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

[Tchos]

I've uploaded patch v1.1 which should fix the issues mentioned here and one that I noticed on my own, except for the tree identified just now. It can be applied to a game in progress.

 

Changes in this version:

• Changed the daze effect to a temporary duration, and allowed it to wear off with resting. This affects only characters who are not currently dazed.
• Modified two lines of dialogue to take into account item use restrictions.
• Added feedback to the Hearthstone of Divine Recall to indicate whether it is attuned or not.
• Edited a certain perception script so that any member of the party will trigger it.

Regarding the permanent daze: in my test, death removed the effect, though unconsciousness did not. My solution was to use one of my other party members to attack the affected member, and raise her from the dead afterward.

 

The tree will take a little longer to fix. I can't open that area to modify the terrain, but it's only slightly off the ground, so perhaps I can spawn a planter around it, or something else to fix it.

[Tchos]

I think I mave have broken the game. I went after the

 

Ogres at the light house after doing about 4 quests, all I could find. Had mushroom quest but didn't see any.

 

So I go in the lighthouse, wage war, destroy everything.

 

I come back out for the huge fight where the sea hag runs away. Took about 7 tries and one duck back into the light house to win but I did and we all levelled up to level 11. (5 man party). If I had a choice I would have had a lot more booster type spells like haste etc, but it was done.

 

I noticed during the fight the 3 guys are down at the dock waiting to go and one has a ? mark on him. After the fight I rest, and the guys at the docks are gone.

 

I set sail anyway and when I get to the city they cheer to be back.

 

I go to town hall and tell them I freed them, and the mayor says the lighthouse is back but it's not over because the hag still looms.

 

Then I talk to him after reading the letter of gratitude, and although most of my PCs say it's not done yet, the rouge and wizard cohort had an additional option to claim the threat is over. So I did claim I beat it. Then my cohort said they had the journal of the hag. Now it seems I lied? I thought I had to still go back and fight her on her boat or something.

 

 

 

Okay, the rogue and wizard lines are in the wrong place. Those should be at a different stage, so don't use those yet. I'll fix. Those were some of the last additions.

 

Edit: Found the error. Those lines were missing the journal check. New patch uploaded, correcting those two dialogue conditions.

 

I did just that.

 

 

Having already received my reward from town hall (but not yet from the merchant league, and they still seemed to be waiting on a result from the pirate slaying task) I returned to the boat and [annihilated] the place. I don't know if I can fix the mayors response, or if I even need to at this point but I'll head back to town then check out this sunken boat.

 

 

Right, the Merchants' League is a separate quest, so that wouldn't have been affected.

 

 

You can proceed to the sunken boat and the mayor's questline will continue when you complete that.

 

 

When you say you did just that, are you referring to my message about running through the game with a Kaedrin-only class, or my last message to you? If it was about a Kaedrin class, did it work as expected?

 

Ok things went pretty good, the

merchant league gave me my just rewards, and town hall continued to be thinkng I'm on my way to the wreck and I was.

 

Under water things got weird... all of my characters had a helmet and suit on (scuba combo) but a second copy of each was in their inventory. I only noticed because my wizard girl got encumbered. I dropped some of these extra copies.

 

Once I got into the cave and equipment was put back, I found weapon and shields not equipped (I never could get them to work in my game) and everyone has a second copy of their armors and cloaks. Except they acted like one... if I dropped the inventory one so as not to cheat, the character took off their armor.

 

PS when my mage girl disrobed things got quite pornographic. Not sure if that's your intended audience or not.

PPS I don't use Kaedrin's as it is the bane of my existence hearing players ask if my campaign works with it when they don't even know about my campaign itself yet (mini rant).

 

 

 

Thanks for the continued reports. I'll have to look into that equipment doubling.

 

I left weapon and shield unequipped for fear of trying to have the script equip so many things in a short time. Also, I was never able to get the main character's gear to re-equip.

 

I thought the choice of undergarments was appropriate for a cloth-wearing elf, and needn't be thought of as pornographic. If you notice, they all wear (or don't, as the case may be) different things under their gear, which I deemed appropriate for their race and class.

 

 

 

Ok Ron Jeremy! I think I might be done breaking in game stuff as I am finishing off

the temple, which is a bonus game from what I can see, and the end. This is my favourite area design so far.

