Neverwinter Nights 2/Headscratchers


 * Why is it that Deekin only sells armour that can only be worn by various prestige classes? Given that the player is likely to be the only one in the game world that can use them, it does seem overly specialised. Where did he get them and who does he hope to sell them to?
 * The game takes place in the Forgotten Realms -- where someone like Drizzt is probably the LEAST powerful person you're likely to run into. They doll out prestige classes like they're candy over there.
 * Deekin should be a level 26 or 27 Red Dragon Disciple if Hordes of the Underdark is canon. He could just take over Neverwinter if he wanted, but he's cooling his heels in an outdoor stall. It just bugs me.
 * Only level 26-27? I managed to actually take him to the cap. It took forever, but it was worth it.
 * The only way it makes sense is if Deekin went the bard route in Hordes, or, if Hordes actually takes place AFTER NWN 2, durring Mask of the Betrayer. (I think I'm wrong about that, but I don't want to dig to find out.)
 * Elminster's level 40-50 and he just sits in his little tower, ridiculous.
 * I believe Deekin's book "The Hordes of the Underdark" is mentioned, so I guess it would limit it for the bard's route.
 * Deekin explicitly says in NWN2 that he became a bard.
 * He's Deekin. What does he want with his own city?
 * Why does God need a starship?
 * Because he's actually a malevolent alien who invented monotheism and natural disasters and who used to hang out with Q, Gorgan, and that anger-eating thing from Day of the Dove. And Q killed all the dinosaurs by accident. That's why he got stuck with us.
 * Why is it that anyone believes the Luskans speak the truth when they accuse the player character of massacring the population of Ember? All that point in that direction is the fact that someone who looked like the PC was the leader at the event, which should not count for much in a world where illusory and shapeshifting magic is common.
 * And if the player character is a paladin, why is it that you are not allowed to point out that killing those people would make lose favour with your patron god and thus the special powers granted by that deity? That fact that you retain them speaks rather strongly in favour of your innocence.
 * Problem is that paladin powers can be duplicated. Unless you ask the god directly there's always the chance of a dupe.
 * I don't think every God a Paladin can gain powers from necessarily thinks murder is wrong. I've heard of Paldins who worship non Good Gods.
 * In this game paladins can only be lawful good.
 * Also, in this game, none of the gods that paladins are allowed to follow would approve of murder. Paladins in Forgotten Realms can't even worship non-good gods - Sune is the only exception to a non-Lawful Good god, if this troper remembers correctly.
 * Who is STILL Chaotic Good.
 * Acordding to the FR wiki, Helm has Paladin worshipers (a noteable portion of his of worshipers acctualy), but he is LN.
 * Actually, Paladins can worship a god that's 'one step' away from the LG, which means they can worship a LG God (Tyr), LN God (Helm), or NG God (Lathander), Sune is the only exception to this (CG is two steps).
 * Is this truth in television? The more stupid and filled with holes the conspiracy theory, the more popular it becomes?
 * It's less that the people in Neverwinter believe the Luskans; it's that they know if they don't at least give the appearance of giving the accusations their day in court, they're giving Luskan the excuse to use overt military retaliation.
 * Why does the player have to jump through so many hoops for the watch to prove they're trustworthy enough to enter the Blacklake district? Yes, I know they've had some trouble with traitors in the ranks, but even after single handedly winning a war in Neverwinter's favor, you still can't get in.
 * At that point, they've pretty much got you labelled as the worlds biggest chump. What would you do if you found a group of high level heroes willing to do your job for you for a fairly nebulous reward? Note that the watch commander later uses all this to gain a place on the council, sneaky girl...
 * Why in the nine hells, didn't they came to resurrect Amie after the party got a cleric? Or even, why didn't they brought her dead body with them to Never Winter, so they could try to get her resurrected?
 * For the same reason as why they didn't just use Phoenix Down on Aerith: resurrection can only treat Non-Lethal KO, not Plotline Death.
