[Released, work in progress] NWN2 Mod - Ruins of the Sun God

[Stasgard]

So a few months back I said that this may convince me to buy NWN2 if it ends up getting done. Since then I have purchased and played NWN2, but completely forgot about this mod. That makes me a monster. To repent, I downloaded this and played it through a couple of times with two vastly different characters to see how they worked. I rolled through with a Earth Gensai Barbarian who took the Fighter Companion, and a Drow Wizard who took the Rogue. (Yeah, I know, level adjustment cheese and such)

As a pure mechanics presentation it is quite enjoyable, and all of the new features definetely have potential to be used for some quality questing and combat both down the line. Of particular note is the vault mechanic in the bear cave and the rubble in the Ruin itself. Couldn't help but smile when my character tripped over the rocks and was switfly demolished by the Beetles. Actually, on that note, this may be a case of me being full retard but I simply couldn't beat the Beetle Queen, clearly I'm missing something here, but I'm at a loss as to what. Although it is probably consumable items, looking back.

As for the auxillary actual gameplay notes:

• * Writing is servicable, does it's job well enough. Nothing outstanding but nothing cringe worthy.
  * Shows the signs of having interesting non-combat mechanical quests (Finding the ring), which is looking good.
  * Combat is straightforward and nothing special, but that is probably more to do with being in NWN2, and lacking a party then poor design
  * The atmosphere in the Ruin was quite nice I found. I'm looking forward to more Dungeons from you in future.

All in all, I enjoyed it. Ridiculously short, but full of a lot of interesting ideas. Very much looking forward to larger releases in future. Don't you dare abandon this. Keep up the quality work.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

So a few months back I said that this may convince me to buy NWN2 if it ends up getting done. Since then I have purchased and played NWN2, but completely forgot about this mod. That makes me a monster. To repent, I downloaded this and played it through a couple of times with two vastly different characters to see how they worked. I rolled through with a Earth Gensai Barbarian who took the Fighter Companion, and a Drow Wizard who took the Rogue. (Yeah, I know, level adjustment cheese and such)

Thank you for your time bro, this would be much less fun if nobody actually played it. I haven't uploaded my current version yet which has some more features than the one posted on nwvault.

As for the level-adjusted races, I have a custom XP script which completely ignores the LA and I'm not really planning to do anything about that. I'm not even sure but the game may actually automatically adjust the XP if you're a more powerful race. In any case, at the levels I project the nonstandard races won't really make a huge difference anyway, so it's up to the player if they want to hulk out with cheese races.

As a pure mechanics presentation it is quite enjoyable, and all of the new features definetely have potential to be used for some quality questing and combat both down the line. Of particular note is the vault mechanic in the bear cave and the rubble in the Ruin itself. Couldn't help but smile when my character tripped over the rocks and was switfly demolished by the Beetles. Actually, on that note, this may be a case of me being full retard but I simply couldn't beat the Beetle Queen, clearly I'm missing something here, but I'm at a loss as to what. Although it is probably consumable items, looking back.

Those movement-related features are sort of in flux mechanics-wise at the moment, there's also some climbing and other situations with jumping that I have in my current version at the moment. I'm hoping to put in a lot of these.

The beetle queen is sort of intentionally overpowered to be essentially unkillable face to face for level 1s and 2s, so there's obviously a trick: once you wipe out her guards, you can stand on that pedestal thing in the middle of the room (where the stairs lead up) and there she can not target you with her acid beams, but you can fire missile weapons at her or do anything else that's ranged damage.

(This may not be clear enough, that you can't be hit by the beams on there, so I could add a short description shout when you get close that "the side of the pedestal walls is scoured with acid, but inside there seems to be no signs of acid damage", possibly requiring a Spot check too )

As for the auxillary actual gameplay notes:

• * Writing is servicable, does it's job well enough. Nothing outstanding but nothing cringe worthy.
  * Shows the signs of having interesting non-combat mechanical quests (Finding the ring), which is looking good.
  * Combat is straightforward and nothing special, but that is probably more to do with being in NWN2, and lacking a party then poor design
  * The atmosphere in the Ruin was quite nice I found. I'm looking forward to more Dungeons from you in future.

