You have discovered the secret of the Gem Tower and the way to the third and final part of your adventure lies clearly before you.
Your quest now takes you to the very heart of the land, to the Pyramid of The Ancients where lie the remains of Sesustris, the great Pharaoh who saved the land from cataclysm a thousand years ago.
This adventure is the final part of the Sands of Fate series. It is recommended to start this module using the character that finished Gem Tower. Such PCs should be around 35th level with equipment commensurate with this exalted station!
I have now included a deluxe walkthrough with colour maps as a separate download.
Many thanks to all those who commented on the many beta versions, as well as to those who created the custom content used in the module.
Now updated to CEP version 2.0 and includes the new Bioware 1.68 visible cloaks.
Note that if you already played Heliopolis and Gem Tower, you do not need to download the gemtower and pyramidancients2 hak files again.
My best compliments to the creator of this epic saga. All I can say about chapter 3 is: good but too long and stressing! Like many of you, I?m not a new to this game and, indeed, I have a LOT of experience both as player and Dungeon Master. Chapter 3 is, like the other chapters, really great under the point of view of new elements added to the game, but it has the greatest defect for any RPG: it forces the player to exhausting travels to reach destinations or to find a shopkeeper. As a ?coincidence? it is not possible to come back to the tree grotto from inside the pyramid and there is only one shopkeeper that, sorry to say, even has a quite poor and useless stock. Second, there are too many traps that work as rock slides: once they are triggered, rocks fall and there is no way to remove them (not even with the picks that I?ve found). This forces the player to endless trips around mazes, again filled with sliding walls, secret doors stuff which, again, would be fun only if a ?some and then? but they are not. Again, there are pits where it is possible to fall, without naming some levels which are a constant map-change (with greater risk of quit-to desktop, even if this module is more stabile than chapter 2). Without considering this, I really wonder what an hell John McA thought when he created some mummies. NWN rules are obviously broken, because they force characters in investing points in discipline to resist to trip and disarm attempts. But mummies in those levels have been able to trip my paladin each time, even with that skill maxed out! But what could a player do with a class that has only 2 skill points per level? Even with intelligence of 12 (which is extraordinary for a melee warrior) and being a human, it means that it would possible to maximize 4 skills, but this simply can?t be done because almost everything is useful in this game. Even more, there are some rogue mummies (isn?t it a paradox? An agile undead!?!?!) with the epic feat that allows them to evade the first attack that they get. So, everything that is left is the second main attack from ?haste? (that I?m not even sure being rightfully considered by the game) and then the player is forced to use its character attack n°2, that is at +15 for a warrior class and only +10 for a rogue one, which will simply be too few to hit those foes if not with a natural 20. VERY UNFAIR. Even worst, there are some foes that simply should not exist. Yet again, we have the boring slimes and jellies but, worst, there are creatures like the ethereal worms which may kill a character with a flesh-to-stone ray. Since they attack in swarms, too often the character is at risk to fail and instantly die by rolling a natural 1! There is nothing more frustrating than dying by misfortune without ay real ?fault? or bad strategy. And, again, reload, reload reload? (SPOILER until next white line) The available henchmen, then, may be an help but only when they are fresh from resting. The wizard/rogue woman is perfect to complete a fighter but she doesn?t have Weapon Finesse among feats, so that she is very lame in melee fights, there has been no way to force her to use a bow in chapter 2, she keeps summoning useless animals, she has a very low base attack bonus due to wizard levels, there is no way to access to her spellbook and the new dialogue options barely help to direct her about how to use her magic. The cleric sounds better but still he can?t be such a good melee warrior due to the lower base attack bonus and, being forced to spend most of his advancement points into wisdom, his total attack bonus is limited by a strength that is not exceptional and, so, too low to hit enemies. At the end, there is not any real strategy that a single player may use against foes, especially when NWN has a broken core rule by which enhancement bonus do stack together but no more than a total of +12. If the player is NOT using a main spellcaster, the only thing that can be done is (almost) to send the character into melee and hoping that it can kill foes before that foes can kill him. Using potions or magic won?t boost furthermore the character stats (outstandingly, even a Barbarian that has already a +12 to strength and constitution by magic items won?t get any bonus by going into rage, but only a -2 to armor class and +4 to will saves? oooooh! O_o), disarming is useless, whirlwind attack is not a good strategy, while Trip could be but it takes 2 feats to be used properly, which only a fighter could take! But the main, big defect is that THE MODULE IS TOO LONG! It is endless, with no more advancement for a character that is at level 40 and only full of stressing and boring traps that not all character classes are ready to afford. Good to play but, like and more than chapter 2, this module potential and many great ideas are wasted by broken core rules, unbalanced difficulty and environmental elements, like traps and secret doors, which make the adventure unfair.
