Before you play Zehir

[chevalier]

Though I'd drop you a couple of hints because ease of use is of much importance in this expansion.

MAGIC:

1. Your buffs dispel when you enter the overland map. So do negative effects. Means you don't need Persistent Spell. You probably don't need Extend Spell with most characters, either. If you think this will change, you are wrong. It won't.

2. This said, Extend Spell can be one of the best feats in this campaign, but this is because you can conveniently make short buffs last. You just need to know what you're doing.

3. You want a cleric or favoured soul, speaking of casters. One will most likely be enough. Healing domain is fun but not necessary. You will likely be memorising healing spells, after all, but late in the game rather than early. You may do with a favoured soul because it's not like you'll be casting spells that have a DC, but I recommend a cleric for domain powers and a quick way of dispatching the undead. In most instances, a simple paladin will do.

4. You can entirely do without an arcane caster, although I imagine life is easier with one in the party. This said, the moments when you get to use high-level spells meaningfully are scarce because even if you battle two dragons at once at level 12, you can pull that off anyway, and as your level suggests, you have level 6 spells tops. This said, fireballs are nice, as are some other spells, but most of what my arcanist casts (and I've almost finished) is same stuff as divine casters have, barring artillery (which some divine casters also have) and Tenser's (which divine casters don't even need). You may want a sorcerer because that's a flexible artillery unit that only needs a nap every now and then and no memorising. Works great with metamagic too. Including when you have Eldritch Knight levels and you want to cast spells wearing a full plate and a tower shield. You then click the Still Spell button and the Quickcast ("F" key) shows you all you can cast. A wizard would have to re-memorise his book. Same goes for the fun feats from Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep.

5. As far as druids go, however, the guy you meet early is very nice to keep around and you get used to him after a while. Don't need to make your own.

STUFF:

1. You need an overland map leader, which doesn't need to be your actual party leader, but it's the guy whose stats are used when determining encounters and movement speed. Movement speed is determined by Survival. What you find on the map is mostly determined by Spot or Listen (the higher of the two), but also Search. Your chances of avoiding an encounter - by Move Silently or Hide (the higher of the two). This suggests a ranger could be a good idea. However, given that Search is something you do need here, you may want to make a Ranger/Rogue. Or simply have two characters with Search (a ranger and a rogue). You find something else on the map if you have high values of other skills, such as Heal or Spellcraft, but I think I've seen other skills too. Most skills get something, really, so you may want to consider a 16 INT human rogue or ranger, but it's not necessary. Strictly speaking, your essential qualities of an overland map leader are the Survival skill and either Spot or Listen. The rest is just flavour. You can pull those skills off with Able Learner (to pay 1 point per 1 point in cross-class skills) and a single level in a class that has them as class skills (for the full class maximum). Thus a single level in Barbarian or Ranger opens up Survival, Listen/Spot can be taken by a ranger or rogue or monk with just one level. Actually, Barbarian has Listen for class skill, so... In fact, you can be creative. It only looks like you need a ranger or ranger/rogue overland map leader.

2. You would do well to have a decent Diplomacy score, but you don't need Bluff or Intimidate. This said, Bluff allows you to catch overland map encounters off guard and Intimidate - to instill fear in them. My paladin pulls it off his Charisma bonus. And yes, any character can do the talking. Any character can chime in at any moment with any line, in fact.

3. Do yourself a favour and give the Appraise skill to someone. Especially if you're making a rogue/wizard or some such. Alternatively, it's a class skill for Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep. However, you obviously need it more in the beginning than in later parts of the game. It's not just prices, by the way. It offers very nice dialogue options. And fits the storyline. So take it. And buy Gloves of Appraisal as the first thing you pay for - or close. Will last you for the whole game.

4. You don't need UMD. Restricted stuff you find or buy is lousy compared to what you craft. Only take if you have a very high CHA bonus, but possibly not even then. You really don't need it.

5. Speaking of skills so much, do take Able Learner unless you have a good reason not to. Teamwork benefits require certain low ranks in certain skills. Prestige classes tend to also, as do some feats, notably the Practiced Spellcaster, which is meant primarily for multiclassers (+4 caster levels but not higher than your actual character level), but allows the halved casters, i.e. paladins and rangers, to make up a bit. Say, you're a paladin. You need Spellcraft(4) for PS. With AL, you pay 4 points instead of 8 for this. And you put one more point in it to get it to 5, which means +1 to saves vs spells. Which is about the only thing you need to save against. And you get a single point in UMD. When you have 20+ CHA and a cloak +6, it'll probably pay back. If you like, you'll be able to pull off a half-decent Intimidate between spare points and CHA bonus. Or Taunt maybe, but you probably don't care.

