Full run through of Gold Box games

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The reason why I suggested the fighter9or13/cleric is that power at the end of PoD isn't the only thing that matters, a thief18/mage would be more powerful in PoD than a thief10/mage (+3 HP, +2 to hit, better backstab), but the thief10/mage is more fun and powerful in CotAB.
It's Graystone's decision what's more important to him, a second cleric in CotAB (who can heal the pure cleric when (s)he's unconscious and provide extra healing spells for the endgame where resting isn't allowed) or more power in the later games.

 

I do wonder what happened with the OP... I hope he comes back to tell us how things turned out.


I recently also had the desire to run through all four games at Champion level (including dave's challenge and any other bonus areas) with the same six characters. I'll confess that I've never played the first two games at all, just read the manuals. So, a few questions for those that have:

Is it possible to get through the first two games with just one cleric?
How about the first game with no mage? The second game with no mage?
Is a thief absolutely required anywhere in the first two games? Anywhere in the second two? I do remember that in the Krynn games, you needed a thief for DKK Dave's Challenge, and for a single door in DQK. In both cases the best solution was to temporarily bring in a newly-created thief just for those obstacles.
How far into the series would a party of one cleric and five fighters likely get?

 

I would recommend at least one mage for AoE spells. It stops enemey casters if you get he jump on them. Could be crucial in certain parts of the games... I prefer to have 2.

 

A thief isn't needed for any of the games. Thieves are for backstabbing, not for quest purposes.
In PoR there are a few unimportant traps. A thief can climb down a well to get a 3rd way to handle something, but it won't yield more than an other.
In CotAB thieves can climb up a location to get an useless hint, that's all.

Playing PoR with only one cleric and no mage shouldn't be too difficult, especially since casters are limited to level 6 while fighters can reach level 8 and you can hire 2 NPCs. Spells like sleep, hold person or fireball can speed up battles a lot however and since you'll want to use "detect magic" not many healing spells remain for your cleric.

CotAB should be doable without mage, oils of speed should be saved for emergencies and dust of disappearance for the end battle.
A level 11 fireball can do far more damage than 1.5 attacks per round and beating PoD including additional challenge with a fighter or cleric 9/mage instead of fighter or cleric 15/mage will be far easier than beating CotAB without mage spells however.

 

And don't underestimate the usefulness of Haste. It speeds up and makes many battles that much easier. A fireball followed up with a Hasted attack from 3 fighters is pretty much going to beat anything in the game. Even sleep in the early level games is golden.

 

Thanks. Is it possible to make backstab workable? It seems to me that both F/T and T/M are so far inferior to a standard F/M that there's no point in even trying.

One problem the gold box games (and other DND CRPGS) had was with making thieves useful the way the other three classes were.

Do I get to pick what classes to hire and how long they stay, or is it like the Krynn series where there are a few NPCs who join you for varying amounts of time, but they are pretty much all fighters or thieves?

My concern about going through with only one cleric is not just the reduced availability of healing, but also the fact that when he's knocked unconscious I'll likely have to reload.

Good point.

Except for the aging thing.... did they implement age penalties in these games?

 

Since you've never played PoR and CotAB before consider playing them how they they were meant to be played for enjoyment instead of focusing on PoD. AD&D rules weren't made for level 40 parties.
Have fun in those games with builds like half-elf fighter/cleric/mage, elf fighter/mage or dwarf fighter/thief multiclass, no need to corrupt those 2 games for a PoD replay with a suboptimal party.

Backstabbing does by far the most melee damage. A F8/T9 can do four times the damage a F8 can. It's especially useful when fighting human sized spell resistant enemies with high HP like drow lords in CotAB or the main villain in GttSF. At level 40 nothing can compare with mage spells however.

There are hirelings of all 4 classes (only pure class) available, what share of gold or loot they demand depends on how powerful they are (high level fighters with heroic stats and equipment want more than low level fighters). Which kind of hireling is available is random but you can just revisit until you get what you want. Sometimes you'll meet one NPC who joins you for a quest, since I played without hirelings (wanted to keep the XP and loot for myself) so I don't know what happens if you already have 8 party members.

You should regenerate 1 HP for every 24 hours of resting (didn't try myself) and there's no time limit in the game. Healing potions might work too.

You can play a 50,000 year old human without any aging penalty. There are also potions to rejuvenate your characters, in PoD you can even buy an unlimited number of them if you're a youth fetishist.

 

I only think I'm going to play it once... don't have as much patience for the interface as I once did

I dunno, my 1E PH has tables for spellcasters going all the way to level 29, with no mention of a level limit above that.

I've played the krynn series many times, so I've had my fun with multiclass elves.

The problem I've had is setting it up during combat.

Neat. Do they gain levels? Does the loot they take include items too? I don't suppose I cant take them to the next game?

Here's the party as I currently envision it; suggestions are welcome:
Cleric 23/Paladin
Fighter 17/Cleric
Fighter 17/Mage
Fighter 17/Mage
Fighter 13/Mage
Fighter 9/Mage

 

The hirelings tell you what they want before you hire them, some want only 1-3 shares of the gold you find and some want a share of items. Hirelings stay with your party until you dismiss them and you can even train them. You can't take them with you into CotAB.

