How to find & play modules on Neverwinter Vault

There are thousands of fan-made adventures on Neverwinter Vault.

Here's how to choose & play the best.

Also covers required items from the Vault, such as CEP or Project Q.

How to find & play modules on Neverwinter Vault

There are thousands of fan-made adventures on Neverwinter Vault to suit every taste.

Check out these module classifications[forum.neverwintervault.org] to find the best for you.

When you've chosen a module, installation is easy.

What follows is easily done manually. For Windows, there's also a one-click installation tool called NIT[neverwintervault.org] .

These instructions are for all Enhanced Edition platforms (not just Steam) except consoles, which don't allow custom content.

First, ensure that you can see file name extensions. For example, in Windows 10, open File Explorer and check File Name Extensions on the View tab.

Here's an example[neverwintervault.org] of a Vault module (best opened in a new tab so that you can refer to it).

Scroll down to the Files section. Right click on the attachment link and download.

Now scroll down to the Required Projects (if any). These are just like Required Items in Steam Workshop. If you haven't downloaded them before, follow the links and download their attachments in the same way.

To make the download faster, most of the files will be compressed containers, such as .zip, .7z, .rar or .exe. The next step is to extract the contents. 7-Zip[www.7-zip.org] is a handy free Windows utility that works with all of those formats. Other platforms support similar apps.

There may be text documents (.txt, .pdf, .doc etc) with installation help / hints / walkthrough.

Install the uncompressed game files in the Neverwinter Nights folder in your Documents.

On Android, the path is Android > Data > com.beamdog.nwnandroid > files > user. See "Android 13" below.

For IOS, using iTunes on a connected PC/Mac, or the Files app on the device itself, the path is File Sharing > NWN EE.

If you have an earlier version than Enhanced Edition, use the nwn folder within your Neverwinter Nights installation instead.

This has several sub-folders. Each file goes into the sub-folder that matches its extension.

For example, a simple module will just have one .mod file, which goes in Neverwinter Nights\modules. Others will also have .hak files with additional artwork, which go in Neverwinter Nights\hak. Here's a full list for reference (but relax, it's not normally this complicated) :

Extension	Subfolder
.mod	modules
.hak	hak
.tlk	tlk
.bic	localvault
.bik, .wbm	movies
.bmu	music
.wav	ambient
.erf	erf
.tga	portraits (but see below)
all other	override

Now all you have to do is play and have fun.

If you're playing on Steam, content download from the Vault won't appear on Steam Workshop, but it will appear in the list of modules when you start a New Game in NWN.

Override - Be aware that anything you put in the override folder will change the Official Campaign and all of your custom modules (including those obtained from Steam Workshop) which might cause compatibility issues in some cases.

Portraits - portrait .tga files are normally named with the prefix po_ and a suffix letter, e.g. po_ninjagirl_h.tga or whatever. If the name is nothing like that, the .tga probably belongs in override instead.

Movies - Enhanced Edition does not support .bik files, which need to be converted to .wbm files (NIT does this automatically). If left as .bik files, the module will still work, but movies will not play.

Licence - Fans have generously contributed these modules to the Vault for free. They can be played as described above, but please don't assume you can upload them to Steam Workshop or any other site. Refer to the Permissions section on the module page, and the Vault guidelines, for further information.

Folder Names & Path - You can change the folder name and path used for each type of file by editing the parameters in nwn.ini.

Multiplayer and Persistent Worlds

In most cases, the host should provide you with the files required, which you install to the locations mentioned above.

A few PWs use a mechanism called nwsync, which automatically downloads all the files into the nwsync subfolder of your Neverwinter Nights documents. The host will tell you about this if necessary.

CEP

The Community Expansion Pack (CEP) is a large collection of fan-made custom content for NWN.

It does not change the official game at all, but it is required for many custom modules.

It's easy to be confused by the number of versions of CEP out there, but the good news is that you only need the latest version to play any module that needs any version of CEP1 or CEP2.
CEP at Neverwinter Vault[neverwintervault.org]
CEP at Steam Workshop

This is especially important for Steam Workshop users - subscribing to older versions as well as the latest one can load the wrong files, making the module behave strangely.

At the time of writing, there is an independent version called CEP3 which is not in use yet. If it's required by a future module, it will also need to be installed, but probably won't conflict with earlier versions.

"Missing" modules?

When starting a new game, there are four module tabs - Official, Community, Premium and Local.

The Community tab is a misnomer. It has only a small selection of modules, such as Aielund Saga, whose authors have been invited by Beamdog to use the official launcher. On the forums, they are described as "curated" modules. These modules and their files are downloaded automatically when launched (to the nwsync subfolder in Documents, if you ever need to know).

Community modules that you download yourself from Steam Workshop or Neverwinter Vault (the vast majority) appear on the Local tab.

Steam Workshop fix

It's widely reported that Steam Workshop Items don't always appear in the game menu for some players.

