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Hoards of the Gadgetdark, part 11
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Part 11: The strange isle
Before proceeding further, remember to equip whatever headgear you were wearing instead of the gimmicky shield of speaking to illithids.
Go back to the duergar merchant, and this time speak to Cavallas the ferryman to go to the strange island.
Shaori's Fell
Decimate the drow camp and meet this area's boss, Sabal. She is in the middle of the camp with her familiar hell hound Zephid. Upon taking enough damage she will stop time and flee no matter what. Be sure to check one of the corpses for a crossbow +3 and a full stack of poison arrows. Crossbow +3, hmm, doesn't seem too interesting, does it? Come to think about it, we haven't found any interesting gear for Deekin yet. Maybe some of the nymph cloaks, but no particularly interesting piece of gear, let alone a weapon. (Deekin specializes in crossbow damage and criticals, so he greatly benefits from using one) The true treasure are the poison bolts, which sell for 975 a unit at the duergar merchant. (more if you have better appraise skill) This means you will have to be splitting all 99 of them in stacks of 10 or even less, which is annoying, but will yield good gold.
After that, we meet the winged elves that dwell in this island, and we learn of their strange situation. Now proceed to the center of the map, avoid the merchant for the moment, and head to the east into the library.
A man at the entrance will warn you about his wife Quathala having become a medusa and tell you how he drinks a potion that protects from her gaze. You may actually kill the medusa for some XP and a mirror shard that we still haven't heard about, or head to the room in the wall to the left as you enter the main hall and find the gimmick potion of protection from medusa. That way you can speak to her. She will give you the shard if you have good persuade score, or if you answer the riddle as "mud". And then you may go and kill her, for the XP. This whole Shaori's fell section gets on my nerves...
Before leaving the library, search the burning pile of books for a burnt book.
Go back to the center of town, where the winged elf merchant is sitting down. Ask about his wares and offer him the burnt book for his shard. He will instead give you a gimmicky gadget of finding broken shard mirrors. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Head to the back of the library and activate the compass to find a hidden pile of garbage near the cave wall. Inside it is the mirror shard. So, what now of the compass? Well, congratulations on acquiring one of the gimmicky gadgets available in this area: the Merchant's compass. The item description still mentions its original use, though.
It has 3 uses per day of deactivate traps. Between the commander's ring and this, any rogue in your group (yourself included) is rendered basically pointless.
From this part head to the south and you will find a cave. You can actually set up an ambush yourself for a change (this was a nice addition) and deal with Sabal and her Red Sisters. (She will stop time and flee again)
Inside the cave you will find Shaori, the winged elven queen, who... wait. Wait. What? Look, I do get that most Neverwinter Nights original portraits were not supposed to be a 100% faithful representation of the in-game character models... but this is ridiculous. In the original campaign Lord Nasher, the woman in the prision district with the spiky tits dress (don't ask) and Maugrim resemble their in-game models. Even Grimgnaw and Daelan are recognizable enough. The in-game queen Shaori has elf ears, brown bird wings, cobalt blue hair, and a cloth tunic in yellow and light blue. The portrait, which is specifically named "queenshao_", thus in theory designed only to be used for her, features a woman without pointy ears, pearl white hair, no sign of wings, and a golden metallic armor. A full armor, not one of those slutty bikini armors featuring (somehow) cleavage, side-boob and under-boob all at the same time.
The point is, it looks nothing like her attire. We will be revisiting this portrait again later on. I would have done a portrait more accurate to how she actually looks, BUT one of my favorite modules: Tales of Arterra uses this portrait for one of the main characters: Persephythis "Percey" the succubus.
So, queen Shaori explains some plot to you and we can proceed with the mission.
Head towards the west, and in front of the castle this time you will be ambushed by Sabal and her Red Sisters, beware of their darkness and blindness spells. After dealing with them, prompting another time stop retreat from Sabal, head to the south towards the temple.
This can be a tough fight, so get ready before entering. As you approach priest Lomylithar, you will become infected with negative scores in about everything. See? These elves are assholes. The priest will inform you that he will give you the antidote if you successfully finish his challenge. You may actually just kill him to get the antidote and a mirror shard, but completing the combats here is worth some XP, and with your Rizolvir brand weapon, this should be a stroll on the park. Your henchmen cannot enter the area, but you can talk to them to cast buff spells and bard songs on you. If you enter the combat zone, check the corpse inside for a halberd +4 worth some good money.
Brave the gauntlet and Lomylithar will lecture you:
- Through weakness you discovered strength!
- Yes, I did. Now die!
Unlike the medusa, this priest has got some nice loot to hoard:
Staff of Ascension
- armor bonus +1
- bonus spell slot for druid: lvl 1, 2 and 3
- damage bonus: electrical 1d6
- enhancement bonus +4
- only usable by druid
- regeneration +1
- call lightning (10) 1 use / day
- entangle (2) 3 uses / day
I don't know... by this level, bonus spell slots for levels 1 to 3 are basically pointless. The call lightning and entangle may be useful, I guess, and it has armor too. At any rate, not bad, but not impressive.
Brawler's belt (bludgeoning resist 5 / - )
Yeah, there is a greater version of this item, if you are going to sacrifice the belt slot, you might as well think of better options.
Dragon slippers
Again, not bad, but we already had one pair plus the prismatic version. With this you have your whole party immunized against fear and knockdown, which is itself rather nice.
Vestiments of Faith (cloak)
- damage reduction +5 soak 5 damage
- only usable by: good
This is interesting, all damage sources from up to +5 attacks will be reduced by 5. Alignment restriction means that in theory 66% of the characters won't be able to use it, but on the other hand, as I mentioned before, this game basically leads you into being a saint, and many actions will change your alignment towards good, so chances are most of the times you may actually wear this.
All in all, nice loot to hoard, if you are not using it, save it for selling later.
Next stop is the wizard tower. Head there, ignore the imbecile at the door, because seriously, screw you winged elves and your emo-town. This whole area is a wild magic zone, so any magic ability may snap at any given moment and have unexpected outcomes. I particularly love when people are engulfed in a black load of crap. Even if you aren't a magic user, magic gimmicks such as our newly acquired trap disarming compass, may equally fail at random.
Anyhow, just take care of the drow and outsiders at the first floor, then the demons at the second, and then the slaadi at the third one. For whatever reason, there is a locked door with a lot of low level zombies. These are annoying, because they present no threat, but move so slowly that you have to go and kill each one of them where they are shambling.
In this floor you can find the mage apprentice Jansil, who after taking enough damage will surrender and offer the last mirror shard, begging for his life. Oh, dear, the poor thing... he only has a courtesan blade in him. Good lord, a courtesan blade... we got one like 200 years ago, in one of the Fisher price puzzle chain dungeons. See? This is what I mentioned earlier. Loot quality has come to a stop since we left the very first area of the Underdark, the one with the ogres and faeries. By this point we have gained like 5 levels, and the loot still is just as good in the best case, useless +x weapons for the most part.
With all available mirror shards in our hands, now we head back to the castle. Beware, because some more driders are waiting by the door. These are a hint of what's waiting inside the castle. This isn't by far the toughest fight you have had, but the driders here outnumber you and they can be really tough to deal with. In particular, be sure to loot the Drider chief, who has this unique short bow:
Assanti
- attack +5
- mighty +5
- unlimited ammo: 1d6 lightning
- use: lightning bolt (10) 3 / day
Again, not bad, but nothing we couldn't have crafted at Rizolvir's, besides the lightning bolt, which honestly, at lvl 10 isn't that impressive. As before: not bad, but not impressive.
In the hall to the east you will be attacked by a drider assassin. Take her down quickly for 2 daggers, and some poison arrows. These arrows must be coated in emeralds, they are worth a fortune. Of the 2 daggers, one is a +4 (ugh...) and the other is a unique:
Risktaker
- ability penalty: INTelligence and WISdom -4 each
- enhancement bonus: +8
- haste
- only usable by: assassin
- skill bonus: Hide & Move silently +10 each.
