NWN2 ENGLISH MODULES

I'll start with the Bad areas of this module first, to get them out of the way. These may sound harsh, but they are meant to be constructive.

Number One is Area Design. Aside from the Forest, Area Design is by far the weakest link in Howls. The biggest single problem was the use of sunken roads. I can see how they allow you to steer the Party where you want or need them to go, but they really break reality for both practical and tactical reasons. In a climate as green as this, with the amount of rain I encountered on my play through, any such road will be a muddy, mucky mess at best. At worst, it will become filled with a raging flash flood. No traveller would subject themself to that. Paths in nature tend to follow higher ground for this reason. Tactically, the paths are death traps. You have no way of seeing whether an adversary is ready to rain arrows from atop those bluffs at all. Any adventurer who has survived to 7th level will avoid such routes at all costs. It was immersion-breaking at several points. I found myself wondering what was going to ambush my party after my ranger passed through without being able to scout. Eventually, I started the game over with a RDD since I couldn't play my favorite class. Since no matter what I did, my party was going to get jumped, I figured I might as well be able to go all Quisinart on the enemy afterwards.
A second aspect of the area design was that it wasn't polished at all. Numerous trees were mis-anchored or floating just off the ground in the hills, odd lumps of ground predominated for no discernable reason. The broken bridge violated the laws of physics worse than Wyle E Coyote ever did in the old Road Runner cartoons. Varying vegetation and coloring could have added much more life to the areas. In the end, it looked like you were trying to fill areas instead of imagining "real" locations. The lighting was reasonable, except in a major cave. Why was it more brightly lit than my kitchen?

Enough bad stuff. On to the great. The Story started out as a stock tale of Adventurers Stumble Across a Village in Need of Help. You told it extremely well, with multiple nice twists and some truly humorous details. I'll never see a chicken in NWN2 the same way again. The method of escaping "V" was novel, to say the least, and the goblin's diary became a side-splitter one cut-scene later(evolooting!).
As to the Companions, you did an excellent job of remembering that stereotypical characters became stereotypes for a reason. The 4 were exactly as they should be... with the possible exception of Isobel mentioning "adventurer's ethics". Slight continuity break, but that was all. The opening cut scene clearly showed me that the Elf, the Barbarian and I had been together for long enough to have established banter and running jokes amongst ourselves. You didn't tell me this, you showed me this. Extra credit for that. You also showed the Companions growing throughout the module, and did a very good job of showing the natural stresses and friction involved as newer members joined the Group. This let the stereotype story and characters become living things that more than made putting up with the weaknesses in the Mod worth the effort. The Elf's grief and reaction to one notable Event were icing on the cake, and his reaction to "V"s first appearance was beyond priceless. I also want to call attention to the ending. You took care to tie off the main lines of the story nicely. The only improvement would be a chance to export the PC. Your ability to write a module is between a 9 and a 10.

In the end, I voted a 7.5 on this module. The graphic execution is poor, to be blunt. The story itself was outstanding. I truly cared about my companions, and wanted to see how the story ended. The limitations make it unlikely that I'll replay Howls, but I am glad that I did play it. I consider it to have been a good investment of my time on a pair of rainy evenings, and I will be playing your other submissions.