Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Unkillable Cat]

So I got the EotB beholder trilogy.

Two questions:

1. At CC, I can max out character stats. Why?

Because Westwood's approach to RPGs is to do "lite RPGs."

In the case of the EoB games, this becomes somewhat hilarious if you're a die-hard roleplayer, especially (A)D&D.

STR only matters for the melee "To Hit" modifier for THAC0 and also for the damage modifier, DEX only matters for the ranged "To Hit" modifier for THAC0 and the Armor Class modifier, and CON only matters for the Hit Point modifier. In the case of Clerics, a high WIS score can give you extra spell slots. CHA and INT serve NO purpose whatsoever.

I've checked this myself. STR is irrelevant when opening stuck doors - it'll always take 3-4 tries to open them. A 3 INT Mage is just as powerful as a 18 INT Mage, and dialogue options are always the same.

Also, racial bonuses to weapons are not included, there's no 10% XP bonus for having your primary stats 16 or higher, and alignment only plays a purpose for ONE reason - whether you can create a Paladin in your party or not.

The only exception to this, of course, is the third game...but seeing as Westwood didn't develop that game, it makes sense that the design principles got altered there. In EoB3, you will need a STR of 22 (the max) in order to pull a few levers.

 

[Sceptic]

I've checked this myself. STR is irrelevant when opening stuck doors

That's not entirely true, at least in some versions of EOB2. It's possible there to get stuck actually and be unable to enter one plot-critical room because you need to force the door, but the game doesn't check for "STR>X", it only allows certain very specific values of STR to open the door. If you're above the highest value it allows, you can't get in. INT and CHA do absolutely nothing though, as you pointed out.

 

[Jaesun]

ONE Strength check..... and it has to be an exact value?

Good job there Westwood.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

That's not entirely true, at least in some versions of EOB2. It's possible there to get stuck actually and be unable to enter one plot-critical room because you need to force the door, but the game doesn't check for "STR>X", it only allows certain very specific values of STR to open the door. If you're above the highest value it allows, you can't get in.

I want to know more about this. Where is this door, and are there any other versions of EOB2 than 1.0 and 1.1?

 

[Gozma]

Didn't EoB keep the %chance to fail to scribe a scroll for wizards with bad int? I feel like I remember that happening when I played my shitty stat run

Anyway, in 1st/2nd edition intelligence only had the chance to fail scroll scribes and I think maybe there was a generous max # of spells you could know per level or something? And if you had less than 18 int you wouldn't be able to ever learn 9th level spells (and I think 8th for 17 and 7th for 16, but it doesn't continue below 7th... maybe) which wouldn't be relevant in EoB1/2. There were no incremental bonuses for it; it was just a few pass/fail things like that. The way 1st edition classes were based on stats was simply that you had to have certain stat minimums to qualify to pick the class at all, and having very high "prime requisite" score gave you an experience bonus. It was much, much more about playing what you had rolled - good or bad - rather than the modern conceptions of stats where a stat distribution is supposed to be a "build".

The reason AD&D games had the "modify" option where you can make you stats whatever was originally so you could easily transfer your real P&P characters into the game.

 

[Sceptic]

I want to know more about this. Where is this door, and are there any other versions of EOB2 than 1.0 and 1.1?

I'm going entirely by memory so I'm not sure. I think it was in the catacombs below the temple, but I'd have to actually go through the game to find out. I'm trying to remember how I ended up with too-high STR in the first place - I don't think any of the stats can be raised once you start the game, at least not the permanent stat value (maybe having a belt of strength or something is what bugs it out? IDK anymore).

 

[Unkillable Cat]

That's why I asked. If you hex-edited your stats to be all 50 (and with 255 HP) I can imagine this happening...but beyond that this is something I've never come across - and I know a few good ways to bend the game to my knee. (Remember the deathtrap with the dying Cleric? I can escape that without cheating. Same with the Tropelet seed passage that seals behind you.)

 

[Gozma]

You can download the EOB mapping utility The All-Seeing Eye here.

There is also the Gold Box Companion for the gold box series of games.

Does this have any means to give you a nice interface to read journal entries in? I remember wishing I wasn't alt-tabbing to look at a PDF. Even with a dual monitor setup you need to flip to the right page.

