Please read my entire post before replying. This is my first time playing The Temple of Elemental Evil and I would like to hear some suggestions on my party creation. I have played other D&D games like Baldur's Gate 1&2, Icewind Dale 1&2, NeverWinter Nights 1&2, Knights of the Old Republic 1&2. I've read the D&D 3.5 PHB, but I don't remember the rules very well. For my characters' creation, I'm using a point-buy system, with an average of 28 points per character (Roll a 11, switch modes, drag the attribute, spend the remaining 25 points). My idea was to initially fill the party with the four core classes (fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric) or their equivalent. 1) Rogue Roles: spokesperson, find traps, disable devices Race: Human Stats: 10 STR, 14 DEX, 12 CON, 16 INT, 10 WIS, 12 CHA Feats: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot Skills: Bluff (4), Diplomacy (4), Disable Device (4), Gather Info (4), Hide (4), Listen (4), Move Silently (4), Open Locks (4), Search (4), Sense Motive (4), Spot (4), Tumble (4) 2) Fighter Roles: frontliner Race: Human Stats: 16 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 10 INT, 10 WIS, 10 CHA Feats: Iron Will, Power Attack, Cleave Skills: Heal (2), Listen (2), Tumble (2) 3) Wizard Roles: controller, nuker Race: Human Stats: 10 STR, 14 DEX, 14 CON, 16 INT, 10 WIS, 10 CHA Feats: Spell Focus (Enchantment), Spell Focus (Evocation) Skills: Appraise (2), Concentration (4), Heal (2), Listen (2), Spellcraft (4), Tumble (2) 4) Cleric Roles: healer, buffer Race: Human Stats: 14 STR, 10 DEX, 12 CON, 10 INT, 16 WIS, 12 CHA Feats: Lightning Reflexes, Toughness Skills: Concentration (4), Heal (4), Tumble (2) Deity: Pelor Domains: Strength, Sun ------------------------------------------------ I read that Crafting makes the game much easier, so I don't plan in using those feats for any of my characters. Initially I was going with a paladin as a leader, but I'm not a fan of lawful good paladins, and he was taking the spot of the fighter. After searching for a bit, I found that rogues and bards make the best leaders given the high amount of skill points they receive, but I was never much a fan of the bard class. To me they are a jack of all trades, master of none. So that is why I picked the rogue. My main issue with using rogue as the spokesperson is that I usually like to turn my rogues into archers. And it seems that the engine of the game often picks the nearest PC to start a dialogue instead of picking the PC from slot 1. So I don't know if I should turn my rogue into a TWF frontliner with weapon finesse and weapon focus (shortswords?), and give crossbows to my cleric. I usually favor humans over other races. My best candidate to use a different race would be the rogue. He could trade a +1 CON for +3 DEX by choosing elf, but at the same time he needs those extra points for conversation skills, unless I remove Bluff (4). I already removed Appraise (4), Intimidate (4) and Use Magic Device (4). My rogues rarely used wands and scrolls in games like Baldur's Gate; I never liked much the intimidate skill, and the Wizard will have an INT high enough to get Appraise. For the fighter, I picked random skills because he doesn't seem to need any. I don't know what feats I should choose after Power Attack and Cleave, so I strengthened his awful will save with Iron Will. I don't know what are good cleric feats. If he is a frontliner, I might as well just give him Power Attack and Cleave. For now, I decided to give Toughness to improve his survivability, and Lightning Reflexes since he only has 10 DEX. For the Wizard, I picked Appraise, Concentration, Spellcraft, and Tumble, then put random skills because it seems that he doesn't need anything else. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of metamagic feats, and I really enjoyed evocation/enchantment/necromancy spells in Icewind Dale 2, so I improved two of those schools by getting Spell Focus (and later Greater Spell Focus). Given my characters' combination, I think that the alignment of the group doesn't matter much, but I picked Neutral Good. I'm not much of a fan of the D&D deities, so I randomly picked Pelor for my Cleric. Strength and Sun seems like good domains for buffing my cleric and killing undeads. If he is going to use a crossbow, I guess I should choose another domain instead of Strength. I loved druid spells in Icewind Dale (mainly spells like Entangle, Spike Stones, Static Charge), and Jaheira was my favorite NPC in Baldur's Gate. So I'm considering adding a druid on the 5th slot. I read that Spell Focus (Conjuration) and Augment Summoning is a nice combination of feats, but the behavior of the summons is pretty bad. If the druid is a better frontliner than the cleric, I guess I could give ranged weapons to the cleric and TWF for the rogue. If the druid is better at ranged attacks, maybe I would turn him into an elf for the DEX bonus. Still, I'm not sure if I like the idea of bringing a cleric and a druid. Their roles and spells are very similar. I also could turn the cleric into a dwarf, but I can get 14 CON with a human anyway, so I don't see the point, unless it's for roleplaying purposes. Thanks for the attention.
