Grymwurld™ NWN Edition

Related to my series on adapting the AD&D 2nd Edition Ravenloft RQ1 Night of the Walking Dead module to Averoigne, I present my house rules for the Neverwinter Nights videogame: Grymwurld™ — NWN Edition. The reason being is that frankly, I find it tiring to juggle multiple game rules in my head. Back in 2000 when I switched to D&D 3rd Edition, I found it physically painful. I know, I know, hard to believe. But it is quite true. I literally got headaches from learning the new system. And it took some years to truly internalise the new system because it is so very different from all the previous versions of D&D. In 2002 I ended my last ongoing campaign because it was not fun for me at all. Also in 2002 the Neverwinter Nights videogame launched. What was and still is unique is that it comes with a fairly easy–to–learn toolset enabling the budding designer to create adventure modules, link them into campaigns, and even create persistent worlds! That toolset is precisely why there is still a strong and vibrant (albeit smaller) community of persistent worlds, custom content creators, and players today. I dabbled with the toolset at that time but dropped it in favour of running my soon–to–be ill-fated final tabletop campaign, Grymwurld: The Dark Ages™. In 2007 I picked up the toolset again and have been creating content ever since. Now I did try to get my kids into D&D when my eldest was in middle school but they preferred other games. This past summer I had better luck with my youngest who is in middle school now. The pandemic of course keeps everyone at home so he was bored. We played a number of times and even got the whole family in for a single session on my birthday. But now my youngest found a way to socialise with his friends online and lost all interest in playing with dad. Hopefully I can remedy that over the Christmas break but that remains to be seen. Since I cannot count on running a tabletop campaign, I have to focus on my NWN adventures. Therfore, going forward on this blog I will default to my quixotic attempt to make the third edition rules of NWN as Old School as I can tempered with my desire for a Sword & Sorcery + Weird Fiction + Mediæval Romance genre. So without further ado, below is the current draft of most of my “house rules” for Grym™ NWN:

GAME OPTIONS

Difficulty

For all difficulty levels:

• PCs are subject to crtical hits except in Easy Mode.
  
• PCs are subject to attacks of opportunity when using ranged weapons or drinking potions in combat.
• There is no minimun amount of damage that PCs do in combat.
• Monsters do normal damage except at Very Difficult where they still do double damage.

Note that all other aspects of difficulty remain, e.g. fireballs damage the party on Hardcore and Very Difficult settings.

Ruleset

I design and test with the following options selected:

• Natural 1 always fail
• Maximum hit points for PCs and associates at all levels.

CHARACTER GENERATION

Gender

Females of all races get a bonus of +2 to their Dexterity ability score and a penalty of -2 to their Strength ability score. If you wish to play a female with no ability score adjustment, then select the large phenotype.

Race

The only races available are the following:

Dwarf: Dwarf Humans have the same appearance as NWN Dwarves but have the following abilities: Intelligence & Wisdom +2; Strength -2. Favoured class is Rogue. Racial feats are Good aim, Small, and Weapon finesse.

Half-Elf: Half-Elves have a Charisma bonus of +2 and a Wisdom penalty of -2. Favoured class is Rogue. Racial feats are Alertness, Artist, Courteous magocracy, Nature sense, Partial skill affinity (Search & Spot), Skill affinity (Lore, Move silently, Search, & Spot), Stealthy, Trackless step, and Weapon finesse.

Oaf: Oaves are also known as hálftrollr or half-ogres. They get a bonus of +2 to Strength and a penalty of -2 to Charisma, Dexterity, and Intelligence. Favoured class is rogue. Racial feats are Epic armor skin and Weapon finesse.

Human: No changes. They still get any class as their favoured class, one extra feat and 4 skill points at character creation as well as 1 extra skill point with each level.

Class

The following core classes are the only ones available. There are no prestige classes. Please read through them carefully as there are some significant changes especially with the cleric, druid, and ranger classes.

