# NWN 1 ideal charcter



## GreyWizard77 (Apr 24, 2008)

I'm about to start the original Neverwinter Nights and would like some thoughts on what the ideal character is, if there is one. I've been playing tabletop 3.0/3.5 since it came out, so I know all the rules, I'm just curious to see if certain classes are better in the game then others, given it's nature as a 1 character game. Right now I don't have plans to play online. I'm toying with a fighter/ranger combo, largely for the animal companion. Or maybe a druid.

Thanks!


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## Orius (Apr 25, 2008)

Well, first are you using just NWN, or are you using Hordes of the Underdark as well (included in the Platinum and Diamond editions)?  That makes a difference, since HotU adds epic builds.  There are different builds depending on whether you're going 20 or 40 levels.

Also, WRT to HotU is the issue of prestige classes. There are a few prestige classes in Shadows of Undrentide (available in the Gold, Platinum, and Diamond editions), these are Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Shadowdancer, and Harper Scout, IIRC.  HotU adds more, Champion of Torm (Divine Champion), Weapon Master, Shifter, Dwarven Defender, Pale Master, and Red Dragon Disciple, I might be forgetting one or two. Anyway, all the 3.0 DMG PrCs except Loremaster are in the the first two expanions, along with some 3.0 splat classes and 2 FRCS ones.

Most of the rules are about the same, there's a few different feats and skills, and domains are a bit stripped down from the pnp rules.

Also, you can only have a maximum of three classes, so keep that in mind when planning a build.  Many builds actively take advantage of "dipping", you know taking a single level of a class just for the level 1 advantages.  Some online persistant worlds restrict that sort of thing, but you're probably not worried about that.

If you're just starting out, a fighter build can be decent.  I often like a fighter/rogue/weapon master build when I'm playing a new module.  What you do is take a rogue level at level 2 and then every 5th level thereafter to level 17 or 37 (depending on whether or not you can go epic).  Dump 5 ranks into Tumble when you do this because you get a +1 AC for every 5 ranks of Tumble. The game lets you save skill ranks each level because it doesn't handle half-ranks in cross-class skills.  Another good rogue skill to invest in in these levels is UMD.  In addition, use the Knockdown/Improved Knockdown feats (which are good feats for pretty much any fighter build), when the enemy is prone, you'll get Sneak Attack damage from your rogue levels.

Ranger builds aren't all that powerful in the game, especially in epic games.  I've enjoyed a ranger/rogue/shadowdancer build that's pretty good.  It's built to abuse Hide in Plain Sight which is good with sneak attack damage.  I go with 21 ranger levels for Bane of Enemies, 1 level of SD for the Hide in Plain Sight, and the rest rogue for the skills, Improved Evasion, and sneak attack damage.

CoDzilla can rule in NWN.  A cleric/Champion of Torm build with the right domains (Strength and Time are good for Divine Power, Haste, and a few other buffs) can be a good melee beast.  With druid, one of the big killer epic builds is a druid/shifter with Dragon Shape, and a monk level tacked on for Wis bonus to AC and Improved Unarmed Combat.

I suggest you take a look at the Bioware forums for the game if they're still active.  There's lots of build advice there.


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## Arkhandus (Apr 25, 2008)

Well, I first played through it as a Dwarven Monk; high Constitution, a 14 or so in Strength and Wisdom (maybe a 16 in one, I forget), a 10 or 12 Dexterity, and abysmal Intelligence/Charisma.  It was entertaining how the NPCs treated him as an ugly, drooling, smiling simpleton.    But he was friggin' TOUGH.

When the stupid rogue NPC henchman was chasing distant monsters on the other side of walls and springing traps instead of disarming them, or when he just wasn't around, I was generally able to walk over a trap or open it without worry.  I'd avoid most or all of the effect.  There was the occasional super-damaging or super-deadly trap that got me anyway, but those were fairly rare.  There's a lot of poison inflicting critters in the game, and I usually just shrugged it off.  When I didn't, I survived the huge amounts of poison being pumped into my dwarf by giant spiders and crud, though I made sure to carry and use antitoxins when needed.

The coolest moment was when I ran into some Bodaks and just shrugged off their Death Gazes like water off a turtle's back, killing the main enemy of the area while he and the Bodaks kept wasting their time on impotent Death Gazes and Fingers of Death.

