- Deep down beneath the earth lays the dark tunnels and caves that make up your home - or what surface dwellers like to call it - the Underdark. You are a
denizen of the Underdark that is on the
run. Will you be able to out run your pursuers? Or will you join the many cold lifeless corpses that litter the dark hell known as the Underdark? -
Shrouded Sun is an adventure made for level thirteens. You must play a Drow, Duergar, Svirfneblin, or Half-Drow to play Shrouded Sun.
Credit to Jonny Ree for his awesome beholder model and credit to Eric and Patrick for their work on the Deep Chasm tileset.
UPDATE 6/14/08:Level restriction has been removed. (You are still free to move up or down to level 13 however).
UPDATE 6/21/08: Dialog has been spell checked.
UPDATE 7/14/08:Combat has been balanced. Readme has been updated.
Posted by Avo at 2011-01-21 17:51:24 Voted 6.00 on 01/21/11
While the story and the overall Underdark atmosphere of this module are quite good it suffers from some horrible fight balancing.
I refused the item strip at the beginning and was through lots of potions and tricks barely able to win some fights. Constant resting is allowed and absolutely necessary.
SPIOLERS
I managed to solve the Alhoon mission via stealth, but the end fight is absolutely unwinable for anything else than a tank or a fully restd damage oriented magic user. I played witha monk and was arithmetically screwed. I couldn't even wound the end boss. Weird thing is, about 3/4 into the game you get a very powerful summoning item that basically wins the mod on its own. No characters needed. It was even able to vanquish the end boss without taking damage. Sort of a letdown.
END SPOILER
All in all ok-ish with seriously flawed combat. Porbably best palyed witha tank or evocation mage. I feel tempted to try part 2 which is supposed to be better...
Posted by Cam51982 at 2010-12-02 19:27:44 Voted 8.00 on 12/02/10
I'm a little late with this comment however I think this mod has gotten a bad rap in terms of combat difficulty and balance. Its difficult surely, though impossible = hardly.
Welcome to the Underdark.
**(spoilerish)**
So--Youre probably going to be a drow, other underdark races are just cannon fodder.
Male drow are fighters or wizards, some rogues. Knockdown or Bigby's solves all your problems, on top of the fact your companions get these as well. Theres an umber hulk half plate with mind-affecting immunity on an enraged umberhulk in the first non-tavern area. Get it. Put it on. Have either greatsword or longsword proficiency for those fighter types..
Rogues you might be in trouble, though there are a couple of snazzy knives hiding around. No armor, rare ac+ trinkets, so kind of jipped on rogue gears unfortunately.
Or play as Female drow cleric or cleric/warpriest and youre cruising right through the whole mod. Just dont expect any of the characteristic whips... or even flails in the mod. /disappointed. Against the alhoon scorching ray and cure serious wounds walk all over him. Some well placed knockdowns or clenched fists and youre dancing on his repeatedly reviving corpse all night. (Just a good thing for unlimited resting).
Sorry to all those other classes, but they dont fit into drow culture. If you're intent on playing a duerger, dwarves are primarily fighters and clerics anyways, so nothing too different than a drow playthrough. No one wants to be a svirfneblin though, dont do it.
This is not to say i didn't reload repeatedly on certain fights to flesh out strategy and untimely death, and on occasion didnt make it 10 seconds into a couple fights due to bad timing or destruction being the first thing something casts, usually targeted at that stupid rogue.
Slightly frustrating, but when you think about it, Dont you load up on destruction/slay living etc as much as possible too?
Overall I thought it had enough rp to conversation ratio to make dialogue decent to read through but i will admit that towards the end there are a couple of glaring grammatical eye soars. I did like the player dialogue options. There are a range of choices that go from not too evil to "yup thats what a typical drow would say". There's a clear (and probably my favorite) example in the last dialogue with the matron where you completely ignore that she's been hunting you, and your response to her threats are to request to join and help her house become more powerful.
A highlight to me is that there were zero bugs/crashes/gamebreakers on my playthroughs, which after a few mods if looked at who's vote average was in the 7's was very refreshing. I liked this mod. Belated Good job.
Posted by Sumguy at 2010-03-19 08:49:35 Voted 3.00 on 03/19/10
Don't bother. It's simply impossible to play without cheating.
