[Release] The Black Scourge of Candle Cove - adventure module

[Tchos]

The Black Scourge of Candle Cove
by Tchos
An adventure module for characters around level 10

A notorious sea hag pirate has been terrorising the port town of Candle Cove with her crew of ogres, plundering ships and sending men, women, and children to a watery grave. Now she's gone even further, and seized control of the local lighthouse, preventing any ships from coming or going at all!

You and your party of adventurers have just come into town. Can you do what it takes to defeat the pirates and free Candle Cove?

This campaign is for a party of up to 5 members (or 6 if you have the Leadership feat), and features a range of recruitable companions of seven different classes around town, in addition to allowing you to import or create your own party. SoZ party chat will allow your own created party members to chip in their unique perspectives in conversations, as well as the recruitable companions' unique dialogue. Play whatever class you like as your main character, and build a well-balanced party to deal with a variety of situations, both in combat and in social situations.

Characters should be around level 10 to play this module. You can import a character of an appropriate range, or select options within the starting area to level a new character within a range of easier or harder levels, with a level-appropriate amount of gold to use to purchase equipment from the well-stocked vendors around town.

Go diving! Sailing! Sandbox questing in town and around it! And when you're strong enough, face the larger challenges! Have fun, and play it as you like.

• Nexus
• Vault 2

Comments, questions, and bug reports are welcome here or in the feedback thread(s) and/or discussion subforums on the download pages.

I'd also be interested to hear of your party composition in this thread, whether you used the provided companions, which ones, or created your own party, or a combination of the two.

 

I've mirrored posts from the Bioware forum here, since that forum is being closed down.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Tchos

[Tchos]

I enjoyed your screen shot selection. Your areas show a lot of attention to detail.

 

Thank you. I'll want to put together a little video trailer for it in a bit.

[Tchos]

Congrats on the release! It took you a bit more than a month in the end.

I played a beta version of this module last year. Highly recommended.

 

Congo Rats.

 

This is great news! I can't wait to start this adventure!

 

Well done and many happy returns to your module. I'll bet you were pleased to press the upload button, it's certainly been quite a long haul !

 

A long haul, indeed, and only slightly over a month. There were many upload buttons I had to press, but I was happy to press them all!

 

I appreciate the kind words, all, and also thank you for the endorsement, Ark.

[Tchos]

Will try and play it when I get a little time, been following the development of this and cant wait to actually play it. Gratz on the release

 

Congratulations! It looks amazing. Looking forward to diving into this!

 

Tchos, official congratulations. Seeing the screenshots, all I can think is that I realize now why the temple took you long to finish . It looks amazing! Can't wait to play the complete version and see what more there is to it since the beta.

 

Congratulations Tchos. Been looking forward to this one. Well done sir!

 

Well done on getting this out. 170 MB is a lesson to us all I think ....

PJ

 

I can't believe it's finally released !

I'll try it tonight, as soon as I go back from work. Congrats !

 

Is this the whole thing or a chapter? Sorry I've been wrapped up in fatty creation land and now following the development threads which I really do like to do normally.

 

Thanks!

 

PJ: I guess you mean it's a relatively lean file size? I did my best to keep the size down by including only the parts of custom content that I was using in the module, using DDS instead of TGA, and optimising resources to remove unneeded elements, including packaging the uncompiled terrain data as a separate optional download, since it's only used by the toolset and not needed to play the game.

 

Eguintir: It is, of course, the complete story. If it were a chapter, I would have certainly indicated it as such in the title. No, in fact if I were to extend the story, I would have to alter the title, since the player is expected to bring the titular scourge to an end! In my writing, and in much of my reading, I prefer the short story over the novel, though of course there are authors whose work I prefer in longer form.

[Tchos]

Self contained is fine. There are enough "chapter one of ten" releases where we never saw chapter 2.

 

Hey grats for the release this looks awesome! One question though, is it compatible with Kaedrin's Pack and Xaltar facelift pack?

 

How is the companion system in this module?

Is there detailed storylines (ie companion quests, romances) or are they just pack mules?

Looking forward to playing this!

 

Companions do not have romances nor separate quests that you can pursue. One companion has a personal quest, but she pursues it on her own, and will succeed if you allow her to speak at a certain time in a certain conversation. They are not just pack mules. They have unique things to contribute to conversations, and if you allow them to speak, for the party, you'll sometimes get unique exchanges.

