Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[Infinitron]

Why hello there: http://af.gog.com/news/release_dungeons_dragons_ravenloft_dark_sun_krynn_series?as=1649904300

 

[Tacgnol]

Why hello there: http://af.gog.com/news/release_dungeons_dragons_ravenloft_dark_sun_krynn_series?as=1649904300

Oh nice.

Wonder whether I should get the Ravenloft series. I played the first one briefly many years ago but didn't finish it.

 

[Jo498]

Wow, those stat-changing items are seriously messed up or buggy in CURSE. Giving the girdle to my dwarf raised his Charisma to 99 but permanently reduced HP from 69 to 40... For the elf it raised CHA to 74 (75 with and permanently reduced HP by 26 to 32... Similarly with the other imported PCs. This is some strange sum/value overflow problem.
It might be the fault with the imported characters from PoR. I will try the items on a Curse-character but probably it is safer to sell them. I found several remarks on the web that the game apparently is buggy with those items.
I am pretty sure I never encountered that problem before, at least I do not remember.
But I never before imported characters in CoAB.
Apparently this IS only a problem with imported characters (not even sure if I ever successfully imported characters, I think we tried it in vain on the Amiga more than 20 years ago with Champions and Death Knights). I now tried the Ioun stones and the girdle on the paladin and ranger respectively and they properly raise the stats by one point and this is reversed if the item is unreadied. I can live with that (although additional positive effects with a DEX 20 elf and a CON 20 dwarf would have been cooler...)

 

[GarfunkeL]

It was a bizarre experience to watch a Let's Play of that battle on YouTube by DOsBoxMom. She did nothing to prevent their casting, but the spells had no effect on her characters.

Haha, I remember years ago she messaged me through Youtube and asked for tips on making DosBox videos after seeing my CoAB video experiments.

 

[araan]

Hey everyone, I stopped by here before when I had a question on Pool of Radiance. I've since finished that and CotAB, and now have one question as I'm starting Secret of the Silver Blades:

What is the deal with the Half-Elf level caps in SotSB??? While max level for a multi-class cleric has been 5 in all three games, is the max level for a single/multi-class ranger *really* only 6 in SotSB when it was higher in CotAB? I'd started SotSB by recreating my characters again after doing the same in Curse (since there were no Rangers or Paladins in Pool of Radiance) but now it seems my half-elf character from the first two games won't be progressing in level AT ALL in SotSB. (And now that I've already started SotSB, it won't let me go back and import my higher level character from CotAB when I try to start a new game.) So frustrating!

Anyway, been enjoying the start of the game despite this one needling issue... Such a shame. No spoilers plz...

 

[Null Null]

Demihumans suck in 1st ed, and therefore Gold Box. Have you checked your character's strength? Characters with less than 18 strength will have lower level caps as fighters. They may have implemented an Int or Wis component as well. (I know, Scheisse. They fixed it in the next edition.)

There are only 2 useful demihumans in games past Curse (or Treasures): dwarven fighter/thief and elven or half-elven fighter/mage/thief. And you should only take one, as your party thief. If you really like demihumans, download the Krynn games: dwarves and elves can be rangers, and demihumans can be good characters (though I would download Dark Queen of Krynn's adventurer's journal and check the level limits before you make a party and are planning to take them through all 3 games).

 

[Jo498]

Yes, a half-elf will hit max lvl already in Curse (or Treasures). Max for a half-elf ranger or fighter is lvl 8, even with 18 STR. In Secret one can use on of the multi-thief characters Null Null mentions but one will be enough. (Elf is better than half-elf because half-elf caps at 8 both as fighter and mage whereas an elf can advance only to 7 as a fighter but up to 11 as a mage) It is advisable to use one or two human dual class characters because the demi-humans only receive half (or a third) XP even after they maxed in e.g. fighter. So a dwarven fighter/thief with lvl 9/x will advance comparably slowly because all XP are still halfed despite the cap, but at least faster than an elf f/m/t and the latter will be somewhat low on HP as well, although these are very useful characters even with the caps of those games.

