Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[eXalted]

Ah, thanks. Enemies drop so much junk (Pool of Radiance), I'm leaving almost everithing behind me. I have the feeling that I will be swimming in gold anyway.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Ah, thanks. Enemies drop so much junk (Pool of Radiance), I'm leaving almost everithing behind me. I have the feeling that I will be swimming in gold anyway.

You have no idea. Pool of Radiance has a bug when it comes to calculating loot at the end of the game, and I ended up with 10648064 Gold Pieces and 61000 Jewelry. Sadly none of that carried over to Curse of the Azore Bonds.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

I am playing Pools of Darkness (PoD) for the first time (thanks to GoG). I have a few questions for the experts here.

1. I completed Treasures of the Savage Frontier and would like to transfer some of the items over to my newly created PoD party. How do I do this? Which file(s) do I have to copy over and where do I put it? Instructions on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. I get the part of how to strip the characters of the items once they are addable. I don't get how I load or copy the characters over.

2. I read a lot about how hard this game can be and how the final battle can be a real bitch so I made sure to consult a walkthrough before creating my party from scratch. Here's what I did (followed the walkthough completely):

- human paladin
- human cleric who I immediately dual classed to fighter
- human magic user who I immediately dual classed to ranger
- human cleric
- human magic user
- human fighter who I immediately dual classed to thief

Would this party be able to win the game or do I need to do some more dual classing?

I am considering dual classing the cleric to MU after he reaches 16th level. This would give him access to the highest cleric spell level. Is there a need for a super high level cleric? I figure the paladin can handle the turning of high level undead if I never dual class him. Is this a good idea? Is there any other dual classing I should do?


3. Just wanted to recount a really weird bug I ran into. I was in the Hill Giant Steading area and all of a sudden a random encounter was taking a long time to load. It seemed like the game was frozen and I thought I would have to close the program. Eventually it said something about not being to find a certain file (think it was referring to a graphic) and then the battle started. I thought I was in the clear (bugs wise) until I saw I was faced with 30+ Gothmenes, who I recognized as one of the 4 bosses. I tried one spell (didn't work), one of my guys got insta-beheaded when the vorpal sword went snicker-snack and then I just set all of the characters to "quick" to get it over with so I could reload. Luckily this did not occur again and I have had no further problems.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Just thought of another question. I was reading CRPG Addict's articles on PoD and a commenter mentioned that there is a way to keep Vala in your party for the entire game. He said it was a trick that amounted to an exploit. Does anyone know how to do this? I'll take her everywhere if it will make torturous random encounters easier to bear.

 

[eXalted]

I haven't played this game specifically but concerning Valla I found this on the FRUA forums:

Go to the Silver Blades cave and see Vala, but decline to have her join you. Then get the 4 items and go to the cave where the Vaasans are breaking in; Vala will join you. Decline to fight them, then go back to where they are trying to break in and decline again. You now have 2 Valas in the party. Leave the cave and one will leave, but you can have Vala all over the rest of the game.

 

[octavius]

2:
You need at least two mages to cast Delayed Blast Fireball. Also make sure they have Haste spells.
You don't need a thief for the final battle. In general there aren't many enemies to backstab in PoD.
Most effective characters are Ranger/Mages. They can use armour and cast spells. Also protective spells like Mirror Image and Fire Shield make a difference in the really hard fights. Fighter/Mages are also good if you can get some good Bracers (AC 4 or better) for them.

The final fights are hard, and the most important stat is Dex. You need high Dex to get initiative. Other stats are relatively irrelevant (except Int and Wis for Mages and Clerics respectively). Use the Enlarge spell to give your Fighter types 22-23 STR.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

I haven't played this game specifically but concerning Valla I found this on the FRUA forums:

Go to the Silver Blades cave and see Vala, but decline to have her join you. Then get the 4 items and go to the cave where the Vaasans are breaking in; Vala will join you. Decline to fight them, then go back to where they are trying to break in and decline again. You now have 2 Valas in the party. Leave the cave and one will leave, but you can have Vala all over the rest of the game.

Wow, that's way too gamey even for me. I guess I'll have to slug it out without her.

