DavesGaming

Compared to newer games, Pool of Radiance is very much like an older style dungeon crawl. There’s enough story here to tell, but just barely. To me, the look, style and personality of my characters matters. A lot actually. So I’m going to treat this much like I did my Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale playthroughs. There will be first person observation and telling of the story, plus whatever personal thoughts and experiences that seem fitting as the game unfolds.
This surely won’t be in huge detail or length, my recollection is that this is a much shorter game than the newer ones. I will do the body of this write up in three sections, then just a few comments on the build and what it will mean for proceeding into the next game of the series.

1

Diomedes grew up on the frontier. At a trade outpost of Cormyr, on the road to Tilverton at the northeastern extremes of the Kingdom. His parents were the only clergy at a temple of Lathander. Diomedes was much shaped by this life, he learned to be content to stay put and read a book when he was directed the fort was locked down. But he really lived for the times when he could get out, hunting, fishing or just running.
In his early teens, a new fort commander arrived. A knight who brought his young family. That included a son just a year younger than Diomedes. His name was Garaint. He was perhaps more active and more precocious than Diomedes. But it was good for the two young men to be friends, and to challenge and push each other. By the time they were in their late teens they had started training together as warriors. Diomedes had just turned 18 when they set off to a near city to complete their formal training.

This would be a formative period in several ways, particularly the meeting of friends that would become a team.
Diomedes most important new association would be with a young woman who was rooming right near Diomedes. Psyche was training as a mage on the other side of town, so their bumping into each other was a fortuitous accident.

Meanwhile Garaint was also making new friends. A young woman in the Cleric training program, Moya was an frenemy?

In time Diomedes knew he had to introduce Psyche to his friends. Garaint was a perfect gentleman.

During riding training Diomedes met a young man there training as an archer.

Later Diomedes and Psyche were out on a walk in the woods just outside of town. They heard a noise just near the road.

She had been taken by slavers months ago when her small home village was raided and destroyed, and had been living in a cage in the back of a wagon. She managed to escape a few weeks ago. But she is unclear on where she is, and has no home to return to. Her grasp of the local Common language is marginal. No doubt Shuri has some impressive survival skills! Diomedes offered he could get her some warrior training, to round out her skills.

That is the team of six.

2

We’ll say Diomedes is a Paladin, so his training involves both warrior and clerical elements. He is good natured and enjoys a good laugh. Dad humor sort of funny, corny and inoffensive.
I’ve run Diomedes many times in different games. He is the oldest D&D character I still have a sheet for. This goes back to when 1E was still a new thing (literally, not all the books had even been published yet). His scores are a moving target, I’ll use something in between his actual starting scores, and his final ultra-high level version. But no doubt, he is a strong character.

18/00 – 18 – 18 – 13 – 16 – 17

A few things to note about 1E rules, and about Pool of Radiance that effect the build. A big thing, there was no weapon specialization (or mastery!) in 1E. This changed when Unearthed Arcana was published in 1985, but Gold Box games all ignored this, and ignored all weapon proficiencies. So initial weapons used will be for style reasons only. Later, expect best items available to determine what is used. And no dual wielding. Expect Diomedes to fight with sword and shield.
Also, there are no Paladins in Pool of Radiance. They will suddenly pop into existence for Curse of the Azure Bonds. Funny, Diomedes was actually started as a fighter and became a Paladin after a long quest when he was around 5th level. So I’ll start him as a fighter here, then recreate him as a Paladin for Curse. Head canon, he’s a Paladin.

Psyche is a mage. She is gracious, funny and good natured.
Psyche is the second oldest character I have a sheet for, she was married to Diomedes from about the time he became a Paladin.

7 – 18 – 18 – 18 – 14 – 18

Obviously issues around weapon proficiencies will have less impact on Psyche. But for reasons that will later be clear, Psyche will also get a rebuild for Curse of Azure Bonds.

Garaint is a fighter. He could also be described as good natured and funny. But his humor is often a little more biting and challenging.
Garaint was run as a PnP character, from a limited duration sort of campaign. The DM had an idea for a story to tell in about eight game sessions. Funny thing, this was the period when the Cavalier had been published in Dragon Magazine (but before Unearthed Arcana came out). So the original Cavalier was a “sub-class” of *either* paladin or fighter. Garaint was a fighter-cavalier. Obviously I can’t do anything about THAT! So fighter he is.

