This fall, most likely late September or early October, Obsidian Entertainment will release the first official expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2. Mask of the Betrayer promises to add a lot of new goodies to the base game as well as a full length campaign. We had a chat with Kevin Saunders, Producer and Lead Designer of the add-on, to get the dirt on what fans can expect from this newest chapter of the Neverwinter Nights 2 saga.

Before getting into the meat of the game, is there a minimum level recommendation for characters before tackling the expansion? Will it automatically level up charaters who aren't high enough?

Mask of the Betrayer will level you up to 18 (assuming you're not playing a level adjustment race) if you're not there already. And if you make a new character, you'll be at level 18, too. So no need to worry about it.

What is the maximum level that a character will be able to achieve? Is there a cap?

Mask of the Betrayer supports up to level 30, though you might well finish the campaign slightly below that.

Mask of the Betrayer adds new races and sub races to the mix. Can you go over some of what we can expect to see?

We're adding six sub-races, which include the four genasi types. We've also added two base classes and five prestige classes. I'm most excited about the Spirit Shaman and Red Wizard of Thay because of how they fit into the game's story and setting.

How pivotal will the Influence system be in the expansion? Have you made any changes to it?

I think we've made some major improvements to the Influence system. First, now your companions (and you, perhaps) will gain game play benefits for having high influence. Second, if Influence goes low enough, the companions will behave more realistically and actually leave you. Also, we've spent a lot of energy on polishing how Influence works with the companions. For example, increases and losses will feel more natural and appropriate to the characters' personalities and goals. Except for the very beginning of the game, none of the companions are required and players who don't like them can adventure alone if they wish. So if you don't like dealing with Influence, it's entirely optional. Of course, if you're into the story, you'll find the companions add a lot of depth.

The mod community plays such a pivitol role in the game's success. Will the expansion add anything new for modders to play with?

We've made countless minor improvements to aid both ourselves and the community in making content faster. One of the major improvements is tile set swapping. You could make your own variation of the cave textures, for example, and then instantly change a cave area to use your new textures. We created some of the areas in Mask of the Betrayer in this way. Other big improvements include Terrain Undo and a new Creature Appearance Wizard.

Will any user created content been included in the expansion?

We have included many community improvements into updates for NWN2: spell fixes by rpgplayer1, AI improvements by evenflw, and walkmesh helpers by Zarathustra. It's very challenging to include content (quests, NPCs, etc.) written by the community. This is because we want the game to have a consistent feel and for everything to work well together. Achieving this consistency is challenging enough with several designers working in the same office together and is much more difficult to obtain when trying to incorporate community ideas.

Mask of the Betrayer has a brand new campaign; how long will it take most players to get through it all?

We originally targeted 15-20 hours of gameplay as we wanted to create a very polished game and felt that quality was more important than quantity. However, recently one of our own designers played through the whole game in just under 30 hours, so I think we've created a lot more content than we realized. So it's somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the size of the original game.