I decided to play this. I downloaded it from its home page but the game has been updated. Here are my notes, which talks a bit about version control but also includes some hints. For more, including the play hints, see below/overleaf.
Install
Maerdin has updated the module, I need to apply the update to my game, now done and remove my mirrors. The update is hosted on its home page. I initially made a zip file and hosted it on my google share, this is no longer useful and so I have amended this index entry i.e. I now longer point at it. Detailed install instructions are held in the .pdf Read Me., which itself is deprecated, there is now a .doc version.
Thoughts
Yup! Fights are hard, but here’s my party about to leave “Drawn Swords”. (I) am a fighter/magic-user, trying to recreate my first ever character.
She offers the following advice, “Set Puppet mode to ON and set Party AI to OFF. This gives you full control of what your companions do in combat.”
Another of her pieces of advice is to stock up, she talks of healing kits, and arrows. I’d add acid vials, spells and flame spells, the trolls implement the rule that unless scorched by acid or flame, they regenerate. Nasty. Don’t sell the great sword that does fire damage.
This needs some study, both for Trolls and Treants, both spell casters need to maximise their fire damage, and probably have their AI turned off so they only cast it when the Trolls are vulnerable. I have been watching Critical Role and note that they change their spell caster’s spell books to optimise for specific enemies, undead, drow, daemons etc. Perhaps I need to do this, my normal style is to select the most damage dealing spells available to me irrespective of damage type. (This may no longer work as well as I’d have hoped).
Other spells required are buffs, for instance, the wyverns have no specific vulnerabilities, you just have to keep standing and smashing until they die, I need to concentrate on increasing armour class (or dex) and the to hit score.
I also believe you are punished for sleeping too much, this is tough, especially for spell casters.
There’s some frustratingly odd stuff, the side quests offer significant and useful treasures, these side quests include the Backland Barrow, (Lilandra’s walk-through explains this), as does the pop-up below, and the Dryad’s Fire, in the Northdark Woods (North) which has a frustrating moral dilemma, only the violent route yields the loot. At the end of the Castle Joyous side quest, close the Crypt door, and speak to Oudin.
×
A F o r g o t t e n B a r r o w
There are three caves in the Backlands that are not marked on your map: one just south of the encampment, one farther south of it, and one southeast of where the boar dwelt. They all lead to the same barrow. Descending into the barrow you will notice a warded door that cannot be unlocked conventionally. Click on The Ancient Scroll to be presented with a riddle.
Thrice from the north he came,
Then once from the south,
Then once from the east.
Now, the trick here is.. the riddle’s directions refer NOT to the locations of the barrows on the map, but rather to the direction the barrow entrances are FACING. So, if you look at the barrow just south of the encampment, you will see its entrance is facing north. Ergo, you must enter this barrow three times (aka thrice). Next, you will see that the westernmost barrow (closest to where the boar was) has its entrance facing south. Ergo, you must enter it once. And last, you will notice the southernmost (and easternmost) barrow has its entrance facing east. Ergo, you must enter it once, too. As you progress in the riddle you will receive confirmation that you did.
The Tomb Guardian quest involves another hard fight, which includes a Clay Golum. For more hints, including the monsters inside and outside the Tomb, press the button below
×
The Tomb Guardian
You pick this up in the Northdark Wood (South), speak to the man?, Sinna? with the silent companion, a horse and broken down cart. He’ll send you to the Wyvern’s cave and in exchange for the necklace, he’ll give you a key to the Tomb. On the way, you’ll need to see off some Trolls, probably the Treants, some baby Wyverns and then two adult Wyverns. Trolls need acid or flame to destroy them once down to zero HP. After the Wyvern’s nest, return to the Sinna who’ll give you the key to the Tomb.
