NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[MerchantKing]

Alright, fuck, I finally finished the NWN2 OC.

That was rough, it's scary to think that this many bugs persist in this game after two expansion packs. Encountered a few gamebreaking bugs, luckily I saved frequently.

There's decent quality overall, but the core game mechanics fight you at literally every step of the way. There are so many encounters that would have been cool as fuck, with great multilayered terrain, ambushes, interesting mechanics, but they were spoiled by the fact that the entire party descends into a confused blob by the introduction of a corner or a corridor. Casting AoE spells is an absolute mess in at least half of the encounters, no wonder friendly fire is turned off by default on "normal" mode. I was really looking forward to chewing through MotB and SOZ, now not so much. But I will carry on through.

NWN1 doesn't have as many bugs. But it does turn into blobs just like NWN2 and such. Controlling hirelings is even worse since they're all controlled by the AI and any orders have to be issued via commands. What they do might not be very precise based on those commands. And NWN1 has the weird feature of causing your character to move around automatically during melee taking very small steps is some direction by design which can cause your character to walk into nearby traps over time. And to make it worse, you have to use the clunky wasd movement scheme for any precise movement which is just as clunky as NWN2.

Does every one of these games need a keep management minigame/gold sink?

I don't remember any of the official modules for NWN1 having any such minigames, but you might find some is a random community module somewhere. NWN2 doesn't have a gold sink minigame in MotB, though SoZ is designed around being a merchant company management simulator which is why it is the best module.

Since NWN2 is built on the same engine, it's kind of a shame that both of these games received such strong community support and that they're both based on a solid version of D&D. Is NWN1 as buggy as this shitpile? I honestly don't remember the combat in PS:T being anywhere near this bad, and that has a really bad reputation for some reason.

It's best to think of the NWN1 engine as just a platform for online multiplayer, something to host community modules in, and coupled with being a Bioware game is why it's a very clunky game to play. It's especially notable how bad NWN can control at times when you compare it to KOTOR's engine for which NWN's engine was effectively a protoype. NWN2 is worse in comparison to NWN1 because of the shitty camera and some of Obsidians modificication of the engine and then rushes it out its games because Obsidian was just the studio you go to to get an obligatory sequel.

 

[TedNugent]

It's best to think of the NWN1 engine as just a platform for online multiplayer, something to host community modules in, and coupled with being a Bioware game is why it's a very clunky game to play. It's especially notable how bad NWN can control at times when you compare it to KOTOR's engine for which NWN's engine was effectively a protoype. NWN2 is worse in comparison to NWN1 because of the shitty camera and some of Obsidians modificication of the engine and then rushes it out its games because Obsidian was just the studio you go to to get an obligatory sequel.

Is NWN1 better or worse platform for community modules? While I appreciate the fact that it is not as much of a rushed slop pile as NWN2 likely was at launch, if it's as much of a clunky mess, I might as well go for the newer version with a nice online class builder.

I own NWN EE, I just avoided it because it was BioWhore and after I booted it up and scoped it out, it seemed like a vastly worse experience compared to Infinity Engine. It's fucking hideous. I think I'd rather play Icewind Dale. Weirdly enough, NWN2 visuals aged much more gracefully. It doesn't look bad, surprisingly. The visuals are pretty decent when you pan out the camera.

Some time ago Nwn EE received updated that lets you see how aoe spells will hit by highlighting ground.

It was more so the fact that the AI seems to aggressively nuke my party members. Even if manually controlled, they seem to blunder around hopelessly and looking dazed and confused. I would regularly queue spells or attack actions with AI turned off, and they would sit there doing nothing. Their pathing regularly gets fucky and they provoke unnecessary attacks of opportunity. For some reason as soon as I turn AI on, my melee characters start running off aggressively in various directions, target swapping randomly.

For example, I would click on monster A to queue an autoattack, and they would immediately target swap and start running towards monster B, provoking an AoO from monster A and C.

The AoE targeting also seems to prefer "latching" the pie plate onto a primary target, meaning that anything around it gets nuked. If I can, I usually try to place the edge of the pie plate on the enemies to avoid friendly hits, but it can be cumbersome in some parts of the game where friendlies get deeply embedded. That's fine, and that's part of why I turned on friendly fire, but it's the latching behavior and characters getting stuck/running around randomly that made me kind of avoid using pie plate spells in most fights, or prefer things like chain lightning.

I don't remember much in the way of gamebreaking bugs. Except for maybe the Trial sequence, I think that could jam up badly but I never encountered it myself.

Specifically during the keep siege, when targeting the reaver with the scroll, I got some weird bug saying it was an invalid target, making it impossible to progress. I also had a few times where the world map doodad would bring up the party member but not actually take me to the world map selection screen, making it impossible to travel. A few crashes, mostly towards the end. Largely stable, though, mostly minor bugs due to collision/camera getting stuck when scaling steep ramps/cliffs.

