Neverwinter Nights 2: Difference between revisions

In the end of the convoluted (albeit linear) plot, the player faces the final enemy, the King of Shadows, and can either defeat or join him. The player is then presented with the fates of the locations they visited (''[[Fallout]]''-style), which are dependent on the player's choices throughout the game.

 

 

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.

* [[Already Done for You]]: {{spoiler|The fifth statue of Illefarn, blessing claimed by Ammon Jerro}}.

* [[Always Close]]

* [[Arbitrary Headcount Limit]]

** This gets even more egregious in ''Mask of the Betrayer''. You get a maximum of four companions and a party limit of three, which means you always have to leave one behind. This is unusual since the party limit for the last half of NWN2 is four.

* [[Bullying a Dragon]]: Khelgar's backstory features him picking a fight with a group of traveling Sun Soul monks. Anybody who's read [[Forgotten Realms (Tabletop Game)|the lore of the setting]] [[Bare-Fisted Monk|knows why this is an incredibly bad idea]]. Long-story short, they beat the ever-loving crap out of him.

** 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}}?

* [[Cannot Spit It Out]]: The premise behind influence checks.

* [[Chekhov's Armory]]: The [[Chekhov's Gun|guns]] hang in ''bunches''. There's {{spoiler|the ''other'' old ruins outside of town}}, {{spoiler|the fact that the Gith seem to think a shard's in town when you're around}}, {{spoiler|the talk of Cormick and Lorne}}...

** ''Storm of Zehir'' features glimpses at events that should be very familiar to those who know what happened in the Realms between 3.5 and 4th edition D&D rules. You see a scrying vision of another plane, where a beautiful woman lies dead while a hawk-headed man stands over her. You also get to meet an illithid who apparently read the mind of a seer and saw {{spoiler|the murder of Mystra}}. He is [[Go Mad From the Revelation|Driven Mad by the Revelation]].

* [[Cool Sword]]: Make that Cool ''Swords'', plural (and you can even design your own). This is [[Dungeons and Dragons]], so the trope is to be expected, but the Silver Sword of Gith takes the cake. See the [[Cool Sword|Trope Page]].

* [[Creepy Child]]: Marcus.

* [[Cute Monster Girl]]: Neeshka.

* [[Did You See That Too]]

{{quote| '''Khelgar Ironfist:''' Just to make sure my eyes aren’t lying to me –- a huge suit of armor did smash through here, attack the githyanki –- and us –- then we drove it back to the portal? Because if my drinking is catching up to me, then I'm stopping right now.}}

* [[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.

** You can visit the village again during the 2nd expansion, ''Storm of Zehir''. Guess what? It is now under siege by ''dragons''. West Harbor is the [[Butt Monkey]] of the Sword Coast, seriously.

* [[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?]]

** Even worse is the {{spoiler|Hammer of Ironfist, which you pick up at about the same time as you complete Khelgar's quest to become a monk.}} It's still usable, though, if you have either [[Crippling Overspecialization|a dwarf Knight-Captain or a high Use Magic Device skill]].

* [[Inn Security]]: Played straight ... most of the time.

* [[Interspecies Adoption]]: It doesn't matter what race your character is, your father is always the same.

* [[Interspecies Romance]]: With the number of species available to the player, it's almost a given if you choose to pursue a romance at all.

* [[Loading Screen]]: Of the "includes extra information" variety.

* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: Depending on the player's system.

* [[Lost Forever]]

* [[Love Martyr]]: A female PC, if she turns down Casavir for Bishop.

** He also shares a name with Amon Göth, a [[Real Life]] [[Complete Monster]]. This may not be coincidence, as {{spoiler|the player is meant to believe that Jerro is a [[Complete Monster]] due to his own horrifically high body count.}}

* [[Mistaken for Murderer]]

* [[Nature Hero]]: Elanee.

* [[Nerf]]: Unlike the previous game, knockdowns no longer cause damage and now have a cooldown between uses.

* [[Never Found the Body]]: {{spoiler|Zhjaeve is the only party member that isn't confirmed to have lived or died during the collapse of the Vale.}}

* [[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.

* [[Reverse Mole]]: {{spoiler|Torio}}.

** Also potentially {{spoiler|the Knight Captain. This troper had him as a bard/Harper/Shadow Thief/Neverwinter Nine at the end, with choices publicly opposing Neverwinter, while privately undermining all its enemies. Due to a badly-written [[Multiple Endings|ending]], however, this actually backfires. Despite the Shadow Thieves being cell-structured and having only two people in town who know enough members to lead them, at least one of whom dies canonically if the player joins the Thieves, killing both somehow causes the Shadow Thieves to be stronger and better organized.}}

** Notably left ambiguous. There had to be an expansion pack, after all.

** While you can alter the dialogue in the expansion a bit, only {{spoiler|Bishop, Qara, Elanee, and Casavir}} actually die. {{spoiler|Bishop and Qara}} usually die before the ending occurs, though it is possible for them to survive until the ending. {{spoiler|Elanee and Casavir}} were not well liked and killing them off was probably done just to justify them no longer appearing.

* [[You Have Failed Me]]: {{spoiler|Garius to Lorne}}.

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

* [[You No Take Candle]]

 

* [[Heroic Sacrifice]]: {{spoiler|If you're male and had romanced Elanee, Ammon Jerro reveals that she took a piece of the King of Shadows' [[Collapsing Lair]] that would have struck you.}}

** {{spoiler|This is also how Casavir died.}}

* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]] / [[Ho Yay]]: A male [[Player Character]] with a very high influence with Gann can {{spoiler|begin sharing his thoughts and memories with him. They become extremely close and in some endings they go [[Walking the Earth]] as true companions.}}

* [[Intellectual Animal]]: Okku.

* [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]: {{spoiler|With souls!}}

* [[You Are Worth Hell]]: If you choose to {{spoiler|stay on the Fugue Plane in order to bind the spirit eater there, your love interest will go as far as pledging their soul to the God of the Dead so that you won't have to be alone there}}.

 

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

*** This actually makes sense [[In Universe]], as the player-usable yuan-ti form, the "pureblood", is ''meant'' to be able to blend in with standard humanoids.

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

 

* [[Our Vampires Are Different]]

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

 

{{reflist}}