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Spell Changes

Player-cast spells and effects last twice as long, epic spells are dramatically stronger than stock NWN, a few utility spells are re-tuned, and one is disabled outright.

Epic Spell Enhancements

The epic spells have been rebuilt to feel genuinely epic. Several summon and ward effects cannot be dispelled.

Spell	This module
Dragon Knight	Summons the Epic Dragon Knight — a level-60 Fighter Red Dragon (CR 123, 540 HP, Str/Dex/Con/Cha 40). 30-round duration. Cannot be dispelled.
Mummy Dust	Summons the Epic Mummy Reaper — a dual-class level-60 undead warrior (CR 212, 520 HP). 30-hour duration. Cannot be dispelled.
Epic Ward	Damage Reduction 60/+20. Cannot be dispelled. Duration = 1 round per caster level (so ~40 rounds / 4 minutes at the level-40 caster cap). It also expires early once it has absorbed 35 × caster level total damage (≈ 1,400 at caster level 40), whichever comes first.
Hellball	10d20 of each damage type (Acid, Electrical, Fire, Sonic) over a massive area. Reflex save for partial reduction; knocks down targets if total damage exceeds 200.
Greater Ruin	500d20 damage to a single target (roughly 500–10,000, averaging ~5,250). Fortitude save (DC = your epic spell save DC). On a successful save the damage is divided by 300 — i.e. cut to a few dozen points, effectively negligible rather than merely halved.
Curse Song (Bard)	Fully custom debuff that scales with your Perform skill and Bard level across 23 tiers, in a colossal-radius (30 ft) sphere. At the top tier: −15 attack, −10 damage, −7 all saves, −15 AC, −18 all skills, and 98 sonic damage. See the full Curse Song ladder below.
Bard Song (Bard)	The companion buff to Curse Song, rebuilt to match: a 23-tier ladder scaling with your Perform skill and Bard level, buffing the bard and nearby allies in a colossal-radius (30 ft) sphere. At the top tier: +6 attack, +6 damage, +4 all saves, +60 temporary HP, +6 AC, +12 all skills. Tuned conservatively (about half of Curse Song's magnitudes) so a party-wide buff stays fair. See the full Bard Song ladder below.

Curse Song Ladder (Bard)

Curse Song is a ladder of 23 tiers, not a single formula. You reach a tier only when you meet both its Perform-skill rank and its Bard-level requirement; the song then applies every penalty on that row to enemies in a 30 ft (colossal-radius) sphere. Base duration is 15 rounds — the Lingering Song feat adds +15 rounds, and Lasting Impression multiplies the duration ×15.

Perform ≥	Bard lvl ≥	Attack	Damage	Will	Fort	Reflex	Sonic dmg	AC	Skills
80	30	−15	−10	−7	−7	−7	98	−15	−18
75	29	−13	−8	−5	−5	−5	56	−10	−17
60	28	−10	−6	−4	−4	−4	44	−8	−16
55	27	−8	−6	−4	−4	−4	42	−8	−15
50	26	−7	−6	−3	−2	−2	40	−6	−14
45	25	−7	−5	−3	−2	−2	38	−6	−13
40	24	−6	−5	−3	−2	−2	36	−5	−12
35	23	−6	−5	−3	−2	−2	34	−5	−11
30	22	−6	−5	−3	−2	−2	32	−5	−10
25	21	−6	−5	−3	−2	−2	30	−5	−9
20	20	−6	−5	−3	−2	−2	28	−5	−8
15	19	−5	−4	−3	−2	−2	26	−5	−7
12	18	−5	−4	−3	−2	−2	24	−5	−6
10	17	−5	−4	−3	−2	−2	22	−5	−5
9	16	−4	−4	−3	−2	−2	20	−5	−4
8	15	−4	−4	−2	−2	−2	16	−4	−3
7	14	−4	−4	−1	−1	−1	16	−3	−2
6	12	−4	−3	−1	−1	−1	8	−2	−2
5	8	−3	−3	−1	−1	−1	8	0	−1
4	6	−2	−3	−1	−1	−1	0	0	−1
2	3	−2	−3	−1	−1	0	0	0	0
1	2	−1	−2	−1	0	0	0	0	0
1	1	−1	−1	0	0	0	0	0	0

Bard Song Ladder (Bard)

Stock Bard Song stopped scaling at Bard 20 and gave only modest bonuses. Here it is the mirror of Curse Song — a ladder of 23 tiers reached only when you meet both its Perform rank and its Bard level, granting every bonus on that row to the bard and allies in a 30 ft sphere. Duration rules are identical to Curse Song. Because buffing a whole party is stronger than debuffing enemies, the bonuses are tuned conservatively (roughly half of Curse Song's combat magnitudes) and the sonic-damage column becomes temporary hit points here.

