NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[ERYFKRAD]

Has anyone finished Darkness of Daggerford here? Stuck at the bit where you're supposed to find a way to infiltrate a castle to save some knight's waifu. There're some caverns below but they can't be navigated because no directions.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Heads up for NWN fanboys and fangirls using the camera hack - it can cause serious issues in 1920 x 1080 with cut-scenes. When I started my recent NWN module spree, I noticed that certain cut scenes in the expansions and various modules would not display normally. Sometimes the camera would be zoomed into the floor or blank areas during cut-scenes, or heads or dialogue would be cut-off, etc. I first noticed this during my recent playthrough of HotU. It was very annoying but not a deal breaker. At someone's suggestion over at Neverwintervault, I replaced the camera hacked exe with the original NWN.exe and now cut-scenes display normally. So if you don't need 1st Person Perspective and have issues with cut-scenes like I did, don't use the camera hack. Just...don't.

One more comment about why I love NWN - no face-rolling. Monster and enemy varieties have various resistances, so you can't just use your Super-Sonic Bastard Sword of Fire Death +5 on every monster and expect them to all just fall down. Some strategy is required for best results. So don't be a dummy, kids, and start throwing 20th level fireballs at 40th level Greater Fire Elementals. But of course I'm stating the obvious here, right? That's 101. You all knew this, but maybe not about the camera hack. Have a nice day

:mrpresident:

 

[Lilura]

Commentary on Servilan's Cormyrean Nights, an early NWN module featuring an attempt at factional reactivity and an implementation of alleyways that you don't often see in later modules.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Commentary on Servilan's Cormyrean Nights

This was one of the first modules I played after completing the OC back in 2004 or so (I think the Pool of Radiance remake for NWN was the very first). No wonder I got addicted.

 

[Raziel]

I just finished Swordflight Chapter one a few days ago. It was definitely like Lilura said, a lot of cool resource management. Went with a human rogue, might multi-class into shadowdancer if chapter2 isn't filled with undead. Used quite a lot of traps. Took dual-wield feats early on, but they were basically wasted as hitting anything at low levels with two weapons equipped is a dream...especially with rogue's BAB.

I think the experience is similar to how you play BG2 w/ tactics(at least early game), that is, you use everything available to you to progress. Resting is penalized by monster spawns, but at some point you get strong enough to not give a damn. I had to kite early game till like level 3, then just used consumables to clear everything.

Another interesting thing in the module is that the dungeons have relatively high amounts of loot, depending on how much you can carry it can get troublesome. I had to leave quite a few weapons/armors behind, because I just didn't want to deal with encumbrance in fights.

There's a few things I didn't like all that much, though. Dialogue is generally pretty good, but some parts read like DNDwiki text. I think items should be more pricey, I had 4-5k gold all the time and I bought every item/consumable I wanted to have. I didn't even use crafting much, but I noticed it's possibly to make a profit if you just look out for every crafting item and have enough crafting skill. No real boss-fight either, I guess this is due to chapter one being a low-level module..but still. I know it's probably hard to make an engaging boss fight early on without making it silly, but the best fights I remember from NWN1 were maker/valsharess/draco-lich.

Overall, I really enjoyed the module and I hope chapter two follows the first one's example. I might even replay chapter 1, if there's any change to the story. I really, really wanted to murder that Galhadr girl...

 

[eXalted]

So how is the roleplay in Sworflight or is it a dungeon crawl?

I haven't read reviews and walkthroughs as I don't want to spoil myself.

 

[Raziel]

I'd say it's a mainly combat oriented module, at least that seems to be the focus. There's definitely a lot of possibilities for RP, though. In almost every conversation/environment interaction you can use a skill/attribute to diffuse the situation.