Posted by Elhanan at 10:28:03 Voted10.00
jksghvwq - What I am saying is that I did not reach the level of frustration that some others seem to have with this mod. And I did this playing a Ranger/ Rogue. Maybe I simply have more experience with this type of PC; maybe I was lucky. Dunno. But if you are in PR, you may wish to work on your people skills and/or add more bran to your diet.
Posted by jksghvwq at 2007-12-3004:39:50
So basically what you're saying is "if you go out of your way to avoid all the bugs, it's like the bugs don't exist" ? Are you looking for a job? Great, you're hired. Nice to have you on the team. Oh yeah, and now go clean out your desk, because you're fired for saying the stupidest thing I've ever heard anyone say, ever.
Posted by Elhanan at 20:17:56 Voted10.00
arQon - AFAIK, the slimes and molds used here are far, far easier to avoid and fight than the sewers of Pt II. As for confrontation, have you tried using a ranged weapon or spells? Seemed to be the perfect solution for me. Pits - Again, more of a problem in the previous mods as they were used as alternate paths leading towards the conclusion. With rope in inventory, as well as the ability to disarm most traps, I did not see much problem with these obstacles. And if a Rogue is centered on Sneak Attack, they may have a problem; both in the series, and in the build. A Rogue offers versatility to overcome obstacles, and tombs, ruins, sealed towers, etc. tend to be infested with creatures that are Immune to Crit/ Sneak Attack. In these cases, the Perception skills are valued, as well as UMD, Tumble, and the entire Trap skill set. The problem would seem to be not in the class, but in how it is being used.
Posted by arQon at 2007-12-1206:34:51
The "fundamentally good" nature of the series continues: a prime example is that two "dead" opposed factions actually treat each other AS enemies, instead of ignoring each other and focusing on the PC. Sadly, all the bad elements introduced in part 2 also continue. The obsession with randomly destroying player equipment is now complemented by random automatic disarms and random automatic deaths. The secret doors are slightly less annoying thanks to the maps, though it may just be that I've gotten used to them. The scripting is, unsurprisingly, just as buggy as part 2, with pit traps constantly "looping", and The Tank leaving players permanently slowed even after removing it. Hope you kept a savegame from before you equipped it. :( Many of the dialog triggers fail to run since they're placed in areas where the PC will be in combat (and at one point the game was desperately trying to unequip my armor for me, but couldn't because of that). All of the pointless "cleverness" of before is still around too. It's not "interesting" or "flavorful" to make players strip down to jump across a pit - it's just tedious, especially when armor penalties are ALREADY factored into Tumble skill checks. As with almost every piece of custom scripting in the mod, it's poorly-designed, poorly-implemented, and seems to exist solely for the purpose of making things as irritating as possible. If you're playing a character that DOESN'T have Tumble as a class skill and isn't STR/DEX based, those leaps may well be almost impossible. While I'd hope that none are actually REQUIRED, failure will doubtless lead to even more slogging around on lower levels to find a place to climb back up again, which is something this mod REALLY doesn't need more of. Of course, virtually everything is crit-immune at this point since 95% of the mod is an "undead" jaunt, so if you're playing a Rogue or (especially) a WM, you've basically wasted those levels. Given how broken DevCrit and 100d6/round Sneaks are though authors don't really have too many options, and it does fit with the mod's theme. At least the infinitely-respawning packs are kept to a minimum this time. I think that one of the biggest problems I have with the mod is it "isn't" really a single-player mod at all. I can see it being a HUGE amount of fun in a "classic" party-of-four, or even with any company at all, but as a solo effort it's just a REALLY tedious slog, even with an "overpowered" melee character that also has Rogue skills. FINALLY getting a henchman, even one as incompetent as a Bioware Cleric, made a huge difference simply as an additional source of APR to deal with the 1000HP CR3 packs. There's also a REQUIREMENT to have things like Lore, which simply isn't "available" to many classes because of skillpoints, and again, this would work well in a party setting where you'd HAVE a Wizard and/or a Rogue (which would also halve the amount of time spent crawling around trying to find secret doors). There's no actual challenge to the mod at all, other than its insistence on straining the player's patience. I haven't used so much as a Cure Light Wounds potion (though to be fair I'm playing a