Gold Box: Spells and their Uses (Part II)

A spellcaster slays a mage with a high-level mage spell.

    
I have extensively praised the Gold Box combat system for the tactical fine-tuning that it allows. It is a culmination of several years of experimentation at SSI, beginning with non-D&D titles like Galactic Adventures and Wizard's Crown, proceeding through several iterations in Shard of Spring, Demon's Winter, and The Eternal Dagger before the developers managed to hit just the right balance.

But the combat engine alone wouldn't be anything without, first, the strengths and weaknesses of the various foes that you encounter, and, second, the long and complex list of both cleric and mage spells. As we saw with Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, the same engine without spells is a little boring.

Because I admire the system so much, I am a little distressed to find myself, in my eighth Gold Box game, adopting an extremely predictable and rote approach to combat and spellcasting. Most combats in Pools of Darkness have consisted of two phases: a barrage of "Fireballs" and/or "Delayed Blast Fireballs" to clear as much of the map as possible, followed by "mop-up" by my fighters. Occasionally, enemies will present themselves in a line perfect for "Lightning Bolt," but I otherwise end up rarely or never using the vast majority of spells. There are entire spell levels that I never cast except in buffing.

In general, I feel that the two "Fireball" variants, since they continue to improve in damage with the characters (unlike, say, "Ice Storm" or "Cone of Cold"), are vastly over-powered.  And between my three mage characters, I have more than a dozen of them. It creates a situation in which if there are more than a few enemies still on the screen, almost nothing is a better choice than a fireball, and if there are only a few enemies left on the screen, I don't need spells at all because my fighters can take care of them.

I previously considered the different uses of Gold Box spells in a January 2013 post. Rather than tack on to that one, I've decided to offer a recap of the entire list from a Level 30 perspective.

Cleric Spells

Level 1. By the time you get this high, there aren't many Level 1 cleric spells that still do any good. "Bless" still gives a slight boost in combat and it certainly doesn't hurt to cast it pre-combat. "Detect Magic" is useful for figuring out what items to take post-combat, but a lot of classes have this. "Protection from Good" remains the most idiotic spell in the entire Gold Box repertoire; any player that bothers to memorize this should retire from the world of RPGs. The only thing I use regularly in the Level 1 list is "Resist Cold," which is an important buffing spell before cold-based foes, although it doesn't seem to offer any protection against "Ice Storm."

Level 2. "Hold Person" occasionally performs, but most enemies have high tolerances to it. "Resist Fire" remains an important buffing spell. I keep one "Snake Charm" in reserve at all times just in case. I probably don't get enough mileage out of "Silence 15' Radius," but it seems to fail on every opponent I cast it on. I know you can cast it on your own party members and then run up to enemy spellcasters, but that seems like a lot to micromanage.

Level 3. This level is primarily occupied with spells that cure conditions you almost never encounter, including "Cure Blindness," "Cure Disease," and "Remove Curse." There are also "Cause" versions of these conditions, but they offer so slight an advantage that simply having the cleric execute a physical attack seems like a better idea. "Prayer" is still an okay pre-combat buffing spell. I keep one of each of the "cure/removes" on hand, just in case, but most of my Level 3 slots go to "Dispel Magic," which I often have to use to counter enemy "Hold" spells.

Level 4. One or two "Neutralize Poisons" remain vital, and I memorize "Protection from Evil 10' Radius" for pre-combat buffing. "Sticks to Snakes" remains in the top 5% of dumb spells. I give most of these slots to "Cure Serious Wounds," though I never get that low in my cure spells anymore since I have so many "Heal" slots.
      

"Dispel Evil" shows up as an encounter option. This occasionally happens with spells, most often "Knock" and "Detect Magic."

   

Level 5. I keep forgetting that "Dispel Evil" is cast on a character, not a summoned creature. I wish you could cast it pre-combat. I very rarely run out of "Heal" spells at the sixth level and have to get to "Cure Critical Wounds" at this level. Obviously, it doesn't make sense to cast "Raise Dead" once you have "Resurrection." The damage spells at this level--"Cause Critical Wounds," "Flame Strike," and "Slay Living"--perform okay, but my characters are typically capable of physical attacks that do more damage, and a lot of creatures seem to resist them.

Level 6. There are only three cleric spells at this level: "Blade Barrier," "Harm," and "Heal." I need to experiment more with the previous two because they sound pretty useful. "Blade Barrier," in particular, could be used to channel creatures on the battlefield. I give almost every slot to "Heal," though, which often makes the difference in long combats.
    

Navarre "Heals" himself, hoping to survive a battle with Rakshasa.

    

Level 7. "Resurrection" should be the most useful spell at this level, but the Gold Box implemented the rule by which resurrected characters permanently lost a point of constitution. I'm not willing to sacrifice this unless I simply can't win a battle without losing at least one character, so I reload instead of resurrecting.

"Restoration" is obviously mandatory when you've been level-drained by vampires and wights. Now that my characters are above Level 24 and seemed destined to hit their caps before the end of the game, I don't dread level draining as much as I once did.

The two offensive spells at this level are "Destruction" and "Energy Drain." "Destruction" seems to work tolerably well, but you have to be within melee range, and enemies often save against it. I really don't understand "Energy Drain" at all. Based on the manual's cryptic comments and a little experimentation, it would seem to drain levels from the enemy--but only like one at a time. It's certainly not enough to make a difference in combat.

Navarre destroys a land-shark.

Mage Spells

Level 1. Only two spells remain relevant for higher-level characters. "Magic Missile" keeps doing more damage with every character level, almost no one is immune to it, and it casts instantly, making it one of the best single-target spells in the game. I also try to keep enough "Enlarge" spells on hand for every character for pre-combat buffing.

Level 2. "Mirror Image" remains a decent buffing spell. "Strength" is outperformed by "Enlarge." I keep a "Knock" on hand just in case my thief fails, and one "Detect Invisibility" for pre-combat buffing. I keep hearing about the virtues of "Stinking Cloud," but I have trouble getting it to cast in the right location, and in any event it's hard to imagine prioritizing it over a mass-damage spell. In general, there are far more available slots for this level than you could possibly need.

Level 3. The best spell level of all. "Fireball" remains relevant even after you get the "Delayed Blast" variety (which casts instantly); "Lightning Bolt" still does a great job on lines of enemies (and, like "Fireball," improves with the caster's level). Fortunately, there are alternatives to "Invisibility, 10' Radius" and "Protection from Evil, 10' Radius"; otherwise, I'd have to spend a couple slots on those. "Blink" showed up as an option at some point--Secret of the Silver Blades?--and I completely missed it. It makes the character "blink out" of existence after he's acted in a round, meaning he can't be targeted by enemies. I wish you could cast it before combat.
    

"Lightning Bolt," for whatever reason, slows down iron golems.

   

Level 4. I don't get a lot of use out of this level. "Charm Monster" and "Fear" hardly ever work; "Confusion" doesn't really do much of value. "Fire Shield" is a decent pre-combat buffing spell. "Minor Globe of Invulnerability" is trumped by the Level 6 spell. "Fumble," which targets only one character, is a waste of time. I spend most of my slots here on "Ice Storm," which unlike "Fireball" doesn't improve with the character's level, but almost no one is immune to it and it does a good job disrupting spellcasters.

Level 5. Lots of good stuff at this level. "Cone of Cold" and "Hold Monster" both perform reasonably well. "Feeblemind" seems like a good idea, but it usually fails and I don't have a lot of patience for spells that target one enemy at a time--not in a series of games where you almost never face just a few really powerful enemies. "Cloud Kill" doesn't cast far enough away from the caster, it screws up the terrain, and it doesn't really work on foes of this level. A new buffing spell introduced in Pools called "Iron Skin" helps a bit in melee combat.

