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Forgotten Realms CollectionPOR Beginner Tips(66 posts)(66 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 08, 2016
Thanks again Kipper for the help. I will give a shot. Here's a video I stumbled upon showing how backstab works in Curse of the Azure Bonds. It looks ALOT easier in that game. I hope it is....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_OtdNLGddY
Posted March 09, 2016
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cbarchuk: My party is currently in Koval Mansion. I got ambushed by one lone thief who failed so I attacked him. I couldn't even set a backstab against the one thief. Am I terrible or what? It just isn't intuitive to me. I made sure to write who went so I could keep track of where I am in the round. It went something like this...
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01kipper: It sounds like what you described would work on C64 (as long as the thief only has leather armour or no armour equipped, ETA: and no shield equipped).

But if the PC version requires two setup attacks, try this strategy with the enemy thief in Kovel mansion:

1. Delay until after the enemy moves (not a problem if he moves first).
2. Attack enemy with "setup character A" (not your thief)
3. Attack enemy with "setup character B" (not your thief)
4. Attack enemy with your thief, opposite "setup character B".
Hey Kipper, something jumped out me that you mentioned in a previous post: You said it's important to note that no one else attacked the enemy between the set up attack and the backstab. This might be the problem. You'll notice in the youtube video I posted that he always had his thief attack right after the set up attack. I'm going to check it out tonight. Does the set up attack need to be the actual first attack of the round? Does it need to hit the target?

Also I would love if someone who has the gog version can verify or not if backstab is working correctly.
Post edited March 09, 2016 by cbarchuk
Posted March 09, 2016
BACKSTAB UPDATE:

Well there's good news and bad news I guess. I'm in the kobold caves and just came across Princess Fatima I think her names is. I decided to attack her so I could figure this thing out that that is driving me crazy. I'm unfortunately one of those types of people that hates to not understand something. So I'm a glutton for punishment. I decided to work this out by setting up and attacking my own party members...lol. I originally thought that backstab required 2 setters. But it doesn't. I got it to work with just one setter and my thief on the opposite side. So that's the good news. The bad news is it only happened once and I'm not sure how I did it...lol.
Posted March 09, 2016
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cbarchuk: Does the set up attack need to be the actual first attack of the round? Does it need to hit the target?
No, it doesn't matter where the setup occurs in the round, nor does it need to actually hit. The setup and the backstab can even happen in different rounds, the most important thing is that nothing happens to the target between the setup and the backstab.
Posted March 09, 2016
I also noticed the manual says the thief needs to attack exactly opposite the FIRST attacker. Sounds like this is saying the first attack each round against the target is what sets up the backstab.
Post edited March 09, 2016 by cbarchuk
Posted March 09, 2016
LAST UPDATE:

Okay I decided to start up Curse of the Azure Bonds and try backstab out in that game. I created a party of 5 human fighters and 1 human thief. Went into the tavern, punched the barkeep, and started a brawl. Well guess what, backstab worked beautifully and intuitively. It worked every time right after 1 set up attack. The only time it failed is if the enemy took their turn IN BETWEEN the set up attack and backstab. So you don't even have to wait till the enemy takes their turn though it can help to do so because then you're guaranteed your backstab won't get interrupted. But it worked great. It's implementation in POR is either a bug, or it's completely borked. Thanks for entertaining this long and arduous experiment.
Posted March 09, 2016
Knowing how to use backstab will help tremendously once you start encountering Drow.
Posted March 10, 2016
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PetrusOctavianus: And I see dtgreene (who hasn't even played many of the games she is offering advice about) is spamming her usual slander about the AD&D designers being "sexist" for making males have higher STR. It's like accusing Nature of being sexist.
The problem is that, regardless of how Nature might be (and in Nature being female is not strictly a negative thing anyway), it is unfair to those players who like to play female characters. There is no sensible gameplay reason why female characters should be strictly inferior to male characters. If you are designing a game and you *really* want male and female characters to be different gameplay wise, make sure to balance the choices. (The best option, IMO, is just to make sex purely a cosmetic thing that doesn't affect character stats or abilities.)

In any case, this sexist rule is not present in 2nd edition anyway.
Posted July 08, 2020
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01kipper: When a multiclass character levels up you get half the HitPoints of a single-class character of the same class. You get the Full con bonus (if applicable) on the first character class to reach that level, and no con bonus when the other class(es) reach that level.

So, for example, let's say you have a F/M level 1/1. When you advance to Fighter level 2 you will get 0.5*(1d10)hp + full con bonus. Then when you advance to Magic-User level 2 you will get 0.5*(1d4)hp + no con bonus.
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kmonster: Not exactly true for the Gold Box games.

In other games than PoR double class characters get a total of the average HP the single classes would get rounded down, triple class characters can get even less total.

In Pools of Radiance 19 con is treated just like 18 but multiclass characters usually can get more HP than should be possible.

How the hitpoints at partial level ups are distributed doesn't always look logical, it seems as it was written directly into the code how many HP they should get for partial level ups, just try out a little.