You're almost always given the choice to resolve quests in multiple ways. I have no idea, if the outcomes of differing approaches actully change though. Given that most choices actually seem to be quite 'drastic' within each individual quest, I'd think they do. There's also some mild reactivity in dialogues aimed at the PC's background.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Some NWN modules that I recently played (or tried to play, in some cases):

-Dark Energy by Proleric - very nice looking recently-made module that uses so many different assets from the CEP that it almost feels like a total conversion. Alas, you are pretty much forced into using the pregenerated female character, and though I sometimes will play females, this one made me feel like a transvestite, since you're forced into training as a "courtesan" and have to learn the womanly arts by being as sexually appealing to men as possible so you can get close to them to stick a knife into their gizzards. I would have continued but I think I encountered a game breaking bug where I had to don a beautiful dress and walk like a lady to the mirror (which mirror!? There were EIGHT of them!) then walk back to my instructress. Couldn't do it. "No, you're not walking like a lady! You're running! Try again." Well, I tried again...and again...and again. Until I finally said, "Fuck you, lady. And fuck this module! No homo."

-The Spires of Ravenloft CEP 1.41 - Ah, now this one was a goodie. It's a revision of one of the earlier NWN modules but updated to use CEP assets and has increased difficulty. Sometimes too difficult in the later stages of the game, even with a full party of henchmen. The vampires in this module are the toughest vampires I have ever played in a PC game, like they're suppose to be. Favorite part was exploring the massive Strahd family crypt and defeating the husband & wife bloodsuckers guarding it - one a male vampire warrior that can decimate your 5 member party just as soon suck your precious bodily fluids, all the while his vampire mage wife raining magical death down on you. It was fun and challenging.

-Agrenost: Beneath The Cobbles - nice, sprawling city adventure though I never left the first city and only discovered later by checking the map in the screenshots that there were four more cities to explore. I feel silly for missing that. You can choose either to be a good ole boy or a good bad ole boy, but it seems by the end of the module both good and evil paths converge and no matter how bad you think you think you are, you discover you're working for the Church, instead of the evil robed cultists I thought I was working for. Inexcusable, especially since the module author took great pains in giving different quest lines for different classes. But worth a play nonetheless for the solid gameplay, claustrophobic alleys and sewer systems the module presents.


Next up: Swordflight...finally. However, I'm taking a break from NWN modules for a while to play Grim Dawn. Don't wanna burn myself out.

 

[V_K]

Agrenost: Beneath The Cobbles - nice, sprawling city adventure though I never left the first city and only discovered later by checking the map in the screenshots that there were four more cities to explore

Do I understand you right that those four are all optional and the main quest is confined to the first one?

 

[Jack Of Owls]

Agrenost: Beneath The Cobbles - nice, sprawling city adventure though I never left the first city and only discovered later by checking the map in the screenshots that there were four more cities to explore

Do I understand you right that those four are all optional and the main quest is confined to the first one?

Must be, because I never left the main city of Agrenost (admittedly the largest of the cities by far), aside from underworld areas which felt like they were under Agrenost, and was able to complete the game. There were boatmen that offered to take you to lands elsewhere but there was so much to do in that first city that I didn't really feel the need to leave to progress, or assumed that they were shortcuts that ferried you to different districts of that main city. Here's the screenshot of the game world's map:

 

[Jack Of Owls]

One more thing about Agrenost Beneath The Cobbles that I really liked was the custom music (?) that added great ambiance to the crowded bars and taverns. For example, there's a band lead by a dwarf with a magical singing sword that made me smile, and another group that sings a decent folk-rock song that feels like it might have been either the module author's actual band or a friend's band. They even give out flyers in the tavern promoting this band, though it breaks the fourth wall a bit to read it since it gives out a website URL

 

[eXalted]

Just finished Snow Hunt.

Nicely done module. I wanted to play something short and I am pretty satisfied. I tend to be more of a role-playing person myself and if I the module was longer I suspect I would be bored. It has the perfect gameplay duration. So I guess Swordflight will be tiresome for me?

