Blaark Chronicles III - Khelvorn Third part of the Blaark Chronicles series. Designed for a solo character, level 6-8, of good or neutral alignment. The module starts after the journey north from Watertown, and the player soon learns that all is not well in Khelvorn. The forces of good are vastly outnumbered and need to find allies--but where? Updated to work with the SOU expansion pack.
Posted by MikeLM9215 at 2008-07-07 20:20:35 Voted 6.75 on 07/07/08
Somewhat overpowered third module. Die a lot with penalty. Barely gain any experience throughout. Maybe penalty should have been reduced. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
Posted by WeAreAllKosh at 2008-03-12 13:13:33 Voted 2.00 on 03/12/08
This is possibly the worst module I�ve gotten from the Hall of Fame. Just about everything a modmaker can do incorrectly, this one does.
Just about.
Creatures, thankfully, do not respawn. There is no HCR (resting restrictions, eating and drinking requirements, etc). While there are many different kinds of merchants, there are no restrictions on what types of items they buy. There are no game breaking bugs. Those are the good things. They don�t fall into the category of �things done right� so much as �things that shouldn�t be done at all.� But crap like that causes me to reduce my votes, so I�ll acknowledge them.
First the bad things. And then the really bad things.
I see many commenters applauding the module�s plot. One even calls it an �engaging� plot. Myself, I couldn�t really tell if the plot was engaging � because I couldn�t find one. I find myself aiding a bunch of rebels against a Duke Khelvorn who is mustering an army to march on the throne. His motives are never explained � just as the motives of his underling Kent were never explained in the second module. I�m given no sense of who these people are or what the motives are for their actions. They�re just villains acting � villainously! Oooooo! Spooky! NPC�s are given no depth. Their dialogues are shallows. All they are are generic quest givers ordering you to do this and to do that � and then to take a hike. While the -idea- of the different tribes of elves can be commended, the execution of it was poor. The sun elves, the moon elves, the dwarves, the Khelvorn rebels � all were pretty much presented the same. I will reiterate again to people who seem too easily impressed by shallow storytelling � try The Tangled Web, Aielund Saga, even Penultima if you want to see good storytelling. My left asscheek has a more engaging plot than this module.
Despite the documentation�s assertion that areas were trimmed down in this module, they seemed larger and/or more annoying to me. There were three basic area templates the designer used: 1, the huge mansion with 80% empty rooms, 2, the long winding passage and 3, the back-and-forth up-and-down hill or mountain. Just as much if not more running all over the place through empty areas. And then there was the road to the dwarves city � but we�ll get to that when we reach the really bad things.
Encounter building falls into the same boring niche that countless other modmakers depend on -- large groups of creatures. Many of the aforementioned long windy passages, for instance, are just hackfests through Group #1 of creatures (sometimes all the same creatures, sometimes different types that don�t necessarily mesh well together) so you could move on to identical Group #2, then identical Group #3, and so on and so forth. And talk about unrewarding �
Experience rewards are not even mentionable, and treasure is nowhere to be found � because gods know we can�t have a Monty Haul campaign. I suspect the designer had no idea what a Monty Haul campaign is, but he was no less determined to make sure this series didn�t degenerate to one. His interpretation of Monty Haul style seemed to have something to do with players not being able to tailor their equipment to their desired character types (gods forbid you play a wizard) and never feeling rewarded for sisyphean battles against large hordes of creatures. As it is, the only reward you get for hacking through a group of creatures is getting one step closer to the light at the end of this gloomy tunnel of a module. Thankfully, these groups of creatures do not respawn, a technique that usually goes hand in hand with the �large groups� technique; I�m glad that, in that respect at least, the designer broke tradition. The limited amount of gold you collect doesn�t go very far, since the limited selection of items you can purchase are far more expensive than in any normal NWN campaign. And you need a lot of that gold to complete many of the quests, which, in many cases, require you to pay out more in bribes than you get back in rewards. With the state this world�s economy is in, it�s no wonder Duke Khelvorn is trying to topple the King.