Holy shart. Its only advantages are the skill bonuses, and by this point you should have more than enough in each. Enhance +8 is respectably enough high, credit where it is due. But haste can be added for cheap at Rizolvir's. You get a -4 in both intelligence AND wisdom... what the fart? Even -4 on just one of them would be staggering. The bonus are not so good as to compensate for such a loss. Let's just save it to sell and pretend we didn't see it.
In the upper hall the Fool explains you all the plot and gives you the quest to search for the shards (even though we already have them, lol). Speak to him again to start the final battle against Sabal.
Sabal is one of those video game enemies who are supposed to be impressive, but lose all of their dignity by consistently failing to avoid your progress and running away. Sabal: we have met 3 times before, and your familiar hell hound and most of your precious Red sisters are now all dead. You are not dead only because of the scripted runaway. Whatever trick you think you have on your sleeve, you are already losing.
This final battle is one more show of gimmicky gadgets. You may now use the mirror shards on the 6 pillars in this room to activate wacky powers. The problem is, the fight just begins, and you have no idea what pillar does what effect. On top of that, after the initial cut-scene, you are left in an awkward camera angle aiming exactly the opposite way of the fight.
I (and apparently everybody else too) didn't care to list all of the effects, but these are some I can remember:
- turn into a golem. This is the one Sabal uses first in the cut-scene
- full restoration for your party
- cage with spikes. It traps part of the enemy group inside a cage in the middle and sets up blade barriers within it to damage them. The cage walls can be broken, keep it in mind if you are the one who gets trapped here.
- clones. Make 3 temporary clones of yourself that attack the enemies. No idea about their stats or equipment, though. If they are anything like the clone from the hall of mirrors in the first area of the first act, they should have your same equipment.
I have most likely used all of the pillars in all the times I have played this game, but the whole thing is so busy and confusing that I can't for the life of mine remember the other 2 effects.
This is so rushed and insignificant... such powerful pillars should have been given a more interesting background, so that you may actually know which does what, and know exactly what to do when the combat begins.
Instead of that, we know that the librarian has a wife who is turned into a medusa, and that there is a wizard with an apprentice, and that there is a merchant, how interesting!
Deal with Sabal and her remaining Red sisters, and loot them:
Sabal's flail
- damage bonus: 2d6 fire
- enhancement bonus: +5
- use: flame lash (10) 3 / day
Yeah, so basically only the flame lash makes this weapon unique. I am still unimpressed by these weapons... and I still think that the ones you get at the very first dungeon of the first act can be much better.
Ring of major electrical resistance (electrical resist 30)
I have already said what I think of these elemental resistance rings. At least the acid one covered an element that the Ring of power didn't.
Belt of fire giant Strength (STR +5)
DING-DONG Finally! Loot we can actually use! if you have a STR based character, with this you can replace the +3 old belt. Even if you don't want it, you might equip it on your henchman (basically Valen, since the other 2 options are Nathyrra and Deekin)
Take the last mirror shard from Sabal and speak to the Fool to end this area. (and good riddance) You will be automatically taken with queen Shaori, who will give you the gimmicky gadget Mirror of All-Seeing, which has so many spells to use per day you can fill half a toolbar with them. Most of them are sight status, like clairvoyance or true seeing, and you get ghostly or ethereal visage too. The point is: it has way too many gimmicks. Which is why we are here: Hoards of the Gadgetdark!
Oh, by the way, before leaving, you have the option to attack queen Shaori. You will get some XP and trigger the Fool as aggresive too. Killing Shaori shifts your alignment 5 points towards evil, and killing the fool 1. Because apparently killing people with mental disorders is less evil than killing royalty. Royalty who keep people with mental disorders as jesters, and they do not even have a name, they are just "the Fool". Just kill them. Shaori for being a bigot, queen of the annoying winged elves (of which we have already killed the priest, the wizard apprentice and the librarian) and the Fool because he is just as awful as them all. When he was lucid by influence of the mirror, he only thought of restoring everything. He had the chance to change things for better, but he would have just worked with Sabal just in order to achieve his goal anyways.
This is most impressive! After what seemed like a halt in the gimmicky gadgets, we finished this area with 2 of the most clunky ones, thus leaving our hoarding list like this:
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- 2 bags of holding
- a geas
- the Transmogrifying wand
- Nasher's ring of Strength
- Nasher's nimble boots
- Nasher's cloak of protection
- Nasher's gloves of discipline
- the helmet of shielding from illithid
- the merchant's compass
- the Mirror of All-Seeing
Before proceeding further, remember to equip whatever headgear you were wearing instead of the gimmicky shield of speaking to illithids.
Go back to the duergar merchant, and this time speak to Cavallas the ferryman to go to the strange island.
Shaori's Fell
Decimate the drow camp and meet this area's boss, Sabal. She is in the middle of the camp with her familiar hell hound Zephid. Upon taking enough damage she will stop time and flee no matter what. Be sure to check one of the corpses for a crossbow +3 and a full stack of poison arrows. Crossbow +3, hmm, doesn't seem too interesting, does it? Come to think about it, we haven't found any interesting gear for Deekin yet. Maybe some of the nymph cloaks, but no particularly interesting piece of gear, let alone a weapon. (Deekin specializes in crossbow damage and criticals, so he greatly benefits from using one) The true treasure are the poison bolts, which sell for 975 a unit at the duergar merchant. (more if you have better appraise skill) This means you will have to be splitting all 99 of them in stacks of 10 or even less, which is annoying, but will yield good gold.
After that, we meet the winged elves that dwell in this island, and we learn of their strange situation. Now proceed to the center of the map, avoid the merchant for the moment, and head to the east into the library.
A man at the entrance will warn you about his wife Quathala having become a medusa and tell you how he drinks a potion that protects from her gaze. You may actually kill the medusa for some XP and a mirror shard that we still haven't heard about, or head to the room in the wall to the left as you enter the main hall and find the gimmick potion of protection from medusa. That way you can speak to her. She will give you the shard if you have good persuade score, or if you answer the riddle as "mud". And then you may go and kill her, for the XP. This whole Shaori's fell section gets on my nerves...
Before leaving the library, search the burning pile of books for a burnt book.
Go back to the center of town, where the winged elf merchant is sitting down. Ask about his wares and offer him the burnt book for his shard. He will instead give you a gimmicky gadget of finding broken shard mirrors. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Head to the back of the library and activate the compass to find a hidden pile of garbage near the cave wall. Inside it is the mirror shard. So, what now of the compass? Well, congratulations on acquiring one of the gimmicky gadgets available in this area: the Merchant's compass. The item description still mentions its original use, though.
It has 3 uses per day of deactivate traps. Between the commander's ring and this, any rogue in your group (yourself included) is rendered basically pointless.
From this part head to the south and you will find a cave. You can actually set up an ambush yourself for a change (this was a nice addition) and deal with Sabal and her Red Sisters. (She will stop time and flee again)
Inside the cave you will find Shaori, the winged elven queen, who... wait. Wait. What? Look, I do get that most Neverwinter Nights original portraits were not supposed to be a 100% faithful representation of the in-game character models... but this is ridiculous. In the original campaign Lord Nasher, the woman in the prision district with the spiky tits dress (don't ask) and Maugrim resemble their in-game models. Even Grimgnaw and Daelan are recognizable enough. The in-game queen Shaori has elf ears, brown bird wings, cobalt blue hair, and a cloth tunic in yellow and light blue. The portrait, which is specifically named "queenshao_", thus in theory designed only to be used for her, features a woman without pointy ears, pearl white hair, no sign of wings, and a golden metallic armor. A full armor, not one of those slutty bikini armors featuring (somehow) cleavage, side-boob and under-boob all at the same time.
The point is, it looks nothing like her attire. We will be revisiting this portrait again later on. I would have done a portrait more accurate to how she actually looks, BUT one of my favorite modules: Tales of Arterra uses this portrait for one of the main characters: Persephythis "Percey" the succubus.
So, queen Shaori explains some plot to you and we can proceed with the mission.
