Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Jo498]

The best buff spells before Enlarge becomes effective are probably Prayer and Bless (and they apparently stack) and maybe another protection from evil. These all improve saving throws, I think, so better resistance against hold/charm, poison and breath weapons.

Strength is fairly useless, unless you are playing with rather weak fighters. (The improvement from an 18(60) or 18(80) fighter to 00 is usually not worth the slot in favor of Stinking Cloud which is one of the best spells, I think. Except some critters with high resistance against everything almost everyone will have worse AC and not be able to cast spells in the cloud and nausea (i.e. helpless for a few rounds) is quite likely for monsters with lots of HP and damage potential (like all kinds of giants and dragons).

 

[DavidBVal]

Elminster can also train clerics, fighters, and thieves; later writeups of him gave him a few levels in all the major classes but still not enough to train 39th level clerics. Elminster himself was only a 26th level mage in 1st edition Forgotten Realms, which means even he can't train party mages.

My opinion is that Pools of Darkness is a great game and a pretty good D&D adaptation. DQK is a pretty good game and a pretty good adaptation. The designers couldn't do anything about the fact D&D, particularly 1st ed, breaks down at high levels.

In fact, in 1st ed, once you hit 18th level the gods were supposed to kick you out of Krynn. Guess that would have been a lot less fun for the players though, as you would have only had 4 levels to go after Death Knights of Krynn ended. I think the only trace of this is Knights of the Crown and Sword capping out at 18th level.

A lot of the XP gains in DQoK (and to a lesser extent POD) is 'party gets experience'--I remember getting a few hundred thousand for agreeing to kill some dragons (not killing them, agreeing to) which strikes me as silly.

Basically, they took a gamist (make the game fun) at the expense of simulationist (copy a real game of D&D) approach. Dark Queen of Krynn has covens of 27th level wizards attacking you, and grunt forces in Thenol are 16th level fighters, which basically means they should have conquered the minotaurs and be sailing over the sea to sack Ansalon by now. Granted it makes a little more sense than sticking enough 8th-14th level characters to conquer all of the Forgotten Realms in the middle of a mine (or glacier), but not much. Pools of Darkness kind of had the excuse that only the strongest fighters and wizards would be running around in the post-apocalyptic Realms. But the grunt Zhentil Mages are 10th level or so, and Semmemmon (no. 3 after Manshoon and Fzoul) had only gotten to 12th by 1st ed.

I think one of the other things holding them back was that the standard high-end enemies, the demons and devils, were sort of being downplayed due to the Satanic D&D Panic of the 80s. Bane's lieutenants are t'a'n'a'r'r'r'i, not 'demons'. They also probably didn't have enough left in 640K to program all the spell-like abilities in; Gothmenes should be able to toss uninterruptable fireballs at you (since they used 2nd ed stats for him) like a death knight in addition to swinging his vorpal longsword around.

Another thing (confirmed by a post on TSI's website) is that they were apparently constrained by IP rules at this point; I guess TSR got annoyed at them killing Lord Soth and Kitiara (more or less) in Death Knights of Krynn.

In short, they had the 640K limit, the brokenness of the rules at that level, and late-80s PC and TSR's legal department to deal with, and they still did a pretty good job.

Man... A book could be written about Gold Box only. I'd buy it.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The best buff spells before Enlarge becomes effective are probably Prayer and Bless (and they apparently stack) and maybe another protection from evil. These all improve saving throws, I think, so better resistance against hold/charm, poison and breath weapons.

Strength is fairly useless, unless you are playing with rather weak fighters. (The improvement from an 18(60) or 18(80) fighter to 00 is usually not worth the slot in favor of Stinking Cloud which is one of the best spells, I think. Except some critters with high resistance against everything almost everyone will have worse AC and not be able to cast spells in the cloud and nausea (i.e. helpless for a few rounds) is quite likely for monsters with lots of HP and damage potential (like all kinds of giants and dragons).

