Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

Yeah, in Gateway I was very disapppointed by the that end battle. But in Curse I must say I was relieved, 'cause a barnful of Drow is more than a handful for a lvl 5 party.

 

[Ladonna]

Currently playing through Curse and my party right now is at Yulash and has to fight against these shambling mounds there, who can pack quite a punch, among other enemies.

It seems that this game could have profited from one of the things its predecessor had, namely when you defeat a certain numer of patrols in an area, no more random encounters would be encountered until you leave that area and come back.

Well i can understand that Yulash is a bit different cause there seems to be some kind of raids going on there, but other areas were full with random encounters as well (maybe not that extreme but still), like the dracolich cave full with drow patrols! It's really a bit exhausting, not to mention also a bit high on the difficulty side, too.
Having to fight against hordes of units with high magic resistance, while never having any place 100% safe for resting, and then that other place where you, more or less, randomly run into that beholder battle.. i wonder how people were supposed to master this without any meta knowledge?

I played this game a bit a couple of years ago, and I had the impression this game would already feature a difficulty option, but apparently I simply remembered that wrong.

Yeah, Curse did go overboard with the random encounters. It was hellish on a standard C64 back in the day.

 

[Ladonna]

I think it's best to just treat Yulash as the war zone it is and move as quickly as possible, without exploring the whole map.
In Hap the design was quite clever. If you had El Kebab or whatever his name was in your party he would insult the Drow patrols, provoking a fight. If you fought all the patrols the mini boss fight in the barn was much easier than if you avoided fighting all the patrols.

The barn fight is much easier without El Kebab in your party too. I remember getting smashed in that fight time after time, but then when I went in without him, there were a lot less enemies.

 

[octavius]

The barn fight is much easier without El Kebab in your party too. I remember getting smashed in that fight time after time, but then when I went in without him, there were a lot less enemies.

Without killing all the patrols?

 

[Ladonna]

Without killing all the patrols?

That's right. It was like El Kebab being in the party tripped some mechanism that made the force a lot larger, and without him it was a lot smaller. This was the C64 version for reference.

 

[mediocrepoet]

El Kebab

 

[Dorateen]

We just called him "Sheik".

 

[Radiane]

Well I finished Curse now, it was ok i think, but i can't really imagine playing it again, at least not anytime soon. The various priests trying to hold your party members with their spells I found to be the biggest threat in general, and I think I liked the Ettin fights in particular that occurred in some places on the world map while searching or patrolling, with their big hp pool and multiple relatively strong attacks, they proved to be a bit of a challenge while still being vulnerable to magic. In the same vein, I liked the fights against the displacer beasts. Oh, and these Moander cultists with the events revolving in their sacred halls were also kinda interesting

The transition of my party into Secret went pretty smooth, but with one caveat: All my chars are now stuck with permanent 22 strength due to the Enlarge spell I cast on them before the last fight in Curse. While the high strength is marked with an *, it still doesn't seem to vanish no matter how long I rest, so I guess I have to replay that last fight without those spells... If you could have rest your chars at the end of Curse at least, so all the temporary effects on your chars would fade away, but that is apparently not an option. Well at least that last fight wasn't too difficult...

Btw, my party consisted of 2 rangers (one dualclassed to mage), 1 fighter (dualclassed to cleric), 1 cleric, 1 mage & 1 fighter/thief, all humans except the fighter/thief who is dwarvish. I didn't really like the dwarf, if I would rearrange my party, I'd probably exchange him with another human starting as a thief and then dualclass into a fighter at thief level 8 or so. That way the char would still have more than enough levels as a thief (i guess) and could then further level up as straight fighter in order to achive 2 attacks per round eventually, plus having a much better THAC0.

