Gold Box SSI's Gold Box Series Thread

[octavius]

For some reason I decided to play Treasures of Savage Frontier.

Having a bad time because I used a fresh party and made some really bad character creation choices. I took Haste as my starting 3rd level spell for my single class MU and now I'm thinking I should have taken a DD spell. Should I even care about the 1 year of aging from Haste?

The jury is still out on this one. It seems in some of the Gold Box games character will eventually die from old age if subject to too many Haste spells.
For a first lvl 3 spell Fireball is usually the safest choice, unless you have Wands of Fireballs. Next is Lightning Bolt unless you have Wands of Lightning. Next best is a toss up between Slow and Haste. Unless you meta game you won't cast Haste often, though.

Is Cause Blindness/Bestow Curse as a Cleric even worth using? They never succeed for me.

No. Blindness has no effect on enemies whatsoever in my experience. Bestow Curse is only annoying for the player party. The enemies won't live enough to have to deal with Cursed items.
Dispel Magic is also kind of useless in Treasures, since unlike the other Gold Box games it can't be used to remove the Held status from your guys.

Party set up so that everyone can point and laugh:
Human Fighter (will Dual to MU at 7)
Elf MU
Elf F/MU
Half-Elf Cleric/Ranger x 2
Dwarf F/T

The usefulness of two Half-Elf Cleric/Rangers is rather limited since Half-Elves are limited to lvl 5 as Clerics and lvl 8 as Rangers.
Apart from that it looks good.

 

[TigerKnee]

The usefulness of two Half-Elf Cleric/Rangers is rather limited since Half-Elves are limited to lvl 5 as Clerics and lvl 8 as Rangers.

Damnit, I misread the level cap chart for demis.

This is definitely the biggest part I hate about Gold Box D&D.

 

[TigerKnee]

I'm learning so many things from this game, such as the fact that Red Dragons are apparently not immune to nausea from Stinking Cloud. Finish it off with a dart for maximum comedy points.

I think I'm heading to the last stretch of the game now. So far for the most part I've been doing as little side quests as possible so I hope I don't screw myself over.

Also, Yetis? Wtf?

Also, for some reason I never realized you can actually read scrolls in battle up to now. I wonder if Disintegate is good.

The D&D ruleset and Gold Box implementation is really getting to me now. I got a feeling I might have missed out on a lot of good treasure because even after casting Detect Magic after every battle, I have no idea which are actually GOOD magic items and which are junk +1 items that do nothing but fill up my inventory with platinum that slows everyone down too much to carry.

 

[octavius]

I'm learning so many things from this game, such as the fact that Red Dragons are apparently not immune to nausea from Stinking Cloud.

Dragons have rather poor saving throws, so Stinking Cloud and Hold Monsters will work more often than not.

Also, for some reason I never realized you can actually read scrolls in battle up to now. I wonder if Disintegate is good.

It's good when it works, but not a good spell to memorize. In practice lower level Hold spells or Stinking Cloud are more cost effective.

The D&D ruleset and Gold Box implementation is really getting to me now. I got a feeling I might have missed out on a lot of good treasure because even after casting Detect Magic after every battle, I have no idea which are actually GOOD magic items and which are junk +1 items that do nothing but fill up my inventory with platinum that slows everyone down too much to carry.

You need to Identify your loot in shops.
You can also try on most items and see how your stats change. But beware of Cursed items.
You can also test out unidentified wands in combat.

 

[TigerKnee]

You need to Identify your loot in shops.
You can also try on most items and see how your stats change. But beware of Cursed items.

I know that you identify loot in shops. I've actually played a lot of GB. It's just been a really long time since I last played an entry in the series.

What I'm complaining about is a ToTSF thing, although I don't think it's solely limited to that module. I'm sure there are other modules have that problem too.

