Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition

Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition is a compilation of tweaks and fixes for Icewind Dale 2, enhancing the game in a variety of ways. Classes, spells, items, creatures, and encounters are made more interesting. IWD2EE changes over 300 spells and over 1,000 items, and it adds over 90 new spells, almost 200 new items, over 30 new feats, and several NPCs that can join the party. The mod fixes many of the big issues with the original Icewind Dale 2: you no longer have to do large amounts of backtracking to complete certain areas, enemies in Heart of Fury Mode are empowered in interesting ways rather than just having lots of HP, and you can revise the experience system so you won't get zero experience for killing enemies late in the game.

The big changes described above are only applied if you install certain components - Class Revisions, Spell Revisions, Item Revisions and Creature Revisions are the biggest ones. It is highly recommended that you install these.

Languages

• English
• Russian

Installation

1. Unzip all files into your IWD2 folder.
2. Double-click on the Setup-iwd2ee.exe application.
3. The WeiDu window will pop up. Follow the prompt and WeiDu will install the mod on your game. This can also reinstall or uninstall the mod.
4. In the IWD2 folder will appear a new program: IWD2EE.exe.

5. You MUST start the game by clicking on IWD2EE.exe. If you click on IWD2.exe instead, the game will crash during character creation or when you load a save game.

If you are using any mods other than IWD2EE, you should also install the IWD2EE mod compatibility patch which comes with IWD2EE. Install the patch after IWD2EE and after all other mods.

Components

1. IWD2EE Core
2. Class Revisions
3. Looser Alignment Restrictions for Classes
4. Spell Revisions
5. Spell Focus Feats for All Schools
6. Item Revisions
7. Creature Revisions
8. Better XP Progression
9. More Interesting Alternative to the Palisade Quests
10. Add Additional Ways to Progress Through Certain Areas
11. Faster Wandering Village
12. Faster Dragon's Eye and Lord Pyros' Domain
13. Shorten the Dragon's Eye time loop questline to a single battle
14. Add more scrolls to the game
15. Revised Creature Immunities
16. More Accurate Saving Throws for Enemies
17. Revise Critical Hit Immunity
18. Better Racial Enemies for Rangers
19. Cosmetic Tweaks
20. More Persuasion Options
21. NPC Core
22. NPCs start with experience
23. New GUI
24. Looping Main Theme
25. Revised Battle Square
26. Minor Damage Resistance for Armor and Shields
27. Race Revisions
28. Enemies give the same amount of experience regardless of the party's level
29. Adjust encounter level-scaling
30. Reduce enemy HP bonuses in Heart of Fury Mode
31. Reduce enemy attack bonuses in Heart of Fury Mode
32. Reduce enemy saving throw bonuses in Heart of Fury Mode
33. Weaken allied summoned creatures in Heart of Fury Mode
34. Have the party start with experience in Heart of Fury Mode
35. Reduce the delay between sneak attacks
36. Increase the level cap
37. Always learn spells from scrolls successfully
38. Add attacks of opportunity to the game
39. Change the way ability scores are assigned at character creation
40. Add more traps
41. Add key bindings for automating buffing

IWD2EE Core

The core component must be installed for any other component to be installed. It includes various quality of life changes.

• Load times are much faster.
• IWD2EE includes built-in widescreen compatibility, making the Widescreen Mod unnecessary. DO NOT INSTALL THE WIDESCREEN MOD WITH IWD2EE; IT WILL CRASH THE GAME. When you start IWD2EE, a menu opens that lets you set the game to a higher resolution. Note that higher resolution settings do not apply to menus; they only apply when you load a save game.
• IWD2EE includes a ddraw fix, which should improve performance.
• Scrolling the screen should be smoother on some devices.
• It is possible to scroll with the middle mouse button.
• There is now a quickloot button.
• Right-clicking a spell or innate ability on the actionbar brings up its description (though most innate abilities don't have descriptions unless Class Revisions is installed).
• You can now go through dialogue as fast as you want; there's no longer a brief delay each time you choose a dialogue option.
• The character record screen includes a Reform Party button.
• The options screen includes a button to access the IEex Options menu (currently it includes an option to alter the fog of war so that it doesn't flicker, if you were having problems with it flickering).
• If a party member has enough experience to level up multiple times, you can choose how many times they level up at a time. This also allows you to divide the level ups among multiple classes (though you'll have to go through the level up process once for each class).
• Scrolls are highlighted in green when a wizard is selected who doesn't know the spell.
• If you do not have the vanilla option to rest until healed enabled, characters heal a number of HP equal to their level on rest, rather than only healing 1 HP.
• As long as you have the console enabled in IWD2's normal config menu, cheat keys will be enabled automatically without needing to enter a command.
• For modders, IWD2EE includes several new opcodes, and offers the ability to run Lua code in-game via the console or various hooks (and some of the new opcodes can call custom Lua functions), as well as a limited ability to modify the GUI. This opens up many possibilities for modding.

