I'm familiar with dual-classing, but that was in 2nd Edition. ToEE uses the 3.5E ruleset.

Hmm, it was? Sorry must be getting my versions mixed up. It was too long ago.

I have both Temple+ and the Circle of Eight mods installed. I think the vanilla game had 3 slots for the recruitable premade characters. But one of these mods unlocks those slots at the beginning so you can actually start with 8 player created characters if you want.

Either way, it's definitely a good idea to bring along some extra human shields… I mean, friends, for the tougher fights.

Many of the recruitable companions are mercenaries and will take a share of your loot for as long as they're with you. There's a couple of female characters one of your male party members can marry. One of them is a druid girl and I don't think she takes any loot, most of them will take some of your coins and there's a wizard who takes the scrolls you find for payment.

Temple+ adds some prestige classes and new base classes so it's worth checking out if you'd like some more options in how to build your characters.

Good aligned party that I'm pretty far with: Human paladin, Dwarf Fighter / D. Defender, Elven Wizard / Eldritch Knight, Human Sorcerer / Cleric / Mystic Theurge, Elven Bard / Arcane Archer

For recruitables I also currently have the aforementioned Druid Girl, a human fighter, and a wizard I use mainly for crafting magical items. A few others died along the way.

You really don't need a rogue in this game. Locks and traps are pretty rare. I think there's a thief or two you can hire if you find a chest you can't open or something. But otherwise can just use knock spell.

I still haven't started my game because I keep getting distracted by other games, but I've got my party ready. It's looks like I'm going with…

Male Elf Ranger
Male Dwarf Fighter
Female Half-Elf Rogue
Female Human Cleric
Male Human wizard

Pretty generic I know. I really wanted a Druid too, but I don't want to modify the game too much, and that includes sticking with a 5 character party. I might pick up the Druid NPC at some point.

JDR, your planned group looks very similar to how I run in that game, usually three melee, one poor simp regulated to be the token mage, and one solid healer. I think you'll go far with that group!

One more thing about your Druid bride… She has only 8 strength which means she can barely carry any equipment without being encumbered. I equipped her with leather armor and sling as that's all she can handle. Might want to craft some gauntlets of ogre power or girdle of giant strength for her.

I mostly just want to check out the Druid Wildshape ability. I think it was largely useless in the vanilla game, but Temple+ supposedly makes it scale a lot better.

I finally started playing in earnest this week, and my party just hit level 4. It's amazing how this game goes from mind-numbingly boring to utterly fantastic once you gain a level or two and get out of the starting area.

I love the variety of old-school D&D monsters, and the random encounters are great. I've yet to encounter the same mix of enemies twice. The music is also better than I remembered and fits the areas perfectly.

This game has aged a lot better than I was expecting. Of course it helps that it finally works as intended.

Are you playing it unmodded?

I love ToEE to death in terms of atmosphere and old-school PnP vibe - but it was way too rough in its original version.

That said, how can you not love the moat house music? :)

It depends what you consider mods. I'm using both CO8 and Temple+ but just the basic versions. In that way, they're more like patches than mods. I don't have any new content enabled.

And yeah, the music in the moat house is great. I just did that area last night. I like how different the soundtrack is compared to other D&D games. :)

Interestingly enough, it's the only RPG the composer, Ron Fish, ever worked on. He also did the music for Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City.

Glad you are enjoying ToEE all patched up. It's just a fantastic game once you get used to the UI and the combat.

The random encounters are a huge part of what I enjoy about this most excellent game! Just reading these posts kind of has me itching to replay it yet again.

My next run is going to be using the mods you refer to here, as I've played it vanilla twice now and been underwhelmed both times.

However, I will be looking to treat it as a completely different game so I will be looking for the mods that add new decent content and remove the crap content *cough Hommlet*. Even if the mods made the rest of the game 10/10 I still couldn't bare to step foot in Hommlet for 1 second more. :D

Yeah, Hommlet is pretty rough to get through. The NC version of the CO8 patch adds a new area (Welkwood Bog) for a level 1 party to gain experience through combat.

I could never play ToEE vanilla again. Even the basic versions of those mods make a huge difference. They fix important skills and feats that didn't work properly before, and the resolution bump & widescreen fix makes the game look a lot better overall. CO8 also raises the level cap which is too low in the vanilla game imo.

The Keep on the Borderlands mod is also worth a try. At least in the beginning it's a lot more interesting than Hommlet quests.

It's weird how much stuff I don't remember about this game. I'm in the village of Nulb now, and I have no recollection of this place at all from my original playthrough.

Check out the blacksmith anvil :)

Heh.. they made that way too easy to find. I made the mistake of talking to the blacksmith afterwards though. :)

Yeah, I did too.

The hill giant in Emridy Meadows is the bane of my existence right now. How can my fighter consistently miss such a large target?