Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Harlin]

One of these days I plan to disassemble Pool of Radiance down to the assembly level and analyze that. I expect to find lots of interesting things -- and lots of bugs -- I just had never noticed.

I'm learning how to do this by disassembling the IBM version of Phantasie. Just last night I discovered that SSI's programmers apparently thought that they could replace 2 ^ X with X ^ 2. Granted, this formula is only ever used for X = 0 to 4, and that's not actually ever off by more than 1. It's still not only not how math works, they could have done the correct thing in less machine code. (If you're technically inclined and wondering how: squaring an integer is a library function. Why, I don't know, that should usually be inlined.)

 

[Null Null]

I do remember reading about these tricks; apparently it was quite common to replace the square root of 2 by 1.5, as you're not that far off (sqrt(2)=appx 1.414) and it doesn't make a huge difference in most cases, and you don't have to deal with precision issues, etc. (technically you can never actually store the square root of 2 perfectly as it is irrational and thus cannot be a ratio of two numbers).

You'd think exponentiation is pretty easy for computers, though. What's the context--where were they doing this?

 

[Harlin]

The context is monsters casting a spell, which has completely different code from characters casting a spell in Phantasie. (This is before Pool of Radiance, which had the then-novel idea of "let's try to actually make characters and monsters play by the same rules".) Most spells in Phantasie have 4 power levels, and that's X in these calculations.

Even a difference of 1 can be substantial, with the formula for the Quickness spells, which for monsters sets attack rating equal to a specific number. If a Scribe (low-level enemy), with a base attack rating of 30, casts Quickness I:

• On the Apple ][, the formula is 35 + 30 * 2 ^ (power level - 1). A Scribe casting now has an attack rating of 65, which is a good boost over its normal attack rating.
• On the IBM, the formula 35 + 30 * (power level - 1) ^ 2. A Scribe casting now has an attack rating of 35, which is barely an improvement.

Lots of things like this got missed when people moved from one platform to another, back in the day. It's why you shouldn't expect even the same game to behave the same when you change platforms. Or even the same engine on the same platform but with a different game ... like happens with the Gold Box games.

 

[octavius]

Someone should dissect FRUA to see how Initiative really works in that game, and why some low level monster like goblins hit so much more often, and are harder to hit, than comparable monsters like Thugs, despite having almost the same stats.

 

[dmwyvern]

You're going to have multiple reloads either way. You seem really set on using the same party (I assume you are using GBC to create Rangers and Paladins in Pool? I've never done this), so I say go for it.

You mean the big six? STR and DEX will affect THAC0, and CON will affect HP. Assuming Mr. Lee is correct, I don't think there would be any further effect. Once you get past Pool any incentive not to max out your characters' ability scores vanishes, to be honest.

I did fighter, fighter, fighter, fighter/mage/thief, cleric, mage. I dualled one of my fighters to a mage in Secret and another to a cleric in Pools.

I've beaten Pool with six fighters and with a single cleric/fighter/mage and a single fighter/mage/thief; Pool is forgiving, the later games less so.

Thank you Null Null. Summoning Cael and octavius into this conversion too.

Assuming I do not want to abuse power word reload too much.

And assuming I do not take the time roll for max HP or use the optional leveling up feature from the Gold Box Companion (huge kudos to the developer of that QoL app)... What strategies would I need to be looking at with a party of fighters and mages with HP all over the place and generally sub optimal?

 

[Dorateen]

What strategies would I need to be looking at with a party of fighters and mages with HP all over the place and generally sub optimal?

Sleep, Hold Person and then the ultimate debilitating spell: Stinking Cloud. Use a combination of those spells to render enemies helpless. They can then be dispatched in one shot. You can also use this to shape the battlefield, creating a "wall" of sleeping enemies that might block creatures behind them. Or funneling monsters into a path of noxious clouds to neutralize their ranks. All Gold Box combat is built around terrain awareness, and you should keep your characters anchored near features where they can't be easily flanked or surrounded. By holding the doorways to rooms, you can take down forces in much larger numbers.

 

[dmwyvern]

What strategies would I need to be looking at with a party of fighters and mages with HP all over the place and generally sub optimal?

Sleep, Hold Person and then the ultimate debilitating spell: Stinking Cloud. Use a combination of those spells to render enemies helpless. They can then be dispatched in one shot. You can also use this to shape the battlefield, creating a "wall" of sleeping enemies that might block creatures behind them. Or funneling monsters into a path of noxious clouds to neutralize their ranks. All Gold Box combat is built around terrain awareness, and you should keep your characters anchored near features where they can't be easily flanked or surrounded. By holding the doorways to rooms, you can take down forces in much larger numbers.

