Kein Operationsplan reicht mit einiger Sicherheit
über das erste Zusammentreffen mit der feindlichen Hauptmacht hinaus.
(No plan of operations extends with any certainty
beyond the first contact with the main hostile force.)

—Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Über Strategie (1871)

NWN:EE Custom Class Guide — Part 1: Concept and Outline

Before we start cracking open toolsets and writing scripts, we need to know where we are going with all this—we need a plan. While it is very possible to do class design 'bottom-up'—starting with mechanics and scripts, and building the class concept on top of that—I plan to start with a more traditional 'top-down' approach, and I recommend you do the same. Starting with a broad, high-level plan for your first custom class will help in identifying which darlings you need to kill—mechanics that can be simplified, cut, or substituted out in order to make sure you can finish something, even if it's not exactly what you set out to do.

To get us started, it's probably a good idea to start with a martial class that ideally introduces a minimum of entirely new feats—this allows us to postpone worrying about all the extra work involved around spellcasting for a little while longer, as well as giving us one or two clear scripting goals to start with once we get into implementing our class feats in the game. To this end, I'm going to focus the first part of this guide on developing my Wayfinder concept—a martial class heavily inspired by the Scout of D&D 3e, simplified in various ways to fit the NWN engine and just to keep things easy in this first attempt at a custom class.

With our concept put to paper, we can now flesh out the details of a class outline. This outline should provide all of the key game information of the class: alignment restrictions, hit dice, save progression, skill point progressions, armour and weapon proficiencies, level-by-level feat progressions, and so on. You don't need to have every single detail down to a tee at this stage—it's alright to list the general sorts of class skills you want to have without individually listing every one, or to list names and vague ideas for class feats without exactly specifying the mechanics of the feat at this stage. In truth, a lot of things you put down in the outline at this stage are likely to change as you iterate on your custom class throughout the creation process. What matters most is having something down to guide you through filling out the class details for the game engine.

Below is an example outline for my Wayfinder class concept.

The Wayfinder Class

Hit die: d8

Proficiencies: armor (light, medium), shields, weapons (simple, martial)

Skill points: 6 + int modifier ((6 + int modifier) * 6 at 1st level)

Skills: animal empathy, craft weapon/armor/trap, disable trap, discipline, heal, hide, listen, move silently, parry, ride, search, set trap, spot, tumble

Unavailable feats: brew potion, craft wand, curse song, divine might, divine shield, extra music, extra turning, lingering song, quicken spell, scribe scroll, spell focus, weapon specialization

Bonus feats: fighter bonus list, minus weapon specialization feats, plus skill focus feats

Primary saving throw(s): fortitude, reflex

Base attack bonus: +3/4 levels

Spellcasting: n/a

Level progression

*New feats.

Hunter's sense

The wayfinder adds her Wisdom modifier to attack rolls and to damage with weapons while in wilderness areas.

Wayfinder fast movement

The wayfinder gains a +10% bonus to movement while in wilderness areas.

Notes

• Most of the feats the Wayfinder gets are copied across from other classes (Uncanny Dodge I-VI, Woodland Stride, Trackless Step, Evasion, etc.)—this is intentional, to keep the number of feats I need to script from scratch to a minimum. Always double-check that feats borrowed from other classes are actually working on your custom class when you get to playtesting the class, as some feat bonuses in the NWN engine are tied to levels in certain classes, rather than the feats themselves.
• Gaining base 6 skill points per level is not something you find in any of the official classes in NWN—rogues gain 8 skill points per level, and every other class gains either 4 (bard, harper scout, ranger, but also barbarian, druid, etc.) or 2 (fighter, paladin, sorcerer, wizard, etc.). I wanted a high skill progression to be a part of the class's identity, but didn't want to risk stepping too much on the rogue's toes. Hence, I opted for half-way between the rogue's 8 and other higher-skill classes' 4. As long as you never claim your module/custom class is Pen-and-Paper (PnP) compliant, you can do whatever makes the most sense for the concept you are developing.
• For this first class, I'm exclusively looking at getting to grips with passive feats—feats that provide some constant or conditional benefit. We'll tackle activated feats in some future instalment.
• The two new feats proposed for this class are intended to be a little challenging—in particular, hunter's sense is going to require updating the bonus to attack and damage rolls whenever the character's Wisdom modifier changes, which can occur as a result of levelling up, equipment, spells, and so on.