Basically, most of the fights are like against 10-20 human enemies, and then they all drop a big pile of 50 magic items at the end of each battle. But most of them are +1 weapons, and since those are easy to get in ToTSF, they're essentially about as good as a normal weapon outside of the purpose of enemies that require magic weapons to hit.

I seriously can't drag all 50 items to the shop EVERY time in the hopes that someone might drop a better weapon/helm/cloak that's greater than +1 enchantment, there's no inventory space for that. So eventually I stopped, but I kind of assume that made me miss out on a lot of upgrades that I would have acquired. The first time I ran into an Iron Golem (need +3 to damage), I only had TWO characters with +3 weapons, and one of those was a generic +3 Flail which I think was an enemy drop.

Eventually I think I figured out that unusual weapon types tend to be the one that have higher than usual enchantments, such as magic Short Swords in this particular module, but urgh, not good system design (good for its time maybe, not great today)

 

[mondblut]

I seriously can't drag all 50 items to the shop EVERY time in the hopes that someone might drop a better weapon/helm/cloak that's greater than +1 enchantment, there's no inventory space for that. So eventually I stopped, but I kind of assume that made me miss out on a lot of upgrades that I would have acquired. The first time I ran into an Iron Golem (need +3 to damage), I only had TWO characters with +3 weapons, and one of those was a generic +3 Flail which I think was an enemy drop.

Eventually I think I figured out that unusual weapon types tend to be the one that have higher than usual enchantments, such as magic Short Swords in this particular module, but urgh, not good system design (good for its time maybe, not great today)

Combat loot tends to be sorted by enemy type (empirically, starting with the weakest), and topdogs usually possess a different set of items than the common grunts. So, if you see 50 *short sword + *leather armor entries followed by a lonely *long sword + *chain mail + *shield entry, you definitely need to check the last one.

 

[octavius]

I seriously can't drag all 50 items to the shop EVERY time in the hopes that someone might drop a better weapon/helm/cloak that's greater than +1 enchantment, there's no inventory space for that. So eventually I stopped, but I kind of assume that made me miss out on a lot of upgrades that I would have acquired. The first time I ran into an Iron Golem (need +3 to damage), I only had TWO characters with +3 weapons, and one of those was a generic +3 Flail which I think was an enemy drop.

Eventually I think I figured out that unusual weapon types tend to be the one that have higher than usual enchantments, such as magic Short Swords in this particular module, but urgh, not good system design (good for its time maybe, not great today)

Combat loot tends to be sorted by enemy type (empirically, starting with the weakest), and topdogs usually possess a different set of items than the common grunts. So, if you see 50 *short sword + *leather armor entries followed by a lonely *long sword + *chain mail + *shield entry, you definitely need to check the last one.

Also, it may be a good idea to write down what each type of enemy with magic weapons and armour have. Then you'll know the next time you defeat a group of them, and you can easily check against your own guys' equipment and see if any need an upgrade.

 

[TigerKnee]

Finished Treasures of The Savage Frontier.

This is kind of a weird module/campaign/whatever term you want to use. Instead of dungeon crawling, most of it takes place in towns, where you got to smoke out hidden bases of operations, help towns that are being invaded or break down hidden plots. I think I basically did a grand total of around 3 "dungeons" in the game. Resource management for the most part isn't a thing in this module, since after every battle you can usually hike back to the Inns and snooze, assuming you don't rest in the enemy houses themselves.

It's an interesting concept, and I kind of liked the mini-puzzle of getting all 3 Crystals, but on the other hand fighting those Zhentils, Krakens and (I forgot the 3rd group's name) repeatedly just kind of got old. Once in a while I get surprised like the Red Dragon encounter in the Smuggler's Den, but most of the time, you'll just encounter those 3 types I mentioned.

Come to think of it, the start of the game is probably the hardest part. You face down stuff like Driders and Ettins before you have the tools to trivialize them (unless you imported characters, I assume, which I didn't). After that, a vast majority of fights in the game can be trivialized with Hold Person, although late-game, the numbers in each battle grow so silly you got to use the DD spells or Charm Monsters.

