Champions of Krynn Trilogy

[Mad Weirwood]

So, I'm done with COK.

It's been a very long time ago that I played it, but all in all, I think Pool of radiance is the better low-level Gold Box game. Krynn seems to have been intended as more beginner-friendly than the Pools series. The encounters never felt very dangerous, with the exception of dragons. It also felt like there was a lot less variety in the enemies and encounter design.

My party:

Human Knight
Dwarf Cleric/Ranger of Reorx
Q. Fighter/Red Robe/Thief
Human Cleric of Majere
S. Cleric/White Robe of Mishakal
Kender Cleric/Thief of Kiri-Jolith

I maxed stats, and I used the GBC to give myself the HP maximums too. It was way too easy that way. About halfway through, I changed difficulty to champion. As far as I can tell, it gives enemies a 50% HP boost. Very deadly for dragons, but overall not that big a difference. For the endgame, I reduced my HP again. Instead of maxed dice, I used half the maximum, plus one. I. e. 1d10 becomes 6, 1d8 becomes 5, and so on. It felt more balanced that way, and I'll keep this for DKK.

The only time I had a TPK was when I stumbled upon the green dragon in Neraka unprepared, shortly after setting the difficulty to maximum.

As for my party - the original intention was to swap the dwarf for a paladin in DKK, as a dwarf R/C obviously won't advance far past the first game. Even so, I didn't need that many clerics, and as a ranger, he never got the extra half attack.

The other character that was lack-luster was the single-class cleric. There were nowhere near enough undead in the game to warrant my original idea of a cleric with high-level turning. He might have worked out better in DKK, but I don't think I'll keep him either.

In general, cleric spells aren't that interesting. While my party could pretty much cast hold person on wave after wave of humanoid attackers, there really is no go-to clerical combat spell for more general situations. It's all about the pre-combat buffing, but one or two clerics are enough for that. The Mishakal cleric/mage was nice though. Her cure spells were strong enough to warrant casting them in combat.

The thief characters worked perfectly. Nothing beats a good backstab to quickly take out tough enemies. Myrtani and Lebaum are susceptible, as are auraks, sivaks and skeletal knights. Admittedly, humanoid enemies go down just as fast if you hit them with hold person, which happened to the prison lord and Skyla. You can backstab in heavy armor, you just have to use weapons that a thief can use, i.e. long sword and hoopak, in my case.

The XP you get in COK is well balanced. I didn't max my multi-class characters. A single-class mage would have given me access to level 4 spells a lot earlier than I got them.

For DKK, I intend to replace the dwarf with a human ranger, and the cleric with a human white robe. But I'm willing to hear suggestions.

Can you give me the low-down on what items can be imported over? I lost a bunch of stuff at the end of the game, but I believe I'll also lose my +3 swords, is that right? What about scrolls and wands? I also got a ring of protection +3 from Myrtani, does that carry over?

[Mad Weirwood]

Something else I just noticed - apparently, only single-class characters get the 10% bonus XP for having high primary stats.

[Mad Weirwood]

Finished DKK a while back. They really don't make games like this anymore. Dave's Challenge on Champion was fun. The final battle isn't that hard to win, but winning without getting drained to hell and back takes some luck.

Mainly, your dragonlance carrier needs to get his move before the spectral dragons, so he can take out a few of them before they attack.

My party was as above, with a Dwarf Fighter instead of the ranger/cleric. Near the end, I swapped out my cleric of Majere for a paladin. Majere isn't really worth it. you get better results on the turning table, but even so it doesn't work reliably enough in the areas with a turning penalty. Kiri-Jolith and Mishakal are the only clerics worth taking through the trilogy, imho. Maybe Sirrion, if you want a neutral one too.

On the ranger/cleric vs fighter/cleric debate a while back: The ranger/cleric is already the better character in DKK. It isn't really obvious, but there are a lot more enemies that the ranger gets his damage bonus for than you would think. Most importantly, the flesh and iron golems you fight in Dargaard Keep and Dave's Challenge, but also the werecreatures. If you add the druid spells, and the unlimited advancement an elf ranger has compared to a fighter, a ranger/KJ cleric makes for a very solid character for a full playthrough.

A few more tips:

Olin's Quarterstaff (+3) can stun almost any enemy in the game, including undead. Golems are immune, and death knights can even reflect the stun, so don't use it against them. But it's a great weapon for fighting dragons or level-draining undead.

Slow seems to bypass magic resistance entirely. Once you can memorize Delayed Blast Fireballs, you should change your level 3 spells to Slow and Lightning Bolt.

Backstabbing is still great in DKK. My kender took down Soth instantly with a 100+ damage backstab. The hoopak is the only blunt weapon you can backstab with. Great for taking down skeletal warriors on Champion.