 

 

I'll take that appellation as a compliment on my staying power, which any maker of modules must have, if they want to release anything.

 

Seriously, though, I should mention that my characterisation of elves (sun elves in particular, as in the case of Annracháin) is heavily influenced by the novels of Ed Greenwood, creator of the Forgotten Realms. Read Elminster in Myth Drannor if you haven't already, and if you don't think my work is veritably chaste by comparison, I'll give you a peanut.

[Tchos]

At the end of the

temple I am starting to get disarmed. While annoying in its own right in combat, I have now lost two weapons entirely. What happens is they become the little "sack" on the ground like normal, but I can not click them or pick them up, and the z key doesn't highlight them. I am now unarmed with 2 characters.

 

PS I beat the game. The only other issue is if I choose to jump into the water portal it can kind of lock up NWN2. It isn't locked per se, but I can hear fighting but the screen is black and I can't get the menu or anything up to reload.

 

 

 

The black screen you describe I've encountered once before, and it seems to be an unpredictable effect of the "fade to black" function, where it covers up the dialogue box and you can't see the next bits. Possibly a way to deal with that would be to launch a new dialogue after firing the fade to black. Not sure. It's unpredictable, so I can't be entirely sure I succeeded if it functions properly when I do it.

 

I'm guessing the disarming is happening with the kuo-toas?

 

Kuo-toas have an Extraordinary Ability called Adhesive, which causes melee weapons to stick to their shields upon a failed reflex save, which is a disarm-like effect except that the weapon should not be on the ground, but in the kuo-toa's inventory. However, I can't remember right now how I implemented that ability, so it may have been a more mundane but analogous substitute. I'll check.

 

 

For this game my party was my self paladin plus, fighter, druid, rogue, wizard cohorts.

 

I routinely got my butt handed to me by many of the fights, but I think it was a lack of tactical options. If I had to redo it it would definitely be with a cleric

so I can mute spell casters, or hold them, or in someway incapacitate them. Plus getting lower level utility spells sooner like haste and knock since my cohort seemed to be outfitted like a cannon for spells. I'd get my hands on any wizard incapacitating spells as well. Might have been easier if I made my wizard myself because I would have picked these spells as part of the level up process.

 

I gave it a Vault remark. For my part here the only disappointment was how most of the encounters were scaled up level 1 to 3 creatures. I'd like a little more coolness for being level 10+. The ambience and unique areas show that you can really make a fresh looking module without too too much custom content.

 

I think I missed a bit, never encountered a sewer. Never went in to the trading post or prison either, but I didn't realize I could simply go up and end the game as quickly as I did.

 

From your description of the difficulty of the fights and the number of times you had to retry, it sounds like the encounters are the kind of challenge I had in mind. Indeed, with a bit of buffing, they would go a lot more easily. I provided a good number of spell scrolls in the shops that the wizard can learn to add to her selection.

 

You definitely did miss some of the quests, and you didn't mention certain ones, so I don't know if you found them or not. Some quests begin in shops, so check the map pins and be sure to visit shops you may have passed by. There's also a

 

rogue-oriented challenge that can only be found if you go snooping around where you shouldn't, and follow hints and pass skill checks. Lidda's skills can suffice, in certain circumstances.

 

 

I agree that more custom monsters than the ones under the sea would be nice -- some of the choices were limited by the environment and what monsters were available that were appropriate for the environment I chose, and most of them wouldn't get along together according to the docs (hence the separated sub-regions), which necessarily prevents mixed enemy species in encounters if they're xenophobic, unless they have pets or enslaved minions. Then again, there are some modules/games where the enemies are entirely humans!

 

I appreciate the glowing review on the Vault, EE, and yours, too, PJ! Glad you had fun, and thanks again for the reports.

 

I made my comments based upon the play testing and a start at the final release. I guess the module could be crap now but I gave you the benefit of the doubt.

 

I checked the kuo-toas, and they use Improved Disarm as a representation of the special ability they're supposed to have. When it happened to me (4 or 5 times in my tests), the disarmed weapons didn't go to the ground nor to the kuo-toa's inventory, but stayed in my own inventory, so all I had to do was re-equip them.

