So this is the supposed pinnacle of DnD tactical combat and encounter design? An instant ambush of dropped directly on top your level 3 party on area transition with:
>7 lizardmen including a barbarian that can 1 or 2 shot any character in your party
>a hag that has double your APR and can oneshot anyone
>1 frog that grapples you instantly
>A KING FROG with 100+ hp
>A giant FISH with 100+ hp
How the frick does this game expect a level 3-4 party to win this? I'm casting grease and web and I still get swarmed, my paladin has full plate and shield and gets hit 50% of time, which is awful considering he gets attacked by like 5 enemiesper round. My Barbarian has 20 base strength, is enlarged, enraged, and still fricking misses like 50% of the time. What is going on here?
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>he has 0 points in survival
>he can't avoid random encounters
guess you should have brought a druid, dumbass
It's not a random encounter. It's the Imeryds Run location.
What level are you supposed to be before leaving Homlet? I did a few and just decided to leave since they were insultingly bad to the point it felt like a parody.
It's hard to say, depends mostly on your party and how much you know about the game.
Vanilla ToEE can be effortlessly beaten by a single wizard spamming Charm Monster, which is a Lvl 2 spell, so in theory you can get out of Homlet quite early, go charm a hill giant or something and then steamroll the moathouse.
Of course if you make a party with no arcane caster whatsoever things are quite different and it would be better to do all of your FEDEX quests in Hommlet, which should bring you to around level 4 iirc.
Keep in mind this is a really fricking bad conversion of a Greyhawk campaign meant for low level characters, the original ToEE module was meant specifically for fresh adventurers, you are expected to do all the busywork in Hommlet first to grind for exp./gold in order to make your party suitable for actual adventuring, Troika twisted it into this...thing here, which on top of not understanding the point of the original modulle is also buggy as frick and with an atrocious interface and beyond slow speed.
If you really can't bear the FEDEX quests and don't wanna cheese just drop the game, because it's frankly a horribly mindless game and no amount of community patches can make it good.
>the original ToEE module was meant specifically for fresh adventurers, you are expected to do all the busywork in Hommlet first to grind for exp./gold in order to make your party suitable for actual adventuring
What? The original module is for 1e and does not have fetch quests. You get experience in that game by finding treasure in dungeons. The moathouse is most certainly designed for a large party of level 1 characters and their underlings. You're just not supposed to have a 100% survival rate, because it's big boy D&D.
>moathouse
>at least 3 fighters with 16 or higher dex
>all have polearms
>combat reflexes
>triangle formation
enjoy wrecking everything
Are these posts written by an actual Schizoid?
>The game tacitly expects you
With a balanced party you can literally clear out the Moathouse at level 1.
>Since this is 3E (and a horrible adaptation at that) some specific character choices are comically overpowered, like dual wielding fighters, or just Arcane casters
..what?
Compare any Fighter in 5E to a Polearm-Focused Fighter in 5E. There were always certain kinds of builds that were more viable than others in D&D. What the frick even is your point?
>So basically you're going to eat shit a bit in the beginning until you figure out all the broken shit,
Wha.. I.. what? First you b***h about that things are broken and overpowered and then you claim that those things were fixed so now you have to look for the next broken thing to play the game? What the frick do you even want?
Is your brain legitimately okay?
>which point you realize that ToEE is an incredibly easy and broken game
Then why do you feel the need to look for broken spells and builds if its incredibly easy?
And while we are at it if its incredibly use why the frick are you claiming that you HAVE TO do all the quests in Homlet before you leave?
Your posts are just full of inane ramblings that contradict each other, did you actually forget to take your meds before you started posting?
I suggest you work on your reading comprehension because it's clear you lack any
I suggest you stick to posting "I DONT LIKE THING" instead of 2 rambling posts where you keep contradicting yourself.
Again, work on your reading comprehension, and stop wrongly assuming things just because you're mad and can't read english
>dude what you wrote contradicts each other
>LEARN 2 READ
>the things you b***h about still contradict each other tho
>LEARN 2 READ U MAD
You legitimately have a mental illness.
>With a balanced party you can literally clear out the Moathouse at level 1.
I guarantee you are exploiting something to do this, the bandit leader, ogre, and final fight will invariably result in dead level 1 characters
All your characters will hit level 2 after you clear out the frogs on the first level from my direct experience.
not gonna read any of this but you're a moron for getting stuck at the frogs
if anything ToEE is too easy
>How the frick does this game expect a level 3-4 party to win this?
