Classes with access to prayers may have a hard time in abyss. Spellcasters in general will be more challenged.
Scope
Epic
DMNeeded
No DM Required
Single or Multiplayer
Single Player or Multiplayer
Max Character Level
30
Max # Players
08
Min # Players
01
Min Character Level
15
Content Rating
Teen
Alignments
Good or neutral characters preferred as story is biased towards good. Evil is possible.
Description
H4 - The Throne of Bloodstone
v6.4 is a remake of the classic P&P module with the same name. Bloodstone is harrased by undead troops sent from neighbouring undead ruler Zhengyi. Baron Tranth of Bloodstone needs help to protect his small mining village. Do you have the courage to step to the aid of Baron Tranth and do you dare to face the real threat lurking in the nether realms?
Module require HOTU + SOU expansions and supports bleeding, town portal items. Require food to rest and holds hundreds of new creatures and magical items.
Thank you all for commenting. Its always fung getting feedback. Thullraven there is a way down from the room at the top of the witchkings castle. At the center of a room is a well. Click on a rope on the floor and you will get alternatives how to decend below the castle.
Regards, _________________________ Intelligence - The ability to plan ahead.
Wisdom - To actually do what you planned.
Posted by krydor at 2011-10-02 22:17:47 Voted 10.00 on 10/02/11
This module is a work of art. Amazing job capturing the vastness of inter-planar travel. A few minor bugs (like self-replenishing treasure) did not detract from the experience. I soloed it with a 15th level cleric (19th at end) on the highest difficulty and it was quite challenging.
Posted by BePower at 2010-10-24 12:48:31 Voted 6.00 on 10/24/10
I was playing this some time ago and remember I was enjoying very much until the part of the plane maze and coordinates and such. I stopped playing at that point quite bored looking for a way, gave it another try and finished today but can't recall now what I enjoyed in the first place.
Posted by Steve_Savicki at 2010-07-04 16:25:06 Voted 10.00 on 07/04/10
Best module I've played this year!
Hauntingly dark. _________________________ Steve's Characters - please don't forget to vote on them if you play them.
Hi. I made it all the way to the Level 5 of Witch King's castle. What now? Killed the Dragon on Level 1. Can't access any pit other than the well I came up from level 4. Was enjoying the mod up until now. Now I can't go any further. Can someone please tell me what to do. Thanks.
Posted by Shin Okada at 2010-06-11 22:06:04 Voted 9.00 on 06/11/10
Never mind. I could found the place to go.
This is a very unique and interesting high level adventure. Random store inventory, loots & area are making this mod a notable one which you can play with satisfaction. The original P&P mod is light in story and heavy on Hack and Slash. So those additions were very good invention to make this old adventure alive.
Even today, it is rare to find a good mod which is reasonably long and can be played with epic level characters. This mod is one of those. So you shouldn't overlook.
Posted by Shin Okada at 2010-06-11 02:56:56 Voted 9.00 on 06/11/10
Spoiler Alert
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Hi! I have played this mod years ago. And now playing this again. IIRC when I played this mod the last time, I found some imp (?) who guides me in the 8th layer of Abyss.
But this time, it seems that I have either missed him or he was dead before I noticed. So now I am wondering the 8th layer without no clue. Will it be practical to continue playing this mod? Or should I re-start from the beginning?
Posted by ZoGarth_Erickzson at 2010-02-19 20:53:14 Voted 9.25 on 02/19/10
I still load up Throne of Bloodstone after several years, although I have updated the graphics and have added quite a few hak packs, but the game itself is all Tim. Thanks _________________________ Its better to burn out...than fade away!
Thank you for all your votes and comments.
mishnari there is a link under Files called h4hotu64.zip. Download it and unpack it in you module directory where NWN is installed. Then start NWN and select other modules and then H4-The Throne of Bloodstone. _________________________ Intelligence - The ability to plan ahead.
Wisdom - To actually do what you planned.
