Consider a Paladin if you want to stay with an Aasimar, but I'm betting you can get the others to work well, too.

I am perhaps the worst player to EVER play this game.

Why? The two characters I've actually stuck with have ended up
getting wholesale-slaughtered at that thug warehouse. It's great
that NWN2 has so many character creation choices, but it's driving
me absolutely crazy! *wails* Please help! Here are my 2 failures:

Tysy 1: Level 7 Aasimar Monk, put way too many points into Hide
and Move Silently (which don't work too well in this game. Deleted.)

Tysy 2: Level 5 Aasimar Bard, Level 2 Dragon Disciple (cool, but she still
got friggin' shredded at that warehouse. Deleted--she was very hard to play.

I'm thinking of making my third character a Human Barbarian or Sorcerer/
Dragon Disciple. Which one will get me past that friggin' warehouse alive?

What no fighters, rangers or paladins ? C'mon! You need a 1337 melee killer in there !!! If you are newer to the game, the 'recommended' button is there for a reason. Still, others may have some insightful tips about what youve chosen, I usually like to have them as support staff, but not the main deal :)

Plus its always worth beefing up your strength and healing abilities first, and have someone around that can pick locks, disable traps and identify items. Do that basic stuff and the fun will ensue.

mtfbwya

You know that you can rest in there, right? And what party do you have with you, Qara is very powerful with her fireballs, and Khelgar is good at mele. Im playing a chatoic good halfelf (but i have heard that halfelf is underpowerd, i havent notice anything, but you could try human instead), first 2 levels as fighter to get some extra feats, and the rest as a barbarian, i havent encounter any big problem with this characteh yet, and im half way throgh chapter 2.

@Stoffe
No, i dont think there is anymore partymembers quests, thats the ones i had done to, and i dont think you need to run around the world map to finish Qaras quest

About the Heaven, i dont think the Gith have any special conversations there, so you can bring someone else with you, and yes, my first characther was an evil Drow wizard, so i had Bishop with me to most of the places

I am perhaps the worst player to EVER play this game.
Why? The two characters I've actually stuck with have ended up
getting wholesale-slaughtered at that thug warehouse.


Some general tips about that place:

Keep your party members on a tight leash so they won't rush off and trigger additional encounters. Fight one group at a time and then heal and recuperate in between. Retreat if necessary to make some far-off enemy follow you instead of having your melee grunts rush to them and trigger additional enemies to spawn. Try to minimize the number of sneak attacks they can land on you as good as you can. I.e. if a thug is attacking one of your characters, make sure your character is attacking him back. Don't let yourself be surrounded or turn your back against someone unless necessary. And try to take out the enemy casters first, those lightning bolts can hurt a great deal unless you have electricity resistance gear on your group.

Use the broadcast commands (right-holdclick on the ground to make the context menu show up and then use the "Broadcast command" to give an order to all your party members. If you click on one of them you just give that party member an order) to make your group follow you if you retreat, or make them stand their ground while you scout ahead in stealth mode.

You can set up ambushes this way. Control Neeshka and tell everyone else to stand their ground, scout ahead in stealth mode to spot the next group of enemies and then set traps between you and them. Then have her use a cloudkill/stinking cloud wand at your end of the trail of traps and then get their attention and run back to the rest of the party. This way they will be weakened by the time they reach you. Remember that Neeshka can use scrolls and wands, so I tend to give her all those and let Qara and Sand do "real" casting instead. :)

As for who you bring, I'd recommend Qara for her high-damage AoE spells, Neeshka to deal with the large amounts of traps (and setting her own in place for the bad-guys) and either Khelgar as a meat shield or Elanee if she has learned Stoneskin yet (otherwise don't bring her as she's too fragile without it).

Oh and make sure your gang has the best gear you have found or can buy before entering the place. Deekin in the merchant quarter sells some pretty good gear, as does the gnome/halfling (can't tell which) merchant on the docks found behind Sand's shop just by the water's edge (easy to overlook). The gnome woman at the opposite end of the Docks district also sells some decent defensive gear.

If all else fails, remember the difficulty slider on the Options screen. Set it to Easy if you haven't already. :) (In any case I wouldn't recommend setting it to hardcore D&D or higher since there are too many bugs in the game with that to make it enjoyable.)


Tysy 1: Level 7 Aasimar Monk, put way too many points into Hide
and Move Silently (which don't work too well in this game. Deleted.)


Hide/Sneak seems to either be bugged or poorly implemented as you are detected way too often no matter how much skill points you dump into those skills (invisibility potions are much more reliable for sneaking around). Not only that, the way some of the missions that scream "sneak here!" are implemented (mostly Neeshka's quests) will totally screw you over if you try to sneak through them. Some NPCs will auto-start conversation with you when you get near even if they can't see you, which conveniently forces you out of sneak mode. Not only that, if you sneak around with Neeshka the game automatically jumps your main character to the place where your sneaking character is when dialog is started and initiates conversation with them instead. With predictable results as all the guards you've just carefully sneaked past now can see you. :roleyess: I have to wonder if the Obsidian designers left their brain in their other set of pants the day they designed those quests.

Unless things have changed drastically from NWN1 I think monks hand to hand fighting is fairly weak early on before you have gained a lot of levels, so you might want to consider using a pair of enchanted Kama's that early instead (which should still allow you to use Flurry of Blows) and only start going unarmed when you've gotten some more Strength, Wisdom, Feats and Levels.

Also know that the Aasimar race will weaken your character unless you know exactly what you are doing. While some minor elemental resistance and Darkvision is handy, and the extra Wis/Cha is very useful for Paladins/Clerics/Druids/Rangers/Monks you buy those at the expense of always being a level lower than everyone else, meaning you have less health, worse attack bonus, poorer saving throws, less Spell resistance, fewer feats and skillpoints and less spells (with potentially worse save DCs) than a character with a non-ECL adjusted race. Clerics and Druids can compensate for this with spells (which are boosted by the extra Wisdom), but other classes might suffer more from it.


I'm thinking of making my third character a Human Barbarian or Sorcerer/
Dragon Disciple. Which one will get me past that friggin' warehouse alive?

I don't think multiclassing one of the caster classes is a good idea in NWN2 due to the level cap. Every Dragon Disciple level you take will make your Sorcerer abilities suffer. If you play as a wizard, sorcerer, cleric or druid it's probably better to stick with that class exclusively. Unless you are looking for a greater challenge of course. :)

I'd also recommend that you try either a Cleric or a Druid if you stick with the Aasimar race and want good survivability, good melee combat skill and a fair amount of spellcasting. Sure, those classes can be a bit more restricting in the role playing aspect, but I think the Druid and Cleric are the two most powerful classes in the game if you use them properly.

At least my Aasimar cleric is pretty durable and she always seems to be the last (wo)man standing when the rest of the party members go down in particularly difficult fights. If you go with a cleric, put some serious thought behind which domains you pick since the extra spells and feats they grant can have a huge impact. Personally I prefer Air and Water, but there are other potent combinations as well. Just don't be afraid to use your buff spells in fights, a buffed up cleric can own any fighter of similar level in a 1 on 1 fight easily. :)

(And once you can cast Harm, Slay living and Destruction, use it and love it :))


@Stoffe

About the Heaven, i don't think the Gith have any special conversations there, so you can bring someone else with you, and yes, my first character was an evil Drow wizard, so i had Bishop with me to most of the places

Ah, good, then the Githzerai will get some well deserved rest after our latest adventure (which she seemed to play a large role in) and I'll bring along someone a bit more survivable to AJH instead. :) Does Act 2 end when you are finished at AJH, or is that just an impression I've gotten?

I don't think Bishop will ever see much use in my group. His unbearable demeanor and our irreconcilable alignment differences (chaotic evil vs. lawful good) aside he doesn't seem all that powerful in a fight, just inflicting some minor damage from afar with the bow. I suppose I could switch him to melee weapons instead, but since he can only wear light armor it seems a bit risky to have him a close combat fighter.

Questions regarding Act 3:

Oh my god they killed Shandra. You bastards.
What an anticlimactic way to end an act, doesn't bode well for the endgame itself if Obsidian enjoys creating drama that way. You have to wonder why they bothered to include Resurrection spells in the game at all when they unexplainably don't work when you really need them.

Is there any way to get the gear Shandra was equipped with back, other than reloading an earlier save and stripping her of all equipment before entering Ammon Jerro's Haven? I had given her some pretty good gear it would be a shame if it was lost.

Were you supposed to find the silver shard Ammon Jerro took from the Neverwinter Nine within the Haven, or does he still hang on to that piece? I didn't find any shard when I explored the Haven, and he hasn't given it to me afterwards.

* * *

Anyway, just got to act 3 and I was wondering: Are there enough time to do all the "Recruit allies" quests or do you have to be picky which ones you do? I've got the Ironfist, Lizardmen, Druids and Wendersnaven(sp?) leads currently.

Does the Keep operate on Main Quest time in this act, or does the main quest operate on Keep time? I assume at 100% it's time to do battle against the KOSH, so it would be good to know if I suddenly would end up there without having gotten anything done if I run in and out of the inn, temple and shops in the Keep courtyard too often. Very annoying way to advance time, that, where I feel I have to stay away from my keep in order to not have to hurry and get things done.

Further about the keep: Does the benefits of keeping your troops at "Elite" level in your recruitment standards compensate for the lesser number of recruits you get this way? Seems you get some advantages for staying Elite (the Captain's Company elite guard so far), but would it be better to lower the standards one notch or will it pay off to stay elite to the end? I figured using elite troops would lower the casualties when it comes to a fight, but if raw numbers are more important then that is perhaps a flawed assumption.

The rescuration spell is for long and hard battles, if some one die you can get him up to the fight again, the end battle took me around 15-20 minutes and there is no rest chance there, a rescuration wand keept me alive there. But i understand what you mean, but think like this, Ammon had so much power in the Heaven, that Shandra was way out the power of resuration spell

Ammon Jerro have all Shandras equipment, at least he had it when i played, dont know about the shards, he maybe have it in his inventory to, but not sure.

I did all the recruits mission, then i continue with the main story until the point you are close to do the battle, after that i started to run out the keep, then in again to get it to 100%, so you can get the keep to 100% before the end battle, then still keep going around and looking for allies

No idea about the soldiers, i had so low recruit standard that i could have, so i would have a large force, but i dont think it mathers so much if the force are large or not, you can try to keep them elite then tell me what happend

The rescuration spell is for long and hard battles, if some one die you can get him up to the fight again, the end battle took me around 15-20 minutes and there is no rest chance there, a rescuration wand keept me alive there. But i understand what you mean, but think like this, Ammon had so much power in the Heaven, that Shandra was way out the power of resuration spell


A resurrection rod? Good to know a high-level cleric can be substituted with a stick. :roleyess: Oh well, at least I can use those spell slots for something else then. :)

Considering that someone who's been disintegrated into dust still can be resurrected in the D&D universe that seems a bit forced. Though admittedly I think you need a True Resurrection or Wish spell for that, which I don't think is found in the game. It's a plot device, I'll get over it even if it annoys me every time a game perma-kills someone who have resurrect-equipped allies nearby in a world where resurrection is commonplace. :)




Ammon Jerro have all Shandras equipment, at least he had it when i played, dont know about the shards, he maybe have it in his inventory to, but not sure.



Oh, I suppose he had time to loot his granddaughter's corpse before the party arrived. Haven't had the chance to put him in the party yet since I was pulled off on a solo quest to Castle Never right at the start of the act. Good thing Lord Gnasher is durable since I had to answer a ton of riddles to some old spirit before I could reach the throne room to aid him. That took a while. :) And then after all that the lich wouldn't even let me kill him, he just fled when he got a bit hurt... No XP for me.


I did all the recruits mission, then i continue with the main story until the point you are close to do the battle, after that i started to run out the keep, then in again to get it to 100%, so you can get the keep to 100% before the end battle, then still keep going around and looking for allies


Hmm. So does the fight at the keep (which I assume is what you do all the building and recruiting to prepare for) happen when the Keep time counter reaches 100%, or does the 100% just mean you can't do anything more to improve your situation at the keep before the fight comes, which comes as part of the main quest?



