Edit: Whenever I end up doing a Val'myr run I can totally see him being an evil doucher by now. He's waaayyy more of a snarky cynic than Piro. In fact he and Bishop would get along fine. He's nice and helps people but is snarky to an extreme XD
I am sure you don't fall foul of this but whenever I see this type of quote I am internally compelled to say:
Snarky and cynical does not necessarily equal evil.
Just because every role play game ever seems only able to write 'Evil' as being flippant and obnoxious, doesn't mean that (a) Evil can't be eloquent and charming, and (b) Good can be quite snarky and cynical (not to mention narrow minded and opinionated).
Getting down off of my soap box now. Nothing to see here. These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along.
THE WAR HAS BEGUN! I fight now ontop of the keep walls. The view is AMAZING up here but that's a LOT of undead! Casaver and Zhjaeve stand at my side as I need their turn undead abilities to push back the undead. I have also brought dwarves and lizardmen with me. At my battle at the bridges I only lost one man, an archer, hopefully I can keep casualties at a minimum with my AC bardsong.
Also, yeah snark doesn't really mean evil but I think it lends itself to that attitude.
We collected evidence in Ember, sprinkled wyrmsage on the corpses to prevent their becoming undead, went to the Duskwood, and sided with the Dryad. I usually side with the goblins, and I feel very morally conflicted about the Duskwood scenario. What made me side with the Dryad this time is that Grobnar told me the power stone had been his, I did not have Elanee along, and I'm just generally trying to do as much as I can differently from my past habits on this run. I only killed the goblins guarding the stone, and ran out of the caves without killing the rest of them, but I still felt bad about it. We also killed the gnome werewolves, and used their insect collection to make friends with the giant spider, since I am playing a druid and can do it without Elanee.
I actually roleplayed the trial this time. I rarely do that, since all roads lead to Lorne, but I thought it might be fun for a change. I got a "not guilty" from Lord Nasher for the first time. Cool. In the Temple of Tyr, I had Neeshka come and offer to sabotage Lorne's gear, a first for me. Also cool. Then, before the fight, Grobnar gave me a song buff, another first for me. Again, way cool. I defeated Lorne as a Stormlord without using any offensive spells, a first for me. I cast Stoneskin, Cat's Grace, and Shock Weapon while he was running towards me, then I owned him in melee alone, as he could not hit my Elephant Skin and Monkey Grip spear-and-shield enhanced AC, while I was hitting his (sabotaged?) low AC with every attack roll. This is why I love to focus on defense with my characters - it doesn't matter how much damage they can do if they can't hit you.
After the trial by combat, we went to Aldanon's Manse, and saved Marshall Cormick from terrorists, but were unable to prevent Aldanon's kidnapping, though we saved several of his apprentices and servants. Now, we have to go to try to protect Lord Tavorick, and recover more shards of the silver sword. That's where I've left off for today.
Time played according to GoG Galaxy: 36 hours 5 minutes
TPKs: 0 I'm actually not too sure that not having TPKs or any need to reload is that much of an accomplishment in NWN2, since it's very easy to steamroll the combat in this game, but eh, there it is.
Hmm has anyone tried to let Crossroad keep remain a pile of rubble with no upgrades? I'm just wondering if the battle for crossroad keep increases in challenge somewhat then.
THE END IS NIGH Bishop ran away, his character is SOOOO good. He told me his backstory then just left. He didn't want to hurt me or serve under some foul master. Sand of course gave a usual response and turned them down. Neeshka was able to resist the binding and stands with me, "I won't turn against the only person to show me kindness"
Even Kelghar was urging her to stay n_n
Qara turned against me because she hates Sand so much. She was my friend, I don't want to fight her QQ
Well, this battle begins and I'm off to see it end.
IT IS DONE! The King of Shadows lies dead, my companions are missing, the world is safe, and a Red Wizard is waking me up and MY SHARD IS GONE NO I LOVED THAT SWORD!
In the end I only lost Qara. The rest of my companion's fates are unknown. Well. I know in Storms of Zehir Kelghar leads crossroad keep but I'm unsure about the others.