Thanks for digging that up.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

2:
You need at least two mages to cast Delayed Blast Fireball. Also make sure they have Haste spells.
You don't need a thief for the final battle. In general there aren't many enemies to backstab in PoD.
Most effective characters are Ranger/Mages. They can use armour and cast spells. Also protective spells like Mirror Image and Fire Shield make a difference in the really hard fights. Fighter/Mages are also good if you can get some good Bracers (AC 4 or better) for them.

The final fights are hard, and the most important stat is Dex. You need high Dex to get initiative. Other stats are relatively irrelevant (except Int and Wis for Mages and Clerics respectively). Use the Enlarge spell to give your Fighter types 22-23 STR.

Thanks for the reply.

What got me to worrying is that I read about the magical immunities of many of your enemies. My Mage/Ranger will be able to do all of those buffs and also cast DBFball (he started 14 level Mage, I dual classed him right away) but he won't be able to overcome the immunities. So now I feel like I will need 2 high level mages (27+). Is that about right or is one ultra high level, magical immunity ignoring mage enough?

The walkthrough I read said to go with a Mage 14/Ranger X but now I also think it may have been better to do it the opposite way (start him as a Ranger and then dual to Mage). Reading what you wrote, I can definitely see why the melee mages are so useful though. I was just thinking I needed them for the fireballs and didn't realize until now how effective it will be when they are wading in with Fire Shield and all of those other buffs.

 

[octavius]

High level Mages to overcome MAR is useful mainly against Drow. In the final battles enemies either have no MAR or they are immune to magic.
So mages dualed from lvl 14 Rangers should be high enough level to be useful in the final battles. I had one single class Mage and one Ranger/Mage myself. I think one single class and one or more dual class is the right balance. Then you have ome mage which operates at full effect, and Fighter types that can buff themselves, and also cast support spells (Haste and spells not affected by level like Hold Monster) and damage spells in particularly hard fights.

I definitely recommend dualing from Fighter 13 or Ranger 14 15, both for the extra Hit Points, and also because the fighter types don't get much benefits after that, while every level a Mage gets bonuses.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

High level Mages to overcome MAR is useful mainly against Drow. In the final battles enemies either have no MAR or they are immune to magic.
So mages dualed from lvl 14 Rangers should be high enough level to be useful in the final battles. I had one single class Mage and one Ranger/Mage myself. I think one single class and one or more dual class is the right balance. Then you have ome mage which operates at full effect, and Fighter types that can buff themselves, and also cast support spells (Haste and spells not affected by level like Hold Monster) and damage spells in particularly hard fights.

I definitely recommend dualing from Fighter 13 or Ranger 14, both for the extra Hit Points, and also because the fighter types don't get much benefits after that, while every level a Mage gets bonuses.

Yeah, I think I definitely should have made this one guy a Ranger 15/Mage 16+ instead of a Mage/Ranger. He's kind of low on HPs now and now he'll never get the higher mage levels to overcome magic resistance. I think overall the party will be fine though. I may dual class the cleric to mage once all of these other guys finally get their original abilities back.

BTW, I checked the manual and it says rangers get 2 attacks per round starting at level 15 so I'm sure you meant Rangers should be dualed after 15 levels. Paladins and fighters get 2 per round at level 13 so you're right on there.

 

[kmonster]

I haven't played this game specifically but concerning Valla I found this on the FRUA forums:

Go to the Silver Blades cave and see Vala, but decline to have her join you. Then get the 4 items and go to the cave where the Vaasans are breaking in; Vala will join you. Decline to fight them, then go back to where they are trying to break in and decline again. You now have 2 Valas in the party. Leave the cave and one will leave, but you can have Vala all over the rest of the game.

There's no need to decline Vala's joining offer and her presents. Simply leave the cave afterwards to let her disappear and reenter to get the same status.

If you both want to fight the final battle in this cave and still keep a Vala you have to remove one of your party members temporarily (you can add/remove party members when you load a save), so 3 Valas can join, one will leave at the battle, one when you exit the cave and one will stay with you.

