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It was short due to the limitations of the contest (only a single dungeon could be used). The other module was unfinished, but I released it anyway to showcase my Buck Rogers hack. It's called "Ghost in the Machine," and is based on the module that came with the actual Buck Rogers XXV roleplaying game by TSR.
I always wanted to complete a full Buck Rogers module, but figured other people would pick up the slack once the hack was out there (and once James Rand's full Buck Rogers hack was released as well), but no one ever did. People can still make one though...there's plenty of resources and plenty of people who still play FRUA modules (myself included).
I managed to get PoR to work on my machine and save games properly. If I wanted to play through the entire series, should I even consider making demi-human characters given that all of them reach a level cap of 8th or 9th except for thieves? Should I just go human? I don't really want to get through half the series only to find out that one of my characters ain't going to progress any further at all.
Playing through a Gold Box series is a lot more fun if you swap out a few characters here and there between each game. A lot of character (multi)classes are only viable* in earlier games, but are pretty fun then.
The two triple class combos are extremely versatile units, and quite fun to use, but peter out towards the end of Curse of the Azure Bonds. Carry them into Secret of the Silver Blades, and only the Fighter/Mage/Thief will be gaining level ups, but at an extremely slow rate (multi-classes still split experience between classes, even if they have hit a racial level cap), and only in the Thief class, with diminishing returns once the backstab multiplier max is hit.
Fighter/Mages are extremely fun in Pool and Curse, but pretty much cap off in Curse, gaining no levels beyond that. Having a Fighter that can protect itself with Shield, Mirror Image, Blink, and Fire Shield comes with all the gish-y goodness one would expect. They're excellent tanks, and can even do some extremely cheesy, but highly effective, tricks with Fire Shield and disengagement attacks.
Fighter/Thieves are pretty viable throughout the series, but past a point, they're strictly worse than a Fighter13/ThiefX dual, which will have more HP, faster leveling, more attacks-per-turn, and better THAC0. Until then, they're aces.
Plus, building a party in Pool precludes one from using Rangers or Paladins, introduced only in Curse. Both classes are good alternatives to a typical Fighter, with some unique abilities.
My party looked something like this throughout the games (# indicating a carryover from a past game, with one # for each game they were a veteran of):
Secret
-Human Fighter dual-classed to Mage at level 13 ##
-Human Cleric ##
-Human Mage ##
-Dwarf Fighter/Thief ##
-Human Ranger dual-classed to Mage at level 15 #
-Human Paladin
Pools
-Human Fighter dual-classed to Mage at level 13 ###
-Human Ranger dual-classed to Mage at level 15 ##
-Human Paladin #
-Human Fighter dual-classed to Cleric at level 13
-Human Fighter dual-classed to Thief at level 14
-Human Cleric dual-classed to Mage at level 13
To me, it's a lot more fun to have a little bit of variety along the way within the party, helping to keep the games fresh and interesting, allowing one to sample the different (multi)classes when they shine most.
*It's likely some dedicated soul cleared Dave's Challenge with only multi-class characters from PoR, as the abilities of powergamers know no bounds, but for most players many character types will fall out of reasonable viability.
Playing through a Gold Box series is a lot more fun if you swap out a few characters here and there between each game. A lot of character (multi)classes are only viable* in earlier games, but are pretty fun then.
I had a lot of fun using the same six characters from Pool to Pools, but what you write is correct nonetheless. As I wrote, even I cheated a bit by hex-editing the class of my fighters to Paladin and Ranger in CotAB. Everybody should play the game the way he enjoys it the most.
Hopefully, one day, we'll have the option of playing it all in Dungeon Craft modules or something.
There were folks that tried to make the same story into Neverwinter Nights modules or something, but I've never seen a version where the game still felt remotely similar to the GoldBox series.
If only ToEE had come with a full-on editor ...
_____
rezaf
Agree with what everyone here has said about multi-game carryover; the lack of rangers and paladins in Pool, and the lack of utility of multiclass characters past Curse, makes it difficult to do Pool-to-Pools with the exact same party. I did do it, but I had to savescum my hitpoints during Pool and even then ran into trouble in the famous final fight of Pools.
The hitpoints thing is something I'd like to point out to novice retrogamers; hitpoints are randomly generated as you go up the levels, whereas the dice appear to be biased in your favor on character creation (not to mention you can just mod up your HP.) So characters brought in have a disadvantage in Pools, where the 2-level bump from an end-of-game party from the last game is less relevant.
(Party: 3 human fighters (one dualed to mage at level 13 in Secret, the other dualed to cleric at level 17 in Pools), 1 half-elf fighter/mage/thief, 1 cleric, 1 mage.)
