My playthru of TOEE/Co8

I didn't go thru the secret door I found. I was actually glad I got thru it this time which was a big positive after being thoroughly trashed four or five times. I just hoped I'd get a few items to pass around. I've investigated several of the upper and middle levels, got level 1 and 2 nearly cleared out. I'm really hoping that ability score boosters like Gauntlets of Ogre Power start showing up, but if I have to wait for Meleny to reach L9 to take Craft Wondrous Items so be it. I'm already playing around with a second party with lots of casters so I can have lots of different crafts going by L6.

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While wandering around L2 I discovered a room full of really nasty bugbears: 6 L6 fireballs were not enough to clear the room so I could beat it, some of the guys were actually getting through it all effectively undamaged. Not only that but even that monster Elmo couldn't reliably hit them while they were chopping us to shreds. I finally gave up after my third attempt when a group came around the side and demolished my team. If I couldn't take out a group of 4-5 of them how was I going to deal with close to twenty? So I backed off and decided to come back in a level or two. Well this morning I accidentally stumbled into the room through a side door. My fighter mains and the critters poured in to hold the door but it was looking pretty ugly when I couldn't get healing in to relieve them very well. Meleny took a nasty hit that broke her concentration so I pulled her out and decided to just have her throw in summons to reinforce my guys and do my best to try to keep them alive. Serena and Riana both have Charm Person and they discovered that Bugbears don't have great will saves so suddenly 3 of the bugbears were fighting on my side helping to hold the line so I could get in a healer. Meleny's first summon was the dire boar that proceeded to barrel through things and I followed that with the dire wolf. Meanwhile Tylwyth dropped fireball after fireball into their rear ranks trying to avoid friendlies and the female archers started dropping and Garret and Elmo took advantage of the damaged ones to cut down enemy numbers. For a while it was a crush and I was certain I was going to lose, but then it decidedly turned around with the summons pretty much taking out an enemy every round and the rest of the team following up on the openings that they were making. I was actually able to pour my healers into the room to keep people up and running - though at one point I tried to get Elmo to finish off a guy that LOOKED like he was right next to him so he could cleave into somebody else, instead Elmo ran a circle around the guy to pick a spot RIGHT NEXT to where he'd been standing - taking AOs from around 5 guys that took him from undamaged to deep in the red. But he got the guy. And I was able to get in and heal Elmo a bit. Garret's dog went down but I was able to revive that too. In the end we got through with some serious scrapes but no deaths except for one of the charmed bugbears - oh horrors! After clearing out the side room with the chief and his wives - and another of Fruella's cleavers from HELL, we tried to take a rest so I could lose the charm on the two bugbears and kill them - Elmo freaks out if you start killing "other party members" so just shanking them is no good. During first attempt to rest a carrion crawler decided that live prey was better than a room full of dead bugbears and we made short work of it. During the second some human bandits attacked us and gave us more low-level loot. During the third rest the charms wore off and we finished off the last pair of bugbears and looted them and ran for the hills. My mains all reached L8 and the lower-level comps are within a thousand or two.

I also started my second team after a few starting glitches: Druid and Bard as mains and then I grabbed Meleny, Fruella, Pishella and Elmo, I'll pick up Serena and Riana later for rogues once I clear the moathouse. Not a lot of need for a rogue in the moathouse really. I figure I grab the sisters and come back for those few things like Lareth's stash. I don't have anybody with a good Search though so it could be interesting. I thought about getting that cheating jerk Furnok as filler for the moathouse but we'll see about that. Or I could throw in a PC rogue as a temp, might do that. Got them through the frogs and other trash outside, the spider in the tower, and cleared the upper floor before coming back to this older crew for a bit.

 

Yeah I love good tactical battles, I'm usually pretty good at figuring those out, but sometimes you realize that you are just too low a level and need to come back. It helped that I figured out why my ranger was almost never hitting - and my halfling rogue - I had no idea that a shortsword would count as a medium weapon for her until I swapped the sword for a dagger and watched her attack bonus skyrocket. So I beefed up the Poisoned Dagger to +2 and gave her that and now both are actually hitting stuff more often. When I switched Serena to sorc I decided to keep the charming gypsy concept and have her take Magic Missile and Charm Person for her 1st level spells and the charm is really helpful even if getting rid of them later is a bit annoying. But it was helpful enough that I had Riana take Charm Person too. Having the two of them charming B-bears in the middle of the fray really helped throw the b-bears tactics off. But my first try's at the room - NE of level 2 - when ELMO couldn't hit them, I knew I was outmatched.

