GameBanshee Forums

Curse of the Azure Bonds

What is this a new PC RPG? I never heard of it?

Back in 1989, yes. That was when SSI released it.

Curse of the Azure Bonds is the second of the old gold box games. It is the sequel to Pool of Radiance and the prequel to Secret of the Silver Blades.

From what I know Pool of Radience was released twice. I have the second one, I think. So which sequal is this here? And by sequal do you mean to the Pan and Paper game or PC game?

Do characters imported from Pool of Radiance keep their equipment? I am playing PoR now and I want to keep some items for future paladin and ranger in CotAB, but I don’t want to carry useless items till the end of the game. Otherwise I’ll sell them.

Items don't transfer, not a single one does.
The only effect from items is that characters who wear the strength gauntlets when exporting start CotAB with 18/00 natural strength.

kmonster, thanks. What a pity.

You wrote in another thread:

imported F10>C (didn't get fighter skills back in CotAB)

Do you mean the character can’t use bows?

A dualclassed fighter>cleric can only use items pure class clerics can use (pure class clerics can't use bows) until she has more cleric than fighter levels.
The level cap for clerics in CotAB is 10 so if you take 10 fighter levels you won't be able to use bows before reaching cleric level 11 in SotSB.

kmonster wrote:The level cap for clerics in CotAB is 10

Thank you very much, I’ve lost sight of this restriction. In this case the best decision looks like F9 (or lower) > C.

kmonster wrote:Dual your cleric at level 14-15 in SotSB

I’ve already dualled her at level 9 to MU. But I have another cleric (F9 > C), he has level 8 now.

kmonster wrote:16 cleric levels are needed for the resurrection spell

Resurrected character loses his XP. I don’t resurrect, I just replay a battle.

kmonster wrote:If any of your 3 warriors has 17+ int consider dualing to mage during SotSB, extra high level delayed blast fireballs speed up the long and difficult PoD battles a lot. The only difference between a level 40 and level 17 fighter are 23*3 HP and even warrior level 13 is enough to damage almost everything as good as at level 40. You don't get extra attacks after level 13 (fighter/paladin) or 15(ranger). It's a waste to keep your fighter pure if you can dual him instead.

Well, I don’t know… My ranger has int 18. If I dual him I’ll lose a good warrior and get a weak mage for a long time, maybe till the end of the game. Besides some enemies have immunity to magic (salamanders and dark elves, for example), my three warriors + Haste spell don’t have many problems with them. They are a real chopping machine. I like Haste even better than a fireball. And +3 HP per level is better than +1. And AFAIK a dualled mage (unlike multiclass) can’t cast spells if he wears any armor. Should I to remove an armor every time I want to cast a spell?

I’ll have high level mage, high level cleric, C9, MU11, archer-thief and three good fighters in SotSB and PoD. Isn’t it enough?

Dualing cleric to mage at level 9 isn't a bad choice. You get the most hitpoints this way since mages get d4 rolls + con bonus until level 11 while clerics get only 2 hp/level after level 9.

Resurrection and restoration can avoid frustration after some really hard battles, especially when you've reached the level cap and XP doesn't matter any more.

Dark elves are not immune to magic, they have spell resistance. Each caster level increases the chance to overcome it by 5 or 10 percent and at about level 25+ you have a 100 percent success chance in PoD. Almost all monsters which seem immune to magic are only resistant, some are immune to fire but not to other spells. Only iron golems, beholders and a few bosses are immune to magic IIRC, but in such battles taking out their dangerous allies which are vulnerable to magic asap is essential.

Haste is a powerful spell, but hasted characters age 1 year permanently (but you can buy unlimited potions of rejuvenation in PoD until a certain event late in the game IIRC) and even hasted you don't have more than 4 attacks per round for at most 25 average damage each, even a level 9 fireball can do more damage when enough enemies are around.
With a single level 40 fireball you can kill 20 60 HP drow easily, a hasted level 40 fighter can kill one and hurt another, good luck trying to keep all the enemy casters in the back from casting their devastating spells.
PoD battles are not only difficult, they are big, long and tedious. A second mage to cast level 40 fireballs can speed up the game a lot and avoid getting bored from battles. I reloaded each time enemies cast the first fireball since fighting takes an eternity if you can't cast during the first round.

A Ranger>mage can cast mage spells while wearing armor (pure rangers learn a few mage spells too).

The 25 HP a ranger15/mage40 gets less than a ranger40 are easily evened out by the additional self-protection spells.

The middle part of SotSB will be relatively easy since your imported party will have far more XP than a freshly created one, so you can afford to make it a little harder by dualing your ranger at level 15, at the end a level 15 mage will be more useful than a level 15 ranger with the same HP.

PoD is difficult but beatable with your party even if you keep your ranger pure (it's more powerful than the party recommended in the manual but the pregenerated party has 2 dualclassed mages), but dualing will make your party more powerful and the game more fun.

Nice. I saw messages "… is aged" but never thought of this. My party will surely die of old age before SotSB. I red manuals and adventurers journals and didn't find a single word about it. It's very stupid and foul.

Thank you very much for an explanation, you know everything. I'll dual my ranger at level 15, if we live that long.

40 levels… I thought it was a metaphor when you had said it for the first time. I imagined about 20 levels at the end of PoD.

Is a thief needed for anything in SotSB and Pod - for any fun episode etc? I think of replacing her with another ranger as you advised. It's not late yet.

