# Temple of Elemental Evil discussion thread (merged)



## Dark Jezter

*Temple of Elemental Evil discussion thread.*

Hi guys, I got the Temple of Elemental Evil today, and I thought I'd create this thread so that owners of the game could discuss their thoughts about it.

I've been playing it for the last few hours, so I'll post some of my thought here.

I'll start off with what most of the hype regarding this game has been over:  The combat system.  I'm happy to report that the combat system works great based on my expirience so far.  It's completely turn-based, and is virtually identical to the D&D rules; even things like trip attacks made it in (Grappling didn't make it into the game, but that probably would have been too hard to do).  The game dosen't use a grid, but you can hold the mouse cursor over an enemy to see their threatened area.  This game captures the D&D combat system better than any game I've played to this date, and with a few small exceptions, you can do any combat action in ToEE that you can do in a P&P game.  And, despite the fact that it's turn-based, the combat in ToEE can actually be very fast-paced.

Now, as for graphics, they're quite good.  Like Baldur's Gate, the game uses an isometric perspective with pre-rendered backgrounds.  Unlike Baldur's Gate, characters and creatures use 3D models instead of sprites, and as a result the movements are very fluid and realistic-looking.  All in all, the game looks fantastic.

Character generation gives you just as many options as a P&P campaign, although there were a few skills eliminated such as climb, jump, ride, swim, and the knowledge, profession, and craft skills.  As far as customizing your character goes, you can adjust their height, choose their hair style/color, and pick their patron deity (although this is only important if you plan on multiclassing them into a cleric).  It looks like most of the feats made it into the game as well.  The character portraits are also good-looking for the most part, and many of them feature the iconic characters such as Lidda, Mialee, Jozan, Krusk, etc.  In fact, if you don't feel like generating your own characters, you can assemble a party from the iconic characters used in the core rulebooks. 

All in all, this game is looking like it will keep me busy for a while.  I'm gonna get back to it now, but I'll be back later to talk about it some more.  In the meantime, let's hear from other people who have it!


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## uv23

Question: the gamespy review made it sound more like a fallout tactics than a fallout 2, so to speak. Does it feel more like a tactical combat game or like an rpg to you?


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## Hand of Evil

So, were did you pick it up?


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## Gnome Berzerker

What are the system requirements to run this game, and how do I find out the specs on the system I'm using?


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## Hand of Evil

System Requirements
Pentium II 700 MHz, 128 MB RAM, Windows 98/ME/2000/XP, DirectX 8.0, 32 MB DirectX-compatible 3D accelerator, DirectX-compatible sound card, 4x CD-ROM drive, 800 MB hard-disk space, mouse, keyboard. 


To find out your specs right click on *My Computer* select *Properties* and you should see a good bit of your information on the* General Tab*.  To find out your hard drive space go to your *C Drive * and right click also.


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## Dark Jezter

uv23 said:
			
		

> Question: the gamespy review made it sound more like a fallout tactics than a fallout 2, so to speak. Does it feel more like a tactical combat game or like an rpg to you?




Combat in this game is indeed very tactical in nature.  It pays to position your characters so that you can take advantage of things like flanking, threatened areas, etc.



			
				Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> So, were did you pick it up?




Electronics Botique.


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## CrusaderX

I remember when NWN came out, alot of people complained about bugs and crashes and other technical difficulties.  Does ToEE seem like a more stable and more bug-free game so far?


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## Dark Jezter

So far, I haven't encountered any bugs or other technical difficulties.  But then again, I never had trouble running NWN on my system either.


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## uv23

Well I took the plunge and went and bought it. Seems ok so far but nothing spectacular. Its surprisingly processor intensive and I get sluggish response on my 1ghz athlon, even though I have a 128mb geforce4 Ti4200. This'll be one of those games I spend a free hour or two a week on rather than something I get imersed in.


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## Henry

Picked it up last night, enjoyed it for a few hours until I had to go to bed.

My first problem was having to reduce the graphic settings somewhat; I only have a 32MB geforce2 card, so I had to reduce the anti-aliasing, and the color depth. For sheer preference I bumped up the scroll speed from the default level, which is WAAAY too slow. However, it ran pretty smoothly afterwards.

Currently, I'm playing a Lawful Evil party, but it is too early in the game to tell the difference in quests and the like. The feelings of nostalgia are definitely strong, however. 

It models the 3.5e rules VERY well. I was floored at the number of feats and skills listed, and I was impressed at the number of tactical options available. (Putting an enemy to sleep and then Coup de grace'ing them has not worked this well since the old Gold Box games.)  If you are looking for a game to best model 3E, this one models it even better than Neverwinter Nights.

I will hopefully enjoy this game for some time to come, but truthfully I don't know why I still pick up Computer RPG's; My gaming schedule is very full, I'm DMing a game full time, and I get a bigger kick out of playing the pen-and-paper than CRPG's. But at the least, It's something to have handy when the group can't get together on a given weekend.

I'll report more later when I get a chance to play more.


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## uv23

Speaking of dialogue options.. I am also running a lawful evil party and you'd think from the dialog options that i was playing a chaotic good party.


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## Pielorinho

Picked it up yesterday, which explains why I'm so sleepy today.

The good:
-Combat!  Weeee!  It's very well done, although I'm having to get used to not being able to fire effectively into the middle of melee.  All the options are fantastic.
-Nostalgia!  I ran this adventure for my friends when I was about thirteen, way back when; it's great to see a giant crayfish and say, "oooh, I remember that!"
-The interface is fairly easy to use, with only a few annoying features.

The not-so-good:
-When you enter dialogue, you usually want to do it with the party's charisma-monkey.  But when you leave dialogue, the next character in the party seems to automatically receive the focus. (e.g., if charisma-monkey is #1 and you enter conversation, when you leave conversation, character #2 receives focus).  If you inadvertantly re-enter conversation without re-focusing on #1, you can get sub-par dialogue choices, and it's annoying.
-I CANNOT FIGURE OUT HOW TO SPONTANEOUSLY CAST CURE SPELLS.  My lawful-good cleric should have this capability, according to the game's manual; for the life of me, however, I can't figure out how.  Does anyone know how to spontaneously convert your spells?  (Cures, inflicts, and for druids, SNA)
-The barter screen is clunky:  you have to drag each item across the screen and fit it perfectly within one of the merchant's boxes, or else the sale doesn't register.  When you're selling a dungeon's worth of loot, it takes too long.  Much better is Baldur's Gate's system, where you click once on everything you're getting rid of, then click the "sell" button once.

These gripes are fairly minor (except for the spontaneous casting of spells one, which annoys me a lot); I'm having a lot of fun with the game!

Daniel


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## Pielorinho

On further research, it appears there is some way to spontaneously cast spells, and I'm just missing it. Any advice?

Daniel
edit:  further research still tells me that on page one of the manual, I'm directed to shift-click on any non-domain spell in order to spontaneously cast it.  Oops!  Now, at least, my cleric won't be filling all her slots with cure spells.


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## mmu1

I've played it for a couple of hours yesterday.

The Good:

1. Incredibly robust character generation
2. True to P&P combat system
3. Good graphics and character animations (you can recognize an incoming cirtical hit by the way a character swings a weapon) nice environmental (wading through water, etc.) effects.

The Bad:

1. The Quest log is a bit vague, and the direction NPCs give you are pretty hard to follow.
2. There seem to be some issues (remains to see how major) with some of the quests and conversations - I've gotten some strange dialogue choices, none of the sub-tasks you need to complete a quest are recorded in the Quest Log, quest-related dialogue choices are sometimes buried inside the dialogue trees... All in all, this part of the game feels a bit unpolished.


There are also a few things that have left me wondering... 
One is the random encounters - they seem to be very frequent (damn near impossible to rest outside of an inn, it seems, unless you do the Quicksave - Try to Rest - Quickload if you get jumped shuffle) and rather difficult. Perhaps that means they're true to the module? 
The second is the speed at which my characters have progressed - I've killed four or five giant frogs, a couple of giant vipers, a giant crawfish, perhaps a dozen bandits and a bandit leader, and my characters have hit level 2 with 1500+ xp already - and I'm still in the "opening vignette", or whathever it's called. Which would make perfect sense if this was P&P, but in a CRPG that has a level cap of 10, it worries me a bit, especially given all the random encounters... Maybe I'll just have to start making a lot of magical items.


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## Pielorinho

I'm not too worried about the pacing of the game:  after about four or five hours of play, I've just hit third level.  I'm assuming leveling will slow down further, and at this rate, it should be no problem.

I am realizing that I shouldn't have rushed character creation:  I did it in about fifteen minutes over my lunch break, and made some mistakes.  My neutral-good druid isn't eligible for MCing into monk like I'd planned, for example; my str7 bard won't be very good at MCing into rogue like I'd planned, either.  My barbarian/fighter probably won't ever be very good with a spiked chain.

But that's fine:  I can just go in other directions with these characters.

And may I just say that Greater Turning, the sun domain power, rocks nads?  It's fantastic!

Daniel


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## Welverin

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> To find out your specs right click on *My Computer* select *Properties* and you should see a good bit of your information on the* General Tab*.  To find out your hard drive space go to your *C Drive * and right click also.




I prefer the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DXDIAG.EXE), it has all the information you need and easy enough to find so that even the computer illiterate shouldn't have much if any trouble finding what they need to know.


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## Hand of Evil

Welverin said:
			
		

> I prefer the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DXDIAG.EXE), it has all the information you need and easy enough to find so that even the computer illiterate shouldn't have much if any trouble finding what they need to know.



I always forget about that tool.  

to execute from select *run* from *start menu* then type *dxdiag.exe* the tool will run and give you info.


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## Shard O'Glase

My only problem is the scroll speed even sped to the top notch its a bit slow.

Oh yeah one hint incase this happens to anyone else.  But if a monster runs away because I don't know you turned it or something you can find the monster by clicking on his initiative order icon at the top of the screen.  I learned this the hard way when fighting some zombies and I had a heck of a time finding the last one and since we were still in combat we moved very slow while searching aorund.

One 3e/3.5 difference is spellcasting time, I thing all spells are 1 aciton spells even sleep and summon monster spells.  I'm guessing there initiative system couldn't deal with the 1 round spells.  I think this is cool sine it makes summon spells a feasible option.

Also one note the enemies actually use the ready action, I can usually make my con check but I get nailed by multiple arches some times when I try to cast a spell.


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## bunnyhat

Just picked it up yesterday, I am amazed at how much of 3(.5)e they've managed to get into this game.  When my lvl 1 ranger got Swallowed Whole by a giant frog it took me a few seconds to figure out exactly what happened, at which point I was quite impressed.  Also another nice touch was my grappled ranger could not deal damage with his Long Sword, but when my rogue got grappled she was able to attack /w her Dagger, which shows that they actually spent a fair bit of time studing the rules.  All this from just the first encounter of the game.

The only quibble i have so far (about 4 hours into the game) is the interface.  There is that nowhere on the character sheet does it show me the damage the char does (unless I am missing something totally obvious).  During combat I am only able to access the active character's char sheet, which can be a bit of a pain. However, the radial menu, which annoyed me so much in NWN, seems to work much more intiutively here.  

So far, its been almost all good.


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## Dark Jezter

Well, my Chaotic Neutral party just hit level 3, and right now I'm trying to clear out the moat house.

I'm absolutely loving how tactical combat is in the game.  My party is made up of a human barbarian, a human cleric, a halfling rogue, a dwarf fighter, and a half-elf bard (mostly for social situations).  I've started using tactics like setting ambushes by readied actions, and having my rogue move into flanking position during combat so he can utilize sneak attacks.

And I'm also excited to get back to town so my dwarf wizard can use his new _Craft Wonderous Items_ feat.


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## Olive

so is the demo out yet?


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## Simplicity

This game is awesome.  If you like D&D computer RPGs, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

It models 3.5 rules unbelievably well and it's not klunky to use like Pool of Radiance's combat system was.  Did I mention the rules are modeled UNBELIEVABLY well?  Item creation?  In there.  Enlarge Person makes you a hulking giant?  Yep.  Being prone?  You bet.  Separately aimable magic missiles?  Yep.  5-foot steps?  Uh-huh.  Pointy-wizard hats?  Of course, and a good bargain too.

Part of the big difference is in the "radius-based" modeling of movement and spells.  Rather than using 5' squares, the game just uses actual distances and radiuses.  It makes more sense, and it's much easier to move your guys in combat.

Spontaneous casting, by the way can be done by holding down the shift-key
when your mouse is over the spell.  It's a little tricky getting to use the exact slot you want though for some reason...

Another thing about this game that I like.  Combat is BRUTAL.  If you play a lot
of D&D computer games, you may have gotten used to Neverwinter Night's relatively easy combat.  Oh hell, no.  The further I get in this game, the better and better those henchmen in town are starting to look (but I sure would hate splitting my gold with some NPC...).  Ironman mode is going to be entertaining...

Sometimes the dialog leaves a little to be desired, but then again I WAS wandering from house to house in the town of Hommlet.  Not ever villager
SHOULD have quests for you to finish.  Makes things realistic, I guess.

"So, you make pottery then...  Uh...  Is it evil pottery?"

For those who are playing, a tip...  Don't forget to SEARCH when you go into a interesting room.  You just might find something.  All the things of interest are not immediately available without searching.

The graphics are great.  The box really doesn't do it justice.  The monster models are really well done.  The spell effects can be really cool...  Who would have though detect magic would be so pretty...


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## Dreeble

Heya:

 Spontaneous casting: Shift click a spell in the radial spoke thingy.  Actually, as soon as you hit shift, the spell names should change in the current level spoke thingy to Cure Light Wounds, etc.

 Bug: In the Inn of the Welcome Wench, scrolling stopped working sporadically.  Only there and reloading and/or resetting scroll speed fixed it.

 RPG: Lots of rpg-ish quests in town, and not just FedEx, either.  Kind of feels soap opera-ish, actually.

 Rolling stats is _super_ generous.

 The only thing they didn't really improve over the version I played at the Comic-Con was the scroll speed.  It's still as painful as it was then.  Being able to use the arrow keys helps this alot.  On the other hand, their pathfinding algorithm seems extremely cpu intensive.  Click on an area out of the view circle and it could take quite a while to get there.

 I got the game yesterday, but I've only been able to play a few hours so far.  Killed a few bandits and a couple spiders, but the vast majority of time has been exploring the town and visiting people.  Speaking of which, it's kind of annoying (but only kind of) that locations aren't automatically annotated on the map.  Would be nicer if buildings would be marked as "Jakka the Leatherworker's Shop", etc.  I just started doing this manually now.

 I'm liking the game lots even though I've barely scratched the surface.  The thing that makes me the happiest, though, is that this is _clearly_ a very good framework upon which further classic modules could be based.  I like NWN because multiplayer can capture the human element of the PnP rpg very well.  But it doesn't use the PnP rpg rules.  ToEE does, and I like it. 

Take care,
Dreeble


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## Simplicity

Yes, the lack of map notes is pretty annoying.  I've starting marking 
every house on the map.  And there's a lot to mark.  On the plus side,
though, you also don't get the quest itinerary that Neverwinter Nights
gives you.  You can't just go to every map point and get everything done.

The journal is the same way.  You don't get notes like: I have just talked to so and so...  Maybe I should now go talk to so and so.  

The game is much more hands-off about what to do next to finish your quests.

And there are certainly bugs, but it's still the first release (and they got the game out AHEAD of schedule...  When's the last time you heard that about
a computer game?)  One of the more annoying bugs I found recently: 
Do NOT wear chain gloves or boots...  They'll slow you down even more than just wearing the armor.

In an interview, there was a statement that if this game goes well, they might go for another classic module as a sequel.  Against the Giants was their first pick...  I don't know how it'll do in general, but I think that this game is a D&D player's dream.  If you know the rules, it's great!


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## Hypersmurf

I hear an ugly rumour (can't confirm it first-hand - I don't think the game arrives in this country until mid-October!) that there is no donut Reach.

Longspears, Glaives, and Spiked Chains can _all_ attack at 5' and 10'... which severely devalues spending a feat on Spiked Chain.

-Hyp.


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## mmu1

Hey, was anyone able to figure out how to make a Wizard learn new spells from scrolls? I've tried everything I could think of, and I'm getting nowhere. Casting Read Magic identifies the scroll, and that's it...


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## Dark Jezter

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Hey, was anyone able to figure out how to make a Wizard learn new spells from scrolls? I've tried everything I could think of, and I'm getting nowhere. Casting Read Magic identifies the scroll, and that's it...




Right-click on your wizard and choose "Write Magic" from the radial menu.  It will allow you to copy any scroll in your inventory into your spellbook.


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## Pielorinho

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Right-click on your wizard and choose "Write Magic" from the radial menu. It will allow you to copy any scroll in your inventory into your spellbook.



Actually, I think it's called, "Copy Scroll," and it's around 8:00 or 9:00 on the radial dial (i.e., around the lower left side).  Took me awhile to figure out, too.

Daniel


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## Hand of Evil

So anyone have any interesting screen captures they may want to share?


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## Henry

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> I hear an ugly rumour (can't confirm it first-hand - I don't think the game arrives in this country until mid-October!) that there is no donut Reach.




Confirmed - several guardsmen who have been attacking me with long spears have been able to hit me both standing next to me and a bit away.

One thing that tabletop 3E didn't teach me - Attacks of opportunity HURT! I take steps to avoid them in taletop, but if I'm not paying attention and just click a character to move a certain place, I have gotten TROUNCED before.

I definitely see why Troika said no one has completed it in Ironman mode before - The number of times I've had to reload to avoid death has been phenomenal! Thank God diseases heal themselves over time, or I wouldn't have enough money to buy arrows!


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## Welverin

Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> To find out your specs right click on *My Computer* select *Properties* and you should see a good bit of your information on the* General Tab*.  To find out your hard drive space go to your *C Drive * and right click also.






			
				Welverin said:
			
		

> I prefer the DirectX Diagnostic Tool (DXDIAG.EXE), it has all the information you need and easy enough to find so that even the computer illiterate shouldn't have much if any trouble finding what they need to know.






			
				Hand of Evil said:
			
		

> I always forget about that tool.
> 
> to execute from select *run* from *start menu* then type *dxdiag.exe* the tool will run and give you info.




Haven't we done this before?


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## Pielorinho

Henry said:
			
		

> I definitely see why Troika said no one has completed it in Ironman mode before - The number of times I've had to reload to avoid death has been phenomenal! Thank God diseases heal themselves over time, or I wouldn't have enough money to buy arrows!



Can't you use the heal skill to cure diseases?

Daniel


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## Simplicity

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Can't you use the heal skill to cure diseases?
> 
> Daniel




I tried this, but I haven't been successful with it.  But then it's not an
immediate success type of thing.  It just uses the better between the heal check and the disease check on the disease save.  So maybe my heal checks have been sucking.

There's definitely no donut reach.  I got my druid walking around with a longspear right now.  

And Attacks of Opportunity hurt so bad.  So much so that I wish there was some warning of the attacks of opportunities for idiots like me.  So many times I've tried to tell the bad guys:  
"I didn't mean to cast that spell right there.  I was being stupid.  Please stop hitting my body into a pulp."
However, I feel better when I occasionally see the enemy make similarly stupid attack of opportunity mistakes.

It's especially bad given the number of guys this game throws at you.  And they're not that stupid either.  They'll (usually) pour in from other rooms to join their friends in mercilessly crushing you.  

And identifying things is extremely painful in terms of gold...  Ugh...  100 gp to identify (whether you go to the store or use the spell).  And I've got 10 potions... All unlabeled.  Oh crap.  That's right.  No sipping potions crap.  You gotta identify those things one by one.  And it costs you everything you've got to do it.  Gold is a very precious metal.  Thank god it's the 3.5 version of identify at least.  (The 3.0 version would have been like: 10% chance to identify that cure light wounds potion for a 100 gold?  Let's do it!)


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## Pielorinho

re:  Potions workaround:  as near as I can tell, potions all look the same.  Identify one potion of each appearance, and you'll know what they all do.  (I should brew a potion of cure moderate wounds to make sure they don't look like CLW potions, however).

And AoOs are indeed nasty, especially given the impressive AI of creatures.  I love (read:  dread) seeing those bugbears come running right up to my wizard and flanking him in order to prevent me from getting my spells off.

Daniel


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## Mallus

While I don't like aspects of the interface and front-end [why don't you auto-annotate Mr. Map? Why must I use little flags?], I think the implemetation of the fighting rules is great.

Careless play gets punished [which is nice, a disincentive to staying up until 2:00 on works nights]. Tactics are rewarded [with survival!]. Looks to be the best tactical dungeon crawl yet.

Its even educational. Last night I learned that the Withdraw manuever only shields you from AoO's from the enemies you're adjacent to, not the ones 15ft. away that you run past in you're bid for safety [kinda dumb on my part...]


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## Dreeble

Heya:

 Re: Potions.  I haven't checked yet, but are you actually allowed to quaff unidentified potions?  I actually haven't used any yet since in combat I'd rather damage the enemies (and they'll likely do more than 1d8+x points of damage to me anyway) and outside combat I'll just cast CLW and/or rest in the tower at the entrance to the Moathouse.

Take care,
Dreeble


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## Dreeble

Heya:

 It seems like there's a limit to the number of flags that can be placed.  Or am I wrong?  Once I realized I needed to find somebody and I wasn't sure where he was, I went back and flagged all the buildings and found it wouldn't let me place a flag after a certain point.  If so, darn.

Take care,
Dreeble


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## LightPhoenix

I bought the game today with the anticipation of playing it.  Unfortunately for some reason, the scroll bar always immediately scrolls to the bottom, which I have no control over.  No keyboard keys are sticking, and I don't _believe _my optical mouse is the problem - though it could be.  I was wondering if anyone encountered anything like this?


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## Kai Lord

A tip for those whose game is scrolling at a crawl on even the highest scroll setting (5).  Knock it down to 4.  I did on a fluke and now the screens scroll quite quickly.  Might just be a bug with setting 5.


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## Simplicity

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> I bought the game today with the anticipation of playing it.  Unfortunately for some reason, the scroll bar always immediately scrolls to the bottom, which I have no control over.  No keyboard keys are sticking, and I don't _believe _my optical mouse is the problem - though it could be.  I was wondering if anyone encountered anything like this?




I haven't seen the problem, but I have a simple test for you.  

Open Notepad.  Write about 15-20 lines of text.  Now resize Notepad so that the text doesn't all fit on the screen.  Does notepad 
automatically scroll to the bottom?  If so, I'd guess that your mouse or keyboard is messed up (be sure to check for a messed up scroll-wheel.  On some mice, if this gets stuck, it'll slide the scroll bar around like crazy).


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## LightPhoenix

Simplicity said:
			
		

> I haven't seen the problem, but I have a simple test for you.



I already had said I didn't believe the mouse was the problem.  I would have noticed something like that in everyday use.

However, drivers _were_ the problem, which is odd, because I've played _plenty_ of games without it ever being a problem.  Ah well, first time for everything, I guess.



			
				Kai Lord said:
			
		

> A tip for those whose game is scrolling at a crawl on even the highest scroll setting (5). Knock it down to 4. I did on a fluke and now the screens scroll quite quickly. Might just be a bug with setting 5.



It is indeed a bug with the highest scroll setting.  Leave it at 4, you'll be fine.  I noticed _quite_ a few bugs when I searched for an answer to my own problem, that was one of them.

Alright, that aside, my very first impressions.  Note I have not even run through ToEE, though I have read and heard many stories about it.  Yes, I'm ashamed.  

First, it runs surprisingly well on my system - 400 MHz Pentium II, admittedly with a GeForce 4 card (128MB) and 416MB RAM.  I was a bit worried it wasn't, and I wouldn't be able to play the game until Christmas, when I get to spoil myself with a new processor.  Like I said, a pleasant surprise.

I love creating characters.  That is by far and away the draw of any D&D game I play.  ToEE handled this _very _smoothly, and again I was impressed.  I would have liked a few more portraits, though that's a very minor thing.  A bit more major was the rolls - for each of my five characters I took the first reroll I got, and I got really good rolls.  Right now I have a Ranger, Rogue, Bard, Cleric, and Wizard.  None of them are lacking for stats, and the lowest I got was a 6, which was on my Wizard character.  One more minor thing I was impressed with was the scaling models - BioWare needs to pay attention to ToEE for the inevitable NWN2.  Overall I'd definitely give ToEE an A in this department, held back only by the lack of portraits.

The intro was a rather bland intro to the module, if effective.  Hommlet is quite big, but getting around wasn't too difficult, and I'm sure with time I'll be able to reference everything without a map.  Character control is pretty easy, and teh game _definitely_ screams tactical to me.  We'll see how it goes though.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

Dreeble said:
			
		

> Heya:
> 
> Re: Potions.  I haven't checked yet, but are you actually allowed to quaff unidentified potions?  I actually haven't used any yet since in combat I'd rather damage the enemies (and they'll likely do more than 1d8+x points of damage to me anyway) and outside combat I'll just cast CLW and/or rest in the tower at the entrance to the Moathouse.




Yep, you can drink un-ID'd potions.  Warning -- all of the healing potions look the same (it hurts when you drink a cure serious and only needed a cure light).There is a limit on the numebr of flags that can be placed on one map, too.

This game rocks!  Sure, there are some bugs (the darkness of the game obscures a lot of detial for me).  I haven't had most of the problems people are talking about on the official Atari ToEE Boards -- scroll 5 works fine for me, for example.  

The few rules implementation errors bug me more, but the developers are aware of them and working to fix.  For example -- rangers not getting animal companions until level 5, bastard swords & dwarven waraxes not working quite right, drinking a potion not provoking an AoO.  Don't know if they're fix the reach donut -- my fighter is rocking with a glaive right now and I'm regretting the feat I spent on Weapon Focus: Greatsword.

For a true D&D fan, this game is absolutely great.  Most of the clueless masses are complaining about difficulty and errors that don't really exist because they don't know the rules -- I'm loving it because it's so true to form.  (Nothing like CDG'ing your sleeping enemies -- or playing evil and joining the bad guys!).

Even with the errors, right now I think this is a must-buy for a 3.0/3.5 fan who plays the occasaionaly computer game.  Having D&D experience helps -- I started my first party in Ironman mode.  They're all still alive, at level 4, and headed to Nulb.

Buy it; you'll like it!


----------



## CrusaderX

I'd guess that the 3.5 rules for the Paladin's mount aren't in this game, so are they replaced with anything else?

If they do indeed lose this feature, are Paladins still in balance with the other classes?


----------



## Dark Jezter

Paladins are exactly the same as they are in 3.5e, except without mounts.  Most of the game takes place in dungeons anyway, so a mount wouldn't be very useful.


----------



## Bob the Reaver

Well i was going to ask about the potions being IDed. If i cant ID them for cheap then how about more backpacks. Can you buy more backpacks anywhere?

Also i love how some creatures will attack you even after you fall. Its a real good game. my favorite DND title yet. A few annoying bugs but real cool.


----------



## Drengy

*played for about an hour so far…*

and I'm LOVING it. It feels so much like real D&D it's scary.

But to those who prefer to role-play over combat - this game is NOT for you. This is a dungeon crawl through and through. I'm not complaining - I love dungeon crawls - but I wanted to warn those expecting more.

I really want this game to do well so that more modules are coverted and released. Against the Giants would be a dream come true. And fairly appropriate as a follow-up to this one.

I can't wait for the demo to come out so that more people can try it.


----------



## gfunk

This game kicks ass!!

I've already made multiple parties of different alignments and classes just to try them out.  The character creation alone is a lot of fun.  Hey Atari, thanks for bringing back the infinite rolls!  Point buy blows!  There's nothing more satisfying then rolling for minutes untiil you finally get the "perfect" set of ability scores.

As to the gameplay,

I was kind of annoyed at the town of Hommlet.  I couldn't find my way around, the buildings aren't labeled and they all basically look the same.  I have a hell of a time trying to find the inn.  They should have flagged them automatically for you!

Combat, as described previously, is very true to 3.5.  Right now I have a fighter with a spiked chain using Cleave, Combat Reflex, 10' reach, Trip attack goodness . . . very, very cool.

Also mechanics such as grapple, swallow whole, entanglement, poison are straight out of the book.  They even have 5 ft steps!  This is really the perfect engine for 3.5


----------



## mmu1

gfunk said:
			
		

> Also mechanics such as grapple, swallow whole, entanglement, poison are straight out of the book.  They even have 5 ft steps!  This is really the perfect engine for 3.5




I'd agree about the mechanics, now that I've had the chance to get used the the interface and can actually use it quickly,,, But for the same reason, the game might end up not doing very well - you really have to know the rules to understand that certain things aren't "bugs", as you'll notice if you take a look at the official boards - and the incomplete documentation provided with the game certainly doesn't help matters.

