Title | Honor Among Thieves |
Author | Baldecaran |
Submitted / Updated | 01-12-2004 / 07-14-2012 |
Category | City Adventure |
Expansions | HOTU-1.64 |
Setting | The Runelands (custom world) |
Gameplay Length | 20-30 hours |
Number Players | NOTE: The module should be played in Hardcore mode |
Language | English |
Level Range | If you're a very cautious player, you can start at level 1. But level 5 is recommended in general. |
Races | Any (pure-blooded elves are rare in this part of the world) |
Tricks & Traps | Heavy |
Roleplay | Heavy |
Hack & Slash | Light |
Classes | Rogue (other classes ok, but rogue skills are critical) |
Scope | Large |
DMNeeded | No DM Required |
Single or Multiplayer | Single Player |
Max Character Level | 06 |
Max # Players | 01 |
Min # Players | 01 |
Min Character Level | 04 |
Content Rating | Teen |
Alignments | Any (there are many temptations toward chaotic behavior) |
Gameplay Hours | <1 |
Description | |
They say there can be no honor among thieves. They say that human greed is stronger than human loyalty, and that no promise is safe from the corruption of gold and power. But even within the shadows, some order must be held. Here, knowledge is more powerful than the sharpest blade, and alliances are kept through a careful balance of lies. And though indeed there may be no honor among the thieves, there is respect amid distrust... A chance meeting at a country inn leads you into the dark underbelly of the city of Endorr. There, you become entwined in a tangle of lies and deceit, as you infiltrate a local thieving guild in search of a stolen artifact. And as you discover the truth of the shadowy world around you, you learn the nature of your own conscience. Who around you deserves your trust? And what is the price of your own honor? A Chinese version of the module, translated by Lisha_sun and Saltius, is available here. |
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This is easily one of the most interesting modules I have ever played. The NPCs will wander about the town and change their location. Shop keepers will close their shop in the evening, leave, walk across the town outside to their homes, and even go to bed for the night. Occassionally this will result in some pathing issues where an NPC will seem to get stuck on something (usually another NPC) that impeeds them from walking any further, which can be troublesome for a few quests. This however can be fixed by talking to the NPCs so that they move out of each other's way.
The other thing about it that is quite interesting is the non-linear nature of it's advancement. Sure there are some quests that must be completed in a sequential order before you can go on to the next one but with multiple quest givers that give out a series of quests, it's not like you are stuck where you absolutely must do a specific thing and nothing else (or at least until you start running out of quests and reach the end game portion.) Many quests have multiple possible outcomes and even when it comes to completing the game, there multiple endings depending on how you decided to handle things.
However as the module description says, this module really is meant to be played in hardcore mode. There's going to come a point where you my finding yourself wanting to kill off an NPC that is otherwise friendly towards you thus their name would appear in green (preventing you from attacking) if the game was in either Easy or Normal mode.
This is probably a very silly question but where do I find D'Urberville's estate? I have checked all over the map but cannot find a pin.
I forgot to mention the more serious bugs and what to do about them. Since Baldecaran is not on this site (sadly), you're welcome to PM me if you run into a bug. I won't be able to fix it, but I may be able to offer some work-around. Here's the ones I've run into which are likely to have a noticeable impact.
A clandestine mission - Derent Skul & Thruldor Cystana
The first bug you're likely to notice is along the main story path when you're trying to infiltrate the local thieves guild. You'll have to go into a specific tavern where Derent Skul likes to hang out, wait for him to leave, follow him around town and eventually he'll stop near an elf named Thruldor Cystana. At this point, you kill Derent Skul in front of Thruldor Cystana, who will run over to you demanding an explanation. If you run into the bug, Thruldor doesn't run up to you demanding an explanation and if you try going over to talk to him, he does not demand one either.
