Neverwinter Nights Thread

Why this game have no thread yet? oh well, let me ask this first

Is there any comunity patch for NWN 1 and 2?, also, why my character aligment changes?, is a new feature of the 3.5 ruleset?

Been playing through the Shadows of Undrentide expansion recently, as a chaotic neutral half-elf bard/red dragon disciple. Just beat Kel-Garas during the interlude.

NWN 1 has the community patch project, not sure about 2, since I haven't played much of that.

TotemicHero casts Raise Dead, and revives this ancient thread!

Incoming enhanced edition announced, by the same people who did prior Bioware enhanced editions like Baldur's Gate and the like.

Man I used to play online on the custom module servers so much. Good times.

I got NWN EE off Steam and NWN 2 off GOG as they ae on sale and I 'm in love with Vancian Magic.

I look forward to playing them soon-ish and reporting on my doings.

Question, though. How important is build optimization? Since there are racial bonuses and penalties, should I, for example, not make an Orc Sorcerer? I wanna be a Sorcerer, that's not up for dispute. But I'm unsure of how important Race is.

Well, depending on your build can make things a lot more difficult for yourself, or stupidly easy. If you don't know what you're doing, go for "common sense" stuff first, maybe even one of the recommended templates, and just go from there.

And yeah, Orcs are pretty bad for sorcerers, unless you're going for one of those very specific Dragon Disciple builds.

Edited by Kayeka on Dec 21st 2019 at 8:04:21 PM

I only played the first one. ^_^;; But I have great memories of it. :)

NWN is one of those games I pick up ever three years or so. The original campaign of the original is so-so, but I very much enjoy its expansions.

The sequel... not so much. Never quite clicked the same way for me.

My impression is everyone says NWN 1 was better than 2 except for the one expansion in 2. Mark of the Betrayer or something? That gets rave reviews.

Yeah, Mask of the Betrayer is generally considered top notch by NWN fans. The base game was cut and rushed worse than KOTOR 2, so it's an absolute dumpster fire.

Mask of the betrayer is considered some of Obsidian's best work. It's compared frequently to Planescape torment.

So I asked about race and gameplay, what about race and story? Somebody told me for example that Gray Orcs were added by the expansion in NWN 2 so they don't get special dialogue. Does that mean if I played an Elf that would seriously alter how others interact with me?

What aobut Alignment?

Just curious if all these things are cosmetic or not.

In the original campaign of the original NWN, alignment and race are largely cosmetic. Alignment in particular serves more of a role in the expansions, though it's still rather rudimentary.

In NWN 2, different races do get different dialogues, like people feeling a bit uneasy around a Drow, for example. Not all races get a lot of that, however, and obviously there's none for races implemented later.

So, yah know, go nuts with whatever. Though if I were to make any recommendation, in the original campaign for NWN, if you are not a Rogue yourself, bringing Toby Undergallows for a henchmen is practically mandatory, which may cause problems for player characters that aren't inclined to tanking.

Edited by Kayeka on Dec 22nd 2019 at 2:35:23 PM

Eh, I've had perfectly good experiences with other henchmen, and never played a rogue as far as I recall. I'd say to go with whichever henchmen you prefer, whether that's chosen according to their personalities, their skills, or both.

(Naturally, it's advantageous to have at least one tank in the party, but it's possible, I think, to get away without that.)

I'm a Chaotic Good Gnome Sorcerer. I decided to be a Gnome because I've been reading Grand History of the Realms and felt bad for them after they were enslaved by those magic assholes.

This Aribeth chick reeks of being a traitor and the cause of all this but fuck, I don't know if you can even DO that in this setting. Can a Paladin be secretly evil? That Tyr chap must be sleeping on the job if so.

Fenthick is a pathetic little sod, though. Believe me, I would not let anybody speak so badly of the love of my life either but he comes off like a brainless toady as opposed to a righteous defender of the love of his life.

I was starting up NWN 2 just out of curiosity and a Favored Soul is just a Divine Sorcerer, right? Wizard and Clerics prepare their spells but a Favored Soul can just cast them whenever like a Sorcerer?

You have a bit more dialogue options in this game than Baldur's Gate 1 but they're still limited to "I'm nice" to "Give me money" and "Extra rude." More strange is how everyone from the word Go is on your dick. You're obviously special in most every RPG but compare this to, say, Dragon Age (outside of Inquisition I guess) or Mass Effect or Fallout or even the KOTOR games which are a good parallel since they are also Bio Ware and Obsidian from around the same time. Here, everyone is tripping over themselves to say how amazing you are. Perhaps this is simply a very straightforward story? I'm the Hero and I'll save the Day and there will be no swerves or twists breaking genre convention.

The formula of the narrative is such that, were I playing an Evil character, it be rather hard to justify it. You can really be as evil or Dark Side as you want in the other RP Gs I mentioned and it felt pretty natural. But here I am working with this Paladin lady and in their holy temple to Tyr and trying to stop this sickness that doesn't have any effect on me. It be really strange to be Evil here.