Evasion, high Fortitude saves, and Fast Movement are your friends.  Stunning Fist is handy too, for making some doofus boss monster stand around and drool, while you unleash the Flurry of Blows or the Quivering Palm on his helpless arse.


For reference, though, there are a few things in the game that can only be done or chosen if you have a high Charisma; my later try at a Gnome Bard/Fighter (IIRC) was harder, but he was able to charm or convince some NPCs into being helpful and stuff.


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## Thanee (Apr 25, 2008)

I found the Cleric to be very nice in NWN, very versatile and still good in combat.

Bye
Thanee


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## GreyWizard77 (Apr 25, 2008)

Orius said:
			
		

> Well, first are you using just NWN, or are you using Hordes of the Underdark as well (included in the Platinum and Diamond editions)?  That makes a difference, since HotU adds epic builds.  There are different builds depending on whether you're going 20 or 40 levels.




I have the Platinum Edition, so I'll be using both expansions.
Does that 3 class limit include Prestige Classes, or just base classes?


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## fba827 (Apr 25, 2008)

I used a cleric through it (only played the original NWN without expansions).  I can't imagine surviving the first few levels as a wizard though ... but then, that may have more to do with my own style of play than the actual game play itself.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Apr 25, 2008)

I played a Monk. It worked astoundingly well. Knockdown and Improved Knockdown are good choices for feats, and I don't think you can do anything wrong with Toughness, either.


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## Orius (Apr 26, 2008)

GreyWizard77 said:
			
		

> I have the Platinum Edition, so I'll be using both expansions.
> Does that 3 class limit include Prestige Classes, or just base classes?




So you got pretty much the whole package at your disposal.  Have fun.  

Three classes total.  The character screen only has three slots for your classes so you can't take more than that.  It's ok, because there's plenty of great NWN builds out there in spite of that.



			
				Thanee said:
			
		

> I found the Cleric to be very nice in NWN, very versatile and still good in combat.




To further what I said above, it's not at all difficult to unleash CoDzilla in NWN.  Since there's no DM to reign in rule abuses, you can go to town, and stomp up the town.  The most popular domains I remember for CoDzilla builds were Strength (_divine power_ is level 3), Time (for the _haste_ spell), and Trickery (_invisibility_).  There might have been one or two other domains that were popular.  Note that NWN domains are a bit different from the standard 3.x domains; you don't have a domain spell every level, some domain spells are different, and you can just prep domain spells with your regular spells.



			
				fba327 said:
			
		

> I can't imagine surviving the first few levels as a wizard though ... but then, that may have more to do with my own style of play than the actual game play itself.




The prelude to the NWN campaign gives starting wizard characters a rod with unlimited uses of _ray of frost_ as part of the game tutorial.  So there's always a little magic at your disposal.  Even if you're playing the SoU/HotU campaign, you can just make a wizard with the rod and then import it into the beginning of SoU (though paladin is probably one of the best classes in SoU/HotU). And most wizard players tote a crossbow around if they're smart.  Since the TC has HotU, that also means he's got Scribe Scroll (actually, I think one of the patches added in Scribe Scroll regardless of how many expansions are installed) and Craft Wand, though the blank scrolls and wands aren't available in except in HotU I think.



			
				Mustrum Ridcully said:
			
		

> I played a Monk. It worked astoundingly well. Knockdown and Improved Knockdown are good choices for feats, and I don't think you can do anything wrong with Toughness, either.




Monks aren't too bad.  Often monks are combined with a cleric or druid build for the Wis bonus to AC.  And like I mentioned above, the Improved Unarmed Combat of the monk is used to bolster the druid's wild shaping.

Knockdown -- these are NWN's equivalent of Trip, and they're two feats that work well on just about every melee build.  Toughness is also a great feat; it gives you +1 hp every level instead of just a flat +3 hp once.

Another popular build takes a level of sorcerer with a paladin build and makes a Dragon Disciple out of it.  RDD builds only needs one level of bard or sorcerer for the class.  The idea here is not for the sorcerer spellcasting, but to use the RDD levels to pump a massive melee beast.  However, you can do very well with bard and have a fighter or barbarian as your melee base.  Take more bard levels to improve your song and take Lingering Song, use buffs like _bull's strength_ or _(bear's) endurance_, and you can really pump that build up.  

