Oh yeah, I guess that's fine. I kind of want it to be the easiest fighter I can be that has spells such as haste etc. Does the game have high AC cloth armor/robes?
Oh yeah, I guess that's fine. I kind of want it to be the easiest fighter I can be that has spells such as haste etc. Does the game have high AC cloth armor/robes?
Yep, for that matter you have to rely on three things: 1- dexterity (with light armor you get full dex bonus to AC), also there are several magic items that increase this attribute.
2-tumble skill - every five levels of this skill gives you an extra bonus to AC, which makes a big difference.
3- magic armor and items : rings of protection are cummulative with amulets of natural armor and magical armor. For example : Bob has dexterity 16, tumble 10 , bracers of armor +2, ring of protection+2 , amulet of natural armor +3 , that's a 3+2+2+2+3=22. (Which is the same of ac -2 in 2nd edition)
I was going to suggest that BG players would probably prefer NWN2 to NWN, as it has a much richer set of characters to play with and supports larger parties - but then I saw you say you preferred solo runs, and that leans much more strongly to the original NWN game design, so carry on
I will say I preferred the (under-rated) Shadows of Undrentide campaign to the original, which felt very so uninspiring I don't think that I ever completed the second chapter. This is an alternative campaign that starts at first, and not something to take a PC into after the first game.
Much of what you will see online about 'builds' for 3rd edition actually apply to 3.5 though, so be sure of your source material before following someone else's plan! A lot of the lessons and inspiration for 3.5 edition builds will still hold for 3rd, just make sure you know the actual rules and bonuses you will be dealing with.
Hmm, something that never occurred to me in all my time playing NWN (I don't think I ever took less thann 10 dex), but taking 8 dex gives -1 AC, right? But that's dodge AC which doesn't apply if you get attacked by many enemies or a flat footed or whatever. Would than mean that you would actually have better AC when attacked from all sides? Hard to imagine how that works in real life. I suppose you'd actually have to be really good at reacting to the incoming attacks, you just choose to dodge right into them
Sort of like how someone who's always wrong about everything would actually have to be pretty smart, to know the correct answer and say something else. Or a psychic that was always inaccurate must have a "gift", otherwise they'd occasionally get lucky.
For starters, I would advise against OC->HotU as suggested above unless you want to die of boredom before HotU starts giving you encounters designed for your level. You will finish OC at level 20 and HotU's beginning is intended for early-mid teens. Besides, they are separate stories, so playing them as one makes no sense really. For best experience play OC separately and SoU+HotU separately.
Next, look through nwn.wikia.com to understand the basics. There is a lot of info and some can be contradictory or not obvious at first read, so feel free to ask me should you need clarifications. I haven't played it in quite a while, but I still remember most of the game mechanics' intricacies.
Now, to the build suggestions
In NWN you are limited to three classes, so you have to choose wisely.
I'm really looking for a melee powerhouse with a lot of great defensive spells and potentially sneaking/backstab if that's important. I see all these crazy builds online I don't know anything about. Looking for a very high melee damage output character that can take a lot of hits and can move pretty quickly.
That'd be a Bard. Pure(-ish) Bards are super strong in melee, primarily because their Song and Curse Song are effectively a +9 AB/+9 (+2 AB and +7 AC via Song, -2 AB and -7 AC via Curse Song) AC boost when maxed out, although most commonly you wouldn't want that pure of a Bard and would get +7/+7 (+2/+5 -2/-5), which is ludicrously strong as well. The most common cutoffs for Bard are 16 (level 6 spells and +5/-5 AC on Curse Song, +5 AC on Song), 20 (Full spellbook and access to Lasting Inspiration which makes your songs last x10 longer) and 23 when you receive an Epic Feat and 26 when you receive another Epic Feat.
If you want to deal a lot of melee damage and have a sneak attack option, Blackguard will be your next most obvious choice of class. A Blackguard's sneak progression is slower than that of a Rogue, but they receive other things that synergise with the Bard. It is important to know that the Darkness spell allows you to deal sneak attacks and it has no somatic component, meaning that you can cast it while wearing full plate. Bards also have Ultravision in their spellbook, allowing you to fight in Darkness without penalties. Speaking of casting spells, you will want to pick up the Still Spell metamagic in order to be able to cast spells while wearing armour and with a shield equipped. You won't be able to cast level 6 spells that way because stilled spells occupy a slot higher than ordinary ones, but to be honest Bards don't really get any useful ones at level 6. Well, Ice Storm is okay but it's hardly worth walking around naked. Anyway, the synergies: Blackguards receive Dark Blessing at level 2, which gives you a bonus to your saves based on your Charisma, and you will need it rather high as a Bard by definition, and they get turn Undead which allows you to get Divine Shield and Divine Might, respectively giving you bonus damage and AC based on your charisma modifier (the duration is equal to it as well). You will need at least 4 levels of Blackguard if you want Divine Might and Divine Shield as you can only pick the feats on a Blackguard level. Feats are given every 3 levels, so plan accordingly. They also get some pretty decent summons for the levels at which you receive them. Sneak attack is given at level 4 and improves every 3 levels thereafter.