 

[Cael]

Well I finished Curse now, it was ok i think, but i can't really imagine playing it again, at least not anytime soon. The various priests trying to hold your party members with their spells I found to be the biggest threat in general, and I think I liked the Ettin fights in particular that occurred in some places on the world map while searching or patrolling, with their big hp pool and multiple relatively strong attacks, they proved to be a bit of a challenge while still being vulnerable to magic. In the same vein, I liked the fights against the displacer beasts. Oh, and these Moander cultists with the events revolving in their sacred halls were also kinda interesting

The transition of my party into Secret went pretty smooth, but with one caveat: All my chars are now stuck with permanent 22 strength due to the Enlarge spell I cast on them before the last fight in Curse. While the high strength is marked with an *, it still doesn't seem to vanish no matter how long I rest, so I guess I have to replay that last fight without those spells... If you could have rest your chars at the end of Curse at least, so all the temporary effects on your chars would fade away, but that is apparently not an option. Well at least that last fight wasn't too difficult...

Btw, my party consisted of 2 rangers (one dualclassed to mage), 1 fighter (dualclassed to cleric), 1 cleric, 1 mage & 1 fighter/thief, all humans except the fighter/thief who is dwarvish. I didn't really like the dwarf, if I would rearrange my party, I'd probably exchange him with another human starting as a thief and then dualclass into a fighter at thief level 8 or so. That way the char would still have more than enough levels as a thief (i guess) and could then further level up as straight fighter in order to achive 2 attacks per round eventually, plus having a much better THAC0.

My rule in GB games is always have a Paladin or Knight in the party. It saves you a lot of headaches where NPCs are concerned.

 

[Radiane]

Understandable, but I wanted to roleplay a party which doesn't have a do goody-goody aka paladin in the group

 

[Cael]

Understandable, but I wanted to roleplay a party which doesn't have a do goody-goody aka paladin in the group

You act as if GB games gave you any leeway in acting goody-goody or not. That Paladin might as well be a Fighter in GB games, except for that lead NPC thing.

 

[Radiane]

You are of course right with what you're saying. I know that these games are old and hardly provide any significant roleplaying aspects, and that is not the main reason we play them. Still, the decisive thing like I said, is to (albeit admitedly little) "roleplay", it made a small difference for myself.

Regarding NPCs under your control, this hasn't been a problem for this game, the few NPCs you get in your party make for good ranged fighters, just replenish their ammo when they run out of it, and they prove to be a (relatively) valuable contribution for the party.

Besides, I didn't really care about the NPCs. Even when Alias and Dragonbait joined my party and they ran out of ammo, I just let them keep going with their melee attacks. They still managed to survive all the fights.

 

[The Limper]

Well I finished Curse now, it was ok i think, but i can't really imagine playing it again, at least not anytime soon. The various priests trying to hold your party members with their spells I found to be the biggest threat in general, and I think I liked the Ettin fights in particular that occurred in some places on the world map while searching or patrolling, with their big hp pool and multiple relatively strong attacks, they proved to be a bit of a challenge while still being vulnerable to magic. In the same vein, I liked the fights against the displacer beasts. Oh, and these Moander cultists with the events revolving in their sacred halls were also kinda interesting

The transition of my party into Secret went pretty smooth, but with one caveat: All my chars are now stuck with permanent 22 strength due to the Enlarge spell I cast on them before the last fight in Curse. While the high strength is marked with an *, it still doesn't seem to vanish no matter how long I rest, so I guess I have to replay that last fight without those spells... If you could have rest your chars at the end of Curse at least, so all the temporary effects on your chars would fade away, but that is apparently not an option. Well at least that last fight wasn't too difficult...

Btw, my party consisted of 2 rangers (one dualclassed to mage), 1 fighter (dualclassed to cleric), 1 cleric, 1 mage & 1 fighter/thief, all humans except the fighter/thief who is dwarvish. I didn't really like the dwarf, if I would rearrange my party, I'd probably exchange him with another human starting as a thief and then dualclass into a fighter at thief level 8 or so. That way the char would still have more than enough levels as a thief (i guess) and could then further level up as straight fighter in order to achive 2 attacks per round eventually, plus having a much better THAC0.

