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Demetrios1453 Plays the Gold Box Games
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<blockquote data-quote="Demetrios1453" data-source="post: 9280998" data-attributes="member: 6801060"><p><strong><em>Pool of Radiance </em>(Part 6): The Slums (Part 2)</strong></p><p></p><p>All rested, healed up, and spells memorized, it's time to head further into the Slums! If you look at the map at the end of the last post, we go out the door, go south, go out the next door, and head down the corridor headed west (where the highlighted square is). We go through another door a short distance down, and there we have doors to our left and right, and a corridor continuing straight ahead to the west (again, I'll include a map at the end of this post). We try to go through the door to the right (north), and...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349398[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Well, that's why we have a thief around (and for the occasional backstab, which are unfortunately very hard to set up in these games - I'll definitely be bragging about the rare times I can pull one off successfully, trust me!). We have Buffy pick the lock and...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349399[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>This set encounter will be a bit tougher than the one with just 4 orcs, but it's not too tough, being all rested up and ready to go. Time for some of them to take a quick nap...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349400[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Since I slowed the game down to get some better screenshots, here is Baroness Bella killing a goblin, with the skull and crossbones effect that results when a foe (or one of your own characters!) dies. You'll see that in the middle right section any time you attack, telling you if you missed ("Baroness Bella attacks Goblin Guard and misses"), or how much damage was done. It looks the same for when an enemy attacks one of your characters.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349402[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>If you kill a sleeping or otherwise helpless enemy, you'll see this (I wasn't quite fast enough to get the skull and crossbones for this screenshot). One thing to note, if you're killing helpless foes with bows, you only get one shot a round, instead of two, while doing so.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349403[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The goblins go down quickly (including the goblin leader that was offscreen to the left), so it's treasure time. But this time, let's scroll down to Brother Baltor in our list:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349404[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Now we have the "Detect" option showing up only for him, since he has <em>detect magic </em>memorized. Let's cast it and see what the results are:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349405[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>What's that asterisk next to the leather armor? Why... it's magical! Since we only have one person who wears leather armor, Buffy picks it up and (since we have Auto ID on):</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349406[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>We definitely equip it, and now Buffy's AC (which is the worst in the party) goes down by 1. (The asterisk will go away shortly once the <em>detect magic</em> spell duration ends).</p><p></p><p>All done here, we turn around, go back out the door, cross the corridor, and go through the door headed south, when:</p><p></p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349414[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>At this point, Brother Baltor is, again, pretty beaten up.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349415[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Time for healer to heal himself. I want to reserve the spells for emergencies, so let's use that scroll we got a short time ago.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349416[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]349417[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Even after casting both <em>cure light wounds </em>available, the results aren't particularly spectacular.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349418[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(note all the various types of coinage we've picked up so far. And each coin contributes to encumbrance, so it's best to be exchanged out whenever at a store for larger currencies)</p><p></p><p>We go through another door, heading generally south, until we get to what looks like a large plaza with a building in it. We turn east to head around that building, the south, looking for a door...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349419[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The kobolds are taken care of fairly quickly, and we find a door to enter the building. It's locked though, so Buffy picks the lock, and:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349420[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(He never comes closer, so he's presumably yelling at us from across the room)</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349422[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>I guess we accept. Nothing like a good old fashioned fetch quest!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349423[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The Rope Guild, right. Sounds like a nice, pleasant place that will be easy to get to and navigate through, with no trouble waiting inside at all! We take our leave and head back north. We've got a fair amount of loot now, so it's probably best to head back to the civilized area and sell what we've gathered.