So, you want to be a hero? Well, your wish is about to be fullfilled. You have come to Castle Ironhammer in the western heartlands to join the Fist of Torm, a knightly order dedicated to Torm and his faith. Castle Ironhammer is the smallest and youngest of the four castles the Fist of Torm holds. All classes and races are welcome, but only those of good alignment are allowed to join. Only a short interview and a truth-scrying spell to determine your intent stands between you and your membership. This module has been designed for a character of any race and any class, starting at 1st to 3rd level. You must be of good alignment. You will be raised to 3rd level (4th for classes weak at low levels)close to the begining of the module. There are three henchmen available, but more henchmen equals less XP. You should reach about 6th level at the end of the module. This is the prelude to a story of groups of power and the hunt for a magic item.
Posted by Razide0506 at 2008-03-07 09:32:39 Voted 7.00 on 03/07/08
Technically well-done, but was too often tedious and frustrating. While it wasn't bad, it just never drew me in.
Posted by TimHatch at 2007-07-18 13:44:59 Voted 9.00 on 07/18/07
This is a really great module that is a lot of fun to play.
Posted by tarlazo at 2007-06-03 07:35:00 Voted 8.25 on 06/03/07
A very good module. I really think it deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.
Posted by fardoche77 at 2007-04-26 09:05:08 Voted 8.00 on 04/26/07
As Alazander said, this started as a pretty boring mod but ended pretty well. Nice fights, nice pace too.
Yeah, combat was hard but still doable. Come on guys, if you're too weak for an opponent, go somewhere else for a couple of hours and come back with 1 or 2 levels more and kick their asses (that's what I did with the malar panther...)
But this is definitely NOT for those who like playing bards, or purposefully underpowered characters. Save often... then save again
Posted by dbdv96 at 2007-01-07 17:24:14 Voted 1.00 on 01/07/07
It had a great premise and started off well, but the fights became absurdly difficult and mind-nimbingly frustrating! There were SOOO many times where the fights had me shaking my head with disbelief!
1) Web-traps with falling Phase Spiders
2) Tons upon Tons of F****** spiders!
3) The Malar Panther: True-seeing plus damage reduction plus regeneration!!!!! Are you kidding ME?!?! The ONLY way I could kill this F***** was to lure it to the midglade and have it kill the other villagers. Meanwhile I laid down something like 30 - 40 mild acid traps which it nearly survived!
4) The Bugbear village! I enter the village and immediately find out that I can not leave where I came from! I am then chased around by what looked like hundreds of Bugbear heros!
5) When you come back to the castle, the temple has two Vrocks which summon two Succubi. It was at this point when my solo ranger (I do not use henchman) died for the first time. I like to play Diablo-hardcore (you only die once) and at this point, I pretty much swore this module off.
If this module is going to present some seriously unbalanced combat, at least have more powerful gear available!
Posted by Caedmon at 2007-01-02 14:46:12 Voted 9.25 on 01/02/07
This is an excellent module! Although it started out a little slow, it had a solid plot, well rounded henchman, balanced and challenging combat, decent sized areas, and a great ending. Thanks so much for all the hard work you put into this module. If you're still around, is there any way we could get a sequel? :)
I really wish, however, there wasn't a gold limitation in stores, or if the gold limitation was higher. 1000gp max? Work with me. I had loads of gear I didn't want to sell because I was waiting for a higher bidder. The module could have used a bit of humor, too.
All in all it was a great experience. Thanks so much for the time and effort you put into this module.
-Caedmon
Posted by Mirgalen at 2006-11-17 01:13:15 Voted 5.50 on 11/17/06
Could not complete this one with a monk. Skipped the sub-quests to try to complete the module but the creatures in the castle are clearly over the top. Don't konw how I managed to finish this module the first time.
Gameplay : 6
Nice story and excellent attention to details somehow spoiled by game limitations (e.g. no LN CoT), resting restrictions, combat balance and long trek. There are a few interesting cutscenes but something seems to be missing early on if you get to level up. The author can make good cutscenes so I was expecting something more compared to the prelude style level up. Perhaps something like seeing your character patrolling in the courtyard.