If the classes in the set aren't enough to whet your appetite, there's a mod that you can download that adds even more prestige classes, as well as spells, feats and the like.  There's a lot of really good fan-created content out there.  If Steel Wind finds this thread, he can probably point out the good stuff better than I can, especially some of the stuff he's responsible for.

Even I've created stuff for NWN.  Check out my adaptation of Orc and Pie.


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## GreyWizard77 (Apr 26, 2008)

THanks for the thoughts. Keep 'em coming! SO far I've built a standard human fighter, going towards Weapon Master. I may dip into Ranger for the dual wield ability. I've started the Prologue of the original campaign and haven't any problems yet. I'm on Normal setting.


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## hong (Apr 26, 2008)

NWN is pretty forgiving. I finished HOTU with a fighter/monk/weaponmaster, using 2 longswords. This is a horrible build by most standards, but I didn't have any trouble. Any build that can deal a decent amount of damage should be fine (and if you're going for WM, that pretty much guarantees it).


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## Gulla (Apr 26, 2008)

It is pretty forgiving. I normally play a social rouge or a bard in these games to get as many conversation options as possible. It works like a charm.   

In the expansions anything that includes Shadowdancer is totally overkill. I remember sneaking in between a lot of enemies and taking out the magic users (the only challange) with this wonderful tactic:

Invisibility (potion or hide).
Bakcstab (or just something else doing damage)
Step two steps back and hide in the middle of eveyone.

Then everyone goes back doing their business, there are no enemies, right?

It actually made it so easy I dropped using it to have some challenge and some fun.

Håkon


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## Orius (Apr 27, 2008)

Found my standard fighter build.  I have a few other builds, but they were for a PW that had some modifications to races and spells, so they had some pretty specific setups.  This guy however, was a greatsword weapon master that I used the same way everywhere; he was pretty adaptable (and he's the guy in that screenshot).

Naturally, the build can be adapted to other weapons.

Starting stats:
Str 16, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 10.
Race: Human

Level 1: Fighter 1, Weapon Focus: Greatsword, Toughness, Power Attack.
Level 2: Rogue 1.
Level 3: Fighter 2, Feats: Knockdown, Dodge.
Level 4: Fighter 3.
Level 5: Fighter 4, Feat: Cleave.
Level 6: Fighter 5, Feat: Expertise.
Level 7: Rogue 2
Level 8: Fighter 6, Feat: Mobility.
Level 9: Fighter 7, Feat: Spring Attack.
Level 10: Fighter 8, Feat: Whirlwind Attack.
Level 11: Weapon Master 1, favored weapon: greatsword
Level 12: Rogue 3, Feat: Improved Knockdown
Level 13: Weapon Master 2
Level 14: Weapon Master 3
Level 15: Fighter 9, Feat: Weapon Specialization (greatsword)
Level 16: Fighter 10, Feat: Improved Critical
Level 17: Rogue 4
Level 18: Weapon Master 4, Feat: Disarm
Level 19: Weapon Master 5
Level 20: Weapon Master 6
Level 21: Weapon Master 7, Feat: Blind-Fight
Level 22: Rogue 5
Level 23: Weapon Master 8
Level 24: Weapon Master 9, Feat: Great Cleave
Level 25: Weapon Master 10
Level 26: Weapon Master 11
Level 27: Rogue 6, Feat: Improved Disarm
Level 28: Weapon Master 12
Level 29: Weapon Master 13, Feat: Epic Weapon Focus (greatsword)
Level 30: Fighter 11, Feat: Improved Initiative
Level 31: Fighter 12, Feat: Epic Weapon Specialization (greatsword)
Level 32: Rogue 7
Level 33: Weapon Master 14, Feat: Superior Initiative
Level 34: Weapon Master 15
Level 35: Weapon Master 16, Feat: Overwhelming Critical (greatsword)
Level 36: Weapon Master 17, Feat: Devastating Critical (greatsword)
Level 37: Rogue 8
Level 38: Weapon Master 18
Level 39: Weapon Master 19, Feat: Armor Skin, Improved Expertise
Level 40: Weapon master 20

Skills: Fighter levels take only 1 rank in Discipline (4 ranks at first level) and save the rest. Rogue levels dump 5 ranks into Tumble, and spread remaining points among Use Magic Device, Spot, and Listen; put 2 ranks in Intimidate at levels 2 and 7 for WM.  Weapon Master levels put a rank each into Discipline, Listen, and Spot.

