For reasons irrelevant, you have become a convict and slave in the God-Emperor Kathutet's domain. For your skills in combat and spellcraft you have been hand-picked to run his Gauntlet, a maze filled with deadly traps and monsters, created for the emperor's own entertainment. The prize waiting at the end: a full imperial pardon of your crimes. Can you earn your freedom?
After playing the original content I was disgusted by how easy it was and its lack of dungeoneering - so what I�ve tried to provide here is a challenging dungeon in the classic style. This is the first thing I�ve done with the NWN2 toolset so try not to be too harsh. Also - I know some things are directly stolen, but there was no way I was going to waste hours trying to come up with my own riddles.
I tried this multiplayer with a friend on sunday. It was reasonably balanced for a pair of 5th level characters (even if he kept coming close to death and requiring me to heal him up time and time again :p). Unfortunately we came up stuck against the broken pillar (we weren't min maxed enough to have 4 ranks in disable device between us, let alone individualy). Do you think you could make it roll a skill check instead of count skill ranks? Previously I had managed to pass it and came up stuck against a locked door and a grate that required great strength to shift. I'll try it solo sometime soon.
Posted by John_Citizen at 2008-05-1621:30:01
Module has been updated to make it easier and just to fix up a handful of things ? recommended solo level is now probably 5 or 6 depending on class. Group level should be like 4 or 5. Feedback and votes are appreciated. _________________________ The Emperor's Mercy - Link
Posted by Balgin at on06/26/08
Actualy, on second glance it does look blue in the red room. It's only the yellow room that looks purple.
Posted by John_Citizen at 2008-05-0523:59:54
First of all, thanks so much for all the feedback, it?s really good of you. I would play your mod too but I don?t have MotB. - lots of spoilers here - The glow spider, the astral wolf and Black Bert are all beasts and deserve solid nerfing. There?s no arguing against that. The wolf has actually been nerfed several times already, but I guess his bite still just does too much damage. The cheap way to kill the wolf is to clear out the elemental creatures first, hide in one of their cages, and shoot him with silver bullets, which overcome his damage reduction. The 2 portals are actually just a half-formed idea ? neither of them kill you. It?s really just there to screw around with you. I couldn?t think of any tricky way to determine which is the safe portal so I just left it as it was. I didn?t delete it because it?s not necessarily a bad idea, its just not very good either. I guess it can be interpreted that they lead to both doom and salvation or something like that. As for the bear ? I admit he?s pretty tough, but he?s kind of supposed to be ?I tried to design it so that unless a group is traveling in very tight formation, only one guy should be in the room before the gates shut, and the other party members have to watch him get torn up by the bear while they scramble to get the gate down and assist him. That?s why you get a handful of resurrection scrolls at the start. Of course, the cheap way to get past this part is to just close the doors after they open, since animals can?t open them again. I?m glad you used the lizardmen and bugbears against each other ? I tried to show at the start of the level that they dislike each other but my tester never got that he could set them against each other at later points of the level as well. In the encounter with Juno and Fayron, I wanted Juno to be the damage dealer while Fayron just kept you occupied with his incredible AC and hitpoints, but if hes dealing a lot of damage ill have to nerf him. I was surprised that you say the guardian does 10-15 dam per hit even with elemental resistance ? in my trials, using elemental resistance made him pathetically weak, but I suppose I can reduce his strength some. I originally wanted to make it that you could also neutralize him by pickpocketting his weapon, but it turns out you can?t steal equipped items. You can still disarm him though I think. The reflected color puzzle: I think I?ll tweak this so that there is no ambiguity in which color it is, but I don?t think I?ll add text anywhere telling you exactly what the color is. I know some people can?t see it, but I think it defeats the whole purpose of the thing to just tell them the answer ? the purpose being to expand the gameplay a little bit away from just fighting and navigating dialogues. The puzzle isn?t necessary to finish the dungeon anyway; it just gives a handful of magical trinkets. I?ll reduce the caster level of the skeletal magi so they don?t throw so many missiles at a time. At this point, I?d also just like to say that this room took an absolute AGE to put together, since the shadow fortress tileset is a total b***h to work with. The pillar puzzle: One requires gold (appraise can reduce the cost), one requires lore, and one requires disable device. I assumed a party of 3 would have at least 2 of these, and if they only have 2 then they can simply guess the last one since there are only 5 options anyway. The formula I?ve been using for skill DCs is: (The highest skill you could have by this point) minus 2 or 3. This is because I always max out skills on my characters, but I guess other people like to have more of a range of skills on their characters. Massive spoiler: pillar combination is: yellow-water drop, blue-moon, red-leaf. As for beyond that door, there is no return once you go through it, so make sure you?ve cleaned up anything you wanted to before you continue. Also, you?ll probably want to save any trinkets you find for the final battle. I hope your not playing a rogue because after the pillars it?s pretty much all undead. Other than that all I can say is that a good fortitude save, a high strength and an evil or good alignment (not neutral) are favorable. For a rogue or a non-evil or good character, the final fight might be just too difficult to do solo. Some questions aimed at y?all: If anyone has fought the carrion beetles, did you find they were too tough? Did anyone like the elemental creatures puzzle? Did anyone think the description for the kaleidoscope was funny? Does anyone know which games I?ve taken inspiration from? Finally, what would be the appropriate level for a group running this dungeon? Four level 3s? Three level 4s? Higher? _________________________ The Emperor's Mercy - Link
Posted by Balgin at on06/26/08
