I'm not sure if I'm playing wrong or what, but my battles seem to be terrible. All my party misses probably 90% of the time or more and when my archers hit it's for 1 point 75% of the time and 2 points the other 25%. I honestly don't think I've seen a arrow hit for more than 2 points yet. (I have a rogue with a short bow and a ranger with a long bow). Monsters on the other hand hit 75% of the time at least and for ridiculous amounts of damage. I've had hits take me from 16 hit points to dead in 1 shot (yes dead, not down). and countless 1 shots that have knocked me out. It's starting to get really frustrating reloading battles over and over. Unless I unload all my mage spells in pretty much every battle, I don't seem to stand a chance. And even then, I usually have at least 2 party members down by the time it's over.

I downloaded the Circle of 8 Mod in an attempt to do some easier stuff, but the first battle in the Welkwood bog has gone the same way twice. I hit perhaps a total of 5 times between all 7 of my party members and the kobolds (or whatever they are) Hit almost every time for 5-8 points of damage a swing. I have to say it's getting really frustrating.

And yes, my party members are all equipped with correct weapons for their skills and wearing appropriate armor for their class.

ANY suggestions would be greatly appreciated. This module is one of my all time favorites and I am loving traveling around Homlet at the moment, but these battles are really frustrating me.

If you look down at the bottom right, there's a tab with a dice on it. If you click that, it will show you the dice rolling log, and you can click the shown results for more information on bonuses and penalties, which can show you the source of the misses and hits.

For ranged combat, you may need Precise Shot (which has a prerequisite feat IIRC) to hit often, but it seems odd that it would do such low damage, perhaps you've been using it on targets with DR

Thanks for the tip on showing die rolls. All I can say after watching my die rolls is I must be the most unlucky roller I've ever seen. AT LEAST 75% of my die rolls are 7 or less. and with the worst AC I've seen so far being 15 and a few up in the 20's I basically seem to have anywhere from a 5% to 25% chance to hit most monsters.

Having never played 3.x before (I played 1st, 2nd, then went to other systems). having intro monsters with AC's that give you a 5-10% chance of hitting seems...well...rather stupid. And then after finally entering the first dungeon and having the third encounter with a lich (as well as a crap-ton of other mobs including a goblin boss leader). Well, that's beyond asinine in my book. Welkwood is supposedly a 1st level adventure. I would hate to play in the campaign of the guy that wrote that adventure.

All in all, I'm fairly disappointed so far. Anyone know if there is a trainer for this game so I can bump myself up a bit and make this a bit less frustrating.

Yikes, if the dice hate you you're always going to lose :P
If you're new to 3.5, you might want to consider reading the manual about the feats>you can pump your to-hits quite substantially with the right feat choices, and it can be worth using rerolling (and not playing Iron-man) to get above-average characters as well. (str for melee, dex for ranged and AC, con for HP)
If you spend a lot of time in Hommlet early on and have a face-type character, you can often get most of a level off all the problem-quests, and Emridy Meadows is an ok place to milk some XP as long as you don't run into the big encounters there (stay in the north-west quarter really, and maybe the north-east. South-west is a killer)
Outside the moathouse is also doable with level 1's, and a party of 7 could probably handle all the inside top level even at level 1. Don't really want to head below with less than level 3's though (there's an encounter in there that has a bad habit of one-hitting stuff to dead)

It's a strange kind of game, the beginning is hard and frustrating as hell. Things get a bit easier once you gain a level or two, but you'll still run into dead hard fights now and then (but not every time at least).

But yes. You're fighting for your life in the beginning. Unload every spell every time, take every precaution and advantage. Try to bless your people, use spells like sleep or web. (Web is awesome here)

If you look a the walkthrough a bit, you should be able to net one level by just doing some stupid non-combat quests in Hommlet and even gain a pretty good weapon.

The thing is. When you have really hard time early on, it becomes really, really awesomely great when your characters finally start getting good and start taking out bugbears and ogres in one sweet attack.

Here's some nifty tips for good characters and battle tactics in TOEE.

In TOEE your toughest opponent for the whole game is random chance and the best thing you can do is learn to fight it. I usually resort to humans and feat glut.