 * But... but... * snap* Dungeons & Dragons! FIFTY POUNDS OF RULEBOOKS! NOT FINAL FANTASY! DEATH HAPPENS! AND THEN IT UNHAPPENS! EXPEND ONE FIFTH-LEVEL SPELL SLOT AND CALL ME IN THE MORNING! THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING! I NEED +5 VORPAL SCISSORS! 1d6!
 * I would like to point out that this is the funniest rant on this website.
 * I rationalize it as this; the DM in the game was a total ass.
 * Well, this makes some sense considering the rest of the game as well, but it still makes me extremely discontent with the writers of the game.
 * This is probably also why Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies.
 * To be fair, nobody in west harbor is capable of swinging a fifth level cleric spell.  Or, it's possible that resurrection magic doesn't work in West Harbor because
 * But they could do it in Neverwinter. Just drag the corpse there (put it on a mule or something), and get like a few grand at the worst, what the player at least SHOULD be able to get even if with a little difficulty.
 * Given that Tarmas basically went mad after Amie's death to the point of accepting that she's gone forever, even declining all offers of help by the player and Bevil, and given that he thought it was their fault, it's likely that he wouldn't ever entrust her corpse to the player's party, much less let them take it all the way to Neverwinter.
 * Yeah, but they could always beat the crap out of Tarmas and then take her corpse. At the point when its possible to have a cleric with 5th level spells, you could probably do this easily.
 * Look, I don't know where you live, but when I start dragging corpses around in burlap sacks, folk get suspicious. Questions are asked. Law enforcement is called. Unkind accusations are made. Then there are more corpses to deal with. Nobody wants that. Besides, she went and got herself killed, it's hardly your problem. Spell slots are precious.
 * I don't know where either you or any of the posters above live, but it's presumably somewhere in the real world. You know, where resurrection flat-out doesn't work and the police don't have to worry about the guy in front of them being potentially able to pull out a sword and kill twenty armed men with nary a scratch to show for it. The ground rules are different in D&D-land...particularly in the Realms, where adventurers of all types and alignments are for the most part just another accepted fact of life. If you're a low-level mook and somebody who looks like they mean business asks you for the way to the nearest temple while carrying a body around, you don't grill them about where said body came from in the first place -- you give them what directions you can and wish them all the best! You never know when you might be thankful later that you did...
 * Going by the D&D rules, raise dead only works if the body has been dead for something like one day per level of the caster. Maybe Amie's corpse would get a little too ripe by the time you get to Neverwinter. The target also has to want to come back to life, which is probably fairly rare given the cosmology of the Forgotten Realms. Amie probably woke up with her parents in some paradise for spellcasters. Why would she want to go back to getting attacked by lizardfolk and left to die in a swamp?
 * Speaking of which, there is a suitably leveled cleric IN THE PARTY when . Why doesn't Zhjaeve just hand out a quick Raise Dead? Why doesn't Ammon ask? Why didn't Obsidian even handwave it with "her soul is not willing to return"?
 * As said before, the Dm is an Ass and the writers sucks.
 * Her body was trapped under tons of rubble and Zhjaeve can't cast True Resurrection. The thing that got me was that you couldn't save Callum, I even tried hitting his body with a Resurrection.
 * Is resurrection even an option after prolonged death?
 * Yes, but you have to use a more powerful spell, such as True Resurrection.
 * Precision: The dead character can be dead for one day per level with Raise Dead (Level 5 spell). It ceases being relevant after that (10 years per caster level for Resurrection and True Resurrection).
 * Three words: Women in Refrigerators.
 * Shandra's player stopped coming to game nights, so they had to leave the character dead.
 * This troper always assumed that the game is set in a version of Forgotten Realms with slightly altered death mechanics. Raise Dead and Resurrection in Neverwinter Nights 2, after all, are used on characters who are incapacitated in combat and will come back at the end of the fight anyway (so long as the entire party doesn't die); so perhaps in this world they work on people who are dead but whose spirits aren't gone yet. So Shandra has been dead too long to be raised by the time you get to her.