 

[MerchantKing]

It's best to think of the NWN1 engine as just a platform for online multiplayer, something to host community modules in, and coupled with being a Bioware game is why it's a very clunky game to play. It's especially notable how bad NWN can control at times when you compare it to KOTOR's engine for which NWN's engine was effectively a protoype. NWN2 is worse in comparison to NWN1 because of the shitty camera and some of Obsidians modificication of the engine and then rushes it out its games because Obsidian was just the studio you go to to get an obligatory sequel.

Is NWN1 better or worse platform for community modules? While I appreciate the fact that it is not as much of a rushed slop pile as NWN2 likely was at launch, if it's as much of a clunky mess, I might as well go for the newer version with a nice online class builder.

There's a lot more modules for NWN1. If you want to make them, the toolset is better. The gameplay is clunky, but it's more tolerable than NWN2 because you only control one character. You really won't notice the bad stuff as much as in NWN2 because of that. However, it's a lot slower thanks to the RTWP and with a melee character just finishing off the trash mobs often spammed is just sitting there with your hands of the controls waiting for them to die. I'd hardly call NWN's gameplay "gameplay" at all because of that.

I own NWN EE, I just avoided it because it was BioWhore and after I booted it up and scoped it out, it seemed like a vastly worse experience compared to Infinity Engine. It's fucking hideous. I think I'd rather play Icewind Dale. Weirdly enough, NWN2 visuals aged much more gracefully. It doesn't look bad, surprisingly. The visuals are pretty decent when you pan out the camera.

I'd just look for the Diamond edition if you want to try it. I'd just torrent it if I were you. The gameplay certainly is not as good as with the infinity engine there either.

 

[Gargaune]

Is NWN1 better or worse platform for community modules?

Incomparably better. NWN's toolset was the best in the business and it launched one of the biggest modding scenes in gaming history. Meanwhile, if you think NWN2 - the game - was clunky, its toolset would give you a heart attack. Some builders were committed enough to see their projects through, but it never got anywhere near the first NWN.

It's fucking hideous. I think I'd rather play Icewind Dale.

I get the gist, but that's a weird way to put it... "That walrus is fucking hideous. I'd rather sleep with Kate Beckinsale."

Anyway, NWN's visuals are an acquired taste. Take me for instance, I've grown strangely fond of them. Play it for twenty years and you might too.

 

[Gargaune]

rogueknight333, check it out, man!

Turns out the only baseitems.2da variable controlling attack range is PrefAttackDist - it's the minimum to attack from, or if the PC is closer, they'll slowly backstep to it it. Now this looks encouraging, I've overwritten x2_s3_onhitcast to add the VFX, also changed the 2da for the % animations to mostly play the stabbing motion and for an override that lets Magic Staves take advantage of Weapon Finesse (new in the EE). Gotta initialise via console in-game, but then I've got a misc item that lets me apply Bonus Feat: Weapon Finesse and OHCS:UP for the visuals on any equipped staff.

Basically, this approach would allow changing Magic Staves to ranged in any module rather than relying on bespoke content. So far it's testing nicely, VFX point of origin doesn't line up great and it seems it can fail to sync at full 4 APR, but I wouldn't really expect mages to be doing much of that with staves anyway. It's actually turning up much nicer than I thought.

The only other thing I'm missing is a, well, miss effect. The beam VFX already has a miss vector option but I'd need to be able to hook into an actual miss listener, or I could have some generic VFX on every attack with only hits making the beam. But I'm not aware of any even listeners for either, are you?

 

[Immortal]

The only other thing I'm missing is a, well, miss effect. The beam VFX already has a miss vector option but I'd need to be able to hook into an actual miss listener, or I could have some generic VFX on every attack with only hits making the beam. But I'm not aware of any even listeners for either, are you?

How would that work? Your Miss would be detected in an event handler after you've played the VFX though.
If your trying react to a miss like how characters dodge attacks.. I think your creeping into hardcoded land.


In NWN1 I have no idea how to detect a Miss - OnHit requires damage of some kind.
Maybe EE added something - I haven't been keeping up with it.

 

[Gargaune]

How would that work? Your Miss would be detected in an event handler after you've played the VFX though.
If your trying react to a miss like how characters dodge attacks.. I think your creeping into hardcoded land.

Well right now the beam only fires on a successful hit, only that event reaches the listener. If I could listen for a miss, I'd just call a different effect with the miss vector enabled, the beam has that option that you can make it strike somewhere around the target rather than into it. The timing isn't an issue, it'd be exactly the same as the hit effect.

