Yeah, it assumes you've already played the orientation plague campaign and prequel SoU to learn the basics of economics in NWN.

Play HotU as your introduction into the mechanics of the game and suffer the consequences.

The main handicap new players today must endure is the absence of of a comprehensive knowledge base and introspection of all the modules with full disclosure from a massive community ala the original Bioware forums. GoG does not furnish anywhere close to that in information or community size.

But the topic didn't specify "for new players" in its description. Apparently the OP must have played several times else not pose the generalization in the first place.

Obviously, the more often you perform a task, the better you become at it, whether writing script or playing through a campaign. That just stands to reason.

Right, and there's no real indication of this for a first-time player, either (and playing through the OC or SoU won't help with this in particular). And the reload strategy doesn't sound too appealing when you consider that the drain property happens at the beginning of a dungeon that you may not want to redo, since a first-timer (like me) probably would have finished the dungeon before they returned to the smith and found out they couldn't upgrade the weapon anymore.

The second time I played through the game, I was aware of all of this and was able to plan accordingly. I also saved many of the more valuable magic items to sell in Chapter 3 with the higher cap, and I was actually able to upgrade four weapons to +10 (two for Nathyyra, one each for Valen and myself), though the final upgrades for the henchmen didn't come until just before the final battle after I sold all of Grimgnaw's stuff.

I'll have to double-check my RDD's STR by the end of the game...if I'm remembering everything correctly, she should have been at 42 STR (16 start, 6 level increases, +12 item enhancements, +8 RDD), but I don't recall her being quite that high. Then again, once you get to that point in HotU and your strikes are dealing 70 damage a hit, it's hard to really pay that much attention to the minutiae of numbers. I didn't even realize there was an ability cap from items, so I was probably wasting an item slot...but if your weapon's good enough, your character's probably just so powerful that it's hard to lose fights unless you're really not paying attention, even if you haven't optimized the rest of your equipment/build.

I am not talking about new players. I am talking about the first play of HotU. I played the OC and SoU first, and I didn't have enough cash to max my weapon on top of other spending by the time it became possible.

How is anyone supposed to know they need to save every Gold piece for the Ch 3 of HotU, to build an Uber weapon unless they already played HotU once?

Er...what? They can get the +10 weapon in Chapter 2. If anything, a new player isn't going to know to save money for True Names at the end.

I thought some pedant might jump on that. Where the Smith is, doesn't change the point about saving money for something you don't know is coming.

A bit of Necro-revisit, but what the Hell. I have played it twice since the previous post, and the Dwarven Defender was a bit of a laugh vs Grimgnaw.

I still get party wiped when I stumble into these goons unprepared. As mentioned previously. You should be Level 25 by now, and hopefully have some nice weapon upgrades, or as a repeat player maxed to the nines. Bows don't get as much, but I have found maxed out "Longarm" seems to cut through DR like butter. Better than blades even for non archers sometimes.

My Fighter/Bard/AA. After the party Wipe. I just tell Deekin to buff himself before entering, and make sure my gear is in order and maybe drink a potion or two. Then try to take out the Wizard, then Cleric first, I save Grimgnaw for last. He is a PAIN with an Archer because he seems to deflect arrows like crazy, but if you leave him for last between you and henchies, there should be no problem. The real challenge here is talking out the spellcasters early. Have some kind of strong dispell to clear nasties they cast on you.

More Recent play(tonight) with Fighter/Rogue/DwarvenDefender. This guy was the ultimate tank. By level 25, he had 18DR. Still put everything into taking down spellcasters early. Then Grimgnaw typically did no damage unless he scored a crit. I saved Grimgnaw for last and soloed him with a +1 dagger. I turned on the TV an checked in once in a while. It took >20 mins real time to kill him to give some idea how ineffective he was.. He had 10DR vs my +1 dagger, so neither of was doing much damage. I could shred him easily with my maxed out Sword Saint Legacy Katana (one of the more OP weapons to enhance).

I guess some classes have certain disadvantages i haven't experienced, i typically play as a Wizard Necromancer and death spell Wail of the Banshee work on all but Balpheron but Undeath to Death will take care of him or use Death Armor, Elemental Shield & Mestil's Acid Sheath but that requires the enemy to hit you and if they get through a Necromancer's Greater Stonskin (since they don't get Premonition) you can be in trouble, don't use Evocation spells with reflex saves against Monk's ,Barbarian's or Rouge's as they are far more likely to avoid damage except Ice Storm spell which doesn't allow for saving throw.