No idea about the soldiers, i had so low recruit standard that i could have, so i would have a large force, but i dont think it mathers so much if the force are large or not, you can try to keep them elite then tell me what happend


Roughly how many troops had you managed to get at the end? It's hard to tell how well I'm doing if I don't know how what I have compares to what I could have had. :)

Hmm. So does the fight at the keep (which I assume is what you do all the building and recruiting to prepare for) happen when the Keep time counter reaches 100%, or does the 100% just mean you can't do anything more to improve your situation at the keep before the fight comes, which comes as part of the main quest?
As far as I can tell, the 100% just lets you know that your castle upgrading time is "100% over".. you can still obtain allies however.. but no more constructing and what-not. :)

To be honest though, there's not really a whole lot more to do (battle-ready wise) once you reach the mark. Act 3 brings in more recruits, etc..

Roughly how many troops had you managed to get at the end? It's hard to tell how well I'm doing if I don't know how what I have compares to what I could have had. :)
I had pretty low numbers until act 3 hit and then they swarmed in (at least in bigger numbers).. A High Recruit Standard netted me with not many troops but they were worth it (imo ;) )... I can't remember the numbers, but it was pretty low.. maybe 300+?? Low Recruit standards can net you thousands from what I read over at the boards but... seems to me it's just more corpses to clean up :xp:

Re: Recruiting

Rumor - You only get three "rounds" of recruiting. If this is true, then I recommend holding off until you meet up with Light of Heaven. Looking at the scripts, she is by far the best for recruiting. Here are the comments that I c/p'ed out of the code:

// Bevil Deployment Options
// 1 - recruiting (+20%)
// 2 - patrol/tithe (Tithe up 10%)
// 3 - patrol/growth (merchant growth +1/time unit)
// 4 - patrol/countryside (peasant growth +2/time unit)
// 5 - special assignments (Increases outcome of special assignments by 1)

// Jalboun Deployment Options
// 1 - recruiting (-10%)
// 2 - patrol (-5 to Patrol Road and Patrol Land)
// 3 - special assignments (Increases outcome of special assignments by 3)
// 4 - Training (training time +1)

// Katriona Deployment Options
// 1 - recruiting (+10%)
// 2 - patrol (+5 to Patrol Road and Patrol Land)
// 3 - special assignments (Increases outcome of special assignments by 1)
// 4 - Training (training time -1, allow training to max)

// Light of Heavens Deployment Options
// 1 - recruiting (+25%)
// 2 - patrol (+10 to Patrol Road and Patrol Land)
// 3 - special assignments (Increases outcome of special assignments by 2)
// 4 - Training (training time -2, allow training to max)

After discovering this, I switched her role and saw my volunteer numbers climb through the roof (I had already maxed out my recruiting efforts).

Substantiated rumor - Keep standards high will not impact the number of recruits that you get. Additionally, maxing the standards along with the training will allow you to unlock a special training status. I hear this one a lot, but I've yet to see it with my own two eyes so.... What truly impacts your numbers is who (if anyone) you have heading up the recruiting. Based on the spoiler above, I guess that means holding off on any recruiting until act III.

Probably BS - The aforementioned "special training status" is accompanied by an elite unit of guards. Yeah right.

Pointers - Based on what I've been able to figure out thus far Be sure to recruit and assign Jalboun before you start any of the special assignments. In act III you get to loot a dragon's hoard and how much you net is determined by who's heading up your special assignments. Funds go directly into your Keep Account, so save your expensive repairs until after you form your alliance with the dwarves (this is when you get the money).

You can pull money out of the account, but you can only do so 5k at a time and you get about 200k so take my advice unless you like clicking the same dialog choices repeatedly for about 20 minutes.

Recruit and assign Light of Heavens before you begin recruiting and keep your standards high.

Err...remember that you can use your own money to fund repairs. I'm an idiot and I shouldn't be admitting this, but I thought the 70k that you get from Nasher was a balance that you had to maintain (in other words, I thought I couldn't go past 0, so I spent a lot of time waiting for funds to renew before making additional repairs).

On a whim I tried paying for an expensive repair with a low balance and discovered that the additional funds needed came out of my pocket (rather than getting an "insufficient funds" error). Since I had about 250k at the time, I finished up repairs quickly and made a note for my next playthough. 2nd time around I repaired the keep too quickly and ended up having to do the 20 minute repetitive dialog option thing I mentioned earlier *hangs head in shame*.

And FWIW, I'm currently on my 3rd playthough. Great game. Love the story. My only two complaints are buggy party AI during critical battles and the horrible, horrible voice actor they found to narrate the finale. Good lord!

Does anyone know if wizards can learn new spells through any other means than at levelup (like learning from scrolls in BG2)? Sand has an absolutely atrocious spell selection of lower-level spells and there seems to be nothing to do about it since you pick him up relatively late. Qara is so much more useful than him in battle it's almost silly. A wizard's strength compared to a sorcerer is meant to be greater diversity, but Sand doesn't know many more spells than Qara does, and she knows better spells and can cast them more often and is more flexible when using metamagic.

* * *

SPOILER ALERT! This rest of this post is more or less all spoilers pertaining to the keep! Consider this whole post a big, white box.


Rumor - You only get three "rounds" of recruiting. If this is true, then I recommend holding off until you meet up with LoH


Hmm, haven't seen anything that seems to indicate this. As far as I can see recruits and volunteers trickle in each time the keep time advances. Though you probably get more per time unit if you have the proper sergeant assigned to recruiting.

Nice summary of the sergeant strengths and weaknesses. Where did you find that?


After discovering this, I switched her role and saw my volunteer numbers climb through the roof (I had already maxed out my recruiting efforts).


Seems like the volunteers go up pretty quickly regardless of who you have assigned once you start getting your land security up decently. The number of volunteers you can have seems to be tied to the number of peasants you have (multiplied by 3), with the losses your units have suffered factored in. The recruit sergeant only seems to affect the number of recruits you get, not volunteers, unless I'm missing something. :) If your diplomacy is high enough you can stay at Elite standards and still get volunteers (which require you to get 30 peasants to form a village and then smooth-talking the major when he offers volunteers).

If I'm reading the scripts correctly you can get at most 600 troops.... 250 volunteers, 250 recruits, your 50 starting troops and the 50 the mercs add if you let them join.



Substantiated rumor - Keep standards high will not impact the number of recruits that you get.


Hmm, if I read the scripts correctly the max number you can recruit depends on the Eliteness level of your recruitment standards, like:

(250 - Recruited) * Standard

Where Recruited is the number of troops already recruited and Standard is a multiplier depending on your recruitment standards:
Elite: 0.2
Good: 0.5
Average: 0.75
Low: 0.9
Anyone: 1.0


This would only apply to recruits though, not volunteers. If it actually works this way in-game is another matter though. :) Your lieutenant does say after a while that they've recruited all they can unless you lower your standards, but I don't remember exactly at what value that is.


Additionally, maxing the standards along with the training will allow you to unlock a special training status. I hear this one a lot, but I've yet to see it with my own two eyes so....
(snip)
Probably BS - The aforementioned "special training status" is accompanied by an elite unit of guards.


I can confirm this. If you have Katriona and stick with the Elite standards you will get the choice of forming the "Captain's Company" elite first-in-last-out squad which will serve as an example to the others. This will boost the morale of the troops and allow your training level to display as "Best of the Best" on the keep report. There may be other factors involved as well (how trained your troops are and what weapons/armor they have I guess), but it happened. :)



What truly impacts your numbers is who (if anyone) you have heading up the recruiting. Based on the spoiler above, I guess that means holding off on any recruiting until act III.


Not necessarily unless you skip the keep entirely in act 2. Since you can flip Katriona around as you see fit you can start her out with recruiting along with the troops and then switch her over to whatever the troops are currently doing until you pick up the other sergeants. I've noticed that it may be a good idea to switch her over to Special Ops whenever you get a special mission since there are two types of victories to many of the missions, "Total success" which is only possible if one (or several) of the sergeants deal with SpecialOps, and "normal success". The Total Success usually means greater rewards and lower casualties.





Pointers - Based on what I've been able to figure out thus far Be sure to recruit and assign Jalboun before you start any of the special assignments.


Unfortunately you don't seem to have much choice in this unless you stay away from the keep until act 3, since you can only get Jalboun in act 3 and the special missions have keep time limits for not only when they appear, but how long they remain available. If you exceed that time limit the mission will just vanish and you won't be able to do it at all.



In act III you get to loot a dragon's hoard and how much you net is determined by who's heading up your special assignments.


Hmm, so that's why the lieutenant said that bandits attacked the greycloaks carrying the treasure and made off with some of it due to low security despite both my land and road security being at "Very high" on the report. Thought it was a bug. :)

Fighting both the Fire Giants and the Red Dragon at the same time was one serious battle. I just barely pulled through. Perhaps not the smartest thing to attack both at once, but at least they fight each other as well. :)



And FWIW, I'm currently on my 3rd playthough. Great game. Love the story. My only two complaints are buggy party AI during critical battles and the horrible, horrible voice actor they found to narrate the finale. Good lord!

Whoa, you've been busy. :) I've played the game a few hours per day since I got it, and I'm still not through my first playthough. I have to agree that the story has been quite nice so far, though there have been some annoyances but overall it's a very good game. I just hope they don't totally cripple its replayability like they did with PS:Torment by putting in a massively anticlimactic ending. That would be a shame.

As for the AI I just enable puppet mode for everyone and give them commands directly. More micromanagement required, but at least they do as I wish (most of the time. Seems like the AI can't keep hands off in some cases even in puppet mode). Then only the summons do stupid things that aren't my fault. :)

Does it matter in the end who you let take up residence in the tower, Startear or the NW9, is that just a matter of what kind of shop you would like to have available? Will Startear help out in the battle if you rebuild the tower for him?

And FWIW, I'm currently on my 3rd playthough. Great game. Love the story. My only two complaints are buggy party AI during critical battles and the horrible, horrible voice actor they found to narrate the finale. Good lord!

Good heavens, have you even slept this last week or so? :D I haven't even made it through Act 1 of my first playthrough yet. Of course, now that Jimbo's decided to start his own game, I'm going to have even less computer time. :)
However, I'm enjoying the game very much and know it's going to get a _lot_ of play time in the Jimbo/Jae home. Some of the characters have very sassy lines, which I think is just hilarious at times.

Does anyone know if wizards can learn new spells through any other means than at levelup (like learning from scrolls in BG2)?If you right-click on a scroll as Sand, there is a scribe-scroll option. I haven't tried it out yet, but I suspect that it will allow him to learn more spells. If it works, let me know! :)

Nice summary of the sergeant strengths and weaknesses. Where did you find that? Thanks. I pulled it out of the 4 sergeant assignment scripts. The devs were kind enough to include that information in the comments.


Seems like the volunteers go up pretty quickly regardless of who you have assigned once you start getting your land security up decently. The number of volunteers you can have seems to be tied to the number of peasants you have (multiplied by 3), with the losses your units have suffered factored in. The recruit sergeant only seems to affect the number of recruits you get, not volunteers, unless I'm missing something. That very well could be. I do know that I had almost none before the change and they were pouring in after, but there is no concrete evidence of a causal relationship. Good find on the rest!

<snip>
This would only apply to recruits though, not volunteers. If it actually works this way in-game is another matter though. Rumor debunked.:)

I can confirm this. <snip> Rumor no more. Whoot!!!


Unfortunately you don't seem to have much choice in this unless you stay away from the keep until act 3, since you can only get Jalboun in act 3 and the special missions have keep time limits for not only when they appear, but how long they remain available. If you exceed that time limit the mission will just vanish and you won't be able to do it at all. Bummer. Well, at least I know not to try it this time around. This was the playthough that I was going to use to test my theories. :(


Spoilers I know!!! I ended up leaving my party over by the spawn-point and running over solo to initiate the dialog. Dispite every attempt to manipulate the AI (IIRC, even switching to puppet mode), they still come charging over as soon as the "fun" begins. A quick command assigned duing a pause, got them to stop in their tracks but I had to herd them back to safety. Then I moved my spell casters forward and pelted her with ice storm. If the timing works out ok, then she'll kill the Fire Giant King for you :). I discovered just how useful the Energy Immunity spell can be in my last playthrough, so I'm interested in trying that one again with this new knowledge.

I have to agree that the story has been quite nice so far, though there have been some annoyances but overall it's a very good game. I just hope they don't totally cripple its replayability like they did with PS:Torment by putting in a massively anticlimactic ending. That would be a shame.I have to admit that I haven't played PS:T, so I can't help you out there. I know that there are more than a few "the official 'the ending sucked'" threads over in the NWN2 forums, but I thought the end was fairly well done very much consistent with the theme of the story. Apparently the "dark side" ending is different than the "light side" ending, so we'll have to see if I feel the same after seeing that one.

