Skip to content

Experience

Every time characters go on an adventure, they learn something — about their physical limits, a new creature, a new spell, a new peculiarity of nature. Characters also improve by increasing in power. As levels are gained, they acquire additional Hit Points, more spells if they cast spells, and a better chance to hit with an attack.

Characters make these gains by earning experience points (XP) — a concrete measure of improvement that represents the abstract gains of increased confidence, physical exercise, insight, and on-the-job training. When a character earns enough XP to advance to the next experience level, those abstract factors translate into measurable improvements. What areas improve and how quickly depends on the character's class.

Group experience awards

XP earned for slaying monsters and finishing quests is shared equally between living party members. Every party member on the adventure receives a share for overcoming enemies or obstacles.

Multi-class characters (non-humans only)

Multi-class characters choose more than one class at creation and gain levels in two or three classes for their entire careers, using the abilities of any class at any time.

  • XP is evenly divided among all classes.
  • The character gains levels in each class according to that class's XP table — see XP Progression.

Dual-class characters (humans only)

Dual-class is a humans-only option that lets a character focus on a new career mid-career.

  • When they dual-class, they stop gaining levels in their original class and start gaining levels in a new class.
  • They cannot use any of their old class's abilities until they have gained at least one more level in their new class than in their old class.
  • After that threshold, they may freely use abilities from both classes.

Armor / weapon restrictions still apply

Multi- and dual-class characters can use the abilities of all their classes — but if they wear armor (except robes) or wield weapons that aren't allowed by one of their classes, that class's abilities are disabled until they swap gear.

The experience cap

In the standard campaign for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, no character may attain more than 8,000,000 experience points. When deciding the level at which to dual-class your character, keep the cap in mind — it limits how far the character can advance before the game ends.

Source: iwdee/original_manuals/IWDEE - Mastering Melee & Magic.pdf — "Experience and Gaining Levels", "Group Experience Awards", "Experience Points for Multi- and Dual-Class Characters", "A Note on the Experience Cap".