(Very) New Player, a Few Questions for the Pros

I'm curious about something: If you send your Rogue out in stealth and discover an enemy (assuming you are not detected), will the rest of your party start the round flat-footed as usual?

Hah, I didn't know that. I took the Good domain on the assumption that most opponents would be evil (the name of the game kind of gave it away ) but I didn't know about the crafting.

What effect do holy weapons have on evil/undead?

 

+2d6 damage per hit to any evil opponent.

 

Sweet!



I may just have made a mistake....

I accidentally hit the quicksave key, and saved the game. I immediately quit and checked online (I know that quicksaves are prone to corruption) and found a number of threads where players said that using quicksave even once could lead to ALL saves being corrupted down the road, and that the only way to prevent eventual corruption was to delete all your saves and start from scratch.

That doesn't make logical sense to me, but I know how badly afflicted ToEE is when it comes to game-breaking bugs. I'm not that far into the game right now, so if I need to restart then I'd rather get it over with before I progress much further.

Going to cross my fingers =/

 

First, you probably shouldn't have the Rogue just wandering around in Sneak mode; it DOES take far too much time. The thing to do is have the Rogue approach any door you've already found, Sneak (with Invisibility, if you've got it) while the rest of the party hides out of line of sight, enter the room and approach what seems to be the toughest opponent, close the door behind him, THEN have the rest of the party enter the room.

To answer your question, everybody starts combat flat-footed until his/her initiative roll comes up, though the person who INITIATES combat generally goes first, at least if it's a PC. Good reason to take Improved Initiative, even if you don't consider factors like being able to cast Web or Spike Stones before the enemy can move.

 

Exactly how I've been using it, as a short-ranged scout. Is the move-speed penalty supposed to be that high in PnP? It makes sense logically, but my Rogue is sloooowwww.

Damn, that's a good point. I didn't even think of taking Imp Init on my caster - that's obviously who should be picking it. AoE the hell out of everything before it has a chance to move out of a nice little group.

 

It's also quite useful to the rogue, for those times when he can't be the one who initiates combat.

 

That's another good point - especially since I'm not sure what feats to take with him. I suppose the dodge-based feats seem good, mobility and the like, but we'll see.

Right now I'm just biting my fingernails hoping I won't have to restart the whole game since I accidentally used quicksave....

 

You are much better off using the druid over the sorcerer. Doodads get all the great buff spells, can spontaneous summon, backup heal, AND have some sick evoc spells for nuking. Might want to reconsider the feats though. NS isnt helpful until you get wild shape at lvl 5 so Id suggest taking it as your lvl 6 feat. And AS has Focus: Conjure as a prerequisite. Before you go sinking feats into summoning though, make sure thats the role you want your druid in. If you want to lean more towards healing, buffing, or nuking then dont bother.

I prefer not to specialize my wizard. Losing 2 schools completely just to slightly benefit 1 school just doesnt make sense to me. Let your Wizard concentrate on evocing but make sure to ferret out the buff, debuff, and utility spells for your spellbook. The primary benefit of the Wizzy is you can make scrolls to keep those nifty utility spells available yet still have the big nukes memmed. A wiz without an inventory full of scrolls isnt doing it right.

You may consider making a Rog/Barb instead of one of each. Its a sick combo with the right stats and neigh untouchable in combat. Wis is the dump stat, everything else needs to be good scores. That will put a strain on your skill selections though considering you want the rogue to be your faceman.

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How you build your party is completely up to you. There is no perfect build so the important thing is to find chars that suit you. And dont worry about getting it right the first time. Play through a few times and find what works and what doesnt, or more importantly, what you like and what you dont. Druids arent for everyone, neither are wizards. Play to find a style and build that suits you.

Remember: its not about wringing every last bit out of every character, its about what you find entertaining. Do whats fun for you.

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My selections after playing these games for many years and just recently returning to toee:

Good -
Dwarf Ftr/Pal (my first ever pally)
Dwarf Cleric (earth, good)
Human Bard/Rngr (leader)
H-Elf Druid
Elf Rog2/Wizard

Evil -
H-Orc Barb/Rog
Human Cleric (domains depend on diety)
Human Bard/Rngr (leader)
H-Elf Druid
Elf Wizard

6 man team -
Dwarf Fighter (multiclass Pal if Good)
H-Orc Barb/Rog
Dwarf Cleric
Human Bard/Rngr
H-Elf Druid
Elf Wizard

 

^ Hey, thanks for all the info man! Lots of good stuff in there.



