Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir Preview and Blog
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In Storm of Zehir, you get to make your own party, allowing you to customize your forces any way you see fit. I spent a couple of hours just exploring which setups I wanted. Don't like magic? Roll up a group of Fighters, Barbarians, and Rogues. The party system is at the core of many of the changes in Storm of Zehir, allowing you to explore more skills, feats, classes, and races instead of dedicating characters to specific roles. Party feats give you teamwork benefits: A Ranger with Missile Volley boosts the missile attacks of all your party members. A.I. in combat is also improved; the developers mentioned one example where they turned off the combat options in a Cleric, roleplaying him as an old man who contributed with spells, not steel, in combat. You also get "cohorts" -- special NPCs that you find as you progress through the game. You may add one cohort early in the game and another later when you acquire the Leadership feat, extending your party to six characters, and you may exchange characters that you've made for cohorts that you find along the way.
The expansion also presents two new races (the Yuan-ti Pureblood, which has a lot of abilities but a hefty level penalty, and the Gray Orc), one new class (the Swashbuckler, a warrior who doesn't deal out as much damage as other warriors but does dish out debilitating debuffs as he increases in levels), and two new prestige classes (the Hellfire Warlock, whose Eldtrich Blasts become even more powerful and can randomly summon Baatezu, and the Doomguide of Kelemvor, a holy warrior in the service of Faerun's god of the dead).
And a snip from the blog:
In Storm of Zehir, we've set aside the conflicted tale of the Knight-Captain, and started fresh in far-off, exotic Samarach. One of the first things you will notice when beginning Storm of Zehir is that you are not alone. You can create a party of four characters, and customize them however you see fit. As an added bonus, no one in your party of adventurers is the (Chosen One) and you don't have any heavy burdens to carry (unless you load yourself down with loot).
Ours is a more optimistic tale that is focused on the fun side of adventure. The Realms may be falling apart around the party, but this just makes for a more interesting sandbox to play in. Players who lead their party down a noble path will delight in solving problems wherever they go, and reaping gratuitous rewards, while players controlling less scrupulous parties will have plenty of opportunities to take advantage of the misfortunes of others, either for fun or profit.
