So, I think I might go to more of an out of character shorthand on this run for a while. There are beginning to be more and more roleplayed cutscenes, and it's just not efficient to keep trying to screenshot entire movie-like cutscenes.
Also, from this point on in the story, there will be increasingly huge spoilers for all the twists and turns in this game. I really don't want to spoil things for any of the few people reading about this run who might want to play their own run of Neverwinter Nights 2.
Since I'm apparently in the mood lately more for story, party, character development, and roleplay, over tactical challenge, I am wondering if I should finally give Planescape:Torment a chance. I've never played it, because I usually really don't like "talky, talky" games, but I might reconsider and at least give PS:T a chance eventually, especially if anyone cares to encourage me to do so.
I'd say that Neverwinter Nights 2 probably resembles Dragon Age: Origins, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, more than it does Baldur's Gate. I've needed no reloads on Core Rules, but I'm not sure that's really all that much of an accomplishment, really.
Anyway, tonight I *finally* got admitted to Blacklake to talk to Aldanon after clearing a house near the warehouses of the Merchant District of githyanki invaders. There was a portal in there where a steel golem came through, but it attacked the githyanki as well as us, making it more clear, if it wasn't by now, that there is more than one enemy faction that we are dealing with in this story.
We visited Aldanon, and went to the Neverwinter Archives at his advice. There, after a lot of fighting with the githyanki and solving several puzzles, we received a "courtesy teleport" out to Shandra Jerro's farm. We rescued her from still more githyanki, and went back to Uncle Duncan's inn in Neverwinter. There, even more githyanki attacked and kidnapped Shandra. Duncan seemingly used some kind of blackmail to force a ranger named Bishop into our party, and now we have to let him help us track Shandra's kidnappers.
I guess I could maybe post a few screenshots of notable fights during these updates.
I took a lot of screenshots of my conversation with Aldanon, in case I wanted to do more of a roleplayed report, but, eh.
Anyhoo, that's about where I am in the game for tonight. We made level 11.
Is the broken Githyanki Silver Sword a kind of recurring joke?
Or are they searching for the same one in BG2?
And I wonder how people would fight with such a huge shield in real life. Looks like running around with a door in your hand
I can't say anything about Planescape Torment because I haven't played it for more than an hour or something, some 15 years ago. I just couldn't identify with the protagonist.
Edited: Just out of pure curiosity, when was the last time that you actually finished a game?
@Arvia , the thing about githyanki hunting down people who have silver swords has been around in D&D for a long time, as far as I can tell, since it's used as a story device both here and in Baldur's Gate 2. I think it goes back to the original source materials for either first or second edition D&D.
The fact that this particular one is broken into many shards is very important to the story of NWN2, kind of central to the story, actually, and there are many more reveals about what's up with that coming.
I very rarely have the attention span to stick with one game all the way to the end. I almost always start hankering to start a new character in a new game before I can finish whatever one I'm doing. NWN2 is one that often keeps me engaged all the way to end, because I really like playing through the story, but I rarely carry over into Mask of the Betrayer, and I've never finished Mask of the Betrayer. A lot of people have told me I really should, since I like stories, and supposedly the story of Mask of the Betrayer is one of the best game stories ever written, according to these same people, but it makes you involuntarily a creature that resembles a vampire at the beginning, with a "spirit-eater" mechanic where you have to consume soul energy throughout the game, or else repress the craving while it makes you weaker and weaker, and I have a really hard time enjoying a game where I'm forced to play that.
and here i was going to start showing the screenshots of my SoZ play through just to find out that none of the screen shots saved lolololol
oh well hopefully NOW they will start saving
so, so far:
i made my team x4 yuan-ti purebloods, which i find kind of fitting for the setting of this campaign
best part is; they are EL +2 so that means, its going to be a bit hurtin at the start....
so the class set ups are as follows:
main holmes
Rogue
Swashbuckler
Fighter
Duelist
secondary holmette
monk
third holmette
Fighter
Cleric
last holmetter
warlock ( might eventually do hellfire )
alrighty so thats the team, lets go see how we do
so the first area you start in wasn't too bad, had to do a reload because at the last "wave" of baddies i accidentally let 2 of the ship wreck survivors perish, so i had to do a reload to get the "protector" feat
reloads: 1
then we get skewed off to the city, grab some gold, get a couple of weapons, have some cohorts join us just so they can wait at the inn ( this will be a 4 person group only, no cohorts will join, at least not permanently ) and set off to the ship wreck to gather clues
on the way, i tried my luck with some baddies, and hahaha, was getting wasted, you know you are in trouble when KOBOLDS are considered a challenging encounter, but hey, no sweat, so i believed a group of fire newts wiped me out, a group of gnolls destroyed me, but everything else was pretty good, made it to the ship wreck and now i was level 3
reloads: 3
the ship wreck area was pretty much no sweat, everything went by quite smoothly, got the evidence killed the baddies, grabbed the resources, headed back to town, on my way back, i thought; hmm, i wonder if i can take out some of the patrol guards...... in short, hell no, got wiped quite good, so back to town i went...
reloads: 5
gave sa'sani the goods and now it was time to head back to a batiri cave where the ship captain was held captive, so off i went, and by now i believe i am level 4 ( EL 6 ) and things are going a little bit smoother... luckily the cave battle wasnt all that bad and i saved the halfling captain, on my way back to town, GROUPS of batiri were appearing on the overworld map and i thought; hah, no sweat, well the first group for whatever reason was, but the 2nd group was doing me in, holy that 2nd group take a million tries before i finally won, but anways back to town....
reloads: 10
made it back to town, talked to sa'sani and went to the inn to do the captain's quest, now at this point i believe i am level 5.... i think i also gave volo his talking parrot for the extra XP by this point, so anyways, went back to the ship wreck, cleared out the cave area ( which went over very well ) and killed the big piggy for val... something er rather's quest, did some random battles, *accidentally* killed some patrol guards for a couple sexy peripets of wisdom +2, handed in the quests, let halfling captain join my team by chilling at the inn and finally hit level 6 where i can finally craft arms and armor, and since i've only been buying healers kits i had lots of money, not my monk is taking names, and my "rogue" type character actually has some AC, so now its off to explore land and see what happens...
We have followed the ranger Bishop along the trail of the githyanki who kidnapped Shandra, and the trail has led us through the town of Ember, which was overrun by githyanki. Most of the villagers are dead. We killed the githyanki still here, and questioned a terrified villager who said that she knew Shandra as a trader through their village, and that Shandra had definitely been carried through the village and taken further north, towards the nearby mountain. We met a boy child survivor who asked Bishop for a knife he saw on Bishop's belt to protect himself against a future attack.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that this ranger is quite evil, and completely dominated by the dark side of the Balance. He blurted out that he thought that the female villager who gave us information deserved to die because she was "weak"; he has said he thinks this entire village deserved to die because they were *all* weak; and he refused to give the poor boy child his cheap, non-magical skinning knife so the poor, frightened child could at least think he might defend himself. I insisted that Bishop give it over to the boy, and I had to make an implied threat to force this handsome but dark ranger to comply. I will have no choice but to detach this frighteningly dark-side dominated, rugged man from our party as soon as we have rescued Shandra from the githyanki. (And I am really going to have to repress my increasing attraction to this alpha-male. Sigh. I wish my mating instincts didn't constantly lead me into disastrous relationships with such alpha-males. Silvanus, protect me from myself, my god!)
We proceeded to the mountain, where we encountered heavy githyanki resistance, but it was nothing we couldn't handle. We made our way to a cave in the mountain where they appeared to have established a headquarters for their incursions onto our plane.
Inside, we defeated a chieftain gith who seemed to want to deliver a "villain's monologue" before he attacked. He revealed that he was the direct lieutenant of the Zeeaire I have been seeing in my vision dreams from Silvanus. He was also rather bafflingly willing to "chat" with me about gith lore, as if I hadn't already known all of that. I let him speak, hoping that he might reveal still more information, but in the end, as expected, we had to fight. I believe I had seen this same gith chieftain in one of my Dreams, when my party had first arrived in Neverwinter. They were no match for us.
A short distance further into the gith caves, we saw yet another man from my visions - the warlock with the spider tattoo who was murdering Neverwinter nobles in Blacklake! And, it became clear he commands demons, succubi, and imps, and that he was having his minions attack this very gith base, apparently looking for something possessed by the gith.
We fought through the succubi and imps attacking the gith. The demons were much more of a threat than the gith, who gladly swung at us more than the demons trying to kill them all. (Succubi should be much more of a threat in this game - they cast Charm, but in NWN2, it only acts basically as a "Hold" effect. Charmed party members do not attack other party members in this game. I think it would be better as a tactical game if they did.)
