Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Harlin]

I've updated the Pool of Radiance longform walkthrough to version 1.3: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/564785-pool-of-radiance/faqs/73869

Changes:

• I overhauled the script that generates monster statistics. There is more information, and most of the mistakes from the days when I added statistics by hand should be gone. (The AI I wrote was a little bit too intelligent -- the real Pool of Radiance AI favors studded leather armor over Bracers AC 6 for ... reasons.)
• There is more accurate information on how much XP money and items give. That's also now part of the monster statistic generator script.
• All placed magically charged treasure now mentions how many charges it starts with.
• The spellcasting delay adjustment is actually division by 3, not 2. That makes spellcasting significantly more powerful than it is in the tabletop game. (So even though Stinking Cloud has a tabletop game delay of 2 ... that gets divided by 3, then rounded down to 0, so it actually has no delay in the Gold Box games.)
• There are now instructions on how to modify spellcasting delay, in case you want something closer to the actual tabletop rules. (It'll significantly alter game balance, of course.)
• I've added how AI spellcasting priority works.
• With both spellcasting delay and AI priority not obvious and not in the manual, I've added a table.
• Clarification of area of effect spells: it wasn't clear before what "diameter 3/5/7" meant.
• You can raise the dead by casting Cause Light Wounds in combat. (This is gone starting in Secret of the Silver Blades.)
• The Stinking Cloud AC penalty is larger than I thought
• Mirror Image is not as effective as it should be, or as in later games. (Also fixed in Secret of the Silver Blades.)
• Haste and Slow do not actually affect initiative.
• Strength: for Open Doors, easy vs. hard is in fact implemented, so I put that in the table.
• Dexterity: actual adjustments to thief skills. There are a couple wrong numbers in the game's table. (Also, for those looking forward to Curse of the Azure Bonds, Dexterity 20 is not actually supported in this regard -- equipping Gauntlets of Dexterity to get to 20 will at best not help.)
• For avoiding attacks, being third-from-the-bottom is better than being #5 in the order.
• A "small/medium" target for a weapon is only so if it both has that size in the game files and has a 1-tile icon.
• The actual THAC0 table used by the game is now there. It's a hybrid of 1st/2nd edition rules (as you might expect), and it also changes by specific Gold Box game.
• More information on binary format.
• Added Computer Gaming World references.
• Added Acknowledgements.

The Curse of the Azure Bonds longform walkthrough is now almost done. If there's anything in particular you want added, now is a good time to mention it.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

You can raise the dead by casting Cause Light Wounds in combat. (This is gone starting in Secret of the Silver Blades.)

Sorry, just asking for clarification here. Do you mean you can harm the dead by casting Cause Light Wounds on them in combat (instead of Cure)? How does Cause Light Wounds raise the dead?

 

[Harlin]

You can raise the dead by casting Cause Light Wounds in combat. (This is gone starting in Secret of the Silver Blades.)

Sorry, just asking for clarification here. Do you mean you can harm the dead by casting Cause Light Wounds on them in combat (instead of Cure)? How does Cause Light Wounds raise the dead?

A Dead character has 0 hit points.

Such a character turns out to be a valid target for a targeted damage spell. Cause Light Wounds must pass an attack roll (so it helps to remove all armor before you do this), but it will do 1d8 damage, and your characater will now have -1 to -8 hit points and now be only dying.

Burning Hands works better for this in Pool of Radiance, but once you reach level 10 it does too much damage.

 

[weirwood]

Incidentally, IIRC to the statement that started this discussion, there is no functional difference between a 19 con dwarf and a 18 con anyone else Fighter. They both get +4 hp per die.

You remember wrongly. No idea about tabletop 1st edition rules, but both in 2nd Ed, and in the Krynn trilogy, 19 Con gets you +5 hp. I just rolled up a new character in DQK to check - a level 12 dwarf fighter with 19 Con starts with up to 144 hp. 18 Con gets you 135. What makes the dwarf worthwhile as a dragon lance wielder is that single class fighters will outpace all other characters for total hit points. At the end of DQK, my dwarf had about 30 hp more than my knight.

