Gargaune
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,698
a) The thread's about NWN2, and NWN2 (sadly) doesn't have an EE;
b) As for NWN1, I wholeheartedly recommend everyone play the EE.
-
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NWN Gargaune's Greater Guide to Enjoying Neverwinter Nights 2
- Thread starter Gargaune
- Start date
b) As for NWN1, I wholeheartedly recommend everyone play the EE.
If it's fixed it must be quit recent, last time I played about maybe two years ago it was still the same. But if it's fixed - well hallellujah!
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
So I just hit Act II and went a bit into it and I'm very pleased to report that so far this game completely lives up to the hype. One of the marks of a great story in an RPG is the ability to feel many strings pulling you in the same direction and to be excited to see what happens when they converge. I'm completely switched on by this, my character is responding to clues and adding his own insight due to having a high lore score and I think I have a pretty good idea of what's going on, while still remaining sufficiently in the dark about many things. None of it feels railroady. Gameplay is good, difficult to keep my character alive due to his class (Bard) and my laziness at reacquainting myself with it after such a long hiatus, but not too difficult to be frustrating with the rest of the party involved. It's a nice balance. Music is great, dark and about on par NWN 1. It also pleases me that I'm in an area of the Forgotten Realms that I'm not overly familiar with other than snippets from Minsc and Dynaheir in BG. In contrast to the vaguely Norse feel of Icewind Dale, Mulsantir and Rashemaar kinda feel like the Old Slavic east. Lots of trade going on by both road and river, councils of witches and secret covens of hags surround in a thick blanket of shamanistic mysticism and nature worship. It feels nice to hear strange words attached to bits of lore that I've never heard before, it's like I'm exploring the setting for the first time again and I haven't felt that way in over 20 years. I think I'll post some guesses about how I think the story is going to go based on what I know so far below before wrapping up with some minor gripes. Spoilers beyond this point.
Anyway, that's about all I can think of besides the fact that I'm really enjoying the echoing themes of masks, love and betrayal within the story so far. As mentioned, it reminds me a lot of KotOR II, where seemingly unimportant words in character dialogue come back to comfort or bite you later. Seems like there's a lot of C&C with dialogue options, just as there was in the OC but even more of them. High lore skill plays a huge role, and some of my attributes have come into play as well. I wonder what other info could have been available had I been better at different skills/attributes. Looking forward to playing more.
So, due to intrigues of beyond my control, my character has become a spirit-eater, a curse that was originally transmitted down the lines from the original Betrayer, a high priest of Myrkul that assaulted Myrkul's domain due to a perceived injustice relating to the fate of his beloved. The Sword of Gith and possibly the shard? were once in the possession of this priest and have been taken from me "For love." (We'll get back to this.). Where once the shard was, an emptiness now exists, both figurative and literal, that can never be filled and with it a hunger.
One of my first major gripes is that upon waking up, my character didn't seem to give a shit that all of his friends just died horribly, especially Elanee who he'd become romantic with in the OC. They're never once mentioned until the start
of Act II and it almost makes my character seem like a bit of a psychopath because it's not as if he doesn't know what happened. I get why this was done design-wise, because not every player would be coming to MotB from the OC, especially since the OC was so average, but still. I can't help but feel that at least some sort of underlying sadness should be evident every so often in dialogue, especially companion dialogue, if nothing else. Eventually, the game let us know that Khelgar and Amon Jerro made it out alive, which is nice I guess but they weren't the the closest to my character. Also seems that Sand was definitely killed by the cave-in and at least two others are dead for certain, though those may have been Bishop and Qara which I killed myself due to their betrayal. That still leaves Elanee, Nishka, Zhjaeve, Grobnar and Casavir missing and presumed dead. That's a big deal character-wise and I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been better for MotB's MC to have just been an entirely separate character. Remains to be seen if the Sword of Gith's role is truly indispensable to the main plot or whether some other contrivance could have been substituted.
The first companion I met was Safiya, a cute Thayan waifu who found me in a barrow after the Sword of Gith and the shard had been stolen from me. In truth, I didn't pay close enough attention to why she was there at the right place at the right time. I know she tells you when you first meet her, but I don't remember what she said. (If anyone remembers, please let me know.) What I do remember is that it felt a little too convenient. Apparently, she hears voices in her head sometimes that warn her of impending dangers. (Though, she is bald and covered in tatoos so just post-university mental illness right? Riiight.) I think she may have been sent away by her mother, who is the mistress of an academy in Thay which is in rebellion against her. Her mother has rivals or a rival that iirc, was a quiet scholarly type who suddenly tried to overthrow her. I guess she sent her daughter to find her friend who was a former red wizard now running a theater company in exile or something? I have the feeling that Safiya isn't telling me the whole story and perhaps even to the point that she too was involved in my affliction. (Another Betrayer or layer of betrayal down the road.)
Next up we have Gann, some sort of half-breed that loves giving chicks the time of their lives in dreams, but that's just a mask he wears to distract himself from the pain of being an outcast with no one to trust and no family or something. He reminds me a lot of Atton from KotOR II. He's hurt and will hurt others in turn because that's the way of the world, but it doesn't need to be so. I don't really know what his deal is yet, it seems Kaelyn can see right through him though and it seems like this is the echo of the "Mask" idea. That everyone has a mask they wear and sooner or later they must decide between what they present and what they hide. To a lesser extent whether he wants a place in the real or the ethereal. It's very Avellonian and intriguing.
