Neverwinter Nights 2: Difference between revisions

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[[File:NWN2_boxart_4716.jpg|frame]]

'''Shandra''': Well, if it had been [[Player Character|the Captain]] doing it, the cat would be lost, the tree burned down, and the old lady would be traveling with us now. }}

 

 

As was the case with Obsidian's previous project, ''[[Star Wars]]: [[Knights of the Old Republic]] II: The Sith Lords'', this sequel, despite being set after the events of the original game, barely references them; unlike ''KOTOR II'', it does not allow the player to choose the ending of the previous game (partially because it was wrapped up in an expansion pack).

The original game was plagued by the same problems as KOTOR 2: [[Your Mileage May Vary|storyline of debatable quality]], rushed development, very buggy programming, and poor enemy placement. Added to these problems is an engine with serious graphical issues and massive slowdown even on relatively modern computers. Later patches and expansion packs have removed many of the bugs and improved the engine, but it's still rather a hardware hog. However, the original campaign in NWN2 also has a surprising amount of tongue-in-cheek humor from most characters, while not quite [[Genre Savvy]], results in a campaign with an unusual amount of deadpan humor from party members and NPCs alike, including poking fun at the game's own cliches and plot, as exemplified by the example at the top of the page.

 

 

 

An [[Downloadable Content|Adventurer Pack]] called ''Mysteries of Westgate'' was released in 2009. It was developed by Ossian Studios with the plot having no ties with the previous storylines.

 

 

{{tropelist}}

** And is implied to be {{spoiler|Neeshka's grandfather}}.

* [[All Girls Want Bad Boys]]: Bishop's popularity with the fans.

** One of the poorer examples of the trope. The feat only allows you to purchase additional magic items from a few merchants. By the time you get access to these merchants, you should easily be able to craft much better items for virtually nothing.

* [[Broken Bridge]]: Closed access to Blacklake District.

** Hey, {{spoiler|Amie}}, don't you think it might be a bad idea {{spoiler|to piss off a wizard that's giving ''your master'' a hard time}}?

* [[But Thou Must!]]

* [[Color-Coded Elements]]: {{color|#ee1100|Fire}}, {{color|blue|electricity}}, {{color|cyan|cold}}, {{color|#11ee11|acid}}, {{color|orange|sonic}}, {{color|purple|magic}}, {{color|yellow|divine}}, {{color|grey|negative energy}}, positive energy (white colored).

* [[Continuity Nod]]: The game frequently references that Neverwinter is still recovering from the plague and the war with Luskan that the city suffered from in [[Neverwinter Nights|the previous game]]. Also, Deekin, the most [[Love It or Hate It|memorable]] companion from the two expansion packs ''Shadows of Undrentide'' and ''Hordes of the Underdark'', appears as a shopkeeper and references events from both expansions -- albeit in a way that only those familiar with them will have any idea what he's talking about.

** The Sword of Gith also qualifies for [[Oddly-Shaped Sword]].

* [[Creepy Child]]: Marcus.

* [[Determined Homesteader]]: A famed trait among the citizens of West Harbor. No matter how many times their village gets utterly destroyed, they will return and rebuild.

* [[Did You See That Too]]

* [[Diabolus Ex Machina]]: See [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies]].

* [[Doomed Hometown]]: West Harbor, although this is played with. An attack on the town starts the story as per tradition, but the town and most of its inhabitants actually survives (your initial goal is actually to bait the attackers away) and can be visited later. Then it really is destroyed by a completely different enemy at the end of Act 2.

* [[Dronejam]]: Worse: the 3.5 rules let you pass through an ally, but the game makes party members jam doorways anyways.

** Of course, that could be the difference between doing it on paper, where you could handwave it as one player sidling past the other, and doing it on a computer, which isn't quite as flexible.

** {{spoiler|''Mask of the Betrayer'' thankfully rectifies this by revealing that over half the party managed to survive.}}

* [[Dude, Where's My Respect?]]

* [[Genre Savvy]]: Used and [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] in the same sequence if the player was [[Genre Savvy]] -- just before the end, {{spoiler|Garius will notice if the protagonist previously removed all gear from the characters who joined him, noting "Nice try, but ultimately futile" before giving them equipment.}}

** Though this also happens if they're still carrying all of their original equipment by the game's end.

* [[Gondor Calls for Aid]]: Pretty much the entirety of Act Three.

* [[Gotta Catch Them All]]: The silver shards.

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|Callum}}

* [[Hero of Another Story]]: More than a dozen, including {{spoiler|every single one of the major villains.}} Not surprising, since deconstructing the idea of heroes is arguably the main theme of the story.

