Aribeth Neverwinter Nights (Part II)

Chapter 1: In one brutal attack the promise of those at the academy had been all but snuffed out. Hope disappeared with the Waterdhavian creatures, and the weight of the terrible sickness pressed down on the city once more.
 

Even more chilling, the whispered rumors of the enemies seeking to destroy Neverwinter from within had proved true, though the identity of those responsible for the slaughter was as yet unknown.

Still, a flicker of hope yet remained, for not all had died in the attack. From the bloody carnage at the academy a survivor had stepped forward, a champion to carry the torch in this darkest hour...
  

Neverwinter City Core

Chapter One begins in the Sanatorium, still within the Neverwinter Academy. The moaning and wailing of the patients actually isn't overbearing like one might expect - the whole suffering thing is done quite tastefully, though it becomes unintentionally funny at times, later, in the City Core itself.

Anyway, I'm choosing all the "mean" responses in dialogue for shits n gigs. I'm able to threaten Desther at one point (as a Gnome, I don't think I could actually reach his teeth to knock them out, but whatevs) but it's just sort of glossed over by the eminently calm - and gullible! - Fenthick.

Desther comes across as butthurt about everything, interrupting even when I'm speaking to Fenthick. Interestingly, a nearby nurse can be persuaded into giving info leading to early suspicion about the intent of Desther and his Helmites, but the check is cheapened when you realize you can just cycle back through the dialogue again and again and again until you succeed in passing it...

Suspicions about Desther grow when the player delivers Anonymous Letters - looted from the corpses of would-be assassins - to Fenthick, as the chapter progresses.

Aribeth de Tylmarande

Aribeth is the primary quest-giver and anchor of the chapter, suggesting where to go and what to do. The whole idea of Chapter One is to travel to the four districts of Neverwinter and in each find a Waterdhavian creature (or part thereof) which is to be returned to the authorities, who can then hopefully concoct a cure for the Wailing Death, the plague afflicting Neverwinter.

Aribeth hands the player 100 GP and a Stone of Recall, which, when activated, teleports you to the nearest Temple of Tyr, which, in this Chapter's case, is right here in the Halls of Justice.

You can then ask her to freely cure you of any ailments, including awful negative status effects like Level Drain, and, since she's also a vendor, you can sell off any excess and encumbering loot, which BioWare likes to throw around like confetti, before jumping back into the portal to return from whence you came (50 GP charge).

It was good to see that BioWare evolved this concept in HotU, by allowing the player to set multiple recall spots - pity they didn't think of it earlier, though. Lastly, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize that most encounters can be trivialized by Stone of Recall spam.

A halfling Rogue Henchman by the name of Tomi Undergallows can be found loitering in the Halls of Justice, so let's talk a little about Henchmen and Rogue skills.

Henchmen

Henchmen.

Locks & Traps

Players who lack Rogue skills and don't bring Tomi along are gonna find locks & traps to at times be rather tedious or even obnoxious.

The very thought of locks & traps

Locks, because chests and doors must be either bashed open, Knocked, or Fireballed. The problem with bash is that it's very tedious even with Power Attack and elemental damage (due to the soak property); the problem with using spells for utility purposes is that you have fewer for killin' and have to rest more often. Prudent players might like to invest a single point in Open Lock and then rely on Thieves' Tools to buff their cross-class skill, but, even then, the act of picking the lock has a progress bar, which should tell you it takes time (the action was instant in the Infinity Engine).

Traps, because you're probably gonna trip them before you detect them. If you do detect a trap, you have the choice of avoiding it or simply tripping it on purpose, preferably with a summon or familiar. You obviously can't do that with trapped chests - for those you'll want Fireball or Find Traps (which, despite the misleading name, actually does disarm them, too). Note that trapped chests can be utterly lethal, the one in Meldanen's Sanctum inflicts 80+ damage on a failed save, which is death to any low-level PC. Arcane classes could possess their Pixie, but that's a very specific solution. Btw, have fun at the Hodge's Estate trapfest without elemental resistance, I know I did..

So, not only did BioWare include millions of doors and receptacles to loot, they also locked and trapped many of them. Why did they do this - why? It drains my will to play on, at times..

