Playing ToEE

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I was thinking about detailing my experience with the Temple of Elemental Evil because I want to play a RPG but am finding it harder to stay involved in all the ones I've picked up. They all seem to become pointless really quickly. I would like to try out the blogs here but I don't have enough posts to make one. I figure writing about it will give me incentive to continue on, and plus I have a free month before classes start up again and I need something to waste my time on.

Just so you know, my cRPG experience is not by any means encompassing. I can count the number of RPGs I’ve played more than half way through on one hand, and two of those are Squaresoft creations. But another one is Arcanum, a little gem I picked up about five years ago and have played through twice since.

As you can see I'm no veteran.

One RPG that didn’t make it on the hand is Icewind Dale. I tried to get into it a bunch of times over the past few years mainly because the name was cool and I like snow levels. Snow levels with ice and frost are always cool. Needless to say, the furthest I’ve gotten is to the cave with the Trolls before quitting out of boredom. I don’t know why. It felt like it was missing that special something.

I recently picked up Troika’s Temple of Elemental Evil, an Icewind Dale style game by the guys who made Arcanum, a game that did have that special something but lacked in the combat, the area where Icewind Dale excelled.

The first thing that stuck out was the huge TUTORIAL button. The tutorial is not integrated into the beginning of the game, which is great. However, it is there. Tutorials suck. How about making your game to where the instructions can be explained in the manual? Arcanum and Icewind Dale were complex games that were not complicated. You knew how to swing your sword. The existence of a tutorial is a tell tale sign of a game that’s going to lessen the enjoyment. It also means the game won’t be complex. If you’re told how things need to be done, there’s no room for experiment, since from the outset you know exactly how the game works, and games these days, as we all know, don’t lend themselves to doing neat things in different ways.

Don’t get me wrong, now. There are good tutorials out there, but they don’t advertise themselves as such. The Kokiri Forest in Zelda: Ocarina of Time was an excellent tutorial level. It had a few pop-ups, but for the most part you were on your own to explore and discover in a relatively comfortable environment. Croft Manor in Tomb Raider Anniversary is another example of a great tutorial level. While you are explained how to use things, overall you’re only given a small nudge by the game in an area where you need to make a great leap. These two examples are real game levels, with nuances and interesting secrets of their own, which convince you to explore and totally ignore the fact that you’re running the beginner’s course. Both of these games also have very accessible controls where a tutorial isn’t vital – therefore they must be fun or else there’s no point in all to it.

The tutorial in Temple of Elemental Evil is the complete opposite. It is a generic waste of space, and the time spent on making it should have been put to use improving the system so a tutorial wouldn’t have been needed in the first place. Right click, open the radial menu, move the mouse over this option, move your mouse over one of the pop-up options, and then beat yourself with a splintered paddle. Talk to this person, click on one of the little phrases, open up this menu, look at this, look at that, and then stab yourself in the face with a rusty fork. I quit after some broad joined up with me and I read about the whole NPC thing (instead of, you know, finding this out for myself through the course of the game via the joy of discovery), and went off to play the real game. Talk about your bad omens. Fifteen minutes in and it already feels like a really boring job.

By now, I’ve restarted maybe ten times trying out different characters and party combinations. The whole thing reminds me of Neverwinter Nights II; a total waste of money seeing as how I barely played past the initial village attack (thankfully I bought it second hand and didn’t pay much). Anyways, it reminded me of this silly game because of the massive amount of character creation options it gives you. Another beef of mine with tutorials is that they provide a tutorial on the wrong things. If you give the player a hundred skills to choose from, you need to tell the player how they work – not how to click on the ground to move a character. Is Maximize Spell more important for a Druid than Weapon Proficiency? Do either one of them make a difference? Does a Half Orc sorcerer have an advantage over a Gnome wizard? Why do we need both Gnomes and Halflings?

A wizard and a sorcerer, as far as I can tell, are pretty similar, except for the fact that with a sorcerer you don’t have to choose two restricted spell types and you get a bonus to all your social skills. Why the hell would you choose a wizard? Why do we need both a barbarian and a fighter? Why is there a rogue instead of a thief? I thought bards were rogues. Oh, and apparently everybody can be a thief because thief skills aren't special. However, it's pointless to put points into the thief skills unless you're a rogue because you'll never have enough to actually open the complex stuff that makes the whole thing worthwhile. This is stupid - just like giving everybody an option to specialize in hammers and mauls. Something tells me that thieves don't carry around giant hammers.

I miss the times when you had a wizard, a specialized wizard, a fighter, a cleric, and a thief, with a paladin, bard, and ranger thrown in for good cross class measure. You had a few reasonable skills to choose from depending on your class, and weapon specialization or two, and perhaps a few spells. This method was simple and effective. The manual told you what you needed to know about each that wasn’t already self explanatory.

The ToEE manual is massive. And I do mean massive. It is 153 pages in Adobe Acrobat of pure, cold information. This really makes you step back and realize that you’re playing this game entirely by yourself. Dungeons and Dragons, based on what I know, is a multiplayer experience, and all these rules are gradually revealed because of the flexibility of playing with other people instead of against a computer. In ToEE, you need to know everything right now, or your character is royally screwed from the start. I can’t help but look at a bunch of these things such as Rebuke Undead, Inspire Competence, Shot on the Run, Silent Spell, Rage, Track, and the rest without thinking that they will make a token appearance maybe once or twice and never be used again beyond that. The huge amount of skills your given is overwhelming. There are major skills and minor skills; the only different being is that you don’t get to put points in the minor ones, and there’s no real convincing explanation for any of them, leaving you to wonder what the hell is going on and why you are wasting your time messing with this.

The major skills are no better. There are separate skills for Diplomacy, Gather Information, Search, Intimidate, Bluff, Appraise, Perform, Use Magic Device, Heal, Hide, Move Silently… you get the picture. I wonder how someone who can hide successfully cannot move silently, or how someone who can perform is not good at bluffing. I also wonder why there are so many different dialog skills in a hack and slash dungeon crawler (which gives me the impression that they’re pointless and maybe have one or two of those token uses). My favorite is Spellcraft, because it makes no sense whatsoever. In ToEE, a wizard can be inexperienced at spellcraft, while a barbarian can have a high skill in it. In Arcanum it was hard to pick out skills because they all looked so good, while in ToEE it’s hard to pick out skills because I’m trying to determine which one is less useless, and there are about a hundred more skills.

I tried out stealth and diplomacy and they don’t seem to really make a difference, so I’m going to forget about them, and ignore the nagging little feeling that I’ll miss something of minimal importance. I can’t see how you would want to avoid enemies anyways and flex your charisma in a game where the main attraction is a huge TEMPLE OF EVIL full of unapologetic bad guys that need to be exterminated.

After wasting so much time messing around with this character creation and testing different "builds" crap, I'm just going to make a few fighters and a "rogue" (thief! Damnit! THIEF!) and see what happens. Again this is all just from my perspective and maybe to enjoy this game you need to be a real Dungeons and Dragons guy or something.


I have a custom desktop icon because the default one is junk.


TOO MANY SKILLS!


I am greeted to this every time I close the game.

 

Ha ha join the club! I did not enjoy this game either. Could not find the will to play for more than a few hours. Horrible bugs aside, turn based combat style came so boring to me. Infinity Engine games are far superiour, real time combat which simulates almost all the rules of turn based system.

I am suprised why you did not like IWD though, it sure has a certain flavour and with its expansions Heart of Winter and Trials of the Lure Master it becomes a very solid and enjoyable CRPG. Try the expansions!

You had better stay away from IWD 2 then as it uses the very same 3rd edition rules you have so loathed in ToEE. Though, thanks to marvels of Infinity Engine it is not too much trouble or pain to play, and it can be very entertaining too!

I can never play this game though. I get bored. I guess it is not up to our tastes, eh? Long live Baldur's Gate and AD&D 2nd edition rules!

 

I liked Icewind Dale, but couldn't bring myself to keep playing it. It felt like a waste of time after a while. Games by definition are mostly a waste of time, but you're supposed to forget that while enjoying them! It breaks up the monotony of life - just like good fiction. I reach that "why am I doing this?" moment in Icewind Dale only a few hours in. I just shrugged, but you can't see that on the Internet.

I like turn based combat. Not as much as the pseudo turn based with a pause (Icewind Dale), but it's better than Diablo in games that don't involve hordes upon hordes of enemies, which I have yet to find out if ToEE features. I don't know of any pause button in ToEE that would let me take the initiative on an opponent because I actually saw him first. That bugs me and is frustrating and needlessly unfair. It's also incredibly stupid. I understand that this is not a shooter where player reflexes dominate all, but if I see something as the player I should be able to act on it. I am playing this game, after all, and my exotic skills of "looking" and "thinking" should be allowed to come into play.

I only loathe the 3rd edition rules because off all the tedious bullshit it introduces via skills and feats.

I have found ToEE a bit more tolerable by writing about it. Speaking of...

I have no aversion to rolling stats. That's one of the main DnD things, right? Rolling random stats. I never thought it translated well in the cRPG system because there's no human element to the game where you can still succeed even without min/maxing everything, but most games that I've played allow you to modify the stats so you don't have to hit the roll button for eternity.

Unfortunately, you cannot modify them once you have rolled in ToEE, so you're forced to roll and re-roll for eternity. There is also an "advanced" tab which starts all your attributes at 8, but doesn't give you enough points to actually make a decent character, and you cannot lower the scores on any stats. Something I've discovered, and I'm sure everyone else has discovered this too, is that you can go to the advanced tab, jack up and attribute, and simply drag it to the right side of the screen where the boxes would be on the "basic" tab. When you switch back to the basic tab the score is there waiting happily to be added to your character. If you switch back to the advanced section, the points are refilled, so you can easily create a perfect 18 character. While messing with this I managed to get a character with a 47 to distribute. That's right, a FOURTY SEVEN. That means I could have had a fighter with 47 strength! That's a little too much cheating for me, so I passed. However, the whole roll system is screwed up, and I don't consider rolling for hours to be fun. Besides, the game keeps track on your character sheet of the amount of times you rolled, and I don't want to look like an indecisive prick.

That's stupid. Really, really stupid. Why would anyone want to have the amount of times they hit the roll button displayed forever on their character sheet? So, I used the set points in advanced and drag them to basic to create a balanced character. Otherwise you end up with a character that has slightly above average points in all attributes unless you're willing to dedicate hours to pressing a button. Funny, I had to break the rules to play fair. Wonderful.

My first character:
Zelda
Re-Rolls: 69 (lololololol)
Height: 5'1" (Height is one of the most important decisions you will make in the game and affects such things as the distance between your head and the ground)
STR 18
DEX 17
CON 18
INT 11 (I could have bumped this up for more skill points, but she wasn't going to be dealing with all that extra junk)
WIS 16 (It's been a good defensive skill in other games)
CHA 11
Female Human Barbarian
Neutral Good
Worships Kord (God of bravery and swords and... ah, who cares?)
Feats: Exotic Weapon Proficiency - Spiked Chain (Because I've never played a game that let you use a goddamn spiked chain!), Dodge (The only other one that I knew would always be useful)
Intimidate - 4
Listen - 4
Spot - 2
Search - 2
Tumble - 2
From playing through a little my biggest problem was enemies jumping out of bushes or swamps and killing me before I could react, so hopefully Listen, Spot, and Search can take care of that... stupidly divided up into three separate skills for some reason.

Character number 2:
Finn
Re-Rolls: 0 (he was born awesome)
Height: 5'8"
STR 15
DEX 18
CON 16
INT 18 (I needed the skill points)
WIS 16
CHA 9
Male Human Rogue
Lawful Good (How ironic!)
Worships Farlanghn (Apparently lawful good rogues have only one choice of god to worship - the god of quarter staves)
Feats: Dodge, Martial Weapon Proficiency - Longbows
Bluff - 4
Concentration - 2
Disable Device - 4
Heal - 2
Intimidate - 4
Listen - 4
Move Silently - 4
Open Lock - 4
Search - 4
Sleight of Hand - 4
Spot - 4
Tumble - 4
Use Magic Device - 4
I am not making this up... bumping your INT practically makes you a skill GOD.

The third character:
Benihana
Re-Rolls: 1 (Almost born awesome)
Height: 4'2"
STR 16
DEX 17
CON 18 +2 (Species modifier; because race is for racists)
INT 18
WIS 18
CHA 10 -2 (Species modifier)
Male Dwarf Wizard (Take that, society, and your adventuring norms)
Chaotic Good (So good he's craaaaaazzzzyyyy)
Worships Boccob
Feats: Combat Casting (Because maybe, just maybe, I might cast a spell or two in combat)
Concentration - 4
Spellcraft - 4
Use Magic Device - 2 (Oddly enough, wizard's aren't adept at using magic items in this game)
Bluff - 2
Tumble - 2
Heal - 2
… But INT only makes you a skill god if you’re a rogue, apparently, wizards get no point love.
Specialization: Evocation
Forbidden Spells: Abjuration (Detect evil and protection from good spells... let me think... NOPE), Conjuration (No odd path finding issues for me, thank you very much, and I can do without GREASE LIGHTING)
Spells:
Burning Hands
Magic Missile (Always a good spell to fall back on)
Sleep
Reduce Person (The favored spell of bullies everywhere)
Identify (Having to pay for this kills your wallet, in my experience, so getting it for free is new and possibly game breaking, and by "free" I mean you have access to all spells at all times so there's no need to make tough decisions like which select ones you have immediate access to)
Detect Secret Doors (Would have been helpful in Zelda)
Now, I know I said before that it's pointless to play a wizard instead of a sorcerer, but I didn't have enough CHA to be a sorcerer and I am already stretching the cheat limit as it is for attribute points.

The game starts and I'm walking along in a city somewhere with my fully armed band of brothers when we hear a scream and... yada yada yada. Who cares? Some priestess got whacked and now we're off to deliver the news to the Church in Hommlet, out of the kindness of our hearts, I guess.

My impressions so far? The dwarf looks funny in wizard clothes. Ha. The graphics are really, really nice. I mean NICE. This might be the best 2D I've ever seen. The characters themselves are in 3D, but that's easily forgiven seeing as how nice the backgrounds look. The music is soothing, but the voice acting isn't very good, however it's not game breaking unlike most other badly voiced games. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm immersed. I've forgotten about the numerous times I've restarted this damn thing.

In Hommlet I walk around looking for a guard and run into a guy named Elmo, the town drunk. This guy is an awesome fighter. Really. He's also great because he's one of the few party members who has a specific "want". From reading and experience each recruit-able NPC, unlike other games, takes loot for themselves and won't work for free. Elmo takes a share of the money. A few other guys have their own thing (like a wizard who only wants scrolls), but most just take half of EVERYTHING.