Still, I just got into the temple through the back way, and I have to get going...


----------



## uv23

Well I've been playing it more and there are a whole lot of issues and bugs that have bothered me. But I'm a bit tipsy right now so they're hard to recall.  But the one thing that I do remember, painfully clearly, is something akin to POR. How the hell do you leave a combat??? The enemies are far far away, you've long since withdrawn and they're not following yet you can't leave combat or use door icons. *(&(*&$#@)( frustrating and annoying and lame.


----------



## KenM

My only real complant so far is combat can get very tight. I wish some of the walls/ scenery, ect. "dissolves" so you could see better. And since combat gets tight, sometimes hard to pick out the right person to target.
  It says in the manual to toggle combat mode, press C. This should go out of combat when enemies are far away, but I have not had that problem yet.


----------



## Pielorinho

KenM said:
			
		

> My only real complant so far is combat can get very tight. I wish some of the walls/ scenery, ect. "dissolves" so you could see better.



This was definitely an issue for me last night:  I was fighting the toughest creature I've yet faced, and the only way into its room that I'd found was via a secret door in the upper-left wall of its room.  That meant that I was fighting into the southeast of the room I was in, and all my characters, and all the creature's minions, were covered by the isometric wall.  I ended up dying a few times just because I couldn't see what I was doing.

Otherwise, however, I'm enjoying the game far too much; damn game made me get less than six hours of sleep last night, too little for an old man like me.

Daniel


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

uv23 said:
			
		

> Well I've been playing it more and there are a whole lot of issues and bugs that have bothered me. But I'm a bit tipsy right now so they're hard to recall.  But the one thing that I do remember, painfully clearly, is something akin to POR. How the hell do you leave a combat??? The enemies are far far away, you've long since withdrawn and they're not following yet you can't leave combat or use door icons. *(&(*&$#@)( frustrating and annoying and lame.




You have to be several screens away from the critters to leave.  Hitting "C" will then drop you out of combat mode.  If it doesn't work, you aren't far enough away.

I do wish you could escape by fleeing up stairs and the like.


----------



## uv23

Yes thast what C "should" do.. unfortunately, in real situations it doesn't actually work...


----------



## Ashrem Bayle

Loving it!

What are you guys playing with?

My current party is:

Human Rogue 7 - Dex 18, Rapier wielding weapon finessing spring attack master.
Human Fighter 7 - Str 18, Dual Magic Sword weilding blinder. 4 attacks per round!
Elf Wizard 7- Int 18, Mobile Artillary Platform and Magic Item factory
Dwarf Cleric 7 - Con 22, All around well rounded battle priest.
Half-Orc Barbarian 7 - Str 24, uses a longspear +2

A 7th level raging, enlarged, bull strengthed, half orc barbarian with a magical longspear is a sight to behold!!

My next part is going to be all "unstandard".
Human Paladin
Half-elf Bard or Human Ranger
Half-orc Druid
Human Monk
Halfling Sorcerer (Yoda?)


----------



## uv23

[rant]In other complaints, the tab key is crap. It does a terrible job of highlighting things. Can't be relied upon like it could in IE games. And as stated above, things get very tight, especially when trying to collect the spoils after combat. I keep wanting to rotate the camera angle so that I can get at stuff. Game has crashed on me about 10 times so far, some hard lock ups and other assorted weirdnesses. Options often get lost and have to be reset. And performance is real crap, espcially when moving the mouse during the movement phase of your character.[/rant]


----------



## Ashrem Bayle

uv23 said:
			
		

> [rant]In other complaints, the tab key is crap. It does a terrible job of highlighting things. Can't be relied upon like it could in IE games. And as stated above, things get very tight, especially when trying to collect the spoils after combat. I keep wanting to rotate the camera angle so that I can get at stuff. Game has crashed on me about 10 times so far, some hard lock ups and other assorted weirdnesses. Options often get lost and have to be reset. And performance is real crap, espcially when moving the mouse during the movement phase of your character.[/rant]




Save OFTEN!

Thats been my motto. But yea, their are a lot of bugs that really should have been caught.

For instance, if you have a weapon like a dwarven waraxe, you are screwed. Evidently, their are some weapons in which it is impossible to find a masterwork or magical version. 

The only way to get a magic version is to cheat. For those not aware, if you cast _magic weapon_ on a weapon, it doesn't have to be masterwork before you enchant it.

For example, I find a longspear. Now, normally a weapon has to be masterworked before you can enchant it. However, I can just cast _Magic Weapon_ on it then get my wizard to quickly use Craft Magical Arms and Armor on it. Cheap, but for some weapons, it is the only was to get it enchanted.


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:

 Even though I knew (from here, actually) that donut reach wasn't in, I still got Exotic Weapon Proficiency:Spiked Chain for my cleric.  Hey, at least it looks cool.  I'm definitely going to try that magic weapon thing tonight.  Crossing my fingers that it'll work.

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:

 Speaking of  the lack of donut reach, I don't consider that a bug.  It seems much more likely that donut reach was considered too much of a challenge to implement (or at least not a priority) and they knowingly didn't put it in.  If something is intentional, it's not really a bug in my opinion.

 On the other hand, reach touch is a bug, in my opinion, since it seems equally unlikely to me that they intended clerics using reach weapons to be able to heal with near impunity.  Don't get me wrong, I like it, but yeah, a bug.

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## LightPhoenix

Well, more thoughts since I've had a chance to play it a little (and I do mean a little).

I can't say I'm all too pleased to have payed money for this game, especially considering the monetary situation I'm in.  I know the original ToEE was a meat grinder, but I'm just not finding this fun at all.  Clicking through eight rounds (which did happen) because my guys don't hit crap is not fun.  Having every other battle kick my ass is not fun.  

The only reason I haven't given up on this at all is because I paid money for it, and I'm hoping it will get better when I have a few more levels (my guys right now are level 2).

And before people scream "strategy!" at me, there's no strategy in a battle where your guys just get mowed down no matter what you do.  There have been several battles where I've reloaded after death numerous times - enemies are just too strong.  It definitely reflects the "DM versus players" mentality.

Maybe I'm just frustrated, but I'm just finding this tedious to play, even though the engine owns me.


----------



## mmu1

Ashrem Bayle said:
			
		

> Loving it!
> 
> What are you guys playing with?
> 
> My current party is:
> 
> Human Rogue 7 - Dex 18, Rapier wielding weapon finessing spring attack master.
> Human Fighter 7 - Str 18, Dual Magic Sword weilding blinder. 4 attacks per round!
> Elf Wizard 7- Int 18, Mobile Artillary Platform and Magic Item factory
> Dwarf Cleric 7 - Con 22, All around well rounded battle priest.
> Half-Orc Barbarian 7 - Str 24, uses a longspear +2




Human Fighter 8 - Str 20, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 13, Wis 16, Cha 11. 
Uses a Greatsword, wears heavy armor, is very unhappy about the complete lack of Full Plate so far.

Human Ranger 7/Fighter 1 - Str 18, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 10. Dual wields a Longsword (+3!!!) / Shortsword combo. Started off with two Shortswords, which turned out to be a severely sub-optimal choice, just didn't do enough damage and didn't hit often enough.

Elven Wizard 8 - Str 10, Dex 18, Con 15, Int 20, Wis 12, Cha 11 
A Fireball / Magic Missile machine, actually has +9 to hit with a longbow but can't hurt anything with it because of the lack of Precise Shot and the way the game implements cover...

Dwarven Cleric 8 - Str 18, Dex 13, Con 18, Int 12 Wis 18, Cha 11 
Has more HP than the ranger and does very well for himself with a longsword thanks to the War domain. I have yet to use him to cast a non-healing spell in combat, he's too useful as a 3rd fighter-type... Wears some nice high-end elven chain to retain 20' movement.

Halfling Rogue 8 - Str 10, Dex 22, Con 16, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 12
Has taken a _very_ long time to come into his own since he was designed with disarming traps, opening locks and getting in the occasional sneak attack in with a shortbow in mind. I have yet to see a single floor trap, there are almost no containers, and the bow thing wasn't working, so I switched him to the Weapon Finesse / TWF path, maxed out Tumble, and gave him a ring of Invisibility and two magical daggers. He does much better now...


----------



## Hypersmurf

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Dwarven Cleric... Wears some nice high-end elven chain to retain 20' movement.




?

What about the whole Dwarven Plate-Jogging thing in 3.5?  Not implemented in TOEE?

-Hyp.


----------



## mmu1

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> ?
> 
> What about the whole Dwarven Plate-Jogging thing in 3.5?  Not implemented in TOEE?
> 
> -Hyp.




Hmm... The manual lists it as one of the abilities, but playing the game it seemed as if he was getting slowed down. Hard to tell since the game uses exact distances for movement instead of squares.

If it turns out they implemented this, Mr. Cleric gets to be the new packmule...


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:

 My group is a Hum Pal8/Ftr1 (most kills which seems odd to me), 1/2Orc Bbn1/Ftr8 (most consecutive hits, dual wielder, love this guy, he wears that bone helm which looks way cool), Elf Rog5/Ftr4 (also a dual wielder, I never really noticed whether it's true Weapon Finesse applies to a Short Sword but not a Short Sword +1, it's irrelevant now since I finally gave her Gloves of Giant Strength +6 (my poor Wiz will never level)), Hum Clr9, and Dwf Wiz8.

 That Magic Weapon thing seemed to work perfectly, my Cleric now wields a +2 Shocking Spiked Chain.   I tried the Magic Vestment equivalent on a set of Full Plate for Elmo (went back to get him when I learned he only takes money), but even though the Craft screen came up, all plusses were greyed out and it wouldn't let me add Silent Moves or Spell Resistance.  I'll try again when my Wiz hits 9th lvl.  I've found at least two other suits of Full Plate, mmu1, so if you've got that +3 Longsword, I'm surprised you haven't seen any.  My half orc wields it, too.

 I'm really crossing my fingers that a sequel will be made, and the Against the Giants series would be very nice for this.  Sure the game has glitches, but they're the kind that can be worked around, mostly ignored, or hopefully resolved in a patch.

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Dark Jezter

Well, since everyone else is doing it, my party is a Chaotic Neutral group made up of the following...

Human barbarian 6 (When this guy rages and does a power-attack, most enemies go down in a single hit)
Human Cleric of Pelor 6 (Greater Turning makes mincemeat of undead)
Dwarf Wizard 6 (the wizard, and item creator)
Halfling Rogue 6 (the standard door opener/trap disabler)
Half-elf Bard 6 (the diplomat of the group)

I should also say that I love the Great Cleave feat; my barbarian got surrounded by goblins, then one of them tried to run past him, provoking an AoO... he killed it, and then proceeded to cleave through _five_ more goblins.  

Yeah, there are a few irritating bugs with the game, but nothing too major.  The thing I don't like is how hard it can be to find masterwork items to enchant.

I definately hope the engine to this game is used in upcoming D&D titles.


----------



## Simplicity

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> And before people scream "strategy!" at me, there's no strategy in a battle where your guys just get mowed down no matter what you do.  There have been several battles where I've reloaded after death numerous times - enemies are just too strong.  It definitely reflects the "DM versus players" mentality.




The enemies in the game are definitely stronger than in most CRPGs.  I don't consider this a minus.  But there's plenty of ways to counter this:
1) Get a henchman or two!
2) If you have a druid, be sure to summon an animal companion.  Spontaneous cast summon natures ally.  A lot.
3) Build up your xp doing some quests in town.

(Minor spoilers, nothing big...)
.
.
.
.
.
.

If you go through eight rounds without hitting something, you've got problems.  Either with your characters or with where you are.  I never ran into this sort of situation, and my party is hardly optimal (Pal, Fighter, Druid, Bard, Sorc) and I have no henchmen.  There are other places to go besides the moathouse.  Emiry Meadows is fairly easy except for one guy there.  The Deklo groves are another place you can try... neither require going to the moathouse first.
(Though I did, and I was fine).

That's not to say I haven't had to reload a lot.  I have.  This game ISN'T balanced the same way a D&D table game would be.  It's balanced the way a D&D computer game should be.  The problem is that all of the D&D games lately have been such a cakewalk, that it's spoiled us all a bit.  

And you're right, this game is a mean DM.  It was a tough module, and it's an even tougher CRPG.  And the computer will just sit there and casually beat your unconscious party members to death.  But the fact of the matter is that you're a mean player, and if you get something in your path that you can't face, you'll reload and try it some other way.


----------



## Hypersmurf

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> I should also say that I love the Great Cleave feat; my barbarian got surrounded by goblins, then one of them tried to run past him, provoking an AoO... he killed it, and then proceeded to cleave through _five_ more goblins.




My god... throw in a BBEG and Combat Reflexes, and it's Bucket o' Snails!

-Hyp.


----------



## Pielorinho

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> And before people scream "strategy!" at me, there's no strategy in a battle where your guys just get mowed down no matter what you do. There have been several battles where I've reloaded after death numerous times - enemies are just too strong. It definitely reflects the "DM versus players" mentality.



Lightphoenix, I don't know if this'll be helpful, but I've started a thread on the Atari forums called Advanced Combat Tactics.  I've not had much trouble with the combat in the game, and maybe you'll find some of my advice there helpful.  Here's the first post from that thread:



> [font=verdana, arial, helvetica]I figured this might be a useful thread for folks who are having trouble with the game to learn something,a nd folks who are breezing through it to share some of their tricks. Some of the tricks I list will be obvious; others, not so much.
> 
> *Use spells to divide and conquer*
> This is extremely important, and you can start doing it at first level. The game has a lot of spells that reduce or prevent movement for a group of enemies; USE THEM. They turn a battle against 10 enemies into a battle against the three enemies who made their saving throws. Just be careful not to get your own guys caught in the Area of Effect! Spells to use: Grease and Entangle are first level. Web, Spike Growth, Spike Stones, Solid Fog, etc. have similar effects.
> 
> Another class of area spells are those that affect the foes' capabilities. Sleep is fantastic at low levels for taking out mulitple enemies at once; later, scare and cone of fear can have the same effect.
> 
> *If they they join you, they can't beat you*
> Similarly, charm person and other mood-affecting spells are great. Charm spells seem to work pretty well in the middle of combat (a departure from PnP rules), and turning even one bad guy into a temporary good guy can really even the odds. Charm person and Suggestion both have this effect; I've not tried higher-level charm spells.
> 
> *One bad guy at a time*
> When you're attacking enemies, it's tempting to have each of your guys choose a dance-partner and attck that foe until it's dead. DON'T DO THIS! You want to tag-team enemies: kill, kill, kill that one bad guy until it falls, and then move on to the next bad guy.
> 
> *Location, location, location*
> Remember your 5-foot steps. I used Control+s to bind the 5-foot-step to the s key, and use it all the time. You want to flank your enemies (even if your rogue is facing an enemy head-on, she can sneak-attack if she's got an ally on the enemy's other side), and you want to make sure your casters have room to step away from the bad guys before casting their spells. If you've got a guy with a reach weapon, he can stand behind your other characters and attack (although his target will get a +4 to their Armor class, due to cover they're getting vs. the attack). He can also stand in front of everyone and get attacks of opportunity on enemies that approach. Finally, if you have someone with the cleave feat, try to make sure they're in a position to threaten at least two enemies before attacking: that way, if they drop their first enemy, you get the immense satisfaction of a second attack.
> 
> *Buff*
> Don't forget the buff spells! Mage armor is a wizard's best friend -- but it's also a monk's best friend and an animal companion's best friend. Use it! Barkskin, greater magic fang/vestment/weapon, and the various spells that up your stats are also really great. If you're wondering what spell to memorize at a particular level, you usually can't go wrong with a buffing spell.
> 
> *Turn Undead*
> If you've got a cleric with the Sun domain, undead should never cause you a problem: destroying them is fun and easy, using the Greater Turning ability. Otherwise, you may have a little more trouble with them. If you cast Eagle's Splendor on yourself before you meet undead, it'll be a lot easier: turning is based off your charisma score.
> 
> *Be careful with power attacking*
> Even though it looks like a great feat -- with a two-handed weapon, for every -1 to hit you take, you get +2 damage -- very often you're better not power-attacking at all. Let's say you've got a fighter specialized in a greatsword, wielding a +2 greatsword and with a strength of 18. Your damage is normally 2d6+2 (sword) + 2 (specialization) +6 (strength), for an average of 17. You can power-attack to up the damage by two, to 19 -- but that means that you're more likely to do no damage whatsoever. Is it worth the risk of not doing those 17 points of damage, just so you can maybe do an extra 2 points of damage? Sometimes yes; often, no.
> 
> That's it for now; do other folks have tips?
> Daniel
> lovin' this game



[/font]


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> What about the whole Dwarven Plate-Jogging thing in 3.5?  Not implemented in TOEE?




Worked for my dwarven cleric (before he died.  Ironman ... sigh).  His move rate only dropped when I put on the bugged chain boots & gloves.

Edit: Since everyone else is doing it, here's my current party (#2 after a long Ironman run that ended in a TPK).  It's fairly standard, NG party:

Human Ftr4 -- glaive, whith combat reflexes & Improved Trip (fun, fun!)
Elf Clr4 of Fharlaghn (something different, too bad the Travel domain is bugged)
Human Rgr4 -- archery
Elf Wiz4 -- all item creation feats.  Scribe Scroll is great!  I use it constantly.
Human Rog 4 -- primary diplomat, plus dual-wielding shortswords.

I'm loving the game as well.  I haven't had any major bugs; just the minor-but-annoying rules bugs, which I can overlook because I'm enjoying the engine so much.  I'd consider it B+/A- quality overall.


----------



## uv23

Where are these delko groves? Wouldn't mind some extra little missions, so far the world seems very sparse.. I'm on my second start of the game and still pretty early on.. I've yet to complete any quests in town (they seem more elusive than those in BG2 for some reason) and I'm exploring the moathouse. I managed to kill the big ba at the emiry meadows which I'm quite proud of since I am only level 3 and he was a CR6 baddiepants.

Note to call clerics: spiritual weapon rocks.


----------



## KenM

My party: 
  Just hit 6th level, about 75% done with first dungeon level of temple.

  1. Dwarf fighter.
  2. Human fighter with spiked chain.
  3. Halfling female rogue. x-bow support.
  4. Human cleric of Pelor.
  5. Elf sorceress. 

  Basic, but it works. Next time though I'll do something more exotic.


----------



## Simplicity

uv23 said:
			
		

> Where are these delko groves? Wouldn't mind some extra little missions, so far the world seems very sparse.. I'm on my second start of the game and still pretty early on.. I've yet to complete any quests in town (they seem more elusive than those in BG2 for some reason) and I'm exploring the moathouse. I managed to kill the big ba at the emiry meadows which I'm quite proud of since I am only level 3 and he was a CR6 baddiepants.
> 
> Note to call clerics: spiritual weapon rocks.




Yeah, it took me a while to kill that nasty.  If you can kill him, the groves are easy.  It's a pretty small area, but you can get through a quest.

(SPOILER to get to Deklo Groves...)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
There's a woodsman in the lower west portion of Hommlet.  He can show you how to get there.  Some of the quests in Hommlet are disappointing, but this one is okay (if easy).  There are about a dozen quests or so I've found in Hommlet.  Some are disappointing, but some are decent.


----------



## LightPhoenix

Pielorinho, most of those are readily obvious things (to me at least) that I try to do anyway.  Like I said, tactics don't matter when your guys get cut down instantly.  I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy the game more when my guys get to level 4 or 5 and start having a fighting chance.

That said, two side comments.  I'm seeing lots of characters with huge stats.  I didn't do that, I took the first set I rolled, which most of the time was really good, but not rediculously high.  I don't have a single score above 18 in my group, and no one has more that one 18, some people don't even have one.

Second, this game really emphasizes how at lower levels, especially in a module such as this, is that survival really is based on luck, not on strategy.  I mean, I've been playing computer games for about ten years, console games since I was five, and was first introduced to D&D at the age of eight, so I like to think I have a firm grasp on the strategy side of things (though I could be wrong).  Things like a 5-foot step, turning undead (Sun domain owns), and ganging up are, to me, basic strategies.  Despite all that, I'm finding the game remarkably unforgiving - one innocent move, and you could be thrust into a battle you can't move.  

For example, I really didn't expect a bunch of guys pouring out of the first door I opened in the Moathouse.  Of course I died that time.  Fair?  No.  Acceptable?  Yeah, I know what kind of module ToEE is.  No strategy after that helped at all though - there was just no possible way I could win the battle.  Only after going downstairs beating the crap out of zombies (which pretty much amounted to my Cleric using Greater Turning repeatedly - not really strategy at all) and raising a level was I even able to attempt it.  Of course, it was a rough battle, and I almost lost my main guy completely, but I managed to prevail.

I worry that while "hardcore" gamers and fans of the older D&D modules might find it fun, I can see the difficulty level in the early stages really turning off a lot of "casual" computer gamers.  Which I hope doesn't happen, because the engine at the very least kicks ass.

One annoying thing - the game is _really_ dark on my monitor.  Is there a way to adjust gamma settings?  No - I don't need a _light_ spell or a torch.  What I need is a gamma adjustment.


----------



## Henry

I'm enjoying it quite well so far. My party of Lawful Evil Rat-bastards is up to Level 5 right now, and acting like Lawful Goods inside of Homelett (except for that minor indiscretion with Elmo - what can I say? He had magic weapons, magic chain, magic shield, AND didn't hit back! )

I am seriously thinking about starting an Ironman Game of it, but may wind up waiting until I complete it with the first party instead. The only thing that dissuades me from trying ironman mode is the darned isometric view screwups in cluttered environments; i'd hate to lose my party to a poorly-placed wall.

The limited number of flags bugged the heck out of me, but I learned to live with it. To be honest, not noting the locations was fine to me, because it gave the game a much more "pen and paper" feel, as did the fact that I have to ident the potions and other items one by one. The only thing I don't like is that it certainly would have been nice to sell somethng to a merchant with a simple right-click. 

Oh, well - after the first patch comes out, I will probably declare this the perfect game of 2003.


----------



## garyh

I'd heard there was to be a demo for this game.  Anyone have any idea when or if that's going to happen?  I've visited www.greyhawkgame.com and they don't mention a demo.


----------



## Simplicity

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> That said, two side comments.  I'm seeing lots of characters with huge stats.  I didn't do that, I took the first set I rolled, which most of the time was really good, but not rediculously high.  I don't have a single score above 18 in my group, and no one has more that one 18, some people don't even have one.




I did the same thing.  Use the first roll (with the exception of one poor schmoe who "died at birth"...  He had two 7s a 9 and a couple of tens).  I'm fairly certain NONE of my guys have eighteens (I don't even think I have any 17s).  I'm just not experiencing the level of difficulty you seem to be.  

What is your party composition?  Do you have any henchmen?

Yes, there are occasionally times where you'll run into someone who is too hard to face.  That problem is easy.  Don't face them until you've gained some xp.



> I worry that while "hardcore" gamers and fans of the older D&D modules might find it fun, I can see the difficulty level in the early stages really turning off a lot of "casual" computer gamers.  Which I hope doesn't happen, because the engine at the very least kicks ass.




This game is not for casual gamers.  I definitely agree.  It's also not for those who don't know their D&D rules.



> One annoying thing - the game is _really_ dark on my monitor.  Is there a way to adjust gamma settings?  No - I don't need a _light_ spell or a torch.  What I need is a gamma adjustment.




Yeah, people on the official boards are complaining about this as well.  I don't have a problem with it for some reason on my monitor.


----------



## Welverin

Gamespot's review is finally up. Greg gave it a 7.9.


----------



## Pielorinho

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> For example, I really didn't expect a bunch of guys pouring out of the first door I opened in the Moathouse. Of course I died that time. Fair? No. Acceptable? Yeah, I know what kind of module ToEE is. No strategy after that helped at all though - there was just no possible way I could win the battle.



I dunno -- I rolled no more than three times for any of my guys, and only once for three of my five guys.  Granted, the rolls ended up being pretty high, but not ridiculous -- I don't think anyone started with a score above 17, and a couple of guys had a 16 as their highest score.

That said, I know you probably are very good at strategy, so forgive me for asking -- in the battle you described, did you use grease and/or entangle?  At second level, I found grease to be a lifesaver spell, winning more battles for me than anything except greater turning.

Daniel


----------



## uv23

Couple more comments:

Darkness. I concur completely, and I have a very high end monitor. I find that when I'm in dungeons I randomly click on the space around me in case theres a hallway nearby. Really terrible visual cues as to whats in your immediate vicinity.

Missions and alignment: I'm bothered by how many of the more important quests seem to be religiously oriented (pro st cuthbert). Makes it very hard to play an evil party with a "clear" conscience.


----------



## Farganger

I've been enjoying this a good bit.  In fact, it's kept me up too late the last three nights.

The character creation alone is a lot of fun.  I've tried out quite a few concepts, and I do hope they find other uses for the engine and 3.5e ruleset.  With a few tweaks and corrections, they could produce a fine series of modules for this, although I think their appeal would be greatest for PnPers.  I'm not sure how much fresh blood products like this attract: the learning curve seems rather steep.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

I had some corrupted save files and so I started over, and so far my compalints are fairly minor, though I think they inflict some really bad luck on the die rolls on the party.  I still win the battles but I miss way to often or they aritificially boosted the AC on opponents.

New party
1/2 orc barb
1/2 orc druid
human rogue
human fighter
human wizard all just hit 4th level.

If your having toruble this is what I'd do.  Finish off some quests back out town there low risk and you can get enough xp to level up after you do 7 or 8 of them.  Then go to the moathouse when your mid 2nd to 3rd level.  On the lower levels just rest a lot, monsters keep popping to attack you but there easy enough to handle and wait till you level up again so your 4-5thish level.  Then actually start the adventure in earnest.  I just leveled up after a bunch of fights where I was jus trying to rest long enough for the druid to become conscious again.

My other complaint is item creation is a pain since money seems sparse, and masterwork items are virutally non-existant or I have to use a cheat of GMW to enchant them.


----------



## Simplicity

uv23 said:
			
		

> Couple more comments:
> 
> Darkness. I concur completely, and I have a very high end monitor. I find that when I'm in dungeons I randomly click on the space around me in case theres a hallway nearby. Really terrible visual cues as to whats in your immediate vicinity.
> 
> Missions and alignment: I'm bothered by how many of the more important quests seem to be religiously oriented (pro st cuthbert). Makes it very hard to play an evil party with a "clear" conscience.




The evil party version of that quest:
Terjon: "St. Cuthbert needs you to go get this item..."
Party-leader: "CHARGE ATTACK!!!!"


----------



## Shard O'Glase

Simplicity said:
			
		

> The evil party version of that quest:
> Terjon: "St. Cuthbert needs you to go get this item..."
> Party-leader: "CHARGE ATTACK!!!!"




yeah just wait until your a good level terjon is one bad assed cleric.  He slapped my 5th level party down real quick like.  I think everyone was dead in 4 rounds.


----------



## Simplicity

Shard O'Glase said:
			
		

> I had some corrupted save files and so I started over, and so far my compalints are fairly minor, though I think they inflict some really bad luck on the die rolls on the party.  I still win the battles but I miss way to often or they aritificially boosted the AC on opponents.




Are you seeing this with ranged attacks or reach attacks?
The game implements cover (+4 to AC) when you've got 
someone between you and the baddie even on reach attacks.  
Plus there's the additional -4 to hit from firing into melee...  

There's supposed to be some status log thing that gives you more 
info on the die rolls, but I haven't found it yet.


----------



## uv23

Simplicity said:
			
		

> The evil party version of that quest:
> Terjon: "St. Cuthbert needs you to go get this item..."
> Party-leader: "CHARGE ATTACK!!!!"




Haha there is that.. I actrually tried it a couple times and had my ass swiftly handed to me. He must be atleast 15th level. But I was also worried about nullifying too many quest possibilities. I dunno, I was really turned off by some of the old faith vs st cuthbert stuff, especially the "conversion" quests. But its a small beef I suppose. Thats what replayability is for...


----------



## Daxz

What I like the most about this game is the Item Creation Feats. They just own. These feats is what gives the edge to wizards over sorcerers. In previous games like IWD and NWN sorcerers ruled but in this game with the ability to create scrolls, wands and other items gives wizards the advantage. I even make a few scrolls for my rogue to use with Use Magic Device feat.

There is one drawback... I'm running out of space and so far I can't find a scroll case or other containers.  

Making a wand of Identify has helped me a lot too, as far as I know it doesn't cost any more gold than the initial amount to make the wand.


----------



## uv23

Oh, and my party make up is (all level 3):

Elf rogue, high dex, good cha and int.. party leader, very sociable

H-O barbarian, necessary muscle

Dwarf fighter, more necessary muscle, havent decided which direction to take him in yet

H-E cleric, essential healing, spritual weapon is immensely helpful at low level, as is spontaneous curing (she's neutral in a neutral evil party)

Human wizard (went with a sorcerer first time around but decided against it in the redo)


----------



## Simplicity

I made many mistakes on my party creation:

Level 4 Hum Paladin - Actually this choice is fine, but I have been warned about some places where you can become a fallen paladin that are really harsh.