Archers need two feats in TOEE just to hit anything past the first round. Bows do low damage, require str and dex and rely on sneak attacks or enchanted arrows to be worth your time as main damage dealers.

If you're set on bows, maybe make a human rogue/fighter, dip into a couple of fighter levesl at 2 and 3 to pick up feats and weapons, then back to rogue for the rest of the game. I'd probably pick improved initiative (r1), point blank shot (r1), rapidshot (f1), many shot and maybe nimble fingers or the like to help the lost rogue skill levels.

Now your archer is doing well by level 3. But they're still not going to equal a reach weapon wielding melee character.

Or a combat reflexes melee rogue paired with a enlarged, trip happy monk.

The bet trick ever is not to load your party up with excess characters. Keep it small (3 or 4) and you'll get some decent levelling done from the early fights. Risk some random encounters by travelling the world map/resting to grind up easier exp than match making and errand running.

My highest "missing streak" was 14, all from bow shots. It's a fickle system.

I'm pretty sure you get penalties to your ranged attack roll if: your target is closer than 30 feet, your target is in melee combat, and any creature (your party included) is in between you and the target. I want to think that those are -4 to attack each. Anyway, you can see how that adds up. Maybe this is old news. :p Shooting over your friend's head at something they are fighting is going to be hard to hit.

Point Blank Shot should negate the standing-too-close penalty.

And regular bow damage is pretty low. 1 to 8 is the highest, I think. No bonuses. Get a composite bow, which adds your Strength bonus to damage (to a limit).

Bows should be a little more powerful, I think, especially compared to how powerful you can get in melee later on. Composite bows and weapon specialization add damage, and firing at targets with poor AC's also makes a difference. I played with a archer-type fighter, and it was still a lot of fun even though I often made use of melee weapons instead.

Bows are actually pretty great for about the first third of the game. Just pay attention to having a clean shot.
Heavy crossbows all around in the first levels, 1d10 from a mage is nothing to sneer at.

Lots of tough opponents and fights become trivial when the opponent is all webbed up and you plonk away from a safe distance.
Even with no magics, it's effective to fire a shot or two before the enemy reaches you.

Late game, when you have your melee weapons enchanted with bonus damages ranged weapons are left behind.
But even then, if you're specialized and have all kinds of improved criticals and feats, a bow can be devastating weapon.

One trick I used in the early game is to go to the area with the Spider's you get from the Woodcutter. Once you kill them (which isn't an easy battle), stay there and keep resting. Save after every rest, because the game has an *insane* battle on rest level. The goal is to grind your way to level two, which won't take too long. But the game can really screw you by throwing two Giant Crawfish at you which can one hit anyone at early levels. Do that to level two, then do all the quests at the town, then do the Co8 undead tomb quest, and then when you're at level three or near it, head to the bandit hideout.

It's kind of cheesey, but it's a hell of a lot better then wandering around being massacred by every random thing.

Edit: Personally, I hate using bows. Way too many negatives in the system to them. My ranged fighters always end up completely ineffective in any battle. To me it's much more effective to heavily spec fighters in specific areas, have a mage, and a healer or two. A fighter with a two reach weapon, with specs in opportunity attacks, bonus to hit, and ability to dodge around the battlefield will carve things up in ToEE. And for your tank, you can get a +2 longsword in the first town which will carry them if they spec in that for a long time if not the rest of the game.

Yeah i totally hate being a mailboy. More so when you can't randomly teleport around into people's homes, while wearing a fancy hat and saying here is your mail. However, you can get a rather nice weapon if you are willing to put up with it.

I personally all ways when right to the moat house, before the circle of eight mod. killed the giant frogs. deal with the giant spider there. With the giant spider gone. Use that area to rest for healing when needed. then go out side and rest. wait for a fight to happen. Then go back to the safe house [area where you kill that giant spider.] , rest up and heal if needed. then go outside again, rest and wait for a fight to happen. Kill the random foes that show up and do it all over again. Then after reaching level 2 [which finally allows your characters to take a hit with out dying.]. Enter the moat house and kick some ass. After i got Circle Of Eight Mod. All ways do that undead starter quest. has a nice bit of loot. and enough exp to get you to level two.

1. Use summons to flank and tank
2. Use reach weapons
3. Cast sleep/grease/glitterdust
4. Proceed to win