Just bought TOEE and finally found this site and got it working. A little scary that the players fixed more bugs then the developers. Right now I'm painfully getting used to the new interface. My spellcasters and archers are now very familiar with Attack of Opportunity. :dead: I understand the logic behind the rule but it seems like it takes those types of characters out of the battle. The monsters usually close immediately and take away casting and ranged weapons, unless you want them to get a free slap. The best you can do is get off one missle or spell before you have to switch to melee. What is the best way to counter this or is that the way it is?
For spellcasters also make sure you max the concentration skill and then select the Cast defensively option from the radial menu under tactical I think. Your spellcaster will be able to cast even when completely surrounded without suffering an AOO but any time they cast they have to make a concetration check vs. DC 15+level of spell cast or fail the casting. At higher levels though yuo practically never fail the check if you have decent Con and spend all the points possible in concetration. I also think one of the familiar adds a bonus to Conc. but i'm not sure about that. Rawel
The 5' step, is perhaps the most under rated tactical move option, but I believe it is the most useful, not only for spell casters and archers, but also melee fighters who have lots of attacks, and plenty of near death foes around him - you can select the full attack option, hit the first foe (and if he drops - cleave or great cleave another), tke a 5' step to get close to another nearby (but out of melee range) foe, then hit him too (and posibly great cleaving others nearby). The 5' step is a must do tactical move for arcane spell casters who find themselves in combat (a high tumble skill will help escape AoO's over a longer distance in some instances), also the cast defensively option let's you cast your spell without provoking an AoO, at the risk of loosing your spell due to spell failure (a high constitution, the combat casting feat and concentration skill will help to prevent this happening - most of the time).
And if you can't get far enough away with the five-foot step, try doing a standard movement to get out of the monster's melee threat range. If you do this, make sure you stay in the 'green' zone for your character's move and you will be able to follow-up with a missile attack or spell (of course, depending on the spell cast, you may end up putting yourself back in a threat zone (buffs/cures -- you have to be careful with these), and for some other spells you may find you don't have enough time to cast after moving (can happen with summoning spells). Be aware that this move will potentially allow the monster(s) to get an AoO, but you will have the opportunity to first make a tumble check to avoid it. For this reason, it makes good sense to have characters that you might expect to be trying this tactic to have maxed out ranks in the Tumble skill. It works best for charaters that wear light or no armor as the armor check penalty applies to Tumble. (You might as well not even try this tactic with characters in heavy armor or medium armor and big shields.)
Tumbling actually won't work in medium or heavy armor unless the character in question is a dwarf, per the rules. (And even then the armor-check penalties involved make it pretty much ineffectual anyway.) But what others have said is pretty accurate. Use the 5-foot step to get out of range. If that doesn't work, for archers switch to melee, for spellcasters Cast Defensively, or give them a maxed out Tumble skill and just move away from the threatened area. Eventually a spellcaster should be able to cast defensively without a problem, especially if they have a high con and/or the Combat Casting feat. At 8th level, a spellcaster with no Con bonus, Combat Casting and max Concentration can cast 1st level spells without chance of failure. (DC 15+1 per level of spell=16. Concentration=11 +4 for Combat Casting +1 for minimum roll on a d20= 16.) Of course, having a high Constitution score makes this happen even sooner and each level afterwards gives you another level of spells that are "automatic". By 14th level a spellcaster can cast any spell he knows without chance of failure and can continue to do with higher level spells so as long as he keeps in Concentration score maxed out as he levels up.
But if you move out of the 'threat range' the enemy gets an AOO. So unless I'm missing something, you just have to use Tumble and Concentration to deal with the inevitable AOO's. I didn't know what the cast defensively was so that will help but even then the spell may fail which is such a waste.
A 5-foot step never provokes an AOO. So if it will take you out of the threat range, you're clear to do whatever you want.
Ahhh! OK now the 5-foot step just became my best friend. Thanks guys I sure I will have more question soon.
Yep The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is my all-time favorite dungeon. It had everything. Puzzles, water areas, demons, teleporting rooms, several chances to get stoned, and a sphere for the final room. It even had Gas spores, when was the last time you encountered those!
I have to agree with Iggwilv here ... the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth is probably my favorite module of all time. It is chock full of interesting encounters with plenty of things going on outside the caverns as well. I vividly remember playing this one as kid with my brother as DM around the time it came out. We had a large party (IIRC, about four of us were playing roughly four characters each) and almost everyone died -- it didn't help that we were playing with a house critical hit rule where if the attacker rolled a natural 20 and followed it up with a critical hit check of 19 or 20 (not too much unlike the critical checks in 3.5) the attackee was dead (decapitated!) (big difference from 3.5 here...). I recall that the dice were particularly nasty to the party in the automaton room where a few characters died in this manner, including one poor sap who dramatically watched as one character escaped (you recall how this had to done, right? ... perhaps I should not post a spoiler just in case someone hasn't played S4) leaving him alone in the room ('No, don't leave me here alone!'). As he turned to face his doom, an automaton swingng its blade, the dice are cast (20! 19!) ... and his head falls to the floor. We finished the game ... but this required the grace of the DM (especially towards the end). P.S.: I hereby nominate 'S4 - The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth' as the next Co8 module. KotB is almost done, right?