Now for the third class. Your third class depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to be more of a frontline damage dealer, then Red Dragon Disciple is a no-brainer. It gives you +8 Strength, +2 Cha, +2 to Con, +2 to Int, +4 to AC and some immunities, most notably to Fire. I've played through SoU+HotU with a Bard/BG/RDD and I can tell you it's super strong.
If you prefer being tanky, Pale Master provides a lot of bonus AC and immunity to critical hits (and some other immunities as well). Note that PM is a low BAB progression class, so it's best to keep it for the epics. You need 10 levels of PM to get crit immunity.
If you like the feel of sneak attacks, you might want to invest into Rogue or Assassin. Rogues get Evasion and get some extra feats, Assassins have a few nifty spells.
I think the OC should be played through at least once. It's not brilliant, but it probably won't kill you of boredom the first time round. It will give you the background for some of the characters in HotU anyway.
The beginning of HotU is written so that it can follow on from either the OC or SoU, and encounters scale with level (I was level 18, not 20, when I finished the OC anyway).
Since the game isn't particularly difficult, don't worry about fancy builds - a single class anything will do fine. I took a cleric through the OC. Since Find Traps spell also removes them, and you can open locks with your trusty hammer, you can do without a Rogue.
Seems kind of crazy, not really sure how to build but it looks right up my alley... don't know anything about building or when to switch classes etc. Much more confusing then BG2
I think that the usual build you are looking for is Bard/Barbarian/RDD. That gives you a brutally high STR due to the stat boosts from RDD in combination with Berzerk. I am not sure what the level combination is, but it is something like 3/10/7.
I was going for Bard26/BG4/RDD10 when I was playing it, finished HotU as Bard16/BG4/RDD10 or thereabouts. BG22/Bard8/RDD10 is solid if you don't want to bother with spellcasting and pretty much limit it to displacement and darkness.
Ok, so Bard26/BG4/RDD10 sounds good, how long does it take to cast all the buffs and stuff? Do I go 1-26bard, then 1-4bg, then 1-10rdd or do I mix it up?
You can also go the Devastating Critical route. It's an extremely strong feat that allows you to instantly kill an enemy on a crit with a DC of 10 + 1/2 character level + Str mod. It required power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved crit in your weapon of choice, overwhelming crit and 25 strength, so as a Blackguard you already have half the feats required for it. Naturally works best with weapons that have a wide threat range, most commonly a scimitar.
As for buffing up, that depends on your equipment. Things like mage armour bull's, eagle's, haste, gmw can be replicated via gear.
Things that can't be replicated: Displacement is a short-term buff that makes opponents miss 50% of the time (or 25 if the have blind fight). Greater invis does the same for longer, but it's a higher-level spell. Infravision is needed if you are planning to use darkness. War cry is an aoe fear that also grants you AB and damage. Ghostly visage/ethereal visage provide minor concealment (10 and 25 respectively), protect against low-level spells and grant DR. Silence is self-explanatory.
These are pretty much all the spells that you will need. There are some other good spells, but they are mostly situational.
You can't be serious. Blackguards are probably the least feat-starved characters in the game, and the only planning they require is landing BG3 and BG4 on feat selection levels.
Feat-starved means that it won't have space for important feats without sacrificing other important feats. The only things you have to sacrifice here are a couple of Great Strengths in epics. It's a different matter if you go for Devastating Crit, but I'm not suggesting it as the primary route as it's overkill for pvm.
@iKrivetko Feat-starved for me means there is little room to manoeuvre or pick extra feats. With Bard/blackguard that is very much the case With Bard/Fighter it's very different.
AC is even more determinative in NWN than in BG. Once you get AC over 30, pretty much nothing in the game can touch you in melee, not even dragons, giants, and demons.
There is plenty of armor and equipment to get there in the base games, which are Monty Haulish to an extreme.