18/30 – 16 – 17 – 10 – 9 – 10

Moya Durbin is a Cleric of Lathander. Actually in PoR that will just mean she’s a good aligned cleric, all clerics are generic in 1E. (Specialty Clerics were my single favorite innovation that came with 2E!). Moya is fiesty and funny, some might find her humor abrasive. She meshes well with Garaint, everyone knows they’re truly a couple but they will *never* act affectionate in public or even with friends.
Moya was first created for Seige of Dragonspear. In my “Psyche and Diomedes” run they had used Jaheira and Branwen as their clerics. At the start of SoD they suddenly had no healer. So I created Moya as a Human Irish woman, whose physical appearence often draws questions that she’s a little tired of dealing with.

9 – 16 – 15 – 11 – 18 – 16

When questioned about her appearence, if she’s in a cranky mood she will let loose with some version of “I don’t have Infravision. I sleep like a human, I hear like a human, I sweat like a human. My favorite food is corned beef and cabbage. I learned to play bag-pipes as a tot. I’ve never been to Kara-Tur. Neither have my parents. I have my father’s green eyes.”

Most to the point here. I created her as a *Human* character for SoD whose appearence, characteristics and name all brought a certain dissonance. Now moving her into the Gold Box games I find a certain advantage, she’s human and will have no level cap.

Harg is a fighter. Long ago in a PnP campaign he started as a sort of “barbarian”. But he was odd in that he wasn’t strong and he was always the team archer. Quite a good one. When 2E came along he wound up with the “Wilderness Warrior” kit, which is sort of a low-rent Ranger. There were no (or less?) ability and alignment requirements. Like so many 2E kits, this was really more about role playing than any combat advantage. I believe he gained “Forest Survival” and “tracking” as his bonus abilities. Neither mattered as we always had a Ranger handy.
Harg is good natured but quiet. He enjoys the company of good friends and a good laugh, but he seldom initiates banter.

13 – 18 – 17 – 10 – 11 – 13

Obviously in a game with no weapon proficiency system he can switch pretty seemlessly to melee mode. I suppose that will make him the rear rank emergency fighter. But with the 18 Dexterity he will favor the bow.

Shuri is from my game setting. Actually from a sojurn to ancient Egypt. A refugee adopted into the adventuring team. She was an interesting role play both for her unfamiliarity with the language of the players and her comparitive youth. For our purposes here we’ll say she has enough time with the crew to have functional language skills, yet she still looks up to her *slightly* older team-mates.
She is quiet, except for her laugh. And she will stick very close to the friends who made an effort to look out for her.

15 – 17 – 16 – 11 – 15 – 15

The biggest issue with recreating Shurri is her signature attack will be underwhelming. She was highly specialized in spear. Which historically is a *one-handed* weapon used with a shield for melee, especially in the Bronze Age when it was impossible to make a sword much over 12 inches. So a spear had some reach, and could be thrown in an emergency (with maybe half the range of a javelin). Well Gold Box, like the later Infinity Engine, defines it as a “two-handed weapon”. That does 1d6 damage.
Okay, we’ll call that the disadvantage of having mastered an obsolete weapon. Obviously, in a game with no weapon proficiencies I can equip her however I want. But I think her signature will be all two handed weapons. So maybe halberd or two-handed sword? Like all the team she will use whatever the best available may prove to be. Spear until magic shows up. With a good dexterity and constitution she will be a survivable fighter who just doesn’t hit very hard (pending good magic items).

3

Diomedes and his close friends were able to arrange completing training within a few weeks of each other. So here they were, a group of well-trained young adults looking for a great adventure to embark on as a team. Psyche found a bulletin, a notice from the City Council of New Phlan. They wanted adventurers to help them clear a variety of monsters from the old ruins surrounding the new city. Payment was offered. This was just across the Moonsea, so a short voyage by boat. A perfect project for the six of them?

Their little tour ended at the gate to the unsettled region.

Rolf had pointed out the City Council chambers, where missions could be identified and rewards handed out.

They registered their presence to be sure and get off on the right foot. The top priorities seemed to be clearing an old slum area, immediately though the secured gate, that was overrun mostly by orcs and goblins. And the Sokal Keep, a ruin they passed in the harbor mouth when they sailed in yesterday, has apparently been occupied by a tribe of orcs. They bought some needed supplies at an outfitter, then settled in for the evening at a local inn.

*****

After much looking and fussing around with options, I’ve decided to just run the last official version of PoR with no mods. So I’m playing the classic game with no updates, only the advantages of a faster modern computer. Features that came later, will come later!

