Every time I go to the moathouse I get owned by enemies. I'm finding the difficulty level of this game to be crazy compared to games like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, NWN, etc. I suspect that there is something I'm just not getting, and maybe an "ah-ha!" moment is all that I need, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. It's really frustrating. Anyone have suggestions?

Not sure if this is applicable to your situation, but:
The game sucks while you're level 1.
Seriously. After that, you can use your brain and the skills of your characters to maximum effect, but at level one, it's all way too random. On my next playthrough I'll be cheating my characters to 2 at the very beginning.

Long ago in the days of yore, computer RPGs were not an exercise in patting oneself on the back for consumption of spoon-fed content that was designed to be bested by a 4 year old.

In those glorious days real effort was required to make progress. The unfortunate side effect being that the very early levels were a darwinian death trap. No "tutorial" areas, no "free levels" and no hand-holding. TOEE was an effort to bring back those times and maybe it did a little too good of a job on that front.

If I had a nickel for every Bard's Tale, Wizardry and Wasteland party that was TPKed minutes after creation, I'd probably have enough money to buy a really nice jacket or a bicycle. That's a lot of nickels these days.

Of course back then people would take polaroids of the end game screens to brag to their friends that they beat the game. Nowadays NOT beating a game is a sign of mental handicap. <sigh>

One of the really game-changing advices I could give you is: Make a custom party of 5 characters (No pregenerated characters. Those tend to have really low stats),

Have a party consisting of 1 warrior type for tanking (Rangers, paladins, fighters, or even clerics with high stats on Constitution and Strenght), Have one cleric for tanking and healing, One sorcerer with Ray of Enfeeblement as a first level spell and Mage armor, One druid for summoning (Remember to have him get Augmented summoning as a feat as early as you can.), and a rogue for trap disarming, lock opening and as an archer. And, if you can, have a main character with high charisma and high diplomacy skills to do the talking for your party. The ideal number of party members to have in your party is 5. More than that could spread out too much of the xp you gain and less than 5 could make your party less dynamic.

Also, don't ever have an NPC join your party. They usually take alot of loot from you and have crappy stats.

And, as a final advice, don't head into the moathouse until you atleast reach level 2. Be sure to make as many quests as you can from Hommlet so you can reach level 2 and possibly reach level 3.

Also, having improved initiative as a feat for all of your party members can be a blessing for most of the encounters.

Well, to sume it up, how easy or how hard the game will be depends on how well chosen your party is.

Have you installed the circle of eight mod? That gives you a shop you can use at the start (pretty sure thats not in the vanilla game) to equip your party rather than having generic equipment.

You should also be able to get to level 2 in hommlet by doing the various social quests, solving the farming brothers feud, religious conversion for the lovers, setting one farmer up with the woman across the road, finishing whatever intro quest you have (in my case the neutral good one was going to the church to report a death), there's a handful of others but after a fight or 2 and those quests, I was level 2 and am finding the moathouse a fair bit easier

Apart from the giant spider in the gatehouse (worth it for the safe rest spot though) and the giant python not far into the keep.

Probably the biggest adjustment for me was the combat system and getting used to the idea of half an full round actions but its nice and tactical once you get used to it

I second the "reach level 2!" posts ;)

In the D&D System characters are extremely weak on level 1, regardless of class. By doing the available quests in Hommlet you should easily be able to reach level 2.

Unfortunately the horrendous questlog doesn't make questing much fun in ToEE but the well thought out combat system more than makes up for the slow beginning.

Do all the stupid fetch quests in Hommet. That's enough to get your party to level 2. At that point, the game becomes somewhat more manageable. Sure, it's still goddamn hard, occasionally unfairly so, but you won't lose anyone in a single fluke hit.

Yes, or alternatively: visit Welkwood Bog if you are using the Co8-mod. It's a low-level area, created for gamers who got bored with the Hommlet quests and just want to smack their way up a level. You need to visit the smith and/or Renton.

As others said, try to get to level 2 before heading to the moathouse, either through Hommlet fetch quests, patrolling roads for easy random encounters or Welkwood Bog.

Another thing that can help a lot is to hire henchmen. Elmo is an especially good choice, and you should have the required 200 gp from the start.