One real star of Level 5 is a new spell called "Fire Touch," which you cast on one of your characters and he does extra fire-based damage with every melee attack. (Before I figured out how it worked, I spent a couple of embarrassing combats casting it on enemies instead.) I found that it's worth memorizing a few of these for an extra advantage in tough battles.

Level 6. There are three instant-death spells at this level: "Death Spell," "Disintegrate," and "Flesh to Stone." They fail more often than not. Since the ultimate outcome of the three spells is the same, it would seem to me to make the most sense to memorize the one that offers enemies the worst saving throws, but the manual isn't very explicit about that. "Globe of Invulnerability," which protects against Level 1-4 spells, is an absolutely essential buffing spell, but you only need one at a time. (I wish I could cast it on other characters, not just the caster.) One "Stone to Flesh" on hand doesn't hurt.

Level 7. "Delayed Blast Fireball," a more powerful version of "Fireball," casts instantly, penetrates "Globe of Invulnerability," and improves with the level. It's probably the most useful spell in the game. Because of it, I haven't experimented much with "Power Word: Stun," which affects only one creature--but doesn't paralyze him the way "Hold" does. Overall, it seems like an under-powered spell for the level. "Mass Invisibility" is theoretically a good buffing spell to ensure that enemy spellcasters can't target you until you act, but I find that it often just doesn't work. Maybe those enemy spellcasters have "Detect Invisibility" or something.
     

Hoping "Delayed Blast Fireball" takes care of a bunch of medusas and basilisks before they can gaze.

    

Level 8. Pretty worthless spells for such a high level. "Mass Charm," as someone pointed out, only works on humans, who you rarely face en masse in this game. I only recently learned that "Mind Blank" affects a character, not an enemy, protecting him from mental spells, so I added a few to my buffing list. "Otto's Irresistable Dance" is a good candidate for the dumbest spell in the game. It affects only one creature and doesn't do much but reduce his AC by 4 and make him fail saving throws. Again, you rarely face small groups of individually-powerful foes. If you did, this would be a lot more useful. "Power Word: Blind" strikes a target blind, I guess, but the manual offers no information about what that actually does. I guess it probably damages his THAC0. Why it's a higher level than "Power Word: Stun" is a mystery. Seriously, unless I see a statistics table showing that these Level 8 spells have a much better chance of working, I can't imagine why "Hold Monster," three levels down, wouldn't be a vastly better call in any circumstance.

Level 9. Only three spells at this level, but they're all reasonably cool. "Meteor Swarm" is the least impressive of the lot. It casts outward, away from the caster, so he has to have an unobstructed view of the enemies. It's very hard to target, since it ends up firing three bursts. It does only 10-40 hit points per strike, and doesn't improve with leveling. In short, it vastly under-performs the "Fireballs" of lower levels, but it's useful for some enemies (e.g., rakshasa) who are immune to lower-level spells.

"Monster Summoning" appears in the Gold Box titles for the first time and works pretty well. It summons two fairly high-level creatures, which you can then use for attack or just to re-shape the battlefield. You have no control over what it summons; it seems to be somewhat context-sensitive, summoning the types of creatures that would otherwise be found on the same map.
   

In Moander's realm, the spell logically summons two "Bits o Moander."

   
"Power Word: Kill" does its job when it works, but I find that enemies save against it more than 50% of the time.

Druid Spells

Rangers get druid spells up to the third level. Since rangers are pretty good physical attackers, a spell has to be pretty valuable, or castable outside of combat, to waste an action on it. Those criteria immediately eliminate "Entangle, "Faerie Fire," "Charm Person or Mammal," and "Hold Animal." Many of the other spells the ranger gets are outperformed by superior mage and cleric spells, including "Invisibility to Animals," "Cure Light Wounds," "Cure Disease," and "Neutralize Poison."

That leaves only three useful druid spells. "Detect Magic" does the same as the cleric and mage spells of the same names, but as the only useful first-level druid spell, it makes sense to have the ranger memorize this one and free up the associated spell slots in the mages' and clerics' books. "Barkskin," a Level 2 spell, simply improves armor class by 1, but as you can cast it before combat, it doesn't hurt to add it to the buffing list.

Commenters have said good things about "Protection from Fire," a third-level druid spell, which supposedly works different from the cleric's "Resist Fire." Instead of improving overall resistance to fire, the spell actually absorbs fire damage until it dissipates. The total number of points it can absorb is 12 x the caster's level, which is pretty high at my levels. On the other hand, the manual says it only works this way for the druid himself, and anyone else it's cast upon, it simply acts like "Resist Fire." I have to experiment more with it.


Two themes come out of my experimentation with the full list of AD&D spells at higher levels:

1. By Level 15 or so, characters have so many spell slots that you almost never reach too far down in the bag. If the game had offered less frequent resting and re-memorizing, that might have preserved some of the tactical tension of the early Gold Box games. As it is, I can't imagine ever running out of enough mass-damage spells that I'd resort to "Stinking Cloud" or "Confusion."

2. The games don't feature enough high-powered single foes. It would have been nice to mix it up so that instead of 20 Drow or 15 dragons, all with around 60 hit points, we occasionally faced a trio of high-level fighter/mages with hit points in the 200-300 range. This would change tactics considerably and make some of the individual spells ("Feeblemind," "Power Word: Stun," or heck, even "Otto's Irresistible Dance") more important. I know, I know, blah blah blah, AD&D rules, yada yada.

3. The so-called "high-level" spells are really pretty pathetic.

Overall, it's hard not to feel that the higher-level spells are a bit disappointing compared to the lower-level ones. And the lack of cleric spells above Level 7 is a bit sad, but I guess that was canon for AD&D1.

Game 163: Secret of the Silver Blades (1990)

When the Gold Box engine was created for Pool of Radiance in 1988, it was perhaps the best RPG engine that could exist at the time, in particular for the specific adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons rules. Its primary rival in my mind is Ultima V, which is better for world-exploration and NPC interaction, but nothing through 1990 exceeds the Gold Box for combat. Little in the 26 years since has exceeded the Gold Box for combat, and I honestly wouldn't mind if the greatest hits of 2000s and 2010s regaled us with their graphics and sound during the exploration phase but tripped over to the familiar oblique angle and customizable icons of Pool of Radiance for the combat engine.

I've said several times--and I probably sound like an old man--that my primary problem with modern games is that I don't understand what's happening half the time in combat. My wife was just recently joking that my final words will probably be, "What?! Why did I just die?!" because she hears me shout it so often from both my couch and my office chair. I never shout that in a Gold Box game. The system so perfectly incorporates physical attacks, ranged attacks, spellcasting, item use, and skill use in a top-down, carefully-controlled environment that not only do I know why I died, I can usually see it coming and identify what steps I could have taken to prevent it.

More than any other RPG engine of the era, and more than only a few since, the Gold Box encourages complex tactics and strategy in combat. You rarely just reload, try again, and hope for better dice this time. Instead, you learn about your foes' strengths and weaknesses and respond accordingly. It's like chess in an RPG.

The Gold Box games are also the only ones in which I have strong memories of individual combats.

Other fans have reacted similarly, which is why the Gold Box ended up being such a long-lived engine. This is the fifth Gold Box game in my chronology, after Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Champions of Krynn, and Buck Rogers: Countdown to Doomsday, and within the next three years, we're going to have eight or nine more.