Always cast Enlarge on everyone. It maxes out to 22 strength at mage level 10. It's an enormous boost to your damage output, and lasts a really long time.

[JT]

Originally Posted by kmonster

There's a bug in DQoK, each time your ranger/cleric trains for a ranger level his XP is set back as if he just trained for the same level as cleric, it doesn't matter in the beginning (reaching ranger level 17 won't be delayed much) but you loose a lot of XP later.

Ugh, and R/C was already one of the weakest (because it has no M) of the uncapped combos. Can this be avoided by delaying the training until both R and C are ready to advance?


As for why C/F/M: kmonster already covered it but the short version is that you need at least a couple Cs, and a C/F/M is better in the long run than than a C/F or a pure C. You can argue that a C/M is better than a C/F/M because it has higher M levels, but you're giving up a ton of melee ability for that.

If you had to choose between an entire party of triple classes C/F/M vs an entire party of C/M and F/M dual classes, the latter might be better because of higher mage advancement, but that's a false dilemma; the power option is a mix of C/F/M and F/M. (and maybe even one single-classed M?)

[kmonster]

Originally Posted by JT

Ugh, and R/C was already one of the weakest (because it has no M) of the uncapped combos. Can this be avoided by delaying the training until both R and C are ready to advance?

I'd train the character ASAP to avoid loosing even more XP, at least early in the game since you get 1 HP each time for training, whether it's in one class or two.

But it's not too bad, rangers are pretty much maxed out at level 17 and clerics get level 7 spells even earlier. You still have more warrior levels than a qualinesti fighter/cleric would.

Taking a neutral deity for the ranger/cleric might avoid this bug (never tried), but they get 5 HP less at creation in CoK or DKoK and worse deity bonuses.

[Mad Weirwood]

That bug is pretty immaterial if you're using the Gold Box Companion, or any other character editor. Just reset your XP to the correct value after training.

Regarding C/F/Ms:

You need at least a couple Cs, and a C/F/M is better in the long run than than a C/F or a pure C.

I completely agree here; I don't know your preferred party composition, but I play with one knight and one kender cleric/thief. One more cleric character is enough to provide all the clerical spellcasting I need. Most important clerical spells are buffs you apply before combat; the knight can cast those perfectly well. The kender doesn't advance past level 12, but that's enough for a back-up Heal and plenty of low-level support.

I guess I'm not so much against C/F/Ms in principle, but you often see party recommendations with 4 or 5 clerical spellcasters and multiple C/F/Ms. That's just overkill. You're just never going to need that many clerical spells, and you're unneccessarily gimping your mage levels with that.

[Blades of Vanatar]

For the entire series(and the other Gold-box series as well), all you need is two characters capable of Casting Area-of-effect Damage Spells and one-two healers. MW is right, the rest is overkill. To put it simply, Party compostion really decides one thing...how often do you want to rest to replenish spells. Most battles are repeats with didn't monster icons.

[JT]

Originally Posted by Blades of Vanatar

For the entire series(and the other Gold-box series as well), all you need is two characters capable of Casting Area-of-effect Damage Spells

Depends on what difficulty you are playing on. I know that on the hardest difficulty, there are many many battles which I would not want to try with only two mages. Especially in DQK and POD.

I think the default powergamer assumption on these boards is entire series at hardest difficulty.

[Mad Weirwood]

Actually, I'm pretty sure if you make heavy use of Haste and Enlarge, an all melee party with only a single mage could breeze through the Krynn series, even if they're all in wheelchairs by the end of it.

Is aging actually implemented in any of the gold box games? It might be in FRUA, but I have no idea about the rest.

[RandomGuest100]

I've been playing Champions of Krynn for a week or two.
Party:

Name      Race           Level Class
Chiboda   Silvanesti Elf 7     Cleric of Paladine
Kerga     Mountain Dwarf 7     Fighter
Barthames Human          6     Knight of the Rose
Koolios   Half-Elf       6/6   Cleric of Majere / White Robe Mage
Tillo     Qualinesti Elf 7     Red Mage
JoJo      Kender         9     Thief

Stats were generated by rerolling until "good" (i.e. primary stats for classes and constitution), not modified (5 or 6 rerolls is about all it seems to take). Character hp are taken at level up and not reloaded for maximum.

Started play on default of Veteran and soon discovered the game was waaaaaay too easy so bumped it to Champion : D

The party wiped on White Dragons first time, so I took a break, thought it out, reloaded and kicked White Dragon butt.
The party wiped on Green Dragons first time too. After a break to strategize, I reloaded and kicked Green Dragon butt.

Listed levels were attained after Neraka was completed. I try to explore completely, but I'm not deliberately grinding xp. Random encounters are plentiful. No love for more of the same.