Level 4 Dwf Fighter - Picked dwarven waraxe.  Whoops.  Guess I gotta either cheat or pick another weapon now.  She does kick ass though.  Cleave is fun.

Level 4 Gnome Bard - This guy...  well...  he sucks.  Really.  I'm not sure why I keep him around.  His identifies are useful, but he can't cast enough of them to really be useful.  His biggest benefit is that he can cast Cure Moderate, which my druid can't.

Level 4 Human Sorcerer - Magic missile and melf's artillery.

Level 4 Half-Orc Druid - Most useful character of all, and all he really does is cast Summon Nature's Ally over and over.


----------



## Rugger

ARGH!!!!


I wish I could PLAY for more than 5 minutes...

I'm one of the lucky folks that get crashes to desktop virtually every single time I "zone" into a new area.

Rugger Smash! Game Fun! Rugger No Can Play Game!!
<sounds of much destruction>

-Rugger
"I SMASH!"


----------



## KenM

Minor gripe:  I just hit 7th level. I'm not even done with the first dungeon level of temple. I know the game has a level cap at 10.


----------



## uv23

Spoiler request for Mona quest: where is Mickey? I thought he was one of the braumasters in Homlett but I was wrong.


----------



## Pielorinho

Simplicity said:
			
		

> Level 4 Gnome Bard - This guy... well... he sucks. Really. I'm not sure why I keep him around. His identifies are useful, but he can't cast enough of them to really be useful. His biggest benefit is that he can cast Cure Moderate, which my druid can't.



Have you gotten him some enchantment spells?  Charm person works great in this game, and suggestion does, too; my bard is indispensable for these two spells alone.

Daniel


----------



## orangefruitbat

*Quick tips*

You can change the gamma settings directly in Windows. R-click on the desktop and choose the Settings Tab. Click the Advanced button. Depending on what graphics driver you use, the gamma settings should be here. It's a bit of a cludge, but it works. If you use the Nvidia drivers, then you can save display profiles, so I have one called toee and one called normal. So I can switch back and forth.

Feat choice
Some feats are more useful in the computer game than in pnp, and vise versa:

Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization
For example, in a pnp game, if you choose weapon specalization, gnomish hammer, then your DM will probably be nice enough to eventually give you a magic one. But in a crpg, there's no guarantee. Best to go with the standard choices. (Apparently, if you start the game (in normal, not ironman) with a wf feat, then your character automatically gets a MW verision of the item. You can then use item creation feats to improve it).

Combat Reflexes
Most DMs tend to limit AOO against NPCs, but this feat is super useful in TOEE. Plus, since reach weapons don't have their blind spot, reach weapons rock.

Precise Shot
This is a MUST for all archers. Most of the time you're shooting at a target who is engaged in melee (-4). And in enclosed areas, they typically have cover as well (another -4). I'd give it to wizards/sorcerers who use ray spells as well, so their ranged touches actually hit things.

Weapon Finesse
Apparanetly buggy. Plus it uses the 3.0 rules and not the 3.5 ones. However, for everyone with elven bards, rogues or wizards with a 20 Dex, it's an easy way to get +5 to your attack bonus (and given the low levels of the game, helps keeps bards, rogues or wizards viable in combat).

Power Attack/Cleave/G. Cleave
Kick ass and take names, as usual.

Dodge/Mobility/Spring Attack
About the same. Lots of reach weapons to avoid.

Item Creation feats
-Very useful. There are no time pressures in the game (unlike pnp, where the rest of the party is rushing forward), so go nuts and make items.

Metamagic
I haven't picked any up. Given the low levels, most of the useful metamagic would be restricted to 1st and maybe 2nd level spells.


----------



## Simplicity

uv23 said:
			
		

> Spoiler request for Mona quest: where is Mickey? I thought he was one of the braumasters in Homlett but I was wrong.




(SPOILER)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
He is one of the braumasters.  He also moonlights in Nulb as a ruffian.  You can find him outside in Nulb on the southern bridge from the entrance.  It may have to be a certain time of day to find him though (I'm not sure on that).


----------



## Simplicity

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Have you gotten him some enchantment spells?  Charm person works great in this game, and suggestion does, too; my bard is indispensable for these two spells alone.
> Daniel




No, I'll have to try that though.  Because I had no cleric (only a druid) 
in the game, I needed somebody who could cast more cure spells, so I 
got those first.  Let me try the enchantment stuff...


----------



## uv23

Simplicity said:
			
		

> (SPOILER)



ahh many thanks.. for some reason i thought she said he was in homlett so i travelled all the way back there


----------



## Sir Whiskers

A quick question: I have a ranger in my current party, with archery specialization. According to the 3.5 PHB, she should have rapid shot as an virtual feat, but I can't find any such option on her radial menu when she attacks. Also, when she leveled up, rapid shot was one of her choices (it wasn't grayed out). Am I missing something, or is this a bug in the program (she should have the virtual feat, but doesn't)?

BTW, if I started over, I'd take a regular fighter over the ranger. Her skill selection would be more limited, but in every other way she'd be better as an archer. And I have yet to use the Track feat.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

A bit of wierd happened.  The elementals disapeared off the summon monster spells selection.  SM3 I used to be able to summon elementals with, now I can't there just gone.


----------



## Gregor

*Spoilers*

Hey all,

I beat the game rather quickly with a party of 6th level.  I apparently took the express route to the end.  My only complaint was that I dont really know what the heck I did or where I was going.  I played as a chaotic good party and frankly, I lost track of where the elven nobles were.  I found that the party's motivation or even "leads" were poor at best.  






******SPOILER******SPOILER********SPOILER*******










My party was asked to locate an "elf friend" named Black Jay.  This guy tells me to check out the Moat House, which I do.  I clean it out and meet the head honcho down there.  I kill him off and only learn that he is associated with a faction inside the temple - Lolth worshipping scum!.  Ok.   So I go back to this Black Jay guy and tell him that the nobles were not in the Moathouse.  So he gives me some weak lead by saying "I dont want to think the worst but we never cleaned out the lower levels of the temple, maybe you can find something down there." Ummmm ok....but...why?  So off I go, cleaning out different levels, finding out about the power struggle, bumping off head-clerics.  I dont hear anything about the people I am supposed to find.  I meet some wizard who tells me he has been scrying me and that he is going to destroy me....so I bump him off.  I find some bone helm that is supposed to unlock some demon who I have yet to hear of and I am instructed to locate a number of objects to destroy the helm with.  Ok, so back into the temple I go, I start to look around and I get caught up with some other Cleric who I think I am inflitrating and then I get escorted into some inner temple.  The Uber boss asks me to perform a service for him (I assumed I was still infiltrating the temple), I accept and then the game ends.  All in all, I didnt know what the hell was going on!

Now, I think the game is amazing and I love the graphics, the combat, the customization etc.  However, I found there to be a major lack of motivation and flow of information to my party.  I understand I did a number of random and sometimes alignment conflicting things in the game, but even so, I felt lost and confused the whole time.  Is this the point? (I probably just answered my own question).  I am glad the game is not linear and that I had the opportunity to take 90 different paths, but some structure is needed.  Maybe its just me....

I am now playing the game as a CE party and I find that the party motivation is a little clearer and there is a coherent string of bad guys and groups who are associated with eachother.  I am enjoying the game alot more now.

I think alot of this post may make absolutely no sense so just ignore the obvious displays of idiocy - I barely slept last night so my brain is melting.  All in all the game is great but I am just wondering if anyone else has issues with motivation / flow of information.  Oh and the guy who does the voice for Burne really annoys me   BUT the Gelatinous Cubes look so cool!

Cheers,


----------



## Dark Jezter

The original Temple of Elemental Evil 1e AD&D module was followed by two sequel modules, so perhaps these could be used for sequels/expansion packs to the game.

Here is the complete trilogy of modules that began with ToEE:

The Temple of Elemental Evil
Scourge of the Slavelords
Queen of the Spiders

I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to ToEE that raised the level cap to 20 and combined the two sequel modules, or perhaps a sequel followed by an expansion pack.

P.S.  Anybody find the Rainbow Rock yet?  I've nearly reached the end of the game with my Chaotic Neutral party, and we still haven't found it.


----------



## Welverin

garyh said:
			
		

> I'd heard there was to be a demo for this game.  Anyone have any idea when or if that's going to happen?  I've visited www.greyhawkgame.com and they don't mention a demo.




There is a demo for the game, hasn't been released yet to the best of my knowledge. In fact the last I read of it it, Toika had finished it up and sent it off to Atari to make the installer and rest is up to them.

So you know, it's not unusual for a demo to be released after the game itself.


----------



## mmu1

Welverin said:
			
		

> There is a demo for the game, hasn't been released yet to the best of my knowledge. In fact the last I read of it it, Toika had finished it up and sent it off to Atari to make the installer and rest is up to them.
> 
> So you know, it's not unusual for a demo to be released after the game itself.




Yeah... Apparently, making the installer is not all Atari did - the word is they also removed any and all children from the game (in preparation for publication in countries where having kids that can be killed in a computer game is against the law, I guess - European version of Fallout 2, anyone?) and removed some "evil" dialogue options. (which explains why some people were complaining that they played a CE party and the dialogue options were more like LG...)


----------



## Aulayan

mmu1 said:
			
		

> Yeah... Apparently, making the installer is not all Atari did - the word is they also removed any and all children from the game (in preparation for publication in countries where having kids that can be killed in a computer game is against the law, I guess - European version of Fallout 2, anyone?) and removed some "evil" dialogue options. (which explains why some people were complaining that they played a CE party and the dialogue options were more like LG...)





From what I understand, Troika are the ones who removed this stuff.  Because Hasbro decided they didn't want an M Game, they wanted a T Game.  In fact, according to Troika, Hasbro put down some high standards that were above what the T rating usually enforces.

So Troika had to remove some dialogue, some subquests, some areas from the game.


----------



## Pielorinho

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> P.S. Anybody find the Rainbow Rock yet? I've nearly reached the end of the game with my Chaotic Neutral party, and we still haven't found it.




Quests which revolve around the mouseover function, in which you have to run your mouse over each of two bajillion objects on a screen, are no fun, and are just dying to be cheated on.  Highlight the text below to find out where it is.



Spoiler



The rainbow rock is an otherwise unexceptional-looking rock midway up the east side of Emridys (sp?) Meadows. Mouseover, Mouseover, Mouseover, and you'll find it: it says, "Rainbow Rock" on mouseover.


 
Daniel


----------



## Dinkeldog

Might be a little harsh, Daniel, but it's not very obvious until you find it.  For one, it's nowhere near the giant (and why the big bad wasn't guarding the Treasure is beyond me).


----------



## Dinkeldog

*Spoiler tag*

For those that don't know we now have a new [spoi ler] tag (omit the space, of course.  



Spoiler



It works like this!  



Note that the smily appears even if it's within the spoiler.


----------



## Pielorinho

Dinkeldog said:
			
		

> Might be a little harsh, Daniel, but it's not very obvious until you find it. For one, it's nowhere near the giant (and why the big bad wasn't guarding the Treasure is beyond me).



Goodness, I gave the completely wrong impression.  I didn't find it myself until someone told me where it was; after spending five minutes going around the map looking at a million identical rocks, I said, "screw it," and left.  If I sounded like I was mocking Dark Jezter for not finding it, my apologies; it was completely not my intention.

And I'll edit that post to add in spoiler tags.

Daniel


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Sir Whiskers said:
			
		

> A quick question: I have a ranger in my current party, with archery specialization. According to the 3.5 PHB, she should have rapid shot as an virtual feat, but I can't find any such option on her radial menu when she attacks. Also, when she leveled up, rapid shot was one of her choices (it wasn't grayed out). Am I missing something, or is this a bug in the program (she should have the virtual feat, but doesn't)?
> 
> BTW, if I started over, I'd take a regular fighter over the ranger. Her skill selection would be more limited, but in every other way she'd be better as an archer. And I have yet to use the Track feat.




Look on the character options portion of the radial menu (not the combat section).  Rapid Shot appears with a check box.  If you check the box, you will use rapid shot whenever you make a full attack.

My archer ranger can put some serious damage down range (now at 6th level, with Manyshot/Rapid Shot plus favored enemy Giant at +4, I've donw well over 50 points of damage in one round to one ogre).  He's only 4 hp shy of the 6th level fighter in the party, and has a better AC with some of the elven chain. 

As to the Rainbow Rock:



Spoiler



It's right where you get attacked by the Skeletal Gnolls.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

The user mod community is stepping up to fix some of the bugs, pending a patch by Troika.  Here's a useful one that removes the "fog of war" in Hommlet and Nulb, which makes wandering around town a little faster and more enjoyable.  It doesn't remove it for dungeons and other encounter areas to keep that part of game play as designed (though here's a hint: 



Spoiler



the Clairvoyance spell allows you to completely remove fog of war and scout an entire map for a short period of time


  )

It needs to be unpacked to a folder named "rules" in the \Temple of Elemental Evil\modules\ToEE directory -- you'll have to create the folder.  See the instructions in readme file included in the *.zip file.


----------



## Sir Whiskers

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Look on the character options portion of the radial menu (not the combat section).  Rapid Shot appears with a check box.  If you check the box, you will use rapid shot whenever you make a full attack.




Many thanks!


----------



## Daxz

Does anyone else thinks that there are not enough arcane spell scrolls, vendor sold or looted? Most of my wizard's spells come from the 2 spells he gets from leveling. Any hidden vendor anywhere? or NPC wizard I can "persude" to give them to me?


----------



## Radical DM

*re demo*

If you have Kazaa installed and good conection you can legally down load the whole game and play it for free for 6 hours. If you do get to pay for it you get a non cd version with the ingame movies


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Daxz said:
			
		

> Does anyone else thinks that there are not enough arcane spell scrolls, vendor sold or looted? Most of my wizard's spells come from the 2 spells he gets from leveling. Any hidden vendor anywhere? or NPC wizard I can "persude" to give them to me?




Have you visited Burne?  He's got a bunch of scrolls for sale.  I've found a bunch, too, between the temple & moathouse.  I haven't felt I've been lacking for any spells yet, between scrolls and my spell choices.


For those who might be interested, here's a review written from a PnP Gamer's perspective (as compared to a primarily computer gaming perspective).


----------



## garyh

Welverin said:
			
		

> There is a demo for the game, hasn't been released yet to the best of my knowledge. In fact the last I read of it it, Toika had finished it up and sent it off to Atari to make the installer and rest is up to them.
> 
> So you know, it's not unusual for a demo to be released after the game itself.




Thanks for the info, Welverin!


----------



## Wycen

I'd like to know about the NPC's who can join your party.  I was at a friends house Thursday night for our Farscape d20 game and saw the box on his computer desk and asked him about it before our game.

He said one of the NPC's is a spinster, who'll join your party, but only if you marry her.  He was afraid of trying it to find out.  Anybody have details about this, or the other NPC's who join you?


----------



## mmu1

Wycen said:
			
		

> I'd like to know about the NPC's who can join your party.  I was at a friends house Thursday night for our Farscape d20 game and saw the box on his computer desk and asked him about it before our game.
> 
> He said one of the NPC's is a spinster, who'll join your party, but only if you marry her.  He was afraid of trying it to find out.  Anybody have details about this, or the other NPC's who join you?





[SPOILERS]


There's a lot of them... In the inn in Hommlet alone you have your pick of a couple of fighter types, a fighter an a monk that come as a package deal, a Mage and a Rogue, Rufus and Burne (the former adventurers - lords of Hommlet) will join you eventually as well, in Nulb you can buy the freedom of a gypsy Rogue that'll join up, you can hook up with a gay pirate (who the hell wrote this module?), you can get Otis the blacksmith to go with you, in the Temple itself there are a couple of orc prisoners and a very competent Gnome Fighter/Rogue that'll go with you... I know there are many more as well.

Only problem is, most of them suck. They have ok stats but usually pathetic HPs, and tend to demand ridiculous amounts of loot and money for their worthless services, so I have yet to actually adventure with any - especially sicne there is no interaction between party members, so who cares if they come along (unless you absolutely need them to survive the combats, or something) - this definitely isn't BGII where every NPC had a quest...


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Marrying the spinster is hilarious; she has quite a mouth, and fights with a kitchen cleaver (it involves solving a quest for ST Cuthbert).  There's another girl you can marry to join your group (a druid), and a gay pirate as well (who's secret desire is to become a dentist LOL).  There's a wandering bard, and a Hill Giant chief you can recruit.  Even the master of the moathouse, Lareth the Beautiful, will join your party as an NPC under certain circumstances.  You can rescure Prince Thrommel and he'll join.  Those are the oddballs -- then there are the more "normal" NPCs that people will recognize from the module who can join the party (some only once certain quests are completed, others for a share of the loot) -- Elmo, Spugnoir, Zert, Turuko & his barbarian pal, Furnok of Ferd, Otis, various men-at-arms, even Burne and Rufus, guardians of Hommlet.

The NPCs don't interact with you quite as much as in BG2, but they do say/do their own things, and can be pretty fun.


----------



## Pielorinho

Daxz said:
			
		

> Does anyone else thinks that there are not enough arcane spell scrolls, vendor sold or looted? Most of my wizard's spells come from the 2 spells he gets from leveling. Any hidden vendor anywhere? or NPC wizard I can "persude" to give them to me?



Not that I know of, and I agree:  scrolls are too rare in the game.  I'm considering creating a first-level wizard to join the game, level up to third level, get bull's strength and bear's endurance, scribe them as scrolls, and give them to my ninth-level wizard, just so I can copy them into my spellbook (hopefully -- rumor is that scribing stat-boost spells is buggy) and create the appropriate magic items.  It's annoying.

Daniel


----------



## uv23

Two things:

NPC looting bugs me. I would be happy to give the NPCs good items but I've had them loot perfectly good items (like wands) then up and sell them when I go to barter with someone. Stupid. Needless to say, every NPC that has joine dmy part has died and I don't shed any tears.

Now, I need soem help in the Temple. I'm kinda confused:


Spoiler



I first got some mission from the earth temple priest to go and kill some other priest, I believe the fire temple priest. Great, then I go around the fire temple areas and am doing missions for the fire temple priest before I kill him. But theres this commander guy in the eastern part of teh fire temple that says "go on through the doors behind me to see so and so" but there are no doors behind him!! Yet I can see a block on the map behind him that I haven't been to. Argh, annoying. Anyways, am I doing this right? This adventure has become rather aimless and I feel like I;m just double crossing everyone (why the hell would the dialog options have wanted me to convert that batch of ogres from water to air when I was wearing water robes at teh time?). Anyways a bit annoyed with the inaneness of it all.



Also, do the element of the robes I'm wearing actually have an effect while walking around in the temple? In most areas monsters don't attack me, but my last battle last night was some seemingly random battle with about 30 bugbears. No idea why they attacked me when no one else did.

ramble ramble ramble...


----------



## Daxz

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Not that I know of, and I agree:  scrolls are too rare in the game.  I'm considering creating a first-level wizard to join the game, level up to third level, get bull's strength and bear's endurance, scribe them as scrolls, and give them to my ninth-level wizard, just so I can copy them into my spellbook (hopefully -- rumor is that scribing stat-boost spells is buggy) and create the appropriate magic items.  It's annoying.
> 
> Daniel




Yeah, I'm specially looking for those stat buff spells for my Item creation feats. The thing that annoy me is that scrolls don't say if they are divine or arcane. Funny thing is, I created a bull strenght scroll with my druid and gave it to my wizard, he can use the scroll but he can't copy it into his spellbook. Sigh, guess I'm spoiled by BG, IWD and NWN where I always ended up with tons of scrolls.


----------



## Aulayan

Daxz said:
			
		

> Yeah, I'm specially looking for those stat buff spells for my Item creation feats. The thing that annoy me is that scrolls don't say if they are divine or arcane. Funny thing is, I created a bull strenght scroll with my druid and gave it to my wizard, he can use the scroll but he can't copy it into his spellbook. Sigh, guess I'm spoiled by BG, IWD and NWN where I always ended up with tons of scrolls.




Heh.  I have an easy way to differentiate divine and arcane scrolls.  I have Spuignor, who automatically takes all arcane scrolls from the loot, leaving only divine.  Of course, Spuignor then sells them to the blacksmith.  idiot, idiot spuignor.

Oh, something I've found.   A small bug.  



Spoiler



When you're bartering with a merchant, if the NPC follower doesn't sell his items and you have to do it manually, you can instead give them to your other party members.  And yes, this includes the NPC's money too.  (Well most of it.  Furnok wouldn't hand over his silver or gold, but his copper and platinum I got.  Mmm 139 platinum pieces.  It was an emergency, fallen paladin, 3000 gold atonement.  HAd to get the money somehow!)



Spoiler put on in case some people don't want to know of the Bug.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

The robes work in the corresponding temple areas ... I've been attacked wearing Fire robes in the Earth temple, for example.  Then there are some random wandering monsters that just attack anything.


----------



## Nareau

Daxz said:
			
		

> Does anyone else thinks that there are not enough arcane spell scrolls, vendor sold or looted? Most of my wizard's spells come from the 2 spells he gets from leveling. Any hidden vendor anywhere? or NPC wizard I can "persude" to give them to me?



Burne is a great source of scrolls.  Once you start going into the ToEE, you can have him join your party.  Use him in a couple of battles (to get him some XP), and then force him to write all his spells down for you!  I've used his ability to scribe scrolls to teach my two other wizards most of the spells he knows.  Go to a store, and grab all the scrolls out of his inventory.

Spider


----------



## Yellow Sign

Just picked up TOEE today. I have already ran into a bug. Was fighting a orge and he would get stuck when his turn came to act. He was already wounded from a previous battle so I kept reloading the game where it was saved which was just at the beginning of the fight. I had to do enough damage to kill him before he would act. It only took me about 12 times of reloading the saved game to do it. 

 Otherwise it is fun. Though it is kinda morose with the dead bodies of my slain characters following me around everywhere.    We go to see the cleric. Throw fred's corpse on the ground. Go see the wizard in his tower. Throw the dead body of our party memeber on the ground as we enter. Go to the moathouse, throw the corpses down at the entrance.


----------



## Cedric

> Otherwise it is fun. Though it is kinda morose with the dead bodies of my slain characters following me around everywhere.  We go to see the cleric. Throw fred's corpse on the ground. Go see the wizard in his tower. Throw the dead body of our party memeber on the ground as we enter. Go to the moathouse, throw the corpses down at the entrance.




Heh, reminds me of a 1st edition game, where everyone was laughing cause our dwarven guide bit the dust...and for weeks I cast an "item" (like shrink item from 3.0/3.5) spell on the body, turning him into cloth...and I carried him around in my beltpouch for weeks. 

In the early levels it would only last like 16 hours, so while we slept at night we had a dead dwarf sleeping with us. People would joke, is that a dwarf in your beltpouch...or you just happy to see me? Ahh...good memories. 

On topic though, been having a great time with the game. My group just hit 7th level tonight, but I had to go to work before I could level up. Can't wait to keep adventuring!

Cedric


----------



## Chain Lightning

Just got the game.

Having a blast so far. Had to do a fair bit of power min/maxing at character creation to make a survivable party. First party stunk.

My current party is:
-Human Barbarian
-Half Elf Paladin
-Human Rogue
-Human Cleric
-Human Wizard

A lot of humans huh!? Yah, I wanted all the extra Feats and skill points. My whole entire party has Move Silently upped as far as their class can take it. Funny to sneak in and get all the treasure from Hill Giant in Emridy Meadows and never have to fight him. But I use my party's stealth most of the time just to get that first surprise round on a dungeon room's inhabitants. 

Its probably a waste of Feats, but I made my Wizard human so I can begin with two. Gave her Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot so she can hang back and shoot into melee with ranged weaponry when she's not casting spells.

Here's some minor complaints about the game for me.

Random number generator seems to really low ball me a lot. Also with the oddest characters. For instance, my Human Barbarian, number-wise...should be hitting the most. Considering all the bonuses his has. With weapon focus, high base strength of 17, bull's strength casted on him, and raged....he should be hitting stuff pretty regularly. But he doesn't he whiffs at the air so often! But if my Wizard runs out of ammo, steps up beside the Barbarian, and whacks a guy with her staff, she hits often and rolls high on damage! I'm like...."my wizard fights better than my Barbarian!"

Another complaint of mine is the scrolling. Now, this could be fixable and I just don't know how.....but so far it bugs me. Let me explain.

Y'know how you're screen shows you the over-head isometric view of the area you're at? Normally on such games, if you move your mouse cursor over to one side of the screen (to the edge) the camera moves over to that direction and shows you what's over there. I can't do that. To get the camera to move over the terrain, I have to put the mouse cursor up agains the corners of the screen. Then and ONLY then, does the camera move. Only when the mouse cursor is pressed up against the corners. Then the camera moves diagonally in that direction. Like, if I put mouse arrow in upper right hand corner. The camera moves over terrain north easterly. But real real real slow too. 

Now, this works with the arrow buttons too. But I gotta press diagonally to do it. Like up arrow and right arrow to move camera north east. Simply pressing right won't make camera go right. Neither is putting the mouse cursor up against right side of screen edge. Has to be the corners of the screen only. This get annoying when I simply just want to shift my view over directly to the right a bit. Or straight up. Instead I gotta zig zag in diagonals to get to where I want to see.

ALSO, it moves really slow. I've found a way around that recently by pressing the mouse in a corner I want to move camera to while also pressing the corresbonding arrow keys that go in that same direction. Then it moves faster.

Mouse speed is fine moving around within the screen, its just the camera moves slow and I can't get it to go east, west, north or south. Only NW, NE, SE, and SW directions.

Anyone have clue to how to fix this? Or is the game suppose to be this way?


----------



## LightPhoenix

Chain Lightning said:
			
		

> Just got the game.Having a blast so far. Had to do a fair bit of power min/maxing at character creation to make a survivable party. First party stunk.



Indeed, min/maxing at the start seems to be really important.  I would have started my Cleric with Scribe Scroll so I could at least have a little more healing power.



> Random number generator seems to really low ball me a lot. Also with the oddest characters. For instance, my Human Barbarian, number-wise...should be hitting the most. Considering all the bonuses his has. With weapon focus, high base strength of 17, bull's strength casted on him, and raged....he should be hitting stuff pretty regularly. But he doesn't he whiffs at the air so often! But if my Wizard runs out of ammo, steps up beside the Barbarian, and whacks a guy with her staff, she hits often and rolls high on damage! I'm like...."my wizard fights better than my Barbarian!"



I've found the same thing.  I _really_ wish there was a way to see the actual numbers being rolled, because I seem to be getting the same thing - my Wizard is the most consistant hitter out of all my guys, followed by my Bard.  My Ranger hits the least.

I've also noticed that there is a bug with the Healing Domain.  My 2nd-level Cleric should be getting at least a 4 for every healing roll, and many times I've only healed 2 or 3 hit points.  I've never healed more than 9.



> Anyone have clue to how to fix this? Or is the game suppose to be this way?



What's the scroll speed on?  There's a bug if you have it set to 5, so turn it down to 4 for the time being.


----------



## Haradim

On the lower right UI, where the formation, rest and so forth buttons are, is a tab with a d20 on it.

Open that, and you can get feedback on the various actions in the game. Clicking on blue words like 'hits' will give you a breakdown of the mods and rolls involved in that attack.

I've also noticed a low-rolling trend in the game. There seems to be a lot of annoying bugs, like how crafting a +3 weapon locks up my computer, or the fact that I can't select a weapon when giving a character Weapon Focus or similar feats (despite proficiency via Fighter class features). Some weapon damages also seem to be unusually low (with others much higher, despite similar or lesser damage ratings), though that may be due to a lot of DRs being tossed around. Paladin's Divine Grace based on CON rather than CHA...etc.

Of course, some bugs are less annoying. Like my Half-Orc's mysterious extra +2 Strength modifier  He has a non-modified 18 in Strength (just starting out), yet contributes a 6 to damage rolls.


----------



## Hypersmurf

Haradim said:
			
		

> Of course, some bugs are less annoying. Like my Half-Orc's mysterious extra +2 Strength modifier  He has a non-modified 18 in Strength (just starting out), yet contributes a 6 to damage rolls.




Two-handed weapon?

-Hyp.


----------



## Haradim

Hmm. Possibly. I'm not really sure what he's using right now.

The bonus to damage from that completely escaped me. Just goes to show that disused knowledge falls easily by the wayside, I guess.


----------



## Hypersmurf

Haradim said:
			
		

> I'm not really sure what he's using right now.




