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It's pretty similar, but uses a half-baked implementation of the 3rd ed rules, rather than 2nd ed (BG 1/2, IWD1, PS:T, etc)
Fun game. Was always my Infinity Engine white whale, I beat all the other games back in the day when they were new, never finished this one until a couple years ago.
You'll want at least one martial frontliner, at least one divine caster, at least one arcane caster, and a character who can handle traps and locks.
Scrolls can be fairly sparse, I wouldn't take more than one arcane caster who relies on scrolls to learn new spells (i.e. wizard)
If you take a paladin, spec into longswords.
The Targos theme is fucking sick.
XP scales relative to your level vs the monster's level, to make it harder to cheese with a tiny party and levelmaxx.
There's a lot of RNG in terms of what items and equipment you'll find, some shit is super rare. So if you read a guide or a list of equipment, it may be shit you'll never actually see in your playthrough. Accordingly, you may want to not specialize into specific weapons to retain flexibility.
You'll never know when a dead cat can come in handy.
Play the vanilla game, the "IWD2EE" is modder trash.
Don't forget to have fun

>>3881759
>don't play ee play original
People say this with every IE game but trying to hunt down an original game and also install it is just fucking impossible

>>3881763
>People say this with every IE game but trying to hunt down an original game and also install it is just fucking impossible
IWD2 is on GOG for $10 right now, and has been for at least a decade. Also, the "IWD2EE" is a mod which requires a copy of the original game anyway. Double also, if you buy the BG1 / BG2 EEs on GOG, you get the original games as a free bonus. Yes, I agree, it's fucking bullshit and pisses me off too. Triple also, the only EE worth playing is PS:T. That's actually a direct upgrade with no questionable downsides. Well, I never tried the IWD1 EE, maybe that one's not so bad, but I'd definitely stay away from the BG1/BG2/IWD2 ones.

>>3881763
OP here, Ironically I am selling my copy of original CD's of Baldur's Gate I and BG II and nobody wants to buy it, even when I set the price for 5$.
and all those tutu mods and all that doesn't do it for me. I want to be able to ZOOM in and out of the map and the only one that does this is EE as far as bg1/bgII. But yes I do think ill have to install the original version of IWD2.

>>3881768
>and all those tutu mods and all that doesn't do it for me
I used Tutu any time I replayed BG1 for the last few decades, to the point that I barely even remember what vanilla BG1 is like, probably haven't played it since the game came out. One of the few opinions that /vrpg/ has changed my mind on, is that adopting the BG2 engine and all its changes fundamentally changes BG1 in an unacceptable way. I replayed BG1/2 a few years ago so it'll be a few more before I feel like replaying it, but I'll be rawdogging the plain ol' original version for sure.

>>3881768
have you tried gemrb?

>>3881775
No one has tried GemRB.

>>3881775
No what's that? Aside from all the trash EE added there are a couple of things I did like in EE. The bag of holding in bg1 and potion cases items and the fact that you can highlight everything on the map so there's no excuse to find hidden items anymore. I am not strictly a purist so I actually enjoy the small inclusions. That being said I still reject all the new characters.

>>3881783
GemRB:Infinity Engine::OpenMW:Morrowind

>>3881755
IWD2 Enhanced Edition is great, /vrpg/ has a permanent case of old good new bad.
Though can't blame you if you want to play the original first, though I remember even the GOG version having trouble running on modern PCs.
Multiclassing works differently, instead of a character leveling two classes simultaneously, you can choose which class you want to gain a new level on level up. This results in players often dipping their characters for two or four levels in one class, and leveling another class for the rest of the game. Fighter is a popular dip, getting four levels for weapon specializations. Many non-human races gain less EXP when one of their classes is much higher than another one, unless it's a favored class. It's a weird, different system.
Paladins can sometimes shortcut some missions. Not necessarily for the better. IWD1 did something similar. In general, there is a good amount of reactivity for specific class and races. Have at least one guy with 16 or more INT, another with 16 or more CHA. Dialog isn't hugely important, but it can help in some situations.
Similar to IWD1, you don't need a full on rogue. Rogue/Wizard is a popular multiclass. Or rogue with four levels of fighter. Works well enough.
Depends on how much you want to powergame, you can drop INT, CHA below 10 on characters that don't need it. INT gives points for skills, which is only important for spellcasters, rogues and bards. Unless you want to build them around something specific (EE offers more in this regard). You could drop a barbarians CHA to 2 and put everything else into the physical attributes. Never drop WIS below 10, and if you have some spare points, increase it.
If a character wants to use plate armor, give them at least 14 Strength. Shit's heavy. Characters should only think about wearing light armor above 16 Agility.

