Icewind Dale 1

[D.A.Lewis]

I'm so late to the party it's another party.

After years of avoiding the game, a couple days ago I took up IWD after wrapping up Deus EX HR ( only because I'm waiting for Knight of A). I was not a fan of Balders Gate and AD&D rules bore me as far as computer gaming. OTH, my favorite game scape is snow areas and I like a well implemented player party system. So I took the plunge over at GOG and went for it.

Unbelievable
The game still holds up. The game for the most part is totally combat with just enough story to give it meaning. The inter-party character interaction is mostly just party sound bytes it works. What took me for a loop was my party just plain out sucks. I totally forgot all the conventions that went into party design. I forgot that you can spend at least a day rolling for the right character numbers. And because the game was a digital d/l, I had no manual in hand to guide me along those long forgotten game specs.

My party: (multiclass not dual class)

Male Dwarf Fighter (no healing-and accidentally set the script wrong and he was running from battles like a scared rabbit)
Male Half Elf fighter/mage/cleric (points divided amongst each profession-plus can't use mage power while in gear)
Female Fighter/Thief (points allocated to each job)
Female Elf ranger (cleric powers long time in coming)
Male Cleric (vanilla character - but does the job)
Female Wizard (stayed in the teens for hit points until level 7)

As you can see I have no paladin and only one tank fighter. My best fight strategy is to have my fighter and fighter/mage/cleric act as the tanks and everybody else has some kind of range attacks. With this weak party I have to have my fighter search out the area for a strategic place where I have a choke point. And then drag the party from their opening position of the level to the choke point and then lure any monsters to their death . . . most of the time. Occasionally, I somehow managed to lure a battalion of baddies to the choke point and man oh man are those battle nasty. My wizard has a scorcher spell that is highly effective unfortunately any party member that gets in the way also get a little burnt. I'm having a blast and for the past two nights I've went to bed around 2:00 in the morn.

Some of the game play like limited access to your spell inventory is so D&D. Give me Might and Magic spell conventions. However, it is what it is and hear I am playing Icewind dale in 2011 and not when it came out. Also this game is so hard and unforgiving, this is the first time in my CRPG playing experience that I actually pick pocket folks. Justification: Hey I'm out to save the world so gimme, gimme gimme.

Bottom line: after I finish posting - I'm back to the game.

[Daehawk]

I could not get into BG. But I picked up IWD anyways because the snowy setting and such looked fun. Well I loved it and it jump started my Infinity engine game love'n. I went back and finished BG and then ended up getting all the rest when they came out. Heck it even got me to read the IWD trilogy books. And from there i fell in love with RA Salvatore books.

[Lordnine]

I had a weird relationship with the infinity engine games. Could never get into Baldurs Gate but LOVE Baldurs Gate 2 and hold it as one of my favorite RPGs ever. Hated Icewind Dale and enjoyed Icewind Dale 2 quite a lot.

[Baroquen]

Couldn't get into BG/BG2. Loved and finished ID1 and 2. Went back and got further through BG but still didn't finish. Maybe someday.

But yeah, still fond memories of ID. Haven't had an urge to go re-play like I have some other vintage RPGs but do remember enjoying it enough to finish and that's rare.

[Inverarity]

Clerics can be good front line fighters in IWD too, so don't rule out the option of using your vanilla character in that fashion.

Oh, and the IWD series is great. In some ways, better than BG (and in some ways, not so much). I've been itching to do another play-through one of these days.

[El Guapo]

Loved BG2. Maybe I'll pick up Icewind Dale on GOG now, as I never did play that back in the day for whatever reason. Of course, I have much more gaming than time these days, so we'll see. Working on burning through my DVD backlog at the moment in any event.

As for your party, at least in second edition D&D (which I belive IWD was), multiclass characters really aren't as good. Yeah, they can do more types of things, but they progress so slowly that they can't do any one thing particularly well. So in general I think it's best to design your party around single class characters - a couple fighter types, one cleric, one mage, one thief, and then one person of another type (probably either another fighter, or probably another cleric).

I forget the terminology, but I think "dual-classing" can work well though - where you level up to a certain point in one class, then switch entirely to another. Imoen was great for this in BG2 - she had something like 8 levels of rogue, but only leveled up as a mage from that point on. So she could cover all of your lock-picking / trap detecting needs, but didn't waste XP in leveling that up any more.

