Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

If you’re talking Pool of Radiance, my first play through in 1988 got my party wiped out in a bar fight three minutes after I generated them. Learned a lesson there.

But the party is not wiped out, only thrown out on the street with 1 HP each.

 

[Dorateen]

When you think about it, the training hall duels in Pool of Radiance were pretty genius; each class needing to win a one-on-one fight with a mirror image of their character in order to level up. I've long been a proponent of required training halls in general, but the prospect of an additional trial by combat made advancement even more satisfying.

Good grief: so it was a person option, that I chose to have each character engage in a duel before training. It was still a neat feature to have available.

 

[octavius]

That would indeed have been cool, but the duels were optional; they were just so you could grind for extra XP.

 

[ProphetSword]

But the party is not wiped out, only thrown out on the street with 1 HP each.

You're probably right. That was 31 years ago. I can't promise I remember the details accurately.

Still, it was kind of jarring to get smacked down so hard three minutes into the game. That wouldn't happen now, of course...but when it was all brand new...it was quite exciting and frustrating at the same time.

 

[samuraigaiden]

I have never played any of these games. What's the right way for a newcomer to approach the 'series'?

 

[Cael]

I have never played any of these games. What's the right way for a newcomer to approach the 'series'?

Depends on your appetite for difficulty. You can go everywhere from the traditional 3d6 stats rolls to full 18 across the board toons. You can try deliberately gimping your characters for the "roleplay" or you can powergame to your heart's content with dual classed/multiclassed combinations. It really is up to you. Most of the games are pretty easy and can be completed without extreme powergaming shenannigans, but there are a few fights here and there that will require a somewhat competent party.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I have never played any of these games. What's the right way for a newcomer to approach the 'series'?

Start with either Pool of Radiance (the first Gold Box game, the best, and the start of a 4-game series) or Champions of Krynn (the second-best, the start of a 3-game series, and perhaps more accessible to newcomers).

If you aren't familiar with AD&D, then look up tips for party creation.

Otherwise, enjoy your initial playthrough of a classic CRPG!

 

[ProphetSword]

There are four different series of games in the Gold-Box collection and one toolset that has a couple of hundred fan-made games available.

Forgotten Realms Set 1:
Pool of Radiance - Curse of the Azure Bonds - Secret of the Silver Blades - Pools of Darkness

Dragonlance Set:
Champions of Krynn - Death Knights of Krynn - Dark Queen of Krynn

Forgotten Realms Set 2:
Gateway to the Savage Frontier - Treasures of the Savage Frontier - (Neverwinter Nights Online)

Buck Rogers Set:
Countdown to Doomsday - Matrix Cubed

Toolset:
Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures



My recommendation is to start with whatever set interests you, generate some characters and have fun. You don't need to min-max a party to succeed (and in Pool of Radiance, it'll actually make your life harder if you're too powerful).

It's best to play some of the original Gold-Box games before tackling any of the Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures stuff...though there are some amazing modules that are as good as the original games. If you have an interest in that, you can find the forum devoted to FRUA here: http://ua.reonis.com

Also, avoid the built in scenario in FRUA (Heirs to Skull Crag). It's the worst official Gold-Box game that most people forget exists.

 

[Incendax]

Forgotten Realms Set 1:
Pool of Radiance - Curse of the Azure Bonds - Secret of the Silver Blades - Pools of Darkness

Forgotten Realms Set 2:
Gateway to the Savage Frontier - Treasures of the Savage Frontier

Don’t forget, you absolutely can port characters between FR Set 1 and 2 to create a 6 game mega adventure. Certainly not what the designers intended, but it absolutely works and even makes sense plot wise. The only downside is minor item corruption, but that is small potatoes since most of them strip you of items anyway.

 

[GarfunkeL]

lol, first playthrough and I get wrecked by the training hall duels and end up wasting all of my gold, platinum, whatever into healing my characters. Didn't even leave the starting town!

Just my kind of game.

If you’re talking Pool of Radiance, my first play through in 1988 got my party wiped out in a bar fight three minutes after I generated them. Learned a lesson there.

Same! It was on C64 so I had to go through the torture of loading everything again.

But the party is not wiped out, only thrown out on the street with 1 HP each.

