Madness and Magic

Although it was a great mod, the pace slowed down toward the end.

This is a very well crafted module and worth trying, in fact i liked this enough to contribute 1 or 2 minor things.

 Pity all the positive comments were lost when the old vault went under.

truly an exceptional module. not only is it well scripted [and is pretty much bug-free], both dialog and ambience were very thoughtfully crafted. story line is inventive, multi-path w/plenty of choices for both good and evil, and the characters are nicely developed. many interesting non-critical side quests and custom items also available.

i played through the module starting w/a 15th-lvl ranger, who finished up at 18th lvl.  xp was copious, and in many cases arguably much too much, but that didn't detract from the fun all that much. ;)

i did have one problem with the area for the princess of winterscale's birthday party. my computer -- aging, but still not a clunker -- wasn't powerful enough to play through this area. SOLUTION : before you start playing, open the module in the toolset and view the princess' birthday party area. if you find it difficult/laggy to manipulate the area in the toolset, you'll find it laggy in-game as well. make a back-up of the module, then you can delete all but the first and the last 5 party guests ; their a.i. scripts are what are taking up cpu power. don't delete the other guests or you'll break the game. save the module and you're on your way.

judging from some of the expressions used in the module's dialog, the author doesn't seem to be a native english speaker, but it was refreshingly obvious that the dialogs were meticulously crafted with attention to correct writing. not only were they interesting and well laid-out, they were markedly better than many dialogs i've seen written by native speakers !

so -- summary for this module - definitely a must-play. bravo. :)

This was fantastic. So much detail was put into this mod, that it's almost unbelieveable. I was in awe almost the whole time. I didn't get the best ending and I was a little disappointed in some of the choices, but I think it was terrifically done. My only feedback (which isn't a problem with the mod, just an observation) is that it didn't work for multiplayer without a lot of DM assistance.

"then you can delete all but the first and the last 5 party guests"

i opened the Aurora Toolset, then opened the birthday area. The party guests are "Creatures->Masked Noble"?

Thank you for the assistance :)

An excellent mod. But sometimes, I got stuck. I didn't find a way through the space-area near the end without looking into the scripts

@Mmat: Thanks for your input. Yes, there is a sort of walkthrough. You can find it in the the big readme pdf.

I too, don't remember any pointer or clue in the portal area, but maybe the help provided at 11. "Inside the sphere" could have saved you some headaches.

There are a few typos left, and I would have wished for another opportunity to sell stuff (there could have been a kobold merchant or something). And I wish it was longer. After playing through it several times with different characters, I still long for more...

Full marks here, because this module was fun to play, unique and very detailed (some of the books in the library made me laugh out loud). I also loved the atmosphere. While there was a lot of humor, I still got caught up in the mysterious and sometimes dark storyline.

Darn, I wish there was more...

Awesome, the final fight went black on me so io had to reload, other than that no hickups.

Extremely well crafted adventure, with some of the most impressive writing and some of the best area design I've seen in an NWN module, lots of atmosphere, care and attention to details, and while it does feature some well known tropes, many of them are subverted, and there are loads of original ideas. Its funny, cute, sweet, dark and twisted, all in one package.

I liked that there was few judgement, no inherently right or wrong way how the story should play out. Even though your actions can have significant consequences for others, there are no rewards or punishments tied to them, and contrary to most other games, I never felt the need to reload and choose a "better" option, but just decided to accept everything that happened as part of my character's story instead. I also read all of the books in the game because they all had the right length and I found their contents interesting and fun to read; they weren't long-winded lore dumps like so often. In general, Magic and Madness is more about story-telling, dialogues and puzzles, there is relatively few combat, but when there is, it's challenging and fun. Many interesting items, too, xp rewards for successful use of skills, and almost a dozen secret achievements.

I occasionally ran into glitches, and the end was a bit messy; after several long dialogues without option to save in between, I got locked into a black screen cutscene while a fight was taking place in the background and I could do nothing but listen to my PC getting massacred; reloading and clicking through the dialogue again didn't help, only respawning did, and I'm still not quite sure whether it was intended to be like this or a bug (I tend to believe the latter; I played it with the EE, btw, not sure if that had something to do with it or not). The final fight was tough, but a nearby area transition could easily be exploited to flee the battle, take a break and rest. Other than that, the module was next to perfect.

A real gem of a mod... a played it once a long time ago, when it was available in the old vault... now I decided to try again and wasn't disapointed. It still plays great and the story is also still as touching and well written as I remembered.

If you didn't play it yet... please do... oh, and give Sunchaser a good hug for me... I wish my character could have more companions like her!

Is this module playable in coop ?

Really enjoyed playing this game. Sunchaser was brilliant.

Many thanks for sharing this Mod.

As always, quality trumps quantity. All in all, a very polished module with a great sense of adventure.  