>>3881885
Thank you, this is the type of thing I wanted to hear about. Any more tips or advice? like focus on spells or ranged weapons or go for crushing weapons?

>>3881947
Gladly.
Clerics and druids are strong. This is the edition in which they shine the most. Powerful spells, strong utility, equally good combatants in melee (with buffs). You can't go wrong with taking one cleric and another druid. I'd absolutely take at least a cleric. Take whatever domain you feel like. No outright bad choices.
Summons are very strong in general. And so is the necromancy sphere of magic (clerics can also be very potent necromancers).
Sleep spell reigns supreme, as always. Enchantment in general is very good. A bard is very good in this sphere of magic as well. Bards get a lot of cool utility items and unique dialog, and can double as rogues, but that can also mean spreading their attributes/skills thin.
Although, make sure that someone can cause elemental damage (fire, ice, thunder). Druids can help in this regard as well.
Mages are the only classes that rely on scrolls to learn spells. Scrolls in the original IWD2 can be really rare, which is why you should probably keep it at one mage max. There are more scrolls in EE and mages can learn spells on level up without scrolls. Sorcerers and bards don't rely on scrolls.

>>3881969
Ranged weapons are very good to have. You still want to have at least three characters being able to hold a frontline, in a six-man party. Less than six characters, and you'll notice that your action economy can sometimes be lacking behind the amount of bullshit the enemy can throw at you. Especially when it comes to canceling enemy spellcasters (EE is a lot more ruthless in this regard, enemy spellcasters are nasty). You would micromanage, bait, ambush and alphastrike a lot more.
Always good to have a bit of variety of weapons. Enemy resistances can vary wildly. Your sword-dude should have another hammer, your cleric wielding a mace should have a shortsword to fall back to etc. Elemental damage is also very welcome (especially fire). Stack up on fire and acid for all these darn trolls.
If you happen to play EE, keep any silver weapons you can find. You'll need them.

Another thought about ranged weapons: Enemies can drop a shitton of ammo. I thought you don't need to buy any. But currently playing in the lategame and I was at a stage where my rogue was about to run out of arrows. It's certainly a good idea to spread different ranged weapons across different characters. Bullets for slings are plentiful, crossbow bolts not so much, same goes for throwing knives. It's good to keep these rare infinite ammo ranged weapons.

>>3881970
Oh god, there is more.
Unless you want to look up a guide or do it random, have at least one character put points into wilderness lore. It's more or less useless, except for one certain section. Ranger, barbarian, druids can do that. Unfortunately, rangers kinda suck in the original IWD2, they got some neat buffs in EE, though (sorry for trying to sell this version so much, but it's true).
I mentioned the dips. Full on fighter is indeed kinda not so great. They'll do their job. At some point, they will have so many feats that they don't know what to do with them. But a barbarian with 4 levels in fighter can outmatch them. Or go full barb.
Talked a lot about bards, but don't think that you necessarily need them. They are cool to have if you have everything else covered.
Monks are also kinda meh. They can get some cool items and work as some kind of anti-mages. But they aren't that great or necessary.
Paladins are good, but again, their inclusion in your party can fuck with some quests. There is a certain section of the game in which you can infiltrate a bad guys lair, and both paladins and monks will refuse to don the cultists robes. So you just go in and kill everyone. But if you think paladins are cool, go for it. They can get some very powerful weapons.

>>3881755
Rogue is total fucking dogshit not worth taking for more than a single level to uncap some skills.
Sorceror is better than Wizard for once because spell progression doesn't keep up with the Wizard. That's why Rogue 1/Wizard X is better than either individually.
Summons are OP and even more OP in HoF.
If you want to play efficiently, don't level up until you have to. You get more XP for being behind. Yes, this is stupid.
Cleric is the best martial in the game because of the strength of their self buffs and good Will save. Stays true into HoF with a 4 level full BAB class dip, they only get competition from high level paladins and at that point you want summon spam.
Bard is actually a very good class.
Luck is OP as fuck and increases almost all of your d20 rolls directly.
IWD2EE is better

I actually really like IWD2EE, but it significantly increases game difficulty for a lot of fights if you enable all the mod options. Play the base game through at least once OP. There are lots of callbacks to IWD1.

