[HotU] Cant bring henchmen to chapter 2???

Katomerellin · Post by **Katomerellin** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:42 pm

I'm having trouble here.. When I went to chapter 2, My henchman being Sharwin (Is that her name? The female bard) disapeared.. She dident arrive with me to the underdark.. But the previous time I played my henchman was Deekin (The annoying Kobhold bard that cant sing

) and he came with me to the underdark.. Is it some kind of bug or can youonly bring Deekin with you tot he underdark..?

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 11:16 pm

I belive you can only bring Deeking from Chapter 1 to Chapter 2 in HotU.... although it has been a while so I'm not 100% certain, but only 90%

Although there is (was?) a bug with bringing Deeking from 2->3 chapter if he is in your party (so had to dismiss him before ending chapter 2), you couldn't summon him in chapter 3, so save before you end chapter 2 and start chapter 3.
Although this bug might have been fixed in the latest patch.

Faust · Post by **Faust** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:10 am

Xandax is right. The only henchmen that can travel with you into the UnderDark is Deekon (who is the best henchmen in the game, bar none). That's simply because he "amuses" Halaster. The other henchmen are not available to you after chapter 1. I never had any trouble keeping Deekon with me in any chapter. So it was either fixed in a patch, or I got lucky.

Katomerellin · Post by **Katomerellin** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:40 am

Darn it.. I wanted my other henchmen with me.. Deekin is just a annoying Kobhold Bard that cant sing who liked to annoy Valen..

JackOfClubs · Post by **JackOfClubs** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 1:14 pm

Yeah, I'm not really sure why they included the 4 henchmen from NWN. Especially since they don't remember your character and you only find two of them fairly late in the first chapter.

But on the plus side the henchmen you get in chapter 2 are much better and the one in ch 3 is really cool. (Even though she doesn't remember you either.)

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Thu Apr 14, 2005 10:53 pm

[QUOTE=JackOfClubs]Yeah, I'm not really sure why they included the 4 henchmen from NWN. Especially since they don't remember your character and you only find two of them fairly late in the first chapter.
<snip>[/QUOTE]

The "reason" is that a call has gone out to the heros of the land, and having travelled with the "Hero of Neverwinter", then felt it was decent enough to travel to Waterdeep. As to why the developers actually made the choice to include them? Well, I think it was likely easier then to develop a bunch of new ones on top the 2 new ones and Deekin. And new players likely needed the extra help of having 2 henchmen throughout Undermountain.

The reason they don't recognize your character, is that your character is in gameplay terms is the one that completed SoU and not the Hero of Neverwinter. Thus Deekin regonizes you, but the OC-NwN henchmen does not.

JackOfClubs · Post by **JackOfClubs** » Fri Apr 15, 2005 4:28 pm

Yeah, those are probably accurate reasons. But they still don't seem to be good reasons. I had a lot more invested in my NWN character than in the one I took through SoU. It seems if they are going to go through the trouble of having henchmen that you recognize from NWN they might have taken a bit more to make them recognize you. Since I had both Linu's token and her Pendant on me at the start of the game (and they both appeared later when I found my gear) it seems that it wouldn't have been that difficult to script some extra dialogue options. And the same, of course, would go for the other henchmen.

Continuity is a big part of the D&D experience and it is disappointing that Bioware keeps undercutting it. First with BG to NWN (which makes a certain amount of sense) and now with the "expansions" to NWN. It is still a great game and the developers deserve a lot of credit for what they have achieved, but such discrepancies take their toll.

absolethe · Post by **absolethe** » Fri May 13, 2005 11:56 pm

I don't understand why you aren't recognized. Considering that you can use the same character in all 3 plotlines, I think the henchmen should assume that you are the same hero. It's not like they don't tell you all about Neverwinter and the Hero of Neverwinter anyway, whether you've completed that plot or not. And Tomi goes so far as to say that you REMIND him of the Hero of Neverwinter. Duh, Tomi, that's because I AM the Hero of Neverwinter. We traveled together, remember?

