Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

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?

Yes, undead and golems, and probably more, are immune and will ignore the cloud.

yeah, but here you can play a really superlative game like CIV IV instead.

Are you saying the CIV IV AI is good?

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

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).

Have you played Knights of the Chalice? Temple of Elemental Evil?

 

[Jo498]

Actually my problem with DKK is that it's an inferior POR. Tries to use some of the same design elements but doesn't do any of them as well. The open world isn't as interesting to explore and you can see it all in one go, the random world map encounter require you to trudge over the same spots over and over and over hoping to trigger them all, the sidequests aren't as interesting or varied, encounter design even for fixed encounters isn't as interesting (and IMO DQK is even worse here)... I don't think it's a bad game and I do like it, but I find POR vastly superior, and I do prefer COK over it as well.

I think my problem with DOK is that it feels like an incoherent mix. I love Champions because nostalgia and because the linearity really feels like acting out a little Dragonlance novella (and at low levels almost everything feels like a nice achievement - how cool to kill your first dragons, get solamnic plate in the solemn tomb and later hunt through that tower for the dragonlance!)

The main plot of Death Knights is even shorter and simpler than CoK and extremely linear but without any sidequest the game will be the shortest of all, I think, and also some battles would become quite hard and one would gain no nice items at all. When I played it first 20+ years ago I found the dream merchant sequence in that labyrinthic town quite evocative, though. It is also odd that most of the side quests (except the only one that is hinted at: Cerberus + Graveyard, or is that obligatory?) have nothing whatsoever to do with the Death knights threat and if I am not mistaken there is only one battle with a death knight before in the final dungeon Dargaard Keep. And at least two side quests are rather goofy (dwarf's riddle house and gnome village), breaking the "mood" of the Undead theme.

PoR does a reasonably good job mixing open exploration with a slowly unfolding plot whereas in Death Knights the very linear plot is completely independent of the side quests.
For me the best (and fairly standard) recipe is to start a game with some guidance (clear out slum to get decent stuff and lvls), followed by open (or slightly guided) exploration during which "the plot thickens" and the party discovers the main objectives of the game. PoR is pretty good here (especially for a first effort!), PoD is decent, I do not remember the other ones so well, and for the first two Krynn, see above. As I said, I have never played some classics like the Ultimas, but fro me Spiderweb really did a great job with the Exile games (I am more familiar with their first mid-90s incarnations) that perfectly mix openness and plot-relevance (the first and third are more open, the 2nd starts with a fairly linear sequence).

 

[Jo498]

Have you played Knights of the Chalice? Temple of Elemental Evil?

No. I have to admit that am not really following current games at all. For the last 5 years the only games I played was Civ IV (+expansion sets), some spiderweb RPGs and now again the old gold box stuff. I have not played any of the late 90s until today Forgotten Realms games, partly because back then I did not (and still do not have) a "state of the art" computer and I am not willing to pay more than 10-15 EUR for a game either (I paid slightly more for some of the spiderweb shareware in earlier times because I wanted to support them). But thanks for the lead, I will look into the games you mention.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

No. I have to admit that am not really following current games at all. For the last 5 years the only games I played was Civ IV (+expansion sets), some spiderweb RPGs and now again the old gold box stuff. I have not played any of the late 90s until today Forgotten Realms games, partly because back then I did not (and still do not have) a "state of the art" computer and I am not willing to pay more than 10-15 EUR for a game either (I paid slightly more for some of the spiderweb shareware in earlier times because I wanted to support them). But thanks for the lead, I will look into the games you mention.

Those two are turn-based DnD games, so they might be interesting for you. ToEE should be pretty cheap by now (it's a 2003 game) .
KotC (http://www.heroicfantasygames.com/) is inspired by the Darksun games which were also made by SSI just like the goldbox titles.

 

[Jo498]

With some of the suggestions for party composition, I wonder if some people have re-played games with purposefully different party combinations. E.g. one could probably do the whole Krynn series (certainly the first two) with 1 Knight (you need one for some quests, like the tomb) + 5 demi-human multi-class characters or with only human single class characters (I do not think a thief is needed for these games). Both could become quite powerful but the second would be much harder (only one cleric and only three fighter types (without spells in Champions!) because one would probably want both a white and red mage) and strategy would be rather different in both cases. Or PoR with 0-2 multi-class vs. 4-6. (CPRaddict played with 4 dual class, standard is probably 3 and all-human with two fighters, two mages, cleric, thief or so would be possible.) Even Curse could be played both with an all-human single class or with a human cleric and 5 demi-human multiclass party (although neither would be "ideal", I guess) Unfortunately, the choices for the later FR games are somewhat restricted because of the caps and most people will end up with fairly similar parties.

