Neverwinter Nights/Mechanics and Glitches

Game Mechanics

Timing rules

There are basically three sorts of action you can perform in Neverwinter Nights:

• Standard actions, like attacking and casting spells, have two lag periods, a shorter one which prevents you performing standard actions or moving, and a longer one that just prevents you performing standard actions. (Typical times for these lag periods are on the order of 2 seconds and 4 more seconds, respectively). As such, if you want to cast a lot of spells before a battle or the like, it's best to space them apart in time somewhat; the casting will happen just as fast as it would if you were standing still, but you'll be able to combine it with your movement. A good example is the divine casting trial in the Prelude; you need to cast a Cure spell, and Turn Undead (which internally implemented as a spell), and you get several seconds of running between them (which are best spent walking from the Injured Man back towards the door).
• Movement. You can move around with WASD or clicking at almost any time, apart from the short lag period after a standard action (or while entangled, paralysed, etc.). However, this will cancel any queued actions you have at the time. The reverse is not true: you can order a long move (via clicking on a distant target), then queue up other actions to perform after it completes. The cancelling-other-actions effect is sometimes useful; for instance, pressing W is the fastest way to cancel a rest (you can start giving useful orders faster after pressing W than after manually clicking on the "cancel rest" button, which is also a pretty small target). Another way to move is to give melee-only actions (like "open door" or "attack") on distant targets; this is similar to moving up to the target then performing the action, but it doesn't cancel queued actions. So on the "hit the gongs in sequence" puzzles in Chapter 3, you can get a perfect time just by clicking on all the gongs faster than the character can reach them, causing the character to run to the next gong as soon as a gong is hit.
• Conversation and changing equipment. These actions happen instantaneously, so long as you aren't in combat and don't have an action queued, and the game isn't paused. (Some equipment slots can be changed even when in combat, so long as you aren't in either lag period after a standard action). There is no lag after these actions; you can spam equipment changes and conversation items as fast as you can input them. Starting and resetting conversations (you reset a conversation via clicking on the person you're conversing with) can be done even while the game is paused; this is essential to one of the major glitches. Other similar actions cannot be performed while the game is paused, but can be pause-buffered; in order to get through a conversation quickly in in-game time, you can pause the game, select an option from the conversation, quickly hit Space twice, and repeat. This is slower in terms of the time you actually get for the run, but sometimes necessary to finish a conversation before you get attacked (forcing you into combat) or before an enemy despawns.

Glitches

Plot item duplication

Works on: unpatched, Diamond

Effect: If you have the only copy in the game universe of an item flagged as "essential to the plot", gain a second copy of it (if it's unsellable, for 1gp).

How to perform: Drop your plot item (preferably near a Divining Pool; this isn't necessary to the glitch, but makes it faster to perform). Go to a Divining Pool (there's one near each Recall target point), which should now sell you a second copy of the item. Then pick up the original.

Uses: The main (and probably only) use of this glitch is to sequence-break past most of Chapters 2 and 3. You can duplicate a cultist's journal in Chapter 2 (probably the Charwood Cultist's; it's the fastest to obtain), then use both copies to immediately unlock the gate to Luskan. Chapter 3 can be broken a similar way, but the glitch is a little harder to perform because you need three Words of Power to complete the chapter; you'll have to turn in the duplicate Word of Power to Aarin (leave the original on the ground), then pick up and drop the original in order to get a second duplicate (allowing you to turn in the second duplicate and the original to complete the chapter).

You can duplicate plot items in Chapter 1, but it isn't useful; Aribeth won't accept the same reagent twice.

Item and experience farming in Chapter 1e

Works on: unpatched, Diamond

Effect: Gain multiple copies of the quest reward items from the Guardian of Helm quest in Chapter 1e (both the "good" and "evil" paths), and arbitrarily large experience.

How to perform: After completing the Guardian of Helm quest (either by completing the summoning of the demon, or banishing it and summoning the Guardian in its place), and gaining the quest rewards, resetting the conversation works and allows you to get the rewards again, but only for 3 in-game seconds. Pause-buffering the conversation will let you get the item rewards several times; the experience reward happens right at the start of the conversation, so you can just reset the conversation repeatedly to gain arbitrary experience.

Uses: The Guardian of Helm quest is less than a minute off the fastest route in Chapter 1e, and can farm you enough experience for the whole run, and enough gold (via saleable items) to at least get through Chapter 2.

