Reading time: 2 – 3 minutes
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Introduction
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Brief notes on SSI Gold box games
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Differences in Pool of Radiance vs. other Gold box games
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Differences in rules vs. 2nd edition and 3rd edition
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General game system notes, tips, and bugs
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Creating your party
- Cleric
- Fighter
- Magic-User
- Thief
- Cleric/Fighter
- Cleric/Magic-User
- Fighter/Magic-User
- Fighter/Thief
- Magic-User/Thief
- Cleric/Fighter/Magic-User
- Fighter/Magic-User/Thief
- Races and sexes
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Outfitting your party
- Math and tables used to decide best weapons
- What you buy in town
- Mid-level items
- High-level items
- Spells to memorize
- Combat tips and tricks
- Hirelings
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Adventure
- Civilized District
- The Slums
- Sokal Keep
- Kuto’s Well
- Podal Plaza
- Textile House
- Mendor’s Library
- Kovel Mansion
- Wealthy District\Temple of Bane
- Nomad Camp
- Ruined Castle
- Pyramid
- Kobold Cave
- Buccaneer Base
- Zhentil Keep
- Valhingen Graveyard
- Stojanow Gate
- Valjevo Castle
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What to do after
- Hardest fights in the game
- Bringing the players to Curse of the Azure Bonds
- Hexed editing and game editors
Dec 17th, 2010 – Slums added Dec 15th, 2010 – Civilized District added Dec 14th, 2010 – Adventure added Dec 13th, 2010 – Cleric info added Dec 12th, 2010 – Creating your party added Dec 11th, 2010 – Outline added
This site is a great help. I used to play it on the C64 years ago and recently got back into it using DOSBOX on my PC. I was wondering, can you think of any reason why my theif cant ready a short bow. It tells me “wrong class” no one else seems to mention this problem. Great Job on the website.
Make sure it’s just a shortbow and not composite, other than that, they’re supposed to be able to equip it. I forget though it they can in pool of radiance or not for sure, I’ll have to try it out, might be just an issue with the revision of the game you have too.
Thieves in 1st edition could not use shortbows, they could only use slings. Shortbows for thieves was a 2nd edition thing. This game was very faithful to 1st edition when it implemented mechanics. I’m not sure when the changeover to 2nd edition happened – the two adventures in the Waterdeep/Neverwinter area were using the new rules, but I’m not sure whether at some point the four Moonsea adventures allowed bows for rogues, if ever.
Curse of the Azure Bonds, the second gold box, allowed thieves to use shortbows (http://goldbox.wikia.com/wiki/Curse_of_the_Azure_Bonds/Manual) I’m not sure when that changed, Azure is still a 1st edition game.
You did make me check my books though. In my 1st edition manual (I think a 4th-7th printing, I know it’s before 9th), thieves can not use shortbows, but in unearthed arcana, they now can. The goldbox games didn’t implement too much from UA, so I suppect they picked up that change somewhere before UA, maybe some dungeon insert that stuck.