Any way to get the game to allow 8 PCs recruited at the beginning?

Ok....

Ive only owned the game since this past Friday....and one of the first real gripes I have is that you can only recruit 5 PCs at the beginning. Sure, sure...you can recruit Elmo and maybe Spuignor (Elmo WONT stab you in the back....but Spuignor is totally useless)....but it doesnt level the playing field in the game. The original module (which I own and am using as a "cheat" in many ways) advises that a party of 5-8 1st or 2nd Level PCs will find the Giant Frogs at the first of the Moathouse challenging. Ive gotten my ass beaten in several times while trying to clear out the Moathouse over a period of several days (the Ogre killed my entire party one time!). Even with Elmo along....there is no way to keep the party alive with only 5 PCs.

Ive balanced the party as much as possible for combat (leaning heavily to ranged combat in many cases...closing with monsters tends to shorten the lifespans of my adventurers). Im currently running: Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, Thief and Druid (no mage....they get killed too easily). The Druid is my backup healer and can act as a mage in many cases (thanks to some damaging spells).

You need at LEAST two Clerics in the group to survive Emridy Meadows (just to deal with the Undead..and to heal the group while tangling with the Hill Giant). A Paladin is also advisable. Thats three slots out of 5.....not enough. There are 8 slots total (at least Im guessing that there are 8 slots total....dont know if the Troika team left room for more).

Is there any way to make it to where you can recruit 8 PCs...or maybe the 5 originals and you can "recruit" 3 more of your own creation at the Inn of the Welcome Wench?

 

I had this problem the first time around, too.

Prognosis: You're fighting like an idiot.

Let me emphasize this, because I cannot emphasize it enough.


Flank flank flank flank flank

Flanking is the single best thing you can do at any point in any D&D game. I cannot emphasize it enough. Not only does it grant a +2 to hit for each of the flanking characters, but - and here's the real trick - it lets Rogues use their Sneak Attacks.

Rogue, Ranger, Monk, Sorcerer, Cleric.

I hardly ever use hirelings (unless I want to kill the hill giant at level 2, like I did,) and I need a loss-leader or two. Or I know they have good stuff, and I want to arrange for them to become collateral damage.

Oh yes. Your cleric? Gnomish cleric of Ehlonna, Sun/Plant domains.

Entangle is the second best spell you can ever have on your side, with Fireball being the first, and Magic Missile being third.

Remember: Flank flank flank. If the monster is too big, first Immobilize and Pummel with ranged attacks and the ubiquitious Missile.

Frankly, the only time I've had trouble was in the room with all the Flamebrothers and the two Salamanders that cast Fireball.

(Your cleric should be prepared with 8-10 scrolls of Dismissal for this fight, and have memorized all the Dismissal s/he can. hehehe. )

 

On top of that, while a level 1 wizard/sorc is a liability that has to be carried by the party, once they're tossing third level spells, they are solid contributors, and by the end of the game, they're your artillery (and more likely to survive than your tanks).

Don't sell them short.

 

actually i only won because of my wizard...

1. use sleep spell
2. use a balanced party containing, 1 arcane caster, 1 rouge archer, 2 close quarters fighters (barb, warrior, monk, etc), 1 cleric with the ability to heal...
3. dont go to the moathouse as a level one character, perform the in hommlet quests first to gain XP, go clear the spiders from the forest and kill the goblin in homlet first, buy alot of equipment (you start with like 4000 gold, even though you are a first level party) oh id also recommend getting the domain that gives you greater turning, that makes undead into free XP, any undead i encountered always got insta gibbed by my cleric in one turn, (well some hordes of them took two) and gave a ton of xp since they were supposed to be a tough battle...

dont just run straight to the moathouse, you will be slaughtered, and justly! you have a group of 5 people trying to take on a whole bandit camp, thats insane, you expect it to be easy?

Also forget about npcs, they just steal your items and gold and xp...

Oh and it took me 5 tries to make a good party...
Oh one last thing, dont use point buy system, reroll and reroll untill you get very good scores (they dont have to be insane, just around 35 points in point buy system, 25 is WAYYYY too low)...


That all said your suggestion is great, it really should allow more pcs, for one thing you could have a greater variety of classes, how about this, rather then just allow more pcs, allow a person to use up the npc only slots for pcs, maybe leave 1 open for the several quest related joinings (but i havent seen any quest that had more then one npc join you, and they only stayed untill you took them somewhere, instantanous with the teleport spell)

 

You're kidding, right?

My party of five cleaned out the Moathouse by themselves. It works better this way because the XP and treasure are divided more evenly when you have fewer characters in your party.

I'm guessing you're trying to rush in there and attack at Level 1. Regardless of what the original module said, you need to play with a little more sense. If your party can't survive and encounter on the road with half-a-dozen skeletons or a giant crawfish, you have no business even setting foot in the Moathouse.

I would suggest completing some of the simpler quests in Hommlet to gain XP. Also, you'll often find your party ambushed on the roads to and from other places like Emridy Meadows, the Deklo Grove, and the Moathouse. Since there's no time limit on the game, nothing is stopping you from walking back and forth repeatedly on the overland maps deliberately looking for a fight.

