What are you guys' strategies for dealing with traps and chests in the OC?

Comments

• OlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075

  June 2019

  You don't have to take the halfling. One thing you can do is use ranged weapons. Attacking a container or door with a ranged weapon won't trigger the trap. And if you have arrows that deal extra non-physical damage, those will get around the high physical damage resistance some doors and containers have.
  
  Spells also work. Even a spell cast on a door or container at short range (e.g. Combust) will not trigger the trap.
  
  Even a single spellcaster level could give you the ability to deal with trapped doors and containers, if you were willing to rest a lot.

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• leeux Member Posts: 115

  June 2019

  OlvynChuru wrote: »

  You don't have to take the halfling. One thing you can do is use ranged weapons. Attacking a container or door with a ranged weapon won't trigger the trap. And if you have arrows that deal extra non-physical damage, those will get around the high physical damage resistance some doors and containers have.
  
  Spells also work. Even a spell cast on a door or container at short range (e.g. Combust) will not trigger the trap.
  
  Even a single spellcaster level could give you the ability to deal with trapped doors and containers, if you were willing to rest a lot.

  
  
  Thank you! Yeah I was trying to attack them too... but I don't seem to be able to even deal damage to them (chests, at least) as they seem to absorb all the damage... didn't try with range weapons, though.
  
  My fighter is using 2H Greatswords (I didn't knew what else to pick and since I know for sure there are at least a couple of good ones later... saw then in a playthrough, I preferred to take the safe route.)
  
  I might redo my last level up (with the GiveXP negative trick) and take a level in Wizard right away so I can at least cast some offensive spells, maybe...

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• Nic_Mercy Member Posts: 418

  June 2019

  leeux wrote: »

  OlvynChuru wrote: »

  You don't have to take the halfling. One thing you can do is use ranged weapons. Attacking a container or door with a ranged weapon won't trigger the trap. And if you have arrows that deal extra non-physical damage, those will get around the high physical damage resistance some doors and containers have.
  
  Spells also work. Even a spell cast on a door or container at short range (e.g. Combust) will not trigger the trap.
  
  Even a single spellcaster level could give you the ability to deal with trapped doors and containers, if you were willing to rest a lot.

  
  
  Thank you! Yeah I was trying to attack them too... but I don't seem to be able to even deal damage to them (chests, at least) as they seem to absorb all the damage... didn't try with range weapons, though.
  
  My fighter is using 2H Greatswords (I didn't knew what else to pick and since I know for sure there are at least a couple of good ones later... saw then in a playthrough, I preferred to take the safe route.)
  
  I might redo my last level up (with the GiveXP negative trick) and take a level in Wizard right away so I can at least cast some offensive spells, maybe...

  
  Starting with one level of rogue and going Fighter from that point on would be the simplest answer. Picking up a second level of rogue around level 7 ( so you'd be something like fighter 5/rogue 2 at level 7) and maxing out your open locks, disable traps and search skills (so they are all base score 10 and then modified by stats/gear/etc), will probably set you up for most any locks/traps the OC has.
  
  If you really don't want to go that route there is a simple solution. Cheat. Open the debug console and use these commands:
  
  dm_spawnitem x0_it_mthnmisc04
  
  and
  
  dm_spawnitem x0_it_mthnmisc11
  
  These commands will spawn items on the ground where your cursor is at the time of execution. The items spawned are:
  
  Chime of Opening - Casts Knock for 1 charge per use unlocking most locked items in a given radius around you. Has 50 charges. If you use it up you can always spawn another.
  
  Lens of Detection - Casts Find Traps 3x/day. You can either spawn more than one for more uses per day, or simply rest after using it for the third time.

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• leeux Member Posts: 115

  June 2019 edited July 2019

  Awesome, thanks @Nic_Mercy! That's a pretty reasonable solution in my mind! I mean the items... I didn't want to take levels in Rogue, but that's a good solution to keep in mind too... for future characters!
  
  I did reset my character with the negative GiveXP trick and restarted back from L1 and picked 1 level of Bard at the start (which also helped me get into the Cloaktower early) and maxed Search, Detect and Open Locks (I boosted INT for those extra levels a bit to have extra skill points to spare to compensate for the cost of spending 2 sp per increase in later level ups too) and for now it's going pretty great... I only found myself blocked by about 4 doors with traps I couldn't disarm and for chests, I haven't found any non-openable yet (just finished prison district fight and started with docks), but I found a couple of them with traps I couldn't disarm.
  
  I might use those commands to have backup plans, and I'll refrain from using them for the cases I can solve by opening/bashing, and try to use them when there's a lot of locked/trapped stuff around.
  
  EDIT: Found a typo and I had to correct it

  Post edited by leeux on July 2019

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• ElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475

  June 2019 edited June 2019

  Not all of these will apply to you, but as a general list of what I've used:
  
  Wizard or sorc pixie familiar.
  
  Power Attack (for locks)
  
  Animate dead skeleton uses power Attack
  
  Wizard, sorcerer, cleric (with knowledge domain for knock) can cast knock/find traps, and with craft wands feat can make wands of those spells. Even in OC, you can make bone wands so long as you have 6 skill in craft weapon to find large bones, with DC 13 check to craft.
  
  With three levels of cleric with knowledge domain, you can make as many wands as you want. Take healing domain, and you can make potion/wand of cure critical wounds, also. Not a bad boost to a fighter for three cross class levels, and only lose 1 BAB.
  
  Spells work on many chests. I had a cleric that blasted the chests the skeleton was too slow at opening with searing light. It didn't work on doors and some chests for me, though.
  