Given that +4 x1.5 = +6, I'm guessing not-a-bug 

-Hyp.


----------



## Chain Lightning

Geez, I totally forgot about too other bugs. Or, at least I think they're bugs. 

There's this occurance that happens when I hit and do damage. Mostly with ranged weaponry I noticed. Here's the thing. If you miss, a little word that says 'miss' floats above the guy's head that tried to hit. If you hit, a number of how much damage you did floats above the target's head. Now, I get this thing where I get a hit animation but yet, the number that pops up over the target's head is a zero. That's right a " 0 ". In my head, I'm thinking....its either a miss or hit. Why am I hitting for zero? Shouldn't it be at least a 1?

Second thing is the minimum heals. I believe my Cleric should not be encountering heals that result in '1'.  Maybe in the beginning, but at 3rd level still? Nothing more frustrating than casting and getting a '1' heal, then casting again and getting a '2' heal. ARGGGH!

And yes, my wizard is STILL hitting in melee way more than my Barbarian and Paladin. I really don't know what's up with that....heh heh.


----------



## Dark Jezter

I won ToEE the other night with my CN party.  The final boss scared me at first, but then I found a way to defeat her that made it almost pitifully easy.  All I had to do was (end-game spoilers ahead) 



Spoiler



use the golden orb (socketed with all four elemental gems) to summon a Balor and a Glabrezu, and then I was able to beat the fungal goddess with surprisingly little effort.  I thought it was kinda neat how the ending to the game shows you what happened afterwards in regards to various subquests you did or didn't compete.



I'm taking a short break from ToEE, I plan on playing again with a Neutral Good party comprised of a paladin, a ranger, a cleric, a rogue, and a sorcerer.

All in all, I'm satisfied with my ToEE purchase.  Here is what I liked about the game:


The absolutely fantastic turn-based combat system.  Combat in this game works almost exactly as it does in the P&P game.
The Item Creation feats made it in.  My wizard was about 2000 XP lower than the rest of the group from crafting so many magic items. 
The character models look great, and are very customizable in appearance (even small things like gloves and boots will show up on the models).  The animations look cool as well, and I reccommend that everyone try out a monk at least once just to see the awesome animations that come with that class.
Similarly, the monsters look great as well.  Some of the late-game foes are very cool looking.
Challenging.  Most of the time in this game, you are outmatched or outnumbered by your enemies, forcing you to come up with superior strategies to use against your foes.
Great Hack & Slash!  I love a good dungeon, and this dungeon was filled with traps 'n monsters aplenty to keep me happy. 
The opening sequences for each alignment.  They add a "personal touch" to the game that I really enjoy.

Now, the things I didn't like about the game, although they are relatively minor compared to what I liked about the game.


The bugs.  Atari was in such a hurry to get this game out the door that the QA team wasn't able to catch some rather annoying bugs, like monsters appearing inside of walls and being impossible to reach.  Hopefully this game will get some patches (whether official or unofficial) in the upcoming weeks.
A few interface problems.  It can be hard to select a specific target in crowded combats.  The inventory/shop screen is also clunky and inconvienient to use.
Lackluster storyline.  While I know it's unrealistic to expect on a plot on the level of _Baldur's Gate II_ or _Planescape: Torment_ from a game based on a 1st Edition AD&D module (as modules back then were usually very light on story), I wouldn't have minded a better storyline.
The logbook dosen't provide any details on the quests you've picked up.  I would like to see a Neverwinter Nights-style journal that keeps track and describes clearly quests you've recieved and completed.
In can be near-impossible to find masterwork items in this game for giving magical enchantments to.

So, there are my thoughts on the game.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give this game a 7.5 and recommend it to serious fans of D&D.  If the bugs were to be fixed in this game, I'd bump the rating up to an 8.5.


----------



## Henry

Chain Lightning said:
			
		

> That's right a " 0 ". In my head, I'm thinking....its either a miss or hit. Why am I hitting for zero? Shouldn't it be at least a 1?




Could it be damage reduction, for example, firing arrows at skeletons or certain undead?



> Second thing is the minimum heals. I believe my Cleric should not be encountering heals that result in '1'.  Maybe in the beginning, but at 3rd level still? Nothing more frustrating than casting and getting a '1' heal, then casting again and getting a '2' heal. ARGGGH!




Now THAT one I'm pretty sure is a bug of some sort, though it's not one I've encountered.


----------



## KnowTheToe

I have had sever 2-4's for dmg from mt 20 str greatsword weilding fighter, but it does not really bother me.


----------



## Rugger

<sniffle>

Still no patch or fixes for those of use who crash to desktop nearly every time they "zone"...

Looks like this is getting returned...if they fix it I'll be re-buying it...dang is it fun when it works!!!

-Rugger
"I CrashToDesktop!"


----------



## KnowTheToe

Rugger said:
			
		

> <sniffle>
> 
> Still no patch or fixes for those of use who crash to desktop nearly every time they "zone"...
> 
> Looks like this is getting returned...if they fix it I'll be re-buying it...dang is it fun when it works!!!
> 
> -Rugger
> "I CrashToDesktop!"




That does suck.  I don't have the issue this time, but I have in the past.


----------



## mmu1

Henry said:
			
		

> Could it be damage reduction, for example, firing arrows at skeletons or certain undead?




That's implemented correctly, but it's pretty obvious from playing the game that there were at least a few typos when they entered the monster stats - for example, Gnolls have somehow ended up with damage reduction (encountered that one numerous times), and the AC for a Lamia was incorrectly set at *29*, making for a fight that's damn near impossible without a wizard loaded to bear with magic missiles and fireballs.

Getting back to the crash issues - I've not had any until level 2 of the temple (9th level characters) then I suddenly had three or four in one session along with some slowdown problems, and I've had to reluctantly shelve the game... It's a pity, would have liked to finish this one...


----------



## LightPhoenix

mmu1 said:
			
		

> That's implemented correctly, but it's pretty obvious from playing the game that there were at least a few typos when they entered the monster stats - for example, Gnolls have somehow ended up with damage reduction (encountered that one numerous times)...



So THAT'S why I've been having such a hard time with them!  Good to know.


----------



## Lazybones

My wife bought the game for me from a Best Buy out of town over the weekend.  Unfortunately the plastic seal had been razored and the game CD stolen.  BB won't give me an exchange unless I drive the 85 miles to the store where she got it. 

So let me experience be a cautionary one; always check the seals on the box when you buy.  Definitely going to start buying all my software online after this...


----------



## Olive

Ok... I'm not sure if I'm being stupid or lazy but will my machine run with with game?

The only drawback I can see is my GForce2 MX... I need a 32 meg card right? Mine is, but dxdiag says it is 31.5 meg...


----------



## KarinsDad

How do you do a 5 foot step in the game?

I tried to move my Barbarian just a hair to the right so that my bowman would be able to shoot without him being in the way.

The creature immediately got an AoO against the Barbarian.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> How do you do a 5 foot step in the game?
> 
> I tried to move my Barbarian just a hair to the right so that my bowman would be able to shoot without him being in the way.
> 
> The creature immediately got an AoO against the Barbarian.




use the radial wheel thing.  Under movement there is the 5' step option.  Lots of time though its impossible to do because of where people are standing.


----------



## Pielorinho

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> How do you do a 5 foot step in the game?
> 
> I tried to move my Barbarian just a hair to the right so that my bowman would be able to shoot without him being in the way.
> 
> The creature immediately got an AoO against the Barbarian.



You have to choose the "five-foot-step" option under 'Movement", which is I think about 9-o'clock on the radial menu.  Simply moving 5' doesn't cut it, unfortunately.

Do you know how to do hotkeys?  5-foot-step is IMO one of the most important hotkeys (I have it on S).  Hit Ctrl+S, then go through the radial menu until you find 5-foot-step and click on it.  From now on you can FFS just by hitting S.

Daniel


----------



## tburdett

I spent about an hour last night trying to get the game to work.  I finally figured out (with a little clue from the ToEE Support FAQ) that they (Troika) have hard coded an upper limit to the screen refresh rate.  If you force your monitor (using a third party program like Reforce) to sync at a rate higher than 85Hz the game will not launch.

Is anyone else seeing SPELL_NONE for the spell prerequisite for some of the items that you create with Create Wondrous Item?  IIRC the Cloak of Charisma is one such item.


----------



## Hypersmurf

tburdett said:
			
		

> Is anyone else seeing SPELL_NONE for the spell prerequisite for some of the items that you create with Create Wondrous Item?  IIRC the Cloak of Charisma is one such item.




Apparently it's because the item requires the spell "Eagle's Splendor", but the spell is stored in the data file as "Eagles Splendor" (no apostrophe), so as far as the game's concerned, the spell the Cloak requires does not exist.

Apparently there is a fan-coded patch that fixes a lot of the overt bugs.  Browse this forum for some more information...

There is news here that Troika is working on an official patch...

-Hyp.


----------



## Thanee

I will hopefully get the game soon (ordered the UK version, as I don't like translated versions and the stores here only have those ). 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Pielorinho

Finally finished it last night.  What a great, flawed game!  I look forward to playing through it again, once the official patch comes out, and I hope Troika switches to a better publishing house and makes other games using the engine.

Daniel


----------



## Gregor

Olive said:
			
		

> Ok... I'm not sure if I'm being stupid or lazy but will my machine run with with game?
> 
> The only drawback I can see is my GForce2 MX... I need a 32 meg card right? Mine is, but dxdiag says it is 31.5 meg...





The game needs a pretty beefy machine to play on the average graphic settings.  Right now, my machine is running at 2.0 Ghz, 512 Ram and a GeForce 4 MX (which sucks) and I am having to run the game just over 800 x 600 and without anti-aliasing.  Maybe its just my machine....  Im not sure if this helps you or not, but my bet would be that it is going to run really slow on your comp.  I definitely could be wrong though - someone with more computer expertise could probably better answer your question.

Cheers,


----------



## Welverin

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> and I hope Troika switches to a better publishing house...




They can't, Atari (formerly Infogrammes) is the only company that has the right to publish games based on D&D. This goes back to the deal that Hasbro made, that gave the rights to all electronic game rights to Infogrammes.


----------



## Pielorinho

Damn them!  Damn their eyes!

Do you know for how long Atari has the contract?  It seems they're not handling it in a very popular manner; I'm wondering if WOTC might hand it off to a different company.

Daniel


----------



## Shard O'Glase

I'm a little irked at magic item creation.  Though this is mainly minor stuff.

1. Fairly small list.
2. some items appear unmakeable for exmaple headband of intellect on the list but it neve rlights up to be made.
3. very few masterwork items, so have to do some lame MW gimick, and even that isn't great since I can seem to enchant in to +2 but I can't seem to make a +1 something cool.
4. thanks to the lack of masterwork items I can't pull off the lame gimick for armor since I got me a druid instead of a cleric on the team.  Maybe if I hire a merc I can pull it off.

Another minor irritant the barabrians movement is wonky, I put on chain gloves and it drops, a chain helm it drops more, breastplate down to 20' movement and no increased more form barbariandom helps.

Still overall a good game, I just want a patch sometime soon.


----------



## Dark Jezter

Attention all ToEE players!  An unofficial patch has been released for the game here!  It fixes numerous bugs, makes things work the way they're supposed to, makes masterwork items purchasable from the Blacksmith, and even puts the Brothel back into the game (which was removed by Atari so that the game would get a T-rating).

I reccommend that everyone download it now; it makes an already good game even better!

In related news, an official patch has been announced by Atari and should be out later this month.  You can read the press release at Sorcerers Place.


----------



## Olive

Gregor said:
			
		

> The game needs a pretty beefy machine to play on the average graphic settings.  Right now, my machine is running at 2.0 Ghz, 512 Ram and a GeForce 4 MX (which sucks) and I am having to run the game just over 800 x 600 and without anti-aliasing.  Maybe its just my machine....  Im not sure if this helps you or not, but my bet would be that it is going to run really slow on your comp.  I definitely could be wrong though - someone with more computer expertise could probably better answer your question.
> 
> Cheers,




I'm guessing my Athlon 1gig, 256 meg of ram and GForce 2MX is gonna have some serious problems then.

All the more reason for a demo!


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> Attention all ToEE players!  An unofficial patch has been released for the game here!  It fixes numerous bugs, makes things work the way they're supposed to, makes masterwork items purchasable from the Blacksmith, and even puts the Brothel back into the game (which was removed by Atari so that the game would get a T-rating).
> 
> I reccommend that everyone download it now; it makes an already good game even better!
> 
> In related news, an official patch has been announced by Atari and should be out later this month.  You can read the press release at Sorcerers Place.



thank for the links
ken


----------



## Welverin

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Do you know for how long Atari has the contract?




A long time. I'm thinking about nine, but definitely in the 5-10 year range.

THere was a topic around here hwen it first happened, maybe someone will have pity and do a search for it.



> It seems they're not handling it in a very popular manner; I'm wondering if WOTC might hand it off to a different company.




Unfortunately WotC has no say in the matter, it was all Hasbro's doing and since they sold the rights to all of there properties wholesale, I have no faith in them doing anything about it.

I wll suggest you not give up on them yet. THey haven't done to bad so far, Interplay didn't start off to well with the D&D license and that turned out pretty well. So as long as Atari sticks with good developers like Bioware and Troika we'll get more good games than bad.


----------



## Scorch

*What am I doing wrong?*

I am attempting to level my party to third level and decided to get Weapon Finesse for my halfling rogue.  It will only allow me to choose dagger and I want to choose short sword.  What am I doing wrong?  Am I forgetting a basic rule in 3.5e?  

Thanks,

Scorch


----------



## Victim

A short sword isn't a light weapon for a halfling.  Both are small.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

They're using 3.0 weapons sizes (and 3.0 weapon finesse).  Also, Weapon Finesse is bugged, and doesn't work with some weapons (magical/masterwork shortswords in my experience -- though it may be the weapons and not the feat that are bugged).  It did work fine with a halfling rogue and dagger for me, though.


----------



## uv23

I've recently given up on this game. The performance is unacceptably bad. I'm in the fire node and it constantly freezes for minutes at a time, and saving games takes 5 - 10 minutes. I am so sick and tired of game publishers releasing buggy software into the market then relying on patches after the fact. Bah.


----------



## Scorch

Thanks for the 411 on Weapon Finesse.  I got her Weapon Finesse - Dagger.  

I am currently using the latest Circle of Eight unofficial patch and am heading out to the Moat House.  Wish me luck!

Scorch


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

uv23 said:
			
		

> I've recently given up on this game. The performance is unacceptably bad. I'm in the fire node and it constantly freezes for minutes at a time, and saving games takes 5 - 10 minutes. I am so sick and tired of game publishers releasing buggy software into the market then relying on patches after the fact. Bah.




Dial your particle effects down.  I make it through the fire node with relatively minimal slowing that way.


----------



## uv23

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Dial your particle effects down.  I make it through the fire node with relatively minimal slowing that way.




I dialed everything down and it still runs like crap. Maybe i'll load it up again in a few months when they've released a patch or five.


----------



## Mystic Eye

Has any one tried out the unoficial patch yet? Does it work well?


----------



## KnowTheToe

How do you spontaniously cast healing spells.  the book says to channel positive energy, but I don't see where I can do that.

Also, how do you identify potions?


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Hold down the shift key while selecting spells (ie, per page 1 of the manual).

In the base game, you need an Identify to ID potions.  With the unofficial patch, Read Magic will work.

The unofficial patch fixes a number of spellcasting and item crafting problems, as well as making a wide range of masterwork items available through the blacksmith in Hommlet -- all of which are useful improvements.  They've added some additional magic items (ioun stones, new rods) which while creative, will cause your game to crash if you have them in a save file and uninstall the unofficial patch.  I'd prefer they just stick to fixes and not "improvements" myself, as there's a tendency to go too far -- read magic identifying potions being one example.


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Hold down the shift key while selecting spells (ie, per page 1 of the manual).
> 
> In the base game, you need an Identify to ID potions.  With the unofficial patch, Read Magic will work.
> 
> The unofficial patch fixes a number of spellcasting and item crafting problems, as well as making a wide range of masterwork items available through the blacksmith in Hommlet -- all of which are useful improvements.  They've added some additional magic items (ioun stones, new rods) which while creative, will cause your game to crash if you have them in a save file and uninstall the unofficial patch.  I'd prefer they just stick to fixes and not "improvements" myself, as there's a tendency to go too far -- read magic identifying potions being one example.



The part I don't understand is why would read magic allow you to identify a potion? What was the person who did th patching thinking? if they were trying to make it easier to play the game, well cheat codes should always be optional. Guess i'll have to wait for the official patch, and I was looking forward to much of what they had done too.
Ken


----------



## zero skill LPB

*Me, I kinda like read magic = identify potion*

In PnP 3.5, PCs are able to use Craft (Alchemy) to identify potions. But, sadly, Craft (Alchemy) isn't implemented in the ToEE CRPG; the only option you have is to fork over 100 GP to cast Identify on each and every individual potion. In addition to this inconvenience your PCs have fixed inventory space + there are no portable containers in the game = your PCs packs will quickly become crammed with un-ID'd potions.

I appreciate that the Co8 dudes have provided another way to ID the little buggers that (1) doesn't involve spending absurd amounts of GP just to find that I have indeed been carting around 10 potions of cure light wounds, (2) still has a small cost [zero level spells are useful!] associated with it.


----------



## KarinsDad

Joseph Elric Smith said:
			
		

> The part I don't understand is why would read magic allow you to identify a potion?




I guess it depends on your point of view.

My position is:

Why wouldn't potions have labels on them in the first place? If you brewed 10 different potions, wouldn't it be hard for even you to keep track of which was which without a label, even if they do have different colors?

Finding potions with no labels is something that happened in our games in the 70s, not in the 21st century.



			
				Joseph Elric Smith said:
			
		

> What was the person who did th patching thinking?




I assume the person who wrote the patch thought as I do and had the potion creators put "magical writing" on the potions so that spell casters could figure it out, but non-spell casters could not.

However, with just magical writing on them, I could also see the program "occasionally lying" on cursed potions and the like whereas Identify would not.


In our game, potions almost always have labels on them, be they accurate or false. However, I think I'm going to start using this idea of having potion labels written down in arcane text (similar to scroll text or wizard spell book text) for arcane potions or ancient languages (similar to Latin in the real world) for divine potions or even possibly just a code for those spell casters who might not know arcane or ancient languages (e.g. potions created by Bards or Sorcerers or even any other class where the creator could not or did not want to use some set language).

This minimally forces the party to use Read Magic and/or Comprehend Languages to figure potions out. Not a biggy, but even having a few zero or first level spells allocated for potion determination (if found) means that other spells cannot be in those spell slots.

Who'd of thunk it? A computer game actually using a concept which can be used in real gaming.


----------



## KarinsDad

How tough is the fight with Lareth's minions?

I allowed him to join my party so that I could go to the Temple, he then ambushed us when we entered the Temple, but it did not get played out because the program crashed last night when the first thing I attempted to do was head back out the door I came in.

So, I was curious as to how tough this fight may be. My party currently consists of 2 Clerics, 1 Fighter, 1 Rogue, and 1 Wizard, all third level. I was thinking that when I go back, I might just grab Elmo in Nulb as a follower first. And, my characters are only 800 XP away from fourth level. So, should I bump them up to fourth level with random encounters first, or will that just make the brigands and such in the Temple even stronger as well (i.e. does the program adjust the preset encounters to the level of the party)?


----------



## Dark Jezter

Joseph Elric Smith said:
			
		

> The part I don't understand is why would read magic allow you to identify a potion? What was the person who did th patching thinking?




They were probably thinking "Geez, how stupid is it that you have to spend 100 gp to identify a potion using the _Identify_ spell?"

I'm glad that _read magic_ now allows you to identify potions, since the Craft (Alchemy) skill wasn't included in the game.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> They were probably thinking "Geez, how stupid is it that you have to spend 100 gp to identify a potion using the _Identify_ spell?"
> 
> I'm glad that _read magic_ now allows you to identify potions, since the Craft (Alchemy) skill wasn't included in the game.




side note I think in 3.5 they changed I.D. potions to the spellcraft skill a DC 25 check.  Craft alchemy just crafts things now, its other abilities seem to be gone.  Though I'll freely admit I may have missed something since I don't have 3.5 down anywhere near the way I had 3.0 down.


----------



## zero skill LPB

*shard is completely correct!*



			
				Shard O'Glase said:
			
		

> side note I think in 3.5 they changed I.D. potions to the spellcraft skill a DC 25 check.  Craft alchemy just crafts things now, its other abilities seem to be gone.  Though I'll freely admit I may have missed something since I don't have 3.5 down anywhere near the way I had 3.0 down.




I just checked the SRD. DC 25 check to ID potions.


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> They were probably thinking "Geez, how stupid is it that you have to spend 100 gp to identify a potion using the _Identify_ spell?"
> 
> I'm glad that _read magic_ now allows you to identify potions, since the Craft (Alchemy) skill wasn't included in the game.



I thought the game was supposed to emulate the rules not create new one. if the patch had made the game follow in line more with the rules that iMNSHO would of been better, then to just create a new rule that read magic works on potions. Last time I checked, I may be wrong identify Will identify potions but read magic won't I understand the frustration because the spell craft rule to determine potions isn't in the game,but oh well every one has their own flavor and style, . 
Ken
who's party still test potions the old fashion way by drinking them.


----------



## KarinsDad

Joseph Elric Smith said:
			
		

> I thought the game was supposed to emulate the rules not create new one.




What exact rule is in the game states that potions cannot have their contents listed on them in magical writing?

When you find such a rule, please let the rest of us know.

The text in the DMG states: "In addition to the standard methods..."

To me, the standard method for a potion would be to read the label. Just like any other product (drug, cleaner, juice, whatever) sitting in your house right now.

Not having labels on potions in an FRPG is like not having latrines in an FRPG. You can get away with it as a DM, but it doesn't sound very plausible.


Player: "What do you mean that we find 57 magic potions in this messy alchemists lab, but he doesn't have a single one labeled? You mean he goes around tasting every single one to find the one he wants? Huh?"


In fact, that sounds real reasonable for scrolls as well. If I was a spell caster in a fantasy world, I would put a strip of paper or cloth around every one of my scrolls which had the name of the spell written on it. That way, when I want a specific scroll, I can quickly find it without having to open up each and every scroll.

It doesn't make sense to play FRPGs as if the characters were not real people with real simple solutions to common problems. Playing it according to "you have to identify or taste every potion" is nonsensical and not well thought out by the designers of the game system.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

unofficial patch ?  Can you load it onto an existing game?  I downloaded it, ran the set-up wizard and am noticing no change, any clues on what's up.


----------



## zero skill LPB

*copy/paste from the Co8 forums*



			
				Shard O'Glase said:
			
		

> any clues on what's up.




Circle of Eight ToEE Mod Version 1.0.0 Released! 

             THE UNOFFICIAL PATCH 

 The Circle of Eight Group would like you to take a look at a mod we've put together. It's mostly bug fixes (Bad ATARI, Bad. No cookie for you!). There is also a little bit of custom content, but not much, as we want everyone to be able to get advantage of the fixes, without forcing our design ideas.  
 (We wanted a stable environment and a happier community, before attempting any signifigant modding/new adventures, that we will of course offer you soon  )  
 (We also spent some time building our own tools)  

 These fixes were all accomplished by editing text files in notepad (or VI  ), and brought into the game through something Troika built into the game (but didn't mention) : an 'override' directory. By placing these files in the proper location, one can adjust most 'data' aspects of the game.  

 If you've happened to somehow install any earlier files (released as zip files) from our group, you should remove them prior to installing this patch, which uses a proper install routine. 

 As this is the first public release, we're calling it 1.0.0.  Future dev and public builds will build off of this version number.  Any version with only two numbers (most notably 1.3 and 1.4) are now obsolete  

 NOTE :  The NPC's looting has been fixed, but NPC's you have ALREADY hired WON'T be fixed. So you need to change them for other NPC's or start a new game if you don't want to. 


 Spell Fixes 



All known (to us) Scroll bugs have been addressed (bugs preventing scribing, scribing at the wrong level, or didn't do what was advertised (Fox's Cunning != aid) (Except Hold Portal. Don't ask us about Hold Portal, ask Troika, We can't fix it.) (All Hold Portal scrolls magically transformed into Grease. All references to Hold Portal removed for confusion sake.)  


All cleric domains but Air are fixed. (Air is bugged majorly, maybe a typo in toee.exe linkage?) 


Fixed the damage problems with Flame Strike ... Now correctly does 1d6 * Spell Caster Level (1/2 Fire and 1/2 Divine Damage.)  


Chill touch no longer has unlimited # of uses.  


Read Magic will Identify Potions and Scrolls.  


Burne no longer gets summon monster V at 4th level 


Improved chances of 'permanency' bug not ocurring with touch based spells  


Improved chances of 'permanency' bug not ocurring with Silence, Web, Soften Earth & Stone and Spike Growth spells 


Cure/Inflict line of spells was incorrectly calculating values. Was adding the caster level to the die size(i.e. lvl 5 cleric uses 1d13). Now correctly rolls and adds caster level  




 Item Fixes 

 Wands 



Numerous problems resolved with wands..(including the 10 lb wand bug, can't craft it, and wrong spell bugs)  



 Misc Magic/regular Items 



All magic items that were previously un-craftable are now craftable. (Bands Intelligence, etc.) 

Chainmail Boots and Gloves are no longer considered "medium" armor, and therefore will not slow you down while wearing them. 

Cloaks of Resistance +2 and +3 now correctly give +2, and +3 bonus to saves 

Masterwork Armor/Shields apply proper 3.5 Ed. Skill Check Penalties. 

Pre-existing Armor/Shields apply proper 3.5 Ed. Skill Check Penalties. 

Crafted +1 Armor/Shields apply proper 3.5 Ed. Skill Check Penalties. 

Masterwork/Magic Weapons now apply Weapon Finesse correctly. 

MasterWork Items are now "purchasable" from the blacksmith. 

Dust of Disapearence is now worth 3.5 DMG value rather then 0 Gold. 

All potions now work correctly. 




 New/Modified Items For "Craft Misc. Magic" (using standard 3.5 ed Statistics) 



Bracers of Armor +1, +2, +4 

Cloak of Archanidia 

Circlet of Blasting, Minor 

Wand of Magic Missiles has been broken up into Wand of MM (2),(3) and (5). You have to be level 3, 5, and 9 to make them,respectively. 

Hands of Fire (5/- fire redist, Burning Hands 1x Day) 

Hands of Cold (5/- cold resist, Chill Touch 1x Day) 

Hands of Electricity (5/- elec reist, Shocking Grasp 1x Day) 

Hands of Life (+1 fort save, cure light 1x day) 

Hands of Death (+1 will asve, inflict light 1x day) 

Ioun Stones added. (When will developers learn? All games are better with Ioun Stones.) 

Sword of Megadeath (10d10 + 10) has been added to Craft Misc. The prerequisite is Hold Portal. (laugh it's funny) 
       (Edit: -- Remove above before release, no one laughed) 




 New/Modified Items For "Craft Rod" (using standard 3.5 ed Statistics) 



White Rod, Minor 

White Rod 

Grey Rod, Minor 

Grey Rod 

Black Rod, Minor 

Black Rod 

Staff of the Transmuter 

Staff of Defense 




 Other fixes 



Detailed Feat Hover Descriptions have been added. 

Ingame Help files updated to reflect fixing of Cleric Domains (except Air). 

NPC's demand an equal share of gold and no more, despite what their dialog will say. Furthermore, you can exchange equipment with them as well. They will not give up their money, though. 

Re-enablement of the "Brothel" Map, NPC's, quest, and companion. 

The Brothel was removed in the late stages of development. (Maybe because they ran out of time, and were unable to finish it?)  New dialog choices have been added into Mona's conversation tree to access it. 





 DOWNLOAD LINKS 

 Direct Download: 
http://www.co8.org/files/mods/toee_fan_fixes_v1_0_0.exe 
http://www.hiredgoons.net/ToEE_Fan_Fixes_V1_0_0.exe 
http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~hunsley/fi...ixes_V1_0_0.exe 
http://www.system-override.com/ToEE...ixes_V1_0_0.exe 
http://www.rpgcodex.com/downloads/t...ixes_V1_0_0.exe 
http://www.seranian.com/ToEE_Fan_Fixes_V1_0_0.exe 
http://mysite.verizon.net/vze77du1/...ixes_V1_0_0.exe 


 Enjoy everybody, 
      The Circle of Eight crew

Last edited by Vaevictis666 on 10-02-2003 at 03:57 A


----------



## Zub

Hey - what is the best way to handle healing?

I remember in the old gold box games, when you rested, you had the option to have the healers use their spells for the day to speed up healing.  Now with my first party it takes 10 days to heal up after a fight unless I rest one day, cast the heals, rest another 24 hours, etc.

