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CHAMPIONS OF KRYNN
A DRAGONLANCE Fantasy Role-Playing Epic, Vol. I
FAQ/Walkthrough, V1.1
by Amarande (
[email protected])
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SEARCHABLE TABLE OF CONTENTS #TC000
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#TC000 : Searchable Table of Contents
#IN001 : Introduction
#CC002 : Character and Party Creation
#CC003 : Races
#CC004 : Genders
#CC005 : Classes
#CC006 : Alignments
#CC007 : Ability Scores
#CC008 : Alignments
#CC009 : Creating Your Party
#AV010 : Exploration and Encampment
#BS011 : Combat
#BS012 : Combat Strategy Tips
#BS013 : Combating Specific Enemies
#WK014 : First Outpost
#WK015 : Overland Map
#WK016 : Throtl City and Temple
#WK017 : Throtl Catacombs
#WK018 : Second Outpost
#WK019 : Sir Dargaard's Tomb
#WK020 : Gargath City
#WK021 : Gargath Keep
#WK022 : Ogre Base
#WK023 : Jelek
#WK024 : Attack on the Second Outpost
#WK025 : Third Outpost
#WK026 : Neraka
#WK027 : Neraka Optional Encounters
#WK028 : Sanction City
#WK029 : Temple of Huerzyd
#WK030 : Shadowpeople's Tunnels
#WK031 : Temple of Duerghast
#WK032 : First Flying Citadel
#WK033 : Second Flying Citadel
#WK034 : Kernen
#WK035 : Epilogue
#CP998 : Copyright
#RV999 : Revision History
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INTRODUCTION #IN001
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Welcome to the first of three Dragonlance Gold Box series RPGs from SSI,
Champions of Krynn! Champions of Krynn remains a solidly designed and fun
game even after (as of this writing) approximately 23 years; indeed, I
personally find this title to be much more fun and entertaining, even after
several play-throughs, than many of the 21st century's games which are
often overly focused on the eye candy at the expense of story or gameplay.
Champions of Krynn takes place on the continent of Ansalon in the AD&D
Dragonlance setting, Krynn. If you have read the Dragonlance Chronicles
trilogy or have played the classic War of the Lance pen and paper modules
(highly recommended; it is the DL1-14 series for AD&D 1st Edition, the 15th
Anniversary Dragonlance Classics mega-module for AD&D 2nd Edition and SAGA
systems, and the three-module Dragons of Autumn/Winter/Spring series for
D&D 3rd Edition/D20 System), you are probably familiar with this portion
of the world. In particular, the cities of Neraka and Sanction make notable
roles in the game's storyline.
Like many classic RPGs of the late '80s and early '90s, the game's plot is
revealed gradually as you play - you will find out bit by bit about the
enemy plans as you proceed. Also, unlike many more modern games that keep
you on the main plot rails, there are several side missions here.
Without further ado, however, let us proceed to the problem of creating a
party.
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CHARACTER AND PARTY CREATION #CC002
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If you are used to games like Final Fantasy or Elder Scrolls, you're in for
a treat. Unlike most other CRPGs that force you to go solo or have only a
very small party, you can actually have as many as 8 characters in your
party in the Gold Box games. Of these, two slots are reserved for NPC party
members who may join you during the course of the game; the other six are
available for you to assign as you see fit, thus allowing for a party with
a balanced and diverse arrangement of abilities. In fact, to succeed in
your adventure you will have to have such a variety of abilities.
Because Champions of Krynn is part of a three-game series (along with Death
Knights of Krynn and The Dark Queen of Krynn), in which you get to carry
your party over from game to game, it is a very good idea to create your
party from the beginning with playing all three games in mind. (Given that
the only legal edition of the Dragonlance Gold Box games that was ever
published on CD-ROM, and thus is easily accessible to the modern player, is
the 9 game set released by WizardWorks in 1994 which includes all three
games, you the reader probably do have all three games and thus plan to do
so.)
Although it is possible to complete the game with a much smaller party (I,
personally, have finished both Champions of Krynn and the second game -
Death Knights - with a party as small as 3, even on the hardest, "Champion"
difficulty level) it is a good idea to create your full party of six right
now. The later games get significantly harder with smaller groups (The Dark
Queen of Krynn in particular gets tough enough even with a full company of
six heroes), and generally characters brought over through the series tend
to perform better than new characters (much of this is due to having better
equipment, and you could always carry over extra gear on a small party and
hand it over to new characters in the later games, but keep in mind that
you also have limited inventory size and weight to work with, so it's a lot
easier to just have the full party from the get go). An exception may be if
you desire to use the Paladin class eventually - this class is unavailable
in Champions and can only be created starting in Death Knights, so if you
want to use it you may want to play Champions with a party of 5 so that you
do not have to worry about who to let go in the next game.
When creating each character you will be asked to make choices on several
different attributes of each character: race, gender, class, deity (only
for clerics), alignment, ability scores, name, and combat icon.
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RACES #CC003
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The first character attribute you will be asked to select from when making
a new character is their race. There are seven character races available in
the Dragonlance Gold Box games. These are two sorts of elf (Silvanesti and
Qualinesti), half-elves, two sorts of dwarf (hill and mountain), kender,
and of course humans. Players familiar with the Forgotten Realms Gold Box
games (e.g. Pool of Radiance) will note the absence of gnomes and halflings
in this series. Halflings are not a race native to Krynn (kender fill the
equivalent niche); gnomes do exist, but are simply not a playable race in
these games.
As a rule, unlike the Forgotten Realms Gold Box games in which the nonhuman
races were of very limited usefulness beyond the low levels due to quite
stringent level caps, the nonhuman races in Dragonlance are extremely
useful ones. In fact, between the much greater level caps and the fact that
non-humans can multi-class (even better, there are many more multiclass
choices in general in the Dragonlance games than there were in the FR ones)
you'll probably find that you have more non-human than human members. Yet
another factor against humans is the fact that unlike most of the Forgotten
Realms games (only Pool of Radiance lacked this option), humans in the
Dragonlance games cannot Dual Class into a second class after creation, but
must instead remain their original class (with the exception of knightly
order upgrades) throughout their career. Certain classes (especially thief
and mage) are at a particular disadvantage as single class characters, due
to class equipment restrictions and Hit Point dice, so you will really want
to make those multi-classed characters.
A note on the racial level caps to be discussed shortly: Most of these caps
aren't actually reachable in Champions of Krynn (as there is a blanket cap
of 8 on most classes in this game, except for rangers who cap out at 7 and
thieves who cap out at 9), so they won't really affect you much in this
game. However, if you're planning to play the whole series, it is a very
good idea to keep the future in mind.
ELVES AND HALF-ELVES: Both full- and half-blooded elves share a significant
resistance to all sorts of sleep and charm magic, with full-bloods having a
greater bonus. (Charm Person is seen especially often in this game compared
to most other Gold Box games, so this feature can actually be a real life-
saver here!) On the downside, the Raise Dead and (in later games) Resurrect
spells do NOT work on full-blooded elves. So if they die for real (their
character sheet actually reads "dead") and it wasn't from instant death
poison, they're done for good, you either need to make a new character from
scratch or re-load your saved game. Half-elves do not suffer this restraint
on being raised from the dead. Full-blooded elves (only) have a Dexterity
cap of 19, rather than the normal 18, but half-elves have a slightly higher
maximum Strength (18/90 vs. 18/75 for full-blooded elves).
Silvanesti Classes/Caps:
Fighter 10; Paladin 12; Ranger, Mage, or Cleric no cap.
Qualinesti Classes/Caps:
Fighter 14; Cleric, Ranger, Mage, or Thief no cap.
Half-Elf Classes/Caps:
Fighter 9; Ranger 11; Knight 10; Mage 10; Cleric or Thief no cap.
As a rule, if you're going to make an elf, go with a Qualinesti, unless you
plan to make a Ranger/Cleric or Ranger/Mage in which case a Silvanesti Elf
is equally good. However, for the typical Cleric/Fighter/Mage or Fighter/
Mage/Thief powerhouse combinations, the Qualinesti Elf is manifestly better
at the task (keep in mind that fighters need to reach level 13 in order to
get a full two attacks per round, so half and Silvanesti elves are forever
limited to a maximum of three-per-two-rounds in that department). Half-Elf
characters are of very limited usefulness unless you make a pure Cleric
(pure Thieves are not a very good choice in these games).
DWARVES: Hill and Mountain Dwarves are pretty similar. Both can achieve a
Constitution score of 19 (for warrior type classes this means dwarves can
get +5 hit points per die rather than the +4 other races are capped at),
and both have a Strength cap of 18/99 (second only to humans). On the other
hand, their Charisma is quite limited (not very important in most cases)
and they both have a Dexterity cap of 17 (translating to one point worse of
Armour Class compared to other races with their maximums of 18 or 19).
Mountain Dwarf Classes/Caps:
Cleric 10; Paladin or Thief 8; Fighter no cap.
Hill Dwarf Classes/Caps:
Cleric or Thief 10; Ranger 8; Fighter no cap.
(N.B.: The documentation provided with the game gives a level cap for Hill
Dwarf Knights, but this class choice is not actually available in-game.)
Owie. Dwarves are pretty much as close to useless as it gets. Although the
level caps are not a problem in Champions, they become crippling as soon as
you finish this game and move on to Death Knights with its overall higher
level cap. Moreover, the ability scores are not a good match for the rigour
of battle in the Dragonlance Gold Box games: while the Charisma limitation
is of little import (there are a few places where bluffing or negotiation
matters, but you always get to pick the character to do it, so you really
only need one high-Charisma character), the Dexterity one is a real pain.
While the 19 Dexterity elves and kender can receive translates only into an
extra bonus chance to hit with ranged weapons, a drop from 18 to 17 results
as noted above in the loss of a point of Armour Class. As AC is a value
that's added to the roll of a 20-sided die when determining whether an
attacker successfully strikes, a single point results in a whopping 5%
variance in the chance of being hit or not. The additional hit point per
die that dwarves receive by dint of 19 Constitution seriously does not make
up for this, and this is especially the case in the Dragonlance games, as
there is a very heavy emphasis on enemies with special effects attached to
a normal physical hit (poisonous and paralysing monsters in this game, for
instance; in the two later volumes, level-draining undead are very common).
Such special effects don't care about your HP total at all, while the only
defence against their devastations is to have as good an AC as you can in
order to minimise your chance of getting hit, so it's a bad trade off!
KENDER: Kender are a Dragonlance specific race, and basically fill the role
that is occupied by halflings in other worlds. Kender have two unique
abilities that no other race can do: the ability to "taunt" enemies in a
battle (if effective, such enemies seek single-mindedly to target the
kender who taunted them, and their battle effectiveness drops), and they
also are the only race that can use the Hoopak weapon. Like elves, kender
can have a Dexterity score of 19. The only downsides to kender are a very
limited selection of classes (especially when the level caps are brought
into consideration) and that both their Strength and Wisdom scores are
capped at 16.
Level Caps:
Cleric 12; Fighter or Ranger 5; Thief no cap.
Awesome comes in small packages. As is pretty clear, the only class combo
worth considering at all is Cleric/Thief, of which the Cleric side will cap
out during Death Knights of Krynn, these guys are really awesome with the
race-specific hoopaks. Hoopaks have quite competitive damage with other
weapons, are a ranged weapon that needs no ammo, and furthermore, kender
using a hoopak have a +2 to-hit bonus plus they can attack targets at range
with it even if there are enemies adjacent to them (normally, it is not
possible to make a ranged weapon attack at all if any enemies are next to
you). You might not need to use Taunt much but it's useful to have. As for
the Cleric level limit? It matters little, as with the 16 Wisdom limit,
kender could never access 6th and 7th level Cleric spells anyway (these
need 17 and 18 Wisdom respectively to qualify for).
HUMAN: Humans are the typical RPG baseline race. Humans have no special
abilities, but all stats can reach the maximum 18, Strength can reach the
maximum of 18/00 (all non-human races have lower caps), and they have no
level caps except for the hard caps imposed by each game in the series. The
main downside to humans is that, as noted previously, they can only ever be
single-classed characters.
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GENDERS #CC004
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Two choices here, male or female. It matters more than it does in the later
AD&D games like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights etc., since this is the
1st Edition system of Gygaxian yore, where males have higher Strength caps
in almost all cases. The exceptions are Kender, where both male and female
are limited to the same cap of 16, and humans of non-warrior type classes
since the human female cap is 18/50, and that second, "percentile" bonus to
18 Strength is a perk that only warrior type classes are eligible for.
However, it should be noted that this cap only applies to the natural
maximum that you can create your character with. Most magical effects that
increase Strength are completely unaffected (as I remember, only the little
used "Strength" spell suffers from this limitation - hence why it's little
used ...), so e.g. Girdles of Giant Strength, Gauntlets of Ogre Power,
Enlarge spells etc. have their full effect no matter what the race, class,
or gender of the affected character may be.
Basically do whatever you like here, just note that if you have several
female (or kender for that matter) characters, you may find yourself having
more difficulty in carrying large amounts of loot, and battles might take
longer (although probably not too much longer, between the existence of
magical means to enhance Strength and the fact that combat strategy has a
tendency to revolve around things other than raw melee damage output).
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CLASSES #CC005
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Overall, you have seven choices of character class. One of these choices,
namely Paladin, is not available in this game, so if you want to use one
you will have to do without him or her until the second game (you could of
course create a temporary character to use in this game meanwhile).
Take note, if you're used to newer editions of D&D and this is your first
go at old-school AD&D, that there are two large differences here. First, if
you're multiclassing, you choose your full complement of classes at the
start and gain experience in ALL classes at once (unlike 3rd Edition rules
where you start with a single class only and place each "level up" into one
or other of your desired classes). Second, in newer editions of D&D every
level up grants a full dice roll of Hit Points; this is not the case in old
school AD&D such as the Gold Box games are based on. Instead, here, each
class has what is called a "name" level (ranging between 9 and 11); after
this level, a fixed amount of HP is granted rather than diced HP. Moreover,
the Constitution bonus only applies to level ups at which HP is DICED, it
does not apply to these high-level fixed increases.
WARRIOR CLASSES: Four of the seven classes are very similar, all being
physical combat oriented, and all sharing four major things in common: the
ability to use all weapons and armour (except for Hoopaks and Solamnic
Plate which have special restrictions), the ability to have "percentile"
Strength (appears on the character sheet as a number in parenthesis after
18, although in this guide I refer to it with a slash e.g. 18/75), and the
ability to gain full hit point bonuses from Constitution scores of 17 or
better (non-warrior classes, including level-ups in such classes on a multi
classed fighter or ranger, can only get a maximum of 2 bonus hit points per
die). In addition, at high levels, all four warrior classes receive the
ability to attack multiple times per round in melee, which happens in two
stages: first the character gets three attacks per two rounds (i.e., one
bonus attack every other round), then eventually they get a full two
attacks per round.
FIGHTER: This is your basic baseline melee fighter. In addition to the
warrior benefits already noted, fighters roll their hit points on 10-sided
dice, for a maximum of 15 HP/level for dwarves and 14 HP/level for other
races. Name level for fighters is 9, after which 3 HP is gained per further
level. 3/2 attacks is gained at level 7 and double attacks at level 13.
PALADIN: Paladins are identical to fighters, except that they also gain the
ability to Turn Undead (as Clerics can, except that Paladins do so as if
they were 2 levels less than their actual), to Lay on Hands (a once per day
single target healing ability, the amount healed increasing with level),
and at high levels to cast low (1st-4th) level Cleric spells. The trade-off
versus normal fighters is that Paladins require considerably more XP than
almost any other class (the only exception being higher-order Knights), and
cannot be multiclass characters. You can't create a Paladin in Champions of
Krynn, but the above information should aid you should you envision making
your party with the expectation of bringing one in in the later games. As
holy warriors, also, Paladins must be Lawful Good.
KNIGHT: Knights, like Paladins, have vows so must be Lawful Good. Perks of
being a Knight compared to an ordinary Fighter are the ability to wear the
Solamnic Plate armour (provides a base AC three points better than normal
Plate Mail, but is non-magical, meaning it stacks with certain protective
items that a magical Plate Mail +3 would be unable to benefit additionally
from), an additional Hit Die per level (i.e., Knights can have a maximum of
28 HP at first level, gaining up to 14 HP/level afterwards until name), and
higher orders of Knighthood can cast Cleric spells (with much greater power
than Paladins - Knights' spell allotment in the later games goes all the
way up to 7th level spells). Name level for Knights is 9, but unlike the
Fighter and Paladin they gain only 2 HP per level beyond that. Like the
Paladin, the primary trade-off for the extra abilities of being a Knight vs
a bog-standard Fighter is the need for significantly more XP at each level;
additionally, Knights also cannot multiclass.
Knights come in three Solamnic Orders: Crown, Sword, and Rose. To unlock
the Cleric spells, the Knight (all Knights begin the game as Crown Knights)
must advance at least to the Sword Order. Sword and Rose Knights are mostly
identical, except for the XP advancement table (Rose Knights need more),
and a level cap: in Dark Queen of Krynn, Rose Knights can potentially reach
the final level cap of 40, while Sword (and Crown) Knights have a cap of
level 18. This may seem a long way off, but keep in mind that you do begin
as a Crown Knight, and that because of how the experience tables are made,
it is very advised to take each Knightly Order upgrade as soon as you can -
when you switch to a new order your XP total remains as it is, and if that
means that you no longer have enough to be your current level, then you
WILL lose one or more levels in the process! Crown Knights must be level 3
or higher and have at least 12,000 XP total to become Sword Knights. Sword
Knights must be level 4 or higher and have at least 27,000 XP total to make
the final upgrade to Rose Knighthood. Like Fighters and Paladins, Knights
get 3/2 attacks at level 7 and double attacks at level 13.
RANGERS: Rangers are an "outdoorsy" type warrior that must be of any of the
three Good alignments. Rangers gain bonus damage against any "giant" typed
enemy, and in the later games will acquire access to "Druid" spells (a set
of low level spells which in the Gold Box games are solely available to
high level Rangers, since the Druid class itself was never made available
as a player class in the series) and to low level Mage spells as well.
Probably because of this fact, unlike other classes in Champions of Krynn
that can mostly level up to 8, Rangers are limited to a maximum of level 7
until entering Death Knights of Krynn. Rangers' Hit Dice are different from
the other warrior types: they receive 8-sided dice rather than the 10-sided
ones that are standard. On the other hand, like Knights, Rangers get that
one extra die of HP (i.e., at 1st level they have a maximum of 26 HP for
Dwarven Rangers and 24 for other races, then gain up to 13 HP/level as a
Dwarf and up to 12 HP/level as other races), and name level for rangers is
10 (meaning ultimately a whopping 11 hit dice, more than any other class
except for Mages). After level 10 Rangers will receive 2 HP per level.
Rangers get their additional attacks a little slower than the other
warriors - 3/2 attacks at level 8 and double attacks at level 15.
THIEF: Thieves are a physically oriented class but are not a frontline tank
like the warrior-type classes (however, multiclass thieves that include the
Cleric or Fighter classes very much ARE capable frontliners). Thieves get
6-sided hit dice for a maximum of 8 HP per level; name level is 10 after
which they get just 2 HP per further level. In exchange for being somewhat
more frail than warriors, Thieves enjoy very rapid level progression in
comparison to any other class, and most of the Gold Box games grant Thief
characters a higher level cap than the other classes (this is indeed the
case here, with Thieves being able to reach level 9 rather than the cap of
8 that most other classes have). They also gain access to the very powerful
back stab ability (see the Combat section later), which becomes still more
potent if you multiclass with a warrior class and thus have percentile
Strength as well. However, Thieves are also limited to either leather or no
armour and a limited assortment of weapons unless multiclassed.
MAGE: The first of the two spell-casting classes. Mages are a more complex
thing in Dragonlance than they are in the Forgotten Realms games. The basic
mechanics are still the same, you're the party's prime offensive and
buffing spellslinger. However, there are two special mechanics in the Krynn
games that are not present in the Forgotten Realms games, namely the Robe
types and the Moon effects.
Moral alignment (Good/Neutral/Evil) determines the robe colour of mages in
Krynn. A Good-aligned Mage will be a White Mage and a Neutral (not counting
Neutral Good) one will be a Red Mage. Evil Mages are Black Robes but these
are not available to the player. Virtually all enemy Mages are Black Robed
though, so you may want to keep in mind the state of the dark moon (see
below) when fighting them.
Both sorts of Mages available to the player gain just 4-sided hit point
dice (a maximum of 6 HP per level). Name level is 11, with 1 HP gained each
level after that. Pure Mages have a very limited range of gear, being able
only to use a very few weapons and no armour at all; multiclassing will
alleviate both of these limitations. (Keep in mind, too, that unlike newer
AD&D video games such as the Baldur's Gate series, multiclass Mages CAN
still cast their spells while in any armour!) Red and White Mages gain
levels at different rates starting at 4th level, and gain new spell levels
at slightly different points (in Champions, Red Mages gain third level
spells at level 4 vs. level 5 for White Mages, but in Death Knights, it
will be the White Mages that return the favour, as 7th and 8th level spells
are both gained a level sooner by the Good guys).
Robe type vastly affects the spell lists available to the Mage. While some
spells (most notably all the basic "nuke" spells as well as all first level
spells) are available to both Red and White Mages, most spells are only
available to one or the other type. For instance, time and illusion type
spells (e.g., Invisibility, Mirror Image, or Haste) are only available to
the Red Mages, while protective and crowd-control spells (e.g. Hold Person
or Minor Globe of Invulnerability) tend to only be available to White Robe
Mages. The Adventurer's Journal goes into fuller detail about which spells
are available to which Robe type. Also, virtually all Mage scrolls in the
series are keyed to a specific Robe type - i.e., even spells in common
between the two types can only be learned from a scroll if it is of the
matching sort for the mage wanting to learn the spell.
As a rule, which types of mages you want to include in your party are a
matter of personal and strategic preference (personally, I tend to favour
the White Robe spell list for general use). However, in any case you will
want to have at least one Red Robe mage. This is because even if you don't
plan on ever using such useful buffs as Invisibility or Haste in your
strategy, there are a couple of universally important utility spells only
available to the Red Robes. In Champions in particular, there are a few
Wizard-Locked doors that guard extremely valuable and useful loot, and the
only way to reliably open them is with the Knock spell - which is Red Robe
specific. In Death Knights and later, you'll run into enemies that can turn
party members to stone, and the Stone to Flesh spell is only available to
Red Robe Mages (without this, you'll have to go all the way back to a town
with a Temple to get the victim turned back!).
The three dots at the top border of the game screen represent the three
moons of Krynn, which affect Mages' spellcasting ability. (In true Krynn
canon, the dark moon that affects Black Robes would be black, not blue, but
seeing that the game's played on a black background it would be pretty
lousy from a gameplay standpoint.) The moons do not change phase at equal
rates; the white moon takes 9 days to change phases, the red moon 2 and the
dark moon 7. However, each moon DOES have the same effects in a given phase
on Mages aligned with it.
(N.B.: In the Krynn games, a part moon on the left is WAXING, a part moon
on the right is WANING. As anyone who stargazes knows, this is the opposite
of real life, so keep this in mind.)
The most important effects of the moon are on caster level and bonus
spells. When a moon waxes, any Mages you have that are aligned with that
moon can memorise 1 extra spell and when it is full they can memorise 2
extra spells - even better, these spells are not tied to any specific spell
level but rather can be ANY spell that Mage knows. (Always try to memorise
spells while the moon is full - these bonus spells remain memorised until
you cast them even if the moon wanes!) When a moon is new, Mages aligned
with that moon suffer a penalty to their spellcasting - any attribute of a
spell cast during a new moon that's dependent on caster level (e.g., max
range or number of dice of damage dealt) is treated as if the Mage were one
level lower; conversely, when the moon is full, aligned Mages cast their
spells as if they were one level higher (however, this bonus does not kick
in until level 6, and the mage must have an Intelligence of at least 15 in
order to enjoy it). Note that the caster level modifiers only apply to the
effects of spells, not to the available number of spells per level to
memorise.
Mages should always have an Intelligence score of 18. Not only is a minimum
of 15 required to enjoy the full moon caster level bonus, but eventually in
Dark Queen of Krynn it will not be possible to learn all the spells unless
you have this score. All races that can be Mages can have this Intelligence
score.
CLERICS: The second of the two spell-casting classes. Clerics, like Mages,
have gameplay differences based on moral alignment. For the most part the
difference is not, however, as severe as that for Mages - in particular,
both Good and Neutral Clerics use the same spell list. The primary
differences exist in the experience and spell memorisation tables, and in
hit dice. Of these, the most notable are that Neutral Clerics receive
access to most spell levels sooner than Good Clerics do (this will be most
noticeable in Death Knights of Krynn: Neutral Clerics get their first 7th
level spells there, but Good Clerics are limited to 6th level spells until
the final game; in Champions, though, both alignments gain access to 4th
level spells ultimately), and that Good Clerics ONLY receive "Ranger-esque"
hit points. That is to say, Good Clerics receive 2 dice of HP at first
level, while Neutral Clerics receive only one. However, both alignments use
8-sided hit point dice (10 HP/die max with Constitution bonus), and both
reach name level upon acquiring their 9th die of HP after which they gain
just 1 further HP for each additional level. All Clerics get access to the
ability to Turn Undead, as well.
Clerics can wear all types of armour (excluding of course Solamnic Plate),
but unless multiclassed can only use blunt weapons. All Clerics should have
the highest possible Wisdom scores: Wisdom of 13 or higher grants bonus
spell memorisation slots, increasing with still higher Wisdom; additionally
in the later games, it will require a Wisdom of 17 to cast 6th level spells
and a Wisdom of 18 to cast 7th level spells (note that Dwarven or Kender
Clerics can never cast spells higher than 5th level: Dwarves cannot reach a
high enough level, while Kender can have only a Wisdom of 16). Note also
that player Clerics in the Krynn games do not gain access to most of the
harmful spells (Slay Living, Cause Wounds etc.); this is a feature. However
evil Clerics you face during the games MAY have such spells!
Clerics, and only Clerics, must choose a Deity during character creation.
The choice of deity will affect their alignment choices and thus whether
they will be Good or Neutral; it also grants additional bonuses specific to
the deity chosen (N.B.: Don't choose Reorx on a non-Dwarven Cleric; the
sole bonus he grants is a Dwarf-only bonus, so non-Dwarven Clerics of Reorx
actually gain no bonus at all!). Dwarves can only choose Reorx. Note also
that although there are 21 gods in the Dragonlance pantheon, only a select
7 are available to player characters in the Gold Box games (of the others,
7 are Evil and the game does not allow evil characters, 2 of the remaining
14 are moon deities that in 1st Edition did not have normal Clerics, as
essentially "clerics" of the moon deities are Mages. So only 12 choices
might have existed in any event; the 5 of these not available to players I
can only presume were due to technical limitations, as the Gold Box games
were released on some very limited system platforms such as the Commodore
64).
Deity bonuses come in two forms: permanent buffs to the Cleric, or bonus
spells (Majere and Mishakal provide both). Bonus spells do not occupy the
normal memorisation slots, rather, they appear in the menus as "Special
Spells" and it is only possible to memorise one copy of each bonus spell
at a time. A few bonus spells are even ones that are not normally available
as Cleric spells at all.
Ultimately which deities you choose on your Clerics is a matter of personal
preference and strategy (except for the aforementioned lemon that would be
picking Reorx on a non-Dwarf). For instance, if you're making a multiclass
Cleric/Fighter or Cleric/Ranger type you might want to go with Kiri-Jolith,
as that grants a permanent +1 to-hit bonus. From a pure clerical standpoint
probably the most powerful choices are Mishakal (every healing spell cast
that rolls dice to determine its effectiveness gains a +1 bonus on every
die so rolled, and you get THREE useful bonus spells) and Majere (Clerics
of Majere turn undead as if they were 2 levels higher, which is extremely
handy in many battles).
