The Chronicles of Azaelus 1: The tower in the marsh (v1.2)
You are travelling with your mentor to the hamlet of Westfeld, to visit an old friend. Along the way, an unexpected event forces you to act on your own; your mentor cannot protect you anymore...
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This is the first chapter in a series I'm planning. It started out as a little project to get me familiar with the toolset, but along the way I got inspired to take it a bit further.
You will be given the option to equip yourself and adjust your level to the difficulty of the module at the start of the game.
The mod is designed for good characters, although at certain points your alignment (good/evil) is taken into account. There are also situations where you can be rude or mean, but I felt adding a genuinely evil path to be too ambitious for this mod.
After the initial release of the mod I have spent some time at balancing some of the encounters. They are a bit easier now, but might still be considered tough for some classes. Be sure to save often in different slots, and play to your strengths. For example if your character can sneak attack, position him or her so sneak attacks are possible.
I tested this mod with all classes (including rogue) and managed to complete it every time (but of course, I did write the mod).
Recommendations: Make sure you talk to everyone, and read your journal if you're stuck. Use your skills, feats and abilities, use the equipment you find or give it to somebody who can use it for you. There are some conversation skill checks in this mod, so if you've got plenty of skill points...
Have fun!
Version history:
Version 1.0
Original release.
Version 1.1:
-Fixed a bug where the final baddy wouldn't attack when you left a certain task to a certain somebody else
-Toned down the tunnel quest
-Toned down the loot
-Fixed a bug where the game would crash after picking certain dialogue options with the mayor.
-Fixed some dialogue-options I wasn't happy with.
-You get less money to start with, and the items cost more now :-p
Version 1.2:
-Fixed the bug where walking through the village with companions would be jittery
-Fixed the bug where loading the game in certain stages of the game would give you XP
-Made sure the player had an extra edge against some of the enemies
-Improved the looks of one of the areas somewhat
-Gave monks an extra edge in the game
-Put a warning to evil characters in the prelude
-Expanded one of the stores
-Added possibilities to regain lost levels
-Added a story twist to make it easier to defeat Blake
I sort of finished.. May be spoiler>> After the big fight at the end your asked if you want to go back to town of look around. I chose to look around and I didn't get the dialog option to go back to Westfield. So I ran back still nothing. Did I or am I missing anything? By the way I made a regular character earth gensai cleric fighter item strip etc. and all got my keester handed to me on a regular basis. I don't know about anyone else but I though it was a little tough. Had to start over with a new character and a little extra firepower.
Posted by Justicar at on08/02/08
This module was fun and I recommend it for its simplicity. I had no PC problems and enjoyed the story and characters. The battles were fun and manageable after I had the party, +1 weapons, and some wands for the Rogue. What lowers the score for me is the bugs and lack of fleshing out the characters and some of the NPC responses. SPOILERS PROS: I really liked the idea of a mentor and the Paladin of Kelemvor (which you never see). The Drow and spider battles were fun and I really liked the Tower. CONS: The idea of a mentor is great but you never learn what you are being mentored in. Also after rescuing Marley, he gets chain mail even though he is shown in the initial scenes as wearing scale mail (I changed this back via the Editor for consistency). A major bug is that when talking to him, you get the same dialog and he levels up. Good thing I noticed this and returned to a save or he would have been Uber Marley by the end. While Kelemvor Paladin was cool, Kelevor's weapon is the Bastard Sword not the Scythe. I changed it via the Editor because it's hard to imagine a Paladin weapon focusing on a Scythe. Also I think I read somewhere that some green is in their armor in remembrance that Kelevor ewas a Ranger (might be wrong on this). I also wish more background was available on the companions; e.g., The mayor makes hints about Anita but you never find out what that's about; what's Marley's mentoring focus, hoe did Malfat get involved, etc. There is a sheet of water north of the bridge floating in the air and some hovering rocks (but I can't remember where). The worst part is the Cliffs of Trann which, IMHO, is a non-quest. I was at the final battle when the prompt for it made me rush back thinking I was going to end missing half the module. Instead this quest is a search someone's inventory for an item and use it mission. Also, how realistic is it to be trapped in rock for who-knows-how-long, get freed, immediately recover, thank the hero, give a reward, and run home home all in a matter off moments. My suggestion is to redo this quest and the area (which looks very primitive and unfinished) and add a clearer prompt to do the quest prior to going to th Tower. All in all, I had fun and will play the sequel. My score would have been higher but for the above issues. Good job Rasvar! _________________________ "You take a look around and you see that the law is there only to protect power. You'll see plenty of law but what you won't see is any justice."
Posted by Raskae at on07/28/08
an entertaining and fun module to play. Still have a few obvious bugs kicking around (some have already mentioned them). It's a bit unusual for the first side quest to have the most difficult battles of the game, but so long as a player has the courage to continue past that point, and optionally, return to it when they are much stronger, this module isn't difficult at all.
Posted by Winwood at on07/15/08
Excellent, Recommended to Anyone. Bugs: On approaching Blake's chamber, I got a confusing message urging me to go back to the cave and fetch something. I suppose the thing was Alice's Tears, but I already had that in my pocket. *SPOILERS* (bugs?) You get 250 XP every time you walk pass, and spot, the corpse of Alice. You get 1000 XP every time you speak to Marley after having rescued him.
Posted by Quest10 at on06/27/08
Good work Rasvar, I enjoyed the module. Solid story, nice environments, the tunnel under the bed tile problem was one of the few visual bugs I saw and the only major one. The combat was hard for my Druid but I enjoyed having to think through the battles. Is there supposed to be some kind of auto ending? I didn?t get one even though I killed the big baddie at the end of the module. I hope to see more of your work.
Posted by Rasvar at 2008-05-2222:31:10
Thanks Blatob. First I'm going to hone my mod-making skills a bit on smaller scope mods, then I plan to pick up Azaelus again. You can pick up the scroll of shattering from... the wizard in the basement :) _________________________ Howls in the Dark The Chronicles of Azealus 1: The Tower in the Marsh Rasvar's module development blog
Posted by Blatob at on05/22/08
Very good module and intoduction to campaign (hopefully). Only things that seem to be out of the place are wizard in the basement, and the strange tileset in the drow tunnels. By the way, where is the scroll of shattering?
Posted by Rasvar at 2008-05-1400:11:33
Glad to hear it, have fun with the rest of the mod! _________________________ Howls in the Dark The Chronicles of Azealus 1: The Tower in the Marsh Rasvar's module development blog
Posted by gmfeier at 2008-05-1316:06:49
Worked like a charm! Thanks Rasvar!!
Posted by Rasvar at 2008-05-1312:52:00
Hi gmfeier, This should do the trick: Open the console (for me it's the ~ key) Type the following: DebugMode 1 giveitem mes_mar DebugMode 0 That should give you the message and allow you to go on. Let me know if it works! _________________________ Howls in the Dark The Chronicles of Azealus 1: The Tower in the Marsh Rasvar's module development blog
10 - A Masterpiece, Genuinely Groundbreaking 9 - Outstanding, a Must Have 8 - Excellent, Recommended to Anyone 7 - Very Good, Deserves a Look 6 - Good, Qualified Recommendation 5 - Fair, Solid yet Unremarkable 4 - Some Merit, Requires Improvements 3 - Poor Execution, Potential Unrealized 2 - Very Little Appeal 1 - Not Recommended to Anyone
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