Perform ≥	Bard lvl ≥	Attack	Damage	Will	Fort	Reflex	Temp HP	AC	Skills
80	30	+6	+6	+4	+4	+4	60	+6	+12
75	29	+6	+5	+4	+4	+4	52	+5	+11
60	28	+5	+5	+4	+4	+4	46	+5	+10
55	27	+5	+5	+4	+4	+4	44	+5	+10
50	26	+5	+5	+3	+3	+3	42	+4	+9
45	25	+5	+5	+3	+3	+3	40	+4	+9
40	24	+4	+4	+3	+2	+2	36	+4	+8
35	23	+4	+4	+3	+2	+2	34	+4	+8
30	22	+4	+4	+3	+2	+2	32	+3	+7
25	21	+4	+4	+3	+2	+2	30	+3	+7
20	20	+4	+4	+3	+2	+2	28	+3	+6
15	19	+4	+4	+2	+2	+2	26	+3	+6
12	18	+3	+4	+2	+2	+2	24	+3	+5
10	17	+3	+4	+2	+2	+2	22	+3	+5
9	16	+3	+3	+2	+2	+2	20	+2	+4
8	15	+3	+3	+2	+1	+1	16	+2	+3
7	14	+3	+3	+1	+1	+1	14	+2	+2
6	12	+2	+3	+1	+1	+1	10	+2	+2
5	8	+2	+3	+1	+1	+1	8	+1	+1
4	6	+2	+3	+1	+1	+1	4	+1	+1
2	3	+1	+2	+1	+1	0	0	0	+1
1	2	+1	+2	+1	0	0	0	0	0
1	1	+1	+1	0	0	0	0	0	0

Shapeshifting: Full Equipment Merge

Every player polymorph now merges all of your equipped items' magical properties into the new form — stock NWN merged only a per-form subset (druid Wild Shape: armor, helmet and shield only), and never put weapon properties on a form's natural attacks.

• Weapon → claws, bite and slam. Your equipped weapon's properties are copied onto the form's natural attacks (and onto its right-hand weapon for humanoid forms). If you shift while unarmed, your gloves' properties ride the natural attacks instead.
• Everything else → hide. Armor, helmet, shield, both rings, amulet, cloak, boots, belt and gloves merge onto the form's creature hide.
• AC and ability bonuses stack the way they do unshifted. These two are not put on the hide. Instead the form gets your gear's AC by type (armor enhancement, shield, deflection, dodge and natural, highest item per type, dodge added up), and your ability bonuses added up across items (to the usual +24 cap). All of this comes on top of what the form itself adds. Your armor's and shield's own base AC go into the form's natural armor.
• Applies to: druid Wild Shape and Elemental Shape, all Shifter shapes (Greater Wildshape I–IV, Humanoid, Undead, Dragon, Outsider, Construct), and the arcane self-polymorphs Polymorph Self, Shapechange and Tenser's Transformation (which merged nothing at all in stock NWN).

You can use items while shifted. Stock NWN locks your inventory the moment you polymorph. Here you can still drink potions, read scrolls and use other items from your pack in any form.

Scaled Summons & Animal Companions

Your summoned creatures and animal companion grow with you. The moment one appears it gains a single permanent, undispellable boost based on your investment as a summoner — so a high-level druid's or ranger's pet stays relevant on this high-magic server instead of falling behind. The bonus scales with your class level (druid, or the higher of druid/ranger for an animal companion), your Animal Empathy skill, and the Conjuration spell-focus feat line (Spell Focus → Greater → Epic Spell Focus). Summons from other classes (e.g. a wizard's) are unaffected.

Stat	Scales with	Max at the top end
Attack bonus	class level, Animal Empathy, Conjuration focus	+20
Armor Class (dodge)	class level, Animal Empathy, Conjuration focus	+12
All saving throws	class level, Animal Empathy, Conjuration focus	+20
All ability scores (drives HP via Con)	class level, Animal Empathy, Conjuration focus	+24

An epic summon and a normal summon at the same time

Stock NWN lets you have one summoned creature at a time, so casting Mummy Dust or Dragon Knight sent your Summon Creature away. Here the two epic summons take a different slot, so you can have one epic summon out alongside one normal summon. Mummy Dust and Dragon Knight still replace each other, and normal summons are still one at a time.

Summon Creature IX: amulets change what answers

Wear one of these amulets when you cast Summon Creature IX and, instead of the usual elemental, one of three creatures tied to the amulet answers, picked at random each cast:

Amulet (neck slot)	Where it comes from	Summons one of
Amulet of the Planes	Carried by the Balrog of Moria	Summoned Planar King, Summoned Dark Mage, Summoned Animated Armour
Amulet of the Wild	Carried by Thranduil, King of Eryn Lasgalen (Thranduil's Hall, Mirkwood)	Summoned Troll Seer, Summoned Umber Hulk Shaman, Summoned Kobold Renegade