[NickAragua]

D.A., I suspect you're going to have a hard time later on in the game.

- The fighter/mage/cleric will either be unable to use his mage abilities (due to wearing armor) or forego the main point of being a fighter (no armor!).
- The fighter/thief will take penalties on his thief skills if you wear armor heavier than leather.
- The XP penalties for multi-class characters are atrocious, and you'll be hurting pretty bad late in the game when you only have one good mage and one good cleric, while the pansy elf is still struggling to cast a "Melf's Acid Arrow".

On the plus side, you have a ranger, a single class cleric and a single class wizard, who will form the core of your party. In the end, you have a well-balanced mix, some of them will just take a while to get to the point where they're useful.

Miscellaneous tips:
You can only dual-class humans in AD&D, so good luck with that. As I recall, my favorite thing was to have a fighter that I'd get up to level 9 (or whatever, don't remember the exact number) so that I could have him do 5 attacks / 2 rounds, which was the max, and then dual class him to a cleric. You're hurting quite a bit while the guy picks up the clerical ropes, but then, suddenly, you have a cleric that kicks ass on the front line and can cast spells.

Earlier on (although it sounds like you've moved on from the early on part), your best bet is to just load everyone up with bows and stay at range. Due to the weird AD&D mechanics, low-level characters are much more effective with ranged weapons than they are with melee (and let's not even mention magic).

[Daehawk]

I only used single class characters. I never dual classed them. I had a fighter, fighter, ranger, thief, mage, cleric. I think you could also replace the mage with a second cleric but I never had that much trouble and the mage helped a lot.

I spent at least 4 hours creating my whole party. For the fighters I remember rolling and re rolling over and over and over and over until I got that perfect str roll. I think it's a 18/0. Not only that but I had to be happy with their other numbers too

[silverjon]

You certainly don't need a paladin specifically, but yeah, your choice in multiclasses might hurt later on.

How I did it:
Dwarf fighter
Halfling F/T (good racial bonuses, continue leveling thief skills throughout but effective in combat)
Human cleric (single classed for best turn undead ability)
Half-elf fighter/druid
Elf mage
Bard, can't remember if human or H/E

Particularly with the expansions, you want to take a bard in IWD. The songs are really useful, and you basically get the pickpocket ability for free and a supporting arcane spellcaster. The bard also levels quickly.

Druids receive quite different spells from clerics, including a lot of good offensive ones. I'd recommend having both represented in a party, rather than two clerics.

Remember to initiate dialogue with townsfolk using different races and classes. You may even find a few bonus XP here and there in conversation for doing so. Also, mixing up party alignments helps you to use more of the equipment you'll find.

[JonathanStrange]

Icewind Dale 1, 2 were both games that I had a love/hate relationship with. I loved the character creation and I liked the story and the combat - but they were clearly "just good enough" for me to enjoy yet wish they'd been better. I played the hell out of both of 'em back then and I always thought there'd be more like them and better.

But that didn't really happen. And it's been so long now that I can't offer any suggestions - not that you asked - for a top-notch character.

I'm almost tempted to jump back into the game too. Going back to replay games that both frustrated and intrigued me? If only there were world enough and time!

[El Guapo]

Out of curiosity, about how long does IWD take to play, for a first play through? I'm not a completist by any means, so to the extent that there are lots of side quests that one could pour time into that's not a big issue. Just curious for purposes of budgeting my gaming time.

[silverjon]

The main thing you'll run into on a first play isn't getting sidetracked so much as struggling with combat. It's a hack'n'slashy game, even more when you aren't familiar with the terrain or the opponents. It's quite linear.

This says 50ish hours:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/256221-icewind-dale/stats" target="_blank

That's not taking into account expansion times.

[TheMix]

Ditto on the recommendation to avoid multi-classing. I've always found it makes the characters too weak to be useful.

If you have the time (which can be hard to know), leveling warriors to 9 and then switching (dual classing) can be really useful. You end up with massive health - useful for mages especially. And I think that by the time the rest of the characters hit 11, your second class should be easily caught up. So there will be a level or so where the character will be practically useless, but at least will have lots of health. But you shouldn't run into a character in the end-game that is gimped. Of course, I don't recall the max level in IWD, so it may not be possible to go all the way to level 9.

Also recommend that everyone have a ranged attack. That's how I did many of my IWD/IWD2 fights.

