Dungeons and Dragons in all its forms and editions requires you to create one or more characters to play the game. The process by which this has been done has changed over the years, gradually increasing in complexity edition by edition. In this blog article today I would like to focus on how it changed during the first twenty-five years of the game's life.
Showing posts with label AD&D. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AD&D. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 10, 2024
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Baldur's Gate Version, Release and Demo History
Baldur's Gate is one of my most favorite games and has a surprisingly complex patching, release and demo history. I have written this blog article to help enlighten people on the version and patches available for the original game, significant physical releases and localization changes and finally the three demos of the game which were sold at some point. I will not discuss any unofficial patches (such as the Baldurdash and Dudleyville fixpacks), engine conversions (such as BG1Tutu or Baldur's Gate Trilogy) or Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.
Sunday, March 20, 2022
Combat & Complexity in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
When Gary Gygax was transforming Original Dungeons and Dragons into Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, one of the core components of the rules he focused on were the combat rules. Combat was rather sketchily defined in OD&D, and that is being kind. His priorities for the Advanced system were that combat was to have a sufficient rule structure so that one game of AD&D would play more or less the same as the next. This was at a time when campaigns often had 35th level fighters and 26th level balrogs in the same party! But perhaps Gygax was a little too overzealous in laying down rule after rule to govern every conceivable aspect of combat he had encountered to that time. In this blog article we will explore some of the more obtuse rules and see how they worked in print, what may have happened in practice and how the 2nd Edition of the Rules tried to address issues with the 1st Edition.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Choices and Tactics for a Successful Pool of Radiance Game
As I am have been playing through Pool of Radiance, I have really come to appreciate its tactical combat and the simple yet intricrate mechanics of a system using the AD&D 1st Edition rules. Of course, not everyone will be able to just simply pick up the game and those that do can be easily frustrated. So I will try to discuss strategies for getting through the game in this post. As I continue to play the game, I hope to be able to expand this blog entry. It will not be a walkthrough or give specifics of how to defeat this encounter or what items to keep from that encounter.
Maxing your stats
For each character you create, you can and should consider maximize their ability scores and hit points. You cannot do this after your start a game, and you will need all the advantages you can get to survive the low levels.
You cannot maximize their starting gold, so you should reroll until you get a good result. Fighters can start with up to 200gp, clerics 180gp, thieves 120gp and magic-users 80gp.
There is a fair amount of tedium in Pool of Radiance, buying and selling, resting and healing and turn based battles with tons of foes
Multi-classing vs. Single-class
Multi-class characters are a defensible choice if all you want to do is beat Pool of Radiance, but you will level up a bit more slowly. If you want to get through the whole tetralogy, you will want single-class characters to avoid level limits. This means a human party. Thieves have no level limits regardless of class, so a fighter/thief is a more justifiable choice than other multi-class characters. However, multi-class characters have to split their experience between their classes, even if they can no longer progress in one of them, so your characters will gain levels more slowly than a single class character. They also must adhere to certain restrictions of each class. Finally, multi-classes halve the HP they receive when they level up, so a level 2 fighter/thief can have a maximum of 16HP as opposed to 20HP for a single class fighter.
Racial benefits
All non-human races should have benefits, unfortunately it is often difficult to tell whether they were implemented in the game. . Elves get a +1 to hit with short and long swords and bows. Elves may be immune to Ghoul paralysis. Elves should also have 90% resistance to sleep and charm spells. Half-elves should have a 30% resistance. Elves and half-elves should also have a better chance of finding hidden objects.
Dwarves should get a bonus of up to +5 to their saving throws against wands, staves and spells and poison, based on their Constitution. They also should get a +1 to hit against goblins, hobgoblins and orcs and ogres, trolls and giants should have a -4 to hit them.
Gnomes should also receive the same benefit to their wands, staves and spells saving throws as dwarves have. They should get a +1 against Kobolds and Goblins and gnolls, bugears, ogres, trolls and giants should have a -4 to hit them.
Halflings should also receive the same benefit to their wands, staves and spells and poison saving throws as dwarves have.
Taking advantage of terrain
Walls and trees can be vital to your party's survival. When outnumbered by enemies that are not significantly weaker than you are, you should maneuver your party to take maximum advantage of impassable objects. You can limit the number enemies that can hit you by utilizing choke points. Monsters cannot move past each other if there is no room. With monsters that take up two or four squares, you can often maneuver them so that one will block the rest, allowing your characters to concentrate their attacks on one character.
Characters can move and attack diagonally, so can enemies. You use this to your advantage with a numeric keypad for the PC version of Pool. If you place your characters in front of or at the mouth of a gap, the enemy will be able to attack you diagonally on your flanks. If you position yourself behind the gap, then the situation is reversed. Consider the following diagrams :
Fig. 1
| |
| |
| |
| |
|---- ----|
|---- ----|
OCFFCO
OOOOOO
Fig. 2
| |
| |
| |
| |
|----CC----|
|----FF----|
OOOO
OOOO
Fig. 3
| |
| |
| |
| CC |
|----FF----|
|----OO----|
OOOO
OO
Fig. 4
| |
| |
| |
| CFFC |
|----OO----|
|----OO----|
OOOO
Key :
C = Cleric
F = Fighter
O = Orc
| - = Wall
In fig. 1, the party is at a disadvantage because eight orcs can attack the characters. Fig. 2 may show an improvement because now only four orcs can attack, but the clerics cannot attack back. Fig. 3 improves on the situation of Fig. 2, now only the two fighters and the two orcs can attack each other. Fig. 4 shows the best situation, all four characters can attack, but only two orcs can attack. Note that walls in this game may only take one tile but effectively create a double wall at a horizontal gap.
Even if the enemy is not a thief, you do not want to be attacked from behind. The enemy will enjoy a +2 to hit if it attacks your character from behind.
Staggering your characters diagonally gives the enemy more opportunities to attack, but it also gives you more holes to place attackers. Having a straight line does the opposite.
Having missile weapon using characters behind the front lines can thin out the opposition before they can even get a chance to attack. You can also kill enemy archers and spellcasters from a distance.
The pathfinding in Pool is decent, but it has its limitations. If you have an L-shaped or U-shaped barrier between you and the enemy you may be able to get the enemy trapped behind it as the pathfinding algorithm fails to find a path it can use to get to attack your character.
Guarding, free attacks and surrender
Guarding is the classic way of having a character do nothing during his portion of the combat round. However, it can also be a useful defensive mechanism. If an enemy advances into the character's melee range, the character gets a free and automatic attack. Additionally, if an enemy tries to retreat or move past your character, your character will get a free attack on that enemy. The enemy can also do this if you move into or out of his melee range. However, if you move into his range before he has a chance to guard, then you will not risk a free hit.
In this game, you do not always need to kill every enemy faced against you. Typically, once you reduce their numbers sufficiently, often the survivors of the monsters will surrender. You won't get the experience or treasure from killing them, but this will end a battle sooner than otherwise. Some monsters like the undead are fanatical and will always fight to the last creature. However, you may be able to do enough damage to a horde that it will surrender even though it still has the advantage of numbers.
Unfortunately, you cannot surrender once combat starts. If you feel like you are getting overwhelmed, you may turn your back and flee to the edge of the map. Depending on how many and how far the enemy is behind you, you may not be able to escape when you reach the edge. Also, if you are engaged in melee combat you will invite multiple rear attacks as you move. If you leave a dying character behind when you escape, that character will be dead and lost forever.
Missile weapons
Thieves are limited to slings and magic-users to darts. Slings have unlimited ammo, darts do not. Slings can do decent damage and have good range. Darts are weak and have a short range. A pure magic-user has a very low THAC0, so the darts may not seem worth the trouble considering how often the magic-user will miss. Clerics cannot use missile weapons at all in Pool.
Bows can fire twice per round and darts can fire three times per round. Long bows have a longer range than short bows, but do the same amount of damage.
If you encounter monsters and are able to select the Advance option, you may wish to consider starting combat immediately. This way you will have a fair distance between you and the monsters. This could give you one or two rounds where you may be able to attack with missile weapons and the enemy will be unable to respond.
The game will allow you to Ready a new weapon every combat round without penalty. So you can shoot your bow until the enemy comes within melee range and then switch to your melee weapon and armor and attack that round.
THAC0 and Armor Class
An unamored character has an Armor Class (AC) of 10, and the lower the number, the better protected your character will be. For your front line fighters, it is essential to maximize their AC if they are to survive. This means plate armor and a shield and high dexterity. At the beginning of the game, you won't be able to afford plate, so you will have to make do with chain or split or banded mail. Even so, your fighters can start the game with a -1 AC, which will make many hits miss. You lose the ability to use a shield with a two handed weapon, but a lower rate of being hit is a worthy trade off for the few extra points of damage you may inflict. In the early part of the game, you should have fighters with a high strength score and you will be facing tons of Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds and the like which tend to overwhelm by numbers. The more attacks you dodge, the longer you will last. So I would not seek out two handed weapons until you start to find magical weapons.
Specific Class Information - Fighters
Fighters acquire the ability to sweep at the 2nd level. This allows them to attack more than one enemy in melee range with less than one hit die in a single attack. So if a fighter is surrounded by Goblins or Kobolds, he can attack as many of them as he has experience levels. Fighters can achieve up to level 8 and gain 1-10HP per level. They can use any type of weapon, armor or shield. They will also gain an extra half of an attack at level 7.
Specific Class Information - Cleric and Clerical Spells
Clerics can only use clubs, flail, hammer, mace and staff for a weapon. Flails are the best, followed by maces. They can use any type of armor and can use a shield. Clerics can only reach level 6 in this game and 3rd level spells. They gain 1-8HP per level. They can Turn Undead, which if successful will make some of or all the undead flee, making the job of killing them safer if more tedious. They can turn Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls and Wights at level 1, Wraiths at level 3, Mummies and level 4, Spectres at level 5 and Vampires at level 6. As they level up, the turning will become more likely to be successful. Wights, Wraiths, Spectres and Vampires will cause a level drain with a successful attack, so you want to turn them as soon as possible. If you lose a level to level drain, you cannot get it restored at a temple, you have to earn the level again or find some restoration scrolls. Even so, the loss of XP can be very painful.
For 1st level spells, Cure Light Wounds is a must, it is the only healing spell a PC cleric can cast in the game. Bless is also a good spell because it improves the THAC0 of everybody in your party by 1. Hold Person is the best 2nd level spell because you can target up to three enemies with each casting of the spell. A held person can be killed with one cruel blow and the attack is an automatic hit. Slow Poison may be necessary when fighting poisonous creatures. You cannot cast Neutralize Poison in this game. Prayer is probably the best 3rd level spell. it is a combination of Bless and Curse.
Specific Class Information - Magic-users and Magic-user spells
Magic-users start the game with four spells, read magic, detect magic, shield and sleep. Each time they gain a level, they can learn one extra spell from any spell level they can cast, but only one spell can be added this way. Magic-users can only reach level 6 in this game and 3rd level spells. They only gain 1-4HP per level. At level 3 you can begin to cast 2nd level spells and at level 5 you can cast 3rd level spells. I would suggest learning Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, Mirror Image, Fireball and Haste. Magic-users can only use daggers, darts or staffs and can wear no armor and use no shields, so look for bracers of defense.
Because of the hordes of opponents you will seemingly encounter in every battle, area effect spells are usually more useful than single-target spells. Sleep is the best level 1 spell because, like Hold Person, it allows you to kill an enemy with a single cruel blow. However, no saving throw is allowed, and it can affect up to 16 monsters. Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Lizardmen and even an Ogre may be affected. It can affect your characters as well as the enemy, so make sure you do not target the spell at an enemy within a character's melee range. Anchor the spell to an enemy behind the attacker.
Specific Class Information - Thieves
Thieves can use clubs, daggers, darts, slings, short swords, scimitars, long swords and broad swords. They can only wear leather armor but cannot use a shield. Thieves can achieve up to level 9 and gain 1-6HP per level.
If a thief successfully hits with a back stab attack, he does double damage at levels 1-4, triple damage from levels 5-8 and quadruple damage at level 9. A thief gets a +4 to hit with a back stab attack. A thief can only backstab an opponent already being attacked. He must attack in the opposite direction from the opponent's first attacker. More importantly, to avoid a monster turning toward the thief and ruining the backstab, make sure that the monster has attacked before the thief does.
The only thief abilities used in this game are the pick lock, find and remove trap and climb wall abilities. What you can pick you can usually bash with a strong fighter and there are not an overabundance of traps in this game. Climb walls may be used once or twice.
Party composition
You can have six characters you directly control in your party and up to two NPCs or charmed or summoned monsters. Every party should have two front line fighters, two healers, a character with thief abilities and at least one magic-user. I have no love for hired NPCs, they cost money to hire, they take an automatic cut of all treasure, you cannot control them in combat and they do not like to give up items. There are some NPCs that will assist you on a single mission, but that is plot related.
Looking in the Manuals
This game comes with a Rule Book, an Adventurer's Journal, a Quick Reference Card and a Codewheel. The Adventurer's Journal contains the Proclamations, Tavern Tales and Journal Entries, maps and some tables. You will need the Codewheel to translate some elven or dwarven runes at least at one point during the game. Even if you crack the copy protection you should still keep it handy.
