Forgotten Realms
Faerun
Great Dale
Dunwood
Rawlinswood
Gameplay Length
Can take as little as 1 hour and as long as 3 hours defending on how much defensive magic your character possesses.
Number Players
4 at 10th-14th level, 2-3 at 11th-16th level, 1 at 12th-17th level.
Language
English
Level Range
12-18
Races
All
Tricks & Traps
Light
Roleplay
Light
Hack & Slash
Medium
Classes
All.
Scope
Medium
DMNeeded
No DM Required
Single or Multiplayer
Single Player or Multiplayer
Max Character Level
17
Max # Players
04
Min # Players
01
Min Character Level
12
Content Rating
Teen
Alignments
Any allowed. No alignment shifts.
Gameplay Hours
02
Description
Word has spread that demons wander the Dunwood searching for an object. An object that might seal Dun-Tharos again, and maybe even heal the Dunwood. An agent has been sent to secure a scouting party into the interior and find out if the rumors are true. Will you be a part of that party?
Blight on the Barrow is a higher level module set in the Forgotten Realms north of the Great Dale in the former Rawlinswood.
This module can be played by 1 to 4 players. Single players should be 12th-17th level depending on magic protections. Four players should be at least 10th level.
Character Recommendation: Have some sort of regeneration, immunity to fear, resistance to mind-effect spells, +2 or better weapon. A half-dozen healing potions wouldn't hurt.
Thanks to dirtywick, Anduraga, son of Kosaraga, steelfiredragon, Quixal and dwarvendervish for input on the module concept and execution.
This uses patch version 1.69. Only requires the ctp_blk_desert.hak file from the CTP page.
NOTE TO PLAYERS: Timbertown appears to be mentioned only on the 2nd Edition FR9 - The Bloodstone Lands map. The Northern Journey Campaign mentions it in a way I don't agree with.
v1.01 Fixed items not dropping bug from big barrow battle.
v1.02 Fixed conversation trigger, set many placables to static, added potion of insight to store.
v1.03 Added excavation dirt outside barrow, made conversations non-interruptible.
v1.04 Fixed bones from spawning, journal updates and changed one scroll in book case.
Cons
- monster mix (type, difficulty)
- hard to see anything in some areas (design)
- excessive gold/XP/uber items
I made a custom version of this module (probably worth a 5) after doing some research to fix both monster mix (no more demons and devils in a same group) and difficulty (mostly up) I also added one more faction. I am considering expanding it a bit more with new areas, quests and more factions all competing for the same artefact. My custom version is for character lvl 17-19 resolving most of the issues I mentioned.
Posted by Delf at 2010-04-12 02:11:01 Voted 7.50 on 04/12/10
A short and straight-forward hack & slash adventure. Nothing major obviously wrong with it, but not much about it is above average either. The areas look good and the comments the monsters shout out when attacking are a nice touch.
My biggest criticism would be that the combat is too easy, important given that is the mod's focus. I was playing a 14th level character. My equipment might have been a little overpowered for my level, but not extremely so, and given the recommnended immunities, and the power of the equipment you can find playing, I would think this was intended to be relatively "high magic." Actually the rewards, and especially the loot, seem excessively generous. I made almost a million gold selling stuff I found in the module. Maybe you should consider putting a price cap in the stores?
I loaded all of the required .hak and .tlk files (though most of the hak files were redundant, because I was already running v.2.2), but the loading area (Timbertown) freezes on my. Nothing in the log folder, so it does not appear to be a missing talk table or hak file.
If anyone else has had this problem (especially if you've solved it), I'd appreciate learning the secret.
I plan on coming back to Dun Tharos later, to get something inside, but the levels for the creatures inside are much too high for anyone who finishes this module.
You are supposed to get paid off three times. Because of the demon patrols there are only two places to rest. Those bloody maelaphants are scripted to attack immediately and won't. I didn't get any overflow error messages. There is a journal entry for giving away the staff. Someone else will retrieve it and give it to the Nentyarch if you don't. This would become apparent in the sequel.
Town is listed on TSR map, but nowhere in WOTC. This usually means everyone was killed and is now ruins. In my campaign it used to be haunted but a Doomguide quieted the spirits. That might be another module.
I didn't have Unapproachable East or Lost Empires of Faerun when I made this, so I was being careful in what lore I imparted. I have them now and may rewrite things a bit. Especially since I have blighted treant stats now. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
A fair mod with an interesting story concept, nice area design and good choice of opponents but also a lot of room for improvement regarding journal entries, conversations and bugs.
*SPOILERS*
The way the story is conveyed was quite confusing at times,
- e.g. if you ask the merchant for information on the surroundings he tells you a lot of stuff you can't really process unless you have a good knowledge of the setting or already know something of the mod's story which is revealed only later on (the bit about the Nentyarch in particular was a weird bit of information). The introduction into the setting could be a lot more gripping and user-friendly.
- Also, if the first time you meet the Dryad is after you've already retrieved the staff from the barrows, parts of her conversation don't make sense or aren't of interest anymore.
- I'm not sure if you can finish the game if you give the staff to the Blight Lord because neither the dialogue of the quest giver (ranger) nor the journal hinted at that possibility (there wasn't even an option to tell the ranger what I had done). I wasn't in the mood for experiments and reloaded, this time refusing the staff to the Blight Lord. If there are any dead ends, the player should be informed about it ("You failed because now the Blight Lord did this or that with the staff" or "PC: 'I had the staff but I gave it to the Blight Lord.' - Ranger: 'That was a grave mistake! Hurry to the Underground City and get the staff back!'").
- I missed a satifying ending, too (at least "That concludes the adventure, you can still shop if you want to and then export your character" or something).
