Spellcraft

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I was wrong. There is the Handle traps option in the radial menu for a henchman. I did as you said, but Boddy didn't disarm a trap. Perhaps he doesn't have this spell yet.

 

@sestritsaA , it was a joke. I meant that you point Boddy at the trap and he sets it off.
In part from frustration when I play where anybody but Tomi tends to keep blundering into every single trap if there are enemies around. Especially the monk and the barbarian.

 

Sorry, I may not understand a joke sometimes because of my poor English.

Spellcraft 16 allows recognizing all 7th-level spells.

By the way, Boddy got Fireball at level 14 and he is OK. He casts good protections on himself and he rarely gets hurt.

Playing on the full DnD difficulty level is not so good, because enemy mages tend to kill themselves and their allies with their own spells and I don’t get XP for killing them. I wonder if charmed/dominated enemies and summoned creatures (and that great golem in HotU) steal your XP too when they kill somebody.

 

What I've seen is that all companions; including familiars and animal companions and summoned creatures all steal a portion of your party XP as if they were another party member. All earned experience is shared equally amongst all party members. I would assume that other allies gained through spells would work the same way. It's one of the "features" of Neverwinter that I never liked. If a druid summons her animal companion that is a class feature just like a fighter's martial weapon proficiency. The fighter doesn't lose a portion of his experience because his sword counts as an additional party member so a druid's animal companion shouldn't do so either. No class should lose experience because they are making use of a class feature.

As for traps; it's been about 15 years since I played NWN instead of NWN2 but I seem to remember that you had to tell allies not to mess with traps or they'd try with all of their inept skill to disarm them and usually get killed. And even if you did warn them to leave traps alone they'd still blindly run across them to reach foes. It could be that I'm misremembering though.

I also seem to remember that when-ever you gave companions orders they'd forget them every time you passed through a doorway/transition point. Not sure if that ever got addressed.

 

I don’t mind sharing XP among party members who travel with me. I hate ‘helpers’ who steal ALL your XP. I hate guards in the Peninsula district. They are meant to help you, but they slow your advance instead. You get no XP at all for an enemy killed by guards. I can deal with enemies myself if I do not rush forward, but lure them out little by little.

I suspect that charmed/dominated enemies and summoned by spells creatures steal all your XP too instead of sharing it when they kill an enemy. They are not party members.
Edit: I was able to check it myself. Dominated and summoned creatures share XP, they don't steal it all.

 

Sharing XP with real companions is one thing; sharing them with "companions" who are part of a classes class features like the Animal Companion or the Familiar or that are summoned or controlled via spell doesn't make sense; especially considering they get no benefit from the experience since the class-companions level is entirely determined from your class-level in tabletop. My first NWN character was a Druid who took Tomi as a companion and by the time I faced the first major boss the fact that I was getting 1/3 of earned experience because I used her Animal Companion and Tomi instead of 1/2 for having Tomi alone meant that by this time I was so far behind in levels I couldn't beat him. So I was doubly-gimped. I was two levels below what I should have been by that battle so both my character's animal companion AND Tomi were also two levels lower; and Tomi is extra gimped because his armor prevents him from using his full dexterity. These "class companions" never got attribute or AC or other adjustments by level that enemy monsters got so by the mid to upper levels they weren't even competitive. They couldn't fight a single monster of the same hit dice and live for more than a couple rounds.

But you are right; temporary allies should not steal ALL of the XP for the enemies they defeat in the encounters they are around for; it destroys the point of using them in the first place. When I figured that out I would ignore them when-ever possible and just slug it out with every enemy I could. It's bad enough that they'd steal a share of the XP for those encounters.

Monster casters that wipe out their own squads is also admittedly problematic in a game with limited XP because unlike say Diablo 2 you can't go back to earlier areas and farm some extra XP to make up the difference.

 

The battle you’ve mentioned is really difficult and requires a proper tactic. I had to reload several times. You should have level 8-9 by this time. Do you remember your level? Besides, the game lies you about the boss state in this battle. He is always ‘barely injured’ and suddenly he is ‘near death’ and surrender. You could be almost victorious and didn’t realize it.

 

Spellcraft is one of those must-have skills when I go through NWN just for the save bonuses. I never even thought about recognizing spells, really.

 

I don't remember level; that was nearly 2 decades ago. I do remember being utterly trounced after about half a dozen tries including using every buff I had - buffing potions and the works. First animal companion dies completely ineffectively; then Tomi dies completely ineffectively; then I die having done minimal damage to anyone. Couldn't even do significant damage to his companions.