Pools of Darkness

Pools of Darkness is the fourth in a four-part series of Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons Gold Box adventure computer games, published by Strategic Simulations, Inc.. The game was released in 1991.

The story is a continuation of the events after Secret of the Silver Blades.

Story
The party starts their adventure in the city of Phlan, charged with the task to safely escort Council Member Sasha on a diplomatic mission. Upon leaving the city, Lord Bane, along with four of his lieutenants, claims the entire land of Faerûn as his own, and magically teleports, destroys, and removes many cities off the face of the land. The goal of the task is to systematically restore order to the realms by destroying Bane's minions one by one, and returning light and order to the land plunged in darkness.

Gameplay
To play Pools of Darkness, one simply needs to create characters and form a party. The gameplay basics are identical to all games in the series. The game does come with a pre-designed party, but many players prefer to create their own characters. One can modify the appearance and some colors of the character's combat icon and then name the character. A maximum of six characters may be added to the party and it's highly recommended to use all six spaces as the game does not give any handicaps for smaller parties. NPCs sometimes join the party in the game, making it possible to have more than six characters. Characters can also be transferred from Secret of the Silver Blades.

Movement
The game follows a sort of first-person point of view in the maps. To move, the player first must select the "Move" option and then uses the arrows to move around. The up arrow will move the party forward in the direction it is facing. Down turns it around, and left and right will turn it counterclockwise and clockwise, respectively.

Some places in the game allow the "Area" option which lets the player see a map of the place and can allow for easier navigation. It is typically not available in the harder dungeons.

When the party is not moving, the player can bring up a list of things to do such as viewing stats of a party member, equipping items, encamping, or searching. The Search option lets the party get more details on some things when it moves, though it brings the encounter rate up. Some secrets can only be found with the search turned on.

Encamp
One very important option is Encamp, which is used to rest and learn spells for mages or clerics. Pools of Darkness implemented an option of saving all previous used spells to conveniently memorize them again rather than having to reselect them from the list. The "Fix" option will allow a party to be healed by assuming a cleric casts and re-memorizes spells.

Depending on the area, an Encamp may be interrupted by an encounter and sometimes resting is impossible. The game will typically give clues on the safest places to rest. It's very important to have any used spells memorized again, so players should remember these areas.

Overworld
There are several overworld settings in Pools of Darkness. The player's party is visible by a small icon on the overworld map. It may move one space in any direction at a time by using the arrow keys. When the party comes to a location or if an event occurs, a list of options becomes available and the player must select one.

There are random encounters in the various overworlds, some which give options such as attacking the enemies directly or other options such as avoiding the encounter by fleeing or talking. Other encounters sometimes result in an immediate battle with no options. Sometimes fleeing can give a party member bonus experience points for successfully doing so.

Combat
The game will feature many battles to fight, but the battle system is relatively simple to follow. Each character and opposing monster has one turn per round to perform some action. Turns order is randomly decided at the start of battle unless one side surprises the other, then that side is favored. A player's character, if using a melee weapon, may attack a monster by simply using the arrow keys and moving right into the monster. Ranged weapons require aiming and the target first and then firing. A ranged weapon may only be used if the user is at least one empty space away from the monster. Spells may be targetted in similar methods to ranged weapons. Monsters follow the same rules.

Any monster that loses all hit points will die and disappear from the combat screen. When all monsters are defeated, the battle is won and may be ended. The party will receive experience points divided equally among the survivors.

If a party member loses all hit points, it will go down. If the character takes damage to drop to EXACTLY 0 hit points, it will be unconscious. If it goes to -1 to -9, it will be in a "dying" status. A fellow character may bandage any dying characters to bring them back to unconscious status. Anyone reaching -10 or lower will be dead. Another method of a party member becoming inactive involves being turned to stone by certain monsters such as a Basilisk or Medusa. A party member may not be revived, be it from death, stone, or unconsciousness until combat is over, or at least until after all the opposing creatures are defeated.

It is possible to run away from battles by moving a character to the very edge of the combat screen. To successfully escape, the character must either have a movement speed faster than the enemies or not be in the visible sight of ANY of the enemies. Any character that flees will gain no experience from the battle, assuming the battle is won. If the party flees and there are any dead/inactive characters, those characters are lost permanently. It is generally not recommended to run away from battles.