An "Intellect Devourer?" I've never heard of those. Is that like a Mindflayer?

Whatever it was, it's dead now. I was probably doing something wrong, I barely won and used most of my healing potions. Granted, I don't have a lot of options. It's just me, my Familiar (a Faerie Dragon) and my Summoned Dire Bear. I had just gotten my first Level 2 spell, was hoping I could use both Summon Creature I and II simultaneously but nope. But my point is, it's just squishy mage user me. I need frontline defenders which is why I got SC 1 and 2 right away. All I could really contribute to the fight with the Intellect Devourer was Ray of Frost and Magic Missile. I just now leveled up again post-dungeon and I learned Combust since it sounds nice and damaging and is another Level 2 spell. Until then I had mostly just used Color A Spray to stun hard enemies while my Familiar and Summoned Creature did the damage.

Game is quite fun, though. I just hope there's more plot and decisions to report than in BG 1. How many chapters are there?

I'm enjoying myself., just hope the plot kicks into gear soon and I meet some characters. That's what BW is known for after all.

Also this game makes me want o replay KOTOR. It feels so much like KOTOR. Same sound effects and everything.

Aww, nuts, I really should've advised you to go for the Pixie familiar. They're generally the most useful of the bunch.

KOTOR was built on an upgraded version of this engine. So was The Witcher 1.

So yes, mages are hardmode in NWN because the games are more or less built expecting you to play a combat class (or at least one that can wear armor). Did you recruit all the henchmen? Daelan Red Tiger will help you a LOT. And you should recruit them all because they have items that gran massive stat bonuses across the campaign.

Also yes there are no evil options that make sense. The NWN OC was NOT well made because it happened while TSR was getting bought out by WOTC and Interplay (and thus Black Isle) as well as Atari was collapsing.

No I have no henchmen. As soon as I left the temple some lady came up and talked to me about a prison break so I went to the Peninsula District and did all that. So I guess I made it all harder on myself. I'll go grab some friends later then, thanks.

And wait some differentpeople own Dungeons and Dragons or something? I thought WOTC always made it? Who is TSR?

EDIT:

One annoying thing I forgot to mention is that I tried to level up Persuade because Persuade is good in all RPG's. BUT I get only 3 points per level and it costs 2 points to level up Persuade while it costs 1 point to level up my Class skills. So...not a lot of room for diversity here. I've just been using Recommended to gain 1 point in Lore, Concentration and Spellcraft each level. I guess I have to multiclass? I thin kI'm Level 4 now and still a Sorcerer.

Edited by Nikkolas on Dec 26th 2019 at 10:20:55 AM

TSR was the original company that published D&D, founded by Gygax and some associates of his. WOTC bought them out in the late 90s.

As for henchmen, in general there are three that stand out in terms of gameplay usefulness. Given that you're a mage, the barbarian Daelan is indeed the one you want, for tanking damage. Sharwyn (bard) and Tomi (rogue) are the other two good ones, each working well with other major archetypes. The remaining henchmen aren't quite as broadly useful, tending towards fitting more with specific niche builds that you probably aren't going to go for on your first playthrough.

I actually just got Daelan. Glad to hear he's good.

How do parties work in this game? I tried hiring another henchman and Daelan immediately left.

Also does Divinity Original Sin use Vancian Magic? I'm inquiring about the best D&D type video games and a lot of folks say D:OSII but I wanna know what its magic is like.

You can only have one henchman at a time in the base campaign. This was changed for the expansion campaigns, if I recall.

Questions about the Divinity games like Original Sin II should probably go in their respective threads.

That one's a weird hybrid with cooldown based spells and abilities that draw from the same cost pool as movement, item use, and nearly every other combat action.

It's an extremely good game but doesn't use the magic system you're looking for at all.

Regarding the henchmen, I'll note that I've played with each of Sharwyn and Linu alongside a caster, and had little to complain about, as far as I recall.

That said, if you're happy with Daelan, then well and good! ^_^

And indeed, at low levels mages are quite weak in this game. Later on they can become quite powerful, I think, but at the start you may find yourself leaning on your allies a bit more.

Regarding the plot, I wouldn't expect too much of it: there are some changes and twists and major events—but nothing amazing, I think. It's a serviceable plot, don't get me wrong. But I do think that I've seen better RPG plots.

[edit]
Regarding the magic, ironically the use of Vancian magic in the manner that D&D games like Neverwinter Nights do is one thing that I dislike about them. So it's quite neat to read of someone enjoying the game for the use of Vancian magic!

(As to Divnity: Original Sin, I'm currently playing the "enhanced edition" of the first game, and am very much liking its magic system—at least in part for being non-Vancian.

Still, it has some quite neat spell-environment interactions, so it may be worth your taking a look at even without Vancian magic.)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Dec 26th 2019 at 1:33:25 PM

I'm rather surprised to see a thread about this game up so high. I'm thinking about getting the ultimate edition, (or whatever they call it) off Steam at some point, partially for the nostalgia of the game.

I wish the enhanced edition had more quality of life improvements. It's a very clunky playing experience.