Features
Pools of Darkness differed from its predecessors in a number of ways. Unlike the other Forgotten Realms gold box games where the party always stayed in Faerûn, the quests that the party have to endure traversed many dimensions to do battle with Bane's lieutenants. These include Thorne's Cave, Kalistes' Land, a visit to then sleeping Moander's colossus body in Astral Plane, and finally Bane's Land itself in Acheron.
Mages have the ability to get up to level 9 spells (the maximum). A popular spell available in this game is the Delayed Blast Fireball, which can cause damage to many targets at once. Unlike Secret of the Silver Blades, the fireball cannot be delayed and is cast immediately.
Pools of Darkness followed its predecessors closely in terms of structure. The party could have a maximum of six adventurers (with two extra slots for NPCs). Characters had the ability to advance to the lofty heights of level 40, giving them access to tenth-level spells.
Combat in Pools of Darkness, especially late in the story, differed greatly from the encounters of the previous games. The player's characters faced some of the toughest creatures in the AD&D universe, in addition to a number of new and formidable critters created specifically for the game, such as the Pets of Kalistes (intelligent magic spiders that could see invisible enemies and whose venomous bite had a -2 save) and the terrifying Minions of Bane (which had the magic resistances of demons and the breath weapons of dragons).
The game was by far the most extensive of any of the gold box series, in storyline depth and possibilities of advancement and equipment. The game also featured better graphics at the time as it supported VGA 256 colors instead of 16.
Another minor difference is the font used in the game is less stylish, but easier to read.
Read more about this topic: Pools Of Darkness
Famous quotes containing the word features:
“It is a tribute to the peculiar horror of contemporary life that it makes the worst features of earlier times—the stupefaction of the masses, the obsessed and driven lives of the bourgeoisie—seem attractive by comparison.”
—Christopher Lasch (b. 1932)
““It looks as if
Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat
And its eyes shut with overeagerness
To see what people found so interesting
In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the windowpane.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy his similes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)