Bless and Prayer do stack but a priest has to concentrate to maintain Prayer and cannot thus attack or cast other spells. This restriction was later removed from it.

 

[Jo498]

This restriction was never in place in the goldbox computer games. Prayer can be cast pre-combat and the priest can do whatever s/he pleases during combat.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Are you sure? I could have sworn that the restriction was in place, at least in some of them.

 

[Jo498]

I am sure I never encountered that. Maybe in later games like Baldur's Gate? (I have only a superficial acquaintance with those.)
As we discussed already above, it is often not quite clear whether prayer only affects the caster when cast during combat. But if one casts pre-combat, "praying" or "protected/affected by prayer" is listed in the display screen of magical effects for the whole party and the priest is free to do all kinds of stuff during combat.

 

[Ruhfuss]

What you're referring to is basically the Tower of Flame, which is a multi-level dungeon where you get enough XP to level up several times over (complete with a small detour into hell). There is no way around this and you ought to level up your party before going. What's even more annoying is the gnome citadel, the dungeon before that, also doesn't allow you to go back, so you should be done grinding levels before going there.

Lousy game design IMHO

This. Which in return almost asks the player to be a lousy meta gamer and have the PCs take a quick DROP detour to train and later rejoin.

Also, from a power gamer perspective, they wasted white mages during DQK. White mages need more XP/level compared to red mages per the rules; IIRC in Kristophan (the minotaur city) there is a shop selling white and red mage scrolls with random spells, so random that a red mage can get all the white mage spells (and vice versa). Then you can have it all, the fast level progression of red robes with all the defensive goodies of white robes.

Btw, starting with DKK they added auto spell rememorisation. Which can conveniently be abused by memorizing while under a full moon.

 

[Jo498]

Interesting, can a red mage use the other color's scrolls or did they simply not take care that only red spells were on red scrolls?
Such design flaws are really a pity, otherwise DQoK could have been a better game. One of the things that gave the Krynn games a particular atmosphere were the red/white mages and the different clerics with extra spells or abilities. Although I never quite understood why white mages and good clerics advance more slowly.

I don't think I am obsessive about stuff like that but I remember that I found it ridiculous to have the character names "purple" for the last quarter or so of the game without a chance to train and advance. How would one work around this with dropping/re-joining characters?

 

[Ruhfuss]

Interesting, can a red mage use the other color's scrolls or did they simply not take care that only red spells were on red scrolls?

The latter.

Although I never quite understood why white mages and good clerics advance more slowly.

Light side of the force?

I don't think I am obsessive about stuff like that but I remember that I found it ridiculous to have the character names "purple" for the last quarter or so of the game without a chance to train and advance. How would one work around this with dropping/re-joining characters?

Remove (sorry, not DROP, that deletes) purple PCs from the active game, with at least one PC remaining in the party. Always update the PC files when asked. Start a new game, adding the respective PCs, and let them train in Palanthas (or use any other save game where the party is in a hall of training). Then remove the trained PCs (updating files) , re-add them in the regular save. Repeat as necessary.

The cheesy answer to sloppy level design, I guess. Didn't do it myself when I went through DQK, the thought only came afterwards that one might go that way, if one cares enough. For some reason, I never enjoyed DQK as much as some other Gold Box games, and remember just rushing though the later parts of the game just to be done with it.

 

[Jo498]

I do not remember enough about DQK, other than mild disappointment, but it's been a very long time I played it and maybe I played it only once (around 96, maybe another time in the early 2000s but I don't remember). The story and setting are among the poorest and least immersive, I think, the battles hard in frustrating ways. Many battles basically depended on whether one could hurt one of those pre-buffed black mages before they hurled DBFireballs.
Such design flaws as neglecting to keep the scrolls different or forgetting a trainer for the endgame fit with the impression of a last squeeze of the engine. But graphics and sound are among the best of the series...

 

[octavius]

DQK was the best. Had a steady, hard level of difficulty, and some excellent dungeons like Hawkbluff and the tower near the end.
Story/setting was meh, but then those things are not that important in a combat focused game.

