This module is a good bit longer than the first two combined
Number Players
1
Language
English
Level Range
19-22
Races
Any
Tricks & Traps
Medium
Roleplay
Heavy
Hack & Slash
Medium
Classes
Designed for Paladins, but Any Class should work
Scope
Part of Series
DMNeeded
No DM Required
Single or Multiplayer
Single Player
Max Character Level
22
Max # Players
01
Min # Players
01
Min Character Level
19
Content Rating
Teen
Alignments
Lawful Good, Lawful Neutral, Neutral Good
Gameplay Hours
15
Description
Banished from Neverwinter in Chapter I for Dereliction of Duty, Lady Aribeth was reconciled with the Church in Chapter II and is now awaiting your decision as to whether she will be a Monk of Ilmater, Cleric of Helm, Champion of Torm, or Paladin of Tyr once again. She will then have four quests to complete for the Lord's Alliance. This module sees her through these and completes the story cycle.
DWM: i was going to post a comment after your reply to my comment last year, but never got around to it lol! in any event, i understand what you mean when you rate your module as "teen", and i respect your decision. personally, i prefer playing modules with a "mature" rating. on a side note, any possibility of you creating new modules (with or without aritbeth) in the near future? i really, really enjoy your work, and want to see more of it!
Posted by Bianca at on05/24/11
Actually this third part was grand! I can say is the best part I've played so far! I really admire the author for the imagination and inventiveness. I will try to translate the part in GREEK, so next time be more concentrated in the events. I know it is difficult, but I'm sure it's worth it! _________________________ Everything you do has a meaning...
Posted by Daniel at 2011-05-1721:44:28
"eggerfry" - Glad you enjoyed the module. I appreciate the comments. This was a huge amount of work over four years and while I don't expect it to be everyone's cup of mead, it's nice to hear from those who had a good experience. I hope I never find myself doing anything like this again. I haven't time for an extended response, but have a couple of quick items to share: - The language is based on Tolkein, not Shakespeare. I would have thought anyone familiar with this genre would see that and am continually surprised when they don't. - She's the Hieress, as in someone who's at the top of a hierarchy, not an Heiress, as in someone who's going to inherit something. I can understand why that gets missed - though it was in a PC-initiated dialogue in Chapter 1. - The missing bag mystery is purely a Bioware problem that cannot be fixed. All I could do was put in multiple warnings about emptying bags before undergoing the item strip. I can understand why you're not thrilled, but I thought the challenge worth the annoyance. - I continue to take strong issue with your characterization of my interpretation of Aribeth. I don't see her as at all sentimental or weepy. I'm not sure why you do. I tried to base her on a combination of Eowyn and my wife of 23 years. I guarantee you, I did not marry June Cleaver, medieval or otherwise. - Please keep in mind that the entire thing - the story, dialogues, scripting, layout - everything - is the work of one guy in his spare time. As we all know, when proofreading your own stuff, you inevitably read what's supposed to be there rather then what's actually written down. I've proofread pretty much everything at least once. That said, I'm not the slightest bit surprised that I've missed goofy errors. Now that's been several years, it probably would be helpful to re-read. I'll do so. If you have any specific corrections, please feel free to email them to me. - Much thanks for the suggestion re the autosave at the cave entrance. I think that's been the cause of at least one reported error that I didn't heretofore know how to fix. Your suggestion makes a lot of sense. I'll get on it. Much thanks again. I'll look the rest over and will have a report once I've addressed things. Again, please accept my thanks for your detailed comments and suggestions, most of which are most welcome and I think will help improve the module for the dozen or so people still playing NWN1. And really, I am grateful for your kind comments. All the best to you - DWM
Posted by eggerfry at on05/17/11
(increasing score)
Posted by eggerfry at on05/17/11