Then there's Kaelyn the Dove. "Mr. Kelemvor tear down this wall!" - Innocent, naïve angelic bae and ex-priestess of Kelemvor who cannot stand the perceived injustice of the Wall of the Faithless, a thing that's crafted by the Gods of Death out of the souls of non-believers as punishment for their lack of faith in any god to the point she was thrown out of Ilmater's hall for leading a second failed assault(?) upon the wall some time after the original Betrayer's assault failed. This is something that I have a hard time swallowing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I find it difficult to believe that in a world where Gods unambiguously fell from the heavens in a well-known cataclysmic event (admittedly I'm not sure how long ago the Time of Troubles was to the game's timeline) that anyone could possess sufficient doubt or scorn to be an actual atheist. To Kaelyn's credit, she mentions children, newborns and savages on the bottom of the sea or folk on other planes that had no access to revelation and I think "Okay, fine... but..." The Christian in me thinks that if such a wall exists and all three Gods of the Dead, regardless of temperament and morality came to the same conclusion that: "Yeah, maybe this thing that we've just inherited should stay exactly as it is and we shouldn't fuck around with it." then there's probably a damn good reason for it, even if that reason is currently unknown to mortals or angels. Through Kaelyn's empathetic good nature, the game seems desperate to convince the player that the wall is unjust, while as of yet providing no plausible or compelling counterargument. It's again similar to KotOR II where Kreia is desperately trying to convince you that the Force is malicious. I have a feeling that much later in the game a counterargument will be given as a revelation, perhaps to the shock of everyone, especially my Bard who is a hopeless romantic at heart. I have a feeling that the wall may be required to give power to all the Gods to exercise their portfolio and they do a lot more good than harm on balance. As a player though, I'm having a hard time biting my tongue when what I really want to say is: "How the hell could you possibly know that the alternative to the wall isn't worse?" or as is available, but out of character: "Another case of love ruining a perfectly good working relationship." - Oh Chris, if only you knew...
The only thing I really fear is if the Wall of the Faithless turns out to be exactly what Kaelyn describes it as, just an arbitrary punishment because (insert mid-2000s religion bad! cringe here). I really hope it's deeper than that, at least to the point where the two camps can be reconciled through a new covenant for the genuinely ignorant or something.
Just got the Okku the Bear, nothing to say really, seems he was connected to one of the curse-bearers after the original Betrayer died and that bearer somehow managed to contain the Spirit-Eater curse in the runestones in the barrow that I woke up beside at the start of the game. Whoever put me there probably did it to begin the cycle anew for reasons unknown to me currently.
Lastly, we have the Red Woman and the White Woman. From what I gather, I think the White Woman is Akachi's (the first Betrayer's) beloved who didn't believe in any Gods and that Akachi was somehow successful in saving her life even though his crusade against Myrkul failed and he suffered the curse. A former Red Wizard of Thay, she lived out her days in exile and sadness in Mulsantir until she's approached by the Red Woman sometime before the game starts and her entire mood changes according to her friends. I'd hazard a guess that the Red Woman told/lied of a possibility to save Akachi from the wall but I think in the end she was betrayed by the Red Woman. I think that the Red Woman probably convinced her that in order to get her beloved back she needed to take the Sword of Gith and the Shard from my character's body. Possibly something only she could do since she was connected to their former owner. In a vision when touching the operating table, a woman remorsefully echoes "For love." when removing the shard, something that Kaelyn mentioned word for word as the motivation of Akachi the Betrayer. Like poetry, it rhymes. Successful, the Woman in White was betrayed by the Woman in Red who ordered her death previously. We know that there's a portal between the theater where the operation took place and the barrow where my character's body was left post-op. I think the Red Woman, or possibly Safiya put my character there, now empty, a perfect vessel for the spirit-eater which was imprisoned in the place I was dumped. I strongly suspect that the Red Woman is Safiya's mother, who wanted the Sword of Gith and possibly the Spirit Eater Curse to combat the rebels at her school or for some other reason not yet known to me. Safiya's mother is supposed to be dead according to the White Woman's murderers but I think that's just a bit of theater to throw the player off the trail. Probably faked her own death to buy time or to better dupe her daughter into guiding me some other purpose down the road. Possibly another layer of betrayal if Safiya is in on it. Remains to be seen. Please no spoilers, thanks.
One of my first major gripes is that upon waking up, my character didn't seem to give a shit that all of his friends just died horribly, especially Elanee who he'd become romantic with in the OC. They're never once mentioned until the start
of Act II and it almost makes my character seem like a bit of a psychopath because it's not as if he doesn't know what happened. I get why this was done design-wise, because not every player would be coming to MotB from the OC, especially since the OC was so average, but still. I can't help but feel that at least some sort of underlying sadness should be evident every so often in dialogue, especially companion dialogue, if nothing else. Eventually, the game let us know that Khelgar and Amon Jerro made it out alive, which is nice I guess but they weren't the the closest to my character. Also seems that Sand was definitely killed by the cave-in and at least two others are dead for certain, though those may have been Bishop and Qara which I killed myself due to their betrayal. That still leaves Elanee, Nishka, Zhjaeve, Grobnar and Casavir missing and presumed dead. That's a big deal character-wise and I almost wonder if it wouldn't have been better for MotB's MC to have just been an entirely separate character. Remains to be seen if the Sword of Gith's role is truly indispensable to the main plot or whether some other contrivance could have been substituted.
The first companion I met was Safiya, a cute Thayan waifu who found me in a barrow after the Sword of Gith and the shard had been stolen from me. In truth, I didn't pay close enough attention to why she was there at the right place at the right time. I know she tells you when you first meet her, but I don't remember what she said. (If anyone remembers, please let me know.) What I do remember is that it felt a little too convenient. Apparently, she hears voices in her head sometimes that warn her of impending dangers. (Though, she is bald and covered in tatoos so just post-university mental illness right? Riiight.) I think she may have been sent away by her mother, who is the mistress of an academy in Thay which is in rebellion against her. Her mother has rivals or a rival that iirc, was a quiet scholarly type who suddenly tried to overthrow her. I guess she sent her daughter to find her friend who was a former red wizard now running a theater company in exile or something? I have the feeling that Safiya isn't telling me the whole story and perhaps even to the point that she too was involved in my affliction. (Another Betrayer or layer of betrayal down the road.)