Head towards the west, and in front of the castle this time you will be ambushed by Sabal and her Red Sisters, beware of their darkness and blindness spells. After dealing with them, prompting another time stop retreat from Sabal, head to the south towards the temple.
This can be a tough fight, so get ready before entering. As you approach priest Lomylithar, you will become infected with negative scores in about everything. See? These elves are assholes. The priest will inform you that he will give you the antidote if you successfully finish his challenge. You may actually just kill him to get the antidote and a mirror shard, but completing the combats here is worth some XP, and with your Rizolvir brand weapon, this should be a stroll on the park. Your henchmen cannot enter the area, but you can talk to them to cast buff spells and bard songs on you. If you enter the combat zone, check the corpse inside for a halberd +4 worth some good money.
Brave the gauntlet and Lomylithar will lecture you:
- Through weakness you discovered strength!
- Yes, I did. Now die!
Unlike the medusa, this priest has got some nice loot to hoard:
Staff of Ascension
- armor bonus +1
- bonus spell slot for druid: lvl 1, 2 and 3
- damage bonus: electrical 1d6
- enhancement bonus +4
- only usable by druid
- regeneration +1
- call lightning (10) 1 use / day
- entangle (2) 3 uses / day
I don't know... by this level, bonus spell slots for levels 1 to 3 are basically pointless. The call lightning and entangle may be useful, I guess, and it has armor too. At any rate, not bad, but not impressive.
Brawler's belt (bludgeoning resist 5 / - )
Yeah, there is a greater version of this item, if you are going to sacrifice the belt slot, you might as well think of better options.
Dragon slippers
Again, not bad, but we already had one pair plus the prismatic version. With this you have your whole party immunized against fear and knockdown, which is itself rather nice.
Vestiments of Faith (cloak)
- damage reduction +5 soak 5 damage
- only usable by: good
This is interesting, all damage sources from up to +5 attacks will be reduced by 5. Alignment restriction means that in theory 66% of the characters won't be able to use it, but on the other hand, as I mentioned before, this game basically leads you into being a saint, and many actions will change your alignment towards good, so chances are most of the times you may actually wear this.
All in all, nice loot to hoard, if you are not using it, save it for selling later.
Next stop is the wizard tower. Head there, ignore the imbecile at the door, because seriously, screw you winged elves and your emo-town. This whole area is a wild magic zone, so any magic ability may snap at any given moment and have unexpected outcomes. I particularly love when people are engulfed in a black load of crap. Even if you aren't a magic user, magic gimmicks such as our newly acquired trap disarming compass, may equally fail at random.
Anyhow, just take care of the drow and outsiders at the first floor, then the demons at the second, and then the slaadi at the third one. For whatever reason, there is a locked door with a lot of low level zombies. These are annoying, because they present no threat, but move so slowly that you have to go and kill each one of them where they are shambling.
In this floor you can find the mage apprentice Jansil, who after taking enough damage will surrender and offer the last mirror shard, begging for his life. Oh, dear, the poor thing... he only has a courtesan blade in him. Good lord, a courtesan blade... we got one like 200 years ago, in one of the Fisher price puzzle chain dungeons. See? This is what I mentioned earlier. Loot quality has come to a stop since we left the very first area of the Underdark, the one with the ogres and faeries. By this point we have gained like 5 levels, and the loot still is just as good in the best case, useless +x weapons for the most part.
With all available mirror shards in our hands, now we head back to the castle. Beware, because some more driders are waiting by the door. These are a hint of what's waiting inside the castle. This isn't by far the toughest fight you have had, but the driders here outnumber you and they can be really tough to deal with. In particular, be sure to loot the Drider chief, who has this unique short bow:
Assanti
- attack +5
- mighty +5
- unlimited ammo: 1d6 lightning
- use: lightning bolt (10) 3 / day
Again, not bad, but nothing we couldn't have crafted at Rizolvir's, besides the lightning bolt, which honestly, at lvl 10 isn't that impressive. As before: not bad, but not impressive.
In the hall to the east you will be attacked by a drider assassin. Take her down quickly for 2 daggers, and some poison arrows. These arrows must be coated in emeralds, they are worth a fortune. Of the 2 daggers, one is a +4 (ugh...) and the other is a unique:
Risktaker
- ability penalty: INTelligence and WISdom -4 each
- enhancement bonus: +8
- haste
- only usable by: assassin
- skill bonus: Hide & Move silently +10 each.
Holy shart. Its only advantages are the skill bonuses, and by this point you should have more than enough in each. Enhance +8 is respectably enough high, credit where it is due. But haste can be added for cheap at Rizolvir's. You get a -4 in both intelligence AND wisdom... what the fart? Even -4 on just one of them would be staggering. The bonus are not so good as to compensate for such a loss. Let's just save it to sell and pretend we didn't see it.
In the upper hall the Fool explains you all the plot and gives you the quest to search for the shards (even though we already have them, lol). Speak to him again to start the final battle against Sabal.
Sabal is one of those video game enemies who are supposed to be impressive, but lose all of their dignity by consistently failing to avoid your progress and running away. Sabal: we have met 3 times before, and your familiar hell hound and most of your precious Red sisters are now all dead. You are not dead only because of the scripted runaway. Whatever trick you think you have on your sleeve, you are already losing.
This final battle is one more show of gimmicky gadgets. You may now use the mirror shards on the 6 pillars in this room to activate wacky powers. The problem is, the fight just begins, and you have no idea what pillar does what effect. On top of that, after the initial cut-scene, you are left in an awkward camera angle aiming exactly the opposite way of the fight.
I (and apparently everybody else too) didn't care to list all of the effects, but these are some I can remember:
- turn into a golem. This is the one Sabal uses first in the cut-scene
- full restoration for your party
- cage with spikes. It traps part of the enemy group inside a cage in the middle and sets up blade barriers within it to damage them. The cage walls can be broken, keep it in mind if you are the one who gets trapped here.
- clones. Make 3 temporary clones of yourself that attack the enemies. No idea about their stats or equipment, though. If they are anything like the clone from the hall of mirrors in the first area of the first act, they should have your same equipment.
I have most likely used all of the pillars in all the times I have played this game, but the whole thing is so busy and confusing that I can't for the life of mine remember the other 2 effects.
This is so rushed and insignificant... such powerful pillars should have been given a more interesting background, so that you may actually know which does what, and know exactly what to do when the combat begins.
Instead of that, we know that the librarian has a wife who is turned into a medusa, and that there is a wizard with an apprentice, and that there is a merchant, how interesting!
Deal with Sabal and her remaining Red sisters, and loot them:
Sabal's flail
- damage bonus: 2d6 fire
- enhancement bonus: +5
- use: flame lash (10) 3 / day
Yeah, so basically only the flame lash makes this weapon unique. I am still unimpressed by these weapons... and I still think that the ones you get at the very first dungeon of the first act can be much better.
Ring of major electrical resistance (electrical resist 30)
I have already said what I think of these elemental resistance rings. At least the acid one covered an element that the Ring of power didn't.
Belt of fire giant Strength (STR +5)
DING-DONG Finally! Loot we can actually use! if you have a STR based character, with this you can replace the +3 old belt. Even if you don't want it, you might equip it on your henchman (basically Valen, since the other 2 options are Nathyrra and Deekin)
Take the last mirror shard from Sabal and speak to the Fool to end this area. (and good riddance) You will be automatically taken with queen Shaori, who will give you the gimmicky gadget Mirror of All-Seeing, which has so many spells to use per day you can fill half a toolbar with them. Most of them are sight status, like clairvoyance or true seeing, and you get ghostly or ethereal visage too. The point is: it has way too many gimmicks. Which is why we are here: Hoards of the Gadgetdark!
Oh, by the way, before leaving, you have the option to attack queen Shaori. You will get some XP and trigger the Fool as aggresive too. Killing Shaori shifts your alignment 5 points towards evil, and killing the fool 1. Because apparently killing people with mental disorders is less evil than killing royalty. Royalty who keep people with mental disorders as jesters, and they do not even have a name, they are just "the Fool". Just kill them. Shaori for being a bigot, queen of the annoying winged elves (of which we have already killed the priest, the wizard apprentice and the librarian) and the Fool because he is just as awful as them all. When he was lucid by influence of the mirror, he only thought of restoring everything. He had the chance to change things for better, but he would have just worked with Sabal just in order to achieve his goal anyways.
