Hommlet Chores-be-Gone and Opening Vignette Bonuses

Intro
Greetings, all!

Since to my present knowledge no mod yet exists to skip all the Hommlet chores (effectively a dating sim that also involves killing 2 spiders), these are the rewards for completing all these missions and for killing all the hireling NPCs who go hostile (plus Furnok because his ring is uber and Fruella because she was annoying and a CR3). This doesn't include anything from Welkwood Bog, random encounters, the Moathouse, Emridy Meadows, nor your starting vignette. I also assume you don't use pickpocket/Sleight of Hand to steal anything. (If you pickpocket, you get more stuff.)

Note that I assume you use the save and reload trick in the starting shop to buy everything you want, plus extra items for 'smuggling' out. Since every time you load the starting shop map, your money total resets, meaning you can keep buying things. This even works on Iron Man mode! Just push ESC, save, then click Quit Game (or Return to Game on Iron Man), and load!

Using the console, you can approximate these rewards so you can get on with your life! (Doing all these tasks took me about 5 hours of real time! Ug!) I know that you can use the console to get these things and still do the quests. (Clearing Deklo Grove and talking with Calmert to let you see Terjon are things you'd likely do anyway.)

The Rewards!
-About 5000G from selling metric tons of items to the vendors who give the best sell prices with +10 Appraise. Without smuggling any items, you get about half this.

-Whatever your starting cash is from the pre-game store. From my experience, this has varied greatly, from about 200G to about 800G. If you're patient, you may be able to get 1000G!

-Radiant Longsword (+1 Holy Longsword): Item Code 4222

-Trader's Shortsword (+1 Shortsword): Item code 4126

-Boots of Elvenkind (+5 Hide): Item Code 6057 OR Cloak of Elvenkind (+5 Hide): Item Code 6058

-About 2000 EXP per character in a 5-man party, or about 10,000 EXP total/solo if you allow EXP overflow in Temple+. (It's less EXP if you're level 4+ due to how D&D 3.5 rules work.)

Starting Vignette Rewards
This is mostly for the EXP. Note that you only get vignette EXP if you kill something. The EXP numbers below you assume you aren't bugging out the combat engine (most notable with LN) by starting a fight, killing a friendly NPC in one turn, and ending the fight before the game engine realized what happened. The best way to ensure you kill these things quickly is with a high STR character wielding a scythe for x4 crits and the Temple+ Dungeon Master mode with Fudge Rolls (maximum results) on so as to minimize reloads. Remember, Sneak Attack damage applies and enlarge person and magic weapon increase damage!

Also note that you can use charm person on Humanoids and charm animal on animals (specifically the TN bears) to recruit them briefly when you warp to Hommlet so you can kill them more conveniently later. If these units normally fight back, they'll start a fight once the charm effect ends. If you can't kill them immediately (and you likely can't as a level 1 character or group), put them in a convenient out-of-the way place, like the far, far east or southwest parts of the Hommlet map along the map border away from the rest of your team, pass time for an hour so the charm effect ends, then return to them when you're ready to kill them!

-LG: 540 EXP and some minor coins.

-NG: 180 EXP, a cure light wounds potion, and minor loot.

-CG: 0, unless you start with your entire party hidden or invisible, such as via Duergar's racial invisibility. Kill the Elf Noble first to prevent her from speaking to get her Purple Elven Chain and 1080 EXP. Each guard gives some coins, a longsword, leather armor, other minor gear, and 1080 EXP.

-LN: 0, unless you fight it out for 30,240 EXP maximum! That's the highest of all starting EXP values! The Mayor gives some minor loot and 4320 EXP, and each guard gives a gilded full plate, masterwork greatsword and 6480 EXP! (It's best to kill the Mayor with ranged weapons so as to avoid triggering his dialog, and if his dialog triggers, that forces you to end the vignette.)

-TN: 0, unless you fight it out (and likely the toughest starting vignette fight) with things that fight back! If you win, you get a potion of greater heroism (normally impossible in 3.5!), a cure light wounds potion, a scroll of wind wall, Rod of the Python, +1 Scimitar, a Ring of Invisibility, and 8100 EXP. This is the richest victory by far!