Btw, the final boss is SOOO GOOOD. Reminds me of an MMO styled boss which isn't a bad thing. Fight boss, kill add wave, destroy statues that power boss, destroy portal powering boss, murder the boss. I used the Blade Golem to destroy the statues since it does TONS of damage. Between Grobnar and Piro's Auras, Elanee and Zhjaeve's AoE healing, and everyone else's damage we pulled through. I had the AI control everyone for the most part except for when I needed a specific spell. The "Scaled Spellcasting" AI behavior is surprisingly good and works out well most of the time.
The game is buggy, voice acting is hit and miss, and there's a lot of obviously cut content that makes things like Sand and Qara's relationship make more sense.
but
The actual content is AMAZINGLY good. The end conflict where each of your companions' loyalty was questioned was great! Bishop's story is REALLY good and explains why he's such a douche all the time. I don't know if I missed a portion but Casavir's romance seemed to sort of end abruptly. He just kind of like, "I have feelings for you." and Piro was like,"Oh, cool!" and that was the end of that.
Neeshka is such a derp character; she's great! Grobnar is confirmed as male version of Piro XD. Kelghar reminds me of my best friend IRL since they both are/play Monks and such. Zhjaeve was Piro's teacher and mentor while Elanee was the mother that Piro never had. Sand's voicework is the absolute best. I adore his personality.
The only character I felt was "meh" was Qara and that's because I missed her personal quest content by mistake I feel like she could appeal to Piro's more childish antics but I never had any dialogue with her besides the initial dialogue. I took no pleasure in killing her, though. She still was a friend.
I enjoyed the Keep management in the game even if I did screw it up. Did you know you can use your own funds to build structures?? I didn't. In the end everything was maxed except for "Unit Strength" and I had few peasants and merchants because I didn't know how to properly manage the keep until it was too late and the final battle was upon us.
In future runs I now know how to do things. Fortunately this actually fits in with Piro's character though. They put an 8 wisdom Gnome Bard girl with the attitude of Alora in charge of a castle with peasants and soldiers. Piro did surprisingly well in upholding the keep!
I absolutely adored the battle at the end. Defending the ramparts from siege towers was my favorite part of the battle. Definitely had a Helm's Deep vibe going on.
While the OC has issues it contains everything I could ask for in an RPG. Fun/interesting characters with depth (at least some do). It had adventuring to different environments such as swamps, forests, volcanoes, or mountains. It contained great dialogue with quests that had multiple outcomes and your actions affected the game's epilogue.
I'm in absolute love with this game. I'm going to continue into MotB tomorrow of course but this game just with the OC overtook Pillars of Eternity. I love PoE's world and characters but there's something about it that just seems less lively than NWN2. If NWN2's expac is as good as everyone says it is it could most certainly overtake Baldur's Gate and SoA in my favorite game list. I never beat ToB but I plan to remedy that in my current Bard run on my iPhone. Once completing both the entire NWN2 series and BG2 ToB I'll go more in depth on my feelings about both.
@Vallmyr , Congratulations on winning your run. I'm glad you had so much fun, and thanks for getting me interested in playing again.
Will you be posting more updates on your MotB continuation? I've never played MotB up to the point of whatever big plot reveals it has, and I don't want to get spoiled, so I may need to leave the thread if you plan to post MotB spoilers.
I've never played SoZ either, so I didn't know that Khelgar makes a cameo appearance. I had been thinking about recreating my NWN2 party for an SoZ run, but it sounds like that might be a bad idea. If the NWN2 cast is coming back in cameos in SoZ, then it wouldn't make sense to have them in my party.
Yeah, SoZ makes reference to the OC (which aught to have a name of it's own - something like "Wrath of the Shadow King") and MotB, but is not a direct sequel, taking place several years later.
I thought the final dungeon was incredibly boring overall, just felt like a bunch of random loot scattered all over the place. A few undead and shadows here and there...The last of the cheesy shadow reavers. The battle with the king of shadows was decent enough I guess.
Overall in that respect I felt Hordes of the underdark had a better finale.
But there is something about building your character from level 1 and then taking him into MotB. Which is why I always go through the OC instead of jumping straight into MotB.
I'll probably continue to post stuff about MotB here but I'll just post it in the [ / spoiler ] format thing n_n and I agree the last dungeon was a drag but the last boss definitely made up for it to me. Also, I already miss my Seelie Summer Sword, Unseelie Umbral Usher, and my Silver Sword QQ I have to go to class/work but I'll truly start MotB when I get back.