This is most impressive! After what seemed like a halt in the gimmicky gadgets, we finished this area with 2 of the most clunky ones, thus leaving our hoarding list like this:
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- 2 bags of holding
- a geas
- the Transmogrifying wand
- Nasher's ring of Strength
- Nasher's nimble boots
- Nasher's cloak of protection
- Nasher's gloves of discipline
- the helmet of shielding from illithid
- the merchant's compass
- the Mirror of All-Seeing
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Hoards of the Gadgetdark, part 10
8 min read
Part 10: preparing ahead
Before proceeding, it is recommended to help Zesyyr, the drow girl in the Maevir public house taking over her mother's rule, and also take a look at 2 scripted encounters, one with some Eilistraee followers being bullied, and other with a snirfnerbleblin (god, I hate that name...) being bullied too. The new Maevir matron will help you at the end of this chapter, while her mother will betray you. The encounters don't add anything in particluar, but they are worth some XP.
So, now we go and meet Cavallas, who can take us to the isle of the Maker or the strange town. Choose the first one.
Isle of the Maker
Actually this will be our last stop in the Underdark, but we need to come here first. Near the docks there is a duergar camp where you can meet their leader Dahanna and their merchant. Mark with a rogue stone the spot in front of the merchant, for he has the best buy-off score in this area. If you have an appraise level of 20 or above, you can actually sell one item for more money than you can buy it, so this can be infinite money. Even if you don't have appraise, the buy-off prices are the best, so sell here everything below 10,000. If you have poison arrows or bolts, or stacks of emeralds, rubies or diamonds, you should split them in order not to lose money in the transaction.
He sells another bag of holding, (the real thing, not that vomit bag that the djinni tried to pass for one) and it's really cheap, so you should get it.
Once you are done with the merchant, use the Relic of the reaper to go through the central door into the temple of LOL.
Wait, wait, wait, what!? If you go through the central door you reach your base of operations!? then why did we waste one in the first chapter at Durnan's spot? Well, if you use the Relic in the first chapter and go through the central door, it will lead you to your freaking room in the Yawnings portal inn, so you will have to walk through the entire god-damned facility in order to get to Durnan. I do understand that this was done in order to avoid people skipping the first part, but what the hell, there should be a work-around...
Anyways, go to the temple of LOL and now leave the rebels' city through the SW exit.
West of Lith My'athar
Chase the taunting drow scout into the holes on the ground. The area with the gelatinous cubes has some loot: a ring of major acid resistance ( +30 ), a lesser amulet of the master and a Platinum helm. (resist electrical +35 ; haste ; use: scintillating sphere) All together, these are not that interesting at this point of the adventure...
First: you may already have the ring of power, which grants +15 to fire, cold and electrical resistance. It also gives you freedom and health regeneration. It doesn't cover acid, and the individual resistances are lower, but this is an overall better item than the acid ring.
Second: the lesser amulet of the master offers +2 to disable trap, lore, open lock, persuade and search. The problem is that by now your character should be around lvl 19, and a +2 bonus feels quite insignificant, even for 5 different skills. It has spell resistance +12 too, but... yeah, not that useful.
The helm isn't bad: haste means you can switch your haste boots for some other which benefit more your character, but chances are you already have haste on your Rilzovir branded weapon. Also, the +35 electrical resist is good to have, but there are more interesting choices, like immunity from mind-affecting spells, or bonus to intelligence if you are a wizard.
Not that we aren't going to hoard these or anything, these are worth a fortune, but at this point of the adventure, these fail to impress. Yeah, haven't you realized? it's been happening since a little while now... no? don't worry, we will get to it in time.
Let's proceed. As you exit the cubes tunnels, head to the west of the map, where there is some sort of device before a cliff. If you have the pearl of tongues, it will help you understanding the buttons of this device. Complete the puzzle for the XP, but we will not be heading this way yet. Mark this spot with another rogue stone, we will be making use of it. Take the ramp in front of the bridge, and after fighting some harpies there is a very interesting piece of loot withing a corpse: the Prismatic dragon boots.
These are an improvement over Dragon Slippers but come at a price: they maintain the knockdown and fear immunities and buff the bonus to dexterity from 2 to 4, and to spell resistance from 10 to 24. The catch is a penalty to charisma -2 and persuade -10. I think it's totally worth it. Even if you are a bard, or a cleric, you can shrug off the charisma penalty with many other bonuses, and for situations that require to use persuade, you might just take the boots off.
Fear is the worst: if your character becomes scared, you might as well load a saved game: it lasts for so long, the combat will be likely over in the time it takes to recover. For enemies like dragons, who have fear auras this is a problem. No matter how high your saving throw is: a roll of 1 means immediate fail, and when you are constantly rolling you WILL eventually roll a 1. Remember this concept for later, precisely for the zone that is accessed through the puzzle bridge we did before. In this chapter we will fight a dragon, and it is not only one of the hardest fights, it is considered the single hardest fight in the whole module by many players. Whatever you use, use something for you and your henchmen that makes you immune to fear.
A note here: GameBanshee's walk-through mentions in this part some Red Dragon Boots which don't have the penalties, but I never found those, and there is no mention of them at any other site... I will go and say that they don't exist, and whoever wrote that somehow confused the Red Dragon Armor and the regular dragon slippers.
Along the way there is another ramp down where a group of driders is waiting in front of a cave. After dealing with them enter and loot the corpse to find...
Nasher's cloak of protection (AC +3)
At +3 it doesn't seem that impressive, but the strength of this set comes from completing it.
In fact, let's do that... I planned to finish this chapter here and proceed to each area, but let's get Nasher's set final item.
Head to the north, where there is a cave entrance. This is actually a way point to the area below, now you can take the north-west exit.
Zorvak'mur
As you enter, a group of duergar raiders try to capture you, and one of them mentions that they have helmets to protect them from the illithids' mind control. After dealing with them, equip the helmet of shielding. Actually it's a script item: it doesn't provide actual mind-affecting spells immunity in combat, what it does is enable friendly conversations with the illithids. Conversely items such as the cowl of warding won't work for this purpose.
Speak to the abysmal illithid at the gate, and have him grant you access to the city.
In the next area, go to the central part, and look for a merchant illithid named Artuur. He sells Nasher's gloves of discipline, our last set item.
Equip them and a cool effect will be displayed, prompting the activation of the full-set effects.
Now the ring and the boots give a +7 bonus to STR and DEX respectively, the cloak is +7 AC too, and the gloves become +10 discipline. I think these bonuses are quite interesting for a really cheap set, but you might want to equip something else.
Whichever the case, this is our new gimmick gadget, enjoy the look of our hoarding list:
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- a bag of holding
- a geas
- the Transmogrifying wand
- Nasher's ring of Strength
- Nasher's nimble boots
- Nasher's cloak of protection
- Nasher's gloves of discipline
Before proceeding, it is recommended to help Zesyyr, the drow girl in the Maevir public house taking over her mother's rule, and also take a look at 2 scripted encounters, one with some Eilistraee followers being bullied, and other with a snirfnerbleblin (god, I hate that name...) being bullied too. The new Maevir matron will help you at the end of this chapter, while her mother will betray you. The encounters don't add anything in particluar, but they are worth some XP.
So, now we go and meet Cavallas, who can take us to the isle of the Maker or the strange town. Choose the first one.
Isle of the Maker
Actually this will be our last stop in the Underdark, but we need to come here first. Near the docks there is a duergar camp where you can meet their leader Dahanna and their merchant. Mark with a rogue stone the spot in front of the merchant, for he has the best buy-off score in this area. If you have an appraise level of 20 or above, you can actually sell one item for more money than you can buy it, so this can be infinite money. Even if you don't have appraise, the buy-off prices are the best, so sell here everything below 10,000. If you have poison arrows or bolts, or stacks of emeralds, rubies or diamonds, you should split them in order not to lose money in the transaction.