 

Some of them know NPCs in town. With a companion speaking, you may automatically to be able to interact with that companion's friend, when otherwise you would have needed to pass a skill check. Other elements are purely for flavour and RP purposes. There is an influence system, as well, but I have the numbers hidden for personal interactions, and you'll only see them for group faction influence changes. Different companions also have different observations in each area, and may notice important things that others wouldn't. Additionally, the bard can be asked about each location.

 

I played and tested this game with both Kaedrin's pack and Xaltar's facelift pack installed as I usually have them installed, so I would say they're compatible.

[Tchos]

Congratulations!

 

I forgot to mention something, and I've updated the descriptions here and on the download pages to reflect it. If you take the Leadership feat on your main character, you can have an additional party member, for a total party size of 6.

[Tchos]

I find that my stone of recall (hearth) doesn't transport me and doesn't consume itself on use.

 

It's not supposed to consume itself on use, but are you using it with the same character that originally received it or had it attuned? If unsure, try it with a different party member, or going to an inn or temple and asking to be attuned again. Otherwise, where are you trying to teleport from? Certain locations are intentionally blocked from teleporting, but you would receive a message about it.

[Tchos]

Really nice so far

 

 

 

Just a question : during the fight with the hag, she cursed me with a spell, something like "evil eye ?". Is the dazed effect supposed to last forever ? Because I tried everything, rest, scrolls, even death (unconscious), and nothing worked, I can't get rid of it. Did I miss something ?

 

 

 

That said, I liked the Wow inspiration of the side quests. The diving tour part, in particular, is very funny and nicely done, even if it's not always easy to control the direction of your character. The final areas are probably the best I've seen in a nwn2 module.

 

(Oh, and there's a misplaced tree in town, with the roots hanging in the air ).

 

It's supposed to last for 3 days, according to the printed materials, but you should be able to get rid of it. This is how the Evil Eye is described in the printed material:

 

 

 

Evil Eye (Su)

Three times per day, a sea hag can cast its dire gaze upon any single creature within 30 feet. The target must succeed on a DC 13 Will save or be dazed for three days, although remove curse or dispel evil can restore sanity sooner. In addition, an affected creature must succeed on a DC 13 Fortitude save or die from fright. Creatures with immunity to fear effects are not affected by the sea hag’s evil eye. The save DCs are Charisma-based.

 

 

 

I can try to get myself cursed and double check, but I recall it working in my earlier tests.

 

Could you send me a screenshot of the tree?

 

Edit: I got myself dazed, and it's not getting removed as it should. I believe the problem is that the effect is applied like so:

ApplyEffectToObject(DURATION_TYPE_INSTANT, EffectDazed(), oTarget);

I'll modify it to apply it as it's done in the Daze spell, with a 3-day duration, and add a conversation line in the temple to allow you to remove it if you already have it.

Edited August 2, 2016 by Tchos

[Tchos]

I did try another character before posting but I'll re-attune.

 

One little issue (due to the in-grained nature of the raise dead scroll) is that everyone can use it so we can totally cheat on the 5k mass raise dead at the temple. The scroll says innate level 5, cleric level 5. So you might want to change the scroll entirely to offer a true reason to take the cleric over the druidess.

 

No, it's intentional for the player to be able to use the normal NWN2-style methods of raising the dead (via cheap scrolls) rather than the RP and flavour method, if they prefer. If you talk to Ophelia about the price, she even says so.

 

She does say so, but she says you need party members capable of divine magic. That's the part I meant.

I do immediately like the UI. Surely its more than just soz style chat. The font is bigger right?

 

Eguintir: Ah, you're right. I overlooked the fact that anyone can use the scroll, not just divine casters. Did Raise Dead scrolls always work that way in NWN2? If so, why did SoZ add Coins of Life, which are more expensive?

 

If I wanted to be really hardcore, I'd make it so that elves couldn't be raised with Raise Dead (need Resurrection or Reincarnation for that), and that a raised character has a permanent constitution loss or a loss of a level, as per various rules, but I didn't do that. I'm content to leave the scrolls as they are so that more casual players can use the usual game methods, and more hardcore players can use the temple option.

 

Yes, the included "lite" version of my UI panel mod uses a larger font for the dialogue boxes, as well as making the boxes themselves bigger.

[Tchos]

gratz from me too. it's the module i am the most exited for, especially considering your taste in games and gameplay

 

Glad to hear it! I'd be interested to hear your module playing recommendations, given similar tastes, since now I'll have more time to play the modules of others.