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Icewind Dale Review October 8, 2000 The game starts with the most important part: character creation. You can create a party of up to 6 members. 6 is basically the best route, unless you're a veteran and think you can survive with less. The more party members present, the less experience each person will earn. You can pick between a wide selection of races and classes while creating your characters. After you pick his or her sex and portrait, you choose which class and race you want for that character. All of the classic AD&D options are here, from an Elven Ranger to a Dwarven Fighter to a human Paladin. Some races have bonuses over others and weaknesses as well, such as Gnomes gaining a bonus to Intelligence, yet suffering a penalty to Wisdom. This makes some races better at being certain classes than others. Not all races can choose all of the classes though, so don't count on making that Dwarf Wizard. After selecting the character's race, you can assign points to weapons proficiencies and, if you chose a spellcaster, your starting spells. Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers obviously have the most weapons options available to them. Fighters are the only class that can assign more than 2 points to any weapon, as their profession demands a high level of weapons mastery. Spellcasters can choose a set number of spells to start with, usually around 3. After choosing which to start with, you choose which ones you wish to have memorized, which is always less than how many you actually have. There is no "mana" in Icewind Dale; spellcasters may cast a particular spell once a day for each memorization slot they have it in. As they gain levels, they will also gain additional memorization slots. After using up their memorized spells, the caster must rest so his mind can "recharge". You'll want to go for a balanced party. A good selection is 2 pure fighters, preferable Dwarves, a Wizard or wizard-subclass for extra firepower, a Thief, at least 2 healers such as Clerics or Druids, and a ranged attacker such as a Ranger. This will give your group a nice balance of power and you should have no trouble finishing the game with a party such as this. You can exchange the Fighters for Paladins or Rangers if you wish, or you could switch out the Wizard for another Healer. It's purely up to you. Once you've started the game, you'll appear in a Tavern of an icy fishing town. You can speak to any NPC you wish, many of whom have a good bit to say or will send you off on a quest. There is one "main" quest in the game, but there are so many optional sidequests that you just can't resist going on at least a few. After exploring the town, you must find the NPC that originally greeted you in the Tavern you started out in. He's going to take a caravan through a mountain pass to some far-off city. Before he does, however, you'll need to investigate why previous caravans haven't returned. After checking out the caravan path, you'll discover a cave full of Orcs and Ogres just begging to be killed. It's a great starter-dungeon and helps familiarize you with the game's controls. The main focus of Icewind Dale is combat. Whilst Planescape Torment was all about reading a in-depth plot and contained hours and hours of text, Icewind Dale is for more of the "dungeon-romping" enthusiast. What Black Isle Studios has basically done is stripped out the large gears of previous games to create a fast-paced, streamlined product. Most of the time you'll be fighting one of the many monsters in the game, from Yetis to Goblins to the obligatory Ogres. Once you've wasted a monster, it's bloodied corpse will fall to the ground (or explode, depending on how it was killed) and so will any loot it was holding. This loot can then, of course, be sold off in town to finance your much-needed adventuring gear such as swords, armour, spells, and whatever else you may need. Unlike Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale is packed on only 2 CDs, which indicates just how much leaner this game is than the other two. This translates to less CD swapping, which is a welcome change.
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