Aribeth that is, not any literal dragon.

Majority of attempts she just literally one shots me with that yellow swirly circle spell, and that's even if I start running when she is still casting it, that's so fucking frustrating I'm just about ready to godmode my way through that bullshit.

Linu being an idiot and not moving away (those few times I managed to survive the swirly circle of death) out of the stuff that kills her, or not healing me when ordered (she is like "sure, on it" and then doesn't do it) isn't helping, either.
(is there some way to control my henchman directly?)

Even when I didn't die to the circle, she just killed Linu sooner of later, kept blinding me, and hitting like a truck.

Help?

(I'm playing a Rogue 7/Fighter 7/Harper Scout 2 btw, built into Finesse, dual wielding rapiers, lots of Dex, light armor, etc.)

Edit: Never mind, I can figure out the story from here, and decided not to bother finishing it.

She is casting . You need high Fortitude to survive that one kill attack. [url=https://www.gog.com/forum/neverwinter_nights_series/nwn1_death_magic_immunity_belt_doest_work]I had opened a topic about it first time I played NWN.

I never use Linu. She is really slow on healing and very bad at healing. I either use Daelan or Grimgnaw. I dont think there is a way you can use them directly but you can use Henchman inventory and AI Mod which increases a lot of things.

The first NWN campaign is by far the worst in both overall design and combat. SoU is significantly better and HotU is amazing.

Then many of the custom campaigns blow all three Bioware campaigns out of the water.

well the original campaign wasn't really there to be so outstanding, it was the first and was made to just introduce all the things about the game. For the starting campaign it was perfectly fine but was made to be a little easy since it was a new game. They did a much better job with HOTU yes but they had more time to work on that and tweak stuff.

And there are plenty of modules there aren't that long or detailed, but are very amazing in the things fans have developed and made up. I remember playing a few of them early on and going "wow, someone sure has a great imagination and a lot of dedication to get their modules going.

For 90% of characters, the answer is: Hit her with a sword. Aribeth is not a particularly difficult foe... unless you have a weak character. And you have a rather weak character indeed.

(Dual Wielding is bad in this game, dual wielding rapiers is very bad because they're too big, Harper Scouts are bad, Dex builds deal very little damage, etc. Sure, you have high armour class... until you get blinded, then your DEX bonus disappears unless you have the Blind Fight feat.)

Suppose you instead had a basic great-axe wielding barbarian type with 30 strength... you'd probably cut her in half in 4 combat rounds. And if you had a wizard, you could disable her with a single spell. And those aren't even anywhere near the toughest characters you can make. Not even close.

That's the problem with games like NWN: they become very, very difficult to balance at high levels, because there can be such a huge difference in power between two level 16 characters. Either the fight will be a pushover for half the characters, or it will be an impossible challenge for the other half.

Anyway, even a weak character can win this fight. You can do it easily, provided you have the Use Magic Device skill and/or some gold.

To defend against the Implosion spell, you should buy a scroll or two of Spell Mantle. (Which I think are sold in the wizard tower, but I can't remember for sure. Also, look in your inventory for useful scrolls. You may have picked some up as loot.) You can use scrolls thanks to the UMD skill. That will stop the first couple of spells she throws at you.

Alternately, though less reliably, you can use an invisibility potion to get close enough to attack before she starts casting.

To cope with the blindness, an item that gives True Sight would help, or failing that a scroll of True Seeing.

And to deal with the damage she deals, a Greater Swordsman Belt would make you nearly invulnerable to her melee attacks. Failing that, a scroll of Improved Invisibility would help a lot. Other spells and potions that increase your strength and hitting power are also helpful. For this kind of fight you should use everything you've got. If all else fails, you should be able to afford approximately a gazillion potions of Heal at this stage of the game, which means you can outlast her as long as you survive the first few spells.

However, there is bad news: the fight against Aribeth isn't the end of the game. You're actually only halfway through the chapter, and there are some much tougher fights to follow. I wouldn't want to try facing the last few areas with a character like yours.

So if you do want to see what happens next, I'd advice you to just turn the difficulty down to the lowest level. The campaign isn't that good anyway. Not worth getting frustrated over.

You've made some good points, especially regarding the last areas of the campaign. It's true, there's an unreasonable difficulty spike all of a sudden at the end and it can be very frustrating if you're expecting the difficulty you've experienced so far.

However, I disagree with what you said about dual wielding.
Dual wielding is the best choice for a rogue (because it allows them to stack more sneak attacks in the long run) and for a ranger (because they have feats that improve it for free).

