Neverwinter Nights Treasure System

This article is concerned with the treasure system in BioWare's cRPG of 2002, Neverwinter Nights. Treasure is a form of cRPG itemization.

I distinguish between three types of treasure in NWN: randomized, static and tailored. As a rule, the quality of treasure scales with character level and chapter progression.

Randomized Treasure

Most treasure is randomized and looted from generic enemy corpses and receptacles (chests, barrels, crates etc.). In the OC, randomized treasure is ubiquitous, normally trivial or of questionable utility, and looted mostly to sell off for gold, but there can be surprises (e.g, a random drop of Boots of Speed). The quality level of randomized treasure is dependent on character level, not Chapter progression. For example, we need to be around 12th level in order to find the BoS randomly itemized.

Static Treasure

Static treasure is hand-placed by the designer, it can always be found in the same place in every play-through, without fail. Quest items are a prime example of static treasure. Vendor itemization is static as well. In the OC, the enchantment level of mechant items is dependent on chapter-progression.

cf. Shining Knight Arms & Armor.

Tailored Treasure

And tailored treasure is what we sometimes find in "boss chests". Put simply, if we have Weapon Focus: Katana then we can expect to find a katana in our bedroom trunk at the beginning of the game. We can also expect to find a Katana +1 in boss chests (the first of which will probably be in the Devourer's lair). The +1 weapons can then be upgraded by Marrok's Forge in the City Core.

It isn't always this cut and dry, but the point is that we WILL find useful stuff for our character as we progress through the campaign; it just sort of falls into our lap.

The OC's various areas contain way too many receptacles. Entering a room and being confronted with five crates, seven barrels and two or three locked and trapped chests is facepalm-inducing after a while. Especially when we know there's only going to be garbage inside them most of the time.

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