It's not, ToEE is a terrible game even with Co8 and T+, it only gets lip service because it's the contrarian D&D licensed vidya choice of its time and it's made by Troika.
However:
>The game tacitly expects you to do your FEDEX quests in Homlet for building up your party a bit before adventuring
>Since this is 3E (and a horrible adaptation at that) some specific character choices are comically overpowered, like dual wielding fighters, or just Arcane casters
>Vanilla ToEE in particular has several absurdly broken spells like the Charm line which can quite literally break the game horribly if you know how to sequence break around those, charm strong NPCs and make them do all the dirty fighting for you
>This however was specifically nerfed in T+ because those neckbeards don't like fun and want to pretend ToEE is a deep, strategical game
So basically you're going to eat shit a bit in the beginning until you figure out all the broken shit, ToEE can be pretty gratuitous with its random encounters in the beginning too, and if you aren't familiar with the source material you might find it hard to proceed in the first couple of hours because the available quests are very misleading, which is why most people get filtered by the moathouse by going immediately there instead of doing their busywork in Homlet first, at which point you realize that ToEE is an incredibly easy and broken game on top of being a terrible adaptation of a module from a completely different edition that was horribly raped into that 3E based abomination.
Dual wielding Fighters literally only work because of the auto hit swords. They're otherwise incredibly bad.
Instead of the hommlet quests, you can just rest in the spider grove and grind out encounters, I usually do that because those quests are lame. You can get your party to level 5 pretty fast.
>So this is the supposed pinnacle of DnD tactical combat and encounter design?
It's the only one with combat made well.
Another gripe:
Why the frick is identifying in this game so aids? Why is there no lore skill to ID yourself for free? Why the frick does it cost 100 gold to cast the identify spell to ID a 10gp healing potion?
Does the appraise skill not let you ID things? Can bards ID things?
>Why the frick does it cost 100 gold to cast the identify spell to ID a 10gp healing potion?
Lmao, you can ID potions and scrolls with read magic.
Filtered hard. ToEE reigns supreme.
Oh wow, you're saying I can ID by spamming rest 10 times in a row, risking ambush every time I want to identify 3 cure light wounds potions before having to rest again? Incredible. I kneel ToEEbros.
No, even one read magic does wonders 🙂
The great filter continues!
it just keep happening, by mordain's hammer
Not him, but if you have temple plus, and everyone should, casting one read magic is enough to identify all the scrolls/potions in your inventory.
Mods are essential to enjoying this game, I recommend circle of eight standard version and temple plus for a newbie like you.
Just don't give up, the more I played the more I enjoyed this game.
You got memed
>How the frick does this game expect a level 3-4 party to win this?
You should not at all be at level 3 here, how the frick did you do so little?
Another problem is that it was clearly meant to be two different encounters, but if your party is big enough you trigger two fights for the price of one.
So yes, a bit of a shitty encounter, but the game overall is indeed great when it comes to combat and rules implementation.
Anyway, just come back later.
i bought and played this last week. It's alright but zero story, and i had to patch the bugs which is fine but the story is non-existent and the combat isn't anything special either. If you're expecting another Baldur's Gate, don't even waste your time on this crap
>If you're expecting another Baldur's Gate
What would that be? Shitty implementation of D&D combined with horrible writing and characters?
Temple of Elemental evil is the most faithful adaptation of the tabletop rules and the combat is STILL extremely simple and slow. This game perfectly showcases how unnecessary TB is in a crpg. ToEE makes a tradeoff of being 10-20% more tactical than BG2/IWD for 1700% slower combat.
Like, wow! I can ready an action! This is so worth making this fight against 8 skeletons take 8 minutes vs 25 seconds in RtwP!
>fight against 8 skeletons take 8 minutes
>moron doesn't have any turn undead
lmao
I accept your concession.
>This is so worth making this fight against 8 skeletons take 8 minutes
If you bother talking to Spugnoir at the beginning of the game he gives you tips on how to fight undead, and he makes it clear you need a blunt weapon to take out Squeletons.
If you apply this basic strategy, the only way this fight takes 8 minutes is to fall asleep on your keyboard.
Not a fan of turn undead because unless you are high level you are going to chase foes accros the map and run into more encounters.