(For Krynn: 1 knight, 2 elf cleric/rangers, 1 kender cleric/thief, 1 human white mage, 1 human red mage. )
Some of you who like to do a little imaginary 'roleplaying' with your party might enjoy the play-straight-through option, of course, and the Pools series in particular assumes you actually are the same people who liberated Phlan. I actually did invent personalities based on the character portraits from Pool of Radiance and match them to the icons, which then got carried through, and it can sometimes help differentiate otherwise identical characters and reduce confusion. For my three fighters, I used the black-bearded dude with the full armor (his armor was black, he was Chaotic Neutral, and he stayed a fighter the whole way through; I decided he was the hard-drinking guy who just loved to fight), the wimpy-looking dude with the headband (his armor was blue, he was Neutral Good, and he switched to mage; I decided he was the wimpy type who had never had raised the money to go to magical school, and after getting all the money in the mines he was able to do so), and for the third I had the gal with the blond butt-hairdo, who was Lawful Neutral (her armor was white, she switched to cleric, and I decided she was gay and decided to join the priesthood when they decided they were accepting gay people after her example in liberating Phlan. )
They're buckets of numbers in a computer. Do what you want to them.
Anyway, it helped me keep straight who had the vorpal longsword and who had the two-handed sword +4 in Pools of Darkness. Whatever works for you.
To be honest, in most of my playthroughs I "savescummed" my HP, if by that term you mean just saving before visiting the training hall and then reloading if you don't get the maximum alotment of HPs (or close to it).
Like you wrote, survival kinda depends on it.
In my very first playthroughs, I even altered all chars to have basically only 18 stats, which naturally makes the game quite a bit easier as well.
I'm actually planning on starting a new playthrough and will finally try to start with the Amiga version which looks a lot better than the PC version. From what I understand it has hex-editable savefiles, so I hope it'll be possible to hack the chars into CotAB down the road.
_____
rezaf
I never save scummed and never maxed out stats, and played the Pools series through twice, second time with mostly the same characters, only swapping two multi-class characters (every extra mage with Sleep spells help a lot in early PoR) for a Paladin and Ranger in Curse.
When playing the DOS version I had to edit up Dex to 18 for all my characters before the final battles. First time playing the Amiga version was easier since the Ring of Lightning Immunity actally worked, making my best Fighter type almost invulnerable.
Back in the day, I played all four games with the same party, which included two multiclassed characters (half-elf fighter/thief and a half-elf fighter/cleric/magic-user). Didn't have too many issues beating the game with multiclassed characters in the party. Made it challenging from time to time, but it wasn't that bad.
ProphetSword: what were the other 4 characters? That sounds like an interesting variation.
If any of you want a challenge, try beating the games with one character. I've seen people do final fights on Youtube videos solo, but I've only actually beaten Pool with one character; once with a half-elven fighter/cleric/mage and the other time with a fighter/mage/thief.
This might actually be more fun with the FRUA version of Pool of Radiance; since there are no level caps, you can have your elf F/M/T cast Hold Monster on Tyranthraxus.
Like you guys, I did change my fighters to Paladins or Rangers, but I left the multiclasses alone. Here was the makeup of the party:
Human Male Paladin
Human Female Ranger
Half-Elf Male Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User
Half-Elf Male Fighter/Thief
Human Female Cleric
Human Female Magic-User
This is the same party I play to this day when I play FRUA modules.
BTW, I don't have anything against dwarves or other races. This party was based upon real AD&D characters I had played and were tied together by a common theme. I've just found this to be a party composition that works for me in the majority of games (especially the Dragonlance Gold Box games, where being an elf means you can't be raised from the dead).
By multi-classing you can have several mages and clerics, whic is a good idea in PoR considering the low level cap and the importance of Sleep and Cure Wounds spells. But if Pools of Darkness my single class Cleric was the weakest character in combat; no undead to turn, and very few useful combat spells.
In the long run it's probably better to aim for a dual classed Fighter/Cleric of Ranger/Cleric, but in Pool and Curse a high level Cleric will be more useful. I remember giving up my first game of Curse when my multi-classed Cleric could not cast Neutralize Poison...
By multi-classing you can have several mages and clerics, whic is a good idea in PoR considering the low level cap and the importance of Sleep and Cure Wounds spells. But if Pools of Darkness my single class Cleric was the weakest character in combat; no undead to turn, and very few useful combat spells.
In the long run it's probably better to aim for a dual classed Fighter/Cleric of Ranger/Cleric, but in Pool and Curse a high level Cleric will be more useful. I remember giving up my first game of Curse when my multi-classed Cleric could not cast Neutralize Poison...
