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Narsham posted:That one Rope Guild fight can be won, fairly reliably, once your wizard hits 3rd level and has selected the appropriate spell. People say this, and yet. Anyway that's enough of that, we'll get to that fight later and it'll be a running gag for a bit.
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Oct 1, 2019 17:22
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Reiska posted:Not today! Pretty good!
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Oct 1, 2019 17:22
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Neophyte posted:I didn't mention in my last post because it hadn't come up yet, but "$NAME SWEEPS...." is one of the only other things I remember from when I played these on my 486 DX/50 or whatever the hell I had then. TRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIPLE POST I am reasonably certain PoR is the only game in the series that doesn't allow you to alter character stats before you get rolling. Our guys are good at their jobs (well, statwise), but not god tier. And since we won't be rerolling every game... welp! It should be fine as long as I keep a better eye on constitution this time around. Last run through I used Raise Dead a lot without remembering the consequences, and by the time we got to PoD, Hanover had basically shrunk back down to his normal size  e: it doesn't help that, for stats fuckery purpose, everyone's a human. I made the mistake of making Rezen an elf first playthrough, and without getting into something I'll point out next update, that was a mistake.
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Oct 1, 2019 17:25
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Ohhhh yeah, 1st Edition was full of those mistakes.
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Oct 1, 2019 18:06
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Thanks for the permission, Chokes (previous page). From my memory and a brief refresher on GameFAQs, here is what I recall of the feature you have chosen to skip over. The Training Master Room In addition to the various rooms in Phlan's Training Hall, there is a central room where you may do two things- Duel & Hire. I am not surprised Chokes is skipping over these features. Neither returned after this game and neither is very useful. But they are important to talk about nevertheless for a few reasons. Mostly because they are there (that's the best reason to explore anything if you didn't know- because it is there!). Let's touch on Duel briefly first. This mechanic pits your chosen character against a clone of themselves suddenly created by game mechanics, then never seen again after the fight. You get no loot from the battle other than exp, so you can't duplicate items by winning. Nevertheless if you are equipped with magic items, your opponent will have the same. It's a good way to challenge your characters, I guess. And if you need just a few more experience to level and you're already at the training hall, it's nice for that too. Otherwise, no real reason to use it. I'll say a lot more about the Hire feature. Consider this a cautionary tale. This game includes the D&D mechanic of Hirelings. Not the fun kind of Hirelings like in Nodwick- you can't use them as Walking Trap Detectors, I mean Scouts. They're just an extra body in combat. Now, given the challenge of game fights already displayed, one or two of those may still be useful. But what this game doesn't tell you is how much it can cost you. It's already been mentioned that most Hireling NPCs are Evil and will turn on you in the final battle. But there is something worse- they cost money to keep around and can be hazardous to your life. Here's the table from GameFAQs of what Hirelings are available (it's random which one you're offered, and you can confirm before hiring)- * 6 in 48 chance: SWORDSMAN (Level 3 Fighter), 3 shares * 10 in 48: WARRIOR (Level 1 Fighter) 1 share * 4 in 48: ACOLYTE (L1 Cleric) 1 share * 5 in 48: HERO (L4 Fighter), 4 shares plus some items * 4 in 48: THEURGIST (L4 Mage), 4 shares plus some items * 6 in 48: ROBBER (L3 Thief), 3 shares plus some items * 5 in 48: CURATE (L3 Cleric), 3 shares plus some items * 8 in 48: EVOKER (L2 Mage), 2 shares The shares is the hireling's cost. It's what they get when you divvy up loot. They usually take and hide their share, as per the game, and you can't take stuff from an NPC unless they're unconscious or dead. Usually, they hide what they take too, so you can't get it and in the case of items they may not even make use of it in combat. So once they get something, consider it gone. Each party member defaults to 1 share, and you can't change this setting. So this means a Hireling can earn 2-4 times the money a PC is earning from fights. "Some items" means exactly that, they can also take special items. And you never even see what you could have gotten if they do! So, a Robber wants to join you for 3 Shares plus items. Yeah, a Robber, that's an accurate description.  There are other reasons not to use Hirelings. You can have up to 8 people in a party (6 of which can be player characters), so if you're already capped, plot-given NPCs (we'll see these later) may not join you. Plot-given NPCs also don't take money or items in this game, so they're more useful generally. Hirelings also have Morale, and I had them Surrender or Flee in battle numerous times when I used them. Why'd I use them? I was inexperienced and it seemed like a good idea at the time. But basically, if they fail Morale, they can negate any advantage they provide in combat. Characters who Surrender die automatically. Those who Flee survive but get no rewards from the fight. Unless the rest of the party didn't Flee, somehow the Hirelings still take their shares in that situation.  