We found several succubi trying to "torture" the same steel golem that had attacked us back in Neverwinter, and we killed them, then made a mental note to come back and collect the now dormant golem and drag it back to Uncle Duncan's inn later, in case it could be converted to our use later. Then, we found another group of succubi torturing a devil in front of some kind of arcane barrier.
(For those without enough lore to know, demons are chaotic evil, and devils are lawful evil in the D&D world. Demons are horrible monsters, who delight in fire, chaos, torture, pain, and destruction, and every other word out of their mouths is a lie. Devils are pretty monstrous as well, but if they try to promise something or make a contract, they will abide by it, and you can count on it that they will adhere to the literal letter of their word. The trouble is, of course, that they will attempt to create loopholes to destroy you in every word of such contracts, negotiations, or agreements. I guess they're similar to genies in that regard.)
We killed the succubi, and this devil wanted to make a deal with us. The arcane barrier barring our way was something he was generating by his own diabolical power, but he was being forced to do so by the demons, or perhaps by the warlock with the spider tattoo. He was ... evasive... with any information he had. But, he so wanted to escape his imprisonment, he was willing to give us his "true name" so we could banish him back to Hell, in order to escape, and he was willing to trust that we were "lawful" enough to keep our word that we wouldn't do anything with his true name but to free him, so that he could dismiss the arcane barrier. His name was "Mephasm". After we agreed to his terms, and spoke the words "We banish you to Hell, Mephasm", he dismissed the barrier, and promised us that we would meet again, before teleporting out with a "BAMF" and a sulfurous cloud of black smoke and fire. I hope we don't regret this "deal with the Devil".
Behind the barrier, we encountered a demon who seemed proud to tell us his name is Zaxis, and to describe in great detail during the fight all the ways he planned to make us suffer long before he killed us by stripping the flesh off our bones, then slowly eating us limb from limb while his acid aura increased our pain. It was the stuff of horror movies. However, while he was verbally painting these visions of Horror for us, he failed to notice that we are quite powerful, and that we were hacking his body to pieces. I almost wanted to laugh when he said the last time, "and I will listen to your screams of agony for years while I.... grryurghll... Don't think this is the last you will hear of Zaxis foolish mortals!", and then "Bamf'd" out before we could utterly destroy him. Infernal creatures always seem to do that. If Silvanus ever gives me the power, I'd like to just go down to the infernal planes and finally finish off a few of these villainous creatures, if it won't upset the Balance!
This demon master seemed to have been the last obstacle to the final gith chamber in here.
Inside, we at last encountered the female gith overlord I had seen in my visions, Zeeaire
(There are quite a few huge story spoilers in this encounter that I think I won't roleplay in writing, just to decrease the risk of any unwanted spoilers not wanted by any future players of this game.)
(This fight is one where you have to destroy several barriers to get to the "boss". That can be frustrating in NWN games, because the AI keeps pulling party members off of "bashing" commands to get them to fight weak enemies, while you're trying to prioritize "bashing" the barriers. So, I always just focus on bashing the barriers to the "boss" myself in these encounters in NWN games, while my party just does whatever their AI tells them to keep fighting other enemies. )
We have now been forced to destroy Zeeaire and her entire githyanki army. It makes me very sad that she forced us to do that. I think we could have worked together. Before she died, she grudgingly admitted that they were after a much greater power than me, my party, and my silver sword shards. In fact, it seems the gith wanted these shards to fight the greater evil that is coming. I am now more certain than ever that our ultimate enemy is the King of Shadows, and that the destroyed gith silver sword shards I carry are the key to defeating him. But what that has to do with the warlock with the spider tattoo, or Black Garius, I am still not sure. I must assume they are both in league with the King of Shadows.
We freed Shandra from her cage, and traveled back to safety at Duncan's Inn.
Back in Neverwinter, Shandra agreed to let us train her to fight better to defend herself, so that she will not be so constantly in need of rescue from the many dark forces we fight. She has insisted on traveling with our party from now on. She is the Jerro descendant we need, who can get us into the Jerro Haven that the mage Aldanon told us about. So, she will indeed be traveling with our party for the forseeable future.
A Neverwinter official has come to the inn and informed me that I stand accused by a Luskan emissary of personally slaughtering the entire population of Ember! I stand falsely accused of a most heinous crime! I have been forbidden to leave Neverwinter. But, this official has suggested that I might stand a chance by appealing for "high justice" through the Neverwinter courts rather than the "low justice" of the Luskans, which would allow them to execute me without a trial. In order to appeal for Neverwinter "high justice", I must squire myself to a Neverwinter knight who is waiting for me in Captain Brelaina's Greycloak headquarters in the merchant district. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of "squiring" myself to a Neverwinter knight, but I seem to have little choice. Silvanus, bless me and keep me, in the Balance.
Very balanced report (pun not intended). I like how you combine useful information about the game with your story, while at the same time avoiding too big spoilers. I'm learning much without getting the feeling that it's not worth playing anymore.
But your druid is definitely not a Vulcan. Couldn't you at least have included a good screenshot of that ranger? *snicker*
okay, finally have screen shots up and working, here's an update on the team:
and for those of you who haven't played SoZ, a screenshot of the main town in the first chapter, just bringing in the majesty of how much better looking NWN 2 is over NWN 1
so, on my travels i find a not so friendly fire giant roaming around...
lets see how that fight went...
would post a picture here, but the forum gods for some reason arent allowing me, so long story short, total party wipe
reloads: 11
next i find a group of wyverns
i wonder how this is going to turn out...
victorious, ha get wreck over sized flying scum from my level 6 group
while doing some more exploring and XP grabbing this happened along the way:
*sigh* can kill wyverns but not ogres? lulz
reloads: 12
so we do some more adventuring, and such, and now its time for a level up:
and then we do even more heroic adventuring and bad guy killin, and then we grow up another level:
now at level 8 its time to rematch our fire giant bully, so how well did we fare this time?
close, but no cigar, although i think i can take him again
reloads: 13
ah, thats better, dead giant with alive party members
a couple of screen shots of doing some questing battles, one of them has me pitting against a djinni and some air elementals, another against a bunch of fire newts to get a great axe for the tiefling's guard buddy
and then its time to take a trip to your friendly neighbor hood underdark black market to "procure" some items
not too shabby eh?
and then we adventure some more for some more level ups, yum
level 9
level 10
then we happen to stumble upon a snake temple looking for a fragment for volo
hand in the fragment and then we find a hidden cave behind a water fall, what goodies lay in wait i wonder?
quick check on our resources seeing how the trade bar steam is going...
and this is still after the fact that i gave buddy buddy his 101 trade bars
and then we go off dinosaur hunting for volo, so he can try out some of them dino steak, yum yum
so ends that play through and today its off to the gnome lumber camp ....
@sarevok57 , Those are beautiful screen shots, man.
When the forum refuses to upload an image, it can mean you've already uploaded one with the same name. So, sometimes changing the name of your image file will solve the problem.
It's a mod set after the events of NWN2, where you're the bad guy. The first chapter's fairly linear, but with different paths for different classes, after that the game opens way up and you can explore a huge amount of Faerun. It uses the storm of zehyr skill check system, so any party member can chime in or do a skill check in conversations. It's very much a love letter to the BG games, especially the first one with it's free roaming exploration. One thing I thought was neat is areas on the overland map have a skill check of some sort to figure out what the recommended level for that area is, so you can make sure not to walk into a place you're underlevelled for. Since it's very free form, exploration, you don't get a lot of direction as where to go. You're trying to assemble pieces of an artifact and the direction is pretty vague. There's a hint guide for the locations of the pieces, so if you get stuck it's not a huge deal.
One of my favorite bits is when you bump into parties of adventurers who are trying to find you. There's some great taunts, like "Why is it that all paladins use great swords? Do you think they're compensating for something?"
Paladin without greatsword here. Also totally lacking the anatomy that "compensating for something" usually refers to
@sarevok57 Really beautiful postcards.
From what I've seen in the screenshots, the perspective seems to change several times. Does that mean the whole room is moving when your character changes direction? Like a real camera perspective?
Does that take time to get used to? I only know the perspective from BG where you see everything from a distance. I'm still far from finishing BG, anyway, but I wouldn't want to get NWN1 or 2 and then realize I can't play it because the camera perspective makes me dizzy.
