Wow.

So I've been struggling pretty damn hard to get a footing in this game and I'm TRYING to like it.
I love all the infinity engine games (IWD2 excluded), been playing through NWN2 and enjoying it okay but this game... The difficulty is so horrendous that it just boggles my mind how people have actually played this game for any amount of time.
I tried time and time again to level up slowly first but after having my ass handed to me for the umpteenth time by skeletons, frogs and spiders I thought I was doing something wrong and went with the quest path.
I tried dragging myself through the town quests. TRIED. I have the circle of 8 pack in, but not the extra stuff so I didn't have the "ease into lvl 2" quest. I wanna try this game for what it is.
Then I gave up and just cheated my characters into lvl 3. A moment of weakness, to be sure, but holy monkey-balls, this game is so punishingly unforgiving in combat at low levels that I had no other choice for my sanity if I wanted to TRY to keep playing the game.

So finally I could scrape by in fights (healing for weeks at a time just to heal 15 HP also seems laughably silly) and I try to enter the Moathouse. Okay, I barely live past the guys in the courtyard, die a few times on the first floor to the group of guys in there. Make my way up the stairs, have a squad of zombies wipe everyone exept my fighter, then just get utterly and completely crushed (literally) by the Ogre on the second floor.
What the actual fuck.
This game has -NO- difficulty curve. It just spikes after the first intro and does not seem to make any kind of sense. It certainly isn't challenging in a fun way. It's just brutal and makes no sense to me.

Why would people consider this a good game? Am I just not that good at the D&D rules to know every freakin' nuance to exploit in combat or is this just it? This game makes you scrape through garbage and just bombards you with monsters. Why not have HALF the number of monsters in encounters? Certainly would make sense when one is getting better at the game, atleast for the first 2 levels.

I give up. You guys can like this game all you want but I surrender. This game sucked me dry and I can't enjoy it, even after TRYING to. I'm just so frustrated I had to share my experience.

If you want to give the Game another Chance i would consider to use more CC. Grease, Web, Sleep and Charm are your friends @ low Level.

The game can definitely be rough, but that's intentional, I believe. I'd also suggest trying what benji83 said, but if you still don't like it, this may just be one of those games that aren't for you. It happens.

Yeah, the game can be mind boggingly unfathomably hard. Impossibly so in fact.
Sometimes you just can't win a fight, have to do something else and come back later instead.

But you know, there's a certain satisfaction in succeeding when the obstacle is so damn hard.
Like the ogre. Would you believe how really, really great if feels when your fighter whacks an ogre on a single stroke,
then spins around and kills a second ogre on the same momentum!

It gets easier after a while, sort of.

There's a a handful of OMG youre not freaking serious moments in there, diifficulty wise.
The ogre is one, the first giant is another. Water temple, end boss. Maybe a few others.

I agree with Jammo. TOEE is very hard at times, but it's quite satisfying to get a couple new feats and see what difference it makes. I suggest if you haven't, to look at the dice rolls during battles and see why you are missing or doing little damage. I had my archer in armor that was giving him a -4. Duh. Combined with a -4 for shooting into melee and no wonder he never hurt anything. So I got precise shot right away. Things get easier when your wizard gets fireball too. When you start killing things and racking up exp it gets really fun. I wish they hadn't made sleeping so dangerous though. Having to trek back to Hommlet all the time is kind of a drag.

Charm that first ogre you come in contact with. With him as an ally, you'll destroy a whole lot before they bring him down.

Charm is probably my most important spell I use. Sleep is probably #2 at the early levels.

Don't forget to beef up your front line with STR, DEX and CON spells and potions for difficult fights and keep everyone behind the 1 or 2 or 3 front-lines that you have.

Also, do get some XP from town as much as you can.

And finally, rest often. It's best to have a well-rested high-hp party than not.

Hmm... usually that's a very enjoyable experience, however... I digress.