You also can't control NPCs in combat in this game. They want to waste a spell in a useless situation, you can't stop them. They want to Fireball your own side? Again, you can't stop them. Nor can you give them priority targets or use them tactically- they generally go Leroy Jenkins (recklessly charge in, kill enemies in no particular order) unless equipped with a bow. If they have a bow, they'll hang back and shoot, then go Leroy once they run out of ammo. The Krynn games allowed your Knight players to command NPCs, I think high Charisma maybe even allowed players to command NPCs in the Realms games, but this early it was not a game feature. The out of control spellcasting also got a lot of complaints, which is why there were few NPC mages in future games. I have seen some Pool of Radiance LPers take Hirelings into battle, get them killed, and then revive them as Zombies with Animate Dead, a 3rd Level Cleric Spell that was also not included after this game. You can control Zombies, and they don't take treasure unless you give it to them. Still, this doesn't suit every party. Sadly, there is no way to take NPCs into future games the way you can PCs. I have also seen some LPers take Hirelings like the Hero, who comes with +1 Plate Mail, then get them killed in combat and take the items. I suppose this is easy to do with 'friendly' fire, but I never did it. Matter of honor and all that. Hirelings, overall, are a bust IMO.There are some fights in the game where you may want extra bodies, but beating them anyway is a nice challenge. I did it, and I look forward to seeing Chokes do it too. achtungnight fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 21:21
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achtungnight posted:Hirelings, overall, are a bust IMO.There are some fights in the game where you may want extra bodies, but beating them anyway is a nice challenge. I did it, and I look forward to seeing Chokes do it too. wanna catch me brawlin' burly 
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Oct 1, 2019 23:08
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Chokes McGee posted:People say this, and yet. We'll discuss when you're there. I was that sad player that went through the whole series multiple times, min-maxed PC development, exploited every little loophole in the combat engine. I was the guy who played the custom-made FRUA module with a solo character specifically designed by the author to play through it, who opted for the "can't win this fight" final battle, beat it, and then sent the author advice on how to make it genuinely unbeatable. Then I graduated and got a job. I tried revisiting the Gold Box series a few years back and found myself wondering how I ever had the patience.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:20
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Chokes McGee posted:Pretty much all the Paper Sorcerer crew are Evil, as well, so they'd hitch a ride out of here at the first opportunity regardless of what state the world is in. The last thing I want is to have to fight Llewyn and Willow on top of the endgame bullshit. What happens if the entire party is evil? Is just an automatic game over?
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Oct 2, 2019 05:51
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DGM_2 posted:What happens if the entire party is evil? Is just an automatic game over? Yup! 
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Oct 2, 2019 06:18
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Chokes McGee posted:Yup! Bad design, developers. Don't pull that crap.
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Oct 2, 2019 06:26
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Narsham posted:
This is outside the scope of this series but I ask myself this every time I play Dark Queen of Krynn, which to me is a worse slog than Secret or Pools combined
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Oct 2, 2019 12:48
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DGM_2 posted:Bad design, developers. Don't pull that crap. in 1988, it's the players' fault!
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Oct 2, 2019 13:03
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DGM_2 posted:Bad design, developers. Don't pull that crap. Evil doesn’t pay, I guess!
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Oct 2, 2019 14:52
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I just found this LP, and it seems entertaining so far. Some of the things I find most fun about this series involve the dirty tricks some others were talking about, like item duping and "accidentally" catching hirelings with good gear in sleep spells. On a somewhat related note, I was able to finish my most recent play through the first game last year with evil characters, since each PC gets a choice regardless of alignment. Looking forward to more of this.
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Oct 3, 2019 22:43
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DGM_2 posted:Bad design, developers. Don't pull that crap. It was pretty common for DMs to pull dick moves like that back in The Day.
