I had to restart, got soft-locked in the library. I also parlayed too much and chased off too many baddies I think before I got soft-locked so that's why I wasn't raising levels like I should have been.This game has pretty much everything later tactical RPGs would have, combat wise, and the various views (3D and overhead) are great. My thief and two fighters all have magic broadswords now, cleric has a magic flail and enchanted chain mail. One of my mages has a ring (don't know what kind yet) and the other has bracers, both magical obviously. The mages are both sleep-casting workhorses, the cleric has bless (which I cast on the party before breaking camp each time), cure light wounds, and detect magic for sniffing out the good loot. Fighters also each have enchanted bows now too.I'm sure it gets a lot more interesting as the game goes on, I've played other games that are similar, Ultima, Bard's Tale, MOM, many JRPGs and you can see how it fused all the good ideas around at the time, and how later games may have had better graphics, sound, paper dolling (which this game has to some degree, you just have to do it manually), etc. they don't offer a substantially improved experience, the implementation of the AD&D rules might not be perfect or complete but they are a pretty faithful and broad subset. I'm playing the C64 Nostalgia flash cart release, which fixes a few bugs and thankfully allows one to save on a disk. My C64U can run Easyflash carts but I don't think it can save to flash, at least if it can I have no idea how. I started with the disks and man that's slow as heck even with JiffyDOS.I'm just sorta wondering if I should have started with the Dragonlance one instead of Forgotten Realms. I don't care too much about importing characters, I can always use a character editor too. Anyway Gold Box games are worth a try for sure. I somehow missed these back in the day even though I was old enough that I probably should have played 'em.
I will add that the C64 version of PoR doesn't have any quality of life enhancements, for example every time you have combat, if possible you will do the encamp ritual where you memorize spells, possibly bless the party, save, etc. It takes up a fair bit of time. It's not a big pain in the butt but a minor annoyance. I guess in later versions of the Gold Box engine they fixed that and have an auto-memorize last spells option.The aim function's auto select is naive, it shouldn't target friendlies for instance, it's more practical and quicker to just manually select the enemy or move into them. Even though facing is implemented with all eight directions,something lacking in many many even totally modern games, the models only look left or right, making it a matter of remembering each character's last move or interaction, to determine their facing. This can get tricky during big combats with many moves between each character's turn. Couple other gripes, you can ID a magic item, then give it to a character and if they have another of the same type, later they will forget which is the magic one. So you have to waste a spell of detect magic again if you make the mistake of having two of the same kind of thing and exit from the treasure menu.The game doesn't really provide any training wheels. In the first quadrant of the old city, you can encamp anywhere and rest and memorize and save, and you won't be interrupted. You may be attacked before you can move again, but you can always heal and rest and save etc. After you leave that first quadrant, all bets are off and you will certainly be interrupted if you're resting in the open. And you can easily travel to places where the baddies are much too difficult to defeat at level 1, which is where my characters still are. I made this mistake before when I started the game.
there were a few quality of life improvements in alter ones yea.The dragonlance were my favorite goldbox, pre darksun (darksun feels way more modern).Buck rogers countdown to doomsday is still my favorite goldbox title, I first played it on genesis and enjoyed it more than most other early 90s RPGs. Pool of radiance is "historically important" if that matters to you.
>>12875278I understand, that's why I'm starting with PoR. I have Unlimited Adventures (the Mac version) and it's cool. There are lots of modules for it. The QoL improvements are nice.
Yeah Ive also seen the videohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7HXFufaPtA
>>12875393>10 hour videoChrist I didn't expect this game to be that deep.
A few years ago I decided to actually beat these games. I had a CD ROM full of them when I was a kid, but never got into them because they were old and busted, and didn't even use the mouse. Funnily enough, after playing through the games, by the time I got to Pools of Darkness, which does support the mouse, I didn't want it there and didn't want the damn cursor on screen.And yes, the Dragonlance games are also good.
>>12875393I was just going to get into Pool of Radiance because I wanted more SSI games after beating Buck Rogers. Guess I'll get back to it next year.
>>12876730So far it's pretty fun and freeform. You can "cheat" in the pubs, if you gamble. Just save and redo until you win. This seems to be actually the easiest way to make good money in the game at the very start. Leveling up is a big pain in the wallet for the first few levels. Having a backup save and alternating seems to be the real way to go lest you get screwed over and soft locking yourself, there are no real guardrails in PoR.
>>12876754I thought people try to roleplay these games not min max.
>>12876759Goldbox were the ultimate min max games, even character generation people fucked around to get 18s on all worthwhile stats. They had a story but the goal was always dungeon loot over the story. Modern gamers use the SSI goldbox companion but even back then people fucjed with the charaxter import to make perfect characters.
>>12876759I do. But it's brutal out there.>>12876761>even character generation people fucked around to get 18s on all worthwhile statsThey included an editor so you wouldn't be cursed with low stats. All the Gold Box games did.
>>12876841In some of the games setting everything to 18 made it more difficult. Ore enemies added in on top of the comical number of enemies you already face.Roleplaying these? With basically no character interaction for your party it’s not worth it.
>>12876759The only goldbox games where minmaxing is required are Pools of Darkness and Dark Queen of Krynn. I think I like the Pool of Radiance the most for its flexibility as you can explore everything or blast through it in minutes if you know where everything is. Its meta instead of minmaxing is playing with handicaps like picking nonhuman characters or unpractical party composition.I wish we had a modern equivalent of first person crawling, tactical chessboard fights with positioning and open world.
>>12875393Advanced autism for sure
I admire OP's dedication to roleplay playing Pool of Radiance.
>>12875505Its not that guy is just autistic and goes into every little detail of the life of the developers and every other game around it at the time and the entire history of D&D and more
Pool of Radiance (and only Pool) scales difficulty. If your party has higher stats, you get bigger enemy encounters.I'd still pump your stats if you plan on on exporting your characters to the next game. But just note that if you were to play the game standalone, and had a party with lower stats, much of the game would actually be easier.
>>12876841Been a while since I played, I couldnt recall if the editor was built in or manal save file tweaking. I recall in some of them you could just manually key in stats in the character import, meant to replicate your pen and paper characters from real D&D. But I know when my buddies played they went in heavy on 18s, I am mostly guilty of just rerolling the fuck out of characters in the older RPGs.
>>12877508>I'd still pump your stats if you plan on on exporting your characters to the next gameWhy? You can't stockpile exp. Those games remove excess exp from your characters if you theoretically had exp for multiple level ups in the same class at once.
>>12877608Because the later games are designed for a party with high stats. There is no scaling.As a side note I'm honestly not sure why people are pretending that they are true roleplayers by playing weaker characters. The true roleplaying experience of 75% of the party just dying to one enemy fireball and having to restart the whole game because you can't actually quit to title in these games.
>>12877626>Wisdom and Intelligence are usless except for the right caster class>Charisma is useless>Constitution caps at 16 for most classes and after level 8 or so you get fixed max HP gains independent of constitution>Your base Strength becomes completely useless as you will always have the Enlarge spell active anywayLiterally the only attribute that matters in the later games is Dexterity and possibly either Wisdom or Intelligence depending on your class.
>>12877130I've been taking it a bit easy on it, I don't want to get burned out. I had a sinking feeling when I had to restart but it's fine. My party was a bit wack with too many multi-classed characters anyway, before. I'm also going to complete the NE quadrant of the slums before going thru any of the tunnels this time to the harder parts. If I can anyway. I need to gain a level before tackling the treasure room NW of the square and a few other things too.
