Leroux: Tyrants of the Moonsea (NWN:EE)
I'm a bit torn on this one.
On the one hand, it's an excellent showcase for some stunningly cool community created tilesets and monster models that I haven't seen used in any other single player module yet and that really give the term "enhanced" a new meaning. The voiceovers are also top notch and do not vary in recording quality as they did in
Darkness over Daggerford. There is a whole new overland map of the Moonsea region and fans of the old Goldbox games or Forgotten Realms lore in general will be delighted to (re-)visit such places as Hillsfar, Mulmaster, or Zhentil Keep, including dealings with their tyrannic rulers, their forces, allies and opponents (Zhentarim, Red Plumes, Wizards of Thay, Harpers etc.). The story, while not particularly outstanding and more linear than
Darkness Over Daggerford, is not the worst either, it's pretty solid D&D fare. The writing is quite good in general, there are some interesting companions and a substantial amount of content (I didn't track the time on my playthrough, but on the Vault page for the free
AL3: Tyrants of the Moonsea gameplay length is listed as 6-10 hours, and I'm pretty sure the EE version is much longer than that, probably twice as much? Just a guess though). I played the free version years ago but I did not remember a thing about it, so I can't compare what's new, but I have a feeling it is quite a bit. In addition to the new tilesets, models, overland map, voiceovers, and possibly extended story and quests, there are also new intro and outro movies, the latter depending on the choices you made at the end (at least three somewhat different endings). All in all, I enjoyed playing it.
As someone that just completed the module too, my overall impression of it is good despite the few bugs/issues i encountered.
On the other hand I noticed several problems with it as well: First and foremost, I felt the balance both in combat and economy was all over the place. I had been warned that the combat in this DLC campaign was very, very difficult, but could not confirm it at all. I'm usually content playing NWN on Normal and don't mind if it's a little easy, but Tyrants had such a lack of challenge that I set the difficulty up to Hardcore D&D and fights were still a walk in the park and rather boring because of it (I also tried Very Difficult and it was still easy, just gave the opponents more HP and thereby slightly prolonged the boredom). I have to admit, I brought in my character from AL2 (Crimson Tides of Tethyr), and since there was no item strip at the start, I was way wealthier and better equipped as a newly created character would have been (you get a +3 weapon if you start fresh and 10k gold, but my character already had 600k gold, +5 weapon and boots of speed and many others things that also allowed me to better equip my new companions). So my mistake was to go along with that, thinking AL3/Tyrants would allow a seamless continuation from AL2 regardless, and I ended up feeling like I was cheating. But in the long run, I don't think it mattered all that much, since Tyrants of the Moonsea is an extreme Monty Haul game either way, and even with a new character I'd have been able to acquire all the powerful equipment soon enough without much trouble. And I don't think my good equipment can completely explain the imbalance away, because it shouldn't affect Challenge Rating and XP. My imported character was one level below the recommended starting level (you get leveled up to 15 if your character is below lvl 13, I think; mine was lvl 14), and yet the Challenge Ratings of opponents oscillated extremely all the time, from Effortless to Impossible (though even Impossible was easy most of the times), and most of the opponents at the end only gave 2XP per head, regardless of CR. Also, the most challenging opponent who was *actually* nearly impossible to defeat had no relation to the plot, no backstory, and was just sitting somewhere in a random room of an otherwise pretty empty dungeon.
Regarding the economy of the game, TotM throws a lot of powerful and valuable loot at you, way more than you can ever use for yourself, and selling it makes you very rich so you can buy more powerful stuff if you even need that, but it's a tough job and no fun at all, because (1) every merchant has a cap on store funds and it's usually rather low compared to the value of the loot you find, so sooner than you'd think, the merchant will not be able to take the loot of your hands anymore unless you buy something expensive from them, so they get more money to spend; (2) they also have a cap on how much they're willing to spend for your most valuable items; let's say you have an item that's worth 25k, then one merchant will only offer you 5k at max, another 10k, the third 15k, and if you're lucky you'll find someone that will pay 20k; (3) not every merchant will buy every kind of item; and (4) merchants are spread over several towns of the Moonsea region. All rather realistic, but it makes looting and selling a real chore with lots of inventory space/weight management and running to and fro involved. Even more annoying, you can't fast-travel to all towns directly via the overland map, but you often have to go to a harbor town and board a ship first to reach the other side of the Moonsea.
I have played the module twice as a fresh character and think part of that is mainly due to D&D itself with how overpowered spell casters can get. The problem you had reminds me of Dragon Age Origins and transferring your character into Awakening expansion. You already start out high level and with the best gear, so makes everything easy.)
Starting out as a melee character or build relying on good gear. The module is quite rough early on. In contrast, my level 16 half-orc wizard breezed though the module with little effort.
And as someone that hoard every bit of loot, i had problems selling the loot a couple times until i could get to the next town. (Melvaunt central market district have the best merchants/ high gold cap for buying btw. Gond's temple buys items up to 25k and made it possible to sell every loot i found in the later part of the module)
There's another "realistic" system in place causing your party to get tired once per day, resulting in temporary stat loss, and if you don't pay attention to it, it can happen at the most unfortunate times, like shortly before a battle (or even in the midst of one?). Not that it mattered very much, with the general difficulty being so low.
Never felt this was annoying. I rested a lot though to refresh spells/buffs so never got the debuff in combat.
The module makes ample use of environmental sounds to create a nice atmosphere which I'd usually applaud but it often goes a bit over board with it, confusing "ample" with "excessive", especially with regard to voiceovers, to an extent that there are hardly any pauses between the voice sounds and occasionally the same ones can be heard simultaneously, even. This quickly got on my nerves in some locations.
I thought the atmosphere was fine personally. But i guess that is a subjective opinion, so will vary depending on who you ask. I quite liked the extra music that was added though. From the epic battle music to the music at the various inns.
So, I'm unsure whether to recommend the DLC or not; it's good but could have been much better still. I don't regret playing it or paying for it though. Some things remain unresolved at the end, btw, and open up the possibility of a sequel.
Yeah, i noticed the hints of a sequel/new dlc module too. Even before the ending. One of the npcs (the dukes adventuring party) mentioned something about their next adventure might be in Westgate.
I'd say it is worth recommending. But that is just my opinion. I really enjoyed the module and story. It also gave me the urge to start playing the other premium modules (currently playing Darkness over Daggerford)