I sort of cheated a little and raised the level cap on my 2 Cleric/Rangers using the program that was posted a couple of pages ago. In retrospect, I'm not sure if I actually needed to do so, since they ended at 7/8, which mean I never reached level 5 cleric spells, which seems to be where the big guns are.

The Yeti fights are really annoying. They can't damage you like, at all, but you have to spend the first few rounds of the battle watching your characters run around in fear. What the hell. In a world filled with fantastic creatures, are you telling me that it's YETIS that cause adventurers to piss their pants and flee? I understand Dragons having that kind of effect on people, but YETIS? Or I guess maybe I should have a Paladin or something, assuming they're immune to fear in this version of D&D. But then that would be 1 character out of 8 in my party.

The Beholder fight is one of the only notable fight I think is in the game. Magic-immune enemies are so annoying in D&D. The best strategy I can see is Charming as many of the mobs as you can and then taking it down in one Alpha Strike because the longer you drag the battle out, the more chances the Beholder has to use his insta-death attacks on your party (which he can only do in melee, but Bow combat seems to take way too long with +1 Bow/Arrows)

I can't decide whether this is the most ingenious or dumbest way to defeat the last boss Freezefire, but here it is:
Cast Fire Shield.
Constantly walk back and forth from the dragon in order to trigger opportunity attacks, thus making it kill itself from the Fire Shield damage.

What did the Black Crystal Ring which you got from training with Melcarr do anyway? He said to keep it on 24/7... which I did, but was there any actual effect to that?

The romance subplot is... odd. I think the weirdest thing is that it's mostly told through your other party members commenting on it unfolding from the sidelines like they were gossiping aunties around the campfire. Also, I was kind of disappointed that the "confession" part is the last time anything ever happens. I was hoping for an additional scene as resolution in the ending or something... which was also disappointing in a sense past the point where you gloat over killing a dragon.

"You return and are rewarded! Here's a bunch of cash you can't carry and which you have nothing to do with! Anyway, have fun with whatever. Go walk around and kill some stuff, as if you haven't been doing that the whole game already"

Gold Box system gripes:
Automap. It gives you the entire area map from the start, taking away the sense of exploration but doesn't have extremely useful and important information like... I dunno, where the fraggin doors are located!?

Really bad spell balance in general. Or maybe it's just this module encounter design in general making certain spells much much better? Clerics especially don't really have that many options in what they can memorize, especially level 3 Cleric spells. Mages are only slightly better in "choice of spell to memorize." Like, doesn't Burning Hands mathematically loses on every level to Magic Missile? Still, even assuming a module with a wide variety of enemies in encounters, I don't particularly like all the focus on Save and Dies that D&D loves.

I definitely would kill for a "cast every possible buff like Enlarge, Shield, Mirror Image, Resist Fire and spread them on your entire party" button because rebuffing yourself manually for each "important" battle got old REAL quick.

I hated when the NPCs leave the party takes EVERYTHING that they given them with you. I think I lost some good stuff the first time Sijulahrgh (however you spell that) was kidnapped, because she returns with nothing.

The currency system in general. Platinum's super heavy and there's not much to spend money on. Part of this is because of Gold Box's implementation of Shops, which doesn't set any limits on items, so if you slap in a +5 Sword in a shop, you can't limit it so that you can only buy 1 of said sword and thus someone could easily outfit their entire party with such items, and I admit that shitty broken economies is kind of a staple of just about every RPG, but like I said in the past, I think Dark Heart of Uukrul has spoiled me in that regards.

Anyway, from other threads on CRPG with Tactical Combat, I might go on to Natukh or PoD, but I can't quite find the former on the interwebs and the latter is... buggy, to say the least

Or maybe one day I'll finally actually manage to complete Ultima V...

 

[mondblut]

Really bad spell balance in general. Or maybe it's just this module encounter design in general making certain spells much much better?