Class Revisions

This component revises the game's classes to make warriors and rogues much more viable, and it adds over 30 new feats to the game. This component is most balanced when combined with the Spell Revisions component.

Barbarians: Barbarian rage now grants immunity to fear, hopelessness, stun, paralysis, sleep, and unconsciousness. Also, Barbarians start gaining damage resistance at level 2 rather than level 11, and their damage resistance from their class is doubled if they're wearing medium armor (hide armor or chain mail). Barbarian Rage now keeps improving after level 20.

Bards: Bard songs should be more useful now. They're also spread out over more levels and scale with levels so bards no longer reach their peak at level 11. The songs can stack, but only if multiple bards sing at the same time.

Level 1: The Tale of Currant Strongheart: +1 to hit and damage and immunity to fear and hopelessness. Gains another +1 to hit and damage at levels 10, 25 and 40.

Level 3: The Song of Kaudies: All allies are immune to harmful sound-based spells and abilities.

Level 5: Tymora's Melody: +1 luck, +2 to saving throws and rogue skills. Gives another +1 to luck and +2 to saving throws and rogue skills at levels 15 and 35.

Level 9: The Siren's Yearning: All enemies must make a Will save or be stunned for 1 round or until they take damage. The save DC is equal to the bard's level. This song also imposes a cumulative -1 penalty to Will saves for 10 rounds, every round.

Level 13: The War Chant of Sith: +2 generic armor bonus, physical damage resistance of 3/-, and 3 HP healed every round. Increases to +4 AC, 6/- damage resistance, and 6 HP healed every round at level 25.

Level 20: The Ballad of Three Heroes: +5 spell resistance, 5/- resistance to all forms of magical damage, and the effects of the Tale of Curran Strongheart, Tymora's Melody, and the War Chant of Sith. Increases to +10 spell resistance and 10/- resistance to magical damage at level 28.

Creature Revisions also makes it so enemies early on use more sound-based spells and abilities (such as harpy wails in Chapter 1), which makes the Song of Kaudies more useful.

As in PnP, bards can, on certain level ups, replace one of their lower level spells with another spell of the same level.

Clerics: Clerics are not changed much by Class Revisions, but Spell Revisions improves the spontaneous casting and domain systems.

Druids: Druids get a new set of shapeshifting forms. The abilities of each form scale with the druid's level.

Level 5: Winter Wolf Level 7: Polar Bear Level 9: Giant Viper Level 11: Salamander or Frost Salamander Level 13: Shambling Mound Level 15: Fire, Water, Earth or Air Elemental Level 40: Black Dragon (Dragon Shape)

The druid shapeshifting feats are also changed. They now allow druids to shapeshift into Blink Dogs, Rhinocerous Beetles, and a swarm of insects as in the Creeping Doom spell.

Rogues: Rogues get +1 luck every 5 levels. They won't have the sustained damage output a warrior has, but they'll be able to land some very wicked sneak attacks (luck in IWD2 increases the chance of a critical hit).

Class Revisions also revises some of the thieving skills:

• Pick Pockets: As in PnP, pickpocketing someone involves two rolls: one to determine if you're caught, and the other to determine if you are able to take the item. Any item could potentially be stolen, including equipped items (the DC depends on the item slot and whether the item is equipped; stealing from one of their regular inventory slots is easy, but stealing an equipped weapon is very hard, and stealing an equipped suit of armor is basically impossible, with a DC of 70, on which a 20 doesn't guarantee success). In addition, when you pickpocket someone, you see a list of the droppable items they have in their inventory, along with the chance of stealing each one and the chance of getting away with it. Items that are easier to steal and less likely to get you caught are stolen first.

• Open Lock: The lockpicking system has been revised to be more like Baldur's Gate, in that picking locks is easier but forcing them open is harder, and there isn't much variance to the roll: if you aren't able to get it open after a couple of tries, you probably can't. Also, picking locks gives you experience.

