... Shadows of a King's Justice ...
3-part CEP2 module for levels 4-15 new characters
Played as evil evo / transmuter human sorc solo without henchmen
The Good
+ CEP module, boggles my mind when module makers don't make use of custom content for NWN
+ ideal starting level to avoid lvl 1 yawning
+ infinite bags of holding for a solo character, campaign supports crafting (not that you need any being able to sleep in definitely hostile areas)
+ looks pretty, especially from chapter two onwards
The Bad
- plays badly
- no custom AI encounters
- sneak attack unfriendly (traps / locks don't give xp)
- yawn blabla plot
- no custom OST, not that hard to go download from soundcloud and convert to .bmu
RPG
Writing ranges from good...
... to dogshit awful.
Dialogue skills / skill checks are also completely irrelevant throughout the series.
Main plot starts decent enough giving evil characters a reason to go along and a bit of mystery but it only gets worse as the series goes on, devolving into generic fantasy tripe about kings, humans, elves and war. By chapter three I was speed reading the yawn inducing dialogue as my interest was only in finishing the series due to bad combat.
Chapter 1 side quests had such bad writing I would recommend skipping all optional quests outside the initial district. You can make up the lost 1k xp or whatever in chapter two as there are areas with respawning mobs.
Combat
Chapter one has a few tough fights due to low lvl RNG, spell resistance and level differential, but nothing actually interesting like custom AI encounters. It's playable.
Bad gameplay design starts to show in chapter two at higher levels once the d&d system no longer holds your hand as a module maker.
+ you get a horse instead of trivializing combat by handing out perma-haste (which it does shortly after unfortunately)
- vampire monks / liches having no SR which is just silly compared to chapter one
- the first main boss was a complete anti-climactic joke (no custom AI doesn't help)
- weird itemization like 10-12 spell resistance is somehow useful on a lvl 10-12 character
- stores selling lvl 9 spells is lame and kills already lacking difficulty
By lvl 12 this module series basically dies. I had from gear...
- perma-haste
- freedom
- mind-immunity
- poison immunity
- disease immunity
- level-drain immunity
- true seeing 1x / day
- 2x sequencer robes giving me access to shadow shield for death magic and necromancy immunity along with +3/10 DR and time stop 1x / day
When you give the player this level of power (Gate / BBoD at level 12 hello anyone?) the module difficulty needs to ramp up crazy hard. It doesn't, and turns into you speed-running / sleepwalking with perma-haste clicking randomly somewhere watching pretty lights while everything dies.
The final boss of chapter two happened in a cool area but there was no challenge whatsoever.
Chapter 3 consists of aielund formula melee meat auto-attacking you without haste having varius degrees of immunities.
Plot villain is mega lame and you have to fight him multiple times prolonging the inevitable auto-win, wouldn't even mind it running away from the fight if it was actually scripted properly in a big area where it actually moves with haste instead of annoying cutscene plot garbage dragging the module on.
Final boss had stock AI, no SR, sneak attack immune but no true seeing, dies to like 2x IGMS. Epic.
I get the feeling the module author plays like pure fighter on normal / easy and has no idea about game mechanics.
... Random screenshot gallery ...