 

[Null Null]

Didn't EoB keep the %chance to fail to scribe a scroll for wizards with bad int? I feel like I remember that happening when I played my shitty stat run

Anyway, in 1st/2nd edition intelligence only had the chance to fail scroll scribes and I think maybe there was a generous max # of spells you could know per level or something? And if you had less than 18 int you wouldn't be able to ever learn 9th level spells (and I think 8th for 17 and 7th for 16, but it doesn't continue below 7th... maybe) which wouldn't be relevant in EoB1/2. There were no incremental bonuses for it; it was just a few pass/fail things like that. The way 1st edition classes were based on stats was simply that you had to have certain stat minimums to qualify to pick the class at all, and having very high "prime requisite" score gave you an experience bonus. It was much, much more about playing what you had rolled - good or bad - rather than the modern conceptions of stats where a stat distribution is supposed to be a "build".

The reason AD&D games had the "modify" option where you can make you stats whatever was originally so you could easily transfer your real P&P characters into the game.

Oh no, it went all the way down to 5th level. Mage has 9 INT, no Hold Monster. And there were wisdom limits for 6th and 7th level cleric spells too.

 

[Sceptic]

Remember the deathtrap with the dying Cleric? I can escape that without cheating.

You are NOT getting away without telling more about this one :D

 

[Gozma]

The trick to that I know actually makes sense in terms of game mechanics. I'd give a hint that once the trap is sprung, there's no getting out - you have to do something clever beforehand.

Spoiler

If you cast a wall of force in the spot where the wall that closes the trap will appear it won't be able to occupy the space when you do and you can walk right back out.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Gozma's solution is correct in getting out of the tropelet seed room.

The other one is even simpler.

Spoiler

It just takes a little timing. Just get a Flying Snake to follow you so that it's blocking the doorway when you trigger the conversation with the Cleric on the pressure pad. The door will start to close, then open again because there's an "obstruction".

But here's where things get interesting. There are certain levels in EOB2 that are divided into two sections, and the game swaps out the data as you move between them. Almost everyone I know thinks that the game is moving between levels (because it's loading) but in reality it's not. But anyway, you'll see this first-hand once you successfully block the door, because IIRC that flying snake in the doorway will have turned into a cleric - ALL the flying snakes on the level have turned into clerics (I wonder what the Gas Spores will turn into?). Because the game used that cutscene that plays during the conversation to perform a data swap. Those cutscenes weren't just for show, you know. You might experience some graphical glitches as well, but all you have to do to fix things is go down to the previous level then come back up - the game will load up the proper data and everything will be back to normal.

You can use a wallhack cheat in EOB2 to "explore" this data swapping technique. You'd be surprised how many levels it's used on. The ground floor of the temple, all three catacomb levels (there are only three, not four), the level with the Frost Giants and the Yugoloths, and finally the level with Dran Draggore and the Salamanders/Mind Flayers - that last one is hilarious because you can end up fighting several Dran Draggores - in both forms.

 

[DavidBVal]

iirc, the first silver key is just there on the ground, next to the stairs. Maybe you already opened a door with it? it vanishes then and you need another.

EDIT: http://sourceforge.net/p/scummvm/bugs/6758/

 

[Jo498]

Both, so to speak. Another problem with the Pool series is that Paladins and Rangers only become available in Curse of the Azure Bonds, so a little reorganizing may be in order when you reach CoAB.

Personally I prefer something like this in PoR:
Human Fighter
Human Cleric
Human Mage
Dwarf Fighter/Thief
Half-Elf Cleric/Mage
Elf Fighter/Mage

I used a fighter/cleric/mage both 23 years ago or so and more recently but otherwise this is exactly my PoR party

By the time you reach Curse of the Azure Bonds the last two characters will be obsolete, and I replace them with a Human Paladin and a Human Ranger. With the right stats both the Fighter and Ranger can later be dualed to Mage. The Ranger especially is suited to this since they can cast magic spells while wearing armour (the Fighter will have to rely on Bracers).

I do not remember which parties I used for Curse but I think two multi-class characters are still feasible there despite the caps. I probably played with human Paladin, Ranger, Cleric, Mage and one half-elf Fighter/cleric/mage and one Elf fighter/mage/thief. Or dwarven fighter/thief and elf fighter/mage, but despite the caps the healing and hold person spells of another cleric are welcome (not sure how high the Paladin has to be to help out). But I do not remember the details; I think I played Curse and Secret once on a Mac in the mid/late 90s and maybe another time in the early 2000s. I agree with the weakness of Secrets but I'll probably play Curse again when I can get it to run on DOS BOX (had some graphic problems, for whatever reason Death Knights and Pool of R ran without problems with default? settings but Curse screws already the title page up.)
But I had a fondness for multiclasses from the Krynn games and never really got into the human "dual class" stuff, except for one playthrough of Pools of Darkness where I had a Ranger/Mage. PoD is (barely) possible without Dual Class (did it once with a party including a fighter/thief and a fighter/mage/thief, but had to switch to a lower lvl to survive the bane minions and beholders in the last battles) but probably easiest if one spends some time "raising" three or even four dual class characters)
I like rangers but except for the later option of a very strong Ranger/Mage I am not so sure about the advantages of low/mid lvl rangers vs. figters: They get (slightly) fewer hitpoints and advance more slowly, the druidic spells are negligible (until Pools of Darkness) and the bonus vs. giants depends on the scenario (and there are far worse opponents than giants, although it is fun doing double damage). What am I missing?