@DrHappyAngry i believe i have heard of it, but i have never played it, the only other NWN 2 module that i have ever played was the IWD one, where someone remade all of IWD ( not HoW ) using the toolset, that one is actually pretty good, played it a couple of times
so with that, continued my play through a bit today until i had to go do leg day, and here is what we have so far:
after that level up, i figured it was time to go back to the yuan-ti temple and finish it off:
this fight is probably one of the hardest fights in the game, and is very difficult to do in chapter 1
but luckily, i came out the victor, that devour magic spell that the warlock gets is MVS of this battle
so after that, i thought it was time to give that musty underdark a visit:
now i was going to show a screen shot of the battle in this place, also a very difficult battle, but i forgot to since i was so "caught up in the moment" so instead here is a screenshot of a companion that will be joining me in chapter 2, and you can only get her if you defeat all the illithid scum
and 2nd last thing, the battle with a certain holmes ( when you get to that point of the game, it will make sense )
and then our last level up for chapter 1
so after this point, there was only 1 thing left to do, before chapter 1 was to be complete, and i had to wonder around for literal hours ( well maybe perhaps 1 real life hour, but damn ) and then finally, just as i was about to give up hope, "it" finally decided to show its ugly mug:
finally One of Many came by, be it was not in the ideal spot, so i helped it on it's way to a better spot:
and that completes chapter 1, off through the portal, and sword coast here we come
Paladin without greatsword here. Also totally lacking the anatomy that "compensating for something" usually refers to
@sarevok57 Really beautiful postcards.
From what I've seen in the screenshots, the perspective seems to change several times. Does that mean the whole room is moving when your character changes direction? Like a real camera perspective?
Does that take time to get used to? I only know the perspective from BG where you see everything from a distance. I'm still far from finishing BG, anyway, but I wouldn't want to get NWN1 or 2 and then realize I can't play it because the camera perspective makes me dizzy.
while i was making my previous post i saw this notification coming in hahaha
when i actually play the game, i like the BG style bird's eye view of the game, but with NWN 2 you can scroll in with the mouse to zoom in ( just like the BG EEs ) but if you hold down on the left click button, you can change the angle at which you view
so for level up screen shots i change the view so you can see the characters better, and then i just go back to bird's eye view when im ready to continue on
Paladin without greatsword here. Also totally lacking the anatomy that "compensating for something" usually refers to
@sarevok57 Really beautiful postcards.
From what I've seen in the screenshots, the perspective seems to change several times. Does that mean the whole room is moving when your character changes direction? Like a real camera perspective?
Does that take time to get used to? I only know the perspective from BG where you see everything from a distance. I'm still far from finishing BG, anyway, but I wouldn't want to get NWN1 or 2 and then realize I can't play it because the camera perspective makes me dizzy.
NWN1 will let you adjust the camera to your liking fairly easily. There are three possible camera modes, and you can choose which one you like.
NWN2 has the same three camera modes, but the default minimum camera turn speed on the options sliders for each camera mode will indeed make you dizzy, because it is so fast, even on the lowest speed, it makes the picture spin around like a centrifuge.
I find it necessary to go to the game files and make some adjustments in the .ini file there in order to make NWN2 playable. I could not even get started in that game until I learned how to do that. I always play in "Exploration" mode, so that's the place where I adjust the camera turn speed down.
It looks like maybe the current GoG version of Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete has already solved the problem - I find the camera turn speed of "1.00" to be manageable without inducing dizziness and headaches. But here's where you might find the settings. You would just change that camera turn speed to a lower value if it's turning too fast in your version of the game. I've played other versions where the .ini file had separate turn speed settings for all three camera modes, and there was a range for each one from minimum to maximum, that worked with the sliders in the in-game options. Those separate settings appear to be gone from the current GoG version, which I assume makes the in-game sliders not do anything.
The only thing that holds Neverwinter Nights 2 back from being significantly greater than it is is the control scheme. Because even when adjusted to speeds you like, it's still god-awful, and in complete juxtaposition to all the Infinty Engine games but also (especially really) how well the first game handled the same issues of movement and camera angles. It's just flat-out bad, and in my opinion nothing is more important in the end than how a game FEELS when you are playing it. And it's a credit to Neverwinter Nights 2 that it's still quite a great game anyway. But it's just completely sub-par from a control perspective.
Here is an image of the famed Cathedral of Lathander in the Blacklake District of Neverwinter:
I became a squire of the Neverwinter knight who had agreed to help us. After that, we were freed to go to Port Llast and back to Ember to investigate the destruction of that town, and to prepare a defense for my upcoming trial.
We eventually came back to Ember and discovered many clues. After descending into the town well, we found the boy who had taken Bishop's knife, and he told us that he had seen an imposter disguised as me commit the murders. Proceeding deeper into the cavern at the bottom of the well, we found goblins who agreed to give us the ring of one of the murderers after we killed some spiders for them.
After killing the spiders and obtaining the ring from the goblin chief, we made our way back up to a new place where a dryad informed us that the goblins were using a magical stone that was corrupting the land above. Although I had great sympathy for the peaceful goblin tribe, who only wanted to be left alone, I could not oppose the wishes of a dryad, or allow Nature above their cave to continue to be corrupted.
I agreed to take the magical stone from the goblins and hand it over to the dryad, who will presumably use it to heal the corruption to her grove.
While further exploring the area, we encountered many dire wolves. Eventually we found two suspicious gnomes, who attacked us when we went into their "hideout" against their wishes and discovered a dead body there. To summarize, the two gnomes were werewolves!
The gnomes, as humanoids, had been insect collectors, and they had a very vast collection of very large dead insects. We had met a giant spider in the goblin caves who had begged me for food, and had not attacked us. It seemed to be an intelligent, sentient being, so I overcame my natural aversion to spiders, especially the giant variety, and fed it. It told me it will follow us at a distance and stand ready to help us.
Back in Neverwinter, we decided to take a short break and explore Blacklake a bit before I reported back to Castle Neverwinter for my inevitable trial. We found a group of teenagers outside the crypts who seemed to be courting disaster. One of the child sisters of one of the teens who had disappeared into the crypts asked me to please save her sister.
(Okay, going into out of character shorthand, now. This side quest leads to one of the worst, suddenly and surprisingly reload-causing fights in NWN2. We went into it ready with Protection from Evil all around from Sand, and buffed to the Nine Hells. The enemy behavior of the "goth kids", shadow priests, and shadow monks here serving the King of Shadows seemed different from the last time I played - they kept blinding all of us, again and again. I had a "Blindsight" spell active, which should have countered their Blind spells, but apparently, the game engine won't let you target anyone for attack or cast any spells while Blinded. At the end, in desperation, I wound up blindly throwing all the blast globes I had gotten from Old Owl Well at the ground, that I had been saving for an encounter like this. In the end, by some miracle from Silvanus, or those blast globes, we prevailed.)
Next, we will report to Castle Neverwinter for our trial. We should have gathered enough evidence to exonerate me. (Insert ominous foreshadowing music here.)
so i just finished supper and took the doggos out, now lets see where we are...
went through the teleporter and of coarse it didnt work "properly" lolololol, so this happened:
finished that off, went to crossroad keep, and started working on the economy side of things
and shortly after that, we had some level ups and added a companion to the mix, strictly so my EL is lower so i get more XP from random baddies, heh
now usually the first thing i do when i get to the sword coast is run over to the area that has the +3 enchantment armor and +5 cloak of resistance recipe place, because those be some good upgrades
look at this ominous bookshelf, i wonder if something is up...
yup, indeed something was heh
apparently the gargoyles werent too happy with me breaking their stuff, my bad lulz
so, grabbed the goodies and on my way back i was waylaid by this guy:
a little early for my taste to be meeting up with this guy, wonder how it is going to go...
apparently pretty good, party on
so we do some more adventuring and questing and we were off to a troll cave....
first, we have a cohort level up, so thats a good start
then we meet up with the boss of this said lair
and this be the end result
and then, just when you think all is good, this happens, *sigh* good thing i have scrolls of raise dead *face palm*
so after that, i continue doing some more questing, this time helping out our old friend from the OC of NWN 2 the dwarf dude khelgar? forget his name, anyhow, apparently there is still some events from the OC happening in the sword coast so he wants me to go investigate...
so everything goes as planned, and then for some reason while on working on the wraith room my cleric lures ALL THE BADDIES into this area to make sure we are completely surrounded to help the odds of the enemy, and this is what happened *sigh*
reload 16
so, after the reload, i managed my chums a bit better so they WOULDN'T aggro the whole friggin map, and this happened instead
and then for the extra kick in the pants i charge up the little red globe thingy for thay holmes in neverwinter, 5 more to go
after that, we hand in some quests, do some exploring and get some level ups in the process ( can't wait for this not to be in order in the slightest ) ...
then we continue down nostalgia road where we take a visit to west harbor and start investigating the problems they are having there so lets see how this turned out...
not exactly a great start, gotta love failing on them disable device checks, good times, good thing i have revival scrolls oi
i continue on going through this dungeon and get to the end facing off the baddies
after i finish mopping up the floor of the dungeon's filth, i come back to west harbor and find myself doing this:
and just when you think you have one, here comes another one
and since my team is too cool for school, this happened
so, we save west harbor and we do some more quests and such, and then we get another level up
so we continue on our adventure and our economy is growing strong it seems which is good:
and then after that, we start collecting some team work feats, which i think is a very neat addition to this game:
find 3 halflings in this house, and you earn this team work feat
this feat kind of has some "easter egg" music to it, when you first arrive it has the original theme music when you would start up the game, and the battle music is the battle music theme from west harbor in the OC, kind o' neat
for this feat, you go to a cemetery just north of neverwinter and kill some assassins and voila, the feat is yours
for this next feat, we get to battle a big ol' red dragon, oo scary, who is gonna win...?
