Pools of Darkness differed from its predecessors in a number of ways. Pools of Darkness directly continues the story of Secret of the Silver Blades. Heal and Blade Barrier are two popular choices for level 6 spells.The arrow keys are conveniently usable to select menu options as opposed to using hotkeys, which was the only way in earlier titles, though the hotkey option is still available.The game received four out of five stars. Raise Dead is still the only option for dead characters, and it drains 1 Constitution point for using it. This game also allows mages to actually delay the fireball, unlike Pools of Darkness where it is targeted and immediately cast.Clerics have the ability to get up to level 6 spells. In particular, the Delayed Blast Fireball is a very useful spell to have in this game. It takes place entirely in the first person maps.Graphics did improve slightly, though everything was still drawn in 16 colors.Mages have the ability to get up to level 7 spells. There is no overworld in this game, however. Secret of the Silver Blades does bear similarities to its two predecessors in gameplay and graphics. Secret of the Silver Blades directly continues the story of Curse of the Azure Bonds. The game's graphic arts were by Tom Wahl, Fred Butts, Darla Marasco, and Susan Halbleib. The game was originally programmed by Keith Brors and Brad Myers, and it was developed by George MacDonald. In addition to the core AD&D manuals, the books Unearthed Arcana and Monster Manual II were also used during development. Developers also worked to balance the graphics with gameplay to provide a faithful AD&D feel, given the restrictions of a home computer. Kroegel stated that the main challenge with the development was interpreting the AD&D rules to an exact format. The SSI team developing the game was led by Chuck Kroegel. This game was the first to use the game engine later used in other SSI D&D games known as the 'Gold Box' series. The game was created on Apple II and Commodore 64 computers, taking one year with a team of thirty-five people. The section of the Forgotten Realms world in which Pool of Radiance takes place was intended to be developed only by SSI. For your front line fighters, it is essential to maximize their AC if they are to survive. So you can shoot your bow until the enemy comes within melee range and then switch to your melee weapon and armor and attack that round.THAC0 and Armor ClassAn unamored character has an Armor Class (AC) of 10, and the lower the number, the better protected your character will be. This could give you one or two rounds where you may be able to attack with missile weapons and the enemy will be unable to respond.The game will allow you to Ready a new weapon every combat round without penalty. This way you will have a fair distance between you and the monsters. Long bows have a longer range than short bows, but do the same amount of damage.If you encounter monsters and are able to select the Advance option, you may wish to consider starting combat immediately. Clerics cannot use missile weapons at all in Pool.Bows can fire twice per round and darts can fire three times per round. If an enemy advances into the character's melee range, the character gets a free and automatic attack.Ī pure magic-user has a very low THAC0, so the darts may not seem worth the trouble considering how often the magic-user will miss. However, it can also be a useful defensive mechanism. If you have an L-shaped or U-shaped barrier between you and the enemy you may be able to get the enemy trapped behind it as the pathfinding algorithm fails to find a path it can use to get to attack your character.Guarding, free attacks and surrenderGuarding is the classic way of having a character do nothing during his portion of the combat round. You can also kill enemy archers and spellcasters from a distance.The pathfinding in Pool is decent, but it has its limitations. Having a straight line does the opposite.Having missile weapon using characters behind the front lines can thin out the opposition before they can even get a chance to attack. The enemy will enjoy a +2 to hit if it attacks your character from behind.Staggering your characters diagonally gives the enemy more opportunities to attack, but it also gives you more holes to place attackers.
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