Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

NWN Gargaune's Greater Guide to Enjoying Neverwinter Nights 2

Gargaune

Arcane
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,554
My game runs like shit without Client Extension.
Do you ever reboot your PC? 'Cause the most common issue is with NWN2's performance degrading between power cycles.

Interesting, I'll stick it in under Optional as a PrC alternative, Essential's strictly for the base minimum.

Which reminds me - rusty_shackleford, what exactly does your "Player fixes" fix? The repo maintainer didn't bother with a general summary, just a bunch of different change logs that mostly seem to be about some minor item bugs?
 

gurugeorge

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 3, 2019
Messages
7,820
Location
London, UK
Strap Yourselves In
Neverwinter itself is the low point for me, gets better after that, but the OC never really gets "good" in my view.

What's particularly nice is the way the environments change after Act III when you revisit them - like, everyone's evacuating, getting ready for the big battle, citizens queing up and being counted off, hustle and bustle.

It makes me feel anxious, which is good :)
 

aqueue

Barely Literate
Joined
Aug 8, 2021
Messages
1
Right now, in my override folder I have the following:
  • random loot generator
  • companion multiclass
  • companion and monster AI v2.2
  • kaedrin's prc 1.41.1
  • personal impossiblity adjustment - the difficulty script PIA

but.. included is the kprc_sfi_tcc_merge
and I'm not sure if there is spell fixes in these mods

and with these, there are still bugs - on occasion game will crash due to some random loot being created by a mob and trying to use it, or arrows that are bugged, forte locke quests mobs disappear

problem is, many of these have been upgraded
  • there is now a comp_mon AI v2.5
  • kaedrin has a pcr pack of 1.42.1
  • random loot gen
  • PIA
when I tried to upgrade these mods, made my game crash as some of these versions were only meant to work together

Anyone have an override folder they could post as to what they have that is working together and with more recent upgraded mods?

Definitely need:
  • PIA
  • kaedrins prc
  • Tony's AI
  • companion multiclass
  • companion level beyond the hardcoded # in each campaign (i can't find this now)
  • random loot generator
  • spell fixes
 

Erebus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 12, 2008
Messages
4,828
Is there a mod that makes MotB mid-level rather than high-level D&D ? And that removes all of its connections with NWN 2 OC ?

What ? I'm asking for too much ?
 

Gargaune

Arcane
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,554
Anyone have an override folder they could post as to what they have that is working together and with more recent upgraded mods?
Sorry, can't advise, don't use anything beyond what I listed myself.

Is there a mod that makes MotB mid-level rather than high-level D&D ? And that removes all of its connections with NWN 2 OC ?

What ? I'm asking for too much ?
A bit. Reworking the level range would be theoretically feasible, even though I doubt anyone would undertake that pain, but knocking the campaign out of epic levels would also clash with the plot content a bit. Removing the connection to the OC would be great, it's long irritated me that Obsidian built it that way since the only relevant macguffin is the Silver Sword of Gith and that's tenuous as it is, but you'd have to cut out Bishop, Amon Jerro, some dialogue and especially Crossroad Keep, so there's a bit of work there.

And in both cases you'd likely have to redistribute a functional version of the MotB campaign, which might rub the license holder the wrong way. Best just roll a new character, then cover your ears and go LA LA LA when OC content comes up.
 
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
1,534
Location
The western road to Erromon.
Alright, so now that I've finished the first game a month ago, I figure NWN 2 will be a fitting title to close out the summer. You gave me a lot of good advice on the first game Gargaune, are your mod recommendations still firm a year after this thread was made? Anything else I should pick up?

Also, are there any nasty bugs to look out for? Broken quests? Romance obliterations? (Lord knows HOTU had it's share) Other annoyances? I'd rather spend an hour fixing whatever it is before I start rather than mid-thrust into the campaign.

Two things I'm particularly concerned with are firstly this business with game performance... that degrades somehow if I shut down my PC? Am I getting that right? How bad does it get, because I don't fancy leaving my machine on and putting more time on the components than is strictly necessary in this economy. Secondly, I may be misremembering but does NWN 2 do the KotOR II thing where if you bash containers it partially destroys the loot? I seem to remember being told this is the case.

Lastly, NWN 1 and its expansions seemed to me particularly tailored to a Paladin main character, is there any such tailoring in this game? Thanks.

Edit: Incidentally, I have the retail Gold collection + retail Storm of Zehir. Is there anywhere to purchase a key for just Mysteries at Westgate? I don't particularly want to have to buy the game again.
 
Last edited:

FriendlyMerchant

Guest
Also skip the OC and go straight to MotB or SoZ. There's no reason to play the OC. There's no reason to delay that Thayan romance.
 

Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,200
Trial and Terror is my favorite module and a very good epic campaign. Provided that you like build optimizing. If you like number go up, this shit is for you. Guy knows his lore too and there's just enough of it that I feel like i'm following the story and not mindlessly hacking and slashing. Multiple paths through the game iirc.

My druid was set up as a tank and had his AC in the 60's and that was just good enough to wall enemies without healing.

Dark Waters has great production values for an NWN2 mod and is very story focused. It was fun to build a flintlock pistol ranger.

The entire series with the one companion named Ember I remember being good, but the whole module had such strange names I can't remember them at all.

Last of the Danaan is not bad.
 

Poseidon00

Arcane
Joined
Dec 11, 2018
Messages
2,200
The OC having one or two sidequests per chapter is just downright unforgivable. MoTB gets away with it because of the Spirit Eater curse and even then only barely.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Also skip the OC and go straight to MotB or SoZ. There's no reason to play the OC. There's no reason to delay that Thayan romance.
Gonna play them all because some of the sidequests in NWN 1 OC were quality. Curious if that will hold true for NWN 2 as well.
The OC is just not worth playing. I tried to get through it for years, finally forced myself a couple years ago, and it was awful.
The only highlight is meeting Deekin, that's it.
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
16,398
Location
Frostfell
I enjoyed the Crossroad keep. And fact that after you get high level, you get a nobility title and freaking lands to govern...
 

FriendlyMerchant

Guest
I enjoyed the Crossroad keep. And fact that after you get high level, you get a nobility title and freaking lands to govern...
I'd rather get the Merchants guild ownership at around midlevel and nothing to do but improve my enterprise's profitability.
 

Gargaune

Arcane
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,554
Alright, so now that I've finished the first game a month ago, I figure NWN 2 will be a fitting title to close out the summer. You gave me a lot of good advice on the first game Gargaune, are your mod recommendations still firm a year after this thread was made? Anything else I should pick up?

Also, are there any nasty bugs to look out for? Broken quests? Romance obliterations? (Lord knows HOTU had it's share) Other annoyances? I'd rather spend an hour fixing whatever it is before I start rather than mid-thrust into the campaign.
Yeah, I'd say so. I never tried Rusty's fixpack, but I'm happy with my setup, see no need to change it at this point. Ironically, for all its UI issues, engine bugs and dreadful OC, I've found NWN2 to be among the less buggy Obsidian releases where gameplay content and systems are concerned. At least now, anyway.

Two things I'm particularly concerned with are firstly this business with game performance... that degrades somehow if I shut down my PC? Am I getting that right? How bad does it get, because I don't fancy leaving my machine on and putting more time on the components than is strictly necessary in this economy.
The opposite - it degrades if you don't shut down your PC. And it's not performance per se, just animations. Your OS has an up timer that resets on power cycles and NWN 2's engine has a bug where the longer you go between cold boots, the more animations begin to stutter. It starts being noticeable around 3 or so days in, I'd say.

The simple solution is to just reboot your PC every three or four days while NWN2's on the menu. And I mean Restart, not Sleep/Hibernate in and out. Even Shut Down might not work if you use Fast Startup (which you shouldn't), so make sure you Restart. You'll notice when the stuttering gets visible, so no worries about that.

Your other options are the NWN2 Client Extension - which I don't recommend because while it fixes the animation jitter, it introduces massive game stuttering in complex AI pathfinding situations - or the Jade Empire Stutter Fix which I added to this guide back in January on RunningWolf's suggestion. The latter is what I'm using now but it's a .dll from some random archived webpage, so you gotta decide for yourself whether you wanna take that risk.

Separately, you might notice a slight choppiness to camera rotation - this is not related and there is no fix, so just gotta get used to it.

Secondly, I may be misremembering but does NWN 2 do the KotOR II thing where if you bash containers it partially destroys the loot? I seem to remember being told this is the case.
I didn't remember anymore so I had a quick look at turned this up on the vault:
It seems there is a script that comes with the game that adds random loot to containers, called gp_treasure_op_de. When used as an OnOpen script it generates items normally, but when used as an OnDeath script it adds broken items to the inventory of the destroyed container. It's usually used in both script slots at the same time.
So yes, if you bash stuff open you'd be missing out on generic leveled loot.

Lastly, NWN 1 and its expansions seemed to me particularly tailored to a Paladin main character, is there any such tailoring in this game? Thanks.
Mechanically? I might've taken a Paladin through way back when NWN2 was new, but I don't remember anymore. There's plenty of evil to smite and undead to turn, but I don't recall the base campaign being tailored for a Pally.

