Neverwinter Nights 2 - Crafting Alternatives

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Crafting

The crafting system in the Original Campaign can create very powerful weapons as there is no Item Level Requirement (which will affect you in the expansion campaigns). The main limitations are having the Craft feats, finding Essences, and finding Gems. Aside from the Craft feats, the actual cost to create some very powerful items is minimal. However, given the combination of having to have Craft feats, limited sources of Essences, and limited sources of Gems, you actually have a system that is bothersome to coordinate and frustrating to use.

I recommend using cdaulepp's Random Loot Generator to increase loot (including the possibility of Essences or crafting components; and it generates some interesting loot now and again) and if you like the crafting system, you can use The Complete Craftsman (plus the Mask of the Betrayer update for The Complete Craftsman) to expand your crafting choices. The Complete Craftsman also allows you to salvage magical items for Essences and Gems.

Note that cdaulepp's Random Loot Generator can generate an excessive number of items, so instead of selling them and cluttering merchant inventory, you may wish to get an item that will convert an item into the gold piece value as calculated by the Neverwinter Nights 2 Editor.

For an easier and yet more balanced approach to crafting, you can use a combination of cdaulepp's Random Loot Generator for more loot and sell most of it to have the enormous amount of cash to create custom items on the fly with Charlie's Item Modifier.
You may wish to tweak the script to decrease the staggering 100% markup because even items with a +2 or +3 Enhancement Bonus can cost tens of thousands of gold even before this built-in markup.

What is particularly nice about Charlie's Item Modifier is that you only pay the cost difference when upgrading or changing an item, so there's not much of a penalty if you make a mistake or want to rethink your project. Keep an eye on the ILR (Item Level Requirement) and limit yourself to something close to your character's level to keep your items from being overpowered (ILR is not implemented for the Original Campaign).

By using Charlie's Item Modifier, you are no longer limited to what someone has scripted. Combine it with Charlie's Item Appearance Changer (which was further expanded with an Expansion Patch) to further customize the appearance of your gear.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Companions

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Companions

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Unless you use the Console, it is to your benefit to reach the various Companions as soon as possible since their development and feat choices aren't all that great. If you do use the Console, there's no hurry since you can rollback their development and re-level them with good feat choices.

Getting to spellcasters early and giving them appropriate Crafting feats is important if you want the full array of crafting to be at your disposal. If you don't want to bother with the cumbersome system, there are interesting alternatives.

To maximize seeing Companion dialogues and influencing them, you may want to use either the Console and the Party Roster menu option (if you have the Storm of Zehir expansion) to bring in all your companions. You can tell some companions to just stand around doing nothing while you run with a smaller team or even go solo. No matter how far away Companions are on the map, they can still participate in dialogue. You get the same XP award for kills whether you have 1 or 10 companions with you (you only get more if your main character is solo far enough away from any companions) -- see our notes on quirks around gaining XP in Neverwinter Nights 2.


Amie Fern

• Her Mage Armor spell is useful for protecting low-AC main characters. Use it on your main character and Bevil before approaching the Tarmas/Githyanki encounter.
• For the attack on West Harbor, if the Duergar and Bladelings are in combat with militia, use Scorching Ray set to multiple targets, as it will only attack still-alive creatures automatically, and the no-save damage pretty much guarantees you a kill on each ray unless the encounter is too far to be triggered (in which case the creature takes no damage but is alerted to your location and comes for you).
• Amie dies halfway through West Harbor under siege, so don't waste scrolls to teach her spells.

Bevil Starling

• Bevil's strength isn't high enough to properly benefit from Knockdown (the feat Recommended if you press the Recommend button), so instead go for Cleave, and then either Weapon Specialization (Longsword) or Great Cleave. Either will help him mow down duergar quickly in West Harbor.
• Bevil can reappear at Crossroad Keep in Act III if you talk to him prior to going to the Ruins of Arvahn toward the end of Act II, but he is no longer a Companion.

Kipp

• Kipp does not appear after the Tutorial. If you want to recover the trap on the logs, you might as well give him Skill Focus (Disarm Device) to maximize your chances.

Khelgar Ironfist

• Aim for Great Cleave early -- At low levels, it's fairly easy to get multiple kills because the opponents are still weak and Khelgar's damage bonus is strong. At higher levels, you can still get multiple kills if you've softened up the opposition with an area effect spell.
• You can get Tower Shields at the Weeping Willow Inn. In general, Khelgar will have enough of an Attack Bonus to make the -2 Attack Penalty associated with Tower Shields still worthwhile to carry, although against certain opponents you may want more reliable hits or want to rely more on Power Attacks.
• Note that the penalty on Tower Shields does NOT apply to ranged combat, so if he is using a thrown weapon (e.g., darts or throwing axe), he can also carry a Tower Shield and not be penalized on his attack rolls.
• Since he starts with Toughness and doesn't have a strong Dex for Dexterity-related feats, you could aim for excellence in saving throws with Iron Will, Steadfast Determination, and Indomitable Soul.
• There is a Dwarf-only warhammer (the Hammer of Ironfist) much later in the game, so you can give him feats toward using that, unless you want to level him as a Monk later anyway (in doing so, you redo his levelling completely from level 1).
• His high Strength gives him a high melee combat Attack Bonus, so you may be tempted to give him Monkey Grip and use a big weapon. In general, using Power Attack is probably the better way to go to increase damage output rather than spending an extra feat.
• If he becomes a Monk, things get interesting. He doesn't really have the stats to be a very good Monk, but as Monk with the Monk's running speed bonuses, he can now literally run out of trouble -- when spellcasters use are effect spells, they generally target locations instead of characters. You can therefore start running when a spell is cast and be safely out of the effective area of effect before it lands.

Neeshka

• Try to get Neeshka early as she can develop Appraise as a Class Skill. Sacrifice some of her skills in order to max out her Appraise if you are not going to develop the skill yourself. Whether it will outdo having no skill but the Merchant's Friend feat over the length of the campaign is debatable, however, since you can get Appraise bonuses from items, and indirectly through stat and skill bonuses from spells and Bard Inspirations.
• One of the ways you can use Neeshka in combat is to keep her stealthed, then attract the attention of the enemy with another character (e.g., Khelgar). When they run past Neeshka, stop your bait character and have them and Neeshka attack. Neeshka should be able to get in a Sneak Attack right away.
• You can also give her a bow to Sneak Attack from a distance. The valid Sneak Attack range with a ranged weapon is approximately half the length of an indoor tile, so after her first shot in combat, move her in closer.
• If she is being chased (or you let her be chased), you can try running her around your other party members. Hopefully her Tumble is high enough that she can avoid Attacks of Opportunity while giving the other party members Attacks of Opportunity on the pursuer.
• This tactic works quite well with other characters if there aren't any other enemies around.
• This tactic works because the game AI does not update instantaneously but instead only every few seconds, so once a creature has targeted another, it will run through dangerous situations and other enemies until the AI updates its targeting. Note that this will work against you if you let the AI run your character -- so pay attention!
• Once she's around level 6 and higher, her Sneak Attacks (especially if she has Two-Weapon Fighting) really make her a powerhouse, almost more so than any other melee character.
• Even in the pen-and-paper version of Dungeons and Dragons, Rogues are classed as damage dealers -- moreso than Fighters, who are mostly in a party-defense role.
• You can lay down Darkness (but all targets get 20% Concealment and her innate Darkvision does not pierce it) or put a Greater Invisibility on her to score Sneak Attacks without having to hide.
• In general, she will automatically switch to nearby targets that she can Sneak Attack instead of being locked on a particular target unless you are controlling her directly.

Elanee

• If you get to her late, she could have feats like Dodge and Mobility, which can help in casting (you can have the AC bonus from Combat Expertise on, or use Defensive Casting, but not both at the same time).
• Her Animal Companion basically works out to a free character. Unsummon it before it dies so that you do not have to wait until after you rest to resummon. Instead, you only have to wait for the cooldown period to be over before you resummon, and it will arrive fully healed.
• Read her spells very carefully -- some are very good because they discriminate between allies and enemies (e.g., Call Lightning) and if you play with full Dungeons and Dragons rules (area effects can hurt allies), this can make a huge difference.
• Barkskin is an easy early game buff for the entire party (or just the front-liners).
• I recommend completely re-levelling her, especially if you find her late enough that she has Dodge and Natural Spell. Change Combat Casting (feat 7) to Skill Focus (Concentration) (feat 173) and go for Zen Archery (use Wisdom for ranged combat instead of Dexterity) and Persistent Spell. Possibly stop development of one skill and pick up Spellcraft instead, for the bonus to save against spells.
• If she is the primary healer in the party (and for much of the early game she may well be, until you get Grobnar for out-of-combat healing with his Inspire Regeneration), you may consider putting at least 4 points into Heal and get the Augment Healing feat (feat 1090). You could also then stop developing one of her skills (maybe Lore, since you'll get Grobnar later) and develop Heal more fully for emergencies.
• Animal shapes are largely unimpressive. Try them out, but the alternative uses of shapechanging (Elephant's Hide and Oaken Resilience) are better -- BUT only in the early game.
• Both of these can be activated as "free actions" (you can even activate them while the game is paused).
• Neither are critical if you have good magic items, and you may therefore instead want to instead invest in Crafting early, especially if your main character is not a spellcaster. You won't get another spellcaster until Qara, and she's better kept as a battlefield asset due to her spellcasting flexibility.
• You could also invest in Extend Spell (and ultimately, Persistent Spell) and Empower Spell as her attack spells are on-par with those of sorcerers and wizards.
• If you are into the Crafting System, she can cast Cure Critical Wounds starting at level 9, and with the Craft Magical Arms and Armor feat can imbue weapons with the Holy Weapon (+2d6 damage versus Evil) attribute. This is a very good power as you are mostly fighting bad guys. Also, it takes the guesswork out of whether a diabolic-looking creature is a demon or a devil (both of which require different types of weapon materials to bypass their significant Damage Resistance).

