The Rogues of Quinn 4 - Return to Jaral

Is a fresh character needed or can I use my rogues of Quinn char?

I've not yet finished the module, but I can leave a few impressions.

The atmosphere is very similar to the other three and the author has done a good job.
It maybe lacks what I call the "sense of urgency", the creeping feeling that forces you to take the story seriously and to rush to reach the end with all your forces feeling that the time is running out.

But, and here is the difference from the other three modules, there are some very difficult battles that you MUST enagage with the Shadowdancer (i.e. Hide in Plain Sight) abilities carefully placing traps and using poison etc. or be surely slain.

From this point of view, this can be one of the few modules created with the Shadowdancer in mind. And, since the SD is by far my favourite class, it seems right to me to give 9 out of 10.

Thanks!

Excellent mod!  Played the original series years ago and replayed them so i could try this one.  The Author's English is not his first language, but it did not detract from the module.  I play old-school rules and if I die, I start over at level 1, and had to do this twice for this gem.  It was difficult, but success is possible with good tactics.  The scenarios were realistic and the immersion factor was quite high.  Definitely lived up to the expecttions and standards of the original series.  Highly recommended!

Apart from a couple of bits of poor or missing translation this is a throughly professional and enjoyable mod. 
 

Great module! I loved it... Something here feels like the old (Looking Glass) "Thief" videogame; you really need to use those rogue and Shadowdancer talents if you want to survive! The quests are varied and fun and i got the chance to play, yes, a ShadowDancer :-) But... the experience could be much better correcting a few things (some typos, german untranslated text , minor bugs), nothing that forbids ending the game, but well...

CG

Beware !!! Some spoilers ahead...

typos: (Shire) Dudo Pestbrowfire, when retreaving ore: "your (you are) welcome".

(Old town sewers): when the quest "clean out the sewers" is over, msg "I am was happy to heat  (ear?) the news".

(Pirate Tavern) Ernst Stormrunner conv. "yes, i (am) aware of the new guild".

Not translated:

In the (Sala Marshall) tomb, the holly well. Some chest descriptions. Some of the traps from the shop.

Glitches:

In the final mission, after the conversation with Kers Jarriim, i got the "level up failed in class 6 for Kathera Jarnt" (my henchwoman).

After i killed the bone dragon, Kathera tried to talk to my PC, but i got a "dialog error".

My henchwoman had a  "ranged" weapon option, but no ranged weapon. And this is a real PITA when you need to cross a certain long, long trapped bridge ;-).

Many thanks for this very enjoyable mod - a proper chapter 4 for the Rogues of Quinn.

Just replayed this wonderful mod. Do you have any plans for the sequel?

Overall, I feel this has a lot of the flavor of the original series. Maps and references to previous missions and story elements added to that.

Minor points

A few cases of German I came across in item descriptions or what not - nothing earthshaking.

One or two cases of funny English, for example "a two day voyage" for land travel.

The paladin NPC you get paired up with doesn't really say much during the quest you do together and her conversation option only gives one bit of dialog and never expands as the quest continues.

Major points

At the suggested starting level, even with the provided Elven cloak, a number of NPCs spotted me at a surprisingly far distance for automatic mission failure.  Leveling up a couple of levels seemed to take care of that issue.

Many of the traps and locks are way beyond any reasonable configuration of the suggested starting level rogue. For locks, you can fallback on lockpicks, but for traps you're screwed. You can use potions to bump yourself up a little which can help in a few cases, but others that's not enough. A few less dangerous ones I simply got through by chancing it and relying on my reflex ST to survive, but some of them are too nasty to go that route. I bumped myself up a couple of levels, but that wasn't enough for a fair number of those found in the starting missions. As none of the shops I visited offered them, I simply spawned in a stack of Find Trap scrolls and went my merry way, but it was an irritating point that came up a number of times - even later in the game.

Insufficient info/hints for a few quests.  To translate the drow scroll I was told to find a wizard or sage. Rado was recommended at one point, but no directions were given to where he could be found.  I remembered he lived in the Parklands district so went door-to-door till one opened and I finally found him.  The lich quest, I was told his phylactory could be somewhere in the docks district, but never did find any other evidence to narrow down the location.

Disappointing amounts of loot dropped or in major chests.   You get nothing of relative value off any of the drow or bandits you kill, especially leader types. Some of the chests with tough locks and traps yielded only a single potion. Most of the chests seemed just randomly spawned low value treasure.

The ending is a little confusing.   When you finish up the staff quest, you're told that's it and you're free to wander around and finish up stuff or quit as you like.  Then you get summoned to meet the quildmaster and told about problems in the woods south of town and you need to leave at once. No journal updates are made though.  You head out there and when you reach the forest there's a stone marker saying it's a placeholder, apparently for the next module.  It would be better to forego all of that unless you actually use that give the player the option to launch the next module - if they've downloaded and installed.

All that aside, it was an enjoyable play through.

Thanks for the time and effort in continuing the story.

markrendl

I thought the module was great and after playing modules 1 to 4, then the new 4 - this was the better story of the two. The other 4 was still a good module. I'm looking forward to playing part 5.

I had two issues; regardless of how often I ran about the room in the shire I couldn't get the portal back. Thinking I had missed something I started the module again (with the same character) and when I came to get the quest from Stumpy he jumped to saying thanks as I had the parts from the two targets. Not the worst result...

I'm now in the Deep Crypt and stuck trying to get passed the trap at the top of the stair. I have the heart in my possession but I've ran out of options and still not found the one that prevents me dying.

Can anyone help?

OK, requesting spoliers:

First, I never got the mission of robbing the bank.

Second, HOW do I rob it? Please...?

UPDATE:

I didn't get the mission, but managed to rob the bank.

Very cool!

Merit Mansion. I get game over after i steal the painting and leave through the window. Because i spoke to the servant at the beginning... and only after i finished the job, making me waste the time. Only had a quicksave too. My mistake but also what a dumb design choice.

Sadly I need to downvote this module as it was really a bad experience after the previous modules of the saga.

First I want to add that if you're underleveled or came as multiclass there are options to upgrade your equipment adding levels to search, traps ecc which is nice.
Still the very first quest has insanely high search checks which I felt kind of uncalled especially because search checks are hidden.

I dropped the modules at the drow areas. So drows have plus 20 to attack so they will hit you no matter how high your ac is. If there are more than 1 of them, you are dead. Adding one level of shadowdancer as instructed helps, but combat is a brutal chore here. Enemies especially the drow hit hard and they are also bulletsponges. Not impossible, but not fun at all.

And the game has lengthy dungeon crawls where you figth only them.

1 point because the dev kind of hijacked this saga. Was interested in the story, but bounced off.