Small parties recommended. Take a hench if you go it alone.
Language
English
Races
Half-orcs are out of theme; any otherwise.
Tricks & Traps
Medium
Roleplay
Medium
Hack & Slash
Medium
Classes
Any
Scope
Part of Series
DMNeeded
No DM Required
Single or Multiplayer
Single Player or Multiplayer
Max Character Level
11
Max # Players
05
Min # Players
01
Min Character Level
07
Content Rating
Teen
Alignments
Any non-evil
Description
Having found the fabled Sword of Potency, you have travelled west to the capital city of Elfhindon to prepare for the next stage of your quest: the search for the Shards of Power. The situation has become more urgent -- war has broken out, and several areas in the northwest have fallen to the might of Bangoleth and his Orb of Mastery. Time is running out, and the Shards of Power must be found. The first clue leads back east, to a valley of tombs, and the crypt of a long-dead madman. Can you unravel the mystery of the Shards of Power before Bangoleth conquers all of Gatharia?
Posted by werelynx2 at 2010-12-23 07:44:35 Voted 7.75 on 12/23/10
nice improvement over the previous part, very nice tileset hak. Shame it is not continued. Some encounters were little too difficult, but again if had bought 20 heal and 30 criticals in the elf town it wouldn't be a problem, but I was to lazy to trace back:)
@grandpa72: from elf town u have to go west then forest->battlefield->besieged city->road->ridgeline->village->road->destroyed city and finally u will be in doom marshes:p _________________________ Thanks Rolo:)
I think that there is a problem. After talking with gandoleth he mentioned that I need to go to the Doom Marshes. Where is that as I can't find it anywhere.
Posted by Steve_Savicki at 2008-08-03 19:40:10 Voted 10.00 on 08/03/08
An around layout - I want more! _________________________ Steve's Characters - please don't forget to vote on them if you play them.
Thanks,
Steve
Posted by hmdai at 2007-07-16 08:21:29 Voted 7.75 on 07/16/07
The story is nice and I love the elf city very much. However, there are quite a few shortcomings that get me feel frustrated many times.
- My PC is not a strong close-combat characters. However, the mod only provide a ranger, a bard and a wizard as henchmen which could hardly be a meet-shield.
- All of the henchmen could only use close combat weapons. If my PC tell them to switch to ranged weapon, they come up with empty hand.
- There are too many monsters gather at the same point and it is really difficult to survive even with stone skin.
- Each time Corthran want to cast a spell, he has been interrupted mysteriously. I don't have what has happened on him. It is really annoying when my PC need him most while he just stand there and fail to cast spells endlessly.
- The sisters of Sirens keeps wander away. It is nearly impossible to finish the conversation. I have to use DM client to force them stay at the same point such that I could trigger the quest.
- My PC has to kill the same group(or kind) of monsters over and over again. It is really tiring.
Nice little series, but not playable to completion without luck. I ran into the same problem described earlier where the Sirens wandered apart so that they couldn't participate in their joint conversation. Couldn't see any way around it, so I abandoned the module and moved on.
Posted by stoffe at 2004-02-28 20:46:13 Voted 9.00 on 02/28/04
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-10-31 12:05:00
For a variety of reasons I do not wish to go into here, I regret to announce I am CANCELLING this series of modules. I will leave them here on the vault to play if you want, but no further updates will be done and they should now be considered UNSUPPORTED.
Thanks to everyone for helping me test and improve these modules.
Av
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-10-13 14:39:00
I admit I have a bit of "module writer's block" on SP4 so I am taking a bit of a break, and altering SP1-3 to be SOU compatible (I will release them in parallel, so these will remain classics).
Yeah, the riddles... In SP2 I was able to think of a really good way (as you probably saw) to let people pick, riddles or combat.
In this module, I could not think of a good way to do that without repeating the last one... So there are 4 challenges, and 2 are combat based, and 2 are riddle based. So people who like riddles and not combat will be happy 1/2 the time and not the other 1/2, and vice versa..