Good heavens, have you even slept this last week or so? I haven't even made it through Act 1 of my first playthrough yet. Of course, now that Jimbo's decided to start his own game, I'm going to have even less computer time.
However, I'm enjoying the game very much and know it's going to get a _lot_ of play time in the Jimbo/Jae home. Some of the characters have very sassy lines, which I think is just hilarious at times. *confused* Sleep??? Oh yeah, I remember that! :)

Wait until you meet Daerred. Dunno why, but he puts me in stitches.

If you right-click on a scroll as Sand, there is a scribe-scroll option. I haven't tried it out yet, but I suspect that it will allow him to learn more spells. If it works, let me know! :)


Doh... that worked fine. Thanks, I guess that solution was too obvious for me to figure out myself. Only wish I had learned that earlier... and haven't let Neeshka use up all my fireball scrolls already. :)

(Did it work that way in NWN1 as well? Only played clerics, druids and sorcerers in that game, never wizards.)



I know!!! I ended up leaving my party over by the spawn-point and running over solo to initiate the dialog. Dispite every attempt to manipulate the AI (IIRC, even switching to puppet mode), they still come charging over as soon as the "fun" begins.


Did you put your party members under "Stand your ground" orders? Seems there is no way to make them not follow without using the voicechat commands (unless I'm overlooking something (else) obvious). At any rate the game seems to suffer from the same irritating tendency as KotOR of sometimes hard-issuing attack commands to party members that completely bypasses the AI scripts which you can't intercept, only react after it has happened.

Not to mention cutscenes conveniently clustering your party together in indefensible locations when they start, or jumping the main character to any place where dialog is initiated, even if it's halfway across the level and the dialog was triggered by a sneaking/invisible rogue clicking on a placeable or a door in a room full of hostile enemies. :roleyess:



If the timing works out ok, then she'll kill the Fire Giant King for you :). I discovered just how useful the Energy Immunity spell can be in my last playthrough, so I'm interested in trying that one again with this new knowledge.


I guess that's the disadvantage of being an XP addict in a game system like D&D. Unlike Morrowind/Oblivion you can't do the smart thing and just stand back and watch the fireworks and then go in and mop up any survivors. I have to actually try to kill the giants before the Dragon kills them not to miss out on any XP. At least fire giants are immune to a Red Dragon's breath. :) Had to dodge the dragon and first kill all the giants before taking her out. Required a number of resurrects and mass heals to pull off, but we prevailed in the end.




I have to admit that I haven't played PS:T, so I can't help you out there. I know that there are more than a few "the official 'the ending sucked'" threads over in the NWN2 forums, but I thought the end was fairly well done very much consistent with the theme of the story.


PS:Torment's ending described without involving the plot: You get separated from your party members when entering the final area, all your party members are killed one by one by the end boss in cutscenes where you can do nothing but watch, and no matter how you deal with the final confrontation and no matter what you've done in the game so far (Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil) your main character goes to Hell (or the Abyss, hard to tell) in a fiery blaze to become a grunt in the Blood War. Needless to say that kind of end ruined the whole game experience and I've only been able to bring myself to play PS:Torment twice (with several years in between) despite it otherwise being one of the best CRPGs I've ever played. Way to slap it in the player's face that nothing you've done in the game really mattered in the end.

I like happy endings. I violently dislike unhappy anticlimactic endings. :)



Apparently the "dark side" ending is different than the "light side" ending, so we'll have to see if I feel the same after seeing that one.


Don't think I'll ever see it since I can't bring myself to play some evil bastard. Much more rewarding to play as a good gal who gets to make a difference for the better. :) But if it's in line with the evil endings in other games I can imagine it's a "shortsighted power hungry" ending. :) (Encouraging the kind of character that deserves a LaCroix ending...)

(Did it work that way in NWN1 as well? Only played clerics, druids and sorcerers in that game, never wizards.)I gave up on NWN1 part way through chapter 1. Something tells me that I should go back and give it another chance, but for whatever reason, I just didn't feel engaged even after 10+ hours of gameplay. :(

Did you put your party members under "Stand your ground" orders? Seems there is no way to make them not follow without using the voicechat commands (unless I'm overlooking something (else) obvious). At any rate the game seems to suffer from the same irritating tendency as KotOR of sometimes hard-issuing attack commands to party members that completely bypasses the AI scripts which you can't intercept, only react after it has happened. Yeah, I did. I'll look into voicechat next time. Thanks for the tip.

Not to mention cutscenes conveniently clustering your party together in indefensible locations when they start, or jumping the main character to any place where dialog is initiated, even if it's halfway across the level and the dialog was triggered by a sneaking/invisible rogue clicking on a placeable or a door in a room full of hostile enemies. :roleyess: Heh. On that note, don't quicksave in space between lengthy dialogs and boss-fights. Later in the game you have to go up against a big-time baddie after one of the longest dialogs in the game. Of course, I got wiped out, but lo-and-behold, I had my trusty quicksave. Unfortunately, reloading the quicksave allowed the baddie to be fully spawned and he would manage to kill off three party members before the game even finished reloading (not a good feeling to hear party members dying while you're still looking at the loading screen :(). Luckily I had a hard save from about 20 minutes earlier, so that worked out ok.

Btw, do not trust autosave or quicksave, if you haven't figured that out already. Autosave apparently has some sort of once-per-day limitation (exaggerating, but only slightly). Also, there have been a few times that I've quicksaved before shutting down, only to come back later to find that my only quicksave file was from much earlier. If it only happened once, I might think that I only thought I saved before shutting down, but it's happened a few times. Moral of the story: use hard saves.



I guess that's the disadvantage of being an XP addict in a game system like D&D. Unlike Morrowind/Oblivion you can't do the smart thing and just stand back and watch the fireworks and then go in and mop up any survivors. I have to actually try to kill the giants before the Dragon kills them not to miss out on any XP. At least fire giants are immune to a Red Dragon's breath. :) Had to dodge the dragon and first kill all the giants before taking her out. Required a number of resurrects and mass heals to pull off, but we prevailed in the end.
Oh, I hear you and I wish I had the patience for that, but I gave up after the 6th or 7th try of doing it that way. FWIW If you side with the giants, they will turn on you after you slay the dragon. I suspect that she will also turn on you if you side with her and kill the giants. Just an FYI, that you don't have to choose the "attack both" to kill both. I hope that helps.


PS:Torment's ending described without involving the plot <snip>
I'm afraid that anything I say here could potentially taint the experience for you. I think I know how you'll vote, but I can't wait to hear your impression of the end once you get there.


Don't think I'll ever see it since I can't bring myself to play some evil bastard. Much more rewarding to play as a good gal who gets to make a difference for the better. :) But if it's in line with the evil endings in other games I can imagine it's a "shortsighted power hungry" ending. :)I'm the same way. I cringe everytime I make an evil choice, but I'm one of those people that can't leave stones unturned. After playing chaotic or lawful good the first two games (Druid and Paladin/Divine Champion/NW9 respectively), I feel terrible about killing people that I've already helped twice before.

On a funny side note: There are a few dialog bugs that are only apparent when playing evil. for instance, last night I threatened to feed a couple of children to the wolves. Elanee gave me the same "aw, you'll make such a great daddy" speech that she did when I saved them in my "good" games. Great.

EDIT: Whoops...missed one. Sorry


Does it matter in the end who you let take up residence in the tower, Startear or the NW9, is that just a matter of what kind of shop you would like to have available? Will Startear help out in the battle if you rebuild the tower for him? There are a couple of class-specific side quests that you can get in the game. Paladins will get a quest from the church if you forego the monastery. Similarly, I imagine that monks will get a quest if you forego the church. As for the tower, you will get the special shop if you build it for The Nine, and I've heard that you will get a mage shop and the chance at wizard quest (class specific) if you make it a wizard tower. The Nine didn't do much to help (even though I did max out my NW9 PrC), so I doubt that the wizards will help either.

Spoiler re: the NW9 PrC:
Level cap is 20 and there is a 5 level cap for the NW9 PrC. In other words, if you want to get all the benefits, you need to multi-class as you hit level 16. The bad news is that the PrC isn't available until you are at about level 17 or 18. So, if you plan on taking the NW9 PrC and you want to max it out, you'll need to "sit" on a couple of levels until you progress far enough in the game to unlock it. Hope that helps.

@stoffe-
Ammon Jerro has the shard in his inventory, just add him to your party, switch to him, pull up his inventory screen and give it to the PC for yet another bonus (I think his allows for an immunity to something).

I gave up on NWN1 part way through chapter 1. Something tells me that I should go back and give it another chance, but for whatever reason, I just didn't feel engaged even after 10+ hours of gameplay. :(

I'd only bother with the Hordes of the Underdark expansion, that's the only one of the NWN1 + Expansions campaigns that was any interesting in my opinion.



Unfortunately, reloading the quicksave allowed the baddie to be fully spawned and he would manage to kill off three party members before the game even finished reloading (not a good feeling to hear party members dying while you're still looking at the loading screen :().


Nasty side-effect of the multiplayer-architecture of NWN. Creating the game world first and then spawning in the player while loading clientside stuff. If you have a slow computer it gives the game world almost half a minute of free reign to do what they want to your helpless characters. :)


Btw, do not trust autosave or quicksave, if you haven't figured that out already. Autosave apparently has some sort of once-per-day limitation (exaggerating, but only slightly). Also, there have been a few times that I've quicksaved before shutting down, only to come back later to find that my only quicksave file was from much earlier.


Seems like it's only autosaving when you use the world map. Maybe some quest-related autosaves as well, but it certainly doesn't seem to happen at regular intervals.

Speaking of bugs, are there any problems with Keep special missions carrying over from Act 2 to 3? I had ordered the fifth special mission (Mere undead patrols) to be carried out just before changing acts, so it didn't complete before the act ended. Now I think I'm roughly halfways through act 3 and I have not heard a word about the outcome of that mission, nor have I received any new missions (I think there are supposed to be at least 2 more). I'm starting to suspect I've run into a bug. :(


Further is there a way to finish the "Path of the Holy" quest you get from the priest in the temple in the Keep courtyard, where you're supposed to go to the mountains to retrieve some great weapon and vanquish some great evil. I suspect the quest refers to the Red Dragon in the Ironfist quest area (since no new area appears on the world map), but I've already killed the dragon and looted the hoard before during the Ironfist quest. Does this mean the quest is now impossible to complete?




I'm afraid that anything I say here could potentially taint the experience for you. I think I know how you'll vote, but I can't wait to hear your impression of the end once you get there.


Uh oh, that doesn't sound promising. Oh well I suppose I'll see it first hand soon enough. Act 3 seems to be much shorter than act 2, but perhaps I've gotten a false impression of much much remains to do. :)


I'm the same way. I cringe everytime I make an evil choice, but I'm one of those people that can't leave stones unturned. After playing chaotic or lawful good the first two games (Druid and Paladin/Divine Champion/NW9 respectively), I feel terrible about killing people that I've already helped twice before.


If I ever should play evil (which I won't) it would probably be the intelligent scheming evil type instead. The type who has a plan and don't mind walking over corpses to see it come to fruition, but won't run around insulting, mugging or killing people for no reason, drawing unnecessary attention to themselves and making enemies needlessly. Someone who can appear nice and charming but aren't afraid to backstab should it suit their purposes. Unfortunately CRPGs don't tend to support that PC villain type, catering more to the two-bit thug/bully variant who goes around being mean to people for no reason even if it obviously will come back to haunt them later.



for instance, last night I threatened to feed a couple of children to the wolves. Elanee gave me the same "aw, you'll make such a great daddy" speech that she did when I saved them in my "good" games. Great.


Well, she's a druid, perhaps she just sees feeding wolves as a part of the natural cycle? :)


Spoiler re: the NW9 PrC:
Level cap is 20 and there is a 5 level cap for the NW9 PrC. In other words, if you want to get all the benefits, you need to multi-class as you hit level 16. The bad news is that the PrC isn't available until you are at about level 17 or 18.

I suppose that's one advantage of playing as an Aasimar, being one level behind everyone else (except for Neeshka and the Gith). I think I was roughly level 15 after the attack on Castle Never, which I assume is when the PRC becomes available. Doesn't matter much in this playthrough though: Since I play as a cleric I stay well away from multiclassing since it will only weaken you. :)

Besides my PC is just a NW9 member (the title, not the class) by convenience. Pretty-boy Nevalle is an ******* and Lord Gnasher is moderately incompetent, not the kind of people she'd normally identify with. :)


@stoffe-
Ammon Jerro has the shard in his inventory, just add him to your party, switch to him, pull up his inventory screen and give it to the PC for yet another bonus (I think his allows for an immunity to something).