 

[kmonster]

Yeah, I think I definitely should have made this one guy a Ranger 15/Mage 16+ instead of a Mage/Ranger. He's kind of low on HPs now and now he'll never get the higher mage levels to overcome magic resistance. I think overall the party will be fine though. I may dual class the cleric to mage once all of these other guys finally get their original abilities back.

Don't wait that long, definitely don't take more than 19 cleric levels else you might still in the dualing period at the final battle and even if you grind a lot a single mage level will still make a noteworthy difference while additional cleric levels won't.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Yeah, I think I definitely should have made this one guy a Ranger 15/Mage 16+ instead of a Mage/Ranger. He's kind of low on HPs now and now he'll never get the higher mage levels to overcome magic resistance. I think overall the party will be fine though. I may dual class the cleric to mage once all of these other guys finally get their original abilities back.

Don't wait that long, definitely don't take more than 19 cleric levels else you might still in the dualing period at the final battle and even if you grind a lot a single mage level will still make a noteworthy difference while additional cleric levels won't.

He's 19th level now. I've been waiting for the other dual class guys to finally get their old abilities back. They still haven't. I didn't want to have to go with 0 clerics but I'll have to bite the bullet. Looks like I can just mess around in Zhentil Keep for a while until he's a high enough level mage and/or the Cleric/Fighter finally gets his Cleric powers back.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Is there a way to transfer my Treasures of Savage Frontier (TSF) characters to PoD directly or would I have to first transfer them to CotaB and/or SoSB?

I hate SoSB, never finished that one.

 

[octavius]

I think there is. Try searching messages by Null Null.

You could try transfering the party from CoaB to PoD for the extra challenge...

 

[Null Null]

I am playing Pools of Darkness (PoD) for the first time (thanks to GoG). I have a few questions for the experts here.

1. I completed Treasures of the Savage Frontier and would like to transfer some of the items over to my newly created PoD party. How do I do this? Which file(s) do I have to copy over and where do I put it? Instructions on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. I get the part of how to strip the characters of the items once they are addable. I don't get how I load or copy the characters over.

2. I read a lot about how hard this game can be and how the final battle can be a real bitch so I made sure to consult a walkthrough before creating my party from scratch. Here's what I did (followed the walkthough completely):

- human paladin
- human cleric who I immediately dual classed to fighter
- human magic user who I immediately dual classed to ranger
- human cleric
- human magic user
- human fighter who I immediately dual classed to thief

Would this party be able to win the game or do I need to do some more dual classing?

I am considering dual classing the cleric to MU after he reaches 16th level. This would give him access to the highest cleric spell level. Is there a need for a super high level cleric? I figure the paladin can handle the turning of high level undead if I never dual class him. Is this a good idea? Is there any other dual classing I should do?


3. Just wanted to recount a really weird bug I ran into. I was in the Hill Giant Steading area and all of a sudden a random encounter was taking a long time to load. It seemed like the game was frozen and I thought I would have to close the program. Eventually it said something about not being to find a certain file (think it was referring to a graphic) and then the battle started. I thought I was in the clear (bugs wise) until I saw I was faced with 30+ Gothmenes, who I recognized as one of the 4 bosses. I tried one spell (didn't work), one of my guys got insta-beheaded when the vorpal sword went snicker-snack and then I just set all of the characters to "quick" to get it over with so I could reload. Luckily this did not occur again and I have had no further problems.

Speak of the devil...
1. Ah, my favorite easter egg/bug. This wasn't mine, BTW, got it from Ruhfuss.
Don't bother stripping the items, you'll get to keep some of them (though others will get weird text strings, dump those or wait and see if they work for you--the Farrberjik Boots give you Mirror Image). You remove the TSF characters from party and stick the files in the POD save directory. Then, because of the similarity in character format, you can add them as if they were characters from POD. This is totally unapproved and save your game often.

2. As other people have said, I'd dual someone to mage. To be honest this would be not my first choice of dual classing. The first rule of dual classing is you dual-class from a higher-HP to a lower-HP class, because (a) you keep your old HP when you change classes and (b) spellcasting classes, in particular the low-HP magic-user, keep improving at higher levels than non-spellcasting classes (fighters don't do anything new after level 17 when THAC0 maxes out but mages and clerics add spells until 29 and mages improve damage until 40). (the second rule of dual classing is YOU DO NOT TALK about dual classing...)
So I would go from fighter to cleric and ranger to mage.

