Experience (XP) is the character stat that measures a character's life experience and accumulated practice/training, and determines when the character may level up.
How it works[]
Each player character starts the game at level 1 with an experience score of 0.
Throughout the game, experience points ("exp") are awarded to the party, evenly divided among the party members, and added to their respective experience scores.
Whenever a player character's experience score reaches certain thresholds, he or she becomes eligible for gaining a character level via the level-up screen. These thresholds depend on the character's class.
Experience rewards[]
Sources[]
There are two sources of experience points in the Icewind Dale game and its expansions:
- Kill XP
- Every time the party kills a non-player character or monster in combat, they are awarded experience points. The amount is pre-defined for each monster type and NPC.
- Quest XP
- Every time the party completes a quest or quest-like interaction, they are awarded a pre-defined number of experience points.
Sharing[]
All experience points are awarded to the party as lump sums, and divided evenly among the party members – there is no concept of "per-character quest XP" like in Baldur's Gate II.
For example, if 1200 exp are awarded for completing a quest, and the party has six members, then each of them would have their personal experience score raised by 200 points.
If the party only consisted of two characters, then the same quest would raise each party member's experience score by 600 points instead.
This means that smaller parties level up faster (and solo players level up fastest).
Scaling[]
All experience rewards (both kill XP and quest XP) are scaled up when playing on higher difficulty levels:
| Difficulty level | Kill XP | Quest XP |
|---|---|---|
| Hard | ×1.5 | ×1.5 |
| Insane | ×2 | ×2 |
| Heart of Fury | ×4, +2000 | ×2 |
For example, killing a goblin yields 15 exp on Core Rules, 22 on Hard, 30 on Insane, and 2060 on Heart of Fury. The experience rewards listed on quest/monster/NPC pages on this wiki are the "unscaled" ones (for Core Rules difficulty.)
The Enhanced Edition introduced a setting in the game options to disable this difficulty-based XP scaling.
XP rewards are not scaled for any other reason in Icewind Dale – in particular, there is no level-based XP scaling like in Icewind Dale II.
Experience cap[]
There is no direct experience cap in Icewind Dale; however, there is a level cap of 30.
This means that the maximum amount of experience that a character can benefit from, depends on their class: For example, a single-class Thief reaches level 30 at experience 4,400,000, while a triple-class Fighter/Mage/Cleric reaches level 30/30/30 at experience 22,500,000.
(There are mods[1] for removing the level cap.)
Experience thresholds for leveling up[]
The following table defines the experience score that a character of a certain class must reach in order to level up to a certain level:
| Level | Fighter, Barbarian | Ranger, Paladin | Monk, Cleric | Druid | Bard, Thief | Mage, Sorcerer, Shaman |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2 | 2,000 | 2,250 | 1,500 | 2,000 | 1,250 | 2,500 |
| 3 | 4,000 | 4,500 | 3,000 | 4,000 | 2,500 | 5,000 |
| 4 | 8,000 | 9,000 | 6,000 | 7,500 | 5,000 | 10,000 |
| 5 | 16,000 | 18,000 | 13,000 | 12,500 | 10,000 | 20,000 |
| 6 | 32,000 | 36,000 | 27,500 | 20,000 | 20,000 | 40,000 |
| 7 | 64,000 | 75,000 | 55,000 | 35,000 | 40,000 | 60,000 |
| 8 | 125,000 | 150,000 | 110,000 | 60,000 | 70,000 | 90,000 |
| 9 | 250,000 | 300,000 | 225,000 | 90,000 | 110,000 | 135,000 |
| 10 | 500,000 | 600,000 | 450,000 | 125,000 | 160,000 | 250,000 |
| 11 | 750,000 | 900,000 | 675,000 | 200,000 | 220,000 | 375,000 |
| 12 | 1,000,000 | 1,200,000 | 900,000 | 300,000 | 440,000 | 750,000 |
| 13 | 1,250,000 | 1,500,000 | 1,125,000 | 750,000 | 660,000 | 1,125,000 |
| 14 | 1,500,000 | 1,800,000 | 1,350,000 | 1,500,000 | 880,000 | 1,500,000 |
| 15 | 1,750,000 | 2,100,000 | 1,575,000 | 1,800,000 | 1,100,000 | 1,875,000 |
| 16 | 2,000,000 | 2,400,000 | 1,800,000 | 2,025,000 | 1,320,000 | 2,250,000 |
| 17 | 2,250,000 | 2,700,000 | 2,025,000 | 2,250,000 | 1,540,000 | 2,625,000 |
| 18 | 2,500,000 | 3,000,000 | 2,250,000 | 2,475,000 | 1,760,000 | 3,000,000 |
| 19 | 2,750,000 | 3,300,000 | 2,475,000 | 2,700,000 | 1,980,000 | 3,375,000 |
| 20 | 3,000,000 | 3,600,000 | 2,700,000 | 2,925,000 | 2,200,000 | 3,750,000 |
| 21 | 3,250,000 | 3,900,000 | 2,925,000 | 3,150,000 | 2,420,000 | 4,125,000 |
| 22 | 3,500,000 | 4,200,000 | 3,150,000 | 3,375,000 | 2,640,000 | 4,500,000 |
| 23 | 3,750,000 | 4,500,000 | 3,375,000 | 3,600,000 | 2,860,000 | 4,875,000 |
| 24 | 4,000,000 | 4,800,000 | 3,600,000 | 3,825,000 | 3,080,000 | 5,250,000 |
| 25 | 4,250,000 | 5,100,000 | 3,825,000 | 4,050,000 | 3,300,000 | 5,625,000 |
| 26 | 4,500,000 | 5,400,000 | 4,050,000 | 4,275,000 | 3,520,000 | 6,000,000 |
| 27 | 4,750,000 | 5,700,000 | 4,275,000 | 4,500,000 | 3,740,000 | 6,375,000 |
| 28 | 5,000,000 | 6,000,000 | 4,500,000 | 4,725,000 | 3,960,000 | 6,750,000 |
| 29 | 5,250,000 | 6,300,000 | 4,725,000 | 4,950,000 | 4,180,000 | 7,125,000 |
| 30 | 5,500,000 | 6,600,000 | 4,950,000 | 5,175,000 | 4,400,000 | 7,500,000 |
References[]
- ↑ E.g. component "Change Experience Point Cap" of the The Tweaks Anthology mod.