Walkthrough - Neverwinter Nights 2, Original Campaign, Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir

Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions - Cheats and Walkthroughs
This post indexes all our walkthroughs and advice for the Neverwinter Nights 2 (See all PC Games) single-player campaigns.

update: 2013-Feb-8 - new link for the "Grail Quest Conveniences" mod. The Ziddu file server requires no membership for you to download a file, BUT like all file servers, they delete files for inactivity. Neverwinter Nights 2 is an old game, so this will happen sooner or later. If you can't get the file any more, e-mail me or leave me a comment. There is also a module-independent version that should work with any NWN2 game here.

There are many walkthroughs you can find online and you will find they are generally painfully obvious babysitting / hand-holding step-by-step guides. Instead, we will focus on...

• Various things that may not be obvious to you.
• Using the console (i.e., cheating) to enhance your experience and save time rather than destroy your gameplay with too much gross cheating.

That said, there is a very good no-frills reference for Neverwinter Nights 2.

By the way, to help you keep track of your savegames, you can rename the savegame folder using Windows Explorer (for example) into something with a name longer and more descriptive than the in-game interface allows. (It will load fine, but you can't always save over that gave properly in NWN2, though, especially if you use commas)

Walkthroughs

• Original Campaign Walkthrough
• Part 1. Uninvited Guests, Tutorial/Prologue, Act I - West Harbor, Swamp Cave
• Part 2. Act I - Weeping Willow Inn to Fort Locke
• Part 3. Act I - HighCliff
• Part 4. Act I - Neverwinter Docks, Neverwinter Merchant Quarter, Skymirror; Working for the City Watch
• Part 5. Act I - Old Owl Well, Bonegnasher Lair, Eyegouger Lair, Dwarven Scouts area
• Part 6. Act I - Sea Ghost, Githyanki Hideout, Neverwinter Archives
• Part 7. Act I - Shandra's Farm, Ember, Githyanki Base.
• Part 8. Act II - Blacklake District pre-Trial.
• Part 9. Act II - Port Llast, Duskwood, Ember, The Trial.
• Part 10. Act II - Aldanon's Manse, Tavorick Estate, raid on Crossroad Keep.
• Part 11. Act II and Act III - Crossroad Keep Management
• Part 12. Act II - Ruins of Arvahn and the Ritual of Purification.
• Part 13. Act II - Ammon Jerro's Haven, Castle Never, Neverneath.
• Part 14. Act III - Pre-War - Port Llast, Strange Clearing, Neverwinter Evacuation, Dwarven Stronghold, Mount Galardrym, Sydney Natale, Nolaloth's Valley, West Harbor.
• Part 15. Act III - Shandra's Farm, Siege of Crossroad Keep.
• Part 16. Act III - Finale: Vale of Merdelein, Ritual Chamber.
• Mask of the Betrayer
• Crafting with special Essences features prominently in this campaign.
• None of the items are so good as to be must-have at this epic level of gameplay compared to what you can make personally and what you can find.
• Three good documents covering this topic are the Neverwinter Nights 2 Reference, GameBanshee, and Thieves-Guild. No one document has all the information, however, so it's worth having a look. Also, various patches changed the ability to get certain items or do certain things, so if you are playing the latest patch, some Essences and items are not available.
• It becomes increasingly easy to accidentally kill something before you can grab its Essence as the game progresses. Overall, I still recommend using a crafting alternative.
• Part 1. Act I, II - Barrows, Mulsantir, Shadow Mulsantir, Okku's Army.
• Part 2. Act II, III - Wells of Lurue, Ashenwood, Coveya Kurg'annis, Thaymount, Boneyard, Founder's Sanctum.
• Part 3. Act III - Betrayer's Gate, The Crusade, The Betrayer and finale.
• Storm of Zehir
• Storm of Zehir is a very different experience from the mostly linear campaigns that came before:
• It has a linear core quest and a lot of optional side encounters that can be done in any order. It does not care if you are ready for an encounter or not -- You can go just about anywhere and try anything. Overall, things are very straightforward with very few alternate resolutions of particular consequence, so this walkthrough will be very light.
• Money and XP are freely available, so pay attention for unique events and items you may prefer to have. The game will probably end by around mid-levels and although epic levels are theoretically available, you may never reach them before the game is essentially over and you have done everything. This is especially true if you end up having more than 4 characters in your party, since XP is divided by the number of characters you have
• Dialogue skills are mostly useless except for a few quests where having Diplomacy is important. Mostly dialogue and alignment give you the opportunity to say certain things, but the outcome is often the same no matter what you say.
• Part 1. Samarach.
• Part 2. Sword Coast.
• Part 3. Chult.

Using the Console

• We have some suggestions for how to use cheats carefully to enhance your gaming experience.
• You can also download our mini-module, "Grail Quest Conveniences". In this module, there is a chest with a number of bags of holding named with the type of item it is meant to hold. There are also a number of rings which provide bonus feats and massive skill bonuses, so that you can solo the game if you want, try various feats, or play a character with very few skills.

Character Creation and Game Quirks

• General notes about character creation and planning for the Original Campaign, and game quirks related to characters.
• Additional notes specific to main characters in the Mask of the Betrayer campaign.
• Additional notes specific to characters/parties in the Storm of Zehir campaign.

Companions
General notes about the Companions -- how to use them and how to (re)level them:

• Original Campaign
• Mask of the Betrayer

Crafting
You can review a guide to Neverwinter Nights 2 Crafting including a useful list of gem locations for the Original Campaign or explore some very interesting alternatives to Neverwinter Nights 2 Crafting.