He sells another bag of holding, (the real thing, not that vomit bag that the djinni tried to pass for one) and it's really cheap, so you should get it.
Once you are done with the merchant, use the Relic of the reaper to go through the central door into the temple of LOL.
Wait, wait, wait, what!? If you go through the central door you reach your base of operations!? then why did we waste one in the first chapter at Durnan's spot? Well, if you use the Relic in the first chapter and go through the central door, it will lead you to your freaking room in the Yawnings portal inn, so you will have to walk through the entire god-damned facility in order to get to Durnan. I do understand that this was done in order to avoid people skipping the first part, but what the hell, there should be a work-around...
Anyways, go to the temple of LOL and now leave the rebels' city through the SW exit.
West of Lith My'athar
Chase the taunting drow scout into the holes on the ground. The area with the gelatinous cubes has some loot: a ring of major acid resistance ( +30 ), a lesser amulet of the master and a Platinum helm. (resist electrical +35 ; haste ; use: scintillating sphere) All together, these are not that interesting at this point of the adventure...
First: you may already have the ring of power, which grants +15 to fire, cold and electrical resistance. It also gives you freedom and health regeneration. It doesn't cover acid, and the individual resistances are lower, but this is an overall better item than the acid ring.
Second: the lesser amulet of the master offers +2 to disable trap, lore, open lock, persuade and search. The problem is that by now your character should be around lvl 19, and a +2 bonus feels quite insignificant, even for 5 different skills. It has spell resistance +12 too, but... yeah, not that useful.
The helm isn't bad: haste means you can switch your haste boots for some other which benefit more your character, but chances are you already have haste on your Rilzovir branded weapon. Also, the +35 electrical resist is good to have, but there are more interesting choices, like immunity from mind-affecting spells, or bonus to intelligence if you are a wizard.
Not that we aren't going to hoard these or anything, these are worth a fortune, but at this point of the adventure, these fail to impress. Yeah, haven't you realized? it's been happening since a little while now... no? don't worry, we will get to it in time.
Let's proceed. As you exit the cubes tunnels, head to the west of the map, where there is some sort of device before a cliff. If you have the pearl of tongues, it will help you understanding the buttons of this device. Complete the puzzle for the XP, but we will not be heading this way yet. Mark this spot with another rogue stone, we will be making use of it. Take the ramp in front of the bridge, and after fighting some harpies there is a very interesting piece of loot withing a corpse: the Prismatic dragon boots.
These are an improvement over Dragon Slippers but come at a price: they maintain the knockdown and fear immunities and buff the bonus to dexterity from 2 to 4, and to spell resistance from 10 to 24. The catch is a penalty to charisma -2 and persuade -10. I think it's totally worth it. Even if you are a bard, or a cleric, you can shrug off the charisma penalty with many other bonuses, and for situations that require to use persuade, you might just take the boots off.
Fear is the worst: if your character becomes scared, you might as well load a saved game: it lasts for so long, the combat will be likely over in the time it takes to recover. For enemies like dragons, who have fear auras this is a problem. No matter how high your saving throw is: a roll of 1 means immediate fail, and when you are constantly rolling you WILL eventually roll a 1. Remember this concept for later, precisely for the zone that is accessed through the puzzle bridge we did before. In this chapter we will fight a dragon, and it is not only one of the hardest fights, it is considered the single hardest fight in the whole module by many players. Whatever you use, use something for you and your henchmen that makes you immune to fear.
A note here: GameBanshee's walk-through mentions in this part some Red Dragon Boots which don't have the penalties, but I never found those, and there is no mention of them at any other site... I will go and say that they don't exist, and whoever wrote that somehow confused the Red Dragon Armor and the regular dragon slippers.
Along the way there is another ramp down where a group of driders is waiting in front of a cave. After dealing with them enter and loot the corpse to find...
Nasher's cloak of protection (AC +3)
At +3 it doesn't seem that impressive, but the strength of this set comes from completing it.
In fact, let's do that... I planned to finish this chapter here and proceed to each area, but let's get Nasher's set final item.
Head to the north, where there is a cave entrance. This is actually a way point to the area below, now you can take the north-west exit.
Zorvak'mur
As you enter, a group of duergar raiders try to capture you, and one of them mentions that they have helmets to protect them from the illithids' mind control. After dealing with them, equip the helmet of shielding. Actually it's a script item: it doesn't provide actual mind-affecting spells immunity in combat, what it does is enable friendly conversations with the illithids. Conversely items such as the cowl of warding won't work for this purpose.
Speak to the abysmal illithid at the gate, and have him grant you access to the city.
In the next area, go to the central part, and look for a merchant illithid named Artuur. He sells Nasher's gloves of discipline, our last set item.
Equip them and a cool effect will be displayed, prompting the activation of the full-set effects.
Now the ring and the boots give a +7 bonus to STR and DEX respectively, the cloak is +7 AC too, and the gloves become +10 discipline. I think these bonuses are quite interesting for a really cheap set, but you might want to equip something else.
Whichever the case, this is our new gimmick gadget, enjoy the look of our hoarding list:
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- a bag of holding
- a geas
- the Transmogrifying wand
- Nasher's ring of Strength
- Nasher's nimble boots
- Nasher's cloak of protection
- Nasher's gloves of discipline
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Hoards of the Gadgetdark, part 9
7 min read
Part 9: investing the fortune
Now we will talk about one of the best things that this module has to offer.
First of all, maximum buy-out price has been upgraded from 7,500 to 10,000. Any item in between these marks that you don't need must be sold, because we are going to do some serious shopping in this chapter. This is the merchants list for this first part:
Volkarion
Check out his inventory, because it updates in this chapter. If you are a fighter, an arcane archer or a rogue, check out the armors section. There are some special boots here you might want to check out, even if you aren't a specifically dexterity-oriented character... We will talk about them later. Also, he has some crazy new items and gimmicky gadgets for you.
His miscellaneous section already looks like advanced Diogenes syndrome, there is so much garbage here, you might not even realize some items such as the Pearl of tongues, which looks exactly like a sapphire.
Beware, because there is here one bag which looks the same as the magic bag of -100% weight, but this thing is one of the stupidest gimmick gadgets ever produced: the prayer bag. I think this one gets the first prize for the gimmicky gadget in the whole game, and we are only barely over 1/3 into it. So here it's how it works: First, the prayer bag, despite the item's description, is not needed at all, you might use any other bag, box or container whatsoever. The item you actually need is in the "magic items section", the transmogrifying wand. It's a cleric / paladin only item that has charges. You have to cast it on any container with the following combination of items inside:
1- dragon's blood; holy water; skeleton's knuckle
2- meat; bear hide; wolf hide
And you will be able to summon some creature to fight for you. The crazy part here is: bear and wolf hides are not even found in this module... you have to bring them from Shadows of Undrentide! (or another module that has them) Yes, you are reading correctly, you have to preemptively hoard items from a previous module, have them stolen from you by the drow, and then take them back within the first chapter in order to use this gimmicky gadget, just to have limited options to call for one of the monsters you have been mauling by the dozen at this point... Wow, this is just premium level. This HAS to go to the hoarding list, even if nobody has probably used this item ever. As a honorable mention, or something... at this point I don't even care.
Next is Rizolvir: As soon as you get out of the temple of LOL, head to the north where you will find Rizolvir, your favorite character from now on. If you are a weapon-user, specially a melee one, Rizolvir can make you unstoppable. Here is where we will be investing our hoard-earned money.
Rizolvir can add the following enhancements to weapons:
Enhancement bonus +1
Rizolvir: "Max +10, though!" hahaha, what? no, Rizolvir... just no.
Add acid, cold, fire and electrical damage +2d6 each
Rizolvir: "Your weapon already has too many..." SSSHHHHHSH, Rizolvir!!!