 

I put into place a workable solution to the occasionally troublesome dialogue, and it does involve launching a separate dialogue file. I'll hold off on uploading it until I see if there are any other issues that need fixing, since that one won't interfere with completing the game.

[Sabranic]

I am impressed you can roll out patches and still have people's save-games work. Nicely done.

[Tchos]

It's because scripts are always run fresh from whatever source has highest priority, so as long as your updates are made through scripts, and you keep track of where your script firing events are, know you can just drop the new scripts into your campaign folder. Almost anything in the game can be changed through scripting.

[Tchos]

I mostly just meant the

Level 10 goblins

 

 

I'm playing through the campaign at the moment, and I was also surprised at how tough those guys were. They were the sort of encounters I'd expect from the hobgoblin prestige classes mentioned in Monster Manual V (duskblades, spellscourges, warsouls, warcasters, etc).

 

One thing I noticed is that their skins had been tinted green. In Forgotten Realms lore they're meant to have orange skin. Hence the name of the goblin rouge berry, so named because children smear its orange juice on their faces to pretent to be goblins.

 

Personally I'm a fan of green goblins and have always thought they should be that colour. Who's to say that the forgotten realms lore wasn't written by a goblin just trying to confuse people into believing they were orange and to not expect camouflaged goblins in the woods or long grass ?

 

The guard who gives you the quest does warn you that those are no ordinary goblins! Green and unusually tough.

 

A little creativity with critters is almost essential given the small resource pool we have. In my next module I think I shall have a yellow version of the goblin and they will be level 20. And they shall all wear cloth head gear and pretend to be Omar Sharif.

PJ

 

My last module had level 5 goblin rangers,fighters and rogues in green and level 10 goblin clerics, fighters and rangers in brown. Saying certain creatures should be a certain level is a nonsense and the idea that once you're level 6 a goblin will have a hard time killing you is too. You should be able to be hit by any creature at any time because that makes sense, walk into a mass of kobolds thinking you're god at level 15 get swarmed and you die.

 

I look at experience, level and hit points as the amount of hits you can dodge before getting caught out sufficiently to die and to me it doesn't matter where they came from and all creatures get levelled up so they can get to you otherwise there's no point in having them. The idea that at level 20 you can go around with 100 arrows sticking out of you or having been stabbed 50 times is really rather ludicrous isn't it.

 

DannJ.. Don't go down the pedantic road of the monster book says so because the reality is that goblins don't exist and why should we as creators abide by any of that sort of thing in the first place. That was a framework for a different game and if everybody did the same thing and you knew that a goblin was level 1 and a fireball would kill any it touched it would be boring and no fun to play.

 

More green goblins, fire breathing blue dragons, level 20 pixies and kobold big bosses !

 

"Soulsworn batiri", or whatever SoZ has in the jungle that are level 15.

 

To be fair, I can be a bit pedantic about what the monsters should be able to do, too, since for the sahuagin, kuo-toas, and sea hag I tried to give them all of the abilities and vulnerabilities they're supposed to have as described in the Monster Manuals. But even the manuals mention things like "for monsters of this type which have levels in player classes..." or something along the lines of "such and such is unusual, but extraordinary monsters exist as much as extraordinary members of civilised races (players) exist." And there's something unusual going on in that forest.

 

The ogres with levels in player classes were actually taken from a pen & paper module where they were outlined that way.

 

I did consider making them batiri instead of goblins, but I don't think it would have fit story-wise.

[Tchos]

From my perspective, this is one of those Mission Impossible scenarios. If you stick to the monster manual 100%, it makes it very difficult to build a story, IMO. Better to change the levels of some creatures, and possibly give them some different abilities, and make it work for the story, than worry about what a monster manual says.

 

Building these campaigns/mods is difficult and time consuming enough. Kudos to all the builders who persist. I mean, how many hours did you sink into this mod Tchos? This has been a couple years of work. And people play it and are done in a few hours.

 

We do a hell of a lot of work to give players a few hours of fun :-) Monster accuracy shouldn't be an issue. The bottom line is fun.

 

I can't wait to play this mod. Hopefully Sunday. Really looking forward to it. The screenshots look great.