If I have to rest for several days between every fight, how will that effect the game?  I know in the module, things will happen on a certain timeline if the party doesn't do anything.

thanks,
Zub


----------



## Shard O'Glase

zero skill LPB said:
			
		

> Circle of Eight ToEE Mod Version 1.0.0 Released!
> 
> THE UNOFFICIAL PATCH
> 
> The Circle of Eight Group would like you to take a look at a mod we've put together. It's mostly bug fixes (Bad ATARI, Bad. No cookie for you!).




Yes thanks.  My point is I don't have an earlier version, I downloaded your patch, I ran the set up wizard, read the read me file, restarted my computer and the patch does not seem to be in effect.  What am I missing?

Is there an extra step needed to make the patch active in the game?

Does the entire patch only work for new games or just the NPC money thing?

Thank you, the patch sounds great I just haven't been able to utilize it yet.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

Zub said:
			
		

> Hey - what is the best way to handle healing?
> 
> I remember in the old gold box games, when you rested, you had the option to have the healers use their spells for the day to speed up healing.  Now with my first party it takes 10 days to heal up after a fight unless I rest one day, cast the heals, rest another 24 hours, etc.
> 
> If I have to rest for several days between every fight, how will that effect the game?  I know in the module, things will happen on a certain timeline if the party doesn't do anything.
> 
> thanks,
> Zub



I play a druid so i only have a certain number of spells dedicated to healing prepared, but I use them all rest, use them all rest etc.  If you rest till healed it doesn't use spells to speed things up so that can be a slow in game process with a likely higher chance of interuption.


----------



## Shard O'Glase

never mind I figured it out, I had to move the files around a bit is all.


----------



## Mystic Eye

Can someone tell me how to use a familiar? I cannot seem to do anything with the bloody creature.


----------



## Dark Jezter

Mystic Eye said:
			
		

> Can someone tell me how to use a familiar? I cannot seem to do anything with the bloody creature.




AFAIK, a familiar does nothing except sit in your inventory and give it's owner the appropriate bonus (such as a weasel familiar giving it's master a +2 bonus to reflex saves).


----------



## Thanee

*Pointers?*

Wow, those Gnolls in the Moathouse surely have been a tough fight for my whimpy level 3 party! 

So now I have defeated the Master and cleared the Moathouse, I'm missing something to continue (except for numerous side quests). I havn't noticed anything besides the city of Nulb who seems to have suddenly appeared on my map for no obvious reason (or I just havn't seen it before!? ).

Any clues?

Oh and is there any way to identify potions besides paying 100 Gold? That's a tad expensive for those dozens of potions of cure light wounds! 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> In the base game, you need an Identify to ID potions.  With the unofficial patch, Read Magic will work.




Ahh... thanks! 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Hypersmurf

Thanee said:
			
		

> I havn't noticed anything besides the city of Nulb who seems to have suddenly appeared on my map for no obvious reason (or I just havn't seen it before!? ).
> 
> Any clues?[/b]




Yeah - go to Nulb 



> *Oh and is there any way to identify potions besides paying 100 Gold? That's a tad expensive for those dozens of potions of cure light wounds! *




That's why the Circle of Eight patch lets you use Read Magic on potions... since you can't do it with a Skill Check like the PHB says...

-Hyp.


----------



## Hypersmurf

I've noticed that my Rogue and Cleric aren't proficient with Longspear, despite it being a simple weapon in 3.5 

On the other hand, I can sneak attack Air Elementals...

-Hyp.


----------



## Thanee

KarinsDad said:
			
		

> What exact rule is in the game states that potions cannot have their contents listed on them in magical writing?




Hehe, yep, that potion thing is quite annoying! 

They could at the very least make it, that you must identify ONE potion and then all further you find are automatically identified.

That read magic fix will work too, tho.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

Seems like they are not using 3.5 but 3.0 weaponry.

Hyper, could you tell me at what point I had Nulb appear on my map, as I seem to have missed that? Was it Lareth's Journal!? I don't think I've read anything about Nulb in there... Hmm...

I was there already, but have to go explore further, as the first quest I accepted was pretty suicidal (catching that fish with a 4th level party doesn't really work well)! 

I wonder why Spugnoir is still with me, tho (have dismissed the other NPCs I tried (one fighter from the inn in Hommlet and a wandering bard) pretty quick as they are too expensive and it's too annoying that they just rack up on armors until they cannot move anymore ), didn't he say he only wants to explore the Moathouse? Funny, tho, that Spugnoir has so few spells. Only one choice in 0th and 2nd level each, so he basically can only cast 1st level spells (+ Cat's Grace). 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

Also, how does one find out what magic items do?

Lareth had some stuff labeled as "Lareth's magic ..." but doesn't say anything about what it does!?

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

BTW, what I find pretty annoying is (like with all those computer games), that you cannot (except when using metamagic) use higher level spell slots for lower level spells!

And they really don't need to list the spell levels for Sorcerers when casting, that don't have any spells per day left (like with the prepared casters)!

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Hypersmurf

Thanee said:
			
		

> Hyper, could you tell me at what point I had Nulb appear on my map, as I seem to have missed that? Was it Lareth's Journal!? I don't think I've read anything about Nulb in there... Hmm...




I'm still on my own first run-through, so I'm afraid I can't remember where the topic of Nulb came up, sorry.



> I was there already, but have to go explore further, as the first quest I accepted was pretty suicidal (catching that fish with a 4th level party doesn't really work well)!




That's what Enlarge Person, Bull's Strength, and Power Attack are for... 



> I wonder why Spugnoir is still with me, tho (have dismissed the other NPCs I tried (one fighter from the inn in Hommlet and a wandering bard) pretty quick as they are too expensive and it's too annoying that they just rack up on armors until they cannot move anymore )[/b]




That's something else the Circle of Eight patch tweaked - NPCs take a share of coinage, but they don't claim items.  So it's only their own gear they refuse to drop.

Just be careful equipping them with a bunch of nifty stuff and then talking to a merchant - they have a habit of selling everything in their inventory.

I've found Otis is very handy to have around, though!

-Hyp.


----------



## Thanee

Havn't met Otis, but heard of him, where do I find his shop?

I only have Spugnoir with me, who unfortunately doesn't seem to learn any new spells despite the tons of scrolls he gets as his share... So even with 6th level he can only do Magic Missile (only 2nd level spell is Cat's Grace and he has NO 3rd level spells)... 

Anyways, I'm inside this Temple (oEE) now, and would like to get back to the surface, but can't get out (there is no exit anymore it seems). Well... guess I'll have to run through it then with what I have...

Another thing... did anyone try Metamagic with a Sorcerer? I have Heighten Spell (to be able to use my lower level spells in higher level slots), but the game crashes whenever I try to do anything with those in the spell preparation screen. 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## KnowTheToe

How in the world do you read things in this game.  I have L's journal and a sheet of paper and I can't read it.


As far as when Nulb shows up on the map, (assuming good party) it is when you have been to the moathouse and then talk to Black Jay again.


----------



## Thanee

Use Item? I think it works like that. Drop the Journal on that Use Item button below the inventory.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Mort

*exit to main temple level?*

Ok stupid question. (there are spoilers in the actual question re: the 2nd temple level sorry).





I’m on the temple's second level and want to get back to the main level. I’ve found 3 stairs to the 3rd level, but can’t seem to find the exit back (this is actually pretty stupid because I freed the elves and told them how to get out, but I can’s seem to find the way myself).  So, where, exactly is the way back to the main temple level?

thanks


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

Mort said:
			
		

> Ok stupid question. (there are spoilers in the actual question re: the 2nd temple level sorry).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I’m on the temple's second level and want to get back to the main level. I’ve found 3 stairs to the 3rd level, but can’t seem to find the exit back (this is actually pretty stupid because I freed the elves and told them how to get out, but I can’s seem to find the way myself).  So, where, exactly is the way back to the main temple level?
> 
> thanks



ANy one else having a problem Reading some people post? it is almost as if some one is editing, peoples responses.
Ken


----------



## DM2

Joseph Elric Smith said:
			
		

> ANy one else having a problem Reading some people post? it is almost as if some one is editing, peoples responses.
> Ken




Its the 'spoiler' tag the board has as a vB code option.

People put the spoiler tags around a section of text that contains spoilers, and it makes it appear totally black.  If you want to see the hidden text, you drag your mouse across it, and the actual text shows up as a highlight.

Later,

DM2


----------



## DM2

I just picked up the game last week, and even with the few hours I've managed to deveote to it, I love the game.

It is a dream for anyone who really enjoys the strategic battle aspect of D&D.  Heck, I guess thats pretty much the whole rules forum on these boards 

My party:

f human Cleric of St. Cuthbert 2
m human Fighter 2 (longspear, cleave, combat reflexes, yaaa)
m gnome Druid 2
m elven Rogue 2
f human wizard 2

Hardly an ideal party, but I'm really surprised at how well good tactics and judicious use of spells can win battles for me, even venturing into the moathouse.

Very nice to be able to construct a suboptimal party and have every member shine ...


After reading this thread (at work, all 8 pages, today) I'll definitely install the co8 patch tonight as well, though I am a bit worried about what happens in 2 months when I need to uninstall it to install the official one.....
DM2


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

DM2 said:
			
		

> Its the 'spoiler' tag the board has as a vB code option.
> 
> People put the spoiler tags around a section of text that contains spoilers, and it makes it appear totally black.  If you want to see the hidden text, you drag your mouse across it, and the actual text shows up as a highlight.
> 
> Later,
> 
> DM2



thanks a lot, I was a bit confused,but then again that happens easily to me.
ken 
who is looking forward to christmas this year.


----------



## DM2

On Druids..anyone know if they correctly implemented gaining the wildshaped creature's natural attack routine?

i.e.  Will my gnome druid get a claw/claw/bite routine when he can turn into a black or brown bear?

Good to know before banking on it for the first 5 levels.

DM2


----------



## Thanee

I thought about adding one reach weapon to my party (my Barbarian already learned Combat Reflexes, as I didn't know what else to choose . But he's quite happy with his new Greatsword, and since I have the same problem as Mort and can't get out of the temple, I won't have the chance to buy a reach weapon (and couldn't find one there yet)... 

Did anyone else find this "Great Cleaver" !? Now that's one nasty weapon... seems to be martial and one-handed... 1d10 damage with 17-20/x3 crit!!! 

I really hate, that there is ZERO description of the magic items, tho... no clue what to do with some of those or what their powers are... (like Lareth's Staff of Striking or Robe of Entanglement, or some belt, there isn't even a slot for belts).

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

Just for the record, my (now 7th level party) consists of...

Half-Orc Barbarian 6/Fighter 1 (Greatsword) +16 attack _un_-buffed 
Human Ranger 6/Barbarian 1 (Twin Maces)
Halfling Rogue 5/Ranger 2 (Twin Daggers)
Elven Cleric 7 (Longbow or Longsword)
Human Sorcerer 7 (who has learned Heighten Spell, which is unusable due to always crashing the game )

NPCs: Spugnoir (who is a 7th level wizard with zero 3rd or 4th level spells, as he doesn't seem to learn any new ones!  He only ever casts Read Magic, Magic Missile and Cat's Grace for me, doh! He could be sooo useful...)

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Hypersmurf

Thanee said:
			
		

> I really hate, that there is ZERO description of the magic items, tho... no clue what to do with some of those or what their powers are... (like Lareth's Staff of Striking or Robe of Entanglement, or some belt, there isn't even a slot for belts).




From memory, Lareth's staff doesn't actually radiate magic.

I'm guessing maybe the belt is a quest item of some sort?

I've also got a "Sealed Letter" that I found on one of the temple priests after killing him that there doesn't seem to be any way to open or read... I'm wondering if that was a quest item as well.  Maybe if I'd Diplomacied him instead of obliterating him, he'd have told me to give it to someone...

-Hyp.


----------



## Hypersmurf

Thanee said:
			
		

> Human Sorcerer 7 (who has learned Heighten Spell, which is unusable due to always crashing the game )




I haven't tried this myself yet, but I understand that the Metamagic bug is that when you point at the feat, it tries to display the feat description... and if that description is longer than 210 characters, the game crashes.

There is an edited version of the feat file here: http://www.kasec.org/feat.mes 

The suggestion is that you copy it over the current file feat.mes (you'd need to have a hunt to figure out which directory it's in) - all the descriptions in this version are less than 210 characters.

Like I say, I haven't gotten around to doing this myself yet, so if you try it and your computer blows up, it's not my fault 

-Hyp.


----------



## KenM

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> I've also got a "Sealed Letter" that I found on one of the temple priests after killing him that there doesn't seem to be any way to open or read... I'm wondering if that was a quest item as well.  Maybe if I'd Diplomacied him instead of obliterating him, he'd have told me to give it to someone...
> 
> -Hyp.





  Yes, the sealed letter is a quest item. The priest you kill gives you the quest. I killed him as well. Got the letter, there is NO WAY to open it.


----------



## Thanee

Thanks a lot, Hypersmurf! 

It's just a text file as it seems, so it can hardly blow my computer up! 

Gonna try this right away...

Oh, and Mort, I have found the way out now... if you are at the same place I was, then you have to get to the top left corner of the map, which contains a stair to the earth temple. There you find stairs up to the ground floor at the bottom of the map!

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> From memory, Lareth's staff doesn't actually radiate magic.




Well, not much in this game does, at least items do not (Detect Magic is kinda useless)... or do you mean those items that list as "magic longsword" for example, that they radiate magic?

The staff definitely is magical, and a +2 heavy mace ore somesuch it seems. And you can activate it to "set a charge", putting the setting on 0-3. Havn't tried yet, what this does (I guess some extra damage and draining charges so once those are used up the staff will be useless).

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Hypersmurf

Thanee said:
			
		

> Well, not much in this game does, at least items do not (Detect Magic is kinda useless)... or do you mean those items that list as "magic longsword" for example, that they radiate magic?




If you cast Detect Magic, and run your cursor over items in the inventory of the caster, certain of them have a tool-tip pop up that says "Magical".  (It doesn't work if you check anyone else's inventory.)

And I thought that Lareth's staff didn't show up as magical... but I'll have to have another look.

-Hyp.


----------



## TimSmith

*Circle of 8 patch*

Being in Britain, I couldn't get the game until a couple of days ago and I am desperate to play but am put off by all the bugs etc. So, my question is this- if I install the Cof8 patch, what happens when the official patch is released? Would I be better off teasing myself   and leaving the game in its box until the official patch is released, or should I devour it now in an orgy of self-gratification?

A lot of you seem to have enjoyed the game despite the problems, but I think endless crashes and so on would taint the experience for me.


----------



## Thanee

The patch seems to work fine (it also can be removed easily (havnt tried this, tho), and you can always un- and reinstall the game) and the link above by Hypersmurf also fixes another really annoying bug!

The game can be played in different ways, so you still can have fun once the official patch is out.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Hypersmurf

Be warned - the Co8 have noted that they've added a couple of items.  A couple of rods, some ioun stones, I think.  If you have those in your inventory in a save game and uninstall the Co8 patch, those save games won't load.

I think.

-Hyp.


----------



## diamud

Gregor said:
			
		

> The game needs a pretty beefy machine to play on the average graphic settings.  Right now, my machine is running at 2.0 Ghz, 512 Ram and a GeForce 4 MX (which sucks) and I am having to run the game just over 800 x 600 and without anti-aliasing.  Maybe its just my machine....  Im not sure if this helps you or not, but my bet would be that it is going to run really slow on your comp.  I definitely could be wrong though - someone with more computer expertise could probably better answer your question.
> 
> Cheers,




It's your graphics card that is holding you back.  I've got a 1.2 ghz machine, 512 ram, Geforce4 Ti4200, running at 1024X768 with AA wonderfully (exception when there is a ton of enemies on screen at once, then there is some slowdown)


----------



## Caliber

As a side note, the MX line of geForce's are meant for Office use, NOT gaming use, so they have those gaming aplications turned down a bit. Just FYI.


----------



## Olive

So will my athlon 1gig, 256 meg of ram machine with a Geforce Mx2 run it?


----------



## tburdett

Olive said:
			
		

> So will my athlon 1gig, 256 meg of ram machine with a Geforce Mx2 run it?



I have a fairly high-end system (2.8 Ghz Pentium 4, 1 Gigabyte DDR 400 RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro) and the game is still laggy at times.

For the past week I have been trying to keep the game from locking up in the Fire Node.  I finally found out yesterday that deleting all of the files in the /maps directory might fix this problem.  It worked for me.


----------



## DM2

For a great NPC to pick up ....

Spoiler blacked out below...drag mouse over it to see:



Spoiler



Pick up Otis as soon as Nulb is available.  My level 4 party went to Nulb.  We had Elmo (the dork), and then Otis joins.  Otis was freaking 10th level   Needless to say, we dropped Elmo at that point.

Anyone else pick him up early like that?



DM2


----------



## Olorin

DM2 said:
			
		

> For a great NPC to pick up ....
> 
> Spoiler blacked out below...drag mouse over it to see:
> 
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> Pick up Otis as soon as Nulb is available.  My level 4 party went to Nulb.  We had Elmo (the dork), and then Otis joins.  Otis was freaking 10th level   Needless to say, we dropped Elmo at that point.
> 
> Anyone else pick him up early like that?
> 
> 
> 
> DM2




Spoiler below:


Spoiler



Don't get too dependent on him though; as soon as you return to Nulb, he'll leave the party. Guess he just wanted a break from smithing


----------



## Pielorinho

Anyone check out www.pvponline.com today?  Hee hee hee!

Daniel


----------



## DM2

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Anyone check out www.pvponline.com today?  Hee hee hee!
> 
> Daniel




Yep.  Very funny.

On another note, I answered my own question on their druid wildshape implementation by hitting level 6 last night.

They've done some weird things in their implementation of it.

First, when you first get wildshape at lvl 5 you can only change into a wolf....I'm not sure why they didn't include other shapes like black bear, as the animals are certainly in the game...

Then at 6th you get brown bear (2 levels earlier than you get it in D&D).  However, the brown bear doesn't appear to give you reach, and you definitely don't get the natural attack progression.

Well, with natural spell, brown bear is still a great form for my normall 9 STR gnome druid, and he spends most of his time summoning black bears, calling lightning bolts, and producing flame anyway, but it is a bit dissapointing nonetheless.

FYI,

DM2


----------



## Dark Jezter

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Anyone check out www.pvponline.com today?  Hee hee hee!
> 
> Daniel




LOL!  Very funny.

I can't say that I've ever had a DM throw a fit at the table... although I did once witness a player throw a fit because his paladin got killed.  It was actually pretty funny.


----------



## Thanee

DM2 said:
			
		

> However, the brown bear doesn't appear to give you reach, ...




Reach isn't that great anyways... I gave my Barbarian (who learned Combat Reflexes, since I had no idea what else to choose after Power Attack and Cleave) a Longspear once, just to try, and maybe every third attacker entering the threatened area actually provokes an AoO!  Not really that great...

Bye
Thanee


----------



## DM2

Thanee said:
			
		

> Reach isn't that great anyways... I gave my Barbarian (who learned Combat Reflexes, since I had no idea what else to choose after Power Attack and Cleave) a Longspear once, just to try, and maybe every third attacker entering the threatened area actually provokes an AoO!  Not really that great...
> 
> Bye
> Thanee




I've actually found it very, very useful.  Every so often a combatant gets past without provoking, but most of the time it is dead on.

I have a lvl 6 fighter specialized in longspear with cleave, great cleave, combat reflexes, and he gets a *lot* of extra attacks from combatants that provoke (by moving, spellcasting, etc), and his reach means he always has plenty of opponents nearby to take advantage of any and all cleave opportunities.

Just my experience with it.

DM2


----------



## KenM

Thanee said:
			
		

> Reach isn't that great anyways... I gave my Barbarian (who learned Combat Reflexes, since I had no idea what else to choose after Power Attack and Cleave) a Longspear once, just to try, and maybe every third attacker entering the threatened area actually provokes an AoO!  Not really that great...
> 
> Bye
> Thanee




  One of my fighters in ToEE has spicked chain, reach is VERY useful to me. it gets better when the mage casts enlarge on him and the threat range is bigger.


----------



## Pielorinho

Brown bears don't get reach in 3.5 anyway:  most quadruped have less reach than a similarly-sized biped.  Check the monster creation rules in back for details.

But yeah -- due to some bug or another, my gnome druid's movement rate when wildshaped was 10, and he even moved much slower out of combat than anyone else.  Combined with his inability to use any ranged weapon (once I'd used all the bullets I bought in town), If he wasn't casting spells in combat, he wasn't doing anything at all.

Daniel


----------



## Thanee

DM2 said:
			
		

> I've actually found it very, very useful.  Every so often a combatant gets past without provoking, but most of the time it is dead on.




Well, I only tried it in a few combats, and can't say it was for me! 

But that's ok, with the cool Greatsword now my Barbarian is pretty good! 

Anyways... where in the game can you buy arcane scrolls?

Because I just recently found out, that my wizard NPC can actually get new spells (that you get from only having a Sorcerer in your party, I didn't really pay attention to the NPC's radial menu that much and missed that copy scroll option (which I had searched for earlier, but at the wrong place (feat page/spellbook)). 

In Nulb there was this shop near the brothel, right?
Any other places?

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:

 Burne in Hommlett has bunches of scrolls for sale and can scribe more for Spugnoir if he joins your group.  Hey, Sorcerors can scribe scrolls as long as they take the feat, right?  Another option for Spugnoir, then.

 Question: I don't remember, is it possible to see Spugnoir's Spellcraft skill?  That's what is used to determine if he can successfully scribe the scrolls he find (or is given and told to scribe) right?

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Thanee

Ah, right... will check out Burne then! 

I think you can see the Skills and Feats with those icons above the inventory.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## gfunk

I posted to this thread waaaaaaaaay back in the beginning.  That said, my initial enthusiasm for this game has faded in the face of numerous bugs.  Troika plans to have a patch out by Oct. 23rd.  I think I'll take a temporary hiatus from the game till then . . .


----------



## John Crichton

Just wanted to share...

http://pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20031017


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Just wanted to share...
> 
> http://pvponline.com/archive.php3?archive=20031017



Deja vu
Ken


----------



## DM2

Burne sells scrolls back in Hommlet.  Thats all I know of.

Oh, and if your cleric or druid have picked up scribe scroll, they can scribe scrolls of spells like bull's strength for your wizard.

The game doesn't differentiate between arcane and divine scrolls, so your wizard can copy them.

My favorite thing right now is crafting items.  My wizard has a number of wands (never just stands around in combat now...he's at least casting magic missiles).

Also, wands of identify only cost 300 GP, and those 50 identifications don't cost 100 each.

DM2


----------



## Thanee

Yeah, got some scrolls there and Spugnoir can do some more useful stuff now (he did learn some spells himself at higher levels, so he finally had spells in every level at 9th, previously he could basically only cast Magic Missile and Cat's Grace for me, altho he had free slots, then he learned Dispel Magic and later Ice Storm and Cone of Cold, now he has a better selection ).

Unfortunately, to be able to speak with Burne, I had to drop (and then kill, because he attacked me) my Hill Giant NPC, which I picked up in the temple. That one was quite cool. 

I have Craft Wondrous Items (Cleric, and as I noticed Spugnoir got that too) and Craft Magic Arms and Armor (Sorcerer), too bad I don't have both on the same caster, so I cannot craft Bracers of Archery, which would've been nice.

It's a huge difference with crafting your own items!

I noticed, however, that crafting arms and armor is buggy, a +3 weapon or armor is the same as +2. 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Liminal Syzygy

gfunk said:
			
		

> I posted to this thread waaaaaaaaay back in the beginning.  That said, my initial enthusiasm for this game has faded in the face of numerous bugs.  Troika plans to have a patch out by Oct. 23rd.  I think I'll take a temporary hiatus from the game till then . . .



Exactly what I've been doing...


----------



## DM2

Guess I've been lucky...few bugs here and there, but nothing game stopping.

I'm in the actual temple now, and loving it.

I am using the co8 patch though, which may be helping.

DM2


----------



## Bass Puppet

Picked up the game here yesterday (sale) and Fiddled a little bit till the patch comes out on the 23rd. I've just upgraded my system to a 2.4AMD with a ATI Radeon 9600 Pro 128mB AGP, 512 DDR 333 Memory and a M-Audio's Delta 1010LT Sound Card on a Windows 2000 Pro OS. The Music and Sound F/X are amazing. I look forward to diving into this game next week.


----------



## Jeremy

This thread's probably a little unwieldy for a question like this, I don't know who'll read through this many pages and notice a question, but hey, I can always post it again.  

After getting the golden skull of uber badness and consulting Burne, he's given me a way to destroy it and says that this is something that really needs to be done and I really want to do.

The instructions are great if I were playing D&D.  Unfortunately they are incredibly vauge if playing a CRPG.  Basically it's a hit it with the 4 elements thing.  I think I've got the earth hammer it wants, but I have no idea what to supply the water or air with, unless it was the gust of wind scroll that I already had Spugnoir scribe.  And the fire is supposed to be supplied by a powerful fire spell on a scroll.  What?  Flamestrike?  Fireball?

Anyone got more detailed information on how to do this?  I know it's not necessary to beat the game as the game is wonderfully flexible in the number of ways you can complete it, but I wanna break it!


----------



## hong

Argh. I'm in the moathouse, on level 3 (the crypt with the ghouls). I can dispose of the ghouls without too much trouble, but when I try to explore further, I get a consistent crash to desktop. It's happened four times so far, in almost exactly the same area.

Anyone else experiencing CTDs in the moathouse area? I've installed the Circle of 8's patch if that helps.

The Event Viewer (I'm running Windows XP Pro) also has the following message: "The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block." How do I figure out which device it means by \device\harddisk0\D -- is that the hard disk, and not the DVD drive or anything else? I'm hoping it's not really a bad sector on the HD. I've had no problems with it in the last 3 years, and it seems too much like a coincidence that it's crashing with this particular game.


----------



## dravot

hong said:
			
		

> Argh. I'm in the moathouse, on level 3 (the crypt with the ghouls). I can dispose of the ghouls without too much trouble, but when I try to explore further, I get a consistent crash to desktop. It's happened four times so far, in almost exactly the same area.



Semi-spoiler: The ghoul area has two entrances (or exits, I guess).  Can you get to the ghouls from the other direction?


----------



## Clumsy Bob

hong said:
			
		

> Argh. I'm in the moathouse, on level 3 (the crypt with the ghouls). I can dispose of the ghouls without too much trouble, but when I try to explore further, I get a consistent crash to desktop. It's happened four times so far, in almost exactly the same area.
> 
> Anyone else experiencing CTDs in the moathouse area? I've installed the Circle of 8's patch if that helps.
> QUOTE]
> 
> Although not in the area you are in I constantly experienced CTD's when I used a dagger of venom, every time the PC attacked the game crashed. Remedy, stopped using the dagger of venom.
> Did you change any equitment around after the ghouls? Or perhaps try using an earlier save of the game.
> Let us know how you get on.
> 
> Bob


----------



## Dreeble

Jeremy:



Spoiler



You're right that you needed that Gust of Wind scroll.  Unfortunately, you can't scribe a Gust of Wind scroll.  Unless a Circle of Eight patch fixed this (and they probably did fix it), or the official patch fixes it.



Good luck,
Dreeble


----------



## Jeremy

Thanks Dreeble!  GameFAQs actually had it listed what the components are but of course, I'm well past selling off one of them.  Ug.  And I can't scribe a scroll of fireball because my sorceress just hit level 9 and chose her last feat.  Well, I guess I could make level 10 a wizard level, but that seems a bit much.  

Anyone found a scroll of fireball anywhere?  I can cast it, but I need it in scroll format.


----------



## Aquila

Sigh, I was about 1/3 through the game in Ironman mode when I faced a near tpk, but managed to prevail and find 



Spoiler



Thrommel


 and make it out of the temple and back to Hommlet, only to get a crash to desktop, and corrupted save.  So much effort wasted.

btw 



Spoiler



It's a very good idea to have a Chaotic Good Elven fighter in your party, that specializes in Bastard or Great Sword


----------



## Dreeble

Jeremy:

 Maybe Burne knows Fireball?  If you can still recruit him, he could scribe it for ya.  Doesn't solve Gust of Wind, of course. 

[Edit: Oh, also, I never did this and am unsure how it works, but you could go to the Hommlet Inn, drop a PC, add a new Wizard PC, level the Wizard PC up to 5th, scribe Fireball, drop the Wizard, get the old PC back, good to go.  Except for Gust of Wind.]

