Terror by night! The village of Orlane is dying. Once a small and thriving community, Orlane has become a maze of locked doors and frightened faces. Strangers are shunned, trade has withered. Rumours flourish, growing wilder with each retelling. Terrified peasants flee their homes, abandoning their farms with no explanation. Others simply disappear...
No-one seems to know the cause of the decay - why are there no clues? Who skulks through the twisted shadows of the night? Who or what is behind the doom that has overtaken the village? It will take a brave and skillful band of adventurers to solve the dark riddle of Orlane!
This module is a remake of the classic 1982 TSR Dungeons & Dragons module by Douglas Niles, for a party of 4-7 characters level 1-3, ideally new first level adventurers. The odd bit here & there is different due to the limitations of the toolset (& the builder), but on the whole I've tried to keep the feel of the original.
WHO'S IT FOR?
The adventure is designed for Single or Multi-players, and help is available in the starting town if any is needed to add skills, power and support to the party.
Depending on your level, experience & play style, you may need more or less of them to help you on your way. If you're struggling, either add more characters using hte Party Editor in the Purple Sloop, add more henchman hanging around in the same place, or use a higher level character. Maximum party size is 4 player made characters + all 4 henchman + another companion from the original P&P adventure you can recruit along the way. This makes a total of 8-9 characters, so no encounter should be too tricky, although you may need to use the pause button every now & then to issue commands.
Please be aware though, Brother Gareth gets a little excited sometimes & forgets to equip his maul in his enthusiasm to get smiting. I've talked to him many times about this, but he's just too 'enthusiastic' for his own good sometimes. So if you notice in any given encounter that he's waded in bare handed, just give him a nudge & equip his weapon for him - thanks ;-)
STARTING THE ADVENTURE:
This adventure is set up as a Campaign rather than a single Module. This enables use of the Party Editor (as seen in Storm of Zehir) which allows you to create your own party (ask at the local taverns where your friends are if you can't find it).
Start the adventure by choosing New & then New Campaign.
IMPORTANT - CUSTOM CONTENT REQUIRED:
Because the content that comes with the original game, even with the expansion packs, is still a little limited for what I wanted to do here, I've also used various custom content HAKs, combined into a single file to download - see the links in the 'FILES' section. These include extra creatures, scenery, objects and scripts that allow cool things to happen.
CAMPAIGN FOLDER:
As well as the .mod file that needs to be unzipped into your My Docs/ NWN2/ Modules folder, there's also a Campaign folder that needs to be pasted into your My Docs/ NWN2/ Campaigns folder.
DEATH:
Penalties seem a little harsh for low level characters, so here it doesn't incur any penalty other than a long walk back to wherever you got into trouble, but at least you won't be stuck where you died & you'll have a chance to stock up with new equipment before you head back into the fray.
Your companions don't suffer that fate if they're overcome in combat - they'll merely be out cold for a few rounds, then get up & wander round a bit dazed.
STARTING EQUIPMENT:
Speaking of equipment, as this is aimed at beginning, or low level characters, you'll be given a reasonable amount of gold as you enter the adventure to kit yourself out with (maybe represeants your life savings) - spend wisely!
CRAFTING:
I've had a bash at implementing crafting. One of the shops in the starting town specialises in crafting materials & there's a crafting hall to get busy in. Unfortunately its a fair trek back to town if you pick up new materials along the way, so there are workbenches in different areas which should help most crafters.
MAPPING:
I've implemented a slightly edited version of Lance Botelle's fog of war HAK & you have a choice: Use the minimap & you'll see the usual things - namely everything regardless of whether its behind a bush or a castle wall. Use the regular map & you'll only see what's in your line of sight or have already explored. The choice is yours which you use, although the minimap obviously only has a small radius. If you use the big map, you'll also notice its hard to map when you're in combat!
NOT AN MMO:
I'm sure most players already know, but P&P style NWN2 is not an MMO, and a different approach is often useful for encounters. Running into an unknown area & hoping for the best may be fairly safe in most MMOs, but here its often a good way to get killed. If nothing else, learn to scout, look for an enemy's weakness, and hit 'pause' at the start of a fight in order to best organise your - very squishy - party.
