Really? My favorite character for NWN1 was magic-user specialized in necromancy. The first few levels were challenging, but she was devastatingly powerful later on...Quote:
Originally Posted by Keba
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Really? My favorite character for NWN1 was magic-user specialized in necromancy. The first few levels were challenging, but she was devastatingly powerful later on...Quote:
Originally Posted by Keba
A character specialized in necromancy (Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus) can do some serious damage with spells like Wail of the Banshee. Gnomes make great illusionists because they already have Spell Focus: Illusion, freeing up a feat to spend on something like Toughness or armor proficiency feats for use with Still Spell.
Lone-wolf Wizards and Sorcerers have a better time in NWN than they do with a group in a real D&D game.
Out of spells? If you are playing D&D with a gaming group, you will have to sit out the entire session if resting is nowhere in sight (a constent annoyance in a Living Greyhawk game). If you are playing NWN, one hit of the R button and you are good to go again.
Traps and locks? In D&D, you'll need either ranks in the cross-class skills of Disable Device and Open Locks or get yourself a Rogue. In NWN, Find Traps disables all traps except the quest ones (read: Isle of the Maker) in a huge radius, and Knock does the same for all locks.
One hitpoint? In D&D, no amount of bandages will help you without resting without magical assistance. In NWN, use a healing kit and you are back to full instantly.
Multiple enemies? Isaac's Greater Missile Swarm and Greater Sanctuary.
Oh, that doesn't mean I didn't play a mage, rogue or any class, really. I did, I just found it a lot less fun that it would have been with a party. That, and having only one person to converse with left out all the party banter that I came to love so much in Baldur's Gate 2.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
Now, if only the damned shops here get this, finally. Last time it took them two months. ~:mecry:
Hordes of the Underdark gave you an extra companion for a total of three party members, and countless mods give you multiple companions. It's amusing to see the witless and witty conversations and rebukes between your henchmen, especially between Deekin and both Arabeths.
Quoting myself here but having played further through the campaign and it is pretty darn epic!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob the Insane
Still not a broad as BG2 perhaps but plenty epic!!
I’ve found the most satisfying character to play a Rogue, Shadowdancer, Weaponmaster.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xiahou
Starting off as a rogue is a bit tricky as you may need a henchman or do a lot of cheesy run away, and shoot type combat. This is countered by the fact that you get all the normal rogue goodies to include many skill points and the use magic item ability. The latter lets you cast spells from scrolls making you a de facto mage and later on allows you to use some nice equipment that you normally couldn’t use.
The Shadowdancer can be a bit like Cheesedancer; if the enemy doesn’t have True Seeing you can run away, hide in plain sight, and sneak around to backstab ad infinitum.
The Weaponmaster class allows you to emulate a fighter to give you massive weapon bonuses. A rapier is best for this class as you can use Weapon Finesse with it.
I hope I can create a similar character in NWN2 as it’s the best I’ve found for soloing. Of course, that is, after the price drops considerably. I was able to get NWN diamond for $20.
Oh yes...and this is coming from a former Paladin fanatic.
What's the problem? All I want is to be level 40 with 1000 hit points. :laugh4:Quote:
Originally Posted by GoreBag
Any update on a patch? I'm waiting for one before I take the plunge. The Bioware forums are running at the speed of an arthritic asmatic snail in superglue, so checking there isn't proving terribly successful.
There's been two already and a 1.03 beta is available, although I am not bothering with it now. I suspect it will be like NWN1 - almost continual patches, to incrementally add new stuff.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
Got it when it came out although I've had very little time to play. Enjoying going through with Hidalgo, my boastful and none-too-bright swashbuckling duellist. He certainly looks the part in his floppy hat.
I've got to say.. I'm really not very fond of this game at all. I can't put my finger on it, but it just feels like a steaming pile of poo. :no:
What other RPGs do you like/dislike ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Justiciar
I just tried the beta patch, and my framerate just skyrocketed! It's definitely an improvement
Ah, might be time to give it a go then.
