So it does. Thanks.

I'm always forgetting that bit after I leave the game for a while... was nice to mention it while I had remembered! :)

Have a Mage or Bard with the spells Sleep, Grease, Tasha's Hideous Laughter. That can make a very big difference. Sleep and Grease target and Area so even if one or more enemies make their save, you will most likely still disable a few. Tasha's Hideous Laughter is great because unlike Hold Person, it doesn't have size restrictions. This means you can use them against Ogres and Giants for example.

You should also consider the Sun domain for your Cleric because it gives Greater turning. Any Undead turned with Greater turning will be destroyed instead.

And Tasha's Hideous Laughter also makes them fall prone. That means a lot of free Attacks of Opportunity from adjacent party members as they try to stand back up.

The first level or two of TOEE is crazy hard.

My tips for getting through the initial stage

- Have Co8 installed. It's mandatory. I also recommend you have New Content which makes the difficulty a little easier.

- Specialize your characters. I recommend a fighter who uses a two reach weapon such as glaives. Have the fighter specialize in it as much as possible. A lot of healing helps as well. Paladins, Druids & Clerics are your friend.

- Do the Grove quest you get from the woodcutter. The spiders are very hard, but once you get them (or just plain get lucky), you then use that spot to grind. Sleep/rest and pray to the gods the game is merciful. You may be able to take a giant crayfish, but if the game throws two at you at level one, you're boned.

- Grind up to level two, and then do all the quests around Hommlet. Promise to marry Melody to get the holy sword. You can choose to keep her or not, she isn't a bad healer honestly.

- Start branching out from there, keeping your characters specialized. You can't have jack of all type characters in ToEE. Every character will have a role.

- In the game I got furthest I used the maximum amount of PC's and then picked up an extra NPC. You can only do this with Co8. You'll level slower, but it's one more character to heal if you need it.

The game will still kick your butt occasionally, but aside from the odd fight, once you're past the first few levels and get some good gear you'll be good to go.

It's not impossibly difficult, it's just more complicated than, say, Baldur's Gate. Besides, you enjoy Paradox strategy games, you can't have that much trouble with it ;)

I don't know if this helps at all, but I'm usually frustrated very easily, and I made it through this game with little to no rage at all.

Paradox strategy games are far different than the typical hack and slash though, as it's mostly brain power to succeed, and I'm fine with that :) I hate RPGs though, where if you aren't quite quick enough you die over and over again. Believe me, I've played them, I hate them :)

Nah. It's off my wish list. I know I'd hate it, and every time I've been persuaded to buy something I know I'd hate by someone who said, "Oh it's really not that bad", Yep, I've hated it :)

But thanks for the post!!
Looking at a couple of other slightly less difficult games, and I'm going to play those instead.

This one's turn-based, so there's no 'quick enough' about it at all. It's really not that hard, believe me. I'm of a mind with you where I hate replaying parts of games over and over again just to get through it (hell, I hate having to replay parts even more than a couple times, let alone over and over again). This one wasn't like that for me, at least. I did have the Co8 mod installed though, which gives an extra low-level area, and I played with a party entirely of my own creation (didn't use any of the NPCs) so that likely made a difference.