I started work converting Smuggler's Shiv a few weeks ago to Neverwinter 1, placed in the classic Greyhawk world, pre Greyhawk wars. Don't look if you are playing or plan to play.
Smuggler's Shiv Opening:
The character's board the Jenivere at the merchant docks at Gradsul, where Gelik boards as well. The ship travels south to Monmurg and picks up Sasha. At that point, the story follows the AP and the shipwreck happens on Smuggler's Shiv.
So far, I've built the Merchant docks and Merchant's square at Gradsul and the Castaway Beach on Smuggler's Shiv. The five Npc's have been created and setup as close as possible to their descriptions. Looking over the island and what I have available to work with, I see no major problems except time - it will be a major work to convert the island and the entire AP, but hopefully lots of fun. A couple of quick screenshots are below. One showing the opening scene with the sea scorpions and the shipwreck in the distance, and the other showing the five NPCs.
For conversion purposes;
Eleder and most of the AP will be set in Hepmonaland.
Red Mantis - Scarlet Brotherhood
Aspis Concortium - The Seekers
Free Captains - Sea Princes or Sea Barons
Pathfinder Society - Council of 8
Cheliax - The Great Kingdom
It's been too long since I read my Greyhawk source material. How does the former serpentfolk civilization line up with things? Are you referencing the Dual Cataclysm instead of Earthfall?
I started work converting Smuggler's Shiv a few weeks ago to Neverwinter 1, placed in the classic Greyhawk world, pre Greyhawk wars. Don't look if you are playing or plan to play.
** spoiler omitted **
I'll preface my comment by saying that I am currently playing through the 3rd book in the series and I have been enjoying it immensely. I pretty much had the same ideas, though I thought maybe
Spoiler:
that the Horned Society or remnants thereof (depending on timeline) working through an alias/allied group (maybe out of Blue in the Pomarj) would be a good replacement for the Aspis Consortium. Although largely a group of Nerull-worshipping ne'er-do-wells, it seems to me based on my recollection of Andrade Mirrius' description in the CoG boxed set that the Heirarchs certainly see the value in having commercial/diversified operations. I also thought the Black Brotherhood and connection to Tharizdun (I think there's info in the Hold of Sea Princes entry in FtA) would be a good replacement for Ydersius. Beltar would probably work well too, though I obviously don't have as much insight into the totality of the series as you.
I also thought the boat could start in Hardby and go to one of the Wild Coast port cities, on to Blue, and then on to Gryrax, a Keoish port and Flotsam and/or Jetsom Island(s.
I personally think Keoland is a better substitute for Cheliax; you're having to change a bit of the story, but there's no reason that Eleder and those other cities couldn't have rebelled against Keoland especially since the Hold lies between them *and* the Hold was - prior to the Wars - a direct antagonist of Keoland and the Keoish navy. As an aside to some Living Greyhawk lore, it is not commonly known that the Hold of the Sea Princes was established as a result of the second(?) Keoish civil war; the losers took their ships and collective butts to the other side of the Hool Marshes. Eleder and the other cities of some far flung Keoish colony siding with the Sea Princes at some point would probably be a matter of survival based on geography.
Serpent folk would line up directly with the Yuan-Ti. The Alzanti would convert to the Olmans.
On canon Greyhawk, there is/ was a strong presense of Yuan-Ti on Hepmonaland (the TSR I1 adventure that introduced the Yuan-Ti is set there.)so that ties in well. The Cataclysms/ Earthfall I don't think are really dealt with in the AP, so haven't really looked at converting events. I'm dealing mainly with Keoland at the moment.
Picked Keoland to start with as that's the realm I've been working on at the moment. With U1-3, I2 and I7 set there, and it makes a good low level hub.
Spoiler:
The Seekers of the Arcane are described as a group of unscrupulous and self-centered treasure hunters, scholars, and explorers. This seemed like a good match for The Aspis Consortium.