The other day, a commenter asked me if I'd gotten tired of it yet. The answer is no, not yet, partly because I love the engine, and partly because I'm playing so many other games in between Gold Box titles. But while I'm not "tired" yet, it does irk me how few improvements we saw to the engine over the years. Adding a "Fix" command and improving targeting in combat were nice upgrades, but for the most part, the weaknesses of the engine in Pool of Radiance remain weaknesses throughout the series; among them are bland, featureless hallways; encounters that spring up suddenly when you walk into their squares; poor options for NPC interaction and dialogue; and the continued use of a paper "adventurer's journal" long past the point at which it was necessary. In some ways, the engine actually degraded between titles: neither Curse nor Secrets offer the same overworld exploration as Pool. And while it works for the adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons rules, I don't think it worked well at all in the Buck Rogers setting, where the lack of magic removes half the point of the combat engine.

In any event, it's been nine months since I've played a Gold Box game, a year since I played a D&D Gold Box game, and damn near two years since we heard from this little party from Phlan, so I'm certainly going into Secret of the Silver Blades in a good mood. I say this despite knowing that many people consider Secret the low point of the Gold Box titles, or at least the four-game Forgotten Realms series. I don't  know what their specific objections are, and I don't yet want to know. When I start a new game, I usually do a search of the comments in all previous games to get a preview, but I'm going to avoid doing that here so as not to poison my perspective. (I should mention that I have played Secret before, maybe 15-17 years ago, but all I remember is a little bit of the back story.)

In Pool of Radiance, the Level 1 party started out, grew in power, and restored the ancient Moonsea-side city of Phlan through a series of quests culminating in the defeat of Tyranthraxus, an ancient evil lately stirring up trouble. In Curse of the Azure Bonds, the moderately-powerful party headed to the Dalelands, south of the Moonsea, to investigate rumors about a princess of Cormyr. They got caught up in some factional strife when they were captured and branded by five evil organizations. One by one, they defeated the holders of their bonds, the last of whom once again turned out to be Tyranthraxus.

  
Secret of the Silver Blades starts with the party having "grown bored with peace and yearn[ing] for adventure." They need yearn only a short time. To the northeast of the Moonsea, somewhere in the Dragonspine Mountains (you could visit part of them in Pool), the residents of the mining town of New Verdigris are facing a threat. Dumping chests of gems into their Well of Knowledge, they wish for "champions to defeat the evil that infests our mine." The party is suddenly yanked from wherever they are, flown through the air--catching a glimpse of New Verdigris's glacier and a castle embedded in the middle on the way--and deposited, naked and unconscious, on the streets of the city. This part of the back story is manifestly intended to explain why the party has none of their equipment from Curse; otherwise, the game could have just started with them responding to a request for assistance and riding into town like normal people.

When the party finally wakes up, the mayor of New Verdigris explains what's happening: three months ago, the miners delved too greedily and too deep, and "monsters boiled forth" from a new shaft. The monsters first infested the mines, then the ruins near the mines, and may soon take over the city itself. "You must save us," the mayor concludes, "before we are overwhelmed."

From the demo screen. What horrible character names.

  
So far, the back story isn't too bad. I always prefer these modest "save a city" quests to those where I have to stop someone from world domination. Of course, the former can easily turn into the latter, as we saw with Neverwinter Nights. Still, for now the main quest has something of the feeling of Pool of Radiance.

I imported my winning team from Curse of the Azure Bonds. It consists of:

• Bolingbroke, a lawful good male human paladin of Level 10.
• Karnov, a true neutral male dwarf fighter (Level 9)/thief (Level 11). He won't be able to progress any more in fighter levels.
• Goldeneye, a chaotic good female human ranger of Level 11.
• Brutus, a chaotic neutral male human who started as a fighter, reached Level 8, then dualed to a cleric and reached Level 10.
• Cesario, a lawful good male human who started out as a cleric, reached Level 9, then dualed to a magic-user and reached Level 11.
• Viola, a chaotic good female human magic-user of Level 11.

As I discussed in my first Curse posting, with the sole exception of thieves, non-human characters are unfeasible in the Forgotten Realms Gold Box series because of level caps.

The imported characters prepare to set forth.

Characters created in Secret start at Level 8 with 200,000 experience points, and all my characters are Level 10-11, starting with around 800,000 experience points, a huge difference. This means that the early game might be a bit easy, but it also means that I won't experience much advancement in Secret, since the characters cap in this game at Level 15. I also realized late in this session that my ranger, who had been wearing a Girdle of Giant Strength at the end of Curse, imported here with 24 strength even though the Girdle didn't come with her.

As the game begins, the mayor gives the party 20 gems to sell plus a decent selection of magic items, including Gauntlets of Ogre Power, a halberd +2, a shield +1, and several +1 weapons and armor. The mayor says I can use his house to rest, and he has a teleporter that will take the party directly to the Well of Knowledge in the ruins. After that, the exposition ends and the party is free to explore the city.

You can jump right to the heart of the ruins or find your way there through corridor exploration.

I was thinking about ways I could increase the challenge and variety of my fifth Gold Box outing. Usually, I'd do this with limits in the party selection (e.g., all mages, no mages) but I didn't want to do that here for legacy purposes. Instead, I came up with this: I won't allow my party to memorize more than one of each spell unless they've already memorized one of every other spell of that level. By increasing the variety of spells, it will ensure that I actually try neglected spells like "Slow," "Feeblemind," and "Dimension Door." It will also keep me from abusing mass-damage spells like "Fireball" and thus will increase the tactical nature of combat. We'll see how it goes.

Probably only the third time I've ever cast "Confusion" in a Gold Box game.

  
New Verdigris was nothing special--a standard Gold Box 16 x 16 map containing the mayor's house, a pub, a training hall, a bank, a temple, and an armory. There's really no reason it couldn't have been a menu town. Eight buildings are labeled "private residence" and have nothing in them. One building has an old man who spins tales; another houses "Marcus the Wizard" who has no interest in seeing me but is willing to sell some trinkets through a servant. There's a probable 12-to-7 that Marcus will be the subject of some special encounter later.

In contrast to the Phlan armory, where you could buy every obscure variety of polearm, New Verdigris has a paltry selection. Incidentally, if an RPG armory is selling something weird like a "cute yellow canary," you pretty much have to buy it just in case.

The Mayor had a few journal entries to convey, starting with the revelation that he used to be a Red Plume--a soldier of Hillsfar--who was probably in Yulash when my Curse party came traipsing through. The entry refers to "a band of blue tattooed adventurers" but he doesn't seem to be aware that that was us. He also talks about a "magic brotherhood known as the Black Circle" and that "it was based on their divination that we extended our lower tunnels." Marcus turns out to be a member. The Mayor assures that the organization is "studying ways to stop the monsters" but given that their name is, you know, "the Black Circle," I think perhaps they're up to something more sinister.

Having finished exploring the city in less than an hour, I turned my attention to the ruins outside the city's gates. Apparently, the teleporter in the Mayor's house will take me deep inside those ruins, to the Well of Knowledge, but I'd rather find it through exploration first. Only a few steps into the ruins, I found myself in the first battle of the game, a random encounter with a group of bugbears and griffons. Later combats--all random, so far--served up ogres, hill giants, hell hounds, and crocodiles. One wonders how these diverse creatures have all been surviving in the depths of the earth.

It's still fun when they line up for "Lightning Bolt." Too bad I only have one of these at a time.

One change from previous games soon became clear: the ruins are not confined to a 16 x 16 grid, or even a series of them, as with all previous D&D Gold Box titles. (Curse had some areas smaller than 16 x 16, but they always fit with other such areas to make up a map that was 16 x 16. Buck Rogers had larger, more irregular areas, but that wasn't a D&D game.) So far, I've explored to an X coordinate of 28. There are also large "unused" areas (unless access is through some later teleporter); this isn't technically "new," although it's rare in previous games and the areas were small.