 

[Jo498]

So what is the difference between the invisibility effected by the "dust of disappearance" and the normal spell? In the final battle of Curse I used the dust and it was ridiculously easy with hasted and enlarged characters, one could even forego haste. Whereas in my first try T was the first active and threw lightning upon my mage (who had not moved or done anything) despite invisibility 10 ft., mirror image and minor globe. Or maybe he targetted the character standing before the mage, but shouldn't inv 10 ft. protect the whole party before anyone moves?
Therefore I gave up this try after my priest got held and went down because I was not at full health and quite out of spells anyway. Then I used the dust because I did not feel like going back to an earlier save before the final temple so I'd be able to leave myth drannor, rest and than go straight for the final temple to waste no spells etc.

So can T see invisible things but not target things made invisible by the dust? I mean there has to be some game mechanic for the dust, the display screen only gives "invisible" after using the dust.

Also: Is there a girdle of giant strength in that game? Where?

 

[octavius]

The Dust is a specialty item. I thought it was just Invisibilty 10' myself, and never bothered with it myself. But from what I've heard the invisibility is not negated when acting, and enemies can't even attack in melee.

Regular invisibility is supposed to make you untargetable until you attack or cast a spell.
In FRUA the Ring of Invisibility makes you immune to opportunity attack unless enemies can Seee Invisible, but the wearer can still be targeted by spells or missiles. May be a bug in FRUA only.

I don't think there is a Girdle in CoA.

 

[Jo498]

I am not sure if I feel like playing around with different options in that battle and recording what which enemies can do but it would be interesting. T can very probably see invisible things but if he cannot target any character the AI is not smart enough to target an empty tile next to a character to hit him anyway with the bolt.
Invisibility 10 ft. might be centered around the caster. I remember that in one of the tougher Savage frontier fights (beholder+ yetis or so) some characters could be targeted before acting because they apparently were too far away.
So the dust is at least "mass invisibility" but it seems even better than that. The dust invisibility is not completely negated after acting but probably only melee attacks without targeting are possible. I think a priest aborted a spell when I was protected by the dust (presumeably because he could not target anyone).

I think it's also the first time I used the dust but I simply do not remember. I am pretty sure I played Curse at least twice and did not really remember the final battle.

Myth Drannor is a drag.
Overall, this is one of the harder games in the series (much harder than Death Knights, I think), even discounting the infamous Beholder Corps (I have a savegame before that one but not tried it yet - I think I completely missed this portion in earlier attempts. I probably just went up the tower, killed the cleric and went home...). Almost no automapping in the dungeons which I usually cheated by looking at maps from the web... I am hopeless at and too lazy for mapping, although I must have done it in several games in the 1990s before I could look up stuff on the web... the biggest effort I remember (but we never finished that game) was Wizardry: Bane of the cosmic forge. And rather tough opponents for a "typical" party. The fire knives was too easy with 4 imported Pools characters (about 2 lvls higher than newly created ones which really matters for e.g. fireballs) but Hap/Dracandros wasn't. I did the other two in the wrong order (Hap - Zhentil Keep - Yulash), so Yulash felt much easier than it should have. I remember that I barely escaped or had to replay this one in former times because one is ambushed by a "last ditch" effort of the cultists long after the actual two stage "boss fight".

Still, I am not too fond of the "random" additional dungeons instead of real sidequests. (It makes sense that getting rid of the bonds does not leave any leisure for real sidequests but if those additional dungeons are there anyway why not make some of them into real side quests. I think only one or two (with the maiden to be rescued) qualify as more than an XP grindmill.)
Neither of the "pseudo-outdoors" although it was probably a good way to add some flavor (encounters in wilderness or trail, pirates when taking a boat) without a real big outdoors like PoR. Although PoR does feel as big/long for me, so I wonder why they had to save memory space in "Curse".