 * Why is Shandra the only person able to mark the location of the Highcliff Castle Ruins on the map? Granted, this is because she later becomes heavily involved in the plot, but that's a contrived reason for you to seek her. Given that both Juni's husband and Gera and Zachan's kids were able to find it, its location seems to be pretty common knowledge in Highcliff.
 * I don't remember the the quest dialogue and details so correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the Elder sent you to Shandra because they didn't know that the lizardmen were coming from the ruins. As the only person who stayed behind to defend her farm, she was probably the only one who could make a good guess as to where they were coming from.
 * That's true, but don't Gera and Zachan say that the kids had gone off in that direction? And Juni might not mention the ruins directly, but she says her husband went off into the woods without giving any other directions, which seemed like it should have opened up an area. It would have seemed a little less forced if the kids and/or Juni's husband had gone toward the farms, or if someone mentioned that Shandra's farm was on the way to the ruins, or something.
 * In Mask of the Betrayer, Gann is a Favored Soul -- a divine spellcaster. The player must choose a deity when choosing this class. Yet Gann not only has no assigned deity in character stats, but is explicitly identified as Faithless in-story. Then where do his spells come from?
 * Maybe he's an Athar.
 * +1.
 * Gann is actually a Spirit Shaman, and though he is still a Divine Spellcaster the game explains that he gets his powers from said spirits rather than a deity.
 * Complete Divine, the same splatbook which gave us the (massively imbalanced) Favored Soul class, also gave us such lovely things as clerics who can gain their divine power simply from championing a specific concept, however mundane. It was a pretty broken splatbook.
 * Actually, clerics (and paladins) gaining magic from championing a cause rather than a deity is allowed in the Player's Handbook. It also allows druids and rangers to gain power from "the force of nature" rather than a specific deity. However, this game is set in the Forgotten Realms, and the campaign setting book says that, in the Realms, deities are the only source of divine magic. The game reflects this by requiring all divine spellcasters to choose a deity at character creation. Which brings us back to the question of how Gann, and Bishop for tht matter, get spells without worshipping a deity.
 * As said, this rule was new to 3rd. ed. I suspect Avellone just declared it Canon Discontinuity. It contradicts too much earlier fluff anyway. (there are also notes in the rulebook that sometimes gods grant spells to people who claim to worship other gods or forces, eg. Shar is still pretending to be Ibrandul, the dead God of Caverns. Presumably some god considers Gann interesting enough to sponsor even without his formal worship)
 * That rule was present in 2e, actually; I remember that's where I first heard of it.
 * Similar to the above, in Forgotten Realms, rangers and druids are required to choose a deity. This is part of the game rules, and is one of the trivia pieces that are shown on the loading screens. So how does Bishop get spells, given that he doesn't worship a deity?
 * Because that rule is some newfangled 3rd. ed. tomfoolery.
 * As above, no it isn't.
 * During the, Nevalle tells everyone to assemble in the guard room, then once you get there he tells you to get out and take a secret passage to the throne room. Why doesn't he just tell you to go find it in the first place?
 * Probably just falling back to a defensible position. When the attack first hits, he and the player are probably more worried about the civilians they can see-and don't forget, about not getting killed themselves-than Lord Nasher. Once Nevalle and the Knight-Captain have the civilians locked up somewhere Nevalle can defend them, then the PC can go find Nasher.
 * In Mask of the Betrayer, why why why why WHY couldn't Obsidian have at least included the option of  By that time, I was just as much invested in tearing down that abomination as I was in   And yet, they railroad you into accepting that there's nothing you can do and just walking away without a word of protest. All it would've taken is
 * Kelemvor is a powerful god who is in the very focal point of his power, and who probably has an obscene Charisma score. The fact that there isn't a "Wet your pants and run away" option is already a testament to your character's courage. Even Kaelyn knows not to push it.