In the Tomb itself, which is the other side of the river there is another hard fight, which includes confronting and defeating a Clay Golum. This is, it seems, only vulnerable to blunt magical or admantine weapons, fortunately you pick one up at Wyvern’s nest on the way to the tomb, best not sell it but even Ianth has difficulty hitting it, she needs to be buffed with the to hit enhancing spells and also some AC enhancing spells. It seems immune to most spells. It is surrounded/guarded by Earth elementals, I buffed the Party using prayer & bless and Ianth with aid, animalistic power and her own bless weapon but once the Golum was isolated, I exited from the tomb, rested, rebuffed and re-entered; it was still alone and so died, mainly at Ianth hands. On leaving the tomb, you will be confronted by its eleven guardians but are interrupted by Sinna and his/her friends who’ll reveal their true identities to you and another fight ensues. The elves join in on your side; I did not rest between the Clay Golum and exiting the Tomb and so was short of spells but with the help of the elven guards, I won this fight the first time.
The Harpers
What to do about the Riddle of the Harpers? Do I want to be a Harper? It seems you do!
Buy the “Code of the Harpers” from Oudin, and when they approach you, remember that they are neutral good, they’ll ask you three questions and offer four answers, these are neutralish, good, bad and bollocks. Get them right, i.e. the neutral ones and your in and they’ll offer you clues, necessary clues, as to how to continue on the main quest. (This is also not good, there are puzzles, which seem mandatory 😮. Not good!)
Voeae the Dryad is located in the Northdark Woods North on the south side of the river in the northern part of the map. I entered from the south i.e. the western part of the Map, crossed the river, and then walked north along the bank to find her.
×
The Dryad’s Fire
Voeae the Dryad wishes you to light a fire for her and her beloved. But no one else is in sight. Ask her where the body of her elven lover is and she will tell you he is sleeping, buried beneath her tree. There are two ways through this quest, one requires you to pass a social test, and she will release her imprisoned lover, or light the fire (OR refuse to light it OR tell her you’re simply leaving). Again, her lover materialises, but Voeae turns hostile and you are forced to slay her. For the purposes of this battle the elf is your immortal ally but seems to be either a bit shit or still smitten so finds it hard to hurt her, although he may knock her down. Voeae summons a Dire Wolf and uses “Storm of Vengeance” and also a mass stun spell, which is a bit shit; Using cleric spells to increase you saving throws/checks helps with the diplomacy/intimidate & bluff, however the chat wears out the time limit on the buffs and so they wear out during the fight too early.
I have now beaten Voeae, do the chat, force the fight, then buff up the party with prayer and bless, Ianth attacks using the flail, Gossum uses flame strike, twice I think, and refreshes Ianth’s buff with Animalistic Power, the PC uses a bunch of magic missiles, and cloud of bewilderment ( I have no idea if that worked but the idea is that she can’t use her spells) and Vromam uses his crossbow. I all did this after upgrading the game to V1.013. I dunno if that helped. My theory is that buffing after the conversation was key.
I did not get the promised scarab of protection +3 so maybe I should have taken the talking route through. Allegedly Voeae’s death yields 280 XP, and Lilandra says her corpse is holding an Alexandrite and Scarab of Protection +3, I didn’t find this to be so.
Keyword: “Harp & Chrysanthemum”
SURL: https://wp.me/pauVx4-199, I corrected a spelling mistake in the title
Oopps, the comments say that the fights are hard. Not my style but we cotinue.
On December 14, 2020 at 4:15 pm, I said, "I returned to this today, and made a lot of progress, but the fights remain very hard. Not sure how much more of this I can take. There are two hints to joining the Harpers above, which seems to be what you want to do."
How strange? A fight I was stuck on and had left for months, against the Guardians of the Dove's portal suddenly became easy. I wonder why? Might have been proper preparation, might have been that the only casualty of their fireball was a summoned dire wolf. So back on the road!
I wonder if I should start this again, I have forgotten so much of what I have done and their journal notes, and the one I made are not so good.
I decided I wanted Lilura's comments on the Backland's Barrow incorporated on this page, but hidden and available only on request. I used the code from this page at w3 schools. It opens a lovely clean 'modal'. The script has to succeed the text, and it looks like the script is tightly bound, by naming, to the button and text. If I want another one, I'll have to study the HTML and script name references. I think it's cool as it is.
