Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

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.

The Dwarf mazes were in Treasures, which was a much better game.

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

Varies from game to game.
Generally all classes except Clerics can use Wands. I always give Necklases of Missiles (usable by any class) and Wands of Fireball and Ice Storm to my most dexterous characters first, to use for enemy spell disruption/prevention.

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

Yeah, I was annoyed that I was cheated out of a nice battle there...

 

[Jo498]

The walkthru I found apparently recommends avoiding the preceding battles by fleeing with an invisible character to have a healthy party and all spells for the Valgaamon fight. (This works only if you dump Krevish).
I think one still has to be rather lucky to get those backstabs to work with an AC -8 (or whatever V has). Heck, to hit him at all before he casts hold person. TBH I only half tried once so far. I would have to go back and re-memorize spells because I still have a useless knock (I needed for the hidden mage in the first portion of Ascore) and lightning.
In my try I used one fireball and one cloud in the troll fight and one or two clouds (to very little effect - the mounds are sometimes affected but pretty resistant) in the first mounds/Zhent fight. In that fight Krevish (the bloody idiot) went down and also my ranger (partly because of some friendly icestorm due to short range of the wand...) So I gave up the final battle after V succeeded with hold person on my cleric.
I have a wand of defoliation and a wand of ice storm (can one really buy them? I thought I found it) and one necklace of missiles, I think. There probably also scrolls with blink and haste/slow in the Neverwinter shop. Speed and Inv potion I had as well. Forgot about strength potions. I only have one cleric, one mage and one fighter/mage (+ Paladin, Ranger, Fighter/thief), so max 4 2lvl and 4 3 lvl mage spells in memory.

Of course I would also have to switch to "normal" difficulty (I usually play one lvl above the standard setting) which would make wiping out the mages in the final fight with one or two fireballs/ice storms more likely and the mounds will also go down a round or two earlier with less HP.
As for levels I think I am at the cap with the mage and cleric but could probably gain another one with the two multiclass and the ranger. The Paladin is the only one with an additional attack every other round at lvl 7. But I am certainly not going to try for another 20000 XP in the wilderness or so.

 

[Jo498]

Actually I gave the wand of ice storm to my cleric in the Gateway final sequence and she could use it. I am still puzzled that the mounds have a saving throw or resistance halfing ice storm damage, I am pretty sure that in some games ice storm always did the same damage.
(BTW where is the logic in the fire resistance of the mounds? They are walking trees/compost heaps, so this makes no sense, why not give them acid spit and petrification touch just for annoyance...)

I think wands were restricted to mages in PoR, but not necklaces. In PoD thiefs can use mage scrolls (not all that plausible, IMO) but have a certain probability of failing.

I have to admit that I am somwhat out of practice with more difficult tactical battles. But that's another fault of Gateway because most battles are not that hard (very few magic using opponents).

 

[octavius]

Yeah, Gateway kind of lulls you into lazy complacency before the final battles.

As for Ice Storm, unlike most spells there's no saving throw against it, and not even Cold Protection should help against it (it helps against Cone of Cold, though), so the only protection should be Magic Resistance.

 

[Jo498]

If I am not mistaken there are no wands to be bought in Gateway. The only magical shops I found are in Neverwinter (Mage scrolls, arrows +1, battle axe +1, dart of hornets nest) and Silverymoon (cleric scrolls, gauntlets of dexterity, potions, but no strength potions). The 1st lvl mage scroll has magic missile but that's probably not worth it. The 3rd lvl scroll has haste and lightning, so one can memorize one or two slow spells and two fireballs and maybe give one of the wands to a non-mage. One can trade, but not use items in the post-Battle "treasure" screen.

I looked in the Treasures of the savage Frontier Manual and it says that characters start with 22500 XP corresponding to about lvl 5 (or 4/4 for a e.g. a fighter/mage). My Gateway characters have around 100000 xp so they will all be about lvl 7, the mage and cleric close to 8, the multi at 6/6 or 6/7. So if I transfer the beginning should be too easy, or too hard, if I start a new party....

 

[Jo498]

Screw this. I just realized that none of my mages knows "slow" and there is no way I can learn that spell as the scrolls apparently have fixed content. I never bothered with slow until higher lvls so I did not think about it when training.

 

[Jaesun]

Consider it a challenge then, with out the slow spell.

Or perhaps, multi-class someone to Mage?

And yes there are only 2 magic shops in Gateway, and you found them.

 

[Jo498]

No, going back checking the two magic shops and re-memorize spells is the extent I am going to. I will certainly not train up another character just for the final optional fight of that mediocre game.