You start CotAB unequipped, but if a character is wearing gauntlets of ogre power while exporting from PoR (s)he'll start CotAB with 18/00 strength, a nice way to get a 18/00 str for a cleric or female fighter.

I wouldn't wait until cleric level 23 before dual classing to paladin, you need 5,600,000 XP for paladin level 24 and for reaching the level 40 cap (s)he'll need over 1,000,000 XP more than the fighter17/mages. Cleric level 19 is enough to cast 2 level 7 spells per day.

 

Oh right, forgot that.

I wonder if Strength or Enlarge can be made permanent this way.

Oops, that should be cleric 22/paladin, so "only" 5.25M paladin xp needed. Yes, I am concerned about the long period during the final game where I'll have only one cleric. I could reduce this to 4.2M xp if I only go to cleric level 19 (giving up some spells), or 4M xp if I used a fighter (giving up the pro:evil aura and some very minor spellcasting), or 3.25M xp if I do both.

I'll think about it some more.

Pointless for all non-mages. Even for mages, it isn't needed, though of course more is always better.

One thing I am considering is swapping one of the Fighter 17/Mages out for a Cleric 19/Mage. This completely solves any possible cleric shortages, but horribly cripples him in melee, even worse than the Fighter 9/Mage.

(My calculation is that a Fighter 17 is three times as good as a Cleric 19 in pure melee: Two attacks at THAC0 4 vs one attack at THAC0 9. A Fighter 9/Mage has 3/2 attacks at THAC0 11.)

Thoughts?

 

With this party you don't have to worry about the PoD bonus challenge, you have 4 characters who can cast blink and can get 2 rings of blinking.
For almost everything in PoD (delayed blast) fireballs or hold monster from 4 mages are an easy way to win (using physical attacks instead is so slow that you might fall asleep), and for the only battle where magic isn't allowed buffing before with mage spells like fire shield or blink will help more than thac0 or extra attacks per round.
A level 29+ cleric gets 9 level 6 and 7 level 7 spells, more than enough to handle healing for the party, one back up (I had a cleric9/thief and fighter10/cleric in my game) in case (s)he gets unconscious is enough (1 cleric level is enough to use resurrection scrolls in emergencies you shouldn't have).
You don't need as much cleric or physical attack power in PoD and the game shouldn't be as difficult as you might think.

I'd start PoR with 3 fighters, 2 clerics and 1 mage and end with the following party:

fighter9 or 13-15 or 17-18/mage
fighter13-15 or 17-18/mage
fighter13-15 or 17-18/cleric
cleric9/mage
cleric19-20/mage
mage14/paladin (mage spells from the beginning, melee power supported by spells like blink and fire shield later)

 

A few clarifications on how I like to play CRPGs...

Even though these games typically don't provide any kind of time pressure, I still like to play as if they did, to make things more interesting and challenging. So I'm not going to do the "ignore Clerics, rest for 100 days after every encounter" thing. Nor are my wizards going to blow through all their DBFs at the start of every little battle just because they can regain them afterward by camping. I think it's stupid that the storyline has an imminent dire threat against the entire world, but it takes the PCs 5000 years (4999 of them spent resting) to overcome it.

IWD2 had the right idea by putting the world-timer right there in game. You are still free to take as many centuries as you like to win, but at least you'll have the clock staring you in the face while you do it.

When I played POD before, I found that cleric resurrection was used quite often; sometimes even over half the party would be killed by a major boss, and various random dragon or high level mage encounters would sometimes kill the odd PC. Without at least two clerics you are going to be doing quite a bit of extra reloading.

I also got quite a lot of mileage out of my fighters, not just in the end battle but also against various magic-immune monsters, and even in ordinary encounters where I choose to conserve spells. However, if you don't care how often you rest, you can probably get by with three or less fighters.

I didn't make much use of Blink when I played through before, so hadn't noticed it being especially powerful. The 1r/level duration means it only lasts one encounter.

Interesting. I think this guy is most comparable to a Fighter 9/Mage. You lose out on 36 HP and 1/2 attack per round, but gain a whole bunch of utility and minor healing spells. The individual character is less powerful, but the party as a whole might be stronger. I'll try this for sure.

Strongly dislike. He's about 70 HP short of a normal Fighter. By the end of the series, his spells do half the damage they should He'll rarely get through enemy magic resistance (to be fair, POD doesn't have many MR enemies compared to DQK). Speaking of support spells -- he doesn't even get Mind Blank.

I think this will be my party in the first game:
4x fighter
2x cleric
hire a mage, and maybe a second one for the hard battles

second game:
4x fighter
cleric
cleric 9/mage

third game:
2x fighter
2x fighter 15/mage
cleric
cleric 9/mage

final game:
fighter 17/cleric
fighter 17/mage
fighter 15/mage
fighter 15/mage
cleric 22/paladin
cleric 9/mage

 

For most of PoD starting the battles with 2 (delayed blast) fireballs will make you last longer without resting (especially since your party has over 50 available late in PoD).