It's been years since I last played the trilogy, so my own memory may also be a bit spotty, but I'm fairly certain that on the highest difficulty (+50% enemy hp), it usually takes more than a single DBF to take out a dragon; but a hasted fighter can take out up to 4 each turn. And at least in DQK, the major dragon encounters tend to be scattered enough that you can't cover them all under one DBF.

Your experience might have been different, but that's how I played with three mages and two lancers - stack DBFs on clusters of enemies, take out the stragglers with dragon lances. And it worked very well. You may say that a dwarf with 150-200 hp is overkill, but having warriors that can soak a breath attack (save for half damage), and still one-shot dragons afterwards gives you a certain peace of mind.

 

[Harlin]

How maximum hit points work is one of those rules that changes multiple times.

Pool of Radiance has one set of rules, Curse of the Azure Bonds another, and I think all other non-Buck-Rogers Gold Box games work in a third way that actually gets 1st Edition tabletop rules right.

 

[Cael]

Incidentally, IIRC to the statement that started this discussion, there is no functional difference between a 19 con dwarf and a 18 con anyone else Fighter. They both get +4 hp per die.

You remember wrongly. No idea about tabletop 1st edition rules, but both in 2nd Ed, and in the Krynn trilogy, 19 Con gets you +5 hp. I just rolled up a new character in DQK to check - a level 12 dwarf fighter with 19 Con starts with up to 144 hp. 18 Con gets you 135. What makes the dwarf worthwhile as a dragon lance wielder is that single class fighters will outpace all other characters for total hit points. At the end of DQK, my dwarf had about 30 hp more than my knight.

It's been years since I last played the trilogy, so my own memory may also be a bit spotty, but I'm fairly certain that on the highest difficulty (+50% enemy hp), it usually takes more than a single DBF to take out a dragon; but a hasted fighter can take out up to 4 each turn. And at least in DQK, the major dragon encounters tend to be scattered enough that you can't cover them all under one DBF.

Your experience might have been different, but that's how I played with three mages and two lancers - stack DBFs on clusters of enemies, take out the stragglers with dragon lances. And it worked very well. You may say that a dwarf with 150-200 hp is overkill, but having warriors that can soak a breath attack (save for half damage), and still one-shot dragons afterwards gives you a certain peace of mind.

I tend to play with 5 mages. My current run is 4 FCM and 1 FTM. It has been an interesting ride, with no reloads required so far nor needed to buy any equipment yet so far. Throtl Keep is so loot heavy that you can walk in there bare-assed and come out with a full set of equipment that will last you a while.

 

[Bara]

Working to wrap up the gold box series now and just started Krynn saga.

One thing thats been bugging me through the whole thing is the journals. Why are they listed out of order?

Some times it tells me to read entry 70 and then in the same npc dialogue it bumps me back to entry 40. It's not a problem at all but I've been wondering why they set it up this way.

Was it to avoid accidentally spoiling things that would happen later by accidentally glancing forward?

 

[mediocrepoet]

Was it to avoid accidentally spoiling things that would happen later by accidentally glancing forward?

That and some of them have fake entries also to avoid spoiling the game for people.

 

[ProphetSword]

Working to wrap up the gold box series now and just started Krynn saga.

One thing thats been bugging me through the whole thing is the journals. Why are they listed out of order?

Some times it tells me to read entry 70 and then in the same npc dialogue it bumps me back to entry 40. It's not a problem at all but I've been wondering why they set it up this way.

Was it to avoid accidentally spoiling things that would happen later by accidentally glancing forward?

The journal entries are out of order in order to preserve the story. The fear was that some people might try to read ahead to get an advantage (and that's probably true), so they laced the journal with a bunch of false entries (sometimes containing whole side plots that seem legit but don't actually exist in the games at all) and put them out of order to keep folks from using them to cheat and peek at what's ahead.

Spoiler

I know the game is 32 years old, but just in case someone hasn't played it before...

