Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Jaesun]

What about the kender's yell skill? Doesn't seem to do anything at all.

Every creature in range, if they get effected, will now target nothing but the Kender.

Very useful, when used in certain conditions.

 

[damicore]

Creatures still attack my other PCs and aim them with spells; I don't quite get it.
Also no modifiers for my kender's saving throws and the enemy's thac0 while under the effect of the shout?

 

[Erebus]

I think Yell lowers the AC of the enemies, but it's been a long time since I took a kender in my party.

 

[damicore]

I'm kind of regretting the fact I took a pure thief kender in my party.

 

[Jaesun]

Champions of Krynn is basically like multi-class Disneyland.

Using pure classes in it is fine (like the Knight), but you are missing out.

A lot.

But again, you can play any damn way you want.

 

[damicore]

I pured him because I guessed (wrongly) I would need a thief to pick locks or chests and wanted to try the race out and it sucked at pretty much every other class. Also his shout ability sounded promising but then I noticed it to be pretty much useless. As for his inmunity to fear we'll see how that serves me.
Everyone else but the knight were multiclassed

I, personally, don't actually give a fuck about playing games how I want, i'm a combatfag and like optimizing my party so a pure thief kender was but a failure in my strategy

 

[octavius]

I usually hate the thief/cleric combo, since it means you miss out on the number one reason to use a thief in the first place - the backstab ability.
But with kenders it works, since they can use hoopaks for backstabbing.
IMO a kender cleric/thief is worth it as an extra healer and because of their unique abilities.

 

[Erebus]

Immunity to fear is rather nice. I don't remember many enemies using Fear spells in Champions, but there's at least one monster with a very annoying fear aura.

The one advantage of a single-classed thief is that his backstab ability will quickly become powerful. Learning how to use it is important.

 

[kmonster]

I pured him because I guessed (wrongly) I would need a thief to pick locks or chests and wanted to try the race out and it sucked at pretty much every other class. Also his shout ability sounded promising but then I noticed it to be pretty much useless. As for his inmunity to fear we'll see how that serves me.
Everyone else but the knight were multiclassed

I, personally, don't actually give a fuck about playing games how I want, i'm a combatfag and like optimizing my party so a pure thief kender was but a failure in my strategy

You add a pure kender thief for optimizing combat ?
Multiclass kender cleric/thief would have been far superior, more hitpoints, +1 to hit if you choose kiri-jolith as deity, full access to cleric spells, more equipment choices, access to both all cleric and all thief weapons, ...

Another kender benefit is that you can use the hoopak, a blunt weapon that can be used for backstabbing, melee and ranged, it's the only weapon which allows shooting at the distance with an enemy standing close.

The main reason why I had a kender in my party was the funny mention in the DQoK intro, I thought it would feel bad finding hoopaks not being able to use them and I liked the combat sprite, from the powergaming point of view they aren't worth it, yell seems useless and the hoopak doesn't allow wearing a shield.
In CoK a kender cleric/thief isn't too bad, in the later games they get more and more useless because of the far too low racial level limits.

If you want your thief to be useful, backstab. No other classes can do more physical damage per combat round than thieves, my enlarged kender/thief did 110 damage with a backstab, one hit killing a boss in DKoK.


You made me curious about your party composition, what multiclass characters did you choose to help your knight and thief ?

 

[damicore]

I know the kender thief was a mistake, that's actually what I stated, this is my first D&D game ever and I learnt through some of my mistakes.

As for my party I chose:
Two human knights
One kender thief
One Qualinestiy elf ranger/cleric of Kiri-Jolith
One Qualinesty elf red mage/cleric of Sirrion
One Qualinesty elf white mage/cleric of Mishakal

Just beat Sir Lebaum today and I'mm approaching the ending I think.

I think I should have multiclassed one qualinasti to fighter/mage/cleric instead of my second human knight, I keep lacking a 3d mage, what do you think?

 

[Erebus]

I don't think you'd need four clerics, even if they're all multi-classed.