When you subscribe to any Steam Workshop item, it may take several minutes (or longer) for Steam to start and complete the download. There's no user-friendly information on whether the download has happened, though you can look for its folder (see below).

If the download has completed, but the game can't find the new content, check that the Steam client is running (although there is no DRM on running EE itself, it is required for Steam Workshop Items).

On Windows, it may be necessary to install Steam on the default path C: \Program Files (x86)\Steam if it isn't already, according to one report.

If all else fails, move the mod from the Steam Workshop folders to the Documents folders mentioned in the main article above.

The Steam Workshop content will be in anonymously numbered sub-folders within C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\workshop\content\704450.

You can move the files to the corresponding subfolders in Documents\Neverwinter Nights - so the files in the hak subfolder move to the hak subfolder, and so on.

File name conflicts on Steam

If two workshop items contain files with the same name (.hak files, for example) it is unclear which version will be loaded.

Players can avoid this situation by subscribing to the latest version only (for example, at the time of writing, CEP 2 rather than CEP).

In some cases, the conflict will not be obvious. If a Workshop Item behaves strangely, unsubscribing other Items may resolve the problem.

Android 13

Each Android release has made it progressively more difficult to install mods.

However, as of Android 13, there are several ways of doing it:

• Via a USB-connected desktop (it may help to enable Developer Options and then USB Debugging on the phone)
  
• Via the hidden Android Files app[play.google.com] (see below)
  
• Some players have found that FV File Explorer or MiXplorer Silver do the job

In the case of the hidden Files app,

• Open the app
  
• Navigate to the NWN User folder
  
• In the app's top right menu, choose New Window
  
• This opens a second window
  
• In the new window, navigate to the Downloads folder
  
• Open the Android Recent Apps view (... or similar at screen bottom)
  
• You should see both windows
  
• Long-press the icon of the lower window to enter split screen mode
  
• Ensure the Downloads folder is on the right (using the toggle mid-screen)
  
• Drag the file from Downloads to the NWN User folder

With those tools, you should be able to see the com.beamdog.nwnandroid folder, If you can't see the contents of com.beamdog.nwnandroid folder/files/user, or can't modify it,

• Try to delete the user folder
  
• If that fails, rename the user folder
  
• Make an empty folder in com.beamdog.nwnandroid folder/files called user
  
• Copy mods into that folder
  
• Start the game to repair your new user folder

The details seem to vary slightly by device.

[tbarrie]

@14M8D4471 - not to derail the thread, but I'm not convinced Windows has any ease-of-use edge over Linux. I set my parents up with a new Windows 11 computer a few months ago and tried to something pretty simple (have their Pictures folder be on the local hard drive rather than OneDrive). The OS fought me every step of the way.
To get back on topic, I blame Beamdog for my problems, not Linux. I don't believe there's anything about Linux that forced them to put the Neverwinter Nights folder somewhere weird, and I'm sure there's nothing that forced them to say in the game itself that it's in my Documents directory when it isn't.

[LAMBDA471☦]

@tbarrie

Thanks, I was hating Windows 11 very much lately and was considering installing Linux and giving it another go, but after I read your comment, I remembered the horrors for Linux and found appreciation in how easy Windows is despite how much of a POS it is and how much of a POS future versions will get, at least your comment saved me probably a day of my life where I would try to get basic things like install my nVidia drivers to work on Linux and then give up and go back to Windows.

[tbarrie]

Found it! The "Neverwinter Nights" folder is in ~/.local/share, which is not exactly intuitive. Beamdog really should convey that information better...

[tbarrie]

Any idea where I'm supposed to put .mod and .hak files on Ubuntu 22.04? The install didn't put a "Neverwinter Nights" folder in my Documents folder. I created it manually as well as the "modules" and "hak" subfolders, but .mods I put there don't show up under Local when I launch the game.

[daveyd]

Nevermind just realized I need to put things in the documents folder not the main installation folders.

[daveyd]

I played NWN for years (Diamond GOG version) but I just got EE here and I'm stumped. I think I put everything for Almraiven EE in the correct place but it's not appearing when I launch the game. I see it in the community tab with the option to DL but I'm not sure that's the new EE version.

[Drigeolf]

Thank you for this guide. I wasn't able to see my mods in game after subbing them in the workshop, but this works beautifully.

[Tutsi Noncombatant]

Awesome I think I got it. Says Module is corrupted So im gonna redownload. Thank you @Proleric. Was browsing thru local game files, wrong place. Not sure how I ever got it workin before.

[Proleric]

@oy Velsuk you need to "install the uncompressed game files in the Neverwinter Nights folder in your Documents" (or equivalent). This is the place where your saved games appear. At the moment you are using Beamdog's game installation folder, which isn't right. Also, the subfolder names must be exactly as shown in the guide - "hak" not "hk", "modules" not "mod". The subfolder names you have used are reserved for Beamdog's official content.

[Tutsi Noncombatant]

Hello. Do I have to use the tool set for anything prior? Have done everything here but my module is still not showing up. hak Paks in HK and Module in mod file.