3. I have heard of this bug but have not found a way to repeat or exploit it. So I'd just laugh and move on.

 

[Luzur]

"Pool of Radiance. Curse of the Azure Bonds. For some - mere titles of obsolete games. For others, sacred words, hallowed words, words never spoken without that tell-tale sigh of longing brought by years of insatiable, incurable nostalgia."

Matt Barton, Dungeons & Desktops




Introduction - A battle begins...
SSI's AD&D "Gold Box" games were released in 1988-1992 and set in the fantasy worlds of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance. They were among the best of turn-based CRPGs and are still being played today.

Features
Gold Box Companion is a tool for all the Gold Box games plus Unlimited Adventures and the two SSI's Buck Rogers games. It offers automapping, easy-to-use journal entries and helps with some of the interface issues to make playing a little less tedious.

• HUD above DOSBox window with hit points, character icons, XP meters and effects. Shows good effects in green, bad in red. Also shows if a character is level drained.
• Fix-command for Pool of Radiance. Works with the other games as well. Instantly heals the characters. Optionally also fixes level drained characters. Can not be used while in combat.
• Temporarily change demihuman race to human to avoid experience level limits.
• Optional level up without visiting training halls and without race-/game-related level limits.
• Store the list of memorized spells and restore the spells with a single click. Can not be used while in combat.
• Automap with party location. Notes can be added to the map.
• World map view. Shows party location in some games.
• Combat view. Shows character / monster locations. Shows if character/monster is held or helpless.
• Journal entries.
• Optional auto-identify of items.
• Autodisable quickfight after combat. Some of the older games didn't disable quickfight between fights so you could enter a dangerous fight with quickfight on.
• Character editor. Reads/modifies memory so it's instant compared to save file editors. Can not be used while in combat.
• Teleporting. You can teleport to a chosen location on the map. You can also teleport on the world map in some of the games.
• Save Game Editor also included. You can edit party composition (swap members in/out), edit inventories and effects. You can also copy full inventories from one save slot to another so you can use this to keep your items in Pools of Darkness where most magical items get destroyed when moving through the Limbo.
• Some modding tools for changing the font and editing game data.
• Lists saved games chronologically with a description of the location (map name).
• Able to backup to latest save game with a description.
• Playing paladin or ranger in Pool of Radiance. Can be exported to Curse of the Azure Bonds.
• Very experimental monk class for Pool of Radiance. Can be exported to Curse of the Azure Bonds.

What's new in v2.32 (15-February-2017)

• SETUP GOG button for quickly setting the game folders for GOG-installed Gold Box games.
• When the GBC level up is used, character names are no longer colored as to able to level up in game. Note that you have to somehow refresh the DOSBox screen (going into a menu etc.) for the color to return to normal.
• Party location arrow was previously drawn with the Wingdings font. On some Windows country/region settings the glyph could be wrong. The arrow is now drawn as a polygon.
• Hopefully better indoors / world map identification.

What's new in v2.31 (30-January-2017)

• Hopefully fixed a bug where the HUD and map windows were not shown on multi-monitor setups.
• Setting for the HUD window to stay on top. Off by default.
• Added a hack for paladins and rangers in Pool of Radiance to get fighter-levels during combat so that they get the sweep-ability. These levels are removed after combat.

What's new in v2.30 (18-December-2016)

• Optional level up from the HUD. Also adds some modding options for the classes.
• Encamp-fix optionally fixes level drain.
• Optional auto-identify of items. Identified when put in a character's inventory. You still need to cast "detect magic" to detect magical items in loot.
• Paladins and rangers in Pool of Radiance.
• Monk in Pool of Radiance / Curse of the Azure Bonds. Very experimental...
• XP tables as text files (can be opened from the search wizard and editor windows).