 

[Lacrymas]

Swordflight 1 isn't excessively long. It has 3 (4?) dungeons with one being amazingly awesome and longer than all the others combined, but it's still not as long as BG1 for example. Much, much shorter in fact.

 

[Proleric]

-Dark Energy by Proleric - very nice looking recently-made module that uses so many different assets from the CEP that it almost feels like a total conversion. Alas, you are pretty much forced into using the pregenerated female character, and though I sometimes will play females, this one made me feel like a transvestite, since you're forced into training as a "courtesan" and have to learn the womanly arts by being as sexually appealing to men as possible so you can get close to them to stick a knife into their gizzards. I would have continued but I think I encountered a game breaking bug where I had to don a beautiful dress and walk like a lady to the mirror (which mirror!? There were EIGHT of them!) then walk back to my instructress. Couldn't do it. "No, you're not walking like a lady! You're running! Try again." Well, I tried again...and again...and again. Until I finally said, "Fuck you, lady. And fuck this module! No homo."

[Waking from a deep slumber] Huh? Someone call name? [Stretch]

Sorry this wasn't for you. Still, if the female roleplay feels... female, I'll count that as a writing success!

Actually, it's equally possible to play as a tomboy. The fashion training is recommended, but not mandatory.

You're not forced into playing the pre-generated character, or the Courtesan class. Any human female (except Barbarian) will do.

The solution to the walking puzzle is given in the ReadMe. See "House of the New Moons" quest under "Miss Gaynor". It really doesn't matter which mirror, as long as you're walking when you next speak to her.

 

[i.Razor]

To beat Snow Hunt, all I had to do was approach each enemy group gingerly, almost using classic baiting and luring tactics. Try to lure enemies one or two at at time and you should be okay. Thank the Seven Heavens for that dwarven henchman, though.

Was in the mood for some NWN hack n slash so played through the Eye of the Beholder. ... ... ... It felt like quite an adventure. Enough fun to start playing the sequel module Legend of Darkmoon by the same team. Neat scripting by having the enemies hear you coming down the hallways making a commotion and charging out of the rooms to intercept you. Little things like this can make a big difference in creating an immersive RPG atomsphere.

The second module is out? I surely need to check that one. Beated the Eye of the Beholder in 2011 with PRC lich archmage.

 

[i.Razor]

Comments in the MotB'15 thread made me think of this NWN2 treasure from Indira Lightfoot again:

Trial and Terror

It's a hardcore dungeon crawler designed to challenge a 30th level character who finished Mask of the Betrayer. But there is also the option to import a party, so I went through with the level 17 characters that completed Storm of Zehir. Only catch is, I used the gear from MotB in order to counter the post-epic level enemies.

Cool. Btw, Any good module for my MoW character (15lvl) out there?

 

[Jack Of Owls]

I almost can't recommend the sequel to the EotB module. Very polished and professional seeming, but basic design flaws in the original Westwood game and transferred over to the module prevented me from enjoying it as much as the first one. Ridiculous and frustrating amount of teleporter puzzles, and it's just not as satisfying as the first NWN module remake of EotB. Also, the ending was either a bug or the single most anti-climatic climax in all the NWN modules I've played. You kill the bad guy (in fearsome dragon form no less) in an easy battle and...nothing. You just stand there with your dick-sword in your hand and wonder, "Hmmm, no committee from Waterdeep to congratulate me for saving the world...again? Why, you ungrateful, miserable sumabitches!" I think a teleporter script failed to fire so I was never transported back to town to a hero's welcome and a nice cut-scene (the one time I WANTED a teleporter to appear in this teleporter-fetish module and it never appeared). There should always be a tasty carrot reward at the end of any good module.

Oh, and welcome to the forum, Mr. Proleric!

 

[ZFR]

I've posted a request for your module on neverwintervault.org and bioware.com. Maybe someone knows. Good luck.

Thank you. Much appreciated.

Sorry to bump, but I might have a new lead on this module you were looking for. Contact me.