Here's the lowdown on everything the patch fixes...
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:
The folks at Obsidian addressed every major issue with the game. :smiley:
I'm going to hold off downloading the beta and wait for the official patch, as I'm not having the problems like others, but if they worry you, give it a go!
Well that's the odd thing.. I loved Baldurs Gate 1 & 2, found Icewind Dale to be brilliant, and even enjoyed NWN1. All of which had a lot in common with NWN2. But for some reason it just doesn't have the same kind of feel that those games had. Just feels like bland AD&D, jam-packed with cliches. Well.. I say that, but I haven't played the single player game at any great length. Nor do I intend to. :no:Quote:
Originally Posted by doc_bean
Anyone want to help a frog build a plan for her character? The UK manual is completely useless, a flimsy little pamphlet which tells you nothing about the character stats, classes, feats and whathaveyou. There's no link to a PDF manual in the NWN2 start menu folder either. I don't even know what classes and so on are in the game. Not impressed. :rtwno:
I want a character who is similar to one I built in Baldur's Gate 2 (kensai/sorcerer) or to the one I had in the original NWN (I can't remember what he was! Think shiny knight in armour with the ability to cast fireballs; he had little devil-like wings too for some reason), or even to my character in KotOR (jedi who fights with his lightsabre for most of the time but wades in and blasts with the force in tough battles).
I want a character who:
- Is human! I am not going to be some weird freak. I hate elves.
- Is of one of the good alignments.
- Uses a sword. Vital, this. A nice longsword or katana or something, not a silly rapier. Possibly paired with a shield, maybe, if he's not using a two-handed weapon.
- Has a good amount of HPs and will be able to survive quite easily.
- Perhaps wears nice shiny armour, like plate. However, if he's got enough protection without armour then I'll be happy without it as long as there's something I can make the character wear to look vaguely decent. I'm not wandering around looking like some farmer or generic NPC.
- Can fight respectably, handling most combat situations through the infinitely renewable free resource of Stabbing Things.
- Can break out some hefty magic in dire situations. By magic I mean big fireballs of doom, not all this turn undead rubbish. Buffing spells are acceptable as an additional line to damaging spells, as are enemy nerfing ones.
- Can do a bit of healing, perhaps.
I need to know everything - classes, starting stats, when to swap classes for best benefit, which skills, feats and traits are good and which should be avoided, etc - because the documentation has left me entirely blind, and because I only dabble with AD&D when there's a good PC game which uses it. The last I played with this specific system was a couple of years ago. I know it's very easy to hamstring your character by doing something simple, such as swapping classes one level to late. I want to start this character and go right through to the end of the game with him on my first go. No restarting because he's not good enough, or I made a mistake by picking skill X not skill Y.
Thanks.
If you want just a sword monkey in heavy plate, I'd go with either a fighter or a paladin. The paladin can cast a few spells later on, and has access to Cure Disease, and immunity to fear and disease.
Unfortunately, you also want someone with lows of magic, and not the clerical kind either. So I'd take one level of paladin and then advance in sorcerer (both classes make extensive use of Charisma), so not only do you have a sword and armor, you can cast your spells you want. Unfortunately, not only are you one level behind pure sorcerers, you'll need the Still Spell metamagic feat to be able to cast in armor without your spells miscasting due to the arcane armor penalty. This means that a third level fireball will need to be prepared as a fourth level spell, increasing the level you have access to it from 5 (for third level spells) to 7 (for fourth level spells), AND you still have that paladin level tacked on so you will have to have a total of 8 class levels.
