Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Fowyr]

Just make Paladin after transfer to CoAB (paladins are pretty useless, though, but still very handy in later games due to leadership ability.)
Also learn Lightning Bolt on the level up instead of Fireball. There are four scrolls of Fireball in the game and three random scrolls.
Regarding Sokal Keep, you NEED fireball here. Enjoy the show.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Does anyone play these without setting all relevant attributes to 18?

I played them as a kid so naturally I had all 18s, but is that the recommended way of doing things or is it considered overkill?

 

[Jaesun]

Does anyone play these without setting all relevant attributes to 18?

Setting all your PC's attributes to all 18's is for complete and total faggots.

 

[PorkaMorka]

Does anyone play these without setting all relevant attributes to 18?

Setting all your PC's attributes to all 18's is for complete and total faggots.

So what range of attributes did you use?

18s in important stats? 16s in secondary stats?

Or did you allow 16s and 17s in important stats too?

With AD&D the bonuses taper off pretty quickly, it's not like 18 is just 1 point better than 16, as in 3rd ed.

 

[Ruprekt]

You won't need to map. I managed to complete these and I'm the kind of loser who gets lost walking around the block.

And as has been said stinking cloud (and sleep) are awesome in gold box.

 

[panzertoter]

Setting all atributes to 18 makes game much harder. Read manual.

 

[mutile]

You can raise characters from the dead with a magic missile.

 

[octavius]

Does anyone play these without setting all relevant attributes to 18?

I played them as a kid so naturally I had all 18s, but is that the recommended way of doing things or is it considered overkill?

Personally I roll one fighter, cleric, magic user, paladin, ranger and dwarf fighter/thief for each alignment and then pick the best. That way I get decent but not über characters. And this ensures that finding Gauntlets of Ogre Power is a momentous occasion.

In Pools of Darkness (currently on hold) my characters are:

Paladin Lvl 18
STR 12
INT 15
WIS 16
DEX 17
CON 13
HP 88

Cleric Lvl 19
STR 18
INT 14
WIS 18
DEX 12
CON 14
HP 66

Ranger Lvl 19
STR 18(50)
INT 15
WIS 16
DEX 17
CON 18
HP 120

Magic User Lvl 19
STR 18
INT 18
WIS 16
DEX 16
CON 15

Dwarf Fighter/Thief Lvl 9/18
STR 17
INT 17
WIS 15
DEX 17
CON 10
HP 50

Dual classed Ranger lvl 14 or 15, Magic User lvl 13
STR 15
INT 18
WIS 15
DEX 16
CON 16
HP 94

Low STR is no problem since I have one Gauntlets of Ogre Power and two Girdles of Giant Strength.
Not maxed HPs and may become a problem later, though.
Pool of Radiance seems to be give lower rolls for your character' stats and HP, but on the other hand CoAB seems to giver higher rolls for the monsters.
It's also kind annoying how you pick a class first and magic users get STR 18 more often than fighters do...

 

[Gregz]

Does anyone play these without setting all relevant attributes to 18?

Setting all your PC's attributes to all 18's is for complete and total faggots.

So what range of attributes did you use?

18s in important stats? 16s in secondary stats?

Or did you allow 16s and 17s in important stats too?

With AD&D the bonuses taper off pretty quickly, it's not like 18 is just 1 point better than 16, as in 3rd ed.

Well, back in the day, when DMs were legendary for their cruelty, and followed the rules, this is how it worked:

You got to roll 3 6-sided dice 6 times, you wrote down each number you got (5 here, 11 there, maybe a 14, a 9, ooh a 15, meh 12)

5 STR
11 CON
14 DEX
9 INT
15 WIS
12 CHA

Then you got to look in the old Player's Handbook to see if you met the minimum requirements of any class. If you were lucky, you didn't, and you could re-roll. Otherwise, what you rolled is what you got. That guy would probably have been relegated to playing a cleric who would be nearly useless in combat, and has no spell bonuses. Compare that your 18s party's bonuses, and you'll see why setting to all 18s is such supreme cheat-whorishness.

At the same time, imagine how incredibly amazingly and totally excited you would be down the road finding that pair of gauntlets of ogre strength. When you pre-set the all 18s, finding them is a non-event. World's apart.

So you can think of stats as the game's difficulty setting, which you can tune to very fine level of detail to suit your personal preferences.

 

[Zomg]

If you play first-roll characters in PoR, it really biases the game in favor of magic. At low levels there is almost no stat-dependence of spells in AD&D, meaing a 13 int mage is just as good as 18. One fighter, a couple of clerics, and the rest mages would probably have the easiest time in PoR as one-rollers. Clerics get bonus low-level spells from high wis, though. But it's not like 3rd edition where a high int or wis actually makes your spells more effective - there is no direct stat scaling. In the later games it will bite you in the ass because low-int wizards can't ever cast high level spells, though.

As a compromise I'd just set the main class stat to 18 and leave everything else as a first roll if you want to take them all the way through the series. As a bonus you probably won't be able to make yourself suffer through the retarded dual classing mechanic as is normally forced by the min/max gods that way.

