What special limits do you place on your TOEE games to make them more challenging? I'll start . . . I always come up with some 1-time rules for each run-through (e.g., no 2 characters that share a class or race, no purposeful slaying - or endangering - of NPCs to take their goodies, no Scather or Fragarach, no buying magic items, etc.). But for the last couple games, I've now permanently adopted the . . . Super Ironman rule: No reloading and no raising anyone from the dead (and no new PCs after starting). When my cleric gets killed by a freak critical hit at welkwood bog - oh well, I guess I won't be crafting holy weapons this game. With this rule, TOEE suddenly becomes a game that you can lose. And doesn't the possibility of losing make games more fun?
Here's a few house rules I have used over the last few runs, which have all proved to make the game more refreshing. 1) Totally random race/class setup. Make a 5 character party, and generate the race with a d8 roll, and the class with a d12 roll. Since there are only 7 races and 11 classes, a roll of 8 for race will be another chance at human, and a roll for 12 class will be another chance for fighter. This is representative of humans and fighters being more prevalent in the world. You'll come up with a more interesting combinations for your party. Try to avoid multi-classinig as it will kind of defeat the purpose. 2) Don't let the characters know the adventure. Randomly choose which area on the world map they will explore and what direction in the dungeon they will take, no matter how dangerous the "choice" is, as if it were the first time you played and you knew nothing. Remember how much fun that was, instead of micro-managing your decisions based on knowing what is in every room. I mentioned this next one in another post, but this seems like the right post to repeat it. 3) Try a no magic group. Not just no spellcasting classes, but no magic at all - no magic items, not even a healing potion. You will truly experience the game in a way you never have before, and see how much work has gone into the encounters that you've never seen before. You know those rooms that you just sneak up on and mostly wipe out with fireballs/cones of cold/stinking cloud or whatever? Then finish them off with your +3 Holy Flaming Shock Keen Spiked Chain of Indignation while you AC is buffed to 47, yawn, and then move on. Fighting those rooms with masterwork weapons and a standard AC, while carefully managing every 5-foot step and power attack setting is an incredible experience and a true challenge. I admit I had to use two of the holy weapons you find to get thru the fire demon and Zug, as they each have something like DR 15/magic, which made it mathematically impossible.
Parties with a theme- tying together the core of the party as a group who have reasons for being together- so for example the young knight (Paladin), his confessor (Cleric), his herald (Bard) and squire (Fighter/Rogue). Recruited Spugnior as a scholarly advisor on arcane matters, and also travelled with Burne, who seemed like a splendid castle-owning chap. Stealth party: Rogue, Monk, Rogue/Monk, Druid (rationalised her wild-shaping into birds, bats, and other sneaky things rather than polar bears), Wizard who eschewed flashy spells in favour of poison gases, buffs and the like. Men of the wild- barbarian, ranger, druid, sorceror, come to investigate raids on their encampments (mentally refluffed one of the start quests) I keep wanting to make an all-dwarf party: couple of solid fighter types, cleric of Moradin, dungeon engineer (rogue) and artificer (crafter wizard), or all halflings (mix of fun-loving hobbity types, and at least one plate-armoured warrior who is determined to show the world that halflings aren't all frivolous), then remembering the portrait packs don't stretch that far. Oh- did an Arcane College too but it got a bit dull after a while- seems I like sniping with arrows better than casting 6 spells a round...
But wouldn't you send an invisible scout up ahead? Or are we also supposed to pretend that someone out there might actually be able to detect invisible creatures? I kind of like this idea; but in practice, won't it just be an annoying pain in the ass to go back to an inn to rest for weeks after every battle? I think allowing post-battle healing would be better. And what about "necessary" magic items? Without the book of heroes to teleport you to the arena, you won't be able to do any of that content. And without picking up the golden skull you can never face Zuggy or move on to any of the post Zuggy content. I do like the idea of no crafting or buying magic items; that might work better. Are Zuggy and the Balor immune to sneak attack damage? If not, then I don't think it's mathematically impossible - just really hard. Speaking of which, in a no-magic world, I think everyone should probably be a rogue (with maybe 1 level of barbarian for the rage). Also neither of those encounters are required, so why not just skip them (take the gems, or is it the pillar?, whatever) to preserve the rule?
Sure, send all the invisible scouts you want, but you still have to "decide" which direction to send the scouts in in the first place. But mostly I was referring to which "dungeon" to go to first, and to what degree to peck away at it. Most who have played the game choose their world map destinations in a particular order to minimize the danger level. (For example, a player may strategically approach the early levels by doing the Hommlet quests, then the spiders, then a little Welkwood Bog, level up to 2, then finish all of Welkwood except Mathel, poke away at Emridy Meadows, frogs and bandits at the Moathouse, Decklo spiders, then a few undead at Emridy Meadows, level up to 3, finish Mathel, enter the moathous dungeon, etc.) But with completely no foresight, you could really get overwhelmed by stumbling upon the ambush at rainbow rock, or the group of back-room brigands at first level. Sneaking and scouting can avoid much of this as you said, but even then your characters can't always judge whether that encounter is surmountable or not without your own knowledge of the game. It takes about 15 seconds to use the temple map to rest up in the secret spiral staircase, and then be to back where you were. And since time passage means nothing almost always, it's not an issue. If the magic item is absolutely required to continue the adventure like the skull and the book, it should be used of course. Yeah that might just work, I'll consider it next time I do this. It would have to be a lot of rogues though to poke thru with that much damage, which would underpower you martially for much of the rest of the game, where half the creatures you encounter are immune to sneak attack. I always play to defeat every enemy in the game, it's just my personal style. But it became impossible in the Verbobonc portion where magic is necessary for so many of the encounters.