I have to admit that I am somewhat conservative/unimaginative with parties. Admittedly, my latest/current playing is nostalgia-driven, so I recreated exactly the party compositions as I remembered it from my first experiences with those games in the early 1990s. But in earlier re-plays I also pretty much stuck to fairly standard party composition.

 

[octavius]

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

That reminds me of something...[checking old PoD thread]...
It looks like the party could have worked for Arcam, the chief beholder in Mulmaster, and get quests to wipe out his competitors. But with no boats and Mulmaster being the place furthest away from Phlan I can't imagine many players having done this.

But you did go to Mulmaster. Was there any option to work for Arcam?

 

[Null Null]

That reminds me of something...[checking old PoD thread]...
It looks like the party could have worked for Arcam, the chief beholder in Mulmaster, and get quests to wipe out his competitors. But with no boats and Mulmaster being the place furthest away from Phlan I can't imagine many players having done this.

But you did go to Mulmaster. Was there any option to work for Arcam?

Yup. You can even bargain him up in price, though if you ask for too many gems he attacks you. Supposedly each mission you complete (he apparently sends you after Thorne, Manshoon, and Marcus, from reading the text printed by Simeon Pilgrim) decreases the number of mercenaries in the chamber. So you could do missions for Arcam's Chancellor, getting paid, until of course he gets worried about you and decides to kill you. I may try it on my next run-through.

Other stuff:
Jo498: I never tried to beat Pools of Darkness without dual-classing; the default party even includes dual-class characters, which is the case in no other game. (Interestingly, three of them appear to be the same characters in the old Secret of the Silver Blades default party, suggesting you were supposed to transfer characters from Secret--which would make dualling characters much easier.) I might do Paladin, Ranger, Fighter/Mage/Thief, Cleric, Mage, Mage, though it's an interesting problem.

You are quite correct, magic resistance is base resistance - 5% per level of the caster over 11th (or +5% for each level below). This effectively means magic resistance can be ignored at 31st level, and is the best argument for single-classed mages in the Krynn games (a properly levelled pure mage can ignore enchanted draconian resistance). Note that this won't work against monsters set to be completely immune--Beholders and Gothemens/Kalistes/Tanetal. (From what I gather from FRUA, the magic resistance is set to 255%.) Drow magic resistance is 50% + 2%/highest level of the drow, so it ranges from 64% for Drow Priests (7th level Cleric) to 80% for Drow Wizards (15th level Thief). So a drow will have a 54-70% chance of resisting a spell cast by an 13th level mage freshly created...or no chance at all against a mage with a level in the thirties. Levelling thus becomes a big deal.

Yes, you lose the Dragonlance you get in Champions, but you can keep the one from Death Knights (which is, it's implied, the same one, since you handed it to the knights at the end of Champions, and Sir Karl steals it) into Dark Queen. (The default party actually starts out with your knight having one, and he has the same name as the default knight from Death Knights...I think they are again suggesting that you were transferring characters, and it's the same dragonlance.)

Some of your suggestions were indeed implemented, Might and Magic had a druid that was basically a cleric/mage, and 2nd ed D&D had a bard that was more or less a fighter/mage/thief (rather than changing classes twice like a freshman in college).

I thought the heart was rather clever, what with the halfway accurate cardiac anatomy and all. It even had the great vessels coming off the aortic arch near the north end of the map. (There's a bit of a catch in that Mo is lying upside down, so his head is to the south--thus the great vessels, which supply the head and arms, should be pointing south. But hey.)

I had a similar experience to you in that my parents were afraid of me playing too many video games, but would buy me a game to play over summer break if I got good grades, and they saw how much I loved Champions of Krynn (my dad was familiar with SSI from a flight simulator they made), and the gold box and the name 'Dungeons and Dragons' were easily recognizable to the layperson...so I got to play all the Gold Box series, and not much else. I did get to play Dragon Wars and the Eye of the Beholder Series. My mom did get Bard's Tale for me, but I could never get it to run on my Apple II for some reason. By the time Dark Sun came out, I had to get into college and had little time for video games. So I know the Gold Box series well, but not much else.

The buccaneers are pretty easy if you know what you're doing. Don't forget to loot the captain's body--if you forgot, reload and go back and do it! I am serious. The Zhents...easy if you go straight for the exit, but I'd encourage you to do it last and stick around to fight everyone. It's long but you get some good loot--wand of lightning, another set of gauntlets of ogre power, ring of fire resistance, and 3 joined potions of extra healing (so they occupy one lousy slot).

