Ok, I have gone through this a few times and given up, but I have to wonder if this review is aimed at inciting me personally due to butthurt in previous threads.
1. Buffs. This is one of those topics that has some merit on both sides but ultimately it's such a huge part of DnD spell system simply cutting them out changes the dynamic greatly. It shouldn't be hailed as great, especially since the time limits on spells are such that you can't simply have all your buffs on at once. As pointed out, of course your party should buff before a big fight they know about, and in an intelligent campaign the enemy buffs when and if they are able to and it makes sense. In toee it's very handy to keep your fighters enlarged at all times, especially since it allows you to use weapons you otherwise might not in ways you wouldn't, and because toee had reach, the most difficult to implement yet most important tactical element in DnD. It's a different story to try to fight some giants when you get smashed simply for entering their attack radius, and it's a lot of why the game becomes a cakewalk later.
2. Arrows of slaying being neat. They are a game ruining safety net for morons.
3. Clerics nerfed. Sort of, but clerics have become super uber in the last few DnD iterations so they are still quite strong ESPECIALLY CONSIDERING THEY CAN SOMEHOW RAISE DEAD AND RESSURRECT MID COMBAT, which is a game destroying flaw if you have someone smart enough to realize that fireballz and moar fireballz is not the most effective way to run spellcasters.
4. Fighters suck and mage awsumz. Here you show you are not someone who should be reviewing a DnD game. Mages moar good becuz moar fireballz! A lot of people think mages suck until they get fireballs, and are glad metamagic feats let them cast more of them, and believer more spellcaster firepower is the way to tackle all problems, but that's just due to being clueless. Mages are usefull at all times but they slowly lose ground until at the end you have fighters that can dish out 250 damage on a full attack reliably, and can top 500 with criticals. So you can slaughter multiple dragons in one round, obliterate major demons, etc. as soon as you can close on them. Clerics have a lot of power and 4 clerics (especially in this game) could take on anything and just laugh at whatever you threw at them, with decent builds and spell usage (which admittedly is beyond many but what can I say?).
5. It's cool to have lame ambushes with low level monsters that have extreme advantage be the hard fights in many dungeons, while the boss monsters are all weak and lame. I guess here is the biggest contention, some people just love the layout of the dungeons. Other people, ones who are not apologists or wackos, realize it's mostly bugfuck crazy and upside down. Even funny is when people say but toee has bugbear! That's like saying I'm tired of all these human fights. Yeah there's bugbears, fighters with all sorts of weapons, shamans with cleric or mage levels, bugbears supported by ogre magi or giants. All kinds of encounters that actually make sense and have interest, instead of some weird encounters that I'd laugh at in a roguelike runthrough. hurhur I fought llolth 5 fights in this time. roofles!
6. Ai. Well, if you think AI is good, you are full of crap, or as rest of review shows simply don't have much grasp of wtf is going on in combat in the first place. How many times have I seen a monster that can do real damage stop and try to grapple my fire elemental or fighter or do some other dumb shit like that? It's every combat, even though it wastes a whole round and draws attacks of opportunity. So instead of being a hard encounter many become laughably easy. Plus the AI will wait on spells all the time, even though due to rules nerfing waiting on spell is absolutely pointless in this game and just leads to loss of attacks. So you get AI that favors choosing options that amount to doing nothing over any other option. Sounds good to me.
7. Interface. Well, interface is not that good. It is just kind of random bullshit and the context menu seems bugged so that I constantly lose my ability to do 5 step moves. This is at times when I know I am allowed to do them according to the rules. It goes away whenever I exit and come back but it annoys the fuck out of me. Context menu also stays locked on right side and can cover enemies in combat, and well, overall it's just a crap interface that has a nav style like a really bad web page. You get used to it in time but it is not too hot. To top this off, for me it runs windowed. I didn't put serious effort into trying to get it fullscreen but playing it at 1920x whatever the height on my desktop is can be pretty annoying.
Conclusion: I only make corrections here so it sounds harsher than a full review would if I took time and effort to be fair and balanced. This is a good game if you like DnD and can handle the crap graphics and ridiculous dungeon decisions and keep in mind you had best get used to crafting but just because it's indie doesn't mean people should outright lie about the game and just make bullshit up, as many here have done. Also, most of the people waving the flag are obviously pretty fucking clueless about DnD rules, or for that matter even what an rpg is, let alone what a good rpg is like or how to make a game system. Hopefully some of them will stop being so smug and arrogant in their shocking ignorance some day, but since it's been the same shit the last ten years from the same 6 guys I doubt it.
fire and frost giant bosses were definitely not weak and lame, so was the slaver HQ, and don't even get me started on the black dragon at the end of the mountain pass.