You don't need any spells to protect yourself in melee, unless you are playing a single class mage. Stoneskin is nice, but it's total overkill in defense if you get that desired AC30+.
Buff spells are nice, but they wear off, and there are so many of them to cast, it can get very, very tedious to keep casting them over and over, again and again, as you play through the game. And, if you gave your character good melee stats at character creation, buffing those stats with spells like Bull Strength is nice, but usually overkill.
Due to my current interest in playing paladins, I've started a run of the NWN OC with a paladin. Paladins are definitely an underdog class in the NWN games. Their implementation is kind of bad, and they are much, much weaker than BG paladins, and weaker than regular fighters in NWN.
You get immunity to fear and disease, but not poison or mind-affecting. You don't get innate detect evil or more importantly, protection from evil. There's a smite evil that can only be used for one attack per day, and all it does is add your charisma bonus to your attack roll and your level to the damage, IF it hits. You can take some feats to use your turn undead ability to buff your attack bonuses for a small number of rounds, but feats are at a premium since you don't get fighter bonus feats. You eventually get four levels of divine spells, but they come late, and they don't make up for the loss of bonus feats and sacrifice of physical combat stats at lower levels.
Speaking of stats, playing the class in NWN also gives you trouble, because you need to raise charisma as high as possible and wisdom to at least 14, in addition to the physical combat stats. The only thing you don't need to raise is intelligence, but I want that at least 12 for the extra skill point per level. So, my low level paladin is taking a -1 AC penalty from having 9 dexterity, which he will raise to 10 as soon as he can to at least get rid of that very telling penalty. Meanwhile, he is getting hit a lot.
I'll eventually take Champion of Torm levels to help out with the feats situation. I've splashed one level of cleric so he can get Protection from Evil spells and some more healing to survive low levels. (Lay on Hands is kind of pathetic at low level.) At higher levels, he will at least begin to benefit from adding his charisma bonus to his saving throws, which is one of the many reasons charisma has to be high to get much benefit at all from the class.
Most NWN paladins wind up mixing in a lot of levels of either cleric or fighter (fighter is probably better, but I'm not powergaming) to get some real power.
It's definitely going to be a challenge run with a gimped character. (All paladins are gimped in NWN if they stick to the class instead of merely splashing it.) But I'm having fun with it. At least I don't have to stop every five minutes and cast a hundred buff spells like with my cleric and druid characters.
NwN 2 nerfed them even more I thinkxd I don't play Paladins much though, but divine might and divine shield is nothing to scoff at I think.
Blackguards also got shafted in NwN 2. Your strongest summon is a mighty dire rat, which by the point ideally 16+ levels isn't even worthy to tank a single hit from the enemies you face in that level range. And there is no epic feat to improve fiendish servant either. In the first game at least they got a Vrock.
I don't know much about smite, except I think it looks really terrible in both the games.
I had some fun NWN2 builds that featured paladin levels, mostly for the divine feats though. One of my problems with the 3E series of games is that that was very little reward for staying with a 'true' class through to level 20 and beyond, although it could be a reasonable (non-optimal) choice for some spell-casting classes.
IIRC, Paladins had a slightly better time in Shadows of Undrentide, which I think was an unfairly overlooked expansion. It is not as long as the original campaign, but I think it played better.
Yes, SoU was certainly better than the OC, but not as good as HotU, which I guess is why it doesn't get talked about so much: neither very very bad nor very very good.
Comments
1- dexterity (with light armor you get full dex bonus to AC), also there are several magic items that increase this attribute.
2-tumble skill - every five levels of this skill gives you an extra bonus to AC, which makes a big difference.
3- magic armor and items : rings of protection are cummulative with amulets of natural armor and magical armor.
For example : Bob has dexterity 16, tumble 10 , bracers of armor +2, ring of protection+2 , amulet of natural armor +3 , that's a 3+2+2+2+3=22. (Which is the same of ac -2 in 2nd edition)
I will say I preferred the (under-rated) Shadows of Undrentide campaign to the original, which felt very so uninspiring I don't think that I ever completed the second chapter. This is an alternative campaign that starts at first, and not something to take a PC into after the first game.
Much of what you will see online about 'builds' for 3rd edition actually apply to 3.5 though, so be sure of your source material before following someone else's plan! A lot of the lessons and inspiration for 3.5 edition builds will still hold for 3rd, just make sure you know the actual rules and bonuses you will be dealing with.
Sort of like how someone who's always wrong about everything would actually have to be pretty smart, to know the correct answer and say something else. Or a psychic that was always inaccurate must have a "gift", otherwise they'd occasionally get lucky.
