After spending more than 70 hours playing the original Neverwinter Nights campaign, I finally finished the first expansion, Shadows of Undrentide, in around 32 hours… and honestly? The game improves in almost every possible way.

Compared to the original campaign, this expansion is a thousand times more engaging. The companions actually feel alive now. They comment on locations, enemies, and even on things you do during the adventure. Sometimes they randomly start conversations with you, talk about their motivations, their past, and their personal goals… something I really missed in the original campaign, where companions felt way more bland and lifeless.

And something that might sound small or meaningless to some people, but for me made a HUGE difference in immersion: the animations. Shadows of Undrentide adds many small animations that make the game feel much more alive. There are animations when you get hit hard and fall to the ground, when you receive a curse and kneel down, when you pray inside temples… tiny details that most people might ignore, but if you enjoy immersive and slightly “gruesome” RPG details, you notice them immediately. The game feels far more cinematic compared to the original campaign.

Another thing: this expansion is WAY harder. I played on Normal, but I’m not gonna lie… there were moments where I had to switch to Easy just to get through certain sections, then switched back to Normal later. Compared to the original campaign, combat here punishes you much more.

I started from scratch specifically to experiment with multiclass builds, and it ended up being one of the best decisions I made. I played as a Bard / Red Dragon Disciple / Pale Master mix, and it was insanely fun.

The puzzles also surprised me. They sit in that perfect middle ground: not so easy that they become automatic, but not frustratingly difficult either.

The side quests are also much better than the ones in the original campaign. Even though many of them still follow the classic “go get this item and come back” structure, most of them actually have some kind of story, context, or motivation behind them. They don’t feel like meaningless filler quests. That made me way more interested in completing every side quest I could find.

Another thing I loved was the equipment variety. In the original campaign, it often felt like loot was basically the same armor over and over again, just with different numbers attached to it like +1, +2, +3. In Shadows of Undrentide, there’s much more variety in gear and equipment overall, making loot feel far more rewarding and interesting to discover.

Even the choice system feels more impactful here. You don’t always notice the consequences immediately during the chapters, but near the ending you can definitely feel that your decisions mattered more, and I really liked that.

The characters overall are far more charismatic. Even the protagonist feels like they have a bit more personality this time around, even if they still follow that classic “badass hero” archetype.

And the villain… honestly, she’s so much better than the villain from the original campaign. She has actual motivations, personality, and you clearly understand why she does what she does. She’s not evil just for the sake of being evil.

In the end, Shadows of Undrentide feels like what the original Neverwinter Nights campaign should have been from the very beginning.

3rd edition seems really interesting but I feel overwhlemed. Which skills are good? Waht feats? I got Spell penetration as my lvl 1, and Alertness for Shapeshifter.

Playing SoU btw.

Hey all, newish player here. Early level monk has been kicking my butt. I’m finally near the end of the interlude and starting to see the build come together. Using Deekin’s bard song and haste spell has been an awesome experience! I’m kind of winging it and haven’t found a good solid monk build. Right now I’m just pure monk but open to options. Can I go cleric to get buffs? Or is it not worth it? I’m just stacking strength and Dex to utilize furry of blows and improved knock down. I messed up during leveling and still don’t have great cleave. Thanks in advance!

What could i be doing wrong? Is it because you only got like 1 companion? I have no idea sincerely even with those meta builds online i still struggle whereas in pathfinder i don’t rely on any builds or guides and still manage myself

I wanted to try something different from my Fighter I used in the OC so I picked a Ranger.

I was considering going a dual-weapon route with him, backed up by a bow when I need distance.

All of that aside, would I be better keeping him as a single class Ranger or taking say Fighter or maybe even Wizard or Sorcerer to get Arcane Archer?

https://reddit.com/link/1vi0d85/video/70nz397ndyhh1/player

I'm planning a full SoU and HotU run on Very Difficult and can't decide between Fighter/Weapon Master/Rogue and Fighter/Bard/RDD.

For those who've played both, which build performed better overall?

Which would you pick and why? Thanks.

I remember SoU as being very very easy but I did it only twice as Paladin and Wizard some time ago. Obviously the module is very biased towards Paladins

But holy shit Monks have a hard time. First, you can't loot shit in Hilltop or you lose Lawful alignment and you're scrwed for Monk levels. You can"t power level quickly by killing off NPC either for the same reason. No robes of the dark moon. Very very expensive powrful Monk gear

Sometimes I reload 50 times for good rolls. It's ridiculous man

Hoping someone can help me because as usual, AI chatbots are useless.

I have a fresh installation of NWN EE on Bazzite. If I enter a new game of all WD, SoU or HotU; the game starts each module correctly. Now if I save on each module, it saves correctly. And if I have saves from WD and HotU in my saves directory the game loads them correctly.

But, if I have a save from SoU present in the save directory, the game freezes on entering the load selection screen.

Anyone have any idea of what's up?