Three mages is nice, but I would recommend at least one single-class mage, to gain access to high-level spells earlier and to inflict more damages with spells such as Magic Missile and Fireball.

 

[octavius]

Three mages is nice, but I would recommend at least one single-class mage, to gain access to high-level spells earlier and to inflict more damages with spells such as Magic Missile and Fireball.

I like the idea of one pure white mage to focus on the damage spells, while the red mage is a multi class who can cast spells like Slow, Haste and other whose effects are not level dependent, or spells that augemt their fighting abiltites.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

Demi-humans in the Dragonlance Goldbox games are much more viable actually, they all have at least one class they can gain unlimited levels in, with Qualinesti elves being able to max every class except fighter. White Robes get extra higher level spells for slightly higher experience costs and less lower level spells than Red Robes.

This is not true in the FR games. Elves were capped in Pools of Darkness. I think the only class that was unlimited was Rogue.

 

[Kaanyrvhok]

May be I should play something like let's say... ToEE first to get the hang of DnD rules? An simpler goldbox? a more affable DnD game?
Or at least play it's tutorial whatsoever? Sounds way easier than reading the whole 60pages manual whichis confusing me, at least at 4AM
Is this a bad idea?

Also what's the percentage after the strength of my knight? And maxing stats or not maxing stats, should I do it? Shouldn't I? Are there any differences?

Dont play ToEE first. It will ruin the GB game's combat and it is a lot more complex. Play PoR first. IMO its the best RPG ever however the mechanics are base. You dont need to read the big manual. If you can wrap your mind around THACO the rules are simple enough. You need the journal. Its the actual in game journal. Like the game doesnt have an in game journal it has a real journal. You dont have to read it before you play the game.

 

[Elwro]

Just prepare for repeating the same spell menu actions thousands of times (the game doesn't remember which spells your casters prepared the last time). PoR would be very nice if its UI was just a tiny bit improved...

 

[kmonster]

I know the kender thief was a mistake, that's actually what I stated, this is my first D&D game ever and I learnt through some of my mistakes.

As for my party I chose:
Two human knights
One kender thief
One Qualinestiy elf ranger/cleric of Kiri-Jolith
One Qualinesty elf red mage/cleric of Sirrion
One Qualinesty elf white mage/cleric of Mishakal

Just beat Sir Lebaum today and I'mm approaching the ending I think.

I think I should have multiclassed one qualinasti to fighter/mage/cleric instead of my second human knight, I keep lacking a 3d mage, what do you think?

Since you got that far your party is obviously powerful enough for you to beat the game, gets all spells and options so it's perfect, other parties won't be able to do more, there's no need to call your choices mistakes.
I had 3 fighter/mage/clerics in my party when I played the games and realized that double classes would have been better on the long run because of the faster leveling, the extra casting level would have helped more since I hardly ever used the cleric and fighter part and doubleclasses would have had the same hitpoints.
The only tripleclass which is worth in my opinion is qualinesti fighter/mage/thief multiclass in the later games.

You are not far from the end, if you manage to finish the game tell us how many XP your characters have gained.

Did you accept the hitpoint rolls at level up or did you reload to get more ?

You have chosen race/class combos which aren't limited even in DQoK, do you plan keeping your party in the sequels ?

 

[damicore]

Beware that I think I have lost a couple of XP points in a few points and I'm pretty sure I'm losing XP points right now because I'm in the sky citadel and I had no opportunity to train them since I entered Duerghast though.
I accepted every random hitpoint roll even if that costed me a few chars being pretty fragile.
I may keep some of my party members, but I'm not quite sure about my second knight I still think a single classed mage could be a better choice.
I like the idea of playing the same guys, after all I feel pretty comfortable with my party right now, but I couldn't test dwarves or halfligns so I may try one of those races. Don't really know. Also that qualinesti fighter/mage/thief sounds nice for my first triclassed PC haha.

 

[kmonster]

After CoK other races than humans or elves are quite useless because of the racial level caps, so the time for trying out other races is gone. But you'll meet dwarf NPCs in the other games.