However, clerics are not the happy-happy heal-heal casters they were in Baldur's Gate and other games. Clerics in NWN can hold their own with spells, AND can cast them with no armor penalty (being divine, not arcane). Most of your first and second level spells will be buffs (which, because you are a cleric, can be converted to heal spells on the fly without praying for them), which is not a bad thing, actually. Grab yourself the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat so you can wield the big toys, grab the Strength Domain to buff yourself up in the heat of battle, and then take Bull's Strength and Bear's Endurance as buff spells to make yourself more powerful than a fighter equal to your level. Once you hit a certain level, you will have access to excellent offensive spells such as flamestrike. If you want to use a sword and a shield, get Monkey Grip as a feat so you can wield that greatsword or greataxe in one hand and a shield in another (or, even better, two greatswords if you have the duel-wielding feats)
Being Human, you get a free feat automatically, so I suggest you put that into Luck Of Heros. Unlike the PnP version, LoH gives you not only +1 to all saves, but +1 to your armor class. Your second feat is negotiable, but I primarily take Dodge for an extra +1 armor class.
If you want to go cleric, you stats should look similar to this:
Str: 12 or above (for melee potential)
Dex: 13 (in full plate, the max dex bonus you can get is only +1, and you can get Dodge at 13 dex)
Con: 10 or above (again, for melee potential)
Int: 12 or above (clerics get lousy skill points, intelligence will help offset this)
Wis: 16 (you will be increasing this as you go along, so 16 is really all you need starting out)
Cha: 12 or above (for turn undead and diplomacy)
For skills, diplomacy and lore is a must. Being able to talk your way out of a fight, and being able to identify that uber magic item you just found are vital.
Healing is optional, but if you are going cleric, you have no need of this.
Two cross-class skills I definately would pick up are Use Magic Device (to wield all the magic items you cant use and cast from arcane scrolls like FIREBALL) and Tumble. Every five ranks in tumble you buy, you gain another +1 to your armor class.
Spellcraft is a good skill to have if you are mindful of enemy spellcasters. It will boost your saving throws against magic in the same way tumble boosts your armor class, every five ranks.
Frogbeastegg: the way DnD works in 3rd edition, it is rather hard to get a decent character who can wield a sword and throw out fireballs in a pinch. The whole system is geared up around class specialisation, with a party making sure all the bases are covered. If you want a fighter-mage type, you are better off with Morrowind/Oblivion.[1]
That said, the compensation of NWN2 is that you do have a semi-decent sized party this time round. You have your character plus 3 others, any of which you can instantly jump into to micromanage - just like KOTOR, which IIRC, you have played. So my advice based on what you say, would be to go for the fighter or paladin that Kek mentioned and let one of your party members break out the fireballs when needed. (By the same logic, your other two members should ideally be a cleric and a thief, to make sure all bases are covered). I'm undecided what character to go for but may go for a fighter-paladin dual class, which should probably get most of the pally's advantages while getting a few more fighter feats and giving me a few more choices on level up.
However, if you do want to persist with the fighter-mage idea, you might check out the eldritch knight. Or indeed, the red dragon disciple. These are prestige classes that seem to combine melee and magic. (The eldritch kngiht explicitly; the RDD gets amazing stats bonuses that really help in combat.) Note that with high dexterity and magic armour (plus some of the protections like stone skin etc), you can get a decent armour class and defensive ability even without the full plate etc.
One other thought - you could check out a druid. They are beefier than a mage, but have a decent amount of offensive magic.
The character creation process in NWN2 is very informative, BTW.
There's also a very nice excel character builder you could try - it's the CharacterBuildCalculator for NWN2 (CBC2), made by Kamiryn:
http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view...er.Detail&id=9
I also found the gamespot guide Part I excellent - really good on how to buff up your party.
[1]The reason why the fighter-mage idea is not great in 3rd ed, is that the number of experience points you need to go up a level depends on your character level, not your class level. So a level 19 mage can choose whether to have a level 1 fighter's powers as well or get a the 20th level of mage. With mages, at each level, the mage gets more and more powerful - the higher level spells are great and you get more lower level spells too. So typically, you would rather have more of those cool spells than a few hit points. And a 10 fighter-10 mage would normally get whooped by either a 20 level fighter or a 20 level mage.