If you want to know more about the probable game mechanics, you should have your three volume set of AD&D 1st Edition rulebooks at your disposal. You can find all the rules and tables not explicitly mentioned in the Pool materials there. They can be relied upon except where contradicted by the Pool materials or when its obvious that the game does not implement the rules. You can find more complete statistics for the monsters in the Monster Manual or the Dungeon Master's Guide with a few exceptions. Statistics for the Drider, Mantis, Quickling, Thri-kreen can be found in the Monster Manual II. The other 1st Edition Rulebooks do not appear to be used in Pool.
Maxing your stats
For each character you create, you can and should consider maximize their ability scores and hit points. You cannot do this after your start a game, and you will need all the advantages you can get to survive the low levels.
You cannot maximize their starting gold, so you should reroll until you get a good result. Fighters can start with up to 200gp, clerics 180gp, thieves 120gp and magic-users 80gp.
There is a fair amount of tedium in Pool of Radiance, buying and selling, resting and healing and turn based battles with tons of foes
Multi-classing vs. Single-class
Multi-class characters are a defensible choice if all you want to do is beat Pool of Radiance, but you will level up a bit more slowly. If you want to get through the whole tetralogy, you will want single-class characters to avoid level limits. This means a human party. Thieves have no level limits regardless of class, so a fighter/thief is a more justifiable choice than other multi-class characters. However, multi-class characters have to split their experience between their classes, even if they can no longer progress in one of them, so your characters will gain levels more slowly than a single class character. They also must adhere to certain restrictions of each class. Finally, multi-classes halve the HP they receive when they level up, so a level 2 fighter/thief can have a maximum of 16HP as opposed to 20HP for a single class fighter.
Racial benefits
All non-human races should have benefits, unfortunately it is often difficult to tell whether they were implemented in the game. . Elves get a +1 to hit with short and long swords and bows. Elves may be immune to Ghoul paralysis. Elves should also have 90% resistance to sleep and charm spells. Half-elves should have a 30% resistance. Elves and half-elves should also have a better chance of finding hidden objects.
Dwarves should get a bonus of up to +5 to their saving throws against wands, staves and spells and poison, based on their Constitution. They also should get a +1 to hit against goblins, hobgoblins and orcs and ogres, trolls and giants should have a -4 to hit them.
Gnomes should also receive the same benefit to their wands, staves and spells saving throws as dwarves have. They should get a +1 against Kobolds and Goblins and gnolls, bugears, ogres, trolls and giants should have a -4 to hit them.
Halflings should also receive the same benefit to their wands, staves and spells and poison saving throws as dwarves have.
Taking advantage of terrain
Walls and trees can be vital to your party's survival. When outnumbered by enemies that are not significantly weaker than you are, you should maneuver your party to take maximum advantage of impassable objects. You can limit the number enemies that can hit you by utilizing choke points. Monsters cannot move past each other if there is no room. With monsters that take up two or four squares, you can often maneuver them so that one will block the rest, allowing your characters to concentrate their attacks on one character.
Characters can move and attack diagonally, so can enemies. You use this to your advantage with a numeric keypad for the PC version of Pool. If you place your characters in front of or at the mouth of a gap, the enemy will be able to attack you diagonally on your flanks. If you position yourself behind the gap, then the situation is reversed. Consider the following diagrams :
Fig. 1
| |
| |
| |
| |
|---- ----|
|---- ----|
OCFFCO
OOOOOO
Fig. 2
| |
| |
| |
| |
|----CC----|
|----FF----|
OOOO
OOOO
Fig. 3
| |
| |
| |
| CC |
|----FF----|
|----OO----|
OOOO
OO
Fig. 4
| |
| |
| |
| CFFC |
|----OO----|
|----OO----|
OOOO
Key :
C = Cleric
F = Fighter
O = Orc
| - = Wall
In fig. 1, the party is at a disadvantage because eight orcs can attack the characters. Fig. 2 may show an improvement because now only four orcs can attack, but the clerics cannot attack back. Fig. 3 improves on the situation of Fig. 2, now only the two fighters and the two orcs can attack each other. Fig. 4 shows the best situation, all four characters can attack, but only two orcs can attack. Note that walls in this game may only take one tile but effectively create a double wall at a horizontal gap.
Even if the enemy is not a thief, you do not want to be attacked from behind. The enemy will enjoy a +2 to hit if it attacks your character from behind.
Staggering your characters diagonally gives the enemy more opportunities to attack, but it also gives you more holes to place attackers. Having a straight line does the opposite.
Having missile weapon using characters behind the front lines can thin out the opposition before they can even get a chance to attack. You can also kill enemy archers and spellcasters from a distance.
The pathfinding in Pool is decent, but it has its limitations. If you have an L-shaped or U-shaped barrier between you and the enemy you may be able to get the enemy trapped behind it as the pathfinding algorithm fails to find a path it can use to get to attack your character.
Guarding, free attacks and surrender
Guarding is the classic way of having a character do nothing during his portion of the combat round. However, it can also be a useful defensive mechanism. If an enemy advances into the character's melee range, the character gets a free and automatic attack. Additionally, if an enemy tries to retreat or move past your character, your character will get a free attack on that enemy. The enemy can also do this if you move into or out of his melee range. However, if you move into his range before he has a chance to guard, then you will not risk a free hit.
In this game, you do not always need to kill every enemy faced against you. Typically, once you reduce their numbers sufficiently, often the survivors of the monsters will surrender. You won't get the experience or treasure from killing them, but this will end a battle sooner than otherwise. Some monsters like the undead are fanatical and will always fight to the last creature. However, you may be able to do enough damage to a horde that it will surrender even though it still has the advantage of numbers.
Unfortunately, you cannot surrender once combat starts. If you feel like you are getting overwhelmed, you may turn your back and flee to the edge of the map. Depending on how many and how far the enemy is behind you, you may not be able to escape when you reach the edge. Also, if you are engaged in melee combat you will invite multiple rear attacks as you move. If you leave a dying character behind when you escape, that character will be dead and lost forever.
Missile weapons
Thieves are limited to slings and magic-users to darts. Slings have unlimited ammo, darts do not. Slings can do decent damage and have good range. Darts are weak and have a short range. A pure magic-user has a very low THAC0, so the darts may not seem worth the trouble considering how often the magic-user will miss. Clerics cannot use missile weapons at all in Pool.
Bows can fire twice per round and darts can fire three times per round. Long bows have a longer range than short bows, but do the same amount of damage.
If you encounter monsters and are able to select the Advance option, you may wish to consider starting combat immediately. This way you will have a fair distance between you and the monsters. This could give you one or two rounds where you may be able to attack with missile weapons and the enemy will be unable to respond.
The game will allow you to Ready a new weapon every combat round without penalty. So you can shoot your bow until the enemy comes within melee range and then switch to your melee weapon and armor and attack that round.
THAC0 and Armor Class
An unamored character has an Armor Class (AC) of 10, and the lower the number, the better protected your character will be. For your front line fighters, it is essential to maximize their AC if they are to survive. This means plate armor and a shield and high dexterity. At the beginning of the game, you won't be able to afford plate, so you will have to make do with chain or split or banded mail. Even so, your fighters can start the game with a -1 AC, which will make many hits miss. You lose the ability to use a shield with a two handed weapon, but a lower rate of being hit is a worthy trade off for the few extra points of damage you may inflict. In the early part of the game, you should have fighters with a high strength score and you will be facing tons of Orcs, Goblins, Kobolds and the like which tend to overwhelm by numbers. The more attacks you dodge, the longer you will last. So I would not seek out two handed weapons until you start to find magical weapons.
THAC0 is affected mainly by strength and class. All 1st level classes have a THAC0 of 20. This means that you must roll a 20 on a (virtual) 20 sided die to score a hit on an enemy with an armor class of 0. Male Human Fighters can immediately lower that score to 17 by the maximum exceptional strength score of 18/00.
In this game, regular Kobolds are probably the weakest enemies, with 3 HP and an AC of 7. With a THAC0 of 17, which is the maximum you can have at the beginning of the game, you will be able to hit a Kobold only 55% of the time. The hit percentage gets lower for Goblins, Orcs, Skeletons and Zombies. Unless you find some magic weapons, your THAC0 will not improve until your character is at least at level 3.
Fighters acquire the ability to sweep at the 2nd level. This allows them to attack more than one enemy in melee range with less than one hit die in a single attack. So if a fighter is surrounded by Goblins or Kobolds, he can attack as many of them as he has experience levels. Fighters can achieve up to level 8 and gain 1-10HP per level. They can use any type of weapon, armor or shield. They will also gain an extra half of an attack at level 7.
Specific Class Information - Cleric and Clerical Spells
Clerics can only use clubs, flail, hammer, mace and staff for a weapon. Flails are the best, followed by maces. They can use any type of armor and can use a shield. Clerics can only reach level 6 in this game and 3rd level spells. They gain 1-8HP per level. They can Turn Undead, which if successful will make some of or all the undead flee, making the job of killing them safer if more tedious. They can turn Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls and Wights at level 1, Wraiths at level 3, Mummies and level 4, Spectres at level 5 and Vampires at level 6. As they level up, the turning will become more likely to be successful. Wights, Wraiths, Spectres and Vampires will cause a level drain with a successful attack, so you want to turn them as soon as possible. If you lose a level to level drain, you cannot get it restored at a temple, you have to earn the level again or find some restoration scrolls. Even so, the loss of XP can be very painful.
For 1st level spells, Cure Light Wounds is a must, it is the only healing spell a PC cleric can cast in the game. Bless is also a good spell because it improves the THAC0 of everybody in your party by 1. Hold Person is the best 2nd level spell because you can target up to three enemies with each casting of the spell. A held person can be killed with one cruel blow and the attack is an automatic hit. Slow Poison may be necessary when fighting poisonous creatures. You cannot cast Neutralize Poison in this game. Prayer is probably the best 3rd level spell. it is a combination of Bless and Curse.
Specific Class Information - Magic-users and Magic-user spells
Magic-users start the game with four spells, read magic, detect magic, shield and sleep. Each time they gain a level, they can learn one extra spell from any spell level they can cast, but only one spell can be added this way. Magic-users can only reach level 6 in this game and 3rd level spells. They only gain 1-4HP per level. At level 3 you can begin to cast 2nd level spells and at level 5 you can cast 3rd level spells. I would suggest learning Magic Missile, Stinking Cloud, Mirror Image, Fireball and Haste. Magic-users can only use daggers, darts or staffs and can wear no armor and use no shields, so look for bracers of defense.
Because of the hordes of opponents you will seemingly encounter in every battle, area effect spells are usually more useful than single-target spells. Sleep is the best level 1 spell because, like Hold Person, it allows you to kill an enemy with a single cruel blow. However, no saving throw is allowed, and it can affect up to 16 monsters. Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, Lizardmen and even an Ogre may be affected. It can affect your characters as well as the enemy, so make sure you do not target the spell at an enemy within a character's melee range. Anchor the spell to an enemy behind the attacker.
Specific Class Information - Thieves
Thieves can use clubs, daggers, darts, slings, short swords, scimitars, long swords and broad swords. They can only wear leather armor but cannot use a shield. Thieves can achieve up to level 9 and gain 1-6HP per level.
If a thief successfully hits with a back stab attack, he does double damage at levels 1-4, triple damage from levels 5-8 and quadruple damage at level 9. A thief gets a +4 to hit with a back stab attack. A thief can only backstab an opponent already being attacked. He must attack in the opposite direction from the opponent's first attacker. More importantly, to avoid a monster turning toward the thief and ruining the backstab, make sure that the monster has attacked before the thief does.
The only thief abilities used in this game are the pick lock, find and remove trap and climb wall abilities. What you can pick you can usually bash with a strong fighter and there are not an overabundance of traps in this game. Climb walls may be used once or twice.
Party composition
You can have six characters you directly control in your party and up to two NPCs or charmed or summoned monsters. Every party should have two front line fighters, two healers, a character with thief abilities and at least one magic-user. I have no love for hired NPCs, they cost money to hire, they take an automatic cut of all treasure, you cannot control them in combat and they do not like to give up items. There are some NPCs that will assist you on a single mission, but that is plot related.
Looking in the Manuals
This game comes with a Rule Book, an Adventurer's Journal, a Quick Reference Card and a Codewheel. The Adventurer's Journal contains the Proclamations, Tavern Tales and Journal Entries, maps and some tables. You will need the Codewheel to translate some elven or dwarven runes at least at one point during the game. Even if you crack the copy protection you should still keep it handy.
If you want to know more about the probable game mechanics, you should have your three volume set of AD&D 1st Edition rulebooks at your disposal. You can find all the rules and tables not explicitly mentioned in the Pool materials there. They can be relied upon except where contradicted by the Pool materials or when its obvious that the game does not implement the rules. You can find more complete statistics for the monsters in the Monster Manual or the Dungeon Master's Guide with a few exceptions. Statistics for the Drider, Mantis, Quickling, Thri-kreen can be found in the Monster Manual II. The other 1st Edition Rulebooks do not appear to be used in Pool.