• Disable Device: Disarming traps gives you experience.

Monks: Monks now get much faster and more accurate unarmed attacks, and their attack damage progresses more logically. Their base damage caps at 1d8+5, but they start with 2 attacks per round and gain an additional attack per round every 3 levels (up to 18 attacks per round at level 49). Their Deflect Arrows ability now lets them take no damage from the first missile attack that would hit them each round. Wholeness of Body now restores HP equal to the character's monk level * their Wisdom bonus, and can be used once per 7 levels. Quivering Palm can affect enemies higher level than the monk, and monks gain an additional use of Quivering Palm every 6 levels after level 15. Monks also get Abundant Step at level 10, a teleportation effect.

In addition, monk orders no longer limit multiclassing, and they have extra abilities.

Monk of the Old Order: 2nd level: The monk now adds their Wisdom bonus again to the DC of Stunning Attack. 18th level: The monk now adds their Wisdom bonus again to the DC of Quivering Palm.

Monk of the Broken Ones: 2nd level: The monk gains one use of Lay on Hands per day. Any level that would give the monk a use of Wholeness of Body instead gives them another use of Lay on Hands. When used by a Monk of the Broken Ones, Lay on Hands restores the same amount of HP as Wholeness of Body (monk level * Wisdom bonus) but can be used on other creatures as well. 6th level: The monk gains 2/- resistance to all physical damage. Another 1/- resistance is gained every 4 levels thereafter.

Monk of the Dark Moon: 2nd level: The monk gains a sneak attack bonus of 1d6. For every 4 additional monk levels after level 2, the monk gains another 1d6 sneak attack damage.

Fighters: Fighters get +1 to damage every 5 levels and +5% critical hit chance every 10 levels, and can get Greater Weapon Focus in a weapon at level 8 and Greater Weapon Specialization at level 12. All warriors get better saving throws and stronger attacks.

Paladins: Paladins get more spell slots, and they get them at lower levels. Paladins get an additional casting of Lay on Hands every 5 levels. Smite Evil is more powerful, and they get an additional casting of Smite Evil every 10 levels.

In addition, paladin orders no longer limit multiclassing, and they have extra abilities.

Paladin of Ilmater: 2nd level: The paladin can cast Shield Other (which halves the damage an ally takes, causing the paladin to take the other half) at will. 6th level: The paladin's healing spells and abilities heal 50% more hit points if used on an ally other than the paladin. 11th level: The bonus to healing spells and abilities is increased from 50% to 100%.

Paladin of Helm: 2nd level: While using the Guard action, the paladin and all allies within 20 feet gain a +2 AC bonus. 6th level: The AC bonus from using the Guard action increases to +4. 11th level: While using the Guard action, the paladin can see through illusions as per True Sight.

Paladin of Mystra: 2nd level: The paladin gains one rank in Armored Arcana, reducing their arcane spell failure by 35%. 6th level: The paladin gains two more ranks in Armored Arcana, reducing their arcane spell failure by a total of 105% (allowing them to cast arcane spells with no chance of failure while wearing the heaviest armor and shields). 11th level: All fire, cold, electricity, acid, and magic damage dealt by the paladin is increased by 20%. This stacks with feats like Spirit of Flame. This bonus applies to both spells like Fireball and abilities like Smite Evil.

Rangers: Rangers get more spell slots, and they get them at lower levels. They can gain the feats Improved Two-Weapon Fighting and Manyshot at lower levels than other classes, and they can gain a second rank in those feats for another attack per round. They are also able to use Set Natural Snare every 6 levels, which snares enemies for 5 rounds on a failed Reflex save. Set Natural Snare is much more effective than in the original game; the save DC now scales with the ranger's Wilderness Lore skill.

Sorcerers: Sorcerers will no longer hit their peak at level 20 and then experience near-zero growth. As in PnP, sorcerers can, on certain level ups, replace one of their lower level spells with another spell of the same level.

Wizards: As in PnP, wizards can choose two new spells to learn on each level up, which can be of any spell level the wizard has accessed. Generalist wizards now gain +1 to the DC of all wizard spells they cast (Specialist wizards gain +2 to the DC of wizard spells they cast of their school, but this was a vanilla feature that wasn't documented in IWD2 until now).

Although the inherent changes to clerics, sorcerers, and wizards aren't huge, all spellcasting classes benefit greatly from some the new feats, especially metamagic feats.

