The Temple of Elemental Evil is a 2003 role-playing video game by Troika Games. It is a remake of the classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure The Temple of Elemental Evil using the 3.5 edition rules. This is the only computer role-playing game to take place in the Greyhawk campaign setting, and the first video game to implement the 3.5 edition rule set. The game was published by Atari, who then held the interactive rights of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise.
The Temple of Elemental Evil was released in autumn of 2003 and was criticized for stability issues and other bugs. The turn-based tactical combat, however, was generally thought to be implemented well, and is arguably the most faithful representation of the then-current tabletop role-playing game ("3.5e") rules in a video game.
Gameplay
The game focuses on a party of up to five player-controlled characters. These characters can be created by the player or can be one of the pre-made characters that come with the game. All, however, must be within one step of a party alignment. Any player-made characters are created in a 13-step process; there is, however, an option to let the game deal with most aspects of character creation for the player. At any time, the party can have up to three NPC followers, and all player characters can have a familiar and/or animal companion as allowed by class.
All characters have a screen that shows information pertaining to them. Five tabs—inventory, skills, feats, spells, and abilities—allow the player to manage equipment, change spell configurations, and compare character attributes. This screen also appears when the party is bartering with an NPC or looting a body, but clicking out of the inventory tab will eject the player from the interaction. Additionally, small portraits of the characters appear on the bottom of the screen, along with a small red bar showing remaining health and icons depicting any status conditions, such as level drain, blessings, or paralysis.
The characters are controlled via radial menus. After selecting a character, the player right clicks to open a circular menu. From there, hovering over wedges brings out more options, such as specific spells, actions, or inventory items. The main radial menu, which encircles a picture of the character selected, has up to six sections, the number being based on class abilities. Specific actions are color-coded based on the type of action they are.
Characters can use their skills throughout the game by selecting them on the radial menu. To pick another character's pocket, the player would select a character with the Sleight of Hand skill, left-click on the skill from the radial menu, and left click on the victim. Dialog skills, such as Intimidate and Gather Information, appear as options in dialog with an icon denoting the skill being used. Skills are increased every level at a rate derived from the character's class and Intelligence.
Combat is turn-based, with characters going individually based on their initiative. Each character can make five types of actions: free, no, full-round, move, and standard. Characters can take a move action and a standard action each turn. Full-round actions count as a use of both actions. Free actions take a negligible amount of time to perform, so they count as neither actions. No actions also count for neither actions, but they require special circumstances in order to be performed. Characters can choose special attacks to perform or spells to cast, and they can also choose to attack or cast in specific ways. Defensive casting and fighting, dealing non-lethal damage, tripping an opponent, and coup de graces are examples of particular actions in combat. Characters have a set yet semi-random number of hit points based on their level, class, and Constitution score. Upon being reduced to zero hit points, a character is staggered, and a full round action will cost him or her one hit point. A creature with hit points between −1 and −9 is unconscious, and loses one hit point a round. The character has a 10% chance of stabilizing, which will stop the loss of hit points but will keep the character unconscious. Other characters can stop this loss of life through a successful heal check. If a character or creature reaches −10 hit points, it dies.