heh, piece of cake, drago down, feat acquired
so after all that fun stuff, we adventure, quest more, kill baddies more and then we get some level ups:
and then after that we meet up with a very strange group of poultry...
if you can figure out the answer to this mind boggling puzzle, you just need a dispel magic to undo their misfortune, but best part is, i didn't have a wizerd ( i guess i could have used my cleric lol woops ) so i tried devour magic, that didnt work, but voracious dispelling works instead? lol good enough, thanks for double the XP reward for some reason, ca-ching
and now its time to go get some breakfast and then after that, resume our travels
so update on the run, keeping things nice and sweet and simple:
starting with the arcane nexus orb finding thingies, in SoZ you need to find 6 of these things ( which opens up a "secret area" per se and gives you access to some of the best recipes in the game, so on our adventures we found 4 more which gives a total of 5:
two of these screen shots are in the same area, one's a before battle, and the other is after battle
and while nexus searching, we gathered some level ups on the way:
so with that i still have lots of map left to explore, and i am quite surprised at the level i am at, i think my best for the end of chapter 2 was level 19, and it looks like i might tie that again in this play through, so onwards to the never winter area and beyond woosh
alrighty, its a new day and time to continue on our journeys...
after we finish off with new leaf, we travel back to west harbor to find out that there is a cult a brewin' there ( holy jumpins, this place just can't catch a break ) anyways we go to investigate what is going on there:
after our business is finished there, we get another team work feat
and then after that we see some party level ups:
then, as we get closer to the end of chapter 2, we have a meeting at an inn and this happens:
*big time spoiler here
so at this point, the team is level 19, but EL 21, so i think to myself; can i squeeze another team work feat if i get a cohort to level 21, and the answer was:
you betcha, haha right arm
at this point i accomplished something that i have never done before, the final tier of the "exploration" team work feat ( im usually one area behind getting the "final upgrade" ) so here it is in all its glory:
and after all this time, and for the final of chapter 2 we finally catch up with the missing associates:
and as per usual it ends in a fun way hoi hoi hoi hoi hoi
and last but not least for chapter we have a level up and then its off to the final chapter
now in chapter 3 and the beginning of the end, a quick look on what it looks like when you get passed that viper temple
now comes the series of the "secret/easter egg area" of SoZ:
as soon as you step foot in the chapter 3 area, you go back to the red wizard dude in neverwinter ( if you collected 6 arcane nexus ) and he tells you that his research is complete, when doing so, there will be an extra area on the chapter 3 map, so off we go there:
then once you finish off that area you will be teleported back to the "unavailable" part of the chapter 2 map
and there is even a mini "bonus" area out here that you can find, that has some nice gems and a few cewl magic items
but the crème de la crème of this quest is this area right here:
once you go inside there, there be a bunch of "scary" fire giants, once again if im not mistaken, this can be quite a difficult fight, but since we know my guys are too cool for school, we know how that will end, and once it does, the recipe rewards are definitely worth all this trouble
so, after we finish all that stuff, upgrade or cewl i-tams, we set off into the chapter 3 map, with fights looking like this:
and then you can find areas like this:
and then par for the coarse, some more level ups:
we are getting closer to the end, but there is still a few things that need to be done first....
hookay, so we have a lot to go over apparently, so get ready for an album full
first things first, just another random battle in chapter 3 for the lerz
and then we stumble upon some spooky looking tower thingy
now dont be fooled, this place is the real deal, no doubt on the top 5 easily for being one of the hardest parts in the game
here are a couple of screens of the entrance as soon as you walk in, to give you a feel of whats going to be going on here
and then on the next floor, you fight against some powerful undead baddies that explode into fireballs when slain, but if you are lucky they will drop rubies when slain, so this is basically your last chance for making them awesome rings of fire protection if you still need be
okay, now this is where the real deal comes in, this battle right here is probably top 3 when it comes to hardest fights in the game, so lets see how that goes
i think this is the first time ever, that i won this fight without having anyone perish in battle ever, perhaps everyone being a yuan-ti really helped with all that sexy spell resistance perhaps? anywho, all these items, are +4 items, with a ring of the divine (5) - giving priests and extra level 5 spell slot -
okay so with that out of the way we find another area in chapter 3
now the thing about this area, is that there is actually a secret in here, when you first glance around, it seems like there is nothing in here, but if you SEARCH in the right spot, you will find some goodies
ah, now is the time that I'VE been waiting for, remember way back a couple of posts ago there was a monstrosity named "One of Many"? well now is its time to shine...
so the thing is here, you can sacrifice your cohorts to thing guy and not only will you gain 250 x their level in XP but if you are evil you will gain progressively stronger auras as well, so with that being said, its time to get some XPs and evil aura action - the one that didnt specify a name was Chir, i forgot to make the dialogue box bigger -
now just to keep the screen shots down, so you finish your special quest with One of Many, and then this happens
ah, as per usual a fight ensues, i wonder who is going to victorious?
now to be fair, i do believe that this fight is supposed to be damn hard, but at this point of the game with top tier gear and being higher in level than the game intended, it was easy as pie
now something that is neat with this specific baddie, is that depending on what difficulty setting you are playing on, determines what item it drops, and since i am playing on the hardest difficulty setting, this is the item that it drops
so with that being said, there is nothing left to do except for the final temple area
and throughout this session i was growing up levels like a BAWSS, i didnt post all these because they were happening so fast and not much was changing, but now, here are my final item/level results, if im lucky i might grow up one more level at best, but basically from here on in, these will be my characters until the end
items worn:
scarab of +4 natural armor/ +2 to all saves
cloak of +4 deflection AC/ +5 to all saves
gloves of dexterity +6
ring of fire resistance 30/ acid resistance 10
ring of resistance +3
headband of intellect +6
grey robe of the archmagi
belt of strength +6/ sonic and cold resistance 10
boots of con +6/ dodge AC +4/ electric resistance 10
kukri +3, +2d6 holy damage, +3 vampiric regeneration ( x2 )
items worn:
periapt of wis +6, +4 nat armor
cloak of res +5, +4 deflect AC
gloves of dex +6, +2d6 holy damage, +3 to hit/to damage with fisties
ring of fire res 30, acid res 10
ring of res +3
cohort's mask that gives continual freedom of movement
robe of +4 AC
belt of str +6, sonic and cold res 10
boots of con +6, +4 dodge AC, electric res 10
items worn:
periapt of wis +6, +4 nat armor
cloak of res +5, +4 deflect AC
gloves of dex +6
ring of fire res 30, acid res 10
ring of res +2
wizard hat ( +2 concentration check bonus )
mithril full plate +4
belt of str +6, sonic and cold res 10
boots of con +6, +4 dodge AC, electric res 10
longbow +3, deadly criticals, +2d6 holy damage
arrows of piercing/acid/sonic damage ( 1d6 each )
items worn:
scarab of +4 natural armor/ +2 to all saves
cloak of +4 deflection AC/ +5 to all saves
gloves of dexterity +6
ring of acid res 30, fire res 10
ring of res +2
cohort hat of +10 HP and improved evasion
mithril breast plate +4
belt of str +6, sonic and cold res 10
boots of con +6, +4 dodge AC, electric res 10
onyx spear +3 ( deadly criticals, keen )
so yesterday i finished the game, have whole schwack load of screen shots, so i will do them in groups of 3 ( to not overload some people's internet )
and that is SoZ, not going to spoil the ending, because the ending in this game is actually kind of neat, so i will leave that for the people who want to find that stuff out on their own
@sarevok57 , that was interesting. And thank you for not spoiling the end, because I can never not look when somebody writes "there be spoilers".
Is SoZ an extension that's played separately, or do you proceed there directly from the main game?
The screenshots of all the NWN games that I have seen so far look so beautiful. I guess I have to try to speed up my BG run a bit. Though I could certainly live without full screen spiders *shudder*
@BelgarathMTH , what about you? Aren't you going to continue posting, or have you succumbed to restartitis and started to play another game?
I'd like to read more!
@Arvia , kind of the second thing, sorry to say. Playing a druid here got me to hankering to level a new druid in that notorious time sink, World of Warcraft, so that's what I've been playing the past couple of days. I might come back to this run eventually, but I can't make any promises. So, my apologies to anyone who was following.