 

[DavidBVal]

Oh damn, I just remembered something... what is the sense of the infamous "mystic clue" in PoD?

I can read now in walkthroughs that it is "oh well", but I never found the answer back when I played. How could you possibly guess that?

 

[Jo498]

I've been playing a lot today. A damn addictive game, this one. I just entered Kalistes' dimension or some such after a long stretch of fighting drow in and around Zhentil Keep. My party met Silk again but there was no special dialogue as far as I could tell for my ranger being sort of part of her group from Curse of the Azure Bonds. Too bad, I was hoping for something extra there for keeping the same party from game to game. But then, Secret of the Silver Blades had a few familiar characters from before too and none of them seemed to remember my party either.

My party right now:
Level 11 Cleric(/Level 16 Paladin)
Level 9/20 Fighter/Thief
Level 16 Magic-User/Level 15 Ranger
Level 12 Magic-User(/Level 23 Cleric)
Level 16 Magic-User(/Level 18 Fighter)
Level 22 Magic-User

While I do not remember the details, I just wanted to point out that one can beat (most of) PoD without Dual classes. When I first played this on Amiga in the early 90s I had human Paladin, Ranger, Mage, Cleric and a dwarf fighter/thief and an elf fighter/cleric/thief. It was quite hard but I had only played the low/middle lvl PoR, ChoK, DKoK before and had to learn some new things about buffing spells and tactics. I usually played on the second hardest lvl ("veteran", although this affects only the HP of monsters, I think). Sure, some battles depended on lots of luck. IIRC I became frustrated already with the first wave of the last battle and in the end switched to "easy" and probably could do all three waves on that lvl. The problem is that the multi-elf is not quite good enough as a mage and both he and the pure mage are somewhat low on hp even if you "optimize"/modify at the start of the game.

I do not remember if I re-played it only once (once on Mac Performa) or even twice (PC) but I think a second time I replaced one non-human with a Ranger/Mage. In any case I think I managed to beat the final battles at "normal" difficulty setting with only one or at most two dual class characters (ranger mage and maybe cleric/mage). The grindwork necessary to make 4 or even all 6 characters dual class (unless one can build up two or so already in SoSB) would not be much fun for me.

There are, of course, some (slight) cheats with item multiplication. Maybe I used this also to some extent with the final battles. It is not too hard if everyone has an anti-electricity ring and it is already much easier if everyone has a lot of arrows +4 (I think one can get enough +2 arrows w/o cheating) to finish off bane minions and beholders.
For beholders there seem to be two general tactics: either haste and try to finish them off ASAP or, if they are too many and the map allows it, move out of their range and wear them down with missiles (the range of the beholder's eyes is only 6 or 9 squares, I think)

 

[octavius]

The Amiga version of PoD is easier since in that version the Ring of Lightning Immunity works. In the DOS version it doesn't. That little ring can make quite a bit of difference. I found the final battles in the DOS version absolutely brutal, while the Amiga version was just very hard.

 

[Jo498]

I am pretty sure that I played PoD also on the Mac and the ring vs. lightning did work. Of course you only have two of them? unless you do a multiplying trick. I find some of those high lvl battles exaggerated but they are doable, even without 4 mage dual characters. Someone in the thread mentions that the Thorne region was hard, I actually found that one the easiest of the "outer" regions. On my first play with my brother on the Amiga (no dual class but a fighter/thief and fighter/mage/thief) we came for some reason first to the dark elves and Kallistes' land which was very frustrating because of the magic resistance of most drow. I think the resistance scales against the lvl of caster, so with higher lvl mages one. When I played it again I leveled up a little earlier in the wilderness and went first Thorne, then Kallistes. Moander is also extremely frustrating because there are random encounters harder than the scripted ones. This is also a region where 3-4 high lvl mages would make it considerably easier with hold monster and cone of cold because the bits o'moander are affected almost only by those.

