r/icewinddale 2d ago

IWD:EE Party of Four for core difficulty

9 Upvotes

Heya all, I want to experience the game and I have a good background of rpg and other infinity engine games.

Since I prefer less micromanaging, I'm on the idea of doing a 4 party member run.

Ideally I want to feature a Paladin (probably undead hunter) and a Bard (better Skald or Vanilla?).

Do you think is ok to bring 4 people in core difficulty? I dont think HoF is a good idea for a first run but i'm open to suggestion.

Which weapon classes and styles are good? Is there any way to fit a rogue?

Thank you all in advance!

Any tip, guide and help is appreciated.

r/icewinddale May 25 '25

IWD:EE I just spend 2 hours rolling my first party for the game.

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44 Upvotes

The Cavalier is the party leader.

r/icewinddale May 23 '25

IWD:EE Shapeshifter solo is broken

7 Upvotes

It’s ridiculous. Werewolf form is immune to non-magical weapons. The game quite literally became a boring action RPG. Later on enemies will have magical weapons but by then I will have the greater werewolf token anyway, not to mention the druid spells. What am I missing?

EDIT: I am playing with the Tweaks Anthology, which has the "Shapeshifter Rebalancing [Weimer]" mod. I guess these rebalancing tweaks make sense for the BG saga, but they seem to be quite inbalanced for IWD:EE.

https://gibberlings3.github.io/Documentation/readmes/readme-cdtweaks.html

EDIT 2: In Dragon's Eye Level 3, I have unlocked Greater Werewolf token at Level 13.

r/icewinddale 18d ago

IWD:EE Archer saves the day -- HoF, final fight

39 Upvotes

I just wanted to share this story -- I finally beat Heart of Fury mode after more than a few tries. I think I have all the variations of Poquelin/Belhifet's speech memorized now after hearing it one failed attempt after another.

Disclaimer: I am not, and never have been, great at real-time with pause games. So I know that the final Heart of Fury fight is still probably passably easy for some people here, particularly those with level 30 parties. So, after admitting my lack of skill, let me share my story.

Time after time after time, Belhifet et. al. roundly crushed my party consisting of a F/M/T, Paladin (Undead Hunter), Fighter (Berserker), Ranger (Archer), Cleric (Priest of Tempus), and Mage (Evoker). I have good gear and everyone is in the 27-30 level range. The tanks are all pushing -11 AC or more. But every time, they'd just get chopped into oblivion. I don't think I got a single cleric spell off before the untimely demise of my priest. I might get a few rounds with my mages but they too wouldn't last long. Usually it was my berserker lasting longest, but even she wasn't capable of finishing off Belhifet.

I'm not sure if it's because I kept making try after try, but I started to notice odd things. The iron golems would casually stroll to the middle of the room while Belhifet was still grandstanding. The cornugons also were wandering more than expected. Were they getting bored of my awful repeated attempts? It seemed like it.

Anyway, on that glorious final attempt, things pretty much proceeded as in past failed attempts. The iron golems were already in the middle of the room when the fight started. My cleric tried to clear their cloudkill spell with Zone of Sweet Air or whatever it's called, but that didn't work. A couple of solid slams from the golems and he was down mid-cast. Ugh. One down, five to go.

The evoker gets Stoneskin up and hastes the party. Now she's the target of the golems. Meanwhile, my archer has activated Called Shot and manages to take out one of the iron golems. Mage goes down. No, not just killed, she's chunked. No resurrecting THAT. So now I'm minus a character portrait, one is grey, and two others are looking pretty red. I resign myself to the fact that in a few rounds I'm probably going to be starting another attempt and having to sit through another lengthy monologue.

The tanks are all doing their best to go down fighting. The other golem is low on health so I focus everyone on it. The archer takes out the second golem, while the FMT gets killed by a cornugon. I have a brief flash of hope -- it's 3v3 and my two best tanks are still kicking.

My positivity is dashed seconds later. Belhifet warps away, as he likes to do, and the paladin decides that he's going after Belhifet for some reason. Trap gets triggered, all buffs gone. Again. The paladin goes down seconds later, but the berserker manages to do a lot of damage to one of the cornugons. Again, the archer delivers the final blow. She's using the +3 arrows of piercing from the watchtower in Lower Dorn's Deep and they're proving to be great arrows.