Awesome, thanks for the tips everyone. I did some of the initial quests in Hommlet, but not enough to get to level 2. I'll have to revisit those.

For me, creating a 6th character (via the Co8 modpack) made a HUGE difference in the early game difficulty level. Having an extra fighter on the frontline dealing and tanking damage let me clear the moathouse MUCH easier. Alternatively, you can hire Elmo, but I prefer creating my own party members.

Also, I'd strongly recommend having one of your frontliners specialize in using glaives. They do solid damage, and they have a massive range, which results in a ton of attacks of opportunity.

Here are a couple of tips when dealing with the moathouse: (Warning, minor spoliers below)

1. In Hommlet, do these two things at the very least:
a. Hire Elmo. He's worth every copper.
b. Head to Brother Smyth and improve the armor of your fighter types. Even if you just upgrade to scale armor and a large shield, it will make a difference. There's no use just hanging on to gold. Dead characters can't spend it.

2. If you have a wizard, load up on the sleep spells. They are extremely useful in fights against humanoid hordes such as the bandits, gnolls, and bugbears. When a fight starts, taking out even just two of the opponents with a sleep will make it that much easier.

3. Like wizard sleep spells, a cleric's turning ability can save you a lot of heartache. When you hit a horde of zombies or ghouls, the first thing your cleric should do is turn the undead. Again, even if ony two or three enemies in the horde are affected, it will make a world of difference.

4. Use doorways to your advantage. While some encounters in the moathouse will force you to fight in the open, there are some where a doorway offers a natural choke point. In these encounters, position Elmo (you hired him, right?!) and your other tanks just outside the doorway, where they can tear into the oncoming opponents as they chage senselessly forward. Keep your missile fighters (rogues, rangers, even wizards) lined behind your tanks and firing safely through the doorway. As the enemies fall through attrition, the tanks can slowly advance into the open area, followed by your missle fighters. Make sure your cleric is close behind the fighters to administer timely cure spells.

5. Take the moathouse one level at a time. It's just common sense. Even if you've done nothing else in the game, your characters should be able to get to level two by clearing out the frogs, bandits, large spide, viper, tick, and lizard in the upper level. When that's done, head back to the village and cash in your loot to afford some more upgrades, rest to heal up at the inn, etc. Once back in top shape, go back to the moathouse, take on what you can in the dungeon levels and repeat. There is no bonus for trying to run the gauntlet in one swoop.

None of the above guarantees success. But I've used these tactics and have not had to ponce around with village quests in order to level up first.

The spirit of this post is mostly right, but the math is wrong. The CR of a monster defeated is cross-referenced with average party level, and XP rewards are given out based on that, yes, but the proportions are different than as explained. In theory, two creatures with the same CR (or overall "level") would beat each other nearly to death one on one, but a party of 4-5 characters of X level facing a single creature with CR X would only expend 20%-25% its resources and suffer 20%-25% losses.

Also, and this really only makes sense if you can view the XP chart that these numbers are being cross-referenced on, but the orc example above isn't quite right. The function suggested in the tabletop game is to add +2 to the encounter CR for every pair of monsters with a similar CR, and add together any remainder, NOT to just add 1 for every creature. So, with 3 orcs that are CR 1, you get CR 3 + CR 1, not necessarily CR 4. For a 1st level party, the XP reward for CR 4 is 1350, whereas the reward for CR 3 + CR 1 is only 1200. So, if you had 5 of those CR 1 orcs, it would be (CR 1 + CR 1 = CR 3) x2 + CR 1; (CR 3 + CR 3 = CR 5) + CR 1; CR 5 + CR 1 (total XP 2100 for a 1st lv party), not CR 6 (total XP 2700 for 1st lv party).

If you don't get it, don't worry. CR information probably doesn't help anyone playing ToEE, except to encourage you to enter deadly encounters early on in hopes of a greater XP reward (or more likely, die), and to dissuade higher-level characters from wasting time with low CR grunts (something that shouldn't be an issue in ToEE anyway as there is always a difficult challenge around the next bend). I just wanted to correct the meta-math in case anyone was using it somehow, which you would need the book's XP chart to do anyway.