MULTICLASSING: All races except human can elect to multiclass. A multiclass
character is exactly what it says on the tin, a character with 2 or even 3
classes at the same time. Most combinations of classes are available, so
long as the race itself has access to all the desired classes, but there
are a few restrictions:
* Knights and Paladins can NEVER multiclass.
* Rangers cannot multiclass with Fighter, and can only be used in a 2 class
combination, never a triple class.
* Cleric/Thief is only available to Dwarves and Kender, not to Elves or
Half-Elves.
Except for experience points and hit points, a multiclass character is,
essentially, equivalent to one character with the powers of two or three
characters of the appropriate classes. In cases of mutually exclusive stats
such as THAC0, saving throws, or equipment use, multiclass characters
always use whichever is best between their classes (e.g., a multiclassed
Fighter gets access to the full range of weapons and armour, can have
percentile Strength, and uses the Fighter to-hit table, regardless of his
or her other classes).
However, experience and hit points work differently: a multiclass character
receives only 1/2 or 1/3 the XP of his or her single-classed teammates, to
reflect the fact that the XP total is divided evenly among both or all
three classes (this is the case even if the character has reached the level
cap in one or more classes). Hit points are gained in an averaged fashion
at each level-up: whenever a level is gained in a particular class, hit
points are first determined normally for that level up, then divided by 2
or 3 before being added to the character's new maximum HP. This division is
always rounded down, but always with a minimum of at least 1 HP gained for
every level up.
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ALIGNMENT #CC006
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Alignment is a measure of a character's moral and ethical stances. Moral
alignments are Good, Neutral, and Evil, while ethical alignments are
Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic. A character Neutral on both scales is called
"True Neutral" rather than the somewhat odd sounding "Neutral Neutral,"
however. With the exception of the differences among Mages and Clerics
noted previously, alignment has no actual effect on gameplay, although some
character classes are restricted in alignment choice (Knights and Paladins
have to be Lawful Good, Rangers have to be some form of Good, and the only
Good alignment allowed to Thieves is Neutral Good). No player character in
the Dragonlance Gold Box games may be of Evil alignment. However, these
restrictions have no actual gameplay concern in the Gold Box series, except
for the fact that Black Mages and Evil Clerics are not accessible character
choices for the player.
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ABILITY SCORES #CC007
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After choosing race, class, and alignment, you see your character sheet for
the first time. Eight attributes have been pre-rolled randomly, as follows:
STRENGTH: A measure of the character's physical strength, affecting maximum
carry capacity (N.B.: only the weight of the items is affected - the total
NUMBER of items that a character can carry is a fixed capacity), ability to
hit in melee, and damage dealt in melee. With the exception of Fine bows,
Strength has NO effect whatsoever on ranged combat, however (Fine bows are
not available in the Dragonlance Gold Box games until Dark Queen of Krynn).
Characters with a Strength of 18 and belonging to a warrior type class
(whether they are single or multiclass does not matter) also gain
percentile or "exceptional" strength, shown as a number in parenthesis to
the right of the 18. Note that 00 = 100 - this is a holdover from pen and
paper gaming, where the percentile strength would be determined by rolling
two 10-sided dice (which bear numbers from 0-9) and treating each die as a
digit, but considering "00" to be 100 rather than 0.
Strength is useful to all characters, but most importantly to those who
will be melee fighting on a regular basis.
INTELLIGENCE: A measure of the character's mental acuity ("IQ"). In this
series, it only affects Mages, determining the maximum spell level that
they can cast and whether or not they're able to get the caster level
bonus from a full moon.
WISDOM: A measure of the character's willpower and, well, wisdom. Wisdom
affects Clerics' maximum spell level and bonus spell slots. It's also
supposed to affect your saving throws against charm type magic according to
the original pen and paper rules but I'm not sure if this is actually used
in this game.
DEXTERITY: A measure of the character's nimbleness. Dexterity affects the
ability to hit with ranged weapons, combat initiative, and Armour Class.
Note that there is no "Max Dex Bonus" on armour here as there is in 3rd
Edition D&D and later: even if you're in heavy plate armour, you still get
your full Dexterity bonus to AC. Dexterity is useful to all characters.
CONSTITUTION: A measure of how hale and hearty the character is. This
affects maximum hit points (only for dice-rolled levels, though), and, if
a character should buy the farm, the chance of being able to use the Raise
Dead or Resurrection spells successfully on them (except for full-blooded
elves, upon whom these spells sadly have no effect). A Constitution higher
than 16 only grants additional bonus hit points to warrior-type classes -
and in this case only does indeed mean ONLY (multiclass warriors with a
CON of 17+ gain the full benefit only when leveling up as Fighter or Ranger
and not when doing so as their other class(es)). Constitution is useful to
all characters.
CHARISMA: A measure of the character's appearance and personality. There
are a few places where this is actually useful, however, only one party
member needs to actually have a decent score here. Otherwise, Charisma is
USELESS to all characters in this game.
HIT POINTS (HP): A measure of the amount of damage that the character can
take before becoming incapacitated (NOT necessarily dead: unlike most of
the newer AD&D games, the Gold Box games DO use the unconsciousness and
"death's door" rules!). HP have a current and a maximum value, as shown
with the / between the two numbers. The maximum value typically only will
change while leveling up, while the current value will change frequently
during your adventures.
STEEL: Money in the Dragonlance universe primarily occurs as steel pieces
rather than the gold or platinum most AD&D worlds use. The precise amount
of steel that a character begins the game with is determined randomly.
The first six attributes each have minimum and maximum scores that are
affected by the character's race, gender, and class (class affects minimum
scores only). I am not completely sure how the game determines these, but
in pen and paper they would have been rolled on three six-sided dice per
score (hence why the "normal" maximum for each ability is 18). They mostly
do not change during gameplay, although a Raise Dead (not, however, a
Resurrection) spell will reduce the character's Constitution by one point
permanently as a side effect, and some spells in the game can raise or
lower certain abilities (especially Strength).
Hit points are based on class, level, and Constitution score. Note that
unlike most of the other Gold Box games (including the later Krynn games) a
fresh character in Champions of Krynn will have a different amount of XP
depending upon their class. Characters begin anywhere from level 1 to 3,
which is based upon what class or multiclass combination was chosen.
Steel is just money, and what you see here is just your starter bankroll,
which will ultimately have little effect on the course of things as you'll
find plenty of cash throughout the games. The primary form of cash will
always be steel, but sometimes you'll find a few other types (most of them
worth far less), as well as the usual Gems and Jewelry seen in the Gold Box
games.
Don't worry too much about what you rolled here: before you begin the game
you get a chance to modify all your stats as you like, with the sole
exception of the money but that's not worth worrying about.
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NAME & COMBAT ICON #CC008
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Both of these are purely cosmetic choices. Keep in mind though that while
you can change your combat icon during the game at any time that you have
access to the Encampment menu, you can only change your starting name via
the Modify Character screen, which stops being available once you have
started your adventure. So if you use a dumb name, once you start the game
with that character you're stuck with it (barring the use of a hex editor
on your save file). Of course, this is a single player game and NPCs don't
care what your name is, so nobody's going to bother you if you do use a
stupid name, but keep in mind that you'll be seeing these names for quite
some time, especially if you continue through the trilogy!
What you choose for the combat icon has no effect on actual gameplay, e.g.,
you do not need to be depicting your character holding a weapon or bow to
actually use one.
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CREATING YOUR PARTY #CC009
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Characters are not automatically placed in the party upon creation; you
need to use the Add Character to Party option in the menu to add each newly
minted character to your band. You can add or remove characters from the
party freely during the game, either after loading a saved game or whenever
you have access to a Training Hall. However, note that new characters will
always begin with the standard starting XP total and money for their class,
and do not get any extra "catch-up" bonus to your main party - additionally
unlike newer versions of D&D that you may be used to, the game does not
alter XP rewards based upon average party level. So, it's best to create
all the characters you want to play and add them to the party at the very
beginning of the game.
A note about removing characters: If you Remove Character from Party, they
will be saved to disk exactly as they are at that moment; if you later add
them to the party again, they will thus rejoin with everything as it was
when you booted them (however, once again, they will not receive any of the
XP they missed out on while absent). If you choose Drop Character, on the
other hand, the character will simply be REMOVED from the game, and any
stuff they were carrying will be lost forever (unless you reload a saved
game where you still had them, of course). This only applies to Player
Characters that you create; attempting to remove an NPC from the party will
always remove them from the game for good whether you do it via the Remove
or the Drop option.
After you add a character to the party, and before you Begin Adventuring
for the first time with them in the party, you also may use the Modify
Character option to set their ability scores and Hit Points to whatever you
would like (most people will use this to change them to the maximum
possible, I know I do. There does not appear to be any penalty or bonus for
doing so besides an easier game and a party that will have fewer worries in
the later games in particular). You may also change their name at this
time. Once a character has Begun Adventuring one or more times you will not
be able to do this anymore, it will just say "New Characters Only." (Note
however that if you add a fresh character to your party midgame, you will
have the chance to modify that character before they begin adventuring,
just as at the beginning.)
The order in which your characters are listed is important. Characters in
the first half (three slots for a full party without NPCs) will be in the
front row during battle, while ones in the second half will be in the rear
guard. You can change your party order at any time that you have access to
the Encampment menu though so it is not of greatest importance to ensure
that you add your new characters in the best order for battle.
Knights begin the game with a free suit of Plate Mail, Shield, and Long
Sword. Note that these are all set to be worth no money, so you cannot gain
a large starting bankroll by abusing the Trade items option to create
several Knights and copy over their suits of Plate Mail to other party
members before discarding them. Of course, you COULD do so by creating a
number of other characters and trading their money over before ditching
them ... however, it's not really worth the time. It might be worth the
time - if you really want to abuse things - to create multiple Knights to
give their suits of Plate Mail to other characters, though, since
otherwise you must wait some time before you are able to get Plate Mail for
everyone.
Once you have your party together, select Begin Adventuring to start the
game, and answer the copy protection question to continue.
AMARANDE'S THOUGHTS ON PARTY CREATION: Very, very many parties are viable
in this game. As I noted in the beginning of the character creation section
a group of as few as three characters can succeed in this game, even on the
hardest difficulty level. (The group I used for that was a Human Knight, a
Qualinesti Elf Fighter/Red Mage, and a Kender Cleric/Thief, and it actually
worked out for Death Knights of Krynn as well. I would NOT want to try Dark
Queen with that party though, therefore I play with six character parties
now. Most of the time I had done those three-character experiments back in
my Commodore 64 days - Dark Queen didn't come out on Commodore, so as far
as Dragonlance was concerned there was nothing to do but replay Champions
and Death Knights and it was a fun challenge.)
Therefore, with a group of six, you have a very large realm of possibility
indeed. You do need to ensure to include a Knight - in addition to being by
far the best of the warrior-type classes and the best candidate to wield
the Dragonlance you get later on, sometimes you run into situations where
only a Knight can successfully perform a given action. In particular, you
CANNOT complete the Sir Dargaard's Tomb side mission at all without a
Knight. You will also almost certainly want a Red Robe Mage, as the Knock
spell is the only reliable way to open a few specific doors in the game,
which include three of its most valuable and useful treasures, and it is
not available to White Robe Mages. A Thief is useful in a few situations.
It is best to have a Kender, as only they can use the Hoopak weapon (one of
the first magical weapons you get in the game, and one of its few certain
+2 weapons, is a Hoopak +2). Clerics of Mishakal and Majere are especially
useful, as the former cast stronger healing spells (and can do Remove Curse
from the get-go, a must if you are trying on unidentified magic items as
Remove Curse is otherwise a 3rd level spell or a very expensive temple
visit), and the latter's special power works well with the huge amount of
undead found in the Dragonlance games.
Single-classed Thieves and Mages are a poor idea, because their poor access
to armour and low hit points make them much more easily preyed upon by
enemies in combat. Except for the party's Kender (who should ideally be a
Cleric/Thief, due to the pitifully low level limit that Kender Fighters and</pre><pre id="faqspan-2">
Rangers are allowed), it is usually best to use either of those classes in
conjunction with Fighter. This will greatly enhance the character's chances
of making it through tougher battles without being killed or knocked out,
and in the case of Thieves it also gives them access to percentile Strength
which will in turn particularly enhance their back stab damage.
Cleric/Fighter/Mages and Fighter/Mage/Thieves are probably the most overall
powerful characters in the game, but keep in mind that they level up quite
slowly (gaining just 1/3 the experience of a single-classed character), so
you will need to use good tactics and rely on lower level magic for longer
than a party that uses single- or double-classed Mages and thus gains the
ability to sling Fireball spells sooner.
In my current playthrough, I'm using one Human Knight, one Elven Fighter/
Red Mage/Thief, three Elven Cleric/Fighter/White Robe mages (one of Majere,
one of Kiri-Jolith, and one of Mishakal), and a Kender Cleric (Paladine)/
Thief. This is a heavily multiclass based party with one of the larger
overall power potentials, but as noted, it means I won't be slinging
Fireballs for a while.
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EXPLORATION AND ENCAMPMENT #AV010
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The noncombat game modes in this game are quite simple, and mostly are
explained in the manual. The following are some notes on those aspects that
deserve to be given more thought.
EXPLORATION: The 3D view is easy to use, and the manual already covers the
technical aspects of it. Take note that not every area has coordinates or
an area view map, though, and that you will generally get random encounters
MUCH more often if you make extensive use of Look or Search. However, some
things can ONLY be found by Look or Search (and on the flip side, I've
found a number of secret doors that don't seem to be able to be found by
either one).
If I say that an area in this game is "standard-sized," it means that it is
a neat 16x16 grid.
RANDOM ENCOUNTERS: Most areas have wandering encounters that can be
triggered at random by walking around. Most such encounters are hostile, so
when this happens you will usually have to fight. Take care because some
random encounters are dangerous (oftentimes, they are more dangerous than
many of the fixed fights in the same area!). In most cases, an area also
has a set limit on the number of random encounters that can occur before
they stop happening and you can wander freely, but take note that leaving
such an area will usually reset the number of wandering patrols when you
return. Also keep in mind that enemy groups that interrupt you while
resting generally do NOT count towards the limit of random encounters for
the area.
ENCAMPMENT: Again the manual covers the technical aspects, and the menus
are not hard to understand. The "Drop" command works the same as the Drop
Character option in the starting and Training Hall menus - characters can
only be removed-for-good from camp, not removed-and-saved.
Don't forget to keep your spells memorised, as this is not like some games
where you simply have a limited number of spells per rest period or a Magic
Points stat - you can only cast what spells you have memorised in advance
of the situation where you need them! However, in many areas, you will have
to be careful when reesting as there is a chance that you'll be interrupted
by enemies. Take advantage of completely safe areas when they exist, to
turn the white and red moons back to full so that your Mages can get their
full complement of bonus spells back. When some low level spells (such as
Sleep, which stops being useful past the first few areas) become useless,
or you need to free a spell slot so that you can memorise a protective or
buff spell you need for an upcoming fight, you can simply use the Cast
command in camp to get rid of them, you don't need to get into a battle
just to discard combat-only spells you don't need.
The future games in the series will give you the opportunity to, after
casting spells, automatically rememorise the same spells by simply resting,
but Champions did not have this feature. You must manually select all your
spells each time that you memorise them.
UNIDENTIFIED MAGIC ITEMS: Most magical items can be used freely without the
need to identify them first (take care, however, as some are cursed).
However, Mage scrolls MUST be identified (either via the Read Magic spell
or at a shop) before being used or scribed from.
DIFFICULTY LEVEL: This actually only affects maximum hitpoints of enemies,
nothing else. However, you do get more XP for fighting on higher difficulty
levels, and some enemies (dragons in particular) get significantly more
deadly at higher HP.
TRAINING: Unlike later AD&D computer games and many RPGs in general,
characters don't automatically level up in this game when you reach the
necessarily amount of XP, nor is there a "level up" button that can be used
from anywhere. Instead, you must go to a training hall and select the Train
Character option in order to increase levels when you get the necessary
amount of XP. Also, if a character chances to have enough XP to go up 2 or
more levels, they will gain only one level, and then have their XP total
shaved down so that they need 1 more point to level again, the rest being
lost. (This only seems to happen with any frequency to single-classed
characters, though; I'm pretty sure that a multiclass character would only
suffer this if they have enough XP to level up once in EVERY class and then
at least one level in one or more classes after that. Since multiclass
characters gain XP much more slowly due to the division rule, it's unlikely
that you will see this happen unless you really neglect training.)
Unlike most of the Forgotten Realms games, by the way, training in the
Dragonlance Gold Box games is free, so you only need to make it to the
training hall on a regular basis to make sure you get your level ups when
they're due - it is only likely to prove to be of any issue when you are
deep in a dungeon sequence that cannot be left easily. Training Halls are
also where Knights petition for the higher orders.
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COMBAT #BS011
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Combat occurs frequently, and the Gold Box games are designed primarily
around it. All combats take place on a square-grid tactical map. The
specifics of the map vary. If you are in a town or dungeon, it will have
walls, and those walls will be based on the actual grid of the area that
you are fighting in (indeed, the astute player will note that sometimes
secret doors can be betrayed by this, as if you have a fight near enough to
the secret door, it will appear as an opening in the wall on the battle
map). If you are on the overland map, it will be semi-random and dotted
with trees, rocks, etc. A small number of mechanics (primarily, certain
spell effects like the size of a Fireball) differ between overland and town
or dungeon combats.
Your characters will normally (if you have a party of four or more
conscious characters at the start of battle) be placed in two ranks, with
the first half of the party (as indicated in the party list in the non-
combat screens) being in front and the remainder in the rear. Enemies begin
at varying distances, though the norm is for them to start a distance away
in overland map fights and in melee range in town or dungeon fights.
Combat is based on rounds; however, rounds flow seamlessly into each other
with, normally, no visual indicator of a change in round. There are a few
ways to tell if a round has changed, though. If you Delay a character's
action, they will then act at the very end of that combat round. If a
character in your party is Dying, the "Your teammate is dying" warning
appears at the end of the round. Of course, too, you know a new round has
started when someone (who has not delayed their action) gets another turn,
but you don't know precisely when that round started unless you really paid
attention to every single combatant. The order in which characters and
enemies act is determined by an initiative dice roll, which is largely
random, but Dexterity scores will influence it, and you are always free to
delay your action to the end of the round if you feel this gives a
strategic advantage (it is one of the more reliable ways to set up a back
stab in particular, as will be noted shortly).
The combat controls themselves are simple and explained in the manual. Note
though that in addition to using the Aim command, a character armed with a
melee weapon (or no weapon, but not a ranged-only weapon like a bow) can
attack by attempting to move into the enemy's space. Additionally, if a
character has multiple attacks per round (high level warrior classed
characters, or using a fast ranged weapon like a bow or darts) they will
automatically take them all against the one selected target - you cannot
split such attacks between multiple targets. The only exception is if your
enemy goes down before you take all your allotted attacks, in which case
your character is returned to the combat menu so that you can target the
remaining ones. Also, you may never make a ranged attack when adjacent to
any enemy, unless you are a Kender using a Hoopak.
Chance to hit in AD&D, including Gold Box, is governed by the attacker's
"THAC0" stat, the target's AC, and the roll of a 20-sided die. Unlike more
recent D&D versions, LOWER is better for both stats: the die roll is added
to the target's AC, and then compared to THAC0. Several factors besides AC
also impact the chance to hit, but most of these will be reflected on
screen either in your THAC0 stat visible on the character sheet or in the
target's AC. (The main exceptions in this regard are things such as the
Long Sword +4 vs. Reptiles, where the character sheet will only display the
basic +1 bonus the sword always gives, the reptile bonus does give an
additional 15% chance to hit, but this is never displayed onscreen. Of
course the extra +3 damage will show up in the attack result.)
Most spells take a certain amount of time to cast (not all do, some such as
Magic Missile cast instantly), and a character may not cast a spell in any
given round if they are damaged during it. If they are damaged before their
turn comes up, the Cast option will simply not be available, while they are
hurt while casting, the spell will be interrupted. Interrupted spells not
only fail to cast, but are removed from the caster's memory just as if they
had been cast. Of course, if a character isn't damaged in a round until
AFTER they have completely cast their spell, the spell isn't undone ...
Thus, initiative is especially important in combats that feature spell
casters.
Unlike almost every other computer implementation of (A)D&D, the Gold Box
games DO implement the Death's Door rules - a character does not, when
reaching 0 HP, automatically die as they do in later games like Baldur's
Gate. Instead, it works like this:
* A character brought to exactly 0 HP yields a "Goes Down" message and
acquires the "Unconscious" status, and is simply out of the fight.
* A character brought to between -1 and -9 HP yields the "Goes Down and is
Dying" message and acquires the "Dying" status. They are out of the fight
and will lose 1 more HP at the end of each round ("Your teammate is
dying" warning) until they are either bandaged (via the command of that
name) or die. Note that bandaging has unlimited range and doesn't even
need line of sight. However, if multiple characters are dying (e.g.,
because of a large area-of-effect attack), each needs to be Bandaged
individually. Enemies never bandage their dying teammates, BTW.
* A character brought to -10 HP or less (either by bleeding out from the
previous state, or via direct damage) is killed outright and acquires the
"Dead" status. In the case of being killed by direct damage, the text
appearing is the phrase "Is Killed."
Note that once a combatant is knocked out, they cease to be a valid target
for any attack or spell (except for healing spells in the case of player
characters in some versions, including the PC version, but such characters
will NOT get up even if they are healed to above 0 HP in this manner) and
will not take any further damage whatsoever, except from the aforementioned
bleeding rule, even if they are caught in an area-of-effect. As a result,
the Death's Door rule here makes it extremely difficult to actually die for
real in the Gold Box games, unless you are careless about bleeding party
members or are fighting enemies that can deal a large amount of damage in
one blow (to kill a target outright via damage, a combatant must be able to
deal a minimum of 11 points of damage in a single hit, which is not very
common except for spellcasters and dragons). Actual instant death attacks
(yielding an "Is Killed" result and Dead status regardless of the target's
previous HP total) are rare, except for poison, which almost always kills
instantly unless a character makes a saving throw. Note that the "death by
massive damage" rule that is seen in some versions of (A)D&D, where a
combatant that suffers enough damage (usually 50+) in one blow must make a
saving throw or die on the spot, does not exist in Gold Box games. All you
need to survive a massive damage blow in Gold Box is simply enough HP.
Note that unconscious and dead characters do not receive experience points
from any source (including treasure and quests); XP is divided between the
conscious party members. The inventory of unconscious and dead characters
remains accessible; you can still ready and unready their items, Trade to
or from such a character, and load loot onto that character without penalty
(it may seem weird, but it's reality in the Gold Box games - knocked out
characters still carry their inventory around with them without any penalty
to the rest of the party). In fact if an NPC party member is knocked out
you can even Trade their gear and money to your player characters (if they
are conscious they will never allow this).
Dead characters will need a Raise Dead or Resurrection spell to revive
(only Raise Dead is available in Champions of Krynn, and being that it's a
5th level Cleric spell, only temples can cast it in this game). Full-
blooded Elven characters cannot be raised from the dead at all, and for
Half-Elven and non-Elven characters there is a chance of failure if the
character's Constitution is less than 18. A failed Raise means that the
character is gone for good, just like Elves are when they die at all.
Additionally, a casting of Raise Dead costs a character a point of
Constitution permanently. (As a result of this and the fact that a new,
replacement character would begin with only the original starter experience
points, if any characers die for real in a battle, you'll probably want to
exit the game and reload a saved game rather than continue.) The only
exception to this is characters who died as a result of instant-death
poison attacks, who are revived by a Neutralize Poison spell, and even full
blooded Elven characters can be revived this way. Characters who are merely
knocked out (Unconscious status on their character sheet) are revived as
soon as their HP is healed above 0 by any means.
Two final notes about dying from poison, by the way. One, never use Slow
Poison unless you can Neutralize it soon. When this spell wears off the
character dies again, and (possibly due to a bug) that is considered a true
death and not a poison-death, so they will need a real Raise (and if they
are full-blooded Elves, they can no longer be revived at all). Two, green
dragon greath is not considered poison for death purposes, but damage (even
though it's "damage from poison"). In other words, a character who dies via
green dragon breath damage is DEAD, not "poison-dead" as noted above!
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COMBAT STRATEGY TIPS #BS012
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AREA OF EFFECT SPELLS ("Nukes"): By far the most efficient way to deal
damage in battle is with the mass damage AoE spells like Fireball,
Lightning Bolt, and Ice Storm. As a rule, Fireball is the most useful
direct attack spell in Champions, because of its huge area of effect. In
dungeon and town battles, it will hit every square in its visible
surroundings - be sure to Center your combat screen before letting loose to
make sure of what will be hit - except for the squares that are in the
corners and horizontally or vertically adjacent to the corners. In overland
map battles, it will hit every square within 2 spaces horizontally or
vertically, plus the diagonally adjacent squares, and ones a "knight's-
move" away from the target.
Lightning Bolt does deal the same damage as a Fireball at the same level,
though, so if you can hit more targets with the Bolt than with the Fireball
then it's probably a good idea to use it. It sees its usefulness maximised
in the following cases: when enemies are in a long line (in which case the
Bolt may hit them all while the line may be too long for Fireball), when
enemies are in melee range (in which case you can often get more of them by
going to the end of their rank and letting loose with a Bolt because
Fireball might not be targetable in a way that hits as many without hitting
any of your own party), and when you are in small spaces (in which case not
only is it often hard to use Fireball without landing it on your party, but
oftentimes, you can hit an enemy twice with Lightning Bolt because it will
rebound if it hits a solid surface before it has finished).
Ice Storm works best when enemies are either protected by a Minor Globe of
Invulnerability, or are fire resistant or immune and you don't have a
Lightning Bolt handy. It also works well against higher level enemies
because its damage cannot be halved with a saving throw, although its
damage is less and does not scale with your level. The area of Ice Storm is
always the same, equivalent to an outdoor Fireball.
However, note that AoE damage spells are higher level spells (3rd level and
up) and thus you won't have access to them right away, especially if you
are running triple-class mages (since a Red Mage needs to be level 4 and a
White Mage level 5 to have third level spells; both need to be level 7 for
fourth level spells). You'll need to use some other tactics in the meantime
or find items that duplicate the effects of these spells. Also, AoE spells
virtually all have noticeable casting lag time, during which your mage can
be hit and lose the spell, so be careful and have a backup plan in case
your Fireball doesn't go off.
CHARMING: Another potential tactic to neutralising a dangerous enemy is to
Charm them onto your side. Charm Person is a first level Mage spell
(although it is not in the default Mage spellbook so you will need to find
a scroll with it or use your level-up spell learning on it) and it also is
a bonus spell for Clerics of Mishakal and Shinare. Charm Person works only
on character-race enemies (i.e., Human and Elven enemies, in the case of
Champions of Krynn), and Elves are extremely resistant (though not immune)
to the spell even before a saving throw is concerned. It also affects just
a single target. A higher level spell Charm Monsters can affect up to four
enemies of any type (except for enemies totally immune to mind-affecting
spells, such as the undead - and Elves still enjoy their racial resistance)
this is a 4th level Mage spell which in this series is only available to
White Mages. A charmed combatant fights on the side of the spellcaster,
although you do not get to control their actions. Also, keep in mind that
if you charm an enemy and they are still alive and kicking at the end of
battle, you don't get any XP or loot from them (they take their stuff with
them).