Other Spell Changes

• Summon Creature I–IX — fixed duration of 24 hours; the duration no longer scales with caster level. (The summoned creature's stats still scale with you — see Scaled Summons & Animal Companions above.)
• Negative Energy Burst — the bonus damage is your full caster level (d8 + caster level). Stock NWN caps that bonus at +20.
• Healing Circle — Empower works differently. It does not raise the damage Healing Circle deals to undead at all. When healing, Empower boosts only the d8, and your caster level is added afterwards (stock NWN empowers d8 + caster level).
• Bigby's Grasping Hand — reworked:
  • The target first gets a Reflex save to avoid the hand entirely.
  • If that fails, the hand's touch attack is much more accurate (caster level + 25, instead of + 10).
  • The grapple that follows is very likely to succeed: the target resists with only its size and your Strength modifier, with no d20 and no base attack bonus.
  • A grappled target is paralyzed. Creatures immune to paralysis aren't held at all (stock NWN still holds them in place).
• Bigby's Crushing Hand — easier grapple, weaker hold:
  • The target resists the grapple with its base attack bonus, size and your Strength modifier, but no d20, so the grapple succeeds more often than in stock.
  • Most targets are held in place rather than paralyzed: they can't move, but they can still attack and cast. The crushing damage each round is unchanged.

Healing Circle and both Bigby's hands are under review and may change.

Attack Bonuses from Spells Stack

In stock NWN, attack bonuses from spells and effects don't add up: the game keeps only the single largest one. A permanent +5 from a feat would make a +2 from War Cry worth nothing at all.

Here these sources are added together instead:

• the spells Bless, Aid, Prayer, War Cry, Divine Favor, Divine Power and the Divine Champion's Divine Wrath;
• Bard Song;
• legendary feats such as Legendary Prowess, Legendary Grip and Legendary Reaping.

Bard Song's and the legendary feats' damage bonuses stack the same way. Your weapon's enchantment adds on top, as it always has. Stock spells not listed here still follow the largest-only rule. Your total attack bonus is still capped, but the cap is higher here — see Maximum Attack Bonus.

Your Companions' Area Spells Don't Hit You

This server runs on Hardcore rules, where area spells hurt everyone in the blast, including your friends. A companion's Hellball could flatten the player who summoned it.

Now, when a player's henchman, summon, familiar or animal companion casts an area spell (Hellball, Fireball, Meteor Swarm, Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, Firestorm, Horrid Wilting, Wail of the Banshee, Implosion, Blade Barrier, Creeping Doom and the like), it can't hurt you, anyone in your party, or your party's pets and summons. It still hurts enemies normally.

This only works one way. Your own area spells still hit your henchmen and party, exactly as in stock Hardcore rules, so watch where you aim.

Soul-fatigue on Heal

Healing is a timed resource, not a button you hold. Being healed by one of the three full-restore spells — Heal, Mass Heal or Greater Restoration, including from Heal potions and any item that casts them — leaves a stack of soul-fatigue on you. The order of events matters:

1. The heal resolves in full first — you go to 100% HP as normal.
2. You then take 8% of your maximum HP as damage for every stack you were already carrying, applied after the top-off so the heal cannot erase it — less whatever the healer's Heal skill shaves off (see below).
3. One new stack is added.

• Each stack decays on its own independent 3-minute timer. You are told on screen how many stacks you hold and when each one falls off.
• Soul-fatigue is a debt you cannot walk away from. Stacks are saved to your character, so they survive a logout — and the timers pause while you are offline, so logging out to wait them down achieves nothing. Dying does not clear them either: you respawn carrying exactly what you had. Three minutes of being in the world removes a stack — and the one and only shortcut is a pipe of Shire leaf smoked at the Smoking Chamber, which clears the lot at once.
• A heal at zero stacks is completely free — full benefit, one stack, no damage. It is chain-healing that turns dangerous.
• The damage is a scripted cost, not an attack: damage resistance, damage reduction and immunities do not reduce it. It can kill you — when the bill exceeds the hit points you have, it kills you outright rather than leaving you on 1 HP, and you get a red on-screen notice naming soul-fatigue as the cause. The on-screen warning after each heal tells you what the next one will cost, and simply says it will kill you once that is the honest answer.
• Shapeshifting is not a way out. Wild shape, Greater Wild Shape, Shifter forms, Dragon Shape, Elemental Shape and Polymorph Self all carry their own, usually larger, pool of hit points — and the bill is charged against the form you are wearing. A dragon-shape druid pays 8% per stack of the dragon's maximum, not of their character sheet, so the percentages in the table below hold in every shape.
• Casting Heal on undead harms them rather than healing them, so it produces no stack and no damage. DMs are unaffected.

Stacks held when the heal lands	HP left immediately after the heal
0	100% — free
1	92%
2	84%
5	60%
9	28%
12	4%
13 or more	Dead — the hit exceeds 100% of your maximum HP

Figures above are for a healer with no Heal skill. Heal skill pushes every row further down the table.

Doubled Spell & Effect Duration

Every temporary effect you or your companions create lasts twice as long as stock NWN — buffs you cast, potions and scrolls you drink, debuffs you inflict on enemies, and buffs from your henchmen, summons and familiars. Effects that enemies place on you are unchanged.