Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[newtmonkey]

Pool of Radiance
Nearing the end of this, and what a blast it's been! I finally finished up all the commissions.

I was surprised to find myself having such a difficult time with the final set of battles in the Kobold Caves—that is, until I realized you can affect your position in the battle based on the direction from which you enter the battle. Entering from the rightmost square places you in the corner of the battlefield with your back row safely protected by your front row characters, so I could start the battle with two fireballs to greatly weaken or outright kill the trolls and many of the kobolds. Getting through that first battle in decent shape was the key to getting through the second and third battles without much problem, and then the final battle is probably the easiest of the bunch as long as you have a fireball or two left.

Next is off to Valjevo Castle and what I assume is the end of the game!

 

[Harlin]

I'm revising the Pool of Radiance FAQ, again.

I'm renumbering maps/events to use what the actual game (and Gold Box Companion) uses.

One of these days, I'm going to do this and not actually find mistakes. This time was not that time.

Current new findings:

• You can open the Cadorna treasure twice. (It's a scripting bug.)
• You can, in fact, fight Ogre Leaders, in the Wealthy Area/Temple of Bane. You need a minimum Party Strength of 66 (lots of players won't be anywhere near this) for them to have any chance of appearing, and even then, the chance is all of 1%.

 

[newtmonkey]

Pool of Radiance

Finished!

I didn't have much game left, but the final area was a bit more expansive than I thought it would be. There were actually enough unique encounters there to get my two fighters to maximum level, but I fell just short of getting an additional thief level for my fighter/thief.

The final battle was a joke even with my honestly-rolled party, and much easier than either the vampire in Valhingen Graveyard or the consecutive chain of battles in the Kobold Caves. I was surprised to find that both Hold Person and Stinking Cloud work fine on the enemies in the penultimate battle, which meant I entered the final battle nearly at full health. After a single Haste spell and a couple of Potions of Giant Strength quaffed by my fighters, Tyranthraxus went down in just a couple of rounds.

The ending was somewhat disappointing but at least I got a nice EGA cutscene out of it. It dropped me back to town with enough experience to level my fighter/thief up once in each class, and now I'm ready to transfer to Curse of the Azure Bonds. First, though, I am gonna read the novel and I might take my fighter/thief through Hillsfar as well.

I may discard my two fighters and replace them with a paladin and ranger created anew in Curse. We'll see!

---

This was a seriously awesome game!

Much like Wizardry I and Might & Magic I, playing Pool of Radiance feels like playing something from the future when you consider when it was released, because it's so much better than anything else that came out around the same time. While playing through it I was constantly impressed with the exploration, sense of advancement, and its excellent tactical combat. What I didn't realize was how much actual role-playing there is in this game. I looked through the clue book after I completed the game and was very surprised to find that all the choices I had made in the game actually have meaning. What other game in 1988 was doing this? Your actions even affect things in other areas—for example, I had saved a group of lizard men in one area and they gave me a password. Hours later, I used that password when I discovered their settlement to ally with the old leader against the an upstart challenger. This meant I could solve the quest simply by winning a duel with the upstart. The clue book tells me that, without the password, you would just have to clear the area by slaughtering the entire lizard man army! Or how about the fact that if you have any Evil hirelings in your party they will turn on you and ally with the enemy during the final battle? Simply unbelievable in 1988 or even now in 2020.

The thing that most surprised me about this game was that it never wastes your time. It never annoys you with trash mazes or trash combat, instead every map is full of interesting things to find (and also to kill). There are only two areas in the game where I faced large armies of "easy" enemies: the massive orc battle in Sokal Keep and the Kobold Caves. These aren't trash combats; instead, they are ways to take enemies that are individually very weak but make them a threat for a comparatively powerful party. I loved it, these were a blast to figure out.

I loved how you gained most of your experience from finding treasures and completing missions. The reward for winning battles (besides the enjoyable combat engine) was finding powerful magic equipment, and that's fine with me!

