Qara



Qara (female chaotic neutral human sorceress) is a joinable NPC in Neverwinter Nights 2.

"Qara has a knack for fire magic and destruction. She joins you because she's forced to do so, since she has ignited property of your uncle Duncan. She's very arrogant and self confident and you will very likely run into trouble with the Neverwinter Academy if you travel with her."

Gameplay
Her stats are: Str 10, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 11, Cha 18 (at level 6, which would be pointbuy 34 if she started with Cha 17). You can correct her bad spell selection when she levels up, because she is almost exclusively into attack spells in the beginning, even in totally crappy ones like Ghoul Touch. Support spells like Enlarge, Haste, or Stoneskin will make her a lot less often the target of all enemy attacks, and will quickly make her a great addition to any party. Like with all sorcerers, metamagic feats such as Empower Spell and Maximize Spell will allow her to use attack spells on levels where she has none preselected, which allows for more flexibility in her spell selection.

Skills
Other than the usual - maximize her Concentration and Spellcraft like any other spellcaster - there is nothing important to say about Qara's skills, especially since she does only get 4 skillpoints per levelup, not much to work with. The usual tricks are: A single point into Tumble allows her to make Tumble checks and might allow her to sometimes avoid one or the other attack. A single point into Use Magic Device allows her to use any divine scroll or wand.

Feats
Sorcerers benefit from metamagic much more than all other spellcasters. They can choose metamagic on the fly, which is also essential to make them really effective despite their short list of available spells. Especially Empower Spell and Maximize Spell will allow Qara to reduce her requirement to include damage spells on every one of her spelllevels. Additionally Extend Spell allows to improve some of the more shortlasting spells, especially buffs. Persistent Spell is a possible choice, but really the only spell one ever uses this one with is Haste. As there are no persistent haste items in the game (at least with the current patch), it would still be a great improvement of your overall game experience, simply because you can travel over the maps faster, always.

Spell Focus, Arcane Defense and Greater Spell Focus are popular feat choices. The benefit is however not very high, even for taking all three feats you only get +2 on your DC and +1 on your own saves. Qara already has fully focussed into Evocation when you get her.

Spell Penetration and Greater Spell Penetration are good feats, however the main game doesn't offer a single opponent with a noticeable spell resistance.

It is possible, but rather pointless, to take craft feats with Qara. Casters who have a broad selection of spells to choose from are much better with crafting, and Elanee, Sand and Zhjaeve together can already craft everything in the game.

Spells
If you get Qara with Level 6, she has the following spells: 1 - Burning Hands, Mage Armor, Magic Missle, Ghoul Touch, 2 - Combust, Fireburst, 3 - Fireball.

If you get Qara with Level 7, she has added the following spells: 1 - Shield, 2 - Melf's Acid Arrow, 3 - Flame Arrow. So if you can, get Qara with Level 6 instead, because these are really bad and redundant choices. A much better selection would be, for example: 1 - Enlarge, 2 - Mirror Image, 3 - Haste.

A levelup plan for Qara:


 * Levelup 7: 1 - Enlarge, 2 - Mirror Image, 3 - Haste;
 * Levelup 8: 4 - Stoneskin; 1 - trade Ghoul Touch for Protection from Alignment;
 * Levelup 9: 2 - Cloud of Bewilderment, 3 - Protection from Energy, 4 - Confusion; (FEAT: Empower Spell)
 * Levelup 10: 5 - Vitriolic Sphere; 2 - trade Fireburst for Tasha's Hideous Laughter;
 * Levelup 11: 2 - Knock (or Web), 3 - Dispel Magic, 4 - Elemental Shield, 5 - Mind Fog;
 * Levelup 12: 6 - Chain Lightning; 2 - trade Combust for Blindsight; (FEAT: Maximize Spell)
 * Levelup 13: 4 - Assay Resistance, 5 - Greater Fireburst, 6 - Isaac's Greater Missile Storm
 * Levelup 14: 7 - Mordenkainen's Sword; 1 - trade Burning Hands for Identify;
 * Levelup 15: 5 - Lesser Mind Blank, 6 - Tenser's Transformation, 7 - Energy Immunity; (FEAT: Extend Spell)
 * Levelup 16: 8 - Horrid Wilting; 1 - trade Mage Armor for Ray of Enfeeblement;
 * Levelup 17: 7 - Delayed Blast Fireball, 8 - Polar Ray;
 * Levelup 18: 9 - Bigby's Crushing Hand; [no trade]; (FEAT: ?)
 * Levelup 19: 8 - Sunburst, 9 - Greater Spell Mantle;
 * Levelup 20: 9 - Mordenkainen's Disjunction; [no trade];

This is intended for normal or easy difficulty. On true DnD and hardcore, you'll hurt your own party a lot with these spells, especially with Fireburst and Greater Fireburst which center on the caster.

Feel free to vary this plan as you see fit.