I can kinda see why they were fudging the continuity between NWN and SoU to HotU--what sort of sense does it make that you start out at the Neverwinter academy, become a big Hero, and then go back to school in Hilltop? But I have a simple explanation. The teacher was one of your childhood heroes and you went to the school to learn more from him (ie: prestige classes). After all, you are said to be his most advanced student--that could easily have to do with your previous experience in Neverwinter.

The problem is that there's no saying that you are the same hero from either game. It's kinda an all or nothing proposition to me. The game assumes you're coming from SoU to HotU and the NPCs give you "credit" for your adventures in SoU. But as far as the player is concerned, the Hero of Neverwinter might have gone straight to Waterdeep, and everyone recognizes him, but not for who he is. How strange.

I like to have recognition. It's one of those things that gives me endless guilty pleasure while playing a game.

Fiberfar · Post by **Fiberfar** » Sat May 14, 2005 6:29 am

The event in Neverwinter City and Hilltop happened at the same time, and as many have said now you aren't the same hero. The OC ended after chapter 4 and killing Morag. While SoU continued into the HotU.

I don't think the creators of NwN meant that one should go through
NwN OC -> SoU -> HotU (because in that case your char had to be in two places at the same time).

JackOfClubs · Post by **JackOfClubs** » Mon May 16, 2005 1:22 pm

[QUOTE=Fiberfar]I don't think the creators of NwN meant that one should go through
NwN OC -> SoU -> HotU (because in that case your char had to be in two places at the same time).[/QUOTE]
Yes, I think you are correct. The first two are incompatible. But that is no reason why the OC->HotU (skipping SoU) should be invalid. If Linu, who was with the PC to the bitter end in NWN can make it to waterdeep, I don't see why she should not recognize him. Or, if they intended HotU to be simply an expansion of SoU, why they didn't just invent new characters or keep all 3 of the possible hencmen and skip the folks from NWN. Either of those options would be satisfying, (although I would have prefered the first) but having NWN NPCs who don't recognize the PC is just odd. Especially since Deekin does "recognize" the PC even though I played a different character in SoU and didn't use Deekin as a hencman anyway. Fixing this would have required a minimum of scripting options and would have vastly improved the role-playing experience. If you are going to go to the trouble to make interesting NPCs, it seems a bit more effort maintain continuity would be worth it.

Ripe · Post by **Ripe** » Mon May 16, 2005 5:34 pm

Deekin does recognize you as a hero of SoU. He even gives you a book he wrote detailing your exploits in SoU so those of us who go OC->HotU could familiarize ourselves with that plot and significance of a Relic of the Reaper - an item you find as a hero of SoU.

Obviusly HotU is expansion to SoU not OC. Anyway SoU was a game of it's own it was not a expansion, it is completly new game that use existing game mechanic that it actualy improves by ading new skills and spells which are usable by OC aswell.

So you may said that OC->HotU path is invalid. Doing anything else would require some realy big deus ex by developers to explain how did hero of OC got hold of unique Relic that was found in SoU (and if I may ad that kind of deus ex is one of the bigest complain most of us have with KotoR II). It would not require a minimum of scripting and it WOULD destroy all role-playing experiance you get from playing NWN.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon May 16, 2005 11:10 pm

[QUOTE=JackOfClubs]<snip> But that is no reason why the OC->HotU (skipping SoU) should be invalid. <snip>[/QUOTE]

It is invalid because it is not the story.
No matter how much one twists or turns it - no matter which gamecharacter is used. The story is that HotU is the followup of the storyline from SoU, just like any other story in any other game.
Why it is made like that is a different question instead, but the matter of the fact is that the SoU "hero" is the one that plays through HotU irregardless of which "physical" character that is used.

Ravager · Post by **Ravager** » Thu Jun 30, 2005 1:48 pm

NWN was supposed to be the main game + toolset with the higher price tag. The storyline is bigger than in SOU and the main character ends at a higher level than in SOU. Bioware probably wanted characters at a lower level to begin HOTU.
Having the henchmen back from NWN just continues their storylines from the main campaign. So your character from SOU is recognised by Deekin but NOT the others as the character is supposed to be diffirent in the game.