I never felt my straight classed Cleric was the most useless in combat. Aside from healing (which is key to survival in tough battles), there were also spells like Blade Barrier which could be used as crowd control or to protect your mages. Even beyond that, the Cleric hit pretty often with a magical mace and was armored well enough that they could go toe-to-toe with monsters when necessary.
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I never felt my straight classed Cleric was the most useless in combat. Aside from healing (which is key to survival in tough battles), there were also spells like Blade Barrier which could be used as crowd control or to protect your mages. Even beyond that, the Cleric hit pretty often with a magical mace and was armored well enough that they could go toe-to-toe with monsters when necessary.
But they did so little damage compared to the fighter types. I hardly use Blade Barrier since I find the Heal spell a better choice for those precious lvl 6 spells. So in most battles where it was possible, I ended up using the Cleric to set up backstabs for the Fighter/Thief.
See, this is where you and I differ in tactics. Nothing wrong with that, mind you. But here's some things that might change your mind:
Things you can do with Blade Barrier:
* Park it on top of enemy mages, often times killing them before they can flee.
* Create a barrier that protects your back line spellcasters, requiring the monsters to either pass your warriors or go through the Blade Barrier.
* Chain more than one of them to create an effective wall against front-line enemy warriors.
* Block a doorway in situations where you have backed the party into a corner. Again, the monsters either stop or take damage.
* Drop it on top of enemy clerics to keep them busy.
Why it rules:
* Doesn't allow a saving throw.
* Does 8d8 points of damage.
* Lasts 3 rounds/level of the caster.
It's not like I totally discard the BB; after I get two lvl 6 spell slots I usually have one BB memorized just in case. Worked pretty well against those nasty Dark Mages in Dark Queen, IIRC. But often a mage's Stinking Cloud or Cloudkill can do the same job, while there's nothing in the mage's arsenal that can substitute a Heal spell.
Also there are a couple of problems with the Blade Barrier spell in my experience.
1. Often it doesn't work in the same round that you cast it. May be an initiative thing.
2. MAR works against it, even if the effect should be considered a physical attack.
Didn't say it was perfect. Just said it was useful.
Like I said earlier, different tactics. And in this case, different tactics do not mean bad tactics. Just different. But, I know that when it works, Blade Barrier has saved my ass more than once.
It's a handy little spell. Main problem is it's only available in high-level games (though they did have an interesting way of bringing it into Curse.)
Didn't say it was perfect. Just said it was useful.
Like I said earlier, different tactics. And in this case, different tactics do not mean bad tactics. Just different. But, I know that when it works, Blade Barrier has saved my ass more than once.
Yeah, to me it's more like a spell saved for special occasions when it can make a big difference, but for me it's not part of the main combat reportoire, like Stinking Clouds and Fireballs are.
Didn't say it was perfect. Just said it was useful.
Like I said earlier, different tactics. And in this case, different tactics do not mean bad tactics. Just different. But, I know that when it works, Blade Barrier has saved my ass more than once.
Yeah, to me it's more like a spell saved for special occasions when it can make a big difference, but for me it's not part of the main combat reportoire, like Stinking Clouds and Fireballs are.
There's also a level issue; I almost never used Stinking Cloud in Pools, for example, but I used Blade Barrier all the time. But in Gateway and Pool, I used Stinking Cloud all the time.
Stinking Cloud was pretty effective at higher levels too. Drop it on some mages and they probably won't be casting any spells. It works, unless they're drow mages. In that case, you're pretty screwed.
Stinking Cloud was pretty effective at higher levels too. Drop it on some mages and they probably won't be casting any spells. It works, unless they're drow mages. In that case, you're pretty screwed.
i know there is a trick with stinking cloud that can kill them off even further, but i cant remember how you do it anymore, you cast it and then pause alot then resume the game? me and my memory...
Just finished Buck rogers : Matrix Cubed, or I assume I did, since it finished with a fucking CRASH.
Is there anything after
Buck Rogers comes to Jupiter, everyone congratulates you and he says "Let's go back to earth."
?
Both games were damn good, but i think the first one is much better for several reasons :
- you're almost at full power when you start the second game, no new weapon types (rather logical), no or almost no new monster capacity
- the best part is in the beginning of the first game
with the monsters which attack your brain
- the first game contains some very hard battles, and a very hard small side quest
- maybe i missed many things in the second game, but i have the impression that in the first game i have done many things in the order i wanted, done many side quests, visited the world, while in the second game it was only : you have two things to do, choose your order. Main quest apart, the only thing i have visited is probably a cave with rats.
)