Saturday, November 28, 2015
Goofy Things in the Pool of Radiance and the Gold Box Series
Pool of Radiance was the first time a computer game officially tried to adapt the AD&D rules into a video-game playable form. It is a great game and hugely influential on later games. In fact, I would say it is the Baldur's Gate of the 1980s. It uses the first edition of the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons rules and adheres to them pretty strictly. However, for a player brought up on more modern RPGs, Pool has some odd features hearkening back to a time when AD&D was more suited for the tabletop than the desktop. Let me talk about some of the AD&D features in this game and the series of games it spawned :
Currency conversion.
Trying to keep track of your wealth is a real doozy when you have five different types of coins. It makes you feel like you have traveled back in time to the United Kingdom pre-decimalization (240 pennies = 20 shillings = 1 pound, let's not get started on farthings, groats, crowns, marks and guineas). AD&D is slightly less cumbersome, with 200 copper pieces = 20 silver pieces = 2 electrum pieces = 1 gold pieces = 1/5 platinum pieces. Considering that 1,000 copper pieces = 5 gold pieces, you will want to find a way to exchange currency quickly. Fortunately you can do so in the shops. Pool all of your various currencies together on one character and buy something cheap like 10 arrows. You should see only Platinum and maybe some Gold for change in your inventory thereafter.
Encumbrance in coins
Instead of an intuitive system like pounds, AD&D 1st edition uses coins to note encumbrance. The idea is that 10 gold pieces (or any type of money piece) = 1 pound. The amount of encumbrance will slow down your character in combat. Without any strength modifier, less than or equal to 350gp = 12 squares, 700gp = 9 squares, 1050 gp = 6 squares and anything over 1050 gp and you are down to 3 squares of movement a round. Consider that a suit of plate mail weighs 450gp and the game treats copper pieces like gold pieces for weight and you are starting to look at some hard choices.
Strength limits for female characters
Do not play a female fighter/ranger/paladin in a Gold Box game. Even though the sex limit would soon become unfashionable in 2nd AD&D and just about every RPG thereafter, they kept it for the whole of the Gold Box series. There is no balancing rule benefit to playing a female character in AD&D 1st Edition. The game will give the maximum of 18(50) if you roll an 18 in strength and choose a fighter class as a female.
Alignment
All nine alignments of AD&D are here, but the selection is almost useless. Only if a magical weapon is limited to a certain alignment or one of the two axes (lawful-neutral-chaos and good-neutral-evil) does it really have an effect on the game.
Money Sinks
These games will throw a lot of coin at you, but it has ways of reclaiming quite a bit of it. Training costs 1,000gp every time you wish to level up and is required to achieve the benefits of a new level. Note that you cannot acquire more than the experience to put you over a second level until you train up.
Identifying items costs 200gp and you pretty much have to figure out which items are magical based on clues like unusual items in a monster hoard or a large selling price. Of course you can always expect items like Rings and Bracers to be magical. Healing gets expensive at the temples and silver items are also not cheap. However, the taverns offer a simple game of chance to help you out in a short money situation and you have an equal chance of doubling your money as you have to lose it. Save and reload as necessary, the game will not punish you for it as in Baldur's Gate.
Class and level limits
In Pool, fighters can advance to level 8, clerics and magic users to level 6 and thieves to level 9. (Why didn't they just name fighters, magic-users and clerics as warriors, wizards and priests. "Magic-user" just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? "Cleric" is just a fancy title for a "priest" and "warrior" is far more evocative than the bland, generic term "fighter".) In Pool, the only demihuman level limit you will hit is the half-elf cleric, who is limited to level 5.
Multi-classing may be a good option for a run through Pool, but your characters will start to feel underpowered if you transfer them to Curse of the Azure Bonds. However, unless you have the patience of a saint, you should try to level up as quickly as possible to get your THAC0 down. You will miss a lot early in the game, and having a high strength or dexterity combined with a low THAC0 score helps, so you need to level up.
In Curse you will hit the level limits for almost every class/demihuman combination, but high strength or intelligence will allow you to increase the level limits you can obtain as fighter, ranger or magic-user. If you import characters to Secret of the Silver Blades, the level limit will seriously start to crimp your style and Pools of Darkness will be a very dark experience indeed.
It seems silly now that no other demihuman other than a half-elf can be a ranger or a cleric, none of them can be a paladin and only elves and half-elves can be a magic-user. Well, in AD&D 1st Edition, the Player's Handbook acknowledges some additional priestly combinations, but not for player characters. Because the Gold Box series did not implement specialist mages, there are no such things as Gnome Illusionists here.
While Elves and Halflings get a +1 to Dexterity and Dwarves get a +1 to Constitution, it does not seem to have any real benefit unless you do not adjust your scores. Nor does raising an ability score to 19 or higher in the Pool series (except for health regeneration, see below).
Four basic character classes
In Pool, you can be a Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric or Thief. Curse, added Rangers and Paladins to the available character classes. It did not add Druids, Assassins, Monks or Bards. Nor did it include the additional classes like the Cavalier, Barbarian or the Thief-Acrobat found in Unearthed Arcana. Nor are Half-Orcs a selectable race and they did not add the subrace choices in the Player's Handbook (halflings) or Unearthed Arcana. In this sense, the game is closer to the 2nd Edition of the Rules, which did not include most of these options within its basic rules. Multi-classing is here from the beginning, Curse added Dual-Classing.
Half-elves have the most multi-classing choices, they can be cleric/fighters, cleric/fighter/magic-users, cleric/magic-users, fighter/magic-users, fighter/thieves, fighter/thief/magic-users and magic-user/thieves. Elves get all those combinations except the cleric combinations, but dwarves, gnomes and halflings only get the fighter/thief option.
Thieves have a wide array of abilities in AD&D, but the the game engine limits them to picking locks, disarming traps, climbing walls backstabbing. Mages have four spells in the spell book when they begin the game, one of which is the all-powerful sleep spell and acquire one new spell per level.
One particularly annoying feature is the THAC0 improvement. Simply put, no character is guaranteed to see a THAC0 improvement upon gaining a level or two or three or even four. Fighters get an improvement every two levels, clerics every three levels, thieves every four levels and magic-users every five levels. 2nd Edition AD&D had a much better progression rate for most classes, especially fighters who get a one point improvement every level.
Manual inadequacies
Pool comes with a Rule Book, an Adventurer's Journal, a Quick Start Guide and a Codewheel. The documentation of the actual AD&D 1st Edition rules is rather lacking in Pool's documentation. The Rule Book contains character race limit and maximum class level by race table. The Adventurer's Journal contains the money conversion formulas, the spell list, the armor list, the experience tables, the undead turning level requirements, weapons and armor permitted by class and the weapons list.
If you wanted ability score adjustments, attack and saving throw tables, hit die tables, thief ability and turn undead tables, starting money tables or weapon weights, you had to look to the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide.
Curse's Rule Book contains Pool's tables, updated as need be for higher levels. It also expands the maximum class level by race table to give higher level limits for high prime requisite scores. If you want to know the bonus spells clerics get for high wisdom, the table is here, but that is the only major addition. Curse's experience tables now include the useless level titles.
Secret's Adventurer's Journal gives racial ability score modifiers, the ability adjustments for strength, dexterity and constitution (finally!), fighter/paladin/ranger number of attacks per round, and a spell parameters list. Pools' Adventurer's Journal adds no tables.
Variations from the official rules
In Pool, clerics cannot use slings and thieves cannot use short bows. This is correct according to AD&D 1st Edition rules. Curse allows thieves to use short bows and clerics to use staff slings. Pools allows thieves to wear "elfin" chain mail. This is allowed by Unearthed Arcana.
Pool uses the rules for zero hit points as given in the Dungeon Master's Guide, (death is not instantaneous at 0 HP but you can go to -10HP before true death) but does not have a recovery time.
Weapons and armor that come and go
Armor types available in Pool are Leather, Padded, Studded, Ring, Scale, Chain, Splint, Banded and Plate. In Secret, they simplified the armor by removing Padded, Studded and Splint. Pools added them back and put in Elfin Chain Mail as well.
Weapons in Pool number 46. Curse has the same number, but Secret reduces it to 25. Pools ups the figure to 29. It has been commented that Gary Gygax had quite the fascination with medieval polearms and included every one he could find in AD&D 1st Edition. For the first games, if it was in the Player's Handbook, you would almost certainly find it in Pool. However, if you are looking for a +2 Glaive or Cursed Voulge-Guisarme of Berserking, you are not going to find one in either Pool or Curse.
Weird Items
In addition to the never-ending variety of polearms, which appear to be completely absent as magical weapons, the other shops sell items that have little to no value in the game. You do not need a holy symbol to Turn Undead. Silver armor serves no obvious point, and silver weapons appear to have very limited capabilities (Wights are the only monsters you should face regularly that could require silver, but you should have magical items by that time.) The jewelry serves no point except as a way to convert heavy coin to a light item you can later sell if you need it. As there is no bank in this game, you will not be able to keep as much coin as you find. You will also find items in treasure hoards that look like they serve some purpose, but usually do not.
At one point during the game, you will find a Manual of Bodily Health. If you use it on a dwarf character with 19 Constitution, his number will not be raised, but he will gain a regeneration ability to restore his health. This makes healing a lot faster for this character, by the time you finish resting to regain your spells, he will likely be fully healed. Note that if your characters die and have to be resurrected through a raise dead spell, you will lose 1 point of Constitution.
Peculiarities of the IBM PC version
In Pool and Curse, all interaction is done by the keyboard IBM PC version. In Pool, you usually use the Home and End keys to select your characters or your items, but sometimes you can use the arrow keys. The Page Up and Page Down keys can usually be used to cycle through a multi-screen menu like the one presented at the weapons/armor shops. It can be a bit confusing, but using the numeric keypad may be a more intuitive option. Using the numeric keypad is utterly necessary to move in combat, the cardinal four directions are insufficient for the isometric views of the combat screens. Later games rely more on the arrow keys to select menu items.
While the joystick was an option of the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions and mouse support was in Pool's Macintosh and Commodore Amiga versions, those control options would only start to be included as of IBM PC's Secret. Oddly enough, the Demo option found in the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions and in the PC version of every game following is missing for IBM PC Pool.
Some of the IBM PC versions of Pool do support Tandy music on their title screens just like every other version of the game except the Apple II version. Unfortunately their music driver was not very good, leading to an odd tone played early in the main track. Also, the music will never finish on the title screen for Pool regardless of how slow your Tandy is. Weirdly, the music also plays when you start a battle in Pool. It does not play music at this point in the Commodore 64 original.
Eventually they got rid of the music, at least as of version 1.2 and 1.3 (which are indicated on the credits screen, earlier versions do not indicate the version number there). The version numbering of Pool is not generally well known due to the lack of version number display. However, there are versions with a START.EXE of 10-26-88 and 12-12-88 according to an old crack .nfo file. I would suggest that these are v1.0 and v1.1, respectively. My copy has a START.EXE of 12-12-88 and does not display a version number but does play music.
Curse is similar except there was also music for the PC Speaker. It always displays a version number and 1.0-1.3 exist. Music was removed as of 1.3 and similar to Pool you could never hear the full theme.
If you want the versions with the music, look for the original retail box versions. Avoid slash releases or any compilation release, especially the ones that come on CD-ROM. I would concentrate on 5.25" double density disks if you really want to maximize your chances.
Between the two 16 color graphic drivers, the Tandy driver is far more speedy to load than the EGA driver. Interestingly, the background color in the combat screens is black for the Tandy but light gray for EGA. Curse's Tandy driver would also use light gray.
To avoid a "PUT SAVE DISK IN C:"or "INSERT DISK 3" error, make sure your directories are correct in your POOL.CFG file. Later games let you delete their .CFG file and let you re-enter the information (graphics and sound type, game save directory and prior game directory typically), but with Pool you must manually edit your file. Early versions of Pool do not want to be run in a sub-subdirectory, they demand being in a directory at the root of the drive.
There is a lot of plain text in the START.EXE file, including all the copy protection words. Even though Pool's Translation Wheel gives 108 possible combinations (36 x 3), there are only 13 copy protection words While each word can be selected by three combinations of Espruar and Dethek runes, only one combination is ever used, and here is how the word and lines match up:
BEWARE - - - - -
COPPER - - - - -
FRIEND - - - - -
SAVIOR - - - - -
WYVERN - - - - -
DRAGON -..-..-..
JUNGLE -..-..-..
ZOMBIE -..-..-..
EFREET .........
KNIGHT .........
NOTNOW .........
TEMPLE .........
VULCAN .........
Unless some version added a check in its code, you could simply type in a single word replacement for all 13 copy protection words. Curse was trickier because it only required one letter or number, not a whole word. Each type of line has six characters, making the range of options far greater. There are five letter words prefaced by a number, but they are never called for. You can find "GOOGLE" in the code wheel!