Roleplaying : 5
Would have like to have some alignment shift giving more flexibility in terms of character growth (not possible to play a monk/druid or a druid/monk for example).
Action : 3
Experienced players should not have to use cheesy tactics for nearly every single encounter. Some creatures should not have been in such low level module and again they were far way many spiders altogether (it takes a while to cross several maps when your Str is down to 3). This module is Heavy H&S not really Medium H&S.
Visuals : 8
Only one hak but it's the attention to details that is outstanding if you know where to look you will find amazing details.
Sound : 6
Fair use of sounds
Replayability : 7
You could try this module with various classes like paladin/cleric/CoT if you like to portray a knight or a ranger/druid if you like to take advantage of the outdoor settings. Yet, alignment restrictions will limit your choices and some commbats are so tough that only pure melee classes may get a chance to do everything. Pure spellcasters will probably have the hardest time due to resting restrictions.
Documentation : 5
There is a readme file. A walkthrough would have been a nice addition.
Fun : 4
Clearly depends on the choice of class and playing style. The game might be fun with a dwarven cleric with plant domain, a fighter or a paladin on easy/normal settings but a lot less with your average character on hardcore settings. The game may turn to be rather tedious and frustrating without an outstanding character. Overall fun may also depend on equipment collected.
Posted by Mirgalen at 2006-11-14 03:23:21 Voted 5.50 on 11/17/06
Found the trick (something between light blue and blue better not be color blind).
Finished the module, there is a lot of value here if one don't mind the spiders. I am going to replay this with a druid/ranger or paladin/cleric and vote.
Posted by herrjeff at 2006-11-10 10:38:03 Voted 8.25 on 09/05/06
@Mirgalen:
Do you mean entering the last level of the Cyric temple?
SPOILER!!!!
You have to match the spotlights near the locked door with the colors of the 2 pedestals in the nearby rooms.
END
Posted by Mirgalen at 2006-11-08 04:16:05 Voted 5.50 on 11/17/06
This module is very good if you don't mind the high number of spiders. Did I say a lot of spiders?
Anyway I believe I almost past the "finish line" but since I got no chance to help the people in the woods (in other words complete a bunch of quests) I releoaded a saved game just before going back to the castle.
I have done everything I think. Yet, I am stuck in a tomb with a light puzzle I have no clue how to solve. There is one yellow pedestal in the Western Room and a Blue one in the Eastern Room. Tried the most logical color combo w/o luck (to light up the third one and unlock the door).
Posted by Mirgalen at 2006-11-06 01:51:58 Voted 5.50 on 11/17/06
IMHO If I complete a quest (retrieve a plot item and kill the nearby boss) I expect to be able to go back (if not with a portal/stone of recall) "safely". Instead, the way back was crowded with nearly a dozen giant spiders of various shape and sizes. Not a good sign.
Posted by Razide0506 at 2006-09-25 12:07:46 Voted 7.00 on 03/07/08
Based on the review, I had high expectations for this module. Although there was technically very little wrong with it, it failed to really grab me either. Some of the fights crossed the line from "challenging" to "frustrating," the no-rest areas are much too large (particularly in the marsh, where I had to backtrack several times to rest), and there were several instances where the module just got tedious. It wasn't a bad module by any means, but it wasn't as good as I had expected it to be.
Posted by Grail Quest at 2006-09-20 09:08:06 Voted 5.00 on 09/20/06
After what seemed like a promising start (that is until you get to the 2nd marsh area in the first "quest"), the module quickly became very mediocre.
The main turnoff for me occurred in the 2nd quest, to find the MIA knights. It played WAY too much like the OC, complete with all the drawbacks that made the Original Campaign so tedious. That is, "march through a lot of ground and meaningless combat to do all of X and Y and Z or we won't let you leave the area." When I got sucked into the crystal ball, which seemed far, far, too much like the Snow Globe in the OC Chapter 3, I quit. The running around had bogged down the plot far too much, and I wasn't up for something that *felt* too much like a shooting gallery / dungeon crawl / pointless combat module. If I wanted that, I'd play a game designed for that, like maybe Diablo or Dungeon Siege. I didn't like the OC because of it, and so I can't say there is anything in this module that recommends itself to me.