The corridors are long and winding, with a lot of switchbacks and few alternate paths, so that two squares only a coordinate apart might take dozens of moves to traverse. More than any other Gold Box game so far, it feels like you're really in a maze. I haven't decided if this is good or bad.

Was drawing the arrow too hard?

I've been a bit disappointed in the graphics and sound, which haven't advanced at all since Curse. The game still only supports EGA graphics, and the corridors are still uniformly bland and featureless. While I like the turn-based gameplay better than Captive, I confess I miss actually being able to see and hear enemies in the game world instead of suddenly stumbling into their squares with no warning.

I'm just saying, maybe I would have seen these things from more than 10 feet away.

Aspects of the interface also haven't changed since Curse, with both good and bad results. On the good side, I love that the mouse/keyboard/joystick options are all redundant, so you can use them in whatever combination you want. If you want to use the keyboard, you just type the first menu option. If you want to use the mouse, you click on the option. If you want to use a joystick, you scroll through the options and "fire" on the one you want. Every game ought to be like this until we get to continuously-moving 3D interfaces in which you absolutely need the mouse to navigate.

On the bad side, the developers still haven't fixed some of the annoyances from Pool and Curse. In combat, pressing "Target" still scrolls through your own characters instead of jumping right to the enemies. There's still no "Center" option for fireballs and other area-effect spells (although the spacebar works as an undocumented feature), and after killing all the creatures, you still have to perform an action for every remaining character in that round. The game doesn't remember what magic spells you memorized last time, so you have to manually select them again. They're minor things, but I know they get fixed eventually and I wish the series would hurry up.

And of course they haven't done anything about the awful economy. Within about six fights in the dungeon, I had more platinum pieces than I could even carry. The vault in town will store it all and even trade platinum for gems, and there's a magic shop that sells wands of "Magic Missile" (but nothing really cool like wands of "Fireball" or Girdles of Giant Strength).

Overall, it's nice to be back in a familiar setting and interface that I know I like, but I wish the game had "wowed" me a bit more at the beginning. Pool, Curse, Champions, and even Buck Rogers all had introductory sequences that made you feel you were entering some grand new adventure, not just walking into a standard dungeon next to a standard menu town. Here's hoping Secret gets a little better, but even if it doesn't, it won't be so bad.

Gold Box: Spells and their Uses

I'm afraid of what loving this spell so much says about me.

Note: This was updated on 23 September 2014, after I finished Secret of the Silver Blades, to cover the spells in that game and Champions of Krynn.

In a comment on my "Behold" posting, PetrusOctavianus and Tristan Gall educated me as to the virtues of the "Enlarge" spell, which--oh, stop snickering--increases the size and strength of the subject. Unlike many D&D spells, it increases in potency with the mage's level, such that, according to the game manual, "if the caster is 6th level, the target becomes as strong as an ogre; if the caster is 10th level, the target becomes as strong as a fire giant."

It's an extremely useful spell--a bevy of them cast before a big combat can easily turn the tables--and yet I had entirely overlooked it. 

Because of this, after I finished with Dracandros, I forced myself to spend some time in random ruins, determined to cast every spell in the game and note its effects, not just for this game but for all future ones. (My research was helped considerably by a Ring of Wizardry that we found in Dracandros's tower, which doubles my mage's available first-third level spells.) These are the results of my investigations, with the understanding that I didn't cast all spells against all enemies. What I'm looking for are any comments about spells I may not be giving enough credit (or, I suppose, those that I'm giving too much credit). I'll carry this knowledge to the next game and update this list accordingly.

For experimentation purposes, my cleric memorizes an unconventional list of spells.

This is a long posting, and perhaps serves better as a reference rather than something that you read through all at once. I thought it was important to list all the spells because we're going to encounter this same list again and again--for I think 7 more games.

(I have some broader thoughts about the Vancian magic system, but I'm saving those for a later posting. For those unversed in the D&D spell system, suffice to say that both clerics and mages get a certain number of "spell slots" at each level and must "memorize" the spells during periods of sleeping. Thus, you can only re-stock spells at places and times where it's safe to rest.)

Cleric Spells

First Level

Bless. Increases the party's "to hit" rolls by 1. Not terribly powerful, but it also doesn't hurt to cast it just before combat to give the party a slight edge. I wouldn't waste a round on it in combat.

Curse. Reduces the "to hit" rolls of monsters by 1. Partly because the effects are so paltry and partly because enemies who start the game next to party members are immune, I don't think it's worth a combat round, and unlike "Bless," it can't be cast before combat. I'd rather the priest spent it attacking or casting a better spell.

Cure Light Wounds. Healing only 1-8 hit points, it loses its usefulness at higher levels, but it is helpful for getting unconscious characters on their feet before the end of a battle, mostly so they'll get the experience for the battle. En masse, it's useful outside of combat.

Cause Light Wounds. Damages 1-8. Useless now that my priest is capable of doing more than that with a melee weapon.

Detect Magic. Determines what items are magical. Useful at the end of combats to help figure out what to take. I don't waste a cleric slot on it, though; I have my ranger memorize the comparable mage spell.

Protection from Evil. Improves AC and saving throws by 2 against evil enemies, but only for one character. Theoretically useful, but obviated by the paladin's innate abilities and the fourth-level spell that protects the entire party.

Protection from Good. You rarely fight good characters in this series, even as an evil party. I can't imagine when I'd use this.

Resist Cold. Halves cold-based damage and improves saving throws by 3, but only for one character. I don't think Curse features a single cold-based attacker, but Secret certainly does. Like "Resist Fire," when I find I need it, I'll have my cleric dump everything else, memorize six of these, and re-memorize my older spells after the key combat.

As you can see, the cleric swiftly outgrows the first level. I generally keep a couple of "Bless" in memory and save the rest for "Cure Light Wounds."

Second Level

Find Traps. Does what it says, and with greater success than the thief. But traps are rare. I keep one for when I need it.

Hold Person. Paralyzes up to three humanoid targets. Extremely useful even though it often fails. 

Resist Fire. Halves fire-based damage and improves saving throws by 3. It's more useful in this game than "Resist Cold," since I've faced enemies like efreets and salamanders, but again it's something that you memorize in a hurry when you know you'll need it.

Silence 15' Radius. Prevents the target and those adjacent to him from casting spells. I haven't given this one the attention it deserves, preferring to hold or damage rather than silence spellcasters, though "Silence" seems to have a greater chance of success. You can also cast it on your own party members and then maneuver them into a radius of the enemy spellcasters.

Slow Poison. When a character is poisoned in the game, he immediately "dies." "Neutralize Poison" will cure the poison and revive him; "Slow" will revive him for a while, but when it wears off, the character dies permanently. I think it's too risky to use, and I haven't been poisoned in this game anyway.

Snake Charm. Charms snakes, which actually paralyzes them rather than turning them against the attackers. Why there aren't "charm" spells for other creatures, I don't know. It's useful for one battle in Pool, none in Curse, but quite a few in Secret.

"Snake Charm" came in real handy the one time I faced snakes.

 
Spiritual Hammer creates a temporary magic hammer that "does normal hammer damage." Rendered obsolete by any magic weapon, or a stock of regular hammers for that matter.

I thus spend almost all of my Level 2 slots on "Hold Person," with one "Find Traps" in reserve.