Requirements

• Windows XP or newer. This might help if you use Linux (it's in german, Google translated).
• DOSBox DOS-emulator to run old software on modern computers. If you use the GOG-versions, you don't need to install DOSBox.
• Any fantasy-themed Gold Box game, Unlimited Adventures (with or without UAShell), Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday or Matrix Cubed. If you don't already have these, check out GOG.com for the Forgotten Realms and Krynn -games.

Downloads
Gold Box Companion

• gbc.zip
  Gold Box Companion v2.32 (15-February-2017). This is meant to be used with the GOG-versions of the game but might work with others too but then you have to use vanilla/plain DOSBox 0.74. Unarchive the zip-archive into some folder and read GBC.txt inside. GBC.exe is the main Gold Box Companion program, double click on it to start. SGE.exe is the Save Game Editor. There are also some experimental modding tools included.
• gbc201.zip
  Gold Box Companion v2.01 (16-October-2015). Older version that is not so picky about DOSBox version / game versions but lacks the effect display, combat view and world map view.

Saved games (You can download and use these even if no plan to use GBC.)

• realms.zip
  Saves near ending and before key moments for Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Secret of the Silver Blades and Pools of Darkness. Includes a save just before the Mulmaster Beholder Corps fight in CotAB and Gothmenes / Dave's challenge battles in PoD.
• krynn.zip
  Saves near ending for all the Krynn-games.
• krynn2.zip
  Big package of saves for all the Krynn-games.
• frontier.zip
  Saves near ending for the two Savage Frontier-games.
• gods.zip
  Hacked saves for Pools of Darkness. Party of 8 dual-classed characters with hacked equipment. Saves near Gothmenes and Dave's challenge.

Mods

• manshoon.zip
  Manshoon-encounter for Pools of Darkness. More info.

Resources

• formats.zip ... Description of character save file formats. List of all effects and items in the games.

Other

• oystein_por.pdf ... Pool of Radiance walktrough by Oystein.
• pools.pdf ... Pools of Darkness walktrough by Matt Haag.
• dqkitems.zip ... Some hacked items for The Dark Queen of Krynn, by Redeye.
• passwords.zip ... Excel-sheet of passwords for the games.
• goldboxfont.zip ... Gold Box styled font.
• phlan.png ... Maps of all Pool of Radiance's Phlan-locations fit together.
• wilderness.png ... Maps of all Pool of Radiance's wilderness locations.
• daxdump.zip ... DAXDump and ECLDump by Simeon Pilgrim. Can be used to decode the run-length encoding of the DAX files.
• tlbutil2.zip ... TLButil2 by Itamar / Dan Autery. For extracting TLB-files (The Dark Queen of Krynn and FRUA).
• unp411.zip ... If you want to hack old DOS game executables, you probably need to unpack them first with this utiliity.
• hackdocs.zip ... File formats of many FRUA related files.

Screenshots
Some additional screenshots from modded games here and here. The modding tools are included in the GBC package.


GBC starts with a wizard to search for game/character data in the memory. You select a game, set the game folder, select the save slot then search. Saved games are listed chronologically and the map name is also shown.

HUD with combat icons and effects displayed. The bars are for Hit Points and XP. Map with autoexplore.

World map view in Pool of Radiance.

World map view in Dark Queen of Krynn.

Combat view. Stats and effects can be viewed by targeting a monster with the mouse.

A menu opens by moving the mouse over the HUD.

Level up dialog. Usable anywhere so you don't have to visit training halls. Ignores demihuman/game level limits.

Journal entries can be viewed through the menu.

Character editor. When in combat, monsters can also be edited.

Save game editor. You can backup saves, replace/add characters and edit inventory/effects. You can also copy full inventories from one save slot to another so you can use this to keep your items in Pools of Darkness where most magical items get destroyed when moving through the Limbo. You can even add monsters to your party (the combat icons do not show in the older games).

With the Monster Modder you can browse and edit monsters.

GBC supports Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday and Matrix Cubed.

Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (and UAShell) is also supported.

