HOTU Final Battle Companion Question [SPOILERS]

[Kappa Omicron]

So, I just finished my first playthrough of Hordes of the Underdark and I really enjoyed it, despite a few technical issues here and there.

But one thing that really disappointed me was how one of my companions ended up betraying me in the end just before the final battle.

I had both Deekin and Nathyrra with me for the entire campaign and every time we conversed, I thought I was getting along really well with them both.

But I failed the persuasion check with her in the end and passed it with Deekin with no issues.

That was super disappointing and I've been trying to google about it but I can't seem to find anything about her betraying anyone else before. Only found some stuff about her apparently being romance-able, but that never came up during any of our conversations that would trigger occasionally.

I'm wondering what I did wrong? Am I supposed to invest heavily in the persuasion skill? I had mine capped at 16 and couldn't raise it any higher whenever I levelled for some reason. I was a Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple if that's any relevance at all.

Thanks for reading!

I'd greatly appreciate any helpful info regarding keeping companions happy and how exactly their unique dialogue triggers.

[Meogron]

You have to be male to romance Nathyrra. Another way to protect yourself from betrayal is to spend money on true names, so you can command them not to betray you.

[Kappa Omicron]

Originally posted by Meogron:

You have to be male to romance Nathyrra. Another way to protect yourself from betrayal is to spend money on true names, so you can command them not to betray you.

Damn! I knew I was missing out on something by not having enough cash to buy all the True Names. Thanks a lot for the tip, that's a good thing to know for a second playthrough.

[ABulletTooFar]

Originally posted by Kappa Omicron:

But I failed the persuasion check with her in the end and passed it with Deekin with no issues. [...]
Am I supposed to invest heavily in the persuasion skill? I had mine capped at 16 and couldn't raise it any higher whenever I levelled for some reason. I was a Sorcerer/Dragon Disciple if that's any relevance at all.

Investing into Persuade does help, eventually skills will outstrip the significance of the D20 roll, if you're deep in it.

To edify, the reason that you likely were not able to progress is because you stopped progressing R.D.D. (wether you simply stopped choosing it, or capped it @10th) -- Persuade is a class-skill for them, and thus would be capped at [Character Level + 3]. Meanwhile, Sorcerers do not have Persuade as a class-skill, and are restricted to cross-class training it, which would be ~[Character Level/2 + 1, whole numbers only in NWN].

Something that Neverwinter Nights permits, that table-top doesn't is skill-hoarding, and thusly skill-dumping. So, for this example, when you level as a Sorcerer, you'd hold back 1 skill point per-level that you simply spend on nothing. Then, when you level up into Red Dragon Disciple, you could artifically crank the skill all the way to the character's trained-rank capacity with those stock-piled skill points, even if you wouldn't have earned enough to do the same on that R.D.D. level.

This style of character building is a quite common tactic for this game.

[Chauci 𐛧]

"This style of character building is a quite common tactic for this game."
Thats true for single player campaigns or local LAN online servers may ban you for it

[ABulletTooFar]

... and they'll probably warn you about that sort of thing in their FAQ.

I somehow don't think Mephistopheles is gonna ban Kappa Omicron from HotU Chapter 3, as much as he might like to.

[Chauci 𐛧]

Of course servers will have it stated in their rules and/or FAQ just wanted to point it out. Many I came across let you keep 5 skill points from a previous levelup just like NWN2 does ;) Love having Mephisto's True Name...

[Kappa Omicron]

You guy's are making me REALLY want to go back and do a replay so I can get Mephisto's True Name and the others.

But I have to hold off because I already have too many games I'd like to clear before returning to one I've already played aha

Not to mention I still have a bunch of the other modules to even start... I've only just finished all three of the main campaigns!

I foresee I'll be playing NWN: EE even in the 2030s xD