Games too easy

Isn't it possible to trigger more creatures in the surrounding rooms when a fight starts ? I had this combat with bugbears and in the adjacent rooms (without doors) stood the ogres and waited until I cleared the bugbears in the central room.

 

I think you already achieved a great deal in making critters smarter. I remember the first time those stupid bugbears did not any longer charge my summoned sacrificial lamb only to receive a massive bombardment of fireballs when they were all assembled, but instead charged right at my little defenceless wizard. How wonderful.
For module fidelity: I don't know the original Gygax adventure really well. But I'm sure there are critters in the module that were not used in the PC game. For example in the the tower fight outside of the temple there are big ravens that are supposed to warne the people inside the tower and they even attacked if you came closer. But there are certainly people with mor knowlwdge about the original bestiarium in the module to make better suggestions.
But even if you make careful little alterations like adding a bugbear druid with a couple of simple spells I don't know if that would hurt the integrity of the module in general? And it could be easier than adding something from the original module like the second wind ability of bugbears: "Bugbear Resilience: When you use your second wind ability, you gain additional temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modfier plus 1/2 your level."

 

With respect to what Gaear says about module fidelity, I agree, but I think there's also demand for a sort of Game+ mode for experienced players that violates this to an extent. That, of course, is also a lot of work

 

Hasn't this been fixed for certain large encounters like the Hedrack battle?, where if you start combat even really far away in the hallway, those 2 wizards and the 2 bugbears that are way in the back of the room "turn on" somehow.

I know there's some kind of built-in guideline where enemies that are of a certain distance don't get pulled in to the battle, even where it would seem to make sense like in the water node where you can see for 100's of feet without blockage, yet you can fight some of those blue ogres and the others won't activate until you get close enough.

But in certain battles you can see a nice domino effect (probably scripted) where close by guys get activated.

I don't think a comprehensive fix needs to occur, but a handful of the larger/more significant encounters would be nice, like Larkin's example with that big bugbear and ogre room on level 4, where guys literally 10 feet away not getting activated. I don't think the 4 chieftain's down the hall need to come running in (tho that would be cool :dance, but activating all the creatures in their alcoves and the bunkbed room would be reasonable.

A few others that would be nice to see done this way:

- The moathouse gnolls in the side cave-room that usually ignore combat right next door in the main room.

- The two large barrack rooms on Temple level 1 filled with gnolls/bugbears/ogres. Often times many guys stay inactive on the fringes of that battle.​

 

I have found that sometimes adding a simple attack() command can help out in case enemies don't naturally trigger - for example the Moathouse frogs, you used to be able to pick them off one by one if you kept your distance, but I've scripted them to alert each other on their san_start_combat script. That could be applied there too I think.

But tbh I've always been disinclined to mess with levels 3-4 because it seemed to me that you can roflstomp everything there anyway by the time you get there, whether they're alerted or not (except for the Ogre Leaders, those can be nasty!).

 

I think that's all that would be needed to trigger that whole area to be alerted, just like the frogs. Nothing fancy, such a simple solution.

Code:

	# Giant Frogs of the Moathouse
	for obj in game.obj_list_vicinity(location_from_axis(492, 522), OLC_NPC):
		if obj.name == 14057 and obj.leader_get() == OBJ_HANDLE_NULL:
			obj.attack(game.leader)

I don't think that would be any kind of cheat or variation from integrity of the original game that all the guys in their little private rooms and the bunk-bed area would rouse and join the fray after a few rounds. As much fun as the chiefs running in would be, I think that that WOULD break from the room-by-room dungeon-crawl feel of the game.

All the more reason to beef up those levels, such as those two seemingly important cleric leader guys (Degum + Barkinar?) that die all too easilly in the room before Senshock.

 

The CRPG is too easy -- but all CRPG experience falls into one of two categories. One- recreating an imitation role-playing or pseudo role playing experience, or Two- defeating the CRPG game programmer.

In this computer age with its multitude of CRPGs designed to pit the gamer against the programmer (does anyone remember MYST ??), we see that it leads to published hints, walkthroughs, cheats, tweaks, and exploits. And then the exulting cry, HAH! I beat you Mr. Game Programmer! .... followed by the review remarks: Make the next version HARDER to beat because this one is too easy.