Is that your first D&D game?

Spelllevels where you actually got to choose which of the two spells is better are only a few. More often, this is a no-brainer. Even more often, there is not a single spell worth picking.

(ok, you actually get to choose between 3 useful spells on mage spelllevel 3. Fireball, lightning bolt and haste. that must be the only occasion)

 

[TigerKnee]

Is that your first D&D game?

Spelllevels where you actually got to choose which of the two spells is better are only a few. More often, this is a no-brainer. Even more often, there is not a single spell worth picking.

(ok, you actually get to choose between 3 useful spells on mage spelllevel 3. Fireball, lightning bolt and haste. that must be the only occasion)

Well, I never said this was a modern mind-blowing discovery for me. I'm just griping. No wonder I moved to Strategy Gaming later on, at least it felt like Game Designers for that genre had some inkling of what they were doing.

I dunno, maybe I'm nostalgic for the days of ignorance and innocence of playing Gold Box as a kid, where I thought that half of the spells being jack shit useless is because I haven't found out the secret behind using them and there's surely some kind of payoff if I stuck with it..

 

[octavius]

Finished Treasures of The Savage Frontier.

Congrats.

This is kind of a weird module/campaign/whatever term you want to use. Instead of dungeon crawling, most of it takes place in towns, where you got to smoke out hidden bases of operations, help towns that are being invaded or break down hidden plots. I think I basically did a grand total of around 3 "dungeons" in the game. Resource management for the most part isn't a thing in this module, since after every battle you can usually hike back to the Inns and snooze, assuming you don't rest in the enemy houses themselves.

Yeah, the Savage Frontier games are pretty much urban adventures, despite the name.

It's an interesting concept, and I kind of liked the mini-puzzle of getting all 3 Crystals, but on the other hand fighting those Zhentils, Krakens and (I forgot the 3rd group's name) repeatedly just kind of got old. Once in a while I get surprised like the Red Dragon encounter in the Smuggler's Den, but most of the time, you'll just encounter those 3 types I mentioned.

Compared to Gateway Treasures had brilliant encounter design.

The Beholder fight is one of the only notable fight I think is in the game. Magic-immune enemies are so annoying in D&D. The best strategy I can see is Charming as many of the mobs as you can and then taking it down in one Alpha Strike because the longer you drag the battle out, the more chances the Beholder has to use his insta-death attacks on your party (which he can only do in melee, but Bow combat seems to take way too long with +1 Bow/Arrows)

Beholders are completely harmless if you stay of of reach of their Slow spells (12 squares, I think), and mostly harmless if you stay out of reach of their death rays (3 squares). The fastest way to kill them is a combo of Haste, Enlarge, Fine Longbows (not sure of they are available in the SF games) and magic arrows. If you are forced to enter melee Enlarge (which should usually be a "permanent" buff since it lasts so long) + Haste is a winning combo.

I can't decide whether this is the most ingenious or dumbest way to defeat the last boss Freezefire, but here it is:
Cast Fire Shield.
Constantly walk back and forth from the dragon in order to trigger opportunity attacks, thus making it kill itself from the Fire Shield damage.

That's cheating. Personally I found the last boss fight to be the easiest of all the Gold Box fights. The penultimate fight against those black mages and clerics was much harder. In the end Freezefire went down in six swings from my Hasted and Enlarged warriors.

What did the Black Crystal Ring which you got from training with Melcarr do anyway? He said to keep it on 24/7... which I did, but was there any actual effect to that?

I don't remember it having any visible effect.

Gold Box system gripes:
Automap. It gives you the entire area map from the start, taking away the sense of exploration but doesn't have extremely useful and important information like... I dunno, where the fraggin doors are located!?

I "LARP" it. If my guys are in a town they know or have a guide or a map, I use the automap. If not I map by hand.

Really bad spell balance in general. Or maybe it's just this module encounter design in general making certain spells much much better?

