So... I figured this would be a decent fill-in quest while killing time waiting for my theatre troupe to get their act together for dress rehearsal. And it didn't start out too bad. By the way, A-pack's Shadow Thief Improvements are compatible, and the outdoorsy Elite Guards left over from that are a nice addition to the changes inside.
The worst thing about the first floor was all those guards, actually. They got in the way. Confusion, slow, and glitterdust are reasonably effective. Renal's floor is actually easier because I don't have to watch out for guards and can cast things like fireball. So... down to the lower level.
Ok... this was a LOT harder than I expected, and I'm impressed with the scripting. I admit that I was getting a bit peeved by those elite guards chopping up my party members after being paralyzed by an archer or made hopeless by a mage, but I didn't go in especially well-prepared and was too stubborn to leave, even though I was rapidly running out of spells. Eventually, I was down to desperately digging through inventory praying to find a scroll of true sight. This search also yielded a scroll of delayed blast fireball, which, when launched into Aran's room, did a lot to turn the tables in my group's favour. Whew.
(Plus, it would be bad roleplaying to go away and rest and expect them to not re-fortify their defenses.)
Nothing these thieves have access to is unreasonable. (Provided the archers with wands of paralysis are bards or thief-mages or something. Hard to tell in the confusion.) Anyway, it's really basic equipment and spells and such, but used cleverly. Extremely cleverly in some cases. They actually work together. My enemies are supposed to work together?
Sadly, the quest was not without strangeness. Content from Cliffette's Every Mod and Dog was cropping up where it most definitely should not. (The thieves' maze looks nothing like Imnesvale! Bees are stupid.) Since I'd already been pestering her about this quest not working, the fact that it finally DID work in another time and place is especially interesting. (QP installed after EMaD.)
Additionally, should any of these things have happened? They did in my game, but perhaps they don't so much need fixing as I need a swift kick someplace.
1. Shadow thieves set off a couple of the lightning bolt traps in passages and fried themselves. Most traps were not triggerable by anything other than party members, as it should be, since I haven't added any trap-altering tweaks. (See screenshot.)
2. "Floating" Shadow Thief snipers. (See screenshot.)
3. Aran not recognizing that I'm a bleeding traitor. It seems to me that he should.
4. "Bodhi's tasks" journal update when Aran's room was cleared.
5. Prisoners other than Tizzak cannot be freed, and speak as though we're meeting for the first time.
Other than that, a few things popped out at me. I didn't see any party member interjections. It seems to me that Jaheira, Anomen, and Minsc all found the Shadow Thieves' prison and torture chambers rather reprehensible when we first visited, and I think they would have had something to say about the quest. Keldorn is another one that I remember saying he'd like to come back once we no longer needed Aran's help.
I believe I recall this from the original game, but the description of Aran's Ring of Invisibility says he gave it to me. If by "gave," it means "I looted it from his steaming corpse" then yeah, that makes sense. Are there even any circumstances under which he actually does give it to you? Or is that a developer oversight?