Two �assets� you�re given -- the henchmen and the recall stone -- might as well have been left out. They�re useless. The henchmen don�t level up past Level 1, so they couldn�t really be kept alive even if they could provide any practical use to you. And with the ludicrous damaging property that�s on the recall stone and the fact that the rebel camp isn�t even that much of a home base, there�s no reason to ever use it. It�s sad that so many modmakers took such a hostile stance toward an item that Bioware intended to mimic the tabletop experience of not having to make long journeys back and forth across cleared areas.
Traps are used excessively, as they often are by the bad modmakers. And not weak traps on a chest here or in a room there. The most powerful, high save DC, 100 damage variety. And they cover corridors completely in the vampire keep. Since bringing the rogue henchman along is a weak option (as previously explained) you�re either playing a rogue (which means you�re never going to reach this point anyway, as I will soon explain) or you�re taking damage from the traps. No purpose served except annoying the player.
Now for the really bad things. We�ll do it in an illustrative format.
Imagine, if you will, encountering not 1 � not 2 � not 3 � not 4 � but 5 water elementals at once. No, not the normal variety; modmakers never use those. The variety with Drown. Imagine having to make a save vs. death five times in a round. As an 8th level character. Against a DC of 20. A Barbarian with a Constitution of 16 needs to roll a 9. Imagine trying to do it as a Rogue. As absurd as it sounds, this is what the designer makes you do in this module. And not just once. There are several groups of water elementals in the underwater mine area, and several more in the Water area of the boring and pointless elemental trials. This was a creature that Bioware placed once in the OC as a unique boss-type encounter � against a 12th level character. That�s how creatures with save-or-die abilities are supposed to be used. They�re not supposed to be used as fodder for the player to hack through. But, again, this is another modmaker that has no clue how to build effective encounters -- �place five of them� is all he knows.
Imagine getting past that (probably using dm_god), then making your way to the dwarven city. Guess what the road to it is. A maze! Sounds fun, doesn�t it? A maze with only one clear path and groups of weak undead creatures around every corner. And no treasure. 10 dead ends, and not even a chest with 8 gold pieces to be found. Even the absurd mazes of Baldur�s Gate I weren�t done like that! And when you finally find the end of the maze and send a prayer of thanks to whatever being you worship � guess what! You have to go through a second maze!! Once is not annoying enough, the designer obviously felt.
Imagine then finding your way to the moon elf city. You do a little shopping in the tower. You check out a couple of the priests, maybe get yourself healed up. You look at those Boots of Speed that the priest is selling and wonder why they�re even offered at a price of 40,000 gp, a sum you�ll never even dream of in this series (maybe in a Monty Haul series!). Then you make your way to the Town Hall � and BAM, the doors are locked. It�s nighttime, ghosts are on the prowl, and everyone�s locked their doors. Ok, no big deal. You�ll just leave the city and find someplace to rest until morning. You go back to the wood elf camp. Is there a way to advance the game clock there? No. You go back to the rebel camp. Is there a way to advance the game clock there? No. AHA! The sun elves. Masters of the affairs of time and space! Surely, they will provide me with some way to advance the game clock! No. So, essentially, you�re screwed, forced to sit � and wait � and wait � and wait � and wait � and wait for the game clock to crawl its way 10 hours forward. These same silly time based scripts were used to control the merchants in Part 2. They were absurd then, when they were only controlling the availability of a bunch of merchants. Rather than get rid of them, though, the designer brought them back and actually had them control the flow of the central plot. Maybe if someone had complained about the time restrictions in Part 2, they would have been eliminated? I guess they were too busy giving the modules 9�s and 10�s. Because, sure, 6�s and 7�s point out the things modmakers are doing wrong so that they can -GASP- improve themselves � but those votes hurt their feelings. :*(
Finally, imagine being sent by a hermit to locate a harp. You find a merchant who has the harp, but he wants you to go retrieve two other harps from the previously-mentioned trap-infested vampire keep. Reaching the end of that ordeal, you locate the harps and learn that they are, by far, the most valuable magic items you�ve found in this series of modules. Imagine the great use you could put these things! Or the amount of gold you could make if you sold them! Not enough to buy those Boots of Speed, maybe � but perhaps enough to buy those Boots of Striding +1. But you deliver the harps to the merchant because you�re a man of your word and you figure the hermit will give you *something* worthwhile for the third harp. So you bring the two harps all the way back through the now empty keep, deliver them to the merchant in exchange for the 3rd harp, take it through one of those �back-and-forth and up-and-down� mountain areas to get to the hermit�s hut, and, just as the carpal tunnel is beginning to set into your wrist, deliver the harp to the hermit. What do you get for your efforts? 99 Farel�s Gold bullets. Oh, and 500xp � just about 3% of what you need to reach the next level. It�s time like this that you have to be thankful you aren�t playing a Monty Haul campaign.
