← All customizations · Appearance & Crafting

Appearance & Crafting

Free cosmetic changes to your character and gear, plus paid enchanting at the Forge of Wonders.

Player Appearance & Alignment

Visit the Appearance Changer and Character Modifying Area in Bree to open an appearance menu with 315+ creature forms. The change is free and permanent until you change it again.

The same area also lets you change your alignment (good/evil and law/chaos). This is how you set up otherwise-impossible class combinations — shift your alignment to qualify for builds like a monk/barbarian or a paladin/blackguard.

Item Appearance Crafting

Armor, cloak, shield and weapon appearance can be remodelled with the CEP crafting system (the Craft Armor / Craft Weapon options). There is no fail chance — every appearance change succeeds automatically, regardless of your skill ranks. Reshaping the model of a piece (shoulders, boots, weapon parts, shield model, etc.) is reached from the Dye Studio via its Reshape appearance… button; recolouring is done in the Dye Studio itself.

Dye Studio — Recolour Your Gear

The Dye Studio is a point-and-click colour picker for your armor, helmet and cloak. It's free, instant, and can't fail, every colour is previewed live on your character, and dyeing never changes an item's stats.

Where to get it: buy a Dye Kit from the Well Mart in the Well of Eru, or at Tagget's Smith Shop in Bree. Keep it in your inventory and use (activate) it to open the Dye Studio window.

The window opens beside your character so you can watch the preview. Work through it top to bottom:

Pick a piece — the top row of buttons chooses which equipped item to dye: Armor, Helmet or Cloak. The active piece is highlighted.
Pick a colour channel — the two rows below are the six tint channels: Cloth 1/2, Leather 1/2 and Metal 1/2. Each part of a piece uses one of these; the active channel is highlighted, and there is a separate palette for cloth/leather versus metal.
Pick a colour — click any swatch in the grid to apply it instantly to your character. There are 176 colours per channel; use Prev colors / More colors to page through them. The line above the grid names the current colour (e.g. Color #88 — Red).

The buttons along the bottom:

Revert — undo everything back to how the piece looked when you opened the window.
Reshape appearance… — switch to the model editor to change the shape of armor/cloak/shield/weapon parts (see Item Appearance Crafting).
Copy colors / Paste colors — copy a piece's full six-channel colour scheme, then paste it onto another piece so all your gear matches. Your copied scheme is saved to your character and stays copied across sessions and reboots (until you copy a different one).
Save and Close — keep your changes and close the window. (Your colours are already applied as you click, so simply closing keeps them.)

Shields & weapons: their colours are baked into the model rather than the six tint channels, so recolour or restyle them through Reshape appearance… rather than the swatch grid.

Weapon Renaming — Engraver's Chisel

The Engraver's Chisel lets you give your weapon a name of your own — turn Longsword +5 into Goblin-Cleaver or Sting. Renaming is purely cosmetic: it never changes an item's stats, and the new name is saved on the item itself, so it survives logouts and server reboots.

Where to get it: buy an Engraver's Chisel from the Well Mart in the Well of Eru for 25,000 gp. Each chisel is single-use — one chisel, one engraving.

How to use it:

Equip the weapon you want to rename in your main hand.
Use (activate) the chisel from your inventory.
Speak the new name in chat — your very next chat line becomes the weapon's new name. The line is not broadcast to other players.

Name rules: at most 40 characters, and the characters < and > are not allowed. Say cancel (or activate the chisel and change your mind with any invalid name) and the chisel is not consumed — only a successful engraving spends it.

Forge of Wonders — Item Enchanting

Four Forge of Wonders locations let you permanently add or replace magical properties on any equippable item, for a gold cost equal to the increase in the item's assessed value. Each forge is staffed by a smith NPC. Place exactly one item on the nearby anvil, then speak to the smith; pick the property you want and the smith quotes the cost before you confirm. When a property of the same type is already on the item it is replaced, not stacked.

Pricing is on the item's true value: the cost is always computed as if the item were fully identified and unrestricted — leaving an item unidentified (or any other trick that zeroes its sell value) no longer discounts the enchantment or slips past the value caps.