Usually when an NPC automatically approaches the party, they'll speak to the person in Slot 1. Some NPCs in the Moathouse also provide an option for the PC in slot 1 to speak as well should someone else speak to them. Also the person in Slot 1, isn't in the front-line, when your party spawns on the map, the person in Slot 1 will usually be in the middle of your group. All other times, the party follows the formation you set in formation menu. Clerics with the Strength domain should be used as a front liners, so yeah, giving him Power Attack and Cleave is a good idea. Combat Casting is important as well, to ensure their spells aren't interrupted while they're casting... since they'll likely be next to several enemies while casting. Spell Focus (Enchantment) can make Hold Person and Bane much harder to resist, while Spell Focus (Necromancy) can make Harm and Slay Living harder to resist (Destruction as well, though I don't remember if it's in ToEE or not). Quicken Spell is by far the best metamagic feat a Wizard can take, since it can potentially double the number of spells they can cast each turn. Heighten Spell is also pretty useful, as it can make your spells much harder to resist. Empower and Maximize spell can increase the damage your spells deal to frightening levels... but I find these are more suited to Sorcerers instead... since their greater number of castings make them better users of damage dealing spells overall. Druids are terrible front-liners IMO, even with Wild Shape. Their spells are pretty fantastic though, Spike Stones and Spike Growth are quite devastating when used properly. Even though the summon behavior is a bit erratic, the high level summons Druids can get are absurdly powerful, so I would strongly suggest Augment Summoning anyway.
First of all, you're a lucky guy. ToEE has great replay value (which I guess is why so many of us come here still) but nothing beats playing through first time. I'd have to say my first piece of advice would be to avoid spoilers as much as possible and do most of your fact-finding by talking to people 'in-game'. Your basic party looks pretty good- for the 5th man you could go for another melee type, or put the Cleric up front and go with a Bard, or go Druid and put the animal companion up front (druid + cleric is a pretty good combo- cleric can go more towards melee with heavy armour and self-buffing, while druid can go more towards a controller/ second arcane type) . Or leave it while you wander around getting to know your base village and see if there's anyone you want to recruit. If you have a decent idea of the game, any sensible group can work. Regarding crafting, I find its main use is ensuring that I can get magic weapons that are 'in character' for the characters that I am using- otherwise on replaying the game you can end up trapped into designing characters specifically to find and use certain weapons, which can be limiting. That shouldn't be an issue with a 'blind' first run though. Enjoy!
For your fighter Great Cleave and Combat Reflexes are great early choices. This game has convinced me that druids rock in combat- and if they're an elf, they can start with both longbow and longsword as weapon choices, instead of the default druid choices (and Warp Wood can open chests as well as Knock). Rogues can use shortbows which will allow you to move and fire w/o having to worry about seeing the 'not enough time' tag- I'd go with that as opposed to crossbows but Spoiler follows- Spoiler there are 2 magical crossbows you can find in the game- no such luck with shortbows. Needless to say, the Feats Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot should be given to anyone that will primarily use bows or crossbows- and since you aren't into crafting, make sure your wizard and cleric get the above 2 feats- heck, give your cleric the Martial Weapon Proficiency in longbow and let him deal damage from long distance! You might want to get Improved Initiative for your folks- getting in the first blow really helps. Both your cleric and wizard should get Spell Penetration and then Greater Spell Penetration. Also, Grease, Charm Person, Magic Missile and Heat Metal/Chill Metal are useful spells at any level- JMO... And as an aside, do you mind if I ask you why the point buy method instead of just clicking on the rolls bar until you get what you want? Good luck...