'''Grobnar:''' Er, right, several ''Neeshkas'' high. }}

* [[Hostage for McGuffin]]: The [[Player Character]] him/herself.

*** ''Mask of the Betrayer'' and certain fan modules prove that it ''is'' in fact possible to script a character name change (the ''MotB'' instance being Kaelyn the Dove adding a similar [[Animal Motifs|Animal Moniker]] to your name), so we can probably put this one down to Obsidian not caring enough.

** Similarly, you are told to rescue an envoy but that his name is unknown... however his name shows up in your Journal straight away.

* [[Irrelevant Importance]]

* [[Item Crafting]]

* [[Let's Play]]: There is an awesome one by Lt. Danger that can be found [http://lparchive.org/LetsPlay/NWN2/ here.]

* [[Like a Badass Out of Hell]]: {{spoiler|Ammon Jerro}}.

* [[Load-Bearing Boss]]: {{spoiler|The King of Shadows himself, to the annoyance of many.}}

** [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in ''Mask of the Betrayer'':

{{spoiler|'''Ammon Jerro''': Yes. That powerful and evil beings insist on causing destruction even as they die is an unfortunate habit.}} }}

** Exceptionally ironic since {{spoiler|Ammon Jerro}} uses this to justify the PC not killing him in his own base.

** In ''Storm of Zehir'', you can make a Bluff or Intimidate check on the ''author'' to change elements of the ending and get any variation you want.

* [[Mythology Gag]]: Kobolds hate gnomes. This leads to a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] when Deekin Scalesinger sings a song about butchering gnomes and Grobnar [[Comically Missing the Point|misses the point completely]].

** ''Volo's Guides'' are notorious in [[Canon]] for being [[Tropes for Dummies|an awful mix of brilliant investigations and silly hearsay]]. Elminster notably hunted down and destroyed every copy of ''Volo's Guide to All Things Magical'', partly because it exposed a number of wizardly trade secrets, and partly because the first edition contained a lot of recipes on how to kill oneself in new and exciting ways. In the [[Opening Narration]] to ''Storm of Zehir'', Volo mentions that Elminster judged his most recent book, ''Volo's Complete Guide to the Behavior of Nymphs'', to be "too naughty for print."

* [[Named Weapons]]: And armors, and rings, and magic staves, and so forth.

* [[Non-Lethal KO]]: Only in the first game and ''Mask of the Betrayer''. ''Storm of Zehir'' plays it closer to the pen-and-paper rules: if a character reaches -10 HP, they're dead and have to be resurrected with a spell.

* [[Obvious Beta]]: Obsidian has a well-deserved reputation for this. Despite not looking much better visually than ''KOTOR'', ''NWN2'' is somewhat of a hardware hog, and it suffered from memory leak issues and a lack of polish. Then both expansions managed to [[Game Breaking Bug|break the previous campaign]] on release.

* [[Only Idiots May Pass]]

* [[Optional Party Member]]: The Construct.

* [[Rolling Pin of Doom]]: A couple of different clubs are rolling pins.

* [[Romance Sidequest]]

* [[Sequel Difficulty Drop]]: Unintentional example. The encounters are overall more difficult than ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'', but there are several factors that negate this.

** AI is much, much smarter. It's still overall bad, but you have limited control over some of its decision making process, it doesn't randomly stop moving or randomly run off to the other side of the map, and, if all else fails, you can manually take control of everyone in your party.

* [[Sliding Scale of Law Enforcement]]: Neverwinter's Watch runs the gamut from honest and just fighters of corruption (mainly the upper echelon, including Captain Cormick) to guards who ''want'' to fight corruption and the Shadow Thieves but are too scared, to guards who are outright on the Shadow Thieves' payroll.

* [[Smith Will Suffice]]

* [[The Starscream]]: {{spoiler|Garius tries to be this towards the King of Shadows halfway through the game. It doesn't exactly work out.}}

* [[Stock Scream]]: The sound file is even named Wilhelm.

* [[Sword of Plot Advancement]]: The Silver Sword of Gith, full stop.

* [[Take Your Time]]

* [[Token Evil Teammate]]: Bishop, and {{spoiler|Ammon Jerro}}. Qara could also qualify for her [[Chaotic Stupid]] nature.

* [[Tragic Hero]]: {{spoiler|Ammon Jerro}}.

* [[Troperiffic]]: Some may call it a [[Cliché Storm]], but it's clear that the designers largely [[Invoked Trope|invoked]] these tropes intentionally and, as the page quote shows, [[Lampshade Hanging|often with a fair bit of their tongues in cheek]].

