Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Thrasher]

I'm about to go to the wizard's tower, but my F/Ms are about 1k XP short of being able to cast fireballs.

Should I farm some XP first?

Dont't want to waste consumables unecessarily. All my healing potions are almost gone...

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I'm about to go to the wizard's tower, but my F/Ms are about 1k XP short of being able to cast fireballs.

Should I farm some XP first?

Dont't want to waste consumables unecessarily. All my healing potions are almost gone...

Probably a good idea. Just potter around on the overland map, put your straw hat on and farm away.

Interesting C64 bug: My clerics and wizards were level 5 when I came across some undead level drainers. Upon restoring them using scrolls, they had been given enough XP to go straight to level 6. Just remembered that while writing this.

 

[Thrasher]

OK, I got fireballs before the tower. Just a little farming was needed. Those quicklings are easy BIG XP with proper use of the sleep spell.

Made it through the pyramd, bucaneeer's hideout, and Zentil keep; now in the graveyard.

Way overloaded with platnum and loot now. Finally got some replacement potions, and quite a few wands. Lots of useless restoration scrolls. Sold most off. What to do with this outrageous pile of gold?

Found another bug. The skeletons and specter didn't spawn for the first tower in the graveyard. Hope that doesn't permanently bug the rest of the game.

 

[Grenty]

What to do with this outrageous pile of gold?

There is a semi-hidden shop in town where you can convert your cash to much lighter valuables. Check gamefaqs for the location or alternately, go to the section of town with the long row of shops. One of those shops has a door directly inside that will take you to the conversion shop.

 

[Thrasher]

Yeah, I found that shop already. But the jewelry she sells takes up precious inventory slots.

And then what do you do with all that space wasting jewelry?

 

[Luzur]

if i remember correctly there is someone that buys the jewerly somewhere.

 

[Thrasher]

OK, I hope it's worth saving, and you get something worthwhile in return for hours of tedious inventory and money managment.

 

[Zomg]

As a piece of obscure trivia, the fine bows that person sells for like 50,000 GP let you use a character's strength bonus for missile attacks. Pretty badass if you gave everyone 18/5000 strength with modify.

 

[Thrasher]

Oh, I saw those. I read somewhere that the composite long bows were worse than the long bows. The expensive ones are called "exquisite composite bows".

Do they use strength for THAC0 as well as damage? OR just damage?

 

[Jasede]

Unless D&D and old AD&D were drastically different, it should only apply to damage. Your Dexterity is the only influence to your Thac0 for ranged attacks.

(This doesn't make these bows any less handy, though.)

 

[Thrasher]

Except if you have short bows +1 with characters whose dexterity is around 16.

I guess once they get to the point of rarely missing I'll trade for the exquisite composites.

 

[mondblut]

Oh, I saw those. I read somewhere that the composite long bows were worse than the long bows. The expensive ones are called "exquisite composite bows".

The bows using str bonus are called "fine long bows". At least elsewhere in goldbox series.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Money is useless by the end of PoR. There's nothing to buy. I converted most of my gold into the expensive jewelry and even though you lose 50% of the value when you sell it, I never needed the money. So yeah, just drop all the money. You won't get to keep it for Curse anyway. Don't bother picking up anymore money or gems either - only magic items. And the final castle is silly, the place gives you insane amounts of gold and gems. I think all my characters were at level cap when I entered the castle and well beyond when I finished it - otoh, that's good for Curse since they retain that XP and you can immediately lvl up when you transfer your toons.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

OK, I got fireballs before the tower. Just a little farming was needed. Those quicklings are easy BIG XP with proper use of the sleep spell.

Made it through the pyramd, bucaneeer's hideout, and Zentil keep; now in the graveyard.

Way overloaded with platnum and loot now. Finally got some replacement potions, and quite a few wands. Lots of useless restoration scrolls. Sold most off. What to do with this outrageous pile of gold?

Found another bug. The skeletons and specter didn't spawn for the first tower in the graveyard. Hope that doesn't permanently bug the rest of the game.

