Pools of Darkness was the fourth and last game in the Forgotten Realms gold box series, sending the players into ultimate high level game play. I believe The Dark Queen of Krynn also allowed for high level game play, but the setting for that game was in the Dragonlance realm. This one is set in the Forgotten Realms but most of the action occurs on the various planes that the player must traverse.
I can’t remember if I ever finished this game. I think I might’ve completed only 1-2 of the entire gold box series and this one I might’ve been close to finishing but stopped at some point. What I do remember is ridiculous rules and screams from monsters you’d slay along with a few oddball bugs on my dad’s old 286.
The game mostly was remarkable in allowing you to hit the level cap of 40, which pretty much was unheard of for any AD&D campaign, save the Bloodstone series where the 4th module allowed you to play level 100 immortals just for shits and giggles. Pools of Darkness used a loosely interpreted version of the 1st Edition AD&D set minus most of Unearthed Arcana. Back then, you didn’t have kits, weapon specialization, cavaliers, barbarians, etc. Instead, you had very limited classes and the mainstay races with the annoying level limitations.
Because you had the level cap of 40, taking a demi-human in this game would be pure suicide. The optimal min/max methodology of playing was to take 3 human ranger/mages, 2 paladin/clerics and one thief combo. The idea here was that ranger/mages as a dual class could cast mage spells without the armor penalties due to rangers (in the 1st edition) having the ability to cast both druid and mage spells. Similarly, paladin/clerics worked nicely as healer/tanks and not having to deal with blunt weapon penalties.
I believe you could do a 39/40 dual class split where your first class would be a ranger/paladin subtype that would hit level 39, get the level 40 mage so that you could max out on hit points as well as spell damage. Also, back in 1st edition, you didn’t have the spell damage scaling limitations of the 2nd edition. So a Delayed Blast Fireball at level 40 could potentially do 40d6, which would destroy enemies.
Beyond that, magic resistance was handled much differently. In 1st edition, MR would be reduced when a spell caster exceeded a certain level. I believe for every level beyond that threshold, the spell caster would reduce the MR of a creature by 5%. So a level 40 magic user effectively could nullify most MR and nuke a foe down, unless of course that creature had other forms of resistance.
For myself, that thief slot generally would be filled by an elven fighter/mage/thief just to gain the maximum armor benefits along with being able to hit the upper levels as a thief. Most demi-humans would allow thieves to level indefinitely, making a multi-class type here necessary. In general, you only required a thief for disarming traps but I don’t think there were many in this game.
The game had its own powerful monsters on top of the usual OP high end beings. But the real kicker was moving between planes that was required in defeating various bosses. Moving between planes in the AD&D universe means your weapons and armor have their powers reduced. Mostly, this applies to gear with some plus(+) modifier, although a few items are immune to this effect. Of course, you would get around this issue by using a floppy disk swap that allowed you to pull your weapons to a specific character and reload them between transfer points.
This “feature” pretty much was a nightmare. Sure, each level gave you ample equipment but I find it silly that you’re forced to effectively lose power just for going places. I don’t think I’ve ever seen this element in any other AD&D game I’ve played, at least CRPG-wise.
Now, there were a few very laughable bugs that I uncovered through my equipment swap technique. For instance, if you managed to acquire a Vorpal Sword, when you swap (save) the Vorpal Sword properties become a permanent affix to your character. So sometimes I would fight say a Beholder using my cleric wielding a mace and decapitate a Beholder (yes, it would say Beholder beheaded!). The same would happen if I shot arrows at spiders. I won’t complain about this feature as I frequently would decapitate monsters of any kind with this method. But it certainly is one of my favorite bugs I’ve ever uncovered in a game until this day.
Outside of having more abilities and hit points, the game’s mechanics didn’t really alter between here and Secrets of the Silver Blades. Maybe the graphics and sound quality improved since by this point I was using a PC. But you could sense that the time for the gold box series was sadly ending.
Outside of the planes travel, my only real complaint about this game was the mediocre amount of content. There were a few really annoying encounters that I’ve seen towards the end but nothing special outside of numbers and tons of hit points that you’d have to batter through. The final dungeon called Dave’s Challenge was just everything turned up to maximum with just a few spots to rest. But for a Forgotten Realms finale, there wasn’t a whole lot of the Faerun involved beyond a couple of ettins encounters that you could employ to power level a dual classing character.