From my old PoR notes about max HP at level up:

fighter/thief with 17-19 con: 7 as fighter, 5 as thief
fighter/mage with 17-18 con: 7 as fighter, 4 as mage
cleric/mage with 16 con: 5 as cleric, 4 as mage
cleric/fighter/mage with 18 con: 5 as fighter, 4 as cleric, 3 as mage

In later games multiclasses get far less HP, my 18 con cleric/fighter/mages in CoK couldn't get more than a sum of 9 HP for a level up in all 3 classes combined, no matter how I split the level up.
What about a F/M/T with a 14 con? Started at 5 HP, the thief level just kept giving 1 (although I didn't save scum as much as the fighter), and now the fighter level is giving 1-3. I've probably restarted it 40 times now. Haven't gotten to mage level but I'm wondering if it's going to be 3/1/1. Kinda crappy, but guess I'll manage. Bow mage it is.

Anyway, just wondering if someone else has some input on this. Otherwise ... this seems to be par for the course. Will update if anything changes on following levels.
Post edited July 08, 2020 by pansybolger
Posted July 08, 2020
Fighter level should get 10:3 = 3, mage level should get 4:3=1, thief level should get 6:3=2 as maximum.
Posted July 11, 2020
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kmonster: Fighter level should get 10:3 = 3, mage level should get 4:3=1, thief level should get 6:3=2 as maximum.
That would make sense, although I sure did keep getting 1 over and over for the thief, and same for the next level (w/ a +1 bonus, see below). Like I said, didn't scum as much as the fighter, but I'd imagine I restarted at least 12-15 times for both thief levels. Maybe bad luck or we're missing something there.

I ended up getting a manual of bodily health and boosting con to 15. I think it retroactively gives you the bonus points for the old levels b/c noticed that I now have 2 extra HP (from the first Fighter and Thief levels).

It seems like the same CON bonus is applying to all classes, which is why some have said their multi's come out with more HP when at the higher CON. My experience highlighted the other end of the spectrum. If you have a multi with CON <= 14, then you're probably only to get max 5 per level (haven't tested this with lower). Just getting to 15 brings that up to 8-9. I'd try to aim for at least CON 15 if doing a multi F/M/T.
Posted July 12, 2020
The manual of bodily health always grants +2 HP to the +1 con, independent of what happened before.
Posted July 12, 2020
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kmonster: The manual of bodily health always grants +2 HP to the +1 con, independent of what happened before.
Of course, this does give me some questions:
1. Is there a limit to the amount of CON you can get, or will the game allow you to keep using it, even if doing so would raise your CON above 25 (which isn't supposed to be possible)?
2. If your CON is too high to be increased (assuming that the game limits the CON you can have after using it), will using the manual still give you more HP?
3. Does the game check for integer overflow? For example, if you have 254 HP when you use this, will you end up with 254, 255, or 0 HP after using it?

(Note that questions 1 and 2 likely only come into play if you duplicate it or re-use the same character for multiple playthroughs, and 3 may involve abusing level draining (with save/reload until you get favorable results) to get your HP much higher than it would normally go, but I am curious about how the game handles these situations.)
Posted July 12, 2020
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PetrusOctavianus: And I see dtgreene (who hasn't even played many of the games she is offering advice about) is spamming her usual slander about the AD&D designers being "sexist" for making males have higher STR. It's like accusing Nature of being sexist.
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dtgreene: The problem is that, regardless of how Nature might be (and in Nature being female is not strictly a negative thing anyway), it is unfair to those players who like to play female characters. There is no sensible gameplay reason why female characters should be strictly inferior to male characters. If you are designing a game and you *really* want male and female characters to be different gameplay wise, make sure to balance the choices. (The best option, IMO, is just to make sex purely a cosmetic thing that doesn't affect character stats or abilities.)

In any case, this sexist rule is not present in 2nd edition anyway.
Well with tabletop D&D you can always modify game rules to your liking no matter the edition. But with video games, personally I'm fine with the idea of there being differences in strength between male/female but think it 1) shouldn't be so drastic, and 2) should offer a counter attribute bonus for females. For example, perhaps males can reach a higher natural strength, but women can reach a higher natural in some other stat. Would be cool to have the option to turn it off as well - just disable racial/sex across the board. I get that side of the argument as well, but again personally like it when different races/sexes have different gameplay options (ones that are balanced and make sense).
Posted July 25, 2020
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kmonster: The manual of bodily health always grants +2 HP to the +1 con, independent of what happened before.
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dtgreene: Of course, this does give me some questions:
1. Is there a limit to the amount of CON you can get, or will the game allow you to keep using it, even if doing so would raise your CON above 25 (which isn't supposed to be possible)?
2. If your CON is too high to be increased (assuming that the game limits the CON you can have after using it), will using the manual still give you more HP?
3. Does the game check for integer overflow? For example, if you have 254 HP when you use this, will you end up with 254, 255, or 0 HP after using it?

(Note that questions 1 and 2 likely only come into play if you duplicate it or re-use the same character for multiple playthroughs, and 3 may involve abusing level draining (with save/reload until you get favorable results) to get your HP much higher than it would normally go, but I am curious about how the game handles these situations.)
Per Stephen S. Lee's huge FAQ, section 4.5, "Abusing the Manual of Bodily Health":

"A Constitution of 23 or more is very buggy, and will often either lower hit points gained, or give you so many hit points that you may exceed 255 and wrap back around to 0, so I don't recommend raising Constitution above 22."
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Forgotten Realms CollectionPOR Beginner Tips(66 posts)(66 posts)
(66 posts)