Also, once you're strong enough, you can rest for eight hours in the yellow zones to provoke attacks. Depending on where you rest, the monsters get tougher. Resting near the Moathouse might draw an attack from stirges or brigands. Try that in the dungeons below the Temple and you could wake up surrounded by hill giants... or worse!

I promise you will regret not having a Wizard in your party. The sheer firepower and spell versatility available at the higher levels makes them one of the premier characters in the game.

In addition, they make excellent craftsmen. At higher levels, they can make you some great Wondrous Items and bestow many different kinds of permanent enchantments onto weapons and armour.

Might I suggest adding an Elf Wizard to the party? He will grow in power to support you, plus, as an Elf, he comes with proficiency in the sword and the longbow at no extra cost. Couple this with a high dexterity score and you will have an archer the equal of your Rogue at the lower levels.

So say you. My party survived just fine with one. Make sure that you use cutting and chopping weapons on the zombies and bludgeoning weapons on the skeletons; otherwise you'll be hacking at them all day.

The Hill Giant and his pet stake out a particular part of the Meadow. There's nothing stopping you from leaving that part of the Meadow alone until you're strong enough to come back and fight him on your terms. Before you engage, make sure to cast all your power-up spells (Bless, Heroism, Bull's Strength) and drink your potions so you don't have to try to do this during combat - Attacks of Opportunity from Hill Giants can be really painful!

I never did, however, find Terjon's brooch. I thought maybe the giant had picked it up, but he hasdn't; I looked all over the place out there and never found it.

I had to abandon this fight and reload because my machine slowed to a crawl trying to draw all the enemy models and the flaming pits at the same time.

I did, however, fight a cluster of Salamanders on the Fire Node, and I have to say that Minor Globe of Invulnerability is a wonderful spell to use against them. Fireball is a third level spell, so it will have no effect on party members inside the Globe's protective radius.

What's more is that Salamanders take extra damage from spells like Ice Storm and Cone of Cold - fourth and fifth level spells that you can safely cast from inside the Globe.

 

Sounds like the answer is...'no'. I've tried it, but the closest I ever got was having my newest pc show up in the inn in Hommlet--like an npc. I'd click on him and "Huh?" would appear above his head, but no option to pick him up or anything. I left, came back, and he had disappeared. Go figure... Dunno for sure, but i'd guess it's in the exe. Never played the pnp module, so I don't know if the npc's in the pc game are of the same caliber as the originals from the module--or even if they exist in the module.

As for party composition, I had a fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric and barb. Worked fine for me...but just play whatcha want dude. Everyone's got their own ideas of the perfect party, but it's very subjective.

LOL! Just realized how old this thread is....

 

I never did, however, find Terjon's brooch. I thought maybe the giant had picked it up, but he hasdn't; I looked all over the place out there and never found it.


the rainbow rock is in the center of the meadow and if you hit the tab key it will highlight the rock like treasure. its not a very big rock but the brooch and a bunch of other stuff is there. there are also alot of undead around it

 

speaking of undead, if you take the right domains you get greater turning.... i havent killed a single undead in combat until level 9 (in which case i insta gibbed all 5 or so of the encounter with a single round of my warrior...), instead i skipped turns till it was the clerics turn and used greater turning to instantly destroy them all..... undead were free XP for me.. no effort, no risk, lots of XP...

 

Eight PCs would be good, though.


What was Troika thinking? They made a GREAT 3.5 engine here, then went ahead and completely half-assed it. Only did levels up to level 10, didn't leave any room for modding. I mean, NWN and Arcanum are both great engines to mod on (nevermind that Arcanum's multiplayer support is gone because WON.net is gone,) but ToEE has a replay value lower than.... Actually, it has the lowest replay of any game I've ever seen.

 

One of my other gripes is that this IS a World of Greyhawk game....yet there are only the basic D&D gods (those that are the most common in the Flanaess). They have more domains than those listed in the basic RPG book. The lack of gods/demi-gods like Mayaheine, Rao, Ye'Cind and even Iuz limit the potential of the game in my opinion. Its Greyhawk bereft of anything that distinguishes it from basic D&D. Yes, I know WotC says Greyhawk is the base world for D&D....but that is hogwash of the highest order.

::sighs::

Anyway.....

I like the game and have managed to get better at playing it...but I would love a tool-set to be able to modify things where it could be better.

 

Atari kicked Troika in the shins at the last minute, forcing a producer of very quality products to drop the ball.

Slowly but surely, however, the fan community is taking a dirt-dive to grab that ball - see the many tools that have been programmed from scratch!


I'm not sure which is scarier. The complete and total way in which Troika dropped the ball (if I were them, I woulden't even have wanted my name attached to the ToEE product as it was when it went to the stores,) or how hard the fan community is working to catch the ball. It's actually reminiscent of what www.mektek.net has done for Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries, wherein they actually went all-out and released a full-blown expansion pack, completely fan-made.

 

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um, Iuz IS a very integral part of ToEE (the game)... You will meet him later on