The Blacksteel Chronicles - Return to the Ancient Land (Volume One)

The plot is really interesting. 3rd part is a little better than parts 1 and 2. Overall vote: 8.

I will comment entire series here:
- Outdated CEP makes the module unplayable(those crashes mentioned, braking glass sounds, while fighting etc.). Solution is to install cep1patch169 hak into every part. Also, I think not getting dwarf runestone by baaneral was caused by this.
- it is not clear, but you should start 10 level, otherwise you will be given XPs to reach that 10th level
- goblin's message cannot be taken(1st part), one boots(polymorphing) cannot be sold
- no bags of holding, except those few lesser ones at the beginning.
- Donnar's option "saving the piece for later" doesn't give you the large blacksteel hunk back
- only 1 arrow is made from blackesteel each time - that's a ripoff
- you can only take 2 companions, Though I like the idea of one of them(the one you didn't hire) getting killed in that vortex(1st part), I wish I could take more of them in my party. Also sometimes henchmen join me unexpectedly.
- definitely too many critters, I felt flooded. The mechanical spiders - ok, they do vary in abilities, but they all use just one shape and size. Basically all parts. Besides I think they gave me too much XPs, and I spawned even more of them in the result, though I fought only ones I needed too. The 3rd part, except the underowrld, had less critters and was better because of that I think.
- I wish I could somehow persuade the dwarven factory to join aramune - since it has the only dwarves left in the entire continent.(2nd part)
- faustina sarcophagus can be looted twice - in 2nd and 3rd part. I think the amulet from the 3rd part is unsellable though.
- wish the keagle shop would update from module to module - getting new stuff. It does not have to be arms, just the potions, spells?, ammo etc. Since he is alchemist he could use that skill to make stuff - like snow apes, monkeys and monster could drop cold stones you could use or give to keagle for him to make new arrows?.
- can't inform ferris of keagle death before talking to aldo.(3rd part)
- some boulder does not yield blacksteel, but maybe it was intentional. Also it would be better if you had to use picakaxes to get thet ore, instead of normal weapons.

Oh and one more thing: If you had problem with the spiders in this part, you have to find spider scout hanging near the west stronghold entrance. Get what's on his corpse and bring to aldo then donnar.

It seemed like a good mod at first, but I crashed because of CEP incompatibilities. I may update the mod to CEP 1.69 sometime, but I don't have the time to right now.

As Werelynx mentioned, in order to play this you have to manually add cep1.69 patch hak to the list of custom content used for the module through the Aurora Toolset.

That aside, I stopped early on in the module due to several reasons:

- Bad henchmen choices. You are given the choice of two between a Level 15 Cleric/Rogue, Level 10 Wizard or Level 10 Bard. However, the first has terrible stats and when paired with the wizard will attack her if friendly fire occurs due to the rogue sneak attack bug. The wizard on her own is really good though. The Level 10 Bard is not much use considering he invests purely into charisma.

- Lazy combat encounters. Just waves and waves of the same type of monsters over and over again. Who thought it was fun to fight the same group of Goblins and Goblin Riders more than 5 times, at the same exact spawn location? Given how spellcaster AI works, even low level mob encounters will make them waste their spells you have to rest constantly which is a waste of time!

- Crafting. I really dislike how Blacksteel Crafting is handled. As much as how its suppose to adhere to the plot, it is highly annoying how you cannot specify the type of equipment made. I told the smith to make a sword, but turns out its random whether he gives a dagger, short sword, longsword or bastard sword, which sucks imo especially if I do not focus or cannot wield that weapon type! To make things worse, the smith can fail in crafting! This is even when Blacksteel is a limited find, so you'll be forced to reload a save everytime he fails!

First part was nice just wished you were informed of lvl 10 character for start. I think the randomness of Blacksteel crafting is due to the nature of Blacksteel (I laughed out load when the smith told me the armor he was making just got up aned walked away)

This is my overall impression of all three Blacksteel modules in the series, spoiler free. I manually installed the 1.69 CEP patch into all three modules and it worked fine.

I've been playing NWN for a long time now, and I trust the hall of fame to deliver me the best content NWN has to offer. Once in a while when the bug bites me, I come back, pick a module (or series of modules) that I haven't played before from the HoF and go through them. I haven't been disappointed, until I played The Blacksteel Chronicles.

Let's get the pros going:

- Setting. There's some custom lore here that's fairly interesting, and could easily be used to spawn more adventures in the same setting.

- NPCs. Some pretty memorable henchmen/reoccurring characters. Not all of them stand out, but there are some that you do want to see more of.

- Humor. Some pretty nice references to pop culture sprinkled here and there. It lightens the mood between otherwise serious moments.

