Neverwinter Nights 2: Difference between revisions

'''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}}

** 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.

** ''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]].

* [[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.

* [[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.

* [[Hidden Elf Village]]: Probably wouldn't be [[Dungeons and Dragons]] without it.

{{quote| '''Grobnar:''' No one really knows how big the Wendersnaven are. They could be thousands of Khelgars high!<br />

'''Khelgar Ironfist:''' What did I say 'bout usin' me as a unit of measurement?!<br />

** 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]].

{{quote| '''Tarmas:''' ''(referring to a piece of doggerel he had to put together for the Harvest Festival)'' Count yourself fortunate for that. I once shared a wagon with a kobold bard. He rhymed "sadder" with "bladder" and sang fondly of his navel.}}

** ''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."

* [[Romance Sidequest]]

* [[Rules Are for Humans]]: Lorne has the Deathless Frenzy ability from the ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' version of his ''Frenzied Berserker'' class. Players can also become Frenzied Berserkers, but never get Deathless Frenzy.

* [[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.

** 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:

* [[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.}}

* [[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.]]

* [[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.

* [[Go Mad From the Revelation]]: Crossed with a [[Continuity Nod]]. An NPC illithid in the Underdark Market apparently {{spoiler|read the mind of a seer who foresaw the deicide that shepherded in 4th edition in the [[Forgotten Realms]].}} His brain couldn't process it.

* [[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.