How to make ToEE Playable

[GCoyote]

Options to Make Temple of Elemental Evil Revisited Playable

June 9, 2013

You can download this module from the IGN vault at http://nwvault.ign.com/View.php?view=NWN2ModulesEnglish.Detail&id=292

As you can see from the comments and the low vote, the author's design decisions left most players cold. However he did a fairly credible job of recreating the plot elements and scope of earlier versions of this module. So I've come up with two ways of making this playable.

No matter what, you are going to have to do some crafting to survive so plan accordingly as you level up your team.

Option 1: Play at level 8 using the console to rest and provide extra crafting materials.

You can play this as-is at 8th level using the console and a couple of scripts I found while rummaging throught the mod. The advantages of this option are that the author balanced these fights to be tought at 8th level so you get the intended hack-n-slash. It also avoids having to edit the mod for those players with old machines or who are just not comfortable mucking around in computer scripts.

For the newbies, all commands are used as follows:

~ [this opens the console for command input]

debugmode 1 [this tells the game you are inputting a command. The game will display a response to each input when you hit enter. If it says "unsuccessful" you either typed it wrong or got the wrong script. See Option 2.]

[command you want to run goes here OR the "runscript" command "rs" followed by a space and a script name. See below for an example.]

debugmode 0 [this tells the game you are done inputting commands]

~ [this closes the console]

a. First of all, you can rest under any conditions by running the modified resting script "te_rest". You may have to get a little distance from the nearest monsters but that isn't hard. It looks like this:

~

debugmode 1

<server response>

rs te_rest

<server response>

debugmode 0

<server response>

~

And that's all there is too it. Once you've run this script, you can rerun it during the same game session by opening the console and using the up and down cursor keys to bring up any command you've previously given.

Depending on how hard/easy you want this experience to be, there are two other commands you should try.

giveitem (item name, item quantity)

An 8th level character can have an effective crafting skill of 12 or more. That means they can make items from any crafting materials except zalantar, adamantium, and creature parts like dragon hide. So without spending all of your limited cash you can make darksteel weapons and armor, mithral shields, and duskwood bows and crossbows for the whole crew. You will get enough creature parts to enchant all of this gear to +1 and put one or two buffs on it for good measure. Not great but more than good enough to chop your way through the temple. You'll still be playing at level 8 but you'll be doing it in style!

===============CRAFTING COMPONENTS==============

-----------------ALCHEMY-------------------------

nw_it_msmlmisc23 Belladonna

n2_alc_dmnddust Diamond Dust

n2_alc_disalcohol Distilled Alcohol

nw_it_msmlmisc19 Fairy Dust

nw_it_msmlmisc24 Garlic

n2_alc_beegland Giant Bee Venom Gland

n2_alc_centgland Giant Centipede Venom Gland

n2_alc_scorpgland Giant Scorpion Venom Gland

n2_alc_powsilver Powdered Silver

n2_alc_quicksilver Quicksilver

n2_alc_venomgland Venom Gland

------------------BASIC----------------------------

n2_crft_ingadamant Adamantine Ingot

n2_crft_ingsilver Alchemical SIlver Ingot

n2_crft_ingcldiron Cold Iron Ingot

n2_crft_ingdrksteel Darksteel Ingot

n2_crft_plkdskwood Duskwood Plank

n2_crft_ingiron Iron Ingot

n2_crft_hideleather Leather Hide

n2_crft_ingmithral Mithral Ingot

mortar Mortar and Pestle

n2_crft_hidedragon Red Dragon Hide

n2_crft_hidesalam Salamander Hide

n2_crft_plkshed Shederran Plank

smithhammer Smith Hammer

n2_crft_hideumber Umber Hulk Hide

n2_crft_plkwood Wooden plank

n2_crft_hidewyvern Wyvern Hide

n2_crft_plkzalantar Zalantar Plank

givegold (number)

- This does just what it says. The loot is nearly all weapons, armor, creature parts, and random scrolls. The stores are set up with only 500 gp in cash each making trade extemely challenging at times. So if all else fails, give yourself some $$$ and buy bandages. Lots and lots of bandages. You can also stock up on alchemist's fire and buy ingedients for acid flasks and a few other user crafted goodies.