Looser Alignment Restrictions for Classes

Even IWD2's very broad class system can be restrictive in some ways, mostly in the lawful/chaotic axis. This component loosens a few of the restrictions, allowing certain classes to be compatible with more alignments:

• Bards can be any alignment besides Lawful Neutral (previously could not be any lawful alignment)

• Monks of the Old Order can be any non-chaotic alignment

• Monks of the Broken Ones can be Neutral Good

• Monks of the Dark Moon can be Lawful Neutral, True Neutral, and Neutral Evil

• Paladins of Ilmater and Mystra can be Neutral Good

• Paladins of Helm can be Lawful Neutral

• Rogues can be Lawful Good

Spell Revisions

This component significantly strengthens many underpowered spells. It also switches some spells to lower or higher levels and grants some spells to classes that previously could not cast them. Here are the main changes:

• Over 90 new spells are added to the game. These include unused spells like Dimension Door, PnP spells that weren't included in the original game like Fly, Wall of Force and Reverse Gravity, spells from other games like Mantle, Stygian Ice Storm and Isaac's Greater Missile Storm, as well as unusual ones like Identify Creature (a divination spell that tells you the stats of the target creature) and Auril's Blessing (which increases the power of your cold spells). Some of the new spells are bard-only, paladin-only, or ranger-only.

• Cleric domains have better spell choices. If a spell is in-theme with the kit (e.g. Moonblade and Wall of Moonlight for priests of Selune), they can cast it at a particularly low level as a domain spell.

• Clerics can spontaneously convert spells above 4th-level into healing/harming spells of the same level, rather than into Cure/Inflict Critical Wounds. Here is the full list: Level Good Spell Evil Spell 1 Cure Light Wounds Inflict Light Wounds 2 Cure Moderate Wounds Inflict Moderate Wounds 3 Cure Serious Wounds Inflict Serious Wounds 4 Cure Critical Wounds Inflict Critical Wounds 5 Raise Dead Slay Living 6 Heal Harm 7 Resurrection Destruction 8 Greater Restoration Energy Drain 9 Mass Heal Mass Harm

• Certain spells are available to more classes. Rangers and Paladins have much better spell choices. Spells that create magical weapons or give combat bonuses can be cast as lower-level spells by Rangers or Paladins than by Druids or Clerics (e.g. Rangers can cast Fire Seeds as a 4th-level spell, and Paladins can cast Spiritual Weapon as a 1st-level spell and Holy Power as a 3rd-level spell).

• Magical weapons like Flame Blade and Decastave have been improved. Most of them gain bonuses from Strength and proficiency (even ones that deal non-physical damage). Saving throws on magical weapons and touch attacks (e.g. Snakebite poison, Slay Living instant death) now have DCs that scale with the character's spellcasting ability and Spell Focus bonuses.

• Spells that weaken a creature rather than disabling it have a higher DC or no save at all (e.g. Deafness has no save since it simply gives 20% spell failure).

Spell Focus Feats for All Schools

In the unmodded game, spellcasters could only choose Spell Focus to empower Evocation, Necromancy, Transmutation, and Enchantment spells. This component expands those four feats to apply to the other four spell schools as well. The new feats are:

Spell Focus: Evocation/Conjuration Spell Focus: Enchantment/Illusion Spell Focus: Necromancy/Divination Spell Focus: Transmutation/Abjuration

Item Revisions

Normally, Icewind Dale 2's items are balanced terribly. There are just a few good items towering over hundreds of almost useless magic items (e.g. items that just provide +1 Hide skill or 1/- Spell Resistance). It's not even a low-magic game: one gets tons of magic items, but most of them are terrible.

Item Revisions enhances most of the magical items in Icewind Dale 2, giving them a much larger variety of useful abilities. The purpose is primarily to empower weak items rather than to weaken strong items. Overall, the total number of magical items you obtain as loot in the game won't change much, but those items are more likely to be useful.

Item Revisions also adds many new items to the random loot tables, including powerful armor, shields, rings, amulets, and ammunition.

