Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Jaesun]

The color coordinated party (blue are clerics, red are mages). And Pink for me, because I'M A BIG FAG. Though the multi-classed people aren't in the other classes yet.

Apparently Ms. Bee does not like Banite poetry, alas...

 

[Ruhfuss]

I didn't enjoy Gateway (GSF) that much. Lots of annoying random encounters and somewhat boring overall. The early part was almost frustrating because I never had enough gold for training. So I had to go hunting giants for their ridiculous heaps of money that they carried around, with PCs that could be crushed in one or two hits. So in order to be able to pay for training, you earn so much XP that you quickly become overleveled for most parts of the game. Or get stomped in the process.

I liked that they let the PCs sometimes chime in and tell what they experience (more so in TSF). It's the only Gold Box game that shows magic effects on (N)PCs in combat; unfortunately, only ONE effect is shown, usually the latest. On the weird side, the item names: "+1 Plate Mail" instead of "Plate Mail +1", "+2 Long Sword" instead of "Long Sword +2", but then again "xyz of Protection +1" (can't remember if it was Ring or Cloak).

And I was confused by the ending, because my encounter with Vaalgamon went like "First combat round, Cleric casts Hold Person, bye bye Big Bad, first round kill.". And then that guy had the audacity to still walk around afterwards. Well, I guess I got very lucky with that Hold Person.

Overall, I think that TSF is a way better game than GSF.

 

[Null Null]

There are some interesting possibilities for hyper-runs here--you could bring parties through more Gold Box games than was previously possible. Say you went Pool --> Curse --> Gateway --> Curse --> Secret --> Pools --> Treasures. You'd then play everything but the Dragonlance games.

Alternatively, you could avoid Secret altogether by going Pool-->Curse-->Gateway-->Treasures-->Pools. You'd have an underpowered party for Pools though, given the level limits, and no access to the +5 stuff from Secret. (I actually think this was a conscious design decision to make people buy the previous games; you can only get the best stuff by transferring. Ever notice how the levels are a little higher if you transfer than if you roll fresh guys?)

What does Gateway do with the 4th and 5th level spells in spellbooks from Curse? What does Treasures do with the 6th-9th level spells from Pools? Can you cast Delayed Blast Fireball or Meteor Swarm in TSF?

 

[Kirben]

What does Gateway do with the 4th and 5th level spells in spellbooks from Curse?

All 4th and 5th level spells work fine under Gateway to the Savage Frontier, the developers re-used the game engine of Curse of the Azure Bonds in that case.

 

[Kirben]

What does Treasures do with the 6th-9th level spells from Pools? Can you cast Delayed Blast Fireball or Meteor Swarm in TSF?

The Clerics spells only go up to 6th level in TSF, but all spells are available for Mages. The Mage spells seem to work fine, except Monster Summoning had no effect when I tried.

 

[Null Null]

Heh. I have to try this. I'm dying to go into the TSF wilderness with my end-of-Pools-of-Darkness party.

Level 8? I thought the highest spell level was 7 anyway?

 

[octavius]

The Clerics spells only go up to 6th level in TSF, but all spells are available for Mages. The Mage spells seem to work fine, except Monster Summoning had no effect when I tried.

Probably tries to summon a monster not used in the game?

 

[Jo498]

Highest mage spells lvl 9 (monster summoning, meteor etc.)
Highest cleric spells lvl 8 (Resurrection etc.)

Monster summoning was fairly useless in both Pools and Dark Queen, I seem to recall. In the latter I think I once got Gorgons (the monsters that appear depend probably on lvl of caster and/or the game region) which sounds great, only the resistance or saving throws of the opponents were so high, they never stoned anyone before they got killed.

If one comes with lots of +5 items from Secrets, the whole of Pools will be disappointing item-wise (except that one has to get new equipment in those other spheres anyway). I am not sure I ever tried it that way. One would also get a more convenient and powerful party if one dualed one fighter to cleric and one cleric to mage already in Secrets or so (a Ranger/Mage might want that 3rd lvl druid protection from fire which is only available from lvl 16). Pure clerics kind of suck in that game but the "Heal" spell is very handy. With such a party quite a bit of PoD will be considerably easier.

So the special mage training in Treasures was rather disappointing as well. It would have been cool to be able to access e.g. 3 new spells or get more spell slots (like with a ring of wizardry)

Which games have a ring of wizardry? Secrets, Pools, Dark Queen? Or is one already in Curse?

 

[octavius]

I think Dracandros carries a RoW in CoAB.