I will post updates in the usual fashion. My recollection is this is a much shorter game than Baldur’s Gate! I am not sure how long the whole series of four might take? And I’m not promising to finish them all! Let’s just see where this goes.

Update 1

We were all a little nervous as we set out to explore the abandoned slums right on the other side of the wall, the gateway to old Phlan. The first group of creatues we saw, Kobolds, took one look at us and ran. That was a good boost to our confidence!

Soon after we heard rough, guteral voices behind a wooden door. Expecting our first fight I kicked open the door and we entered. A short fight ensued against a half dozen orcs. I guess we’re real adventurers now! We came out well, just a few scrapes Moya quickly healed up.

We turned back out into the alley, and four more orcs were coming right at us.

Wow, she can turn a battle fast! Like I needed any other motive to never leave Psyche behind.

We faced a couple of fights against large numbers of inferior foes, goblins and kobolds.

We had a few other such fights. Generally Garaint and I stay on point, trying to draw the most fire. But it seems Garaint gets hurt more often than I do? He is bigger?

But soon we were back at it again.

There was one part of the slums yet to clear, the old Rope Guild, when we went back into civilization to replenish some supplies and get a good night’s sleep.

We also did some training, all of us seemed ready to improve our skills. We fought a lot of battles in the course of one long day.

Back to the Rope Guild.

We wound up fighting four trolls and two ogres total. Wow! That tested our skills!
The area seemed quiet when the battle was over. Had we cleared the slums? Our first mission complete! We were well payed when we got back to the Council Clerk. More training.

Then we were off to the small island in Phlan’s harbor. The old keep, Sokal Keep, is apparently haunted, and we were to quiet the ghosts if possible.
The island was haunted, but the biggest issue was an army of orcs had taken up residence. A large battle ensued, the largest we’ve fought yet.

We returned to the mainland and set off for Kuto’s Well, an old residential area just beyond the slums.

And there were quite a few of them around the well. We were really looking for a bandit captain, Norris the Gray. He had been waylaying travelers and fighting with guardsmen. Psyche noticed a ladder mounted into the wall of the well itself heading down into the water. I guess we’re heading down!

We returned to the city to collect another nice reward, and some more training. There are a number of local missions open to us now. We chose a couple that seemed nearby. The first sent us off to Podal Plaza, an old shopping district that apparently now fills the same function for the local monster population. An unknown magic item was up for auction, and the city leaders wanted to know the who and what of it. So a little undercover work for us.

We covered our gear with heavy cloaks and our pink skin with dirt and mud.

It pained me to smear mud through that thick brown hair.
But our mission was a success. I guess. We saw a magic wand of some sort auctioned, and noted both the auctioneer and buyer. The city council seemed pleased and rewarded us.
On the way back we stopped by the old Mendor’s Library. The City Council has been asking for books, scrolls, texts that might reveal what all has transpired here. We found a few things of interest. We have now encountered the name Tyranthaxus a few times, associated with the fall of old Phlan. The name seems to cause much fear and worry, and the suggestion is that he is supernatural of some sort. It seems likely we’ll encounter this name again!

The city council paid us well for a stack of old books too. One new mission was presented to us, to clear the city’s old graveyard. Ugh, sounds fun.

We seem to have a back-log of things to do at this point.

*****

So yeah, this game is really old. I’m mostly finding it a lot of fun though. The only thing I find really annoying is memorizing spells, mainly Cure Light Wounds. It will be our only healing spell though the entire game, and the “Fix” command wasn’t implimented until the next game. I knew this, and I knew it would be a headache. Well, it is. But the game plays fast and is stable. I think this will be managable. It used to be…

I’ve noticed I did one silly thing wrong I’ve done before.

Both avatars wear metal armor, blue as a color, black hair. Moya uses a shield. Initially that was the only real tell between them. I’ve given Shuri black armor now, its a more vivid tell between them.

I am *really* enjoying coming up with renders fo this ICONIC old game! This is fun.

Update 2

Continuing on, we had been asked by Councilman Cadorna to retrieve a family heirloom that had gone missing near the old Textile House. Plus a servent of his had also gone missing while looking for the item.

While looking for the box we fought several groups of orcs.

We were right near the Kovel Mansion. We had been told it was over-run by a group of thieves.

There was no place to really rest in a manor full of thieves waiting in ambush, so we had to force our way through it. No one fight was all that difficult, but the process was exhausting. In the end, there were still six of us. No Thieves.

We returned to New Phlan to collect our rewards and rest up. We were told that the Bishop over at the Temple of Tyr wanted to meet with us.