Qara

• Qara makes a great tactical combat spellcaster because of her flexibility in her spell roster -- sorcerers do not need to memorize and fix their spell choices for the day. We develop her with that in mind.
• She starts at level 1 with Spell Focus (Evocation) (feat 169) and Improved Spell Focus (Evocation) (feat 397) feats. This is a very restrictive way to go as these feats are limited to one spell school and you don't have that many feats to spend; also, you only get DC +2. I recommend using the Console to take off these feats and instead give her Spellcasting Prodigy (feat 1114) and Skill Focus (Concentration) (feat 173; instead of Combat Casting (feat 7)). Then, choose spells which do not rely on Saving Throws and get her Spell Penetration feats.
• Fairly early, go for the Silent Spell metamagic feat. Obviously this helps you in the late game against possible silence effects used against you, but even in the early game, it can help a sorcerer a lot because it expands your ability to cast a certain spell many more times a day. For example, if you are out of level 1 spells but would like to cast more Magic Missiles (one of the few auto-hit no-save magical damage spells), you can turn on Silent Spell and use your level 2 spell slots. Real level 2 spells can do more damage, but are not always preferable because of hit rolls required (even if they are Ranged Touch Attacks, which ignore Armor, Natural Armor, and Shield bonuses) or saving throws allowed (characters with Evasion would, for example, completely avoid damage on a successful Reflex save).
• For similar reasons, go for Empower Spell. It takes up a spell slot two levels higher, but has the side effect of increasing damage as well. 
• If you can get by without a lot of spells, skip Silent Spell and go straight for Empower.
• Definitely get Empower Spell at some point because arcane magic has many big area big damage spells and you can hit hordes with 100+ damage (if they fail their save) in one go. In the late game, you will need this to offset being swarmed and the fact that it will be rare to see an AC will be high enough against the rate at which fighter-type adversaries gain Attack Bonuses. You can expect to face Attack Bonuses at 100% to 150%+ of your level, depending on whether you are facing rogues or fighters.

Grobnar Gnomehands

• One of the most useful support characters to have -- spell buffs plus strong offensive spells plus infinite free Inspiration buffs. Sonic damage spells are very strong in Neverwinter Nights 2 because there aren't that many creatures with resistance to it (aside from general Spell Resistance).
• The Silent Spell trick with Qara doesn't work on Grobnar because NONE of the Bard spells can be cast with that metamagic feat. Grobnar can take the feat, but it is useless for his Bard spells. He can, however, take Extend Spell (as could Qara) and there are some attack spells that can have their duration extended.
• Most of his spells are curses or buffs of some kind, and he also has the Sorcerer's flexibility in choosing spells, so aim for Persistent Spell or at least Extend Spell (e.g., to give Neeshka extended Greater Invisibility to help her Sneak Attack).
• Bards automatically get various songs, so extending those to expand his repetoire of buffs is also a good idea. You can further pile on area effect buffs and debuffs to change the battlefield. Extra Song or Lingering Song isn't as useful because he starts at a decent level and you may find yourself using spells more than songs.
• Archers like to go for Grobnar, so get him the Archer's Belt from Simmy at the Old Owl Well, and turn on Ghostly Visage. This way, he can stay close in melee to buff everyone else with his Inspirations or throw out a healing spell. He is lousy in melee and you really don't want enemies getting too many Attacks of Opportunity on him when he shoots, so you may want to give him the best Boots of Tumbling you have and run him around to make enemies chase past your other characters, giving them Attacks of Opportunity (same strategy as with early-game Neeshka).

Casavir

• By the time you get Casavir he will probably be 10th level. Which doesn't matter so much because he's a straightforward character in terms of feat choices and skill options.
• Casavir's first-level feats are Power Attack and Weapon Focus (Warhammer). Unfortunately, the best hammer in the game is Dwarf-only, and there aren't that many other interesting ones available. The powerful Paladin-only Holy Avenger available in Act III is a longsword, but only if you build the Temple of Tyr in Crossroad Keep, and you are yourself a Paladin in order to get the required quest (good Clerics on the Path of the Holy quest get a different item). So it's not particularly important to change his Weapon Focus, but I would have aimed for Great Cleave early instead (rather than limiting his weapon choices so early in the game).
• Not a lot of feats here to choose from if you are re-levelling. You may want to aim for Extra-Smiting, Blind-Fight, and Great Cleave (in whatever order you like).
• If you go for Great Cleave, then Divine Might can help you get kills and extend your Cleaving.
• He does fine with just a light shield (a good option is the +2 Charisma from Dwarven Mirth, from the Eyegouger Clan area) so Divine Shield is not really an early priority.

Bishop

• There have been reports of Bishop's feat progression being bugged and his having Ranger Two-Weapon Fighting feats and Longbow feats. If this happens, you can use the console to fix him. Otherwise, his feat progression will probably be fine.
• Although he is best with a longbow given his supporting feats, his Ranger Archery Combat Style will work fine with all other ranged weapons he can use, including thrown weapons (and crossbows, but only if you also have Rapid Reload if you want to use Rapid Shot). If you are worried about his Armor Class, especially if he gets rushed and ends up in melee, you can have him switch to darts or throwing axe plus shield.
• If you are re-levelling him from scratch, I suggest getting Weapon Finesse around level 12 (when his Dexterity bonus will exceed his Strength bonus) so his hand-to-hand combat can also benefit from increasing his Dexterity. With his remaining feats, you might consider Blind-Fight (all fighters should definitely consider this feat as the re-roll chance against Concealment cannot be gained any other way) or Dash to help him keep his distance from melee characters.
• If re-levelling and changing his feats, if you are thinking about switching him to use the Heavy Crossbow, be aware of the tradeoffs and the required Rapid Reload feat (e.g., maximum three shots per round). If you are thinking of going with a thrown weapon for his Combat Style, you may want to invest in the Tower Shield feat as the attack penalty for Tower Shields does not apply to ranged combat.
• He isn't as useful a stealth character as Neeshka, so you might want to strip him of his Boots of Elvenkind and give them to Neeshka. You will later find a Cloak of Elvenkind in the Githyanki Base, which will further help Neeshka sneak about and disarm traps before rejoining the party to coordinate attacks on enemy placements. Even with both, you may want to further improve Neeshka's ability to Stealth.

Shandra

• Shandra starts with modest Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence so she will not be particularly strong in might or finesse. Her initial feats of Weapon Focus (Short Sword) and Weapon Finesse suggests we are meant to make her a finesse fighter using two Short Swords.
• If you get her at level 12, she will also have developed Spring Attack, which suggests heading for Whirlwind Attack -- she will need just one point of Intelligence for Combat Expertise and Whirlwind Attack.
• If you re-level her and also get her Greater Weapon Focus, you can get as far as Improved Two-Weapon Fighting, making her pretty decent one-on-one.
• Her spread-out stats and ability to reach for Whirlwind Attack opens an interesting option of exploiting Whirlwind Attack (Whirlwind Attack ignores Monkey Grip and Two-Weapon Fighting penalties). You can re-levelling her and change her Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus (Short Sword) for a two-handed weapon, such as a Scythe (for x4 criticals) or Falchion (18-20 critical range). Put 1 point of attribute gain into Intelligence, and the rest into Strength.
• If you re-level her, you can also enhance her saving throws (like with Khelgar) and take advantage of her 16 Constitution with Toughness and Steadfast Determination.
• She won't be around in Act III, but will reach approximately level 18 and is good fun to play around with in terms of feats.

Sand

• Sand may be as high as level 12 when you reach him. This is too bad because as a wizard he has the opportunity to be one of the most useful magic item Crafters for your party -- unlike a sorcerer, he can learn more spells from scrolls and therefore create lots of different items.
• If your main character is not a wizard, you may want to re-level Sand to have both the Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magical Arms and Armor feats by around levels 6-12. After all, he runs a magical shop making potions and trinkets, so he really should have something in that direction.
• The opportunity to get a very wide range of spells also gives you an excellent opportunity to get Persistent Spell and let him buff your main character to go solo in fights and get (slightly) more XP. To relieve the tedium of casting several spells in sequence, get the Rod of Preparation.
• If you have scouted ahead and know exactly what is coming, you can tailor Sand's memorized spells to the situation. When you already have a solid plan for how to tackle an encounter, spellcasters with many spell options shine because you can choose spells that require saving throws the targets are weak to, and you have a wider variety of buffs to put on fighters.

Zhjaeve

• Zhjaeve will probably be level 15 by the time you get her, and with a variety of metamagic feats. Like Sand, this means you won't be able to use her as a magic item crafter until much later when you can give her the appropriate feats, unless you re-level her.

Ammon Jerro

• Probably the only character you won't have to re-level although his choice of Incantations is debatable. Pretty decent feat choices here by the time you get him (around Level 18). He just needs a lot of gear. His initial gear is probably better off redistributed as he won't need to be a front-liner anymore.
• Since Warlocks have unlimited uses of their spells every day, you will probably want to him throw on invisibility as often and as soon as possible.

Construct

• You may want to consider relevelling the Construct because it appears in the late game with lousy skills and some feats that go nowhere (e.g., Mobility).
• The Construct basically tanks, so you can use Khelgar's levelling scheme. Since it cannot use any equipment and can only have its main hand weapon, you could also relevel with an aim to get Whirlwind Attack.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Using the Console (Cheats)

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Using the Console (Cheats)

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

To access the console and start using cheats, press the "~" key. This drops down a console. It does not pause the game and it can interfere with you actually clicking on things in the game.

To unlock the console commands, type "DebugMode 1". Until you do this, you cannot use any commands other than "Command", which gives you a list of available commands.
Unlocking the console also show in yellow all script triggers in the game. Script triggers trigger events, and can override the effects of your skills. For example, even if you are successfully sneaking up on someone, if you step on a script trigger that forces dialogue, your protagonist will be swapped with whoever you were sneaking with, and dialogue starts.

In general, you will need to have a character selected, either because you are editing their stats or you need to put something in inventory. To do this, right click on their portrait. This should select them as the active target.

Some of the things you may want to do are:

Show all die rolls
enablecombatdebugging 1 will send all combat roll data to the log. Normally you see only condensed hit roll and damage roll data. With this command, you get to see almost all modifiers for Armor Class and Attack Bonuses itemized.