I agree with you about the criticisms of the spells. Many of these were actually fixed in later editions--in 3rd edition, the target of a spell saves against a difficulty level which is proportional to the caster's level, so an 11th level cleric's hold person is much harder to save against than a 3rd level cleric's.

DKK's theme was rather odd. They had a whole 'Night of the Living Dead' thing going, and then they go and ruin it with strange quests. POD I thought did the whole post-apocalyptic fantasy thing rather cleverly--did you ever think you'd be happy to see Zhentil Keep before?

Moving parties through all the Krynn games is a little tricky because you want more clerics for DKK, but then it's nice to have single-class mages for DQK. There are all kinds of tradeoffs.

Weird parties? Oh, sure. Pool of Radiance in particular is quite forgiving, with its auto-scaling random encounters. I beat it with:
F, F/C, F/M, T, C, M (the default Apple II party)
F, F/M, C/F/M, F/M/T, C, M (my favorite party in my youth)
F, F/M, C/F/M, M/T, C/M, M (this one was totally overdone, and the large number of mages meant the random encounters were huge)
F, F, F, F/M/T, C, M (when I was preparing my party for a Pool-to-Pools run)
F, C/F/M, F/M, T, C, M (the default PC party)
F, F, F, F, F, F (not as hard as it sounds, though you have to do lots of stuff out of order, I also had to kill the town guard for their Javelins of Lightning so I could hurt Tyranthraxus' guards)
C/F/M. Yup, one character. This requires really careful planning and a few reloads to get past Tyranthraxus. To defeat his guards, I ran into the corner and let them stack up in front of me so only two could get to me at once, then threw Charm Person and Hold Person spells at them to decrease their numbers.

 

[Jo498]

wow, soloing PoR sounds quite masochistic or do you then hire 3-5 additional guys in the training hall?

I wonder if my PoR "standard" party F,M,C, F/M, F/T, F/M/C corresponded to the default Amiga party (a pure thief seems like a total waste) or if some friends had given us hints how to improve it. As I originally played most of the games in haphazard order I never really tried moving one party through the game, maybe we did it the first time with Champions and Death Knights, I do not remember.

I never was such a "power gamer" (always more interested in the story unfolding and the tactical battles were often hard enough with 6 guys, I also like the point that one needs a party of different characters) that I tried going with less than a full party.

When I played PoD for the first time, I had not really understood the lvl caps and what dual class characters were (don't know why I ignored the default party; this one seems quite powerful and flexible and if I ever play this game again I might use a similar one). Mainly because I had never played Curse and Secret but the first two Krynn games with very few lvl caps. Or we simply liked also having a dwarf and an elf. This is a Fantasy setting, after all, so one needs some non-humans... although I have to admit that I was not too fond of all that strange monsters (dog-like and cat-like humanoid Ninjas etc.) one could include in Wizardry 6...
Anyway, fighter/thief and fighter/mu/thief are not too bad for most of that game (as Octavius likes to point out backstabbing rules against drow, Rakshasas, high hp Zhent fighters and similar guys) if they have high stats although the latter will probably have less hp than the pure mage. It's only those battles (including the final ones) where one could really need two (Delayed Blast) casters and backstabbing is useless because all monsters are 2-4 squares.
In any case it seems much better to dual one or two already in Secrets and/or start with the default guys. I remember that to get one ranger/mage who dualed right at the beginning of Pools up high enough needed some grinding and the game would lose quite a bit of the fun for me if I had to do this with 3 characters!

yeah, I replayed the Zhent fort 3 times in the last two days because I once had been too far from the gate and a multi-character who had been drained and was in need of XP went down in the last fight with the captain, then because I left too early and missed the dwarf with gauntlets and the captain with his gear altogether (I had thought I's face them at the gate no matter what, apparently one has to fight at least 3-4 groups of ordinary guards+corporals to get to them, so this is not as easy as the buccaneers but still easier than the triple kobold/troll fight). I also had to look up the location of the lizardmen fort on the web because I could not find it and got bored of random wilderness encounters (those are really a pain because the monsters start always too far away and will take forever, especially if there is a river to ford).
PoR is somewhat different because one faces very few magic user but huge amounts of (often low level) fighters. And, unlike later games, the few mages are often in front (like Yashar or the orc priest in the temple or the Zhent mage) and can be hit quickly (but the Zhent guy used his lightning wand at me....) So in that respect most battles are considerably easier than in almost all other games. Still, some of them are hard enough for a typical PoR party and they pose different challenges.

