I was looking into playing Icewind dale from the beginning as I finished PS Torment and BG1 and 2 each at least once. I usually play through the game solo with a bard or a thief, or monk. I decided on bard. Got good stats and good weapon skills.

I was lvl 4 after doing the fetch quests and had 32 health. The goblins in the beginning couldn't pose a threat. Wrong...

These little assholes were hitting me for more than the kobolds in Mines could muster, 12cric damage and 9 regular damage. The developers must have been nuts when they made this game with or without a party. I was going to go with a finesse class thats out.

I was going to try playing a ranger as rogues and mages are out and I figure a hearty stealth warrior might be able to do it. I decided against it. This game plagued me with its crappiness years ago, its still shitty after all these years.

Even if I went with a party, these games are way too linear and have no flavor to them compared to the other games. In bg1 and 2 and ps torment, I could go into a diner and pickpocket someone for something and who knows what I will get. I go to pickpocket everyone in the entire town at start of IW Dale-Each person had nothing. The developers made this game with one and only one purpose-to make a combat extremely heavy rpg with little to no roleplaying involved and all shit. Its no wonder they went out of business, lol.

Well, yeah. And on that end, both Icewind Dale games succeed immensely, having the most tactical combat out of all of the infinity engine titles. The idea of taking a party you built from scratch and watching them turn into badasses is a pretty gratifying feeling and is one of the reasons I'd much rather replay Icewind Dale than say... Planescape, which has pretty awful combat, for as great as its story is.

That last comment was pretty stupid though. Black Isle went out of business because of horrendous mismanagement by its parent company Interplay, and they also made Planesape, a game you seem to like. Not because you made the stupid decision of trying to solo a game meant for parties of 6 on your first playthrough.

Not really a good idea for your first play through - these games are meant to be party based tactical combat RPG's. I have run through with a party of two and others have solo'd but certainly not on the first play through that I know of. Try building a small party and giving it another try. Icewind Dale is my favorite of all infinity engine games.

Your expectations got in the way.

These games, as you noted, are not intended to be roleplay heavy RPGs. They're much more action/tactical combat oriented. And this is intentional (although there's actually a fairly decent story attached to each of the IWD games). Doesn't meant they're shit. I love all the Infinity Engine games and my preferred genre is RPGs, but the Icewind Dale games are the ones I keep going back to the most often of all the IE games.

You can solo the game on your first play through. Just don't expect the character to do that to be a thief or similar class. You really need a fighter, ranger or paladin to solo this game as fighting classes are the way to go if you solo. I read a review on this game that a user played through the whole game as a regular fighter. If you can play through solo as a fighter with some difficulties, expect the ranger or paladin to have a somewhat easier time. Paladins get some excellent abilities when you get high in lvl and rangers are excellent as well.

I would choose a ranger as they get some sneaking around and can hold their own. Take a longsword/shield and your good to go. Eventually you will be just as powerful as the other classes.

Of course I haven't soloed the game so don't hold me to it.

Just thought of something.

In case the op doesn't want to solo, I have an idea for a 2 man party.

I finished BG EE with a similar setup. If you have a paladin or fighter as your main tank with all the defensive and offensive bonuses, a ranger or even possibly a thief can mesh for a backup fighter. All you would need to do is use the paladin/fighter as a tank while your ranger or thief is a damage dealer through flanking and attacking skirmishes. I used that when fighting sarevok and I would go with a Paladin for a tank and a ranger for a damage dealer.

I even hear that rangers get 2 attacks regular with 1 sword held. Not bad and you can choose to go splint mail or studded armor.

Just an idea.

Had I paid full price for Icewind Dale when it first came out, I probably would have been disappointed. For three bucks (what I paid in a sale a couple of years ago), it's been an entertaining game. It doesn't have the compelling story of BGII, and close to the end of Heart of Winter (I think I'm near the end) the battles are becoming more tedious than challenging. I probably won't replay it. But I have definitely gotten my $3 worth, and playing though it once was worthwhile instead of my ??th BG replay.

Starting level combat in this game kind of assumes that you have a full party.


Goblins don't hit that hard though. Like, statistically impossible for them to hit that hard on normal hits, none of them carry 1D8 weapons and they don't have any bonuses to damage unless you went and bumped the difficulty beyond Core.