Posted by McV at 2010-01-13 21:39:56 Voted 8.00 on 01/13/10
I agree with everything other posters have said about this module, though I did not find misspellings / grammar nearly as distracting as some did. I mean, come on now, building modules is a hobby. I hardly expect to be greeted by a round table of professional writers / editors (this coming, of course, from a module writer who is notoriously lazy about editing his own work!).
Posted by Delf at 2009-11-11 22:06:07 Voted 8.25 on 11/11/09
Pros:
-Challenging Hack & Slash combat for high-level characters with an appropriately epic quest.
-innovative systems like adjustable difficulty settings and randomized level shifts in the Abyss (which make traveling through it interesting and fits the setting quite well).
Cons:
-Story, role-playing and pretty much anything except hack & slash combat is all but non-existent.
-Having randomized loot and store inventories was an interesting idea but not that well implemented. It seems to be pretty much pure luck whether or not you will find any good items that are actually useful to a given class. One would be well-advised to bring in a character who is already well-equipped.
Overall, this module is reasonably good at what it's trying to do, but a little more work to add a few more dialogue options and perhaps a few side-quests would have made it far better and less limited in its appeal.
Posted by haraets at 2009-11-05 09:40:11 Voted 9.75 on 11/05/09
What is it about these awfull rust creatures that eat your weapons n equipment that everyone just has to use... Blah I find the perfect armour n weapons for my character Which isn't easy for what I have n to be able to use magic n not get a penalty cause of too heavy armor (ranger/wizard/champion of torm) n it gets eaten by these insuferable creatures... I hate them roflmfao _________________________ "Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time. The Prophecies will be fulfilled. The Dragon is Reborn."
Posted by edosan at 2009-09-14 15:04:39 Voted 7.75 on 09/14/09
It was nice to see a fairly well-balanced high-level mod (there are so few out there) but I always think that p&p conversions are lacking in comparison to mods that use all the NWN tools at their disposal.
Posted by hfrank at 2009-01-22 17:49:41 Voted 7.75 on 01/22/09
Nothing screams "amateurish" like misspelling. Someone who can't spell "abyss" shouldn't be permitted to write text for an adventure in the demonic planes.
The combat difficulty seemed oddly balanced. Combats early in the game were far more difficult than the combats with Orcus and Tiamat, both of which--along with their companions--went down without my character (F16/WM7) requiring either potions to restore HP or the use of opponent-specific weapons (e.g., Bastard Sword +7 vs. Dragons).
However, the worst feature of the dungeon was the SQUARES area in the first level of Orcus's base. It was inescapable. My character searched every single cubicle and found nothing but respawning minotaurs and rust monsters that forced him to walk around naked using only a bow to protect his armor and weapons. This sort of glitch halts an adventure in its tracks and is simply inexcusable. After a full day of play, my only choice was to use gametools to move on to the next area of the dungeon. Here's the solution, by the way:
press "~" to open the game console.
Type (without quotes) "DebugMode 1" Press period/full stop "." From the menu of locations select Orcus Base and then press the "MOVE TO" button. To back out of the console, type "DebugMode 0"
Finally, the walk-through was simply the least useful walkthrough of any adventure I have ever played. An instruction like "navigate the maze" is like a lot of tech support-- completely correct and absolutely useless. Rather like a scene in the movie "Jeremiah Johnson" when Johnson meets an old mountain man in the Great Plains and asks where he can find beaver to trap. He's told, "Go west until you hit the Rocky Mountains and turn left."
Posted by fire&ice at 2008-06-10 12:55:37 Voted 7.75 on 05/26/08
Posted by fire&ice at 2008-05-26 03:41:44 Voted 7.75 on 05/26/08
We finally managed to continue with this module, after moving the server to our old laptop which, bizarrely, stopped all the crashing. Firstly, thanks very much to Tim for making an entertaining module and I�ll try to give our MP group�s (Sor(18)/Pal(18)/Bard(18)) impressions.
Summary:
Good: Interesting concept, some great battles
Bad: Frustrating end, some bugs of general weirdness, spelling and grammar not the strongest, miserly XP and loot
*SPOILERS*
So, we had some fun blasting through the Abyss � after we worked out which plane the abyss was (we took a wrong turn in the astral plane and ended up looking for conduits in an entirely different plane�).
