10 years after bg1 was released, I thought it would be nice to try FotD !!!
So here are random thoughts about my game so far :
The new spells : fire lights, the new druidic level 1 spell is amazing. I didn't know druids could do that, I thought it was only for dark elves, but anyway it's a must to fight invisible mages.
The new version of chant is very surprising, but I guess it makes sense... It's just a little long to start but anyway...
The new xp for the npcs to be recruited : very low in some cases ! I got Minsc, Dynaheir and Branwen (?, the cleric turned to stone), all of them with 1 xp only ! Well it doesn't even makes much sense here, these 3 clearly went through a lot before joining the party and they should probably have some more xp... anyway... it just makes the game a little harder.
The new version of GreyWolf was a killing machine for me ! I went for this encounter before the mines, just to get the magical sword, but I was clearly too weak. After the mines, still too weak. Had to use a few lightning arrows on him + quite high level chars. I don't remember he was hiting so hard in the original game...
The encounters with poison : I agree that poison was too weak in the original game, but now it's really too strong, if an ethercap succeeds to poison someone, it's 1000 points of instantaneous damage ! (instant kill !). Well it's still playable by being extremely cautious and by reloading in case of bad luck, but it's probably too much here...
The price of magic : after swearing a lot against the prices of healing potions (just basic ones : 500 gp at least !!!), it's probably more reasonable, and it makes the diablo way of playing impossible, and yeah since magic is quite rare in this area, it has to be expensive, so it's a nice change after all, even if it makes a lot of things much more complicated!
The new AI + the new spells in the fights : excellent this part, it made a few fights really interesting (like the one in the bandit camp where the ennemy mage succeeded to completely surround my party with summoned monsters !!!).
By the way I don't know if it's intended, but there is still almost an exploit to gain xp in the wyvern cave in cloakwood: if you got the cone of cold wand (and normally you have it at this point), then you can kill a wyvern in 1 hit of this wand (high probability), and if you sleep in the cave, you have a very high probability to see a new wyvern arriving ! Well, I must say I didn't resist spending a lot of time in this cave, the fights are geting hard outside, so it's good to get some free xp !
Ah yes I almost forgot : the random encounters when you leave an area for another are probably way too hard sometimes now ! I fell once on a wyvern + a pack of giant spiders completely surrounding my party and arriving from everywhere at the same time. At that time it was the 1st wyvern I had ever met ! Well the wyvern even succeded to kill a character (failed a save vs death). Luckily there is the autosave to go back to the area we just left...
All in all, the result is impressive, you probably spent an amazing amount of time on all that Echon. So congratulations, and thanks for your work !