The low hitpoints will be a disadvantage if you import your characters from CoK instead creating new ones with maxed HP in DKoK. Take a look at the pregenerated Characters in DQoK, they have many hitpoints.

If a single class mage is worth it depends on your personal preferences. He'll get mage levels faster but will reach the level cap and stop improving after some time.

If you choose a human you can you can just cast resurrection to reverse character death without lasting disadvantage while death elves are gone forever.

A qualinesti fighter/mage multiclass will get more hitpoints, twice as many attacks per round, hit better, can use better weapons and can improve AC a lot by wearing magical shield and helm, it's similar with cleric/mage multiclass which gets valuable healing spells instead of extra attacks.

 

[octavius]

Just started replaying this game and now I remember why I think it's one of the weakest Gold Box games - MONSTERS ATTACK! Endless random encounters just isn't that fun in the GB games.
The encounter design in COK is a after Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds. The overland map is also a huge - there are no hidden dungeons, caves, camps or lairs to stumble upon. Fortunately the sequels are s in all areas.

 

[damicore]

Yeah it was lacking in some aspects but I enjoyed it overall.
Now I have to start DKoK and I've heard that one is pretty good.
The thing about PoR is the art is not nearly as good as that of the Krynn series.

 

[octavius]

So what's up with Knights taking a vow of poverty and paying a 10% tithe of their money every time they return to an outpost? In the Dragonlance books the knights were usually noblemen, being owners of castles or the sons of castle owners.
And how the hell does 10% of 1 Jewelry become 1 Jewelry (I knew I should have saved before going back to the outpost)?

And where does Paladins (available in the two sequels) fit in? They seem quite redundant since they are hardly distinguisable from knights that also are limited to Lawful Good alignment and can start casting clerical spells at higher levels? Seems like just two different names for the same thing.

 

[octavius]

Yes, Elves requires Resurrection which is a higher level spell than Raise Dead.

I tested this and Resurrection doesn't work on elves. I'm pretty sure Resurrection (but not Raise Dead) works on elves in the Forgotten Realms games, though. The Krynn games are more hard core than the Forgotten Realms games. In the FR games characters that have been disintegrated can be Resurrected; in the Krynn games they are Gone.
Since I play Iron Man light (not maxed stats and generally only reload if whole party dies), I have mixed feelings about using elven characters in the Krynn games. Since there is no dual classing in the Krynn games, and half-elves are useless (unless you are Tanis) the most powerful mages will be multi class Qualinesti Elves who can reach lvl 14 as Fighter and max level as Mage, and have no armour and weapons restriction. And a multiclass Cleric/Ranger is more useful than a single class Cleric. But if they die, they are gone for good...

Anyway, for my current playthrough I went with this party:
Human Knight
Human White Mage
Kender Cleric of Mishakal/Thief
Silvanesti Elf Ranger/Cleric of Majere
Qualinesti Elf Fighter/Red Mage
Dwarf Fighter (may replace with a Human Paladin in Death Knights of Krynn)

The Kender may be the weakest character in the long run, but at low levels his Backstabbing ability and the extra D8 that Mishakal gives to his healing spells makes him the most important party member.

 

[octavius]

Another thing I hate about this game is that some areas are crawling with hostile elves, like Elvish Curates, Elvish Rogues and Elvish Killers (sic). This is directly contradictory to what the books say about elves; they revere life and only kill in self defense, but some few who don't are called "dark elves" (not to be confused with Drow).
Mike Mancuso, I am not impressed with your encounter design.

 

[damicore]

Hahaha, are the encounters in the subsecquent games better?

 

[Erebus]

As far as logic is concerned ? No. In DQK, for instance, random patrols have 18th-level wizards with them and warriors with more HP than your average dragon.

While I think that Champions is not as good as the other two games of the series, I found its low-level combat rather fun.

DKK is a very nice game, rather unusual by the series' standards because of its high number of optional quests.