@Arvia SoZ is its own game, where you start at level "1" and then the game will boost you up to level 3 while you are on the ship getting your team together
@BelgarathMTH, I’m super glad I came back to the forums to discover that you’ve embarked upon a NWN2 no-reload. Great game, and reading this has brought back great memories. You, sir, are a true gem of a chronicler. Cheers.
Also, agree with you on four-legged family members. Riff Raff (a photo of which is my avatar picture) was a rescue. We’re still trying to determine, years later, who rescued who.
@DrHappyAngry i believe i have heard of it, but i have never played it, the only other NWN 2 module that i have ever played was the IWD one, where someone remade all of IWD ( not HoW ) using the toolset, that one is actually pretty good, played it a couple of times
Oh, snap! A bit of a plug for some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had outside of official releases. There are some really wicked good modules that exist for NWN2, some of them exceeding the OC, in my opinion. Path of Evil is largely considered on par with that statement.
Here are a few samples from my experience The Maimed God’s Saga is the finest module I’ve ever played. It’s the very capstone module for cleric role-play, in my opinion, and easily exceeds some of the best immersion experiences I’ve ever had in a video game. A Fairy Tale by Tsongo. Wow, what a fun ride that was too. Harp and Chrysanthemum, the Wizard’s Apprentice series...wow, good memories.
NWN2 offered me some very exceptional experiences over the last decade plus (can’t believe I’m saying that...). NWN1 gets a lot of the glory, and honestly, rightly so. Anyone who has experienced The Aielund Saga or Adam Miller’s work (to name just TWO legendary series’ of which there are hundreds more) knows that some of the stand alone work from the community generated some fantastic contributions for gaming (and that’s not even touching on the exceptional PW scene that still exists...mad props to Beamdog for rekindling even more of that). NWN2, though lacking in numbers and scope compared to NWN1, did have some fantastic artistic contributions from the community. If you do decide to delve into that scene someday, @sarevok57, I suspect you will find some golden nuggets you’d enjoy too.
@EnialusMeliamne , I love your kitty photo. Maybe it takes another cat lover to fully appreciate how and why I enjoy roleplaying my druids with their panther animal companions so much. I've left off on my run here for now, but I'm glad you enjoyed my role-played adventure through the first part of the game.
You people make me feel kind of envious that I've never had a pet animal. Except for the goats when I was a kid (unfortunately I was not allowed to bring them into the house ) I bet goats would make really cool animal companions, they're incredibly smart and fun. But I think I would be afraid to take an animal companion into battle.
Doesn't it worry you, even if it's just a game, to send your cat into a fight?
Comments
Also, from this point on in the story, there will be increasingly huge spoilers for all the twists and turns in this game. I really don't want to spoil things for any of the few people reading about this run who might want to play their own run of Neverwinter Nights 2.
Since I'm apparently in the mood lately more for story, party, character development, and roleplay, over tactical challenge, I am wondering if I should finally give Planescape:Torment a chance. I've never played it, because I usually really don't like "talky, talky" games, but I might reconsider and at least give PS:T a chance eventually, especially if anyone cares to encourage me to do so.
I'd say that Neverwinter Nights 2 probably resembles Dragon Age: Origins, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, more than it does Baldur's Gate. I've needed no reloads on Core Rules, but I'm not sure that's really all that much of an accomplishment, really.
Anyway, tonight I *finally* got admitted to Blacklake to talk to Aldanon after clearing a house near the warehouses of the Merchant District of githyanki invaders. There was a portal in there where a steel golem came through, but it attacked the githyanki as well as us, making it more clear, if it wasn't by now, that there is more than one enemy faction that we are dealing with in this story.
We visited Aldanon, and went to the Neverwinter Archives at his advice. There, after a lot of fighting with the githyanki and solving several puzzles, we received a "courtesy teleport" out to Shandra Jerro's farm. We rescued her from still more githyanki, and went back to Uncle Duncan's inn in Neverwinter. There, even more githyanki attacked and kidnapped Shandra. Duncan seemingly used some kind of blackmail to force a ranger named Bishop into our party, and now we have to let him help us track Shandra's kidnappers.
I guess I could maybe post a few screenshots of notable fights during these updates.
I took a lot of screenshots of my conversation with Aldanon, in case I wanted to do more of a roleplayed report, but, eh.
Anyhoo, that's about where I am in the game for tonight. We made level 11.
Or are they searching for the same one in BG2?
And I wonder how people would fight with such a huge shield in real life. Looks like running around with a door in your hand
I can't say anything about Planescape Torment because I haven't played it for more than an hour or something, some 15 years ago. I just couldn't identify with the protagonist.
Edited: Just out of pure curiosity, when was the last time that you actually finished a game?
The fact that this particular one is broken into many shards is very important to the story of NWN2, kind of central to the story, actually, and there are many more reveals about what's up with that coming.
I very rarely have the attention span to stick with one game all the way to the end. I almost always start hankering to start a new character in a new game before I can finish whatever one I'm doing. NWN2 is one that often keeps me engaged all the way to end, because I really like playing through the story, but I rarely carry over into Mask of the Betrayer, and I've never finished Mask of the Betrayer. A lot of people have told me I really should, since I like stories, and supposedly the story of Mask of the Betrayer is one of the best game stories ever written, according to these same people, but it makes you involuntarily a creature that resembles a vampire at the beginning, with a "spirit-eater" mechanic where you have to consume soul energy throughout the game, or else repress the craving while it makes you weaker and weaker, and I have a really hard time enjoying a game where I'm forced to play that.
oh well hopefully NOW they will start saving
so, so far:
i made my team x4 yuan-ti purebloods, which i find kind of fitting for the setting of this campaign
best part is; they are EL +2 so that means, its going to be a bit hurtin at the start....
so the class set ups are as follows:
main holmes
Rogue
Swashbuckler
Fighter
Duelist
secondary holmette
monk
third holmette
Fighter
Cleric
last holmetter
warlock ( might eventually do hellfire )
alrighty so thats the team, lets go see how we do
so the first area you start in wasn't too bad, had to do a reload because at the last "wave" of baddies i accidentally let 2 of the ship wreck survivors perish, so i had to do a reload to get the "protector" feat
reloads: 1
then we get skewed off to the city, grab some gold, get a couple of weapons, have some cohorts join us just so they can wait at the inn ( this will be a 4 person group only, no cohorts will join, at least not permanently ) and set off to the ship wreck to gather clues
on the way, i tried my luck with some baddies, and hahaha, was getting wasted, you know you are in trouble when KOBOLDS are considered a challenging encounter, but hey, no sweat, so i believed a group of fire newts wiped me out, a group of gnolls destroyed me, but everything else was pretty good, made it to the ship wreck and now i was level 3
reloads: 3
the ship wreck area was pretty much no sweat, everything went by quite smoothly, got the evidence killed the baddies, grabbed the resources, headed back to town, on my way back, i thought; hmm, i wonder if i can take out some of the patrol guards...... in short, hell no, got wiped quite good, so back to town i went...
reloads: 5
gave sa'sani the goods and now it was time to head back to a batiri cave where the ship captain was held captive, so off i went, and by now i believe i am level 4 ( EL 6 ) and things are going a little bit smoother... luckily the cave battle wasnt all that bad and i saved the halfling captain, on my way back to town, GROUPS of batiri were appearing on the overworld map and i thought; hah, no sweat, well the first group for whatever reason was, but the 2nd group was doing me in, holy that 2nd group take a million tries before i finally won, but anways back to town....
reloads: 10
made it back to town, talked to sa'sani and went to the inn to do the captain's quest, now at this point i believe i am level 5.... i think i also gave volo his talking parrot for the extra XP by this point, so anyways, went back to the ship wreck, cleared out the cave area ( which went over very well ) and killed the big piggy for val... something er rather's quest, did some random battles, *accidentally* killed some patrol guards for a couple sexy peripets of wisdom +2, handed in the quests, let halfling captain join my team by chilling at the inn and finally hit level 6 where i can finally craft arms and armor, and since i've only been buying healers kits i had lots of money, not my monk is taking names, and my "rogue" type character actually has some AC, so now its off to explore land and see what happens...
Level 6 ( EL 8 )
Reloads: 10
We have followed the ranger Bishop along the trail of the githyanki who kidnapped Shandra, and the trail has led us through the town of Ember, which was overrun by githyanki. Most of the villagers are dead. We killed the githyanki still here, and questioned a terrified villager who said that she knew Shandra as a trader through their village, and that Shandra had definitely been carried through the village and taken further north, towards the nearby mountain. We met a boy child survivor who asked Bishop for a knife he saw on Bishop's belt to protect himself against a future attack.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that this ranger is quite evil, and completely dominated by the dark side of the Balance. He blurted out that he thought that the female villager who gave us information deserved to die because she was "weak"; he has said he thinks this entire village deserved to die because they were *all* weak; and he refused to give the poor boy child his cheap, non-magical skinning knife so the poor, frightened child could at least think he might defend himself. I insisted that Bishop give it over to the boy, and I had to make an implied threat to force this handsome but dark ranger to comply. I will have no choice but to detach this frighteningly dark-side dominated, rugged man from our party as soon as we have rescued Shandra from the githyanki. (And I am really going to have to repress my increasing attraction to this alpha-male. Sigh. I wish my mating instincts didn't constantly lead me into disastrous relationships with such alpha-males. Silvanus, protect me from myself, my god!)