Exploration & Area Design

Anyway, Aribeth recommends exploring the Peninsula District, first. The designers also have other NPCs hint at the same thing. I would say the suggested progression is sound, as the Beggar's Nest contains undead and Stoneskin use (plus things step up, area design-wise); Blacklake has a gating encounter in Loxar (plus minor wizardry and side-quest distractions); and finally the Docks' enemies are armored and beefed up compared to the prisoners in the Peninsula, who, apart from being punctuated by an escaped sorcerer or gang leader, are just soooo utterly weak...

The City Core is the hub of Chapter One, hosting a few optional quests, the Henchman pick-up point, and the various vendors. The other Districts also contain optional quests, points of interest and their own inn and merchant or two, but exploring them is slow for new players due to trashmobs, receptacles and their sprawling, over-sized nature.

The four Districts of Neverwinter, plus City Core & No Man's Land (linking the Core to Blacklake).

Within or beneath each District is a dungeon crawl, with the emphasis on "crawl" because the areas are far too spacious and consist of many siderooms jam-packed with receptacles and trashmobs. I have literally fallen asleep plodding through this awful design. Almost without exception, each District, and dungeon therein, could do with a major down-sizing (ie, halved) and complete refurbishment to make them acceptable. (To be fair, this is for multi-player design.)

On the plus side, three of the four main dungeons have an alternative entrypoint (always good) and generally exhibit good ambience - but so what when they're fundamentally flawed like this? Note the excessive siderooms in the dungeons pictured below and the tedious wrap around nature of them. The Hodge, Rumbottom and especially Androd estate dungeon crawls are all similarly bland and uninspired; basically mini-versions of what you see below.

Prison main floor, prison containment, Warrens of the Damned and Meldanen's Estate

  

Basic Encounters

Much of the encounter design can at times feel trashmobby: scores of prisoners in the Peninsula District, scores of weak zombies in "the Nest", scores of weak ruffians and muggers in the Docks, scores of diseased thugs and guards en route to and in Blacklake - scores n scores n scores! 

A street scum trash-horde in the Docks, where's my Hellball?

The fact they can be lured together into a massive clump for a Great Cleave-fest or a Fireballin' proves they're trashmobs. Does killing fifty weak prisoners absent-mindedly dotted over the enormous Peninsula map, yielding 33 Exp each, seem like fun to you? How about the other hundred or so holed up in houses and the prison itself (I counted about 200 kills, district-wide)? Now, repeat this across the four over-sized Districts, pictured above. Actually, somehow it doesn't seem that bad when you're playing (their death cries are hilarious!) and new players probably won't even care that some of these poor blighters were only behind bars for stealing a loaf of bread because they were poor and hungry. Even so, I highly recommend warrior builds take Great Cleave ASAP; spellcasters Sleep (Coup de grace) and later Fireball. Kill the poor and the downtrodden!

Note that Chapter One isn't all about trashmobs - there are indeed tougher encounters and many and varied enemies to spruce things up. At times, the problem is that they can be rather difficult for the uninitiated, as is exemplified by the notorious Bloated Dire Spider, an enemy encountered in the Nest crypts and the Silver Sails HQ, inflicting DC-26 poison and Knockdown, and which might as well have been a Bebilith for all the hope an unsuspecting new player has of surviving the ordeal..

This specimen has killed many new players over the years, I'll wager.

Or how about the Scythe-wielding half-orc encountered in the broken tower of No Man's Land whom you can run into fresh out of the Academy? In that case, have fun being "harvested".

Loxar is about to harvest Grimgnaw's head

One might also be surprised to learn that some "unassuming" encounters are actually "easier" taken at, say, third rather than at seventh level. I cite - with a shudder - the beetle encounter on the second floor of the Silver Sails which scales into Stags.

These things are straight out of Starship Troopers

I exaggerate in the caption, but the point is that combat encounters can at times be really boring; at others frustrating, yet the (unintended?) difficulty spikes can be oddly amusing at times - to me at least.

The sub-bosses are underwhelming in Chapter One. The Neverwinter Zoo's "Master of Pens" and Kurdan Fenkt of the Prison's Pits weren't exactly riveting rumbles to write home about. "Gifted" with undead status and the look of a Lich by one of the Waterdhavian creatures, the dire mace-wielding Drawl at least raised my eye-brow slightly when he charged, but the priestly Snake Cult Leader in the Beggar's Nest is another inanity, casting a few pathetic buffs before wading into melee to wave his flail about feebly...