 

[Tolias]

Playing the Lord of Terror mod [Diablo I in Nwn] now, surprisingly fun.

Also thinking of installing the prc pack - is it compatible with modules and/or buggy? Anyone with experience in its use care to comment?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I played modules. NWN and NWN2

Shadowlords + Dreamcatcher campaigns
This is like the very definition of bsb (banal shit boring). Sure, perhaps it's worth playing once, I dunno lol. I already forgot what the story was about to be honest. I understand this series won a lot of awards and was touted for its scripting (some of that innovative scripting is so hilariously bad it comes with its own skip-this-minigame-and-automatically-win option). It's very low magic, at least during the first few chapters, which is good, because everything is so mind-numbingly easy adding magic items would make everything worse. The undead city was less boring than the rest, to give credit where it's due.

Verdict: meh

Subtlety of Thay
I tried to play that but apparently this mod didn't survive the death of the nwnvault well. For instance, there is no hint or walkthru document and it's unclear what exactly you're supposed to install.
I installed the main archive-complete from this site:
http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/subtlety-thay

Well, the start of the module was kinda shit, the game really only picks up once you get the ranger companion and start exploring the dungeon beneath the library. I played up until what I seem to remember is the end of chapter 1 (destroying the thayvian mind controlling device). But I couldn't proceed further because I couldn't figure out how to destroy said device. When I played it years ago I remember I just took the amuletts from the control box and destroyed the crystals with spells, but this time all parts of the device where completely immune to all kinds of damage, no spells, no ranged damage, no melee damage could harm the device. If anybody knows what you're supposed to do there, let me know.

Verdict: had to stop playing

Tears of Ilmarid I + II
A story focused, linear game, i.e. there are no side-quests and the like, you just follow the plot which takes you through a number of dungeons/areas. You start as a lvl10 character (adjusted for ECL), some classes like rogue and arcane casters are not allowed. Bard is allowed though and ever since I've played that bard in MotB I have a hard time not playing a bard if I can. (Jaesun was right, once you go bard turning back to lesser classes is difficult). In a game where arcane casters are very rare, having a moderate arcane casting ability yourself is of course an advantage, otherwise I'd suggest to go cleric or favored soul. But in any event, start out with a character that has a reasonably high armor class, otherwise you'll probably constantly ask yourself, while attacking the pirate base in the beginning of the game, if it was really necessary for the author to equip those sneak attacking rogues with two-handed swords.



The story is reasonably well told, though in the end there's some psycho-babble about fate and/or choice that I didn't even try to decipher. Downer: it was supposed to be a trilogy but there's no third part, so no closure to the story. At the end of part 2 you can get a holy avenger sword that is a katana (for the paladins out there). Whodathunkit, another module builder who is gay for katanas. Combat starts out hard but becomes progressively easier as you level up, also because of the companions you add. Still, every now and then there's a boss fight that requires a bit more effort, but nothing too serious.

Tip: at one point during part I you will temporarily get a sorcerer companion who doesn't come with a ranged weapon (and you can't get one at that point) so, bring a crossbow and some bolts, otherwise that guy will constantly charge in melee and try to bash things with his staff, which was annoying because he was squishy. There's a conversation bug in part II: you and the rogue companion meet that fighter dude (who attacked you earlier under mind control by the big bad foozle) and he wants to join up. When he does he gets leveled up to your level, receiving a big junk of XP. However, every time you talk to him again, he gets the XP again and so can get grossly overleveled quickly. So, unless you want that, don't try to talk to him again.