Great suggestions Dorateen! I'll give it a shot and see where the RNG takes my adventuring party. ^_^

Looking forward to sharing my upcoming LP here on the Codex.

 

[Cael]

You're going to have multiple reloads either way. You seem really set on using the same party (I assume you are using GBC to create Rangers and Paladins in Pool? I've never done this), so I say go for it.

You mean the big six? STR and DEX will affect THAC0, and CON will affect HP. Assuming Mr. Lee is correct, I don't think there would be any further effect. Once you get past Pool any incentive not to max out your characters' ability scores vanishes, to be honest.

I did fighter, fighter, fighter, fighter/mage/thief, cleric, mage. I dualled one of my fighters to a mage in Secret and another to a cleric in Pools.

I've beaten Pool with six fighters and with a single cleric/fighter/mage and a single fighter/mage/thief; Pool is forgiving, the later games less so.

Thank you Null Null. Summoning Cael and octavius into this conversion too.

Assuming I do not want to abuse power word reload too much.

And assuming I do not take the time roll for max HP or use the optional leveling up feature from the Gold Box Companion (huge kudos to the developer of that QoL app)... What strategies would I need to be looking at with a party of fighters and mages with HP all over the place and generally sub optimal?

Spell selection is going to be your best bet in that configuration. If you don't get hit at all, it doesn't matter what your HP is. That means you need to go first and have the ability to end battles with that first strike.

(Ultra)High Dex all round, and lots of mages and/or clerics is your best bet. Go for things that can disable in an area or hit multiple targets. Sleep, Hold Person, Stinking Cloud are all good low level disablers. Use them liberally.

When you get Fireball, use them liberally, too. One Fireball might not do much, but 2-4 of them in quick succession? Game, set and match. This is how I took out that allegedly impossible to beat fight in Gateway to the Savage Frontier in the town before Ascore. Basically three screens of fighters, backed by a bunch of manticores and casters, IIRC. My guys were all barely scratched.

Same thing with Ice Storms (which doesn't have a save and does physical damage, not cold). 3-30 doesn't seem like much, but it doesn't allow a save, so that is 3-30 guaranteed damage. The smaller area also means you can use it in tighter confines, which can be crucial.

For fighter types, go (ultra)high Strength. The difference between 15 and 18(00) is +3 to-hit and +6 damage, IIRC. That is massive in low level games.

Just be aware that your main stat has a bearing on the maximum level a demi-human can attain in a class. You need about 18 Strength for example, to get level 7 fighter for an elf (IIRC). Otherwise, you are stuck with as low as 5. So, at the end of the day, if you are going with a bunch of multiclass demi-humans, you will need near max stats to get the most out of them within the level cap.

Also, be aware that Int controls which max level of spells your mages can attain. You will end up wanting max Int with them, regardless. I can't remember if clerics have the same restriction with Wis.

High level Gold Box games are heavily biased towards high stats as you need them just to be able to do what your characters are able to do.

 

[Harlin]

Strength is important, but you don't really need high starting Strength. At low levels, you should win combats by making enemies helpless with spells. At higher levels, you get the bonuses by either casting Enlarge (which can last for 2+ hours by the later games), or equip of one of the Gauntlets of Ogre Power or Girdles of Giant Strength that tend to be given out as treasure.

(This doesn't apply to the Buck Rogers games, since there's no magic to give you higher Strength, and power armor doesn't have that effect either, as you might expect from playing Fallout.)

I'd make sure you have maximum Dexterity. You really do want 18, because the initiative and AC bonuses are that important -- a constant +4 bonus to initiative is huge when normal initiative is only on a 6-sided die to begin with. In classic RPGs or strategy games, whatever gives you the most speed is usually one of the most important stats.

You do need 18 wisdom for a cleric, or 18 wisdom for a magic-user, if you want to cast top-level spells. The game manuals explicitly say this is what the games were designed around.

Constitution is the only other statistic that's important, but you can absolutely get by with a middling score. You're going to have a harder time tanking damage by the later games, but hit points won't help against save-or-suck effects that also become common. Those require strategy, preparation, and 18 Dexterity.

Pools of Darkness is designed with dual-classing in mind, which requires high statistics.

Pools of Darkness is the only game in the series which really requires that you prepare a powerful party. You can absolutely get by with a deliberately terrible party in the first three games.

 

[Harlin]

I wonder what SSI's programmers thought about square roots.

It turns out the compiler they used for the IBM version of Phantasie has a library function to calculate a square root purely with integer instructions. This despite the fact that the library can also actually handle floating-point operations; SSI just didn't actually use it in many places. This means that when they calculate sqrt(13) * 13 / 11, then round down, they receive a result of 3, not 4.