 * They create an intense build-up to the, so that the player almost certainly must know full well they'll eventually have to face Kelemvor in some fashion to achieve success. Under such circumstances, giving the character no choice whatsoever but acceptance of the existence of a   is just plain sloppy writing, no matter how ferocious a presence Kelemvor might have. Even if you don't take an immediate stand and get blasted instantly for your impudence by Kelemvor, which should have been an option rather than But Thou Must! -ed and handwaved out of existence, there is no way to even achieve an epilogue in which your character doesn't apparently completely lose interest in   the moment s/he has retrieved his/her soul.
 * The whole Crusade was admittedly a rather badly-planned affair. Epic though your party may be, they don't quite have what it takes to take down a major planar structure. Given how long it takes to hack one soul out of the Wall, destroying the whole thing would probably take years. Still, most epilogues are open-ended enough that they allow for the possibility of your character returning a couple of decades later with another couple dozen levels and a MacGuffin and kicking Kelemvor's ass before destroying the Wall.
 * This troper remembers all too well the anticlimax of all that. I was even fairly pissed for ages after experiencing that ending. Even ranted the ears off at a friend that's a D&D buff on how utterly sadistic the entire wall concept it. Suffice to say that the general opinion of the gods(in the forgotten realms at least) must all be a case of Light Is Not Good because quite frankly I can't wrap my head around all the -GOOD- gods actually condoning such a Crapsack World afterlife for anyone who's atheists.(Being an atheist, or close enough, made this troper feel rather offended as well, but then again this troper may not have been offended so much by it if not for the fact that the ending sucked)
 * About that, Kelemvor clearly states that when he first became god, he showed mercy to both faithless and false. But without the fear of the Wall, mortals were stopping to worship gods, so he had to switch back or gods would die (and mortals would soon follow them).
 * This is Dungeons and Dragons! I can achieve infinite damage with a fourth level artificer and a bucket of dirty water! Nothing is impossible to the truly audacious!
 * Ah, but this isn't Dungeons and Dragons. This is Neverwinter Nights. It's slightly harder to break.
 * This troper just wants to add on this rant. I was extremely pissed of that I couldn't choose to fight Kelemvor and die. Why there has to be a happy ending?
 * There actually is an option to declare your intention to take down the entire wall. Kelemvore simply says he would teleport you home if you try it (presumable closing the portal you arrived by).
 * Incidentally the wall no longer exists as of 4th Edition Forgotten Realms rules. There is no explanation either, it's just gone.
 * Which is extremely ironic (Myrkul would be in stitches), considering the actual, stated authors' reason for why they didn't allow the player to go ahead and fuck up the Wall was that... they figured Wot C would never agree to let them do that on account of Status Quo Is God, and thus nixed the idea from the get go rather than gamble on developing the game in that direction only to be cock-blocked by the license holders 3 days from release.
 * The idea that the Wall no longer exists in 4th edition is a common misconception. More accurately, it's simply not mentioned in the single paragraph about the Fugue Plane, which more or less explains that Kelemvor hangs out there and he sorts the dead. It doesn't say what happens to any of them, it doesn't say the Wall was removed, and it doesn't say he doesn't imprison Faithless there still. It's just another example of the bare bones nature of the 4th edition version of Forgotten Realms. Saying that the Wall doesn't exist is like saying the Celestial Bureaucracy of Kara-Tur doesn't exist anymore - that may be true, but we have no way of telling since the subject is simply never approached.
 * According to Forgotten Realms lore, destroying the wall would be a very very bad idea. Not only you will kill all the only sources of all magic in Faerun but also you will allow demons and fiends to take over the Fuge Plane so every single soul that dies in a world with no more resurrection magic will end up feeding the ranks of the demons and fiends as the plane has no defenses and there would be no Gods to claim the souls...
 * Why is the player supposed to mistake Amon Jerro for the King of Shadows? The spirits in the catacombs were pretty clear that The King is a being of pure magic turned shadow, not a human binding demons to do his bidding. Granted, there are plenty of reasons to kick Amon's ass, but mistaken identity really shouldn't be one of them.
