NWN Neverwinter Nights (NWN & NWN2) Modules Thread

[Lilura]

Not sure about progressively worse, but I know a couple of future Eps. are buggier than the Exile of the West. It's been confirmed by me and by three other ppl on my blog, including Greg, who went through the whole series and lived to tell the tale. Blessed is he.

Btw, my walkthrough for EotW was posted almost a year ago now, has received 8,000 hits, and no one has managed to shed light on my Unsolved Mysteries. I got in contact with Cerutti but he moved into novelizations years ago, and so wasn't able to give any clues out.

 

[Togukawa]

It does get buggier (to the point of one module crashing on loading a save 4 times out of 5).
However, the first episode is really an entirely self contained story, there's one plot hook at the end that's not resolved, but it's not resolved in the subsequent episodes either. I also found the writing in episode 1 to be far superior to that of the subsequent episodes. In episode 1 you usually have multiple conversation options at any time, but in later episodes you often have dialogues where you can only pick from a single sentence, which I really don't like.
I recommend you just play the first episode.
Also for storyfaggotry purposes, DebugMode is your friend. Play a fighter, set strength to 50, get great cleave and skip all combat. Letting the combat keep you from playing it would be a pity, as you can easily cheat the combat into being irrelevant and the module is still very enjoyable without it.

 

[Emmanuel2]

I got the game from the GoG giveaway, got the PRC pack but realized not all modules are supported.

Any recommended combat-centric modules that could potentially last for a long time and/or ones that support PRC (should be ok otherwise)? Seems that they're buried underneath all these short-to-lengthy story-focused modules.

 

[Lacrymas]

They are mostly story-focused because the combat is not very good. It's fun as long as you know what to expect I suppose, but it all stems from and is hurt by your inability to directly control other party members, why they did that is a mystery to me. That's not to say I don't like the combat, it's just ...special... and an acquired taste. Swordflight has plenty of combat, go for that.

 

[Emmanuel2]

They are mostly story-focused because the combat is not very good. It's fun as long as you know what to expect I suppose, but it all stems from and is hurt by your inability to directly control other party members, why they did that is a mystery to me. That's not to say I don't like the combat, it's just ...special... and an acquired taste. Swordflight has plenty of combat, go for that.

Ahh, the combat doesn't really need to be great as long it's serviceable.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll go try it.

 

[Jack Of Owls]

The human brain when it's gone wacky can be so funny. I noticed that someone here has gone back almost literally years and given a certain well-regarded regular poster in this topic a shit rating for every single one of their posts. I wonder what syndrome that would be catagorized as? :D

 

[ERYFKRAD]

The human brain when it's gone wacky can be so funny. I noticed that someone here has gone back almost literally years and given a certain well-regarded regular poster in this topic a shit rating for every single one of their posts. I wonder what syndrome that would be catagorized as? :D

 

[Jazz_]

The human brain when it's gone wacky can be so funny. I noticed that someone here has gone back almost literally years and given a certain well-regarded regular poster in this topic a shit rating for every single one of their posts. I wonder what syndrome that would be catagorized as? :D

Autistic butthurt?
Anyway I have been playing thru some modules, I'm digging The Bastard of Kosigan, Tales of Arterra is kinda bland so far, Cave of Songs is great (probably the one I have liked the most so far, really great atmosphere), Vampire: Heaven Defied is really meh so far (also quite buggy).
By the way, do you also find lightnings incredibly annoying and eye raping in this game? It's just a sudden flash of white that takes the whole screen and makes my eyes bleed. I wonder if there's a way to disable them.

 

[deuxhero]

Played the Black Scourge of Candle Cove (NWN2).

It's OK. Really short (it will take a group of recommended level PCs to that level +1 if you do all the stuff, including the expansion content). You'd expect the quest to solve the mystery of the forest quest to reveal why the Goblins are so fucking strong (both NPCs and the quest log both comment them not being "ordinary" goblins so you'd expect it to have an explantion) but it doesn't. Also it has an enemy that flees the fight that you can actually attack, only to give them Buddha mode and make them unkillable even though they take damage and it's fully plausable to be strong enough to kill them (it's like the author took a good encounter and made it shit for no reason).

edit: Take back what I said. I missed the second half of the module.

Unfortunately quality seems to drop there. One large dungeon crawl that seems to be dependant on the module's warp stone to take you somewhere you can rest.

 

[Lacrymas]

Is there a mod/fix that makes Shifters and shapeshifting in general less annoying/retarded? Like not losing spell slots when I shift because my amulet gives me +wisdom or my belt has bonus spell slots, but those don't merge with the forms. Also making monk gloves affect the unarmed forms. At this rate shifting seems very gimped and only a flavor class, maybe only useful on very low magic modules where magic items are rare and better to be given to your companions.

 

[Semper]

afaik kaedrin's should have a fix included. and there's also this wildshape fix.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, but that's for NWN2 :p I'll definitely be using it if I go druid in that game though. What I am doing now is just using the bear Wildshape and all the Shifter levels are pointless. The forms are just so weak, the bear outranks them all just due to the insane strength/constitution increase, but it decreases everything else, it turns out that my human form is a much sturdier tank than the bear.
Here's a comparison -

Spoiler

Of course the bear has the fighter attack progression, but that's besides the point :p

 

[Lacrymas]

Got to Shifter 7 and got Kobold Commando which has HiPS and sneak attacks, but now the monk levels are useless since he has a sword lulz, but monk wis AC bonus and Dex bonus stack so 50 AC ho!

 

[Scruffy]

A bit of begging here: I'm trying to play on a NWN2 persistent world. I've sent my brother to rummage through our garage, but he couldn't find the old boxes. I don't want to re-buy the game because I know I'll stop playing in two weeks or less, if the past is any evidence.

