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Sisyphus: Cursed I am, twice cursed, for cheating death: once by chaining dread Thanatos, and again through the aid of my wife. Now, I must push this boulder uphill in the pits of Tartarus, only to have it roll back to the bottom of the mountain as I come near the top. Chokes: Hold my beer.     Let's Play the AD&D Gold Box Series! Q: What the—didn't you just try to do one of these? A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TMOMTtAMBI Q: Okay, fine. What's on tap this time around? A: For your viewing pleasure, I'll be going through SSI's Gold Box series! For those of you that didn't own a computer in the '90s, these games are a baffling watermark on the RPG scene. Could be high, could be low. I've played through them, and I still can't tell. Gold Box games are notorious for their ridiculous combat scenarios. And yet, I can't stop playing them. I think I may have an addiction. I could seek counseling, or I could just play them for people online and take up even more of my free time. Yeah, that last one sounds good. Let's do that. Q: So, this is a series? How many games are in it? A: There's things like Hillsfar, Dragonlance, etc. that are technically Gold Box—or at least use the same engine. For our purposes, we'll be doing the main lineup of Forgotten Realms, which is:  Pool of RadiancePhlan (yes, that's really its name) is in shambles, and they need someone to fix it. They've got money. We like money. Along the way, we discover a boss monster literally named The Boss. Hilarity ensues.  Curse of the Azure BondsThe party wakes up one morning with a bunch of blue tattoos and no memories of how they got there. The local cleric nearly scorches their arms off when he tries to remove them. In the process of finding who did it, we discover some very unpleasant side effects. Hilarity ensues.  Secret of the Silver BladesOur merry band of jerks gets flung into the cold northeast mountains, where a horde of monsters is melting their way through a frozen mine in search of... something. Whatever it is, it's definitely powerful and definitely hostile. Eventually, we come face to face with it, and hilarity ensues.  Pools of DarknessBane, the God of Very Large Amounts of Evil, is pissed at us. With the help of a famous AD&D sage, we start the long fight back. Multidimensional hilarity ensues. We'll be doing all of them on the Amiga (emulator), since that's by far the least buggy and highest quality versions. Q: Uh. Four games? What's the run time on these things? A: About 40+ hours each, I reckon. Q: Chokes. Chokes, this is a bit ambitious. A: Sure is! That's the beauty of it. It's going to take me at least a year to get through these. I don't have to put in one single solitary ounce of effort to update in a timely manner. If I'm working on it right up to the death of the forums, great. If it's just me shouting into the void by the second game, then so be it. I put it here, you can stuff it into your eyeballs or not. Either way, I'm going to finish this. Just don't expect it to be any time soon. Q: What happened to the Dragon Warrior 3 LP, anyway? A: Just didn't work for me. I liked the characters well enough, but the game itself doesn't suit my style. The Gold Box series should work great, though: thoroughly episodic, lots of empty space to fill with snappy dialog, and a massive amount of very, very boring content to comb through for gems. This should go much better. Or won't. Definitely one of the two, though. Q: Okie doke, I'm on board. So, here's my suggestion. I was thinking a half-elf fighter/cleric/mage named Bartholomew who— A: Let me stop you right there. This time around, our party members are preselected. I've already done a cursory runthrough with this squad, and they click very well in both skills and personality. Plus, I've already recorded like a fourth of the first game. I just have to write it up. Q: I can't help but notice you didn't talk about who was in the party. A: I did not. Q: There's something you're not telling us. A: There is. Q: Hmmmm. A:  Anyway, enough preamble! Time to load up Pool of Radiance, smack champagne across its hull, and send the SS Titantic on its merry way! (And I shouldn't have to say it, but no goddamn spoilers you dorks!) Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 03:42 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Sep 23, 2019 03:28
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Wow, what's it do?
Its symbolic Frank, Things don't always have to do things. Now, help me plug it into the wall.
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Pools of Radiance, Chapter 1: Hey Now, You're an All-Star Hoboken, New Jersey. 2145 AD. /Update%2022/64-chapter16_35.jpg) /Update%2022/65-Justine-Avatar.png){kind=avatar} !/Update%2022/66-Aldo-avatar.png){kind=avatar} Justine? Did you feel that just now?/Update%2022/67-sternn-avatar.png){kind=avatar} Was that an invitation?  Ugh. Never mind./Update%2022/40-door.png) VWORP VWORP There it is again! Hey, somebody lose a door or somethin'? 'Cause this one ain't attached to anything.Final Dungeon, Dilithium Organic Nacelle Group. 381 AD.   Fear me, minions   we do FEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAR MEEEEEEEEEE VWORP VWORP ...? oh god, please help usJust Outside of Reeve. 4:23 PM on a Tuesday.   Well, we did it, everyone. The Archfield Baramos is finally defeated. I'm glad we were finally able to work out our differences, Swindle. Likewise. I think I'm grown as a person in many unspecified ways. Yes, it turns out the real adventure... was the friends we made along the way. VWORP VWORP ...did you hear that? Nope Nuh-uhn CYAAAAAAAAAAS Hey, wait! ... Dammit.Moonsea by New Phlan. Date and time unspecified. I'm out of jokes, leave me alone.  Hrf... blrg... Where are we?  Urg. Hanover? You all right? I'm good, boss. Just dizzy. What the hell just happened? Um, hello? ...hi? Hi. I was wondering if you three knew what was going on. I was with my friends a little while ago, and... ...now you're here. Like the rest of us. Woah. Who are you guys? I could ask you the very same thing. In fact, I'm gonna. Who are you guys? ...there's only one of me.  Jesus, five minutes in, and I already hate all of you. Everyone shut up except for somebody who knows what's going on. Hi, everybody! I'm Rezen! ... Oh no. No. NO NO N—   Welcome, everybody! The Gold Box series is serious business for serious RPG people, so we're going to need a seriously powerful party.  