When Neverwinter Nights was released in 2002, it had everything I wanted in a CRPG. In particular, Kal & I had tried the awful multiplayer in Baldur's Gate, but there's only so much of "you must gather your party before venturing forth" that we could put up with. I had enormous fun on the multiplayer servers, especially the persistent worlds. I spent quite a few hours in the level editor as well, dreaming of creating an electronic version of my pen & paper city, Helsmuth. However, I have never finished the single player game. I only ever made it as far as Chapter 2. Partly it was the sheer grind of tracking down the "Waterdhavian creatures," but mainly because it just couldn't compete with the experience of playing D&D in person. NWN did finally convince me to convert my game from 2nd edition to the 3rd edition rules, though, so there's that.
The main reason I decided to buy NWN Diamond from GoG was because NWN2 was too demanding for my old (2009) laptop. However, the screenshots below were taken on my ASUS ROG running NWN at 1920x1080 resolution with 64mb textures at best video quality. I recently had the urge to play Hordes of the Underdark, but I really didn't want to start with a level 15 character. Thus began my first playthough of Shadows of Undrentide. The review below contains several spoilers for NWN:SoU.
Chapter 1: Hilltop Hoods
Disappointingly, the starting premise of this expansion is almost identical to NWN. Harking back to the attack on Candlekeep that began Baldur's Gate, you find yourself under attack by kobolds. You are an apprentice of the dwarf Drogan (rather than a ward of Gorion), who is one of the Harpers. It is up to you to go fetch four MacGuffins that are scattered all over the map: the mummified hand, the tower statue, the dragon's tooth, and the mask. The cool aspect is that you can play the two villains against each other, promising the drow that you will slay the dragon and vice versa. Still, there was a bit too much deja vu here for my liking.
Betraying one of the villains
The companions are terrible, particularly in terms of their AI. No matter how many barbarian levels Xanos has, he will still waste time with 0th and 1st level attack spells in the middle of combat. Even when surrounded by zombies, who all get attacks of opportunity. Both companions are multiclassed: a barbarian/sorcerer and a rogue/cleric. You need to instruct them which character class that you want them to specialise in. After Chapter 1, you also have the option of Deekin Scalesinger the kobold bard. But we all know that bards are OP...
Kel-Garas packs a wallop
The "interlude" between chapters is very much like Chapter 2 of NWN, where I stopped playing. However, I managed to muddle through the stinger caves, the tomb of Kel-Garas and the formian hive. Still not much to inspire, until you find yourself in the ancient Netherese city of Undrentide. You are now in a race against time to stop Heurodis from raising the flying city off the ground. After killing some shield guardians for Ashtara the asabi, you have to enter a storybook to fight a devil for the soul of a maiden, then enter a story within a story to converse with an archmage who is doomed to hell. To solve this quest, you rewrite each of the stories to give them a happy ending. This was the highlight of the game for me: the first spark of real creativity in an otherwise bland procession of fetch quests.
Feeding the tentacle beast, who I call "Fido"
Fighting the shadovar lich and his minions on the plane of shadow was a bit underwhelming. Admittedly I had extremely high expectations for how that scenario would unfold. The Temple of the Winds was more atmospheric and the final battle with Heroudis was reasonably satisfying. It took around 44 hours to reach the end of the game. By then, my character was a Rogue (6) / Sorcerer (1) / Dragon Disciple (6). Evidently it is usual for an imported character to be lower level than a brand new PC in Hordes of the Underdark. I suppose we'll see how that turns out.
Facing off against Heroudis
I've played NWN2: Storm of Zehir, so I know that not all Neverwinter games are quite so uninspired. If you haven't played that yet, I definitely recommend it. As for Shadows of Undrentide, not so much!
Splendour in the Grass
Friday Night left the city at 4:15pm, swung past Moorooka to pick up Mirko, took 1/2 hour to drive from one end of Garden City to the other (in peak hour traffic), arrived in Byron at about 7:15pm Pty Ltd played a very good live set at the Beach Hotel, had fish & chips for dinner and a few schooners of Heineken ... Saturday the show didn't start until midday, so when I got up in the morning I grabbed breakfast at one of the local bakeries and went for a walk along the beach. once we arrived at Belongil Fields, the first place that we ended up was the Tipi Circle. It felt just slightly weird to be dancing to a DJ in the middle of the day, but loads of fun! the crowd at the main stage was overwhelming - we were about the 1,000th from the front for Xavier Rudd , and only caught brief glimpses of him as he played. An impressive performance, but not a good way to see it. to say that Franz were tight, would be an understatement - this time, Mirko & I wen...
An Affiliation for Bards The rules for affiliations can be found in chapter 7 of the Player's Handbook II . Name: The Amazing Chicanery Troupe Symbol: A white snake, with red eyes and tongue Motto: Trickery is mightier than the fist Members: Lukwind, his cohort and followers Secrets: Lukwind's identity as a Changeling; Rohit's identity as a Vanara; Helena's identity as a half-Drow Type: Business Scale: 1 (neighborhood) Capital: 1 Criterion: Affiliation Score Modifier Character level: +1/2 PC’s level Charisma 13 or higher: +1 Bard: +1 Can cast 3rd-level or higher illusion spells: +1 Can cast 3rd-level or higher enchantment spells: +1 5-9 ranks in Perform, Tumble, Sleight of Hand or Gather Information: +1 per skill 10 or more ranks in Perform, Tumble, Sleight of Hand or Gather Information: +2 per skill Extraordinary performance as part of the troupe: +1 per performance Has no...
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