Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Null Null]

They really made use of the code wheel. Fortunately the runes used in game are fairly easy to decipher. There are a few I never got right when asked at the start of the game because the pixelated shape is so hard to identify. But I was really angry that after lengthy deciphering of two passwords I got in the Castle outskirts I could not use it because I had somehow triggered an alarm that would never go away, everyone would attack on sight and I simply had to breach the gate to the maze (taking some damage from boulders thrown at me but no battle).

THIEF! YOU STOLE FROM LORD BANE!

Spoiler

If you take the swords or coins after killing the priests in the temple, it sets off the alarm, and there is no way to unset it. You can kill the priests (and grab the Lvl 5 Cleric's Necklace of Missiles) safely however. As the coins aren't much money and the swords are +3 but are aligned lawful evil, I don't think it's really worth the trouble.

 

[Jo498]

yes, that was the problem. I didn't know about the swords. They do hurt everyone not (lawful) evil. But how could I know that before... Those aligned weapons seem to be another complexity given up after PoR. (I did not remember those at all, I remembered some cursed items, both weapons and a necklace earlier)
Unfortunately, I also was unlucky with the lawful good sword one can get in the Vaihingen graveyard. My only lawful good character was a cleric...

One problem with Gateway is lack of background. I am not familiar with FR RPGs or novels, except for those Gold Box games. No idea about the fractions, except that Zhents are evil. Why am I attacked in some cities? Who are those barbs, who is Ceptienne (it was not clear to me if she was a sorceress or some kind of Dragonlady like Kitiara in Dragonlance)? Why are the statues where they are? In a good game there would be some story about the location of the statues etc. not just Aminatas telling me where to look for them.
Hardly any of the GoldBox games is really good in those aspects, but most are much better than this.

 

[Jaesun]

Now I have been playing FRUA. Unfortunately I cannot play "hacked" designs because I can't get UAShell to work. I have been playing a series of "vanilla" modules though and they are really good.

Did you follow this exactly? http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ealms-unlimited-adventures-frua-thread.61909/

 

[octavius]

I think "prayer" is broken in several games and only affects the caster when cast in combat.

It's possible that Prayer works as it should (after all when you cast it, it says every character is praying), but that the game doesn't display it as such. Hard to tell excactly.

So invisibility only hides before doing anything? I probably should have known that. But should not displacement work in the opposite way, that is like "blink" making targetting impossible after a combat action. Or am I confusing something again because there is some subtle difference between displaced and blinking? Someone who is both invisible and "blinking" should be impossible to target directly but will of course be affected by area spells or if a melee attacker "moves" directly into the character.

Displacement is supposed to make the first attack in a round against the displaced character miss, while Blink makes directly targeting the Blinking character impossible if he's acted that round. So Blink benefits characters with high Dex the most, while Invisibility in theory (at least in FRUA it doesn't work properly) benefits characters with low Dex.
And as you have deduced, being both Invisible and Blinking should make you impossible to target. You can still melee attack an Invisble character, but the only way to hurt a character who has Blinked that round, is area effect spells.

 

[Jo498]

Thanks! I agree that it is hard to tell with prayer. But like Haste Bless and Prayer seem to work like area effect in combat, that is, if a party member is too far away he will not be affected.
Probably invisibility does work, I had forgotten that it is "blown" after one attacks or casts spells. But I do suspect that the cloak of displacement does not work properly (except that it gives -2 AC which is pretty great because it does add up with magical armor unlike rings and bracers). I am quite sure that in one of those unsuccessful Medusa fights my displaced character could be targetted by the medusa as a "first attack".
The other pita in Gate is Krevish. He is completely foolhardy unless you give him arrows and put him in the back ranks and especially before training later on he is fairly weak. I had to re-load once because he got himself killed and sometimes tended to drag him around unconscious because he was so useless.

 

[Dorateen]

I had Krevish turned to stone. Now that was a drain on the party's limited financial resources in the early game.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

When I completed PoR, my party ended up with an ungodly amount of jewelry as well (PC version), I figured it was an end-game bug at the most, but now I'm hearing it's not only an end-game bug, but a cross-platform bug as well?

*shrugs* whatevs. It's not like you get to keep it...

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Yes, I know about the mirrors. I do not think there are silver shields in that game (I think one can acquire two in Pools of Darkness)

But how can I suspect that some mountainous eyrie has lots of medusas? I expected griffins and dragons and there were two black dragons who immediately became nauseous in a stinking cloud. That was the easiest battle in the whole game. The "boss" was also ridiculously easy, she could not do anything and had less hp than her bloody medusas.