 * On the one hand, Ammon is supposed to be dead and when you first arrive it's a surprise to find the place occupied at all. On the other hand the opening cinematic is clearly the guy you know is summoning the demons fighting the King of Shadows, so clearly they weren't TOO committed to getting the player confused on that point.
 * The whole concept of the "Trial by Combat." No matter how well you perform in court, you still get forced to have that stupid duel with Lorne. What kind of sense does that make? You prove another person's guilt (and, by extension, your own innocence) beyond any reasonable doubt, and yet they can still weasel their way out of it and get off scot free if they manage to beat you in a duel? AND YOU DIE? Yeah, it's made out to be some archaic law that everyone supposed to have forgotten about by now, but that doesn't explain why it's endorsed by the God of Justice himself.
 * It had to be possible for the PC to get out of hir mess (especially if s/he lacks social skills), and if they can demand the trial, than the other party has the right too...
 * Surely that's the whole point of Sand being there. If you don't have the skills, you let him take over. If you're terrible at diplomacy and you still try to represent yourself...well, you know the saying. Fool for a lawyer. You deserve whatever you get.
 * One could argue that Sand's social skills (epic snarkyness or not) are even worse than yours and "winning the crowd" was what the show was about. The evidence is there, but if you can't "sell" your innocence, than Sand won't be able to either.
 * If it helps, this whole situation is entirely realistic, as such laws did exist in the Middle Ages.
 * The devs admit the combat should have been skipped if the PC won.
 * The God whose priest runs the court? Tyr. Tyr is the Norse god of single combat and in older versions of the setting it was the same god, not just an expy.
 * Except this isn't an older version of the setting. In this version, Tyr is the god of Justice. Proving your innocence and then having to fight a duel anyway (and dying because your opponent is a hulking, battle-hardened Determinator) is not justice.
 * Trial By Combat used to be a fairly common way of handling this kind of thing, and Tyr was god of both in Norse mythology. The game clearly treats it as an outdated and rarely used tradition (everyone is surprised when the Luskans invoke it, as if it were almost entirely forgotten).
 * The justification for the wall is that acts as a deterrent for those without faith. It's existence is a fairly obscure bit of lore even among Doom Guides serving the god who maintains it. Somehow this doesn't add up.
 * Events are referred to as ancient history that should only be about thirty or forty years before the game takes place. The Time of Troubles is a big offender here, a PC of the longer-lived races should remember it themselves but the mere fact it happened is a minor revelation in Mask.
 * Myrkul mentions that the spirit eater curse also gave him a form of immortality by abusing Gods Need Prayer Badly. The problem here is that this was not the case until after the time of troubles, many years after the rebellion, not to mention Myrkul's death. On the other hand. Balders Gate forgot about this too, so its probably just a case of Did Not Do the Research.
 * Some of the post-2E sourcebooks also had Gods Need Prayer Badly as present before the Avatar Crisis. Presumably, Ao didn't so much implement it after those events as he made it much more important, relatively speaking to other sources of divine power.
 * They got the companion's alignments wrong: Neeshka acts almost entirely Chaotic Neutral despite being listed as True Neutral. And Qara is for reasons listed in the main article obviously Chaotic Evil, but listed as Chaotic Neutral.
 * Ammon freaking Jerro. Let's look at the character motivation/effectivness. I can accept some necessary evil. But none of his evil was necessary! Worse than that, it wasn't even effective! I mean despite being hopped up on demonic power, he doesn't actually accomplish anything. In fact he causes damage, so much so, that half the unfortunate events in Chapters 1 & 2 can be traced to him. His demonic rampages do nothing more than slow down the Shard-Bearer. His actions in the Blacklake district delay the player from finding out more about the King of Shadows. By the time the player has what, five shards, Ammon is just managing to get one. Even his assault on the githyanki accomplished nothing except giving the player more enemies to fight. He tears through West Harbor with demons at his back to what? Activate the one statue with no natural guardians. Why wasn't he doing something useful like, I don't know, killing the shadow priests and stopping the from raising an undead army? Was the consequence of his demonic deals a death grip on the Idiot Ball? Despite failing epically, he will continue to blame the Shard-Bearer for all his mistakes, even if you pass the speech checks to chew him out over it. And it bugs me that his actions make up such a central part of the plot.