 

[Null Null]

You can check the cluebooks; Curse (on Dracandros), Secret (in the mine), and Pools (on Marcus), Dark Queen (Blackwater Glade), all have one.

Curse's ring doubles first, second, and third level spells; the others double fifth level spells.

So when doing 'compatible' (Curse <--> Gateway, Pools <--> Treasures) transfers, I assume you remove the characters from party and dump their files in the directory, then add them as if from the game they're transferring into?

 

[Ruhfuss]

What does Treasures do with the 6th-9th level spells from Pools? Can you cast Delayed Blast Fireball or Meteor Swarm in TSF?

The high level spells all work like in POD, but I'm unsure what kind of summons, if any at all, Monster Summoning would call.

If one comes with lots of +5 items from Secrets, the whole of Pools will be disappointing item-wise (except that one has to get new equipment in those other spheres anyway).

Taking a trip through TSF augements this, since in TSF it's possible to get enough Bracers AC2 for the whole party. But even then, you can flesh out the party's equipment with another set of Boots of Speed, Girdle of Giant Strength etc. in POD. And, while in SSB it was only mentioned in a fake journal entry, the Vorpal Long Sword.

 

[Ruhfuss]

So when doing 'compatible' (Curse <--> Gateway, Pools <--> Treasures) transfers, I assume you remove the characters from party and dump their files in the directory, then add them as if from the game they're transferring into?

That's how it's done with POD <--> TSF, yes. I guess it's the same with CAB <--> GSF.

 

[Joonas]

Here's a list of the character file formats compared between Curse vs Gateway / Pool vs Treasures:
http://personal.inet.fi/koti/jhirvonen/gbc/compare.txt

The numbers are decimal offsets. They're indeed almost identical. The formats between the other games are different but one could in theory write a tool to transfer characters also between Realms <-> Krynn games.

 

[Jo498]

This might be platform dependent but annoyingly "center" does not work anymore after one has targetted manually in Treasures. I am pretty sure it worked in some games (at least when I first played them on Amiga, I would have burned the party even more frequently otherwise).
Another interface difference is that in PoD one could "bundle" scrolls to save inventory space.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, all those minor differences in UI and rules from game to game are rather annoying.
In the Amiga version of CoAB you could bundle scrolls, while in the DOS version you can't, for example.

 

[Kirben]

Another odd difference between the ports, is the MS-DOS versions of Gateway to the Savage Frontier and Treasures of the Savage Frontier lack any musical cues in game. Although I wonder if the music cues in the Amiga ports, were just left overs from the previous games.

Are Pools of Darkness and Dark Queen of Queen the only MS-DOS versions that offer music in game, and not just music for the introduction?

 

[Null Null]

Death Knights of Krynn had music. FRUA's 'Evil March' was Lord Soth's theme, and FRUA's 'Mystery' was the Dargaard Keep theme. FRUA's 'Foes' and 'Battle' were the Dark Queen of Krynn battle musics (which I think were overused).

Sadly, the Pools of Darkness themes didn't make it into FRUA, which I thought was a shame.

BTW, I've confirmed that you can remove a character from Curse and stick him into Gateway. It's fun running through the game with 10 Fireballs.

I see two possible 'grand campaigns' here:

Pool-->Curse-->Gateway-->Treasures-->Pools. Lets you keep your stuff from the end of Curse and avoid playing Secret of the Silver Blades, but you miss out on the +5 stuff from Secret, and assuming you're two levels up from 11 at the end of Treasures (given the rules on XP overflow), you're still only level with fresh characters at the beginning of Pools.

Pool-->Curse-->Gateway-->Curse-->Secret-->Pools (don't play) -->Treasures--> Pools. You lose your stuff from Curse, but as people have suggested, you could use Treasures to buff up characters dualled at the end of Secret, then bring those guys to Pools.

I suppose you could finish Pools and then play Treasures, but that seems to have value only as a speedrun. 35th level? Only to see if you can take down Freezefire with a single Delayed Blast Fireball.

Edit: bringing any of the 'special name' items such as the Sword of Stonecutting or the Sword of STalking into Pools does produce weird names (long strings of underscores, strings from elsewhere in the game like 'MUNE TO ELECTRICITY'), although--at least at first glance--simple weapons do seem to behave normally despite their names. The Farrberjik Lined Boots now cast Mirror Image, and the Potion of Spell Enhancement doesn't seem to do anything, though if it increases your casted spell level by 1 I guess it's hard to tell.

You could have fun bringing all the weird items in and seeing what they do, I guess.

