I never liked the way multiclassing (or dual-classing, for you oldskool D&D players) worked in 3rd edition. Sure, multiclass characters are more versatile, but ultimately they’re still gimped compared to a character of equal level with only a single class. Would you prefer a pure level 15 sorcerer, or a level 8 sorcerer/level 7 fighter? How about a level 15 fighter vs a level 8 sorcerer/level 7 fighter? The class level 15 kid is going to nail the multiclass character every time. When you multiclass, you’re sacrificing the powers you get at high levels, and if you’re a spellcaster, you lose out on all the higher level spells that you get. To make up for that, you can fight or steal… but you can’t fight or steal well. You certainly can’t fight or steal well enough to make up for your deficiencies in any sort of spell-casting class.

So, here’s a small file you can download to get rid of the multiclass XP penalty in Neverwinter Nights 2. This also means that a non-human or non-half-elf race effectively has no “favoured class”, since all classes are now favoured for them.

• Download classes.2da: Put this file in your My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\override folder, and it will take effect on the main NWN2 campaign.

Note that the fix is not retroactive: i.e. it will not give you back the XP you lost if you’re in the middle of the game and have already suffered XP penalties for multiclassing. To fix that, you’ll need to do a bit of scripting and use the SetXP() function to correct your main character’s XP manually.

Here’s a small script you can use to temporarily get +40 Lore. This is useful if you’re a lazy-ass like me and can’t be bothered transferring all your items over to another party member that does have a high Lore skill (hello Sand!), just for the sake of identifying those nice 20 new items you picked up.

• Download Lore.NCS: Put this file in your My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\override folder.

To get the temporarily Lore boost (it’ll last for a couple of minutes):

• press the tilde (~) key to pull down the NWN2 console,
• type DebugMode 1,
• type runscript Lore,
• type DebugMode 0,
• press tilde again to get rid of the console.

Here’s a small script you can use to temporarily get +40 Craft Alchemy, +40 Craft Armour, and +40 Craft Weapons. Yeah, you can call me a cheat for not bothering to spend the skill points on the crafting skills, but by the time I realised how important they were, it was too late in the game for me to bother restarting from level 1 and pump skill points into them appropriately. (Note that these scripts do not give you the Craft Magical Arms & Armour and Craft Wondrous Items feats, although you can use the givefeat cheat to do that if you’re really keen.)

• Download Crafting.NCS: Put this file in your My Documents\Neverwinter Nights 2\override folder.

To get the temporarily Craft skills boost (it’ll last for a couple of minutes):

• press the tilde (~) key to pull down the NWN2 console,
• type DebugMode 1,
• type runscript Crafting,
• type DebugMode 0,
• press tilde again to get rid of the console.

OK, so you’ve spent a while playing Neverwinter Nights 2, and perhaps you’ve found a couple of books that tell you all these juicy little details about how to craft items. However, since you just blew past the entire tutorial on how to craft items at Fort Locke, you, uhh, have no idea how to do it. So here’s the quick’n’dirty guide for how to craft things:

To craft armour and weapons:

• Go to an armour/weapon merchant and buy the mould (neé mold) for whatever base item you’d like. When you examine the mould, it will tell you what other ingredients you’ll need to craft it. For example, Leather Armour mould requires 3 Leather Hides. You can usually buy those ingredients from the same merchant as well.
• You need a blacksmith workbench.
• You need a Smith Hammer. If you don’t have one or you’re a dumbass like me and sold it, they’re annoyingly rare to find, so what you want to do is type in giveitem SmithHammer at the console.
• Put ingredients on workbench, use Smith Hammer on workbench, and huzzah, there’s your new weapon or armour.

To enchant magicness into items:

• You need the ingredients required for the enchantment. Example materials includes things such as gems (diamonds, rogue stones)… but you’ll also need essences. If you don’t know what an essence is, see below.
• You need a magician’s workbench.
• You’ll need a spellcaster. If your main character can’t cast the spell required, you can use another party member to cast the spell instead.
• Whoever casts the spell will need the Craft Magic Arms & Armour feat¹ or the Craft Wondrous Item² feat. Yep, this means that you will have to give these feats to your companions — not yourself — if they’re going to be the ones doing the spell-casting shenanigans.
• Put the required ingredients and the thingy to enchant on the magician’s workbench.
• Cast the required spell.
• Call your new item “Svord of Pwnage +69”, et voila.

To create an essence:

• You will need a Mortar & Pistle to grind a raw ingredient into an essence.
• Various items you pick up in the game (usually from dead opponents) will tell you what essence they create when you examine them. For example, grinding Lich Dust will create a “Radiant Air” essence; Ghoul Claws will create a “Faint Power” essence.
• Essences have an elemental aspect (Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Power), and a strength aspect (Faint, followed by Weak, followed by Glowing, followed by Radiant). You will need exactly the correct essence: you cannot use a Radiant Earth essence in place of a Glowing Earth essence, even though the Radiant Earth essence is actually one level “stronger”.
• Creating a Faint essence requires a Craft skill of 4. Weak requires 6; glowing 8; radiant 10.
• It’s apparently up to you to figure out what items create what essences. If you’re a lazy-ass like me, there’s a complete list of essences and what raw ingredients are needed to create them available as a spreadsheet; see the reference links below.
• You can downgrade any essence into a lower-strength version by using the Mortar & Pestle on it. For example, you can downgrade a Glowing Earth essence into a Weak Earth essence. You can also combine two essences of the same strength to make one of higher strength; e.g. you can combine two Faint Power essences into one Weak Power essence.

Apparently to obtain items with +4 or +5 enchantments, you must craft them; i.e. there are no off-the-shelf items in the game with enchantments that strong. I’ve yet to verify this since I haven’t finished the game yet, although I’m in Chapter II right now and haven’t seen an item that has an enchantment stronger than +3. If this is true, it actually makes crafting a pretty important part of the game, rather than just a nice afterthought as it was in the NWN1 expansion packs.

Here are some useful threads and links that I found on the NWN2 forums:

• A complete list of item codes.
• A complete list of feat codes.
• A full list of recipes.
• A very handy Google spreadsheet that is a quick reference to what items create what essences, what ingredients are required for what items, and a complete list of possible magical items you can create and what enchantments can be granted.

¹ If you don’t have the Craft Magic Arms & Armour feat, you can cheat and use givefeat 1092 from the console.

² If you don’t have the Craft Wondrous Item feat, you can cheat and use givefeat 1093 from the console.