Hey now, I haven't voted yet. Here's some thoughts. Spoilers Abound. The glow spider on the first level is exessively powerful (6 levels plus one or two innate spells that drain strength). It would make more sense if it's attack caused a strength draining poison rather than casting a spell at the players. It's also a huge threat given that by the time a player wanders past it they'll have 900 xp (or less). Setting such a beast against 1st level characters (even if it's at half health) is asking for a total party wipeout. The two portals (in the bladeling room) both lead to the same point in single player. That bear (even at half hitpoints) is obscenely dangerous and almost garauntees a character death. It's attacks won't miss much and it does so much damage that the average (by this point 2nd level) character will be dead within 2 rounds, 3 tops. And given the hand axe and club they'll have gained by this point they won't be able to do anough damage to put it down in time (unless maybe they're a barbarian) and even if they do, they'll be so badly hurt the wolf will finish them off altogether. The astral wolf is a huge challenge for a 4th level character, let alone 2nd. Everything else on level 1 is reasonable for a 1st level party (although they will get swarmed rather a lot). Goign down to the 2nd level of the dungeon is a huge step up in difficulty level. After attempting the first level with a few different 1st level characters I tried it with a 4th level fully equiped character. The first level was relatively easy (although the room full of gnolls and the astral wolf were trouble). Down on the second level my fourth level character had numerous problems with the bugbears and the lizardmen. Fortunately I was able to exploit their natural animosity towards each othera nd pick off any survivors (the invisibility potions helped a lot). On those few occassions where I tried to get stuck in and finish off the wounded ones for xp it was fatal so I had to adopt a "just finish off any survivors and pick off the ones on the edges and that way I'll stay alive" policy. The npc's on the 2nd level are mostly hostile and all very powerful compared to the level a party of fresh characters would be upon enterin the dungeon (and having reached this point I'd assume a party would be 2nd or 3rd level). Black Bert with his dual wielding berserk axe style is a major character killer (only defeatable in easy mode and killing his two companions first then slowly whittling him down) and the fighter in banded mail with the hammer and the tower shield is also very hard for new characters to hit. Both these oponents have very large attack bonuses and high ac's (plus they do a lot of damage). I'd say they present too much of a challenge for a party of low level characters (although I could be very wrong here). The guardian (with his elemental flail) has a +11 attack bonus and does around 15-20 damage per hit. Even with the potion of elemental resistance he was still doing around 10-15 damage per blow on easy mode and managed to put down a resilient 4th level character with ease (but he was defeatable). On the 3rd dungeon level the skeleton mages just pummel characters to death with magic missiles. If there were less of them (who each fire off 2 or 3 volleys of 2 or 3) character survivability would increase no end. The pillar puzzle (with the three pillars and the lever) really had me miffed. I'm afraid I had to open up the toolset and discover that completing that puzzle requires at least one party member to have 7 ranks in disable device. So that would be a 4th level thief or someone who really liked building cross classed skills. Unfortunately the character I was playing through had only managed to gain 1 rank in that skill so I don't know what lies behind that door :(. Now, pushing all those issues aside I really enjoyed playing this module. I think it could be vastly improved if you went over it and tweaked a few things (it might be worth having a floaty text message in the colour rooms to help people who can't see the colours or who might be colour blind). So yeah, I've enjoyed it but I reckon that the recommended level range doesn't exactly match the threat level within the dungeon too accurately (that's okay, it's easy to misjudge these things). I wouldn't recommend trying it solo with a character as low as 4th level 'though. While it might be right for the first level, the lower levels of the dungeon are calling for a character who's more like 6th or 7th (and they'd probably find the top level not very challenging). You don't have to give up because of a few low votes. This little mod's got potential to be really good :).
Posted by John_Citizen at 2008-05-0505:11:43
You?re right, it does look more purple than blue. I would change it but I don?t think there would be any point since the module seems pretty unpopular. On a related note it turns out some people may not be able to see the reflections at all, depending on their graphics settings. _________________________ The Emperor's Mercy - Link
Posted by Balgin at on06/26/08
The colour puzzle on the second level is wrong. The answers should be green, purple and purple but it only accepts green, blue and blue. That answer is contrary to the evidence (since the question asks you what colour things are).
Posted by John_Citizen at 2008-04-2907:16:09
The module was definitely designed for multiplayer; some of the optional content actually requires there to be more than 1 person in game. The concept was pretty much just an excuse to have a dungeon full of encounters that wouldn?t make sense together otherwise. _________________________ The Emperor's Mercy - Link
Posted by Ciderbasher at on04/28/08
@Balgin the concept is similar all powerfull king/lord etc builds a maze/dungeon full of traps and monsters and invites/forces adventures to test themselves for great wealth .Deathtrap was my first introduction to fantasy so I have fond memorys of it , if done correctly it would make a great module. I have not completed the module but I would agree with hadrian about level for solo I am level 3 Asmar Druid and it is hard not enough resting areas although maybe you meant it as a multiplayer only mod. More feedback when I have done with it _________________________ Bulmer OakenKeg of Clan Ciderbasher Defenders of the Sacred Orchard
Posted by Balgin at on06/26/08
"At the start don't fight, just run". Sounds more liek Naked Doom (the old Tunnels Trolls adventure) than Deathtrap Dungeon. DTD would be awkward to do in NWN2 without some scripting (flooding room traps and a rolling ball trap would be awkward not to mention some of the other stuff). It would be great fun to do 'though.
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