There won't be any riddles at all in SP4 (there's no good reason for them). I try to put into a module what FITS, as best I can. For Delefin, the man was insane, so it is fitting that he would make these nutty challenges for adventurers to have to deal with. In SP2 the king wanted to test his physical skill some times, his mental skill other times, so I could make options.
SP4 is going to be pretty much straight hack-and-slash (with lots of story of course), so you can relax on that front. In fact I don't think there is any call for riddles until SP6, which MAY have one, or maybe not, we shall see.
I happen to love riddles and I build for what I love, so that is why you get some of them. I am not trying to "test" people's intelligence any more than the battles are there to "test" their combat skills... I just put in challenges that *I* would find fun (and I darn well BETTER since I test each module many, many times) and hope that others will find them so as well
At any rate, thanks for playing. SP4 will be a while... but if nothing else, I will do it over the holidays when I have nothing else to do.
Av
Posted by kok ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-10-12 20:26:00
Avorleth:
Nice mod man, I liked it, the only thing I didn't like it, was the riddles, then again I never like riddles, cheap and dubious way to test intelligence... :)
Anyway, i'm gonna vote for it now, oh, by the way, do u know more or less when u gonna release SP4??
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-09-01 23:29:00
Max --
Thanks for the detective work! This is above and beyond the call of playtesting duty. I doff my cap to you.
I am upgrading to 1.31 as I write this (grrr) so I will have to wrestle with all 3 modules over the next month or so to get them working again. Thanks for the lead.
Geraine --
Well this is where we have to make some story concessions to how D&D is played. I should've DISALLOWED the sorcerer class based on the theme of the world, but I didn't want to force people who liked to play Sorcerers better, from doing so. In the original story, Sorcerer = Evil Wizard. So the word "Sorcerer" had terrible connotations (Bangoleth was "The Sorcerer", not "The Archmage", but it doesn't work in D&D).
Also Wizards are born into it (if you aren't born a wizard all the study in the world will not help you), and then they have to study (if you are born into it but don't study you can't cast "light candle"). Spells were also much more "fluid" (rather than always casting magic missile they could modify things on the fly). None of this translates into D&D so I made concessions.
That's probably more than you wanted to know, heheh. :)
Av
Posted by Geraine ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-31 21:50:00
Well... I really, really, like this module so far, and it's predecessors were great. Such things like the 'black out' effect whenever the Orb o' Mastery is used are some pretty neat touches. ( If I black out when i'm 200 miles away, It will probably really suck when i'm face-to-face.) A lil background Question, though.
Is there actually a distinction made in this world between Wizards and Sorcerors? I prefer Wizzies, myself, But i'm kind of curious. Since Wizards have to spend years of study to do what Sorcerors do naturally, is it the same in Getharia? And if so, how come Sorcies can pull the power naturally, while Wizards have to study to do it?
Again I say, though, These are some great modules!
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-26 17:33:00
Ur... it was I who left that last comment as you can tell. I was writing it TO max, not BY max. Heheheh.
Av
Posted by max ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-26 17:32:00
Yes there has been a running argument between me and a few other builders and the devs on this issue of non-back-compatibility. They win, of course... it's their program and they ain't gonna change it just for me. But it sucks that the thing isn't backward compatible.
You may be falling prey to changed default scripts indeed. I plan to go back and SOU-ize SP1-3 soon but it is going to take a while since I will have to test several times, and they are not short or simple modules as you know.
Thanks for keeping up with it on this board and helping me track down these issues.
Av
Posted by max ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-23 17:01:00
I have Shadows of Undrentide installed, so that's probably my problem in that case. I guess I'll have to toss in a copy of the old nw_i0_generic and the nw_c2_default-scripts in the module and re-build it before playing, that should hopefully fix any such things. Didn't know the expansion had such incompatibilities with modules for the original game.
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-23 15:48:00
I have fixed everything I could of what Max mentioned, and posted an update, which I am calling 1.0.0 and "final" (i.e. no longer beta). There are no MAJOR bugs left as far as I can tell.