Prior to quitting prematurely (because I honestly didn't see any impending payoff versus inordinate amount of time spent), some of the things I noted were:
* after the crisis at Eckersley, the villagers still walked around armed; one villager seemed to always carry a lit torch _indoors_ (huh?)
* the first time the Malar druid appeared, a message stated something about him being unable to level up in class 3
* the forest tiles were nice, except every other moment my view was blocked by the leaves because there seemed to be no second-story tiles to hide
* a boar has _tusks_, unless you have some sort of mutant hellspawn boar that has horns and stands on its head to dig up grubs and tubers
* encounters were generally irritatingly hard. For example, the orc boss in the Cyric temple has an AB of +13, which in play meant he was hitting my AC 23 fighter just about every time (and even when she was on Expertise, he hit pretty often too), and each hit could take out about a third of her HP. That, and he starts with a half dozen or so minions. Sheesh.
* Spiders spiders spiders. Boooring. Spiders in the marsh? Okay, maybe that's the theme for the region. But all over the forest too? Why are orcs the problem when there's a spider infestation? If the amount of trekking were smaller, it wouldn't be such a problem, but having to slog my way through so many regions of the same thing just put this too much in the foreground to ignore.
* Some skill checks were in fact phoney and had no chance of success. Some others could be repeatedly tried, and I think there was one in Eckersley where you could retry repeatedly on any commoner to get 15 XP each time you lucked out and got a success.
* Once an area was clear, resting was still not allowed. This meant, for example, that in the Eckersley marsh, you had to walk back three areas just to sit your ass down to rest. Sheesh.
I know there's a vote inflation going on and the minimum vote seems to be 8.0 no matter what, but I wouldn't give the OC more than a slightly sub-average score, so since my gameplay experience was similar to the OC, I vote 5.0. YMMV, of course. _________________________ PC Game Reviews, Hints, and Walkthroughs -- The Fantasy Art of Computer Games
Posted by herrjeff at 2006-09-10 04:22:56 Voted 8.25 on 09/05/06
PS: Correction, the elusive druid was an interesting NPC to deal with, although options to solve that situation were quite limited.
Posted by herrjeff at 2006-09-05 08:22:44 Voted 8.25 on 09/05/06
Good, classic adventure, with some variety of areas and enemies but nothing really outstanding. The 3 potential henchmen should satisfy the needs of most players.
In Hunter's Landing, the villagers' dialogs would need to be updated to reflect the PC's actions in the marsh, as the people of Eckersley Manor do.
Posted by Pipefish at 2006-03-24 08:52:23 Voted 8.50 on 03/24/06
A really good module. Full of surprises, and one really good (in a crazed, evil kind of way) sidequest villain. A few bugs, but nothing that makes it unplayable. (Though the forest tileset is really annoying as there is no clipping function.)
The problem with henchmen spaces being reduced from three to two if they die can be worked around by simply keeping them from dying so severly that they leave the party. (When they reach 1 hp, they generally disengage the enemy and ask for healing.)
The combat is hard yes, even more so with the rest restrictions. I actually had to turn the difficulty down from 'hardcore rules' to 'normal'. Good fun! (But there was one fight near the very end that I simply couldn't do, since out of my whole party the only one who could hurt the monsters was the dwarf henchman. I got around it in a way that I have reason to believe was not intended by the module creator ;))
A walkthrough would be great. There was one subquest area that I simply couldn't find!
Being able to tell your henchies to stop casting spells would be good. And so would a bit more dialogue interaction. What interaction and bacground there is, is done very well.
It is also a minus that the module doesn't really tell you when it is finished, (by exporting your character if nothing else) you're just left standing there. (With a bug that gives you 1000 xp and more copies of all your henchpeople's items everytime you talk to the finishing npc.)