Basically you should give yourself more options - add defense spells, party buffs, summoning (albeit careful because these slots might become slotwasters when Qara levels up, plus she can only have one summon at a time anyway), and get attack spells that disable instead of only damage, and on different saves (for example, "Cloud of Bewilderment" has a Fortitude Save and is therefore good against enemy casters, while "Tasha's Hideous Laughter" has a Will Save and is good against fighters or thieves, even with the +4 Malus for anything but humans. "Ray of Enfeeblement" has NO save at all, uber strong for a level 1 spell, but sadly the effect isn't huge either), and get damage spells of different damage types so you are not helpless if you meet an opponent that is immune to fire, and finally, get something against opponents with Magic Resistance (there seems to be no way to reduce other kinds of resistances).

And finally, take into account Qaras focus into Evocation that makes spells of that school harder to resist than spells from other schools.

Cheats
With Qara, it hurts much more than with other characters that she got her initial levels without any guidance from the side of the player. You can however correct this quite easily; simply have Qara in party and select her with a right click on her person. Enable debugmode, give the commands givexp -  and givexp , then disable debugmode again. Qara will now be a level 1 character with the spells Burning Hands and Magic Missile, but with all xp to level her back to your current groups level. This way you can give her a good spell selection from the very beginning on.

Official Campaign
Qara is dropout of the Neverinter Academy of Magic. Being a sorceress, magic comes naturally to her and she does not see the need for studying tomes and brewing potions, but believes that instincts and natural talent is all one needs to excel in the field. She is often critisized by others for showing absolutely no control and restraint for her powers, which usually end up with Qara causing property damage. She looks down on others, particulary wizards like Sand, who need to put in a great amount of time and effort inorder to master the art. This attitude of superiority made her rather unpopular within the Academy and she is often the topic of gossips and rumors, to which she tends to over react to, like setting one of houses on fire or causing physical harm to those spreading the rumors. It has also been mentioned in passing the she is the daughter of the Academy's headmaster, but this plot was not expanded.

When she left the Academy, she got into a fight with Glina and another wizard from the Academy and damaged the Sunken Flagon. She was forced by Duncan to work as a waitress in the Flagon to pay for the property damage she caused. Shortly after, she was again attacked by other students from the Academy (Ashni and Praven), until they were stopped by Glina's father, Jorchis who told Qara that she would pay, and pay dearly for threatening his daughter. Jorchis enlisted the help of a Sydney Natale, a Host Tower Mage from Luskan, who summoned an Elemental Animus (the darkside of Qara's powers) that would destroy Qara with her own powers. The Animus then stalks Qara and attacks her on numerous occasion, however each time they are unable to fully destroy the Animus and Qara grows weaker.

When the PC and his party were searching for a way to defeat the Shadow Reavers, Sydney offered to meet with the PC as long as he/she brought only Qara and Zhjaeve. There Sydney revealed that she had the Shadow Reavers' true names but she was also there to fulfill the contract she had with Jorchis and kill Qara. Sydney summoned the Animus but this time it was destroyed by Qara and the PC and Sydney is also killed in the battle.

Qara's fate at the end of the quest depends on the PC's influence with her and Sand. If the PC has higher influence or equal influece with Sand, Qara joins Black Garius because of her petty hatred for Sand. If the PC has higher influence with Qara than Sand, Qara stays with the PC but Sand joins Garius.

Deleted Content

 * A deleted scene showed Praven and Ashni discussing in the Moonstone Mask how to best deal with Qara (after they had been expelled from the Academy). They suggested in divide and conquer (taking care of Qara's companions first before striking her).  Praven even made the comment that he wouldn't mind 'tackling' the wood-elf (Elanee).
 * Another deleted scene indicated that Qara was much more powerful that anyone had suspected. The scene was suppose to take place before the fall of Highcliff and showed Qara sitting alone by a campfire surrounded by barrels, till Sand suddenly approaches her.  Sand confronted her about her lack of restraint and control as usual and thus provoked Qara into showing her true power.  Her voice changed and the barrels around her suddenly burst into flames.  Sand, who obviously had no idea that Qara was already holding back most of her power all this time was shocked and frightened and decided to leave Qara alone without further provoking her.  But unknown to Qara, Bishop was lurking in the shadows and witnessed everything.  Sand then approached him and said "She's dangerous.  She needs to be stopped".  This might be foreshadowing that Qara might actually be a bigger threat than the King of Shadows if left unchecked, which Sand states if he sides with Black Garius.
 * A conversation that was removed from the final release of the game indicates that Qara's father had Sand removed from his teaching position at the Academy, thus explaining his animosity towards her.
 * Another conversation removed from the game shows that it was Sand who discovered a way to defeat the Animus. There were two ways to defeat it, either Qara learned to control her powers and show a little restraint to cut the Animus from its power source, or that she let loose and try to overload the Animus.