** [[Refuge in Audacity|Then again, this is D&D.]]

** Averted once:

'''Knight-Captain:''' ... says the half-orc pirate. }}

* [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]]: In the Original Campaign, {{spoiler|the Vale of Merdelain.}}

** In ''Mask of the Betrayer'', {{spoiler|literally battling for your soul inside your head on the Fugue Plane.}}

** In ''Storm of Zehir'', the comparatively much shorter {{spoiler|Temple of the World Serpent.}}

* [[Visible Silence]]: Extremely rare, though, and mostly for comedic effect.

* [[Warp Whistle]]

** {{spoiler|You can optionally [[Relationship Values|make him desert the King of Shadows]], but you can't make him fight alongside you again.}}

* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: {{spoiler|The King of Shadows started out as one of the greatest heroes of ancient Illefarn. He voluntarily underwent a horrifically painful ritual that transformed him into a construct of pure magic so as to make an effective deterrent to [[The Empire|Netheril]]. When the Netherese wizard Karsus tried to usurp Mystryl's place as god of magic, the Weave was interrupted and the Guardian faced destruction. So he drew power from the Shadow Weave to continue his vigil and became the King of Shadows.}}

* [[You Are the Translated Foreign Word]]: You are the ''{{spoiler|Kalach-cha}}''!

** This is subverted in that the Translated Foreign Word isn't translated right away by the people who call you by it. The first attempt to translate it doesn't go so well, though it does count as a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] for Grobnar Gnomehands:

** When you finally meet somebody who speaks Gith, it turns out that {{spoiler|''kalach-cha'' directly translates as "shard-bearer".}} With full nuance applied, it means {{spoiler|"one who stole a silver sword and destroyed it to hide their crime".}} Which ironically makes the term more applicable to {{spoiler|''Ammon Jerro''}} rather than the [[Player Character]].

** The best part? {{spoiler|Such an event has never happened before and they created the Translated Foreign Word specifically to describe ''you''.}}

** So obviously telegraphed that {{spoiler|Garius was amazed Lorne came back at all.}}

* [[You Know What They Say About X...]]: Khelgar protests the Tyrran monks' accusations of him being [[Fantastic Racism|racist]] by saying he travels with a tiefling, "and you know what they're like!"

* [[Battle Amongst the Flames]]: The fight against the [[Buffy-Speak|man-shaped fire elemental thingy]] in the Ashenwood, which is the ''source'' of the flames.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: One of the [[Multiple Endings]].

** Arguably, your situation is not great. Yes, you just beat an incredibly powerful avatar of the dark side of magic, but {{spoiler|1=your close friends and followers may well be dead. The shard that has been inside your body for all your life has been removed (but not very well), you didn't get crushed to death at the end of NWN 2, but you are thousands of miles from home, trapped in a country full of beings who would gladly kill you. Oh yeah, and you are afflicted with a curse that has ALWAYS killed all previous victims, will turn you into a ravening husk along the way, and will mean that your soul will automatically be taken to the Wall of the Faithless.}}

* [[Body Surf]]: {{spoiler|The spirit-eater.}}

* [[Bonus Boss]]: {{spoiler|The badger spirit}} and {{spoiler|Myrkul after possessing One of Many}}.

* [[Boxed Crook]]: Gann's initial reason for joining you.

** A couple of different [[Game Mod|fan modules]] have an [[Infinity+1 Sword]] as an end-of-game reward. Modders, next time you decide to give out an [[Infinity+1 Sword]], give the player something to use it on. (I'm looking at ''you'', "Temple of Torm".)

* [[Cute Monster Girl|Cute Monster Guy]]: Gannayev the Hagspawn. [[Lampshaded]] when he jokingly denies that he's a Hagspawn simply on the basis that he's way too pretty to be one. {{spoiler|Gann looks so beautiful because his mother actually loved his father, whereas other hags/nighthags are incapable of love and thus give birth to hideously ugly hagspawns.}}

* [[Dysfunction Junction]]: Surprisingly averted... {{spoiler|well, unless you have One of Many and regularly go out of your way to gain Influence with it}}, given the darker tone of this installment. There's a bit of banter back and forth, and Gann certainly likes teasing Kaelyn from time to time, but the party feels much more cohesive and calm compared to the OC gang.

* [[Early Bird Boss]]: Okku, because you lack a real tank in your party.

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: The Founder.

* [[Everything Is Worse With Bears]]: Especially when said bear happens to be a bear ''god''. With an army. Which includes ghost bears.

* [[Intellectual Animal]]: Okku.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: Guaranteed if you romance Gann. Near-guaranteed if you romance Safiya (if one assumes that [[Player Characters]] are divided equally among the playable races).

