IWD - part 2 (yes, I will merge these all into my top post when I'm done)

Race Recommendations by Class
Every 4 levels, you are allowed to increase one of your attributes. I will list the primary attribute for each class; you should always increase that attribute. Where I list more than one attribute, both are acceptable.

Fighter
Primary Attribute: Strength (melee), Dexterity (ranged)
Human, Dwarf, Half-Orc, Elf (archer specialist), Halfling (archer specialist)

Fighters make by far the best archers in Icewind Dale 2 (counter-intuitively, they are far superior to the Ranger in this respect), and are well-balanced for all styles of combat. Humans, Dwarves, and Half-Orcs make the best melee fighters, while Elves and Halflings make the best archers. The Fighter class is an ideal pick for multi-classing.


Barbarian
Primary Attribute: Strength
Human, Dwarf, Half-Orc

A superb class choice for a dedicated melee specialist. The barbarian is a close second to the fighter the best choice for multi-classing, and a fighter/barbarian in particular stands out as a great combo.


Paladin
Primary Attributes: Strength (melee), Dexterity (ranged), Charisma
Human, Aasimar, Elf (archer specialist), Halfling (Archer Specialist), Half-Orc (no spellcasting)

One of the trickiest classes to build in Icewind Dale 2 is the Paladin. You need a good strength, a passable dexterity, a decent constitution, good wisdom (if you want to cast spells) and good charisma. That leaves your points stretched very thin. Abandoning your spellcasting abilities in order to free up more points (paladins need little wisdom otherwise) is a viable approach. More than any class, this is one where you'll need to make serious sacrifices. Paladins work well when multi-classed with Fighters or (perhaps surprisingly) Rogues.


Ranger
Primary Attributes: Strength (melee), Dexterity (ranged)
Human, Half-Orc, Elf (archer specialist), Halfling (archer specialist)

The Ranger is essentially a weaker version of the fighter that gets some minor spellcasting and is decent at stealth. It has lower hit points and less ability to use armor so it's not a very good tank, it has no particular aptitude with a bow, and the fighter and barbarian both eclipse it in melee combat. You have to really want that spellcasting to justify a Ranger. Ranger is a mediocre choice for multi-classing, overshadowed as he is by the fighter.


Rogue
Primary Attributes: Strength (melee), Dexterity (ranged)
Human, Half-Orc, Elf, Halfling

The poor rogue got a pretty bad showing in Icewind Dale 2. It's still the best choice for your "pick locks and disarm traps" party role, but he's passable in combat. Multi-classing with one of the primary combat classes (Fighter, Barbarian, or Paladin) is the best long-term career plan for a Rogue.


Monk
Primary Attribute: Strength
Human, Half-Orc

The 3rd edition Monk class is interesting and flavorful, but it has a deep and fundamental flaw: it's a combat specialist that's not very good at dealing damage. As a result, maxing out your strength score to compensate is strongly recommended. Multi-classing is strongly discouraged. The choice of orders is irrelevant, as none of the advertised choices makes for a good multi-class option for monks.

Druid/Cleric
Primary Attribute: Wisdom, Strength
Human, Half-Orc, Dwarf

It's totally up to you how you want to build your cleric or druid. More strength and less wisdom will give you a more combat-oriented character, while more wisdom and less strength can play more like a divine alternative to the wizard. It's entirely possible to get a nice middle-ground. Multi-classing is discouraged.

Bard
Primary Attributes: Strength (melee), Dexterity (ranged), Charisma (spellcasting)
Human, Gold Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Elf

Not quite a spellcaster, not quite a warrior, the Bard is trapped in a bit of a no-man's land. Not much else to say about this guy; the classic “jack of all trades, master of none” archetype. Multi-classing is strongly discouraged.

Wizard
Primary Attribute: intelligence
Human, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Elf, Tiefling

Let's cut to the chase: the real question is, what specialization to take? There are two stand-out choices: generalist for full spell access, or conjuror for extra spells per day. Because you can rest more-or-less freely in Icewind Dale 2, it's entirely possible to make due comfortably with the reduced alotment of a generalist. The conjuror, on the other hand, gives you expanded spells per day and you must only give up one school to get it: the only catch is that this school is evocation. That means no fireballs for you. That's not nearly as bad as it sounds, for two reasons; first, there are damage-dealing spells in other schools, so you aren't completely giving up this niche, and secondly you retain full access to all the wizard's more subtle support spells. At the end of the day, it means you need to play a little more intelligently (rather than just using your wizard as an artillery piece) but his overall power is not significantly impacted.