>Not a fan of turn undead because unless you are high level you are going to chase foes accros the map and run into more encounters.
tell me you're not a Sun domain cleric without telling me
Holy frick, If only I'd known you autists would completely sidestep the point being made and hyper-fixate on randomly picking skeletons as an example. Bugbears, bandits, kobalds, anything the game spams at you becomes a complete chore to slog through.
If your point of pain is many swarmer enemies then there's multiple ways of dealing with that shit, even basic b***h Sleep.
Your posts reek of "I came unprepared and had a bad time".
>Holy frick, If only I'd known you could tell Im moronic I would stopped being moronic
I mean, yeah?
>Temple of Elemental evil is the most faithful adaptation of the tabletop rules and the combat
See, this is the problem. It's not the TB stuff. TOEE is indeed an almost 1:1 adaptation of the game book, BUT, all of the dead time in between stuff you do and fight, is filled out with roleplaying from human players. That's the issue. Without other people to play with, you end up a seemingly lifeless combat simulator. That's the gist of it, not the mechanics.
You're right that the game has shitty encounter design but it's not because of anything you listed, it's because 90% of the encounters in the game are shit trash fights and the rest get destroyed if you have any idea how 3E works.
>pinnacle of DnD tactical combat and encounter design
It is and this also tells you how shit D&Dfinder really is.
Is sorc, fighter, cleric, rogue and a ranger a good party? Never played a 3e game before.
In a 3e campaign, yes. In ToEE - no.
Try 1-2 fighters, 1-2 Good/Neutral clerics with sword and board, A rogue and a WIz/Sorc.
The Village of Hommlet is a great introduction to 1st or even 2nd edition D&D but it's extremely flawed as a 3rd edition computer game. The Temple itself wasn't designed by Gygax and is pretty lousy with its armies of bugbears. People praise ToEE for how well it adapts the rules, the content itself is bland.
>People praise ToEE for how well it adapts the rules
And those people don't know what they're talking about, it's a shitty adaptation with over half of the basic 3E content missing.
You know you've made a terrible job at adapting a ruleset when you force people to have a rogue in the chaotic neutral prologue because for some unknown reason you don't allow players to break chests open, and if you can't picklock the chest in that prologue you're softlocked and have to restart.
That's a minor design oversight. There's absolutely no need to ever pick a lock in the rest of the game.
The game really starts in the temple, then from there it's you and your party mowing down room after room of enemies. I love the game honestly, and the game gets best when the encounters start throwing demons, devils, and special monsters your way.
ToEE is actually one of the few turn-based D&D RPGs that gives you an actual ability to flee combat, IIRC. Try Imerydys Run later; maybe around level 5 at least. Or perhaps you'd prefer a sandbox game that scales to your level at all times instead.
As a general rule, people on this board are tremendously contrarian and will literally defend even broken garbage games (or objectively bad shit in games) purely because their entire identity is wrapped up in being the special snowflake on an online mongolian estrogen distribution website.
Troika games in particular are subject to this; You can unironically find people on here who will try to say Arcanum had good combat.
>contrarian
Reddit word.
Funny how 10 years ago nobody on this site used it.
10 years ago everyone on this site was using the word "fedora" and calling each other hipsters newbie.
>Searching for posts that contain ‘fedora’ and posts after 2010-1-1 and posts before 2015-6-23 and in ascending order. Returning only first 100000 of 156216
>Searching for posts that contain ‘contrarian’ and posts after 2010-1-1 and posts before 2015-6-23 and in ascending order. 18978 results found.
I remember those times.
>Arcanum had good combat.
it did though, you just didn't like it
Arcanum had shit combat. You're delusional.
>So this is the supposed pinnacle of DnD tactical combat and encounter design?
>D&D is a garbage system and ToEE is a garbage game
>SO TURN BASED BAD 'MKAY?
>So this is the supposed pinnacle of DnD tactical combat and encounter design?
Who said that? This is a 3e based game. The only people who would praise it are 3aboos, who have a very well known reputation for being tasteless brainlet morons. A wise space wizard once said 'who is the bigger fool, the fool or the fool who follows him?'. You should have known better.
Codex jacks off this game like its jizz is honey.
If 3.5e is considered a tasteless brainlet system, what does that say about 5e? It looks like it stripped away and streamlined 3.5e even more, which is already a pretty simple system.
Just git gut
Seeing ToEE praised feels like a psyop. You can literally stumble upon the endgame trigger, beating the game without having engaged with the dungeon at all, not knowing what the dungeon even is, or even getting to fight any kind of boss. It feels like a tech demo even with co8.
