Knowledge of Neverwinter...

[Tola]

So.

I recently picked up the Neverwinter Nights/Shadows of Undrentide/Hordes of the Underdark combo.

I'm basically wondering if there's anything the minds here think I should bear in mind with it all.

Help?

[Crazy Owl]

Persistent Worlds are far more fun than the Campaigns if you can find a good one.

[Roderick_BR]

What kind of help you are looking for? Character building? Looking for online games?

[talsine]

Play a fighter, its the only time a fighter is better than a caster because of the way the game works.

[Om]

Any specific questions that we can help with? The games are fairly straightforward, certainly if you are already familiar with 3rd edition rules.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

The persistent world are fun (and quite frankly, better than any other MMO out there). But I'd suggest playing through the game once. The story is pretty straight forward and plain, but there are some nifty side quests to partake in. My go round through the game, I played a cleric and used one sidekick in particular (the Uuthgard), and it worked out quite well. I also used the cleric for the two expansions as well. The one thing I really found dissappointing were the other modules the game came with. They were all very short, and not all that good. Now I haven't bought any of the others online, so maybe they're better.

[Timberwolf]

For persistant worlds, the World of Amon is great http://www.worldofamon.com/ dunno if it's still up though. DM Ren, the owner, has created a masterpiece with it though, at least it was when I last played it anyway.

Classes - Cleric is the best for sheer amount of arse kicking, at least as far as I'm concerned. Just something about being able to wheel out the Big Red Spell (Harm) on Klauth the red Dragon and turn a nasty encounter into one that's over inside of 2 hits. Make sure you max out your concentration skill. I can't recommend that highly enough. If you're making a sneak attack based character (like my last one) bear in mind that the undead and BBEG's (like the one at the end of HOTU, most annoyingly) tend to be immune to sneak attack.

[Midnight Lurker]

Penultima.


Elegia Eternum.

the HeX Coda.

The works of Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne are the only reason I bought NWN at all. :)

[LoopyZebra]

I wouldn't recommend going through the original campaign. It's boring and ridiculously hard. I shouldn't have to rest after fighting 4 fire giants for 12 XP. Maybe I built my character wrong. Maybe not. HotU's campaign, though, is definitely worth the effort, and much funner. Persistent worlds are fun too, although I mainly stuck to single-player.

[Om]

I wouldn't recommend going through the original campaign. It's boring and ridiculously hard.

You've clearly never played the original BG

[LoopyZebra]

You've clearly never played the original BG

I did. That one was boring and ridiculously hard too, but had a better plot and party interaction that made it fun. Until your party was wiped out by a kobold...

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

You've clearly never played the original BG

Um, what brought up baldur's Gate. Nobody until you even mentioned it.

[LoopyZebra]

Um, what brought up baldur's Gate. Nobody until you even mentioned it.

He was comparing it to the original NWN campaign. Both are painful experiences.

[Om]

Um, what brought up baldur's Gate. Nobody until you even mentioned it.

This is where the inability to express :rolleyes: in stick figure form really bites hard.

I found the NWN OC to be, while boring, stupidly easy and player friendly with virtually no real points of difficulty. This is in sharp contrast to some other games in the genre. In particular I referenced BG (which you picked up on) which was notoriously punishing on low level characters.

[LoopyZebra]

The OC is a silly place, full of drunk teenagers. Don't reference it. :)

NWN's original campaign was really easy, except for the boss fights. I had trouble with all of them, and at the end, I couldn't even make it to the final boss because her lizard people were too tough. I might have screwed up with the build, but I thought the build was alright.

[Ronsian]

Druids 13 t3h 1337 dud3! No really, animal companion, turning into animal, plus summons, + mercenary= t3h ownage!

[DeathQuaker]

I didn't hate the OC the way some other folks did, but it is a little lackluster in places.

I recommend first playing Shadows of Undrentide and the Hordes of the Underdark (since the hero of the first is also the hero of the second; there is no sequel to the OC). There's also a free, Bioware approved fan-made "bridge" module that you can download lets you level up your character from Shadows a little before you start Underdark, but frankly I found that the bridge module was boring and overly difficult and stopped playing it halfway through. Underdark is the best of the three but it's nice to play through Undrentide first to get some of the background.

Then if you enjoyed those adventures, play the OC for completion's sake. And download modules, etc. If you want to try premium modules, I recommend Shadowguard (short but well made), Pirates of the Sword Coast (really nifty pirate adventure), and Wyvern Crown of Cormyr (good, well-paced adventure, and if you like flowy cloaks and horses, it's the only NWN game you can find'em). I found Kingmaker to be buggy, too short, and vastly overrated (though the music is lovely) and never bothered to finish Witches' Wake.