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Oct 4, 2019 00:10
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Pool of Radiance, Chapter 4: Home Invasions Today on the Gold Box series, we'll be finishing off the slums. Ish. I mean, we're not going to 100% clear them for a bit, but that's not going to stop us from trying! OR WILL IT  Here we are back at the Training Hall. Our previous misadventures are enough for Shanna and Sternn to pick up Level 3.      Rez, of course, is still level 2.    womp womp As mentioned previously, Shanna gets all her spell tiers in one chunk—and she's cracked Tier 2! Let's take a look at some really good spells and some really, really, really bad spells.
Hmm, let's see. What did I forget? Oh, right. There's:  HOLD PERSON Remember what I said about the Helpless status? Sleep is still the most ridiculous way to cause it, but Hold Person is a goddamn mainstay of our offense, and they just hand out three of them right off the bat. The amount of Hold Person spells we can memorize are only going up from here. I'm not spoiling anything when I say that 90-100% percent of our Tier 2 slots are going to be Hold Person for all four games. When you cast Hold Person in combat, you can select up to three targets. The range is pretty decent, too: we're talking 4x4 radius at least, so you can reach over the front lines and stun mages if need be. If Hold Person sticks, the target is put in Helpless state. It works on any normal sized humanoid, which—as we'll see later on—is extra helpful. Back into the slums we go!  ...lemon curry? Shyeah. I don't know what kind of cooking they do around here, but it's seriously grody. Ugh, even the smell's making me sick. What is taking Rezen so long? Beats me. It's not like we have anything to buy. Y'seem pretty put out by that. Duh? Shopping is my life. I thought that was the glory of honorable death on the battlefield. Psh, no. That's just my job. Love what you do, and you'll never work a day in your life. That's what I always say. I know, right?! Hi, guys! About drat time. Where were you? I got caught by a sketch artist on the way back. Check out these cool caricatures I got!  Hmm. Not bad. Why am I wearin' a helmet? I'unno. Artistic license?  Omigod. I can't even. Seriously, that's terrible. It doesn't look anything like me. What the—I look like I'm 50! The hair color isn't even right! You'd think they could tell the difference between a blonde and a brunette. I'm not even a brunette! At least, I wasn't until someone thought they knew my genetic code better than the gods did... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Hold up. If you're not a brunette, what is your normal hair color? Green. ...that's an option where you come from? ...that's not an option where you come from? Did you get a drawing too, Rezen? Wha? Oh, yeah. It's... I dunno. It's okay. Heh, I'm sure. C'mon, let's see how bad they mangled your face. oh come the gently caress on I can't help it! I'm very photogenic!During character design, you not only get to customize your character icon, but your portrait, too! It's super dumb, they all look terrible, and the feature would never be used again after PoR. Still, I thought you guys would get a kick out of me getting as close as I could. Also, people in the thread requested stats, so there you go. The character sheets are back from Level 1, but besides HP, your stats don't change as you level up. I'm sure one or more of you are going to come flying in here telling me how I'll never be able to beat the games without four fighers with 18(00) strength and two fighter/cleric/mage/thief/chef/tailors with intelligence of 18 but here's the thing: I don't care, shut up. For one thing, we'll be up to our eyeballs in strength boosting gear and spells near endgame. For another, the only important stat is strength, because it affects damage and THAC0. We'll get more than enough armor to make up for a point or two of AC, and while constitution is somewhat important to get extra HP, it's going to turn into rocket tag by the time we're pushing 40s-50s anyway. You'll note that everyone is a Human with a single class. This isn't just a storyline gimmick, but a very important mechanic for later games. Playing a race other than human in Forgotten Realms will net you some extra stat points during creation and a whole lot of compelling reasons not to do it. For example: elves can't be resurrected. Period. They die, they're dead. Too bad, get a new party member. You can imagine how unpleasant this surprise was during LP dress rehersals. There also appears to be some sort of spellcasting cap, or at least a bug, because Rez stalled out at level 9 in Pools of Darkness and there's absolutely no level cap there. What the gently caress is it with Rezen and not getting stats in RPGs, anyway? Maybe she needs to start taking vitamins or something. Non-human classes can also multiclass, which also sounds really cool ("Quick! Make Shanna a Mage/Cleric so she can be a Sage!"), until you realize all your experience is split between the classes automatically ("Oh gods why is she still at level 1"). On top of that, multiclass characters definitely have a level cap. And on top of that, PoR is bugged when it comes to multiclass characters. I don't know all the details, and it may just be my imagination since everyone plays multiclass in FAQs, but I've never gotten one over Level 2. Maybe it's just because I get frustrated and give up early. I don't know, and I don't care.   *tinker* *pick* Sternn? I think we should at least, like, come up with a battle plan... Pfft! What could possibly— No. *yank* Hmpf. Seriously. I don't know why the rest of you don't learn, but we're not going in there without magical protection. All of you sit while I get spells right. Who the gently caress put you in charge? Oh, I'm sure you've met him. His name is Mr. Hold Person. Wh— Now, all of you shush. There. Bless, Protection from Evil, and Hold Person. Now all I have to do is perform the proper rituals, aaaaand....  Man. There's just something about you guys that the universe hates. —at? Back just in time! Oh, great. Is time skipping forward again? "Again?"  Good news, everyone! The random encounters are escalating further! A standard goblin fight now includes a small mob and four Goblin Leaders. Even better, we're surprised, so all our fighters are going last! At least the Leaders are up front where we deal with them right away. Quite a great deal of sweeping, camping, and healing ensues, and we finally get Shanna's buffs memorized.  Protection from Evil will go on Justine, because the game still hates her, and Hanover, because Hanover. Bless affects everyone. After that, we give Sternn the go-ahead to open the lock.   Yeeeeah. Your home.  Squatters' rights, I guess.  Around 25 orcs and four orc leaders are on the menu for today. Orc Leaders are basically comparable to Goblin Leaders right down to the bow, but they can't be swept. That makes this fight a pain in the rear end... or would, if we didn't have  HOLD PERSON  Oh man. I love it when they can't fight back. We have a lot in common, you and I.  Remember: I said Hold Person works on any normal-sized humanoid. If it's one square tall, not undead, and even remotely person-shaped, Hold Person will stop it in its tracks. We immediately knock out the leaders, which makes the rest of this more tolerable. As does this.  All right, all right. I'm impressed. Dang straight.  Hey, they lined up in a 3x3 grid. What did they think was going to happen? Besides the obvious benefits, creating a wall of Helpless orcs severely hampers the rest from attacking us. We knock out a huge chunk of their army, and the rest surrender quickly. Easy peasy, and not a drop of damage taken!  We get ~400 XP for our trouble, which is pretty good. But, more importantly...   Apparently, all those Orc Leaders were carrying +1 Broad Swords. We also get +1 Chain Mail and a +1 Flail. +1 Chain Mail is basically Banded Mail, except with a max move range of 12 instead of 9. We give it to Heather, because magic armor is so in this season. Meanwhile, the +1 Flail makes Shanna a little more useful in combat. Clerics actually aren't bad mid-level fighters, but early on, their THAC0 is appreciably terrible. If we can get our mitts on some magical weapons for her, so much the better. On the way out...   Hey! I want my fortune told. You know it's a scam, right? And I can respect that.  See? She just shits out some deep-sounding contradictions and everybody thinks she's got magic powers. Her aura is literally projecting from her body. It's a light trick! Justine Thyme. Speak not ill of the gods' power. ... Okie doke! Thanks for the info. Hey, before we go, I have to ask. Why are you living out in this shithole? Low property values. And I can respect that, too. Plus, the neighbors are kind. ... You... you mean the orcs? Oh, yes! The Orcingtons are such a nice family. Trevor and Yvonne and their 25 kids... you don't see families like that living under one roof any more. Really warms the heart. ... Looks like we got a witness to take care of, boss. Don't you dare.Yes, that's [A]ttack down there in the options list. I'm not going to pick it because 1) that's really awful, what the gently caress and 2) there are Consequences™. If you get your serial murder on, you get no resistance, a few coppers, and an ominous message that "the gods have taken notice of your actions." What that means is, you can never rest in the Slums again without getting jumped by monsters. I don't know if it carries over to other sections of Phlan, but I'm not about to find out. Back to town after all that, and we grab level 3 for our fighters!    But still no level up for Rezen. gently caress EVERYTHING EVER ARGHOur fighters can now sweep 3 monsters a strike! Which would have been really, really helpful for that goblin fight and is absolutely worthless for fighting orcs. Sigh. One more fight to take care of...   Oh no you don't. Not this time. Everyone ready? Hell yeah. Let's do this.     You have got to be kidding me.  