Interestingly, ToEE was created with a different mindset. In attempting to remain faithful to the original D&D RPG, Troika/Atari introduced (or revisited) the idea of providing a pseudo role playing experience, albeit via the computer. By its very nature, the CRPG has severe limitations (as amply discussed on this website) that prevent it from ever seriously approaching a genuine 'role playing' experience. For that reason, should anyone decide to treat ToEE as a role playing experience, of necessity you will need to develop and enforce your own set of 'home rules' in order to create the challenge that the game engine simply cannot.

For examples,
-the vanilla game has a level cap at 10. Use it, at least until the Temple/Zuggy is defeated. The original RPG was written for "4 to 8 character of 1st through 8th level". Meaning, you entered Hommlet at 1st-2nd level, assaulted the Moathouse at 2nd-3rd level, entered the Temple at 3rd-4th level, defeated the temple factions at 4th-6th level, and encountered the Nodes at 6th-7th level. (Leveling up was much slower in 1st edition than 3.5) Completing the entire Temple scenario, you might be 8th level maximum. No one complained that the game was 'too easy'.
So, impose your own level caps at different stages or chapters (1-Hommlet, 2-Nulb, 3-Temple factions, 4-Nodes/Zuggtmoy, 5-Verbobanc and additional mods). Perhaps someone with more experience with 3.5 rules than I can suggest a logical and challenging progression through the basic game.

-the 3.5 rules are much different than the 1st edition rules under which ToEE was originally created. Crafting, for example, was not possible so early, nor with so few limitations. In fact, crafting wasn't even contemplated in the 1st edition game until 11th or 12th level (which you would not attain while campaigning in the Temple), not to mention the insane combinations possible in ToEE.

-lots of other things like limiting what size/kind of things can be put in the Extraplanar Chest, limits on $$ available from shopkeepers, limits on purchasing magic items (none of Burne's scrolls were available for sell until after Lareth was defeated; and then, only certain spells).

Simply put-- if you want a pseudo role playing experience, you have to create and enforce role-playing limitations for yourself (you have to be your own Dungeon/Game Master) that the game engine simply cannot provide. But, if you are out to prove you are smarter than the game programmer and more agile than the AI, then you will easily be able to accomplish that in the ToEE CRPG.

 

I stopped playing as the game is too unbalanced. The caves before the elemental planes were a cakewalk for a 9th level party. In the fire plane there were two or three snakes and elementals - no fun. Then suddenly there were 6+ noble salamanders, killing the back row mages quicky.

Together with big lag spikes it became an unpleasant experience.

Nevertheless big thanks to all the guys/girls who modded this game and provided hours of fun for me and my friend ! You did a great job. Hope it can be improved and I can revisit the game in three years

We tried to continue with Borderlands but messed up with the party alignment. Will revisit when all alignments are valid. Thanks !

 

Never travel the Nodes w/o a Globe of Invulnerability memorized, I always say And did you mean The Keep on the Borderlands? I only ask because I played Borderlands and currently play the heck out of Borderlands 2- pretty sure all the characters there would fall between the Neutral and CE alignments...

 

Hard to memorize Globe when you do not need it in a single fight up to the nodes. Thats what I mean with unbalance. Extremely easy combat for hours with sudden spikes.

I ment Keep on the Borderlands. I played Borderlands a bit in coop. Was fun.

 

A few rings of fire protection are easy enough to find also and there is a rather low level spell of protection from elements.

Myself, if I enter into a domain of a certain element in a tower of evil, I'm going to assume that things of that particular element are going to try to kill me with that element.

We're walking down the hallway of the temple and my rouge says "what's with all the flame icons on the floor and walls? And man is it hot in here".
It occurs to my party leader that maybe we should be ready for some fire priests or whatever else is lurking in the fire section of the temple.

 

Not if your experience is that the temple was left nearly undefended for 2 floors. Ok, if the temple leaders planned to lull me into half-sleep with lackluster defenses they did succeed