 * So I take it you didn't manage to get him to admit he was wrong all along in how he handled his crusade and begs you and the spirit of Sandra for forgiveness? You have to do it at her farm and have had high influence with her. Ammon is a classic tragic hero, good intentions subverted by his own hubris and arrogance. Flawed as his methods are, he won the first shadow war more or less singlehandedly, before anyone else in the region even knew what was happening.
 * That's the scene that nets you Shandra's Pendant, right? It was a fine scene but came a bit too late and too sudden for my tastes. He goes from absolute ass to completely apologetic in three minutes. No matter how many other speech checks you pass that's the only one that has any change in his demenour. If they had him soften up with each one and then gave him the epiphany, I would have appreciated it a bit more. And I know he won the first Shadow War and in fact its part of why it grates my nerves so much. How in the world did he manage that given how completely ineffective he was on screen?
 * Because when he was off screen, he had a horde of demons tethered in his haven. By the time he is on screen, his main source of power is gone, which means no more immortal power levels. Keep in mind that, in theory, someone around 15th level (about when you recruit him) should be considered an insanely powerful veteran. This is eroded by 3rd and 3.5 editions' obsession for epic levels.
 * Where in the timeline does Storm of Zehir take place? I'm assuming its either before or at the same time as Mask of the Betrayer, since in the former, Khelgar is still waiting for the Knight Captain to return.
 * It must be after, since One of Many can be discovered hanging around in the jungle, craving morsels.
 * More on the Wall of the Faithless: in addition to its really stupid place in the plotline here, it's an utter epic fail i the actual Pn P game as well. But worst yet: It's entirely reasonable that you DO have the power to squash Kelemvor like a bug by the time you meet. Even greater gods can be killed, and he would have keeled over in about a round against my character build. Against the entire epic party? Not a chance in Hell. Or Baator.
 * Maybe you could, but not in his own domain. He explains this himself; he could boot you out of the Fugue Plane just by thinking about it.
 * This. If it were just a matter of combat, the player could easily wipe out Kelemvor; in the darkest ending you have Myrkul's power and complete control over the spirit hunger (the game mechanics even reflect this, giving you the ability to completely devour someone's soul regardless of hit points), which you then use to exact terrible vengeance on everyone who ever pissed you off. It's implied that all the gods eventually gang up on you, suffer heavy casualties, and still can't kill you, only banish you. So Kelemvor's sovereignty in his own domain really is the only plausible explanation. Though that leaves the question of why he doesn't just banish the crusaders in the same fashion...
 * It's not just implied, it's outright stated. Kelemvor himself narrates your one-man war against the gods, including the fact that there are less of them dicking up the place once you were done, and his strong suspicion that you were still alive and kicking. But it bugs me too. Ah well.
 * Even if he didn't just teleport you out, there's no way for you to actually hurt him. Throw magic at him and He could just shut it down at the source. Divine spells? All of the Gods support Ao, so going against Ao's decrees automatically counts as a heretical act and give him the right to cut off your connection to your patron deity. Infernal magic? He can cut off your conduit to the infernal planes just as easily. Arcane magic? That all comes from the Weave. And even if he couldn't break your connection to it, you'd be very lucky if Mystra doesn't turn you inside out for using her creation to oppose Ao. And magical items are powered by the Weave as well, so have fun trying to take out a Greater Deity without anything that can actually cause damage to him.
 * Why couldn't they at least offer a chance to continue The Crusade to the point of a Hopeless Boss Fight against him?
 * Because it wouldn't be hopeless, and that would really screw up the DM's planned conclusion.
 * The name "West Harbor". Last I checked, the village is in the middle of a swamp and there is no harbor in sight.
