Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Character Creation

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Character Creation

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Storm of Zehir). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

You should first read general information in our Character Creation notes for the Original Campaign as much of the information applies.

Character Creation

• If you start all-new characters instead of importing, they begin with basic armor and no weapons or other gear. You can theoretically import any character you like, but the campaign is for the most part a low to mid-high level campaign and a too-powerful party will ruin the experience.
• The character that starts the campaign is the only one that cannot be swapped out.
• The other three you can bring in can be swapped out at any time.
• You can therefore swap in characters with magic-item crafting feats to do your crafting for you, then swap them out again.
• The character that starts the campaign is also the "PC" character. If other characters are too far away from this character, they earn NO XP for kills and therefore your party also earns NO XP for their actions.
• If you want to have a Sneak Attack character go solo with Greater Invisibility and attack with relative impunity, you therefore want to have them as the character you start Storm of Zehir with.
• You need a party of 4 to learn any Teamwork feats at Crossroad Keep, but you do not need to have all four at all times.
• Some Teamwork feats require special feats or races to learn. If the restrictions are too complex or irritating, you can use our Storm of Zehir mod to remove all restrictions on Teamwork feats. This way, any party can unlock the special locations and encounters that are part of most of the Teamwork feats.
• There are various cohorts available in the game -- basically characters that are pre-made for you and that you have to find. You can have one, or two if you have the leadership feat.
• Experience from combat is distributed equally to all party members, including cohorts, and even if someone is dead. Experience from quests is a flat amount given to every party member, and is not divided.
• You can have more than four party members by using the NWN2 Toolset:
• Open the Toolset
• Click on the plugins option
• Select campaign editor
• Select Neverwinter Nights 2 Campaign_X2
• Look for the field that says party creation size and change it from 4 to whatever you like. Six is probably a good limit to avoid traffic jams. You do not have to have a full party.
• The game won't let you add any cohorts if you already have 5 characters (6 if you have the Leadership feat). To adjust this, use the console command rs ga_party_limit(10)to change the party size limit to 10 (or whatever you want).
• On the overland map, various skills are checked. You can spread skills out among your characters and use the F1 to F6 keys to select which character is the current party leader.
• When you select a different character, sometimes you will end up with two characters on the overland map. Just re-select the character who first entered the overland map, then select your party leader again.
• E.g., You exited to the overland map with the character in slot 2. This will be the character that appears on the overland map as your party leader. If you want the character in slot 4 to be your party leader, you can press F4. If this is the first time you are choosing a new party leader, you may see characters 2 and 4 both on the map. Character 2 will stand in place (but cannot be interacted with by encounters) while character 4 moves around. If you now press F2 to select character 2, the party will jump back to where character 2 is located. If you now press F4 to select character 4 as your party leader, character 2 will be replaced by character 4 instead of two characters appearing on the overland map. Everything should be fine now.
• The tutorial / journal entry will detail the use of skills, but in general the one you want to have active all the time is Search, to find hidden events.
• Against hostile encounters, Spot (to detect hostile encounters from as far away as possible), and Hide (to hide from hostile encounters so that you can choose whether to engage them or not) are useful.
• Survival is useful to maximize your movement rate, but in general that is only good for fleeing when you can't Hide from an encounter. If you can flee long enough and far enough from the initial encounter, the encounter will turn back and disappear. If they catch up to you a second time, you cannot flee again.
• If the sheer number of encounters on the overland map irritates you, try this Storm of Zehir mod to lower the encounter frequency to half, a third, or zero.

Party Composition

• We went with a party of six Half-Celestials: Bard, Rogue/Assassin, Fighter/Weapon Master, Sorcerer/Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep, Favoured Soul, Spirit Shaman.
• At the starting 8,000 xp, this was a challenging party to play as they were basically level 1 and a lucky hit could kill them. Also, we avoided using Mass Charm, Summon Planetar, and Word of Faith.
• Early on, the Bard can cast Cure Light Wounds and doubles as a healer.
• At level 7, the Bard gets Inspire Regeneration, so if you can get through an encounter with little or no spell use, you can just wait until the party is fully healed before moving on. This way, on the overland map, you can avoid resting and triggering even more encounters.
• We went with a Spirit Shaman and Favoured Soul to avoid the tedious process of selecting spells to memorize. Either can get an Animal Companion, which would have amounted to a free character, but which could also have caused traffic jams.
• The Rogue can solo and kill things quite well once you get Greater Invisibility from either the Bard or the Sorcerer.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Walkthrough Part 3

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Walkthrough Part 2 - Chult

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Storm of Zehir). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

Foreign Temple

• You need to be doing Akila's quest (Neverwinter City, Thayan Enclave) to ultimately be able to reach this area.
• To kill the two enemies here, you need to fight on both sides and kill both. If you leave one down ("Near Death") for too long, it will be healed by the other. You can prevent this by continuing to inflict damage, but neither will die until both are down.
• Once through, you can go to Hotenow Cave and Zecorian's Demense (and other areas).
  

Hotenow Cave

• You need to be doing Akila's quest (Neverwinter City, Thayan Enclave) to ultimately be able to reach this area (by going through the Foreign Temple). It has very useful AC +4 and Weapon Enchantment +3 recipes.

One of Many

• If you are ready for Chult, you may be ready for One of Many, if you want to kill it. The key is to keep moving to stay out of its DC 37 fear aura. Whoever it is pursuing should flee while the others hit it with spells. It has 50% Concealment, so use spells that don't require a hit roll.

