Neverwinter Nights 2 Walkthrough - Original Campaign - Part 15

Neverwinter Nights 2 - Original Campaign - Walkthrough Part 15 - Shandra's Farm, Siege of Crossroad Keep

This is one of a series of walkthroughs/hints for Neverwinter Nights 2 (Original Campaign). Click here for a listing of all our guides for Neverwinter Nights 2.

Shandra's Farm

• If you don't kill everything quickly, you can milk this event for experience becaus there are a heck of a lot of devils to fight. However, they can cast Blindness, and if you don't have anything to counter that, your fighters could be rendered useless. You can try to retreat down the path and have a choke point with fighters and Ammon Jerro behind casting Eldritch Chains.
• Because the Staff of the Magi can absorb magic cast on it, it is actually better used by Ammon Jerro (via his Use Magic Device skill) because he can cast Warlock Incantations an unlimited number of times to recharge it without resting.
• Have someone with high Intelligence, Search, Spot, or Survival examine the scarecrow (this can be either the main character or a Companion; use that character to interact with the scarecrow).
• When you get back to Crossroad Keep, it is your last chance to pick up anything you may have cached until the siege is over -- You will be taken to a different version of Crossroad Keep for the siege.

Siege Mission 1: Bridge

• You probably want to do the first two fights without pausing: The fields have lizardmen fighting for their lives, and if you don't get there quickly enough or if you pause to rest, they are killed. It is not clear if this affects the siege outcome or not, however. You get a 4,000 xp award and an epithet for defending the Keep with "minimal losses" -- which may refer to how many Greycloaks survive with you and/or how many civilians survive.
• Turn Undead is useless here as the undead grunts have too many hit dice to kill and there are generally too many to waste a round Turning them when you could drop a Mass Cure spell that will heal your allies and hurt the undead simultaneously.

Siege Mission 2: Siege Towers

• Companions and Units: Qara and Sand, and use them to quickly destroy the siege towers with Meteor Swarm and other fire spells -- in effect doing it yourself because the mages at Crossroad Keep can't do it very quickly and everyone is getting pelted by arrows constantly. They can't actually target the siege towers until the towers land on the walls, however.
• Tons of undead to kill here if you want to rack up experience points, assuming for some reason that your character isn't already at the level cap (which is possible if you are an ECL +3 race).
• If you're having a hard time keeping everyone alive, you can have one healer put a Persistent Mass Lesser Vigor on everyone, which will last "24 hours" -- long enough for the entire encounter and hopefully enough to keep ahead of arrow damage.

Siege Mission 3: Outer Gate

• Quickly block the entrance and lay down a killzone with lingering area effect spells. If your melee characters get bogged down, you can periodically drop a Fireball, Firebrand, or Scorching Ray (depending on whether you have friendly fire turned on in the difficulty level) in the gateway under the bridge, where everyone is jammed inside.
• An interesting idea would be to have Elanee melee them with Persistent Body of the Sun and Persistent Vigor. The undead here are minor and shadows and wraiths should be easily killed by Greycloak archers if one or two make it into the courtyard. Save your spells for Black Garius.

Siege Mission 4: Nightwalker and Black Garius

• Let the Nightwalker chase you initially -- engage Black Garius quickly with melee until your spellcasters are up to speed with laying down covering fire on both Black Garius and the Nightwalker. Black Garius can drop a couple of Meteor Swarms on your party, so he needs to be handled early.
• After Mission 4, you will be back in Crossroad Keep but you cannot leave the Keep. This is your final chance to grab anything you have cached before the endgame in the Illefarn ruins.