Hello

A few oddities between different games. I came across this while trying to compare Halfling Thieves to their Fighter/Thieves (I'm thinking of doing a challenge run) in Pools of Darkness.

It's already commonly known that (single-class) Thieves in Pool of Radiance have only slings (and bottles and clubs) as missile weapons, while from Curse of the Azure Bonds afterward they can use Short Bows.

Did you know in Pools of Darkness Thieves can use *Shields*? Helmets too in their debut. That changes the calculus quite a bit (though not so much that I'd ever recommend taking a single class Thief to fight the boss of Secret of the Silver Blades). The rest of their equipment section appears unchanged, but that's more than enough!

Also, if you transfer wands between SotSB and PoD, the two types become inverted. All-classes wands become Mage-only, and the rare Mage-only wands become all-classes. This makes transferred Wands of Magic Missiles more useless, but the ones you buy in PoD are the all-classes type.

Finally, the game engine in Pools of Darkness (and Dark Queen of Krynn in the Krynn series) newly treats daggers (and spears) as thrown weapons, giving a negligible boost in flexibility to mages.

[Edit 2/4/24]: Just found out the hard way that Hand Axes are no longer throwing weapons in PoD. I think this might have started earlier? This was not well-timed--I was deep in one of the portal dungeons before I realized my error.

Also there's maybe ONE Gold Box game where Spears are throwing weapons, I think that's Dark Queen of Krynn. It's certainly not PoD. I want the most damaging throwing weapon possible for just 1-2 more points of damage per action, and these flips make optimizing difficult.

I'm just curious: What do you consider a "challenge run" in Pools of Darkness?

As far as I'm concerned, ANY run in Pools is a challenge run!

--Maybe a little less so if you turn the difficulty down to minimum (though it's still hard in several ways). In particular, I'd like to meet anyone who could win the triple-wave final fight against Gothmenes on any difficulty above minimum. (I myself have simply never completed the game despite trying twice.)

No humans. Starting from PoR, though.

Although I'm still early in my first playthrough in PoD. The game's assumption of newly created characters hasn't caught up yet.

That's more of an 'Are you insane?' run than a challenge run. The forgotten Realms method of sticking to old AD&D/2nd Edition demi-human level limits make an already crazy challenging late game into suicide.

And I'm guessing it also hasn't caught up yet because you probably haven't had to go plame-hopping too much. They had to use the 'plane hopping destroys most of your items' mechanic to balance out that they gave out way too much good stuff in SSB and had to find a way to balance out letting you keep your stuff between games.

Um...not to get nasty, but Luneward is probably right. I seriously doubt there's any way to complete Pools of Darkness with no humans (the standard assumption for that game is that almost all or all of your party will be human, preferably imported).

One thing, not that it really matters: the gold box games used 1st edition AD&D rules (just what D&D was called back then), not 2nd edition. 1st and 2nd edition rules are very similar, but there are still some significant differences.

I was under the impression it was a pseudo-hybrid. While I've never done a deep dive into 1st edition, I understand that the to-hit mechanic, while similar, was not called THAC0.

Though the level limits make more sense if you understand the old 1st edition. My 2nd edition Bard's handbook had a section for how the 1st edition worked, and I vaugely recall it was like four or five different classes leveled up to 10-11ish before you had a bard. I doubt most campaigns were designed to go anywhere near that high, so getting to the 8-12 range was considered end game stuff.

You are right. The term THACO was not used in 1st edition. (It was, however, used in the BECMI series of Basic D&D, kind of a 1980s pared down version of 1e.)

We'll see. I'm already at a disadvantage because my sole Human X>Cleric (a dual class) has 17 Wisdom. I've become semi-reliant on Destruction/Energy Drain scrolls.

Although it's of course too late for your playthrough, MANY players recommend simply using the Modify feature to max out your characters' stats when you create your party. Sure it's cheating but many gold box games were actually balanced with the assumption you'd do that, so in a way it's not cheating. Playing with nonmaxed characters is a particularly hard challenge run once you reach Pools of Darkness.

I place myself in that category after a very unpleasant experience with a Str 16 Paladin in Death Knights of Krynn.

In this playthrough I rolled everyone until I got overall high stats, then did a sort of point buy where I exchanged 1 for 1. I just thought giving this guy too many maxes after whatever bizarre head-canon I did for my Fighter>Paladin and Cleric>Ranger was too much of a stretch.

I have two non-maxable mages in my current Treasures of the Savage Frontier playthrough (my third, though I've never beaten it). That one's a little more painful even though there's scrolls to make up for it.

But overall high stats are basically quality of life.

Strength is the most optional stat other than Charisma. Everyone's going to be Girdled or Enlarged in the end anyway. Before Enlarge is practical the Strength spell lasts a very long time, and your main go-to spell is Sleep.

While I never go below Max for Constitution or Dexterity except for RP reasons (exactly one Mage in Treasures), the problem with Constitution is that 1) by the time you need it in any given fight, you're already in deep trouble, and of course 2) you can cheese your way to infinite increases in PoR. Anyone who can cast Blink does not strictly need Dexterity for any reason except initiative, level-draining undead are a negligible threat in the Pool of Radiance series, and in most situations where you need to fight your way out of a jam Slow or Confusion evens up the odds. In most situations where you absolutely want to damage a single enemy at range, your frontline is pinned in melee anyway so it's going to be Magic Missile or a magic item that saves the day. The few fights where you start close to enemy Clerics (i.e., initiative matters) you can make all your characters invisible.

So really, the tools are there.