Update - After not having time to work on it for several months, got quite a bit done over the last few days. About a third of the island is now mapped out. I'm using numerous height ridges and blocks of impassible trees to give it an open maze kind of effect to simulate the difficult terrain. There's a system on the NWN Vaults that adds weather/ climate/ seasons to the game where extreme heat and cold affects character health, that can be lessoned by things like campfires for warmth or canteens for cooling. Since the AP specifically mentions heat problems, I'm thinking of adding this.
Spoiler:
The island is now mapped out from Castaway Beach to the nearby tip of the island to the west, and east and south to about halfway down the island to the wreck of the Gargoyle. It spans four large maps and characters can travel freely between them. Some of the monster encounters are in place, as well as the Viper Nettles and Captain Kinkaran walking up and down the beach.The Jenivere has been built both normal for the sea cruise at the beginning, and a shipwrecked version on the island.The Caves of the Mother has been mapped out but not accessable yet as that part of the island hasn't been mapped. For creatures, I'll have to reskin an ooze for the Gibbering Mouther and settle for normal ghouls instead of lacedons, or just rename the ghouls.
Coming in from the "how did you kill the mother" thread, just wanted to say: Sweet! I've dabbled with the NWN builder a bit (mostly fiddling with converting older video games to NWN), but never as seriously as this (as in, I never completed more than the opening scene and first two areas).
For the battle with the mother herself, I would suggest going with your original plan/idea stated in the other thread... to separate it into two battles. Once the lacedons are defeated, have the mother emerge from darkness to give her speech/offer. Should they accept, they wake up in the Cavern of Unbirth with ghoul fever (and thus have a chance to escape/fight their way free/confront the mother again/cure the fever before they turn into ghouls themselves... but man will it be difficult!)... and of course, if they refuse, they get to fight the Mother in an epic boss fight (perhaps with some lacedon children coming out of hiding to join their mother in the fight).
Just a thought.
Also, do you have new pics or vids somewhere? Your two beech shots with the other 5 castaways looks awesome so far!
Thanks Pirate. I'll be putting up some screenshots soon. Don't want to give away to much though.
Spent most of today working on Castaway Beach, which is actually 3 areas - the beach with a shipwreck on it, the top deck of the shipwreck and the below decks area. Characters can now "climb" a rope to enter or leave the wreck and go below decks and back.
Spoiler:
Placed the body of the first mate below decks and the sea scorpion on the top deck. Stocked 1 chest in the captain's cabin with the items from the AP except for the water walking and water breathing potions that aren't in the game. Stocked another chest with Jak's possesions. Put the body of the cook in a chest for the party to find.
Redesigned a standard outfit for Alton to be more "sailor" like.
Completed setting up Jask's conversation tree and redesigned some leather armor for him from standard, as well as creating a holy symbol and masterwork dagger for him and his key. Jask is now a priest of Zagyg going back to the a town in Hepmonaland for trial. I can't show him with chains on his wrists, so that will be in conversation only.If he becomes a henchman, I'll need to set up a conversation tree for new info. His quests setup should be done by the end of the week.
NWN1 was 2E iirc, NWN2 was 3E. Wouldn't it have been easier (for characters classes etc.) to have gone with NWN2? Looks great btw, and I loved both games. Just curious why you chose NWN1... was it the toolset, familiarity, ruleset or?
Or was it NWN=3E and NWN2=3.5? Or were they both 3E? *sigh* I think my memory is going :) I will have to dig them up and install them again, or maybe visit GOG.com and get a version that's fully compatible with Win7...
Your second guess was right - NWN is 3.0, NWN@ 3.5
I went with NWN over NWN2 because;
1)NWN was easier to use. It uses tiles for outdoors and indoors, where in NWN2, the outdoor maps are done "by hand". It looks better, but adds a lot to creation time.
2)Resources. With whats on the Vault and CEP, NWN has a much wider variety of creatures, items and terrain to choose from. NWN2 is much more limited in what you can work with. in the way of choices.