Other than that, here are the benefits of dual wielding over 2H weapons:
-using two items instead of one - this means more magical properties for your chraracter, yay!
-two extra attacks per round - assuming improved two-weapon fighting is taken, when facing enemies with very high AC this basically increases your chance to hit by 10%'

And here are the negatives:
-the need to use two types of weapons if you want to maximize your effectiveness - because your off-hand weapon should be small, you can either dual-wield two small weapons (which results in worse damage) or invest in feats for two weapons instead of one (for example: Favorite weapon (longsword) and favorite weapon (shortsword) ).
-using two items instead of one - yeah, this can also be a negative, because you need to find/buy two items for weapons and not just one
-you need to take several feats to make the most out of dual wielding - however, rangers get all their benefits for free as long as they are wearing light armor, while fighters drown in feats, so it doesn't really bother them much to take them

All in all, what style of fighting is better depends on the situation, but I definitely wouldn't call dual wielding "bad".

PS: And although we can compare dual-wielding with 2-handed weapons, it's worth noting that nothing beats 1H + shield set. :P

Yeah, dual wielding is good for rogues IF you can get sneak attacks in. Which is difficult when a boss-level character is hitting you. Or when you face crit-immune enemies, which happens a lot.

It's also good in super-high magic environments like Hordes of the Underdark where you can get +10 weapons that deal bonus acid damage or something.

But in the situation the OP is in I would recommend equipping a shield instead of the second weapon, because This. Yeah.

And there's a kama dual-wielding monk aka "blender". >:]

duel welding is fine if you have some sort of ability to do damage other than the basic small weapon damage that smaller weapons do.

Some use a strength based character to up damage. Some use a rogue/assassin with sneak/death attacks, you want weapons that have extra properties to boost damage, or status foes so you can fight easier. Some feats help you with controlling mobs (improved knockdown, etc). Dual weapons are fine you just need to know how to use your character. My pvp multiplayer dual welding fighter/rogue could tear up most any character he came against. With improved knockdown, most non-discipline characters would be dead in seconds when knocked down and dual welding sneak attacks chewed them up.

And you have to remember much of the regular game is based on fighting. You only get experience by killing things and doing quests, you don't get experience by using non-combat skills usually. Picking a lock, disarming traps, usually passing skill checks, etc don't give experience usually. The game wasn't build to benefit non-combat characters, that is the great thing about player made mods. You can make a game where having an extremely high lore skill can benefit you, you can make a game where certain locked chests can only be picked by a very high level rogue, you can make a game where skills like high persuade, intimidate, taunt, and other things can give experience or items you can't get by chopping something with a axe.

Sadly while the regular games are fun, they are mostly build around a combat build, so you need to be able to fight things in order to survive and progress. Just how it is. You need to be a spell chucking mage, or super fighter mowing down foes, or a rogue that can actually hurt stuff, or what ever. Yes, making up a super high hp awesome defensive character is fun, but in NWN, the best defense is a good offense. You aren't going to kill stuff quicker being defensive. The more offensive power you have, the more loot you get, the more exp you get by killing things.

Actually, when it goes to rogues/assassins dishing out sneak attacks... it depends on the level, but epic builds of rogues/assassins made with sneak attacks in mind actually neglect the extra damage from weapon properties, because it's irrelevant when compared to the massive damage the character deals with sneak attacks at this point. Attack bonuses are a much more needed property at this point, because rogues and assassins have a hard time hitting anything.

totally incorrect because there are a lot of foes that sneak attacks don't work against, so weapon properties are always top priority. Sneak attack damage is just a bonus. Relying on sneak attack damage no matter what your hit chance is isn't going to make you kill undead faster, or constructs, or anything else sneak attack immune, or critical immune.

Plus other weapon benefits make using your sneak attacks on regular foes much easier if you can stun, sleep, knockdown, or what ever will grant you sneak attacks. Knowing that having +5 daggers going up against mages with spell protections up lets you bypass those protections is just common knowledge any good rouge using character has.

The right weapons ALWAYS make a huge difference.

Well, as mentioned I shrugged and didn't bother finishing it, but anyway, on the offchance I'd want to try it again (with some other class), how would you handle her as say a cleric? (I might want to try one - probably with at least Knowledge as one of his domains, to make up for lack of rogue levels)

Also yeah, on topic of non-rogue characters, does the rogue henchman work well enough to detect and disarm traps and open locked doors and containers? (the downside would be that rogues are squishy, is it possible to actually play without one and just walk through the traps or something? or any other way of detecting and handling them, with spells or some such?)