Unfortunately, we're fresh out. Oh well, these six'll do! Three may already be recognizable since I Wizardry: Captain Lincoln F. Sternn, Justine Thyme, and Hanover Fiste Final Fantasy Legend 2: Heather DiMarco Final Fantasy Legend: Rezen Vox Dragon Warrior 3 (abandoned): Shanna Paper Sorcerer (abandoned): ????? This being AD&D proper, I don't feel a whole lot of compulsion to explain mechanics up front. Just grab a weapon and swing the sharp pointy bit at the enemy. Cast a spell every now and then when you're in deep poo poo. Repeat. I'll explain the pertinent guts of it as we go along, but if you've ever played any RPG in existence, it was inspired by the very system driving this LP. I don't know why I'm writing this, anyway. Admit it: all of you nerds have been part of a D&D party at some point in your lifes. Since Pool of Radiance came first and is the least modern, we only have basic classes available. This will make things a little tricky later since my goal is to go coast to coast, but I've got some aces up my sleeve on that front. We're going to take these six and get through all four games, transfering from game to game as we go along, or die trying. Well. Figuratively. We're going to die trying regardless—and multiple times. That's just how we roll. Anyway... in addition to class, we need an alignment. They don't really matter for the purposes of the series so long as they're not evil. I'm just gonna go ahead and spoil things: the big bad of PoR will give us a chance to join him at the end, and if any of your guys are Evil, they automatically select yes. We do not want that to happen. We're the good guys, even if marginally. Beyond that, there's not much of a point in describing the alignments. You can look them up on your own if you don't already know them by heart. Hanover: Chaotic Neutral Fighter Justine: Lawful Good Fighter Heather: Chaotic Good Fighter Sternn: Chaotic Neutral Thief Shanna: Lawful Good Cleric Rezen: Chaotic Good Mage Some of you that were here for Wizardry may argue Justine is Chaotic Good instead of Lawful Good. Two things to bear in mind here: she was a Lord (basically, a Wizardry Paladin) in that series, so I'm carrying that over, and I also don't give a gently caress so gently caress you. All right! Let's get back to the antics!   Hey, thanks! Glad to be here. Wherever here is. Hmm. I'm not familiar with those gods. Hey, don't look at me. S'all a blur of medieval vowels.  The pub?! Lead the way! Oh. That's not as much fun. Let's be honest. Everybody in there is drunk, too.  Thanks! See ya around. So... Rezen, was it? Yup! Great. Hi. So, now that we have a sec, I was wondering if you could tell me who the hell you are and what the hell we're doing here Whatever it is, I bet it's totally bogus. Like, the last time I saw you, our entire nacelle almost blew up. Yeesh. You lead some kids into the core of a dying planet once, and they never let you forget about it. Uh, boss? ? I'm, uh... kinda stuck here. With the bigness. Oh, right. I mmmmmay have kinda-sorta tampered with our genetics on the way over. You what?! I had to adjust for the reverse-polarized mana field on this planet to make sure we didn't turn into goop. You should be fine! Except for muscles over there. What's your story? I have no idea what's up with your DNA. I got a condition. That doesn't answer my question at all. You think you'd be used to it by now. You'd think. C'mon, let's get gear! Shopping?! I'm starting to like this adventure already! No coffee, though. Oh boo. ??    Lay it on us. Hmm. It's not, like, totally terrible. Suit up, everybody. It's on me! What? What's that? Free gear? That's what I heard. Count me in! wh gg hkAD&D is stat porn, and our first objective is to buy gear. We have just enough starting gold for the basics: banded mail, long swords, and shields for the fighters; banded mail, shield, and flail for Shanna; studded leather and long sword for Sternn; a dagger and some darts for Rez. This gets us down to AC 2-3 on our front line, which isn't great, but it's better than running out there in our skivvies. Also, mages flat don't get armor in this game—not even robes. If you want to drop their AC, you have to find magical clothing they can use. In the meantime, they'll want to hide behind a wall or perhaps a conspicuously placed party member. Armor in AD&D doesn't absorb damage. It just makes you harder to hit. AC (Armor Class) is absolutely our primary concern this early in the game, followed immediately by THAC0 (To-Hit AC 0). The former makes enemies' attack rolls harder. The latter is our base to hit other people. They're ranked on a scale of 1-20, and lower is better for both. We get a handful of bonuses here and there for our starting stats, too, which is why Shanna has the lowest AC out of all of us with the same gear. The magic formula is: 1D20 against (THAC0 - AC). Equal or higher hits. On success, we get to roll our damage. Long swords are 1-8 damage against most targets. (More about this later.) Flails are 1-6, and daggers/darts are 1-4 ish. Again, we get an extra point here and there for our fighters being strong, which makes a lot of difference early on. It won't matter as much in later games, but it's still nice to have. It's also possible to hit a so-called "natural 20" (i.e. rolling an actual, unmodified 20) on your THAC0 roll, which doubles the damage a character does. I'm pretty sure the game takes this into account and bumps up the damage, although there won't be any sirens and bells going off to alert you. Oh, there's one more wrinkle to all this: encumbrance. An unencumbered, unarmored character can cover 12 squares of movement a turn. (That's gobbledygook right now, but it'll make sense later.) Banded armor reduces this down to 9. Plate mail reduces it further to 6. Beyond that, if you're carrying too much stuff, your movement gets cut in half. Got all that? Of course not, that's a billion different rules just to say how far you can run. Get used to it. Not to worry, though! I'll handle the math. All you need to know is, our fighters will be able to move 9 squares, and everyone else will get 12. Anything less than that is going to put a serious crimp in our fighting style. Also, plate mail is expensive as poo poo. So, that's one more reason not to invest in it.  