We proceeded to the mountain, where we encountered heavy githyanki resistance, but it was nothing we couldn't handle. We made our way to a cave in the mountain where they appeared to have established a headquarters for their incursions onto our plane.
Inside, we defeated a chieftain gith who seemed to want to deliver a "villain's monologue" before he attacked. He revealed that he was the direct lieutenant of the Zeeaire I have been seeing in my vision dreams from Silvanus. He was also rather bafflingly willing to "chat" with me about gith lore, as if I hadn't already known all of that. I let him speak, hoping that he might reveal still more information, but in the end, as expected, we had to fight. I believe I had seen this same gith chieftain in one of my Dreams, when my party had first arrived in Neverwinter. They were no match for us.
A short distance further into the gith caves, we saw yet another man from my visions - the warlock with the spider tattoo who was murdering Neverwinter nobles in Blacklake! And, it became clear he commands demons, succubi, and imps, and that he was having his minions attack this very gith base, apparently looking for something possessed by the gith.
We fought through the succubi and imps attacking the gith. The demons were much more of a threat than the gith, who gladly swung at us more than the demons trying to kill them all. (Succubi should be much more of a threat in this game - they cast Charm, but in NWN2, it only acts basically as a "Hold" effect. Charmed party members do not attack other party members in this game. I think it would be better as a tactical game if they did.)
We found several succubi trying to "torture" the same steel golem that had attacked us back in Neverwinter, and we killed them, then made a mental note to come back and collect the now dormant golem and drag it back to Uncle Duncan's inn later, in case it could be converted to our use later. Then, we found another group of succubi torturing a devil in front of some kind of arcane barrier.
(For those without enough lore to know, demons are chaotic evil, and devils are lawful evil in the D&D world. Demons are horrible monsters, who delight in fire, chaos, torture, pain, and destruction, and every other word out of their mouths is a lie. Devils are pretty monstrous as well, but if they try to promise something or make a contract, they will abide by it, and you can count on it that they will adhere to the literal letter of their word. The trouble is, of course, that they will attempt to create loopholes to destroy you in every word of such contracts, negotiations, or agreements. I guess they're similar to genies in that regard.)
We killed the succubi, and this devil wanted to make a deal with us. The arcane barrier barring our way was something he was generating by his own diabolical power, but he was being forced to do so by the demons, or perhaps by the warlock with the spider tattoo. He was ... evasive... with any information he had. But, he so wanted to escape his imprisonment, he was willing to give us his "true name" so we could banish him back to Hell, in order to escape, and he was willing to trust that we were "lawful" enough to keep our word that we wouldn't do anything with his true name but to free him, so that he could dismiss the arcane barrier. His name was "Mephasm". After we agreed to his terms, and spoke the words "We banish you to Hell, Mephasm", he dismissed the barrier, and promised us that we would meet again, before teleporting out with a "BAMF" and a sulfurous cloud of black smoke and fire. I hope we don't regret this "deal with the Devil".
Behind the barrier, we encountered a demon who seemed proud to tell us his name is Zaxis, and to describe in great detail during the fight all the ways he planned to make us suffer long before he killed us by stripping the flesh off our bones, then slowly eating us limb from limb while his acid aura increased our pain. It was the stuff of horror movies. However, while he was verbally painting these visions of Horror for us, he failed to notice that we are quite powerful, and that we were hacking his body to pieces. I almost wanted to laugh when he said the last time, "and I will listen to your screams of agony for years while I.... grryurghll... Don't think this is the last you will hear of Zaxis foolish mortals!", and then "Bamf'd" out before we could utterly destroy him. Infernal creatures always seem to do that. If Silvanus ever gives me the power, I'd like to just go down to the infernal planes and finally finish off a few of these villainous creatures, if it won't upset the Balance!
This demon master seemed to have been the last obstacle to the final gith chamber in here.
Inside, we at last encountered the female gith overlord I had seen in my visions, Zeeaire
(There are quite a few huge story spoilers in this encounter that I think I won't roleplay in writing, just to decrease the risk of any unwanted spoilers not wanted by any future players of this game.)
(This fight is one where you have to destroy several barriers to get to the "boss". That can be frustrating in NWN games, because the AI keeps pulling party members off of "bashing" commands to get them to fight weak enemies, while you're trying to prioritize "bashing" the barriers. So, I always just focus on bashing the barriers to the "boss" myself in these encounters in NWN games, while my party just does whatever their AI tells them to keep fighting other enemies. )
We have now been forced to destroy Zeeaire and her entire githyanki army. It makes me very sad that she forced us to do that. I think we could have worked together. Before she died, she grudgingly admitted that they were after a much greater power than me, my party, and my silver sword shards. In fact, it seems the gith wanted these shards to fight the greater evil that is coming. I am now more certain than ever that our ultimate enemy is the King of Shadows, and that the destroyed gith silver sword shards I carry are the key to defeating him. But what that has to do with the warlock with the spider tattoo, or Black Garius, I am still not sure. I must assume they are both in league with the King of Shadows.
We freed Shandra from her cage, and traveled back to safety at Duncan's Inn.
Back in Neverwinter, Shandra agreed to let us train her to fight better to defend herself, so that she will not be so constantly in need of rescue from the many dark forces we fight. She has insisted on traveling with our party from now on. She is the Jerro descendant we need, who can get us into the Jerro Haven that the mage Aldanon told us about. So, she will indeed be traveling with our party for the forseeable future.
A Neverwinter official has come to the inn and informed me that I stand accused by a Luskan emissary of personally slaughtering the entire population of Ember! I stand falsely accused of a most heinous crime! I have been forbidden to leave Neverwinter. But, this official has suggested that I might stand a chance by appealing for "high justice" through the Neverwinter courts rather than the "low justice" of the Luskans, which would allow them to execute me without a trial. In order to appeal for Neverwinter "high justice", I must squire myself to a Neverwinter knight who is waiting for me in Captain Brelaina's Greycloak headquarters in the merchant district. I am very uncomfortable with the idea of "squiring" myself to a Neverwinter knight, but I seem to have little choice. Silvanus, bless me and keep me, in the Balance.
Reloads: 0
Party Level: 11
But your druid is definitely not a Vulcan. Couldn't you at least have included a good screenshot of that ranger? *snicker*
and for those of you who haven't played SoZ, a screenshot of the main town in the first chapter, just bringing in the majesty of how much better looking NWN 2 is over NWN 1
so, on my travels i find a not so friendly fire giant roaming around...
lets see how that fight went...
reloads: 11
next i find a group of wyverns
i wonder how this is going to turn out...
while doing some more exploring and XP grabbing this happened along the way:
reloads: 12
so we do some more adventuring, and such, and now its time for a level up:
and then we do even more heroic adventuring and bad guy killin, and then we grow up another level:
now at level 8 its time to rematch our fire giant bully, so how well did we fare this time?
reloads: 13
ah, thats better, dead giant with alive party members
a couple of screen shots of doing some questing battles, one of them has me pitting against a djinni and some air elementals, another against a bunch of fire newts to get a great axe for the tiefling's guard buddy
and then its time to take a trip to your friendly neighbor hood underdark black market to "procure" some items
and then we adventure some more for some more level ups, yum
level 10
then we happen to stumble upon a snake temple looking for a fragment for volo
hand in the fragment and then we find a hidden cave behind a water fall, what goodies lay in wait i wonder?
quick check on our resources seeing how the trade bar steam is going...
and then we go off dinosaur hunting for volo, so he can try out some of them dino steak, yum yum
so ends that play through and today its off to the gnome lumber camp ....
Level: 10 ( EL 12 )
Reloads: 15
When the forum refuses to upload an image, it can mean you've already uploaded one with the same name. So, sometimes changing the name of your image file will solve the problem.
https://www.nexusmods.com/neverwinter2/mods/18?tab=description
Looks like it just got some updates recently, too.
It's a mod set after the events of NWN2, where you're the bad guy. The first chapter's fairly linear, but with different paths for different classes, after that the game opens way up and you can explore a huge amount of Faerun. It uses the storm of zehyr skill check system, so any party member can chime in or do a skill check in conversations. It's very much a love letter to the BG games, especially the first one with it's free roaming exploration. One thing I thought was neat is areas on the overland map have a skill check of some sort to figure out what the recommended level for that area is, so you can make sure not to walk into a place you're underlevelled for. Since it's very free form, exploration, you don't get a lot of direction as where to go. You're trying to assemble pieces of an artifact and the direction is pretty vague. There's a hint guide for the locations of the pieces, so if you get stuck it's not a huge deal.