More like generally poor implementation of the AD&D spells, from the ridicilously overpowered lvl 2 Stinking Cloud to the utterly useless lvl 8 Power Word - Blind. The Infinity Engine games do it better, IMO.

Clerics especially don't really have that many options in what they can memorize, especially level 3 Cleric spells.

Prayer and Dispel Magic. In Treasures I found even Dispel Magic to be rather uselss, since it doesn't negate Held status.

Mages are only slightly better in "choice of spell to memorize." Like, doesn't Burning Hands mathematically loses on every level to Magic Missile?

I rarely use Magic Missile, and never Burning Hands. Getting STR 22-23 for my warriors from the Enlarge spell is a much better use of the lvl 1 spell slots once your mage has reached a certain level (about lvl 7). Before that Sleep and Charm Person rules.

I hated when the NPCs leave the party takes EVERYTHING that they given them with you. I think I lost some good stuff the first time Sijulahrgh (however you spell that) was kidnapped, because she returns with nothing.

That's because the GB games don't track the progress of characters leaving and rejoining. So don't give them any gear that one of your own guys could need.

The currency system in general. Platinum's super heavy and there's not much to spend money on. Part of this is because of Gold Box's implementation of Shops, which doesn't set any limits on items, so if you slap in a +5 Sword in a shop, you can't limit it so that you can only buy 1 of said sword and thus someone could easily outfit their entire party with such items, and I admit that shitty broken economies is kind of a staple of just about every RPG, but like I said in the past, I think Dark Heart of Uukrul has spoiled me in that regards.

Yup, the economy is probably the weakest and most broken aspect of the Gold Box games, partly because they had to adhere so strickly to AD&D rules, which didn't work well when facing armies of Giants, each dropping thousands of coins, for example.

 

[commie]

Magic Missile, Fireball, Stinking Cloud...the three I ended up using for most of my Gold Box adventuring...Of course there were other essentials late in the games, but I dare say that these were my bread and butter for the majority of the time. The may have been better alternatives but I was too set in my ways to try others.

 

[TigerKnee]

Fine Longbows (not sure of they are available in the SF games) and magic arrows.

I don't know what the "Fine" prefix does, but the most common ranged weapon in ToTSF is Composite Long Bow + 1 and Arrows + 1. There wasn't any FAQ on GameFAQs for this game and I only found out of an existence of a Hintbook at the very end, but apparently there is a grand total of one Long Bow + 2 and Arrows +2/+3 if you do a sidequest which I didn't.

I can't decide whether this is the most ingenious or dumbest way to defeat the last boss Freezefire, but here it is:
Cast Fire Shield.
Constantly walk back and forth from the dragon in order to trigger opportunity attacks, thus making it kill itself from the Fire Shield damage.

That's cheating.

I dunno, I guess it's AI abuse in a sense but cheating? Shrug.

And yeah, the penultimate fight was tougher... but vaguely lame to me. Roll low on initiative and you're screwed, and after that it's a battle of who can cast the most Charm and Hold spells on the other party and MAYBE some FBalls as an emergency "stop enemy from charging spells" maneuver.

Speaking of which, is "taking any sort of damage during the turn no matter how tiny locks you out of spellcasting for that turn" really a D&D rule? Good thing you can get around this with Wands I guess.

Prayer and Dispel Magic. In Treasures I found even Dispel Magic to be rather uselss, since it doesn't negate Held status.

Those are the useful spells and the ones I use yes, but with the complete lack of any other viable choice in that level, it's kind of lame because all your slots are kind of dead in that level since you only need to cast Prayer once before a tough battle. If there was ever a time I wished for the Metamagic feats from KoTC, it would be now.

Granted, like mondblut said, most other levels, there aren't any legitimate choices either, but at least you can use multiple Fireballs in one battle, so I don't feel that bad about those levels

I rarely use Magic Missile, and never Burning Hands. Getting STR 22-23 for my warriors from the Enlarge spell is a much better use of the lvl 1 spell slots once your mage has reached a certain level (about lvl 7). Before that Sleep and Charm Person rules.