You're only option here is to reload a saved game, since this is along the main story path thus not optional. The place where you will want to save (just in case) is inside the tavern where Derent Skul is hanging out while he is still drinking but not while he is walking around or anything. In all honesty, I think this bug relates to being over-leveled and killing Derent Skul too fast because I only seem to run into it if I've either played a bunch of other modules first or decide to replay this module with the same character.
Ozric
The NPC Ozric will sometimes get stuck someplace outside, usually either in front of the boxes around the corner from his shop or in front of his own house. If it is in front of a box, you can get him going again by talking to him to get him to town to face you and start walking again. However when he just stops in front of his own house, there's really nothing you can do. Sometimes he'll start moving again eventually as day/night changes but more often than not, he'll just hang out there for the rest of the module. This mostly impacts the side-quest Ozric's Gold as in order to complete this quest, you have to slip into the house as he opens the door to go in at night. Although he is a merchant NPC, he mostly sells low grade general purpose stuff. You'll find better items for sale elsewhere.
Zorin
This is the NPC that runs the weapons and armor shop, and he will sometimes disappear completely. I suspect that he sometimes gets stuck somewhere inside his own house and does not come out or is stuck somewhere outside that I have not found yet. For this reason, I recommend visiting his shop fairly early into the module to see if there's anything he sells that will be an equipment upgrade. If he does disappear on you, it will impact a series of completely optional quests.
Everyone Seems Too Good at Seeing You Sneak Around
Actually this is not a bug, but just how this module is as even my Lv10 with maxed out hide and move silently will have trouble sneaking around unnoticed without either some equipment to increase these two skill or some invisibility potions, but think about it. This module takes place in a city where the theives guild runs rampant. There's rogues almost everywhere -- some are theives, some are assassins, others are just spying on people. The local citizens are bound to be a bit jumpy at the sight of any shadow they might think is out of place. If you find that you're not able to sneak around as well as you could in the last module you played before this one, get some invisibility potions.
Yes. This is one of the best modules ever made.
Very funny mod: lot of roleplaying,choices and multiple endings.
How can I pretend noble and get into the Upper District?
Upd: sorry, just figured it out)
A very good mod. Among the pluses I could name a really non-linear approach to most of the quests; a very long time of playing; a good detective plot.
Among the minuses: even with a never ending bunch of quests it becomes boring, because you are stuck in the same location (one city with a couple of little districts) and your motivation is unknown thus presumably weak. For example, in A Dance with Rogues you work for thieves, cause you owe them your life and freedom; it is part of your training; you depend on them totally. Here I don't really have to (and don't want to) do any works beside the ones needed for promotion. The characters of the guild members are readable but still not convincing.
Anyway, the story with detective elements, ancient god and different endings deserves 7/10.
Worth only one play.
Once you know where the book was, it's tempting just to get it and do an ending.
No replay value.
One of my fave module!
Vote from old vault:
Few issues:
- quest design - wish there was option, that I stole from everyone without getting appropriate quest. No one really shows up to confront new thief in the town(me), they should get territorial, I think.
- sometimes ozric is "a busy man" while standing in his shop(one-liner instead of full merchant convo)
- not enough bags of holding
- one openable door with no transition in the north part of the city gates
- couldn't finish carristin necklace quest(I think I sold the plot item, but couldn't find it)
- dead Rodon(warden) still shouts
- golem controller - Fergus does not acknowledge its loss, still shows me it(how?) and its pickocketable via his convo
- Figan(dwarf leader) - does not acknowledge I opened his door in his first convo
- workers fight wurbeasts(diamond mine)
- Dariush does not give gold to the PC, if you chose to give the hand to him.
- near the secret entrance to the castle there is openable door, but with no transition.
- after the main quest is done(hand's destruction) you can't raise Alesa or buy the rod of ressurection
- body of guild member found in feyal hideout ism also unressurectable by the guild(no such convo option)
- after I have seen one amulet of loyalty, I should be able to spot and undo(take off) the other one
Best rogue mod ever made.