Tip/Spoiler (a minor one):

Spoiler:

when you run into the towers with the archers - you need to clear them. trust me.

One more thing... Which may not be possible in IWD. I did use it in IWD2 though and it was very helpful. It may be possible to play for a while and then 'restart' the game with your party. This gives you a leg up. In IWD2 I remember that I got clobbered early in the game by some orcs/goblins(?) that had some brutal spells. But playing up to that point and then restarting, by the time I got back there the second time I was a level or two higher. Fireball FTW! That and I tended to make a few more saving throws. Big difference.

Now I want to replay. I downloaded the free expansion, but never played it...

[Daehawk]

Also go SLOoooow. Don't rush into rooms or such. Creep slowly into them and stop as soon as an enemy is sighted. This way even if there are 20 enemies close together in a room , only the one you see and attack will fight back. It is much easier this way than rushing in and having to fight them all at once.

[Scuzz]

Use the choke points like you mentioned. In many battles that is key. You will need probably three fighters. I always have at least one character as a thief to open locked stuff. He can also be used to scout ahead at certain points in the game. Ranged weapons work well in IWD series.

Have you dl'd or have the extras to IWD? I think Heart of Winter was attached to IWD. Also a custom made mod about a Luremaster I think. Both are well worth your time.

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is an official expansion pack to the computer role-playing game Icewind Dale developed by Black Isle Studios. It introduced many changes and additions to the original game, and included an all-new campaign. A downloadable expansion pack to this add-on, titled Trials of the Luremaster, was released for free.

[NickAragua]

Loaded this up last night briefly (along with "Heart of Winter", "Trials of the Luremaster", "Fixpack", "Tweakpack" and "Unfinished Business"). Hoo boy, that's an unforgiving game. You start out pretty much butt naked, just some underwear and a quarterstaff. So, after navigating the horribly complicated morass of "who can use what equipment", I take a walk outside, run into a bunch of goblins and get a party member killed (the mage, of course). Even the Gold Box games were more forgiving than this. Sheesh.

[silverjon]

Save early; save often.

[Scuzz]

Save early; save often.

excellent advice for this game because you will die and you will die often......

[Jaddison]

I remember consulting the GG boards for tactics to survive....basically you have to use advanced squad tactics at all times to survive...when careless slip and boom someone dies

[Freezer-TPF-]

Bards are indeed very useful in IWD, as already mentioned. Not only do you get songs, spells, and a little thieving, you also get high lore for ID-ing all that loot without having to use ID spells.

[D.A.Lewis]

What a game. I find it unbelievable that 10 years later this game still works. And I'm not talkin functionality but playability. I'm so glad I cut my CRPG teeth on Wizardry 1. As it stands now, just about anything made after Wiz 1 does not effect my eyes. It's all good

As far as IWD, my multi class elf guy got demoted to range action only. My Ranger is now a front line gal and my fighter thief can either go range or mele. As stated earlier My fighter, mage and cleric are awesome.

In chapter two there's this one dungeon level that I was not going to beat. I was ready to give the game up. I did after all put in about 30 hours over the holiday weekend and felt I got my money's worth. But before I packed it in, I decided to explore the whole level just to . . . . well explore, because that's what I like to do. In any event I came across this room filled with good guys. Mages, clerics, fighters and after I opened up the room and a few words, they all just took off with out even a by your leave . . . In any event, later that day . . . I was getting my ass handed to me in in another part of the level for what I thought was my going to be my last battle of the game and out of no where, those good guys I freed earlier came in and helped me beat the baddies. It was eyes welling up amazing.

[NickAragua]

I've decided that the only way to overcome my OCD will be to borrow a page from the old school Gold Box games and use a save game editor to set all my characters' ability scores to maximum. I spent about half an hour yesterday clicking that damn reroll button trying to get optimal stats for the characters I was building before realizing that I had just spent half an hour clicking on a reroll button.

[Two Sheds]

Man, I loved Icewind Dale. Must have re-played that thing three or four times. It was always one of my top Infinity Engine games. I was super-excited about Icewind Dale 2, but for some reason I never got very far into it. Maybe I should give it another shot!

[TheMix]

Man, I loved Icewind Dale. Must have re-played that thing three or four times. It was always one of my top Infinity Engine games. I was super-excited about Icewind Dale 2, but for some reason I never got very far into it. Maybe I should give it another shot!