Be careful - enemy Mages can cast Charm Person too. If a character gets
charmed, either cast Dispel Magic if you have it, a Charm Person of your
own (which will if successful revert them to your side), or else you'll
just have to knock them out (they'll come to their senses when you revive
them, but be careful not to actually kill them). Also note that if you LOSE
a battle after someone is charmed, the charmed person is considered to have
fled. This basically means you'll need to reload a saved game afterwards
(cf. the later section on fleeing).
HELPLESSNESS: Helpless is a combat status that can be inflicted in a number
of ways in the Gold Box games, and any way you slice it it's a pretty
vicious one. If you can inflict it on the enemies, it makes battles go by
in a flash of ease; if it gets inflicted on you, there's a very good chance
that someone is going to get knocked out. Spells function normally against
a Helpless combatant, but any physical attack of any kind against them will
automatically hit and instantly knock them out (in fact, it will cause them
to begin Dying as well, so if it happens to one of your team you will have
to take a turn to Bandage them so they do not die). Note that if such a
knockout is delivered by a combatant with multiple physical attacks, that
ends their turn for the round; unlike normal circumstances where knocking
out an enemy with the first of multiple attacks lets you use the remainder
on a different target, the free knockout is deemed to take your entire
attack for the round (however, if you knock out a non-Helpless enemy with
damage, and then have another attack or attacks remaining, you can use that
to knock out a Helpless enemy). In addition, of course, Helpless combatants
get no turns and take no action, and are unable to complete spells they
began to cast before being hit with the effect.
If one of your party members is made Helpless, try to surround them with
other characters so that enemies cannot get adjacent, or if worse comes to
worst and there is already an enemy adjacent, try to surround that enemy to
give them as many potential alternative targets as possible (it doesn't
always work, but enemies in the Gold Box games are not very bright when it
comes to choosing targets, and will frequently ignore the free knockout in
favour of attacking someone who they may not even manage to hit). If you
have the Dispel Magic spell and can cast it before your character is hit,
it has a good chance to remove Helpless (even if it was inflicted by
something other than a spell, such as the poison on kapak draconians'
blades). Helpless always wears off at the end of combat, and usually has a
limited duration - if the character goes several rounds, how many depending
on the source of the status, without being physically attacked, the effect
will automatically wear off (keep in mind that if you make enemies Helpless
and don't finish them off within the duration, they too will become mobile
again).
Helpless can be inflicted by several means. The most common is the Hold
Person spell, which is both a 2nd level Cleric and 3rd level Mage spell
(the latter being available to White Mages only). Virtually all enemy
Clerics know Hold Person, so make sure you don't let them cast spells or
there is as very good chance that someone will be made Helpless (the Cleric
version of Hold Person targets up to three people and the Mage version up
to four). Note that the more versatile Hold spell in terms of potential
targets (Hold Monsters) is not available in Champions of Krynn; it is a 5th
level Mage spell and will become available to White Mages in Death Knights
of Krynn and later.
The other primary spell-based sources of Helpless in the game are Stinking
Cloud (the mage's most effective means of inflicting the status. It is a
2nd level spell; it has a very short range, but affects a 2x2 space, and
any time any combatant enters or moves within the space they must save or
become Helpless. Since enemies aren't very bright when it comes to trying
to reach the player, this is especially effective against enemies that have
room to move but cannot reach the player - such enemies will frequently
mill around in the available space, repeatedly moving around the cloud
until they "Choke and Gag from Nausea" which is your indication that they
have just become Helpless. Moreover, even if they don't become Helpless,
combatants within a Stinking Cloud suffer a significant penalty to Armour
Class thus being much easier to hit) and Snake Charm (a 2nd level Cleric
spell which affects, of course, only snakes, but has a chance to affect all
snakes in the battle without needing to be specifically targeted).
In addition to spells, some enemies can inflict Helpless via other means.
Kapak draconians, ghouls, and ghasts all have a chance to inflict Helpless
with every normal physical hit.
BACKSTABBING: All Thieves have the back stab ability as part of their
class. There are no Thief enemies in Champions of Krynn, so unless one of
your thieves suffers a charm effect, you won't need to worry about enemies
using this on you. Meanwhile, it is extremely useful to use yourself. In
order to inflict a backstab, the thief must be using a melee weapon that is
normally available to that class (i.e., a weapon that a single-class thief
could use; for kender thieves, this does include the Hoopak, silly as it
may seem to "backstab" with a two-handed blunt object with a sling atop
it!), the enemy must be one that occupies only a single square on the
combat map (large enemies such as dragons and ogres are immune), and the
Thief must be directly behind the target. It can be somewhat difficult to
determine the facing of an enemy in the game since there are only left- and
right-facing icons, but with practise, this ability is a very efficient
eliminator of higher HP enemies that might take several more rounds to
kill, particularly if they cannot be, or you have failed to make them,
Helpless. Note that even non-Thieves enjoy the benefits of a better hit
rate when attacking from behind under the same circumstances that give a
Thief a backstab.
BUFFS: Many spells in the game improve your characters' fighting abilities
in some way or another. Take advantage of these spells whenever you are
entering a battle that you feel you might have trouble with otherwise.
Here is a rundown of the buffs available in Champions and their form of
usefulness:
Bless (1st level Cleric): Improves hit chance. While it can be used in
battle, it only affects the target and people next to them, and it doesn't
affect anyone next to enemies. Out of battle it affects the entire party
automatically and is best cast there. First level Cleric spell slots are
dime a dozen, especially if your Clerics have high Wisdom (as they should);
it's best to cast this before almost every major fixed battle.
Protection from Evil (1st level Cleric & Mage): This spell gives a 2 point
AC and saving throw bonus against Evil attackers. Its big brother (Prot.
from Evil, 10' Radius - a 4th level Cleric or 3rd level Mage - White Robes
only in the latter case - spell and also the bonus spell granted to Clerics
of Paladine) causes all friendly combatants standing next to the protected
character to be protected as well.
Resist Cold/Resist Fire (1st/2nd level Cleric): These halve the damage you
take from such effects, and they also give a 3 point saving throw bonus
against them (saving throws are on a 20-sided die, so that's 15%). Keep in
mind that this even works on (and is probably actually most useful against,
generally speaking) white and red dragon breath. The downside is that this
spell must be cast separately on each party member who needs resistance, so
it takes a lot of Cleric spell slots (and while 1st level slots are
forgettable, 2nd level slots aren't, because most of the time you'll want
those to be filled with Hold Person for general use, thus you'll probably
need to dump some of those and replace them with Resist Fire specially for
the fight you need it in).
Spiritual Hammer (2nd level Cleric): This spell is of fairly little use, as
the hammer generated is not a very good weapon. It is able to hit enemies
that need magical weapons to hit, but you should rarely encounter such
enemies before you have enough for the party, even with the relatively low
number of magic items found in the Dragonlance games as compared to the
Forgotten Realms Gold Box games. Probably the only time you might need this
is if you piss off the spirits in Sir Dargaard's Tomb after going there at
an early opportunity, but you can easily finish the tomb without worrying
about that unless you do something clearly bad.
Prayer (3rd level Cleric): This is an extremely effective buff, it not only
improves your to-hit and saving throws, but it hurts the enemy's. It
affects the entire party whether cast in or out of combat (although you'll
only see every character displaying the "is praying" effect if you cast the
spell in camp).
Enlarge (1st level Mage): This spell greatly increases the character's
Strength. The resultant Strength score is based upon the caster's level and
it is not limited by the target's race and gender based Strength maximums.
Unlike pen and paper AD&D, the spell only buffs Strength; it does not
actually make the character bigger and thus it's very useful in all
situations. Its only downside, really, is that it shares a spell level with
Magic Missile, the most useful single target damage spell in the game, so
you'll need to choose what is more important to you in the spell slots you
are considering placing Enlarge in. Enlarge is one of the five first level
Mage spells (the others being Detect Magic, Read Magic, Magic Missile, and
Sleep) that all Mages begin the game with.
Friends (1st level Mage): This spell improves the caster's Charisma by up
to 8 points, however, it is virtually useless in these games because of the
low number of cases in which Charisma is important, the fact that only one
character needs a high Charisma if you plan on using negotiate or bluff
options, and the fact that the 18 Charisma available naturally is more than
enough to give an acceptable chance to succeed in such cases. It is neither
worth the 1st level spell slot to memorise, nor ever to choose as your
level up spell (until and unless you reach very high Mage levels in The
Dark Queen of Krynn and thus eventually are forced to choose to learn it
anyway since sooner or later it's going to be the only one left). Of course
if you find it on a scroll you might as well scribe it, but it's never
worth going out of your way to learn and it's never worth memorising.
Shield (1st level Mage): A self-only buff that makes the Mage immune to
Magic Missile spells for the duration and improves his or her saving
throws. It may also give the Mage an improved AC, but the AC granted by
the Shield spell is fixed rather than a bonus, so if your AC is already
better for any reason you will not gain the AC benefits.
Detect Invisibility (2nd level Mage): This allows the target to see
invisible creatures, which allows them to target such creatures with ranged
attacks or spells, as well as to avoid a penalty when attacking them in
melee. Aurak draconians are the enemy this is most likely to be useful
when fighting.
Invisibility (2nd level Mage, Red Robes only): This makes the target
invisible. Invisible combatants can't be targeted by ranged attacks or by
spells (although they will still be affected if they are caught in an AoE
effect targeted nearby) and melee attackers suffer a substantial to-hit
penalty. However, invisibility wears off after the target takes any action
other than to simply move around the combat map. (This includes casting any
additional buffs even outside of battle, so if you're doing a lot of party
buffs in preparation for a major fight, make sure that whoever you're using
Invisibility on has cast any buffs that they themselves want to cast before
you make them invisible!). A 3rd level version, Invisibility 10' Radius,
applies this to the target and all adjacent to him or her (note that if you
cast this in combat you can use it only on adjacent targets). It, too, is
only usable by Red Mages, and has the same limitation about wearing off
when an invisible character attacks. In both cases, characters and monsters
with a Detect Invisibility effect active ignore the effects of the spell.
Mirror Image (2nd level Mage, Red Robes only): This creates duplicate
images of the Mage (not shown on the combat map). Whenever the Mage is
targeted for any attack or single-target spell, they will instead simply
lose one of their images and will not be affected by it at all. It is a
self-only buff.
Strength (2nd level Mage, Red Robes only): This spell increases the
target's Strength by up to 8 points, but is actually less useful than the
first level Enlarge. Why? Simply because it respects the character's normal
Strength maximum, while Enlarge can go well beyond the Strength that any
character can ever achieve naturally.
Blink (3rd level Mage, Red Robes only): This is a self-only buff that makes
the Mage immune to physical attacks after they have acted in a round, but
not before. Its effectiveness thus depends upon the Mage's initiative roll.
Haste (3rd level Mage, Red Robes only): This spell doubles the target's
movement and number of physical attacks per round. However, it wears off
quickly, and ages all characters it affects by a year each time it is used
(this is not so much a problem for pure-blooded Elves, but other characters
have shorter lifespans, especially Humans, so it's not a good idea to use
Haste too many times. Remember that age carries over from game to game and
that the fights get much harder as you go, so you'll want the ability to
use Haste plenty of times for the tough fights in The Dark Queen of Krynn
without your Knight keeling over!). It also counteracts the effects of the
Slow spell, and when used for that purpose does not have the aging effect.
Protection from Normal Missiles (3rd level Mage, White Robes only): This
spell does exactly what it says on the tin: it makes the target immune to
all normal projectiles (arrows, darts, etc.). It does not protect against
spells of any sort, nor against magical projectiles. (Note that a non-
magical arrow fired from a magical bow is a NONMAGICAL projectile.) Few
enemies in the game use normal missiles (Human Mages carry a supply of
Darts, but virtually nothing else carries one), but later on in the series
the spell can see more use, as generic enemies in the Dragonlance games,
even the high level ones in The Dark Queen of Krynn, carry much less
magical gear than the enemies in Forgotten Realms games do.
Minor Globe of Invulnerability (4th level Mage, White Robes only): This
is a major reason why White Mages are in my opinion superior to Red Mages,
despite the large number of buffs listed earlier that are only available to
the Red. Minor Globe makes the caster, for its duration, COMPLETELY immune
to all 3rd level or lower spells. It does not matter if they are Mage or
Cleric spells, nor whether the spell normally allows a saving throw, nor
how high level the caster is; the Globe shrugs it off. (The sole exception
is Dispel Magic, which can remove the Globe if successful.) Many of the
game's most dangerous spells fall in the 2nd to 3rd level range (e.g., Hold
Person, which is still a staple spell of enemy Clerics even at high levels
later in the series, and of course Fireball and Lightning Bolt). In the
later games, when you have access to 6th level spells, you'll get this
spell's big brother, Globe of Invulnerability, which provides immunity of
spells up through 4th level, and it too will only be available to Mages of
the White Robes. Both spells are self-only.
Fire Shield (4th level Mage): This spell requires you to choose between
Fire or Cold type when you cast it. Whichever type you pick, you will be
protected from the OPPOSITE type of damage - don't make the wrong choice,
as it will probably result in your Mage being killed VERY dead from what
you had hoped to guard against. Against the type of damage you're protected
against, you get a 2 point (10%) bonus to saving throws, and take half
damage even if you fail your save - no damage at all if you do make your
saving throw! Against the type you're vulnerable to, though, you'll take
double damage if you fail your save. This spell can be used against ANY
fire or cold effect, even dragon breath! In addition, anyone attacking the
Mage in melee will take twice as much damage back as they deal with any
given blow. It is a self-only buff.
FLIGHT: If it looks like a battle severely outmatches you you have the
option of attempting to flee. However, as a rule, it's not worth it. First
of all, flight requires every character to run from battle separately;
secondly, a character has a substantial chance of not even being able to
make it out of the fight (in order to flee successfully, you have to equal
or exceed the movement rate of all enemies that have line of sight on you;
if none do, then you automatically succeed). Furthermore, if you lose a
battle in which one or more characters flee (either because you fled after
characters fell, or one or more characters couldn't make it out of the
battle and were subsequently knocked out) any fallen characters are left
behind. They're gone for good, just as if you had used the Drop Character
command in a training hall or the Drop command in camp. What's worse, some
fixed battles don't allow flight at all - even if you should flee
successfully, the enemy "won't allow you to escape" - and you'll be thrust
right back into the same combat (with any fallen characters still gone
forever - AND any fallen enemies back on the field)!
Keep in mind that if someone is charmed and you then lose the battle while
they are charmed, the battle is resolved considering them to have fled the
battlefield afterwards. In other words, you're very likely to be left under
such circumstances with a one character party. If this happens, you'll want
to reload a saved game.
THE DANCE OF DISABILITY: Although this works in every Gold Box game, from
Pool of Radiance all the way through Unlimited Adventures and The Dark
Queen of Krynn, it's probably really to be considered an exploit. Of course
all of the Gold Box games are single player, so you're only cheating
yourself, but it's up to you to decide whether it feels kosher to actively
use this trick. (You'll probably end up triggering it now and again without
intending to, though, anyway.)
As you will doubtless notice during battle, if you are adjacent to any
enemies who can attack in melee (in other words, any non-Helpless enemy
who's equipped with either no weapon or a melee weapon, but not a ranged
only weapon like a bow or darts), and then you move in a way that takes
you out of that adjacency, the enemy will automatically take a free set of
melee attacks at your back (much like Attacks of Opportunity in later
versions of D&D).
Here's the rub, which may or may not be a bug, but is definitely in any
case extremely cheap. If the combatant (enemies fleeing from you will cause
this, too, if you meet the same requirements) has already had their turn
for the round, it is indeed a free bonus attack with no side effects.
HOWEVER, if they have not yet had their turn for the round, that "free"
attack will actually count AS their turn for the round.
The result is that you can use backing away from dangerous enemies as a
cheap but very effective tactic, preventing them from ever using anything
but a basic melee routine. It is especially effective at preventing dragon
breath (especially important on the higher difficulties, because of the
relationship between a dragon's HP and its breath weapon damage). It also
works against many spellcasters (although the Human Mages usually equip
darts, which prevent them from taking a melee attack, Elven Mages normally
carry melee weapons as they are Fighter/Mages). Note though that this will
trigger any add-on effects (e.g. poison, Helpless, energy drain etc.) that
are tied to the enemy's normal attack if it hits, so it becomes less
effective in the later games as you start to encounter enemies like
vampires.
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COMBATING SPECIFIC ENEMIES #BS013
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Each type of enemy in the game, and there are many, has its own special
strategic considerations that stem from its particular unique properties.
HUMAN AND ELVEN ENEMIES: These are classed characters, similar to your own.
Humans come in Cleric, Fighter, and Mage flavours, while Elves come in
Cleric, Fighter, and Fighter/Mage, with no single-class Mages. Generic
Human and Elven enemies in Champions are always either level 3, 5, or 7;
named "boss" enemies may differ from this, but they, too, are classed
characters like your own and act identically to the generics. Virtually no
Human or Elven enemies, and none of the generics, carry any magical
equipment, however, they do carry some gear (particularly armour, if you
didn't cheese out and create a bunch of throwaway Knights in order to take
their starter plate mail) that will be upgrades for you early on in the
game.
Clerics of all types are in love with the Hold Person spell and love to
make your characters Helpless if you don't stop them from casting spells,
so make sure you stop them from doing so. Low level Mages like to use Charm
Person spells, so be especially wary of the level 3 Black Robe Mages, while
higher level Mages tend to prefer Magic Missile and Lightning Bolt. In any
case it's not a good idea to let any enemy spellcasters cast their spells.
However, the enemies' lack of real intelligence in terms of targeting can
work out in your favour in the case of Lightning Bolt, since if you are in
an area where the Bolt may bounce, they never take into account the
possibility that it might bounce back and hit one of their own (including
possibly themselves!).
Hold Person is very effective on all Human and Elven enemies, while Charm
spells are only really of use on Humans, since Elves have such a heavy
resistance to charm.
UNDEAD: One of the most common types of enemy throughout the Dragonlance
series in particular. Most of them are cannon fodder with no special
abilities (except for a universal immunity to charm type magic and to
Helpless), and none of the level draining kind are found in Champions (even
though the Adventurer's Journal bestiary speaks of them: as a matter of
fact quite a lot of the enemies mentioned in this game's Journal don't
actually appear in-game). Except for spectral minions, skeletal dragons,
and the death knight, a Cleric of sufficient level has a chance of removing
any undead from the battlefield with their Turn ability, and if the Cleric
is high enough level vs. a weak enough undead, they can even destroy such
undead outright. (Note that Turned undead are not worth any XP, although
ones destroyed outright with the ability are.) The Mace of Disruption also
has the ability to instantly destroy most undead creatures with a single
hit.
Ghouls and ghasts can make a character Helpless with a hit, so Turn or take
them out quickly. Ghasts can additionally exude a stench which reduces
characters' combat effectiveness. Except for the death knight, all other
undead in Champions have only basic melee attacks and no special offensive
abilities. Defensively, all types of skeletons take only half damage from
nonblunt weapons, and spectral minions are immune to nonmagical weapons.
The death knight is a unique boss enemy. Specific strategies for facing him
will be covered in the Temple of Duerghast walkthrough section where you
encounter him.
DRACONIANS: As this is Dragonlance, draconians are one of the most common
enemy types in the game, and they come in five types. All five types have a
degree of magic resistance - a blanket chance that a spell, even an area of
effect spell not targeted on them, will simply not affect them at all.
(However, it should be noted that if a magic resistant creature, such as a
draconian, moves within the confines of a persistent spell like Stinking
Cloud, there is a chance each time they enter an effected square that they
will be affected by that spell, even if they resisted the effect
initially.) Magic resistance follows the 1st Edition AD&D rules, in which
it is on a sliding scale where for every level a spellcaster gains, magic
resistance becomes 5% less effective against that caster. Draconians, while
humanoid in form, do not qualify under the header of "Person" and therefore
Charm Person and Hold Person spells do not work on them. Charm Monster will
work, of course, provided that you penetrate their magic resistance, and in
the case of auraks can see invisible creatures so that you can target them.
Following are the special properties of each specific type of draconian:
Baaz: Baaz are cannon fodder, plain and simple. Apart from the magic
resistance, the only thing special about baaz to beware of is that when
they go down in battle, they turn to stone. If you used a melee weapon to
deliver the final blow, there is a chance that you will lose your weapon
temporarily, based on your Dexterity. If you lose your weapon, you'll have
to fight the rest of the battle without it. You'll automatically get it
back after battle; make sure to ready it again as this is not done for you.
Kapak: Kapaks are not much stronger than baaz, but they have toxic saliva
which they lick their weapons with. What this means in combat terms is that
whenever they hit you, there is a chance for your character to become
Helpless (it's a paralytic venom). Aside from that, when a kapak goes down,
it leaves in its stead a small pool of acid. Any combatant that enters that
pool will suffer a small amount of damage; those who remain in the pool
will take that damage each round until either they move out of the pool,
are knocked out, or the pool drains away (which it will do after a short
while). Use mass damage spells or Stinking Clouds to get rid of them
quickly before Helpless becomes an issue.
Bozak: Bozaks are spell casters, so make sure you make them Helpless or hit
them every round in order to prevent them from casting spells. Additionally
when a bozak goes down it explodes, dealing a small amount of damage to all
adjacent combatants, whether ally or enemy. The damage is fairly minimal,
but will of course disrupt spellcasting and can take out a badly wounded
combatant (this can be turned to your advantage if a number of bozaks are
adjacent and all are low on HP, since it's possible for one bozak's death
explosion to knock out another and create a chain reaction).
Sivak: Sivaks are powerful fighters who get multiple attacks per round, but
beyond this, they have no special abilities that apply in combat.
Aurak: Auraks are the most powerful of draconians and also the rarest; you
will encounter only a few of them in the game. They are spellcasters like
bozaks; additionally, they begin battle invisible, so you cannot target
them directly with any form of spell or ranged attack (they can still be
caught in AoE targeted nearby if their magic resistance fails them) and you
have a penalty to hit them in melee, unless you are using a character under
the effects of a Detect Invisibility spell. Auraks have a three-stage death
throw: the first time they go down, they will return to 20 hit points. At
this time they won't cast the spells the first form knows anymore, but will
instead immolate every round (dealing a small amount of damage to all
adjacent, like a bozak explosion does) and shoot energy bolts (these are
fairly similar to Magic Missile spells). The second time they go down, they
will return to 20 hit points again, and attack only in melee - however, at
this point they are invulnerable for several rounds, after which they will
explode, damaging all adjacent combatants (friend or foe) and with a chance
to stun them. Stunning reduces characters' combat effectiveness but does
not make them Helpless. Do note that auraks CAN move in the invulnerable
countdown form, so you'll probably need to have someone take the pain of
being next to them to pin them down.
There is only one named boss draconian in the game. He is an aurak, and the
normal tactics that apply to auraks in general apply to him, too.
DRAGONS: This is Dragonlance, and so dragons are much more common
encounters than in most other worlds (although in the case of Gold Box, the
Forgotten Realms games often tended to have quite a number of them too,
come to think of it). Of the common enemies in the game, dragons are easily
the most dangerous, especially if you don't use the Dance of Disability to
make it impossible for them to use their dragon breath.
Dragon breath is always an AoE attack, although its nature and shape differ
based on the type of dragon. Black dragons breath acid, green dragons
breathe gas, white dragons breathe frost, blue dragons breathe lightning
(which can also bounce and hit a target twice, like the Lightning Bolt
spell), and red dragons breathe fire. White and red dragon breath damage
can be mitigated by resistance spells, like any other cold or fire attack,
while the only way to reduce the damage from the other three types of
dragon is by half via the saving throw. The damage dealt by dragon breath
is always the maximum HP of the dragon, or half this if a saving throw is
successful, and for this reason, dragons are the one enemy that does become
considerably deadlier as the difficulty level increases.
Other than this, dragons all share the ability to perform three melee</pre><pre id="faqspan-3">
attacks (two claws and a bite) each round, and good AC (ranging from 3 to
-1). They are also all vulnerable to the Dragonlance's special ability.
GIANTS: Giants come in two types in the game, ogres and hill giants, the
latter being found only as random encounters on the overland map. Neither
have any special attacks or abilities of any note apart from very high
Strength scores meaning that they hit quite hard and often in melee.
Rangers get a damage bonus when attacking giants.
GOBLINOIDS: Goblinoids come in the form of goblins, hobgoblins, and
hobgoblin leaders. None have any special abilities. Hobgoblin leaders have
more HP than normal hobgoblins but are otherwise essentially identical.
Goblins, who can only be found as random encounters on the overland map,
are also vulnerable to the "sweep" ability of warrior-type classes: a
warrior type class attacking a goblin automatically attacks a number of
goblins adjacent to him or her equal to his or her level in that class
(or fewer, if there are not that many available targets).
ANIMALS: Rounding out the list of enemies are a number of animals. They
range from inconsequential speed bumps that give so little experience it's
barely worth the time it takes to kill them to some of the more dangerous
enemies in the game. They are as follows:
Giant Rat: Inconsequential, probably the least dangerous enemy in the whole
game in fact. They have no special abilities, very poor AC and low HP, and
they can be "swept" (as with goblins).
Giant Centipede: Like giant rats, they have terrible AC and low HP, and can
be "swept." They, however, are more dangerous than giant rats because they
have a poisonous bite which kills instantly if a character fails a saving
throw; however, due to their weak nature, they are unlikely to get a hit in
before they die. Try to take them out quickly, before they have too many
chances to attack.
Giant Snake: These are much deadlier and need to be taken seriously. They
have a decent amount of HP so, unless made Helpless via Snake Charm or
Stinking Cloud, take several hits to kill, and they have a deadly poison
bite. It's a good idea to have a Snake Charm spell ready in areas where
these are found. Failing that, do your best to disable them with Stinking
Cloud spells, and definitely concentrate on a single one at a time to
reduce their numbers as quickly as possible.
Giant Spider: These are as nasty as the giant snakes, except that not being
snakes, Snake Charm is not an option. They are only found as random battles
on the overland map, and normally come in small groups when you do find
them.
Mobat: These large (although still occupying only a single square) bats
have high HP and a good AC, but they have no special abilities. Don't
worry.
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FIRST OUTPOST #WK014
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After the initial text scenes, you arrive at the first outpost. You will be
taken directly to the Commandant's office where you receive your first
mission, to patrol Throtl and report back (Journal Entry #51).
Outposts are menu based, rather than explorable maps like the other towns
in the game. All outposts provide the same services, and they are as
follows:
Inn: This just takes you to the Encampment menu with all its normal
options. This is always a safe place to rest; don't forget to memorise
your spells!
Hall: This is the Training Hall, necessary to level up characters and to
have Knights join the Sword and Rose Orders (see the Exploration and
Encampment section earlier in this guide).
Commandant: This is the Commandant's Office. Missions are assigned here,
similar to the Phlan Council building if you are familiar with Pool of
Radiance. If no new plot points are available, you will normally simply see
"The office is presently closed" followed by a reminder in the duty roster
of what missions are currently open.
Armoury: This is the outpost's only shop, where you buy weapons and armour.
