Posted February 04, 2024

For attack and damage bonuses, the tables in the tabletop game only go up to 25 STR, and if the game doesn't have any data for the STR value, it just uses 0s. (At least it doesn't just take junk data from RAM; then again, junk data would be more interesting, and would result in some specific STR scores that make the character incredibly powerful.)
I don't know how carrying capacity works. If the game uses an exponential formula, I'd expect it to overflow rather quickly, causing strange results. On the other hand, a carrying capacity of 0 would definitely be noticeable; either you'd be obviously encumbered by a single piece of equipment, or the game might use the value as a denominator, and I have no idea of how the game would behave then. (I've seen different games on different platforms handle the division by 0 case differently. In fact, on the Game Boy, SaGa 1/2 handle it one way (yielding a result of 0), while Pokemon handles it another (game locks up, though music continues playing).)

I don't think you got good results with stats above 25 with any other stat in the Apple IIe version however. The same applies for Pool of Radiance and the Champions of Krynn game. Too bad they only released three of the Gold Box games for the Apple II. I would have bought the others back in the day.
I suppose I shouldn't mention non-GoG versions on this forum, but it IS version dependent what effect modifying strength has over 25.
Another interesting question is how the game handles low scores, like less than 3. In particular, what happens if you have 0 Strength? What happens if you successfully revive a 0 Constitution character? Underflow to 255 Con?
Post edited February 05, 2024 by dtgreene