Here is another good link for planning spells.

Thanks.
Thanks.
I have decided to just roll with it hopefully its not a complete waste.

I have decided to let my OCD tendency's drop and go with the party I have flaws and all there not big enough flaws now for me to justify keep rolling into my limited play time. So onward back into the city of Hommlet I go.

So My Party as it stands now has a mix of level one's and two's

Groth - Half-Orc Barbarian
Str 20, Dex 17, Con 18, Int 11, Wis 12, Cha 7
Iron Will Feat.

Elowin - Human Ranger
Str 16, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 15, Cha 14
Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot feats and Ranged specialty at level 2.

Tovin - Gnome Druid
Str 13, Dex 16, Con 18, Int 13, Wis 18, Cha 12
Nature Sense Feat

Bella Black - Human Rogue
Str 16, Dex 18, Con 16, Int 15, Wis 15, Cha 11
Combat Reflexes and Dodge Feats

Dreavia - Elf Mage (Divination Specialty with No Illusion School)
Str 11, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 17
Spell Penetration Feat.

Time to stop messing with the lineup and put down some adventure time!

Very frustrating couple play sessions with this game so far between the crashes and the no auto save I have had to repeat substantial areas repeatedly. Note to self literal on my screen to save after every fight or conversation.

Everyone is level 3 I keep running around the world map killing random badies.

Barb, Ranger and Thief doing great! druid and wizard feel lackluster at the moment but I know those are classes that grow in power. I should have picked a different specialty for the wizard like Evocation.

Who in Hommlet sells Magic for my Wizard?

Besides a few random quest all I have really completed is the Welkwood Bog and that's not even official content.
http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=7915.

Does anyone play this game vanilla or is Circle of Eight the unofficial expansion and bug fix that most people use?
Ever since I became interested in this game Co8 seemed like a must and I'm not really a mod person.

Going to get some good play time today so hopefully its more fun than frustrating

It is recommended by the Co8 guys to NOT use Quicksave. Apparently it can corrupt your save file, then you will be sad.

You can buy magic spells at Rufus & Burne's tower. You can steal magic spells from several NPCs ;)

My first playthrough I did in vanilla, so it is technically possible to do so. But there are some persistent bugs that make playing through certain areas a test of extreme patience... you have to put up with plenty of annoying bugs and crashes. The Co8 mod comes in two flavors: New Content and Vanilla. Both flavors have the same bug fixes, NC adds a few nice features that generally improve or streamline gameplay rather than really changing the vanilla adventure. NC also adds a few extra encounters and more diverse NPC interactions, which adds thematic flavor. However, the big advantage of NC is that once you beat ToEE, you can continue adventuring with your high-level characters in the fan-made setting of Verbobonc.

It can be kind of a pain in the ass to install, but I would highly recommend using one of the Co8 mods. Ultimately it will improve quality gametime, which is the goal after all.

I am using the latest NC mod for Co8 so I cant tell whats original content and new and that's fine by me seams really well polished.

Been stuck in the moathouse all day fighting variations of the same fight very frustrating going to need a break game to get threw this game i can tell...

MOATHOUSE: There was one really satisfying moment when I first entered the moathouse and a Brigand Leader charged out a door and got Crit killed from the barbarian on an attack of opportunity. The slime's coming down from the ceiling also another cool point. So the moathouse is clear I think... after trying many dialog options I decided to just fight my way into Lareth. He surrenders gives me a gold chain and is suppose to lead me to that back door trap. I went to town to recover as 3/5 member of the party where unconscious. Lareth leaves while I'm sleeping and now I am known as a friend to Lareth and random town folk attack me.

EMRIDY MEADOWS: Tried to go in here cannon fodder skeletons about and then a Giant. Tried at least 6 times to kill the giant without multiple deaths so I think I will have to come back with a better game plan or levels.

Notes the Hard way... Identify spell still cost you gold so now I am broke, "Magic" items are just unidentified items so the vender got some of those.

Overall I am very frustrated with this game so far and have wanted to give up multiple times but I am too stubborn for that. The Party is now level 4 and I have had to reload the game a zillion times due to party wipes and deaths I cant afford to resurrect,

Yup, identify spell is flipping worthless. Note that the Read Magic spell can be used to identify scrolls and potions for free.