This last module of the series is far and away the best of the 3. The conversations continue to hold interest and the author has continued his Shakespearean trend of dialog, which, nonetheless, isn't as exaggerated as in the first module. Character relationships are developed even better than in the previous two modules, and the story itself is gripping. The module is not without its flaws, however ; the author still insists on a certain amount of "brutally-enforced" linearity, and there are many, many bugs. Fortunately, most of these are minor, non-quest-breaking ones. PROS: The best part of the module is the story. It's difficult to tell a good story well, but the author does it adroitly and with flair. Character relationships are developed well, there are lots of wonderful twists and turns, and the various subplots all fit together nicely and support the main plot. The author also continues his practice of adding little touches tying up loose ends from earlier modules in the series, the OC, etc. The combats seemed to be well-balanced, with just the right amount of deadly v. difficult v. easier combats in the mix. In addition, item levels were usually spot-on (I play with single-player ILR, one of the ways it?s easy to see if a campaign is well-balanced, because the items are usable). I also really enjoyed the author's attention to some of the technical details. I don't think there's a single creature, item, or active placeable that the author hasn't adorned with descriptions which are appropriate to, and enhance, the situation in which they're found ? kudos! :-D Other positive notes, the merchants are well-appointed and thoughtfully placed, and there are some very cool special effects on some of the areas. Finally, I was happy to see the author move the romance out of l'amour courtois and into something more... fundamental. ;-) PRO/CON: The dialogues are at once one of the strongest and one of the weaker points of the module. The author has added lots of little humorous touches. As mentioned, the style of the dialogs is improved over previous modules. Also, the puns and word puzzles are truly exquisite. However, I don't think there's a single conversation in the entire module that doesn't suffer from careless errors (repeated words, omitted words, the occasional orthographical error). For those less anal than I, this probably won't be a problem. Regardless, I think the dialogs could benefit ENORMOUSLY from a good proofreading. In addition, I get irritated when characters speak in metagame terms ('We are not required to be LG in alignment', 'That is not my class', etc.). While I certainly don?t consider this a serious flaw, it did detract from the experience. The author has apparently gotten over some of his dislike of primary spellcasters, although at this level the onus is admittedly somewhat reduced anyway. I ran the same character I'd used for the previous 2 modules (a sorcerer), which I think would be a better choice than a wizard (one of the nice things about running a sorcerer is you can spam mords and breaches and lower your opponents' SR -- inevitably high in this module, it seems -- to your heart's content, and still have some decent firepower left over to sop up the gravy). Thankfully, there were usually flunkies around to do some actual chopping when necessary. The author continues to interpret Aribeth as (in my opinion) a rather weepy, somewhat co-dependent sentimental. As I mentioned in my comments to part 2, my idea of Aribeth is not a sort of medieval teary-eyed June Cleaver, but rather somebody stronger, more independent and less evanescent, even if she does 'have issues'. But, once again, that's obviously a question of interpretation, and I support the author's right to make that choice. CONS: There are two major issues here: enforced linearity, and bugs. The author has continued his penchant for iron-fisted linearity which ended up being quest-breaking in the second module of the series. This time, although no quests were broken because of it, the results were almost as annoying. When NPC's (and even placeables!) start nagging me that I MUST go this way instead of that way, or that I've 'forgotten' party members, or that they want to drop out of party, all because I'm simply playing strategically, I just want to throttle someone! Golden rule for module development : 'Let the PLAYER play!' * spoiler * While I understand from a gaming point of view the motivation for having Khurin give clues in the Sangover series, his reactions to this are completely OOC. If he already knows the answers, IC he would supply them! One way to circumvent this would be to rephrase the dialog. BUGS: One of the biggest sour notes of the module was its bugs, of which there are many : Aribeth's AI seems to have gone seriously pear-shaped. Very often she just stands there like a lump in the middle of combat and does absolutely nothing, even disregarding voicechat- and radial-commands. Similarly, as with module 2 in the series, she doesn't obey voice commands in other situations ; for example, she INSISTS on disabling traps even after I send her a vwx. This anomaly doesn't seem to have affected other henchmen; only Aribeth seems to be 'special'. (on-heartbeat issue?) There are a number of visible metagame objects, such as 'invisible object's, 'voice's, 