Overall a decent module, especially that there are very few good low-level modules. Most modules skip to level ~4, and here you're fighting BBEG at level 3! And it works pretty well. Enemies are not too tough, but you also can't just rush-in. You can easily play without adding any custom characters, just pick up the 4 adventurers from the inn.
Pros: - Good story / adaptation - Investigation, which can be done in a bunch of ways - Well balanced low level combat - Temple and dungeon have a bunch of different ways you can traverse them, which is very interesting. Eg. you can reach final boss fight from 2 completely different directions.
Cons: - The "mud" in the caves - it's a cool gimmick the first time and maybe an interesting obstacle in combat, but the remaining 99 were just pointless and frustrating. It's basically as if a DM designed a dungeon, and then tried really hard for people not to explore it. - Hidden doors. Similarly, it's a cool trick once or twice, especially if it's for some "secret treasure". But here it's non-stop, including mandatory passages, and if you don't have Elf Rogue then you're basically screwed. Not only that, but also the "transition" was as if for regular doors, which means it takes 1 party member at a time. And of course those doors disappear and need to be re-searched. - Very weird loot management - enemies drop lots of stuff, but you can't really carry much of it, and you don't really have access to vendors that much. It would make more sense for enemies to drop gold or useful stuff like potions, or just drop the +1 / adamentine / darksteel etc. items and get rid of all the clutter. - Areas are huge and mostly empty, which again is a bit frustrating. - The "map" - sorry but this is just stupid and it's also what I hated about the Scroll, where this "feature" come from. NWN already has cluttered UI and now you need to have map open to make sure it gets updated. Pointless and frustrating. - Another example of DM trying to teach the players "not to explore" - you spent 5 minutes running through the mud to some "puzzle" with a chest trapped in mud and once you figure it out you get... 1gp
Biggest regret: The module does not utilize conversational checks and skill checks. I mean seriously, half of this module is talking to people and investigating the cult! Search/Spot/Listen checks would be an awesome addition, so would the skill checks when talking to people (and many conversations even already have appropriate options).
I wanted to complain about backtracking, but you actually get a special potion to teleport back to Orlane and to Baron, as long as you notice this ;)
Bugs encountered: - Once you're done with the temple, some people in the village aggro on you automatically, and this is the case even after you complete the main quest - The Orlane mayor conversation has an option to automatically teleport to baron, which doesn't trigger anything - Tailor in Orlane sells Duelist Garb for 1gp and you can sell it for 5000gp to moneychanger - not sure if bug, or intented - The area transition to inn basement is broken and if you try to go down via the door you just die? But you can approach it from the opposite side via secret trapdoor.. - XP for taking the boat to BBEG is applied every time you take the boat
I do hope people still visit here as I am stuck and could use a bit of help.
SPOILERs: I have defeated Father Abramo at the temple but cannot make any further progress as I cannot find my way to the Naga. I took a good look at the Naga statue he had but could not get it to do anything. I also retraced my steps in the temple basement. I seem to recall from a former play-through years ago that I needed to explore the cave-like section (?) but so far have only found one North to South cave passage with area transitions on each end. Both area transitions take me back up to the temple. I must be missing something that will start me on the path to the Naga. Any help or hints would be appreciated.
I am somewhat disappointed, still it's a good module: What I liked: - The plot - Support for crafting - Shops for lots of types of items - The marsh's feeling is simply cool :)
What I didn't like so much ( + bugs): - Bug: Lots of items are not removed from the store when you buy it, you can buy it multiple times (I consider this as a bug especially at the stronger crafting materials) - Bug: Monsters drops their claws :) - Bug: Doors needs picklock from both sides - Bug: The map not always gets the reveal update (probably add-on bug) - Doors auto closed themselves - Hidden doors need to be refind again and again and again - Search: If you don't have elf, bad for you... - The village is way too big, I just kept moving and moving - "Some" of the temple levels way too big (probably due to the original module) - The village's houses could get some titles on the map - The village drinks doesn't stack - At least the final skull could be removed from my bag when I go to the quest giver (tried not to spoiler) :) - Very, very few XP, at least extra XP at the end for not killing everybody brainlessly (I hope you understand what I mean) :D
In PnP you can move faster and fight slower... :P Aside from the above, thanks for the module!
