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I am considering creating a dual-wielding Swashbuckler and running through Mask of the Betrayer, but I have a few questions before I do. I'd greatly appreciate any and all advice on these points.

1.) What will I be missing out on by not importing a character from the OC?

2.) Is crafting worth investing in, or will I be fine if I just rely on the gear that the party finds?

Nothing else springs to mind, but I'll make sure to add anything if it does. Thanks :)
This question / problem has been solved by Darvinimage
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Jonesy89: 1.) What will I be missing out on by not importing a character from the OC?
Nothing; you'll be fine jumping straight in.
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Jonesy89: 2.) Is crafting worth investing in, or will I be fine if I just rely on the gear that the party finds?
The gear you'll find will get you through the game, but the stuff you can craft is significantly more powerful.
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Darvin: The gear you'll find will get you through the game, but the stuff you can craft is significantly more powerful.
How much more powerful? I had been planning on allocating some of my points in thief skills because there isn't a rogue companion, but if they are that good, I might have to reconsider.

3.) How do I feat? I've been trying to do some research on feats, but I can't tell what I should be going for. Obviously I'll be taking feats for two-weapon fighting, but I'm not sure beyond that. I was eyeing Epic Precision, but I'm not sure what I need to do to take the prerequisite feat Crippling Strike.
Post edited June 11, 2014 by Jonesy89
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Jonesy89: How much more powerful? I had been planning on allocating some of my points in thief skills because there isn't a rogue companion, but if they are that good, I might have to reconsider.
They're actually a bit crazy, to the point at which some people intentionally avoid crafting as a way to increase the difficulty.

Your best option is to have the NPC wizard do the crafting for the rest of the party.
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Jonesy89: 3.) How do I feat? I've been trying to do some research on feats, but I can't tell what I should be going for. Obviously I'll be taking feats for two-weapon fighting, but I'm not sure beyond that. I was eyeing Epic Precision, but I'm not sure what I need to do to take the prerequisite feat Crippling Strike.
Crippling Strike is a rogue-exclusive feat. You must have 10 levels of Rogue before you qualify for it. The Epic Precision feat is very important for Rogues, but not very useful for other classes.
Post edited June 11, 2014 by Darvin
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Darvin: They're actually a bit crazy, to the point at which some people intentionally avoid crafting as a way to increase the difficulty.

Your best option is to have the NPC wizard do the crafting for the rest of the party.
Good to know, thanks :)
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Darvin: Crippling Strike is a rogue-exclusive feat. You must have 10 levels of Rogue before you qualify for it. The Epic Precision feat is very important for Rogues, but not very useful for other classes.
Damn, was hoping I only needed to take a level in Rogue at level 10. I wasn't initially interested at first, but I noticed that Epic Precision allows a Swashbuckler to do half damage from their Insightful strike (+INT modifier to all damage rolls) to creatures that are immune to it (which are the same as ones immune to Sneak Attack, which seems to be common at high levels from what I gather). Are there any other feat trees I should look into as a Swashbuckler?
I personally had the most fun with Mask of the Betrayer by playing a simple fighter with a longsword and enchanting the crap out of my weapons to have an easier time in combat.

Combat is not NWN2's strong suit, and epic level combat is worse. The engine is just so clunky and unresponsive, even on a modern system. I found myself mostly controlling the NPC wizard (to avoid friendly fire, you can't let the AI cast spells. And I hate disabling friendly fire.) and letting my fighter mostly do his own thing in battle.

Mind you, character-building in NWN2 can be fun if you like that kind of thing. Which I do. I had plenty of fun trying to build a party in Storm of Zehir and playing around endlessly with prestige classes and feat lists and dividing skills among my party members. If you know what you're doing you can make a warrior three or four times as powerful as the one I played. But it is bloody complicated, and that's the truth. Since combat in Mask of the Betrayer just isn't very balanced and fun, compared to Storm of Zehir, but the story is much better, I decided not to bother.

Some notes on my build: skills and mental stats do influence the gameplay like they do in Torment. So my fighter had decent INT and WIS (magic items compensated for his lack of hitting power, see the broken enchantment system) and took the Able Learner feat and the Neverwinter Nine prestige class so he could learn skills like Diplomacy. Plenty of other classes would work for this too, like Swashbuckler or Rogue. Neverwinter Nine just suited my character for RP reasons in the OC.

Some notes on the MoTB campaign: yeah, a LOT of enemies at epic levels are immune to sneak attacks, critical hits and Insightful Strike. And MoTB in particular is all about spirits, which are... you guessed it, immune to all that.
There's also a timed mechanic that puts spellcasters at a disadvantage. So the simple fighter has a lot to recommend him. Nothing is immune to Improved Power Attack and a two-handed weapon.

Edit: But as for Swashbuckler feats;

Swashbuckler is a fairly weak class, after the first three levels. It does give you most of the feats you really need automatically, which means you can just focus on the two-weapon fighting ones. Two Weapon Fighting is pretty good in MotB if you enchant your weapons. Ridiculously powerful magic weapon < 2 ridiculously powerful magic weapons.

Blind Fight is always a must at higher levels.

Able Learner saves a lot of headaches if you multiclass.

Expertise leads to Feint which helps with the Swashbuckler's good bluff skill and is quite useful, especially when you multiclass to Rogue... except for that bit about everybody being immune to sneak attacks.

Knockdown is much less useful than it was in NWN1.

Improved Critical is of course pretty good, particularly if you dual-wield two weapons of the same type... except for half your foes being immune to crits.

Power Attack/Improved Power Attack/Cleave are only really good with 2-handed weapons

Weapon Focus/Epic Prowess/Armor Skin(epic)/Saving-throw boosting feats are never -bad- picks. Just not very inspiring either.

Luck of Heroes is always a good choice at first level. It's better than most Epic feats. But you get it for free at level 11.

But considering that there are 5 pre-epic two-weapon fighting feats and you get 7-8 pre-epic feats... you should probably just stick with the top few picks here.
Post edited June 15, 2014 by Jason_the_Iguana
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Jason_the_Iguana: I personally had the most fun with Mask of the Betrayer by playing a simple fighter with a longsword and enchanting the crap out of my weapons to have an easier time in combat.
I'm more a fan of intricate character builds, but I agree that sometimes a simple combat style can be the most enjoyable. One of my favorite playthroughs was solo'ing MotB as a Fallen Paladin (Paladin 14 / Blackguard 4 / Warlock 4 / Cleric X).