Jump to content

Home

[NWN2] Expansion Pack and Model Exporter announced!


Pavlos

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 126
  • Created
  • Last Reply
6 more days till it hits the US, grr!

Definitely the first time I've completed a game before it's even out in the US... I hope Atari don't recieve too many complaints about this, it's extremely rare for us to get a game this much earlier - usually we're at least several days after North America.

 

Thanks for the suppress fix link, this will most definitely be a permanent resident in my override folder until if/when Obsidian fixes it themselves. I won't want to finish the game with LG characters every time. I won't bother with the druid dragon companion fix since I don't usually play druids. I'm sure that'll get patched pretty soon anyway.

 

Installing over 1.06 seems to work okay as near as I can tell, I'll probably do a complete reinstallation as and when they patch the game again though... just to be on the safe side.

 

 

I actually thought the ending was okay, myself... the final battle was a bit too easy, though. I beat it on my second attempt through, same as I did the King of Shadows in the OC. The second fight with Okku at the end of the first chapter was actually considerably more difficult, for me. I think that's the only other time I died, so the game wasn't too difficult.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Act 1 question:

 

 

I'm having trouble getting the ghost of the Myrkul high priest give me the key to the lower vault. After that long dialog between the priest, The Child and The Brute the priest ignores me, and the journal says I have to find some way to convince him to talk to me. But I've talked to everyone I can think of (the witches, the High Priest of Kelemvor, the chief scribe ghost, the new half-celestial follower) and nobody seems to have any dialog where I can get clues how to do this.

 

So, how do you get the key to the lower level in the Vault of the Death God? :confused:

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Answer:

 

I'm fairly certain you can't get into the lower level until later on in the game... but only having completed one play through the game so far, I can't say I'm absolutely positive of this. However, as I say, I am fairly certain that you will not be able to manage it just yet...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've not really had much of a chance to play since the weekend; everything's been so busy! But what I've played (I'm still in Act 2) is seriously good stuff. The expansion also makes one or two nice nods to the original campaign - enough for them to feel closely connected but not enough so as to get this plot bogged down in the technicalities of the old one. Early days, though.

 

Currently, my favourite conversation tree is:

 

NPC: There is also word of a large fire to the south. It's not know how it started - there have been no lightning storms here for some time.

Player: You haven't, by any chance, seen an impulsive, red-headed mage girl with anger management problems lately, have you?

NPC: No, why?

Player: Just curious...

 

Edit: Seeing as how Devon seems ready to kill me, I promised to post some pictures. They shouldn't be spoilerific - though they do show some party members so you may not want to click if you want their appearances to remain a mystery - and they're only in areas/tilesets that have been revealed before in videos, previews, and images :).

 

nwn2ss100307134327we7.th.jpg nwn2ss100107214455gg2.th.jpg

nwn2ss093007181341fj0.th.jpg nwn2ss093007115516xs9.th.jpg

 

As you can see, the graphics haven't improved but the overall area design's much improved over NWN2's generic woodlands, in functionality, feel, and appearance.

 

Spoiler for Act 2:

 

My favourite area is the exterior of the Sunken City where the Slumbering Coven lies - yay for sea monsters!

 

 

Edit the Second: Oh and, toolset guys, yes there are waterfalls now :).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

They shouldn't be spoilerific - though they do show some party members so you may not want to click if you want their appearances to remain a mystery - and they're only in areas/tilesets that have been revealed before in videos, previews, and images :).

 

I haven't gotten quite that far yet, though I have to say some of the places have been rather creepy in how they've been presented so far, in particular

the room with the operating table in the Shadow Veil where they removed the sword fragment from your chest

.

 

Speaking of party members, is there a good way to gain Influence with Kaelyn in Mulsantir? I've managed to get both the jerk Hagspawn and Safiya above up to Supportive and Devoted, but Kaelyn is still at Neutral and I seem to be running out of things to do before I have to

go outside and confront Okku and his army of spirits

.

 

Also, is it normal that party members are of different level? My group is currently quite spread out, with the protagonist at level 22, Safiya at level 19, Gann at 18 and Kaelyn at 17. (Though perhaps the lagging of Gann and Kaelyn behind Safiya is caused by their races having level adjustments?)

 

 

Edit:

I just got Okku as a party member as well and he turned out to be level 20, 1 level higher than Safiya. So unless he's a special case, or have a positive level adjustment, it may be by design that everyone are different levels so they don't level up all at once. :)

 

 

I also managed to find one more influence option for Kaelyn speaking with the Kelemvor high priest, though at the expense of losing influence with the jerk hagspawn. No big loss, now all of them have gotten influence feats. Though it seems like those feats grow in power the more influence you have with them, since Safiya gains quite a load of bonuses from hers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are. For humans and aasimars only, it seems. The hair in Pavlos' avatar is new, and there's also another pony tail... and females have a new sort of braided look which looks quite cool, and another quite generic shortish style. The genasi races have the coolest hair going, though.

 

And there's also some new human heads. There are quite a few tatooed heads that they used for the various Red Wizards in the campaign, but there are others, too.