(This has the gameplay effect that 13 Luck isn't as helpful in the IBM version as the Apple ][ version.)

And then by Pool of Radiance ... a diagonal move is always 1.5 movement points, no matter what. So if you move 5 squares west and 12 squares south, that's range 14 (this gets computed as 29 half-moves and rounded down to 14 full moves). It's not sqrt(5 ^ 2 + 12 ^ 2) = 13, as you might expect even with that purely integral square root.

Few games actually used floating-point operations that long ago; it was common for games to use strictly integer operations well into the 1990s. I don't think the Gold Box games use actual floating-point computations anywhere. I just happened to choose a game to learn assembly with that actually deploys the convoluted libraries that handle floating-point operations.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Phantasie as a gold box module... hmmmm.

 

[Cael]

Strength is important, but you don't really need high starting Strength. At low levels, you should win combats by making enemies helpless with spells. At higher levels, you get the bonuses by either casting Enlarge (which can last for 2+ hours by the later games), or equip of one of the Gauntlets of Ogre Power or Girdles of Giant Strength that tend to be given out as treasure.

(This doesn't apply to the Buck Rogers games, since there's no magic to give you higher Strength, and power armor doesn't have that effect either, as you might expect from playing Fallout.)

I'd make sure you have maximum Dexterity. You really do want 18, because the initiative and AC bonuses are that important -- a constant +4 bonus to initiative is huge when normal initiative is only on a 6-sided die to begin with. In classic RPGs or strategy games, whatever gives you the most speed is usually one of the most important stats.

You do need 18 wisdom for a cleric, or 18 wisdom for a magic-user, if you want to cast top-level spells. The game manuals explicitly say this is what the games were designed around.

Constitution is the only other statistic that's important, but you can absolutely get by with a middling score. You're going to have a harder time tanking damage by the later games, but hit points won't help against save-or-suck effects that also become common. Those require strategy, preparation, and 18 Dexterity.

Pools of Darkness is designed with dual-classing in mind, which requires high statistics.

Pools of Darkness is the only game in the series which really requires that you prepare a powerful party. You can absolutely get by with a deliberately terrible party in the first three games.

Both Gauntlets and Gridle don't exist in the Savage Frontier games, which is why they are better in many ways than the Krynn series.

 

[Null Null]

Phantasie as a gold box module... hmmmm.

Sadly I have a day job, but looking through the existing gameFAQs on gameFAQs it does not seem outside of possibility to do a fairly faithful FRUA module with some hacks.

 

[dmwyvern]

Shameless plug time, my LP of Pool of Radiance has begun! Check it out here:

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/dm-wyvern-plays-pool-of-radiance.136151/

I was sure to thank the Codexers here Cael, Null Null, Dorateen, Harlin and octavius for their advice at the beginning of episode 1!

Thanks again for the help team! ^_^

 

[dmwyvern]

Hey Team!

There is a rumor flying around in my comments section that if you rest facing a wall you have a decreased chance for a random encounter. Is this true?

 

[Harlin]

Hey Team!

There is a rumor flying around in my comments section that if you rest facing a wall you have a decreased chance for a random encounter. Is this true?

There's never a direct check for facing a wall in random encounters, at least that I can think of. That would not be easy to write in a script anyway.

If you're facing a wall, odds are higher you're in a room, and often the odds of a random encounter are either lower, or can't happen at all, in a room. ("Okay, you cleaned out the monsters who live here, so this is now a safer place to rest.")

That quote about the game being unable to place many enemies, because a wall is in the way, is also definitely true in the earlier games, which all try to place enemies in front of the party. If you try this you also want walls to the left or right if possible. This will not necessarily apply in any of the last games of a series (Pools of Darkness, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Dark Queen of Krynn).

 

[dmwyvern]

Hey Team!

There is a rumor flying around in my comments section that if you rest facing a wall you have a decreased chance for a random encounter. Is this true?

There's never a direct check for facing a wall in random encounters, at least that I can think of. That would not be easy to write in a script anyway.

If you're facing a wall, odds are higher you're in a room, and often the odds of a random encounter are either lower, or can't happen at all, in a room. ("Okay, you cleaned out the monsters who live here, so this is now a safer place to rest.")

That quote about the game being unable to place many enemies, because a wall is in the way, is also definitely true in the earlier games, which all try to place enemies in front of the party. If you try this you also want walls to the left or right if possible. This will not necessarily apply in any of the last games of a series (Pools of Darkness, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Dark Queen of Krynn).

Hey Harlin!

