Multiclassing with a favored class negates a lot of the experience penalties. Switching from one class to another is really simple as long as you pay close attention to the favored class for each race. There are some really awesome new multiclass rules in the 3rd Edition Rules that really enlarge the options for character growth. On the plus side, there aren't any more race or class restrictions (except for the fact that gnomes and druids and wizards seem to have disappeared altogether - I suppose I shouldn't complain as some characters don't even get a choice of gender). That automatically exclude him from using ninth level spells. And why a caster can only get up to level 16 seems even more strange. Why a caster should need Toughness before Combat Casting is beyond me. Also cheap is the fact that you can't customize the wardrobe colors for your characters.įeats and skills are automatically assigned and sometimes make no sense whatsoever. This point distribution system is apparently a real feature of the 3rd Edition Rules but it still seems cheap to me. Naturally if you let people roll their own characters, some folks will take advantage of it and keep rolling till they get characters with at least 15 points in all the stats. This makes all the characters seem sort of average as a result. Rather than rolling your character stats, you're given a pool of point to distribute. Sorcerers and rogues wind up being less useful (and less alive) during the early levels than do your barbarians and paladins. This doesn't really seem like much of a problem until you realize that the game is heavily combat oriented. (You can use the ones that ship with the game but you won't.) This time around you'll only be able to start with four characters instead of six. When you start a new game you get to create your own characters. Your adventuring party is brought to New Phlan to save Myth Drannor from this latest threat. A Pool of Radiance has appeared in New Phlan and threatens to destroy life as we know it by releasing hordes and hordes of evil, nasty creatures. The initial setup is pretty typical, at least by fantasy RPG standards. Poor design decisions and some harsh technical instabilities obscure whatever beauty may lie beneath the experience. And while this latest offering is a little bit of fun, it's hardly a worthy continuation of the series.

It was the first computer game to get a handle on bringing the D&D pen and paper rules from the tabletop to the desktop and was successful enough to generate a host of sequels (known as the Gold Box series) and a bevy of imitators. Back in 1988 SSI released Pool of Radiance.

Pools of radiance