Posted by Pipefish at 2006-03-21 12:10:14 Voted 8.50 on 03/24/06
"9.You should mark the rope that leads to the area with the spider cave with a map pin. It is incredibly easy to miss it otherwise."
Yeah, no kidding! There's a rope leading to that elusive spider? Where is it? Where? *sobs*
Posted by Egaskrad at 2005-12-18 07:55:16 Voted 8.00 on 12/18/05
Extremely clever to put together a story. However there is room of improvement on the vision and audio effect.
And I disagree with Armin below. I started with a sorceress and I did not find it hard other than one fight which I did something out of place. The initial equipment fit the background well... you are a green soldier, remember. What is wrong if you start out with standard uniform given to you by your Order? You are not supposed to be a one-man-beat-all hero. Some fights you are given clues to avoid and remember that some colleagues have a higher rank for a reason.
Posted by Armin at 2005-09-13 17:29:36 Voted 7.50 on 09/13/05
Area design and story are quite OK, the game balance is extremely bad for most characters and classes. You start being levelled up to lvl 4 but receive NO starting money or equipment, thus start as a naked lvl 4 char off to fight - for instance - phase spiders in HUGE no rest zones. It doesn't improve much from there, as there are no decent shops throughout the story and no items to be found for the "lesser" classes. As the overly tough fights are geared towards the usual PSS warrior, the fun tends to get buried under loads of tedium and reloads. _________________________ With magic, you can turn a frog into a prince...
With science, you can turn a frog into a Ph.D....
... and still keep the frog you started with.
Thanks for all the feedback, and sorry for not responding. I haven't been very active with NWN in a long time, but I'm starting to feel the itch again..
I doubt there will be an "episode 2" - the feel for the story is a little lost to me after such a long time. Maybe is all I can say.
Larielar
Posted by Dabaro at 2005-04-17 19:45:06 Voted 10.00 on 04/17/05
Look forward to part 2 if there is one to be developed, I enjoyed this mod very much, no bugs, no problems. Great work.
Posted by jashim at 2005-03-30 01:50:00 Voted 9.00 on 03/30/05
Thoroughly enjoyable, well polished module with an engaging storyline and excellent pace - highly recommended
Please tell me there is a part 2 out soon?!?!
Posted by jashim at 2005-03-30 01:49:25 Voted 9.00 on 03/30/05
Thoroughly enjoyable, well polished module with an engaging storyline and excellent pace - highly recommended
Posted by _Data_ at 2005-03-28 12:33:23 Voted 9.25 on 03/28/05
A nice module with an interesting story and somewhat interactive henchmen. Recommended.
Posted by _Data_ at 2005-03-28 12:31:00 Voted 9.25 on 03/28/05
Good module here. I quite liked it. Here are some comments that occurred to me during the game.
1.I like the fact that you have given most npcs a custom description. Not everyone does but i think this is something thats a really cool thing to do. As a result i always mention it when the author takes the time to write some small descriptions. Good work here.
2.I like all the skill and stat checks in the module. They add a great deal to the conversations with npcs. Good work there.
3.I quite liked the area design in your module. The areas were not too large and you used plenty of map pins. That being said i think you might want to consider adding skies to the areas. That might make things even better. UPDATE:Looks like i spoke too soon. The area west of midgale(?) was infact too large. Tsk Tsk! :)
4.I must admit i found the marsh to be really hard. The spiders just kept poisoning me and i was unable to rest in order to get rid of it.
5.I liked the fact that you gave the henchman dialog and stuff instead of just making her a mindless drone. I always think that proper interactive henchmen add much to the mood of the module. Still there is always room for improvement. It would have been nice if the henchmen made remarks in conversation with other npcs and if other npcs reacted to them. It also would have been nice if you could have asked the henchmen about more things after you traveled with them a while.
6.After killing Krain the elf henchman simply repeats her line about victims resting in peace when talked to instead of her normal lines where you can change her tactics and so on. I did discover that she stops doing this after leaving the villages but you still might want to fix this.