Another question I got about making a cleric (or any spellcaster in fact): if you get 20 class levels, do you get more spell slots since (class) level 21 onwards? Say if I wanted to make a cleric/Champion of Torm (pethaps with four levels of fighter for weapon specialization). If I'd have 20 levels of Cleric, would getting more give me anything other than epic feats?

Well, you'd probably have more fun playing the expansions with another class. The expansions are a lot better.

Still, to answer your question: a cleric would handle the fight easily. Aribeth is a cleric, you're a cleric, you'll be better equipped, have better spells, and be smarter.

More specifically: with the right defensive spells (Spell Resistance, Negative Energy Protection, Shield of Faith, Magic Vestment) you'll be able to weather her attacks far more easily, with the right offensive buffing spells (Divine Might, Divine Favour, Greater Magic Weapon, Blackfire) you'll be able to beat her up easily, and that's not even getting started on the offensive spells you can throw her way. (Harm kills almost everything with no save. Word of Faith and Storm of Vengeance will probably win the fight by themselves.)

Clerics, simply put, are one of the strongest classes in the game. Cast enough spells (particularly on yourself, before the fight) and there is no battle you can't win.

Don't bother with the Knowledge domain, though. It's utterly useless. If you want Rogue skills take Trickery instead. (Also very good for the Improved Invisibility spell it provides.) Or just take a Rogue henchman.

My favourite Cleric domains are Magic and Air, because these provide a number of nice low-level offensive spells that clerics otherwise lack, such as Call Lightning, Ice Storm, Acid Arrow, etc. Also, Stoneskin. This is not the most powerful option, but I enjoy being able to blast things with magic.

Domains that provide even more buffing spells (Trickery, Plant) are probably stronger.

They work well enough. It's a bit slower though, since you need to wait for your henchman to disarm them, or give them the order via the radial menu/a shortcut.

Truthfully, locks and traps aren't that important, since almost all NWN modules are designed to be playable without a rogue. You typically don't get XP for opening/disarming them, so generally the answer to your second question is yes: you can just bash locks open with your weapon and rest if you take damage from traps. There are exceptions to this, but as a rule you won't benefit that much from having rogue skills.

Rogue Henchmen are still pretty good to have, though, because it's convenient and because they can deal a lot of sneak attack damage if you're the type of character to charge in first. Also, the AI is a lot better at handling a Rogue than at handling spellcasters.

You do not get more spell slots in epic levels.

You do get: More caster levels and epic bonus feats. Which you can use for Epic Spells, but those are generally... underwhelming, to say the least.

The caster levels shouldn't be underestimated: they make your spells more difficult to resist by Spell Resistance, and make it much harder for the enemy to dispel your buffs. For clerics, this is vital, since without your buffs you're a second-rate fighter.

Also, caster levels increase spell duration and improve the effect of some spells. For example, Ice Storm continues to increase in damage all the way to level 40. (Whereas a Fireball is maxed out at level 10.)

All in all, multiclassing a cleric with fighter or Champion of Torm can certainly be done, and you won't suffer too much from doing so. However, it's not really necessary: The Divine Might spell already sets your base attack bonus to that of a fighter of your level (Actually, with this spell it's BETTER if you have less than 16 base attack bonus, because of a quirk.) and you have so many spells to boost damage that you'll never notice the difference that Weapon Specialisation makes. (For example: The level 1 spell Divine Favour will give you +5 magic damage already. The level 3 spell Darkfire will make your weapon do 11-16 extra fire damage. Next to stuff like that, +2 damage from specialisation pales.)

I generally just keep my clerics single-class and give them the Weapon Proficiency: Martial or Exotic feat to get better weapons. Alternately, you can take a single level of paladin to get the weapon proficiency for free and also get to add your Charisma bonus to your saving throws.

Four levels of Paladin can also work, since it gives you +16 BAB at the 20th level which is very nice in spite of the rather steep sacrifice in caster levels.

Like I said: you really don't want 16 BAB as a cleric.

A high level cleric can cast (extended) Divine Power for every difficult fight, if he wants to. That spell sets your AB to maximum, so BAB doesn't seem to matter... except.

With a 15 BAB or less, you will get an extra attack at maximum attack bonus. So for a level 20 character, your attacks go +20/+15/+10/+20

With 16 BAB or more, all you get is some more attack bonus. So your attacks go +20/+15/+10/+5.

That makes a huge difference. The cleric/paladin might have a 10% chance to hit on that last attack, where the pure cleric gets 85% hit chance.