ToEE Best of the Worst Challenge: Details inside!

Intro
Greetings, all!

The intent of this challenge is to give ToEE game experts and anyone else who's especially curious a new challenging way to play. The intent is to give players an idea of how Wizards of the Coast thought D&D 3.5 (and, by extension, ToEE) would be played - with 'weak' player characters against hordes of generally weak enemies. You aren't making the worst characters mechanically possible nor necessarily using the weakest pregens available, but using someone else's characters as a base when you could easily make better characters.

Thanks to all those involved here in making the pregenerated characters match their official stats and appearances as best as practical and improving them from "What?! WHY!?" to more usable 25ish point buy expressions of stereotypical races and classes in D&D 3.5.

Goals
1: Defeat Zuggtmoy.

2: Last as long as you can!

Strict Rules
-Ironman-style play is enforced so your decisions are permanent. Using Ironman mode is optional. I recommend not using Ironman mode but instead normal mode and saving often to forestall bugs. (This operates in the style of a Baldur's Gate no reload challenge: You can use any number of save files, but no reloading past your mistakes once you leave the starting shop! Reloading to bypass bugs is allowed, as is reloading to ensure your Wizards copied scrolls to their spellbooks.)

-At party creation, you start with a party of 1-5 pregenerated characters of your choice - Devis, Jozan, Mialee, Krusk, etc. You can hire replacements at the inns and, if you use Co8 and Temple+, leave some party members at the Inn of the Welcome Wench. (This wasn't in the vanilla game but it should have been.)

-Any character who dies and isn't revived is simply out of the game. For example, no hiring a replacement Krusk because your party's Krusk died and your group lacked the will or the coin to revive him.

-During the game, you may bring along a maximum of 3 recruitable NPCs that were in the vanilla game (Elmo, Fruella, etc. but not Ronald, etc.)

-You must choose an alignment (CG, TN, etc.) and only use pregenerated characters of that alignment or within 1 step of this alignment as per normal. Thus, if your starting alignment vignette is Chaotic Good, you may only have CG, CN, and NG party members.

-Trading items at the starting shop is allowed. (Sleeping here, preparing spells, and otherwise preparing for your adventure is otherwise allowed.) Beyond this, only classes, feats, items, races, and spells available in vanilla ToEE are available. If you do gain a non-vanilla thing (feat, spell, etc.) but don't use it, you also follow this rule.

-Areas added in Co8 New Content (NC) edition are available to visit only after beating Zuggtmoy - even Welkwood Bog. (Visiting the starting shop is totally OK as mentioned above!)

-The level cap before Zuggtmoy's defeat is 10. After this, the level cap is as high as you want within the engine's limits. (If your characters are level 10 and haven't beaten Zuggtmoy, they can continue to accumulate EXP so long as they don't level.)

-Beyond this, if it's in the vanilla game and not patched by whatever patches and mods you use, it's fair game.

Temple+ House Rule Notes
General
-Tolerant Townsfolk: Banned

-Set the other settings on this tab to your liking.

Extra Content
-Check any or all of them if you want, but don't use them until beating Zuggtmoy.

Ruleset
-HP on Level Up: Normal (Rolled at Each Level) or Average

Difficulty
-Allow XP Overflow: Banned.

-Metamagic Stacking: Banned.

-Lax Rules: Banned. This means favored class penalties are in play.

-Stricter Rules Enforcement: Optional.

Mods Allowed
Any mod publicly available on Co8 (such as Temple+ and Circle of Eight) is allowed, but any spells, feats, races, items, classes, and skills not in vanilla ToEE are only available after defeating Zuggtmoy in the Temple.

Allowed Mod-Added Mechanics Pre-Zuggtmoy's Defeat
-You may freely use the pre-game shop, such as for for trading, sleeping, and spell preparation.

-You may leave party members at the Inn of the Welcome Wench and retrieve them later.

-You may set the caster level of items you craft.

-You may use the town signposts to move/warp around because sometimes they're faster than walking!

-Read magic can identify all potions and scrolls in your party's inventory with each casting.