One of my favorite bits is when you bump into parties of adventurers who are trying to find you. There's some great taunts, like "Why is it that all paladins use great swords? Do you think they're compensating for something?"
@sarevok57 Really beautiful postcards.
From what I've seen in the screenshots, the perspective seems to change several times. Does that mean the whole room is moving when your character changes direction? Like a real camera perspective?
Does that take time to get used to? I only know the perspective from BG where you see everything from a distance. I'm still far from finishing BG, anyway, but I wouldn't want to get NWN1 or 2 and then realize I can't play it because the camera perspective makes me dizzy.
so with that, continued my play through a bit today until i had to go do leg day, and here is what we have so far:
after that level up, i figured it was time to go back to the yuan-ti temple and finish it off:
but luckily, i came out the victor, that devour magic spell that the warlock gets is MVS of this battle
so after that, i thought it was time to give that musty underdark a visit:
and 2nd last thing, the battle with a certain holmes ( when you get to that point of the game, it will make sense )
and then our last level up for chapter 1
so after this point, there was only 1 thing left to do, before chapter 1 was to be complete, and i had to wonder around for literal hours ( well maybe perhaps 1 real life hour, but damn ) and then finally, just as i was about to give up hope, "it" finally decided to show its ugly mug:
finally One of Many came by, be it was not in the ideal spot, so i helped it on it's way to a better spot:
and that completes chapter 1, off through the portal, and sword coast here we come
Party Level: 12 ( EL 14 )
Reloads: 15
while i was making my previous post i saw this notification coming in hahaha
when i actually play the game, i like the BG style bird's eye view of the game, but with NWN 2 you can scroll in with the mouse to zoom in ( just like the BG EEs ) but if you hold down on the left click button, you can change the angle at which you view
so for level up screen shots i change the view so you can see the characters better, and then i just go back to bird's eye view when im ready to continue on
NWN1 will let you adjust the camera to your liking fairly easily. There are three possible camera modes, and you can choose which one you like.
NWN2 has the same three camera modes, but the default minimum camera turn speed on the options sliders for each camera mode will indeed make you dizzy, because it is so fast, even on the lowest speed, it makes the picture spin around like a centrifuge.
I find it necessary to go to the game files and make some adjustments in the .ini file there in order to make NWN2 playable. I could not even get started in that game until I learned how to do that. I always play in "Exploration" mode, so that's the place where I adjust the camera turn speed down.
It looks like maybe the current GoG version of Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete has already solved the problem - I find the camera turn speed of "1.00" to be manageable without inducing dizziness and headaches. But here's where you might find the settings. You would just change that camera turn speed to a lower value if it's turning too fast in your version of the game. I've played other versions where the .ini file had separate turn speed settings for all three camera modes, and there was a range for each one from minimum to maximum, that worked with the sliders in the in-game options. Those separate settings appear to be gone from the current GoG version, which I assume makes the in-game sliders not do anything.
Here is an image of the famed Cathedral of Lathander in the Blacklake District of Neverwinter:
I became a squire of the Neverwinter knight who had agreed to help us. After that, we were freed to go to Port Llast and back to Ember to investigate the destruction of that town, and to prepare a defense for my upcoming trial.
We eventually came back to Ember and discovered many clues. After descending into the town well, we found the boy who had taken Bishop's knife, and he told us that he had seen an imposter disguised as me commit the murders. Proceeding deeper into the cavern at the bottom of the well, we found goblins who agreed to give us the ring of one of the murderers after we killed some spiders for them.
After killing the spiders and obtaining the ring from the goblin chief, we made our way back up to a new place where a dryad informed us that the goblins were using a magical stone that was corrupting the land above. Although I had great sympathy for the peaceful goblin tribe, who only wanted to be left alone, I could not oppose the wishes of a dryad, or allow Nature above their cave to continue to be corrupted.
I agreed to take the magical stone from the goblins and hand it over to the dryad, who will presumably use it to heal the corruption to her grove.
While further exploring the area, we encountered many dire wolves. Eventually we found two suspicious gnomes, who attacked us when we went into their "hideout" against their wishes and discovered a dead body there. To summarize, the two gnomes were werewolves!
The gnomes, as humanoids, had been insect collectors, and they had a very vast collection of very large dead insects. We had met a giant spider in the goblin caves who had begged me for food, and had not attacked us. It seemed to be an intelligent, sentient being, so I overcame my natural aversion to spiders, especially the giant variety, and fed it. It told me it will follow us at a distance and stand ready to help us.
Back in Neverwinter, we decided to take a short break and explore Blacklake a bit before I reported back to Castle Neverwinter for my inevitable trial. We found a group of teenagers outside the crypts who seemed to be courting disaster. One of the child sisters of one of the teens who had disappeared into the crypts asked me to please save her sister.
(Okay, going into out of character shorthand, now. This side quest leads to one of the worst, suddenly and surprisingly reload-causing fights in NWN2. We went into it ready with Protection from Evil all around from Sand, and buffed to the Nine Hells. The enemy behavior of the "goth kids", shadow priests, and shadow monks here serving the King of Shadows seemed different from the last time I played - they kept blinding all of us, again and again. I had a "Blindsight" spell active, which should have countered their Blind spells, but apparently, the game engine won't let you target anyone for attack or cast any spells while Blinded. At the end, in desperation, I wound up blindly throwing all the blast globes I had gotten from Old Owl Well at the ground, that I had been saving for an encounter like this. In the end, by some miracle from Silvanus, or those blast globes, we prevailed.)
Next, we will report to Castle Neverwinter for our trial. We should have gathered enough evidence to exonerate me. (Insert ominous foreshadowing music here.)
Reloads: 0
Party Level: 12
so i just finished supper and took the doggos out, now lets see where we are...
went through the teleporter and of coarse it didnt work "properly" lolololol, so this happened:
finished that off, went to crossroad keep, and started working on the economy side of things
and shortly after that, we had some level ups and added a companion to the mix, strictly so my EL is lower so i get more XP from random baddies, heh
now usually the first thing i do when i get to the sword coast is run over to the area that has the +3 enchantment armor and +5 cloak of resistance recipe place, because those be some good upgrades
yup, indeed something was heh
apparently the gargoyles werent too happy with me breaking their stuff, my bad lulz
so, grabbed the goodies and on my way back i was waylaid by this guy:
apparently pretty good, party on
so we do some more adventuring and questing and we were off to a troll cave....
then we meet up with the boss of this said lair
and this be the end result
and then, just when you think all is good, this happens, *sigh* good thing i have scrolls of raise dead *face palm*
so after that, i continue doing some more questing, this time helping out our old friend from the OC of NWN 2 the dwarf dude khelgar? forget his name, anyhow, apparently there is still some events from the OC happening in the sword coast so he wants me to go investigate...
reload 16
so, after the reload, i managed my chums a bit better so they WOULDN'T aggro the whole friggin map, and this happened instead
and then for the extra kick in the pants i charge up the little red globe thingy for thay holmes in neverwinter, 5 more to go
after that, we hand in some quests, do some exploring and get some level ups in the process ( can't wait for this not to be in order in the slightest ) ...
then we continue down nostalgia road where we take a visit to west harbor and start investigating the problems they are having there so lets see how this turned out...
i continue on going through this dungeon and get to the end facing off the baddies
after i finish mopping up the floor of the dungeon's filth, i come back to west harbor and find myself doing this:
and just when you think you have one, here comes another one
and since my team is too cool for school, this happened
so, we save west harbor and we do some more quests and such, and then we get another level up
and now its time to get back in and keep questing
Party level: 15 ( EL 17 )
Reloads: 16
and then after that, we start collecting some team work feats, which i think is a very neat addition to this game:
this feat kind of has some "easter egg" music to it, when you first arrive it has the original theme music when you would start up the game, and the battle music is the battle music theme from west harbor in the OC, kind o' neat
for this feat, you go to a cemetery just north of neverwinter and kill some assassins and voila, the feat is yours
for this next feat, we get to battle a big ol' red dragon, oo scary, who is gonna win...?
heh, piece of cake, drago down, feat acquired
so after all that fun stuff, we adventure, quest more, kill baddies more and then we get some level ups:
and then after that we meet up with a very strange group of poultry...