We were happy to do that.

We cleared the temple and the surrounding area. Dirten stayed to continue resanctification of the site. We went back to civilization to get some rest before embarking on our next mission.

In the morning we hired a boat to take out east of town. The City Council was asking for us to look into several things around town. A large tribe of kobolds drew our first notice. We found their home base in a few caves near the source of a small river. They had the usual crude traps, deadfalls, large nets. It all initially posed little threat.

We all found our way to a common room (common cave?) of sorts, which triggered a series of large battles against the Kobolds.

That was a tiring fight. We will all happy to be clear of those caves.

*****

Looking at the team so far, things have gone a *little* differently than I expected. Mostly because of things I’d forgotten after nearly 30 years of playing 2E based Infinity Engine games.
Like one consequence of no weapon specialization is that physical scores have an outsized influence on how powerful a character is. So Diomedes with an 18/00 Strength is simply FAR more powerful than Garaint with an 18/30. In BG or IWD, Garaint would close some of that gap by being able to gain Mastery (and higher) in his main weapon. Diomedes as a Paladin would not.
Shuri, with no Strength bonus is simply much less powerful. She hits less often and for less damage, even using a two-handed sword. Now she is slightly tankier than Garaint (better Dexterity and Constitution). But both Garaint and Shuri are well behind Diomedes with his all 18s in physical scores.
But here comes the big surprise to me. Moya. Offensively she is only *a little* less than Shuri. She also has no Strength bonus. But like Shuri she uses a +1 melee weapon. So they both have a +1 to hit and damage. That is all. As a Cleric, her Thaco is only a couple points behind Shuri. Unfortunately, unlike an IE game, I have no stats checker here. But it seriously seem as though Moya has generally been luckier than Shuri, and has scored as many *or more* actual kills. Funny.

This works from an RP perspective too. Garaint still draws the most fire and takes the most hurt. And Moya likes Garaint in ways she won’t admit. So she will be *right there* to protect him and heal him. And that’s an amusing image!

It is a little amusing to me how even without any Specialization or Mastery, Harg is an excellent archer. Between an 18 Dexterity and a +1 bow (and occasionally +1 arrows) he hits as often as Diomedes does. And the bow always means two attacks per round. He doesn’t hit quite as hard, but against hordes of Kobolds, or even Orcs, its not a huge concern.
And wow, I really like the way spellcasting works in the Gold Box engine. You don’t have to aim your spell until it goes off (in IE you have to target when you cast). And in the turn based system and grid map (that even let’s you find center while aiming) you can take the time you need to find your aim point and launch the spell. Fireball nearly clears the map.

One other thing. The Kobold caves were actually hard! You have to fight three waves of attackers with no opportunity to cast spells or drink potions between. And right after the first wave, crossbow bolts tear through your party and everyone is hit for about ten damage. Then come more trolls and wild boars (with another 30 kobolds), then finally the Zhents (and another 30 kobolds).
This all took me three tries to get right. I first had forgotten to *buff* before entering the king’s cave. Oops. And then I was still too stingy with Strength potions and Fireball Scrolls.
Once I decided to go for broke, it wasn’t such a hard fight.

Update 3

After the kobold caves we worked our way west, and came across a large nomad camp.

We fought off a horde of kobolds with them, and they pledged their friendship to us. They will pose no further problems for New Phlan.

From here we set off to the west again. We had been told a mage was poluting the Stojanow River up by its source. This river flows down to the Moonsea and Phlan is right at it’s delta. If the river remains poluted it will limit much expansion of the city. Our plan was to intercept the river near its source and head downstream to see what we could find.

Gee thanks ladies, never would have figured that one out…

We fought several packs of lizardmen, they seemed larger and fiercer than others of the sort we’ve met. Especially their savage ferocity. Don’t get me wrong, lizardmen are often not friendly. But I’ve seen them visit human towns for trade, they’re not always ferocious. These seemed out of their minds.

As we figured out the maze and teleporters, we got to a more inhabited part of the pyramid.

Then we found a lab of some sort. It had a few vats of bubbling goo, and pipes moving the stuff all about. Something was being brewed here and sent out to the river. Psyche immediately set to figuring out what was being done.

Psyche laughed and suggested Moya was right. We should all “have at it!”

Well that was fun.

From here we followed the river back to town. After a little rest and restock we set out again. This time to the west of town. We were to deliver a diplomatic message to a Zhentil outpost. I’m not sure of the diplomacy? In my experience Zhents are nothing but trouble. But I suppose its not our call, we’ll deliver a message and be on our way.

