DavesGaming

I wanted to start with notes this time. As I’ve noted before, gameplay of these games is clearly old and dated, but they are very fast and stable on DOSBox. Really, the best these games have ever played. I remember back in the day (yes, I’m old) usually having a book or magazine on my lap as I played, so I would have something to do during the many long disc loads. The Amiga was faster, I rarely had reading time during game play. But there were still numerous disc swaps. None of that here. Gameplay is fast and stable.

One thing I forgot to mention in Pool of Radiance, is the 1st level mage spell Enlarge. This was not in the later IE games at all. But it is an awesome low level buff. The recipient gains strength based on caster level. I’m don’t recall all the subtleties of it (Shuri gained a +1 for every level Psyche gained right from 1st level. She started with a 15 strength, so at 1st level Psyche gave her a 16. While the stronger guys initially gained nothing). Now that Psyche is 9th level. each recipient gains a 22 strength for the duration of a single combat. Awesome buff spell. This includes incrementally stepping up the strength to 18/01 or 18/51 at different levels (I seriously wish BG would have interpreted a +1 to an 18 as 18/01, and a +1 from there as 18/51. It is major cheese to call a +1 to 18 a 19 in the case of strength in AD&D).
Obviously this specifically mattered for Shuri with her 15 strength (no combat bonuses, except when enlarged). But by the time she was getting into exceptional bonuses with the spell in PoR, she had Gauntlets of Ogre Power. Well, in Curse we lost those at the start. So suddenly the buff matters from the start.
And now we’re to the point, Psyche can give the whole melee unit Giant Strength for every big battle. Huge bonus.

I also should add a correction here, I had suggested previously that the “Fix” command heals the party and relearns cast spells. That is actually a little misleading. It is not quite as sophisticated as the “Rest” command in the IE games. It actually only restores the healing spells cast when you “Fix”. So if your cleric had 5 Cure Light Wounds, and previously cast one. When you hit “Fix” it will cast the remaining four spells, and relearn only those four spells.
*Unless*, you manually reselect that forgotten Cure Light Wounds (and any other previously cast spells). Then it will relearn everything when you hit “Fix”. Moya now normally learns a single Cure Serious Wounds and Cure Critical Wounds also, so “Fix” heals major damage most times when it gets used.
I am not sure if this applies to the Paladin’s Lay on Hands ability, I suspect not (its a different game mechanism).

One other thing I’d forgotten, in this game engine your party will not increase in power during an adventure. You need a training hall to gain levels, and a shop to identify items. So each adventure area is a set thing. You need to use the team and items you have.

And off we go…

*****

Leaving Tilverton was a little sad. All of us except Shuri had grown up on Cormyr, now we are banished. We set off for Shadowdale initially. We had to fight Displacer Beasts in the pass through the mountains, but eventually made it to town. We badly needed a place to rest and do business. We had a lot of stuff to identify from our fight with the Fire Knives, and we all needed some new training. We actually had found some really useful gear, and I feel pretty good we’re stronger even than when we had finished in Phlan. We had a bit of information that indicated one of our Azure Bonds was tied to a mage named Dracandros with a tower near the village Hap. So off we went.

There were actually three! That was exciting.

We found the town had been occupied by Drow. Actually an Efreet commanding the Drow. We put them all down. After, we met a traveler named Akabar Bel Akash at the inn. He was immediately intrigued by our blue tattoos, he said he’d seen such before. He joined with us as we prepared to meet Dracandros.

This involved travel through underground caverns, to the wizard’s tower. And it was quickly obvious these caves were all inhabited by Drow.

A Drow woman named Silk immediatley befriended Shuri as a sister-in-arms. She identified herself as a member of a group called Swanmays, and put a brand on Shuri’s hand (Hah! We need more markings on us!) that identified her as one. This led to about half the Drow patrols we encountered waving us by.
The Swanmays did not detect as evil. That seems to be a fairly large movement among the Drow?

But the last large cavern at the end of this path led to some real excitement.

The fact we were up to this challenge shows we’ve grown a lot since this all started! We’ve become a very good team, and I think we’ve more than rebounded from the setback of loosing all our gear.

After the caves, the path oddly led us to the roof of the wizard’s tower. He commanded us to attack a huge Black Dragon. Our bonds forced us to comply.
But the result was amusing. The dragon was an illusion, and a gathering of Black Dragons now revealed themself as witnesses. And they scoffed at Dracandros! They recognized the compulsion he’d placed on us! They demanded he remove the bond, to see how we really felt about dragons.

Dracandros skedaddled. I’d say we were just done with him. But we were now at the TOP of his tower and needed to work our way back down.

We also fought Salamanders, more Efreeti, wyverns… at least no monkeys this time.

Psyche had a stronger mind and sent it back his way.

We finally made it down to the courtyard, and caught up to Dracondros trying to escape with his booty.

There were actually about a dozen Efreeti, plus several Drow and Dracandros himself. In a moment of desperation we discovered Efreeti are not in fact immune to Fireballs, just a little resistent. So yeah, a lot of fighting, a lot of explosions. In the end we prevailed. Dracandros did not.

We said our goodbyes to Akabar, and set off to the nearby town of Essembra which had a good shop and training hall.