We're looking at about 36 Orcs and two Orc Leaders. The good news is, they come prepackaged into a convenient choke point, so we'll probably only deal with 4-5 at any given time. The bad news is, those two Orc Leaders have bows. With our THAC0 being what is it, their buddies will mob up and slaughter us before we can outshoot them. Since our fighters are at Level 3, we have a good amount of HP. We're just going to have to soldier through while Rez backs us up with—   ... rip in peaceFantastic. Rezen managed to get a single sleep spell off and immediately got merked. This is one of the problems with mages: they're almost always glass cannons, hence the strategy Shadowrun lovingly dubs "geek the mage." We'll have to roll up our sleeves and hack our way down the hallway until they either run out of arrows, orcs, or both. But it's okay, because just before Rez went down, we started casting...  HOLD PERSON  Shanna can lock down about 9 orcs or so in addition to fighting and killing them straight up. Beyond that, our THAC0 has also started creeping southwards. You can already tell the difference.   Between this and our front line being able to soak up projectiles, the fight goes a lot smoother than it could've. It just takes a lot longer to hack our way through without a second cast of Sleep.   A few minutes later, we've whittled their numbers down to about a fourth, and the rest throw down their weapons and beg for mercy. Not bad! Only ~100 XP, though, and no magical gear. Still, those were just the guards. Let's heal up and see what's down the hall!   Oof. Oh, shake it off, you big baby. Ooh ooh look at me! I'm Justine! I have blonde hair, a huge man jaw, and treat everyone with naked contempt to hide my internal strife over the man I love being a morally compromised narcissist! ... Hey, what are you guys talking about? Shut up, Sternn. 'kay. ... ...so lonely...   I CAST MAGIC MISSLE It hits. Make your damage roll.  Ooh, sorry. Looks like a 1. The adventurers barely feel it. Man, this sucks. I could do better than this in real life.  You just had to go and say something, didn't you?This is our introduction to large enemies. Anything that takes up more than a square is considered large, and will mostly consist of giant humanoids: gnolls, ogres, Big Show, Shaquille O'Neil, etc. There are also larger monster types that take up two horizontal spaces, and really super duper large enemy types that take up a 2x2 area. As you can imagine, all of those will not be fun to fight. Fortunately, we're quite a ways out from seeing any of them. Large monsters change the amount of damage your weapon does: some not appreciably or at all, some dramatically. We lose a point off having broad swords, but having 2-7 base damage instead of 2-8 isn't that bad. We'd much rather have long swords, though. The range jumps from 1-8 to a whopping 1-10. Later on, we'll see weapon types that can do even more than that. They're all two handed, though, and we need our shields right now. Anyway, it's a moot point. Because we can cast... HOLD PERS—  Oh for poo poo's sake. lol ownedThe moral of this story? Don't be so quick to hit Target when aiming, because the square always centers on the caster in between. Anyway, despite Shanna's massive self-own, we manage to Hold the hobgoblin in the back as our first action. Heather murders the poo poo out of one of the gnolls...   ...and Rez stuns another hobgoblin and gnoll with a single Sleep spell.  That ogre hits a ton and has a pretty hefty amount of HP, but it's still academic from here.   Victory!  No magic gear!  No treasure, either! Congratulations, that was a complete waste of time! I mean, I guess we stopped various monster factions from uniting to take over the Slums. Or, maybe we really did just interrupt their D&D session. I don't really care. It's the last fight in the Slums we're going to do for a while, and I'm going to consider this part complete. Hooray. We did it, everybody. We cleared out the Slums and absolutely didn't ignore a fight in the Rope Guild because it's incovenient to the narrative.   Welp, that's the Slums. Where to next? If I'm reading this right, this door will lead us to a giant letter B. Will you give me that Sheesh. Touchy. Okay. Up ahead is the water district of the old city. I assume they want us to liberate that block, as well. Great. So, what else are we gonna kill? Omigod, I thought you'd never ask!Next Time: From a Well, Actually Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Oct 7, 2019 |
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Oct 7, 2019 03:27
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Hold Person is another good spell, generally. But unlike Sleep, there's a saving throw.  One specific situation in Death Knights of Krynn that asks for it specifically is the only time I remember casting Snake Charm in a Gold Box game. Otherwise, just kill the drat snakes!Poor Orkington family... I LOLed at the monster D&D session. And I don't blame you for waiting on that one Rope Guild fight. I wonder if Lassie knows about this well.
