I still play that game a couple times a year. Just the other day I went through it and created what I called the "Gimp Group", one made up of a Monk, Barbarian, Ranger, Druid and Sorcerer. (I still couldn't bring myself to play the most useless of all classes, the Bard, even though this was the Gimp Group.) I twinked them out with the cheat codes and bought them all the best starting gear, etc.
I ran it using the Circle of 8 mod pack, which fixed most of the bugs in the game and added a ton more content (//www.co8.org).
Anyhow, I got the guys all geared up and set out to the moathouse---and was killed in the first wandering monster encounter. It was pathetic.
Granted, the TOEE game is essentially a game of combat, not RP. To the extent the characters are good at combat, they will be more successful. My standard group in playing the game is 2 fighters, wizzie, cleric, thief. Sometimes not even the thief. I usually blow through the game with no problems.
In my tabletop games, we forbid all prestige classes, and any experiences we have had with the above mentioned Gimp classes has turned out horribly. Maybe it's our lack of skill in playing those classes, I don't know. The only one that ever worked out ok on the tabletop was when a player rolled up a barbarian, and so in spite of the player's ineptness, the HP helped him survive.
Anyhow, my question is this: in a straight-up combat oriented tabletop game, without prestige classes, are the core classes head and shoulders that much better than the my Gimp Group's classes in your experience?
In my experience, the monk and the bard are a tad lacking, but the other classes just work fine.
I think that in general terms it will vary a lot on the particular luck of the table on die rolls, and most importantly (assuming it's a combat-oriented game) the specifics of the encounters the party faces. A monk will be cool in situations like escaping from jail without weapons, or encounters with difficult terrain where his movement rate will shine, that kind of thing. A bard will shine mostly on social encounters and lore, actually. Outside of a few Charms, that's gonna suck in combat.
But really, the particulars of the encounters, critters encounters, magic or no magic, use of dispells, level drains, etc, as well as terrain specifics, etheral/phase creature, magical weapons needed or not etc etc will all matter. So the results will vary tremendously from table to table, given the DM pays attention to these details when designing the encounters or not.
Oh and by the way? I too have the ToEE Atari game and play it from time to time.
I really like its ambiance. :)
The monk just doesn't measure up at all and the barbarian and the ranger are (relatively speaking) mid-tier classes but the druid is a gimp class? I adamantly disagree. It's one of the best classes in the game (assuming we're talking 3E).
Seriously, the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid win D&D.
Eh. I prefer sorcerers. And I've seen people do things with monks you wouldn't believe.
Low level D&D has always been shit hard, that's just the way it works. Don't like it? Start at a higher level.
That's the solution our groups have always come up with, it works great, it's easy, and unlike some other solutions used by certain new editions, it doesn't entail redesigning the entire game to write out the tastes of those who like the challenge of low level D&D.
Quote from: DeadUematsu;316549The monk just doesn't measure up at all and the barbarian and the ranger are (relatively speaking) mid-tier classes but the druid is a gimp class? I adamantly disagree. It's one of the best classes in the game (assuming we're talking 3E).
Seriously, the Wizard, Cleric, and Druid win D&D.
I keep hearing that about druids but I've never played one in 3e. In taking a look at the class, I can't see what makes them so good. How do you use them to make them so good? Outside of a wilderness setting of course...
Quote from: Joethelawyer;316552I keep hearing that about druids but I've never played one in 3e. In taking a look at the class, I can't see what makes them so good. How do you use them to make them so good? Outside of a wilderness setting of course...
The CharOp boards discovered a handful of cheap dickery you could pull through spell loopholes and things, and it became the new 'ZOMG SO BROKEN' class for people to bitch about for a while, and the 4e tards are STILL trotting it out to this day.
I'm not familiar with the details, personally I always found them rather underwhelming in play.
Quote from: J Arcane;316553The CharOp boards discovered a handful of cheap dickery you could pull through spell loopholes and things, and it became the new 'ZOMG SO BROKEN' class for people to bitch about for a while, and the 4e tards are STILL trotting it out to this day.
I'm not familiar with the details, personally I always found them rather underwhelming in play.
I remember reading about the whole CoDzilla thing, where you buff the hell out of your cleric/druid or pet or whatever. But that seems like a short-sighted view of things, where you limit yourself to one combat, or at best two, before the spells wear off. Then what do you do?
We don't limit ourselves to the 15 minute combat day. The characters go on until they are on their last hp, last cantrip, and last charge in the magic items before they sit down and rest. So if you blow your wad on buffing the crap out of yourself for one or two encounters, then go rest MMORPG style, then yeah you might be able to make the Druid into a useful class in a non-wilderness heavy combat setting. Other than that, I don't get it.
There are more comprehensive guides out there for using the Druid but the use of Wildshape, Natural Spell, the druid suite of buffs, and Animal Companions are pivotal to getting the most out of the class.
Honestly my only quibble with them was just that animal companions aren't really that great above the mid-low levels. Mundane animal AC and HP really aren't that great, and mean they tend to just get pasted. Polymorph is potentially quite nice, if you pick the right thing to polymorph to, but then you lose all your other abilities while shape shifted, and at low levels you really can't shift into anything that makes it worth even slotting the spell.
Wizards shouldn't be changing shape; they have better things to do (like, you know, battlefield control).
I've always wanted to play, but I could never get my copy to work. Very early on there's this creature that's supposed to drop some loot (a ring I think). In my copy, even with the patches it doesn't, and I can't seem to get out of the starting town without it :(