There are too many design mistakes:
- you get stripped of your equipment - which is bad enough on its own - and the stuff you get in return is useless
- enemies have an insanely high attack bonus and you get hardly any AC items
- companions aren't even equipped with anything but a weapon and armor, they die almost every fight
- the first monsters you have to fight are trolls, yet the only source of fire/acid damage available is a handful of arrows; ironically the only ranged weapon is a basic longbow on the rogue companion for which he has no profiency
- some doors only work from one side, i.e. you cannot exit where you came in even though the door is open
- areas look ok but they are badly designed, many pathing issues: some areas of the floor are arbitrarily non-clickable, there are invisible obstacles and characters teleport around due to failed pathing
- too many mind-affecting spells which mean you'll just have to watch helplessly most of the time
- even if you cheat and import useful equipment, fights last forever and you'd need at least several +3 armor items AND mind-immunity to stand a chance
A challenging mod can be fun but this is plain broken.
Posted by buckwheezer at 2009-11-27 14:39:56 Voted 7.75 on 11/27/09
The story is good and it is a lot of fun EXCEPT, even with the changes made some of the combat, it is impossible with the equiptment available. I did have to drop to "easy" setting several times in order to finish. My rogue/wizard/ arcane trickster is quite competent in other modules but struggled as a two handed Kuri wielder. It still is "Very Good, Deserves a look" and with a little more balanced combat it would rate "Excellent".
Posted by Spidercat at 2009-08-17 08:16:52 Voted 7.00 on 08/17/09
I agree with other players that combat is insanely difficult, but that's nothing a little cheating can't take care of ;-) Roleplay is disappointingly close to non existent.I still enjoyed your module and going to download the sequel right away =)
Posted by drarknn at 2009-07-31 06:05:00 Voted 10.00 on 07/31/09
mean game
Posted by ubernerd at 2009-07-09 04:38:40 Voted 8.00 on 07/09/09
It's a good module which unfortunately is plagued by bad balance. Many enemies have 30+ ab, but your companions's AC barely make it to 25. It's no surprise that the encounters become overpowering. The crux of the problem is the lack of equipments that are appropriate for the power of enemies you will face. You start with +2 gears and there is no chance of getting better before you have to fight 30-40 ab monsters. I'm puzzled why the author didn't figure it out since simple arithmetic will tell you it won't work. Perhaps it was play-tested with a battle cleric? Cleric buffs like magic vestment and GMW can turn junk gears into +4/+5, which may hide the imbalance issue caused by the lack of proper equipments to the player. The lack of healing potion in the start further reflect this point.
My advice to anyone want to try out this module, make sure your main character have at least 30 ac (and that's being conservative), a +4 weapon, and some heal potions.
I suppose I was hasty on that comment, keeping the main character alive solved the problem, but still... quite the bad first impression (I have high hopes for the rest (no sarcasm))
Gah, everyone is talking about the first encounter, and well its bugged! I get the faceless to near death and he says this isnt the last of me only to have him keep attacking and invinvible... what is wrong here?
Posted by DarkSpiral at 2009-05-15 21:33:28 Voted 4.00 on 05/15/09
Large spoilers below. Read at your risk.
Obligatory disclaimer that the following is my subjective opinion, etc.
*
*
*
*
*
I...did not enjoy Shrouded Sun, almost entirely because of the unbalanced combat. Having played White Rose immediately prior to this module, I realize this module is older and perhaps the creator had less polish when making it. I notice combat difficulty has been mentioned in other comments as well, though perhaps I found it more off-putting that others. There were no particular tactics, no cases where thinking might have changed the outcome. Combat was straightforward, but totally out of balance. Part of this is the equipment you start the module with. 13th level characters, on average, have far more powerful gear than is what initially available. When there are up to six Umber Hulks waiting right outside the door of the starter area, having no access whatsoever to any kind of mental protections isn't challenging, it's ridiculous.
Part of this, I think can be solved by playing a caster. Neither of the companions have access, through class abilities or skills, to use magic items. A bard with UMD, a wizard, or sorcerer could help things out immensely. Battles with the Alhoon in the undead area were impossible to win with no access to dispels. In my opinion, either one of the companions should have been a magic user, or the module should recommend you play one. As what the module DOES say is that you can play any class, I must strongly disagree. Furthermore, the H&S is tagged as being Medium, which I find to be a complete understatement.
In the end I thought Shrouded Sun had promise, but the obscene difficulty of the first half hours worth of battles makes even an interesting story not worth the frustration of getting to the meat of it. _________________________ Trying to explain magic with words is like trying to cut roast beef with a screwdriver.
Posted by LeslieMS at 2009-04-10 12:39:49 Voted 9.00 on 04/10/09
While some of the combat was a bit frustrating, and there were numerous grammer and spelling issues... in some cases a lack of spaces between words, this is still a great teaser/opener to a wonderful story.
I cannot wait to jump into the second one and see what the story is... Excellent module for its length, and no bugs that I could tell.
