I have to admit I don't remember this bug the last time I played through (but that was in 2017). One thing I'm wondering about: did you make sure that it was your active character who was bashing, picking, or knocking (i.e. the currently highlighted character)? I'm not sure this is supposed to make a difference when it comes to opening doors, but it can't hurt to check that. You're right, the area, Quazle, is fully optional but can still be fun to finish. (True, I'm a completionist in my games.)

The multiple attacks per round for warrior types mean that a fighter gets 2 attacks in a single round every other round, interlaced with a single attack per round on the rounds in between, starting at 7th level. The fighter then gets a straight 2 attacks per round, starting at 13th level. Note that while paladins and knights follow the same pattern in attacks per round advancement, rangers have a different pattern, apparently advancing in this ability one level after the other warrior types.

I can't find anything about any magic shops at all in the clue book for The Dark Queen of Krynn. That doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any, as you pointed out there is one is Cekos in Death Knights of Krynn. In general, Dark Queen is notorious for its incredible dearth of magic items, possibly making it the hardest gold box game of all. I would import whatever magic items you can from Death Knights into it. (Just as a repeated warning: you may find the final game in the series particularly challenging, since you indicated you refused to max out your party. The high level games in particular were balanced with the assumption that the player would.)

Thanks, so I guess "3/2" means three attacks in two rounds and "2/1" means two attacks for every round.

Yes, as I rolled instead of set the attributes I could not get STR to 18/00 but the melee fighters have 18/55, 18/82 and 18/75 and otherwise I managed (with rerolling and changing 1:2) to max out every vital attribute - INT 18 for the mage, WIS 18 for the clerics and DEX 18 or 19 and CON 18 for everyone. And I rerolled levelups until I got the maximum additional HP.

DKQ magic shop: oh, should have thought of the cluebook. After your tip, i did a search too, and there is one at a resistance camp, although it is only about halfway into the game and it does not say what to buy there, so your tips to transfer as much magic stuff as possible is still valid.

Okay, I guess your party is as suitable as can be for The Dark Queen of Krynn. Although the game still has a reputation as quite difficult, I'm no longer worried your party is underpowered for it.

Yes, that's the correct reading for attacks per round.

I did once spot a hack linked to on the GBC site that places an overwhelming amount of very powerful magic items into the game free for your taking. The creator definitely warned that using them would turn the game into a cakewalk but thought they were cool anyway. If necessary, I suppose a few of the less powerful ones might be used in moderation to simply ease the game a little bit, but you should probably try the game "vanilla" first. My advice about importing as many magic items as possible still stands. I don't think you have to give up any this time.

One thing: don't forget Dave's Challenge at the end of Death Knights before exporting your characters (and remember the word "challenge" is to be taken very literally here).

Dave's Challenge - not much of a strategic challenge, just hard damage through traps (I have no thief, so more damage and less loot from the chests) and golems and again using draining enemies.

I won the final battle, although the mage got drained, but it is a too annoying battle so it was good enough.


Before the fight, the mage was level 14 with 2,639,389 XP. Then he got drained and after being healed at the temple the stats were exactly the same. I thought the temple only heals just above the recent level? And where is the XP for the ending battle? The only thing I can imagine is that the XP he has is a limit.

I thought Restoration brought you exactly the minimum experience points for your existing level before you got drained. Any extra xp are supposed to be lost. I also thought the gold box games use level caps, not xp caps. That said, it does seem to make sense to me that the xp you got from the Dave's Challenge final fight would simply be subsumed into what you got back from Restoration. That's all I can think of.

Maybe Restoration indeed restores the full XP. It would not really answer why I did not get the final battle XP but the amount of before, but it would make drain attacks much less annoying.


I found CoK more relaxed but with a kind of rushed and constricted finale. DKK had more sidequests, the feeling of getting better (stats and equipment) while not becoming almighty demigods was greater, but the level draining monsters just suck and steal not only XP but also gaming joy.

I managed to get the chars over to DQK (although the game stole a few of my knight's HP so he now has 150) and the journey continues.


Thank you again for joining this topic and helping :o)

I suppose that's why level draining enemies in video games are extremely rare these days? Even TTRPGs have largely removed the mechanic, replacing it with temporary penalties.

(I can't think of any recent or semi-recent game with level draining enemies.)

In Baldur's Gate 2 there was a protection spell, at least.

Unfortunately, I never found Negative Plane Protection in 2nd edition, like BG2, to be very useful. While you can use Limited Wish to cast it on the whole party, its duration is just too short to be practical. On the other hand, I do have to say that level drain in BG2 is incredibly easy to heal, with a single Lesser Restoration returning all levels, with (as far as I know) no permanent losses whatsoever, the only mild annoyance being that you have to rememorize all spells that were lost.

As for Britannia47, please let us know how The Dark Queen of Krynn goes and if you find it as hard as I get the impression that it is (er...not trying to scare you...) I'm impressed you got through Dave's Challenge without too much trouble.

But it had an extremely short duration, and I think it may have only protected against one level drain attempt, or against one successful level drain.

(Also, I think there wasn't even a saving throw allowed to avoid it.)

Yep, you're right. There was no save against level drain in 1st and 2nd editions. (In some defense of the rule, it DID serve the function of making the undead scary in a D&D context. Also, in tabletop, level-draining undead also had the tendency to create spawn that way, furthering the horror element.)

That Dave's Challenge final battle broke my refusal to ever use Haste. I HATE being drained.

I wish I knew about that place the first few times I played. My slow-leveling characters need all the experience inflation they can get. I don't like how much overpowered gear there is in the pit, though. I'm obsessive enough over this stuff as it is.