Next up we have Gann, some sort of half-breed that loves giving chicks the time of their lives in dreams, but that's just a mask he wears to distract himself from the pain of being an outcast with no one to trust and no family or something. He reminds me a lot of Atton from KotOR II. He's hurt and will hurt others in turn because that's the way of the world, but it doesn't need to be so. I don't really know what his deal is yet, it seems Kaelyn can see right through him though and it seems like this is the echo of the "Mask" idea. That everyone has a mask they wear and sooner or later they must decide between what they present and what they hide. To a lesser extent whether he wants a place in the real or the ethereal. It's very Avellonian and intriguing.
Then there's Kaelyn the Dove. "Mr. Kelemvor tear down this wall!" - Innocent, naïve angelic bae and ex-priestess of Kelemvor who cannot stand the perceived injustice of the Wall of the Faithless, a thing that's crafted by the Gods of Death out of the souls of non-believers as punishment for their lack of faith in any god to the point she was thrown out of Ilmater's hall for leading a second failed assault(?) upon the wall some time after the original Betrayer's assault failed. This is something that I have a hard time swallowing for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I find it difficult to believe that in a world where Gods unambiguously fell from the heavens in a well-known cataclysmic event (admittedly I'm not sure how long ago the Time of Troubles was to the game's timeline) that anyone could possess sufficient doubt or scorn to be an actual atheist. To Kaelyn's credit, she mentions children, newborns and savages on the bottom of the sea or folk on other planes that had no access to revelation and I think "Okay, fine... but..." The Christian in me thinks that if such a wall exists and all three Gods of the Dead, regardless of temperament and morality came to the same conclusion that: "Yeah, maybe this thing that we've just inherited should stay exactly as it is and we shouldn't fuck around with it." then there's probably a damn good reason for it, even if that reason is currently unknown to mortals or angels. Through Kaelyn's empathetic good nature, the game seems desperate to convince the player that the wall is unjust, while as of yet providing no plausible or compelling counterargument. It's again similar to KotOR II where Kreia is desperately trying to convince you that the Force is malicious. I have a feeling that much later in the game a counterargument will be given as a revelation, perhaps to the shock of everyone, especially my Bard who is a hopeless romantic at heart. I have a feeling that the wall may be required to give power to all the Gods to exercise their portfolio and they do a lot more good than harm on balance. As a player though, I'm having a hard time biting my tongue when what I really want to say is: "How the hell could you possibly know that the alternative to the wall isn't worse?" or as is available, but out of character: "Another case of love ruining a perfectly good working relationship." - Oh Chris, if only you knew...
The only thing I really fear is if the Wall of the Faithless turns out to be exactly what Kaelyn describes it as, just an arbitrary punishment because (insert mid-2000s religion bad! cringe here). I really hope it's deeper than that, at least to the point where the two camps can be reconciled through a new covenant for the genuinely ignorant or something.
Just got the Okku the Bear, nothing to say really, seems he was connected to one of the curse-bearers after the original Betrayer died and that bearer somehow managed to contain the Spirit-Eater curse in the runestones in the barrow that I woke up beside at the start of the game. Whoever put me there probably did it to begin the cycle anew for reasons unknown to me currently.
Lastly, we have the Red Woman and the White Woman. From what I gather, I think the White Woman is Akachi's (the first Betrayer's) beloved who didn't believe in any Gods and that Akachi was somehow successful in saving her life even though his crusade against Myrkul failed and he suffered the curse. A former Red Wizard of Thay, she lived out her days in exile and sadness in Mulsantir until she's approached by the Red Woman sometime before the game starts and her entire mood changes according to her friends. I'd hazard a guess that the Red Woman told/lied of a possibility to save Akachi from the wall but I think in the end she was betrayed by the Red Woman. I think that the Red Woman probably convinced her that in order to get her beloved back she needed to take the Sword of Gith and the Shard from my character's body. Possibly something only she could do since she was connected to their former owner. In a vision when touching the operating table, a woman remorsefully echoes "For love." when removing the shard, something that Kaelyn mentioned word for word as the motivation of Akachi the Betrayer. Like poetry, it rhymes. Successful, the Woman in White was betrayed by the Woman in Red who ordered her death previously. We know that there's a portal between the theater where the operation took place and the barrow where my character's body was left post-op. I think the Red Woman, or possibly Safiya put my character there, now empty, a perfect vessel for the spirit-eater which was imprisoned in the place I was dumped. I strongly suspect that the Red Woman is Safiya's mother, who wanted the Sword of Gith and possibly the Spirit Eater Curse to combat the rebels at her school or for some other reason not yet known to me. Safiya's mother is supposed to be dead according to the White Woman's murderers but I think that's just a bit of theater to throw the player off the trail. Probably faked her own death to buy time or to better dupe her daughter into guiding me some other purpose down the road. Possibly another layer of betrayal if Safiya is in on it. Remains to be seen. Please no spoilers, thanks.
Anyway, that's about all I can think of besides the fact that I'm really enjoying the echoing themes of masks, love and betrayal within the story so far. As mentioned, it reminds me a lot of KotOR II, where seemingly unimportant words in character dialogue come back to comfort or bite you later. Seems like there's a lot of C&C with dialogue options, just as there was in the OC but even more of them. High lore skill plays a huge role, and some of my attributes have come into play as well. I wonder what other info could have been available had I been better at different skills/attributes. Looking forward to playing more.
Gargaune
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,698
KörangarTheMighty, I won't comment on your speculations because I don't want to spoil the rest of the game for you, but I'm glad you seem to be enjoying it enough to stimulate such ruminations. I'll only make the following observations at this point:
- Yes, MotB would've been better off entirely disconnected from the events of the OC, but by the game's release, marketing "wisdom" already held that sequels and especially expansions must be direct continuations with the same protagonist to bait in as many return customers as possible.
- Both the original Bhaalspawn Saga in Baldur's Gate (so excluding BG3) and Mask of the Betrayer are direct (albeit non-canon, according to WotC) successors to the Avatar series of novels that cover the Time of Troubles which ushered in the Forgotten Realms' 2E fiction. The fourth novel in the series deals extensively with Kelemvor and the concept of The Wall and its rationales. They're not terrible books, they're not great either (aside from the fifth and final volume, which is hilarious) but they're worth checking out if you're a fan of BG and MotB. Obviously, after you finish the game at this point.
