Hi everyone,

I an new to these series of games, love D&D games and am wondering if anyone can tell me if the combat is turn based or real time, and if possible a good starting group to start with which will go well through the series

Many thanks

Ginge

The Gold Box games (starting with Pool of Radiance) are tactical turn-based.

I don't recommend using the same party through the entire series with the same party. as many builds that are viable in Pool of Radiance, specifically nearly all non-human builds (which includes every multi-class build), are non-viable later in the series due to racial level caps. Also, the games favor male characters over female ones, as female characters have lower strength caps, a rule that I, and many other players, find rather sexist.

Also, don't dual-class at the beginning of Curse of the Azure Bonds, as you will get frustrated due to being stuck with a level 1 character for a while and lose a lot of XP when you finally reach a place to train. (I consider this to be awful game design.)

The other games (like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Hack) are more like Dungeon Master; first person, grid based, real time combat where you click on icons to attack and your attacks have cooldowns to simulate rounds. Dungeon Hack is easiest with a Cleric for multiple reasons.

Thanks for letting me know

The gold box series of games have their flaws, but on the whole I and many others feel they are solid designs for their era. In fact, this broadly defined series may be the best computer adaptations of D&D's 1st edition rules ever.

Not all games available from GOG's three Forgotten Realms collections are gold box. Mainly those in Collection 2 are. The Eye of the Beholder games are a completely different series, using a different engine (and based on 2nd rather than 1st edition). Also, the gold box games include three games set in Dragonlance rather than Forgotten Realms. These are not included in the FR collections but can be bought separately as part of of GOG's Krynn collection.

This might be getting a bit complex, so here is a list of all games considered gold box broad series:

Pool of Radiance
Curse of the Azure Bonds
Secret of the Silver Blades
Pools of Darkness
Champions of Krynn
Death Knights of Krynn
The Dark Queen of Krynn
Gateway to the Savage Frontier
Treasures of the Savage Frontier

The first four games form a tetralogy that you can import characters from one to the next in that order (albeit, awkwardly, as many features were added to later games that are not present in Pool of Radiance). Similarly, the next three games (the Krynn games) form a trilogy, and the last two (the Savage Frontier games, also set in Forgotten Realms) form a duo.

The action RPG (really a collection of minigames) Hillsfar is not a gold box game per se but is connected to PoolRad and Curse and characters can be transferred between those three.

(Further complicating the picture: there are two Buck Rogers games, Countdown to Doomsday and Matrix Cubed, that are effectively gold box games and that use an adapted version of those D&D rules. Neither game is commercially available right now, however. Similarly, there is a sort-of game, Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, that uses the gold box engine. I call it "sort-of" because it is really more a series of tools for creating your own gold box scenarios.)

For considerable help in making gold box more user friendly, I recommend the fan-created Gold Box Companion app, which has all sorts of ways of making playing these games easier, especially if you are new to them. You can download it at: http://gbc.zorbus.net/ . Just be warned that some features, like instant resting, can significantly reduce the games' challenge, if you overuse them.

(The same fan creator has another tool program, All Seeing Eye, for use with the first two games of the Eye of the Beholder series.)

I would recommend starting sort of in 'order in the games'

Pool of Radiance -> Curse of the Azure Bonds -> Secret of the Silver blades -> Pools of Darkness

then move to:

Champions of Krynn - > Dark Knights of Kynn -> Dark Queen of Krynn

While you have some advantage knowing a bit about D&D, I find that Curse of the Azure Bonds and Champions of Krynn have a somewhat unforgiving initial difficulty curve. I think they run on the assumption you are familiar with the games. Pool of Radiance was the first, so it is decidedly rough around the edges, but it does a pretty good job of easing players into the game.

Generally as far as group composition you will want two front line fighters (Fighter/Paladin/Ranger/Knight), one or two clerics, and one or two mages. Thieves are most useful in Pool of Radiance, with declining usefulness in all the other games aside from games that have post-game challenges that requite thieves. To that end, I suggest a multi-class thief like dwarf that has good fighter levels and unlimited thief progression.

I will also echo the suggestion you get the Gold Box Companion. It can fix some of the annoying issues already mentioned (gender oriented strength caps and overflow experience being lost if you level more than once). Also, don't look on it as 'cheating' to modify your stats at character creation to the maximum. The games are balanced around the assumption that all of your characters will be running around with maximum attributes, and in games after Pool of Radiance, you can always adjust combat difficulty up if you feel it is too easy.

Almost. Curse, like PoolRad, has no difficulty settings. All other gold box games, including Buck Rogers, do (defaulting when you start a new game to medium difficulty).