Creature Revisions

This component enhances creatures and encounters throughout the game. Here are the main changes:

• Spellcasters are given better AI and new spell selections, including some of the new spells from Spell Revisions. They start combat with buffs on. They shouldn't be quite as tough as Sword Coast Stratagems spellcasters, though.
• Enemy clerics now use domain spells. Even clerics of enemy-only deities cast domain spells (e.g. priests of Auril have spells like Ice Storm, while priests of Xvim have acid spells).
• Enemies use more sensible items and attacks. Aurilite rangers shoot frost arrows, mind flayers drain Intelligence on hit, and large creatures have longer reach on their attacks.
• On Heart of Fury Mode, enemies are stronger in a variety of ways. Monsters' innate abilities have higher save DCs and/or deal more damage. Spellcasters cast higher-level spells than they do on normal difficulty settings.

Fixes:

• Harpies in Chapter 1 use their wail.
• Yuan-ti Half-breed Sorceresses in the battle for Kuldahar now cast spells.
• On Heart of Fury Mode, enemy monks have higher-level monk fists to reflect the fact that they are higher-level.
• On Heart of Fury Mode, creatures summoned by enemies now gain Heart of Fury Mode bonuses.

Better XP Progression

In most RPGs, you gain levels at a roughly constant level over the course of the game. In IWD2, though, you gain XP and levels slower and slower as you progress in the game, which is the biggest reason why the late game is so much less fun than the early game. This is because many enemies are rigged to be a lower challenge rating than their actual level. By the time you're in the Severed Hand, you might be fighting critters that are level 17 but have a challenge rating of 9!

This component fixes that. There are two install options. The first option sets all creatures' challenge rating equal to their level, which results in extremely fast leveling as the game progresses. The second option, which is the recommended version, sets CR to slightly below their level after level 9. Neither option will affect early game enemies much, but midgame and endgame enemies will now grant XP appropriate to the challenge they pose.

More Interesting Alternative to the Palisade Quests

This component offers a more exciting alternative to the quests you'd normally have to do at the Palisade. When you first talk to Shawford, rather than agree to do his "special assignments," you can simply choose to stand guard at your posts until the goblins attack. This jumps you straight to the Palisade battle, which will be more difficult and involve more enemies (e.g. because you didn't repair the wall, and Isherwood couldn't pick off as many goblins before running out of arrows). If you manage to win this more difficult battle, you get extra experience equal to the experience you would've gotten for completing the quests.

Add Additional Ways to Progress Through Certain Areas

This component includes several changes that make certain areas more nonlinear and add some more opportunities to use certain niche spells and skills.

• If you want to try attacking the Horde Fortress head on, you can bash open the gate to the inner fortress with a Knock spell. While inside, one of the enemies drops a wardstone that will open the gate to Guthma's cabin, though you could also sneak in by opening a grate on the roof. With the wardstone, you can also head into Goblin Warrens from the opposite direction you normally would, fight your way through, and come out the other side.
• Several locks in the Ice Temple that previously required keys or the lightning machine to open can be picked.
• In the Severed Hand, the door to the bridge between the War Tower and the Wizard Tower is unlocked from the start, so if you have a way to make the party fly or teleport, you can reach Orrick's study by going over the gap in the bridge.
• Riki no longer requires you to fight Iyachtu Xvim or make a deal with him to proceed to the final bosses. However, if you didn't defeat Iyachtu Xvim or ally with him, you will have to survive unkillable glabrezus while fighting the final bosses, and the bosses will be tougher in the second phase because you didn't purify the radiant pool.

Faster Wandering Village

This component reduces the backtracking required by the Wandering Village quests. You can now travel to all three sections of the Fell Wood the first time you go there (allowing you to meet the dryad, collect the horn, and fight the Will o' Wisps), rather than having to go through it three times for the three quests.

Faster Dragon's Eye

This component reduces the backtracking necessary to get through Dragon's Eye by making the alchemy quests optional. You should now be able to fight your way through the third floor of Dragon's Eye without having to go back to previous floors.

• A powerful mind-shielding spell like Impervious Sanctity of Mind or Mind Blank can allow you to pass under the Eye of Sseth without needing to become a histachii. (This is PnP-accurate; Mind Blank normally protects against an Antipathy spell).
• Opening the door in the third floor of Dragon's Eye no longer requires you to put poison in the four pools in the area; you just have to kill Thorasskus.
• The timed gate with the slime trap opens after 60 seconds rather than 24 in-game hours.

The alchemy quests can still be completed; you can still make histachii brew and poison vials. These items still offer benefits: the histachii brew allows you to sneak past yuan-ti without them attacking you, and the poison vials can now be used as consumables to poison your weapon as per the Envenom Weapon ability.

