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Forgotten Realms CollectionGold Box games, questions about importing, level cap, etc.(25 posts)(25 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted September 17, 2015
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haydenaurion: Sorry to necro a thread, but I have a few other questions:

Would waiting till Cleric level 10 to dual class to Paladin be a bad idea in CotAB? I'd like to have another character that can use the Raise Dead spell a few times.

If I dual classed from Thief to Fighter, would I be missing out on gaining any further Thief abilities? Does the Thief's ability to deal with locks, traps, etc get any better for example?

Would dual classing from Fighter to Magic User or vice versa cause problems wearing armor or casting spells in armor in any of the Pools series games? The reason I ask is because I remember that in Baldur's Gate you can't cast Magic User spells in armor, yet doing a test of the pre-made party in PoR it seems Fighter/Magic Users cast spell in armor just fine. I kinda really just want a pure Fighter for one of the characters, though having an extra Magic User dual class is tempting.

Thank you all for helping me as i've only ever played D&D games a few times and have never done dual classing, so i'm quite interested in figuring this stuff out and trying new things.
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dtgreene: Waiting until level 10 to dual class will lead to a character who is weak for much of CotAB. Personally, if doing that dual-class, I would wait until at least level 11 (not attainable in CotAB) to get Heal, which is the only viable HP restoring spell at high levels. Personally, I think going the other way would be better: Go from Paladin to Cleric at level 7, 13, 17 or 20. (7 gives you the first half attack, 13 gives you the second, 17 gives you optimal THAC0, and 20 gives you max Paladin spellcasting, though that probably isn't worth it.)

Dual classing from Thief to Fighter will keep you from getting better at thief abilities, plus you will lose them temporarily. I recommend going the other way around (or possibly Ranger to Fighter, but then you have to choose Neutral Good as your alignment (Chaotic Good character's can't be Thieves for some reason).) Also, you will end up with sub-par HP, as you won't get any Fighter HP until you pass your former level.

Human Fighter -> Mages dual-classes can't cast spells in armor, unlike Elf and Half-Elf multi-classes. On the other hand, Human Ranger -> Mages can. Note that Rangers don't get their second half-attack until level 15, and you can't pass that level as a Mage until Pools of Darkness, so for the other games, changing at level 8 or 9 (enough to get the first half-attack) isn't a bad idea. Mage->FIghter suffers the same issue but also suffers from terrible HP (you only get Mage HP for the lower levels, which is the worst of all classes).
Alot to think about for sure. I may just go with my original plan of dual classing one character from Fighter to Paladin, another from Fighter to Ranger, and keeping my Thief, Cleric and Magic User characters single class then. Really I just kind of wanted a backup Cleric in case my main one goes down.

Are there many healing, etc. potions in these games? Watching walkthroughs i've seen very few and it doesn't seem that you can buy any in stores?
Posted September 17, 2015
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haydenaurion: Alot to think about for sure. I may just go with my original plan of dual classing one character from Fighter to Paladin, another from Fighter to Ranger, and keeping my Thief, Cleric and Magic User characters single class then. Really I just kind of wanted a backup Cleric in case my main one goes down.
Personally, I don't recommend dual classing between fighter-types. There are three issues here:
1. Dual classing into Ranger, if done at a reasonable level, will result in fewer hit points. Thing is, Rangers start with 2 Hit Dice and can get up to 11, whereas Fighters start with only 1 and only get up to 9. This is especially true if you have high Constitution and/or don't play with max rollable HP.
2. According to what somebody posted in another topic, there is a nasty bug: If you get one extra half-attack before dual classing, you might never get the other.
3. Starting in CotAB, a freshly created character will have better THAC0 than one who just dual-classed. Given that there are no long-term advantages to dual-classing from Fighter to Paladin/Ranger, a freshly created character will start out better and reach full potential sooner.