The PC-98 version has disk based copy protection in addition to the codewheel protection, which may be something unique to the Japanese versions. The protection is pretty advanced as it checks for weak bits and images which preserve the protection only run in MAME as far as I can tell. Unprotected images are cracked and bypass the title screen, credits screen and codewheel screen. I was unable to find images of the PC-88 or FM-7 versions and only a few videos showing the former. They cannot be installed to a hard drive.
Currency conversion.
Trying to keep track of your wealth is a real doozy when you have five different types of coins. It makes you feel like you have traveled back in time to the United Kingdom pre-decimalization (240 pennies = 20 shillings = 1 pound, let's not get started on farthings, groats, crowns, marks and guineas). AD&D is slightly less cumbersome, with 200 copper pieces = 20 silver pieces = 2 electrum pieces = 1 gold pieces = 1/5 platinum pieces. Considering that 1,000 copper pieces = 5 gold pieces, you will want to find a way to exchange currency quickly. Fortunately you can do so in the shops. Pool all of your various currencies together on one character and buy something cheap like 10 arrows. You should see only Platinum and maybe some Gold for change in your inventory thereafter.
Encumbrance in coins
Instead of an intuitive system like pounds, AD&D 1st edition uses coins to note encumbrance. The idea is that 10 gold pieces (or any type of money piece) = 1 pound. The amount of encumbrance will slow down your character in combat. Without any strength modifier, less than or equal to 350gp = 12 squares, 700gp = 9 squares, 1050 gp = 6 squares and anything over 1050 gp and you are down to 3 squares of movement a round. Consider that a suit of plate mail weighs 450gp and the game treats copper pieces like gold pieces for weight and you are starting to look at some hard choices.
Strength limits for female characters
Do not play a female fighter/ranger/paladin in a Gold Box game. Even though the sex limit would soon become unfashionable in 2nd AD&D and just about every RPG thereafter, they kept it for the whole of the Gold Box series. There is no balancing rule benefit to playing a female character in AD&D 1st Edition. The game will give the maximum of 18(50) if you roll an 18 in strength and choose a fighter class as a female.
Alignment
All nine alignments of AD&D are here, but the selection is almost useless. Only if a magical weapon is limited to a certain alignment or one of the two axes (lawful-neutral-chaos and good-neutral-evil) does it really have an effect on the game.
Money Sinks
These games will throw a lot of coin at you, but it has ways of reclaiming quite a bit of it. Training costs 1,000gp every time you wish to level up and is required to achieve the benefits of a new level. Note that you cannot acquire more than the experience to put you over a second level until you train up.
Identifying items costs 200gp and you pretty much have to figure out which items are magical based on clues like unusual items in a monster hoard or a large selling price. Of course you can always expect items like Rings and Bracers to be magical. Healing gets expensive at the temples and silver items are also not cheap. However, the taverns offer a simple game of chance to help you out in a short money situation and you have an equal chance of doubling your money as you have to lose it. Save and reload as necessary, the game will not punish you for it as in Baldur's Gate.
Class and level limits
In Pool, fighters can advance to level 8, clerics and magic users to level 6 and thieves to level 9. (Why didn't they just name fighters, magic-users and clerics as warriors, wizards and priests. "Magic-user" just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? "Cleric" is just a fancy title for a "priest" and "warrior" is far more evocative than the bland, generic term "fighter".) In Pool, the only demihuman level limit you will hit is the half-elf cleric, who is limited to level 5.
Multi-classing may be a good option for a run through Pool, but your characters will start to feel underpowered if you transfer them to Curse of the Azure Bonds. However, unless you have the patience of a saint, you should try to level up as quickly as possible to get your THAC0 down. You will miss a lot early in the game, and having a high strength or dexterity combined with a low THAC0 score helps, so you need to level up.
In Curse you will hit the level limits for almost every class/demihuman combination, but high strength or intelligence will allow you to increase the level limits you can obtain as fighter, ranger or magic-user. If you import characters to Secret of the Silver Blades, the level limit will seriously start to crimp your style and Pools of Darkness will be a very dark experience indeed.
It seems silly now that no other demihuman other than a half-elf can be a ranger or a cleric, none of them can be a paladin and only elves and half-elves can be a magic-user. Well, in AD&D 1st Edition, the Player's Handbook acknowledges some additional priestly combinations, but not for player characters. Because the Gold Box series did not implement specialist mages, there are no such things as Gnome Illusionists here.
While Elves and Halflings get a +1 to Dexterity and Dwarves get a +1 to Constitution, it does not seem to have any real benefit unless you do not adjust your scores. Nor does raising an ability score to 19 or higher in the Pool series (except for health regeneration, see below).
Four basic character classes
In Pool, you can be a Fighter, Magic-User, Cleric or Thief. Curse, added Rangers and Paladins to the available character classes. It did not add Druids, Assassins, Monks or Bards. Nor did it include the additional classes like the Cavalier, Barbarian or the Thief-Acrobat found in Unearthed Arcana. Nor are Half-Orcs a selectable race and they did not add the subrace choices in the Player's Handbook (halflings) or Unearthed Arcana. In this sense, the game is closer to the 2nd Edition of the Rules, which did not include most of these options within its basic rules. Multi-classing is here from the beginning, Curse added Dual-Classing.
Half-elves have the most multi-classing choices, they can be cleric/fighters, cleric/fighter/magic-users, cleric/magic-users, fighter/magic-users, fighter/thieves, fighter/thief/magic-users and magic-user/thieves. Elves get all those combinations except the cleric combinations, but dwarves, gnomes and halflings only get the fighter/thief option.
Thieves have a wide array of abilities in AD&D, but the the game engine limits them to picking locks, disarming traps, climbing walls backstabbing. Mages have four spells in the spell book when they begin the game, one of which is the all-powerful sleep spell and acquire one new spell per level.
One particularly annoying feature is the THAC0 improvement. Simply put, no character is guaranteed to see a THAC0 improvement upon gaining a level or two or three or even four. Fighters get an improvement every two levels, clerics every three levels, thieves every four levels and magic-users every five levels. 2nd Edition AD&D had a much better progression rate for most classes, especially fighters who get a one point improvement every level.
Manual inadequacies
Pool comes with a Rule Book, an Adventurer's Journal, a Quick Start Guide and a Codewheel. The documentation of the actual AD&D 1st Edition rules is rather lacking in Pool's documentation. The Rule Book contains character race limit and maximum class level by race table. The Adventurer's Journal contains the money conversion formulas, the spell list, the armor list, the experience tables, the undead turning level requirements, weapons and armor permitted by class and the weapons list.
If you wanted ability score adjustments, attack and saving throw tables, hit die tables, thief ability and turn undead tables, starting money tables or weapon weights, you had to look to the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide.
Curse's Rule Book contains Pool's tables, updated as need be for higher levels. It also expands the maximum class level by race table to give higher level limits for high prime requisite scores. If you want to know the bonus spells clerics get for high wisdom, the table is here, but that is the only major addition. Curse's experience tables now include the useless level titles.
Secret's Adventurer's Journal gives racial ability score modifiers, the ability adjustments for strength, dexterity and constitution (finally!), fighter/paladin/ranger number of attacks per round, and a spell parameters list. Pools' Adventurer's Journal adds no tables.
Variations from the official rules
In Pool, clerics cannot use slings and thieves cannot use short bows. This is correct according to AD&D 1st Edition rules. Curse allows thieves to use short bows and clerics to use staff slings. Pools allows thieves to wear "elfin" chain mail. This is allowed by Unearthed Arcana.
Pool uses the rules for zero hit points as given in the Dungeon Master's Guide, (death is not instantaneous at 0 HP but you can go to -10HP before true death) but does not have a recovery time.
Weapons and armor that come and go
Armor types available in Pool are Leather, Padded, Studded, Ring, Scale, Chain, Splint, Banded and Plate. In Secret, they simplified the armor by removing Padded, Studded and Splint. Pools added them back and put in Elfin Chain Mail as well.
Weapons in Pool number 46. Curse has the same number, but Secret reduces it to 25. Pools ups the figure to 29. It has been commented that Gary Gygax had quite the fascination with medieval polearms and included every one he could find in AD&D 1st Edition. For the first games, if it was in the Player's Handbook, you would almost certainly find it in Pool. However, if you are looking for a +2 Glaive or Cursed Voulge-Guisarme of Berserking, you are not going to find one in either Pool or Curse.
Weird Items
In addition to the never-ending variety of polearms, which appear to be completely absent as magical weapons, the other shops sell items that have little to no value in the game. You do not need a holy symbol to Turn Undead. Silver armor serves no obvious point, and silver weapons appear to have very limited capabilities (Wights are the only monsters you should face regularly that could require silver, but you should have magical items by that time.) The jewelry serves no point except as a way to convert heavy coin to a light item you can later sell if you need it. As there is no bank in this game, you will not be able to keep as much coin as you find. You will also find items in treasure hoards that look like they serve some purpose, but usually do not.
At one point during the game, you will find a Manual of Bodily Health. If you use it on a dwarf character with 19 Constitution, his number will not be raised, but he will gain a regeneration ability to restore his health. This makes healing a lot faster for this character, by the time you finish resting to regain your spells, he will likely be fully healed. Note that if your characters die and have to be resurrected through a raise dead spell, you will lose 1 point of Constitution.
Peculiarities of the IBM PC version
In Pool and Curse, all interaction is done by the keyboard IBM PC version. In Pool, you usually use the Home and End keys to select your characters or your items, but sometimes you can use the arrow keys. The Page Up and Page Down keys can usually be used to cycle through a multi-screen menu like the one presented at the weapons/armor shops. It can be a bit confusing, but using the numeric keypad may be a more intuitive option. Using the numeric keypad is utterly necessary to move in combat, the cardinal four directions are insufficient for the isometric views of the combat screens. Later games rely more on the arrow keys to select menu items.
While the joystick was an option of the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions and mouse support was in Pool's Macintosh and Commodore Amiga versions, those control options would only start to be included as of IBM PC's Secret. Oddly enough, the Demo option found in the Commodore 64 and Apple II versions and in the PC version of every game following is missing for IBM PC Pool.
Some of the IBM PC versions of Pool do support Tandy music on their title screens just like every other version of the game except the Apple II version. Unfortunately their music driver was not very good, leading to an odd tone played early in the main track. Also, the music will never finish on the title screen for Pool regardless of how slow your Tandy is. Weirdly, the music also plays when you start a battle in Pool. It does not play music at this point in the Commodore 64 original.
Eventually they got rid of the music, at least as of version 1.2 and 1.3 (which are indicated on the credits screen, earlier versions do not indicate the version number there). The version numbering of Pool is not generally well known due to the lack of version number display. However, there are versions with a START.EXE of 10-26-88 and 12-12-88 according to an old crack .nfo file. I would suggest that these are v1.0 and v1.1, respectively. My copy has a START.EXE of 12-12-88 and does not display a version number but does play music.
Curse is similar except there was also music for the PC Speaker. It always displays a version number and 1.0-1.3 exist. Music was removed as of 1.3 and similar to Pool you could never hear the full theme.
If you want the versions with the music, look for the original retail box versions. Avoid slash releases or any compilation release, especially the ones that come on CD-ROM. I would concentrate on 5.25" double density disks if you really want to maximize your chances.
Between the two 16 color graphic drivers, the Tandy driver is far more speedy to load than the EGA driver. Interestingly, the background color in the combat screens is black for the Tandy but light gray for EGA. Curse's Tandy driver would also use light gray.
To avoid a "PUT SAVE DISK IN C:"or "INSERT DISK 3" error, make sure your directories are correct in your POOL.CFG file. Later games let you delete their .CFG file and let you re-enter the information (graphics and sound type, game save directory and prior game directory typically), but with Pool you must manually edit your file. Early versions of Pool do not want to be run in a sub-subdirectory, they demand being in a directory at the root of the drive.
There is a lot of plain text in the START.EXE file, including all the copy protection words. Even though Pool's Translation Wheel gives 108 possible combinations (36 x 3), there are only 13 copy protection words While each word can be selected by three combinations of Espruar and Dethek runes, only one combination is ever used, and here is how the word and lines match up:
BEWARE - - - - -
COPPER - - - - -
FRIEND - - - - -
SAVIOR - - - - -
WYVERN - - - - -
DRAGON -..-..-..
JUNGLE -..-..-..
ZOMBIE -..-..-..
EFREET .........
KNIGHT .........
NOTNOW .........
TEMPLE .........
VULCAN .........
Unless some version added a check in its code, you could simply type in a single word replacement for all 13 copy protection words. Curse was trickier because it only required one letter or number, not a whole word. Each type of line has six characters, making the range of options far greater. There are five letter words prefaced by a number, but they are never called for. You can find "GOOGLE" in the code wheel!
Commodore 64 and Apple II Versions of Pool of Radiance
Pool of Radiance was originally developed for the Commodore 64 and its capabilities but at some point during its development there was a parallel development of the IBM PC version. The manual demonstrates this as it refers to options present in the IBM PC version but not in the C64 version even though the C64 version was released a few months earlier in 1988 than the PC version.
