Neverwinter Nights 2 released

Romances in D&D computer games have always been biased toward the majority of the market (IE: oversexed teen males). Thus BGII gives you a choice of three women to romance, but only one guy. NWN:HotU gives you three choices for a male PC (the drow and both Arabeths), but only one choice for a female PC. :blankg:
Not that I'm complaining... as much as I like Deekin and find his humor to be gut busting, I foresee absolutely no lizardsecks in my PC's future. Maybe if I played a very confused gnome character, yes... but not my human.

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Originally Posted by frogbeastegg

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.

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Ok, fair enough. But your NWN1 manual - which was pretty good, IIRC - and your internet sources should still be pretty relevant to NWN2 unless you really want to get into the minutae (an extra feat here, a new sub-race there). It's one of the things I like about DnD: the basic character building stuff may not be the best system in the world, but it is a reliable and pretty constant one. So if you have DnD experience - as you have in abundance with HoTU - you can plan a character knowing "how the world works". But then I go for rather mundane builds. I find all those dual wielding, great sword bearing, stone-skinned, red-dragoned, multi-classed epic wierdo builds you get from the internet about as interesting as Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. (Although I know some people have the opposite opinion of both.)

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Now I have to wander through 40+hours of game staring at some stupid improbably proportioned female in ridiculous metal bikini 'armour'. Gah! I hate that; it's why I always play as a male character.

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I knew there was a reason I usually pick a female character. (Bad econ! :sweatdrop: :whip:)

Actually, from the character creation screens, the NWN2 females looked very nicely attired (as did the blokes). Unlike NWN1, I don't recall a bikini, metal or otherwise, among them. I'm not blown away by the graphics so far, but the starter costumes are really rather fetching.

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Very close to the end. It kept glitching, the story had gone to wacko land,

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Some parts of the KOTOR2 climax were fun to play through - a palace and a ship, IIRC - but you may have done them. Then it really did go to wacko when you land on some weird planet or asteroid or moon thing. But that part was very short and worth enduring for the last conversation with Kreia, which I found really nicely scripted (it had just the perfect dialogue options for what I wanted to say to her.) And seeing - or hearing - what happened to your companions gave me goose bumps, just like hearing the fate of the settlements you travelled through in Fallout 2.

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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.

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Someone made the point that part of that was deliberate - the influence system meant you only glimpsed part of the backstory to each character; and the non-linearity meant the plot was revealed in a rather jumbled way. I did not mind it - the incompleteness and confusion gave it an illusion of depth and realism, which combined rather nicely with the brooding "shades of grey" feel of the story.

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Originally Posted by Tiberius

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.

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It's been a while, but I remember there were some tough fights in SoU Chapter 2. (One to get the Holy Avenger was particularly gruelling.) You can always lower the difficulty temporarily to get through a tough spot.

But yes, I think archers are pretty weak in 3rd edition DnD[1] - perhaps especially in NWN, where there is no such thing as "long range". You won't compete with a huge orc with a great weapon, as his strength is added to his to hit probability and damage (the latter x1.5). The 0 damage thing sounds like damage resistance of some sort - e.g. an enemy might ignore the first 10 points of damage. If you have an arrow that only does d8 damage and a little extra, you are out of luck.

Perhaps a thief, who can add sneak attack damage to his arrows, might be more viable as an archer, I don't know. (I suspect kek can advise you better).

I played a paladin in SoU and really enjoyed it. They put in a fair amount of paladin-specific content, so I did not feel merely like a nerfed fighter. The difficulty level was just right, playing with Deekin and my son (a druid): challenging, but not frustrating. I actually liked SoU better than HotU.

[1]Unlike Baldur's Gate 1, where my party of 6 composite bows made RTWs Cretan archers look like kids with pop-guns.

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Originally Posted by Kekvit Irae

Romances in D&D computer games have always been biased toward the majority of the market (IE: oversexed teen males). Thus BGII gives you a choice of three women to romance, but only one guy. NWN:HotU gives you three choices for a male PC (the drow and both Arabeths), but only one choice for a female PC. :blankg:

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:yes: Another reason why I usually play as a male character. If you can't stand one possible romance you can nearly always try another.