I found it after I got back from Castle Never and brought along AJ to check him out. Found another shard on the lich you needed a True Name (the Deus Ex Machina of D&D/NWN it appears :roleyess:) to kill. Are there any more shards remaining to find after that, or do you get to take the Sword of Gith for a spin before the game is already over? :) I hope it's a vorpal blade like the one in BG2 to compensate for not having focused on Martial weapons in feat picks yet and thus likely being rather poor at dealing damage with it compared to my trusty bastard sword.

I found it after I got back from Castle Never and brought along AJ to check him out. Found another shard on the lich you needed a True Name (the Deus Ex Machina of D&D/NWN it appears :roleyess:) to kill. Are there any more shards remaining to find after that, or do you get to take the Sword of Gith for a spin before the game is already over? :) I hope it's a vorpal blade like the one in BG2 to compensate for not having to focused on Martial weapons in feat picks yet and thus likely being rather poor at dealing damage with it compared to my trusty bastard sword.
You'll get plenty of time to swing the sword of Gith around ;)
It's easily the coolest weapon in the game, and it's special attacks deal a ton of damage, especially the "Blade Storm" attack, with the "Shard Barrier" one coming in a close second. It can deal plenty of damage normally too though. Also, by lich are you referring to the Shadow Reavers? The things with the flaming skulls for heads are Shadow Reavers.

I'd only bother with the Hordes of the Underdark expansion, that's the only one of the NWN1 + Expansions campaigns that was any interesting in my opinion. I'll keep that in mind. Maybe I'll just find a wiki or something that will fill me in on the OC backstory. If you have recommended resources, I'd love to hear them.


Speaking of bugs, are there any problems with Keep special missions carrying over from Act 2 to 3? I had ordered the fifth special mission (Mere undead patrols) to be carried out just before changing acts, so it didn't complete before the act ended. Now I think I'm roughly halfways through act 3 and I have not heard a word about the outcome of that mission, nor have I received any new missions (I think there are supposed to be at least 2 more). I'm starting to suspect I've run into a bug. :( Not that I'm aware of. Interestingly, I'm pretty sure that I usually get that mission in chapter three. And unless my game is missing content, the Mere mission is the last one.



Further is there a way to finish the "Path of the Holy" quest you get from the priest in the temple in the Keep courtyard, where you're supposed to go to the mountains to retrieve some great weapon and vanquish some great evil. I suspect the quest refers to the Red Dragon in the Ironfist quest area (since no new area appears on the world map), but I've already killed the dragon and looted the hoard before during the Ironfist quest. Does this mean the quest is now impossible to complete?

Before you enter the dragon's lair, you should trigger a cutscene during which Khelgar points out "the beacon". Don't make the same idiot mistake that I did and spend 30 minutes running around that module trying to find "the beacon" - it's in another module (specifically, the dragon's lair). Once you approach the hoard, another cutscene should triggers, spawning a previously non-existent chest with the special weapon in it. You should be able to recognize it because it's dead center in front of the pile of gold and it has a rather stereotypical holy light illuminating it from above.

If you didn't see any of this, I would venture that you need to trigger a global with the dwarves before it's available. *shrugs*


Uh oh, that doesn't sound promising. Oh well I suppose I'll see it first hand soon enough. Act 3 seems to be much shorter than act 2, but perhaps I've gotten a false impression of much much remains to do. :) I think it would be fair to say that it is shorter. Still a lot to do, story-wise, but I think you'll find that there's a lot less traveling.



If I ever should play evil (which I won't) it would probably be the intelligent scheming evil type instead. The type who has a plan and don't mind walking over corpses to see it come to fruition, but won't run around insulting, mugging or killing people for no reason, drawing unnecessary attention to themselves and making enemies needlessly. Someone who can appear nice and charming but aren't afraid to backstab should it suit their purposes. Unfortunately CRPGs don't tend to support that PC villain type, catering more to the two-bit thug/bully variant who goes around being mean to people for no reason even if it obviously will come back to haunt them later. You may be pleasantly surprised in this game, if only slightly. "Evil" seems to be much more about ambivalence, or at least it appears to be the case, thus far.



Well, she's a druid, perhaps she just sees feeding wolves as a part of the natural cycle? :) Well done! Have a cookie. :)



I suppose that's one advantage of playing as an Aasimar, being one level behind everyone else (except for Neeshka and the Gith). I think I was roughly level 15 after the attack on Castle Never, which I assume is when the PRC becomes available. Doesn't matter much in this playthrough though: Since I play as a cleric I stay well away from multiclassing since it will only weaken you. :)

Minor Spoiler
In the last area, the devs added a script that adds random attacks to your rest attempts. If you complete each quest and are patient with repeated rest-induced attacks in the final area, you should be able to get your Aasimar to level 20 (although the Gith will never get past 19 - she's 2 behind).



I found it after I got back from Castle Never and brought along AJ to check him out. Found another shard on the lich you needed a True Name (the Deus Ex Machina of D&D/NWN it appears :roleyess:) to kill. Are there any more shards remaining to find after that, or do you get to take the Sword of Gith for a spin before the game is already over? :) I hope it's a vorpal blade like the one in BG2 to compensate for not having focused on Martial weapons in feat picks yet and thus likely being rather poor at dealing damage with it compared to my trusty bastard sword. *gasp* you get to meet Nolaloth now! *happy dance*

After you meet him, you get to forge the blade. Take mages with you...mages that know Energy Immunity. Either that or take tanks that run fast and are good at not dying while retreating :D

Re: the sword itself: it's baseitem type is "Universal sword" which means you don't get any penalties, but it also means any weapon focus feats you picked earlier are now wasted. The sword itself has some pretty cool uses that come close to bordering on overpowered.

I'll keep that in mind. Maybe I'll just find a wiki or something that will fill me in on the OC backstory. If you have recommended resources, I'd love to hear them.

Don't know any story resources since I played all three campaigns already. Wikipedia probably have something, they tend to have entries about everything. Otherwise I can give you the bullet points of the NWN1 and Shadows of Undrentide storylines. I tend to remember pointless things like game storylines fairly well for some reason. :)


Not that I'm aware of. Interestingly, I'm pretty sure that I usually get that mission in chapter three. And unless my game is missing content, the Mere mission is the last one.


Yes, I found that out when checking the scripts and keep dialog more closely. It appears that Special mission 6 and 7 are bugged, a missing "break;" in in a switch-statement in a conditional check script prevents mission 6 (ambush Shadow Priests) from ever being given out, and improper dialog script parameters in Kana's dialog prevents both mission 6 and mission 7 (locate shadow reaver task force) from being activated properly (it tries to start mission 5 instead again with the result in my case of it being set from previous success to failure for some reason). The bad part though is that the penalties for not having completed mission 6 and 7 within the specified time interval remains, resulting in massive penalties to Land and Road Security every time update. Good work, Obsidian. :roleyess:



Re: Path of the Holy
Before you enter the dragon's lair, you should trigger a cutscene during which Khelgar points out "the beacon". Don't make the same idiot mistake that I did and spend 30 minutes running around that module trying to find "the beacon" - it's in another module (specifically, the dragon's lair). Once you approach the hoard, another cutscene should triggers, spawning a previously non-existent chest with the special weapon in it. You should be able to recognize it because it's dead center in front of the pile of gold and it has a rather stereotypical holy light illuminating it from above.



Since I had already cleared out the area of fire giants and killed the dragon before even getting this quest, while attempting to gain an alliance with the Ironfist dwarves, none of this happened. I revisited the area afterwards and checked out the dragon hoard, but got no extra cutscenes or dialogs and no new chests had spawned that weren't there before when we looted the hoard after the red dragon was killed.

Anyway, I went back to the priest again and the mission registered as a success and completed even if I didn't acquire any special weapon. (Unless it was unremarkable enough that I just looted it along with the rest of the dragon's treasure during my first visit to the place without thinking there was anything special about it.)




You may be pleasantly surprised in this game, if only slightly. "Evil" seems to be much more about ambivalence, or at least it appears to be the case, thus far.

From what I've seen the nice and charismatic "making friends" dialog options seem to hand out Good alignment shifts like candy, so it might be hard for such an evil player to stay evil for any length of time. The game's alignment system seems to run almost entirely on action rather than intent behind the action.



Re: Minor Spoiler about last area
In the last area, the devs added a script that adds random attacks to your rest attempts. If you complete each quest and are patient with repeated rest-induced attacks in the final area, you should be able to get your Aasimar to level 20 (although the Gith will never get past 19 - she's 2 behind).



Aha, some XP farming opportunity there then. :) Fortunately you get level 9 spells at level 17 already so you have at least some time to play with your more potent toys before the game is over. Though I suppose the KOSH is immune to every status effect in the book as is customary for bosses so any spells that don't deal raw damage are totally useless in the final battle.




*gasp* you get to meet Nolaloth now! *happy dance*
After you meet him, you get to forge the blade. Take mages with you...mages that know Energy Immunity. Either that or take tanks that run fast and are good at not dying while retreating :D



I just finished beating the two black dragons and shattering the crystal dragon heart, so I suppose the song portal is where I'm headed next since I can't find any more side quests (I've done the Recruit Ironfist, Recruit Lizardmen, Wendersnaven and Circle of the Mere as well as Sydney Natale's ambush so far). Is Harbor Watch Redux an area that continually deals negative damage to your party while you are there, or why the need for Energy Immunity? If it's a wizard spell, any idea where you can get a scroll that grants it?

Don't know any story resources since I played all three campaigns already. Wikipedia probably have something, they tend to have entries about everything. Otherwise I can give you the bullet points of the NWN1 and Shadows of Undrentide storylines. I tend to remember pointless things like game storylines fairly well for some reason. :)That's kind of you to offer. Sounds like a lot of work though and I'd hate to put you through that when I can find something inferior but readily available elsewhere.


Yes, I found that out when checking the scripts and keep dialog more closely. It appears that Special mission 6 and 7 are bugged, a missing "break;" in in a switch-statement in a conditional check script prevents mission 6 (ambush Shadow Priests) from ever being given out, and improper dialog script parameters in Kana's dialog prevents both mission 6 and mission 7 (locate shadow reaver task force) from being activated properly (it tries to start mission 5 instead again with the result in my case of it being set from previous success to failure for some reason). The bad part though is that the penalties for not having completed mission 6 and 7 within the specified time interval remains, resulting in massive penalties to Land and Road Security every time update. Good work, Obsidian. :roleyess:Damn it! That's going to drive me nuts now. I don't suppose you've already scripted a fix??? :D



Since I had already cleared out the area of fire giants and killed the dragon before even getting this quest, while attempting to gain an alliance with the Ironfist dwarves, none of this happened. I revisited the area afterwards and checked out the dragon hoard, but got no extra cutscenes or dialogs and no new chests had spawned that weren't there before when we looted the hoard after the red dragon was killed.

Anyway, I went back to the priest again and the mission registered as a success and completed even if I didn't acquire any special weapon. (Unless it was unremarkable enough that I just looted it along with the rest of the dragon's treasure during my first visit to the place without thinking there was anything special about it.)
No, you would have noticed it. They made a point to make sure that you didn't miss it :D

I find it hilarious that you were able to prematurely close the quest, knowing what a hard time most people have closing it during normal gameplay (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=512887&forum=110).

From what I've seen the nice and charismatic "making friends" dialog options seem to hand out Good alignment shifts like candy, so it might be hard for such an evil player to stay evil for any length of time. The game's alignment system seems to run almost entirely on action rather than intent behind the action.Yeah, after the KotORs, VtM:B, etc, I guess I'm a little underwhelmed by the "evil" dialog choices. I do get to be pretty snarky, but like you said, my words don't seem to get me far. I'm also noticing that during key dialogs, I'm being pushed along down a certain path without much opportunity for roleplay. While not having "thug-4-life" forced upon me is refreshing, I do have to say that I think I enjoyed playing "good" more.



Aha, some XP farming opportunity there then. :) Fortunately you get level 9 spells at level 17 already so you have at least some time to play with your more potent toys before the game is over. Though I suppose the KOSH is immune to every status effect in the book as is customary for bosses so any spells that don't deal raw damage are totally useless in the final battle.
Well, there are final battles and then there are final battles. Without spoiling too much, let me just say you should go prepared for anything and everything. I feel they did a good job of breaking the mold in many regards (but then again, you've been around the RPG-block a lot more than I have, so maybe you will have seen this all before :)).



