As it was said on the SP front page in an interwiew, the 3E rules provide an essential increase in difficulty for the experienced players. In Chapter 1, where I am now running, I had to reload certain battles five or six times.

IWD2 (combat wise) is certainly MUCH more challenging than BG2, and that' why I invite all the experienced players (who have the possibility to get the game now) to come and enjoy the challenge!

Egads, who upgraded all frickin spellcasters? :eek: Those witchdoctors and shamans are not to be laughed at. Unholy Blight is not a nice thing to have dumped on your head. I don't seem them dumping as much redundant spellpower on foes, either. Hold Person being a Will save does not float my boat, either. :D

Anyway, if the higher level wizards are equally well done, it should be quite interesting.

Brilliant; I love a challenge. With BG2, IWD and the like you kind of had to make it tough for yourself sometimes. Can't wait.

A question from someone who'll have to wait for a good many weeks before IWD2 comes to Sweden:

Would you say IWD2 battles are more challenging that the battles in NWN?

The batles in NWN weren't chalenging to begin with. :D

[ September 01, 2002, 15:50: Message edited by: Fallen Paladin ]

The battles are more challenging, although I've found that the best way to engage the enemy is to send one character ahead, and draw the monsters back into your already-made formation.

That way, they run en masse in chaotic fashion right into your trap. Once you use these tactics, I find you don't have to rest as often, as you take much less damage.

BTW, my party is comprised of:
1. Half-Orc Fighter
2. Wild Elf Ranger
3. Aasimar Paladin of Mystra/Diviner
4. Aasimar Cleric of Tempus
5. Gray Dwarf Rogue/Fighter
6. Drow Elf Necromancer

Right now I"m busy plowing through the fortress.

The battles in IWD2 are consistently more difficult than NWN by a long shot. Most battles have a good mixture of spellcasters, archers, and melee goons to deal with, so its easy to get guys killed if you aren't careful. Scouting is very important as is good use of bottlenecks. Healing potions, while not scarce, do not grow on trees like they do in some of the other games. And, of course, you have the IE resting rules.

I'm glad it'll be harder. Should make it last longer.

I agree, I just started IWD2 and I can tell its much harder than BG2 or IWD. I've already lost group members, and I just started Ch. 1! You really need to manage your inventory/money and buy wise, but I suppose thats the beginnng of any RPG. Those Orc Shamans suck.

Those orc shamans suck.As in "Owch! They are killing my guys!" or as in "They are so useless, they can never harm my guys!"?

I actually find myself short on healing potions quite often in this game. I love the challenge, and every single level up is a precious thing.
Of course, if you have too much trouble, turn on the option of "Maximum hit points per level."
It's cheap, I know, but it's very handy. (My 3rd level fighter, 1st level Barbarian, Dwarf with Con 20 has 90 hit points ;) )

Orc shamans suck as in "hey, look, another unholy blight that does real nasty things to my 12 hp wizard (yeah, that 8 constitution was a bad idea) and zaps my tanks, at the same time the shaman's five orc warriors and named orc boss are pummeling me". Which is where I'm stuck right now.

I've played all the IE games, won BG2 and P:T and would have won IWD if I hadn't stopped playing... and I'm getting my butt kicked. Granted, I'm trying not to stop and rest after every battle, so I'm going in at half-strength (and this battle in particular would probably be easier if I rested) but, yeah, orc shamans suck.

And there's absolutely no question this is harder than NWN -- which is a good thing. Gotta admit, I was starting to find NWN a bit dull, especially the combat. But I'm using the re-load button here like never before.

Hmm, combat in IWDII is killer!!(yes the pun was intended :p )

I found the best thing was to have 2-3 tanks, and 3-4 archers/x-bowmen, let the tanks do whatever, and micromanage the archers :D Works wonders Ill tell you!

This sounds like my kind of game, especially if the challenging combats continue. Of course, if you really wanted to be cheesy, you could make your entire party neutral aligned, then they'd be immune to the unholy blight.

Thats gonna be great for me The true neutral Druid :D :D :D
I only played NvN and i can tell its way too easy :( Of course i had on max dificulty bu reloaded only five timrs in chapter 1. twice at those never swords :mad:
I'm glad IWD2 is harder than Bg2(played that one on insane as well :D ) :) :)

No, Rastor, they would need to be 'evil' aligned to be immune to Unholy Blight. My party is neutral aligned (why is that supposedly cheesy?) and they definitely take a beating from Unholy Blight. I don't know if the neutrals are only taking half damage, as per p&p rules, or not. But I've had it do 20+hp of damage, which is nothing to sneeze at when 5th level and not using 'max hp'.

Bah! Darned new rules. Guess Unholy Blight does affect neutrals now. I said that it would only be cheesy if you did that to get out of the wrath of that spell (which apparently doesn't work in 3rd edition D&D). My parties tend to usually be neutral aligned.

If your party was evil though, would the game then have the orcs use holy smite against you instead? Otherwise, that's a good way to get out of those types of spells if you're into that sort of thing.

Orcs, being bad guys, can not use Holy Smite. And neither could your characters, if evil, use Holy Smite on the narsties.

I WAS gonna play this game on Heart of Fury mode, as i did the original. But it sounds from the comments as if that could be seriously nasty. Think I'll start on Normal mode:)

(I love the auto log in feature these days!)

Yes, I meant those Orc Shamans suck as in they are tough for a low level party. I've found myself getting back into combat tactics I didn't use until, maybe, The Severed hand stage of IWD.

I was waiting to really get into IWDII as it has taken longer than the other IE games but I'm in it now.

The only thing is-why does it not look like 800 x 600? It looks like the 640 x 400 or whatever. Must be the new interface. How do you get rid of it inbetween the action?

I played Icewind Dale 1 with 6 melee characters and ran through it in about 4 days (real life days) the first time playing. I am on my 9th day of IWD2 and am most of the way through 5 of 6 chapters. So yeah, it is harder. Once you get deeper into the game the combat difficulty settles down to a reasonable level, but it picks up more puzzles as in Baldurs Gate 2.

I love the challenge! Although it might leave me short on coin and potions (I'm short on coin because I raise my characters, and the higher you get, the more it costs).
I also love the new rules, and how you can make a mage or a fighter hide! Comes in handy when there are those pesky shamans and archers that just sit back and slowly kill your company while they're fighting for their lives. So all you do is make your fighters hide and walk up to them and chop them up and cook 'em (well that's if your hungry ;) :D ).