ENCOUNTERS:
Think tactically. Some opponents may be too tough for your party - before you start any fights, take a good look at the your opponent & make sure you can finish them, and maybe take a look at your environment to find the most advantageous positions to fight. And maybe save often. There's sometimes help available too - remember you're low level - one good hit & a little bad luck & you're out of the adventure!
I used 4 of the available party members, TonyK's AI Override & hard core rules in playtesting & quite a few encounters were tricky, but possible with a bit of thought.
However, one was downright impossible at 1st level. Hopefully this won't be too much of a spoiler, but don't mess with the law in Orlane!
OVERRIDES - OPTIONAL, BUT MAKES PLAY BETTER (IMHO):
I'd really recommend using TonyK's AI as it really does make a big difference in the way everyone (and every monster) behaves - find it here: Link And if you like that P&P feel - definitely make sure you turn Hard core rules on - there's nothing like seeing your fighters struggling with a bunch of goblins & wondering if they'll survive if you fire off a fireball into the melee!
You may also want to use the following:
Rearon & Trekari's Spell fixes Link Kaedrin's PrC pack Link And if you're like me & hate the hamster ball spell effects for most protection spells,
Clubok's much needed Less obtrusive spell buffs Link
All are override files, so just unzip them into your MyDocs/Neverwinter2/Override folder & you're good to go.
XP:
You DON'T get much experience for killing things. What you DO get it for is investigating successfully & discovering useful information that will help you on your quest, and for exploring. This means that whether your approach is to kill everything you come across, or circumvent it by means of charm, hold or sleep magic, or just old fashioned stealth - you'll get the same XP awards - so no class is favoured, and none penalised.
Overall, XP is calculated such that a 1st level party will finish the adventure around 3rd level. This can be influenced by exploring more or less and killing more monsters, although the latter won't influence things that much.
CONVERSATIONS:
As this module can be a little chat-heavy, I thought about building different communication skills into the conversations, but time constraints stopped me. I may come back to this at some point, but to be honest, I'm quite happy with how the convo's work already, and I'm itching to get cracking on my next project.
CREDITS FOR CUSTOM CONTENT USED:
Gorgeous as Hochoch is, and several of the interiors of buildings therein, I can't take credit for them - They're pulled from the prefab area of the vault Link I'd credit the builders individually, but I've completely lost who they are - really sorry guys, but your work's awesome!
Also used:
RWS all in one HAK
Link The All Critters, RWS creature convert & Misc creatures packs
Link BTH Shields
Link Lance Botelle's Fog of War
Link
VERSION HISTORY:
V1.1 uploaded 10.4.11
Transition back from the Plains should work now.
Priestess in Hochoch temple will now heal party members if you ask nicely.
The massive sale held by one of the vendors in Hochoch has now ended - sorry folks!
A few of the encounters have now been weakened a little, although your main approach should be seeing the opposition before they see you & setting up the encounter to give you the advantage - or avoiding it.
Two of the companions available have been boosted up to level 2 - should help keep them alive a little longer.
Captive in the cage doesn't have an infinite loop in her conversation any more.
V1.2 uploaded 14.4.11
Removed the teleport ring from the reptile god's temple.
Various other issues resolved that have been mentioned by players.
V1.3 Uploaded 21.4.11
CREATE YOUR OWN PARTY! The module is now converted to a campaign, so you can use the guest books in the 2 main inns to create your own party (up to 5 characters). If you want to, you can still add in the companions hanging around the Sloop to bolster your party - taking the maximum party size to something approaching a small army - no complaints about the fights being too hard now please :-) There's a slight issue with some messages duplicating if you're not controlling your 'original' character when they're triggered, and for some reason the active character keeps jumping back to your original character on some transitions & the occaisional trigger - which may be a little disorientating, so hope its not annoying while I'm looking for the cause. Happy Easter!
V1.4 Uploaded 26.4.11
Fixed the Fog of War problems some people were reporting - Many thanks to Lance for your help with that - much appreciated!
V1.5 Uploaded 15.7.11
Added a 'head' to the main protagonist's inventory - forces the final journal update when you pick it up in case the her death script doesn't fire properly as some players have fed back.
Nerfed the initial encounters a little as some were finding them a little too hard - OK, so maybe an ogre is a little powerful for 1st level, even a party of 8 + the local militia!
