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 - 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.