All righty! We should be good to go. No. I'm not going anywhere with you. Agreed. You ambushed us, took us away from our friends, and haven't even told us why. Ugh fine. So, here's the deal. I'm a dimensionally hopping demigoddess who saves worlds as a hobby. Headband over there is a bloodthirsty valley girl who rules over a hellish nightmare dungeon with an iron fist. ...that's not making me feel any better. Me either. Like, I can't imagine what they're getting up to while I'm gone.quote: The point is, I'm trying to kick the evil baddies out of this realm, and I'm not gonna be able to do it solo. I need an experienced team of meatshields to back me up. ... Elites. I said elites, and not that other thing I said. gently caress this. I'm going to start punching you in the face now, and I'll stop when you take us home. Hey! Leave Rezen alone! Yeah, that's the other thing. You can make with the facepunching all you want, but we're kind of stuck here. On second thought, you hold. I'll punch. Guys, I'm really sorry. It turns out magic works completely different than I thought it was going to, and... well... DOOR's not working, and I don't have access to my esper abilities. Great. All the beter to punch you with. Please. Everyone. We can't undo what's been done. Rezen, if we get your powers back, will you be able to take us home? Yes, probably! ... Hey, did you know they're paying people to kill things? With actual gold? Killing them with the gold, or killing them for the gold? ...yes? Well, hell! I'm in. Omigod, killing things?! I'm in! Well, someone has to be the adult, or none of us are going home. I suppose I'm coming along. Hate all of you. Hate. So much hate. You remind me of someone I know. And I hate them too. Wow. Not very organized. Yes. One of us will have to write these down, or we're going to forget important details. Forget what now? Huh? What? Who? What? Never mind. *scribble*One interesting quirk about the Gold Box series is the Adventure Journal. Included with every game is a big-rear end instruction manual that not only contains various rules and monster profiles, but also entries for Proclamations, Tavern Tales, and Journal Entries. Besides saving wear and tear on your spacebar, it gives the writers extra time and space to produce something higher quality than four lines of pixels on a dodgy computer screen. It also serves as a minor form of copyright protection, although there are far more direct ways that we'll see. Since Shanna's the only one in the party who can tie her shoes without forgetting what she's doing or where she is or what her name is, she'll be our designated Lorekeeper. I'll post pertinent entries from her journal as we go along, starting with: Proclamation LXIV posted:Be it known that the council is interested in acquiring information as to the disposition of various formerly-living entities rumored to be harassing honest citizens in the vicinity of Valhigen Graveyard. A reward is offered to any person who shall travel to said graveyard and return an eye-witness account. lol formerly-living Proclamation LXXVIII posted:Be it known that the council is offering a reward to any person or persons who can provide information as to the disposition of several council agents who have been sent to investigate the unseemly happenings in the vicinity of Valhigen Graveyard. yeah I don't need to do this one, they're real real dead Proclamation CIX posted:Be it known that the council is offering an inducement to any individual who shall serve in the rescue force for the mercenary band of Taimalg-the-Invincible which has disappeared inside Valhigen Graveyard. also dead Proclamation LIX posted:Be it known that the council is interested in reclaiming the remaining blocks of the city of New Phlan. To reclaim said blocks they must be first cleared of monsters, vermin, and other uncivilized inhabitants. To this end the council is offering a reward to any person or group who is responsible for clearing any block of the old city. Oh hmm.  Proclamations serve more as side quests. Our main missions will come straight from the tap in city hall. Get ready for Phlan's ridiculous bureaucracy.  Yeah, that's not at all suspicious. I mean, look at us. Can you blame them? Hi! I'm Rezen! I'm Sasha. And I don't care.    Which one of those is gonna be easiest? The slums, I guess. I wouldn't really know. Adventuring's another department. I just hand out quests. Sounds like a thankless job. I don't mind. Kind of hard for dead people to thank you. What? What was that? I said, "Good luck out there!" No you didn't. No. I didn't. ...alls I'm sayin' is, you can stand out here shouting obscenities at the top of your lungs, or you can join the adventure and shout obscenities at the top of your lungs. At least you won't get arrested if you come with us! I promise nothing. Argh, fine. But after we're done with this, you get us home, and you never bother us again. Deal. Hey! Here's the entrance to the slums! Clear the way! Heroes comin' through.  Dead men walking! We got dead men walking here! ... I'm feeling less good about this by the second.Next Time: Slummin' It Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 05:59 on Nov 18, 2020 |
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Sep 23, 2019 03:28
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Spectre Snare, bitches. Wait, poo poo, that's Bard's Tale. Well this still looks fun.
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Sep 23, 2019 03:59
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Zeroisanumber posted:Spectre Snare, bitches. The answer is hold person, to this and any other question
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Sep 23, 2019 04:02
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Does this mean lucklaran is right out then? Edit: Also, wasn't Sternn's last action to steal all the money from everyone else? You'd think they'd remember that...
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Sep 23, 2019 06:10
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Oooh! Iremember these. The reason for 'Adventure Journals' was also for DRM. You had to generally use a phrase from one of the journals to boot up the game to start/continue it where it would call from a random passage.
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Sep 23, 2019 06:12
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Prevengers: Inconvevably Large Number Fight is go.