Having NPCs take loot for themselves and keep it is a great concept, but falls flat because you cannot negotiate with them further. Sure, that magic war hammer you found in a box might be crucial to your party's survival, but if you cannot take it from the rogue and give it to the fighter, then it's useless and you're screwed. Maybe you do need that one scroll, but the wizard guy took it and will not give it up unless you kill him. It also falls flat because, as I said, most just take half of everything regardless of what the item is.

Elmo does not fall into any of these pitfalls because he only takes money. However, I won't be picking him up right now because he's just too powerful, and I need all the EXP and cash I can get for my current three characters to grow and prosper. I was able to ask him about the church and its location. Okay, so far so good. A pretty simple start but it works. On the way there I stop and talk with a guard who confirms the location of the temple. He's part of some group called the Badgers, former bandits who turned good under a leader named Burne. I’ll have to visit this Burne later to see if the game wants me to slaughter him or join him.

Continuing on... Hommlet seems barren. Now, it is one of the better towns in any video game because of its size and layout. It looks like somewhere people might actually live. However, there's just no people walking around! Everyone's cooped up in their houses, which is weird because they don’t seem like Puritans when you talk to them. I’d love to see an RPG town where no one is walking on the streets because the people really are xenophobes. Crazy explanations for silly game play limitations are something I enjoy. I’m guessing everyone is in their houses because if they all step outside then time will slow down to a crawl and possibly cause the universe to implode. Get it? God forgot to optimize his world engine!


Search and Spot are really effective. I can examine a dead body from a hundred yards away. Apparently, they also bestow telekenesis, because I can take her pouch from this distance as well.


The Church of St. Cuthbert is not as large as the Temple of Elemental Evil, leading some good guys to feel like they got the short end of the stick.

 

I'm with you regarding IWD. Never managed to finish either of the two games (FYI I've never managed to actually finish ToEE either... or NwN2 for that matter).

 

I think it has something to do with the grind and lack of puzzles, which doesn't lend itself well to single player games, IMO. But then again games like Morrowind are enjoyable... so maybe it's the environment and story that aren't up to par?

---------- Added 14 hours, 35 minutes and 9 seconds later... ----------

Well I had a long post and lost it. Suffice to say that the sidequests are horrible and I was almost slaughtered by a solitary goblin because my characters have the hand-eye coordination of a retarded chipmunk. The goblin also got the jump on me because all those detection skills won't let you see an angry green man running straight at you with a club in the middle of an empty field.

My options after that were to spend 200 gold in healing or rest for seven straight days. One removes 200 gold from my pocket, the other one kills immersion (Anyone remember resting 30+ days in Easthaven after fighting the orcs? Remember how believable that made the world since Hrothgar said beforehand that the party would be leaving in several days, and there was no time limit at all during the entire course of the game? I do.). I decided to break the immersion because, hell, there wasn't any to be had so far.

I assure you my original write up was full of action, adventure, and bone rattling excitement, but it's lost forever now, so I'll have to recap.

People don't say much other than "I have a lot to say but I don't want to talk about it." This is where the diplomacy checks come in, but you can come to the conclusion that these are a complete waste of time even without creating a diplomat based on the two quests that I will soon detail - the gambler at the inn and the dissident laborers - given by the two most important people in the village.

Oh yea, I delivered the pouch to the priest who didn't seem to care that his associate had been whacked, and said I needed to go to the Moathouse to discover the source of the evil. Wait... what? I am as lost as you are right now. Way to ease someone into the story, Troika. He also mentioned that he lost an important amulet in the middle of a vast meadow, and that if I found it he would offer his services for free. I'm not really interested in "his services", and I'm especially not interested in searcing a damn field all day, so I declined and stole all his scrolls from the bookcase on my way out. Sucker!


This is what it looks like when you steal someone's belongings.

 

Ha ha ha your remarks are so hillarious and so true that I can not agree with you more!

 

I must admit it feels kind of bad bashing on a game from a company that went bankrupt, and who did create one of my favorite games, but this is just the beginning, and ToEE could get better. Right? Right?

I have my doubts.

Take, for example, the quest given by the innkeeper who owns the only inn and tavern in Omelette- I mean Hamlet- uh, Hommlet. This is one of those super awesome major quests that games provide where you don't need any special skill checks because the quest is such a joy to experience. It delivers a stunning performance and another bad, bad omen for the rest of the game.

After almost being massacred by the easiest enemy in the game, the three weary travelers entered the Hommlet tavern and sought out a room. The owner's wife offered us some food and drink. Sure, I thought, this would help. Alas, it did not. You're given a massive list of consumables that have no effect whatsoever. I asked her for a room and she happily pointed to her hubby, who was willing to give me a good night's sleep, free of charge, if I would solve a little problem for him.

Duh DUH DUMMMM! A quest!

"Sure, boss, what do you want me to do? Clear some rats from your cellar? Kick out a rowdy drunk?"

No, no nothing dangerous like that. There's a man who cheats all the folks who pass by this town in gambling. He wants me to catch the scoundrel in the act. Being the stealthy barbarian that I am, I did proceeded to catch this gamblin' man in the act. And it brings us to tonight's WORD.

FOOLS GOLD

Folks, usually in games there's some sort of a payoff for completing a quest. After all, that's what we're here for, right? We're here to complete challenges and experience the satisfaction of mastering our tiny virtual domain. Some quests lead to no real tangible reward such as gold or a shiny new sword, but instead further the plot, increase your reputation, or reveal some interesting information.

For completing the gambler in the tavern quest, you're rewarded with a free place to stay. This place is normally available for two gold. Depending on how money is handled in the game that might not be such a bad thing, but consider the fact that you start out with 500 gold, and also consider what you have to personally pay to complete this quest.

The challenge here is a fool's errand. Gold is the cornerstone of this entire venture. To complete the quest you walk up to the gamblin' man, initiate dialog, and click on the option that says "play cards" a bunch of times, then "play dice" a few dozen times. You can click these buttons in any order, but after losing 100 - 200 gold your character remarks that the dice or cards, whichever you played last, are rigged. The man begs forgiveness and promises to join you if you keep it silent.

No, you can't ask for your money back. Ever. It's gone. In no way, shape, or form will you be getting that gold back.

You can say "No way, hombre! I'm takin' dis up wit' da sheriff!" His response will only be a measly "Oh, please don't!" while he sets there and does absolutely nothing. If you go back up to the innkeeper he thanks you and gives you a free 2 gold room. Unfortunately, you can't tell him how much you had to pay out of pocket. The gambler, on the other hand, will sit in the bar for eternity.

Maybe joining you was a reward, right? Maybe he's some awesome fighter?

Well, no. You can go back to him, he's sulking now, by the way, and say "Hey, I'm sorry. Let's let bygones be bygones and join forces." He'll join you right away, which most people in town will do for some reason, and provide child-like combat expertise with a knack for taking half of the loot. He'll still never pay you back the damn money, he'll never mention it, and you cannot ask him for it either.

Let's recap. You spent over 100 gold to solve a quest that netted you nothing more than 2 gold. You just bought fool's gold, my friend.

And that's the word.


Before I reloaded and skipped the whole thing by just ponying up the 2 gold, I decided to attack the entire tavern. It didn't go well.

 

Dude, I hope you're having fun, because you seem to be going out of your way to play through ToEE the absolutely worst way possible, then complaining about the results. Just a guess - you haven't ever played p'n'p D&D, have you?

I've completed the Furnock quest I don't know how many times, and I've never lost more than 3-4 hands net before busting him. That means I've never lost more than 40 gp, and as often as you need to rest at the inn, it is not that bad an ivestment, especially given that you no longer have to hassle with dialog to get the room. This is an excellent example of your poor understanding and/or use of skills and character attributes in the game. What character did you use to play with Furnock? If you are trying to catch a card cheat, who should you be using? Here's a hint - it helps to use a character who is able to spot inconsistancies like nicked cards or weighted dice.

You complain there are no uses for the communication skills in ToEE, but that could not be further from the truth. Having a high Diplomacy, Sense Motive, Bluff and Gather Information help tremendously in getting more information and even quests from NPCs in conversation. In fact, many quests available in Hommlet can't be picked up or completed until you have 5 or more ranks in some of those skills - in other words, until you hit 2nd level at least and increase the skill.

I could go on, but I'm not going to put that much effort into it. I'll admit freely that ToEE has some pretty big drawbacks, especially if you are playing the vanilla game w/o the Co8 mods and fixes, but I think it is the best D&D combat simulator ever made. Then again, I like turn-based games that require more thinking than frantic button mashing. I suspect that even if you got the full souped up modded version, this game just isn't for you.

 

Hey MagicPot, you just got me interested in this game again.
I bought it years ago, but never played through it, sadly.

Do you use the CoE Modpack?

I know that one can choose between original module and the modded one once installed.
I am curious if all the game fixes are applied to the unmodded module as well, as I'd like to play the original first.

 

I'm playing through the game by fighting enemies and talking to people, with a team of a fighter, mage, and thief. I then proceeded to pick up quests. If that's the worst way to play through the game, then color me guilty.

Nope.

Before, I said that all my characters had maxed their "looking" skills. I tried this quest with all three characters, one of which was a rogue, so either you're lying or only a certain obscure class which you happened to be playing can quickly detect the cheat.

Even if I was able to get it after two tries, the rest of the outlined problems with the Furnock character still exist. It's also a poorly designed and incredibly dumb quest in its implementation, and another example of a brainless solution will show up when I cover the dissident laborer quest next, which is even worse!