Permanent haste. Did you hear that, Valen? PERMANENT haste, not a stupid on-use property which you can't use because you are a freaking NPC. tsk, tsk.
keen: the name is somewhat confusing, as it affects not only slashing weapons, but just any melee weapon. This increases the critical threat range based on the weapon's base threat range.
true seeing. Did you hear that, Gem of Seeing? PERMANENT true seeing, not a gimmick gadget that I have to activate once a day. The good thing is that now you may use the Gem of seeing on a companion or pet / familiar.
+20 spell resistance. Just like that. bonus +20 on all spell resistance checks, means most of the lower level spells won't even affect you.
regenerate 2 health / round. This alone doesn't look like much, but health regeneration bonuses stack, so you might end with a character that heals a significant enough amount of damage per round.
About enhancement bonus and elemental bonus: under normal circumstances, after having applied a series of improvements to your weapon, Rizolvir will state that it has already too much enchantments. There is a work-around for this: equip another weapon, preferably one with no enhancements whatsoever or a low one (like a mace +3 ) and ask for the enchantment you want. When Rizolvir says "behold a master at work!", open your inventory and swap the weapon with the one you actually want to improve, then press "continue". You may add as much enhancement as you want to your weapon (the maximum actually accounted is 20, though) and add up all of the 4 elemental damage bonuses. Keep also in mind that if the weapon already has one elemental damage bonus of the same element, it will be overridden: for example, a Gemsword has an electrical 1d6 damage bonus. If you add Rilzovir's electrical damage bonus, it won't be 1d6 + 2d6, it will just be replaced with the 2d6. I can't tell if weapons with higher elemental bonuses (like 2d10) would keep the higher damage bonus, or replace it with d26... At any rate, with all these enhancements, you will be dealing THE damage, so do not mind. Oh, and these are not the only enhancements we will be adding to our melee weapon, by the way, there is one more to come soon...
Regenerate health and spell resistance do not stack, these are just set parameters, so apply them only once.
Now, since you probably don't have the money to buy all of the upgrades at once, use the relic to mark the spot in front of Rizolvir, to be able to come here at your convenience.
At the time of writing this entry I haven't tried this in Tales of Arterra module with the Dwarf's forge, which uses a very similar system. Although his improvements are not so crazy as these ones, he has the elemental sonic damage bonus, which Rizolvir lacks.
This isn't the only happy news that Rizolvir has for fighting classes. If you look at his inventory, he sells one particular item that stands out: look at the accessories section for Nasher's ring. At this point the game goes full Diablo II and has added a set of items. Collect them and wear them all and their bonuses will improve. As it is now, Nasher's ring gives a +3 to strength which is good enough to replace whatever you had if you have a melee, non-dexterity based character. Even outside of that you might think about using it, after all this is the Hoards of the Gadgetdark, and we have only just begun chapter 2 of 3.
Seriously, this module favors melee classes a lot. The Nasher items set is fantastic, but they could have added something for spell casters, bards and rogues.
One of the other Nasher set items is sold by Volkarion the djinni: Nasher's nimble boots. We will get the remaining 2 items in other areas. At any rate, we will be adding the Nasher set items to our gimmick hoarding list, because scavenger hunting items are worth it!
We haven't even put a foot outside the first area and we have already added gimmicky gadgets, this is looking good!
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- a bag of holding
- a geas
- the Transmogrifying wand
- Nasher's ring of Strength
- Nasher's nimble boots
Now we will talk about one of the best things that this module has to offer.
First of all, maximum buy-out price has been upgraded from 7,500 to 10,000. Any item in between these marks that you don't need must be sold, because we are going to do some serious shopping in this chapter. This is the merchants list for this first part:
Volkarion
Check out his inventory, because it updates in this chapter. If you are a fighter, an arcane archer or a rogue, check out the armors section. There are some special boots here you might want to check out, even if you aren't a specifically dexterity-oriented character... We will talk about them later. Also, he has some crazy new items and gimmicky gadgets for you.
His miscellaneous section already looks like advanced Diogenes syndrome, there is so much garbage here, you might not even realize some items such as the Pearl of tongues, which looks exactly like a sapphire.
Beware, because there is here one bag which looks the same as the magic bag of -100% weight, but this thing is one of the stupidest gimmick gadgets ever produced: the prayer bag. I think this one gets the first prize for the gimmicky gadget in the whole game, and we are only barely over 1/3 into it. So here it's how it works: First, the prayer bag, despite the item's description, is not needed at all, you might use any other bag, box or container whatsoever. The item you actually need is in the "magic items section", the transmogrifying wand. It's a cleric / paladin only item that has charges. You have to cast it on any container with the following combination of items inside:
1- dragon's blood; holy water; skeleton's knuckle
2- meat; bear hide; wolf hide
And you will be able to summon some creature to fight for you. The crazy part here is: bear and wolf hides are not even found in this module... you have to bring them from Shadows of Undrentide! (or another module that has them) Yes, you are reading correctly, you have to preemptively hoard items from a previous module, have them stolen from you by the drow, and then take them back within the first chapter in order to use this gimmicky gadget, just to have limited options to call for one of the monsters you have been mauling by the dozen at this point... Wow, this is just premium level. This HAS to go to the hoarding list, even if nobody has probably used this item ever. As a honorable mention, or something... at this point I don't even care.
Next is Rizolvir: As soon as you get out of the temple of LOL, head to the north where you will find Rizolvir, your favorite character from now on. If you are a weapon-user, specially a melee one, Rizolvir can make you unstoppable. Here is where we will be investing our hoard-earned money.
Rizolvir can add the following enhancements to weapons:
Enhancement bonus +1
Rizolvir: "Max +10, though!" hahaha, what? no, Rizolvir... just no.
Add acid, cold, fire and electrical damage +2d6 each
Rizolvir: "Your weapon already has too many..." SSSHHHHHSH, Rizolvir!!!
Permanent haste. Did you hear that, Valen? PERMANENT haste, not a stupid on-use property which you can't use because you are a freaking NPC. tsk, tsk.
keen: the name is somewhat confusing, as it affects not only slashing weapons, but just any melee weapon. This increases the critical threat range based on the weapon's base threat range.
true seeing. Did you hear that, Gem of Seeing? PERMANENT true seeing, not a gimmick gadget that I have to activate once a day. The good thing is that now you may use the Gem of seeing on a companion or pet / familiar.
+20 spell resistance. Just like that. bonus +20 on all spell resistance checks, means most of the lower level spells won't even affect you.
regenerate 2 health / round. This alone doesn't look like much, but health regeneration bonuses stack, so you might end with a character that heals a significant enough amount of damage per round.
About enhancement bonus and elemental bonus: under normal circumstances, after having applied a series of improvements to your weapon, Rizolvir will state that it has already too much enchantments. There is a work-around for this: equip another weapon, preferably one with no enhancements whatsoever or a low one (like a mace +3 ) and ask for the enchantment you want. When Rizolvir says "behold a master at work!", open your inventory and swap the weapon with the one you actually want to improve, then press "continue". You may add as much enhancement as you want to your weapon (the maximum actually accounted is 20, though) and add up all of the 4 elemental damage bonuses. Keep also in mind that if the weapon already has one elemental damage bonus of the same element, it will be overridden: for example, a Gemsword has an electrical 1d6 damage bonus. If you add Rilzovir's electrical damage bonus, it won't be 1d6 + 2d6, it will just be replaced with the 2d6. I can't tell if weapons with higher elemental bonuses (like 2d10) would keep the higher damage bonus, or replace it with d26... At any rate, with all these enhancements, you will be dealing THE damage, so do not mind. Oh, and these are not the only enhancements we will be adding to our melee weapon, by the way, there is one more to come soon...
Regenerate health and spell resistance do not stack, these are just set parameters, so apply them only once.
Now, since you probably don't have the money to buy all of the upgrades at once, use the relic to mark the spot in front of Rizolvir, to be able to come here at your convenience.
At the time of writing this entry I haven't tried this in Tales of Arterra module with the Dwarf's forge, which uses a very similar system. Although his improvements are not so crazy as these ones, he has the elemental sonic damage bonus, which Rizolvir lacks.