 

[Jo498]

Death Knights had music in the DOS-Version I played some time ago. (But nowadays I usually kill the sound of a game to listen to my own music instead.)

Now that I got the Treasures Clue Book I am somewhat annoyed that I missed several items (despite some glimpses at a brief walkthru on the web). It simply did not cross my mind to go treasure hunting on a rescue Mission (Ruathym) as that town was so filled with random encounters with gards. I did not get any hints (probably there aren't any). Similarly with the Spider queen and hoard in the tunnels around waterdeep. (The hints for the dragon in that other little harbor were too obvious to miss.) And I would never have guessed that there was a useful item (apparently they work like dimension door) in that store (I've been there but thought it was just a joke) in the "mental health colony"
I guess these things were meant as bonuses for very thorough (or clue book following) players; still it is somewhat disappointing that there is hardly any really good loot for doing the major quests (so far, I have only played up to Mirabar, not the northern mountains/endgame). Tyrant's Trident is fairly useless...why are there so many two-handed weapons that apparently have the same stats as a long sword (D8+x)? This is not as bad here with only shields+1 or +2 but in games like secret, pools, dark queen with shields +4 I usually do not swap 4-5 AC for 1 point of damage/THAC0. It's also weak that gear with names is only a normal +x-weapon or armor, not with some cool additional feature.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, those named weapons in Treasures were a letdown. Most of them were just +2 items with a fancy name.

 

[Ruhfuss]

Now that I got the Treasures Clue Book I am somewhat annoyed that I missed several items (despite some glimpses at a brief walkthru on the web). It simply did not cross my mind to go treasure hunting on a rescue Mission (Ruathym) as that town was so filled with random encounters with gards. I did not get any hints (probably there aren't any). Similarly with the Spider queen and hoard in the tunnels around waterdeep. (The hints for the dragon in that other little harbor were too obvious to miss.) And I would never have guessed that there was a useful item (apparently they work like dimension door) in that store (I've been there but thought it was just a joke) in the "mental health colony"

It's worth noting that the clue books aren't always 100% accurate or complete, and of overall varying quality. Those of the later games are usually the better ones, like in having a magic item list with locations for example. Without the clue book I guess I would have missed the crazy boots in TSF. I certainly did in my earlier playthroughs.

I guess these things were meant as bonuses for very thorough (or clue book following) players; still it is somewhat disappointing that there is hardly any really good loot for doing the major quests (so far, I have only played up to Mirabar, not the northern mountains/endgame). Tyrant's Trident is fairly useless...why are there so many two-handed weapons that apparently have the same stats as a long sword (D8+x)? This is not as bad here with only shields+1 or +2 but in games like secret, pools, dark queen with shields +4 I usually do not swap 4-5 AC for 1 point of damage/THAC0. It's also weak that gear with names is only a normal +x-weapon or armor, not with some cool additional feature.

The Gold Box games where quite often criticised for their lack of variety in usefull magic weapons. In almost all other Gold Box games, you usually end up with a combination of Long Sword +X / Shield +Y for the fighter types (which honestly never botherd me that much, but others may differ). From an efficiency point of view, having named items like "The Sea Helm" (just a renamed Helm +2) makes no difference. But it adds some flavor. On the other side, since one can not directly view item properties in Gold Box games, one always has to wonder if there is something special about the "Sword of Stalking +4" or not. Personally, I would have preferred them to only give unique names to items which actually have something unique about them, like the Redflame Armor for example.

In the "middlier" parts of the game, you sometimes run into (Large) Iron Golems, which need +3 weapons to damage. That's where those more unusual +3 two handed weapons come in handy. Single handed +3 weapons only become available in the late game (or if you know where to grind for them), and beeing flails (unsure about the handiness of the axes at the moment), even there they tried to bring in some variety.

Also, I wonder what the Addict will have to say about TSF's economy. With the decreased selling prices of magical loot and shops in various towns selling some usefull stuff, I think they quite improved a lot on the previous games in that regard.

What they never get right is item trading with NPCs. "Sorry, I will only give you back that nice armor which you accidently have given to me if you knock me unconscious."

 

[Jo498]

I see two possible 'grand campaigns' here:

Pool-->Curse-->Gateway-->Treasures-->Pools. Lets you keep your stuff from the end of Curse and avoid playing Secret of the Silver Blades, but you miss out on the +5 stuff from Secret, and assuming you're two levels up from 11 at the end of Treasures (given the rules on XP overflow), you're still only level with fresh characters at the beginning of Pools.