I enjoyed IWD2 more. I had a couple of sensational battles. I don't recall any of the battles in IWD very well. I liked the game, but I don't recall any where I really had to scramble. There were at least a couple in IWD2 I had to fight multiple times to try and survive. I think one ended with two members of my party still standing...

And I will suggest once again that you play until your characters are level 3 or so and then restart. It won't affect the endgame, but will make some of the early stuff a little easier. Unless you want a challenge.

Then there are the people that solo the game. I was never brave enough to try that.

[silverjon]

I've decided that the only way to overcome my OCD will be to borrow a page from the old school Gold Box games and use a save game editor to set all my characters' ability scores to maximum. I spent about half an hour yesterday clicking that damn reroll button trying to get optimal stats for the characters I was building before realizing that I had just spent half an hour clicking on a reroll button.

Dalekeeper it is.

[Paingod]

I've decided that the only way to overcome my OCD will be to borrow a page from the old school Gold Box games and use a save game editor to set all my characters' ability scores to maximum. I spent about half an hour yesterday clicking that damn reroll button trying to get optimal stats for the characters I was building before realizing that I had just spent half an hour clicking on a reroll button.

Dalekeeper it is.

It's funny. I'll click those reroll buttons 12,000 times over 3 hours instead of using a character cheat. I don't get it - but I feel compelled to play "by the rules" even if the rules force me to take time to get the right character. I feel more like I "earned" that score, and get more attached to the character.

I can't remember if I played 1 or 2 - but I vaguely recall thinking that characters progressed too quickly as I got into higher levels... that the game was too short. I don't remember it being bad - maybe I just wanted to play longer? Probably.

What a game. I find it unbelievable that 10 years later this game still works. And I'm not talkin functionality but playability. I'm so glad I cut my CRPG teeth on Wizardry 1. As it stands now, just about anything made after Wiz 1 does not effect my eyes. It's all good

I'm also glad I was raised on floppy-disk installed games, DOS prompts, and can remember thinking 8-bit graphics were incredible. There's so much great content from times when pretty didn't matter as much as awesome did.

[silverjon]

IWD is a beautiful game. Sure, the character sprites are not so much to look at, but the painted backgrounds are nothing short of stunning. No tile sets here.

I don't use the IE "Keeper" editors for creation, but I'm pretty well-versed in them because they can be invaluable for troubleshooting, and if someone's gonna obsess about maxed-out stat scores and doesn't have qualms about just editing them to whatever they want, I don't really care what they do to their single-player game. It's just a tool.

[D.A.Lewis]

Need some suggestions on the best autopause functions to use.

Not using any of the autopause basically turns the game into an action RPG. Very hard to win those battles when the monsters are swarming you.

[Two Sheds]

I don't think I ever changed them from the defaults, in any of the infinity engine games.

[Freezer-TPF-]

Need some suggestions on the best autopause functions to use.

Not using any of the autopause basically turns the game into an action RPG. Very hard to win those battles when the monsters are swarming you.

From my very fuzzy memory, I think the key ones you want are something like "autopause when enemy sighted" and "autopause when target is destroyed" (so you can pick a new target for that character instead of having them stand around admiring their work).

[disarm]

Need some suggestions on the best autopause functions to use.

Not using any of the autopause basically turns the game into an action RPG. Very hard to win those battles when the monsters are swarming you.

From my very fuzzy memory, I think the key ones you want are something like "autopause when enemy sighted" and "autopause when target is destroyed" (so you can pick a new target for that character instead of having them stand around admiring their work).

I'll second this...other options aren't nearly as important as those two. You need the game to pause immediately when an enemy comes into view so that you don't trigger a swarm and become overwhelmed. Pausing when a character's target dies is also important because it allows you to pick an appropriate next target rather than relying on the AI to do what's best. Through all the IE games, I never used the AI options but chose instead to micromanage all of my parties actions and it seemed to work out much better.

The only other auto-pause option that you might want to consider is the one for spotting traps...keeps your whole party from walking into them if you don't notice soon enough.

[D.A.Lewis]

Thanks guys - and yes it does seem the guys and gals do tend to take a break after killing a foe. I'll give those options a shot right now.

[NickAragua]

So, let's say I have a thief with "Open Locks" at 125 (the max). Furthermore, let's say I have a bard use a song to boost him up to 135 "Open Locks". How come the dumbass still can't disarm a trap for beans?