Thanks for the replies. Gehennis: Since NPCs are usually avoided in ToEE, I decided to create 4-5 PCs. The 28 point-buy system satisfies my needs because I can create a character without worrying about it being too weak or strong compared to another PC, or making the game less challenging. I wouldn't like to abuse the roll method and get every character a couple of 17's or 18's. That is not my definition of fun. At the same time, this topic is mostly about optimization, but it's an optimization with limits. Anyway, I decided to change some things after your posts, and thought about new things. I would appreciate if you can comment on them: Cleric: Does this character need CHA for anything except turning undead? Cleric: I will make him a frontliner, as suggested. I'm torn between the Sun and the Good domain. The first is great at killing undeads, and the latter is good at protecting against evil creatures (and killing them as well). Which one do you prefer? Remember that my Cleric has 12 CHA (I could switch it for 12 DEX). Cleric and Fighter: I decided to give a shield to the cleric, because he has lower Hit Points and natural AC (lower DEX) than the fighter, who would use two handed weapons. Do you agree with this decision? Cleric and Fighter: You didn't comment about my decision of picking Iron Will and Lightning Reflexes, which seems like you thought it was a good idea to work on their weakness. But what about the feat Toughness? Wizard: What would be the best weapon for this character, considering I'm going to focus on feats like Spell Focus or maybe metamagic feats as Goshi suggested? I was thinking about crossbows instead of slings, but it seems that it doesn't matter much because my wizard won't hit very often due to the lack of feats. Druid: Does this character need CHA at all? Druid: If druids don't make good frontliners in ToEE, how should I build this character? I thought about choosing an elf and go with 10 STR, 16 DEX (+2), 12 CON (-2), 10 INT, 16 WIS, 10 CHA. Give her a longbow, and focus on summons. She would compete with the rogue for bows and ammo, but then again the rogue is a human so he can't use longbows. Druid: I also thought about going with the human route again, and giving her a reach weapon. 14 STR, 12 DEX, 12 CON. Maybe 14 STR, 10 DEX, 14 CON. Druid: I could also use the build with STR bonus and give her a sling or javelin. I read that thrown weapons take too much inventory space (because they don't stack) and are annoying to micromanage. Wouldn't I miss often with 14 STR 12 DEX and no ranged feats? At the same time, I guess she has a couple of spells to enhance her strength for extra damage (I'm not sure about this). Thanks for the attention.
Clerics only need Charisma to turn undead, so unless you're running a Sun domain Cleric, it can be safely ignored. You will be fighting a lot of undead however. Good domain is the preferred Domain if your Cleric is crafting weapons, or you plan on utilizing spells like Holy Word and Holy Smite. Sun domain is, as you already know, the ultimate undead slayer. There's quite a large number of undead enemies in the game, and they can be quite dangerous. Especially those blasted Bodaks. Personally I prefer the Good domain, since I prefer having my Sorceress handle the undead... with Fireball of course! They're not bad choices actually... but typically you would get them at higher levels... when saving throws become more relevant. Toughness IMO, is not a very good feat, it only raises your max HP by 3... which is not really worth using up a Feat slot for. Crossbows are the best choice since they only use DEX. While Slings require both DEX and STR to be effective. At higher levels though, chances are your crossbow won't see much use since you'll have large selection of spells and a few wands at your disposal (Particularly if you choose to craft your own). Only for RP reasons... so it can be safely ignored. I mostly stick with her spells. Early levels though, yeah I would give her either Shortbow, Longbow or Crossbow. Human Rogues can use Longbows, but they would need to mutliclass or grab the Martial Weapon Feat to use them. Ammunition is only an issue with Slings... since their ammo IIRC is surprisingly difficult to come by.
I'm still not sure about what druid build I will use. I still would like to read a comment about how effective the druid can be while using a reach weapon (like a spear), but for now I pretty much made all the decisions regarding the 4 core classes. Thanks for the answers, they were very helpful.