I just finished beating the two black dragons and shattering the crystal dragon heart, so I suppose the song portal is where I'm headed next since I can't find any more side quests (I've done the Recruit Ironfist, Recruit Lizardmen, Wendersnaven and Circle of the Mere as well as Sydney Natale's ambush so far). Is Harbor Watch Redux an area that continually deals negative damage to your party while you are there, or why the need for Energy Immunity? If it's a wizard spell, any idea where you can get a scroll that grants it? My comments before were re: the black dragon fight. The first time through, I took a diverse mix with me (since I didn't know what to expect). Needless to say after half a dozen attempts to beat them legitimately, I ended up making a bee-line for the world transition point. I figured I would come back later after I'd leveled-up somemore and try again (dragons weren't there when I came back, but I got to shatter the heart).

2nd time through, I know more about Energy Immunity spells and was able to take my time tearing them apart (I had Elanee cast acid immunity on my party and the Gith cast fire immunity). :D

Yep, song portal it is. Yes, the area does deal continuous negative energy, but I was recommeding it for the dragon fight. :) I don't know if Energy Immunity with help you in West Harbor. Haven't tried using it there. Your cleric(s) should have it. Also, Elanee is likely to have it as well. IIRC, it's a level 6 or 7 spell.

If the Gith gets knocked out in battle (which she most likely will), you can run far enough away from where she drops and convince the Reaver to follow you, she will wake up and you can then use the True Name scroll. Just an FYI.

Hello peeps, long time no talky...

Been checking out this new NWN2 game for awhile now, played it through once... working on the second go around...

Was wondering if anyone here has made any fixes or sp mods, or started working on any sp mods for this game yet?

I was just wondering because the playability of this game seems to be running out really quick for me... I'm not sure why. Maybe because it doesn't have as many side quests in it as the first NWN game does. Maybe because it forces you to one conclusion at the end of the game (no good guy/bad guy ending), I dunno'...

anywho, all in all the game is pretty cool, it's got a couple of surprises in it...

*confused* Sleep??? Oh yeah, I remember that! :)
*Achilles has heard the Siren Call of NWN2, and not only has he failed his Will save, he can't even find the die to roll....* :D

Wait until you meet Daerred. Dunno why, but he puts me in stitches.
If he's half as ornery as Jolee was, I'll enjoy the character. :)

*Achilles has heard the Siren Call of NWN2, and not only has he failed his Will save, he can't even find the die to roll....* :DThat may be one of the funniest things I've ever read :D

If he's half as ornery as Jolee was, I'll enjoy the character. :)Not so much with the ornery. To quote Dane Cook, he's a "silly, silly bitch". Almost foppish, as it were.

*Achilles has heard the Siren Call of NWN2, and not only has he failed his Will save, he can't even find the die to roll....* :D
Heh, that just reminded me of this (http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5165/painkeepud3.png).

@Achilles-
Daerred is the adventurer who shows up at Crossroad Keep periodically, right?

Heh, that just reminded me of this (http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/5165/painkeepud3.png).Oooo...that) is good!

@Achilles-
Daerred is the adventurer who shows up at Crossroad Keep periodically, right?Yep that's him :D

That may be one of the funniest things I've ever read :D :giggle1:

Not so much with the ornery. To quote Dane Cook, he's a "silly, silly bitch". Almost foppish, as it were.
You know, I have a good friend who'd fit that description admirably. Should be fun when I get to that point. He even has a full Henry VIII costume--no joke. :D

That's kind of you to offer. Sounds like a lot of work though and I'd hate to put you through that when I can find something inferior but readily available elsewhere.

All right, but if you can't find a decent summary of the story lines elsewhere just ask.



Damn it! That's [keep specops 6 and 7] going to drive me nuts now. I don't suppose you've already scripted a fix???


The IsSpecialMissionAvailable() function inside 21_inc_crossroad.nss (in the 2100_Crossroad_Keep_A2.mod module) needs to be modified, add a break; at the end of case 6 and 7 like the other cases have. Then you have to recompile 21_c_missions.nss with this changed include file.

Further you'll have to edit 21_kana.DLG where the missions are accepted (Under "How may I be of service Captain?" ---> "What special mission is available?") so that the parameter to the action script 21_a_accept_mis is set to 6 (mission 6) and 7 (mission 7), and the parameter to the action script 21_a_deploy are 106 (mission 6) and 107 (mission 7) respectively. They were both left at 5 and 105, which are the values for mission 5).

That should make the missions trigger and be started properly. Don't know if there are other bugs involved with them since the Atari/Obsidian QA teams hardly can have tested those missions. :)



No, you would have noticed it. They made a point to make sure that you didn't miss it


Oh well, that's too bad. But I suppose it doesn't matter if it was a holy avenger since I didn't play as a paladin and were just about to get the Silver Sword anyway. :)



I find it hilarious that you were able to prematurely close the quest, knowing what a hard time most people have closing it during normal gameplay (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=512887&forum=110).


Heh, odd quest if you can only finish it if you can't actually do it. :) At least I got some XP for my troubles when chatting with the priest again.



Well, there are final battles and then there are final battles. Without spoiling too much, let me just say you should go prepared for anything and everything. I feel they did a good job of breaking the mold in many regards.


Long rant about the ending, don't read unless you've finished the game:

Finally got to the end now. The "destroy the bridges" mission was yet another textbook example of "Let's auto-cluster the player party and allies tightly in an indefensible spot in a cutscene so we can easily surround them, never mind that the player had already positioned their archers in the rear protected by warriors and just sent one invisible scout ahead to see what was going on". Even trying to think ahead and use tactics in this game is pointless.

The keep siege was overall OK but a bit annoying since your troops didn't seem particularily keen on following orders and just rushed off on their own getting their asses handed to them by the hordes of undead. Burned through a whole stack of Healing kits just to keep my troops alive. And then comes Black Garius who obviously hasn't read the manual and as such didn't know you only can cast one quickened spell per round and not like, say, two million spells per round. :roleyess: And I'd like to know why Ammon couldn't recite his name to him while the rest of the party was dealing with his little Nightwalker. Seemed like an excellent opportunity, he was standing there the the background, hostile, so why not get down to business? Apparently that was too tactical for the game and we couldn't allow that, could we? Oh well, at least we won a crushing victory anyway it seems, judging by what Kana said afterwards.

The final Illefarn structure (from the "landing pad" and onward) was insanely annoying, like it was designed as a showcase to blatantly demonstrate every AI and Pathfinding problem the game has, with party members running laps around the whole area trying to reach an enemy half a meter in front of you and doing all sorts of stupid things. The battle with the three Shadow Reavers was also more annoying than fun since it seems only the Gith or Ammon can recite the True Names one at a time, not both simultaneously to different Reavers, and it seems like they stopped reading 50% of the time when I switched to control other characters. Sheer AI brilliance. At least you could keep the Reavers more or less permanently on their ass with improved knockdown so it wasn't really a dangerous fight, just really, really drawn out and annoying since it took ages to get the Gith or Ammon to start telling them names correctly.

Oh, and taking away the only party rogue at the start of an area shock-full of traps and locked doors was also a stroke of brilliance by the designers if they wanted to maximize the annoyance potential of the area. :roleyess:

I also have to wonder what the point of all the tons of lootable corpses in that area is, since you can't sell the loot anyway since the game is over before you get out of the place, and most of it was too low-quality to be of any use for a level 20 party. Lots of unlootable containers elsewhere in the game, but seems like everything was lootable in that area.

The lead-up to the final showdown was fairly OK... It seems my character was right in her dislike and distrust of Bishop from the start, and I can't say I was very surprised that Qara turned on us since she always was intoxicated by her own perceived power and never cared much about anything else. Must have been a surprise to her highness that she died during the first combat round getting a Destruction spell in her face. :)

As for the KOSH himself... Didn't seem to have any special tricks or flashy abilities other than the negative energy-dealing aura, just a big, hulking melee grunt, aside from using the statues to produce mini-Viceroys-of-Shadow in large quantities and using the portal to heal itself. Took a while to wear him down though.

And as for the epilogue... have to agree with you it sounded more like some american game programmer than an epic storyteller narrating it. And the ending itself was anticlimax, as I should have suspected. Whee, they won, now let's kill everyone anyway! Great. Good thing Obsidian didn't write the script for Return of the Jedi, otherwise Luke and the Millennium Falcon wouldn't have made it off the Death Star before it exploded and the shield generator complex on Endor's moon would have collapsed on top of Han, Leia and their task force as they blew it up. Cue ending credits. :roleyess:

I really hope Obsidian has an Epic expansion pack planned that continues the story from there, maybe shoving the party into the Plane of Shadow (NWN tradition after all) or dumping them in the Astral Plane rather than crushing them beneath a pile of rubble. I still had that portal tome in my inventory, after all. Now that I have a kickass unique sword I want some more opportunity to use it, and a satisfying final ending this time please. If they intend to leave it like this I'm starting to see a disturbing Obsidian trend from TSL where they make good games but cheat people of a decent ending. :disaprove




Re: Reforging

Yep, song portal it is. Yes, the area does deal continuous negative energy, but I was recommeding it for the dragon fight. I don't know if Energy Immunity with help you in West Harbor. Haven't tried using it there. Your cleric(s) should have it. Also, Elanee is likely to have it as well. IIRC, it's a level 6 or 7 spell.

If the Gith gets knocked out in battle (which she most likely will), you can run far enough away from where she drops and convince the Reaver to follow you, she will wake up and you can then use the True Name scroll.


Energy immunity didn't help against negative energy, but the "Undeath's Enternal Foe" level 9 cleric spell apparently did, so I managed to keep the party from being drained or damaged anyway using that one. :)

I used Ammon Jerro to tell the Reaver names instead, for some reason he seems to be better at surviving and avoiding taking damage than the Gith, bringing along both gives more options should one of them die and I'm out of resurrects. I just kept the Reaver on its ass with Knockdown during the recitation so it wasn't able to aid its Shadow and Elemental allies much. :)




I was just wondering because the playability of this game seems to be running out really quick for me... I'm not sure why. Maybe because it doesn't have as many side quests in it as the first NWN game does. Maybe because it forces you to one conclusion at the end of the game (no good guy/bad guy ending)


As far as I can tell there are two endings, one "good" (well...) and one "idiotic evil" ending that depends on the alignment of your character and the choices you make during the final showdown.

As for replayability it's mostly the ending that ruins it for me. At least until I hear if they plan an expansion pack to continue the story where it left off.

Phew, I haven't checked on this thread in a while and my eyes may well be bleeding - so don't blame me if this has been said before (please don't...).

Obsidian has released a beta version of 1.03 (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=525126&forum=109&sp=0). As always with a beta, back up your saves :).

Many people (but not all) have been reporting improvements in performance ranging from the small to the huge. There are also various fixes. The only issue I have with it is that the blasted thing is taking 3 hours to download on a 4Gb/s connection. Either all of the mirrors have hosted this on a server that only allows minuscule download speeds, or there are thousands clambering to download at the same time (perhaps a mixture of the two?)

Phew, I haven't checked on this thread in a while and my eyes may well be bleeding - so don't blame me if this has been said before (please don't...).


Seeing as the release version of the game is already hideously bug-ridden I think I will give Obsidian's beta versions a wide berth. Hopefully the release version won't be far away and will be a bit more optimized in download size. I'll probably have to reinstall the game anyway when it is released since the Toolset apparently doesn't see fit to ask the user before it auto-saves changes to an open campaign module, so the auto-updater will most likely fail. :roleyess:

Good to see that they are working to improve things though. As long as they don't just abandon the game in its half-finished state it's a lot easier to forgive the sorry state of the unpatched game and toolset on the DVD. :)

(And I believe the beta patch has been mentioned earlier :p)

(And I believe the beta patch has been mentioned earlier :p)

*Grumble, gibber, moan*.

All right, but if you can't find a decent summary of the story lines elsewhere just ask.I'm afraid that I might have to after all. All I've been able to find is game reviews, no summaries. Wikipedia only covers the first part of chapter one (retrieving the reagents necessary for the Wailing Death cure) :(

If the offer still stands, I'd love to hear your summaries.

<snip> Mission fixes </snip>Thank you!