The C64 and Apple II versions came on four disks and used each side of the disk requiring flipping disk sides and swapping disks. The IBM PC version came on three 5.25" disks but is compressed and cannot be run off the original disks. It can be installed onto six 5.25" disks, four 3.5" disks, a mix of two 5.25" disks and three 3.5" disks or a hard drive with 1.75MiB free. The IBM PC version requires two drives, the C64 and A2 versions only use one.
The C64 version does not require a disk swap until you pass the copy protection screen. The Apple II version requires swapping disk sides in the following sequence to get to the title screen 1, 2, 3, 6 & 1. The Apple II loads disks faster but does not require any commands to start the boot, unlike the C64 version which requires two. Between the disk booting commands of the C64 version and the extra disk swapping Apple II version the two games will take roughly one and a half minutes to reach the title screen.
Of the Gold Box games, neither the C64 nor the Apple II allow you to complete any of the series, Pool, Krynn, Savage Frontier or Buck Rogers. Only DOS allows you to complete them all, Amiga does not have the 2nd Buck Rogers game. Macintosh and PC-98 only allow for completing the Pool series. Both Amiga and Macintosh allow for hard drive installation. The Amiga has the most colorful graphics sound of any English-language version of the game and digitized sound. The Macintosh version supports either B&W Macs or Color Macs such as the Mac II, but the color graphics are identical to the IBM PC 16-color graphics.
Hard drives for the A2 and C64 did exist in their commercial lifespans but they were very expensive and were not compatible with Apple DOS 3.3 and CBM DOS, respectively. Games for these 8-bit computers did not support hard drives but today we are more fortunate through the use of PRODOS and EasyFlash conversions. They eliminate disk swapping and make game loading much, much faster.
The IBM PCs and most compatibles had a numeric keypad on their keyboards, and the keypresses from the keypad can be easily distinguished by software from the keypresses on the number row of the main keyboard. The Commodore 64 had no keypad, the backwards-compatible Commodore 128 did. The Apple IIe and IIe Enhanced had an internal header to plug in a numeric keypad and the Apple IIe Platinum had one built-in. The keys on these keypads when pressed are not distinguishable from their number row equivalents to software. Neither the C64 nor the A2 support a keypad friendly cursor movement scheme.
This becomes an issue with combat. In combat you can move in eight directions and can engage in a melee attack by moving to touch the opponent. You can also manually select your target with a box, but this is more cumbersome. In the IBM PC version the movement is centered on the keypad so the directions follow this clockwise pattern: 8 is Up, 9 is Up & Right, 6 is Right, 3 is Down & Right, 2 is Down, 1 is Down & Left, 4 is Left and 7 is Up & Left. If you wish to use a diagonal you can press those buttons and the game will always go in the direction you want.
As the C64 and A2 versions do not support numeric keypads, they can either use a joystick or the number row for movement. Using the joystick is not recommended for diagonal movement, the joystick is very imprecise and the game will usually read the stick as either one of the straight directionals. Using number keys will give precise movement, but the arrangement is not as intuitive: 1 is Up, 2 is Up & Right, 3 is Right, 4 is Down & Right, 5 is Down, 6 is Down & Right, 7 is Right and 8 is Up & Left.
Performing the wrong move in combat can have serious consequences, you may attack an enemy you do not wish, as you are assumed to wish to attack an enemy you move towards. Even worse, if you move past a space where the enemy can attack, the enemy will gain a free attack from that move.
No two platforms use exactly the same starting party. The Macintosh and C64 are very close, using the same names and classes, but there are a few differences.
Amiga Version
The Amiga version has different title music from the PC and C64 versions and also plays a short theme when combat begins. It was the only Gold Box game ported to that system which really used the 32-color mode of the Amiga to produce notably more colorful and detailed graphics. It also has you pass the codewheel protection check before showing the title screen or playing the opening theme music.
The game is self-booting on the Amiga but also has a hard drive installation utility. Installing the game to a hard drive is an interesting experience, to say the least. The game expects Workbench v1.3, which can be booted off a hard drive. I made a hard disk image in WinUAE, initialized it and made it bootable by copying Workbench v1.3 over to it. The first floppy disk (it has two disks) for Pool of Radiance has an icon which loads an HD installation program. I ran the installer and it appeared to complete successfully, but when I went to run the game, it refused to run and gave me an error message. Only when I booted the Amiga clean with no floppy disks inserted would the game load correctly off a hard drive. It turned out that it did not like having the first floppy disk in the drive perhaps due to overlapping files.
Also, despite giving you an icon to install the game to HD, when the game is installed on an HD, it does not give you an icon to run it. Instead you must launch the Shell program, which gives you access to Workbench's command line interface, from the hard drive and then enter the following commands:
cd pool_of_radiance
execute program
After the game launches, you can insert the first disk if you want to load the sample party.
Macintosh Version
I downloaded "disk images" of the Macintosh version of Pool of Radiance from Macintosh Garden and I thought they were just something some random person slapped together because the installation, if you can call it that, is as janky as hell. Then I looked at the reference card of the Macintosh version from an eBay auction and found out that the install was done like that on purpose. Essentially the Macintosh install is like the PC compatible install in that the game stores its data as archive files on its disks. The PC has an installer which decompresses the archive files automatically onto hard disk or floppy disks but the Macintosh makes you decompress each archive one at a time, and there are six archive files, onto the destination disk using a included program called UnStuffit.
Pool of Radiance on Macintosh runs on systems as old as the Mac Plus and Mac SE, so it redrew all the graphics for a monochrome display. It also supports some color graphics on Macintoshes that support color output such as the Macintosh II. The 3-D view and the Wilderness overhead view will display in 16-colors like the PC version, but the rest of the graphics, including the portraits and the combat, remain in B&W.
When I tried Pool of Radiance on emulated color Mac systems, I found that the digitized sounds that accompanied the B&W systems either did not sound at all or only in very short grunts when walking and attacking. This made me suspicious that the samples were playing too fast. The first Macintosh to support color displays, the Macintosh II, uses a Motorola 68020 CPU @ 16MHz. The earliest Macintoshes which can run Pool of Radiance, the Plus and SE (1MiB RAM), use an 68000 CPU @ 8MHz. When I tried running the game in a Mac SE/30, which despite being a monochrome machine uses a Motorola 68030 CPU @ 16MHz, I also head the grunts. I came to the conclusion that the sound routines were speed sensitive.
In summary if you want color you will have to put up with very clipped sound effects, and if you keep to the minimum spec you will have full sound effects.
PC-88 and PC-98 Versions
The PC-88 and PC-98 versions use the same music compositions as were used in the NES and Famicom versions. This makes sense as all these versions were distributed by Pony Canyon. Even though both computer families support the same sound chips, they use different arrangements of the same underlying music. It should be noted that the PC-88 and PC-98 versions were released in 1989 while the Famicom and NES versions were released in 1991 and 1992, respectively.
The PC-98 version has disk based copy protection in addition to the codewheel protection, which may be something unique to the Japanese versions. The protection is pretty advanced as it checks for weak bits and images which preserve the protection only run in MAME as far as I can tell. Unprotected images are cracked and bypass the title screen, credits screen and codewheel screen. I was unable to find images of the PC-88 or FM-7 versions and only a few videos showing the former. They cannot be installed to a hard drive.
The PC-88 and PC-98 versions do not come with a starting party or characters on its disks, you have to create all of them. According to one of those PC-88 videos, the reference card has a sample party which you can enter things like race, gender and class and presumably ability scores. The video does not show any adjustments to the ability scores after the characters are created.
The graphics for the PC-88 and PC-98 use the same base designs and look very similar, but are not the same. The PC-98 uses a default resolution of 640x400 but the PC-88 can only manage 640x200. The PC-98 does give you an option on boot to use 640x200 to improve performance but it just skips drawing every other graphics line (text is unaffected).
The PC-88 version has an interface that is nearly identical to the C64 and A2 versions. For example when you create a character, after you select your race and gender the game will show your race and gender choices along with generated ability scores and ask you to "roll again" or "keep" and nothing else. Then you pick your character class and alignment. In the PC and more advanced versions it will ask for your class and alignment as well and then show you a full character sheet with the default portrait and ask you "keep this character". Saying "no" is the equivalent of "roll again."
The PC-88 does not follow the C64 and A2 interfaces in every respect. It shows the character sheet like the PC and more advanced versions do, including the Encumbrance and Movement stats that the C64 and A2 do not show.
The PC-88 has the demo feature of the A2 and C64. The PC-98 version, like the PC, Amiga and Macintosh version, does not. This suggests that there were two codebases being worked on by SSI, an 8-bit engine for the C64 and a 16-bit one for the PC.
NES/Famicom Version
The last systems to which Pool of Radiance was ported was the NES and Famicom. Pool of Radiance may be the 2nd largest licensed NES game and the 6th largest licensed Famicom game, but they still had to cut out quite a bit of content to get the game to fit onto a cartridge. Several race, gender and class combinations are unavailable. This is what you can be:
Human - Male/Female
Fighter
Cleric
Magic-User
Thief
Dwarf - Male
Fighter
Gnome - Male
Thief
Elf - Male/Female
Magic-User
Fighter/Magic-User/Thief
Elf - Male
Magic User/Thief
Halfling - Male
Halfling
Half-Elf - Male/Female
Fighter/Magic-User
Magic-User/Cleric
Half-Elf
Fighter/Cleric
A single portraits is assigned to every race/gender/class combination. Your party is limited to five characters + 1 NPC, the other versions allow you six characters + 2 NPCs. Dialog is simplified. Money is reduced to Gold and Gems. Combat gives you fewer components. Only three pregenerated characters are available from a fresh cartridge.
Heads and Bodies
Pool of Radiance is unique among the Gold Box in that it allows you to give your character a portrait from a selection of 14 heads and 12 bodies. I have taken screenshots of each head and body from every home computer version available to me and stitched them together into one image for the heads and one for the bodies.
Pool of Radiance is unique among the Gold Box in that it allows you to give your character a portrait from a selection of 14 heads and 12 bodies. I have taken screenshots of each head and body from every home computer version available to me and stitched them together into one image for the heads and one for the bodies.
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Baldur's Gate: Character Creation and Party Choices
Apparently I have been somehow pushed or co-opted into writing a series about Baldur's Gate. Hopefully this will be the last part, which gives my approach to character creation for this game.
Character Creation :
My main PC has always been a Human Fighter. I get a good roll and set my Str, Dex and Con to 18 and my Int, Wis and Cha to no less than 9. (Preferably 10 for Charisma, because 9 gives a -1 reaction adjustment). This requires a total roll of 84, which make take a few dozen clicks of the reroll button. Judging by the Enhanced Edition, total rolling points range from 75-100, but are heavily weighted toward the low end of the scale.
When you choose a class, you are stuck with whatever exceptional strength roll you get when you increase your strength score to 18. If you raise and lower the strength score, you will keep the first exceptional strength roll you make. You have to reroll to get a different exceptional strength score. However, you can raise your strength a point later in the game, and exceptional strength becomes irrelevant at that point.
With a Fighter, you have four weapon proficiency slots to use. I set two slots for Swords and one for Blunt Weapons and one for Bows. You will start out with 14 H.P. I prefer Fighters to Rangers and Paladins because they can gain new levels faster than Rangers and Paladins can. Also, Fighters have Weapon Specialization and the other two do not. Put the points you can earn by leveling up to the Sword. The best long sword in the game can be found at the Entrance to the Nahskel Mines in Chapter 2.
A dwarf or an elf make excellent fighters. A dwarf has a +1 to Con for +5HP per level at Con 19. If you raise your Con during the game, you can acquire regeneration. However, a dwarf has a max Dex of 17, so his AC adjustment is only -3. An elf has a max Dex of 19, making them superb archers. But they also have a +1 to hit for Swords and Bows, sweetening the pot even more. However, their Con maxes out at 17, giving them a benefit of only +3 HP per level.
Single Game Party Selection :
If you want to keep a harmonious party, you should pick NPCs close to your alignment. By acting mercifully, honestly and selflessly, your reputation will increase, good party members will be happy and the shops will give you better prices. Neutral party members will mutter but will not leave the party no matter how high your reputation becomes. Evil party members will leave if your reputation goes above 18. Being cruel, dishonest and greedy will cause your reputation to not increase and evil characters will stay content. Keep your reputation to no less than 10 to avoid higher prices, negative reaction adjustments and Flaming Fist posses and mercenary attacks.
I tend to favor characters you can acquire early over characters who are not obtainable until Chapter 4 or 5. You can pretty much clear out all the areas outside of Baldur's Gate (Chapter 5) before you have to go there to make progress with the plot. If you want to stay strictly to the main plot, the Chapter 4 NPCs can be used as replacements without too much of a management headache. None of the Chapter 5 NPCs are particularly impressive.
The Law-Neutrality-Chaos axis really has no importance in Baldur's Gate, only the Good-Neutral-Evil axis matters. So if you want your reputation to start at the maximum, pick Lawful Good (12). If you want take a path to the Dark Side, then pick Lawful or Neutral Evil (9) or Chaotic Evil (8).