Game Critique - Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions

Game Critique - Neverwinter Nights 2 and Expansions
This post is just some of my thoughts and critiques on Neverwinter Nights 2 and the Expansions.

- There really isn't any true "roleplaying" involved here. You have choices to make which can slide you along the Law/Chaos Good/Evil continuums, but you can move back and forth a lot because the consequences aren't particularly severe for several reasons:

• Although some careers (character classes) require a particular outlook/alignment, the majority do not.
• The shifts are very inconsistently applied and sometimes seemingly random (and fortunately, they are also generally very small). e.g., At the Weeping Willow Inn, there are three reward interactions: Asking for any reward at all was +1 Evil; a different instance of asking for a reward resulted in no alignment change; and asking for a larger reward is +1 Chaotic.

What would help is more consistently applied alignment changes. Since we can't always guess how the scripter is thinking, more cues like [Chaotic] or [Good] prefacing conversation choices would be helpful. Also, religion could play a useful role by letting you donate (increasingly large amounts of gold) to shift back toward the alignment of the deity you worship.

Something else to consider might be to bring back global consequences of a good/evil reputation, such as was used in the old Baldur's Gate game, where being evil meant you were hunted by city guards and things cost more; and being good meant things cost less. These could be game-stopping choices, though, so you could make characters pay for consistently anti-social choices by having to do good deeds or donate to good temples to fake a temporarily better reputation so people will speak with them again. In any case, this is a tricky case that is highly dependent on how parallel you want the good and evil quest paths to look.

+ The game world looks very good at a reasonable processing power considering you can aim the camera in almost any way you want. Improvements in the models and density of items in the game world continued in Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir, and the shaded Shadow World in Mask of the Betrayer also had really good atmosphere.
+ The ability to customize your character is also quite high. The only criticism here would be that facial expressions are generally very wooden, but at least NPCs feel alive because of generally very good voice acting and characterization there.
+ The character models and outfits look great. Armor is especially good because the basic components are generally of high graphical quality, plus the various components you can add and mix allow you to have an asymmetrical look if you want. These factors, combined with a broad colour palette, can result in many stylish combinations for what is not a lot of artwork. The better games will have customized artwork for each suit, but Neverwinter Nights 2 proves this isn't imperative. In having a fairly big toolbox, it does better than, say, Oblivion, which as high quality models but far too few to be able to convey variety.
- The weapon models need a lot of work, and are generally considerably inferior to clothing and armor. On the other hand, they are quite small on the screen when you zoom out for an overview of combat, and there's little point in spending computing resources on it.
- The XP table continues to look stupid and with little rhyme or reason to it. A holdover from the original Neverwinter Nights 2.
- Experience Points (XP) in the Original Campaign are a non-renewable resource until much later in the game. In the early game, you are occasionally competing with NPCs for significant XP from kills. For much of the time, killing your way through an encounter will net you more XP and loot than any other choice. Since there are often no real repercussions to wanton violence, this drastically influences your choices in an artificial from-mechanics-point-of-view way. Storm of Zehir made task-completion rewards more prominent, and I think that is the best way to go. No matter how you solve a situation, as long as you solve it, you get XP. How easy or hard you make it for yourself is a character build and roleplaying choice.
The possibility of grinding through random encounters to get loot and XP is one that I think should still be open, like in Storm of Zehir. Bethesda's Oblivion had the idea of scaling enemies on quests, and that could be a partial solution, especially if you put reasonable caps on the scaling (not too low and capped at a certain level).
+ The introduction of epithet and history feats is an awesome idea, one that I hope gets carried over to the pen and paper version. It enforces the consequences of choices and rewards epic deeds -- and thereby overall adds commitment, immersion, and atmosphere to the game.
+ The introduction of random encounters in Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir, and the expanded amount of loot available, make violence less imperative because character development and the acquisition of gear is less difficult. Roleplay is still extremely limited, but now you at least have more choices.
+ Violence as the best option was reduced in Storm of Zehir. Not only does killing not necessarily give you the best outcome in both XP and loot, but not all encounters drive inevitably toward combat.
+ Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir introduced certain quests where the consequence lasted throughout the game. This adds some true replayability if done properly, and Mask of the Betrayer did quite well in this regard.
- Most games have "Fedex" quests where you get item A from faraway location B, then return it to quest-giver C for reward D. Storm of Zehir has this in spades and in a very irritating way because you often have to go very far away (especially for some quests later in the game) and through chokepoints instead of having a teleportation option; plus, there are a lot of tedious encounters on the overland map along the way.
- Silly mounds of treasure just lying around sometimes in Mask of the Betrayer. They could have just increased gold or loot from kills (like in Storm of Zehir).
+ The companion Influence system is quite interesting in that it gives you a sort of reverse roleplaying. In trying to get good influence with your companions, you will have to understand how they think and how they would be influenced by what you do or say. In this way, you are not so much roleplaying your own character, but instead roleplaying your companion. Also, you are somewhat forced to do this (to gain high Influence) because of ongoing rewards (e.g., Mask of the Betrayer history feats) and critical tests of Influence (e.g., in the Original Campaign during the Trial and at the final encounter with Black Garius when your companions' loyalty is tested and you may have to fight those who defect). The mess of too many companions in the Original Campaign diluted the experience because the companions turned out quite shallow, but Mask of the Betrayer had much more interesting and complex companions.

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.