Can I freely allocate points and feats without worry that I'll end up with a not very functional class, if you take into consideration that I'm pretty knowledgeable about DnD ruleset? Or are there certain things that are always useless, eg. does parry work? I had it at rank 7 and yet I didn't ever counter-attack, which makes me think I'd have to have it at really high levels for it to work (given that there has to be a 10 point difference in the roll to be given one). What's the minimum effective rank for it to work if I want to play a rogue or a fighter swashbuckler, who parries a lot?

Is there a point to multi-classing in NWN1? According to gamefaqs it's very good in NWN2 but I haven't found any tips about the first game. Is there a point to multiclassing with classes such as cleric, rogue, wizard, sorceror? The rogue might have some advantages by taking some ranks in assassin or shadowdancer but I usually play good-aligned characters, so the first one's out.

Also, is there any use for crafting in any of the official or unofficial modules? I read that supposedly it's not very good and only seems to be useful for crafting traps - should I put points into traps at all or are they too much expensive and not that good in combat?

Are there any skills that are useless? Are speech skills (persuasion, intimidate, buff etc.) used often in the official modules and expansion?

Lastly, can you recommend me any good camera mods? I must say all three are atrocious and it was really hard playing the game with them because because the camera in top down mode never follows you or adjusts to your movements, so you end up not knowing where you go because you don't see everything like in BG, so you have to turn in manually all the time, while in the other two it just moves around too much. I've decided to use the drive camera but even that one sometimes has its moments. It's just sad that you can't see everything around you like in a normal 3rd person RPG when zoomed in, and without zooming out every other second it's unusable, while when zoomed out you don't see much of the characters and textures and it just feels like looking at the screen from an airplane.

I'd highly recommend checking out the NWN1 Wikia for when you're about to invest into something of uh.. Potentially not so great? Stuff like Initiative works very differently in Neverwinter Nights; you'll definitively want to inform yourself. Parry in particular is well documented on the NWN2 wikia. Parry works the same way in NWN2 as NWN1:

http://nwn2.wikia.com/wiki/Parry

You know, that explains a lot about why my bluff skill never seemed to come up!

NWN gives you the freedom to hang yourself. If you know the DnD rules, though, you should be fine. Parry is worthless. There are some niche builds that can make it work, but they only function at very low levels by combining improved parry and skill focus parry. These bonuses slowly wash out as you level up, so even the dedicated parry specialist will eventually suck at parrying. Depends on whether you're a spellcaster or not. It's a pretty steep tradeoff for spellcasters, but the benefits of one or two levels in a good secondary class can be worthwhile. For non-spellcasters, multi-classing is awesome and is virtually always beneficial (provided you're picking classes that suit your character). The Rogue is one of the best candidates for multi-classing. There are a number of ways to multi-class with a Cleric effectively, but as a spellcaster it requires a little more care. Wizard and Sorcerer, along with the Druid, are the least favorable classes for multi-classing. It's still feasible, one level of extra hit points and weapon proficiency is a reasonably good deal, but not nearly as good as for the other classes. Shadowdancer is a cool class, but typically I'd be more inclined to multi-class with the likes of Fighter, Barbarian, or Paladin. Blending the combat strength of these melee classes with the skill of the Rogue (if done carefully) results in the best of both worlds. I'd skip out on crafting altogether. Intimidate and Bluff are not used in the NWN1 OC, as they were added in the Shadows of Undrendtide expansion pack. These skills are used extensively from that point onwards in the series.

One thing I'll ad re multiclassing that I didn't see mentioned: if you're multiclassing to increase your melee presence, look toward your BAB. As an example, taking 4 levels of Fighter in a Rogue build (by level 20) will give you a BAB of 16 for a full attack routine. So keep that in mind as well.

Thank you for all your replies, they were very informative.

@AGhost_7: I did check the wiki but only briefly because I discovered it doesn't cover everything, at least not regarding various tips and hints, so gamefaqs were better in this regard.

In the end I decided to pick DarrkPhoenix's answer as both he (she?) and Darvin had the same amount of information, just a little bit different at some points.

About multiclassing, I'm just never sure at which levels does it pay off to switch to another class, eg. if you're a Rogue and you play a level cap 10, 15 and 20 modules, at which levels would you switch over to a melee class as suggested? And vice versa? I look forward to NWN2 as I'll have it simple - just take Wizard, meet the requirements and then keep leveling Eldritch Wizard, perhaps take a rank or four in the Red Dragon Disciple (he's not limited in the sequel by the sorc/bard req., right?. :)

Does anyone know about any camera mods though?

