NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[volklore]

Started up Swordflight yesterday. Decided to play a human TWF finesse rogue (probably going to take a few levels of fighter for bab) and went 16 dex/16Int, dumped cha at wis to 8 amd went up to finishing the bandit base. It's really cool so far. Combat is suitably very difficult when I get aggro'd unaware and without consumes up or traps set. I am considering rerolling though because so far I haven't managed to make a single bluff check. I, for some reason, thought dialog checks were rolls in NWN (I was fine failing them sometimes) but it does seem they are fixed and I am wondering if I'll ever be able to make bluff checks at a reasonable rate even when maxing out the skill with my measly 8 Cha... might have to drop int to 14. Speaking of skills, is there a way to remove the pickpocket CD ?

 

[rogueknight333]

Started up Swordflight yesterday. Decided to play a human TWF finesse rogue (probably going to take a few levels of fighter for bab) and went 16 dex/16Int, dumped cha at wis to 8 amd went up to finishing the bandit base. It's really cool so far. Combat is suitably very difficult when I get aggro'd unaware and without consumes up or traps set. I am considering rerolling though because so far I haven't managed to make a single bluff check. I, for some reason, thought dialog checks were rolls in NWN (I was fine failing them sometimes) but it does seem they are fixed and I am wondering if I'll ever be able to make bluff checks at a reasonable rate even when maxing out the skill with my measly 8 Cha... might have to drop int to 14. Speaking of skills, is there a way to remove the pickpocket CD ?

Dialogue Skill checks are d20 rolls, at least in Swordflight (different module builders could choose to set them up differently). Presumably you were unlucky or ran into very difficult ones (the DCs for some of them might be too high). Higher Charisma only adds a few points, so it will not make too much difference to such checks except at really low levels (as you are now) or if it is extremely high (impractical if you are not playing a class like Sorcerer that uses CHA for its primary capabilities). You can also use potions or items to temporarily boost CHA for convos.

 

[volklore]

Damn I really must have rolled shit. OK, so since it's rolls I am going to keep going with my original character and hope I get luckier/use cha potions

 

[Sabotin]

The skill checks scale with your character level and are pretty high tuned usually. You'll succeed noticeably fewer of them if it's a cross-class skill or you just dipped into it or have bad stats. Also sometimes you need to have at least some ranks invested in a skill to even be eligible for success.

Anyway there's plenty of remedies, specially for a rogue with UMD (once high enough at least) .

 

[d1nolore]

With 8 charisma at level 1 you will have 3 points which is quite useless. Compared to an average charisma of 14 which would have given you 6 at level 1. So yeah you would expect to fail unless you were really lucky.

 

[volklore]

I got out of the ruins yesterday and damn that third level was a huge struggle for me. Everything before that was fine, but I need to get into the habit of constantly stealthing to get the opportunity to lay traps. Ruins III destroyed my trap tactics a lot though with invisible ghosts and being dropped into a huge fight straight from an area transition was real rough. I guess I need HiPS and a high hide/ms score before I can really rely on traps. I went through many lightning wand charges now, I hope what awaits me in the deesert before making it back to the caravan is manageable.
Turns out what I thought was adequate preparation was not at all enough to face this properly (I had about 5x stat buffing potions, 5x resto potions, and a bunch of bless potions and loads of healing items). Zarala started to die a lot because I didn't plan enough potions to buff her as well. I think my decision to remove any melee weapon from her inventory was a mistake as she cannot stay at a reasonable distance for shit. It was probably better to just buy the best armor and shield possible for her. I also really regret not buying a ton of barkskin and haste pots from the innkeeper because the caravan merchant does not sell them... All in all, I need 3x the preparation and some ways to see stealthers, because those are destroying my ass.

 

[rogueknight333]

... All in all, I need 3x the preparation...those are destroying my ass.

Evil sadistic module designer!

That's about right.

 

[volklore]

... All in all, I need 3x the preparation...those are destroying my ass.

Evil sadistic module designer!

That's about right.

Ah Ah!
The pinnacle of that is finally getting out of the ruin, having healed my negative levels, and after 2 minutes walking in the sand get one shot by 2 stealthers.

 

[Gargaune]

Matt Barton doing a long piece on Eye of the Beholder... for NWN.



P.S. And he's doing it on the Enhanced Edition.

 

[The Jester]

Matt Barton doing a long piece on Eye of the Beholder... for NWN.



P.S. And he's doing it on the Enhanced Edition.

-says pre defined packages are dumb.
-choose the default anyway.

 

[AdamReith]

Matt Barton doing a long piece on Eye of the Beholder... for NWN.



P.S. And he's doing it on the Enhanced Edition.

-says pre defined packages are dumb.
-choose the default anyway.

In fairness I made the same mistake first time through, the UI kind of makes it seem you aren't choosing a package even when you are.

 

[Gargaune]

-says pre defined packages are dumb.
-choose the default anyway.

I had fun when Matt pressed H by accident and didn't know where his HUD went. Reminded me of how I discovered what the Caps Lock key does in Photoshop.

