Anyone here played Ravenloft?

[Mareus]

I am looking for some help. Anyone here ever played Ravenloft? I hear there are two parts:
Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession and Ravenloft: Stone Prophet.

Which one is better, are the games any good and does anyone have it?

 

[Heresiarch]

I've played Stradh's Possession when I was pretty young. Very cool game with very good atmosphere, visuals and incredible music and sound effects. The Ravenloft horror feel is really there.

Unfortunately the game is ridden with bugs and some bad designs. For bugs, the worst of the worst is bow & arrows seems never do ANY damage at all. The occasional crash.

As for bad designs, one of the most infamous is there's a seemingly random house in the city which if you try to enter, you'll trigger a side quest and make one of your character permanently paralyzed. To get rid of it you must go to the church and find a priest or such. The problem is, you can't "use" that priest until you've solved another big problem in the church. So if you've touched that house too early, you're forced to waste a whole character slot for a (very) long time.

Others include: NO RESTORATION SPELLS (Ravenloft campaign with no restoration spells is insane), cure poison and disease spells and items are somewhat rare yet 80% of the enemies carry poison or disease, too little spells to use, spells extremely hard to use during combat thanks to the real-time combat, etc. And for a RPG with a HUGE city in it, there's no money to use to buy stuff.


Stone Prophet is in a Egyptian setting. I have not played it, but I've heard there things are improved there. The visuals are also, excellent.

 

[sqeecoo]

Yup, the 2nd game is very atmospheric. Quite hard, though. Don't remember much else. Hey, I might go try it out!

 

[Mareus]

I've played Stradh's Possession when I was pretty young. Very cool game with very good atmosphere, visuals and incredible music and sound effects. The Ravenloft horror feel is really there.

Unfortunately the game is ridden with bugs and some bad designs. For bugs, the worst of the worst is bow & arrows seems never do ANY damage at all. The occasional crash.

As for bad designs, one of the most infamous is there's a seemingly random house in the city which if you try to enter, you'll trigger a side quest and make one of your character permanently paralyzed. To get rid of it you must go to the church and find a priest or such. The problem is, you can't "use" that priest until you've solved another big problem in the church. So if you've touched that house too early, you're forced to waste a whole character slot for a (very) long time.

Others include: NO RESTORATION SPELLS (Ravenloft campaign with no restoration spells is insane), cure poison and disease spells and items are somewhat rare yet 80% of the enemies carry poison or disease, too little spells to use, spells extremely hard to use during combat thanks to the real-time combat, etc. And for a RPG with a HUGE city in it, there's no money to use to buy stuff.


Stone Prophet is in a Egyptian setting. I have not played it, but I've heard there things are improved there. The visuals are also, excellent.

Thanks for the info. Since I am not a very big fan of insanely hard games I think I will skip the Stradh's Possession, since I only managed to find the ripped version with no speech and sound effects anyway. If any of you have the full version I might give it a try if you could upload it. I am currently downloading Stone Prohet full ISO, so I hope I will be able to try it out pretty soon.

What I find interesting though, is that the Codex obviously isn't very familiar with this game. Only 2 replies, LOL! From old RPGs I have original CDs of Dungeon Hack, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds (I read the book too ), Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Hillsfar, EOB 1,2,3, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of of the Savage Frontier and Menzobranzan. I only miss Ravenloft series to have FULL collection of AD&D games. If anyone has them, please upload. I would appreciate it.

From all of these games my favorite was EOB 1,2,3 and Dungeon Hack. Menzobranzan I never ever managed to run with sounds so I still haven't played it. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Maybe the original CD is damaged, but that shouldn't be the case since I can copy it whole.

 

[sqeecoo]

You can download the stone prophet from here:

http://www.squakenet.com/abandonwarerin ... dejeu.html

 

[JrK]

I've played it pnp, didn't like it. There is a serious imbalance disadvantaging the players because DnD is balanced for magic items, which in Ravenloft are rare.

 

[Elwro]

I played Stone Prophet, which was quite nice but without anything particularly memorable iirc.

 

[Mareus]

You can download the stone prophet from here:

http://www.squakenet.com/abandonwarerin ... dejeu.html

Yeah, but you need a password. :S And it's god damn french.

EDIT: Ok I got it. Password: PARADISE, Username: ABANDONWARE

 

[bylam]

Thanks for the info. Since I am not a very big fan of insanely hard games I think I will skip the Stradh's Possession, since I only managed to find the ripped version with no speech and sound effects anyway. If any of you have the full version I might give it a try if you could upload it. I am currently downloading Stone Prohet full ISO, so I hope I will be able to try it out pretty soon.