 

[bussinrounds]

Does anyone play these without setting all relevant attributes to 18?

Setting all your PC's attributes to all 18's is for complete and total faggots.

I can't believe someone with good enough taste to play these games would resort to something so despicable as that shit.

 

[Jocund]

I feel this is relevant to this topic, and it's something I'm curious about.

How do most of you go about mapping games like this? Do you just use pencil and graph paper? Does anyone use a computer program? I'm curious as to how maps like these are made.

 

[Jaesun]

Graph Paper. Period. It's awesome to do your own maps. And screw up, and get horribly lost and other things. And then get fucking transported and rip all your remaining hair out.

 

[Erebus]

One thing I've observed playing Dark Queen of Krynn again is that having played the previous games of the series is a huge advantage : you start with more experience and much better equipment. Is this also true in the FR Gold Box series ? Would it be really difficult, for instance, to play Pool of Darkness without having played the previous games ?

 

[Metro]

It's been a loooooooooooong time since I played any of the gold box games (fifteen years at least) but, from what I recall, you get a stupid amount of overpowered gear in Pools of Darkness. Moreover, the game involves going from the prime material plan to various dimensions and pretty much zero magical items can survive going through the portals (Elminster takes your stuff for you so you can store it). I think the only weapon that could be carried back and forth was like a Vorpal Longsword +5. As such you pretty much have to scrounge new gear every time you go through one of the pools.

Graph Paper. Period. It's awesome to do your own maps. And screw up, and get horribly lost and other things. And then get fucking transported and rip all your remaining hair out.

Seriously, though, I don't remember any of the gold box games having a lot of instances where using graph paper was necessary or even mildly beneficial. Maybe Manshoon's tower in PoD or that first mage's tower in DQoK (which was mostly just a gimmick), or a few of the random encounters in DKoK. Certainly nothing approaching Bard's Tale levels of frustration.

 

[Jaesun]

Clue books are for complete and total faggots.

 

[Mastermind]

I've resolved to play the Pool of Radiance series. Any non-spoilery advice for a Gold Box newb?

Uninstall it.

 

[Jaesun]

How the fuck Do I not have Masterdumbfuck not on ignore?

 

[kmonster]

Max your stats at character creation unless you really enjoy sloooow battles with characters who miss almost all the time and do hardly any damage if they hit.

Money isn't weightless and even with maxed strength you'll find more stuff than you can carry, if you think inventory shuffling and leaving things behind is fun you can of course dump it.

If you think it's fun if it takes several rests to cure the injuries of a single battle and the combat spells you get per rest last only half a battle you can give low wisdom to your clerics to avoid bonus spells, low dex and con will even increase the need to rest after every battle.

 

[dragonbait]

Setting all atributes to 18 makes game much harder. Read manual.

Yes. What panzertoter said is true.

The below text is taken from the Pool of Radiance cluebook (page54).

...The computer is smart enough to gauge the power of the party and it often modifies the number of monsters in an encounter to give the party a good fight regardless of their power. Beginning characters with very high ability scores look to the computer like high level adventurers. This may put them at a disadvantage because the party does not have the HP, spells or the magic treasure of high level adventurers.

I always max out their ability scores with the modify option at the beginning of the game.

 

[Zomg]

The level+stat scaling only makes more trash enemies show up in random fights and that kind of thing, the set pieces that matter don't change. For example the ogres-and-trolls fight in the slums is always the same.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

So I ended up in a tavern brawl while exploring civilized Phlan and now half my party is dead. I didn't have the money to raise them, so I just dropped the characters from my party. The trouble is that now I can't figure out how to roll 3 new characters and add them to my existing party. It seems like my only option is to just roll a whole new party from the main menu, or just deal with having half a party. Surely I'm missing something?

 

[Fowyr]

Of course. Afair, just visit training hall.
Why are you playing iron man mode?

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

Cool thanks.

I'm not playing true iron man. For example, I'll reload if everyone dies. I'm just trying to stick to the spirit of first ed AD&D as much as possible, which means treating individual level 1 characters a bit disposably and trying to survive encounters instead of relying on the save/load function.

 

[Gregz]

Is there a dos-box or other pack that includes all the Forgotten Realms games with an easy to use front-end?

i.e. a modern re-packaging for Win 7 for ease of use?

My old dos-box copy is giving me shit...

Max your stats at character creation unless you really enjoy sloooow battles with characters who miss almost all the time and do hardly any damage if they hit.

Money isn't weightless and even with maxed strength you'll find more stuff than you can carry, if you think inventory shuffling and leaving things behind is fun you can of course dump it.

If you think it's fun if it takes several rests to cure the injuries of a single battle and the combat spells you get per rest last only half a battle you can give low wisdom to your clerics to avoid bonus spells, low dex and con will even increase the need to rest after every battle.

Gah, that dose of nostalgia was like a cold shower...so much for my 'reality' playthrough with middle-of-the-road stats.