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Yeah, just use a single-class Druid (or maybe a Fighter1/Druid to get all weapon and armor proficiencies). Frost Fingers and Beast Claws rule the early game (actually Frost Fingers rules in general), and you get some pretty powerful damage spells later on.
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Nov 20, 2013 22:14
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I've been playing through BG:EE for the past couple of weeks and I have to admit that BG1 just hasn't aged as well as the subsequent IE games. Tromping about the wilderness as a murderhobo is still great fun, but as soon as I run out of places to explore and get to Baldur's Gate (the city), I find that the game is nothing but city blocks full of dull fetch-quests and even duller dungeons. I got bit by the IE bug again, though, so I'm firing up IWD and taking a party through on Insane difficulty. The difficulty slider in IWD is actually pretty sweet - harder difficulties increase the damage that enemies do, but also give you more experience, so you advance faster. It also adds extra enemies at certain places to increase the challenge factor. Consequently, I'm running with a pretty powergamish 5-person party: Human Paladin (Longsword/shield tank) Human Ranger/dual-classed to Cleric at level 2 (Melee DPS - Mace/flail sans shield to abuse the Ranger's pseudo-dual-wield) Human Fighter/dual-classed to Druid at level 2 (Second-line melee/spell DPS specializing in spears and quarterstaves) Half-elf Bard (Longbows/Xbows/Bard songs/spells that my main mage can't learn) Gnome Thief/Illusionist (Shortbows/spell DPS/trapfinding & lockpicking) All min-maxed, of course. Now to slaughter some goblins...
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Oct 4, 2014 02:53
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I've been playing and re-playing the IE games at irregular intervals since they first came out 15-ish years ago, and I've only now, after playing them back-to-back, realized how much better Icewind Dale is than BG1. IWD is more tonally consistent (BG could never quite settle on being either a serious D&D adventure or a parody of one), better written despite having less text, far more balanced, better paced, and much prettier. Oh, and it has the superior soundtrack of the two. So happy that it's getting the EE treatment, though I hope Beamdog don't screw up too much.
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Oct 10, 2014 17:44
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Buck Turgidson posted:Does IWD:EE still have the insane rest restrictions of the original game? I hope not. Dragon's Eye is seriously the most annoying area in the game because you can't rest on the last two floors for some arbitrary reason. A few more observations about IWD from what's probably my 7th or 8th playthrough of the game, albeit the first in a while: -If you're playing through the game again, instead of going with Heart of Fury mode, start a new party on Insane mode. Enemies do double damage but give double XP, so you level up extremely fast, and the game adds extra enemies to certain encounters to toughen them up. (Remember that one ogre in the cave near Easthaven? Now there's like five.) The fact that a common orc can chunk your tank in the blink of an eye makes the game less about pure melee DPS and more about effective crowd control - you'd better bring some serious spellcasting power. -It's amazing how the addition of a handful of spells turn Druids from "seriously underpowered" to "arguably best class in the game." Sunscorch is possibly the best 1st-level damage spell in the game, Alicorn Lance gives the class something worthwhile to take at level 2, Spike Stones is all sorts of useful, and that's just the first three levels. It really makes me not want to go back to playing a druid in BG2, where the class is relegated to second-rate backup tank/Entangle spammer. -The battle music in the final level of Dragon's Eye is seriously the best battle music in any game, ever.
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Oct 19, 2014 20:18
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JustJeff88 posted:I think that BGI suffers more from the tedium, poor balance and random die-in-one-hit combat of 2nd edition D&D, not that 3/3.5 were much better. BG2 always starts you at a respectable level, and it's more focused in many ways. I like the open wilderness maps of BG1, personally speaking, but starting the game as a sorcerer with 6 HP at most and one level 1 spell is less than auspicious. The wilderness maps are great, but the dungeons are middling (Durlag's Tower) to horrible (the Firewine Bridge is just one boring, featureless maze) and exploring Baldur's Gate proper after the excitement of discovering all of the little secrets along the Sword Coast is just disappointing in how little interesting content the devs put in such a big city. I much prefer BG2 even though BG1 still has a lot of nostalgia value for me.
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Oct 21, 2014 16:48
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