Neverwinter Nights Week

(Disclosure: many of the different terms I use in this post can be found and defined at the NWN wiki located Here. … in addition this post was originally intended for 10/27/15 but due to a lack of sleep on my part I ended up taking a much needed nap, sometimes I get cranky and my wife sends me to bed for nap time. What a bully! )

As I continue my journey into the Neverwinter nights game I find myself needing to explain the different aspects of actually playing the game. Neverwinter is a game you need to play with a number of things to consider. Firstly your character advancement is something some plan out like a map while others rely on the randomness of a button. Secondly what kind of player am I Single player or multiplayer or both also am I a hack and slasher, a PVP player or a role player or a mix of those. Granted you could like any mode of the game as I do but please don't tell anyone I was bending your arm.

I will recommend the original campaign mainly for how easy it is to learn the game. While I enjoyed playing the OC as it is called by the community I enjoyed the expansions and community created modules more.

One thing I will say about the OC is that it has a prelude that practically teaches you the basics on how to play the game. My advice is that you play the prelude and search every box, chest, barrel, or body. Collect everything you find and as long as you can deal with a slow moving character for those with low strengths. You can gather up a nice amount of stuff that can be sold to one of the merchants in the first chapter. It just may get you some better gear to start out with. Personally I sell to Lady Aribeth.

Back to character creation the thing you select is sex male or female, after that you get to choose your race. You get to choose between Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Half-Elf, and Half-Orc. Each race has a description and an explanation of its ability's and flaws.

After race, you get to choose your character portrait. One of the cool things about NWN is you can find loads of portraits on the vault, and a bonus they are very easy to install and use. I have noticed over the years different servers tend to have a good selection of portraits for the players.

From portrait you jump straight into, class. Class is basically what path in life you choose or what job you perform. The standard classes are Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard. The game offers what is called Prestige Classes you can select them as long as you meet the requirements for the class. The standard Prestige classes are as follows Shadowdancer, Harper Scout, Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Champion of Torm, Weaponmaster, Palemaster, Shifter, Dwarven Defender, Red Dragon Disciple, And Purple Dragon Knight. Each class and Prestige class is described when you select it in game.

We have gotten to the alignment section. Alignment is described as each characters relation to the concepts of Good, and Evil. Law, and Chaos. The alignments are as follows Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Lawful Evil, Neutral Good, True Neutral, Neutral Evil, Chaotic Good, Chaotic Neutral, and Finally Chaotic Evil. The alignments come into play for some classes as requirements and some mods will change your alignment based on your actions.

We move into the ability's next. The ability's are described as basic statistics that define the character. As far as the numbers go the higher the number the better the statistic. You start with 8 points in each stat and you get 30 points to distribute among your statistics. The higher the number the more points it costs. The ability's are as follows Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma. And go figure the only one I misspelled was intelligence, thank god for spell checker!

The packages button is where you configure your Skills and Feats. Use the configure packages button located at the bottom of the screen or you can choose a default one from the list provided based on class.

I should explain with skills you will notice some are labeled class skills, these only cost one point to increase, nonclass skills cost two points to increase your skill number.

We finally end up at the customize button, this is where you can select one of the many heads the game and community provide. You can also select if you want to have tattoos, if you want to be athletic or overweight, and you can select some starting clothes. You also get to choose your skin color and hair color and you can select two tattoo colors. You get to name your character and choose their voice set or the different noises they make when attacking and doing other stuff like dying.

Now you are ready to embark on the greatest adventure ever using this game and your imagination. We will cover some information about the OC and expansions on the next edition of Mikey's World!