I assume that the initial weakness is to allow for the party to grow stronger during the 13 missions. This will likely provide for more investment into the characters as you have won hard-earned improvements after each mission. As some characters grow in power, I assume it will allow lower the wound management priority and allow for a dynamic play style. It will allow for more adventuring rather than having to move directly to the objective to arrive with HP to succeed. Not a problem though, the Ranger simply spent the money to level up the Berserker at the end of the game. The game went smoothly as we remembered most of the rules and only needed to look up the effects of stunned.

Dungeon Master for Dummies listed The Temple of Elemental Evil as one of the ten best classic adventures, calling it "the grandfather of all huge dungeon crawls". [6] Each player is to assume a single hero from the ones on offer. Each turn of the game is devoted to a single hero, and contains a Hero, an Exploration, and a Villain phase. Slain monsters reward the players with treasure, and experience points, allowing them to level up and increase their skills during play. Players must cooperate to stay alive, slay the monsters, and achieve the goal of their quest. Each scenario has a different goal, from retrieving a relic to slaying a large boss monster. The campaign itself also does a fine job of linking adventures into a narrative. Together with the campaign rules, playing through them one at a time builds a proper sense of camaraderie. It feels very much like a full-blooded role-playing game, with more strategy and less rules arguments.My initial thoughts were based upon the powers selected. There are ranged powers which negate these comments entirely. The sorcerer appears to be a slightly less effective Ranger in exchange for a wide area effect option.) The lead character is penalized for leading 1-2 hp monsters are killed before the leader gets a chance to fight. For those familiar with the Temple of Elemental Evil (ToEE) Board Game, I am wondering what your experience with it has been? Do you find it extremely difficult? I just got this game not long ago, but I've already played it quite a bit. I got ToEE because ... while I love the *idea* of the Castle Ravenloft Board Game (and I love the Gothic Horror theme) ... I found Castle Ravenloft so impossibly difficult that it just wasn't fun to play.

I like the miniatures on the board. They add a lot of fun. I wish the monsters moved a set number of spaces rather than tiles. That is weird.

Uethym wrote: A lot of the tiles spawn multiple monsters, more of the monsters have two wounds, and the average XP for each is greater. This had a huge effect on feel for our group. The old Ravenloft strategy of exploring as frantically as possible to avoid Encounter cards got us massacred here. We found it better to clear down to 1-2 monsters before advancing, and the increased XP from so many kills allowed us to cancel the harsher Encounter cards accrued from not exploring. It felt more like a regular dungeon crawl than a mad dash for the finish, while still keeping some time pressure. The rulebook itself is long, but the cards themselves have very clear text, so once you understand the mechanics of combat and movement, the actual gameplay is simple, although it’s time-consuming with multiple players. The miniatures themselves are a bother, as they’re hard to distinguish—you need an electron microscope to read the titles on the undersides of the figures’ bases—and take up a ton of space in the box; I’d have been happier with tokens for monsters instead of these figurines. While this is not really classic roleplaying, neither is it a classic board game. It takes elements of both and combines them with randomized elements to make a fantastic and fun hybrid which I think is a unique experience. And one major advantage it has over other games is that it can be played by a single player! After all, it can be hard to find a group of players where everyone can agree on a DM. In this game, the monsters and villains have pre-programmed instructions of how they behave under certain conditions. Just follow the instructions which fit the current state of the game. The weak points: I don't need to point out that this is a cooperative boardgame. The rules and the system do no support roleplaying at all.