The treasure in the barrow included a necklace of flamestrike, so will be helpful against the Treants. There were, unsurprisingly in retrospect, a bunch of undead guarding the treasure in the barrow and the door dance is stupid; I would never have got it without help. It's skilful programming but makes the game hard and not so enjoyable. These puzzles are great when you get them, but unenjoyable if you don't. They are better with a party with more minds to solve them. I approached the barrow with AI off, so that the lower level undead are weakened by turn undead and the 3rd level spells are available for the fight in the barrow. The boss is allegedly a named mummy and so vulnerable to fire, wish I'd known.
I have adopted the practice of doing the side quests before the main quest, one, because you have to, but secondly because I want the side quest treasure to help with the fights, which remain hard. I regret multi-classing my avatar. I hope that the barrow treasure will help.
I have the Dryad, the Tomb guarded by Wyverns and the main quest to pursue. I might buy the "Ace of Coins" from Oudin to see if I can win the card game, "War" in the cave outside Castle Joyous and get the treasure there.
I sold the Admantine warhammer, that might have been a mistake. Is this a thing, that special magic items have a purpose. Mind you the Treants and Wyverns went down easily once I turned AI off, Ilanth used her flamesword and the Cleric used a flamestrike. One really must concentrate on the monster's vulnerabilities. I went back and got the admantine warhammer. (See above)
The original download I made is now stored on my google drive, it is 134 Mb but is now outdated, see main article which references the game's home page.
Keyword: "Harp & Chrysanthemum"
I was hoping that I could make progress, but I have just returned to the Zhentarim Camp and again the fight is hard. Some comments on the vault suggest cheating; here is a console guide, which doesn't work for some reason, I documented the NWN2 console in my article on the official campaign. I used ##givexp 7000 which adds 7000 to the xp levels held. Obviously, a larger number will do the same i.e. add that number.
Much of this comment has been moved from being a hidden comment in the main article.
I have joined the Harpers, (see above) accepted the quest from Sinna the travelling tinker, found Brother Anslem's body and both the documents, I have returned to the Northdark woods (North) on Brother Anslem's murderer's trail but at night there are lots of Ghasts, and I have no cure disease, it seems that Lay on Hands does not do this, although resting does. I do have two NOCs who can turn them, maybe. I should do the three side quests to pick up XP before proceeding on the main quest and maybe get another level for everyone.
So I did the dryad finally, and the Elven Tomb and got another level. Possibly I did the Barrow from when I wrote the above para which mentions three where I picked up the flamestrike focus for Odin. I got another level but it's still not enough. I have arrived at the Zhentarim camp and need to check my social skills. Seems I have occasionally invested in bluff, I used my cheated level to increase that, let's see if it makes a difference. N.B. In the talk before the fight there is a social skills chat, and so something might be useful.
On character development, I wanted to run a fighter/magic user, this may not be an appropriate game for such a character class. Collective wisdom is that you need an arcane caster and you start at level four and I have got to level nine, (at the return to the Zhentarim camp) so again you have a choice of bard/sorcerer or wizard. It seems fire spells are pretty useful, and you need fire or acid to kill trolls, so acid may be your best secondary damage element.
At these intermediate levels, sorcerer maybe better than wiz, as may bard. (Bother, I run this game after I return from my obsession with Bards to F/MU, just in time to get it wrong. I write elsewhere about the disadvantages of multi-classing in DnD 3+.
Using the recommend skills button, may also be suboptimal as with my class choices, I get no social skills which are tested at points in the game and with the fights being hard, passing social skills maybe critical and some thought with Charisma attribute maybe worth investing in.
An author calling themselves "AhTravesty" has created a youtube series on the game, sadly not in a playlist and probably incomplete, but here is No 19, as they enter Northdark Wood South for the first time. This means he's been playing it for over 6 hours although, sometimes, he's about telling us his story, not the protaganist's. Here is No 21, which includes the fight at the camp on which I am stuck. At least, I think so.
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Dave on 
Comments ( 19 )
##givexp 7000which adds 7000 to the xp levels held. Obviously, a larger number will do the same i.e. add that number.