Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I Played and (barely) finished the whole PoR to Pools of Darkness (JEBUS FUCKING CHRISTMAS!) years ago..... LOL if Pools of darkness was released today.... hahah!

I never did play any of the Savage Frontier series. I shall have to give them a try...?

Yes, play through all of the Goldbox games. They are all good (including Buck Rogers 1 + 2).

If you love one of them, you will love them all.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I never did play any of the Savage Frontier series. I shall have to give them a try...?

Apart from the very tedious random encounters (too many, very little variation and no Parley option) they are worth playing. The first SF has a very nice ending.

The parley option was dumbed down throughout the series. It seemed to be the most viable in POR.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

So, here I am playing Curse. Caleared Hap and am now in the drow/salamander caves leading to the Wizard's Tower.

I've over 10,0000 platnum pieces, having to drop some to pick up the nagic items.

So what do I do with all this platinum? Haven't found a jewelry store yet.

I really like the minor improvements of PoR in the interface. The FIX command being one of my favorites. Mainly minor changes but with big impacts to playability.

Thrasher, is this the first time you have played the GB games?

 

[Thrasher]

Yes, I freely admit my ignorance about GB games.

 

[Jaesun]

I Played and (barely) finished the whole PoR to Pools of Darkness (JEBUS FUCKING CHRISTMAS!) years ago..... LOL if Pools of darkness was released today.... hahah!

I never did play any of the Savage Frontier series. I shall have to give them a try...?

Yes, play through all of the Goldbox games. They are all good (including Buck Rogers 1 + 2).

If you love one of them, you will love them all.

Yea I never did get into the Buck Rogers thing (And I am A HUGE Sci-FI fan). I'll maybe give it a try after Savage Frontier.

 

[Thrasher]

OK, I left Hap. Akbar Bel Akash a mage who joined our party in Hap, left saying we were cowards running away from defending the town. Well he was pretty worthless anyway. He never cast his fireball spells and only once used stinking cloud to good effect. He was real good at throwing darts though. I fear I would spend too much time worrying about protecting him with his measly 15 hitpoints. Good riddance XP leech.

I travelled to Zentil Keep by way of Yulash. In Yulash some red-plumed guards mistook us for spies and attacked, but they were pushovers.

The magic shop in Zentil Keep was exhorbitant, but given that I had about 50K Platinum, it was no big deal. Stocked up on magic arrows, potions, scrolls and a wand of magic missiles. BTW, why in the hell don't the potions stack?

When we returned to Hap, Akbar Bel Akash was nowhere to be found. Probably got himself killed in the caves....

 

[Thrasher]

I'm battling Dracanos after working my way down the tower, but he always escapes before I can finish him off. Any hints on containing him without getting wiped out by his magic?

After defeating his minions, and one ice stom spell on him, he runs away.

Thanks!

 

[GarfunkeL]

Is that the fight after the 6 wyverns? If it is, something is wrong since he doesn't run away in my games. Or more likely I'm confusing it with another mage & tower.

 

[dragonbait]

Akbar Bel Akash...

Worst NPC in gaming history. He would never run from battle, even when 5 of your 6 characters are dead and your 6th is on his last HP. That and when he actually did get his fireball spell off, he was so incompetent that the spell ends up hitting the party.

why in the hell don't the potions stack?

Because you've traveled back to 1989.

 

[mondblut]

Akbar Bel Akash... Worst NPC in gaming history. He would never run from battle, even when 5 of your 6 characters are dead and your 6th is on his last HP. That and when he actually did get his fireball spell off, he was so incompetent that the spell ends up hitting the party.

Then that's a very faithful implementation of a character from Azure Bonds trilogy

Nevermind he got killed by the end of the trilogy, and the game is set afterwards.

 

[Thrasher]

Yeah it's that fight after the wyverns.

 

[mondblut]

I remember fairly well the last encounter with Dracandros involves black dragons. Maybe he is hardcoded to escape if this is a different battle?

 

[GarfunkeL]

No, first you encounter him on top of the tower with the black dragons. If you fuck up, you have to fight the dragons. If you play your cards right, the dragons force him to remove the tattoo from you. He escapes into the tower, you run after him, whack the dark elves that guard the tower along with the djinn (why the fuck would genies/djinn ally with drow anyway?) and in the last floor he escapes through the wyvern hatchery/cavern. You fight the 6 wyverns (which is fucking annoying without fireballs if you were dumbass and dualed your mages like I did) and then you face him just outside the tower - IIRC, you take one step away from the door and the fight automatically begins.

In the actual fight, he never ran from me, even though I hid behind a corner so he couldn't cast spells on my toons while I killed his minions first.

Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds really makes one <3 Stinking Cloud. It's so awesome!