On another subject, I've come across a minor-but-irritating bug:

I found a ring of invisibility, which is great. Slapped that sucker on my Rogue, ready to go. Problem is, I can't hotkey it. I mean I can, but the hotkey does nothing. What happened specifically is that I found the ring, hotkeyed it, everything peachy. Then I realized I had done something (can't even remember what) and reloaded an earlier save, before I found the ring.

So I got the ring again, and now the hotkey won't work. I've tried different keys, putting on different characters, etc, no way to get it bound to a functioning hotkey.

Here's the part that really baffled me: I figured that hotkey assignments were attached to savegames. Makes sense, right? Well, they're not. They're global. To test this, I loaded my current game, assigned a key to Full Attack or something, then loaded a save from the beginning of the game. The hotkey was still active, bound to Full Attack. Here's where it gets bizarre.

I have ToEE installed on my laptop, so I transferred the save files (just one slot!) onto the laptop, and fired it up. THE HOTKEY WAS STILL BOUND.

What the hell?!?! The only thing I can think of is that there is a global, non-save file somewhere that saves hotkey assignments, AND they're saved in the savegames for each slot. Sure, it's a minor irritation to go through the radial menu, but for some reason it's the kind of thing that just bugs me. I'm half tempted to completely uninstall, reinstall, and rebuild my entire party from scratch just to get rid of the glitch. That's ridiculous of course, but man, what a strange, pervasive glitch that is.


And it just keeps getting weirder: I removed all save files, and the hotkey assignments were reset on creating a new game. Creating a new game with the other saves files present, all hotkeys still bound.

 

I find the hotkey buggy as well. I like to hotket the Read magic spell for scrolls and potions, at least until I can make a Helm of Read Magic. I have all spellcasters use their 0 level spells on RM early on, as most other 0 level spells suck anyway. The same hotkey (I think I use Z) works for all characters. I also hotket the Extraplanar Chest to X, but sometimes it doesn't work so I will hotkey it to another letter, use it, save the game, then hotkey it back to X. This seems to work for me most of the time.

 

Biggest difference between TOEE and NWN2/MOTB: crowd control is much more effective. Stuff like web, charm spells, cloud spells, etc are devastatingly good, as good as they are in pnp if not even more so (*cough* charm spells are way too good, they make the game a cakewalk if abused... nothing like waltzing through some of the more difficult parts of the temple with Smigmal and her assassin henchman accompanying you as your best friends... perhaps Co8 could add the proper +5 saving throw modifier for charming enemies in the middle of combat at the very least). Casters after you hit mid levels are much much more effective than they are in NWN games, where they severely gimped spellcasting.

As well, you can do battlefield control with non casters effectively too, using reach weapons, trip, and attacks of opportunity that work properly; no more sending your tank up front, only to watch the mobs ignore him and run straight for the back row with impunity.

Also, reach weapons are even more powerful than they are in pnp; if you're running a two hander melee, there's very little reason to not use reach weapons unless you really want to use a couple of specific weapons in the game.

Dodge is a rather weak feat choice unless you're going for the mobility/spring attack chain imo. btw, spring attack actually works in TOEE.

 

Yes, but Dodge is a miserably weak feat GENERALLY, not just in ToEE, unless you're going for the Mobility/Spring Attack/Whirlwind Attack chain. I can't think of anything less useful than a feat that gives you a +1 AC against ONE opponent, IF you remember to tell the DM you're using it. It's pathetic. At least in ToEE you automatically use it every round in which you get attacked.

 

Heh, true enough. Expeditious Dodge is probably a better choice for mobile types... ESPECIALLY if you have spring attack.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall the char sheet sometimes would show PC's with Dodge as having ac 1 better than without it... or am I thinking of NWN2?

 

Yeah, the game automatically shows the character's AC with the Dodge bonus, even though it's only good against the first attack. Same thing happened in IWD2, not that that has anything to do with this game.

 

Dodge is a suck ass feat on its own but what it unlocks is why to take it. Mobility is great though I personally wont bother to pursue the Whirlwind line further since I dont feel there is enough opportunity to use it fully. As it stands now, my pally with Great Cleave cant use that feat enough to make it worth the expense.

I MIGHT go after the Whirlwind line by mixing in a few Fighter levels with my Rog/Barb but will have to see. But the thought of combining Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Dodge, and Mobility to a toon with Power Attack, Cleave, Rage, Whirlwind and a 2h reach weapon in a room full of baddies makes me giddy. Now consider putting Scather in those hands for no miss chance and its just not even fair anymore. Quite unbalanced from a gameplay perspective but would still be fun to watch.

To be honest though, one can substitute Spring Attack and Whirlwind for Combat Reflexes and Great Cleave to get much more usage out of your Feats.