Well � except for those groups of instant-killing water elementals � those were kinda Monty Haul style.
I imagine if the designer had given the finished product one play-through, he�d realize how annoying all of those things are. But I can�t blame him for that. Had I made this module, I wouldn�t have wanted to subject myself to it either. And why should I anyway? You can post a picture of a bowel movement on the Vault and people will give it 9�s and 10�s.
For the effort that was involved, you see.
Posted by SusanMcKinney at 2007-12-09 12:39:36 Voted 9.75 on 12/09/07
This was a fantastic set of adventures. I loved the overall storyline. I loved the nuances of the world as I traveled through them. I hope to find more modules like this!
Posted by Nelson The Geek at 2007-09-17 03:23:09 Voted 10.00 on 09/17/07
A great series by Fintallo. I noticed in the Vault posts that this was his first module series. I am amazed. Well polished, with an engaging plot and very few spelling errors.
Some posters have complained about the linearity, especially in the later chapters. IMHO, this is misguided. You are on a save-the-world quest. You're not going to go off on a side-jaunt at a time like that. The most intelligent point made was the comparison to writing a novel. When writing a cohesive series of modules, that's what you're doing - writing a story. If the complainer wants a more free-form module with non-linearity, that only comes with sacrificing the story. I for one prefer a cohesive plot.
Fun - 10, Layout/Design - 10, Dialogue - 10, Originality/Creativity - 10, Quality Control - 10, Overall - 10
Posted by Litepulsar at 2006-09-13 18:05:59 Voted 8.75 on 09/13/06
Yet again, won't go over the issues I had with this mod as they've already been highlighted before (water elementals, having to wait hours for daylight to arrive etc), despite those niggles, I still found the good far outweighed the bad, and loved getting to spend time with the various sub-races of elves.
Posted by Lucien Greymanner ( 161.77.xxx.xxx ) at 2006-04-19 14:26:39
I found an interesting way around the Sun elf gates. I have the prc installed and used my jump skill to get up and down to the portal.
Posted by ericdoman at 2006-03-12 09:41:29 Voted 9.00 on 03/12/06
Enjoyed this one as most of my income was made on selling ccw potions. Used the Barb as henchman and prob did more damage to him myself than the NME (hardcore fireballs etc). But always made sure he was hasted and stoneskinned?. If opponents were very tough displacement would also work.
As a sorceror managed to take out all of the khelvorn elite troops at beginning. Could not as a ftr/rg from first attempt.
Posted by TNAndy ( 66.191.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-07-28 17:10:02
Wow, you don't even have to click on submit to add comments here. Browser "forward" works just as well. Amazing!
Posted by TNAndy ( 66.191.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-07-28 17:06:40
I'm completely stuck on the sun elves quest. I've gone as far as I can go in all four directions from the plaza. All five chests are empty, all four doors are locked and unbreakable. After the journal entry about the empty plaza, I get no further clues. Speaking to former questgivers does not help. I've finished all other quests including dwarves, and moon elves.
Either I missed something somewhere or there's a bug.
I guess I'll have to look in the module for the keys and how to fetch them.
I've enjoyed the series up to this point.
Posted by TNAndy ( 66.191.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-07-28 17:05:51
I'm completely stuck on the sun elves quest. I've gone as far as I can go in all four directions from the plaza. All five chests are empty, all four doors are locked and unbreakable. After the journal entry about the empty plaza, I get no further clues. Speaking to former questgivers does not help. I've finished all other quests including dwarves, and moon elves.
Either I missed something somewhere or there's a bug.
I guess I'll have to look in the module for the keys and how to fetch them.
I've enjoyed the series up to this point.
Posted by TNAndy ( 66.191.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-07-28 17:05:20
I'm completely stuck on the sun elves quest. I've gone as far as I can go in all four directions from the plaza. All five chests are empty, all four doors are locked and unbreakable. After the journal entry about the empty plaza, I get no further clues. Speaking to former questgivers does not help. I've finished all other quests including dwarves, and moon elves.