Now about the "everything I could." To be honest, Max, I could not replicate some of the bugs you found. In particular, the searcher HAS a post-waypoint and a talk trigger, and it works for me. The sirens HAVE a post-waypoint each, and a talk trigger, and they work for me. I have not seen either random-walking around the module. This unfortunately falls under the "if I can't replicate the bug I can't fix it category." I carefully checked all blueprint tags and post_waypoint tags and they are 100% correct. The encounters work in game for me.
I can hazard only 1 guess: are you using SOU, or NWN 1.30 or 1.3?. If so, note that there are multiple issues that cause these versions to NOT be backward-compatible for some modules (they completely break Shadowlords for example -- henchmen start killing each other for no reason). So, if you are using one of those, that might have messed up the waypoints.
If you're using 1.29, which is the version I have, then I am just stumped. These things worked correctly for me, and the scripts and waypoints are correct, so I have no idea why they wouldn't work.
Argh! I hate it when stuff like this happens. *sigh*
Av
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-22 10:26:00
Hm... That is odd since I thought they had POST_ waypoints. I will check on it and make sure they stand where they spawn.
Thanks again for the comments.
Av
Posted by max ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-22 05:48:00
"The sirens all share the same conversation. Whichever one you talk to, alta should aways start first. It shouldn't matter who you talk to."
Turns out this was just a side effect of their random-walking. The Alta siren had wandered downhill and was outside conversation range when I tried to talk to the others, so nothing happened when I clicked on them. And when I found her later and talked to her, the others were still out of range so the conversation died as soon as the others were supposed to say something, but it still started up since she was supposed to speak first.
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-20 00:09:00
Yeah the start point and Alissa were for debug purposes, sorry about that.
The sirens all share the same conversation. Whichever one you talk to, alta should aways start first. It shouldn't matter who you talk to.
As for the hills, this is a hak pak walk mesh issue. It is not my hak and I don't know beans about walkmeshes (other than what they do) so you will need to talk to the hak author about that.
Alissa has like 15 convo branches. They only show up at certain times so you have to keep talking to her. I have never had them FAIL to show up so hopefully this isn't a bug.
I will check on the other stuff next week. I am swamped this week.
Thanks for the comments.
Av
Posted by max ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-19 12:22:00
Just played through the module... Here's a few things I reacted to (and still remember) along the way:
* You start out in the crypt with the light pedestals, I guess the starting point was moved here for debug purposes and should really be in the "The story so far..." area?
* There was an extra copy of Alissa standing around in the Valley of Tombs right near the entrance, which looked kind of funny since I already had her along as henchwoman. Evil twin? :)
* The sirens don't initiate conversation when the protagonist stroll up onto their hill in the swamp, and only the Alta siren can be spoken to. Since they seem to randomwalk around a bit they can get too far from each others, causing the dialog to terminate when one of the others is supposed to say something but has wandered out of range.
* There is something fishy with the hill tiles in some levels with seemingly invisible walls preventing the player/henchpeople to move up and down some ramps/hillslopes. The monsters also seem to enjoy getting stuck there, making them easy pickings with a bow or such.
* On the puzzles, it would perhaps be suitable to have an wisdom/insight/intelligence check which can help you solve the puzzle if the character have high intelligence or wisdom? Just because I as a normal int/wis 9 real-life human player can't solve it it shouldn't mean that the INT 19+ protagonist would have similar trouble. Would be nice to have as an option to pick when you get stuck and give up. :)
* The sendargus knight captain guarding the bridge over the river near the end tells you to get lost since he won't let you in if you won't somehow prove to him that you are a friend of sendargus rather than a bugbear in disguise or something... But still he doesn't as much as flinch when I pick the lock on the gate behind his back and let myself into Sendargus :)
* If you go back to the elf lord's hall and chat with a non-henched Corthran about either news about Ledon or advice regarding the Sirens, the dialog terminates abruptly after your second explanation-reply in those dialog trees without him saying anything.
