J.E. Sawyer Interview

Black Isle’s J.E. Sawyer is the subject of an interview at the Icewind Dale II fansite, Icebound. In it, J.E. answers questions about 3rd edition rules, scripting, future D&D games, and more. A snippet:

Q: Do the majority of creatures and hostile NPCs have the appropriate feats assigned to them, and have they been scripted to take advantage of them? Give us an example of a potentially nasty encounter.

A: I don’t know if the majority do, but many do. While characters may not have all the feats they could have, they certainly do not have more than they should have. There’s a group of assassins in one section of the game that use the Envenom Weapon feat and sneak attack every member of your party as quickly as possible. A spellcaster near the end of the game uses Greater Spell Focus: Necromancy to horrible effect when firing off Wail of the Banshee. That battle killed everyone in my party except for the two characters who happened to be standing far away. Even my barbarian with a jacked-up constitution and high fortitude save couldn’t resist it.