The other perennial problem is penalties for casting magic in armour. Do you really want to be stripping off your plate in a dungeon, just because you might fancy flinging a fireball?
Plus mages have really lousy to hit chances.
I have yet to see anyone go for full Fighter. Too many feats. That's one of the main turnoffs of the Fighter in the original NWN. Unless you are going for Weapons Master and need all those combat feats, going even 10 levels of Fighter is a waste for the sole reason that you will not be using all those combat feats you gain. More than likely, you will only be using a few (read: Improved Knockdown) exclusively and leaving the rest behind. In the PnP version, a high level Fighter can deal some serious damage using their feats tactically, but other than the feats, there is no additional benefit to increasing your level in Fighter except for the high Base Attack Bonus and hit points. And even then it's a good thing to go into something else like Rogue (for Sneak Attack and skills), Paladin (for immunities), or Ranger (for those who like duel-wielding).
Druids are a decent choice for a mix of melee/magic, but they suffer in that they have a lack of choice in armor and weapons selection, whereas Clerics can wear full plate from level 1. They do, however, recieve an animal companion at level 1, which is a very good thing for Druids who are thinking of going into Rogue (read: Sneak Attack). Once they hit level 5, however, they stop being the bastard child of the party and start becoming tanks thanks to Wild Shape. A pure Druid at level 20 is an army all herself.
In my personal opinion, I absolutely love my Weapons Master. I am unsure if the benefits of Keen stacks with Improved Critical in NWN2 (it was changed in 3.5 to not stack), but Weapons Master is still a force to behold. 6 levels of Fighter to gain the required feats with a focus in scythes. Thanks to NWN2, scythes are no longer exotic weapons, and thus no longer need an extra feat to specialize in. A 6th level Fighter / 7th level Weapons Master can turn the critical range of the scythe from x4 into 17-20/x5 (1 for Improved Critical or Keen, 2 for 7th lvl Weapons Master). If Improved Crit does stack with Keen, it further lowers the crit range to 16-20. But by far my favorite weapon for Weapons Master is the Greatsword. At 6lvl/7lvl, this weapon goes from 19-20/x2 to 15-20/x3 without stacking Imp Crit and Keen, and 13-20/x3 with. Combine that with Monkey Grip and duel wielding, and you have a lot of damage potential right there.
Ah - red dragon disciple! That's what my Hordes of Underdark character ended up as, hence the little wings. He wore full red plate armour, a steel bucket helm trimmed with red, wielded a longsword which had red hilt furniture for some reason, and a shield of some sort. Not only did he look rather awesome, he slaughtered everything and anything the expansion threw at me with ease with only Deekin for back up. :yes: Most enjoyable character I've taken through a AD&D game. IIRC he didn't have to take his armour off to cast either ... think it was a matter of picking spells carefully, or having a feat to enable it, or something. If it were possible to rebuilt this character I’d love to use it again in NWN2. Anyone got any guesses as to how I managed it?
Having given it a day's thought I have decided the notion of being a cleric isn't as rancid as it was with the old rules. If I can't find anything which appeals more I'll try it; it doesn't sound bad by any means, only it lacks a certain ... spark. How easy is it to get a cleric wielding a sword? In the old games they simply couldn't, and the Gamespot guide says they can't use most bladed weapons. Also, what about prestige classes and potential good dual class options? :wishes once more that she had some decent documentation for the game!:
Druid? :shivers: The idea of being a tree-hugging hippie who wibbles on about nature being wonderful while morphing into bears and tangling people up with vines is not appealing. I'd rather be an elf, heck even an elven ranger, than a druid.
~:( I heard that the 3rd edition rules were there to let you create the kind of character you wanted, without the rigid and annoying confines of the older rulesets. So good mages in armour were meant to be do-able.Quote:
the way DnD works in 3rd edition, it is rather hard to get a decent character who can wield a sword and throw out fireballs in a pinch. The whole system is geared up around class specialisation, with a party making sure all the bases are covered.
