NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[luj1]

Any good French modules? Other than Bastard of Kosigan? Tnx

 

[Crispy]

So far I'm enjoying Swordflight, especially its excellent atmosphere, but my suspension of disbelief is suffering somewhat because of the improbability of a first- and second-level character, no matter how talented, being able to defeat so many enemies single-handedly, almost always being outnumbered.

This is not a complaint about the difficulty per se; the module isn't particularly difficult for me so far, but its design is really teetering on the edge of being almost unfair for other reasons -- namely, what I mentioned above: the timing and mechanics of many of the encouters.

Yes, you start out with rats and dire rats and lowly bandits, which is perfectly inline with a starting campaign of course, but I think given the innovation exhibited elsewhere, such as the way to deal with the sewer troll, more creativity could have been used to potentially assist the more roleplaying-oriented player/character as things play out.

So I guess this is a (very) mild complaint about the "difficulty" afterall. I also fully realize I've barely scratched the module's surface.

Very old module, sure, but this is the thread to talk about them, so I'll give more impressions later.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

If Lillura is to be believed, Crispy, Swordflight will rape you like you were Justin Bieber, and it was Puff Daddy.

 

[Crispy]

Thanks for the inspiring insight, Porky.

 

[Gargaune]

I don't care what anyone else says, SoU is fucking beautiful...

Chased him around the room like the Benny Hill theme was on.

 

[ds]

What is up with your text rendering?

 

[luj1]

I don't care what anyone else says, SoU is fucking beautiful...

Chased him around the room like the Benny Hill theme was on.

Underrated campaign - and in my opinion - the optimal best among the three OG modules

 

[Crispy]

Okay, the boulder thing was p. clever (gladiator fight in the ruins).

I admit I generally don't like relying on gimmicks like that in what I think should be a traditional D&D campaign, but asking the player to be inventive and alert is fair and welcome.

I still say that Swordflight is leaning more to the side of a Tomb of Horrors than anything else, but that may well have been its creators' intention.

 

[Gargaune]

What is up with your text rendering?

It's just .JPG artifacting on the picture.

 

[Lacrymas]

I just finished Against the Cult of the Reptile God and it was great. Very charming adaptation, with surprises at almost every corner. It should be a mandatory playthrough for every contemporary RPG dev.

 

[Pikoman]

The Banespirit of Famine is straight up bullshit, I get that it's supposed to be a DPS race and a constant battle of attrition, but why was he so fucking busted compared to the other boss from the duo you fight at the end of the module I have no idea. We're looking at an +100 AB mob which healed himself like a 6 or 7 times without exaggerating, I've decided to look the mob up in the toolset and either my copy/save file of the module has some weird bug or he has a gigantic AC as well, since there is no way in hell he only has a 55 AC, considering I seldom hit him with an AB of +56. It may have been some custom spells he had to boost his AC, but I am pretty sure I was carefully dispelling his stuff so really I don't know. To beat him, I had to spam a wand of electric dragon breath and hope that my henchman and the summon I had scores a lucky hit, so I could have a chance to outdamage his regeneration and ghoul lord leech attacks which always hit, courtesy of the +100 AB business.

Off to the final part we go, I enjoyed Gem Tower up to this particular boss fight - can't remember the last time I was so frustrated in a module or an RPG as a whole. Took me like an hour or so of bashing my head against the encounter lmao.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The Banespirit of Famine is straight up bullshit, I get that it's supposed to be a DPS race and a constant battle of attrition, but why was he so fucking busted compared to the other boss from the duo you fight at the end of the module I have no idea. We're looking at an +100 AB mob which healed himself like a 6 or 7 times without exaggerating, I've decided to look the mob up in the toolset and either my copy/save file of the module has some weird bug or he has a gigantic AC as well, since there is no way in hell he only has a 55 AC, considering I seldom hit him with an AB of +56. It may have been some custom spells he had to boost his AC, but I am pretty sure I was carefully dispelling his stuff so really I don't know. To beat him, I had to spam a wand of electric dragon breath and hope that my henchman and the summon I had scores a lucky hit, so I could have a chance to outdamage his regeneration and ghoul lord leech attacks which always hit, courtesy of the +100 AB business.

Off to the final part we go, I enjoyed Gem Tower up to this particular boss fight - can't remember the last time I was so frustrated in a module or an RPG as a whole. Took me like an hour or so of bashing my head against the encounter lmao.

Huh, wonder what it took for my dude to beat him. Or if I did beat him.

 

[Lacrymas]

Are Siege of Shadowdale, Crimson Tides of Tethyr and Tyrants of the Moonsea one big campaign? It seems like it from their starting levels.

 

[Gargaune]

Are Siege of Shadowdale, Crimson Tides of Tethyr and Tyrants of the Moonsea one big campaign? It seems like it from their starting levels.

Yes, they're soft sequels as part of a series, meaning there's common plot thread running through them (though not actually the main one for each module) and you can play them with the same PC or a different one.