Therefore, I recommend that you replace your characters with new ones instead of dual-classing them. If you want the characters around for role-playing reasons, you can create new characters with the same names and use the Modify Character feature to give them the same stats as the old ones.
Posted September 17, 2015
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haydenaurion: Alot to think about for sure. I may just go with my original plan of dual classing one character from Fighter to Paladin, another from Fighter to Ranger, and keeping my Thief, Cleric and Magic User characters single class then. Really I just kind of wanted a backup Cleric in case my main one goes down.
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dtgreene: Personally, I don't recommend dual classing between fighter-types. There are three issues here:
1. Dual classing into Ranger, if done at a reasonable level, will result in fewer hit points. Thing is, Rangers start with 2 Hit Dice and can get up to 11, whereas Fighters start with only 1 and only get up to 9. This is especially true if you have high Constitution and/or don't play with max rollable HP.
2. According to what somebody posted in another topic, there is a nasty bug: If you get one extra half-attack before dual classing, you might never get the other.
3. Starting in CotAB, a freshly created character will have better THAC0 than one who just dual-classed. Given that there are no long-term advantages to dual-classing from Fighter to Paladin/Ranger, a freshly created character will start out better and reach full potential sooner.

Therefore, I recommend that you replace your characters with new ones instead of dual-classing them. If you want the characters around for role-playing reasons, you can create new characters with the same names and use the Modify Character feature to give them the same stats as the old ones.
Gah, don't like the sound of that bug. I'll just start two new characters for a Paladin and Ranger in CotAB then. Thanks for the warning.
Post edited September 17, 2015 by haydenaurion
Posted September 17, 2015
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dtgreene: Waiting until level 10 to dual class will lead to a character who is weak for much of CotAB. Personally, if doing that dual-class, I would wait until at least level 11 (not attainable in CotAB) to get Heal, which is the only viable HP restoring spell at high levels. Personally, I think going the other way would be better: Go from Paladin to Cleric at level 7, 13, 17 or 20. (7 gives you the first half attack, 13 gives you the second, 17 gives you optimal THAC0, and 20 gives you max Paladin spellcasting, though that probably isn't worth it.)

Dual classing from Thief to Fighter will keep you from getting better at thief abilities, plus you will lose them temporarily. I recommend going the other way around (or possibly Ranger to Fighter, but then you have to choose Neutral Good as your alignment (Chaotic Good character's can't be Thieves for some reason).) Also, you will end up with sub-par HP, as you won't get any Fighter HP until you pass your former level.

Human Fighter -> Mages dual-classes can't cast spells in armor, unlike Elf and Half-Elf multi-classes. On the other hand, Human Ranger -> Mages can. Note that Rangers don't get their second half-attack until level 15, and you can't pass that level as a Mage until Pools of Darkness, so for the other games, changing at level 8 or 9 (enough to get the first half-attack) isn't a bad idea. Mage->FIghter suffers the same issue but also suffers from terrible HP (you only get Mage HP for the lower levels, which is the worst of all classes).
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haydenaurion: Alot to think about for sure. I may just go with my original plan of dual classing one character from Fighter to Paladin, another from Fighter to Ranger, and keeping my Thief, Cleric and Magic User characters single class then. Really I just kind of wanted a backup Cleric in case my main one goes down.

Are there many healing, etc. potions in these games? Watching walkthroughs i've seen very few and it doesn't seem that you can buy any in stores?
Extremely few! IIRC there are 1 or 2 potions of extra healing in the whole game. 1st ed AD&D and 2nd ed didn't really have them. Those showed up in the pen & paper games with 3rd edition. The early Gold Box games required you to memorize your cleric healing spells. Cast them, set them for memorize again and rest for 8 hours + memorization time to have another allotment. I think in Curse they started to remember what your spell selection was so you didn't have to set it each time. And I believe in Secret or one of the Krynn games they introduced the "fix" command which essentially automated the process of healing your party.
Posted September 17, 2015
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haydenaurion: Alot to think about for sure. I may just go with my original plan of dual classing one character from Fighter to Paladin, another from Fighter to Ranger, and keeping my Thief, Cleric and Magic User characters single class then. Really I just kind of wanted a backup Cleric in case my main one goes down.

Are there many healing, etc. potions in these games? Watching walkthroughs i've seen very few and it doesn't seem that you can buy any in stores?
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rkralik: Extremely few! IIRC there are 1 or 2 potions of extra healing in the whole game. 1st ed AD&D and 2nd ed didn't really have them. Those showed up in the pen & paper games with 3rd edition. The early Gold Box games required you to memorize your cleric healing spells. Cast them, set them for memorize again and rest for 8 hours + memorization time to have another allotment. I think in Curse they started to remember what your spell selection was so you didn't have to set it each time. And I believe in Secret or one of the Krynn games they introduced the "fix" command which essentially automated the process of healing your party.
Sounds rough, looks like i'm in for one of the hardest RPGs i've ever played. I look forward to the challenge though.