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Sep 23, 2019 06:35
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NewMars posted:Does this mean lucklaran is right out then? Oh so it’s a Wednesday. Got it.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:10
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FeyerbrandX posted:Prevengers: Inconvevably Large Number Fight is go. I know this is a pun on infinity war but MAN, you have no idea how right you are.
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Sep 23, 2019 15:13
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Chokes McGee posted:I know this is a pun on infinity war but MAN, you have no idea how right you are. You should have gone for the head, boy... I mean a little lower, I guess the neck to be more specific. The metal plate isn't just a beauty mark. 
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Sep 23, 2019 22:03
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FeyerbrandX posted:You should have gone for the head, boy... I mean a little lower, I guess the neck to be more specific. The metal plate isn't just a beauty mark. Frank would use the Infinity Gems to get himself a hoagie and then hand them off because it would be way too much effort to use it for anything else
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Sep 23, 2019 22:21
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Ah yes the Chokes Cinematic Universe
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Sep 23, 2019 22:38
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loving love Fiona Apple posted:Ah yes the Chokes Cinematic Universe it includes both The Lady and somehow the entire compute!'s gazette lp and I stand by that assertion
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Sep 23, 2019 22:39
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apple willie bard's tale run when
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Sep 23, 2019 22:39
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Chokes McGee posted:Frank would use the Infinity Gems to get himself a hoagie and then hand them off because it would be way too much effort to use it for anything else I don't know if I would blame him.
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Sep 23, 2019 23:46
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Isn't Pools of Radiance the game that would uninstall everything in the folder you put it in? Is that a spoiler?
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Sep 24, 2019 00:46
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I just hope you use the incredibly overpowered magic items to break the game over your knee.
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Sep 24, 2019 01:04
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Bogart posted:Isn't Pools of Radiance the game that would uninstall everything in the folder you put it in? Is that a spoiler? I don’t think so but it would massively ratchet up difficulty for fights. There’s other things later on that I’ll go over. They’re not spoilers per se but there’s no sense in ruining a hilarious surprise. Nemo2342 posted:I just hope you use the incredibly overpowered magic items to break the game over your knee. Hahahaha HAHAHAHAHA oh no you’re being serious 
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Sep 24, 2019 01:21
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Bogart posted:Isn't Pools of Radiance the game that would uninstall everything in the folder you put it in? Is that a spoiler? That was Ruins of Myth Drannor, the 3rd Edition game that came much later.
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Sep 24, 2019 01:24
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So. Computer RPG series I've never heard of based on a type of D&D I've never played. The screen has more empty space than relevant information, the actual player view of the world is a small window compared to everything else, the dialogue is an eye-searing green in a font I can barely make out, the game has already vomited all-manner of numbers on me that will receive no explanation beyond Chokes' well-made additions, all alongside some obtuse DRM protection disguised as player engagement. This game is 90's as gently caress and I am absolutely here for it.
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Sep 24, 2019 01:53
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Oh, glad to see you are in a writing state again, Chokes. Looking forward to seeing the game and your additions! I have fun but very skewed memories as I played the Dragonlance Gold Box games . Probably with ridiculous stats and Elven Fighter/Mage/Clerics because I was like 14.
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Sep 24, 2019 02:46
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Arcade Rabbit posted:So. Computer RPG series I've never heard of based on a type of D&D I've never played. The screen has more empty space than relevant information, the actual player view of the world is a small window compared to everything else, the dialogue is an eye-searing green in a font I can barely make out, the game has already vomited all-manner of numbers on me that will receive no explanation beyond Chokes' well-made additions, all alongside some obtuse DRM protection disguised as player engagement. And this is the pretty version. If I were feeling particularly masochistic, you could've had this instead: 
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Sep 24, 2019 04:01
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So there was a version that looked worse than the PC!
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Sep 24, 2019 04:08
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Jason Sextro posted:So there was a version that looked worse than the PC! I'll not have you besmirch the good name of glorious sixteen-tone ega
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Sep 24, 2019 04:44