OK, now I know which medusas you are talking about. I thought you were talking about the ones in the town where they keep throwing giants hints that a medusa is around, and then if you find some dwarves hiding they tell you outright. It's possible that was in Treasures.

I did not find any silver shields in either game.

The hints book actually explains a lot of the stuff you are asking about in other posts. It explains about Ceptienne, the barbarians, etc. Why the hell you have to find that stuff out from the hint book is beyond me. It also tells you to make sure Krevish is stocked with arrows at all times because the NPC are suicidal when equipped with melee weapons.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Did you follow this exactly? http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...ealms-unlimited-adventures-frua-thread.61909/

No I followed a post from the ua.reonis forum. That post told how to do it using D-Fend. I am gonna try again soon, so thanks for the link.

 

[Jo498]

No, the missing dwarves is apparently a side quest in Gateway which I missed. I did not look for the hint book, only the journal. I guess for people versed in the forgotten realms setting a lot of that background is known. But it is quite poorly implemented in the game (compared to e.g. PoR or Champions of Krynn). The huge outdoors map is also not really used for anything but boring wilderness encounters (and I really hate those wilderness fights with monster 20-30 squares away, not targettable because of trees and underbrush, taking forever but usually not all that challenging)
I also have the impression mentioned upthread that Gateway was probably finished in a rush as there seem to be hints for side quests that were not implemented (e.g. the Ghost ship in one of the port cities). Admittedly, I apparently missed the few side quests that are there, like the dwarves or the meteor iron (I was simply too lazy to finely search the dungeon/area where it was supposed to be, on one of that isles and than it seemed to much trouble to go back there).
Annoyingly, it also uses the stage of the engine (like Curse or Secret?) where one has to explicitly enter "move" mode in towns/dungeons. I find this a very annoying UI feature because I prefer not to walk around in "search" mode but rather "look" in nooks where secret doors are probable.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah, the ghost ship felt like there was supposed to be something more going on there, but they ran out of time.

 

[octavius]

I guess that explains why the overland map, nice looking as it was, is perhaps the most boring and eventless in the history of CRPGs?

 

[Jaesun]

I love how in the very start of the game, if you happen to just walk around the overland map, you will get attacked by like 5 giants, who will completely annihilate your party....

Good times.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I love how in the very start of the game, if you happen to just walk around the overland map, you will get attacked by like 5 giants, who will completely annihilate your party....

Good times.

Until you realize that you could farm them for XP via save scumming and well placed stinking cloud spells and get yourself a few extra levels, therefore making the first half of the game a cakewalk.

 

[Jo498]

The finale of Gateway seems impossible (unless I switch to easy, I guess). First, it's extremely annoying to walk around on the bloody battle map (and I "fled" twice accidently from the first fight because one character walked a step in the wrong direction) even if one figures out where to go, second, I did beat Pools of darkness twice and even half of Dave's challenge (many years ago) but I am at a loss here with a lvl 7 party. Maybe if one is really lucky in the second to last fight. I only found out in this game that the wand of defoliation works on more than one shambling mound if one is lucky and they are placed properly. Only they usually are not. They are also saving against both defoliation and ice storm receiving only half damage (I thought that was impossible), nothing else works everything except magic missile and are quite resistant to stinking cloud.
And even my enlarged fighters only hit them like every 2-3 rounds. I really hat such stuff. This is no Moander cult, they just put those bloody mounds there because they are so annoying. And 6 or 8 of them!

So another similar battle with 5 mage and 180 HP V thrown in for good measure with a party that used up half or more of their spells and no nook to hide in for betting on stinking clouds, I have no clue how to do this. Or is there another trick to reduce the # of opponents in the end?

 

[Jaesun]

That's supposed to be an un-winnable battle. And to be honest other than the satisfaction of winning it (of which I believe is impossible)? Just run the fastest person to the top, and then watch the end credits. You gain NO XP or get to carry over any of the items found in that battle sadly.

 

[Jo498]

o.k., thanks. So I guess that's why the game lets one of my characters say sth like "that's a whole army, we better flee"
I started thinking about going back to that magic shop to get a few scrolls... Still the game deserves all the criticism and then some...