Overall, 10/10 game. I know the Gold Box series remains anywhere from decent to great from here on out, but it's a bit sad to finish such an awesome game knowing that nothing else reaches its heights. Even so, I suspect it will be like Wizardry I-III where even a comparatively poor Wizardry game is so far ahead of everything else out there that it's a pleasure to play.

 

[octavius]

I miss those large scale battles, slaughtering armies of goblinoids. Gateway to the Savage Frontier years later was such a massive decline, sucking out all the fun (except the final battle) that made PoR great.

If you're gonna import, be aware that imported characters have a tendency of having their stats getting corrupted in Curse of the Azure Bonds, especially if you equip Ioun stones or items that modify stats.

 

[bec de corbin]

The Krynn games are pretty good, too, I think. Savage Frontier is definitely not, though.

 

[newtmonkey]

octavius

Thanks for the heads up! Harlin seems to provide some suggestions in his/her FAQ on how best to avoid problems when importing a party into Curse, so I'll be sure to follow that.

 

[Dorateen]

I think Pools of Darkness does a decent job capturing some of the magic of Pool of Radiance. The adventure has non-linearity in how you approach tackling Bane's Lieutenants and there are some epic scale battles, if you enjoy high level AD&D.

 

[ProphetSword]

The Krynn games are pretty good, too, I think. Savage Frontier is definitely not, though.

I don't know about that. The Savage Frontier series adds some interesting twists to the formula. Having enemies or allies suddenly appear in battle can really make things interesting and can be the turning point in a particular battle. Gateway is better than Treasures, for sure. And neither of them is better than most games in the first Forgotten Realms four-part series, but they aren't a complete loss. I like them better than Dark Queen of Krynn.

 

[Cael]

The Krynn games are pretty good, too, I think. Savage Frontier is definitely not, though.

I don't know about that. The Savage Frontier series adds some interesting twists to the formula. Having enemies or allies suddenly appear in battle can really make things interesting and can be the turning point in a particular battle. Gateway is better than Treasures, for sure. And neither of them is better than most games in the first Forgotten Realms four-part series, but they aren't a complete loss. I like them better than Dark Queen of Krynn.

DQK was well into epic territory. They just didn't know how to handle the power bloat, so they turned everyone into a slog fest. Even the cannon fodder (Thenol Fanatics) are all in the region of level 14-20.

The problem with the early editions, which 3.x tried to fix, is that the game breaks down after level 8 or so, when the characters already start rivalling dragons. That doesn't give players or game developers a lot of wriggle room for long adventures.

 

[Lukifell]

^ True. Part of PoR’s charm is the low level aspect. You feel challenged, each new spell or piece of loot is exciting, and it just feels real somehow. Low level noobs at war with goblinoids. Then you get into PoD with 20th level guys one-rounding dragons and rolling in +5 gear... yawn.

 

[Desiderius]

^ True. Part of PoR’s charm is the low level aspect. You feel challenged, each new spell or piece of loot is exciting, and it just feels real somehow. Low level noobs at war with goblinoids. Then you get into PoD with 20th level guys one-rounding dragons and rolling in +5 gear... yawn.

It was pre-interweb so you get lost in Moander’s Body fighting tough random encounters for days you were just stuck.

 

[Null Null]

I always wondered if that was a bug where the randoms and the final fight with Tanetal (which was surprisingly easy) were transposed somehow.

Even then having to avoid the cardiac cycle was amusing and creative.

The anatomy's a little off, as you might expect with a 2D representation of a 3D structure... but the connections are more or less accurate, and two-vessel aortic arches are a normal variant.

 

[Harlin]

I'm also going over all 155 pages of the thread to catch things I may have missed.

• You can open the Cadorna treasure twice. (It's a scripting bug.)

Nope, that's mentioned on page 70 already; I just re-discovered it independently. Although it's not actually that bad a bug; I'd expect hundreds of bugs in a game the complexity of Pool of Radiance. If you don't know about hundreds, it's because you haven't been looking closely enough!

I do want to have everything in one place so we don't re-discover things repeatedly like this.

