Neverwinter Nights 2 : How should I play it?

[Saecon]

Fun to watch though eh. By the by welcome to the site, you'll have a grand time.

Thank you!

 

[Ryotknife]

Im trying to get back into NWN2, but the most difficult part is choosing your character path. You pretty much have to set your path in stone from the word go.

Especially since many classes range from useless to OP, with hardly nothing in the middle. For example, I wanted to play a technical fighters. Unfortunately rogues (and their prestige classes) are useless as nearly everything is immune to crits and sneak attacks halfway in the game.

Alright, lets try an archer....oh wait they don't scale for crap past level 8.

It seems like if you are not a stormlord, some monk variation, or weaponmaster you shouldn't even bother. My first playthrough was as a warlock, and I ended up controlling my companions instead as the warlocks ability were useless (except for the demon transformation, ill admit that is fun).

Warlocks useless? What?
Sure, they're pretty weak the first few levels, but later on, they're powerhouses bordering on being overpowered. They may not have the burst damage of a sorc or a wizard, but their damage is consistent and reliable. They're amazing at dealing massive amounts of area damage, on top of having excellent support spells and survivability. If you think warlock abilities are useless, you're playing the game seriously wrong.

My warlock was weak, period.

So weak I had to use crossbow for the last 25% of the game because his spells were utterly useless. Survivability? He had the exact opposite of survivability outside of demon form. He was completely useless against the final boss, to the point where I purposely killed him off so my healer wouldn't waste spells on him.

Ive played mages, druids, and clerics in that game. Warlock is by far the most useless class ive ever played in any game. I suppose it is possible for it to be a good caster in the level 30 range if you focus him on being a melee caster as offensive spells seem to take a serious dive in usefulness at the very high levels (like in Mask), but that is about it.

compared to a Stormlord, who had better damage spells, healing/defensive spells, and decent melee, the warlock is laughably bad. I used a Stormlord in Mask, and his melee ability was good enough to be his primary damage dealer while tossing out buffs, summons, and heals. Keep in mind, I did not min/max any of my builds, yet the warlock is the only one ive played who has suffered the worse. If warlock requires strict min/maxing to be even somewhat useful, then that is a serious design flaw on the devs part (especially without some kind of warning).

 

[Denamic]

My warlock was weak, period.

So weak I had to use crossbow for the last 25% of the game because his spells were utterly useless. Survivability? He had the exact opposite of survivability outside of demon form. He was completely useless against the final boss, to the point where I purposely killed him off so my healer wouldn't waste spells on him.

Ive played mages, druids, and clerics in that game. Warlock is by far the most useless class ive ever played in any game. I suppose it is possible for it to be a good caster in the level 30 range if you focus him on being a melee caster as offensive spells seem to take a serious dive in usefulness at the very high levels (like in Mask), but that is about it.

compared to a Stormlord, who had better damage spells, healing/defensive spells, and decent melee, the warlock is laughably bad. I used a Stormlord in Mask, and his melee ability was good enough to be his primary damage dealer while tossing out buffs, summons, and heals.

I don't know how you managed that, but you must've done something horribly wrong. I was demolishing everything with eldritch doom and eldritch chain for enemies with improved evasion and/or high reflex saves. With the hellfire prestige class, you'd get spammable spells with damage that even exceeds most wizard spells at the same caster level. And you could wear medium armor without incurring arcane failure, so you could wear a mithril full plate and a mithril buckler to get incredible AC, rivaling fighters.

To call warlocks useless is objectively wrong.

 

[Ryotknife]

My warlock was weak, period.

So weak I had to use crossbow for the last 25% of the game because his spells were utterly useless. Survivability? He had the exact opposite of survivability outside of demon form. He was completely useless against the final boss, to the point where I purposely killed him off so my healer wouldn't waste spells on him.

Ive played mages, druids, and clerics in that game. Warlock is by far the most useless class ive ever played in any game. I suppose it is possible for it to be a good caster in the level 30 range if you focus him on being a melee caster as offensive spells seem to take a serious dive in usefulness at the very high levels (like in Mask), but that is about it.

compared to a Stormlord, who had better damage spells, healing/defensive spells, and decent melee, the warlock is laughably bad. I used a Stormlord in Mask, and his melee ability was good enough to be his primary damage dealer while tossing out buffs, summons, and heals.

I don't know how you managed that, but you must've done something horribly wrong. I was demolishing everything with eldritch doom and eldritch chain for enemies with improved evasion and/or high reflex saves. With the hellfire prestige class, you'd get spammable spells with damage that even exceeds most wizard spells at the same caster level. And you could wear medium armor without incurring arcane failure, so you could wear a mithril full plate and a mithril buckler to get incredible AC, rivaling fighters.

To call warlocks useless is objectively wrong.

Magic missile does more damage than warlock spells. Eldritch chain and doom damage pretty much does not scale at all, those spells were doing roughly the same amount of damage in the low levels as the high levels. In the low levels, it would take 6-8 spells to kill one enemy (assuming they all hit), at the higher levels....it would take minutes for me to kill an enemy with spells. My crossbow with nice bolts (and maybe 1 feat) did more damage than my spells as at least the crossbow can hit for 17-25 damage consistently.

I would have had an easier time playing a mage and using nothing but magic missile and acid arrow.

