Hey! I installed the game to my laptop but realized the controls are awful without a numpad, and couldn't find a way to fix the controls :(
anyways Im installing the game on my PC and would like advice on a good start.

1. is there any way to make the dated controls less tedious? it was the #1 thing that seemed to drag the game down for me :( you have to ctrl f9 to close the game? what?

2. im assuming its 1st ed ad&d, is there exp share? id perfer a smaller party with multiclassing. f, f/c, f/m, f/t
especially since theives cant use bows, it seems like a much less tedious way to play than with a 6 man party. If there isnt an xp share function though, having less than 6 characters would be objectively wrong. (and the level limits on races was always confusing anyway)

3. fuck the code wheel

4. what reading (manual adventure guide etc) is important to read before starting?

5. advice in general? tbh i had to look up a map to the starting town to even find where shops are so i wouldn't die in the first area

6. tips on making character sprites? i took like an hour on my laptop crafting sprites to look as good as i could for just about 4 characters lmao

Agreed, the UI is the worst part about this game. Once you get past that though, it is an awesome game.

I don't have a numpad on my computer, I still use the number keys to move in combat though (as described in the downloadable "Pool of Radiance reference card"), it takes a little getting used to but worth it in the end (you need to use the numbers to be able to move diagonally).

I've never used it myself, but many people use Gold Box Companion so you might want to look into it. https://gbc.zorbus.net/ Yes, the XP gets divided among your characters. So fewer characters means more XP per character. But multiclass characters get their XP split among both classes, eg if a F/T earns 2000XP then 1000XP goes to Fighter and 1000XP goes to Thief. The GOG version is a hacked version, do you don't need to use the code wheel to verify each time you load the game. However, there are a couple of passwords you'll need the codewheel to translate later on in the game. Other than that, you don't need it. You can find an online version to make it easier to use, eg https://www.oldgames.sk/codewheel/pool-of-radiance You will need the Adventurer's Journal for when the game gives you Journal Entries, Proclamations, or Tavern Tales. It's also got handy XP and weapon tables in the back.
The Manual has got all the nitty-gritty on what all the menus mean and how to play the game basically, plus handy table of racial maximums in the back.
The cluebook is really up to you whether you want to use a walkthrough or not. - Always have "Detect Magic" memorised and always cast it on any treasure you find. Once you get used to the game you might be able to guess better whether there might be magic items or not (depending on the XP earned in the encounter).
- Magic-users dominate in this game, especially F/M. Sleep and Fireball, Stinking Cloud as backup.
- You don't need to hoard every bit of gold you find, just keep the gems and jewelry and sell them when you need cash to level-up. You may want to save up until you buy Fine Composite Long Bows though (they add Strength bonuses to your arrow attacks). No real tips, it's pretty tedious. I generally pick one colour for each character and make all their body parts that colour so I can tell them apart easily.

I recommend maxing strength for your characters since money isn't weightless in this game and encumbered characters are a pain. It helps a lot if your characters have maxed dexterity, especially your casters, so you can act first in combat. If your characters have very good stats random encounters will be harder but that's a good thing since you get more XP this way and the fixed encounters will be more manageable.

You don't need all that money, since there's hardly anything to spend it on, so encumbrance is really a non-issue unless you are so compulsive that you absolutely must carry around all the money you find.

The extra XP from monsters is trivial; you get most of the XP from treasure, most of which you can safely leave alone for the next band of adventurers. Besides the level caps are quite low in this game, so single class characters will max out their levels long before the end.
Multi-class characters rule in PoR, but not in later games.

Dex is the most important stat, since it governs both AC, missile chance to hit and Initiative, the latter being all important in the most difficult fights in later games if you export your characters.
STR can be more than compensated by magic items and spells.

You can remap the numeric keypad to wqeasd keys in dosbox but then you can not type in names or solve riddles.

If you don't want to deal with any of the above, there's also the option to play Ray Dyer's remake of PoR for the Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures (FRUA) engine.* Although you would have to deal with the inital setup for playing hacked modules in FRUA first, as explained in the sticky.

