I hope to God you don't start at level 1, that would really bite.

Prepare to be bitten - You start at level one and work your way up! It's going to be fun! Enjoy it!!!

yes, you'll be starting at level 1 :D which will be a relief after BG-2's power excess ;) And since you start at 0 and have pointbuy to get your stats there also will be no import from IWD-1.

You may start at level 1 but you can go up till level 20 so it's not that bad at all. and who would want to play with an old party now you can get new classes and very cool new races?

[This message has been edited by Uytuun (edited May 12, 2002).]

One of the most fun aspect of IWD1/2 is that you get to watch your party grow. Creating 6 1st level PCs and by the end of the game have 6 high level PCs. It's like an entire D&D campaign compressed into one game. I feel this is one of IWD great points not it's worse.

I'm also excited about starting at level 1. It makes the game much more exciting.

Starting at level 1 is way better. I enjoy it when finding at +1 sword, or learning fireball is something I have to work up to, rather than being a demi-god right at the start.

Let me add 2 cents of mine... RANT! ;) :p

IWD2 is "almost" 3rd ed. Now imagine if you were allowed to import a hero from IWD1 who was ad&d? What would be your feats? What skills? Spells? Some spells are not included in IWD2, some do exist and some are completely new.
Not to say that stats are calculated in different fashion now.

IMO, the starting from XP=0 is for the best here.

True, thats why you get an editor to make your characters like your party from IWD1. ;)

My plans exactly...

(insert Evil Belhifet laugh here)

Yeah, and that's why I got so annoyed with IWD to begin with, at level 1, your guys stand a serious chance of getting killed quick than at say 5 or 6.

Kenshiro, that's just rubbish. You need to be careful but it's not that you're doomed at lvl-1. What do you think you'll be fa´cing at the start? The horde itself? I think a few goblins (around 8) will be more likely and these were well manageable in IWD.

Sure it is hard at the beginning, especially when you're used to BG-2 SoA & ToB, where you've been playing half-gods.

*sigh* I just don't understand this mourning about lvl-1 *sigh*

In IWD you were level 2 even before you finished the prologue. Consider the prologue in IWD2 a chance to learn the new system and get use to your PCs and their new abilities. By the time you are situated with everything your party will be 2nd or 3rd level anyway. And before that you have the save option any how so it's not like PnP where when your dead at 1st level you most likely are not coming back.

I like starting out at lvl 1 - You get to see your character's grow, choose their path, etc..I actually made modifications to my BG2 character to make him at the same point where he left off in BG1 after defeating Sarevok and romping through Durlag's Tower (Still one of the best dungeons IMHO)!

I enjoyed starting at level 1 in IWD because you had 6 level 1 characters (if you played with a full party) so the enemies weren't too hard and it allowed you too watch them develope and get rid of anybody who wasn't making the grade at a low level. Also unlike the BG series the foes must wipe out the whole party not just the protagonist which i feel is much fairer as i hated being killed by a stray magical explosion or a tiny trap and the rest of my party just standing there looking at my corpse when their loaded down with raise dead spells. That's just plain stupid.

according to something I read somwhere I think in the official page or something like that, if you continue to heart of fury (I'm not sure if it's an expansion or a more difficult mode) you can go aaaaaall the way up to level 30, thing is I'm not sure how they will handle above 20th level characters since 3rd edition was designed for only 20 levels, I'm not sure if the high level handbook is out though

The higher levels are constructed by extrapolating lower ones. It's all done with WotC blessings - things WotC haven't blessed are out.
For now. ;)

Why would you want to start at a high level anyway? In BGII it was too easy at the start, the dungeon was a breeze. But the orc cave in IWD was actually a challenge, and the pride you feel when you kill your first ogre...:D My one qualm about such a low level start is that it doesn't make much sense that such cruddy low-level fighters managed to cross the IWD and make it to the Ten-Towns armed only with quarterstaffs.

Well you could say that you were teleported or something for being a nice person and eating all your veggies or something like that but I must agree with whoever said it that I felt really nice killing all the orcs in the first cave (took me a few tries too) also another thing I liked was familiarizing myself with the spells, I remember when I was thinking charm person was like the ultimate and awsomest spell and as time passed I didn't use it that much as it became somewhat less usefull. Another thing I liked with low levels (well this happened to me with BG 1 which I started a while ago) is that I can't beat everyone, in BG 2 I always said whatever I wanted because I knew that one way or the other I could beat up everyone, with BG 1 I was actually afraid of ogres (: . I know it's stupid but I liked it