Recommendations for a Good-Aligned Party :
Main Fighter PC
Imoen
Kivan
Minsc
Branwen
Dynaheir
Imoen has two purposes. First, you acquire her at level 1, so you can shape her thief abilities as you wish. Second, you can and should Dual Class her to a Mage when she becomes a Level 6 Thief. By the end of the game, you can get her to a Level 9 Mage. She should advance to a Level 6 Thief very rapidly if you explore the world, and then she will be developed as a Mage until she reaches Level 7, when she reacquires her Thief abilities.
The Thief skills that should be improved are Hide in the Shadows and Find Traps. Hide in Shadows is the most important skill because it allows her to scout out areas for monsters and encounters, especially at night. The 2nd Level Mage Spell Invisibility can also allow you to scout around undetected and without chance of failure for a long time, but it costs a spell slot and ends when you attack a target. Find Traps is also useful to find and disarm traps, which appear quite frequently in the ToSC Expansion and in some of the underground and even wilderness areas. Open locks is not as important because fighters with high strength can usually force locks and a Mage can use a Knock spell. You never really need to use the pick pocket skill (except for one instance at the Friendly Arm Inn) and you can save and reload if you fail.
Kivan makes a great archer and a pretty good front line warrior, and you can quickly pick him up at High Hedge east of Beregost. Ajantis is also a defensible choice and can be found at the Fishing Village north of the Friendly Arm Inn.
Minsc makes a great tank and he is located right in Nashkel. He will require you to rescue Dynaheir at the Gnoll's Stronghold, but she is worth it as is the trip to that area.
Dynaheir is an Invoker, so damage spells like Magic Missile, Melf's Acid Arrow, Lightning Bolt and Fireball are her specialty. She cannot summon or enchant, but there are many wands that can summon monsters. Weirdly there are no pure Mage NPCs in Baldur's Gate. You can find Xan at the end of Chapter 2, but he is an Enchanter and cannot cast Invocation spells like the ones I just listed, essentially the opposite of Dynaheir. Nothing clears out a horde of xvarts or gnolls like a well-placed Fireball spell.
Branwen will join the party for the price of a Stone to Flesh scroll and is located at the Naskel Carnival. Buy it from the temple, not the huckster next to her. She is the only good Cleric you will find early in the game, and you need a healer. If you really want to wait until Chapter 4, you can pick up Faldorn who is a pure Druid or even Yeslick.
Recommendations for an Evil Party :
Main Fighter PC
Imoen
Viconia
Kagain
Shar-Teel
Edwin
Safana serves as Imoen's replacement for evil parties. She is a quite a bit more closely aligned to the moral compass of this party, but she requires a bit of travel and risk to obtain. If you can raise her Int you can dual class her to a Mage.
Viconia can be found in Peldvale, to the east of the Friendly Arm Inn and requires killing a Flaming Fist soldier. There is no reputation loss for killing the soldier, but you will incur a -2 reputation hit whenever you add Viconia to the party. She is a painless way to lower your reputation if it gets too high. Even evil parties need a healer.
Kagain is in Beregost and keeping him only requires going back to the Coast Way. He is not the best fighter but he regenerates HP and does not need your healer's attention after resting.
Shar-Teel is located in Mutamin's Garden, which is east of the Beregost Temple. You must best her with your best male fighter before she will join. She makes for a great front line fighter. If your fighter is female, you should have someone with a higher strength score than Kagain to fight her. If your main PC is a female fighter, you can use the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity (found in the area south of the Friendly Arm Inn) to change your sex temporarily so you can best her. Of course you may have to wait or pay for a Remove Curse spell to unequip the stupid belt.
Edwin is probably the best mage in the game and his Amulet doubles the number of first and second level spells available to him. Magic Missile is always useful and will damage just about anything in the game. Unfortunately, you have to kill Dynaheir at the Gnoll's Stronghold or bring him to her to keep him. He is a Conjurer, so he cannot use Divination spells like Identify or Clairvoyance, which is only slightly annoying. You really won't need a Mage immediately, so you can bypass the Xzar and Montaron duo. Xzar is a decent second choice, but as a Necromancer he does not have access to Illusion spells, most notably defensive spells like Blur and Mirror Image. In that case, Montaron should take care of your Thiefly duties.
With a multi player game, my basic recommendations remain the same. You need three characters who are good in melee combat. A character with good Thief skills will make the game a lot less challenging. At least one Cleric/Druid character is a must, and two is better. Finally, a good Mage is a must.
Multi Classing and Dual Classing :
Dual Classing has its benefits, but it is quite the investment as you build up your second class to the level of your first class. In Imoen's example, to get the maximum Mage level, you cannot progress past level 6 as a Thief, otherwise you will hit the XP limit. (Canonically for sequel purposes, she changes classes after Thief level 7).
Multi Classing has its benefits, but experience is split between the classes, and therefore the characters will be weaker at the end of the game than the single class characters. Let's consider the combinations presented by the various NPCs in the game :
Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Cleric
Fighter/Druid
Cleric/Illusionist
Cleric/Thief
The game will allow a maximum of 80,500 XP to be split into each class. That give a Fighter/Thief a maximum level of 7/8, a Fighter/Cleric a maximum level of 7/7, a Fighter/Druid 7/8, a Cleric/Illusionist 7/7 and a Cleric/Thief 7/8. Single classed can achieve Level 8 for Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers, Level 9 Mages and Level 10 for Thieves, Bards and Druids. Level 9 Druids can cast Level 5 Priest Spells and Level 9 Wizards can cast Level 5 Wizard Spells.
Also, know that each class gets half the HP of a single class. A single classed Fighter can have 1-10 HP per level. A Fighter/Thief will have 1-5 or 1-3 HP per level. So while a Level 8 Fighter can have up to 80 HP by the end of the game, a Fighter/Thief will only have up to 53 HP. A Fighter/Druid would only have up to 63 HP.
The Elephant in the Room :
The above advice focuses on playing a character through Baldur's Gate and its Expansion Pack, but what about its Sequel and its Expansion Pack? You can import your character as developed in Baldur's Gate into Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.. Only the PC gets transferred, any NPCs common to both games like Imoen and Viconia will have their own stats, items and spells for Baldur's Gate II.
Should you transfer your PC? The benefits are that you can start your character a level above the starting level of BGII generated PCs, assuming you maxed out your XP in BG. You also can carry over a few items from the previous game, most notably the Golden Pantaloons (or just use Cheats or a Character Editor). You will be able to reassign your Weapon Proficiency slots and Thief Abilities. You can keep the HP and spells you earned in BG. You can even select a Class Kit for your character.
There are a few drawbacks to importing. First, a character that has already Dual Classed in BG cannot select a Class Kit for his inactive class. A Kensai to Mage in BGII is a combination that many swear by, but if you already Dual Classed in BG, it won't be available to you. Nor can you be a Half-Orc, Sorcerer, Monk or Barbarian, races and classes that did not exist in BG. BG was based on the basic 2nd Edition of the AD&D rules and came out in 1998. By the year 2000, the 3rd Edition of the D&D rules had been introduced and these contributions to the tabletop game were added to BGII. Because the Kits are not available to the low level characters in BG, they have distinct similarities to the Prestige Classes introduced in 3rd Edition. The designers were willing to bend the rules in a 3rd Edition fashion, witness the almost-Paladin Halfling Mazzy.
Ultimately, BGII has so many opportunities to earn huge amounts of experience that you start getting achieving near godlike levels of power in Thone of Bhall. Unless you make really poor choices in BG, whatever you do is not likely to matter much once you get into BGII.
One thing you should do is to use all the Manuals and Tomes you find in BG that raise your attribute points on yourself. Why waste them on the NPCs? They are not going to be transferred to BGII. In fact, there will be some sacrifices to be made in BGII, so boosting the ability scores is a good idea. You can't take these items with you, so use them to give yourself a permanent boost when you find them in BG.
Another thing you should do is to watch your HP increases. Save before you level up, so if you only earn 1HP from a roll, not including Constitution bonuses, you should try again. If you consistently get the upper end of the range of the die roll, you will be in good shape. (Of course there is a mod that can always give you max HP on level up). You won't have to be rolling many hit die in BGII, so you should make these early rolls count.
Avoid triple-multi classes like Fighter/Thief/Mage. While I might not be the biggest fan of two class multi classes, a triple class multi classed character will spread out the XP too thinly. Given a rough amount of XP available to an average party that has progressed through BG and BGII, say 4,000,000, your individual classes will still be hovering around level 12-13 by the end of Throne of Bhall.
Finally, I once brought a Fighter character through BG with an Int score of 3. I paid for it with a great deal of frustration in BGII against a certain type of monster. Try to keep every Ability Score in the double digits.
I do have a note of caution about the pure Fighter in BGII. BGII notably decreased the value of Weapon Specialization. Grand Master in BG gave you a bonus of +3 to Hit, +5 to Damage, and 3/2 extra attacks attacks per round. Grand Master in BGII gives you a bonus of +2 to Hit, +4 to Damage, and 1/2 extra attacks attacks per round. BGII encourages you to spread around the Weapon Proficiency points and there are so many great weapons you wish you could achieve Mastery in. Don't overlook hammers for BGII.
Character Creation :
My main PC has always been a Human Fighter. I get a good roll and set my Str, Dex and Con to 18 and my Int, Wis and Cha to no less than 9. (Preferably 10 for Charisma, because 9 gives a -1 reaction adjustment). This requires a total roll of 84, which make take a few dozen clicks of the reroll button. Judging by the Enhanced Edition, total rolling points range from 75-100, but are heavily weighted toward the low end of the scale.
When you choose a class, you are stuck with whatever exceptional strength roll you get when you increase your strength score to 18. If you raise and lower the strength score, you will keep the first exceptional strength roll you make. You have to reroll to get a different exceptional strength score. However, you can raise your strength a point later in the game, and exceptional strength becomes irrelevant at that point.
With a Fighter, you have four weapon proficiency slots to use. I set two slots for Swords and one for Blunt Weapons and one for Bows. You will start out with 14 H.P. I prefer Fighters to Rangers and Paladins because they can gain new levels faster than Rangers and Paladins can. Also, Fighters have Weapon Specialization and the other two do not. Put the points you can earn by leveling up to the Sword. The best long sword in the game can be found at the Entrance to the Nahskel Mines in Chapter 2.
A dwarf or an elf make excellent fighters. A dwarf has a +1 to Con for +5HP per level at Con 19. If you raise your Con during the game, you can acquire regeneration. However, a dwarf has a max Dex of 17, so his AC adjustment is only -3. An elf has a max Dex of 19, making them superb archers. But they also have a +1 to hit for Swords and Bows, sweetening the pot even more. However, their Con maxes out at 17, giving them a benefit of only +3 HP per level.
Single Game Party Selection :
If you want to keep a harmonious party, you should pick NPCs close to your alignment. By acting mercifully, honestly and selflessly, your reputation will increase, good party members will be happy and the shops will give you better prices. Neutral party members will mutter but will not leave the party no matter how high your reputation becomes. Evil party members will leave if your reputation goes above 18. Being cruel, dishonest and greedy will cause your reputation to not increase and evil characters will stay content. Keep your reputation to no less than 10 to avoid higher prices, negative reaction adjustments and Flaming Fist posses and mercenary attacks.
I tend to favor characters you can acquire early over characters who are not obtainable until Chapter 4 or 5. You can pretty much clear out all the areas outside of Baldur's Gate (Chapter 5) before you have to go there to make progress with the plot. If you want to stay strictly to the main plot, the Chapter 4 NPCs can be used as replacements without too much of a management headache. None of the Chapter 5 NPCs are particularly impressive.
The Law-Neutrality-Chaos axis really has no importance in Baldur's Gate, only the Good-Neutral-Evil axis matters. So if you want your reputation to start at the maximum, pick Lawful Good (12). If you want take a path to the Dark Side, then pick Lawful or Neutral Evil (9) or Chaotic Evil (8).
Recommendations for a Good-Aligned Party :
Main Fighter PC
Imoen
Kivan
Minsc
Branwen
Dynaheir
Imoen has two purposes. First, you acquire her at level 1, so you can shape her thief abilities as you wish. Second, you can and should Dual Class her to a Mage when she becomes a Level 6 Thief. By the end of the game, you can get her to a Level 9 Mage. She should advance to a Level 6 Thief very rapidly if you explore the world, and then she will be developed as a Mage until she reaches Level 7, when she reacquires her Thief abilities.
The Thief skills that should be improved are Hide in the Shadows and Find Traps. Hide in Shadows is the most important skill because it allows her to scout out areas for monsters and encounters, especially at night. The 2nd Level Mage Spell Invisibility can also allow you to scout around undetected and without chance of failure for a long time, but it costs a spell slot and ends when you attack a target. Find Traps is also useful to find and disarm traps, which appear quite frequently in the ToSC Expansion and in some of the underground and even wilderness areas. Open locks is not as important because fighters with high strength can usually force locks and a Mage can use a Knock spell. You never really need to use the pick pocket skill (except for one instance at the Friendly Arm Inn) and you can save and reload if you fail.
