Like other dwarves duergar get:
+2 CON, +2 Search, +2 Fortitude saves against poison, +2 saves against spells, +4 AC vs Giants, darkvision

the disadvantages of duergar are bigger:
Shield dwarf: -2 CHA
Gold dwarf: -2DEX
Duergar: -4CHA, -2 hit, damage and saving throws in daylight.

advantages which duergar DON'T get:
Shield dwarf: +1 to hit vs orcs goblins and bugbears
Gold dwarf: +1 to hit vs drow mind flayers and driders

advantages which only duergar get:
cast Invisibility 1/day
immunity to paralysis
+4 to move silently

Ok, now why do duergar get the 2ECL?? besides their bigger disadvantages their advantages are not so great... invisibility 1/day? but potions of invis are not rare and some items can cast invis too, not to mention the hide skill.... immunity to paralysis? high fortitude saving throw can guarantee that too.... +4 to move silently?... ok thats good, but not really all that important....

so anyone can tell me why duergar get 2ECL? am I missing something here....?

AFAIK they DO get the +1 to hit vs drow mind flayers and driders

So that leaves us with
SAME advantages as Gold Dwarf
Disadvantages compared to Gold Dwarf:
Gold: -2DEX
Gray: -4Char and daylight malus

Now you probably want your Dwarf to be a fighter, so Dexterity is far more important than charisma. Although the Gold dwarf has 2 more ability points on the whole he can't get more than 16 DEX in the beginning.
The advantages of the Duergar are however crucial. If you can get an invisible fighter to deal the first blow with the Duergars strength you won't even need a sneak attack to maim the enemy before he can even say backstab. Give him some rogue levels in addition and watch him backstab.

Compared to the shield dwarf:

the -4 char and daylight malus or obviously a lot worse than -2 char. But Shield dwarves get their bonuses to hit on Orcs, Goblins, Bugbears and the like. The most easy foes whom even BG1 PCs eat for breakfast. Duergars get their bonuses where it matters against most of the underdark folk and of course the nasty mind flayers.

[ 05-20-2003, 05:01 AM: Message edited by: Faceman ]

yup true... but like i said a golden dwarf can also have some rogue levels and can also become invisible thru hide skill (fighters dont need to spend skill points on anything else), or a potion of invisibility..... and can also effectively backstab...
now duergar being 2 levels lower than golden dwarf gets:
2 less BAB, thats like -2 to hit against everything
around 20 less hit points
2 less in all saving throws

and btw, according to manual and information in game, duergar do not get attack bonus against anything

that may be right but have you ever played one of the penaltied races (Aasimar, Tiefling, Duergar, Drow). They tend to get a bigger part of the party experience and level up almost as fast as the other party members (especially in the low levels). If your whole party is lvl 9 your Duergar will almost certainly be lvl 9 too but with a note "effective lvl 11" in his char screen.

That brings up a question that I have been pondering. I have a party of four, why is it after a battle my people have different xp amounts? I know that you get X xp points for each monster/quest/etc.. How is that amount divided amongst my party?

the xp is divided equally amongst all party members, however there are tiny differences in the amount of xp each party member gets, which does not depend on race (whether its ecl or not) but on position....

what happens is if the xp is not divisible by 6 (or whatever the number of people in your party) then the remainder goes to the charcter(s) in front... eg.. if you have 6 characters and get 40XP, each gets 6XP, while the remaining 4 go to the first 4 characters 1 each....

since many monsters (most goblins) give 37XP, the first character in the party gets the extra 1XP.... this stacks to bigger amounts later on... my aasimir leader has around 1500XP extra by chapter 4 now.... (which, btw, makes him almost always 1 level behind because of his ECL...)

this is from my experience from BG2 and IWD1.... so im not really sure if thats how it is in iwd2... if it works out differently here someone please let me know