Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[elodman]

yea, gr8 to see some old timer fanatic Commodorian.

thanx for info about Pool of Radiance hirelings (from training hall).

More on their shares / fees ( in a 6 member party + 1 hireling ) :

- loot items : not divided
- loot money : NPC takes his share (e.g. if hiring fee / share is 1: 14 %, if 4 shares: 39% ! )
- XP shared / drained from party : 14 %

Tested on amiga ver., in 2 different set encounters.
--------

The amiga floppy ver. PoR save state (WinUae) destroys / invalidates the Save disk.
Is the HDD version stable in this regard?

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I'm taking on Pools of Radiance right now and fighting through a dragon-filled stronghold. The difficulty has significantly ramped up from the last location my party stomped through. It all comes down to initiative. If my magic-users go first, it's an easy wipe out. If the dragons go first, their combined breath weapons take out half my party.

I think a location where you could permanently hire on retainers would be a neat feature. I wouldn't mind hiring out some low level meat shields to take the brunt of some of these attacks. I wonder if Dungeon Craft will allow for such options.

 

[Luzur]

Interesting article about the Gold Box games from a Commodore fan boy's POV.
Apparantly the Amiga versions of Dark Queen of Krynn and Pools of Darkness are quite rare collectors items nowadays. Too bad my own boxes and manuals are in such a dismal shape after heavy use through the years.

they are? hohohohohohohoh

yea, gr8 to see some old timer fanatic Commodorian.

we are several Commodore grognards here on the Codex, just so you know.

 

[GarfunkeL]

C-64 with a cassette deck FOR LYFE YO!

*insert gangsta hand sign here*

 

[Gozma]

Note that you can re-animate your hirelings in POR, nice for soaking hits from wights and ghouls

 

[weirwood]

I seem to have run into an annoying bug in DQK. One of my characters seems to have started behaving like an NPC - sometimes I can control her normally (due to my knight's command ability, presumably). but more often than not, she's stuck in quick combat. Has anyone run into this before? It seems to have started after she got hit by my mage's Confusion and fled from combat during a battle. I tried resting and Dispel Magic, but no luck restoring her to normal so far.

 

[octavius]

I seem to have run into an annoying bug in DQK. One of my characters seems to have started behaving like an NPC - sometimes I can control her normally (due to my knight's command ability, presumably). but more often than not, she's stuck in quick combat. Has anyone run into this before? It seems to have started after she got hit by my mage's Confusion and fled from combat during a battle. I tried resting and Dispel Magic, but no luck restoring her to normal so far.

Have you tried activating and deactivating quick combat?
Or Charm Person?

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah you probably activated quick combat, it happens. HOLD Space Bar during their turn to stop it (IIRC).

 

[weirwood]

Quick combat was the first thing I tried, to no avail.

Something else happened - her sprite got changed into a lizard-man. At that point, I put her items in the vault, deleted and recreated her, and leveled her up again with the Gold Box Companion.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Quick combat was the first thing I tried, to no avail.

Something else happened - her sprite got changed into a lizard-man. At that point, I put her items in the vault, deleted and recreated her, and leveled her up again with the Gold Box Companion.

Is there a Polymorph spell in the Gold Box games? She stayed allied to you, right? If that is a glitch, then as glitches go it's pretty awesome.

 

[GarfunkeL]

In PoR, there's a pretty common glitch that can turn your Charisma to 255. Completely useless, of course.

 

[octavius]

In PoR, there's a pretty common glitch that can turn your Charisma to 255. Completely useless, of course.

Elminster uses his 255 Charisma to get all the girls.

 

[Erebus]

In PoR, there's a pretty common glitch that can turn your Charisma to 255. Completely useless, of course.

One of the first time I played DQK, a similar glitch bumped the Hit Points of one my rangers to 255. The only problem with that was that I couldn't level her up anymore, or her HP would go down all the way to 2 or 3.

 

[Luzur]

C-64 with a cassette deck FOR LYFE YO!

*insert gangsta hand sign here*

 

[bussinrounds]

TSR post-Gygax tried to make their game family friendly, such as the changing of demon and devils to tanarii and something else.

 

[octavius]

TSR post-Gygax tried to make their game family friendly, such as the changing of demon and devils to tanarii and something else.

It's still the same thing, just a different word. Just like gypsies still are traveling thieves even if it's now PC to call them space people.

 

[bussinrounds]

TSR post-Gygax tried to make their game family friendly, such as the changing of demon and devils to tanarii and something else.

It's still the same thing, just a different word. Just like gypsies still are traveling thieves even if it's now PC to them space people.

Yea, at least they didn't totally fuck up the artstyle like they did on later editions.

 

[GarfunkeL]

TSR post-Gygax tried to make their game family friendly, such as the changing of demon and devils to tanarii and something else.