Pool of Radiance modded with the font from Pools of Darkness. Paladins, rangers and monks can be played as hacked classes. In the character editor, level 1 fighters can be converted to paladins or rangers and level 1 thieves to monks. GBC needs to be used for level ups. Imported paladins and rangers can be trained in training halls in Curse but monks always have to use GBC to level up and can not be further exported to Secret.

Links
Buy the games

• GOG.com ... The Forgotten Realms - games can be bought legally from Good Old Games (GOG.com).
• GOG.com ... The Krynn - games can be bought legally from Good Old Games (GOG.com).

Abandonware downloads

• CRPG Directory / Weekend Waste Monster ... Lots of downloads and links related to old CRPGs.
• DJ Old Games ... Abandonware site.
• Abandonia ... Abandonware site.
• Replacementdocs ... This site has game manuals, check it for the Manuals, Journal Entries and Clue books.

Basic information

• Wikipedia on Gold Box games
• GoldBox Wiki ... Various information and links.
• AD&D Rules FAQ ... AD&D rules info for those not familiar with THAC0 etc. This FAQ is however mostly to 2nd edition of AD&D. Gold Box games use 1st edition rules.

Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (FRUA)

• FRUA introduction at GOG.com ... Read this if you plan to play FRUA modules.
• Nol's Installation Guide for FRUA Newbies ... How to install UAShell and run hacked modules in FRUA.
• UA File Archive ... RoseDragon, archive for FRUA modules and related stuff.
• pc_modules.zip ... Huge archive (285 MB) of FRUA modules from the UA File Archive.

GameBanshee's Walkthroughs & FAQs

• Pool of Radiance
• Curse of the Azure Bonds
• Secret of the Silver Blades
• Pools of Darkness

The-Spoiler's Walkthroughs & FAQs

• Pool of Radiance
• Curse of the Azure Bonds
• Secret of the Silver Blades
• Pools of Darkness
• Champions of Krynn
• The Dark Queen of Krynn
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier
• Treasures of the Savage Frontier

Other Walkthroughs & FAQs

• Stephen S. Lee's very thorough FAQ for Pool of Radiance
• Øystein's Dungeon's PDF-walkthrough for Pool of Radiance
• CRPG Notes
• Oystein's Dungeon ... Nice walkthroughs for many Golden Age RPGs.

GameFAQs

• Pool of Radiance
• Curse of the Azure Bonds
• Secret of the Silver Blades
• Pools of Darkness
• Champions of Krynn
• Death Knights of Krynn
• The Dark Queen of Krynn
• Gateway to the Savage Frontier
• Treasures of the Savage Frontier

Tools

• Gold Box Explorer ... Useful tool for exploring Gold Box data files.
• Reprogrammed Curse of the Azure Bonds ... CotAB reprogrammed in C# by Simeon Pilgrim. Source code available.
• HxD ... Freeware hex editor which can also edit RAM directly.

Forum threads at FRUA & Dungeon Craft Community

• Hacking UA ... Lots of in-depth info on Gold Box games file formats etc.
• Official SSI Playtester Mode ... Info on this debug mode.
• Gold Box games cheat codes ... Info on how to start the game with different parameters.

Other forums

• Forgotten Realms collection discussion ... Forums at GOG.com.
• Krynn series discussion ... Forums at GOG.com.
• The Gold Box thread ... Forum thread at RPG Codex forums.
• Another full run-through ... Forum thread at Sorcerer's Place forums.
• Krynn-trilogy discussion ... Forum thread at Sorcerer's Place forums.
• D&D the way your daddy played it ... Forum thread at Something Awful forums.
• Bit O' Moander forum ... Not so active forum discussing these games.
• Revisiting the Gold Box games ... Forum thread at RPGWatch forums.
• Pool of Radiance discussion ... Forum thread at RPGWatch forums.
• Gold Box games discussion ... Forum thread at Baldur's Gate (Enhanced Edition) forums.
• Dragonsfoot.com forums ... Old school AD&D/RPG discussion. Also has a forum for AD&D-related software and games.
• AD&D as portrayed by Pool of Radiance / Gold Box ... At Dragonsfoot.com.
• Pool of Radiance discussion ... Forums at RPG.net.
• Gold Box discussion ... Forums at RPG.net.