Each tier enforces a maximum item value and a maximum number of properties. Refusals are graceful: if an enchantment would push the item past either ceiling the smith says the item is already as fine as that forge can make it and no gold is charged. Forges only enchant an item upward — they never apply a change that lowers its assessed value, and replacing an existing property is always allowed even at the property cap (adding a new one past the cap is not). Each forge enforces only its own ceiling, so taking an item to a higher tier raises the limits.

Forge	Location	Access	Tier	Max item value	Max properties
Tagget's Smith Shop	Taggets Smith Shop (Bree)	Open to all — no key required	Low	250,000 gp	4
Rivendell Smithy	The Smithy of Rivendell	Elrond's Writ must be in your inventory to access the forge option	Mid	500,000 gp	5
Moria Forge of Wonders	Moria: Forge of Wonders	Forgekey (dropped by the Balrog of Moria)	High	750,000 gp	6
Kallrist Crypt forge	Kallrist Crypt (lower level)	Solve the elemental-pillar riddle for the Kallrist Crypt Key, then defeat the crypt guardian and carry its Horn of the Fell Beast	Signature (crypt-only)	750,000 gp	6

Appraise raises the value ceiling. A high Appraise skill lets a forge bind more worth into a single item. The smith always lets you "take 20" (your Appraise skill + 20, no dice roll), and the extra headroom scales with that result up to a maximum of +500,000 gp at an Appraise check of 65 — reachable by a level-40 character with full Appraise ranks and a little Charisma or an Appraise item. You need at least one point of Appraise before any bonus applies. The bonus stacks on each tier's ceiling: a maxed appraiser can push a piece to 750,000 gp at Tagget's, 1,000,000 gp at Rivendell, and 1,250,000 gp at the Moria and Kallrist Crypt forges. The forge tells you its current ceiling and your remaining headroom before you spend.

Boss-kill forge bonuses. Slaying distinct bosses from the Roll of the Fallen (the boss board in the Well of Eru — solo or party credit both count, but killing the same boss twice does not) earns your character a personal bonus to the forge caps. The bonus is a percentage of each forge's own value ceiling, applied before any Appraise headroom, and the forge tells you your current tier when you work its anvil:

Distinct bosses slain	Forge value cap	Extra
10+	+5%	—
25+	+10%	—
50+	+15%	—
All of them (78 tracked today)	+20%	+1 enchantment slot (7 total) at the top-tier forges only (Moria and Kallrist Crypt)

A full boss-slayer can therefore push a piece to 900,000 gp at Moria or the Kallrist Crypt (1,400,000 with maxed Appraise) with 7 enchantments. Gear forged with these bonuses is safe to trade: the contraband law judges every item against the maximum earnable ceiling, never against the holder's own progress.

Runes of Expansion — extra enchantment slots. A rare boss drop, the Rune of Expansion is a consumable that permanently widens a single item so a forge may bind one more enchantment into it than the law would otherwise allow. Activate the rune and target the item in your pack you want to expand; the rune is consumed and that item gains +1 property slot. Up to three runes may be bound into a single item (10 enchantments total on a fully-runed piece worked at a top-tier forge). The expansion is intrinsic to the item — it persists across sessions and travels with the item when you trade it, and the contraband law honors the extra slots so an expanded item is never seized for them. See the Rune of Expansion item page for where it can be obtained.

Disenchanting — what the forge will and won't strike

Every forge smith offers "Strip an enchantment from the item on the anvil". You plan the removals first: click as many listed properties as you like to mark them [planned], and the smith shows what the item would be worth and how many enchantments it would bear once they are gone. Nothing is removed until you confirm, and the smith only offers to strike the plan once the result would be within the law (see Contraband gear below). A forge can never turn your item into contraband. The magic is simply lost — no gold is ever paid out for removed enchantments.

