NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[Grunker]

People always make the same mistake when it comes to NWN and that's to "start with the OC because I'm a completionist and it can't be that bad, right?". It can be that bad, actually, and it turns people off. That's why I always recommend starting with SoU, there is very little value in the OC and you are doing a disservice to the game and to yourself by inflicting it upon yourself. Literally any module you pick after a fresh install of the game would be better than the OC.

Like I said, I realize the above. I'm not going to drop it due to the OC - if I get bored enough, I'll just switch to SoU.

 

[whocares]

The problem with NWN is its shit engine built around the idea of tedium, terrible UI for anything other than playing a pure fighter, encounter design of dropping 10 identical dudes in every room, and the endlessly fun dance of bloated lockpicking, trap disarming, table bashing animations. In short - gameplay is unbearably shit.

Content-wise, OC is infinitely better than SoU. OC has the demon brothers quest, the ancient aliens archeologist dungeon, the minotaur gauntlet, the snoweglobohomo, and a bunch of other cool setpiece locations/quests, plus let's not forget Aribeth's boobs. SoU on the other hand has 0 redeeming qualities.

 

[Lacrymas]

I would also be hesitant to use classes introduced with the PrC because who knows how balanced they actually are. NWN has its own balance and quirks that have been found after 2 decades of buildcraft, so adding more on top is going to disrupt that. BioWare chose the prestige classes surprisingly carefully with the exception of the Purple Knight (that nobody uses) and Harper Scout (that almost nobody uses), so it's not a case of "devs know better". They actually did in this case. You just have to get used to the fact spellcasting prestige classes don't give you spell levels (but do give you spell slots) and you are good to go.

 

[Lacrymas]

Content-wise, OC is infinitely better than SoU. OC has the demon brothers quest, the ancient aliens archeologist dungeon, the minotaur gauntlet, the snoweglobohomo, and a bunch of other cool setpiece locations/quests, plus let's not forget Aribeth's boobs. SoU on the other hand has 0 redeeming qualities.

For every cool thing the OC does, it does 20 lame things, so it's not worth it. As for SoU, it's not the best module and goes downhill in chapter 2, but it's a) shorter and b) better paced. And it leads to HotU, which is the best of the official campaigns.

 

[Grunker]

I would also be hesitant to use classes introduced with the PrC because who knows how balanced they actually are. NWN has its own balance and quirks that have been found after 2 decades of buildcraft, so adding more on top is going to disrupt that. BioWare chose the prestige classes surprisingly carefully with the exception of the Purple Knight (that nobody uses) and Harper Scout (that almost nobody uses), so it's not a case of "devs know better". They actually did in this case. You just have to get used to the fact spellcasting prestige classes don't give you spell levels (but do give you spell slots) and you are good to go.

I’m playing it fairly low-key, going for Swashbuckler/Fighter/Wizard/Bladesinger with a fairly unimpressive statline, which should be a good deal weaker than playing something like straight Druid or Cleric. Bladesinger doesn’t even have his free spellcasting in PRC.