Andora place: peaceful solution?

[NguyenGiaThai]

Is there any point to leave the village Andora of Auril druid/rangers alive and peaceful?

By stealthy method, my intimidater get near Illium and scare him into giving us passage.

With savescum, my 25 Pickpocketer presumbably can get belladona paste off him. I havent invested the time into getting it but one of my few first try we pick a handful of golds from him, so I assume we can pick the paste off him if we try.

It seem we can get a second diamond from the next area.

Therefore, we can leave Andora alone, bypassing a chance to harvest xp and items.

But is there any point to that peace route?

[Sir Rechet]

Other than RP purposes, no, there's no point in leaving them alive after you've done your thing in the area.

If you have a diplomat character in your party, it MIGHT be a good idea to let them live at least until you've negotiated a better deal for prices with Beodaewn. You can't coerce him if you've razed the village.

[NguyenGiaThai]

I find one purpose to let them live until much later: loot disposal.

Not Andora, no. The cult's shop. We can threaten them into a discount, much better selling than Oswald. Sell all the loots there will bring at least 15% difference.

Mind you, the elvish wife in Targos is better for loot disposal.

[NguyenGiaThai]

:ffffuuuu: This could be troublesome.

Spoiler!

It seem if we have too many winter wolf pelts in inventory (Bag of Holding doesnt seem to show, though) or wearing too many WW clothes (1 doesnt seem activate) then the werewolf will rage and attack. There goes the high discount shop.

And I check the sell/buy. You get higher price selling to Beodaewn than either gnomes. So try not to get him riled up.

[NguyenGiaThai]

As the Battle Squares can reward you with arrows, bolts, and darts of high quality, much pricier than the gems, it's good idea to finish off the werewolf store until after you finish off the Squares.
- Winter Wolf might interrupt your rest, 700Gp per pelt.
- Level reward might have arrows, bolts, and darts. Since a bare 20dart of fire +5 can net you 40k+ easily, it's better selling here than get back to Targos.

[SlickRCBD]

Originally Posted by NguyenGiaThai

Mind you, the elvish wife in Targos is better for loot disposal.

That may be true, but everyone should know since you are explicitly told that once you leave Targos on the airship, you cannot return.

Granted, I do sell all my unnecessary junk to her BEFORE leaving, but you can't sell the loot from the ice temple to her.

[NguyenGiaThai]

True dat! unfortunately, sometimes we forgot to sell all before we leave.

Anyway, it need to be mentioned that these is a box near the cult. And the beetle nest could be used to store if you feel like walking farther.

[coineineagh]

If you have a Bag of Holding or valuable quiver and a char with 13INT 16CHA, keep your most valuable loot for selling to Heggr Splitsteel in the Underdark, near the end of the next chapter. It's still a long way away for you, but you can intimidate him into a huge markup on your sales.

[Silvery]

Coin, where've you been? Or have I just not been paying attention?

[SlickRCBD]

Originally Posted by coineineagh

If you have a Bag of Holding or valuable quiver and a char with 13INT 16CHA, keep your most valuable loot for selling to Heggr Splitsteel in the Underdark, near the end of the next chapter. It's still a long way away for you, but you can intimidate him into a huge markup on your sales.

To do that you REALLY need to use the "bottomless bags of holding" mod from ease-of-use or g3 tweaks. I somehow failed to install it (probably typed 't' or 'u' instead of 'y') the first time I played, and due to my pack-rat nature VERY quickly filled it up.

The purists (or more aptly masochists) playing without ease-of-use (or g3 tweaks) will have too much loot for this to be a viable option. The bag barely holds enough to let you haul it back to the nearest merchant without making lots of trips back and forth to unload.

[NguyenGiaThai]

Indeed. But there's a razor-thin line between ease of use and make game too easy.

[SlickRCBD]

What's so bad about the ease-of-use mod? Granted a few of the tweaks from the G3 pack can be slightly unbalancing, but ease-of-use just removed some of the annoying inventory micromanagement.

To quote right from the SP page...

Originally Posted by http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/IWD2/index_mods2.php

The Ease-Of-Use mod is collection of useful modlets and minor changes that make playing IWD2 more bearable. All of these components are optional and may be installed separately:

Bugfixes
Infinite Stacking
Non-Combat War Chant of the Sith
Improved Holy Avenger
Two-Handed Greatsword Holy Avenger
No-Fists for Iron Body
Deep Gnome Starting XP
Improved Moonblades
Improved Monk Fists
Collector's Edition Bonus Items
No Alignment Class Restrictions
Magic Weapon Finesse
Always Get Some XP Per Kill
Some Heart of Fury Items in Normal Mode
Stronger Bastard Swords
All Items Identified
Non-Linear Teleporting
Armor and Shields Provide Damage Resistance
Include Forgotten Armor and Shields
Additional Druid Spells
Alternate Shapeshifting
Skip Battle Square

[NguyenGiaThai]

Juggling things is a joy of gaming. If you eliminate it altogether, it's less fun.

