Playing NWN:EE with modified character stats.....

NeveroddoreveN

A quick question - how many of you who play Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition alter your character's stats before playing the Official Campaign? When it comes to increasing your characters stats, where do you draw the line before playing that character? What discretion do you use with all of this?

Calgacus

I guess you mean hacking the character file with LETO or something. I've never even thought of doing something like that. If anything I think the game has too many stat boosting items in it and I often end up feeling like my character is overpowered.

Proleric

Completely unnecessary for the OC.

For modules that require high-level characters, I occasionally use Pretty Good Character Creator and/or Leto.

There are some insane combat modules on the Vault which might benefit from improved stats.

Zaxares

My rule of thumb is... If you're playing single player, do whatever you want to make the game fun for you. If that means sticking to the character generation rules, great! If that means giving your character 25 in all stats, great! If you decide that you want to play a Half-Celestial and give yourself the template's bonus stats and the wings to match, great! (Multiplayer is a different kettle of fish, of course, and one should adhere to the baseline rules or the rules for the PW that you join.)

For myself, I will usually boost my character's stats a little to match my tastes, but still staying within the 3.X ruleset limits. (For instance, I might create a Human Wizard with Str 12, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 14 and Cha 16, which would be beyond the legal limits of point buy, but are still within the legal rules for a Human character in 3.X.)

Nic_Mercy

The Point Buy amount would be something nice to un-hardcode so mod builders could decide if they want their setting to use a stricter or more generous point buy amount.

NeveroddoreveN

I started thinking about stat augmentation for the OC when I had a monk with dreadfully low strength. He was basically unplayable - in my defense, I had never played as a monk before, so I didn't know. I have only played through the OC with a fighter and a wizard, and recently was overcome with anticipation to try the other core classes. I am torn between standard stats and stat augmentation, I think playing a powerful character would be enticing but for some reason part of me feels that going down that path would be cheating. I don't know. So, I started this thread to see what other people think about this situation, and what they would do if they were in my shoes.

Grymlorde

@Nic_Mercy In the latest retail patch, point-buy has been unhardcoded.

Nic_Mercy

Grymlorde wrote: »

@Nic_Mercy In the latest retail patch, point-buy has been unhardcoded.

Has it? I didn't see that mentioned in the patch notes. I only saw the option to decide how many points you have to spend to get higher ability scores. If there is an option to actually set the amount of points you get to start with, please point it out to me so I can play with it!

Grymlorde

In racialtypes.2da, column AbilitiesPointBuyNumber, you can set the point buy amount for each race. In ruleset.2da, line 413 CHARGEN_BASE_ABILITY_MAX, you can set the maximum ability score (unmodified by race) used during character generation. Line 411 CHARGEN_BASE_ABILITY_MIN controls the minimum amount.

Which gives the builders two levers.

First, they could for example, increase the point buy to 32 points (high-powered) or decrease it to 25 (standard).

And they could reduce the minimum ability scores to 3 and then add 30 points (8-3=5 X 6 ability scores) to the first decision.

In that way, players have to make the tough decisions about which scores can be low, i.e. Charisma 3. However if a builder allows that then they should ensure that there are suitable Charisma checks (persuade, intimidate, etc.) to make that choice an impactful one.

Personally, I prefer to allows scores of 3-19 because (A) 19 is no different than 18 in that both give a +4 and (B) I like giving players real, strategic trade-offs to make. But I also try to design for as many skills as possible as well as use Ability Score checks when there isn't a clear skill to use. I also treat characters with an Intelligence of 9 or less as illiterate and henchman won't associate with a PC unless the PC's charisma is equal to or greater than that of the henchman. I also set the maximum number of henchman to 3 modified by lower charisma scores.

Nic_Mercy

Ty for enlightening me!

WarChiefZeke

I don't modify my stats, but I often create custom magic items to fit a particular character in PGCC. Sometimes a fighter needs a ring of mirror image or something. Although if I am playing the OC or HOTU I will often pump more into charisma than usual.

Then I choose a set of custom fighting animations from Alternate Combat Animations. Big fan of these. Also adjust the armor to my liking. Even if my barbarian is wearing full plate, I prefer it to look like light armor at best.

A couple tweaks like those can add alot fo flavor.