After spending *ahem* a bit of time rolling up my first party I wanted to get into the game and "get to it" - I seem to be at a bit of a loss as to where to go first. I know exploration is part of the fun but I wanted to jump in and start a combat encounter or two. Where from Hommlet is the best play for a newly rolled level one party to do this? I've found one quest (in the Temple - the good one, not the namesake Evil one ;) ) but I'm immediately set upon by 5 frogs - they do a number on me so I guess I might be a bit underlevelled for this bit. Anywhere else?

Woodchopper has some trouble with spiders.
If you have Co8 installed, go talk to the smith and ask about "other stuff" or something like that, after a bit he should direct you to a watchman who'll direct you to Velkwood bog, which is a combat alterative to doing silly fetch & carry stuff in Hommlet.

Note that everything is darn near impossibly hard when you're level 1.

Also, if you only have 5 party members, you can add up to 3 more NPC's. See suggestions above for who to join up in Homlett.

Unlike some other D&D titles, if you don't have Precise Shot and Point Blank Shot skills, you get some pretty hefty ToHit penalties with missile weapons against engaged targets (even worse when friendlies are in the line-of-fire). You can mitigate this somewhat by: 1) only firing on unengaged enemies - hello Grease and Entangle, 2) melee fighters should single attack, then 5-foot-step away so as to leave a clear shot, 3) use long spears instead of missile weapons for your squishies.

Click on the 20-sided die icon in the UI and it will open a window that shows you the die rolls (click on the blue text to see exactly how the numbers add up). This is one of the best ways to learn what bonuses and penalties are being applied in combat. It also can alert you to the presence of a secret door (if your dwarf suddenly rolls a detection check for no obvious reason).

Thanks for the pointers all!


I found this out the hard way - I REALLY should have grabbed Precise Shot for my Bard - he's my primary archer. And I LOVE leaving the roll box up - so interesting to see all the modifiers in effect.

I do have a question about Precise Shot / Point Blank shot RE: Wizards. I grabbed Point Blank for my caster (I don't want all my ranged damage spells missing damnit!) but was unsure if it would come into play for arcane powers - it does - yay, I didn't waste a feat! Will my Wizard benefit from Precise Shot as well? Is she going to be getting a -4 penalty to ranged MAGIC attacks when firing into a crowd without it?

Also, for some reason I rolled 5 characters but only added 4 - I wanted to advance those 4 faster and drop in the 5th after a level or two - exercise in frustration? I THINK I can go to the Inn and just drop in my fighter - worth doing?

And last question - Full Attack - is this only useful for someone with multiple weapons? Is there any reason to Full Attack with someone just wielding a single weapon - or is the standard Left Click on an enemy sufficient?

Thanks!

Ranged touch attack spells are considered "missile weapons" in every sense. Their advantage is that if they hit they don't allow saving throws. So you will want Precise Shot as well if you use them ONCE MELEE IS ENGAGED. If you are going to Grease your opponent (which allows a save, but ignores MR), then cast ray of frost while he's down, then you wouldn't need it.

Yeah, early on a "tank" is good while all the pathetic missile wielders are trying to hit their targets. The tank can "fight defensively" which adds +4 to AC.

Only useful for multiple weapons, or later when your char's BAB is high enough to allow more than 1 attack per round.

Sometimes. If everyone is far enough away from the enemy and they all choose leave combat option. But other times the game doesn't let you escape. I think it's still a bit buggy tbh. Just save game often, so if it does that you don't lose a lot of game time.

Excellent thanks much! Also due to events and dialogue choices I THINK I "removed" the dues / share of an NPC follower - but I'm not sure. Is there any place on the NPCs character sheet where it would show his dues or does this just happen when looting. After I "accept" the initial offer is there any way to tell how much an NPC is costing me?

In the vanilla game, the NPC would always get their share each time you looted a chest or corpse. You could see it in their inventory, and they would never allow you to drop or sell any of it. So they would quickly become encumbered and become useless. Of course if they died, you could loot their corpse, then resurrect them and they would never mention their previous equipment ;) You could get around this by filling their inventory with Goodberries, and they would only loot coins thereafter.

But the Co8 mod has turned off NPC share looting completely i think. I've never seen an NPC auto-loot anything with the mod active. The Co8 site mentions something about this I believe.

Thanks again Dreamteam! And thank you very much for keeping an eye on this topic and helping me out with my flood of questions - much appreciated.