It's funny... after I found out it was taken from an actual D&D module, I realized I actually owned that module, when I was a kid. I don't know what happened to it... .

I remember absolutely nothing about it . . . too bad, it would've been fun to compare the game with the module.

Pool of Radiance (SSI goldbox version) was my first computer RPG...awesome game.

Anyways to the topic, Temple of the Elemental Evil is a really fantastic game. That game and Arx Fatalis are probably #1 on my list of awesome but overlooked RPG's.

Hi, new Eschalonite here, first post hey everyone blah blah...

If anyone here is really jonesing for the old Gold Box experience, you should check out FRUA, Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures. This is a builder that SSI made back in about '91 that lets you make your own Gold Box style adventures. Since then, it's been hacked to pieces by a small but devoted fanbase to go far beyond its initial capabilities, but it's still got that Gold Box style.

In the last year and a half I've spent large amounts of time playing a huge assortment of fan-built adventures. One guy made FRUA versions of about 30 classic PnP AD&D adventures and linked them up into a coherent campaign. Others have made their own adventures which are in some cases even better than the original SSI games. I'm slowly working on my own contribution, but keep getting distracted by stuff like Eschalon!

The web home of FRUA is at http://ua.reonis.com if you're curious. There you can find out all you need to know to get it up and running; it's a bit tricky because of the hacks and because it's such an old game, but no hacker-level skills are required.

Thanks so much for posting this! I gave up looking for a copy of FRUA years ago! I'll be sure to check it out!

Looks like i was the only one to not really like this game lol

Not because it was a bad game or anything, but when i found out you could only level your chars to 16(i was trying out mostly soloing the game when i found this out, hence, the hate) which really irritated the bag out of me.

I think it wouldnt have been so bad but i was in the middle of a game, with only 1 other party member(or solo, dont remember exactly) when i figured out i wasnt getting any more Xp and the game got impossible to finish.

Not a huge fan of party rpg's anyway, but im thinking that now that i know it going in, i should reinstall the game and try it again.

ps. The original DnD TOEE was BRUTAL. If you had the stones to even get to the end, if you didnt have the right magical item, everyone was dead.

Years ago I got Toee but couldn't get it to work. I tried everything including the patches but no luck at all. Recently I heard about the Circle of Eight Modpak, downloaded it and, Yikes, it works. And the level cap is now 20. You HAVE to go to Circle of Eight, they know what they are doing.

The guys and gals at Circle of 8 have made TOEE very playable. Circle of 8 fixed most if not all of the bugs that afflicted the game. There are also gamers there creating mods to extend the game play and add new area. If you pick up TOEE make sure you get the Circle of 8 mod pack your sanity will thank you.

Ended up getting the circle of eight mods, reinstalling the game(or rebought it, i forgot lol) and then


never ended up playing it. lol I booted it up, started to make characters then just lost interest. Ill probably pick it up again one of these days, but i just cant get myself to play it for some reason.

Now that I can play the game I'm wondering if it is worth it. I finally got to level up and was really disappointed to see what little benefit there was. I think I got 5pts in hit points and a few points to put into skills. Skills are mostly usless, it seems to me. Characters are so weak that it is very difficult to get to each level, and when you do , what do you get? virtually nothing. If I didn't have Elmo I certainly couldn't have reached level 2 as he is the only decent damage dealing charcter there is , and I hired them all. The skills are a joke. Intimidate? Bluff? Diplomacy? None of the skills help you to kill the monsters. The feats? Seem to be few and far between.True, there are some very boring quests requiring you to run all over the place, but give you little experience points. And there are still the enemies to kill in order to progress the game. My 6 guys just tried to kill the giant while he was alone and managed to do a little over 100 hit points of damage to him before the bear came over and finished wiping me out. The giant could have done it by himself if I hadn't had such good luck. Anyway the game is on hold as I wasn't having much fun.