 

Ok, did some more general exploration of the temple, found the giant Scorpp, got to actually have the convo with him this time before combat started. But even though we ended on a friendly note he insisted on remaining "in combat" with us so we had no choice but to put him down. And of course discovered that he had the remainder of Wonnilon's gear so promptly returned that. During the remainder of my exploration of L3 I used up pretty much all of my offensive arsenal of spells so I retreated back to Nulb to rest. On the way back I decided to go back through the secret door in the guardhouse and had a confrontation with Smigmal Redhand. I'd previously encountered her and was completely taken in by her story about having been "forced" to do despicable things via magic and let her go. Now it was her and two more assassins. With my team they didn't last long. Two sorcerer's barraging them with Magic Missile pretty much handled them, and poor poor Smigmal, she lost initiative to too many of my guys including MY rogue. Meleny summoned a dire bear behind Smigmal, and the following round a dire wolf behind another assassin, and the rest of the team simply did their best to layer in some extra damage. All of them were finished off by either Tylwyth or Serena's magic missiles. The assassins pretty much ran around trying to find flanking positions for sneak attacks and not getting enough damage through since I decided to invest into every ring of protection I could find and had Meleny upgrade nearly everybody's armor to +1 if not +2. Most of my frontline team have ACs of 23 or higher which wouldn't slow my team down a lot but seems to handle most enemy attacks well enough. Now for the LOOT. Oh yeah, my mains leveled up to L9 after this rather one-sided fight. I am also going to note that I managed to not find the skull when I trashed Falrinth earlier, but I figure I can leave it alone while I work on clearing the upper temple areas. There's a lot of troll-trash for instance I can fireball to hell to initiate fights, while cleaning house.

Edit: I am so damned stupid. I never saved after the Smigmal fight and I decided to try a test-run on my level ups with Kuanyin to see what arms and armor she can create as a 5th level caster = not really much - so when I looked for my last save it was BEFORE the fight and I had to do it again. She nearly killed Garret outright and kept shanking the crap out of him when I'd revive him but Meleny surrounded her with summons and Kuanyin summoned her Spiritual Hammer to keep her occupied so she wouldn't kill Garret on her turn. Serena charmed one of the assassins and we managed to take out the other one and Smigmal - again mostly with magic missiles. I tried shocking grasp a couple times but Combat Casting and the Casting Defensively technique are UTTERLY WORTHLESS. I fail on the combat casting check nearly every time - even when I'm out of combat - and the spell fizzles - which is NOT how it's supposed to work. If you fail at the Casting Defensively check the enemies that can reach you get AOs, that's all that happens. OR is supposed to happen in tabletop. So the one major spell that's INTENDED to be used in close combat cannot be used in close combat.

So I won. And then I rested to get rid of the charmed assassin - and he kept insta-killing Meleny's wolf and ticking me off. So I really set the fight up before resting to let the spell wear off, and two ettins decided to join the fun and chase my mages around. But at least I got a bit more XP and their treasure along with the rest of it.

 

I decided to work on getting Meleny and the Gypsy girls some xp so I could get them to L9. Got that done and leveled them. Meleny now has Craft Wondrous Items and so does Riana who I turned into a Bard and made sure she had Eagles Splendor - so she could make Charisma cloaks for my two sorcerers and herself. I gave Serena Craft Scrolls and Fireball since the walk-thru says you need a fireball scroll for the end-game and crafting it seems to be the only way to get one. Besides it meant that I could use the two gypsy girls to craft tons of arcane scrolls for gold with Burne's salesperson. I decided to build up a bit more xp by wiping out all the trolls on level 3 and doing a bit more cleaning down on level 4. When I finished up I went back to Nulb and checked how much xp I had to spend on crafting. I was able to make a Belt of Giant strength +4 for my ranger, and a Cloak of charisma +4 for Tylwyth, and passed the +2 cloak of charisma to Serena. I think I need to decide to just start clearing out the temple priests next, I've about cleared everything else out although I suspect there are areas on level 4 I haven't reached yet. Meleny still cannot make fire or acid weapons tho at L9 which has me perturbed. I was expecting those to come in handy with the trolls but it was a no go so I just trashed them normally.

I had finally noticed an odd thing after my run at the guardhouse = Tylwyth seemed to be permanently invisible. So after getting some advice to go to Jaroo I got him to fix it. But oddly enough although the status was gone, her texture still looked like she was invisible. So I finally got an idea and had Riana cast invisibility on her again and then let time pass so it would wear off - problem solved.

