Honor Among Thieves

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.

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.

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?

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, 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.

I have mixed feelings about this module. Indeed is a good work, and it somehow reminds me more of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay adventures than D&D ones. What this module lacks, in my opinion, is the sense of urgency for the character to resolve the main quest.
It has an approach like "do what you want and if (and when) you have time then find this mystical artifact". The side quests are not very difficult and seldom I feared that my character was going to die due to wrong choices. Every now and then I even found myself stuck with the plot without knowing what to do, and the solution was "let's have a nap and wait".

If I have to compare it with the first chapter of "A dance with rogues", the latter manages to create a different atmosphere, and inspire a more creeping feeling.

Not bad, anyway.

"Sometimes the mere knowledge of something can be a kind of homage." -Valariel of Selene

REVIEW

Honour Among Thieves is probably the most conceptually ambitious mod I have come across in NWN. Offering moral ambiguity, real choice & consequence as well as imaginative gameplay, it very much feels like the flawed gem of a Troika game to the more regular, polished and streamlined Bioware style modules. In its best moments, I was reminded of noir classics such as Vampire Bloodlines (which is astonishing, because as I only now come to realise, the first version of this mod was actually released before that game). Navigating a lively city under the cover of darkness on missions whose true end you can hardly discern, never shaking off the constant suspicion that all your choices really just amount to becoming a pawn of one intrigue or the other, while a constant threat of intangible yet impending doom looms large. The entire Karol Norvath plot line especially is a masterpiece of RPG writing, with just enough clues to have everything fall into place for a careful observer by the end, but never so much as to give away the mystery prematurely. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.", as Baudelaire wrote. A propos the Devil, I also love the way the supernatural is presented in Baldecaran’s game world - far from the ostentatious display common to D&D, you never quite know whether a healthy dose of scepticism towards it is appropriate or fatal (the Ankaran Sarcophagus sends its regards!). The level design is magnificent - you will find no arbitrary restrictions or narrow railroads here. If you knew how to access a certain hidden area, you could technically and plausibly enter the endgame at any time, yet there is almost no danger of this happening by accident. It is simply that well hidden. Even without companions or extensive exposition dialogue, Baldecaran also brought to life a cast of very memorable characters pursuing their own aims - and in this module, they really do, so that too hesitant or reckless a character may actually find themselves outmanoeuvred. As a side note, this cast breezes the Bechdel test and incidentally proves that the red-haired chaotic good rogue trope does not have to follow the tried plucky bioware formula.

Unfortunately, in its worst moments Honour Among Thieves is reminiscent of a Troika game too. While it is definitely impressive how few game-breaking issues there are in as complex a module, the few bugs that do persist are all the more aggravating because at times one cannot say for certain whether something is a bug or simply a rough patch in the module, making it necessary to consult the (very detailed!) walkthrough. Usually its existence alone should be a plus, but Baldecaran set his own standards so high that it feels all the more frustrating to spoil one of the carefully plotted reveals in the module by accident while trying to circumnavigate a bug with the help of the documentation and the toolset. I have noted some of the avoidable problems in the non-spoiler section below to help others get through the module without the walkthrough. So much of HAT stands and falls with the mystery of its plot, and this is one of the few cases where consulting the walkthrough will seriously spoil the fun.

If I was to think of any negatives besides the occasional bugs that come with modularity, most should be blamed on the limitations of the engine rather than the author. NWN only allows for rudimentary sneaking, which oscillates between being so difficult as to demand save scumming and being ridiculously easy to the point where immersion can hardly be maintained as your character passes by unnoticed in front of a guard in a brightly lit room. Mindful of these issues, it might have been better to make the guards in some of the missions a bit more mobile, to allow for plausible routes out of their sight. Another engine limitation become apparent due to the module's extensive use of waypoints - while NPC schedule issues can be averted by passing time forward, even NPCs set to follow you (whether to assassinate or protect you) occasionally run into the same pathfinding issues, leading to rather ridiculous scenes when you *should* be trying to escape a certain NPC, but instead have to 'help' them pursue you by getting commoners out of the way to ensure that the story proceeds as intended. Last but not least, the commoners to rogues / guards ratio is a tad too skewed to seem plausible, which is only exacerbated as the module progresses since thugs and guards respawn, but named commoners do not.

NON-SPOILER ADVICE

-You may not necessarily want to report back to Dariush at the earliest given opportunity. You will still be able to complete side missions afterwards if you do, but some of their dialogue will seem dissonant. If you care about this, it is best to wait until after you have learned of a certain Karol Norvath.

-If you are given conversation options which seem to indicate knowledge that you are not sure you should actually have, it is always a good strategy to leave them for later. This is especially true when talking to Highpriestess Valariel, Havikaar or Loriana about a certain artefact.

-If a lock cannot be picked, that does not necessarily imply that the door is flagged as plot and that you are not meant to pass by it, as is the convention in most other modules. Try magic missiles or simple bashing, especially on rusty doors.

-As noted above, the NPCs will act on their own - sometimes rather fast. If you have made enemies, it may not be wise to waste time on a thorough rest before confronting them. Think carefully - it may well be possible to anticipate their actions based on the knowledge you have, which in one or two instances is actually necessary to achieve a 'good' ending. At other times, as some of the other reviewers have pointed out, when it seems appropriate to have downtime a rest is actually what is needed to drive the plot forward (which, contrary to the opinion above, I think is a wonderful way to create the illusion of an alive game world not revolving entirely around the PC).

-Even if you do not intend to honour your contract, it is worth pretending to do so or to reload to try it out - it is the only way to explore a certain NPC's fascinatingly reasoned motivation, towards which you may start to feel all the more sympathetic in hindsight if you carry on to play the Prophet series.

-Fluff text and lore actually matter. It should be a given, but it so rarely is.

FIXES

I have fixed some of the more simple scripting typos that prevented some dialogue options and one side quest to appear. I have also tweaked one version of the endgame sequence a little for the sake of internal consistency (spoiler details in the erf description). Download here and import to the module in the toolset before starting the game.

SPOILER

I would be curious to read others' interpretations of some of the remaining mysteries of the module. Who actually killed Marko Bweibert? I was under the impression that it was the Pale Elf's doing, but why would he have done so? His aim was simply to ensure that the hand pass into the possession of someone sure to succumb to its corruption; why not simply wait for Marko to do so and become the conduit for Nhegeth himself? And is the Pale Elf the guildmaster himself, as the journal and the amulet of loyalty found on Marianna seem to indicate, or merely has been pretending to be the guildmaster's pawn - in which case, who exactly is that elusive figure? Judging by what I found in the toolset, it seems that an earlier draft of the module's finale revolved around him rather than the Pale Elf's plot.

What a beautiful adventure! I enjoyed it very much. Lots of choices, great atmosphere and dialogues. Many congratulations to the author on this little diamond he offered us. I think only one mission failed to complete. The one with the giant spider in the sewers. Where are the sewers? Okay let's play Prophet now ...

Module Testing Tournement 2020