Adventuring
The game is fairly straightforward. The party's objective is to defeat Bane's lieutenants Thorne (an ancient red dragon), Kalistes (a Tanar'ri Marilith), and Tanetal (a Tanar'ri Glabrezu) and acquire the items they possess. The ultimate goal is to reach Bane's Land and face off against Bane's last and greatest lieutenant, Gothmenes (a Tanar'ri Balor).

All of the lieutenants are found in other dimensions, which can be reached using portals known as Pools of Darkness. Travelling through the pools can cause many types of items the characters are holding to be permanently destroyed and lost. The party may opt to leave these items in a vault to save them. Naturally, any items from the dimensions will suffer this same fate when travelling back to the realms. Some items that will survive include the Vorpal Long Sword and composite bows.

There are also many side quests the party can do along the way, which is a good idea for gaining experience and items, especially early on. There are a lot of invisible areas on the overworld the party can enter, so it's a good idea to look around the open fields for any such places. This is true of all the overworlds.

The mandatory quests involve:
 * Clearing the Steading near Dragonhorn's Gap, which opens the way to the Dragon's Aerie.
 * Clearing the Dragon's Aerie, which opens the way to Thorne's Cave via a Pool of Darkness.
 * Clearing Thorne's Cave, which will give the party the Horn of Doom.
 * Clearing the drow caves and Kalistes' Temple under Zhentil Keep, which opens the way to Kalistes' Land via a Pool of Darkness.
 * Clearing Kalistes' Parlor, which will give the party the Crystal Ring.
 * Clearing the red tower of Marcus, which opens the way to Moander's body via a Pool of Darkness.
 * Clearing the heart of Moander where Tanetal resides, which will give the party the Talisman of Bane.
 * Clearing Arcam's Cave under Mulmaster, which opens the way to Bane's Land via a Pool of Darkness.
 * Finally, clearing Bane's Land and defeating Gothmenes.

It is also recommended to do the quests in this order, while doing any desired side quests.

Game differences
Pools of Darkness differed from its predecessors in a number of ways. Unlike the other 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 the sleeping god Moander, and finally Bane's Land itself.

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 256 colors instead of 16.

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.

Another minor difference is the font used in the game is less stylish, but easier to read.

Cheats and Bugs
The game isn't perfect, and actually it is rather easy to duplicate items and take advantage of a combat bug.

Item duplication
To perform this cheat, simply make your party normally, but create a 7th dummy character. The directions are as follows:
 * When you get to a point in the game where you acquire a good item, such as a Vorpal Long Sword, simply save your game and exit to DOS.
 * Reload your saved game and before you begin adventuring again, remove one of your characters and add the dummy.
 * Give the desired items to duplicate to the dummy, then remove the dummy and on the first time, choose YES to overwrite him.
 * Add the dummy again and give the items back to the character.
 * Remove the dummy, but this time choose NO to overwrite him and then type in a new name. Doing this will put the dummy back in the character pool unaltered from when you added him (meaning he'll still have the items, but the other character you gave the items to will also have them) and will create a new dummy without the items.
 * To keep making copies, keep adding the dummy with the items and keep choosing NO to overwrite him. If you wish, you can type in the name of the 2nd dummy who loses the items and overwrite him to save space.

Combat victory bug
One way to win a combat without killing the monsters is to have the party run to an out-of-the-way spot where none of the monsters can see it. This can only be done indoors and cannot be done on the overworld. Good places to hide are behind walls. The monsters will typically not be able to find the party if positioned far enough behind a wall. Just stay put and keep guarding and the game will eventually declare the party the winner and give experience. If a monster locates the party during the process, the bug will not work.

Game credits

 * Game creation: SSI Special Projects Group
 * Developer: Ken Humphries, Dave Shelley
 * IBM Programmers: Russ Brown, Jim Jennings, Kerry Bonin
 * Music: 'The Fat Man', Dave Govett
 * Testers: Phil Alne, John Kirk, Andre Vrignaud, Brian Lowe, Alan Marenco, Glen Cureton, Mike Balajadia
 * Artists: Maurine Starkey, Richard Payne, Fred Butts, Jean Xiong, Mike Provenza, Cyrus Harris, Ed Trillo, Kevin Thompson, Laura Bowen, Mike Nowak, Mark Johnson
 * Encounter Authors: Chris Carr, Ken Eklund, Lori White, Tom Ono, Gary Shockley, Dave Georgeson, Cynthia Hwang