-You may do Brother Smyth's quest for masterwork items and trade in these masterwork items. This way, you can get some weapons and armor for niche builds.

More Lax Rules
-Any rules changes that make it easier for you to win are more lax rules. I leave these to your discretion.

 

My Chaotic Good Vignette Party
Devis the NG Half-Elf Bard: We needed a face man and his starting feat was Dodge. I expect him to go full Bard with Concentration, Appraise, and the social skills.

Devis is also useful for his spell selection - grease, glitterdust, mirror image, invisibility, charm, dominate, heroism, and more!

Jozan the Human Cleric of PelorX (Good & Healing Domains): He's the only full divine caster available to this alignment set, and I chose him for his 15 WIS, 14 STR, and the GOOD Domain - because Holy weaponry doesn't make itself!

Jozan is also somewhat optimized in that he has Combat Casting and Scribe Scroll as feats. They aren't ideal, but being able to make cheap healing scrolls for later use by anyone who can use them is useful early game. He can also, at level 1, read a heal scroll for the Hommlet quest to fix Bing.

Krusk the CN Half-Orc Barbarian1/DruidX: He's the group's strong man, useful for winning the Hommlet Drinking Contest early, moving far in combat, being proficient with all martial weapons, and having a total of +5 in Survival - which is amazingly useful with no Druid in the starting party. (Boo to the Druid's TN alignment!) He amazingly has 12 starting WIS, letting him multiclass to Druid for the pet and the spells. By maxing his WIS, he'll be able to cast Druid spells of level 4 and below at the minimum Druid level, and boosting his WIS further also improves his casting.

Lidda the CG Halfling Rogue1/WizardX: Chosen mostly because she starts with a high DEX and the feat Improved Initiative. She also has 14 starting INT, making Wizard a viable multiclass choice. If I beat Zuggy early enough, expect Arcane Trickster in there once she qualifies. Lidda and Nebin are research assistants to one another.

Nebin the CG Gnome WizardX: Since Mialee was unavailable due to a TN alignment, he's possibly a better replacement with his 10 starting HP. (This is tremendous for a level 1 mildly optimized Wizard!) Lidda and Nebin are research assistants to one another.

My Runners Up
Aramil the NG Elf SorcererX: He has a better spell selection compared to Honnet (mage armor at level 1 instead of sleep) and a higher DEX, but he has 9 CON as a d4 HP class!

Gimble the CG Gnome BardX: Like Devis, but with a worse stat arrangement in my opinion. (His +2 racial CON went to boosting his CON from a base 8 to a 10?! What?) He also has the Negotiator feat instead of Devis's Dodge feat, and Half-Elves sorta get the racial bonus of the Negotiator feat anyway.

Honnet the CG Human SorcererX: I've grown to like spontaneous casters more, but not being able to chose their starting feats and spells just greatly disadvantages them in this case.

Soveliss the CG Elf RangerX: He's remarkably optimized as an archery Ranger (19 starting DEX!), but his 9 starting CON hurts, and his Elven favored class is Wizard, meaning EXP penalties for multiclassing into, say, Druid or Rogue and staying there the rest of the game.

My Party Notes
Everyone starts as or quickly turns into a full caster because casters are super useful compared to non-casters in ToEE!

Level ups are very much a time of course correction for these characters! Improved Initiative at level 3 seems like a must for everyone who lacks it, and Combat Reflexes is useful for polearm wielders. Who gets Craft Wondrous Item and Craft Magic Arms & Armor and when is TBA.

 

Hmm. Interesting concept, though I'm not sure that restricting access to new content character options (as opposed to quest XP) necessarily restricts the power available to you. For spellcasters in particular, my recent playthroughs have explored using classes other than clerics, wizards and druids: Favoured Soul who deliberately declines to take Righteous Might, Beguiler rather than Wizard, Mystic Theurge to cover both arcane and divine, that kinda thing. There's a lot of power-gaming options still available to a party of core-class PCs, even if they have suboptimal level 1 feat choices. I'll give it a go at some point, though it may be interest rather than limits of power that stop me going all the way.