Alternatively, a general "make attack" listener would let me add some vague, non-targeting VFX just so the PC doesn't look like they're waving a stick around in the air randomly, and only the hit would get the beam feedback visual. Or I could have the beam always fire into the enemy on an attack and use a separate VFX on the target to confirm it's done damage. Obviously, a miss listener would be better, but I could make either work.

But, yeah, I don't think either functionality's been exposed at the API level, I'm just asking on the off chance.

 

[rogueknight333]

...Alternatively, a general "make attack" listener would let me add some vague, non-targeting VFX just so the PC doesn't look like they're waving a stick around in the air randomly, and only the hit would get the beam feedback visual. Or I could have the beam always fire into the enemy on an attack and use a separate VFX on the target to confirm it's done damage...

I never tried to do anything like this myself, and off the top of my head I cannot think of anything better to try than these ideas. The OnPhysicalAttacked Event does trigger even on missed attacks so maybe you could do something with that?

 

[luj1]

Is NWN1 better or worse platform for community modules?

Far better

Some modules are better than entire games

 

[Gargaune]

I never tried to do anything like this myself, and off the top of my head I cannot think of anything better to try than these ideas. The OnPhysicalAttacked Event does trigger even on missed attacks so maybe you could do something with that?

Thanks! Theoretically, I could make that work for the second option I described - check GetLastWeaponUsed(oAttacker) for the local var I attach to the staff and execute a generic VFX for every PC attack. It should be fairly straightforward, but to deploy it I'd have to overload the default OnPhysicalAttacked scripts, which means any modules or even creatures within those modules that don't use the standard script sets wouldn't get the per-attack visual effect, just the beam on hit.

I'm kinda worried that sort of inconsistent feedback might be confusing. Kinda like you get used to the staff making some VFX on every attack, plus a beam on a hit, then suddenly your misses do nothing at all and you're like "wtf, did it stop working?" Then again, there is a combat log, maybe it it's a subtle thing... Hm. I'll mull it over. Was just taking a wild swing here anyway.


P.S. Just for the record, I went twenty years with NWN not realising Mage Staves are actually one-handed. Shows how much appeal they've had for me so far.

 

[luj1]

I went twenty years with NWN not realising Mage Staves are actually one-handed

Makes the two of us

 

[Immortal]

If I could listen for a miss, I'd just call a different effect with the miss vector enabled, the beam has that option that you can make it strike somewhere around the target rather than into it. The timing isn't an issue, it'd be exactly the same as the hit effect.

Or do the inverse, assume every attack is a miss unless the OnDamaged event fires.
OnDamaged event doesn't fire if your target is Plot / You Miss / Or they are Immune.. but will fire if if they take any kind of damage even if the damage is fully resisted / DR'd

The side effect of this is if your target is plot or immune your beams will always look like their missing but.. eh. Lol

You should probably override your nBodyPart to at least fire from the players hands as well.. sorry, only NWN2 chads can leverage nodes on weapons for VFX's

 

[Gargaune]

Or do the inverse, assume every attack is a miss unless the OnDamaged event fires.
OnDamaged event doesn't fire if your target is Plot / You Miss / Or they are Immune.. but will fire if if they take any kind of damage even if the damage is fully resisted / DR'd

Yeah, but you'd have to tally the results of both OnDamaged and OnPhysicalAttack somewhere before picking a beam effect (complex, possible race condition) and override both creature scripts (possible conflict with various content). The advantage of the current VFX implementation is that it's quite light and only overriding a rather obscure central event manager, x2_s3_onhitcast, which I doubt's getting touched in most modules.

You should probably override your nBodyPart to at least fire from the players hands as well.. sorry, only NWN2 chads can leverage nodes on weapons for VFX's

It actually is set to fire from the hand node. On the staff's standard animation set, it does sorta vaguely come around where the hand would be, but I restricted it to the stabbing animations and that seems to register the hand node somewhere around your head when firing. It's not too bad, firing purple laz0rs from your forehead, and I find consistently playing the thrusting animation at range is a bigger gain.

 

[Gargaune]

Well, that all came to an ignominious end. I took the mod for a real test run through the OC, finally found a magic staff (was trying to actually play rather than just test) and it doesn't work properly. Specifically, there's something I couldn't have foreseen in my little testing module...

Changing the preferred attack distance doesn't also change the Magic Staff from still being a MELEE weapon. Meaning that if anything gets between the PC and the target - like, oh, I dunno, a fucking henchman - the game will recalculate a new attack vector for the PC to move to... in melee range. Thus defeating the whole point. And it happens a lot.

