NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[JarlFrank]

I think the initial point was that NWN's blocky graphics and off-scale proportions were specifically designed to be easy to use in an editor.
I countered with other games that have easy to use editors but better assets/architecture.
Then this led into this.

I'm not gonna argue that NWN's editor sucks, but it being uniquely great among all other contemporary games with editors is a bit of an exaggeration.

 

[Gahbreeil]

It simply looked shit compared to all of its contemporaries, and it still looks shit now. While other games from the time have been polished up with user-made content to look better than they ever could on old hardware, NWN's inherent limitations prevent it from looking much better than it did. Environment scale will always feel off, there will never be sloped hills, there will never be anything but 90 degree corners, making everything look fake and lame.

Slopes and hills? What did you need, a sledding sim? Besides, both do exist in NwN. Maybe not in the OC but there's a big difference between the Wailing Death campaign and the game as a whole.

EDIT: There are slopes in the OC, what are we talking about?

 

[rogueknight333]

I have had basically the same argument going on in this thread with JarlFrank multiple times now, since he appears to be obsessively determined to repeat the same criticisms in every thread in which NWN is mentioned. Maybe I will have it again if I can find the time in the next few days, though I am not sure there is much point, but for now I will just say that if a thread is devoted to general discussion of Game X, it is reasonable to show up and explain why you do not like Game X, but if a thread topic is something like "What are your favorite mods for Game X?" it is rather obnoxious to hijack that just to rant about how much one hates Game X (even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that Game X is indeed a bad game).

 

[Shuruga]

I'm a big NWN enthusiast, though of course no engine is perfect. I suppose the various complaints folks have mentioned in this recent flurry of posts just don't bother me that much. To me, NWN provides a fun and flexible playground for a massive variety of DND adventures. From short and quirky modules to epic adventures built by an amateur hobbyist in their spare time, NWN has produced an absurd number of quality adventures that would never have received a commercial release. (In fairness, it has produced a lot of stinkers, too.)

In fact, I like the Aurora toolset so much that I wish it could be used commercially, because

1. Commercial projects could draw attention to the vast (and still growing!) array of free modules; I think a lot of RPG enthusiasts aren't aware of the treasure trove that is NWN modules.
   and
2. Some of the solo devs and indie teams who are trying their hand at making a profit with their games would shift to Aurora, which would speed up dev time (more games!) and offer an (attractive, in my view) alternative to existing "starter" engines like RPG Maker.

That said, I'm sure it will never happen for a whole host of reasons. I'll just continue to count myself lucky to be aware of the NWN community.

 

[ds]

I'm a big NWN enthusiast, though of course no engine is perfect. I suppose the various complaints folks have mentioned in this recent flurry of posts just don't bother me that much. To me, NWN provides a fun and flexible playground for a massive variety of DND adventures. From short and quirky modules to epic adventures built by an amateur hobbyist in their spare time, NWN has produced an absurd number of quality adventures that would never have received a commercial release. (In fairness, it has produced a lot of stinkers, too.)

In fact, I like the Aurora toolset so much that I wish it could be used commercially, because

1. Commercial projects could draw attention to the vast (and still growing!) array of free modules; I think a lot of RPG enthusiasts aren't aware of the treasure trove that is NWN modules.
   and
2. Some of the solo devs and indie teams who are trying their hand at making a profit with their games would shift to Aurora, which would speed up dev time (more games!) and offer an (attractive, in my view) alternative to existing "starter" engines like RPG Maker.

That said, I'm sure it will never happen for a whole host of reasons. I'll just continue to count myself lucky to be aware of the NWN community.

Surely what Luke Scull / Ossian Studios have been doing counts as commercial use of Aurora/NwN.

 

[luj1]

I'm not gonna argue that NWN's editor sucks, but it being uniquely great among all other contemporary games with editors is a bit of an exaggeration.

The only other truly good editor was Morrowind CS

 

[Shuruga]

Surely what Luke Scull / Ossian Studios have been doing counts as commercial use of Aurora/NwN.

Yeah, fair point, though Beamdog is the publisher for their NWN modules and you need NWN to play them. I was envisioning something more like how RPG Maker works: anyone can pay a flat fee to get access to the toolset, and they can publish their work under their own name (and without needing NWN or Beamdog's seal of approval).

