Thank you all for the tips, I really get some feeling for the game.

Although, one of the insights is that Gold Box is kind of hard, so forgive me for asking so much details.

So, because of the difficulty, I might multiclass the clerics and mages for more defense (I read they can cast also with armor, at least in the Krynn series) and using bows:

Knight
Fighter
Fighter/Cleric
Fighter/Cleric
Fighter/Mage
Fighter/Mage

Of course, now I need loads of XP to advance virtually ten classes, it might not even be possible to get decent levels with this party.

But I just discovered the ultimate grinding: removing all chars from the party, rebooting the game, adding the chars to a party, restarting the game - voila, experienced chars get to play from the beginning again, including the high-XP fixed battles.

Of course, might get boring, but one can beeline for the important and lucrative things to do. The alternative would be grinding with low XP random encounters.

And it has to work with the sequels too (does it?), otherwise one would forced to grind the 30 XP combats in them.

I guess this is a legitimate approach (though you're right: doing that too often probably would get tedious; there's a reason "grinding" is called that). One thing about whether to max out your created party, though: very high level games, such as The Dark Queen of Krynn in this series, were deliberately balanced with the assumption that you would be playing a party with very high stats. Maxing out your characters is "cheating" in a sense, but if the game was deliberately designed with that assumption...

Again, if you want to grind in Champions of Krynn, your best bet is to wander the overland to the east. The further east you go the harder it gets. Of course, be careful how far you go before you're ready... (I'm still not sure how effective grinding is in the Krynn games. I'm sure you can do it, but again, Stephen S. Lee seemed to suggest that maybe you can't do it with more than six characters or so due to available experience being limited.) As others have suggested, you might want to turn up the difficulty level while grinding to increase combat experience. (Note that in gold box you also get some quest experience for various required and optional actions, even if you are not always informed of this.)

Yes, gold box is pretty tough. This is likely heavily due to the learning curve involving 1st edition D&D rules, which can often be counterintuitive and sometimes even arbitrary (and was very harsh compared to later editions). Once again, I suggest Lee's guides to Pool of Radiance and Curse of the Azure Bonds.* Ignoring the material specific to those games, his advice on party creation and equipping and on surviving combat can be applied to all the gold box games.

*Here are links:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/c64/578753-pool-of-radiance/faqs/73869

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/mac/564364-curse-of-the-azure-bonds/faqs/78365

I went with single-class mages for faster leveling (ans therefore getting the spells) and because elves can only be level 14 fighters (maximum in Dark Queen of Krynn), so the extra HP might not be that high and after level 14 half of their XP is wasted. Of course, the advantage of using armour stays.

I'll see how I get along, but I guess with the grinding by game restarting (and therefore also multiple magic items), I should get along although it might take time. The link above also speaks of this possibility and you already said the characters' age does not matter, so I have the time. And for the then already easier grinding areas I can increase the difficulty for more XP.

Attributes : I did not max them just by editing but rolled long enough and changed 1:2 for all important ones being at 18 (elves' dexterity at 19 in case there are DEX saving throws).


One major difference for my tactics compared to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale: it seems that Gold Box does not have spells or items for summoning own monsters, which I used frequently in the aforementioned newer A/D&D games.

Looking at the manuals, it looks like Dark Queen of Krynn has a summon spell, but it's 9th level.

So only for the endgame I guess, but better than none.

Detect Magic: for checking in own inventories, I have to cast it, then looking at my stuff, right? And does it work with everyone's backpack, not just the caster's?

While looting, it worked another way (not casting, but via the menu choice "detect") but the items just got marked as magical - do I have to go to the shops to know what the stuff does?

Detect magic works on everything (all characters and loot), but only for a limited time. The "Detect" option in the loot menu actually casts one of your character's Detect Magic spells.

To figure out what the particular magic item actually is, you need to go to a shop and select the "ID" menu option (costs money). If it's a magical weapon or armour you can check your character's AC, THAC0, etc. to see the difference after equipping it, but it might also have other special effects you can't determine so easily. Also, if it's cursed you won't be able to unequip it unless you get Remove Curse cast on that character.

True, but you can't just throw it all away because you need to keep some on hand.

By the way, since the strategy of starting over with the same characters to get more XP has been mentioned, I could mention that the feature is basically an early form of New Game +.

Chrono Trigger may have popularized the term, but the feature has been present in many SSI RPGs. (Demon's Winter seems to be an exception, but Shard of Spring is not (though it doesn't seem to work on the GOG version).) I've also seen it present in Dragon Wars, Wasteland (though I don't know of Remastered lets you do this), and Zelda 2 (that last game being a Japanese 2D platformer rather than a WRPG).

