Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Gangrelrumbler]

Why Ranger?

 

[ProphetSword]

Why Ranger?

Rangers typically have more hit points. Aside from that...I got nothing...

 

[Elwro]

Race boni in combat?

 

[octavius]

Giant killers.
Ranger/Mages can cast spells while wearing armour.
Druid spells.

 

[Null Null]

Octavius pretty much nails it.

From the Champions of Krynn manual:

"Rangers normally start the game with more HP than other fighter types. They do extra damage versus giant type monsters."

A small nitpick is that you are supposed to dual the ranger once he has gotten to level 9; if you dual earlier the spells while wearing armor thing isn't supposed to work. I haven't tried it with each game, though.

 

[ProphetSword]

Forgot about the bonus against giants, which can be really handy in some of the games (like Pools of Darkness) when you're fighting an army of giants at a time. There were some combats where my Ranger could murder them faster than my Magic-User with a Wand of Fireballs.

 

[Metro]

And if you need extra offensive output you give your cleric wands/scrolls. Usually quite a few wands in most of the Gold Box games from what I recall. Wand of Defoliation versus Bits o' Moander!

 

[octavius]

Clerics can't use most wands.
They can use the Necklace of Missiles, though.

 

[Null Null]

True. However, one nonintuitive bit is that anyone can use a Wand of Magic Missiles (a trio of thieves use them on you in Pool of Radiance) or Defoliation.

 

[Saxon1974]

Holy crap I just found that the companion app now has a exploration fill in as you go auto map. Time to play some champions of krynn!!

 

[Saxon1974]

GBC restore spells:
Click STORE SPELLS to store the currently memorized spells and RESTORE SPELLS to get them back. If you change your memorized spells, you have to store them again.
The Krynn-games are problematic as the moon positions affect the number of available bonus spell slots. Bonus spells vs moon positions is not implemented in GBC, storing simply saves the currently memorized spells, including bonus spells.

Item corrupting in Champions:
There was a bug in GBC before v2.33 where autoidentify was always on. This shouldn't corrupt the items itself but use the latest version still. Autoidentify is off by default.

GBC fix-command:
This simply sets hit points to the max. There's no spell memorization / casting simulation / camp interruption as that would have been very hard thing to do.

Even without the full fix option, the map function now is worth a giant pile of gold. Thanks for the info

 

[Elwro]

Please tell me how to cast Prayer pre-combat. I'm supposed to do so according to the manual, I think. However, whenever I do so, the bonus disappears the second I start combat. (E.g. when you know you will confront the evil curate in the SW corner of Throtl; I cast it right before entering the room, 'prayer(3)' appears at the GBC window, but disappears immediately during combat.

...or should I turn search off? will experiment

 

[ProphetSword]

Turn search off. Taking steps in search mode means that you are taking ten minutes per step. Even one step can run out the duration on some spells. Standard mode only takes one minute per step.

 

[Jaesun]

Fun fact: Ray's The Realm Series modules knows you would LOVE to pre-buff your party before a large combat. And will actually remove ALL those buffs before a combat.

 

[Elwro]

Well, if the large combat is deducible from the info given to the player, I can't see how disabling his buffs is a good design decision, because the player is doing something sensible.

Doing this before fights the existence of which you cannot figure out, so that the player does not quit to reload the game, is something else of course.

It will take a few lifetimes to play through those Realm modules, it seems

 

[Jaesun]

Well, if the large combat is deducible from the info given to the player, I can't see how disabling his buffs is a good design decision, because the player is doing something sensible.

Doing this before fights the existence of which you cannot figure out, so that the player does not quit to reload the game, is something else of course.

It will take a few lifetimes to play through those Realm modules, it seems

I should have more clearly stated, a *number* of battles you cannot pre-buff before them (You CAN, but wait.......). But not ALL.

Every single one of the encounters that you cannot pre-buff, can be finished.

The first time this happened, there was this one door I KNEW had to have this BIG ASS BATTLE (based off of clues and what the party could notice), once we enter. So of course (like ALL players) I went LOL and pre-buffed everyone, and walked through....

Suddenly, he took control of the party, and had them move a series of steps (to completely remove all of the LOL buffs). It was perfectly in context of the encounter.

I then thought immediately Well done sir. You know this game very well....

I then had to think very very clearly, and utilize all the spells an abilities I had left then.

And I won. The first try.

THAT was one of the best moment's in a LONG time I have ever had...

 

[Elwro]

I'm having a great time with CoK + GBC, but an idea for another GBC function just occurred to me. Sorry if it was already suggested or is impossible to realise.

So, there are quite a few important combat messages the player might miss; some of those appear at the bottom of the screen, but most in the center-right area. I know you are supposed to fiddle with the game's speed, but I haven't found a good setting yet and I keep missing them. Would it be possible to introduce a message log as an optional separate GBC window?

 

[ProphetSword]

If your speed is too high, it could be due to the cycle speed in DOSBox. For the Gold-Box games (any of them, including Unlimited Adventures), I tend to run them around 2500-3000 cycles, or the text is just too fast, even at the lowest setting. You might try altering that.

 

[Elwro]

Well, I set it to 3000 because if it's slower I find the time of spell effects quite tedious ("Baaz is unaffected" etc)

 

[ProphetSword]

What is your speed in the game set to?

 

[Elwro]

4 or 5 , I think. Will experiment more!

 

[ProphetSword]

Lower numbers are faster. You might try 3 to see if it suits your needs.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Hey, in the GOG pool of radiance, on character creation, is it normal if I can't move the keys down or up? I can only select dwarf, fighter, loyal good, etc.

 

[Sacibengala]

Hey, in the GOG pool of radiance, on character creation, is it normal if I can't move the keys down or up? I can only select dwarf, fighter, loyal good, etc.

There is a button that you can move. I don't remember exactly, but I think it is page up and page down.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

Hey, in the GOG pool of radiance, on character creation, is it normal if I can't move the keys down or up? I can only select dwarf, fighter, loyal good, etc.

There is a button that you can move. I don't remember exactly, but I think it is page up and page down.

It might be why I can't move it, I have a small Thinkpad keyboard. So this game can only be played on a full-fledged desktop keyboard?