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Jeremy

Actually, it's a very good idea to have a chaotic good warrior of any type not proficient in the greatsword or bastard sword who full power attacks, full expertises, and fights defensively all the time.  *nudge nudge wink wink*

That is assuming that Scather ever gets delivered.  *mutters*


----------



## John Crichton

Rather than start a new thread, I figured I ask here:  How buggy is this game?  I can't stand bugs and crashes.  Drives me away from PC gaming more than anything.  Should I buy this game or wait for more patches?


----------



## Dark Jezter

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Rather than start a new thread, I figured I ask here:  How buggy is this game?  I can't stand bugs and crashes.  Drives me away from PC gaming more than anything.  Should I buy this game or wait for more patches?




The unofficial patch has fixed many of the more annoying problems with the game.  There is an official patch due out before the end of the month as well that is supposed to fix several bugs and interface problems.

How much it crashes will probably depend mostly on your system.  I played through the entire game and it only crashed on me twice, but I've read reports from a few people who can't play for more than a few minutes without the game crashing.


----------



## John Crichton

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> The unofficial patch has fixed many of the more annoying problems with the game. There is an official patch due out before the end of the month as well that is supposed to fix several bugs and interface problems.
> 
> How much it crashes will probably depend mostly on your system. I played through the entire game and it only crashed on me twice, but I've read reports from a few people who can't play for more than a few minutes without the game crashing.



Hmmm, thanks for the info.  My system is pretty stable and it runs most popular games with relative ease.  I guess what I'm asking is - as a person who can't STAND crashes of any kind and is quickly frustrated with them (to the point of never playing the game again) would it be better to wait a few weeks to make a purchase.


----------



## Valavien

*Specs*

How well do you think it would run on a:

Duron 1300
384mb ram
Geforce MX440 64mb
SBlive


----------



## DM2

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Hmmm, thanks for the info.  My system is pretty stable and it runs most popular games with relative ease.  I guess what I'm asking is - as a person who can't STAND crashes of any kind and is quickly frustrated with them (to the point of never playing the game again) would it be better to wait a few weeks to make a purchase.




You should probably wait, given what you've said.  It will certainly crash on you here and there.

I'm a little more easy going about it...it crashed on me last night when I tried to use my 9th level wizard's new quicken spell feat, and I just shrugged and figured I wouldn't use that feat until the patch.

I can see how others would have more trouble.

Definitely avoid swearing off the game because of crashes, because it is a lot of fun, and the best implementation of D&D rules since the pool of radiance gold box series (the originals).

DM2


----------



## Li Shenron

*Temple of Elemental Evil*

A few days ago I saw on TV a program about reviews of PC games, and they reviewed Temple of Elemental Evil. I didn't understand much (can't still speak much of Finnish yet...   ), except that it got an average mark 8/10 and I got that the mark was lowered due to several engine bugs.

It looks like it's very similar to the Baldur's Gate series, which I quite liked. So, has anybody already played it through? I have no idea when it actually came out, so maybe someone might have already finished it!   

Is it based on 3.0 rules entirely or 3.5? What are any differences worth of note? I would be glad if it was either 3.0 or 3.5 compliant, but I guess there must be something twisted, like in Neverwinter Nights.

Are there any hard restrictions? For example, I am quite sure that Leadership doesn't exist, but what about familiars/animal companions?

One of the limits of BG's series was that too often there was just a way to open a door, get an item or kill a monster... despite the fact that 3rd edition rules offer countless of options in "live" RPGing. Does ToEE has this sadness still? For example, BG had some many times this kind of situation: a closed door to a secret room, but no way to open it even with a top-skilled rogue or with the most powerful spell, or to smash it with the strongest creature; no way, unless you go through the subplot and find the exact item that magically opens the door.


----------



## Darrin Drader

I have yet to play it, but it does use the actual 3.5 rules. I've heard some pretty good things about it and do plan to pick it up once the price falls a bit. I really don't feel like paying full price.

In regards to your other questions, I have only the following to say:


----------



## zorlag

*-*

3.5 rules, it's pretty good in that regard but too many bugs yet. Troika and mod group Circle of Eight are fixing them and if they do it successfully, I'll buy the game. Modders have added back some of the content (mainly evil stuff) that was removed because of WotC's request... 

Here's a link to official Atari board: http://www.ataricommunity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=286

Z.


----------



## Li Shenron

zorlag said:
			
		

> Modders have added back some of the content (mainly evil stuff) that was removed because of WotC's request...




Interesting, are you meaning they were removed for copyright issues? But I guess that the developers must have been in constant contact with WotC, otherwise how could they write the game with 3.5 rules before the rules were published?


----------



## ascendance

The funny thing is that I agree 100% with PVPOnline.  All the bugs just add to the experience.  Its like playing D&D with a killer DM with bad house rules who doesn't tell you about his house rules until its too late (i.e. your attempt to enchant that magic item to +3 fizzles, and you lose all the XP and the gold you invested.  Tough luck.  Or maybe... HOW THE BLOODY HECK IS A LEVEL 10 PARTY SUPPOSED TO FIGHT A CR24 MONSTER?!?!??!?!).


----------



## Dark Jezter

You know, there's a multi-page long ToEE discussion in the Software & Computers forum.  Head on over if you got a minute.


----------



## LightPhoenix

I agree with Dark Jezter, check of Software & Computers.

I for one didn't like the game at all, especially compared to the Baldur's Gate series, or Torment.  Just to add some dissent.


----------



## johnsemlak

Totally OT but this on the General Discussion Index, this thread was showing 6  replies and only 1 view.  Wierd.


----------



## green slime

There are lots of bugs. Those that I have seen, most of them are minor. It is also exemely good, inspite of the bugs.

I think it is better (so far) than the Baldur's Gate series, perhaps not quite as imersive as Torment. Torment was great.

The annoying bugs are simple things, that they must surely have seen during any form of playtesting, and they do lower the overall impression. For instance in Ironman mode, pressing "Save and Quit" on the game menue does nothing, while clicking on "Resume Game"... saves and quits! 

Another gripe of mine is the poor explanation of the interface. Some basic functions are pretty well hidden in the manual, and are not so intuitive. I had to search desperately in the manual for ten fifteen minutes to figure out how to level up! (click on the little yellow plus sign which appears in the character portrait!) Another thing I want to know is how to identify potions and scrolls without casting _identify_. I was hoping spellcraft checks or similar would take care of that.


----------



## Li Shenron

Dark Jezter said:
			
		

> You know, there's a multi-page long ToEE discussion in the Software & Computers forum.  Head on over if you got a minute.




Well, I didn't know   I probably hang around too much to the same few forums...

BTW, I have completely missed Torment, is it the same kind of game?


----------



## johnsemlak

Li Shenron said:
			
		

> Well, I didn't know   I probably hang around too much to the same few forums...
> 
> BTW, I have completely missed Torment, is it the same kind of game?



 Torment was a CRPG using the Baldur's Gate Engine set in the Plancescape setting.  So it's more comparible to Balder's Gate (2e Rules, for example).


----------



## Erekose

Planescape Torment was the business - by far the best CRPG so far!


----------



## green slime

Well, I purchased this game last week, And I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've encountered numerous small bugs, but no crashes yet. I have yet to get past the moathouse as I restarted in Ironman mode, and I'm back at the moathouse.

Halfway to 3rd level 

Human Paladin
Human Fighter (spiked Chain)
Human Cleric of Obadhai
Human Wizard
Halfling Rogue

My main complaints have been the lack of solid documentation. 

It shouldn't take 15 minutes of frustration to find out that you click on the tiny yellow plus sign that appeared above the character potrait to level.

Cure spells shouldn't be buried deep in the text far away from descriptions on spontaneous spellcasting.

I have yet to work out how to apply my metamagic feat to the spells.

The interface can be rather clunky at times: Selecting a spell to memorize can require several attempts to place a spell in a slot. Also as a specialist wizard, you need to re-memorize your specialty spells every time you level, as it is those slots which apparently become free each level.

In Ironman mode, the "Save and Quit" selection does nothing, while the "Return to Game" saves and quits!

I also experienced some strange calculation of Skill totals: at 3rd level , cross class skills only granted 2,5 ranks, inspite of having placed 6 skill points into those skills.


----------



## Fyrie

Erekose said:
			
		

> Planescape Torment was the business - by far the best CRPG so far!




I'll 2nd that opinion.


----------



## Joseph Elric Smith

green slime said:
			
		

> I also experienced some strange calculation of Skill totals: at 3rd level , cross class skills only granted 2,5 ranks, inspite of having placed 6 skill points into those skills.



I thought at 3rd level the highest a cross class skill could be was 2
Ken


----------



## Aulayan

Li Shenron said:
			
		

> Interesting, are you meaning they were removed for copyright issues? But I guess that the developers must have been in constant contact with WotC, otherwise how could they write the game with 3.5 rules before the rules were published?



 No, it wasn't due to copyright issues.  Hasbro had a set of restrictions that went above and beyond what the T Rating restricted.

Hasbro wanted it to be more family friendly, so alot of the evil stuff (evil dialogue options, brothel and some quests in Nulb, probably some stuff in the Temple) got cut.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

green slime said:
			
		

> Another thing I want to know is how to identify potions and scrolls without casting _identify_.




Try casting _read magic_ for scrolls (just like in PnP); if you have the Circle of Eight patch this works for both potions and scrolls.


----------



## Li Shenron

Aulayan said:
			
		

> No, it wasn't due to copyright issues.  Hasbro had a set of restrictions that went above and beyond what the T Rating restricted.
> 
> Hasbro wanted it to be more family friendly, so alot of the evil stuff (evil dialogue options, brothel and some quests in Nulb, probably some stuff in the Temple) got cut.




I see... quite interesting, I thought other games have been actually trying to increase that aspect to be more attractive to young customers


----------



## TimSmith

Joseph Elric Smith said:
			
		

> I thought at 3rd level the highest a cross class skill could be was 2
> Ken




AFAIK it should be 3 (4 skill points at lvl 1 and 1 each for 2nd and 3rd levels=6. Cross class is halved, so 3 points methinks).

Isn't there supposed to be an official patch out today?


----------



## Henry

Keep in mind that when ToEE was being created, it was written with 3.0 rules; they changed it to 3.5 mostly, but left a few things the same (Weapon Finesse, etc.)

I'll merge this thread and the other ToEE thread, since they're so close to topic.


----------



## Bass Puppet

I just checked out the atari website for the patch, so far nothing yet.

http://www.atarisupport.com/newfaq/...entalevil.php?browser=1&pageDisplay=DOWNLOADS

But the link above should be the place to get it. I also checked out Greyhawkgame.com for a patch too, still nothing. (http://www.greyhawkgame.com/downloads.php)

If they don't have the patch by next week, I'm downloading the Cirlce of Eights'.


----------



## green slime

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Try casting _read magic_ for scrolls (just like in PnP); if you have the Circle of Eight patch this works for both potions and scrolls.




Thanks for that tip! I spent most of yesterday reading the Circle of Eight and Atari Community web sites. 

Still haven't worked out how to apply those metamagic feats my wizard has taken. Any tips?

I find it quite frustrating reading through the AtariCommunities "Character Potrait" discussion to discover just how poorly this game was tested. Seriously why couldn't they wait ten weeks? Still would have made the Christmas sales period.

Circle of Eight have now resolved almost all play issues that I have with the game, within a few weeks. Quite pathetic, really.


----------



## Thanee

About Metamagic.

Get into the inventory screen, then open the spell screen (rightmost of the three icons above the inventory).

Left to the spells you find a little icon. Click there to enter the metamagic screen. Rest should be obvious.

1-2 pages back (edit: page 9, post 4 by Hypersmurf), there is a link to a file, that you want to download and replace the original with, as there is a really, really, really stupid bug with metamagic (read my earlier posts about metamagic and the replies for details).

And yes, it's really pathetic how they have so many horribly obvious bugs in the game, which are so easy to fix as it seems. Playtesting must have been very weak for that game, as some of the errors just can't slip by, if even two people play the game through only once.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

Li Shenron said:
			
		

> So, has anybody already played it through?




I'm about half-through I guess. There are plenty who have finished it already, tho.



			
				Li Shenron said:
			
		

> Is it based on 3.0 rules entirely or 3.5? What are any differences worth of note?




3.5 and the rules are quite well done. Of course there are differences, but they are not as numerous as with NWN.

Combat works pretty much like 3.5, altho you have to do some preparations (like assigning a key to 5' step). You can even do some of the special maneuvers, like tripping.



			
				Li Shenron said:
			
		

> Are there any hard restrictions? For example, I am quite sure that Leadership doesn't exist, but what about familiars/animal companions?




You have 5 PCs and up to 3 followers (hirelings, not from leadership). You can summon familiars (but they only work like items, sitting in the inventory and providing bonuses) and animal companions (which are actual creatures).



			
				Li Shenron said:
			
		

> One of the limits of BG's series was that too often there was just a way to open a door, get an item or kill a monster... despite the fact that 3rd edition rules offer countless of options in "live" RPGing. Does ToEE has this sadness still? For example, BG had some many times this kind of situation: a closed door to a secret room, but no way to open it even with a top-skilled rogue or with the most powerful spell, or to smash it with the strongest creature; no way, unless you go through the subplot and find the exact item that magically opens the door.




Well... this is the way computer games are...

You can only open a door by a predetermined set of ways. Often obstacles are done the way you describe to have quests work.

It's not too bad, tho. Still there are many limits, like you cannot force open doors by strength, but actually have to use open lock or knock.

In the end, it's still just a computer game, not a roleplaying game with the level of interaction that makes it fun!

The game is still quite enjoyable, once you have the Co8 patch (or an official patch comes out), as some of the bugs are hard to bear, really.

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Grog

I have a question. I don't have the game yet, but I'll be getting it soon, and I was considering making a fighter with a reach weapon and Improved Trip. My question is, when you get an AoO, do you just automatically attack, or do you get to choose the type of attack? i.e., can you trip as an AoO?


----------



## Henry

SPOILERS:
I'm already down to the bottom level of the temple.


Spoiler



I'm playing the elemental Nodes now, looking for the skull-gems. GOOD GOD, HOW DO THEY EXPECT YOU TO BEAT A BALOR!?!?!?!
The thing has a +27 save bonus versus Dismissal, and About 600 hit points!?!?! It was tough enough using dismissal on the Hezrou in the Water Node, but I made it work.



All I can say is, whoever came up with those end-monsters screwed up big time. They nowhere near follow the book specs.


----------



## Dark Jezter

Henry said:
			
		

> SPOILERS:
> I'm already down to the bottom level of the temple.
> 
> 
> Spoiler
> 
> 
> 
> I'm playing the elemental Nodes now, looking for the skull-gems. GOOD GOD, HOW DO THEY EXPECT YOU TO BEAT A BALOR!?!?!?!
> The thing has a +27 save bonus versus Dismissal, and About 600 hit points!?!?! It was tough enough using dismissal on the Hezrou in the Water Node, but I made it work.
> 
> 
> 
> All I can say is, whoever came up with those end-monsters screwed up big time. They nowhere near follow the book specs.





Did you know that you can 



Spoiler



use the Orb of Golden Death (the skull that you place the elemental gems into) as an item?  If you've already cleared all the other nodes, you can use it to summon a vrock, a glabrezu, and a hezrou to help you.  When you beat the balor, you'll get its elemental gem and the ability to summon it using the orb of golden death, which will come in handy during the final battle.

Strangely enough, though, the first time I fought the Balor, I successfully managed to cast dismissal on it.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Grog said:
			
		

> I have a question. I don't have the game yet, but I'll be getting it soon, and I was considering making a fighter with a reach weapon and Improved Trip. My question is, when you get an AoO, do you just automatically attack, or do you get to choose the type of attack? i.e., can you trip as an AoO?




AoO's are automatic attacks.  You can't choose to trip as an AoO.  Improved Trip (particularly with a reach weapon) is still worth it, though.


----------



## Grog

Okay, I downloaded the game of Kazza (the legal version with the 6 hour free trial) and I've been playing it a bit, and I have another AoO question. I made a fighter with the Combat Reflexes feat and gave him a glaive (10' reach weapon). Problem is, he never seems to get AoOs on enemies that close with him. Is there some option I need to set somewhere? I can't tell if I'm doing something wrong or if I've just run afoul of a bug.

Any help would be appreciated.


----------



## JamesL85

Grog said:
			
		

> Okay, I downloaded the game of Kazza (the legal version with the 6 hour free trial) and I've been playing it a bit, and I have another AoO question. I made a fighter with the Combat Reflexes feat and gave him a glaive (10' reach weapon). Problem is, he never seems to get AoOs on enemies that close with him. Is there some option I need to set somewhere? I can't tell if I'm doing something wrong or if I've just run afoul of a bug.
> 
> Any help would be appreciated.




This has been an argumentative point in our group more than once.

The way I remember it (as far as 3.0 is concerned) is that a weapon with a 10' reach does not threaten adjacent squares (squares that are 5' from PC's), but I thought that this point might have changed in 3.5.  I DO know that the "spiked chain" DOES threaten adjacent squares and is the weapon of choice for fighters with Combat Reflexes......

Other than that.....I've been absolutely no help whatsoever......


----------



## Hypersmurf

Well, I've certainly found that Reach weapons get to make a bunch of AoOs (I've got Otis, Elmo, and an Improved-Trip Fighter all using Glaives, and a Ranger/Rogue with a longspear).  Especially if you trip someone - they automatically stand on their initiative, so all those reach weapons are almost bound to get a free whack.

However, something I've noticed with ettins, ogres, and trolls - if I try to move past them, or make any sort of movement within their threatened area, I get the little AoO Warning icon... but if I'm outside their area and do a straight-line move-up-and-attack, they don't get the AoO for when I move from 10' to 5'.

Maybe that's your Glavier's problem - the enemies are exploiting that same weirdness in the reach behaviour?

-Hyp.


----------



## Hypersmurf

JamesL85 said:
			
		

> The way I remember it (as far as 3.0 is concerned) is that a weapon with a 10' reach does not threaten adjacent squares (squares that are 5' from PC's), but I thought that this point might have changed in 3.5.  I DO know that the "spiked chain" DOES threaten adjacent squares and is the weapon of choice for fighters with Combat Reflexes......




It's the same in 3.5; it's _not_ the same in ToEE.  They didn't implement donut reach, which means that the Spiked Chain _isn't_ the weapon of choice, it's the Glaive.  Better damage than the longspear, guisarme, or spiked chain, and its two disadvantages - can't use it to trip, and can't use it a 5' range - don't exist in the computer game.  

You can trip _or_ attack at 5' or 10' with a glaive in ToEE, but it still has the good damage that normally balances out those problems.

-Hyp.


----------



## Grog

Hypersmurf said:
			
		

> However, something I've noticed with ettins, ogres, and trolls - if I try to move past them, or make any sort of movement within their threatened area, I get the little AoO Warning icon... but if I'm outside their area and do a straight-line move-up-and-attack, they don't get the AoO for when I move from 10' to 5'.
> 
> Maybe that's your Glavier's problem - the enemies are exploiting that same weirdness in the reach behaviour?




Could be. The "wierdness in reach behavior" sounds like a bug, IMO. By the rules, I should get an AoO when they close from 10' to 5', but I don't.

Oh, and I apologize if this has been asked before, but has anyone else had the problem of the mouse pointer moving really slowly? I set the speed to 4 because I heard setting 5 was bugged, but it's still annoyingly slow. Is there anything I can do to fix it, or do I have to wait for the patch?


----------



## Hypersmurf

Grog said:
			
		

> Could be. The "wierdness in reach behavior" sounds like a bug, IMO. By the rules, I should get an AoO when they close from 10' to 5', but I don't.




Oh, I agree.  And tripping with Glaives and inclusive reach is wrong as well.

On balance, you're getting a more powerful weapon out of it, but ultimately I'd prefer to have it rules-accurate.

-Hyp.


----------



## Dreeble

*Tony Stark*

Heya:

 This continuing thread caused me to finally give Ironman mode a whack.  It's TONS of fun.  Way, way, way back in the thread I posted that I hoped the game would be designed to be challenging, requiring that "20% resource usage in equal CR encounter" thingy.  Somebody, possibly Hypersmurf, suggested Ironman mode.  Whoever was absolutely correct.  I was making scrolls right and left, using Sleep constantly, carefully choosing which fights to go to and which not to (Imerdys Run, for example, was avoid until I had three fireball slingers, heh).

 Sadly, after rescuing the Prince and heading back to Hommlet, I got a permacrash.  Darn.  If the official patch (oh, yeah, I was playing Co8, very nice) can fix this sort of bug, I'll give Ironman another shot.  I have my doubts, though, since this seems like it might be a bit tricky.  On the other hand, I was trying to get both Fragglerock and Scather, so maybe that contributed.

 Minor note: Seems like Ice Storm can't be Scribed.  Also, my PC Wizard could Scribe Neutralize Poison for some reason.

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## TimSmith

Dreeble said:
			
		

> Heya:
> 
> This continuing thread caused me to finally give Ironman mode a whack.  It's TONS of fun.  Way, way, way back in the thread I posted that I hoped the game would be designed to be challenging, requiring that "20% resource usage in equal CR encounter" thingy.  Somebody, possibly Hypersmurf, suggested Ironman mode.  Whoever was absolutely correct.  I was making scrolls right and left, using Sleep constantly, carefully choosing which fights to go to and which not to (Imerdys Run, for example, was avoid until I had three fireball slingers, heh).
> 
> Take care,
> Dreeble




Is Ironman more difficult in itself, then? I thought it was just that you couldn't do the old "try it, die, reload" routine.


----------



## Dreeble

TimSmith said:
			
		

> Is Ironman more difficult in itself, then? I thought it was just that you couldn't do the old "try it, die, reload" routine.




Heya:

 Except for starting with 0 gold instead of 500, that's right.  For example: your fighter rolled a 1 for hps?  Bummer.  You failed to scribe that fireball?  Bummer.  (Might be possible to try rescribing once Spellcraft improves, but I doubt it).  Elmo died and you freaked out and forgot that you had a scroll of Raise Dead so you went to go buy one but when you got back the corpse was gone and there was just a pile of Elmo's equipment and _then_ you saw the Raise Dead scroll and slapped yourself?  Bummer.

 When playing in Ironman, I found myself casting Bless before every fight, using Bull's Strength, making and using lots of scrolls.  Cool stuff.  All because I knew that a TPK really was a TPK.  Plus, the exp loss on death just hurts painfully.  At least in PnP, the DM can fudge some rolls and go soft. 

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Thanee

Dreeble said:
			
		

> You failed to scribe that fireball?  Bummer.  (Might be possible to try rescribing once Spellcraft improves, but I doubt it).




You can rescribe it once you failed another scroll (looks like the memory for failed attempts is rather limited ). So, basically just have a bunch of crap scrolls on you to scribe only if you fail an important one, until you fail one, and then you can retry! 



> Elmo died and you freaked out and forgot that you had a scroll of Raise Dead so you went to go buy one but when you got back the corpse was gone and there was just a pile of Elmo's equipment and _then_ you saw the Raise Dead scroll and slapped yourself?  Bummer.




You are going to raise that drunken fool? 

Bye
Thanee


----------



## Thanee

I'm going to start Ironman after I'm through the first time and the official patch is out. 

I can only hope that there won't be many serious crashes then... that could quickly spoil the fun...

Bye
Thanee

P.S. About the slowdown of the mouse... sometimes the game freezes completely when scrolling (usually in fairly large levels) for a while before continueing.


----------



## TimSmith

Dreeble said:
			
		

> Heya:
> 
> Except for starting with 0 gold instead of 500, that's right.  For example: your fighter rolled a 1 for hps?  Bummer.  You failed to scribe that fireball?  Bummer.  (Might be possible to try rescribing once Spellcraft improves, but I doubt it).  Elmo died and you freaked out and forgot that you had a scroll of Raise Dead so you went to go buy one but when you got back the corpse was gone and there was just a pile of Elmo's equipment and _then_ you saw the Raise Dead scroll and slapped yourself?  Bummer.
> 
> When playing in Ironman, I found myself casting Bless before every fight, using Bull's Strength, making and using lots of scrolls.  Cool stuff.  All because I knew that a TPK really was a TPK.  Plus, the exp loss on death just hurts painfully.  At least in PnP, the DM can fudge some rolls and go soft.
> 
> Take care,
> Dreeble




It sounds like its a real "seat of your pants" experience. I tend not to reload in the case of bad hit points and failed scroll scribes anyway, but I take your point about -ups which happen because you get distracted and don't have a friendly DM to remind you. And of course the computer is merciless as a DM. 

I would like to try Ironman, but daren't because I understand from these boards that a crash could permanently finish your game. (Also, I am not getting much time to play solidly due to my young family, so I reckoned I might have too many irretrievable cockups due to distraction!)

I am only on my first run-through and have just cleared the top floor of the moathouse, retreating to Hommlett to level up to two and to rest to recover from poisonous bites. As a result, I am not experienced in the game as yet and I might be regretting my "honest" approach to hit points etc. later on! If I remember the original module correctly, there is a certain critter called Lubash waiting to show me the meaning of humility on the next level down...

Speaking of the moathouse section, did everyone else find secret doors with a DC of zero? I suppose this is another bug (sigh).


----------



## TimSmith

Thanee said:
			
		

> I'm going to start Ironman after I'm through the first time and the official patch is out.
> 
> I can only hope that there won't be many serious crashes then... that could quickly spoil the fun...
> 
> Bye
> Thanee
> 
> P.S. About the slowdown of the mouse... sometimes the game freezes completely when scrolling (usually in fairly large levels) for a while before continueing.




Sounds like the best plan. As for the mouse, I seem to get a slow mouse even when moving it on the current screen. It might be more accurate to describe it as having inertia, because it starts moving after I move the physical mouse and stops moving after I have already stopped. Its a bit annoying but not the be all and end all. (I think the developers at Troika say its happening to people who have their mice set faster than the midpoint usually, but I'm no expert).

On a gameplay related note- I get the impression that if I see enemies and don't hit "C" in order to initiate combat, then when they finally see me they usually get the drop on me (including my previously successfully sneaking scouts-grrr!!). BUT if I arrange everyone where i want and manage not to put my clumsy guys too close, then hit "C," I can ambush them instead. Having got mugged by hiding bandits (in the courtyard of the moathouse) in the former situation, I reloaded and tried it the second way with great success. It seemed to happen with the rats in the next room too. Is this how others have experienced it, too?  (And by the way, how do i put spoiler blackouts in my post?)


----------



## Dreeble

Thanee said:
			
		

> You can rescribe it once you failed another scroll (looks like the memory for failed attempts is rather limited ). So, basically just have a bunch of crap scrolls on you to scribe only if you fail an important one, until you fail one, and then you can retry!




Heya:

 Wow, that's very good to know!  {SPOILER}Stuff{/SPOILER} with [ and ] instead is for spoilers I think.  SPOILER=COLOR for color, right?  After my first playthrough, I stopped attacking those rats since they seemed to be the primary source of disease in the entire game.   Lastly, not rerolling for hps, etc. is entirely possible since people (lucky people) have completed the game on Ironman mode.  Another spell that I think can't be scribe is Melf's Acid Arrow.  Once the official patch comes out (supposedly end of this month, so next few days) I'll wait to see if it resolves the permacrash issues.  If it (mostly) does, I'll give Ironman another shot.  Especially since I've confirmed for myself that getting both Fragglerock and Scather at the same time is doable.  Heh.

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Aquila

I've had two late game Ironman save destroyed by crashes, one of them was the same rescue-thrommel-return-to-hommlet crash that Dreeble mentioned.

I've pretty much played out the game, and feel that unless the patch adds something pretty special I'm done with it (where is the patch btw, lol)


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:



			
				Aquila said:
			
		

> I've had two late game Ironman save destroyed by crashes, one of them was the same rescue-thrommel-return-to-hommlet crash that Dreeble mentioned.
> 
> I've pretty much played out the game, and feel that unless the patch adds something pretty special I'm done with it (where is the patch btw, lol)




 Although I don't _think_ the official patch is out yet, there was a description of what was sposta be in it, including preventing crashes caused by going from location to location.  If this is for real, then I'll definitely try one more Ironman game.  _Then_ I'll be done with the game.

 Unless Circle of Eight figures out how to make new dungeons, add creatures, add quests, etc. 

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## KenM

Atari said the patch would be out by end of October, nothing yet. They have a few more hours. Also, the offical Atari fourms are down, been down for a few days. I think its pretty convenent that the fourms are down when the patch is due.


----------



## Grog

KenM said:
			
		

> Atari said the patch would be out by end of October, nothing yet. They have a few more hours. Also, the offical Atari fourms are down, been down for a few days. I think its pretty convenent that the fourms are down when the patch is due.




Seriously. I am all for them getting the patch right the first time, but this is getting really annoying. Many games are patched within the first week of release. They have had well over a month now and still nothing. I'll definitely think twice about buying any Troika/Atari games in the future.