 

Also, is it normal that party members are of different level? My group is currently quite spread out, with the protagonist at level 22, Safiya at level 19, Gann at 18 and Kaelyn at 17. (Though perhaps the lagging of Gann and Kaelyn behind Safiya is caused by their races having level adjustments?)

I assume they put the companions at those levels because they didn't want them to be too overpowered if you choose to start the game at level 18. I have no idea what the PnP rules are for half celestials and hagspawn but I would think they would have to have level adjustments; seems like the only reasonable explanation to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looks like they've changed how all ray attacks work in the MotB expansion to allow you to land critical hits with them, and not just with weapons. Glad I wasn't hit by this Disintegrate, took care of that rather tough enemy pretty quick, in a single hit. :)

 

critdisintegrateon4.th.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Critical hits with rays, huh?

 

I remember seeing quite a bit of whining for adding sneak attacks with rays over on the NWN2 forums. Arcane Tricksters for example would get a large benefit from being able to zing baddies from across the screen with a ray of enfeeblement, disintegrate, and polar ray. Even if the P&P allows for that, I think it makes little sense. Don't suppose you've seen that in MotB have you?

 

Critical hits on the other hand I could accept more easily. Nice zap, btw.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you can get critical hits with arrows - I'm sure certain people would berate the devs for years if you couldn't - then there's no logical reason why it shouldn't be possible with rays. I guess that helps you with your warlock's eldritch blasts, as well, Stoffe. I always tend to keep a maximised disintegrate or two handy at high levels, to use on any targets with a low save, in order to put them out of the fight early, but I didn't manage any critical hits while playing. That would be... 480 magic damage.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember seeing quite a bit of whining for adding sneak attacks with rays over on the NWN2 forums. Even if the P&P allows for that, I think it makes little sense. Don't suppose you've seen that in MotB have you?

 

There is no Sneak Attack with melee/ranged touch attacks as far as I can see, just critical hits. Though there are Weapon Focus and Improved Critical feats for melee and ranged touch attacks as well now.

 

I guess that helps you with your warlock's eldritch blasts, as well, Stoffe. I always tend to keep a maximised disintegrate or two handy at high levels, to use on any targets with a low save, in order to put them out of the fight early, but I didn't manage any critical hits while playing. That would be... 480 magic damage.

 

Since Safiya is Red Wizard specialized as Transmuter she gets a respectable bonus to Save DC of those, and since Disintegrate is one of the few offensive high level spells that are of the Transmutation school I've memorized a whole bunch of those with various metamagics applied. She's managed to breach the saves of enemies fairly frequently so far, though I can imagine it will be more difficult as the game progresses.

 

I've gotten a few critical hits with Warlock invocations as well, particularly useful with Eldritch Chain shaped blasts since those can hit multiple enemies at once while still doing touch attacks on them (unlike Cone and Doom). Though since you can't Empower/Maximize invocations as they aren't spells, and Eldritch Blast doesn't have quite the base damage of Disintegrate I haven't gotten any one hit kills from Eldritch Blast critical hits so far. :)

 

Though I suppose the Eldritch Master feat would count as permanent Empower for Eldritch Blast since it boosts the damage with 50%. If you forgo picking any other Epic Feats than that and Epic Eldritch Blast, focusing on damage output alone, even Eldritch Blasts can do fairly respectable damage (even though you miss out on a lot of other goodies in the process).

 

(14d6 + 7d6) * 1.5 = 189 dmg (378 crit) max, 94 dmg average (189 crit) at level 30.

 

Somewhat OK I guess for something you can use unlimited number of times per day, but since you can only do 1 attack/round it still comes way behind what a melee grunt, specialized archer or wizard can do against a single target. And most enemies seem to have plenty of health so far in the game, and I doubt that's going to change. :)

 

Good thing the game can be modded though. I've added another level with my own Epic lvl 5 invocations to the game that are a bit more fun to use against the overly powerful opponents in MotB. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Gah... the difficulty curve in this game seems to be a bit uneven...

 

 

Being ambushed by 5-6 Ancient Vampires (each being level 28 with class levels in Monk while only the protagonist was Epic levels in my group) popping out of thin air in the lower level of the Death God's Vault was an unpleasant surprise. Killed my whole party in 1-2 rounds except for the protagonist and Okku. My casters couldn't have done much at any rate since their spells just bounced off their Monk spell resistance. (Good thing I was in the hallway and was able to toss up a few Wall of Perilous Flame in the doorway while they smacked down the rest of my group, and snipe at them with Vitriolic Blasts over that.)

 

Rather steep step up from just fighting some wraiths and a couple of Nightwalkers before that. And there wasn't even anything worthwhile behind that door.

 

The encounters through the other doors weren't much easier, with those Scythe-wielding Death Lords, Priest Mummies and the Lich King.

