Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir

If you have already played and enjoyed Neverwinter Nights 2 and its previous expansion pack, Mask of the Betrayer, then odds are you will have another good experience with Storm of Zehir. While not as epic in story or scope as the first two offerings, Zehir continues the fine NWN tradition of finding new ways to emulate the great pencil and paper Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. If you are the kind of person who can tell the difference between a favored soul and a basic class cleric, then this game series may very well be for you… fix yourself up a character and let the fabled Bluebar loading screen ride again… wild adventures in the jungle and the Sword Coast await!

Plotting Points by Tan(x)
Video Game Reviews by a Very Busy Math Teacher

Game: Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir
Platform: PC
Played For: 5 months and counting


This is an interesting time in the history of Dungeons and Dragons. As those who are part of this particularly scholarly subculture can tell you, there are two versions of the game out in the wild at the present time… the most recent 4th edition by Wizards of the Coast, and the continuing 3.5 edition turned Pathfinder by Paizo Publishing. There are significant differences between the two systems, and opinions hold strong and immutable amongst supporters of each set of rules… causing perhaps the greatest nerd crisis of our day. It is kind of nice that Storm of Zehir harkens back to a more innocent time, before the current war of fanatical geek opinions, cheeto-grenades, vorpal slide-rules and mountain dew baja blast.

Zehir exists as a curious magical artifact of the strong early days of 3rd edition D&D. The advantage here is a game that is tried, tested and approved… the disadvantage is the shrinking audience, already a subpopulation of a subculture that recently has been cut in half. I’m glad they made it, but I don’t see Atari getting much money for this sort of thing. It is kind of like producing a new line of moon boots… cool, evocative of pleasant memories, but for the most part the world has moved on.

Happily, [SCUM]-McPhil and I are so untrendy as to be completely oblivious to current fashion, and were thus ready and willing to make our usual pair of creepy characters and hit the adventuring path once again. Have made our way through both previous entries in the NWN saga, we found ourselves to be the perfect customers for this new and likely final foray into heroic peril. Zehir begins with your characters being shipwrecked somewhere in those jungle regions in the southwest corner of the massive map of the Forgotten Realms world. At first the connection to the previous games seems scant, except for the welcome presence of the famous travel-guide personage Volo, who is happy to recount events from recent history up in Neverwinter… or to talk about just about anything else, so long as he is doing all the talking. Soon, however, you find yourselves able to travel back to the fabled Crossroad Keep, built up by your previous character in NWN2, and many familiar NPCs start to show up (that’s non-player characters for any non D&D conversant readers who have made it this far into the review.)

This return to familiar territory midway through the game certainly provides continuity with the previous episodes, and it is never a bad thing to open up a second huge map to explore just as you think you’ve been everywhere there is to go… but it comes at the expense of the new and unique flavor that being shipwrecked in the jungle had provided. You begin the game feeling marooned in a distant world, unfamiliar even to those who have seen much of the Sword Coast through the Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter franchises. It is a little too bad to lose this mystique quite so soon into the game, and contributes to a vague feeling that Storm of Zehir is a little bit of an afterthought… not quite the fully developed (and deeply interesting) story that Mask of the Betrayer provided previously. As a side-note, Zehir also suffers from a lack of the voice acting and interesting dialogue that helped to make Neverwinter Nights 2 such a pleasure to play in the first place.

However, there are a lot of new and noteworthy aspects to Zehir that make it well worth the investment, the most significant of which is the world map. Unlike the previous installments, Zehir features a world map that you actually walk around, discovering hidden caves and crypts depending on how many points you’ve invested in your characters’ spot and search skills. As you make your way between towns and important quest locations, random wandering monsters crop up here and there along the way. “Wandering” is definitely the correct term, as these little bands of beasts prowl around lazily, until, that is, they spot you (if your hide skill isn’t good enough, or if you get too close and poke them) at which point they charge to the attack. If they catch you, options like flee, parlay, bribe or fight are offered, with battle ensuing in a little random encounter map. Monsters that are too low level try to avoid you, but there are bounty hunting quests like “kill ten pigs” or that sort that give you more reason to be aggressive than the enjoyment of fighting 1st level kobolds when you’re 10th level or beyond.

In addition to offering bounties, the NWN2 provide plenty of other things to keep you busy and excited about play. Early in the game you ally yourselves with a trade consortium, after which you are quickly given corporate share and tasked with the development and eventual economic domination of the Sword Coast region. You do this by collecting trade bars (stock, essentially) and using them in various ways… you can cash them in for gold pieces to use at stores, or trade them to towns for local rare materials, and so on. Rare materials and trade bars are invested in increasing your operation… building caravans between various locations provides more income, while upgrading the local militia and building defenses helps to keep things running smoothly. You can spend hours ignoring the main quest and building your trade empire… a particularly appealing fantasy in today’s state of economic woe.

Or you can ignore the main quest and get embroiled in the many, many side-quests, optional locations, and endless little random encounters and events. Zehir succeeds just like its predecessors in making you feel like you are visiting a vast, complicated world. You may be influential, but there is much more to the Forgotten Realms than the little story that revolves around you… which is the way it should be, because there’s always another reason to visit the place again.

Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir is a curious but enjoyable addition to the series, full of intricate character options and places to explore. It should be required play for anyone who aspires to run a successful Dungeons and Dragons campaign, regardless of which system you intend to use. Here you’ll find excellent world and quest construction, variety, balance, and oodles of ideas on how to vary the quests and tasks that you place upon your players… and how to keep them involved.


Will I play it more: Of course! Economic Domination of the Sword Coast will be OURS!