Lords of Darkness 4 - For Crown and Country (V1.2)

This is one of my all time favourite mods.

The Fourth chapter could be the best module out there, yes I am going to say it is. The whole series is incredible

Woohoo! :-D I finally finished the Mod, and it was just fantastic as were Parts 1 - 3. This has to be one of my al-time favorite Series, and I had even more fun playing it over again now than I did years ago. Thank You Fantus for a wonderful experience, and I hope to play more of your mods in the future if you make any! :-D  (A solid 10 out of 10 from me!)

Does anyone know why in the download is included a fantuslords2.hak which is not present in the final Hackpack Set for the game? 

It's just an old file or is it really required? 

This is the vote for the whole saga. I'll be honest: the story is railroaded, predictable and full of conveniences and cliches. But you know, sometimes I feel the need to play a good H&S module: rolling a warrior, put all of my points in strenght and constitution and bashing through my enemies without bothering too much about anything else. This game gave me exactly what I was looking for! 

Moreover, the good path + romance ending was very satisfying. 

not bad linear and predictable story line

A Linear and predictable story? It doesn't matter. The story was really great.
When I was playing through this campaign, it felt like I was really inside a story book.

I'm not too much of a fan in Hack n' Slash. I prefer roleplaying since it gives you a better feel of it. But this is an exception.
I really enjoyed the story specially since I went for the Good + Romance ending. It was really satisfying. I could even see an opening for
a short sequel/Epilogue to this, but it doesn't matter if it doesn't get one.

On the technical side, I never got any errors and bugs at all. Wether if it's a scripting error, game-breaking bug, etc. Well done!

Thank you for the adventure Fantus! Will always be on the lookout for another adventure from you.

Played through 3 chapters of this get to the 4th and get stuck in limbo? is this some kind of joke? 

turns out i'm actually just retarded review to follow

I'll repeat here my review added under chapter 1 of this saga: 

I've completed the whole saga on level 27 or so (rogue/fighting cleric) and I am suprised how hack-n-slashy game can be enjoyable and challenging. For those, who are into this type of gameplay, I would rate it 10/10, but for those who are all about the story, it would earn 7/10 or 8/10. In general, I believe  it deserves 9/10 with a caveat that chapters 1-4 will become increasingly hack-n-slashy by the end and that the game offers many plot cliches. It is also linear - so not too much choices apart from how you treat (romanceable) Alanya and one good/evil choice in the last chapter. In short, it is more of an Icewind Dale than Baldur's Gate, but it's enjoyable and you can develop your character to epic levels and tinker with his/her fighting skills propely.

Sometimes the areas are too bloated (forget looking for some chest tucked away in the map's corner - the corner wil be most likely an empty space not worth visiting), but you can see the author made his best to make player experience rewarding: landscape tilesets are interesting and there is a nice selection of custom battle-encouraging music added - something that is frequently neglected by the module authors but adds a lot to an overall climate of run-run-we-must-prevail! setting of this story. Just as nice selection of armors and weapons suitable for most classes. The modules are also bug free: I experienced only a minor bug by the end of last chapter (if you're not accompanied by Alanya, the officer won't talk to you due to script malfunction and you will have to figure out by yourself her key opens cellar in the castle).

Anyway, the experience is rewarding and I would gladly play another epic hasknslash saga by the author.

Many thanks for sharing this most enjoyable series.

Greetings, All,

I see above that there is a reference to an Interview; yet it is not Link-Selectable?
["Hall of Fame Interview with Fantus (Lords of Darkness)" by "Maximus" ]
Is this interview conveniently available somewhere to read?
Please and Thank You.
 

A linear hack'n'slash module that is totally epic.  If the xp scale is as stated, ie as per OC, it is a larger module than the OC.  I found the fights overly hard in places, and became totally reliant on my henchmen to survive.

If you loved the OC, and its why we play this game afterall, this is one star better.

FYI, I started level 2 and ended level 28.

A linear hack'n'slash module that is totally epic.  If the xp scale is as stated, ie as per OC, it is a larger module than the OC.  I found the fights overly hard in places, and became totally reliant on my henchmen to survive.

If you loved the OC, and its why we play this game afterall, this is one star better.  Needed a part 5 to tie up the loose ends.

