Neverwinter Nights 2 released

[frogbeastegg]

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.

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.

[Kekvit Irae]

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.

[econ21]

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.

[Kekvit Irae]

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.

[frogbeastegg]

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

[Kekvit Irae]

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.

[econ21]

Ah - red dragon disciple! That's what my Hordes of Underdark character ended up as, hence the little wings. ....If it were possible to rebuilt this character I’d love to use it again in NWN2.

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.

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.

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.

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.

So you will be glad to hear the romantic interest for males is apparently an elven druid. Maybe you want to rebuild your RDD character as a female this time round?

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.

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.

[Zenicetus]

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.

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.

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.

[frogbeastegg]

[Kek on clerics and stuff, with imput from others]

Oh, go on then. I'll give a cleric a go.

To be honest, if you have played through HoTU, you know 99% of what you need to build a good character.

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.

So you will be glad to hear the romantic interest for males is apparently an elven druid. Maybe you want to rebuild your RDD character as a female this time round?

Noooooooo! Whatever happened to having several potential partners to pick from?

: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.

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 ...

At what point did you give up on it?

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.

[Lemur]

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.

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.

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.