From a roleplaying perspective, the OC suffers from a similar predetermined background as Baldur's Gate. I'm not really spoiling anything if I tell you that you start out as a swamp farmer, and a young, adopted one at that. If you care about that sort of thing and you're going the martial route, a Ranger might be more thematically appropriate.

Edit: Incidentally, I have the retail Gold collection + retail Storm of Zehir. Is there anywhere to purchase a key for just Mysteries at Westgate? I don't particularly want to have to buy the game again.
No, I don't think so. If you want to buy it, you might wanna keep an eye on GOG while you play other NWN2 campaigns and see if it goes on a deep sale.

Gonna play them all because some of the sidequests in NWN 1 OC were quality. Curious if that will hold true for NWN 2 as well.
Eh, worth a shot but just remember, if you start getting frustrated, spoil yourself the rest of the OC and move on to MotB. The worst part of the OC in my book is the second chapter, in Neverwinter proper.

There's no reason to delay that Thayan romance.
Oh, I can think of one reason... Kinda blueish, pair of big white wings, lovely soothing voice. Gotta give Avellone credit, he knows how to troll his players.

By the by, MotB had some excellent VO all around. I don't usually care much either way, but they really nailed it here.
 
Last edited:

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,948
NWN2: How To Make A Worse Sequel Even Though Technically It Should Be Better. Lol

Seriously, that fukkin camera. The OC is okay - about the same as NWN's. MOTB is really good but slightly overrated on Codex but still really good. SOZ is well... SOZZY. The idea to be able create your own party is the only legit good thing about it... too bad.
 
Joined
May 25, 2021
Messages
1,534
Location
The western road to Erromon.
Even Shut Down might not work if you use Fast Startup (which you shouldn't), so make sure you Restart.
I usually just do a hard shut down before I go to bed each night, so the PC is completely powered off anywhere from 8-12 hours a day. So, I should be safe I guess?

So yes, if you bash stuff open you'd be missing out on generic leveled loot.
There a convenient thief companion that I can use to get around this? (If there even is a party, I know literally nothing about NWN 2 OC, somehow I've avoided all spoilers for all these years. Nobody seems to talk about it anywhere.) Don't really want to go the summon familiar route again, if that's even a thing.

Mechanically? I might've taken a Paladin through way back when NWN2 was new, but I don't remember anymore. There's plenty of evil to smite and undead to turn, but I don't recall the base campaign being tailored for a Pally.
I just got the impression from NWN 1, that that game leaned a little toward a PC Paladin, especially in the two expansions. I'll keep the ranger suggestion in mind, I used to play that class all the time in a variety of RPGs but it's been a long time since I've rolled one.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice. I'll probably look into Rusty's fixpack suggestion and the Spell fixes since a lot of people seem to be recommending them as well as the few you listed.
 

Gargaune

Arcane
Joined
Mar 12, 2020
Messages
3,554
I usually just do a hard shut down before I go to bed each night, so the PC is completely powered off anywhere from 8-12 hours a day. So, I should be safe I guess?
I don't use Fast Startup so I'm not sure, I think what the feature is does is save the kernel state to speed up your next boot and I dunno whether that resets the up timer. It's not a mechanical thing, it's just that clock that keeps track of how long your current Windows session has been up.

Either way, look, you don't need to worry about it in advance. Play normally and if, after a few days of playing, you notice character animations jittering all over the place, just hit the Restart button in Windows and it'll be fine again when you come back.

There a convenient thief companion that I can use to get around this? (If there even is a party, I know literally nothing about NWN 2 OC, somehow I've avoided all spoilers for all these years. Nobody seems to talk about it anywhere.) Don't really want to go the summon familiar route again, if that's even a thing.
You get a Rogue companion in the OC early on, though I'm not sure many would describe Neeshka as "convenient." :lol: But yes, you have one available through the entire campaign.

Things are trickier in MotB because there's only one dedicated Rogue companion and getting him is contingent on some Evil decisions. Best companion in any cRPG if you ask me, even better than Korgan, but it might not be your jam. Your Wizard companion has a familiar with some Rogue skills, but he's not as good and can get killed right quick in combat.

Also, keep in mind that NWN2 lets you level your companions, these aren't NWN1's autopilot henchmen. They're class-locked in the vanilla OC and MotB and standard skill restrictions apply, but you've got that space to maneuver.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,948
FYI, There is nothing overtly 'paladiny' of any NWN official campaign. That is retartet talk.
 

Crane

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jul 8, 2013
Messages
1,249
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath
Men,

When I play this game, I always install this mod for some high quality head models.
face.jpg


https://www.moddb.com/mods/misery-stone/videos/3-new-human-male-heads
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom