Walkthrough

Character Creation

Before you begin your quest, you can take the time to import one of your old characters to the game, if you wish. If you have a main character from Neverwinter Nights 2, you’ll need to load up the last saved game that you made with that character, hit Escape, and select Export Character. Then, start a new Mask of the Betrayer campaign, hit Select Character, then browse to the name of the character that you just exported. If the character you selected was level 18 or more, then you’re good to go; otherwise you’ll be moved into a holding area where you’ll have to level yourself up to level 18. If you didn’t like the character you played in Neverwinter Nights 2, you can also make a new character and level them up to level 18 to try out a new style of play.

(Note that if you import a character from a save game that they’ll lose all the cash you previously had. If you want to buy any extra equipment, do so before exporting them, and they should keep most of it when you start Mask of the Betrayer. You will lose any weapons that you’re holding or in your inventory, however.)

For the purposes of this walkthrough, we decided to import our lawful evil scythe weaponmaster. She’s good for pretty much nothing but hitting targets hard, so keep in mind that your tactics may need some adjusting depending on what kind of character you have. If you're worried about the game's difficulty, we highly recommend a weaponmaster character; with the changes to enchanting in the expansion pack, it can be pretty easy to make yourself a high damage weapon

The Cave

The Lower Barrow

You find yourself in a cave at the beginning of the game, and you’re soon woken up by Safiya, a red mage of Thay. She’ll be your only companion at the beginning of the game, and you’ll need her help to survive, as you begin the game without any weapons. Begin speaking to her, but note that you now can see the exact influence shifts that your conversations will have on your followers. Don’t insult her initially and she’ll warm to you eventually. You can gain some points with her by telling her that she seems to care for her familiar as you walk up the ramp in front of you.

The beginning of the game is a confusing one for your character.

Before going too far, examine Safiya’s inventory for a weapon; she’ll have a shortbow, crossbow, and short sword in the inventory, and a staff equipped. Take whatever you like, but you should probably flip Safiya herself over to the crossbow and keep her back. Also take this time to adjust her AI settings; you may not want her casting on her own. Lastly, look through her spellbook and adjust it to your liking. You’ll definitely want to have her memorize the Stoneskin and Spiderskin spells, which can both be cast on all party members for a good amount of damage protection. Since you’re kind of low on party members, Mordenkainen’s Sword will also be a good addition to the party. Go ahead and rest after you do so, cast her buffs, and get going.

One last note: the enchanting system has been overhauled in the expansion pack, and you can now enchant weapons right in your very own backpack! Or, well, in Safiya’s backpack, at any rate. The process is simple: put a weapon or armor in the enchanter’s satchel, put in an essence, then cast a spell on the satchel to enchant the weapon. For instance, if you want to enchant one of your weapons to deal extra ice damage, put it in the satchel alongside the Brilliant Water Essence and cast Ice Storm on it. That’ll make it deal an extra 1d6 ice damage per hit. You’ll be finding a pretty nice spear on the next level, so if you can use that kind of weapon, you may just want to wait for that; otherwise, you can enchant something right now, if you like.

Important: Finding A Quest!

Move up the passage here and head to the northeastern corern of the map, where you’ll find a barrow guardian. Kill it, then search the scrolls nearby to find a quest: The Betrayer’s Crusade. This is a side quest that will tie into the main storyline. It’s easy to miss the stack of scrolls, so hit the Z button to search the room!

With that in tow, head to the northwest and find the passage leading onward.

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