All in all, I enjoyed it. Ridiculously short, but full of a lot of interesting ideas. Very much looking forward to larger releases in future. Don't you dare abandon this. Keep up the quality work.

Glad you didn't find the writing cringeworthy, that gives me hope. Currently I just needed a good enough excuse to send the PC out to get eaten by beetles, but I'm envisioning some longer quest which basically will lead the PC on a path starting in fairly standard "green" lands through the Anauroch desert and finally to the ice wastes that lie in the heart of that desert. Basically 3 acts, which will be roughly played with levels 1-2, then 3-4 and finally 5-6. Maybe the Zhentarim could be involved as the overarching bad guys, but not sure yet. Generally the focus will be on semi-free roaming roleplay/combat traveling on the "overland" areas using up food and trying to plunder as many temples as possible before you starve.

I definitely want a lot of non-combat skill uses, but it's quite hard to come up with them it seems to me. Still, I will try.

It's amazing how long it takes to design those combat encounters, which then are played through in roughly 3 minutes. I haven't figured out yet how to make those more meaty without just shoving in tons of trash mobs, which I really really do not want to do (FUCK you Deep Roads).

I'm happy to hear you enjoyed the atmosphere, that's very hard to gauge while designing.

I promise I will keep doing this if youse guise keep commenting and playtesting.

 

[Stasgard]

As for the level-adjusted races, I have a custom XP script which completely ignores the LA and I'm not really planning to do anything about that. I'm not even sure but the game may actually automatically adjust the XP if you're a more powerful race.

Pretty sure it does, yeah. And the point I was making was using a +LA race on a short level 1 adventure where I was sure I would see no downside to it, not having anyone level up and such. In a proper scale module or campaign I would never dream of going LA. I've found that class levels are almost always better then some nice racial abilities.

Those movement-related features are sort of in flux mechanics-wise at the moment, there's also some climbing and other situations with jumping that I have in my current version at the moment. I'm hoping to put in a lot of these.

Yeah, I saw some of that stuff earlier in the thread. Should have mentioned that. I have nothing but approval for all of these. More world interaction coupled with more skill checks and uses? Fuck yes.

The beetle queen is sort of intentionally overpowered to be essentially unkillable face to face for level 1s and 2s, so there's obviously a trick: once you wipe out her guards, you can stand on that pedestal thing in the middle of the room (where the stairs lead up) and there she can not target you with her acid beams, but you can fire missile weapons at her or do anything else that's ranged damage.

Ahh, ok. That makes sense in hindsight, but I guess I was too herpa derp to try it at the time. Might run through it one more time just to give that a try.

(This may not be clear enough, that you can't be hit by the beams on there, so I could add a short description shout when you get close that "the side of the pedestal walls is scoured with acid, but inside there seems to be no signs of acid damage", possibly requiring a Spot check too Wink )

Spot check would defintely be appropriate here. I was thinking Survival as an alternative check for a moment, but after checking with the d20SRD seems that survival would be out of place if you are going with core D&D interpretations of the skills.

<Plot Idea Snip>

The several different land types idea actually fits with the style you are aiming for here, rather then being contrived reasons to change the scenery, which is a plus. As for the levels for each act, I like, I seem to be against the tide a fair bit when I say I much, MUCH prefer lower level D&D before magic items and crazysuperfacemeltydeathbeamofwin comes into play.

I definitely want a lot of non-combat skill uses, but it's quite hard to come up with them it seems to me. Still, I will try.

I feel your pain man. Like everyone and his dog I have spent a fair bit of time brainstorming and trying to create my dream cRPG, and non-combat uses of actual skills rather then just straight dialogue choices and adventure game style play (not that I dislike this in mah RPG's mind) is incredibly fucking difficult. If anything D&D-wise comes to me, I shall be sure to let you know. I have a vested interest in seeing a game of this style come into existance.

I haven't figured out yet how to make those more meaty without just shoving in tons of trash mobs, which I really really do not want to do (FUCK you Deep Roads).

