The Aielund Saga Act I - Nature Abhors A Vacuum

I currently finished ACT I and I must say that is awesome. I started ACT II and it gets better as I play it. Awesome work!

The mod that started it all. Fantastic, and the series gets exponentially better from here. 

I'm late to the party and finally gave this mod a try in 2020 after hearing about it over and over for the last decade.

And it was worth the wait! This mod is the closest NWN has to an Icewind Dale experience. Brutally challenging combat, endlessly escalating stakes and a near-perfect pacing of rewards to take your character from level 1 to 40 while still feeling like you earned every XP point.

This was also a fun mod to try my very first shapeshifter build. Was smacking my head through most of the first chapter, but tearing through the final act with Dragon Shape made it all worth it.

Wanted to replay this but I have a problem. The module requires "mountainsnow.hak" but the only download available on the hak page contains "mountainsnow3.hak", anyone know where I can get the old version?

If you go to the Vault page for that hak, there are renaming instructions.

Can anyone tell me how to override the version of CCOH that's integrated into Aielund Saga with the current version of CCOH?

I just started Aielund Saga Act 1, and when I try to activate CCOH I get an older version (v4.11 to be precise). Prior to starting Aielund I was using CCOH v6.1 without any trouble, and if I load a different module I'm able to invoke CCOH v6.1 with no issue.

The story is good enough - a bit linear, but nice. There is however one big caveat - I feel it's really not intended for pure spellcasters (maybe sorcerers, but only maybe). I tried as a pure wizard and found several bugs and oversights (during the course of the campaign, not as much in the first installment). The main of these:

• EMS - it's a good idea, but badly executed. There is no real indication in game of how spells work any more and almost everything has changed.
   
• Equipment - there appears to be some spellcaster equipment but almost exclusively for sorcerers (some for bards too, but I don't count them as pure spellcasters)
   
• Equipment again - lots of equipment doesn't work as intended
  • The few higher-level mage robes available have sequencers. But sequencers don't work with EMS apparently.
  • There is a "mage plate" with bracers which grant armour proficiency. The armour is unequiped when loading a saved game rendering it much less worth the effort to use it.
  • Lots of healing potions, but those are not really relevant when you risk instant death as soon as your spells are worn out.
     
• Later in the game most enemies are immune to crowd control magic and have so many hitpoints and resistances that fighting as a wizard is completely useless. This would not have been a problem if there were alternative options to fighting everything but there isn't.
   
• It's a sad day when your wizard is directly attacked through a greater sanctuary and a black blade of disaster is too weak to do any damage at all to your opponents.
   
• Companions - you really don't have any options later on as a mage. You have to bring all available companions regardless of whether it makes sense role-playing wise or not.

Don't get me wrong here - the modules are quite good, but you should probably play as a fighter or something if you want to still enjoy them towards the end.

Just FYI for Linux clients. As we've seen before, the Linux client wants HAK pack titles in all lower case. So to get the module to load, I had to rename:

EMS.hak ->  ems.hak

Aielund_hackpack.hak -> aielund_hakpack.hak.

I also went ahead and renamed Abyss.hak to abyss.hak and Aielund_finale.hak to aielund_finale.hak. The first so that the module Abyss can load, the second so that Aielund Saga Act II will load.

This was a very fun module. I played a rogue on hardcore difficulty and found many of the battles very challenging. I had to reload quite a bit to avoid losing my henchmen. I think it would have been easier with a pure melee class, but I found plenty of opportunities to use my rogue skills.

My only suggestion would be to allow the player to finish earlier quests after the last battle by opening the areas back up. I don’t want to give any spoilers so I will keep this generic. I had to skip a particular encounter in a cave because it was too difficult. I planned on going back but once I was in the final quest I could not access the area.

Has anyone ever encountered an issue in NWN Enhanced Edition with the Minotaur Horn not spawning in the tomb of the exalted night, and manually spawning it crashing the game? I looked at the item template for the Minotaur Horn and it appears to have no properties (an empty properties list), I wonder if that's the reason? In any case I just gave another custom item I made the MinotaurHorn tag and now all is good.

Otherwise, this is one of the stronger introductions to an RPG out there, I really like Act I. It presents intriguing world building (the most distinguishing attribute about The Aielund Saga perhaps) and setup for the next chapters, has decent role-playing opportunities, and well balanced combat encounters for a low level campaign (I played as a necromancy Wizard), not being too easy or too over the top. And this series goes the furthest I've seen with improving henchman AI and capabilities. It also has some of the best outfit design I've seen for NWN. Definitely one of the very best modules out there, I give it a 9/10 since it is more forgiving than I'd like when it comes to resting locations and doesn't have the most role-playing ever.

In the summer two years ago, I spent a whole day playing this with my friends. There was a glitch, but we were able to fix it with console commands.

If you try playing multiplayer, it would be better to let 1P handle the main quests.

Is there anything else I need to explain? This module is the standard for this good old game.