- Story Hook. You are tasked by the king to lead a team into a faraway land in search of a metal thought to be a myth. Things don't go smoothly (as you would imagine). A nice setup, and the promises of riches/influence/adventure will tempt every alignment. You do get leveled up in story if you bring a fresh character, but that creates a situation with continuity as the king calls your level one nobody in to lead his expedition. Not a big deal, but it would have made more sense to to give the new character the XP needed to get to level 10 right away and pretend there's a backstory of deeds there to justify the invitation.

-Haks. The CEP was used nicely here. You can tell that it added a lot to the modules, and made for some really good looking areas, neat monsters, and unique equipment.

And now on to the cons:

- Spawns. I'm reminded of a line from the song "All Star" when I want to describe the enemies in all three chapters: 'And they don't stop coming'. Even for a hack-and-slash module, it's too much. Enemies spawn in constantly, in large groups, and it seems like the triggers fire off more than once so that areas you thought you "cleared out" are infested again in minutes. It's not uncommon for one battle to aggro creatures from the next one, leading to chains where you can't rest, regroup, or retreat easily.

- Creatures. You might be thinking "Hey, those spawns sound pretty good if you want to grind up levels and items!" and you'd be wrong. While the creatures aren't too difficult to beat, they're often several levels below you, so the XP gained from murdering your way through an entire area is minimal. Many of them, including commanders, don't drop great loot if they drop any at all. They're literally only there to put blood on your sword, and pad out the length of the modules. Speaking of...

- Length. In chapter two, the first quest I completed was the one I thought was the most pressing. Little did I know that when I completed it, I had just finished the main quest of the chapter, and the journal entry told me to finish up any sidequests and export for chapter three. Had the spawns not been so egregious, I most likely would have finished the quest in five minutes. In fact, I daresay I could have run through this entire series in less than an hour only doing the main quests and avoiding as many fights as possible.

- Continuity. When you're writing a series with returning areas, characters, etc. you want the player to feel like the choices they made in the last chapter carry over to the next one. In Blacksteel, sometimes this happens, sometimes this doesn't. If you miss (or choose not to do) certain side-quests or events, you're going to be confused when the next chapter gets loaded up and characters you've never met talk to you like you did something for them. As an example, when I started chapter two right away there was a character that I didn't know but talked to me like he knew me. After reloading a save and looking around chapter one, I finally found the character and the chapter two interaction made a lot more sense.

- Blacksteel. Not the series itself, the in-game metal. Great idea, bad execution. Blacksteel is supposed to make powerful magic items that also have not insignificant drawbacks. So when you find yourself getting entire sets of blacksteel equipment, you'd expect to be very powerful at the risk of being toppled by the weaknesses that come with that great power. However, it doesn't work out like that in practice. Blacksteel weapons rarely have any enchantment bonus to overcome DR, blacksteel accessories often have their power in "on-use" abilities that henchman can't make use of, and blacksteel items in general may have major drawbacks much worse than any positives. There are more powerful non-blacksteel items at the market in the beginning of chapter one. Speaking of that market...

- Shops. Those shops are the only ones that you'll encounter in all three chapters, and once you leave in chapter one you can't come back. There is a shopkeeper that comes with you, but he's only there to supply you with ammo, some scrolls/potions, traps, and dyes. You can sell things to him, but outside of the things he sells the gold isn't good for anything. I think this was a design choice, so that you'd be forced to use the unique blacksteel equipment your friendly blacksmith crafts for you from scavenged blacksteel on site. Speaking of him...

- The smith. He's your main way of getting better equipment. That would be fine, if your smith took specific requests. You see, instead of saying "make me a shortsword" you instead say "make be a blade" and you get a random bladed weapon. If you ask for armor, you could get anything from light to heavy (no clothing or robes). If you ask for ammo, the one time the ammo crafting option worked for me I got a single arrow. In addition to that nonsense, there's a reasonable chance that the crafting fails, and you don't get anything. So even if the crafting works, you might get an item you can't use; and if it is an item you CAN use, the drawbacks might be so bad you can't justify equipping it. What a mess!

- Bugs. Several things weren't working like they were supposed to. Once you give a hunk of blacksteel to the smith, if you say "nevermind" he won't give it back and you just wasted some blacksteel. There's a powerful magic item that if taken in chapter two, will create a monster in chapter three. But if you go and look for the item in chapter three, it's still there so you end up with two if you took it the first time. In chapter three the journal tells you to talk to someone specific after completing a quest, and when you do there's no new dialog. These aren't small bugs, and should have been caught and fixed long before now.

All in all, the cons outweigh the pros for me on this series. I will refrain from voting, because I suspect that there's something I "missed" or "didn't get" that made the series good enough for the hall of fame, but I just can't think of what it might be. I can't recommend.