 

[mediocrepoet]

(BTW where is the logic in the fire resistance of the mounds? They are walking trees/compost heaps, so this makes no sense, why not give them acid spit and petrification touch just for annoyance...)

They're moist, swampy things. Ever tried to set wet grass on fire? It doesn't light up, just smoulders.

 

[Null Null]

They're moist, swampy things. Ever tried to set wet grass on fire? It doesn't light up, just smoulders.

Sure, but does electricity make it bigger? I always figured it was just Gary Gygax trying to troll players.

As for adding a petrification attack--yes, they actually did that in Pools of Darkness!

 

[Jo498]

Ahh, I remember the large "bits o' moander" there. The other variety had poison touch, I think. But as far as I recall they only rarely succeeded with petrification and the party was of course lvl 20+ and cone of cold or even simple magic missiles (40+ damage from a high lvl mage) were effectice. Still, the Moander heart was in my recollection among the toughest parts of that game, especially the extremely annoying chance encounters, sometimes with more Moander bits and iron golems than the actual "boss fight". As someone here or on some blog complained about the stupid "AI" of the goldbox games: It got a little better in those later games as I distinctly remember Moander cultists casting "Heal" on almost dead huge iron golems....

 

[Jo498]

More stuff I keep finding out:
shield/armor restrictions do not apply to backstabbing (at least not in any GBox game I remember). This might have been the D&D rules but a fighter/thief (or cleric/thief) can backstab in plate armor. But he does need to use a stabbing weapon!
I do remember that at least in some games axes or scimitars did not work. (And the big exception for two handed is the kender's hoopak).

Even cooler (and probably not intended) is that it does not have to be a melee attack that sets the backstab up. I had not realized that before (probably never paid attention because I was sure that it had to be a melee attack). But one can shoot with an arrow/sling and the thief can successfully backstab from the other direction.

Not sure (but it seems like it and it is quite annoying): at least in some games "dispel magic" does not work against paralyzation from the attack of ghouls, driders and similar critters. I do not know if anything works, probably not.

Can the mummy disease permanently reduce stats? Curing by a paladin returned the character to status o.k. but he had lost one point in strength. (Worse than death for a fighter...) I had the impression that it was permanent without remedy, but re-loaded before I tried out the temples.

 

[octavius]

I've always assumed you couldn't backstab with heavy armour, so I've rarely equipped my Fighter/Thieves with anything heavier than Elfin Chain.
The most annoying thing about the Gold Box games is the rules kept changing in subtle ways from game to game, so it's possible the armour restriction only applied in PoR.
Similarly Dispel Magic works different from game to game; in some it works agains Paralyzation, in others not.
Next time I play the GB I'll have to write down all the differences...

I assumed the Mummy Disease was a bug, so I reloaded myself.

 

[Jo498]

As you pointed out somewhere backstabbing is somewhat involved in PoR (and I think one also gets there fairly early a leather+4 which is pretty good for most of the game), I am not sure about that one. In most of the games where one can start with a pre-equipped party (e.g. Death knights or PoD) fighter/thieves or kender cleric/thieves start with plate armor like normal fighters and clerics. And I do not recall having problems backstabbing in those games. Often it still makes a lot of sense to equip a fighter/thief with lighter armour so he as 12 movement (non-magical plate is definitely not ideal). I first thought the engine was too stupid to recognize this (and could only block use of certain weapons/armor for classes) but I am pretty sure that a fighter/thief cannot backstab with an axe, scimitar, blunt or two-handed weapon (except hoopak), so it could probably also check for armor equipped. But it doesn't and I also suspect that a ranged attack as "setup" was unintended but maybe too difficult to implement.

As for the paralyzation. I think it differs between games. I now have the impression that dispel does not work against it in PoR and the Savage Frontier games. I seem to recall that it did work in the Krynn games but I am not sure. Neither about the stinking cloud. One can dispell the cloud but "nauseous" characters might stay so for another round or at least for the current round and still be in danger.

 

[Jaesun]

I know in FRUA you can back-stab in full plate armor with a fighter/thief. I wonder if you can in POR? I assume you can though. I never knew you could back-stab with the hoopak until someone mentioned it here a long while ago...

 

[octavius]

Hoopak is the ultimate weapon. You can use it for backstabbing, as a melee weapon, as a missiles weapon, and even as a missile weapon while in melee.