 

[Null Null]

1. You need the Dust of Disappearance to defeat the Mulmaster Beholder Corps. This is pretty much the only way to defeat the MBC without abusing 1980s-era pathfinding. (You can also hide behind the wall and wait for the battle to end.) When you use the Dust, the Beholders will not be able to launch attacks on you, and you can destroy them at leisure. The Priests and Rakshasas will also not be able to launch spells on you, so you can drop fireballs enough to destroy the High Priests and weaken the Drow Lords. Defeating the MBC is recommended for completists and for game tourists (it's one of the unique parts of Curse of the Azure Bonds).

You can do Yulash before Hap, but Zhentil Keep should always be done last, IMHO. Don't do what the CRPG Addict did and try to do Zhentil Keep first.

There is, in fact, a Girdle in Curse of the Azure Bonds, it's in the dying man's treasure in Myth Drannor. It's actually the most powerful Girdle in the series, as it gives you 24 strength instead of 23 like the others.

Dust of Disappearance allows you to attack and remain invisible--that's why it's useful for beating the MBC.

 

[Jo498]

Thanks, I met the dying man but could not find his treasure despite checking several rooms to the northeast. Probably one has to search or I missed the proper room.
Of course to be at one's best one should get the girdle, than leave Myth drannor and do the Beholder Corps. My mages "enlarge" yields "only" 22 (it goes up to 23 with higher lvl casters) and the blessed bolts will also be nice to take out the rakshasas. (There are so few rakshasas in Myth Drannor that the bolts are not that necessary. As I played PoD long before Curse with beefed up ca. 100-140 HP rakshasas or so, I found them not that bad in Curse, especially because there is usually only one together with some hellhounds.)
btw I think that there is a girdle in Champions of Krynn that gives only 21 or 22 strength.

I am still puzzled why normal invisibility apparently did not help a lot in my first try with the end fight against T. T took out (not dead but almost) my mage as the first action of the battle by throwing lightning and hitting despite invisibility, mirror image and minor globe. (Not sure whether it is a bug or a feature that the globe apparently only protects against the *spell* lightning bolt not other lightning)

I found Zhentil not too hard going there after Hap and some random encounters/side dungeons. For some reason I remembered the Pit of Moander as worst, so I went to Zhentil first. But again, 4 of my characters were about 2 lvls higher than "fresh" ones would have been (whereas CRPG addict did dual classing with one or two of his imported characters, so they were probably still weaker)
The puzzling thing is that I do not remember (but maybe I just overlooked it) that the "helm of dragons" was even mentioned when I killed Dracandros... It's only that priest in ZK who tells about these items and their necessity of defeating T. Some comments/walktrhus seem to indicate that one can fail in the end if one has not all three items but I think that this is impossible because

BTW what do the "gloves of thievery" do? apparently they do not raise DEX (like gauntlets of dexterity). There are so few traps that I would not know how to test it...

 

[octavius]

I am still puzzled why normal invisibility apparently did not help a lot in my first try with the end fight against T.

He's a demigod or demon, so it's quite natural he can see invisible. I would be more worried if those High Priests would be able to target you with Hold Person spells.

 

[Null Null]

Thanks, I met the dying man but could not find his treasure despite checking several rooms to the northeast. Probably one has to search or I missed the proper room.
Of course to be at one's best one should get the girdle, than leave Myth drannor and do the Beholder Corps. My mages "enlarge" yields "only" 22 (it goes up to 23 with higher lvl casters) and the blessed bolts will also be nice to take out the rakshasas. (There are so few rakshasas in Myth Drannor that the bolts are not that necessary. As I played PoD long before Curse with beefed up ca. 100-140 HP rakshasas or so, I found them not that bad in Curse, especially because there is usually only one together with some hellhounds.)
btw I think that there is a girdle in Champions of Krynn that gives only 21 or 22 strength.