>You can literally stumble upon the endgame trigger, beating the game without having engaged with the dungeon at all, not knowing what the dungeon even is, or even getting to fight any kind of boss.
Absolutely nothing wrong with this given that the same thing can happen in tabletop.
>endgame trigger
>in a 1e module
I'm currently reading TOEE and I have not a bloody clue what you could be referring to. I think that one of us is moronic, please prove that it's me.
>The dais is marked "A" on the map. Atop
it is a huge throne of silver, set with 666 pre-
cious gems—300 of base value 50 gp; 200 of
base value 100 gp; 100 of base value 500 gp;
33 of base value 1,000 gp; and 33 of base
value 5,000 gp. Included is every type of
precious stone known to man. Each stone is
attuned to a demon: a Type I to each of the
least value; Type II to those of 100 gp; Type
III to those of 500 gp; Type IV to those of
1,000 gp; and babau demons to those of
5,000 gp. Possessors gain demonic attention
at a time they least desire it; an exorcise spell
can be used to cleanse 20-120 (2d6xlO)
gems. If all the gems are pried from the
throne, Zuggtmoy is freed to return to her
home plane (as if all the bronze gates had
been sundered), but is imprisoned there for
66 years, after which she may come forth
with all her normal powers
With the exception of the elemental nodes which would have taken too much time, they were incredibly faithful to the module.
>With the exception of the elemental nodes which would have taken too much time
Ah yes, using correct monster batches would have taken too much time, and putting fricking balors in what was essentially a starter module is being "incredibly faithful" to the module...
did i filter you, babby?
>untouchable spell resistance
>fears your entire party despite protection from evil
>remove fear, does, in fact, not remove ear
>summons another balor on top of your backline
I stopped playing at this fight. I seriously do not get what the FRICK the game wanted you to do. The only reason he's hard is his stupid fricking fear attacks.
It worked for me, I don't know what went wrong for you. But other than specific powerbuilding, your only chance is to use the skull's powers and scather/fragerach because they never miss. The Balor's AC is sky high, you're extremely unlikely to hit otherwise. As a 20 CR creature he's considered unbeatable by a party level-capped at 10 according to the rules.
>D&D
>Filtering anyone older than 12
You think way too highly of yourself, but yes, let's keep pretending all the changes in ToEE like slapping a fricking balor in a beginner module are "being faithful" to the original module
You can casually gangbang him with two fighters as long as you're not building some idiots, hell you can fricking solo him as a fighter doing nothing but attack spam
Balor's the hardest fight in the game, nothing casual about it.
Doesn't mean much since the rest of the game is just easy, the only two ways fighting Balor could be hard for a competently built party are
>He fears your entire party because you're unlucky/don't have a pally/bard
>He summons another Balor because you're unlucky, sucks to be you
In any other case he goes down rather quickly like the rest of the chumps, by that point in the game you should be geared with good shit and at level cap more or less
It's a moronic and extremely out of place fight though I'll give you that.
As long as you have high WIL it will be hard for him to pass the check to inflict Fear on your party members, I'm pretty sure you can also just effortlessly triplock him in Vanilla ToEE, can't remember if that was changed if you're playing on Co8.
And I might be wrong on this since I last played ToEE nearly a decade ago, but I'm pretty sure you can also just wienerblock the Balor entirely with Dismissal if you pass the check, as he SHOULD count as a summoned creature in the first place, but again I might be wrong on this.
Nah, Co8 made that boss complete bullshit that requires cheese to win. You can have +20 will saves, prot from evil, and your party will get instant cc'd. The only way to avoid is be a paladin, or autistically swarm him from with trash summons from across the map until he uses up all his casts of fear spells. It's a damn shame Co8 comes bundles with this tedious bullshit.
>The only way to avoid is be a paladin, or autistically swarm him
I seem to remember protection from evil (the lv 1 spell, not the five feet version) makes you immune to fear.
Maybe dismissal works too, I just delete him with Scather though, so I never tried.
I just played the fight like 2 days ago and prot from evil doesn't work. Maybe it was a change in a later version of Co8.
At best you get a 60% chance to hit him and that's if you do everything right. The only thing that can make him easy is having a good character who can wield the swords that completely negate the attack roll.