All outposts have the following (rather crappy) assortment of items in
stock, with the following prices:
Hoopak: 2 steel
Ring Mail (AC 7): 8 steel
Leather Armour (AC 8): 1 steel
Shield: 1 steel
4 Darts: 1 steel
Mace: 2 steel
Quarter Staff: 1 steel
Long Sword: 7 steel
Short Bow: 10 steel
20 Arrows: 1 steel
Sling: 1 steel
Staff Sling: 1 steel
Diamond: 500 steel
The Diamond doesn't seem to do anything except cost money that I'm aware
of (it's like those items you could buy at the jeweller's in Pool of
Radiance that existed to store large amounts of money, but in this game's
case we have a Vault to deal with that problem). Yes, the armour choices
really are that bad; you're going to have to rely on battle spoils for the
most part to get decent armour (although there are armouries in other towns
that have a somewhat better selection). Make sure everyone has gear,
including armour and both a melee and ranged weapon (only Knights have any
starting gear, and even they need a ranged weapon). Also make sure you
ready your gear in your characters' inventory screens. The armoury, like
all shops, can also identify items for a fee and appraise your gems and
jewelry to turn them into steel pieces. (Note that if you refuse to sell a
gem or jewel immediately on appraisal, it becomes an inventory item, and
then you can only sell it for half price later on, so make sure you're
ready to take the money when you appraise!)
Vault: Here you can deposit excess steel pieces to keep the weight off your
characters. Note that unlike other Gold Box games that provide a vault, you
can only store money, not items, and you must deposit in lots of 100 steel
pieces. Whenever you withdraw money, 20 steel pieces will be taken out of
the amount as a bank cut.
Temple: The temple can appraise gems and identify items like a shop, but
rather than items, it sells healing services:
Cure Blindness: 500 steel
Cure Disease: 500 steel
Cure Light Wounds: 50 steel
Cure Serious Wounds: 175 steel
Cure Critical Wounds: 300 steel
Heal: 2500 steel
Neutralize Poison: 500 steel
Raise Dead: 2750 steel
Remove Curse: 1750 steel
Stone to Flesh: 1000 steel
These all work the same as the same-named spells (although many of these
are 5th level or higher spells, so your characters cannot cast them in
Champions and the temple is the only way to get them cast). "Heal" is a 6th
level Cleric spell that cures blindness and disease and leaves the target
within 4 HP of maximum. Raise Dead is the 5th level version, i.e., the one
that costs a point of Constitution permanently. Note that although Stone to
Flesh is offered, it is useless - there are no enemies in Champions of
Krynn which cause petrification. Interestingly, the prices shown are all
exactly half of what temples in the Forgotten Realms games charge: it would
appear that a steel piece is worth the same as 2 gold pieces in other
worlds.
Bar: You can hear Tavern Tales here. The Tavern Tales found in the outposts
flesh out the story, but contain no critical info. If you have too many
drinks, you will be told you woke up in the inn, which appears to have no
actual effect upon your party.
Another thing to keep in mind about outposts is that if you have one or
more Knights in your party, they will do a tithe to the orders whenever you
enter one. Knights of the Crown will do an actual, honest-to-gods tithe
(i.e., exactly 10% of their money) while Knights of the Sword and Rose go
much further, giving up all their cash except for 20 steel pieces. Keep
this in mind when divvying out treasure, especially large amounts of steel
you intend to drop off in the Vault, as well as gems and jewelry! Note
though that Knights will never tithe items, however valuable - just coins,
gems, and jewelry.
After you buy and equip gear and memorise spells, it's time to leave the
outpost and go to the overland map. Take a step towards Throtl (actually it
doesn't matter which direction you go right now) and you'll encounter a
group of draconians slaughtering a caravan. A small group of baaz attack
you, your first battle of the game. This will be easy unless you forgot to
buy gear or memorise spells. Afterwards, one surviving draconian remains.
Rather than attack you, he takes a book from a dead man (just WHY this guy
had this book, we never really do find out, particularly given what we
learn later that the book is for), then laughs at you and vanishes. Yeah,
we'll see more of this guy later (and be grateful he didn't decide to
attack you, why yes he is an aurak and why yes you would have got squished
like bugs at this level if he had).
The surviving women will want you to escort them back to the outpost, which
you should do, as you get bonus experience for doing so and there's no
benefit for not doing so. You'll be back in the outpost; visit the
Commandant's office for another scene, heal up if you need to, and then it
will be time to head to Throtl for real, as we need to find Caramon!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OVERLAND MAP #WK015
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The overland map is your primary means of traveling from place to place in
the game. You can encamp at any time; there is no entirely safe place to
rest on the overland map, though random encounters are not too frequent,
either. As a general rule, the further you get from the Throtl area that
you start the game in, the tougher the random encounters will be (although
tougher encounters are generally worth more XP, too). The furthest east
that you'll ever have to actually go is Neraka, so going further in that
direction is only for those desiring challenges and XP.
Except for Kernen, Sir Dargaard's Tomb, and the Ogre Base, every area on
the overland map can be entered at any time, whether or not you have a
mission that takes you there. However, in most cases, going to later areas
early will result in there being little to do but fight random encounters
and in the case of some areas shop. The areas on the overland map are as
follows:
OUTPOSTS: These are thre three small + shaped icons on the map. They all
provide the same services as the outpost you began the game at, except that
eventually the southernmost outpost will become a side mission area.
THROTL: This is the city marker in the NW forested area near the outpost
you began the game at. It is a hobgoblin city, and is your first mission
area. See the Throtl section of the walkthrough for more details.
GARGATH: This is the city marker located a little bit N of the middle
outpost. It is a fortress city with a keep. See the Gargath section of the
walkthrough for more details.
JELEK: THis is the city marker that is located just a little bit SW of the
middle outpost. It is a merchant town with a very large cemetery. See the
Jelek section of the walkthrough for more details.
NERAKA: This is the city marker located virtually dead centre on the map.
This was the site of the Foundation Stone that Takhisis attempted to use to
enter Krynn during the War of the Lance (the storyline of the Dragonlance
Chronicles trilogy and the associated AD&D pen and paper game modules). It
is largely a ruin, with an active base and prison located in the SE corner
of the city. See the Neraka section of the walkthrough for more details.
SANCTION: This is the southernmost city, located (story-wise; they do not
appear to be depicted on the actual overland map) among the volcanoes known
as the Lords of Doom. It consists of a dockside city area and two temples
(there are actually three large temples in Sanction in the Dragonlance
universe, but the Temple of Luerkhisis from the AD&D modules is not
accessible to the player in the computer game). See the Sanction section of
the walkthrough for more details.
KERNEN: This is an Ogre city located in the NE forest. Although there is a
map marker for it, it can never actually be entered from the overland map.
Attempting to do so will merely trigger an enormous battle with many types
of enemy, including dragons and draconians. This battle is extremely hard,
though not impossible, but if you do win it, you still won't be able to
enter Kernen. This is the site of the final encounters of the game (see the
Kernen section of the walkthrough for details).
SIR DARGAARD'S TOMB: The tomb of an ancient Knight of Solamnia, and the
site of a side mission. It is not marked on the map, and you cannot find
the tomb until you receive the mission to go there, even if you know where
it is.
OGRE BASE: A compound occupied by a large force of ogres. It is not marked
on the map, and you cannot find the base until you receive the side quest
that tells you to go there, even if you know where it is.
This early in the game, there are only two real purposes for venturing far
afield. Shops in Jelek and Sanction sell gear that is considerably better
than what is available in the outposts, but you probably won't be able to
afford much of it for a while (at least until you recover the first hidden
cache in Throtl that contains gems and jewelry, and even then some magic
items are still going to be out of reach).
The other reason to venture far afield early is to get Plate Mail. In order
to do this, you will want a Cleric who can cast Hold Person (i.e., a level
2 or higher Neutral Cleric or a level 3 or higher Good Cleric). Head to
Sanction after memorising Hold Person and rest for a very long time (at
least 12 hours, though you can set it to a day to be reasonably sure). You
will be interrupted by "swaggering mercenaries spoiling for a fight." These
are all 7th level Human enemies - the perfect target for Hold Person! They
all (except the Mages) also wear Plate Mail armour - the best nonmagical
armour in the game (apart from the Knight-only Solamnic Plate). It is a
while till you see more than a couple of suits of Plate Mail otherwise, so
this is a great way to improve your characters' equipment early on. Note
that you have to rest in order to trigger random encounters in Sanction
earlier in the game; the wandering patrols don't show up while walking
until you are given the mission to go there.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
THROTL CITY AND TEMPLE #WK016
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Throtl is a standard-sized area. The city consists of two sections: the
outer city, comprising the NW, SW, and SE quadrants, and the temple which
is found in the NE quadrant. Both sections share the same coordinates and
area map, but are separate for purposes of random encounters (i.e., moving
between the city and temple will cause the number of possible random fights
to reset), and you won't be able to find the secret doors that lead into
the temple (at 7,6 and 12,9) until you have completed the primary mission
in the outer city.
You enter Throtl at 7,15. If you are not familiar with the coordinates used
in Gold Box games, it is East/South based. In other words, 0,0 is the NW
corner of the area (not always actually accessible by the player, though it
is in Throtl), the first number is the number of spaces east of that point,
and the second number the number of spaces south. Since Throtl is a
standard-sized area, 7,15 means we enter the dungeon at the middle of the
southern edge of the map.
Are you surprised that it's guarded? Me neither. You can leave if you like,
but you won't be able to get anywhere in the game until you do decide to
fight. This battle is a simple slugfest, as there are no spellcasters or
draconians, just a bunch of hobgoblins and a few 3rd level human fighters.
If you have Sleep and Hold Person and really want to use them, it'll make
things go faster, though.
Get used to the loot sucking because it's pretty much the way of things
most of the time in this game. You'll probably end up leaving the vast
majority of it to rust on the ground (especially since generic nonmagical
gear also sells quite poorly, the most valuable such item being Plate Mail
and even that only sells for 50 steel pieces apiece). However, the Scale
Mail is nonetheless a slight upgrade (AC 6) over the Ring Mail that was
available in the outpost, and you might want to loot some of the melee
weapons to use as backups in case someone's weapon gets taken away by a
dying baaz. You now have access to the rest of the city of Throtl, at any
rate.
As mentioned earlier in the guide, most areas of the game provide only a
limited number of places to rest that are completely safe, and Throtl is no
exception. In addition, many times you will have to win a fight in a
particular room before you have a safe place to rest, and this is also the
case in Throtl. As befits a first dungeon, the random encounters here are
quite easy. The only things to really watch out for are the spellcaster
enemies (Black Robe Mage and Cleric, both 3rd level single-classed Humans)
and the giant centipedes which are easy to kill, but if you don't kill them
quickly or are unlucky, they can kill you with poison. (There are two
Cleric scrolls with two Neutralize Poison spells each in the loot you'll
find shortly that you can use to quickly revive a character if this should
happen.)
As a first order of business, let's get a safe place to rest. After taking
what you want from the guards, head to the east, where you can most quickly
reach one of the three small rooms in the city that are fully safe. As you
reach 10,15 you will encounter a man gibbering with fear (Journal Entry
#38). As far as I know you never see this guy again, I'm presuming he gets
killed somewhere in the city or wilderness after running away, poor guy.
Ignore the next two doors you encounter and go to the third (you should be
at 13,13 looking east). It is locked, but can be easily bashed or picked.
You enter a small room (14,13) where a Cleric is opening a chest. He and
his undead minions (a few skeletons) attack immediately. This battle is
easy as long as you remember that the Cleric needs to be damaged every
round (use bows, since he starts in the far corner of the room behind the
skeletons) in order not to let him cast a spell (which will be Hold Person,
as will be the case with most of the Clerics you encounter in this game as
noted in the combat strategy section). After the fight, check the loot
carefully. You can throw a Detect Magic, but in most cases, since regular
enemies in this game never have magical items, any magical items you find
in loot after a combat will be at the bottom of the list so you can simply
look there. The first three items in the list here are the cleric's gear
(the Chain Mail is an upgrade (AC 5) - in fact, except for your Knight's
starter Plate Mail, it's probably the best armour you'll have at this
point), the second shield listed is a Shield +1, the Potion is of Healing,
and the Cleric scrolls always come with 2 Neutralize Poison spells each.
Treasure these scrolls; chances are you'll need them every now and then
before any of your clerics are high enough level to cast the spell yourself
and they avoid a tedious and costly (500 steel) trip back to the temple to
revive a poisoned character.
Rest, memorise any spells you may have used so far and save the game. Now
you have a base of operations to explore from. It is usually possible to
rest for a short period (to do a Fix or memorise a few spells) in most
parts of Throtl city, but the only absolutely safe places are here and two
other small rooms (the three safe havens, for reference, are at 14,13,
1,11, and 0,3). Note that if you were to go to one of the other two safe
rooms first, you would encounter the Cleric and this loot there instead,
but you will only have this encounter once at any rate.
Your ultimate goal is the NW quadrant of the city, but let's finish
exploring the southern parts first. Just south of the room you fought the
Cleric in, in the trianglish room in the SE corner of the city, is a room
with draconians in it. You can either attack immediately to gain surprise
or you can eavesdrop to get some info, followed by battle. This battle is
not much different from the one you fought when you first entered Throtl,
except that there are a couple of baaz in the mix this time; the fight
should be just as easy.
Continuing along the southeastern main corridor, at 15,11 you will find out
that there has been a battle here recently, and the remains indicate that a
Solamnic Knight was here (possibly Strangbourn who you'll encounter later,
but the heraldic device being left behind suggests an unnamed Knight who
may not have survived the battle). The corridor ends at 9,12 with a door to
the north; entering this room causes you to encounter clerics and some
hobgoblins. Some flee through the SW wall (take note of this) and you get
to either fight or flee. Of course you should fight, another easy battle
but make sure you keep the two Clerics (also 3rd level) from casting. This
also secures two more sets of Chain Mail armour upgrades for the party.
Afterwards, I bet you want to check out that southwestern wall - yup, it's
illusionary, and the room at 8,12 has a nice stash of money and even more
XP. (Treasure is worth XP in Gold Box games, and often, as here, more XP
than the fights in the area themselves are worth.) Continuing through the
door, it closes behind you, and "there's no door on this side of the wall."
There are a few such one-way doors in the game, which are normal doors from
the one side but solid walls on the other.
You are now in the main north to south corridor that runs up and down the
centre of the Throtl map. Ahead of you is an archway that leads into the
SW quadrant, so go forward and now there is only one way to go until you
hit 0,11 where there is a door to the side leading into a small room (one
of the safe resting rooms as noted earlier). Apart from this, there are
only two rooms of note in this quadrant: the trianglish room in the very
SW corner, which is a "well furnished study" but despite the fact that this
might suggest to you that it's an important room (and it will be), you
can't find anything here right now, no matter how much you search, and the
small room at 3,13 which has flavour text as a storage room for old coffins
but otherwise has nothing of note.
We are now done with the southern half of Throtl except for the two large
rooms to the west and east immediately north of the entrance. The western
room contains rats and skeletons, while the eastern one contains a group of
hobgoblins talking about something called "the Plan." Whatever you try here
you're going to be fighting some hobgoblins.
Now all that is left is to head towards the NW quadrant, in which the real
plot of the main part of Throtl City takes place. (The corridor leading
east from the central cross-shaped room, which is also where you wind up if
you were to take the north door from the room with the illusionary wall
earlier, is a dead end. Or is it? Well, for now it's a dead end at least.
Also, you may have noticed a few small 1x1 rooms in the SE quadrant that
you couldn't get into - these rooms are in fact inaccessible.) Follow the
main corridor all the way north, and then take the door leading westwards.
At 5,1 some arrows will be shot at you and most likely one or two of your
characters will take minor damage (this is quite random - my guess is it's
actually an attack roll made vs. the characters' AC).
At 4,0 you'll run into a soldier (Journal Entry #35). The tale about the
loot in the south central area actually is true (that was 8,12 with the gem
and cash stash) but there should seem something odd about this tale. It
really doesn't matter in the end though because no matter what you do you
will have to fight him and his hobgoblin buddies. If you let him join now,
he will fight on your side for a short while but then turn on you at 2,6;
if you refuse him, you will fight him here. The fight is not very hard but
the soldier does have a large amount of HP (7th level fighter) and has an
AC of 1 so can be somewhat hard to hit. His level also is too high for the
Sleep spell to be effective, so the only way you might reasonably have to
make him Helpless at this point is possibly the Hold Person spell. Charm
would work, too, but then you miss out on his loot (and it's good loot at
this point). Backstabbing with a Thief is a good idea too. The soldier has
a suit of Plate Mail (AC 3), the first such suit you will normally come
across in the game.
In the far northwestern corner there is nothing else of note except for
the third safe haven mentioned earlier. The cross-shaped room south of the
soldier features a dead-fall trap at 4,2, which can be disarmed by a Thief
for a small amount of XP, otherwise it hurts you.
In the large room towards the middle of the quadrant (vicinity of 2,3), you
will encounter the Kender Thief, Kildirf, who will offer to join you
(Journal Entry #82). He's a good guy so let him join, and don't forget to
ready his Hoopak. Oddly enough, he's Chaotic Good, which isn't available to
player character Thieves ... At 2,5 you'll encounter a pit trap, with the
additional complication that falling in results in a fight with giant rats
and skeletons. At 4,6 you'll find a library; search each of the two side
rooms for the game's first two Mage scrolls (one White and one Red). At 2,6
you have to fight the soldier from earlier if you didn't already, after
which you'll encounter the Knight, Larcent Strangbourn (Journal Entry #67).
He's also a good guy, so take him with you. It's a good idea now to encamp
and change your party order (NPCs joining the party are always placed at
the bottom of the roster, and as Larcent is a melee tank he should be moved
to the top). After he joins he gives you more background (Journal Entry
#7).
At 0,8 is another trap, but Strangbourn will set it off harmlessly if he is
with you (note that this gives no XP, and causes the Cleric led group in
the adjacent room to be alerted just as if you set off the trap yourself.
Only by refusing Strangbourn and having a thief successfully disarm this
trap would you actually manage to gain the XP and not alert this group).
The room to the north (0,7) contains a Cleric led group of hobgoblins and
baaz, who will probably be alert to you as noted earlier. Heading south
takes you through an empty room and then to 3,9 where a group of enemies
"ambush" you (despite this description, it's entirely possible to have the
initiative here, which is a very good thing since the group features two
Clerics and a Black Robe Mage!). The door to the south is locked, leading
to a horseshoe shaped room, and in the southeastern nook (6,11) you will
finally encounter Caramon! (Journal Entry #73) You also meet Maya for the
first time (Journal Entry #9). After this everyone leaves, including
Strangbourn and Kildirf if either or both joined you. (These two will also
leave you if you leave Throtl for any reason before rescuing Caramon.) The
northeastern door leads to another small room with another one of those one
way doors, when you get back out to 7,9 you find an odd scene of frozen
corpses. This is a clue to someone's true identity that you'll learn of
later.
Remember that "well-furnished study" from earlier in the southwesternmost
corner of the city? Well, now it's not an empty room at all - you'll now
find a Cleric and undead (skeletons and zombies). This Cleric is actually
an "Evil Curate" meaning he's level 5, but he is not really any tougher
than the others. As you probably have enough Chain Mail by now there is no
useful normal loot, but you do get the key to Throtl Temple! This lets you
see and use the secret doors at 7,6 and 12,9, which are otherwise closed to
you, even if you know their location.
Now is a good time to return to the outpost to identify your magical items
and train, as you're about to enter the Temple of Throtl, which while part
of the same map as the city, has its own set of random encounters as noted
earlier, so there is no longer a reason to worry about relinquishing the
benefit of being able to wander the city without further random fights (you
probably have exhausted the city area's random encounters long before
this). Additionally, since characters left too long without training lose
excess XP, you don't want to leave off on training for too long. You
probably also need to restock on arrows by now. If you visit the
Commandant's office, Sir Karl will tell you he has sent Caramon to report,
but it isn't necessary to see this exchange in order to progress; the
mission is to continue to investigate Throtl which is what you would have
done anyway. By now, as well, all Cleric/Fighter/Mages in particular should
be able to use 2nd level Clerical spells, so you may want to make that side
trip to Sanction to acquire Plate Mail armour for everyone.
When you're ready, return to Throtl city and go to the more southerly of
the two secret doors (the one at 12,9 - follow the main corridor north to
the cross-shaped room and then head east). The key will automatically glow
to indicate the presence of the secret door and you can then head straight
on in. There's no need to use the Search command.
Upon entering the temple, you see a message about heavy magical wards being
set in the area. The only one of these wards that actually has a
discernible effect is that you cannot proceed to the catacombs (via 9,0) if
you do not first clear out the main encounter (12,7) in the temple. If you
try, you can go as far as the stairs but will be told that there is a field
blocking your way and that you can't get by.
There are a large number of potential random encounters in the temple,
although the encounter rate is sparse (you will have to either be unlucky
or really wander around a lot to exhaust the fights here). There is also no
safe place to rest until you have cleared the main battle in the altar room
therefore it is a very good idea to proceed straight there. Head east
around the structure in front of you as you enter (which is in fact the
altar area, but you can only enter it from the north), ignoring the door to
the south. At 15,5 you encounter a Cleric and undead, including your first
ghouls. Be careful, since not only can the Cleric cast Hold Person, but a
hit from a ghoul can cause Helpless as well. However, ghouls are still
quite easy to Turn, so only the Cleric should be of any worry. Ignore the
door here too and turn west, continuing around the altar structure. When
you reach the door at the north end of this structure, head south to enter
the temple of Takhisis (12,4) where you will have an encounter with baaz,
who should be old hat by now. After this, an overconfident comment. Did
they REALLY think that BAAZ were sufficient to take care of intruders who
got this far?? The large central room of the temple is empty, so enter the
altar alcove (12,7).
A scene occurs where a spell is attempted and fails, killing a number of
bad guys. Yay. Then you're seen and have to fight the rest of the group.
Double yay. Three Clerics (one of whom is one of the 5th level type) and
three Mages, all of whom can give you a very very bad day if they are able
to cast their spells, so use Sleep and Hold Person liberally to keep them
from doing that and you'll be OK unless you are unlucky. The loot contains
two magical items: a Flail +1 and a Potion of Extra Healing. The altar
alcove is also the only safe place to rest in the Throtl Temple.
Now that you have a base of operations, it's time to explore the rest of
the rooms in the temple:
* The southeastern corner (15,7) features a single cleric. You can let him
go or threaten him. Threatening him results in binding and gagging him
which prevents him from warning the others (if you let him go, you can
find yourself at a disadvantage in other encounters in the temple). There
is also information in this room (Journal Entry #10).
* The northeasternmost room (15,2) contains Clerics and baaz. You surprise
them, so you have a chance to parlay, but if you try to, the Clerics will
have wanted to talk but the baaz will force a fight anyway. Either way,
you fight them. Easy peasy by now. After the fight there is more info
(Journal Entry #50), the first mention of Myrtani, a name that will get
quite common during your adventure, and who appears to be a draconian
(you might already have the feeling he's the aurak who skipped out on you
after that very first fight of the game).
* At 8,6 you'll be surprised (no way to avoid that fact) by an undead group
led by a Cleric. This can suck, since it means the Cleric gets a free
turn without you being able to do anything about it, I hope you make that
save against his Hold Person. There is also a ghoul among the undead, who
can cause Helpless with a hit. You should be fine unless you are really
unlucky, and if someone is KO'd, head back to 12,7 to rest up. This is
where you end up if you use the other secret door to get into the temple
which is why we chose specifically the one we did.
* The southwestern room (8,7 - you need to fight the above ambush first)
contains a number of humans, who can be parlayed with if you like (if you
pick Sly you get some more info, another mention of Myrtani). If it comes
to a fight there are four spell casters so take care not to let things
get out of control.
Now it's time to head to the catacombs, which are entered through the NW
area of the temple. At 9,2 you will encounter some draconians, some of whom
stop to fight you and the rest carry dragon eggs onwards towards the stairs
to the catacombs. The fight is with a group of baaz even smaller than the
one at 12,4. At 8,1 you encounter another 5th level Cleric and some zombies
which is not a hard fight. If you try to parlay the zombies will simply
close the distance and attack (which is actually a good thing because they
don't gain surprise from it, and it makes it easier to hit the Cleric with
ranged attacks). There is magical loot here, 10 Arrows +1 and a Potion of
Speed. (Note that the fights at 9,2 and 8,1, unlike the other encounters in
the temple, will not appear until you've had the big fight at 12,7.)
The next dungeon is long and very linear, making it a tedious hike indeed
to exit once you are inside. It is a good idea, therefore, to go back now
to the outpost one more time to train and identify items. By now your
Knight should have enough XP to become a Knight of the Sword. When you are
ready, head to 9,0 and head on down into the Throtl Catacombs.
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THROTL CATACOMBS #WK017
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The Throtl catacombs are a long and almost entirely linear area. Neither
the area map nor coordinates are available here but there is little need
for a map in any case as there is almost always only one way to go.
There is no fully safe place to rest until you have encountered the small
room with loot that includes the magical Bracers and Hoopak. This room is
also the only entirely safe place to rest. As in the city and temple, there
is a fairly good chance of managing a short rest or a Fix in places that
aren't completely safe, but there is always a chance of being found by
enemies.
As you enter, you hear sounds that distinctly indicate the place is far
from deserted. Your very first step forward will place you in a battle with
Fighters and two Black Robe Mages, with the promise of further encounters
as others were sent onward to warn the rest of the catacombs (not that it
matters, since there is only one way to go for most of the dungeon so there
would be meetings and of course presumably battles anyway).
Continuing on, the next room you enter is a battle with a Cleric and minor
undead, after which you receive info (Journal Entry #84). A Dragonlance is
somewhere in the region! In the next corridor continue straight (the side
path only describes a loop). You eventually will come to a small room where
baaz are attempting to carry eggshells out of the room. Of course the right
thing to do is to attack. As with so many of the draconian encounters
you've had so far it's just another group of baaz with no problem enemies
of any sort to back them up. In the next room are a group of Fighters and
Clerics with one Mage who are arguing. Nothing you haven't defeated before
so just abuse Hold Person here, especially since the next room is a safe
place to rest. After the fight you get a map of Gargath Keep (Journal Entry
#72). Go into the next room, where you find a cache of steel, a couple of
gems, and four items, all magical. The Hoopak is your first +2 weapon, and
only your second magical weapon in the game. I hope you brought a Kender in
your party. The Wand is of Ice Storm spells, which are very useful as they
penetrate Minor Globes and the damage cannot be reduced in any way (except
for blanket magic resistance such as that possessed by draconians). In
addition, this Wand can be used by anyone, whether or not they are a Mage
(note however that wands are hand-held items and unlike some of the Gold
Box games this one actually enforces this: if you are using a two-handed
weapon or a weapon and shield, you'll need to unready something to be able
to use the wand). However, like all wands, it has a limited number of uses
after which it disappears, additionally in the Gold Box games there is no
way to recharge a wand. The Bracers are of AC 6, and really only useful if
you have a character who is a pure Mage or Thief or a multiclass of just
those two classes, however, Bracers do sell well so you should definitely
take them even if you have no use for them. The Potion is of Invisibility.
This treasure room is your only safe place to rest, so get the white and
red moons to full and memorise all possible spells before continuing.
Continuing along the corridor you will find a side door to your right which
leads into a 1x1 room with two other such rooms off to its sides. The
western of these rooms contains a fight with giant rats and skeletons,
while the eastern room is a heavily disused closet. Despite its appearance,
it is not a fully safe place to rest. After checking out these rooms (or
not, as the rat and skeleton fight isn't even really worth it - a party of
six gains 7 whole XP per character from it. Wow!) continue eastwards along
the main corridor. Soon you will find a door to your left, but the 2x2 room
is empty so go forward and around the bend to the next door, which
continues through a small room to a 2x2 room with piles of bones and the
glint of metal. Searching finds a suit of Chain Mail, which turns out to be
+1. If you have Plate Mail from Sanction, it's not an upgrade, but being
magical it still fetches a nice price at a shop so pick it up anyway. Going
out the south door, the branch to the east is just a small dead-end nook so
again go forward to enter a larger room with a similar description to the
one you just left. This time, however, a search just reveals a fight with
giant rats and skeletons.