Zecorian's Demesne

• A tough area without really outstanding loot for your trouble. The Vampire Lords can critical hit for over 100 points of damage. Lure them to the doorway and block them with a high-AC character with a critical hit immunity buff like Living Undeath then rain spells to clear them.

Temple of the World Serpent

• Master Infiltrator
• If you can get all the way to the summit without being detected, you will get bonus XP and this history feat. To get past the third level, leave your party in the lobby in which you first arrive, and solo with a Rogue (there are a LOT of epic traps here) until you unlock and reach the exit. As long as just one character leaves the level, the others will also go through, without actually having to walk to the exit.
• Herald of Zehir - If you are not protected against death magic (e.g., with the Death Ward spell), it can cast a powerful Destruction and instant-kill characters that fail their saves. It can inflict big critical hits as well.
• Remember to talk to Zehir (the floating eyes) after you clear this area.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Walkthrough Part 2

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Walkthrough Part 2 - Sword Coast

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Storm of Zehir). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

Once you are in the Sword Coast, focus on trading first. You can get literally several thousands of Trade Bars and therefore hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of gold from trading them in. Your share of Trade Bars from the company is dependent on upgrades, caravans, and time. Even if you did nothing except while away time, you will earn Trade Bars.
Therefore, do not aim to get large cash rewards from quests. Since you can make XP from encounters, do not aim to get large XP rewards from quests either. Instead, look for History Feats and unique items.

Overland Encounters

• Wood Elf (Aryvindaire)
• If you parley with them and trade with them, the store uses the Appraise skill of the current party leader, unlike in-town stores where it looks through all characters.

Crossroad Keep

• Sa'sani
• Once you can construct Trading Posts, you can visit them in each town and use the foot locker behind the counter for storage.
• Teamwork Feats
• Cohorts can help you satisfy some prerequisites.
• If you don't want to bother with the mess of prerequisites, try our mod to remove all restrictions on teamwork feats.
• Fariba
• After giving her gold, she stays in dialogue. You can use Sleight of Hand to pickpocket the gold back before ending dialogue. To select the character with the Sleight of Hand skill, click their portrait in the dialogue window.

Neverwinter

• Merchant Cartels
• Before joining, talk to all three cartel representatives for Volo's book. You can finish Volo's merchant research quest entirely in the Sword Coast.
• The story is not significantly different no matter which of the merchant cartels you join. However, joining the shady Fated Winds will give you access to two strong items through Jacoby: The Dread Wraps and the Skin of Shadow (both of which you may remember from Mask of the Betrayer).

Port Llast

• Rynn and Haeromos give different rewards for the two Port Llast tasks. If you do the Army of the Dead quest for Rynn, you can get the unique item Seal of Illusk.
• The Army of the Dead quest ultimately has the best outcome if you:
• Don't attack Port Llast with the undead
• Have Septimund in your party when you speak with Nya, and use Diplomacy on Septimund afterwards to retain him as a cohort (and get 700xp).
• You will need every cohort, including Septimund, if you want to get the best reward from One of Many.
• Kill the Luskans in Port Llast so Nya can set up shop again.
• You can ask the Prioress in the Priory of the Deep to sink the Luskan ship, but since the Luskans are quite weak, you might as well clear them out yourself and also get Auril's Icy Accoutrements.

West Harbor

• If you helped West Harbor against the dragons, Goodwife Aruna will later have a quest for you to investigate the Swamp Cult.
• You need her to reveal the location to you.
• You need to know about Zehir (from Il'foss and Kizu) to receive this quest from Goodwife Aruna.
• There is no prompt to tell you to visit her for the quest when it's available.
• You need Diplomacy to save Jan.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Walkthrough Part 1

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Storm of Zehir - Walkthrough Part 1 - Samarach

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Storm of Zehir). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

General
Much of Storm of Zehir is very straightforward, so there is little that needs to be noted for a walkthrough.

• Any time you discover a location on the map, you get 100 xp. You may not get this award if someone tells you where it is and marks it on the map -- including quest-givers, although often (but not always) the quest-giver has to give you the location and you cannot find it on your own.
• You can move party members around while you are in dialogue.
• In this way, if you are anticipating a fight, you can pre-maneuver your party into tactically sound positions.
• If you move them too far or if you use a power, you will abort dialogue.
• To select the character to move, select their portrait in the dialogue window.

Omgar's Teeth - Shipwreck

• If you finish this area without any of the ship's NPC crew dying, you get the history feat "Protector".
• If you go out of earshot of Volo's negotiations, you might break the script and the batiri won't transition to hostile. In that case, just advance past Volo and wait to provoke the batiri into attacking. Your Journal entry may not update properly and move to Finished Quests, however.
• The debris piles give different items depending on what skills you use and when you use them:
• Healer's Kit +1, [Heal] Healer's Kit +3, [Craft Weapon] Sling and 32 Bullets
• Two of: Bottle (up to 2), [Lore] Potion of Cure Light Wounds x3, [Spot 1st attempt] Scroll of Fireball, [Spot 2nd attempt] Short Sword
• Two of: Healer's Kit +1, AND Healer's Kit +1 or [Craft Weapon] Sling and 32 Bullets
• Three items: Ship's Plank (up to 3), [Survival] Spear, [Search] Wand of Missiles (if you Searched as your very first action) or Large Shield (if you searched as your second action)
• Three of: Healer's Kit +1 x2, AND Healer's Kit +1 or [Craft Weapon] Sling and 32 Bullets
• Three of: Bottle (up to 3), [Spot 1st and 2nd attempts] Scroll of Fireball, [Spot 3rd attempt] Short Sword.
• Shrubs: [Craft Alchemy] Potion of Cure Light Wounds, [Heal] Healer's Kit +1
• Notice Luarie doesn't move to attack the Batiri when they become hostile.