Blogs

• The CRPG Addict ... CRPG enthusiast plays through old CRPGs chronologically.
• CRPG Revisiting old classics ... Another old CRPGs blog.
• Blogging Forgotten Realms ... Discontinued blog.
• The Dungeon Master's Realm ... Another CRPG blog.
• Nerdly Pleasures blog post ... Goofy things in the Gold Box games.
• Nerdly Pleasures blog post ... Choices and tactics for Pool of Radiance.

Gold Box related blog posts at The Digital Antiquarian

• Part 1: Joel Billings and SSI
• Part 2: Ten Odd Years at TSR
• Part 3: From Tabletop to Desktop
• Part 4: Pool of Radiance
• Part 5: All That Glitters is Not Gold
• Ebooks ... Blog posts collected as ebooks for downloading.

YouTube videos

• The history of Dungeons & Dragons video games
• Soloing through Pools of Darkness
• Mulmaster Beholder Corps without Dust of Disappearance, part 1
• Mulmaster Beholder Corps without Dust of Disappearance, part 2
• SSI Gold Box showcase, part 1
• SSI Gold Box showcase, part 2
• Pool of Radiance unboxing
• SSI Gold Box RPGs by MetalJesusRocks

Longplays / Let's plays

• BlueAnkylo plays Pool of Radiance ... Introduction to Gold Box games. Helps setting up DOSBox / Gold Box Companion.
• BlueAnkylo plays PoR/CotAB interlude ... Importing chraracters from PoR to CotAB etc.
• BlueAnkylo plays Curse of the Azure Bonds ... Same player continues to Curse of the Azure Bonds.
• BlueAnkylo plays Secret of the Silver Blades ... Same player continues to Secret of the Silver Blades.
• Krynn-series longplay ... Longplay of all Krynn-games.
• Let's play: The Pools Saga ... Let's play through the Pools-games at Obsidian forums.
• Pool of Radiance ... Iron man - challenge.
• Curse of the Azure Bonds ... Iron man - challenge.

Speedruns

• Gold Box series ... Gold Box speedrun discussion at Speed Demos Archive.

Miscellaneous

• Gold Box Companion with Ubuntu ... Might help if you use Linux (it's in german, Google translated).
• Synth Bard ... Gold Box Renditions (music from the Gold Box games).
• Pools of Darkness: The Gods intervene! ... Cracking the copy protection in Pools of Darkness.
• How GOG rescued the games from licensing hell ... How GOG rescued 13 Forgotten Realms games from licensing hell at PCGamer.com.
• The All-Seeing Eye ... If you like SSI's Eye of the Beholder - games, you might be interested in this.

http://personal.inet.fi/koti/jhirvonen/gbc/

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Speak of the devil...
1. Ah, my favorite easter egg/bug. This wasn't mine, BTW, got it from Ruhfuss.
Don't bother stripping the items, you'll get to keep some of them (though others will get weird text strings, dump those or wait and see if they work for you--the Farrberjik Boots give you Mirror Image). You remove the TSF characters from party and stick the files in the POD save directory. Then, because of the similarity in character format, you can add them as if they were characters from POD. This is totally unapproved and save your game often.

2. As other people have said, I'd dual someone to mage. To be honest this would be not my first choice of dual classing. The first rule of dual classing is you dual-class from a higher-HP to a lower-HP class, because (a) you keep your old HP when you change classes and (b) spellcasting classes, in particular the low-HP magic-user, keep improving at higher levels than non-spellcasting classes (fighters don't do anything new after level 17 when THAC0 maxes out but mages and clerics add spells until 29 and mages improve damage until 40). (the second rule of dual classing is YOU DO NOT TALK about dual classing...)
So I would go from fighter to cleric and ranger to mage.

3. I have heard of this bug but have not found a way to repeat or exploit it. So I'd just laugh and move on.

1. Thanks for this. I was able to bring my characters over from ToSF. I had already created characters in PoD so I just wanted the equipment from ToSF. I threw away all of the stuff where the names were gibberish, but it's nice to have the Belts and Helms. I've also got a bunch of wands which I carried all over the Savage Frontier and never used so now I can lug them around and never use them in PoD.