 

[luj1]

Love it or hate it, NWN is still being played a lot and modded. 20+ years later. Most PWs may have low populations (50-200) however they are strong communities with a consistent playerbase

 

[Gargaune]

Okay, back on topic, I just finished Sapphire Star. It's a good module, well scoped at about ten to fiteen hours, mostly based on freeform exploration and featuring some challenging encounters and bespoke crafting mechanics. On the downside, some of the combat can get repetitive and loot distribution is way too stingy, occasionally veering dangerously close to OC territory, and there are some oversights in fit and finish (e.g. the final quest never even gets added to the journal). So it has some rough edges, could use an EE revision, but it's a solid adventure and I'd happily recommend it.

BUT!

But...

    // Prevent multiple hencman on lower dificulties
    object oPC = GetFirstPC();
    object oH2 = GetHenchman(oPC, 2);
    if(GetIsObjectValid(oH2) && GetGameDifficulty() < GAME_DIFFICULTY_CORE_RULES
    && GetTag(GetArea(oPC)) != "PG_BELOWTREE" && !GetIsFollower(oH2))
    {
        AssignCommand(oH2, ClearAllActions());
        FireHenchman(oPC, oH2);
    }

I don't remember the last time I've wanted to kick a NWN modder in the balls this badly.

Wiped on that boss battle under the Temple of Helm repeatedly (was harder than the finale for me) and decided to pussy out and drop the difficulty, then randomly found my second henchman kept getting dismissed. I thought the module summons I'd used confused OHS (which I wasn't using, it was just loaded) and spent two fucking hours trying to debug it, only to accidentally discover it stopped doing it after I called it quits and remembered to put the difficulty back up.

Look, balance your module however you like (though this one's a wobbly idea since you could lose a henchie in an inaccessible area), but TELL me! When you cull that second henchman, put up a message saying it's because of the difficulty setting. Jesus Christ, that was cruel and unusual punishment...

 

[Pikoman]

It was definitely worth it to complete NwN2's original campaign so I could have a more fulfilling and less confusing experience of MotB, finally checked it out of my backlog today. The GOAT shouts this campaign has been getting are more than deserved in my mind, not only the story and setting are excellent and engrossing, but I've also found the side-content, the music score, area and quest design and overall atmosphere outstanding. The plot critical zones/quest hubs you have to go through in order to advance the story are a great experience in their own right, even if looking at them in a vacuum. The Red Academy, The Hag Coven and the Wood Man forest all offered fun and engaging quests, be it optional or not, which could be tackled in a variety of ways - some less obvious than others. Hell, combat is far from being the campaign's strength, but I will also give it the bonus of having an improved encounter design compared to the OC, not that the bar is very high in that regard mind you. I found the spirit meter mechanic fun and interesting, though I think that suppressing your hunger and choosing to battle it should've been much harder to do. The 'good' options of putting spirits to rest, giving your life-force to the Tree Man etc. shouldn't replenish your spirit meter or at the very least they should've replenished it by an amount marginally less than the bonus you'd get from giving into the hunger and devouring spirits. I can understand why the game was made easier for a good aligned toon battling their hunger from a commercial standpoint, considering that the vast majority of the game's audience would play this archetype in particular, but from a role-playing perspective it didn't make much sense to me. It would've been much more logical the 'good path' to be the one requiring more sacrifices, bearing fewer rewards and generally being the harder journey mechanically in regards to the hunger meter and other aspects.

Kinda miffed that I missed one of the mask pieces and I couldn't get the best ending, but at the same time I wholeheartedly agree with this design choice and I appreciate game not holding your hand and making the paths you'd be able to take incredibly obvious. A more thorough exploration of the zone with Anya and the Uthraki could've yielded a far more satisfying finale to my character, but then again - being a favoured champion of a god and in his elite retinue of soldiers ain't bad at all, one could argue that it's preferrable to being the vassal of dumb Lord Nasher.

Don't know about MotB as an all-around contender for one of the greatest RPGs of all time, perhaps that'd be pushing it a lot, but as a storyfag game it definitely competes with Planescape, though Torment is still superior to it in a lot of aspects in my mind. If I had to rank the story-driven RPGs I've played in terms of how philosophically profound and interesting their premises are the ranking would go like this: PS:T > MoTB > Prophet Saga. If Prophet had the commercial and professional polish that PS:T and MOTB have, it'd definitely go toe-to-toe with those games for the best story in an RPG accolade IMO.