I had a thief in those games so I can't say for sure. Late in SotSB there were a few traps my thief disarmed, but there are other options to handle them. In PoD thief NPCs appear at the few locations you need thievery.

Elves have the advantage that they get very old, aging a few hundred years doesn't matter. Your mage/thief can cast self-protection and the powerful hold monster spell, but since I played only with high level casters I don't know exactly which of the PoD monsters have spell resistance to resist spells from level 11 casters.
I don't sure if replacing this character with a pure ranger will improve the party much. You'll have more HP and do far more melee damage but all characters get the same number of ranged attacks per round.
If you replace your elf there are many ways to add thieving skills. You could create a thief5or9or13/ranger, ranger17-18/thief or dual your fighter to thief (the only thing fighters can do better than paladins) at level 15 or 17-18 (thieves level so fast you can afford to start dualing in PoD, level 17 maxes out both fighter and ranger but you will have to gain some XP before finding a place to train after leaving the starting town) if you want both thief benefits and level 3 druid spells (My ranger had but never used them).
Adding a thief10or13-18/mage is also an option which adds extremely powerful spellcasting.
Instead of a pure ranger I had a paladin15/ranger for a few benefits which are small but nice. nice I like having as many level 40 mages as possible, paladin15/mage is imho the most powerful character who can be imported to PoD.

Keep in mind that we're talking about details which won't affect the gaming experience or difficulty much, you can afford to have the characters you like.

I have realized a simple fact: the game allows to change characters at any moment in the Training Hall. So I can replace one of my characters with my removed MU/T for a while when I need to. I haven’t dropped her, but removed, so she is in game. I even am going to take her back at the end of CotAB, after any character gets as many XP as is needed for getting two next levels in SotSB. The surplus of XP is lost anyway.

So my final party: F, P, R, F9 > C, two C9 > MU (and MU/T in reserve).

I wonder what happens if I don’t stop to use Haste. Will my party really die of old age? They are about 60 years old now. It seems to me that they won’t die even if they are 200. Otherwise this would be said in the manual.

kmonster, thanks for advises.

Items are not transferred to SotSB and PoD too, are they? I like Wizardry ring so much.

Items are not transferred from CotAB to SotSB, but all items are transferred from SotSB to PoD.

I've read in another forum that aging isn't implemented so you can play with 65535 year old humans.

I don't think a second cleric9/mage is optimal. It will be nice near the end of CotAB when you can't rest for a while, but in the following games all available healing spells combined won't even be as powerful as half a heal spell.
You have a high level cleric for resurrecting and healing, a level 9 cleric who can support and use a resurrection scroll, there's nothing a third (backup-backup-)cleric capped at level 9 can add, there aren't any decent self-buffs or offensive low level spells for clerics. If you take a ranger10/mage or paladin9/mage instead you get 36 extra hitpoints, a broader weapon choice, a bonus to thac0 and an extra half attack per round.
But the first class isn't too important. The powerful mage spellcasting will dominate this character anyway.

Yes, the second C9 > MU is a poor choice mainly because I feel discomfort playing without a thief. We fell into a trap in Wizard Tower and had nobody to disarm it. And I’m afraid to miss something interesting concerning a thief. I don’t want to dual to thief my three fighters. They add a hit dice with levels, not only a number of attacks per round. F40 must differ from F11 in chance of hit, damage or something else as much as MU40 differs from MU11 in fireball strength. So they stay pure.

The only character I can manipulate with is my MU11/T. I believe you that I need two high level mages, I can imagine those battles. I understand that mage 11 is ridiculous in sight of 40 levels.

I think of T14 > MU. In this case I have two excellent mages, three excellent fighters and a thief in the second part of SotSB and in PoD. I save a lot of XP unlike in multiclass. But is level 14 enough to be able to disarm any trap?
What do you think? What level did your thief have?

Alternative: T18 > MU. But this choice is more troublesome. I have to play the second part of SotSB and the beginning of PoD without the thief or I can exchange some characters for MU11/T for a while.

I had a human cleric9/thief in my party. This character has more hitpoints but is even weaker than an elf mage11/thief who knows spells like blink, hold monster or fire shield and can backstab for quintuple damage. The dwarf or half-elf f/t from the manual/pregenerated party aren't more powerful either.

The difference between th14/mage and th18/mage are only 4 HP and +2 to hit, it's not worth playing SotSB without thieving skills for those little benefits. If you don't need more than quadruple damage consider that a th10/mage has the same HP and chance to hit as a th14/mage.
You can't both dualclass and have a thief available all the time, there's no optimal solution. If you feel bad about dropping your elf just keep her, your warriors won't have more powerful options.
It's uncomfortable but should still be possible to beat the game with only one level 40 mage.

I don't think the thief level does matter for using quest related thieving skills, but I don't know. The thief NPCs you meet in PoD aren't very high level.

The difference between fighter17 and fighter40 are 69 hitpoints, nothing else. They have exactly the same chance to hit, the same number of attacks and saving throws, there's no hidden benefit after level 17. Even between level 13 and level 40 is hardly any difference.
A ranger17/thief40 who doesn't use thieving skills will play exactly like a pure ranger40 (and even have the same HP) unless you accidentally get a backstab for quintuple damage.
The AD&D rules were made with level 1-10 characters in mind, not balanced for level 40 characters. Mages become extremely powerful while other classes stop improving.

Thanks, then I’ll have T10 > MU - the most convenient opportunity.