With Wasteland I thought it was not "official" but cheating, at least on my C64 - instead of inserting the visited game world discs, I inserted disks with freshly copied areas and so could play them again (the manual said the discs have to be copied to play, and the game obviously did not mark those).

Also, for Wasteland, it was kind of self-defense as grinding was limited to minor battles that were way to little for preparing for the very hard robots of the endgame bases - and limited ammo otherwise (although you needed burning clips for doing damage and getting the weapon skill higher).

So if the GOG version also has this feature, it might get on my playlist again.

Baldur's Gate 1+2, Icewind Dale 1+2 and Fallout 1+2 did balancing better - as they too are not easy, especially IwD, but I won them without cheating.


But back to Champions of Krynn: sometimes a fighter gets to "sweep", often not. How are the rules here?

Walking is kind of irritating when stepping one forward but hearing two beeps...

The DOS version of the game, at least, apparently shipped with a utility that allows you to reset the world, keeping your characters. (Think you might not have kept your inventory; I know Dragon Wars's New Game + didn't allow keeping it.)


Wasteland's method of boosting skills means that you have to be strategic about how you train your characters.

Some things that are worth noting:
* There is *plenty* of ammunition in the game. Running out isn't going to happen, unless you're firing energy weapons full auto all the time.
* Speaking of which, you don't need the weapon skill to hit while going full auto. 8 points in the skill gives you +8 to hit, while shooting 30 bullets at once gives you +30.
* Even then, you don't need a gun to be loaded to gain skill when attacking with it. (Yes, guns use the corresponding gun skill to determine your accuracy and damage with no-ammo melee attacks, though Brawling affects the number of attacks you get.)
* The one combat skill that's most important to increase, Brawling, can be increased just by using melee attacks on high AC enemies. (Note that throwing spears gives you a better chance for a skill increase, and that the enemy's AC is the only stat that matters here.)
* It turns out that Luck affects the damage of gun attacks. Therefore, if you focus on Luck with a character, give them an assault rifle, and go full auto, you should be able to do massive amounts of damage. (Yes, this is one of those games where that Luck stat is actually useful.)

And yes, I've beaten Wasteland 1 without doing any file copying shenanigans or obvious cheating. (I did do some character duplication, but that's a clearly intended mechanic.)

My understanding is that this only happens when fighting weak enemies.

Sweep only works against enemies with 1 Hit Die or less (Hit Dice are d8 used to determine Hit Points). If you're unfamiliar with AD&D monsters, these are the weakest ones (as stated by dtgreene), you can tell by looking at their Hit Points (which will be low).

Just finished Throtl, so far no need of grinding, with "sleep" indeed making a big difference. Unfortunately, sooner or later the enemies will be too tough to be affected.

Tried "Hold Person", but had no effect - maybe the enemy caster was an elf.

Are there timed tasks? In the catacombs I wondered if I could rescue more good dragon eggs if I rushed. Would hate it, as I am a careful player - step by step and in case of doubt resting or returning to the outpost to restock and sell.

Is there an advantage of visiting Gargath or Jelek first?

How can I know the type of cleric scrolls? I have some from a Throtl cleric battle, but ingame its content is not named. I just know from the cluebook that they are "neutralize poison". Also mage scrolls don't get their spell names in the inventory, but at least one knows their content when choosing to write them.

So, "detect magic" seems kind of useless because it doesn't tell what the stuff is for. Maybe for searching through loot, but after a normal battle there is kind of no chance of including a magic weapon - you might know when to assume one, for example after battles against special enemies or in treasure finding.

Gems and jewels are just to selling, right?

Stinking Cloud (2nd level spell) also works to incapacitate enemies, but its area of effect is only 2x2 and enemies can make a saving throw. It works against more powerful foes, but the more powerful they are the more likely they are to save and be unaffected.

Elves are not immune, but all targets get a saving throw so you were probably just unlucky. If you choose only one target (instead of 3), they get a -2 penalty to their saving throw (that's a 10% lower chance of saving).

In the Cleric's inventory, Ready the scroll then select Use and select the scroll, it will show you the spells on the scroll.

Correct, the spell is mainly useful for detecting which items are magical when they are mixed up among other loot. If you have an idea how much XP certain monsters are worth, you can tell there is some magical loot present if you receive higher XP than you expected.

Correct. I never sell them right away because they weigh a lot less than their worth in coins, I just save them for when I need money then I sell them on the spot (instead of carrying around tons of coins).

Note that with Stinking Cloud, even if the target saves they will still receive a -2 to hit penalty from coughing. And while it's true that powerful enemies have better saves, Stinking Cloud is still one of the most powerful gold box spells. Some kinds of creatures, like undead, are immune, though.