Introduction
Neverwinter Nights proved to be
one of the best CRPG’s of all time. Perhaps even the best, as its Aurora Toolset allows
custom modules gives virtually unlimited play.
So what happens when the first expansion for it comes out? Does Shadows of Undrentide
(SoU from here on out) live up to the first
installment of this CRPG product? A slightly disappointed yes.
Solo
One of the biggest parts of SoU is
the solo player module; it might also be the part I have the largest issues
with. The plot is based around the
adventures of a Harper’s students to solve a mystery around a handful of artifacts
and the powers that want them. It is
definitely a paint-by-numbers old school adventure with very few surprises, but
getting there is half the fun. The combat was, mostly, easy with very few
challenges for my bard/fighter/arcane archer character and cleric/thief
sidekick. The puzzles were a combination
of time fillers and challenging.
The NPC’s available in the solo
game are upgraded in some ways from the original game. You can control their inventory and what
classes they can advance in (a choice of two for each of the three). Sadly the training controls seem to be
forgotten at times, especially if you switch in and out NPC’s. So thus my dwarven
Thief/Cleric was a little more Thief oriented than I wanted at points in the
game. As well the options for your
follower were very limited and I spent 99% of the adventure with the Cleric/Thief
as a compromise between needed skills, healing and some fighting. I stuggled with the
Barbarian/Sorceror and never bothered with the Bard
as that was my PC.
For treasure I was very disappointed in SoU. Weapons
that would have been interesting never cropped up in the game. Cool armor never surfaced until the last
couple hours of game play, so my magic bag was stuffed with armor I thought I
might want to sell off…
I enjoyed the solo adventure, but was not impressed by
it. The adventure takes the PC up to about
13-14th level, tops, which is frustrating if you like pushing that
twentieth barrier and all the cool things it entails.
Character Stuff
A fair number of new features for the player in regards to
character development. These focused on
spells, skills, feats and prestige classes.
Most of the spells are fun and handy, if the hard road of spell casters
is the one you take.
There are three new skills in SoU. First is appraise, which basically lets you
get better deals with vendors in the game.
This will be cool once SoU is applied to the
new modules and persistent worlds; otherwise it is only useful in the solo
campaign of SoU.
The second new skill is craft traps, which I have found traps are sort
of an interesting but entirely unnecessary part of the Neverwinter
Nights. The last skill is a boon to
monks, bard and rogues, tumbling.
Tumbling gives a extra point to AC for every 5
ranks and like in the pen and paper game allows easier movement in combat.
Added feats in SoU are a mixed bag, most I would say have very limited use. One I did like VERY much was the circle kick
feat for the monk, as it basically gives an extra attack upon a successful
attack in melee.
Lastly is the biggest add on in SoU, the prestige classes.
As in the pen and paper D&D3e you either think they are cool or
not. Also they do require planning, so
sometimes some compromises have to be made for your vision of a character. I have played the Arcane Archer and Shadowdancer extensively and found them to be reasonably
fun. The Blackguard is a good choice for
the evil fighter types, it offers a bunch of nasty
options. The Harper Scout and Assassin are
too compromised to give much of any benefit to a player. Assassins offer little than what a rogue
would get as they progressed. The Harper
Scout really is a stripped down bard, which is a compromise class to begin
with.
In SoU I thought there were a
couple things missing. One is I thought
was missing in SoU was a good magic oriented prestige
class. The martial and rogue-like
classes were covered well, but if you wanted to play a magic class the only new
things available were a few new familiars (though the pseudodragon
is very cool). Secondly I would have
liked to have seen more racial options for characters. The standard Player’s Handbook races (Human,
Elf, Half-Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling and Half Orc)
get very old after so much play. It
would have been cool to see Drow, Tieflings,
Asimar or elven sub-races
as character choices.
Nuts and Bolts
As seen in the solo module for SoU
is the three new tile sets for NWN. They
are lush and I think it will be exciting to see them in use for new hand
crafted modules. Unfortunately the sets are
not something a player can get all that excited about until the modules start
rolling out. A designer/programmer might
feel otherwise, as they have more direct usefulness to them.
Summary
Shadows of Undrentide
is a good add-on, but hardly the best thing to come out of Bioware. It adds
just enough to reinvigorate my play of Neverwinter Nights,
but not anything to get overly excited about.