Sleep is broken at the start but slowly becomes worthless the further you get into the game, and since you start at level 4 in this game, that's pretty fast.

Charm Person is definitely one of the better spells, although I never understood what constituted as a "person" (I had some serious trouble with Greenhags until I figured out this was one of the spells that worked on them).

Enlarge is silly, what's with being a level 1 mage spell that's a better buff than just about every cleric buff spell, but I had access to 3 MUs so I kind of needed to fill some space with something else, and that's where the MM thing comes from. Outside of that and in an encounter where Charm Person has no valid targets , yeah, it's subpar.

 

[octavius]

Fine Longbows (not sure of they are available in the SF games) and magic arrows.

I don't know what the "Fine" prefix does,

It uses Strength to calculate damage, so with 23 STR you can often do more damage with a Fine Longbow than with a melee weapon, especially if it's a magic bow, you are using magic arrows and you'd only get one melee attack.

Speaking of which, is "taking any sort of damage during the turn no matter how tiny locks you out of spellcasting for that turn" really a D&D rule?

Not sure how it actually works in the pen&paper version, but in the IE games there's only a chance of disruption, IIRC based on how much damage is done.

Good thing you can get around this with Wands I guess.

Funny thing is that if you're Silenced, Wands won't work. I guess you need to say "take that, fiend!" when pointing that wand on a monster.

Charm Person is definitely one of the better spells, although I never understood what constituted as a "person" (I had some serious trouble with Greenhags until I figured out this was one of the spells that worked on them).

It should work on any man sized humanoid.

Enlarge is silly, what's with being a level 1 mage spell that's a better buff than just about every cleric buff spell,

I guess there's a reason it was omitted in the IE games. OTOH they included the equally overpowered Chromatic Orb, another spell I prefer to MM (unless I need to remove Mirror Images).

 

[mondblut]

Funny thing is that if you're Silenced, Wands won't work. I guess you need to say "take that, fiend!" when pointing that wand on a monster.

Well, I don't remember the rules per se, but fiction and lore of both D&D and outside it universally require command words to activate magic wands. So you might be not that far from truth

I guess there's a reason it was omitted in the IE games.

Moar liek, they couldn't implement character growing up 5 times their size, whereas leaving it as "give the strength of a giant, and screw everything else" wasn't a new shit enough for 1997.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I always thought Enlarge was supposed to penalize your AC while giving you more strength, but I don't remember exactly and I'm not cracking my rulebooks open right now. Needless to say, Enlarge gives you a huge strength boost for no penalty.

I just finished the Dark Queen of Krynn and was disappointed overall. Some of the battles were pretty well designed, and I enjoyed a few locations like the underwater city, but the game seemed rushed and the story lacking. I would prefer to play a game with great gameplay and poor story to one with bad gameplay and great story, but this game is a great example of a game designed around a few well designed locations (and some poorly done) connected loosely by a contrived plot much to the detriment of the finished product.

You are sent to another continent in order to find out if the Dark Queen is massing her armies for another invasion. And that's fair enough... I should go, get a general idea of what the enemy plans and where they are located, then report back so that my friends and allies can respond. But hell no, we do the complete opposite of that without ever even thinking about finding a way to warn the general that sent us. NPCs join the party and then leave, and without any kind of back story, making me not really care about their fate or motivations at all. The plot was so lax in areas that I found myself carrying around quest items which triggered ghosts responding to me with messages like "Oh, you found my McGuffin! Thanks. Now my spirit can rest" followed by another message telling me I just gained some XP. Who was the ghost? Why was the particular McGuffin so important? I'm given no clue. Several cities weren't even built, but simply had a window that popped up asking if you were there for training, an inn, shopping, etc. I started getting frustrated with the game's shortcuts and wondered why I should care at all if it was obvious that the writers did not.