Whereas a dual class character advances normally. Of course the latter is capped in the old class abilities as well but so are the demihumans. So the dual class characters will "overtake" the multi-class often already midgame. This was my experience with my first "low-lvl dualing" in Treasures: The ranger dualed to mage at lvl 8 reached mage lvl 9 earlier than the fighter/mage who probably was at 7/7 when the first one changed class. Because 7 is the cap for elf fighters, so he only received half xp and of course the dual character will advance the first 4-5 lvls very quickly because the battles etc. are geared towards ca. lvl. 8 chars when he is only lvl 1. In addition, the ranger/mage had about 100 HP, the elf f/m 55 or so.

If I don't lose patience with the bugs in CotAB (my mage is again at CHAR 50 this time without equipping anything...) I might play Secrets later on and I will probably dual a fighter immediately to cleric and a cleric somewhat later (as soon as he can cast "Heal") to mage. So my planned Secrets party would be: Paladin, Ranger, Mage, dwarven fighter/thief, fighter dualled at lvl 8 to cleric, cleric dualled at lvl 11 or so to mage. So one always has a healer and for the endgame another decent fighter and two powerful mages. I just saw that CRPG addict played already Curse with a similar party (not sure at what stage he dualled). When I first played those games I did not quite understand dualing and I still don't really like the concept, but one gets much more powerful parties.

The Krynn games have far less restrictions and most of them will only be relevant in the last game. But if the Death Knights manual is correct there are also caps for dwarves (except as fighters), kenders (except as thieves) and half-elves. But they might have changed some details in Dark Queen, so better check.

 

[Jo498]

If the game will not let you import you can probably still create a new character as a replacement. Playing Secrets with a character stuck at lvl 8 is quite a handicap as the max lvl is 15 in that game, so he will be much weaker than the rest already mid-game.

 

[Jo498]

Now I was curious and dloaded the DQoK journal. This is very badly edited. Apparently they just copied party recommendations from the earlier games on p.8. Because if the limits on p.49 are correct, dwarf or half-elf rangers would not make sense in that game and a kender cleric/thief would also reach the max as cleric quite soon. Even Elves have a cap as fighters (14, game goes up to lvl 29 or so) although not as rangers.

 

[araan]

Yes, a half-elf will hit max lvl already in Curse (or Treasures). Max for a half-elf ranger or fighter is lvl 8, even with 18 STR. In Secret one can use on of the multi-thief characters Null Null mentions but one will be enough. (Elf is better than half-elf because half-elf caps at 8 both as fighter and mage whereas an elf can advance only to 7 as a fighter but up to 11 as a mage) It is advisable to use one or two human dual class characters because the demi-humans only receive half (or a third) XP even after they maxed in e.g. fighter. So a dwarven fighter/thief with lvl 9/x will advance comparably slowly because all XP are still halfed despite the cap, but at least faster than an elf f/m/t and the latter will be somewhat low on HP as well, although these are very useful characters even with the caps of those games.

Whereas a dual class character advances normally. Of course the latter is capped in the old class abilities as well but so are the demihumans. So the dual class characters will "overtake" the multi-class often already midgame. This was my experience with my first "low-lvl dualing" in Treasures: The ranger dualed to mage at lvl 8 reached mage lvl 9 earlier than the fighter/mage who probably was at 7/7 when the first one changed class. Because 7 is the cap for elf fighters, so he only received half xp and of course the dual character will advance the first 4-5 lvls very quickly because the battles etc. are geared towards ca. lvl. 8 chars when he is only lvl 1. In addition, the ranger/mage had about 100 HP, the elf f/m 55 or so.