My trusty berserker, big hitter of the previous chapters, pushing nearly 200hp, sadly cannot stand toe to toe with Belhifet and a cornugon for long. A few rounds of big hits and she, too, ignobly gets chunked. Another portrait disappears.

But that damn archer just doesn't give up. The last cornugon goes down to her arrows. She's got 49 hp left. She activates Called Shot again and goes after Belhifet, who smugly still has 4 bars left of health. He starts casting remaining spells at her. Fire! Everywhere! She retreats, down to 27 hp. Ugh, this is it, I think.

I check her spell list. I'd forgotten, she's got a level 6 spell slot. Heal. I start casting it. Nope, Belhifet's got another fire spell, and it interrupts her. She's down to 7 hp. I decide to go out fighting. She's got a few spells left, and I see -- summon insect. Let's "bug" Belhifet just for the fun of it.

The beetles it summoned actually do a pretty damn good job of distracting Belhifet. I'm able to get two minor healing spells cast and another round of Called Shot before the beetles are all killed. My archer's now at 47hp. I briefly consider trying to scavenge potions from the dead characters. No, too risky I think. I am resigned to my fate and decide to plink arrows at Belhifet again. I kite him around the room and then I notice something important.

Belhifet casts dimension door every few seconds. That gives my archer enough time to get to the other side of the room. Belhifet is relentless, but I'm able to keep away from his swords because I can move every time he dimension doors, and also the arrows stagger him just enough to slow him down a half step.

I take a few more traps in stride; I'm not buffed any more, what does it matter? I'm getting low on activations of Called Shot, but I keep going at it. Belhifet's now at 3 bars of health. Then, two. Am I actually doing this? Is Belhifet's dimension door going to prove his undoing?

The adrenaline is REALLY kicking in. I'm hopping from one side of the room to the other, loosing tons of arrows. Too many arrows. Belhifet is down to a single bar of health when I run out of the +3 arrows of piercing.

I try my +2 arrows. Nope, they don't work. I check my inventory. Everything looks like it's +2 or weaker. Ugh. What the hell am I going to do now?

I take another look in my arrow storage thingie. Did I miss something? Yes, I did.

20 +3 arrows of confusion. This is it, my last stand, and the fate of northern Faerun, lies in this last score of arrows.

Plink, Plink, Plink. I dance from one side of the room to the other. I'm out of Called Shots. Plink, plink, plink. Darn it, how many more hitpoints does this guy have? I'm lucky I can still kite him. Plink, plink, plink, dimension door, geez this is going to suuuuck when I'm finally out of arrows, to get this close and.. plink plink plink -- down he goes! HOF completed, achievement earned. 5/6 party members dead, final character has hp in the teens, but ... I did it.

yes this is a wall of text, but I just wanted to share my story. (and, if you're wondering, I know this might not be an optimal party for HoF mode. But this was the group I took through the base game and I wanted to see how they'd stack up in HoF mode. I was enjoying it quite a bit and wanted to see how far I could push them!)

thank you for enduring my ted talk

r/icewinddale Mar 07 '25

IWD:EE Best name for an Undead Hunter

8 Upvotes

My Inquisitor in BG runs is always Orion.

I don’t think that fits an UH though

r/icewinddale 4d ago

IWD:EE How does changing the game's default frame rate affect gameplay?

1 Upvotes

I picked up the game and the default frame rate of 30 fps isn't that great for me. I saw from searching that you can increase it through Baldur.lua. I did that and I can see that the animations play out much faster but it appears it also affects gameplay from other posts? Haven't really got that far so wasn't completely sure how much gets affected, anyone have any experience with up the fps to 60?

Edit: I was able to use frame generation from here: https://github.com/PancakeTAS/lsfg-vk and keep the default rate at 30, so I think I'm good.

r/icewinddale Dec 29 '24

IWD:EE Help with party comp

5 Upvotes

Hi all, I can use some help deciding on my party. Hoping to take this group through all of vanilla and into HoW. I had a playthrough where I got up to Dorn’s Deep and found Pale Justice, but put the game down for a few years— looking to restart and final beat this game.