Third Level

Animate Dead. This spell appeared in Pool but didn't make the transition to the later games, perhaps because the second game didn't have the same NPC system. It basically turns any dead PC into a zombie NPC who no longer gains experience. It has a few potential uses: you could use it on an existing NPC to keep him from getting a share of the treasure, or on elf party members (who otherwise can't be raised, but since you generally have every incentive to keep a living, experience-gaining party (of both PCs and NPCs), it's hard to see using this much.

Bestow Curse. Reduces enemy THAC0 and saving throws by 4. I'm not sure why I'd use this instead of "Cause Blindness," which does the same things and affects the armor class besides. I guess some enemies are probably immune to blindness. Anyway, I rarely get into this kind of statistics-adjusting on the individual level. Maybe in a tough battle with a "boss-level" foe.

Cure Blindness. Does what it says. I've encountered nothing in any Gold Box game (so far) that blinds me.

 

Cause Blindness. Blinds one's enemy and thus "reduces the target's THAC0, armor class, and saving throws by 4." I'm assuming this is a typo, and that it increases the AC by 4, or I'm inadvertently helping them. In any event, I should probably spend a slot on it for those rare occasions when a single tank-like fighter gives me trouble, but generally I've ignored it.

Cure Disease. Does what it says, although I haven't found any disease-causing agents in Curse or Secret. I often keep one around, just in case.

Cause Disease. "Gives the target a disease that saps his strength and HP." Without knowing exactly how much, I'm not sure I trust the spell enough to spend a slot on it.

Dispel Magic. Removes the effects of general magic spells. Very useful, and I always keep a few handy for characters who get held or charmed. I found it was less useful in Secret, since almost anything it dispels is ineffective against my characters' heightened saving throws.

Prayer. Improves "to hit" rolls and saving throws of the party by 1 while simultaneously reducing enemies' by 1. Like casting "Bless" and "Curse" at the same time, but it actually stacks with "Bless" and can be cast outside combat. I always have at least one of these ready for pre-combat buffing.

Prayer is an important component in pre-combat buffing.

 
Remove Curse. Dispels "Curse" spells and cursed items. Enemies rarely curse me, but it's useful for the occasional cursed item. I find it easier to memorize and cast it when I need it rather than carrying it around.

Fourth Level

Cure Serious Wounds. Supposed to heal 3-17. I find that it almost always heals the low end of that range; otherwise it would be more useful than "Cure Light Wounds" in combat.
 

Cause Serious Wounds. I've decided to carry one of these around. It does 3-17 damage--often less than my melee weapon, but with a near-100% chance of working. Good for when you absolutely must cause damage, or finish off an enemy, this round.

Neutralize Poison. Obviously useful for when it happens, but I've yet to experience it in Curse. I got poisoned a lot more in Pool of Radiance, and it seems odd that it's such a high-level spell. (In Secret, poison came back significantly.)

Poison. Target has to make a saving throw versus poison or die. From my experimentation, I need to spend more slots on this. It often doesn't work, but when it does work, the instant kill is very satisfying.

Protection from Evil, 10' Radius. Like the regular "Protection from Evil," but affects everyone in a radius. I prefer this one for its mass effect, and I almost always use it as a buffing spell before combat.Yes, my paladin has it innately, but it's not easy to keep everyone next to the paladin. If I cast a couple of these on other party members, I increase the odds that everyone will benefit.

Sticks to Snakes. Perhaps the silliest spell in the cleric repertoire. The caster hurls a bunch of sticks at the enemy, which turn into snakes and occupy the target for a few rounds. It almost always fails, and even when it succeeds, it's not nearly as useful as "Hold" spells.

I've typically memorized only "Cure Serious Wounds" and "Protection from Evil" at this level, but thanks to my research, I'm spreading things out a little more.

Fifth Level

Cure Critical Wounds. It supposedly heals 6-27, but like it's predecessor, I find that it's almost always at the low end of the range. I like to keep one to heal melee characters in combat, though most characters who get so low they need it are highly likely to get knocked unconscious (or killed) in the following round anyway.

Cause Critical Wounds. Does 6-27 damage with no saving throw. Has similar virtues to "Cause Serious Wounds," but since it occupies the same spell level as "Slay Living," I think the latter is a better use of the slot.

Dispel Evil. An odd one. Supposedly, when cast on a party member, it improves the character's armor class by 7 "versus summoned evil creatures." When the character hits an evil creature in combat, "it must save versus spells or be dispelled." The problem is, I don't know what constitutes a "summoned creature." If it's limited to those summoned in combat, that literally has never happened, and I don't think the spells even exist in this game.

Flame Strike: 6-48 damage on one target with a chance that the target will make a saving throw and receive half damage. Sounds good, but I think "Slay Living" is a better use of the spell slot.

Raise Dead: Raises dead characters. Useful, of course, but raising characters in this version of the AD&D rules, whether by spell or temple, subtracts a point of constitution. Also, the system of "unconsciousness" in the Gold Box series (characters with between 0 and -10 hit points become "unconscious" instead of killed; if bandaged, they can be revived at the end of the combat) means that individual characters rarely die without taking the entire party with them. I don't keep it memorized.

Slay Living. The enemy target has to make a save versus death or die. But even if he makes the save, he still loses 3-17 hit points. Since even at its worst, it does almost as much damage as "Cause Critical Wounds" or "Flame Strike," and has a chance of causing instant death besides, I find it a better use of the slot than either of those.

I use fifth-level slots almost entirely for "Slay Living," with perhaps one "Cure Critical Wounds" in reserve.

Sixth Level

Heal. Cures disease, blindness, feeblemindedness, and restores all except 1-4 hit points. I don't know why it couldn't restore all hit points, but whatever. One of only two Level 6 spells, and it's too useful to bother with the other.

Harm. Does "terrible damage" to a living creature, leaving only 1-4 hit points. "Heal" is so useful that I haven't taken to memorizing "Harm," so I don't really know if the enemies get saving throws or what. If not, I suppose I could be persuaded to learn it once I have three Level 6 slots.

Magic-User Spells

First Level

Burning Hands. Does 1 point of fire damage per level of the caster. Even with no saving throw, underperforms "Magic Missile" at any level.

Charm Person. Turns one humanoid opponent to your side. It's awesome when it works, but it hardly ever does. I usually keep one around.

Detect Magic. Same as the cleric spell. It's worth having a few memorized to help sort through the post-combat equipment, but I prefer to have my ranger do it.

Enlarge. This is the spell that prompted my investigations. It basically makes every character a better melee fighter. I try to keep enough to cast on my weaker characters before a big battle.

Reduce. Negates an "Enlarge" spell if active, otherwise reduces an enemy in size and power. It seemed promising, but it disappeared after Curse of the Azure Bonds.

Friends. Raises the caster's charisma by 2-8. I have no idea when I would use this spell, or for what reason. I haven't seen any encounters dependent on charisma, and it's not like you have to eke every gold piece out of a shopkeeper in this series.

Magic Missile. An excellent offensive spell that just gets better as the mage increases levels. Each missile only does 2-5 damage, but a Level 11 mage casts 6 of them at once. It casts instantly, there's no saving throw, it has a huge range, and hardly anyone is immune to them.

Protection from Evil. Same as the cleric spell of the same name. No way I'm wasting a first-level mage slot on this.

Protection from Good. Just as useless as the analogous cleric spell, even for evil parties. It disappeared from the mage repertoire after Curse.

Read Magic. Serves as an "identify" spell, but only for magic scrolls. I rarely need to identify them so quickly that I can't just wait until the party gets back to town.

Shield. Protects against magic missile, increases armor class, and improves saving throws. This is another one that I've been completely ignoring and probably serves as a decent pre-combat buffing spell.