This isn't the only happy news that Rizolvir has for fighting classes. If you look at his inventory, he sells one particular item that stands out: look at the accessories section for Nasher's ring. At this point the game goes full Diablo II and has added a set of items. Collect them and wear them all and their bonuses will improve. As it is now, Nasher's ring gives a +3 to strength which is good enough to replace whatever you had if you have a melee, non-dexterity based character. Even outside of that you might think about using it, after all this is the Hoards of the Gadgetdark, and we have only just begun chapter 2 of 3.
Seriously, this module favors melee classes a lot. The Nasher items set is fantastic, but they could have added something for spell casters, bards and rogues.
One of the other Nasher set items is sold by Volkarion the djinni: Nasher's nimble boots. We will get the remaining 2 items in other areas. At any rate, we will be adding the Nasher set items to our gimmick hoarding list, because scavenger hunting items are worth it!
We haven't even put a foot outside the first area and we have already added gimmicky gadgets, this is looking good!
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- a bag of holding
- a geas
- the Transmogrifying wand
- Nasher's ring of Strength
- Nasher's nimble boots
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Hoards of the Gadgetdark, part 8
6 min read
Part 8: who are you?
The second chapter begins and we find ourselves swimming in the vomit of exposure that Nathyrra had barfed upon us earlier: the temple of LOL.
First of all: I hate how much potential is wasted in Neverwinter Nights in the story telling. Even overall excellent modules have failed to deliver in this department. I'm talking about alignment. ALL modules set you to a good-aligned faction, and most of them are lawful. Yeah, you have the option to do evil things, but there is no advancement story-wise and you get nothing from NPCs if you are mean to them. The bluff and intimidate options are seldom present, and pick-pocketing is rarely of any help.
This situation actually happens from the start of this module: why would an evil-aligned character work along with Durnan and the others? Here is another use for Grovel, the cowardly goblin: he could have been the comedic relief henchman for evil characters, replacing Deekin, who is obviously good at heart.
Hell, why even start at the yawning portal? You might have started at the service of the Valsharess and make the assault on Yawning portal the first chapter, and the siege of the rebels the second.
No matter how many excuses and arguments you can tell me, all of them boil down to this question: why let me create an evil character to begin with? This is not the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon anymore, this is a video game, not aimed specifically at children: you don't need to lecture me every time I do something evil, I am not a terrorist in the works, I'm just role-playing a character just as much as an actor does in a movie.
Second, the henchmen. We had perfectly competent henchmen, beloved characters who had a background and who we knew personally. Their stories and personalities were further developed in the first chapter and we could see their interactions. If you play this module, do yourself a favor and try all the possible combinations of henchmen, their interaction dialogues are one of the best parts.
Very well, so we had 4 different companions, and now we have 2. Let's take a look at them.
First Nathyrra, who we have already met. Wizard / Assassin... What a waste, those classes are quite incompatible, since the strength of an assassin is in direct damage and agility, but a wizard keeps casting spells in place. As with Deekin, you may tell her what class to develop, but by the time you reach here, she already has many levels wasted in one class or the other. Tomi was a great rogue: disabling traps and actually using hide to sneak attack the enemies, no stupid gimmick spell casting. Nathyrra will cast invisibility at the beginning of a combat and just stand there staring at the void and phasing in and out of existence. In order to avoid this, you have to buy the gimmick gadget of the lantern of revealing from Volkarion the djinni ,and keep casting it near Nathyrra as soon as she becomes invisible, thus turning her into a spiral of gimmicks.
Besides that, Nathyrra is an interesting concept: a former enemy who became a protector of the Seer, with a rough past having spent much time trained as a Red Sister within the drow society. Unfortunately, she isn't well developed and you have to take her word for it, since her behavior doesn't show such a background, as a well-designed character should.
We have traded Tomi the rogue for a goth 13 years-old who wants to have all of the powers of all classes at once. We also traded a cleric, a barbarian and a bard / fighter. Let's see how one remaining character fills all those roles.
Valen Shadowbreath, weapon master tiefling. Hmm, okay so weapon master instead of barbarian is fair enough. Valen is a rather good tank henchman for your party, and he is capable of very powerful damage output. He also is the one who disables traps. ( ? ) Yeah, parting with Tomi was painful...
As a character, Valen tries too hard to be a tough guy, another one to speak about his past rather than actually showing the impact it had on him through his actions and behavior.
Also, he has got the number one prize for the most idiotic piece of gear in the whole history of the world. Can we please take a look at Valen's unique breastplate armor?
Armor class: 5
Maximum Dexterity bonus: 2
Armor check penalty: -5
Medium Armor
Special:
Arcane spell failure: -10%
Armor bonus: +5
Use: haste (10) 1 / day
Weight reduction: 60%
Apparently nobody else has ever questioned this, as I was able to find exactly no reference to Valen's armor. Let's study this one item carefully:
First: why medium armor? Yeah, the lvl 5 armor allows for the maximum dexterity bonus of +2 which he has, but he isn't a dexterity based character anyways, so he won't be making any use of that bonus.
Second: the special properties. This is where unique armors shine, let's look at what Valen is benefiting from with this piece of gear:
- Arcane spell failure reduction?! For a pure fighter? Uh... what?
- Armor bonus is fair enough, however by this point we have been looting armor with such level of improvement or better.
- Used skills can't be used by NPCs, what is the point of haste as a used skill? Since the armor can't be given to other characters, this is just pointless. Haste is a good idea for a fighter, but it should have been an item property, not a used skill.
- Weight reduction? for crying out loud, he is a pure fighter! he will have more carrying capacity than space to carry (hoard) things around!
With this, the only truly useful special property is the armor bonus, which at 5 is not bad, but far from impressive. See? this is one of the reasons we had to hoard loot: Now we surely have some actually good piece of gear to put on him instead of that booger-colored snot of an armor he wears.
At any rate, we have the fighter / barbarian classes covered with this; bard should be taken over by Deekin, and rogue by Nathyrra. And the Cleric? Everybody likes having a Cleric: they buff you out, provide healing and turn undead for you. That was Linu's job, and she was rather fine at it. Whatever happened with Dorna Trapspringer? There you have an interesting multi-class hemchman: being a rogue / cleric, and a possible love interest that is not elf or human for a freaking change. Now we are left without a cleric because no original campaign henchmen were allowed in here, we had to make room for these new NPCs.
We haven't even begun playing the second chapter and this is what it looks like already... In the next entry we will take a look at the actually good part of it!
The second chapter begins and we find ourselves swimming in the vomit of exposure that Nathyrra had barfed upon us earlier: the temple of LOL.
First of all: I hate how much potential is wasted in Neverwinter Nights in the story telling. Even overall excellent modules have failed to deliver in this department. I'm talking about alignment. ALL modules set you to a good-aligned faction, and most of them are lawful. Yeah, you have the option to do evil things, but there is no advancement story-wise and you get nothing from NPCs if you are mean to them. The bluff and intimidate options are seldom present, and pick-pocketing is rarely of any help.
This situation actually happens from the start of this module: why would an evil-aligned character work along with Durnan and the others? Here is another use for Grovel, the cowardly goblin: he could have been the comedic relief henchman for evil characters, replacing Deekin, who is obviously good at heart.
Hell, why even start at the yawning portal? You might have started at the service of the Valsharess and make the assault on Yawning portal the first chapter, and the siege of the rebels the second.
No matter how many excuses and arguments you can tell me, all of them boil down to this question: why let me create an evil character to begin with? This is not the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon anymore, this is a video game, not aimed specifically at children: you don't need to lecture me every time I do something evil, I am not a terrorist in the works, I'm just role-playing a character just as much as an actor does in a movie.
Second, the henchmen. We had perfectly competent henchmen, beloved characters who had a background and who we knew personally. Their stories and personalities were further developed in the first chapter and we could see their interactions. If you play this module, do yourself a favor and try all the possible combinations of henchmen, their interaction dialogues are one of the best parts.
Very well, so we had 4 different companions, and now we have 2. Let's take a look at them.
