My Comeback Party; comments

I never have, either. Ditto for monks. The former because they never seemed strong enough in any one area to be effective, and the latter because the fun of games like this for me is the loot - finding cool new weapons and armor and tricking my characters out with them. There is no appeal for me in a character who, by his very definition, forgoes weapons and armor.

However - thanks to the C08, I can now have a 6th character. I was thinking of a pure rogue type, one who can be a second party speaker (Paladin covering Diplomacy and Sense Motive, Rogue covering all the others). That, and I usually play with a Rogue 2/Wizard X, and now I can go pure Wizard and get Fireball much earlier. So in this case - does my dashing rogue emphasize sneak damage or songs & spells?

 

I prefer Rog(1)/Bard(x). You want the buff/enchantment spells asap. But you lose out on the majority of the sneak attack damage. All depends on what you are looking for in the character. I would use a Rog/Bard as a support-caster/archer type character who covers your thiefly needs as well. The perfect 5th (or 6th!) character for any party. It lets your Divine and Arcane casters concentrate on what they do well.

 

No, Scather remains a chaotic-aligned bastard sword. Here's its description:

One word to the wise: don't use it in the fire node or fire temple, because you'll get stuck in the infinite free AoO loop.

Many dialogues that are initiated by NPCs automatically seek out the party leader (left-most slot, assuming that person to be spokesman), so having a second speaker might not be the greatest investment.

Sneak attacking is quite easy for rogues (flank), and it can be devastating. High level rogues can out-hit high-level fighters with their sneak attacks et al. Watch out - you may run into some on the other side who do it to you too.

~

By the way, there's a guy who has started a really good ToEE Let's Play here. It does away with the usual self-conscious and condescending "yuk-yuk-this-game-is-so-lame-but-I-am-very-cool" humor and instead takes things seriously, and the guy makes an admirable effort to flesh out the story for himself - something that's kind of fundamentally necessary for ToEE since it functions like a PnP module. Also he showcases some bard perks if you're interested.

 

Alright, cool - thanks Geaer. Nice having a Co8 author at our disposal.

Another question - there used to be a drow-looking elf portrait, with sort of blue/blackish leather armor. Did you guys deepsix it for some reason? I know you can't choose sub-races, but - I always did think it was a cool portrait.

Aaaand, another - how do you make a bastard sword default to two-handed, so you can get the strength bonus? In my afore-mentioned Fighter character, he started the game with a buckler and his bastard sword, using it one-handed. Even when I remove a shield, he still swings it one-handed. Is this because of the exotic weapon proficiency? Also - in another playthrough, my dual-wielding Barb 2 / Fighter X was able to use Scather when I acquired it, but had no exoctic weapon feat (I believe he held it like a two-hander). Do I even need the feat then? For my new fighter - maybe I could emphasize two-handed weapons until I get to the temple, and then when I pick up Scather, even if I have a -1 to hit from a lack of feat, it shouldn't matter because Scather doesn't miss...right?

I know there is a lot to unpack in that question...so, sorry.

 

Like any caster I wouldn't give Bards more than 1-2 levels in any other class. Bards are excellent in ToEE because of the low maximum level cap (great BAB/spell progression, relative to a plain fighter or mage). You can play them any way you want to in ToEE as long as you take the relevant feats/skills and stick to mostly bard levels. Ranger/rogue or fighter/rogue/x make better sneak attack characters.

Animation bugs. There are lots of them. The way your character uses a weapon does not reflect how the game actually treats the weapon. An Enlarged person will start using a two-handed sword as a one-handed weapon, for example, although checking the damage rolls will tell you otherwise. AFAIK the only technical bug that affect this has something to do with how the game treats Power Attack (it gets buggy if you use Enlarge/Reduce person).
The situation you described has something to do with how taking Exotic Weapon Proficiency makes your character treat all bastard swords as if they were one-handed weapons. The game does correctly treat it as if it were a two-handed weapon, as long as your off-hand slot is empty.

Most classes can use weapons even if they lack the right proficiencies, you simply take (and this is especially true for classes like the Druid) massive penalties. Scather is auto-hit, so yes attack penlaties are ignored.

 

Yeah, we repurposed it for a drow NPC in the game, based indeed on the rationale that there is no drow PC class. (NPC portraits in ToEE are a valued commodity, being as we try to remain aesthetically faithful to the original art direction and don't throw random stuff in willy-nilly.) If you were determined to use it though, you could still add it as a custom portrait with the do it yourself portrait pack.

I'll have to check into the Scather particulars. I'm pretty sure you do need the EWP feat for Scather though ... see Paracelsi's comments re: penalties.

