This post is about NWN2.

The AS (Atrificial Stupidity) is driving me crazy. If I disable it, companions don't follow, and if I enable it, fighters and such spoil the rogue's work, pursuing enemies with the same order and discipline as a pack of ratcacther dogs.

I just want form the AI system a few, simple things:

- In dungeons and other dangerous areas, my rogue (Neeshka) should lead, making no noise and looking for traps. The noisy characters should follow her at a reasonable distance.

- In peaceful areas, I prefer to manage my main character. The companions should follow closely.

- In combat, I want *no one* to decide anything.

How can I get this?

Yeah, it's a pain in the arse. Unfortunately I haven't found a clean way to manage this either.

For the first, you have two kinda-workable options:
* Control Neeshka and put all other characters in "far" follow mode
* Control Neeshka and use the voice command shortcuts to make the others stand still, and then to make them catchup every once in a while. (v, w, x makes them stand still. v, w, e makes them follow again.)

The first method is easier. The second is a lot more reliable. This is easy, as long as nobody is in puppet mode. This is hard. You can:
* Enable Puppet Mode for all characters. This does exactly what you want: but it will stop characters from following you outside combat. You can use drag-select to move your party instead, but it's a pain.
* Switch between puppet and normal mode whenever you enter or leave combat. This is annoying, but doable because there's an "all" toggle and it's right at the top of the menu.
* Enable "peaceful follow" at the bottom of the party AI options, then use the voice command "e, e, e" to set all characters to follow peacefully. This way, they will still follow you but won't attack anyone in combat unless specifically ordered.

That last one seems ideal, except they still WILL follow your selected character. So you might tell your fighter to kill a goblin, and he will, but then after he'll come running back to the mage you've selected.

There's two more important things to remember about the voice commands:
* Using them cancels your current queued orders.
* They affect every character EXCEPT the one you're currently controlling. So if you switch characters you may find there's still someone running around like a headless chicken.

My personal suggestion would be to get used to switching puppet mode on and off, or to just enable AI on the dumb fighters and control the spellcasting characters.

I tend to use a mixture of the two systems: in hard fights I toggle on Puppet Mode, otherwise I let the AI handle the mindless hack-and-slash.

yea its a pain sometimes, pathfinding is horrible they are constantly getting stuck at a corner, or trying to walk and follow you through locked and closed doors, and all kinda of other fun stuff.

I don't worry about traps much unless i'm using my trap rogue who is collecting them for extra money, the game traps are really pretty sucky and I just run through them and set them off just to save time in disarming them. Usually with buffs up i don't even notice them much.

When i do want to disarm or collect traps near enemies, i grab everyone as a group and move them away from the trap, luring the enemies on THIS side of the traps so i can kill them without my guys just blundering through setting them off. Once the enemies are dead i can work on the traps in peace.

This mod should solve most of your problems:

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/script/companion-and-monster-ai-22


Oh and when you are sure you want to sneak, do the broadcast command Stand Ground, as someone else said.... however don't do follow, instead do Attack Nearest.
When enemies are nearby, they engage and when not, they simply follow you with normal combat awareness.

With the improved AI you can have it set for follow to ONLY follow; Follow can then be used when you really want to GTFO.

The improved ai also comes with some nice global modifiers for both party and monsters.

No one has yet mentioned the "Behavior" tab in each character's separate sheet. You should set each character to act as you prefer using the options there.

Thank you every body for answers.

For the moment, I enable AI during exploration, and disable it during combat and when my rogue is about to open a door to an unexplored area. Companions follow from afar.