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Pool of Radiance, Chapter 2: Slummin' It Today on the Gold Box LP, we'll tackle our first mission. How very exciting! Our job is to clean out the slums next door to New Phlan. To say it has a monster infestation is a bit of an understatement. Random mooks aren't anything a well equipped party can't handle, but there are scripted fights here that are... not meant for Level 1 adventurers. You, of course, have no way of knowing that without a walkthrough and will suddenly stumble across a army of Level 5 monsters that will kill you very, very dead. Fortunately, I know where those are and can avoid them as necessary. First things first: we need to get our less squishy members up front.  This is the camp menu, which is available any time you're not fighting. There are a myriad of options available to us, but the one we care about right now is (A)lter -> (O)rder.  After reshuffling, this is what the lineup looks like: fighters up front, cleric behind, thief and mage in the back. Sternn will actually serve as a decent enough front line guy over the course of the game, but currently, he's restricted to cheap leather armor and is not going to have a very impressive AC. That's very bad right now. Anyway, that should get it. In we go!  Aaaaaand they immediately know we're here. Like, don't look at me. Maybe it was the big lug up front? Naw. I'm agile for my size. Well, I certainly didn't pull a conspicuously placed tripwire to see what would happen, if that's what you think. ...why would we? Exactly.  Ack! Ack! It's finally combat time! Bet you didn't expect this view, did you? Combat in the Gold Box series is far more advanced than "put cursor on Fight, mash A button." You'll have to move your guys around on a real battlefield, pick attack options, and plan your moves ahead of time. Granted, once everybody meets in the middle it's just a big ol' flailing of swords, but tactics like choke points and kettling will not only help but be goddamn necessary by the time we're deep into this game. This is just six adventurers against four orcs in a swordfight, so there's not much to look at yet. Attacking is done by either selecting "(A)"ttack and fiddling with target selection keys or just moving into an enemy. The latter takes the least amount of keystrokes, so that's what I end up using. Later on, we'll actually have to aim at things, but it's not exactly rocket science. (Assuming you know what said things do.) Here we gooooooooo  Working out some anger issues? It's either them or you guys. EAT PUNCH YOU SUMBITCH BLOOD GLORIOUS BLOOD  Huh. Is there anyone on our front lines that isn't a rage-filled stab monkey? Hey, you picked us. Fair point. Victory!  Having vanquished our foes, we get access to any loot they were carrying. Most of the time, the loot is crap.  For example, these orcs are carrying 96 silver. That's literal pocket change in D&D. Here's the breakdown of material versus value: 10 coppers -> 1 silver 10 silver -> 1 electrum 2 electrum -> 1 gold 5 gold -> 1 platinum There's no good goddamn reason for all these coin types except to massively increase your encumbrance and make it impossible for thieves to sneak up on people. (Turns out you can't hide in the shadows when you sound like a piggy bank getting thrown into a brick wall.) It's complexity for complexity's sake trying to masquerade as worldbuilding, and it just drives me up a wall. Besides, the only coin type we're really interested in is platinum. Except for bits and pieces we buy at the start of the game, most of our transactions will be in plat. Oh, well. It's our first loot, so we might as well take it. Hitting (S)hare distributes the money as evenly as possible amongst our guys. After that, we exit the loot screen, and we're back to exploring mode.  Oof. Need a healer here. Right, let me just cast Heal. ... ... ... ...something usually happens by now. Aw, crap. I forgot to tell you guys how magic works around here. That would've been nice to know before we got into combat... I'd forget my head if it wasn't attached! Don't tempt me. In order to cast spells in AD&D, you first have to memorize them. In classic D&D, you also needed spell components. If you didn't have either, tough poo poo, no magic for you. Mercifully, this game won't bother with spell components. I'm fairly sure it's because the coders didn't want to put in the extra work, but it's a dumb mechanic anyway, so I'll take it. Memorizing is still a pain, though. First, you go to (M)agic -> (M)emorize and crack open the ol' spell book.  Here's Shanna's. As her magic comes from The Gods™, she gets each spell tier in one shot. As always, non-console RPG spells are a mixed bag of monstrously overpowered killshots, situational gadget buffs, and downright pointless filler. Currently, Shanna can cast...
We pick Cure Light Wounds and Detect Magic off the menu for now. Random encounters won't require a lot of stats fuckery, and healing is far and away the most important thing. Now, over to Rezen.  Unlike clerics, mages have to scrounge for spells. You can pick up a few as you level up, but you're never going to learn everything without scrolls. When you see spells you don't know on a scroll, do not use it. Save it until you're high enough level, then use the (S)cribe option to save it to your spellbook. After that, you can memorize it as normal and cast it all you want. If you have spares or are really desperate, scrolls also let you instacast high level spells that you normally wouldn't be able to access. Of course, there's a cost in efficacy, so no hurling sweet sweet 100 HP Delayed Blast Fireballs unless you earn it. Early on, you'll pray for magic user scrolls to drop. By the end of the game, you'll have scrolls coming out of your ears, most of which overlap. (The spells, not the ears.) It really is feast or famine. Here's the spells Rez knows right now:
The worst part of all this? As a Level 1 mage, Rezen only has one spell slot. We're going to make it Sleep, and it's going to stay Sleep for quite some time. That spell is the only way we'll survive the first part of this game, and we'll be casting it over and over again, so we might as well get comfortable with it now. Cool! Now that we've our spells picked out, all we have to do is (R)est and let it—  ...good gravy. In case you can't tell, that's not minutes. That's hours. The next unit up is days. (Want to hear something really sobering? Without a cleric or stupidly high constitution, you heal back 1 HP per day.) It's absolutely ludicrous, especially since you have to stop between fights and get your spells and HP back while you're out in the field. Assumedly, your guys just plunk down for seven hours straight and throw a kegger. Never mind that the big bad is beyond the next door and can clearly hear you the entire time, or that the entire fate of the world rests on your taking bold and immediate action. We're union, and we're taking our break whether you like it or not. In actuality, this is another ridiculous AD&D mechanic that I am going to happily ignore for plot purposes. As far as I'm concerned, topping off takes a matter of minutes, not hours. It's never going to affect us except for age, and it'll barely be noticeable by the time we get to the end of Pools of Darkness (knock on wood). It's a dumb idea with dumb execution and I'm going to handwave the entire thing away. Oh, and don't think you can just plop down anywhere you like, because monsters can interrupt your rest. You can be memorizing your spells for four hours straight, which I assume means squinting at your spellbook so hard blood vessels are bursting in your eyeballs, when suddenly a couple of kobolds stumble over your foot and interrupt those last 15 minutes. Your memorization attempt fails! Ha ha, gently caress you! There are occasional safe zones you can rest in to prevent that from happening, but you have to earn most of them. It's just the worst. Okay. Everyone set now? I'm not entirely clear what god or goddess I just prayed to for these spells. I'm sure it'll be okay. Just stay away from anything that sounds gutteral.    