Disadvantages:
- not the original clunky experience from back in the days
- not the original graphics
- requires a few minutes of reading and setting it up

Advantages:
- VGA graphics
- controls are a little less dated, mouse support
- no code wheel required
- all the text is in the game, no manual reading required
- you can choose from a set of 49 pre-made character sprites

(Not sure how it's handled in the original PoR; in FRUA you quit by saving the game, but you can press Esc after initiating it, if you don't actually want to save, afterwards you're asked whether you want to quit.)

* The file for the FRUA remake: (game39.zip)

When you return loaded to New Phlan, go into a shop and sell all the junk you picked up. After everyone is unloaded, pool your money, buy one object, now share your money. This converts all that copper and silver you pick up into platinum. You can buy something for just one gold piece, like 4 darts. Save your gems & jewelry for leveling, like 01kipper said. When you start getting waited down by platinum, you can buy expensive light items at one shop.

I am trying to play Pool of Radiance and start an adventuring party. However, I cannot get the menu to move from dwarf. I am using GOG Galaxy and Gold Box Companion as recommended with a Windows 10 laptop.

I have tried using my arrow keys and my numeric keypad with the num-lock off, but nothing seems to work, not even my mouse.

I played this game in 1990 on an IBM 8088 machine, but for the life of me cannot remember what I did to get started.

Does anyone know how can I get characters other than dwarves in my party?

It should be the 1 and 7 to move up and down for this game. You can use either the numbers on top or the numeric keypad.

And try Page Up and Page Down for Prev and Next respectively (for example, shop menus).

The way it works with the first Gold Box games is that once you modify the stats there are not one or two orcs, but dozens. So I would advice to use an external tool like the Gold Box Companion to do so.

In any way, even when the game is somehow fun to play, I had to leave it because the way it handles resting and memorising spells having to go one by one is just hell.

Don't forget healing, since you only get one healing spell and it's pathetically weak. (It's like Wizardry all over again, except that Wizardry did eventually give you stronger healing spells (including a Heal equivalent).)

When the fastest way (in real time) to heal your party is to rest for literally weeks of in-game time, you know something's wrong.

Fortunately, my understanding is that later games in the series fixed these issues. (interestingly enough, the Dark Sun games took the JRPG-style approach of only being able to rest in certain spots, but each rest fully restores your party.)

For the currency you can Pool the money, make one person pick up Gem and jewelery and sell them. Pool again and buy Gold Ligthing Figurine 650 gold that weight 0 - you can join them and the weight is 0. Gold medallion at 100 gold is also 0 weight. As ther is no Bank in the game (Sadly) this is the best way, even if you loose close to or half the money when selling it again.

But then again there is not much to use money on, only usefull i found is an expensive bow, but i do not use bows. I do not understand why there is so much money and so litle to buy, but that goes for all RPG i played (i am thinking really usefyll thing that is not instantly replaced by an dropp).

2. Build multiple characters, there is a lvl cap on 6-7 and you will hit that cap pretty fast.

3. Be aware of LVL drain bug from Ghost/Zombie enemies, when i first noticed this bug 2 of my characters was drained 253 lvl and would be useless if i did not had a recent save. You can go around carying a bunch of lvl 7 Restoration spells but you can never learn them becouse the game has lvl 6 cap on Cleric. What i will do now is to trow out those Cleric Restoration spell and just Reload everytime im hit by lvl drain. (bve aware that 1 Restoration spell only restore 1 lvl, so i would need 252 of those then i believe i would be at lvl 0 again)

4. Be ready for much Micromanagment on the keyboard, but when you are into it it goes pretty fast, a thing that will probably piss you off is that the clerric does not auto heal whem cure is memoriezed, no you need to go out use the spells, memorize them again then heal then sleep again and repeat (or you can sleep for 1 week).

Other thant that i Enjoy the game very much, i love the open sandbox feeling that you can go in every direction and explore what you want...

And use GBC with automap, this take som time to get into but it makes the games so much more playable. You could aslo use it to cheat, i do not but i have used it to correct bug etc as you can controll everything in the games through it.

You get a automap you can put your own notes to and you can see you characets hp, bonuses and curses live.. all this is very very helpful

https://gbc.zorbus.net/