Shorten the Dragon's Eye time loop questline to a single battle

This component simplifies the final area of Dragon's Eye. Rather than having to go through a long time travel quest, you just fight one battle to prevent Izbelah from casting Temporal Stasis. The component changes some dialogs in Chapter 5 to make it clear why you're fighting Izbelah.

Add more scrolls to the game

This component adds relatively high-level mage scrolls to various spell vendors, including Elytharra, Zack Boosenberry, Suoma, Bered, and Sheemish. A solo wizard or a wizard in HoF mode will be able to learn high-end spells and keep pace with a sorcerer. This isn't too extreme: early-game vendors might have a couple of scrolls at 5th-7th level, but they won't have tons of 9th-level scrolls.

Revised Creature Resistances and Immunities

This component revises the resistances of some creatures to be more reasonable. For example, slimes in Dragon's Eye aren't completely immune to physical damage, and iron golems and will o' wisps aren't completely immune to magic (they still have high spell resistance, though).

Elementals now have regular elemental immunities rather than undead immunities. Fiends now have regular fiendish immunities (e.g. immunity to poison) rather than undead immunities.

Trolls no longer fall down and have to be finished off by fire or acid; instead they regenerate faster and have more HP but take significantly more damage from fire and acid.

More Accurate Saving Throws for Enemies

This component adjusts all enemy saving throws in the game, making them roughly equal to the player's saving throws at the same level. Thus, a level 10 enemy fighter will have similar saving throws to a level 10 fighter in the party.

Revise Critical Hit Immunity

The vanilla game gives out immunity to critical hits to enemies that shouldn't have it, including fiends and certain random enemies. This component has two options: either you can give critical hit immunity to all undead, constructs, objects, elementals and oozes and remove it for all other creatures, or you can make all creatures vulnerable to critical hits.

Better Racial Enemies for Rangers

In the vanilla game, there were a lot of racial enemy choices that simply weren't very useful. Getting bonuses against yuan-ti and undead was simply better than getting bonuses against bugbears and hook horrors. This component gives the player the ability to choose from a new set of racial enemies:

Giant Insects Giant Arachnids Demons Goblinoids Giants Amorphous Beings Constructs Humans Animals Undead Aberrations Underdark Aberrations Yuan-ti Elementals Trolls Dragons

Cosmetic Tweaks

Currently, this component lets any race choose any of the available colors on character creation.

More Persuasion Options

This component adds more opportunities in the game to use Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and other skills in dialogue.

SPOILERS BELOW

• In the fight with Torak, a character with high enough Intimidate can potentially intimidate some of Torak's minions into abandoning their leader, though it probably won't work on all of them.
• In the fight for Shaengarne Bridge, a character with high enough Intimidate can intimidate Xuki into surrendering and dropping her gear, though the other enemies will still have to be dealt with.
• It's possible to make a deal with Guthma to stop his attack on the Ten Towns and finish Chapter 1 without fighting Guthma, though it will require both Bluff and Diplomacy.
• It's possible for the party to Bluff their way out of the fight with Thvara.
• Suoma can be intimidated into telling the party of the dark treants early on, though it requires you to be rather mean. Once you've rescued the children from Limha, you can also persuade Suoma (using Diplomacy) to tell you of the dark treants. Either way, that will allow you to fight the dark treants and move on to the Cold Marshes earlier than normal.
• The party can bribe Limha into freeing the children and turning them back to human form. The cost is lower with higher Diplomacy.
• A character with an extremely high Search or Wilderness Lore skill can potentially find the exit to the Fell Wood without having to fight the Dark Treants.
• Before fighting Harshom, a character with arcane spellcasting who has high enough Bluff and very high Spellcraft and access to illusion spells can trick Harshom in order to gain advantage in the battle in some way. The check is easier to make if the character is an illusionist.
• When the party first enters the mind flayer stronghold, a character with very high Intimidate can intimidate the Elder Brain in response to their telepathic messages and convince them to let the party leave without a fight, provided they head straight to the exit.
• In the yuan-ti temple in Chult, it is possible to talk with Ojaiha and organize a truce, provided your Diplomacy is high enough. This will allow you to move on to the fight with Cedra's forces once you return to Kuldahar.
• In the Severed Hand, there is a new character in the throne room. A party member with an outrageously high Bluff skill can convince them to call back Isair and Madae to the Severed Hand and give you an audience, starting the final battle earlier than normal.
• Lastly, this component adds no fewer than five different dialogue paths to talk your way out of the final boss fight. They typically require the character talking to be very good at multiple pursuasion skills.

