HotU - Finished - Thoughts (Some Spoilers)

Remove all ads!

Finished HotU – Thoughts (spoilers)

I finally finished HotU; at first the story of the game actually was not interesting and I did not enjoy it; as I continued to play the story got better until chapter 3. Chapter 3 made HotU a fantastic game.

Here is what I like…
-Chapter 3, the whole chapter was fantastic. I never got to free Lady Aribeth though. I may have to play Chapter 2 of the OC to obtain the ring and replay chapter 3 of the HotU to find out how you impact her life.

-The fact that you do not need to buy any equipment from the start to the end of the game playing as a monk. I did not buy one piece of equipment throughout the whole game.

-The interactions of the henchmen compared to OC and even SoU; though I felt as if there still could have been more interactions.

-Epic story with an epic enemy.

Here is what I dislike…
- How the PC is already a hero – a character exported from the OC or SoU campaign are already saved the world; this game should have started the characters off as level 1 and advance them to level 25-30. That would have truly made HotU epic.

-The fact that you acquire super magical items so easily and quickly and have so many that you ended up selling them for mega profits. I had over 250K gold pieces after I bought everyone’s name from the Knower of Names.

-The romance and the fact my character never found love; I tried romancing all female NPCs, with the exception of Lady Aribeth. Is that who the character loves?

-Why only level 27/28. Seriously; if you release the game rules up to level 40 use those levels.

- How the game intertwines both the OC and SoU character experiences into this game. WHY???? They should have picked one module to expand the game on, not both.

Overall the game was better than the OC but not as good as SoU. I believe what makes SoU so good is that it starts the character as level 1, the story is well developed, and the development of helping a kobold who can eventually join you is a great story. I just wished SoU would allow two henchmen with them interacting instead of one. I would have loved to see the interaction between Deekin and Dorna.

Now that I have completed NWN and all of Diamond edition modules it is time for me to start playing NWN2.

 

You don't need the ring to free Aribeth. Although it does add to the end a little.

No character needs to buy equipment initially -- you find enough to keep you going in the first few areas. The areas are a bit more challanging with just the stuff from the inn, but doable.

The love of the character is randomly determined -- it could be an NPC (for female PC's the sleeping man is a possibility) or it could be someone you 'haven't met yet.'

 

How do you free Aribeth and where is she? I looked all over the place and could not find her. I also had no idea what I was suppose to do with the Scivenger, where does he get dropped off and what does it provide for the game?

 

Well, that explains a lot. You need to help the Scrivener in order for the cave with Aribeth to be opened. His quest is a riddle of sorts.

I believe the Scrivener must be able to join you for a short time in order to complete his quest.

 

It's a cave somewhere north of the snow area. You probably ran into it when you went exploring as the chapter began.
That you managed to buy all the names and still have some gold left is impressive. I've never been able to do that with any of my games from SoU, and I barely buy anything on some of them.
I'll probably try starting from the OC soon.

The game does expand more on SoU. References to the OC are minor enough that you can play SoU->HotU as a friend did and end up none the wiser for the things that actually transpired in the OC, except perhaps for the fact that Daelan, Tomi, Sharwin and Linu were part of it somehow.

Personally I think that if the NWN OC had started out as a combination of SoU and HotU and then spawned an expansion that got better then NWN would have joined the ranks of "epic" games like BG.

 

Throughout HotU I would not sell any item that would reach a maximum selling point in each chapter. For instance, in Chapter 1 the maximum amount of gold you can receive for any item is 7500; if an item provided that amount of gold I would hold onto it until Chapter 2. If the item would sell for less than 10000 in chapter I would sell it, if not I would sell it in Chapter 3. By the time I hit Chapter 3 I had Deekin inventory page filled with items to sell. Low and behold I ended up with quite a bit of gold just from those items; over a million in gold to be exact.

One page of Deekin inventory was just bags of holding; all of the bags were filled with the heaviest armors, weapons, etc... This really helped out as it would keep the total weight carried in checked.

I also did not buy anything in the game other than improving Deekin's crossbow to +10, +5 might and unlimited +5 arrows and the rapier and short sword that the Drow female uses to +9 with a few other enhancements.

Adding the enhancements to the three items above cost me a meager 1 million gold pieces which I was able to accomplish before Chapter 3.