Hi folks -

Was wondering what some recommended classes / combos tend to work well in any of the campaigns of both NWN 1 and 2. I've played a Paladin / Champion of Torm in the first NWN1 a few years ago but never finished, may end up playing something similar in that one. Basically I'm hoping to get the most out of my enjoyment from each. Playing a class with sneak attack in a game that has a lot of undead or resistant enemies doesn't sound like much fun. I don't intend to play the same type in each, but would like to try out a variety of classes and approaches to playing. Any recommendations - for example a party buffer type is very good in such and such, or rogues have a hard time in this one, or a caster class really shines in this game, this game has a low max level and is good for a basic class, etc?

Already read a few useful things such as certain skills having no effect in the OC of NWN1, and have heard good things about Druid / Monks in NWN1 (though that they don't synergize at all in NWN2) - any other tips?

Druid/Monk is a pretty bad combo in both games. Druids are spellcasters so they're not very pliable for multi-class builds to begin with, and at most you'd take one level as Fighter or Barbarian for weapon proficiencies. Druids as a single-class option is perfectly fine and easy to play, though, and will be very useful in any campaign. Monks are a little tricky, and tend to require careful optimization to function effectively, but they do have the tools to succeed. You just need to find a way to boost their damage output (which by default is painfully low for a melee specialist).

I'm a big fan of the Fighter/Rogue combination. The Fighter gives you proficiencies and combat feats, while the Rogue gives you a huge influx of skill points, plus evasion and sneak attack. Because of your investment in Fighter you actually can do fairly well against sneak attack immune enemies.

Cleric, Druid, Wizard, and Sorcerer all deserve special mention as the primary spellcasters. These classes are insanely versatile and powerful, and while you do need to spend a little time getting to know their spell lists once you've picked out a couple effective favorites they're jaw-droppingly good. In NWN2 you have more friendly fire concerns due to the larger party, but you also have more allies to target with buff spells so they aren't any weaker.

As a matter of fact, I am playing NWN OC right now as an unarmed dwarf monk, with Sharwyn as companion.
Except few times when she glitches, or doesn't catch up with my speed, I never had any major problems so far.

I play on hardest difficulty.

My main concern though - and this is the reason I started a small cleric as well - is that it gets tedious at times to play a monk. A lot of good passives, but as active skills... well, most of the times you simply watch things die, or just chain spam Improved Knockdown or Stunning Fist on casters, and that's about it.

Good thing is that you don't need to spend money on weapons, and gear, and you got a ton of gold remaining for top-of-the-line rings, belts, cloaks, etc.

My recommendation: if you don't mind just watching things die without too much effort, monk is a good class. But if you want diversity, just pick another.

There is this one place in HotU where vampires spawn endlessly. When I was in highschool I would just put my monk in that area and he would be well leveled when I got back that afternoon. Ah, good times. Can't kill a monk in parry mode unless you can through a hundread kobolts with pitchforks at him. Oh, casters are also decent against monks.

Druid/monk (in NWN1) is an incredibly overpowered cheese combo, if you build it right. In low-magic settings, it is a strong contender for single most powerful build possible. (Note: HotU is not a low magic setting. Class is still pretty good, though)

Three things to realise:
1] Monks add wisdom to their armour class, as long as they are unarmoured. Druids use wisdom to cast spells and get a huge wisdom buffing spell.
2] Monks get incredible bonuses to attack rate and the Flurry of Blows ability which adds even more attacks, as long as they are unarmed.
3] Druids can shapeshift into a giant bear. Giant bears are unarmoured and unarmed.

Result: You are now a stoneskinned, buffed to the nines, giant bear. A giant bear with a black belt in kung fu. (In game terms: you get up to six attacks per round. That's twice as many as a normal druid, and that's without haste. Oh, and you can easily get 10 or so WIS bonus armour class. Plus extra because you can take tumble.)

And it gets better:
4] When wildshaped, your physical stats are changed to that of the giant bear. However, your mental stats stay the same. So you can make a weezy weak STR 8 WIS 18 druid/monk (you don't need armour anyway) Then you shapeshift and get 31 STR and 19 CON in addition to your 18 WIS. Plus buffs.
5] As you gain levels, you can learn to shapeshift into elementals instead. And then a dragon. A kung fu dragon. (Or a kung fu iron golem, for fun with being immune to everything and having an insane armour class. All of a sudden, the Shapeshift spell is good.)

Oh, and 6] Monks get all this stuff at level 1. So you can still have almost full druid levels to cast Storm of Vengeance on everything. With maxed out WIS and greater spell focus. And then shapeshift into a kung fu iron golem. (You may want a second monk level at some point to max out discipline and tumble for even more tougness.)

As I said, this combo is cheesy as hell and overpowered as hell at mid levels when it starts to come into its own. (level 7-20, say.) In HotU it gets a bit outclassed eventually as all those great magic items you find don't really benefit you all that much, but it still works.

I don't recommend playing this in serious games, but it's worth trying out sometimes just to see how ridiculous it can get.

Finally, this indeed does not work in NWN2, because monks no longer get all those bonus attacks per round. (among other things.)

Edit: This is true. Specifically: Intimidate, Bluff and all the craft skills are useless in the OC. (Well, technically you can use the craft skills a little, but you will find very few ingredients.)

Intimidate and bluff are only used in Hordes of the Underdark (and user-made modules, though by no means all of those)

Craft is... pretty much useless in all the official campaigns, except to make your armour look cool. In single-player, I typically achieve this latter end by installing an override that lets me do it without investing skillpoints. Since it's purely a cosmetic change, I don't see why it should cost huge amounts of gold and skillpoints.

Wait, natural attacks count as unarmed attacks in NWN? Yet another difference between the various rule editions to keep track of.

Yup. They sure do.

I don't think NWN2 works like that, which is yet another reason why the combo won't work there. But in NWN1? You're golden.

If you want to go down the "wild shape/monk" route, there's a prestige class called the shifter which gives large buffs to your wild shape at the cost of not advancing your animal companion or druid spellcasting (the latter of which you can't use while shapeshifted, incidentally; this is different in NWN 2, where there's a feat to allow you to do so). Not having tried it, my suspicion is that it won't be as strong as pure druid with a 1 level dip in monk, but that's by no means the same thing as being bad. You'd probably do something like druid 5 (giving you wild shape, and letting you meet the prestige class's prerequisites)/monk 1 (wisdom bonus to AC; also flurry of blows). Then take 10 levels of shifter (you can't take more than 10 until you're past level 20), 4 levels of druid, 7 more levels of shifter to max out the benefits, and the rest of your levels as druid if you get past that point.

I plan to do a similar build myself at some point in the future.

thanks for the tips!