7.When leaving the heart of marsh after killing Krain you might want to move the player straight to the beginning of the marsh instead of forcing us to backtrack through areas already cleared.
8.I am not sure i approve of the rest restrictions you impose on us. The enemies are so powerfull that not being able to rest makes things very very difficult.
9.You should mark the rope that leads to the area with the spider cave with a map pin. It is incredibly easy to miss it otherwise.
10.I encountered an odd bug where the henchman stopped attacking enemies. She just stood there doing nothing while the enemies were pounding on her. Sigh.
11.After clearing the haunted temple the elf henchman just keeps talking about the haunted area instead of letting me change her tactics. This bug was fixed after the conversation she initiates in the abandoned temple.
12.In the island bugbear area there is a missing exit transition to the forest. Fortunately the shore one works.
13.My armor of comfort was not given back its magical properties after i shut down the dead magic zone
All in all an enjoyable module. Thank you for making it! :)
Posted by _Data_ at 2005-03-28 12:30:00 Voted 9.25 on 03/28/05
Good module here. I quite liked it. Here are some comments that occurred to me during the game.
1.I like the fact that you have given most npcs a custom description. Not everyone does but i think this is something thats a really cool thing to do. As a result i always mention it when the author takes the time to write some small descriptions. Good work here.
2.I like all the skill and stat checks in the module. They add a great deal to the conversations with npcs. Good work there.
3.I quite liked the area design in your module. The areas were not too large and you used plenty of map pins. That being said i think you might want to consider adding skies to the areas. That might make things even better. UPDATE:Looks like i spoke too soon. The area west of midgale(?) was infact too large. Tsk Tsk! :)
4.I must admit i found the marsh to be really hard. The spiders just kept poisoning me and i was unable to rest in order to get rid of it.
5.I liked the fact that you gave the henchman dialog and stuff instead of just making her a mindless drone. I always think that proper interactive henchmen add much to the mood of the module. Still there is always room for improvement. It would have been nice if the henchmen made remarks in conversation with other npcs and if other npcs reacted to them. It also would have been nice if you could have asked the henchmen about more things after you traveled with them a while.
6.After killing Krain the elf henchman simply repeats her line about victims resting in peace when talked to instead of her normal lines where you can change her tactics and so on. I did discover that she stops doing this after leaving the villages but you still might want to fix this.
7.When leaving the heart of marsh after killing Krain you might want to move the player straight to the beginning of the marsh instead of forcing us to backtrack through areas already cleared.
8.I am not sure i approve of the rest restrictions you impose on us. The enemies are so powerfull that not being able to rest makes things very very difficult.
9.You should mark the rope that leads to the area with the spider cave with a map pin. It is incredibly easy to miss it otherwise.
10.I encountered an odd bug where the henchman stopped attacking enemies. She just stood there doing nothing while the enemies were pounding on her. Sigh.
11.After clearing the haunted temple the elf henchman just keeps talking about the haunted area instead of letting me change her tactics. This bug was fixed after the conversation she initiates in the abandoned temple.
12.In the island bugbear area there is a missing exit transition to the forest. Fortunately the shore one works.
13.My armor of comfort was not given back its magical properties after i shut down the dead magic zone
All in all an enjoyable module. Thank you for making it! :)
Posted by mikeyonker at 2005-03-27 06:13:05 Voted 9.25 on 03/27/05
That was a lot of fun. I'm glad I saw Alazander's review. Some rough spots, but overshadowed by the fun.
Posted by Dradjeel at 2005-03-09 10:11:18 Voted 8.00 on 03/09/05
Deserving way more than the limited amounts of DLs it has at the moment. _________________________ The Power Almighty rests in this Lone Ring.
The Power, alrighty, for Doing Your Own Thing.
Posted by LoonaCrist ( 199.247.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-03-01 16:02:00
I'm having the same problem as BDH there, same area. As soon as one joins, one leaves. I did manage to get all 3 back into the party but the last one to join wouldn't follow or listen to me. I just told them that we needed to seperate then ask them to join me again. Then, as soon as one died i would have to go through it all over again.
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