Great work

Just started Part 1 of Aielund and I have to say I'm quite enjoying it. I'm playing as a fighter/sorceror and havent really got a grip of how the spells are working in this module. I turn around and apparently I've used them all up !

Anyway, the only slight niggle I have is with the quest to rescue the Princess. I found her and the note on the body of Bartlett which I still have in my inventory and came back to the Inn to talk to the mayor about how good I was  and receive my reward. However, despite the fact that I have the Princess right beside me in the Inn,  the mayor is acting like I haven't completed the quest, telling me to get a move on and rescue her as she'll be in danger - yes, it's quite a weird scene to be involved in   So, how do I complete that quest, preferably without going back through the caves and up and down ladders/trapdoors?

Hopefully this isnt the end of my Aielund saga . . .

Anyone know which version of Tilesets we need? Specificially:

Which version of the "Early Winter Tileset"?  Compiled or Uncompiled?

Which version "Interior Ship Tileset"?  DDA or TGA?

Answering my own question:

Ship Tileset: DDS

Winter Tileste: Uncompiled.

Started replaying this classic and really enjoyed it.

I notice there is a bug when talking to Luther. If you pay gold, then dockblood is never set to 3 and the plot cannot be progressed. If the Persuade check is passed, then dockblood is set correctly.

I am playing this series again after a long time. Usuallyn not a glitch. But now I have encountered the same bug mentioned by Syrophir:

(SPOLIERS:)

I am speaking with the mayor after completing everything in Culdeny and the Calespur Hills, but he isn't sending me to the Barbarians to rescue the princess.

How can this be fixed?

Thanks.

Please tell me how to disable EMS? I tried Inserting dummy file and removing Spells.2da file from Hak with NwnPackerV program, but does not accept it.

I don't know in what world Empower feat is (roll+maxroll)/2 is exactly 1.5 damage. 47.5 is not 150% from 35 average Fireball damage. And yes, the guy's example about 2d4 can sometimes equal to 12 is correct, that's how +50% works.
Original game summons lasting 24 hours were implemented because game can't work like tabletop, summons are too clanky to summon them multiple times at once. So i don't know what logic went behind 1 hour/level, and especially 1 turn/level for elementals.
Evard's Black tentacles now work like Entangle druid spell, but at circle 4.
Feeding familiars and animal companions to heal them was not even used that often even after battle. Companions are not supposed to regenerate in battle. 
And that's just a little bit that i glimpsed, hard to decipher those cryptic abbreviations in hak file. Not only that, but much information is about a single spell is spread at two different sections, some of that info is outdated and wasn't removed.

But most importantly spell descriptions didn't change. It would have been nice to know that Conjuration spells don't function like described and that Empower spell only adds 35.7% damage before i picked conjuration double spell focus and Empower feat... It's like ability descriptions were removed completely, and then the abilities were changed. No, not even like that, worse, it's like some abilities were sneakly changed without your knowing, and you don't know which until something feels wrong, and you would have to test it for half an hour.
It's not my idea of fun to spend hours testing spells and look at the wall of text in combat log.

Haste spell adding spells per round wasn't fixed, Time Stop 9 sec still not fixed, disbalanced familiars not fixed.
WIth Haste and instant death spells still working like before (better), my sorcerer is now even more porly balanced. Last time i picked Empower/Maximize+Conjuration/Evocation focus+Necromancy focus, But what am i supposed choose between now, Maximize spell and Necromancy focus?  Nice variety...

Saves don't work, game crashes when going to loading screen if there are saves from this module.

UPD: found out that it's because of using some character portraits. Used a character with different portrait, works just fine.

Good day!  Is The Aielund Sage Act I - Nature Abhors a Vacuum (v3.13) the most current version?  Is it the same version that gets buried into an SQLITE3 file in Neverwinter Nights folder?  I was running into issues (missing content) with that version very early.  To be clear, sometimes the content was in the game and sometimes it was simply missing.  Loading issues, synch issues, Steam issues, I'm still not clear.  I'm hoping to play the most current version, whatever it may be, but I'm reading at Beamdog's forums that Savant no longer has access to his own content?  Will I have the same issues with any large files?

First 2 acts is mediocre at best,plot are boring after that its pure disaster. Starting at a3 every npc starts neverendign speech about their life, which bring nothing to story jsut force you to read graphomania. And with every act it progresses worse and worse. Starting at a4 fights consist with enemies that you can only peentrate at nat20 but they dela no damage so fights starts to look liek a snoozefest of consstant misses from both parties. Plot after a4 become even more stupid and i ncan go an go on. Skip this piece of overrated crap.

Is there any way to make Nelisse useful in fights? Whenever I enter fight after rest and forget to tell her to buff me up, she starts self-buffing while PC and Dante bash and slash. Then she runs in and... dies rather quickly. And even if she doesn't (due to enemies not being strong), she barely does any damage and has only 2-3 healing spells ready at lvl 5.