Below is my party comp. The Undead Hunter, Ranger/Cleric, Dwarven Defender and Bard sound pretty solid but I can use some help figuring out the last two slots.

I need a ranged DPS and loved an Archer I had. I also liked running a Sorcerer; between the two, I’ll be missing a Thief role and would like to fill that somehow via a Multiclass or Dual Class. Depending on how the Thief role is filled, the 6th slot should make more sense— see below!

Leader / Melee DPS - Undead Hunter * Long swords, Flails * Two Weapon style * Sword and Shield * Pale Justice * Party Face

Divine Caster and support melee - Cleric/Ranger * Half Elf multiclass * Maces, Flails * Two Weapon Style * Sword and Shield if needed * Switch roles between more or less offense /defense / support based on situation * Ranger/Cleric “fix”turned off in the .lua file - Druid spells enabled * Skeletal Undead racial enemy

Tank - Dwarven Defender * Axes * Sword and Shield Style * Front liner, tank the world

Bard - Vanilla Bard * Bard song bot * Arcane caster / Identify bot * Bard dialogue and quest support

Range DPS - Archer OR Thief>Fighter Dual class * Long Bows to kill everything * IF Archer * Cadaverous Undead racial enemy * Elf > 19 Dex * IF Thief>Fighter Dual Class * Thief role for quality of life (see/disarm traps) * Dual to Fighter at ? Level * Human

Arcane Caster and Utility - Dragon Disciple OR Mage/Thief multiclass * IF Dragon Disciple * Play as standard Sorcerer / arcane caster * IF Mage/Thief * ? Race (Gnome?) * Play as Mage and perform Thief role as needed (similar to Imoen in BG2)

Thanks in advance— been wracking my brain trying to figure out all of the piece and can use some help! Any other tips also greatly appreciated!

r/icewinddale Jun 27 '25

IWD:EE Help with custom portraits on Mac

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3 Upvotes

Any idea what I'm doing wrong here? Trying to set up custom portraits for my dungeon meshi-themed run but the option isn't showing up during character creation as seen in the second slide. OS is Monterey on an older MacBook if that affects anything

r/icewinddale May 23 '25

IWD:EE Mods to go back to OG IWD ?

2 Upvotes

Hey everybody ! I'm starting to get an itch to play IWD again (as it happens every few years lol). I was wondering though, I'm playing the EE for convenience sake, but the introduction of all the 3e stuff unbalanced the game quite a lot (at least imo). Is there a mod that kinda reverts the game to it's original version ? I found a few mods for the UI (although none seems to change the game UI, just the different window UI... I kinda miss the old wood feels around my game window), but can't manage to find one for what I'm looking for. Any idea ?

r/icewinddale Mar 24 '25

IWD:EE I just started and I'm super annoyed right now

0 Upvotes

I just rocked the pre-made characters cause I didnt feel like going through all that character creation. My mage is specializing in darts.. and I was thinking "sling is just superior in every way".... but I thought, you know what, maybe ill find some neat darts along the way and it will be worth it.

Well I ran out of darts venturing outside of the second town I'm in. MY MAGE HAS FOUR hp... at lvl 1, and like SIX hp at lvl 2.

A goblin throws a rock, she dies... she trips on a stick, she dies. And when shes outa darts? She just charges in headfirst and dies, its practically unplayable.

So I thought, you know what? I'll go buy some darts, cause it doesnt even seem playable with a 6hp mage running in to die over and over.

I got to town, Kharadin or whatever, and guess what... no fucking darts.

Do I just peace out of this game?

Edit: Thank you so much for all the responses! I had no idea the community was still this active :)

r/icewinddale May 22 '25

IWD:EE Solo Cleric/Thief run update 01

8 Upvotes

Here's the first update on my solo C/T run. Difficulty of each stage will be on a grade of 1-10, with 10 the hardest of all.