Overland Encounters

• In general, the EL (Encounter Level) listed is only a very vague guideline. Some encounters (like Ghouls, which can paralyze) are much harder than the challenge level indicates. Other encounters (like ECL 17 Megaraptors) can be fairly easy because there are only two creatures, and they start too far to detect the party (allowing you to safely buff), and they can be drawn out to fight one at a time.
• EL5 Samarachan Patrol
• If you don't want to fight one, you can try joining in when they are already in battle. Sometimes they will drop light armor that has no Arcane Spell Failure.
• Wild Elf Hunters
• If you ask them about locations, they will reveal one -- But you will then not get the 100xp for discovering a location yourself.
• One of Many
• The Negative Auras you can get for evil characters are not the same as the ones from Mask of the Betrayer -- These do not have any drawbacks.
• There are only 11 cohorts in the game, so to get the highest bonus, you need to sacrifice them all. When you do, you get 250xp per level of the cohort.
• If you can kill it (extremely hard at a low level -- fear aura and big Sneak Attacks on fleeing characters), you can get The Imarskarcana.
• Bounties: Kwesi in Samargol and Nils in the Lantanese Lumber Camp buy bounty items (and give much better prices than at a store). Their one-time special bounties pay even higher prices for specific quantities of items:
• Kwesi
• 8 Giant Spider Venom Sacs
• 10 Boar Teeth
• 7 Dinosaur Claws
• Nils
• 13 Giant Spider Venom Sacs
• 8 Stag Beetle Shells
• 10 Dinosaur Claws
• 5 Will-O'-Wisp Glamers
• 2 Wyvern Stingers

Nimbre

• Get the unofficial patch to fix two bugs:
• The Loremaster cannot be outed as a yuan-ti spy.
• If you have already spoken to the Loremaster, you can talk to him again, but you will need to use the console to give yourself the required item to update the Journal: g_yuanti_scroll
• The dirt mound in the boar pen cannot be found.

Samargol

• Crafting Stations - You can safely rest inside this building.
• Osi Tchaluka
• If you trade in a total of 101+ Trade Bars for gold, he he gives you a Ring of Minor Fire Resistance and you get XP.
• Since all the trading towns in Samarach have the same prices, you can't make any Trade Bars off them except by finding trade goods on the Overland Map for sale.
• Inshula
• Human Rangers and characters with Use Magic Device can benefit in the early game from her Inshula's Preyhunter, which has a nice +1d8 Piercing Damage bonus.

Ruined Temple

• In the final area, there are lots of yuan-ti, but they need to come down the main passage. The AI cannot always path-find then another creature is already moving through a door, so it can be quite easy to lure the yuan-ti down one at a time. Also creatures usually don't know how to open or bash doors, so you can shut doors to give yourself time and cut off reinforcements.
• The door to the treasure room has a hard lock and dangerous trap. You can try safely "bashing" it from a distance with spells or ranged weapons.
  

Shattered Spear Tribe

• Vadin'ya will send you here for the Flawless Gem. If you do their quest for it and recover the Shattered Spear, you get 1600xp and the tribe can no longer be made hostile. If you instead attack them, you get the Bane of the Batiri history feat. The benefit is weak by the time you get it (Batiri overland encounters are always Intimidated) but it is unique whereas 1600xp can be made up with a few overland encounters.
• You can pickpocket one Flawless Gem without closing off any dialog options. You will still get a Flawless Gem when you kill the boss here, but Vadin'ya will accept only one gem and give you the reward once only.

Stone Knives Tribe

• You get XP if you let them go. The Chieftain, however, has the Shard of the Samarlogh, which inflicts rare Positive Energy Damage (only 1d4, however).

Underdark Black Market

• Make sure you are finished with the quests here (one of Vadin'ya, another for one of the illithids) before freeing Chir Darkflame.
• You can unlock the chest (and get XP for doing it) without provoking the Illithids. Opening it will provoke them.

Viper Temple

• You cannot enter or pass this area initially. However, encounters still spawn behind the temple, including EL 17 Fell Trolls and Megaraptors. You can fight these by clicking on them. Even though they are behind the Temple, the encounter can still trigger.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Character Creation and Game Quirks

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Character Creation and Game Quirks

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Mask of the Betrayer). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

You should first read general information in our Character Creation notes for the Original Campaign as much of the information applies.

Character Creation

• If you imported your character from the Original Campaign, you start with no helmet, no weapons, no inventory.
• If you start with nothing equipped in the other slots, empty slots get a prefab item. This item is quite generic but could be useless to you. For example, a Monk/Fighter could get a suit of Full Plate +3. Technically useful, but not if you're concentrating on Monk abilities.
• Nevertheless, it is probably better to start with a completely empty inventory because whatever you carry over from the Original Campaign in terms of armor or other gear (probably customized) is probably overpowered for the start.
• If you are attached to certain items that can't be equipped or not all at once (e.g., various plot rewards of sentimental value), you can download this mod for the override folder which changes some of the scripts in Mask of the Betrayer to save all your inventory and gold (which could be over a million from Crossroad Keep).
• Prefab items will still be given for empty equipment slots -- the mod won't ruin the game for new characters.
• This is really to carry over various items that may have sentimental value (and usefulness), such as Shandra's Amulet. You can, of course, use it to grossly cheat. Moderate yourself so you don't ruin your game experience. (But note that even basic enchanting is hard to do in the early game using their crafting system.)
• If you de-level yourself down to ECL 18, remember to put back any epithets you may have earned since that time -- although they will probably be useless in Mask of the Betrayer.
• If you want to play a completely different race and base class (you can never de-level and redo level 1), you will have to create a new character, use the console to put in epithet feats, and then transfer any gear over that you want. Transferring gear is probably most easily done by running Storm the Zehir.
• Start a Storm of Zehir campaign. Choose or create the new character you want for the Mask of the Betrayer campaign.
• Use the Guest Book to bring in the old character with all their gear.
• Transfer whatever gear you want to transfer, then export your character.
• Start a new Mask of the Betrayer campaign and import the character.