Hah, such recommendation from an outstanding reviewer... you've just convinced me to try this :)
I created this topic where you can find a link about a complete Let's Play Honor Among Thieves series on youtube.
Thank you to both Willy Wonka (the youtuber) and Baldecaran :
http://neverwintervault.org/forums/neverwinter-nights-1/players-corner-n...
This is a wonderful module, one of the best rogue modules on the Vault. I liked many sideqests and the fact you can command some thieves as well as frequent tracking of NPCs. I loved how the climate becomes dense after you find the Hand and how everyone wants to use you amid distrust. I also appreciate the bustling nature of the city: e.g. thugs emerge at night, disturbing guards, at some point a rogue attacked me, stunned and almost killed me. Also, the narrative of how the Hand "consumes" the wearer also demands praise. Loriana, a better character in the guild is a kind of relief in this evil world, especially compared to the rest that is a bunch of selfish evildoers. All this is coupled with quests, many of which are better than those from Dance with Rogues (like planting gold in the castle, disturbed by sexually stimulated noble). Separate kudos for planting Pale Elf in the plot and a good walkthrough. So in principle the module should deserve 10/10.
I grant 9/10 , however, as I somehow disagree it is the best rogue module ever made (although it is great and fully recommended). Why not 10/10? Compared to gems such as Dance with Rogues, it lacks some things: in the first half of the game you basically collect sidequests one after another, and many are not needed to proceed with the main plot. It might have been intended, but the linearity of this first half of the game could have been. Well, life of a rogue can aso be inear, but I still treat it as a small disadvantage ;) Another thing: balancing: without invisibility things cannot be done at the beggining. On the contrary a thief/cleric (find traps, special ability to enhance skills) with knowledge (identification) & trickery (invisibility, darkflame) domains and a level in Shadowdancer will fare well. You should also activate hardcore rules - which will allow for killing non-agressive NPCs - sometimes it is needed. One thing that was occasionally lacking as to NPCs was the depth of their personalities. Also - no speed items. I had to spawn the boots of speed via console to move faster back and forth (uneqipping them for fights to keep balance). Maybe rebalancing the game for this itam and placing it in the game would be beneficial for the module?
Greg, about nationality of the author: I believe he is of Polish heritage. Can't remember for sure (e-mailed with him quite long time ago). And, well, he didn't exactly hide his surname, one quite obviously of Slavic origin.
The story was good, although for me it doesn't have much of a replaybility value. Played once and ended with the "Good" Ending and that's that.
Although there are many chances to roleplay and that's what makes this module unique.
Nevertheless, if you're looking for a great rogue module then this is definitely one of the recommended ones.
Hands down best NWN module I have played. Incredible story.
After being a little underwhelmed with The Cave of Songs (reasons on a review of that particular module), I was a little trepiditious about starting this one up. I played through with the same character I used for Cave and intend to carry it forward into The Prophet (an elven Rogue). Fortunately, I enjoyed this one quite a bit better, though it's not without its flaws.
The positives:
-Much like its predecessor, the atmosphere of this module is very good. While Cave had a sort of ethereal mystery running through it, Honor captures the sense of a "wretched hive" full of crime and danger, with citizens/guards being vigilant to match. Seeing the Rogues sneaking about was pretty cool, though there were maybe a few too many?
-As opposed to Cave, where your main motivation for risking your life exploring the cave no one ever returns to seems to be curiosity, here at least you have a job that you're doing. I REALLY appreciate the options for more "scrupulous" Rogues--you can refuse most or all of the murderous actions you'd have to take and still progress through the module. Loriana was a great character for this and I loved how I got rewarded even for refusing to steal from a working-class couple.
