Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 4

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 4 - Neverwinter Docks, Neverwinter Merchant Quarter, Skymirror

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

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Neverwinter Docks

• When you visit Duncan, you will be presented with your first major choice in the game with very far-reaching consequences: To work for the City Watch, or to work for the Thieve's Guild. In general, the quests mirror each other. There are minor consequences once you take over Crossroad Keep.
• Sand will buy your items for a lot of gold -- about twice as much as other merchants if you have even very little net Appraise skill, and especially if you have the Merchant's Friend feat. You can make a profit by buying from other merchants and reselling to Sand, or possibly by buying from him and reselling to him, but this is more likely an oversight from the Merchant's Friend feat. Regardless, before you proceed to Act II, sell absolutely everything you are sure you won't need because you won't get a better deal than from Sand. I recommend stripping party members of gear if they do not commonly adventure with you, as you will have the opportunity to find or buy better gear later anyway.
• With the expansion installed, you can access the Party Roster from your menu instead of just from the Sunken Flagon. The storage at Fort Locke is more convenient with the crafting tables nearby and more open access, but you do need to check in at the Sunken Flagon now and then for special events and dialogue.
• After meeting Duncan, you can return to West Harbor for new developments and dialogue, but no new quests. The Swamp Ruins are reopened but still empty.
• Later in the City Watch / Thieve's Guild missions you will come across a child, Wolf, in trouble. Helping him gets you "Wolf's Minions" in Crossroad Keep later -- they basically provide shortcuts for otherwise tedious travelling within the fort.

Neverwinter Merchant Quarter

• If you stole Leldon's Lucky Coin without triggering any of the traps in his hideout, you will not confront Leldon there. Later, after he confronts Neeshka in the park and flees, your journal will say something about fighting Leldon prematurely but making off with his coin -- a reference to fighting Leldon in his hideout when Neeshka tries to steal his coin.
• You will come across a child accused of pickpocketing. Helping her gets you "Wolf's Minions" in Crossroad Keep later -- they basically provide shortcuts for otherwise tedious travelling within the fort.

Tomb of the Betrayers

• Fenthick will stop to attack (and he has a powerful melee attack) when he is not being pursued by someone trying to hit him with a melee weapon. When pursued, he basically tries to kill the pursuer by getting them to step on traps in his special room. You can therefore have a character with the Evasion feat (and maybe Leldon's Lucky Coin for a +3 Reflex Save) chase him and avoid all the trap projectiles while other characters shoot or cast spells on him.
• After this mission, if you decline the reward from Judge Oleff, he offers a discount at the store. This is a sizable 25% discount when purchasing something only, and does not affect the return you get when you sell something to him.

Skymirror

• Straightforward but highly scripted area.
• Pay attention to the dialogue and you will realize that Elanee has been watching you since before the attack on West Harbor. If your Influence with her was somehow high enough prior to this, you will have learned from her that that she has been watching since you were a child.

Working for the City Watch

• Once you get to Crossroad Keep, if you worked for the City Watch, you can aim to get the Warden of the Keep epithet, which is a sort of "best-case good ruler" achievement. It apparently does nothing for you, however, and you need to still choose or succeed at very specific actions. Also, you probably cannot get the Dreadlord of the Keep epithet for your management of Crossroad Keep.
• At Crossroad Keep you will get two extra events -- Dobbson and the Sheriff from Leeves -- if you work for the City Watch, which can further modify management stats for the Keep.

Neverwinter's Newest Watchman

Enforcing Order in the Docks

• Trent - If you fail to get him inside with Diplomacy, subsequent conversation can gain you Influence with Khelgar and Elanee, or you can still talk him in when the other guards come (for 75xp).
• Cart - You can accept a bribe and then reposition your party before looting the cart (which makes the thugs hostile). This will net you 200 gp extra from the bribe.
• Injured Wolf - This triggers Elanee's sidequest to go to the Skymirror (which replaces the Maiden's Glade area).

Weapon Smugglers

• There is a group of mixed Watch and Thugs (just before the barricade encounter). If you go down the alley on the east side, you can emerge behind them and they will remain neutral and not talk to you. You must backtrack along the main road until you walk over the invisible script trigger.
• Neeshka will not search the shipment wagon to find the Namarra (Neversleep) +1 rapier unless Khelgar is present when the thugs and Watch are defeated. Khelgar is needed to initiate the dialogue tree for this. If you bring in Khelgar afterwards (e.g., using the Party Roster menu), he will not initiate dialogue -- He must be present before you kill the last thug.

The Warehouse

• Barlowe stands behind some crates with enough space that he looks accessible on foot, but is actually not. You will need to quickly destroy the crates to reach him if you want to melee him and take him down fast. A couple of area effect spells should do it, or you can also try putting a long-lasting area effect like Spike Growth or Evard's Black Tentacles and then walking out of line of sight. Since he can't walk out to you either, he would be stuck in the damaging area of effect.
• It is easy to get surrounded by the thugs here, who can have an Attack Bonus approximately equal to your level. At ECL 8, they had an Attack Bonus of about 9, which means even a fairly high unbuffed Armor Class of 24 is very vulnerable to their Sneak Attacks, which can strike for a lot of damage and tear down a Stoneskin spell quickly. Engage with melee quickly to keep your spellcasters out of trouble, then hit them with spells that need no Reflex save, such as Ice Storm, Evard's black Tentacles, or Magic Missile.
• There is a lot of good loot here you can haul out and sell to fund rebuilding Crossroad Keep later.

Protecting The Watch's Informant

• All the thugs here start Stealthed and use Stealth until they are spotted with Spot and are attacked. Even if you can locate them with Listen, if you haven't located them with Spot (e.g., you see them moving about, but they are all shaded black), you cannot use any attack on them that requires a hit roll and spells which require any sort of hit roll (e.g., ranged Touch) will fail due to Concealment unless it is a danger-zone type spell, such as Evard's Black Tentacles.
• Probably the best way to handle this dangerous area is to force them to come at you through a doorway you control with one or two melee characters, and have the rest use ranged attacks and spells. For spells, go for those with no Reflex saving throw because high-level rogues completely evade all damage with the Evasion class feat if they make their Reflex save.

City Watch Undercover

• This optional quest is available when you are accused of the massacre at Ember later in Act II. When you go to see your patron knight you can also speak with Brelaina to get this quest.
• At any time you can end the encounter anytime by blowing your cover -- the only reason to continue it is to actually get gold out of them (7500gp) and 300xp for completing the transaction.
• The backup called in by the thugs apparently teleports in because they cannot be detected beforehand even though it appears they come out of Stealth.
• If you use Appraise to reduce the price, you get less gold (75%). If you fail to hold your price, you get even less (half). Intimidation will never work unless paired with Wisdom and is the best option.

Working for the Thieve's Guild

• The Thieve's Guild quests mirror the City Guard quests. If you don't have the Expansions installed, then you will need to go this route to access the Shadow Thief of Amn prestige class.
• If you do take the Thieve's Guild route, you do not get to kill Moire and get her Moonstone Mask or Rapier +3.
• Once you take over Crossroad Keep in Act II, you cannot refuse to have the black market merchant Uncus, which means you cannot get the Warden of the Keep epithet. There isn't really anything getting that epithet does for you, however.
• Overall, we recommend you play through the Thieve's Guild events just to see how they run, but for more events and interest, working for the City Guild is better.