After this the corridor twists and turns, but there is only one way to go.
Eventually the wall decor changes, and soon after that you encounter an
unusual light show which can be recognised as an illusion. You then have
a fight with cannon fodder melee enemies plus two Black Robe Mages that
need to be disabled quickly. They start at range, so be careful of the
range of your spells before trying Magic Missile or Hold Person. If you do
not recognise the illusion, then these enemies will get surprise on you,
which can get ugly quickly. The loot from this battle includes some gems
and jewelry, as well as a Potion of Healing and a Ring of Protection +1.
Rings of Protection give a bonus to all saving throws and to AC, however,
the AC bonus is only granted if the character is not wearing magical armour
(shields, cloaks, etc., that improve AC but aren't actually suits of armour
don't affect this, nor does nonmagical armour, including Solamnic Plate).
Take the western door out of this room and continue along the only corridor
to hear yet more voices - it seems that the dragon eggs are being rushed
out of the catacombs tonight (Note that, true to computer RPG form, despite
the mention of "tonight" you can go back to the earlier safe room or even
all the way back to the outpost and rest for months and still nothing will
have changed here ...) There is also mention of a white dragon. Going
around the corner, you encounter the group of enemies who were talking.
They have a Cleric and a Mage with them, so neutralise these spellcasters
before dealing with the melee fighters.
After this, the corridor goes a little westwards before continuing south,
but first there are doors to the west and east. The eastern door passes
through a few rooms with flavour text but no loot or fixed encounters
before describing a loop with the main passage. The northwestern door leads
only to an empty room. To continue, go through the door to the west at the
southern end of the hallway. Once again there is only one way to go. When
you reach the 2x2 room, the northeastern door leads to a 1x1 room that is a
dead end, so go northwest and continue along the passage until you reach a
cavernous area. Evil creatures head south, but none stop to fight you at
this point. Soon you hear footsteps in the distance and the roar of a large
beast. Here the southern passage is a dead end so take the northern one.
You will hear various talk from unseen enemies as you head west. Eventually
you'll reach a choke point where you have to fight a large group of humans
and hobgoblins. Strategically, here it's best to choose to attack at once,
which causes the enemies to start a fair distance away. As a result, the
two Mages don't have line of sight on you at the start of the fight and you
can remain at your starting location (you should line everyone up into a
solid group though, since you start in a checkerboard formation) while the
melee enemies come up to be slaughtered, and then deal with the Mages at
the end.
(As a general rule in Gold Box games, Mage enemies don't like to move from
the location they began battle in; therefore, if they lack LoS on you, they
normally won't approach you of their own accord, which allows you to
determine the terms of engagement.)
After this you hear the sounds of enemies starting to get afraid. Go
further down the passage and follow it as it turns north, and you will come
to a westward leading corridor that leads to the back gate of the
catacombs. You encounter some hobgoblins, and two white dragons accompany
them. These are young white dragons but they are a dangerous force
nonetheless. Remember that dragon breath deals the dragon's MAXIMUM HP in
damage regardless of their current state, so either use the dance tactic or
focus on one to take it out quickly. They are NOT immune to cold, so the
Wand of Ice Storm works well. There are gems in the treasure, but no magic
items. You then have the option to let the remaining hobgoblins go or to
attack them; if you attack, they will surrender immediately without a
fight.
Exit the gate to the west, and return to the outpost to heal up, train, and
identify/sell magical items. When you next visit the Commandant's office,
you meet up with Sir Karl who instructs you to go to the outpost near
Gargath and to investigate the city of Gargath. The mission to Jelek will
also be added silently to your duty roster (you will see it, and oddly
enough NOT the Gargath mission yet, if you enter the Commandant's office
for a second time at this point).
At this point I also recommend that you discard any leftover Sleep spells
after this point as you will start encountering fewer and fewer enemies
that it is useful on (enemies of 5 hit dice or greater, or 5th level and
higher, are immune to Sleep). You should have 2nd level Mage spells by now,
even if you are using triple-classed Mages, so memorise Stinking Clouds in
your bonus spell slots instead as an area disable spell. Once this is done,
head east to the next outpost.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SECOND OUTPOST #WK018
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The services here are the same as those at the first outpost, right down to
the same substandard selection of armour at the armoury. Go to the
Commandant's office and Sir Karl comments further, telling you to go to
Gargath and elaborating that there is a rumour of a hidden Dragonlance
there. (This is the same rumour you found in the Cleric's notes back in the
Throtl catacombs.) He also mentions that there is a Solamnic agent who can
help you there.
Entering the Commandant's office for a second time, Sir Karl will ask you
for a favour, a silver rose from a bush that grows in Jelek.
You can go to either Gargath or Jelek now, but Gargath is quite a lot
easier and has some useful loot, so it's a good idea to go there first.
There are also three side missions you can trigger at this point by
repeatedly exiting and re-entering this outpost (it takes about 6 re-
entries to start triggering the side missions). The missions are given one
at a time as you re-enter the outpost once you trigger them.
The first is Sir Dargaard's Tomb (Journal Entry #18). Note that the map
provided in the journal entry is inaccurate: the tomb is in fact 2 squares
due NW of the outpost, not a "knight's move" away like indicated on the
map.
The second is the Ogre Base (Journal Entry #62). Again the map is one
square off: the base is actually 2 squares due east of Gargath.
The third is the southern outpost side mission. This is the third outpost
as located on your overland map (even though you are also given a map to
it: Journal Entry #86).
These side quests can be done at any time before you finish the Temple of
Duerghast. I will list them in this walkthrough at the points that I chose
to do them personally in my most recent playthrough of the game. Beware
that they can be somewhat difficult, and that the Ogre Base and southern
outpost missions largely each have to be done in a single trip.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SIR DARGAARD'S TOMB #WK019
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can only find the entrance to this tomb once you have been told by Sir
Karl in the outpost and given the map in Journal Entry 18. Once you have
the location of the tomb you may do this mission anytime you want until the
point of no return (within the Temple of Duerghast, and noted quite clearly
at that point of the walkthrough), and in fact the area is completely
optional. However, there are useful items to be found in this tomb and a
large amount of bonus XP for your Knight, so it's a good idea to come here
as soon as you feel like you can do the mission. You may leave and re-enter
the tomb an unlimited number of times during the course of this mission
without failing it.
Sir Dargaard's Tomb is a standard-sized area in which coordinates and an
area map are available. There are no random encounters unless you either
piss off the tomb spirits or you complete the mission. The former results
in frequent battles with spectral minions who can be quite a handful (they
cannot be Turned, require magical weapons to hit, and while they don't have
any abilities beyond a basic melee attack, they are QUITE good at that.
N.B.: None of the normal battles in the tomb need magical weapons, only the
spectral minions). The latter results in the tomb getting invaded by
draconians, who may then attack you at random on your way out.
The tomb spirits will become angry only if you refuse to correctly comply
with the terms of the tests of Knighthood found in the tomb. If you do make
them angry, they will become peaceful again and give you another chance if
you leave the tomb and reenter.
A Knight (of any order) is REQUIRED in order to complete this mission, you
can't pass the tests without one. You also may not rest anywhere in the
tomb AT ALL until you have finished the quest. You will not be attacked,
but rather have nightmares and wake up screaming, preventing you from doing
even a Fix or the simplest memorisation of spells. (Yup, I know, your party
has suddenly become grade-A cowards ... you could sleep just fine in the
icky Throtl catacombs, but an honoured Knight's tomb gives you nightmares?
Eesh. But that's how it is.) If you need to rest, exit the tomb and come
back afterwards.
Sir Dargaard's tomb itself is located at the southeastern corner of the
area (13,15), but if you try to go there immediately, after finding a group
of dead, terrified draconians at 9,12, you will find upon reaching 11,12
that a tomb spirit will order you to turn back and take the tests of Fear,
Honour, and Battle before continuing. Failure to comply with this request
will piss off the spectral minions, and even if you have a party strong
enough to fight through many groups of them, you will find that the door at
12,15 is locked tight when you get there - the only way to reach the tomb
really is to pass the tests.
Thus, we learn that there are three tests. Completing each test will give
your Knight an XP bonus (a useful thing, given how slowly Knights advance</pre><pre id="faqspan-4">
compared to other classes). The tests of Honour and Fear involve no combat,
and can be done by even the weakest party without trouble (provided of
course that you have the required Knight); the test of Battle can prove
challenging if you attempt it early. A party with a lot of warrior types,
especially if you got the Plate Mail from Sanction, can complete the entire
tomb right after finishing Throtl, while a weaker party may want to hold
off on it for a bit.
The NW quadrant is entirely irrelevant to the quest. (By the way, there is
a secret door leading between 0,6 and 0,7 which, interestingly, does not
appear to be detectable at all except by simply attempting to walk through
it ...) If you enter that part of the tomb, a spirit voice will say that
you have entered the treasure rooms and that you are ordered to take
nothing. The voice means it - trying to take any of the treasures (1,3,
2,1, or 5,3) will both trigger a grievous trap AND will piss off the tomb
spirits. On top of that, the treasures are all fake, so you gain nothing
for it either. It is simply a waste of time to visit this area, as none of
the tests actually rely on you visiting the treasure rooms to decline the
false loot.
And so, on to the tests:
* The test of Fear is the simplest, and is located east of the central hub.
At 9,8 a spirit voice informs you that you have entered the test; as you
proceed you will encounter rings of fire at 9,11, 14,10, and 14,5. To
pass the test, simply have a Knight step into each ring as you reach it;
when he or she enters the third ring it will heal him or her to full, and
the test is complete. Any other class entering the rings will simply take
damage and won't fulfill the test requirements. There is nothing else in
this part of the tomb except for a couple of atmospheric text lines. The
one side room at 11,9 is empty.
* The test of Honour takes up most of the NE quadrant. Going north and
entering the room at the end of the corridor (9,4) provides an encounter
with another informational spirit who tells you that you have entered the
test. The next room (10,4) is the first test. You will be asked if you
want to give your money, items, life, all three, or nothing. The test is
passed as long as you choose an answer that gives up at least SOMETHING
(in other words, you fail and piss off the tomb spirits only if you pick
"nothing" or if you pick "money" while not carrying any coin). However,
it's as bad idea to choose "items" or "all three" as both will result in
some of your gear being stripped away, which sucks because this will
probably include one or more magical items - and magical items in
Champions are mostly one-shot deals. If you choose "life" one of your
characters will be reduced to negative hit points and need to be healed
to avoid bleeding out (note that you will need a spell handy to do this,
as the Bandage command isn't available outside of combat!). If you choose
"money" all cash you are carrying will be stripped from you, but anything
you left behind in the outpost vaults will not be affected.
Continuing along the only path in this area, at 14,3 you will encounter a
tomb spirit who has two long swords and tells you that if you take them,
you can only go forward. You are also ordered to take only the sword on
the right, which is what you should do (not only will taking the sword on
the left - or both swords - piss off the tomb spirits, but the sword on
the left is a cursed berserking sword. A character wielding a berserking
sword cannot be controlled in battle and will attack both enemy and
friend, much like the similar effect caused by the Confusion spell; the
sword can only be unreaded by casting a Remove Curse spell on the user.
You don't want this item). The sword purports to be +5, but interestingly
if you try to equip it you'll notice that it doesn't actually give any
magical bonuses. It doesn't matter because you won't have it for very
long anyway.
If you try to turn back now, when you reach 13,1 a spirit will tell you
that you must turn back (i.e., continue the test of Honour) because the
sword can only be used to complete the test. If you do not heed this
order, you will piss off the tomb spirits (and as noted above, it's
actually not even really a +5 sword even though it claims to be), so go
forward to 9,2 where you will be shown a man cornered by dogs and be
asked if you would give him the sword you just received (I'm guessing
that the "dogs" must be hell hounds or the like, given the spirit's
mention of the situation being so dire even if the man does get a
weapon). Do so and you pass the test of Honour.
* The SW quadrant consists of the test of Battle. At 1,8 a spirit voice
will tell you that you have entered the test. Note that you can (and
probably should after the first of these battles in particular) exit this
test in the middle in order to leave the tomb to rest and heal - the
spirit's admonition only means that once you reach a battle location you
can't flee or you will fail the test. Once again, there are no random
encounters in the tomb before you complete it if you do not piss off the
spirits, so do not worry about that - the test of Battle only consists of
three fixed combats.
At 4,10 a group of skeletons triggers a dead-fall trap. Ow. The damage
looks to be about half your HP rather than a fixed amount or a dice roll.
After this you must fight or you will fail the test. These skeletons are
skeletal Knights. They have many more HP and hit quite a bit harder than
ordinary skeletons, and are much more difficult to Turn, but apart from
this (and dropping a nonmagical Long Sword apiece) they have no special
properties compared to regular skeletons.
In the next room the 2x2 room to the east is empty while the door in the
SW corner leads to a small room at 3,15 which features a battle with
mobats, giant rats, and giant centipedes. This battle is much easier; you
do not get hurt before battle, there are only three mobats, and they are
nowhere near as tough as skeletal knights. Do try to clear out the
centipedes quickly as there are several of them and they do have that
small chance of poisoning you.
At the end of the line you reach the large room at 1,12, the final battle
of the test of Battle. This is a fight with four skeletal dragons. They
look fearsome at first but they are really not as hard as they look. They
have a lot of HP and a very good AC, cannot be turned, and their bite can
hit quite hard (their claw attacks are not particularly terrible) if it
connects, but they also have poor THAC0s and therefore tend to miss most
of the time, especially if you are wearing Plate Mail. They also do not
have a breath weapon, or indeed any special attacks beyond the typical 3
dragon melee attacks per round. After you defeat them, you have passed
the test of Battle.
Now that you have completed all three tests, you may return to the room at
11,12 where the spirits will now let you through. A fourth and final test
remains, the two "quizzes" at 12,13 and 9,13, but there is no actual
challenge to the player - you merely need to select a Knight to answer the
questions to pass the test. You can now proceed through to 13,15, the crypt
itself where you meet the spirit of Sir Dargaard and receive a few very
nice items: a Long Sword +2 and Girdle of Giant Strength (bestows a
Strength of 21 when readied) that any character can use, and six suits of
Solamnic Plate, the best nonmagical armour in the game with a base AC of 0,
that can only be used by Knights. The spirits now fall silent, and you can
attempt to rest in the tomb from here on out. However, draconians will take
advantage of the spirits' departure to invade, and the moment you step
outside of the crypt (12,15), you will be attacked by a group of
draconians. This is a small group of kapak and bozak draconians and may be
your first encounter with either. Try to finish the kapaks quickly since a
hit from one can make a character Helpless, and to ensure you damage the
bozaks every round as they are spell casters. You may also have random
encounters with draconians throughout the tomb after this point.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
GARGATH CITY #WK020
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Gargath City is a standard-sized area. Coordinates and the area map feature
are available. When you enter, you will be confronted by a set of guards
and you can choose to either leave, fight, or claim to be tradesmen (i.e.,
bluff). If the latter, the guards look suspicious and you will get a second
chance to confirm whether you want to bluff, or again you may decide to
just leave or attack. When you continue to bluff, you will be asked to
select a character to speak for you. I am presuming that the character's
Charisma score affects this (one of the few times in the Gold Box games
where Charisma has a use). Gargath is a fairly easy area when it comes to
managing to rest, as long as you are indoors, it is unlikely that you will
be interrupted unless you really take a long time. On the other hand,
though, there is no fully safe place to rest in the city at all - you may
even be interrupted and attacked in the INN if you rest for too long.
After defeating the guards or successfully bluffing you will be in the
small gate house room at the south end of the map. Take the north doors to
proceed into the city.
When you enter the city (assuming that you have finished Throtl, which you
need to have done to be able to actually do anything of import in Gargath;
if you have not, most of the fixed encounters won't occur and you won't be
able to get into Gargath Keep either as the needed secret doors will not
show up) you will encounter a townsman who will mention Sir Karl (Journal
Entry #48). You should follow him. He will explain himself (Journal Entry
#26) and ask you to put on hoods, which will allow you to blend into the
crowd. You get more information (Journal Entry #43) when you put on the
hoods, and are told you can get even more info from the tavern, which is
just beyond the inn to the west. Apparently the rumours are quite well
circulated - and it won't be as easy to get into the Keep as it might be
on a normal day.
The inn is at 8,10, and is a somewhat but not completely safe to rest
place, like everywhere else in Gargath. At the tavern, just west of the
gate at 5,12, the drink is terrible, but unlike most taverns in the game,
the pub talk (Tavern Tale #56) is actually a useful clue. It's a unit
number that you can use later in town and it will help you gain surprise in
a major fight. The 1x1 room you can see on the area map next to the
L shaped tavern is inaccessible.
If you chose not to go to Sanction to obtain Plate Mail for everyone,
you'll start to get the next best thing in Gargath: the Elven Clerics (5th
level) in the random encounters drop Banded Mail (AC 4) which is almost as
good (also, it allows you a movement rate of 9, while nonmagical Plate Mail
limits you to a maximum movement rate of 6). Take note that 5th level
enemies are immune to Sleep spells, and that charm spells are virtually
useless against Elves as they will almost always resist; the only disabling
spell you should consider using on them at this point is Hold Person.
Stinking Cloud is useful too, but it's easier to maintain a supply of Hold
Person spells as Clerics with high Wisdom can memorise several copies of
Hold Person at this point, while Mages, especially multiclass Mages, may
need to be using their bonus spell slots to carry more than one Stinking
Cloud, and as there is no fully safe place to rest in Gargath, you
definitely don't have time to reset the moons if one wanes and you need
more spells, so try to ration your Stinking Cloud spells until you reach
Gargath Keep.
Neither of the two buildings on the western side of town contains anything
special, even though the door in the inside room in the SW building is
locked. The small SE building is also a locked door behind which there is
nothing of note.
The buildings at 11,10 and 13,6 are both barracks. At 11,10, you are given
the opportunity to attack, leave, or parlay. If you attempt to parlay you
will be asked to give half your cash in exchange for being allowed to leave
- however, interestingly, you can also simply choose to leave at that point
and you won't be bothered, and even more interestingly, if you go back in
after doing so, no one is there anymore! At 13,6 you find a group of
officers studying a map who will ask for your unit number. This is where
the tavern tale from earlier comes in handy. You gain surprise on them if
you give the correct unit number and then keep waiting until the choices
are just Attack or Leave. In any case, you want to fight this group, as
they actually give two of the better magical items in the game! The loot
contains a suit of Plate Mail +1, and a pair of Gauntlets of Ogre Power
(which raise any character's strength to 18/00, regardless of their race
and gender's Strength maximum and even if they would not normally be
eligible for percentile Strength!). You also receive a map (Journal Entry
#23) which is of the large wooden structure built in the northern part of
town to block the entrance to the keep. It is mainly accurate.
Proceeding to 7,7 or 8,7, in front of the large wooden structure, results
in an encounter with draconians. Go ahead and attack them - you'll need
to to enter the structure and get into the Keep. They are a mixed group of
baaz and kapaks. If you haven't fought kapaks before, be warned of their
ability to paralyse characters (making them Helpless) in particular.
There is not much else in Gargath City outside of the wooden building
around the Keep. At 1,5 and 14,5 you can access the wall via stairs. On the
wall, there are a number of towers, but there is nothing of note on their
upper levels. The only area of interest on the wall is to go down to the
southern end of town, back to where the small room where you entered the
town is. Here you find the upper gatehouse where there is a group of guards
that you can fight. If you didn't fight the guards on the way in, you can
then also attack them from above, causing them to flee the entry guard
room.
POSSIBLE BUG: If you return to the original entrance room after doing the
above, despite the message that said that the guards had fled, you'll still
have to fight them. Maybe they brought a new guard force in after the other
ones fled, but it does seem a little inconsistent at least.
Before you enter the wooden structure (you can search for the secret door
if you like, but between the map found in the barracks at 13,6 and the fact
that it's really quite obvious where the secret door is from the fact that
it was guarded, you really don't need to), make sure you have at least one
Snake Charm spell (2nd level, Cleric) memorised.
Inside the wooden structure, the visible doors simply lead to a group of
rooms that describe a loop and contain nothing special. Beyond the first
internal secret door, following the visible doors will lead you to 12,1.
This room contains an Elven Cleric, zombies, and three giant snakes. This
is why you wanted the Snake Charm spell; disabling at least one of the
snakes will make you a MUCH happier camper since they actually have a
decent amount of HP (more than the white dragons in Throtl, and almost as
much as the black dragons that are the final fight of the next dungeon!)
and are poisonous to boot. The battle gives no magical loot, but there are
gems and jewelry and a good amount of XP.
When you find the secret door at 9,2, you will be attacked by a group of
draconians, and when you reach 5,0 you will be attacked by baaz and Elven
Fighters. Finally, beyond the secret door at 5,0 (which is not on the map
in the Journal, but even if no one were to detect it, it's obvious it's
there, where else did the guys who just attacked you come from?) is the
entrance to Gargath Keep in the northern wall (3,0 or 4,0). Before you can
enter the Keep, you will first have to fight Human Fighters and draconians
as well as two Elven Fighter/Mages. Once these are cleared, proceed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
GARGATH KEEP #WK021
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gargath Keep is not a standard-sized area, and the area map is not
available. There are 11 floors, beginning at 8x8 in size at the lower
levels and getting smaller as you go up, the top levels being just a single
square in size. The map in Journal Entry #72 which you found in the Throtl
catacombs is quite accurate, so I will guide you based on that map and note
the few discrepancies. The only fully safe place to rest is the room on the
6th floor behind the secret door, but as with the city, it is usually safe
to rest for a short time to memorise a few spells or to do a Fix. Be
careful with the random encounters here - particularly, they sometimes
feature giant snakes, who are especially dangerous opponents. You may want
to keep a Snake Charm spell or two handy here.
As you enter, guards attack. There are no spell casters but there are the
always dangerous kapaks. The first order of business, since you are likely
depleted on bonus spells by now on your Mages and there was no safe place
to rest in Gargath City, is to find the secret back door to the Keep.
Ignore the west and east doors and go straight north, then turn east in the
corridor. Follow the hallway until you reach a corner with doors to the
north and east. Take the door heading north and follow that short corridor
to the end. Here you will find a door to the east (this door is missing on
the map in the journal entry), go through it and to the rear of the room.
Look or Search and you'll find a secret door to the east. Going through
this door will allow you to exit to the overland map, where you can return
to the outpost to rest to return the white and red moons to full and get
your full complement of bonus spells back. Also check to see if anyone
needs training, ID your magic items, plus appraise your gems and jewelry
and deposit the money in the Vault.
From now on, whenever you return to Gargath after using the exit described
above, you will have the choice of either entering Gargath City or of
returning to the Keep via the secret back door (you will re-enter at the NE
corner of floor 1).
Almost everything in Gargath Keep is optional, except for the encounters
beginning with the egg-packing room on floor 6 and leading upwards from
there. Except for the rooms on floors 4 and 6, all of the rooms marked as
"possible treasure" on the journal map are actually completely empty. The
following things of note are found on each floor:
FLOOR 1: Apart from the secret exit and the guards fought on the way in,
there are four fixed encounters:
* The room immediately south of the secret exit contains a group of Human
Fighters (all 5th level Fighters, there are no spell casters or
draconians) dividing up some loot. This battle gives a nice amount of XP
because of the gems and jewelry in the loot, but has no magical items.
* The square room south of this contains a dark form hunched over a
manuscript. You may leave, eavesdrop, or attack. Eavesdropping gives you
info (another Myrtani name drop, and something about eggs and an ambush)
followed by the same battle as if you attack. There is no notable loot
here.
* The SE room (just east of the main entrance room) is a barracks. If you
bluff here, it leads to battle just as if you attacked. There are a
number of Human and Elven enemies here including several spell casters.
* The large square room in the NW is a practise room, which causes the
enemies to decide to practise their skills on YOU! This is similar to
the barracks fight just noted.
FLOOR 2: There are only two things of note here. A prisoner in the western
cell will tell you of the Castellan being held (also on this floor) and
again you'll hear about the aurak and a book. (Journal Entry #42) If you
had any doubts before, they're surely gone now: Myrtani is definitely the
aurak draconian survivor who took the book from the dead man after the
prologue combat. In the eastern of the 2x2 rooms you'll find the Castellan
who will tell you where the Dragonlance is hidden on floor 6 (Journal Entry
#36) and then flee the tower.
FLOOR 3: There is a map discrepancy here: when you arrive, there is a door
to the north that is noted as a wall on the map. The large room on the west
side of the floor contains a large group of zombies and ghouls, along with
a ghast and an Elven Cleric. It has no notable loot and not even very much
XP.
FLOOR 4: There are three fixed encounters here:
* The SE 2x2 room contains some soldiers playing dice. You can attack,
gamble with them, or leave. If you gamble, you will always lose. If you
attack, it is similar to the fight on floor 1 with the guys dividing up
loot: a group of Fighters with no spellcaster or draconian backup, and
a good XP payday due to the jewelry and gems that you get to raid from
their gambling cache afterwards. Oh, yeah, the dice were loaded (as if
we were surprised by this).
* The middle room on the western side contains some kapaks who are guarding
the door to the south. This is a simple fight with a group of four
kapaks.
* In the SW room, you find a crude altar with some spell casters around it.
You fight a number of spell casters, kapaks, and Fighters. If you don't
have access to Fireball yet, it is best here to have your party members
all retreat around the corner and then wait for the enemies to come to
you, then finish off the Mages after the melee fighters are down (similar
tactics to the fight near the end of Throtl catacombs). There are two
Mage scrolls in the loot, one for White Mages and one for Red Mages.
FLOOR 5: There is nothing of note here.
FLOOR 6: The secret door is located exactly where the Castellan mentioned.
The Dragonlance is gone, though (are we really surprised?). There are a
couple of weapons left behind, of which you should only take the Long
Sword. It is a Long Sword +4 vs. Reptiles, a very useful property in this
game due to the large number of enemies that qualify (not only the obvious
things like giant snakes and dragons, but also draconians in particular
count as reptiles). Even against other enemies, it is still a Long Sword
+1. The Two-Handed Sword is a cursed berserking sword similar to the
incorrect sword in the test of Honour in Sir Dargaard's Tomb. Oddly enough,
despite the fact that the enemies have obviously found this room, it's a -
and indeed the only - safe place to rest!
The visible door on this floor leads to the top of the tower. First, you
enter a large room with draconians and humans packing eggs for transport,
and you see Myrtani with the Dragonlance! (Yeah, I know, the pen and paper
rules totally contradict this part - non-Good characters are supposed to
take quite a lot of damage every round they're holding a Dragonlance.
Possibly this fact was simply glossed over in the computer games for
story's sake.) He flees while kapaks, baaz, and a couple of Elven Clerics
attack you. Be careful in this fight because there are a lot of enemies
capable of making a character Helpless. When you reach the stairs after
this, you are taunted by Myrtani and attacked by more draconians (a similar
group to the one you just fought, but with no Cleric backup this time).
FLOORS 7 & 8: Nothing of note, and the two smaller towers reached via the
side doors are also empty.
FLOOR 9: You encounter a small group of kapaks in the only room here.
FLOOR 10: The rooms are tiny now (1x1) and you fight another group of
draconians (this one easier than the previous as there are only two kapaks
and the rest are baaz). SAVE THE GAME NOW!
FLOOR 11: Myrtani escapes on a huge red dragon, taking the Dragonlance with
him! He then leaves you with three black dragons to fight ... in that tiny
room. This is why you wanted to save the game beforehand, as this fight can
be quite tough. There is no form of resistance to black dragon acid, so you
will always take at least half damage when the dragons breathe. Even if you
have Fireball, the room is so small you can't cast it without hitting your
whole party as well. Your best chance is the Stinking Cloud spell which has
a good chance to make the dragons Helpless. It's quite likely that you'll
have to reload your game once or twice, or at least that one or two
characters will be knocked out and miss out on the XP. As with the white
dragons in Throtl catacombs, the treasure consists of gems. There is bonus
XP for all conscious party members afterward.
