Something went wrong. Try again later

ArbitraryWater

Internet man with questionable sense of priorities

16103 5585 171 648
Forum Posts Wiki Points Following Followers

ArbitraryWater's GB Community Endurance Run: CRPG IRONMAN IRONMAN

Hello internet friends, this year I’ve decided to take part in the Giant Bomb Community Endurance Run, raising money for Direct Relief’s COVID-19 efforts! In a move that is very on-brand for me, I'll be playing a game near and dear to my heart for too many hours in the day! That's right, I'm going to be playing Temple of Elemental Evil for like 14 hours next weekend, and you can help make that experience more difficult/better for all involved!

WHEN?

I’ll be up on Saturday, April 18th from 8AM to 4PM PDT and on Sunday, April 19th from 11AM to 5PM PDT. The goal is to stream for those 14 hours with room for the occasional food/bathroom break. My donation page is here, and you'll likely be able to find my stream on explosiveruns.com as well.

Wait, WHAT?

Based on the classic 1st edition module written by Gary Gygax and Frank Metzner, Troika’s The Temple of Elemental Evil: A Classic Greyhawk Adventure is remarkable for two reasons: 1. Its strict adherence to both the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 ruleset and the original module 2. The number of times I’ve mentioned it on this website. It’s a weird D&D combat sandbox masquerading as a full video game and it’s also notoriously difficult, which makes it the perfect game to attempt an ironman playthrough of. That means one save, no reloads, perma-death. I’ll be running the game with both the Circle of Eight 8.1 “New Content” mod as well as Temple Plus, both of which clear up some of the game’s more notorious bugs as well as adding additional functionality and content. Quite frankly, I don't think anyone is going to want to watch me sit through the profoundly dull fetch quests that would normally happen to get to level 2.

So where do you come in? Well, everyone knows that a good adventure needs a good party of adventurers. I’ll be playing with 6 slots for playable party members in ToEE, and thus the first 6 donations at $5 or more will be allowed to pick the composition of my starting party (just include it as part of your donation comment!) D&D 3.5 is a ruleset with a lot of room for flexibility and customization, but it’s not exactly known for being “balanced.” If generous individuals wanted to give me a party of nothing but Gnome Monks, or a bunch of Wizards with evocation as a forbidden spell school, I could hardly help but say yes, for as short as that game would likely be. I even am using the Temple Plus mod, which adds a handful of additional 3.5 classes and subrace options, in case you really want to make me use a bad prestige class, or go wild and make those monks Svirfneblin with that oh-so-delightful +3 level adjustment, which is definitely a mechanic that is both fair and “makes sense.” I’ve listed the “legal” races and classes at the bottom in case you need reference.

So what happens if I die?

To be frank, poop can hit the fan pretty hard in ToEE, especially early in the game when an unwary crit can spell instant death. If a character dies early enough in a playthrough, they’ll be replaced by the next donation character in-line (once we get further in, I’ll have to pay good money to bring them back from the dead.) If I suffer a TPK, which is also entirely possible in these opening hours, I have to start over again which means more opportunities to make my life miserable. Don’t worry if you’re not one of the first 6 donations. As long as donations keep coming in, I will be obligated to keep making parties and recruiting new characters.

Escape Clause:

That said, if we start to hit one too many restarts or death spirals, I reserve the right to switch over to another game (probably Wizardry 8, which offers a *similar* chance of ironman TPKs ) This probably won’t happen, but I’ll just put that out there in case my luck gets really rotten. Unlike some of the other people doing this, my tolerance for self-inflicted torture only goes so far.

Stretch Goals:

Consider these bonus incentives (subject to change or expand as circumstances permit) that make things that much better for everyone involved.

$100 - I will be allowed to bring along NPC hirelings! Will that help save me? Maybe not!

$150 - Goal met! I will be forced to do at least one of the elemental nodes before considering the game “beaten.” It will not be the Fire Node.

$200 - I will read excerpts from the original Temple of Elemental Evil module, if only to really emphasize how much of a mess this iconic adventure is as written.

$250 - I read excerpts from the first edition AD&D Player’s Handbook, specifically the weird parts. If you want more of that sweet sweet Gygaxian prose and antiquated game design, this is the goal for you!

$300 - OVERTIME: I’ll go another hour or two with a special BONUS game! Will it be Muv-Luv or Menzoberranzan? Bayonetta or Berwick Saga? Heroes of Might and Magic or Half-Life? You’ll just have to stick around to find out?! (in the event I’m unable to make it work on Sunday, I’ll do my additional time sometime the following week)

$500 - For Five Hundred US Dollars raised for charity, I will spin the Wheel of Dubious RPGs and play the selected game on stream for your entertainment. The full list will be a surprise until we get there, and not all of it is total garbage, but you can expect some real “classics” and eurojank dredged up from the bottom of my Steam and GOG accounts. Also, Dragon Age II, probably. This supersedes whatever else I’m doing, and if we run out of time you can expect similar “make up” streams over the course of the following week.

I hope you’ll join me, to help raise money to make our current weird nightmare reality slightly less nightmarish! Once again, my page is here. If you jump in now, you could be one of the first 6 people!

D&D Races available thanks to Temple Plus

  • Human

    • Aasimar

    • Tiefling

  • Dwarf

    • Duergar

    • Gold Dwarf

  • Elf

    • Drow

    • Aquatic Elf

    • Grey Elf

    • Wood Elf

    • Wild Elf

  • Half-Elf

  • Half-Orc

  • Gnome

    • Svirfneblin

  • Halfling

    • Tallfellow

    • Strongheart

    • Ghostwise

Classes (Classes marked with * are non-core classes. Marked with ** are Prestige Classes.)

Barbarian

Bard

Cleric

Druid

Fighter

Monk

Paladin

Ranger

Rogue

Sorcerer

Wizard

*Favored Soul

*Scout

*Beguiler

*Warmage

**Arcane Archer

**Arcane Trickster

**Assassin

**Blackguard

**Dwarven Defender

**Duelist

**Eldritch Knight

**Mystic Theurge

3 Comments