* The Searcher which gates in in the Trasis ruins will not initiate conversation with the player but rather just wander around aimlessly. Not much of an ambush if you can avoid fighting it by just leaving it alone rather than talk to it :)
* The people back in the elf lords hall (the elf lord, grandoleth and the halfling) appears to be more chatty about the specifics of the adventure than your own henchman who's along with you (Alissa in my case, don't know about the others yet). She was awfully silent about all but the most major of plot events.
* Also, you can't ask Alissa for directions anymore once you have found the shard since her "congratulations" talk leaves no options to ask her anything.
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-16 12:56:00
Updated.
We're still in beta, but it's getting there I think.
* Re-worded the spot/listen checks in the elf hills.
* Fixed the redundancy in delefin's image's conversation
* Fixed the hand chairs
* Deleted the inappropriate book in the library
* Made a few of the tomb encounters "normal" instead of "hard" and cut the min # spawned to 1 instead of 2 or 3. This may have been the problem... even "hard" may have wanted 1 creature but I wasn't letting it. I wasn't sure WHICH encounters were too hard so I lowered a few in areas I thought were likely trouble spots.
I could not replicate the bug where the pedestal lights would not turn off. As far as I can tell, as long as there is nothing at all in the pedestal when you hit "close" on the inventory inspection panel, the pedestal will, if it is lighted, turn off. Can't do anything more about it until I can SEE it happen, unfortunately. Man I hate bugs like this. :(
Anyway... 0.9.8 should be appearing in a day or two for DL on this site. That's the newest version, with these fixes.
Av
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-11 08:55:00
Hmm... OK, so I guess I need to go back and make those encounters a little less tough. I did not have major problems with the undead myself, but I've changed the difficulty levels up and down so many times that I am not sure at what stage I tested with the rogue. In fact it might be better to take Corthran with you instead of Alissa as a rogue. No tank, but Corthran can Stoneskin you and he can really HAMMER the bad guys with things like fireball... Not sure if I tetsed Corthran with my rogue, or whether I used Alissa. But I think the rogue was quite wealthy and bought a bunch of stoneskin potions... can't remember now.
As for the triggers, an even easier way to fix that is to just say, "In the distance" rather than up ahead. :)
Hm... the gem thing should work. When you take a gem out of a pedestal and leave nothing in it, it should turn off. There are no heartbeats. When you close the pedestal, it checks itself to see if there are any gems inside and if the answer is "no" it turns itself off. I guess I will have to beat on this one some more.
And you're right, "Rise of Bangoleth" should NOT be in Delefin's library. Good call.
Thanks for being one of my beta-testers. I need people like you to help me figure out what works and what doesn't before I can finalize it.
Av
Posted by thudson ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-11 08:45:00
I'm going to give this module a rest because my rogue + the princess can't get through the last encounter before the end of D's tomb (unless, I suppose, I go back to town and stock up on still more potions). I tried, but don't have quite enough patience to replay SP1-2 with a cleric just to handle all the undead easier.
Spoilery notes for Av so I don't forget them:
* Andilius: nice! One of the better-feeling elf cities I've found.
* elf hills: your triggers say that I hear brutes "up ahead" - but since I'm normally exploring in unexpected directions that isn't the actual direction. I know it's more work to lay down triggers that have a hard-coded correct direction, but *inspiration strikes* it ought to not be hard to script something using "GetFacingFromLocation" to fill in the correct compass direction.
* text error: the image of Delafin describing the battle challenge says "individual, but ..., individual creatures."
* I had to read the cheat & reload a save because the gem puzzle doesn't always reset. I'd several times put in all the gems and taken them all out, only to have 2-3 lights left on. Could it be because I was putting accessing them too fast? I haven't checked the toolkit to see if you're using heartbeat, but wouldn't think it was necessary.
* hand chairs have a "you see nothing special" description.
