Your skill ranks, i.e. the points you put in them on level-up.

Be careful to distinguish between skill ranks and your skill value. Items, feats, and ability score bonus will not count towards skill ranks and help you qualify for prestige classes. In many cases, skill ranks are used as a way to enforce a minimum level restriction on prestige classes, so you're not meant to be able to bypass the restriction. Since your maximum possible skill rank in any one skill is based on your character level (3 + character level, to be precise), it's impossible to get around.

The prestige class requirements for base attack bonus, skill ranks, and spellcasting level cannot be circumvented. For many other requirements, however, there are ways to meet the requirements somewhat creatively. For instance, normally you'd need three levels of rogue to access arcane trickster, but it's also possible to qualify with one level of rogue and one level of shadow thief (two levels total).

I have some new questions

The first ones are about stacking.
I mean, you get a higher value when you wear several items/use spells that increase the same thing.
Not stacking means, only the item/spell that causes the highest increase counts.
The game menual says, that is sometimes different than in the original rules.

Armor class:
There are the following armor classes:
-natural, armor, deflection, dodge and dex (+int for some classes) modifier

Only dodge stacks.

Ability scores (str, dex, . . .):
Do not stack, no matter if you use items, spells or abilities (like berserker rage)

Skills:
Items that increase skills stack

saving throws:
I am not sure, Sometimes i have the feeling it does, sometimes not

attac bonus:
no idea, never used several spells that increase this at one time (or I didnt look to the character screen when I did)

anything else that stacks?


The next questions are about spells where something is written about touch attac or ranged touch attac

Touch attac means, the caster makes a melee attac and when it hits, the spell effect works, right?
Does equipping a magic weapon increase the chance of succes?

Ranged touch attac means, the caster tries to hit the enemy as if he was using a crossbow, and when he hits the spell works. is that true?
I was thinking, that a warlocks standatd attac (eldritch blast) is a ranged attac and since pure casters are usually bad fighters, their hit chances will be bad.


I am still playing the original campaign, but it fits to this topic.
In storm of zephir you can create the whole party.
Do alignment changes count for every char seperatly?
Otherwise it would be impossible to have a paladin and a bard in the same group




PS:
When these (and maybe some more) questions are answered, I want to write some advice about character creation for beginners. I was quite overwelmed when I started playing, even though I have played lots of other rpg before. Having a good char makes this game much easier. I want to write in an understandeble way from a beginner for beginners, because these forums are sometimes hard to understand with all of these abriviations.

Sorry, I have forgotten something

next question:

assuming you have the following situation:
- your character can make a sneak attac and has greater cleave
-There are several enemies close to each other
-The enemies attac something that is not you and they are not crit immun (= you can sneak attac them)

If you kill one of them with a sneak attac, do you do sneak attac damage bonus against the others as well, when greater cleave is automatically used?

Yes, stacking can be a little hard to follow in the NWN series. It's not consistent between NWN1 and NWN2, and it's not consistent with the actual pen and paper rules either. Definitely one of the nastier places.

Generally speaking in NWN1 stuff will stack unless you find something that says otherwise. In NWN2, stuff will not stack unless specifically stated otherwise. Ultimately you'll have to experiment to find out for sure. Because the series isn't even consistent with itself, I always have trouble remembering what does and doesn't stack. This is correct, you must succeed on an attack roll to "hit" the target or else the spell fails. No, a magic weapon should not grant a bonus on touch attacks (since the touch attack is itself considered a completely separate weapon). Keep in mind that most types of armor do not work against touch attacks, so it's generally a lot easier to hit targets with a touch attack than a regular attack. Many enemies have absolutely atrocious touch AC's, to the point at which you'll only ever miss on a roll of 1. No, it's not like a crossbow. A crossbow must pierce a target's normal AC, whereas a touch attack gets to ignore most types of armor, and will have a significantly better chance of hitting.

In Storm of Zehir, there are almost no alignment shifts. There were supposed to be none at all, from interviews, but I saw two. Instead, your alignment is one of the many things that determines which dialogue options are available for a character in your party to say.

Regarding stacking:
• Dodge armor bonus stacks with itself (up to a maximum of +20), but all other armor bonuses do not.
• Ability bonuses from equipment or spells do not stack (bonuses from feats are considered natural increases and do stack with spells/equipment). There is a cap of +12 on ability bonuses from a spell or equipment.
• Saving throws from spells and equipment do stack (up to a maximum of +20), with the exception that a bonus from two rings will not stack. Bonuses from feats do not count towards the +20 cap.
• Attack bonuses from all sources stack, but only up a maximum of +20 (however, there are some sources that don't count towards this cap, such as the weapon focus feats). BAB is consider separate from attack bonus and does not count towards the cap (similarly any spell or ability that increases BAB, such as Divine Power, does not count toward the attack bonus cap).
• Skill bonuses do stack, up to a maximum of +20.
• Damage reduction doesn't stack in most situations, although the DR from the Spirit Who Walks feat (lvl 20 Spirit Shaman) and the Warlock's class DR do stack.
• Spell resistance does not stack, although penalties to spell resistance do stack.
• Caster level only stacks between non-prestige classes if both classes give access to the same spell. Levels in certain prestige classes do stack with levels in the base class when determining caster level (Arcane Scholar of Candlekeep, Arcane Trickster, Eldritch Knight, Harper Agent, Pale Master, and Red Wizard of Thay for arcane casters, and Sacred Fist, Stormlord, and Harper Agent for divine casters).

Regarding touch attacks:
Touch attacks take into account different bonuses to attack and AC than normal attacks. Armor bonus, shield bonus, and natural armor bonus are not considered for touch attacks. Dodge bonus, deflection bonus, and dexterity modifier are counted. For attack, BAB is counted along with any general attack bonuses (this does not include enchantment bonuses on weapons, but does include bonuses from spells such as Bless or True Strike). For regular touch attacks the strength modifier is added to the attack roll, and for ranged touch attacks the dexterity modifier is added.

Regarding cleave and sneak attack:
Sneak attacks do work in conjunction with Cleave, provided each target you perform a cleave on satisfies the conditions for a sneak attack.

Thanks everyone.
Thats exactly what I wanted to know.

just two comments:
-If I ever make a warrior/thief combination, I call him "stealth bomber"

-(*crying like a baby)
This is not fair. I thought my barbarien/dwarven defender wearing heavy adamantite armor and shield,
encanted with damage reduction and having someone cast stoneskin on him is invulnerable.

Was this changed from NWN1? In NWN1, the maximum for skill boosts was +50. I thought it was the same for NWN2, but it's been a long time since I played it and could well be misremembering.

Yep, quite a few details were changed between NWN1 and NWN2 (such as ability bonuses stacking in NWN1), including dropping the cap on skill bonuses from equipment/spells from +50 to +20.

Cool, thanks for the clarification. I remembered the ability bonus stacking being changed, but had forgotten about the skill bonuses.

Almost forgot something.

At the very beginning of MotB you get an npc whose familar can open locks and disarm traps.
Can a player character also have a friend with such skills?
In the oc I always had a rouge npc along. I really liked her.
But what if you don´t and you don´t want to be a rouge yourself?

Well, you can always just keep Safiya and her familiar in your party. There's also one Rogue NPC party member, but depending on your choices it may not be possible to recruit him.

Overall I wouldn't worry about it; there aren't a lot of traps in the MotB campaign

It should be possible, but last time I tried using "Raise Dead" on an undead, it just wouldn't let me target the undead with that spell.