-CN: 450 EXP.

-LE: 0. If you want to kill the ninjas and cult leader to learn their EXP and loot, a fight will occur and they will fight back! You get a total of 23,760 EXP and no loot of note from anyone. (The cult leader wielded a spell-buffed weapon.)

-NE: 0 if you do nothing and 180 EXP if you kill the one acolyte.

-CG: 450 EXP.

Other Notes about Starting Alignment
If you want to recruit Burne the level 8 Wizard because he's, well, a level 8 Wizard with a wonderful inventory, your party's starting alignment (the one that determines its vignette) must be LG, NG, CG, LN, or LE!

For the Demons & Demigods quest in Verbobonc near the very end of the game, your party's starting alignment determines which creatures you fight!

To Fight 4 Balor Guardians: Be Lawful Evil, True Neutral, or Chaotic Good.

To Fight 4 Iuzes: Be Lawful Neutral, Lawful Good, or Neutral Good.

To Fight 4 St. Cuthberts: Be Neutral Evil, Chaotic Evil, or Chaotic Neutral

Most Important Hommlet Quests to Do
Regardless of whether you console yourself to greater happiness above, these quests are useful due to some significant benefit beyond being a dating and political/religious sim.

-Brother Smyth Wants Head: Talk to Brother Smyth, the blacksmith, and tell him you want him to sell you masterwork items. He wants head as payment - the head of a hill giant. (Not yours, even if someone in your party is a hill giant.) Kill a hill giant somewhere in the world - most likely in Emridy Meadows - and give him the head he seeks. (Note that sending disposable characters, especially hirelings, against the giant and his bear pet in Emridy Meadows is one of the best early-game ways to kill them off should you not want to do it yourself. Remember, the giant can cleave!)

-Brother Smyth and the Welkwood Bog: Talk to Brother Smyth and say you want something different. Finish this conversation, then head to the Militia Captain and talk with him about Welkwood Bog. Agree to Militia Captain Renton's terms and enjoy!

-Cuthbert Church - Calmert Spawns Terjon (Canon Baller): Talk to Calmert in the St. Cuthbert church and pay or intimidate him into spawning Terjon on the church's top floor.

-Cuthbert Church - Heal Bing: On the second floor of the Cuthbert church, loot a bookshelf and take everything. Using read magic or identify, learn which scrolls and potions are of heal. Head to the Leatherworker's house and use heal as an item or a spell on Bing. Now you can buy masterwork slings and leather! (You may also get this item refunded to you! Alleluia!)

-Emridy Meadows - Terjon's Prismatic Stone: Terjon lost his shiny necklace and it's in Rainbow Rock in Emridy Meadows. Return it to him for a discount on his healing services.

-Deklo Grove - Kill 2 Spiders: Talk to Meleny in Filliken's or the Woodcutter to gain access to Deklo Grove. Go there and kill the spiders. If you got Black Jay's ring from these spider corpses, take it to Black Jay. Killing these spiders is required if you want to get the +1 Holy Longsword the intended way.

-Hommlet's Trading Post (Rannos Davl & Gremag) - Moathouse Skip/Early +1 Shortsword: If you have high enough social skills (like you're a Rogue1+ with 16+ CHA and 4+ ranks in the social skills of Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, Intimidate, and Sense Motive), visit the barn near the Hommlet Trading Post. In this barn, talk to the guy in the mid-north and answer him correctly to say you're new in town and be invited to join the Spy Club for the ToEE. Return to the Trading Post and, in dialog, call out the traitor traders. Your reward is either map access to the ToEE (but not really, since it's only a lie) or a magic item/magic weapon (a +1 shortsword, worth about 1000G when sold), or some coin.

Note that if you complete the Traders Revealed quest (that is, tell Burne that the traders are traitors), you can't get this bonus!

-Welcome Wench - Advancing the Spoony Plot!: Talk to Spugnoir ("Spoon Noir" as the voice actor calls it) and get the locations of the Moathouse and Emridy Meadows on your map. You can get these locations by other means, but Spuggy is the only one to tell you these 2 locations, making it more efficient.