FYI, I started level 2 and ended level 28.

This was, by far, one of the best modules I have ever played! I love the history, the character, well done, congratulations to the creator of this module... it´s amazing ;) Rate of all module of this serie: 10/10

I have no words to describe this incredible adventure! I'm excited! Where to start praising? The story was amazing, the dialogues flawless, the battles incredibly balanced, the romance with Terence idyllic, the work it took to get this result is something I don't want to think about! Congratulations to the author. It is now one of the top 3 adventures I've played so far. I was never bored at any point in story and believe me it's a feat for me! It has to be played by everyone here!

Module Testing Tournement 2020

Great saga, I haven't found any bug or flaw. The plot is rather straightforward and there's not many occasion of role-playing, but it features many scenarios with many different enemies and peculiar magic items.

Only this 4th chapter is not as good as the other three. Too many evil guys at the end of the journey, clerics and wizards that roast you at every step, and the final enemy doesn't show up...

Anyway, 10 stars are well deserved.

By far, my favorite campaign, along with the Aielund Saga. Fantus, will you write another one? :-)

The earlier LoDs were fun, but the hack and slash gets tiresome by the time you get to part 4. 

It maintains its challenge, but only by making the opponents HP sponges + high DRs. The mages / rogues abuse HiPs, invisibility and damage shields (which are the bane of NWN's henchman AI).  The lack of some key immunities -- death ward / true seeing / crit immunity items means you can't trivialize against those repeated annoying encounter types. 

You end up just abusing Rezzing as a result.  FIghts come in endless wave.  Oops I died, oops I rezzed, maybe twice on a boss.  XP & the next enemy comes so fast its not even worth reloading to avoid the rez cost.  Too many henchman dilute the impact of feeling the powerful on your character.  The whole conflict loses its meaning.

The game is still quite polished and well made, but I dislike the HP sponge style of hack & slash. Part 2 was the most interesting, 4 the least, to me.

Great series.I like it.Thank.

Thanks. Great Mods and satisfying ending. 

Just played this again after 2 years or so and again I am blown away by the fine story and characters that you can bring along and interface with. This was a very challenging slog, with Orc's that had high AC and hundreds of HP and some real mobs of mid-to-high level baddies. This score is for the whole 4 part set together. I was ready to downgrade it from my original 10 star score after the first three chapters, due to the paucity of equipment, but a whole lot is to be bought or won in this fourth installment so that pet peeve went away! Much better weapons and regen to be had later on, so wait for it!

I love a happy ending and rescuing the kingdom and really the whole world was a great way to finish. Thank you again for the fine effort, Fantus. Interesting that you and the dragon have the same name! 

A truly epic hack and slash module, much longer than the other parts of the series, I think, also concluding the story, and bringing my (pure fighter) character up to level 27. The combat was a lot more fast paced and fun than in the first chapter, due to the better (hasted) equipment and the higher character levels. And sometimes it was very easy, but never enough to make me drop my guard completely, because you can always get in trouble if you're swarmed or against some of the bosses, sub-bosses or just hardhitting enemies. And apart from that, the easier opponents complemented the more diffcult ones and added to the fast pace and addictiveness that brought the game closer to actual H&S ARPGs. Now, I have to say, H&S is not my favorite genre, but this was well done and brought back good memories of an Action PW I once used to play on with friends. Even though encounters are repeated in the same areas, overall there is a great variety of different enemies, and the combat is well balanced and fun, it also encouraged me to play more tactical from time to time and not be as stingy with consumables as usual.

I still didn't care that much for the story and particularly not for the romance, but it was decent enough to provide a background for the action, and this module actually managed to surprise me by not treading the most obvious paths, but finding ways to introduce all kinds of different settings and situations instead, a real NWN odyssey, and again, with ample use of custom tilesets and great, atmospheric area design. Some areas repeat with variations, and not all were fantastic, there were also a few weaker ones that felt like filler content to stretch the gamelength, but even with that in mind, there were enough memorable locations, scenes, and fights for me to raise my vote higher even than that for the last two chapters which were already quite good.  I also liked the effective use of custom music and the great loot items. You constantly get more and more powerful stuff and amass riches, but it never reached the point of oversaturation for me, which is quite an accomplishment.