Some of the encounters were pretty tough and I had to depend upon Haste more than I initially planned. Some of my characters hit 40 years old. If I would do it again I'd drop my cleric, though, and go with another mage or a third knight since Knights of the Rose get 7th level cleric spells and can therefore Heal and Ressurect. I did play my all human party of two knights, a cleric, a ranger, a white mage, and a red mage. They all got to about 24th level except for my knights of the rose which I had promoted too early and reached 17th at the end. I think a player could get away with three mages and three knights in the last game, though my ranger was awesome against giants due to his natural enemy bonus.

Overall, I had a much better time with the two previous games, especially Death Knights of Krynn. This one just dragged for me.

I have now played all the Gold Box games and voted on this poll. My favorite games are in the following order: FRUA (for the fan PnP module conversions), Pool of Radiance, Pools of Darkness, Death Knights of Krynn, Champions of Krynn, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Treasures of the Savage Frontier. The others don't make the cut.

My favorite series is the Pool series, which ended on a much better note than the Krynn series and still holds up well despite the Secret of the Silver Blades dragging it down. My second favorite was the Krynn series. Third favorite would go to the Savage Frontier, despite my hating Gateway and finding Treasures more charming than anything else. My least favorite series was the Buck Rogers games which I only really enjoyed when I started breaking the game by taking advantage of it by making an all combat party.

Ultimately, I think this series had some more legs left to it and I'm sorry SSI didn't stick with it for another couple of years. By the time FRUA and Dark Queen of Krynn came along there were very solid improvements to the interface, sharper graphics, and well done animation in both combat and through primitive cut scenes. I think the Gold Box engine still needed some spell upgrades, but otherwise I still think the combat holds up today.

 

[octavius]

I just finished the Dark Queen of Krynn and was disappointed overall.

I agree that the story is weak, but to me Dark Queen is the best game in the series due to it having IMO the best encounter design of all the Gold Box games. Hardly any random encounters, but lots of challenging scripted ones. And it's also much better balanced than Pools of Darkness, which varies from all too easy (the Giant areas, Marcus' Tower) to very difficult (Dragon's Aerie, Heart of Moander) to almost impossible (last battles).
Maybe they cut some corners on developing a good story, but not in providing a steady challenge.
Also, it has some of the best designed areas (if you like mapping, that is) of the GB games, like Hawbluff and the Tower of Flame.

Ultimately, I think this series had some more legs left to it and I'm sorry SSI didn't stick with it for another couple of years. By the time FRUA and Dark Queen of Krynn came along there were very solid improvements to the interface, sharper graphics, and well done animation in both combat and through primitive cut scenes. I think the Gold Box engine still needed some spell upgrades, but otherwise I still think the combat holds up today.

Yeah, I agree about this. Dark Sun did the story, C&C and exploration better so overall it was a good game, but why couldn't they have kept the combat system? But the Ravenloft games and Menzo were just disappointing all round.

 

[mondblut]

I agree that the story is weak, but to me Dark Queen is the best game in the series due to it having IMO the best encounter design of all the Gold Box games.

Giving every enemy mage invisibility at the start and every draconian "blow up for 8d8 damage upon death" ability hardly makes good encounter design. It is just... gamist

Hardly any random encounters, but lots of challenging scripted ones. And it's also much better balanced than Pools of Darkness, which varies from all too easy (the Giant areas, Marcus' Tower) to very difficult (Dragon's Aerie, Heart of Moander) to almost impossible (last battles).
Maybe they cut some corners on developing a good story, but not in providing a steady challenge.

DQK encounters are one-trick pony. Fairly effective, but one trick anyway. At least POD provides a plenty of variety. That unavoidably is bad for balance, but I'd rather have no balance than fight the same Dark Wizard and a bunch of Enhanced Auraks for the entire duration of the game

Yeah, I agree about this. Dark Sun did the story, C&C and exploration better so overall it was a good game, but why couldn't they have kept the combat system? But the Ravenloft games and Menzo were just disappointing all round.

