Games Similar to ToEE

What would be some games similar to Temple of Elemental Evil?

 

2nd ed d&d based, full party control

Baldur's gate series
Icewinddale series
Planescape: Torment

Partial party control

Neverwinter Nights series (3rd ed d&d)
Arcanum: of steamworks & magic
Fallout 1, 2 and tactics

 

Other than fallout tactics, none of them are turn based.
Spiderweb software does a lot of old-school turn-based fantasy games, but they are not as tactically advanced in combat as TOEE... one of their games was on sale on steam just the other day I think. They have more in common with the old DnD computer games than TOEE.
Edit: AH yes, the old days I got to reminiscing after pondering games that are like TOEE (how few there are that are turn based and genuinely tactical!) To be tactical, you really need more than just a turn-based game... combat options are essential, like trip, defense choices, etc.
So! Anyone remember "Wizard's Crown" from a long, long time ago (Commodore 64, for me.) Uh did I just show my age? It was turn based, and (perhaps) even more tactical than TOEE, degrees of offense and defense, reach weapons, injuries that affect combat, morale, weapon types that varied in effectiveness vs types of armor, axes could break shields but were heavy, flails could reach around shields, oh, and bleeding. Although almost all the combat was random encounters, which puts it in my mind a notch below TOEE.

 

Arcanum can also be put in turn based. BG, ID & Ps:T can be paused with the spacebar, but you can still give commands while it's paused - which is excellent for the spellcasting classes.

 

Better yet, they can be set with various Auto-Pause conditions, including after a spell is cast - making them almost turn-based.

One of the best D&D turn-based tactical games out there (possibly even better implementation of the 3.5 ed rules) is Knights of the Chalice. The graphics are straight out of a Gold-Box game such as Pool of Radiance (yes, I definitely just gave away my age) but if you can deal with that it is an awesome tactical combat game.

 

As the user above me said Knights of the Chalice is well worth your time. I believe it has a demo as well. Also you might try Age of Decadence demo. Not finished but the demo is pretty large.

 

Neverwinter Nights 1 has partial party control, yes, but Neverwinter Nights 2 has full party control as in Baldur's Gate and TOEE.

 

NWN2 with the Storm of Zehir expansion allows you to create your entire party and switch between party members to do whatever is needed, in a conversation you will see a speech balloon in the portrait of any character that might have a different dialog option due to race, class, stat or skill.

In short ... NWN2 with the expansions ROCKS!

Now, Knights of the Chalice is a difficult but rewarding game.

I want to spend a few hours playing it WITHOUT getting my butt handed to me.

 

I agree! Though just so everyone knows all of the options for it (I know you know this already, Sirchet!), it's not required to use the party creation even in SoZ -- there are also companion NPCs that you can recruit for your party, and have full control over them as well, instead of, or in addition to, the party members you create yourself. It's very flexible. In the vanilla game, and in its first expansion, your party is built from companion NPCs that you can choose based on their class or personality, as you prefer.

This is distinguished from NWN1, in which there are no "companions", but what they call "henchmen", to whom you can give commands, but who you can't control directly.

I just had to make this distinction, because I myself avoided NWN2 for many years because I was under the mistaken impression that it didn't have full party control.

 

The AI in a game would have to be astoundingly good for me to not require full party control. I too avoided NWN II for a while, thinking it was like NWN I's party non-control system.

 

I as well avoided NWN2 so far because I thought it had missing party control. I think I will give it a try now. Do I have to use one of the extensions right away to have full control over my party. Do I have to use an expansion to access other vital improvements?
Any other tip is very welcome

 

You have full party control with the base game, with or without the expansions. It's just that if you want to create each member of your party yourself, you need Storm of Zehir.

As for tips, first it might help to know what kind of game you like better, to determine which of the expansions you might prefer.

The base game is a large, branching, "save the world" "chosen one" type of thing with a ton of side quests, and goes from level 1-20. There are a couple of romance options as well. It can be tongue-in-cheek sometimes. It takes place in and around Neverwinter.

The first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, is a darker, smaller, more story-focused game more along the lines of Planescape: Torment, and goes from levels 20-30, and takes place in Rashemen and Thay, and involves some planewalking.

Storm of Zehir takes place around the same time as the other installments, but isn't involved in their events, and starts at level 4. It takes place in the Samarach jungle continent, though it spreads out to the Sword Coast as well. Levels are smaller here, and it's designed to be more game-focused than story-focused, with most of the exploration being on the overland map instead of in the dungeons themselves. It has a better tutorial than either of the previous installments. No "chosen one" plot -- you're just a party of adventurers, going on an adventure.

Playing with the expansions installed allows access to more races and classes than the original base game had. There's also improved AI with the expansions, though if you micromanage your party, and/or play with the AI turned off, that doesn't matter. Also, most user-made adventure modules tend to assume you have both expansions.

I think my preferred camera setting (exploration mode) was introduced in one of the expansions, as well, but I don't know which one. I tend to play it in a pseudo-isometric angle and distance, and I use click-to-move instead of the arrow keys, because it works better with the pathfinding.

You'll likely need to edit the .ini file to adjust the camera movement sensitivity (it's too sensitive by default), and I suggest turning off the option that rotates the camera when your mouse gets near the edges of the screen.

 

Thanks Tchos.
Does it have significant advantages to create a full party except for making the most powerful party? Like in Baldurs Gate2 I liked the Npc Members a lot but in ToEE they didn't bring any real new quest content and had too many disadvantages for me.
I prefer the isometric view as well, like in ToEE, does anyone know which expansion is necessary to play in that view?

 

I thought they cut rather than added camera views in NWN2 expansions?

In any case, you should probably just get SoZ for the sake of variety, though personally I found the last expansion to be rather boring. They used to have the whole thing on Steam, not sure if they do anymore.

 

I don't know if any camera modes were cut. There are three with both expansions installed: Exploration Mode, Character Mode, and Strategy Mode. All three of them can be played from a high angle and zoomed out, as in an isometric style, but the behaviour of the camera is a little different in each of them (and I think I've heard that they behaved somewhat differently without the expansions). In character mode, it follows the player, but it rotates the view to face the direction of the player when you click to move. Exploration mode also follows the player, but does not change the rotation of the camera when you move, and that's why I prefer that one. Strategy mode doesn't rotate the camera either, but it will allow the player to nearly go offscreen before moving along with the player. That's more for battles, I think, where you want the camera to remain relatively still while you position your characters strategically. I haven't used that one.

Also, the key to select all party members only works in certain camera views, like exploration mode, while dragging a marquee to select a group of party members I think only works in strategy mode.

As for the party, in NWN2, the NPC party members are more akin to BG than ToEE, because they have personalities, personal quests that you can choose to do, interjections in certain new locations, and conversations that develop over the course of the game (depending on whether you pursue their quests).

Characters that you create with the party editor can't have personal quests like that, of course, but SoZ dialogue is built with conversation checks that allow your different party members to contribute different dialogue options based on factors like their class, race, deity, attributes, or skills. As Sirchet mentioned, SoZ dialogue enables you to switch which character is speaking during a conversation, to see and use their different options. That means you don't have to give your main character all the diplomacy and social skills, because you can let someone else do the talking. (That works with both NPC party members and player-created ones, but only if you have SoZ.)