So how do you play ToEE?

[aweigh]

Monks with a level cap of 10, and no access to splat books... hrm, the munchkin in me screams in pain at that.

If only ToEE had the Flying Kick feat from Complete Warrior... but as it is, if you want optmial party members, there's really very little reason to include a Monk in ToEE. Unless you wanna LARP the game that is.

 

[LCJr.]

Co8 does away with the level cap, if you so choose. Sadly the high level monk abilities aren't implented last I saw.

And last but not least all monks must be name Kwai Chang Kane or they're just not any good.

 

[Mefi]

Hmm. Maybe I just came in after people were tired of defending the position.

But it simply wouldn't be all that hard to change things. TOEE is quite easy to mod once you understand how it works. If you understand Python syntax, it's about as easy as NWScript. Hell, I changed those DCs in my own copy without trouble.

If you fancy helping to disentangle what Liv did, please pop over to Co8 and give us your results

Seriously, Liv linked so many things that messing with one thing can cause infinite headaches if that script then gets called elsewhere. That's the headache not the ease of scripting or not.

It's a valid RPG design argument. The question is whether major main plot areas should be locked out for someone who doesn't have the "correct" party build. I don't think this is good design for D&D 3.5, which is supposed to promote party flexibility. I would have accepted it in an AD&D game, which was designed around having all classes present.

As I said, there are many ways to complete ToEE. A couple of ways requiring high rogueish skills shouldn't be an issue unless you think Oblivion is the height of RPG flexibility. Original game had ludicrously low success chances for most things. Liv bumped them up. Possibly a bit much in a few cases but it's not a major issue as, as you say, 3.5 allows for a great deal of party flexibility.

 

[AlanC9]

If you fancy helping to disentangle what Liv did, please pop over to Co8 and give us your results

When I finish my HoI2 project, maybe I will. "Finish" meaning getting bored or blocked, of course; none of these projects ever "finish."

As I said, there are many ways to complete ToEE. A couple of ways requiring high rogueish skills shouldn't be an issue unless you think Oblivion is the height of RPG flexibility. Original game had ludicrously low success chances for most things. Liv bumped them up. Possibly a bit much in a few cases but it's not a major issue as, as you say, 3.5 allows for a great deal of party flexibility.

I'll have to get a little spoilerish to respond to this. kingcomrade, read at your own risk.

The problem isn't that some of the endings require a particular party design. The problem is that the best endings do, the ones where you actually learn what's going on. Sure, I can win the game by letting Zuggy free (or killing her at higher levels), even without knowing who she is, and without ever even meeting Hedrack and company in the Undertemple. Plenty of people did just that, and then found themselves wondering why the hell the game just ended.

This is a problem with Troika's design more than anything else, since the background of the setting is generally locked up behind dialog checks and so forth. I don't think it's a good idea to make people play an RPG using several different approaches in order to find out what's going on. And the Co8 patch, IMVHO, exacerbated this design flaw.

While we're being spoilerish, did anyone ever fix the Yellowskull destruction sequence so that it requires all 4 gems to accomplish?

 

[Mefi]

When I finish my HoI2 project, maybe I will. "Finish" meaning getting bored or blocked, of course; none of these projects ever "finish."

:D

I'll have to get a little spoilerish to respond to this. kingcomrade, read at your own risk.

The problem isn't that some of the endings require a particular party design. The problem is that the best endings do, the ones where you actually learn what's going on. Sure, I can win the game by letting Zuggy free (or killing her at higher levels), even without knowing who she is, and without ever even meeting Hedrack and company in the Undertemple. Plenty of people did just that, and then found themselves wondering why the hell the game just ended.

This is a problem with Troika's design more than anything else, since the background of the setting is generally locked up behind dialog checks and so forth. I don't think it's a good idea to make people play an RPG using several different approaches in order to find out what's going on. And the Co8 patch, IMVHO, exacerbated this design flaw.

While we're being spoilerish, did anyone ever fix the Yellowskull destruction sequence so that it requires all 4 gems to accomplish?

I don't agree with this at all. If anything, it is a 'flaw' in the original module. But I don't even consider it a flaw - there's easy ways and hard ways to do stuff. Have a high level thief, do it one way, have a high level wizard do it another and have a high level bard do it yet another etc. etc. etc. 3.5 is flexible enough not to enforce any particular party builds (eg I've had fighters as my 'face' character and got the dialogue options) - but as you noticed, your choices in how you develop your characters does have consequences. So a party of eg 6 monks might run into issues and might not have certain game endings open to it.

As for things being locked behind dialogue, well yeah. Certain alignments trigger certain dialogue, high dialogue skills provide access to more info (teh horror) and sometimes the story can be darned confusing if you are bum rushing the game and not exploring. Or you're playing a group of braindead morons who can't hold a conversation with anything of more intelligence than a daffodil.

ToEE enforced consequences for choices. I like that. There's a cost to most things, neh? And when you are consistently told that there is this place with great evil inside it, and you see all kinds of wierd shit going on there in the opening credits, maybe taking a little time before pressing the big red button marked "do not press" might be a plan? Got me too the first time I played, fell in love with the game then.

Not certain what bug with the skull you are on about and can't be arsed wading through the fixlist right now - grab the Co8 readme or something.