 

@Nightcanon
As mentioned above, this challenge is meant to recreate at least most of the intended feel of D&D 3.5 b WotC. This isn't necessarily using the weakest options available: A dominate or a grease has the same effect (assuming same stats) regardless of the class that used it.

 

ToEE is not balanced as per 3.5 rules. Most monster as tougher and numerous. Meaning iron mode is too harsh, especially with crits.

I always thought that ability to save only in safe areas would be better option.

 

I'd reccomend possibly 3 restrictions that you should consider, if you want a better traditional 3.5 flavor:

1. No charm spells. ToEE charm is very much OP. It can be fun but it does trivialize many parts. A few powerful bugbears or whatever on your side semi-permanently make many fights trivial and quite safe.
   
2. No crafting, except for scrolls. There are enough good weapons and items to be found for this level of adventure party (1 to 9-ish) and spells can fill in the gaps. ToEE crafting can trivialize the game as even the worst-rolled wizard can start doing this by lvl 3. And you can buy most anything in Verbonc for the late-game.
   
3. No meta-gaming for fast money and items, such as knowing the quick route through the temple in order to save Prince Thrommel and co + teleport scroll. Etc.

I've done quite a few of these restriction runs, both good and evil. It's a nice change.

 

@hammyh
If that's what you want for your version, go ahead. The options felt restrictive enough.

I've been a very big fan of crafting because it lets me get the items I want. It still requires having the right character(s) and spending feats.

I've barely used charm and dominate abilities, but I understand they're potentially powerful.

I'm all for metagaming in video games.

 

on 1, I never use charm/dominate anyway

on 3, I find this boring so I do not do this either

on 2, Crafting is how I personalize the game i.e. the Dwarven Paladin gets a +1 Holy Dwarven Waraxe instead of the longsword(which nobody else gets )

 

I'm puzzled by this notion that crafting somehow makes you overpowered. If you craft, you pay in money and XP. Using what you find costs neither, and one of the weapons you find is easily the most overpowered item available in the game, due to a poor fit between what 'always hits' means for a weapon in first edition AD&D and what it can mean in D&D3.5.

 

Crafting basically lets you outfit your entire party with overpowered items in every slot. This is probably because there's too much treasure in the game, or not enough stuff to spend it on outside of magic items.

For instance, +4 stat items are standard for level 14. This means that you'd barely ever get one at level 10 and below. However, the prerequisite for crafting it is 8th level (it doesn't increase over +2). The only limitation is money, but crafting them is half price (spending XP on them actually allows you to get bigger XP rewards to catch up to the rest of the party/craft more). If you could afford to buy a +4 item, you can basically afford to craft a +6 item, which is even further beyond the guidelines. So crafting lets you access items that are way better than you could possibly get from level-appropriate loot, unless your gold is tightly controlled (which it isn't).

Probably some mods contribute, like added content for XP, and humble NPCs not squandering your money (even though it's to their benefit to join the crafting).

 

My experiences with D&D 3.5 have been heavily focused on mechanical optimization: When GMing my first long-spanning campaign (level 1 to 21+), the party invested in +5 resistance items around level 10. This made a notable difference because they were saving more reliably. Part of me liked that.

+4 stat items to me seemed like standard issue for level 8 or 9 characters with +6 stat gear being standard between level 10 and 12.

At least part of the explained differences are in expectations. I didn't expect to buy nor use consumables: I (mostly) wanted permanent items. WotC assumed a different power curve and more consumables. (I read that MIC item expectations by level table and thought it, like many things WotC did, was very different from what people actually did in play. In this case, I thought it was way too weak!)

In one of my ToEE games, I recall saving a lot of money to get a +6 stat item at a low level. I recall the joy I got when crafting it, then the feeling of equipping it, seeing I barely got any benefit (spells were about 15% more likely to take effect, +3 Appraise, some more spells per day) and also felt a tinge of reluctant regret. This stuff is useful, yes, but it also felt underwhelming, like getting an expensive new jacket that's only marginally better than the old one. This is a commonality within the 3.5 system: Straight upgrades tend to be small and incremental.