Verdict: shrug, worth a playthru

Snowhunt
Short modul that mainly shows that the tileset science has advanced significantly since the vanilla game. Certainly looks good. The starter area after char creation is rather generous. I created a rogue 2/wizard 10, got 350k money and could not only completely fill my spell book but also fully deck out the character, buy healing supplies for all possible emergencies and still have money left over. Then there's a few, fairly small, areas with a bunch of mobs to kill. It's all about finding your bounty target, I don't think there was much in terms of side quests, except that one quest where one ogre mage wanted you to kill the other ogre mage. Combat was rather on the easy side, I hardly did anything but cast bull's strength, flame weapon and stone skin on the dwarf ranger and then waited until he had killed the mooks. If an enemy group looked threatening I used a wand of fear to eff them up then let the ranger clean up. I had to reload twice. One time a few spectral rogues literally one-shot me from full health with their first sneak attack barrage while coming out of stealth, the second time was when facing the frost giants. You see, by then I no longer had spells left and the ranger couldn't kill them because he was dying too quickly (no more stoneskin). The only spell I had left was one Improved Invisibility. So I used that on the ranger thinking that, sporting 50% concealment, he might be able to prevail with me using healing packs on him. Surprisingly he completely ceased to do anything once invisible. Doesn't matter how often you desperately command him "Attack Nearest!!!", he stays invisible, safely hidden from the enemy until you're dead. Yay for the NWN companion AI!

So, with no spells left, a companion that refuses cooperation and no resting allowed, what do you do? That's right, backtrack all the way back to the ranger hut and rest there. Yay for backtracking - a theme that would continue in Swordflight. Needless to say, with a filled spell book the frost giants were defeated ezmode. I chuckled a bit when I came to the final cave (the one you have to take to get to the target of your bounty) because the cave entry told me I can't enter yet because I have to explore the other caves in the area first (which have nothing to do with finding your target). As an aside, I do not agree with the inclusion of items like the scabbard of enhancement. That's not introducing exciting resource management, that's giving easy access to powerful arcane buffs to classes that are not entitled to have such access, akin to having potions of mirror image and the like in SoZ. Non-magical full BAB classes have no business having easy access to caster level 10 flame weapon spells without coming up with appropriate UMD values or multi-class choices.

Verdict: probably a solid effort given the limited development time, shows off some good looking tile sets

A Hunt through the Dark Remastered + Lolthanchwi
Like the other modules by that author, a linear dungeon crawl with zero roleplaying. Like the other modules by that author comes with a system of rest restrictions that places absolutely no restrictions on you at all. To rest you need camping supplies, when you use one of those a campfire is created which you can click to rest (as often as you want). Then the game goes on and spams you with so many of those supplies in the loot that you need to start selling them off to not become encumbered. Way to say bugger all. Combat is generally too banal to carry a game about nothing but combat, there are a few boss battles that require a modicum of effort though, so the game is not completely devoid of challenge. The second part (Lolthanchwi) was better and more fun than the first part. The readme clearly states you have to play a male drow and pick a class appropriate for male drow and you'll be well advised to do so because equipment-wise the game only supports fighter, rogues and wizards. The latter with the caveat that there's not a single merchant that sells spell scrolls in this game, so enjoy your empty spell book. Wizard is the favored class of male drow btw, but apparently adding scrolls to a few merchants was too much to ask. This one too was planned as a trilogy and there's no 3rd part.

Verdict: ultra-meh out of 10

Blackguard Trilogy

One of the few modules focused on the evil side of things you'll be playing the villain here. There will be quests like "Go to the school, kill all the children and bring back one of their hearts", then, when killing the children in the school, your character will exclaim things like "DIE YOU LITTLE BASTARDS!!! DIE!!! DIE!!! YOU ALL DESERVE TO DIE!!!! MUHAHAHA!!! If you cannot tolerate these kind of quests and this kind of writing (literally, including the caps and exclamation marks) this mod is probably not for you. If it helps, the writing becomes somewhat less retarded in part 2 and 3.
The author also cannot into punctuation and often leaves a space in front of the punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. The dialogue window then looks like this:
1) Can I ask this dude some questions
?
2.) Can I ask a few more questions or am I already done
?
3) I guess I should kill him for teh lulz amirite
?

I was annoyed.