What I find interesting though, is that the Codex obviously isn't very familiar with this game. Only 2 replies, LOL! From old RPGs I have original CDs of Dungeon Hack, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds (I read the book too ), Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Hillsfar, EOB 1,2,3, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of of the Savage Frontier and Menzobranzan. I only miss Ravenloft series to have FULL collection of AD&D games. If anyone has them, please upload. I would appreciate it.

From all of these games my favorite was EOB 1,2,3 and Dungeon Hack. Menzobranzan I never ever managed to run with sounds so I still haven't played it. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Maybe the original CD is damaged, but that shouldn't be the case since I can copy it whole.

Strahd's Possession was very good for the time. You can basically turn the game into an EoB game if you turn on "stepping" in the options.
I didn't find it particularly hard, but you do have to make sure you keep track of where you have been.
And ALWAYS pick up the NPC cleric at the first dungeon you enter. Most valuable character in the game, IMO.
Don't be put off by the doom and gloom, it is definitely worth a playthrough at least once.

 

[Mareus]

Thanks for the info. Since I am not a very big fan of insanely hard games I think I will skip the Stradh's Possession, since I only managed to find the ripped version with no speech and sound effects anyway. If any of you have the full version I might give it a try if you could upload it. I am currently downloading Stone Prohet full ISO, so I hope I will be able to try it out pretty soon.

What I find interesting though, is that the Codex obviously isn't very familiar with this game. Only 2 replies, LOL! From old RPGs I have original CDs of Dungeon Hack, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds (I read the book too ), Secret of the Silver Blades, Pools of Darkness, Hillsfar, EOB 1,2,3, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Treasures of of the Savage Frontier and Menzobranzan. I only miss Ravenloft series to have FULL collection of AD&D games. If anyone has them, please upload. I would appreciate it.

From all of these games my favorite was EOB 1,2,3 and Dungeon Hack. Menzobranzan I never ever managed to run with sounds so I still haven't played it. I don't know what I am doing wrong. Maybe the original CD is damaged, but that shouldn't be the case since I can copy it whole.

Strahd's Possession was very good for the time. You can basically turn the game into an EoB game if you turn on "stepping" in the options.
I didn't find it particularly hard, but you do have to make sure you keep track of where you have been.
And ALWAYS pick up the NPC cleric at the first dungeon you enter. Most valuable character in the game, IMO.
Don't be put off by the doom and gloom, it is definitely worth a playthrough at least once.

Yeah, I am willing to try it out, but where can I get the full game? I am not a graphic whore, and I can live without voices, but I have to have at least the sound effects. The one I found only has internal speaker.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

I'm pretty sure I've got the CD version laying around somewhere. I believe it came packaged with a couple other games - an Al-Qadim one and a Dark-Sun one, if I'm not mistaken. I'll try to dig the disk and upload it, if I get a chance.

I vaguely remember playing it a while back, and don't recall caring for it much. It does sound like other people enjoyed it, though, so I may give it another go.

 

[Mareus]

I'm pretty sure I've got the CD version laying around somewhere. I believe it came packaged with a couple other games - an Al-Qadim one and a Dark-Sun one, if I'm not mistaken. I'll try to dig the disk and upload it, if I get a chance.

I vaguely remember playing it a while back, and don't recall caring for it much. It does sound like other people enjoyed it, though, so I may give it another go.

I would appreciate it. Check my list I mentioned earlier and if you see anything you might fancy I will upload it, no problem. You see I have almost full collection of all AD&D games of old, just been missing Strahd's Possesion and Stone Prophet. I am downloading the Stone Prophet, so only the other one remains the problem. If you can help me out here I will appreciate it very much.

 

[Heresiarch]

Al-Qadim and Darksun are both very good. OP have you played them?

Strahd's Possession isn't THAT hard; you just need to save alot because you can't restore energy drained levels and there are TONS of wights and vampires in it.

Now I remember one of the biggest bug in it that rendered all the insane challenges completely obsolete - IIRC, the spell Invisibility 10' Radius have a permanent effect, even if you attack the spell still sticks around. So you can basically slaughter everything without fear of retaliation.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

I'm pretty sure I've got the CD version laying around somewhere. I believe it came packaged with a couple other games - an Al-Qadim one and a Dark-Sun one, if I'm not mistaken. I'll try to dig the disk and upload it, if I get a chance.

I vaguely remember playing it a while back, and don't recall caring for it much. It does sound like other people enjoyed it, though, so I may give it another go.

