Attributes; Group Experience Awards - Quest Experience; Gaining Levels For Different Races; Experience Point Cap - Black Isle ICEWIND DALE 2 Manual

character earns enough experience points to advance to the next experience level, the character has become
tougher and more powerful.
Experience points are earned through the activities of the characters, which generally relate to their adventur-
ing goals. All characters on an adventure receive experience points for overcoming their enemies or obsta-
cles, and the amount is divided equally between the characters in your party.
Some FORGOTTEN REALMS' races included in Icewind Dale II are significantly more powerful than the races
found in standard Third Edition D&D. To maintain the balance of power between all of the character's in your
party, the leveling path of these special races is steeper than others. These races, such as the drow and
tiefling, have what is called an Effective Character Level (ECL) when it comes to determining the amount of XP
needed to advance to the next level. The ECL is simply the characters displayed level plus a number between
one and three that is defined in their race description (see Races and Sub-Races section). The ECL is then
looked up on the XP table (see Table 2, page 135) to see how much XP the character needs to make it to the
next level. As an example, a level 3 drow character has an ECL of 5 (Character Level of 3 plus a racial level
modifier of 2). The drow needs 15,000 XP's to reach 4th level instead of the normal 6,000 XP's needed.
Icewind Dale II has a limit on the amount of experience points a character can earn, which is enough for
each character to reach a maximum of 30 character levels. Character level is the sum of the levels for all of
the character's classes. So if a character were a 5th level Fighter and a 10th level Rogue, they would have a
total of 15 character levels.
Every person in the Realms has traits which set them apart from all others. The most pronounced differences
will be in the areas of Race, Class, and Abilities.
Ability scores are the six natural traits that represent the basic definition of a character. See Table 1 on page
134 for ability bonuses and penalties.
Strength: A character's muscle, endurance, and stamina. It is the prime requisite of warriors.
Constitution: A character's fitness, health, and physical resistance to hardship, injury, and disease.
Dexterity: A character's hand-eye coordination, agility, reflexes and balance. It is the prime requisite of
the rogue.
Intelligence: A character's memory, reasoning, and learning ability. It is the prime requisite of the wiz-
ard.
Wisdom: A character's judgment and common sense. It is the prime requisite of clerics and druids.
Charisma: A character's persuasiveness, personal magnetism, and ability to lead. This ability is impor-
tant to bards, paladins, and sorcerers.
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