purely determined by your level, Luck doesn't affect it in any way.

Well, you *do* have pure cleric, druid and Sorcerer in the early going, so your bases are covered. The three other weirdos doesn't change that fact.

 

I'm not entirely sure about it being a bug (the lingering song thing is, obviously). One does pay 5 levels for the bard ability and easily risks rather severe exp penalty.

Or a party of barbarian1/bard29 humans instead. It would probably have little trouble conquering the game.

One day I might actually take time to play the game instead of making up different sorts of parties.

 

Okay, so what I gathered from this thread is that eventually one man parties and six man parties will all end up at the same average level because at some point the diminishing combat XP will outweigh the fewer people to split it with.

However, I didn't see anyone talking about the really important part, namely how early in the game you'll reach that point. I know for a fact that it can't be the case all the time because I just soloed chapter one with a lone deep gnome druid and I reached level nine after Shaengarne Bridge, while my previous four man low ECL party only reached level six by that same point.

The way I see it, what level you ultimately _end_ the game at has very little importance on anything: a good powergamer wants to rule at every stage of the game, not just the final boss battle. If having less than six party members keeps you at a higher level for, let's say, 50% of the game, then it's a huge benefit.

 

Ha ha, I just had an idea. Someone needs to write a genetic algorithm to choose different parties and play through the game with them, and test which party performs optimally at all levels. Since, at the end of the day, the game is really all about maths, shouldnt be too hard to optimize for.

Genetic algorithm: Algorithm based upon the idea of natural selection. You start with a random population of various parties, say 20 parties each with different party members and party sizes. Then you let them run through the game, and select the 10 best parties from the population of 20 (or less, or more). Some of those you crossbreed (ie swap party members), others you mutate (ie randomly change one party member). Or both. And then you test your new population of 20 (made from the 10 best of the previous generation). And select the 10 best of those to make a new 20. And again, and again. Some generations later you will find the optimal solution to the problem of What party is best for Icewind Dale 2 in normal and HoF?. And hopefully you wont find a local maximum but a global maximum.

 

KFX, chapter one is going to be a little weird because of the way level one and level 3 characters use the same line on the experience table. Furthermore, a one-man party is going to get so much more quest exp that he can keep gaining levels at a pretty good rate even after he gets zero combat xp.

If you were to compare your four member party with a six member party, they'd be at about the same level by the end of chapter two.

 

That a tested fact or a guess?

 

That'd be guess, and completely wrong one at that.

A smaller party is ALWAYS ahead in level. Assuming similar playthroughs, of course. The exp they lose from kills by being at a higher average level is not only compensated by having less people sharing it, but also by gaining proportionally more from each completed quest. Dropping from six to five persons won't really matter much (read: a mere fractions of a level advantage) but a soloer will get to the middle twenties on quest experience alone in normal mode.

As for what happens between the start of Prologue and the end of chapter Two, comparing a four man party and a six man party:

There's a quirky anomaly in the exp awards table in that the early monsters (read: all of prologue and a vast majority of chapter one) end up giving exactly the same or very nearly the same exp all the way until level six or so. Therefore, a smaller party WILL shoot ahead with no or very little resistance from the dynamic exp system early on, at least until 15,000 exp (level six for ECL zero character), i.e. at least halfway into Chapter One.

However, the smaller party much reach AT LEAST two whole average levels higher than the large party before the reduced kill exp per character wins over the 50% bigger exp share each party member gets.* This holds true all the way until the weakest monsters stop giving exp at all, around level 10 (vs CR2) or 11 (vs CR3), BEFORE even considering the further aid from quest experience.

*= During the early levels it's three or even four level's difference between having your kill exp from a monster halved or doubled. See more exact percentages in an earlier post in this thread.

Level ten is 45,000 experience at the minimum, thus 180,000 total exp for a four-person party. This puts us squarely into Chapter Two, and considering such high level has been affecting kill exp for a while already, a quite bit into it rather than anywhere near the beginning.