Overall, for immersion and feeling of achievement I do prefer the lower lvl games. (I also somewhat dislike dual class humans just to get über-powerful characters.)
When I finish PoR I will probably do CoAB (which is maybe the hardest in terms of what one has to beat with mid-lvl characters) and maybe even Champions. This one is too linear but I have very fond memories because of the linearity it really feels acting out a dragonlance novella.
BTW I do not quite understand some people in this thread suggesting two knights for parties in the Krynn games. Knights advance rather slowly, they are not better fighters than fighters or rangers and there is only one dragonlance in each of the games. I think I played DQoK only once and maybe I took a knight and a paladin then, but generally I dislike having paladins in a game world where the Solamnic knights have that role.

 

[octavius]

BTW I do not quite understand some people in this thread suggesting two knights for parties in the Krynn games. Knights advance rather slowly, they are not better fighters than fighters or rangers and there is only one dragonlance in each of the games. I think I played DQoK only once and maybe I took a knight and a paladin then, but generally I dislike having paladins in a game world where the Solamnic knights have that role.

Well, Knights get quite an impressive spell selection at high levels. Also Solamnic Plate is the best non-magical armour you can get, and stacks well with magic Rings. So they are a notch better than the other Fighter types, especially since you can't have a human dual Ranger/Mage.
An Elf Fighter/Mage OTOH is probably even better than a Knight, the main disadvantage not being able to be Raised or Resurrected from the dead. Makes playing Iron Man extra interesting, when you have to make sure your Elf doesn't get hit by Dragon breath or Beholder rays.

Dragonlances are not restricted to Knights; any Fighter types can use them. The ultimate Dragonlance wielder is a Dwarf Fighter with 19 CON.

I agree about Paladins. They are redundant in the Krynn games, and I can't recall any mention of them in the books.

 

[Null Null]

Oh damn, I just remembered something... what is the sense of the infamous "mystic clue" in PoD?

I can read now in walkthroughs that it is "oh well", but I never found the answer back when I played. How could you possibly guess that?

I actually asked Dave, now of TSI, about this (you can find the thread on the TSI forums if you search around). Apparently, he never had time to polish the thing off as the game had to be released. So yeah, you couldn't guess that.

Other topics:
The Ring of Blinking is almost as useful as the Ring of Electric Immunity if given to a character with high dexterity.

You want to have a heavy-multiclass party in Curse? How about Human Paladin, Dwarf Fighter/Thief, Elf Fighter/Mage, Half-Elf Ranger/Cleric, Human Cleric, Human Mage? A bit weak on fighter power, but with some grinding you might be able to make it up.

Standard POD order is Thorne, Kalistes, Tanetal. Having done it a few different ways, I like to do Kalistes last because the higher levels make the Drow magic resistance much less effective. I've even done Tanetal first, which is a pain and requires many reloads (Howling, agents of Tanetal charge into view). If you're having trouble, clear out the Realms before doing any dimension-hopping, as it's easy to leave and then return to any dungeon; I once managed to sneak over to Mulmaster and beat Arcam before doing anything else.

 

[Jo498]

I am puzzled that every fighter can use the Dragonlance; I was pretty sure that only knights could wield them in Champions, but maybe that restriction was relaxed or I misremember (I am sure about the solamnic plate, though). Anyway, I think they SHOULD be restricted, IMO, anything else seems out of character with the Krynn world.
Anyway, as one never gets more than one Dragonlance (or can one import one from DoK and get another one in DQoK? I played the latter without transfers), this is a moot point when thinking about the number of knights. I agree that they get some good clerical spells later on. But the Paladin protects a whole battle line with his protection from evil and gets to healing spells earlier (though never as good as high lvl knights). As I said, I think they should have excluded paladins from the Krynn games (as they did in Champions) but with the many undead in Death Knights a paladin would be quite useful there. And there are only two dragon fights in DoK where one could use the lance, I think; one of those is a optional one (Cekos) many players probably do before they get the lance, and the hardest dragon fight comes right before one gets the lance.
When I played Death Knights recently I had: Human Knight, Human Ranger, Kender Cleric/Thief, Elf Cleric/White Mage, Elf Fighter/Red Mage and Halfelf Fighter/Cleric/white mage. Probably because this was roughly the way I had played Champions in 1992 or so. The yelling was much less useful than in Champions (because undead are not affected) but backstabbing is great on skeletals. I am afraid a kender would be wasted in DQoK (but my recollections of that game are dim, I only remember that there are two long stretches where my characters "lost" XP because they could not train in between). It is quite hard and tactically more interesting than PoD, e.g. with the echanted bozaks and auraks (and not so ridiculously long).

