The Relief of Black Thorn Keep: An adventure for Co8 mod pack 5.05

The Relief of Black Thorn Keep:
An adventure for Co8 mod pack 5.05​

Introduction:

To avoid the semi-inevitable flames, let me make one big fact clear: This mod is NOT intended to be 100% true to Greyhawk lore. While I'm not intending to bring wholly unrealistic elements into play (aka time travelling space marines from planet zog), I will be using names of places and characters that are completely fictional; so please don’t bombard me with death threats based on my inexperience.

Now to the heart of the matter: Recently I posted a thread in the Circle of Eight forums about the lack of large-scale battles in ToEE. With a few exceptions, for a decent level party (relative to the encounter), very few non-boss battles give you a sense of overwhelming odds. Earlier today, my level 6/7 party wiped the floor of half the earth temple red, while taking a combined damage of around 50 points… that’s 50 points spread out over 8 party members, one of whom was a level 3 Meleny.

While the earth temple is hardly a challenging area, it is one of the most densely populated areas in the game, but still fails to inspire a sense of challenge for mid-to-high level parties. This is something my mini-mod aims to change. The mod adds about half a dozen ‘new’ areas to the game. Due to my inexperience modding the ToEE files, I say new as meaning new in terms of population: unfortunately the graphics will be the same as standard ToEE/Co8 maps.

The mod will be nothing amazing role-playing wise. It will have an element of story, detached from the current plot, but the focus will be on mass combat rather than dialogue. There will be tactical options for various party builds, but in my current vision there will be no alignment based dialogue options, other than an aggressive refusal to take part. Instead, evil parties will be faced by a massive choice at the end, which may even tempt the strongest hearted Lawful party.

Obviously, I will be seeking approval from the Co8 team before utilising their material. As it stands, the majority of the mod will use Vanilla ToEE areas and enemies. The mod is aimed to be an optional extra, and not an official part of the Co8 release due to the potentially unbalancing nature. Enough criticism has been levelled at Hickory branch due to its positioning in game, and I understand if the Co8 team would not like the idea of adding what amounts to a whole new chapter to the game, with a gross encounter mass greater than that of the moat house plot line.

At this stage, I am simply seeking permission from the Co8 team to utilise their graphical assets and new items/spells. The mod is not intended to stand alone, and may eventually be a potential candidate for inclusion in the new Tales of the Wild Coast expansion.

Quote, Geaer: “If you want to take a shot at making something like this for the proposed TotWC expansion (itself not yet fully confirmed), go for it. That would mean it would be catered toward high-level parties and situated at the end of the game, however. Otherwise, we're suffering from an overabundance of XP in the normal game as it is, so we're not looking for more there.”

An idea in my head at the moment would only add the town crier NPC when story state is equal to that after having defeated Hedrack. This would mean that the minimum level would be approximately level 6 (I have defeated Hedrack before with an 8 strong level 6 party), with the suggested level being a minimum of 10, with the inclusion of rouge, cleric, and an AoE specialist wizard/sorcerer being highly recommended. This way, the party can hypothetically complete my mod before the temple nodes, which I believe to make much more sense at this stage than catering it for a hypothetical expansion. If my mod is successful and the TotWC mod is green lighted, my mod could easily be relocated in its current state (the NPC would be moved, that would be all that’s necessary due to the already challenging nature)


Content

Before detailing the plot of the mod, let me summarise what I hope to achieve:

·

• The mod will reuse exiting ToEE/Co8 maps to create new large-scale encounters where brute force alone will not grant an average party victory.
• The battles in this mod will be created to inspire emotion in the player. No more hacking and slashing through half a dozen bug bears, healing, then moving on to the next area. This mod aims to instigate dramatic ambushes, brutal close quarters combat, and deadly magical duels on a level that ToEE fails to satisfy. Think of how bland the battle with Hedrack can be on temple level 4: A level 10 party can wipe the floor with him in a couple of rounds, eliminating the ‘battle of the gods’ encounter. This will hopefully not be the case in RoBTK.
• · While it is unlikely that the majority of the encounters will be randomised, they will increase in difficulty as the player progresses. A level 6 party will be hard pressed to survive even the first encounter, while a level 10-12 party should be able to cut a swathe through the enemy to reach the subsequent areas. However, the final area is designed to slaughter even a well armed and prepared level 10 party in a handful of turns unless they are careful, so even higher level (15+) parties will have to be on their guard.
• · The difficulty increases the further you progress. Some parties may be forced to retreat to the Keep between rounds to restock, rest, and raise their dead. During this time however, there is no guarantee that the enemy will not summon reinforcements or move against the keep itself in force. Players will have to bear this in mind, and fill their inventories and extraplantar chests with enough supplies to last in the midst of battle.
• · The mod will feature a new Town Crier NPC in Hommlet to teleport parties to the keep.
• · The Keep itself will eventually feature several recruitable NPC followers to aid you in battle.
• · Several sub quests are planned, some which will offer powerful new artefacts as rewards to aid you in the final encounter.
• · Upon defeating the final boss, the party is given an important choice to make. Do they return to Black Thorn Keep to complete the original quest, or do they seize the power of the foe for themselves, creating their own army of evil to complete the task their fallen enemy had begun. This is the main option for evil aligned characters, and will have a dramatic effect on how the remainder of the story line will play out.