V1.6 Uploaded 24.1.13
Fixed most of the few remaining bugs, added a few relatively minor features in line with the other adventures in the series.
Many, many thanks to all the people who've produced the custom content that I've used, and who've helped me solve problems on this project via the vault & bioware social forums - you really are awesome & I don't think it would have all come together without you.
Thanks folks!
Finally, its only my second published module for NWN & I'm still learning how to do things, but hopefully I've managed to keep a good PNP feel throughout the adventure.
Any feedback or questions are gratefully received, so please let me know anything you liked, didn't like, or just anything at all. If its major, or just easily fixed, I'll sort it. I check in here pretty much every day, so expect a quick response.
Keep rolling 20's!
Clyordes.
PS - Next stop: Oasis of the White Palm...........
This is the main adventure file - Just unzip it into your My Docs/NWN2/Modules folder.
Now the adventure is in 'Campaign' Format - you'll also need the Campaign folder - see seperate entry here.
Start adventure by choosing 'New' & then 'New Campaign'
Hi, Clyordes. Really, by the voting standards, this module is a 7, very good overall and deserving of a look. I'm going a little higher because I enjoyed the implementation of secret doors and the layout of the caverns, which was excellent and rewarded my "find it all" exploring tendencies. This module has a lot of room for improvement, especially in conversation dialogs, which never change to reflect that you've freed the villagers from the evil influencing them. Disappointing that the elven investigators never acknowledge your efforts. Why were they even there? Most (well, all, really) of the quests felt fairly rudimentary and seemed like they could have been much more interesting with a little more attention to what your party had done to that point. The initial challenge level seemed high for a 1st level party, so I imported a party of 3 2nd-level characters and used the 2 2nd level henchmen available, with a party of 5 until the hermit also joined. Thereafter, all the fights were fairly straightforward to win. Being able to rest whenever I wanted made the dungeons very easy, and at that point I was regretting having made my party 2nd level initially. I think if the first few encounters and quests were adjusted to be a bit less challenging, starting with brand new 1st level characters would be viable. I hope you'll revise the conversations and quests in the future. If so, I'd be willing to replay this and raise my scoring. Best regards, Dantastic
Posted by Clyordes at 2012-06-1712:42:32
Thanks for the feedback CAM - when you say 'respawn' - do you mean when your main character dies you're respawned back in Hochoch? If so I think someone mentioned they'd encountered a problem with that, and I think I had an occaisional problem with reloading saved games crashing NWN, but assumed it was just my poor old 'puter. Anyhow - if you can clarify exactly what happened what the outcome was, I'll check through the other comments see if I can replicate it. Re the sequals - you know 'Lichway' is up available - right? And the Sahuagin Heel is getting to the polishing stage now - all areas are up running I've played through all the areas they all work right. Next is setting up bits of text for the companions to say at different points of the adventure to give it a bit of atmosphere, and taking screenshots to use for loading screens - and all the other stuff that takes it from a humdrum hack to something hopefully a bit more interesting. So nearly finished - what could possibly go wrong? Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago. 'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An ADD scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link 'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic ADD adventure converted to NWN2: Link The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Cam51982 at 2012-06-1320:47:54
Looking forward to the sequals, so I'm replaying ATCRG. I've run across a problem where the respawn in town script is not working. This occurs with nothing in the override folder. The load screen starts, says area loaded successfully, and then it stops doing anything. Has this come up before?