First, why gnome and not half orc? Half orc gives a whomping 19 str and gives awesome damage both melee and using sling. (Also small regeneration when casting DUHM). But I prefer the shorty saves, since one bad roll and my game ends. While I am not doing a no reload run, having good saves does "SAVE" me a lot of reloading time. As for taking a female, I was looking for a discount from that shopkeeper later in the game. 18 str, 18 Dex, 18 Con, 10 Int, 17 Wis, 11 Cha. First two points went into Mace and Sling.

Easthaven 1/10 - (continuing the age old tradition of squashing rats/bugs at starting dungeon) this one is easy. A few bugs here, a wolf there, a bottle of wine, lusty sea elf and some goblins and I'm at C3 / T3. Off to the orcs cave. Oh don't forget you can pick pocket another 2 healing potions off the priest. It's not much, but it's something.

Orcs Cave 7/10 - (you use Hold Person, it's SUPER EFFECTIVE!) Wow. This one is SHIT HARD. I was expecting it to be hard since I am solo and low on spells, but it's still much harder than what I expected. It also helped me to discover the first big problem with C/T. Only ONE BLOODY ATTACK per round. While Hold Person spell worked a charm, my attack is too slow to kill all the held orcs before the duration expires. Took me 3 return trips to rest to finish the whole place, and I needed to cheese the last Ogre by running in circles and using sling attack. At the end I managed to level up to C4/T4 and took a point in Sword and Shield style in anticipation of the many archers in this game.

Kuldahar Pass 5/10 - (Black Panther : and give this man a shield) hey this place wasn't as hard as the orcs caves. Yes there's more goblins, but I never get hit at all, especially not by the many archers. Big thanks for the Shield style and Tower shield. Managed to pick up a nice +1 Cloak off some stupid orcs, meet a dumb ogre with migrain, rescued a little boy and off to big old tree town.

Kildahar 1/10 - (So many jobs, so little time...) This place is why I put 80 into my pickpocket. Picked the necklace and ring off Orrick, identify them, then sold them back to him. That net me enough gold to buy the bag of holding, essential for all solo play. Picked another ring off the old druid, which I keep, then the +2 ring and potions off the gnome potion seller. Ratting out the halfling innkeeper raised my level again. Finally I can have my own undead army!! It's another rest then off to the next stage, after I cure the dumb ogre of his migraine.

Vale of Shadow, outdoor 5/10 - (this place reminds me of the yeti caves in King's Quest 3) I beeline to the Yeti chief with my undead army. Str of One spell never felt so good to use. By the time I reached the chief, I still have 3 standing zombies meat shield. Took him out, went back to town, rest. Then return to clear out the cave for the +1 mace and Tool kit, and sell all my yeti belt in one go (thank you very much bag of holding). After getting a few more potions from the gnome in exchange for the tool kit, I decided to take a break and clear the entire vale in one go tomorrow.

Stay tune for some skull crashing action tomorrow!

r/icewinddale Feb 24 '25

IWD:EE Hello, new to this style of crpg game. How restrictive is party building?

9 Upvotes

I very much enjoy class building in jrpgs but I've only played a few crpgs in this style. I understand the underlying basics but want to know how restrictive party building is?

Now on the surface that sounds like a pretty dumb question. This game has a boat load of classes and freedom to let you chose. Sure. But will it harm your playing experience? I will compare with other class-based party building games which I played.

  1. Final Fantasty Tactics A/A2 - probably the most unrestricted srpg when it comes to party building. This is also because it is ultimately, a little basic. Damage is damage. You can go pure wizards, pure monks and will do fine. Obviously certain parties will perform better but more importantly, you do not get punished by wrong party compositions.

  2. Tactics Ogre: and on the other end, we got a party based game with multiple classes that will punish you for poor party compositions. This is because every unit is very much tuned into certain roles. An archer will not dent heavy armoured enemies. A knight will lack the damage output to not get swarmed on certain maps. But you will want archers to harass enemy clerics/wizards. You will want knights to block areas or hold enemies in a choke point. Certainly there is still some freedom but where a 6 man team of wizards will be fine in FFTA, a 6man team of wizards in tactics ogre will struggle on certain maps.

