My epic adventure through ToEE using Co8 5.0.5, a review So I completed ToEE tonight for the 2nd time. The first time was 3 or 4 years ago and it was a straight ToEE Atari patch 2 setup. I don't remember much about that game except that I didn't have craft magic arms and armor. I started this time through with 8 PCs, (In retrospect that did limit me on quite a few escort quests, but nothing serious) it took me a few tries to find a good party that I could tolerate long enough to get to level 3. At first I got the crap kicked out me by frogs and everything else, after that I had the secret door bug and had to reinstall. About the forth party start I went with a group consisting of 3 warriors, 2 clerics, 1 rogue, 1 sorcerer and 1 wizard. I was a little sad this group was so generic, but I built the warriors and clerics up in different ways so their was some variety. First, I was really shocked by how disappointed I was in my dual wielding bastard sword/short sword and my longsword/short sword warrior, compared to my glaive wielder. With AoO and the amount of large sized, long reach monsters, reach weapons have every advantage you could ask for, including getting through damage absorption! The whole of this engine rule set completely favors (for the sake of reality?) big two handed pointy stick weapons. All of my warriors were humans, though, I only needed one could do intimidate, I should have made one a dwarf and the other a half-orc for some variety. Still, having power attack and cleave at level 1 is very nice, and brings you closer to combat reflexes and weapon focus/specialization that make the warrior class so dam destructive. Between my two clerics, one was healing/good and the other was healing/sun. Both are quite strong but greater turning and enchant holy from good domain is overpowering.. At first I hated my rogue. I hate being forced into holding onto dead weight but every DnD game makes you carry a rogue in the group. By the end of the game however I had no complaints. At one point my rogue tanked 6 "delub nurbs?" from the earth node for no less then 10 rounds while the rest of my group came down to rescue her after a botched chest loot attempt. She took a total of 8 points of damage.. While my group killed another 5, then took out the six that had her surrounded. She could move in and out of combat on a whim (except when completely surrounded, hehe), use wands and most importantly, open those dam chests. One thing I don't like about DnD PC games is that basically if you don't play an elf rogue, your an idiot, due to the automagical check skills of the elf.. it's a non-choice. There is a lot of debate on the net about the usefulness of wizards-vs-sorcerers. Having both in my group I wouldn't want to be without either. I think these classes are metaphorically a lot like doctors vs medics. A medic can save a life on the road, but a doctor is required for specialized matters. It's basically the same for wizards and sorcerers. My sorcerer was basically completely offensive spells, all the time, except for the 4th or 5th spell selection in each level which I choose based on my crafting items needs. Even so, my sorcerer really didn’t have access to hardly any crafting recipes. My wizard on the other hand had at the end of the game nearly every spell from spell level 1 through 5. He was the one I who could prepare for specific situations, not just spam magic-missle, fireball, etc which was the job of the sorcerer. Both clerics the sorcerer and wizard had “craft magic arms and armor” AND “craft wonderous items”, additionally the wizard could craft scrolls and wands, the sorcerer could scribe scrolls (for my wizard’s book J) one cleric could craft wands and the other could craft potions. I never used my clerics ability to craft wands or potions, the game simply had to many potions that it never came up. However, otherwise the crafting skills came in mighty handy. All four of them spent over 10,000 experience points each crafting items and improving magic items found for my team. I made eight +6 amulets of health, seven +4 cloaks of resistance two +4 belts of giant strength, I improved 6 sets of armor and bucklers/shields to +3, and improved or made nine weapons keen holy weapons +3 with varied elemental damage. With a wand or 3 of identification and a wand of stoneskin a few random scrolls, this came out to 40K XP divided among 4 crafters. (Some items were suitable for end-game use such as hendriks armor set that has strength and resistances so nicely provided) Somewhere I thought this whole party combination crafting setup was going to badly overpower my party. Strangely, with the Co8 mod changes I never felt like I was stronger then the monsters I was fighting at the time I was there. (Except my trip long delayed trip to hickory at level 10). The fire node, indeed all of the node bosses, and final boss all provided a definite challenge to my group that finished the game at level 12. (Though my four non-crafters hit level 13 on the final fight).. J I was hesitant to take full advantage of the changes Co8 made to the game, like the armor merchant on the first map and level cap removal. Having finished the game, I would say that it has been well balanced and basically requires an all-or-none approach to the changes. I don’t know if it is possible to win against Balor or Zugg at level 10 anymore, especially without crafting, I wouldn’t want to try it. ToEE ran really well for me right up to Dungeon Level 4, and suddenly the old nightmares of Node freezes and CTDs happen just as they did 3 years ago. I quickly got in the habit of saving at the end of each fight before even looting due to lockups in the nodes, I can only think how amazing and how great this game engine would be had the original designers been given time to finish it properly. Perhaps though, having heard about their Vampire game but having never played it, I was told it was also buggy as hell, so perhaps they just didn’t have the coding skill to do the job. I don’t know. I couldn’t be bothered to clear the nodes, it just sucked to much to play in them, at that point I just wanted to finish the skull and beat the game. Though it seems that, the skull can probably be destroyed getting the gems, but that occurred to me as an afterthought, anyways I needed some experience for crafting, but that too could have been done though random encounters elsewhere. The nodes are evil.. very evil… It was nice to get to level 12, that’s a super level for every class it seems like because of the feats and spells gained, getting my rogue improved critical (shortsword) brought a tear to my eye. Both of my clerics picked up a weapon feat so they could use the radiant ranseur and the radiant spiked chain, both arcane casters got improved spell penetration.. Ah.. ..power… overwhelming.. To summarize, the game was entertaining, diverting and challenging throughout. So, Thanks for the fun ToEE/Co8, I look forward to a final release version of KotB, you guys are completely dedicated and a little crazy for all the work you put into this, but I am sure, a lot of people appreciate it. I’m off to play Baldur’s Gate II, SoA/ ToB, which as of yet I have never completed.