 

[Jaesun]

As my gaming time is rather limited these days, I did want to say and support you on continuing this project Mr. Freelance Henchman. Glad to see you continuing to work on this.

 

[Elwro]

from me too, this will probably get me to reinstall NWN 2. Hope you're OK after these "upheavals". Cheers!

 

[Freelance Henchman]

*sigh* So, after things didn't quite quiet down as much as I would have liked, I'm back on the bandwagon and designing for this module again.

I've decided that I need to lock down what size and composition the party will have before I design any more battle scenarios and puzzles. The classic party configuration as I understand it is "Fighter/Rogue/Mage/Healer", plus sometimes a "party face" character for any non-violent interaction with NPCs is added. I'd like to provide the basic "mechanical" roles in the form of companions so that the player isn't forced to play one of them just to make the group fit to survive. D&D class-wise I will go with Fighter and Rogue for, uh, Fighter and Rogue, and Wizard for the Mage and Cleric for the Healer.

This leaves playing the party face character to the player, which I think is the natural choice. As far as I know all classes have at least one conversation skill as a class skill, so whatever you play you will have some option in that regard (of course high CHA characters get a bit more of a chance to succeed at such challenges, but I will try and not make the checks so high that you absolutely must play a high CHA type).

To keep things simple, the PC will meet all the companions from the start and there will be no further companions to find later on, so I can assume the same party size for all battles and other situations. Presumably some battles will be easier or harder depending on if the party has an extra tank or an extra healer etc., but I hope with enough variation the end result will be that no particular PC character role will suck or be overpowered too much.

Stay tuned for more updates!

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I've found to my regret that the "free-form" adventure I had in mind originally is too hard for me to design, at least for now, so I will go with something more traditional in structure (and hopefully easier to make). If I can get this right, I hope I can make the rest of the campaign later. Here's my idea for the main quest in the module.

I am going to set the first part of the campaign in Tilverton, a bustling frontier town which is near the Anauroch desert where the main quest is supposed to lead later. Tilverton (very conveniently) also has a huge sewer system that used to be a town centered around an archmage's tower.

The sewers are, of course, entertainingly dangerous, and at the time of the campaign there's a 3-sided war going on there between the Tilverton thieves guild known as the Rogues of Tilverton, a group of trolls and what seems to be an infestation of undead, namely ghouls. The latter two have lately been coming up into the city at night to snatch people, livestock and even pets and are becoming a real pest; reports suggest that sometimes one group of monsters will ambush another to steal their prey. The Rogues don't appreciate sharing their deep hideouts with monsters and have been fighting both, but in the treacherous, dark and filthy tunnels they have their hands full just avoiding getting pushed out completely.

Generally nobody wants to go into the sewers unless they absolutely can not avoid it, but from time to time the city watch will make (brief) forays seeking for unfortunates that were dragged off, or adventurers are paid by desperate kin to find at least the remains of their taken loved ones. There are even still treasures to be found in the wet ruins of the ancient town, hidden away in forgotten chests in the cellars of buried houses. However, few maps of the sewers exist, and these are generally not accurate for long since often ancient walls will fall and other times passages will become blocked by rockfalls or simply from sewer scum accumulating.

FAELIN, a half-elven adventurer and wandering cleric was recently part of a group that entered the sewers. During a pitched battle with trolls deep in the sewers one of her group detonated several firebombs, taking care of a bunch of trolls, all of the rest of the group except FAELIN and a big part of the sewer walls. Reeling from the shock of the explosion FAELIN glimpsed at what looked like a street behind the ripped open wall, then she ran for her life before the noise attracted more monsters. Back on the surface after several days of wandering through the underground she contacted her fellow priest ALPHONS, who is a lifelong student of the history of Tilverton and the near lands, and told him of the breached wall and the strange street behind it. ALPHONS suspects that the street may lead to an as yet wholly untouched part of the former town where supposedly a splendorous temple was located that has never been found.