After the fight on floor 11, you are done with Gargath Keep, except for any
encountrs you may have skipped on the lower floors. Return to the outpost,
train, rest, and identify your magical items. Visiting the Commandant's
office will get you kudos for recovering the eggs, even though you failed
to recover the Dragonlance (we'll get it later, anyway). If you have not
already started to receive the side missions, you'll start to get them now.
You can either continue with Jelek or tackle one of the side missions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
OGRE BASE #WK022
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Ogre Base is a standard-sized area with coordinates and an area map.
You will not be able to find this location until you are given the info
about it (this happens the next time you enter the second outpost after
getting the Sir Dargaard's Tomb mission). It is an optional mission and you
can do it at any time before the point of no return in the Temple of
Duerghast. Completing it gives you assistance in Kernen for part of the
endgame. Once you enter the Ogre Base, you should not leave until you have
completed the mission.
The combat in the Ogre Base can be quite difficult, especially if you
choose the thorough approach, and for that reason I don't recommend coming
here right after Throtl. While ogres are simple and straightforward enemies
it is also likely to be your first taste of at least some of the more
powerful types of draconian (it may be your first encounter with bozaks or
sivaks and the thorough approach results in fighting an aurak, as well).
Completing Sir Dargaard's Tomb and Gargath should give you enough XP and
gear upgrades in order to make the Ogre Base a reasonable choice to go to
next.
As with Gargath City, you will probably be able to Fix or memorise spells
almost anywhere in the Ogre Base, but there's no place to rest forever in
complete safety. On the good side, once you are able to greet the ogres
(with the sign from the old ogre as noted below), if you're interrupted by
an ogre patrol, you can just greet them and then attempt to rest again.
You enter the compound at 15,8. The first thing you should do is enter any
of the buildings along the outer edge; the first such building you enter
will contain an old ogre who will ask you about a deal. Agree and you get
information about what's going on (Journal Entry #24) and a secret sign.
The sign will among other things allow you to successfully use the Greet
option with ogre patrols, as well as with the guards at the doors into the
main compound (8,2 and 8,13). There are now two ways in which you can
approach this: the direct approach or the thorough one. Oddly enough the
direct approach is actually the easier.
DIRECT APPROACH: In the centre of the compound is a large meeting room
(8,6 or 8,8). A large number of ogres are meeting here. You can attack
them, leave, or greet them. Attacking them is not a good idea, while a
large group of ogres isn't an especially hard battle, you'll deprive
yourself of the ability to get good assistance in Kernen. If you greet
them, Gravnak will introduce himself, and you can tell him about the
assassins. Morog will then insist that you have no proof and send a group
of ogres after you, after which Morog will try to slip out and then you
will fight another group of ogres, this time with ogres on your side too
(while it doesn't appreciably affect the difficulty of the fight, it's
notable that on higher or lower difficulty levels, the enemy ogres gain
or lose HP, but that the friendly ogres always have the same HP that a
standard ogre on Veteran difficulty does). After the battle you'll again
have ogre backup as a third wave of enemies arrives - the draconian
assassins sent to kill Gravnak. These consist of sivaks and bozaks. If you
have not fought bozaks before, keep in mind that they are spellcasters, so
like enemy Clerics or Mages should be damaged each round to prevent them
from casting. Sivaks are simply powerful fighters who attack multiple times
per round and have good AC and HP as well. After this battle, Gravnak takes
you to his office at 6,8 and offers a deal. You should accept this (Journal
Entry #32). You are then shown out and the party gains XP in addition to
aid in Kernen later on. This completes the mission, but you miss out on all
the other fights and XP in the base (you can go back in but all of the
rooms will be empty and no encounters will occur).
THOROUGH APPROACH: Before going to the meeting room, first explore all of
the rooms in the base. Some of these simply contain fights or treasure
while the others will have an effect on the meeting: finding the evidence
of Morog being a traitor (12,11) eliminates the fight with the initial
group of ogres, while slaying the assassins in their hideout (6,4) will
of course eliminate the fight with them at the meeting.
Almost all the rooms in the base have something of interest, as follows:
* 6,12 is an ogre barracks. Attacking them results in a fight with some
ogres; greeting them results in the sergeant telling you "your place"
is up the corridor, third door (this clues you in on where to go to
find the assassins).
* The southernmost room in the west corridor (3,12) contains a single
cowardly ogre who dives under the bed and admits to being in cahoots
with Morog. Attacking him results in killing him without a fight. The
middle west door leads to 3,10 which is simply a room full of ogre
corpses.
* The northern west door leads to 3,8 where you encounter a group of ogres.
They are suspicious, thinking that all the assassins are already here.
You can attack, walk past, talk, or leave, but it only lets you choose
whether you want to fight the ogres here or in the next room (if you walk
past or successfully bluff them, when you enter the next room at 3,6 they
realise that you are spies and you have the fight there).
* From the big room at 3,6, the two doors to the north wall lead to empty
rooms. The eastern door leads to the assassins' lair (6,4); this is a
good time to cast protective spells and save the game. When you enter,
you will find that this group is somewhat larger than the assassin squad
that appears at the meeting in the direct approach: there are some baaz
as well, and an aurak! This is the first time you will encounter an aurak
in the game (you won't encounter any others till Kernen). Auraks are
spellcasters, like bozaks, but with the additional complication of having
three forms and being invisible, thus not being able to be hit by ranged
attacks or single-target spells unless the attacker has Detect
Invisibility active on them. See the combat strategies section earlier in
the guide for more information auraks. Fighting the assassins this way is
one of the tougher fights of the game thus far. If you cannot manage to
prevail, you can always choose to fight the easier battle with just the
sivaks and bozaks at the meeting.
* 12,5 is a dining hall where slaves flee in panic as you enter. South of
this is the kitchen (12,7) where you have the chance to calm down the
women by explaining that you are not the assassins, which will get you
info, a rumour about an assassin team (true, or possibly used to be true,
since you might have already defeated them by now). 10,7 is the pantry
and contains nothing special.
* 12,11 is a room containing a group of ogres, who again out you as spies
and you have another basic fight with ogres. After this, you find the
evidence that is needed to turn Morog in as a traitor.
* 11,12 is a finely apportioned bedroom. Searching reveals large bags of
steel pieces. Wow, Myrtani's apparently really a big shot among the bad
guys, since apparently he's able to personally order the minting of
money ... The total is 8,000 steel pieces, a party of six gaining a
whopping 2,666 XP per character just for finding it. (Even if you can't
comfortably carry the money, you still get the XP just by finding it.)
After cleaning out all the rooms, go to the main meeting hall at 8,6 or
8,8. Greet the ogres and tell Gravnak about the assassins, just as in the
direct approach. With the evidence, and with the assassins already dead,
you only need to fight the one battle with the friendly and hostile ogres,
after which the game will continue with Gravnak's offer just as with the
direct approach.
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JELEK #WK023
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jelek is a standard-sized area. The area map and coordinates are available.
None of the fixed encounters in Jelek will be available, except for the
shops, if you have not completed all of Throtl including the catacombs.
Before you enter Jelek, make positively sure that you have memorised your
maximum complement of spells, as you must fight at least one major battle
before you are able to rest in the city AT ALL. When you enter Jelek, you
will be stopped at the gates (2,15) by guards (or so they claim ...) who
tell you that everyone entering the city must have an escort of the
duration of your visit (Journal Entry #47). Two new important names: Sir
Lebaum, who you'll find out more about during the course of the game, and
Skyla, who you'll learn about (and learn to begin to hate). Skyla forces
himself into your party and rambles on a while (Journal Entry #76) and
gives you a map to his friend's place (Journal Entry #45).
As long as Skyla is in your party, you will not be able to rest, even in
the safe house. What is worse, even if you drop him from the party with
the Drop command in camp, he will happily leave but he will be back soon
enough. If you leave town, he will stay behind, but come back as soon as
you return. He also leaves the party saying "be right back" on a regular
basis, and in particular will NEVER be around for any random encounters.
Said random encounters, by the way, consist of 5th level Human and Elven
enemies and usually contain spell casters.
You may see a "small" or "shadowy" figure sneaking around at times. This is
an NPC whose identity you will learn of soon.
At 1,13 is an inn, but despite the welcoming innkeeper, you will never be
allowed to rest there for even the shortest amount of time, with or without
Skyla. The alehouse at 3,12 is a typical tavern tale dispensary. At 4,14 is
a weapons and armour shop, which is substantially better than the outpost
armoury. It sells the following:
Battle Axe: 2 (8) steel
Dagger: 1 (4) steel
4 Darts: 1 (4) steel
Mace: 4 (16) steel
Broad Sword: 12 (48) steel
Composite Long Bow: 50 (200) steel
Chain Mail (AC 5): 35 (140) steel
Shield: 3 (12) steel
20 Arrows: 1 (4) steel
This is your first opportunity to buy a composite (or any type of) Long Bow
unless you went to Sanction earlier, and even if you did go there earlier,
the price here is much more reasonable. Apart from this, none of the items
here should be an upgrade by now.
NOTE: Make sure you buy these items BEFORE you finish Jelek if you want the
best price: for some reason, the prices all quadruple (to the values in
parenthesis) after you do.
Continuing on, 6,12 is a magic shop, one of only two in the game and having
by far the better selection of the two (although the magic arrows are
cheaper in Sanction). The items available in the Jelek magic shop are as
follows:
Wand of Magic Missiles: 14,000 steel
Potion of Speed: 800 steel
Potion of Invisibility: 880 steel
Potion of Extra Healing: 1,600 steel
Red Mage Scroll 3 spells: 1,600 steel
White Mage Scroll 3 spells: 1,600 steel
Cleric Scroll 3 spells: 1,600 steel
4 Darts +1: 200 steel
10 Arrows +1: 480 steel
There are actually two Mage scrolls offered for each Robe type, with
differing spells, but the prices are the same for each. These prices don't
go up after you finish Jelek, unlike the armoury.
Your major goal here is the graveyard (where the silver rose that Sir Karl
wanted grows), but you won't be able to go in until you deal with Skyla.
Either way you slice it, you're going to have a big fight including several
spellcasters, although you have two choices regarding where to have the
fight. If you had the idea that Skyla is trying to lead you into an ambush
at his "friend's" house at 10,14, you would be right. So proceed to 11,5,
the entrance to the graveyard. You'll notice that most of the graves look
like they've been dug up ... from the inside. I'm sure we both know that
this means the graveyard is going to be full of undead. If you don't fight
the battle at 10,14 before you come here, Skyla will insist that the area
is forbidden and that you must leave. Ignore him and he'll whistle. Are we
surprised that he works for Myrtani? Not really?
Whether you visit 10,14 or 11,5, you'll have to fight Skyla's buddies. If
you have the Fireball spell (or still have charges on the Wand of Ice Storm
from Throtl) it's easier to fight at 11,5, since you'll be able to use AoE
attacks without dropping them on your party (the building at 10,14 puts you
in a situation where you're fighting crosswise in a narrow room, so there
isn't space to throw AoE attacks, except Lightning Bolt, without hitting
your party members because the wall isn't far enough behind the enemies).
Additionally, 11,5 is much closer to the one place in Jelek that you can
rest. In either case, a figure joins the battle on your side. Her name is
Mysellia and she's not all that strong, but it's still a little help. As
with most battles with Humans and Elves, this fight is easy as long as you
keep the spellcasters from using their spells, but if you don't will become
very much harder. BTW, if you visit 10,14 after having the battle at 11,5,
it will be simply an empty building with nothing special to be found.
At 13,5 you'll meet an old gravedigger who gives you more information
(Journal Entry #28). Hmmm, Sir Lebaum likes to hang out in the graveyard.
Note that if you go into this building before you deal with the problem of
Skyla, he'll just run away and you won't learn anything.
The building at 13,0 is a safe house. If Mysellia is with you the guard
will recognise her and ask you to follow him. If she is not, then you will
have to give the password (which Mysellia will give you if you refuse her
help or she dies). Either way, following the guard takes you to the room at
15,3 which is the only safe place to rest in Jelek. If Skyla is with you,
you won't meet the guard and you won't be able to rest even at 15,3.
There is nothing else of note in the town area except for a room just south
of the gravedigger's shack that you've probably noticed doesn't seem to be
accessible from town (it isn't - you can only get into this room from the
graveyard), so go to the graveyard at 11,5 if you have not already, and
head south along the wall to a door which leads to a freezing cold office
(Sir Lebaum's, most likely. Interestingly, when I drew a map of this place,
it even ended up receiving the letter L.) with some information (Journal
Entry #71). Looks like we're in luck, we'll be able to recover that
Dragonlance later on after all!
The area map is somewhat confusing to use in game in the graveyard due to
the fact that it considers every row of tombstones to be a "wall with doors
in it." In fact with the exception of the NW 3x2 building (accessible only
from a door leading north from 2,2), the entire graveyard area (0,0 through
11,9) has no impassible walls, so it's actually rather easy to get around.
In the graveyard, there are random encounters with undead: zombies, ghouls,
and ghasts. I am not certain if there is a limited number of these or not.
If there is, it's not based on the same limit as the regular random fights
in Jelek town (which there are about five or so of), although going back
and forth between the graveyard and the town area doesn't reset the fights
in town.
Save the game before going to 2,2 and cast any protective spells you may
have. When you go here, you find the silver rose bush and pick the bloom
for Sir Karl - and then are attacked, by three black dragons! This is the
same opposition as the fight at the end of Gargath Keep, but now you have
much more room to manoeuvre in. Try to take them out quickly, again
Stinking Clouds are great at making them Helpless, before they get to
breathe too often. This completes the Jelek mission and you gain an XP
bonus. One last room of interest remains, however, and you'll likely
actually have some VERY severe trouble at the end of the game if you don't
go in. This is the building itself (2,1). Here there are corpses that begin
to animate - MAKE SURE YOU FIGHT THEM! The battle is no different from the
random undead encounters outside in the graveyard, but it's all about the
loot: a LOAD of gems and jewelry, and three magical items. The Periapt is
of "Proof vs. Poison," which makes the character who readies it almost
completely immune to poison (sadly, it does not work against green dragon
breath, though) - extremely useful against giant spiders and snakes in
particular (if you chose to come here first after Throtl rather than go to
Gargath as recommended, it will make the snake room there and the random
encounters with snakes in Gargath Keep MUCH less worrisome). The Wand is of
Fireballs, very useful (a character can use a Wand even if they have been
hit in a round, so it's a way to get a mass AoE attack off even if your
Mages are hit before you get a chance to cast, and if you are using a lot
of triple-class White Mages they may not have Fireball even now) but by far
THE most important item is the scroll. THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT
ITEM IN THE ENTIRE GAME and I am serious about that. It is, perhaps, even
more important than the Dragonlance itself! It is a Scroll of Protection
from Dragon Breath. DO NOT USE THIS ITEM BEFORE THE FINAL BATTLE OF THE
GAME, no matter how tempting it may seem to use it in a tough battle
earlier! You will surely regret it if you do. Of course, it's POSSIBLE to
finish the game without it, but do you really want all that extra worry?
In the back of the room where you just got the Periapt, Wand, and Scroll is
a door (0,0) that leads directly to the overland map. Unless you want to do
some shopping (except for cheaper +1 Arrows and another chance to buy Wands
of Magic Missiles in Sanction, you won't find any better place to spend
your money), you're done with Jelek, so you can exit right now if you want.
When you do, Mysellia (if she is in your party) will leave.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ATTACK ON THE SECOND OUTPOST #WK024
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you next return to the second outpost, if you've finished both Gargath
and Jelek, you'll find the outpost has been attacked. Maya tells you it was
Myrtani, and that Sir Karl has been kidnapped (I wonder just how weak the
people who run this outpost are. Myrtani is just an aurak, albeit one with
more HP than normal, and you quite possibly - and DID, if you followed this
walkthrough and chose the thorough approach in the Ogre Base - have already
defeated one!).
Despite the attack, all services are still fully available in the outpost.
You should now not enter the Commandant's office until you are ready to do
the next main storyline mission, the one to Neraka. With this exception,
you are still free to choose what you want to do next - rest, train, ID any
magical items, even go back to Jelek to buy more stuff (you probably want
to buy Composite Long Bows for everyone who can use one, and both
applicable Scrolls for all your Mages if you can afford it - if you've been
saving up money in the Vault and haven't been letting your Knight tithe it
all, you should be able to do so without trouble. I actually still had 23k
steel pieces left over in the Vault after buying the Scrolls and the
Composite Long Bows for five characters).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
THIRD OUTPOST #WK025
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
By now, you should have definitely received the message about this outpost.
It is an optional mission, and like the other two side missions you can
hold off on it as far as the point of no return in the Temple of Duerghast,
or even not do it at all. It is a good bit tougher than Sir Dargaard's tomb
as well as the Ogre Base (although except for perhaps the final battle of
the area, none of the battles are really as hard as the one with the aurak
and other draconians from the Ogre Base, that was the only battle of any
real difficulty there, whereas the outpost mission features quite a number
of strong opponents). Also, soon after you enter this outpost, you won't be
able to leave until you've finished the mission, so you virtually have to
do it all in one go.
Once the mission is open, the third outpost becomes a standard-sized area.
(Before this, it provides the same menu-based services as the first two
outposts.) There are an unlimited number of possible random encounters, and
while the inn is the safest place to rest, no place is completely safe
until you have completed the mission (although if you have not yet set off
the alarm, you will only be watched, not attacked, should you be
interrupted). Coordinates and the area map are available.
You enter the outpost at the far east end, and immediately meet a group of
guards who take you to the Commandant's office at 4,8. (Journal Entry #12)
Interesting ... you can't meet the messenger. And he's "ill" even though we
know these outposts offer temples who can Cure Disease. Suspicious ...
You're then shoen out, and if you try to approach the Commandant's office
again, just outside the door you encounter a checkpoint and are told to
move away. Suspicious too ... especially since the Commandants in the other
outposts always had an open door policy. Even if the office was presently
closed, it was still open to let you see the duty roster. You'll find a
number of other such checkpoints as you explore (besides the one here,
the building at 5,13 has a guard post outside, and so does every possible
path leading to the north part of the outpost where, if you look on your
area map, you notice four adjacent 2x2 buildings). Things are REALLY being
locked down unusually tightly here - and your Knight didn't tithe anything
when you entered, either.
As long as you remain on good behaviour and don't attack anyone, you can
freely come and go and no battles will occur, but nothing will happen in
the mission, either, except for that you will eventually meet a man hiding
in the shadows who will suggest you go to the inn. Exploring the town
reveals the following locations:
* The building at 11,13/11,14 is a stable, which contains nothing of note.
* The corner towers (1,0, 1,15, 14,0, and 14,15) are guarded, and like the
other guard posts you will be ordered to leave.
* There is a secret door at 0,9 ... more on this soon.
* The buildings at 8,10 and 11,10 are stores, which have been ransacked,
yet another indication that there's something very wrong here ...
* The tavern (11,6) still serves liquor, but there are no Tavern Tales at
all to be heard.
* The checkpoint at 9,4 has a different description from the others - it's
"isolated from view." More on this soon as well.
* At 14,9 there is a group of guards gambling; you are ordered to leave.
The outpost has a general alarm. If you attack ANY of the fixed groups of
guards (any of the towers, or the gambling guards at 14,9, or any of the
checkpoints EXCEPT for the one at 9,4), you will set off the alarm. Once
you do, the outpost goes into TOTAL lockdown - you won't be able to leave
through the entrance anymore until the mission is complete, an attempt to
do so simply produces a fight with guards. Moreover, any checkpoint or
guard patrol you run into will ATTACK YOU ON SIGHT. Note that attacking the
checkpoint at 9,4 doesn't set off the alarm - this becomes useful shortly.
To continue the mission (actually, you could complete it in three fights,
by simply barging back into the Commandant's office through the checkpoint
and then going straight to the main barracks at 3,6, but then you would
miss out on most of the XP and storyline associated with this area), go to</pre><pre id="faqspan-5">
the inn (8,6). You will be told that "your" room is at the end of the hall,
but it actually doesn't matter; whichever of the rooms you enter first, the
man you met in the alley as you were exploring the outpost will follow you
in. He's wearing a guard's uniform, but especially tattered. Listen to his
story (Journal Entry #87) and already gain an XP bonus just for doing so.
Yup, if you've already been thinking, as you probably have been, that the
"guards" you've been encountering so far aren't kosher, right you are. You
also receive a map (Journal Entry #13) of the entire outpost showing a
secret door into the jail (this is the secret door you could have found
earlier at 0,9 by simply searching that I suggested to leave for later), as
well as identifying the rest of the locations in the outpost (the guard
house at 14,6 that is obstructed by a checkpoint, the storage building at
5,13, the prison at 1,9, the armoury at 2,8, the main barracks at 3,6, and
the four houses at 5,2, 7,2, 9,2, and 11,2).
Go to the secret door at 0,9 and enter (you will be in the prison).
Entering any of the cells triggers the encounter with the real guards
(Journal Entry #3). The ability to take on the form of a dead victim is a
capability of sivak draconians (note that in this game, this doesn't happen
in actual combat if a sivak knocks out or kills a party member, but only as
a storyline device). However, they also mention that their children are
being held hostage in one of the houses at the north end of town, and they
can't help you until they're safe. (Now it's becoming pretty clear why the
whole north end is locked down ...)
You can enter the Commandant's office from here (3,8) but doing so will
trigger a battle and set off the alarm, so it's better to leave it for now.
We'll be coming back through that door later. Go back out the secret door
and as you probably remember earlier one of the checkpoints seemed to be
unusually isolated - the one at 9,4. Attacking here won't set off the alarm
so it is the easiest place to do it (you can get north through other check
points, but those will set off the alarm). If you don't have Plate Mail for
everyone yet, you will acquire enough for a full party from this group (a
sivak and a small number of 7th level Human Fighters). Try to avoid using
Mage spells if they are ones that needed your bonus spell slots because
it's very inconvenient to reset the moons here. (It's doable, but you will
have to re-encamp and restart resting a large number of times so it's a
huge pain).
Directly ahead (if you broke through at 9,4 as suggested) you will hear
children's voices from the north, indicating that the house directly ahead
(9,2) is where the hostages are, so go in and yup, it's a barracks for
prisoners. You are attacked immediately by a large group of draconians of
all types except for aurak (note that non-sivak draconians are only found
in fixed battles in this area, not in the random patrols). Be careful of
the bozaks and kapaks. Rescuing the children grants another XP bonus.
Rememorise spells (almost any room indoors is safe enough for a short rest)
and save the game. If you have followed the walkthrough so far then you
should still be able to wander around freely without a problem as the alarm
will not be set off yet. The other three houses (5,2, 7,2, and 11,2) are
simply barracks and they appear to be empty. Go back through the secret
door at 0,9 to the prison and inform the real guards of the good news and
gain another XP bonus. The real guards will offer to take care of the
"guards" outside while you get the leaders. Now you no longer have to worry
about any wandering fights even if you already set off the alarm, and you
can freely pass any of the checkpoints because the checkpoint guards will
be busy fighting the real ones! (Yeah, there seem to be enough for this
despite the fact that the prison is only four small rooms ...) In
particular, you can now easily access the storage room at 5,13 where a
Search or Look will discover a Potion of Extra Healing along with two Mage
scrolls (one for each Robe type). The alarm WILL now be set off if it
hasn't already been, though, too (but you won't actually have to fight any
of the patrols, because once again, they're occupied by the real guards).
There are only a few places of note in the rest of the outpost apart from
the final confrontation:
* If you try to exit the outpost now (or in any case once the alarm is set
off), you run into a very large force of draconians. If you decide to
fight (parlaying results in a fight also), you will fight a group that is
similar in composition to the one you fought to rescue the children at
9,2. However, there is an unlimited supply of draconians and you won't be
able to leave until you finish the mission. This is the same thing that
happens if you otherwise set off the alarm and then try to leave.
* The guard house at 14,9, as well as the four towers (1,0, 1,15, 14,0, and
14,15) contain groups that are not busy fighting the real guards, and you
will have actual fights here, just as if you had barged in normally and
chosen to attack. Oddly, if you fight the tower guards, they will sound
the alarm even if it's already sounded (probably an oversight on the part
of the designers, since the towers are completely optional). 14,9 has a
sivak and some 7th level Human Fighters, while the towers contain a mix
of Humans (7th level Fighters, 7th level Mages, and 5th level Clerics).
* The guard house at 14,6 (there's no way to get in here before the alarm
is set off, BTW) contains an ambush by draconians - bozaks and kapaks.
It will probably start off painfully as the bozaks are likely to get to
cast two or three Lightning Bolts before you even get a chance to act.
However, winning this battle grants an XP bonus.
After fighting any battles you're interested in, head back into the prison
via the secret door at 0,9 (you could go directly to the Commandant's
office, but it is better to come this way). Enter the office at 3,8 via the
door from the prison and you'll encounter the fake Commandant talking.
Listen in to get some information about Sanction and an XP bonus, after
which you will get in a battle, just as if you'd attacked or entered the
office via the front door. As the battle starts you'll hear about Jadefang
and a wizard runs through the north door. You then have a battle with a
sivak, several kapaks, and a few Humans (5th level Clerics, and 7th level
Mages).
The armoury at 2,8 is empty (not that it would matter, given the junk that
is sold in the outpost armouries ...). Save the game and cast your prep
spells (you get a particularly strong warning when you approach the north
door of the Commandant's office). Proceed into the main barracks at 3,6 and
you'll encounter the true boss of the invaders, a green dragon (the
"Jadefang" whose name was dropped in the previous room). He introduces
himself (Journal Entry #22) and then attacks. Interestingly, there is no
sign of the wizard from earlier, as Jadefang's only backup are 7th level
Human Fighters and sivaks. Just as well, since Jadefang himself can be a
handful, if you don't want to use the dance trick you'll pretty much want
to hope that a Stinking Cloud works (you could try Charm Monsters too, but
you'd have to use it off a scroll at this point - although it IS on one of
the White Mage scrolls that can be bought in Jelek - and Stinking Cloud
tends to work well enough). Once you neutralise Jadefang, this is actually
one of the easier battles here, as there are no spell casters or kapaks to
worry about.
The treasure contains a large amount of gems and jewelry, and ... a Mace?
None of the enemies used a Mace. I don't think we need a Detect Magic spell
to tell us we should take that with us. It's a Mace of Disruption, which is
a +1 weapon, but deals double damage to undead; in addition, any undead
creature hit by it has a chance to be destroyed utterly (in fact, in this
game, the only undead able to resist it are skeletal knights, skeletal
dragons, and the death knight). If you didn't loot the storehouse at 5,13
yet, you get the Scrolls and Potion now, too. Afterwards, the rest of
Jadefang's minions flee the outpost (Journal Entry #4), the mission is
complete, and you may wander around freely in safety. Unfortunately, the
outpost is still unable to provide you with any services (except for the
inn), so you'll have to go back to one of the other two outposts for that.
This was the last of the side missions, so there is now nothing more to do
than to proceed with the storyline. Be sure to ID magical items, scribe and
memorise spells, and train, as you'll want to do Neraka all in one go
without leaving.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NERAKA #WK026
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When you next enter the Commandant's office after the attack on the second
outpost, you will meet up with Sir Mathias, Sir Karl's substitute. You are
given permission to search for Sir Karl as long as it doesn't interfere
with the main mission, and then Maya appears, telling you he's been taken
to Neraka and offering to take you there.