The first mission through to the castle was entertaining. My sorcerer found it a bit hard going � I wish I had had a wizard so I could memorize all acid-based spells � as it was I ended up relying on maximised and empowered Melf�s a lot.
The astral plane was interesting and unique although our Bard had a problem in that, inexplicably, (only) he slowed to 1/10th movement speed in the astral. We thought this was quite funny but he disagreed�
The different layers of the Abyss were interesting � we didn�t have any trouble with disappearing conduits and being separated by going through them. We ran into some weirdness going through area transitions, getting split up, finding our way back but then appearing to be on the same NWN area but separated by 1 point in coordinates. We were unable to get back to the same coords but things fixed themselves when we got back to a different plane.
I enjoyed a lot of the boss-demon fights on the different planes and enjoyed the way you used different tilesets to give the layers all a different feel � not what I expected. The demons were suitably good about offering fiendish pacts too! On the combat though, it was heartbreaking to finally take down one of the Lords of the Abyss, expending many charges of our Rods of Resurrection, only to be rewarded with 21 XP and a +1 dagger. The XP rewards were so small *sob*. Those Red Chiasmes were also crazy hard � �it�s a red chaisme� � �run away!�.
Not all our MP party really �got� the conduit system but I was able to chivvy them along so it didn�t matter so much. We accidentally annoyed the boatman-demon faction so they all went hostile � forcing a reload. Disappointingly there was a conduit to Orcus� layer right from layer 0 � I was expecting a bit more of a circuitous route.
Orcus� layer was a bit of a low point for us. The guide imp got lost really early on and after that we just wandered aimlessly from looping transition to looping transition with no idea where we were going or how to get there. Eventually half the party ended up at a new area (some city) so I dm_movetoarea to join them. We were all a bit annoyed by this point. Running through the Demon City with all the millions of respawning demons was highly entertaining though. My memories get a bit hazy at that point, but I do remember an entertaining but not over-tough. We were sufficiently tired that we left the module before killing the evil dragon at the end, but I�m sure that would have been fun if we hadn�t had been worn down by the Orcus layer.
So, all in all, a fun and unique module but the frustration of the Orcus layer left a bitter taste in the mouth.
Posted by fire&ice at 2008-05-04 10:03:25 Voted 7.75 on 05/26/08
Hi Tim. Was enjoying this module quite a lot with my MP group but unfortunately the server took to crashing every 5 minutes so we couldn't continue ;( Thanks anyway!
Hi, I would try the default difficulty. If you find it too easy you can always make a little trip and change it later. Get yourself a amulet of sanctuary to enable teleport back to safety. Good luck, _________________________ Intelligence - The ability to plan ahead.
Wisdom - To actually do what you planned.
Posted by fire&ice at 2008-01-12 06:23:25 Voted 7.75 on 05/26/08
Hi. I'm thinking of playing this with my MP party of Sor(17)/Pal(17)/Bard(17) with relatively decent kit. What difficulty level do you recommend Tim?
Posted by Black Wings at 2008-01-03 06:37:00 Voted 5.50 on 01/03/08
It's mostly well-made and fun, and the system of traveling between the planes is interesting, but I gave up on this module shortly after entering the planes. The main reason for this is the battles, which are frustratingly hard and all yield little to no experience. Experience isn't an issue in all modules, but this one is primarily hack'n'slash so I expect to be rewarded for overcoming creatures that, without exception, are immune to pretty much everything and have spell resistance. The 8000 point reward for the first quest made up for it somewhat and I might even have leveled up had I finished the module, but ultimately it was too frustrating for me having to retry every battle two or three times and earn no more than a hundred exp. for each one.
Also, the dialog was kind of bizarre and I didn't get much choice of what to say.
I can see that that remark can be misunderstod. It is from before the time levels greater than 20 existed. There was then a script to manage items of geater level - ILR (Item Level Restrictor) that unequipped items that was too powerful. No such script is needed today. No script changes need to be done. I made a change to the text once hotu appeared but when read today I fully understand your confusion.