Since nobody but FAELIN survived the fateful battle, nobody but her knows of this newly opened passage where possibly great riches await explorers. She wants to lead an expedition there as soon as possible and as secretly as possible, before others stumble over the entrance and steal whatever is to find there. She gathers some of her closest friends: HEL, a dwarven fighter, MIGGS, a halfling archer and DORIAN, a human wizard. The sewers being as dangerous as they are, ALPHONS convinces her to take on one more companion, the PC who just happens to be in town and who is known to ALPHONS as a capable adventurer. She reluctantly agrees.

FAELIN unfortunately does not remember the exact way back to the breach, so almost assuredly the group's travels will lead them into combat with the trolls, undead, Rogues and whatever else monstrous things are hanging around in the sewers, in addition to environmental hazards like flooded chambers and treacherous currents in filthy water.

ALPHONS has several suggestions where to get specialized equipment to deal with the dangers, for example talk to the alchemists to get more firebombs against the trolls, or the church of Lathander for supplies of holy water. Possibly someone in the town can be persuaded to lend or sell the group armor and weapons that protect from or affect undead and trolls exceptionally well. Unfortunately such useful tools will likely come with a high price, so the group may have to choose what they can afford and what is superfluous. In addition, if the Rogues hear of a great treasure awaiting on what they consider as their turf and that someone plans to take it away from them, there will be great trouble for the group, so secrecy must be maintained as much as possible: a glib tongue may be just as vital as combat prowess to fulfill this mission.

That's as far as I've thought so far. Does anyone have any suggestions or criticism?

 

[grotsnik]

First thought on reading that - is there going to be a faction choice, or are the three groups just there as varied adversaries en route to the mage's tower? Otherwise, great.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I think they will make most sense as different adversaries. The rogues seem like good candidates for some diplomatic options though whereas both trolls and undead are probably more sensible as purely evil monsters.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I was just thinking that some traps and stuff might be nice to place around (only where they make sense) to mix things up a little. I am considering scripting in that you must have a thieves kit item to attempt to disarm a trap, and that it is used up if you succeed or fail. By standard you just need to roll dice, and usually (i.e. out of combat) you get to take 20, so it's particularly boring because you already know if you fail or succeed or even can succeed at all. If it uses up items, there would be at least an additional element of resource management, albeit a fairly small one (though could use more traps with high DCs and make the more powerful thieves kits costly and rare). Another option would be to disable taking 20 altogether to add an extra element of danger.

 

[ManjuShri]

Update?

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Real life got the better of me unfortunately, it's been a really rough year. I'd like to work on this more, but it's been hard to sit down and do what feels too much like another job. Things may get quieter in a couple of months but hard to say. I'd hate to let this die. Let's see how it goes.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Since the Codex is now all MULTIMEDIA 'n shit, I collected all the videos I made so far and embedded them here for convenience:

The party fights some wolves... WITH FIRE


Resting without food means you recover spells and abilities, but you actually lose HP (down to 1 HP, but won't die).


Temple entry.


The beetle boss battle, part 1


The beetle boss battle, part 2: rocks fall everyone dies

 

[Freelance Henchman]

A demonstration of a debris field: the entering character promptly stumbles, then slowly walks through it. Fighting in this sort of field means you need to pass a Reflex save every round or you fall again. Same goes for enemies though!


Climbing.



Added saves to the special effects caused by elemental attacks to avoid the status effects, so they don't happen every time without fail. At this time only fire and acid damage are implemented. Fire burns over time and can cause a Fear effect, Acid fumes can daze an enemy. The source of the damage isn't relevant, only the amount of damage caused. In the video the test character is throwing acid flasks and alchemist's fire at "debug goblins" with 1000 HP each.


Cold and Electricity elemental bonus effects are implemented. I went with a chance to slow for the former, and a chance to stun and (lower chance to) outright kill from electric shock for the latter.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

The expanded food system with 4 grades of food, and a demo of traveling overland which now requires food as well.


Here's a video of a new forest area where you can go hunting animals for food. Animals are fast and always run away, so technically this shouldn't be feasible without ranged weapons (or traps). The standard ways of making enemies always run away didn't quite seem to work so I took the opportunity to fool around with AI scripting some more. It doesn't always work quite as expected, hence the guy in full plate in the video eventually brings down that stag with his warhammer. Also, NWN2 has no "fatigue" mechanic for running, which becomes a bit obvious (and somewhat irritating to me) in this little sequence.


