This is a topic I've been meaning to mention in one of the other forums, but I may aswell discuss it hear while it's relevant... I came across ToEE from a strategy gamer point of view. i have always played ToEE as a strategy game, and Co8 is no different.... How many times in ToEE do you REALLY feel outnumbered and outgunned, forced to survive by hacking and slashing a path back to the exit. How many times have you fought a group more than triple the size of your 8 man party? In fact, have you EVER Lost a battle past level 6 against anything other than a node boss or the final boss? Lets list the major battles in ToEE, and the ones I have encountered thus far in Co8 1) Moathouse courtyard ambush- Not a HUGE battle, but a simple challenge for a level 1/2 party. 2) Bug bear battle (If you fight the first group and then the immediately after second)... simple enough for a level 3 party if proper tactics are used. 3) Gnoll battle, as above 4)Lareth's posse- They are all only humans with crossbows, spears, and with a couple of officers.... no mages or anything to cause any real trouble 5) The moathouse exit ambush- Not always triggered, but this is never too much trouble for a smart party (One who heals and dumps gear BEFORE leaving the moathouse) The order of these following battles varies, but I'll list them in the order I normally fight them 6) The broken tower ambush. Probably one of the hardest fights in the game, if you enter using a just-cleared-Moathouse level party (4/5/6)... But again they are only human 7) The goblin/ogre battle in what I call the earth temple kitchens.... a nice big battle, but its against goblins.... easy...my level 4 party slaughtered them last night 8) The other assorted battles around the earth temple consisting of humans, bug bears, and a few bigguns.... A challenge for a sub level 6 party, but a cake walk when AoE spells are unlocked... especially seeing as they can always be bypassed. I'm struggling to think of any more big battles now.... Most of the time you fight equal numbers, and easily over power your opponents. Theres a big battle in Temple level 4 with lots of Ogres, but at this point its a cakewalk. My main point is to say: ToEE eventually gets very boring for Acton gamers like me.... Fed Ex and conversion quests are dull, and get repetitive after a while.... I have NEVER lost a fight in ToEE following the Tower ambush..... I've lost party members, but never the entire party.... what does that say about the difficulty of the game? Large scale battles are what fantasy worlds are made of..... Think of the Balin's tomb battle in lord of the rings, where the 9-man fellowship fights off a horde of Goblins and a troll.... Do you ever get that sense of excitement in ToEE? Where are the overwhelming odds? Look at the opening cinematic, why can't large scale battles be integrated into the mod? The role playing element is simple, add a 'Town Crier' NPC to Hommlet, recruiting volunteers to defend an outlying bastion against a horde of evil.... The NPC transports you to a guard tower location (Think the tower in the KotB demo as a starting point), where you speak to a group of human warriors assembled, and can recruit some tough allies (Standard guardsmen types) for the battle ahead if nessesary.... then, upon talking to Captain Wasshisface, you get transported to a rip of emridy Meadows, where a horde of Orcs, bugbears, undead et al await for you to slaughter... or be slaughtered by.... After cutting your way through this horde, you reach a cave which takes you into a Small underground base (Moathouse dungeons mixed with another location?) to hunt down the leader in charge of the assault, at which point you enter his throne room and are confronted by his personal bodyguards (Big demon ish things... restated balors??) upon which their defeat opens a secret door leading to a final room, in which the true leader of this evil alliance waits.... A Sauron-esque figure with the ability to fend off even the mightiest of heroes.... I have been contemplatuing making this mod myself, seeing as it doesn't require TOO much scripting from the looks of it... I break up from school tomorrow and that gives me about a month to play around with the world builder..... But my main point of this thread is this: Theres nothing wrong with a huge battle campaign, and TBH Co8 really does need to integrate more combat into the mod What do people think? I'd love a little advice on how I could possibly create this vision... as well as the possibility of using Co8 resources and integrating it into your mod? Does ToEE suffer from any engine problems from large battles? is their a set amount of participants? I know a large scale turn based battle may seem boring, but I can imagine for a suped-up level 10+ party it would be an immense challenge Time to bugger off and do psychology coursework... i'll check back from time to time, and on friday I may consider starting to draft the mod, for either my own purposes or for anyone who wnats a little bit more information Oh, and let me just say this post comes from my view as a strategy gamer, not from a D&D player... while I respect the constraints of the Greyhawk world, I know very little about ot so I do apologise if my draft adventure offends any unwritten connotations of greyhawk lore .
If you want to take a shot at making something like this for the proposed TotWC expansion (itself not yet fully confirmed), go for it. That would mean it would be catered toward high-level parties and situated at the end of the game, however. Otherwise, we're suffering from an overabundance of XP in the normal game as it is, so we're not looking for more there. I can think of a few other battles with a relatively large number of opponents - the one with the bugbears on temple level 2 (greater temple) stands out. You'll probably find that there are limitations to what you can do with this inside a typical dungeon. You could stage a battle with 50 foes, for example, but most of them would be bunched up somewhere where they couldn't get to you, unless you picked a large room to stage the fight in. That's why an outdoor arena, like HB, would work better. I'm not aware of any hard engine limitations on the number of possible foes, but I've got to think there is one. The engine may not accomodate a third row of 'mini' portraits in the initiative order at the top of the screen, for example. There probably would be an impact on performace as well, exacerbated by any ongoing area effect spells you may have in action and that sort of thing.