</p><p></p><p>We've barely gotten two steps outside his door when it's time for another random patrol (#6 if I'm counting correctly)</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349428[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]349429[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Ugh, random goblin flanked the party again. This really sucks when it happens, as it's annoying to have to switch everything around in the inventory. This is well before games made it easy to toggle between ranged and melee.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349430[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The goblins have failed their morale and are now running away. This is the message you get when one runs out of melee combat - you get a free attack from behind. Brother Baltor is more than happy to make the goblin pay for doing so. The screenshot was a second too quick to get the skull and crossbones, because that goblin is <em>very</em> dead.</p><p></p><p>No wonder he was so mad, he's been hit again, and is low on HP yet again. He and Bant will be the ones getting the most hits, as they are in the front on the flanks, but usually battle positions tend to favor each equally through the luck of the draw. He's just had some bad luck in where the battles have occurred and the position of the foes, meaning more enemies have been able to hit him, and, thus, doing more damage to him.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349431[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Sigh, time to cast his <em>cure light wounds </em>spells.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349433[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>The first one gives him just a single hit point back, but the second one, conversely, gets him back up to full health! Time to make a run back to our closest safe resting spot, which will be the room where we defeated the goblin set encounter. We head west, then north, and actually reach it with no further encounters. Time to rest, as everyone is now completely out of spells (both magic-users each used their <em>sleep</em> spell during the proceeding encounters).</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349434[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349435[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Spells memorized, and everyone fully rested, time to make a run back to the gate back to the city. Here's a map of the parts of the Slums we have explored so far:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349438[/ATTACH]</p><p>We are currently in the goblin set encounter room, and Ohlo was down to the south, east, and then south. Our goal is to get back to the gate to the city, which is the door on the far right. We want to get back because we've already got enough loot that it's beginning to affect characters' encumbrance, and they are getting slowed down in combat:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349439[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Baroness Bella's movement is usually 9, but she's carrying so much that it's been reduced to 6. It can go down to 3, or even 0 (which you <em>really </em>don't want during combat) should she get even more encumbered. Conversely, things such as the <em>haste</em> spell or <em>boots of speed</em> can increase the movement. An unencumbered character with both of those can have a movement of 48!</p><p></p><p>So, it's a run for the gate, and, surprisingly, we almost make it there before we have a random encounter:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349440[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>A <em>sleep </em>spell and normal battle prowess makes quick work of the goblins, and we're finally back to the civilized area of Phlan! Let's head to the shop and sell our loot!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349442[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Well, darn. They actually close shops at night in this game, which is something of a novelty for CRPGs in this era. It's 22:12 (if you haven't noticed, the coordinates on the usually 16 x 16 map grid, the direction the party is facing, and the time are all right there below the party info), and in this game, dawn is at 00:00, so we're just a bit too early. Well, we just cast a <em>sleep </em>spell in the combat before the gate, so we can just go over to the inn to rest and re-gain it. If we didn't have any spells to memorize, we could just go to the inn and choose an amount of time to rest so that the stores (and other places like the town hall) will be open.</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349443[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>One short rest later:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349444[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>And the store is now open!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349446[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Not bad!</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349447[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>Ooof. The battleaxes are even worse, going for just 2 gp. The chainmail at least goes for 12, so it was sort of worth dragging back here. But really, only the longbows were really worth it.</p><p></p><p>But, we sell all our loot, and since our money is pooled, here's what our funds look like:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349448[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(The silver was definitely not helping out with our encumbrance!)