Kind of property	Can the smith strike it?	Fills a slot?	Examples
Enchantments (boons)	Yes	Yes	every beneficial property: ability, AC, attack, enhancement, damage bonuses, immunities, resistances, Keen, Massive Criticals, on-hit effects (Level Drain, Slow, Hold and the rest), cast-spell powers, reduced arcane spell failure
Light	Yes	No — it's free	light of any colour or brightness
Drawbacks (banes)	No	No	decreased ability, AC, attack, damage, enhancement, saving throws or skills; damage vulnerability; No Damage; weight increase; added arcane spell failure (+5% to +50%)
Restrictions	No	No	use limited by class, race, alignment group, specific alignment or tileset
Weapon visual effects	Not listed	No	glow and elemental visuals — cosmetic only

Over-powered relics can only be stripped all the way down. An item nobody has touched at a forge is lawful however powerful it is — but the moment a smith strikes anything from it, it becomes forged work and is judged by the same 900,000 gp / 7 enchantment limits as everything else. For example, the Katana of Dol Guldur is worth over 14 million gp and carries 9 enchantments. Planning to strike only its Level Drain would leave it at millions of gp and 8 enchantments, which would be contraband, so the smith explains the problem and won't offer to strike. Plan enough removals to bring it within both limits and the offer appears.

Kallrist Crypt — the Signature Wardings. Deep beneath the Kallrist Crypt, past the elemental-pillar riddle and the crypt guardian, Kalrûn the Deathless keeps a fourth forge. It works at the same top ceiling as Moria (6 properties, 750,000 gp), but it is a small, specialized forge: it does not offer the shared Low/Mid/High enchant menu at all. Its whole trade is the crypt's own signature work — protective wardings no other smith will bind, and a negative-energy edge drawn from the grave. Kalrûn will only wake for one who bears the Horn of the Fell Beast looted from the guardian — keep the horn in your pack or the anvil stays cold.

Warding	Item property	What it turns aside
Deathless	Immunity: Death Magic	Finger of Death, Wail of the Banshee, Weird and other death-magic spells
Voidshield	Immunity: Implosion	the Implosion spell cast by the crypt's evocators — otherwise an instant kill
Unbroken	Immunity: Paralysis	hold effects and the petrifying gaze of basilisk and medusa (petrification is a paralysis-family effect, so this immunity turns it aside)

Only the Kallrist forge binds Death Magic and Implosion immunity into gear. Alongside the three wardings, it is also the only forge that works negative energy at all — the grave-chill that no other smith will touch. Kalrûn binds it both ways: as a damage bonus onto a weapon's edge, or as resistance woven into anything you wear, which no forge in these lands offers otherwise (Moria's resistance menu carries only the eight ordinary damage types).

The Kallrist forge — its entire menu. Unlike the other three forges, this is everything Kalrûn offers; there are no other enchant types here.

Property	Options
Negative-Energy Damage Bonus ^† weapons and gloves only	+4, 2d4, 1d6, 1d10, 1d12
Negative-Energy Resistance ^† worn gear only — armour, shields, helms, cloaks, boots, bracers, belts, rings, amulets	5, 10, 15, 20, 25
Signature Wardings (immunities)	Deathless (Death Magic), Voidshield (Implosion), Unbroken (Paralysis / petrification) — see the table above

Horn of the Fell Beast — a summonable companion. The Fell Beast that guards the Kallrist Crypt drops the Horn of the Fell Beast when it falls (the killer and any party members present each receive one). The horn is a plot item — it can't be sold or dropped — and it does two things:

Summons the Fell Beast as your companion. Activate the horn from your inventory and a Fell Beast answers, fighting at your side as a henchman and following you between areas. Only one is out at a time.
Unlocks the Kallrist forge. Keep the horn in your pack to use Kalrûn's anvil (see the Signature Wardings above).

The horn may be sounded only once per real-world hour, and the timer resets on each summon — letting the beast die does not let you call another early. The cooldown is tracked per character. A slain guardian returns to the crypt on the usual boss timer and appears on the Roll of the Fallen in the Well of Eru.

⚠ Contraband gear: an item modified beyond the legal limits — more than 7 enchantments or 900,000 gp assessed value (the maximum any character could lawfully forge with the full boss-kill bonus) — is contraband. Carrying one into the Well of Eru (or logging in with one) lands you in the Pit Prison, where the Forge Warden strips enchantments from it (no refunds) and releases you only once your gear is lawful. Unmodified relics that are naturally that powerful are not affected — only gear forged past the limits. Gear you forged lawfully above 900,000 gp via your Appraise is not contraband: the lawful ceiling is recorded on the item itself, so it stays legal no matter who carries it. Because the legal ceiling is the same for everyone, gear forged by a boss-slayer with a higher personal cap can be traded to any character without risk.

