I'm the kind of guy who can hardly get halfway thru a game like ToEE before I've got a new idea for a party, thoughts of what class might be fun to solo with, etc. and find myself replaying the game quite a few times before it's time to put it on the shelf for a while. But, like anyone with this kind of habit, I find myself loosing patience with the early game. I don't like the tedium, but I also don't like throwing all that free XP out the window. So, I thought it might be good to start a thread to brainstorm optimized quest sequences for Hommlet and Nulb. By “optimized” I mean avoiding zig-zagging from one end of the map to the other as much as possible, and where long trips are unavoidable, stopping on the way to pick up, progress in, or finish up another quest if possible. And it doesn’t have to only include quests; things like stopping at the well by the jeweler’s for hidden loot or breaking into a barn at night to kill the guard dogs (nice XP and no negative reaction from townsfolk for doing so) can be included too. These sequences don’t have to include every possible quest, but should include any that are reasonably painless and can help your party or character level in short order.
Meh, or you can just skip Hommlet altogether if you're tired of it, and proceed to other areas to forward the main story - XP is hardly in short supply, and you gain more for fighting stronger enemies. If you're playing NC version of the mod, that's what Welkwood Bog's for, to provide a less "zig-zaggy" alternative to Hommlet. if you're doing fix-only, then go fight skeletons in Emiridy or be brave and proceed directly to Moathouse, it's doable (if a bit tough) from the start, apart from maybe the final fight w/ Lareth. Then there's also always REs. There's also the signpost. Finishing quests takes about quarter of the time now than it used to in the vanilla. I don't think there's much more to be done to make things easier. To answer your question directly, if you wanna metagame Hommlett just finish Meleny's quest-line (since it includes half of all other quests in it). Other than that, the only other ones worth doing not in that line are Woodcutter's quest and "head of the giant" quest, to get access to masterwork stuff.
I disagree. REs (I assume that stands for random encounter?) work only up to a certain point in the game. The amount of experience points you get from killing monsters is dependent on your current level. After reaching level 10 things change radically, most creatures that you will encounter in REs will give you only miniscule amount of experience or none at all. The original level cap in ToEE was set on 10 and the Co8 mods haven’t been able to change that in the way how experience points are generated (right?). So if you want to optimize your XP generation you will do nothing but REs until you reach level 10. After that you can do all the quests, since even though killing monsters won’t give you that much XP, the quests will always give you a fixed amount (right?) This of course is quite time consuming. According to Gazra’s game guide frequent use of the signpost increases the chance of Jerk Stop. Last time I walked through the game I never used the signpost and never experienced the Jerk Stop. Though can’t be sure if the avoidance of the signpost was the crucial factor.
Also if you are going to craft items, begin crafting as early as possible. Crafting costs XP so your crafter will fall back in XP race. This does not matter as long as you are under level 10, as the lover level PCs and NPCs will get more XP from monsters (and quests?) than higher level ones. So your crafter will be able to catch up. After reaching level 10, everybody will get the same amount of XP (from everything?) since the XP generation engine does not recognize levels beyond 10.
@Rocktoy: Well, we're talking about making the Hommlet experience less boring the n-th time around, not XP optimization. I was simply suggesting all the various ways to avoid it, leveling with REs to lvl2 being one of them. IMO TOEE is a poor game to try grinding/min-maxing, because it's much more fun to just roleplay and enjoy every fight as a challenge rather than as a source of XP/loot. IIRC, no, it's scaled to level just like everything else. Can anyone confirm this? I honestly don't remember. I know that cross-class XP penalties still apply, but not sure if everything else still scales or not.
It really depends on where you go for random encounters. Late in the game I like to rest in the big round room outside where the Iuz fight happens. I get giants, ettins, a dozen gargoyles, or oozes. All provide decent XP for high level parties, and the giants and ettins have lots of gems that can be converted to cash for crafting purposes.
