Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

What makes that happen, getting above normal stats?

The Modify command, mostly. Or rerolling. Or using the pregens.

 

[Excidium II]

Does anyone play these without maxing out all the stats at character creation? I looked at couple of let's plays on youtube and they all seemed to have only 'everything 18' characters.

People who aren't massive faggots. Goldbox games are already super lenient with character rolls to begin with, there's no need to cheat.

I think a good rule is to roll until you get an array that gives the XP bonus for that character, then keep it.

 

[Keldryn]

Yeah, that Modify command was a really, really dumb idea.

The entire purpose for including it was so that that players could recreate their tabletop AD&D characters and bring them into Pool of Radiance. I don't know if any players actually did this, or if everyone just used it to give their Fighters 18/00 Strength (+3 to hit, +6 to damage is stupidly overpowered at 1st level).

 

[mondblut]

But YouTubers are rarely experts in my experience; for example I watched a Let's Play by DOSBoxMom (cool nic, BTW) and it was painful to watch her move a character and then use the Aim command to attack, instead of just using the much quicker regular movement.

I am pretty sure some earlier instances didn't have "attack by movement" and required separate attack actions. Heck, some of them required you to end turn for every character before registering that all enemies are killed and combat is over.

Also, anyone butthurt about other people having all 18 characters are sad larpers. The only thing that would excuse not using Modify is an ability to improve stats through levelups, which AD&D does not have. If I am not getting all 18s by level 15, I am getting them at character generation, suck it.

 

[CryptRat]

I spend a big amount of time rerolling too strong, too weak, too strong, too weak, too strong...

EDIT : For example I want a Fighter with only a good CON, one with a decent STR and DEX but poor COON, a mage with 18 INT but horrible CON and DEX, etc...but I don't like using the Modify command so I reroll...

 

[Dorateen]

The entire purpose for including it was so that that players could recreate their tabletop AD&D characters and bring them into Pool of Radiance. I don't know if any players actually did this...

And here I thought everybody did this. The things I've learned since joining the Codex.

 

[Excidium II]

And here I thought everybody did this. The things I've learned since joining the Codex.

So you rolled on the table until you got awesome stats then imported to the game?

 

[Dorateen]

So you rolled on the table until you got awesome stats then imported to the game?

Some half-dozen years before the computer role-playing game.

 

[Jaesun]

I always roll my own party, so I use the modify to match their stats.

Sometimes i will make an all 16 or 17 stats party, just for testing.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Hmm. Maybe you could think of those character stats as game difficulty levels then. All 18s being very easy, all 16s easy and so on.

 

[Agesilaus]

Sitting on a plane for 20~ hours just became a much more interesting situation.

 

[Null Null]

Does anyone play these without maxing out all the stats at character creation? I looked at couple of let's plays on youtube and they all seemed to have only 'everything 18' characters.

When I was 13 and playing for the first time, no. I maxed because I could.

Now...depends on the game. I played POR with the default party, with few 18s, and won with some difficulty, but I could never take those guys to Pools of Darkness even if half of them weren't non-human.

If you look at the default Pools of Darkness party, they all have 18 DEX except for one with 17 DEX, and all the fighter-types have 18 CON. Strength is a little easier to work around, especially in high-level games where you can cast Enlarge.

 

[Jaesun]

IIRC Pools of Darkness basically expects your party to have all 18's. It also has some checks to see your party configuration too.

 

[octavius]

The only stat you need to max out is DEX (for Initiative) and that is only to survive the final battles in Pools of Darkness. At least the DOS version, since I recall the Amiga version was much easier (at least I don't recall those final battles being particularly difficult) since the Ring of Lightning Immunity worked.

 

[Jaesun]

It is odd that that ring is broken in the DOS version, since it *basically* is using the FRUA engine. Guess they fixed that when they released FRUA I guess....

 

[Null Null]

I'm told if you reready the ring each time it works... can anyone confirm or deny?

FRUA actually seems to be using the DQK engine with the POD item lists and events--you can duplicate most of POD with FRUA, but there are no options to have the party cast a specific spell, for instance, and the red and white mage spell numbers are apparently still in there according to the old hacker document CKITFORM.txt.

 

[octavius]

I'm told if you reready the ring each time it works... can anyone confirm or deny?

Hmm...never tried rereadying it.

 

[karnak]

Why don't they sell the 3 Krynn titles (Champions, Death Knights & Dark Queen )?

They're coming.