So could one get *two* dragonlances in DQoK or does one always start with one and can never acquire another one? (I think I played this only once or if twice the last time was a long time ago. I was not too fond of it and mainly remember the undersea section and the endgame.)

 

[Jo498]

Now that you mention it I seem to recall that I might have worked for Arcam in one PoD replay where I ignored the "standard" route around the moonsea because I had to level up my dual character (or simply because I wanted to get stronger before going to Kalistes land and Moander). But there were probably only two missions left.

 

[Grathanich]

Heh heh....thanks.

I ironmanned Pool in 6 hours (you can only do this if you are very familiar with the game) with Metallica playing a little while ago, but can't speak to the metal subgenres or which one would do best with which game. I do think Iron Maiden would go pretty well with Death Knights of Krynn, what with all the undead.

I played through Pools of Darkness and Champions of Krynn to the end while playing Scandinavian Black Metal cassettes full on ten. Also Mithotyn - Gathere Round the Oaken Table which way much powerful and melodic than the weak-ass Blind Guardian/Hammerfall which many of the RPGers of the time worshipped.

 

[Jo498]

Re: "save-scumming".
I think this is to some extent almost unavoidable because the HP levelling is so f*cked up in those games. I do it not to achieve max HP but to avoid problematically low HP (especially in higher lvl games or with characters who might transfer to such).
It might work with Pen&Paper but not with a combat-centred game with opponents who have area damage spells and breath weapons. (And while to my recollection the Dragon's breath worked in Champions like the Dragonlance, that is, a wounded Dragon would only do breath damage with its actual hitpoints, in all other games, it does its max HP damage (even if the dragon is down to 1 actual HP).

If a fighter received 5+d5 per lvl, I'd probably never "save scum". But with d10 (+constitution bonus) it can add up to wildly different HP. And e.g. pure mages could end up with cripplingly low hp with a little bad luck at levelling. (The very first time I played PoR I played more or less like that and it was frustrating; I think all but two characters had simply not enough HP most of the game, especially because I had not completely understood the constitution bonuses and picked several characters without any.)

Furthermore, the system seems inconsistently applied with multiclass (and if those are unlucky they can also and up with so little HP to make them extremely vulnerable). I do not know if the const. bonus is added before (I think so) or after splitting in 1/2 or 1/3. I started Gateway to the savage frontier (because I had never completed it in earlier times) and I finally got enough money to train my dwarf fighter/thief (Con 19). He received 6 HP as a fighter and 5 HP as a thief. As I used to understand the computation this does not make sense: His max as fighter should be 10+4=14 (or even 15), so 1/2 would be 7, 6 HP is the second best result (or 3rd best, if he can get 15 and rounding is in favor). Very good. But as a thief his max should be 6 +2 (for constitution over 14, non-fighters get only two points bonus, so it should not matter of 16 or 19 CON) and 4 should be the max result. So while I am happy that I got about max HP I do not understand how those numbers are computed
(The game is quite poorly done, so far, I entered/triggered stuff I should not have known too early and could not really understand, random encounters are terrible and like one of the earlier ones (Secret or Curse) it has the idiotic feature that one has to "exit" the move around mode explicitly. Also, am I supposed to report back to friends of the guy who joined me in the first city and who gave me the first "mission"? I cannot find their hideout again...)

 

[octavius]

Hit Points are really not that important in the long run, IMO. It's important in the beginning, but in the end DEX is what really matters in the most difficult fights, to get initiative. STR can be increased via items and spells, and at high level an Enlarge spells gives a STR of 22-23 and lasts several hours, so STR is even less important. Besides missiles weapons rule at low levels, before you get multiple attacks with melee weapons.

At higher levels the only thing that you really need much HP for is to avoid being killed by Dragon breath; what will make a character go down is usually being subject to some spell or ability that holds or paralyzes your character. In my experience, once you've gained a few levels there's really no practical difference between 16 and 18 CON, but a world of difference between 16 and 18 DEX.

Gateway of the Savage Frontier is IMO the weakest of all the fantasy Gold Box games, with its substandard encounter design. Treasures of the Savage Frontier is much better, when Dan Daglow, one of the two lead designers, had learnt his lesson. The other lead designer, a guy with an Italian name IIRC, did not, and he was also the lead designer of the infamous Pool of Radiance: Myth Drannor.

The guy you report back to is an old professor type. He hangs out in a small southern town, but I can't recall it's name ATM. You should screencap all important info, which is very easy to with DOSBox. Just hit CTRL-F5.