6. Further about skills, some teamwork benefits, i.e. feats the team learns as a whole, require some ranks in skills, as I said. Check the list with the manual, but that's generally Survival, Listen and Spot, maybe Concentration. Should give you some ideas. Survival is particularly important because the teamwork feat Team Rush allows all your party members to move at the speed of the fastest one. All the bonuses he has (Barbarian, Monk, Dash, Ranger outdoors, whatever), the others share. As a side note, it therefore pays to have a guy with a significant move speed. I have a ranger(x)/rogue(1)/barbarian(1), for instance. Woodland Stride and Barbarian Fast Movement for everyone. Plus, even before you get the feat, you will do most of the running to map transition with this guy. Save yourself some time

7. Look at the Swashbuckler class for synergy with Rogue (obvious) and Wizard/Eldritch Knight. From level 3 on, Swashbucklers have the ability to add INT bonus to damage with light or Finesse-able weapons, as long as the enemy isn't immune to either crits or sneak attack. Few of them are. And an Eldritch Knight has Bull's and Cat's and Fox's. Means you get +2 to attack and AC, and +4 to damage (of which INT is the stat that affects your DC's). This is a bit like using Zen Archery with a cleric that has 22 WIS and Owl's.

8. Healing kits are fun early, but you forget them later, when you don't care because you have great armour and tons of healing spells. Your call. But they are very helpful early on. Just as they are useless later. Healing(4) allows the Augment Healing feat and you might actually want to take it for all the many casts of healing spells that your cleric will perform. My cleric with this feat and the Healing domain, casts 50+ HP Cure Serious Wounds from level 2 slots.

9. Remember you can rest on the overland map. Not sure if Hide/Move Silently or Survival affect your chances of getting interrupted. There are teamwork feats that do - Group Trance makes your resting time 4 hours instead of 8, Camp Routine makes you 25% likely to be interrupted and Improved Camp Routine - 50%. ICR + GT = 25% normal chance of interruption. But you have better uses for those teamwork slots. Admittedly, I took GT for roleplaying value and because teamwork feats aren't that great anyway.

10. Still be creative. If you want to try if you can make a decent rogue out of a barbarian with Able Learner, by all means do.

11. Maybe one thing. As I already mentioned, enemies are very rarely immune to critical hits. Means Weaponmaster could be fun to play.

12. Or one more. Archery is good for you. It helps against trolls, which are plenty. But it also allows you to take down enemy casters fast or at least deconcentrate them. Rogues can do ranged sneak attacks. Divine Might also works ranged if you really need to.

13. Craaaaft. As soon as you find the AC enchantment recipe. Cast on boots, you get Dodge Bonus, cast on a necklace, you get natural. Cast on armour or shield, you get the respective bonus. The rest is Deflection. The enchantment costs 500 gp to cast for +1, 1000 gp for +2 (IIRC) and so on. It helps a lot. And elemental damage on weapons does wonders on low levels.

[Rawgrim]

Also: play Sid Meyer`s Pirates, to get the excact feeling of the game. I kept wondering when the spanish galloeon would show up on the overland map...

[Sir Fink]

After starting and re-starting with a bunch of different parties, I finally settled on one that worked well and that leads me to some advice, which differs a bit from Chev's:

Spontaneous (i.e. Charisma-based) casters are probably better -- certainly more convenient -- than casters that have to memorize spells. This is due mainly to the fact that you lose all your buffs every time you return to the Overland Map, which is pretty much after every fight. Also, thanks to Tony K's AI, enemy casters will actually hit the party with dispells. So sorcs, bards, etc. can just buff up again in a round. Handy!

My party was Bard, Sorc, Warlock, and Ranger. Warlock was really nice because he had the Flee the Scene ability, which hastes the party. The AI had him cast it as soon as it wore off, so the party was perm hasted. Great! The AI is also really good for Bards. If anyone is hurt, the Bard sings the regen song. If you're not in combat, the Bard sings the skill boosting inspiration. If you're in combat, he sings a combat inspiration, etc. I pretty much left the Bard on auto pilot.