>>3881763
>trying to hunt down an original game and also install it is just fucking impossible
Then you are literally retarded or a woman (impossible, there are none on the internet). Archive.com. GoG. Don't install it to program files like an idiot. Put it into a folder that is sitting directly on your root c:/ drive. Clear your install shield cache if you have trouble. Use daemon tools lite if you need a good way to mount images. Don't try and run the game in some crazy resolution. EZPZ. You're welcome.

>>3881776
I have.

>>3881969
>>3881970
>>3881973
>>3882025
>>3882226
Thank you this is a great wealth of information for the game. I will take notes. I'm going to try a 6 man party. I'm actually really looking forwards to starting the game.

>>3882407
Tell us about your party when you are done.

>>3882409
I don't think I'll be able to post until sometime next year. If I see an IWD2 thread next year I'll post on it perhaps. I probably won't post until I finish the game which might take a year or two since I play very slowly.

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>>3882361
Sounds dumb and gay. I will be adding twenty poorly written fan fic npc companions, overpowered loot, bug fixes, and wide-screen resolution so that the game can fit on my three monitors, and there's nothing you can do about.

Suck on my big fat throbbing cock.

>>3881755
Worse music than the first game

>>3882456
>bug fixes
Adds more and new bugs
>wide-screen resolution
Can mod this in in literally three seconds
You sound dumb and insecure

>>3882523
>Adds more and new bugs
Like?

>>3882552
Most obvious one off the top of my head without consulting a list to provide you with exhaustive examples would be fucking up Daystar in BG2EE. There are definitely more.

>>3882559
Good thing there is an EE fixpack mod then.

>>3882570
Imagine needing mods to fix bugs caused by Beamdog clumsily repackaging mods for resale while adding more bugs

Anyone got good or fun builds for IWD2EE?
I just finished the regular EE campaign and goddamn there are some brutal fights. Starting the party in HOF, currently
Paladin of Helm 12/Fighter X
Cleric 4/Fighter X
Cleric of Lathander
Ranger 2/Fighter X
Pure Halfling rogue sneak attack with slings
Pure Elf Wizard
I struggled with a lot of the Severed Hand fights. If I hadn't abused Otiluke's Sphere, not sure I could beat the game on regular.

>>3882570
>a mod for your mod

Never forget you can spam every hard encounter with animate dead. Shit is BROKEN

>>3882870
>summons are op
You don't say.

I have never used a summon in any infinity engine game, because summoning is for faggots.

>>3882804
Dwarf Barbarian, save your levelups with feats for when you meet prereqs so you can buy Improved DR. Their DR is high enough they can shrug off a lot of trash enemies.
Elf Rogue, archery or otherwise, for autosensing traps with a Bard buddy with Improved Feint and Glibness. The Bard walks in, drops Improved Feint, nukes enemy AC into nonexistence, and the Rogue deletes them.
Druid in general is fun, it has cool wild shapes that let them be a jack of all trades.

>>3882902
>save your levelups
Don't do this. This is for fags.

>>3882889
You're a fag if you never summoned a forest nymph to bone in BG2, nigga.

I'm not able to find any information on this, so I'm going to ask here:
What's the big disadvantage for using a shield when the character doesn't have the feat for using said shields? I know there is an armor check penalty and without the feat, I suffer a bigger penalty. But I can't find anywhere what it even does. Unequepping and equipping the shield, nothing in the character sheet changes, as far as I can see.

>>3882958
In 3E, it applies the armor check penalty to attack rolls and Strength and Dex ability checks and all derived rolls from those (like initiative). Don't know if it does anything in IWD2, I thought it barred you from equipping nonproficient armor and shields.

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>>3882974
I'm using this shield on my rogue, which doesn't have any shield proficiency. I can see the attack on my cleric increasing by +2 when I get rid of his shield with an attack penalty of -2. This is all clear to me. The attack penalty is directly stated in that shield's description.
I just want to know what the armor check penalty of -1 is, since I can't see it doing anything anywhere. It doesn't affect the attack rolls. The attack rolls stay the same with and without the shield. And that makes sense, since it doesn't have an attack penalty. It doesn't affect skills, initiative is nowhere stated. But maybe it affect them in the background.

>>3882985
> Shield - Using a shield fully stacks with the armor bonus. Small shields
are worth +1 AC, large shields are +2 AC. Tower Shields are
meant to provide cover (up to +10 AC if you completely hide behind
it). However, none of the current games implement Tower Shields
that way, and they usually just give a +3 to AC.

