Icewind Dale II Designer Diary #2

RPGVault now has a second Designer Diary online for Black Isle’s upcoming Icewind Dale II, this time written by Damien Foletto, the man in charge of creating hundreds of random drop items for the game (among other things). Here’s a bit of what he had to say:

Each bonus magical ability that was attached to an item had a power level value. For example, Flame (1D6 fire damage) cost 2 power levels, while Flaming Burst (1D6 fire damage plus 10% of all hits cause an additional 1D10 fire damage) cost 3 power levels, and so on. So, let’s take the following Random Drop Item (which could pop up in the later stages of the normal, non-Heart of Fury mode of IWD2) and dissect its power level:

Flaming Burst Mace of Disruption
STATISTICS:
Damage: 1D6 + 1
Damage Type: Crushing
Special:
– Flaming Burst: +1D6 fire damage and 10% chance of +1D10 extra fire damage
– Disruption: All undead and outsiders hit by weapon must roll a Fortitude Save or be destroyed
– Sure Striking: Weapon is treated as +5 for the purposes of hitting creatures that require magical weapons to hit
Weight: 8
Speed Factor: 6
Proficiency Type: Maces
Type: 1-handed

This mace turns out to have a power level of 6, where Flaming Burst = 3, Disruption = 2, and Sure Striking = 1. Every item in IWD2, whether it is a Random Drop Item, like the above mace, or Unique Items (items that have a specific back story) use this power level scheme. The types of items that fall into this scheme are all weapons, armor, rings, amulets, robes, cloaks, helmets, ammo, belts, potions and wands (I feel like I’m forgetting something, but you should get the idea).