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.
This was a top-notch module that surpasses the first entry the series, and which had me thoroughly engrossed. Aqualis really came to life for me, and I enjoyed exploring all its nooks and crannies, talking to the various NPCs, and discovering the various side-quests. I also liked that there was a lot of non-linearity to pursuing the main quest. Of course, the second half of the module is a more straightforward dungeon crawl, but it was a really well done dungeon crawl. I also really enjoyed the selection of epic-level gear available, and that it was neither too easy nor too difficult to attain. Aside from following the plotline, it really made pursing the quests and amassing treasure seem worthwhile. Combat was pretty good, although as is the case with high-level adventures, some of the encounters were too easy, while others were frustratingly difficult. Fortunately, I didn't have to fight an unending supply of gelatinous cubes like in the previous installment, but it was somewhat tedious fighting large mobs of creatures that weren't much of a threat, but which took forever to kill too, particularly since I'd end up getting 3 xp each for them. If I've got to slog through a lot of tedious combat, I at least want to get something for it. In contrast, the free wizards and the beggar king were ridiculously tough (though in the case of the former, I made mistakes that made it harder), and it took what felt like forever before I finally got through them. In both cases, I felt almost like I succeeded because I got lucky more than anything else. I did run into one significant bug: Bugel was following me around, and he managed to get killed by an assassin. That triggered a journal entry that said that I had killed Bugel on behalf of the beggar king, and gave me xp for it, even though I had never spoken to the beggar king. Also, I was a bit annoyed that in the free wizards sub-quest, the NPC who accompanies me says she's going to go back to the dockers' guild mansion, but instead she just stays where she is and doesn't even help out when I'm fighting someone right in front of her. Overall, I thought this chapter had a much more epic feel to it than the last one, and I was impressed with all the bits of custom scripting, and so on. This was really an excellent piece of work.
Posted by Abhorsen327 at on08/13/07
Wonderful module, I love this series. Having one problem though... when the Nightcrawler spawns, it is completely invisible. I can fight and kill it if it attacks me first, but since there isn't a "body" I can't get the item I need to continue with the module. Any tips?
Posted by stubbytroll at 2007-07-2613:01:02
Devila, If you're playing a Monk / Rogue, UMD is pretty useful. It should be one of your main skills. Set Traps, depending on how you play, can also be very useful. My Wizard / Rogue / AA got it very high, and would set epic traps all over the place. Parry is useless, especially in these series, since there are a lot of mobs, as opposed to bosses. Craft Weapon and Craft Armor are also useless. You might also want to consider taking a couple levels in a class that has taunt as a class skill: either Paladin or Blackguard, if you don't want to go through the hassle of alignment changes; get your taunting as high as possible, then try taunting down the AC of opponents with a high AC. Is your Monk / Rogue strength based or Dex based? Are you fighting unarmed or with weapons? _________________________ My shoes are too tight and I have forgotten how to dance.
Posted by Elhanan at 03:37:39 Voted9.25
Devila - For a decent Monk/ Rogue, I would start the design as a Rogue at 1st, then add more Rogue Lvls at 7, 12, 17, 22, 27, 32, 35, 37, and 40. This should be a 30 Monk/ 10 Rogue. You can alter this in Epic lvls at you desire for the added 6 lvls. For skills, I recommend keeping these at max: Discipline, Tumble, UMD (invaluable for item usage), Listen, Lore, and Search. I would forget about Parry (take Imp Expertise) and Craft skills. Persuade, Disable Trap, Set Trap and Open Locks should be at decent ranks for the times you wish to use them. As for a build, I prefer DEX myself for all bonus pts. I recommend (as Human): STR 14 DEX 14 CON 12 INT 14 WIS 14 CHA 10 Improving STR with devices will aid damage, but DEX will aid To Hit (Weapon Finesse, and ranged) and AC. I would also invest in getting some great gloves and a melee weapon or two (kama, short sword). I did not go thru the entire series with this design, but was able to de very well in the initial mod for testing.