Ability score increase always goes to Strength.


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## takyris (Apr 29, 2008)

I've beaten Hordes as a Bard/Shadowdancer/Arcane Archer, a Paladin, a Paladin/Monk, and a Bard/Cleric/Shadowdancer (the last was absurdly fun). Mind you, I like bards and shadowdancers, and shadowdancing was what let me survive as a bard,. 

Cleric is also a hoot -- I just didn't finish with one. I did play Shadows of Undrentide with one (as well as a Fighter/Rogue/Barbarian), and it's all kinds of fun.

Really, just play something that can hit.


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## Asmo (Apr 29, 2008)

It´s been a while since I played Hordes of the Underdark. What level do you finish at? I´m sure that I wasn´t able to reach lvl 40, more like 25-28? Could that be correct?

Asmo


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## GoodKingJayIII (Apr 29, 2008)

After seeing this thread, I just got a hankering for some NWN.  So I loaded up my games and downloaded the Player Resource Consortium.

One thing I noticed, the many player-created base classes don't seem to be available to me.  Anyone know how I can open them up to access them?


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## GreyWizard77 (Apr 30, 2008)

GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> After seeing this thread, I just got a hankering for some NWN.  So I loaded up my games and downloaded the Player Resource Consortium.




It's nice to know I inspired someone.

I currently have a human fighter 4/Rogue 1 with the Elven Cleric as my henchman. I've found 2 of the reagents for the plague. So far it's been fairly easy.


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## Orius (Apr 30, 2008)

Asmo said:
			
		

> It´s been a while since I played Hordes of the Underdark. What level do you finish at? I´m sure that I wasn´t able to reach lvl 40, more like 25-28? Could that be correct?




About 28.



			
				GoodKingJayIII said:
			
		

> After seeing this thread, I just got a hankering for some NWN. So I loaded up my games and downloaded the Player Resource Consortium.
> 
> One thing I noticed, the many player-created base classes don't seem to be available to me. Anyone know how I can open them up to access them?




Ah the PRC, that's what I was talking about.  I never used it myself though, because of the compatibility issue  with the CEP.  I don't know how many people around here use it, but you'd probably have a better chance of getting an answer over at the Bioware forums if no one knows.



			
				GreyWizard77 said:
			
		

> I currently have a human fighter 4/Rogue 1 with the Elven Cleric as my henchman. I've found 2 of the reagents for the plague. So far it's been fairly easy.




Yeah, Linu should work well with a fighter/rogue.  But sometimes the henchmen act stupid, so watch out for that.  The original NWN campaign can be a cakewalk, the SoU/HotU campaign is a bit more challenging at low levels.


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## Calico_Jack73 (May 5, 2008)

I beat the game playing a Human Fighter/Wizard/Cleric.  I only took one level each of Wizard and Cleric so I could use all of the magic items in the game and still rock in melee.  I'd suggest that combo to anyone.


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## Joshua Randall (May 5, 2008)

A little late to the party here, but to echo what a few other people said: the game is fairly forgiving, so you can really win it with any reasonably competent character.

I've played through the base NWN campaign a bunch of different ways: Sorcerer, Paladin, big dumb Barbarian/Fighter, Monk/Dwarven Defender, Cleric, Ranger/Wizard/Arcane Archer... about the only class I never dabbled in was Rogue.

One thing I have noticed about NWN is that, at the high levels, not being able to kill a lot of things at once makes the game more of a grind than otherwise. For example, if you're a high level Sorcerer, you can bust out Wail of the Banshee to clear a room; but if you're a high level Fighter, no matter how badass, you have to engage every enemy in the room in melee.

This isn't a huge deal in the base campaign, but in SoU and especially in HotU it becomes increasingly important to have room-clearing capability. Selecting the right henchmen can help (especially if you use one of the fan-created hechmen AI upgrades), but I find it more fun to repeatedly meteor swarm a room myself rather than watching an NPC do it.


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