I didn't say the diplo skills were useless. I said there were no uses that were actually useful to you as the player. I played through Hommlet a bunch of times and tried out different characters before this run and I'm not interested in getting more easy fetch quests with no payoff in items, reputation, or story development. Besides, you can infer all this from the innkeeper quest and the castle quest, which are the major problems of the major locations in Hommlet, and would (and do! unfortunately) have some of the most involved quests.

Too late.

I like turn based too. It works great in games without hordes of enemies, and since I haven't encountered hordes of enemies so far it's been working just fine. I enjoy the pause type a la Icewind Dale better, but to each his own.

I wanted to play the original too, so I'm only using the first two patches. I installed the third patch the first time, but it completely broke the game and I had to reinstall. It only fixes some wierd DirectX looting bug which only affects computers with a 2005 version of DirectX, so it should be ignored, and it's anyone's guess why the file is still being hosted at various sites.

 

I have to say, I agree with erkper. Here's a few hints: don't use the fighter to talk to people. Don't use the mage to steal stuff. Don't rely on the rogue to kill things. Futher more, every skill has a stat it's based on. It looks like you were going to use your rogue as a talker (diplo skills and the like), but he's got crap Charisma. All in all, I'm guessing you're doing badly because you don't actually know the rules. The very fact that you couldn't tell the difference between the wizard and the sorcerer tells me this. If you'd like to learn, there are plenty of people here willing to help. If you just want to complain, please continue.

 

I agree with the others. TOEE modded by the CO8 is probably one of my favorite D&D games I have ever played. The turn based combat system is the best. I loved BG and the infinity engine for the stories, but I was never a big fan of the "pause and give instruction" method of combat.

 

Just FYI, the unmodded original module is just that - unmodded in any way. We make it available through our front end because, among other things, it's never been Co8's purpose to eliminate the original game. We just want to provide a fixed and expanded one for those who might like to play such a thing.

 

MagicPot,
Sorry if I came off sounding hostile - that wasn't my intent, but my post sounds that way even to me on review, so I'd like to start over if I could.

Right there you have problem #1. The game was basically designed to be played by a party of 5, with up to 3 NPCs adding extra muscle or whatever to round out your team. Playing with only 3 can be done, but it is much harder early in the game (though conversely, some would argue a smaller party that advances more quickly will have an easier go of the end game.)

There is no special class that will catch Furnock, your rogue seems to have all the neccessary tools. You must have had an extraordinarily bad run from the Mersenne Twister (the game's random number generator - pure evil) to have lost all those rounds and taken 20 times to spot his cheating, especially if you had it happen with each of your three characters.

That is a very limited and limiting view of the game, and if that is how you choose to see it, I stand by my statement - this game probably isn't for you. None of your characters has a single level in Diplomacy, probably the single most important non-combat skill in the game. A high diplomacy skill coupled with a good charisma will open all kinds of doors for you, lower prices at the shops, and give many, many other tangible results - you just won't see a popup telling you that the Smith has lowered his prices x% for finishing this quest, etc.

Oh, by the way - if you're really looking for a Monty Haul payoff, the most powerful weapon you will find outside of the Temple itself is right there in Hommlet, waiting to be handed to you just for completing some easy fetch quests.

 

No worries, erkper2, but I already worked on a rebuttal, so I’m afraid you’ll have to sit through it. I suppose I misspoke too on the last quote you responded to. I’m not really looking for a huge payoff for nothing. Easy fetch quests, in my opinion, should offer one of the later two options I gave – reputation or interesting story tidbits. Knowing now from what you said that one of the best items in the game can be picked up from a simple fetch quest injects sadness into my heart.

Anyways, I decided to make a super diplomat and try out the Furnock quest again. His name is El Guapo (The handsome one) and his abilities have been tweaked to their max using the method I posted earlier.

El Guapo
Human Male Rogue
Chaotic Good
Worships Olidammara
STR - 18
DEX - 18
CON - 18
INT - 18
WIS - 18
CHA – 18
Feats: Negotiator, Investigator
Appraise (4), Bluff (4), Concentration (2), Diplomacy (4), Gather Information (4), Intimidate (4), Listen (4), Move Silently (4), Open Lock (4), Perform (4), Search (4), Sense Motive (4), Spot (4)

The party is Chaotic Good, like El Guapo himself, even though he is the only character in it. After the intro sequence, in which the Elven Council gives me a mission to rescue a princess, I arrive in Hommlet and make a beeline for the Inn of the Welcome Wench. Osler, the barkeep-inkeeper hybrid, gives me the problem of confronting the gamblin' man Furnock.

Despite my diplomacy skills and high charisma, the responses are exactly the same. For fun, I decided to first hire Furnock. This took about three lines of dialog: "Hello.", "Are you sad?", and "Join me." Then I gambled and lost 70 gold this time. Whee.

I told Furnock I was going straight to Osler with the loaded dice. He decided to follow me, which I was confused by, until I quickly remembered that he was in my party. I told him to get lost, and so he did. I told Osler who gave me the free room, then I walked back to Furnock and said "Cheer up, buddy. Join me!" He then joined me again.