'item property system container's, etc. One of the loadscreens shows as a plain white rectangle. * spoiler * Strangely, the "remains of the drow device" item can be picked up from under the drow device, even before the device is destroyed. This should be either spawned in on-death of the placeable or put into the placeable's inventory. * spoiler * Journal bug: Entry shows us killing Sisslik at the end of the dialog, but he's not even been attacked yet, let alone killed. A better way would be to put this in his on-death event. * spoiler * Mirror quest: scripting for element attack loop keeps damaging characters even after they're outside Sune's temple. * spoiler * Some dialogues don't have memory and therefore don't make sense. E.g. we tell the Heiress we've reported to Aarin, the same dialog option appears again. E.g. we tell her about the dragons, she says 'Don't forget to report to Aarin'. There are others, but I didn't note them down. In a coup worthy of Rod Serling, Tildennyskin's voice quite bizarrely and inexplicably changes to Sharwyn's in places... The item strip before {a-certain-adventure} destroys containers and items. While most of my items were retrievable at the end of the adventure, I lost 8 of my 15 bags. I also lost any healing kits (about 40, all told) that were in bags, and may've lost some treasure too. I have to admit, I hate item strips in any case; I already spend entirely too much time on inventory mgt and quickslotting strategies, and all of this needs to be redone after an item strip -- assuming I get the items back. Frankly, I don't really understand why there's an item strip anyway; there's no need for it from a combat perspective, and from a story perspective it would be just as easy to stow the character's armour as have it stripped -- and everything else along with it. * spoiler * Returning to the boarding house after the adventure is finished starts the whole adventure over again. There should be a flag set on the trigger for this. * spoiler * There is a trigger just outside the cave entrance to the frozen battlefield which sets up the NPCs to join the PC faction. This worked correctly the first time, but unfortunately this same trigger does an autosave, which blithely overwrote the quicksave I'd performed just moments before. This is bad because if the game crashes (which mine did), the trigger isn't called again so the NPCs are no longer in the PC 's faction. End result: they are all hostile to the PC and attack on sight. My solution was to write a repair script, put it in override, and call it from the DM console. However, I don't think you could expect anyone without programming experience to get around this bug. One possible solution to this problem is to move the autosave, if you want to keep it, to the exit corridor of the previous area, -before- the PC transes into the battlefield, and then handle NPC spawning / factioning issues on the current trigger in a re-entrant way. * spoiler * I am amazed that Valas doesn't have weapon finesse... Seems like this must be an oversight, especially since he's running around dual-wielding finessable weapons. In any event, this would really help his survivability during the last battle, which was so abysmal I eventually had him just sit it out. Another thing which would help Valas is to have him use his HiPS capability; the power of a shadowdancer is precisely that he can do this. * spoiler * It's strange that Maura lvl 29 would have Ambidexterity, Two-weapon fighting, -and- Dual Wield. The dual wield feat is superfluous. * spoiler * The placement of Viconia at her intro is too far away to allow her to be included in the conversation if the player goes through the conversation quickly enough, so the conversation breaks and the door stays plot-locked until the player, out of desperation, runs through all the conversations again - at which time Viconia comes in correctly. * spoiler * The Nasher conversation at the end can reward infinite XP. If the conversation breaks and you re-address him, you're awarded more XP. If you resurrect a dead comrade after the final battle is over, all you get is 'please speak to the Heiress'; the comrade won't join you again. This can be disturbing if you've lent him some of your choicest magic items so he?ll survive the battle... much better would be to have no special conversation branch if the battle is over (the player will get the idea to speak to the Heiress). After one of the henchmen died in the final battle, I was surprised to see him up and fighting again before I could get to him to res him. This is a problem because if I don't res the henchman, there is no conversation and he doesn't rejoin the party. Much better would be to just let the henchman lie dead until the player resurrects him (but see foregoing comment). Well there we go, the long and ... long of it. ;-) In sum, very good module, heartily recommended ? especially if you?re an Aribeth fan. [ And, note to module builder: *psst!* please fix the bugs... ;-) ]