I'm pretty sure that if you chose to fight the city guard after the tavern brawl, your party would get killed.

 

[Ruhfuss]

I recently finished my current COK playthrough, started way back.

Although I've 3 mages in my party, none of them has learned Fireball (yet); any wands I've found are still unused (or got sold).

I don't know if I'll keep this up for DKK though - COK has no level draining undead...

While messing around with some player character files, I noticed that dwarves got shafted with regard to their saving throws. Remember the claim from the Adventurer's Journal, that "they are especially resistant to magic and poison"? Well, fake news. Turns out that dwarven saves against paralyzation, poison or death magic are off-by-one on the worse side compared to a human or elven fighter of the same level (tested with newly created 12th level fighters in DQK).

Well, at last now I know why my dwarven fighter got fucked so often by centipedes or ghasts...

 

[Cael]

I recently finished my current COK playthrough, started way back.

Although I've 3 mages in my party, none of them has learned Fireball (yet); any wands I've found are still unused (or got sold).

I don't know if I'll keep this up for DKK though - COK has no level draining undead...

While messing around with some player character files, I noticed that dwarves got shafted with regard to their saving throws. Remember the claim from the Adventurer's Journal, that "they are especially resistant to magic and poison"? Well, fake news. Turns out that dwarven saves against paralyzation, poison or death magic are off-by-one on the worse side compared to a human or elven fighter of the same level (tested with newly created 12th level fighters in DQK).

Well, at last now I know why my dwarven fighter got fucked so often by centipedes or ghasts...

Yeah. With the Krynn games, there is very little reason to go anything other than (Qualinesti) elf or human because of the level limits. Especially if you want to play all the way to the end with the same party.

 

[Ruhfuss]

Yeah. With the Krynn games, there is very little reason to go anything other than (Qualinesti) elf or human because of the level limits. Especially if you want to play all the way to the end with the same party.

I tend to agree here.

Dwarves are only good as (single class) Fighters, suffer from broken saves and due to lower DEX are more likely to get hit and therefore in need of making a save more often, and this is only offset by slightly better HP potential and a very situational bonus vs. goblin and giant types. And (single class) Fighters are a bit bland, with only faster level progression compared to any other warrior class going for them. I'm still pondering if I'll stick to my Dwarf, or if I'll replace him with a Silvanesti Elf Ranger, but that would mean that I'll get to 2/1 attacks only when starting DQK.

For Kender, I'd say the best choice is usually Kiri-Jolith Cleric/Thief, but that combo falls of badly in performance in DQK. I'm quite sure that my Kender by "accident" turns into a Half Elf either late in DKK or at the beginning of DQK...

A Knight basically has to be Human, so I make any other non (Fighter/Mage) or (Mage/Thief) - which both just have to be Qualinesti Elves - in my party a Silvanesti Elf, just for flavour.

 

[Cael]

Yeah. With the Krynn games, there is very little reason to go anything other than (Qualinesti) elf or human because of the level limits. Especially if you want to play all the way to the end with the same party.

I tend to agree here.

Dwarves are only good as (single class) Fighters, suffer from broken saves and due to lower DEX are more likely to get hit and therefore in need of making a save more often, and this is only offset by slightly better HP potential and a very situational bonus vs. goblin and giant types. And (single class) Fighters are a bit bland, with only faster level progression compared to any other warrior class going for them. I'm still pondering if I'll stick to my Dwarf, or if I'll replace him with a Silvanesti Elf Ranger, but that would mean that I'll get to 2/1 attacks only when starting DQK.

For Kender, I'd say the best choice is usually Kiri-Jolith Cleric/Thief, but that combo falls of badly in performance in DQK. I'm quite sure that my Kender by "accident" turns into a Half Elf either late in DKK or at the beginning of DQK...

A Knight basically has to be Human, so I make any other non (Fighter/Mage) or (Mage/Thief) - which both just have to be Qualinesti Elves - in my party a Silvanesti Elf, just for flavour.

The problem with kender clerics of any stripe is the low (relative) level cap and the 16 Wis, which prevents you from casting level 6 spells.

Mind you, I have played the entire series to death, and so my typical party is 1 knight, 1 f/t/m and 4 f/c/m.

