At first, I played the original ToEE until I reached the Temple. Then I started to play the C8 mod. In the original one Lareth waits patiently in his room while I beat his goons. Then I'm able to take a breather before facing him. That's not bad and it's challenging enough. Now the problem: In the mod, Lareth joins his goons early on and it's too difficult. I have 2nd-level characters, and I have Elmo and Zert with me too. Even Elmo falls very quickly against Lareth. His goons make it impossible to defeat him, and he usually enters the fray with some crazy spell that kills half my crew in an instant. So either I have to leave the moat house and come back when I'm something like 4th-level, or should there be a way to keep Lareth away from the main battle? I've been reading some walkthroughs and they say that Lareth should be a separate and final encounter. Lareth running at me is not in the script.
Contains, very minor, spoilers I usually find that Spoiler the stinking cloud scroll that you should have picked up earlier helps to delay the goons enabling you to collect them as you go. I also recommend clearing Emryddy Meadows first although you might want to leave the Rainbow Rock until later as the Spoiler Skeleton Priest and his guards are tough . Equipping your wizards with some 1st level scrolls is also useful, they don't cost much money or XPs and can help to expand their stamina. Worse comes to the worse buy a fireball scroll from Burne's shop!:flamed:
If you're playing the NC from Co8 have you been to Welkwood Bog? If so your party should be 2nd level by the time you leave- throw in the various Hommlett quests and you should be on your way to 3rd level by the time you hit the Moathouse. Use tactics to draw the enemy to you- I usually wait in the long hallway while sneaking my rogue close enough to shoot someone- after that they rush to you. Try to save any spells until Lareth shows up (and a Charm Person tossed on one of the sergeants or lieutenants can REALLY make a difference). Grease, Glitterdust and Sleep will help as well and don't forget to have a few Magic Missiles at the ready for when Lareth starts to cast a spell (look for the Ready vs. Spell command in the Tactics section of the radial dial). Good luck...:thumbsup:
It's not too hard to just charm both sergeants and the lieutenant, actually. Everyone's will saves in that room combined come to about +3 or so.
To answer your original question... I'm sure you'll agree that's rather silly, and not consistent with the module which says "If they are being defeated the guards will begin howling, and the balance of the guards, and "Master" as well, will enter the fray". This mod was done after many years due mostly to overwhelming demand. And I think Gaear did a great job of it (I'd personally written it off as 'good idea but impractical' long ago, which just goes to show.)
Human fighter with a glaive, combat reflexes, power attack, and cleave will do wonders for you. Welkwood Bog and Homlett quests will make an easy lego 3-4 even with 5 PC's before heading to the moat house. I generally do all that, Deklo Grove, all of Emridy Meadows (sacrificing Elmo to the giant for free Elmo gear and a giants head) and walk away with a party strong enough to take the whole group even with Lareth on their side. Protection from arrows, charm person, and even web can do wonders for you in that fight. Sleep is alright, but they have a habit of waking each other up. Sound burst, spiritual weapon, and summon spells can help keep them busy as well.
Thank you Ted for being the only one to actually answer my question(s). I see that the Lareth & Goons encounter is significantly more difficult than it is in the original game. I will leave the moat house right away and come back after my characters are 1 or 2 levels higher. I'm just surprised that this encounter is so much more lethal than it was. In the original, it was challenging enough with 2nd-level characters. Now it's suicidal. Lareth, protected by his goons, is able to wreak havoc in just one round.
You definitely need to be higher level now. The Co8 content is pretty much guaranteed to make the game more of a challenge, keeps it fresh and interesting.
Thank you, I wasn't aware of this before. I was so stunned by the level of the difficulty compared to the original that I thought there was something wrong. It's all clear to me now.
^ That was actually a Sitra Achara mod. I think it's very well done, and the jump in difficulty is a simple result of your enemies showing some degree of intelligence and responsiveness - something players generally cry for more of in ToEE - not an artificial inflation of stats or levels or anything like that. In other words, it's only as tough as it should have been in the beginning.
This fight is doable with a second level party as it is written in the PnP mod. But ...... In the PnP mod you have a DM that is constantly adjusting things to fit your teams playing style and allowing those little things that can turn a battle around that are almost impossible to do in a computer game. IMHO, this is the closest anyone can come to an actual DM run encounter.
If you do an encounter too early, it is often still playable, but you need to have pretty good luck with initiative and spells. It always feels good to pull it off when the odds are against you, and usually I find this seems to be happening the first time through, but often only until later in the battle when you are running out of spells and healing. That's when it all starts to fall apart. Subsequent attempts tend to seem harder once you know what you have to achieve and see that you can't keep up the tempo of the battle long enough to finish the baddies off. I have come back and run through this encounter at a higher level and found it much easier, but still enjoyable. It gives you the chance to experiment a little with different spells and tactics. And as Gaear says, smarter enemies are more of a challenge than stronger enemies.
I recently played with a core party of 3 PCs (one each of Wiz, Clr and Dr), who *just* made it to level 5 by the time I got to Lareth (the moathouse bugbears was a great fight which I finished with only one PC conscious and only a couple of cure minor wounds to stop the other two bleeding to death). Unsurprisingly, the ability to throw fireballs into the guardroom makes this fight much easier, but even at 4th level the layout of the room and the tactics required makes this a real highlight of the early game, which is as it should be. It's one of the few fights in the whole game where the positioning of your team at the start and how you subsequently manage to move them makes a real difference to how the fight goes. What I'd really like to be able to do is lure the guards down the corridor where I can turn the tables on them, but not unreasonably they decline the offer!
