interesting reading in the ToEE manual

Discussion in 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' started by krunch, Sep 2, 2007.

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  1. krunch

    krunch moving on in life

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    The following items are shown on pages 149, 150, and 151 in the ToEE manual.

    Changes

    This section describes differences between the rules in ToEE and the core D&D rules.

    • Characters need two hands free to use a crossbow or sling.
    • Attacks of Opportunity are always standard attacks, never trips or other attacks.
    • You can cast a spell with your hands full at no penalty.
    • All spellcasters are assumed to have all necessary spell components, except for those that cost more than 99 gp. For spell components that cost more than 99 gp, the game deducts gold to cover the expense.
    • If you're unconscious but stable and you stabilize on your own, you don't lose hit points every hour as detailed in DMG p.85. That is, there is no difference between stabilizing on your own and stabilizing because of aid from another player.
    • Disabled characters automatically gain hit points naturally and don't suffer a chance of dying (DMG p.85).
    • Death from massive damage isn't implemented.
    • Attack order is always primary attack 1, primary attack 2, primary attack 3 and offhand attack 1, offhand attack 2. You can’t change that order.
    • Dodge gives you bonuses against the first monster to attack you in a round. You don't get to choose. The burden of choosing an attacker each round is no fun.
    • The player must select an alignment for his entire party, which restricts the player’s choices for individual character alignments. This alignment is tested by NPCs to produce alignment-based reactions and dialog options and also controls the background story and starting quest for the player group.
    • We think that the D&D 3rd Ed. designers had meant that when you are encumbered that you would move at three-quarters of your normal movement rate. However, since they play on a grid of 5' squares, they always rounded this down, yielding the seemingly inconsistent 30' –> 20' but 20' –> 15'. We implement movement as a real number that is three-quarters of your normal movement rate. Thus, a character who is encumbered and could move 30', now moves 22.5' per turn.
    • Detect Magic: Does not allow detection of spell school via a Spellcraft roll. Also, the aura strengths are represented by intensity rather than duration of effect.
    • Detect Secret Doors: Detects the presence of secret doors in its range. We ignored the timing issues.
    • Prone characters can't attack at all. This was done to reduce the number of animations.
    • Turned Undead: Turned creatures do not stop being turned if the turner approaches them.
    • Commanded Undead: It does not take a standard action to direct undead; they function like followers.
    • The number of commanded undead is limited by number of followers, not by double the cleric's level.
    • Fascinated creatures (through the bardic music ability) cannot move or attack. The effect is broken when they take damage.
    • Maintaining the bardic Fascinate ability means you do not perform any other action besides moving that round. If you do, the target is no longer fascinated.
    • You can attempt to Fascinate the same creature as many times as your daily performance allowance permits.
    • The bardic music ability Suggestion is replaced with Intimidate: A bard with nine or more ranks in Perform can Intimidate a single creature. The creature is affected if he fails a Will saving throw (DC 11 + bard’s Charisma modifier). Affected creatures are forced to move away from the bard as if affected by a Fear spell for as many rounds as the bard has levels. Using this ability counts toward the bard’s daily limit of performances.
    • The spell Doom does affect damage rolls (as per the first printing of the PHB, not the second).
    • Barbarian rage was implemented as a three state system: you are normal, raged, or fatigued. Also, fatigue lasts for as many rounds as the rage lasted. These changes handle the obscure problem of only raging once per encounter, but fatigue wearing off at the end of the encounter.
    • You can't make a Trip Attack as part of an AOO, Cleave, or Whirlwind Attack.
    • You can make a Trip Attack with any weapon. You can’t drop that weapon to avoid being tripped in return.
    • The rogue Opportunist special ability works if the target is hit by a melee attack in a round — it doesn't matter if you damage the target or not.
    • The Skill Mastery special ability has been changed, because take 10 and take 20 works differently in our game and are no longer applicable. Skill Mastery gives you a +2 bonus on a number of skills equal to (3 + your Intelligence modifier). This bonus stacks with Skill Focus.
    • You can't spontaneously cast spells that have metamagic feats applied to them.
    • Druid levels and half of the Ranger level (if Ranger level > 4) stack for the purposes of determining available animal companions for multiclass druid/rangers.
    • Lizard familiars give you a +2 bonus on Will saves instead of a bonus on climb checks.
    • Since we don't have the Endurance feat in our game, the prerequisite for Diehard has been changed to Great Fortitude.
    • The Luck Domain special ability has been changed so that you set a checkbox in order to reroll the next missed saving throw, missed attack or unconfirmed critical. Once again, the burden of choosing every opportunity is no fun.
    • Small and large weapon sizes are implemented as a 3.0/3.5 hybrid. Our weapon list includes the half-spear and halfling siangham, the halfling kama and the halfling quarterstaff, but no other small weapons. Medium-sized creatures can wield the halfling weapons as if they were light weapons, at no penalty. Halflings can wield medium weapons as if they were one category larger, without penalty. We include the Sai and Shuriken as per 3.5 rules.
    • Deflect Arrows and Snatch Arrows are now passive feats. Deflect arrows is automatically used at the first opportunity. Similarly, the first weapon thrown at a character with the Snatch Arrows feat each round is automatically thrown back at the attacker.
    • Characters with the Diehard feat cannot choose to lose consciousness.
    • Cloak of Elvenkind will always grant a +10 circumstance bonus to Hide checks (no pulling it over your head).
     
    Last edited: Sep 2, 2007
  2. TonkaElk

    TonkaElk Gear Jammer

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    Here is a wierd question...I use Vista w/Office 2007. When I open my "old" (Office 2003) TOEE manual the pages are not in any comprehensible order, i.e. pg 119 comes before 118 and 117. Is there some way I can lay my sweaty leettle finners on a real manual (one that I have to physically turn the pages)? Or, failing that, is there some way I can make my "old" 2003 manual compatible with 2007?
     
  3. krunch

    krunch moving on in life

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    Look for the PDF file on the original CD disk named toee_manual_enu.pdf and use Acrobat Reader.
     
  4. TonkaElk

    TonkaElk Gear Jammer

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    Sometimes, I look in the mirror and say, "How did you live to 50?" Thanks Krunch
     
  5. thearioch

    thearioch Need More Cowbell

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    That's the description from long_description.mes as well. My protos.tab (Co8 CMF 5.05) has the actual value at +5 to Hide.

    The Boots of Elvenkind long_description.mes and protos.tab entries are both +5 to Move Silently. As 3 of 4 entries indicated +5 for this type of item, I edited the Cloak's long_description.mes entry to show +5.

    Has this been discrepancy been noted and addressed for the new release? Shingingted just released a new protos.tab with hs recent Feat adjustments.

    --thearioch
     
  6. Shiningted

    Shiningted I want my goat back Administrator

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    +5 is correct according to the SRD. The long_description.mes should reflect that but while it has been heavily improved by Maggit / ShadowDragoon, its far from perfect.
     
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