If I don't lose patience with the bugs in CotAB (my mage is again at CHAR 50 this time without equipping anything...) I might play Secrets later on and I will probably dual a fighter immediately to cleric and a cleric somewhat later (as soon as he can cast "Heal") to mage. So my planned Secrets party would be: Paladin, Ranger, Mage, dwarven fighter/thief, fighter dualled at lvl 8 to cleric, cleric dualled at lvl 11 or so to mage. So one always has a healer and for the endgame another decent fighter and two powerful mages. I just saw that CRPG addict played already Curse with a similar party (not sure at what stage he dualled). When I first played those games I did not quite understand dualing and I still don't really like the concept, but one gets much more powerful parties.

The Krynn games have far less restrictions and most of them will only be relevant in the last game. But if the Death Knights manual is correct there are also caps for dwarves (except as fighters), kenders (except as thieves) and half-elves. But they might have changed some details in Dark Queen, so better check.

AH! That's what was getting me, I didn't realize that STR would affect max fighter/ranger level. It seemed totally absurd that the level cap was *lower* in SotSB than in CotAB, when I'd been hoping since PoR that the level cap might increase.

And yeah, I do have a dwarven fighter/thief in the party, which had been working swimmingly with my paladin, magic-user, and ranger/cleric up until the Cleric level cap stayed in the same in CotAB. So for SotSB I'd created a pure Cleric as a fifth character, hoping my half-elf would continue to progress as a ranger. Strange that even a single class Half-Elf Ranger has the same level cap as a multi-class Ranger/Cleric, but I guess that's 1st edition for you.

OH WELL. I always liked gimps in Asheron's Call. My only other option, I guess, would be to turn my ranger into a Human.

Edit: Interestingly, magically raising a multiclass character's Strength to 18 with Gauntlets of Ogre Strength allows them to reach max demi-human warrior level, so all is not lost for my gimpy level 6 ranger.

 

[Jo498]

Lvl caps are independent of multi/single and it seems that they were not changed at all in the 6 FG games.

But lvl 8 is only the start of SotSB, so the character will be too low for that game. I used a half-elf f/m/c in "Treasures and he maxed out at 5/8/8, whereas I did not even get close to max lvl of that game with e.g. my paladin, see above. It was discussed earlier in the tread.

Among other things, one reason seems to be that pen&paper D&D usually did not go up to lvls beyond 10 or so. If you look at the "titles"
given to the lvls in some older rulebooks a lvlv 8 fighter is called "Superhero" and a lvl 9 "Lord". (So a multiclass half-elf can reach "superhero lvl" as fighter and the lvl 20+ characters of Pools etc. are simply way beyond the map.) And probably also to offset the advantages multiclass characters have before their caps. With characters up to lvl 15 as in Secrets or beyond 20 like in DQoK and PoD they become too weak in comparison.

 

[Jo498]

Does anybody know if the effects of "Feeblemind" are supposed to be permanent or if dispel magic should work or if the stats should return to normal after some time (basically precluding the victim from casting during a battle)? I think I once got hit by it in PoD but do not remember if the INT stats could be restored successfully.
In any case the effect seems to be permanent in CotAB (and with the trouble with "positive" stat changes I am not surprised) , so I had to play the fight with Dracandros a 3rd time (the first time I had erroneously assumed that some of the buffing spells I had cast before were still in power but they weren't and my mage was slain by 48 damage from a lightning bolt)...

 

[octavius]

You need to cast Heal to cure Feeblemind, according to TFM.

 

[Null Null]

Now I was curious and dloaded the DQoK journal. This is very badly edited. Apparently they just copied party recommendations from the earlier games on p.8. Because if the limits on p.49 are correct, dwarf or half-elf rangers would not make sense in that game and a kender cleric/thief would also reach the max as cleric quite soon. Even Elves have a cap as fighters (14, game goes up to lvl 29 or so) although not as rangers.

ADDENDUM: What the journal will NOT tell you is that, due to the linearization of the XP tables above 'name' level (10 or so), a single-class mage (who really ought to be human) will be MUCH more powerful than a multi-class mage toward the end of the game--you're looking at a difference of 10 levels or so. Whereas multi-class mages will get into the 20s, single-class mages can get into the 30s, effectively allowing them to ignore draconian magic resistance and do much more damage with spells.