Well now, let's remember that it wasn't actually TSR's own choice. They did it under pressure from the Christian Conservative movement in America, that tried to get Federal government to ban D&D all together and were also trying to get it banned in all the states. One of their main complaints was that the game was teaching children Satanism, thus TSR pre-empted that complaint by changing the official names. They are still called demons and devils often enough - demons are chaotic evil while devils are lawful evil.

 

[bussinrounds]

TSR post-Gygax tried to make their game family friendly, such as the changing of demon and devils to tanarii and something else.

Well now, let's remember that it wasn't actually TSR's own choice. They did it under pressure from the Christian Conservative movement in America, that tried to get Federal government to ban D&D all together and were also trying to get it banned in all the states. One of their main complaints was that the game was teaching children Satanism, thus TSR pre-empted that complaint by changing the official names. They are still called demons and devils often enough - demons are chaotic evil while devils are lawful evil.

That's right. I remember the church getting on them in the 80s, calling it 'Satans game', and all the controversies. I think that brought more attention to it and made it even more popular back then.

 

[Jaesun]

If you want to discuss TSR vs THE CHURCH feel free to do so in GD. This is for discussing the Gold Box Games. Thanks.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

So I was saying that Pools of Darkness compared to Pool of Radiance in terms of enjoyability, but I'm beginning to run into the same issues that high-level dungeons and dragons always ran into which is making encounters interesting. Either they send a ton of low level creatures after the party, or they send the same high-level creatures over and over again. The game became a chore at the dragon dungeon since the victor was always the one who had initiative. If my spellcasters went before the dragons it was a quick victory on my side, and vice versa. I also used the same tactics against dragons each and every time, which was to sling fireballs, since even red dragons take damage from such.

The best encounters so far have been those that have mixed character classes to oppose my party since there is some diversity of tactics. My favorite recent encounter is when the computer sends drow spellcasters along with poisonous spiders. I can't ignore the spiders since being poisoned means my death, but I can't ignore the spellcasters because of their area of effect spells. This encounter did a good job of keeping me on edge.

I had an interesting dungeon crawl where my weapons and equipment were all taken away from me do to dungeon master fiat cosmic forces that would destroy them if I brought them along to another dimension. I had to rely almost solely on my spellcasters until I killed a party of evil adventurers and wore their stuff. I don't like it when the game decides I'm too powerful and takes away my things, even if for only a brief interlude, but I will admit it made things much more difficult.

My favorite moment in the game so far is promising a NPC thief that she can keep the dragon horde if she helped me defeat the evil dragon BBEG. I then had her take on said BBEG head on, while the hasted party cleared out the flanks. She died, but purchased me two free combat rounds in which to act. I don't owe her any treasure now... :D

Not that it matters. I stopped picking up treasure awhile ago.

Oh, and I also had this what the fu-- moment:

The actual scene is animated with the stars twinkling. That is one 'fabulous' looking monster.

 

[octavius]

The Dragon Aerie is one of the hardest areas in all the Gold Box games, due to random encounters with large group of dragons, in which initiative (as you found out) is crucial.
Unlike Dark Queen of Krynn that provided an even, constant challenge throughout the game, with no filler combat, PoD is quite uneven. My party mowed down the Giants at the Keep and Steading like they were invalids, and then had severe problems in the Aerie.
The Drow areas had a difficulty that felt right to me, and the boss fight in Kaliste's dimenions was one of the hardest ones. I missed the Drow Lords from Curse of the Azure Bonds, though.
But just wait till you get to Moander. That is the area people either love or hate...

BTW, some items will survive the winds of limbo.
Personally I rather liked having to collect new gear, since the party will be more or less maxed out on equipment, and would have just yawned at yet another Long Sword +4.

 

[Erebus]

I agree that initiative is too important in GB games once you start having spells like fireball. I think it would have been better if being hit interrupted your spell but didn't prevent you from using magic during the rest of the round.

(Also, Delayed Blast Fireball shouldn't be an instant spell.)

 

[Dorateen]

I remember completely missing Thorne's dimension and the cult of the dragon until the very end. Had to go back and take care of that loose end, after dispatching Bane's other Lieutenants, much to our party's chagrin.

I think Kalistes' realm was probably a favourite because it reminded me of pnp adventures and the Demonweb Pits.

 

[octavius]

I agree that initiative is too important in GB games once you start having spells like fireball. I think it would have been better if being hit interrupted your spell but didn't prevent you from using magic during the rest of the round.

I dunno...large groups of spell casters would be very difficult to defeat if they could cast a new spell in the same round if interrupted and not killed.

(Also, Delayed Blast Fireball shouldn't be an instant spell.)

Agree. And it should have been lvl 8. That way it would come into play later, and you'd actually have some useful lvl 8 spell.