It was said this one has hard combat and that you need an optimized build. What's an optimized blackguard build anyway? Given BG pretty much sucks as a class? You need to have a certain amount of blackguard levels at certain points in the story, so there's not much wiggle room for other classes. You have to get the first bg level at lvl8 at the latest which already narrows down your options, have 5 bg levels around 14/15 and be a lvl10 blackguard when you make lvl19. What I did was rogue 1 -> 5 fighter levels -> rogue 2 (qualify as a blackguard here, have 10 umd and 10 tumble) -> BG 1 -> Fighter lvl 6 for the bonus feat -> only BG levels until lvl 17 when I took a 3rd rogue level to increase UMD and tumble to 20 -> go on with BG until BG 10 then take fighter levels for more bonus feats.

That worked out. Was it optimized? I don't know. Combat was indeed quite hard at times, for instance after a few attempts it really didn't look like I would be able to defeat the paladin at the end of part 1. In the end I just ran away like a little bitch towards that cleric dude (you have a lvl25 cleric mentor in this game) and he killed the paladin. There were a lot of other very hard encounters, like with an entire room full of archons and devas who really were a giant PITA. Another encounter I had to cheese was against a silver dragon and a planetar at the same time. I had to retreat here through a gate where the dragon wouldn't follow (because too big) so I could first kill the planetar 1v1. I recommend to take knockdown and improved knockdown because often you can deal with dangerous spellcasters by just drinking an invisibility potion, running up to them, using knockdown and then kill them before they get the chance to unleash their spell arsenal. At a certain point the entire hardcore difficulty suddenly dropped off. This was in part 3 when arriving in the underdark. I had to kill a party of hostile adventurers and dinged 17. I took the 3rd rogue level and raised UMD and tumble to 20 (2 more dodge AC). I also got monk boots +5. Therefore my AC probably moved out of the range the mobs in this game could reliably hit because the rest of the game was smooth sailing.

While your own motivation in this game seems pretty stupid (they killed my brother, now I'm mad and I guess I just want to kill lots of people now hurr durr) the plot from the view point of that cleric guy and the dreamer dude whatshisname was quite interesting. Also, the game changed me as well. I view stormlord builds in NWN2 who don't have chaotic evil alignment and Talos as their deity with nothing but contempt now.

Verdict: hardcore combat out of 10, worth playing despite chaotic evil retarded writing


Stay tuned for the truthy truths about:
A Dance with Rogues 1+2
Maimed God's Saga
Wizard's Apprentice 1,2 and 3
Swordflight 1 and 2
Aielund Saga 1-4

 

[eXalted]

Have you played Honor Among Thieves, would love a review on that too. I'm personally confused if it is as good as everyone says.

A Dance with Rogues 1+2

Waiting

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Have you played Honor Among Thieves, would love a review on that too.

No, but it's on the list. I already have it installed.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Good no-shilling reviews, VentilatorOfDoom can't wait for more.

 

[Proleric]

-Dark Energy by Proleric - very nice looking recently-made module that uses so many different assets from the CEP that it almost feels like a total conversion. Alas, you are pretty much forced into using the pregenerated female character, and though I sometimes will play females, this one made me feel like a transvestite, since you're forced into training as a "courtesan" and have to learn the womanly arts by being as sexually appealing to men as possible so you can get close to them to stick a knife into their gizzards. I would have continued but I think I encountered a game breaking bug where I had to don a beautiful dress and walk like a lady to the mirror (which mirror!? There were EIGHT of them!) then walk back to my instructress. Couldn't do it. "No, you're not walking like a lady! You're running! Try again." Well, I tried again...and again...and again. Until I finally said, "Fuck you, lady. And fuck this module! No homo."

[Waking from a deep slumber] Huh? Someone call name? [Stretch]

Sorry this wasn't for you. Still, if the female roleplay feels... female, I'll count that as a writing success!

Actually, it's equally possible to play as a tomboy. The fashion training is recommended, but not mandatory.