But on a similar note, there is a starting dialouge that allow you to select combat difficulty (depending on your player skill - strength of character et.c.). The difficulty will affect the amount/value of treasure found so you should consider the difficulty carefully.
I hope you will have a good time playing my module. You are welcome to send me feedback or questions should the need arise.
Best regards,
Tim _________________________ Intelligence - The ability to plan ahead.
Wisdom - To actually do what you planned.
so my question is... Are you saying we need to go in and change the script and menter in multiplayer mode just to make available all the custom items? Or is this something you only had in place in the pre-HoTU version?
Thinking of playing this mod and briefly skimmed the readme first and came across something I don't understand... This is from the readme.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
This module has a built in ILR-system that can be turned on when run on a server. This system takes care to unequip (or disallow use of) items that is too high level for that character. This means that even if you turn off the ILR on the server it is still used by the module. If ILR is on the module may create items higher than level 20. This is true if any of the characters has experience enough to reach level 21 or higher. There is now no way to turn on this ILR-system from within the module. It is off by default but can be changed to on in multiplayer if you change the script set_ilr. Why have ILR on? - Higher than level 20 characters can then use higher than level 20 items! That�s why. It is off by default so you if you don�t want it you don�t need to do anything.
You may have used a potion of Bless to make it work as well. Thank you most humbly and good luck in the future. _________________________ Intelligence - The ability to plan ahead.
Wisdom - To actually do what you planned.
Posted by Lord of the Dense at 2007-06-10 15:09:31 Voted 8.00 on 06/10/07
Nevermind, Tim. It turns out it was the PRC pack we had going from the beginning. I tested the non-PRC'd backup mod and it worked fine. However, due to us utilizing PRC'd characters in the un-PRC'd mod, it removed some of the features that the PRC provided, so we did not save, thus losing out on the game's final XP. But at least we saw the ending. Thanks for creating probably one of the most challenging mods we've played.
Posted by Lord of the Dense at 2007-06-02 22:59:47 Voted 8.00 on 06/10/07
Tim, managed to further ourselves and get the Gem of Life. Our characters and Quillian have tried to plant it and we've had no luck. The spell required does not work and I've cast it dozens of times. Doesn't work in his hands or ours. Wondering if it's a bug. It would seriously be discouraging to think we made it this far for nothing. Please advise.
Hm, Lord of the Dense, there is quite a bit of help in the manual about the working of the gates and conduits. There is an item tht when used tell layer, x and y position. I take it you are using one of these, both of you, to see that you are in the same coordinate. If you are you end up at the same destination when using a conduit. If you end up at different locations when using the same conduit I bet you have diffeent coordinates. If creating the Abyss again I would have increased the number of areas of each layer to minimize the risk of using the same area in two coordinates at the same time in multiplayer, alas, this will not be done. If going back to the Astral you will reset your coordinate to 0,0,0. There are items that enhance your thief skills, such as a ring of thievery. I even think the henchman could help opening the doors. The locked door in layer 8 is actually a bit of a shortcut with a low probability to occur. This is of course not the only way to layer 8. I hope this helped some. You have come far, do not give up!
Best regards, _________________________ Intelligence - The ability to plan ahead.
Wisdom - To actually do what you planned.
Posted by Lord of the Dense at 2007-05-20 20:07:20 Voted 8.00 on 06/10/07
Sorry to seem dense about this, Tim. Another gamer and I are trying to get to Orcus' layer and no matter what we do, we just can't seem to coordinate it. I'm running the server and from what we can tell, we enter the portal/conduit at the same time, and from the same coordinates (from what we can tell). We had Pazuzu create one on Level 3 and I may have went, but my companion didn't. He's never seen the level. I'm sure if we could figure out the trick, it wil also get us into Level 8, which thus far only yields an impossible-to-open locked door. We have the same trouble with a locked door in the center of one of the Level 7 screens. I realize this may call for a thief in the party, reading previous notes. Any insight on this would be most appreciated. We are pretty much at the point of calling it quits.
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