3)Bugs - even with the updates, NWN2 is not as stable as NWN.
I like and own both games as well, but NWN2 never took off the way NWN did in popularity and ease of use.
BTW, I'm using my NWN Platinum and NWN2 original install on Win7 32 bit and they work fine.
Your second guess was right - NWN is 3.0, NWN@ 3.5
I went with NWN over NWN2 because;
1)NWN was easier to use. It uses tiles for outdoors and indoors, where in NWN2, the outdoor maps are done "by hand". It looks better, but adds a lot to creation time.
2)Resources. With whats on the Vault and CEP, NWN has a much wider variety of creatures, items and terrain to choose from. NWN2 is much more limited in what you can work with. in the way of choices.
3)Bugs - even with the updates, NWN2 is not as stable as NWN.
I like and own both games as well, but NWN2 never took off the way NWN did in popularity and ease of use.
BTW, I'm using my NWN Platinum and NWN2 original install on Win7 32 bit and they work fine.
At least I managed to second guess myself :) I have both but I am only familiar with NWN1 for authoring modules. I can understand why you would want to skip NWN2s editor, the time would be a killer. I've done level editing for other games and it's a time sink (although the old Serious Sam Editor was really easy / fun to use). I occasionally think about going back and working on a module (I was thinking about NWN2, but maybe not...) but it's hard enough to find the time for the PnP game currently. I have Win 7 64 on my current rig, but I may go ahead and load up my old games (thanks btw).
NWN moduels based on Tabletop do require some acceptance that things will be more limited. I ran through a Rapan Athuk NWN module and myself(Monk) and one NPC(Paladin) wiped out a horde of cultists,clerics, a clay golem and two demons in what would be a massive fight on tabetop(Those who have gone through the module know it is the one with the lava pit.)
Wizards and spellcaster NPCs tend to be easier to lock down unless you have an awesome NPC AI script. The basic script buffs and then gets smashed by the PC.
I'll have to look at what scripts I'm using. I know I replaced the default henchman scripts with ones from the Vault already. I'll be doing playtesting as I go of course. Smuggler's Shiv is a bit light on spellcaster battles so we'll see how it plays out.
Yea. I haven't looked into the innards of the toolkit but NPC casters go for buffs first and then go for offense. A PC who goes in quick can start slapping them out of their script very quickly.
I think this is why some games like Baldur's Gate have a 'Tattoo of power' thing that fires off a bunch of spells at once.
Andrea, not sure what hakpaks Rappan Athuk is using, if any, so I'm not sure how the battles will play out in the AP compared to that. I'll be using Tony K's henchman and battle AI scripts 1.08. I can't link to NWN Vault from work but they're easy to find with search. The reviews are good.
A question and an update;
Question:
Finished up doing Jask's Quests right before work and noticed that there didn't seem to be any experience rewards for them. I'll look some more when I get home, but this may be true for all 5 of the NPC's quest. I'm thinking 10-25 for unlocking the manacles, 10-25 for returning his gear and 50-100 for the Brine Demon logbook. Thoughts? too high, too low or none at all?
Update:
The first 3 areas are basically done except for the castaway quests and adding some extra scenery items to add some variety. This goes from the tip west of the Castaway Beach to the southeast just above the Viper Nettle Patch. The Jenivere shipwreck is setup for boarding with the captain's and Ieana's cabins done. The cook's body is hidden inside Ieana's cabin. All "C" lairs and "D" shipwrecks for these areas are done. Wandering monsters for land are set up from the book for these three areas. Will set up another one for encounters near the sea.Set up the shocker lizards, shiv dragons, sea scorpions and pterosaurs as they weren't in the game. Changed Sasha's quest from wanting a young pterosaur to an egg instead. Each of the lairs has a nest with a 33% chance of having an egg in it. Jasks quests are completed and scripted in, only need to set up his joining as a henchman if asked. The Brine Demon is setup and Captain Kinkarian walks the beach at night, disappearing at dawn. Need to set up his conversation tree to finish his quest. The fourth area goes from the Viper Nettle patch down to the Brine Demon and I'm working on finishing setup on it before moving back to setting up and finishing Sasha's and Aerys' quests.