What does it mean that this is non Enhanced version.. is there some kind of compatability problem that is addressed with the Steam version?  I NWN:EE is from Gog, so I can not access the steam content.

This was not perfect, with a few of the subquests not finishing properly, but overall it was a masterpiece! I urge any of you to play this that enjoy a storyline that flows and evolves, NPCs that you can interact with in various ways, a unique helper (NOT a familiar!) and virtually all things work! Not for the Hack n Slash crowd, of which I am one, but enough action and scripting to really make this an enjoyable adventure. Great job, Sphynxette!

Usually when characters or lore are presented as important-looking as here, it means they'll play some important role later, and it makes everything very predictable, but here it isn't so, which makes story unexpected and very interesting to read. And very original too, i didn't even notice any references on other works. Npcs aren't soulless, enemies aren't either, everything felt so good in every direction, EXCEPT one - killing.

Once i finished it, i wanted to replay it again differently, as my mass murderer chaotic evil character, but... there's almost no real option to kill anyone in the city? Take guards, for example. I wanted to kill them and just exit the city, but they just die and there's no key. I wanted to kill Bael and look at girl's reaction, but there's no way to do that, as there's no reaction to Bael's death. And the silent kid even says that Bael is standing here, while he's long dead. I also am unable to say something like "Oh, i've just summoned you to kill you again myself." to the Lost God, which is exactly what i was planning to do. Am i even allowed to kill anyone if dialogue doesn't say so? I also killed that dragon on Melvin's island, but i can't tell anyone about it, as if she should've been impossible to kill. Now, i understand that maybe you just didn't want that, but there's an option to tell Melvin that i like killing people. Even more strange is that there's a different special loot from some people. Do i not understand something here?

I'm confused a bit, so i stopped my second playthrough in the city for now... but definitely 10/10 for everything else though. 

I like the cheeky dialogue, except for the typos - i.e. it's "cast" not "casted".  Melvin didn't give me the rod nor did he tell me anything about the eternal zombies (and I couldn't "talk" to the fence since they kept attacking).  I spent a lot of time underwater because I didn't spot the chest with the elixirs and the readme didn't mention them.  Now I'm stuck once again - I caught ten mice and the little girl with her cat have gone.

I found the girl but got stuck in the tunnels so I used DebugMode.  Fun stuff although the walkthrough could use some fleshing out.

Very very nice module! I didn't realize there were also "achievements", so I rushed to chase the sphere around and probably missed many sidequests! But the module gives a great sense of urgency and so I've enjoyed it very much!
Thanks!

She is not a familiar!

I signed up just to leave a review. Over the last...oh god, nineteen years - I've played a vast number of modules and this one ranks up there with the classics like Adam Miller's Dreamcatcher series, even if it was quite a bit shorter. The "henchman" is wonderfully, movingly written, the music impeccable, the sidequests dripping with flavor and clever worldbuilding. Yet despite the incredible writing, so, so much of the power of this module is in what was not written (a certain Red's machinations come to mind). There's even a oldschool Fallout-style epilogue to lend closure to the stories of the module.  

(And yes, this module works perfectly with the PRC, for anyone who's wondering.)

Thank you, Sphynxette. I had a wonderful time. 

thanks for sharing this module

just discovered it these days in the most-played-modules and enjoyed playing

couldnt play it all the way through since the last map outside Melvins tower was like 20 seconds per round what might be some mixup with my haks, but i think it was the end anyway.

I wished there was an extension but am afraid this might be one of the last new modules for the not-EE game version i have.

I was enjoying to see how much love went into this module, so it is a short one but a jewel.

Since i read there are special features for the DD and rogue i started with 1 bard, 4 rogue and 10 DD what was just right although i wished i had spend few more points on the soft skills; except the trap disable and open locks there is no clue about the dice you have to solve for the intimidate persuasion etc and i only had two levelups. So more character progression would have helped. I personally like best in nwn to see grow a character anyway

Very well written, I was truly enamored with the plot the whole time.  You did very well writing a villan that you can honestly feel sorry for.  

This is a well made module. The writing certainly is a 10, despite there still remaining many typos some of which thegeorge pointed out. If it was just for the areas and placeables I would give the area design an 8, but together with the use of sounds and effects it is a 9.5, so a 10 as well.

I also had the same problem as Nathan that the cutscene before the end fight faded to black and everything stayed black. That way at least I got to see what happens when you respawn ;-)

What I really didn't like was that I had to try three times to even get the option to lower the force field to appear before being asked to order the ship to self destruct. I knew I needed the force field to be lowered, but to get to that option before triggering the self destruct is really hard to find. I think it only appeared when you asked about the sphere.

If I could give it 9.5 stars, I would do that because there's room for improvement, but I thought 9 would be a little too low, so I rounded it to 10.

An overall very exciting module. Good scripts, well written dialogues and captive story.