Long rant about the ending <snip>Yep, saw that coming :D. Obsidian has gone on record to say that they can't go on record re: epic expansions, etc. link (http://nwn2forums.bioware.com/forums/viewtopic.html?topic=524360&forum=110)

I just met up with Grobnar (this is what happens when you have 2 people fight over the computer for play time. Slows you way down. :D).
I about fell out of my chair laughing at the initial meeting. I'm going to have to load a save right before that to hear it again. The spring loaded shield and codpiece.... :rofl:

^^^^

Same thing happened to me. Grobnar gets a lot of bashing, but he is by far one of the funniest characters in the game. More hilarity to come! :D

Like i said earlier, the evil ending is way better then the good one IMO

^^^^

Same thing happened to me. Grobnar gets a lot of bashing, but he is by far one of the funniest characters in the game. More hilarity to come! :D

oh Lordy NO! I hate anyone who talks too much, even if they are just pixels and soundfiles..... Im trying my best to avoid picking him in any party :p

mtfbwya

I'm afraid that I might have to after all. All I've been able to find is game reviews, no summaries. Wikipedia only covers the first part of chapter one (retrieving the reagents necessary for the Wailing Death cure) :(
If the offer still stands, I'd love to hear your summaries.


Warning: This turned out to be rather long, I have a hard time writing short and to the point. :)

This is more or less from memory and it was a while since I last played the game, so there may be some inaccuracies and things I remember incorrectly, but the overall picture should be correct. I will not mention any side quests other than the main plot (there are quite a few sidequests, some that tie into the main plot in one way or another):

Neverwinter Nights - Interlude/Tutorial
A mysterious and deadly plague called the Wailing Death ravages the City of Neverwinter. Normal clerical spells are useless to cure it and desperation and unrest rises in the city as the plague spreads and claims more and more victims. The city has been placed under a quarantine and nobody is allowed to enter or leave it to keep the plague from spreading. Lord Nasher is uncharacteristically absent during the crisis and some speculates he has gotten the plague himself.

In his absence Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande, a paladin of Tyr and Lord Nasher's right hand woman has been tasked with producing the cure and restoring order to the city, aided by Fenthick, (a priest of Tyr and her lover and soon-to-be-husband) and Desther, a recently arrived high-priest of Helm. Aribeth sends out a call for would-be adventurers and heroes to train at the Neverwinter Academy and come to the aid of the city in its hour of need. Many respond to the call, and your PC is one such person who is enlisted at the academy.

Meanwhile the Archmage Khelben in Neverwinter's ally Waterdeep figures out that the plague is arcane in nature and devises a ritual that should be able to cure it and sends it and 4 rare magical creatures to Neverwinter that are needed to complete the ritual: a Cockatrice, an Intellect Devourer, a Dryad and a Yuan-Ti.

Thus begins the game with a "tutorial" section where you undertake the final trials of your training at Neverwinter Academy in your chosen class before graduation. All trials done, you attend your (and your "classmates'" graduation presided over by Lady Aribeth herself. Unsurprisingly the graduation ceremony is cut short when the academy falls under attack from mysterious assailants. You, your classmates and Aribeth manage to defeat the attackers in the ceremony chamber.

Aribeth reveals to you that the Waterdhavian creatures needed for the ritual to produce a cure recently had arrived in the city and were held at the Academy for safekeeping. She sends you to check on the creatures and make sure they are safe. Unfortunately the rest of the academy has been less successful at repelling the attackers, so you have to fight your way there. Fortunately you get your own meat shield along with you, a fellow student training as a fighter (to demonstrate the Henchman system in the game). Long story short you fight your way through the academy to the stables only to find the creatures missing, but Fenthick and Desther present. They inform you the assailants have released the creatures before they could stop them, who have fled into the city from the commotion at the academy.


Neverwinter Nights - Act 1
You survived your trial by fire at the Academy and report to the Hall of Justice (the temple of Tyr) in the city core to be assigned your duties by Lady Aribeth. Since you handled yourself so well at the Academy she tasks you with working with Fenthick and Desther in finding and recovering the four Waterdhavian creatures so the ritual to cure the Wailing Death may proceed. Conveniently the four creatures have been spotted in several districts of the city rather than stick together, so she asks you to investigate the Peninsula district, the Docks district, the Blacklake District and the Beggar's Nest.

Chatting up Fenthick and Desther you soon become aware than Fenthick is young and naive but well-meaning and greatly values the advice and experience of Desther to the point of being his puppet. Desther on the other hand is dismissive, old and grumpy (Master Vrook would be considered charismatic by comparison). Well, Desther is a Helmite and they are supposed to be all-duty, and he obviously thinks a neophyte adventurer like yourself won't be able to make a difference and is just a waste of their time. Not much help from them aside from vague clues. Off to save the city on your own, then.

You can visit the districts in any order you wish since you need to visit them all eventually. Overall the city suffers through a dark time with many people ill with the plague and those not yet infected feeling trapped in the quarantined city and just waiting for their turn to become infected. The City Watch is strained to its limits, law and order had deteriorated in many areas of the city and pyres with the bodies of those killed by the plague burn in the streets. Throughout the city Desther's priests of Helm try to tend to the suffering, granting blessings that are said to hold off the plague at least temporarily.

You can enlist the aid of a "henchman" at a local tavern that will accompany you and help you out on your mission. They are AI controlled NPCs that follow you around and help you out like party members, but you have no direct control over them other than voicechat commands. There are six to choose from, but you can only bring along one at a time:
Sharwyn, human bard
Linu, elven cleric of Sehanine Moonbow
Tommi, halfling rogue
Daelan, half-orc barbarian
Boddyknock, gnome sorcerer
Grimgnaw, dwarven monk

They have their own personal stories and quests you can talk to them about, but that's not really tied to the main plot. Anyway, the main plot:

Peninsula district
Also known as the Prison District. As soon as you arrive you notice the city watch huddling behind barricades at the district entrance. Apparently there has been a prison break and all the prisoners are now roaming about tearing up the district, cracking skulls first and asking questions later. Guess who's going to have to do something about it? Things can never be easy, can they? As you go about laying down the law you eventually learn that the Head Gaoler has gone mad and was the one who released all the prisoners.

After finding and beating the leader of the escaped prisoners you learn from him that the Head Gaoler has been infested by some large parasitic creature that apparently controls him and keeps a contingent of prison guards as thralls via mind control. Our missing Intellect Devourer at work, perhaps? Off to face him and save the poor guards, which of course leads to a battle against the Devourer. Luckily Aribeth didn't need the creature alive, just its brain.


Docks district
Arriving at the docks you once more find Neverwinter's finest huddling behind barricades at the district entrance. The unrest caused by the plague has stretched the City Watch thin and the docks are overrun by thugs, muggers and cutthroats. But the recent dramatic increase in robbery, muggings and crime on the docks has to have another explanation as well. You soon learn that every two-bit thug is trying to accumulate as much wealth as they can in anticipation of an auction to be held by the Bloodsailors pirate band where an apparent cure for the Wailing Death will be sold. Sounds like another of the missing creatures.

So, off to gather a bloodsailor disguise and other things needed to infiltrate the tavern where Vengaul Bloodsail (the pirate captain) will hold the auction. Said and done you find that there's a coup d'etat underway in the pirate gang. Apparently Vengaul Bloodsail is an old rival of Lord Nasher and was attempting to use the captured creature to humiliate him after which he'd return the creature, while his second in command, Callik, is more interested in selling the thing for loads of gold. He is now attempting to wrestle control of the Bloodsailors from his old captain to that end. After chasing the two through the aqueducts beneath the docks you confront them and recover some feathers from the Cockatrice (there are a few ways to handle the confrontation depending on alignment etc). Hopefully those feathers will be enough for Aribeth.

Beggar's Nest
Arriving in the Beggar's Nest, the slums district of Neverwinter, you find... drumroll please... the City Watch huddling behind barricades at the district entrance. Apparently the whole district is overrun by the walking dead, large numbers of zombies and skeletons from the nearby graveyard district roam the streets. After some investigating and talking to various people you learn that someone named Gulnan is behind the undead infestation, and that she's made her lair in the crypts beneath the graveyard. After fighting your way through the crypts you encounter the necromancer Gulnan and discover that she's a Yuan-Ti, one of the missing Waterdhavian creatures. She's not in the mood to come peacefully, so you fight her and bring her heart back to Aribeth.


Blacklake district
Blacklake is the district where the nobility make their home in Neverwinter. With the plague and growing unrest in the rest of the city they have barricaded off the Blacklake district from the rest of the city, hoping to escape its ravages. A nomansland full of plague-crazed people and ruthless thugs have formed between the City Core and Blacklake, and you'll have to fight your way through it. There you are again attacked by a bunch of assassins who appear related to the ones attacking the Academy, and you find a note on one of their bodies indicating they are working with a traitor within the city who seeks to thwart Neverwinter's efforts to cure the plague. You bring the note to Fenthick and Desther, who merely shrug it off as being too vague to do anything about right now, when the plague is their main concern.

Back to Blacklake, since you work for Lady Aribeth they let you in through the blockade. Unlike the rest of the city Blacklake appears peaceful with no traces of the unrest and plague, but the peace can be deceiving. You soon learn of tensions concerning a powerful sorcerer/noble, Meldanen, who is hoarding food at his warehouse away from those who need it, which potentially might be leading to starvation in the quarantined city. Another noblewoman, Formosa, is trying to do something about it. Furthermore one of the City Watch in the Blacklake, has gone missing lately.

After some snooping around you infiltrate Meldanen's estate and there you find not only the missing Watchman (who had apparently seen too much), but also the last of the missing Waterdhavian creatures, the Dryad. Unlike the others the Dryad is still alive and not looking for a fight, but she's held captive by Meldanen who she has charmed. You confront Meldanen to have the dryad released, and can either choose to kill him (which Formosa wanted you to do) and bring the key to the food warehouse to Formosa, or turn tables and kill Formosa for Meldanen in return for the Dryad's release. Either way you can bring the Dryad with you back to Aribeth.


The Ritual and Cure
You've managed to bring back all the parts needed for the Ritual, which is to take place in Lord Nasher's throne room within Castle Never. You are invited by Aribeth to attend and be thanked for your services by Lord Nasher personally. Others present are Lord Nasher, Lady Aribeth, Fenthick, Desther and half a dozen clerics/wizards to perform the ritual.

After you mingle a bit the ritual commences and after some flashy visuals the cure is produced. Easy. Too easy? Of course. Desther snatches the cure and escapes through a teleportation portal while his "helmites" attacks everyone else and a fight breaks out in the throne room. Fenthick, confused by the backstabbing of his advisor, follows him through the portal, Lord Nasher is too sick with the plague to provide any aid and Aribeth is occupied trying to prevent the portal Desther escaped through from closing, so you'll have to defend everyone else and kill Desther's helmites.

All said and done, Lord Nasher orders you to pursue Desther through the portal and recover the cure and bring the traitor to justice. You do so, and end up outside Helm's Hold, a stronghold sacred to the followers of Helm. You soon learn that Desther and his "helmites" attacked and took the fort some time ago and then assumed the roles of followers from Helm and infiltrated Neverwinter under that guise. Outside you run across an odd sending that delivers a cryptic message and gives some hints about what's been going on, but most of it is just foreshadowing of things to come.

Inside the fort you see that Desther has summoned an army of undead to protect himself, as well as a demon to keep the guardian of Helm's Hold supressed. You banish the demon back to the Abyss, allowing the guardian to return and help you dispatch the undead. You encounter Fenthick, whose fragile psyche couldn't handle all the backstabbing going on and has broken down mentally. He reveals to you what little he has learned after following Desther through the portal: That the "Helmites" were actually the ones spreading the wailing death through their "blessings" in the first place, and that Desther is part of some cult, the "Cult of the Eye", responsible for attacking the Academy and all the troubles in Neverwinter as of late. And Fenthick has been his unknowing patsy through it all.

Well, off to confront Desther. He'll hardly give up without a fight, so it looks like you'll have to pry the cure from his cold, dead hands. After a boss fight against him and scores of undead he surrenders and gives you the cure, and you return it along with him and Fenthick back to Neverwinter.


Neverwinter Nights - Narration interlude
Neverwinter is cured of the plague, but it has cost the city dearly with many of its citizens dead and the city thrown into chaos. The rabble demands bloody vengeance upon those responsible and Nasher, like the populist he is, gives in and grants it to them. Desther is burned alive and Fenthick is hanged despite not being in on the plot for gullibly shielding Desther that long. The angry mobs want revenge, and Fenthick was easy to blame.

The search now turns towards those ultimately responsible for the troubles, the cult Desther was a member of, but not the leader of. Lady Aribeth and Lord Nasher's spymaster, Aarin Gend, set up shop in Port Llast from where to lead the investigations. You and your henchmen follow to finish what was started.