I noticed characters have an age listing, do these games have the aging thing like the Might & Magic series where your characters can get weaker with age and die?
Posted September 17, 2015
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haydenaurion: I noticed characters have an age listing, do these games have the aging thing like the Might & Magic series where your characters can get weaker with age and die?
Age effects have never come up for me in normal play (I have not tried pushing the limits with hacks etc.), so I'm 99.99% sure it's pure fluff (no in-game effects).
Post edited September 17, 2015 by 01kipper
Posted September 18, 2015
I never noticed an effect due to the characters' age, but did notice that attacks from some monsters (ghosts I think) and some spells (haste in particular) will add to your character's age. It may be included in the game solely to allow for that spell and those attacks to have their effects from the books.
Posted September 20, 2017
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rkralik: Extremely few! IIRC there are 1 or 2 potions of extra healing in the whole game. 1st ed AD&D and 2nd ed didn't really have them. Those showed up in the pen & paper games with 3rd edition. The early Gold Box games required you to memorize your cleric healing spells. Cast them, set them for memorize again and rest for 8 hours + memorization time to have another allotment. I think in Curse they started to remember what your spell selection was so you didn't have to set it each time. And I believe in Secret or one of the Krynn games they introduced the "fix" command which essentially automated the process of healing your party.
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haydenaurion: Sounds rough, looks like i'm in for one of the hardest RPGs i've ever played. I look forward to the challenge though.

I noticed characters have an age listing, do these games have the aging thing like the Might & Magic series where your characters can get weaker with age and die?
I kept seeing warnings in SSI's cluebooks about not overusing Haste due to the aging effects, but don't remember any actual disadvantages showing up from the aging.
As to dual-classing, I dual-classed my 2 POR fighters to a paladin and ranger, but found out the hard way that, by late in SOTSB, they weren't getting the multiple attacks/round that single-classed paladins & rangers would be getting. Since I love playing the Gold Box games and am too lazy to edit those 2 characters to get the multiple attacks, I'm planning to restart COTAB, importing most of my POR party, and create a paladin & a ranger from scratch (giving them the same names as my POR fighters).
My issue is that I had been playing this series installed from an Interplay Gamefest CD-ROM compilation. Still have those files on my computer -- but if I can import the characters to the GOG.com copy of COTAB also installed on my computer, I can skip digging out my COTAB codewheel. I had used the COPYCURS utility in the past to import my POR characters to COTAB, so hopefully those characters are somewhere in the COTAB save folder. Or do I maybe need to import the save folders from both POR and COTAB to the GOG.com installs of those games, and use COPYCURS again?
Posted February 10, 2018
One neat trick if you don't mind an all-human team.

1. Create characters in Pool of Radiance.
2. Add to party, alter characters to max stats
3. Save and remove characters
4. Copy the .CHA files to the Hillsfar folder
5. Play each character as a fighter in Hillsfar until they hit 9th level (or higher if you can - forget the cap, other than it's higher in Hillsfar than in PoR)
6. Save the characters, export them back to the Pool of Radiance folder
7. Import them back to PoR
8. Dual-class most of the characters you intend to play in PoR, CotAB, SotSB, PoD into the classes you want to have them in for those four games.
9. Play them up from there as those new classes - it's effectively no different than playing them up from level 1 anyway, except that they have the added insurance of level 9 fighter with 18 CON HPs, and when the non-fighters hit 9th level, they get their fighter abilities back.
Posted February 10, 2018
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Basara549: 7. Import them back to PoR
8. Dual-class most of the characters you intend to play in PoR, CotAB, SotSB, PoD into the classes you want to have them in for those four games.
9. Play them up from there as those new classes - it's effectively no different than playing them up from level 1 anyway, except that they have the added insurance of level 9 fighter with 18 CON HPs, and when the non-fighters hit 9th level, they get their fighter abilities back.
Problems here:
1. You can't dual class in PoR.
2. While you can dual class at the start of CotAB, doing so is not advised, as it will be a while before you can train to level up, and you'll be about at level 1 until then. Even worse, all that XP you got, except for just below what level 3 requires, will be lost once you do get the chance to train. (I consider this to be bad game design; introducing a new feature, then punishing the player for using it right away, is just mean.)
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Forgotten Realms CollectionGold Box games, questions about importing, level cap, etc.(25 posts)(25 posts)
(25 posts)