</p><p></p><p>What we do now is buy 10 arrows for 1 gp. Since our funds are pooled, the money will come from that, and then, suddenly, our pooled funds are nicely rounded:</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349449[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>That's far less encumbering! We can split the pooled funds, with everyone getting an equal share, and then leave the store much richer and lighter. It's time to head back to the Slums for further adventure. But that's for the next post...</p><p></p><p>[ATTACH=full]349450[/ATTACH]</p><p></p><p>(Here is what the party's experience bars look like now. Although progress is slow, several characters are roughly at 20% the xp necessary to get to the next level. This will start to move up dramatically in the very near future.)</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Demetrios1453, post: 9280998, member: 6801060"] [B][I]Pool of Radiance [/I](Part 6): The Slums (Part 2)[/B] All rested, healed up, and spells memorized, it's time to head further into the Slums! If you look at the map at the end of the last post, we go out the door, go south, go out the next door, and head down the corridor headed west (where the highlighted square is). We go through another door a short distance down, and there we have doors to our left and right, and a corridor continuing straight ahead to the west (again, I'll include a map at the end of this post). We try to go through the door to the right (north), and... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 141613.png"]349398[/ATTACH] Well, that's why we have a thief around (and for the occasional backstab, which are unfortunately very hard to set up in these games - I'll definitely be bragging about the rare times I can pull one off successfully, trust me!). We have Buffy pick the lock and... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 141631.png"]349399[/ATTACH] This set encounter will be a bit tougher than the one with just 4 orcs, but it's not too tough, being all rested up and ready to go. Time for some of them to take a quick nap... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 141702.png"]349400[/ATTACH] Since I slowed the game down to get some better screenshots, here is Baroness Bella killing a goblin, with the skull and crossbones effect that results when a foe (or one of your own characters!) dies. You'll see that in the middle right section any time you attack, telling you if you missed ("Baroness Bella attacks Goblin Guard and misses"), or how much damage was done. It looks the same for when an enemy attacks one of your characters. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 141727.png"]349402[/ATTACH] If you kill a sleeping or otherwise helpless enemy, you'll see this (I wasn't quite fast enough to get the skull and crossbones for this screenshot). One thing to note, if you're killing helpless foes with bows, you only get one shot a round, instead of two, while doing so. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 141900.png"]349403[/ATTACH] The goblins go down quickly (including the goblin leader that was offscreen to the left), so it's treasure time. But this time, let's scroll down to Brother Baltor in our list: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 142833.png"]349404[/ATTACH] Now we have the "Detect" option showing up only for him, since he has [I]detect magic [/I]memorized. Let's cast it and see what the results are: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 142845.png"]349405[/ATTACH] What's that asterisk next to the leather armor? Why... it's magical! Since we only have one person who wears leather armor, Buffy picks it up and (since we have Auto ID on): [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 142920.png"]349406[/ATTACH] We definitely equip it, and now Buffy's AC (which is the worst in the party) goes down by 1. (The asterisk will go away shortly once the [I]detect magic[/I] spell duration ends). All done here, we turn around, go back out the door, cross the corridor, and go through the door headed south, when: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 143724.png"]349414[/ATTACH] At this point, Brother Baltor is, again, pretty beaten up. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144056.png"]349415[/ATTACH] Time for healer to heal himself. I want to reserve the spells for emergencies, so let's use that scroll we got a short time ago. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144157.png"]349416[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144211.png"]349417[/ATTACH] Even after casting both [I]cure light wounds [/I]available, the results aren't particularly spectacular. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144257.png"]349418[/ATTACH] (note all the various types of coinage we've picked up so far. And each coin contributes to encumbrance, so it's best to be exchanged out whenever at a store for larger currencies) We go through another door, heading generally south, until we get to what looks like a large plaza with a building in it. We turn east to head around that building, the south, looking for a door... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144403.png"]349419[/ATTACH] The kobolds are taken care of fairly quickly, and we find a door to enter the building. It's locked though, so Buffy picks the lock, and: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144717.png"]349420[/ATTACH] (He never comes closer, so he's presumably yelling at us from across the room) [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144759.png"]349422[/ATTACH] I guess we accept. Nothing like a good old fashioned fetch quest! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144807.png"]349423[/ATTACH] The Rope Guild, right. Sounds like a nice, pleasant place that will be easy to get to and navigate through, with no trouble waiting inside at all! We take our leave and head back north. We've got a fair amount of loot now, so it's probably best to head back to the civilized area and sell what we've gathered. We've barely gotten two steps outside his door when it's time for another random patrol (#6 if I'm counting correctly) [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144850.png"]349428[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 144954.png"]349429[/ATTACH] Ugh, random goblin flanked the party again. This really sucks when it happens, as it's annoying to have to switch everything around in the inventory. This is well before games made it easy to toggle between ranged and melee. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145219.png"]349430[/ATTACH] The goblins have failed their morale and are now running away. This is the message you get when one runs out of melee combat - you get a free attack from behind. Brother Baltor is more than happy to make the goblin pay for doing so. The screenshot was a second too quick to get the skull and crossbones, because that goblin is [I]very[/I] dead. No wonder he was so mad, he's been hit again, and is low on HP yet again. He and Bant will be the ones getting the most hits, as they are in the front on the flanks, but usually battle positions tend to favor each equally through the luck of the draw. He's just had some bad luck in where the battles have occurred and the position of the foes, meaning more enemies have been able to hit him, and, thus, doing more damage to him. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145327.png"]349431[/ATTACH] Sigh, time to cast his [I]cure light wounds [/I]spells. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145508.png"]349433[/ATTACH] The first one gives him just a single hit point back, but the second one, conversely, gets him back up to full health! Time to make a run back to our closest safe resting spot, which will be the room where we defeated the goblin set encounter. We head west, then north, and actually reach it with no further encounters. Time to rest, as everyone is now completely out of spells (both magic-users each used their [I]sleep[/I] spell during the proceeding encounters). [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145528.png"]349434[/ATTACH] [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145631.png"]349435[/ATTACH] Spells memorized, and everyone fully rested, time to make a run back to the gate back to the city. Here's a map of the parts of the Slums we have explored so far: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145638.png"]349438[/ATTACH] We are currently in the goblin set encounter room, and Ohlo was down to the south, east, and then south. Our goal is to get back to the gate to the city, which is the door on the far right. We want to get back because we've already got enough loot that it's beginning to affect characters' encumbrance, and they are getting slowed down in combat: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 145839.png"]349439[/ATTACH] Baroness Bella's movement is usually 9, but she's carrying so much that it's been reduced to 6. It can go down to 3, or even 0 (which you [I]really [/I]don't want during combat) should she get even more encumbered. Conversely, things such as the [I]haste[/I] spell or [I]boots of speed[/I] can increase the movement. An unencumbered character with both of those can have a movement of 48! So, it's a run for the gate, and, surprisingly, we almost make it there before we have a random encounter: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 150002.png"]349440[/ATTACH] A [I]sleep [/I]spell and normal battle prowess makes quick work of the goblins, and we're finally back to the civilized area of Phlan! Let's head to the shop and sell our loot! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 150448.png"]349442[/ATTACH] Well, darn. They actually close shops at night in this game, which is something of a novelty for CRPGs in this era. It's 22:12 (if you haven't noticed, the coordinates on the usually 16 x 16 map grid, the direction the party is facing, and the time are all right there below the party info), and in this game, dawn is at 00:00, so we're just a bit too early. Well, we just cast a [I]sleep [/I]spell in the combat before the gate, so we can just go over to the inn to rest and re-gain it. If we didn't have any spells to memorize, we could just go to the inn and choose an amount of time to rest so that the stores (and other places like the town hall) will be open. [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 150546.png"]349443[/ATTACH] One short rest later: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 150610.png"]349444[/ATTACH] And the store is now open! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 150648.png"]349446[/ATTACH] Not bad! [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 150700.png"]349447[/ATTACH] Ooof. The battleaxes are even worse, going for just 2 gp. The chainmail at least goes for 12, so it was sort of worth dragging back here. But really, only the longbows were really worth it. But, we sell all our loot, and since our money is pooled, here's what our funds look like: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 223555.png"]349448[/ATTACH] (The silver was definitely not helping out with our encumbrance!) What we do now is buy 10 arrows for 1 gp. Since our funds are pooled, the money will come from that, and then, suddenly, our pooled funds are nicely rounded: [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 151111.png"]349449[/ATTACH] That's far less encumbering! We can split the pooled funds, with everyone getting an equal share, and then leave the store much richer and lighter. It's time to head back to the Slums for further adventure. But that's for the next post... [ATTACH type="full" alt="Screenshot 2024-03-03 151734.png"]349450[/ATTACH] (Here is what the party's experience bars look like now. Although progress is slow, several characters are roughly at 20% the xp necessary to get to the next level. This will start to move up dramatically in the very near future.) [/QUOTE]
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