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Oct 7, 2019 04:30
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achtungnight posted:Poor Orkington family... I LOLed at the monster D&D session. And I don't blame you for waiting on that one Rope Guild fight. We are literally unable to do it right now without a TPK and trying to do it will become a running gag over the next few updates. (I know there's a way to, but I don't have that level of patience.)
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Oct 7, 2019 04:34
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Alpha3KV posted:I just found this LP, and it seems entertaining so far. Some of the things I find most fun about this series involve the dirty tricks some others were talking about, like item duping and "accidentally" catching hirelings with good gear in sleep spells. On a somewhat related note, I was able to finish my most recent play through the first game last year with evil characters, since each PC gets a choice regardless of alignment. Looking forward to more of this. On further review, it appears that this is correct. Whoops! I still stand by picking Shanna as the healer over Willow, because Rez is a spaz and everyone else is morally dubious as best. We need a conscience or this party was going to implode before it even got off the starting line.
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Oct 7, 2019 04:43
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Those Gnolls don't look much like Hyena Men.
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Oct 7, 2019 06:28
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So that thing about your elf caster topping out at 9? Yeah, that's because non-humans have level caps in these editions. Why? Because gently caress you, that's why. I guess there needed to be some incentive to playing a human. As for multiclassing, only non-humans can do it, and the way it works (assuming those particular rules remained the same between this edition and the one I know) is that experience is divided up between your classes evenly, and they grow at their own rate. So if you're a fighter/magic-user, and you do something that gives you 500 XP, you don't get 500 XP as a character. Your fighter half gets 250, and your mage half gets 250. And when you beat on enough stuff that your single-class fighter buddy has 10k XP and is comfortably level 4, you'll have 5k XP in Fighter and 5k in Magic-User, making you a level 3 Fighter/2 Magic-User. But like I said, only non-humans can multi-class. If you're human, instead you dual-class, which is needlessly complicated, kind of stupid, and something Chokes may want to cover when we get to the point where it's relevant.
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Oct 7, 2019 07:28
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Non-human limits have a single exception in that they can all reach maximum level in thief. So if you really want one in a party that goes beyond the first game, they must be pigeonholed into that class or a multiclass including it. Secret of the Silver Blades actually does have a couple of rather minor benefits to having a dwarf in the party, and their fighter limit is higher than the others. This all means that there is pretty much only one viable multiclass for a full series run, the dwarf fighter/thief.
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Oct 7, 2019 10:40
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MechaCrash posted:So that thing about your elf caster topping out at 9? Yeah, that's because non-humans have level caps in these editions. Why? Because gently caress you, that's why. I guess there needed to be some incentive to playing a human. This is correct. Also, the game rounds down when it's dividing, which mostly matters for those triple-classed elves and half-elves. But yes: Non-humans have a level cap in AD&D 1st and 2nd edition. This wasn't included for any particular game balance reason; rather, just the opposite - it was included specifically because Gary Gygax wanted to ensure that humans were the most powerful and unbalanced race in the game, and not having a level cap was his way of achieving that. It's a rule that I'm led to understand the overwhelming majority of AD&D dungeon masters promptly thought was dumb and ignored. In 1st edition, the level caps for non-human characters relevant to this game (Gold Box doesn't implement half-orcs, druids, monks, illusionists, or assassins) were as follows (putting this behind a spoiler tag so people who don't care can easily skip over it): Dwarven fighters have a level cap of 7, which increases to 8 if they have 17 strength and 9 if they have 18 strength. Elf fighters have a level cap of 5, which increases to 6 if they have 17 strength and 7 if they have 18 strength. Gnome fighters have a level cap of 5, which increases to 6 if they have 18 strength. Half-elf fighters have a level cap of 6, which increases to 7 if they have 17 strength and 8 if they have 18 strength. Halfling fighters have a level cap of 4, which increases to 5 if they have 17 strength and 6 if they have 18 strength. In the tabletop edition there's some nonsense about halfling subraces that I don't think Gold Box implements. Elf mages have a level cap of 9, which increases to 10 if they have 17 intelligence and 11 if they have 18 intelligence. Half-elf mages have a level cap of 6, which increases to 7 if they have 17 intelligence and 8 if they have 18 intelligence. Half-elf clerics have a level cap of 5.. 