  Even one cross class rank in open lock can open many locks with lockpicks. One cross class rank in find traps can at least flag them. I read that somewhere before.
  
  That's all I can think of at the moment...
  
  Edit: formatting to make easier to read.
  
  Edit 2: PS, unlike Baldur's Gate, find traps spell disarms traps also, for anyone not already aware. I only learned that very recently. I never read the spell description, thinking would be the same as BG

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• leeux Member Posts: 115

  June 2019

  Thank you @ElysianEchoes All of that is very good information, many of which I didn't knew or thought of
  
  The only limitation is that you've a max of 3 classes at most to pick levels from, I understand that right?
  
  My original intention when I started was to do some levels Fighter, many of Wizard or Sorcerer plus then take levels in one of the prestige classes later (not sure which I'd qualify for, maybe Weapon Master or maybe one of the arcane ones... it completely changes the character, I know... but as I said not sure what to pick) and taking levels of Rogue (or even Bard or Cleric) would bar me from that, sadly... right?
  
  But oh well, it is what it is
  
  OTOH, in truth I was in doubt if that was a good path... as I heard that progress reset when you switch to a prestige class?
  
  In other words, since I wasn't sure what to do later at all, I was wanting to keep my options open... but since I can easily reset my character and change levels at will (thanks gods for the console) I'm not worried too much about choosing wrong.
  
  But what I definitely don't want to do at all is play some classes up to a point and then switch to a different stuff when it suits me so I'll be willing to reset to fix errors but not to completely remake my character... at least that's my intention initially!
  
  I never finished this game, the most I advanced was up to Chapter 2 Charwood (after finishing the other two areas first,) so I was intending to at least give it a real try to get to the end!

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• ElysianEchoes Member Posts: 475

  June 2019 edited June 2019

  True, the limit is three classes. If you take 3 levels wizard/sorc, you can can still make knock wands. If you take 5 levels wizard/sorc, you can still make find trap wands.
  
  Edit: I misspoke. Sorc would need level 4 for knock and level 6 for find trap

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• ricoyung Member Posts: 83

  July 2019

  Here is the go-to place for all NWN related reference info: https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
  
  They also have example builds: https://nwn.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Character_builds
  A good place to start if unfamiliar with character building....build one of the examples and see what makes it "tick/reverse engineer" and you will learn, I did.
  
  Also a general rule; when multi-classing each class relies a lot on it's Ability modifier ie: fighter=strength, Bard=charisma, Wizard/assassin=Intelligence etc etc. Your best option is to focus on one ability as much as possible when considering a multi-class build.
  
  My most tweaked build (Dragon kin Mk2) is a Druid 18, Wiz 21, Rogue 1 (for skill dump open lock dis trap etc)
  Dragon shape and epic spells (hellball and epic warding) not my best but fun to play and a great fort save in dragon form.
  
  Above all...Have fun.
  
  
  
  

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• leeux Member Posts: 115

  July 2019 edited July 2019

  Thank you! Yeah, I was trying to get some levels into anything spell casting mixed with fighter... mostly, because I like spell casters, and I think the melee-wizard is a cool concept!
  
  The other reason is that from what I've heard and the little I saw, the later levels are extremely annoying if you're pure caster with no physical prowess... and spells don't scale well, or as much as melee damage scale or so I've read too, so I'd mostly focus on buff/protection/dispelling/summoning, etc... and probably not much damaging spells.
  
  I'm gonna check those builds and see if there's anything I'd like to play... I'm picky in character playstyles (i.e. people always seem to really like characters that I wouldn't never consider to play!) but there should be something to use as a base, or at least understand why they work.
  
  EDIT: Fixed a typo

  Post edited by leeux on July 2019

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• OlvynChuru Member Posts: 3,075

  July 2019

  leeux wrote: »

  Thank you! Yeah, I was trying to get some levels into anything spell casting mixed with fighter... mostly, because I lake spell casters, and I think the melee-wizard is a cool concept!
  
  The other reason is that from what I've heard and the little I saw, the later levels are extremely annoying if you're pure caster with no physical prowess... and spells don't scale well, or as much as melee damage scale or so I've read too, so I'd mostly focus on buff/protection/dispelling/summoning, etc... and probably not much damaging spells.

  
  Some spells don't scale well, but some do. Some really good spells like Mestil's Acid Sheathe scale all the way to level 40.
  
  And that doesn't really matter for the OC (which this thread is about), since spells scale just fine in the level range of the OC. It's only when you reach epic levels that a lot of high-level spells start reaching their cap.

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• leeux Member Posts: 115

  July 2019

  OlvynChuru wrote: »

  And that doesn't really matter for the OC (which this thread is about), since spells scale just fine in the level range of the OC. It's only when you reach epic levels that a lot of high-level spells start reaching their cap.

  
  Ah gotcha! Thank you!
  
  But, just in case I'm planning it wrong... I'm wrong in thinking that you are able to reach ~L15 to L18 or so in the OC by the end?
  
  I was assuming so, and was worried that the type of enemies at those levels would be annoying to deal with as a pure caster, considering how everything seems to scale with you and your level, and that some prominent high level enemies have resistance/immunities to magic and such... but then again, I haven't been there yet ever, only saw it through a playthrough, so I can be totally wrong in my assumptions.
  
  Maybe I should keep playing and not worry that much

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• ByTheSword Member Posts: 9

  July 2019

  There are two magic items that can compensate for your lack of a rogue in the party. The first is the Lens of Detection which casts Find Traps 3 times per day, and the second is the Chime of Opening which casts Knock. The chime has 50 charges.
  
  
  

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