Null Null, I am pretty sure that I once played Curse with a party like the one you mention. As one gets Alias and Dragonbait for a longish portion of the game and those are both good/decent fighters such a party should certainly work. I seem to remember that the Half-Elf Ranger/Cleric hit the cap and I thought about having a Fighter/Cleric/Mage instead, get a human ranger instead of the dwarf and make the elf triple as fighter/mage/thief. But then the gap in HP and advancement between the four humans and the two multiclass would probably be considerable. (I probably did this once as well, I think I played the game twice, once on mac, once on pc.)

As for multiple/dual classes I am undecided: Sure, they can get really powerful and some of them make sense to some extent (like fighter/thief); in the case of the elves one could argue that they have some natural magical ability humans lack so fighter/mages are a thing. Otherwise (especially in some Pen&Paper RPGs) one of the main gaming points about mages is that they are physically weak/heavily restricted as bargain for their uncanny powers. And overall, I do not think stuff like an uber-powerful ranger/mage dual does make a lot of sense.
Overall, for immersion and plausibilty I'd probably prefer a system with more classes but no dual/multi at all. So Rangers would be somewhat weaker than fighters but start with druidry or so early on. There would be a bard class instead of mage/thief, paladin would replace all fighter/cleric, a druid would be some kind of mage/cleric etc. But this would be an entirely different system.

Agree about the standard order in PoD. But on my first play I somehow missed Thorne and I think that on one replay I did Kallistes last as you suggest. But the Moander sphere can be pretty nightmarish as well (Tanetal is a piece of cake but his entourage and the random encounters with huge Golems and Moander bits are among the worst in the whole game (especially if one has only one priest and one high lvl mage), there are also some puzzles to be figured out with the blood circulation in the body, without hints one can spent A LOT of time there.)

 

[DavidBVal]

I actually asked Dave, now of TSI, about this (you can find the thread on the TSI forums if you search around). Apparently, he never had time to polish the thing off as the game had to be released. So yeah, you couldn't guess that.

finally I can sleep peacefully, 25 years later

Looking for that thread soon, thx.

I once managed to sneak over to Mulmaster and beat Arcam before doing anything else.

Impressive!

 

[Jo498]

As the friendly mods seem to pass my postings really quickly, I'll add some general remarks on my history with the "Gold Box" games. I came rather late to computers with 17 or 18 ca. 1990 when we got an Amiga 500 (or so). Many Cracked games were available but I was too slow to ever get into arcade games or spaceship shooters, whatever. My favorite games were Lemmings and Pirates! Then a buddy of my brother gave us a few RPGs. I have never played pen&paper but had read a few of the "game books" from the 1980s (like Lone Wolf) and loved that stuff. So we played "Phantasy III" and then Pool of Radiance, later Champions of Krynn and Death Knights. Then I got Pools of Darkness (in German, I think) which was brutally difficult (I think before that game the only fight I ever prepared with buffs like resist fire etc. was the final battle against Lord Soth because the Fireball throwing death knights had killed the party at several attempts) but we kept going for it. I loved them but the Amiga was waning in that time, I started university and had not so much time for playing, so I forgot about getting the others. (I also played Civilization (I) quite obsessively for a while)
Later, in the mid-90s I had a Macintosh and encountered some nice indy rpg, "Realmz" (very gold box like but buggy and very generic scenarios, as I recall) and especially Spiderwebs "Exile series" (later redone as "Avernum"). As I had never seen the Ultima 3-5 (very clearly the base for the original Exile, I was completely overwhelmed. Now this was a huge outdoors to explore, an entirely different lvl of NPC interaction and still nice, somewhat tactical battles. Although the gold box stuff seemed really poor in many respects compared to this I retained some fondness for the goldbox and got a collection of the games available for Mac. PoR did not work on my mac, it was too old, but I played then for the first time CoAB, SoSB and DQoK (unfortunately no earlier Krynn games on Mac) and replayed PoD. This was still fun, if one like tactical battles.
A few years later, in the late 90s or early 2000s I was using a PC and a pal gave me all of them (not sure if pirated) so I replayed some of them again and also played at least the beginning of the first savage frontier game; I might have overdosed but I don't think I ever finished it or looked into the second one. I never touched Buck Rogers (or Unfinished Adventures scenarios).