Thanks for the guidance here. I thought it highly suspects that the Gold Box engine could account for party facing when rolling for random encounters.

Good to know that trick for enemy placement DOES work in the earlier games. ^_^

 

[Cael]

Don't do that too often. If you trigger an encounter (random or otherwise) while facing a wall, the game sometimes place the bad guys on the other side of the wall with no path to them at all. You will have to flee the combat to end it.

 

[octavius]

In FRUA it will end after 25 or so rounds.
Don't know if it's the same with any of the GB games.

 

[Null Null]

TSF takes 10 rounds or so I think, but in some of the optional dungeons it will stick monsters on the other side and you have to defeat the ones you can see and then just wait. Technically it is advantageous as you fight fewer monsters but it's outweighed by the annoyance (in my view at least).

In POD fleeing around the bend is one way to beat the notorious final battle--the monsters can't find you due to 1980s-era pathfinding (they're too stupid to go around walls if they can't see you, or will go up against you on the other side of the wall and get stuck), and you can just wait it out.

Resting-in-a-room (or facing a cul-de-sac) is a way to decrease the number of enemies it can amass against you if you get interrupted, though.

 

[Incantatar]

"M"odify your stats to the maximums before starting.

Wtf? PoR is playable without cheating, don't recommend shit like this. If the last game expects you to cheat, cheat only there.

 

[Cael]

"M"odify your stats to the maximums before starting.

Wtf? PoR is playable without cheating, don't recommend shit like this. If the last game expects you to cheat, cheat only there.

You can't modify stats once your characters have started the game. Either modify in PoR or roll up new characters in PoD.

 

[Incantatar]

"M"odify your stats to the maximums before starting.

Wtf? PoR is playable without cheating, don't recommend shit like this. If the last game expects you to cheat, cheat only there.

You can't modify stats once your characters have started the game. Either modify in PoR or roll up new characters in PoD.

Editting Character Stats
Open the SAV files of the characters under the save game of your choice such as CharDatA1.sav, CharDatJ2.sav, etc ...
Using Ultra Edit 32 ver. 9a - here are the following hex addresses to edit

10H & 11H : Strength
12H & 13H : Intelligence
14H & 15H : Wisdom
16H & 17H : Dexterity
18H & 19H : Constitution
1AH & 1BH : Charisma
1CH & 1DH : Strength Subrating (Fighters)

B2H & 1FCH : Current / Max HP

 

[ProphetSword]

Hey Team!

There is a rumor flying around in my comments section that if you rest facing a wall you have a decreased chance for a random encounter. Is this true?

Going by how FRUA works, facing a wall when a random encounter triggers will likely reduce the number of monsters that appear, given that most random encounters will usually place monsters in front of the party. Whether or not they end up on the other side of the wall is determined by the distance that is set in the encounter (monsters set to be further away will probably appear on the other side of a wall, while those slated to be close to the party will probably be removed from the encounter by the program due to a conflict with the walls).

None of this will decrease the frequency of the random encounters, though...only the configuration of monsters that appear. So, unless Pool of Radiance has some coding magic that wasn't included in the later games (which I find doubtful), I'm going to call this dubious at best until proven otherwise.

 

[dmwyvern]

Hi Team Gold Box.

So, in between my official LP of Pool of Radiance, I am playing Champions of Krynn for my downtime leisure and I am finding it kind of amazing. I especially love the specialty priests and lunar system that influences the power of magic. It's a refreshing change from the vanilla fantasy setting that is the Realms.

Here is my current setup:

Knight
Knight
White Mage
Red Mage
Priest of Majere
Fighter / Thief

---

I really want to drop the Fighter / Thief and replace it with another Priest of Majere for extra Turning / divine spellcasting.

What say you all, experts? Can I get by with an NPC thief in the rest of the series?

---

Hey Team!

There is a rumor flying around in my comments section that if you rest facing a wall you have a decreased chance for a random encounter. Is this true?

Going by how FRUA works, facing a wall when a random encounter triggers will likely reduce the number of monsters that appear, given that most random encounters will usually place monsters in front of the party. Whether or not they end up on the other side of the wall is determined by the distance that is set in the encounter (monsters set to be further away will probably appear on the other side of a wall, while those slated to be close to the party will probably be removed from the encounter by the program due to a conflict with the walls).

None of this will decrease the frequency of the random encounters, though...only the configuration of monsters that appear. So, unless Pool of Radiance has some coding magic that wasn't included in the later games (which I find doubtful), I'm going to call this dubious at best until proven otherwise.

... Gotcha! Thanks ProphetSword. I'll just make a note to rest facing a wall, just in case it might help out with the odd random encounter that might interrupt my party rests.