If you like Roguelikes/Dungeon Crawls, Infinite Dungeons is kinda neat--but it is JUST a dungeon crawl, not much of a story.

And I haven't played it, but along the lines of free modules, Darkness over Daggerford is supposed to be one of the best.

Can't recommend any PWs as I never play anything online. Purely a single player gamer, and NWN (and NWN2) provides me more than enough entertainment via that alone.

[LoopyZebra]

Darkness over Daggerford was alright. I liked it. But I didn't. My main problem with it was that they wanted you to go somewhere. Alright, I have an idea where to look. But finding the actual entrance was a pain. I'll give you an example. You have to find some orcs that snuck into town. You know they aren't in any of the buildings, so, knowing that this adventure has been fairly predictable, I guess that they're in the sewers. It takes me 20 minutes to find the entrance to the sewers because it's rather easy to miss. When I do, it takes me about a minute to kill all the orcs. That said, it was fun, as long as you didn't get stuck trying to find the building you had to go to. I had a couple other grumbles about it, but whatever.

The player-made modules are good in some cases, but it's really hit and miss. The site I download NWN stuff from (NWNPlanet, maybe? It's been a while) had a player-rating system. One of them was really good, focusing on roleplaying and challenging fights, not dungeon crawling. If I remember the name, I'll post it. (It's the one with the three brothers who are screwing stuff up in a town... Homebrew campaign world, if anyone knows what I'm talking about.) Another one I played was set in FR. It seemed good until someone started approached me with the following: "Yo, you really saved me from the fuzz back there." I'm sorry, but that breaks the game for me. Both games had similar ratings, so you might not get quality stuff with player-created modules.

[Tola]

Thank you.

Character-building would be nice. The biggest problem I'm having at the minute is the fact that....I can't focus. I'm looking at all these classes and prestiges and always thinking 'Ooh, I want to try that', and 'Am I building this right?'. Yes, there are pre-mades. But...it's not MINE.

Shadows of Undrentide adds another thing to the mix-multi-classing henchmen, and controlling THEIR development, though they make their choices of feats and things on their own.

On a side note(And an unrelated one, based off something I saw in a topic: 'Fluff that didn't make sense'), I now understand why Elves have the Wizard favoured class-Arcane Archer, simply put. The requirements for it require effectively triple-classing if you want it quickly. Arcane spellcasting, high base attack, and Weapon Focus...

[LoopyZebra]

Character building is similar to DnD. If you have multiple concepts, I'd recommend playing one of the campaigns multiple times, using a different "persona" and class each time. HotU, for instance, has vastly different endings based on whether you're good or evil, and different romances based on gender. There's quite a bit to explore. I still never investigated the beholder caves. And, it's fun to play multiple times.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

Character building is similar to DnD.

Well it is based on 3rd ed, and is basically D&D in PC form, what did you expect.

[Varen_Tai]

Oh, and though there's only two of them, you really MUST download and play the two Lone Wolf modules. Amazingly good stuff, especially if you're familiar with the source material, but even if you're not, it's still really fantastic.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

where can you download the LW stuff from Varen. I'm very well versed in that series. Most people in the US probably aren't, as the books are all out of print and some very hard to come by.

[Timberwolf]

Rogue, Assassin, Shadowdancer is a beastly combination. As is straight Cleric and Cleric / Champion of Torm. A Sorceror, Red Dragon Disciple also kicks major amounts of backside as well.

[LoopyZebra]

Well it is based on 3rd ed, and is basically D&D in PC form, what did you expect.

I was implying that any builds that worked in DnD would work in NWN.

[Mangangatha]

Oh, I would recommend downloading the Rose of Eternity series. It may involve downloading a few more components (haks and music files) but the plot, characterization and music are A+. IMHO it's one of the BEST modules out there. Do consider.

[S.ilver]

I found the OC to be fairly bland, not because the story was bad, but because how the areas were implemented. There are a huge amount of generic encounters around (it really bugged me that in Neverwinter, prison escapees, pirates, and criminals far outnumber the regular citizens) and it feels far too much like a hack and slash in some places. Otherwise, the story wasn't bad.

SoU... I don't know... I found it to be terrible personally... The henchmen you get would repeatedly get on my nerves (except Deekin, but that means suffering through Chapter 1), and I found myself wanting to kill them at every turn. In fact, I found myself wanting to kill almost every character in SoU, simply because they were supremely irritating and boring. But hey, maybe that's how it was meant to be.

I enjoyed HotU, except for maybe the first chapter (where the annoying NPC syndrome struck again). I think the big thing was that it did feel epic at some points, and the different areas of the game were, in fact, different.

