Arcane Spell Failure:
Armor interferes with the gestures that you need to make to cast an arcane spell.
Arcane spellcasters face the possibility of arcane spell failure if they’re wearing armor, so wizards and sorcerers
usually don’t wear armor. Bards have a hard choice because they’re more likely to get into combat than wizards
and they cast fewer spells, so getting some armor makes more sense for them than it does for a wizard.
Casting an Arcane Spell in Armor:
When you cast an arcane spell while wearing armor, you often must
make an arcane spell failure roll. The number in the Arcane Spell Failure column in Table 8: Armor on page
147 is the chance that the spell fails and is ruined. If you are wearing armor and using a shield, add the two
numbers together to get a single arcane spell failure chance.
MULTIPLAYER
The Icewind Dale II multiplayer game is identical to the single player game - at least in terms of game con-
tent. The main differences between the single and multiplayer games relate to who is playing in the game - in
the single player game, you create all six characters. In a multiplayer game, between one and six players may
adventure together, cooperatively controlling the characters.
A few definitions are in order. The
leader
is the player who controls such things as who can join, what kinds
of characters can be brought into the game, and what abilities the players who are in the game actually have
(in terms of game play - see Permissions, below). The leader can control one or more characters in the game,
and has the ability to assign characters to the other players. The
server
is the computer (usually, but not nec-
essarily, the leader’s) which coordinates the various game-states of the client machines of each
player
. A play-
er is one of the people who controls one or more characters in the game. A
character
is an alter ego, analo-
gous to the characters of the single player game, which is controlled by one player in a multiplayer session.
Starting Out
To start a multiplayer game (also known as a session), first you’ll need to select a multiplayer game mode. To
do this, you’ll need to change the Game Mode on the main menu screen from “Single Player” to a multiplayer
status. This can be done by clicking on the Game Mode button on the Main Menu, which will bring up a
Protocol Screen that lists the type of multiplayer connections available to you.
Protocol
There are several buttons you can select from the protocol screen.
Single Player:
This resets the game mode to single player.
IPX:
When you choose this option, you’ll be shown a list of IPX sessions once you select “Join Game” in the
Main Menu (see “Joining a Game,” detailed later on).
TCP/IP:
When you choose this option and return to the Main Menu to join a game (see “Joining a Game,”
detailed later on), a connection screen will come up in which you can enter the host address you wish to
connect to. Once you do this, you will be connected to this session if it’s available. On local area networks,
TCP/IP has an auto-detect feature to automatically set up games.
Properties:
When you have selected the type of connection you want, then click “Done” at the bottom of
the screen, which will return you to the Main Menu. From there, you can either choose to host a game or
join a game already in progress.
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