Yeah...the portraits are basically the same as the pictures you could scan from the 3rd edition player's handbook and DM guide. Suspicious no? lol


About that experience and items taken by NPCs's: They will essentially negotiate for what they will take when they join up. Some expect more for their level, like Rufus and Bernie - who, by the way, could in NO way have killed a dragon at their level lol. One problem I noticed is that a couple of NPC's refuse to sell anything, though some do. Not sure if this is a design or character flaw, but I can't stand the Scottish sounding rogue fellow. He simply won't drop anything and isn't strong enough to carry everything he picks up. You can give them items, very useless items to fill up their spaces to prevent them from taking their fair share, if you are so inclined. It's pretty easily done, and their help is well worth it.

It's also worth it in terms of experience. You're limited to 10, and you'll hit that before you're done, even with a full 8 characters. Your experience is determined by the monster's CR (challenge rating I think). A beast of CR 10 basically means that a group of 4 level 10 characters could reasonably expect to defeat it without any casualties. That will be divided by however many characters you have, and possibly by their levels.

The short of it is that everyone's level will be 10 by the end, even if you are frequently changing out NPCs. So don't hold back (unless you're waiting for female PC pics). Take anyone you like and fill their inventory with a single arrow, a low value stone, etc, or simply accept that they risked their life as your characters did, and they earned it. Yeah, I couldn't handle just how much they took either lol. Zert rarely earned what he took.

[ 01-13-2005, 02:03 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]

Is that any site that offer portraits for download?

there are no decent portraits, not to my knowledge. IMO I don't see anything worth playing in this game besides the nice backgrounds.

Woot 800 posts!

Actually, I like the game mechanics. Yes, I know people have complained about the wheel setup, but I played Planescape: Torment enough that it didn't bother me. It just felt good to have a game that would let me build a party per 3.5 rules, and be able to do most everything you can do on tabletop. It did take some time getting used to playing turn-based again (I went from BG1 to Planescape to BG2 to NwN before playing ToEE, so quite an adjustment).

It is a mediocre game, though. The voice acting is bad (I shut the sound off when I play), and it one of the buggiest games I've seen. Oh, and if you don't like the way the NPCs take all kinds of items, there is a fan mod out there that makes them take money only.

I think the combat and character creation/development are far better than any other DnD game. They use actual DnD rules, for one, whereas most RPGs only use character and statistic rules but make a real time combat version that's not at all the same. Real time necessarily focuses on your stats to overcome your opponents, but this system will let you use tactics, carefully use combat feats and things like "Full Defense" for each character and trip attacks to your best advantage. I always liked the tactical aspects of DnD, and this lets you play it that way.

It's too short to be great though, and patching is a necessity.

The ultimate failure of the game was that Atari made them release it before it was done cooking. It happens, but it killed the game's potential, and it may have killed the chances of anyone else making a DnD game with a by-the-book combat system. A more epic game allowing you to go through a high level with 8 characters with a similar (bug free!) engine would be awesome imo.

And if that doesn't appeal, maybe you're unaware that this game lets you hire or marry a gay pirate. A gay pirate! C'mon, that's not something you see every day lol.

[ 01-14-2005, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: Lucern ]