I discovered the Groaning Spirit down on L4 and trashed it pretty quickly and then checked out it's chest. Found a +1 Chains of Love - exotic holy weapon - really wish I had somebody who could use it effectively but it would mean waiting three more levels to have Elmo use it and he'd lose all the Axe feats he has. I am guessing you must need a pretty high level cleric to cast Holy Weapon because a test run with my Monk4/Cleric5 couldn't do it. Hrm, I was wondering if I could get Mother Screng since she's the only high level cleric and seemingly the only real cleric you can recruit, but the guide says you have to be level 6 or less for her to join. Not sure why they would think I want to load my party with L9+ followers when my main PCs are only L6, but it's far too late for that. Looks like Meleny's dad's holy sword will be the only holy weapon I get that I'll be able to use.

I'm thinking that my next group I might build as reincarnations of the companions from the first Neverwinter Nights campaign - without the lawful evil dwarf monk. But a group consisting of an half-orc barb perhaps crossed with ranger, a halfling rogue, gnome sorcerer, female elf cleric of Sehanine, and a human bard could be a viable team. Though I'll probably have to grab Pishella and make her take pure wizard levels for the second enchanter. Unless I decide to make the gnome a wizard instead of a sorcerer as his cannon character was. HMMMMM.

 

Just took down High Priest Kelno of Air and Belsornig of Water. Belsornig's Juggernaut was a beast, it quelled all fire spells and had an enormous amount of spell resistance and damage resistance. I had Meleny summon everything she could to throw at it. Garret used his summon too, and Kuanyin did her Spiritual Weapon trying to draw fire away from my main team - it worked, just barely - though all the animal companions and summons died. I decided to start in the SW corner nearest Belsornig so I could take him and his nearest support cleric down quickly. I probably could have cast more defensive spells, but I decided to simply start with Riana's Bardic song and Haste, which got us through Belsornig and the priests pretty quickly, but the rest was rough. Especially when one of the priests succumbed to Tasha's Hideous Laughter and died laughing. Fight would have gone faster if I'd realized I could have kept Tylwyth casting Ice Storm on the Juggernaut during the first several turns.

 

TOEE is one of the best 3rd Edition games out there, and has some of the best quality mods to boot. Perhaps in a future run you would consider the Temple+ mod, compatible with CO8. Some madman added 3E prestige classes like Mystic Theurge, Assassin, Eldritch Knight, and a few others.

 

I had to contact the guys at GoG to figure out how to make this mod work with their version of the game - thankfully the guy who helped me went above and beyond, but with a bit of luck I might be able to figure the mod you mentioned out. I was wondering if the game included any of the prestige classes, theoretically at least some would have been available at around L7 or so. I am guessing this is the mod: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/project-temple-released.98904/ ???

 

That's the one. Note that it also works with the Keep on the Borderlands mod, which is essentially a new game on the TOEE engine based on the PnP adventure of the same name.

Like I said, TOEE mods are the highest quality mods.

 

The notes on that page suggested that it was a 1.0 intended to be expanded, is there an expanded version of it?

 

This is the latest version of the mod, just click the files button.

http://www.moddb.com/mods/temple1

 

Ok, my downloads says that 1054 version was the one I'd just nabbed from the other site/page - this one was a duplicate. So now I get to transfer it from my winXP machine which is the only one that properly activates download buttons now - some "feature" in Win10 updates has fuggled up both File Explorer on my system and disabled the downloads in everything except for Win10s Edge. Frack... Which means that I have to download it in Edge because without File Explorer working I couldn't do anything with the file once it's transfered... GRRRRRR ARRRRRRRRGGGHHH! I really need to contact Microsoft again and get them to figure out how to fix this. Oh wait! TOEE is on my winXP machine - lol. I am being confused. I just started playing Shadowrun5e tabletop and somebody pointed me to Chummers5 to help with character creation, but that program wouldn't run on my WinXP system and I had to jump thru all sorts of hoops to get it working on my Win10 system. In any case, I've got it, now I'll have to see if I can figure out how to install it to the GoG version. Thanks!

And because that whole thing is confusing without this info - I have two desktops, one is still running WinXP and the other is running Win10.

