Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Update #8
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First off, I'd like to take time to thank our friends at Warcry for hosting this last weeks developer chat. If you have not had the chance to read the transcript make sure you stop by their site and check it out. We had a great turnout with close to 140 people in the room at the height of the chat session. Our goal is to have another chat scheduled sometime in the next 4-6 weeks. So if you missed this last one stay tuned and we'll have another one on the schedule soon.
In the meantime we'll keep chipping away at your questions week by week. And with that Charles Mead takes the helm with this weeks Q&A.
Enjoy!
-Shane
1) How closely to the OFFICIAL 3.5e D&D rules will the NWN2 crafting system adhere?
Charles: The crafting system follows with the spirit of the D&D rules. For certain types of crafting, we've leaned more toward using actual components rather than simply subtracting gold. This makes for a more intricate and involving system that really feels like you've crafted something as opposed to just handing over a sack of gold in exchange for an item.
2) Will we be able to craft items out of different materials? (adamantine, cold iron, ironwood, etc...) If so, how easy is it to add new materials?
Charles: Yes, you will be able to craft items such as weapons and armor out of a number of different materials. Also, the crafting system we have developed is very flexible and extensible for the modding community. It is relatively simple to modify it for your own purposes to make new "recipes" and add new materials.
Here's an example of the recipe for the "Amulet of Natural Armor +1": This recipe requires the casting of the Barkskin spell and the reagents of a faint earth essence, a sapphire, and an iron ingot to create the Amulet.
3) Will it be possible to use metamagic feats (like extended, empowered etc) when crafting?
The current intention is that crafting of spell storing devices such as potions, scrolls, and wands will work identically to the way it did in NWN1.
4) Will item creation allow you to "upgrade" items you currently have? This would allow for "recharging" very nice staves/wands/rods and keep that "family" heirloom sword +1 and keep it for your entire career. This really helps keep the "have to have a +2 sword good aligned" syndrome and keep weapons slightly more minimal rather than carting weapon shops around.
Charles: Weapons and Armor can be upgraded using the Magical Arms & Armor Crafting feat. You can for example take a masterwork adamantine longsword and enchant it with +2. Later on, say you learn how to add fire enchantments; you could return to a magical workbench with your +2 sword and add that fire enchantment. You could add other enchantments as well, such as a frost enchantment though a sword of fire and frost sounds a little unstable...
5) Will it be possible to permanently disable altering item appearance in toolset and DM client, thinking of some specific item. (with some check box etc.) Sometimes builders and DM's want item appearance stay unaltered in any possible case even if module had item crafting systems enabled.
Charles: The crafting system in NWN2 is not built into the radial menu, so access to crafting can be easily controlled by a module designer via the availability of certain placeables (mostly workbenches) and items (blank scrolls, empty potion bottles, etc).