 

[newtmonkey]

Hillsfar
I know this isn't a Gold Box game, but it does allow you to transfer from Pool of Radiance and into Curse of the Azure Bonds. I took the dwarf fighter/thief from my winning Pool of Radiance party through the game. Very short game! It took less than two hours total over several days to complete all three fighters guild missions. The game rewards you with a bunch of gold (useless), EXP for every quest completed (though not enough to level up)... but most importantly a MASSIVE HP boost—from 30 to 54 in my case.

It was a fun game. If, back in the day, it was all I had while waiting to get Curse of the Azure Bonds, I'd probably have gladly took all my Pool of Radiance characters through it. Now, though, once was enough! Once I finish reading the Azure Bonds novel, I'll transfer all my characters and begin Curse of the Azure Bonds!

 

[bec de corbin]

I believe there's actually a few minor dialog changes in Curse for parties with a character that played through Hillsfar.

 

[newtmonkey]

Curse of the Azure Bonds
For some reason I had grown up thinking this game was not worth playing, without having ever played it. I didn't realize back then this was a sequel to Pool of Radiance, and I think I grossly misunderstood the description of it in an SSI catalog, which to me made it sound like some kind of sex farce (ala Leather Goddesses of Phobos) about some bodacious babe waking up with a mind control tattoo (I guess the cover didn't help). Later on, even when I figured out that it was a legit CRPG and sequel to Pool, I somehow got the impression that it was much more story-focused and linear, so I wasn't particularly looking forward to playing it.

However, I'm glad to find that it's a great sequel! I was also surprised to find that it's actually quite nonlinear after the first hour or so.

I've carried my winning Pool party over without any changes, though I was tempted at first to ditch my two fighters for a newly created ranger and paladin. So, I've got two fighters, a dwarf fighter/thief, a cleric, and two magic-users (all human other than the dwarf). They all were rolled honestly, so no super characters. I did run my fighter/thief through Hilllsfar first, which gave him a nice HP boost and an additional thief level.

I'm actually surprised by how challenging some combats are here. I expected importing a nearly max level party from Pool would have made things somewhat easy, but after a pretty easy initial hour I am running into some very tough parties with spell casters who seem to be completely resistant to magic and that love to cast hold person on all my melee characters!

Even though it still only uses EGA graphics and Tandy sound, it's quite an improvement over Pool. The EGA graphics are much more detailed (especially the monster icons), and the Tandy sound effects, which were a slight improvement over the PC speaker SFX in Pool, are MUCH better this time around. Having said that, it's still just SFX, so I'm looking forward to some actual Adlib (or even MT-32) music in later games.

My plan after completing this game is to go in chronological order and play Champions of Krynn. I think it would be fun to play the entire Gold Box series in order of release to see how the engine was refined over time. It will also give me a break from using the same party through four massive games.

 

[octavius]

I am running into some very tough parties with spell casters who seem to be completely resistant to magic and that love to cast hold person on all my melee characters!

Drow?
They are a pain in the ass. I wish I had a party of Fighter/Thieves against them, since backstabbing is the best tactic against them. The underrated Enlarge spell is also very handy in that area to give the F/T more power.

 

[newtmonkey]

octavius
I haven't encounted drow yet, just regular spell casters in groups of Zhentil marauders. Fireball seems to skip right over them, which I didn't think was possible; I thought failing a saving throw against fireball just halved the damage.

 

[octavius]

Ah, the Zhentil Terror Teams! The mages are buffed with Minor Globes IIRC.
You are a bit off the canon track to meet them so soon.

 

[newtmonkey]

octavius
I thought as much, so I headed southward

 

[newtmonkey]

Curse of the Azure Bonds
Headed south to go after the red wizard of Thay.

I had some trouble with the drow lord (Burly?) on the way down the tower, as he was capable with a good roll of one-shotting most of my characters. Luckily the game allows you to rest prior to facing him. I memorized and then cast a bunch of buffing spells (bless, prayer, haste, protection from evil) before the combat, and was even able to get Slow to stick on the drow lord during combat, which seriously decreased his lethality.