NPC Core

This component allows several existing NPCs to join the party: the fighter Reig, the rogue Black Geoffrey, the diviner Veira, the cleric Emma Moonblade, the troll Vrek Vileclaw, the goblin Vunarg, the rogue/illusionist Zack Boosenburry, the abishai Xhaan, the sorcerer Pairi, and the monk Sersa.

NPCs gain experience upon joining to match the party's experience

This component lets NPCs from the NPC Core component start with experience to match the party. There are two subcomponents. The first one makes NPCs start with the average experience of the rest of the party members. The second one makes them start with a fifth of the total experience of the party.

The point of the second option is to prevent certain exploits related to soloing. If you have the first option enabled, you could get pretty far into the game while soloing and reach a high level, and then recruit NPCs that were just as overleveled as your starting character. With the second option enabled, those NPCs will be at a reasonable level regardless of the previous size of the party.

The first option is recommended if you aren't planning on doing any XP exploits like that.

Cosmetic improvements to the GUI and New loading screens

This component currently adds a new main menu screen and new chapter screens. There are no new buttons, but the GUI should look better.

Looping Main Theme

Normally IWD2's main theme does not loop. After 1 minute, it ends and you spend the rest of character creation with no music playing. This component edits the main theme to play repeatedly.

Revised Battle Square

To get all the rewards for the Battle Square, one normally has to fight 25 battles per rank, to a total of 250 battles. Even if the party members are powerful enough to win all the battles, this is still very tedious.

This component makes it so one only has to beat a rank once (with 3 or more squares) to get the main reward for the rank. To get all the rewards, it will only take 30 battles rather than 250.

In addition, this component allows you to go back to the Battle Square and finish it up in Chapter 5 when you return to the Ice Temple for Nickademus's favor.

Minor Damage Resistance for Armor and Shields

Inspired by Weimer's similar component from IWD2-Ease, this component patches every armor and shield in the game so they give physical damage resistance equal to half their Armor Class bonus, rounded down.

Race Revisions

Race Revisions revises various races and subraces, giving them abilities that they're supposed to have in PnP:

• Humans get 4 extra skill points at 1st level rather than 2.
• Elves can detect traps even when they aren't actively searching.
• Gnomes get a bonus to the DC of illusion spells they cast.
• Knockdown/trip attempts against dwarves have their DC reduced by 4, as dwarves are especially stable.
• Drow and Tieflings can cast Darkness once per day. Drow start proficient with crossbows instead of bows.
• Duergar can enlarge themselves once per day.

Race Revisions also gives certain races a few new abilities:

• Half-elves and Half-orcs now get an extra feat at 1st-level (this is the benefit they get for being half-human; previously all their benefits and drawbacks had to do with their elf/orc side).
• Elves may use Weapon Finesse with large swords.
• Dwarves start proficient in axes and hammers.
• Rock gnomes have +2 Intelligence instead of Constitution.
• Lightfoot halflings may add half their Dexterity modifier rather than their Strength modifier to the damage of a sling or thrown weapon (if the former is higher).
• Ghostwise halflings gain 1.5 times their Strength bonus to damage with slings and thrown weapons, as one would with two-handed weapons. In addition, their stat penalty is to Intelligence rather than Strength.

Revise racial level adjustment/ECL

This component makes it so rather than certain subraces being one or more "levels behind" other characters, they get a certain penalty to XP. In practice, this means that these subraces don't level up that much slower than other characters early on, though at very high levels they lag behind a bit more.

Enemies give the same amount of experience regardless of the party's level

This component makes killing enemies give the same amount of experience no matter the party's level. This way, leveling up doesn't come with the dissatifaction of enemies giving less experience, and there's no incentive to delay leveling up to increase experience gain. There are two options: either you can have enemies give experience equal to 25 * their challenge rating (a six-character party will reach about level 15 by the end of the game), or it can be 35 * their challenge rating (a six-character party will reach about level 18 by the end of the game).

Adjust encounter level-scaling

Icewind Dale 2 encounters often have additional enemies for a higher-level party. This component has two options: you can make it so you always fight at least the version of the encounter meant for a medium-level party, or you can make it so you always fight the version meant for a high-level party. The higher-level versions of encounters usually just have a couple more enemies or in some cases have tougher versions of enemies; they aren't impossible for a lower-level party to complete.

