I think that is where I went to find a pdf of the manual.
Man, arrows seem to be expensive. 130 for 10 arrows? Also can a person at the back of the party only use magic, or can they use a bow as well? I think I saw something that said last 3 slots can only cast magic, but not sure.
They can use bows I think. Ranged attacks didn’t come into being until BT2, so they’re sort of odd in the first game.
I’m very tempted. I threw out my carefully hand-drawn maps a couple of years ago.
How do you transfer inventory items/equipment from one character to another?
All unequipped items are shared inventory.
I’d like to second someone’s idea from upthread that someone give this kind of treatment to the gold box games. I’d love to play the Krynn series again. Loved Dragonlance back in the day.
You can heal your entire party in combat by using the bard’s healing song. Look for an easy encounter with either one critter, or kill all but one. Have the bard sing the healing song. Have everyone defend every turn until all are healed. Kill remaining critter. Everyone will heal 1 HP per combat round so it takes some patience but it can save you a bundle.
The money seems to start coming in pretty decently in the first dungeon. I was fretting about spending 200-300 to recharge each spellcaster but then I started pulling in 300, 500, 700, gold in a fight and stopped worrying.
Finished the first one last night. Definitely looking forward to the release of BTII.
Seriously. Someone get on those gold box games. As much as I loved the BT trilogy, I loved those even more. I mean, if someone made those with auto-mapping? Just take my money.
I don’t remember needing maps for Pool of Radience, etc. is Eye of the Beholder considered Gold Box?
Agreed though, after Ultima 3&4, Pool of Radience was my favorite game from my youth. Would love to see a remastered version.
No, EoTB was black box.
Oh, man, I filled reams of graph paper with Gold Box maps.
Well technically wasn’t the only gold box PoR? We just call the series gold box?
Edit: looked it up, nope, my memory is faulty.
I don’t worry about money to recharge spellcasters but I do worry about the amount needed to buy spells for them. At level 7 the tab for buying spells for all my casters was 12,000 and I only had 8000.
The catacombs will render your money needs irrelevant, especially once you can hit up level 3 but even before then you shouldn’t have to wait too long before you can get what you want. If you are eyeballing the 7th spell level, you are ready for the Catacombs (all you really need is Drbr/Dragon Breath although there are better spells that will make it easier, of course). Now, if you don’t know how to get to the Catacombs there’s work to be done. Or spoilers. Your call. Also, Sorcerer and Wizard have more expensive costs for Spell Levels 6 and 7. But again, it won’t be a big issue.
Unfortunately, all 3 casters are at spell level 4 currently (level 7 overall). I’ve been running around the sewers level 1 killing spiders and whatnot. It’s good to hear that the cash starts flowing in better later on though.
I like having the 2 conjurers and the magician. I get two that can cast trapzap and heal which extends my dungeon runs and the magician is handy for the nice party shield and healing also. Having 7 in my party is reducing my overall party XP but I don’t mind a little extra grinding to make up for that. I am wondering if I should send my monk out solo for a bit to try to level him some quickly. Or maybe just the monk and the bard with the firehorn.
My bad I totally misread that.
Sewers is garbage. There’s not really good eq upgrades in upper sewers IIRC, and they make a pretty big difference. Particularly in rendering your need for healing largely irrelevant (you’ll still be hitting up temples for the occasional de-statusing or even a raise). Also there’s a ton of nice gear upgrades to be found Cat 1, if you don’t recall. They’ll render the front line nigh-invincible in no time. There’s a ton of fixed encounters to exploit right by the entrance.
Multi WASTs will kill most wights and ghouls but Dragon’s breath is better. And pretty soon, you’ll only rarely stop by the temple to correct the occasional hit that lands on the front line.
On your advice, I got out of the sewers and moved to the catacombs at level 8. Almost immediately I hit level 9 there because the XP is so good. Cashe as well. I also found another firehorn on my first foray into there. My bard has 17 DEX so he gets that off before most mobs can attack. Going to start farming for gear for my front liners now.
Nice. First level wizard has a spell that renders this all even easier (REDE, for a mere 4 sp), although it will be awhile until you get it unless you throw away a character. By which I mean, have one caster just rush Wizard ASAP and use them to mow down Undead groups until your other casters catch up, then make a fresh new character to level properly. Although REDE matters more on level 3, where you fight the truly large hordes. And level 3 is also where you start getting even better upgrades (weapons, better bard instruments, shield staff, elf cloak). Although personally I don’t push to level 3 until I have a caster with APAR (saves lots of walking). But as soon as you get APAR you can hit up level 3, assuming you know where to go.
Level 3 may as well just be made entirely out of XP and Gold and you just walk up to stuff and pull hunks off to taste, Willy Wonka style. Also, technically it’s faster to xp farm there than the Berserkers in Harkryn. Or was back in the old days (simply because even at max scroll speed the Berserkers combat took a long time and needed 3x MIBL casts where as you’ll only rarely get stragglers on one REDE against ghouls/wights and it’s much quiicker to walk back to the stairs). I think the scroll speed is a bit faster now with max settings, though, although I might be mistaken there.
Looking a the spells available, Wizards seem far, far more useful than Sorcerers, who seem rather pathetic. I’m not really sure why I’d want one except for maybe the spell that brings a dead character back to life. Some of the summons spells might be useful if I didn’t already have a caster in the 7th slot. I really question if dropping a caster for the ability to summon would be a more effective approach. I like having all those extra spell points and spells to use.
Up to level 11 and spell level 6 now. My front liners have some better stuff finally. Mithril plate, shield ring, mithril bracers, etc.
You’ve got that backwards; it’s Wizards who get summons and the raise dead, the Sorceror’s who have more overall versatility (some key party buffs, lots of damage especially the hit-everything MIBL). You’re not wrong but a few comments:
REDE (Repel Dead, Wizard 1) is pretty awesome. It does way more damage than MIBL and it’s cheap. And undead are nasty in this game. You’ll never get the ability to heal a number of conditions they inflict, and later undead level drain.
In the classic games, you only got six party slots and had an S slot that could be filled by summons or a wandering monster. the Wizard got, by far, the best means to fill that slot: GRSU (summons a greater demon or occasionally a Demon Lord). The Demon Lord was pretty awesome. Nigh unkillable, powerful, and usually does a very awesome group attack (a breath attack). Yes you get a lot of blasts from casters but he was still very powerful. Obviously that’s not a huge consideration here since you can just toss in another PC.
BEDE is very important, as is DISP. DISP is the only way to remove possession (which is rare, granted) without going back to town.
Because there’s no Legacy stuff yet, Wizards get spells from their BT 2 spell list and get a huge damage upgrade. Ironically, because we’ve only partially implemented BT 2 mechanics, this is sort of a double-buff (in the second game, their damage spells have specific ranges rendering them ok to very good overall but in BT 1 they can just hit anything).
You do need them to get Archmage. Which is only a BT 2 thing (and BT 3), but it’s possible they back ported Archmage to BT 1 (or some of it).
Overall, Sorcerers are better. Also in the classics you could class change out of Co/Ma and eventually back into the class you already “completed”, if memory serves. You started over at 1 but it’s a much easier leveling experience than So or Wi. That’s not possible here, so the best order is Co/Ma → So → Wi → whichever you didn’t start with. Also I swear I think Ma got a sligtt xp break over Co but I might be wrong.
Very nice.