Rhomal

I understand your logic but you are missing my point. My goal isn't to metagame and create the baddest PC, its to emulate as best that can be done via the D&D rules the Conan char and that does mean multi-classing, on some level.

I am going to start a 2nd game of MotB to follow behind my current game. I thought I would be fun to create the Conan character, during the PC generation aspect of MotB I was thinking how many levels Conan (from the movies) would have in rogue vs barbarion. I was thinking 5 levels of rogue and the rest in barbarion but would like to get other thoughts on the matter. I has seen other builds on the internet with some levels of fighter as well but I think thats a stretch (plus triple classing him will just make playing a epic level module that much harder as I'll prob never get any good epic abilities) any input?

And...? How in that in any way is harming a teen? You don't think they see worse on tv, web site or DVD when their parents are not looking? and even then I don't know any teen or young adult who needed traumatic therapy from a shrink from seeing some p0rn. And speaking of parents, its NOT the gov't job to babysit and teach sex ed to teens and kids, its like, you know, the PARENTS job. If they are not up to the task and wish the net and tv to educate their children then whos fault is that exactly? Perhaps 'dad' should have been wearing a rain coat if he and his wife wasn't up to the task of teaching their kids properly to make informed decisions and not have them relay on some animated nudity of a PC game to learn from. *shrugs* Either way, poor parenting aside, I don't see the harm on some teens seeing a naked body or digital 'sexual' acts. Only issue I see is outdated and unrealistic fundie xian and puritan 'values' and beleifs thats many centuries behind the times.

Am I going to be in trouble down the road that I ditched the bear for the winged cleric I found in the temple vault? As in will I be overwhelmed combat wise?

Leave it to the hypocritical puritan/xian values that seep from the US; no problem hacking people to bits. Our teens playing such is fine. But show a beauty of the female form and OMG the kid is going to be forced in a padded room!!!!11. All the bible thumpers have to come out in force and tell us we are all going to burn in their fictional hell because we are tempted by their fictional satan by viewing a naked (digital or otherwise) female. Worst thing that ever happened to this country; the bible belt. But I digress. Sorry about the tangent, but needed to be said.

Ok I am still in the confines of the sunken city working my way out... I filled all 3 machines globes, now just got to get the lever situation under control. Is it me or is this area a VERY intricate labyrinth? Popping a few tough minotaurs I think would have been appropriate in here but none the less credit is due to whom ever designed/built this area. Its a very confusing, maze of rooms and halls! I am assuming killing the giant earth elemental (since according to the wizard is holding the place up underwater) is a poor idea...?

Max # of essences per lvl makes Rhomal sad!

I was trying to add 4 brilliant water for electrical damage (or whatever the damage type is for water). According to the description for the water, 4 brilliant and caster lvl 21 is a recipe.

Before Ferret was let go he told me the original plan was to have a trilogy (OC + 2 expansions with the second exp one completing the overall story). Seems so far that plan is still on track. If/when NX2 comes out however is certainly a point of debate but I think it would be nice to do and get the shard bearer to lvl 40 and go out with a bang. I expressed my concerns that I think maxing out in the OC to lvl 20 was not conducive to a trilogy, that they should take a page from bioware and BG1 and end the OC around lvl10, then nx1 to lvl 20 and nx2 whatever the max is. He agreed something along those lines would make more sense in some ways however he said the overall view at obsidian was no one felt players would accept 'finishing' the OC and not being maxed out. the impression I got from ferret was the feeling at obsidian is that BG1 was a one trick wonder they weren't sure people would take too/accept again. I think they could have pulled it off, obviously Ferret and the other designers at the time felt differently.

How many 'atari is d000000med' news reports have we seen thus far past 3 years? *shrugs* GM just posed a 30+ BILLION dollar loss and they don't seem to be going under anytime soon. (However their stocks will prob be worth less then the paper its printed on but thats another story...) Just trying to keep everything in perspective. As long as there a reasonable chance for atari to turn around and make $ someone will invest and bail them out. Its the way of the market. Just the name 'atari' is worth big $ due to its market penetration.

Yes, shes 21st level and I am trying a lvl21 recipe..?

Ok well I made it to the sunken city and found my way inside. Got past all those in line ahead of me... then the damn hag tosses me into some dungeon like area. Is there ANYONE is this land that does not know of my curse!? None the less I am now fighting my way past trapped elementals, drow and dark dwarves in this prison like area. However the non-stop voice heard screaming everywhere is driving me mad... need... to... find... and... kill... it... On a side note I have the red wizard create a +6 bastard sword for me using her skills/level. However, when I went to add frost damage to it per the recipeed list for the element, it said it wasn't valid. Can I not add to this sword?