An example of this is Journal Entry 24 in Pool of Radiance, which highly suggests that city council member Porphyrys Cardona was an evil demonic child and is now possibly the ultimate bad guy in the game. This is all completely false.

 

[Dorateen]

The journal entries are out of order in order to preserve the story. The fear was that some people might try to read ahead to get an advantage (and that's probably true), so they laced the journal with a bunch of false entries (sometimes containing whole side plots that seem legit but don't actually exist in the games at all) and put them out of order to keep folks from using them to cheat and peek at what's ahead.

Spoiler

I know the game is 32 years old, but just in case someone hasn't played it before...

An example of this is Journal Entry 24 in Pool of Radiance, which highly suggests that city council member Porphyrys Cardona was an evil demonic child and is now possibly the ultimate bad guy in the game. This is all completely false.

Like the example you posted, a lot of the red herring journal entries were imaginative and entertaining to read. Especially once completing the game, and putting the information in context. Another demonstration of the excellent writing of the Gold Box series, not confined to in-game text, but found in the Adventurer's Journal.

 

[octavius]

I really loved those bits of "lore" you could find in Moander's Library, and reading about the "foremost of the minor courtiers", like Big T, ? of the Burning Spear and ? of the Boiling Mud. Quoted from memory.

 

[Bara]

I now understand why in the Dragonlance novels the characters were on edge whenever encountering a dread wolf. Nearly mauled my cleric to death.

But man was it satisfying to finally put it down after its constant mockery.

 

[Bara]

So nearing the end of DQK currently at the gnome tower. I've started to notice the AI clerics are making.... questionable decisions?

Like previously they were most of the time they cast blade barrier around my characters not on top of them.

Just recently I had a evil cleric committing murder suicide by casting blade barrier on himself and a ally and not touching any of my party.

 

[Dorateen]

And lo, Reorx will sew confusion among the ranks of Takhisis that their evil spells shall be turned against them.

 

[Ladonna]

I really loved those bits of "lore" you could find in Moander's Library, and reading about the "foremost of the minor courtiers", like Big T, ? of the Burning Spear and ? of the Boiling Mud. Quoted from memory.

Mendor's Library. Maram of the Great Spear, Haask, Voice of Hargut, Tyranthraxus the Flamed One, Borem of the Lake of Boiling Mud and Camnod the Unseen.

I only finished the game again a few months back, so I had an advantage. Great game.

 

[Null Null]

I do remember reading the draconians tend to break morale after you've come back from your...'journey'. Perhaps they purposely nerfed the AI to reflect their dismay?

 

[Null Null]

I really loved those bits of "lore" you could find in Moander's Library, and reading about the "foremost of the minor courtiers", like Big T, ? of the Burning Spear and ? of the Boiling Mud. Quoted from memory.

Mendor's Library. Maram of the Great Spear, Haask, Voice of Hargut, Tyranthraxus the Flamed One, Borem of the Lake of Boiling Mud and Camnod the Unseen.

I only finished the game again a few months back, so I had an advantage. Great game.

I thought they did a nice job with the 'false document' technique (as it's called in literature). Of course, it was copy protection too.

 

[Ladonna]

I agree. Though in the later games the efforts for both the real and false journal entries really went down several notches. You can feel the effort that went into POR in particular.

 

[Bara]

Well that's the D&D gold box games all wrapped up. Was a damn fun ride.

Oddly enough I think the Savage Frontier games were my favorite. While the Pools saga was a great adventure to take one party throughout the whole thing and Krynn was good fun and tugged way more on my nostalgia remembering a lot of things from the Dragonlance books. I really dug Savage Frontier being a short and simple adventure of just uniting the city states against a invading army and then defending the alliance from vile subterfuge.

Also thinking back to Death Knights of Krynn, is this the cannon explanation of how Soth ended up in Ravenloft? Which if I recall correctly he was later kicked out of Ravenloft by the dark powers for being "too boring" and just staring into a mirror all day.