You know the part of the game where your character is all alone and has to fight the shades or whatever they are on the way to the kings chamber? Each one of those fights took about 5-10 minutes, and the only reason I made it through (after hours of tries) is because I used my entire stock of potions.

Those mother effing shades resist all of my warlock spells and I end up having to crossbow or demon melee them to death.

my rogue was more useful, and that is saying something as most of the creatures are immune to crits and sneak attacks.

stacking traps HOOOO!

 

[The Madman]

I had the same problems with the old Black Isle games as well, but at least Baldur's Gate and Torment had a good enough story that I would force myself through them nevertheless, something you cannot say about NW2...

Sure I can, Mask of the Betrayer has a fantastic story. Easily one of the best presentations of the Forgotten Realms setting to date, and that includes Baldur's Gate. It's unique and it doesn't shy away from questioning some of the FR settings more horrific elements. Damned good campaign that!

There's also a whole host of excellent player modules out there with fantastic story and clever premise. You're missing out if you skipped NWN2 just because of the main campaign, which itself does eventually pick up to a more frantic and interesting pace. Just wish the OC didn't take so long getting there!

I only got Mask of the Betrayer - which is awesome if you like an RPG that focuses on story rather than action.
I didn't bother with the others because Storm of Zehyr's premise didn't appeal to me, and the 3rd came out too late for me to be interested in it.

3rd? You must mean Mysteries of Westgate because NWN2 has only two official expansions. Westgate was a community module released for a budget price with the approval of Atari and Obsidian, but wasn't actually made by either of them.

 

[Issurru]

I played a human fighter with a level in bard. Just so I could take the dragon Disciple prestige class. Honestly I don't think I'll ever play that again. It gets super boring being so awesome. Nothing could hit me, I did stupid amounts of damage with my two handed weapon and improved power attack. I finally beat the original campaign and the mask of the betrayer expansion. But it was dragging on at the end because I walked through everything.
My buddy played a Dwarven defender who he said say awesome But also boring since not even that super huge red dragon boss could touch him when he went defensive, the fight took like an hour but he just started playing another game on his 360 and came back just as it was finishing.
I wanted to try a tiefling rogue 1/ wizard 19 or cleric 19. Something kinda different because I don't like neeshka or that cleric lady you get

 

[Mordekaien]

Human ranger is awesome- if only for the ability to actually dualwield without feats, because then you can make ranger/fighter/weaponmaster with two scythes and a giant crit chance....

But in my serious playthrough I went with a human duelist, since I always liked the feeling of a musketeer taking on armored opponents.

 

[Denamic]

My warlock was weak, period.

So weak I had to use crossbow for the last 25% of the game because his spells were utterly useless. Survivability? He had the exact opposite of survivability outside of demon form. He was completely useless against the final boss, to the point where I purposely killed him off so my healer wouldn't waste spells on him.

Ive played mages, druids, and clerics in that game. Warlock is by far the most useless class ive ever played in any game. I suppose it is possible for it to be a good caster in the level 30 range if you focus him on being a melee caster as offensive spells seem to take a serious dive in usefulness at the very high levels (like in Mask), but that is about it.

compared to a Stormlord, who had better damage spells, healing/defensive spells, and decent melee, the warlock is laughably bad. I used a Stormlord in Mask, and his melee ability was good enough to be his primary damage dealer while tossing out buffs, summons, and heals.

I don't know how you managed that, but you must've done something horribly wrong. I was demolishing everything with eldritch doom and eldritch chain for enemies with improved evasion and/or high reflex saves. With the hellfire prestige class, you'd get spammable spells with damage that even exceeds most wizard spells at the same caster level. And you could wear medium armor without incurring arcane failure, so you could wear a mithril full plate and a mithril buckler to get incredible AC, rivaling fighters.

To call warlocks useless is objectively wrong.

Magic missile does more damage than warlock spells. Eldritch chain and doom damage pretty much does not scale at all, those spells were doing roughly the same amount of damage in the low levels as the high levels. In the low levels, it would take 6-8 spells to kill one enemy (assuming they all hit), at the higher levels....it would take minutes for me to kill an enemy with spells. My crossbow with nice bolts (and maybe 1 feat) did more damage than my spells as at least the crossbow can hit for 17-25 damage consistently.

I would have had an easier time playing a mage and using nothing but magic missile and acid arrow.

You know the part of the game where your character is all alone and has to fight the shades or whatever they are on the way to the kings chamber? Each one of those fights took about 5-10 minutes, and the only reason I made it through (after hours of tries) is because I used my entire stock of potions.

Those mother effing shades resist all of my warlock spells and I end up having to crossbow or demon melee them to death.

my rogue was more useful, and that is saying something as most of the creatures are immune to crits and sneak attacks.

stacking traps HOOOO!

Resist your spells? How about using vitriolic blast? It ignores magic resistance, and gives a 2d6 dot/round per 5 levels. At level 20, that dot alone will do 8-48 damage. Not sure how you've managed to gimp yourself to outdamage your spells with a 17-25 damage crossbow. On top of that, warlock blasts are ranged touch attacks and are far more likely to hit than a ranged attack.

By the way, why go for word of changing when you've got eldritch doom, binding blast, and dark foresight? Sure, it's good for killing off spellcasters with the magic resistance, but it's by no means a go-to solution.

Well, whatever. Warlocks are strong regardless of what you might think.