Character is (usually) a wiseass, but all alignments get options.
Description
The forest to the west of PUTS is unlike any other -- for starters, it glows purple during the day and six legged werehamsters prowl its depths. Magical hazmat isn't a pretty thing -- and you're about to get a look firsthand. Module is a mixture of intense combat, weird puzzles and strange humor inside a surreal forest distorted by magical powers. And it's got elves and sexy gypsies, too. (Updated to v1.4)
Hazard pay was a good improvement upon the first two in this series. At last, there actually is a plot, and it may even be worth paying attention to! This mod is a pretty linear hack and slash, but there were several fun features that kept it interesting. I think my favorite part involved the kRaD SpEaKiNg guardian of kaos, as well as the tasks you were asked to perform to win his favor. The pac-man maze was particularly fun and engaging. Combat in this mod was probably still too difficult for my now level 6 monk. ... However, I'm now playing on "easy" mode full time now, and I'm finding it to be nicely balanced. It's still challenging, but everything is winable. I might even fair decently now...Improved Knockdown has become a default attack mode for my monk, and she's using it to great effect. Strangely, the difficulty of combat seemed to start high and steadily decrease over the course of the mod.. One fairly major bug that I encoutered: you are offered the opportunity to travel with one of two henchmen for a short time in this mod, but whenever a battle started, they immediately disassociated themself from my party. The dialog still seemed to think they were in henchman mode, but I couldn't command them. I released them and tried to pick them up again, but it wouldn't allow me to do so. Happened with both henchmen. Overall, I had fun playing Hazard Pay. I'm looking forward to the next step in my adventure. -B
Posted by Daven at 2004-09-1717:31:00
I'll chime in here with some agreement to the below posters. This was the 1st mod series I played after finishing the OC in 2002. As a relatively in-efficient character builder I slashed my way through with an eleven ranger/rogue without much difficulty, plenty of fun, and a full purse... After taking a good break from gaming, and then playing a few other mods, I thought it would be fun to use this light-hearted parody to learn about bards and arcane archers... Wow have things changed! The 1st couple mods were manageable, but this one is way over-hard...obviously due to the enemy spellcaster AI and the fact that lots of loot has been removed.... I find my self scraping by... I may need to give in for once and take a "boon" to get through and still have fun... I love challenge, but this mod has become more difficult than one with such fun humor should become...
Posted by Taellosse at 2004-09-1422:03:00
In part as a follow-up to the previous poster, while I'm enjoying these mods so far, I've found the recommended levels rather inaccurate for solo play. I'm trying out a rogue, and twice I've had to export my character to artificially increase her levels in order to be able to survive. I'm now on Chapter 3 and I'm playing a level 12 Rogue, level 1 Shadowdancer, and the only reason I'm able to even think about surviving is my ability to Hide in Plain Sight. With this power, I can sneak up on anyone without true seeing, get a powerful sneak attack on them, run a few steps away, and disappear again so they can't kill me. Battles against monsters immume to sneak attack, such as golems and elementals, are extremely lengthy as I must do this many times to kill them. In some cases I can stand and fight, since my AC level is decent, but its always risky, and I go through potions like water even when I stick with my hit and run tactics, since enemies get off frequent attacks of opportunity as I retreat, before I disappear. So while I intend to try to keep slugging, addressing the balance issue here might not be a bad thing. That, or relabel the mod as not really suitable for solo play. However, the real reason I'm writing this is to report something of a glitch I have discovered in this chapter. I have reached the point where you encounter the halfling couple intent on getting rid of those chaos-spawned dopplegangers of theirs, or whatever those Taint are. This is the first time a henchman is available in this series, and I was excited at the prospect of having a cleric to back me up. However, to my dismay, the moment I enter stealth mode, as I mentioned above, an essential skill for my ability to survive, her portrait drops off the bar to the left, she utters some piece of apparently unrelated dialogue (I can't remember at the moment what it is) and is no longer my henchman. To make matters worse, when I try to speak to her to get her to rejoin, her dialogue window no longer comes up, she just keeps asking me if I want her to join me. Since there is no dialogue box, I can't say yes. To cap all this off, she died quickly during my first battle with her, unallied to me, and has not reappeared at the campsite in the previous area like she said she would. I'll proceed without her if she's going to be that useless, but its a real shame, I have to say. Someone to heal me when I'm hurting would have been a godsend...
Posted by Taellosse at 2004-09-1422:00:00
In part as a follow-up to the previous poster, while I'm enjoying these mods so far, I've found the recommended levels rather inaccurate for solo play. I'm trying out a rogue, and twice I've had to export my character to artificially increase her levels in order to be able to survive. I'm now on Chapter 3 and I'm playing a level 12 Rogue, level 1 Shadowdancer, and the only reason I'm able to even think about surviving is my ability to Hide in Plain Sight. With this power, I can sneak up on anyone without true seeing, get a powerful sneak attack on them, run a few steps away, and disappear again so they can't kill me. Battles against monsters immume to sneak attack, such as golems and elementals, are extremely lengthy as I must do this many times to kill them. In some cases I can stand and fight, since my AC level is decent, but its always risky, and I go through potions like water even when I stick with my hit and run tactics, since enemies get off frequent attacks of opportunity as I retreat, before I disappear. So while I intend to try to keep slugging, addressing the balance issue here might not be a bad thing. That, or relabel the mod as not really suitable for solo play. However, the real reason I'm writing this is to report something of a glitch I have discovered in this chapter. I have reached the point where you encounter the halfling couple intent on getting rid of those chaos-spawned dopplegangers of theirs, or whatever those Taint are. This is the first time a henchman is available in this series, and I was excited at the prospect of having a cleric to back me up. However, to my dismay, the moment I enter stealth mode, as I mentioned above, an essential skill for my ability to survive, her portrait drops off the bar to the left, she utters some piece of apparently unrelated dialogue (I can't remember at the moment what it is) and is no longer my henchman. To make matters worse, when I try to speak to her to get her to rejoin, her dialogue window no longer comes up, she just keeps asking me if I want her to join me. Since there is no dialogue box, I can't say yes. To cap all this off, she died quickly during my first battle with her, unallied to me, and has not reappeared at the campsite in the previous area like she said she would. I'll proceed without her if she's going to be that useless, but its a real shame, I have to say. Someone to heal me when I'm hurting would have been a godsend...
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