If you are not going to multiclass fighter types, then the only one that is going to be any good in the long term is the knight. The paladin is just grossly overshadowed by the two advanced orders of knights, and ranger doesn't really have anything going for it other than a situational bonus vs giants (granted there are a ton of them in DQK, but by that stage, you don't need the bonus as you'll be swimming in fireballs and/or delayed blast fireballs).

 

[Dorateen]

Memorable anecdote about playing a dwarven fighter in Death Knights of Krynn. Remember the first encounter with the Death Dragon in the Dragon Pit? I took the brunt of its breath attack ("Death Dragon breathes death!") for 120 damage. At the time, I had 125 hp. Guess I didn't make the saving throw and barely survived.

 

[Cael]

Memorable anecdote about playing a dwarven fighter in Death Knights of Krynn. Remember the first encounter with the Death Dragon in the Dragon Pit? I took the brunt of its breath attack ("Death Dragon breathes death!") for 120 damage. At the time, I had 125 hp. Guess I didn't make the saving throw and barely survived.

The only companion that stays with you to the end is a dwarf fighter in DQK, and she gets a few interjections and comments as the adventure rolls along.

 

[Dorateen]

Memorable anecdote about playing a dwarven fighter in Death Knights of Krynn. Remember the first encounter with the Death Dragon in the Dragon Pit? I took the brunt of its breath attack ("Death Dragon breathes death!") for 120 damage. At the time, I had 125 hp. Guess I didn't make the saving throw and barely survived.

The only companion that stays with you to the end is a dwarf fighter in DQK, and she gets a few interjections and comments as the adventure rolls along.

Grunschka. I remember her well. She hated draconians. But she should have stayed back in Thorbardin.

 

[madrigal]

Grunschka. I remember her well. She hated draconians. But she should have stayed back in Thorbardin.

Is she one of the first trans characters in video games?

 

[Dorateen]

Grunschka. I remember her well. She hated draconians. But she should have stayed back in Thorbardin.

Is she one of the first trans characters in video games?

You decide.

 

[octavius]

That portrait...isn't that the same one as the one used of the feasome Gully Dwarf fighting for the Dragonlord in one of the Dragonlance novels?

 

[Dorateen]

That was Sestun the gully dwarf.

 

[d1r]

Why can't I vote for Grimoire : Heralds of the Winged Exemplar (V2)?

 

[madrigal]

Grunschka. I remember her well. She hated draconians. But she should have stayed back in Thorbardin.

Is she one of the first trans characters in video games?

You decide.

I looked at the Strength stat, confirmed male.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

ENWorld has a new story from Jim Ward of TSR. It details how the D&D license came down between EA and SSI. I met Jim Ward at GaryCon. He's a great guy.

https://www.enworld.org/threads/jim-ward-ssi-dungeons-dragons-and-the-computer-industry.666874/

On how EA almost got the license:
"After Mr. Yabera left, I found myself feeling very sorry for the SSI people. While I wasn't impressed with Mr. Yabera's knowledge of the game, we were all impressed by the check offer. We spent the week talking about EA and the possibilities of a game they could develop."

On how SSI changed their minds:
"Their presentation was awesomely impressive. They had already made lots of dungeon screen shots on computers for us to see. They wanted to set the game in the Forgotten Realms universe and seemed to know a lot about that campaign world. We saw images of monsters moving on the computer. They talked very knowledgeably about character creation. We all were blown away by their enthusiasm and handling of details."

How SSI lost the license:
"Everything was going great and the games were a huge success. Then the president of TSR decided she needed lots more money from the computer games license. Against my advice TSR dropped SSI and replaced them. The new company made all sorts of promises they didn't deliver. The new company promised to design even more games than SSI and they didn't come close. In short the revenue the new company generated was far less than what SSI delivered; what a surprise."

For fucks sake, Lorraine Williams...

 

[Infinitron]

How SSI lost the license:
"Everything was going great and the games were a huge success. Then the president of TSR decided she needed lots more money from the computer games license. Against my advice TSR dropped SSI and replaced them. The new company made all sorts of promises they didn't deliver. The new company promised to design even more games than SSI and they didn't come close. In short the revenue the new company generated was far less than what SSI delivered; what a surprise."

Uh, the "new company" he mentions there is Interplay, right? I mean yeah, by the time they finally put out a good D&D game, TSR was gone...