Drawl, the Sword Coast Boys gang leader, turned undead

District Boss Encounters

The Intellect Devourer is more tedious and annoying than difficult (DR 20/+3, daze). When you first enter it's Peninsula Prison lair, it charges you as Head Gaoler Alaefin, of whom it has taken possession. Having killed Alaefin, the psionic Waterdhavian pops out ready to "co-opt" the next guard unless you quickly use "Persuasion recycling" beforehand to make them vacate the lair. If you're low level, allowing it to co-opt the four guards - so that you can fight and kill each of them - yields considerably more Exp than persuading them, though.

The second District boss I take on is Gulnan the yuan-ti (Cleric [12]), who has taken up residence in the Warrens of the Damned under the Beggar's Nest. She's technically the most powerful pre-Helm's Hold foe, but, relatively speaking, I've always found her pretty tameable. Not that she isn't deadly if she unleashes Flame Strike or Hammer of the Gods. She's also capable of conjuring a Shadow Fiend. The PC being merely fifth level, the "trick" is to never give her the chance to unleash those spells in the first place. Yeah, not exactly a tactical encounter, is it...

Meldanen the Sorcerer was a faceroll, surrendering at Near Death and inducing nothing from me but an exaggerated yawn. Note the Impossible challenge rating, what a joke that is...

Meldanen & Gulnan

The fourth Waterdhavian creature I went after was the Cockatrice. At seventh level I encountered Callik and Vengaul, both of whom felt a step up from the others. Callik (Fighter [4] / Rogue [5]) inflicts sneak attacks and wields a scimitar, which is always dangerous. Vengaul (Fighter [10]) fires piercing arrows from a longbow, but he's a completely optional mark, meaning you have to draw him into the fight by firing a projectile into his back as he attempts to scamper off. 

Left: Flame Arrow on Callik Right: Shoryuken!

Apart from the District bosses themselves, it ends up being the "Never's Tomb" sidequest which finally offers a decent challenge, at least for the unsuspecting. I speak of the four flying Swords of Never which swarm the player upon entry to the Blacklake tomb. Scary stuff.

The above comments pertain to D&D "Hardcore" difficulty only.

Evil role-playing opportunities

(Remember, I'm Chaotic Evil alignment for shits n gigs.)

The vulnerable Bethany, a refugee from the Peninsula District, is the very first person the player meets in the City Core, and also my first victim:

"Gimme money or I'll take it from your beat-up body", basically...

Nyatar is a Druid merchant and quest giver in the City Core, standing under a great oak. He requests I rescue animals that are being mistreated at Neverwinter Zoo. This generic dungeon crawl involves butchering TWENTY human beings - a mix of noble guards, hunters and the Master of Pens himself - to free FOUR predatory, man-eating animals from captivity: a wolf, a bear, a lion and a panther.

Having saved the animals, I then bully Nyatar for more money, forcing him to close up shop and teleport back to the forest, penniless. The hilariously stale dialogue made me splurt my coffee out onto my display...

Later in the Chapter, I find myself in the Helmite sanctuary of the zombie-infested Beggar's Nest. Noble Priest of Helm, Bertrand, requests I find his brother, Marcus. I locate his brother's corpse amidst a zombie trashmob, loot it of journal and staff, then return to Bertrand and demand payment for the items. When he doesn't cough up for the staff, I tell him he's not getting it:

Now in the opulent Blacklake district, to no surprise I fail a Strength check against a Meldanen guard. While the check is indeed welcome, the dialogue is just so poorly written and rushed that it seems like a wasted opportunity:

This was to be a series of posts, but I'm unable to continue due to the blandness of the OC, which makes it unplayable to me (at least in my current mood). In the OC's defense, I can say there are diamonds in the rough, that it was designed with multiplayer in mind, and that it's DMable.

Also, what I've said here in no way reflects on the modules made by the community using the Aurora toolset. This is where it's at for NWN: Aielund Saga, Swordflight and Bastard of Kosigan.

Neverwinter Nights.