Doug Avery Interview

Sorcerer’s Place has conducted an interview with Black Isle’s Doug Avery, in which they talk about the upcoming sequel to Icewind Dale. Check it out:

Q: Icewind Dale 2 features quite a significant chunk of 3rd edition D&D rules. How has implementing 3E rules effected game development? What did you manage to include and what did you have to leave out?

A: Icewind Dale II incorporates every 3E rule that we could get to work in it. We now have skills, feats, 3E multi-classing, Base Attack Bonus, 3E armor class and saving throws. Everything is as close to its 3E rule definition as the engine will allow. Some concessions did have to be made particularly with turn-based concepts that don’t translate as well into a realtime environment, but I think these pale in comparison to the faithfulness we’ve shown to the spirit of the rules. The only missing 3E changes have to do with turn-based combat, skills that don’t make sense for the game and mounted stuff. The spells that we have in right now have all been changed to their 3E counterparts and we’ve even changed our items to correspond with 3E naming conventions and damage output.