- Although the PC was often given a lot of choices in conversations, they were still lacking in variety. On more than one occasion I couldn't find the answer I thought most likely for your average moderately chaotic good adventurer while supervillains and overzealous crusaders were excellently catered to...
To make a long story short, IMO the NPC conversations are in need of polishing and the use of journal entries could be enhanced, too.
---
As far as bugs go, in part I've got to repeat what others said before me:
- There's an overflow or false instructions or whatever error if you click on the altar and try to climb down, then the maelephants become hostile and only if you defeat them you can finally climb down without error messages. Apparantly that's the way you wanted it, but you should look into that error message and replace it with a message for the player that explains what's going on (like the maelephants shouting "Stay away from that! No one shall enter the tomb!" and then attacking the PC, whereas the way it is now they just stood there waiting for me to attack and I wasn't told it had anything to do with my attempt to enter the tomb).
- You can get the reward for retrieving the staff THRICE (!): first from the ranger, then from the dryad, then from the ranger again.
- I thought the area sizes were okay for the first march through, but if you run back to town after you defeated all enemies in the Dunwoods, travelling those empty forest areas is tedious. I know now that travelling back to town isn't necessary since you can also rest in the dryad's grove. But unfortunately, I only discovered the grove after I'd done everything else, including clearing out the demons' tower and the barrows. So to me it looked like the player was supposed not to rest in the blighted woods, only in town. I admit that the fault is mine but I also bet other players will fall for it, too. Meaning the mod isn't foolproof.
- In the merchant shop I found the market sounds a bit out of place - I saw just a single merchant in an otherwise empty room but heard a lot of people chatting and shouting. Just a very minor complaint though, ignore it if you like.
---
Fighting the demons was fun, although (and probably also BECAUSE) it was rather easy for my lvl 14 cleric from Marc Price's Midwinter Festival Trilogy (the only real challenges were the glabrezu and the bebilith). That's the problem with allowing pre-made characters from other campaigns, it makes good balancing nearly impossible. I guess I'm one of the few players in favor of the unpopular item and gold strip. Anyway, I've got nothing against easy combat and I had some fun for an hour.
I'm not sure how to give a fair vote in the case of this mod, so I don't - assuming you'd still like to work on it. I think it's got a lot of potential and my comments are meant as constructive feedback. I hope you treat them as such. :)
They aren't really that large. Just give you enough room to attempt sneaking around the enemy using stealth. The altar doesn't work the first time because then you wouldn't be in a fight with the guardians. It's scripted to only work the second and future times. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
Posted by cariban at 2009-06-26 21:30:42 Voted 9.25 on 06/26/09
Downloaded and played this today. I enjoyed it a lot. I thought the plot was solid and the encounters generally worked great (except for the alter in the barrow reported earlier).
Suggestions: 1) Some areas are quite large with only a single encounter. You might want to add some encounters, or make those areas smaller. 2) A little more detail in the settings would be nice.
Overall it was really fun. I definitely recommend it.
Missed the CEP scripts entirely. They were supposed to be window dressing, not combats. They never went off when I playtested. Guess I never got close enough. I think I fixed everything you mentioned. Except the lack of a magic merchant. It's too tiny a town. But you can find some heavy duty scrolls. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
Posted by toborx at 2009-05-11 22:14:16 Voted 9.75 on 05/11/09
Nice little hack & slash with nice visuals and cool creatures to smash. If you play a character w/out immunity to death in single player, you should play at the upper end of the scale, especially if you have a poor fort save. Fun to try out a mid-high level character build with, or continue on with a beloved PC from another MOD
***Bug Notice...Potential Spoilers***
If you get the staff and close the gate before talking to the quest giver in the tavern, you can get the reward for closing the gates twice. The journal doesn't update when you tell him immediately after telling him you found that staff.
Bug or feature? Non-clerics can't use many of the scrolls they normally can, if you purchase them from the shop.
Area with the demi-lich: I'm not sure what, if any, part of this is a bug, but here is an unusual story. In the area where one finds the staff, I looked at the pile of skulls on my right and it instantly attacked me. However, the two elephant-men standing in that area rushed to my aid. I couldn't go down the altar (however, this did cause the elephants to turn red, although they still were after the demilich), and couldn't damage the demi-lich with my Arcane Archer's +3 arrows, so I reloaded (I saved before touching the skulls like a good toborx). Then, I got an error message when I tried to go down the altar, but the elephants became hostile. Killing them allowed me to progress.
Posted by acamantor at 2009-05-11 09:40:11 Voted 8.25 on 05/11/09
Pretty good short Hack & slash module with a solid plotline
I got it from the CEP_22_Full_b.rar which is now the CEP_22_Full_c3.7zip.
The CEP says: There's a cep2_top_v22b.hak for builders who want to make sure their users are using CEP 2.2b. There's also cep22_v2.tlk, which should probably be copied to cep22_v1.tlk, as it's completely backwards-compatible. The cep2_top_v22.hak file is identical to the cep2_top_v22b.hak file as well.
Same haks, different names. Updated files should still work. If the file is missing, tell the CEP they left it out. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
A few things are broken with this module so I couldn't get into it. First, it said that I needed the cep2_top_v22b.hak file and when I looked at the CEP hak files, it only had a cep2_patch_v22b.hak file. I tried renaming it which worked to get the module started, but then when I went into the "Blight on the Path" area, it jammed during area load and I couldn't continue. I was also having problems with it asking for a certain tlk file that was missing. You might want to check these issues out.
Thanks.
This is one of a series of higher level Forgotten Realms modules I'm making. _________________________ The road to Ravenloft is paved with good intentions.
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