My fighter gets feared instantly. I confess I DID kill the balor once, but it felt like a fluke because I just tanked him for 10 rounds until fear wore off and once I was actually able to attack the fricking thing he went down pretty quick. It was super unsatisfying though seeing how none of my prep work/pre-buffing did fricking anything.
To get there 'without engaging with the dungeon' you'd have to bust down all the antipathy doors (making those saves being 100% luck based) which would free Zuggtmoy entirely. Only unseating all those gems without busting the doors would imprison her and I do not believe that can be easily done.
You can get there by doing the same thing you do in the game, go to the secret tunnel through the ruins, bet Falrinth, then pick up the skull.
4. ESCAPE TUNNEL
This five-foot-wide passage is hewn from
the bedrock underlying the Temple com-
plex, evidently following a natural fissure in
the limestone. It bears generally west,
though it has many curves. In places it is not
worked at all, and there the width varies
from four to eight feet. About 540 feet
along, it opens into a small natural cave.
The north wall of this 40' oval chamber is
marked by a three-foot wide opening. (A
secret entrance to Dungeon Level Three,
area 335, is concealed in the eastern portion
of the south wall by a balanced, pivoting
stone slab.
The throne can be ordered to sink to the
Greater Temple (Dungeon Level Three, area
352). Only a limited wish or greater spell
can detect this movement capability. The
possessor of the Orb of Elemental Death
(Dungeon Level Three, area 322) knows
how to operate the throne merely by gazing
upon it (magically becoming aware of the
command words to make it lower or rise)
and can control the throne by sitting on it
while holding the Orb.
The throne can otherwise be activated by a
wish, or by the following procedure. The user
must step on the four color slabs directly
before the throne, in proper order—brown,
white, green, red—and then speak the name
of Zuggtmoy. The throne thereafter sinks to
area 340 when anyone sits upon it
I love how they kept the non-linear features like these from the original module, it's a totally different experience from modern campaigns.
Oh, I see how that works now. Thank you for humouring me.
Is there a bit in the book that says "Also I designed the doors specifically to frick Rob Kuntz over because I'm tired of his standard dungeon operating procedure"
The book was heavily edited and somewhat redesigned by Mentzer so most of Gygax's soulful ramblings would be removed from the Temple part.
Old game is old.
ToEEbros what's the best way to play this game today? Steam, GOG?
All my games are on steam so I thought about purchasing it there but steam ports of old games are garbage in 99.99% of the cases
I don't even think it's on Steam, but I got it from GOG.
Get the Temple+ and Circle of 8 mods, and you're good to go.
I'm surprised to see all the negative comments about ToEE on here, it really is a gem of a game. Though I don't see how the Moathouse is clearable at level 1. My general advice is to do the Hommelt fedex quests plus the Welkwood Bog content from Co8, then make your way through Emridy Meadows and part of the Moathouse - the big thing is to find the extraplanar chest in the moathouse and then loot everything that isn't nailed down. The game throws so much gold at you that you can buy high-level spells from Burne's tower early on. A few scrolls of Fireball, or even better, Cone of Cold, will drastically make the skeleton swarms in Emridy or the final battle of the Moathouse much easier. You can also recruit allies and sell off their armor for extra gold for spell scrolls and crafting costs as well, especially considering how poorly-optimized most NPCs and pregen characters are.
From there on, avoid Emryd's Run for a bit while you explore part of the Temple proper. The Balor fight is the one fight you have to metagame a bit around to prepare, because Remove Fear/Calm Emotions don't work against fear effects like they should. Protection From Evil should have you covered there.
>Im surprised to see all the negative comments about ToEE on here, it's really a gem of a game
ToEE is a hard video game, it's not for guide reading drolling casuals. Most people here are surprisingly shit at video games, you probably know this but to what magnitude, you'd be surprised
>I'm surprised to see all the negative comments about ToEE on here
Why, did you mistake this place for a board that plays rpgs?
It's a great combat system, but it's a flawed game, and that includes encounter design. For several of them you need precise setup and party composition.
What fights do you think require precise composition? Specific skills like picking locks for are useful, but with scrolls like Warp Wood or Knock available, they aren't strictly necessary.
Anytime I've played, I always do well enough as long as I have an arcane caster, a caster that can heal, and/or a chaotic good character for Fragarach
All I see ITT is one moron with a chip on his shoulder over 3.5e and ToEE sperging out en masse.
Sucks to suck. I found ToEE too easy.