Sergio

1) I was left disappointed by the second floor of the Waukeen’s building (from the newly added area) because it seem to be that it is a replica of Saerk’s estate, rather than being his own thing.

2) The itemisation is not great at all. There are too many generic items (especially on shops) and the few special items I’ve found are really not that great. Everything is way too balanced, to the point of being forgettable. I have the same idea for the mod “Throne of Mad God”: in that mod even the armor of the dwarven lord/commander is a (very) disappointing item. Even the reward by the demonic elf is pathetic.

3) There is a blacksmith area: the blacksmiths only sell generic items and only one cuirass made me curious, one that has a special effect if you get attacked, but still not good enough at all. No point on having shops if they don’t sell anything decent at all. I wonder why these guys are still open if they offer this crap. A missed chance would be the blacksmith(s) asking you to retrieve something powerful to forge an evil artifact. 

4) You are suggested - by the demon you work with - that in your next life you will become an abyssal worm, yet there are no *rewarding* particularly evil choices to be made in the city. All the quests provide (sadly) no roleplaying opportunities or at least I didn’t find anything that made me feel particularly evil or to profit from being evil (I would say the only notable exception is the possibility of summoning a demon if you let him get one soul).

5) It’s not clear to me why Maretta suddenly stops giving you things to do. In the module the mod is inspired to, isn’t Waukeen supposed to be moved out of the city ? Did I miss a trigger?

6) After you escape with Waukeen, it’s not clear to me what alerts the Bebilith, the abishai and the paladin that they should “appear” to besiege the city.

7) In the ending, the paladin you saved tries to stay at the entrance of the stairs and you can’t convince him to leave with you. Disappointing, and feels forced. I’m not escaping from the city: it is the city that is escaping from me, given that I’m killing (and I’ve killed) everyone I meet (met).

8 ) If you kill Maretta, in my game I was told you have 18 minutes, then I would die. The sudden death out of the blue is really disappointing.

9) When you are escaping with Waukeen, you will meet Mephisto in front of the palace, fleeing and telling you he is going to Grazz’t to alert him:
- If you kill Mephisto, you should still have the same time left (18 minutes).
- If he flees, you should have your time halved.

10) Waukeen’s reward is good, but not that good. In fact I would say that I probably prefer the RoP +3 you find in one of the tests to reach the flower.

11) I’m pretty sure a very cool bad ending could be added if this mod was to be “played” in ToB. With the control of the plane, you could actually move Waukeen here and enslave her, especially given the condition she tells you she is in. I would add that you could make a deal with Grazz’t for her.

12) The dragon is really stupid. Asking for a freedom scroll to be fred in exchange for 100 hundred years of servitude is really really peculiar. As for the itemization, he has only scales on his loot and the armor is not that great.

1) First of all, I would make it so in the encounter the villain will say that he has improved the poison again: what’s the point of an incurable poison, if it brings a lot of unwarranted attention? All the test subjects have died instantly, and now the poison is supposed to kill instantly. Renfeld took 10 days to die, and Eldathin (ingame) dies (almost) instantly, so that could definitely suggest that the poison now is even more than dangerous than before.

2) I would allow the player to catch the arrow and to also save the life of the guy, if he so wills. Personally, I find it odd that you are left untouched by the person brewing the poison and that person only kills the priest and not you escorting him, even if you are far behind.Why would the evil boss leave you alive, considering that you've seen his face? 

I should add that charname should be offered to accompany him to the meeting, and let RP option rise from it. Catch the arrow, or not?

3) In the case the player doesn’t catch the arrow, you would witness first hand that the quality of poison has definitely gone up, because there is no more waiting for days before dieing (Renfeld takes 10 days) but Eldathin dies instantly. I would say that Eldathin hit by the poisoned arrow being able to conveniently mark you the place on the map without issues and to tell you everything you need to know is a little "gamey".

4) If the player wishes to save the life of his “friend”, the poison doesn’t kill him instantly, BUT It should have a (very very) huge debuff. The high priest would start questioning what went differently this time: why didn’t you die ? Was it because the final boss is planning to send a message or for other reasons? You could refer to the fact that you are partially divine and the high priest would say that you probably owe your life to your Dad.

c) once you enter the enemy area, I would say that:
- if you catched the arrow, you should meet the second in command instantly. He was there, and you were supposed to be dead. So he proposes you to come with him and that no harm will be done to you. He also says that something good will come out for you.
- if you didn’t catch the arrow, you will meet him once you enter the place and you will be poisoned as well. You will reach him, still alive, but obviously he will still try to propose you a deal, because you are supposed to be dead.
 