I'm tempted to use that re-spec mod for MotB so I can fix a mistake I made early in my build with skill points. . . Hm . . . I want to. But I also want to keep this as vanilla as possible.
@Sylvus_Moonbow , sorry about that, but it started when @bengoshi tempted me away with a Might and Magic 6 run, and then @Valmyr started this NWN2 thread while I was still finishing the MM6 run and had just started with an MM7 run.
I'm pretty distractible when it comes to games, I guess. I already finished the MM6 run, and I'm deep into this NWN2 run.
PoE just didn't have what it takes to hold my interest through a whole run. For some reason, the older games always seem more interesting. I'm not sure why that is. My age and nostalgia probably have a lot to do with it.
I may or may not return to finish PoE. Right now I'm really into what I'm doing with NWN2. Again, sorry.
@Vallmyr - it just occurred to me, you are using TonyK's and Kaedrin's fix packs, aren't you? These are 'Mods' in the strictest sense, but they do add so much value to the game that it would be a shame to miss out on them. Among other things they add a whole plethora of classes and prestige classes. The fix the AI for so many things and they fix the horrible camera angles.
I am not, I suppose I could add them in for my MotB run and then do a respec to add the new feats that are added with Kaedrin's stuff. Do you know if there are any issues in adding the mods to a pre-existing character?
Kaedrin does this awesome PRC pack which adds some base classes and a whole bunch of Prestige classes. You may end up wishing to go back and respec for your character, but short of that you are probably OK there.
TonyK does this great AI and companion update. It is an absolute MUST in playing any NWN2 game. It fixes the interface and the AI in ways that absolutely will blow your mind. I'd say the chance of issue there is probably nill.
Reeron also does a spell fixes/additions pack that adds a significant amount of spells to the various disciplines. Obviously the further up you are, the less chance you have of selecting the new stuff so that might be a limiting factor.
There are also some re-bumpmapping mods which are of variable value if you want things to look a bit better, but I would strongly recommend the other three over this (personal and subjective opinion offered, not that there is anything wrong with the mod).
All of these can be found on the NWN Sorcerers place and there are links on the Bioware forums.
I suppose playing through all of SoZ and the OC without any mods counts as enough time to try the game vanillas. I'll go ahead and add them today! Thanks for the information.
Well, installed everything. I did used the rebuild mod to fix my skill points and I got to fey-themed spells for my character. Sirine's grace and Nixie's Grace. Both really fit Piro well. I also traded one of my fey-heritage feats (The one that lets you cast confusion) in exchange for Mobility so I could become a Shadowdancer. Piro is now a Bard 18/Shadowdancer 2. I kind of want to take one more Shadowdancer level for the summon shadow but I don't want to hinder my Bard song progression anymore. Unless Bardsongs don't scale into the epic levels. I'll need to check.
Anyway, when I get back from my evening classes I'll check out everything in action!
Once TonyK's AI fix is installed, make sure that you go into each of your NPCs and re-task them with the new AI. You'll love the added level of "Intelligence" it gives to your companions.
Well so far this campaign has been more difficult combat wise but that might just be because Tony K's AI made the enemies actually smarter XD
Also [Spoiler] I met Gann. Piro is in love with him. They traded words with sarcasm, wit, and charisma. So far Gann acts pretty similar to Val. [/Spoiler]
The shadow is rubbish. The only reasons to go for more than 2 levels of SD are Defensive Roll (level 5) and Improved Evasion (level 10), which are prerequisites for Epic Dodge.
Curse Song doesn't change in any meaningful way until level 24, and you will need over 70 perform to make use of that.
Epic Bards get bonus feats at levels 23, 26 and 29.
Bards can pick up the Song of Requiem as soon as they have 21 level in the class, and it's a pretty powerful feat that deals Sonic damage every round based on your Perform. It deals 2x Perform to a single target and the damage scales down with every extra enemy up to a minimum of 1/3 Perform.
There, now you're informed enough to make a wise decision.
Comments
Snarky and cynical does not necessarily equal evil.
Just because every role play game ever seems only able to write 'Evil' as being flippant and obnoxious, doesn't mean that (a) Evil can't be eloquent and charming, and (b) Good can be quite snarky and cynical (not to mention narrow minded and opinionated).