You have only one chance to accept this offer, which is why you should wait
until you are ready to enter the Commandant's office after the attack (as
noted in the Attack on the Second Outpost section). If you accept it, you
will immediately be taken to Neraka and enter the city at 15,7, and you
will have Maya's backup. If you do not, you will have to travel there on
your own and when you do, you will enter the city at 0,0 (which is also the
location you enter the city at normally, should you visit before or after
the mission) and you will not have Maya's aid. Not only is Maya's aid VERY
useful (she does not appear on the party roster, but does appear as an ally
in battle - and if you haven't figured it out yet, you finally learn her
secret about being a silver dragon from this) but entering Neraka through
the entrance she takes you to makes it a lot easier to reach the base where
Sir Karl is being held; the trek from the normal entrance is very long,
maze-like, and full of both fixed and random encounters, including a green
dragon. You can always re-enter the city and explore to have these extra
encounters later on if you want. This walkthrough will assume that you did
go with Maya.
Neraka is a semi-optional mission. While you must enter the city and reach
the prison to advance the plot towards Sanction, you do not actually need
to succeed in rescuing the prisoners to do so. However, doing so gains you
much XP and useful loot that you will otherwise miss out on.
Neraka consists of two areas, city and prison. Both are standard-sized
areas with access to the area map function and coordinates. Neither place
has any entirely safe places to rest. Although it is not difficult to
manage to heal and rememorise spells, you should be careful to not deplete
yourself so badly that you cannot handle a random combat while attempting
to do so, since you cannot leave once you have entered without the mission
immediately ending in failure and the story proceeding on to Sanction.
The area where you arrive with Maya is at the east-central end of the city.
Proceed to the nearby door at 13,7 which leads into the base Sir Karl is
being held in. (If you come here while not on mission, you won't be able to
open this door.) The moment you enter the base, you will encounter a group
of draconian guards who attack you, and upon exiting this room further into
the base is another, similar guard post (13,8, and 15,11). All of the
draconians in the base, by the way, are bozaks and baaz, so there is no
Helpless to worry about but you do have to take care about spells.
If you now head north you reach 15,9, a dead end where tables are flung
into a corner and another group of draconians attacks you. Going south
leads further into the base. The 2x2 room on the other side of the entrance
(11,9) contains a table, but no draconians this time, just information
(Journal Entry #77). Sir Lebaum, again. The guy gets around. To the west of
this you find a wall that doesn't look like the others - this may be a
secret door or it may have been meant to be an actual door but due to a bug
or oversight ended up with the wrong wall info. It leads to the draconian
guard captain's room (9,10) and contains a small group of draconians. From
here, the north door leads to the captain's bedroom (8,9) which contains
nothing of value, while the south door leads to the barracks (8,12) which
features an easy battle with draconians. The small room at 10,15 is just a
food storage room with nothing of value, while 12,15 is full of hungry
mobats and 14,15 with, of all things, giant centipedes. The north corridor
leads nowhere, so follow the south corridor to the end (8,14) where you
finally meet up with Sir Karl - quite the worse for wear. You learn about
slaves and the prison from him (Journal Entry #49) and then he dies. Maya
swears vengeance and leaves with his body, and you should now proceed down
the stairs to the prison.
The prison is entered at 8,0. Unlike most of the other locations you've
entered in this game it's actually not guarded - or it WAS guarded, but the
guards are dead, Sir Karl having killed them shortly before you met.
There are four main subdivisions of the prison, roughly corresponding to
the four corner directions. They can be tackled in any order, but any way
you choose, to complete the prison you must rescue all the prisoners and
defeat both the Prison Lord and the green dragons, then exit through the
back exit in the SW quadrant. If you leave before doing this, or do not
leave through this exit, the prisoners will die and you will fail the
mission, thus missing out on a large XP reward.
* SW Quadrant: This contains only three things of note: the Prison Lord's
chamber, the green dragon encounter, and the exit. The Prison Lord holds
court in the large 3x3 room at the south end (6,12 or 5,13). He is a high
level Fighter with magical equipment, but his backup is substandard (a
group of Fighters and two Mages, all 5th level) so it will be an easy
battle. The battle contains four pieces of magical loot: the Prison
Lord's Long Sword and Shield (+1 and +2 respectively) and two items at
the end of the loot list which will be random (the last time I fought
this guy, I got a Composite Long Bow +1 and a Red Mage scroll).
Afterwards, you find a message (Journal Entry #60). It seems like the
Prison Lord was not making his boss happy. Going past this room, at 3,14
or 3,15, you feel a faint breeze from the northwest and encounter the
prison's green dragons. If you fought Jadefang in the southern outpost
side mission, these guys should be familiar, except this time there are
two of them and no other creatures. The same tactics apply, cast Stinking
Clouds and hope they take, and the loot here contains two pieces of
jewelry and an Emerald. I'm not sure what the Emerald does, if it even
has an effect when readied, but it does sell for a large amount of cash.
Note that if you go to the dragons before defeating the Prison Lord, he
will arrive immediately after the dragon fight and you must fight him
right then. The back exit is located at 0,9 - once you have dealt with
the rest of the prison encounters, this is where you need to leave in
order to complete the mission successfully and gain the XP bonus for
doing so.
* NW Quadrant: This contains torture chambers. At 5,2 you will find a
prisoner being fed to mobats while Humans (5th level Fighters) look on
and you have a chance to intervene, which leads to an easy battle and
an XP bonus. The northwestern room (0,0) features the classic "tie down
someone with honey and wait for the bugs to eat him" ploy; again the
battle is easy and gives an XP bonus for rescuing the prisoner. At 1,4
you arrive too late to save the prisoner; the fight is with a single
mobat and many giant rats. At 2,7 you arrive just in time to stop some
Fighters from lowering a cage of hungry rats onto a chained slave, and
again there is an XP bonus. 5,9 is a trap; if you take the jewelry, slabs
fall from the ceiling dealing about 12 points of damage to everyone, and
then you have to fight giant centipedes, but afterwards the 5 pieces of
jewelry are yours! 5,7 is a currently unused torture chamber but features
a group of mobats, and at 6,5 you're also jumped by a small group of
mobats.
* NE Quadrant: This is where Sir Karl was being held. The room at 10,5
contains more dead guards, similar to when you first entered the prison.
The cell at 12,2 is where Sir Karl escaped from; there is a single dead
guard, strangled, the silver rose you got from Jelek, and a note to Maya
(Journal Entry #56). None of the other cells in this block contain
anything of note.
* SE Quadrant: This is the main prisoner holding area. The room at 9,7
contains guards, a small group of draconians (baaz, kapaks, and a bozak).
At 11,6, you meet Tanis, one of the Heroes of the Lance! (Journal Entry
#74) He's already taken care of these cells so head south, past the door
at 15,8 you will run into another group of guards (draconians, the same
group composition as the group you just beat). You must now take care of
all 6 of the large cells:
13,10: This is just a guard ambush. However, you must nonetheless enter
this cell and defeat the draconians, or Tanis will not acknowledge that
you have freed everyone and you will not be able to finish the mission.
It is another one of those "in name only" ambushes, where you actually
have a good chance of gaining initiative despite the description. The
group is a little larger than the last two guard posts, but of similar
composition (and there is again only one bozak).
11,10: You arrive just in time to save a group of slaves from being
slaughtered by the draconian guards. This is another fight similar to the
other ones in this area.
10,10 and 10,13: In these two rooms there are no draconian guards, just
slaves that you free.
11,13: The women are held here, and are thankful enough to even say to
name their children after you.
14,13: This is another torture chamber, the slaves at first assume you
are the Prison Lord but you eventually calm and free them.
After this, when you return to 15,8, Tanis will thank you for your good
work and tell you about the diversion to the SW (this is to clue you in
to the back exit at 0,9). You gain an XP bonus.
Once you have finished with all the important areas (you need not visit Sir
Karl's cell, but you do need to free everyone in the SE and NW quadrants,
and defeat the Prison Lord and the dragons) head to the back exit at 0,9.
You will also find a cache of copper dragon eggs at this point! You gain
two XP bonuses here, one for the eggs and one for completing the Neraka
mission.
Return to the central outpost (the southern one still hasn't repaired its
services from the draconian attack) to identify items, train, etc. However,
it is probably actually NOT a good idea at this point to appraise your gems
and jewelry, as I will note in a moment. A memorial will be held for Sir
Karl as you return to the outpost.
When next you enter the Commandant's office, you will be told to locate Sir
Lebaum, and that the enemy is mainly located in Sanction. This is the last
order you will receive from the Commandant; from here on out until the
point of no return, the office will merely say "Investigate Sanction." At
this point, the only thing to do (unless you have yet to finish one or more
of the three side missions, or you want to do the Neraka city optional
encounters) is to go to Sanction, and once you finish the missions there,
you will be put on the path to the endgame.
Therefore, since there are shops and a Training Hall available in Sanction,
this will quite likely be your final visit to the outpost before you finish
the game. As a result, it's a good idea now to keep your jewelry in that
form to lessen the carrying weight, as you will want to bring ALL possible
money with you south to Sanction to spend on Wands of Magic Missile and/or
+1 Arrows. (The Wands are also purchasable in Jelek for the same price, a
whopping 14,000 steel pieces, but Sanction gives a much better deal on the
Arrows - 200 steel for 10 vs. 480 in Jelek.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NERAKA OPTIONAL ENCOUNTERS #WK027
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This part is entirely optional (unless you refused to go with Maya, in
which case you will need to pass through this portion of Neraka to reach
the base door at 13,7 to do the mission there), and you can proceed
directly to Sanction. There are a number of fixed encounters in the north
and west parts of Neraka that we skipped earlier, since we came with Maya
and thus took the shortcut into the base and prison. There is no longer a
mission here, simply combats. When you re-enter Neraka you will enter at
0,0. The maze section of Neraka contains a number of "flavour" things such
as prisoners lost in the mase, bodies left out (marked as being for Sir
Lebaum with a stern warning to monsters not to eat them ...) and a madman
who talks about jewels in the prison caves (this is a clue to the dragon
encounter in the prison, if you came to Neraka for the mission without
Maya), as well as the following fixed battles:
* 1,2: A group of draconians (bozaks and kapaks) ambush you. You find a
note here, which explains the purpose of this maze-like portion of
Neraka: a sick game on the part of the Prison Lord.
* 1,8: A large building that is used as a lair by hungry giant rats and
mobats.
* 3,13: A group of draconians mistake you for prisoners who have failed to
escape, then notice you are not prisoners, but attack you anyway. Unlike
most fixed encounters that are once-only, this one happens up to three
times if you visit this spot repeatedly.
* 6,12: This room purports to be a safe house. It is actually occupied by
a green dragon, who attacks immediately. The loot is a single piece of
jewelry, which is the only piece of notable loot in the Neraka city area.
Eventually the maze wends itself around to the base entrance at 13,7. If
you come here before the mission is activated, you will have the four above
encounters and the flavour text spots, but when you make it over to the
base you won't be able to open the door. You can re-enter the base and even
the prison after the mission, but there is nothing to be found except for
random encounters (and any fixed fights you left behind in the base, should
you have gone directly to the prison).
After cleaning out Neraka (or not), make sure everyone is trained up and
all your spells are ready. If there is still anything you want to buy in
Jelek, you probably want to do it now. In any case, load up your characters
with all the steel they can carry and it's time to head on down to
Sanction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SANCTION CITY #WK028
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The city portion of Sanction is a standard-sized area, and the usual
amenities (area map and coordinates) are available.
If you come to Sanction early (before you finish Neraka and are told to
come here), you will find it quite bare: there are no random encounters
while walking (you only find enemies if you rest for a long period) and the
exit to the temples at 15,7 will not be passable (guards will tell you that
the passages are blocked by lava flows and that you will not be able to
continue). The Training Hall (14,1), inn (13,14), tavern (10,9), and both
the armoury (12,12) and magic shop (14,9) will be available, but there will
be nothing else. The main incentive to come here early is, as previously
mentioned, after learning the Hold Person spell which allows you to easily
take out the 7th level Humans that comprise the random encounters that
interrupt your rest, letting you get their Plate Mail (Plate Mail, the best
nonmagical armour that can be worn by non-Knight characters, is NEVER sold
in stores and the first chance you have to get it in quantity following the
storyline normally is at the southern outpost side mission).
When you enter the city at 10,0, you will find a billboard (Journal Entry
#69) that mentions the locations of the businesses in town. In addition, if
you arrive while on mission, you will note that the docks are swarming with
minotaurs and that mercenaries control the streets, plus there is a second
notice (Journal Entry #64). Seems the enemy is indeed gathering forces
here.
On mission, there are random encounters while walking, and they differ
depending upon where you are in the city. If you are in the eastern half
(first coordinate 10-15), they will be with mercenaries; these are the same
groups that would interrupt you while resting earlier on in the game if you
paid a visit here to get Plate Mail: always a group of Fighters, with a
spellcaster or two in some groups (all 7th level Humans). As with the ones
that interrupt you in your sleep, too, you always have the opportunity to
back off from an encounter with mercenaries. In the western half (first
coordinate 1-9), the random encounters are with minotaurs, who you can try
to parlay with, fight, or run away from.
On mission, the first thing to do is make your way southwards towards the
inn. As you do, characters will probably start to notice some money is
missing. This is related to the Thieves' Guild at 10,15 later on. You might
also catch Thieves attempting to pickpocket you in which case you can get
clues by interrogating them (there are actually three Thieves, and once you
catch a given Thief, you stop losing money in a given spot). If and when
you pass by the tavern entrance at 9,9 for the first time after getting the
mission, you'll bump into a group of minotaurs coming out of the tavern who
will attack you immediately. Minotaurs are basic melee enemies, not too
unlike ogres except for having many more HP and carrying Battle Axes, and
need no special tactics. You get a free drink at the tavern at 10,9 next
time you enter (not that drinks ever cost any money in this game anyway).
This is a standard Tavern Tale dispensary.
However, once you visit the "recruitment officer" in the inn, you're going
to start triggering the main events of Sanction, so let's get all that cash
off our chests so it doesn't weigh us down in battle (everyone is probably
fully loaded and moving at a rate of 3 squares per round ...). On the east
side of town near the inn, there are two shops. One is the armoury (at
12,12) which sells the same items that the armoury in Jelek does, at the
"higher" prices:
Battle Axe: 8 steel
Dagger: 4 steel
4 Darts: 4 steel
Mace: 16 steel
Broad Sword: 48 steel
Composite Long Bow: 200 steel
Chain Mail (AC 5): 140 steel
Shield: 12 steel
20 Arrows: 4 steel
The other shop is the magic shop at 14,9, which has a much more spare
selection than the one in Jelek:
Wand of Magic Missiles: 14,000 steel
10 Arrows +1: 200 steel
Potion of Healing: 1,600 steel
NEVER buy the potions here: the Jelek magic shop sells Potions of EXTRA
Healing, which are better, and they too go for 1,600 steel. The Wand of
Magic Missiles is the same price in both places. The Arrows +1 are a MUCH
better deal in Sanction on the other hand (less than half of Jelek's price
of 480 steel for the same lot of 10). You should easily have enough steel
pieces to be able to comfortably ditch all your regular Arrows at this
point and buy plenty of Arrows +1. BTW, if you plan to play through the
whole series, I'd buy quite a lot more arrows than you think you'll want -
after Champions it's quite a while before you get access to another magic
shop. Not only this, but the reasonably low priced +1 Arrows are never
sold again after this game: all the magic ammo sold in Death Knights or
Dark Queen is +2 Arrows, which are only slightly better but will cost a
whopping 15,000 steel pieces for 10! So make sure you stock up during this
game! (You'll have another chance to shop after you complete the game
though, so don't worry if you need to buy more later. Just make sure you
do it before you transfer the party to the next game.)
Before you spend all your money, though, double-check your Red Mages' spell
books, and make sure someone knows the Knock spell. This spell becomes
particularly valuable starting here, and if you don't know it already, you
will want to make particularly sure that you learn it. It's on one of the
Red Mage Scrolls sold in Jelek if you don't have it, so if that's the case,
go back there and buy that Scroll especially. If you already know Knock,
and have bought all the other Scrolls you wanted to in Jelek, then it's a
good idea indeed to spend most or all of your cash on Wands or Arrows while
you are here in Sanction on mission: this is the last place in the game to
spend money (there are no shops in Kernen), and you don't really need any
cash to carry over into Death Knights of Krynn, as it's very easy to obtain
huge sums of money in the next game. Also, while the shops here and in
Jelek will still be available post-game, you lose a number of your magical
items at the end of the game (see the Epilogue section) - among these are
ALL the items that give a permanent Strength boost when equipped, so your
carrying capacity will be substantially diminished. Indeed, depending on
your party composition, you might in particular not be able to buy a Wand
of Magic Missiles at all after completing the game (for want of the ability
to carry 14,000 steel pieces among the group).
After shopping, visit the inn. If you came here before the mission, the
innkeeper would have said to take any room you want; now he will say the
same, except it will be with the exception of the room at the north end of
the hall. Of course, we know what this is our cue for, so go to the room
at the north end of the hall (14,11) and barge in on the enemy's recruiting
officer, an Elf. (Despite what the term "dark elf" may suggest if you are
unfamiliar with Dragonlance, he is NOT a Drow: in Krynn, "dark elf" is a
term relating to social status and not to race, in fact, Drow canonically
don't even exist on Krynn. Although one AD&D pen and paper module did
feature them, namely the "Dargaard Keep" adventure in DL16: World of Krynn,
their existence is not canonical. (Dargaard Keep is a fine dungeon crawl
indeed, so if you play 1st Edition AD&D, I highly recommend DMing it or
suggesting it to your DM, though.))
You can leave for now, but we need to fight this guy, so we can either
attack right away or parlay. Parlaying with the Sly option gives you info
and then the same battle that you get from attacking immediately. This is
with one Elven Fighter/Mage and a group of Human Fighters, all 7th level.
The loot contains a piece of jewelry, some gems, and a magical item which
will be random (my last time through the game it yielded a Shield +1). You
get an XP bonus and find a dispatch on the Elf's body (Journal Entry #16).
Soon after you leave the inn, as you head west, you'll hear a woman's
scream, indicating that the next part of the Sanction storyline has been
activated by the defeat of the Elf in the inn. Before we head to the docks
area to continue the main plot, however, there is one other thing we can
do on the eastern side, the optional but very recommended Thieves' Guild
visit. The Thieves' Guild is located at 10,15, the building located just
west of the inn. If you haven't caught all three of the street Thieves this
room will be empty; otherwise, Thieves will be complaining about Fighters,
and whether you bluff or attack, you'll have to fight a small group of 7th
level Human Fighters. The real goal in this building though is the small
room at 12,15, which contains some very substantial loot: money including
a whopping 5 pieces of jewelry, as well as a Necklace of Missiles (which
casts Fireballs similar to a Wand of Fireballs, but does not need a free
hand to equip), and a pair of Bracers AC 4. Take it all - even if you have
no use for the Bracers, they're worth a whopping 9,000 steel pieces! This
is also the first of the three places where you really need the Knock spell
since the door is wizard locked and therefore there is only a very small
chance of being able to open it otherwise. Now is a good time to visit the
magic shop at 14,9 again and really spend all the money (there will be
enough loot in the last few areas to finance the cost of identifying the
magical items in those areas).
Now to find out about that screaming woman. Northwest was the direction so
head that way (fighting the drunken minotaurs in front of the tavern if you
haven't already); when you near the western side of the large building in
the NW part of town (i.e., the building just SW of where you entered the
city) you'll see the woman being dragged into the building by minotaurs, so
go inside and have a fight with minotaurs (5,2 or 5,5), then you need to
find the woman, who turns out to be in the southeastern of the small cubby
like rooms in this building (9,6). When you get to just outside her cell
(9,5), you'll see she is in there and then there is another fight with
minotaurs. Enter her cell and she'll put on a ring and disappear; you'll
gain bonus XP and she tells you to meet her at the southern pier. Go there
(1,12) and you'll learn her story (Journal Entry #88) including the true
identity of Sir Lebaum, gain an amulet (a plot item which is not shown on
your inventory screen) needed in Huerzyd, learn about a secret entrance to
Huerzyd in a building south of the warehouse you rescued her in (8,9), and
more information (Journal Entry #19). Now is a good time to make sure your
characters are trained (there is a Training Hall at 14,1) and have their
spells memorised (another Knock will be needed later, but not until you
reach the Temple of Duerghast), and then it's time to head to Huerzyd. You
may do so either from the main entrance at 15,7 or the secret one at 8,9.
Note that you cannot go to the Temple of Duerghast from Sanction directly
yet.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEMPLE OF HUERZYD #WK029
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is impossible to enter this area until you have received the mission to
travel to Sanction. You may enter it after having received this mission but
before you receive the amulet from the woman in the city, in which case you
may loot some of the treasures but many encounters will not activate and
you will not be able to find the tunnels that lead to the Temple of
Duerghast.
The Temple of Huerzyd is essentially a standard-sized area, although it's
not quite contiguous (the tunnels to Duerghast are placed at the south end
of the map and use a number of automatic teleporters to string everything
together into a single path). The area map and coordinates are available.
Random encounters are with groups of draconians (all types of draconian
except aurak can be found, and sometimes there are mobats with them), and
only occur after you receive the amulet in Sanction. There is no entirely
safe place to rest here, although interruptions are not frequent.
If you enter the Temple normally at any time, you will arrive at 3,8 (the
door at 10,8 is another exit to the main temple entrance in Sanction, but
you never enter here). If you use the secret door, you end up at 0,2. You
can use the secret door at 0,2 as an exit to Sanction ONLY after having
used the secret entrance to the Temple, even if you do have the amulet. The
only mandatory encounter here is in the large room at 14,4, with a mixed
group of draconians, which yields information (Journal Entry #37) and will
elicit an appearance from the Shadowpeople and the ability to enter their
tunnels (via 13,0, in turn via the secret door at 15,2, which you will
simply fail to be able to locate or use until you have had this battle).
The remaining rooms of note in the Temple are as follows, all of them
optional (but several of them well worth it):
* 3,1 is a food storage area, but the food is long since spoiled.
* 1,3 is the beginning of a section of priests' living cells, there is
nothing of note in any of them.
* At 5,0 scrolls crumble at a touch, but searching will reveal intact ones
(naturally, two of them, one for each type of Mage).
* At 12,1 you encounter draconians setting a trap, you interrupt them as
they are doing so and you have a fight, similar to the random encounters
in this area. Afterwards you find that the draconians have only begun
to infest this temple recently (truth, since if you come here before you
get the amulet, no battles occur at all).
* The huge room in the middle of the temple is the primary shrine, to the
Gods of Krynn (specifically, 6 of the 7 Good aligned gods; the one not
appearing is Solinari the White Moon) with several statues. The statue of
Paladine is at 6,4 and searching it reveals two magic items, both random
(my luck was a Shield +1 and a White Mage Scroll). A clue here is that
this statue is said to be of 'Paladine' with single quotes, whereas the
five other statues do not feature the single quotes. In this room you
may encounter a figure that wants to meet you in the east (this turns out
to be a Shadowperson). Of the two small rooms at the south end of the
main shrine, the eastern one is empty while the western one has a glint
of something shiny and is trapped. This trap guards more treasure, of a
similar sort to that in Paladine's statue (gems, jewelry, and two random
magic items, my most recent looting from here being a Plate Mail +1 and
20 Arrows +1).
* East of the secondary front exit is the high priest's bedroom (11,8)
where a search will yet again reveal gems and jewelry as well as 2 random
magical items (I was a lot less lucky this time - Bracers AC 6 and a Ring
Mail +1 were my reward here). The room behind this is empty.
Once you are done looting and have had the mandatory encounters noted above,
proceed to 13,0 and enter the tunnels.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SHADOWPEOPLE'S TUNNELS #WK030
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Shadowpeople's tunnels share a map and coordinates with the Temple of
Huerzyd. You cannot enter this part until you have completed the Sanction
City mission, rescued the woman, and obtained her amulet, as noted above.
The only random encounters down here are mobats (much easier than some of
the draconian groups in the temple) and there is one room (8,12) which is
safe to rest in, a welcome blessing as it allows you finally an opportunity
to reset the moons to regain all your bonus spells, as there has not been a
fully safe place to rest since you left the outpost to head to Sanction.
You enter the tunnels at 15,15; to the east is the tunnel leading back to
13,0, much more visible than it was on the way down. There is only one way
to go for the most part. The coordinates will suddenly change at a few
points, this occurs when you pass through one of the "tunnel" graphics you
encounter every now and then. This is a device used by the Gold Box game
designers in order to fit areas within a standard-sized area. In the first
large room (13,12) you will meet the conclave of the Shadowpeople, who will
inform you about the Ancient Revered One; the rest of their directions are
largely superfluous as there is only the one way to go, but they do clue
you in to the one fully safe place to rest. Eventually, at 4,10 you will
in fact meet the Ancient Revered One, although you don't get to actually
see him or her. You are given images of the location of the Dragonlance and
a map to it (Journal Entry #63) and the image of a death knight. You then
receive more money and gems and random magical items - 3 of them this time.
(My fortune was a Red Mage Scroll, 20 Darts +1, and a Ring of Protection
+1). After this you are directed to the south door, so go there and the
next tunnel (10,0) leads finally into the Temple of Duerghast.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TEMPLE OF DUERGHAST #WK031
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Temple of Duerghast is the base of Sir Lebaum's operations, and is also
where Myrtani has stored the Dragonlance. It is a multi-floor structure
which fits into a standard-sized area, much like the Temple of Huerzyd.
Coordinates and the area map are available. You must enter here for the
first time from the Shadowpeople's tunnels as the path from Sanction is
not initially available.
The Temple of Duerghast is also the "point of no return" area of Champions
of Krynn. Once you defeat Sir Lebaum, you will be placed on a fast track to
Kernen to confront Myrtani and you will not be able to return to any of the
previous areas until you finish Kernen - and thus, the game. As a result,
if you wish to do anything optional in the game, including the side quests
to Sir Dargaard's tomb, the Ogre Base, or the southern outpost, you should
exit the temple (if you take the doors at the south end of the upper level,
you can finally use the passage from Sanction City to return, and you will
not need to go all the way through Huerzyd and the tunnels again) before
this, and return to confront Sir Lebaum later. There will be another
warning of this fact at the point in this walkthrough when you will be
about to confront the death knight.
Keep a Knock spell memorised AT ALL TIMES on your Red Mage while you are
exploring this dungeon: not only are two treasure rooms (the room with the
Dragonlance and the room beyond where you confront Skyla) wizard locked,
but these are also the only safe places to rest, AND they appear to lock
themselves back up tight every time you leave, so you need a Knock spell to
reliably enter them EVERY TIME you want to rest! The random encounters here
are many and extremely varied. Keep on your toes and be prepared to fight
almost anything.
You enter the Temple of Duerghast in the dungeons at 15,0; there is a
secret door behind you which leads back into the Shadowpeople's tunnels. At
15,7 you find a torture chamber and have a chance to rescue the prisoner
being tortured by fighting his tormentors (sivaks and 7th level Human
Fighters and Clerics). At 13,9 is a group of Fighters who have apparently
learned of a secret way in and therefore it comes to blows. There is also
a secret door to the east at this point which leads to 14,9 where there is
a frightened Shadowperson; you learn (as if we were surprised) that Skyla
is still around. He is here in the temple and there is treasure beyond him.
This room can also be reached by a secret door to the south from the
torture chamber, but the secret doors cannot be used to avoid the fight
with the group of Fighters.
