Temple of Elemental Evil discussion thread (merged)

[Iron_Chef]

Spent 5 hours trying to beat the demo, finally figured the interface out (mostly). Is it just me, or is the moathouse incomplete? I can't find Lareth anywhere, and killed all gnolls, bugbears, bandits, ghouls, zombies, ogre, viper, everything, but can't find anymore areas to explore... the secret way out leads to a dead end wilderness area. I still wouldn't call the game fantastic by any stretch, but I wanted to give it another chance to catch on with me. It's decent fun, but give me BG, IWD, NWN or Planescape Torment any day.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Spent 5 hours trying to beat the demo, finally figured the interface out (mostly). Is it just me, or is the moathouse incomplete? I can't find Lareth anywhere, and killed all gnolls, bugbears, bandits, ghouls, zombies, ogre, viper, everything, but can't find anymore areas to explore... the secret way out leads to a dead end wilderness area. I still wouldn't call the game fantastic by any stretch, but I wanted to give it another chance to catch on with me. It's decent fun, but give me BG, IWD, NWN or Planescape Torment any day.

Just before the secret way out, there's a door in the north wall that leads to Lareth.

Some interface help:

Everytime I got into trouble, I couldn't flee combat or leave the screen I was on, it just didn't acknowledge that as an option, resulting in several annoying TPKs (the ogre downstairs, the bandits in the secret room). The game seems way too hard; like the "through no fault of your own, you're dead" kind of hard that I can't stand in a video game.

The patched version of the game now has a "Flee Combat" option in the Movement section of the radial menu.

The game is remarkably true to the 3.5 rules -- the better you understand those, the easier the game becomes. The demo characters aren't particularly well built; a little character optimization through the choice of good feats makes the game much easier.

When I check the "flurry of blows" box and then select "full attack" the monk only makes one attack! I have to go back in and select "single attack" to get him to complete his flurry! I mean, I eventually figured out that all I had to do was left click the monster he was attacking and he'd auto-flurry it, but it seems weird that it won't do it the other way.

That's because when you select full attack, you have the option to attack multiple targets (and even take a 5' step in between) -- just like PnP. Select full attack, click on a target, and it makes the first attack. Then click for the second attack -- same or different target.

And I couldn't figure out how to command characters to drink potions either; I'd select "inventory", "potions" and "cure light wounds" and then nothing would happen!

You have to then click on a character to activate the potion. Alternately, from the inventory menu, drap the potion to the "Use Item" spot.

 

[Iron_Chef]

Thanks Olgar!

Finally found Lareth (his henchmen were tougher than he was!). Neat that you can accept his surrender and add him to your party instead of just wasting him, though I'm sure that "alliance" is a temporary one, at best. His voice actor was great!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

In the full version, keeping Lareth in the party has some interesting consequences.

Spoiler

It results in one of the tougher fights of the game -- though not a tough as the Balor.

 

[Dreeble]

Heya:

That's because when you select full attack, you have the option to attack multiple targets (and even take a 5' step in between) -- just like PnP. Select full attack, click on a target, and it makes the first attack. Then click for the second attack -- same or different target.

I don't know if they fixed this in the patch, but my experience with Full Attack was that if you chose that option, you'd see something like "2/2" above the head of the selected character. If you select a mob to attack and attack it, you _might_ then see "1/2" or might not. If not, you have one attack left. If so, continue as normal. It's much safer, apparently, to move the mouse cursor _off_ of the target while the swing is taking place. The pretty much guarantees the "1/2" will appear. This is only really a big deal if you have more than 2 attacks, of course. My dual wielders my first run through would see "4/4", attack, and then see nothing, and get only one more attack sadly.

Anyone else experience this or am I delusional?

Bottom line: Move the mouse off the target after every attack in a full attack before continuing.