Kivan makes a great archer and a pretty good front line warrior, and you can quickly pick him up at High Hedge east of Beregost. Ajantis is also a defensible choice and can be found at the Fishing Village north of the Friendly Arm Inn.
Minsc makes a great tank and he is located right in Nashkel. He will require you to rescue Dynaheir at the Gnoll's Stronghold, but she is worth it as is the trip to that area.
Dynaheir is an Invoker, so damage spells like Magic Missile, Melf's Acid Arrow, Lightning Bolt and Fireball are her specialty. She cannot summon or enchant, but there are many wands that can summon monsters. Weirdly there are no pure Mage NPCs in Baldur's Gate. You can find Xan at the end of Chapter 2, but he is an Enchanter and cannot cast Invocation spells like the ones I just listed, essentially the opposite of Dynaheir. Nothing clears out a horde of xvarts or gnolls like a well-placed Fireball spell.
Branwen will join the party for the price of a Stone to Flesh scroll and is located at the Naskel Carnival. Buy it from the temple, not the huckster next to her. She is the only good Cleric you will find early in the game, and you need a healer. If you really want to wait until Chapter 4, you can pick up Faldorn who is a pure Druid or even Yeslick.
Recommendations for an Evil Party :
Main Fighter PC
Imoen
Viconia
Kagain
Shar-Teel
Edwin
Safana serves as Imoen's replacement for evil parties. She is a quite a bit more closely aligned to the moral compass of this party, but she requires a bit of travel and risk to obtain. If you can raise her Int you can dual class her to a Mage.
Viconia can be found in Peldvale, to the east of the Friendly Arm Inn and requires killing a Flaming Fist soldier. There is no reputation loss for killing the soldier, but you will incur a -2 reputation hit whenever you add Viconia to the party. She is a painless way to lower your reputation if it gets too high. Even evil parties need a healer.
Kagain is in Beregost and keeping him only requires going back to the Coast Way. He is not the best fighter but he regenerates HP and does not need your healer's attention after resting.
Shar-Teel is located in Mutamin's Garden, which is east of the Beregost Temple. You must best her with your best male fighter before she will join. She makes for a great front line fighter. If your fighter is female, you should have someone with a higher strength score than Kagain to fight her. If your main PC is a female fighter, you can use the Girdle of Masculinity/Femininity (found in the area south of the Friendly Arm Inn) to change your sex temporarily so you can best her. Of course you may have to wait or pay for a Remove Curse spell to unequip the stupid belt.
Edwin is probably the best mage in the game and his Amulet doubles the number of first and second level spells available to him. Magic Missile is always useful and will damage just about anything in the game. Unfortunately, you have to kill Dynaheir at the Gnoll's Stronghold or bring him to her to keep him. He is a Conjurer, so he cannot use Divination spells like Identify or Clairvoyance, which is only slightly annoying. You really won't need a Mage immediately, so you can bypass the Xzar and Montaron duo. Xzar is a decent second choice, but as a Necromancer he does not have access to Illusion spells, most notably defensive spells like Blur and Mirror Image. In that case, Montaron should take care of your Thiefly duties.
With a multi player game, my basic recommendations remain the same. You need three characters who are good in melee combat. A character with good Thief skills will make the game a lot less challenging. At least one Cleric/Druid character is a must, and two is better. Finally, a good Mage is a must.
Multi Classing and Dual Classing :
Dual Classing has its benefits, but it is quite the investment as you build up your second class to the level of your first class. In Imoen's example, to get the maximum Mage level, you cannot progress past level 6 as a Thief, otherwise you will hit the XP limit. (Canonically for sequel purposes, she changes classes after Thief level 7).
Multi Classing has its benefits, but experience is split between the classes, and therefore the characters will be weaker at the end of the game than the single class characters. Let's consider the combinations presented by the various NPCs in the game :
Fighter/Thief
Fighter/Cleric
Fighter/Druid
Cleric/Illusionist
Cleric/Thief
The game will allow a maximum of 80,500 XP to be split into each class. That give a Fighter/Thief a maximum level of 7/8, a Fighter/Cleric a maximum level of 7/7, a Fighter/Druid 7/8, a Cleric/Illusionist 7/7 and a Cleric/Thief 7/8. Single classed can achieve Level 8 for Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers, Level 9 Mages and Level 10 for Thieves, Bards and Druids. Level 9 Druids can cast Level 5 Priest Spells and Level 9 Wizards can cast Level 5 Wizard Spells.
Also, know that each class gets half the HP of a single class. A single classed Fighter can have 1-10 HP per level. A Fighter/Thief will have 1-5 or 1-3 HP per level. So while a Level 8 Fighter can have up to 80 HP by the end of the game, a Fighter/Thief will only have up to 53 HP. A Fighter/Druid would only have up to 63 HP.
The Elephant in the Room :
The above advice focuses on playing a character through Baldur's Gate and its Expansion Pack, but what about its Sequel and its Expansion Pack? You can import your character as developed in Baldur's Gate into Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.. Only the PC gets transferred, any NPCs common to both games like Imoen and Viconia will have their own stats, items and spells for Baldur's Gate II.
Should you transfer your PC? The benefits are that you can start your character a level above the starting level of BGII generated PCs, assuming you maxed out your XP in BG. You also can carry over a few items from the previous game, most notably the Golden Pantaloons (or just use Cheats or a Character Editor). You will be able to reassign your Weapon Proficiency slots and Thief Abilities. You can keep the HP and spells you earned in BG. You can even select a Class Kit for your character.
There are a few drawbacks to importing. First, a character that has already Dual Classed in BG cannot select a Class Kit for his inactive class. A Kensai to Mage in BGII is a combination that many swear by, but if you already Dual Classed in BG, it won't be available to you. Nor can you be a Half-Orc, Sorcerer, Monk or Barbarian, races and classes that did not exist in BG. BG was based on the basic 2nd Edition of the AD&D rules and came out in 1998. By the year 2000, the 3rd Edition of the D&D rules had been introduced and these contributions to the tabletop game were added to BGII. Because the Kits are not available to the low level characters in BG, they have distinct similarities to the Prestige Classes introduced in 3rd Edition. The designers were willing to bend the rules in a 3rd Edition fashion, witness the almost-Paladin Halfling Mazzy.
Ultimately, BGII has so many opportunities to earn huge amounts of experience that you start getting achieving near godlike levels of power in Thone of Bhall. Unless you make really poor choices in BG, whatever you do is not likely to matter much once you get into BGII.
One thing you should do is to use all the Manuals and Tomes you find in BG that raise your attribute points on yourself. Why waste them on the NPCs? They are not going to be transferred to BGII. In fact, there will be some sacrifices to be made in BGII, so boosting the ability scores is a good idea. You can't take these items with you, so use them to give yourself a permanent boost when you find them in BG.
Another thing you should do is to watch your HP increases. Save before you level up, so if you only earn 1HP from a roll, not including Constitution bonuses, you should try again. If you consistently get the upper end of the range of the die roll, you will be in good shape. (Of course there is a mod that can always give you max HP on level up). You won't have to be rolling many hit die in BGII, so you should make these early rolls count.
Avoid triple-multi classes like Fighter/Thief/Mage. While I might not be the biggest fan of two class multi classes, a triple class multi classed character will spread out the XP too thinly. Given a rough amount of XP available to an average party that has progressed through BG and BGII, say 4,000,000, your individual classes will still be hovering around level 12-13 by the end of Throne of Bhall.
Finally, I once brought a Fighter character through BG with an Int score of 3. I paid for it with a great deal of frustration in BGII against a certain type of monster. Try to keep every Ability Score in the double digits.
I do have a note of caution about the pure Fighter in BGII. BGII notably decreased the value of Weapon Specialization. Grand Master in BG gave you a bonus of +3 to Hit, +5 to Damage, and 3/2 extra attacks attacks per round. Grand Master in BGII gives you a bonus of +2 to Hit, +4 to Damage, and 1/2 extra attacks attacks per round. BGII encourages you to spread around the Weapon Proficiency points and there are so many great weapons you wish you could achieve Mastery in. Don't overlook hammers for BGII.
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Baldur's Gate: Shady Multiplayer Privacy Practices
Two days ago, an Anonymous individual posted this comment to my blog regarding Baldur's Gate. It does not show up in the comments section and only appeared in my email. His comment was so thorough that I thought I should post it in full here:
"'While there was no central matchmaking service like Battle.net integrated into the game, TCP/IP hosts were supported.' [This is what I said in the previous blog entry, his or her comments follow]
Unfortunately, this is not correct. "Unfortunately" because Bioware integrated hidden GameSpy registration matchmaking functionality into the multiplayer module and enabled it by default for TCP/IP hosts. Yes, you read that right. If you hosted a TCP/IP game, BG would clandestinely register the game at the Gamespy servers - without your knowledge or consent. If you were hosting a TCP/IP session anyone could and would appear (unless you either disabled the functionality/otherwise blocked connections with your firewall or/password protected the game/disabled "listen to join requests").
This had to be disabled with a setting in baldur.ini (not documented, just like the hidden GameSpy functionality wasnt) as follows:
[Gamespy]
Enabled=0
That's what the strange vague reference to the Gamespy "region" setting in the README.TXT file and the Baldur's Gate Config utility refer to - configuring which region to register the hidden in-game Gamespy multiplayer matchmaking functionality with (which is based on DirectPlay functionality) in the baldur.ini file.
So yeah any time you hosted a game all the details of it were listed and advertised (unbeknownst to you most likely unless you disabled it of course) at the GameSpy matchmaking servers for all the (GameSpy) gamingverse to see...and join, if they so chose.
In fact, BG even came with the GameSpyLite client (not documented and installed without consent along with the HEAT client) so that you could find these "undocumented hidden" multiplayer games (through Gamespy/HEAT).
So while its true there is no "in-game" CLIENT matchmaking service, there IS an "in-game" SERVER matching-making service - the undocumented hidden auto-enabled Gamespy server registration. And it was easy enough to find any/one of these games via the GameSpyLite client (or any other GameSpy client etc) which one could Alt-Tab to if needed to find a game.
In fact, when this clear violation of user privacy/connectivity control (not to mention lack of transparency and forced third party software install with no user knowledge or consent) was later made known to BioWare circa 1999/2000, they at first officially denied it, then later officially claimed that "privacy and security was not a concern when the game was first published back in 1998".
So there you have it, the scandalous sordid history of BG's in-game hidden undocumented Gamespy server registration for hosted TCP/IP games.
FWIW, some people find that disabling the (now useless due to GameSpy defunctness) hidden Gamespy server registration for hosts/servers fixes direct connection issues with clients."
This is rather unusual for this time. The days of TAGES and SecuROM and copy protection that would install rootkits on your PC without your knowledge or consent were not yet upon us. Big Data in the form of Google services and all its competitors was still in the future. Windows 10 is always sending some kind of data to Microsoft but what Baldur's Gate did is comparatively tame.
I never used the multiplayer back in the day, I always assumed that you used it solely by typing in the IP address of the host computer if not trying to connect via a LAN. That is what the manual says and that is how the interface works. A GameSpy client could save you the trouble of finding IPs hosting games and typing the IP in. But was it always present? Consider the following version list for Baldur's Gate :
1.0.4309 - Full Release - Baldur's Gate
1.1.4312 - Beta Patch - Baldur's Gate
1.1.4315 - Release Patch and Product Revision - Baldur's Gate
1.1.4320 - DirectX 8.0 Multiplayer Fix - Baldur's Gate (executable only)
1.3.5508 - Full Release - Tales of the Sword Coast
1.3.5512 - Release Patch and Product Revision - Tales of the Sword Coast
1.3.5521 - DirectX 8.0 Multiplayer Fix - Tales of the Sword Coast (executable only)
The 1.1.4315 version's readme is where they first mention Gamespy. My DVD-ROM has 1.1.4315 and it presumably installs the Gamespy service. It contains the Gamespy Lite and HEAT applications. The readme for 1.1.4315 states that "Gamespy software is automatically installed" and "Region: This setting is used for Gamespy connections". My Tales of the Sword Coast CD also has the Gamespy Lite and HEAT applications.
My original version, 1.0.4309, does not appear to have any Gamespy connection at first. It isn't mentioned in the manual, the readme and the GameSpy Lite or HEAT applications are not present. However, I have the UK release, not the US release, and the GameSpy logo is on the back of every US big box I have seen. It does not appear to be on the UK big boxes. When I do a straight 5CD install, no patches, no Expansion Pack, the Region setting is present in the configuration program and the is an entry for the Gamespy region is in the Baldur.ini file. Therefore, it appears to be present from the day the game went Gold. I am not sure there are any software differences between the US and the UK launch versions outside the readme file.
Now, I am sure that someone must have wondered how strangers were joining their multiplayer servers when they had not advertised that they were hosting outside their chosen circle of friends. When people said I saw your game on GameSpy, the next thing that the person running the server must have asked is "How does GameSpy know I am running a multiplayer BG game?" A Yahoo Search later (remember, this is the late '90s) and I'm sure most people could figure out that their information was being communicated to GameSpy in some manner. Not that this should excuse Bioware of deceptive, security compromising practices. Fortunately, you no longer have to worry about this since GameSpy has been shut down since 2013 and its Baldur's Gate matchmaking servers were probably shut down years earlier. You can still host your own multiplayer game of Baldur's Gate with your friends and disable the GameSpy services using the ini entry above to ensure that you can receive your maximum performance and bandwidth.