- The MotB cast are a cut above the usual RPG fare and congruous with the overall artistic direction - notice their mannerisms, how everyone is consistently sober and rational? Even the psychotic wraith and the colourful bear, there's nothing goofy or slapstick about them, their "eccentricities" are purely an unsettling reminder of their otherworldly natures, not infantile comedy. Gann and Kaelyn were written by Avellone, Safiya, Okku and One of Many were written by Zeits and/or Fenstermaker, I don't have a precise lead.
- Yes, MotB would've been better off entirely disconnected from the events of the OC, but by the game's release, marketing "wisdom" already held that sequels and especially expansions must be direct continuations with the same protagonist to bait in as many return customers as possible.
- Both the original Bhaalspawn Saga in Baldur's Gate (so excluding BG3) and Mask of the Betrayer are direct (albeit non-canon, according to WotC) successors to the Avatar series of novels that cover the Time of Troubles which ushered in the Forgotten Realms' 2E fiction. The fourth novel in the series deals extensively with Kelemvor and the concept of The Wall and its rationales. They're not terrible books, they're not great either (aside from the fifth and final volume, which is hilarious) but they're worth checking out if you're a fan of BG and MotB. Obviously, after you finish the game at this point.
- The MotB cast are a cut above the usual RPG fare and congruous with the overall artistic direction - notice their mannerisms, how everyone is consistently sober and rational? Even the psychotic wraith and the colourful bear, there's nothing goofy or slapstick about them, their "eccentricities" are purely an unsettling reminder of their otherworldly natures, not infantile comedy. Gann and Kaelyn were written by Avellone, Safiya, Okku and One of Many were written by Zeits and/or Fenstermaker, I don't have a precise lead.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
I was curious so I went to look up the exact timeline. Apparently, between the events of BG1 and MotB there are only six short years. Interesting.
Yeah, so far the only comic relief present is in the form of Safiya's familiar Kaji and that is appreciated. There hasn't even been any zaniness out of the random NPCs.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
Just finished Mask of the Betrayer. What a ride! Many thoughts but I think I'll save them until I see what the ending is like if I choose to stay dedicated to Elanee rather than Safiya. I think I got the best good ending regardless, just curious to see if there's a difference. Will post my full thoughts in a week or so once the game settles in my head.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
Three months and a mild curiosity about SoZ has finally reminded me to post my damn closing thoughts, if I can even remember them now! Spoilers Below:
Regardless of all the nit-picks though, this game was fantastic. Dialogue was excellent and I loved the echoing of the game's themes throughout each of the characters and certain NPCs, I loved how none of the main villains were generic underlings and they all had a deep history with each other. All the threads tied together neatly in the end. Solid 8.5/10.
P.S. Any advice for starting SoZ? Is it worth playing? Any particular class, things to avoid/look out for and so forth?
Firstly, I'm pleased that the game eventually gave decent closure to all of your companions from the OC even if it was less than ideal. For the most part, I'm glad it was a direct sequel after all.
Learning that Elanee had perished while pushing my character out of the way of a collapsing ceiling was a real punch to the gut, and part of me held out hope all the way to the end that if I eschewed the romance with Safiya that she may have somehow made it out alive and there would be a reunion in the ending cutscenes. No such luck, and that's sort of where the romance design becomes very sloppy imo. Basically, if you value any of your past RP choices from the OC, you're practically forced to turn down Safiya way before you even learn what happened to Elanee. The conversation comes up too early, well before you have all the pertinent information. If you do anything other than ignore the elephant in the room at that point, the game railroads you permanently into the friendzone with Safiya. Even once you do learn what happened, the game still forces you to abide by your previous choice, even though Safiya reveals that her feelings for you remain unchanged just before entering Kelemvor's realm at the end of the game. You get absolutely no say in the matter, the option isn't even available. Either give the player payoff for remaining loyal, acknowledge the change of circumstances or else why even have the fucking option to begin with. Totally stupid design. Other than that, I was glad to hear that Sand probably made it out if he chose his final spell wisely, according to Jerro. Casavir went out like a chad, Grobnar went out like a retard. Khelgar, Neeshka and Zjaeve made it out. No qualms with any of that.
I was right about some things with Safiya, wrong about others. She was being puppeted sort of, but her mother wasn't exactly the villain. I was right about her mother being the Red Woman, right that she was the one who put me in the barrow, wrong about her murdering the White Woman. I was right about them being freed from the wall by Akachi as well. Turns out that all three were parts of a single person though and I didn't account for the fact that Akachi was still alive sort of. TBH, I think the theories I came up with for Safiya's Mother were more interesting but whatever.
Holy shit was Gann's companion quest annoying, bad enough that it was a bland mega dungeon with water temple puzzles and respawning enemies, but hearing some old bitch constantly screeching and cackling "WHERE HAVE YOU GONE MY SON, MY SON..." every 5 seconds was excruciating, and for a moment I understood all the arguments against voice acting in RPGs. Totally obnoxious and uncalled for, and unfortunately totally in-character. Still, whoever is responsible for creating that segment should swing from a lamp post. Even freeing his mother from her madness was unsatisfying because her actions were retarded. She fell in love with a humee, and the humee loved her back but instead of just fleeing the coven I think she wound up killing him and then giving Gann up or something? It was lame. Still liked the character, though I somewhat regret getting his influence up so high at the end. His suboptimal endings are actually better where he winds up joining an acting troupe or settles down with a certain dreamwalking bint iirc.