Perhaps you could post your party? The game is a little difficult at 1st level, but it sounds like you might be missing something.

For example; do you have a Cleric or someone that can cast healing spells? If so, why are you resting for 15 days to regain HP?

Are you using spells at all? Perhaps trying with a solitary PC instead of a group like this game is designed for? etc...

Web is your friend. Especially if you ever make it to the Giant. Or enter the Temple at a rather nasty point outback....

i agree this game is HARD! ive thrown it down twice now... but its been nagging me and ive HAD to come back...

my advice from a weekend of frustration (but i did get to lvl 6 and things are getting easier0:

-balance your party. one fighter, one cleric, one rogue, one wizard, one whoever (i go Monk. always monk! might make some things harder on me, but i insist)

-focus on thier strengths. max your Turn-Undead on your Cleric (that room of Zombies you mentioned... i one shot the ENTIRE room with Turn undead. destroyed ALL of them. it ruled!). Use Sneak attack with your Rogue.

-BUFF! use Prayer before all major/large battles. Use Bane during battles on your enemies. Use the +4 str spells or potions on you Fighter. Get as much Dex as you can for your Rogue (well, everyone needs hihg Dex, btw)

-random encoutners! this is THE best way i have found to level up. Travel the world map until you find a random encounter. once you finish it, rest there until you get another random encounter. do this for a few hours and gain a few levels. this is how i got lvl 4 and lvl 6.

-Wizards suck until lvl 3-5 (really, until they get Fireball and Lightning) and you should focus on using a crossbow with them until they can make a dent.

-NPCs. The drunk ass Elmo that walks up to you when you enter town? hire him! hes burly! there is also a decent rogue in the inn. or the monk and fighter (i had 5player party and they wouldnt join me... plus i have a Monk already)

ill share more if/when i think of it! good luck!

Each to his own. :)
Yeah, I can easily see how this wasn't popular, can't really fathom how they ever thought it'd be.

And the party is decent enough, that's not the problem.

I think you hit it with the "clawing through", you either like the thought or don't.
I generally don't, can't say why I love ToEE anyway. Must be partly because of the crazy difficulty variations.

i totally understand!

i put this game down for YEARS! seriously, bought it new in 2003 and just started playing it again last month.

im not loving this game.... but i am keeping in mind, two of my favorite games series started with me throwing the game down and cursing it... only to put thousands of hours into em (im talking Monster Hunter and Demon's Souls)

It's kind of funny because I really hated this game the first time I played it. After reading through the D&D Player's Handbook, (the $30 pen and paper book), and reading through the ToEE manual, suddenly it was 10x easier. The game can be hard, yes. But learning the specifics helps a LOT. Of course, it feels a bit like homework. I don't like reading manuals, personally.
Not understanding the rules fully, and the fact that Hommlet is such a snoozefest, (they REALLY needed to pick up the pace.), I was turned off to this game at first. But I like it now.
I think the problem is the game isn't "accessible". You don't just sit down and start doing things. It's a little bit like chess, where you have to know to move the knight two squares forward and one square left or right, and understand its relation to the other pieces.

At any rate, certain actions I learned to put to good use:
5-foot step, Ready vs Approach/Spell, Charge Attack, Feint, Trip
The spells I found useful are:
Charm (I spam it), Web, Mage Armor (for wizards or monks), Fear, Bless, Doom, Fireball (booooom).
You really should know about Cleric Spontaneous Casting.
Recruit NPCs! Go from a party of 5 to a party of 8. Some are good, some are not so good. I like Elmo.
I could give lots of advice, but I'll just throw those out. Learning that stuff got me back into it..

Which reminds me, I've yet to figure out how spontaneous casting works. In the game.

The one thing that really helped was to quick-key stuff like: cure light wounds, read magic, identify, coup de grace, ready vs approach, 5-foot-step, stuff like that.

Press down the shift key and it converts everything in your radial spell list.