Then too the characters they give female characters to romance are lousy; there's something a wee bit wrong when you'd rather smack your solitary romance choice in the face with a mace while yelling "Stop whining and sobbing about your childhood and grow some balls, damn you!!". If it's not the sobbing whiny-boy it's the one who goes on and on about his lost love/dead wife at every possible opportunity, only to suddenly announce he loves you more, and will you kiss him now, please. :sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Econ 21

But your NWN1 manual - which was pretty good, IIRC - and your internet sources should still be pretty relevant to NWN2 unless you really want to get into the minutae

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I repeat again, it was two years ago :winkg:

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But then I go for rather mundane builds. I find all those dual wielding, great sword bearing, stone-skinned, red-dragoned, multi-classed epic wierdo builds you get from the internet about as interesting as Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. (Although I know some people have the opposite opinion of both.)

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While I agree with you on Arnie (:looks queasy:) I find the mundane characters a bit dull. I like to build a very potent character, one who can breeze through the game comparatively easily without cheating. On the one hand I'm not a frog who likes being killed over and over in games, on the other I find satisfaction in taking my generic start and making it into something superb.

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Someone made the point that part of that was deliberate - the influence system meant you only glimpsed part of the backstory to each character; and the non-linearity meant the plot was revealed in a rather jumbled way.

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Nah. I found the problem was caused by all those cutscenes and areas they hacked out and didn't paper over properly. I read the transcripts for those missing conversations, and it showed the original plot to be excellent. The thing we got left with was a pale, garbled remnant in comparison. It was like the cut female/darkside ending for KOTOR, but multipled to fill the entire last half of the game. BTW, that cut ending I really liked - I'd have played through as a darkside female just to get that ending.

Actually, come to think of it, the final straw which made me quit the game was seeing the transcripts for some of the scenes I'd have seen in my game, but didn't because they were hacked out. I was already very unhappy with the game, and seeing how great it could have been and how badly it had been mangled, that was it, frog done. The game needed a lot more time in development, period. It was rushed out and it showed.

There's a massive mod dedicated to replacing as much of this missing material as possible. That says it all, IMO. There was no such mod for KOTOR, or for any other RPG I've played.

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Originally Posted by econ21

Perhaps a thief, who can add sneak attack damage to his arrows, might be more viable as an archer, I don't know. (I suspect kek can advise you better).

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A Rogue using a bow is a death-dealer.

The same rules for Sneak Attack apply on a bow as well as melee weapons.
1. You need to be hidden, OR
2. You need to have the enemy not target you, OR
3. You need to go first in initiative before the enemy.

So long as you are within 30 feet of an enemy and one of the conditions apply to you, you will get a Sneak Attack. An Assassin with Hide In Plain Sight is a very dangerous thing when dealing with bows and Death Attack.

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Originally Posted by Keba

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.

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Keba
some of us are yet to get the game let alone complete it.... anymore spoilers and Im going to get very angry

:smash: :yes:

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Originally Posted by Yunus Dogus

Keba
some of us are yet to get the game let alone complete it.... anymore spoilers and Im going to get very angry

:smash: :yes:

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It's not exactly a spoiler, since, well, you get told the choice immediately after coming to the city ... and I didn't say why. Anyway, you get the first offer in Fort Locke anyway, and you can get there two or so hours into the game (if you like to take things nice and slow like me). Though I do apologize.

I am asking since playing Evil characters seems to lack the subtle evil I like so much ... and too many do-gooders around with their annoying little comments and their annoying little mercy thing. Playing an evil assassin or warlock without a meat shield and healer is only so much fun. So, unless it's really worth it, I'm unlikely to get into the whole evil.

I suppose it's just much more fun to play something you morally aren't ...:sweatdrop:

And I would say, overpowered characters might be needed, I had several encounters that I could only win after several attempts with my rather powerful Paladin/Divine Champion/Neverwinter Nine (whom I'd just looove to have in a pen and paper campaign, but I never play Faerun on principle). There were one or two I simply couldn't win even with a party that could get through a dungeon without taking damage or resting, and I was forced to resort to cheating. And that was on easy. I mean, I like the hardcore rules and all, but things get way unbalanced in that case.

@Frogbeastegg:
Actually, the whole romance thing is rather minor, aside from a single Influence check (I think) at a predetermined point in the game, there's nothing else really, so none of those little monolougues where you have to pretend that you care when you really don't.

Ok I have several things, one of them is an extreme spoiler (it will be double spoiler tagged).