Reflections:
Single class Mage is sweet! Multiclass Mage lags behind in getting highest level of spells. Difference is noticeable.
Multiclass Cleric/Mage is awesome! Cleric or mage single class by itself isn't as versatile. I always know the multiclass character will have something useful to do.

Cleric of Majere: +2 Turning Level rocks! Noticeable difference. Two clerics helps much with undead encounters.
Cleric of Paladine: meh. Protection from Evil [10' Radius] is not particularly noticeable. If I did it over again, I would choose Mishakal instead (three bonus spell! +1 die on all healing spells!).

I've read the multi-class debate. Up until now in the game, it has been a non-issue. Individually taken, single class is better because of access to higher level capabilities. Even if a character is multi-classed, he can still only take one action each time it is his turn. One or two multi-classes should be taken to increase the odds that a character with the right kind of ability to the current encounter wins initiative… but that's what balancing your party is all about. My Kender Rogue only just attained max level… so this may be a turning point for the multi-classed characters to start catching up to their single class comrades. Poor JoJo: CoK's xp table ends.

I've read the Knight of Crown/Sword/Rose debate. I've chosen to go as soon as possible into the more advanced orders of Sword and Rose rather than stay Crown because:
A: I already have a single class Dwarf Fighter…
B: Neapolitan is more interesting than Vanilla
No, seriously, look at Barthames. Barthames currently has 128946 xp.
That means that as a Knight of the Crown he would be… level 6.
Think about that: in CoK, Barthames could be a level 6 Knight of the Crown or he could be a level 6 Knight of the Rose… obviously, it is better to be a Knight of the Rose.

I do wonder how much my game will suffer because of the level caps in Champions of Krynn…

[Mad Weirwood]

Single class mages are indeed good. Human or elf is a wash; elves get +1 dex, so they have higher initiative which is important for mages. Humans can be raised/resurrected, which may be relevant for low-hp single class mages.

I like cleric/mages too, but I wasn't impressed with Majere. Mishakal is excellent for that multi-class. I didn't have any problems with undead in COK, so Majere felt unnecessary. I wasn't impressed by him on DKK either, even though there's plenty of undead there.

Your Knight of the Rose should hopefully hit level 7 soon enough, but it will be a long slog to level 13. Crown/Sword is probably a pretty academic distinction. I never needed my knight's clerical spells, but you're also be far through DKK before you hit level 13 as Crown, if at all, when the extra attack would become available.

A dwarf fighter works well, and he'll get pretty useful when you play DQK and get a second dragon lance. Having two high-hp characters is a good idea.

How's you thief holding up? Single class thieves are very much a one trick pony, since the only thing they can do well is backstabbing. I had a cleric/thief who could pull double duty very well in the first two games, but there comes a point where a single class thief will outpace him when it comes to THAC0 - which is the important stat for backstabbing. At least, until the multiclass also reaches the THAC0 cap with his thief level. At that point, the bonus from Kiri-Jolith will become relevant again.

[RandomGuest100]

The kender held up well. I mostly used him to yell and range opponents, which might not have been the best use of his abilities, but with Knight, Fighter, and Cleric in the front row, he took up a back row slot. Enemies always ended up helpless in the back ranks of the enemy, so the kender would just pick them off while the front line worked

The pure cleric hardly cast any spells during combat, it was mostly mage work or multi-class cleric would beat him to the punch. And towards the end, it became clear his combat ability wasn't anything close to the fighter types. So for the final third of CoK, Chiboda's usefulness pretty much devolved to casting detect magic on treasure and healing the party between battles

Would I multi-class the kender if I did it again? Probably not. Access to advanced armor and weaponry just wasn't needed. The cleric roles are covered already so if I don't like their gods I should just change those

For the first two thirds of CoK the difference of having Majere bonus levels was extreme. No turnings vs. turning everything was common. During the last third of CoK, Chiboda's turn ability appeared to catch up to Koolios and it didn't matter.

Almost every battle was about which spells the mages would cast: Stinking Cloud, Fireball, maybe Ice Storm. Everything else was rote. Probably the trickiest battle I fought was against the Blue Dragons. 75 damage was enough take out anyone in my back line and there was no Resist Electricity spell! The other battles (including the end fight) were all manageable once I prepared properly for them.

Well, I suppose I'll be turning my attention to DKK soon. I haven't decided if I'll keep my current party or make changes. I'll look over the DKK rules first.

[damedog]

All this talk of these games has inspired me to order it and try it out. I like the Dragonlance series a lot and had no idea there were games for it. There are a few things that confuse me though. What races have what level limits? I would like to play the same party the whole way through and not have it be gimped by low level characters. Also, what is the difference between the white mage and red mage?

[Blades of Vanatar]

Originally Posted by damedog

All this talk of these games has inspired me to order it and try it out. I like the Dragonlance series a lot and had no idea there were games for it. There are a few things that confuse me though. What races have what level limits? I would like to play the same party the whole way through and not have it be gimped by low level characters. Also, what is the difference between the white mage and red mage?