 * The same reason that there's a town named Battle Ground in Washington State, there was no battle there, but the name hasn't changed.
 * The way the game railroads you into playing either Lawful Good, or Chaotic Evil. I've played through, and any time you gain points towards good, you also gain points towards lawful, and any time you gain chaotic points, you generally move towards evil. What the fuck??
 * Actually, no. Most moral choices in the game offer you four conversation options, each of which shifts your alignment in one of the four directions (towards lawful, good, chaotic, or evil). You can mix and match as you please.
 * Why is Bishop so popular? He's the Token Jerk Teammate who constantly clashes with the rest of the party and betrays you (possibly twice). Just... why?
 * Draco in Leather Pants.
 * Why is Khelgar in charge of Crossroad Keep in Storm of Zehir? First of all, anyone with a Wisdom score above that reserved for lemmings -- and especially Nasher and Nevalle -- should realize he's a walking PR disaster. Second, the closing narration for the original campaign says Kana assumed command of the keep in the Knight-Captain's absence -- where is she anyway, when she'd no doubt make a more reasonable and diplomatic leader than Khelgar? (For that matter, where is everyone you recruited for the keep back in the OC? Where are Katriona, Bevil, Light of Heavens, why is the church closed, etc.?) And third, wasn't Khelgar going to take over Clan Ironfist?
 * I encountered Kana wondering around the Sword Coast. She said she had resumed her studies of "the way of something or other", which was what she was doing prior to the OC
 * Population numbers sometimes seem... off. You can recruit more Greycloaks for Crossroad Keep than there are in Neverwinter's entire army! (Which is not that large -- only 400, according to sourcebooks.)
 * Same reason most of the city's population is made up of corrupt guards and thieves you have to kill.
 * The whole "400" number is idiotic, especially if you look at the breakdown. The fact it was completely disregarded is not the least bit shocking. If you go by the sourcebook, at any given time, almost half the military is off duty or training. The entire city of 23,000+ people is guarded by exactly 60 people. The about 200 people that are on duty also patrol a hundred miles of road and garrison the city and man the walls and patrol a few hundred square miles of territory at all times. Considering all the bandit, undead and monster attacks, plus the almost constant state of war Neverwinter seems to be in, these are horribly unrealistic numbers.
 * Not reading the sourceworks properly are we? 400 is the number of Neverwinter's STANDING army. 400 is, within the Greycloaks around Neverwinter, the ones that were not drafted. You also have to count on that the mercenaries you may or may not have recruited, the commoners being drafted for the Shadow War (most of whom are going back to their farms after the war, at least the ones that survive)and adventurers from other towns and cities around Neverwinter just deciding that this may be a good start for their new adventuring life. So yeah, it is possible to recruit over your standing army. It is in real life.
 * Here's a mild one: Why does Shandra go from having her farmer's attire in Act I to have generic Fighter attire in Act II, at least when she doesn't have any armor on? Did they not have her original model with weapons?
 * Do you wear the same clothes you do dirty work in out in public?
 * Completely in-character. Shandra's whole motivation for training as a fighter is so that she defend herself instead of always relying on the PC to rescue her, considering what a disaster magnet she is. She was just training offscreen between the acts.
 * Shandra is like, what, a level 3 Commoner when you first meet her? If not less? Than she trains with you for what couldn't be much more than a month, and becomes a level 10 Fighter or somesuch. You had to go on four or five adventures, slay hundreds, and save several towns to get to that point. She's one heck of a good student, Shandra...
 * A possible solution. A common source for village defenders in D&D (and in reality) is to recruit a militia from among able-bodied members of the community. (Remember Bevil Starling? He's part of the West Harbor militia, if you recall.) Therefore, Shandra Jerro got some of her Fighter training from the Highcliff militia, so she wasn't a total greenhorn when the player started teaching her. Admittedly, if I were writing her as an NPC in pen and paper D&D, I'd probably build her as a Warrior rather than a Fighter, but the point stands.