----------



## Aulayan

I blame Atari for this.  Troika wanted another month, Atari didn't give it to them.
Troika was having a couple team members working on a patch, and they had to say online that it may never get released cause it was unknown if Atari was going to hire them to do it.  (So they were basically working on it for free at the time).  It is now, supposedly, in Atari's hands for QA, and who knows how long Atari will bottleneck it.


----------



## Grog

Aulayan said:
			
		

> I blame Atari for this.  Troika wanted another month, Atari didn't give it to them.




We'll probably never know exactly what went on, but I wouldn't be so quick to blame Atari. The process could have gone something like this:

Atari rep: "So, you can have the game ready in 18 months, then?"
Troika rep: "Yep, 18 months."

18 months later

Atari rep: "Okay, where's the game?"
Troika rep: "Um... It's not quite done yet."
Atari rep: "What do you mean, it's not quite done yet? We've staked a significant amount of money on it being done at the time you agreed to."

Troika agreed to the 18 month schedule. They didn't deliver. If 18 months wasn't enough time, it was Troika's responsibility to say "18 months is not enough time."

Now, I do agree that Atari shouldn't have released the game in the sorry state it's in, but I don't think we can call Troika totally blameless here.


----------



## KenM

Atari made a statement saying an offical patch was coming, and would be come by end of October. There is even a list of some of the fixes at the ToEE site. Has anyone been able to get to the Atari fourms? Been down for a few days.


----------



## zero skill LPB

*atari forums back up*

Patch delayed.

New word on patch due Monday 11/3.


----------



## Olive

Is there a demo yet?


----------



## TimSmith

Olive said:
			
		

> Is there a demo yet?




I believe you can get one through Kazaa file sharing. (Totally legitimately, in case you are throwing your hands up in righteous horror   )

So far I have not had any game destroying crashes, but I am using the Circle of 8 patch. I would definitely recommend the game, although it can be pretty lethal. I would hesitate to try ironman in case you accidentally do something you didn't mean to due to it being a CRPG.

As an example of both points above, without giving any specifics away, my scout managed to check out a room which turned out to be a guardroom with about 6 gnolls and 2 ogres in it (approx EL 7 ????). Now, my guys are level3 so I had no intention of taking them on until either resting and preparing or hiring some beefy help. Unfortunately as I passed the other door to their room the AI pathfinding decided that one of my people should run through that door to try and find a quicker way round... Cue Total Party Kill in short order. This was made worse because the "C" command to exit combat only works if you can get miles away (or maybe its because you have unconscious guys near the monsters?) and running to the exit doesn't let you flee either for some strange reason. So, on ironman you would have had to restart the game if you either stumbled carelessly into the room OR if the pathfinding betrayed you. Nasty.

The game can even teach you things about the rules. A few times I have thought "that's not right, I should've hit" or whatever. If you click on the dice roll info to tell you what was rolled and then click on the totals rolled, the game will give you a detailed breakdown of all the modifiers etc. Each time, I have been reminded of the modifier I forgot. 

The interface is a bit clunky but the radial menus are good. Its also a bit difficult to select the right corpse or PC on the play screen as things can get a bit cluttered. This tends to lead to the development of a pigeon chest as one leans close to the screen in an effort to discern the right moment to click on the rugby scrum of bodies!

This game could have been perfect, which is a shame, but its still good and well worth buying, IMO.


----------



## BVB

After skipping around through 13 pages of messages on this thread, I may have missed what I'm seeking. If so, I apologize for repetition. 

The implementation of the rules and character progression sound delightful, but on behalf of my wife I have to ask: Are there any decent character interaction developments, ala the Baldur's series? She's STILL dabbling in the fan fiction for that game; she likes the variable options for romance, intrigue, etc.  Sounds like RttToEE is going to leave her a little cold.


----------



## Henry

Hi, BVB!

Temple OEE has a few, but comparing them to Baldur's Gate is comparing Night and Day. I don't know if you ever got to read or play the original Temple of Elemental Evil, but it follows it pretty religiously, and only throws in a few extra plot elements. 

The Engine is FANTASTIC! But the plot elements compared to, say, Baldur's Gate, or EVEN Icewind Dale 2, will likely disappoint.


----------



## TimSmith

BVB said:
			
		

> After skipping around through 13 pages of messages on this thread, I may have missed what I'm seeking. If so, I apologize for repetition.
> 
> The implementation of the rules and character progression sound delightful, but on behalf of my wife I have to ask: Are there any decent character interaction developments, ala the Baldur's series? She's STILL dabbling in the fan fiction for that game; she likes the variable options for romance, intrigue, etc.  Sounds like RttToEE is going to leave her a little cold.




Definitely agree with Henry on this. Not much roleplaying but more "roll" playing. With a few exceptions its a straight dungeon crawl/combat tactics affair.

I am not too far through but it is the original Pen & Paper Temple (which relied on the DM to put their own spin on any role playing or plot interactions, merely providing the backdrop). There seem to be more story routes in Hommlett (the starting village) than in the original, but these seem to depend on having a character with the right skills in many cases (not 100% sure on this-others may know more).


----------



## Hecateus

I recently downloaded the Demo, but I am having serious difficulty.

The installation failed in miod install.  My antivirus program (command Antivirus, fully updated too) is conviced the ttoe.exe file is a possible unknown virus. I cannot delete the one file it created.



Not sure what to do about this, just eMailed Atari, but I don't expect a response soon.

Anyone else having problems?


----------



## LightPhoenix

Hecateus said:
			
		

> The installation failed in miod install. My antivirus program (command Antivirus, fully updated too) is conviced the ttoe.exe file is a possible unknown virus. I cannot delete the one file it created.



Where did you download the demo from?


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

The ToEE Patch is now available (download the 9 MB file to your ToEE directory). It fixes a whole bunch of stuff:

Patch Fixes: 

[quests] 
--- 
* Mona orb quest fixed so that she will always recognize and accept the orb's return to complete her quest. 
* Romag now recognizes when you return to him if while doing his quest Rentsch is killed. 
* Pishella's dialog updated so that she consistently says the PC's have four days to destroy Zuggtmoy after the skull is destroyed. 
* Can no longer tell Hedrack that Scorpp has been killed to get to the end game if Scorpp is NOT dead. 
* Can no longer offer Skole's violet garnet to Lodriss if Skole's quest is just mentioned and you do not have the garnet. 
* Antonio will allow you to place dice with him again if you are doing quests for Alrrem and exit the dialog the first time you play without winning. 
* Belsornig now marks the Oohlgrist quest as botched if you kill the troll or have already convinced him to join Alrrem 
* Poison vial from Belsornig must be left in Alrrem to complete the quest (you can no longer just insert it and then remove it) 
* Rannos Davl will now continue the Chaotic Evil vignette conversation with the player after the moathouse has been cleared. 
--- 

[spells] 
--- 
* produce flame can no longer be cast multiple times in the first round it is cast. 
* touch attack spells no longer allow infinite actions in the first round they are cast. 
* magic weapon, greater magic weapon, magic vestment, and keen edge are no longer permanent. 
* animate dead now makes the target corpse drop all of its inventory before creating the specified undead creature. 
* protection from evil/etc now correctly only applies invulnerability against summoned/conjured creatures of the appropriate alignment (note: elementals are not subject to this effect unless they are themselves summoned/conjured). 
* magic circle against evil/etc now correctly only applies invulnerability against summoned/conjured creatures of the appropriate alignment (note: elementals are not subject to this effect unless they are themselves summoned/conjured). 
* Haste now correctly gives a bonus attack with the primary weapon at the highest base attack bonus for a full attack. 
* the same character can no longer be targeted more than once for Haste (which originally allowed the Haste bonuses to stack multiple times). 
* the same character can no longer be targeted more than once for Slow (which originally allowed the Slow penalties to stack multiple times). 
* break free is now possible with the entangle spell. 
* dismiss spell now works properly with the entangle spell. 
* spike stones (damaged state) now correctly responds to the Heal skill or a cure spell. 
* spike stones/spike growth now damage a character after movement, rather than before (which would keep a character from moving at all in the spell's radius). 
* "spell cast" signal is now properly relayed to all spell targets. 
* "break free" now properly relays the correct spell ID. 
* "dismiss spells" now properly relays signal to all spell targets. 
* touch spells that are held as charges now properly remove themselves when the character casts another spell. 
* entangle no longer spawns multiple area effect particle systems. 
* softer earth and stone is no longer permanent. 
* spike stones/spike growth play sound f/x correctly. 
* burning hands is now correctly listed as an Evocation spell. 
* see invisibile is now correctly listed as a Domain Knowledge Level 2 spell. 
* discern lies is now correctly listed as a Domain Knowledge Level 4 spell. 
* spike growth is now correctly listed as a Domain Plant Level 3 spell. 
* spike stones has been moved to a Domain Plant Level 4 spell. 
* blur is now correctly listed as a Domain Protection Level 2 spell. 
* enlarge is now correctly listed as a Domain Strength Level 1 spell. 
* endure elements was incorrectly listed as a Domain Strength Level 1 spell. 
* endurance is now correctly listed as a Domain Travel Level 2 spell. 
* haste is now correctly listed as a Domain Travel Level 3 spell. 
* hide from undead is now correctly listed as a Domain Trickery Level 1 spell. 
* suggestion is now correctly listed as a Domain Trickery Level 3 spell. 
* mind fog is now correctly listed as a Domain Trickery Level 5 spell. 
* sleet storm is now correctly listed as a Domain Water Level 3 spell. 
* death ward now properly protects against Death spells (e.g. Slay Living) 
* darkvision has been removed as a learnable spell. 
* fixed, spell 522 (Wall of Fire) was incorrectly mapped to Glibness. 
* spiritual weapon is no longer affected by adverse spell effects, such as Web. 
* spiritual weapon no longer deals holy/unholy damage. 
* fixed circle of doom, cure critical wounds, cure light wounds, cure moderate wounds, cure serious wounds, and cure light wounds, mass to use correct caster level check. 
* fixed inflict critical wounds, inflict light wounds, inflict moderate wounds, inflict serious wounds, and inflict light wounds, mass to use correct caster level check. 
* fixed slay living to use correct caster level check. 
* divine favor now properly applies its bonus to damage rolls. 
* true strike now properly set as a Verbal spell only. 
* dismissal DC check now correct. typo in 3.5 manual-in-progress. 
* cloudkill now correctly checks spell resistance before applying it's effects. 
* fixed several issues of Poison damage/effects from spells versus immunities to poison. 
* fixed a spell resistance check in the spell module. 
* vrock spore attack now properly checks against Poison immunity. 
* goodberry now heals 1 point of non-lethal damage also. 
* call lightning now correctly reduces duration by 10 rounds per use. 
* flame strike now correctly observes evasion/improved evasion when dealing the secondary DIVINE damage. 
* spells that were previously being incorrectly reduced by Damage Reduction now deal "MAGIC" type damage, which will not be reduced by DR. 
* Conjuration spells that previously were subject to Spell Resistance in 3.0 are now NOT subject to SR as in 3.5. 
* Resist Energy no longer removes itself after absorbing damage, and should now absorb the correct amount of damage based on caster level. 
* Protection From (Alignment) and Magic Circle against (Alignment) now properly give immunity to mind-affecting/charm spells. 
* MANY scrolls were casting aid (mostly 3.5 spells), they should now cast their correct spell 
* added a catch-all to remove lingering spell effects that persist after duration expires. 
* Targets of command:fall now stay on the ground for 1 round as per PHB. 
* Detect Undead should play a sparkle on undead now, before they just happily sat there detected but quiet. 
* Lareth's ring of freedom of movement should work more like the spell now. 
--- 


[rules] 
--- 
* tumble now properly works for characters not in medium or heavy armor. 
* evasion/improved evasion now properly works for characters not in medium or heavy armor. 
* fixed bard spell failure check when not in medium or heavy armor. 
* monk and barbarian fast movement fixed in regards to armor (none, light, medium, heavy). 
* ranger feats related to medium and heavy armor are now correct, including two-weapon fighting. 
* fast movement for barbarians and monks is now correct in regards to medium or heavy armor. 
* paladin divine grace saving throw bonus is now properly adding a bonus from CHA (was CON). 
* healing domain power (add +1 to caster level checks for Healing spells) should now work properly. 
* fixed 1-handed/2-handed issues with dwarven waraxe. 
* fixed 1-handed/2-handed issues with bastard sword. 
* fixed weapon proficiency issue with bastard sword. 
* fixed certain cases in which a creature was "helpless" but not eligible to be subject to a sneak attack. 
* equipped shields now properly count against 2-handed (x1.5) damage with melee weapons. 
* monks can now use Power Attack with unarmed strike. 
* metamagic feats no longer actually increase DC checks for spells. 
* using/drinking potions now correctly incurs AOO's. 
* evasion/improved evasion now correctly reduce damage appropriately against an empowered damage spell 
* weapon finesse updated to 3.5 
* added greater weapon focus to levelup screen 
* whirlwind attack no longer free after being used multiple times 
* Full attacking with dual weapons now uses the correct weapon. 
* cleave no longer works with whirlwind attack 
* Corrected bonuses for improved two weapon fighting 
* changed short swords to use proper type 
* Corrected armor check penalties for masterwork armor 
* corrected armor check penalties for crafted magic armor 
* corrected critical hit ranges 
* greater spell penetration added 
* Run actions (and all such derivative actions like Charge) now correctly invalidate a 5' step after performing the action. 
--- 

[gameplay] 
--- 
* monsters with -1 int have been changed in protos to have an 10 int (prevents these monsters form showing up paralyzed) 
* experience now awarded for monsters with CR > 24 
* action system now saves/loads local spell data properly. 
* "grapple" state now properly relays any associated spell ID's. 
* fixed crash bug associated with the Dagger of Venom when inflicting (any) damage while wielding the Dagger of Venom. 
* turn undead action plays sound f/x. 
* monster now calculate their non-primary attack damage correctly. 
* monsters blinded by the spell no longer take AOO's. 
* fixed several inconsistencies with metamagic feat Widen Spell. 
* spiritual weapon is now largely ignored by hostile monsters. 
* critters can no longer cast spells when raging or under the effects of rage. 
* zombies now correctly only get a partial action (in 3.0 terms). 
* invisible creatures no longer incur AOO's (with exceptions, See Invisibility, etc). 
* invisible creatures no longer take AOO's if doing so will remove Invisibility. 
* AI now weighs invisible creatures less, as possible/viable targets. 
* NPC's (controllable) no longer permanently remove themselves from the party upon dying. 
* previously, there were cases where NPC's (controllable) would not attack certain monsters by just clicking on them (requiring the user to select "Single Attack" from the radial menu). fixed. 
* Fixed metamagic feats Empower Spell and Maximize Spell for Healing spells. 
* NPC's no longer try to sell items that belong to them. this fixes the bug allowing the player to transfer all NPC items after bartering. 
* the highest appraisal score in the party is now always used when bartering (buying/selling). 
* open lock checks outside of combat now Take 20. 
* added Flee Combat option to Radial Menu->Movement. this is available on any map that the party transferred to via a Jumppoint Icon (i.e. N/A for Teleport or scripted map transfers). selecting this Full-Round action will incur AOO's on all party members, and then a Flee check (factors include: Survival, Character Level, Encounter CR) must be made. If successful, the entire party (including those Unconscious, Dead, or Incapacitated) is transferred back to the previous map at the Jumppoint last used. If used "Out of Combat", it will automatically transfer the party. 
* a spell resistance bug was fixed (mainly concering lingering Area Effect spells). 
* magic items that cast spells (such as Wands, Potions, or Scrolls) are no longer are added to the wielder's "Casted Spells" list when the item is used. 
* NPC's will not loot any item that makes them heavily encumbered or overburdened 
* NPC's will not mark loot as non-transferable if they do not pick it up (which happened when their inventory was full but they were trying to loot) 
* fixed CN vignette chest not doing dialog when opened via spell 
* Zuggtmoy's gem hoard will no longer turn people into chairs 
* Ladies' ring now says "From Jay", since he wasn't Black Jay when he had it engraved. 
* followers will not terminate dialog if responding to the PC being invisible, polymorphed, or having other monstrous followers (like an ogre) 
* followers will loot correctly from stacks of items (like gems or scrolls) 
* Burne no longer knows a 5th level summon monster spell (he has the correct 4th level one now) 
* St. Cuthbert will always speak when he shows up 
* There can no longer be multiple St. Cuthberts 
* Romag's diary now works and can be used 
* Feldrin now appears in the game and has proper dialog along with Brunk. 
* Wicked will now be present in his prison cell to be rescued and possibly join the party. 
* Kelleen, the owlbear keeper troll, now has proper dialog with female PC's. 
* Tuelk now places his map flags properly to give the locations of the stairs. 
* Serena will no longer loot if you take her on as a slave. Ted, Ed, and Ed never loot anymore either. 
* Turnkey will no longer be KOS if the party accepts his surrender. 
* Fixed spelling mistakes in tutorial. 
* Fixed floating dialog messages when Rannos and Gremag enter combat. 
* Fixed some text errors in help text for Track and Rumors. 
* Rufus will now leave if you ask him to leave your party. 
* Hedrack cannot initiate dialog about Kelno (or any other high priest) after the first time you meet him. 
* Ironman parties now correctly start with 500gp 
* Movement penalties for MEDIUM and HEAVY armor no longer apply if you are medium or more encumbered. 
* Non torso armor no longer applies movement penalties if they are classified as "Medium" or "Heavy" armor (e.g. chainmail gloves won't reduce movement but chainmail armor will) 
* Monks who already have Combat Reflexes and Deflect Arrows (bonus monk feats at level 2) are no longer stuck at the Feat Selection screen at level up (for level 2), instead they can choose to get no bonus feat (since they already have them). 
* Added Melfs Acid Arrow and Gust of Wind to list of scrolls that can be scribed via the Scribe Scroll Feat. 
* Scrolls copied to the spellbook go into the correct level location. 
* NPC's cannot be made angry at party members while they are in the party (this avoids the problem of disbanding them and them going KOS on you) 
* Item creation prereq mispellings fixed (no more SPELL_NONE's in item creation I hope). 
* Rangers correctly get animal companions at level 4 (rather than level 5). 
* Multi-class clerics of a neutral deity who select positive energy channeling properly spontaneously cast cure spells. 
* Coup de Grace should invoke an attack of oppertunity when used. 
* Clerics of Elemental Domains (Fire, Air, Earth, Water) properly turn/rebuke the elemental types. 
* Jaer's balls of fire no longer cause the game to hang when they cannot be removed from his inventory via script 
* Bardsongs that lose track of their targets will no longer crash the game. 
* Large numbers of +1, +2, +3, +4, and +5 weapons were not registering as "Masterwork" for item creation purposes, this has been fixed. 
* Wands that weighed 10lbs should way 1lbs now. 
* Cloak of resistance +2 and +3 should give the correct bonuses now (+2 and +3 respectively) 
* Animal companions with missing owners (on game loads) should dismiss themselves properly (previously they could cause a CTD). 
* All NPC wizards should know all 0th level spells (Cantrips) now. 
* Reducing your encumbrance to exactly a max (light,med,heavy) should properly set your encumbrance (used to be BELOW the max). 
* Fallen paladins should no longer be able to level as paladins. 
* Fallen paladins should no longer be able to cast Paladin spells. 
* You can no longer start sneaking IN combat (you must do this OUT of combat, before monsters notice you) 
* If you were sneaking, upon performing a HOSTILE action, you are no longer considered sneaking. 
* Fixed random encounters with monsters spawning in walls by fixing the random_encounter script to not spawn monsters 6 tiles away additionally an extra spread out is done after spawning but before combat begins. 
--- 


--- 
* Added tip of the day. 
* fixed graphical bug with initiative portraits not updating on an aborted delay. 
* fixed weapon quickslots. jebus! 
* radial menu now displays spells per day for Bards and Sorcerers. 
* in certain cases, opening the Help window no longer closes all other windows (e.g. clicking on an ability score bonus from the Inventory). 
* money objects no longer stack. 
* long descriptions for items are now available (if it is a magic item, it must be identified first). hover over the item in inventory and press SHIFT-CLICK to access the item description (in a popup window). 
* added several generic tool-tip descriptions for certain UI elements. 
* transfer of stackable items from NPC inventories now correctly checks if the NPC owns the item. 
* showing the inventory by right-clicking party member portraits now correctly closes other windows. 
* Unlearning spells for bards/sorcerers actually remove the spell (this fixes Sorcs not being able to level past 9th in some cases). 
* Clicking CREATE when no item creation item is selected no longer crashes. 
* Added checkbox for scroll acceleration in options screen. 
* Removed scroll speed of 5 (a nonexistant scroll speed) 
* Selecting 1-5 (via the keyboard) for dialog options no longer will change the active party member 
* Group selection keys (F1-F8) work across maps and savegames 
* Ironman mode ESCAPE menu contains proper menu entries. 
* Item creation interface should close after crafting magic arms and armor. 
--- 

[engine] 
--- 
* Added a brightness/gamma slider 
* ToEE.cfg variable added "astar_max_window_ms" the amount of time astar keeps track of CPU usage (in milliseconds) 
* ToEE.cfg variable added "astar_max_time_ms" the most amount of time astar can spend on the CPU in "astar_max_window_ms" amount of time. 
* Pathfinding during mouse movement is now time window limited and will fail early if too much CPU is being used by the pathfinding engine. 
* Random crashbugs dealing with invalid object handles being stored in conditions shouldn't crash (as long as a NULL object is okay). 
* Female Dwarves wearing helmets using the Barbarian Helm art no longer crash on map transfers and game loads (mismatched bones in .SKM) 
* Male Dwarves wearing full plate no longer crash on map transfers and game loads (mismatched bones in .SKM) 
* Numerous crash to desktops related to spell targeting passing invalid objects to the spell system have been fixed. 
* Fixed crashbug with losing focus during game load (and movie playing). 
* Random encounter NPCs now spawn surrounding the party rather than 6 tiles away.


----------



## Hecateus

LightPhoenix said:
			
		

> Where did you download the demo from?



 Supposedly from the Atari Servers.  I linked there from GamersHell.com, so who knows...but I have never had any trouble from them b4.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

TIME magazine rated ToEE one of its top ten video games of 2003 (#6, to be precise) in its November 17th issue:



> *A vintage adventure game gets its computerized revival -- no dice necessary*
> 
> Remember _Dungeons & Dragons_, that game for anyone who was too smart for his own good in high school and didn't have a date on Friday night?  Time was, you needed a pencil, books of character information, a sturdy imagination, similarly afflicted friends, and the ever-present 20-sided dice to play the game.
> 
> Not anymore.  _Temple of Elemental Evil_ (PC, $45, Atari) is a computerized homage to one of the best-loved adventure games of all time, enhanced with up-to-date graphics.  As with the original, loading up your character (and up to four fellow adventurers) with your choice of spells and skills is almost as fun as the action itself.  Your goal for the game depends on these choices: make yourself morally good, and you must rescue a missing elf princess from the eponymous temple; choose the path of the evildoers, and you may end up taking over the place.  If _Dungeons & Dragons_ had been this much fun, the geeks would have had a lot more dates.


----------



## Hypersmurf

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> TIME magazine rated ToEE one of its top ten video games of 2003 (#6, to be precise) in its November 17th issue:




Do they know it's only November 11th?

-Hyp.


----------



## Hecateus

Time posts articles on its website for next weeks paper issue. So yeah they do know, and as such they are stupid, 'cause once everyone realizes this, only doctors offices will carry their magazines.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Virtually all magazines hit the street ahead of the date on the cover.  Time is almost always a week ahead; I have monthly magazines where I'll get the issue labelled "December" in October.  That's just normal magazine lead times.


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:

 I would rate ToEE as one of the top 10 games of 2003, too.  Higher than #6, tho.  Of course, I'd also rate PoR2:RoMD as one of the top 10 games of whatever year it came out.  The set of games I like is itsy bitsy.  If it's not a turn-based RPG, FPS (single player, not 'squad based'), or turn-based strategy, I'm unlikely to like it.

 Other 2003 games I'd rate in the top 10: Age of Wonders:Shadow Magic, Warcraft3:Frozen Throne (even tho it's RTS, boo hiss), and... hmm.  <scratches head>

 Is the date magazines put on their covers the date they want sellers to _stop_ displaying the magazine, or something?

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## Iron_Chef

So is ToEE fixed yet? I've heard nothing but horror stories about it being screwed up and that the patch needs a patch! I'd love to play it if it works, but I don't wanna waste $50 on a beta test. Sorry if this has been answered before, I didn't read the whole thread and have to split. Was hoping for an a quick answer fpr when I get back in a few hours... if it's truly been fixed, I'll go buy it.


----------



## uv23

Good god thats a crapload of fixes! Nothing like production QA...


----------



## John Crichton

Dreeble said:
			
		

> Is the date magazines put on their covers the date they want sellers to _stop_ displaying the magazine, or something?



Yup.  That's the date they are removed from the stand.


----------



## Iron_Chef

John Crichton said:
			
		

> Yup.  That's the date they are removed from the stand.




Man, it took me 4 freaking hours on a cable modem to download the demo! That stinks, lousy 15 kbs/sec. Anyway, I've been playing it for a few hours now and the game seems okay, but nothing special. There is no character interaction/RPing like in Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, just mind-numbing hack and slash, and no surprises at all as I'm familiar with the original PnP version. The demo pregen party sucks too. The only character who consistently can kill anything is the halfling paladin, LOL. The monk, bard and cleric are practically useless in a fight, as is the wizard once she runs out of magic missiles. The game is pretty boring, AFAIK. Not worth $50. I'll save my $ for Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark.


----------



## TimSmith

*Circle of 8 patch of the patch!!!!*

Well, for all you guys who are wondering whether your circle of 8 patch will work with the new official patch, WORRY NO LONGER.

With speed and efficiency worthy of Atari QA people     the circle of 8 guys have released another patch to work with the official patch. Hopefully you can get it here (if I have done this right). http://www.ews.uiuc.edu/~hunsley/files/ToEE_Circle_of_Eight_Release_200.rar

Admittedly I haven't had chance to test it yet, but based on past performance it should be good.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Iron_Chef said:
			
		

> Anyway, I've been playing it for a few hours now and the game seems okay, but nothing special. There is no character interaction/RPing like in Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, just mind-numbing hack and slash, and no surprises at all as I'm familiar with the original PnP version.  The game is pretty boring, AFAIK. Not worth $50. I'll save my $ for Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark.





Well, the demo with the pregen party is just the moathouse -- of course it's just H&S.  And it is an accurate representation of the PnP module -- that's a feature .   Most of the RP-based questing is in Hommlet and Nulb (with some in the Temple itself, as well).  There still isn't a tremendous amount of it, but then I didn't find that NWN had much of it either, at least in the original campaign.

Playing single player, I get a much better D&D experience from ToEE than NWN, but then tastes obviously vary.


----------



## Iron_Chef

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Well, the demo with the pregen party is just the moathouse -- of course it's just H&S.  And it is an accurate representation of the PnP module -- that's a feature .   Most of the RP-based questing is in Hommlet and Nulb (with some in the Temple itself, as well).  There still isn't a tremendous amount of it, but then I didn't find that NWN had much of it either, at least in the original campaign.
> 
> Playing single player, I get a much better D&D experience from ToEE than NWN, but then tastes obviously vary.




Maybe my expectations were too high; I really wanted to love this game. It wasn't awful or I wouldn't have spent several hours trying it out. It just didn't have that instantly "addictive" quality of the BG series; it was more like "when is this going to get better?"   

Everytime I got into trouble, I couldn't flee combat or leave the screen I was on, it just didn't acknowledge that as an option, resulting in several annoying TPKs (the ogre downstairs, the bandits in the secret room). The game seems way too hard; like the "through no fault of your own, you're dead" kind of hard that I can't stand in a video game.

The interface takes a lot of getting used to and seems really clunky. It was impossible for me to figure out how to play the game without the tutorial, and even then, I couldn't figure out parts of it (which of course weren't addressed in the tutorial). I couldn't get some characters to engage the enemy, resulting in me having to skip past their turn in frustration, esp. the cleric and the monk. When I check the "flurry of blows" box and then select "full attack" the monk only makes one attack! I have to go back in and select "single attack" to get him to complete his flurry! I mean, I eventually figured out that all I had to do was left click the monster he was attacking and he'd auto-flurry it, but it seems weird that it won't do it the other way. And the reloading of crossbows is irritating. Frex, the bard fires his crossbow, but still has an action left, which I have to use for "reload". I just want him to auto-reload in the same round he fires unless I tell him otherwise. Yes, he will do that, but only if he didn't reload at the end of his turn in the round previous. So, it slows down the game considerably, esp. when several characters use crossbows. And I can't loot my dead party members! WTF? If I could do that, I could have got the stuff I needed to make the rest of the team survive! But nooooo....   And I couldn't figure out how to command characters to drink potions either; I'd select "inventory", "potions" and "cure light wounds" and then nothing would happen!