My enlarged/hasted fighter/thief landed the final blow with an ultra-satisfying backstab that did 64 damage. It was a thing of beauty.

The rest of the tower was not very difficult, and I relied on my fighters for most of the fixed and random encounters. I had some trouble the first attempt at the final battle in the courtyard, but spread my characters out during the second attempt and focused on the guards before sending my fighter/thief hulked up and insane with rage like Jason Vorhees to stalk Dracandros himself. However, the red wizard apparently escaped at some point (or maybe the game glitched?) and I found myself suddenly winning the battle.

 

[ValeVelKal]

Not sure if you guys noted - probably - the CRPG Addict is on the last Gold Box game (the Dark Queen of Krynn).

I am ashamed to admit I never played any of them, and I know I should.

 

[bec de corbin]

Not sure if you guys noted - probably - the CRPG Addict is on the last Gold Box game (the Dark Queen of Krynn).

I am ashamed to admit I never played any of them, and I know I should.

PoR is honestly really cool. Even if you don't play them all, it's worth checking out.

 

[Oliiver]

Hi

I've been toying with Gold Box Companion and associated save game editor about Champions of Krynn recently, and since there seem to be no really dedicated place to discuss GBC i'll post here what i found concerning the Krynn game. Anyone is welcome to use and transmit this information where it can be useful.
My goal was to create magic user scrolls and i needed for that the game codes for spells, so i first checked that, then created spell scrolls in the save game editor. Properties should also apply to the item editor. Here's what i found :

- To be useable, a White MU Scroll or a Red MU scroll must have its "Un-Id" property properly set, respectively to 32 for a White mage scroll and to 16 for a Red MU scroll. Otherwise your Magic User won't be able to ready the scroll as being "wrong magical order". This works regardless the name of the scroll, so with the proper "Un-Id" your White MU scroll can be readied by a Red mage
- All spells seem to be useable afterwards. Setting up scrolls with 3 spells require use of the the 3 properties of the item.
- Of course, using one of the multiple spells on the scroll of course reduces the number of spells. For instance if you use a spell on a white MU scroll 2 spells then it becomes a white MU scrolll 1 spell
- If you use a spell on a scroll 1 spell, then it disappears
- That means if you happily put 3 spells on a scroll while it's name is "1 spell" then using one of the 3 spells makes the scroll and the 2 other spells disappear.
- There is a "feature" in SGE that when you load an item, its "un-id" property is set to 0. I don't know if this happens when you store it or when you load it. However, than means whatever MU scroll you load from the item storage will be unuseable unless you edit the "un-id" property to the proper value (16/32) after loading it in your character inventory
- Last, only MU spells that your MU can memorize are scribable from the scrolls. That means you won't be able to scrible ""bless" or "Cone of cold", but a white mage can scribe a dedicated red spell like dimdoor or fear if he can memorize 4th level spells.
- There is an exception for level 7 "Animate dead" that any mage can scribe, but of course not memorize in CoK

Here are the spell codes :
- Codes used in the game are between 1 and 128. Code 129 is the same as 1, etc (eg code 128+5 is the same as 5)
- It is unclear to me why there are level 1 druid spells as there is no druid class and rangers don't get spells in CoK
- Special are the spells bestowed by the character divinity