Set your attributes
setSTR, setDEX, setCON, setINT, setWIS, setCHA set the base attribute, before any modification from Race.
Some of the reasons you may want to do this are:

• Temporarily give you a skill boost to succeed at a skill. This does not work for skills that require training unless you have at least 1 skill rank (e.g., Perform). You can, for instance, increase your DEX to help you Pickpocket faster--your modified roll is the amount of gold you get, and in general no neutral character reacts to a failed pickpocketing attempt anyway.
• Adjust your attributes retroactively so that you now have enough to get a particular feat. Feats do not display if you do not qualify for them. You therefore do not have a handy way of knowing at character creation whether you will have enough for a later-game feat. For example: Whirlwind Attack has a chain of required feats that have increasing Dexterity requirements.
• Adjust your attributes to what you really want them to be after level 1. For example, you can artificially create a character with 20 Intelligence to maximize your skill ranks at level 1, then take rank in various Training-Required skills so that you can use the skill boost trick mentioned earlier. After your character is created, adjust the attributes to the correct legal starting values.
• Give enhanced starting attributes. This can be important for high ECL characters to help low-level survivability, or make very specialized character builds more viable and fun to play.
• Give yourself more skill points when levelling, by adjusting INT before, then resetting it back to normal after.

Give a feat or remove a feat
To use the givefeat or removefeat; commands, you need the numeric code representing the feat in Neverwinter Nights 2. Some of the reasons you may want to do this are:

• Try out a feat, especially one involving several prerequisites. Remember to have a save game to rollback your character to what it was. You can use the removefeat command, but it is probably cleaner to just load a save game.
• Forcibly give a feat irrespective of actual prerequisites, such as racial feats or the Rogue's Trapfinding Feat (feat 1857; lets characters find and disarm traps of DC over 20).
• Take more feats than you are allowed to get a particular build you want.
• To avoid having to roll back your character and reorganize the order in which you chose feats, or to change a feat you took several levels back.
• To harmlessly add feats of very limited utility (such as multiple Weapon Focus feats).
• Access Original Campaign Pre-Order and Limited Edition feats -- 1764 (Merchant's Friend), 1765 (Blessed of Waukeen).

Redo levelling
Use the dm_givexp command to take away (by entering a negative number) and give XP. Note that XP given to the player is also added to companions, so you may have to adjust them back down -- remember to record their XP values first.
Note that you cannot redo level 1. Also, keep an eye on what the actual addition/deduction is, as it won't always be exactly what you entered. Also, any feats you gained during a level are lost when you rollback that level. This includes the Kalach-Cha feat you will get when you recover the first silver shard as directed by Daeghun.

• This command works on companions as well, so if you get an NPC later at a high level and they have a dumb feat, skill, or spell progression, you can "fix" them this way.
• Another reason to do this is to increase the XP of a protagonist that has a big ECL. At low levels, it is very hard to survive an ECL +2 or +3, especially if you are also playing a spellcaster.
• If there is a quest or other game event that is class-specific, you can roll back one level and get that character class just to see it -- instead of replaying the whole campaign up to that point.

The dm_givexp command works on one character at a time and does not affect other characters. The givexp command has less reliable results (it will not always adjust XP by exactly the amount you input); and if used on the main character, it will also affect the other party members, just as if you had earned XP in-game.

Get gold
Use the dm_givegold command to add or take away gold (by entering a negative number).
I recommend doing this extensively because things are hideously overpriced in the Original Campaign (until you get a ton of cash through your management of Crossroad Keep).
A magic item of mediocre utility (e.g., a mere +1 enchantment or 1x use of a weak spell) can cost thousands. Not overpowering, but in general, financially out of reach. It's more fun if you can play with them a bit -- especially the various miscellaneous items.
Also, treasure is a semi-random and finite resource in the campaigns so you can't necessarily earn enough of it. It is "semi-random" in that the locations of treasure are fixed, but the loot you get is sometimes randomly generated.
There are two good mods that can tweak this: cdaulepp's Random Loot Generator greatly enhances the instances of loot dropped by creatures. At low levels you get anything from junk to normal items to weird little magic items. Nothing overpowering, although you can sometimes sell items for hundreds of gold. Since a cheesy magic item can be 5000 gp, this isn't overpowering either. To help you haul it around, try our bags of holding in the GQ Conveniences mod. Also, a very nice side effect of this mod is that Sleight of Hand is much more useful and now can yields more interesting (albeit random) results in neutral characters in the game (such as villagers).
Searchable Chests is another mod that can get you a bit more treasure, plus it adds more value to the Search skill.

Get Items
Use the dm_giveitem command to give an item. You need the item code in NWN2.

• Note that the item must be defined in the campaign module you are in. For example, the Reptile Bane Cudgel from the "Uninvited Guests" module is not defined in the Neverwinter Nights Original Campaign, so you cannot use this console command to create a Reptile Bane Cudgel in the Original Campaign (but it works fine if you imported a character who already has the item).
• You may want to do this if there is an item of particular interest to you, but you don't want to go through a particular choice to get it. For example, you must kill Galen for Namarra "Neversleep" +1. It's not hugely overpowering, but it's neat to fool around with in the early game. So instead, you can just console in the item and help Galen, and in turn have him around in Fort Locke as a merchant.
• Get Mask of the Betrayer Pre-Order version bonus items. There was one item (Mystra's Blessing), and two non-released items: nx1_blessing_mystra, nx1_blessing_chauntea, nx1_blessing_mielikki. You need to be in the Mask of the Betrayer campaign for this to work.
• You can also try out items that didn't make it into the game. The Neverwinter Nights 2 Reference Guide has a list of these. To jump to that section, search the document for "nx1_bastardsword01".

Change Alignment
Use the rs ga_alignment(x,y) command to nudge your alignment. It appears you can only change 1 point at a time. (+/-1,0) tweaks the Good/Evil continuum, and (0,+/-1) tweaks the Law/Chaos continuum.

• You may want to do this because the alignment changes in dialogue are often very inconsistent, and there isn't any chance to change back except by reloading a game and being more careful in dialogue.
• Also, if you want to play a certain class combination that has conflicting alignments, this can help you quickly change your alignment so that you can take a certain class. Once you have the feats for a certain class, you do not lose them even if your alignment no longer qualifies you to advance in that character class.

Change Influence
Urs rs kr_influence command to bring up a dialogue box where you can adjust the Influence you have over each Companion. Influence, like alignment, only comes up in dialogue and so there are very few chances to gain or lose influence with party members. Overall, having more Influence means more interesting dialogues and events with your companions. Instead of replaying the game to focus on one companion and raising their Influence, just give yourself 20 points of Influence with each person.

Expand your Roster
The command rs ga_party_limit(11) will increase your allowable party size to 11 members (10 companions + your character = 11). Normally you can have a total of 3 companions in Act I and 4 companions in Acts II and III (plus your main character, this is a party of 4 or 5 respectively).
There is also a party roster dialogue box (rs kr_roster_edit) that can be invoked with the console, but a change to the party limit there is not permanent and resets whenever you load a game. That dialog can open the party selection screen, however, if you don't have access to it through having the expansions installed.
You will end up with a lot more companions than you can have with you at any one time, so if you want to maximize your chances of seeing more party banter and interaction with your main character, this will let you have the whole herd of companions all the time. (Note that some characters have more priority to their banter, and having the entire company of companions still does not guarantee you will see everything).

Combat can be problematic because of the micromanagement and traffic jams, but you can partially solve this by telling various characters to hold their ground and just run around with a smaller team set to Follow or Attack Nearest (both of which cause them to follow whichever character is selected at the time).

Note that whenever you load a saved game, all companions relocate to where your main character was when the game was saved.

Forcibly Add or Remove a Party Member
The command partyremove followed by a character name (e.g., "shandra") will remove a party member not just from your current party, but from your party roster. Essential characters (e.g., Shandra in Act II) are automatically re-added when you reload a game.
Party members removed this way hang around as NPCs and may still be attacked by hostiles. They do not gain XP when your main character gains XP. To add them back, the corresponding command is partyadd.

You may want to use this to go solo in certain areas (either for XP for other reasons) where a character normally cannot. For example in the Temple of Seasons test rooms, the script brings all your characters together for the test and you cannot leave anyone far away to take the tests alone.
Be careful when using this command because some characters are mandatory for certain cutscenes, and you can break quests this way, forcing you to reload a saved game.

Note that if you have the expansions and can access the Party Roster through the menu, you can generally avoid having to use this. Sometimes party members will be marked essential for the area you are going to -- Zhjaeve in Nolaloth's Valley, for example. If you already have them in your party before going to the World Map screen, then the game engine won't prompt you to add them, and will NOT set them essential (you cannot remove them from your party in the same the way you couldn't remove Shandra in Act II). You can then use the Party Roster to remove them once you are in the map.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Character Creation and Game Quirks

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Character Creation and Game Quirks

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Character Creation
The maximum XP you can earn in the Original Campaign is 253,000, or level 23. Your level cap is still 20, but this allows all races up to ECL +3 to reach level 20.

If you have the Storm of Zehir expansion, you can manually enable the two Companion races in that campaign: the HagSpawn (ECL +2) and the Half-Celestial (ECL +4). Here's how:

• Start the NWN2 Editor.
• Examine 2da files and look for racialsubtypes.2da
• Find the race entries for the Hagspawn (row 45) and Half-Celestial (row 46).
• Change the "0" to a "1" under the column "PlayerRace".
• If you want to play the Hagspawn, you will also need to temporarily change the "BaseRace" entry for the Hagspawn.
• It is initially set to "13" (Monstrous Humanoid) and therefore won't show up during character creation because there is no racial group for Monstrous Humanoid. Instead, change it to "32" (Gray Orc).
• After you have created a character and saved the game and exported the character, you will probably want to change the Hagspawn BaseRace back to its original value of 13 (Monstrous Humanoid) because it probably affects how some effects will interact with all Hagspawn in the game.

Note that the Half-Celestial isn't really meant for low-level play since they start with Word of Faith and Summon Planetar once per day. Either of these can wipe out a lot of encounters very quickly. Try not to use any of these powers until the late game in the Original Campaign.

Character Types
Melee-strong characters will have a fairly easy and straightforward time due to the short ranges involved in the game and the AI knowing to rush spellcasters and archers. If you don't feel experienced with the game or just aren't keen on micromanaging, keep the difficulty setting on Normal and choose a melee type character as your main character. It's generally pretty mindless as a melee character, and you might even be able to let the AI handle everything. Even a vanilla Fighter class with no fancy multiclassing will mostly do fine -- although you need to be fairly intelligent about the feats and watch for the AI doing silly things like having your character chase their target, even if they end up running past enemies and giving them several Attacks of Opportunity; or running off to fight far-off battles before you are ready for them; or standing still after a kill instead of immediately heading for the next target.

