Greetings, all! Hommlet is a great place to visit once to get a feel for the game's basic controls and culture. For repeated visits, I'd normally rather just grind to get the extra level or two from doing hours of 'busywork.' I propose that in the starting area, all item rewards from Hommlet quests (and notable scrolls, potions, and magic items that aren't specifically quest rewards but are found in Hommlet) be placed in a chest called "Hommlet Chest of Skipping Quests." Specifically, this includes the scrolls and potions from St. Cuthbert's church library, the Holy Dowry (+1 Holy Longsword) from the hard-working farmer (whose means of affording 18,000G for a longsword seem psychotic or illegal), and any other quest rewards (such as money or gems) given out during the Hommlet exploration phase. There should be a dialog option in the starter gear chest that offers to give you all the EXP you'd get from doing every single Hommlet quest - just so experts can try the more fun bits of the combat system and exploration and later game content sooner without feeling like they absolutely have to complete everything for the starter package. I'd also like to have all the NPCs from Hommlet initially recruitable as NPCs (Fruella, Meleny, Ronald, Elmo, Furnok, etc., but not Burne since Burne isn't initially recruitable) to be in the pre-game bedroom for easy recruiting. They would have their standard recruitment fees. Again, this is for the expediency of adventure. Ideally, those who opt into skipping Hommlet would lose the ability to complete the same quests in Hommlet for EXP/money (the quests would be marked as complete), and the NPCs chosen at the pre-game phase would NOT populate in Hommlet (to prevent two Ronalds, etc.). Otherwise, just let people who are super determined complete everything and get everyone twice. The inspiration for this idea came from Baldur's Gate II's "Dungeon-Be-Gone" Mod and Lufia II's Ancient Cave ("Gift") game mode where players choose which party members they want before entering a procedurally-generated dungeon.
Welkwood Bog was designed for the players (especially those that chose an evil alignment) that didn't want to do anything in Hommlett. As such, getting the rewards and companions of quest by NOT doing the quest seems just a bit counter-productive, in the way that you're being rewarded for not playing the game..
You can take all the rewards offered by Hommlet Quests simply by using the console. Not to mention, I am not sure automatically getting credit for all the quests makes sense. For one thing, some of the quests you can get are evil in nature, which some parties may not want to do. Also, some quests may be out of reach for some parties if they do not have the required people skills for the various bluffs, gain info, diplomacy etc. Finally, some quests can be done right away, whereas other quests will only be done at higher levels.
Homlett is like half the game. Nulb only takes twenty minutes and The Temple is actually kind of boring. Plus once you get the Orb of Golden Death you can head straight to Zzugtomy who you don't even need to fight. So even the huge temple can be done in 20-30 minutes. Besides, Homlett is awesome.
After beating toee a couple times I always skip homlet quests and go straight for the moat house. then off to nulb then to toee then clear the meadows then back to toee then clear the fishing quest. frogs and liz men and hag then the broken tower by thus time about clear the whole toee and down to last levels then defeat hedereck then clear all the nodez then defeat zug ----------- I defeat the nodes using a couple tricks first defeat the vrock in the air node kill the vrock after summoning it drops a gem have another character hold it -not the one holding the skull so you have the skull and all other charactets holding a vrock gem. so when you face other demons of greater power you will have 2 or 3 or 4 vrocks fighting the gate demon drawing all the damage and attacks youcan do this same with other demon sommons from the golden skull and gems. -------- some times I kill everyone everywhere in every town for kiks. then head down for zuggy. ---- I usually kill or let every hireling die thats an end slide. -------- I had beat toee with every alignment between evil -neutral - good after doing so maybe 5 complete times I got bored. so I started moddifying the game until I got bored with that.