The Wall of the Faithless disappointed me a bit. The game never quite gave a believable counter-argument to Kaelyn's idealism so I wound up siding with her entirely. I was playing a bard so it was in character, but really I still find it unlikely that skeptics could even exist in the lore. Basically, the only reason the wall existed was to serve as a scare tactic to maintain faith in the gods. Like again... that would have been fine had those who were genuinely ignorant such as children and infants been exempt, but nope. No compromises from low-IQ Kelemvor who didn't understand that "sovereign is he who decides the exception". Myrkul on the other hand was an awesome grandmaster of underwater 4D chess, manipulating Akachi into doing something crazy and then creating the Spirit-Eater out of him as an insurance policy in case anyone ever usurped his portfolio. Too bad I had to sunset him. Kaelyn's ending was absolutely kino, essentially becoming a goddess to the Faithless in the wall, snatching them out one by one. I hear tell that if you side against her, her grandfather may show up to try to bargain with you for her life. Love to know what criteria that requires.
The final boss was a bit too easy, I didn't even use my spirit eater abilities, though my character was downed and Safiya had to handle him. Still, nowhere near as grand as the fight with the King of Shadows in the OC.
For some reason, the game gave me no info about what happened to Okku in the ending cutscenes. I only got Kaelyn, Safiya and Gann's, which were the three I took into the Fugue Plane. I suppose that must be the reason because I had max influence with him as well.
Learning that Elanee had perished while pushing my character out of the way of a collapsing ceiling was a real punch to the gut, and part of me held out hope all the way to the end that if I eschewed the romance with Safiya that she may have somehow made it out alive and there would be a reunion in the ending cutscenes. No such luck, and that's sort of where the romance design becomes very sloppy imo. Basically, if you value any of your past RP choices from the OC, you're practically forced to turn down Safiya way before you even learn what happened to Elanee. The conversation comes up too early, well before you have all the pertinent information. If you do anything other than ignore the elephant in the room at that point, the game railroads you permanently into the friendzone with Safiya. Even once you do learn what happened, the game still forces you to abide by your previous choice, even though Safiya reveals that her feelings for you remain unchanged just before entering Kelemvor's realm at the end of the game. You get absolutely no say in the matter, the option isn't even available. Either give the player payoff for remaining loyal, acknowledge the change of circumstances or else why even have the fucking option to begin with. Totally stupid design. Other than that, I was glad to hear that Sand probably made it out if he chose his final spell wisely, according to Jerro. Casavir went out like a chad, Grobnar went out like a retard. Khelgar, Neeshka and Zjaeve made it out. No qualms with any of that.
I was right about some things with Safiya, wrong about others. She was being puppeted sort of, but her mother wasn't exactly the villain. I was right about her mother being the Red Woman, right that she was the one who put me in the barrow, wrong about her murdering the White Woman. I was right about them being freed from the wall by Akachi as well. Turns out that all three were parts of a single person though and I didn't account for the fact that Akachi was still alive sort of. TBH, I think the theories I came up with for Safiya's Mother were more interesting but whatever.
Holy shit was Gann's companion quest annoying, bad enough that it was a bland mega dungeon with water temple puzzles and respawning enemies, but hearing some old bitch constantly screeching and cackling "WHERE HAVE YOU GONE MY SON, MY SON..." every 5 seconds was excruciating, and for a moment I understood all the arguments against voice acting in RPGs. Totally obnoxious and uncalled for, and unfortunately totally in-character. Still, whoever is responsible for creating that segment should swing from a lamp post. Even freeing his mother from her madness was unsatisfying because her actions were retarded. She fell in love with a humee, and the humee loved her back but instead of just fleeing the coven I think she wound up killing him and then giving Gann up or something? It was lame. Still liked the character, though I somewhat regret getting his influence up so high at the end. His suboptimal endings are actually better where he winds up joining an acting troupe or settles down with a certain dreamwalking bint iirc.
The Wall of the Faithless disappointed me a bit. The game never quite gave a believable counter-argument to Kaelyn's idealism so I wound up siding with her entirely. I was playing a bard so it was in character, but really I still find it unlikely that skeptics could even exist in the lore. Basically, the only reason the wall existed was to serve as a scare tactic to maintain faith in the gods. Like again... that would have been fine had those who were genuinely ignorant such as children and infants been exempt, but nope. No compromises from low-IQ Kelemvor who didn't understand that "sovereign is he who decides the exception". Myrkul on the other hand was an awesome grandmaster of underwater 4D chess, manipulating Akachi into doing something crazy and then creating the Spirit-Eater out of him as an insurance policy in case anyone ever usurped his portfolio. Too bad I had to sunset him. Kaelyn's ending was absolutely kino, essentially becoming a goddess to the Faithless in the wall, snatching them out one by one. I hear tell that if you side against her, her grandfather may show up to try to bargain with you for her life. Love to know what criteria that requires.
The final boss was a bit too easy, I didn't even use my spirit eater abilities, though my character was downed and Safiya had to handle him. Still, nowhere near as grand as the fight with the King of Shadows in the OC.
For some reason, the game gave me no info about what happened to Okku in the ending cutscenes. I only got Kaelyn, Safiya and Gann's, which were the three I took into the Fugue Plane. I suppose that must be the reason because I had max influence with him as well.
Regardless of all the nit-picks though, this game was fantastic. Dialogue was excellent and I loved the echoing of the game's themes throughout each of the characters and certain NPCs, I loved how none of the main villains were generic underlings and they all had a deep history with each other. All the threads tied together neatly in the end. Solid 8.5/10.
P.S. Any advice for starting SoZ? Is it worth playing? Any particular class, things to avoid/look out for and so forth?
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Gargaune
Arcane
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2020
- Messages
- 3,698
I know that feeling.
I eventually gave up and turned my speakers off to complete the dungeon.She was forced by the rest of the Coven to eat her lover alive. And Gann gets really pissed off if you murder her. As if any other outcome were possible after I'd had to turn my fucking speakers off!
Regarding the Wall of the Faithless, this is one of the game's few shortcomings in the writing department, because indeed it doesn't really provide a counterpoint to Kaelyn's perspective. This does exist in the wider FR fiction and it's laid out in the 4th novel in the Avatar series (whether you find it convincing or not), but Obsidian didn't really see fit to go into it beyond a one-sentence elevator pitch.