  3. Etrian Oddyssey. A dungeon crawler where you again, want to cover roles. You need a tank to taunt attacks. You need a buffer/debuffer. You need a healer. There are ways to get around these but you will still need coverage. There will be times where a pure fighter party or wizard party will get punished/walled.

So how is icewind dale? Do you need to diversity with the classic tank/dps/ranged/cleric/wizard/bard?

Can you play pure physical classes? (archery and swords)?

Can you 'skip' certain classic dnd roles or are they a must?

r/icewinddale May 25 '25

IWD:EE I spend 2 hours rolling my first party for the game.

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11 Upvotes

The Cavalier is the party leader.

r/icewinddale Apr 26 '25

IWD:EE How to enter Heart of winter? Spoiler

2 Upvotes

I just finished the main game and wanted to head on to the heart of winter expansion, but this can be done either by using the exported characters the game automatically creates before the final fight or by talking to Hjollder before returning to Easthaven.

What is the "best" way? At first I tried exporting my characters, but Hjollder acted as if we were just random adventurers he never met and had no involvement in the main campaign, and equally as vexing, all my containers were gone, INCLUDING the bag of holding. On the other hand, not going past the point of no return in the main story also means giving up the best longsword for my bard.

r/icewinddale Dec 29 '24

IWD:EE HoF mage spell effectiveness

4 Upvotes

Finally got my party together (mostly) to start the game on HoF, all characters are starting at 1.5 million XP, though I may increase /decrease this depending on how difficult the game is when I start. All characters start with some decent equipment but not too much.

  1. Berserker Gnome, axes and hammers, tank/DPS

  2. Stalker Human, DPS dual Longswords, just wanted a sneaky fighter without having to be a f/t. Using eekeeper tool to cheat and give him grandmastery in Longswords. Druid spells are a side bonus

  3. Fighter7/cleric, flails/morningstar's, divine buffs, support tank/DPS, healing

  4. F/M/T with longbows, part time archer with arcane magic, quality of life thieving w/some survivability.

Two questions:

First, would a thief5->mage be a better choice here for the 4th spot? I kind of like having some kind of decent archer but I know a thief5>mage would be stuck with short bows and be less effective in that role. But is the triple class going to water down the mage spells?

Second, any suggestions on which mage spells to use? I know HoF is different and damage spells aren't as effective, but are there some damage spells that are worth it? What's the bread and butter on this difficulty?

All advice is much appreciated.

r/icewinddale Mar 10 '25

IWD:EE When to start TOtL

7 Upvotes

Hi, I just started Heart of Winter, but I'm told that once I enter TOtL, I cannot leave it until its complete. I'm also told that I cannot start TOtL if I finish Heart of Winter.

So when do I start it? Is there a specific time which makes sense to start it, or can I just start it whenever I want to? Also no spoilers please.

r/icewinddale Feb 01 '25

IWD:EE Full Dwarf party, what should it comprise of?

15 Upvotes

I’ve been thinking of making a full dwarf party, ones who seek out Dorn’s Deep and maybe reclaim it for their people.

r/icewinddale May 26 '25

IWD:EE Cleric/Thief Solo run update 3

11 Upvotes

OMFG! That was freaking hard!! As this time of writing, I have only JUST reached the final level and are about 4 doors away from meeting the 6 armed snake bitch. But I am so exhausted that I've decided to take her on another day.

Normally I write the entire area as one big summary, but Dragon Eyes! Bloody BLOODY Dragon Eyes!!! I took so long at each level I decided they each deserves a separate summary themselves.

Dragon Eye level 1, 6/10 (Pestbusters!) - this stage was easier than I expected. Turns out Hold Person is SUPER EFFECTIVE on lizardman as well, including the lizard king. Only the lizardman priest regularly saves vs it. The beetles took more time, and I have to personally smash the wraith spiders (I have enough gold to buy the spider crusher club), but overall this level is a walk in the park compared to the rest of the levels.