Take care,
Dreeble

 

[TimSmith]

Heya:



I don't know if they fixed this in the patch, but my experience with Full Attack was that if you chose that option, you'd see something like "2/2" above the head of the selected character. If you select a mob to attack and attack it, you _might_ then see "1/2" or might not. If not, you have one attack left. If so, continue as normal. It's much safer, apparently, to move the mouse cursor _off_ of the target while the swing is taking place. The pretty much guarantees the "1/2" will appear. This is only really a big deal if you have more than 2 attacks, of course. My dual wielders my first run through would see "4/4", attack, and then see nothing, and get only one more attack sadly.

Anyone else experience this or am I delusional?

Bottom line: Move the mouse off the target after every attack in a full attack before continuing.

Take care,
Dreeble

Don't get the disappearing attack countdown, myself. Then again, maybe I always move the mouse off the target. I'll have a go and see.

 

[Iron_Chef]

Don't get the disappearing attack countdown, myself. Then again, maybe I always move the mouse off the target. I'll have a go and see.

I broke down and bought ToEE finally after trying the demo, not liking it that much, then getting used to the interface and having a fun time. The full version of the game would not install properly while my firewall//anti-virus software was active. Real pain to install. Patch worked fine, however. I'm really enjoying the game now that it's working, LOL. Atari's tech support site had my problem listed as the first thing and the instructions to fix it were easy and got me playing fast.

SPOILER and QUESTION:

Anyway, my party is LE and supposed to get the CG sword Fragarach by killing Prince Thrommel of Furyondy. So I do (but Elmo refuses to attack him), and then I report back to Turuko at the Inn. He just thanks me, takes the sword, and he and Kobort vanish, saying my quest is completed! That is really super lame, because they wouldn't talk to me while I had Scorpp the 20 HD hill giant and Oohlgrist the Troll Chief in my party... these two creeps are the reason my party made such a cakewalk of the Upper Temple. When I try to get them to leave the party temporarily, Scorpp tries to kill me, and Oohlgrist refuses to rejoin (forcing me to kill him to get all his treasure). Is there some benefit to completing this Fragarach quest before the Temple is destroyed? Or should I just reload and keep the two greedy CE giants in my party so I can continue kicking ass?

BTW: Morgan (the Nulb pirate you rescue) in the Temple not only sucks, but he tries to kill you if you throw him out of the party!

Also, has anyone noticed that dead party members tend to vanish if you rest a few times trying to get back to Terjon to raise them? I lost Otis this way!!! It didn't seem like I waited that long to get back to Hommlet. The Temple is huge and confusing, and loaded with monsters, after all.

 

[Dreeble]

Heya:

Is there some benefit to completing this Fragarach quest before the Temple is destroyed? Or should I just reload and keep the two greedy CE giants in my party so I can continue kicking ass?

In general, the various alignment based starts to the game and their resulting quests are primarily designed to give a bit of a story and motivation. They don't really seem to have a huge impact otherwise. My suggestion would be to definitely reload and get those two heavy hitters back.

Where do you sell stuff with those guys in your party, however?

Take care,
Dreeble

 

[Iron_Chef]

Heya:



In general, the various alignment based starts to the game and their resulting quests are primarily designed to give a bit of a story and motivation. They don't really seem to have a huge impact otherwise. My suggestion would be to definitely reload and get those two heavy hitters back.

Where do you sell stuff with those guys in your party, however?

Take care,
Dreeble

NULB: Mother Screng.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Keeping Fragarach (if you've got a character who can use it, which isn't likely given a LE party) is far better than any XP that can be earned from turning it over.

The vanishing party members is probably a pre-patch holdover. It used to be dead NPCs effectively vanished from your party as soon as they were killed -- you could only bring them back if you raised them on the spot. Looks like they mostly fixed that. Maybe Otis' return flag kicked in -- he usually bails on you after your first trip back to Nulb from the Temple.

You weren't suprised when Elmo (LG ranger) refused to attack Thrommel, were you?