Enemy spellcasters: I am now in Jelek and boy, "sleep" already is useless. What to do from here on? I guess, mostly "silence", but this does not work every time; and maybe "hold" and "charm" although many of them are elves. So fighting them now is more based on luck as it was with "sleep".

The manual is kind of extensive and informative, but regarding spell saving throws, immunites and resistances it does not always tell the whole story.

In general, could a battle system be called balanced when a fight just depends on who cripples the other side's spellcasters first?

Are magic shops kind of casinos? They sell scrolls but don't say which spells are on it.

Spells memorized: it is not possible to erase them (as in Baldur's Gate), right? So when I want to memorize one but the slots are full, I have to find a battle, if there are no buff or healing spells I could just cast in camp?

Selling loot: the chain mails of Throtl sold for about 15 gold. The banded mails of Jelek are better but only sell for 5 or even nothing. I guess this is because one has to imagine different local economy.

Hold Person and Stinking Cloud. Magic Missile is also good because it does automatic damage and disrupts any spellcasting for that round. Fireball is great for this too (when you get access to it).

You can cast them from the Encamp->Magic menu (even combat-only spells) to free up a slot to memorise something else.

Okay. Yes, when the game says they cast, then it is time to target those (unfortunately, so far I did not see where I can get those battle messages slower).

Game difficulty

My inital problems aside, I got through Throtl without major ones, so I thought maybe now I am well on my way. What happend in the graveyard? Three black dragons. Not too many HP, not too low AC, but LOTS of damage. And then those ghasts. No "hold" or something against undead. This game seems to cry for being cheated (although, so far not necessary).

HP level-up

Should be according to a dice throw, and stochastics says every throw has the same probabilty, so it should not take long to get the maximum. But I just spent half an hour with leveling to 4 cleric / 5 fighter and did not get 13 HP (char has 18 CON) and even only once a 12. And oddly when I use a savestate the outcome is always the same, not so if I restart the game.

Magic weapons

The +x refers both to THAC0 and minimum damage, right?

Money

Do I need it for something special or may I spend it all in the magic shops?

Thank you!

As for the HP raise, I calculated wrong, 12 is the maximum for a cleric/fighter.

So difficult battles cannot be made easier by using savestates (e.g. after sucessful attacks), pity. I guess if they occur, it is about cheating for more magic items.

Or maybe I get along, the new idea was getting longbows for all fighters in case the enemy has to close up first and I might use "slow" against melee fighters (although it is level 3, where fireball is more important mostly).

Close, and that's the way it behaves, but generally not quite the case.

Rather, the game has some random number generator function somewhere in its code, along with a variable, which I might call the RNG state, associated with it. (Typically, the state is an integer.) When the game is started, it seeds the RNG by setting the state to some value. (This might, for example, be the current time in seconds since midnight when the game is started.) Then, when the game needs a random number, it runs the state through the RNG function, gets a new random number generator (that ot converts to one in the required range), and that new number becomes the RNG seed. Because the RNG function is deterministic, any given function and state will always give the same sequence of numbers.

In this case, what's happening is that save states snapshot the game's entire accessible RAM, including the RNG state, hence you get the same results after loading state.

(There are some games that call the RNG frequently, like every frame, so you do get fresh randomness when you use save states, provided your input doesn't take exactly the same number of frames when you reload. It appears, however, that this is not the case with this particular game.)

You can cheat this way. Since the random number sequence is the same after a reload, you might, for example, know that your next attack is a miss. If you can get that random number to be instead used, say, for an enemy attack, you can get the enemy to miss.

For instance, I believe attacks and saving throws are both "higher roll is better", so if your cleric's attack is going to be a miss, perhaps if you use a spell like hold person, the same roll might be applied instead to the enemy's saving throw, causing it to fail and for the enemy to be affected.

Also, you can take an action, observe the result, and if the result is not favorable, load state and do something else.

Thank you guys :o)

i know, I sound like complaining. I also don't know why I find CoK rather hard after winning all those other A/D&D games. I think the enemy mages there were easier to hit and kill, they did not cast hold and charm so often (or those worked differently - was "hold" also in BG and IwD an instant kill?) and of course there were many monster summoning spells.

But Gold Box are such classics I want to experience them too. And so far (I am in Garath now), I like it and I did not need cheating (but I maximised the main attributes by rolling dice many times and changing 1:2).

Ah, I see, thanks.

Yes, an easy way to do this is to Delay your character's action.

No questions today, just some impressions now I cleared the town level of Gargath.

Yes, delay is a nice option. Although initiative is another topic. Why doesn't the game just line up the battle combatants? No, that would be too easy, instead they are somehow asigned to segments and you have a hard time getting to know the party's action order.

Just noticed that I may move diagonally :D (played Ultima IV before, might have added to me not noticing).

I have to admit I sometimes made some difficulty myself by not using everything in a single battle, escpecially spells (and so far, not once a potion or a wand). I think I need them in the next one (may it be forward or as random ones on my way back to the outpost), in some future hard one* or I want to fight as many as possible before resting because of role playing, I don't want the chars not to get too old, although you already said it doesn't matter in the games.

* Regarding items: as in most games I play. And in most of them, I stil have stuff in the ending ;o)

Yes, initiative is influenced by Dexterity but it still has a large random element.

I was probably wrong about that, but I don't use the Haste spell often (I prefer as many Fireball spells as possible). Of course, it's mainly only an issue with Humans, Elves have to age a LOT more to move into older age categories.

After you wrote this; I checked the internet again and indeed found someone saying he lost a character from old age in Pools of Darkness.

But he played with "haste" and I found nothing more, so without "haste" it might not be a problem even for humans. All-elves parties would be hard because they have a level 14 limit for fighters.

And if all goes wrong, I might get GoldBox Companion to work and edit the age.

Elves don't have a level limit for rangers, however.

furthermore, all fighters get past level 14 is extra HP and something like +6 to hit, as they already have all the attacks they're going to get at level 13.

+6 THAC0? That would be much.

Just to put in my two cents again: You are going to find the toughest fights very tough indeed if you NEVER use haste. That said, because of haste's high price of aging, it should only be used for truly major fights, not regularly. You should find humans the most vulnerable to aging as they have the shortest lifespans. Likely, the person on the internet you saw vastly overused haste (as I probably did when I last played Pools of Darkness). Another thing to note is that in Pools of Darkness, the magic shop in Zhentil Keep actually sells elixirs of youth, so at that point aging is reversible. The Dark Queen of Krynn is probably tougher in that regard again because it only has a few elixirs of youth. (Actually, The Dark Queen of Krynn is noted for a serious dearth of magic items altogether.) You may be able to find a mod that increases the number of elixirs in that game. I do know of a mod available through gbc.zorbus.com that adds a lot of very powerful magic items to the last Krynn game, with a warning that overuse of them will make the game a cakewalk even on champion.

Oh dear.

I guess if I do not abandon Goldbox, it might get a love-hate-relationship.

I like the setting, I like D&D, I like CoK itself so far, but I don't like some of the more absurd D&D rules and especially not the fact that the game seems to exclude more casual gamers (as I said, I am no beginner, but for some reason I might get in trouble here and I don't want to try two hours on one battle).

Well, let's go again - I recently interrupted Gargath Keep for the Tomb.