Yeah, that and a way to faster to cast all your buffs out of combat. If they fixed the UI scaling so it's more the just too small or big AF they could have a few clickable quick-slots. A UI mod for NWN2 have a bunch of small drag-able hot-bars as well as a quick cast spell book, that only shows the spells you have prepared, that makes it easy to cast your spells.

Just happened to notice this topic (I don't visit this particular subforum that often), but this talk about respawning after death has led to a question:
* Has there been any module where you *had* to die and respawn in order to progress?

(I often think of whether there could be troll modules in this game, and having to die might be the sort of mechanic that would fit in this sort of module; now there's just the matter of making it not so easy to die.) Reminds me of Ultima 7's inventory system, though there the problem was different:
* The inventory is a mess, and it can be annoying to find that one item you need from it when you need it.
* The game requires that you manually feed characters so that they don't starve (simply having food isn't enough), which forces the player to interact with the inventory system more than would otherwise be necessary, making the inventory issue worse.

Personally, I would prefer it if games would just use an inventory system where your only limit is 99 of an item and such inventory is shared; Ultima 4 and 5 do this, as well as much of the Final Fantasy series (FF5 and FF6 come to mind). This way, you never have to drop any items.

By the way, another thought relating to an inventory system: In Might and Magic: World of Xeen, your armor inventory tends to fill up quickly, armor breaks easily (reach -10 HP and *all* worn armor breaks, and you have to go back to town if you want it repaired), and I've found that AC isn't worth the trouble (especially since there are entire areas, the first town being one of them, where AC will do you no good). Easier just to ignore armor and sell everything that appears in your armor inventory, so you only have to worry about other types of items. What if, instead, you rarely get gear that *isn't* better than what you have?

One simple way of doing this would be to make enemies not drop their equipment on death, but put exceptions for anything interesting that the enemy has. That way, enemies wouldn't drop plain longswords well after they're obsolete, for example.

I think JRPGs tend to have the right idea here (though they do have a stealing mechanic that does not make logical sense; you can steal from an enemy in some games (including Final Fantasy 3 and onwards), and get an item the enemy would not have dropped on death.

(Speaking of which, having allies drop their inventory on death makes things annoying; it's why, in Baldur's Gate 2, I would often reload on death even though resurrection is easy to come by in that game.)

I can't name any off the top of my head, but I'm sure there has. Probably not a troll module though, I can't imagine there would be much interest in that among NWN players. It's more likely that the module description would tell you that it's an important part of the module, or death would be inevitable at some point anyway, to ensure the player notices dying is required.

Well, the description of a troll mario hack I downloaded and am playing did mention that dying would be required a couple of times (and I've already encountered one of those instances).

In any case, the way I see it, the point of a troll module wouldn't be to make the player rage or have to repeat tons of content, but more to entertain. Specifically:
* Trolls work best when they violate the player's expectations. People expect things to work a certain way, and a good troll will violate it in some way.
* One sign that a troll is well done if it makes the player laugh.
* There's good troll design, and there's bad troll design. Bad troll design would be a situation where the player must choose between three doors, and two of them lead to instant game overs. Good troll design would be something like the player fighting a troll (the creature), but if that troll is killed with fire or acid (something an experienced player is likely to try), it instead gets up and becomes too powerful for the player to defeat.

I think troll modules might be interesting for exploring the mechanics of the game and what is possible with the engine, in a way that conventional modules might not get into.

(Also, how about pure puzzle modules? Here the module creator doesn't hide things or violate the player's expectations, but the player still needs to reason how to get through, and it's possible that one could be designed to make death necessary at some point.)

Maybe I just wouldn't use the same term as you. I don't associate anything good with "troll", apart from Scandinavian folklore and The Hobbit. Playing with expectations seems like a common design approach to me, and trolling is hardly ever funny to me. In my book both of your examples would be bad game design, neither sounds like much fun to me. But YMMV.

Anyway, i'm not saying troll modules don't exist for NWN or that they couldn't be interesting to you, I'm just saying this kind of thing is not what most people downloading NWN modules are looking for, so they would not be well known and played by many. A good author might successfully use some "trolling" mechanics in their module, but I doubt a module strictly based on trolling or puzzles only would be much of a success.

The whole notion of "trolling" is a pretty bad way of saying, breaking of tradition. A good way to engage someone in any art-form is to set up an expectation and then break or subvert it in some way.
I think most player that completed HotU where expecting the game to end with the big battle in the Underdark, but instead the demon that's been bound to servitude breaks his bonds and kills you. I thought that he would just return to hell when I won against the main antagonist, but was rewarded with a curse instead of a blessing. And that is not the developers "trolling" the player, but breaking tradition and expectations to create a better game.

So "trolling" used in this kind of context means nothing, really.

Quote* Ok, It was because I read a comment about how the respawn mechanic was very cool in some other module (can't remember which one) that had me worried that I might had missed something in the main campaigns.*Unquote

In those modules where people a admiring the respawn system, it's usually because it's been customized. Sometimes you have an interaction with death or the lord of the dead. Sometimes you can bargain with it.
Main campain's respawn kinda defeats the point if you died because you already couldn't handle your enemy and have less money to buy better armor and less exp to increase your skills after respawn, but in customized modules, it can add to the fun sometimes.

*snip*

DT, I have played on a persistent world that required respawning to get into the actual world. That's as far as I've played where it was "required" to advance, but I've heard of some privately made modules requiring it.

Have a good one! I'm excited, just got a hefty discount on NWN EE and picked the whole package up for $15. Can't wait to start SoU. Completed the first campaign years ago, and never went back due to WoW taking over my life.

To the OP: I believe your answer has been given already, but with the official campaigns, afaik it's always better to reload than respawn.