Thus ends the saga of El Guapo. He’ll stick around to debunk any other diplocharisma myths.

I know the rules. Not all of them, mind you, because the manual is over 150 pages long, and the day I need to memorize 150 pages to play a video game is the day I run a marathon over hot coal.
That day is not today.

I know the difference. The sorcerer is better for the reasons I explained. Feel free to prove me wrong, because as I said, the manual is over 150 pages, and most of that is delivered in Excel charts. I uploaded it to rapidshare if anyone is interested.
ToEE_Manual_ENU.ZIP
http://rapidshare.com/files/174961981/ToEE_Manual_ENU.zip
Checked for errors and found non with NOD32.
0.98 MB is size as a ZIP file containg a PDF.

Thank you.

 

Actually there are plenty of quests in Hommlett and beyond that give exactly what you're looking for - reputations that have positive or negative effects depending on who you're dealing with, and tidbits of information you probably won't find elsewhere. (This is also one of the areas that the Co8 mod greatly enhances, btw.)

El Guapo has the makings of an excellent party face, with a few level ups and increases to his dialog skills he would be able to charm the citizens of Hommlett or Nulb into telling him a lot. Keep him around (or roll a legit character ) and see how different things go. Just keep in mind this game builds reputations and responses incrementally - you may need a Diplomacy skill rank of 5 or 6 (or later in the game, 10+) to get some new responses and options. The Erliter conversion quest in the mill works this way. To get the Diplomacy response from the Miller, you need a Diplo level (skill rank plus Charisma modifier) of 8 I think, which means most starting characters won't have that option unless they are like El Guapo and are maxed out at 1st level with a super high CHA. Also understand that not every NPC in the game will automatically fall over themselves for you just because you have a high level in this skill or that - though the citizens of Hommlet will be much friendlier if you pick up certain reputations (which really aren't that hard to get.)

Wizards and Sorcerers are different in what they excel at. Sorcerers get more spells per level per day, but fewer to choose from. Wizards are more generalists, even the Specialist Wizards that choose a school to focus on and are prohibited from other schools get more to choose from than Sorcerers. If you want to cast one or two different spells many many times, take a Sorcerer. If you want a caster who is ready for any contingency, the Wizard is the better choice. Wizards also tend to make better item crafters, which is how you can make some truly awe-inspiring weapons for your high-level party.

 

Actually, as stated, the biggest difference between wizard and sorcerer is spell availability. A generalist wizard (you don't have to select a school to exclude) can learn any arcane spell in the game simply by finding a scroll for it. He can be any level he wants when he does this, though he won't be able to cast the spell until later. As a trade-off, the wizard has to plan his spells ahead of time. You have to fill in his spell book and rest to memorize the spells, while a sorcerer can cast any known spell at any time, as long as he still has spells to cast at that level. That may mean he can only cast 3 different level 1 spells, but he can do them in any combination he wants, on the fly, whereas the wizard needs to plan ahead. I generally agree that the sorcerer is the better class for ToEE simply because there are so few scrolls around. You probably don't want the sorcerer to be your party face simply because of skill restricitons. You want you're party face to have most, if not all, the talking skills as class skills (something the rogue gets) and a class that gets a ton of skill-points every level (again, the rogue shines here). Generally speaking, the ideal talker is a rogue with 18 CHA and 18 INT. Invest well in DEX as well and spread some of those extra skill points to lock picking, sneak, disarm traps, etc. and you've got yourself a good face and party rogue. Just keep him back in combat.

Remember, DnD is very rules intensive, especially 3.0. Yes, there are a lot of them, but most of them do important things. For example, did you know that you can kill trolls without fire or acid in ToEE? If you open the action menu and select attacks, you should see one called Coup de Grace. This is a special attack that kills anything that is disabled (unconcious, such as a troll below 0 effective HP). Technically, the troll may be at full health, but if you chop its head off with this, it's still dead. Little things like this can make the difference between an easy battle and an impossible battle.

You're welcome. I do try to make everyone comfortable.

 

Then let us hope I run across them in my journeys.

I would hope he makes an excellent party face, because I cheated to max out all his “face” skills.

But are the responses worth it? I will find out.

They seem pretty friendly now, spewing their life story if Zelda the barbarian so much as breathes, unless they have a specific quest, of course, in which they’ll say they don’t want to talk and I have no other option than to walk away.

You mean I won’t be able to cast the hundreds of useless spells in the game? I can only cast the few useful ones at greater frequency?

Yes, I did read that. It saddened me. In Icewind Dale Trolls were something to be feared because only fire could kill them. Fire was expensive and hard to come by. This made Trolls stand out from most other enemies. Now all you have to do is knock them down and French-up the place? I find no comfort is knowing that Trolls are simple and have less personality than in the past. Making once colossal and thought provoking (you actually had to think before you fought them) monsters easier is not my definition of an improvement.

Enough of this! Time for an adventure update!