I'm not sure if anyone even comes here anymore. I remember that I had gotten this to work years ago. I recently decided to give it a go again on NWN diamond edition. I installed everything but I am getting an error message saying that I am missing a tlk file.

Anyone know where to find this? Thanks

Update: Ok, I finally got it to work. Apparently, I installed the CEP files wrong. Thanks for all of the help. 

Comments are for the entire series, which is fantastic.

Played many years ago, and just finished a replay using the version that now comes bundled with EE in the Community tab. Played with my current favorite character, a paladin/soc/rdd on hardcore.

As many people have noted, the progression of story and combat difficulty is always well paced. In the first act, I was clearing bandits from a road which made sense for my character and for that point of the story. In later acts, I was gearing up to fight dragons which made sense at that point of the story. The progression was consistently challenging in ways that were immersive.

Each act had a (more or less) different group of companions. The pair in act 1 bickered nicely at the beginning which gave them some personality. Each of the four possible act 2 companions had their own backstories, and two in particular did not get along for reasons that made sense for their classes (and ages). I ended up leaving the barbarian behind and stuck with the paladin for role playing reasons. In act 3, one of the companions was a huge surprise, one was a repeat from act 1, and one was the princess. The first two of those followed me into act 4, where I think I could have picked up a devilish henchman if I had been an evil character. In the final, final act, I also picked up a wizard. I honestly liked the companions in the first two acts better because they were so varied and so specific to their parts of the overarching story. I didn't really need to get the old band back together again in Acts 3 and 4. I like Nellie but not that much.

So some of the henchmen repeated, and so did some (many) of the areas. The kingdom of Aielund is simultaneously very large and very small. In the first chapter, there's a real sense of expansiveness as my party traveled all over the kingdom. In later chapters, I kept revisiting the same places which I found a curious choice. On the one hand, it makes sense to keep going back to important places. But on the other hand, it felt like I was spinning wheels. At a certain point, I didn't want to revisit the same barbarians in the same snowswept mountain for the 37th time. Or the town I started in. Or the tomb. Or the sewers. Etc. It was really in the final act of the final act that I finally got some new areas to romp in, and they were worth the wait. Epic areas for an epic character. 

One thing I needed to get used to were some changes to spells. I really love Divine Favor, so it was a bit jarring to see that the damage type was changed from magical to divine. I suppose it makes sense for a spell called "divine favor" but unexpected nevertheless. 

And a lot of this sounds like criticism, but it's really nitpicking. The story was really good, the combat was tough, and the loot was varied. I loved the cursed katana I got in the final act of the final act, even though it potentially interfered with Divine Might and Divine Shield. Dungeons met the goldilocks criteria - not too big, not too small, but just right. Usually 3-4 levels, so enough to feel large but never enough to become boring. Bosses were tough, especially the very final boss who morphed into a second boss and had a boss spider as backup. 

There were quite a number of goodies for archers, rogues, and other builds that I just sold off because I had no use for them. But I'll be looking for them in my next playthrough. 

All in all, amazing series. Highly rated for a reason.

Not a bad adventure (i'm talking only of first part).

I give 7 becouse:

-1 almost typical stripping character's gear. ALMOST becouse (and this goes another -0,5) at the beginning of the module all your gear gets removed BUT your level gets unchecked. So in other words, you could start at level 40 no problem, but forget of yer gear ye scurvy lumber!

OOOOKAY.

-1 enemy spawning most of the time is absurd. The spawning points somehow they seem to be right on your arse, so forget about scouting. Better, forget being only rogue. (luckily i'm not)

-0,5 some enemy placements make no sense, like a cave filled with spiders, hook horrors and umber hulks (underdark mostly creatures) at the first level and in the sublevel wyverns... Maybe the opposite?

Another thing that is a little annoying is the huge amount of resources you had to have in hak folder and then many creatures and props are vanilla... At this point you could have saved us all the effort?

Anyway, the story and how you can deal with moral choices seems well thought all in all. Maybe i wouldn't write before your answers "evil" "good" "lawful" adn "Chaotic"...I mean, your actions and answers should come from your instinct, if you write something like that one could think twice before opt for one, and that somehow spoils the effect. But this is just for the record.

I came back after a long time and i am playing the modules with a clearer look and more consistently. This Saga It is really one of the best adventures available here.

after all the years i just realized i didnt vote it yet so theres a nine since it is not perfect but still my favourite modul series

playing a lot of different and multiclasses i found out i had most fun with the true bard which turned out to be very strong - maybe i was just lucky but my last playthrough was with a bard str/dex/con each 10 since i wanted it to be a supporter and except the beginning i had no problems and was even in the middle of the fights most of the time

i wished i could say that for the druid but i cant at all

Hello, I've installed The Aielund saga part 1, the hak files, CEP 2.71, etc. and when I want to launch the module, it says there is a missing hak file !

Edit : same problem as above.It sufficed to rename the mountainsnow3.hak ^^