-(SPOILERS) The module kicks into high gear after you return to your employer, where you get a real sense of various factions vying both for control of the thieves' guild and of the gauntlet. Your character has a believable ability to manipulate all of these factions against each other, with the only real contraint being that you're basically forced to give the gauntlet to Feyal initially (irritated at his strong-arming me with the pale elf, I immediately betrayed him to Akasha, and then took her and Kamia out because she was too evil to leave the gauntlet with for my liking). The fact that you have a lot of real choices as to where to leave the gauntlet, with various consequences to each, was really entertaining...as was the fact that even in the "Good" ending, not everything is left happy.
-There are a lot of nice little touches in the game--I'm sure I missed some of them, but the one I particularly liked was finding out just who the Efijinko you got for Gareth was for.
Negatives:
-While the quest design is pretty good and a refreshing change of pace at first, it does get old fairly quickly until the main plot finally kicks off. And contrary to other reviews, I almost never got caught sneaking around, so most of the jobs were trivial.
-I didn't experience any of the bugs others have mentioned, but there are still a few wonky things (some spoilers follow). When leading the priestess to the gauntlet, I was basically forced to pick it up and hand it to her (no matter how much she warned me against doing so) as she never seemed to notice it even when it was laying at her feet. I got shifted toward Evil for killing a nobleman who was in the process of raping a maiden (?!?), but wasn't shifted toward Good for saving dwarven slaves. Some quests were open-ended and had no way to proceed (the most irritating being when I was directed to watch someone all night, only for him not to do anything--surveillance is not exactly fun gameplay, especially with no payoff). And after the gauntlet was dealt with, I wound up randomly getting XP rewards of 1000 just for entering the main area, which was annoying as I a) wanted to finish off some of the side-quests I'd left undone and b) was planning on carrying my character into the next module and so didn't want to be overleveled.
Fun module, though I'm pretty sure others are right that there's not a ton of replayability here. I did mess around to see some of the different endings, though I wouldn't want to go through the whole first chunk of the module again in order to do so.
A good Rogue Mod, but as Trickster said not much re-playability
A very good module even It can be a little confusing at times, to the point where you risk to mess up a lot of things if you are not careful. Also, it's not very polished. I liked the main story but I found there is too much filler content, i.e. a lot of optional guild quests that become old very soon. If I were the author I would not have included the ring of invisibility because from the moment you can buy it you will rely exclusively on it rather than on your rogue skills.
Well, optional quests are optional. (And allow for things like having enough money to buy gadget of invisibility).
Well, I did use some invisibility potions, most of the time I got around with my rogue abilities, though.You're a thief after all, if one or two guards spot you you just sneak back around the last corner where you hopefully laid out some traps :)
and there are at least two endings worth experiencing, I.e. Good and evil.I love this module, but I'd create a new char for the Prophet series, an assassin doesn't quite fit the bill.
Somewhat late to the party, but: It's there! The Ring of Ulsinorr is there! (You know, the one Vagar the bard mentions in the Hopping Hobgoblin Inn). It took my very chaotic rogue a pickpocketing spree, a lot of burglary and also some violence to get ALL of the copper rings from this module (you may want to use containers for convienience). Required next step was to take this character into Prophet series, travel to elven lands (chapter 1) and - much to my surprise - illusion was dispelled and a powerful item appeared. I won't spoil fun for others, but reaction of elves was quite fitting general tone of module.
Fact that this wasn't just a piece of lore but actual in-game thing you can interact with (just like Loa which is actual character in-game) speaks volumes about work of Baldecaran.
This is also exemplary module in terms of quest density (and content density). I hate modules with dozens of large locations which are mostly empty.
Back to general discussion about the module: Replay value lies in doing things again but differently. Siding with other people. Playing another character of different alignment and attitude (you will learn interesting things about crucial NPCs). Or even character that isn't rogue. (Bards fare quite well, attempts with other classes were not that plesurable - and this is entertainment after all).
Heck, I even had some fun from "sequence-breaking", i.e. deliberately doing things diferently than author could have anticipted, just to check what possibilities were accounted for.