Posted by Clyordes at 2012-06-0312:08:42
Cor - hit 1000 downloads - not bad for a revamp of an old PP adventure! For anyone who's played this one - don't forget, The Lichway (see my other subs) is the next adventure in the campaign, and the next sequel - The Sahuagin Heel - is almost finished too. Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago. 'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An ADD scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link 'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic ADD adventure converted to NWN2: Link The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Clyordes at 2012-02-1009:29:29
Oh - scrub that about an example of trigger text that fired more than once - you already said it was after an area transition - I can sort those. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago. 'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An ADD scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link 'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic ADD adventure converted to NWN2: Link The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Clyordes at 2012-02-0923:13:17
Thanks for the feedback Nihlar - always appreciated. Odd that no-one else has fed back those problems with splitting the party LB's Fog of War hak - presumably Lance's scripts can't handle it for some reason - which is a shame as its something I tend to do in multi player too. Re the conversations - sorry, no apology there - if you don't want your character in the same place as the person having the conversation, don't expect to know what they're talking about :-) Re the triggered statements - I thought I'd set those up so they only trigger once - so they need fixing if that's not what's happening - could you give me an example? Yes - the areas are big - I wanted to create a sense of space and distance between areas - the idea that if you head off into the yonder, you need to take enough kit to make sure you can get back - stone of recall is defintely not something I wanted to employ - but good on you for being able to sort that yourself! Having said that - between the starting town and the main village where the adventure is based, there's only one outdoor area. Between the village and the final dungeon, there are 3 outdoor areas, and the dungeon is 3 levels big - but that's supposeed to feel like an expedition into the unknown - with no easy return (except from the final room) - so again - no apologies there - but each to their own play style - I don't accept that CRPGs HAVE to be more compact or have a stone of recall system. Hope you have fun on the next one! Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago. 'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An ADD scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link 'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic ADD adventure converted to NWN2: Link The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Nihlar at on02/09/12
I'll strictly follows the voting standards and give it a solid 6.00. The overall setting and effort is good. We played it multiplayer with 3 players and used the companions too and we had lots and lots of problems with crashes and strange bugs. Many of them due to the Area of Fog mapping. The problems were so big that went to the trouble of injecting new code via an existing hak file to remove it. Then the crashes vanished. The idea of letting the players explore different areas separate from the rest of the party is good. But in NWN2 it never works fine same thing when in conversation. Don't split the party because it's hard to follow a story driven quest when the rest of the party does not know whats going on. So I injected a script overriding all transitions with the original party transitions and one that sends the conversation to all players. That made the module more stable to. We even removed the death scripts for a stone of recall-system as the module has some huge distances to move. In my opinion, when doing a pnp conversion one has to make areas more dense in a CPRG as transportations are really boring even if the landscape is pretty the first few times one walks through them. But the gaming, battle and such. Well, there's some fun combat situations, the story is good. But it needs a bit more polishing to raise the vote a point or two. Small things like not triggering the same floating text both on entering an are as well as exiting. Making big areas more interesting by design, lights setting and sound. Give us an surprise or just make us a bit scary. But it's not bad, not at all. Therefore I say "Good, Qualified Recommendation" Keep up the spirit because I for one will keep an eye on your work. _________________________ ZORK - Rediscovering the Great Underground Empire a re-make of the classic ZORK I, for Neverwinter Nights 2 Amraphael's House of Curious Things My NWN2-blog _________________________ If you download it, vote for it!
Posted by Clyordes at 2012-02-0813:48:22
Thanks Winwood - that confirms it nicely - Annoying though - I had problems when I first built it but thought I'd sorted it - maybe it slipped through the net after all. Its on the - very short at the mo, which is nice - list of things that need fixing in this module.... Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago. 'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An ADD scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link 'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic ADD adventure converted to NWN2: Link The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
Posted by Winwood at 20:52:34 Voted8.75
**** SPOILER **** I don't remember what monster I killed there, but it is the square water filled room in the top left corner of the map. The door is on the north wall. It apparently leeds to a little secret room north of the square room. I can look over the wall into the secret room and see two open chests.
Posted by Clyordes at 2012-02-0712:48:02
Thanks for the vote Winwood - always grand to get comments - good or bad. **** SPOILER **** Re the secret door - is that the water beetle room? If so, I thought I'd sorted that, but will have a bash at fixing it if its still non-functional. **** END OF SPOILER **** Also - I'm currently working on a sequel to Lichway - another relatively short affair from an old White Dwarf - The Sahuagin Heel. Some creatures traps aren't possible to replicate in NWN2, but there's plenty to substitute, and the trident wielding Sahuagin look cracking!! Stay tuned for details. Cly. _________________________ "Cor- a Beholder, Just think of the XP!"; Dave the Barbarian in the Demonweb pits, long ago. 'Search for the Temple of the Golden Spire' - An ADD scenario for beginning characters converted to NWN2, here: Link 'Against the Cult of the Reptile God' - A classic ADD adventure converted to NWN2: Link The Lichway - An evening's dungeon delve from White Dwarf: Link
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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