Either I missed something somewhere or there's a bug.
I guess I'll have to look in the module for the keys and how to fetch them.
I've enjoyed the series up to this point.
Posted by Kataja at 2005-07-23 14:50:14 Voted 8.00 on 07/23/05
Decent continuation, the old "let's unite all peoples of this earth against the bad guys" plot with some personal twists. Too much romping around uneventfully is bad for my wrists though; this module didn't have as many skip-portals as the previous, and there was a particular long dwarvish tunnel which I walked through *twice* before I was convinced that the exit just drops me back to my starting point in dwarfland and I have to town-stone my way out.
The logic of "if you haven't been told to go there, don't" used in the previous chapters didn't quite work here: if you leave things undone, it'll be very hard to go back. Ignore people telling you to hurry, just roam around to your heart's desire.
I hate water elementals with drown attacks too, especially since with these amounts of loot the characters won't have money to buy belts of guiding light unless they leave out all other things on their wishlist - and they won't know to before it's too late. I also was about to greatly dislike the shadows with their strength-lowering, which usually requires a restoration to get rid of (which I also didn't have due to being broke enough to not buy anything I didn't know I'd need). I ran through the rest of the tunnels berserking naked (my hench carried the platemails) with just my big sword. Interesting sight that would have made. Then as I finally had to sleep and lose the strength potion effect, it turns out that this time the shadow effect was one-day long only. I think I hate illogical creatures in general. ;)
I'll have to agree with some posts here, too: if there's something happening at night, it should be possible to pass the time. I decided to go kill time outdoors in a particular moony place, got my hench killed just trying to unlock the door we just came through. Eventually decided to do a quest requiring me to leave the place and left my hench behind indoors while I went to find the exit. Hmmh.
Posted by k ( 24.63.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-05-10 15:45:50
k
Posted by Hypnoxa ( 24.63.xxx.xxx ) at 2005-05-10 15:44:22
Incredibly well put together mod, but one problem
Sun elf gate...Click on it...Words appear, but there is no way to respond to it. Is it a glich or am I not doing something right?
Posted by Vimsen at 2005-04-24 08:36:34 Voted 9.50 on 04/24/05
Posted by mikeyonker at 2005-04-19 10:42:25 Voted 9.25 on 04/19/05
Very nice. Still the henchwoman I use is worse than useless, as its sometimes impossible to keep her alive. I had to dump her in the next chapter it got so grave.
Posted by Steve_Savicki at 2005-04-16 21:52:16 Voted 10.00 on 04/16/05
Loved the elf sub-races. So much that I forgot I had a dragon encounter! _________________________ Steve's Characters - please don't forget to vote on them if you play them.
Thanks,
Steve
Posted by Kangaroo at 2005-01-28 16:00:42 Voted 8.00 on 01/28/05
not the strongest entry in the series (too many open spaces and pointless running) but the series is excellent overall.
Posted by garyh2018 at 2005-01-05 20:57:08 Voted 9.00 on 01/05/05
The series keeps getting better - although the water elementals were a pain.
I like the series for the most part so far (I just started part IV). I haven't ranked any of them yet, but this is definitely the worst of the first three.
Let me echo the annoyances of other posters:
1. The inconguiities when playing an evil character
2. The dopey riddles to get through the "sun elf" gates
3. The water elementals.
If I could reach into every mod designer's head as he or she is designing the mod, I would deliver 4 messages.
1. No rest restrictions, by either time or place.
2. If it's important that things happen in the day or night, try to find a way to allow the PC(s) to simply "pass time until daybreak/nightfall.
3. No water elemental drown attacks (I just used Leto and set my Con to 99 so I wouldn't have to worry about constantly re-loading).
4. If you're going to have riddles, either give clues in the game to help solve them or give PCs the option to simply skip them entirely (again, in this case, I just used Leto to set my Open Locks rank to 99 and I simply picked the "sun elf" gates).
Did I mention "no rest restrictions"?
Posted by ericdoman at 2004-11-16 09:29:00 Voted 9.00 on 03/12/06
having big prob, In town, trying to keep the engineer safe so as to fill in breech. he keeps getting killed. I know there is a chance to get a second one but I would imagine the same thing will happen, ie he just gets involved in fighting khelv elite and they kill him.