Wisdom and Intelligence are the most important class stats. Why would anyone do without enough Wisdom for Heal or Cleric bonus spells or to dual to Cleric? But I'll think differently if I ever find a Heal scroll yet in PoD. Mages are already so stupidly powerful that DBF spam is basically a lower chance of save-reload spam. Dual to Mage requires 17 Intelligence and is also really powerful.

I have often jokingly called Charisma the "poor cousin" in 1st and 2nd edition. Even in tabletop, it was apparently often ignored. On the other hand, Charisma sometimes sometimes has actual applications in gold box in negotiation situations, though it's not likely ever to be truly vital. Note that the Friends spell in gold box is supposed to be close to useless, because of an extremely short duration.

You're right about everything you said in the "Strength" paragraph.

I have to admit I don't quite understand how role-playing considerations apply in gold box. Your characters have little to no personality and occasional social interactions are mostly handled through the games' rather truncated narration system, with occasional spoken lines for NPCs. As far as I'm concerned, party creation in gold box is purely a functional consideration. This is obviously not the Baldur's Gate series. (Okay, my one concession to such considerations is that I always like to have four male and two female characters in a gold box party. Luckily, as you pointed out, Enlarge and Girdles of Giant Strength get around that rule and allow for any classes.)

I'm also a little confused about some things you said about Pool of Radiance. Does "chees[ing] your way to infinite increases" refer to a famous bug with the Manual of Bodily Health? (I've personally never been keen on exploiting bugs myself.) Also, I'm surprised you don't consider level draining undead a problem in Pool. They seem to pose a considerable threat there, particularly in Valhingen Graveyard but in earlier map areas of the game as well. A Restoration spell gives you back your lost level but it only puts you at the minimum experience needed for that level. Any further xp you gained are permanently lost. I've seen many players argue that this makes not being hit in such combats to be vital in Pool. Admittedly, they are not a considerable threat in the rest of the series. As you know, they don't reappear at all until Pools of Darkness, and there they are only a minor threat.

I've never really tried dual classing characters in gold box. I've seen many players strongly recommend it. The strongest recommendation there I usually see is dualing a ranger (once they reach 9th level or so) to magic-user. As you probably know, this is the only magic-user dual class combo that can wear armor. I've also certainly seen people recommend dual classing a cleric to mage, though usually only once the cleric can cast Heal, possibly multiple times. I haven't seen a lot of players recommend dualing another class to cleric. I have seen several players argue that clerics get diminishing returns at the highest levels.

Although you're probably aware of it already again, Delayed Blast Fireball can be equally a catastrophe when cast by enemy mages. From what I've heard, this primarily becomes a big problem in The Dark Queen of Krynn, where many late game mages come with nearly unassailable protections.

Hmm? There's no acting in action movie scenes?

In Champions of Krynn there is a recurring enemy called "Black Robe Mage". His figure cuts the chiseled arcs of a classic action hero, tall thin, sharp angles and waves of thinning gray hair. His athleticism is superb, with maybe 9 HP in Champion mode, a flat 10 AC, a movement speed of 12 which he never, ever uses, and he keeps dodging your attacks anyway. When you bloody him, he gets his second wind and Quarter Staff actually deals damage (or he flails at you with Darts).

I sometimes use the series' recurring villain mobs or prominent sub-bosses as models and imagine a backstory with them. It's admittedly easier to imagine a backstory and heroic archetype than it is to maintain it. In the case of "Artus", I put Haste on him over three dozen time and kept level-draining him and leveling him up so I could learn spells. And of course in his icon I made his beard white and his robes pink. No, he was not a convincing action hero. Except for his 12 Move. The copy bug or exploit plus the Manual of Bodily Health. I keep forgetting how ridiculous the Textile House is. The main issue I have is that the "don't get hit even once" undead in the Graveyard are in very contained areas and you're expected to prepare very very seriously for them. There's no random mob armies of level-drainers like in Death Knights of Krynn (which is a character power level where they are threatening). The other issue is there are so few of them--total and per encounter. The spectre battles are basically coin flips to flawless or TPK.

I can't stand single-classed Cleric's mid-to-high level fighting performance in Gold Box games. They get one attack and that's it? My first gold box series was the Krynn series where there's a very high level limit for Elf Ranger/Clerics.

Quite apart from swimming in Bless, Hold Person, and Prayer spells, right now my Fighter 9 > Cleric is a HP sponge who can get a fair DPR in on most everything except bosses. Round 1 he casts, round 2 he double attacks. Cleric 9 > Ranger has my highly accurate double attack, HP are fair, not great, scrolls are great, Ranger spells are a perfect fit, Dispel Magic and spell duration no longer scaling kinda sucks. The Krynn series absolutely. In the Forgotten Realms series I'm finding I really like Harm and Destruction. >_< And *every* early game mage.

I think what Dark Queen of Krynn does later is put them in formations that are actually serious.

Of course, this means I have a couple questions about that:
* How high can you increase the stat this way? (In particular, can you raise the stat above 25?)
* What is the highest value for which the stat actually provides bonuses?

(I remember, after hex editing a character's gender in one of the games, being able to modify their STR up to 100, but the character got no bonuses from the stat at all.)
To be honest, I wouldn't want a Cleric or ex-Cleric who can't cast Heal in any of the higher level games. Because of the bizarre way healing is "balanced" in AD&D (and in Wizardry 1-5, which just copied AD&D blindly here), Heal is the only worthwhile healing spell at higher levels.

I never go above 20 Con, and you don't keep it between games. What with the Str 50 glitch in CotAB (which gives no bonus) I think the stats wrap around.