 

[GarfunkeL]

Such a shame they never made a GoldBox game from Shandril's Saga, ie Spellfire, Crown of Fire and Hand of Fire. Just give one character in the group innate ability to shoot flame arrow but name it Spellfire and remove saving throw. Except you'd somehow have to create the "feeding". Oh well, they had the FR set already.

 

[Thrasher]

I prebuffed with haste and then chased after him with my mage with a globe of invulnerability. Hit his group with a fireball then him with an ice storm. In the meantime the others took care of the drow and efreet. A couple of arrows+1 and a+1 staff sling finished him off.

I think I over thought it the first time trying to hide from him, and being too defensive.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yup, as I said, thanks to my dual classing, I didn't have anyone capable of casting ice storm or fireball in that tower. Which made the whole thing tad challenging. Though Necklace of Missiles is awesome. Anyway, congratulations for killing him, onwards to the removal of the third tattoo! That's where my game is at the moment, waiting for me to get back to it.

 

[Thrasher]

Another Curse Question

OK, I've got inventory overload problems.

Once I finish the Pit of Moander can I get rid of the Wand of Defoliation, or is it useful against anything other than greenies?

Thanks!

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Fuck, this thread got me interested. But I barely know how to handle dosbox, so I expect this to be a long and shitty learrning process. I once played Pool of Radiance on the NES (which I assume was dumbed down) and got utterly raped five times at the first fight, and gave up in frustration not much later.

-

Wait, I wans't raped in the nes version, just tried it now. Hm.

 

[GarfunkeL]

You can take your characters through the games:

Pool of Radiance -> Curse of the Azure Bonds -> Secret of the Silver Blades -> Pool of Darkness

Same thing with the Dragonlance, Savage Frontier and Buck Rogers games (though there's only 3, 2 and 2 instead of 4)

Original PoR is the first and the UI is the worst. Also, it doesn't have paladins or rangers, so many people prefer to start Curse with a new party instead.

Man, just the box art is awesome:

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Re: Another Curse Question

OK, I've got inventory overload problems.

Once I finish the Pit of Moander can I get rid of the Wand of Defoliation, or is it useful against anything other than greenies?

Thanks!

Not too sure of this. I only played through Curse once, and was never really a big fan of the FR series except for POR.

Isn't there something else you can dump?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Fuck, this thread got me interested. But I barely know how to handle dosbox, so I expect this to be a long and shitty learrning process. I once played Pool of Radiance on the NES (which I assume was dumbed down) and got utterly raped five times at the first fight, and gave up in frustration not much later.

-

Wait, I wans't raped in the nes version, just tried it now. Hm.

Yes, it is dumbed down. When in doubt, stay away from console versions. I believe there are a few decent versions of games out there, but most are rubbish.

Best versions of POR are; Amiga version, or Commodore 64 version. PC version is alright for anyone that doesn't mind less thrills. Apple version is...amusing.

 

[Thrasher]

Re: Another Curse Question

OK, I've got inventory overload problems.

Once I finish the Pit of Moander can I get rid of the Wand of Defoliation, or is it useful against anything other than greenies?

Thanks!

Not too sure of this. I only played through Curse once, and was never really a big fan of the FR series except for POR.

Isn't there something else you can dump?

Good question. I sold a lot of hgh level magic user scrolls I had alrready scribed. There were some nice emergency spells there (like invis 10') but they were starting to pile up. Also most of the ioun stones I had collected were useless since most of my attributes were max'ed. So I've kept the herbicidal wand.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Didn't some of the ioun stones give you regeneration?

Yes:

Pale blue rhomboid -- +1 Strength
Scarlet and blue sphere -- +1 Intelligence
Incandescent blue sphere -- +1 Wisdom
Deep red sphere -- +1 Dexterity
Pink rhomboid -- +1 Constitution
Pink and green sphere -- +1 Charisma
Pale green prism -- +1 experience level
Clear spindle -- character needs no food or water
Iridescent spindle -- character can survive without air
Pearly white spindle -- character regenerates 1 hit point per turn
Pale lavender ellipsoid -- absorbs spells up to 4th level
Lavender and green ellipsoid -- absorbs spells up to 8th level
Vibrant purple prism -- stores 2-12 levels of spells
Dusty rose prism -- +1 protection

Any Ioun Stone described as "dull gray" is burned-out and useless.

You will not find all of the stones listed above. The list is from the AD&D
manual.

 

[Thrasher]

All I found were the ioun stones with +attributes. Hopefully those others will appear, but I'm not counting on it...

 

[Thrasher]

Finished Curse and am now onto Secret of the Silver Blades.

Is there a command line argument for it as well that allows you to skip the intro screens?