 

[rogueknight333]

-says pre defined packages are dumb.
-choose the default anyway.

He may not have realized he needed to hit "Configure Packages" under the Packages option, rather than "Customize" on the main menu (which only customizes appearance and voiceset) to do that.

The default packages are indeed all terrible and should be avoided. To be fair, that is partly because they were mostly made for pre-expansion NWN, and thus do not take account of skills, feats or gameplay alterations added in the expansions, such as Tumble (which should be one of the main skills taken for all classes), but many are still bad even if that is allowed for. Unfortunately, they can be a bit of a trap for new players who may not realize either how bad they are or what they should do to avoid them.

 

[volklore]

Deep into exploring Calimport in swordflight chapter two. The rogue quests were really cool, especially the infiltration one. The exploration really feels great and it seems I keep uncovering more and more layers to the place. My character is level 10 now (Rogue 6/ Fighter 3/ SD 1) and I am starting to encounter hard stuff again (the start of the chapter felt a little easier). Doubting my weapon of choice a little bit (rapier) as they are apparently not light and give me worse AB when dual wielded than small type weapons, maybe I should have stuck to shortswords. That SD level really helped and seeing how I had to rely on HiPS to beat some of the encounters in the slums I dare not imagine how I would have done without. At the start of the chapter, my buffed AC (with barkskin potions and cat's grace pots) protected me really well at the start but I am now encountering mobs with much higher AB.
My only complaint is that even with all the quick travel options there is still a bit too much walking in the long corridors of nwn tilesets, an option to go to any visited district of the city from sewers area transitions (and the otherway around) would have been a welcome addition imo. Otherwise truely fantastic stuff.

 

[Riddler]

Deep into exploring Calimport in swordflight chapter two. The rogue quests were really cool, especially the infiltration one. The exploration really feels great and it seems I keep uncovering more and more layers to the place. My character is level 10 now (Rogue 6/ Fighter 3/ SD 1) and I am starting to encounter hard stuff again (the start of the chapter felt a little easier). Doubting my weapon of choice a little bit (rapier) as they are apparently not light and give me worse AB when dual wielded than small type weapons, maybe I should have stuck to shortswords. That SD level really helped and seeing how I had to rely on HiPS to beat some of the encounters in the slums I dare not imagine how I would have done without. At the start of the chapter, my buffed AC (with barkskin potions and cat's grace pots) protected me really well at the start but I am now encountering mobs with much higher AB.
My only complaint is that even with all the quick travel options there is still a bit too much walking in the long corridors of nwn tilesets, an option to go to any visited district of the city from sewers area transitions (and the otherway around) would have been a welcome addition imo. Otherwise truely fantastic stuff.

Playing at 2x speed works very well imo.

 

[d1nolore]

Deep into exploring Calimport in swordflight chapter two. The rogue quests were really cool, especially the infiltration one. The exploration really feels great and it seems I keep uncovering more and more layers to the place. My character is level 10 now (Rogue 6/ Fighter 3/ SD 1) and I am starting to encounter hard stuff again (the start of the chapter felt a little easier). Doubting my weapon of choice a little bit (rapier) as they are apparently not light and give me worse AB when dual wielded than small type weapons, maybe I should have stuck to shortswords. That SD level really helped and seeing how I had to rely on HiPS to beat some of the encounters in the slums I dare not imagine how I would have done without. At the start of the chapter, my buffed AC (with barkskin potions and cat's grace pots) protected me really well at the start but I am now encountering mobs with much higher AB.
My only complaint is that even with all the quick travel options there is still a bit too much walking in the long corridors of nwn tilesets, an option to go to any visited district of the city from sewers area transitions (and the otherway around) would have been a welcome addition imo. Otherwise truely fantastic stuff.

Put a short sword in the offhand. Offhand weapon needs to be a smaller size category or you get the penalty.

 

[volklore]

I guess I'll do that until I get my AB higher (and lose a bit of the bonuses from WF:rapier and WS:rapier). I am doubting the usefullness of TWF for this character though, maybe it will be stronger later game, but atm it feels that my character would do better with a rapier and a shield in most cases since I use HiPS a lot and I am not sure my OH attacks contribute to much of my dmg. It would free a lot of feats, and get rid of twf penalties that can screw my openers (knockdowns). Highr AC would also help quite a lot. Also I forgot that shadowdancer 1 pre epic screws my 16 BAB plan with 4 levels of fighter, so it seems i will have to take more fighter levels and lose more skillpoints which I ain't a fan off. Not sure I can really fix that.

 

[rogueknight333]

TWF often goes well with Sneak Attackers. Since you add the Sneak Attack bonus damage to all your attacks, multiplying the number of attacks becomes very useful. Also HiPS, which such builds often have, can often be used defensively to retreat into stealth, making a shield less crucial. In your case, unfortunately, if dual-wielding, you face the choice of accepting the penalty for a non-light weapon in the off-hand if you dual-wield rapiers, or losing the benefit of your WF & WS Rapier feats for the off-hand weapon if you substitute something else there. Some downside either way. You could certainly do worse than just going with Rapier & Shield - more AC is always nice.