Shocking Grasp. Does 1-8 damage plus 1 per level of the caster. Thus, after Level 5, it underperforms "Magic Missile." I've never used it because "Magic Missile" casts at a range and you need to be next to the enemy for "Shocking Grasp." I suppose at low levels it might be a good emergency spell for when enemies charge the mage in melee.

Sleep. Puts 1-16 enemies to sleep. It was great in Pool of Radiance, but it only works on low-level enemies. It hasn't worked once for me in Curse. It mysteriously remains in the Secret manual despite being effective on none of the enemies in the game.

"Sleep" was fantastic against low-level monsters in Pool of Radiance

(As an aside, every time I cast either "Sleep" or "Hold," I can't help but think how horrible it would be to be a victim of one of those spells. In the thick of combat, arrows flying, swords singing, and suddenly your limbs or paralyzed, or you feel your self collapse lethargically to the ground. At that point, you know it's just a matter of time before one of your foes comes over to administer the killing blow while you're helpless, and you won't even be able to defend yourself. If magic was real, "Sleep" and "Hold" would be outlawed by the Geneva Convention.)
 

Lots of spells in Level 1, but I generally keep my slots filled with only three of them: "Charm Person," "Enlarge," and "Magic Missile."

Second Level

Detect Invisibility. Does what it says, allowing party members to target invisible creatures (who are normally untargetable). Few enemies have this ability, and it's tough to determine when an enemy is invisible (he still shows up on the screen; you have to notice that the game won't let you target him).

Invisibility. Makes the target invisible, reducing "to hit" rolls of melee attackers by 4 and making it impossible for enemies to target ranged weapons or spells. But as in most games, it disappears when the character makes an attack or casts a spell. I suppose it would be useful when fleeing (which I never do) or perhaps to protect a spellcaster for the first round.

Knock. Opens locks. There have been a few of these in the game, but the thief's picking skill usually does the trick, and "bashing" works when that fails. I often keep one in memory just in case.

Mirror Image. Creates 1-4 duplicates of the caster which disappear when attacked. A useful protective spell, and I keep one in memory to cast before difficult combats.

Ray of Enfeeblement. Makes the target weak to the tune of -25% strength plus -2% per level of the caster (that's -47% at my level). Theoretically valuable against tough melee opponents, but I've been ignoring it, particularly since you have to already be in melee range to cast it.

Stinking Cloud. Creates a 2x2 square of noxious gas. At best (but rarely), it paralyzes targets. At worst, it prevents them from casting spells and increases their armor class. As some commenters have pointed out, aside from its direct benefits, it's useful because monsters won't walk into it, so you can use it to shape the battlefield the way you want. I usually have one or two at hand for that purpose, or to cast on groups of spellcasters.

Strength. Raises strength by 1-8, but only to a maximum of 18(00). (Why this and "Friends," but not spells that increase the other attributes?) Before I found out about "Enlarge," I used it a lot pre-combat to make decent melee fighters out of my weaker character. But "Enlarge" doesn't have the cap, so it performs a lot better. I keep a couple of "Strength" spells memorized only so I don't spend six slots on "Enlarge."

There are fairly useful spells at this level, although I wish there were a couple of directly-offensive ones (when does "Melf's Acid Arrow" appear?). I keep the slots spread between "Mirror Image," "Stinking Cloud," and "Strength."

Third Level

Blink. Protects the magic user by having him "blink out" after he acts each round, making it impossible for anyone to hit or target him. It would be fantastic, especially for those rounds in which the mage goes early, except that there are so many other awesome third-level spells.
 

Dispel Magic. Removes magic effects from one character. Great spell, but I prefer to use the cleric version and save the Level 3 spell slots for other mage spells.

Fireball. Perhaps the most useful spell in the game, or at least the one I like the most. Does 1d6 per damage for every level of the caster, and over an enormous 37-square area indoors. When I face a large group of enemies all bunched together, I get tingles. Enemies often make saving throws for half-damage, but even then it can disrupt every enemy spellcaster and soften them up spectacularly. It never gets old.

An arrangement custom-made for a fireball.

 
Haste. Doubles the movement of the party, including the number of melee attacks per round. The effects are great, but it comes at the high price of aging the party one year every time it's cast. Only worth it for very difficult boss battles.

Hold Person. Same as the cleric spell, but affects 4 targets instead of 3. I prefer to leave this to the clerics.

Invisibility, 10' radius. Same as "Invisibility," but can affect every character if cast at the beginning of combat. It's a good way to start combat right, and to make the party immune to spellcasters who go before the party members. A good use of this spell is to "Delay" all character actions until the end of the round, after every foe has moved (and generally done something ineffective). I suppose you could memorize multiple iterations of the spell and ensure that your mage goes last every round, effectively giving your party unfettered ranged attacks for a few rounds.

Lightning Bolt. Another fantastic spell, vying with "Fireball" for usefulness. It also does 1d6 damage per level, but in a straight line of 4-8 squares (and it will even rebound off walls). It's great for when enemies line up instead of "bunching."

Protection from Evil, 10' Radius. Same as the cleric spell, and since there are so many useful Level 3 mage spells, I prefer to leave this one to the clerics.

Protection from Good, 10' Radius. I can't imagine a greater waste of a Level 3 mage slot.

Protection from Normal Missiles. Makes the caster immune to non-magic missile weapons. These are relatively rare in the game. The spell would perhaps be useful if enemies with missile weapons had better AI and tried to target the mage, but they don't. I can't see spending a slot on it.

Slow. Halves targets' movements and melee attacks. It affects one enemy per level of the caster. It seems like a useful spell that I've generally ignored in favor of "Lightning Bolt" and "Fireball." I should experiment with it more.

As you can see, Level 3 has some spectacular spells. I wish more of these had been available at Level 2 or Level 4. I generally prioritize "Fireball" and "Lightning Bolt" but keep an "Invisibility, 10' Radius" and "Haste" in reserve when I start to get more than 3 or 4 Level 3 slots.

Fourth Level

Charm Monster. Works like "Charm Person" but on any creature. It has a greater chance of success (though still not high) and affects more than one monster. It's always useful to turn an enemy to your side.
 

Confusion. Puts 2-16 targets in a confused state, which sometimes makes them flee, sometimes makes them attack their comrades, and sometimes makes them just stand around. Another spell that I haven't given as much attention to as it deserves. It often fails.

Dimension Door. Teleports the mage from one point on the battlefield to another. I can't think of any reason I'd use this except to escape, and intelligent movement of the mage means you'll never be in a position where it's necessary.

Fear. Causes enemies to flee. That sounds nice in theory, but you actually want to avoid fleeing enemies. At best, you have to chase them down or take them out with missile weapons. At worst, they escape off the screen, and you don't get their experience or items. "Confusion" is a better use of the slot.

Fire Shield. A neat spell that shrouds the mage in either flames or ice. Not only does it protect against attacks of the same kind, but creatures who hit the mage in melee combat receives twice the damage they cause in return. A nice punishing spell, and I like to cast it before battle. I'm not a big fan of enemies who cast it.

Fumble. Affects one target and causes him to just stand around. If it fails, the target still comes under the effects of a "Slow" spell. I guess it could be useful, but at this level we should be way past targeting one enemy at a time. [Later edit: In the comments below, PetrusOctavianus says that it works well against dragons, who have lousy saving throws, making them "forget" to use their breath attacks.]

Ice Storm. 3-30 hit points of damage to a 21-square area, with no saving throw. It's a useful mass-damage spell, but unlike "Fireball" it doesn't increase in damage as the mage increases in level. I like to keep one around for enemies immune to fire damage.