There is both a Skill Penalty and Arcane Spell Failure associated
with Shields.

just ctrl+f here, there are few differences between 3e rules and game implantation but most of it is accurate
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/552350-icewind-dale-ii/faqs/56338

>>3881775
>>3881785
Thank you for this anons, never heard of it but it's a pretty neat project

Is there a way to check all the content of Iwd2ee? Seems it's not listed on git.

>>3882804
I always go with themed parties in iwd. Last one I played were a merry band of chaotic drow bards adventuring in the cold north. Everyone is a bard, either primary or secondary class. Naturally the multi used were rogue, mage and females ofc cleric. Was hard af as they weren't optimized at all.
>build ideas: cleric/rogue, cleric/ranger and cleric/druid.

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>>3883190
Very based, anon.

this game kinda sucks and should probably avoided unless you are really into these types of games

>>3882870
there's not really any hard encounters unless you play on the autism mode. just buff up and run over everything like any other 3E game

>>3883189
Go to their git and look at all the release notes in order.

>>3883409
Had to click on blame. Found it. Not very organised, but that's that in the coder's world.

>>3883392
>there's not really any hard encounters
Then why is the dragon in the Chult jungle kicking my arse all day?

Ridiculous : In k3 kiryu can spawn weapons on the fly, sais, kama, sword and shield aso. Why?

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>>3883190
>band of chaotic drow
yes

>>3881755
what is the strat for Yxonomei or whatever the fuck holy shit

>>3881759
>heh, yeah i play the vanilla game on core rules difficulty

good for you faggot

>>3882870
not if you install SCS and do insane difficulty. With SCS you can sometimes get one gay ass zombie when you cast it

>>3886684
>I play the vanilla game on core rules difficulty
This, but unironically

>>3883426
he doesn't know what he's talking about. i spent all september no-lifing BG1 and BG2 and Icewind Dale is not going to exceed those games (especially the first) in terms of storyline or progression, but it has plenty of its own charms. The pre-rendered environments are stunningly beautiful. When you enter a little cottage and there's a crackling fire, it feels like you're there. Sure there's a lot of snow, but it's fun. Seems pretty great if you're into the 2e/3e style and you've played the shit out of other infinity engine games. I haven't beaten Dale but i'm going to eventually. It's a bit of a slog on INSANE SCS but it's the only way to play (don't listen to RETARDS)

>>3886693
congratulations

>>3886697
Thank you. I had fun. Cool game. The Lowtax reference got me. RIP

>>3881768
Iwd 2 is one long slog of "that part". I still remember the bridge fight thinking it was a joke, 10 mins or so, no resting, but no, that's only the beginning. Anyway, beat it 5 times and remember that rouge 1/wiz x is mandatory since spells don't appear fast enough for pure wiz and rouges are useless.

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>>3886803
>rouges are useless

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>>3881755
What the fuck was his problem?

IWD2 is legitimately a straight up awful fucking game.

i havent played with EE mod besides the component for AoE loot, maybe it becomes better with full install but vanilla its a linear, diablo tier slog with soulless mute party. People who say IWD was better than BG are delusional.

>>3887843
>i havent played with EE mod besides the component for AoE loot, maybe it becomes better with full install soulless mute party.
All you're missing is a bunch of busted homebrewed items.
>soulless mute party
Personally the party building is the best part of IWD. I love making a custom party of generics.
>People who say IWD was better than BG are delusional.
I personally like BG more, but I can understand why someone might prefer IWD. Some people just really like tactical combat, hack-and-slash, and dungeon crawling. IWD is like 90% that and 10% plot. BG is more 50/50. The game is just focused on what you personally enjoy less, it seems.

>>3887854
>Some people just really like tactical combat

you can make full custom party in BG and with mods like SCS or tactics remix it still has superior combat, IWD didnt get many worthwhile mods

>>3887854
>busted homebrewed items
Where?

>>3881771
>BG2 engine and all its changes fundamentally changes BG1 in an unacceptable way.
How? I've always played it with BG2 engine

>>3888157
Off the top of my head without providing you with an exhaustive list, weapon proficiencies were significantly changed (and weapon styles were added), consumables like magic arrows work differently, many spells were changed to work differently and new spells were added, etc. There are quite a few mechanical changes between the engines.

>>3888189
Class kits were added too, of course