Plucked from your dreams by strange Powers inhabiting the Realm between Realms, you were sent to a land of deserts and dark secrets to avert the destruction of the town of Heliopolis. Now, the leader of the enemies of Heliopolis, the Banespirit of War, is slain by your hand, shattered asunder like his carefully laid plans.
But in destroying the Banespirit, you were not returned to your own land. The Powers have now charged you with averting a far greater catastrophe than that faced by Heliopolis. An evil force long dormant will soon arise as a god-like being to tear asunder the very fabric of the land and other worlds besides!
So you must return to this desert land to search for the dormant force of evil, with little information but the knowledge that the answers to your quest lie in unravelling its mysterious past...
This module is the second in the Sands of Fate series, following directly on from the events of Shadows over Heliopolis. It is to be played by a single or muliple PCs of around 30th level.
Note: Requires SOU, HOTU and CEP 2.0+
Note: Thanks to all those who corrected the previous beta versions. This module was a team effort!
For jungle background sounds, please download the "Gem Tower Music" zip and transfer the four bmu files to your Neverwinter Nights Music subfolder.
Also included is a text adventure minigame (Gemtower.exe)!
Note that the third and final part of the series, Pyramid of the Ancients, is now also finished and ready for download.
** Potential Spoilers ** I enjoyed most of this module. It was very much like some of the PNP modules I used to play in with this one DM. Always had creatures that would destroy your equipment. Although the first time trying was real annoying when I hit the green slime and more kept on dropping on me before I could move away or attack the stuff that was on the ground. Aqaulis was a nicely setup city and I really liked the layout. Naturally it should have been bigger, but that's a NWN limit that can be hard to overcome. I did get trapped once in the Gem Tower in a situation that I couldn't get out of. It was at the end of the passage way after you look at the painting with the dwarves and you get sealed into that section. Despite going over the whole thing and searching in search mode, I couldn't find a way out. I did turn on Debug Mode and saw the trigger area where something was supposed to happen, but no matter what I did in that area, nothing would happen. I had to reload to get out of the area.
Posted by Knot2007 at on06/24/08
Great module but have to give it a 9.5 instead of 10 because of the annoying sewers (Pitch black sewers and armor eating slimes). Still, it is very enjoyable!
Posted by eggwoodwoodward at on05/29/08
Superb!!
Posted by Kilvain at on04/25/08
A solid second module in the series. As mentioned by some others it can be challenging at times but for a high level module I didn't find it overly punishing if you take a cautious approach. The story was engaging and the Gem Tower itself had an appropriately spooky feel thanks to some well written journals and diary entries discovered along the way. For once the henchmen in a module are actually useful. There were times when a properly outfitted Narlak was able to take out enemies that were proving difficult to defeat on my own. Overall, a fun module.
Posted by 0rion79 at on03/01/08
My best compliments to the creator of this epic saga. All I can say about chapter 2 is ?what a shame?. I can?t but agree with all the previous comments about this module. The plot is really good, as well as the new environments or some fantastic ideas like the flooding chambers, the masked ball or the weird character following the party. New, original elements which Sadly, the game begins to suffer of many factors. First of all it is quite unstable and I had my game to crash and quit to desktop with an exasperating frequency. Second, John McA made, imho, a very big mistake when he decided to create monsters like acid jellies: they offer a very low challenge but still, when falling upon the character, they may melt (destroy) some part of equipment, as well as magic weapons (which may occur even when the henchman attacks first!) It is not funny to loose your +10 sword made in the official campaign due to a mere jelly and to be forced to RELOAD, and RELOAD and RELOAD? As well as the excessive use of hidden doors stuff. The need of being so close to them almost forces the players to spend skill points in ?search? skill even if it is a cross-class one, since it is not possible to place the henchman near to them. Matter which may grow very boring later in the game because of their too high frequency. Third, the game begins to suffer of broken core rules from DD 3.0: sometimes, the PC dies without that the character may even realize what?s happening. This happens especially from spells, because there are some like ?harm?, which lowers a character life-points to 1. As well, it is obvious that the creator of this module wished to offer a good challenge to players, but he didn?t consider one thing: Neverwinter night is not a ?strategy game? like ?the temple of elemental evil? and there is not much strategy that can be used against foes, especially with a fighter. With my paladin, which invested a lot in charisma and not in strength (lower total attack rate than a fighter or barbarian) and was near to level 40, I had severe troubles in giving the final blow to the last one of the banespirits, since it had a too high armor class and ?heal? at will. What a rogue, bard or monk could do, in single player? This is the first sign of an unbalanced difficulty and the impossibility of crafting a module that is both good to be played in single and multiplayer at once. Last but not least, there are some other minor matters, like the ooze curse: a bug occurred when I did complete the quest with my paladin, which is immune to diseases and illnesses. He became a ?healthy carrier? of the plague and, even after that I got the antidote, he began to puke, fall on the ground, being damaged by disease and feeling dizzy until when I passed to the next chapter. I even felt the missing of a good weapon / armor smith like in Hordes from Underdark. There are so many good pieces of equipment with very good side effects, that can?t be used anymore because their attack/damage (or AC) enhancement is simply not high enough. Still worthy of being played, but it could have been much better.