In the mid- to late game (around level 15+) you will start to encounter a wider variety of spells cast at you, and at that point a party will be more important than the limited options available to a straight warrior. Also, Attack Bonus climbs very quickly and even Armor Classes in the 30's will be hit 50% - 75% or more of the time when you face fighter classes. Having some sort of backup, such as a Stoneskin spell or Concealment from Displacement is absolutely vital to going solo. Arcane casters really shine by then as they can put out literally 100+ points of damage (on a failed saving throw by the target) on several if not all targets with a single spell, assuming they can get the spell off.
Strength-based fighters can output similar damage on a single target, pushing 100 on a critical.
Two-Weapon finesse fighters do less per hit because their lower Strength won't get as much of an advantage from critical damage multiplication and additional magical damage (e.g., 2 Magical Damage from Adamantine weapons, or +2d6 Divine damage from Holy Weapons) are not multiplied on a critical hit. However, they get more chances to trigger effects from weapons, such as Vampiric Regeneration.
An interesting option is to go with a Ranger Two-Weapon Fighting character based on Strength and try to make up the Armor Class shortfall with Dexterity-boosting items.

Character Planning
Probably the best resource for deciding on or planning a character is the NWN2 Character Builder -- It has an interactive online character planner that includes checks for character and feat prerequisites, plus an online database on characters and feats.
If you make your character build public, take criticism with a grain of salt. There are a lot of end-result analysis commentators (i.e., about the level 30 version of the build instead of playability along the way) and character builds which aren't really geared for the campaigns, unless you want to blunder through with poor skills and little or no interaction skills.
You can also use it to plan your Companion progressions. Companions do not normally Multiclass, but you can bypass this with the Feather of Multiclassing mod.

If you don't like going online to do it, you can try the Character Build Calculator (requires Microsoft Excel).

For our play-through of the Neverwinter Nights 2 Original Campaign, we spent quite a bit of time fooling around with the Character Builder, but finally settled on a challenging build with features that interested us -- the Shredding Scythe of the Wind (click here to you can download a summary of the build in Microsoft Excel format).
It has a racial ECL +2 adjustment, so it can be challenging in the early part of the game because of its vulnerability to Critical Hits and just plain chancy rolls in combat. The ECL +2 adjustment slows down level advance a lot as well but this was irrelevant around level 15+.

Our recommendation is to play whatever race, alignment, and class combination you feel will be fun to play. If there aren't exactly enough feats to get the character you want, or if you're the wrong alignment, use the Console to tweak things. If the XP penalties are too harsh, use the Console to bump up your XP or try a ECL Remover mod or Multiclass Penalty Remover mod; or stop after a few levels, Export your character, and restart the campaign at a slightly higher level.
Life is too short to obsess over getting exactly the right build. And it's certainly too time-consuming to re-play a good chunk of the campaign simply because you didn't optimize your schedule of feats.

Game Quirks - Gaining XP
Whatever character you play, you should know that there are a number of quirks around gaining XP:

• The game checks your XP total (before factoring in a multiclassing penalty) to determine how much XP you get. So, if you are level 4 and have enough XP to advance to level 5, you immediately start earning less XP per kill -- as if you were already level 5. If advancing a level does not increase your character's Challenge Rating (some characters advance more slowly, especially in the early levels), you will suddenly gain more XP per kill again when you take the level, as if you were still level 4.
• Your ECL adjustment only affects the XP you need to gain a level. The level used to determine XP is the level you would have gained at ECL +0 according to the XP you have earned, before taking into account multiclassing penalties.
• If you have a multiclassing penalty and your character falls behind the rest of your party in effective character level (ECL), you do not continue to earn a higher amount of XP. For example, if you are level 4 and due to a multiclassing penalty your party of companions has advanced to level 5 but you are still at level 4, you earn XP as if you were level 5.
• If you have at least one Companion, you get the regular XP. If you have more than one -- no matter how many -- you do NOT get less XP.
• If your player character is solo or far enough away from the other party members that they are not involved in combat, the game treats your character level as being 1 level less for determining XP -- i.e., You get more XP per kill.
• You can access the Party Roster from the menu to move party members in and out if you have the Mask of the Betrayer expansion, although some party members (like Bevil and Shandra) are sometimes key to plot points and cannot be removed.
• Going solo for more XP does NOT work with Companions. When a Companion is far enough away from everyone else, they earn ZERO XP for kills. You cannot therefore put Neeshka on Greater Invisibility and have her wander around for easy kills, even though that is actually a great tactic.
  
• In the Original Campaign, most of the time (not all), killing your way through an encounter is worth a little to a lot more in XP than talking your way out of it in the early game.
• This works up to around the time you get to Neverwinter's Blacklake District. After that, XP per kill tends to drop a lot because of the enemies involved, and the quest XP makes up for the difference.
• There is generally no long-term consequence to that choice, plus you get more treasure -- a very limited resource in the game until you get to manage Crossroad Keep. A good example is choosing to kill the lizardfolk threatening HighCliff instead of negotiating a peaceful coexistance -- if you fight your way out, not only is there more kill XP but lots of decent treasure along the way.
• Over time, XP theoretically should catch up as you get more per kill when you are of a lower level.
• The XP table seems to follow very little rhyme or reason and there are odd entries here and there.
• For example, if you are level 17, you earn 63 XP for defeating a Challenge Level 14 creature. If you were level 18, you would earn MORE when you should be earning less -- you get 65.6 XP (rounds down to 65 in-game).
• For this reason, we use our own modified XP table that is based on the pen and paper version of Dungeons and Dragons.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 16

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 16 - Vale of Merdelein, Ritual Chamber

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Vale of Merdelein

• There are a lot of traps here and you don't start with Neeshka, so that can be trouble for a non-Rogue character, since Rogues are the only ones with the Trapfinding feat. You need this feat to detect and disarm traps of very high difficulty.
• In general, areas around lights may be trapped, as are entrances and other chokepoints.
• The cleric Find Traps spell isn't always reliable.
• Ammon Jerro's The Dead Walk are good for making expendables to trigger traps safely. You can try a combination of Retributive Invisibility (if you want to scout an enemy-infested area) and having the summoned undead walk to you past whatever area you want to test for traps.
• To cut through all the tedious maneuvering (as the Vale area is really quite large), you can turn on DebugMode with the Console. This reveals all floor triggers, including traps (in red, as if detected).
• You can also just blithely walk into the traps and let either your Regeneration items heal you, a Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor from Zhjaeve, or Grobnar's regeneration Inspiration -- these are just alternatives to not suck up too many spells and have to rest too often.
• In the final area, you start off ambushed by Mummy Lords who immediately cast Flame Strike, so immediately split up the entire party so they don't get hit by overlapping areas.
• After this encounter, rest a couple of times to trigger the attacked-while-you-are-resting encounters. After two, they end so you can safely rest after that before facing the Shadow Reavers.
• To get them to come to you:
• Have Ammon Jerro cast The Dead Walk downstairs. This may take a couple of tries as he might start running across the bridge. Don't let him. It is possible to have the skeleton summoned below without having to cross the bridge. The skeleton summoned will run back up the ramp, triggering any traps and the encounter trigger. Instead of facing them at the broad landing, face them in the narrow entrance stairs that descend to the area -- there if you happen to pull more than one at a time, you can keep them from sighting you and casting too many spells.
• If you have a monk or maybe someone under Haste, you can probably just run out immediately after the dialogue. Preferably you will have already positioned your other party members so you won't get a traffic jam going up the stairs.

Ritual Chamber

• High enough Influence can cause Bishop to leave, if you choose the right dialogue options.
• You do not need to recite the True Name Scroll to kill Black Garius, since that was already done during the siege of Crossroad Keep.
• Touching a statue lets either Ammon Jerro or the PC renew their use of the Illefarn ritual feats. You can do this until the final attack on the King of Shadows. Try to use the Soothing Light powers to heal your companions instead of using spells. Use it and use it often because your Soothing Light is insanely powerful -- healing 1 hit point per level per round for 10 rounds, plus you don't have to target anything.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 15

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 15 - Shandra's Farm, Siege of Crossroad Keep

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Shandra's Farm

• If you don't kill everything quickly, you can milk this event for experience becaus there are a heck of a lot of devils to fight. However, they can cast Blindness, and if you don't have anything to counter that, your fighters could be rendered useless. You can try to retreat down the path and have a choke point with fighters and Ammon Jerro behind casting Eldritch Chains.
• Because the Staff of the Magi can absorb magic cast on it, it is actually better used by Ammon Jerro (via his Use Magic Device skill) because he can cast Warlock Incantations an unlimited number of times to recharge it without resting.
• Have someone with high Intelligence, Search, Spot, or Survival examine the scarecrow (this can be either the main character or a Companion; use that character to interact with the scarecrow).
• When you get back to Crossroad Keep, it is your last chance to pick up anything you may have cached until the siege is over -- You will be taken to a different version of Crossroad Keep for the siege.

Siege Mission 1: Bridge

• You probably want to do the first two fights without pausing: The fields have lizardmen fighting for their lives, and if you don't get there quickly enough or if you pause to rest, they are killed. It is not clear if this affects the siege outcome or not, however. You get a 4,000 xp award and an epithet for defending the Keep with "minimal losses" -- which may refer to how many Greycloaks survive with you and/or how many civilians survive.
• Turn Undead is useless here as the undead grunts have too many hit dice to kill and there are generally too many to waste a round Turning them when you could drop a Mass Cure spell that will heal your allies and hurt the undead simultaneously.

Siege Mission 2: Siege Towers

• Companions and Units: Qara and Sand, and use them to quickly destroy the siege towers with Meteor Swarm and other fire spells -- in effect doing it yourself because the mages at Crossroad Keep can't do it very quickly and everyone is getting pelted by arrows constantly. They can't actually target the siege towers until the towers land on the walls, however.
• Tons of undead to kill here if you want to rack up experience points, assuming for some reason that your character isn't already at the level cap (which is possible if you are an ECL +3 race).
• If you're having a hard time keeping everyone alive, you can have one healer put a Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor on everyone, which will last "24 hours" -- long enough for the entire encounter and hopefully enough to keep ahead of arrow damage.

