History YMMV / NeverwinterNights

* 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. \\
Particular mention to Daelan Red-Tiger's quest in Chapter 2. The item he needs is a notched axe, but it's found on a corpse in an area you can't revisit. The game will have certain plot-critical items, including the items needed for the henchmen quests, retained in the pool in the Temple of Tyr for you to retrieve, but it ''only'' retains items left on the ground; since the axe is found on a corpse, it will not appear in the pool, and once you leave the area you cannot return to get it later. The axe is also an unremarkable weapon aside from its unique description, so if the player doesn't know Daelan is looking for a notched axe, a player is highly likely to ignore it and leave it where they found it. Fortunately console commands offer ways to fix this.

Particular mention to Daelan Red-Tiger's quest in Chapter 2. The item he needs is a notched axe, but it's found on a corpse in an area you can't revisit. The game will have certain plot-critical items, including the items needed for the henchmen quests, retained in the pool in the Temple of Tyr for you to retrieve, but it ''only'' retains items left on the ground; since the axe is found on a corpse, it will not appear in the pool, and once you leave the area you cannot return to get it later. Coupled with the fact that the axe is an unremarkable weapon aside from its unique description and players are likely to ignore the axe and not think too much of it, especially if Daelan hasn't told them already that he's looking for a notched axe. Fortunately console commands offer ways to fix their error.

** Chapter 4 as a whole is basically just filler before the final dungeon. It sees you return to WhereItAllBegan, with you returning to Neverwinter as it is under seige. However, instead of being able to explore the entire city in the midst of the battle, you're restricted to the City Core and a single "War Zone" area which is entirely new. Your ability to take part in the siege is limited to destroying a handful of wizards and catapults, too, instead of allowing for a BigBadassBattleSequence.

* {{Woobie}}: Deekin, if the PC is mean to him.

** On "vanilla" Neverwinter, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VEcM78jVtI Castle]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcG-pEqGBwo Forest Day]], and especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpu-rkCENrE Heart of the Forest]] (and there're others).

* HarsherInHindsight: In the main game, the massacre at the academy in the beginning of the game can become this after several massacres and mass shootings at schools, particularly the Beslan school siege, the Peshawar school attacks, and the Columbine massacre.

** Opening the menu or inventory does not pause the game, making it difficult - if not impossible - to play a spellcaster.

* 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.
** Particular mention to Daelan Red-Tiger's quest in Chapter 2. The item he needs is a notched axe, but it's found on a corpse in an area you can't revisit. The game will have certain plot-critical items, including the items needed for the henchmen quests, retained in the pool in the Temple of Tyr for you to retrieve, but it ''only'' retains items left on the ground; since the axe is found on a corpse, it will not appear in the pool, and once you leave the area you cannot return to get it later. Coupled with the fact that the axe is an unremarkable weapon aside from its unique description and players are likely to ignore the axe and not think too much of it, especially if Daelan hasn't told them already that he's looking for a notched axe. Fortunately console commands offer ways to fix their error.

** 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 and hearing his story, which means that when Yesgar tries to surrender and reason with you, you have to ignore him and kill him without hearing him out.

** 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 hearing his story, which means you kill him without giving him a chance to explain himself or reason with you even when he makes an attempt to.

** 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 (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 hearing his story, which means you kill him without giving him a chance to explain himself or reason with you even when he makes an attempt to.

** The leader of the group is Yesgar, a half-orc, who reveals himself when he kidnaps the daughter of the mayor. When you track them down he claims 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 (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 hearing his story, which means you kill him without giving him a chance to explain himself or reason with you even when he makes an attempt to.

* Opening the menu or inventory does not pause the game, making it difficult - if not impossible - to play a spellcaster.

* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotPolitical: The ''Shadowguard'' premium module is this full spades. The Sarakhan empire is threaten by a [[EvilSorcerer mage]] named the [[BigBad Crimson Prophet]]. Promotional material show him wielding a staff with a crescent moon on top of it. The game was released in 2004, [[WarOnTerror 3 years after 9/11 and 1 year after the war in Iraq]]. Think about that.

* FanPreferedCouple: In the base game, Lady Aribeth is the only official romance for male players, and Aarin Gend for female players. Yeah, most male players prefer Sharwyn and/or Linu La'neral, and most female players prefer Daelan Red Tiger and/or Tomi Undergallows. (It doesn't help that the official romances are pretty sloppily written, while the mentioned henchmen all have varying degrees of ShipTease with the player.)

* ClicheStorm: The base campaign, in spades. Your hero is the newest graduate from the Academy (which is attacked by goblins) and Neverwinter's only hope to stop the ancient SealedEvilInACan from collecting the {{Plot Coupon}}s that will let her TakeOverTheWorld, and your companions include a halfing Rogue, a half-orc Barbarian, and a gnome Sorceror.

* DarthWiki/MostAnnoyingSound: The quiet tinkling sound of the fairy companion that threatens your sanity.

* MostAnnoyingSound: The quiet tinkling sound of the fairy companion that threatens your sanity.

** Particular mention to Daelan Red-Tiger's quest in Chapter 2. The item he needs is a notched axe, but it's found on a corpse in an area you can't revisit. The game will have certain plot-critical items, including the items needed for the henchmen quests, retained in the pool in the Temple of Tyr for you to retrieve, but it ''only'' retains items left on the ground; since the axe is found on a corpse, it will not appear in the pool. Coupled with the fact you cannot return to the area where the corpse was, missing the axe means that Daelan's questline is rendered incompleteable without use of console commands.

* 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), 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 having no idea why .

** 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 rich 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, two of which have already been killed off, and most of the city has fled the region or is closed off. The result is that only a few brief sidequests are available for the player to do and only a couple screens of the city to explore, 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 have no impact on the story after the chapter ends, so there's no reason to side with one over the other either way for any reason, you may as well flip a coin.

** The leader of the group is Yesgar, a half-orc, who reveals himself when he kidnaps the daughter of the mayor. When you track them down he claims 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 (wich 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 hearing his story, which means you kill him without giving him a chance to explain himself or reason with you.

* CrowningMusicOfAwesome:
** A lot of the music in Hordes of the Underdark, especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r46yzCB82kA Rebel Camp]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ3s8ywQlKA Large Battle]] and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJiVI9do4O0 Final Boss]].
** On "vanilla" Neverwinter, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VEcM78jVtI Castle]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcG-pEqGBwo Forest Day]], and especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpu-rkCENrE Heart of the Forest]] (and there're others).

** Chapter 4 as a whole is basically just filler before the final dungeon. It sees you ReturnToWhereItAllBegan, with you returning to Neverwinter as it is under seige. However, instead of being able to explore the entire city in the midst of the battle, you're restricted to the City Core and a single "War Zone" area which is entirely new. Your ability to take part in the siege is limited to destroying a handful of wizards and catapults, too, instead of allowing for a BigBadassBattleSequence.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: 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 rich 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, two of which have already been killed off, and most of the city has fled the region or is closed off. The result is that only a few brief sidequests are available for the player to do and only a couple screens of the city to explore, 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 have no impact on the story after the chapter ends, so there's no reason to side with one over the other either way for any reason, you may as well flip a coin.