2nd edition raised most of the non-human level caps considerably but didn't eliminate them from the core rules; that wouldn't come until 3rd edition. If you're playing these games on the PC version, it's possible to cheat past the non-human level caps (Gold Box Companion makes it easy, and doing so I suspect is the main use case for it). If these games used the 2nd edition caps, non-humans would have been viable into Secret of the Silver Blades, but still too underpowered to play ball in Pools of Darkness probably. On another note, I'm deeply looking forward to being able to point to your LP as proof that you can beat these games with relatively normal stats, since basically every resource on the internet claims that beating Pools of Darkness is a fool's errand without cheaty stats. As you said, in AD&D 1e, most stats don't really matter except at the extremes (you need 18 intelligence to cast 9th level wizard spells and you need 18 wisdom to cast 7th level cleric spells, for instance.) My own runthrough of the games I've been working on has only relatively mild stat cheating (I raised all of my characters' constitution to 18, and a few other stats to 16s or 17s for various reasons), and does use GBC to enable me to take a multiclass half-elf through all four games without her becoming horribly gimped by the end. (Getting 1/3 EXP will probably still gimp her a fair bit, I'm betting.)
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Oct 7, 2019 13:26
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Reiska posted:On another note, I'm deeply looking forward to being able to point to your LP as proof that you can beat these games with relatively normal stats, since basically every resource on the internet claims that beating Pools of Darkness is a fool's errand without cheaty stats. As you said, in AD&D 1e, most stats don't really matter except at the extremes (you need 18 intelligence to cast 9th level wizard spells and you need 18 wisdom to cast 7th level cleric spells, for instance.) My own runthrough of the games I've been working on has only relatively mild stat cheating (I raised all of my characters' constitution to 18, and a few other stats to 16s or 17s for various reasons), and does use GBC to enable me to take a multiclass half-elf through all four games without her becoming horribly gimped by the end. (Getting 1/3 EXP will probably still gimp her a fair bit, I'm betting.) There's only one thing I absolutely require to get to the end of Pools, and I'm still not sure how I'm gonna get there. a second mage As stated earlier, getting across the finish line is going to require dual classing, and I have to be really careful how I time those and which moves I make or we're gonna be permafucked. There's a battleplan. Will it work? Who can say!  I'll hit the hex editor if I have to, but I'd rather go through clean.e: I take that back. I know how I'm going to get there, but it's going to be near nonsensical plot wise. Oh well!
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Oct 7, 2019 15:53
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MonsterEnvy posted:Those Gnolls don't look much like Hyena Men. Oh look at Mr. Fancy Poster over here. I guess next you'll be wanting consistency and a game engine that works correctly. 
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Oct 7, 2019 15:56
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Chokes McGee posted:We are literally unable to do it right now without a TPK and trying to do it will become a running gag over the next few updates. This is where the NES version has one major difference in this game. For some reason, and I don't know if it's because I was always extremely lucky or if it's programmed in that version, delivering the package to Ohlo gets you a Necklace of Missiles in addition to the other rewards.
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Oct 7, 2019 16:01
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Kliff posted:This is where the NES version has one major difference in this game. For some reason, and I don't know if it's because I was always extremely lucky or if it's programmed in that version, delivering the package to Ohlo gets you a Necklace of Missiles in addition to the other rewards. Good lord. Yeah, the Amiga version just gives you one random magical item and punts you out the door. You definitely don't get anything that big for a while.
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Oct 7, 2019 16:24
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Kliff posted:This is where the NES version has one major difference in this game. For some reason, and I don't know if it's because I was always extremely lucky or if it's programmed in that version, delivering the package to Ohlo gets you a Necklace of Missiles in addition to the other rewards. In the other versions his reward is one random magical item. EDIT: Beaten to the punch by Chokes! Alas. Of course, the random item could *be* one of those...