Oh yeah, I also found Hide a bit useless in combat as a Rogue as I could never use it, but unlike BG you don't have to be in hiding in order to do a sneak attack - so what's the point of normal Hide? I can see from LP's the point of Hide in Plain Sight (you get a break and they don't see you, you get to position yoruself) but the normal Hide just doesn't seem to make sense unless you plan to go through the map hiding and hope that the first shot will be useless. Now that I think about it, does having a dagger give you any advantages in the NWN system (both 1+2) over a long or a short sword while backstabbing and sneak attacking (there isn't a difference between the two, right)? Because in that case I can just go for a long sword with my pirate rogue for the Pirates of Never Winter module.

Eh, Phoenix beat me to hitting the "post" button. (edit - now he's ninja'd me twice!) Keep in mind that you're under no obligation to continue advancing in a new class. The "1-level dip" where you multi-class for one level then subsequently return to your original class is actually a very effective way of doing it. For fighter/rogue (it sounds like this is the direction you're considering), I like going for 2:1 rogue to fighter ratio, entering a prestige class (weapon master and shadowdancer stand out) while mixing in rogue levels every so often to keep my skills topped up, then continuing with a 3:1 rogue to fighter ratio into the epic levels.

Rogue 2 / Fighter 1 is a kick-ass combo at 3rd level. Evasion, sneak attack, broad range of skills, and all the proficiencies of the fighter gives you the best of both worlds and at a very minor cost to your attack progression. You can keep this pattern as you level up to maintain that nice balance of skill and power. I'm a fan of two-handed weapons (sneak attack actually works very nicely with greatswords for massive damage hits) but if you're going for two-weapon fighting then double-kukri also works well. Dragon Disciple is a weird class. It mandates that you must have levels in Bard or Sorcerer (both in NWN1 and NWN2), but the class is terrible for Sorcerers and only passable for Bards. Most people access it with combos like Fighter 4 / Bard 1 and don't even use the spellcasting abilities.

For wizard, NWN2 has a couple really awesome prestige classes. The Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep and the Red Wizard really stand out from the rest of the crowd. Eldritch Knight is cool, but is better suited to a solo-campaign more like NWN1 (where self-sufficiency counts for a lot) unlike the party-based campaign of NWN2. If you really pump up the hide and move silently skills, then a Rogue can actually stealth very effectively and most enemies will have no chance of detecting him. Without that level in Shadowdancer, however, that's only useful for bypassing encounters or getting a "first strike", and then stops being meaningful afterwards. You can also try hit and run, but that typically requires faster movement speed (scroll of expeditious retreat can help there). I find that Rogues are better off investing in the "use magic device" skill and stocking up on scrolls of invisibility. You're investing in one skill rather than two, the skill can be used to do a wide variety of things (letting you wear monk-specific equipment is well worth it!), and invisibility is more reliable than stealth. It costs you some money to buy the scrolls you want, but the tradeoff is well worth it. In NWN, the only reason to use a dagger over a shortsword is if you're not proficient with short swords. In pen and paper the dagger has some other advantages, but none of those were translated to the CRPG. The comparison between shortsword and longsword is a little different. Longswords take a penalty if you try to use them in your off-hand, and cannot benefit from weapon finesse, so there are upsides and downsides to either weapon.

If you're not fighting two-weapon style, often times it makes a lot of sense to just upgrade to the greatsword. Unless you're going for an indomitable tank with massive AC the extra damage of a two-handed weapon outweighs the defensive advantage of a shield.

The Hide skill (without Hide in Plain Sight) is not -terribly- useful in the official campaigns and premium modules, because you'll typically have a henchman or two who can't hide and because combat is mostly focussed on hack and slash.

That said, it's still useful if you make your henchmen wait. You scout ahead, sneak up on the enemy wizard, order your henchmen to attack, and then take out the wizard while the enemies are focussing on your hired muscle. The issue is more that you rarely -need- to do this to win. Plus high level enemies often have True Sight that stops the sneaking up thing from working.

There are some fun rogue-based user-created adventures though, where stealth is very useful indeed.

Extra tip for rogues that multi-class to fighter: if you knock the enemy down, you also get sneak attacks. (Improved) Knockdown is your friend.

Edit: the Craft Armour skill does have one advantage: it lets you make your armour look much, much cooler.

Of course, I think it's pretty silly to have to invest skillpoints and spend a lot of money for aesthetics only, so I just installed an override that lets me freely adjust the looks and colours of armour.

One thing you might find useful if you're looking for character build ideas is the Build Search Engine.