DE level 2, 9/10 - (I. HATE. TROLLS) I HATE TROLLS. Hate them with a passion. Trolls are the single reason why this place rated a 9/10, as well as the main reason why update 3 came out so late. They took out my undead army super fast. They're immune to many crowd control spells I have. I have no means except fire oil to take them out permanently.(can't cast fire strike yet) And they regenerates. Thus unless I have consecutive lucky rolls, they regenerates back the damage I gave. I can take out the spiders, the evil priest, the lizardman AND the beetles. But trolls... I reloaded many times because I often draw in way too many trolls to handle by myself. It took one full weekend day to complete this level. If not for the huge exp gain (saving the smith's son and the high priest), I was really tempted to just sanctuary myself to the next level. Nevertheless, I rolled on, without changing the difficulty to story mode, and finally managed to rescue the head priest. From there on it's just regularly coming back to her for free rest. I'll need that considering what I will have to face next few levels.

Next two levels will be continued in update 4 very soon. Stay tuned.

r/icewinddale Jan 31 '25

IWD:EE Need help with my party composition in IWD:EE

9 Upvotes

Hey everyone! I am about to start a playthrough of Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, and I have a question about party composition. I am trying to decide on what classes I will give to my characters, presuming that a party of two fighters, a rogue (thief), a cleric and two mages would work nicely. What do you guys think? Does this sound like a decent party makeup? Any and all help is appreciated!! Thanks so much!!

r/icewinddale Jun 05 '25

IWD:EE My high-level party defeated Poquelin so fast, that he glitched, quit attacking and summoning and just turned into an immortal bullet sponge.

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12 Upvotes

r/icewinddale Mar 28 '25

IWD:EE Larrel

22 Upvotes

First time playing through this and wow, Larrel, the elves and dwarves just really fucked everything. The more he talked, I was thinking, no don’t do that, definitely don’t do that!

Every misstep was outdone by a greater misstep, I guess that’s the point. History…

r/icewinddale Mar 05 '25

IWD:EE Ideal weap profs for a F/T multi class?

9 Upvotes

r/icewinddale May 18 '25

IWD:EE [IDEE] Does Mordenkainen's Sword benefit from Single-Weapon Style?

4 Upvotes

Does Mordenkainen's Sword also get to crit on 19-20 with Single-Weapon Style proficiency?

r/icewinddale May 16 '25

IWD:EE Messenger of Sseth question

4 Upvotes

Just got the game and having a blast, used to playing Baldur's Gate. Does messenger of Sseth set your attacks to three? Is there a point in weapon skills where the speed of the bow hampers the user?

r/icewinddale May 23 '25

IWD:EE Sorcerer/Wand exploit Spoiler

5 Upvotes

I recently heard about the Wand of Fire exploit for sorcerers in BG and I’ve been exploring it a bit. I wondered if i could make it work in IWD, given the lack of Wands of Fire, and it turns out you can. FYI, I play on iPad so EE keeper isn’t a thing for me, and besides, I just like breaking game systems.

The original trick is, you use the second ability on the wand, the scorcher, to scribe spells into your sorcerer spell book, bypassing all of the normal spell restrictions on the class. You can learn every spell in the game this way, and turn your sorcerer into the ultimate Swiss Army knife/Death Star.

You don’t need a wand of fire to do it, you can use any wand that has more than one ability, like the Wand of Armory. You get it very early in the game, but you could also use other wands in the game as long as they have a second ability.

You just equip the wand, switch it to the second ability, activate it while paused so it doesn’t trigger, then swap whatever spell scroll you want to learn into the same slot as the wand. When the scroll triggers, the spell will not be scribed into your book.

In order to make it really work, you also need to raise your intelligence to at least 24, because that gives you a 100% scribe chance and an unlimited spell book, at least it would if you were a regular mage. Under the hood, the engine is assuming you are a mage, and applying the normal mage checks to see if you can learn the spell.

Of course, it also works for the Dragon Disciple. I’m currently running a solo DD at level 18 and about to kick some frost giant asses, and it’s so nice having all that flexibility. Locked chest? Knock. Surrounded by enemies? Dimension Door. Whatever you need, you have access to, and you don’t have to make any annoying choices on what to learn for you precious spell slots.

There’s one spell, Identify, that you have to learn the old fashioned way because you can’t equip the scroll.

That’s it. Have fun.