Minor Globe of Invulnerability. Protects the mage against first- through third-level spells. Potentially useful, but I don't often face enough enemy mages that I can't disrupt their spellcasting. Outclassed by "Globe of Invulnerability" later.

Remove Curse. Same as the third-level cleric spell. Since it's rarely needed, I wouldn't waste a mage spell slot on it.

Bestow Curse. Again, same as the third-level cleric spell. It makes a single melee fighter a little weaker and more vulnerable. It seems very weak for a fourth-level mage spell, and it's gone by Secret of the Silver Blades.

For fourth-level spells, I rarely go outside "Charm Monster," "Confusion," "Fire Shield," and "Ice Storm."

Fifth Level

Cloud Kill. Creates a 3x3 area of poison gas in which lower-level enemies instantly die. This is a great spell in the Infinity Engine games because enemies that don't die instantly take damage every round. I remember a few areas in which I had fun opening a door, firing off a "Cloud Kill," slamming the door shut, and watching my foes take continual damage for five or six rounds. The Gold Box version doesn't do damage to enemies it doesn't kill, though, making it much less useful. It also has a miserable casting range of only 2 squares, and it centers where you cast it.

Viola fails to kill an ettin with a "Cloudkill."

Cone of Cold. 2-5 damage per caster level to all targets in a "cone shaped area." I have a really tough time lining up the spell to hit the enemies I want (and none of my allies), but it's the only really sure-thing offensive spell at this level.

Feeblemind. Reduces the intelligence and wisdom of the target to 3, which makes him incapable of casting spells and worsens saving throws. I keep one on hand for boss-level magic users, although I find that they usually save against it.

Hold Monster. Works like "Hold Person" but on any monster, and up to 4 targets per casting. It often fails, but it's fantastic when it works, allowing any character to kill the monster with an immediate coup de grâce.

I tend to load up on "Hold Monster" at this level, perhaps keeping one "Feeblemind" and one "Cone of Cold."

Sixth Level

Death Spell. Immediately kills opponents in adjacent squares to where it's cast. Awesome when it works, but I find that high-level foes almost always save against it.

Disintegrate. Instant kill on one target. Doesn't work on some creatures, but a surprising number of high-level foes will fall to it.

Flesh to Stone. Petrifies enemies who don't make a saving throw. I guess what I need to do is work out whether this works more often than "Disintegrate" or vice versa, as they both have the same effect.

Globe of Invulnerability. Protects against all spells of Level 1-4. I think it's an absolutely essential buffing spell for mages, keeping them from getting disrupted by "Hold Peson," "Fireball," "Lightning Bolt," or "Magic Missile" before they can cast.

Stone to Flesh. Counters the effects of stoning, which happens so often in Secret of the Silver Blades that you need to keep at least one in memory.

Tough choices at this level. Each is useful enough to have one in inventory, but you only get 2 or 3.

Seventh Level

Delayed Blast Fireball. A more powerful version of "Fireball" that defeats globes of invulnerability. The "delay" part doesn't make any sense in the Gold Box engine--in fact, it casts instantly, which "Fireball" doesn't--but otherwise just as awesome as "Fireball."
  

Mass Invisibility. I guess this is useful to avoid having to keep everyone bunched together after casting "Invisibility, 10' Radius." Otherwise duplicates that spell, so I wouldn't waste what could be another "Fireball' on it.

Power Word, Stun. A curiously lame spell for such a high level. It effects only one creature, the caster has to be directly adjacent to the target, and unlike "Hold," stunning just makes the enemy inert; it doesn't freeze him for a coup de grâce like "Hold." The only thing I can think is that enemies need higher saving throws against it? Either way, "Fireball" is the better option.

No question here: every slot goes to "Delayed Blast Fireball."

Druid Spells

Although the Gold Box series doesn't allow a druid class, there are a small selection of druid spells available to rangers.

First Level

Detect Magic. Works the same as the mage and cleric spells. Since druid spells are otherwise less useful than the ranger simply attacking for a round, I have him memorize these exclusively.

Entangle. Keeps a target from moving, which sounds nice, but it only works outdoors, where I rarely fight. Again, I'd just have the ranger attack.

Faerie Fire. Creates a halo around the enemy and reduces armor class by 2. I can't see spending a round on it.

Invisibility to Animals. Does what it says. For those rare battles exclusively with animals (I literally can't think of one in Curse or Secret), you might as well use the regular mage "Invisibility" spell.

Second Level

Barkskin. A decent buffing spell that reduces AC by 1. It certainly doesn't hurt anything.

Charm Person or Mammal. Like the first-level mage spell but affects any mammal. By the time you get it, most foes have strong saving throws and the ranger is such a good attacker, it's hard to see him spending a round on this. But I should experiment more.

Cure Light Wounds. Same as the first-level cleric spell. Useful for an extra couple of castings.

I tend to memorize "Barkskin" and "Cure Light Wounds" exclusively.

Closing Thoughts

A lot of the spells I've tagged as "useless" are largely about micromanaging statistics: increasing hit rolls and saving throws for the party, decreasing them from the enemy, boosting immunity to certain spell types, and so forth. To me, such spells would make more sense if the combats lasted a lot longer, but the battle against the beholder corps aside, I can't think of one that has lasted more than four or five rounds.

I'm perfectly happy to do this tweaking in camp, just before entering a big battle, but not at the expense of a spell slot better used for an offensive spell, and certainly not at the expense of some action while in combat. I'd much rather just take a swing at an enemy, hitting or missing, than to spend a round casting a spell that might increase my chances of hitting by 20% in the next round.

My tactics might change in later games if the enemies themselves change. There was one memorable battle in Dracondrus's tower with a high-level Drow fighter with a very low armor class and over 100 hit points. Even though I was overpowered for the area, many of my attacks swished by him, and he did a good job pounding down my hit points with multiple attacks per round. If there were more battles like this--against small groups of very powerful foes--it might make more sense to me to have my priests and mages dancing in the periphery of combat, casting spells that slightly altered my melee fighters' odds. We'll see if that happens in later games.

I will update and re-post this entry after I experience Secret of the Silver Blades and Champions of Krynn in 1990, and I'll make edits based on comments that you leave below.

Game 57: Pool of Radiance (1988)

     

Pool of Radiance

United States

Strategic Simulations, Inc. (developer and publisher)

Released 1988 for DOS and Commodore 64; 1989 for Apple II, Macintosh, PC-88, and PC-98; 1990 for Amiga and Sharp X1, 1991 for NES

Date Started: 31 May 2011

          
I only ever played about eight or ten sessions of pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons, and those were enough for me. On paper, there's no reason I shouldn't love it. I've played hundreds of hours of D&D-themed computer games. I love fantasy novels and fantasy movies. I really enjoy reading D&D rulebooks and modules. I just don't like playing with a real dungeon master and real players.

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why, and these are the best theories I can come up with:

• Pen-and-paper roleplaying takes too damned long. By the time you get to the location, get settled, open the chips, pour the drinks, get out the paperwork, roll characters for the new players, set up the campaign, and generally stop screwing around, hours have gone by. You can easily spend half a dozen sessions getting through a simple module.

• Because you're playing with other people, you can't just get up and leave whenever you want. And you have to mesh your schedule with theirs. There's no suddenly deciding to play at 01:00 when you can't sleep.

• It's tough to find a talented DM. If he's too imaginative, the game feels more like he's telling a story than you're playing. If he's too lenient, there's no challenge. If he's too inflexible, say goodbye to your character.

• There are a million rules and calculations, and the game comes to a standstill every five or six rounds as you roll dice and try to figure out whether your saving throw really applies to this particular use of poison or whatever.