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Oct 7, 2019 16:26
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Reiska posted:In the other versions his reward is one random magical item. I mean, it's possible, but this is Ohlo we're talking about here. We're lucky we got a lovely magical polearm
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Oct 7, 2019 16:52
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Chokes McGee posted:I mean, it's possible, but this is Ohlo we're talking about here. We're lucky we got a lovely magical polearm "lovely magical polearm" is a pretty good summary of my entire play experience for the last couple weeks, it's true. 
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Oct 7, 2019 19:11
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Reiska posted:"lovely magical polearm" is a pretty good summary of my entire play experience for the last couple weeks, it's true. At least during the dry run the game had the decency to give me a halberd I could give to Hanover for a while. WTF am I supposed to do with a Glaive?
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Oct 7, 2019 19:30
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Hey, at least you got a polearm. My last trip to the Polearm Emporium didn't go as well- http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0136.html
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Oct 7, 2019 21:27
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Chokes McGee posted:At least during the dry run the game had the decency to give me a halberd I could give to Hanover for a while. WTF am I supposed to do with a Glaive? Hey, love it or glaive it.
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Oct 8, 2019 00:24
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Chokes McGee posted:At least during the dry run the game had the decency to give me a halberd I could give to Hanover for a while. WTF am I supposed to do with a Glaive? you hold out for a Bec de Corbin, the true king of polearms
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Oct 8, 2019 00:44
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Ooh, a full Realms Gold Box LP, ambitious! I played the PC version, so I'm still kind of in shock how much better this version looks. On the other hand, that font is truly loving atrocious.
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Oct 9, 2019 21:52
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Yeah some of those sprites look more at home in Gateway to the Savage Frontier, it's pretty slick. I did, however, enjoy seeing how many of those monster pictures were lifted straight from the 1st edition Monstrous Manual, that was always amusing to me.
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Oct 9, 2019 22:09
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Truthkeeper posted:Ooh, a full Realms Gold Box LP, ambitious! I played the PC version, so I'm still kind of in shock how much better this version looks. On the other hand, that font is truly loving atrocious. bein a kid and looking at computer game boxes from the late 80s was like Amiga Version:  PC Version:  on the family 8088 in CGA: 
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Oct 9, 2019 22:11
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 CGA was so bizarrely horrid, I always wonder how they decided on eye-searing pink and turquoise as the two colours to use
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Oct 9, 2019 22:25
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I played them on the Mac. The Mac version of PoR was in sharp black and white pixels like every other Mac game of the era, but the rest of the games looked pretty much exactly like this.
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Oct 9, 2019 22:45
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Jason Sextro posted:
don't wanna derail this too hard into obsolete tech thread territory, but I find this really fascinating as someone who grew up with an old IBM Clone: it's because you can theoretically make any color out of CMYK, and it'll fuzz properly on a standard TV set to create the illusion of more colors, if you bother to code your program to take advantage of the composite fuzzing- but IBMs and clones didn't generally have the composite-out that was needed for a normal TV- IBMs weren't made for gaming, especially at first- so instead you had to hook it up to a computer CRT, which wanted RGB inputs and the whole thing looks like a four color mess when you're trying to display graphics RGB on the left, composite on the right- hooking one of these up to a TV would be atrocious if you wanted to use it for word processing  not all CGA games would look good on composite-out, either, the devs would have had to write code specifically for that use case, and they usually didn't bother. Some hobbyists have made fan patches for games, though, that show off what a CGA adapter connected to composite-out is capable of: original on an RGB CRT:  2016 patch on a composite television:  both of those only contain data for four colors, the second uses pixel interference creatively to show the illusion of up to 1024 colors, using tricks you might be more familar with in terms of LCD subpixel smoothing stuff (but like... the opposite, lol)  at a certain point, CGA compatibility was an afterthought, so practically nobody was taking the time to make them look good at all. Especially since vanishingly few people would be hooking their relatively expensive IBM-Compatible to a standard TV when you could get sharper pixels on a RGB CRT Peanut Butler fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Oct 9, 2019 |
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Oct 9, 2019 23:30
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