---------- Added 2 hours, 34 minutes and 54 seconds later... ----------

Okay DR, it looks like as long as you don't have the EWP feat, you will use a bastard sword two-handed. Once you get it, you always use it one-handed. I don't see any way to turn that off. I guess that's what the feat really is - learning to use an exotic weapon that is normally two-handed with one hand, so that you can carry a shield at the same time and whatnot.

 

That is an "odd" feature... you spend a feat to be able to use it on-handed, but you "lose" the two-handed option, which the 1.5 weapon damage can be argued as the greater benefit. Is that because the game engine is not able to handle giving an option of 1 or 2 hand wielding once the feat is chosen?

 

See, that really is the kicker right there. Once I get Scather, I want to be able to take advantage of the 1.5x strength bonus. Can anyone confirm this? If using a bastard sword one-handed is the true benefit of the feat, then it seems like a poor choice and probably a waste of a feat in general (long swords only do 2 points of damage less). I can easily have my character use two-handers up until that point.

 

[EDIT - BTA and I were posting at the same time. Great minds, suckaz!]

Hmm. Check this out. A dude named Lord Plothos in the Co8 forums posted the following (thanks, Google!):

If this is correct, and it appears to be as no one in the thread contradicted him, then it seems that how you build your fighter weilding Scather depends on your priority - extra damage or extra defense. If the latter, take the feat.

 

The D&D rules don't eliminate Two-hand use when taking the EWP BS feat. They just add the option of 1-H use. Hence my earlier question for Gaear. Did the TOEE engine duplicate this or is it limited?

 

Yeah, Gaear...snap to it, bub.

 

Uh ...

I'm admittedly not a rules lawyer/expert/nerd, so I can't be certain, but I'm not aware of any method for selecting one or two hands if you're capable of both. If there were though, it would probably be something accessed through the radial menu, like the way you set charges for staffs of striking and whatnot. I really doubt it though.

ToEE is very robust as far as rules implementation and features go, so I kind of suspect that this was done (if it is really so) deliberately rather than being an oversight. Looking at all the other meticulous rules implementations, it seems the feature would have been doable if Troika had wanted it. However they were almost insanely faithful to the vast majority of the ruleset, so ... *shrug*

 

The Game Engines of CRPGs usually can't handle the full implementation of a P&P rule set. Hence you don't see the thief ability of Climb Walls in the 2nd edition games that are party-based. (Other than the Darksun games where the climb walls ability was simplified to 2 uses in the 1st game of the series...). It's also the the reason you don't see any Rolemaster or Hackmaster CRPGs. Too many rules to implement. So they could of easily decided to eliminate an option as it could of caused them headaches in development. Or ran out of time and never got around to it.

 

I guess I should clarify. From my previous post: animation bugs: even if you have Exotic Weapon Proficiency "the game does correctly treat an equipped bastard sword as a two-handed weapon as long as your off-hand slot is empty." Just check the rolls. The bug is when you try to use Power Attack with it - Power Attack will not get the 1.5x bonus if you have the Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword feat.

AFAIK you can even use a longsword (and any other non-light weapon) as a two-handed weapon provided that your off-hand slot is empty.

The reason why this was never much of an issue was probably because most people used Scather with a shield or for dual-wielding. Once powergaming enters the picture it's only a decent two-handed weapon, although for a low-BAB character (eg, a spellsword multiclass) then this weapon's only rival in-game is Fragarach. For a mid-high BAB two-handed weapons user Scather simply doesn't do as much damage as some of the more powerful two-handed weapons you can craft/loot in the game.

 

Now I'm having trouble getting the Co8 quests to trigger.

I read the following from C08's game guide:

My first recent run-through - the one from my OP - didn't notice the Welkwood Bog quest, but we did find the Arena book in Smyth's chest - the one he asks you to pick the lock. I restarted with a new party, got all the way to Nulb, but this time - no book. Talking to Smyth, I got no mention of any "something different."

So, thinking I'd screwed something up, I started again. This time heading straight for Smyth as my first order of business in Hommlet. Still no "something different."

Am I doing something wrong, or is this a bug?

 

Sadly you're probably playing the standard version DR, as opposed to the NC (new content) version, which features the custom Co8 stuff. You can get them both at ModDB.

The book in the smyth's chest features in both versions, it just doesn't do quite as much in the standard version.

You can tell what version you're playing by examining the box for the active mod in TFE-X, looking at the splash screen at bootup, or consulting the Co8 section of in-game Help. '7.5.0' is standard, '7.5.0 NC' is new content.

 

Ah, ok. Downloading NC now. Thanks, Gaear.