As for Oblivion, I prefer something with a good story. Morrowind was fine for a dabble, but ultimately it couldn't hold my interest.
I played - and loved - KOTOR. Went through it start to finish 3 times at least. Didn't finish the second one though; too buggy, too unfinished, and the plot suffered badly from the game being rushed out the doors. One of the most disappointing games I've ever played.
Yes, 3rd edition and 3.5 rules allow your mage to wear full plate and still cast spells, as well as your cleric to wield anything with a blade. The problem is that these benefits are offset with penalties. Your arcane mage in full plate is going to receive a MINIMUM of a 45% chance to fizzle any spell she casts while in full plate (lighter armors = less penalty). Moreso if she uses a shield. And your cleric wielding a greatsword? She'll have a -4 penalty to hit because she isnt proficient in it.
In NWN, however, things are slightly different. In this case, you cant wear armor or use weapons you are not proficient in. Mages cannot wear full plate without having to take all three armor proficiency feats (Light, then Medium, then Heavy, plus Shields if you want to wear one) or one level of Fighter/Paladin. Your cleric cannot wield that greatsword without taking the Martial Weapon Proficiency feat or one level of Fighter/Paladin/Ranger/Barbarian.
However, for the cleric it is easy enough to do that since humans get a free feat at first level. Put that feat into Martial Weapon Proficiency and you'll be able to use any non-exotic weapon in the game. For a mage, take Silent Spell feat and you'll be able to bypass the miscast penalty.
To be honest, if you have played through HoTU, you know 99% of what you need to build a good character. Both NWN and NWN2 were 3ed DnD - IIRC, what's changed is the move from 3.0 to 3.5, which seems a rather minimal revision; plus NWN2 has some of the character creation stuff introduced in Icewind Dale 2 (sub-races). I suspect you could rebuild your character, although there is a level 20 cap to contend with.Quote:
Originally Posted by frogbeastegg
I was surfing Bioware's forums today and someone was arguing that clerics were the uber class in 3.0. No one seemed to seriously dispute the point.Quote:
Having given it a day's thought I have decided the notion of being a cleric isn't as rancid as it was with the old rules.
So you will be glad to hear the romantic interest for males is apparently an elven druid. :laugh4: Maybe you want to rebuild your RDD character as a female this time round?Quote:
Druid? :shivers: The idea of being a tree-hugging hippie who wibbles on about nature being wonderful while morphing into bears and tangling people up with vines is not appealing. I'd rather be an elf, heck even an elven ranger, than a druid.
KOTOR was great. Although I liked KOTOR2 equally. At what point did you give up on it? I actually liked the end - although clearly rushed, it had quite an impact on me. Partly this was emotional - defeating the main enemy at the end was very sad, unlike the triumphant end to KOTOR1. And partly, it was intellectual - because the story was rather rushed and incomplete, and you did not get to see all of it due to the influence system, it preyed on my mind for a few days. Sometimes the absence of closure is good.Quote:
I played - and loved - KOTOR. Went through it start to finish 3 times at least. Didn't finish the second one though; too buggy, too unfinished, and the plot suffered badly from the game being rushed out the doors. One of the most disappointing games I've ever played.
Right... the level cap and design of the initial campaign may argue against aiming for something like the Red Dragon Disciple. HOTU started you out at a higher level and then got into epic levels, didn't it? So you could play longer with those higher-end classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
If the initial campaign in NWN2 is like the first one in NWN, starting at level one (I don't know... I haven't bought it yet), then it would be better to pick a basic class you'll be happy with right away, instead of something you can just begin to get a taste of, when the campaign ends. It sounds like Froggy might like Cleric for this.
Or (as mentioned above), just pick the plate-armored fighter you like, and use a full mage in your party for nuking, since the game is oriented towards a balanced party. You don't have to do everything yourself.
