Neverwinter Nights Forum News

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(Originally posted by Veldrin)

Here are today's Neverwinter Nights forum highlights. Please take into account that these are only single parts of various threads and should not be taken out of context.

David Gaider, Designer

Quote: The Shades Absolutely HAVE to be in an Expansion called the SHADOWS of Undrentide, which takes place in the Anauroch

You mean shades as in the shade character template? (more exaggerated innocent blinking)

Quote: On a slightly more serious note: would 'good' races be exactly happy with the prospect of a kobold wandering about their towns, weapon drawn. I mean this dwarf dosn't know much a bout the deserts but any where in the Sword Coast one of those things would be shot on sight.

Indeed. A kobold companion would be an unusual sight, especially in any populated area.

Quote: Having said that, I think the personalities of the joinable NPC's have always been one of BioWare's strongest design capabilities, so even though I am moaning about 3E, I am straining to peep across the Canadian border to see what it's all about.

Ahhhh, I see. Well, the thing I like about 3E is its flexibility. We didn't make a kobold bard just for the sheer silliness of having a kobold bard... he fits in well in the story, and lookee-here there's rules to cover that if I want it. And why not a druidic dragon? Or an ogre ranger? Heck, I can think of scenarios where those could be very serious and unique characters. I'll admit that our kobold henchman does play up a bit on the Boo Factor... it's true, it's true. He also has a serious side, however, and I'm told that his dialogue at one point in the game has moved more than tester to the Hidden Sniffles (as in "sniff! sniff! I'm not crying. Go away. Where's my kleenex?")... and if there's room for that kind of dichotomy in a single character, there's room for it in general play. It's the restrictions of the original rules that supposedly lock everyone into one static vision of gameplay that seem a bit senseless to me.

Quote: So back to the Kobold - who taught him his songs? Better yet, who listened to them? Where does a Kobold's lore come from? How does a Kobold learn the art of persuasion as applied to human society? Context is missing here, so I hope it is provided in the story, eh?

Absolutely. Just how a kobold bard came to be is a tale in and of itself. How sad would I have to be not to pick up on that? As for the system, I just have to shrug. Allowing players to pick up new classes without some kind of justification isn't something I would do in my personal campaign (NWN's functionality aside... you can't do "downtime" in the same way as PnP, although some kind of control would be nice). The options are there for you in 3E to make the kind of campaign that you prefer. Why worry about how everyone else is playing? To me, those very restrictions are what made 2nd edition a bit boring in the long run.

Henchman: No, the kobold is not the reskin. There are three henchmen in total, and you've already listed them:

the kobold bard (potential rogue)
the female dwarven cleric/rogue
the male half-orc barbarian/sorcerer

The class combos might still change, depending on how the automatic level-up scheme works with each of them. If you've got an opinion (dare I even ask?), speak now or forever hold your peace. (yeah, that'll happen...)

Quote: Err, this dwarf has an opnion, on the half the Half Orc, by the looks of him he may be lesss of a Barbarian type, he looks more like a straight caster to me and if he has to have some kind of 'warrior' levels they should be kept in moderation.

He takes one barbarian level for ever four levels of sorcerer unless you tell him to concentrate on one or the other. The choice is up to the player.

Quote: I admit I haven't been following the SOU boards all that closely, but am I correct in assuming that we will only have three henchmen to choose from or is it that there are three new henchmen total?

Well, there are no "old" henchmen... so, yes, there are three henchmen total in SoU.

Their Alignments: Why? What alignments do you think they should be? Overall, I've tried to skew all their alignments so they're pretty accepting of any type of playing style. Seems to only make sense that way.

Monsters: Phaerimm? You mean those magical wind-sock thingies? I have trouble picturing them as actually looking threatening when rendered in 3D.

Yes, Asabi are one of the new creatures... and, yes, it is a reskin of the lizard man. I believe it is, however, the only new creature in the list that is a reskin of an old creature (and does offer all three versions, anyhow: Chieftain, Shaman and Warrior).

New Models: No, it's not 16 new models. If you consider the faerie dragon to be different enough from the wyrmlings and pseudodragon to be a different model, then there's 15 new models and 1 reskin (the Asabi)... by my count, anyhow. And, yes, the formians are considered one creature for these purposes.