Alternatively, if you haven't played DoD, you could also do SoS and CToT with one PC and DoD followed by TotM with another, CToT's story offer an option to "retire" in the conclusion and TotM can also acknowledge DoD as a prequel in a minor nod, and the levels match.

 

[Lacrymas]

I want to do a melee Bard/Pale Master/Champion of Torm run because I liked the Bard/Pale Master I ran through Reptile God with. The initial zombie summon covers the Bard's weaknesses pretty well, but I don't particularly like ranged martial combat all that much since the build was DEX-based, so melee it is.

 

[Pikoman]

Huh, wonder what it took for my dude to beat him. Or if I did beat him.

Dunno man, I might've overlooked something extremely obvious in that encounter since I don't see people complaining about that boss fight as much as I did. Gonna have to turn off auto-pilot it seems from this point forward, if the final part has similar battles.

After I am done with the series, I'd probably in the mood for something less combat-centric. You guys know of any good roleplaying heavy modules with choices to boot, reactivity, possibly multiple endings and all that jazz, besides the obvious and well-known picks? I might try and return to Bloodright, but a bugged plot door kinda put me off last time I played it.

 

[Turn_BASED]

Huh, wonder what it took for my dude to beat him. Or if I did beat him.

Dunno man, I might've overlooked something extremely obvious in that encounter since I don't see people complaining about that boss fight as much as I did. Gonna have to turn off auto-pilot it seems from this point forward, if the final part has similar battles.

After I am done with the series, I'd probably in the mood for something less combat-centric. You guys know of any good roleplaying heavy modules with choices to boot, reactivity, possibly multiple endings and all that jazz, besides the obvious and well-known picks? I might try and return to Bloodright, but a bugged plot door kinda put me off last time I played it.

I’d recommend The Wanderer part 1. Combat isn’t too difficult nor is it combat heavy. It definitely leans more towards RP and is not linear in the slightest.
It also has an interesting reputation system where NPCs won’t talk to you (since you’re essentially a vagrant) until you get your rep up. You can cheese this by just starting convos repeatedly, as each conversation increases rep.

It’s from same guy who did the Wyvern Crown of Cormyr. I played it a long time ago but I really enjoyed it.

https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/wanderer

Part 2 isn’t as good and is far more generic than the first one.

 

[Crispy]

Does anyone know what the hell is going on with The Blades of Netheril? Luke is blaming the holdup on "third parties".

 

[Lacrymas]

I started Siege of Shadowdale and there are chests in people's houses that contain magical items and nobody complains when I bash them open. Severe downgrade from Reptile God.

 

[Crispy]

The trilogy is still worth it, Lacrymas. Just apply liberal amounts of self-DM'ing.

 

[Gargaune]

Does anyone know what the hell is going on with The Blades of Netheril? Luke is blaming the holdup on "third parties".

Yeah, I'm anxious to see it as well, it's been stuck that way for a long time now. I re-ran the OC last year to prep for it so I'm hoping it gets resolved soon.

I started Siege of Shadowdale and there are chests in people's houses that contain magical items and nobody complains when I bash them open. Severe downgrade from Reptile God.

That's always a tough one, handling crime is quite the rabbit hole in terms of design and where you draw the line - it's certainly appreciated when modules account for it, but most tend to avoid the complications. Like Crispy said, though, the series is worth it.

 

[almondblight]

It's not tough, just don't throw gold and weapons all over the place like candy. It's garbage design, breaking both immersion and usually the game economy, and only appeals to people who would rather be playing a slot machine for the quick dopamine hits.

 

[Gargaune]

That's generally the case regardless of how thieving/looting is handled, random peasants shouldn't have Longswords +3 just lying around in their homes, but it doesn't address the separate issue of reactivity - Joe McFisherman would still object to you taking his fish even if no wizard rolled around to make it a magical fish of dragonslaying.

But with how most NWN/D&D modules are structured it can be highly inconvenient to just turn a whole village hostile while a Bethesda-style system of wanted/fine/jail can pose severe scope creep outside of setpiece quests. More commonly, reactions are limited to alignment, like how SoU gives you bad boy points for looting the elven tombs. You can get more sophisticated, of course, but it's a potentially extensive feature set which is why I called it a bit of a rabbit hole.

 

[Modron]

It's not tough, just don't throw gold and weapons all over the place like candy. It's garbage design, breaking both immersion and usually the game economy, and only appeals to people who would rather be playing a slot machine for the quick dopamine hits.

Did you enjoy every single bag, drawer, cupboard, box, and crate having sensible random junk in it in Twitcher 3?

 

[almondblight]

Did you enjoy every single bag, drawer, cupboard, box, and crate having sensible random junk in it in Twitcher 3?

No, get rid of all of that garbage entirely. If you want to have fun opening up a thousand different cabinets and looking at what's inside, go to Ikea and have a blast. Don't muck up RPGs with your weird fetish.