 

[iguana_trader]

Could you share what character you've played. Replaying NWN2 now and was thinking of creating an Arcane Trickster, but have no memory how well he would fare in MotB. Went with Barbarian but find it a bit boring. Then again MotB epic fights might be more bearable with a Barb.

 

[MerchantKing]

Could you share what character you've played. Replaying NWN2 now and was thinking of creating an Arcane Trickster, but have no memory how well he would fare in MotB. Went with Barbarian but find it a bit boring. Then again MotB epic fights might be more bearable with a Barb.

A Gnome Arcane Trickster Illusionist runs great.

 

[Pikoman]

Could you share what character you've played. Replaying NWN2 now and was thinking of creating an Arcane Trickster, but have no memory how well he would fare in MotB. Went with Barbarian but find it a bit boring. Then again MotB epic fights might be more bearable with a Barb.

I went with a simple and plain Wizard/Scholar of Candlekeep build, mainly so I could trivialise most of the stuff in the OC and have the encounters go as quickly as possible, considering the campaign's length, so I could jump into MotB with the same character earlier. Needless to say, the OC was piss easy for me as a wizard - didn't even need to use potions or turn on my brain most of the time, buffed my party up and then spammed ILMS/IGMS/Firebrand to victory.

MotB was a bit harder and the encounter design is not only better as I've said earlier, but it also had a couple of decently challenging fights for my PC, especially in the beginning when I didn't have a frontliner companion. The penalties for resting were indeed a bit of a problem at times when planning ahead, but with a more conservative use of my spells the game was entirely manageable without spamming the rest button and lowering my spirit energy. Didn't need to use scrolls, wands and spellcasting items at all, but they're thrown at you fairly frivolously, so a spellcaster wouldn't have much more trouble than a martial. You can also easily and fairly quickly equip your companions with stupidly powerful epic level gear, so they'd do the heavy lifting for you anyways.

Beat both the OC and MotB on core difficulty to clarify. As for arcane trickster, I can't tell you much since my NwN2 build knowledge is incredibly limited, but I doubt you'd have a hard time with it, unless you severely gimp yourself and/or your companions.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Went with Barbarian but find it a bit boring

 

[Gahbreeil]

F/M/T

 

[Turn_BASED]

F/M/T

Veilguard gender options

 

[Pikoman]

Probably a stupid question, but is there an option to install only a select few things from the PrC pack? I've not experienced the entirety of the possible builds the base game has to offer, but it'd be cool to experiment in the future with something new, though I don't want to add the entire tons of custom content the PrC has to offer, only a select few classes if it's possible. Come to think of, it's a shame that PWs are still anal in regards to freely sharing their code and other stuff, a lot of them offer a good selection of cool classes and subraces, would've loved to try them out in a singleplayer environment.

 

[Gahbreeil]

Probably a stupid question, but is there an option to install only a select few things from the PrC pack? I've not experienced the entirety of the possible builds the base game has to offer, but it'd be cool to experiment in the future with something new, though I don't want to add the entire tons of custom content the PrC has to offer, only a select few classes if it's possible. Come to think of, it's a shame that PWs are still anal in regards to freely sharing their code and other stuff, a lot of them offer a good selection of cool classes and subraces, would've loved to try them out in a singleplayer environment.

/bin/"operating system"/nwhak.exe

If the PrC (???) comes in .haks, you can look inside, export, make your own.

 

[Gargaune]

Probably a stupid question, but is there an option to install only a select few things from the PrC pack?

Not having looked at the PRC before, I suspect you won't be able to extract "just a select few classes" without lots of manual editing. Most of NWN's assets and rulesets are indexed by or comprised of .2da files, which are complete and definitive tables, the engine doesn't take additive plugins like Bethesda's .esp mods. So if you only wanted a subset of the pack's classes, you'd have to manually replicate just those lines into your own classes.2da and carry over their dependent data, like cls_skill_xxx.2da etc. Certainly doable, but you'd have to get your hands plenty dirty.

 

[Semper]

Probably a stupid question, but is there an option to install only a select few things from the PrC pack?

Open the classes.2da in the Core 2DA folder, scroll down to line 110, where Kaedrin's custom classes start, look for column 'R' titled PlayerClass, deactivate the ones you don't need via entering '0' in the corresponding cell. Reactivate with '1'.