... the exp award for completing an npc quest is 200 xp per npc quest. Also, as written, the npcs can only be made friendly at best until their quest is completed. Only by completing their individual quests do you get the ability to make that npcs helpful. Once their attitude to the players becomes helpful, they will give the players a unique (and permanent) mechanical boon, which I will detail in spoilers below.
Aerys:
lets them read her unfinished epic poem, granting a permanent +1 untyped bonus on will saves vs compulsions.
Gelik:
teaches them vocal techniques, granting a permanent +1 untyped bonus to the save dc's of any and all charm and language based effects the players use
Ishirou:
teaches them underhanded fighting tricks, grantinh a permanent +1 untyped bonus to cmb and cmd while weilding a sword/bladed weapon
Jask:
shares several mantras and chants, which when practiced, grant a permanent +2 untyped bonus to concentration checks
Sasha:
teaches them combat secrets learnt from her assassin mother, granting them a permanent +1untyped bonus to initiative checks
Thanks Pirate. I knew I had seen it in the book, but didn't see it under Jask's page itself. Changing the exp reward amount is easy.
spoiler:
The Boons I saw and should be able to grant them, but I'll have to tie each one to an item. This means that while they'll be useful at low level, as the characters gain better items, they'll lose the boons as they unequip the items for better ones. I'll also have to make them worthless and undroppable so that the players don't try to sell them or drop them on the ground for others. I know I'll have to do at least one change for Jask since Perception isn't a skill choice. I'll have to change it to Listen and Spot.
I know I've missed a couple of things that have been pointed out, but reading through the AP again, I din't see enough info on the Viper Nettle Poison on how it worked. Diseases and poisons can't easily be changed from what's already in NWN, so I went ahead and assigned Greenblood Oil to the nettles (initial - 1 con, secondary - 1d2 con) I didn't want to assign a major poison for a low level AP
Spoiler:
Island is now basically complete north down to a little past the Brine Demon. All lairs, shipwrecks and random encounters are set up for those areas. I'll add some waypoints to the maps for the random encounters so that when the encounter puts them on the map, they'll wander instead of staying in one spot. There's an AI mod that would make them seek out the PC's, but it would do so for ALL monsters and that wouldn't seem realistic.
Viper nettles now look more "spikey". Any creature that enters the area without the Woodland Stride feat has a chance of getting Greenblood Oil poison. Berries are placed in the back of the area for Aerys' Quest.
Aerys' conversation choices almost done, but I need to set variables and create her poem book. Sasha's conversation almost done except for setting variables. I think I can give her a fangbird pet to follow her once that quest is complete.
The first night on the island, all 5 npcs will move down the beach and make camp, starting a campfire and sitting on logs or sitting/ laying on the ground. Each day after, they will either do an activity like gathering wood, wandering the area, fishing, or sitting around camp, and each night they'll return to camp.
Read Jask's boon wrong for perception when it was concentration. Not sure if I can do all the boons . I need to look at item properties to see what can assigned to them.
Captain Kinkarian Quest complete, and added a pulsing blue and white glow to him to make him more ghostlike. He'll permanantly vanish when his quest is completed.
Yellow musk creeper and zombies encounter done.
Scripted in a check that at dusk each day, PC's have a 10% chance to get either Mindfire or Red Ache disease if outdoors.
I saw that I was getting close to the small underwater part of the AP and added an underwater tileset to the module. Additional content to NWN is added usually in a type of file called a "hakpak". When you add the hakpak to the module, it needs to be rebuilt and the bigger the mod, the longer it takes. I went ahead and added ALL the hakpaks I though I would need and found out there's an upper limit at around 55. So after about a week of work of checking out whats available online and forcing them to play nice together, the mod is about ready for anything I think I want to throw at it. There are items/ creatures and tilesets for Al Quadim, Spelljammer, Planescape and about any type of normal terrain thinkable. Started scripting in some basic flying routines and items that can be adapted for swimming options as well. The only thing I lost for some reason and can't get back are most of the doors in the Greyhawk Ruins and the town and haunted house of Saltmarsh that I had completed, so they'll have to be replaced.