 

[Jo498]

The journal tables and description are not very clear about the boni of high lvl mages. One might even get the impression that everything is capped because from a certain lvl on they do not get more spells.

Does anyone know where the lvl cap in Dark Queen is? 30? or 40 like PoD? (The game is much shorter than PoD in my recollection)
It's been too long that I played it and I do not even remember if I had a single class white mage but I remember that there is one really long dungeon where one gets loads of experience with no training option so one or more of my characters lost XP because they gained XP for more than two lvls advancement.
Some of the GB games have this annoying problem. It happened to my "new" (i.e. the ones not transferred from Pool) characters in Hap/Dracandros' Tower in CotAB which is really annoying because Paladin and Ranger are the ones advancing most slowly from lvl 8 on or so, therefore they could have used the XP. Whereas the transferred pure mage and pure cleric will reach their caps for that game (11 and 10) before the endgame...

In any case the suggested parties in the handbook are good for Champions, but some characters might reach their caps already in Death Knights and they are simply misleading as a suggestion for Dark Queen.

 

[Null Null]

Level cap is 40, as far as I know, particularly since FRUA (which most definitely has a level cap of 40) was apparently based on DQK code. I've never reached it; it's much more linear than POD, which had lots of little nooks and crannies where you could go grind for XP.

What you're referring to is basically the Tower of Flame, which is a multi-level dungeon where you get enough XP to level up several times over (complete with a small detour into hell). There is no way around this and you ought to level up your party before going. What's even more annoying is the gnome citadel, the dungeon before that, also doesn't allow you to go back, so you should be done grinding levels before going there.

Lousy game design IMHO, but you can always download FRUA mods, I guess.

 

[octavius]

Level cap is 40, as far as I know, particularly since FRUA (which most definitely has a level cap of 40) was apparently based on DQK code. I've never reached it; it's much more linear than POD, which had lots of little nooks and crannies where you could go grind for XP.

What you're referring to is basically the Tower of Flame, which is a multi-level dungeon where you get enough XP to level up several times over (complete with a small detour into hell). There is no way around this and you ought to level up your party before going. What's even more annoying is the gnome citadel, the dungeon before that, also doesn't allow you to go back, so you should be done grinding levels before going there.

Must be hell for aspbergers playing those levels, seeing all those XP go to waste.

 

[Null Null]

It's purely a subjective thing, of course, but seems kind of pointless to ladle out the XP and turn all the character names purple without letting the party doing any leveling up. At least part of the point of an RPG is character growth; if you're going for the 'you are trapped in hell' feeling and not going to let people level up, no point handing out enough XP to level up the party several times over--unless the point was to frustrate the player, which I suppose is possible but seems a bit meta for 1992.

 

[DavidBVal]

It's purely a subjective thing, of course, but seems kind of pointless to ladle out the XP and turn all the character names purple without letting the party doing any leveling up. At least part of the point of an RPG is character growth; if you're going for the 'you are trapped in hell' feeling and not going to let people level up, no point handing out enough XP to level up the party several times over--unless the point was to frustrate the player, which I suppose is possible but seems a bit meta for 1992.

The point was to be faithful to the ruleset, which was supposed to work perfectly and be balanced. A noble goal, from more civilized times.

 

[Jo498]

One main problem is the artificiality of "training", especially for lvl 20+ chars. I guess the mages could train with Elminster or Raistlin but not with some drill sarge at a random village...
I am pretty sure that quite a bit of the XP at the end of DQoK come from "the party gains experience" (for figuring something out or so), which could have been set much lower.

 

[Null Null]

Elminster can also train clerics, fighters, and thieves; later writeups of him gave him a few levels in all the major classes but still not enough to train 39th level clerics. Elminster himself was only a 26th level mage in 1st edition Forgotten Realms, which means even he can't train party mages.

My opinion is that Pools of Darkness is a great game and a pretty good D&D adaptation. DQK is a pretty good game and a pretty good adaptation. The designers couldn't do anything about the fact D&D, particularly 1st ed, breaks down at high levels.