The community stuff is what really shines though. Off the top of my head, I can say the Shadowlords->Dreamcatcher->Demon series was fairly good and kept my attention. I also enjoyed Twilight and Midnight (although Dawn has yet to be made). The Gods Themselves trilogy is also good for those evil aligned epic characters :P.

I play mostly fighter classes (my current build trends focusing on a Fighter/Pally/WeaponMaster) but that's probably because I stick to single player a lot, and I can't seem to get an arcane spellcaster working very well in SP (have done a druid a cleric though, not bad, druid probably overpowered :P).

[DeathQuaker]

Thank you.

Character-building would be nice. The biggest problem I'm having at the minute is the fact that....I can't focus. I'm looking at all these classes and prestiges and always thinking 'Ooh, I want to try that', and 'Am I building this right?'. Yes, there are pre-mades. But...it's not MINE.

Yeah, I'm not one for the premades, I agree.

As for builds, I'm going to make a suggestion that will make others look at me and go wha-HUH??

Bards.

Bards in NWN are awesome. Not because they do massive damage or anything. But their versatility SHINES in NWN games. If you pump up their perform their buffs rock (they're better than in tabletop D&D), giving them and their henchman a great advantage. Being arcane casters they can use a lot of magic items others can't, and then with Use Magic Device they can use ANYTHING magical. Anything you pick up, with the exception of weapons and armor you're not proficient in, becomes potentially useful. And of course they can identify everything. And if you focus your feats in making them handle combat okay, they will get through encounters fine; a couple levels of fighter doesn't hurt either. They're obviously not ideal for SOLO combat well--give them a cleric or warrior for a henchman. But on the other hand, in areas where you are without a henchman, in someways I'd rather have a bard because they can shift temporarily into different roles as needed. And my Fighter2/Bard Lots/RDD 5 or so at the end of HotU had no problem handling any encounter by herself if she needed to; the only one that gave me trouble was the final boss and that was simply a matter of determining the right tactics (and I can't explain why for fear of spoiling anything, but having an enormously high charisma actually helped me a great deal as I had not obtained "something" I could have earlier on in the game).

Most of their skills come in handy, and having a charismatic character with lots of social skills can be useful, especially in HotU.

My other recommendation would be Rogue or multiclass something with Rogue--Rogues also have Use Magic Device (though Bards at at an advantage here with a higher charisma) and their dungeoneering/thieving skills of course very, very often come in handy, so much so that I would often prefer to have a main character take care of these tasks than have to rely on a henchman to do it (especially since sometimes rogue AI is wonky). The key with those of course is learning how to get off sneak attacks as much as possible; another class that is useful in combat as well as very often out of combat. Lots of skill points too.

Useful skills in general: Appraise, Disable Device, Lore, Open Lock, Persuade, Search, Spot.

I for one don't recommend builds solely focusing on massive damage--usually most of the fights are such that as long as you build any character intelligently, you'll be able to handle the fights. Massive damage builds usually mean giving up on skills and other abilities that are useful/entertaining in the game outside of combat. IMHO of course.

I found the OC to be fairly bland, not because the story was bad, but because how the areas were implemented. There are a huge amount of generic encounters around (it really bugged me that in Neverwinter, prison escapees, pirates, and criminals far outnumber the regular citizens)

That's because the criminals are taking advantage of the chaos while the plague is spreading, while the regular citizens are staying in their homes.

SoU... I don't know... I found it to be terrible personally... The henchmen you get would repeatedly get on my nerves (except Deekin, but that means suffering through Chapter 1),

See... I absolutely loathe Deekin and would like to lance him repeatedly with a glowing-hot poker. The half-orc and the dwarf henchmen, on the other hand, I quite liked and found them quite useful, and likewise was pleased with many of the other henchmen in HotU (though was bummed the ones you get at the beginning you can't take with you to the later part of the game, except for that @#$$%#@! kobold).

So it's probably a matter of preference.

But otherwise, regarding SOU, the main reason why I recommended playing it first simply because it's a prequel to HotU--not that the stories are directly related, but because it's supposed to have the same hero, and you get a better feeling of continuity doing it that way. SOU has some nice features of it, but I do feel it goes slowly in places, especially at the beginning.

[Rabiesbunny]

Persistant Worlds CAN be fun, I assume some are still up and running- be warned however, that some DMs can be horrible. Seems that when you get to rule a small kingdom on the internet, you usually become irrational and tyrannical. ^^; Don't put too much stock in the online feature, within a year things never seem to stay together...

FYI, the second expansion is the only one with a very intricate plot, and is closest to the depth of the BG games. That one's so fun!

[Om]

With regards character creation: Monks are insanely powerful at higher levels. Really they're like little one men armies that chew up even the toughest foes and spit them out.

I enjoyed both SoU and HotU but check out the NWN Vault for some excellent fan mods.