You're not forced into playing the pre-generated character, or the Courtesan class. Any human female (except Barbarian) will do.

The solution to the walking puzzle is given in the ReadMe. See "House of the New Moons" quest under "Miss Gaynor". It really doesn't matter which mirror, as long as you're walking when you next speak to her.

Someone flagged this post as "Citation Needed". Not sure if I've understood what that means, but here's a link to Dark Energy and another to the same module on the new vault.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Maimed God's Saga

A modul for clerics of Tyr only. You have to play a pure, non-multiclassed lvl 6 cleric of Tyr and are supposed to pick 2 of Tyr's domains (Good, Knowledge, Law, Retribution, War) instead of, say, picking Time for haste or Magic for Mage Armor or Earth for stoneskin etc. I picked War for the free weapon focus and Good for fear immunity. The game tells an interesting story and shows off some very competent writing including a romance that's believable and not as cheesy or stupid as the romances usually found in these kind of games. You do not have to pursue the romance. You'll get a ranger companion of the opposite gender, so in my case a female. Having that companion was good because without her full-BAB help I would probably have failed miserably.

The game will show you the joys of a frugal life, you'll start out poor and will remain so. Odds are you'll never amass even as much as 1000 gold. There's a merchant in the village but he has a cap of 20 gold per item (i.e. he pays max 20 gold for something no matter what) and he will eventually run out of gold so you couldn't sell off more stuff anyway, which means you can stop looting shit you don't want to use yourself. He also doesn't sell healing supplies though you can loot the occasional potion off of enemies or their chests. Like many modules the game comes with rest restrictions, however, those restrictions are more hardcore than usual. You can only rest in your room in the mansion and resting for a full 8 hours will restore your HP but not your spells. Only once per day when praying at the altar of Tyr, Tyr will answer and restore your spells.

There will be combat and some of it will be hard, so your character should have at least a somewhat reasonable combat worthiness. There won't be any thrash encounters though. Some dialogues offer opportunities to use certain spells if you have them memorized, sometimes a quest requires the use of a certain spell to accomplish a goal. Unfortunately you really don't have a way to know upfront what spells you'll need for which quests and as explained above, changing your spell selection isn't so easy. This feels a bit restrictive at times as if you were supposed to read the hint document first. Another thing I didn't like was the inclusion of skill checks that were a bit baffling when expected from a cleric (survival, search, craft weapon, rly?) especially since clerics don't get a lot of skill points in the first place and you probably couldn't afford to max INT, what with being a cleric an all. You can't make use of the skills of the ranger companion either, really, why do I have to make the survival check to discover the way in that one quest when the ranger chick beside me has lots of survival ranks? Reloading until you roll high enough is so much fun. You can make this a bit easier if you take human, 12 INT and pick able learner at char creation to have more skillpoints available.

Combat is not overly difficult although you might have to prepare for a fight or two, but most hardship will probably come from the fact that you have to go on quite some time before you can rest again. All in all, a solid module but certainly with limited replay value due to the fact that you couldn't really do things that differently in another playthrough. I also encountered two bugs. First, in the beginning, you have to choose how to travel to the village, by boat or by land. This leads to a bit of mutually exclusive content. I picked going by boat and after a fight vs lizardmen the captain of the ship told me he couldn't take me further and I had to leave the boat but I couldn't figure out how to actually do that. There was no dialogue or something to click on to make me leave the boat, so I had to start over and picked going by land route instead. Secondly, when arriving at the village you first come by a hermit hut. You can expose the hermit as a spy and enter the hut, but I ran into what appears to be a broken dialogue node. When picking that dialogue option which I assume is supposed to accomplish exposing the suspicious behavior of that hermit the dialogue window just closed. Wasn't that important but a bit annoying.

ps: I cheated by having Kaedrin's installed and shamelessly picking the reserve feat for healing. I regret nothing and would do it again.