Note that this component does almost nothing in a Heart of Fury playthrough or a solo run, because in those playthroughs your character(s) are usually high enough level to trigger the high-level encounters anyway.

Reduce the HP bonuses of creatures in Heart of Fury Mode

Enemies in Heart of Fury Mode normally have absolutely ridiculous HP: goblins in the prologue have 157 HP, and the frost spiders in Chapter 2 have 452 HP! This component reduces the HP on creatures in Heart of Fury Mode. This component is designed for a party starting HoF at a low level. It is balanced such that enemies early on will have way less HP than in the original HoF, but enemies later on won't have that much less HP. This will make Heart of Fury Mode easier, but also much less tedious (and Creature Revisions makes Heart of Fury Mode more challenging to make up for it).

Reduce the attack bonuses of creatures in Heart of Fury Mode

Enemies in Heart of Fury Mode have such high attack bonuses that it's near impossible for them to miss except on a 1. This component gives creatures outside the party a -9 attack penalty on Heart of Fury Mode. They will still have higher attack bonuses than they do on the next-hardest difficulty, but it won't be quite as extreme.

Reduce the Saving Throw bonuses of creatures in Heart of Fury Mode

Early on in Heart of Fury Mode, it can be very difficult to get enemies to fail saving throws if you're starting as a low-level party. This component gives a small saving throw penalty to creatures outside the party on Heart of Fury Mode.

Remove ability score bonuses of allied summoned creatures in Heart of Fury Mode

In Heart of Fury Mode, allied summoned creatures also get HoF bonuses, and since you reach high level more quickly, summoned creatures can be quite overpowered. This component makes it so summoned creatures don't gain the normal +10 to all ability scores that creatures on Heart of Fury Mode get, unless they are summoned by an enemy.

Have the party start with more experience on Heart of Fury Mode

The beginning of Heart of Fury Mode is absolutely brutal if you start at level 1 - even with some of those components installed that weaken HoF creatures. This component gives each party member some experience at the start of the game. The experience each character starts with is the same regardless of party size. You have choices of how much experience to start with.

Reduce the delay after a sneak attack before the creature can be sneak attacked again

Normally once a rogue sneak attacks a creature, that creature becomes immune to sneak attacks for about 3 rounds. This component can either remove that immunity, allowing the creature to be sneak attacked again immediately, or reduce its duration to 1 round.

Increase the level cap

This component increases the level cap to 40 or to 50 (your choice). You'll only reach such high levels if you're soloing or playing Heart of Fury Mode.

Always learn spells from scrolls successfully

This component lets all wizards successfully learn spells from scrolls 100% of the time.

Add attacks of opportunity to the game

This component allows characters to make attacks of opportunity in melee under certain conditions: if the enemy steps out of your melee range, if they make a ranged attack, or if they cast a spell.

Change the way ability scores are assigned at character creation

This component has three options. Two of them allow you to roll for stats rather than use IWD2's normal point-buy system. The first one doesn't allow you to increment or decrement stats with the plus/minus buttons, but you can choose which ability score each number rolled is assigned to (like in The Temple of Elemental Evil). The second subcomponent lets you use the plus/minus buttons.

The third subcomponent lets you use the point-buy system of Neverwinter Nights, where increasing a stat above a certain value requires you to spend extra points, and the minimum for a stat is 8.

Add more traps

This component adds more traps to the game, and makes certain existing traps somewhat more dangerous. Don't worry; this shouldn't turn IWD2 into Durlag's Tower. The point is to add twists to existing encounters and make trap-disarming skills more meaningful.

Add key bindings for automating buffing

This component adds a very fair system for automating buffing.

To use it, first press the "[" button to start recording spells, then have party members cast any number of spells, which must either target party members or target a point. Then press "[" again to finish recording.

After that, pressing the ";" button at any point will cause party members to cast the same spells that were previously recorded, in the same order, targeting the same party members as in the original recording. Spells that target a point will target the caster's location instead. If any of the recorded spells are not memorized at the time they would be cast, those spells are skipped.

Pressing the "]" button will erase the recording until you do a new one.

This system doesn't cheat in any way; the spells aren't cast instantly nor can you cast more than one spell per round unless you have Improved Alacrity. However, it should still speed up buffing somewhat and make it require less effort by the player. Once you have the spells recorded, you just have to press ";" without having to scroll through spell lists.