Stoneskin is your friend! whenever I think I am walking into a disaster waiting to happen everyone gets stoneskin! It was easier with Qara in my party, (I really miss her for both her power and her personality, she had a similar outlook to my warlock!) but that aside, the cleric and wizard do a decent job of having a few stoneskin spells handy for the whole party when its about to hit the fan. This not only protects the party from the initial assault but also cuts back on the time the AI spends buffing and more time launching offense spells. If the NPC has most her their defensive spells cast on themselves already the AI will pretty much just start with a onslaught.

My game update (feel free to openly discuss anything from this point or before, PLEASE do not spoil me for things coming up): Well I went to the theater and found the woman charred, and went to the shadow plane to get secret room. As my red wizard friend suggested this woman had some power to maintain these portals. Found the gargoyle like creatures who took me away and got some clues to my original party members. The 'robe smeared in blood' I am assuming is either Sand or Quara. Since Sand turned on me (due to me not having him in my party much beyond what was required) and Quara stood by my PC, my warlock is hoping she is the one who survived. And Casiver may have survived as well as Khelgar. So I am glad both of those peeps (possibly) made it. I am quite interested in knowing what happened to elinee and the gith cleric. Both were staples in my PCs OC party. Anyways moving on... So after that little encounter my warlock took his party to follow this sniviling little kid who told me his clan elders know of my curse and could perhaps help. So I followed him and low and behold, like all pre-teen kids he was nothing but trouble. Not only takes me out of my way BUT leads me into a trap (Thankfully the gnawed humans bones on the ground of their village encouraged my party to cast some defensive spells). So these doppalanger like monsters basically want to eat me to gain my 'power' (or curse, depends on ones point of view I concede). So I wipe them off the face of the earth and then whack the kids too. Hey, you mess with my warlock you better get the job done! She does not have a issue razing a village if you do her ill. Then it was off to the shadow realm (on going theme it seems) to track down the missing cleric. Found her in a old temple of myrcule (sp?) and beat off the undead. Couldn't find a way past the door she was trying to get into but I did find a mural that hinted to something greater about my now missing silver sword (AGAIN that damn sword causing my warlock nothing but grief!). I ditched the bear and took the cleric in my party. Now we are traveling north... TBC

Agreed about the 'flawed' idea as to nerf resting. I agree the nwn1 and nwn2 OC resting was TOO abstract and mostly no kind of penalty to fight, rest, fight, rest... rinse and repeat as needed. Thus not a lot of challenge. in NX1 I like the idea of the 8 hrs and random encounters. That SHOULD have been the staple in nwn1 and nwn2 OC rather then take a knee for 5 sec and your 100% again. If they wanted to nerf resting beyond the 8hr and random encounters they could have simply added restrictions on the amount of time resting allowed in a 24 game hr period. Which not only makes logical sense but accomplishes their goal. For example, after resting you can not rest again until 8 game hrs have transpired. That would fix many of the fight, rest, fight, rest issues and force players to be more conservative with spells and healing supplies by having to use some tactics.

It drains way to fast, and I feel like, simply, I am playing the sims (spending most of my time working on keeping my food, hygiene, rest meters to a reasonable level then actually doing non-critical tasks, ie fun activities). I like the concept, and how it plugs into the story just not polished enough for my taste. I rather just play and enjoy the game/story rather then feel like I am playing sims expansion #853 'D&D fun' where I am constantly distracted by the meter and its level. M2C

Thank you all for the suggestions and info about spell selection. Very helpful. Question, the spirit bar is annoying as all hell! what is the console command (I have to assume one exists) to max out my spirit bar? Thanks!

Interesting, wasn't aware of that... Didn't realize Red Wizards had to specialize. As for undead, in the OC I took casivar the paladin and the gith cleric to help defend the walls in the defense of the keep. It was pretty much a cake walk. with them turning, killing undead like it was going out of style, I could focus on destroying the siege towers. they were the perfect combo IMO of handling that encounter. (For the courtyard defense took the gith again and my #1 tank khelgar. with the ironfist artifacts and all the feats for a warhammer the dwarf is a wrecking machine!) So no other tank huh? Thats a little disappointing. Would have been nice for a khelgar like NPC to be kicking around. Not that my warlock(13)/barbarion( (at this point) is a push over but be nice to have a dedicated (human like) tank. Without spoiling me too much what other classes can I look forward too finding?

I didn't like your thread so... No offense. Was like reading a declassified document with all the blanked out text. heh As for horses they WORKED on them but never included them in NWN2 proper. The mentality, at the time, was the typical player would get 'confused' or be 'teased' if they added them but couldn't ride them. From what I was told, a estimate was done on the manpower/art assets needed to do riding/combat properly and they number crunchers came back with a number way too big. So per Ferret (and prob others at OEI once they saw the $ involved) at the time, it was axed 1/2 though development. Apparently for NX1 they polished the existing horse resources (nix the riding as it is still cost prohibitive I am sure) as ambient life only. Which, I might add I fought for when I ran nwn2news/nwn2worlds. Glad to see they changed their mind!