South of this is a room with several doors. The doors on the eastern side
of the room lead to nowhere of note, the southwestern door leads further on
in the dungeon, and the northwestern door leads through a spiraling hallway
to the small room at 11,13. Along the way you note the furnishings and that
it resembles the clues you got from the Shadowpeople. The room at 11,13 is
wizard locked and needs a Knock spell to open reliably. It contains the
Dragonlance! ... and some draconians, who you have to fight. The guard
force consists of bozaks and kapaks (and strangely, the kapaks are in the
back row ... I get the feeling this was meant to be a much larger battle,
but the developers forgot there was not room for more than the 8 draconians
who do appear). The loot contains a Ring of Protection +2, a Cloak of
Displacement, and the Dragonlance! You gain an XP bonus. This is also a
safe place to rest so make sure all your spells including bonus spells are
ready before continuing - and that you rememorise Knock, because it appears
that you need it every time you want to enter this room; additionally, you
will soon come across another treasure room that requires a Knock spell to
open.
On the topic of the Dragonlance, now that you have it: you're probably
wondering just how this baby works. It's simple: under normal circumstances
it's a +5 weapon (the only true +5 weapon in the entire Dragonlance
computer game series, in fact - even in The Dark Queen of Krynn, the best
other weapons you'll find are only +4), which is nice enough, but against
any form of dragon, it deals the HP of the wielder in damage! (Sadly,
unlike dragons' breath which is always based on the dragon's maximum HP,
the Dragonlance's damage is based on the wielder's CURRENT HP instead ...)
Make sure you give this to whoever has the most HP, probably your Knight.
There are no other fixed encounters in the basement so proceed to the
stairs at 5,15 and go upstairs.
You arrive on the main floor at 12,0, however, Myrtani's forces are aware
of the secret entrance and it is guarded. A fight with sivaks ensues. As
you exit the room into the main floor, you hear the sound of the arrival of
the Good armies. Another step into the Temple and you hear sounds coming
from the door to the east, so go there and bash open the door into the room
at 10,3. It's your old friend from Jelek, Skyla! This time it's time to get
even. Skyla is an Elven Fighter/Mage and has several spellcasters for
backup, so make sure they don't cast their spells. Use all of your Fireball
spells if it will finish the fight quickly, since the next room is a safe
place to rest. There is no magical loot from the fight itself but there is
info (Journal Entry #61) and an experience bonus. Proceed to the other door
which is wizard locked, so use a Knock spell to open it. The next room
(12,4) is an armoury and contains Plate Mail +1, a Shield +2, a Long Sword
+3, and a Mace +2. (The Long Sword in particular is tied with another sword
we find soon for being the best weapon available in the game apart from the
Dragonlance itself.) It is also a safe place to rest so get all your bonus
spells back, and don't forget a Knock spell in case you need to come back
in here to recuperate. Also, ditch six of your Clerics' Hold Person spells
and replace them with Resist Fire - we'll need this soon.
As for the other rooms in this portion of the temple:
* 7,1 and 5,3 are empty, but if you happen to go into either before you
fight Skyla, you'll have the fight with him there instead of at 10,3.
* The room nestled between these (enter via 5,0 or 4,1), is wizard locked.
If you enter this room before going to 12,4, it will contain the same
loot that you would have found there. Otherwise, it will be empty. In
either case, however, this room is also a safe place to rest.
* At either 5,7 OR at 10,8 you will encounter a Fighter destroying
documents, who then flees through the door to the south. Going then to
4,8 or 12,8 respectively results in a major fight that includes some
draconians (interestingly, if you have this encounter at the eastern set
of locations, the Fighter himself will be absent - the room is too small
to accommodate all of the monsters the developers specified, much like
the Dragonlance fight before, so only some sivaks and a couple of bozaks
actually appear). After the fight you get info (Journal Entry #29). Note
that you have to go to the second room on the same side to continue the
encounter here - i.e., if you went to 5,7, nothing will happen at 12,8,
and if you went to 10,8, nothing happens at 4,8.
* Somewhere in the main temple you'll encounter an interesting document
that says that eggs should be taken to the SW building for processing.
Finally, you make it to the outdoor courtyard of the Temple of Duerghast.
At the south end (4,11, 5,11, 10,11, and 11,11) you find the main exit from
the temple grounds, which leads back to 15,7 in Sanction. Once you have
used any of these doors at least once, you can return to Duerghast directly
from Sanction (you will always appear at 11,11 in this case, BTW). If you
go to the entrance of the southwestern building (2,10), you will find some
silver dragon eggs and be attacked by two blue dragons. This can be a hard
fight to win without someone being killed for real, especially if you are
playing on Champion difficulty where a failed save means 75 damage (and it
is possible to be hit twice by lightning). You may want to use a Haste
spell or a Potion of Speed on the Dragonlance user in order to double their
attacks so that you can try to kill both dragons in one round. The treasure
includes jewelry, and a Sapphire gem (like the Emerald found on the green
dragons in Neraka, or the Diamond that can be bought in the outpost, it
seems to have no specific purpose beyond its value) and an XP bonus. If you
continue north you notice evidence of bodies being taken into the arena to
the north, and then groans from the doors to the north.
WARNING! You are about to reach the point of no return for Champions of
Krynn! If there is anything you want to do in terms of shopping or item ID,
do it NOW because once you fight Sir Lebaum, you cannot go back and MUST go
on to Kernen, where there are no shops until you have finished the game!</pre><pre id="faqspan-6">
(There IS a Training Hall in Kernen, but you probably want to make sure
everyone is trained up now, too.)
If you enter the arena (1,3 or 2,3) you will see loads of dead bodies, then
a flash from above and some of them come alive; if you keep wandering in
here you will fight the freshly risen undead. To continue, you need to go
up one of the stairs to the second floor balcony (0,5 or 3,5). However, if
you did enter the arena, cast your prep spells BEFORE you climb the stairs.
Otherwise, you should climb the stairs, then camp and cast battle prep
spells (especially including Resist Fire, also mages should cast Fire
Shield if they have it - select "Cold!") before you enter the room (1,13 or
1,14).
WARNING !!! This is your LAST CHANCE (before climbing the stairs if you
entered the arena, or before entering the room at 1,13/1,14 if you didn't)
to go back and do anything in the previous areas, including the three side
missions!
Entering the room at 1,13 or 1,14, or climbing the stairs if you entered
the arena, you encounter, at last, Sir Lebaum. He denounces Skyla and sends
messengers to Kernen to warn Myrtani and then attacks along with three
minotaurs.
The death knight is a unique enemy in Champions of Krynn. Although undead,
he CANNOT be Turned, nor can he be instantly destroyed by the effect of the
Mace of Disruption (although he WILL take double damage from it, making it
still one of your better weapon options here). He can also gate in ghasts
to assist him and he can cast an absolutely devastating *20-120 DAMAGE*
Fireball (hence the Resist Fire spells, and thankfully he can only cast it
once). He also has a base 75% resistance to magic (in actuality more: due
to how magic resistance works in 1st Edition AD&D, an 8th level caster will
have a 90% chance to fail to affect him with a spell, a 7th level caster a
95% chance, and a 6th level or below caster will not be able to affect him
with a spell at all) and on top of this, 11% of a the time, if he is the
actual target of a spell (not simply caught in an AoE effect), that spell
will be REFLECTED ON THE CASTER, just as if the caster had used it on
themselves! Finally, he has a Fear aura, which if it affects a character
will cause him or her to attempt to flee the battle. The treasure contains
a Two-Handed Sword +3 (along with the Long Sword +3 from Skyla's cache,
this is the best weapon in the game apart from the Dragonlance), and two
Wands (Lightning and Paralyzation - unfortunately, you won't be able to ID
them so you can easily tell which is which until after you finish the
game). There is an XP bonus, and then the messengers start tearing down the
stairs. You do, however, have time to rest, as long as you are not
interrupted by enemies, and you probably need to heal up after that.
After you defeat Sir Lebaum, go back downstairs; as you near the
southwestern building (where you may have fought the blue dragons before),
you will be attacked by a blue dragon (solo this time, which is much easier
than the previous fight). There is jewelry to loot and another XP bonus!
After this, a battle begins between gold and red dragons and you have a
fight with draconians. By the time this battle is over, the golds have
beaten the reds and then they pick you up on their backs and fly you toward
Kernen. You meet up with another Hero of the Lance, Tasslehoff Burrfoot,
and then you have an opportunity to rest safely, so get your spells back.
It's a good idea to keep a set of Resist Fire spells around from here on
out, as there are a lot of red dragons in the final areas.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIRST FLYING CITADEL #WK032
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
After your rest break on the gold dragons, you begin to approach your
destination, after which you find that the draconians are using flying
citadels. You decide to land in the courtyard of one of the citadels, so
here we are. As long as you are outdoors in the citadel, you are subject to
missile fire from the enemy. This is random, and probably dependent on your
characters' AC.
There are no area maps or coordinates in the flying citadel, nor is there a
need for a map as the layout is extremely simple. There are three buildings
that you can reach, two smaller towers and the main tower. The smaller
towers contain nothing but fights that don't advance the plot, have no
magical loot, and aren't worth the trouble at this point in the game as you
need to be careful to husband your resources as ther will be few chances to
rest for the remainder of the game, so go into the main tower in front of
you.
As soon as you enter the main tower, you will encounter a force of
draconians, and Tas will yell about there being a stairway to the right.
This group of draconians is actually quite easy, being a sivak with a few
baaz. If you attempt to go through the door to the north, you will
encounter first a few sivaks and a red dragon (of the smaller type that is
common in this part of the game); afterwards, you will still not be able to
go through the door (there are an unlimited number of fights here), so go
to the staircase to the right.
The trip up the tower is quite straightforward; there will be a battle at
each staircase with draconians, nothing you haven't done countless times
before. When you reach the top, Tas says that you're at the Windcaptain's
Chamber and that he can control the citadel from here. You are then
confronted by a small group of Humans including some Fighters and a Mage.
You then reach the controls where Tas hands you an Enlarge scroll and asks
a party mage to read it for him. After this you have the opportunity to
rest, so do so and then the next time you try to move, you will have
another combat, this time with bozaks and two red dragons. Use the
Dragonlance and take care to win this battle in reasonable condition as you
won't be able to rest again at all until you reach Kernen itself.
After you defeat this wave of attackers, Tas will mention that you've
reached Kernen, but that the other flying citadel is trying to block you
from reaching there. He then decides to, in true epic style, RAM THIS
CITADEL INTO THE OTHER ONE ... Everyone takes some damage, and then you're
thrown into the courtyard of the other flying citadel.
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SECOND FLYING CITADEL #WK033
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Uh oh. Yeah, Tas, way to state the obvious. The main objective here is
indeed to find your way down so that you can take a dragon ride. You can't
rest AT ALL here, not till you hit Kernel (well, actually, you're trying
NOT to, well, HIT Kernen is kind of the problem ...).
There is no area map here nor coordinates. Head north and east until you
find the stairs. You may have a few random encounters with draconians
during your trip down; they are small, and of no danger unless they have a
red dragon with them. Go downstairs. The door in front of you leads nowhere
so go south, then through the southeastern door. The door right next to
this one goes nowhere, go east and south past it and you'll encounter some
dispirited guards in front of a door. The fight is a few sivaks and behind
the door is a large treasure cache. I recommend at this point leaving
behind the coins and only taking the gems and jewelry and the two random
magic items (here I got a White Mage Scroll and a Ring of Protection +1).
There is nothing further south nor in any of the rooms in this part so go
back north to where the two adjacent doors are and take the westward one to
get back the way we came. When you get back to the T junction with a
westward path (which was the first junction after we got to this level in
the first place) head west, and then down.
On the second sublevel you'll arrive in a square room, leave through the
door and head straight to the stairs; none of the rooms on this level have
anything of note or value. Go downstairs to the final sublevel. Here ignore
all the rooms and continue along the corridor until you find the party of
uniformed humans - hmmm, the fact that they're uniformed sounds
significant. And I don't think the guys who own this place are going to be
too willing to fly us down. Attack these guys, unless you really want to,
um, hit Kernen. You face a group of Fighters and Mages. Afterwards, don
their uniforms as a disguise and continue along the corridor to the end,
where you should mount the red dragons. (If you don't disguise yourself or
don't mount the dragons, then you really will go splat to the tune of 30-
180 damage per character! Owie ...)
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KERNEN #WK034
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Finally we've made it down to Kernen in one piece. Kernen is a standard-
sized area, though like Throtl this area is divided into two subzones that
are largely independent and have separate random encounters. This time,
that would be the outer city that you land in after leaving the second
flying citadel, and Myrtani's main compound in the middle north area of the
map. It is impossible to enter Kernen from the overland map (instead it
will trigger a very large battle that, should you prevail, still won't
allow you to enter the city), and it is also impossible to leave once you
land here - if you try to exit the square area by going between the
buildings on the outer perimeter you will find the rubble to be impassible.
There are no shops in Kernen, nor inns or other amenities except for the
Training Hall at 6,14. You enter the city at 12,13, which is where either
the dragons will drop you off or, if you screwed up in the second citadel,
where your survivors will land (you should probably reload your saved game
and do the disguise routine right this time, if that was the case ...
unless you were REALLY lucky and everyone survived). If you need to heal or
memorise spells (and you probably will after all the fighting in the
citadels), duck into one of the unmarked buildings, such as either of the
buildings in the SE corner immediately next to where you entered, and do a
Fix; there is no entirely safe place to rest in Kernen, but you're likely
to succeed if you do not try to rest for too long at a time.
There are a number of different sorts of random encounters, although they
are very infrequent. Keep on your toes, and note that not all of them lead
to combat; if you are disguised, you can talk to Humans (which causes you
to learn about a meeting and gain an XP bonus if you have not been to 14,2
yet; if you have, and made a good impression, then they will simply tell
you that they have Myrtani's forces on the run. If you made them hostile,
then of course it will come to blows). Ogres will identify themselves as
Gravnak's allies, and if you agreed to ally with him in the Ogre Base, you
can greet them to have a friendly outcome, which also gives an XP bonus.
Draconian groups are likely to be hostile, and they can even have auraks
with them! Your ultimate goal is to enter Myrtani's base whose gates are in
the centre of town at 6,8 and 7,8, and you can actually attempt to do this
at any time, however, it is a good idea to explore the square and do
whatever else you can here first, since it affects the difficulty of the
combat when you do choose to attack the base (and you gain XP for doing the
various smaller tasks as well).
Going clockwise around the perimeter from where you arrive, you may come
across a group of humans in discussion in the alley at 11,14; this gives
information (Journal Entry #53): the humans are not happy about being
subservient to a draconian. If you are disguised, as you probably are, you
can talk to them without a fight and then you get a map (Journal Entry #81)
to the meeting. The next building at 10,14 is a draconians' barracks, you
can talk to them and have drinks, after which you notice it is possible to
start a fire, which you should. This will distract this group of draconians
and make them unavailable for defending the base entrance (you can, of
course, instead choose to kill them). After this, you come across Kernen's
Training Hall at 6,14 and it is still open for business despite (or perhaps
because of) the war and carnage. You'll definitely want to make a stop
here, especially if you didn't make a side trip out of the Temple of
Duerghast in order to train.
The final building in the southern perimeter is empty, so continue north
and around to the second row of buildings. The first building (3,11) is now
the residence of an old, battered red dragon. You could attack him but you
really shouldn't (and while you'll probably whack him in one shot with the
Dragonlance if you do, you can make better use of this encounter, and there
is always the chance that he gets a turn before your lance wielder and
incinerates party members ...); instead, greet him to learn about the crown
jewels of Kernen (Journal Entry #57). The next building (5,11) is another
draconian barracks and is identical to the previous one, with the same
options to either fight or distract with a fire. The next building is empty
and the fourth building (11,11) is an ogre barracks. If you made friends
with Gravnak at the Ogre Base then this barracks will be friendly and the
ogres will merely greet you. Continuing east, the building at the east end
of town (14,9) is another ogre barracks.
Heading north along the northeastern perimeter buildings from here, in
the building at 14,7 you encounter notably among the objects a cheap crown,
which you can and should take (Tas, still with you from the citadels, will
carry it for you). The next building is empty. In the northeastern corner
at 14,2 are humans gathered to discuss ousting Myrtani from battle. This is
your goal, too, so you can either encourage it, or you can reveal your
mission (in which case you need to pass a Charisma based check, but if you
do, it has the same effects as encouraging the rebellion, and the person
passing the check gains an XP bonus).
Finally, before assaulting Myrtani's base, swing back around to the west,
making a stop at 3,11 to drop off the crown with the old dragon, which will
cause him to try to assault the base to return the crown to the vault. He
won't be successful, but it will reduce the gate guard even further. Going
up the western perimeter encounters a few narrow buildings; the first one
is empty, the second one (0,4) is Gravnak's hideout. As with the ogre
barracks earlier, if you made an alliance at the Ogre Base side mission you
will get a friendly reception - and here, an XP bonus. The final perimeter
building in the far NW corner is empty, so it's time to assult the base by
going to the gates at 7,8. If you've done all the above, including having
competed the Ogre Base side mission and thus gained friendly receptions
from the ogres (it will be tougher if you didn't), the gate should describe
itself as a "good fight" now. In fact, with ogre aid and everything done,
the gate guard is practically a joke - all that are left are a sivak, a
couple of bozaks and one red dragon. Not even a point to using spells here!
If you had ogre help, you also get one last chance to rest safely. This is
the LAST safe resting opportunity in the game so make full use of it.
Afterwards, before entering Myrtani's base, you might want to visit the
Training Hall one last time, as you will not be able to leave the base once
you enter, however there is interestingly no actual XP bonus after
defeating the gate guard and they are not worth much XP if you did all the
other things first, so if you already visited it once you probably won't
need to again. When you are ready, enter the gates.
As you enter the compound at 7,7 the ogres, if you have them with you, will
form up on your flanks, and in any case you encounter a guard post. It
consists of sivaks and a single aurak, of which only the aurak is of any
danger. Remember that they cast spells, are invisible, and their third form
is invulnerable and explodes after a few rounds; this can stun adjacent
characters. 7,4 is another guard post, this time slightly smaller but also
featuring an aurak. Try not to use too many spells, if any, during most of
exploring Myrtani's base: there is very limited opportunity to rest and
definitely no chance to reset moons favourably. Additionally, there are
random encounters here, which are groups of draconians, often led by yet
another aurak (although they tend to have baaz instead of sivaks as
backup).
Now that you are in the base proper, there are three directions in which to
go. To the west leads to Myrtani's rooms but you cannot do anything here
yet: at 4,3 there is a mystical guardian that will damage anyone not
wearing the proper salve and force them back. If you have ogre backup,
when you approach this location some of the ogres will move ahead to the
end of the corridor and trigger the guardian which will kill them, and
Gravnak will tell you about the guardian (Journal Entry #79). If you try to
enter this space with or without ogre backup, but without the salve, you
will take damage and won't be able to proceed. The small room (west of the
second guard post and directly through the door to the south where the ogre
scene happens) is empty. To the east, 8,3 is a guard post of the same
composition as the group at 7,4, and you won't have ogre backup in this
section even if you have them with you and didn't lose them in the vault,
so before we continue, we might as well loot the vault at 7,1 where if you
have ogres with you they will begin to bicker over the treasure and forget
about the mission. (What this boils down to is that if you go to the vault
before you approach Myrtani's chambers, you won't get the information from
Gravnak about the guardian at 4,3 and will have to figure it out on your
own.) The vault contains a Two-Handed Sword +2 and a set of Gauntlets of
Ogre Power, as well as a huge load of money, but at this point it's really
only worth taking the gems and jewelry from that (in Gold Box games you
get the XP for finding the treasure without any need to keep or loot it, so
don't weigh yourself down with the cheap stuff, we have tough battles
coming up).
We can't get into Myrtani's chambers yet so go to the eastern wing, defeat
the guards at 8,3 if you haven't already and then into the first room on
your left (9,2). It's a good idea to pick this lock as if you don't you'll
set off a trap. In any case you need to read this book since it has the
recipe for a salve that can protect you from the guardian. The next room on
your left (the northeastern corner of the compound, 11,2) is the alchemy
lab itself where you will automatically create and apply the salve.
Continuing down the corridor, the room at 10,5 is Myrtani's personal
bedroom, where you can search to find a key which you will need shortly.
The final room, at 10,6, is a study containing nothing of note.
Now that we can pass the guardian, we can go to the western wing of the
compound. At 4,3 you will notice sparks, but the salve protects you. The
north door actually leads into Myrtani's main meeting room itself, but the
door cannot be opened; you will instead have to take the south door into
4,4, which is a barracks for Human guards who will attack you immediately.
This is standard fare, Fighters with a couple of Mages. There is no useful
loot, so cast Resist Fire on everyone (and Fire Shield on mages, if you
have it), and go south into the next room at 6,4 where you will encounter
Myrtani's dragon master. He is a Human Fighter and comes with several red
dragons, so take the dragons out quickly before concerning yourself with
him. (All of his items are +1 magical, BTW.) After the battle you find a
passage but DON'T take it yet! First make your final battle preparations.
* Preparatory spells should be cast on everyone. You should be able to
have time enough to rest after the dragon master fight to rememorise what
you need. Note that if you want to use Haste against the red dragons in
the final fight, make sure you do it at the END of the battle with
Myrtani, as Haste has a short duration. Bless, Prayer, and Protection
from Evil type spells are extremely useful, but the one spell that should
definitely be on every character is Resist Fire. It has a long enough
duration to be useful in both fights.
* Make SURE you have the Scroll of Protection vs. Dragon Breath from Jelek,
and that it's on the character using the Dragonlance. The final battle
will be EXTREMELY difficult if it is not.
* SAVE THE GAME!
Once you have all your preparations ready take the passage in the dragon
master's room (walk into the wall, or out of the room and back, to get the
option again - DON'T hit Look as that will chop 10 minutes clean off your
prep spells' durations!) and you will finally arrive behind the barricade
at Myrtani's main meeting room at 4,2. Maya is in chains, and Myrtani is
gleeful. He won't be so gleeful (or existent) after the battle. The fight
is with draconians of all types, but there are no auraks apart from Myrtani
himself (who has significantly more HP and a better AC than a normal aurak,
but the same strategies apply here just as they do to regular aurak
draconians). Let loose with any Fireballs you have here, as they are much
more useful now than in the next battle. After this fight, it is a good
idea to Continue battle for one more round if you plan to use additional
preparatory spells like Haste in the next battle (in which case it's a good
idea to cast them before this one ends as you will not get to access the
magic menus in between these encounters). This fight gives one piece of
magical loot, a Ring of Protection +3 (worn by Myrtani and explaining his
better than normal AC).
After the battle, Myrtani as he dies (we'll suspend our disbelief here, you
and I know we saw him explode to bits during the battle, just like auraks
always do) continues to speak triumphantly because his messengers will
still fly. Tas will hand you healing potions and your HP is automatically
restored, and then you auto-go to the next room (3,1) where the roof is
open to the sky. There are three red dragons here - huge ones. Your
Dragonlance wielder should use the Scroll of Protection vs. Dragon Breath
RIGHT AWAY (on Champion, for instance, the breath deals 115 damage before
fire resistance or a saving throw are taken into effect! And don't forget
that even if he or she survives a breath, the damage dealt by the
Dragonlance, unlike enemies' HP dependent effects like dragon breath, DOES
go down with his or her HP!), while everyone else should pull a Brave Sir
Robin and get themselves as far away as possible. This is essentially a one
on three fight, since anyone else besides the protected Dragonlance wielder
will probably just get themselves killed (and with that much damage from
one breath, most likely killed dead, as opposed to being knocked out). The
loot from this battle contains no magical loot, just 9 pieces of jewelry
and a Ruby, whose purpose I am completely unable to determine (you don't
even get to keep it long enough to sell it, so that makes things even more
foggy). Winning this battle completes the game.
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EPILOGUE #WK035
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After the defeat of the red dragons in Kernen, initially a classic "A
winner is you!" moment occurs - just a screen with "Victory. You have saved
the Good armies." without even a small picture, just the usual room view.
However, after the XP bonus, you do get a big picture view as the Solamnic
Knights arrive and congratulate you. You are then told that you may rest
and pass on your responsibilities (as if ...) and you have become the
Champions of Krynn! They really do mean it when they say you will be
honoured in song and legend forever, too - this game is still beloved by
old school gamers even now, 23 years after its release as of the time of
this writing. You then receive Maya's personal thanks, and then there is a
sinister whisper on the wind, from Lord Soth - a harbinger of the next
game ...
At this, you find yourself on the overland map again, near the second
outpost. As noted during the victory celebrations, you might have glossed
over it as flavour text, but unfortunately it's a very true thing. At least
you don't lose ALL your gear this time, like you do when you transfer your
party into Curse of the Azure Bonds and Secret of the Silver Blades from
the previous games in that series ... The following items are taken away
from you as gifts to the Solamnic Knights to help them in later battles:
* The Dragonlance
* Periapt of Proof vs. Poison
* Girdle of Giant Strength
* Cloak of Displacement
* Gauntlets of Ogre Power
* Mace of Disruption
* Necklace of Missiles
* ALL Potions
* The Ruby from the final battle (and probably also the Sapphire and
Emerald from the earlier dragon fights if you didn't sell those); as a
result, I am completely unable to determine any of the properties of this
item, and it doesn't matter anyway.
No Wands or Scrolls are taken away, even though Potions and the Necklace
of Missiles are. In addition, no nonmagical gear (including the Solamnic
Plate) or "basic" magical items (ones that merely give some sort of "plus,"
including the Long Sword +4 vs. Reptiles) are taken, nor any of your cash.
Even if characters are no longer actually able to carry the weight of their
inventory (because they were previously wearing the Gauntlets or Girdle and
removal of the Strength bonus now leaves them carrying more than their
usual limit), they are still able to hold onto what they have.
Unless you want to go to Jelek or Sanction to buy more magical items (as
noted before, it will be a while before you can access a magic shop in
Death Knights of Krynn, and on top of that the magic arrows there and in
Dark Queen cost an arm and a leg at 15,000 steel for 10), there is nothing
else left to do now but go back to the outpost (make sure your Knight isn't
carrying any gems or jewelry of course), in order to train one final time
and ID the magical items from Sir Lebaum, the second citadel (if you looted
the side treasure room), and Kernen; also, since you probably lost a number
of items that were equipped, it's a good idea to shuffle around your
remaining gear in order to ensure everyone has the best remaining items
equipped. It's not a good idea to sell anything though; wait until Death
Knights of Krynn for that. When you enter the outpost for the first time
after you complete the game, you will be congratulated once again, as well.
After you've done these final rounds of treasure identification and
training, it's time to save your game one last time. On some computers, you
might have to go to the Training Hall and remove all your characters (make
sure you use Remove Character from Party and not Drop Character!), as some
versions of the game do not allow a save game to be transferred in a single
go, instead requiring you to add Champions characters manually when you go
on to Death Knights. (The PC version does not have this limitation; you can
simply start up Death Knights and directly load your Champions save.)
And that's all folks! I hope you've enjoyed saving Krynn from Myrtani, and
see you again in DEATH KNIGHTS OF KRYNN, where we find out if Lord Soth is
really going to make good on that warning! (As if he isn't ...)
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COPYRIGHT #CP998
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This FAQ copyright 2013 by Patrick Kalinauskas. All rights reserved.
Champions of Krynn copyright 1990 by Strategic Simulations, Inc.
This FAQ may be distributed or given away in unmodified form as you wish.
It should be available to you for free. Selling, leasing, or otherwise
making access to this FAQ conditional upon payment is prohibited.
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REVISION HISTORY #RV999
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v1.1: (Jul-12, 2013)
Rewritten in 75-column text format.
v1.0a: (Nov-24, 2012)
Completed the guide (in an as yet unreleased LibreOffice document)
