ToEE Part One Rares: Have You Seen These Monsters?

[PurpleSerpent]

I'm currently working on improving the wiki's pages on the Update 56 ToEE quests, which are missing a bit of information on which of the old rare encounters still spawn there. I had a list of mobs I thought had been removed, but my confidence in that was rather shaken this afternoon when I ran into Wergil in First Level and Earth Temple.

To save me a bit of trouble, before I get started running those quests over and over, can anyone remember seeing any of these in either of the Part One quests since the Temple was overhauled in Update 56?

Alazorun the Djinn (or even his lamp)
Anscolm the Fervid
Bladebreaker
S'Kara
Vigilant Sword
Wadsworth
Xirma Vo

While I'm at it, has anyone seen Supreme Commander Hedrack in Depths of the Temple?

(I'm also almost certain that Cragmore the Adamant no longer spawns in the Earth Node, but I might as well ask about him as well.)

 

[someonesname]

i have not seen any of them, having not ran it recently, but commenting so this goes to top, to assist with keeping the wiki up to date!

Thanks for yours and others hard work on said wiki!

 

[erethizon1]

I need to start flower sniffing these quests. I have just been running to objectives and skipping most of the content, so I'm not sure what is found these days.

 

[kmoustakas]

I'm currently working on improving the wiki's pages on the Update 56 ToEE quests, which are missing a bit of information on which of the old rare encounters still spawn there. I had a list of mobs I thought had been removed, but my confidence in that was rather shaken this afternoon when I ran into Wergil in First Level and Earth Temple.

To save me a bit of trouble, before I get started running those quests over and over, can anyone remember seeing any of these in either of the Part One quests since the Temple was overhauled in Update 56?

Alazorun the Djinn (or even his lamp)
Anscolm the Fervid
Bladebreaker
S'Kara
Vigilant Sword
Wadsworth
Xirma Vo

While I'm at it, has anyone seen Supreme Commander Hedrack in Depths of the Temple?

(I'm also almost certain that Cragmore the Adamant no longer spawns in the Earth Node, but I might as well ask about him as well.)

Actually I haven't seen any of those and I run those a lot. Since the changes.

I do see the ogre magi a lot and the spiders (but not the frogkeeper although I have seen him). I do see the magma brute in part2.

 

[radule]

I've just finished both part 1 quests - I fullcleared everything since I wanted to help with this thread. I haven't seen any of the rares you've listed as missing.

 

[The Narc]

I've just finished both part 1 quests - I fullcleared everything since I wanted to help with this thread. I haven't seen any of the rares you've listed as missing.

This might be what broke Dandonk’s monster manual, they are listed in his monster manual but no longer exist in game. Hence broken monster manual.

 

[The_Apocalypse]

They prolly still exist, but are just "rare"...

 

[PurpleSerpent]

They prolly still exist, but are just "rare"...

I'm honestly not sure. I've run both part 1 quests a minimum of 10 times on various difficulties now and never seen rare encounters I used to run into all the time (I nearly always ran into S'Kara somewhere on the first level), and yet I've run into rares like Garkoth and Kirmudy nearly every time. Unfortunately this is one of those situations where it's really hard to prove a negative.

Also I'm almost completely sure Cragmore the Adamant is gone, since I've run Earth Node at least 25 times, which lends credence to the idea that some of the Part One rares have been cut.

 

[The_Apocalypse]

Yup. "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence."

 

[saekee]

I have run into a lone guy in the Depths a few time but I cannot recall if it was Hedrack or the other one that is a bit like him (Senshock).

 

[PurpleSerpent]

I have run into a lone guy in the Depths a few time but I cannot recall if it was Hedrack or the other one that is a bit like him (Senshock).

If it's a lone boss I suspect that's Senshock - not totally sure on this but I seem to remember Hedrack had backup. Thanks for the information though!

 

[J-2]

Part 1 is actually a quest I like to run a lot. I have easily ran this quest over a hundred times, including maybe ten times since the change. Some of my observations below. Note that I usually deep scrub the place for the kill count. I usually d-door back to beginning when respawn occurs.

I know for sure I have seen Garkoth and Kirmudy. They appear quite regularly. Additionally, I have seen the Vorka the Frogkeeper and the Ogre Mage and Ogre Leader red named. Numerous times they've not spawned initially but only appeared from the respawn.

I want to say that I've enountered Rasskar the Bandit since the change. That memory is a bit fuzzy though. I think he was in one of the rooms off of the twin hallways furthest south on the upper level map. They are each a dead end hallway that lead only to two rooms.

A spider nest will always appear at a static location in lower temple on the initial spawn. You still get the chance for a second spider nest as one of the dynamic room fill selections for the respawn.

I cannot recall seeing Wergil the Bugbear, Spiritrunner the Minotaur. These represent the remaining red names. Skara and the others are no longer listed on the wiki. They may have been intentionally removed.

The respawn still occurs around 1 hour mark and can still spawn fresh red names. The rooms respawn will still only occur as long as the room contains no lingering remnant from the initial spawn [e.g. chest, breakable remnants, shrine).

There is a room with (3) clerics that have gone dormant. There are (2) previous secret doors that no longer work. Umber hulks seem to just stand there and let you kill them.

Overall, the new version was supremely disappointing for me. The rewards got a bit better than they used to be, so there's that but the feel of the quest was not improved. It's just not as fun to play as it used to be.

 

[kmoustakas]

Part 1 is actually a quest I like to run a lot. I have easily ran this quest over a hundred times, including maybe ten times since the change. Some of my observations below. Note that I usually deep scrub the place for the kill count. I usually d-door back to beginning when respawn occurs.