Verdict: good effort, worth playing

The Wizard's Apprentice Trilogy

This game is exclusively for wizard PCs. Playing Sorcerer or taking an ECL race will make things difficult if not frustrating, so it's not recommended. Being focused on wizards the game will feature a lot of spell puzzles or usage of certain spells in dialogues or to interact with or manipulate the environment, not so often in part 1 but a lot in part 2. Be careful therefor if you choose to specialise and lose some spells due to opposing spell schools. I picked necromancy which makes you lose divination. The only problem here is losing clairvoyance which finds a lot of use but there will be an item that lets you cast this spell once per day. Early on in part 2 there will be ways to pick up martial weapon proficiency and armor proficiencies during gameplay (in case you want to go Eldritch Knight you don't need to multiclass).

The first part is fairly short and takes you just from level 1 to level 4. It has very hard combat and a lot of people complained about that. However, it's not like the author went to great lengths to design challenging combat - he didn't - it's just you being a lvl1 wizard with 0 BAB, 10 STR , almost no spell slots and 5 HP. Tough life. Use the available resources like items that let you cast sleep or cloud of bewilderment and just try to avoid melee. Also, since you never reach lvl5 there's no need to keep higher level spell scrolls like fireball so you can scribe them later, so just use them to defeat the difficult encounters.

Empty journal Bug:

Your journal in the beginning might be empty and not show quests. The workaround is to move module.jrl from the module folder to the campaign folder.

One of the first items you'll find in the tower of your wizard tutor is a bag of holding. Nice. Apparently the author understood that a wizard character might not run around with 18 STR and that when you design the game in a manner in which all your wealth comes from killing the bad foozles and taking their shit *cough* Swordflight *cough* because quest rewards are negligible (You saved the kingdom and only used up 10K in healing supplies doing so! Here you have your reward of 300 gold, don't spend everything at once!) , that it might be a good idea to enable the player to haul away all that stuff, you know, despite the fact that bags of holding are supposed to be "rare" (http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Handy_Haversack ; 2000 gold). Another good thing is the summoning thingy that summons an imp merchant, so you even have a mobile merchant whenever you need one like in HotU.

With part 2 begins the real meat of the game. You might be able to reach lvl13 if you're thorough. Nice story, nice companions, easy combat. In the very beginning when you escape the dungeon and have no equipment you might run into some trouble but nothing too serious because you finally get a meat shield (barbarian companion). When you pick up the cleric it only gets easier. In part 1 you can rest anywhere like in the NWN2 OC, later you have rest restrictions in place, meaning you can't rest unless you're at a designated rest spot. Sometimes a cave or similar will become safe for rest once you killed all the monsters within. Now with all those spell puzzles there and rest restrictions in place there's always the question what to do if you don't have a certain spell memorized? In Swordflight for instance when faced with a spell puzzle there's always a scroll or other item to be found nearby that let's you cast the required spell. Here in TWA there are potions of spell restoration available, which restore your spells but don't give the other benefits of rest like healing up. However, due to the fact that there's no shortage of these potions and there's also no shortage of healing supplies the entire rest restriction system felt fairly inconsequential.

Hold, charm, dominate, protection from evil, grease, polymorph, different elemental spells, divinations and illusions, even transmutations like reduce person, everything will find usage when achieving your wizardly goals. I recommend to pick up craft wand when you get your wizard lvl5 bonus feat, having fireball, shield, stoneskin, greater mage armor available as wands will help you a lot and free up spell slots for more obscure stuff. Also, flame arrow for instance creates caster lvl 18 wands, expensive, but very potent single target damage.

Part 3 is fairly short again (you might get to lvl14) and only wraps up the story in a somewhat rushed manner. But at least there's closure unlike with so many other multi-part modules that got abandoned by their author. Despite easy combat TWA is a fun game and one of the best I played for NWN and NWN2.

Verdict: one of the master modules much like wizards are the master class, worth playing