Getting down off of my soap box now. Nothing to see here. These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along.
Also, yeah snark doesn't really mean evil but I think it lends itself to that attitude.
I LOVED HIM
HIS DOUCHEBAGGERY FILLED MY HEART WITH JOY
WHY QQ
We collected evidence in Ember, sprinkled wyrmsage on the corpses to prevent their becoming undead, went to the Duskwood, and sided with the Dryad. I usually side with the goblins, and I feel very morally conflicted about the Duskwood scenario. What made me side with the Dryad this time is that Grobnar told me the power stone had been his, I did not have Elanee along, and I'm just generally trying to do as much as I can differently from my past habits on this run. I only killed the goblins guarding the stone, and ran out of the caves without killing the rest of them, but I still felt bad about it. We also killed the gnome werewolves, and used their insect collection to make friends with the giant spider, since I am playing a druid and can do it without Elanee.
I actually roleplayed the trial this time. I rarely do that, since all roads lead to Lorne, but I thought it might be fun for a change. I got a "not guilty" from Lord Nasher for the first time. Cool. In the Temple of Tyr, I had Neeshka come and offer to sabotage Lorne's gear, a first for me. Also cool. Then, before the fight, Grobnar gave me a song buff, another first for me. Again, way cool. I defeated Lorne as a Stormlord without using any offensive spells, a first for me. I cast Stoneskin, Cat's Grace, and Shock Weapon while he was running towards me, then I owned him in melee alone, as he could not hit my Elephant Skin and Monkey Grip spear-and-shield enhanced AC, while I was hitting his (sabotaged?) low AC with every attack roll. This is why I love to focus on defense with my characters - it doesn't matter how much damage they can do if they can't hit you.
After the trial by combat, we went to Aldanon's Manse, and saved Marshall Cormick from terrorists, but were unable to prevent Aldanon's kidnapping, though we saved several of his apprentices and servants. Now, we have to go to try to protect Lord Tavorick, and recover more shards of the silver sword. That's where I've left off for today.
Time played according to GoG Galaxy: 36 hours 5 minutes
TPKs: 0
I'm actually not too sure that not having TPKs or any need to reload is that much of an accomplishment in NWN2, since it's very easy to steamroll the combat in this game, but eh, there it is.
I personally find snark to be it's own reward.
Bishop ran away, his character is SOOOO good. He told me his backstory then just left. He didn't want to hurt me or serve under some foul master. Sand of course gave a usual response and turned them down. Neeshka was able to resist the binding and stands with me, "I won't turn against the only person to show me kindness"
Even Kelghar was urging her to stay n_n
Qara turned against me because she hates Sand so much. She was my friend, I don't want to fight her QQ
Well, this battle begins and I'm off to see it end.
In the end I only lost Qara. The rest of my companion's fates are unknown. Well. I know in Storms of Zehir Kelghar leads crossroad keep but I'm unsure about the others.
Who cares if the game kinda sucks when I'm playing Gnome Chomsky, West Harbor's smartest shorty?
The game is buggy, voice acting is hit and miss, and there's a lot of obviously cut content that makes things like Sand and Qara's relationship make more sense.
but
The actual content is AMAZINGLY good. The end conflict where each of your companions' loyalty was questioned was great! Bishop's story is REALLY good and explains why he's such a douche all the time. I don't know if I missed a portion but Casavir's romance seemed to sort of end abruptly. He just kind of like, "I have feelings for you." and Piro was like,"Oh, cool!" and that was the end of that.
Neeshka is such a derp character; she's great! Grobnar is confirmed as male version of Piro XD. Kelghar reminds me of my best friend IRL since they both are/play Monks and such. Zhjaeve was Piro's teacher and mentor while Elanee was the mother that Piro never had. Sand's voicework is the absolute best. I adore his personality.
The only character I felt was "meh" was Qara and that's because I missed her personal quest content by mistake
I feel like she could appeal to Piro's more childish antics but I never had any dialogue with her besides the initial dialogue. I took no pleasure in killing her, though. She still was a friend.
I enjoyed the Keep management in the game even if I did screw it up. Did you know you can use your own funds to build structures?? I didn't. In the end everything was maxed except for "Unit Strength" and I had few peasants and merchants because I didn't know how to properly manage the keep until it was too late and the final battle was upon us.