Well, I wouldn't say surprised.Kobolds are another monster we'll see around here. They're not exactly priority threats and only do 1-3 damage if they hit you. Still, a gang of them can cut you down before you realize what's going on, and it's not like we have a lot of HP to start with.     We beat them down pretty quick and leave their literal pennies behind.  Okay, for reals this time: everybody ready? Nope. Nah. Can I go home yet? Blah. It's like kidnapping a bunch of six year olds. ...um... Yeah, now that I hear myself say it, it wasn't a great analogy.  Gag me. All of these rooms totally look the same. Wish we still had that Federation database we got all those Proving Grounds maps from. Sorry, Justine. When Hanover and I hacked into it, we had no way of knowing something like this could happen. Don't beat yourself up over it. It's not like any of us could've predicted this. Right, which is why I stole these maps from the weapon shop while we were there. Oh you precocious scamp. That's me!Since it's not very exciting looking at the same five textures all LP long, I'm going to skip the wandering and jump straight to points of interest. Not pictured (unless something notable happens) are random encounters. Boring or not, there's a very compelling reason to fight these. I won't spoil it until the end of the mission, but for now, just know we're stumbling across little pockets of resistance here and there and stomping them down.   Hmm. According to the map, there's something behind this door. S'probably treasure. Or a monster. Treasure? Did you say treasure? Or... a monster. What's that? More treasure? Gimme gimme gimme WAIT NO  Go away, you can't have them whoopsie Like, now's probably not the best time to tell you she's a total kleptomaniac. Wish I could say I was surprised.Despite the party's misgivings, it's just a bog standard four orc fight. Whatevs. We ice these dorks and then take a look at what they were arguing over.  Oho! Now here's something worthwhile: a cleric scroll! Happily, cleric scrolls don't need Read Magic and work right out of the box.    This is the worst treasure in the history of treasure. Well, at least it saves us some camping.Yeah, two casts of Cure Light Wounds is... not overwhelming. We use it to patch up our guys and continue on our merry way.  Here's where we're heading next. And here's something that happens on the way there!    *checks pulse* He's fine—just unconscious. Yeah, I didn't think we'd get that lucky.When one of your guys wipes out, there's three states they can be in: Unconscious, Dying, and Dead. If your HP is within a certain range below zero after the final clobber, you're out cold. After the fight, casting a Cure spell will pop the character back up on their feet. In the unfortunate event that the cleric is the one who eats poo poo, you'll have to wait around a full day for them to heal a hit point on their own. You can also pay a Temple to cast Cure Light Wounds on them, but most of them time, you'll be rear end-deep in some Unfathomable Dungeon of Evil Badness and won't have a whole lot of options available. If you take too much damage on your last hit, your character is noted as "bleeding." You now have a handful of rounds to select (D)one -> (B)andage from the combat menu. Any character can do so from anywhere on the battlefield, which I don't understand the physics of, but whatever. Bandaging changes one dying character's status from Dying to Unconscious. It does involve giving up an action in the heat of battle, and your dying buddies usually won't croak on you in one or two rounds, so you may want to wait for an opportune moiment before you start patching people up—or, at least, defer duties to someone who's not doing much of anything. (Read: the mage.) Once the fight's over, they're Unconscious, so they can be brought back to their senses just as before. If you just eat a tremendous, massive amount of damage over your HP and Constitution buffer, you're Dead. Dead, obviously, does not fix itself. You'll have to take someone to a Temple to get resurrected and it'll cost that person a permanent Constitution point. I'm not even going to get into the more hilarious statuses, like Stone, Poisoned, or Gone. The stuff required to undo them (except Gone, you're right proper hosed if you get that one) is generally high level and only available in the temples, which you'll have to pay for. Much later on, your cleric(s) will pick up the needed spells themselves.  Okay, this looks like the next mark on the map. Shouldn't we go in, I don't know, more cautiously? I'm sure it'll be fine! What's the worst that could happen? WHAT HAVE YOU DOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—  —OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE He does that a lot, I take it? Just about every gol'dang day. Here, we have some goblins training with their local Goblin Leader. We're grunts at this point, so he's not wrong about us being good competition. Goblins aren't that much different than kobolds, but there's a lot of them, and that Leader in the back has a bow. Fortunately, we have an equalizer. Draco dormiens nunquam titilandus! ... ... ...what? Oh right, you guys do magic differently here. ZAPPO Nice work! That buys us time to clean up over here. Or we could do... THIS! STABBO ... Is that ethically justifiable? I think it's under the "don't start none, won't be none" doctrine. Sounds right to me.  Paralytic spells (like Sleep) change a target's status to Helpless. They can't act or move, but more importantly, one hit and they're down. HP doesn't matter, armor doesn't matter,  . Just boom and done. Once again, I will remind you that Sleep doesn't have a savings throw—just a restriction on how much HP the combined targets have.This is why spells like Sleep and its later cousins are so goddamn important, and we're going to be spamming them far deep into the series. With six people against slavering hordes of evil and no area effect damage (yet), we need something to level the playing field. We're going to be constantly slitting the throats of the helpless and overmatched, but my stat sheets still say "not evil" at the end of the day, and that's what counts.  We wipe the floor with the rest, taking little to no damage. Strategy!  