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Companions

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Companions

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Mask of the Betrayer). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and the Expansions.


General Notes

• Unlike in the Original Campaign, Companions start with fixed XP totals when you find them. Afterwards, they gain XP when you do. Therefore, it is to your advantage to find them as soon as possible so that they benefit from your gaining XP.
• Some companions interact with others when you talk to them -- e.g, Gann and Kaelyn. Sometimes, however, this means you will gain Influence with one while losing it with another.

Party Roster
The Party Roster is different than in the Original Campaign. Essentially, you are not using the Party Roster at all. When a Companion is asked to leave temporarily, they are taken OFF your roster rather than held in reserve. A separate copy of them is placed where they wait, and they do NOT gain XP when you do, unlike in the Original Campaign. You can still use the Neverwinter Nights 2 console to change this so that you can have more Companions at the same time and use the Party Roster from the in-game menu or the PartyAdd and PartyRemove commands. There are a couple of weird things that happen, so DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK.

• First, use rs ga_party_limit(10) to give yourself lots of room in the party. This will not change dialogue checks for party size, so you will still need the Party Roster menu to add companions.
• When a Companion is taken out of the party due to dialogue, open the console and use RosterAdd <companion name> to put them back in the roster. The names are pretty straightforward (e.g., RosterAdd Okku) except for Kaelyn the Dove. For the commands, her name is "Dove" rather than Kaelyn.
• To put them in / take them out of your current lineup, use the PartyAdd <companion name> and PartyRemove <companion name> commands, respectively.

Note that in doing this, you may encounter HOSTILE copies of your Companions where they normally go when they are out of your party. For example, there will be an hostile Safiya with all the stats and gear she had when you manually added her back to the Roster. When you kill them, they go into "Dying" status and cannot be interacted with. Just leave them alone.

Safiya

• Safiya has starting stats Strength 9, Dexterity 15, Constitution 14, Intelligence 15, Wisdom 11, Charisma 14, Spell Penetration, Greater Spell Penetration.
• Her Red Wizard feats look impressive, but you still probably won't see much success having enemies fail their saving throws unless you target their weak Saves (e.g., for Rogues, this would be Fortitude and Will; they have Reflex as a strong saving throw).
• Safiya has some maxed skills and a few scattered points here and there. For the Craft skills, she doesn't need the maximum in all areas, just modified totals that hit certain thresholds:
• Craft Alchemy - 16
• Craft Armor - 24 for Umber Hulk Half Plate
• Craft Trap - 20 for Deadly Traps
• Craft Weapon - 23 for Exotic Weapons
• I recommend continuing to maximize Concentration and Spellcraft, then dumping all points into Tumble to catch up as quickly as you can. You cannot re-level to redo her skills her without losing any Red Wizard levels (you can ONLY choose Wizard levels when doing her level advancement), so I recommend against that.
• For feats, she is already very focussed and there is really very little reason to want to relevel her. I recommend either Quicken Spell, which isn't normally as useful for a Wizard as it is for a Sorcerer, but nevertheless useful for all spellcasters to quickly put up defenses or suddenly quickly output a lot of damage in a single round -- maybe enough to overwhelm an enemy caster before they can put up defenses (if any). Besides, she is close to Epic levels, and at Spellcraft 30 she can start picking up Automatic Quicken.
• As a Red Wizard Transmuter, her spell list is very small. For early levels, I recommend getting Bigby's Interposing Hand and Wail of the Banshee -- The former is a no-save anti-fighter-boss spell and the second is Fortitude Save spell, good against Improved Evasion targets that can completely evade her Reflex save damage spells. Most of the other Bigby's spells require Grapple checks and are generally useless against big boss monsters or high Strength targets.
• I recommend against memorizing a lot of spells which require hit rolls, even Touch or Ranged Touch, because at near-Epic levels, enemy AC will generally be high enough that even Touch spells will have a very hard time hitting anything.
• Be nice to her, and by the time you talk to the Witches in Mulsantir for the first time she can be Devoted to you with over 70 Influence and secure the Devotion of the Red Wizard history feat.
• There is a problem where if you gain too much Influence, the conversation script may not account for it and you can miss the initial conversation to start getting Influence/History feats with her.
• The dialogue tree checks at the very start of conversation assuming there is nothing else of higher priority; AND it checks to see if your influence with her is within a certain amount, but does not account for it being greater than that; AND you must be past a certain point in the story, possibly out of the Barrows. So, if you surpass that Influence window last conversation, you won't get your History feat (but Safiya will still get hers normally).
• If you miss this initial conversation, you also miss the corresponding feat for your character (2056, "Loyalty of the Red Wizard") and a chance to get another +6 Influence with her during that conversation. To get back on track, you will need to use the Console to manually give yourself feat 2056.
  