First, I usually play a human fighter or paladin, but just looking over the manual, it is clear that a cleric is the way to go. Yes, healing is essentially useless, but take a couple of well chosen domains (fire is essential) and you have a guy that arguably has better spells than wizards (fireball & blade barrier), can wear armor, and has a lot of hitpoints. Plus, if you really want to beat up thugs, take the warpriest prestige class.

Second (this may have some slight spoilers, but it is all character related so don't worry), I really hate when they put romance options into these games. I play the game to kill the bad guy for Gods sake! OK, I guess some people get kicks out of this kind of thing (oddly enough). But when the romance thing is forced upon you, that is irritating. First of all, every female character in the game pissed me off to no end. There is the annoying tiefling rogue who gets mad every time I pass on defiling a corpse; the elf druid stalker, who approves of every lawful action I take (odd since she is neutral); the insane pyromaniac sorcerer girl who I loathed more than anyone in the game; and the weird farm woman who gets latched on to me. Two of them I absolutely loathed (it was resolved in the end but that's a major spoiler :wink:), and the other two I didn't pay attention to as they were lemmings. Then out of nowhere, one of them that I never even payed attention to (was barely in my party) just takes me completely unexpectedly to a quiet place on the wall and offers to bed me? :huh:

Third (This is the major spoiler dealing with the final fight! Do not open unless you don't mind or have already beaten the game):

I need help with:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I am almost finished with the game and defeated Black Garius and the traitors Neeshka, Qara, and Bishop. Then comes the fight with the King of Shadows himself. The original one is easy to take down, as I just focus all my attacks on him. When he goes down however, the multiple spawns show up and just waste me. How on earth am I supposed to beat them? Does it have to something with the statues? Please help! Thanks.

Most party members get annoying at a certain point, but their comments make it well worth it ... that and the way they treat each other. Except Khelgar who, for some reason, seems to give up disliking the tree-hugger and tail-for-brains, a shame really.

A reply to Reenk Roink, concerning the same spoiler, so don't look unless you've finished the game.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In a way, it does ... the swarms you just have to keep killing until all the statues are cleared. That's the really difficult part of the conflict. The swarms will just keep coming, and eventually, one by one, the statues will clear. The statues themselves refill your special powers, but during this time, they don't do that. After you've gotten rid of the pesky little buggers, you'll have to destroy the statues. Oh, and the traitors are determined by influence, in my case, it was Sand, rather than Qara.

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Now all I want is this massive towering Red Dragon Disciple with a huge flaming battleaxe.

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That's easy. Become a DM. ~:)

I don't have HotU. Also, there's the slight problem of my craving of world domination as the, coincidentally, also red

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Russkis.

A little side-note, relevant to all of the KOTOR discussion ...

Doesn't sound positive, though... 2 years after the last one was out and there is still only a possibility of making the game. The last 2 games were 1 year apart. Seems like a ploy to get customers to 'stay tuned'.

:thumbsdown:

Question: If I buy NWN2 will it let be create a dwarven character with glowing eyes who beats up nasties with his bare fists. Because I loved that in NWN, despite the fact that he missed out on all the fancy weapons and armour.

You can be a Dwarven Monk, yes. I dont know about the glowing eyes effect, however.

I do want to try this but there is only one impediment. Can I configure the game for use with a controller, yes or no? I can't stand RPG's with keyboard/mouse. It's the reason I never got past the first module in NWN1.

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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

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No. my friend, this is not freakishness, this is good taste (though I prefer Dwarven defender myself). Clerics indeed! All that namby pamby please god can I have a spell stuff. Pah.

My only question would be the sword. What, you don't like warhammers? Axes?? Dwarven waraxes? Vorpal dwarven waraxes?

Ahem. Sorry

can you believe I bought the game and then gave it to my wife to give to me for Xmas? :wall: In my defence I had hoped M2TW would be more diverting that it was. But come Dec 26th, Gimli the Giantslayer will rise again. (Not very high, though, obviously)

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Originally Posted by English assassin

can you believe I bought the game and then gave it to my wife to give to me for Xmas?

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It's probably not a bad thing to get it when there is less competition - there seem to be an aburd number of interesting games just out right now (M2TW, NWN2, EB0.8, MoC, DoW:DC etc). The competition meant I put NWN2 aside after finding the tutorial appalling (some twee village fair). But recently I found a little more time for it after the 1.03 NWN2 patch (and while waiting for M2TWs patch). I still haven't got far with Chapter 1, but it seems very promising indeed - has that KOTOR kind of feel (a compelling story, decent characters and simple but tactical combat), which is all good, IMO.

