Page 1 of 1

HOF ramblings

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 11:08 am
by Ellester
I decided to post my thoughts on my first IWD2 Heart of Fury party.

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.

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 11:49 am
by Wrath-Of-Egg
1#
Well hopefully.. but i would say that they are maxed on Severed hand or not..

2#
As for cleric... you do have cleric? Use Giant Vermin spell.. druid and ranger has this spell too.. 3-5 of these things can block even the open areas of this game.. wich is good thing..

3#
Only i can write madman ramblings..

4#
Good luck to you...

5#
I belive there will be 10.000 other post how to beat HoF and what is best party setup... so bye..

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 12:19 pm
by Ellester
1) cool. I expected as much
2) Yea I have a cleric and Ranger. With my heavy magic party I have tons of summoning capabilities. The Druid rocks with the elemental summonings. Seems kinda unfair when I use them. :)

Actually I don’t want the best party. I started out by removing my two best tanks from my previous run and added in two new level 1 characters. On top of that I’m using my archer (my Ranger/Rogue) with 12 strength from my previous game as a melee fighter now. I actually prefer the challenge of having a weaker party. I just want to clear that up. I was just curious if my approach using a magic heavy party seemed cool and doable, not what’s the best way to beat hof. And a couple of technical q’s.

Thanks for the replies. :)

Posted: Mon Nov 15, 2004 2:08 pm
by Heidrek
You are right about Maguc being the key to HoF mode. I found myself relying on summoned creatures far more than was healthy until I discovered that Symbol: Hoplessness was probably the best spell in the game.

As lopng as you have access to Heal. Symbol:hoplessness, Wail of the Banshee and Malison you will do just fine until you get tot he last chapter. Your Cleric and Sorceror will be key to winning many fights. Your melee tanks are essentially meat shields that act as road blocks to buy your spell casters time - You'll never beat HoF in pure Melee.

Archer characters are only ok if you have enough front line tanks. You might get to do 50 damage before the enemy gets to melee range with missile weapons, but that's not enough. In melee you will get carved up. YOur best bet is to use your Arcane spell casters as archers as you can cast and fire off a few arrows in the same round at later levels. Give your Ranger some strength Buffing items and use fim as a sneak attacking melee fighter. make the most of his sneak attack!

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 10:35 am
by Ellester
Now after playing it for a while (In chapter 2) I think by removing my two best tanks and adding a wizard actually is making the game easier than harder. I have a sorcerer, wizard and druid as my spell casters, plus a Cleric tank who can cast mass heal at any given time. All I do is cast spells consistently, whereas in the original campaign tanking it out with my melee fighters was the standard way. Magic definitely makes it a ton easier.

The funny thing is my sorcerer has 30% of the kills in my party. I’ve never seen that in a ie game, it’s usually my best tank who has the most kills. :)

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 11:09 am
by Wrath-Of-Egg
my sorc has 60%...i wonder what you do..

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 3:17 pm
by Ellester
Well, I would have to look, but I would assume its the Druid and Wizard that are also taking a big chunk of kills. The Druid has 6 Finger of Death Spells and uses every one.

btw, who would get a kill for a summoning? Does it record kills when killed by a summoning? If so, then my Druid has a lot of kills too, as I use those elemental summonings a lot. They turn on you, but they are worth it as they'll kill pretty much everything.

Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2004 4:07 pm
by Heidrek
Your Sorc. Will get most of the kills by using Wail of the Banshee. This will kill many at a time. Likewise, disabling everyone with Symbols, the Wilting or Delayed Blast Fireballing them repeatedly until they die will result in a very high number of kills.

Posted: Thu Nov 18, 2004 11:28 am
by Ellester
[QUOTE=Heidrek]Your Sorc. Will get most of the kills by using Wail of the Banshee. This will kill many at a time. Likewise, disabling everyone with Symbols, the Wilting or Delayed Blast Fireballing them repeatedly until they die will result in a very high number of kills.[/QUOTE]
Yea, those are my favorite spells. I also like slowing them down with web, entangle and grease. This allows me to throw Delayed Blast Fireball, Skull Trap and Chain Lightning’s into a group of tangled foes. :)