Note that all classes get Appraise, Bluff, Intimidate, Persuade, and Taunt as class skills. This is because in NWN, the PC is always the speaker unlike Baldur’s Gate I and II where you could select the most charismatic party member as the speaker. Also, this lends a more Old School feel to the game because back in the old days, how one rôleplayed was far more important than what was on one’s character sheet.

Gallowglass: In the Averoigne campaign, they hail from Norse-Gælic Britain. They are not “barbarians,” they are raging warriors. They do not spend their time hunting, they spend it in war. Their bonus 1st level feats are Barbarian Rage, Dodge, Power attack, Shield proficiency, Weapon finesse, Weapon proficiency (Exotic, Martial, & Simple). They can never take Called shot, Disarm, Improved disarm, Improved knockdown, Improved parry, Improved unarmed strike, Knockdown, or any ranged weapon feats. They make take weapon feats in the use of the Bardiche, Dalcassian axe, Great axe, and Great sword.

Troubadour: Basically NWN Bards with the following changes — Their spellcasting is limited to bonus spells and all skills are class skills. For feats, they get Bard song, Bardic knowledge, Curse song, Extra music, Lingering music, and Rogue weapon proficiencies at 1st level. Effectively they are rogues who trade sneak attacks for limited spellcasting.

Saint: Lawful/Good saints are called Eremites, Neutral/Good ones are Sarabaites, and Chaotic/Good ones are Gyrovagues. Saints have a d12 for hit point and the best saving throws. However they have no armour, shield, or weapon proficiencies. They cast spells and turn undead as D&D clerics but also have paladin abilities such as Lay On Hands. They have access to both divine and arcane spells but none that harm living creatures. [Mediæval Christian thought placed a great deal of value on ‘lawfulness.’ Thus, I was going to limit saints to Lawful/Good but then I read about sarabaites and gyrovagues which happen to line up with David Chart’s assertion that clerics and be any version of Good alignment.]

Man-at-Arms: Standard D&D fighter but with a d12 for hit points.

Cenobite: The D&D monk but with an emphasis on ascetism, self-mortification, puzzles, stealth, and traps rather than Far Eastern martial arts. [Does this class really belong? Granted there is some overlap between Clive Barker’s Order of the Gash and the flagellants but … probably best as an NPC class.]

Ranger: A warrior who ranges widely but with no spellcasting. Typically they serve as foresters and game wardens but also as bowmen and scouts during war.

Rogue: The D&D rogue but able to use bucklers (light shields) in exhange for the loss of the Use Magic Device skill.

Sorcerer: Cannot be Lawful in alignment and may not use scrolls or wands. Otherwise identical to the D&D sorcerer. Note that since sorcerers are natural talent arcane spellcasters they are at high risk of being accused of witchcraft. [Note that this is subject to change. Ideally, sorcererous spellcasting should be limited to bonus spells just like all other spellcasters. However, since sorcerers are natural talent spellcasters it just does not feel right to force them to depend on potions, scrolls, & wands like the magi.]

Magus: The D&D wizard except that they only get bonus spells due to high intelligence. They do get all item crafting feats at 1st level. These items do not have an XP cost (unless the spell has one) but the gold (material) cost is the same as the retail price.

MISCELLANEOUS

Highly difficult traps may be detected and disarmed by anyone with enough skill rather than exclusively Rogues, e.g. Cenobites and Troubadours.

Firing into mêlée incurs a penalty of -10 to hit.

During character generation, ability scores may vary from 3 to 19.

Spellcaster’s prime requisite is raised from 10 to 14.

Armour: All armour has a 100% arcane spell failure. Dexterity bonus is capped at +6 rather than +1. Non-magical armours with an AC +9 and +10 are now available.

Helms: Great helms give a +2 and helms a +1 natural armour class bonus and both require the Armour proficiency (Heavy) feat to wear.

Multiclassing is discouraged. A such, a number of feats require class levels rather than a Base Attack Bonus or a Base Saving Throw Bonus.

Feats reclassified as epic: Point blank shot and Rapid shot