 

[Jo498]

I found him: Amanitas. I guess I had done everything right, but one thing not quite in order. Now I seem to be on the proper path and I also remember that I played that game years ago (I recall one had to search those statuettes) although I do not think I ever finished it. The thing with the river boat is newish but rather inconsequential; everything else feels rather generic to me.

As for HP, the saving throws of high lvl characters against paralysis and the like make going down from such an affliction not all that likely either. I am not talking about a lvl. 15 paladin having 120 or 140 HP. This is fairly inconsequential. But if your lvl 10 mage has 29 HP or 50 HP is not, IMO. The former character is very vulnerable if not constantly protected by immunity spells/items and his comrades. Still, it might work. But if a fighter/mage character is unlucky (and as I said I have the impression that the calculating system is strange for multi-class) he is almost useless.

 

[dragonbait]

Gateway does have its issues but its also super interesting messing around with Simeon's hacked game version.

 

[octavius]

Gateway does have its issues but its also super interesting messing around with Simeon's hacked game version.

Heh, reading the comments was weird; someone called "Ray" asking what FRUA is. Funny, since that's the nic Ray Dyer, the most prolific FRUA designer, uses.
One thing I liked about Gateway was that it did a better job of displaying which magic affects affected characters and monsters.

 

[Jo498]

Yes, I read some of the negative comments about Gateway further above and so far I tend to agree. (It is also quite ridiculous to have single class clerics start one XP below lvl3 in a game where there max lvl is 6! and the lvl cap for the multi-class-clerics lvl 5.)
But it felt wrong to just skip it and start with "Treasures" and I wanted to play some unfamiliar games rather than doing Curse or Champions for the 3rd time or so. And I don't think I'll ever play Buck Rogers, that's just not my cup of tea, and I do not have the leisure for an old game with unfamiliar rules and UI like the Ultimas.

 

[Jo498]

The Gateway random encounters are the worst ever! In a friendly city (Yartar) every few squares "Kraken spies attack", one can flee in some cases, but I actually did quite a few of them for money. And then in the Kraken base the "boss" is just another bunch of exactly the same spies+captain. Very boring! (I found a scroll, a dagger+1 and "my stolen" +2 longsword, I hope I did not miss any loot in the underground base). Neither do the random attacks on the street in broad daylight cease after one has cleared out the base! This is really stupid and badly designed.
And even my lvl 3 characters have very low to hit probablities. Shouldn't one with THAC0 15 hit an opponent with AC 4 about every other round? Not like never in 5 rounds? Or am I missing something?

 

[Morblot]

The dice are loaded and not in the player's favor...

 

[octavius]

The Gateway random encounters are the worst ever! In a friendly city (Yartar) every few squares "Kraken spies attack", one can flee in some cases, but I actually did quite a few of them for money. And then in the Kraken base the "boss" is just another bunch of exactly the same spies+captain. Very boring! (I found a scroll, a dagger+1 and "my stolen" +2 longsword, I hope I did not miss any loot in the underground base). Neither do the random attacks on the street in broad daylight cease after one has cleared out the base! This is really stupid and badly designed.

Yeah.
The design varies from town to town, though. Some towns have a finite amount of random encounters, some have random encounters only until you kill the local "boss", and some have unlimited random encounters. But they all have in common unvaried and boring random encounters. The Hint book or Clue book gives the details (I think it's available at Replacementdocs).

 

[DavidBVal]

I wonder why after PoR they were for a simpler and more linear approach in most games. Or maybe it was just a budget cut.

 

[Saxon1974]

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

Nice, you can play the gold box games on a tablet? I don't have a tablet but does dosbox work on it?

 

[octavius]

I wonder why after PoR they were for a simpler and more linear approach in most games. Or maybe it was just a budget cut.

Probably because PoR was designed by TSR's experienced D&D module designers, while the rest of the games (except the Savage Frontier games, which were outsourced) were made in-house by SSI's own designers.

 

[DavidBVal]

Probably because PoR was designed by TSR's experienced D&D module designers, while the rest of the games (except the Savage Frontier games, which were outsourced) were made in-house by SSI's own designers.

that explains it rather well.

What about PoD? it's the only one I think comes close in terms of design and scope. Who made it?

 

[Saxon1974]

Probably because PoR was designed by TSR's experienced D&D module designers, while the rest of the games (except the Savage Frontier games, which were outsourced) were made in-house by SSI's own designers.

Yes I really loved pool of radiance and really liked the others. Most of the other gold box games I tire out of the multiple waves of combats, but for some reason I could always finish Pools. It just really feels like your in a real adventure and not bland mazes setup for combats.