- once you are inside, you are asked (politely) if you wish to work with them or not. You can obviously refuse, but you can also accept.

If you accept to work with them, they will tell you that they wish to study you, because the poison wasn’t supposed to fail. They will try to question you and you will tell him why you are still alive: the poison is great, but you are a demigod. The evil chief will say that it will study your body and how to improve the poison, but he requires time. While doing so, he says that the attention of the followers of Eldath is annoying and that you should deal with them. He will offer you a special bottle, designated to pollute the waters of that spring and ask you to do so stealthily.

You will be given an amulet so creatures in the swamp won’t attack you, and you could also add some “evil” quests: I would gladly enjoy them.

After polluting the "swamp", you will talk oince again with the evil boss and he will tell you that he knows how to improve the poison to make it lethal even for demigods: he thanks you for that, reminding that you will be immune, because your body will reject the poison with time. 

They propose to give you a gift, if you promise to use it against Eldath' followers. Kill them all with the poison you will be given to send a message..

Once you go back, you will find the new "polluted" area. Is it changed due to poison? What happened in general? Do they realize it was you? Are they all weakened? Your choice.

After having killed them all, you will have the gift: you are now gifted the skill (in game) of Use poison (the potent version – before it was nerfed by beamdog), or, if you are already an assassin, it will be improved to be the potent poison before the nerf done by Beamdog. Even if you are no assassin, you gain one use at level 1 and an additional use every 4 levels thereafter.
                                                                                     OR
you could add the use poison skill added here, if you ask Olvynchuru: https://forums.beamd...eving-skills/p1

Having done all of that, and being immune, there is only one thing that the player should do. Turn against them and kill them all.

at a certain point you are tasked to find some orcs/ettins that may have had a clash in the past with Dusk’s maniple (of soldiers) that are dead. Dusk troubles himself for what happened, maybe a little too much, considering that he is a soldier, and soldiers die all the times on that job, especially in D&D, and from a commander of units I would expect less attachment. Anyway, the moment you find them, it’s almost clear that these orcs and mobs had nothing to do with the deaths of these soldiers, but Dusk still asks you what to do.

If you spare the orcs, you get the good Dusk. if you kill the orcs, you get the evil Dusk. How does that happen? The moment after you spared/killed the orcs, a certain npc appears, telling he put the shield on the encapment of the orcs (to see how Dusk would have reacted), and delivers a sphere with magical essence that can improve Dusk. The sphere is tainted by evil: if you killed the orcs, Dusk will simply use it no question asked, otherwise he will ask to purify it from evil before using it, even if it means to lose part of the power that can be harnessed.

While I’m okay with the way it happens, I just find odd that evil Dusk is “used” that much by the npc. You cannot influence his mind, he is set. It’s like if he is seeing blood and you cannot tell him to not fall into what feels, to me, a devious trap. I’m not sure I’m talking from a writer perspective, or from <charname> perspective.

I enjoyed the whistling guy and the green-haired elf too that you meet through him 

Fall: Lost his (human) father during an attack on her village. Lost her (elf) mother too, for the very same reason, but for a different purpose. She is a ranger beastmaster with the ability to store “animals” found during your travels in the new dungeons into an “astral plane”, to call them later via innate spells. You will have the chance to help her find once again her mom and to understand why she left her.

General: another enjoyable npc. While I enjoyed his stay in SoA, I find the ToB banters lacking. I would have liked to have him as my general in case of my ascension, considering that he is pretty reasonable, but the banters, both for him and Alendir, in Tob, are not linked to what is currently happening (your inevitable ascension or quest to become fully human): they are set in telling a story. That’s okay, but in ToB, this for me is an evident flaw, becoming way more evident considering the low quality of the expansion.

Alendir: Elf, not reciprocated lover of Fall’s mother. While I can understand his “sudden” change of heart that allows him to help charname, I dislike his evolution in ToB. He is too “flowers and roses”, from a man that has been broken for such a long time.