 

My little party managed to take down Romag of the Earth Temple with a bit of a fight. The flanking move his forces pulled was a bit of a surprise, but I had Kuanyin and Eshu and the Gypsy Sisters and our pets work on that while the rest of the team focused on the forward group. Serena bombarding the rear group with fireballs while Meleny kept our center from collapsing with her summons eventually sorted that out. Tylwyth kept Ice Storming the forward forces until they started to collapse, then switched to fireballs so none of the various summons would run into the Ice Storm and get Elmo upset. The idiot goes into a homicidal rage if a summon gets killed by running into an Ice Storm. Found that out the hard way. So I had to play it a bit more carefully to prevent that. Once that was done it was back to Hommlet to sell all the loot we'd collected from the temple. Riana had enough XP (and we had enough gold) to craft the +6 Cloak of Charisma - which went to Tylwyth, who then passed her +4 Cloak to Serena, who then passed her +2 Cloak to Riana. I also ran back to Nulb and grabbed a +3 Bracers of Defense for Tylwyth who still didn't have one - Kuanyin and Serena both got them already because they are much more likely to end up in the front lines. I also grabbed the +2 Dex Gloves for Tylwyth to boost her slightly more, and the +4 Dex Gloves for Eshu, who passed her +2 Gloves to Garret the Ranger. I've been debating on what to have Meleny craft next. Before going after Romag I decided to have her upgrade Kuanyin's +2 Tonfa with frost and Eshu's +2 Poisoned Dagger with shock. But I'm debating between a +6 Belt of Giant Strength to upgrade Garret's +4 so he can pass the +4 to Elmo, or a +6 Broach of Wisdom for Kuanyin so she can pass her +4 to Meleny. The belt is probably the higher priority though.

The next task was taking on what was left of the Fire Temple. It seems I'd already killed Alrrem without realizing it. But the remains of his forces in the main temple were pretty aweful: a single priest named Bassanio and a pair of Noble Salamander's who threw fireballs all over the place along with a small horde of Firebrothers. The last time I was in this room I'd automatically triggered Firebrothers by accident and the sudden fireballs left my party in ruins. So I knew I was going to need clever tactics, so I split my group into three teams: Elmo and the Gypsy Sisters went down the west side; Garret, Meleny and Tylwyth went down the east side; Eshu and Kuanyin went down the middle. Eshu is the group spokesperson so she chattered at Bassanio briefly before the fight started, which left her right next to him and she won initiative - he was very unhappy about being backstabbed in the front, but didn't die. A Noble Salamander fireballed the gypsy sisters - both being rogues with good reflex saves they took no damage - idiot completely skipped Elmo who closed in on it to explain why that was bad with his axe - which got that Noble perfectly flanked with Eshu on her next turn and he didn't last long. The other Noble Salamander threw his fireball all the way back to where Tylwyth was and knocked her out, but Meleny ran back and rescued her, while Garret closed in on that Noble and demolished him. With the two Noble Salamanders out of the way it was just a matter of clean-up and making sure the Flamebrothers and Bassanio didn't get a kill on my forward folks. Bassanio went down eventually - he spent the whole fight trying to avenge Eshu's affront-stab and caused her a great deal of hurt before he went down. Then it was just a matter of moping up the last Flamebrothers which didn't take long. +3 Frostbrand Greatsword in the chest - wow!

 

My merry little band managed to rescued Prince Thrommel and Paida. We killed off mobs of trolls and ogres and bugbears. Entertainingly enough I'd robbed Paida's husband of everything except his panties during the drinking contest earlier on so I delivered naked Paida to her nearly-naked husband - while their fully-clothed family and employees looked on.

Oddly I've been having dreams about finding Kella the half-elf druid who is pretending to be a hill-giant thanks to a magic druid-only ring. I did finally find her, but since she was in giant-form she didn't look like her character avatar so I didn't recognize her. Now I'm trying to decide if I should recruit her long enough to rescue her from the Temple - and see if I can snatch her magic ring into the bargain for Meleny - but that would take a lot of maneuvering that I'm not sure is worth the effort.

The thing I was finding most attractive about Kella actually was that she was the first companion after Zaxis that was a half-elf: IE: one of the very few that aren't human.

 

I'd previously stopped just outside Senshack's room and listened to him casting buffs, as depleted as my group was at that point I decided to pull out and rest before taking him on. Once I did and took him and Barkinar and the various elementals and such out, but somehow the fire (I think) and earth elementals managed to get through the magical barrage that I poured deep into the room completely unscathed so they were the only real fight. Senshack had some pretty good loot. I pretty much decided that Meleny was better off wearing a green mystic garb and Senshack's bracers of AC+3 so she could carry a buckler and a bit more else instead of the Barbarian armor she was wearing that pushed the limits of her strength. I could have bolstered her armor with more magic but it wasn't worth it for somebody who was essentially useless in melee combat. I'm using her for her various elemental attacks and heals and the occasional Summon Natures Ally. Otherwise keeping her well out of the melee like Tylwyth my sorceress and usually the gypsy sisters.