Posted by Devila at 2007-06-2813:54:23
I have a question about character building since I am having so much trouble with the last two characters I built.One was a Monk/Druid and one was a Monk/Rogue. The problem is when I am fighting high level enemies like an Ascete Mummy instead of hitting them I miss. I get about 40 missed attempts to 1 good solid hit. Here are the stats on my Monk/Rogue Appraise 20 Move Silently 10 Bluff 11 Open Lock 35 Concentration 29 Parry 10 Craft Armor 6 Persuade 8 Craft Trap 6 Search 26 Craft Weapon 6 set Trap 18 Disable trap 26 Taunt 6 Discipline 40 Tumble 45 Intimidate 6 Use Magical Device 11 Listen 43 Lore 36 I will appreciate any help with making my character a better fighter. Thanks, Devila
Posted by Elhanan at 01:45:37 Voted9.25
To the Author - Pls do not take some of these comments to heart. A lot of folks do not like the DM to be smarter then themselves. But if I can make it thru this mod, the vast majority should also be able to do so. And to those that do not like the mods thus far: do yourselves a favor, and stop. Your continued razzberry filled posts make you appear to be rather dull witted, if not just simply ignorant.
Posted by driftwolf at on06/05/07
Sigh. It's addictive. I'll give it another shot this evening and see if I can't ignore or work around the annoyances. The trouble is the module is just so well done. The story is engaging, it all hangs together, and it just works.
Posted by driftwolf at on06/05/07
Congratulations. This module has succeeded where dozens of others haven't. You've completely annoyed me so much I'm just deleting it. I've never done that before with an epic like this. Where to start? Well, having me me spend 18 seconds minimum at any location that MIGHT have a secret passage for a start. I've got a 65 to 70 search with true sight and that's how long it's taking, even when I KNOW exactly were the secret door is because I've reloaded. I also need to be within an arms length of the doors to even have a chance. That's just wasting my time. I've had to look at the walkthrough so often I might as well not try to play the damn module. Then there's the various creatures that are only killable with one specific type of damage. What am I supposed to do? Carry around an entire weapon store with me? Especially when my gear is stripped at the beginning, and I've not found anything I can use that deals elemental damage? Ether scarabs were the ones that broke this players back, but the trolls, the green slime, and others are in there too. But the ether scarabs!! I couldn't find any weapons useable by a monk that had fire damage on them, other than my crossbow. You have any idea how long it takes to kill an ether scarab with 1d6 fire/lightning damage at a time with a crossbow? All for 4 points? And I HAVE to kill them, because they block me from moving at all if I don't. Then there's the times I've been stuck up against a wall due to bugs in the system. Not really your fault there - Neverwinter does that. But it wouldn't happen that often if I didn't have to stand next to every wall searching for secret doors. So no, this module is too annoying to continue playing. Which is a pity. The amount of work was awe inspiring, the story was probably really good, the whole concept rocked!! All ruined for me because the creator decided that annoying people to distraction was a cool idea or something. I'm glad for you that so many other people loved it. Me? I probably won't be going back. My very limited play time is too precious to allow myself to be annoyed to death rather than trying to play a story.
Posted by driftwolf at on06/05/07
Not starting out well. Ether scarabs? What a useless idea. They can't hit me. But I can't damage them because they happen to be immune to sonic, and my gloves only do sonic attacks, and I've run out of elemental bolts for the crossbow. Unfortunately, these bastards depend on Neverwinter path finding BUGS to work: they're tiny, but if they surround me I can't move. They can't hit me, but I can't move around or over them because of bloody Neverwinter bugs. I'd ignore them, but they have me trapped in a corner, and won't bloody move. So start over from my last save. Depending on Neverwinter bugs to make monsters effective is just lame. Really lame.
Posted by aristekrat at on06/04/07
I wanted to love this mod, especially since I liked Shadows over Heliopolis so much, but two problems with this mod hurt it badly for me. One, leave clues when you make puzzles or leave secrets. Otherwise I'm left stumbling around hoping to find what I need to by luck. Or I'm jumping into the walkthrough non-stop, which massacres immersion. Two, as an epic adventure, don't make me fight effortless creatures. Those 4 XP points I get are meaningless to me, and as the epic version of effortless I need to pound away at them for a while before they die. I'm never in danger, the outcome is never in doubt and I get nothing out of it, yet I have to waste my time on it anyways. Still looking forward to Pyramids though. I have a feeling who the villian is, and I'm looking forward to killing him.
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