Posted by 0rion79 at on03/01/08
***** HELP!! ***** Hi all! I both need HELP and want to make my compliments for this great mod. I'm next to complete the Gem Tower quest but I'm sure that something went wrong with the ooze plague quest. I've been able to complete it and I got the antidote for it (which my PC has drunk, of course!), but my character keeps feeling dizzy and pucking some and then!!! It is not a real trouble, but it wastes the interpretation "side" of the adventure and is an annoying matter to see. So, is there any console comand to fix the matter? Is it possible that, since my character was a warrior/paladin with immunity to disseases, something entered in conflict with the ooze plague script? Please, HELP! PS: is there any console command to "reset" a character? After playing a while, I have realized that I did some useless choices with skill points and feats, that I would like to change...
Posted by hfrank at 2007-12-1611:19:22
COMMENT : I played this module a year or two ago in CEP v1.5x but was >never able to complete it because my character could not reach the third >floor of the tower, despite your kindest efforts to send me fixes and even >self-help programming instructions. I decided to try GEMTOWER again now >that it is in CEPv2 with a different character and making different >choices. Not surprisingly, I encountered different problems. > > > >First--and most trivially--"artIfact" is consistently misspelled in >GEMTOWER, as is "reminisCe" in the HELIOPOLIS prologue. > > > >Second, it is difficult to navigate around the Free Wizards' >Tower. Entering the tower plaza from the the alleys on the south, the >game frequently prevents clockwise travel around the tower and will only >let a character circle the tower counterclockwise. > > > >Third, the Dockworker Guild quest doesn't seem to make allowances for >henchmen. Only two masques are available (one for the PC and one for the >girlfriend) in the shop, and the NWN1 engine makes it impossible to keep a >henchmen from following a PC through a doorway. Even if a player >instructs a henchman to "WAIT HERE," the henchman invariably appears >beside the PC as soon as a doorway is passed. In the masque ball >scenario, this immediately provokes an attack, since the henchman is >necessarily without a masque. > > > >Finally, I found it impossible to complete the wererat subquest this time >around. In my earlier play, my character could not find the sewer >entrance at the base of the cliff and therefore fought his way to the city >wall and took to the sewers after accepting the Apothocaries' Guild quest >to find a cure for the ooze plague. This time, the N. Tunnel entrance >showed up, and my character took the sewer route into the city, finding >the ooze cure along the way in the forgotten crypts. Once in the wererat >area, however, I found it impossible to access the leader's lair. I found >only one impassable door (bash-proof and with a lock DC of 99), and I >surmise that it is the door to the lair. So I gave up and hightailed it >into the city. Once there, however, I could not find either the crypts or >the wererats again, no matter how minutely my character scoured the sewer >system accessible from marked sewer entrances. > > > >The Dockers' Guild problem made me reluctant to attempt that particular >quest, and the wererat quest problem left the killing of Bugel the least >unsatisfactory way to get the support of three guilds. Even with the >support of three guilds, however, the Council rejects my character's >petition, so he is rather forced either to part ways with Narlak or to >assay the Wizards' Tower quest with a full-bore frontal assault--which I >anticipate may be as costly to his alignment (50/100) as was the assault >on the purveyor of faulty potions (3 points toward Chaotic and 3 points >toward Evil), which is why I abandoned that subquest and re-started from >an earlier save. > > > >General Note. I really like the option of reprimanding henchmen, though I >haven't figured out any way to use that option to keep some henchmen from >running off and attacking almost anything that moves, triggering traps, >and turning neutral NPCs hostile. Ramana is the worst henchman I have >ever had in that regard. Even with instructions to the contrary (viz., >DEFEND ME AND DON'T ATTACK UNTIL I DO), she was impossible to control in >HELIOPOLIS. She even began attacking the children, evidently considering >their fireball games to be an attack. I think the CEP2 engine needs to >add something to the voicechat menu--something like "STAY BEHIND ME AT ALL >TIMES." > > > >Although I sometimes find your modules distressingly linear (by which I >mean that one must perform particular actions in a particular ORDER) and >must therefore resort to your walkthroughs, I admire your internal >consistency and logic, your detailed and literary plots, and the genuinely >epic and heroic quality of your adventures. > > > >Very truly yours, > > > Harry Frank Ann Arbor, MI / Red River, NM