* [[Killer Rabbit]]: ({{spoiler|The badger spirit, again}})

* [[Last Villain Stand]]: Provided you {{spoiler|proceed with the invasion of the Fugue Plane}} instead of {{spoiler|defending against said invasion}}, Araman pulls this after the battle when {{spoiler|Kelemvor has already agreed to let you try to get your soul back}}. [[Too Dumb to Live|Factor in that your party probably consists of four 30th-level characters by now.]]

* [[Optional Party Member]]: One of Many is an odd example, as you can get either him or Okku, depending on if {{spoiler|you consume Okku}}. Similarly, {{spoiler|Araman}} can be obtained if {{spoiler|if you side against the Third Crusade}} in place of Kaelyn (who will attack you if you meet the conditions for him).

* [[Pardon My Klingon]]: Subverted by Kaelyn the Dove:

* [[Parental Abandonment]]: The player carried over from NWN 2, and Gann.

** [[Disappeared Dad]]: Safiya's father is never brought up {{spoiler|because she [[Truly Single Parent|literally]] never had one.}}

* [[Peek-a-Bangs]]: Gannayev, possibly symbolic of his deep-seated and carefully hidden fear of showing people who he really is.

* [[Pride]]:

* [[Point of No Return]]: The Betrayer's Gate.

* [[The Power of Friendship]]: The player and his/her respective followers can get some really powerful feats and buffs when they have a high positive influence.

* [[Power Perversion Potential]]: Potential which Gann gleefully abuses.

* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: Okku has many elements, most noticeable when he encounters carrion-eating spirts at the coven.

* [[Rage Against the Heavens]]: You can actually take either side.

* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: Consisting of you, a somewhat Machiavellian wizard, a Hagspawn casanova, an exiled half-angel, and either an undead abomination or a giant talking SPIRIT RAINBOW BEAR.

* [[Rainbow Pimp Gear]]: [[Lampshaded]] with the item Rainbow Armor, which according to the item description was made by a color-blind mage.

* [[Road Cone]]: The expansion assumes the player did not {{spoiler|join the King of Shadows}} at the end of the OC.

* [[Sequence Breaking]]: Getting Gann's influence high enough before the end of Act I will tip you off to the {{spoiler|spirit eater curse}} before you're supposed to know about it.

* [[Soul Jar]]

* [[Token Evil Teammate]]: One Of Many, an insane [[Hive Mind]] that Kaelyn openly states "should not ''be''".

* [[Truly Single Parent]]: {{spoiler|The Founder}}

* [[Villains Never Lie]]: ({{spoiler|Myrkul. The player character can even lampshade it to Kaelyn. Later subverted when Kelemvor reveals that though he wasn't lying to ''her'', he was lying to ''you'' and to the founder.}})

* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: Kaelyn is on the verge of being one.

 

* [[The Bad Guy Wins]]: One the [[Multiple Endings]] if you choose to retire before defeating the [[Big Bad]].

* [[Continuity Nod]]: Several companions were mentioned in previous campaigns -- Septimund is the Doomguide Nya from Port Llast fell in love with, while Finch, a bard known for losing his best hats, finally shows up. Ribsmasher also appeared in the Original Campaign.

* [[Easter Egg]]: One possible encounter is a man trapped in a beartrap. You can free him or kill him (standard stuff), but if you have a cleric of an evil deity, you can sacrifice him, ''[[The Dev Team Thinks of Everything|with unique dialogue for each deity]]''. Annie Carlson notes that she found writing this to be fun.

* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: The initial version had an infamous one that made MOTB ''literally unplayable'' if installed after it.

* [[Hellfire]]: ''Storm of Zehir'' adds on the Hellfire Warlock class, which simply lives off this trope.

* [[Hero of Another Story]]: While the Knight-Captain was busy {{spoiler|dealing with Akachi}}, the SoZ protagonist was busy {{spoiler|saving the world from an evil god.}}

* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: The enemy in this game, both to the xenophobic Samarachans and to the player, are the snakelike yuan-ti. Not played completely straight, seeing as how the player can create a yuan-ti and make them [[My Species Doth Protest Too Much|non-evil.]]

** Oddly, local Yuan-ti hunters won't notice unless you're dumb enough to explain it.

* [[World Map]]: They even added [[Game Mod|modding]] options for it.

 

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]

* [[Our Werebeasts Are Different]]: Wererats serve the Ebon Claws.

* [[Thieves' Guild]]: The Night Masks, the Ebon Claws and the Fire Knives.

 

[[Category:Western RPG]]

[[Category:Action RPG]]

[[Category:Video Game]]