I would appreciate it. Check my list I mentioned earlier and if you see anything you might fancy I will upload it, no problem. You see I have almost full collection of all AD&D games of old, just been missing Strahd's Possesion and Stone Prophet. I am downloading the Stone Prophet, so only the other one remains the problem. If you can help me out here I will appreciate it very much.

I think I have all the games you mentioned. They all came bundled together, at some point (Forgotten Realms Collection or something).

I'm not sure what you consider as AD&D (most of what you list is in the Forgotten Realms setting, so I would guess other settings are fair game), but there's a couple other games that are in the same vein that I didn't see (there may be others):

- Spelljammer - don't have it, but heard it wasn't great
- Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures - a construction set for Gold Box type games
- Dragonlance Gold Box games - 3 here
- Heroes of the Lance - awful, and I think there was a sequel
- Dragonstrike - you fly around on a dragon and fight stuff; kind of like a 3D version of Joust, I guess

The last 3 are all in the Dragonlance setting, but had AD&D is on the box, so I don't know if that counts. Spelljammer was in its own universe, something about flying around in space aboard a pirate ship.

By the way, I found the manual for Strahd's Possession. The bundle was called 'Three Worlds of AD&D'. So, I know I have it, I just need to find CD.

 

[Mareus]

I'm pretty sure I've got the CD version laying around somewhere. I believe it came packaged with a couple other games - an Al-Qadim one and a Dark-Sun one, if I'm not mistaken. I'll try to dig the disk and upload it, if I get a chance.

I vaguely remember playing it a while back, and don't recall caring for it much. It does sound like other people enjoyed it, though, so I may give it another go.

I would appreciate it. Check my list I mentioned earlier and if you see anything you might fancy I will upload it, no problem. You see I have almost full collection of all AD&D games of old, just been missing Strahd's Possesion and Stone Prophet. I am downloading the Stone Prophet, so only the other one remains the problem. If you can help me out here I will appreciate it very much.

I think I have all the games you mentioned. They all came bundled together, at some point (Forgotten Realms Collection or something).

I'm not sure what you consider as AD&D (most of what you list is in the Forgotten Realms setting, so I would guess other settings are fair game), but there's a couple other games that are in the same vein that I didn't see (there may be others):

- Spelljammer - don't have it, but heard it wasn't great
- Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures - a construction set for Gold Box type games
- Dragonlance Gold Box games - 3 here
- Heroes of the Lance - awful, and I think there was a sequel
- Dragonstrike - you fly around on a dragon and fight stuff; kind of like a 3D version of Joust, I guess

The last 3 are all in the Dragonlance setting, but had AD&D is on the box, so I don't know if that counts. Spelljammer was in its own universe, something about flying around in space aboard a pirate ship.

By the way, I found the manual for Strahd's Possession. The bundle was called 'Three Worlds of AD&D'. So, I know I have it, I just need to find CD.

Great man! If you can find it you ll make one old gamer very happy. Well I am not that old, but I ve been playing games forever and Ravenloft was one of those games I just never got around to play.

 

[Flux_Capacitor]

Give this link a try. Wasn't sure exactly what you wanted, so I just uploaded everything on the CD.

http://rapidshare.com/files/147291065/ThreeWorlds.rar.html

 

[bgillisp]

I've played them, Ravenloft has a TON of secret doors too. Just an FYI. It took me a couple months to finish that game just because I kept missing one secret door that had the last thing I needed to complete the quest. That shouldn't be as much of a problem now though with FAQS on the internet though. Personally I did like first Ravenloft better than the 2nd, the 2nd has a game stopping bug if you are not careful, but I never hit one in the first game.

Spelljammer is ok...if you treat it as just a free form D and D game in space. The plot on the other hand is horrible, and the experience gain system left a lot to be desired (only the captain gets EXP for quest completion, rest have to get it from kills only). Oh...and good luck ever getting the level 4 and 5 mage spells unless you let the main character be a mage, seems all hired mages have no level 4 and 5 spells even if they can cast them, and you can't buy spells anywhere, they are just given to you randomly at level up.

Darksun is worth a playthrough, though I found the final battle rough just due to the sheer numbers you had to face.

 

[mondblut]

As for bad designs, one of the most infamous is there's a seemingly random house in the city which if you try to enter, you'll trigger a side quest and make one of your character permanently paralyzed. To get rid of it you must go to the church and find a priest or such. The problem is, you can't "use" that priest until you've solved another big problem in the church. So if you've touched that house too early, you're forced to waste a whole character slot for a (very) long time.