Ravenlofts had great atmosphere. And I guess that wouldn't work with tactical tb combat. Immershun, huh. You aren't there to get scared by a random howl sound fx when you're carefully plotting a center of a fireball spell so that it would cover most enemies.

 

[mondblut]

I always thought Enlarge was supposed to penalize your AC while giving you more strength, but I don't remember exactly and I'm not cracking my rulebooks open right now. Needless to say, Enlarge gives you a huge strength boost for no penalty.

I don't think so. Enlarge just literally enlarges you to the size of a giant. D&D giants aren't particularly crippled with AC penalties due to their size, are they? Unless they are fighting dwarves, that is. If anything, thickness of both armor and skin of the character is also enlarged along with everything else, that would easily offset him becoming a bigger target.

 

[octavius]

At least POD provides a plenty of variety. That unavoidably is bad for balance, but I'd rather have no balance than fight the same Dark Wizard and a bunch of Enhanced Auraks for the entire duration of the game

Fair enough. PoD is my second favourite GB game, so it's not like I think DQ is much better.

 

[Dorateen]

I think the issue with Dark Queen of Krynn is that it should be analogous to Pools of Darkness; that is, being the epic high-level culmination of a series. But the Krynn games were a trilogy while the Moonsea saga had 4 titles. So DQK felt like it was cramming too much content into the adventure in order to catch up to those level 40 goals. Completing Pools was like a rewarding triumph, while Dark Queen seemed somehow less satisfactory. Or maybe it was because the Gold Box games were coming to an end.

 

[Sceptic]

I have now played all the Gold Box games and voted on this poll. My favorite games are in the following order: FRUA (for the fan PnP module conversions), Pool of Radiance, Pools of Darkness, Death Knights of Krynn, Champions of Krynn, Curse of the Azure Bonds, and Treasures of the Savage Frontier. The others don't make the cut.

Aside from your hating on Countdown, which I really like, I pretty much agree with your ranking and its reason. I don't like Dark Queen because, although it has more scripted encounters, they're all so similar and so one-trick (as mondblut said) that they feel just as repetitive and boring as random encounters would. POD's scripted encounters are a lot more interesting, and I remember them far more than DQ's endless series of super-powered draconians. And even the individual set pieces' design is better in POD IMO - nothing in the series beats the whole segment with Moander. Last battle of DQ was also a pushover compared to POD's, although the ending itself was much better (POD's sucked donkey balls).

Yeah, I agree about this. Dark Sun did the story, C&C and exploration better so overall it was a good game, but why couldn't they have kept the combat system? But the Ravenloft games and Menzo were just disappointing all round.

Dark Sun's still my favourite SSI RPG I think. As for Menzo it's pretty crap, but the Ravenlofts are much better. Combat system's not that engine's strong suit though.

 

[octavius]

Aside from your hating on Countdown, which I really like,

I liked Countdown; it was Matrix Cubed I didn't like.

 

[Sceptic]

I liked Countdown; it was Matrix Cubed I didn't like.

I know and so do I. I was responding to Deuce, who IIRC didn't like either, and liked Countdown even less (the heretic!).

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I only liked Matrix Cubed more than Countdown because I broke the hell out of it with my all combatant party. Both Matrix Cubed and Countdown had its moments. I liked the creepiness of the derelict ship at the start of Countdown, but I also liked the Warrens in Matrix Cubed. Ultimately, I thought both Buck Rogers games had potential, but were ultimately poorly done. Both games were a heavily skill-based system where only a few of the skills actually mattered more than once, and the solutions to certain puzzles lacked multiple solutions for something so skill heavy. Because of that, you could run into game ending moments unless you restarted with a character built with the right skill sets or manipulated the system by saving the game, dismissing a party member, and creating a skill bot just to get by the particular puzzle. So no, I did not like either Buck Rogers game. They had potential, but fell way short.