Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update
Posted Sunday, July 14, 2002 - 23:41 CET by Z-Layrex

J.E Sawyer, Lead Designer

Cross class skills: There is no such restriction in IWD2. However, I don't see this as a bad thing. If someone wants to shove tons of points into a cross-class skill, they'll still be worse off than a character that has it as a class skill. Ten skill points into Disable Device just gets you five ranks.

Chris Avellone, Designer

About EBGames still saying “kits” are in the game: Definitely no kits. Not a one.

One handed staff: It's intended to be a cool item for monks and mages and lets them have an extra hand free.

You have the chance to get it pretty early on, not surprisingly.

Tex Yang, Quality Assurance

About EBGames still saying “kits” are in the game: No kits, but there is one particular reference later in the game that is extremely hilarious.

Number of feats: If I remember right, the total amount of feats in the game (this is including the weapon feats) was in the high 60s, almost 70 if I remember correctly.

Well looks like I miscounted back then, the total is 75 unique feats. Armor (light, medium, heavy) is counted as one, so is cleave/improved cleave, toughness, spell penetration, blah blah blah (the ones that can be taken for more than one rank).

There is one more first level only feat, which is Resist Poison. This one allows Grey Dwarves and Half-orcs a +4 save against poison.

As far as I know, all the feats that have been removed were already mentioned in some way or another (riddlemaster feats, deathblow, yadda yadda yadda).

One handed staff: The whispering staff uses the mace animation and graphics, it's more of a role-play type thing, due to the fact we couldn't make a brand new animation just for that.

Number of CDs: The revs we've been getting have been 2 discs. If that's subject to change is yet to be seen (I doubt it will change though).

Spells per level: Now this is just a quickie, it's-after-midnite-and-I'm-still-checking-stuff, count - so I may be off a number or two.

Anyways, this is the number of spells which the classes can choose from per level - they are not unique spells, and will overlap into other classes:

Bards ----------------------> 11, 19, 16, 09, 06, 06, 04, 03, xx
Clerics ---------------------> 12, 16, 22, 15, 13, 10, 08, 11, 02
Druids ---------------------> 08, 11, 15, 11, 09, 05, 09, 03, 05
Paladins -------------------> 03, 05, 05, 07, 04, 03, xx, xx, xx
Rangers -------------------> 05, 07, 07, 09, 05, 06, xx, xx, xx
Sorcerers and Wizards -----> 19, 25, 21, 26, 22, 26, 17, 14, 09

*Cleric spells may vary by one depending on the alignment - the one I listed is for a good cleric.

We adjusted the spell tables to account for levels 21-30.

Number of monsters summoned per summon spell: Usually 3 or 4 each spell, some more, some less. So Monster Summoning I cycles between 3 or 4 monsters, Monster Summoning II cycles between 3 or 4 different ones, etc.

Create undead: Nope, there are no Create Undead or Create Greater Undead spells in the game. Animate dead does change what kind of monster shows up depending on the cleric level though, and they're not limited to skeletons and zombies - it's kind of a convenience type of thing.

I don't know the exact reason, but my guess would be to keep the spell casting as uncomplicated as possible, since a lot of the undead which are summoned by those spells get summoned by animate dead, just a matter of what level the caster is. Just speculation on my part though.

Fear spell: Fear has been removed from the game, horror is the one (fear-inducing spell) that's being used.

Endure elements is also not in the game.