if you can figure out the answer to this mind boggling puzzle, you just need a dispel magic to undo their misfortune, but best part is, i didn't have a wizerd ( i guess i could have used my cleric lol woops ) so i tried devour magic, that didnt work, but voracious dispelling works instead? lol good enough, thanks for double the XP reward for some reason, ca-ching
and now its time to go get some breakfast and then after that, resume our travels
Party Level: 16 ( EL 18 )
Reloads: 16
Ha, they are both the same, neat
starting with the arcane nexus orb finding thingies, in SoZ you need to find 6 of these things ( which opens up a "secret area" per se and gives you access to some of the best recipes in the game, so on our adventures we found 4 more which gives a total of 5:
and while nexus searching, we gathered some level ups on the way:
so with that i still have lots of map left to explore, and i am quite surprised at the level i am at, i think my best for the end of chapter 2 was level 19, and it looks like i might tie that again in this play through, so onwards to the never winter area and beyond woosh
Party Level: 17 ( EL 19 )
Reloads: 16
we started by getting another team work feat:
then we find an onyx cave and wiped out the baddies in there
then we found a hermit cave which holds the only ONE potion of heal in SoZ
and then of coarse as RPGs go, level ups come as well
and then we found a big bad baddy on our travels:
thought as such, hoi hoi hoi hoi hoi
after battling that big baddie we find a secret brotherhood house:
fortunate for me though, my team is straight thuggin', and coincidentally there is arcane do-hickey number 6, so i will soak that up *slurp*
so after doing that place, it was time to hand in the final arcane nexus what-not
and then it was off to luskan, the town of many troubles it seems, seriously these guys never get a break:
after finishing my business there, it was time to help out new leaf and their bandit problem, and in no particular order here is how it went down:
so with that finished, there is just a few things to tie up in the sword coast, and then that will complete chapter 2, off we go....
Party Level: 18 ( EL 20 )
Reloads: 16
after we finish off with new leaf, we travel back to west harbor to find out that there is a cult a brewin' there ( holy jumpins, this place just can't catch a break ) anyways we go to investigate what is going on there:
after our business is finished there, we get another team work feat
and then after that we see some party level ups:
then, as we get closer to the end of chapter 2, we have a meeting at an inn and this happens:
*big time spoiler here
so at this point, the team is level 19, but EL 21, so i think to myself; can i squeeze another team work feat if i get a cohort to level 21, and the answer was:
at this point i accomplished something that i have never done before, the final tier of the "exploration" team work feat ( im usually one area behind getting the "final upgrade" ) so here it is in all its glory:
and after all this time, and for the final of chapter 2 we finally catch up with the missing associates:
and last but not least for chapter we have a level up and then its off to the final chapter
now in chapter 3 and the beginning of the end, a quick look on what it looks like when you get passed that viper temple
now comes the series of the "secret/easter egg area" of SoZ:
then once you finish off that area you will be teleported back to the "unavailable" part of the chapter 2 map
and there is even a mini "bonus" area out here that you can find, that has some nice gems and a few cewl magic items
but the crème de la crème of this quest is this area right here:
once you go inside there, there be a bunch of "scary" fire giants, once again if im not mistaken, this can be quite a difficult fight, but since we know my guys are too cool for school, we know how that will end, and once it does, the recipe rewards are definitely worth all this trouble
so, after we finish all that stuff, upgrade or cewl i-tams, we set off into the chapter 3 map, with fights looking like this:
and then you can find areas like this:
and then par for the coarse, some more level ups:
we are getting closer to the end, but there is still a few things that need to be done first....
Party Level 20/9 ( EL 22/12 )
Reloads: 16
first things first, just another random battle in chapter 3 for the lerz
and then we stumble upon some spooky looking tower thingy
here are a couple of screens of the entrance as soon as you walk in, to give you a feel of whats going to be going on here
and then on the next floor, you fight against some powerful undead baddies that explode into fireballs when slain, but if you are lucky they will drop rubies when slain, so this is basically your last chance for making them awesome rings of fire protection if you still need be
okay, now this is where the real deal comes in, this battle right here is probably top 3 when it comes to hardest fights in the game, so lets see how that goes
i think this is the first time ever, that i won this fight without having anyone perish in battle ever, perhaps everyone being a yuan-ti really helped with all that sexy spell resistance perhaps? anywho, all these items, are +4 items, with a ring of the divine (5) - giving priests and extra level 5 spell slot -
okay so with that out of the way we find another area in chapter 3
now the thing about this area, is that there is actually a secret in here, when you first glance around, it seems like there is nothing in here, but if you SEARCH in the right spot, you will find some goodies
ah, now is the time that I'VE been waiting for, remember way back a couple of posts ago there was a monstrosity named "One of Many"? well now is its time to shine...
now just to keep the screen shots down, so you finish your special quest with One of Many, and then this happens
now to be fair, i do believe that this fight is supposed to be damn hard, but at this point of the game with top tier gear and being higher in level than the game intended, it was easy as pie
now something that is neat with this specific baddie, is that depending on what difficulty setting you are playing on, determines what item it drops, and since i am playing on the hardest difficulty setting, this is the item that it drops
so with that being said, there is nothing left to do except for the final temple area
and throughout this session i was growing up levels like a BAWSS, i didnt post all these because they were happening so fast and not much was changing, but now, here are my final item/level results, if im lucky i might grow up one more level at best, but basically from here on in, these will be my characters until the end
scarab of +4 natural armor/ +2 to all saves
cloak of +4 deflection AC/ +5 to all saves
gloves of dexterity +6
ring of fire resistance 30/ acid resistance 10
ring of resistance +3
headband of intellect +6
grey robe of the archmagi
belt of strength +6/ sonic and cold resistance 10
boots of con +6/ dodge AC +4/ electric resistance 10
kukri +3, +2d6 holy damage, +3 vampiric regeneration ( x2 )
items worn:
periapt of wis +6, +4 nat armor
cloak of res +5, +4 deflect AC
gloves of dex +6, +2d6 holy damage, +3 to hit/to damage with fisties
ring of fire res 30, acid res 10
ring of res +3
cohort's mask that gives continual freedom of movement
robe of +4 AC
belt of str +6, sonic and cold res 10
boots of con +6, +4 dodge AC, electric res 10
items worn:
periapt of wis +6, +4 nat armor
cloak of res +5, +4 deflect AC
gloves of dex +6
ring of fire res 30, acid res 10
ring of res +2
wizard hat ( +2 concentration check bonus )
mithril full plate +4
belt of str +6, sonic and cold res 10
boots of con +6, +4 dodge AC, electric res 10
longbow +3, deadly criticals, +2d6 holy damage
arrows of piercing/acid/sonic damage ( 1d6 each )
items worn:
scarab of +4 natural armor/ +2 to all saves
cloak of +4 deflection AC/ +5 to all saves
gloves of dexterity +6
ring of acid res 30, fire res 10
ring of res +2
cohort hat of +10 HP and improved evasion
mithril breast plate +4
belt of str +6, sonic and cold res 10
boots of con +6, +4 dodge AC, electric res 10
onyx spear +3 ( deadly criticals, keen )
and now, it is time for the final event...?
Party Level: 23 ( EL 25 )
Reloads: 16
and that is SoZ, not going to spoil the ending, because the ending in this game is actually kind of neat, so i will leave that for the people who want to find that stuff out on their own
Is SoZ an extension that's played separately, or do you proceed there directly from the main game?
The screenshots of all the NWN games that I have seen so far look so beautiful. I guess I have to try to speed up my BG run a bit. Though I could certainly live without full screen spiders *shudder*
@BelgarathMTH , what about you? Aren't you going to continue posting, or have you succumbed to restartitis and started to play another game?
I'd like to read more!
Also, agree with you on four-legged family members. Riff Raff (a photo of which is my avatar picture) was a rescue. We’re still trying to determine, years later, who rescued who.
Oh, snap! A bit of a plug for some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had outside of official releases. There are some really wicked good modules that exist for NWN2, some of them exceeding the OC, in my opinion. Path of Evil is largely considered on par with that statement.
Here are a few samples from my experience The Maimed God’s Saga is the finest module I’ve ever played. It’s the very capstone module for cleric role-play, in my opinion, and easily exceeds some of the best immersion experiences I’ve ever had in a video game. A Fairy Tale by Tsongo. Wow, what a fun ride that was too. Harp and Chrysanthemum, the Wizard’s Apprentice series...wow, good memories.
NWN2 offered me some very exceptional experiences over the last decade plus (can’t believe I’m saying that...). NWN1 gets a lot of the glory, and honestly, rightly so. Anyone who has experienced The Aielund Saga or Adam Miller’s work (to name just TWO legendary series’ of which there are hundreds more) knows that some of the stand alone work from the community generated some fantastic contributions for gaming (and that’s not even touching on the exceptional PW scene that still exists...mad props to Beamdog for rekindling even more of that). NWN2, though lacking in numbers and scope compared to NWN1, did have some fantastic artistic contributions from the community. If you do decide to delve into that scene someday, @sarevok57, I suspect you will find some golden nuggets you’d enjoy too.
Doesn't it worry you, even if it's just a game, to send your cat into a fight?