History YMMV / NeverwinterNights

** Clerics. Wearing full-plate armor with no magic penalty? Check. Equipping most kinds of weapons by default? Check. Casting the best spells of the game by far, like Harm? [[RuleOfThree Check.]] Doing so without even having to learn and dislearn spells like the arcane classes? [[IncrediblyLamePun Checkmate.]]

** Whenever you enter conversation mode, the camera will always pan and zoom to a certain angle, leading to many CameraScrew situations.

** The "Harm" spell in itself was this throughout the game, lowering the hitpoints of any non-undead enemy down to 1 (and anyone with Harm also gets Heal, which can do the same thing to undead as well as [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin healing]] themselves if needed). It's a sixth-level-spell, meaning you get it at level 11 and will just keep on using it forever all the way to level 40. This particular brokenness was, of course, imported from 3rd edition D&D.

** When you start a new game, nothing prevents you from picking a preset character who's well above the default starting level of the campaign you chose (level 1 for base campaign and ''Shadows'', level 15 for ''Hordes''), making the entire playthrough ridiculously easy. It's not just the character stats that are retained, also their ''inventory'' remains. This is easier to pull off in the base campaign and ''Shadows'', since installing ''Hordes'' comes with a group of premade level 15 characters; for ''Hordes'' you'd need first to complete the campaign at least once to have an overpowered character to reuse in a later gameplay.

** The city of Luskan has a rich history in the ''Forgotten Realms'' setting, a high-class WretchedHive that it is ruled by five High Captains who constantly make power plays against each other. Despite all the potential for a setting like this, by the time the player gets to Luskan it's caught up in a war between the High Captains, three of which have already been killed off, and most of the city has been abandoned or is closed off. The result is that the player only gets to explore a small area of Luskan and only do a few small sidequests in it, making Luskan basically a pit stop before moving on the Host Tower for the final leg of the chapter. As for the High Captains, not only are three of them dead by the time you arrive, making it a simple one-on-one war, but the developers made sure to make both Kurth and Baram slimy remorseless bastards who go back on their deals with you and have no impact on the story later, so there's no reason to side with one over the other either way for any reason, you may as well flip a coin.

* ThatOneSidequest: The henchmen quests. Completing them requires talking to your henchmen about themselves in stages, culminating with them telling you they could use a particular rare item -- that item can be found in the current chapter and given to them for a magic item (in Chapter 1 they give you the item, in Chapters 2 and 3 they upgrade the previous item they gave you). The catch is that getting them to complete their stories cannot be done until you get at a high enough level, the items they need are easily overlooked if you don't know what they are and that a henchman needs them (which is very possible), you usually don't get any hints as to how to find the item they need, the quests cannot be continued if you lost the magic item they gave you previously, and if you forgot to do a henchman's quest in the past chapter, you cannot do their quest in subsequent chapters. This can overall result in players being unable to continue a henchman quest because their henchman won't talk to them any more about their personal story, and for it they'll miss out on good magic items and romance options.

** Aura of Fear. Many high-level boss-type enemies, particularly Mummies and Dragons, have Auras of Fear around them that inflict the Frighten status on anyone who comes inside the aura. Characters under Fear become ''entirely uncontrollable'' and wander around aimlessly, suffering a -2 penalty to all saving throws. You need equipment to prevent Fear or a high enough Will to make your saving throw against it, and even then as long as you remain within the aura you will need to continue to roll to save against the Aura of Fear. And your henchmen? Forget them, they will pretty much always fall victim to it. Getting hit with Frightened is pretty much a death sentence any time it happens, and can make otherwise unremarkable foes into a GoddamnedBoss. It also makes Potions of Clarity one of the most unexpectedly useful buffing potions in the game.

** The leader of the group is Yesgar, a half-orc, who reveals himself when he kidnaps the daughter of the mayor. When you weaken him he surrenders and tries to claim she seduced him to run away together, but on a Persuade check he admits he got her drunk before taking her away, and when you speak to her afterward she implies he let his full-blood orc minions rape her. If you decide to kill him after hearing his story, the game marks this as an Evil act, but your only other option at that point (which gives no alignment check) is to let an unrepentant murderer walk free. The only way to kill him without a reputation change is to do it without talking to him, which means that when Yesgar tries to surrender and reason with you, you have to ignore him and kill him without hearing him out.

* BetterOffSold: Taken to a new extreme in ''Hordes of the Underdark'' compared to the original game and ''Shadows''. In addition to the random scrolls, potions, gemstones and other valuables you'll expect to find, ''Hordes'' throws ridiculously overpowered equipment at you like it's going out of style to the extent they become this trope. You are going to constantly trip over +6 and higher weapons with other bonus effects, equipment with powerful statuses like Haste and Regeneration, magic wands, magic rings, magic armor, equipment that lets you cast magic spells every day for free, etc. Turns out you'll need it though, because there's a MoneySink in the last chapter where you'll need to pay a heavy price for critical pieces of information -- the most important will cost around a million, and if you want all the optional ones they'll double that price. The game throws all this high-value stuff at you so you can actually have a chance to get your hands on that kind of money.

* BetterOffSold: Taken to a new extreme in ''Hordes of the Underdark'' compared to the original game and ''Shadows''. In addition to the random scrolls, potions, gemstones and other valuables you'll expect to find, ''Hordes'' throws ridiculously overpowered equipment at you like it's going out of style to the extent they become this trope. You are going to constantly trip over +6 and higher weapons with other bonus effects, equipment with powerful statuses like Haste and Regeneration, magic wands, magic rings, magic armor, equipment that lets you cast magic spells every day for free, etc. Turns out you'll need it though, because there's a MoneySink in the last chapter where you're looking at emptying out around a million gold to get the most vital ones, 2 million if you want them all--the game throws all this high-value stuff at you so you can actually have a chance to get your hands on that kind of money.

** The game hands you one at the start -- the Stone of Recall. It teleports you from your current location to the nearest Temple of Tyr, where there is always a priest on-hand to fully restore your HP, cure all debuffs, and offer shop services. Furthermore the Temple is where your henchman respawns when they die, there's a portal back to where you used the Stone, ''and'' the Stone has unlimited charges each day. Any time you start to lose a fight, just use the Stone of Recall to warp away, get full healing, buy any potions you might need, then use the portal in the temple to warp back to the spot you used the Stone and keep fighting. The only downside to this? The portal costs money to use, but it's pennies in a game where VendorTrash is plentiful. The two expansions, who have their own counterpart warping items, noticeably nerfed them.