Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Dorateen]

the need for external sources to get all the information

Very good write-up. Personally, I enjoyed playing the Gold Box games with the hardcovered AD&D manuals at hand. Pools of Darkness, in particular, when the monster identities of Bane's lieutenants were revealed, it was a thrill to crack open the old Monster Manual and find their types referenced.

 

[octavius]

Against Beholders, your melee guys should use Fine Longbows. With the 23 STR they should have (from Enlarge spell or Girdle) they can do significant damage while avoiding the Beholders' rays.

In the final battle high DEX for high Inititive is imperative. DEX is the only physical stat that really matters.

 

[Cael]

After experimenting a bit, Fine Longbows stack your Str on top of your Dex for both to-hit and damage (although Dex doesn't add to damage, of course). It is actually non-magical, which is pretty hilarious as I have seen at least one LPer ignore it as it doesn't show up on Detect Magic.

 

[CryptRat]

I don't think I'll beat this last battle during my lifetime. I'm not sure what my victory ratio of the previous battles with enough characters ready to fight the last one is, I think I manage to hide behind Blade Barriers during the first one maybe once over 10 (but then when I don't at least it's a very fast reload), then I win the battle unharmed enough maybe once over 2 (but it takes me reeeealy long), then win the beholder one maybe once over 4 or something. That means I would have reached what seems to be the last fight without half my characters dead maybe 4 times over 320 attemps which seems about right. I got humiliated each time, I killed the boss once but got humiliated anyway.

It's funny that I tried this much but at this moment I can't remember at all what you're allowed to do during battles regarding Raising deads and such.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Spelljammer (which some say is part of the Goldbox series; I say NO, it is NOT!!) needs a damn patch and hell, it too could benefit with a construction set and a GBC touch.

I've noticed that Spelljammer is the only "Gold Box" game that routinely goes on sale on GoG. It's almost always 40% off while the others haven't gone on sale in around a half a year. I never played it, but it's on my Wishlist on GoG. I did notice the comments on it mentioned how bad of a shape the game was released in and was apparently never fixed.

 

[behold_a_man]

Against Beholders, your melee guys should use Fine Lonbows. With the 23 STR they should have (from Enlarge spell or Girdle) they can do significant damage while avoiding the Beholders' rays.

In the final battle high DEX for high Inititive is imperative. DEX is the only physical stat that really matters.

I had DEX>=17 on all my characters - I did notice how influential it was in Radiance, so I rerolled all my characters in Curse to address it. I didn't bother to take anything behind the pool of darkness though, and I only used bows as a last resort (how much of a mistake it was I only realized during Dave's Challenge - my level 14 fighter with a fine long bow became a one-man wrecking crew). Besides, I only had two proper warriors (a fighter and a paladin) - so it would take a while, and some buffs would wear off (?) - which I didn't want. I used Monster Summoning (with Bane's minions casting Turn Undead, usually killing two of seven beholders) and the fact, that beholders attack enemies at random - so usually my characters remained intact if the fight was quick and its first two rounds were forgiving.

I don't think I'll beat this last battle during my lifetime. I'm not sure what my victory ratio of the previous battles with enough characters ready to fight the last one is, I think I manage to hide behind Blade Barriers during the first one maybe once over 10 (but then when I don't at least it's a very fast reload),

And I had a cleric with WIS=14, so I couldn't even cast this one - but I abused AI's pathfinding quite a bit by moving to the corner of the upper room, which confused those adversaries and allowed me to usually fight with my entire party against a single of them. Also, I heavily used delays for mages so that I'd get two consecutive moves (with high dexterity) and could shower groups of enemies with cones and fireballs only to retreat moments later.

 

[octavius]

You pretty much need two guys with DBF and 18 DEX in that final battle, and some luck with Initiative. Last time I played my Ranger/Mage was last man standing (Mirror Images tipped the balance).
The Beholders are not too bad if you know the right tactic against them (don't get too close).
And of course Enlarge and Haste is imperative for max damage potential.
The Cleric's Dispel Evil is also useful against some of the enemies.

 

[Cael]

DBF and Fireball is generally the solution to most GB fights. 2-3 mages makes things a cake walk.

 

[pjs]

For the most ridiculously overpowered party in POD, your aim is to start as rangers/paladins and dual-class every character to magic-user once they reach higher levels (one character needs to start as cleric and dual-class to mage, though). You should start such a party in SECRET, because it provides tons of regular XP and excellent grinding opportunities, or you can start earlier with GATEWAY or CURSE (no benefit except to make SECRET easier).

Every character will end up as roughly level 30 mage at the end of POD. High mage levels are crucial for 1) deadlier DBFs and 2) to be able to punch through enemy magic resistance. Every mage level reduces the enemy MR-% by 5. So if for L20 mage the enemy would have 90% MR (= useless to even try to cast any offensive spells), for L30 mage that would be only 40%. This is why in POD it may make sense to complete the drow part last.

In that kind of setup, because the first class was a warrior, they will have huge amount of HPs, good thac0 and 3/2 or 2x attacks per round. Yet every mage can cast devastating DBF and buff themselves up with various spells (such as globe of invulnerability). This essentially breaks the game mechanics and even the last battles are very easy even with the highest difficulty (without these you'll usually want to try some kind of "hide around the corner" tactics).

