NWN2: First run through

[Sever]

I bought the game and the expansion a while back and am only just now getting a chance to play through. A few of the rules are a bit different than i remember from the first game, and i have acidentally sabotaged my sorceror with a few bad design choices. Thinking that charisma was the primary stat, i neglected intelligence in favour of a few extra points in dexterity and constitution, and now i'm recieving only 2 skill points per level which are being spent on concentration and spellcraft alone. I wanna get some alchemy crafting skills, but i don't particularly want to start again. What's the quickest way to edit a character?

[Kezardin]

Howdy Sever

to increase INT :

While playing, hit ~ to bring up the console. Then type in "DebugMode 1" (without the quotes).

Then type in SetINT #

where # equals the new intelligence setting you want

Some of the NPCs you find can also handle alchemy type tasks while you concentrate on the destruction

[Sever]

Bah, too easy. Cheers mate.

Originally Posted by Kezardin Some of the NPCs you find can also handle alchemy type tasks while you concentrate on the destruction

Ya, but it never did ring true with me if the party leader was a patsy.

[Sever]

Ok, it appears that i wasn't missing out on much when it came to alchemy, or any of the crafting skills for that matter, since they're all broken, as far as i can tell.

I've picked up a few recipe/instruction books which detail a few designs, and i've tried all of the non-feat related crafting options, but so far it seems like all one can do is combine certain ingredients to make generic weapons/armour/items which are inferior to the stuff you've already got and which sell for less than the value of the ingredients themselves.

Am i missing something here? Are there unique designs, prizes for experimentation say, which are undocumented in the game? Does the value of the items you create increase with the crafting skill of your character? If not, then the crafting skills appear to be a gimmick at best, and when you consider that you have to spend skill points (or, heaven forbid, a bonus feat) to acquire the crafting options, as well as spend actual gold in the creation process, then it becomes something of a bad joke.

What is the point, exactly? Should i bother to keep upgrading the skills, as well as retaining the small horde of ingredients i've collected (in case there is something worthwhile down the track), or should i simply get rid of it all and be done with it?

[Greything]

Generally the items for sale in the game are as good or better than it is possible to craft.

The problem is that there are don't seem to be enough of them to go around. Crafting can come into its own if you want to equip companions better.

To my mind the overall benefit is marginal and I have never really bothered with it.

One way to get around this is to use the toolkit to create the kind of items you need and import them into the game.

Crafting is very different in Mask of the Betrayer and the items made can be very powerful indeed.

[Kezardin]

Howdy Sever,

I agree with Greything. On a low magic world, crafting and alchemy assume greater importance.

Except for certain areas, Faerun is *not* a low magic environment.

In the original campaign I ignore crafting traps altogether, lightly touch on alchemy and might dabble a bit in crafting some specific items, such as one of the belts of giant strength or a ring of wizardry. As Greything mentioned, there are plenty of weapons, armor and other goodies to be found or purchased.

I'd rather sell most of the stuff than lug around piles of components and ingredients that don't seem to achieve much.

For example, the damage levels of the 4 types of holy water are 2d4 ,2d6, 2d8 and 2d10. Hardly enough of a difference to enable your PC to proclaim :

"Begone, vile undead thingies of immense dangerousness, or I shall smite thee with my newly concocted flask of dwarven mead...er, I mean holy water !"

[Sever]

Hehe, the holy water was one of the first things i made. The finished product being worth less than the sum of its ingredients, and almost completely useless in its intended purpose.

Ok then, so there's not much point until MotB. Is MotB similar to the original NWN->SoU where it was geared towards creating a new lvl 1 character rather than importing an old one?

[CerebroDragon]

G'day Sever, been awhile mate, good to see you're still around. Just thought I'd pipe in with a word on MotB...

The game was made to be played with either a new character or your imported one. Both options are equally viable, I think as the player has a clean slate with knowledge of the original campaign not being necessary to enjoy MotB. The plot and overall story arcs are miles ahead of the vanilla campaign in choices and consequences especially. I only just finished my first playthrough of MotB last weekend and it was a wonderful game from a written point of view. Probably the best of the modern RPGs that I've played....

Can't say I ever really indulged too heavily in the crafting system - I never found much incentive I guess, considering the already reasonably potent items you can find throughout exploration of the main game. I'd also argue the difficulty in MotB is toned down overall in order to enhance the flow and enjoyment of the narrative and that the action/combat is of a secondary nature.

Mind you, I did take delight in creating wands of fireball and ice storm for my mages to mass-spam whenever they had run out of normal spell-power!

I have Storm of Zehir as well, so shall probably start that next. That's meant to hearken back to the classical Icewind Dale style of party-driven combat without so much linearity and a looser/thinner plot.

[Sever]

Heya Cerebro Ya, i'm catching up on the list of games which have passed me by since Travian, so i'm a little more active lately.

I recall SoU and HotU being vastly more enjoyable than vanilla NWN, so if MotB follows the same trend, then that's good. Not exactly rivetted to the seat in vanilla NWN2 so far...

K then, more questions.

Multi-classing is something i'm still unfamiliar with in 3rd edition D&D. I've only ever played pure classes. I wouldn't mind beefing up my sorceror's melee side with a few levels of a combat oriented class. Duelist really seems like the ticket, with a fair amount of benefits at the earliest levels and no armour dependant clashing that the next best choices appear to have (eldritch knight, assassin). It seems to me to be the closest one can get to a reverse kensai-mage with little fuss. Arcane destruction will still be the primary method of operation, with the Duelist levels offsetting the sorceror's melee weakness.

My question is how the multi-classing levelling operates. I'm currently lvl 10. Does my first level as a Duelist take as much xp as would be needed for lvl 11 as a sorceror? Which of the sorceror abilities are retained while i'm levelling as a Duelist? (It's not like BG2 is it? Where the character is essentially reduced back to lvl 1?)

[Kezardin]

Howdy Sever,

the first duelist level will need the same XP as getting your 11th sorcerer level. Character level is the sum of all the class levels so your character would be 11th level regardless.

You keep all your abilities when you change class, too. Much easier on the nerves than the ol' BG2

As long as your character meets all the requirements for the new class you'll be good to go.

Red Dragon Disciple might also be worth a look if you're going to take your character through to MOTB.