Currently, the mod is merely in concept stages. From my observation, a working alpha will be available in approximately 1-2 months time. By alpha, I mean it will be a stable version featuring simply the areas, enemies, and a handful of dialogue NPCS, not quests or joinable followers (I believe, I may be wrong).

This mod, while ambitious, will be a mainly solo effort. This allows me far more artistic licence and allows me to work to my own time scale. However, in the future I may seek help with the more complex scripting, particularly for the final dungeon.

More details to follow, including plot specific details and quest explanations.

 

In regards to the 'exclusivity', I wouldn't be considering using maps like that without permission... I have suitable candidates for all mas other than a generic tower map, so I was considering using the KotB deep swamp tower as a replacement, although thinking about it now I could simply use the temple broken tower exterior with the hommlet tower interior, although that was not the feel I was really looking for.

more details to follow in regard to the plot and quests

 

Ah, well thats nice to hear about the weapons/items. In regards to the KotB stuff, I understand and will avoid using any of the KotB maps. I know the deep swamp tower was Burne's tower, but as a modding noob I don't want to mess around with generating new maps. Still, I think the temple broken tower will act as a suitable work around for now, with a few atmospheric changes

I'll try and finish the level order topnight, and find a suitable interior for the final encounter... For lack of a better candidate, I may be forced to reuse the moathouse dungeon, with a complete shift in focus in terms of entry/exit...

I'll try and post a progress report tomorrow, if I have time

 

I think the more challenging developement would be a welcome element to a new mod basis. Like you said we could always use what concepts you have introduced in order to make our Alfa swept clean after all the stone etching. I exspecially like the idea of utilizing all the new aspects for game play, e-chest utilization, new spells and so on. Than in itself is why we are hear, we are still developing new features and may need to implement them in a serious way. I believe rules in a game are made to be used not just set on a back burner for some fluke or the occational ontropuner, why not make solid use of them.
Now I want to address the issue of your level structure throughout your player-character development. I do agree with more challenging encounters; nevertheless you cannot plaugue your low level parties with impossible odds and fruitless peril!? After all we are not hear to over-lord our players like strickly evil gods; therefore good gods do play a role in D&D as well! Just because low level characters are easily killed and not saying they won't be, because they will be, but I think encounter difficulty should reflect evenly enough to gain levels and still keep fluid of motion to the gameplay. After all no one is going to want to play the game(cheat-free) when they keep having to re-load ever 2 seconds for an eternity untill they finally hit a lucky roll after 6 hours to get past the damn moathouse! I like the idea of more challenge once you get past level 10....yeah, but not before that, lets just focus on 10-15 for now and 16-20 sure let em have it!! don't hold back. And remember you don't need to overwhelm in order to lay new quests and XP, sure the fight should challenge the PC's in order to utilize certain aspects and think in terms of strategy, but please don't boost the dice rolls for the enemy and secretly decrease the PC's in order to get that "IN YOUR FACE" sence of victory....Challenge will come with the rules, and utilizing the new aspects of the game. As long as the dice don't get loaded, im cool! Rules are rules, unless your making more GOOD/EVIL GOD interaction!!! Divine Intervention is a prodominant aspect of the rules in D&D you know, it even has its own spell class and school for a reason, becuase of the intervention of the gods in D&D rule is made to be prodominant for their interaction with gameplay!! Good luck!!

 

Something I feel I should probbaly make clear is that by mod, I mean a MODification rather than a stand alone MODule... the difference is quite paramount in regards to your thoughts on low-level parties and I apologise if I failed to make this clear in my original explanation. The mod will simply be an add on for C.o.8 rather than a stand alone module, and therefore low-level parties will be levelling up as normal via fed-ex/moathouse e.t.c... I will not be modifying any of the existing game, but instead I will be reusing those graphics to create new encounters in the context of my plot line... I will almost certainly put soem form of level/story state restriction upon the mod to lower the risk of unbalancing the game due to the unholy amount of XP I will be granting the players.

On the subject of divine intervention: I believe this is too complex for me to script but the mod will feature a prominent black and white good vs evil theme... Paladins and clerics will have a whale of a time, and will probably be the two most useful party members along with wizards/sorcerers (for those AoE spells).

Currently, the major thorn in my side is finding a suitable dungeon to stage my interior encounters in. I need a relativly large area, but with a better tactical structure than that of the moathouse, and a larger area than the potential candidates I had in mind. Still, I will be sorting out the open areas before the interior areas, so thsi is hardly a problem. At the moment, my version of ToEE is very grumpy and refuses to load up my new maps, even the test map that I created and which worked a few days ago.

 

Greetings!
I realy feels that with the levelcap removed in the Co8 mode and the possibility of 8 created PCs (or seven, with one "slot" for "history porpouses only" followers like Thrommel and Paida), even with the inclusion of the Verbobonc town (whose dungeon have a dificulty level close to the 3th or 4th level of the Temple itself) the dificult level of the ToEE have been lots lowed. The option is to make a more "storyteller" party, with three or four PCs and four or five slots for not-so-powerful-but-very-cool-NPCs like Meleny, Furnok and Zaxys, and have fun, pal! Buuuut... I still like to make my own PCs with a very integral history and - why not? - a good balance about they powers and tactical habilities. This way, I believe thet the mod you're researching its a very, very intresting inclusion to ToEEFE game.
I'm not a great programer - well, I hate a lot computers, except to play and write - but if you have something that a drawer shall help, please, let me know!
I'm very curious for this mod!