Then we were escorted (is that political speak for moved under guard?) to a comfortable guest quarters. Where were attacked a few hours later. Fortunately we had posted our own guard and were ready for trouble. After the attack we left our quarters.

Well, the Zhent fortress is now available for other uses… We did learn we were set-up from the start. Councilman Cadorna in New Phlan was literally selling out the city, and suggested the Zhents should dispose of us.

On the way back to Phlan we saw a semi-permanent bandit camp. We had heard of a Phlan noble child being kidnapped, and determined to investigate.

The child was rescued and the camp was burned.

We returned to Phlan for a well diserved rest. Next on our agenda was undead hunting at the old Valhingen Graveyard. Naturally, we ran afoul of several groups of undead. Mostly zombies and skeletons.

We put the cemetary back to rest as it should be.

*****

It makes me laugh how the vampire graphic is such a traditional Dracula or Strahd sort of character. So that’s how I rendered him!

Last time I’d commented how Shuri had not been hugely effective. Well now she has Gauntlets of Ogre Power. She is clearly a hard hitter now! And that sword is +3 against undead, so she really rocked the graveyard.

I had forgotten how devestating level drain is in this iteration of D&D, much more like it works in PnP (than it does in the IE games). Sure we have some Restoration Scrolls. But it only restores you *to the bottom* of your previous level. Diomedes and Harg were never hit, so they are 7th level and might hit 8th by the end of the game. But Garaint, Shuri and Moya were all drained at different times. Now they’re all Restored back to 6th level (where Moya is capped in this game, so she’s fine). But Garaint and Shuri may not hit 7th level by the end of the game! Ouch.
I’m thinking when I hit Curse of the Azure Bonds I’ll simply recreate the whole party.

Update 4

The council seemed to think it was time to make a move towards Stojanow Castle. That was the seat of power for old Phlan. We had reason to think a powerful being known as “Tyranthraxus”, a leader of the sacking of the city over 30 years ago, was still ruling over the ruins from the Castle. The plan was, we would first take the main gate. Then penetrate into the Castle looking for Tyranthraxus and whatever leadership there may be to clear them out. Starting at the gate, we would take point and then city forces would come in behind and secure the site.
Shuri observed it seemed to be on us to do the hard work and the city would reap the benefits. I had to laugh, that’s why we make the big money! I explained to her I wouldn’t have it any other way. We are more capable on point, and the city will need its resources because preserving the peace is typically long and grinding work. We’ll be done in a couple days.

So we set off…

He thanked us for sparing him an unpleasant task, and warned the guard was all ill-tempered bugbears.

Fortunately they aren’t the brightest. They let our humble supply wagon through for a nominal toll.

We explored some of the side buildings along the way. No doubt this is some of the toughest fighting we’ve seen yet. We also learned the password for the inner gates.

[Gamer’s note: Giants are worth a lot of experience! We gained enough for all the warriors to level up one last time. So Diomedes and Harg hit 8th level while Garaint and Shuri hit 7th. I ran back to town for those last level-ups. It will be a big help with the final act.]

Entering those gates led us to a wild shrub maze, including teleporters between segments. I feared we would get lost in here, but this is all right into Psyche’s strength. She was mapping things carefully and was able to locate us quickly everytime we took a teleport. Her clear thinking saved the day.
We finally found our way to the main keep. This was mostly empty, we may have cleared out most of the troops already? One wrong turn did lead us to a fight with a medusa. That could have been bad, but we all came through intact.
We found a staircase going way down into a natural cavern beneath the Castle. This would prove to be the end of resistance.

With all of us concentrating on the dragon it fell pretty quickly. That seemed to be the end of it. The pool of glowing water in the cavern faded out, stopped glowing. We felt the evil disapate. Apparently the threat was over.

New Phlan troops were filling into the Castle area behind us. We had spearheaded the victory.

*****

That’s the end of Pool of Radiance. The game does actually allow for continuing gameplay if you haven’t cleared everything. And if you are importing characters over to Curse of the Azure Bonds it would make sense to maximize your characters before doing so. As I suggested earlier, I will recreate my party rather than import. Mainly so Diomedes can start as a Paladin, and they will all start on equal footing.

I expect to have a couple more posts up quickly now. An overview of Curse of the Azure Bonds first, then a first update for the team not too long after.

The Curse of the Azure Bonds Playthrough is now available.