Gannayev-of-Dreams

• He relies on Wisdom for spells, but Charisma for Spell DC, so it's a tricky choice which way to go with attribute gains. I would concentrate on Wisdom to maximize it as his levelling has focussed on that. It also helps with his ability with ranged weapons since he has Zen Archery.
• Diplomacy (and initially, Spellcraft on the wards in the Mulsantir Prison) can get you Influence with Gann. He in influenced by sparring with wit or playing on his vanity/hubris. You can get over 60 Influence with him just by talking to him during and after recruiting him from the Mulsantir Prison -- more than enough to get the Dreamer's Eye history feat. You won't get more than this until after he confronts his mother.
• Since he can use a shield, you may consider putting his bow on backup and using thrown weapons or slings (you can buy the hideously expensive Dragon Pebbles in Mulsantir). You might also consider aiming for Tower Shield and Improved Combat Expertise to make him a defensive character and front-line spellcaster.
• The Attack Penalty from Tower Shields does not apply to ranged combat, and is of course of no consequence if you are casting a spell that does not require a hit roll to begin with.
• You cannot use both Combat Casting and Combat Expertise, so you will have to choose when to use them. There are pros and cons to both -- With Combat Casting you don't provoke an Attack of Opportunity, but you may still be attacked normally so it is not necessarily superior when swarmed. With Combat Expertise, you will provoke Attacks of Opportunity from everyone who can make one, but at +3 or +6 AC, you can make it hard to be hit at all).
• Because he is a spontaneous caster (like a Sorcerer) who does not need to choose which spells to know each day, you may want to tweak him into a battle-caster.
• Unlike Qara in the Original Campaign, since Gann starts at a high enough level to have level 8 spells, we can skip the spell level +1 adjustment feats and go straight to Empower Spell first.
• If you are not averse to cheating, use the console to remove Dodge, Weapon Focus (Short Bow) and Improved Critical (Short Bow), and change them to supporting feats, such as Tower Shield and Improved Combat Expertise.

Kaelyn the Dove

• You can raise her Influence to 53 when you first meet and talk, and Gann's by +6. You can favour Gann by another +6 if you disagree with Kaelyn about the wall, but it will cost you a lot of Influence with her, and you may already have lots with Gann at that time. At 50+ Influence, you can get the Blessing of the Menagerie. By Influence 30, when her greeting to you changes, she has already gotten a corresponding blessing on herself.
• If your deity is Ilmater, you can gain one-time Influence with her.
• Kaelyn has an enormous Wisdom score so she theoretically makes a good caster.
• Spell DC is not based on character level, but spell level and spellcasting attribute bonus (in this case, Wisdom).
• Penetrating Spell Resistance, however, IS based on character level, and since she has an ECL +4 racial adjustment, this means she more or less has a -4 penalty to penetrate SR compared to everyone else. Definitely aim for Spell Penetration feats if you are going to make her a battle caster.
• Her ECL +4 racial adjustment (and low Strength) means her combat ability, already less than that of a fighter because of the +3 per 4 level Cleric BAB progression, suffers even more. Like Gann, I recommend making her a front-line caster and put her combat on backup. She has more of an advantage here because she can wear heavy armor.
• If you are bent on having her fight, then make sure she has Zen Archery to take advantage of her enormous Wisdom score. Her wings give her +20% movement, so keep her unencumbered and micromanage her flying around as a skirmisher or leading the enemy about so other characters can score free Attacks of Opportunity as the pursuers run by.
• She starts with no metamagic feats, which isn't a huge drawback considering her high Wisdom gives her a lot of spells. But with not many feats left to choose, you may want to consider aiming for Persistent Spell and splitting her spell list into daily party buffing and the rest into combat spells and healing.
• Another option is to make her a crafter, giving her access to enchantments that require divine spells. This isn't as critical in Mask of the Betrayer because in the Original Campaign, many enemies were evil-aligned, making Holy Weapons (which require Cure Critical Wounds to enchant) sovereign. In Mask of the Betrayer, your enemies are not always conveniently evil and there are wider options for enchantments and enchanting. Also, your main character will end up doing the higher-level enchanting on their own with the Mold Spirit feat.

Okku

• You cannot control Okku's levelling.
• You must fight Okku at the end of Act I, and your choice of whether you devour his spirit or spare him is recorded in a global variable that is used throughout the game.
• If you spare him, you will only have hostile encounters with Uthraki throughout the game.
• See Nak'kai in the Ice Troll Lodge for assorted bonuses.

One of Many

• You cannot control One of Many's levelling.
• In order to get One of Many, you need a Spirit Husk, which you get after devouring the spirit of Okku when you fight him at the end of Act I. You can have both One of Many and Okku in your party by using the Console command giveitem nx1_b_spirithusk to get that item. Devouring Okku also gives you Okku's Essence (nx_1_cft_ess_okku).
• To get the Warlock persona, you need to have One of Many (or yourself, if you learnt the feat from U'juk) use Devour Soul on either The Sleeper or Gulk'aush. At Epic levels, the Warlock persona can cast Vampiric Feast.
• One of Many is hard to Influence without alienating everyone else. To tweak its Influence, use rs ga_global_int("00_nInfluenceoneofmany","30") to, for example, set Influence to 30. Influence cannot be over 100 for any character.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Mask of the Betrayer - Part 3

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Walkthrough Part 3 - Act III - Betrayer's Gate, The Crusade, The Betrayer and finale.