"Blink" for the whole party is incredibly powerful. The famous "dust of disappearance" in CotAB does exactly this. In PoD the NPC Vala is wearing a "ring of blinking", she hardly ever takes a scratch from fighting the monsters, if you manage to get her unconscious and take away the valuable item this will change.

After reaching level 17 and leaving the city in the beginning of PoD you won't be able to train immediately, you'll have to find a location first, running around with a freshly dualclassed level 1 mage and cleric for quite some time, loosing quite some XP. If you leave settlements you pass on your way without fighting, they might be empty when you return.
I'd consider dualing the cleric to paladin a little earlier (level 19-20) for getting cleric spells back earlier, but there'll be plenty of time until you've to make your decision.



In PoR you can't control hirelings in battle, so don't be surprised if a hired mage doesn't act exactly as you wish.
There are two kind of mage hirelings in the game, a level 2 and a level 4 one. If you really want to keep one hireling during the whole game you can train him, the shares he demands won't increase with level.
I recommend keeping the last NPC slot open for NPCs who will travel and fight with you temporarily.

 

Hey all,

Quick update. I ended up playing last fall and getting about 2/3 way through PoD, but real life got in the way and I never got back to it. Now I can't find my saves anywhere, so it looks like I'm going to be starting from scratch.

My party this time is going to be as follows:

F => C
F => M
F => M
C => P
T => R
M

Maybe not the best power party, but I think it should be interesting.

Can someone make suggestions on the best levels to dual class each character to maximize on the benefits?

 

9 or 13-14
9 or 13-15
9 or 13-15
12-14 (or 8-9 if character 1 duals at level 9, the start of CotAB)
9-10 or 13-14
-

Personally I'd go
F15/C (in SotSB you get free healing)
F15/M
F15/M
C12/P
T9/R

 

I always start each game with a new party, usually with single class humans. Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, Thief, Cleric, Mage, the boring vanilla party. Then when I replay the game, I try to go for more power - multi classing or human change class. But I couldn't beat Curse of the Azure Bonds or Pools of Darkness with the vanilla party. Agreed that multi-classing is weak because of the race-level-restrictions... I was glad they took most of that out for the Krynn series.

I eventually did what dmc did and made a party of level 39/40 god-like characters. I leveled them up in two groups of threes instead of pairing off. It doesn't take too long because using keyboard commands and quick load times make it quick to fight and rest. I can't remember the classes I used though... I think eventually 3 had cleric and 3 had mage classes.

 

So I just made it to the final battle in PoD with a different party (actually made up of chars from BG; Xzar, Imoen, Kivan, Minsc, Viconia and the PC). Truly a horrific battle and one this party wasn't built to handle. So I'm going back to the drawing board with my previous party idea.

F => C
F => M
F => M
C => P
T => R
M => R

My goal is to dual the three fighters at level 17 to capitalize on thaco and savings throws.

Is there any benefit to levelling the thief past level 9? (i.e. improved backstab chances)

At what point does it not make sense to level the cleric any farther? Do new spells per level taper off at any point? Since I won't add a new cleric until the start of PoD, I am assuming the change would have to occur at or after level 15.

Similarly, what is the tapering off point for the magic user who will become a ranger? I would guess it would also have to occur at or after level 15.

Alternatively, I could convert one of each of the fighters to M/C at level 13, and then convert the M/C to P/R immediately at the start of PoD (at level 15).

---------- Added 0 hours, 51 minutes and 1 seconds later... ----------

After looking over the bit of information out there, my plan is as follows:

Begins PoR with F/F/F/T/M/C.

Immediately in COTAB, dual T=>R.

In SOTSB, level two of the fighters at L13 to C/M. At the end of SOTSB, the party should be:

F/15
R15/T9
C15
C15/F13
M15
M15/F13

Once starting into PoD, there should be enough experience to get the un-dualled characters up to level 17 and convert immediately. That gives an ultimate party of:

R*/T9
P*/C17
R*/M17
C*/F13
M*/F17
M*/F13

Anything critical I am missing?

 

I's dualclass both fighters to mage during SotSB. The fighter17/mage will be over 7 mage levels behind (less spells, 7d6 less fireball damage) a fighter dualclassed to mage in SotSB while there'll hardly be any benefit from the additional fighter levels.
I doubt you want to grind over 2,500,000 extra XP just to get this character to mage 40.

I'd just dual the second fighter to mage at level 15, SotSB is quite easy so you don't need to complete dualclassing and get the fighter benefits there.

 

I ended up going with the party as I laid out above. I'm about 2/3 the way through PoD and everyone has accessed both classes now. Beat Kalistes Parlor on Veteran difficulty on the second try...so definitely a good party. Last time through it took 30-40 tries before I switched the difficulty level down.

 

Anybody have any tips for the final boss battle (w/o reducing difficult level)?

I blow through the first two battles with ease (first battle with offensive magic and second battle by spamming the enemy with summoned monsters). But in the third battle I am literally wiped out in seconds. I'm not even sure how to approach it.