The Temple of Elemental Evil

"Troika's mistakes in prototype table & D&D 3.5 rules"

“What wasted the fun: mistakes in the prototype table”

The Temple of Elemental Evil is a Dungeons & Dragons based CRPG (computer role-playing game), very important in the history of D&D-inspired games because it is the first one that really tries to completely reproduce D&D 3.5 core rules with no alterations, unlikely Neverwinter Nights 1, that simply re-invented many spells and/or feats.

For the ones that do not know it, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is one of the first Role-playing games ever, if not the first, and has been revised more than one time: D&D, AD&D 2nd edition (A is for Advanced), D&D 3.0 and D&D 3.5. It has been Wizards of the Coast that created 3.0 and 3.5 rules: 3.0 has been the first attempt to make D&D more “ordered”, realistic and intuitive, fixing some bad choices in AD&D and creating a very precise turn-based battle system that enhanced the battle side of the pen & paper game. Still, 3.0 rules contained obvious mistakes that has been fixed in 3.5 version. It must be noted that 3.0 or 3.5 battle system is great even for CRP games, since it is based upon mathematical variables and probably this quality moved Troika's to adapt ToEE original adventure, made for AD&D 2nd edition, to D&D 3.5 rules.

The game plot and environment, in fact, are exactly the same from the original “Temple of Elemental Evil” pen & paper adventure for AD&D 2nd edition, probably selected because even the original adventure was really full of fights, a real hack & slash adventure, and this element was perfect for a strategy-based CRPG. With the adaptation to 3.5 rules, the programmers wished to create a strategy game based on deep turn-based battle system, made for D&D 3.5 fans and players that love intense battles with important strategic choices, but something went wrong.

Sadly, the result is not as good as people expected, since the mighty Troika Games began to work on Temple of Elemental Evil with 3.0 rules and Atari left them in short of funds and time, so that the game has been released still highly incomplete under several point of view: missing feats, incomplete sub-quests, small bugs here and there about spells and, absolutely the worst, a terrible conversion process that involved foes and monsters from the original AD&D II edition "temple of elemental evil" adventure, first to 3.0 rules and then, only partially, to 3.5 rules.

Ignoring the severe slowdown that come in the deepest areas inside the Temple and several small bugs here and there, the game runs quite well with a nice, but especially practical graphic, characterized by very useful icons that really help to understand tactical options in battle, and with a nice sound that help the player to enjoy the game, creating a nice atmosphere but, playing the numerous fights, that are the most important characteristic of the game, there is the constant feeling that there is something wrong.

After hacking the game myself, I discovered that all fights are based upon the prototype table (protos.tab) inside the game folder, which contains all data about items, weapons, armors, shields, magic stuff, monsters and NPCs (not-playing characters, including party members). That table is just filled with mistakes: humanoid-like creatures has been assembled like dumb character, with useless feats and no "personality" (e.g.: no fighter has any “weapon specialization” feat, that is the fighter's most essential feat!), while monsters are missing feats, special abilities (e.g.: fiendish and celestial creatures were without their damage reduction and extra planar powers) or had completely different ability scores (strength, constitution, dexterity or even hit dices) than the ones described in D&D 3.5 monster manuals or additional handbooks, often wrong challenge rating and, worst of the worst, Troika guys made four huge mistakes.

1) - They just copied monsters TOTAL values from D&D 3.5 Monster Manual and pasted them into the prototype table, without considering that their own game automatically adds feat effects or bonuses/penalties from ability scores to skills, saving throws, spells difficulty class or other variables. Troika's should have used the BASE values in the prototype table but, using the TOTAL ones instead, they had the game to adds twice the bonus/penalty from ability scores to monsters qualities (saving throws, skills, spell-like abilities difficulty class and so on), making them worse or stronger than the ones in D&D 3.5 core rules but with the same challenge rating.

A clear example is the monster Lamia, with CR (challenge rating) 6: we'll describe how its saving throws (which help to avoid many effects from spells, poisons, instant death and so on) are affected by wrong parameters in the prototype table. Lamia has a total Will save = +7, since it is a 9 hit dices Magic beast: 7 = 2 (Iron will feat) +2 (wisdom score of 15, +2 bonus) +3 (base value for Hit Dices).
Since programmers just pasted the total +7 value into the prototype table instead than 3, the game re-added Iron Will and high Wisdom bonuses to the total value, for a total of +11 (even enhanced by further mistakes, see below), making the monster simply too strong for its CR of 6. In fact, it is supposed to be a fair challenge for a party composed by four 6th level characters, that could defeat it but being seriously injured too.