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Mask of the Betrayer). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

Betrayer's Gate

• Just before you enter the Betrayer's Gate, Gann and Safiya can improve your Influence feats with them to Love.
• Safiya's Love (feat 1898) gives you Spell Resistance 35 which overrides your racial Spell Resistance. Because your Racial SR is about 11 + level depending on your race, this can be a downgrade since you are probably level 30 or nearly so. You can use the console to adjust your Racial SR using the monk's epic Spell Resistance feats (699 to 708), each of which increments your Spell Resistance by 2.
• The same probably happens for Dreamer's Heart (2061), which is the corresponding feat from Gann if you are female.

The Crusade

• The Crusade is divided into three events, and whether you support or betray the Crusade basically lets you go through mirror events.
• After the initial encounter at the Supplicant's Gate, your choice of the next encounter will determine what shows up at the Wall of the Faithless where your soul is located. Whatever you choose, at this endgame stage, nothing really makes any difference unless.
• I recommend you play through both scenarios since they take very little time.
• The City of the Dead is a very good place to cut loose with your Spirit Eater powers because transits from one site to another require zero days but fully rest you (and therefore restore all uses of your Spirit Eater powers). If you run up your Craving, you can therefore quite safely transit back and forth and use Suppress to bring it back down.

The Betrayer and finale

• More or less straightforward fighting. The minions go down easily from area effect magics, so hopefully you will have Safiya, Gann, or Kaelyn with you.
• Once in the final confrontation with the Betrayer, when he starts up his area effect power, he cannot be harmed, and instead has a sort of negative energy damage shield that can output a lot of damage. Instead, kill the smaller spawned version of him.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Mask of the Betrayer - Part 2

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Walkthrough Part 2 - Act II, III - Wells of Lurue, Ashenwood, Coveya Kurg'annis, Thaymount, Boneyard, Founder's Sanctum.

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Mask of the Betrayer). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

The Wells of Lurue, Ashenwood, and Coveya Kurg'annis can all be available at the same time. It doesn't matter which area you do first unless you are taking the "evil" path, in which case you will probably want to get Devour Soul first from the Wells of Lurue, then Spirit Gorge at Ashenwood. Other than this, the game is basically linear from this point on as you need to reach certain events or get certain powers to progress.


Wells of Lurue

•  Okku's Ancestors
• If you fight them, you lose the opportunity to get sizable Influence with Okku and bring it up to about 61 if you go to the Wells fairly early. This will be enough to give you the Bear King's Enduring Spirit gift from Okku.
• The unique ring you can get from fighting the ancestors has code nx1_ring08 if you want to use the console to get it.
• Zinoviy
• If you fail the Intimidate check, Okku can pass it for you.
• Hill Tribe
• You must have devoured the spirit of Okku to bargain with U'juk. ALL Uthraki always try to kill the PC if he spared Okku.
• The NPCs that can be lured to the Hill Tribe are: Anya (from the farm on the Wells of Lurue map), Mabata of Shou (who appears outside Mulsantir, where you and Safiya first entered), and the barbarians Radu and Vyk (from the Ice Troll Lodge).
• The rewards you can get by luring NPCs to them are:
• Devour Soul feat (feat 1979)
• Lesser Golem Armor (item ID n2_maarcl01)
• Talisman of Pure Evil (item ID nw_it_mneck002).
• If you fight them you get the very nice WitchBlessed shield.
• In order to get U'juk's Essence, you must learn the Devour Soul feat from him, then do something to provoke the tribe and use the power on him when he is "Near Death".

Ashenwood

• Later patches for the game removed the ability to use Spirit Eater feats on plants, although you can do so if presented as a dialogue choice.
• This is a pretty straightforward area, with just minor choices to be made. The most obscure choice is which of the witches to side with, and there isn't much of a clue as to which is the "correct" choice, although the consequences and rewards are mediocre at this stage of the game and considering what you can craft yourself.

(Coveya Kurg'annis) Lakeshore

• There is a small trapped chest behind the crate and Fentomy's fisherman gear.
• In order to get options from your Companions about what to do with Count Crowroost's coffin, interact with it with someone who cannot pick the lock.
• Opening the Count's lock in the real world and in day time grants more XP.

(Coveya Kurg'annis) Skein

• If you enter with Fentomy's key, you will miss out on the encounters, treasures, and influence opportunities from going through the front door and the waiting list. If you go through the front door, you will still have to go through the Skein.
• There are basically two routes here, depending on whether you want the reward from Fentomy or follow The Sleeper sidequest:
• Releasing the Primal Earth Elemental will block off the way to the Sleeper, so you cannot pursue that quest line with her granddaughter in Mulsantir.
• If you reactivate the Imaskari devices to capture Greater Air Elementals, the only quest path that is closed is killing the Primal Earth Elemental for Fentomy.
• You can still kill the Primal Earth Elemental by positioning Companions there before the area is sealed by reactivating the third Imaskari Device. When the controls are bashed, the Elemental is released and you can kill it for the Ring of the Untherite Generals.
• Fentomy's quest is NOT updated this way. You can report back to him, though, to close the quest.
• Air Elemental Imaskari Devices - After repairing and turning it on, use it again to get some essences.

