Normally when I play NWN I use armor that I've "crafted" in the toolset and lay out for use each chapter so that I look the same through out a chapter. However this leads to my character either being over-, or under-powered. Not to mention the loss of the thrill opening a chest to find an upgrade.

I want to set my character's appearance. A quick Google search results in a guide to set a character to a monster, which would be fixed. However, I don't want to be a monster, I just don't want my armor changing appearance.

Could someone point me in the right direction?

First set a hotkey for the crafting menu (I like CTRL+F1). Right-click on any hotkey and in the upper-left of the "radial" you'll find the crafting menu (picture of an anvil). This will let you change appearance of weapons, armor and clothing. Your options are always the same but your success rate is based on your crafting skill (and intelligence modifier) and can cost a lot of gold depending on the item value.

There's also a cheat I found to get 100% success for zero gold. First, fiddle around with this menu to get familiar with it if you want and exit out (press ESC) to reset all changes. When you're ready, set the appearance to what you want and without exiting the menu, press 'O' (for options) and save your game. Since you saved with the menu still open you can now exit or just press O again but you need to then load the game you just saved. Once it's loaded, go into the crafting menu again (through hotkey or radial) and do nothing, just escape from/exit the menu and your item will be done.

I just use this hak

http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/original-hakpak/customize-character-override-hak-ccoh

Yep. Install Olnorton's hak in your override and you can do exactly what you describe.

The hak lets you copy any armour you find to look like your old, except possibly the chest because that depends on the type of armour it is. (Leather armour can't have a plate chest, but it can have plate greaves and vambraces.)

It also lets you copy the colours from any other suit of armour in your inventory.

It also lets you easily customise the colours and appearance of your armour in general. So you could have one standard armour appearance, but then change the colour a bit when you find a new suit so your character will look similar but not exactly the same. And you need neither gold nor skill in craft armour to do so.

Even cooler: it lets you change the name and description of items. So if you find some generic Longsword + 4 that you then upgrade in the HotU campaign to be an amazing killing sword of death, you can re-name it to "Amazing Killing Sword of Death." And write description for it, if you want.

Oh, and it lets you change the appearance of shields and weapons too, and add stuff like wings or tails or scabbards to your characters, or change your character's skin or tattoo colour, or...

Just install it. It's an amazing hak.