Available enchantments by tier:

Property	Low (Tagget's)	Mid (Rivendell)	High (Moria)
AC Bonus	+1 to +4	+4 to +8	+8 to +12
Attack Bonus	+1 to +5	+1 to +10	+10 to +16
Enhancement Bonus	+1 to +5	+1 to +10	+9 to +14
Ability Bonus (all 6 stats)	+1 to +4	+4 to +8	+8 to +12
Mighty ^†	+1 to +5	+1 to +10	+10 to +15
Damage Bonus — types ^†	Slashing, Bludgeoning, Piercing	Slash, Bludg, Pierce, Fire, Cold	Slash, Bludg, Pierce, Fire, Cold, Acid, Lightning, Sonic
Damage Bonus — dice	1, 2, 3, 1d4, 1d6	1d8, 1d10, 1d12	2d6, 2d8, 2d10
Massive Criticals ^†	1, 2, 3, 1d4, 1d6	1d8, 1d10, 1d12	2d6, 2d8, 2d10
Damage Resistance — amount	5, 10 per round	15, 20 per round	20, 25 per round
Damage Resistance — types	Slashing, Bludgeoning, Piercing	Slash, Bludg, Pierce, Fire, Cold	Slash, Bludg, Pierce, Fire, Cold, Acid, Lightning, Sonic
Damage Immunity — %	—	5%	10%
Damage Immunity — types	—	Slash, Bludg, Pierce, Fire, Cold	Slash, Bludg, Pierce, Fire, Cold, Acid, Lightning, Sonic
Damage Reduction	/+1 to /+5, soak 5–15	/+5 to /+10, soak 15–25	/+10 to /+15, soak 20–30
Spell Resistance	—	SR 10–22	SR 22–32
Improved Saving Throws	—	Fort / Reflex / Will	Fort / Reflex / Will / All
On-Hit Properties	7 effects; DC 14–20 — see list	12 effects; DC 14–26 — see list	12 effects; DC 14–26 — see list
Miscellaneous Immunity	—	—	Fear, Disease, Paralysis, Poison, Level Drain
Haste	yes	yes	yes
Keen	yes	yes	yes
Darkvision	—	yes	yes
Light	—	yes	yes
Vampiric Regeneration	yes	yes	yes
Freedom of Movement	yes	yes	yes
Weight Reduction	10–40%	10–60%	10–80%
Arcane Spell Failure	—	—	−10% to −30%
Skill Bonus	+1–+5	+5–+10	+15–+20
Bonus Feat	—	yes	yes
Unlimited Ammo	yes	yes	yes

Skill Bonus can be applied to any of your character's skills — combat, perception, stealth, and the rest (Appraise, Heal, Lore, Persuade, Use Magic Device, the Craft skills, and so on), at a +X within the tier band above. The only skill not offered is Ride — it has no function in NWN (no mounted combat), so it is deliberately excluded.

Mighty adds your Strength modifier to ranged weapon damage rolls (essential for STR archer builds); the number you pick caps how much of your STR modifier applies, so pick a value at or above your expected modifier. Massive Criticals adds a fixed extra damage roll on every critical hit, with each tier offering an exclusive dice band — go to the appropriate forge for the size you want, since higher tiers do not repeat lower dice.

On-Hit Properties — available effects

On-hit properties trigger a magical effect each time you land a physical blow on an enemy. After picking the effect, you choose a saving throw DC and a probability/duration pair. All forges offer the same five probability/duration options: 75% / 1 round, 50% / 2 rounds, 25% / 3 rounds, 10% / 4 rounds, 5% / 5 rounds.

Effect	Low (Tagget's)	Mid (Rivendell)	High (Moria)	Save DC options	Notes
Ability Drain	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14 only; Mid/High: 14–24	Low drains CON/INT/WIS/CHA; Mid/High drains any of the 6 stats
Blindness	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14–20; Mid/High: 14–26
Confusion	—	yes	yes	14–26
Daze	—	yes	yes	14–26
Deafness	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14–20; Mid/High: 14–26
Doom	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14–20; Mid/High: 14–26
Fear	—	yes	yes	14–26
Hold	—	yes	yes	14–26
Silence	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14–20; Mid/High: 14–26
Sleep	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14–20; Mid/High: 14–26
Slow	yes	yes	yes	Low: 14–20; Mid/High: 14–26
Stun	—	yes	yes	14–26