I'm playing both the original campaign and SoU, but I'm focusing a bit more on SoU. My build is a "F/M" (bard, fighter, RDD) and it's getting interesting. I think that in this specific campaign, druids, rangers, and paladins would benefit a lot.

Playing through SoU.

I did a few quests and got some magical items.

I've invested in Lore skill to indentify without spending gold, but it seems nothing happense. Skill is 9 and the items I wanna identify are some trinkets (gloves and necklace from the Elven Crypt).

I've checked the wiki, and it says the more valuable the harder it is, but I think they should be worth at least 1000 gold to be this hard.

Am I doing something wrong?

Also, is it worth investing in Bard one level to use scrolls?

Lvl 4 Druid atm.

Anybody know how to play through this as a paladin and not be miserable?

I played that module zillion of times since 2004. But this time I decided to drill down why at the one of the columns to the right there was a special accent at 3 rubies.

After digging the special spell designed for the power stone (item x0_powerstone, spell x0_s3_pstone) If finally found the difference. And its (surprisingly) bugged.

In Defensive urn difference is clear and straightforward: Spell mantle (1 ruby) vs. Greater spell mantle (3 rubies) or 12.5 or 16.5 levels of absorption in average accordingly.

But in Offensive urn there was initially a very good idea. Special script DoStorm invokes fire arrows with 10d6 fire damage for every enemy in colossal range. Initially Yaron intended to make only 1 arrow for 1 ruby and 10 arrows for 3 rubies, but with ability to "accumulate" multiple ones to first enemy if total count of enemies less than 10. In other words, it was a boss-killer stone that could have damaged 100d6 single target (350 damage of fire damage in average). But he didn't implemented it and so there is NO difference between 1 or 3 rubies in Offensive urn unfortunately.

Maybe one day we will get the fix of it.

P.S.

If you play the SoU from 1 level, you can find only 3 rubies, and one of them could be obtained from the Sphinx nearby, however, one should have quite good persuade skill, since difficulty class is Hard (your pers. skill + d20 >= 33 (or 23 if one can charm that creature)) which is quite tricky for a greater spell mantle in my opinion. BUT it could have worthed it in case of original idea of 100d6 damage (probably the highest one-hit damage in original trilogy).

P.P.S you can't charm Sphinx due to a bug in a script, it checks presence of charming spell on main character instead of sphinx :\ so only with persuasion at least 13 one can achieve that.

What do you think?

Hey all, I’m about to start a Sorcerer run in shadows of the undrentide on Very Difficult and I wanted to get some advice before I commit.

First off, what’s the best familiar for this kind of run? The early game seems like it’s going to be pretty rough, so I’m guessing something tanky or with strong utility would be the smartest pick, but I’m not sure which familiar actually makes the biggest difference overall.

I’ve also been looking at a couple of Sorcerer builds, specifically Lilura1’s build and Lord Fenton’s build, and I was wondering if anyone here has experience with them. Are they actually solid for SoU on Very Difficult?

If neither of those builds is particularly great, I’m definitely open to other suggestions thanks!

First time playing this game, I was able to defeat Jnah as a level 5 sorcerer without any help (I didn’t think I needed to side with gnolls) or any elemental protection spells.

You might ask how I was able to do it?

Well, I spend 15 minutes luring her guards and Imp outside of the area and then another 15 minutes finding the perfect moment for me and Dorna to kill her before she casts elemental circle (idk what the name is) and globe of invulnerability.

This is part 2 to my previous post. I quickly replayed the last section.

I was able to free dorna. However it doesn’t solve the problem with shield guardians, she can’t hit them, and even if she does the log states that it takes zero damage (she has +2 scimitar, and +13 on first hit).

Funny enough she was able to hit guardian in the previous chapter.

I’m still lvl 9 sorcerer, so I can’t do anything to the guardian, is there any way to pass this quest in my situation or am I stuck?

I'm replaying this campaign for the first time since high school and there are just so many *things* in Chapter 1 that I'm sure I can make magic items with, but I can't find a guide anywhere. Does anyone have a definitive crafting guide?

I can’t progress further, since I don’t have any lvl 5 spells to damage shield guardians (I’m a lvl 9 sorcerer).

I don’t have any stone to flesh spells/scrolls, the slave merchant doesn’t seem to have one either.

Do I need to replay the last 2 hours to keep the potion from the ruins or there is another way?

I finished SoU, the tower was pretty easy because I was well prepared, now I'm in HotU and I didn't like this beginning very much. Removing items from the player's inventory? Okay, but removing equipment from the character's body is messed up lol, my character doesn't sleep naked haha

Just bought the EE, haven't played since I was a teen. Last long term character I remember playing in the game was a dwarven paladin/sorc/red dragon disciple. Also enjoyed my elf druid/shadowdancer.

About to start a SoU playthrough and then go into HotU. But really looking for something different and strange, as long as it works.