Did you take out the Buccaneer leader and the Commandant from the ZK outpost? Nice items, not that you need them.

As others have said, don't worry about money anymore.

 

[Thrasher]

Yeah I just went up to the bucaneer guards who wouldn't let me in to see him, and attacked them. Very brute force. Nasty 3 wave battle though! Well worth the items! I was a bit worried about the heir not being around in the deserted camp, but I guess he made his way back to New Phlan safely.

I could have escaped from Z-keep after the first wave, but stuck around in the guest quarters for the Dwarf and Commandant to eventually show up. I thought those waves of Zents would never end. The drops were pretty amazing from the bosses.

In both cases hold person and stinking cloud again was instrumental in taking out the bosses.

And right, the bow is a "fine composite bow"! I bought one. It only seems worthwhile for characters with 18/xx strength.

I had a question about the sling of seeking +2. Is it treated as a magical weapon that can hit spectres, etc?

I think I'll start from scratch with Azure, to avoid the demihuman levell caps, and go with an all human party. Do you get XP enough to level up right away, or is a level 1 party going to have a hard time?

 

[dolio]

Curse of the Azure Bonds starts new characters at level 5 (25,000 experience).

 

[GarfunkeL]

But it accepts characters with more than that. I brought my all human party from Radiance and they had enough xp that I will probably hit the level cap when I'm like 50% through Curse (for those characters that I'm not dualing until Secret).

 

[mondblut]

I had a question about the sling of seeking +2. Is it treated as a magical weapon that can hit spectres, etc?

By logic, it shouldn't. +2 or not, it shoots plain rocks. Common arrows shot from plussed bows are still non-magical weapons. But since sling stones in game are purely virtual, who knows.

 

[GarfunkeL]

I had a question about the sling of seeking +2. Is it treated as a magical weapon that can hit spectres, etc?

By logic, it shouldn't. +2 or not, it shoots plain rocks. Common arrows shot from plussed bows are still non-magical weapons. But since sling stones in game are purely virtual, who knows.

Sling +1, +2, etc are all magical and will hit creatures that require magic weapons. IIRC!

 

[mondblut]

Sling +1, +2, etc are all magical and will hit creatures that require magic weapons. IIRC!

Well... you see, slings normally don't hit creatures, it is stones that do :D While magical plusses on projectile devices obviously improve tohit and maybe damage (the later is highly debatable and was an object of huge amount of online flames in 2ed era), they don't make ammo itself magical.

Of course, since slings in goldbox series don't have "real" ammo to speak of, the developers likely went the easy way and essentially made it a melee weapon with a ranged attack.

 

[Jaime Lannister]

Is the NWN 2 mod any good? I'd play the original but dear god those graphics sear my eyes.

 

[dolio]

It's decent, if you don't mind lots of NWN2 combat. It has a few rather significant bugs scattered through it, but nothing totally gamebreaking (although I'd recommend holding on to at least one invisibility potion on your main character if you ever find one; oh, and the final boss has incorrectly specified damage reduction which makes him practically immune to physical damage, so you may not be able to win that fight straight up). It kept me entertained long enough to finish it, though.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Sling +1, +2, etc are all magical and will hit creatures that require magic weapons. IIRC!

Well... you see, slings normally don't hit creatures, it is stones that do :D While magical plusses on projectile devices obviously improve tohit and maybe damage (the later is highly debatable and was an object of huge amount of online flames in 2ed era), they don't make ammo itself magical.

Of course, since slings in goldbox series don't have "real" ammo to speak of, the developers likely went the easy way and essentially made it a melee weapon with a ranged attack.

Yes, I know all that, thankyouverymuch

Actually, I think BG1 was the first one to have bullets for slings. IIRC, Dark Suns had only arrows for bows and slings worked the same way as in GoldBox.

 

[mondblut]

Ravenloft and Menzo had sling stones before BG. You had to pick them up manually and put into special pouches of 8, and gather back after use.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Luckily I've never played those two. I heard they were quite horrible.