This assumes one does not play Curse, only gets the characters in the proper format, right? Otherwise one would be in the strange situation to have lvl 10/11 with hardly any advancement through two games designed for lvl 2-7 and lvl 5-10 characters respectively. I guess one could make them somewhat harder by certain party/roleplaying choices and switching to the highest lvl (monsters +50% HP).

Pool-->Curse-->Gateway-->Curse-->Secret-->Pools (don't play) -->Treasures--> Pools. You lose your stuff from Curse, but as people have suggested, you could use Treasures to buff up characters dualled at the end of Secret, then bring those guys to Pools.

This is somewhat better I think: One would play Gateway with characters from Pool (lvl 6) and hardly any advancement, then Curse starting with lvl 8 characters and so on. But they would be way too high for Treasures coming from Secret at lvl 14 or so.

The persistent problem is that the two Savage frontier games roughly mirror Pool and Curse in lvls and there isn't really a replacement for the un-loved Secrets...

 

[Jo498]

In the "middlier" parts of the game, you sometimes run into (Large) Iron Golems, which need +3 weapons to damage. That's where those more unusual +3 two handed weapons come in handy. Single handed +3 weapons only become available in the late game (or if you know where to grind for them), and beeing flails (unsure about the handiness of the axes at the moment), even there they tried to bring in some variety.

yep, I found the flails almost accidently and missed the +3 short swords of some spies (because it didn't occur to me to check them at all), so only the guy with the trident and the flail could really hurt that bloody golem in Harpell's tower (but I reloaded and will replay that part anyway for other reasons. And I also got with the help of the clue book that +3 two-hand-sword)
FWIW, I think that not being hurt by less than +3 is a really mean and stupid rule. I remember one game (probably some stage in PoD) where in one battle I desperately fought golems with daggers and a quarterstaff because these were the only +3/+4 weapons I had. Make the "normal magical weapons" do half damage or so, but 0 damage is simply mean. That's not a ghost or highly magical lich or so, just a magical machine made from iron, anyway.

As a non-pen&paper-player I am always uncertain about the damage against "larger than man-sized". It seems that's where the long sword (and also the mediocre two-hand-weapons like tridents) really beat flail (otherwise similar damage) and mace. And is the ranger vs. giant bonus coupled on using a two-handed sword? Or any weapon or are there two bonuses? (In Death Knights apparently the ranger and mace of disruption boni stacked, so I had a ranger doing ca. 50 damage when attacking giant zombies or skeletons with that weapon...)
axes are extremely confusing as there are apparently one-handed and two-handed battle axes sometimes not distinguished by name. There are also throwing axes in some games, I think. The two-handed variety has, again, the stats of the one-hand-longsword... (unless there are some hidden boni against bigger monsters or so)

Also, I wonder what the Addict will have to say about TSF's economy. With the decreased selling prices of magical loot and shops in various towns selling some usefull stuff, I think they quite improved a lot on the previous games in that regard.

Still, way too much stuff to carry around with standard opponents all have decent +1 or often +2. The core problem was explained by some commenters on earlier entries in the Addict's blog: Especially the gems and stuff are there to give the party experience according to some old/stupid D&D rules.

What they never get right is item trading with NPCs. "Sorry, I will only give you back that nice armor which you accidently have given to me if you knock me unconscious."

Yes, this is stupid. I got Siulaja's bow+2 and chain mail +2 at the first opportunity... I gave her plate and better melee stuff than she had, though... This would have been so easy to solve: Just give them stuff that is not better than what the party has anyway...

 

[Ruhfuss]

I got Siulaja's bow+2 and chain mail +2 at the first opportunity...

Way to go to handle a potential love interest, dude! Smack her and wear her garnments.

 

[Jo498]

I did not smack her, I just left her a little longer in a healing coma after some enemy struck her down than absolutely necessary. Good bows are so rare and she is tactically more useful as a meat shield and melee tank... and it was before young love blossomed anyway.. :D

 

[Null Null]

Just transferred my party from the end of Pools of Darkness into Treasures of the Savage Frontier...and, wow. Just wow. I walked straight into Geildarr's palace and laid the 'sea of men and monsters' low with a single Delayed Blast Fireball--half damage kills them at level 39. Then I cast Death Spell on a bunch of Lordsmen, who all dropped dead.

Vorpal Long Swords don't do anything, and neither does the Monster Summoning spell. But the rest of the high-level armamentarium seems effective, including Destruction, Blade Barrier, and the rest of them I usually use. Mass Charm doesn't seem to work (who cares?)

This would be an interesting Let's Play--put a single 40th level mage up against the whole game.

What on earth were they thinking?