* quibble: in Delafin's library, wasn't the "Rise of Bangoleth" published long after the library was sealed? My character was very worried about the possibility of D. having up-to-date contact with the surface on finding that book. :)
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-09 12:27:00
I believe I have corrected all the various issues. The runestone tombs should now not be accessible until AFTER you get the proper quest update. The harpsichord is in fact usable only once.
I tested alissa. After hiring her I told her to use her ranged weapon, and she used the bow from then on. Not sure why it didn't work with you but it might be the SOU henhcmen AI updates, if you are playing with SOU.
Av
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-06 09:02:00
Found the problem with the undead (I think... have not tested it yet). It was actually kind of funny and silly. But in any case I think it is fixed. I will post an update in a few days, after I deal with the other bugs.
Av
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-05 20:07:00
Thanks for the feedback.
Not sure what is up with the Undead. They all DO have undead class levels. They all have Undead Properties. They should be just like regular Undead. I will have to ask on the forums and see if I am perhaps missing something.
Alissa should and does have a bow. I have had her using it in the game. Not sure what this is about. I will check it but she has never failed to produce the proper weapon for me.
The transparent armor thing happens to me sometimes to. No idea what that is about. I believe it may be some issues having to do with the tileset hak, which, since I did not create it, I have no control over. I will report it to the hak designer though, since you saw it. If you don't mind, could you e-mail me your system config? Maybe it is a particular graphic card issue or driver issue and you and I just have the same ones... Or if they are different then it is definitely a tile issue.
Thanks for the other comments. I will fix this stuff and get out an update in a week or so.
Av
Posted by CrazyWojcio ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-05 18:36:00
I have just finished this module and i must say i liked it very much.
Combat is well balanced but i had to rest very often (i was playing single player without a henchman so this was prabobly tthe cause:). The riddles were Very hard (maybe little to hard). I've played it with paladin 7 lvl at the end 11 lvl.
Now for the BUGS
- I've tried play with alissa as henchmen but she was useless. She died in first encounter with orges. I've told her to use ranged weapons but insteed she wasn't using any (it's prabobly a bug because she's a ranger:)
- the dragon lich was suppose to be undead but he wasn't :) I have even healed him with lay on hands (and i thout it would finish him :) Instead he was even using healing himself with healing spells (BIG BUG). The same thing was with ghosts in delfin crypt.
- The harph that sirens gave me didn't disapear when i've used it i had it in my inv. ready to use again
- When you get a runstone before getting quest from delphi's crypt you dont get xp for it and your jurnal dont update (I had to place this runstone on ground and then pick it up again)
- At the end in sergadus when i talk with sergadus knights the say "greetings citizen"(or something like that) but HEY! I am Knight Champion they should have more respect :D (this is maybe small bug but its quite annoing). The same thin goest to farmers("hello lad") :D
- One last thing but i dont know if it is a bug. When i load the game in elf hills and marsch i can see trough my armor (its like ghostly visaage). Maybe its my foult but i didn't have that problem in any other module. Or maybe its that green light in those areas that works like X-RAY :D
Well that's all. There were those small bugs but the module was very playable. Im looking forward to part 4.
Keep up the good work Avorleth!!
Posted by Avorleth ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-04 09:47:00
I have done full play-throughs of this module four times. As far as I can tell every script works, every journal update works, and every typo I could find has been fixed.
It has not yet been tested by others, which is why it is, and will remain, beta, until I get some feedback. But as far as I have the power to determine, everything works.
There are several spots I am not sure will "come across" to a naive player and that is the one thing I simply cannot test myself, since, as the author, I am not and cannot be naive.
Not sure if that's the information you are looking for. If not e-mail me and I can answer further questions.
Av
Posted by Martin Jeppesen ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2003-08-02 11:43:00
Hi. Just played through SP1 & 2 and I must say, they are probably some of the most overlooked modules here at the vault. A half-decent module I released several months ago is scored higher than both of them! Anyway, I'm itching to get on with the story, but just how beta is this release? Did you check for spelling errors, scripts that don't work and stuff like that? Should I wait until it is final? Has it been playtested by other people?
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