Easy, just side with Kelemvor's forces at the opening of Act 3. You'll then meet her at the Chapel, hostile, and once you defeat her, her grandfather teleports in to ask you spare her life.
Not much beyond what I said in the OP. It's a dramatically different experience, almost the polar opposite of MotB. Rolling a party of four, you can't really go wrong with your classes.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
Yeah, that sounds familiar. To me it sounded as if she had a more decent amount of autonomy than what was made out though, she was able to keep her degenerate humee love secret for a long time, so I figured the rest of the coven weren't really paying much attention and she might have had the opportunity to just steal away into the night at some point before they were found out.
Interesting. I read about it in Gamebanshee's guide but the writer wasn't able to get him to show up consistently for some reason. I figured it may have been based on a certain amount of influence or something aside from siding with Kelemvor. Something to try out next playthrough in any case.
Thanks for the advice, I'll have to re-read the OP.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
Completed Storm of Zehir 2 nights ago and figured I'd post my thoughts. Surprisingly, I found myself really enjoying this campaign and breezed through it in a week, I actually think I enjoyed the experience more than MotB for a few reasons. Firstly because the game does away with the influence system for companions which despite loving many games where systems like that are included, as I get older it feels more and more badgering to have quantifiable values assigned to affection which the autist in me feels obligated to min-max. Obsidian did this with several games and even Bioware started down that road with DA:O and quite frankly, I've never enjoyed it much. The story in games always has a level of abstraction, what you're presented with on-screen isn't the sum of the experience between two characters so when it comes to influence systems, it just seems like a way to arbitrarily wall off content until you jerk off the given character enough when the reality is, when you're bleeding with somebody else day in and day out, (and giving them some of the best loot at your own PC's expense) you're going to bond regardless. That's not to say there should never be Rubicons to cross between love and hate, but I prefer not having to juggle in and out party members to hit or avoid scripted conversations and events just to ensure they stick around at the end. Storm of Zehir wisely does away with that, though sadly much of the personal interaction went with it, but what was subbed in was frankly a brilliant system for flavored roleplay in dialogue with other NPCs in the world.
Whenever you enter into dialogue, the game allows you to freely cycle between characters to select the party member with the best expertise in the given topic to give the responses. Your bold paladin can issue the challenge when speaking to a dragon, you can have your ranger make the survival checks when tracking footprints leading out of a camp in the jungle, your mage will be able to recognize what organization the symbol of "Two snakes coming together, facing eachudder, but they're one." belongs to. It's so good, and it adds so much flavor to every interaction. The only criticism I have about it is that it is mostly for flavor, and I wish that there were more situations that you could get yourself into or out of by having the right character do the talking, rather than having various ways of progressing a given quest in a linear direction.
Having just finished Pool of Radiance recently, I couldn't help but feel the similarity between the two in scope even though they're twenty years apart. Of all the D&D games I've played, both of these games felt the most like classic D&D campaigns. There's no grand narrative, no world-ending threat, just a regional problem that need solving and a lot of high adventure. SoZ is first and foremost an explorefag game and it actively rewards you for diving into random dungeons. The more you do, the more you get and they're all bite-sized enough to never wear out their welcome, staying well-away from mega-dungeon territory. You put 15-30 minutes into a place and come out with some decent loot and a tale to tell Volo. Granted, this may be a positive or a negative for some people, but for me it was great. After MotB, I didn't want any more screeching Hag labyrinths with obnoxious water puzzles and respawning enemies that take 2 hours to get through.
The setting of the game is dead cool, and it's such a rarity that you ever get stuck in to a jungle as a starting area. I've only ever dipped my toe into Chult briefly in IWD2, so it was nice to return for a more prolonged stay in Samarach at the beginning of the game. Honestly, I expected a lot more of a "piratey" feel from the game, but never really got it. Aside from that, the game is a bit deceptive because it really doesn't frontload its best content. The quests in Samarach are rather bland compared to when you finally get back to the Sword Coast but that being said, the early game did have some very tough encounters that you can either just barely scrape through or outright have to postpone until you make a return later in the game. I'd strongly advise all who are curious to skip the bounty quests though, or else console up the items required. The drop rates are abysmal and wandering around the jungle looking for dinosaurs tedious. Thankfully, these only come up twice. As much as I love the setting I actually think they'd have been better off reversing the order of events, being shipwrecked along the Sword Coast for the first act, and then being expelled into the jungles of Samarach for the second to begin your merchant empire. Trade over sea via shipping routes was also conspicuously absent, the entirety being done by caravans traveling the overworld map. I almost wonder what could have been if they had forgone the Sword Coast entirely and set it rather in Calimshan for an Arabian Nights theme. Missed opportunity imo.
Speaking of trade, it's another big plus in the game's favor. The Crossroad Keep renovations were my favorite bits in the OC and this is more of that. Building up a merchant company was awesome and the amount of gold you can make by the end game is bonkers. I basically went around cleaning out all the stores of everything even remotely useful even for characters I never used. The way it works is you set up tradeposts and upgrade them in each town along the Sword Coast with each post costing trade bars and certain other resources to set up. (Refreshingly, most of the towns are menu based with an inn that sometimes holds a quest.) For every tradepost made, you receive more and more bars back at Crossroad Keep (your merchant HQ) periodically after you set up caravan routes. The caravans travel the overworld map between towns and can possibly be waylaid by enemies, your party can intervene to rescue them (though it's not strictly necessary) and they eventually deliver the goods back to the keep. The trade bars can be exchanged for gold on something like a 1:10 ratio but more importantly, they can also be used to repair various parts of the keep after it was partially ruined after the climax of NWN 2 and purchase better equipment for the caravan guards to fight their own battles. After many upgrades, I was getting something like 35897 trade bars every time I returned back to the keep after riding the plains questing and dungeon diving. The bars are fairly hard to come by early on because they're used to buy the upgrades, but once you put the cash in, you get it all back in spades, so invest early, invest often. Even if you think you'd be better off converting to gold early, abstain. Instead dump your all your bars and even your own gold into the keep upgrades, trade posts and caravan routes.