Last time i tried AA i delayed getting it to get 12 Lvl's of Wizard to get access to 6 Lvl's of Conjuration spells to slow and delay enemy advance using Grease, Web, Evard's Black Tentacles, Cloud Kill, Acid Fog & buffed with Stoneskins and others, it's a trade off but at Lvl 20 (12 Wizard, 8 AA) with low quality gear i had options besides standing there or running and firing.

Shouldn't an AA still be good in Melee with AB?
i'd have a back up blade & Shield too boost your AC because when using a bow in melee don't enemies get Attacks of Opportunity against you?
Also last time i tried an AA i don't remember seeing saving throws against the Imbue Arrow ability (Fireball Arrow AA ability) that should help and Hail Arrow targets everyone in the area but i don't remember Seeker Arrow and if Grimgnaw can be hit by it.

My point of about Grimgnaw was mostly for amusement, and just another reason to ignore him early in fight. Regardless you want to take down the spell casters first. After the spell casters are down, this should be an easy fight.

Melee Weapons for AA:

At low levels, I use both weapons sets a lot until my Arrows really take over.

In Epic Levels the difference will be dramatic, unless you devote a lot of feats to boost melee.

My AA near the end of HotU, had 15 AA levels.

That is a +8 Attack bonus and +8 damage bonus on top of everything else that you lose when switch back to Melee.

Also since I specialize in the bow, I had EWF/EWS Longbow, so make the total +10 attack, +14 damage, that I lose going melee.

That is on top of higher dexterity, and no weapon finesse.

So the final Attack bonus was:
+56 Bow
+42 Sword

It all contributes to not wanting to switch unless your enemy is practically immune to arrows.

I pretty much never switched after reaching epic level. Maybe if I was fighting a whole room of Monks deflecting arrows I would have...

I have played both Melee and AA, and AA is easier for almost all the fights.

A lot of enemies do what you do, put up elemental shields, which do nothing to archers. Archers tear through the spell caster enemies before they can do much at all, while melee characters have to close the distance letting them get off more spells, and then have to face elemental shields and the like.

AA special abilities:

They are mostly useless. In Epic, You shoot 6 arrows/round and typically don't miss, and can average about 33 damage/arrow. So ~200 damage/round. You give up a full round of attacks to use most abilities:

Hail of Arrows: just puts one arrow in each enemy, much better to put 6 arrows in one enemy, than one arrow in each of 6 enemies unless they are very low level.

Imbue Arrows: gives you a fairly low level fireball. I believe there is still a save, typically doesn't do much to epic enemies. Still probably the best ability if you meet a crowd of low level fire susceptible enemies.

Seeker Arrow: Useless. One guranteed hit per day. What is one arrow going to do in Epic?

Arrow of Death: I suppose you could get lucky on your one shot and your enemy could roll a 1.. DC is stuck at 20.

Basically if you have a well built Epic AA, you will want to stick with arrows all the time, and mostly ignore the special abilities.

That seems to indicate that AA needed those Abilities to continue upgrading into epic levels, some of these Prestige classes aren't done properly.

i know the Palemaster doesn't get new spells or caster levels but only spell slot increases every odd level and the Blackguard doesn't get a spell book like it's suppose to and the same for the Assassin i believe.

I suspect the AA was suppose to have those abilities increase like other classes get more effective into epic levels, Druids get access to better Shapechanging feats, Monks get access to +4 & +5 Fist Enchantment and Monk continues to get harder to hit.

Maybe they should've added epic feats that upgrade the Imbue Arrow to 15d6 than 20d6 and Hail Arrows should be upgrade to 2 Arrows per target.

Oh maybe they should've added feats that enable you to change Imbue Arrow to use different elements or effects.

Hardly.

+1 AB and +1 Dam/2 levels is ridiculously powerful for a combat class. No other combat class can get AB as high as an AA.

I'm not saying the AA is weak it's not, but there are enemies that are heavily resistant to physical damge no matter the enchantment and the AA should have options to work around that.

The AA focuses all there magic abilities to enhance archery and it makes sense to me that they should gain access to other damage types to stay effective.

Depends on how specialized they are at archery, and it sounds like they are very specialized indeed. The bigger their bonuses within their specialization, the more I'd expect them to give up proficiency elsewhere.

Necroposting but I can't resist. I had an amusingly easy battle with The Maker the other day, winning the battle in my first two moves. He must have rolled 1's twice in a row or close to it. Hit him with Heal and finished him off with a cantrip. I was a Druid/Shifter though I forget which level, probably a few more levels in Druid than Shifter only.

i beat the game by equiping all the acid spells i had and fighting the archdevil