I am still puzzled why normal invisibility apparently did not help a lot in my first try with the end fight against T. T took out (not dead but almost) my mage as the first action of the battle by throwing lightning and hitting despite invisibility, mirror image and minor globe. (Not sure whether it is a bug or a feature that the globe apparently only protects against the *spell* lightning bolt not other lightning)

I found Zhentil not too hard going there after Hap and some random encounters/side dungeons. For some reason I remembered the Pit of Moander as worst, so I went to Zhentil first. But again, 4 of my characters were about 2 lvls higher than "fresh" ones would have been (whereas CRPG addict did dual classing with one or two of his imported characters, so they were probably still weaker)
The puzzling thing is that I do not remember (but maybe I just overlooked it) that the "helm of dragons" was even mentioned when I killed Dracandros... It's only that priest in ZK who tells about these items and their necessity of defeating T. Some comments/walktrhus seem to indicate that one can fail in the end if one has not all three items but I think that this is impossible because

BTW what do the "gloves of thievery" do? apparently they do not raise DEX (like gauntlets of dexterity). There are so few traps that I would not know how to test it...

Go SEARCHing for the stuff in the northeast buildings. It's useful. The Girdle particularly. And if you like to cheat, the strength will carry through when you transfer to Secret (oops!).

It is funny to play the games in reverse order. Rakshasas are basically immune to magic in Curse as 8th level spells don't exist, but in Pools the Meteor Swarm spell gains a niche use against Rakshasas.

Yes, it's a feature, so to speak. Minor Globe protects against spells of up to third level--it isn't supposed to protect against dragon breath or storm giant lightning bolts, which are a monster ability (though the Storm Giants in Secret cast Lightning Bolt spells, and it does protect against that.)

Don't worry, you can't even enter Myth Drannor without having all three items, so it's impossible to face Tyranthraxus without having every story item you need to kill him.

Oh, did I forget to mention Curse doesn't actually have any undead code, so Dracoliches are vulnerable to Slay Living? Hah.

Girdles give 21 strength in Champions, 24 strength in Curse, and 23 strength in Pools and Dark Queen. In tabletop D&D, they're actually girdles of different varieties of giant strength--19 is hill giant, 20 is stone giant, and so on.

 

[Jo498]

Now I was curious and dloaded the DQoK journal. This is very badly edited. Apparently they just copied party recommendations from the earlier games on p.8. Because if the limits on p.49 are correct, dwarf or half-elf rangers would not make sense in that game and a kender cleric/thief would also reach the max as cleric quite soon. Even Elves have a cap as fighters (14, game goes up to lvl 29 or so) although not as rangers.

To be fair, the "sample party" that comes with Dark Queen does not contain dwarves or half-elves with early lvl caps, it has:
Knight
silv elf ranger/majere cleric
qual elf fighter/red mage
qual elf kiri-jolith cleric/white mage/fighter
silv elf mishakal cleric/white mage
kender kiri-jolith cleric/thief

The kender will cap as cleric fairly early in the game (starts at lvl 9 as cleric and cap is 12, he will also have fewer spells because WIS 16, but with 4 clerics in the party this will hardly matter) and the fighter/red mage will cap late? in the game as a fighter at lvl 14 (no big deal as he gets the second attack at lvl 13).
Except for the kender (and the triple character who has 14 STR but already gauntlets of 18(00)) this seems obviously a high lvl "power play" party. The Knight has absolute max HP (140), all the others have fairly high HP (the ranger 101 and the others between 73 and 85) and very high stats (although not all 18) and premium equipment. Also 4 clerics (and the Knight will eventually change classes and cast such spells) seems somewhat excessive.
The deities are smartly chosen with Kiri-Jolith giving a ThAC0 bonus, Mishakal the best for healing (and with the best bonus spells) and Majere the best for turning undead.
The downsides are that the characters will advance fairly slowly and the kender probably not all that useful in the long run (Yelling is great in Champions but useless later on).

 

[octavius]

The Kender Cleric/Thief will be very useful against Skeletal Warrior in Death Knights, since he will be able to backstab them with a magic Hoopak. But after that a multi-class Elf thief will be more useful.

