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Troy Scotter sent me a quite long e-mail touching on just about every element of the Guide!  Among his varied interests: he tells me that no matter the number of magical aids, it is impossible to boost an ability score more than 10 points from its "natural" level in Neverwinter Nights.  He also suggested that if you don't have anything else that confers Haste, the Boots of Speed do.  Based on his suggestion, I expanded the Henchman section of the Guide to point out that you can and should hire as many or as few of the henchmen as will be useful to you in the NWN campaign.  He suggested that finding a way to defeat the Duergar invisibility makes them much easier foes.  Finally, Troy also took the time to determine exactly how experience points are awarded in NWN, which was almost certainly a time-consuming, painfully dull bit of number-crunching.  Kudos to
Troy for that, and I hope he takes the time to write it up and submit it to the
NWN FAQ sites!

Moose and Rolander point out that Rangers don't get a "real" Two Weapon Fighting
Feat, but rather a bastardized version called "Dual Wield."  The primary downside to this for Rogues is that you can't add Improved Two Weapon Fighting to Dual Wield; if you want Improved Two Weapon Fighting, you'll have to spend a
Feat on Two Weapon Fighting first.  Ah well.

If that wasn't bad enough, Lord Among Noobs points out that rapiers are *not* classified as light weapons for Two Weapon Fighting, despite the fact that both the Neverwinter Nights manual and the D&D Player's Handbook says they should be.
Yet another NWN bug...

And finally, Asclepius points out an obvious but not stated advantage to the
Disarm feat: until a disarmed opponent produces another weapon, all of his or her unarmed attacks will probably provoke attacks of opportunity from all bystanders.  I'm going to stick to my guns on this one, though: a Rogue's relatively infrequent attacks are best spent trying to kill things, not disable them in some way.  ;-)


Have a suggestion?  First, read the Guide.  Then, read it again.  Sure that what you want to suggest isn't already there?  Anyone who suggests something already present will be fed poison (it's the Rogue thing to do).  You very sure it's not already there?  OK, great!  E-mail it to me at rogue@jestertrek.com .  Be calm.
Be concise.  Be informative.  Give me a name to include in the Credits section.
Don't make me sneak attack you to get it.  ;-)


11.3 TROY SCOTTER'S EXPERIENCE POINT DISCOVERY (TM)
--------------------------------------------------
Troy Scotter either hasn't had time or hasn't been inclined to publish the details of his discoveries related to Neverwinter Nights experience points, so
I'm going to publish an abbreviated version of it here.  Here it is: experience points in NWN are granted based on the *average level* of allied combatants in direct mel‚e combat with enemy combatants.  In other words, if you are a L16
Rogue and you face a particular enemy combatant alone, you will be granted experience points for L16 versus whatever you have defeated.  However... if you are a L16 Rogue who has summoned a L4 Dire Badger, both of you combat the same opponents, and both of you survive, you will be granted experience points for
L10 ((L16 + L4)/2) versus whatever you have defeated!  Yes!

I'd been wondering for weeks why Rogues seem to get more experience than equal level Fighters or Mages for the same encounters.  The reason is that the Fighter tends to go into combat alone, meaning that the average "ally" level is very close to the Fighter level.  Mages tend to go into combat with a variety of henchmen and summoned creatures -- often very high-level summoned creatures -- around them.  Therefore, the average ally level for Mages is also very close to the Mage level.  Rogues, on the other hand, often have to scrounge low-level summoned creatures and familiars, meaning that their animal companions and familiars actually *increase* rather than decrease the experience points for an encounter.

Is this completely nuts, or is it just me?  ;-)  No wonder NWN doesn't have decent encounter scaling.  Can you imagine the ticked off party of L16 players who work together perfectly to defeat a high-level foe... only to get LESS experience for the fight than a single L16 Rogue and his L4 Dire Badger? ::snickers::

No doubt you're already foaming at the mouth to try this out.  Before you do, here's a couple of pointers, also discovered by Troy.  First, the average level applies only to allies in direct mel‚e combat for at least one round.  The calculus still applies if the L4 Dire Badger hangs back, but you don't get nearly as much benefit as you would if the Badger is up there swinging.  This, incidentally, directly contradicts a suggestion in the game manual to unsummon creatures right before experience is awarded.  This is the LAST thing you should do, and will actually *decrease* the experience you are awarded.  This, however, also applies if the summoned creature or familiar suffers an untimely death.

This therefore changes your strategy a bit if you want to maximize experience.
You can take a L1 creature into combat against Klauth in an attempt to max out experience, but it will therefore be someone's job to make sure that the L1 creature survives the battle.  That will almost require things like casting stoneskin and barkskin on the L1 creature, giving it potions of speed, increasing its stats... anything you can think of.  ;-)

Is it worth it?  You be the judge.  Thanks, Troy!  I still hope you publish a longer version of this.  ;-)


11.3 ROGUE GUIDE LOCATIONS
--------------------------
When I update the Rogue Guide, I'll send the updates to:

GameFAQs                                 http://www.gamefaqs.com
Neverwinter Haven                        http://www.neverwinterhaven.com
Sorcerer's Place                         http://www.sorcerers.net/index.shtml
Neverwinter Nights Character Gallery     http://nwncg.netfirms.com
DLH.net                                  http://DLH.Net
Neoseeker                                http://www.neoseeker.com

An up-to-the-second Rogue Guide (updated as I update it) is available at: http://www.jestertrek.com/nwn-rogue-guide.txt

If you're reading this somewhere else or obtained it somewhere else, send me an e-mail at rogue@jestertrek.com and let me know.  Thanks!


11.4 REVISION HISTORY
---------------------
This is revision 1.2, released two and a half months after my initial version back in August.  I've received about 50 or so e-mails about the guide -- thanks to everyone who has written!  However, the number of e-mails is definitely slacking off and approaching zero, either as NWN slowly loses its popularity to newer games coming out, or as the locations on which this guide is hosted become less visited.  I noticed a definite drop after NWN fell off GameFAQs Top Ten.
Chances are therefore pretty good that this will either be the final version of the Guide, or it will be a goodly long while before the next revision.  So until then, have fun, stay stealthed, and may your sneak attacks always find their mark...  ;-) rev 1.2, 30 October 2002
- Changed the details on the Silent Spell Feat
- Additional notes on the Parry Skills
- Added note that it is impossible to boost an ability score more than +10
- Short additional note regarding Henchmen
- Specified the difference between Two-Weapon Fighting and Dual Wield
- Noted a quite annoying rapier Two-Weapon Fighting bug
- Added details on Troy Scotter's discovery about NWN experience points rev 1.1, 29 August 2002
- Beefed up some of the multiclassing options
- Further expanded the sections on the Wisdom and Charisma ability scores
- Added a few notes about EVEN vs. ODD ability scores
- Added some notes about running clear of area of effect spells
- Added a few more notes on the single player campaign
- In particular, gave some strategies for Wanev's Tower
- Expanded the very poor explanation of the Elf and Halfling Dexterity bonus
- Very minor additions here and there (Rogue humor, for instance)
- Minor grammar and wording fixes here and there rev 1.0, 15 August 2002
- Initial release


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FINIS rev 1.2, 30 October 2002
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