Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Any character that has gone berserk/charmed, I always just used hold person (or sleep at low level) and knocked them out.

 

[Dorateen]

Dispel magic works too, doesn't it? I seem to remember charming being quite the issue in the Krynn series. Worst affliction that can happen to a party member.

 

[ProphetSword]

IIRC, GB doesn't handle you Charming your own party members very well. Turns them in base hostile or something like that, which means they are no longer in the party. It took them until BG to fix that.

Are you talking about in general or just in this game? I use charm all the time on my own party members, especially if they've been charmed by the enemy. If you charm them back, they fight for your side (you lose control of them, and they fight like an NPC until the battle is over, but at least they're back on your side).

 

[dmwyvern]

IIRC, GB doesn't handle you Charming your own party members very well. Turns them in base hostile or something like that, which means they are no longer in the party. It took them until BG to fix that.

Are you talking about in general or just in this game? I use charm all the time on my own party members, especially if they've been charmed by the enemy. If you charm them back, they fight for your side (you lose control of them, and they fight like an NPC until the battle is over, but at least they're back on your side).

Have you run into a situation where a charmed PC drops party, like I did?

Or do you think that had more to do with the Berserk status than the Charm Person spell?

 

[Cael]

IIRC, GB doesn't handle you Charming your own party members very well. Turns them in base hostile or something like that, which means they are no longer in the party. It took them until BG to fix that.

Are you talking about in general or just in this game? I use charm all the time on my own party members, especially if they've been charmed by the enemy. If you charm them back, they fight for your side (you lose control of them, and they fight like an NPC until the battle is over, but at least they're back on your side).

In general. I haven't run into it myself, but I have heard stories of characters disappearing or permanently considered the enemy if you counter-Charm them.

 

[ProphetSword]

The only time I’ve personally seen characters drop the party is when they are charmed and all the other characters die.

Example: if a character is charmed by a vampire, and then the vampire’s side wins the battle, the character who was charmed will be the only character left in the party (or if more than one character is charmed, those characters would be the only ones remaining). All other characters are lost.

Usually if you counter charm, they stay with you.

As far as berserk status, I don’t know how they intended for that to work. It isn’t a common condition in the games.

 

[ProphetSword]

So, I've been playing "Pool of Radiance" on my quest to run through all four of the FR games with the same characters, when I encountered a bug. It happened shortly after defeating the vampire in the graveyard and my character got charmed. After he was raised from the dead, he was able to memorize a ridiculous number of 1st level cleric spells...

When I took a look at his character sheet, he was listed as an NPC and had ridiculous numbers listed for a lot of things. I wanted to take his items off him and create a new character, but because he's an NPC, I can't remove his items either.

If I try to memorize spells with this character, it suddenly starts adding additional levels of spells he shouldn't be able to access (like giving me the option of unlimited fireballs) and then corrupts the entire party and crashes the game.

I don't know if this is a common problem or not and I didn't have time to check this entire thread to see if it came up before (a Google search didn't lead anywhere). All I want to know is if the game is corrupted beyond saving. I can always drop this character and add another one, even though it would have to start at 1st level, but if the game is corrupted then I'm not sure I even want to continue.

Anyone have any idea if I'm hosed?

 

[octavius]

Use the Gold Box Companion (I think it's called)?

 

[Elwro]

Holy shit. I'd also suggest using the Companion to restore the char's sanity (and PC status)

 

[ProphetSword]

I managed to salvage the game by just ditching the character and creating a new one instead. The new character is only 2nd level at this point (all other characters are 5th or 6th), but there doesn’t appear to be any long lasting issues with the game, so at least I didn’t lose all that progress.

 

[Cael]

I managed to salvage the game by just ditching the character and creating a new one instead. The new character is only 2nd level at this point (all other characters are 5th or 6th), but there doesn’t appear to be any long lasting issues with the game, so at least I didn’t lose all that progress.