Zelda, Finn, and Benihana made their way to the castle of Burne and Rufus, the two men who may or may not be a homosexual couple, but I don’t discriminate. After all, I’m sure many straight laced medieval men lived in a castle alone with another close male companion that they had spent years out on the harsh road with, through the deserts of the south to the frozen mountains up north, with no one but each other for lo- *ahem*

The castle is not much of a castle, but a series of several incredibly small rooms that suffer from a disease known as an unfortunate lack of loot. This hurts the microbial viruses that normally plague medieval fantasy worlds known as thi- I mean rogues, rendering their play style somewhat superfluous as anything but walking lock picks. Games that do this tend not to have many locks either.

Rufus was the woman of the relationship… sorry. Rufus didn’t have much to say besides directing my attention toward the real man of the realm; Mr. Burne. He did, however, give me a quest to root out some dissident laborers who were trying to sabotage their work in constructing a castle. Maybe these laborers were against feudalism and championed democracy, but the only option I was given was to either deny his quest or accept. I accepted.

The labor camp was located to the north of the Castle Jr. Upon arriving, the cook informed me that said laborers would be back at 8 pm. I waited around for days and no one showed up. I can only assume that they enjoy pulling all-nighters and all-weekers. I did not stick around long enough to find out if they enjoyed all-monthers or all-yearers.

After waiting to no avail, I surveyed the entire area around the castle. To the south, there was a construction site with many people that the game labeled “laborers.” I moved onwards and talked to the first guy I saw. There was a new dialog option I had never seen before. It seemed stupid, but curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on it, remembering my recent save file. The option was “erm.” I said this, then he said something completely forgettable, and I said “erm” again. This went back and forth several times before he eventually blurted out that a few blokes need more idiots for spies. A new option replaced “erm” this time, and it was, “Ah ha!” I said this, and the man responded with, “Oh no, we’re found out, best be on our way” and disappeared into thin air. It was quite surreal.

I returned to Rufus with the knowledge of who was messing up their wonderful construction work. He was ecstatic until I also mentioned how I didn’t want to tell him who it was. He didn’t seem to mind. It must not have been a big problem, after all, castles are a dime a dozen these days. I engaged him in conversation again and told him who was behind the merriment. For my reward, I was rewarded 100 gold. Was this an in-direct way of paying me back for the Furnock quest? I shall never know. What I shall know, however, is that I left because there was nothing else to do here besides be on my merry way. Rufus mentioned how grateful he was, because after a life of adventuring him and his husb-, friend, Burne, wanted to settle down and spend the rest of their days in each other’s company in the tiny village of Hommlet. My character was unable to wish them the best of luck. I guess I accidentally rolled a Republican.

I talked to some more people in town by barging into their houses. They say they have problems but won’t talk to me about it. I made a note that El Guapo and his godly attributes must pass this way later and see if these generic townsfolk provide a bigger reward than the head honchos of the village.

A few new notes:
- The town blacksmith can cast Cure Light Wounds and sells the same assortment of useless generic junk that the trader does.
- After messing around with the needlessly convoluted menus I learned how to add spells to my available spell list. For some reason even though I only chose a few spells, I’m given a list of all the spells, including pointless ones like daze and open lock, cluttering up my menu… what was the point of choosing spells in character creation anyways if you’re given them all from the start and the ones you chose aren’t made active? The mind boggles.
- I encountered a farmer’s daughter named Meleny who listed, in order by age, her siblings as soon as I engaged conversation. I talked to her more as it turns out she misses her dead mother, but she is joyfully sarcastic about it. After offering my condolences I talked to the father and the only dialog option he gave me was “Okay, goodbye.” and couldn’t ask him about his kids. I vow to get to the bottom of this with El Guapo.
- The leatherworker carried a nifty set of barbarian armor that had a higher max DEX bonus than the scale armor I was wearing. I am not sure what that means because it didn’t increase my DEX in the character sheet.
- I went in one ladies house who was a widow grandmother. Apparently, I can hit on old ladies and tell them they’re beautiful, but can’t sweet talk the young women. It seems Zelda’s sexual tastes lie far outside the realm of my own.
- I walked in another house and heard a bunch of information about a rivalry…. Ah who cares? The lady there seems to be under the impression that the job of a barbarian wielding a spiked chain is matchmaking, for she offered me a matchmaking quest. She’s absolutely right, so I need to find the carpenter for reasons the game didn’t quite make clear.

The emptiness of the town is really starting to get to me. It almost feels like a ghost town. Is everyone afraid to come outside? Is there a banshee roaming the streets? I will find out.


I'm sorry, but the Princess is in another castle. This one only holds two Queens.

 

I think this review is a hoot. Please keep it up - very entertaining.

One note: when the day comes that you play the Co8 modpack, please bear in mind that while we've made some improvements to Hommlet, it isn't magically transformed into the next Baldur's Gate storywise. Don't want you to have any unrealistic expectations that later get dashed.

- Gaear

 

It means that you get to add more of your DEX bonus to your AC (you know, the +x after your dex score).