See my write-ups earlier for more details (including the earlier post linked there):

For the sake of curiousity, I also completed POD with this party w/ Champion difficulty. Everyone ended up as level 31 mages (before the final battle). The intial levels were 2 x L14 paladin, 1 x L10 ranger, 2 x L15 ranger and 1 x L12 cleric. POD seemed significantly easier with a setup where every character was able to cast the most important and powerful magic-user spells.

The most curious thing was that when everyone had a Globe of Invulnerability in major battles, many monsters ceased to use their special attacks completely or almost completely (for example, dracoliches and blue minions never used their lightning attack) and beholders couldn't do a thing. In some unfortunate cases, a pet of kalistes managed a disintegrate attack. In the final three battles, most of the characters didn't even get hit. Probably some shortcuts have been taken when implementing some of these features (they are implemented as Level 3 lightning bolts?) and game doesn't use anything except melee attacks. Out of several test runs, in the last final battle the green dragons breathed acid only once or twice (not sure why).

 

[OndrejSc]

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

dude's way too strong voice inflections and general clowning around is too much for me to handle, which is too bad because it was sort of interesting. Not sure why he thinks he has to act so cringe.

 

[Jarpie]

dude's way too strong voice inflections and general clowning around is too much for me to handle, which is too bad because it was sort of interesting. Not sure why he thinks he has to act so cringe.

it's like this but more annoying and the whole video:

 

[holla_cabezas_de_mierda]

dude's way too strong voice inflections and general clowning around is too much for me to handle, which is too bad because it was sort of interesting. Not sure why he thinks he has to act so cringe.

it's like this but more annoying and the whole video:

lol...Professional DM at his day job

 

[Luneward]

lol...Professional DM at his day job

If a professional DM acted like that during a game he would get lynched.... for acting like a player!

 

[draylyn]

how does death spell work? i cant figure out if it is targeted at the upper left corner like stinking cloud.. which is 2X@ with the target square as the upper left corner.. is Death spell the same?? is the target square the upper left corner of the whole area of effect???

 

[Luneward]

Insert obvious joke about 'It doesn't work at all on anything that matters' here. I did a few quick tests against lizardmen and giant snakes in Silver Blades. Effect is centered on where you target. I was able to kill 3x3 grids of enemies with it at level 15. I could attempt some level 12 tests to see how that might change the pattern. I can't think of anything obvious that it might work on in a higher level test - would probably have to import a PoD party into Treasures to try to test how the area changes.

Edit: I'm not sure if area even really matters in any practical content. It has a kill pattern similar to every other centered blast spell. Target top, right, down, left, then moves to the corners, then out. I did a second test with level 12s, and about the only thing that changed was that I wasn't reliably able to kill all 9 squares - though one mage could kill all 9, and the other didn't, so probably was mostly limited by the RNG dice.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

A c64 review plus sone silverbox, black box, and greenbox.

 

[rojay]

Was that guy raised by kangaroos before being adopted by people from the hill country in north Alabama?

 

[octavius]

Insert obvious joke about 'It doesn't work at all on anything that matters' here. I did a few quick tests against lizardmen and giant snakes in Silver Blades. Effect is centered on where you target. I was able to kill 3x3 grids of enemies with it at level 15. I could attempt some level 12 tests to see how that might change the pattern. I can't think of anything obvious that it might work on in a higher level test - would probably have to import a PoD party into Treasures to try to test how the area changes.

The Death Spell is good against groups of dangerous monsters with low HP, like Cockatrickes that can stone you, for example.

 

[Radiane]

So I wanted to continue my Pool of Radiance savegame which I had started a while ago, and I soon realized why I put the game on hold. One of my chars is constantly missing his move command in combat. No cure from any healer remedies this, and he also isn't encumbered. According to users from the gog forums you can delete the corresponding CHARDATA.SPC file in order to delete any temporary effect, but... using the gog-version, I can't seem to find any SPC files in the game directories? I feel like I'm missing something obvious here. Anyone had this issue also?

 

[octavius]

Have you tried using the Gold Box Companion? It should list all effects and they should be editable.

 

[Spukrian]

I can't seem to find any SPC files in the game directories? I feel like I'm missing something obvious here.

I haven't played this particual game, but if you're using Galaxy then the file might be in the cloud_save folder?

 

[Radiane]

^ could theoretically be the case, but I installed PoR via offline downloader and I don't have Galaxy in use.

Octavius I see, but I've been very reluctant so far regarding the use as of mods (for any game), and try to get an experience as close to the original as possible.

Or I will possibly just equip that char with a bow until the end of PoR, because well, what kind of possibilities would a player back then from 1988 have ?

 

[behold_a_man]

So I wanted to continue my Pool of Radiance savegame which I had started a while ago, and I soon realized why I put the game on hold. One of my chars is constantly missing his move command in combat. No cure from any healer remedies this, and he also isn't encumbered. According to users from the gog forums you can delete the corresponding CHARDATA.SPC file in order to delete any temporary effect, but... using the gog-version, I can't seem to find any SPC files in the game directories? I feel like I'm missing something obvious here. Anyone had this issue also?

Also, if you're early in the game (before the last level), you can just drop a character and swap him for something different. I remember I started the game with a neutral half-elf cleric, switched him close to the end of the game to deathify the undead hanging around the Graveyard, and still had enough experience to progress him.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Or I will possibly just equip that char with a bow until the end of PoR, because well, what kind of possibilities would a player back then from 1988 have ?

Hex editor of some sort. Even my c64 fast loader cartridges had an editor. I fucked around with alternate reality, phantasie, and xyphus. I kind of ruined my phantasie disk. DOH!