The game starts you out at first level, but it gives you enough experience for second level before the tutorial ends. You'll still get the second level if you skip the tutorial, but you miss out on trying for a +1 Cloak of Charisma.
you could always try monk for a few levels (if your looking for a kensai type dude) - then you could pick up some druid or sorc for your spell casting - then you could do the old shapeshifting monk build that was popular in 1
one of my faves was a bard/fighter/arcane archer - basically a bow user that could sings songs to inspire her party
Well, I got NWN2 last week ... and, after a lot of hours spent, I managed to finish the game.
I was kind of appaled that the ultimate sword in the game was weaker than a random hammer I picked up in some ruin ... and I found the ending to be a bit ... well, a bit ... unsatisfying.
Does picking the thieves guild when one comes to Neverwinter over the Guard actually affect the rest of the game as much or not? I haven't tried that yet since my character happened to be a LG Aasimar Paladin/Crusader (with levels of Neverwinter Nine added later). Which, while satisfying, made it damned difficult to finish the game, since he had a habit of dying ... a lot, most of the time.
Hey, I'm a freak then, 'cause for some reason I always wind up playing a dwarven weaponmaster. Couldn't begin to say why. There's just something amusing about a bulldog-type character with full plate and a two-handed sword. It soothes my soul.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae
And perhaps as a tall guy I'm secretly drawn to the idea of being squat and deadly. It's a possibility. Who cares if it's leet and uber? I like my fighters.
Oh, go on then. I'll give a cleric a go.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae
It was two years ago, and I got most of the character build from the internet, including details like which levels I should swap classes.Quote:
Originally Posted by econ21
Noooooooo! Whatever happened to having several potential partners to pick from?Quote:
So you will be glad to hear the romantic interest for males is apparently an elven druid. :laugh4: Maybe you want to rebuild your RDD character as a female this time round?
:froggy glowers: Now I have to wander through 40+hours of game staring at some stupid improbably proportioned female in ridiculous metal bikini 'armour'. :froggy glowers more: Gah! I hate that; it's why I always play as a male character.
:idea: Or I skip the romance. Always feels a bit weird romancing a female character anyway. :sigh: But that would mean missing out on what is usually one of the better subplots and bits of characterisation ...
Very close to the end. It kept glitching, the story had gone to wacko land, and I decided that I'd stopped enjoying the game around the half way mark and was liking it less with each play session, so I'd cut my losses and stop. A shame - I really liked the beginning, and the early parts of the mid-game. I played the xbox version, which made the bugs and glitches unforgivable – also unfixable. The real killer was the way the plot got butchered: bits missing, bits unfinished, bits crammed in to paper over the cracks the rest had made. The final effect made me feel as if I were reading a book, the first 100 pages of which were bound correctly, and the remaining 300 had been thrown in the air and stuffed in place in random order with every fifth random page chucked in the bin.Quote:
At what point did you give up on it?
I need a bit of education... I got NWN1 along with SoU a while ago, but I'm really confused about the difficulty. I think I'm playing on normal, and having a hard time, doing far far worse than my henchman (the huge orc-human in Neverwinter) with lower damage, lower defence and lower HP. I'm two levels higher, as well. Is an archer supposed to be incredibly weak? I got completely destroyed by the first thing I met in Chapter 2 of the SoU expansion.. AFTER cheating all the way to level 20 (:idea2: ) and getting the best possible equipment from chapter 1 and the intermission (?). I think I did 0 damage.
Anyway, Froggie, you've done a good job in resparking the interest in the Red Dragon Disciple, and I just spent over an hour looking at reviews and all about HotU and NWN 2, and HotU is probably not for sale anywhere here anymore.
:wall: :wall: :wall: :wall: :wall:
:help: :help: :help: :help: :help:
Now all I want is this massive towering Red Dragon Disciple with a huge flaming battleaxe.