Well done

I first played this module years ago, but I keep coming back to it from time to time. Probably my most replayed NWN module at this point.

It's hard to pinpoint just what I like so much about the module. It's well written, certainly, with a plot that is personal and moving. But it's also fairly low-key and not the most original. Gameplay is a lot of fun, with a nice mix of combat, exploration and dialog. But it's certainly not a sweeping epic and probably won't challenge a skilled NWN player too much. The module does everything very well, but if you described its plot and gameplay to someone it probably wouldn't sound that special.

Except this: Madness and Magic is one of the very best at evoking a sense of wonder, a sense of adventure, of fantasy and possibility. It draws all these varied worlds you travel to and through with a broad brush, each time hinting at more than it shows, and makes you believe that there is an infinite variety of magical worlds out there, just waiting for a portal to open up and let you explore.

To me, that's what fantasy as a genre is all about, and what keeps me coming back to replay this adventure.

Ah yes, affecting many worlds in the company of the retarded childish cat and the wizard you suspect has some dark secret inside! I loved the module, a completely different experience than what is to be had in other modules. I loved the run, the dragon motives but also the fact you kind of feel you start to like some places you must leave (felt a bit sad when I had to leave a city with an evil cult, thieves guild, arena fights and adolescent princess). And I appreciate the sense of wonder when you go to planescape-styled underworld after you die (you should die at least twice to get and finalize 2 quests).  I also found it very intriqguing to visit the Garden of Stories (allows you to look at yourself as a story!) and read the final summary of the fate of the worlds at the very end ---   despite my efforts I did 2 things contrary to my plans (SPOILERS: I have not thought a submarine base could be used to complete an evil weapon if you dont infest is with spiders even if there were notes around sth evil brewing!; I did not think that merely nagging the princess about adventuring could lead to underst, mah, I should have told her about royal responsibility! END OF SPOILERS). Also I appreciate the game could be replayable with a different build (like paladin/sorcerer/rdd), because the fighting is not a big issue here. A great story, nice final choices (at least three endings depending on what you do).  I even dabbled in this crazy deck of cards you can get in the temple of Red (try it, it is  fun in itself!) and I unlocked all the achievements apart from the Master Zombifier --  c'mon zombifying the stupid elf and the soup loving kobold? nah!

The only reason why I do not grant 10/10 is because... it could have been longer and in my private ranking 10 is reserved for epic multi-module stories like Prophet, Aielund, Dance with Rogues etc.

Anyway, fully recommended for NWN veterans and rookies alike as a unique experience even now when we turn calendars from 2022 to 2023

This was a really fun romp through the Planes! I loved the worlds we visited, many of them similar to what I have seen and read, but with the author's unique spin on them. Engaging one's emotions was definitely the module's strong suit. I loved the unusual companion the wizard sent with us, and became very invested in her fate at the end. 

The one thing I missed in the otherwise excellent adventure was a more in-depth analysis of the moral implications of saving Liliana; would this choice, and all the unwilling sacrifice and suffering of strangers, truly end in the idyllic family life we get a glimpse into by the end? While I wish the ending was as nuanced as the rest of the story, this was still an absolute work of art. 

So far this module is amazing. Just a few issues for me.

Some doors to buildings close after you've opened them. I'm used to them staying open so I know where I've walked into. Some doors to buildings open, but can't enter them. 

Some important areas / entries to areas / exits not marked on the map for example the wolf cave by the waterfall or the elven ruins. The entry and exit points in the elven forests.

You need to talk to everyone if you want to not miss critical quests and interesting conversations. For example, elven sentinel among many, or random bar patron with same title as everyone else. Not a huge deal but so much easier when important characters are named.

*The Liara quest where the elf asks you to find her sister in the ruins. I'd already found her and killed her in the ruins prior to the quest initiation. there was no check for this scripted apparently so couldn't finish this quest.

*Revraluen elf side quest which was quite interesting and gives some decent XP doesn't put any info in your quest log at all, from start to finish

I love how there are multiple ways to solve the side quests. For example you need to find a pass, there are literally 4 or 5 ways to obtain the pass. Or the demon possessed boy quest can be solved in several different ways.

I get a real Planescape vibe from this game with all the conversation and role playing. Love it and highly recommended. Love all the cats and pets everywhere. The random strange characters you run into with interesting stories. 

I gave my guy some boots of speed with console command. As with most modules lots of area to cover and always feel I'm walking through molasses without some speed. Though I do believe there was a short sword or some such obtainable early in the game with haste. 

The "lost child" quest seems to be bugged. When the wolf takes me to the baby, it's nowhere to be found and not in my inventory, but I get the journal update saying I convinced the wolf to let me take the child back to its parents, yet when I go back the initial quest dialogue just repeats again. Anyone know of a fix? Can I spawn the baby with the console or is it not an item?

Can this module be played just fine with multiple players, or does trying to multiplayer it break things?