The character isn't paralyzed, he gets possessed by a ghost which demands to go to cemetery and kill a zombie lord there. And the problem associated with that, I think, is that the ghost kills off the character if you try to go elsewhere than the cemetery area, but in order to enter the cemetery you need a key from the church, and the key to the church is hidden elsewhere, so unless you already have it, you're fucked.

And the house isn't random, it's a large house in NE corner of the village, near the church/cemetery area entrance.

Others include: NO RESTORATION SPELLS (Ravenloft campaign with no restoration spells is insane), cure poison and disease spells and items are somewhat rare yet 80% of the enemies carry poison or disease

Duh, that's called "a challenge"

Restoration is IIRC a 7th (highest) level cleric spell, it takes a 13th level cleric to cast it. Ravenloft campaigns with no restoration spells is one of the things which make it, well, a HORROR setting.

There are a few scrolls and items which cast it though, I think. But it's about not getting touched by the level-draining beasties. There is some low-level cleric spell which protects from one level-draining attack. And then there is the dagger of throwing

As for cure poison and disease, they come @ 5th cleric level, just one or two levels into the game. Plus a plenty of keoghtom's oitments around. I still lost a character or two early into the game due to poison when I played it without AD&D knowledge many years ago.

Stone Prophet is in a Egyptian setting. I have not played it, but I've heard there things are improved there. The visuals are also, excellent.

Well, there is still no money or shops in Stone Prophet And dagger of throwing isn't a superweapon any longer. And desert trolls aren't harmed by water, although they should be.

 

[mondblut]

I've played it pnp, didn't like it. There is a serious imbalance disadvantaging the players because DnD is balanced for magic items, which in Ravenloft are rare.

Well, the SSI Ravenloft games have a shitload of magic items.

 

[mondblut]

- Heroes of the Lance - awful, and I think there was a sequel

There were two. Dragons of Flame was one, same kind of sidescrolling arcade. And then there was a third game whose name I don't remember off hand, Shadow Sorcerer or something like that, it had very different gameplay in the Hero Quest style (the boardgame conversion one, not Quest for glory). I liked what I saw in there, but didn't ever get involved to actually play it.

There was also a Dragonlance strategy/wargame called War of the Lance. Just played it several months ago, excellent game.

 

[The Rambling Sage]

The first Ravenloft game was the second game i played when i was going through all the "classic" cRPGs i had ignored during my youth, some six years ago or so. And i certainly do not remember the "States" (level drained, poisoned, etc) to be as bad - And in fact i do not even remember them, what in itself only means it was never as bad as to do so. The only "hard" memory i have of the game are the last couple of maps, full of some giant undead beasties, and the first couple of areas, since my custom characters were a Paladin and a Wizard and there was no way to put the wizard "behind" until finding a third character for the party.

Can you import your first Ravenloft game party into the second one or you must build a new one?

 

[Heresiarch]

Ah well, it was more than a decade when I've played Strahd's Possession and my memories are apparently failing me. Thanks for the clearing up.

Though IIRC, there were really no restoration spells, both learned nor scrolls in SP. Even a review in a magazine complained about that. I still manage to survive the game though, thanks to the overpowered magic sling and bugged invisibility spell.

 

[mondblut]

Can you import your first Ravenloft game party into the second one or you must build a new one?

You can import the party from RL1. Only the original pair is transfered, but there was some illegitimate way to import the NPCs as well. I think there was a byte for each character in a savegame telling whether he's original PC or recruited NPC, and you can alter it via hex editing before importing the save.

I used the trick to get none other than Vladislav into Stone Prophet

Spoiler:
and Vladislav is none else than Strahd himself in disguise. he didn't leave my party in time due to a bug

 

[Mareus]

Give this link a try. Wasn't sure exactly what you wanted, so I just uploaded everything on the CD.

http://rapidshare.com/files/147291065/ThreeWorlds.rar.html

Thanks, man. Downloading now. I owe you one

 

[Mareus]

Give this link a try. Wasn't sure exactly what you wanted, so I just uploaded everything on the CD.

http://rapidshare.com/files/147291065/ThreeWorlds.rar.html

I tried it out and it works. YAY! Full voices and movies. There are some other games there, but since they are only few dozen MB big, they are probably demos. Havne't tried them yet.

EDIT: I started playing it and so far the game really shines. I rescued some merchant from the goblins and persuaded him to join me. The battles are a bit clunky, but hey the game is older than most gamers today, so I can look over it. Since I am at the very beginning I haven't still seen much of the game, so I can only hope the game won't be only about running through dungeons and killing things. I hope for some old school RPG adventure elements, but we will see. So far I am pleasantly surprised by the game.