First Nathyrra, who we have already met. Wizard / Assassin... What a waste, those classes are quite incompatible, since the strength of an assassin is in direct damage and agility, but a wizard keeps casting spells in place. As with Deekin, you may tell her what class to develop, but by the time you reach here, she already has many levels wasted in one class or the other. Tomi was a great rogue: disabling traps and actually using hide to sneak attack the enemies, no stupid gimmick spell casting. Nathyrra will cast invisibility at the beginning of a combat and just stand there staring at the void and phasing in and out of existence. In order to avoid this, you have to buy the gimmick gadget of the lantern of revealing from Volkarion the djinni ,and keep casting it near Nathyrra as soon as she becomes invisible, thus turning her into a spiral of gimmicks.
Besides that, Nathyrra is an interesting concept: a former enemy who became a protector of the Seer, with a rough past having spent much time trained as a Red Sister within the drow society. Unfortunately, she isn't well developed and you have to take her word for it, since her behavior doesn't show such a background, as a well-designed character should.
We have traded Tomi the rogue for a goth 13 years-old who wants to have all of the powers of all classes at once. We also traded a cleric, a barbarian and a bard / fighter. Let's see how one remaining character fills all those roles.
Valen Shadowbreath, weapon master tiefling. Hmm, okay so weapon master instead of barbarian is fair enough. Valen is a rather good tank henchman for your party, and he is capable of very powerful damage output. He also is the one who disables traps. ( ? ) Yeah, parting with Tomi was painful...
As a character, Valen tries too hard to be a tough guy, another one to speak about his past rather than actually showing the impact it had on him through his actions and behavior.
Also, he has got the number one prize for the most idiotic piece of gear in the whole history of the world. Can we please take a look at Valen's unique breastplate armor?
Armor class: 5
Maximum Dexterity bonus: 2
Armor check penalty: -5
Medium Armor
Special:
Arcane spell failure: -10%
Armor bonus: +5
Use: haste (10) 1 / day
Weight reduction: 60%
Apparently nobody else has ever questioned this, as I was able to find exactly no reference to Valen's armor. Let's study this one item carefully:
First: why medium armor? Yeah, the lvl 5 armor allows for the maximum dexterity bonus of +2 which he has, but he isn't a dexterity based character anyways, so he won't be making any use of that bonus.
Second: the special properties. This is where unique armors shine, let's look at what Valen is benefiting from with this piece of gear:
- Arcane spell failure reduction?! For a pure fighter? Uh... what?
- Armor bonus is fair enough, however by this point we have been looting armor with such level of improvement or better.
- Used skills can't be used by NPCs, what is the point of haste as a used skill? Since the armor can't be given to other characters, this is just pointless. Haste is a good idea for a fighter, but it should have been an item property, not a used skill.
- Weight reduction? for crying out loud, he is a pure fighter! he will have more carrying capacity than space to carry (hoard) things around!
With this, the only truly useful special property is the armor bonus, which at 5 is not bad, but far from impressive. See? this is one of the reasons we had to hoard loot: Now we surely have some actually good piece of gear to put on him instead of that booger-colored snot of an armor he wears.
At any rate, we have the fighter / barbarian classes covered with this; bard should be taken over by Deekin, and rogue by Nathyrra. And the Cleric? Everybody likes having a Cleric: they buff you out, provide healing and turn undead for you. That was Linu's job, and she was rather fine at it. Whatever happened with Dorna Trapspringer? There you have an interesting multi-class hemchman: being a rogue / cleric, and a possible love interest that is not elf or human for a freaking change. Now we are left without a cleric because no original campaign henchmen were allowed in here, we had to make room for these new NPCs.
We haven't even begun playing the second chapter and this is what it looks like already... In the next entry we will take a look at the actually good part of it!
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Hoards of the Gadgetdark, part 7
3 min read
Part 7: End of the first chapter. It was good to see you, old friends...
We're getting closer now. As you head towards the door for the final showdown, Nathyrra appears again. And this time she actually wants to join the party. Wait, we were supposed to be limited to 2 henchmen, if Nathyrra is going to join, I'd rather go back to the yawning portal and bring my faithful henchmen from the good old times. So she is with us, but isn't a fully official member of the group. (you can't manipulate her inventory or give her specific commands)
The fight with the drow forces can be tough, so be prepared. As you open the door another asinine cut-scene begins, so cast the spell of pressing the ESC key. After dealing with them, and looting their bodies, break the stones and free Halaster.
And here is where everything becomes bad.
First of all, Halaster puts a geas (a WHAT? now the game is using gimmick spells. You know what, I am going to go and add this to our list of gimmicky gadgets, just because) on you, basically forcing you to do his bidding. I hate this, DON'T do this if there isn't going to be vengeance, it's so emasculating. And this is exactly what they do to you in the previous module, Shadows of Undrentide: in the final chapter some lizard-folk slavers turn you into their puppet and you never get revenge for it.
By the way, Halaster, who we have been hearing about since the beginning of the game, actually is one of those hello and goodbye characters. He appears here, throws the gimmick, moves the plot and we never see him or hear about him again.
Second, this is Transformers: the movie. Not the one by Michael Bay in 2007, the animated one from 1986. Not because of the cool animation and music, mind you, but because our beloved characters are being killed and replaced with gimmicky idiots who we don't care about. Halaster forbids entrance to the next chapter to all 4 original henchmen, only allowing Deekin and Nathyrra to come along. We had a bond with the original henchmen: in the original campaign, they tell you their story and eventually ask you to find specific items for them. Now we have a Mary Sue drow who knows everything and has all of the powers and an emo we haven't met yet. Deekin is still cool, though, but why take Daelan, Tomi, Sharwyn and Linu away from us?
With this, chapter one of 3 comes to an end, this is what we have hoarded so far:
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- a bag of holding
- a geas
We're getting closer now. As you head towards the door for the final showdown, Nathyrra appears again. And this time she actually wants to join the party. Wait, we were supposed to be limited to 2 henchmen, if Nathyrra is going to join, I'd rather go back to the yawning portal and bring my faithful henchmen from the good old times. So she is with us, but isn't a fully official member of the group. (you can't manipulate her inventory or give her specific commands)
The fight with the drow forces can be tough, so be prepared. As you open the door another asinine cut-scene begins, so cast the spell of pressing the ESC key. After dealing with them, and looting their bodies, break the stones and free Halaster.
And here is where everything becomes bad.
First of all, Halaster puts a geas (a WHAT? now the game is using gimmick spells. You know what, I am going to go and add this to our list of gimmicky gadgets, just because) on you, basically forcing you to do his bidding. I hate this, DON'T do this if there isn't going to be vengeance, it's so emasculating. And this is exactly what they do to you in the previous module, Shadows of Undrentide: in the final chapter some lizard-folk slavers turn you into their puppet and you never get revenge for it.
By the way, Halaster, who we have been hearing about since the beginning of the game, actually is one of those hello and goodbye characters. He appears here, throws the gimmick, moves the plot and we never see him or hear about him again.
Second, this is Transformers: the movie. Not the one by Michael Bay in 2007, the animated one from 1986. Not because of the cool animation and music, mind you, but because our beloved characters are being killed and replaced with gimmicky idiots who we don't care about. Halaster forbids entrance to the next chapter to all 4 original henchmen, only allowing Deekin and Nathyrra to come along. We had a bond with the original henchmen: in the original campaign, they tell you their story and eventually ask you to find specific items for them. Now we have a Mary Sue drow who knows everything and has all of the powers and an emo we haven't met yet. Deekin is still cool, though, but why take Daelan, Tomi, Sharwyn and Linu away from us?
With this, chapter one of 3 comes to an end, this is what we have hoarded so far:
- the Reaper's relic
- its rogue stones
- the 7 ioun stones (one for each stat and one for armor condition)
- a rod of resurrection
- Halaster's glass
- Enserric the talking sword
- the Doss Lute
- the Canaith mandolin
- the harp of charming
- the harp of haunting
- the Dove's harp
- the gem of seeing
- the branch of giving
- the chalice of Lathander
- the Djinni bottle
- a bag of holding
- a geas
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