Siege Mission 3: Outer Gate

• Quickly block the entrance and lay down a killzone with lingering area effect spells. If your melee characters get bogged down, you can periodically drop a Fireball, Firebrand, or Scorching Ray (depending on whether you have friendly fire turned on in the difficulty level) in the gateway under the bridge, where everyone is jammed inside.
• An interesting idea would be to have Elanee melee them with Persistent Body of the Sun and Persistent Vigor. The undead here are minor and shadows and wraiths should be easily killed by Greycloak archers if one or two make it into the courtyard. Save your spells for Black Garius.

Siege Mission 4: Nightwalker and Black Garius

• Let the Nightwalker chase you initially -- engage Black Garius quickly with melee until your spellcasters are up to speed with laying down covering fire on both Black Garius and the Nightwalker. Black Garius can drop a couple of Meteor Swarms on your party, so he needs to be handled early.
• After Mission 4, you will be back in Crossroad Keep but you cannot leave the Keep. This is your final chance to grab anything you have cached before the endgame in the Illefarn ruins.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 14

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 14 - Pre-War - Port Llast, Strange Clearing, HighCliff, Neverwinter Evacuation, Dwarven Stronghold, Mount Galardrym, Sydney Natale, Ancient Valley, West Harbor

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Port Llast

Strange Clearing

• There is a small encounter of three trolls versus some of your Greycloaks when you travel from Port Llast to the Strange Clearing.

HighCliff

• The road encounter before you actually reach HighCliff has an ore deposit. It can be tricky to find -- It is near the north exit, at the base of a boulder.
• Vissk - When you first talk to him, various companions will talk about his wounds being fatal. You must exit dialogue with him and re-initiate dialogue in order to get an in-dialogue option to heal him so he won't die after questioning.
• If your melee characters are having a hard time with the fire shield, remember Ammon Jerro came with a ring that provides moderate elemental resistance.

Neverwinter Evacuation (Merchant District)

• Look for the two new merchants.
• Joy can be recruited her. She is supposed to give the Amulet of Joy if you can recruit both her and her sister Light of Heavens. If it doesn't work, you can use the console to give yourself item 31_charm_joy. This only works when you are at Crossroad Keep because the item is defined locally in that module. It looks like a necklace, but it cannot be worn.

Dwarven Stronghold

• Revorax has two epic-level items: the Rift Hammer (warhammer; Enhancement Bonus +6) and the Greater Storm Armor of the Earth's Children (full plate; Enhancement Bonus +7). The armor in particular can push Khelgar's Armor Class up to very nice levels.

Mount Galardrym

• At the entrance to the dragon's lair, there are some boulders you can push to squash some Fire Giants below. You can still push them after defeating all the fire giants, so you might as well do that first so as not to lose the xp from kills. You can go back afterwards to push the boulders for 50xp.
• Caelryna: You can recruit her once you are Warden of the Keep, and not lose the epithet.
• Tholapsyx fighting tactics:
• Agree to help her, then reposition your party and cast buffs and summons before talking to her and deciding to attack her.
• A fairly easy way to kill the dragon is to keep it blocked from moving toward your spellcasters with one or two fighters and cast Regeneration on the fighters early on. Also, if your fighters are having a hard time with the acid fog the dragon casts, back away a bit before engaging again.
• The Bigby's spells are largely useless with the exception of Bigby's Interposing Hand to reduce the enormous Attack Bonus by 10 points. If you cast any other Bigby's Spell, you will have to wait until their duration expires to try any other, even if none of them work against the dragon (e.g., It has strength and size is high enough to win Grapple checks against Bigby's Crushing Hand, so you have to wait until the duration expires because the hand continues to try Grappling the dragon.)
• Another useful spell is Blade Barrier, cast "at location" but targeting the dragon. This should cause the dragon to either cast Regeneration and/or Heal, which basically gives you up to two free rounds with no retaliation.
• You cannot encounter Tholapsyx solo (e.g., if you remove party members with the party roster menu or console), or you will break scripted dialogue.
• You can try this if you insist on cheating with the console and going solo against the dragon: When dialogue breaks, you cannot speak with Tholapsyx and she will not be hostile. Walk to her treasure and she will be hostile. When she dies, make sure you are NOT near her treasure because that triggers an event. Bring in at least Khelgar back in your party before walking onto the treasure. You should get the chest for the Path of the Holy quest if you are on it, plus dialogue with Khelgar about how to bring the gold back. Without that dialogue, Kana won't send Greycloaks to get the loot.
• If you are disappointed by how much XP you get for defeating Tholapsyx, you might try our modified xptable.2da, which is based on the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 XP table rather than what appears to be haphazard awards.

Sydney Natale and the True Names of the Shadow Reavers

• If you are having trouble keeping Jalboun alive, try casting Regeneration on him early.

Shadow Reaver Camp

• You are advised it might be a trap by various parties at Crossroad Keep, but you cannot deliberately walk into any trap and thereby fight more undead -- no matter what, it is the same encounter. Having either Guyven or Mephasm in Crossroad Keep -- whether you talk to them about the Shadow Reaver Camp or not -- gets you 500xp just for reaching this area.
• When a Shadow Reaver is severely wounded, it emits a pulse that causes nearby foes to be Knocked Down regardless of Strength.
• Only having Immunity to Knockdown will resist this effect. Immunity to Knockdown can be obtained from:
• Thieves' Hood (pickpocket it from Yask in Port Llast)
• Iron Helm, Iron Boot (buy from Fibba in the Docks District; requires the Blessed of Waukeen feat to buy)
• The Sturdy Feet of Pim (Dayne Lenneth in Blacklake; requires the Merchant's Friend feat to buy)
• The 1st-level Druid spell Foundation of Stone
• The 8th-level Druid spell Storm Avatar
• Continuing to attack the Shadow Reaver before the True Name is fully recited is useful if only to occupy it from doing anything other than heal itself. You may therefore want to abort Zhjaeve or Ammon Jerro from reciting the True Name until after the Shadow Reaver minions are slain. Then, hit him at range (Ammon Jerro is good for this because of his strong and unlimited-casting ranged attacks as a Warlok) to keep him busy healing himself.
• If you still want Ammon Jerro to start reading the True Name from the start of the encounter, abort him from doing so, turn on his Retributive Invisibility, and then restart it (right click on the True Name scroll and target the Shadow Reaver).

Ancient Valley (Nolaloth)

• To get more background information from Nolaloth, ask the questions nearer the bottom of the dialogue options first when he is ready to let you ask questions. Once you start talking about the githyanki, dialogue options close.

West Harbor

• A Restoration spell can heal the temporary CON damage you sustain when you enter.
• You need a lot of Craft skill ranks or Survival ranks to rebuild the bridge for 50 xp. Running across the river doesn't seem to do much harm, however (just some Negative energy damage).
• You can reach West Harbor without any of the shard pieces by putting them either into a container, or onto a companion whom you then dismiss from your current party. You will still reforge the Sword of Gith, however, so you can try this to keep all your separate shards, some of which are very helpful magic items because they only have to be in your inventory to function.
• Note that once you are at West Harbor, you cannot simply drop the shards onto the ground (they will be picked up automatically) or given to a companion (the game will search for the shards among your companions).
• When you first start the cutscene to reforge the Sword of Gith, you put on the ground the first item in your inventory.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 13

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 13 - Ammon Jerro's Haven, Castle Never, Neverneath

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Haven Approach

• Fire Elementals
• Fire Elementals have strong Damage Reduction against physical attacks. Most of it can be bypassed with a weapon of +2 or higher Enhancement, but they will always have DR 5/-, meaning 5 points of reduction that cannot be bypassed no matter what type of weapon you have.
• Geysers
• Geysers inflict massive Acid Damage instead of poison damage as the dialogs suggests. However, if you use Energy Immunity (Acid) on a character, it inflicts Magical Damage instead.
• You can Influence Elanee here with an Intelligence check.
• You can win Influence with Neeshka if you successfully get the water with Dexterity or Tumbling.
• The safest path is to follow the grass at the edges (obviously -- the geysers would have killed those off), although on the left side there is a small geyser in the grass near the main geyser. You can also wait a while and watch where the geysers spout.
• Do NOT reload a game if your main character is in the danger zone because whenever you reload, your Companions appear around your main character. At the geysers, there isn't much room and some might end up hurt by the geysers.
• Shaman
• Your answers can Influence Shandra, Casavir, and Bishop.
• Whichever way you answer, you get 500xp and kill xp. The difference in kill xp is minor at this point.
• If you opt to fight the spirit barbarians, under Rage they have Attack Bonuses in the mid-20's, so any Armor Class under 40 will be generally useless if you are swarmed and any stoneskin will be expended quickly. You can, however, try to cautiously draw only a few at a time since they start below the plateau and cannot initially see you.
• Don't panic when Shandra disappears. You'll get all her gear back later. You will not be able to return to the Haven interior or exterior, however, so don't leave anything there.
• Once you enter the Haven, you have a long way to go before you get out again, so cache stuff if you have to because you'll need a lot of room to haul gear. Low-Strength characters should be particularly conservative here. If you upgraded Crossroad Keep with both the West Wing and the Personal Quarters, you can get a Magic Bag which can be very useful here. There will also be a brief solo portion and main characters who cannot open locks should get the Chime of Opening from Raylene in the Neverwinter Docks District to open chests without damaging contents.