So, if anyone's got the cd keys for nwn2 + motb + soz, and they're not using them to play online, and are feeling generous, drop me a PM and I'll be eternally grateful.

 

[Lacrymas]

Coincidentally, NWN2 is on sale on GOG right now. :p

 

[Scruffy]

oh shit
i guess i'll have to buy my third copy then

 

[Zero Credibility]

I grabbed a copy of NWN1 when it was free on GOG because I realized I never played the damn thing before. Started the OC and was so off put by the start I decided to stop and look for some modules instead. First up - A Dance with Rogues . And was surprised how much better this was compared to OC. The thief gameplay and especially burglary missions are really good, it even had AoD-style dialogue kills. The obvious author masturbation fantasy stuff is just icing on the cake. Later it lost a lot when you leave the city and skulking around for regular dungeon romp and killing things, but the beginning is first class. I recommend.

Not about the modules, but about the game itself - one thing I can not for the life of me figure out is why, why the fuck did they dump the perfectly acceptable full party control system from ie games and went with this one controllable character and AI henchmen bullshit. It's stunning how much this takes away from the party aspect of the game and how bad the henchman AI can be, with them often just standing around and not doing anything while getting pummeled into the ground, or burning through healing potions while taking AoOs, or deciding to attack a locked door I clicked on and turning everyone hostile, or... A few minutes of this and I completely forgave NWN2 all its camera issues. Awful, just awful - no wonder the module kept separating me from my party as much as possible.

 

[Lacrymas]

Not about the modules, but about the game itself - one thing I can not for the life of me figure out is why, why the fuck did they dump the perfectly acceptable full party control system from ie games and went with this one controllable character and AI henchmen bullshit..

We speculate that it's because they were thinking the game as a digital version of PnP, where you control a single character. The toolkit, however, proved more popular for creating single player campaigns, so that turned out to be a shot in the foot. VtM: Redemption had a similar premise, but you could control all your party members, so it's not a matter of impossibility. The OC is shit, don't let that cloud your judgement of the entire game.

 

[Jazz_]

I actually liked the fact that your party is controlled by the AI in NWN1 since the combat is in real time, controlling a party in real time combat is more often than not just a tedious frustrating experience.

 

[Zero Credibility]

I guess our tastes differ then. My experience with it was just awful. I really mean it, I was forced to babysit my party members every single time I got into any serious combat. Way too often an NPC would bug out and simply stand there while getting killed, doing nothing despite me repeatedly ordering him to do something, while cursing at the game and all that made it. It made me wish I was just soloing the whole thing all the time - that is not a good sign for its party control system.

Besides, if ie style total control RTwP was that overwhelming (and it wasn't), a reasonable NPC AI that can be turned off or on could have been implemented, like other games did it. But once you remove control completely, there's no going back. Want to quickly move an NPC out of melee and behind your fighter screen? Want to order him to attack a specific enemy? Cast a crucial spell? Want to have a tactical party combat that is anything but a giant clusterfuck on which you can have very little influence apart from constantly throwing your NPCs healing potions? Not really happening here.

 

[Lacrymas]

Treat the game as if you are soloing it, there's no other way around it, even in the very best modules (the bard dies constantly in Swordflight and there's nothing you can really do). If you are a rogue, go full on Use Magic Device and buy scrolls and potions etc. You should also get Tony K's AI mod (I think there's one for NWN1?) and I think some modules have it integrated in general. There's an up-side to controlling one character however - every build feels substantially different to play because you can't control other party members and can't use their builds, it's a shallow comfort, but eeehhh.

 

[eXalted]

Or treat it like you are playing PnP game with a band of retardos.

Spoiler

Yes, there is a Tony K's AI mod for NWN1 but it's recommended to be used only with modules that are compatible with it because it may break scripts.


(I am really sorry if actually someone from the Codex is in this photo)

 

[felipepepe]

So, me and Ludo Lense made a review of NWN for the CRPG Book:

Spoiler

This review is just for the overall game. I want to make a page just about the Aurora Toolset, plus one just recommending mods & modules.

And now comes the real challenge battle: Lilura , you made a great guide to NWN and know a lot about their modules... wanna write this part? Or, failing that, can I blatantly copy your recommendations?

 

[Karwelas]

So, me and Ludo Lense made a review of NWN for the CRPG Book:

Spoiler

This review is just for the overall game. I want to make a page just about the Aurora Toolset, plus one just recommending mods & modules.

And now comes the real challenge battle: Lilura , you made a great guide to NWN and know a lot about their modules... wanna write this part? Or, failing that, can I blatantly copy your recommendations?

Lilura will be great for the task, no doubt. If you will ever get to the NWN2, I can take the challange as I managed to stomach the fucking engine and somehow had fun from those few modules that are worth playing. Unless Lilura was fooling us all around and also took care of NWN2 too.

I can drop one or two too, for first one. There are few interesting modules that I never saw mentioned and are worth playing. The Bitter Taste of Blood is really great module and I never heard it mentioned. This one is about vampires, with blood sucking mechanics and few really good other vampire powers. Madness and Magic is example of interesting plot involving wizard with half-god power and task he needs us to do - what involves traveling between worlds and changing fate of quite few of them. Both of those mentioned have choices and in case of first one, different routes.

EDIT: Just remembered about Revenant - module about quite a rare case of intelligent undead that seeks revenge for unjust death. This one also involved classes quests, alchemy, one player based construct (if I remember correctly, he is kind of henchmen) and few other interesting mechanics.

 

[Lacrymas]

The Aurora toolset is the last great thing Bioware did, so it requires attention.