 

[Ladonna]

The last Dragon Lance book I read was the last War of the Twins book, where Soth ended up taking Kitiaras body off after Tanis 'allowed' him too. I have no idea what happened to him after that. Death Knights kind of played into that storyline well, with the return of a (presumably?) undead Kitiara using the rod on Soth to get he freedom back. I am guessing he was whisked away to Ravenloft? I know nothing of that world.

Is Dark Queen canon? Again, at the end of the book above, Raistlin was protected by his brothers spirit, or something like that. Then I find Raistlin being tortured in the Abyss in the game!

I know there were a lot of third party Krynn books that retconned many of the things that were written in the original trilogies, so the history seems a bit murky.

 

[Cael]

The last Dragon Lance book I read was the last War of the Twins book, where Soth ended up taking Kitiaras body off after Tanis 'allowed' him too. I have no idea what happened to him after that. Death Knights kind of played into that storyline well, with the return of a (presumably?) undead Kitiara using the rod on Soth to get he freedom back. I am guessing he was whisked away to Ravenloft? I know nothing of that world.

Is Dark Queen canon? Again, at the end of the book above, Raistlin was protected by his brothers spirit, or something like that. Then I find Raistlin being tortured in the Abyss in the game!

I know there were a lot of third party Krynn books that retconned many of the things that were written in the original trilogies, so the history seems a bit murky.

No. Raistlin was never protected by Caramon. Caramon lived and returned to his own time. He reconciles with Tika and they went on to have 5 kids.

 

[Cael]

Well that's the D&D gold box games all wrapped up. Was a damn fun ride.

Oddly enough I think the Savage Frontier games were my favorite. While the Pools saga was a great adventure to take one party throughout the whole thing and Krynn was good fun and tugged way more on my nostalgia remembering a lot of things from the Dragonlance books. I really dug Savage Frontier being a short and simple adventure of just uniting the city states against a invading army and then defending the alliance from vile subterfuge.

Also thinking back to Death Knights of Krynn, is this the cannon explanation of how Soth ended up in Ravenloft? Which if I recall correctly he was later kicked out of Ravenloft by the dark powers for being "too boring" and just staring into a mirror all day.

Savage Frontier is definitely the better one in many ways, but the 5 level limit on casters in the first game is a PITA, since you will reach that before you even hit the Host Tower.

 

[octavius]

Savage Frontier is the weakest in the way that matters most: encounter design. Especially the first game was very weak in that regard, except the final battles which was the only saving grace of the game IMO.

But plot wise it I guess it was the best, with more urban adventures visiting lots of towns, and with more local problems. But then plot and story in a game for me is just a means, not an end in itself.

 

[Ladonna]

The last Dragon Lance book I read was the last War of the Twins book, where Soth ended up taking Kitiaras body off after Tanis 'allowed' him too. I have no idea what happened to him after that. Death Knights kind of played into that storyline well, with the return of a (presumably?) undead Kitiara using the rod on Soth to get he freedom back. I am guessing he was whisked away to Ravenloft? I know nothing of that world.

Is Dark Queen canon? Again, at the end of the book above, Raistlin was protected by his brothers spirit, or something like that. Then I find Raistlin being tortured in the Abyss in the game!

I know there were a lot of third party Krynn books that retconned many of the things that were written in the original trilogies, so the history seems a bit murky.

No. Raistlin was never protected by Caramon. Caramon lived and returned to his own time. He reconciles with Tika and they went on to have 5 kids.

Read the last moments after Caramon escapes the Abyss with Raistlins staff. The Dark Queen is chimping out because she cannot get Raistlins soul or something like that. I can't believe I still remember this! haha

 

[Ladonna]

Savage Frontier is the weakest in the way that matters most: encounter design. Especially the first game was very weak in that regard, except the final battles which was the only saving grace of the game IMO.

But plot wise it I guess it was the best, with more urban adventures visiting lots of towns, and with more local problems. But then plot and story in a game for me is just a means, not an end in itself.

I remember visiting plenty of towns in SoSF, but many of them were pretty devoid of any plot at all.