When one party member leaves Hochoch heading East, everyone gets grabbed and teleported. This was OK, but during a battle with Abramo, actually before him but upstairs, one of my party members died. He respawned back in Hochock. OK. NP. Sometimes dead characters pop back up with 1 hp. But when he left the town on his way back to us and went throught he transition, with the rest of us in the temple, we all got teleported to the mountain pass map. Does it always grab all the players no matter who moves throught that transition?
And Abramo, with his friends upstairs, was a bit much for four level 2 characters last night, but with a cleric serving as the only tank. So to gain some more experience and gold and maybe gear, what side quests could or should be done before fighting him? In our investigations, the temple on the hill was part of a progression, but after the bandits and undead, that was maybe the 3rd battle. Were we there too soon?
Full Party transitions are the normal method when moving from one area to another in NWN2 running on your PC. The only exception is a transition within the same area. One or two of the secret doors in the temple are single character transitions. These can misfire if used by a character other than the Lead PC.
The monks are pretty tough but that seems to be the norm in this module. You will need to plan your characters for mutual support in combat.
**SPOILERS** I really enjoyed this, it did have an old school PnP feel (I always loved the old JG modules and the stuff in The Beholder and this felt like that). Details were lovely, especially the swamp. The cleric in the final battle had no particular role in my play through (at least I don't recall any mention prior to meeting him) and his corpse was not selectable/ lootable? Once the BBEG was dealt with I got a message to say journal updated, but it did not change. Perhaps this was just a script misfiring on this occasion and thus when I then moved on to the next room the BBEG spoke to me even though she was really very dead. Secret doors were a pain in as much that I had to take every party member through individually, I squared it in my head from a role play point of view by saying it was a complex mechanism that each had to operate separately, but it slowed things down a little too much in my opinion. There was a secret door in the cave with the water beetles that I couldn't get to fire, but maybe that was just a glitch at my end? Finally, there was an armour stand towards the end, in the store full of armour and weapon stands, which I could not engage with either. Sorry if that seems like a moans list, it's not meant to be, just feeding back the very small number of bits I spotted. It's a personal thing, but I loved the fact that all the NPCs had a name rather than the generic "farmer" or "commoner", I felt it added to the level of immersion (though why doesn't make sense, I don't automatically know everyone's name as I walk down the street!). Fabulous module and heading off to D/L the next one. Thank you soooooo much : )
Thanks for the comments Nicotine - you're right, having conversations update after player actions would be great, and some do - the Mayor, the Baron & Ramne all do in reaction to what characters have been up to, but time constraints prevented me from creating something similar for the more minor NPCs - specifically, there are a load of minor NPCs - farmers & the like - & it would have been a lot of work to set up all their conversations to update in response to the players place in the plot - so I decided to leave most with their default convos. (I also didn't really expect many players to try to talk to NPCs more than once).
PS - I've been away from playing NWN2 for a while, and the toolset for almost as long. Not sure if I'll get back into it just yet as life keeps getting in the way, but on the positive side, there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative for recreating classic D& adventures, so maybe I'll get the rest of Oasis of the White Palm complete yet...
Right on! Yeah anyway i'm one of those crazy guys which usually talks to every npc and also more than one time XD But it's becouse i like investigative-kind of modules, and yours is very well-constructed. What i like of yours is that you left the possibility to investigate or to break everything and be done with it. The nwn1 version has not this option so i didn't enjoy that.
Seems constructed pretty well to me. The typos and grammar errors were kept to a minimum, which is better than most can say, and I loved being able to examine things by hovering over them. The little jokes throughout the module were well-received, like the millers milling about, and other references/allusions. it's nice to see someone who doesn't explain every little joke they make by forcing it into your face. The last dungeon was fairly entertaining to run through as well... it played like a maze without the "getting lost" part.
