I was wondering how much experience you are supposed to have acquired at certain points in the game. I'm also interested in what levels you guys actually were at those points. So for example:
Chapter 1: 10,000xp 3/3/3/2 (-- levels of party members
Chapter 2: 45,000xp 3/3/3/2 (level squatting)

I'm in a four people party at it looks like I currently have to level up, because I can't hit some stupid crystal golem. This will seriously cut into my xp gains though and I was just wondering what to aim for.

Level squatting probably adds a level or two (at most) to the level you'll finish the game at so I wouldn't bother with it too much.

Ow, well in that case, I think I'll just level up. I still think this topic could be interesting though, just to see how good you have done compared to other people.

I ran a 4 member party with level squatting which could have ended the game as:
HalfOrc Fighter[4]/Barbarian[19]
Aasimar Paladin[3]/Sorcerer[19]
Drow Rouge[3]Fighter[4]/Wizard[14]
Drow Druid[3]/Cleric[18]

Wonder what are the levels achivable without level squatting are?

Wow, that's pretty high. Not that I'd know, but from what I read level 16 or so would usually be max.

Out of curiosity: how much (or at what level) did you level squat?

On the matter of hitting the crystal golems i may have an answer for you. the golems are some of the tougher races because A: magic usually doesnt work, and B: they can only be hit by blugeoning weapons such as quarter staves or war hammers. Try sitching to some of these when you attack them. Note: I rarely play a party that has a strong character weailding these kinds of weapons, but i found that the golems aren't all that tough if everyone in your party is wacking at them.

If using these weapons doesnt work then maybe there is a problem with the game, i don't think levels matter much in this.

Yeah, crystal golems are easy if you hit them with bludgeoning weapons. That includes missile weapons like bullets or Arrows of Impact. They're impossible to hit with anything else.

My best 'fighter' (who's actually a cleric) couldn't hit him with the Haft over Head which is a throwing/melee axe that does bludgeoning damage. I think the reason I couldn't hit, was that he is of such low level (3) and thus has crappy THAC0 or whatever it's called.

Edit: wow, I finally beat him. It took a long time, because my cleric virtually never hits. He appearantly needed a roll of 16, but he was only rolling sub-ten. Well, thank goodness four hits were enough...

Edit2: Damn, I'll have to level up now anyway, because the Queen Remorhaz insta-kills me with her spell. :(

[ July 22, 2004, 22:18: Message edited by: Menion Leah ]

I had some fun with the crystal golems when soloing.

The first time, it was a paladin/wizard. Hard but doable.

The second time, it was a fighter/monk/ranger/paladin with 8 STR and that time was some real fun :D

Those crystal golems are annoying, but with a little patience I can beat them. The same goes for that Remorhaz Queen. Hell, I even beat Sherincal with my level 3 party now! :D
Every fight is a major battle now and although it can be frustrating, it is usually a lot of fun.

My current party:

At start of Chapter 1
Character #1: Level 3, ~16,000 XP
#2: Level 3, ~16,000 XP
#3: Level 3, ~12,000 XP

At start of Chapter 2
#1: Level 6, ~49,000 XP
#2: Level 5, ~49,000 XP
#3: Level 6, ~45,000 XP
#4: Level 2, ~21,000 XP

At start of Chapter 3
#1: Level 6, ~103,000 XP
#2: Level 5, ~103,000 XP
#3: Level 6, ~100,000 XP
#4: Level 2, ~86,000 XP

I added the 4th character in Chapter 1 to keep the average party level at 4. My hats off to Menion Leah for taking out the Horde Fortress gates and the Remorhaz Queen with a level 3 party. I have real problems with those drums unless I can take them out first with Fireballs, and the Remorhaz Queen will waste my party if I do not have my decoy able to cast lots of Mirror Images (which means level 6 for him).

I have a scout character (deep gnome fighter(1)/thief(1)) with very high AC. I used him to hit out the drummer (or whatever that's called) by surprise. He also has entangle free boots or something and when my druid throws in entangle, the drummer is usually stopped.

The Remorhaz Queen had me reload lots of times, because she threw some stupid spell at me that would kill low hp characters. But then I thought of animal summoning she went down too.

I usually use hit and run tactics to lure enemies out one by one.

I'm now at the lower level of the Ice Temple in Chapter 2 and I have killed everything except for one high priestess and her minions. All my four characters have around 100,000xp.

Without "level squatting" but after doing all the sub quests I finished the game in normal difficulty with an average of 17 levels.
Since I am replaying the game with the same team in HoF difficulty I think I will attain the level 30 before the end, so "level squatting" is not very useful for me. :)

Well, I guess (from what I've heard) hitting level 30 will probably happen anyway if you replay in HoF, but the sooner one hits that level, the more of the game is left to play when you're that strong and not just the final battle(s). :)

But levelling up is half the fun. The attraction of the game plummets once you can't level up any more. For example, you don't bother completing quests any more. I usually 'retire' any characters soon after they hit level 30.

Well, I guess you're at least half right. Leveling up is fun. When I played Baldur's Gate I couldn't wait to get to the next level to get some new kick-ass spells for my sorcerer. But I also like to become powerful (as fast as possible) and in Icewind Dale 2, experience is gained faster when you level squat.

But I must admit, I leveled up now to level 13, because I was in the Ice Temple and I was sick of luring enemies out one by one. But now my cleric could just walk around the lower level and kill everything he layed eyes on. :) Not very challenging, but actually fun, since I was annoyed so much by those Aurilites so much.