That Giant in the Meadows is just plain nasty. Giants have shitty will and reflex saves, though, so once you have a decent spell that can actually affect a monster that big it's not hard for a wizard to turn him into an invalid for the rest of your party to hack apart at their leisure.

Apparently, Wands of Identify Item can be made cheaply. Unfortunately, because wands have only 20 charges (but still cost as much to make as 30 scrolls in most cases), the Craft Wand feat is otherwise useless in this game, particularly since scrolls stack in your inventory.

Wands and Scroll rules are messed up in ToEE. The best I could find out about this issue is that the Co8 team didn't fix the number of charges on wands (it should be 50) because there's a bug in the engine that makes spells cast from scrolls and wands significantly more powerful than they should be. Since the second bug cannot be fixed, they decided just to leave wand charges alone rather than stepping foot in that quagmire.

Thanks for the info especially that Read Magic tidbit. I blew all my money and saved it without realizing the spell cost gold too.
Thanks for the heads up.
Thanks for the info.

Actually scribing an identify scroll only costs 67 gold, and casting is free. So you can save 33% money by doing it that way. If you don't want to waste a spell slot on an Identify spell, Spugnoir at the Welcome Wench starts the game with Identify. So you can just hire him into your group, have him gain a few exp from killing a few weak mobs, then have him scribe all the identify scrolls you need and turn them over to your PC wizard. Then kick Spugnoir from the party and he waits at the Welcome Wench till you need him again.

One of the best spells vs Giants is Ray of Enfeeblement (since high STR grants a HUGE attack and damage bonus, casting multiple RoE turns a giant into a 900lb weakling that can't hit the side of a barn). Tanglevine, Glitterdust and Grease are really good too, to keep the giant at bay while you pelt him with little rocks. You might be able to cast Charm Animal on his bear too. I've used plenty of tactics, but having a tank go full defense while the rest of your party lobs spells and missiles from afar works pretty well. Also, cast Enlarge on your tank, so he can 5-foot step away from the giant out of it's ZoC. The giant thus needs to close and attack and thus only gets 1 attack per round rather than 3.

You might still be able to trade at the Trading Post in Homlett, even if Lareth is your friend. I don't want to reveal any spoilers, so let's just say ToEE allows for multiple ways to approach the main quest, although logically you might have opened some options while closing others.

If you have a Thief or Bard in your group, you can improve their Appraise skill on level up to a maximum of 19, so as to get the best prices in the shops. Appraise is based on Intelligence, so raising Int magically before going shopping is good. Once you have high Appraise skill, you can manufacture scrolls and sell them for profit at a ratio of ~1000gp per 120 exp spent. Once again Spugnoir is the goto guy for this, since as long as he remains low level he gains exp faster and can thus produce more scrolls to sell for less game time. With lower levels of Appraise, you can still try this with 0 level spells (they cost no exp and only 12 gp to scribe), but I am not sure at what point it becomes profitable to do so.

Giants toasted, I charmed the bear and rayed the giant and just tanked it out with heal support.
I double crossed the guys at the trading post so they wont touch me.
My thief has 9 base Appraise I believe at 15 base INT.

I appear to have moved on from Hommlet to Nulb a rather cool looking town on the water. Not a lot going on in Nulb besides some relationship quests, a thieving bar wench, a madam trying to get her "lady's" to work and a man looking for a giant fish (Fish is dead). Party is all Currently in what appears to be the basement of The Temple I entered through a secret staircase in the back entrance to the temple after defeating a rather large group of Humans. The basement is full of some nasty Bugbears and some will-o-wisps I can barely hit, fleeing magicians and amnesiac elf's. Going well nothing too bad fireball is my friend as always.

So....

1) Activated a feature of Co8 and added a Female Human Warrior to the party.

2) Had my first save game corruption so had to initiate my backup that was about an hour back. I am now rotating a 3 save file system saving after each battle or major conversation.

3) I am currently going through what appears to be a section of the temple that's earth based.

4) Found a couple orc's in a cell but it wouldn't let me recruit them.

5) Party is level 7-8 on average and new recruit is level 3

A lot slower going then my play through of Wizardry 8 as I am also playing Oblivion and Ragnarok Odyssey Ace