The overworld map itself is also another really neat feature that bears a quick mention. High skills in survival, spot, listen, lore etc. can reveal hidden treasures and trade resources as well as hidden bespoke encounters as you travel along between areas and towns. The final boss was quite a satisfying fight that I had to put two or three tries into, certainly a vast improvement from the ease of Akachi in MotB. The final dungeon was aesthetically beautiful and even had a stealth option to infiltrate your way through most of it. The soundtrack was more standard than MotB's but I thought many of the pieces were beautiful when combined with the atmosphere of their locations.
The Priory of the Waves and the Port Llast quests in general had some really nice C&C with the Luskanite invaders. Felt a little bad about killing the captain, he seemed more competent than the Neverwintian guy, but business was business. All in all, this was a solid 7.5/10, the same rating I gave PoR. Definitely will return to it one day, it was a great little campaign to wile away the summer nights.
Whenever you enter into dialogue, the game allows you to freely cycle between characters to select the party member with the best expertise in the given topic to give the responses. Your bold paladin can issue the challenge when speaking to a dragon, you can have your ranger make the survival checks when tracking footprints leading out of a camp in the jungle, your mage will be able to recognize what organization the symbol of "Two snakes coming together, facing eachudder, but they're one." belongs to. It's so good, and it adds so much flavor to every interaction. The only criticism I have about it is that it is mostly for flavor, and I wish that there were more situations that you could get yourself into or out of by having the right character do the talking, rather than having various ways of progressing a given quest in a linear direction.
Having just finished Pool of Radiance recently, I couldn't help but feel the similarity between the two in scope even though they're twenty years apart. Of all the D&D games I've played, both of these games felt the most like classic D&D campaigns. There's no grand narrative, no world-ending threat, just a regional problem that need solving and a lot of high adventure. SoZ is first and foremost an explorefag game and it actively rewards you for diving into random dungeons. The more you do, the more you get and they're all bite-sized enough to never wear out their welcome, staying well-away from mega-dungeon territory. You put 15-30 minutes into a place and come out with some decent loot and a tale to tell Volo. Granted, this may be a positive or a negative for some people, but for me it was great. After MotB, I didn't want any more screeching Hag labyrinths with obnoxious water puzzles and respawning enemies that take 2 hours to get through.
It was cool to bump into Skullcrusher again after my party in Pool of Radiance rescued him. Having a high spot skill revealed his cabin in the Neverwinter Wood.
The setting of the game is dead cool, and it's such a rarity that you ever get stuck in to a jungle as a starting area. I've only ever dipped my toe into Chult briefly in IWD2, so it was nice to return for a more prolonged stay in Samarach at the beginning of the game. Honestly, I expected a lot more of a "piratey" feel from the game, but never really got it. Aside from that, the game is a bit deceptive because it really doesn't frontload its best content. The quests in Samarach are rather bland compared to when you finally get back to the Sword Coast but that being said, the early game did have some very tough encounters that you can either just barely scrape through or outright have to postpone until you make a return later in the game. I'd strongly advise all who are curious to skip the bounty quests though, or else console up the items required. The drop rates are abysmal and wandering around the jungle looking for dinosaurs tedious. Thankfully, these only come up twice. As much as I love the setting I actually think they'd have been better off reversing the order of events, being shipwrecked along the Sword Coast for the first act, and then being expelled into the jungles of Samarach for the second to begin your merchant empire. Trade over sea via shipping routes was also conspicuously absent, the entirety being done by caravans traveling the overworld map. I almost wonder what could have been if they had forgone the Sword Coast entirely and set it rather in Calimshan for an Arabian Nights theme. Missed opportunity imo.
Speaking of trade, it's another big plus in the game's favor. The Crossroad Keep renovations were my favorite bits in the OC and this is more of that. Building up a merchant company was awesome and the amount of gold you can make by the end game is bonkers. I basically went around cleaning out all the stores of everything even remotely useful even for characters I never used. The way it works is you set up tradeposts and upgrade them in each town along the Sword Coast with each post costing trade bars and certain other resources to set up. (Refreshingly, most of the towns are menu based with an inn that sometimes holds a quest.) For every tradepost made, you receive more and more bars back at Crossroad Keep (your merchant HQ) periodically after you set up caravan routes. The caravans travel the overworld map between towns and can possibly be waylaid by enemies, your party can intervene to rescue them (though it's not strictly necessary) and they eventually deliver the goods back to the keep. The trade bars can be exchanged for gold on something like a 1:10 ratio but more importantly, they can also be used to repair various parts of the keep after it was partially ruined after the climax of NWN 2 and purchase better equipment for the caravan guards to fight their own battles. After many upgrades, I was getting something like 35897 trade bars every time I returned back to the keep after riding the plains questing and dungeon diving. The bars are fairly hard to come by early on because they're used to buy the upgrades, but once you put the cash in, you get it all back in spades, so invest early, invest often. Even if you think you'd be better off converting to gold early, abstain. Instead dump your all your bars and even your own gold into the keep upgrades, trade posts and caravan routes.
The overworld map itself is also another really neat feature that bears a quick mention. High skills in survival, spot, listen, lore etc. can reveal hidden treasures and trade resources as well as hidden bespoke encounters as you travel along between areas and towns. The final boss was quite a satisfying fight that I had to put two or three tries into, certainly a vast improvement from the ease of Akachi in MotB. The final dungeon was aesthetically beautiful and even had a stealth option to infiltrate your way through most of it. The soundtrack was more standard than MotB's but I thought many of the pieces were beautiful when combined with the atmosphere of their locations.
The Priory of the Waves and the Port Llast quests in general had some really nice C&C with the Luskanite invaders. Felt a little bad about killing the captain, he seemed more competent than the Neverwintian guy, but business was business. All in all, this was a solid 7.5/10, the same rating I gave PoR. Definitely will return to it one day, it was a great little campaign to wile away the summer nights.