Ammon Jerro's Haven

• Baalbisan and Hezebel
• Do neither quest initially. Blooden will give you the true name that Hezebel is looking for. You can then give it to Hezebel (if you are unable to Bluff her) and secure her aid without angering Baalbisan -- therefore getting the aid of 4 infernals instead of just 3, and 1,000 more xp.
• Hezebel and Blooden
• If you don't rebuff their advances toward your male character or if you flirt with them, you will lose Influence with Elanee or Neeshka (only Elanee if both are in your party).
• Hezebel
• You can speak with her again after agreeing to her task to try to Bluff her with a made-up true name. You do need an awful lot of Bluff skill, though.
• Blooden
• The succubi in the corridor before her might not attack but they are supposed to. Leave the corridor and re-enter to see if the script triggers.
• If you mock her, she calls 1 succubus to attack before you can talk to her again. If you bore her or refuse her task, she sends 2 and can do so twice (so you can't milk this encounter for XP).
• If Neeshka is with you, Blooden will reveal that one of the infernals is in her ancestry. This doesn't seem to go anywhere, however.
• If Grobnar is with you, you can gain 3 points of Influence: Choose to say "something interesting", then say "you are very unstable", then invite Grobnar to sing.
• Once you get the Nessian War Hounds, if you go too far away from Blooden's room (e.g., head toward Hezebel), they will become hostile. You can turn then back to neutral if you tell Blooden you will fight against her minions or if you tell her you won't fight. Or, you can kill them and then tell Blooden you won't fight (which makes her send her minions against you)--thereby killing all the minions for xp.
• Zaxis
• If you command her to stop referring to herself in the third person, you gain Influence with Neeshka (once) and make available again the dialogue to tell her to open the portal, thus allowing you to gain 1,000 xp an unlimited number of times.
• Ancient Book
• Successfully using Lore and Spellcraft give 500 xp each, but you only one try -- the dialogue option disappears after that, so you cannot retry when you arrange for higher skill bonuses.
• Summoned Horned Demon
• Although the label indicates this is a summon, it is actually not and can be slain for xp. Normally, summonned creatures do not yield any kill xp.

Castle Never

• Interestingly, you are credited XP for the Palace Guard killed by the Shadow Priest during the initial Castle Never cutscene.
• The initial attack seems like a great place to use Cleansing Nova, but it actually isn't since it probably won't outright kill anything, rather just weaken them for Nevalle or the Palace Guards to pick them off and therefore deny you kill XP.

Neverneath

• One of the few times when successfully performing quests (here, answering questions) will yield more XP than violence and destruction. If you correctly answer all statue questions and solve the final puzzle, you get bonus XP.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 12

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 12 - Ruins of Arvahn and the Ritual of Purification

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Map Transition

• The first time you travel to Arvahn, you will encounter Malarites.
• The second time you travel to Arvahn, you can encounter pixes. If you do what they ask, you can get a Ring of Invisibility.

Ruins Exterior

• If you successfully Intimidate Uthanck you can Influence Sand.
• To make the Orcs hostile at any time (e.g., after completing their quest to kill Ghellu), speak with Ilrah Broken-Ribs and insult Gruumsh. You can do so after getting Ilrah's enchanted rib by asking him about his name and responding with "... well done."

Riverguard Keep

• Ralidor the Restless reappears with more bugbears outside than if you attack him when you first encounter him. You must kill him to get the Master's Sword to open the vault safely on level 3, but it is not strictly necessary.
• If you leave RibSmasher alone you may get slightly more XP than if you kill him, but you won't get his Gloves of the Long Death +3. Release him last because he will also attack chests and thereby possibly destroy something inside. If he survives when you reach the warded door on level 3, you can use him to open the door but it will cost you an Evil alignment shift and losing Influence with Shandra and Casavir (but gaining with Bishop). He will also not drop his Gloves.
• If you agree to kill Ghellu's enemies for him and do so, you get 1500xp but you cannot then make him hostile and he causes all the goblins to die opening the door to the Statue for you.
• If you have all three Master's items (Sword, Sceptre, Shield), you can open the door on level 3 safely, but you lose the opportunity to Influence Zhjaeve by opening it yourself. In neither case do you get XP just for opening the door.

Gem Mines

• To get the spirits into the tree room, selectively turn off/on Ghost Light sconces to open pathways for them to run and to block off ways they can backtrack.
• Thunderbelly's reference to a crystal dragon probably refers to the species of psionic gemstone dragon that has a breath weapon that is a blast of light.

Temple of Seasons

• In the room with earth elementals, destroying the statues will cause any remaining earth elementals to vanish.
• At the statue room, you can Influence Casavir.

West Harbor after attack

• Head across the bridge to Daeghun's home to trigger a dialogue with Shandra. Another dialogue (with Zhjaere) is triggered nearer the south exit to the swamp.

Swamp Ruins for the Ritual of Purification

• The area looks the same as before but it is not. Near the middle of the map there are some ruined structures and a chest. That chest may now have something in it again. Also, there is now a narrow path from that chest going northeast toward the Illefarn ruins you need to visit.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 11

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 11 - Crossroad Keep Management

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Table of Contents:

• General Notes
• After the Raid, Before Keep Ownership
• Buildings
• Ore and Greycloak Gear Upgrades
• Timed Events
• Other Events
• Build Order #1 - 956 Merchants, 1005 Peasants, 3080 Greycloaks
• Build Order #2 - 1744 Merchants, 1750 Peasants, 5248 Greycloaks, did NOT do Recruitment.

A very good resource with in-depth analysis of what works and why is at Thieves-Guild.net. Another good resource that dissects the scripts and discusses where they are bugged (not always applicable to the latest 1.23 patch) is NWN2Wiki.

General Notes

• There are three generally mutually exclusive events that can be attained from the management of Crossroad Keep. By this time in the game, you will have had to choose to work with the City Watch or the Thieves' Guild, and that will have limited your choices already. Even so, you will still have to work to reach certain events -- if you want them. On the other hand, none of these really do anything for you other than give you the satisfaction of having attained them.
• Warden of the Keep epithet 
• Good alignment, High Greycloak Civility, Church of Tyr, Joy, Light of Heavens, no Uncus, no Caelryna.
• You must have chosen to work for the City Watch or you will not be able to turn Uncus away from your Keep and thereby disqualify you from this epithet outright.
• Dreadlord of the Keep epithet 
• Evil alignment, Low Greycloak Civility, Wizard's Tower, Uncus and Caelryna, no Church of Tyr, Joy and Light of Heavens not present. You will probably need to have joined the Thieves' Guild in order to use Uncus to bring Greycloak Civility down low enough.
• Gift from the Greycloaks (Short Sword +5)
• You need: All sergeants, best weapons and armor for the Greycloaks, Captain's Company, Best of the Best Training, Elite Greycloak Quality, High Morale.
• If you want to be Warden of the Keep, you can try picking up Jalboun of the Two Blades after getting that epithet.
• You are unlikely to get this event as Dreadlord of the Keep because the actions required to lower Greycloak Civility will probably hurt Morale as well. Also, you will need Light of Heavens, and you cannot recruit her if you are Evil. If you can manage an alignment change (possible by building the Church of Tyr after becoming Dreadlord and fulfilling the quest there), you might be able to recruit Light of Heavens later on.
• You must have the Captain's Company, so you must at least start with the highest recruitment standards.
• Time moves in two ways: Talking to Kana, and building something.
• Time advances by 2.5% (but is rounded down on the Crossroad Keep report; i.e., 2%, 5%, 7%, 10%...).
• Whenever you exit the Keep (not just go into the basement and then come back out), when you re-enter and talk to Kana or Kana talks to you, time advances 1 increment.
• You can avoid this if you have Wolf's Minions, who can teleport you between the Keep Basement and Courtyard, thereby bypassing Kana entirely.
• If you tell Veedle to build something, the next time you do any area transition time will pass by one increment and the construction is finished. In some cases, construction is complete immediately when you speak with him (e.g., the Temple).
• At various plot points, Keep Time will stop advancing. You can still keep building, but you get no income, no population growth, no recruitment. Special events that are valid to appear at that Keep Time can still occur.
• Sometimes Kana starts conversation with a report on an event or mission that was initiated. Exit conversation and then speak with her again to see if she has something else to say -- she only talks about one thing each time even if there are a few items she can report on. Some events have cutscenes that trigger. You can go into the Keep basement and come back out to see if any cutscene-trigger events occur (if you go out to the courtyard and back, Keep Time advances; going in and out of the basement will not advance Keep Time).
• The cost of fully upgrading the Keep is enormous. Some sources of funding in the early stages:
• A stack of 750 Gold Rings can be stolen from a merchant in Blacklake. Since no one responds to Sleight of Hand detection unless they were hostile to begin with, there's no harm to keep trying until you grab this windfall. It's probably a developer oversight, however.
• The Warehouse in the City Watch / Thieve's Guild quests. There are a lot of items, including a large stack of Darksteel Chainmail.
• You can craft items to sell -- some of the pricier items can be crafted with molds and ingots or planks and be sold for more than the net cost of components.
• Your Companions: Since you are limited in your party size, not every character needs to be outfitted with the best gear. If you're desperate, some can be stripped down to no gear and you can trade gear between characters before you finalize whatever party you want to go with you on an expedition. Depending on your main character, you could also do many fights solo anyway.
• Mephasm: The cost in making the bargaining chips he asks for is actually in the rarity of the ingredients and their usefulness in crafting items. Otherwise, it's a good trade even if you ask for wealth (5,000 gold). The best money-wise is the Boots of the Shifting Sands, which could possibly net you over 100,000 gold if you sell it, depending on your Appraise skill.
• Anything else, even if you need it later. Once money starts accruing in the mid to late stages of Keep Time, you can withdraw funds and buy the items back.
• Port Llast merchants (Nya especially) give the best prices but have a very limited ability to buy pricey items. Only Port Llast and the Neverwinter Merchant Quarter remain accessible in Act III.
• Once in Act III, you can take money out of the Keep reserves.
• Where a skill or attribute is mentioned, you don't need to have actually spent skill points, just have a net bonus from any number of sources (such as Grobnar's Inspiration) when in dialogue and the attribute or skill is checked.
• Whenever penalties or bonuses are applied by outcomes, they cannot be recovered with just time -- they can only be offset by adjustments from the outcomes of other events. Some adjustments, like troop quality, have only negative adjustments from events.
• Negative adjustments that affect merchant and peasant growth will ultimately have an impact on keep funds that far outweighs whatever temporary gain in income or immediate cash you got. It is then really useless to be Evil or greedy in the short term.
• Keep an eye on tithes/taxes. If you see a sudden jump in your report from Kana, it may mean something has screwed it up. We found taxes reset when returning from the Ruins of Arvahn and when after the special mission to send out tax collector.
• It is unclear how Recruitment works. There are three numbers: Greycloaks, Volunteers, and Recruits.
• Volunteers is the number of Greycloaks you got without assigning men to recruitment. Recruits is the number of Greycloaks you got through assigning men to recruitment.
• When Kana reports that there aren't any more recruits to be found, this may or may not be correct.
• It can take 2 Keep Time advances before there are any results, and recruitment continues several Keep Time advances afterwards. At some point, the "Recruits" number reaches a limit, however.
• Recruitment drastically reduces income, but it does not appear that your income can go below 0. "Secret" merchant income through the Appraise skill does not appear to be affected.
• While you can get a temporary increase in recruits through active recruitment, taking Greycloaks and sergeants from patrols will reduce overall population during this period.