My opinions mirror Goshi3156 pretty much so my answers won't be as detailed but here goes but first- are you playing the new content (NC) modpacks or the original version of the game, called 'vanilla' around here?: Cleric- if you want to really wipe out undead fast, go with the Sun domain (to get Greater Turning) and amp your Charisma- Owl's Wisdom, a 2nd level druid/cleric spell- helps a lot. Definitely give the cleric the best shields you'll find but don't slight elven wooden shields, as they have a 0% chance at spell disruption. Ditch Toughness for Improved Imitative- +4 to your initiative is hard to beat unless you plan to have your wizard memorize nothing but Cat's Grace for his 2nd level spells... Wizard- go with the crossbow- if you catch an opponent flatfooted (or better yet, hit them with Stinking Cloud ) you've got slighter better chances at hitting them. Druid- since I've started using druids I've tried both elven and human, and I'd say go with elven as in your first layout. Druids- like clerics- need a high Wisdom, and since they wear light armor (and NO metal armor), a high Dex and or Con will help them either avoid hits or survive when they do get hit. Druids and clerics both get 2nd level stat enhancing spells like Bull's Strength, Eagle's Splendor, Owl's Wisdom and Bears' Endurance while only wizards and sorcerers IIRC get Fox's Cunning and Cat's Grace. Hope this helps...
Just wanted to say, the shield use with a cleric is a gimme due to there being no casting penalty for divine spells. You can have a cleric wearing plate mail and sporting a tower shield that would suffer absolutely no casting penalties. Oh, and remember ... it's all about YOU having fun, so if the first group doesn't work try another.
I decided to go with the elven druid using the longbow template. I also switched my human cleric to a dwarven cleric of Pelor so he can use dwarven weapons and to add a bit more variety of races to the party. Now I shall begin my adventuring. Thanks for the help.
As you say that your knowledge of D&D 3.5 is a bit limited, here's a place which can help you a lot: http://www.d20srd.org/ While there are some differences between the original rules & those used in ToEE, I guess 95% is similar. Also, be careful with the spell Spike Stones, it can create CTD's. And can I quickly give my support for the Bard? They're cooler as you think... If you combine them with 2 lvls of an other class, they can really "Rock your World" Anyhow, welcome to the community, have fun & whenever you have a question, you know where to find us
I like the fact you gave everyone some Tumble skill points. There is no other skill worth giving the fighter, even though it is cross class for him, just put the point there every time. Everyone else should get some points in Tumble, even if you have to do it ever other level. You will not believe how many times this comes into play. Ever move around the battlefield. Oh, and just because you keep the wizard in the back, doesn't mean that will help. Things come out from nowhere to the back of the party, or you get a random encounter and you are surrounded, or the enemy runs past everyone else to hit the wizard. To be able to run away without getting hit is extremely helpful. Take the Good domain the first time through. To be able to craft Holy weapons will make up for any weaken you have along the way.
When I'm in a conversation, if I press 1-5 to choose a dialogue option, the game will automatically choose the PC relative to that slot. So, if I have a rogue doing the dialogue, and a cleric on the third slot, if I press 3 in a conversation the game will change the spokersperson to the cleric. I know that I can solve this problem by clicking on every dialogue option. Is there any other way to fix this? I would like to use the numbers to choose the dialogue options.
To my knowledge no but you could try putting some distance between your rogue and the other characters in your party- it might force the NPC's to only react to the rogue.
With the latest modpack coming out Sunday (and with my current game glitched by the non-detection of known secret doors) I've decided to follow your example (somewhat) and transfer some of my P&P D&D characters into this game- and let me tell you, their stats were hardly impressive. I found my very 1st character- a LG wizard with the prerequisite 18 Intelligence- and an 8 Strength (he does have a 9 Comeliness though ). I also found my favorite character- a CG ranger that once attacked a dragon with a dagger- it might be his 7 Intelligence that caused that :yikes:. I even found my first 2 evil NPC's- a NE wizard and a LE wizard/cleric- a 12 and 13 Constitution respectively are their weak points (ah, what evil memories of trashing the good guys!). I think I'll try them out here and see how they do- I just wish I could have found some of my other characters- an elven wizard, a human fighter, a dwarf berserker and a human druid- they would make for an interesting party, I think...