Yeah, I thinking it would be cool to give the credit to both of you and it would be awesome if you could mark more answers like on the TESO forum, but oh well - at least I can give you and the others a little green plus! :)
He's a fast one! Don't you ever hit the XP penalty though? That's the one thing which makes me think twice about getting all three classes in NWN right now. Otherwise the fighter/rogue combo is great and I was considering it previously to gain the fighter's proficiencies and better attacks, it especially fits my swashbuckling rogue build (but now I see I didn't mention it previously at all). Thanks to both of you for suggesting when to alternate them, I'll defo go with the 2+4 build for the Pirates of Sword Coast Module where you start off as level 4 and gain one more in the port. :) The Evasion is making the cut for me, as I want an agile pirate.Yeah, that would explain there seemed to be no difference between the two in the gamefaqs and in-game tooltips - I'm so much used to the BG version where you can't backstab without being in hiding and having a dagger or a short sword at all! And furthermore short sword grants you a smaller damage than a dagger (2x vs 4x multiplier if I remember correctly). It's a bit strange they they dropped it, but on the other hand it always seemed to be illogical that a short sword (or actually any kind of a weapon) should do less damage during backstab, I'd actually expect the opposite as you have more leverage and a longer, wider blade!


I did pump my Move Silently and Hide, I had max I could (about 7-9 ranks each at level 4) and I could stealth without any problems, but the first hit didn't really seem that much important to me, especially given that I could sneak attack with my bow (!! how is that possible according to DND rules?) in plain sight and launch usually a shot or two before switching over to a short sword and getting more sneak attacks thanks to my henchman. I had about 5 ranks in use magic device, but was thinking of dropping it because the scrolls were too much expensive - you get 1500 gold at the beginning but if you want to buy any magical armor or weapons it all goes very fast (500 for a magical bag of holding).

And the hit and run tactic worked for me very well with both the rogue and a normal elven wizard with a 14 (or 16?) dexterity, I could easily run away from a group when I was down on health and fire from distance.

Awesome, which ones can you recommend? Dance with Rogues is one of them probably, right? I did think the Knockdown ability was great although I knew I wouldn't probably get it soon, but with the rogue/fighter I might consider getting it.
Thanks! Unfortunately most of them deal with just level 40 builds and I'm planning to go and do the official modules which usually level cap at 15-20 (I heard the second expansion goes more up though), so they aren't of much use to me - plus I prefer building my own build and getting inspired by the builds from NWN2 I've seen on gamefaqs is enough. :)

Lots of people like or even love "Dances with Rogues." I don't. It's a turgid bodice-ripper romance-novel knock-off full of gratuitous rape. I tried to get through it twice because it was so highly acclaimed, but I was honestly left to conclude that these people's tastes are very different from my own.

I recommend "Honor among Thieves" instead. Starts a bit slow, but it shapes up to be a fascinating non-linear tale of conspiracy, intrigue, backstabbing and larceny, with a lot of interesting scripting that allows you to come up with some unorthodox solutions to problems. My character hardly fought but managed to play of four or five factions against eachother in the end. Fun times.

As for the experience penalty on multiclassing:
Bear in mind that it does NOT apply to prestige classes. So a fighter/rogue/shadowdancer won't ever get an experience penalty as long as you're playing a human, half-elf, Halfling or Dwarf. Nor will a fighter/rogue/weaponmaster. A fighter/rogue/barbarian could get an experience penalty, though.

Use Magic Device is one of the best class skills for a rogue in general. Sure, scrolls are expensive and you're probably best off not investing too heavily. Some are life-savers though. In the expansion, buy scrolls of Flame Weapon and Bless Weapon. Pretty cheap, last a -very- long time (normal scrolls cast at level 3-5 or something. These cast at level 17.) and will help you against those foes you have the hardest time against. (Undead)

More importantly, you can use wands. At low levels, being able to use that wand of Sleep or Magic Missiles you find will help a ton against large groups and hard-to-hit foes respectively.

Most importantly, a high UMD lets you use items for other classes or alignments. You'll get a -lot- of mileage out of the nicer monk items. Boots that boost AC -and- dexterity? Robes that grant permanent Haste? Yes please.

(Oh, and you could actually backstab with other weapons in BG. Not with a greatsword, but you could with a katana or even a quarterstaff. I believe the best backstabbing weapon was actually the Staff of the Ram. Makes sense? None whatsoever, but that's the mechanics for you.)

Humans, Half-Elves, Halflings, and Dwarves won't, due to their favored class. Half-Orcs can easily avoid the issue by choosing barbarian instead of fighter. Only Elves and gnomes will have to be mindful of XP penalty, and even then they can do it by keeping their levels balanced.

The 3rd edition rules changed it to "sneak attack", and basically did away with weapon type restrictions altogether. Any situation that denies an enemy their dexterity bonus to AC allows you to gain sneak attack damage. I'm personally a fan of greatsword-wielding rogues.

Depending on the builder, I think you'll find most of the builds are designed to be played from level 1 right to the cap (The ones I posted there are almost all designed to be playable from level 1, and I played many of them through modules and/or on servers to test them out). With that in mind, it could be a useful resource to get some inspiration, even if you don't want to copy them exactly.
These are freaking awesome (any STR-based Rogue is, actually). I have one in my stable that I dubbed 'The Subtle Axe' that used a greataxe, and that build was a ton of fun to play.