ToEE as DM Help

[DarrenGMiller]

This seems like a wierd concept to me, but I bought ToEE over a year ago and have not played it much because I was running a 400 mhz Celeron, but I recently purchased a real computer and have been playing it more (since it is pretty much D&D without having to get a group together... I know this can be argued... and without the "role-playing").

At any rate, I DM'ed 1E for many years and I am still learning the finer points of 3.5 DM'ing. I have found that the game is helping me to learn the 3.5E ruleset. It is helping with spell effects and selection, effective feat selection (form the basic feats), etc. Has anybody else found ToEE helpful for this purpose?

DM

 

[IronWolf]

I haven't played ToEE, but I think anything that lets you play more with the ruleset your game uses is bound to help you become better at it. I still need a better grasp of the rules, but since we game every other week it takes much longer to start "getting" everything. The video game lets you see the rules in action on a much more frequent basis allowing you to get a better of idea of how the rules work in practice.

 

[Ravenknight]

ToEE makes a great introduction to 3.5. A friend and his wife basicly learned the whole system from that game. There are issues of course but with the latest patches You should get things going smoothly.

If You care try looking for the circle of 8´s mods for the game, they have included much content that made it an even better game in my eyes.

 

[ZuulMoG]

At any rate, I DM'ed 1E for many years and I am still learning the finer points of 3.5 DM'ing. DM

The only thing you need to keep in mind in 3.5 vs. 1st or 2nd is that this game is all about power-gaming, munchkinism, and levelling up at least once pers session, usually twice or three times. The XP awards and treasure are totally screwed up. Award 1/10th of what the DMG lists, and that will help a little.

As far as ToEE goes, love the videogame, but in trying to run the old module for my 3.5 players, it's hopeless. They've barely dealt with Nulb yet and they're already 6th level.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

The only thing you need to keep in mind in 3.5 vs. 1st or 2nd is that this game is all about power-gaming, munchkinism, and levelling up at least once pers session, usually twice or three times. The XP awards and treasure are totally screwed up. Award 1/10th of what the DMG lists, and that will help a little.

As far as ToEE goes, love the videogame, but in trying to run the old module for my 3.5 players, it's hopeless. They've barely dealt with Nulb yet and they're already 6th level.

To be fair, since I have been DM'ing 3.5E, they have levelled once every three sessions on average. In 3E, that decreased after 8th level IME. I am a little light on treasure, but the party is already pretty rich. They did gripe when they killed a young adult dragon that didn't have a hoard.

My original intention was to DM ToEE, but I realized quickly that the CR's were totally skewed in 3.5 and that it just wouldn't work. Thus, I created a hybrid of ToEE, RttToEE and Necromancer Games' excellent Crucible of Freya and Tomb of Abysthor.

DM