 

It's probably a rhetorical question, because I couldn't really tally up the hours, and didn't log them, but yes, it was quite a few hours over the past couple of years. There were stretches of time during that period when I couldn't work on it due to other obligations, or when I was just tinkering with scripts, or doing some undirected experimenting, or other unrelated things.

 

There used to be a rule that allowed high level fighter types to absolutely mow through weak baddies. It was something like if the level difference between the fighter and the attacker was >x, the fighter got one attack per fighter level, per round. So a level 10 fighter completely surrounded by fifty one hit dice goblins got ten attack or something. It basically shows up in 3.5 as the Cleave line of feats.

 

That attack was called a sweep but it only applied to level ones from how I saw it used. Cleave takes its place just fine though

 

I absolutely agree Mr Fade and most of my creatures have all their levels in player classes because their attack bonuses are rubbish plus added stats, natural ac and weapon feats. No point having a whole load of enemies that can't hit you, undead are particularly rubbish.

 

This is a video game and in most games I've played you never get such ridiculous amounts of hp as the game progresses and can still get wiped out with a few good hits. Armour/ shield effects are different and I can understand them absorbing damage but whoever's inside or hiding behind those things is still flesh and blood.

 

This module is for level 10 so throw in a barbarian with 18 constitution and you're looking at 150+ hp, how many goblin short sword hits is that ? He could run around doing a naked cleaving rage getting hit all the time and still take out 20 before worrying about damage which is just plain daft.

 

Yes, there is in fact a level 10 barbarian companion with 17 constitution with 160 HP that you can bring to that fight (actually barbarian/frenzied berserker), and a fighter with 18 CON and 150 HP. And they can kill some of these goblins in 1 hit, though not the nastier ones.

[Tchos]

I have been watching the download and I am heartened to see that the use of both sites is almost exactly the same. Users seem to be split between the two when I though one site or another might be the more used.

PJ

 

Yes, I've noticed that, too. I've also been watching. I interpret a portion, perhaps the bulk of them, to be separate demographics, where people like me and a few of us here who use both sites more or less interchangeably, are the minority. So perhaps most of the downloads from one location are not necessarily downloads lost from the other location.

 

Unrelated, but I want to mention here that although I appreciate the support, I don't want anyone to think that a piece of work like this is immune to criticism just because it was free and took a lot of time. I do hold myself to a certain standard of quality, and if something doesn't meet that standard in some places, I want to know about it.

 

Tchos, I've only just started playing, and havene't done much aside from equipping my character, but I have to say the areas are excellent! Particularly your attention to the lighting, something which many modules lack. Well done!

 

Lighting is very important to me in terms of area design -- something learned early in my 3D dabblings, where originally I thought it was secondary to the texturing. Be sure to play with point light shadows turned on, if you can!

[Tchos]

I've noticed one amusing bug on the oversea map. If you set sail while under the effects of an Enlarge Person spell (as my grey dwarf party member frequently is), the ship is so large that it fills the entire screen. The advantage is that it only takes a couple of 'steps' to get from the lighthouse to the port.

 

I also had a conversation node demand that I inform Tchos about the fact that it shouldn't be firing. However I don't take orders from conversation nodes. They're not the boss of me!

 

That may be why the SoZ overland map removes all effects from the party on entering. Now I can see a good reason for doing that.

 

Who were you talking to when you got that message?

 

I was talking to the guys you rescue from a certain cylindrical navigation aid. I also noticed that the two non-chatty NPCs chose to stay behind.

 

I'm not surprised I broke things, as I often didn't do things in the order I was apparently supposed to. I had a tendency to run away without finishing fights, returning to town, resurrecting, resting and restocking as necessary, then returning to finish off the encounters later. Sometimes much later, after doing other things.

 

I went outside to rest at several points while clearing out the cylindrical navigation aid. During one rest sequence I noticed a huge group of nasties gathered around outside, although at that point they weren't hostile. They allowed us to rest without incident and go back inside. They seemed to notice us the next time we left though. As usual, my fast running cleric / monk / sacred fist grey dwarf party member ended up the sole survivor, and ran for the boat. He's the one who usually had the Enlarge Person effect active.

 

Okay, so I guess you

fled the boss fight to rest, and found the ones who weren't prepared to talk to you until after you finished that boss fight. Did you get that dialogue when they were inside or outside? I can't think of when you would have encountered them and they wouldn't have had something to say. Two remaining behind is also puzzling. In one case I used ForceExit, and in another I used DestroyObject.