Posted by Daniel at 2011-04-1521:53:48
"slaytanic" - Thanks for your generous words. I'm glad you had a high opinion of the series. I'm also pleased to see that, apart from one item you point out (that you sometimes have to remind henchmen to fight - that's never happened to me and I have no idea how to fix it) the issues you had were either known or intentional: The dialogue length and style has been much discussed in this space and its brethren. I consider it a feature rather than a bug, but understand that it's not to everyone's liking. My regrets. The doors you mention - there is one in Chapter 2 and one in Chapter 3 - are a result of pure indolence on my part. I figured you could handle the fight on your own at this level and didn't bother writing scripts to transport your henchmen to those two areas. I don't blame you for feeling some consternation. What can I say - I'm a slug. The issue with the magic bags at the militia headquarters is purely a Bioware problem that I can do nothing about. The best I could do was give you warnings both in the dialogue and in bold in the walkthrough in the Readme file. You can keep the bags only if you empty them. My regrets again. I thought the Rainbow puzzle was too easy to bother much with clues. You have your attention directed to the rainbow overhead and the whole thing was pretty similar to one in Hordes of the Underdark. I give a pretty complete set of directions in the walkthrough in the Readme file. My regrets if you had difficulties. I very much appreciate your taking the time to comment and, once again, am pleased that you generally liked the series. It was a lot of work and I hope never to put myself through that again. Best regards - DWM
Posted by slaytanic at on04/15/11
Pros: Great series, very well made. Good story. Long. Good quests, good fights, wide variety of equipment available. The PC-Aribeth interaction is well written and well placed, is in fact romantic and not ridiculous as in Poecile's "Aribeth Revival". I really liked the fact that several quests had their "specific" henchmen (and just for these quests and they later go away). It is something not very common in NWN mods. In general very engaging and rewarding. Cons: Very long dialogs with very (and I mean VERY) large blocks of text. This doesn't happen just in key moments of the story but almost in EVERY dialog along the 3 parts . They are, once again, well written but this was a game, not a book, and as such, the excessive text is a turn-off. Has some bugs: sometimes when you cross a door to another place inside the same area , the henchmen stay in the previous one , so you are screwed and have to do the fight alone . This happened to me in one of the 3 attacked temples in Chapter 2-one with 2 side passages and a main one which had the "transition door" to the main room with the bad guys. Also happened in chapter 3 before entering a fortress which has an outer door which has that kind of transition to an inner yard where entrance to the fortress is... Also the henchmen sometimes stay there and do nothing, you have to constantly remind them "Attack nearest" or "guard me" when the fights begin (i think I saw it most in chapter 3) CH3: When I recovered my belongings at the militia offices, they "stole" some of my magic bags . I had 8-10 of them and when I went to the chest to pick up my stuff there were only 3 of them. All the others vanished... they weren't in any of the 13 chest's compartments. Fortunately, the gear that was inside them didn't disappear with them and was inside the chest... (In the name of justice I slew the bastard militia captain afterwards for taking my stuff ) You have no clue of what to do when you find the "lights puzzle" in Ch3
Posted by TomaszTrapczynski at on03/24/11
Pretty good mod, a lot of good conversation and ripped the plot gives 10
Posted by 11_77 at 2011-02-2115:15:07
Hi Daniel, Thanks for the tips on getting through the rainbow puzzle. I appreciate it! However, now that I've gotten to the end of the module, the epilogue won't play! In fact, the game freezes up and I have to hit ctrl+alt+del to get out of it. Has anybody else run into this bug?
Posted by Daniel at 2011-02-1907:37:04
"k33p1t0ff" - Much thanks for your kind comments. I suppose one should never say never, but frankly, this was a huge amount of work over four years and I just don't have the time to spare at present. Also, NWN is a smidge dated by now. However, I may get the urge to write one of these again and your suggestion is a good one. One never knows. I'm glad you enjoyed this little effort. All the best to you. - DWM
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