Code Level/MU Spell
1 1/Cleric Bless
2 1/Cleric Curse
3 1/Cleric Cure Light Wounds
4 1/Cleric Cause Light Wounds
5 1/Cleric Detect Magic
6 1/Cleric PFE (protection from Evil)
7 1/Cleric PFG (protection from Good)
8 1/Cleric Resist Cold
9 1/Mage Burning Hands
10 1/Mage Charm Person
11 1/Mage Detect Magic
12 1/Mage Enlarge
13 1/Mage Reduce
14 1/Mage Friends
15 1/Mage MM (Magic Missile)
16 1/Mage PFE
17 1/Mage PFG
18 1/Mage Read Magic
19 1/Mage Shield
20 1/Mage Shocking Grasp
21 1/Mage Sleep
22 2/Cleric Find Traps
23 2/Cleric Hold Person
24 2/Cleric Resist fire
25 2/Cleric Silence 15' Radius
26 2/Cleric Slow Poison
27 2/Cleric Snake Charm
28 2/Cleric Spiritual Hammer
29 2/Mage Detect Invi(sibility)
30 2/Mage Invi(sibility)
31 2/Mage Knock
32 2/Mage Mirror Image
33 2/Mage Ray of Enfeeblement
34 2/Mage Stinking cloud
35 2/Mage Strength
36 7/Mage Animate Dead
37 3/Cleric Cure Blindness
38 3/Cleric Cause Blindness
39 3/Cleric Cure disease
40 3/Cleric Cause disease
41 3/Cleric Dispel Magic
42 3/Cleric Prayer
43 3/Cleric Remove Curse
44 3/Cleric Bestow Curse
45 3/Mage Blink
46 3/Mage Dispel Magic
47 3/Mage Fireball
48 3/Mage Haste
49 3/Mage Hold Person
50 3/Mage Invi 10'
51 3/Mage Lightning Bolt
52 3/Mage PFE 10'
53 3/Mage PFG 10'
54 3/Mage PFNM (protection from normal missiles)
55 3/Mage Slow
56 7/Cleric Restoration
57 not used -
58 4/Cleric Cure serious wounds
59-65 not used -
66 4/Cleric Cause serious wounds
67 4/Cleric Neutralise Poison
68 4/Cleric Poison
69 4/Cleric PFE 10'
70 4/Cleric Sicks to snakes
71 5/Cleric Cure critical Wounds
72 5/Cleric Cause critical Wounds
73 5/Cleric Dispel Evil
74 5/Cleric Flame Strike
75 5/Cleric Raise Dead
76 5/Cleric Slay Living
77 1/Druid Detect Magic
78 1/Druid Entangle
79 1/Druid Faerie Fire
80 1/Druid Invi to Animals
81 4/Mage Charm Monsters
82 4/Mage Confusion
83 4/Mage Dim Door
84 4/Mage Fear
85 4/Mage Fire Shield
86 4/Mage Fumble
87 4/Mage Ice Storm
88 4/Mage Minor Globe of Invulnerability
89 4/Mage Remove Curse
90 5/Mage Animate Dead
91 5/Mage Cloud Kill
92 5/Mage Cone of cold
93 5/Mage Feeblemind
94 5/Mage Hold Monsters
95-99 Not used -
100 4/Mage Bestow Curse
101 Special PFE 10'
102 Special Silence 15' Radius
103 Special Detect Magic
104 Special Remove Curse
105 Special Bless
106 Special Charm Person
107 Special Burning Hands
108-128 Not used -

 

[Null Null]

You may want to try direct-messaging Joonas (the guy who writes the GBC). I've done so with my discoveries and they've wound up in the next edition.

The 'special's at the end are the special deity spells offered to clerics of given deities (PFE 10' for Paladine for instance). They're actually coded as separate spells.

From what I can tell they used the code from Curse as a base for Champions, so 5th-level mage and cleric spells are in there. Same with 1st-level druid spells.

The games were made in the order Pool, Curse, Champions, Secret, Death, Pools, Queen, FRUA. (Gateway and Treasures were done by a different studio, Gateway off the Curse code, Treasures off the Pools code.) It's why the exploding fireball sprite appears in Death and everything after it but not the first four, why Fix shows up in Curse but you still have to rememorize spells, and so on. A lot of weird oddities of FRUA (the executable of which was extensively picked over by the hacking community in the nineties) are explainable if you realize it's Dark Queen of Krynn with Pools of Darkness' item list...and a lot of the fun Krynn abilities removed to make room for hell hound breath and ghast stench.

My guess with Animate Dead (remember they had it in Pool of Radiance) is they had to remove access to it somehow. If you hacked the code in the executable to make it a spell of castable level I'd guess the code is still in there and it would work.