Best NWN 1 module?

[Russia is over. The end.]

After checking out the metacritic reviews, I gather the official ones (OC, SoU, HotU) are mediocre, linear and combat-heavy.

The "Community" mods that are recommended are as follows:

(Eye of the Beholder is a remake of a classic, huh)

The premium ones:

And then when you google "best nwn mods" you land on Lilura's blog (ugh) and she ranks them as follows:
#1 is Swordflight (according to her, it's better than all RPGs she ever played)
#2 is Darkness Over Daggerford (premium)
#3 is Tyrants of the Moonsea (premium)

Anyone played any of these? I'd like to experience something good though, like a top-10 Codex RPG, not a top-50. Do any of them fit the bill?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

A Dance with Rogues.

 

[notpl]

A Dance with Rogues.

There's no contest, it's this. Part 1 more so than part 2, though.

 

[HiddenX]

The Aielund Saga is very good, too.

 

[Jvegi]

OC.

Go play that, vatnik.

 

[Slaver1]

Sanctum of the Archmage - The Sight and The Quest, hands down. Immense quality in every aspect. Series is still alive too with the creator working on a third module. Honory mention goes to the Prophet series for a very well written, mature adventure reminiscent of Planescape Torment.
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/sanctum-archmage-sight-and-quest
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/prophet-prologue-it-cannot-be-denied

 

[Marat]

Swordflight is indeed pretty good.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

It's been ages, but I remember thinking the Dreamcatcher series was one of the better ones out there (It was the second series in an overarching trilogy, can't remember what parts 1 or 3 were called).

The Lone Wolf modules were also great, albeit completely unfinished (I think the author proclaimed there would be 12 installments and he ended up making... 2) and closer to point and clicks than true crpgs.

The Stefan Gagne ones were decent as well iirc.

Oh, and I remember liking the Tortured Hearts module(s?). I think the author posts here and recently released a controversial standalone version of them.

 

[curds]

Snow Hunt is a good, short module.

 

[Roguey]

Excrucio Eternum.

Swordflight's all right if you like a hardcore swingy dungeon crawl.

 

[Popiel]

Swordflight, The Prophet... and that's about it.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I liked the one (a 3 or 4 part series) by the author of the later Maimed God's Saga for NWN2 where I played a druid shapeshifter and reached DrakeShape (but not DragonShape), changed into a green Acid Drake, and killed the end game boss with just 2 or 3 puffs of my bad breath. It taught me that some D&D builds are some pretty strong big cheese while others are mere candy-assed cherry lollipops.

 

[Skdursh]

Hex Coda was pretty great.

 

[eXalted]

A Dance with Rogues.

This of course. And no, this is not sarcasm.

 

[Cosmo]

Sanctum of the Archmage - The Sight and The Quest, hands down. Immense quality in every aspect. Series is still alive too with the creator working on a third module. Honory mention goes to the Prophet series for a very well written, mature adventure reminiscent of Planescape Torment.
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/sanctum-archmage-sight-and-quest
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/prophet-prologue-it-cannot-be-denied

Apart of the "quality" department (and even that is arguably highly subjective), the Prophet series has absolutely nothing to do with Torment.
That said I would say it's good, but suffers ultimately from a case of cognitive dissonance :

Spoiler

the story being based on the concept of fatum, i don't know if it can work in a video game context. Let me explain : RPGs are supposed to give you tools (be it character building, story choices, and so son) to leave a mark on the story/game world. Here those tools exist, and reactivity is real and even very good, but your perception thereof is annihilated by the fact that the narrative keeps hammering down the fact that the story's ultimate outcome is set in stone. Basically it shoots itself in the foot, but at the same time i don't see how the creator could have told the story in a better way given the context. So, for me, in the end, it was mostly interesting as a boderline case of video game storytelling.

 

[luj1]

Best NWN 1 module?

Swordflight by far

 

[notpl]

Swordflight IS pretty damn good, although it suffers from being very heavily skewed toward munchkin-y martial builds. This is a problem inherent to NWN more so than swordflight, due to not having any interface by which to manage aggro or control a proper party, but in trying to make NWN challenging the creator accidentally rendered half the class list completely nonviable, since the campaign is wall-to-wall ball-bustingly hard combat and most d&d characters simply cannot solo huge groups.

A Dance With Rogues is so good because it doesn't try to be balanced for every character type, which isn't possible, and instead forces you to commit to playing a stealthy rogue. You can mix it up a bit with some martial or magic multiclassing, and there's plenty of roleplaying opportunities and skill support for non-traditional rogue class stuff, but the encounter design is firmly grounded in its assumption that you'll be playing a dex character with some traps and ranged options.

Honor Among Thieves is another excellent example that gets talked about much less than ADWR. Slightly worse writing overall, but equal if not superior in the tricks & traps and puzzle-solving gameplay.

Bone Kenning is a short but rather interesting necromancy-based module.

Darkness Over Daggerford is leagues better than all the other "premium" modules; iirc it was originally a free fan-made module but it was so good they simply paid the creator to incorporate it into the game.

 

[Erebus]

Elegia Eternum and its sequel Excrucio Eternum are excellent. Great atmosphere and characters.

Hex Coda is very creative. It's a pity the second one was left unfinished.

As long as you can stomach the sexual fantasies of the creator, Dance with Rogues is probably the best module for playing a thief. The attention to details is highly impressive. Ignore the sequel.

The Bastard of Kosigan series is very entertaining. I believe that it remains unfinished, but there are at least 3 or 4 different modules in it.


I didn't care much for Darkness over Daggerford. It's not exactly bad, but I found it to be rather uninspired. Definitely not as good as Mysteries of Westgate.