• If you don't have three or four friends who like D&D, you end up playing with strangers. If you do have three or four friends who like D&D, you start to wonder about the choices you've made.

For all these reasons, despite its long history as a paper game, D&D has always struck me as a natural computer-based game system. A computer can do the calculations. You don't need friends with a computer. You can play with your computer any time you want. Your computer is an impartial DM. The only thing lacking with CRPGs over regular RPGs is a certain amount of open-endedness and flexibility. I can't suddenly decide to abandon Baldur's Gate and stalk off towards Silverymoon. But many CRPGs offer worlds that are enormous if not boundless, and this is usually good enough for me.

The game's first quest.

Pool of Radiance isn't the first D&D adaptation for the computer. Wikipedia says that was the PLATO-based dnd, followed by the PDP-10-based Dungeon, two handheld games from Mattel, and an Intellivision game. To a lesser extent, of course, practically ever fantasy CRPG listed on this blog is a D&D adaptation--just not an officially-licensed one. But Pool of Radiance was the first true CRPG adaptation of the specific D&D rules. (Heroes of the Lance, released the same year, was a side-scrolling action game.) It showed that D&D-style gameplay, character development, NPCs, and tactics could be adapted to the computer, and it introduced the idea of the "campaign setting" to CRPGs; games don't have to be direct sequels to each other to be set in the same world. Pool of Radiance and its three sequels are all set in the same realm as Eye of the Beholder, Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights, and once you know the geography, races, magics, religions, monsters, and politics of one game, you can use that knowledge in others.

None of this would be particularly interesting if the gameplay didn't work, but a few hours with Pool of Radiance confirms what I remember: this is an awesome game. It has a great plot, an extensive game world, and a lot of lore. It is tactically challenging and reasonably fast-paced. There are a few things not to like--sparse first-person graphics and a tiresome healing process among them--but they're certainly sufferable.

The Gold Box series perfects SSI's tactical combat system.

Part of the game's charm is the back story, which is satisfying in its own modesty. You're not out to save the world or become a god or anything. Rather, your job is to help restore a ruined city called Phlan, a minor port on the Moonsea. Once prosperous, it was overrun by monsters a few hundred years ago and fell into disrepair. But descendants of its old inhabitants have now reclaimed it, set up a City Council, hired guards, and walled off a "civilized" section, and they are now soliciting for mercenary bands to start cleaning out the monster-inhabited sections of the city.

An advertisement for mercenaries, from the Adventurer's Journal.

One of the satisfying things about replaying this game in the Internet age is that I can finally see where the Moonsea is, relative to other lands of the Forgotten Realms (technically called "Faerûn"). The Forgotten Realms Wiki has a full map, which I've included below along with some annotations as to the (rough) relative locations of certain games.


  
You begin by creating a party of six characters from all six core D&D races (human, dwarf, elf, gnome, half-elf, halfling), both sexes, nine alignments, and four classes (cleric, fighter, magic user, and thief). Normally, I would set out to create a set of characters that I could use throughout the four "Gold Box" games, but a somewhat clumsy implementation of the D&D rules in this first game means that I'll probably create a new set of characters for the next game, Curse of the Azure Bonds. First, there are no paladins or rangers in this game. Second, non-human races have level maximums and I have to make sure they aren't lower than the maximum level in the game. Third, there are maximum levels in the game, ranging from Level 6 for wizards and clerics to Level 9 for thieves. But these are level maximums, not experience maximums, so it makes sense to use multi-classed characters, thus ensuring that you never have the infuriating experience of not earning any more experience.

Thus, my party:

• Octavianus: chaotic good male human fighter (possibly to dual to cleric later)
• Karnov: neutral male dwarf fighter/thief
• Lame Brain: neutral good male elf fighter/magic user
• Duskfire: lawful good female [sorry about that man, but I needed another female, and frankly it sounds like a female's name] half-elf fighter/magic user
• Zink: lawful neutral male half-elf fighter/cleric
• Koren: neutral good female human cleric (possibly to dual to fighter later)

This leaves no halfling, but they suck at everything but thievery and I don't recall thieves playing a large role in this game.

Octavianus, I hope that works for you.

As you create your character, you get to select from a number of heads and bodies to create your character portrait. Most of the portrait choices look pretty dumb, and I think this is the only Gold Box game to include them. You also select from various colors and styles to create your character icon. I'm colorblind, so I usually just focus on the weapon and head style and randomize everything else. I'm sure it looks stupid.


  
Right at the beginning, the game gives you the ability to cheat wildly. After creating your characters, no matter what attribute statistics they originally received, you can choose to "modify" them and change the statistics to whatever you want. The ostensible reason for this, given in the manual, is: "You may want to bring your favorite AD&D character into Pool of Radiance. Create a character of the same race and class and then modify it to match your non-computer AD&D character." Sure. All around the world, Pool of Radiance players suddenly had paper D&D characters with every attribute set at 18.

When I played Pool of Radiance the first time, in 1988, and the second time, in probably 1995, I happily engaged in this type of cheating, but not this time. It's hardly necessary anyway. Rarely does the game offer you single-digit attribute statistics. These were the numbers I got for Lame Brain after only three or four re-rolls:

His intelligence belies his name. His face does not.

Your characters start with no equipment and roughly 100 gold pieces per person. The game begins on the docks of Phlan, your mercenary ship presumably having just arrived. You are greeted by a townsman named Rolf who proceeds to give you a quick tour of the city and the major edifices.

Hey! We must be related!

Rolf shows the Temple of Tyr, the docks, the training facility, City Hall, Sune's Temple, City Park, and the entrance to the "monster-ridden areas of the old city." He then leaves the party alone to begin its adventure. This posting is already getting long, so I'll get into the real meat of the gameplay tomorrow.


  
Before I go, though, we must discuss the game's documentation. The game comes with an interesting construction called a "codewheel" that serves as both a copy protection device and a translator. The codewheel has two overlapping rings--one inner, one outer--and at the beginning of each session, the game asks you to match up two runes and tell it what word is found along one of three paths.


  
Lacking a physical copy, I was in the middle of creating a complicated PowerPoint-based solution when it suddenly hit me that someone must have programmed a little applet for this somewhere. Sure enough, I found a web site that allows you to do the selections quite easily. And guess who created it. That's right: Andrew freaking Schultz, the "king of classic CRPG walkthroughs". Did this guy do everything? It's actually not hosted on his own site any more, and the current hosts note that they can't reach him. I couldn't reach him, either, when I wrote about walkthroughs. Where did he go?

The second piece of important documentation is the Adventurer's Journal, which is almost unique in CRPGs of the era, although the concept was seen first way back in Temple of Apshai and taken to something of an extreme in Star Saga. To account for the limitations in on-screen text and cut scenes of the era, the creators described key encounters, including visuals such as maps and diagrams, in a 57-entry Adventurer's Journal. At key points, the game cues you to open the journal and read one or more of the entries. Lest you be tempted to read ahead, they randomized the order of entries and included several red herrings among the real ones.

A random journal entry. This is the last time I look one up before the game tells me to.

The Journal also contains a collection of 23 "tavern tales" that you hear in bars. My first tavern tale was that "buccaneers operate a slave auction out of a hidden camp near Stormy Bay." Finally, it contains the quest proclamations that you find outside City Hall.

My characters have just arrived in town, so my first goal is to get some equipment. I still remember the first time I played the game, when I got embroiled in a huge tavern brawl before I had any weapons, and all my characters died. After that, I'll map the town and see what quests await me at City Hall. A warning for the next few weeks: I'm probably going to drag this one out.