In fact, in 1st ed, once you hit 18th level the gods were supposed to kick you out of Krynn. Guess that would have been a lot less fun for the players though, as you would have only had 4 levels to go after Death Knights of Krynn ended. I think the only trace of this is Knights of the Crown and Sword capping out at 18th level.

A lot of the XP gains in DQoK (and to a lesser extent POD) is 'party gets experience'--I remember getting a few hundred thousand for agreeing to kill some dragons (not killing them, agreeing to) which strikes me as silly.

Basically, they took a gamist (make the game fun) at the expense of simulationist (copy a real game of D&D) approach. Dark Queen of Krynn has covens of 27th level wizards attacking you, and grunt forces in Thenol are 16th level fighters, which basically means they should have conquered the minotaurs and be sailing over the sea to sack Ansalon by now. Granted it makes a little more sense than sticking enough 8th-14th level characters to conquer all of the Forgotten Realms in the middle of a mine (or glacier), but not much. Pools of Darkness kind of had the excuse that only the strongest fighters and wizards would be running around in the post-apocalyptic Realms. But the grunt Zhentil Mages are 10th level or so, and Semmemmon (no. 3 after Manshoon and Fzoul) had only gotten to 12th by 1st ed.

I think one of the other things holding them back was that the standard high-end enemies, the demons and devils, were sort of being downplayed due to the Satanic D&D Panic of the 80s. Bane's lieutenants are t'a'n'a'r'r'r'i, not 'demons'. They also probably didn't have enough left in 640K to program all the spell-like abilities in; Gothmenes should be able to toss uninterruptable fireballs at you (since they used 2nd ed stats for him) like a death knight in addition to swinging his vorpal longsword around.

Another thing (confirmed by a post on TSI's website) is that they were apparently constrained by IP rules at this point; I guess TSR got annoyed at them killing Lord Soth and Kitiara (more or less) in Death Knights of Krynn.

In short, they had the 640K limit, the brokenness of the rules at that level, and late-80s PC and TSR's legal department to deal with, and they still did a pretty good job.

 

[Comte]

I am playing gateway to the savage frontier and used the strength spell on my paladin it doesn't appear to work. I tried casting it a couple of times and nothing happens. The magic display show's no spell cast. I'm guessing this is a bug.

Null Null you are correct about Krynn limiting levels to 18 I vaguely remember that rule from reading the campaign setting book many years ago.

 

[octavius]

I am playing gateway to the savage frontier and used the strength spell on my paladin it doesn't appear to work. I tried casting it a couple of times and nothing happens. The magic display show's no spell cast. I'm guessing this is a bug.

If your Paladin already has 18(Null Null)strength, and/or your mage is low level, then it won't work. Strength only works on weak character in my experience. Enlarge is better and more effective, at least at higher levels. At low lowel Strength on weak character can be of some use.

 

[Comte]

If your Paladin already has 18(Null Null)strength, and/or your mage is low level, then it won't work. Strength only works on weak character in my experience. Enlarge is better and more effective, at least at higher levels. At low lowel Strength on weak character can be of some use.

Ok I have 18 null null strength so basically it's useless. I wanted to try experimenting with different spells. I usually only take offensive spells and not buff spells.

 

[Jo498]

Enlarge is better, but I think the mage has to be about lvl 7 or more to improve on 18(00). Depending on lvl of the caster (and maybe the game) Enlarge yields up to 23 STR (but you will not get there with a lvl 7 or 8 mage in Gateway).

Null Null, you are right about the implausibility of uber-characters although as someone who never played any P&P game I am not so much bothered by that because it is usually handled quite well. I think it would be far more stupid if they had to slaughter armies of 4th lvl grunts instead of every city guard grunt being a lvl 12 "Overlord" or so.

But it is exceedingly poor design to give 100ks of XP without training opportunity for 2 dungeons including the endgame. This is bad both from simulationist as well as from a gamist perspective. How would a FRUA hack help here? Importing to another module, training and importing back into DQ?