With a little help from Shanna, we also locate some dope new armor for Sternn. Although it hasn't been identified yet, this is a Leather Armor +1. Armor +X lowers your AC (yes, it's confusing) beyond what normal armor would do. In addition, magical armor is lighter, so you can cover more squares. The real story here, though, is that thief abilities only kick in when you're wearing Leather or less. Studded Leather doesn't count. Thus, anything that's +X Leather is worth its weight in platinum. Not too shabby for our first major fight!    (Private Residence. Do Not Enter.) We're going in anyway, aren't we? Ehn. These kind of signs are more of a suggestion. Omigod, I feel the same way! ... ... ...well, someone say something. Hi! Can we steal your stuff?  Well that was mean. Let me try! Sternn, he just kicked us out. Don't worry. I've got... charisma.   Oh, this is gonna be great. Didn't I just get rid of you? This time's different! I'm nice!   You six look dumb enough to do it. What do you say? I stopped listening after "pay" and was already nodding my head. Great. Head to the Old Rope Guild. There's a booth in the back. Tell the man inside that Ohlo sent you. What's this guy look like? I'M NOT PAYING YOU TO ASK QUESTIONS, WAGE SLAVE ...is this an improvement over the last interaction or not?This is Ohlo. Ohlo is a Level 3 Mage and a huge jerk, but he has magical gear and cash. We love magical gear and cash. So, we're going to run a fetch quest for him. We haven't gone over this yet, but in some encounters, you can (P)arley. This gives you a choice of speaking styles: (A)busive, (H)aughty, (S)ly, (M)eek, and (N)ice. It's a charisma check with modifiers based on what you pick, although some options will automatically trigger further conversation, and some will flat out start fights. For example, it's possible to piss off Ohlo by being abusive, refusing to leave, etc...  ...but you really don't want to do that. Play nice, accept the commission, and don't come back until you've got his stuff.   Stand back, team! I can pick locks! *smoosh* Great job as always, Sternn. Really good stuff. Well, at least it can't get any worse. Hey, what's over there?  ew ew ew grody Great job as always, Rezen. Really good stuff. Shh. Shhhhhh. ... Hear that? Hear what? There's treasure here. I can feel it. Look around, you loon. There's nothing but hay and mystery animal poo poo. There's only one way to be sure. What— Like, just let her go, Justine. You can't stop her when she's like this. Muscles! Gimme a hand here! You got it, boss! ...  Ha! Told you!  Another option available from the field is (S)earch. Sometimes, things are going to seem conspicuous, or you'll have intel going in that there's hidden stuff, or you just want to toss the place because why not. Enable Search mode, and then wander around as normal. If you move over a hidden treasure stash, you'll uncover it. You shouldn't keep Search mode on all the time, though. For one thing, it burns 10 minutes a step instead of 1. For another, it massively increases chances of a random encounter. (I mean, you are looking harder for them.) Plus, it's dumb to spend days wandering around a single map looking for loot. There are some unexpected places to find treasure, and I'll be using a walkthrough to dig them all out, but you're not really missing much if you don't comb every square inch. When you're in a room with a special description, search it thoroughly. If you're told treasure is in a certain spot, go looking for it. Otherwise, don't worry about it too much. Anyway, for pushing three keys, we get some gems and gold, a +1 short bow, and ten +1 arrows. More importantly, we get 200 XP. Woo hoo!    Okay, everybody. Try to blend in. legalize it mon   *takes notes* ... the temple over the river is run by some hot-shot orc ... *scribble* Omigod you are such a nerrrrrrrrrd This is the only way we're going to keep our facts straight. It's totally pointless. Like, they're not even giving us anything to go on. Yeah! We can't just act on random "oh this monster over here did a thing" rumors. We need something specific— ... there is a secret treasure room in the NW corner ... WHAT So much for blending in.  REVEAL YOUR SECRETS TO ME, WALL, OR SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES Lemme handle this! HRRRGH *foomf* OMIGOD THE WALL ATE HIM IT'S A MIMIC AAA AAAAAAAAA   See? It's just an illusionary wall. HELP HELP THE BACK HALF OF MY BODY'S GONE Walk all the way through! Seriously, how do you stay so calm dealing with these idiots? Gods only know.  For the heroic and strenuous task of walking through the world's most obvious secret door, we're rewarded with another +1 Short Bow, another twenty +1 Arrows, and a metric assload of jewelry and gems. More importantly, we get 1173 XP. That is a stupid amount of experience—almost half what's required for our fighters to hit Level 2. Well, there's nothing left in here. We should head back and see if we qualify for training. Maybe we should let Rezen keep searching? She might find more treasure. IT'S MINE ALL MINE YOU CAN'T HAVE IT Rezen. That's a broom closet. Put down the laundry detergent. YOU'LL HAVE TO PRY IT OUT OF MY COLD DEAD HANDSNext Time: Looking to Train? Good Job! Chokes McGee fucked around with this message at 06:01 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Sep 24, 2019 05:39
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Chokes McGee posted:Hahahaha HAHAHAHAHA oh no you’re being serious I mean, I've watched the speedruns for some of these. There are at least 2 items that (if duplicated using tried and true CRPG trickery) can just wreck certain fights.
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Sep 24, 2019 07:20
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Ohhh man. The Picayune of yore spent ages shepherding a carefully-curated party through all four of these games - and then absolutely could not beat the final battle of the last game. I spent something like eighteen hours trying everything I could think of, but no dice. After all that time and effort, I got stuck two steps from the end of the series and never, ever got there. No ending for me. Until a year or so from now? Maybe? I hope?  ?anyway yaaaaaay they're baaaaack
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Sep 24, 2019 08:18
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Very entertaining writing, friend. I gotta track down and peruse your previous LP work.  One thing I'll always remember this game for- they stacked enemy monster numbers in some encounters, including most random ones, with party stats. So if your party was modded to have mostly 18s in every ability (as the game allowed you to accomplish by tweaking characters during creation), you would have to fight several times as many monsters as a lower stat party would. The Justice League has to put down armies, the Feebleminded Weaklings have only one or two opponents. Fun times. They didn't do that with later games, thankfully.