I know for sure I have seen Garkoth and Kirmudy. They appear quite regularly. Additionally, I have seen the Vorka the Frogkeeper and the Ogre Mage and Ogre Leader red named. Numerous times they've not spawned initially but only appeared from the respawn.

I want to say that I've enountered Rasskar the Bandit since the change. That memory is a bit fuzzy though. I think he was in one of the rooms off of the twin hallways furthest south on the upper level map. They are each a dead end hallway that lead only to two rooms.

A spider nest will always appear at a static location in lower temple on the initial spawn. You still get the chance for a second spider nest as one of the dynamic room fill selections for the respawn.

I cannot recall seeing Wergil the Bugbear, Spiritrunner the Minotaur. These represent the remaining red names. Skara and the others are no longer listed on the wiki. They may have been intentionally removed.

The respawn still occurs around 1 hour mark and can still spawn fresh red names. The rooms respawn will still only occur as long as the room contains no lingering remnant from the initial spawn [e.g. chest, breakable remnants, shrine).

There is a room with (3) clerics that have gone dormant. There are (2) previous secret doors that no longer work. Umber hulks seem to just stand there and let you kill them.

Overall, the new version was supremely disappointing for me. The rewards got a bit better than they used to be, so there's that but the feel of the quest was not improved. It's just not as fun to play as it used to be.

I have definatelly seen spiritrunner the minotaur so he does spawn.

 

[PurpleSerpent]

I cannot recall seeing Wergil the Bugbear, Spiritrunner the Minotaur. These represent the remaining red names. Skara and the others are no longer listed on the wiki. They may have been intentionally removed.

Yes; this was by me. The pages for those monsters still exist but are marked as historical. This means that if somebody writes in and says "I've definitely seen X" I can put it back on the list pretty easily.

(Thanks for the information on the respawn - I might go and give this a try.)

 

[Ghop15]

I cannot recall seeing Wergil the Bugbear, Spiritrunner the Minotaur. These represent the remaining red names. Skara and the others are no longer listed on the wiki. They may have been intentionally removed.

Just ran these quests. I ran into Spiritrunner the Minotaur, the Lich rare, the troglodyte rare, and the Ogre Magi rare. I remember when running the quest last year I ran into the Bugbear rare. I also ran into the frog guy and the spider nests last year.

 

[Mindos]

Overall, the new version was supremely disappointing for me. The rewards got a bit better than they used to be, so there's that but the feel of the quest was not improved. It's just not as fun to play as it used to be.

They took something unique and made it not so.

 

[kmoustakas]

They took something unique and made it not so.

I think the whole overhaul was a waste of developer time and resources. It could have been better spent elsewhere. You can tell each node was done by a different person because each elemental altar at the end looks different and has the chest spawn in a different place. One shrine has a cool graphic on the altar, another shrine has the chest spawn ontop of the altar with no graphic etc.

Some people liked the old version and the old items. Some people like the new version and the new items. I don't understand why we couldn't actually have kept both? I never managed to get my stinkhorn even though I run through every life ;(

I personally always will argue that TOEE should have been what thunderholme is. A vast raid slayer area with journals as explorers, 20-30 rares, a 15000 slayer count all serving as flagging for a raid zuggy fight.

 

[Ghop15]

I think the whole overhaul was a waste of developer time and resources. It could have been better spent elsewhere. You can tell each node was done by a different person because each elemental altar at the end looks different and has the chest spawn in a different place. One shrine has a cool graphic on the altar, another shrine has the chest spawn ontop of the altar with no graphic etc.

Some people liked the old version and the old items. Some people like the new version and the new items. I don't understand why we couldn't actually have kept both? I never managed to get my stinkhorn even though I run through every life ;(

I personally always will argue that TOEE should have been what thunderholme is. A vast raid slayer area with journals as explorers, 20-30 rares, a 15000 slayer count all serving as flagging for a raid zuggy fight.

I really like the new version to be honest. I never ran the quests before the overhaul because it was just to damn long and exhausting. Now they grant me more favor, reaper xp, etc.

 

[Jack Jarvis Esquire]

Yes, they were handing out those Mystical Bands like they were going out of fashion... ??

 

[PurpleSerpent]

I personally always will argue that TOEE should have been what thunderholme is. A vast raid slayer area with journals as explorers, 20-30 rares, a 15000 slayer count all serving as flagging for a raid zuggy fight.

I think the issue here is that while Thunderholme had never had an "official" dungeon representation (there was a short section on its history back in a 1998 sourcebook on the Cult of the Dragon), and therefore SSG had free reign to come up with their own interpretation, Temple of Elemental Evil is an adaptation of a very popular classic dungeon, and therefore, at least when it was created, taking any liberties with the material they were adapting would lead to a lot of complaining. (As it was a few diehard fans still complained that SSG had left the village of Hommlet out, even though that section of the adventure is basically just an extended quest hook with one or two fights with generic bandits thrown in and would have added months to the pack's development time.)

There are similar issues with the Against the Slave Lords chain, like the section in the second quest with all the fake traps that just feels weird given that the trick simply doesn't work in a visual medium. (Especially not the stuffed bear on rails, with a clearly human voice saying the word "roar" on repeat every two seconds.)

As time has gone on the quest design team have got noticeably more confident in making adjustments to the source material when it suits the game (best evidenced, I think, by Saltmarsh and Isle of Dread, which mix officially written dungeons with SSG-designed locations and pull it off pretty well.)