 

[Jo498]

As octavius explained somewhere above in PoR backstab needs a second? attack by another character before the thief can backstab, so it's complicated and the low lvl thieves do not do a lot of damage, therefore it is often not worth the try. But I am afraid I didn't try it out with plate mail.
The hoopak makes almost good for the 16 STR cap for kenders (until you find gauntlets of ogre power maybe...). Very useful and a main reason to have a kender in Death Knights because he can backstab skeletals without the penalty applying to sharp weapons.
The feature of the hoopak to be able to missile attack even when standing next to an enemy is also great.
I remember that in PoD at some stage I got all my fighters hammers because while these only have a range of 3 or 5? tiles, they can also be thrown when standing next to an enemy (I think in one game this also applied to daggers but maybe I am conflating things), and in some battles it is very important to hit magic-users every round. The other nice thing is that if you have a magical hammer you can use it as melee against skeletal/undead who only get half damage from blades. Maces and flails are better, but sometimes one does find magical hammers earlier.

BTW is there the option to run DosBox in a window that is in size between the smallish standard size and full screen? standard size is too small for my bad eyes but at full screen the old fashioned graphics with poor resolution sucks...

 

[octavius]

I remember that in PoD at some stage I got all my fighters hammers because while these only have a range of 3 or 5? tiles, they can also be thrown when standing next to an enemy (I think in one game this also applied to daggers but maybe I am conflating things), and in some battles it is very important to hit magic-users every round.

I remember using Daggers a lot for this in Secret of the Silver Blades. But this too is one of the many minor rules differences between the GB games...

BTW is there the option to run DosBox in a window that is in size between the smallish standard size and full screen? standard size is too small for my bad eyes but at full screen the old fashioned graphics with poor resolution sucks...

Try the NormalX2 or NormalX3 scaler.

 

[Joonas]

Gold Box Companion is updated with some tools for browsing/modifying the GoldBox DAX-files which contain most of the game data including monster/item stats and graphics.

Some screenshots:
http://personal.inet.fi/koti/jhirvonen/gbc/screens.html

- You can change the font (you could for example use Pools of Darkness font in Pool of Radiance or create your own).
- You can change combat icons and use NPC icons for PCs instead of the head/body-parts. The coloring might be a bit off however.
- You can browse/edit monster stats. As seen in the screenshots, I modified the Dreadlord in SotSB, gave him Delayed Blast Fireball and the game asks for a delay when he casts the spell...
- You can edit items / monster inventories / some shop inventories. In the screenshots, I added a big bundle of arrows and a Fine Sling to the general store in Phlan.

Download:
http://personal.inet.fi/koti/jhirvonen/gbc/gbc.zip

 

[octavius]

Fantastic work!
It always bugged me that the buccaneers in PoR were so incredibly weak, and I wanted to modify their stats. Now I can.

 

[Jo498]

yes, we should make a list! and everyone who happens to replay one of the games can contribute.

- armor/weapon restrictions (when can mages use slings? who can use wands/scrolls/etc.)
- working of spells
- paralyzation, disease, enfeebling, feeblemind, draining/restoration etc.
- abilities/immunities of monsters (I am pretty sure that Driders do not in all games have paralysing attack, in some they might be poisonous like normal spiders. They obviously have no 4th lvl spells in PoR either)
- paying for training, healing etc. (As if one ever was short of money, except maybe at the very beginning of some games, they made temple healing and/or training free in all later games...)
...


I think I tried daggers for throwing in DoK or PoR and it is NOT possible at all, independent of closeness to an enemy. I am not even sure, hammer always work as described but I think they do more frequently than daggers.

Has anyone tried more sophisticated scalers with DosBox than normal3x?

 

[Null Null]

Just off the top of my head, based on other things I've done:

You can backstab a large monster in Pool of Radiance, but two prior attacks from the other direction are required. In the other games, you can only backstab a normal-size enemy, but only one prior attack is required. (This one's other people, but it seems generally useful.)

A Disintegrate spell kills without destroying items in Death Knights of Krynn and kills and destroys items in Pools of Darkness and Dark Queen of Krynn.

Delayed Blast Fireball allows for a delay in Secret of the Silver Blades but does not in Pools of Darkness, Death Knights of Krynn, or Dark Queen of Krynn.
Bits of Moander engulf as a shambling mound in Curse of the Azure Bonds and paralyze, petrify, or poison in Pools of Darkness.

Probably needs its own thread...

 

[Jo498]

Does it destroy random items from the inventory or all items? If I ever was the victim of that spell, I probably re-loaded but it's too long that I played them in any case.
Daggers can be thrown (and recovered among the loot) in "Treasures of the savage frontier", so this is probably the standard for the later FG games. Not sure about the Krynn games.

 

[Null Null]

ALL items. This is why everyone reloads.

 

[octavius]

ALL items. This is why everyone reloads.

Not everyone.