Sorcerer
Human, Gold Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Elf, Aasimar

The trick with the Sorcerer is choosing spells, since you can never change our selection later. The best advice is variety. Pick some spells that deal damage, some spells that incapacitate enemies, some spells that enhance allies, and some spells that defend you. Try to avoid having two overly-similar spells at the same spell level. Multi-classing is vehemently discouraged.

Hmm, I played with a Cha 3 party leader and I first noticed in the Severed Hand the shopkeeper wouldn't talk to me (for a while, I rested and came back, then it was ok). At first I thought it was a bug, but once I started paying attention, it did happen occasionally in other places too. Assumed it was due to low Cha.

Also in replaying the endgame in frozen Easthaven, I talked to old Jeb in the tavern cellar with different party groups. One time it worked, the next he wouldn't respond. The only difference in my party was once I had high Cha leader, the other time Cha 3 leader.

Also, I know that the 3 "helper" priests in the temple in Lower Dorn's Deep just speak gibberish if you have low Cha, but with high Cha you can understand what they say. I haven't played the game through enough times to see if there is many differences, but there is obviously something going on that changes NPC dialogue.

You still have to hack and slash your way through the game, though, so in the end it seems more about flavor rather than substance.

In IWD1, it seems Necromancy spells are fairly weak. So why not take Illusionist as a specialty and lose necro spells? Or is this different in IWD2?

Iirc, in Temple of Elemental Evil, both the Bard and the Sorcerer could pick their spells on the fly just before casting, rather than having to select them before resting. The explanation went something like the Bard's magic comes from his songs, and the sorcerers very essence is imbued with magic, thus neither of them actually need to memorize spells. I thought it was a nice game mechanic for balancing those classes against the traditional mage.

If you gave up only necromancy than I'd agree, but you're giving up both necromancy and abjuration. It's certainly a workable choice, but I'd much sooner take conjuration and only give up evocation.


This is how it works in Icewind Dale 2 as well. I'm speaking about spells known here; Bards and Sorcerers have a very limited number of spells known, so selecting them wisely is quite important.

OK I did some experimenting. NPCs don't talk to you not because of low Cha, rather because the storyline is ready to move on and you need to talk to a certain NPC to enable this. Thus sometimes in Kuhldahar or Severed Hand or frozen Easthaven, you need to talk with Arundel or Lethias or Everard first before the other NPCs will talk with you.

So I apologize about the mis-info about low Charisma.

Icewind Dale 2 - part 3 - feats

Feats
To cut down on the size of this section, I'm just going to completely omit the "bad" feats. If a feat isn't listed here, that means my analysis more or less that it sucks and you shouldn't take it.

Miscellaneous Feats
Most of these are not high priority, but at higher levels after you've already grabbed the more important feats these make great filler.
Bullheaded/Discipline – a decent way to increase your will save, with a small bonus to skills on the side
Dash – this is a deceptively handy feat.
Dodge – it's a small but meaningful bonus, and pretty much top of the list for "generic filler" after picking every important feat.
Extra Rage – mostly for multi-class barbarians, as single-class ones should have more than enough rage.
Extra Smiting – good all-around choice for Paladins; can never get too much smiting
Fiendslayer – decent, but only later on when such enemies are more common
Heretic's Bane – decent; divine spellcasters make fairly common enemies throughout the campaign
Heroic Inspiration – good for high HP characters
Improved Evasion – a great feat, but held back by the 10 levels of rogue required to pick it. If you qualify it's worth taking, but it's not worth going out of your way for.
Iron Will – the will saving throw is the most important saving throw. This feat increases it by 2 points; 'nuff said.
Mercantile Background – discounts are nice, particularly for those expensive end-game purchases
Slippery Mind – if you have the 10 levels of Rogue to qualify, take this immediately.
Strong Back – most of the time, you'll just use a bag of holding. However, it's not a terrible feat.

Two-Weapon Fighting Feats - Ambidexterity, Two Weapon Fighting
Take both as soon as possible if you intend to focus in two-weapon fighting. The penalty to attacks if you don't have these feats is overwhelming, so make sure you do.

Archery Feats - Precise Shot, Rapid Shot
Take both as soon as possible if you intend to focus in archery.

Melee Combat Feats
Power Attack – a great choice for melee specialists, which often have much higher attack values than necessary. Being able to sacrifice a bit of attack to hit harder can be a very good trade at times.
Cleave – a very good choice for melee fighters, particularly two-handed weapon specialists who will land a disproportionate number of killing blows.
Weapon Finesse – a very niche feat, designed for characters who have a much higher dexterity score than strength score but still fight in melee. Normally, this is only useful for archers.

Weapon Proficiency Not a bad choice for Clerics and Bards (who have limited weapon availability and poor multi-class prospects). For other classes, it's not really worth investing feats into, since improving your weapon focus is only worth a +1 to hit. The fighter, however, can take a second improvement and gain +2 to damage (you must have at least 4 levels of fighter to do this). Especially for archers, which have low damage, this is a very important boost.

