Swordflight Chapter Three

Thank you very much for all you are doing to promote my modules, Lilura.

I was making revisions up to the last minute so it is always possible I introduced some new bugs while fixing other issues.

Thank you, Veeteck, I am glad you are enjoying the series.

You are welcome. I am glad you are enjoying the series.

The Swordflight database saves information about things like how much you have shifted Zarala's alignment and what henchmen you adventured with. It is possible to play later chapters without that data but it might result in an occasional missed role-playing opportunity or "continuity error." Check in the NWN/database folder on your old computer (one of many folders in your NWN installation along with the "modules," "hak" folders etc.) and if there are any files with "Swordflight" in their name in it, copy them to the NWN/database folder on your new computer.

Thanks, avatar, and to Noobzor and dacar as well. I appreciate the encouraging words.

You're welcome. Hope you enjoy it.

The combat in Swordflight is supposed to be very challenging, so I suspect it is not just you (certainly it was not in the previous two chapters). Some tips to dealing with the difficulty:

1) Carry a very large supply of healing potions (primarily the custom "Cure Severe Wounds" potions & Heal potions) and do not hesitate to guzzle them without restraint as needed.

2) Use every resource. Use buffing potions, summoning items, etc. (or cast equivalent spells if you are a caster) to maximize your power in every fight. Regularly use Flame Weapon, from the Scabbard of Enhancement (and perhaps similar effects from some of the custom items) to increase the damage on your weapon.

3) Protect yourself. Maximize your armor class as much as possible (with items, spells, skills like Tumble, etc.). It helps a lot to have Zarala cast Improved Invisibility on both you and her for concealment, if you have not been doing that. Note that many monsters are prepared to hit you with special powers potentially inflicting Instant Death, Fear, Paralysis, etc. Pay attention to the special capabilities of particular monsters you are fighting and be prepared to protect yourself with potions, scrolls, etc. providing special immunities as needed. Also have plenty of items handy to remove negative status effects, like Lesser Restoration potions, Remove Blindness scrolls, etc.

4) Use the respawn system, there is a reason it is there. I am assuming players are going to get killed every now and then, and set things up so the game can continue anyway. Remember that you can rest in the respawn zone (at least if Zarala did not die first and is with you) and you are given some special buffs when you return from it. Take advantage of these features.

5) If monsters have primarily melee attacks, it is often advisable to kite them (attack them with missile weapons while keeping your distance) or lead them into traps rather than fighting with them toe to toe.

6) Be prepared to retreat around corners or into terrain chokepoints to limit the number of monsters who can attack you at any one time.

The above are just a few pointers that occur to me off the top of my head, and are by no means exhaustive. If I knew what class you were playing I could give advice specific to it, as well as advice to specific encounters if there are any in particular giving you trouble.

Well, again, the module is supposed to be hard, so if you are barely surviving, rather than not surviving, you are actually doing fairly well.

The module is playable but difficult for any reasonable type of character, but different classes will often need to employ different tactics based on their particular strengths and weaknesses. While from one point of view playing a fighter-type might be easier (good BAB, AC, HP, etc., & in general more inherent survivability, less dependent on rest than casters), from another they can be problematic since they have less versatility than most other classes and fewer alternatives to head-on charges.

Bioware's AI has long had various quirks and bugs in it, and I have been getting a lot of complaints about it, since the problems it causes are particularly noticeable in a very difficult module like this. Invisible henchmen getting hung up & doing nothing sometimes is a known issue. I included the "Bugle of Command" you can purchase (when blown has a henchman instructed to respond to it - in the tactics dialogue options - stop anything else and attack the nearest monster) as a very imperfect quick fix for this and it can often be used to break henchmen out of this. In particular, it can be important to get an improved invisible henchmen to attack at least once so monsters can actually target them (getting hit tends to break them out of doing nothing quickly, and it is often good to divide the fire coming your way).

Note also with Invisible henchmen who are casters that sometimes they also appear to be doing nothing when they are actually in the process of casting a spell (invisibility often prevents you from seeing the casting animation it seems). They do genuinely do nothing sometimes, but the problem may not be as frequent as it appears. It can be a good idea to instruct Zarala not to cast spells in combat (just cast buffs on command beforehand) - this tends to make her more active & useful in many situations (though the spells she casts can sometimes be useful too).

Given the number of complaints I have been getting about the AI I am beginning to think Bioware's may not be good enough and might have to be fixed up to some degree, but if so I suspect that would be a major endeavor on my part - not sure there is any adequate quick fix for it.

Not sure why you would be having so many problems with crashing & reloading. I have not noticed any such issue playing my modules myself, so it may well be a problem with your NWN installation generally. NWN can be finicky about working with modern operating systems so having a good computer does not guarantee it will run problem free, it actually sometimes runs more smoothly on older machines/operating systems. Perhaps, like the henchman AI, you are simply noticing a problem more here because you have to reload more frequently than is usually the case. You might want to try letting yourself get frequently killed and then reload in some other module to test if the problem is indeed specific to Swordflight or not. In either case, unfortunately, addressing that issue might require someone with more technical expertise than myself.