----------



## Iron_Chef

Spent 5 hours trying to beat the demo, finally figured the interface out (mostly). Is it just me, or is the moathouse incomplete? I can't find Lareth anywhere, and killed all gnolls, bugbears, bandits, ghouls, zombies, ogre, viper, everything, but can't find anymore areas to explore... the secret way out leads to a dead end wilderness area. I still wouldn't call the game fantastic by any stretch, but I wanted to give it another chance to catch on with me. It's decent fun, but give me BG, IWD, NWN or Planescape Torment any day.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Iron_Chef said:
			
		

> Spent 5 hours trying to beat the demo, finally figured the interface out (mostly). Is it just me, or is the moathouse incomplete? I can't find Lareth anywhere, and killed all gnolls, bugbears, bandits, ghouls, zombies, ogre, viper, everything, but can't find anymore areas to explore... the secret way out leads to a dead end wilderness area. I still wouldn't call the game fantastic by any stretch, but I wanted to give it another chance to catch on with me. It's decent fun, but give me BG, IWD, NWN or Planescape Torment any day.




Just before the secret way out, there's a door in the north wall that leads to Lareth.

Some interface help:



> Everytime I got into trouble, I couldn't flee combat or leave the screen I was on, it just didn't acknowledge that as an option, resulting in several annoying TPKs (the ogre downstairs, the bandits in the secret room). The game seems way too hard; like the "through no fault of your own, you're dead" kind of hard that I can't stand in a video game.




The patched version of the game now has a "Flee Combat" option in the Movement section of the radial menu.

The game is remarkably true to the 3.5 rules -- the better you understand those, the easier the game becomes.  The demo characters aren't particularly well built; a little character optimization through the choice of good feats makes the game much easier.



> When I check the "flurry of blows" box and then select "full attack" the monk only makes one attack! I have to go back in and select "single attack" to get him to complete his flurry! I mean, I eventually figured out that all I had to do was left click the monster he was attacking and he'd auto-flurry it, but it seems weird that it won't do it the other way.




That's because when you select full attack, you have the option to attack multiple targets (and even take a 5' step in between) -- just like PnP.  Select full attack, click on a target, and it makes the first attack.  Then click for the second attack  -- same or different target.



> And I couldn't figure out how to command characters to drink potions either; I'd select "inventory", "potions" and "cure light wounds" and then nothing would happen!




You have to then click on a character to activate the potion.  Alternately, from the inventory menu, drap the potion to the "Use Item" spot.


----------



## Iron_Chef

Thanks Olgar!  

Finally found Lareth (his henchmen were tougher than he was!). Neat that you can accept his surrender and add him to your party instead of just wasting him, though I'm sure that "alliance" is a temporary one, at best. His voice actor was great!


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

In the full version, keeping Lareth in the party has some interesting consequences.



Spoiler



It results in one of the tougher fights of the game -- though not a tough as the Balor.


----------



## Dreeble

Heya:



			
				Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> That's because when you select full attack, you have the option to attack multiple targets (and even take a 5' step in between) -- just like PnP.  Select full attack, click on a target, and it makes the first attack.  Then click for the second attack  -- same or different target.




 I don't know if they fixed this in the patch, but my experience with Full Attack was that if you chose that option, you'd see something like "2/2" above the head of the selected character.  If you select a mob to attack and attack it, you _might_ then see "1/2" or might not.  If not, you have one attack left.  If so, continue as normal.  It's much safer, apparently, to move the mouse cursor _off_ of the target while the swing is taking place.  The pretty much guarantees the "1/2" will appear.  This is only really a big deal if you have more than 2 attacks, of course.  My dual wielders my first run through would see "4/4", attack, and then see nothing, and get only one more attack sadly.

 Anyone else experience this or am I delusional?

 Bottom line: Move the mouse off the target after every attack in a full attack before continuing.

Take care,
Dreeble


----------



## TimSmith

Dreeble said:
			
		

> Heya:
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know if they fixed this in the patch, but my experience with Full Attack was that if you chose that option, you'd see something like "2/2" above the head of the selected character.  If you select a mob to attack and attack it, you _might_ then see "1/2" or might not.  If not, you have one attack left.  If so, continue as normal.  It's much safer, apparently, to move the mouse cursor _off_ of the target while the swing is taking place.  The pretty much guarantees the "1/2" will appear.  This is only really a big deal if you have more than 2 attacks, of course.  My dual wielders my first run through would see "4/4", attack, and then see nothing, and get only one more attack sadly.
> 
> Anyone else experience this or am I delusional?
> 
> Bottom line: Move the mouse off the target after every attack in a full attack before continuing.
> 
> Take care,
> Dreeble




Don't get the disappearing attack countdown, myself. Then again, maybe I always move the mouse off the target. I'll have a go and see.


----------



## Iron_Chef

TimSmith said:
			
		

> Don't get the disappearing attack countdown, myself. Then again, maybe I always move the mouse off the target. I'll have a go and see.




I broke down and bought ToEE finally after trying the demo, not liking it that much, then getting used to the interface and having a fun time. The full version of the game would not install properly while my firewall//anti-virus software was active. Real pain to install. Patch worked fine, however. I'm really enjoying the game now that it's working, LOL. Atari's tech support site had my problem listed as the first thing and the instructions to fix it were easy and got me playing fast.

SPOILER and QUESTION:

Anyway, my party is LE and supposed to get the CG sword Fragarach by killing Prince Thrommel of Furyondy. So I do (but Elmo refuses to attack him), and then I report back to Turuko at the Inn. He just thanks me, takes the sword, and he and Kobort vanish, saying my quest is completed! That is really super lame, because they wouldn't talk to me while I had Scorpp the 20 HD hill giant and Oohlgrist the Troll Chief in my party... these two creeps are the reason my party made such a cakewalk of the Upper Temple. When I try to get them to leave the party temporarily, Scorpp tries to kill me, and Oohlgrist refuses to rejoin (forcing me to kill him to get all his treasure). Is there some benefit to completing this Fragarach quest before the Temple is destroyed? Or should I just reload and keep the two greedy CE giants in my party so I can continue kicking ass? 

BTW: Morgan (the Nulb pirate you rescue) in the Temple not only sucks, but he tries to kill you if you throw him out of the party!   

Also, has anyone noticed that dead party members tend to vanish if you rest a few times trying to get back to Terjon to raise them? I lost Otis this way!!! It didn't seem like I waited that long to get back to Hommlet. The Temple is huge and confusing, and loaded with monsters, after all.


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## Dreeble

Heya:



			
				Iron_Chef said:
			
		

> Is there some benefit to completing this Fragarach quest before the Temple is destroyed? Or should I just reload and keep the two greedy CE giants in my party so I can continue kicking ass?




 In general, the various alignment based starts to the game and their resulting quests are primarily designed to give a bit of a story and motivation.  They don't really seem to have a huge impact otherwise.  My suggestion would be to definitely reload and get those two heavy hitters back.

 Where do you sell stuff with those guys in your party, however?

Take care,
Dreeble


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## Iron_Chef

Dreeble said:
			
		

> Heya:
> 
> 
> 
> In general, the various alignment based starts to the game and their resulting quests are primarily designed to give a bit of a story and motivation.  They don't really seem to have a huge impact otherwise.  My suggestion would be to definitely reload and get those two heavy hitters back.
> 
> Where do you sell stuff with those guys in your party, however?
> 
> Take care,
> Dreeble




NULB: Mother Screng.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

Keeping Fragarach (if you've got a character who can use it, which isn't likely given a LE party) is far better than any XP that can be earned from turning it over.

The vanishing party members is probably a pre-patch holdover.  It used to be dead NPCs effectively vanished from your party as soon as they were killed -- you could only bring them back if you raised them on the spot.  Looks like they mostly fixed that.  Maybe Otis' return flag kicked in -- he usually bails on you after your first trip back to Nulb from the Temple.

You weren't suprised when Elmo (LG ranger) refused to attack Thrommel, were you?


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## Iron_Chef

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> Keeping Fragarach (if you've got a character who can use it, which isn't likely given a LE party) is far better than any XP that can be earned from turning it over.
> 
> The vanishing party members is probably a pre-patch holdover.  It used to be dead NPCs effectively vanished from your party as soon as they were killed -- you could only bring them back if you raised them on the spot.  Looks like they mostly fixed that.  Maybe Otis' return flag kicked in -- he usually bails on you after your first trip back to Nulb from the Temple.
> 
> You weren't suprised when Elmo (LG ranger) refused to attack Thrommel, were you?




I was kinda hoping he'd help, LOL. Isn't standing idly by when your hero, the prince, is being killed by assassins an evil act? He never left the group or said anything about it after. Then again, he's an idiot and probably forgot; I think he has a crush on my charisma monkey lady rogue/fighter.

For RPing reasons, I wouldn't keep Fragarach even if I could use it. My clerics and most party members all worship Hextor and destroying the sword is a holy quest mandated by our superiors in the church. Keeping it would not only be suicidal, but a violation of alignment, our orders and religion.

What I wanna know is how come my reach weapon fighter with Improved Trip keeps getting tripped when she tries to trip foes? Shouldn't she be able to drop her guisarme instead? It's almost gotten her killed numerous times.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

They didn't implement dropping weapons because they decided (1) getting disarmed was no fun, and (2) then they'd have to add graphics for picking the weapon back up.

Personally I think they should have put disarm in.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully

I finished the game a few days ago, and I noticed a small bug, as it seems:
I rescued prince Thrommel, but during one of the combats in the temple he was killed. I immediatly raised him, and when I left the temple and got back to Hommlet to create some items, he left the group to travel home.
But when I finished the game, the epilogue reports of Thrommel being dead and this causing a difficult time in the coming wars. Obviously, a mistake, unless he was killed on his way home (but how, I explained him: "If your sword has an auto-hit function, use power attack 10 all the time for maximal damage output...")

Another "bug" (or at least a point where the 3.5 ruleset and the game doesn´t fit together): 
Elementals can be sneak attacked. 
I am happy about this bug, because they obviosuly overpowered these Galeb Dur monsters (They have Damage Reduction, fine. But what the hell is Damage Resistance, and why does it apply to all kinds of damage I inflict on them? And why aren`t these inhabitants of the earth plane or pocket dimension not earth creatures?) Without my sneak attacking, dual-wielding halfling rogue the fights would have been much more difficult.. (caster routine: haste, empowered fireball, empowered fireball, ice storm, fireball, fireball, fireball, spells are up. Fighter routine: miss, hit, deal little damage)

Mustrum Ridcully


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## Iron_Chef

QUESTION:

I'm in the Temple. I'm working for the Air Temple, but then Allrem at Fire Temple asks me to do him a favor recruiting Oohlgrist... only I already recruited him into MY party. I head back to Air, but the Air guys attack me and I have to massacre them ALL. Fire guys (salamanders) attack me on sight in Fire. I never get back to Allrem, leave, come back, can't be bothered to find Allrem, and instead delve deeper. I find Hedrack, kill him and his goons, and start investigating that level, find a door to Fire Node, and there I keep getting massacred by Salamanders casting fireball, only to find a freakin' BALOR guarding the door out, who won't negotiate but insists on fighting. He is invincible. I can't even scratch him for 1 point of damage... 

How the heck am I supposed to vanquish a Balor at 8th level? This sucks!  

How do I get the other Node doors open? Fire was the only one available.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

All the node doors should open for you -- not sure what's going on there.

The Balor is the toughest fight of the game, hands down.

Several approaches will work:

- Penetrate spell resistance.  Bombard with tons of cold spells while you hold him off with summoned creatures.

- Send him home with a dismissal (requires a lot of luck for him to miss the save, but it can work).

- The old fashioned way -- close to melee and mow him down while your cleric keeps your front-liners propped up. Frost-enchanted weapons work nicely (This is how I did it, though admittedly my fighter was using Scather with a maxxed-out Power Attack to do about 80 points of damage per round, the ranger had a frost longbow, and the cleric had a holy mace.  Only the rogue bought it, but she did get some sneak attacks in.)

Edit: This won't work if this is the first node you try (I recommend the order Air, Earth, Water, Fire), but once you start picking up the elemental power gems, use them to summon the demon guardians against each other.  The Hezrou has a lot of hp and can lay some smack down on the Balor.


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## Greybar

> Elementals can be sneak attacked.
> I am happy about this bug, because they obviosuly overpowered these Galeb Dur monsters (They have Damage Reduction, fine. But what the hell is Damage Resistance, and why does it apply to all kinds of damage I inflict on them?




hear hear.  DR15, SR15, avg 100hp, and they're CR4??
The (atypical) 10th level PCs in the sit-down game I run would have trouble with more than 2 or so of these.  Thank you teleport scroll.

Before I go back there I'm going to super-stocked on scrolls and potions, I'll say that much...

john


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## Greybar

*Pathing fix?*

Okay, *somewhere* I remember seeing one of the Troika programmers talking about modifiying a INI file or somesuch to force the system to spend less cycles trying to determine paths as the cursor passes over the screen.

I said to myself: "well if I have trouble I'll come back and try that".

I went into what i'm assuming is the earth node and immediately had near-hang problems with this, but now I cannot find the info (search'd AtariCommunity and ENWorld)

Anyone else see this?  Was I dreaming?

john


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## Mustrum_Ridcully

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> All the node doors should open for you -- not sure what's going on there.
> 
> The Balor is the toughest fight of the game, hands down.
> 
> Several approaches will work:
> 
> - Penetrate spell resistance.  Bombard with tons of cold spells while you hold him off with summoned creatures.
> 
> - Send him home with a dismissal (requires a lot of luck for him to miss the save, but it can work).
> 
> - The old fashioned way -- close to melee and mow him down while your cleric keeps your front-liners propped up. Frost-enchanted weapons work nicely (This is how I did it, though admittedly my fighter was using Scather with a maxxed-out Power Attack to do about 80 points of damage per round, the ranger had a frost longbow, and the cleric had a holy mace.  Only the rogue bought it, but she did get some sneak attacks in.)
> 
> Edit: This won't work if this is the first node you try (I recommend the order Air, Earth, Water, Fire), but once you start picking up the elemental power gems, use them to summon the demon guardians against each other.  The Hezrou has a lot of hp and can lay some smack down on the Balor.




Interesting. I hadn`t so much trouble with the balor. One of the other demons gave me some more trouble, IIRC. 



> Okay, somewhere I remember seeing one of the Troika programmers talking about modifiying a INI file or somesuch to force the system to spend less cycles trying to determine paths as the cursor passes over the screen.
> 
> I said to myself: "well if I have trouble I'll come back and try that".
> 
> I went into what i'm assuming is the earth node and immediately had near-hang problems with this, but now I cannot find the info (search'd AtariCommunity and ENWorld)
> 
> Anyone else see this? Was I dreaming?




I found the ToEE.cfg, but I am not sure if there is an appropriate entry. 
Possibly the


> astar_max_time_ms=xyz
> astar_max_window_ms=xyz



have something to do with it, but actually, I don`t know.


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## Greybar

aha!  Thanks, searching on Astar was the clue I needed:



			
				TroikaFAQ said:
			
		

> * ToEE.cfg variable added "astar_max_window_ms" the amount of time astar keeps track of CPU usage (in milliseconds)
> * ToEE.cfg variable added "astar_max_time_ms" the most amount of time astar can spend on the CPU in "astar_max_window_ms" amount of time.




Here is an explanation of how to tweak these values

john


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## Li Shenron

I tried the demo just yesterday night, and I want to ask some basic questions.

- How do I use skills? -
From the radial menu I can only access Sneak and Search, and Sleight of Hand for the Bard. Isn't it possible to try identify scrolls with Spellcraft instead of using Read Magic? Also, when you use Search where are you actually searching, a 5ft square or a larger area (never found a thing so far)?

- How do I ready an action? -
I tried to select for example Ready vs. Approach from the radial menu, and the message "Action readied" appears and the initiative goes to next character. I never get to do the readied action tho, which by the way I didn't even have the chance to define.

Also, why sometimes some of the actions in the radial menu have the yellow colour? I get that when they are green you can do them and when red you cannot, but yellow? Does it simply mean you can do them but they are full-round actions? For example, the Monk has Flurry of Blows active by default, but if I attack it usually get one attack only, unless I first click on the yellow Full Attack.

It looks a nice game overall, only I don't understand why in the demo the party is so uncommon... I would have expected an iconic party with Dwarf Fighter, Human Cleric, Elf Wizard and Halfling Rogue + one extra like the Half-Elf Bard, the Human Monk, Half-Orc Cleric and Gnome Paladin are quite peculiar for a demo


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## Olgar Shiverstone

Li Shenron said:
			
		

> - How do I use skills? -
> From the radial menu I can only access Sneak and Search, and Sleight of Hand for the Bard. Isn't it possible to try identify scrolls with Spellcraft instead of using Read Magic? Also, when you use Search where are you actually searching, a 5ft square or a larger area (never found a thing so far)?




You can' tidentify scrolls through Spellcraft even in PnP (and potion ID via Spellcraft isn't implemented).  Search searches the room you're in -- try it in the zombie rooms below the moathouse.



> - How do I ready an action? -
> I tried to select for example Ready vs. Approach from the radial menu, and the message "Action readied" appears and the initiative goes to next character. I never get to do the readied action tho, which by the way I didn't even have the chance to define.




The readied action only triggers if the action occurs to set it off.  "Ready vs Approach" allows you to attack when someone approaches -- when someone enters your threatened area, the game will shift to that character to give an attack.



> Also, why sometimes some of the actions in the radial menu have the yellow colour? I get that when they are green you can do them and when red you cannot, but yellow? Does it simply mean you can do them but they are full-round actions? For example, the Monk has Flurry of Blows active by default, but if I attack it usually get one attack only, unless I first click on the yellow Full Attack.




The yellow color means that the action can be executed with a standard action remaining.  If you move first, you'll see that a number of standard actions shift from green to yellow, while the full-round actions go from green to red.


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## Hypersmurf

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> You can' tidentify scrolls through Spellcraft even in PnP.




Exactly right.  Except for the part about identifying scrolls through Spellcraft.

From the SRD:

DC 20 + spell level: Decipher a written spell (such as a scroll) without using read magic. One try per day. Requires a full-round action. 

-Hyp.


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## Iron_Chef

I beat ToEE finally, and must say the end of the game is too easy, too quick, and happens with little warning. The end "cut scene" (after a short death animated death or banishment scene for Zuggtmoy) is a bunch of boring still images with text that go on forever talking about characters I've either never heard of or don't care about, and the great "reward" for my female rogue 8/fighter 2 is marrying the herdsman and having many children (?!). LAME. The only cool thing was that Zuggtmoy looked hot compared to her horrible picture in the PnP version, which made her more fun to fight. Why can't game endings be cool?

Also, there is an impossible fight in the earth node with about a gazillion galeb duhr (boulder men). They are obviously elemental earth creatures, yet my _shatter_ spells don't work on them "target invalid, not of type (earth)" is what the game tells me. The rock men are immune to almost all physical damage (except from Scorrp), but have an insanely high AC as they hardly ever get hit even after adjusting power attack down! After many rounds of battle, I'm lucky to get 1 of these jerks dead, and they keep trying to flank my weeny characters when I'm not looking. This fight is bugged for sure. The best thing to do is avoid it by not going south when you first arrive in earth node; you never need to fight them to finish the game.


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## Murrdox

The fight with the Galeb Dur is definitely possible.  I successfully completed it.  The Galeb Dur have a very high DR and also a very high AC, which makes them very hard to beat.  They also have a token amount of SR, which makes it even more difficult.

I completed the fight by Entangling most of them at the beginning of the fight, and enhancing my fighters as MUCH as possible beforehand through Bless, Greater Magic Weapon, Prayer, etc.  Then Flank them (using summoned creatures helps a lot here) and Power Attack as much as possible to overcome the DR.  You won't hit very often, but you'll damage them when you do.  Stoneskin the party to protect yourself from the massive damage they can deal.  There is a sorceress in the Fire Node who has Stoneskin as one of her known spells, and she comes in handy.  Fireball and Lightning bolt the Entangled Galeb Dur while you fight one at a time.

I agree it's stupid that Shatter doesn't work on them.  They SHOULD be of the Earth type.  This should be listed as a bug, since they're the Earth subtype as far as the MMII goes, and that's the manual where they appear.


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## Li Shenron

Ok, I finished the demo yesterday night. It was definitely too short and way too easy   I had a TPK with the second brigands encounter (first level of the moathouse) and the dire rats altogether, but I have to say that after the first PC died I really didn't play carefully at all but just speed it up so that I could reload the saved game; even by playing fast and awfully, there was only 1 brigand left at the end. Then I reloaded and this time I buffed my chars up before opening the door and they easily won with almost no scars.

Probably, the most difficult encounter would have been the guards before the wizard at the end, but I cast Stinking Cloud from the scroll and got 8 of 9 guards failing the ST, and they were almost helpless.

Overall it seemed to be a very good game. I'll look forward to hear when most of the bugs are covered by the patches and I think I'll buy myself this game.


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## Wycen

Well, I bought the game last Friday, actually it was an early Christmas present.

I made sure to read up on it and got the patch AND the Council of 8's mod patch installed before I started playing.

After some slow starting, (mostly travelling around the village and cursing how or where was the building I was supposed to find next), I then found my next issue, the fact casting Identify actually cost money!  I am so used to BG, IWD, NWN that it didn't dawn on me somebody wouldn't follow that model.  So, I identify the first couple items I get them, "Not enough money to cast".  That then leads me to discover they don't used just gold coins, but copper, silver and platinum!

The random encounters can be deadly, when they surround you.

Interesting, I did a reload after finding this out, you can marry Fruella AND Meleny and they don't seem to mind.  I might consider that for my next game.


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## Greybar

> The random encounters can be deadly, when they surround you.




I've noticed that in one of my games the badguys start right on top of me, but the other party usually spots them at a distance.  I'm not sure if that's based on their Spot/Listen checks or not - the high level group has been having the low-level wandering monsters popping up on them, so that doesn't seem to make sense either.  I sure would like to keep more room between.

Oh, for the long-playing folks.  Two of my PCs have been put under _suggestion_ by a certain high-level badguy in the fire node.  I can't get the spell to go away.  I've tried _Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Remove Curse, etc..._.  I've also tried waiting it out (over 20 days of rest).

any ideas would be appreciated.

john


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## Wycen

Greybar said:
			
		

> I've noticed that in one of my games the badguys start right on top of me, but the other party usually spots them at a distance.  I'm not sure if that's based on their Spot/Listen checks or not - the high level group has been having the low-level wandering monsters popping up on them, so that doesn't seem to make sense either.  I sure would like to keep more room between.
> 
> Oh, for the long-playing folks.  Two of my PCs have been put under _suggestion_ by a certain high-level badguy in the fire node.  I can't get the spell to go away.  I've tried _Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Remove Curse, etc..._.  I've also tried waiting it out (over 20 days of rest).
> 
> any ideas would be appreciated.
> 
> john




I have 1 character with some points in survival, which is supposed to help you avoid random encounters, but I think it is best to use your judgement regarding your parties current level of readiness, versus what the enemy force consists of.  Sometime that can be tricky.

As for your suggested party members, I don't know if this will work, but have you tried your own suggestion or charm person?


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## Tars Tarkus

I have cleared out the Earth Temple but a couple of things has me stumped. There is a magically held door in the Earth Temple cave/shrine. I tried to use a Knock spell but it will not work on the door. How do you get the door open? 

Also I have several diaries and letters from bad guys that I have killed. How do you read them? 

One more thing. Where can I get a bow? For the life of me I can only find crossbows but not a single shortbow or longbow anywhere.


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## Greybar

Earth Shrine: I believe that is one of the doors that can't be opened.  They didn't implement what's on the other side.  Yeah, it bugged me for a long time too.

With the diaries and letters, just drag them to the Use Item button in your inventory.

john


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## Olgar Shiverstone

Tars Tarkus said:
			
		

> One more thing. Where can I get a bow? For the life of me I can only find crossbows but not a single shortbow or longbow anywhere.




Bugbears in the temple have lots of bows.  There was also a longbow in the Moathouse, one on the spy in the barn in Hommlet, and a magical longbow in the giant king frog in the Imrdys Run.


----------



## Tars Tarkus

The bugbears just drop arrows and no bows.


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## KenM

Tars Tarkus said:
			
		

> Also I have several diaries and letters from bad guys that I have killed. How do you read them?




  There is one letter you get off a bad guy that you can't read. Its part of a quest. You can't read it even if you kill him.  BTW, I still could not get the patch to work, ToEE has been unistalled from my system awhile now.


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## Li Shenron

After all, which is the right patch to install? The official one, the circle of eight one or both at the same time?


----------



## KenM

The offical one is the one I can't get to install, and the one you should get first. I had the Co8 patch, but I uninstalled that before I installed the offical one. I get invalid patch file when I try to install the offical patch. So I uninstall my ToEE game, completly, I even delete the folders they were in. I reinstall, try to install the patch and get the same thing.    its really bugging me.


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## Li Shenron

[OFF]Can't we have separate threads about ToEE? It doesn't sound appropriate to write in the same thread questions about the plot, the rules and the program problems all toghether...[/OFF]

Anyway, has anybody found out how the Lareth's staff of Striking works? What about the Rod of Smithing?

About rules inconsitencies (or differences, if you prefer...), I have recently noticed that reach weapons are allowed to hit both at 10ft and 5ft, but it doesn't seem that they grant AoOs against enemies closing up.

Another weird thing is that while casting Identify will cost 100gp every time, if you craft a Wand of Identify then you don't pay that price when you use it, and to craft it it costs only 375gp as any other 1st level spell wand.


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## Li Shenron

Spoiler question: 



Spoiler



Is the party actually required to encounter and defeat Zuggtmoy at all? I am 8th level now and NO WAY I can handle her, but also I don't think I will have much chances neither once I reach 10th level, which is the cap of the game...



For the record, I am currently playing with a Good party of 5 ladies who are at level 8th somewhere in the upper levels of the Temple of Elemental Evil. No NPC was ever admitted into the party (this is for sheer power-hunger since I didn't want to share Xp   ).

*Lana, human Fighter 8*
Lawful Good
primary: Strength
secondary: Dexterity, Intelligence
skills: Intimidate, Survival, Tumble, Spot, Listen
feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Dodge, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (Glaive), Iron Will
equipment: heavy armor / buckler / glaive

tactics: get close in melee with the reach weapon, try to get cleave position, use trip when moving before attack

*Meenah, human Cleric of Heironeous 8*
Lawful Good
primary: Wisdom
secondary: Strength, Charisma
skills: Heal, Concentration, Diplomacy
feats: Improved Turning, Skill Focus (Concentration), Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Items, Martial Weapon Prof (Longsword), Weapon Focus (Longsword)
domains: War, Good
equipment: heavy armor / heavy shield / longsword

tactics: pre-combat buffing, second-line melee, healer, crafting of lesser items (up to 2000gp) for the party, summoner

*Blossom, elven Wizard 8*
Neutral Good
primary: Intelligence
secondary: Dexterity, Constitution
skills: Spellcraft, Concentration, Listen, Spot, Move Silently, Hide, Tumble
feats: Toughness, Spell Focus (Enchantment), Dodge, Scribe Scroll, Craft Wand
equipment: longbow / longsword
school: Divination (banned Necromancy)

tactics: offensive spellcasting (Enchantment, Evocation), makes scroll (Shield, Sleep, Knock) and wands (Identify, Magic Missile) for herself and the Bard, secondary sneaker

*Layla, human Rogue 8*
Chaotic Good
primary: Dexterity
secondary: Intelligence, Constitution
skills: Search, Disable Device, Appraise, Open Lock, Sleight of Hand Move Silently, Hide, Listen, Spot, Tumble, Bluff
feats: Improved Initiative, Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Precise Shot
equipment: light armor / shortbow / spear

tactics: archery, primary sneaker, typical roguish tasks

*Shadayim, half-elven Bard 8*
Chaotic Good
primary: Charisma
secondary: Dexterity, Constitution
skills: Perform, Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Use Magic Device, Sense Motive, Concentration
feats: Negotiator, Weapon Finesse (Rapier), Quick Draw
equipment: light armor / light crossbow / rapier

tactics: party speaker, anti-caster spells (Dispel Magic, Silence, Deafness), alternate ranged/melee combat, feinting in combat (to help the Rogue)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The party was created with the idea of being typical (Ftr/Cle/Rog/Wiz as a basis) and of covering all abilities - save for Constitution which helps everyone but doesn't need to be top - each one with a single character. Also the PCs interact a lot to help each other: for example, the Cleric buffs up the Fighter who uses a reach weapon to better defend the backliners, the Bard often feints in combat to let the Rogue sneak attack, the Wizard crafts items for the Bard too, and so on...


----------