If you institute more BoHs, it means you can go longer before have to visit safe location to dispose of loot... Not an entirely palatable idea.

You can get 3 Everlast arrows as of Ice palace, so there's not much need for big stack of normal arrow/bolt/bullet. I almost never buy better arrows, since what I find is good enough, and more than plentiful enough.

No limit on dual class? Not even talk about cheap advance, we are talking about nonsense advance. We are talking about Paladin/Dreadmistress of Banite, perhap?

Dont think I didnt look at them before. But Ease of Use for IWD2 is entirely not desirable.

[SlickRCBD]

Sorry, I copied the wrong quote. Some of the IWD2 ease-of-use changes ARE cheats. I think I only used Infinite Stacking, Deep Gnome Starting XP, Collector's Edition Bonus Items, Always Get Some XP Per Kill, and the bottomless bags.

[NguyenGiaThai]

Some of features look okay

Improved Moonblades: Blasted sword only cause magic damage.

Always some XP: I squatted too much and now I overleveled.

But what is this? No Battle Square? The damn thing is a gold mine, with arrow/bolt/bullet/dart to sell

The loot each level get is one of the following
- XP, there's a formula for this I suspect, but I dont really know exactly. If you got XP you got nothing else.
- Gem and gold, Can appear along with scroll or items.
- 20Items: Bolts, Arrow, or Dart. in term of money, getting this to sell is better than the gem+gold combined. Never saw this appear with scrolls.
- Scrolls: either cleric or wizard. I got level 8, 9 Wiz scroll here which simply fabulous.

The XP thing is very tasty, as enemies are always higher level than you, so it's easy to squat here. After finish off BS, I visit Wandering village for the first time with entire party at level 13.

The loot: if you save reload at the last battle of that level, you can change the reward. A good monetary reward = gold+gem+20items. At rank 9, you can get dart of fire +5, 40k for the 1st batch. Good bye to poor, rich here I come.

The scrolls: You can have chance to get a wizard/cleric scrolls for each respective rank. Which mean this is an early chance to get level6-9 spells for your wizards. Very early. My wizardess get a Summon Invisible, Elemental Barriers, Great Shout, PW Kill for each level, then move on.

Skip Battle Square? What heresy!

[coineineagh]

Originally Posted by Silvery

Coin, where've you been? Or have I just not been paying attention?

Hi Silvery. I'm the one who isn't paying attention, leaving your question unanswered all this time!
I'm playing Tactics Ogre on the PSP at the moment. Not a D&D game, so I ended up on gamefaqs, where my input is appreciated
I check the Icewind Dale 2 forum almost every day, but it's true that I don't post as much as I used to. Rest assured I'm still lurking around the Boards

Originally Posted by NguyenGiaThai

Some of features look okay

Improved Moonblades: Blasted sword only cause magic damage.

Always some XP: I squatted too much and now I overleveled.

But what is this? No Battle Square? The damn thing is a gold mine, with arrow/bolt/bullet/dart to sell

The loot each level get is one of the following
- XP, there's a formula for this I suspect, but I dont really know exactly. If you got XP you got nothing else.
- Gem and gold, Can appear along with scroll or items.
- 20Items: Bolts, Arrow, or Dart. in term of money, getting this to sell is better than the gem+gold combined. Never saw this appear with scrolls.
- Scrolls: either cleric or wizard. I got level 8, 9 Wiz scroll here which simply fabulous.

The XP thing is very tasty, as enemies are always higher level than you, so it's easy to squat here. After finish off BS, I visit Wandering village for the first time with entire party at level 13.

The loot: if you save reload at the last battle of that level, you can change the reward. A good monetary reward = gold+gem+20items. At rank 9, you can get dart of fire +5, 40k for the 1st batch. Good bye to poor, rich here I come.

The scrolls: You can have chance to get a wizard/cleric scrolls for each respective rank. Which mean this is an early chance to get level6-9 spells for your wizards. Very early. My wizardess get a Summon Invisible, Elemental Barriers, Great Shout, PW Kill for each level, then move on.

Skip Battle Square? What heresy!

You do get a reward for skipping it, though it's not scaled, you can't reload for better rewards, and I don't remember any high level scrolls being awarded in the loot. Install it anyway, because it won't affect the Battle Squares if you don't implicitly choose to skip the battles.

Many people just don't like the 250 monotonous battles, and the walking back from the waiting room. It drags on for quite a bit. Also, the atmosphere in the Ice Temple does nothing to make the experience feel less like a standstill: You don't get any storyline progression, the golem tells you your opponents are summoned for training purposes (saving the world can wait until you're done in the gym, I guess?), and the ambient sound makes you feel like your trapped in an office with bad air conditioning.

But enough of me ripping on the Squares. I've got to acknowledge that you made a great discovery here: I never heard any mention of high-level spell scrolls being in the rewards, and reloading for better rewards is good advice for anyone willing to undertake the ordeal.