Remember that to have Zarala (or any other henchman for that matter) actually respond to the bugle, you first need to talk to her and instruct her to respond to bugle calls in the dialgoue option to discuss tactics. Even the bugle does not seem to work 100% of the time but it can improve things.

I am no expert when it comes to crashing problems and such, but you are more likely to have problems when loading large areas made with custom tilesets. Naturally having other applications running in the background also increases the probability of trouble.

Looking around I came across this: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/my-henchman-stops-fighting-bugfix. I have not had time to try it out to any significant degree myself, but it just might be a quick fix for at least some of the henchman issues. AFAIK the custom feat.2da it uses should not conflict with anything being used in Swordflight (I cannot speak for other modules). Players who are having trouble with the henchmen might want to try it out and see if it improves things. If so, let me know, and I may incorporate this fix in later chapters.

The goblinoids plaguing the Thorl estate can be quite dangerous if a lot of them concentrate their fire on you at once. It can help to distract their attention with summons, approach under cover of stealth/invisibility, and take out some of the highest DPS types quickly. While as a general rule having Zarala avoid casting spells can be a good idea, in these particular fights some of her Confusion spells and such can actually be quite handy (assuming you do not let her confuse you too!).

Thanks for voting, Balkoth.

Those are among the many annoying quirks of the AI.

It would certainly be possible to impose 100% casting failure, though that would be less than ideal since I suspect she would still attempt to cast spells, even more uselessly. I suspect your 2nd suggestion, draining all her castings would be possible too but I have not yet had the opportunity to actually test a script to do that. Something for me to think about, though that could also interfere with her casting spells on command.

Thanks for the vote and comments, Greg. 

I would have liked to have included a bit more henchman banter and other dialogue than I did and you are right that this is a bit lacking considering the importance of certain henchmen and particularly Zarala to the story. Unfortunately too many other things took priority and there are only so many hours in a day...

Definitely sounds like something buggy was happening for you during the final escape sequence, will have to look into that. Do you remember anything distinctive about the circumtances when those events (Dragon appearing or Zarala not appearing in the cave) occured?

Typically, to give a weapon tailored to a character's feats, I go through a list of every weapon and check if one has a Weapon Focus or Improved Critical Feat for it, since those are prerequisites for any other weapon-specific feat. If you have taken weapon-specific feats for multiple weapons (rarely an optimal build strategy, btw, quite apart from this specific issue), unfortunately, it is hard for computer code to figure out your priorities and you will get the first weapon on the list (usually the one with higher base damage), which may not necessarily be the one you would most prefer.

Assuming you do not have a Bugle of Command acquired in Ch.2, one can be purchased from Ochiram's store on the Sword of Valkur, as well as from the Halfling merchant in Zazesspur who sells musical instruments of all sorts (found in a building a bit northwest of the center of the Market area).

Thanks for the vote, chimaera.

Zarala is indeed supposed to be somewhat annoying and tactically stupid, though I realize the astounding stupidity of Bioware's AI can overdo that aspect of the character. I do not recall in my own testing that she used Dispels all that frequently though naturally it was troublesome when she did.

I agree this module could have used a bit more plot-related dialogue than it has. I was perhaps a bit too old school in the this module in my approach to the main plot (most old school modules tended to adopt a minimalist approach to the main story, leaving much to the player's imagination), which was neglected to some extent for pure dungeon crawling - mainly due to lack of time, I will try to improve some of this in future chapters.

Thanks for the vote and comments, Nick. I can hardly complain if your main criticism of the module is "not as good as Swordflight 2," and I am inclined to agree myself that it does not quite measure up to that standard.

In the first place, whenever a henchman dies, he should, and in my playtesting and that of others does, leave a body that can be raised by casting a Raise Dead or Resurrction spell on it. If this is routinely not happening, you have some other bug going on, and one that is likely to cause you future problems, since you are often required to have particular henchmen present to participate in conversations. Are you sure Quord did not just die someplace where his body was hard to see, such as in the lava in the Abyss? If in fact his body, or that of other henchmen, is disappearing and denying you the opportunity to raise it, you might want to check if your override contains anything potentially causing such an issue.

In any case, there is a Debugging procedure that should return him:

1) Enter Debug Mode by hitting the tilda key ("~") and then typing DebugMode 1 (after hitting the ~ key you will see your Debug commands being typed in the upper left corner of the screen) and hitting Enter.

2) Type the following:

dm_runscript s_test011

and hit Enter.

3) This will cause Quord to appear nearby, though not as a henchman  (It is better to spawn him through the above script, not directly from Debug Commands). Next type the following Debug Command:

dm_spawnitem a_testobject001

4) This will cause an item called a "Testing Orb" to appear on the ground wherever your cursor was located. Pick up the orb, and talk to Quord with this item in your inventory. This will cause a conversational option to come up in which Quord offers to join as a Henchman. Select the option agreeing to this, and he will join. 

5) When done, discard the "Testing Orb," as having it with you could cause various issues later on. Finally, leave DebugMode by typing DebugMode 0, and hitting Enter. You should now be able to proceed with Quord in the party, without issues.