So I tried flipping some more 2da values to try turning it into a proper ranged weapon, but it turns out that what the explicit NWN wiki warning that you can't add new ranged weapons is trying to say is that you can't fucking add new ranged weapons. If you do, they just report "out of ammo" constantly, there's a hardcoded limitation there.

So yeah, no go. This sucks.

 

[Immortal]

If you do, they just report "out of ammo" constantly, there's a hardcoded limitation there.

Pretty sure this hardcoded limitation is on the NWN:EE trello to fix.

 

[DaveO]

I did 1st dungeon of Phantasie 1 module for NWN. Then stopped. The stuff needed to get it to work breaks how the prelude is. You might not even be able to finish it. Unless that was somehow fixed.

P.S. - Beat Swords of Never with a pure Rogue @ level 7.

 

[Gargaune]

Pretty sure this hardcoded limitation is on the NWN:EE trello to fix.

Yeah, right here, but it's been there since 2018 so I don't have high hopes of it seeing any movement any time soon.

 

[Gargaune]

Damnit. I got another idea - turn the Magic Staff into an off-hand, use the torch animation to hold it upright and make it grant a bonus feat for simple weapon proficiency and automatically generate an unlimited ammo dart weapon on-equip. I feared the animation might look weird, since the staff's so much taller than a torch and its grip point is down on the haft, but I didn't even get that far... I suspect the "hold overhead" animation is baked into the torch .mdl itself, I've gone through the .2da column by column but I can't get the character to hold it up at idle.

So all my efforts can only create a "ranged" staff that need constant micromanagement to avoid getting into melee when a frontliner inevitably gets in the way, or a an off-hand that'll poke into a room five minutes before the PC does.

It seems NWN's Magic Staff is damned to sucking. What a shame.

 

[Sabotin]

What about a different angle; would there be a way to chain cast a spell by only using it once at the start? Might require a custom spell/ability, but I'm sure I've seen effects that add to the action queue.

 

[Gargaune]

What about a different angle; would there be a way to chain cast a spell by only using it once at the start? Might require a custom spell/ability, but I'm sure I've seen effects that add to the action queue.

It's an interesting idea, though I'm not sure how it would work off the top of my head. You'd indeed need the custom scripting to trigger via some sort of activation so you have to activate it at least once per enemy instead of just attacking and letting the engine retarget handle it, but that would also present the advantage of no longer having to overwrite the .2da. But to handle the recurrence, you'd need the onActivate, after it casts the "spell", to add another Activate to the queue while passing it the current target. So it sounds like you'd have to create a new spell/feat AND be able to attach it to an item as an activatable itemproperty. Otherwise, if you only handle it through Unique Power tag-based scripting, you can only create the effect for a specific item, not for Magic Staves in general.

It also wouldn't scale to APR and it might not work on the OC depending on the exact implementation, but both are lesser issues.

I'll dig through the references for a bit, maybe I could look at how Balkoth's Minion Control handles the Player Tool X custom feat integration, the but if you've got some other example in mind, it'd certainly help.

 

[calgary.alberta]

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/baldurs-gate-reloaded-soar-version


Was anyone else aware of the new version of baldurs gate reloaded?

First update in 9 years to bring it inline with bg2 mod coming out.

 

[Gargaune]

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/baldurs-gate-reloaded-soar-version


Was anyone else aware of the new version of baldurs gate reloaded?

First update in 9 years to bring it inline with bg2 mod coming out.

The conversation style are not SOZ converted. If you wish to play this way you'll need a new patch for it.

This could be a big issue depending on what it means exactly. The problem wouldn't be not being able to use different party members in dialogue SoZ-style, but I'm pretty sure BGR used cinematic dialogue everywhere by default. I wouldn't wanna put myself through that.

 

[Nerevar]

Replaying Luke Scull's modules.

Very nice. Also he's got something in the pipeline later on a completely new module. I feel spoiled and lazy playing them though. I don't have to "super buff" for anything with all my blanket immunity items only time I died was to the water elemental. Just finished CToT.

I have to say Strength, Trickery and Animal are the best Cleric domains. Also a question for everyone, I only every play Gish or Clerics what is another class or combination that would be fun to try?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Replaying Luke Scull's modules.

Very nice. Also he's got something in the pipeline later on a completely new module. I feel spoiled and lazy playing them though. I don't have to "super buff" for anything with all my blanket immunity items only time I died was to the water elemental. Just finished CToT.

I have to say Strength, Trickery and Animal are the best Cleric domains. Also a question for everyone, I only every play Gish or Clerics what is another class or combination that would be fun to try?

Barbarian

 

[KainenMorden]

I enjoyed playing some type of gish also but have recently enjoyed playing warrior/rogues and pure rogues. Of course they are not as powerful as casters but still powerful enough and fun to play, with various ways to build them/tactics to employ.