Spoiler:
Added a new area to the map covering the southeast side of the island from the Brine Demon down to Red Mountain, just above the final encounters of the module. Random encounters are in and I set up/ scripted the first of the Cavefisher encounters - the rest should basically be copies. The moneypit is complete - if a PC enters a trigger area with the treaure map, a variable set from talking to Ishirou, and the time of day is dawn, a sun beam will appear and light up a spot in a clearing. Clicking on the spot with a shovel equipped will allow the PC to make a hole with a large pile of dirt next to it and a rope leading down into the different levels of the pit with the wooden platform, the ghouls, and the treaure. Part of the treasure is available to PCs but some will be in a locked chest that they will have to give to Ishirou to complete the quest. After completing Aerys' conversation and doing Ishirou's, all the NPC's will be done except for Gellik. Left for this area is the Red Mountain lookout spot, finishing the Cavefisher lairs and putting in the shipwrecks for the area.
After this area, I'll either move south to the end game area or west for Pez and the cannibals. The island looks to be a little over a square kilometer in size, probable about 1280 x 1280 meters.
Just wanted to note that I'm doing the same thing (for table-top): Saventh-Yhi really feels to me like what Xuxulieto (the ruins in Dwellers in the Forbidden City) wanted to be, so I'm importing almost everything. Call the serpentfolk "yuan-ti," the city "Xuxulieto," the charau-ka "tasloi," Yserdius "Merrshaulk," and the conversion is almost done! (Joke.)
In GH lore, the Olman who built Xuxulieto largely emigrated to the Amedio or were slain when the yuan-ti first began spreading. This makes the Greyhawk ruins about one-fifth as old as they are in Golarion, but still leaves one with the "advanced civilization built the place and then got driven off" theme that is so vital.
Now to tie the middle and end of the AP a little more securely together. I don't quite like the idea that the PCs just happen to be along just in time to prevent an apocalypse; I need to make sure it's their own actions, however indirectly, that set off a chain of events they have to stop...
Necro Posting myself a bit, but with a complete change of focus my conversion is done.
After working on the NWN version till it was almost done, I realized that it really wasn't a lot of fun working on anymore and it would take a lot of special effort for anyone else to play it, let alone getting a group involved.
So I pit it aside and went back to my roots and what I knew best. Since I had originally started playing in the late 70's with 1st edition, I pulled out an even older editor than NWN and started converting Smuggler's Shiv with the SSI Gold Box creator from 1993, FRUA (Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures)
This conversion went quickly and was fun till the end. While a lot more restricting than NWN, it follows pretty closely to the PnP module except in the area of treasure, which is not editable.
I just finished doing a beta test of it, fixing typos and other errors as I went. My party of 6 characters with 2 castaway NPC's finished at third level, just about where they should be.
At the moment, I'm asking if anyone else would be interested in testing it out. If so, send me a PM. FRUA uses 1st/2nd edition rules and for those familiar with it, the Shiv adventure has new artwork and monsters, but doesn't need UAShell to play. Another plus for FRUA over NWN is that FRUA runs in DOSBOX, which means you can play it on the go on your tablet. Total size is only a few megs.
The adventure is completely playable but probably needs a few tweaks. Anyone who PM's - I'm interested in your exposure to the adventure (none, player, DM) and to FRUA/ 1st/ 2nd edition rules. If you finish, I'd like to know impressions, total time to finish, number/ types of PC's used, NPC's used, what needs work, and anything else that catches your attention.
FRUA has a max limit on what a single adventure can hold, but I'm pretty sure I can also get "Racing to Ruin" to fit as well. I've already started work on Eleder.
