Hordes of the Underdark - First Thoughts

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So, I finished Shadows of Undrentide and imported that character into Hordes of the Underdark. She started as a Bard 4 / Fighter 4 / Red Dragon Disciple 5.

The opening sequence was quite cool and the game looks promising so far. Nice touch bringing back a selection of OC and SoU henchmen. This looks to be a good old fashioned dungeon crawl, complete the ubiquitous mad wizard-designed uber dungeon so that any weird stuff can be explained away as being part of the mad wizard's mad design.

Hmm, the henchmen interaction options seem to have been beefed up which looks good. Not sure I could ever go back to the terrible OC interaction options now. Also, Deekin seems to be even funnier than he was in SoU.

Main problem for me in a dungeon crawl at the moment is that I have nobody who can disable traps.

 

Actually, I enjoyed HoTU a whole lot more than the OC and SoU. In fact, I honestly never liked the OC and SoU much. In fact, I had a whole lot of fun in HoTU... which never showed up in the former. Not to mention the story is a lot more solid as well.

 

I have just finished HotU for the first time, and can honestly say that I enjoyed it more than any of the other NWN modules. I'll say no more until HB gets through it, since it's too good to spoil.

Except this...

- I greatly enjoyed the initial stages of Halaster's dungeon and the recovery of the OC assistants to the PC. That'll teach them to blindly chase an eye tyrant into a dungeon reputed to be the deadliest in Faerun!

- I am a little annoyed at the lack of canonical recognition; the PC is always considered to be the Hero of Undrentide, never the Hero of Neverwinter. A minor point, but worth raising.

 

...if only the first level of Undermountain wouldn't be so boring...

 

Just finished the first level of Undermountain and it was not that boring (compared to OC). I've also managed to level up twice so now I feel uber-powered.

 

Your character is the hero of SoU and not of Neverwinter. Sure, you can use an OC character in HOTU just fine, but that wasn't meant to be the storyline. Doesn't Dekin make mention of another book about another hero (the hero of Neverwinter), which was written by Sharwen?

 

HB, you should have an item from SoU which disables traps 3 times a day. I mention this because I carried it in my inventory, but forgot to use it; then at some point i decided to take stock of the various odds and ends, and went

I agree, HotU is pretty cool. Starts a little bit tough (mainly because you lack equipment) but then you level up pretty fast, and also you get some good items. The encounters also get tougher, too; there are some surprises in stock, for the unwary adventurer

 

Thats true. The hero for OC and SoU is supposed to be two different people and your character in HoTU is your character from SoU, not OC. Deekin mentions briefly about it, as well as the NPCs from the OC.

 

I've just met Tomi so my trap and lock problems should be over. Tomi also mentions the Hero of Neverwinter in his intro. And I've just realised that I can have two henchmen so I don't need to choose between Deekin and Tomi. Plus I now have a talking sword as well.

Overall, it has been a wee bit easy so far. There have been no tough fights yet that I have noticed, although there was this one Drow who somehow dished out 35 hp of acid damage with each hit.

 

Ah! Sneaky! Sounds like a great spell.

Anyway, now I have to be careful to make sure I equip my henchmen properly. I keep forgetting to give them good items so they can easily end up with crappy AC and weapons unless I find some good stuff for them (instead of selling things automatically).

 

There are some tough fights ahead, believe me!

One little problem with Tomi: they forgot to give him Weapon Finesse, meaning his low Strength makes him quite bad at hitting anything with his kukris. Better to give him a ranged weapon. And Deekin can be quite lethal with that little crossbow of his.

 

Deekin seems to waste too much time buffing up and never gets around to doing anything. Tomi does seem to benefit from his Shadowdancer levels to do some great sneak attacks. I gave him a STR buffing item to try and help him out.

Still no tough encounters though. Maybe my PC is too powerful now (Bard 4 / Fighter 7 / RDD 6).