Only a couple things that I think could be improved... sticking to the tradition of leaving useless NPCs mostly nameless would help a lot early on. Sometimes you want to talk to everybody you can, but when you talk to 50 named people and they all say the same three things it's a bit off-putting. I don't know if the map system can be turned off, but that was downright obnoxious (having both my maps closed and blacked out *every* loading screen). Sometimes a little realism actually hurts when it's frustrating. Also, because nearly every door can be picked, and nearly every door can be bashed, many cannot be picked but can be easily bashed, and I don't remember running into more than a single door that could be picked but not bashed (and I don't think any doors anywhere are trapped), the solution to *every* door becomes "bash it down and come back with a key if I fail". It's not really an issue, but with as many doors as there are in the module it makes for a lot of busted doors.
28 comments
You can easily play without adding any custom characters, just pick up the 4 adventurers from the inn.
Pros:
- Good story / adaptation
- Investigation, which can be done in a bunch of ways
- Well balanced low level combat
- Temple and dungeon have a bunch of different ways you can traverse them, which is very interesting. Eg. you can reach final boss fight from 2 completely different directions.
Cons:
- The "mud" in the caves - it's a cool gimmick the first time and maybe an interesting obstacle in combat, but the remaining 99 were just pointless and frustrating. It's basically as if a DM designed a dungeon, and then tried really hard for people not to explore it.
- Hidden doors. Similarly, it's a cool trick once or twice, especially if it's for some "secret treasure". But here it's non-stop, including mandatory passages, and if you don't have Elf Rogue then you're basically screwed. Not only that, but also the "transition" was as if for regular doors, which means it takes 1 party member at a time. And of course those doors disappear and need to be re-searched.
- Very weird loot management - enemies drop lots of stuff, but you can't really carry much of it, and you don't really have access to vendors that much. It would make more sense for enemies to drop gold or useful stuff like potions, or just drop the +1 / adamentine / darksteel etc. items and get rid of all the clutter.
- Areas are huge and mostly empty, which again is a bit frustrating.
- The "map" - sorry but this is just stupid and it's also what I hated about the Scroll, where this "feature" come from. NWN already has cluttered UI and now you need to have map open to make sure it gets updated. Pointless and frustrating.
- Another example of DM trying to teach the players "not to explore" - you spent 5 minutes running through the mud to some "puzzle" with a chest trapped in mud and once you figure it out you get... 1gp
Biggest regret: The module does not utilize conversational checks and skill checks. I mean seriously, half of this module is talking to people and investigating the cult! Search/Spot/Listen checks would be an awesome addition, so would the skill checks when talking to people (and many conversations even already have appropriate options).
I wanted to complain about backtracking, but you actually get a special potion to teleport back to Orlane and to Baron, as long as you notice this ;)
Bugs encountered:
- Once you're done with the temple, some people in the village aggro on you automatically, and this is the case even after you complete the main quest
- The Orlane mayor conversation has an option to automatically teleport to baron, which doesn't trigger anything
- Tailor in Orlane sells Duelist Garb for 1gp and you can sell it for 5000gp to moneychanger - not sure if bug, or intented
- The area transition to inn basement is broken and if you try to go down via the door you just die? But you can approach it from the opposite side via secret trapdoor..
- XP for taking the boat to BBEG is applied every time you take the boat
SPOILERs: I have defeated Father Abramo at the temple but cannot make any further progress as I cannot find my way to the Naga. I took a good look at the Naga statue he had but could not get it to do anything.
I also retraced my steps in the temple basement. I seem to recall from a former play-through years ago that I needed to explore the cave-like section (?) but so far have only found one North to South cave passage with area transitions on each end. Both area transitions take me back up to the temple. I must be missing something that will start me on the path to the Naga. Any help or hints would be appreciated.