If you use Goldbox Companion you can simply reset the Strength values.

 

[Butter]

You can also just reroll. There's no benefit to keeping the exact same party from Pool to Pools.

 

[The Limper]

We just called him "Sheik".

I swear he is Ezekiel's twin from The Walking Dead, replace the headpiece with dreads...

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Is that the fucker akabar bel asshole from Curse? That mother fucker always went all jihad and tossed fireballs in the middle of the party when in fights. Fuck that sob and send him to the grave.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Is that the fucker akabar bel asshole from Curse? That mother fucker always went all jihad and tossed fireballs in the middle of the party when in fights. Fuck that sob and send him to the grave.

It's clearly El Kebab.

 

[Glop_dweller]

You are of course right with what you're saying. I know that these games are old and hardly provide any significant roleplaying aspects...

Have you not seen Tord's Wasteland Let's Play?
(Not SSI of course, but a reasonable technical contemporary. It's in 14 parts; I've watched it through many times.)

Quite a roleplayer. I wish he'd have come back after he quit Youtube.

 

[Desiderius]

Currently playing through Curse and my party right now is at Yulash and has to fight against these shambling mounds there, who can pack quite a punch, among other enemies.

It seems that this game could have profited from one of the things its predecessor had, namely when you defeat a certain numer of patrols in an area, no more random encounters would be encountered until you leave that area and come back.

Well i can understand that Yulash is a bit different cause there seems to be some kind of raids going on there, but other areas were full with random encounters as well (maybe not that extreme but still), like the dracolich cave full with drow patrols! It's really a bit exhausting, not to mention also a bit high on the difficulty side, too.
Having to fight against hordes of units with high magic resistance, while never having any place 100% safe for resting, and then that other place where you, more or less, randomly run into that beholder battle.. i wonder how people were supposed to master this without any meta knowledge?

I played this game a bit a couple of years ago, and I had the impression this game would already feature a difficulty option, but apparently I simply remembered that wrong.

Yeah, Curse did go overboard with the random encounters. It was hellish on a standard C64 back in the day.

You haven't seen random encounters until you're wandering around Moander's Body without a map and hints are 25 cents a minute.

 

[octavius]

Least favourite part of the GB games. Slowly chipping away at HP sponges is not my idea of fun.

 

[Ladonna]

Least favourite part of the GB games. Slowly chipping away at HP sponges is not my idea of fun.

This is part of the reason why I never bothered playing the last two games again (Pools and Queen). Low to mid level campaigns are always my favourite.

 

[Grauken]

Least favourite part of the GB games. Slowly chipping away at HP sponges is not my idea of fun.

This is part of the reason why I never bothered playing the last two games again (Pools and Queen). Low to mid level campaigns are always my favourite.

Pools is really awesome though, some of the best areas and locations in all of the GB games

 

[Cael]

Least favourite part of the GB games. Slowly chipping away at HP sponges is not my idea of fun.

This is part of the reason why I never bothered playing the last two games again (Pools and Queen). Low to mid level campaigns are always my favourite.

DQK is hardly HP sponges. 88HP for a Red is as high as it got for dragons. It doesn't even live past 1 DBF. You want HP sponges, take a look at the multi-hundred HP of Bugmaker.

 

[Ladonna]

Pools is really awesome though, some of the best areas and locations in all of the GB games

I'll never say never, and it isn't a slight on the game locations, more that I don't really enjoy high level DnD (or ADnD in this case) as much as the low and mid tier stuff.

DQK is hardly HP sponges. 88HP for a Red is as high as it got for dragons. It doesn't even live past 1 DBF. You want HP sponges, take a look at the multi-hundred HP of Bugmaker.

Ok, I will give them both another try during my next run through. I haven't played either of them since the early mid 90's anyway, so at least they will be fresh.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Mapping was fun. Ah the paper. I like commanding the gnomes. Probably the only time in gnome history of krynn they were good for anything.