Neverwinter Nights - Act 2 Part 1 - Port Llast
Aribeth and Gend now task you with finding clues about the cult. They have some leads pointing to cult activities in the areas surrounding Port Llast: Caves north of the city, along the Southern road towards Neverwinter, in the Neverwinter Wood and in the village of Charwood. Again you are free to investigate those areas in the order you choose, and again there are loads of side-quests I will not mention here. :)


Caves
After an eventful wilderness trek you come upon the caves, only to find them populated by rather aggressive ogres. After exploring the caves you find the Ogre chief under the influence of one of the cultists. After dispatching them you find some evidence indicating that someone named Maugrim is the leader of the cult, and that Luskan might be involved somehow.


Neverwinter Wood
At the outskirts you encounter a circle of druids reporting that something is wrong with the wood. The creatures dwelling within have become violent, attacking everyone, even the duids. They suspect that something is wrong with the Spirit of the Wood, a powerful natural spirit that is tied to Neverwinter Wood but dwells in its own demiplane.

After exploring the wood you piece together the ritual required to enter the Spirit's demiplane through a pool of water in the center of the forrest. You do so, and within the realm of the spirit you discover that the Spirit has been poisoned by one of the cultists who still wanders around within the Spirit's realm, quite mad, forcing you to put him out of his misery.

Fortunately for you that all villains keep a journal of their thoughts, and this cultist was no exception. You find his journal and discover where he had hidden the antidote for the poison he inflicted the spirit with. The spirit doesn't know if you are friend or foe though and lashes out at you as you approach it and you have to fight it into submission before you can make it see reason and cure it. The cultist's journal once again implicated Maugrim and Luskan. More evidence to bring to Aribeth and Gend.


Charwood
As you arrive in the village of Charwood you soon realize that something is wrong. The town is shrouded in an endless night and the villagers seem to wander around confused and dazed, unable to remember much of what has transpired there, like time stands still on that night in the village. You find another cultist there among them who appears to have gone insane. After luring some info out of him he attacks and you kill him, recovering yet another journal implicating Maugrim and Luskan's involvement with the "Cult of the Eye".

As you explore the village you enter the Castle, where run into a guardian placed there by the god Lathander. It tells that Lathander has lifted Charwood outside of the weave of time until someone comes along who can stand in judgement over the two brothers who live in the castle, Quint and Karlat, who are involved in a terrible crime. That would be you. You explore the castle and find that Quint is insane and Karlat has become a lich, and that all the children of Charwood has been slaughtered. Through some poking around you learn that Quint (a bard) had invited all the children of the village to the castle for storytelling, and that Karlat (a wizard) had been deceived by the demon Belial that he must slaughter all the children in order to achieve lichdom. So you bring these testimonies back to the guardian spirit and (in my goody-twoshoes case) decide that both Quint and Karlat are innocent and Belial is guilty, and that you will bring Karlat's phylactery with you from Charwood, thus returning it to it's proper place in time. (Meaning all the people are given their final rest and the village becomes a ruin.)

Southern Road
You learn that some powerful cultist is out hunting for adventurers who are investigating the cult activities, who have already killed several other adventurers working for Aribeth and Gend. You run into him eventually, fight him and kill him, and uncover more evidence of Luskan's involvement with the "Cult of the Eye" and it's apparent leader, Maugrim.



Neverwinter Nights - Act 2 Part 2- Luskan
With all the evidence pointing towards a Luskan involvement with Neverwinter's troubles Aribeth and Gend decides to move the investigation there. They manage to get you and themselves into the city and set up a new base in the Temple of Tyr within Luskan. When you get there Aribeth had disappeared without a trace. She had been moody ever since Fenthick, her lover, was hanged for his involvement with Desther, and now Aarin Gend fears she's done something rash on her own to track down the cult. But the cult has to stay your primary concern.

The evidence indicates that the cult leader, Maugrim, resides within the Hosttower of the Arcane, the home of the Arcane Brotherhood, the true but inofficial rulers of Luskan. Thus you need to gain entry into the Hosttower to look for Maugrim. Easier said than done, the Arcane Brotherhood values their privacy and only those given permission by one of the High Captains of Luskan, the official rulers of the city (but puppets of the Brotherhood) may enter the tower. Gend has forged papers that allows you to pose as an ambassador from one of Luskan's allies, but you'll still need permission from one of the captains to enter the tower.

Worse, intrigue and power struggle seems to grip Luskan. All of the High Captains except Kurth and Baram have either been driven from the city or killed, and there is an all-out civil war between the followers of Kurth and Baram, the latter who appears to have been infected with lychantrophy and has in turned infected his followers, making the whole lot of them wererats. So you'll have to find your way to one of the high captains and "convince" him to give you entry into the Hosttower of the Arcane. Which indidentally requires you to bump off the rival of your chosen captain, Baram or Kurth. Or you can just kill them both and claim the Hosttower warding tokens off their bodies. :)

Anyway, once you get the token in your chosen way you enter the Hosttower of the Arcane under the guise of an ambassador. Inside you discover that Luskan isn't the only ones fond if in-fighting, it appears there is a coup going on in the Hosttower as well. Apparently Maugrim, along with a large number of cult-indoctrinated followers, have taken control and ousted the old leader of the Arcane Brotherhood, the Lich Archmage Arklem, who he now holds imprisoned at the top of the tower.

Exploiting the power struggle and doing a fair deal of fighting you make your way to the top, where you get Arklem to open the way to Maugrim's sanctum to allow you to dispose of him. Arriving at the top of the tower however you encounter Maugrim along with a group of what appears to be lizardmen, whose leader, Morag, is speaking to him through some form of sending. Present is also Lady Aribeth, who out of grief and anger of Fenthick's fate has fallen from Tyr's faith and is just being named a Blackguard in Morag's service.

Before you can intervene Maugrim and Aribeth teleports away and Morag orders her minions to kill you. After you kill them instead you explore Maugrim's lair and find his journal (no villain is complete without a journal outlining their plans). There you learn that the "Cult of the Eye" is looking for four ancient artifacts from the time of the Creator Races called the Words of Power. Apparently Maugrim and his cult seeks to use these artifacts to bring back one of these ancient creator races to life. A number of these ancient beings are apparently held in suspended animation somewhere deep beneath what is now Neverwinter to prevent them from going extinct along with the rest of their race due to the climate changes that wiped out their civilization long ago. And apparently Morag is their rather powerful leader, who was held in stasis along with the rest of her people but have awakened enough to project her power beyond their magical prison to empower Maugrim and his followers, cause the Wailing Death and project sendings of herself to communicate with them.

Lots of revelation to bring back to Gend, which closes Chapter 2.


Neverwinter Nights - Act 3 - The Words of Power
Lord Nasher isn't too keen on having Morag and her people return, so he's ordered you and Aarin Gend to find the Words of Power before the cult does. They have been able to pinpoint a number of likely locations in the lands near Beorunna's Well, a Lords Alliance military camp in preparation for the upcoming war with Luskan with Maugrim and Aribeth at their lead.

Again the order you get the words is up to you. There are plenty of sidequests (many involving helping the war effort against Luskan) and there is more to getting each word, but I'll just give a very general outline otherwise this will turn into a novel. :)

Throughout these quests you'll come into contact with another Creator Race lizard called Haedraline who is trying to aid you in finding the Words. She explains she and others like her have been bound by the Words of Power and kept alive all these years to look after the leadership who was held in stasis as their civilization collapsed. Now she isn't particularly keen on seeing Morag return, and is helping you to prevent it from happening.

First Word
The first Word of Power is held in the hoard of the Ancient Red Dragon Klauth. To get it you'll have to fight your way up the Giant-infested mountains where Klauth makes his lair. Then you'll either have to kill Klauth at the request of the gold dragon Gorgotha and loot the Word off his hoard, or bring Gorgotha's eggs (which she isn't going to surrender without a fight) to Klauth and he'll give you the Word in return.

Second Word
The second Word can be found inside a magical snowglobe (which you acquire through a fairly long quest) that actually is a small demiplane in itself. Within this demiplane a clan of dwarves and a group of Dryads are locked in an eternal struggle, fighting a never ending war for reasons none of them know, and every time one of them is killed they are immediately resurrected back at their respective camp. In the center of the demiplane inside a cave you encounter a White Dragon who with some coaxing you can get to reveal that he has one of the Words of power and has used it to create the snowglobe demiplane. The Dryads and Dwarves were brought there as servant slaves, but allied together in the past, creating a powerful artifact and used it attempting to overthrow their master (the Dragon). They only narrowly failed, so in order to prevent it from happening again he used to Word to twist their minds into irrationally hating each other so they wouldn't band together again.

You manage to get some sense into the blood lusted Dryads and Dwarves and repair the artifact and use it to defeat the White Dragon and then claim his Word of Power, ending the snowglobe world and freeing the dwarves and dryads.

Third Word
The Third Word is found inside a vault in ancient Creator Race Ruins. To reach them however you must use a time crystal to travel 10 000 years into the past when the Creator Race was still alive and kicking, during the time when the now ruined complex was being created. There you can learn how to access the vault and weaken its guardians (and tangle with the Creator Race lizards who consider other races to be little more than slaves). Then you return to the present with your time crystal, access the vault and claim the Word of Power.

Fourth Word
Haedraline informs you that apparently this Word has already been claimed by Maugrim himself, and worse, Aarin Gend informs you that Aribeth has lead the Luskan army against Neverwinter which is now under siege. You must hurry back to the city to aid in its defense and prevent Maugrim from using his Word to free Morag and her goons.


Neverwinter Nights - Act 4 - War
As you make it back to the city the walls have been breached and the streets are filled with Luskan soldiers and War Golems who the Lords Alliance soldiers desperately try to fight back. Aribeths intimate knowledge of the city's defenses put the defenders in an impossible situation.

You must now find and deal with Aribeth to weaken the Luskan war effort and locate Maugrim and claim the forth Word of Power from him before it's too late. You battle through the Luskan lines until you reach Aribeth's sanctum and confront her. After some heavy fighting against her mixed with talks you either have the ability turn her from her Dark path if you have high enough Diplomacy and make her surrender herself to Lord Nasher, or you'll have to kill her. (This part is fairly similar to your confrontation with Bastila on the StarForge in KotOR.)

Next on is Maugrim, who's not much of a talker. After exchanging some brief taunts you fight him, kill him and loot the final Word of Power from him, which you bring back to Haedraline in Castle Never. Using the Words of Power she sends you inside the Source Stone deep beneath Castle Never, which is where Morag and her goons are now awakening. There you finally confront Morag in person and kill her, putting a stop to her plans once and for all. With their leaders killed or captured and Morag's influence no longer empowering them and weakening the Neverwinter defenders the Luskans flee in disarray and the city is saved.

Thus ends Neverwinter Nights. I'll write the story of Shadows of Undrentide tomorrow, this turned out to be much longer than I anticipated already :)

oh Lordy NO! I hate anyone who talks too much, even if they are just pixels and soundfiles..... Im trying my best to avoid picking him in any party :p

mtfbwya
He's not a bad little party member--doesn't talk quite as much as in the beginning. :)

He's not a bad little party member--doesn't talk quite as much as in the beginning. :)

But there are better ones, and it's hard enough to squeeze those into the party as it is when you only have 3 slots to choose from most of the time. :) The few party slots and difficulty in switching people in and out of the group does give a few of the party members less active time than the others, and hard to find decent equipment (boots, belts and headgear in particular) for all of them.

Over all Grobnar does remind me a little of Jan Jansen in Baldurs Gate II, another eccentric and motormouthed party member gnome who likes telling stories.

But there are better ones, and it's hard enough to squeeze those into the party as it is when you only have 3 slots to choose from most of the time. :)
Oh, Qara's got Elanee and him beat in the spell-casting department for sure, but it's fun to see what they all have to say.
Usually by the time I need to pick up a different party member, I'm ready to go sell something at Sand's place anyway, so it's worked out OK. :)

*reads Stoffe -mkb-'s summary* Good lord woman, don't kill yourself.

Thank you though. It wasn't hard to play connect the dots with the multiple "war with Luskan" references, but now I have a better understanding of what transpired. You're the best!