Got about 5 hrs into MotB and thought I would gave some impressions. (I Don't mind discussing spoilers but NOT beyond the point in the game I am at though please, thanks!) Kinda pissed my warlock/barbarion hottie PC was violated like that. Rip that damn shard out of my chest THEN have the gall to curse me with the spirit eater infliction?! Someone is going to be hurt... badly... Then add insult to injury, they rob my blind, all the l00t in my backpack gone (My 100K magick bastard sword!! NO!!) PLUS my silver sword! The ass clowns! thankfully they left me with most of the equipment I was wearing. So far got a Red Wizard of Thay, Bear spirit and a spirit shaman in my party. I like the Red Wizard, shes a keeper however for a Red Wizard she didn't have much of a range of spells, Ive been spending some of my l00t buying up scrolls she can scribe. Plus, like Sand she cant cast summon spells. WTH is up with the designers against NPCs who can cast summons? A GENERAL wizard NPC that does not specialize in a school would be nice! That gripe aside the spirit shaman (who I am assuming is going to be my token cleric for this module) is a interesting character. Not sure if I can trust him, however as long as his ego does not get in the way of his loyalty I'll stick with him and see where it leads. The bear, well I give OEI a A+ for being original. Not sure if hes my cup of tea (personality wise) as I just picked him up, but we'll see. My PC will give him a shake and see how he does. If he cant be a good tank I'll cut him loose. I'd like to find, hopefully another tank class NPC in case the bear does not work out. Not sure how many NPCs are in this NX1 but a similar selection as the OC would be welcome. As far as the overall story; so far I like it, I am very curious what happened to my PC and why someone wanted that shard so bad. (With the silver sword bonded back together I don't see what use it has but then again who knows...) I am certainly looking forward to also finding out what happened to the OC companions. when I played table top D&D I never really read about or had a campaign in this region of the FR. So this setting is quite new and interesting to me. Very much a harsher, primitive, more fitting setting IMO then the sword coast. Which I always felt was too... civilized and (over) developed. Anyways as I said I just got the bear to join me (hell of a battle) and now I think I am going to go looking for that missing girl with the wings. See where that leads. So far though a very good story and I love all the new assets they included (HORSES!).

V - Never players JE and from the reviews and posts about prob wont. so I can't comment on it as I'd be talking out of my arse... heh As for the LA issue... I think you need to look at it as a EA and LA teamup more then a Bioware and LA team up. How long can the facade that Bioware is really still 'independent' last? At some point the hammer is going to come down, and Greg/Ray & co are going to come to the realization the free ride is over and its EA's way or the highway. From what I hear on the grapevine several peeps bolted bio shortly before the EA buyout was announced. Clearly, they told people if you not comfy with your new positions in the food chain to bail before the announcement as it looks bad if they do so afterwards and much less ambitious why they left. Time will certainly tell But don't get me wrong, Bio isn't all bad IMO... they hired Ferret after he was let go, and hes still IMO the bomb! :D

One compound word: LucasArts One other: KotoR Two Bioware is not the Bioware from the BG era anymore. they have been sold, and now sold again. Their quality from the past can not be associated with this new entity. However, LA certainly does not a great track record when it comes to Q/A... thus IMO does not bode well.

Where did you get that nonsense? Do you mean Floodgate? Entirely different company, makes now mobile games I think....hehe. The Austin team is actually composed of some high-talent (so they say) staff that worked on Ultima Online and other Online games.... Austin seems to be a lively place for MMO talent, so it actually made sense to setup a studio there. Floodgate did not make the finished product SoU. Bioware slammed it together in a matter of months as the RC's FG kept sending bio were horrible. They then axed FG from the project and started mostly anew. Again, pumped out SoU in only a couple months. From my sources they pulled MASSIVE OT to get it out the door for the announced date. FYI Yeah I know. I wonder why they collaborated with Flootgate in the first place. They surely didn't know when they inked the deal FG was going to choke with the task. Can't really blame Bio, as you can't predict such. Just like hiring a contractor to fix your house, some are good and deliver, others end up on a MSNBC undercover special as they trashed some poor guys house...

As for the topic at hand... well heres the start of poor quality games with the Bioware label... took less time then even I projected! heh.

Where did you get that nonsense? Do you mean Floodgate? Entirely different company, makes now mobile games I think....hehe. The Austin team is actually composed of some high-talent (so they say) staff that worked on Ultima Online and other Online games.... Austin seems to be a lively place for MMO talent, so it actually made sense to setup a studio there. Floodgate did not make the finished product SoU. Bioware slammed it together in a matter of months as the RC's FG kept sending bio were horrible. They then axed FG from the project and started mostly anew. Again, pumped out SoU in only a couple months. From my sources they pulled MASSIVE OT to get it out the door for the announced date. FYI