The dungeons: so the dungeons are high quality, with a lot of different npcs and dialogue.
My (personal) issue: while the story allows you to save Alendir and Cho’nuja (and let them become your companion), you are not given choices to roleplay the “main story” these companions are interwined into.
I would have loved to ally with one of the factions to cleanse the other. Or to betray them all. I realize it’s a lot of work. To be sincere, if I was evil, I would actually ally myself with the boss Spider, or at least make him realize that he is not strong enough to challenge a demigod and require him a favour. So, once you’ve played these dungeons and experienced the story, you have seen everything.

What can I say? I enjoyed this mod and I would certainly recommend playing it at least once, with a party made of all the companions added by the mod itself. Install the easy version, not the hard one, or you will probably regret it. It was worth playing and I actually enjoyed it a lot.

The ToB part, though, was weaker.

Thanks for the mod.

Vynd (the drow): If you asked me which of these npc was the first to be written, I’m reasonably sure I would say it’s Vynd. I don’t dislike him, but he lacks personality. I remember only one banter from him, the one that is currently used on the readme for description:

"Why leave? Because in the Underdark, there are mind flayers, beholders and aboleths. Up here, there are sheep. And trees. So I weighed things up and I thought, you know what? How bad could a little sunburn possibly be?"

At first sight, this makes him appear as an opportunistic predator, but I never felt like I was with someone dangerous or at least resourceful. In fact, after playing with him, the dialogue conveys exactly the opposite of what he wishes to be: he is weak or to me it feels so - he is the runt of the drow.

I didn’t feel like he had a true development, he has no purpose but to follow the main character and he probably suffer also from a lack of quest.

I think that one thing that could be cool as a quest, would be either for him to get ambushed by humans and be surprised about the complex design they harnessed to capture him (he thinks that mind flayer are monsters, but what if he met true monsters in form of humans), or to make the underdark drow search for him because he did something he was supposed to do but refused to (but this would be so similar to Viconia that would make it lose value/significance). These are just my first thoughts about a quest, I’m sure something better could be cooked.

As of now, he is simply someone that accompany you without a purpose, if not being with you.

In essence, I would not play again with Vynd.

Littlun (the halfling). Well, Littlun I enjoyed him very much.

What makes it good is the juxaposition about his good nature vs nurture – growing amongst high elves, you would think he would have inherited their flaws. And yet, he will do what he think his right, even in his personal quest where you learn the clash between what he learned should happen vs what he wishes to happen. Pretty great, don’t you think? And you can feel the innocence of a good Halfling when he speaks, that makes you ponder and hope he will find his true roots.

Dave (the priest of Talos). Dave is the strangest worshipper of Talos I’ve ever met. If the Church had more like him, the amount of followers gained would overwhelm all the other creeds. He is content with what he is, telling you why he has made the choice of becoming a follower of Talos and why he recommends for you to change as well. But he doesn’t force you or is petulant about it.
And he has a deep respect for everyone around him, something I find peculiar considering he loves an Evil God.

And I like how – rather than the stereotypical ascension to power – he simply happens to be in the right circumstances, unwilling to do what he must, but embracing it nonetheless because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.  The only thing he demands out of everyone and for everyone is respect, and you can’t deny him that.

Moidre. This character is a masterpiece in writing. He starts with swearing an oath to you. If you’re inclined into discovering what’s his story and his past by talking with him, he will start to gradually open to you. First, a few words. Then a flood. Of memories, thoughts, and impressions.
With a Charname willing to listen, you can give him the validation he needs for a past that wasn’t kind to him. A past echoing your journey making you understand (and realize) that we are not what other thinks we are – but what we do with the dice we have been given.

Flara. What can I say about Flara. This girl is crazy, thinking to be a dragon that was turned into a human. Is it the rambling of a crazy woman (even if with a draconic ancestry) or is she right?
There is never doubt in her words. Her words convey a pride that I have yet to see matched by other npcs.
And when you talk to her, you start to wonder: if she talks as a dragon, thinks as a dragon, is she a dragon? (sorry Winski) – what if she is right, and you have a dragon in your party, escorting you?

You will have a chance to discover her past in her personal quest. A broken woman, she is... or not?