Posted by arQon at 2007-12-0908:19:03
In a nutshell: lots of great design badly marred by a couple of major flaws. For the most part, I agree with a lot of the previous comments, both good and bad. As Razide0506 says, packs of 10-20 Crit-Immune plebmonsters with DR etc are tedious the FIRST time, especially when they're worth (basically) 0 XP. When they respawn constantly, all you want to do is quit. I'm also forced to agree with driftwolf. Secret doors in often-arbitrary places (though many are in places that DO "make sense" if you think about it, which is an indication of how good this module COULD be if it wasn't so utterly broken) that have single-pixel triggers just suck, and these aren't "here's a bonus area" doors, they're "you MUST find this to advance" doors. Even the most patient of players, which I'll admit I'm far from, will get sick of the wall crawling soon enough though and just use the walkthrough to find the doors, since having to micro-manage your position to find them turns the whole process into a grind. The "bug" you refer to in the readme wrt chars with True Seeing items still needing to drink True Seeing POTIONS, is (shockingly) not actually a bug. Effects are explicitly spells, not items. Some semi-trivial scripting on your part would handle this (see IPGetItemProperty) though it's a pain. Ether Scarabs are daft - yet again, breaking the game outright unless the player is lucky enough, and it IS entirely a matter of luck (especially given the stupidity of the Green Slime) to have a non-Sonic weapon at the time. aristekrat's complaints echoing those problems are absolutely valid. Players who enter through the sewers will run into "look how clever I am" custom trolls that can't be killed (and spawn in packs of 10-20, and are worth 4 XP, and are respawning encounters). Anyone who doesn't know the (idiotic) "fire and acid only" PNP rule, which many NWN players won't, will have no clue what's going on since it's only explained in the walkthrough and an in-game book that they have had no chance to acquire yet. I've commented on the Slimes at length on the Part 3 page. Suffice it to say, this is the most stupid thing I've ever seen in a mod. EVER. Narlak has 31 Fighter levels but managed to not take Exotic with any of his feats? Useful when all you have is Bastard Swords and he meets the Gamebreaking Slime on the way into the city. Overall, this is far less enjoyable than Part 1, solely because of a handful of decisions that seem almost explicitly designed to remove any potential for enjoyment from the mod and turn huge chunks of it into a morass of absurd luck (even by DND standard) and tedium. It's very difficult to vote on this. The good bits deserve an 8+ (on a real scale, not a Vault scale :P) but the bad bits go all the way down to "literally gamebreaking" far too many times. > "I wanted to love this mod, especially since I liked Shadows over Heliopolis so much, but ..." sums it up pretty nicely for me as well, unfortunately. It's such a shame to have something that could be so good ruined by such a small number of defects that are regrettably both crippling and overly pervasive. For all that these comments are predominantly about the negative aspects, the 2/3 of the mod that WEREN'T poisoned by them were a great deal of fun, and the series is one that could easily bear replaying with different characters if the issues with it were fixed. Obviously, plenty of people think the mod is great. I expect far far more tried it and silently quit halfway through (at best) and it's hard to blame them for doing so. An update addressing the problems would make a huge difference - not for the sake of bringing the mod to the point where it "deserve" its current inflated score, but more importantly to the number of people who could actually play through the whole thing and enjoy it all, without HAVING to reload constantly, or refer to the walkthrough so often that they're practically just watching the game happen rather than playing it. Hopefully John will update it for 1.69 and spend a day or two fixing it up in the process, at which point it may well turn into a classic. :)
Posted by Venom at 2007-11-1717:41:03
Why in the city are all hostile? everybody attack you on side :(
Posted by jewce at on09/01/07
very, very cool. lotsa fun. havent been an epic character since i was a kid (1980!). i get alot of crashes, but i am playing on a mini-mac so who's complaining. i assume the automaton is wizard specific? not even done yet and i love it. thanx doc. -d
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