[silverjon]

Because opening locks has never been used for disarming traps in any game built with the Infinity Engine. The skill is find and remove traps.

[NickAragua]

Thanks, go figure. For some reason, the description of the 'Open Locks' skill implied that it was used for disarming traps as well. Or maybe my reading comprehension is starting to disappear. I'll test it out when I get back home.

Good thing you don't get XP for trap disarming in Icewind Dale anyway, 'cause I'm pretty sure I've walked over about half the traps instead of disarming them.

[Zekester]

Had a blast with IWD after using the Dalekeeper mod.

One-hit skeleton crushes right from the beginning FTW!

.

[PLW]

I've been playing this too. I'm using a 3-character party. They started as Pally/Fighter/Fighter, but the fighters have since dual classes into a Cleric and a Thief. It actually makes the fights pretty easy, since none of the characters are too squishy.

[D.A.Lewis]

Finished.

Right around the end of Chapter 3 the game was becoming a chore. And by the time I fully got into Chapter 6, I was in full cheat mode. There was some kind of hiccup in the program because the final boss would not die. I was battling him for literally 2 hours while he was in almost dead mode. I cheated and resurrected my whole party (I only had a warrior and ranger at the end) and fought with melee and magic for another half hour and he still never went below almost dead. (note: UCLA had just won an improbable football game and I was in an ecstatic mood). . . . that is until I unleashed Control Y (cheat console - dead NPC)

take that you cheating ass final boss bastard muhahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

okay, good game but I could never play this type of game again. The D&D rule set is too tedious for me. I hate spell memorization and want access to all the spells in my library. Mighta been a neat thing in the day, but just too frustrating for this gamer. OTH we are talking about a game that is over 10 years old and a game engine that is probably far older. I see around the Nets that some gamers want to see more games like this, great. Hats off to the guy who did the voice over for the final boss - a perfectly acted piece of villainy, way over the top and quite enjoyable. Actually all the voice overs were great - far better than Gothic 2, my favorite RPG of all time.

"MY" NOTES
Add, when the in game maps are viewed as area map overhead - they all look like pieces of art
Add, I also loved how quickly the game completely started - typically less than 10 seconds
and of course the music was great - OTOH, I like how today's games have the music continuous and not just an intro to a new area
Favorite spells: raise dead, agannazar scorcher, haste, monster summons 3
Cleric seemed far to weak in this game - there needed to be massive heal spell
My level 15 ranger only had access to 5 spells???
I hated that there was only one of some of the good objects (boots of speed)

Final analysis - good game. I will remember this game fondly. But like Wizardry 1 or Might and Magic 1 - I will never go back to it.

[NickAragua]

Still slogging through this thing. Basically, it's like the Fallout Tactics of Infinity Engine games. The elf towers are really getting to be a drag, and I've only cleared out the first one. At least there's a shop in there so I can unload. It's quite a motley crew: A paladin, a ranger dual classed to cleric at level 5 (this guy has 186 hit points!), a fighter that will become a druid at level 9, a thief that will become a mage at level 12, a bard (almost completely useless) and a fighter/thief elven archer who has probably shot off more arrows than all the bad guys and the rest of the team combined.

D.A. Lewis: Having played games with 3rd edition D&D rules, I agree that AD&D rules are pretty awful by comparison. The arbitrary race/class restrictions, "THAC0", the unintuitively named saving throws (how often do you actually encounter a "death ray"?), all that stuff needed to go (and went, in 3rd edition). D&D mages have always been kind of a "bring this guy out for the important fights, but have him sit in the back with a slingshot most of the time" character. I don't think having a mana pool would really change that. While we're at it though, I wish the fireballs had some sort of area of effect indicator so you'd know whether you're about to nail your own dudes. Wonder if there's a mod that does that.

I love the Monster Summing / Animate Dead spells, they're great for when you know a fight is coming and need some meat to take hits from fireballs and other nasty spells. Hell, in Baldur's Gate 2, you could easily conduct a fight vs a spell caster using summoned critters entirely - just summon them, the bad guy will blow all his high-level spells on a bunch of piddly little skeletons, then you can send in your actual fighters to finish 'em off.

[D.A.Lewis]

Still slogging through this thing. . . .

" . . . THIS THING . . ."

yeah . . . just about the same time it hit me.