"So, what about the latter half (or two-thirds or what have you) of Chapter Two, then? Surely the large party will catch up since they're getting more per kills now?"

Not quite. It's the part where the large party finally stops falling further and further behind... in the count of kill experience per character. There's still the thing called quest experience. Which, incidentally, is both extremely large part of the picture in Chapter Two and especially so at the latter parts of it. Which, subsequently, will favor the smaller party strongly, trumping the effect of kill exp many times over.

Therefore I conclude that a four man party is at least one, quite possibly two whole levels higher that a six man party will at the end of Chapter Two. Not only that, but the level advantage hasn't even met significant resistance from the dynamic exp system yet.

JT, feel free to prove me wrong.

 

I don't have time to play through now, but really the best way is to test it:
- make a party of 4 single classed humans, play through the end of chapter two
- make a party of 6 single classed humans, repeat

 

Monster Challenge Ratings?

I've glanced through the CR table in the JUPP, and by 3rd edition rules and XP tables...some of those CRs' are off.

A few notable creatures in early IWD2 (Normal mode) come to mind that stick easily:
Guthma and Lord Rengar are CR5.
The Queen Remorhaz is CR7.
Ice Golem Champions, Crystal Golems and Sherincal are CR9.
Battle Square XP rewards for a rank are (n+3) CR, where n=the Level. So Level 1 is CR4, and Level 10 is CR13.

The XP values by party average character level for each monster follow the Dungeon Master's Guide, 3rd Edition. Defeated the above creatures with different party average levels and the XP given correlates.

For instance, finishing a rank of Battle Square Level 10 with a party level of 6 gives 21600 XP. Doing so with party level 5 gives 24000 XP. Sherincal/Ice Golem Champions/Crystal Golems gave 6400 XP to a level 4 party, 6000 XP to a level 5 party, and 3600 XP to a level 8 party.

As for XP awards, again going by the DM Guide, the award is the same for party level up to 3. It begins tailing off until 6; after 6 it drops dramatically. Hmm. I've written up a guide on this somewhere, I should go dig it up.

 

The listed CR values are the "real" values, i.e. the amount of exp I got with my party at a given level was checked against the MONCRATE.2DA table. I know some of them make no sense and/or conflict with D&D rulebooks, but I'm quoting from the game itself.

 

? But that's exactly what I mean. The moncrate.2da table matches the 3rd Edition Dungeon Master's Table...which begs the question of how you're calculating your party's level before suggesting all those CRs', several of which are wrong (as I've pointed out above).

Ah hang on, I've glanced at the CRs' posted in the JUPP and I can see a common pattern emerging in the ones that are over-estimated. Most of the early monsters were over-estimated by exactly 2 levels. Hmm...you didn't edit any characters or use characters with Level adjustment of 2 (e.g. Drow) in your party throughout your play, did you?

 

To be fair, I checked the CR of many low CR monsters during my playthrough in HOF mode and just removing 10 CR from the value. I did notice a few anomalies there, such as a Goblin Sorcerer being CR4 seems a bit high and some common orcs seemed off by one, compared to the CR values I gathered earlier in normal mode. Not sure what caused this.

There's only one way to calculate party's average level - taking the arithmetic mean and always rounding down.

No matter what level(s) and/or ECL race combinations I've tried, with or without level-squatting or any such trickery, those golems in chapter two have always been CR11. Are you suggesting that you only got exp for CR9? Note that the values listed in the MONCRATE.2DA are halved in the game, that's the equivalent of being off by two CR. You sure you aren't mixing up with this?

 

Quite sure. I've already posted, above, the XP I got for different-level parties in Normal mode against those monsters.

And no, the XP I got from the Moncrate.2da file isn't halved (why should it be, since Icewind Dale 2 is a 3rd-Edition D&D rules game and the Moncrate.2da file is the same as the 3rd-Edition official rulebook?). I'm curious; where did you get the idea it's halved? That will definitely overestimate any CR estimate by 2 or 3, i.e. you'd get the impression it's CR 11 instead of 9.