First off I have made 2 runs through IWD and 4 runs through IWD2, none of these has ever been HOF. When going through my last run through IWD2 I was planning on using this group for HOF because I have never tried HOF. Well its now a few months later and I’m now ready to try out HOF.
I imported in my old party from my previous game and decided I wanted a couple of new characters. So, I removed my Half-Orc Barbarian xx/Fighter 4 (my main tank) and Fighter xx/Barbarian 6 (my second main tank). I decided I wanted a Paladin for the sword, and I would try a monk seeing as he gets pretty powerful at higher levels. So two of my party of 6 started at level 1. This was hard in the beginning and I had to keep both of them out of most fights, as they would get killed with one hit. I got both of these guys up to 12th level after the Bridge fight. My Paladin got the sword that uses the characters name and adds 25 hp’s to his total. So, even though he’s behind he has enough hp’s and attacks to be a regular member of my party. The monk on the other hand gets killed in every fight. Not enough hp’s, so I had to ditch him as no way was he going to work out.
I cheated with dalekeeper and inserted a Necromancer with the same amount of Exp. Points. So I have a new Necromancer level 12 that took my monks place. Stupid move considering wizard spells are slow to find, and add to the fact, this is HOF. My Necromancer can now cast level 7 spells, and I have a feeling it’s going to be a few chapters before I even see a level 7 spell.
But, I already have a sorcerer so I am going to cheat in the spells like 3rd ED rules allows. Remember you’re supposed to get 2 spells every time you advance to a new level. So, my wizard now gets two spells per spell level, but that’s it. So, even cheating he will be crippled for the higher spell levels like 6, 7, 8 and 9.My initial observations were magic was going to be useless. Heck these monsters have tons of hit points, and spells like Flame Arrow would be pathetic against them. Now after just finishing the Goblin Fortress I realize that magic is just essential to win. You need to cast entangle, web, grease, etc.. to slow down the advancing horde, you need tons of summonings to help out, and direct death spells are key; finger of death, disintegrate and wail of the banshee. And insect swarm is just essential against the goblin sorcerers and orc shamans. To me is seems that they jacked up the number of creatures and the hit points, but they left the saves the same. I could be wrong though.
So, my party now consists of 3 shaky front line fighters and 3 spell users. A Cleric 20/Fighter 2 who will now only progress as a fighter, and a Ranger 11/Rogue 10 who will now only progress as a Ranger (Just wanted improved evasion from the rogue). On top of that the Ranger has 12 strength and all the ranged feats, as she was an archer in my first game. Now she’s duel wielding as a tank. Not great, but its working. My new Paladin is becoming a good tank, though. So, my party is dependant on my 3 spellcasters a Halfling sorcerer, a drow druid (who got the exp book from the monks in the first run) and my new elf wizard. And I think its working out, the magic I mentioned above is what’s making it easier on my so so tanks.
It would have been tons easier if I kept my old party, but I like the fact I added two new characters, as it makes the game more interesting and challenging, imo. Do you think I will last depending on magic as the monsters get tougher? And, does the game get easier as you go along in HOF as it does in the regular game? Heck the Goblin Fortress courtyard was a huge challenging fight. 15 reloads, probably.
Also on some spells like chain lightning or spell trap that don’t show a maximum level of damage, like fireball does. Do these spells progress all the way up to level 30? I’m assuming spell trap at level 30 will do 30d6 damage. And lastly, do you max out on levels during the game? My 4 characters from my old game are all at or around level 22 and I just finished the Goblin Fortress. It seems like I will max out at level 30 before Dragons Eye.