rather uber character, and I can see how many builds would have problems - anything that isn't a STR-based Warrior (or a Cleric masquerading as one) is going to be VERY slow going). Overall it's probably a better game at heart than part 2 was: it's full of "good" things like being able to open up shortcuts between the levels as you progress down through the pyramid, and it sort-of "feels" like you have an actual purpose rather than running a stack of FedEx-ish quests, but it's just DULL. I guess that having my henchman rather arbitrarily removed at the start of the game caused a lot of that, since it made every encounter that much slower to slog through, but even without that aspect of things the pyramid is starting to feel very formulaic after 6? 7? levels: go here, swatting flies along the way, watch the ceiling collapse, go back, crawl along the walls looking for the secret door, repeat ad nauseam. As I say, I can see it being a blast in a party (provided the RetardoSlime is addressed, since wasting an entire group's time replacing equipment is just ridiculous) but as a single player experience it just doesn't do it for me. Despite being level 40, it's most reminiscent of the "grind" of baby level chars, cleaning out rats / goblins / etc; and the sheer pettiness exhibited in every single piece of the custom scripting is a major turnoff. With an overhaul, even a fairly small one, it could be reasonably fun - but in its current form it just isn't, and it seems like such a waste of potential and hard work. That's just my opinion. YMMV.
Posted by arQon at 2007-12-0905:22:00
*sigh* Like part 2, a potentially excellent module ruined by flawed and ultimately failed attempts to be "clever" with scripting. It's hard to imagine anything more stupid than the "cool" slime/pudding gimmicks that randomly destroy weapons (including plot items and creature weapons, oops much?). I suppose you COULD just roll dice every round instead of only during these particular encounters, though they're so common and so frequenly unavoidable that it pretty much amounts to the same thing. It's harsh to call the scripts "sloppy" when so much effort (however misguided) has obviously gone into them, but they are. The checks for acid immunity are for a specific ring, when there are at least two in part 2 that grant 100%. So, one item prevents gear (though not weapons) from being destroyed, and one doesn't. After the Automaton managed to lose THREE weapons, including its Slam, in THE first batch of black puddings, I got sick of the whole retarded scheme (after tolerating it all through part 2) and just ripped it out in the toolset. Terrible luck? Sure. But bad luck is no excuse for bad design and bad code. Sorry John. "Reload and hope for non-gamebreaking rolls" isn't good enough when you overuse these creatures as much as you do. It's just a waste of time. del modules\temp0\*greensl*.n* del modules\temp0\*blackpu*.n* del modules\temp0\triggerdropslime.* -- As xorbaxian says, using dialogs for flavor text is just daft. Hopefully part 3 has fewer infinitely-respawning packs of 20 harmless-but-Immune-To-Everything 1000HP monsters worth 3 XP than part 2 did. Guess I'll find out. :P
Posted by Aelfen at on11/06/07
I played this a few months ago and never got around to voting. Sort of a sleeper for me, when I finally got around to the series I was a bit down on the mods, having played quite a few poor ones and only a handfull really worth it. This is defiintely one of the latter. Great concept, well executed and interesting. This vote is really for the series.
Posted by jml at 2007-11-0600:50:56
Well, I finally succeded having a riddle for the Sphinx, getting more precised clues from her. Even being " Chaotic/Neutral ". But I had a couple of Temple of Ra citizen still hostile when I entered that area, and simply choosed to flee as fast as possible from them, without any fight at all. And finally got what I went there to get. _________________________ @ + jml, level 52 "Overgod? Is that like Supergod or something?", from "Citadel" "M?not shr this ishych u g?dea.", from "Prophet" series
Posted by jml at 2007-11-0507:49:45
I'm entering the North path, right after the Sphinx, and one of the towner is hostile, and to my PC? Any clue? 'meaning I'll have sooner or later to erase everyone around. And I don't think I should do it. _________________________ @ + jml, level 52 "Overgod? Is that like Supergod or something?", from "Citadel" "M?not shr this ishych u g?dea.", from "Prophet" series
Posted by barefoot at on10/09/07
I concur with most of the comments by previous writers; particularly on the addictive nature of the mod. I am continually amazed by the incredible perseverance of authors who receive no rewards for their efforts except our comments. These three mods probably could make a stand alone game. Thanks John.
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