About to start a new game, this being my first experience of IA. Very excited! I am every bit expecting to have my butt handed to me initially, but I'm looking forward to learning new things and honing my skills. One of the things I love about BG2 is that it creates a complex and real-time fight engine in which almost limitless combat strategies and tactics can be applied. In fact, I've often wished for some sort of PvP combat mod which would pit the intelligence of two humans against each other. This being unlikely, the intense challenge of IA is just as exciting.

Really got a kick out of reading that thread started by Overlord. I am exactly that type of gamer that finds satisfaction in beating something after failing for 15 times.

Anyway, since this is my first encounter with an uber-difficulty tactical mod (I beat Tactics on Core, that's it), I'm going to play on the Easy difficulty setting. Hopefully, this will still allow the mod to retain a good amount of it's challenge, while allowing my party to survive longer. Call me a wimp if you must but I simply don't think I can handle Core rules right now. (A quick question: does the 50% damage for Easy difficulty apply to ALL damage inflicted to the party, including damage from spells?) Maybe, after I become more comfortable with the challenge, I'll put it back up to Core.

I started this thread because I anticipate needing some assistance from the IA sages around here every so often as I play through the mod. This way, I don't have to start a new thread every time I have a question.

..just rolled up a Vagrant.. here we go!

I suggest you start on core and then if you cannot defeat the enemies tone down to easy

Hi, John Galt!



Yes, Easy halves all damage sustained by party members, regardless of source. It makes no difference against attacks/abilities that do not deal hp damage. Note that allies who are not members of the party (summons etc.) will always take usual (full) damage regardless of difficultly.

Personally I think it's a good idea to play on Easy to start with. After all, you can increase the difficulty at any time as you go along.

Looking forward to seeing how you get on!

I, too, enjoyed very much reading that topic started by Overlord and I'm glad to see that you share the same kind of feeling and viewpont about this game with us.



It's a good idea. I also recommend having a look at Raven's suggested quest order. It will help for the early stages of the game. Of course, players who want more challenge can deliberately choose different and more difficult paths and orders for doing things, but that's an optional self-imposed extra difficulty. (For example, I remember that thetruth once didn't leave Athkatla intime to avoid the Suna Seni encounter, but managed to successfully defeat them with a solo swashbuckler!)

Cheers

Enjoying the mod so far. Suna Seni and her gang really whooped my butt so I'm going to take some hints from Raven's quest order. I've decided to play on Core difficulty for now. If I ever get REALLY stuck on a battle I'll drop it to Easy.

Is it possible to change the Bioware NPCs to the new kits available in IA? Both the Auramaster and Riskbreaker look like interesting kits, and I'd like to assign them to maybe Valygar and Jaheira. SK doesn't seem to recognize the new kits.


EDIT: Figured it out. Just in case anyone else is interested, the value for Auramaster is "0x40210000" in the "Kit" field. Though I'm sure I'm the only one here who didn't know that.

For a new player with only experience with Tactics, you may consider playing the improved battles on the "normal" difficulty. That level has the added advantage (compared to core and above) of never allowing your characters to be pulped beyond resurrection.

Ah good call on the Normal difficulty, I'll be using that now. Well my party config is set:

PC - Vagrant
Jaheira - Auramaster
Keldorn - Inquisitor
Aerie - Sorceress
Jan - Thief/Illusionist -> Imoen - Swashbuckler/Mage
(Sarevok - Berserker)


Had trouble deciding on Jaheira or Viconia, but ultimately picked Jaheira as it would be an excuse to try out the Auramaster kit.

Cernd is already an Auramaster druid.