I can honestly say despite playing and enjoying ToEE many times, I never get much furher than my characters hitting 7-9, especially with crafting. Overpowering crafting and overpowering spells really force you to "play dumb" if you want any challenge in the game. So i wanted to com up with a way to play a lower magic/crafting rule system to be more challenging. but crafting I think is neat. And I don't really want to completely throw it away. The idea is to be fun as well as challenging where you don't have to purposely "play stupid". First I thought, no weapon/armor crafting at all. But then I was worried this would force people to simply maximize magic weapons found throughout the game and they would just change their feats accordingly. Then thought maybe best route was no using any weapon with anything other than a magic bonus +1/+2/+3. that seemed a bit better to me. Though some might not find it fun to forgo using a weapon they found with other damage mods on it. The other idea was simply doing away with all the pure casters. There is just no way to balance their spells with just making up a bunch more rules of "you can't cast , this, this, this, or this x1000" Instead, only allowing hybrid casters like pal/ran. In the case of Bards, i think a limit of just one bard per group would be good. So magic isn't completely abandoned, just heavily trimmed down. NPc can join your party with the restriction they do not violate the other rules(1 bard no pure casters) and they must be your level or lower when they join you. You have to start with 5 characters, too. It seems to be the right number of not leveling too fast/too slow. So generally leaning towards: no pure casters(cleric/druids/wizards/sorcs) 1 bard per party NPCs cannot violate the above rules and can only join you if they are your level or lower. Crafting is OK, but no damage mods are allowed other than +1/+2/+3. the same restriction goes for the weapons you are allowed to use in battle. start with 5 characters No exp farming/exploits Point buy attributes (25) Maximum enemy hit points I'm still thinking about it, which is why I wrote this, but i haven't played much further into the temple than the first few floors due to issues I mentioned above, so i worry I bit about lack of how those areas play out. Any thoughts?
If you're looking for a challenge try going in with all Little People -- and have stats & spells that make sense for Gnomes & Halflings & Elves (no Dwarves) -- IOW, no Arnold Schwarzenegger Halflings and true Illusionist Gnomes (i.e. no Magic Missile or Fireball) and an Elf to do all the crafting. You'll quickly learn how to run and shoot, and find that there are very few easy fights. Without a "tank" in the front lines things get interesting fast.
I'm really not seeing much of a challenge in that. And the whole idea of what spells a gnome would use is really quite arbitrary. Gnomes in 3.5's chosen class is bard anyway, which severely lacks illusion spells in the first place. This is one of the things I didn't want to deal with and mentioned in the first post of restricting this, restricting that, etc. it's a variation of what I referred to as "playing stupid". I don't want the player to purposely play stupid.
If the game is not challenging enough, you could always take it on solo. I find solo to be rather taxing, especially in the later added content.
I played through solo with a wizard once, while I can't speak for "late" stuff you mention, I found the game pretty easy. I suppose if you tried with a non caster, it might be much more challenging. I'm sure it would be challenging but also incredibly tedious.
I'd love to hear this tale. Solo is very challenging, let alone for a guy with 5 HP and AC 14. Did you max stats? Milk the Hommlet quests for XP's till you were level 5? Avoid 90% of the encounters and go right for the critical stuff? Many encounters just can't be handled with magic, and you need a sword.
Can you really hit level 5 in hommlet? Haha. I think i did fedex to level 2, can't recall exactly. it was a 25 point bought character, Heh. charm/sleep can get you through early parts of he game, then you as soon as you get fireball and up you can just blow up entire rooms of enemies with a spell or two. You can also easily pickup that invisibility ring which helps a ton pretty much right from the start. Wand/scrolls of magic missiles/expeditious retreat is another useful early tactic.
It's funny yeah, if you are solo and hog all the XP's. I got to level 4 before even thinking about venturing out and adventuring. You're just so vulnerable at any class when solo. A simple random encounter with 2 Lacedons who paralyze you and it's over. I did a No-Magic solo and started as a Paladin for great saving throws and the no-fear ability, then alternated rogue/fighter. It was a scorched earth attempt, so I wanted to vanquish every enemy in every encounter at every location in the game as a bonus challenge. Oh also, this is funny, since I started as a Paladin I chose the LG vignette which is the 3 bandits with crossbows, and I died 11 times before making it through alive.
Ya i remember random encounters being particularly difficult early on. Watch out for them freakin will o wisps heh. Rogue though? hmm. I'm guessing it wasn't a 25 point buy then?
