Neverwinter Nights EE - Infinite Dungeons - Part 1 - Maggris' Hive (Blind, Very Difficult)
17Infinite Dungeons, played blind on the hardest difficulty with a monk / cleric. Part one includes the intro sequence and the whole of the first dungeon, Maggris' Hive.
Preface:
Intrigued by Luicil's tales of Sigil, Hashan travelled there, but in the City of Doors you never know where you might end up. As he explored the Hive's boundless streets and twisting alleys the walls seemed to engulf him, soon he was lost. In a dingy cul'de-sac he happened upon a child beggar, being set upon by a gang of thugs. They had robbed the poor lad, struck him to the ground, taunting him as he lay crying in the dirt. Hashan rushed to the boy's aid. The thugs were no match for the monk, he felled several in an instant and the rest scattered into the darkness. He extended a hand to the child and noticed his expression change, he suddenly looked... older. As their fingers met there was a flash, his surroundings vanished, he was somewhere else, a warehouse? Another child stood before him. What in the Nine Hells was going on?
He would soon learn that he was at the entrance to Undermountain, Halaster's dungeon. A place more vast than he could have ever imagined.
Playthrough & Game Info:
I was originally going to play through this with several of my characters, but I'm not joking about it being vast, it's a huge module and a big time sink, so I'm going to save those characters for another time (sequel to Tyrants, fingers crossed). As you can see, this first dungeon, which is one of the smallest, took nearly twelve hours to complete. There are seven in the main campaign. I do a lot of loot gathering and inventory management in this part, which does eat some time, in the later dungeons I learn to be more selective.
I chose the monk / cleric as a starting character because he was the lowest level. This is different to most other NWN modules, it's more like a Diablo game. There isn't much scope for battle tactics, the module will swamp you with enemies, you just have to be strong enough to be the last one standing. Survival is mostly about tanking, prioritising the most dangerous foes and effective use of the gear you find to withstand the onslaughts, some of which can be intense, with the game throwing everything at you at certain points. The further you go, the more extreme it gets. The loot is random and can be augmented with "recipes", so you are constantly juggling and optimising your equipment. Defense, resistances and immunities are important, so I'm glad I chose the monk. There is little, if any role-play, so the personality type skills are useless. Tough decisions have to be made with gear and upgrades, as there is a cap to the enchantments you can apply to your equipment and there will usually be Achilles heels and chinks in your armor (figuratively speaking for a monk, obviously) that you're always looking to patch. For example, do you go for fear immunity or freedom? lacking both could be the death of you at certain points. Death is actually rare if you know what you're doing, but it's always a threat and can happen suddenly.
There are puzzles and side quests. The puzzles have mostly all been seen before in NWN. The rewards for completing them are just regular chests you could find anywhere in the dungeon, so they were ignored after a while. The side quests can offer large amounts of xp, but the plot givers are fragile, especially on the highest difficulty, and often don't stand much chance of survival before their tasks are done, even when told to stay put. Sometimes they lie about the amount of experience they'll give too. There are also henchmen (or hirelings in this case). They can also die quickly, best not to get too attached to them, they can't be raised.
I've left everything in so includes all inventory management, shopping, levelling, etc. Skip at your leisure, timecodes included, be warned, as previously mentioned there are big chunks of inventory management in this part. A lot of the areas have the same name, the timecodes generally mark where a new one was entered, though include a few backtracked ones.
This character had already played through Dark Dreams of Furiae prior to this, playlist including that and some other assorted modules and sagas https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0oLoNHDuXcaKGwe_dYMbZIqFfuy5uwhv
Timecodes:
00:00:00 - Character Selection, Intro & Prepping
00:25:32 - Underdark
00:37:15 - Underdark
01:00:49 - Underdark
01:19:30 - Underdark
01:27:10 - Underdark
01:45:27 - Underdark
02:04:06 - Underdark
02:22:16 - Underdark
03:19:06 - Underdark
03:59:42 - Underdark
04:26:27 - Underdark
05:14:30 - Machineworks
05:29:44 - Machineworks
05:55:47 - Machineworks
06:10:01 - Machineworks
06:16:09 - Machineworks
06:22:41 - Machineworks
06:56:48 - Machineworks
07:09:20 - Machineworks
07:55:38 - Machineworks
08:48:03 - Machineworks
09:02:49 - Maggris' Hive (Boss)
09:11:03 - Deep in Undermountain
09:42:01 - Machineworks
10:22:08 - Machineworks
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