To everyone who has played this game:

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why? :ears1:

I'm only in the early parts of the game and I give it a big thumbs-up so far--I've actually died a couple times and had to go back to a previous save, but I honestly didn't really mind too much.
There are a couple piddly little things that bug me (like the door on Sand's shop making you have to hit the W key to get all the way out) and the anatomically incorrect way that the ladies in particular run annoys me a tiny bit (@stoffe--it's weird because they're running bow-legged and the knees don't bend a whole lot when they're jogging. The feet are landing badly supinated--they're actually landing on the lateral (outer) _sides_ of the feet instead of the heels. Of course, I have no clue how to fix it :) ). I also wish I could buy/sell things more than 1 at a time.

However, I like the story so far, the characters are fun, the visual effects for the spells are really cool (either that or I'm easily entertained), some of the weapons are fun, the PC/NPC and NPC/NPC banter can be very amusing, and the quests are interesting to me. All that seriously outweighs the problem areas that they'll hopefully fix soon anyway. :) Plus, I think you can catch it on sale it places like Best Buy.com and other online/brick&mortar retailers.

To everyone who has played this game:

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why? :ears1:
I give it a "meh". It has potential, and there'll likely be an expansion pack or two, and Obsidian has been fixing bugs since it's release. The story is okay, but the ending leaves something to be desired. The graphics were disappointing, and not worth the amount of lag. However, this game gives me another excuse to don my robe and wizard hat.

To everyone who has played this game:

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why? :ears1:

The first two acts: Thumbs up, good mix of quests and areas without losing sight of the main quest. :thumbsup:

The third act: Most of it good, though some bad, annoying (AI and pathfinding glitches, plot-NPC munchkinism, overt railroading etc) and partially unfinished.

The ending: Every single thumb humanity can bring to bear down, unless the story will be continued in an expansion, so I'll reserve judgment on that for later. :)

the anatomically incorrect way that the ladies in particular run annoys me a tiny bit (@stoffe--it's weird because they're running bow-legged and the knees don't bend a whole lot when they're jogging. The feet are landing badly supinated--they're actually landing on the lateral (outer) _sides_ of the feet instead of the heels. Of course, I have no clue how to fix it :) ). I also wish I could buy/sell things more than 1 at a time.

Yes, many of the female animations are rather annoying. They stand like they are hunched over in the "computer geek sitting in front of computer" pose with the head and throat stuck forwards (something that the cloaks makes look even worse in many cases). The running animations look weird, but they are at least bearable. The walking animations however are the poorest I have seen in any game. They walk like they are robots and it looks very unnatural. Try holding down the Walk key and move around a bit if you haven't already and you'll see. :) At least the spellcasting animations are a clear improvement from NWN1, in my opinion.



the visual effects for the spells are really cool (either that or I'm easily entertained), some of the weapons are fun,

I agree the spell effects over all look pretty good, though some of the weapon damage and onhit effects are a bit too unsubtle for my taste, drowning the target in a huge flash of light so you can't see what you are fighting. But that's a pretty minor thing.

As for weapons that's a bit mixed. Some look plain and NWNW1-esque (but I suppose that's natural, not every weapon in the world can be a masterpiece), while others look very pretty, in particular in areas with certain lighting where the light reflects on different details on the weapon. And the Silver Sword (http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/8321/silverswordiq4.jpg) (the one in the opening movie where Ammon Jerro fights the shadow) is very nice both to use and look at. Just too bad you get it so late. How am I going to start a new game without it? :)

heya! for those of you with *decent* nvidia graphics cards.... download the newest nVidia 93.71 drivers (http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_93.71.html)

I have a high end graphics card and the differences I noticed were astounding(shadows, reflections etc all looked *superb*) Apart from the hair lookin a bit weird on *some* characters, I dont get people complaining about the graphics :) Really, is Oblivion a better game because you see trees 5 miles away in teh background... :(

RPGS are all about:
1. Storyline
2. Storyline
3. Storyline

Compared to NWN1 though, the spell sounds and effects are awesome... The way a drow casts the globe of darkness is exactly how one would imagine it after reading about it for so many years :D

http://img177.imageshack.us/img177/6221/darknessvd1.th.jpg) (http://img177.imageshack.us/my.php?image=darknessvd1.jpg)

fun fun fun :) Ive named this drow Drizzt so its impossible not to be a lawful good ranger. I cant wait to make a chaotic evil drow and go through it with her(of course female drow are supremely evil)

mtfbwya

To everyone who has played this game:

What's your final word? Thumbs up or down? And why? :ears1:

Playing good: Definite thumbs up. Story is one of the best I've seen (IMHO). A lot of people don't care for the end but I thought it was consistent with the theme of the story:

sacrifice

People that like their RPGs with a happy ending aren't going to like it very much. *cough*stoffe -mkb-*cough* :D

Playing evil: Can't speak much to the story as I'm still in Chapter 1, so I can't tell how much changes later. Thus far, I have to say that playing good is much more consistent and gratifying. Kudos to Obsidian for trying to make evil options more subtle and less thuggish, but they lose points for consistency (damn near nice one second and bloodthirsty monster the next...and I'm referring to the dialog choices).

Technicals: People that complain about the graphics must either be playing on older cards, have the options turned down, or play in the top-down view only. Granted the hair/faces are nothing to write home about (in most cases. A few characters have exceptional textures), but the environments, clothing, armor, etc are some of the best I've seen. Much of the game looks comparable to the screen shots I've seen for Oblivion.

The AI is buggy and it seems to be the most buggy during important fights.

And of course, the game suffers from its fair share of buggy side quests, dialog inconsistencies, etc.

Hopefully, most of the technical problems will be resolved with patches. Even if they are not, hopefully most players will be willing to look past the bugs and be able to enjoy the story nonetheless.

heya! for those of you with *decent* nvidia graphics cards.... download the newest nVidia 93.71 drivers

I have a high end graphics card and the differences I noticed were astounding(shadows, reflections etc all looked *superb*) Apart from the hair lookin a bit weird on *some* characters, I dont get people complaining about the graphics The spell sounds and effects are awesome... The way a drow casts the globe of darkness is exactly how one would imagine it afterr reading about it for so many years

mtfbwyaHa! I had to upgrade just to get out of Daeghun's house. Assuming that it's the drivers that make my game look so pretty, I'll second the rest of your post :)


<snip> and the anatomically incorrect way that the ladies in particular run annoys me a tiny bit (@stoffe--it's weird because they're running bow-legged and the knees don't bend a whole lot when they're jogging. The feet are landing badly supinated--they're actually landing on the lateral (outer) _sides_ of the feet instead of the heels. Of course, I have no clue how to fix it ). I also wish I could buy/sell things more than 1 at a time.Damn you! Chalk this up in the "never noticed it until someone said something, now it's ALL you notice" category *sigh*. As for the buying/selling, this is supposed to be addressed in 1.03 (beta patch was released Wednesday. I'm holding out for the official release).

Kudos to Obsidian for trying to make evil options more subtle and less thuggish, but they lose points for consistency (damn near nice one second and bloodthirsty monster the next...and I'm referring to the dialog choices).
Heh, good. I'm not a big fan of DS in Kotor because beating the snot out of people 'just because' is a. not fun and b. kind of stupid if you might need to use them later. :) I prefer utter manipulation myself.

Technicals: People that complain about the graphics must either be playing on older cards, have the options turned down, or play in the top-down view only.
I finally got used to driving camera mode and use that unless I need to see where all the enemies are.

The AI is buggy and it seems to be the most buggy during important fights.
I manage my entire party pretty heavily and pick a lot of the spells and attacks. Probably one of the reasons why it's taking me so long to play, but I'm having fun and my characters don't die as often that way. :)


Damn you! Chalk this up in the "never noticed it until someone said something, now it's ALL you notice" category *sigh*.
The first time I saw Neeshka walking/running I thought 'What is wrong with her legs? She needs some serious orthopedic attention.' Then I noticed she was practically running on her ankles instead of her feet, decided the devs need a little more physiology knowledge, and decided 'Oh, well, maybe if I put a robe on her, it'll all be better....'

If I'd played the game a couple times, I'd be inclined to try out the beta version (since they have a way to revert back if it doesn't work), but I don't want to do that til I've tried it out the way it is currently. :)
Well, that'll be good to have an improved buy/sell feature. I hated buying holy water or cure light wounds 1 at a time when I wanted 20 of the things. :)

Playing good: Definite thumbs up. Story is one of the best I've seen (IMHO). A lot of people don't care for the end but I thought it was consistent with the theme of the story: *********
People that like their RPGs with a ***** ****** aren't going to like it very much. *cough*stoffe -mkb-*cough* :D

I liked the game, but definitely not the ending. When I replay it I think I'll mod it so it just skips the ending narration and goes straight to the credits and I'll think up a better "what happens then" in my head instead. Not quite as annoying that way. If Obsidian announce they will make an expansion that continues the story where it ended all will be forgiven though (unless that expansion has a sad excuse for an ending as well). :)



Playing evil: Can't speak much to the story as I'm still in Chapter 1, so I can't tell how much changes later. Thus far, I have to say that playing good is much more consistent and gratifying.

I think I'll do another playthrough and play a bit more chaotic but still good character this time. Last time I turned out ultra-lawful without intending to do so. Started out Neutral Good but got forcibly converted to Lawful Good by the game shortly after arriving in Neverwinter City. Apparently the game didn't think I was very neutral in trying to help others in need. So I suppose trying to play as a warlock is out of the question since I'd be unable to advance in the class when no longer being chaotic really quick. Too bad. :)

By the way, are there any more Bags of Holding in the game than the one in the Captain's Bedroom in Crossroad Keep? I only found that one. And are there any decent headgear other than those +Int wizard headbands and the occasional helmet that grants +1 Concentration? Hardly found any headgear at all during my first playthrough. Boots, gauntlets and belts were also very few and far between, both at the shops I found and as loot.



Technicals: People that complain about the graphics must either be playing on older cards, have the options turned down, or play in the top-down view only.

I tried using the chase camera but felt it too limiting to see what was going on around me that way when you have more than once character to babysit. On the few solo-missions in the game the chase cam worked fairly well though. Traditional perspective view had to suffice, with lots of zooming in and out.


Granted the hair/faces are nothing to write home about (in most cases. A few characters have exceptional textures), but the environments, clothing, armor, etc are some of the best I've seen.


I found at least the choices of female player faces to be fairly unremarkable and look very similar to each other. All the Aasimar heads had almost the exact same facial structure with only slight variations in tattoos etc. Too bad you can't use the Succubus head (http://img217.imageshack.us/img217/1944/bloodysuccubuspe8.jpg) as a player character appearance, if you remove the glowing eyes and change the skin/eye color a bit they look pretty decent and could pass for an elf or a half-elf.

Oblivion isn't a better game than NWN2, but it is a better-looking game overall. :) Story-wise NWN2 is vastly superior to Oblivion.

Quoted for emphasis :)

Though Ive never been a PnP player, as far as RPG games go, I remember playing text based RPGs on my ole commodore 64. Some of them were quite fun, merely because they had a good storyline.... Oblivions graphics are handy for one thing IMO, benchmarking :)

It's just a shame there isn't more opportunities to explore in NWN2, the areas are so small that you can barely avoid seeing all of it just by moving through them.

If NWN2 was so open ended I'd never play it. I simply dont have the time to run around like a monkey into every cave, wondering whats in there... between work, study and family committments Im glad I can get back on and get back on track reasonably quickly. There are always the xpacks, modules amd toolsets for those wanting more. Also, there is Dragon Age, due next year or so ??

Shouldn't Darkvision (or was it Ultravision, I can never tell them apart) allow you to see through the Darkness though? Seemed to me the Darkness just made it harder for me to see the enemies while the AI didn't seem to have much problem finding and attacking my characters when I cast it.

I dont have any problems. Check your gfx settings perhaps. Look at my screenie. Drizzt is a visible silhouette, and remains so when I cast this spell. This maybe affected depeding on what effects you have turned on etc ?? Maybe thats something someone can mod if its a prevalent problem though ??

Ranger... It's one of those classes I've never understood the charm of. They have a handful of low-level spells, but nothing too exciting or useful compared to druids. They are decent in a fight, but will get their asses handed to them by fighters and barbarians. They have some wilderness perks, but most of the game takes place indoors or in civilized areas. Perhaps it's just because I've never read any Drizzt novels. :)

Its hard not to call a character Drizzt and not have him be a ranger, under the Mielikki etc. I usually throw a few levels of ranger into most characters. This one also has a bit of cleric in him. Ive been playing the game on its normal difficult and only had a handful of sticky situations. If you are careful with party selection, defensive casting and have some good equipment, then I cant see being a ranger to be a disadvantage in any event.

I still hope that I get to choose a panther for my companion after a bit more levelling up.

mtfbwya