2. Yeah, it's too bad it's too late to start over on that guy. Would definitely do it the other way around if I could do it over again.

3. This bug happened to me again. I actually thought I was going to have to go back to an earlier save game and that it could even be a game breaking bug but it worked out. It happens for a random encounter in the Hill Giant Steading. The game takes a long time to load while saying "pic not available". Then a pic for an ogre encounter appears and you think you are in the clear. Then the combat starts and you are facing like 30 super powerful demons (Gothmenes).

I had saved the game and taken a couple steps down a hallway (only way to the exit) and it happened. I tried to see if I could use the terrain to get a cheap win and possibly even benefit. I had read that if a combat goes something like 25 rounds that you are automatically declared the winner. I ran down the hall and into another room but it didn't work. The AI is smart enough to ignore stinking cloud and the demons just ran me down. So I went back to the save game and hasted all of my players before moving. The bug happened again, in the same hallway I was forced to walk down. I ran one of my guys to the edge of the screen and it gave me that bullshit message that I was blocked from fleeing or whatever. You know, that totally random one that happens sometimes but not others when you try and step off the map. And I got mowed down again. Now I was worried I would never get out of that hallway but the next time I reloaded the bug didn't happen and it hasn't happened since.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I'd never tried Gold Box Companion before. Just messed around with it a bit in PoR. What a great mod!

 

[Null Null]

One thing vastly underappreciated by most people is the use of Animate Dead in Pool of Radiance.

In addition to working as a semi-resurrection spell (animated characters will fight but not cast spells, and can 'trade' items away so it may be preferable to kill NPCs and animate them), the spell will reanimate large numbers of dead humanoid enemies and set them to working for you. It's really kind of fun.

 

[GreyfeatherTX]

I'm using the latest version of "Gold Box Companion" with the GOG versions of the games and I've noticed from watching YouTube let's plays (Blueakylo) that older versions of the GBC would not only show your map notes but also show a legend that went along with the numbers on the map....now it only shows the notes when you mouse over the number, which is terrible because I'm constantly having to alt-tab to uncapture the mouse....
Any suggestions or where I can get the older version that supported map notes AND the legend feature? (the v201 that is on the site doesn't have map note functionality)

 

[btbgfel]

I'm using the latest version of "Gold Box Companion" with the GOG versions of the games and I've noticed from watching YouTube let's plays (Blueakylo) that older versions of the GBC would not only show your map notes but also show a legend that went along with the numbers on the map....now it only shows the notes when you mouse over the number, which is terrible because I'm constantly having to alt-tab to uncapture the mouse....
Any suggestions or where I can get the older version that supported map notes AND the legend feature? (the v201 that is on the site doesn't have map note functionality)

Try to right click on the map?
Gold Box Companion map fuction not very reliable in modules of FRUA though. It often failed to open geo??.dat (map files?) upon changing to new maps.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

I'm using the latest version of "Gold Box Companion" with the GOG versions of the games and I've noticed from watching YouTube let's plays (Blueakylo) that older versions of the GBC would not only show your map notes but also show a legend that went along with the numbers on the map....now it only shows the notes when you mouse over the number, which is terrible because I'm constantly having to alt-tab to uncapture the mouse....
Any suggestions or where I can get the older version that supported map notes AND the legend feature? (the v201 that is on the site doesn't have map note functionality)

I'm afraid I can't help you with legacy versions of GBC, but I can drop you a helpful hint on the ALT-TABing. Go to the game directory and locate the dosbox_whateverthegametitleis_.conf file (not the dosbox_blahblahblah_single.conf) and change "autolock=true" to "autolock=false" to disable that pesky thing. It's useful when running GBC or just taking notes in Notepad/Wordpad/whatever in older titles.

 

[eXalted]

You can also make DosBox not capture your mouse.

 

[Elwro]

Has anyone worked out a way of running the GBC in Linux? I managed to get it to recognize Champions of Krynn when both it and the game were ran in Wine, but the behaviour was so inconsistent (sometimes I couldn't get back in the game) I stopped trying. Anyone?