Incidentally, there IS a workaround to the female strength limits, even without using GBC. It's called the Enlarge spell. (Your magic-user needs to be 5th level for 18(00) strength).

It only lasts as long as the spell does.

My personal preference is to open the save in a hex editor and edit the character's strength that way.

Then again, I'm considering, if I decide to look at these games again, looking for where the stat caps are stored in the executable and changing it there. (Note that this is far more risky than changing the save file, particularly since it also contains executable code. As always, back up the file before editing it.)

If you want to play through all 4 games without replacing characters I recommend starting with 2-4 human fighters, 1-2 human clerics, 0-1 human mages and an elf fighter/mage/thief multiclass.

Nice thing to remember: GBC now allows you to create paladins and rangers for use in PoolRad. While playing that particular game, you can't level them up using the training hall because the game's coding doesn't recognize those classes. You'll have to use GBC itself to increase their levels. However, you can import them to Curse, and, starting there, you can level them up in training halls if you want.

I recommend creating your party for Pool of Radiance only and ignoring the sequels you might never play. You can start thinking about modifying after you've finished the game and want to play some more.

I'll add that your ability scores (Strength, etc.) are mostly set in stone at character creation and don't increase except with temporary special effects. You can mostly get around old scores but you usually want to Modify characters to have as high Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity as you can, or close to it, at least for your first playthrough. Hit points, too. Clerics need max Wisdom and Mages max Intelligence at high levels.

In the Gold Box games, Paladin is slightly overpowered. In the Krynn series Knights start and mostly stay overpowered (though the reason changes), but they're a level or two behind the other warriors. Also multi-class casters have much higher level limits in the Krynn series, but in exchange there are many, many more racial class combinations that trap you with medium-low level limits. I'd avoid Elves in the Krynn series for your first playthrough unless you're very dedicated to save-scumming. Low-level Raise Dead doesn't work on them, dragons kill characters very easily in that series.

Single-class Thief is the weakest class in the game. Backstab is absurdly powerful at mid-levels (you don't get backstab in the EoB series or Dungeon Hack). At high levels you're fighting stuff like Dragons that backstab won't work on (I don't think that's an issue in Menzoberranzan).

In the games with six character parties, I recommend a Mage and Mage/Thief as your last two characters, because having just one Mage can cripple your ability to crowd-control a battle if the enemy focus fires on him. However Mage/Thief does mean you're worse at fighting. You really want at least three fighter-types if you can manage it, accuracy is pretty important and they're the ones that have it.

My go-to easy mid-level party is Paladin, Ranger, Dwarf Fighter/Thief, Cleric, Mage, and Elf Mage/Thief.

In the Krynn series I favor Knight, Paladin, Cleric/Ranger, Cleric/Thief, and my last two is always a Red Robe and White Robe Mage but whether and how I multi-class them varies dramatically. Dwarf and Elf Fighter/Thieves are very strong in that series.

Reload if a character dies in Pool of Radiance, "raise dead" at the temple looses 1 con and 2 hit points.
To get your money changed into something lighter pool it at a store and buy something.

A party suggestion for PoR

- human fighter (for 18/00 str)
- human cleric (only way to get 6 cleric levels)
- half-elf fighter/mage/cleric (backup cleric)
- elf or half-elf fighter/mage
- fighter/thief or fighter/mage/thief
- fighter or multiclass fighter

By the way, for Dungeon Hack, a good class for a first attempt would be Cleric/Mage.

From Cleric, you get:
* All Priest spells are available as soon as you reach the required level; no need to hope the game spawns the scroll you need.
* Healing spells, greatly reducing the time spent resting. (Gets really nice once you get Heal, but if you've set magic to be powerful, even some Cure spells (at least Cure Light Wounds) restore more than in other AD&D-based games.)
* Create Food. There's a hunger system in the game, and you could find yourself running out of food and unable to rest; Create Food solves this issue completely, as long as you remember to rest right after casting to re-memorize it.
* Protective spells to guard against some of the worst things that can happen in the game.
* Spiritual Hammer is one of the most powerful spells in the game; the weapon you get is ridiculous.

From Mage, you get:
* Start with Improved Identify, which solves the issue of items coming unidentified. (Note that this doesn't happen for triple class mages, hence why I don't recommend Fighter/Cleric/Mage; in this case, you'd just have to hope the game spawns the spell, as the game doesn't give you any spell picks at level up for whatever reason.)
* If you're lucky enough to get Vampiric Touch, that spell can break the game; the temporary HP you get stacks and doesn't wear off. (If you get the spell, want to use it, and don't want to break the game completely, maybe only use it when you don't have temporary HP. Unfortunately, there's no way to tell how much you have.)
* (Note that offensive spells usually aren't that useful in this game.)