OK for the first time I decided to play IWD2 with my friend. We both have IWD2 installed, the lates patch, and NO MODS installed. (this is a big change for me, but anything for playing a bug-free MP game.)

My friend created an eeevil barbarian1/fighterx half-orc, with power attack, greater cleave, rapid shot, lightning reflex, iron will, and rage he is one big bad tank. I created an eeevil drow sorcerer and that's it. Drow sorcerer was chosen as the lvl penalty would help the coming XP, and I did not have to look for scrolls.

The game is very entertaining. We are RPing evil as well, and the first time in my life, I am playing as a very evil and wicked character. Killing and blasting all I can, we even did not help the villagers captured by Torak (spoiler ahead!) and they came back as undead in the bridge fight. Wow, totally unexpected it. Ofcourse we lvled up so fast that we are mighty. We just recently destroyed the Aurilite village.

I chose these spells:

Magic Missile (best dmg dealer for this lvl)
Sleep (was very useful against goblinoids)
Burning Hands (area effect, troll killer)
Chromatic Orb (paralyses mages/clerics/fighters)

Snilloch's snowball swarm (poor man's fireball)
Mirror Image (one of the best defensive spells)
Horror (to scatter dozens of enemies which surround us)
Protection from Arrows (it lasts forever and makes us immune to orc archers)

Fireball (but ofcourse!)
Slow (good one)
Skull trap (higher dmg potential)

Stoneskin (always have this active)
Emotion:Hope (great pre-buff)

Animate Dead (great summoning spell)

Any other spells you think will really help us? Any advices will be welcome. We were low on summoning (but not any longer, undead are great and wicked!) and we really don't have any healing spell. There were some fights where we had to do some serious reloads, such as when my friend's half-orc got held or paralysed etc.

Another question: My drow has a CHA score of 22, and spell focus in all schools. Yet some monsters save from my spells so easily. A goblinoid saves from my Horror with a will save of 12. Another one dodges my chromatic orb with a reflex save of 13. Trolls make their save with a will of 14 from my slow. Aren't the DCs of those spells higher? Is this a bug? I have the patch, though. Does the game apply a 'luck' bonus to enemies as we are higher lvl than them? This is very annoying, the game spawns hordes of enemies and it is not easy when they save vs all of my spells easily. What's the point of being a drow with top CHA then, and having all the spell focus feats? :o

Final and most annoying problem. Game crashes so easily and frequently. Sometimes when I open up my inventory I am dropped out of the game, my friend (who is the host server) stays in. Sometimes, when we are changing map, or when we just walk to some place, game completely crashes. :mad: We have the patch installed. Our PCs are all very powerful. What should we do?

Thanks for your answers. See you all around!

As far as I know, the save for a level one spell with a 22 Cha sorcerer should be 17. It should then go up by one for each spell level...

about the crashes... problems with your ISP? or it only happens when you're playing?

speaking of spells,one that I think is useful is the Soul Eater! it slays the lesser foes and then brings them back to life as undead under your control! great to clean the area a litle bit and then swarm the powerful ones ^^

slay living...

the problem with playing with two characters is what to choose,the last time I tried it was on Icewind Dale 1 and have to do it with a fighter/thief and a cleric/mage!

the real pain-in-the-ass in your case is all the healing and bufs that only a cleric can provide =\

I don't think it's a bug that some enemies make their saves. Horror is probably the easiest spell to save against.
12 or 13 are not that easy to get in a d20 world, and you could even increase the DC by 4 with GSF or "eagle's splendor" easily.
You could enable the display of saving throws in the console if you want to see the bonusses your enemies get.

As for spell selection: Eagle's splendor and improved invisibility can help a lot.

For your friend I recommend taking a total of 3 barbarian levels, and dodge and improved critical as feats.

I had attack and saving throw rolls displayed. That goblin got a 12 with some other bonus and resisted my horror spell.

10+spell lvl (2)+CHA bonus(6)+Spell focus(2) means a will save of 20 is needed right? This is more than enough to scatter all those lowly and dumb goblinoids/orcs around. Or so I thought.

According to the spell description in the manual enemies get +3 to save vs horror, so only 17 is needed. What you call "some other bonus" must be at least 5 for the goblinoid who made his save.

Silverstar,

As far as the disconnecting is concerned, how are you and your friend connecting? My brother and I play rather frequently via GameSpy and we rarely have disconnects. It happens, but not as often as it sounds like it occurs for you. You may want to try that service if you are not already on it.

If you friend is held, you can use invisibility on you friend to save him/her.