Use GBC to give the guy XP so he has the same level as others. Don't manually edit levels as GBC doesn't recalculate anything when you do.

 

[ProphetSword]

I managed to salvage the game by just ditching the character and creating a new one instead. The new character is only 2nd level at this point (all other characters are 5th or 6th), but there doesn’t appear to be any long lasting issues with the game, so at least I didn’t lose all that progress.

Use GBC to give the guy XP so he has the same level as others. Don't manually edit levels as GBC doesn't recalculate anything when you do.

I didn’t want to do that initially, but I ended up doing it anyway.

 

[Null Null]

I had a weird experience when I tried to play Curse of the Azure Bonds with one character--every time I finished Tilverton after a few saves it would start loading the dungeons with events in the wrong places and weird versions of the maps. I tend to enjoy weirdness but it wasn't arranged in a winnable fashion--you couldn't get to certain areas.

It's too bad as it would have been a fun challenge.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Finally got around to playing the Gold Box games, starting with Pool of Radiance. What's the consensus on non-human party members? Yay or nay? I'm wondering if the low level cap will hurt in the later games as I intend to port my party from game to game. I also plan on playing the Krynn games where I believe that this is not a problem, at least. I'm playing the GOG version and combat goes so fast that I have no time to read the combat logs, so I never have time to read who is taking damage. Is there a way to fix this with the dosbox conf, or is there an in-game option the slows down the speed?

Here are some random thoughts about the game after I've gotten halfway through the slums and so far managed to level up my Magic-User and main Fighter:

For an old game the UI is certainly clunky in parts, but it's not too clunky that it's unenjoyable. Particularly how inconsistent it feels that the menu selection is done with the arrow keys sometimes, and sometimes with the Home and End keys. And combat movement is with the numpad. A better attempt at unifying some of these controls would've been nice, but I understand the challenge when you can't use, say, a mouse to operate the UI. However, the combat UI is a lot better than the adventure UI, and quite easy to use given the complexity of the game.
The combat is really good. Feels much better than in BG, which is the most recent cRPG I've played.
I had forgotten about XP gained being tied to treasure found as a mechanic, and now I wish more games used it again.
The game has a reputation for being pretty unforgiving, especially at the start, but the smarter man would load up his Magic-Users with the Sleep spell. It's still challenging, but it feels fair for the most part.
Being able to parley with the monsters you encounter in the dungeon is goofy, fun and another old school mechanic that I miss.
The character combat icon editor is quite nice. For such an old and low graphical game, you sure are able to make quite an an immersive looking party with a large enough selection of body parts and colors. I feel more immersed in my party of 2 framed sprites than the modern 3D cRPGs are able to provide.

Not much else to add. The game is as good as everyone has said, though I'm still at the very beginning of the game.

 

[DavidBVal]

Finally got around to playing the Gold Box games, starting with Pool of Radiance. What's the consensus on non-human party members? Yay or nay? I'm wondering if the low level cap will hurt in the later games as I intend to port my party from game to game. I also plan on playing the Krynn games where I believe that this is not a problem, at least. I'm playing the GOG version and combat goes so fast that I have no time to read the combat logs, so I never have time to read who is taking damage. Is there a way to fix this with the dosbox conf, or is there an in-game option the slows down the speed?

Here are some random thoughts about the game after I've gotten halfway through the slums and so far managed to level up my Magic-User and main Fighter:

For an old game the UI is certainly clunky in parts, but it's not too clunky that it's unenjoyable. Particularly how inconsistent it sometimes feel that the menu selection is done with the arrow keys sometimes, and sometimes with the Home and End keys. And combat movement is with the numpad. A better attempt at unifying some of these controls would've been nice, but I understand the challenge when you can't use, say, a mouse to operate the UI. However, the combat UI is a lot better than the adventure UI, and quite easy to use given the complexity of the game.
The combat is really good. Feels much better than in BG, which is the most recent cRPG I've played.
I had forgotten about XP gained being tied to treasure found as a mechanic, and now I wish more games used it again.
The game has a reputation for being pretty unforgiving, especially at the start, but the smarter man would load up his Magic-Users with the Sleep spell. It's still challenging, but it feels fair for the most part.
Being able to parley with the monsters you encounter in the dungeon is goofy, fun and another old school mechanic that I miss.
The character combat icon editor is quite nice. For such an old and low graphical game, you sure are able to make quite an an immersive looking party with a large enough selection of body parts and colors. I feel more immersed in my party of 2 framed sprites than the modern 3D cRPGs are able to provide.

Not much else to add. The game is as good as everyone has said, though I'm still at the very beginning of the game.

In Dosbox, ctrl F11 and ctrl F12 will reduce or increase your speed. You can set this by default in the conf file in the cycles key, if I remember correctly.

It is alright to use some nonhumans in half your PoR party and then replace them by Paladins and Rangers when they become available in CotAB.

 

[octavius]

With FRUA you can adjust text speed from Encamp -> Alt -> Speed.
I don't remember if PoR had a similar option.

 

[DavidBVal]

With FRUA you can adjust text speed from Encamp -> Alt -> Speed.
I don't remember if PoR had a similar option.

yes it did

 

[Dorateen]

What's the consensus on non-human party members? Yay or nay?

Dwarves, Yay

 

[TigerKnee]

If you're willing to replace those characters in later games then yay - importing your party isn't a "all or nothing" thing after all.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I never tried GBC with demihumans in the later games. Pity you can't remove the level limits. Dungeon hack allowed higher demi human limits.

 

[ProphetSword]

With FRUA you can adjust text speed from Encamp -> Alt -> Speed.
I don't remember if PoR had a similar option.

All the Gold-Box games had the option, actually.

I find that when running them in DOSBox, you get the best results if the cycles are set to around 3000. You can go a little lower than that, even, but I don't recommend going higher except in the late games of the series (DQK, FRUA, etc).

 

[DavidBVal]

With FRUA you can adjust text speed from Encamp -> Alt -> Speed.
I don't remember if PoR had a similar option.

All the Gold-Box games had the option, actually.

I find that when running them in DOSBox, you get the best results if the cycles are set to around 3000. You can go a little lower than that, even, but I don't recommend going higher except in the late games of the series (DQK, FRUA, etc).

Cycles heavily depends on your hardware. For me at 3000 I miss all the combat text, I have it at 1000. Sometimes I raise it to much higher to do inventory maintenance or go through routine content with nothing to read.

 

[Null Null]

I usually set it to 9000; I've noticed games tend to lose sound if I go much higher than that. I have kind of an old computer, and YMMV.

If you're going to transfer your characters, nonhumans are really only useful as your designated thief character. Your best options are dwarven thief (9th level fighter for HP), elven fighter/mage/thief (11th level mage gets 5th level mage spells), or half-elven fighter/mage/thief (8th level mage gets 4th level mage spells but no resurrection issues in Curse and Secret). Make sure STR is 18 for fighters or INT is 18 for mages.

This only applies for the Pools series; Krynn doesn't have this issue (though download the Dark Queen manual and read carefully for level limits) and Savage Frontier tops out at 11th level (unless you use the Pools of Darkness exploit).

 

[Cael]

I never tried GBC with demihumans in the later games. Pity you can't remove the level limits. Dungeon hack allowed higher demi human limits.

You can, sort of, by making your character as a demi-human and then using GBC to turn it into a human. You end up with multiclass humans with some (not all) of the demi-human's abilities (like elven near immunity to Sleep). Some of the abilities are hardcoded, so you can't give your characters that (e.g., the elven +1 to swords and bows and casting in armour). You will remove the level cap, though.

 

[DavidBVal]

GBC optionally allows you to level up demihumans without level caps if that's what you want. It switches them to humans only for an instant, then gives them back the original race.