 

[Volourn]

"As cool as it is to see these games revived on the market, isn't 25 bucks a bit much for it all?"

About $2 per game? Not bad considering how non cheap they were when first released. That said, we all have a choice to buy ot not buy.

 

[doggfookker]

hey sluts I just got these shitfucking bitch games off fof GOG and I'm planning on at least playing POR thru Curse of the Azure Bondage, and I need to know what a good party is. I wanted to include some elves and shit but I'm worried about 1e level limits. Also I'm expecting to drop at least one shithead to make room for a ranger or paladin in the second game.

I heard the last two of the original series are grindfests. Not sold on playing them yet. May move over to the Savage Frontier games because they sound like they got some good meat on 'em RP wise but shitfucks never discuss that shit so i don't even know.

EDIT from what i understand the games scale depending on stats and party size, so I might--since I am a giant pnp pixiefucker--roll up rando characters IRL and then use that party for the game. Any stats need maxed other than Dex?

 

[karnak]

"As cool as it is to see these games revived on the market, isn't 25 bucks a bit much for it all?"

About $2 per game? Not bad considering how non cheap they were when first released. That said, we all have a choice to buy ot not buy.

You can always wait for some time until GOG makes a discount (they always have one each weekend).
Right now they have the old IE games there at 80% discount.

When I buy some games there I usually wait until they've at least a 70-80% discount.

 

[Null Null]

hey sluts I just got these shitfucking bitch games off fof GOG and I'm planning on at least playing POR thru Curse of the Azure Bondage, and I need to know what a good party is. I wanted to include some elves and shit but I'm worried about 1e level limits. Also I'm expecting to drop at least one shithead to make room for a ranger or paladin in the second game.

I heard the last two of the original series are grindfests. Not sold on playing them yet. May move over to the Savage Frontier games because they sound like they got some good meat on 'em RP wise but shitfucks never discuss that shit so i don't even know.

EDIT from what i understand the games scale depending on stats and party size, so I might--since I am a giant pnp pixiefucker--roll up rando characters IRL and then use that party for the game. Any stats need maxed other than Dex?

Elves are actually pretty cool if you're not going to play Secret and Pool--they can get all the way up to 11 for mages, which is the cap in Curse (and the second Savage Frontier game). If you're not going past Pool, you can have lots of demihumans!

Also, only Pool scales enemies with party strength--the remainder of the games do not do this.

Pool: I go with the cluebook, you should have four fighters, two clerics, two mages, and one thief, which means multiclassing. You can have lots of combinations. Since you like demihumans, how about:
Dwarven fighter, Elven fighter/mage, half-elven cleric/fighter/mage, dwarf, gnome or halfling fighter/thief, human cleric, human mage.

Curse: options are a bit more limited since dwarven fighters cap at 9, half-elf fighters at 8, elf fighters at 7, half-elf mages at 8, and half-elf clerics at 5 (!).
Similar to the last game, but you really only need one cleric (there are no undead).
I'd go with human paladin, human ranger, elf fighter/mage, dwarf fighter/thief, human cleric, and human mage. You can dual your ranger to mage when he (or she) gets to 9th level, because he'll then be able to cast all spells in armor.

If you want maximum party preservation, I'd start with dwarf fighter, half-elf cleric/fighter/mage, elf fighter/mage, dwarf fighter/thief, human cleric, human mage in Pool, then drop the first two and replace them with paladin and ranger in Curse.

In terms of stat-maxing: you don't need to give everyone an 18 DEX unless you are trying to beat Pools of Darkness. I do think everyone needs at least a 16 or 17 DEX in Curse, and an 18 CON for fighters in both games, as well as a 16 CON for mages or they're just too fragile.

BTW, Secret is much worse than Pools of Darkness. If you want a challenge just skip playing Secret and import your end-of-Curse party into Pools of Darkness...

 

[octavius]

Null Null, you are just too nice.

 

[Null Null]

I have an extremely limited area of expertise. I like to share it where possible.

 

[doggfookker]

That was excellent info. Thank ye.

I ended up making a party roughly in line with your suggestions: Human fighter, human cleric, dwarf fighter/thief, elf fighter, half-elf cleric/mage, human mage. I'll probably bring at least the human cleric and mage into Curse, if I get that far, but I doubt I'll go from there into secret or pools. I'm more interested in the Savage Frontier games or the Krynn games--Krynn in particular since I know shit all about Dragonlance and it seems pretty 80s and pretty power metal and pretty cool.