7. Right after getting to level 13, i got cursed by some undead. I mean, just sayin's all. Numerologists, get your notebooks out.
8. The fact that the expiration of a barbarian's rage can kill him is getting to be the bane of my existence. This does little to affect the actual difficulty of the game. While i'm fighting i keep an eye on my hit points anyway. I just keep dying after fights, when i think i've narrowly escaped death and forget to chug one, just one stinkin potion of cure light wounds.
9. I've acquired a new appreciation of +whatever weaponry. Given that i almost always play spellcasters in RPGs, i tend to be more interested in what kind of colored lights i can shoot out of my weapon rather than how hard i can whack stuff with it.
(Quoth my level 50-something druidic self in World of Warcraft: "hey, you know, i've never actually looked at my crit rating before...")
My barbaranger loves his +2 flail though. I never knew so many things in this game had damage resistance. Who cared while i had magic missiles?
As a corollary, i was afraid that by multiclassing as a ranger, my animal companion would be utterly useless for being low-level, but "magic fang" makes all the difference.
10. One of the nicer aspects of Icewind Dale was the relative lack of freebie magic spell-casting items. NWN 1&2 hand you way, wayyyy too many scabbards of blessing, rods of the ghost, wands of magic missiles and so forth. Who needs spellcasters when you get buffs, nukes and summoned creatures for free? This was also one of the pleasant aspects of Dragon Age as well in its re-evaluation of gameplay mechanics from paper to processor. Aside from the DLC packs, it didn't give you the feeling that it kept handing you ridiculous bonuses because the developers had no idea how to balance the game.
11. I set out to plan nothing about my character's build except for the overall goal of being a flailing menace, and i'm starting to regret it. I seemed to remember that offhand weapons get extra attacks per round as you level, but apparently i was wrong. I also cannot find any way to dual-wield two medium weapons. No monkey grip in NWN 1.
There's always a trade-off between researching a build and just winging it. I despise those so desperate to make themselves feel big that they can think of nothing but giving themselves advantages. However, there's always a certain delight in seeing a well-crafted plan come together. I think i'm more of a planner than an adventurer, myself. Oh well. I've made my bed, now i have to die in it.
12. Possibly the most ridiculous mechanic in both NWN games was resting. Just plopping your ass down wherever you want in order to fully recuperate completely invalidated the system. Torment had the best implementation, forcing you to seek a safe location in order to rest. Icewind Dale's ambushes as a deterrent to resting in the open might've meant something, if you couldn't simply save/re-load endlessly until you don't get ambushed. The worst way to handle it was Mask of the betrayer's "spirit hunger" mechanic, but there were so many things wrong with it that i won't get into everything here.
Who cares that i only get two or three barbarian rages per day when days come as often as i want them to?
13. As always, i'm annoyed at the moronic character advancement mechanic of gaining experience from killing monsters. Forcing you to depopulate the game world, chasing down every zombie and goblin for that constant stream of 2 XP per kill is a sad, pathetic way to handle progression. I think i'll fire up VtM:Bloodlines again and revel in an adventure without a grind.
I just AFKd three times to let a constantly-spawning stream of demons build up so i could level up off them. Bleagh.
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