After the Raid, Before Keep Ownership

• After the raid on Crossroad Keep, you can speak with Grobnar and Zhjaeve:
• Grobnar: You can speak with him about the Construct as you can have up to two components already (the The Ancient Art of Golemcraft and a Vial of Glowstone Water). He talks as if you already own Crossroad Keep, but this conversation can happen before then, so it can be a bit confusing.
• Zhjaeve: You can speak with her even before getting her to Crossroad Keep to meet Nevalle. She can give you a lot of history, including a reference to a character in Planescape: Torment.
• After talking to Nevalle at Crossroad Keep, you can go to Blacklake, then with Qara in your party, go to Crossroad Keep. This travel path (and no other) triggers a special encounter with the animus elemental conjured by Sydney Natale for Johcris. You can get this event twice (slightly different the second time).
• Raise Money:
• The merchants at Crossroad Keep will give you inferior prices, so use merchants elsewhere first. Only for very pricey items will they be useful as they have a higher purchase price cap.
• Staff: If you don't talk to Veedle or Kana in the courtyard, time in the keep doesn't start ticking. No income, but no events either. Before you talk to Veedle or Kana, get your initial staff:
• Katriona (Old Owl Well). She is the only one who can get to Crossroad Keep without having improved the Merchant Trail.
• Pentin (Old Owl Well) and Calindra (Port Llast). Trying to go to Port Llast results in a small encounter with bounty hunters. Easy targets with good loot. The miners may take a little while to reach Crossroad Keep -- maybe after two or three area transitions by you.
• Orlen (West Harbor) to start tending the fields. Like the miners, he can take a while to reach the Keep.

Buildings
These are the buildings and upgrades you can get, and snippets of what Veedle says about them -- which can be taken as hints for build order in the early stages:

• Courtyard - "You've already built one shop, you want me to build the other? It's quick work and shouldn't slow us down too much."
• 10000 Blacksmith
1. 3500 Basic Armor
2. 5000 Basic Weapon
3. 15000 Decent Armor
4. 15000 Good Weapon
5. 30000 Good Armor
6. 35000 Best Weapon
7. 50000 Best Armor (requires more than 8 Ore Veins - not possible until Act III)
• 10000 Merchant Shop
• Keep - "Might I recommend doing some structural work on the Keep first? So many of the rooms inside are closed off because they might collapse at any moment. No way for you to live. Humph."
• 15000 Keep Personal Suite
• 15000 Keep Library
• 15000 Keep West Wing
• Road Work - "... coins in your coffer means more work can be done."
1. 10000 Road Work Widen Trail
2. 35000 Road Work Cobble Road
3. 50000 Road Work Renovations
4. 100000 Road Work New Bridges and Towers
• Fortifications - "But it will take a long time ... It may be better to do quicker projects first."
1. 25000 Fortifications Repairs
2. 50000 Fortifications Reinforcement
3. 75000 Fortifications Towers
• Church - You can choose one in Act III. Neither are particularly critical and the rewards are lacklustre or too specialized to be absolutely necessary.
• 50000 Church of Tyr
• If you qualify for the Warden of the Keep epithet, Ivarr gives it to you in the Church, Light of Heavens gives you the Champion's Fist, and Joy gives you the Charm of Joy (item code 31_charm_joy).
• Offers a quest that will do one of the following:
• Evil characters can get an alignment change.
• Good Paladins will find the Holy Avenger longsword in Tholapsyx's horde on Mount Galardrym.
• Looks useful, but the Paladin-only restriction, lack of special weapon material, and its pre-selected weapon type (longsword) means that a crafted Holy Adamantine +5 weapon is probably more useful all around.
• Good Clerics will find the Loremaster's Mace in Tholapsyx's horde on Mount Galardrym.
•  The Wisdom bonus looks great, but stat bonuses don't stack, so you are probably using a Periapt of Wisdom +4 at this time anyway, or may have bought a Periapt of Wisdom +6. Divine Damage is nice as practically nothing has resistance to that.
• You can purchase this item from the Temple of Tyr.
• 75000 Sun Soul Monastery
• At around time +10 Keep turns after you build it, there should be 6 novice monks. Rolan will then be able to start the optional quest for a Monk main character.
• To qualify, the main character must have 10+ levels of Monk.
• To get the best outcome, choose to want nothing from any of the elementals.
• The initial best reward is a pair of Boots of the Sun Soul +5 which you can buy anyway Much later you can get the Fists of Balance, which is obviously a waste for a Monk character who has focussed on maximizing attacks with Two-Weapon Fighting.
• You may, however, be able to import this over to Mask of the Betrayer, as that campaign starts by stripping you of inventory plus weapons, but can keep gloves.
• Tower - You can choose one in Act III.
• 50000 Neverwinter Nine Guard Tower
• You can spar with Nevalle supposedly for a "slight bonus to attack", but neither the check for "Fighter PCs" or a script to add the "slight bonus to attack" (a +1 to Attack is recommended in the scripting) are implemented. If you feel cheated, you can use the console to give yourself one of the following:
• +1 Strength if you are a melee character.
• +1 Dexterity if you are a ranged attack character or use Weapon Finesse.
• +1 Attack via the Epic Prowess feat (feat number 584).
• There is a small store inside, and a free suit of Armor of Command.
• 100000 Wizard's Tower
• You can get a few scrolls from StarTear if you are a Wizard. Nothing for any other class. There are also a couple of high-level scrolls lying around in the Tower.
• If you qualify for Darklord of the Keep, you meet StarTear, Uncus, and Caelryna here to receive the epithet. Caelryna gives you Caelryna's Gift.

Ore and Greycloak Gear Upgrades
At the point when you get Crossroad Keep, you should have found 8 of 16 Ore Veins. In order of appearance, they are:

1. Troll Cave (Bonegnasher Approach)
2. Bonegnasher Lair
3. Ironfist Clanhold
4. Eyegouger Lair L1
5. Eyegouger Lair L3
6. Ember Well (easy to miss - turn the camera around when you first enter the well)
7. Duskwood Caverns
8. Crossroad Keep Tunnel

The Ember Well is still accessible in Act III, and through the well, you can go to Duskwood even though that area no longer shows on the overland map.
With 8 Ore locations, Greycloaks can have the best weapons (Masterwork) and Scalemail, which is only one tier below the best armor (Chainmail). Two more ores are required for the Best Armor.

The remaining locations are in Act III:

1. Strange Clearing
2. Road to Highcliff (at a boulder near the north map exit)
3. Mount Galardrym
4. Mount Galardrym (Fire Giant fort)
5. Fiery Canyon
6. Forest (Sydney Natale)
7. Nolaloth's Valley (2 ore veins - one is north of the world transition point)

If you somehow miss an ore vein by the time you reach Crossroad Keep, some locations may no longer be accessible. You can use the console and simulate finding an ore vein with the following commands:

• GiveXP 50 -- Each time you find a vein, you get 50xp. If you use dm_givexp, only the seelcted character will get xp. Using this command simulates regular xp gain, meaning it affects the main character and all Companions.
• rs ga_global_int ("01_Mineral_New", "1") -- This changes the number of ore veins you haven't reported to either Calindra or Pentin to 1. Each time you talk to a miner and tell them you have found a new vein, they take the value from this variable to determine how much gold you get and what ingot you get. Then it gets reset to 0. Therefore, if you have 7 you have not reported but should have 8, then use rs ga_global_int ("01_Mineral_New", "8").

Each location you find gets you 250gp up front from either Calindra or Pentin (you get it only once, from either of them). When you speak with them again once they've come back from checking your ore find, you will also receive one metal ingot for each ore vein. The type you get depends on which vein has been processed by the miners:

• Veins 1-2: Iron
• Veins 3-4: Cold Iron
• Veins 5-6: Alchemical Silver
• Veins 7-8: Mithral
• Veins 9-10: Darksteel
• Veins 11-16: Adamantine

Timed Events

Keep time advances in basically 2.5% increments, (rounded down on the in-game report). Each time you assign a sergeant, they must stay in the assignment for at least 2 time increments, so look at the upcoming Special Missions and plan accordingly (or let one time increment go by until you can reassign). You can reassign men and sergeants first and then tell Kana to take care of a special mission.
Some Special Missions have a time span indicated -- If you wait too long, the mission will no longer be available. If you fail to check in with Kana during that time, you will miss seeing the mission entirely.