I uncovered the area where Hedrack is, sent Eshu in in stealth mode while invisible to scout out the room so I'd know where to throw spells to get the wizards hiding way in the back. But with my group's offensive spells mostly depleted after fighting Senshack and clearing out the remainder of the south-west we were in no shape to take him on. Entertainingly enough Kella let us wipe out her friends without joining into the fight so she's sitting all lone in the SW corner. I'm tempted to recruit her just to see what I can loot off of her if nothing else, but I'm loath to simply murder her.

After doing some running around outside the temple to sell off stuff and rest I managed to take down Hedrack the high priest of Iuz, it only took half a dozen or more tries because if you managed to damage him enough to convince him he's going to die, but not enough to out-right kill him, he summons Iuz, and Iuz seems to be unbeatable. Iuz has a high Spell Resistance combined with Protection from Good so spells are basically useless on him, meanwhile his AC is absurdly high when Elmo with a +18 can't hit him with several tries. And the one time one of my Gypsy/rogue sisters caught him flat-footed with her bow she did around 12hp damage - and his avatar still read as "Undamaged" which means his total HP is also absurd. But I got him. Then I outfitted Elmo with nearly all of Hedrack's gear except his unholy hammer. After slogging through so many over-powered monster foes with crap gear it was refreshing to actually get some decent treasure.

I've largely tried to avoid using the Console for stuff, but a couple times I've granted Meleny and the Gypsy sisters some XP to make up for the massive amounts they've been spending on crafting. Entertainingly enough the little bit that Elmo spent out of the group while I rescued Prince Thrommel and took advantage of his prowess before leaving the temple and losing him put Elmo behind the curve for the party despite the fact that he starts out several levels above. He leveled up after the Hedrack fight while everybody else leveled up to L10 before Hedrack. My first few attempts at Hedrack ticked me off enough that I consoled myself a very few ability score boost items: one each of: Giant strength+6 belt, Wisdom+6 amulet, Dexterity+6 gloves. Meleny was probably never going to be able to produce them all before the game is over and after seeing Iuz in action I figured they were deserved with how stingy the module is on magic. I wonder if the final Elemental Nodes will show better though? Time to find out.

I should probably note that I took out Falrinth some time ago, but I'm pretending I'm too stupid to open his chest and get the Golden Skull until closer to the end-game, don't want to get caught up in a rush job that forces me to slog through the end game without rests.

 

I worked my way through the various elemental realms, but the Balor that's guarding the Fire Gem is giving me headaches. His Spell Resistance is so high that only Tylwyth has any chance to beat it. His AC is so high he's practically unhittable. And his fear aura makes it so I can only get a very few people close enough to actually hit him in melee. He seems to be immune to any damage that isn't holy and all of my holy weapons are Martial and Melee - or worse: they are Exotic. Unfortunately I have nobody who can use Scather who is NOT chaotic good so I'm going to be forced to not use the one weapon that could hit him because of a bug unless I can figure out how to Console Command a change of alignment on Garret to make him Neutral Good instead.

Noting that I'm trying to use this method to change Garret's alignment: http://www.co8.org/community/index.php?threads/list-of-console-commands.1676/ - but it's not working for me.

 

Have you tried a Paladin with it’s Aura of Courage? Or simply the spell "Protection from Evil"?

 

Well it would rather be late in the game for me to bring in a L1 Paladin wouldn't it? And yes I'm trying Protection from Evil but as I don't have a full cleric in my party nor anyone else who can cast it I'm a bit limited. Since Protection from Evil and Remove Fear are the same level I have to pick which I can actually take - though I probably should favor the former over the latter. But I've had an instance where my Monk4/Cleric7 who had Circle of Protection from Evil up was STILL affected by the fear aura and needed somebody to cast Remove Fear on her. Thankfully my Rogue2/Bard9 has Remove Fear.

I did figure out that I was typing the alignment change command wrong so I fixed Garret's alignment to NG - I also need to remember to give him a prot from fire ring - me = idiot.

 

IIRC, unlike Protection from Evil spell, Magic Circle Against Evil does not grant immunity to mind-affecting effects in ToEE...