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Sep 24, 2019 09:19
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Nemo2342 posted:I mean, I've watched the speedruns for some of these. There are at least 2 items that (if duplicated using tried and true CRPG trickery) can just wreck certain fights. Ooooh. Yeah if you dupe items this thing gets silly in a hurry, especially once you get a certain mysterious jar of dust mite excrement. I will not be doing that, however, because it’s cheating and Lincoln Fitzgerald Sternn would never cheat. Never. Picayune posted:Ohhh man. The Picayune of yore spent ages shepherding a carefully-curated party through all four of these games - and then absolutely could not beat the final battle of the last game. Yeah there’s no margin for error here. If I’m not careful about how I handle mid game we could end up stuck and stall out during Pools. 
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Sep 24, 2019 14:50
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I do like the writing but I kinda can't put a name to anyone's sprite except Rezen.
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Sep 24, 2019 15:28
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gently caress yes- when I was a kid I got Curse of the Azure Bonds at Computer Renaissance, and it came with the full hint book- thing was thick, had all the maps and character build tips, and if you were willing to look up stats, it was comprehensive enough that you could use it to run an entire campaign at the tabletop it took me about three years to complete Azure Bonds, in glorious 4-color CGA, on a computer that didn't meet the minimum requirements as it only had an 8088 and not a fancy 286- one sitting would see about two or three battles, since it displayed at about 30 seconds/frame. Woe betide when encountering slingers, whole chapters of books could be read in the time it took for them all to fire pellets across the screen later as a teen I got a CD-ROM that had all of 'em on it, tho I never finished the FR quadrology because I ended up sinking tons of hours into FRUA. These are delightful little games, janky as hell but not especially so compared to their contemporaries, and I'm stoked to see someone muddling through em!
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Sep 24, 2019 15:30
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Say, how hard would it be to post the party's statlines so we can play along if we want? This may be what finally gets me off my rear end to try to go further than the slums. On the PC, anyway. The NES version had a few conveniences added that made some of the deadlier early fights a hell of a lot easier.
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Sep 24, 2019 15:39
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Chokes McGee posted:Ooooh. Yeah if you dupe items this thing gets silly in a hurry, especially once you get a certain mysterious jar of dust mite excrement. I will not be doing that, however, because it’s cheating and Lincoln Fitzgerald Sternn would never cheat. Never. You pulled out The Bishop in the Wizardy LP, I have no doubt you'll deploy whatever means necessary to save the universe.
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Sep 24, 2019 16:34
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AweStriker posted:I do like the writing but I kinda can't put a name to anyone's sprite except Rezen. An unfortunate side effect of the gold box character sprite engine is that everyone looks the same to a certain extent. Rez’s personality and sprite (she’s the only one in a robe) helps with that. Kliff posted:Say, how hard would it be to post the party's statlines so we can play along if we want? This may be what finally gets me off my rear end to try to go further than the slums. I can do that! I have something queued up in my brain as an in universe excuse to show off stats so I might as well deploy it next update. Although man o man are you in for a surprise when you try Sokal Keep DO NOT DISCUSS THIS FURTHER ITT THANK YOU Nemo2342 posted:You pulled out The Bishop in the Wizardy LP, I have no doubt you'll deploy whatever means necessary to save the universe. I mean I’d rather do a clean run through but if I’m that close to the finish line then yeah, by any means necessary 
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Sep 24, 2019 17:00
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Also it helps that Hanover’s sprite is voiced by Roger Bumpass. You can either use the version from Heavy Metal or Squidward. Your choice. That being said my life’s goal is to get Roger Bumpass to do Hanover’s fake freak out in Squidward’s voice. Hope springs eternal.
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Sep 24, 2019 17:05
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Not only did I play PoR and Azure Bonds back in the day (in dazzling 4-color palette), I also had the pen-and-paper "Ruins of Adventure" module the first game was adapted from. And yeah, Sleep and other AoE spells are a necessity during the (really frequent) times you need to punch above your weight. Despite the jank and annoying 1e rules, I've always dug PoR's premise of reclaiming territory from monsters, along with the fact that you actually can do that -- clear out a neighborhood and, by God, monsters will stop appearing in that neighborhood. Made me feel like I was accomplishing something. 
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Sep 24, 2019 18:05
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Mechanical Ape posted:Despite the jank and annoying 1e rules, I've always dug PoR's premise of reclaiming territory from monsters, along with the fact that you actually can do that -- clear out a neighborhood and, by God, monsters will stop appearing in that neighborhood. nice spoilers  (I actually don't care that much since we were gonna get to it next update, and I'm not picking on you specifically since it was bound to happen, but try not to do this stuff in the future guys!) But yeah, all of PoR is basically counting down the scenarios until you finally get Fireball. One of the things I've always really liked about Gold Box is that, except for Blades which is horrible filler slog, everything's divided neatly into autonomous quests you can do in any order. It's like the Mega Man of RPGs! Slums Man! Keep Man! Castle Man! And you'll get completely owned if you do them in the wrong order, too!
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Sep 24, 2019 19:06
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Oh shoot, sorry, I guess I saw that as a game-mechanic thingy not a plot thingy. Will keep my lip extra zipped going forward.
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Sep 24, 2019 19:32
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Chokes McGee posted:Also it helps that Hanover’s sprite is voiced by Roger Bumpass. You can either use the version from Heavy Metal or Squidward. Your choice. I'm taking a third option and making him PROFESSOR MEMBRAAAANE!!!
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Sep 25, 2019 01:37
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