In future runs I now know how to do things. Fortunately this actually fits in with Piro's character though. They put an 8 wisdom Gnome Bard girl with the attitude of Alora in charge of a castle with peasants and soldiers. Piro did surprisingly well in upholding the keep!
I absolutely adored the battle at the end. Defending the ramparts from siege towers was my favorite part of the battle. Definitely had a Helm's Deep vibe going on.
While the OC has issues it contains everything I could ask for in an RPG. Fun/interesting characters with depth (at least some do). It had adventuring to different environments such as swamps, forests, volcanoes, or mountains. It contained great dialogue with quests that had multiple outcomes and your actions affected the game's epilogue.
I'm in absolute love with this game. I'm going to continue into MotB tomorrow of course but this game just with the OC overtook Pillars of Eternity. I love PoE's world and characters but there's something about it that just seems less lively than NWN2. If NWN2's expac is as good as everyone says it is it could most certainly overtake Baldur's Gate and SoA in my favorite game list. I never beat ToB but I plan to remedy that in my current Bard run on my iPhone. Once completing both the entire NWN2 series and BG2 ToB I'll go more in depth on my feelings about both.
Will you be posting more updates on your MotB continuation? I've never played MotB up to the point of whatever big plot reveals it has, and I don't want to get spoiled, so I may need to leave the thread if you plan to post MotB spoilers.
I've never played SoZ either, so I didn't know that Khelgar makes a cameo appearance. I had been thinking about recreating my NWN2 party for an SoZ run, but it sounds like that might be a bad idea. If the NWN2 cast is coming back in cameos in SoZ, then it wouldn't make sense to have them in my party.
Overall in that respect I felt Hordes of the underdark had a better finale.
But there is something about building your character from level 1 and then taking him into MotB. Which is why I always go through the OC instead of jumping straight into MotB.
and I agree the last dungeon was a drag but the last boss definitely made up for it to me. Also, I already miss my Seelie Summer Sword, Unseelie Umbral Usher, and my Silver Sword QQ
I have to go to class/work but I'll truly start MotB when I get back.
I thought we were playing Pillars of Eternity together. We had been posting updates side by side, commenting on our party, on our adventures.
And now I read you're with Neverwinter?
Belgarath"Mighty Trampling Heartbreaker!"
I'm pretty distractible when it comes to games, I guess. I already finished the MM6 run, and I'm deep into this NWN2 run.
PoE just didn't have what it takes to hold my interest through a whole run. For some reason, the older games always seem more interesting. I'm not sure why that is. My age and nostalgia probably have a lot to do with it.
I may or may not return to finish PoE. Right now I'm really into what I'm doing with NWN2. Again, sorry.
@BelgarathMTH -
Kaedrin does this awesome PRC pack which adds some base classes and a whole bunch of Prestige classes. You may end up wishing to go back and respec for your character, but short of that you are probably OK there.
TonyK does this great AI and companion update. It is an absolute MUST in playing any NWN2 game. It fixes the interface and the AI in ways that absolutely will blow your mind. I'd say the chance of issue there is probably nill.
Reeron also does a spell fixes/additions pack that adds a significant amount of spells to the various disciplines. Obviously the further up you are, the less chance you have of selecting the new stuff so that might be a limiting factor.
There are also some re-bumpmapping mods which are of variable value if you want things to look a bit better, but I would strongly recommend the other three over this (personal and subjective opinion offered, not that there is anything wrong with the mod).
All of these can be found on the NWN Sorcerers place and there are links on the Bioware forums.
Anyway, when I get back from my evening classes I'll check out everything in action!
Also
[Spoiler] I met Gann. Piro is in love with him. They traded words with sarcasm, wit, and charisma. So far Gann acts pretty similar to Val. [/Spoiler]
Curse Song doesn't change in any meaningful way until level 24, and you will need over 70 perform to make use of that.
Epic Bards get bonus feats at levels 23, 26 and 29.
Bards can pick up the Song of Requiem as soon as they have 21 level in the class, and it's a pretty powerful feat that deals Sonic damage every round based on your Perform. It deals 2x Perform to a single target and the damage scales down with every extra enemy up to a minimum of 1/3 Perform.
There, now you're informed enough to make a wise decision.