A simple "environment feature": this allows jumping over obstacles by succeeding at a Tumble check (there is no Jump skill in NWN2). On fail the character is knocked down instead.


Here's a battle with a bear in a cave making use of those vault points. If a character has good Tumble then the bear who is impossible to take on in melee combat for a level 1 becomes pretty easy to defeat, provided you have a ranged weapon. Well, I got stupid in the video and shot too early and was killed for my troubles, but the principle is fine.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

I remembered that I started doing the introduction sequence some months ago. This would be an automatic conversation that starts right after the player has left the "lobby" room with initial gear-up and leveling and whatever.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Rough list of features off the top of my mind that need to be done and some thoughts about each:

SCRIPTING

• Armor DR: works on the party already, same should apply on enemies of course but isn't implemented currently. Probably only needs some tweaking of the monster spawn script to check for worn armor and analogous to the player version apply the DR effect.
• Special effects of elemental damage: works on enemies, should do the same on hitting player chars (don't remember if this is actually in the same script or there's a separate OnPlayerDamaged thingie)
• Enemies use items: not sure how reliably the basic script makes enemies use consumables, but I'd like them to be able to. Have to be careful with the more new upgraded powerful grenades or its too randomly deadly

AREAS AND AREA FEATURES

• Mundane weapons and armor shops: just the usual shops with on particular extras I guess
• Food shops: standard food is available most easily, higher food grades are quite a bit more expensive or may even require checks and minor side quests to get
• Magical stuff shops: one-shot items are more easily available (including the new alchemical supplies item that can be turned into grenades etc.), weapons and armor only as quest rewards
• Lighting items shop: all dungeon type areas will be completely dark, so the party will need light sources. Not really a super prominent feature, but I think I'd offer relatively weak light rings and amulets and stronger light special torch items that also do a tiny amount of fire damage as a bonus (good against the trolls later) but of course take up a hand slot. In any case I want to avoid a Doom 3 type fiasco where you can't see a goddamn thing, so this will be mostly flavor if it's too annoying

QUESTS

• Ye Olde Arena Battles: fight a succession of increasingly strong enemy groups with your party for gold and glory. The most standard kind of NWN2 fighting with everyone on a flat plain
• Dark Alleys: some opportunities to fight roguey types of various kinds, hopefully should include some environment features to spice things up a little like archers on a heightened area reachable only with climb checks
• Work for the thieves guild: do some increasingly unpleasant jobs for them to ingratiate yourself and being able to pass some otherwise tough obstacles in the undercity later more easily, at the cost of Evil Points (and other factions being less willing to work with you?)

One thing that's neat about NWN2 is that there's a ton of freely available and good quality areas to be found that only need filling up, so that saves time.

 

[sea]

All this stuff sounds awesome. I have no idea how tough it would be to make enemies use inventory items and stuff, but it sounds like it would add an extra layer to things for sure. Also love the food system and all the minor tweaks.

Arena fights are a trope and an easy way to add content, but then I'm guilty of making one as well so I guess I can't say anything. :p

Quick question about climbing and tumbling: do you basically just have the player jump to the nearest tumble/climb marker using a generic script, or do you use waypoints and specify each location manually?

All of this looks awesome, I can't wait to play this when it comes out.

 

[Freelance Henchman]

Arenas are sort of old hat but I tend to enjoy them anyway. And it would be an easy way to test combat stuff in a way that the player will see the same way.

The jumping is a generic Script that is configured on the placeable itself And can target either other jump points or waypoints. I already forgot the Details though.

EDIT: enemies can already use items using the default AI, though it may have become bugged at some point. Potions for example will be used, and I remember a persistent world where wolves would throw grenades if they happened to randomly spawn with one in inventory (yeah, you can also turn item usage off if it wouldn't make sense). Will have to see if this is easy to enable and not completely stupid in action.