Not only that I,ve lost barb when facing mummies and lich and now the bard keeps getting killed.
is there a way around this? I'll try it again but when its your 15th attempt it gets a little boring.
Overall though upto this point (and you did not really specify to take a good character, VERY VERY IMPORTANT). Very good
Posted by KE_Sabre at 2004-09-22 23:34:52 Voted 8.50 on 09/22/04
I played this one with my evil character since there wasn't an evil version done. That caused some problems. First, the dragon attacks me when I try and give him back the backscratcher. After I kill him, my journal says that I need to bring him something from the tunnel. Same thing with the oracle. The journal should be updated after they attack you. If I forgot what they said before I killed them, I wouldn't know where to go next. The sun elf also attacked me for being evil. Then none of the portals worked and it left me stranded. I had to use dm_jumptopoint to get out of there. Then the sun elves still joined because I had the arrow from the mages corpse. That doesn't make any sense why they would join after that. There was no way in the module for me to shift my alignment to good, even though I did everything everyone asked me to the nice way. Also, I never found any reason why I should go to the Orc camp. No quests sent me there. The jailed dwarf quest was annoying too. I can't bribe the guy, so I need to get some elf wine, which is with the moon elves. After you start doing the elf quests, there is no reason to ever travel back to the dwarves except to deliver the wine. The majority of the dwarf mine's questing is unavailable until you give the guy the wine. It just seemed like there were a lot of areas where you wouldn't get to if you only did the quests in order. In Chapter two, if you had to go to the inn, odds are another quest would send you up that way pretty soon so you could do them both at the same time. That didn't happen with this one.
Aside from that, I liked this mod, but not as much as #2 or #1. Moving on to #4.
I played this one with my evil character since there wasn't an evil version done. That caused some problems. First, the dragon attacks me when I try and give him back the backscratcher. After I kill him, my journal says that I need to bring him something from the tunnel. Same thing with the oracle. The journal should be updated after they attack you. If I forgot what they said before I killed them, I wouldn't know where to go next. The sun elf also attacked me for being evil. Then none of the portals worked and it left me stranded. I had to use dm_jumptopoint to get out of there. Then the sun elves still joined because I had the arrow from the mages corpse. That doesn't make any sense why they would join after that. There was no way in the module for me to shift my alignment to good, even though I did everything everyone asked me to the nice way. Also, I never found any reason why I should go to the Orc camp. No quests sent me there. The jailed dwarf quest was annoying too. I can't bribe the guy, so I need to get some elf wine, which is with the moon elves. After you start doing the elf quests, there is no reason to ever travel back to the dwarves except to deliver the wine. The majority of the dwarf mine's questing is unavailable until you give the guy the wine. It just seemed like there were a lot of areas where you wouldn't get to if you only did the quests in order. In Chapter two, if you had to go to the inn, odds are another quest would send you up that way pretty soon so you could do them both at the same time. That didn't happen with this one.
Aside from that, I liked this mod, but not as much as #2 or #1. Moving on to #4.
Posted by chiff at 2004-07-27 06:20:10 Voted 8.00 on 07/27/04
Posted by Fr84 at 2004-07-15 03:50:56 Voted 8.00 on 07/15/04
Posted by Ultramundane at 2004-07-10 22:15:32 Voted 8.00 on 07/10/04
Posted by Anonymous ( ..xxx.xxx ) at 2004-05-26 15:14:00
Enjoying the series so far, but if you're still going back and tweaking the older modules like this one, here's my two cents...
***SPOILER***
Facing four Water Elementals at once in the underwater mines has simply become a frustrating exercise in reloading the game and trying to make four saves vs. drowing in a row. After multiple attempts and only one Elemental dead, I feel like the module's screeching to a halt. Especially since the character is wearing an amulet of water breathing, which should make drowning impossible. Might be a thought to give the amulet the property of immunity against that particular attack.
Posted by Armin at 2004-05-25 01:41:49 Voted 8.00 on 05/25/04
Generally very good mod.
Well balanced fights, doable with less-usual classes.
Only point of criticism: Some areas are overly large, with a LOT of walking through empty areas _________________________ 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.
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