(Coveya Kurg'annis) Slumbering Coven

• Durler and the Hells
• This is probably the hardest dream to get past because you need to win all his money. You can do so in a minimum of 3 straight games if you bet the maximum amount of gold each time.
• In dialogue he talks about Nessus always being his first choice, and this is correct in the game: He always chooses Nessus in position 1, so you only have to discover and correctly position the remaining three Hells.
• He also says something about Avernus, and it may be that he will never choose Avernus, so you might be down to 7 choices out of 9.
• One way to help you get through this game is to choose overlapping blocks of Hells.
• For example, if 1234 = 2 demons and 3456 = 1 devil, then it follows that one of the correct Hells is 3 or 4. Since it was incorrectly positioned when you chose 1234, and 9 (Nessus) is in first position, it must be 4. So the sequence so far is 94??.
• Once you get to the Slumbering Coven, you can choose to attack them and theoretically Devour up to all nine souls to get special Essences (nx1_cft_ess_coven).
• For this to work at all, you will need the Devour Soul feat from U'juk. And because there is a cooldown to using Spirit Eater feats, you will also probably need to get the Spirit Gorge feat from devouring the spirit of the Wood Man.
• Also, it didn't work for us (using the 1.23 patch), so it may be that the hags are coded in some way (possibly as Plant) and cannot be Devoured.
• In any case, for halfway reasonable enchantments, you need multiple Essences. Overall, not worth the effort. Just console in some essences to try out.

Thaymount

• It's worth buffing your character to see what they survive of the soul depository's "defense mechanism".
• In the golem fights, you can cast healing spells and buffs on your golem while it is fighting.
• If you rescue Ammon Jerro and keep him alive, he can bring reinforcements to the City of the Dead, but this doesn't always happen. For us, it happened only once, when we sided with the Crusade and chose to secure the Supplicant's Gate as the first action. In any case, it was of minor use. Ammon Jerro can also help you fight One of Many (see Boneyard below).

Boneyard

• This is the one time you can get permanently get rid of One of Many.
• You will need to let it Devour Soul on Myrkul, then defeat it, then choose to Devour Soul on it in dialogue afterwards. Its Essence is one of the few ways to get a +10 Strength enhancement.
• One of Many tells you to send away all your Companions, but it does not detect Ammon Jerro as a Companion, so you can have the Warlock help you if you need it.
• If you don't destroy One of Many, and if your Influence with it is very high (probably 100 needed), you can get an upgrade to your Influence feat with it. The Greater Negative Aura comes with an annoying Diplomacy penalty, but a respectable 6/round Regeneration.

Founder's Sanctum

• If you attack the Founder but have a high enough Influence with Safiya, she will not become hostile and you cannot therefore use Devour Soul on her.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Mask of the Betrayer - Part 1

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Mask of the Betrayer - Walkthrough Part 1 - Act I, Act II - Barrows, Mulsantir, Shadow Mulsantir, Okku's Army

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Mask of the Betrayer). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions.

Lower Barrow

• The scroll pile is supposed to contain the pre-order bonus item  Mystra's Blessing. Chauntea's Blessing and Mielikki's Blessing are also defined in the module but not placed in the campaign. To get one or more of them without having pre-ordered the game, you can use the console. The item codes are nx1_blessing_chauntea, nx1_blessing_mielikki, nx1_blessing_mystra.

Middle Barrow

• Orglash - The air spirit Orglash has a high armor class, which makes it a good blocker when you summon it to your aid. It doesn't have to fight well -- just keep the opponent too busy to attack your more vulnerable companions.
• Imaskari Forge - You get a +3 Enchantment weapon based on your character's skills. If you have enough Spellcraft, you can use it to impress Safiya and gain lots of Influence here.
• Imaskari Golem - When you get to Mulsantir, it dies, and you apparently get XP for the "kill".

Upper Barrow

• Telthor Leg Bone - All characters can use clubs. This is therefore a good weapon for Safiya as the Ethereal Jaunt power can get her out of trouble in a hurry.

Mulsantir (before Okku's Army)

• Everywhere: Look for "Dirt Piles" and barrels with incredibly good loot strewn about like trash. We mention some of the trickier places in this article.
• Azim - Buy stacks of Fairy Dust and process it with a mortar and pestle into Essences. They cost peanuts but the Essences are worth hundreds or thousands, depending on what you end up with. It is random, so it will be useful to buy them in powers of 2, so that you can use the Alembic to combine them to Radiant. Radiant Essences cannot be further combined. You may have found a Blue Diamond by now, so you can make at least one weapon with Enchantment +5.
• Shelvedar will go into The Sloop and no longer becomes a merchant once you finish at the Veil and talk to the three Witches.
• Safiya will tell you she should change out of her robes into her disguise, but this isn't actually necessary. In certain areas, however, she will forcibly change to her disguise and you cannot manually put her red robes back on.

Mulsantir - Sloop

• Fyldrin
• This can be a tough fight too early without good gear, but Fyldrin is DC 20 and worth a nice chunk of XP, plus he has tons of gold and nice armor. There's a table against the wall nearby, with a chair that blocks off the other end. You can jam Safiya inside and block the way with your main character (after they use the Shadow Shield power from the Skin of Shadow on themselves). This makes it hard to be Sneak Attacked and pulls all the pirates close for a good pounding from Safiya's magic. The archer will step out of lingering area effects, so make things hard for him with Bigby's Interposing Hand and deal with him last.
• Be protective of Safiya in the initial conversation for +11 Influence with her, but a fight right away.
• After the fight, if you pay Zorah, you can pickpocket the fine back from her. The fine is 500 + 100 per chair destroyed.
• Shelvedar (appears a bit later) has 3,000 gp which can be stolen from him.