Well done... I am off to part two now... I can't hardly wait to see how this ends =) _________________________ Stupidity kills people.
Nothing Good comes from ignorance.
Knowledge is power that is useless with out the wisdom to use it properly.
I tried "dm_god" to fight the Faceless Man. I exited after 20 minutes with him at near death, he just wont die.
Posted by Winwood at 2009-01-31 22:07:32 Voted 6.75 on 01/31/09
Please disregard my complaint about the first cave being too dark. It was entirely my own fault, as I had not installed the override files properly. Sorry about any inconvenience.
Posted by Winwood at 2009-01-30 16:09:00 Voted 6.75 on 01/31/09
Well, I managed to stumble through. In my opinion, the first cave was much too dark, the fights too tough and the story too linear, but I am nevertheless going to play the sequel.
Posted by Winwood at 2009-01-29 04:00:28 Voted 6.75 on 01/31/09
Is it really supposed to be so dark in Underdark? I can't see a darn thing, even with a lightsource and full contrast on the screen. Perhaps this is a 1.21 related bug?
Posted by fardoche77 at 2008-11-15 21:03:35 Voted 6.50 on 11/15/08
Wow. I've played them all (almost) and this was tough, almost as tough as taking a bard through NHiN.
Dialogue-wise (can I say that?) you sure have an annoying problem with participles (and that's coming from someone who usually speaks French). Please add -ed to most of the verbs you use. (And... OMG! WTF! ... If you're under 16 you're forgiven. If not, you're not)
Besides that, eh, I liked it actually. Fights were almost too hard as to be frustrating, but I kept trying and trying which is a good sign IMO.
But I only could finish it by using cheap tricks (like running away using a bow and getting to a point where the monster can't reach me, etc.)
No new bugs to report, but the walkmesh IS badddd and there are some issues with Kaedrin's prestige classes.
Posted by hatcher101b at 2008-10-06 16:08:47 Voted 7.50 on 10/06/08
Not as good as your next mod Shadow Dancers vault but good. _________________________ The Darkness Awaits
Posted by JollyJenkins at 2008-10-04 07:50:05 Voted 7.25 on 10/04/08
100th Comment! I win!
Posted by helmo1977 at 2008-09-30 08:33:02 Voted 8.75 on 09/30/08
Excellent module¡ Specially remarkable is the fact that is one of the very few high level (above 12th) modules out there with a history, some roleplaying, traps and puzzles.
The combat is challenging, which means you will have to reload once or twice during your adventure, but it´s very interesting, I don´t like those modules were you can bash everything without worrying about anything but clicking on your enemies.
I have gave it a slightly better score than is usual on me because the difficulty on doing a high level module (it´s more difficult to balance).
Important: If you want to start the module with your equipment (you are suppoused to be a slave, so all youe equipment is Stripped of you), just leave all you want to carry forward on the floor, talk to the avatar, tell him to start the adventure or open the gate, quit talking with him and take your equipment back. Then, just go through the door.
Posted by helmo1977 at 2008-09-29 02:18:24 Voted 8.75 on 09/30/08
I will try it. Thank you very much
Posted by JollyJenkins at 2008-09-26 06:14:07 Voted 7.25 on 10/04/08
To helmo1977:
SPOILERS!
Have you notice the caskets the Alhoon spawns from? Alright by each casket lies a set number of pillars. You must first open the casket with only one pillar by it and get the key from it. You will then use that key on the casket with TWO pillars.
Then you will get another key from that casket and I think you'll be able to figure out the rest.
Posted by helmo1977 at 2008-09-25 03:17:58 Voted 8.75 on 09/30/08
Please, Will nobody help? How do you destroy the alhoon´s filatery? I can´t lit the brazier.
Thank you
Posted by narced272 at 2008-09-16 06:37:52 Voted 9.25 on 09/16/08
Fabulous !!!
Just what my bored Half Drow needed !!!
Posted by bietu at 2008-09-14 06:41:03 Voted 3.50 on 09/14/08
Too dark to play
Posted by helmo1977 at 2008-09-10 08:25:43 Voted 8.75 on 09/30/08
Come on, can anybody help? I´m stuck. How do you lit the brazier? I have tried everythig, even killing the alhoon many times (four) just to see if that was the riddle answer. HELP¡¡¡
Posted by helmo1977 at 2008-09-09 11:51:06 Voted 8.75 on 09/30/08
The last thing. How do you solve the alhoon puzzle?. Thank you
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
Site
at 2011-09-18 20:53:47
at 2009-08-17 08:16:52
at 2009-03-12 08:54:11