I always thought the wall of the faithless wasn't just for the faithless, but rather anyone who just chose not to believe/pray to any god. Not actually not believing because they don't believe any gods exist, but rather not siding with any good, and the wall was there to deter that.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
No. In one of the conversations you have with Kaelyn she mentions that even those without knowledge go into the wall. People who have had no revelation at the bottom of the sea, children who don't fully grasp the reality etc. Took me a long time to find the quotes but here they are:
"To comfort a dying child... knowing that it's destined to scream eternally in an ever-living wall... A midwife of the Planes who has never heard of such a thing as gods, an entire plane of seawives who farm the sea and seed the oceans to bring about life... To know that they are bound to become stones in the wall of a faithless citadel, crushed together by dogma and ritual that has never once been reflected upon. That never once has been examined for what it is."
"You are speaking of the Wall of the Faithless?"
"Yes, the great wall that encircles the City of Judgement. Its bricks are souls that never pledged fealty to any god - nor knew they had to to achieve paradise in the afterlife. They are mortared there, crushed together to suffer by archaic law. No matter how good, or pure, or unselfish they were - it matters only if they followed the proper rituals to a deity, any deity."
This issue I have is that Kaelyn is 100% right. The wall as it is portrayed is unjust for the reasons above. Unfortunately, that's just too simple and easy. As I said prior though it would have been a lot more interesting if Kelemvor would have been willing to come to the table and compromise for the ignorant as a sort of new covenant at the end of the game that gave them a carveout but it was never an option. They could have then put the player in a dilemma to where Kaelyn, in her overzealous compassion wouldn't budge, demanding clemency for atheists as well, then have the player make a truly hard choice. Should humanity be able to freely shirk the most high or recognize that the gods play an important role in stability/morality/whatever else. Too bad really.
"To comfort a dying child... knowing that it's destined to scream eternally in an ever-living wall... A midwife of the Planes who has never heard of such a thing as gods, an entire plane of seawives who farm the sea and seed the oceans to bring about life... To know that they are bound to become stones in the wall of a faithless citadel, crushed together by dogma and ritual that has never once been reflected upon. That never once has been examined for what it is."
"You are speaking of the Wall of the Faithless?"
"Yes, the great wall that encircles the City of Judgement. Its bricks are souls that never pledged fealty to any god - nor knew they had to to achieve paradise in the afterlife. They are mortared there, crushed together to suffer by archaic law. No matter how good, or pure, or unselfish they were - it matters only if they followed the proper rituals to a deity, any deity."
This issue I have is that Kaelyn is 100% right. The wall as it is portrayed is unjust for the reasons above. Unfortunately, that's just too simple and easy. As I said prior though it would have been a lot more interesting if Kelemvor would have been willing to come to the table and compromise for the ignorant as a sort of new covenant at the end of the game that gave them a carveout but it was never an option. They could have then put the player in a dilemma to where Kaelyn, in her overzealous compassion wouldn't budge, demanding clemency for atheists as well, then have the player make a truly hard choice. Should humanity be able to freely shirk the most high or recognize that the gods play an important role in stability/morality/whatever else. Too bad really.
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Is that one a sequel to MOTB?
Gargaune
Arcane
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- Mar 12, 2020
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- 3,698
That's kind of the plot to the fourth Avatar series novel:
After supplanting Cyric, Kelemvor abolishes the Wall of the Faithless and judges the dead according to his own values, sending them onwards or keeping them around in the City of the Dead. The new Mystra, Midnight (who's still Kelemvor's lover at this time), also enacts a similar policy where she allows nice mages access to the Weave but withholds it from naughty ones. This ends up creating all sorts of shenanigans because mortals are no longer afraid of death, even leaping gleefully to it in some cases, and agents of certain other deities are no longer able to do their things, so the whole cosmological feudal setup is upset and the rest of the pantheon eventually manages to prevail upon Kelemvor, making both he and Mystra roll back their reforms, putting the Wall back up and restoring the Weave to neutral ground.
It's not a very well made point (as much as I remember it) and doesn't address the exact compromise you put forward, but it does exist in established fiction so Kelemvor's already been through some experiment to that end by the time MotB rolls around. Unfortunately, the game doesn't touch on it and that's a major oversight in the worldbuilding, maybe MotB's only one.
MjKorz
Educated
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- 530
No, they're just very good and ambitious standalone modules. Path of Evil is like Storm of Zehir, except much better and Crimmor is a rogue-focused city adventure module.
KörangarTheMighty
Scholar
That's cool to know but I think it's a fool's errand to try to square the circle between book and game.
If at some point Kelemvor previously abolished the wall, that means the portion of the Betrayer's spirit that was imprisoned in it by Myrkul would have already been freed and the curse would already be broken before the game even started. Even if Kelemvor hit the undo button it doesn't follow that all the spirits he himself pardoned, that presumably went off to other planes or demesnes of many different gods (or none at all, who even knows) would be surrendered back voluntarily, return of their own volition or be forced back into the wall. That would basically cement Kelemvor as Myrkul's eternal cuck to all of Toril. Old Lord Skull's boney finger forever on the scales. The only way the genie can be put back in the bottle is if the authors say "It's magic, we don't have to explain shit." Good thing the game isn't canon.
Is there a good fan module that involves playing a vampire? Not like westgate where you can become a vampire right at the end, but at least 50% of the way.
MjKorz
Educated
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- Jul 11, 2022
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- 530
If there is, I haven't seen one and I've played most of the moderate-high rated modules on the NWNVault.
- Joined
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- 30,058
There's one for nwn1.
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/module/vampire-–-heaven-defied
It's even inspired by VTM so you know it's doublegay.
Not sure how good it is on the vampirism bit, I don't truck with that shit.
Yeah I played that one several years ago. Was pretty good but very unfinished, I think it only had 1 dungeon and that's it.
There was also another one, with catholic/crusades vibes, that wasn't too bad but was too short as well.
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