I came across a few flaws and annoyances, too. If henchpeople die, they are just knocked out for a while and then get up again with full health, but you will lose XP for that according to your level. I thought that was an interesting system and fair for the average encounter. But apparently, every time they died and got up again, their tactics settings were reset and they would start acting against my orders again, until I told them (again and again) "Defend me and don't attack until I do". Also, xp rewards in general were high and satisfying but the xp given for tough bosses did not feel rewarding at all. Imagine an epic fight with a dragon, during which two of your companions are knocked out, despite using up several potions, but you still manage to come out victorious in the end, and then you get about the same amount of xp as you get for the average stronger, but easily beat opponents from trash mobs, minus your level*10 for every fallen companion (e.g. 400 - 2*170 or so, which leaves you with the same amount of xp as you get from beating one of the countless weaker minions. If you get unlucky, you might even come out of the battle with less xp than before. You still get the loot and the feeling of having overcome the obstacle in the way of progressing with the module, and in the long run, these xp don't really matter that much, and yet, it seems to diminish the victory somewhat.

Apart from that, enemy clerics and wizards towards the end suffered from frantic casting syndrome, apparently squandering all of their spells in a row without much rhyme or reason. They would summon an awe-inspiring dragon, and then unsummon it by summoning something else shortly after. Plus, (in all of the modules) Alanya would apologize for every trap she disarmed or lock she picked, regardless of success (*successfully removes trap* "Sorry!"). Once, my party was attacked by wandering opponents while I was locked into a cutscene conversation with the companions. The companions ran off to fight the enemies, the conversation was canceled and I was stuck in the cutscene, had quit to Windows and reload. Another time, I had to reload because two big golem type creatures got themselves stuck on the other side of a door that I needed to pass through, and I could neither attack them from my side nor get to the other side. But I guess that was just bad luck and not the fault of the module. At the end though, when I was returned to the Dungeon Master's Realm for the epilogue, the dragon Fantus was hostile to me for some reason (faction error, I guess) and I had to die and respawn before I could speak to it again.

So it's not perfect, yet probably the best module in the series, IMO. I'm glad that my initial hunch that the series would get better with each module was actually spot on.

Really liked this series. The linearity of the story and limited development of some NPC characters might be arguable critiques. Then again, Fantus said it was a hack-and-slash with romance. When I played this module, I was hoping for a hack-and-slash with challenging combat and a romance. With regards to those things, the module creator delivered exactly what they said they would. 9/10.

Was an absolutely amazing story, I was hesitant to play this for a long time because there was no option to play as a female, however I ended up loving my character and the plot points enough to not mind it.  So many plot twists this is a fantastic story and definately would have replay value!

There's actually some decent loot for rogues that use short swords, which is something that seems to get overlooked quite often. There seems to be this weird assumption that we all like to use crossbows or daggers in a lot of modules that this one doesn't have.

The story still has issues. However it is better if you do the non-romance route. If you do the romance route, you have these odd moments were you go on a date in the forest with two other Terrance and Dariah there (talk about awkward) plus Alanya makes a weird comment about how Dariah was checking the player character out. None of that happens if you skipped the romance in chapter 3.

The other thing that makes this one better than prior ones in the series is that you don't have things like the dugeon that leads to the caves that leads to the sewers. Although saying that, I would have been happier without a second trip through a minotaur maze. As much as I enjoy hack and slash, I also feel that there should be no more than one minotaur maze total per module (or module series.)

Overall, the premise is good but the second and third chapters are extremely weak in terms of plot/dialogue. The fourth chapter is better, but it does remain extremely linerar both in terms of plot, navagating areas, and dialogue choices.

Anyone know why I keep getting stuck in limbo? I have fantuslords.hak, fantuslords2.hak, fantusport.hak and fantustiles all in the hak folder but I keep getting directed to limbo each time I try to start it.

Hello, link to fantuslords2.hak seems to be broken, is there any other way to download it?

Edit
With the very first message I've announced that I am stupid :)
Hak 2 was included with the main file

Great series, there weren't exacly many options to roleplay, but the story was tight, worldbuilding interesting and the romance sweet!