Now I'm at Battle Squares and I couldn't have beat that with a level 3 character (I think, didn't try). But what were they thinking when they made this part!? "Surely fighting 250(!!!) one on one battles will be very interesting"

@Menion Leah
As a follow-up to my previous post, my party has advanced as follows:

At the start of Chapter 4:
Character #1 Level 13 ~136,000 XP
#2 Level 13 ~136,000 XP
#3 Level 14 ~131,000 XP
#4 Level 2 ~107,000 XP
#5 Level 2 ~21,000 XP
#6 Level 2 ~21,000 XP

At the start of Chapter 5:
#1 Level 16 ~178,000 XP
#2 Level 13 ~178,000 XP
#3 Level 17 ~184,000 XP
#4 Level 2 ~149,000 XP
#5 Level 2 ~63,000 XP
#6 Level 2 ~63,000 XP

At the start of Chapter 6:
#1 Level 20 ~285,000 XP
#2 Level 13 ~285,000 XP
#3 Level 20 ~290,000 XP
#4 Level 2 ~252,000 XP
#5 Level 2 ~162,000 XP
#6 Level 2 ~161,000 XP

If you want the best of both worlds, you can squat with most of the party and just advance a couple of your characters. That way you get to enjoy the fruits of leveling up while still maintaining a low average party level.

Chapter 1: 10,000xp 3/3/3/2 (-- levels of party members
Chapter 2: 45,000xp 3/3/3/2 (level squatting)
Chapter 3: 140,000xp 15/15/15/14 (got sick of level squatting)
Chapter 4: 175,000xp 16/16/16/15/1/1 (added two level 1 chars to bring down average level)
Chapter 5: 186,000xp 17/17/17/16/1/1

Isnt there a mod which makes you gain the same amount of XP all the time.. Makes level squatting unnessecary

I've never heard of that mod. There's one that adjusts the moncrate.2da table to ensure that you still get SOME xp for kills no matter what your level, but you would still get more XP with level squatting.

http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD2/tweaked_xp_tables.php

But I dunno, that feels kind of like cheating to me, since you are really downloading an outside mod that basically gives more XP.
It could be argued that level squatting and even more so taking level 1 chars with you is cheating also, but to me it feels better.

I wouldn't call level squatting a cheat, since you are after all defeating powerful monsters at a lower level than "optimal", which requires considerably more care and strategy.

As for muling, I do consider this to be a cheat pure and simple. I guess it's a matter of personal preference, but I never used it.

@Menion Leah

How did your party end up, XP wise? I finished normal with:

#1 Level 23 ~328,000 XP
#2 Level 13 ~329,000 XP
#3 Level 23 ~333,000 XP
#4 Level 2 ~295,000 XP
#5 Level 2 ~204,000 XP
#6 Level 2 ~204,000 XP

I am now taking this party into HoF. I will take the level-ups for the fourth character and keep squatting the fifth and sixth characters.

I just finished the game and I have *only* 265,000xp on my four characters. I stopped muling and level squatting, so that may be the reason why you're characters have so much more XP, or did you do something special?

could someone explain what level squatting is please, im lost. heh

Level-squatting is when you do not level up your characters as soon as they get enough XP for the next level. By keeping them at a lower level, they gain more XP per kill. The idea is that the character will gain more XP overall and end up on a higher level at some future stage of the game.

@ Menion Leah

That must be the difference. I finished the game with three level two mules which gave me a party average level of 11. That low of an average level meant that I kept earning *lots* of XP throughout the Severed Hand.

@ Enagonios

Harbourboy is absolutely correct. I would just add the following. The game system does not give a fixed amount of experience points per monster, like the BG series does. Rather, the amount of experience each monster is worth is based on comparing the difficulty of the monster to the average level of your party. If your party is of higher level than the monster's difficulty you get less experience; if the monster's difficulty is higher than your party's level, you get more.
To make things worse, if your party's level gets so much higher than the monster's difficulty, you reach a point where you stop getting any experience at all.

Two main methods have been devised to deal with this problem. The first is called level squatting and is exactly what Harbourboy described. By keeping your party's levels low, you will benefit from fighting monsters which are too "difficult" for your current level. That results in more experience from each kill.

The other method to deal with the problem is called muling. The game system looks at the average level of your party in determining the amount of experience to grant. Therefore, if you have a couple of party members that are very low level, they will bring down the average level of the party. For example, a party of six characters, each at fifth level would have an average party level of five (duh). However, a party of six characters which are at levels 10, 10, 9, 2, 2, 2 also has an average party level of five (35/6, but the game does not round, it drops fractions). The three characters at level two are called "mules." The disadvantage is that there are three second level characters who are more vulnerable than anyone in the first party and who will need to be protected. However, having three characters at twice the level of anyone in the first party means that they can carry the fight and are much more devastating. Even though the parties have the same average level, the party with the mules is much more powerful since a tenth level character is much more than twice as powerful as a fifth level character (power levels do not increase linearly, but geometrically, and in the case of arcane casters, exponentially -- a 20th level sorcerer is an awfully lot more powerful than a 10th level sorcerer, not simply twice as powerful).

By combining squatting with muling one can create a party which is both very powerful and yet still gets good experience points for monster killing.

You also don't always have to protect your mules. You can usually just leave them behind at the entrance of an area.