My advice: spend a lot of time planning your character (so you don't have to repeat that appalling tutorial too often), make sure you have a stiff drink before playing the tutorial and then push on to Chapter 1 asap[1].


[1]It's kind of like the opening to the Fellowship of the Ring: the sight of Sauron prancing around like a Power Rangers villain at the beginning was just so wrong, I felt the film might be doomed but thankfully it recovered quickly.

Sound advice Econ21, but you are missing the main point: I am in my mid thirties and a father of two. What on EARTH am I doing giving my wife things to give back to me for christmas :beam:

Dark Crusade is good, is it?

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Originally Posted by English assassin

What on EARTH am I doing giving my wife things to give back to me for christmas

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Well, I did not want to comment on that. Advice from me on wives and gaming would be like nautical tips from the Captain of the Titanic. :captain:

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Dark Crusade is good, is it?

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Not sure yet - it is even lower down my "to play" list than NWN2. Both my son and I separately tried the SP campaign, getting humiliatingly crushed by the AI in the first mission. I've found out how to slow the campaign down, though, so I will be back. Probably to get humiliatingly crushed by the AI again. Only this time, crushed slowly.

Cheerfully sticking my oar in here - Dark Crusade is splendid. One of the things about hitting your mid-twenties is finding straightforward storytelling far less satisfying as you become more aware of the complexities of real life, and craving shades of grey or at the very least multiple points of view in stories. If you're in the UK I hope you watched 'The State Within', which is excellent for that. The author George R.R. Martin is good at this, although genre fiction isn't going to be challenging Jane Eyre or Wide Sargasso Sea for character development any time soon.

Back on-topic, Dark Crusade is good, not least because it reverses the trend of the past few years for the Warhammer franchise to revert to simple (unsatisfying) storytelling. Admittedly it's still pretty crude storytelling, but it's better than what went before - see Mark of Chaos for stories that just don't cut it.

Sigh..just can't get used to the idea that Space Marines are nice, cuddly knights in shining armour. They should be more like the Mahdi Army in space - cold-eyed fanatics untroubled by sacrificing billions for the sake of ideological purity.

Ditto for the Warhammer Fantasy Empire - the defenders of humanity should be deeply flawed and often quite unpleasant people as a result of the weird stuff they're dealing with. Much more interesting that way. Makes me nostalgic for the old 'Rogue Trader' rules for WH40k. I used to have them as a teen, and didn't appreciate them. Wish I'd kept them now.

Froggie - are those unexpurgated KOTOR2 transcripts available online?

Oh, on the romances point - I've not seen any really good ones yet - too much chainmail-clad bimbos rubbish, and characters with the depth of wet tissue. My guess is that this will change with time. Until very recently role-playing (whether on computer or otherwise) was a hobby for a tiny minority of people some of whom, let's be honest, were a bit odd.

As the market for CRPGs broadens to include people who are more emotionally grown-up , the stories will grow to accomodate that. This is probably already happening - has anyone else read 'Everything bad is good for you'?

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Originally Posted by English assassin

No. my friend, this is not freakishness, this is good taste (though I prefer Dwarven defender myself). Clerics indeed! All that namby pamby please god can I have a spell stuff. Pah.

My only question would be the sword. What, you don't like warhammers? Axes?? Dwarven waraxes? Vorpal dwarven waraxes?

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I know, an axe would be more appropriate, but I love how oversized the 2H sword looks on the dwarf model. It makes me laugh, and that's important.

But you have a good point; perhaps I'll go with a more traditionally dwarven weapon when I re-install the game.

A little off-topic:

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Originally Posted by Beefeater

Oh, on the romances point - I've not seen any really good ones yet - too much chainmail-clad bimbos rubbish, and characters with the depth of wet tissue.

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I like the Bastilla romance in KOTOR. I thought the dialogue was delightfully written, with the gentle teasing being funny and in-character. There was also a "bat squeak of sexuality", to use a nice phrase from Brideshead Revisited.



OK, enough of the sissy stuff. Back to dwarves and sharp axes.

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Originally Posted by Beefeater

Froggie - are those unexpurgated KOTOR2 transcripts available online?

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Somewhere, yes. I read them back when the game was current. IIRC I followed a link from the original KOTORII topic here to wherever they were. I don't have time to hunt for that link again, but I can give youa link to the original org topic.

Frogbeastegg, thanks muchly.