Considering only the exaggerated Will save, I want to note that a 6th level spell caster (cleric, druid, wizard or sorcerer) may cast his/her strongest spell with a difficulty class no greater than 19 (3 by 3rd level spell, +2 by Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus feats, +4 by Intelligence or Wisdom score, that can't be greater than 19 - base 18 +1 at 4th level and granting a +4 bonus), even if the average spell caster usually has a DC that is no greater by 16 or 17. Yes, somebody may object that there are even "fox cunning, owl wisdom and eagle splendor" that may be used to rise respectively intelligence, wisdom and charisma stats, but it is very hard for a 6th level spellcaster to use a 2nd level slot for one of those spells, since it means to waste resources.

Still, this means that a Lamia needs to roll only a 8 on the d20 against the strongest spell caster to completely avoid his/her spell effects, while it needs only a 5 or 6 against the average spell caster! In other words, a Lamia has from 60% to 75% to avoid any spell or effect that is negated by will saves, making almost useless all will-based spells, like Charm or Hold Monster! Instead, it should have only fro 40% to 55% to save and this is just not funny, since this negates the right casualty that makes the game fun to play.

From the other side, monsters like the hill giants, with ability scores under 10, are even weaker and suffer the opposite problem: the hill giant, for example, is too clumsy and that allows the player to strike that kind of monser too easily with fireballs and other effects that are negated by reflex-based saves.

2) – Troika's didn't create any option to simulate the “caster-level” factor for monsters that do not have any spell caster level but can still cast spells like spell-like abilities. Using again Lamia for an example, you have to know that it can cast a limited amount of spell-like abilities like a 9th level wizard. Troika's just added 9 wizard levels to the Lamia prototype, to allow it to cast spells like a 9th level wizard, but it adds other benefits too, that the Lamia cannot have at all! And, of course, without any try to balance the bonus granted by those 9 extra wizard levels. 9 wizard levels, in fact, grants 9d4 Hit Points (+constitution bonus), +3 to fortitude and reflexes saving throws, +6 to will (for a total of +17!!!) saving throws and +4 to hit. As you can see, now Lamia has a chance to save against a 6th level spell caster's strongest spell that goes from 90% to 105%!

3) - Constitution bonus for monster works differently, with no reason. Accordingly with official rules, Constitution grants to any creature Hit Point (HP) in this way: (total of class levels + racial hit dices) x (constitution bonus/penalty), so that a Hill Giant with Constitution 19 (+4 bonus), 12 racial Hit Dices and 3 Fighter levels has (12+3)*4 = 60 extra HP. Troika's game, instead, mess up things: for every constitution bonus or penalty, the game just adds a +3 or -3 HP to the monster total HP, ignoring the monster's racial hit dices. Only monsters are affected in this way, but not class levels. So, the same giant has by fact 3*4=12 extra HP from his racial HD and 4*3=12 HP from his fighter levels, that is 24 and is much less than 60, drastically reducing the monster's endurance and making it too easy to kill.

4) – Last but not least, many henchmen that is possible to hire do not have their own level-up pattern, but follow a generic fighter level-up pattern characterized by an obscene and useless feat and skills selection. E.G: it is really bad to have the bard Zaxis to stop gaining levels as bard and leveling up as a fighter instead, wasting all bard levels gained before.

It is more than obvious that Troika guys are inexpert with D&D 3.5 rules and mechanics and that they missed a real expert's help for the adaptation process from AD&D to D&D 3.5, but this is not an excuse for a mediocre product. Even more, merge all the bugs described above with a too linear game plot, often silly dialogues or inconclusive quests, lack of freedom when talking, a terrible NPCs re-adaptation (rangers Elmo and Otis as fighters, paladin Thrommel as fighter, ranger Bertram as fighter), many bugs especially about item creation, monsters that has been changed randomly with logic and a terrible slow-down in some game areas (that may even lead to game permanent freezing) and it is easy to understand why a game that had such a great potential as hack & slash is a mediocre game WITHOUT unofficial patches. A mediocre game that may even be more irritating than funny.

It is really a pity, because the game offers a lot of interesting characteristics: a great party customization, nice environment and graphic and a very good battle system (for the ones that already like D&D rules, otherwise it may be felt boring and too slow by others). The only way to really enjoy this game is to seek on the web for unofficial patches. They often fix many more bugs than Troika's official patches, makes the game to run more smoothly, add nice sub-quests and extra contents, fix the character level-up trouble and many of the errors in the prototype table, making the game much more enjoyable, even if not completely bug free, even because some monsters like Ghaleb-Dhur are hard-coded in the game and changing the prototype table does not affect them, but only random encounters.

At the very end, if you, player, like D&D 3.5, now it is the time to buy the game, since so much time has passed by its release and its price now is very low, but remember to seek for unofficial patches too, otherwise it is not worthy of.

Final rank: with Troika's patch 3: 6/10. With unofficial patches 8/10 or 9/10, accordingly with the patch.
Orion79

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 06/12/07