Improved Critical Unless you are a dedicated spellcaster who never seriously makes attacks, you want this feat. It doubles your chances of a critical hit, which is way better than any other feat in the game.

Maximized Attacks Not quite good enough for a once-per-day ability, and it has some pretty steep prerequisites. If you're playing a single-class fighter or you're specializing in two weapons anyways it's a decent choice, otherwise not worth all the effort to grab it.

Lingering Song A shoe-in choice for bards.

Stunning Attack Worth picking up for monks.

General Spellcasting Feats
Armored Arcana – a decent choice for multi-class spellcasters. It's a shame that multi-class spellcasters suck. If you do take a level of fighter, barbarian, or paladin, then equipping a shield and negating its arcane failure rate with this feat is a decent approach. Remember that shields will stack with the "armor" spells, but body armor will not.
Combat Casting – a good choice for spellcasters, particularly those who might be casting closer to melee combat, such as clerics.
Spell Penetration – if you want your offensive magic to work against more powerful enemies, you probably want this.
Subvocal Casting – immunity to silence is well worth paying a feat.

Spell Focus
Enchantment – a good all-around choice; most enchantment spells are “all or nothing” so increasing their success chance is very important. Excellent feat.
Evocation – unlike enchantment, most evocation spells still have half-effect if the enemy resists, so improving them isn't quite as important. Still a very good feat.
Necromancy – the best necromancy spells appear late-game, and they're real doozies. Take this to push their success chance through the roof.
Transmutation – there are fewer important transmutation spells, so it's probably the lowest on the list of priority.

Shame there isn't a spell focus: conjuration. Even if it were just for stinking cloud and web, that'd be worth a feat or two!

Elemental Damage Feats Aegis of Rime, Aqua Mortis, Scion of Storms, Spirit of Flame
If you're going to be slinging damage-dealing spells you want to pick up at least one of these. A 50% damage increase is just way too good to pass up, but it can box you in to a very specific elemental type. Be mindful that fire is the most common type found in spells, but also the most common resistance!

18 int for bards is a total waste, there's just no justification for it. If you're looking to max out a bards spell book then 15 int is all you need. In IWD1, bards don't get bonus spells from int and neither does it affect their highest level castable spell. All int does is determine lore and number of spells that can be scribed to your spell book . Chug that +4 int potion to boost int to 19 where you can add all the mage spells in the game. As for lore, I had two bards. One with 18 int 13 wis and the other with 15 int 13 wis. At level 30, both bards had 210 and 205 lore respectively. 3 int points for an extra 5 lore? I'll pass.

Int boosting potions aren't available behind every corner for free. Even if you install a mod to disable scroll scribing failure it still feels far better if you can simply scribe the scrolls you find without hoarding them for moments where you use up rare and expensive potions. There are up to 20 different spells per level.

If having to drink potions doesn't annoy you why bother giving more than 9 int to your mages ?
Why bother creating a character with more than 3 in str, dex or con ? There are potions which set those stats to 18.

A good party should work well without having to use potions.

My comment was based on vanilla IWD, if you are installing mods that remove potions, limit gold drops or whatever then yes, your comment would be valid. But in a vanilla game, you can find plenty of those potions for free and you are usually swimming in gold mid-late game so forking over 400 whatever gold pieces to complete your spell book (if you sold the ptions you found before hand) isn't a big deal. They are neither rare or expensive.

I seriously hope you're kidding with your second comment. 3str, dex, con? I'm sure your smart enough to figure out why that's a bad idea. You would have to chug a potion every time they wore off. Can't move, need a str potion, can't shoot anything or AC too low, need a dex potion, hp low, need a con potion. Needing such potions from beginning to end would be a headache. Int is different in that is doesn't need to be a permanently high stat. Int potions you would only need to use ONCE to finish a characters spell book and after that, you don't have to consider int again because in IWD, the only other use for int is lore. Nothing comparable to carry weight, chance to hit, AC with ranged weapons or hp.

EDIT: coming to think of it, a mage with 15 int is also perfectly viable. In IWD1, int neither affects a mages highest spell level or give bonus spells. A 9 int mage has the same amount of spells as an 18 int mage, the only difference would be the number of spells they could scribe and possibly scribing failure. I say possibly because the IWD1 manual lies a lot.

In IWD1 Imo even a 12 int mage is viable. You will be able to learn lvl 6 spells, which you won't find till the Severed Hand anyways, where you also find items to raise your int to 14. Then you can learn the lvl 7 scrolls in Lower Dorn's Deep. Mostly buffing spells are useful for the final boss battles, and those are pretty much covered by those spells. Lvl 8 and 9 spells are kind of sucky for the final boss, so no need.