Didn't use a Cleric, Favored Soul or Pally. Just wasn't the least bit necessary. Plenty of heal kits and potions and the undead are easy enough to kill without the need for turning.

Archery is very, very handy! Typical fights start with your party on one side of a field and a group of enemies on the other. So give every party member a ranged weapon. Casters can drop area effect spells like Web, Grease and foggy gas spells between the party and the enemies to slow them down, giving your party more time to turn them into pin cushions.

As you near the end of the game, craft sonic Holy weapons for all party members. You'll thank me later.

[Bodhi]

Just bought this expansion and loaded it in about an hour ago. When I click on play it eventually comes up with message: could not find applicable direct 3d device for this application, will exit. I have DirectX 10 and GeForce 8400. I think these are the applicable drivers, I'm not sure. I don't know much about this stuff. Also, I've never encountered this problem with any other game I've played on any of my computers new or old.
Any suggestions, please.
Thanks,
Bodhi

[Equester]

try reinstalling directx from the nwn2 SoZ dvd, that solved the problem for me

[Death Rabbit]

Thanks Chev (and Sir Fink). This thread is a big help. I just picked it up and so far it looks great, and those tips are going to be lifesavers.

One question, for those who've gone through (if you can avoid spoilers):

I know I shouldn't create a Druid or Spirit Shaman because there's a good NPC you meet early on to fill that role. But I'd like to know who else I can expect to run into (classwise) so I can add them to the team when I meet them rather than leaving them out because I already have one in my original 4.

Be as vague or as specific as you like, just please bare in mind I don't want too much spoiled for me.

[Ironhawk Skylord]

Well, I don't think you should take that into consideration when making a party, but it's your game.

Anyway, there is 11 cohorts including the Druid, and their classes is:

Ranger, Swashbuckler, Wizard, Paladin, Bard, Favored Soul, Monk, Cleric/Doomguide of Kelemvor, Warlock/Hellfire Warlock, and Roque/Shadow Thief of Amn.

I hope that doesn't spoil too much for you.

[Death Rabbit]

Krikey - so basically one of everything. No, that doesn't spoil too much (considering the breadth) and you're right, there really isn't much point in pre-tailoring a party in this case. I'll just pick 4 that I think are cool. Thanks.

[Equester]

that said the wizard is a deep gnome, so it suffers from an ecl 3 penalty. also about half of the npcs wont be available for half the game, so consider the 1 (or 2) npc's extra help, but don't include them as a critical part of your class set up.

[Bodhi]

Equester, thanks for the suggestion. I found my problem by remembering that I had set my graphics display slider down in order to get rid of the black box shading around objects and conversations in IWD2. Moved it back up to high end and problem gone.

Bodhi

---------- Added 14 hours, 46 minutes and 37 seconds later... ----------

What , if any, consequences are there to mixing good & evil party members?
I would not like it if, in the later part of the game, my evil one(s) decided that the ambient atmosphere was too goody two shoes for them. Then decided to either leave or tried to resolve the conflict by eliminating the problem, permanently. Or, conversely, the good one(s) doing in their evil twin(s). I relish the thought of good family squabbles as long as they don't end in one group trying to eliminate the other.
Thoughts?

Thanks,
Bodhi

[Equester]

Originally Posted by Bodhi

What , if any, consequences are there to mixing good & evil party members?
I would not like it if, in the later part of the game, my evil one(s) decided that the ambient atmosphere was too goody two shoes for them. Then decided to either leave or tried to resolve the conflict by eliminating the problem, permanently. Or, conversely, the good one(s) doing in their evil twin(s). I relish the thought of good family squabbles as long as they don't end in one group trying to eliminate the other.
Thoughts?

Thanks,
Bodhi

Absolutely none. The player made characters do not interact which each other. Such kind of behaviour is impossible to predict from the game-makers point, so they haven't tried. Some of the Cohorts on the other hand have some fun interactions depending on your race and alignment (one won't join you if the character addressing him is evil).

but generally SoZ is a story light product, the focus of the game is not the individual characters story, but rather the exploration and adventuring.
SoZ can be compared to PnP or in terms of Computer games, with an PW.
The story is more told by you, in this case to yourself, then by the game developers, unlike the OC and MoTB where the story is mainly told by the developers.

that said, SoZ is great fun, just don't expect OC/MotB depth characters or story.