"'While there was no central matchmaking service like Battle.net integrated into the game, TCP/IP hosts were supported.' [This is what I said in the previous blog entry, his or her comments follow]
Unfortunately, this is not correct. "Unfortunately" because Bioware integrated hidden GameSpy registration matchmaking functionality into the multiplayer module and enabled it by default for TCP/IP hosts. Yes, you read that right. If you hosted a TCP/IP game, BG would clandestinely register the game at the Gamespy servers - without your knowledge or consent. If you were hosting a TCP/IP session anyone could and would appear (unless you either disabled the functionality/otherwise blocked connections with your firewall or/password protected the game/disabled "listen to join requests").
This had to be disabled with a setting in baldur.ini (not documented, just like the hidden GameSpy functionality wasnt) as follows:
[Gamespy]
Enabled=0
That's what the strange vague reference to the Gamespy "region" setting in the README.TXT file and the Baldur's Gate Config utility refer to - configuring which region to register the hidden in-game Gamespy multiplayer matchmaking functionality with (which is based on DirectPlay functionality) in the baldur.ini file.
So yeah any time you hosted a game all the details of it were listed and advertised (unbeknownst to you most likely unless you disabled it of course) at the GameSpy matchmaking servers for all the (GameSpy) gamingverse to see...and join, if they so chose.
In fact, BG even came with the GameSpyLite client (not documented and installed without consent along with the HEAT client) so that you could find these "undocumented hidden" multiplayer games (through Gamespy/HEAT).
So while its true there is no "in-game" CLIENT matchmaking service, there IS an "in-game" SERVER matching-making service - the undocumented hidden auto-enabled Gamespy server registration. And it was easy enough to find any/one of these games via the GameSpyLite client (or any other GameSpy client etc) which one could Alt-Tab to if needed to find a game.
In fact, when this clear violation of user privacy/connectivity control (not to mention lack of transparency and forced third party software install with no user knowledge or consent) was later made known to BioWare circa 1999/2000, they at first officially denied it, then later officially claimed that "privacy and security was not a concern when the game was first published back in 1998".
So there you have it, the scandalous sordid history of BG's in-game hidden undocumented Gamespy server registration for hosted TCP/IP games.
FWIW, some people find that disabling the (now useless due to GameSpy defunctness) hidden Gamespy server registration for hosts/servers fixes direct connection issues with clients."
This is rather unusual for this time. The days of TAGES and SecuROM and copy protection that would install rootkits on your PC without your knowledge or consent were not yet upon us. Big Data in the form of Google services and all its competitors was still in the future. Windows 10 is always sending some kind of data to Microsoft but what Baldur's Gate did is comparatively tame.
I never used the multiplayer back in the day, I always assumed that you used it solely by typing in the IP address of the host computer if not trying to connect via a LAN. That is what the manual says and that is how the interface works. A GameSpy client could save you the trouble of finding IPs hosting games and typing the IP in. But was it always present? Consider the following version list for Baldur's Gate :
1.0.4309 - Full Release - Baldur's Gate
1.1.4312 - Beta Patch - Baldur's Gate
1.1.4315 - Release Patch and Product Revision - Baldur's Gate
1.1.4320 - DirectX 8.0 Multiplayer Fix - Baldur's Gate (executable only)
1.3.5508 - Full Release - Tales of the Sword Coast
1.3.5512 - Release Patch and Product Revision - Tales of the Sword Coast
1.3.5521 - DirectX 8.0 Multiplayer Fix - Tales of the Sword Coast (executable only)
The 1.1.4315 version's readme is where they first mention Gamespy. My DVD-ROM has 1.1.4315 and it presumably installs the Gamespy service. It contains the Gamespy Lite and HEAT applications. The readme for 1.1.4315 states that "Gamespy software is automatically installed" and "Region: This setting is used for Gamespy connections". My Tales of the Sword Coast CD also has the Gamespy Lite and HEAT applications.
My original version, 1.0.4309, does not appear to have any Gamespy connection at first. It isn't mentioned in the manual, the readme and the GameSpy Lite or HEAT applications are not present. However, I have the UK release, not the US release, and the GameSpy logo is on the back of every US big box I have seen. It does not appear to be on the UK big boxes. When I do a straight 5CD install, no patches, no Expansion Pack, the Region setting is present in the configuration program and the is an entry for the Gamespy region is in the Baldur.ini file. Therefore, it appears to be present from the day the game went Gold. I am not sure there are any software differences between the US and the UK launch versions outside the readme file.
Now, I am sure that someone must have wondered how strangers were joining their multiplayer servers when they had not advertised that they were hosting outside their chosen circle of friends. When people said I saw your game on GameSpy, the next thing that the person running the server must have asked is "How does GameSpy know I am running a multiplayer BG game?" A Yahoo Search later (remember, this is the late '90s) and I'm sure most people could figure out that their information was being communicated to GameSpy in some manner. Not that this should excuse Bioware of deceptive, security compromising practices. Fortunately, you no longer have to worry about this since GameSpy has been shut down since 2013 and its Baldur's Gate matchmaking servers were probably shut down years earlier. You can still host your own multiplayer game of Baldur's Gate with your friends and disable the GameSpy services using the ini entry above to ensure that you can receive your maximum performance and bandwidth.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
AD&D Done Right : Baldur's Gate
 |
| Title Screen & Main Menu |
 |
| Character Creation |
 |
| Starting Out in Candlekeep |
 |
| Area Map |
 |
| World Map (portion) |
 |
| Character Journal |
 |
| Character Record |
 |
| Inventory |
 |
| Attacked inside a house |
 |
| Chapter One Introduction |
 |
| Aftermath of an ambush and a new party member |
 |
| Aftermath of a battle, don't let this happen to you |
Baldur's Gate supported cooperative multiplayer. While there was no central matchmaking service like Battle.net integrated into the game, TCP/IP hosts were supported. This allows the game to be played over the modern Internet today with comparative ease over games that just supported a serial null-modem, modem or IPX network connection. Baldur's Gate allows the players to go through the game with each player controlling his or her own character, up to six characters can join a game at a time. The first player would act as the leader and would be the central character in the game. If he died, you would have to reload. Because the game had to pause for dialogue and gold was always pooled in the party, the leader could control who could do what with a permissions control. If you do not like the NPCs available in the single player game, by playing multiplayer alone you can generate all six characters to your liking.
One of the more praiseworthy elements of Baldur's Gate is the amount of customization offered. For any created character, you can assign a portrait and voice samples to him or her from any jpg and wav file that meets the engine's specifications. You can also generate A.I. scripts to control the character in combat or use the ones the game provides. However, when creating a new character, you cannot simply set all your ability scores to 18s as you can with the Gold Box and Eye of the Beholder series. You have to add and subtract points, and it is easy to spend half an hour trying to a high total number and exceptional strength at the character creation screen. While the game does roll for your gold, it starts you off with maximum HP for the first level characters you create, but leveling up will give a random HP increase according to the class hit die. You can import and export characters, and they will come with their experience and equipment intact. There is also a built-in cheat system.
The game world is fleshed out in a variety of ways. The first way is with the material included in the box. The game comes with a large bound book called Volo's Guide to the Realms. This book acts as the game manual, gives an overview of the Forgotten Realms and the Sword Coast and describes the relevant AD&D rules. The book itself is 156 pages and bound with glue and uses a parchment style of printing, brown text on cream-colored paper. There is also a double-sided poster. The first side gives you a map of the Sword Coast, similar to the in-game map but with more detail and color. The reverse side gives you a map of Baldur's Gate indicating where various locations are within the city. This was very useful in the days before sites like GameBanshee laid them out using screenshots from the game itself. The City of Baldur's Gate itself is absolutely huge, with nine full areas and teeming with quests.
In addition to the material in the box, you can read books and item descriptions. There is a good amount of dialog and some encounters can be solved without violence. Your character keeps a journal describing what was said and what he or she did. The entries will be different depending on the moral alignment of your character. All this helps to bring life to the game world. Enemies are standard early AD&D fare. You have kobolds, xvarts and gibberlings, Hobgoblins, Flinds and Gnolls, Bandits and Mercenaries, Green Slimes, Gray Oozes and Ochre Jellies, Skeletons, Zombies, Ghouls and Ghasts, Ogres and Half-Ogres, Sirens and Basiliks, Skeleton Warriors and Battle Horrors, Spiders, Wolves and Bears, and others. This gives a sufficient variety of enemies to fight, although strangely enough Orcs are absent. You will encounter plenty of assassins and evil NPC parties to kill. Do not expect enemies which would be inappropriate for characters at level 7 by the end of the game.
Baldur's Gate is not beyond criticism. Most of the wilderness areas are vast but comparatively empty of set encounters. Many of the NPC quests are simple fetch and return or kill the foozle quests. Unlike later games, your journal does not list the assigned quests and identifies completed quests, so it can be a bit of a chore to figure out which ones you have completed if your memory is lacking. There is a lot of combat in this game, but the variety of the combat is a bit limited. Bows feel very overpowered, especially when Hobgoblins employ them against your party as they are wont to do early in the game. When you travel across areas on the map, you may be ambushed. If your party is still at the lower levels and you have Hobgoblins or Black Talon Mercenaries shooting fire arrows at you, be prepared to reload your game. Charm and confusion spells are incredibly annoying if your party gets hit by one and they always seem to work when cast against you.
Traveling across non-Town land areas is very tedious due to the fog of war and the number of random encounters you can trigger. Every map has trigger points where monsters will spawn. You have to carefully send out a scout because a single character can easily be overwhelmed. Resurrecting characters is an expense because no PC or NPC will ever be able to cast the Raise Dead spell without a scroll except for a Druid. Also, if characters (or enemies) get killed with a critical hit, they will explode into chunks and that character is dead permanently at the default difficulty level. But before you think you can get away with reloading, the developers devised a way to discourage that. If you reload in an area with spawning enemies, more and more enemies will be present as you keep reloading the saved game.
Good and Evil bears some criticism in how it is handled. Despite choosing your alignment for the main character, you cannot change it no matter how contrary to it you may act. You can be a good character and steal all you want from locked chests and drawers so long as you do not get caught and kill the now-hostile witnesses and guards. Playing an evil character is discouraged because the rewards for completing quests in the "evil" fashion are exceptionally stingy compared to completing quests in the "good" fashion. Being "good" increases your reputation, which leads to lower selling prices in the shops. Also, merchants will pay more for your goods. Even evil parties would enjoy the benefit of lower prices, but if your reputation gets too high, then the evil NPCs will leave your party. If you become too evil, steal too often, kill too many innocents, then the game will send parties or mercenaries or guards against you that will likely kill you.
The Expansion Pack, Tales of the Sword Coast, mainly offers more of the same. It does address a perceived shortcoming in the original game by adding a traditional, multi-level dungeon for you to explore. It also adds a few new areas and items and three major quests. However, perhaps its most useful feature is that it raises the XP cap from 89,000 to 161,000. If you were to go through the the basic game and begin to do quests outside the main storyline, your main character will easily earn well in excess of 89,000 XP. If you do not let your NPCs die or change them too often, they will also be maxed out. The Expansion Pack allows you to gain one more level on average for each character which you otherwise would not have been able to appreciate. Finally, you can increase the number of character nodes eight-fold to improve pathfinding. This is very important for the few tight maze-like maps in the game.
Thanks to the success of Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games, there is a world of modifications available for Baldur's Gate. New characters, items, spells, quests, expansion packs, you name it. There While other Infinity Engine games may have more mods, the game that started it all has plenty of extra free content available for it. If you do not want to buy Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, you can still get the game up to more modern standards thanks to a widescreen patch. However, while widescreen patches will allow you to see more of the game world, they will make your characters smaller and smaller. Although Baldur's Gate is not a bug-ridden minefield after the official patches, there are several fan patches to fix outstanding bugs. There are Infinity Engine viewers where you can look at the game assets in a convenient way and extract them. The game has a screenshot feature that works most of the time, just press Print Screen and it will save to bmp in 24-bit color. That is how I generated the screenshots in this blog entry.
If you are playing Baldur's Gate on hardware that it was current when it shipped, make sure you are using a 5-CD version (+1 CD for the Expansion Pack). It was also released on DVD-ROM before the Expansion Pack was released and is patched and supports the standard five languages, that one is good too. Avoid the 3-CD versions, sometimes called "The Original Saga". They saved disc space by compressing the large area files. This may be good for saving space but bad for performance on this hardware. I also read somewhere several years ago that this version suffered from random crashes when loading new areas. The best installation for those with the CDs is to do a full install of the whole game, then fully install the expansion and finally apply the 5512 patch. Do not apply later official patches, they are not necessary if you are not using DirectX 8.0 or higher and multiplayer. If you want to use unofficial patches, there are sites which can direct you further.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)