I'm not sure it actually works like that in NWN though.
For starters, I would advise against OC->HotU as suggested above unless you want to die of boredom before HotU starts giving you encounters designed for your level. You will finish OC at level 20 and HotU's beginning is intended for early-mid teens. Besides, they are separate stories, so playing them as one makes no sense really. For best experience play OC separately and SoU+HotU separately.
Next, look through nwn.wikia.com to understand the basics. There is a lot of info and some can be contradictory or not obvious at first read, so feel free to ask me should you need clarifications. I haven't played it in quite a while, but I still remember most of the game mechanics' intricacies.
Now, to the build suggestions
In NWN you are limited to three classes, so you have to choose wisely. That'd be a Bard. Pure(-ish) Bards are super strong in melee, primarily because their Song and Curse Song are effectively a +9 AB/+9 (+2 AB and +7 AC via Song, -2 AB and -7 AC via Curse Song) AC boost when maxed out, although most commonly you wouldn't want that pure of a Bard and would get +7/+7 (+2/+5 -2/-5), which is ludicrously strong as well. The most common cutoffs for Bard are 16 (level 6 spells and +5/-5 AC on Curse Song, +5 AC on Song), 20 (Full spellbook and access to Lasting Inspiration which makes your songs last x10 longer) and 23 when you receive an Epic Feat and 26 when you receive another Epic Feat.
If you want to deal a lot of melee damage and have a sneak attack option, Blackguard will be your next most obvious choice of class. A Blackguard's sneak progression is slower than that of a Rogue, but they receive other things that synergise with the Bard. It is important to know that the Darkness spell allows you to deal sneak attacks and it has no somatic component, meaning that you can cast it while wearing full plate. Bards also have Ultravision in their spellbook, allowing you to fight in Darkness without penalties. Speaking of casting spells, you will want to pick up the Still Spell metamagic in order to be able to cast spells while wearing armour and with a shield equipped. You won't be able to cast level 6 spells that way because stilled spells occupy a slot higher than ordinary ones, but to be honest Bards don't really get any useful ones at level 6. Well, Ice Storm is okay but it's hardly worth walking around naked. Anyway, the synergies: Blackguards receive Dark Blessing at level 2, which gives you a bonus to your saves based on your Charisma, and you will need it rather high as a Bard by definition, and they get turn Undead which allows you to get Divine Shield and Divine Might, respectively giving you bonus damage and AC based on your charisma modifier (the duration is equal to it as well). You will need at least 4 levels of Blackguard if you want Divine Might and Divine Shield as you can only pick the feats on a Blackguard level. Feats are given every 3 levels, so plan accordingly. They also get some pretty decent summons for the levels at which you receive them. Sneak attack is given at level 4 and improves every 3 levels thereafter.
Now for the third class. Your third class depends on what you want to achieve. If you want to be more of a frontline damage dealer, then Red Dragon Disciple is a no-brainer. It gives you +8 Strength, +2 Cha, +2 to Con, +2 to Int, +4 to AC and some immunities, most notably to Fire. I've played through SoU+HotU with a Bard/BG/RDD and I can tell you it's super strong.
If you prefer being tanky, Pale Master provides a lot of bonus AC and immunity to critical hits (and some other immunities as well). Note that PM is a low BAB progression class, so it's best to keep it for the epics. You need 10 levels of PM to get crit immunity.
If you like the feel of sneak attacks, you might want to invest into Rogue or Assassin. Rogues get Evasion and get some extra feats, Assassins have a few nifty spells.
I hope this helps
The beginning of HotU is written so that it can follow on from either the OC or SoU, and encounters scale with level (I was level 18, not 20, when I finished the OC anyway).
Since the game isn't particularly difficult, don't worry about fancy builds - a single class anything will do fine. I took a cleric through the OC. Since Find Traps spell also removes them, and you can open locks with your trusty hammer, you can do without a Rogue.
and
http://nwnecbguild.forumer.com/topic/2354371/Paragon-of-Pain-Bard-8-RDD-10-Blackguard-22#.VzTZIRUrI1g
Seems kind of crazy, not really sure how to build but it looks right up my alley... don't know anything about building or when to switch classes etc. Much more confusing then BG2
BG22/Bard8/RDD10 is solid if you don't want to bother with spellcasting and pretty much limit it to displacement and darkness.
