ToEE

I'm working up to possibly starting this game again, so I thought I'd see if anyone has some beginning advice about party builds. I'm playing the patched game with no mods, and I won't be loading any mods for now, even if they're primo stuff.

I'm thinking about the following neutral good crew:
dwarf fighter
human monk
human cleric
human rogue
elf sorc

I enjoy monks, but they kinda suck at low levels, so I'm not sure if it's wise to go with one. Last time I started the game, I didn't do terribly well with combat, so I don't want to limit my firepower with a poor party choice. I'd much rather struggle due to overwhelming incompetence.

Thoughts?

I'd dump the monk for a half-orc barbarian or fighter. As for the rogue, make him another race: gnome, halfling, elf and half-elf are better than human because of their racial traits.

My aging brain is struggling to remember the details…I had a great time with a pair of half-orc tanks - especially with the reach of long weapons like halberds. Great fun to have one of them reach over the top and slice someone up from 10 feet away. My half-elf rogue was also very effective but I seem to remember the sneaking-during-combat exploit I was abusing was closed by the patch.

My party, revision #1:

human paladin
human fighter
human cleric
halfling rogue
elf sorc

Don't normally play pallys, but my stat rolls were too good to waste on a vanilla fighter. I'll roll with them for a bit and see what happens. Still open to more pointers!

Too many humans for me, I never have more than one of the useless critters in any of my parties!!

The way I understand it, there's so few traps and hidden stuff in ToEE, even with the Co8 mod (are you not playing that?), that a rogue is of borderline usefulness. I'm filling the role with a dual class half-elf. Bard/Rogue. At least that's my idea, as I've only started the game and not gotten very far…

Since Bards make good secondary rogues, that's not a bad option!!

You can look into the CO8's forum : There are numerous threads on how to build an effective party !

The search function there seems to work only after registration, which bothered me a bit.

My last band were LG, so I had a paladin (it's my favourite class to play), but I didnt propose one because your group was/is NG. Keep the human paladin, but make your fighter a half-orc or dwarf for the +2 STR (half-orc) or +2 CON (dwarf). It's a good idea to multiclass a rogue (or maybe it's not but I just cant stand the thieving, picklocking classes so I always do it), but to what ? I tried a rogue/wizard which was okay, not great.
Do you plan to hire any NPCs ? Without the Humble NPCs mod from Co8, you'd better not, I think, although Elmo is good. He likes money.

It's been a long time since I played this game, but as I recall my best party members were a half-orc barbarian and a half-elf fighter/druid. (about 8 lvs Druid, 2 fighter). I had a bard as well, who came in quite handy.

As Cormac says, if you don't plan on using the Co8 material the NPCs will loot first and ask questions later. This can really tick one off, as they tend to like to get their hands on all the best stuff and (if my aging memory serves me correctly) you can only take if off their cold dead bodies, which sometimes puts a crimp in the storyline.

If you want to look it over, here's a link to the Circle of Eight stuff:
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/ToEE/index.php

Your alignment will affect how and where the game starts. I'm not sure how drastically it effects things in game, but I know you had to pay attention. Have fun!

No Co8 mods for me at this time. No RPCs either, unless I have to for some side quest. I think I'll make up another party before starting. Character creation is too much fun anyway.

Dte, are you playing Ironman ?

Not until I win once or twice, particularly when I got my butt handed to me in the moathouse when I last drug this game off the shelf. (looking at the save games, that was back in AUG05)

With a Paladin, your party cannot complete several "evil" quests … at least until they pay a visit to the local (good) Cleric for repentance of their sins.

Repentance can be done until level 10 (dunno how it is with the CO8 mods), so I did all evil quests until then.

Yeah, I've always hated hated hated alignment restrictions. My stat rolls were 15-18's except for a single 11, so I picked the most demanding class (from a stats view) to take advantage of it. Since there's a fair chance I'm going to punt my current party anyway, I won't be partaking from the pally pool next build.

If you collect & sell nearly *everything*, then the party will have a lot of money in the end, enough for visits to the Cleric.

At least I did it this way.

Power gamer party: (Chaotic neutral)

Dwarf - Fighter (Chaotic good)
Half-orc - Barbarian (Chaotic good)
Human - Cleric (Chaotic good)
Human - Sorceress (True neutral)
Elf - Rogue 1/Wizard x (specialized in conjuration) (Chaotic neutral)

As has been mentioned, rogues are really not too useful in ToEE, so one level is enough on a character with high intelligence (such as a wizard). Two spellcasters mean ridiculous amounts of fireballs and summoned creatures. The two warrior types + a cleric for all your tanking needs. The warriors are chaotic good for a very specific power gaming reason, but they get overly powerful because of it.

Think I originally found this build of GameFAQs.

I had a *very* good party combination together with an sorceress and a female druid : entangled enemies cannot strike … So, each character was at least carrying a bow and some arrows. Plus, the druid can let spikes grow, which do additional damage when an enemy tries to break free.

What impressed me most was the feature of "crafting items". I hadn't played a game with this ability before - except a certain game by Blizzard and the possibility to enhance items in both Larian Studios' games.