I bought NWN ages and ages ago, and gave up halfway through Chapter 2 due to being bored out of my skull with the plot and confused about 3E rules (I am strictly a 2E player & DM in PnP). The other day my old boyfriend gave me his copies of SoU and HotU though and swore they made the game much better, so I'm going to give it another chance.

Last time I didn't really know what I was doing wrt 3E rules and got my arse kicked due to not really knowing how to develop my PC. After playing IWD2 I understand 3E a bit more, but I'm still a little overwhelmed by all the different options. So I'm looking for a little advice.

I wanted to re-create my favorite PnP character Kariza, a Drow Ranger/Cleric of Eilistraee. I'm just wondering about the breakdown of stats. I know I would have to evenly split levels to avoid xp penalties and I don't mind that, but what about feats/skills/etc.? How about prestige classes? Kariza dual wields and is more of a finesse type in melee rather than a "ME SMASH!" sort, so weapon finesse is a must.

I am a firm roleplayer and I hate the cafeteria sorts of munchkins I see in 3E games with 1 level in this, 2 levels in that, etc. I don't do that (no offense to those who do, it's just not for me). I'm not looking for that kind of advice--she's a (dark) elven ranger/cleric and that's what I'm going to play. So I'm mostly looking for advice as to how to work that particular combo. Some of the prestige classes look interesting too, especially shadowdancer and weapon master. Either would fit her personality/fighting style but I'm not sure which one would go better. Or if I should take one at all.

Any tips?

Good on you for going back to the game. I want to do that too, but I need to finish BG and BGII first so it might be a while away.

As your character seems to fight a bit like Drizz't< I'm sure someone will be have figured out the best way to implement that type of character, then you just need to feed in the Cleric aspects of the character.

Have fun.

Funny you should mention Drizzt, she also uses scimitars. :p She's sort of like if Drizzt and Liriel Baenre had a kid.

I'm awful about finishing games myself (I have *Gold Box* D&D games I have yet to finish) and I felt a little guilty that NWN was collecting dust on my shelf for so long. I was very "meh" about it but this time I'm going to finish it and get it right...2 free expansions will do a remarkable job of sparking interest. ;)

I'd recommend against taking a prestige class with this character. You're already splitting levels with ranger so as a spellcaster you're going to very limited. At the end of the SoU campaign you'll probably reach about level 16-18, which means as a cleric you'll only be 8th-9th level.

If you intend to keep your character dual-weilding scimitars, skip the Weapon Finesse feat, it won't help at all. If you want to go with that feat anyway, consider switching to rapiers which can be finessed or something smaller which will reduce your dual-wield penalties as well.

For a finesse version I'd start with stats like: S12, D16, C12, I10, W15, Ch12. If you're going to stick with the scimitars, I'd go with a more strength based build: S14, D14, C12, I10, W15, Ch12.

Have fun. :D

With those two expansions you might as well just skip the official neverwinter campaign, and just play the two expansions. SoU is IMO way better than the first campaign, and Hordes follows up on SoU. Besides, the two expansions are also the best roleplayingvice, especially Hordes...

Does SoU start with a brand new level 1 character? So doing the OC has no impact on what happens to you in the next two expansions? If so, I'm definitely skipping the OC then.

Yes, it only makes sense to start SoU with a fresh character.

@BigStick: Thanks. I don't mind being limited as a cleric, that is more for RP flavor and some healing/buffs. I never know how to allocate my stats right in these games either so I appreciate the advice. :)

You mean I don't have to do that crappy OC in the original game? Oh happy day! :roll: I only got through 2 chapters of it and it was like the worst thing ever. I don't know what was worse, the stupid fetch quests, Aribeth's stupid ass whiny boyfriend, plot "twists" Ray Charles could see coming from 50 miles away. I felt like I was going through one of the crappy PnP adventures I used to write as a 10 year old. (Maybe this was karma for how I used to torture my friends? :p )

Is there any cool stuff I might miss out on though if I skip the OC? Like nifty magical doohickeys? I don't remember anything especially good in the earlier parts of the game but since I copped out pretty early I don't mind a spoiler if there's anything good later on. I went on a downloading spree yesterday and found a fan module to do inbetween SoU and HotU so I think I should be ok xp wise.

There is nothing you need to take from the original OC to the expansion campaigns. You may miss out a little on some of the crossover from the OC to HotU, but you probably have played/read enough to make some sense of that dialog.

As Tal said, you'll want a brand new character to start the SoU campaign, so none of the items in the OC will matter. If you don't mind a small spoiler............... in going from SoU to HotU, coin is key.

As far as your character is concerned, if you're not worried about the lowered levels of your primary classes, a prestige class can add a lot. A Shadowdancer would be a good fit for your character if she spent a lot of time on the surface. Underground, she wouldn't have had the need to hide in shadows and with most denizens being able to see into the dark anyway... A WeaponMaster would be OK too, but requires an absolute boatload of feats as a prerequisite, so without the fighter class bonus feats you won't be able to start it until about level 16. Champion of Torm (Eilistraee) might offer a better fit if your character is a warrior of the cause.

If you do go with a prestige class, I'd change the starting stats a bit. You won't need so high a WIS to cast spells, so you can take the extra two points used to buy that up from 14 to 15 and use them on STR or DEX at a cost of 1. Then you'd have something more like: S14, D16, C12, I10, W14, Ch12.

All I know is I wish I had purchased this game before I bought Max payne 2, because all MP2 has seen is shelf time.

I'm glad you give the game another chance.

I kind of consider this game the Half life of computer rpgs, because of the incredible online community of modders, and the tons of alternate online servers.
Truthfully, the OC game and first expansion aren't all that great ( although SoU is better than the OC, I still find it kind of boring), But the story for HotU is very well done.
The best stories made for NWN are found in the mod community however.
Go to NeverWinter Vault and look for Shadowlords, or since you enjoy rangers, Kale's Rangers is a great mod. There are many others, so many you will never get to play through them all. But like all things, most of them are not very good, but there are quite a few very well done ones.
The most popular ones are listed under the "Hall of Fame" listing ( Shadowlords and Kale's Rangers both have received the Hall of Fame title).
But in the meantime, I think you'll have a lot of fun with HotU. it is very good:)

If you are looking for proper RPing with NWN, your best bet would be to forget about the BW campaigns altogether, and get online for some proper RPing.

There are some really heavy RP communities out there, such as A Land Far Away, which are purely based around trying to recreate Faerun using the NWN engine - changing as many of the Bioware rules as possible to make it more PnPish.

I'd seriously advise checking out www.ALandFarAway.org (http://www.ALandFarAway.org) if you are looking for some proper RPing using NWN. If you look at the About page, on that website, it gives a perfect rundown of what ALFA is.
A Land Far Away is an online role-playing community. Our goal is to build the Forgotten Realms campaign setting using Bioware's Neverwinter Nights computer game as the tool. We have a set of servers, each covering a certain part of Faerûn, the world in which Forgotten Realms takes place.

The main emphasis of ALFA is on roleplaying. When playing in ALFA, we try to assume the part of our characters, acting in the world as they would. DM-led plots, similar to the old pen and paper-campaigns bring the world alive, while bards sing about the deeds of the heroes, the players themselves.