 

[Jaesun]

I kind of consider the Gold Box games like pizza. Sometimes they are just OK and sometimes they are awesome. But no matter what, they are still good.

Gateway is certainly the weakest of the Gold Box games, but it is a game I still will play again from time to time.

Speaking of... I never did finish Treasures (I did import my party from Gateway), because I started having all these crazy ideas for some mult-classed party members.....

 

[octavius]

The final battle is far from unwinnable, even if the victory screen assumes you didn't kill Vaalgamon.
As for the Shambling Mounds, Slow and Haste helps. If you have any Wands of Ice Storm (not sure if there are any in the game), now is the time to use them. I recall a fight against a large group of Mounds in FRUA module that I only won thanks to all my characters having Wands of Ice Storm.

I wrote a long post about Gateway to the Savage Frontier elsewhere in this thread, so I just repeat the relevant parts:
Another problem is that the game's only mildly challenging battle is the final sequence of battles, but even that can be avoided and you can win by running, or walking if invisible, from one combat map to the next untill you reach the plaza where you need to place the statues.
Hell, the game even assumes that you didn't kill Vaalgamon!
Vaalgamon is a mean mofo of a Fighter/Mage with -8 AC, 150 HP and a +5 Sword, who regenerates HP between each round. But my Hasted and Enlarged Fighter/Thief killed him with four backstabs.

I had actually hoped for a large battle in Sundabar against an army of Orcs and Trolls, but the army turned out to be just an illusion.
So the only battles in which I had to use buffs, potions and wands were the final three battles. First a large group of Trolls and Ettins. One well placed Stinking Cloud did wonders in this battle.
The next one was against a large group of Shambling Mounds and some mages and Zhentil commanders. A combo of Charming the Zhentil commanders, and the Wand of Deflowering Defoliation and Stinking Cloud against the Mounds (not as effective as against the Trolls and Ettins, though) did the trick here.
The Slow spell did wonders in the final battle, against the Shambing Mounds and Vaalgamon. It was the only spell that had any effect of Vaalgamon.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

Again, I did use the hint book and I imagine the game would have seemed a hell of a lot harder without having done so, but here are my impressions.

1. Yes, a lot of the game has that half empty feel. Agree about the extremely annoying nature of the overland travel. You should stick to the roads and don't explore. The only exploration to be done is to get to these annoying as hell "dwarf mazes" where you can get some extra treasure and XP. You don't sound like a completionist, so don't bother.

2. The final battle should be easy to "win" if you have haste (or speed potions) and/or invisibility potions. If you speed up your fastest guy and also make him invisible, it should be a cake walk to just run him off the screen. You don't even need to be invisible.

3. I was using the hint book, which recommended fleeing, but I wanted to whip everyone and had prepared my party by stocking up on wands, scrolls and potions (not to mention I had a lot of XP, think my guys were generally level 8?). You can buy wands of ice storm. I think the other type you can buy are lightning. I saved the other wands you find (fireball, magic missile). You can buy potions of speed (haste for one character), invisibility (I don't use those) and giant strength. You can also buy some good scrolls. If you want to win that final battle, definitely stock up at the magic shops. If you don't want to travel much, one shop has most of what you need I think. Check the hint book, it tell you what each shop has.

4. The hint book gives a tiny amount of background for many encounters. Without that background there is no way you would know what the hell is going on.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

I think 2 of my characters did die in that final battle. I could be confusing it with the Treasures final battle. I used the hint book to intentionally walk into all of the toughest battles though (the opposite of what it recomends) and didn't have much of a problem. I think I had to reload the shambling mound fight because I accidentally moved a guy into a bad position or something stupid and I got mowed down.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

I know Rangers can use wands, which kind of surprised me. Can all classes?

 

[Jaesun]

Another problem is that the game's only mildly challenging battle is the final sequence of battles

This was however fun/challenging, IF you didn't know about clearing the troops before having this battle in Loudwater...

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

The Slow spell did wonders in the final battle, against the Shambing Mounds and Vaalgamon. It was the only spell that had any effect of Vaalgamon.

I think a lot of spells work on Vaalgamon. You can even use hold person if you want to cheese it, although he has a nice saving throw obviously. I seem to remember using magic missiles to keep him from casting too. A wand of magic missiles is especially useful for that kind of thing.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah, I vaguely remember pulling off a hold person on him (and a few others). But that was extremely lucky (I DID then kill him just to get his gear, and then RAN out of the battle to finish it).