 

 

reminds me when i destroyed a vampire's coffin, to rid the world of evil. Only to meet it again upstairs, where he said "We'll meet again !"

i guess the designer didn't expect me to take the backroute in ...

 

This is a common thing. Sometimes I get myself in situations where I find bugs once I follow a different line. A designer cannot simply think "Well, of course he won't kill that guy. Who would?" There's always someone who will... .

 

Here was my sequence of events:

• Initial outdoor fight (door guards). Survived, but spells depleted. Rested (area is considered safe).
• Go indoors. Survived fight, but most spells depleted. Too risky to rest here, so go outside again.
• Go back indoors, up one level. Kill a couple of nasties. Free prisoners. Kill some more nasties. Tell prisoners I'd freed them, so they leave (after taking a beating).
• Spells depleted. Go outside to rest again.
• Go back inside, to the top level. AI decided it'd be a good idea to use AOE spells. Bad idea, AI. Retreat with all but one party member incapacitated.
• Go outside. There's a crowd who ignores me. Heal and rest.
• Go back inside, to the top level. Finish clearing encounter. Main spell caster dead. Oops. Go outside.
• Crowd decides it's time to talk. Soon we're down to one party member. Run for the boat.
• Go back to town. Resurrect and rest. Journal says prisoners safely back in town.
• Return to finish crowd. Prisoners still there. Prisoner's conversation node says to contact Tchos. One prisoner disappears.
• Almost finish off crowd. Large wobbly bastard proves to be a nuisance.
• Return to town. Resurrect and rest.
• Return to wobbly bastard. Kill it, and begin looting bodies.

 

The spoiler tags would be better for this than describing it obliquely. But I think I see what could be done to either deal with those conditions, or prevent them from happening. Thank you.

 

Just so you know, once you kill a boss, the area should be considered "cleared" and is set to be safe to rest in. I don't recall offhand which of the bosses needed to die to make that interior safe, but I would guess it was the one that you killed before you went back to town.

Edited August 6, 2016 by Tchos

[Tchos]

Hi Tchos, just out of curiosity, about how long do you think it will take a typical player to play through your module? I'm sure there's a range, just wondering if you had a ballpark estimate.

 

I couldn't say, since I know where everything is, and yet I also play more slowly than most people. It took me 3 or 4 play sessions in my last playtest. Best if others here who have played it can estimate their play time.

 

Ok, I'm probably just being an idiot here, and am putting on my dunce hat in anticipation of your answer. But....

 

 

I'm having a lot of trouble with the Ancient Vampire in the magic shop basement. I can knock down his health bar to (apparently) zero without much trouble, but can't finish him off. I'm having the wizard memorize lots of spells that don't allow a reflex save (e.g. isaac's lesser missile storm, magic missile, etc), since he seems to have improved evasion. The cleric is casting as much divine damage magic as she can. But while I can hold him off for a long time, I can't ever seem to kill him. I just keep damaging him indefinitely until I run out of spells, and then it's a war of attrition that he wins because of his regeneration.

 

My 2H ranger is admittedly not doing much damage because his weapons are only +1's, and the rogue is also ineffective b/c he's undead (no sneak attack). I might try again tonight and bring the barbarian in addition to the fighter, as his axe should cut through the damage reduction.

 

In any case, I just wanted to verify that I didn't miss something that is actually making him impossible to kill, like a switch or trick or somesuch. Or, is there a nonviolent solution I haven't figured out? I tried having both the wizard dispel the force field, as well as doing the alchemy route to extinguish the braziers. I can't get out of the basement once in to alert the authorities, because he bars me in. I can always skip and come back later, of course.

 

Thanks, sorry if I'm being stupid. Just frustrated.

 

 

 

If you haven't found the usable objects other than the ones you mentioned, press Z to highlight them, and read their descriptions.

 

::sigh:: Yep, it was me being a dunce! Thanks for the help. I'm surprised that I missed that.

 

Not to worry. I try to keep my answers laconic to give the minimum necessary hint so that you can figure out the rest yourself, which is far from taking anyone as a dunce. As a general hint for the future, though, you should always check an area for usable objects in this module.