HiPS is so powerful that it make sense to take it as soon as possible, but that does tend to mess up BAB progression without careful planning. Some builds put off taking Shadowdancer until Epic levels to avoid that issue, which makes them look good on paper, but means you cannot use HiPS until after Lvl 20, and who wants that if actually playing?

 

[volklore]

TWF often goes well with Sneak Attackers. Since you add the Sneak Attack bonus damage to all your attacks, multiplying the number of attacks becomes very useful. Also HiPS, which such builds often have, can often be used defensively to retreat into stealth, making a shield less crucial. In your case, unfortunately, if dual-wielding, you face the choice of accepting the penalty for a non-light weapon in the off-hand if you dual-wield rapiers, or losing the benefit of your WF & WS Rapier feats for the off-hand weapon if you substitute something else there. Some downside either way. You could certainly do worse than just going with Rapier & Shield - more AC is always nice.

HiPS is so powerful that it make sense to take it as soon as possible, but that does tend to mess up BAB progression without careful planning. Some builds put off taking Shadowdancer until Epic levels to avoid that issue, which makes them look good on paper, but means you cannot use HiPS until after Lvl 20, and who wants that if actually playing?

This makes me really want to make a build to take advantage of the special assassin gear with HiPS from the thieves guild (and skip SD altogether) although I don't know if upgraded (AC wise) versions of these are itemized later on in the game.

 

[rogueknight333]

This makes me really want to make a build to take advantage of the special assassin gear with HiPS from the thieves guild (and skip SD altogether) although I don't know if upgraded (AC wise) versions of these are itemized later on in the game.

They are, but might not always be easily available (i.e., you might have to do particular quests to find them and perhaps get them later then upgraded versions of other armors).

 

[LibertyRansom]

Played through Swordfight Chapter 1 and 2 as a Rogue/Blackguard. Excellent fun and challenging stuff. Not big on high level D&D, so gonna take a bit of a break before diving into chapter 3.

Can anyone recommend a module that starts at level 1? Tried Aieulands Saga up to mid-chapter 2 a few years ago and wasn't too engrossed. Probably gonna play a wizard.

 

[Gargaune]

Can anyone recommend a module that starts at level 1?

I haven't played Siege of Shadowdale myself, but you could pick that one up from level 1 and then carry on with Crimson Tides of Tethyr from level 7, which is excellent. The series then continues with the Tyrants of the Moonsea expansion for NWN EE.

Alternatively, if you're patient or interested in watching a module builder develop, there's Adam Miller's Shadowlords and Dreamcatcher campaigns. They're a long episodic series, and the first entry is so basic and barebones that I nearly dropped it in the first ten minutes. But as the series goes on, you can see the author's skills develop and eventually you get some of the most sophisticated scripting seen in NWN, like the man literally implemented a Space Invaders minigame into one of his later episodes. It's a fascinating experience if you're into that sort of thing. I can't speak for the Demon campaign, though, I don't want to be a dragon.

 

[LibertyRansom]

Can anyone recommend a module that starts at level 1?

I haven't played Siege of Shadowdale myself, but you could pick that one up from level 1 and then carry on with Crimson Tides of Tethyr from level 7, which is excellent. The series then continues with the Tyrants of the Moonsea expansion for NWN EE.

Alternatively, if you're patient or interested in watching a module builder develop, there's Adam Miller's Shadowlords and Dreamcatcher campaigns. They're a long episodic series, and the first entry is so basic and barebones that I nearly dropped it in the first ten minutes. But as the series goes on, you can see the author's skills develop and eventually you get some of the most sophisticated scripting seen in NWN, like the man literally implemented a Space Invaders minigame into one of his later episodes. It's a fascinating experience if you're into that sort of thing. I can't speak for the Demon campaign, though, I don't want to be a dragon.

Thanks. Do you know if these modules disallow sleeping in Dungeons and have a bit of challenge to the combat? I ask because I'm not a fan of the spamming sleep in Dungeons, and particularly liked how Swordfight forced the player to use resources etc.

 

[Gargaune]

Thanks. Do you know if these modules disallow sleeping in Dungeons and have a bit of challenge to the combat? I ask because I'm not a fan of the spamming sleep in Dungeons, and particularly liked how Swordfight forced the player to use resources etc.

No, not really, neither campaign is trying to be as challenging as Swordflight. They're roughly in the same league as the official content in terms of difficulty.

 

[rogueknight333]

Thanks. Do you know if these modules disallow sleeping in Dungeons and have a bit of challenge to the combat? I ask because I'm not a fan of the spamming sleep in Dungeons, and particularly liked how Swordfight forced the player to use resources etc.

Very few modules that do this, unfortunately. Two that come to mind as maybe being comparable to Swordflight in difficulty level are Sapphire Star and the Blackguard series.