• Keep Time 0% - Guyven of the Road
• For him to appear in the Keep, you must have previously met Guyven of the Road at the Bonegnasher Clan Approach, Githyanki Approach, and Ember (during the post-massacre search for clues), AND at the last meeting you told him "You will always have a place at my fire".
• After you speak with him, you will be informed when you have come to a place that is of interest to him (Ammon Jerro's Haven approach, Castle Never, Strange Clearing, Mount Galardrym).
• Keep Time 0% - Uncus
• He appears in the throne room at the start. If you do not speak with him now, the next time you enter, he will automatically intercept you and speak with you.
• You can only turn him away if you worked for the City Watch. You must do so if you want to have the Warden of the Keep epithet.
• If you worked for the Thieve's Guild, he will have a task for you that, no matter what, will result in penalties for Crossroad Keep.
• Keep Time 7% - Daerred
• If you are sincere and helpful to them, they will ultimately survive and give you a magical ring.
• At Keep Time 15% you get a letter from them if you sent them to Port Llast.
• At Keep Time 17% they come back to the Keep.
• At Keep Time 25% you get a letter from them if you sent them to investigate the King of Shadows.
• Keep Time 7% - Torio
• If you spoke with Marcus at the Alliance Arms Inn in Port Llast (after the trial), you will also know that Torio's loyalties weren't really with Black Garius so it's safe to bring her into Crossroad Keep.
• She arrives at Keep Time 10% and she can give you hints on where to recruit staff, like Jacoby, if you haven't already hired them.
• Keep Time 10%-15% - Special Mission: Old Man Morris
• You will miss this Special Mission if you do not speak with Kana and handle the mission during the time span indicated.
• For the best outcome, you need Training level 2+, Weapon quality 1+ or Armor quality 1+, 1+ Sergeants.
• Keep Time 20%-25% - Special Mission: Doman the Ogre
• You must also have Jacoby recruited. This requirement plus what Kana says about Doman the Ogre suggests his brother Jared was the Bandit Chief in the Bandit Hideout near Fort Locke. However, you still get this Special Mission if you successfully persuaded the Bandit Chief there to stand down or join Fort Locke. He may also be the bandit leader at the blockade area-transit event from Fort Locke to the Graveyard but you still get this Special Mission if you intimidated them into leaving.
• For the best outcome, you need Training level: 3+, Weapon Quality 1+ and Armor Quality 1+, Morale 1+, Units on Mission 50+ (30+ Elite 4, 15+ Elite 5), 1+ Sergeants.
• Keep Time 25% - Time Freeze until Ritual of Purification quest is done.
• Keep Time 27%+ - Special Mission: Escort Tax Collectors
• You must also have 10+ or more peasants.
• The obvious solution to avoid penalties is to collect no tax (and you get mild a +1 Keep Civility and +1 Peasant Growth), but you can collect taxes and have even better bonuses:
• Good alignment or Charisma 15+ to negate any Unrest no matter what the level of tax if you raise the tax level. A high Charisma here also means less Greycloak losses during the mission.
• "Assume farmers are truthful" (+2 Peasant Growth, +2 Greycloak Civility, +1 Greycloak Morale) or "Use best judgement" (+1 Peasant Growth, +1 Greycloak Civility).
• After this mission, all taxes are screwed up, which can hurt your Merchant and Peasant growth, so be sure to reset everything (including the secret tax on merchants through Appraise) immediately. You will know that it's set to a high amount because your income suddenly jumped.
• Keep Time 32%+ - Dobbson
• You cannot have this event at the same time as Daerred's company appearing in Act III. Going to the basement and then coming back up does not work here to trigger another cutscene event. In such a case, he appears at Keep Time 35%.
• You must have joined the City Watch instead of the Thieve's Guild.
• With enough Appraise, you can get a better understanding of the situation and realize that it is "normal".
• The only resolutions without any penalties to Crossroad Keep is to let him go.
• Keep Time 37%-45% - Special Mission: Bugbears
• For the best outcome, you need Training 3+, Weapon 2+, Armor 1+, Morale 2+, Units on Mission 75+ (45+ Elite 4, 25+ Elite 5), Katriona or Bevil going with them.
• Keep Time 52% - Raven's Allies
• You basically exchange a penalty to your troops' Elite rating for more troops up front. This is one of the events that can lower your Elite rating. There is no event that raises it.
• If your Greycloak Civility rating is very low, this can raise it. If it is high, you can lose some of it although it may not show on the Keep report from Kana.
• Keep Time 52%-62% - Special Mission: Undead Scouts
• For the best outcome, you need Training 4+, Weapon 1+, Armor 1+, Morale 2+, Katriona or Bevil going with them.
• Keep Time 62% - Time Freeze
• You will be told that Lord Nasher wants to see you, and you should report to Kana afterward. If you go to see Lord Nasher, he will actually have nothing special to say to you. This may actually refer to getting knighted by Nasher after Ammon Jerro's Haven -- a scripted event.
• Keep Time 70%-77% - Special Mission: Shadow Priest
• Keep Time 72% - Time Freeze
• Keep Time 80%+ - Conscription
• Neither positive nor negative adjustments on the Keep if you choose not to conscript.
• Keep Time 82% - Time Freeze
• Keep Time 85%-100% - Special Mission: Find Shadow Reaver's base
• You must also have acquired the True Name Scrolls from Sydney.
• Keep Time 92% - Time Freeze
• Keep Time 100% - Lockout
• The plot moves on to the war. You can no longer build anything with Crossroad Keep or do any of the events and sidequests.

Other Events

• Sheriff of Leeves - Land Security 10+
• This is a bonus event for characters who joined the City Watch.
• To get this event, you must have Land Security 10+, which generally means you have repaired the Fortifications (first Fortifications upgrade). Setting Light of Heavens to patrol will also raise Land Security high enough, but this seems to make it impossible to get the best result.
• If the Neverwinter Evacuation event happens before this event completes, it can also make it impossible to get the best result.
• The best result is possible only if you station half your troops at Leeves, although the reward is the same for the best or second-best outcome -- possibly because you can build Fortifications too early as Veedle hints that the Keep walls are Nasher's top priority.
• The second best choice (one patrol stationed) results in "a bloody fight" which suggests that you lost troops, but it is not clear if this actually happens. Also, the outcome here has the same bonuses as the best outcome because the morale bonus for the best outcome is not applied in the script.
• Mayor Ziffer - Peasants 30+
• You must have 30+ peasants. To keep them you must maintain 20+ peasants.
• There is no downside to signing them on. You can get more tax with Appraise.
• The next time you see Kana, he will come back with an offer of recruits. This is one of the events that can lower your Greycloaks' Elite rating and there is no event that can raise it. The only way to decline without penalty is by having Diplomacy 7+. You can get this event in the same Keep Time unit by going into the basement and coming back out to see Kana.
• Captain's Company
• You must have Katriona and have left your recruitment quality at the highest standards. They will then reach eventually "Best of the Best" training and Kana will bring this up when you talk to her.
• The two options with the best bonuses are:
• Protect the land and its people: +2 Greycloak Civility, +1 Peasant Civility, +1 Peasant Growth
• Strive for perfection: Maximizes Greycloak morale immediately due to a scripting error.
• Merchant Coster - Merchants 50+
• If the Appraise is high enough, you can choose to know about each merchant group and get a bigger alignment shift when doing so. If that dialogue option is not available or you choose not to use it, you are more or less choosing blindly, so the shifts are minor (+1).
• The Circle of Friends: Civility +1; +1 Lawful or +10 Lawful with Appraise
• Forgotten Lords: Civility +1, Tithe +10%, +1 Chaotic with or without Appraise
• Fated Winds: Civility -2, Tithe +25%, +1 Chaotic or +10 Chaotic and +10 Evil with Appraise
• None: Merchant number cap lowered from 100 to 50. Not sure if this is actually implemented because you can get over 100 merchants.
• Since every coster gives at least a bit of an income boost, you may wish to set merchant tithes to zero until you get this event and Road Security is High or Very High. Then, set to Standard taxes. A reduced rate of merchant growth does not affect the rate at which Peasants, Greycloaks, and Volunteers increase.
• Auto-Recruitment
• If you got to Act III without recruiting anyone from locations that become closed or changed in Act III, Kana will report that she recruited them for you.
• Mephasm
• In Act III, you can consult Ammon Jerro to summon Mephasm for infernal bargains. He asks for Charms made from rare materials. You can make as many of them as you like, and all three recipes result in the same type of item.
• It's not entirely clear, but to summon Mephasm, you need to walk into the semi-circular area cut out of the summoning circle. Once he leaves, walk out of that area and back in again. Ammon Jerro will talk to you and through that dialogue you can call Mephasm again.
• In the bargains, you get either cash or artifacts. If you are looking for money, the artifacts are a better trade as you can probably sell them for more than 5,000 gold, which is how much cash you get whenever you ask for wealth. To experiment with it, you can use the console and give yourself the 31_mephasm_focus item.
• The artifacts you can get are: The Angry Soul (value 63,847 gp), Mask of Death (value 77,822 gp), Boots of the Shifting Sands (value 159,301 gp).
• Each transaction also gives you a 1-point shift toward Chaotic, which can help you offset any Lawful shifts you accepted to run the Keep well.
• After three transactions, you can give up your favourite weapon in exchange for an item that gives +3 to an attribute if you have it in your inventory.
• The process is buggy: See NWN2Wiki's entry on Mephasm for details if you want to try it.
• The item is also not really worth it because attribute bonuses do not stack, so the +3 bonus does not stack with any other bonus and by this time in the game you will probably have found something better for attributes you care about.
• If you want to try out the items, you can use the console to give yourself any or all of these items: 31_token_mephasm_str, 31_token_mephasm_dex, 31_token_mephasm_con, 31_token_mephasm_int, 31_token_mephasm_wis, 31_token_mephasm_cha. You can only use the giveitem command to get these items when you are at Crossroad Keep.
• Nasher's War Levy
• Start of Act III.
• No apparent penalties, but +2 Peasant Growth if you pay 6,000 gold to spare the peasants the levy.
• Daeghun
• One Keep Time increment into Act III to open up the Circle of the Mere location.
• He appears near the Blacksmith to tell you he has found the Circle of the Mere.If you like, you can bypass him by using Wolf or his Minions to teleport you.
• Kistrel
• If you left him alone, you can still reach him via Ember and the Well.
• If you were nice to him, he will weave a cloak for you. He is done in Keep Time +20% (8 turns).
• Light of Heavens
• She appears in Port Llast and the Neverwinter Merchant District when you first enter those areas in Act III. If you pass her challenge twice, she appears in your Keep for the final challenge near the stone quarry and miners at the Keep.
• You cannot recruit her if you are of Evil alignment.
• Neverwinter Evacuation
• Six Keep Time increments into Act III.
• You get an alignment shift in return but no other apparent effects. It is not clear if you actually lose any men or if you can fall below 50 Greycloaks.
• Deekin, Sal, Joy
  
• Once you have Deekin, Sal in the inn at Crossroad Keep will give you a Ring of the Ram when business has improved -- probably once you have recruited Joy.
  
• Dragon's Horde
• After killing the dragon on Mount Galardrym and next time you speak with Kana.
• Full horde of 200,000 gold recovered if Road Security is High+, Greycloak Civility is High+, and Peasant Civility is High+. Also, it appears that you MUST have Greycloaks on either split Land/Road Patrol or Road Patrol. Otherwise, even if all the aforementioned requirements are met, you will lose 30,000 to banditry.
• Any greedy or evil actions you took earlier are generally outweighed by the loss of gold here as you can lose as much as half due to low Civility among your Greycloaks or Peasants.
• Aldanon and the Tome of Iltkazar
• Once you get the Tome, you are supposed to talk to Aldanon. Sand, Grobnar, and Qara all move into the library with him and have something to say. But after Qara chimes in, if you do not have Ammon Jerro and Zhjaeve in your active party, the dialogue will break because they are supposed to speak next.