Although I didn't play any NWN this weekend, I can officially declare that I'm now ankle-deep into the foray. When last I wrote I was slightly past the character creation screens, far enough to realize that I had stumbled into what begins as a generic RPG send up of the worst kind. I was able to spend a few hours playing on Friday, and I made it to the first major quest hub, Fort Locke. In the lead up I had also acquired two companions: a punch-drunk dwarf fighter and a whiny, Tiefling rogue.
Head of the Class(es)
That's where my problems began, and to be honest I'm not sure where I stand on it. Having spent the majority of my recent RPG time in World of Warcraft, I had completely re-tuned my noggin towards the Holy Trinity school of combat. For the uninitiated, the Holy Trinity requires only three roles, each fill-able by certain classes: - Tank - the meatshield that absorbs the bulk of the damage and manages aggro
- Healer - a squishie who is responsible for keeping the tank alive
- DPS - damage dealing class that hits hard without getting aggro.
This strategy, while a staple in the MMO genre, does not work so well in D&D. After 5 hours or so of gameplay I've found myself with a fighter and two rogues, necessitating a complete rethinking of my strategy. With no real implementation of aggro in the game system, and nobody to do a lick of healing, I was pretty much screwed. A helpful commenter on this very blog summed up my predicament with the following wise words: "You plan on multiclassing, right?" I do now, Arbitrary Water, I do now.
But I Digress
Having considered my options, I'm highly likely to take a rank or two of fighter or cleric, keeping my ability to spot traps and disarm them, but gaining the ability to use a real weapon instead of this Peter Pan dagger I carry like a damn sissy. At Fort Locke I've been asked to clear out some bandits, head into a graveyard and find a missing holy symbol -- none of which was particularly exciting to me from a story perspective. At somewhere around 5 hours into the game, there's a pretty big hole where an antagonist should be. Obsidian is generally awesome, but if you aspire to make something more than a dungeon crawler, adhering to principles of story-writing need to come into play. This is doubly true when the screen flashes the act number in front of the player, letting them know they've hit a story milestone. So far I'm left with with a feeling of cognitive dissonance when I try to reconcile my feelings. I have a robust, challenging, rewarding combat engine that might as well be put to use killing 10 rats in a underground cellar for all the good it does me. There's merit in building a throw-back story to go with your throwback mechanics, but if there's enjoyment to be found in the narrative, I haven't come across it yet. Not that this will stop me from playing though, as NWN2 has so far succeeded in massaging my nostalgia button in the most salacious of ways.
Log in to comment