Download ALL the manuals at replacementdocs.com for each game. They are very handy when you have a decision to make while in combat.

Races - Basically only Humans don't have level limits. All the other races have limitations to a degree. The manual shows it all.

Mages - They get different spell selections.

So in order to play thru the entire series with the same party, Multi and Dual class away. Single classed characters can lag. Though I have beaten the games with 2 Knights, 1 Ranger, Kender C/T, Red Mage and White Mage/Cleric. Also with many variants of similar nature. I Like Knights.

[RandomGuest100]

One problem that I have with using the same party all the way through is that the available classes change. Paladin is introduced in Death Knights of Krynn, so if you want one in the party you have to add it after completing Champions of Krynn.

[SlickRCBD]

I rarely browse "The Playground" but I just noticed this thread. I have the Apple II version of Champions of Krynn and the sequel, but the final installment was never ported.

Several people have mentioned "trying either the PC or the Amiga" version. I assume they are talking "abandonware", if not, have the games been released as freeware? Can I download the PC version so I can play again? My Apple IIGS is at my mother's house in storage with a bunch of my old toys she's keeping "for her grandchildren" (which doesn't look likely anytime soon) since I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it when it still worked as it has sentimental value as my first computer.

[Mad Weirwood]

Slick, The Goldbox games are pretty much abandonware for now; but you might find one of the compilations on ebay or Amazon marketplace. I bought the Wizworks compilation, back in the day. I think the Krynn series is harder to find nowadays than the Forgotten Realms ones.

I quit playing for almost a year, in the underwater section of DQK. I upgrades my PC in the meantime, and played a bunch of more recent games, but now I picked it up again.

I also reorganized my party for the final time:

Human Knight
Dwarf Fighter
Elf Fighter/Red Mage/Thief
Kender Cleric of Kiri-Jolith/Thief
Elf Cleric of Mishakal/White Mage
Human Red Mage

Here's some more observations:

Single class mages really come into their own in DQK. My C/M is level 18/18, the F/M/T is 14/17/18, while the single class is 24. The level gap is a big deal when Delayed Blast Fireballs become your main form of damage. I started my play-through with a cleric of Majere, and replaced him with a paladin late in DKK, but neither character was entirely satisfying. In contrast, the single-class mage is fantastic.

I would no longer discount a single class cleric of Mishakal out of hand. Clerics don't have a lot of options for offensive spells, but Blade Barrier is absolutely solid. Having more of those earlier would be great. Longer durations on your clerical buffs are also welcome.

In light of this, I still consider F/M/Cs sub par, or at least a heavy focus on them. Having a triple-class backup caster for those spells where a high level doesn't matter much can make sense in the overall party composition. It pretty much has to be a red mage/neutral cleric because both white mages and good clerics level noticeably slower.

Actually, about red and white mages in general: You should have at least one of each. If you play with only one mage, it should be a red one since you'll want to have Haste available; and the faster leveling is a distinct advantage. White mages get the better high level spells: Hold Monster, Globe of Invulnerability, Mass Charm, etc. However, there's a caveat: whether through a bug or by design, it's possible to buy mage scrolls in Kristophan (in DQK) that let mages learn spells from opposite schools. But since the scrolls are random, that's a tedious and expensive process. Still, if you have more than two mages, this makes red ones preferable.

There are three main defensive spells for your mages you should use for tough fights: Mirror Image, Fire Shield (Cold) and Globe of Invulnerability. The latter is also great for Fighter/Mages, since it protects you from enemy mages' fire shields in melee.

Regarding kenders: There will come a point when a single class thief would have the better THAC0 for a while (past level 21), until the cleric/thief reaches level 12/21. At that point, he comes out ahead again, thanks to the bonus from Kiri-Jolith. For pure hit points, however, a single class thief will definitely outpace him. I also had to realize that kender can only cast spells up to level 5 in DQK, due to their low wisdom. No heal and no blade barrier, alas. I still think they're the better choice, especially for the first two games. They can wear (and backstab in) plate mail, while the armor choices for pure thieves are dismal before you reach Taladas in DQK.

I don't use backstabs very often anymore, but I haven't started fighting Thenols and Enchanted Draconians yet. I still appreciate having the option.

To some extent, you can use items to give weaker characters like a kender some more punch. A thief can use mage scrolls to cast spells. There's also stuff like the Eyes of Petrification (not the cursed ones!): my kender just killed two dragons back to back with those. Before that, he made liberal use of the necklaces of missiles you find in the games.

It definitely is a good idea not to advance your knight from Sword to Rose too soon. Hit level 18 as knight of the sword, and then wait (a looong time) until you have enough XP to stay level 18 when you advance to knight of the rose.