This is also a reason why a Bard is not a bad choice as a support mage for IWD1. You get enough spells up to lvl 8 for buffing, some pickpocketing so you can steal the rings in Kaldahar and don't need a thief, an extra battle buff that stacks with all the others you use (song of heros) and after lvl 11 you get healing from your songs too.

I have created a party for IWD1 (2h rerolling while watching TV).
The rules are the same as Baldurs gate1, I hope.
My party has:
paladin (hard to get stats, party tank)
bard (a little bit of everything)
thief/fighter multi (traps, locks, scout)
cleric/ranger multi (divine buffs + fighting)
fighter, dual to mage after level3 (main arcane caster)
fighter, dual to druid after level3 (very hard requirements, wrath of nature)

Unless turn undead is essential, everything importand should be covered.

---------------

But I have some questions about IWD2
I know NWN1+2 and some other games with 3rd DnD rules, but I don´t know for sure which rules are correct:

In IWD2:
-Can gnomes and halflings use every weapon or are they small chars?
-Are bards and scorcerers spontanous arcane casters who learn spells only on level up?
-Max spell level for every class? (to know what main casting stat you need)
mage, scorcerer, cleric, druid = 9, paladin, ranger bard =6? (I´m not sure here)
-if you have 1 level of class A and you continue class B, can you increase class skills of A to char level +3 (2 points needed for each skill point)?
-Can you save skill points for the next level up? If yes, how many?
-If you want to take any level as paladin or monk, you need to start as paladin or monk?
(Means you cannot start as fighter and take level 2 as paladin of helm)
-Do you get more than 1 off hand attac? I do not see the improved/greater 2 weapon fighting feats.
- Does "use magic devise" work only for scrolls?
note: I think the point buy system (with minimum stats) of NWN is better to get balanced chars.

- IWD2 treats small races just like big races
- Yes
- in a normal game as pure class: 4 (paladin,ranger), 6 (bard), 8-9 (mage, scorcerer, cleric, druid)
- to class A level +3 + (Class B level)/2 rounded up
- yes
- no, you can add paladin or monk levels later
- never more than 1
- also for other magic items iirc

Thanks

That means, unlike NWN I cannot make a rogue 1, rest wizard to max out some rogue skills.
Wizards get more skill points than useful class skills.

I tested what I can do in character creation.
In IWD2 I want to have a paladin/fighter as tank and face of the group.
Will a human with 3 int (skills concentration and diplomacy) be able to talk at all?
The leader usually walks first and many conversations end with a battle.
I don´t want a bard or scorcerer to be closest to the monsters when the talking ends.

My understanding of D&D 3.0 is that with an Int of 3, you will only get 1 skill point to assign per level-up. Thus it isn't that your Palladin character will be directly penalized during conversations, rather you won't be able to advance his skills much as he progresses in the game.

Rarely there can be a dialogue option that requires high intelligence to unlock (as in maybe once or twice during the whole game), which you would miss with this character. Also, Palladins tend to refuse payment for their services and cannot do evil or chaotic deeds, so be aware that you will be given no choice but to turn down some reward loot or dialogue options with a Palladin as party leader.

As far as having a Bard or Sorcerer up front, I have generally found enough magic equipment and protection spells by early-mid-game that AC really isn't much of an issue. Till then the Armor spell + high Dex is sufficient protection for a Squishy. The AI ranged attackers often go after your spellcasters regardless of where they stand in the group anyways. Remember Bards can wear chainmail, they just can't cast spells with it on. But the infinity engine doesn't penalize you at all in pausing the fight and taking off armor to cast, then putting it back on again afterwards.

Humans get an extra skill point per level.

If the player isn't opposed to burning some feats, you can take Armored Arcana to offset the spell failure chance by up to 15% (would require 3 feats).

But I just use a Sor with high INT and CHA as the party face and have never had issues with this setup.

regarding IWD2:

if I understand your posts correctly:
- charisma is a dump stat for everyone except paladins, bards and scorcerers.
You can drop it to 3 for everyone else unless you want him/her to talk (or to make "realistic" chars).
The only other thing cha is good for is turn undead, but I never used this a lot in other games.

-Intelligence is a dump stat for every class without many good class skills. (fighter, barbarien, Paladin)

This means for my party:
-An orc fighter/barbarien with int/cha = 1 and the rest =max is a good chioce.
-A dwarf cleric of tempus with cha = 1 and lots of strengh and an axe kills undead (and others) faster
then any turning could

I would use a bard or scorcerer as party face then. Need cha and have conversation class skills.