 

Overall Rashemen seems to be inhabited by rather tough folk, with level 20 city watch berserkers and epic level thugs. My own band of followers seem to be the weakest of the lot. :)

 

 

 

Also, a question about the start of Act II:

Does it matter in which order you visit Ashenwood, the Well and the Sunken City, or are they completely independent from each other?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also, a question about the start of Act II:

Does it matter in which order you visit Ashenwood, the Well and the Sunken City, or are they completely independent from each other?

 

No, it doesn't matter. It appears - I may be wrong - that one of them is entirely optional... and that's a fairly heavy chunk of content.

 

Anyway, I finally reached Act 3 and it seems the game is nearing its climax; I'll hopefully finish it today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Act 3 only took me two or three hours, I think. The second is easily the longest of the three.

 

Pavlos:

 

Did you devour what was left of Myrkul's spirit in the Astral Plane? If so, please let us know if you find out what you're supposed to do with his special spirit essense! I haven't seen anyone mention it at the NWN2 board yet...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Balderdash:

 

 

Yeah, I used Eternal Rest on him; I suppose it's more than that wretched thing deserves. But you get a spirit essence? I got so wrapped up in the story after that point that I didn't even bother looking at my inventory :p. I have a save, though, so I'll go back and look.

 

 

Also (end of Act 3)

 

 

Any hints on defeating Akachi? I've been battling him inside my soul for about half an hour and with all my spells (epic or otherwise) burnt out I'm left with whacking him with the Sword of Gith... which doesn't seem to be that successful.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Well, when I fought him, Safiya died fairly quickly (I think you only get her in the endgame if you romance her, is she with you?). And, I ran out of spells before the end, too. But, you can use Devour Spirit again and again, so I shamelessly spammed that, instead. It actually seemed sort of fitting to devour the personification of the hunger itself, before it devoured me. Doesn't do a huge amount of damage to him, and he seemed to be healing himself while I was doing it, but it can serve to keep him at bay, for a time. Don't worry about your craving going up at this point. He'll try to do the same to you at times so it's definitely a good idea to top up your spirit meter if you can, anyway.

 

When I'd injured him enough I lured him away from Safiya, and used Bestow Life Force to revive her (I assume you got this feat, fairly easy to find but you do have to discover it), then used her remaining spells to finish him off. I guess it's not an easy fight to handle but it's quite manageable if him and his "friends" give you the chance to use all the tricks in your arsenal... have fun. :)

 

Oh, also, don't forget that the reforged Sword of Gith has a few special abilities attached to it again. I didn't really use them but they might be effective against him; I'm not sure. I preferred the shard ones in the OC, they looked cooler. :p

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Cheers

 

 

I haven't died yet and I've actually been doing exactly what you recommended I was just wondering if there was something special I was supposed to be doing seeing as how he's taking an age to go down.

 

 

Also: I threw this together in a couple of minutes to show off some of the new water features. It seems fairly easy to get a convincing looking waterfall set up. Hopefully it'll add some more diversity to exterior areas in mods :).

 

waterfallvr7.jpg

 

Edit: I did it... finally...

 

 

I ended up burning through all the spirit essences I had in my inventory with the "mysterious device" item - it was the only thing that consistently took off 20-80 hitpoints.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oooh, you finished it? How was the ending, was it up to Obsidian's usual (excellent) standards?

 

Probably depends on which one. Apparently there are (at least) four different endings: Good, Good optimal, Evil, Evil Optimal... if you get all the mask pieces determine if you can get the optimal ending or not. And then the fate of some of your followers may vary a bit depending on certain actions taken in the game. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll write up my thoughts about it, as soon as I can collect them :). Not that it will be much use seeing as how the American release was today - unless we have any Australian NWN2 fans among us?

 

Edit: You no longer have to use the installation instructions on the BioWare boards. The autopatcher has been updated with a new patch which allows you to install NWN2, then MotB, then patch it.

 

16 is a replacement for the hotfix. I didn't think it was going live until the morning.

 

Well, surprise!

 

16, I believe, allows you to install NWN2 fresh, then install MoTB, then apply this one patch and be done with it. I will confirm when I get in the office tomorrow.

 

Your game should be at 1.10.1116 (I think that's it, anyway)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll write up my thoughts about it, as soon as I can collect them :). Not that it will be much use seeing as how the American release was today - unless we have any Australian NWN2 fans among us?

 

NO, the US ship date was today. Atari likes to mess with you like that. Nobody actually has it in stores and it's not available online yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Oh what a wonderful blunder:

 

Hello Everyone,

 

There is currently a patch available on the Autopatcher. DO NOT INSTALL THIS PATCH!

 

If you do, it will overwrite your CD Key(s) and cause you much havoc.

 

 

 

Edit

If this patch has already been installed, you will need to manually open the file "nwncdkey.ini" and replace the CD key(s) with the original keys you entered at the time of installing the game. The file can be found in the NWN2 install folder.

 

If you have a backup of nwn2cdkey.ini from after you installed MotB, you can instead just restore the file from your backup.

 

Ever the optimist: at least they're addressing the issue.

 

Edit: But I don't actually know what he's talking about because my CD keys are unchanged... must be a randomly occurring glitch - it should only affect online play, anyway.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...