Mulsantir - The Veil Theatre

• Look very carefully for traps on doors and containers in any Shadow World setting -- They show up as a light rose colour and can be hard to see, especially on smaller items.
• There is a barrel with loot behind the Theatre.
• First Red Wizard - You must pass at least 1 Intimidation check in order to avoid this fight for 1000 xp. Killing everything definitely nets less than that, but you will also not get any treasure.
• At these levels, the XP difference isn't great, so I would go for loot (to sell).
• Despite the urgency of the events, you can rest afterwards for 8 hours to rest and recover your spells.
• Shadow Theatre - Look around carefully for scrolls on the shelves.
• After the Theatre, new dialogue is available with Safiya. Talk to her about needing answers (dialogue option 1) BEFORE talking to her about the Bear Spirit (dialogue option 2) as the first dialog option can vanish later. You can talk to her twice about whether she's leaving. There are two dialogue paths from there: Trouble at the academy and her mother. Both give you the opportunity to gain +6 Influence (total +12), which can at this stage push your Influence with her to over 60.

Mulsantir - Ice Troll Lodge

• You will probably want to do this area much later because it is very hard to join them -- possibly tricky even for fighters and chancy in the combat trial. You can also just provoke them all and wipe them out by talking to Jurak, which can get you the powerful ring Heart of Rasheman among other treasure.
• Tests:
• Enduring Cold: 250 cold damage, or 350 cold damage advanced test.
• Probably the hardest test for non-fighters to pass since you can't use any spells or gear.
• If you're looking for ways to cheat this test, you might as well try something like turning on God-mode (right click your main character, then use console command dm_god to toggle God-mode).
• Arm Wrestling Forovan: Strength 20 versus his left arm, 25 normal, 35 advanced test. Winning the advanced test gets you a girdle with a +10 Strength enchantment, one of very few in the game.
• Fighting Circle: Jurak can hit for 80+ points on a critical. Sergei can hit for over 100 points on a critical. Nevertheless, because you can use all your gear and any tactics you like, this is the easiest test.
• Overall, focus on damage over a high Attack Bonus, as the berserkers here have low armor class.
• Even with an Armor Class of 40+, you can have a hard time here because no matter what they can still hit you if they score a critical.
• You can pre-cast spells in the area to help you, but that is a sort of unrealistic cheat that relies on the game engine not making neutral characters take damage and turning hostile.
• You can use the Skin of Shadow from the Middle Barrow to put a Shadow Shield on yourself before donning whatever armor you want and then taking the challenge.
• Sergei has an AB of ~50.
• If you kill Okku, you can talk to Nak'kai to provoke everyone even if you joined their lodge earlier.
• Barrel with loot around the back of the building. Dirt Mound behind the Lodge at the base of the witch triune hill.

Mulsantir - Temple of the Three

Mulsantir - Prison

• There is a Dirt Mound with loot in the north-northwest compound.

Mulsantir - Temple of Kelemvor

• There is a Dirt Mound behind the temple, within the temple compound.
• There is a Dirt Mound and pile of rocks in the northwest corner that is blocked by a rockfall. Use the corresponding Shadow Portal in Shadow Mulsantir to get behind the rocks in the real world. Bash the rocks to reveal a skeleton.
• When Gann and Kaelyn are in your party, Kaelyn's dialogue overrides Gann's. You will have to speak with Darovik a second time to get Gann's dialogue with Darovik.
• You can avoid losing Influence with Gann by ending the initial dialogue about the Wall of the Faithless when Gann starts to get upset. When you talk to Darovik again, Gann brings up the topic and you can continue then.

Shadow Mulsantir

• Approximately in the same location as in the real Mulsantir, there are Dirt Piles and graves with loot.
• Heilari
• You can avoid a fight, get Influence with Safiya, and get 250 xp and a Talisman of Pure Good. Or you get negligible treasure and more XP for killing two Death Knights.
• All Dirt Piles are accessible, although you may have to find different Shadow Portals.
• There is one inside the Sloop, which leads outside in Shadow Mulsantir.
• Another lets you bypass a rock slide in the real world, and you can find an item under a mound of boulders there. There is an obscure hint from one of the Witches in Mulsantir about throwing witches off their mountain temple.

Shadow Mulsantir - Temple of Myrkul

• If you devour Kaelyn, her Essence can be used to craft a +10 Wisdom enchantment amulet.
• The Broken Scythe Blade is used much later, if you get the chance to either use Devour Soul or Eternal Rest on Myrkul.
• Once you get the Eternal Rest power, it is a great time to get your Craving reduced to minimum.
• Rest and use Suppress until your Spirit Energy gets low enough that you start taking penalties.
• Loot or destroy an offering urn to call up a Dread Wraith or a Shadow of the Void. Use Eternal Rest on it when it is "Near Death" to restore your Spirit Energy and get a bonus Essence.
• When your Spirit Energy is high again, rest and use Suppress again. Do this until your Craving is zero (the green bar under the Spirit Energy readout).
• Leave the other offering urns alone alone in case you need to replenish your Spirit Energy, because using Eternal Rest does not increase your Craving no matter how many times you use it a day.
• After getting the Eternal Rest power, don't rush back to use it on the Chief Scribe (in dialogue): He will have (a tiny bit) more to say much later, when you are ready to go through the Betrayer's Gate.

Okku's Army

• You can actually do this part right after speaking with the three witches on exiting the Veil Theatre. After you defeat enough spirits, Okku becomes vulnerable. If you can drag out the fight, you can try to kill the respawning spirits for XP and Essences.
• This is one of the critical events in the game, as whether you devour or spare Okku will be recorded in a global variable that is checked (instead of checking whether Okku is in your party). It may be possible to devour Okku and then use the console (rosteradd Okku) to add him to your party roster, but we didn't try that.
• You can use Mold Spirit on Okku's Essence with a belt to give a Strength +10 enchantment, one of three that you can find in the game.
• After the battle, you are free to move about the exterior and at some point you will find a merchant family of four where you and Safiya first entered Mulsantir.