 

[Jo498]

yes, I played Death Knights earlier this year as the first GoldBox game after many years before I discovered this forum and I fully agree. And 3 clerics are also good in Death Knights when facing so many undead.
But the kender will hit the cap for cleric rather early in DQoK. Unfortunately, I cannot remember if I played DQoK with a kender; it's been to long ago. I wonder if a thief is necessary there at all. The only monsters I remember were the undersea dragons and the enchanted draconians. The latter can probably be backstabbed but as all of them explode one really doesn't want to be so close.

 

[Null Null]

yes, I played Death Knights earlier this year as the first GoldBox game after many years before I discovered this forum and I fully agree. And 3 clerics are also good in Death Knights when facing so many undead.
But the kender will hit the cap for cleric rather early in DQoK. Unfortunately, I cannot remember if I played DQoK with a kender; it's been to long ago. I wonder if a thief is necessary there at all. The only monsters I remember were the undersea dragons and the enchanted draconians. The latter can probably be backstabbed but as all of them explode one really doesn't want to be so close.

There's a lever in the Tower of Flame (where you can't leave after you've arrived) that requires a thief to pull, without which you can't advance. I created a thief and swapped one in from the game-loading screen to get by it.

 

[Jo498]

Yeah. Suddenly, a thief teleported in by accident, pulled a lever, and teleported away again to be replaced by the regular party member.
So I probably also had a thief when I played that game for the first time almost 20 years ago because I do nor remember getting stuck there.

I now started a party with two imports from DKK (13 lvl Knight of the Sword and 12/12 cleric/white mage) and added silvanesti ranger/cleric, human white mage, dwarf fighter and qualinesti f/red mage/thief. It would have been better to have the pure mage already in DKK as she would have been higher lvl and I had to take the cleric/mage in favor of a triple character (a half-elf who had hit a cap already, I had not planned to keep playing when I made that party in summer) but I wanted to keep at least some characters of the old party. (Had to modify the new ones anyway, there is no way getting those high lvl mutliclass characters with good stats AND sufficient HP without re-rolling for ages. Interestingly, the game seems to recognize this as they put the modify option already in the character creation screen. In older games one had first to create and save a character and then modify in the add/create etc. screen.)

And this is apparently the only goldbox game with only premade character icons. As I remember it on the Amiga already champions offered some of those premade icons but one could also use the ones in the other GB games. I came to prefer to customized ones, crude as they are and it is somewhat annoying that there is no premade icon with a dragonlance-wielding warrior or knight...

 

[Jo498]

That undersea section is actually not that bad if one has a dragonlance... and Olin's staff from DKK (and I even left the boots of speed because I did not want to start with all goodies). For some reason the dragonesti also gave me very soon a second ring of free action.

When I played Dark Queen for the first time to my recollection that undersea section was an exasperating nightmare with frequent reloads.
I am pretty sure I did not have a dragonlance. Because while the sample party has several goodies from DKK (dragonlance, gauntlets, mace of disruption, no girdle of strength, though) if one creates a knight from scratch he has only a long sword +2 and I am pretty sure I did not think about checking the sample party for getting some of their goodies back then. I could not import anything from Death Knights as on Mac there was only the FG series and Dark Queen (I am not even sure the mac version had that same sample party).

 

[Jo498]

I think I'll take a break.
Apart from the graphics (which is probably the most beautiful in all GB games but which I find confusing in the cavern and the undersea region where I have sometimes trouble seeing the doors/archways) this is really one of the worse games.
That lighthouse must be among the most annoying dungeons I have encountered in the last months. Fighting about 100 spiders and bats that for some reason have the iniative is not challenging. It is extremely annoying and boring and it does not get better if no less than 3 such encounters are in the first lvl of that bloody lighthouse. The game is also stupid in giving me a lvl 12 mage who somehow has in all those lvls missed to learn lightning bolt and no opportunity so far to remedy this situation. Apparently only Treasures gave the option to pick the spells for higher lvl mages when creating the character. This would not have been necessary but lightning is really a basic spell she should have.