I am somewhat disappointed, still it's a good module:
What I liked:
- The plot
- Support for crafting
- Shops for lots of types of items
- The marsh's feeling is simply cool :)
What I didn't like so much ( + bugs):
- Bug: Lots of items are not removed from the store when you buy it, you can buy it multiple times (I consider this as a bug especially at the stronger crafting materials)
- Bug: Monsters drops their claws :)
- Bug: Doors needs picklock from both sides
- Bug: The map not always gets the reveal update (probably add-on bug)
- Doors auto closed themselves
- Hidden doors need to be refind again and again and again
- Search: If you don't have elf, bad for you...
- The village is way too big, I just kept moving and moving
- "Some" of the temple levels way too big (probably due to the original module)
- The village's houses could get some titles on the map
- The village drinks doesn't stack
- At least the final skull could be removed from my bag when I go to the quest giver (tried not to spoiler) :)
- Very, very few XP, at least extra XP at the end for not killing everybody brainlessly (I hope you understand what I mean) :D
In PnP you can move faster and fight slower... :P
Aside from the above, thanks for the module!
Now, lets go to the chapter 2. ;)
And Abramo, with his friends upstairs, was a bit much for four level 2 characters last night, but with a cleric serving as the only tank. So to gain some more experience and gold and maybe gear, what side quests could or should be done before fighting him? In our investigations, the temple on the hill was part of a progression, but after the bandits and undead, that was maybe the 3rd battle. Were we there too soon?
I have enjoyed the experience so far.
The monks are pretty tough but that seems to be the norm in this module. You will need to plan your characters for mutual support in combat.
Hope that helps, good luck!
I really enjoyed this, it did have an old school PnP feel (I always loved the old JG modules and the stuff in The Beholder and this felt like that). Details were lovely, especially the swamp. The cleric in the final battle had no particular role in my play through (at least I don't recall any mention prior to meeting him) and his corpse was not selectable/ lootable? Once the BBEG was dealt with I got a message to say journal updated, but it did not change. Perhaps this was just a script misfiring on this occasion and thus when I then moved on to the next room the BBEG spoke to me even though she was really very dead. Secret doors were a pain in as much that I had to take every party member through individually, I squared it in my head from a role play point of view by saying it was a complex mechanism that each had to operate separately, but it slowed things down a little too much in my opinion. There was a secret door in the cave with the water beetles that I couldn't get to fire, but maybe that was just a glitch at my end? Finally, there was an armour stand towards the end, in the store full of armour and weapon stands, which I could not engage with either. Sorry if that seems like a moans list, it's not meant to be, just feeding back the very small number of bits I spotted. It's a personal thing, but I loved the fact that all the NPCs had a name rather than the generic "farmer" or "commoner", I felt it added to the level of immersion (though why doesn't make sense, I don't automatically know everyone's name as I walk down the street!). Fabulous module and heading off to D/L the next one. Thank you soooooo much : )
PS - I've been away from playing NWN2 for a while, and the toolset for almost as long. Not sure if I'll get back into it just yet as life keeps getting in the way, but on the positive side, there doesn't seem to be much of an alternative for recreating classic D&
But it's becouse i like investigative-kind of modules, and yours is very well-constructed. What i like of yours is that you left the possibility to investigate or to break everything and be done with it. The nwn1 version has not this option so i didn't enjoy that.
Only a couple things that I think could be improved... sticking to the tradition of leaving useless NPCs mostly nameless would help a lot early on. Sometimes you want to talk to everybody you can, but when you talk to 50 named people and they all say the same three things it's a bit off-putting. I don't know if the map system can be turned off, but that was downright obnoxious (having both my maps closed and blacked out *every* loading screen). Sometimes a little realism actually hurts when it's frustrating.
Also, because nearly every door can be picked, and nearly every door can be bashed, many cannot be picked but can be easily bashed, and I don't remember running into more than a single door that could be picked but not bashed (and I don't think any doors anywhere are trapped), the solution to *every* door becomes "bash it down and come back with a key if I fail". It's not really an issue, but with as many doors as there are in the module it makes for a lot of busted doors.
If you can't get him here check at NeverwinterVault.org.