[SlickRCBD]

As you said, it's 250 monotonous battles, and reloading for better rewards makes it even worse. Not to mention all the times you fail to kill the enemy quickly enough and have to fight the battle over again.
I do the battle squares, but after my first run-through of a game, I tend to take a pokemon trainer attitude to collecting treasures and power-ups. "Gotta find 'em all".

Heck, I sorta do that on my first run-through, but the difference is that I try my best to avoid spoilers unless I'm really stuck. So I miss a lot. I'm also a pack-rat.

My latest run-through of BG has me deciding to play a character (thief of course) taking this attitude to it's logical extreme and trying to get all the unique treasure possible including the loot in the Adventurer's Mart, but that's a post for another forum. I'm going to do the same with IWD and NWN.

[NguyenGiaThai]

What do you mean, walking back from the waiting room?

Click on the Rank selector. Click on the Activator. The golem start talking. Your whole party minus the combatant get teleported to the waiting room.
You combatant plow through the enemy. Golem say selet the next square..., after you kill the last level 's enemy, you start casting on yourself a spell of that level. Your whole party AND your combatant got teleported to the BS room.
IF enemy is teleporting away to attack your party, or move out of Golem's sight, it will move toward that enemy, to prevent the cheat of using summons. in the case of demon teleported to your party, you must move to keep yourself in its sight so that when the enemy get wasted, it will announce square won. If not, it wont (BUG).
About the only moving I can think of is that you need to move back to the room after the announcement.

Anyway, it's no wonder you guys dont know about the loot of scrolls if you skip the BS. i am telling you, unless I replay it with high level wizards, any starting fresh party need to complete the BS to get those scrolls.
Level5 spells: 2-3 in Ice Temple, several in Wandering Village and Fell Woods.
Level 6 spells: several in Wandering Village.
Level 7 Possibly Monastery or further. According to some faqs, Chult
Harvest Rank 6-9 will be a must.

I dont know about monotonous. I do know that the excitement of seeing a ****ing Greater Werewolf and it can kill my fully buffed paladin if I am uncareful AND unlucky. Or a scrag, that while several level below me, still can inconvenient me greatly. OR **** me, some elementals. They are really hardhitters. Even a normal Fire elemental can **** me up properly.

And no, the club of disruption +5 is not reliable. IF it's, I prolly can rely on it to fight with lowerlevel Boneguard. But Apocalyptic ones? Unreliable or not it doesnt have the edge to stand against them. The undead scare me more than the demons.

I burnt through 30 or more Extra Healing potion.My stock is running low enough that I seriously considered buying more.

[coineineagh]

With cheats you could ctrl+Y autokill the summon, but even then it takes aaaages.

Keep in mind that it's possible to ignore the "BS" in the second chapter, and backtrack all the way from the end of chapter four.. Just before you step on Oswald's airship to Kuldahar, go back through the Underdark, past the Monastery, the river caves, through the Fell Wood, stop by the Wandering Village for supplies, and re-enter the Ice Temple at higher level, and possibly with a dire need for high-level scrolls. It might be worth the effort then..

[NguyenGiaThai]

And one thing I must stress is that if you want to sell well, dont kill the werewolf shop AND (possibly) the Andora. Every winterwolf pelt you got, store them at the box near their camp. We will sell them all the moment we want to kill them (700 there or 200 in wandering village?). ALso, every winter wolf clothes must be stored in bag of holding or that box, or it would enrage them. One is okay, my bard-diplomat wear one and deal with them all the time.

EDIT: obviously, because we go back occassionally to sell excess loot, there's no pressing need to complete BS. Before go to wandering village the first time you can do the following

Rank 10: 1 level to get 20Darts of fire +5 (=40k), 1 level to get one wizard 9 spell. Short Sword+5 is pretty good.
Rank 9: 1-2 level to get wizard 9 spells. Wand of the Dead is not good, because if you use them often the way it should be used, it will run out of charge in no time.
Rank 8: 1-2 level to get wizard 8. Composite bow of empowerment, +4 attribute for 5 round on getting hurt, is a bit too random. If you like, of course.
Rank 7: 1-2 level to get wizard 7. Wizard 7 will take until Chult to get, so this is your best shot. Ice Spear +4 is VERY nice to have for your melee meatshield, since he can stand behind a summon and stick it to foe. I recommend it. However, try to get 1,2 wiz7 scrolls first before complete the rank.
Rank 6: You can get a bunch of level 6 wiz scrolls in Fell Wood, so there's no need to farm scroll here. Club of Disruption is not that easy to disrupt high level enemies, BUT it's a +5 club, so it's still a recommendation to get it. Of limited utility in BS fights.
Rank 5: Throwing Axe of Shocking Burst is awesome for your melee meatshield. Simply awesome. I recommend get it before the club, it's that good.

For the 4 ranks, your mileage may vary. Potion of holy transference in rank 2 is very nice for your cleric or druid, and Boots of Grounding help a lot when demons throw lightning bolt on your face. But. Your mileage may vary.