My second run of TOEE, trying to beat a time, and selfimposed rules.

I have to admit, that's the impression I got about the OP from the first post he posted in the other thread. I admired the patience with which people have responded to his less than polite rants and attempted to help him, but I don't think this is the right kind of game for him. The BG games have plenty of mods that have vorpal weapons of instant death and such, might be a better fit, although these days even the IE community is realizing that kind of stuff gets old after a while and toning things down.

 

I haven't seen it in this thread, but in case you don't know, you can use the 0 level spell "Read Magic" to identify scrolls and potions. I'm very new to ToEE, but not to 3.5 d&d. I was disappointed at first when I thought I had to waste 100gp to use Identify on a potion of cure minor wounds, which is barely worth a few pennies. I had to re-start my game because I was broke by level 2. Read Magic is available to Druids, Clerics, Wizards, and Sorcerers, and it's a really cheap way to identify the multitude of potions and scrolls you'll come across.

Also, unrelated...in pen-and-paper d&d i've played, my DM usually allowed the use of Knowledge (Arcana) and other Knowledge skills in lieu of expensive Identify spells. Spells would still be used if the Knowledge check failed, but it was a handy way to save a few gold. I wish the Knowledge skills were in this game, but they wouldn't really have any other practical applications as far as I can tell.

 

The problem with vorpal or any type of weapons of instant death and such is that it makes it easy to breeze through the game. The only way to prevent this occurrence from happening is to beef up the enemies to an insane level or give them weapons of instant death also. The game becomes completely unbalanced and not much fun.

The idea behind a CRPG is that it suppose to be a challenge and your characters are engaged in exploration, helping or harming people, doing good or evil dependent on your alignment.

This the reason why Fragarach, Scather and even the frost blade appear late in the game. These three weapons are arguably the most powerful blades in the game. The first two almost never miss and do extra damage depending on who wields them. The frost blade is nasty in its own right especially when enhanced with holy. But they do not completely unbalanced the game. But if they appear earlier they could.

When creating a CRPG or a mod ,or a P & P adventure balance is important.

 

It needs to heal the subject up to full instantaneously. :yes:

 

Maybe the name of the heal skill needs to be changed to something like bandage. This would avoid confusion with the Heal spell. Bandage and stabilize is what battlefield medics actually do until the healer (if still alive) can tend to the patient. If the healer is not available (or is the patient) then the battlefield medics rush the patient to the nearest available healing center.

 

With regard to ranged sneak attacking, making your enemies unable to see you is a key tactic (since you can't flank like a melee guy). There are two ways to do this:

1) Blind your opponents. Glitterdust can set up an entire enemy party for being mowed down, and I suppose there's blindness/deafness for a single tough opponent (it'll have a slightly higer DC and doesn't wear off if it's following the SRD; I can't recall if it does).

2) Make youself invisible. Invisibility isn't too great here, since it wears off as soon as you attack, but both greater invisibility and invisibility sphere give you lasting invisibility, which lets you sneak attack until the spell ends (the only downside of the latter is that you can't move very far from where it's placed, but that's not usually much of an issue, and it affects multiple people. This is, incidentally, way better than the spell is supposed to be; the SRD says you target a person, and they and everyone within 10 feet become invisible as long as they don't attack and don't move more than 10 feet away from the target (and the whole thing ends if the target attacks; it's much more like regular invisibility). The ToEE version is probably broken by comparison ).

With the support of the above, a ranged sneak attacker is probably the most lethal character in the game (melee sneak attackers can benefit too, but sneak attacking in a 30 foot radius lets you make more full attacks, whereas a melee character has to be standing next to his target(s) at the start of the round to make more than one attack).

 

Point Taken! But maybe the game designers could have called it first-aid. How does the game engine differentiate between the heal spell and the heal skill?

 

Next question: does the game recognize the non-combat uses of the Heal skill at all? I can't really remember my characters healing 2 pts/level unless they are resting in the inn, even if I have a cleric or someone with maxed out Heal skill.

 

No erkper, that was my whole point, Heal skill is supposed to make your heal when resting faster (at least in D&D) rules, and it does not.

 

Not correct, you must make the DC roll. Also for quicken recovery or perfect recovery the DC is 50 and 100 respectively. The quicken and perfect recoveries allow the character to recover in one hour what normally would require 2 or 3 days of long term care.The heal is also applied by someone other than the character. If the DC roll is not made the recovery is as normal per D & D rules. Quicken and perfect recovery are epic uses of heal. Epic requires a level of 21 or above.

 

I do believe you can use it out of combat to help a character recover from disease.

 

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Heal_Skill

uhu? why you said i'm not correct?