Using te_rest and giveitem I was able to play this mod through at level 8 and have a reasonably good time. The downside is constantly opening the server to give the rest command does take away from the game experience a bit. However if you are still finding it a little too challenging, consider option 2.

Option 2: Edit the module to allow levelling up.

You can play this as designed with limited resting and the existing selection of crafting materials by going to a normal level up game mode. At a minimum you'll have to make changes a and b below. Changes c and d will make the mod a little more like the default NWN2 experience. Not resting will still be a challenge but with more spells and hit points, its much more doable.

Warnings: No way around it, you are going to have to open this sucker in the toolset. MAKE A BACKUP COPY FIRST! I am not a modder myself and certainly not an expert but I wanted to play this mod so I took the plunge. You can too.

So - - Start up the toolset and open the module "ToEEBugbearWars.mod" (it's in My Documents/Neverwinter Nights2/modules)

a. Remove the level cap (it took me forever to find this sucker.)

- Under Plugins, select Campaign Editor

- Select "the Temple of Elemental Evil Revisited"

- Look in the Properies window under Modifiers

- Change Level Cap from 8 to at least 12 or higher

- Change the XP limit from 28000 to at least 78000

- SAVE

- Close the Campaign Editor tab

b. Fix the Creature XP awards

- Under View, select Modue Properties

- Change xp scale to either 10 or 15 depending on whether or not you want to edit the Journal as well.

- SAVE

- [Note: You can also change the default rest script here from te_rest to the OC default. I have not tried that but hey, it's your game so it might work. You made back up copy,right?]

- Close the Module Properties tab

c. Fix the Quest XP awards

- Under View, select Journal then Campaign. It will open in the main window with all of the conversations and events that update your Journal listed with various stages for each. You only have to modify the first entry for each item, the one that has both the tag entry in it and the endpoint block checked.

- For minor quests that involve "rescue", delivering messages, the Hag's Eye and the like, change the xp award to 200 - 400 depending pretty much on how you feel about conversation/investigation based quests.

- For the rest of the quests, the big ones, change the xp value to between 500 and 1000.

Note: Most of the plot essential quests involve a lot of slashing/piercing/bludgeoning so it is your option to simply set the xp awards for creatures to around 15 and leave the journal alone. As a practical matter, you don't know how hard each quest will be until you've played the modules.

- SAVE

- Close the Journal viewer tab

d. Fix the stores (If you don't want to just give yourself a heap of gp to start.)

- Scroll through the list of Areas and look for anything with "shop" in it.

- For each shop, change the properties for gold on hand from 500 to at least 1000. I'd say set it to 2000 - 5000. You will be collecting far more loot than you can actually carry so once the shops have a little gold, you can sell them enough 'slightly dented' shields and creature parts to keep yourself in bandages for the duration of the game. Did I mention you are going to need a lot of bandages?

- SAVE

There are all sorts of other things you can learn by playing around in the toolset but as far as I know, these changes are enough to make this a much more enjoyable game.

Save the module one more time, just to be sure and close the tool set.

Go kick some evil butt.

Hope this helps.

Edit: I recently finished a play through using option 2 above. My characters ended at level 13 which is probably a bit high. I'm guessing I set the journal xp awards a bit too high so the last part of the campaign wasn't as challenging as it could have been. Because there is so little in the way of magical gear aside from what you make, the early fights are still pretty good at levels 9 and 10. Once you get into the temple proper, the fights get tougher and if you don't pay attention you can still lose a fight at level 11.

Edited June 26, 2013 by GCoyote

[GCoyote]

In order to help players who want to go with option 1 above, I've attached master lists of crafting recipes and item codes complied by other players. I've used them over the past couple of years and found them generally reliable. Have fun.

[GCoyote]

Updated version of these directions posted at http://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/temple-elemental-evil-revisited

 

If there is some interest I may post an unlocked an edited version later on.