I'm an adult gamer who has played ADnD for most of my life. I loved Baldur's Gate (one and two) and especially Icewind Dale. But... I have never before in my life come across such an IMPOSSIBLE game to play. This just absolutely sucks! I have upgraded to a faster computer since finishing Icewind Dale, so I couldn't just input my winning characters. I didn't think this would be a problem so I started right in with Heart of Winter. Alright, alright, at least they told me not to. So I go and start Icewind Dale from scratch. My characters were all around 10th level before talking to the shaman. That was almost three weeks ago and I haven't even reached him on the burial isle yet!! I'm getting my ass kicked on a daily basis by Barrow Wights and Drowned Dead!!! When creating this game, maybe they should have had the graphics team place giant red S's on their chests! Christ, these are just powerful undead right. Then maybe my undead spells should work against them? I think I downloaded into Krypton. I did the unthinkable for the first time. I went in and modified the level toughness. It's on 2 year old setting and I still get beat every time! Next time I think about wasting 40 bucks on a game, I'll pass. I could go downtown and pay two guys to kick me in the nuts for half that. F-

Hmm.. Well, I found the imported characters to be more than adequate for the job (I had deleted my old characters too unfortunately and I didn't feel like replaying IWD all over again and I also had a review to do as well so... ).

The key is to make a well balanced party which I think you'd probably know by now. I have to admit I had to reload a couple of times now and then but I rested often and made sure that when I rested I'd still have a couple of spells in reserve in case I got attacked. As a result I never really used my clerics much for healing except in battle situations. To take care of the undead on Burial Isle I made sure I only engaged a few at a time, and made killing the Wailing Virgins a priority (as they tended to make various members of my party succumb to the hopelessness spell) by using my mage to shoot magic missiles at her from a distance while my melee characters hacked away (I think I tried to silence her too with a "silence" spell from my cleric but it didn't work). I'd still get hit with the hopelessness spell sometimes but after you get rid of the WV the battle usually gets a lot easier.

Also, did you play on Heart of Fury mode? ;; Maybe that's why.. I played on normal and found it ok.

Darwin
aka Mokona

Why did upgrading your computer prevent you from being able to use your original Icewind Dale characters with HoW? All you would have had to do was copy the character files onto a disk or over a network onto your new computer. Unless you'd somehow lost, sold, or otherwise parted with your old machine, I guess.

Also, are you aware that you can turn down the difficulty in HoW? There's a 5-point slider in the options -> gameplay menu. The default setting is the middle setting (3) but there is no significant penalty for turning it down -- you'll just lose some experience points. You characters really aren't going to miss the XP anyway, because HoW is so limited in scope and length.

And finally, since it sounds like you used pre-rolled 9th level characters when you started HoW, perhaps you might consider trying a new party. I have a magic-heavy party (includes a Bard, who can cast 5th level spells, and also two specialist mages, a transmuter and an abjurer -- a combo that means that together they can cast every spell), but I think HoW would be easier if I had one more fighter or paladin instead of a second mage.

Finally, if you don't have a Bard, STOP right now and just go make a new party. Bards are so useful in HoW that I personally feel they are too useful. The Bard gets an 11th-level song that not only gives armor class bonuses but also *regenerates everyone in the party 2hp* ... *every round!* His other songs (like remove fear) are also handy at times. And having a Bard means you can pretty much use any magic item you find as soon as you find it. Plus bards cast spells. Plus no other character gains levels more quickly. And you can still have 5 other characters who rock.

Incredulix

I upgraded to a faster machine and just copied my files over and was able to complete Heart of Winter in just 2 nights. I was actually disappointed in the game, even as an expansion it was not worth what I paid for it. The burial isle takes alot of hiding in shadows and sneak attacks, kill the virgins first.

I must agree that heart of winter is very hard, even though I did manage it. The burial isle is second only to the final battle (Isacaracht, a frost dragon with 400+hit points and woth 100 000 xp) in difficulty. The key is to use haste all of the time. I was also at the same levels, just level 10 with 2 11s, and 2 9s. The AVOID THE POLAR BEAR SPIRIT. It is far too hard To fing Hjollder quickly head up to the north-west corner of the mounds. Avoid battles with more that 3 drowned dead with a wailing virgin. These are very hard, and always go for the virgins.
The burial isle took me 5 attempts on normal. Isacaract took me 23 on easiest!

The Wailing Virgins was absurdly hard -- it was quite a shock to run into them first off in Heart of Winter.

The final boss was actually pretty was pretty easy for me -- I had a dual-classed Thief/Mage -- 8th/13th. He had all the possible protections that a mage could wear; with the protective spells that the other party members cast, he had an AC of -10. Once he was hasted, and 'Protection from Fire' cast on him ...

Well, it wasn't pretty. He Dimensioned Door'ed behind the Dragon, and cast Sunfire in rapid succession -- he had an amulet that let him cast spells quicker. So that took care of the Sahugains. My Ranger had fire arrows, and Ssth's bow of speed; my Bard had a crossbow of speed, with all these funky bolts that you pick up off the corpses of the Sahugans. Kept the party moving, and she was dead in no time at all.

I absolutely agree that Bards rock. My bard has all the instruments that I could find for her; being able to summon Berserkers was really handy! The regeneration song was key; I didn't have to rest, and risk random encounters.

I'm now working on finishing Icewind Dale itself after finishing HoW -- and confess that after HoW, Icewind Dale itself seems absurdly easy. Maybe it's because I made the leap into HoW at 9th level, when I finished the Upper Dorn's deep quest. I emerged with a 13th-15th level party.

Wes

I found that if you have 3 people with bows and +2 arrows and u have 3 people with hand weapons, i.e sword or mace then you'll anything that gets in your path:#

Yep that's right. 3 long range people with 3 melee fighters. That means, the long range people is composed either of: Bard, Thief, Mage. The 3 short ranged people can be: Fighter, Ranger, Cleric. I have one bard, one thief, one Mage, 2 Fighters and a fighter/cleric.