1 Bard Power Attack Curse Song
2 Bard
3 Bard Cleave
4 Bard
5 Bard
6 RDD Knockdown
7 RDD
8 RDD
9 RDD Blind Fight
10 BG
11 BG
12 BG Divine Might
13 Bard
14 Bard
15 BG Divine Shield
16 Bard
17 Bard
18 Bard Weapon Focus
19 Bard
20 Bard
21-26 RDD
27+ Bard
Feats you will want to have
Lingering Song
Still spell
Lasting Inspiration
You can also go the Devastating Critical route. It's an extremely strong feat that allows you to instantly kill an enemy on a crit with a DC of 10 + 1/2 character level + Str mod. It required power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved crit in your weapon of choice, overwhelming crit and 25 strength, so as a Blackguard you already have half the feats required for it. Naturally works best with weapons that have a wide threat range, most commonly a scimitar.
Things like mage armour bull's, eagle's, haste, gmw can be replicated via gear.
Things that can't be replicated:
Displacement is a short-term buff that makes opponents miss 50% of the time (or 25 if the have blind fight). Greater invis does the same for longer, but it's a higher-level spell.
Infravision is needed if you are planning to use darkness. War cry is an aoe fear that also grants you AB and damage.
Ghostly visage/ethereal visage provide minor concealment (10 and 25 respectively), protect against low-level spells and grant DR.
Silence is self-explanatory.
These are pretty much all the spells that you will need. There are some other good spells, but they are mostly situational.
Blackguard does require you to be evil, didn't you say you wanted to be Chaotic Good?
AC is even more determinative in NWN than in BG. Once you get AC over 30, pretty much nothing in the game can touch you in melee, not even dragons, giants, and demons.
There is plenty of armor and equipment to get there in the base games, which are Monty Haulish to an extreme.
You don't need any spells to protect yourself in melee, unless you are playing a single class mage. Stoneskin is nice, but it's total overkill in defense if you get that desired AC30+.
Buff spells are nice, but they wear off, and there are so many of them to cast, it can get very, very tedious to keep casting them over and over, again and again, as you play through the game. And, if you gave your character good melee stats at character creation, buffing those stats with spells like Bull Strength is nice, but usually overkill.
In Nwn2 they are much more powerful, although I'm sure you can solo them with a good enough build, I haven't tried.
You get immunity to fear and disease, but not poison or mind-affecting. You don't get innate detect evil or more importantly, protection from evil. There's a smite evil that can only be used for one attack per day, and all it does is add your charisma bonus to your attack roll and your level to the damage, IF it hits. You can take some feats to use your turn undead ability to buff your attack bonuses for a small number of rounds, but feats are at a premium since you don't get fighter bonus feats. You eventually get four levels of divine spells, but they come late, and they don't make up for the loss of bonus feats and sacrifice of physical combat stats at lower levels.
Speaking of stats, playing the class in NWN also gives you trouble, because you need to raise charisma as high as possible and wisdom to at least 14, in addition to the physical combat stats. The only thing you don't need to raise is intelligence, but I want that at least 12 for the extra skill point per level. So, my low level paladin is taking a -1 AC penalty from having 9 dexterity, which he will raise to 10 as soon as he can to at least get rid of that very telling penalty. Meanwhile, he is getting hit a lot.
I'll eventually take Champion of Torm levels to help out with the feats situation. I've splashed one level of cleric so he can get Protection from Evil spells and some more healing to survive low levels. (Lay on Hands is kind of pathetic at low level.) At higher levels, he will at least begin to benefit from adding his charisma bonus to his saving throws, which is one of the many reasons charisma has to be high to get much benefit at all from the class.
Most NWN paladins wind up mixing in a lot of levels of either cleric or fighter (fighter is probably better, but I'm not powergaming) to get some real power.
It's definitely going to be a challenge run with a gimped character. (All paladins are gimped in NWN if they stick to the class instead of merely splashing it.) But I'm having fun with it. At least I don't have to stop every five minutes and cast a hundred buff spells like with my cleric and druid characters.
I don't play Paladins much though, but divine might and divine shield is nothing to scoff at I think.
Blackguards also got shafted in NwN 2. Your strongest summon is a mighty dire rat, which by the point ideally 16+ levels isn't even worthy to tank a single hit from the enemies you face in that level range. And there is no epic feat to improve fiendish servant either. In the first game at least they got a Vrock.
I don't know much about smite, except I think it looks really terrible in both the games.
IIRC, Paladins had a slightly better time in Shadows of Undrentide, which I think was an unfairly overlooked expansion. It is not as long as the original campaign, but I think it played better.