Notes: The number of items you can get depends on your alignment. When using the demon (which is faster and has better item rewards), Good has less text than Neutral, which has less text than Evil; so being of a more Good alignment will allow you to farm more items in those 3 in-game seconds you have. However, being more Evil means you get more experience per click, so although you get less gold, you save time farming experience. The best of both worlds is to be Chaotic Evil for the demon (or Lawful Good for the Good route through the quest); this gives you the fastest possible experience gain rate, but also gives you a double item reward from the conversation (which is badly bugged; it shows two "Continue" options, you need to take the first).

You can farm experience faster by using two mice (say, a mouse and a touchpad), and spamming clicks with both hands.

Gold farming at the start of Chapter 1

Works on: unpatched

Effect: Gain 100gp from conversation, an unlimited number of times.

How to perform: Ask Aribeth if she'll answer some questions, then for a reminder on how to use the Stone of Recall. Then go through the conversation naturally.

Uses: Although this is a relatively slow method of gold farming, it's available so early that it can get you through early-game purchases. In particular, it can allow you to afford henchmen and Recalls until you've defeated Meldanen.

Immunity exploits

Works on: unpatched

Effect: Damage enemies that are meant to be invulnerable.

How to perform: Use a spell whose damage type is not physical nor one of the standard elements (fire, cold, electricity, acid, sonic). Good examples include Horrid Wilting (works on all such enemies, as far as I know), and Harm (won't work in the endgame, will work elsewhere).

Uses: You can combine Harm and Negative Energy Ray to sequence-break the Creator Race Ruins in chapter 3, but the current any% route doesn't go there. Horrid Wilting can also work as a decent backup strategy for the Protectors during the final boss, but it won't oneshot them unless they make their save.

DetermineCombatRound breaking

Works on: unpatched, Diamond

Effect: An enemy is hostile to you, but does not attack you unless you actively provoke them.

How to perform: This is only possible due to mistakes in an enemy's script; "turn hostile" (i.e. reputation changes) and "enter combat AI" (DetermineCombatRound in the code) calls are separate, and sometimes the code has different triggers for one than the other. In particular, the final fight against Morag starts her combat AI loop when attacked or via conversation, and you can break the conversation via being in combat at the time, such as via bashing the door next to her at or just before the instant she tries to force conversation.

A more minor version of this glitch causes several plot enemies (e.g. Callik, Klauth) to waste their first round of combat if you initiate combat yourself via spellcasting (possibly also via other means), meaning you get two tries to land a particular spell on them before being attacked back.

Uses: You can deal with Statue and the Protectors as you wish before Morag starts fighting, making the boss fight much easier. Once that's been done, you can start the fight correctly by using any attack on Morag (ranged attacks work best as she teleports across the room after being attacked, and you can make her teleport to your position).

There are mixed reports about reproducing this glitch on Diamond; it is definitely possible to glitch Morag out, but may require a more complicated setup (one theory is that the timing is more precise and thus you have to be on the other side of the door for the glitch to work).

Instant Rest

Works on: unpatched, untested on Diamond

Effect: Get the full effect of a Rest (hitpoint gain, spell and ability refresh) in 6 seconds rather than 30. (Caveat: for some reason, this usually fails to heal henchmen.)

How to perform: There are two known ways to do this. One is to cast Time Stop just before resting (the exact timing is unknown, but a likely guess is that it's one short action lag). The other is to save and reload the game just after resting (again, you need to wait some short length of time for this to work, but not very long). You need to meet all the other conditions for Resting to be legal (i.e. neither you nor any member of your party has been in combat recently, you haven't been damaged recently, and there are no enemies nearby).

Uses: All the reasons you'd normally Rest (notably: planned healing; emergency healing to recover from a fight going wrong; refreshing spells).

Dispel Area

Works on: unpatched

Effect: Suppress any area effect, either for a short length of time or permanently.

How to perform: Cast any dispel effect (Lesser Dispel is the most easily obtainable) centred on the area effect.

Uses: If doing the Silver Sails route through the Docks, destroy the web that normally entangles you; this is permanent. (However, the Silver Sails is avoided on any% routes because it's so much slower than the alternative.) Suppress the barrier in the final boss fight that normally instakills you; however, this only lasts for a random time between 0 and 6 seconds, making this glitch quite risky (if it doesn't go down for long enough, you will die running across it unless it happens to roll very low on its damage).