Which, if you did, it's your own bloody fault.

The OP reminds me of the video of Soulja Boy reviewing Braid. Eye-roll inducing.

The Icewind Dale games were specifically designed as combat-heavy tactical dungeon crawlers -- it's what sets them apart from BG, BG2 and PS:T. They're more linear and lighter on story elements, but they are great games in their own right and feature what is widely considered the best combat in all the Infinity Engine games.

Maybe you should try to play the game the way it was meant to be played -- with a party of six characters -- instead of trying to solo it right out of the gate. Black Isle did a much better job implementing the AD&D 2E rules than BioWare did, and as a result you might find the combat much less forgiving than in the BG games, but seeing your characters grow from their humble beginnings to mighty heroes of The North is a thing of beauty. I, for one, re-played IWD more than any other IE game.

Lastly -- that final sentence was pretty dumb and hurt your credibility a lot more than the fact that you tried to solo a game that's clearly designed around a party of six characters (with a Bard, nonetheless) and then came on here saying it's "awful" because you're getting pwned by goblins. Black Isle is responsible for some of the greatest role-playing games on this site, including Fallout, Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment and, yes, Icewind Dale and Icewind Dale II.

IWD 1 & 2 are both classics in their own right. They are hardly different gameplay-wise from the Baldur's Gates, the main difference being that they are combat-heavy (that is, there is more emphasis on combat encounters than there is in the BGs or P:T) and that you get to create your entire party rather than just a single character. The game mechanics are pretty much identical. These games are MUCH better than, for instance, Neverwinter Nights. It's a mystery to me why the Neverwinter Nights games seem to sell better than the IWDs. The IWDs games are pretty much Baldur's Gate in the snow : more of the same for Baldur's Gate fans but with more combat.

Some people call them "hack 'n' slash" but that misrepresents them, making them sound shallow and doing them a terrible disservice : the combat here is still tactical turn-based D&D combat the same as you will find in the other IE games. If you want simpler, less tactical combat go for the Diablo games or Morrowind or Oblivion. I'm not saying those games are bad, by the way, I'm just saying that the IWDs, just like the BGs and P:T, offer much more challenging and intelligent combat than you will find in those games.

The setting (a world full of snow and ice) is magical : I can understand why some people prefer it to the world of Baldur's Gate, though overall I prefer the BGs and P : T. There are some beautifully conceived locations in both IWDs and overall the games have a magical atmosphere. The music in the IWDs is perhaps the best of any of the IE games. I have never understood how anyone can love the other Infinity Engine games but dislike the Icewind Dales : it just doesn't make sense considering that the games are so similar.

IceWind Dale II (in my opinion) wasn't ready for release and as such, didn't particularly enjoy it; it felt to me simply as an attempt by interplay to generate cash they needed yesterday. I bought the original IWD when it was first released and still enjoy it, particularly for the reasons you mentioned (the setting and soundtrack).

Your right in that they are similar, and yet there are slight differences that can make or break the experience for a lot of people. I thoroughly enjoyed the story in Torment and Baldurs Gate; the story isn't so flash in IWD. The Icewind Dale series is also much more linear and of course there is more combat. These are things I get bored with after a while..it begins to feel like roll-playing, not role-playing.

Icewind Dale, IMO, is just as good as BG or PS:T. Each has its own focus, but all have excellent stories. If you want "hack & slash" try the old, DOS based Gold Box games (like I'm doing now).

If there's one weakness with IWD1, it's the lack of character interaction/NPCs. That was why Kulyok created her IWD NPCs mod, and why CamDawg and DavidW at Gibberlings 3 developed the IWD-in-BG2 mod. Hopefully the latter will draw some people willing to create new areas, quests and NPCs for the setting, making less dungeon-crawl and more RPG...

At the risk of beating a dead horse, IWD is an entirely different animal from BG; it's a tactical CRPG that focuses on the "C". I got immense pleasure from creating my own characters from scratch and see them evolve together into a well-oiled fighting machine. In a lot of ways, the highly strategic and tactical nature of the combat is extremely engaging, much like another beloved Black Isle classic: Fallout.

While I love BG 1/2, IWD is my favourite, as it lets me get right to the action and the setting, instead of dealing with insipid three-way love triangles with my mage and my druid.