-Welcome Wench - Free Rent, Furnok, and Kenny Rogers: Talk to the innkeeper Ostler Gundlegoot and ask for long-term lodging then agree to catch Furnok (who's really just Oerth's version of Kenny Rogers from The Gambler music video) cheating. Ensure the PC who talks with him has a high Spot skill and you'll win. You may as well recruit Furnok after you catch him cheating, then take him outside the Welcome Wench, kill him, strip him of his goods, then either utterly shame him by making his corpse disappear, or by visiting Jaroo for a discount revival. You could simply avoid killing him, but he's a CR4 wearing Oerth's version of Tolkein's The One Ring!

Note that Furnok can't be in your party when you talk to Ostler for quest credit!

Why Mention This?
I got tired of these tasks. They were generally low-risk, high-time investment tasks that led to the aforementioned rewards. Also, especially at low levels, getting another 100ish EXP or more per party member may mean the difference between this level and the next level.

 

When you say that the TN vignette is the toughest because the NPCs fight back, are you implying that the LN vignette NPCs don't? Unless I'm fighting 'in character' against the theif (NG) or bandits (? LG) I've not tried attacking the vignette quest-givers.
I have to say that unless I'm after something very specific (want to recruit Meleny or Fruella, or get the Holy longsword) I don't bother with the social Hommlet quests that much. Welkwood Bog is a bit of a grind but doable at first level, depending on personnel, and there are others that don't send you all over the place (I do the tailor joining the militia since I'm going to see Elmo's dad anyway, Deklo Grove since it gives access to MW bows and the spiders give XP). The first time I ever played (straight out of the box, didn't even know that walkthroughs or NC existed until I googled 'Fragarach') I set out for the moathouse as soon as it was mentioned (though that was in the days before the frogs all attacked at once, plus Black Jay's ring was an easy win). I'm not sure I would have had the patience to find my way through the more complex FedEx quests without instruction.

 

@Nightcanon
From my experience, the LN vignette NPCs don't fight back. They provide an easy 30,240 EXP split among your party, plus Full Plate, which is useful!

I made a parody of this phenomenon years ago. This video is part of this video series.

 

The shop money reset is a bug I've reported but hasn't been fixed in years. It's probably unintentional, but it's still within the game's rules to use. It's also something players might accidentally find and use, whereas consoling the stuff is definitely outside the expected bounds of play. The shop cash reset is also useful to avoid the OCD of realizing you didn't buy the +2 Appraise glasses first and now have wasted early game cash.

Also, the point of this guide is to help players get past the early-game boring parts and simulate doing them with a minimum amount of time and effort.

Whether cheating or modding (since they can each do similar things but have different connotations and details), knowing this is useful.

 

@Shiningted
Noted. While you're at it, may we also get a standardized amount of starting cash per character in the party? As GM, I normally offered 300G per ECL1 character just so they could buy weapons, armor, and consumables (scrolls, potions, alchemical items, etc.). Note that the expected starting wealth of a level 2 character is 900G, meaning 300G is well below this - not that ToEE strictly played by wealth by level. (See the holy dowry in Hommlet for about 18,000G!)

 

Wow, that is quite generous.

BITD we used the standard method in the PHB, and the only house rule was that you get 1 potion of cure light wounds.

At some point in time that was removed because one (or two) of us would simply kill another player "in the heat of an argument" just to get his potion.

ah, the fun aspects of playing evil characters

 

Expected wealth is completely off the charts in Troika's ToEE. It seems they had some different approach to the game to gold and XP.

 

TOEE was originally a first-edition AD&D module, and WBL wasn't a thing back then (and neither would a holy sword be a flat x gp worth of loot).
That being said, you did get xp for treasure in those days, so the monetary value of treasure in and around Hommlet was surprisingly high (I remember starting this campaign in 1988, and the xp boost from Lareth's gear when we killed him lifted my cleric from level 2 or 3 to 7).

 

It was probably inevitable someone outside of the C08 community would come up with a mod like this eventually (2020 seems oddly appropriate)... every RPG out there eventually gets "I can't be bothered" mods or outright cheat mods of varying degrees of expediency/pragmatism/shamelessness.

It was nice to have TOEE be relatively free from such efforts for many years.