I am going to buy this good CRPG, but I wonder which is the best difficutly level to play with, to really enjoy the game (not too easy then), but preventing it to become too much frustrating.

The game was created and balanced for normal difficulty.
I played it at normal difficulty and recommend doing so too.

If you think you're a very skilled player you can create a party with low physical stats and disable the max hp at level up option to increase the challenge, but creating a powerful party and trying an unspoiled game with as few reloads at possible (count them, if you manage to beat the whole game without reloading you're really good) should yield a more exciting game.

You can change the difficulty during the game, if the game is too hard for you turning down the difficulty will make it easier.
I don't recommend the harder difficulty levels in your first game. You get more XP and level faster which will make the game easier on the long run.

I've looked all over the intternet, but I can't find what the different difficulty levels actually change. I was able to figure out the the "Hard" setting raises XP gain by 50% and the "Insane" setting raising XP gain by 100%, but how do the setting make the game tougher?

I am assuming the "Heart of Fury" Mode would just increase the trends of the previous slider changes, but I can't find specifics on what the difficulty levels do. I tried looking it up in the manual(s) and using Google, but I can't find anything more than a general "it makes things harder to kill".

Does it change AI script behavior? Is it purely a numeric ratio (50% more HP, more damage), or are there AC and THAC0 changes as well to enemies?

I think the harder levels only increase your XP gain and the damage you take from enemies (*1.5 for hard, *2 for the hardest level) and add some extra monsters in some areas.

HoF mode increases number of enemy HP (*3+80), doubles their number of attacks and damage per hit, improves their thac0, AC and saving throws (I guess by 5 or so) and gives you more XP (*4+2000 for killing, *2 for quest XP).

Cool deal, thanks. That does fit with what I have gleaned elsewhere and from what I have seen in the game.

In IWD2 the highest difficulty mode actually dropped upgraded versions of items. Good times. But as far as I can see there is no real reason to play HOF here, except for getting your ass handed to you. Is HOF intended for level 1 characters? Or is it for a set of characters that finished the game once?

Ingame says HOF is for 13+

Which is going to be a very short experience indeed as when you finish the game + Expansion and you are only lvl 13 then you have done something very wrong.

Something you should take heed, when you multi-class or dual class then HOF might become impossible hard if the game means the experience value of a pure level 13 character as base and not a multi-class character. Those are not the same, after all.

The normal aproach is playing HoF mode with a party which finished the game.
But you can start it at lower levels for the additional challenge, it has been played and beaten with a freshly created level 1 party, even soloed from scratch.

Wow. Though I suppose that get's easier along the way, as the XP bonus kicks in, it's still pretty hardcore o_o

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I personally have beaten IWD2's HoF mode with a single character. It was extremely cheesy and had best in slot items for pretty much everything. I suppose the ultimate challenge would be to attempt it either with a fresh level 1 party or with a single fresh character, if it is possible.

If I recall the character I used was a drow 28 sorc/1fighter/1cleric with a lot of scrolls for healing etc :)


As for the first game.. I would play on normal then give it a run through HoF, HoF should be very possible after the first run through. It should be a decent test of your party composition if nothing else.

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My thoughts on difficulty levels depends on what I want from the game. If I am playing for the first time experience, I tend to go on normal to get the developers intended game-play. If I am playing something just to finish it or for the storyline, I will play on easy as game-play is not my goal and being stuck would just slow down the progression of the story. Finally, if I am looking for in-game rewards or achievements, and they are tied to level, I will play on hard to maximize my results in the first play-through. That way if the game has the re-playability of drying dog poo I will have at least gotten some joy out of it. :)

Somewhat like PCGameGuy, I like to play as hard as reasonably possible on the first pass (if there are lots of levels, I tend to do top-1) to maximize my enjoyment of the game the first time through, and give myself a better sense of achievement when I reach story goals.

In this case, do experienced players think that the XP boost will spoil any interesting endgame challenges [or that Hard / Insane will otherwise mess with the story]? I tend toward slow-developing but endgame-optimized character builds even when I'm not trying to, so that (coupled with the practice earned playing an initially weak character) can already make endgames a bit too easy at times . . .


(I had a blast playing a melee character [for change of pace, since I gravitate toward sniper tactics] in Fallout, and thought she was pretty powerful until I played through again using energy weapons, at which point I melted just about everyone from across the map . . . so I guess my builds aren't always as overpowered as I think, at least in relative terms. :-P )

Difficulty levels adjust the damage taken from the enemies but also chances for critical strikes for them, damage taken by your party by spells you cast (e.g. if you cast fireball on your team members), makes more difficult some dice chances modifiers and so on (e.g. critical misses).

The game is harder than many games these days, on the first levels one ogre may pwn your entire team if you don't know how to play the game.

But try Normal difficulty - the game will be 100% accuarte with DND 2.5

Heart of Fury is even more difficult but this game mode is better developed in IWD2.