Now for some reason a few weeks ago I felt some craving for good old times GoldBox RPGing, got Death Knights from some abandonware site and it runs without problems with DOS Box (although sound and graphics were better on Amiga, I think). I probably played it a little too fast with some help of a walkthru, it did not feel as immersive (but that might also have other reasons, I remember that I found the section with the "dream merchant" quite immersive 20+ years ago). Then I found CRPG addicts site and decided I had to play Pool of radiance. Because of the poor UI and the hard start I am not sure I ever re-played this one. Now, I gave myself a little head start (although some encounters scale apparently) with some modified HP and stats (to have 6-13 HP instead of 4-9) but this is actually a very good game, if one disregards the UI and some oddities. As has been mentioned by others in this thread, there are quite a few things that were simplified in later games (as the better chance to avoid battles with monsters by parlaying)

I am not through yet (the castle is still left), but the main weakness (also mentioned by others) is that some of the later missions are too easy. I think it's o.k. to stumble to early into the graveyard because one will realize quickly that it's too hard. But in the wilderness I was given (or stumbled into) the two harder quests (kobolds and Yarash's pyramid) before the ones with the pirates and zhentarim which are probably easier. I found the kobolds before the nomads (the cave is easier to find) and had luck with the 3-wave battle (I had one fireball, used two fireballs from scrolls and was somewhat lucky with stinking cloud and the trolls). The buccaneers are really easy compared to that (the only hard one is the captain and he responds to hold person or cloud fairly easily).

Apart from the obvious limitations (combat heavy, often too many random encounters, often poor storyline, sometimes awkward balance between too linear and not sure what next) my main quibbles with the Gold Box games are the following:

- many useless spells and counter-intuitive spell power: A dragon is more likely to be affected by 2nd lvl stinking cloud than by 5th? lvl hold monster or 6th lvl disintegration, I think. Similarly with 2nd lvl hold person vs. high lvl humans/humanoids. There are also unintuitive immunities (because otherwise the area spells like fireball would be too overpowered).

-unclear restrictions: Apparently all multiclass (NOT dual class) fighter/x can use fighers's armor and weapons w/o penalties. In later games mages can have slings and priests staff slings.

-rather uninteresting weapon differences: long sword is best one-handed, 2 handed sort best two-handed, pole weapons are useless (but abundant in FG settings, I might have had bad luck with random treasure but in my current PoR I found 4 or 5 +1 (or +2) poleweapons. Missile weapons are usually too weak (until one gets those fine longbows) or sometimes early in the game when a high dex elf can shoot two arrows with 4-6 damage each long before attacking twice and.

- thieves are almost useless (There should be more and harder traps in dungeons or whatever, it would not be hard to improve their role), clerics are a necessity for healing but depending on the scenario (turning undead or many humans for hold person) they can be almost useless in many battles (until blade barrier). I am also not convinced by the way "turn undead" works. Like many spells it oscillates between too powerful (e.g. in random wilderness encounters in Death Knights the Undead will often never reach the party) and useless (high lvl undead simply ignore it). It would be better if it worked like a mass area spell with saving throws of the undead (so some would take no or only half/quarter damage. Clerics could also be given more agressive early spells or bonuses when fighting melee against undead or evil creatures or so.

-draining sucks. This was improved in some later games where the exact HP were restored, not only the lvl. It still sucks. Restoration scrolls abound, so it is merely annoying or in earlier games the temptation for power word reload is extremely strong.

 

[Infinitron]

As the friendly mods seem to pass my postings really quickly

They're good posts.

 

[Jo498]

Stinking Cloud is a terrific spell, but in the later games the AI had been changed so that monsters would no longer walk into it. The reason I say changed instead of improved was that it led to situations where you could block the monsters and then kill them at your leisure with missile weapons.

Aren't there some monsters who are immune to the cloud (like undead) and also "know" their immunity, so they will walk in/through it? In the earlier games like Champions monsters would walk into and also if they saved the first time walk back and forth within the cloud which usually produced nausea quickly. Stinking cloud was a livesaver against draconians...

AI was always the weakest aspect of the GB games, but it isn't nearly as detrimental as it can be in strategy games. I can't play Civ II longer due to the poor AI, for example.

yeah, but here you can play a really superlative game like CIV IV instead. Whereas there is hardly any newish turn-based CRPG one could play instead of Gold Box (except maybe indy stuff like spiderweb's, but I have played most of those already).