Pool of Radiance: Ruins of Myth Drannor (PC)

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The game also perfectly adapts the new flexible multiclass rules, which generally let you gain levels in different character classes without having to designate which class you want to advance in until you're ready to gain a level. Character-level advancement is rapid under the 3rd Edition rules, at least relative to the older D&D rules, but because the developers elected to stick with experience point awards that are consistent with the rules, level advancement is ironically slower in Ruins of Myth Drannor than in most RPGs. Characters can reach up to level 16 in any character class, and since that cap is level-based, it can be reached in more than one class, which is more relevant in multiplayer where you can continue to take characters on randomly generated adventures.

Unfortunately, some of the compromises made by the developers in adapting the 3rd Edition rules dilute some of the principal advantages of the revised rules. In pen-and-paper D&D, the 3rd Edition rules provide you with the ability to customize the development of your characters, by selecting special abilities (called feats) and skills, in a manner similar to the "perks and skills" system used by the Fallout games. Under prior iterations of the D&D rules, there were few opportunities to meaningfully distinguish characters, and each character class and race was somewhat arbitrarily limited to certain development paths. For example, spellcasters could use only a handful of basic weapons--but in 3rd Edition D&D, spellcasters can optionally use skill points to acquire expertise in swords, halberds, or any weapon. But in Ruins of Myth Drannor, you can't choose the skills and feats given to your characters, and as a result the developers have essentially reintroduced the rigid class restrictions imposed by the old rules and removed the ability to customize character development. Spellcasters, clerics, and even rogues are limited to using basic weaponry, which makes the Ruins of Myth Drannor system even more punitive than the old tabletop D&D rules. Even worse, the only decent ranged weapon that such characters are normally entitled to use, a crossbow, doesn't exist in the game. You also have no control over the operation of some of the most interesting skills, such as a rogue's stealth abilities. Metamagic feats, which let spellcasters further personalize their magic, likewise aren't available. The handful of chosen skills for each character class, and their ongoing development, often don't make sense. Fighters are given the "concentration" skill that prevents spells, which they're unable to cast, from being disrupted. Clerics focus their development points, and automatically choose a related feat, into "spellcraft," a completely worthless skill that lets characters identify what spells enemies are casting against them.

There are other notable variations from the core 3rd Edition rules. The developers didn't incorporate D&D's traditional spellcasting system, which requires characters to select and memorize their spells in advance of casting them, and instead gave all spellcasters 3rd Edition's new sorcerer class's ability to designate their spells at the time of casting. Bards, druids, and traditional wizards aren't available as character classes, and gnomes aren't available as a character race. Character alignment is meaningless in the game, other than as a prerequisite for certain classes. The developers have justified these omissions on the grounds that they inherited some design decisions from founders of the project who didn't remain on the development team, as a result of several recent corporate reorganizations. While some gamers may be sympathetic to the justifications for the omissions, the game would undoubtedly be better if the compromises hadn't been made. Several aspects of the game just seem to be missing, such as the ability to create female characters for each race.

Aside from the points already mentioned, there are other examples that suggest that the developers were unable to fulfill their intentions or otherwise disregarded gameplay balance issues. While it's admirable that the developers gave spells the same durations that they are given in the tabletop D&D rules, the value of having a "charm monster" spell last for a full day is completely eliminated by requiring you to remain in combat mode while the spell is in effect. Charmed creatures won't even follow your party, and since it's impossible to ever retreat from battle, you're forced to heartlessly slay your new ally to continue playing the game. Since some character classes had more of their special tabletop D&D class abilities included, those characters are more powerful than others. Because the developers didn't incorporate dual weapon wielding, rangers are much weaker than any other type of fighter class. Rogues gain experience points considerably more rapidly than other classes because they individually gain experience points for disarming traps. Spells up to eighth level are incorporated, but clerics are given only one spell for each of their last three levels, while sorcerers are given a total of ten. The game's flexible multiclassing system somewhat alleviates these issues, but the relative strengths of the classes are unbalanced.

Perhaps worst of all, the game shipped with some egregious technical problems. While there aren't necessarily a great number of bugs, the ones that do exist are particularly serious. At one point the game consistently crashed when it saved, which required the game to be reinstalled. Even if you designate a different directory when running the game's installation utility, the game will always be installed to your program files directory on your C: hard drive. While we were able to uninstall, and reinstall, the program uneventfully, others have reported that uninstalling the game deleted their hard drives as a result of this glitch. Gameplay frequently slowed down to a snail's pace, suggesting the game suffers from memory leaks or is otherwise incompatible with certain hardware. There are also reports in newsgroups and on message boards indicating that some retail packages of the game shipped with missing discs.

The game features painted backgrounds like those in the BioWare Infinity Engine D&D games, but the background graphics aren't nearly as detailed or interesting as in those games. The 3D character and monster graphics look great, however, and spell effects are outstanding. Creatures are well animated, and larger monsters such as the scorpion-like arraccats look particularly good. On the other hand, the music and sound effects are generally forgettable. Some of the music in the game is very similar in quality and style to the melodies provided with SSI's original series of D&D games, which isn't a good thing even for nostalgic fans, given the age of those games. The game is very difficult at the beginning, since first-level characters can't take much damage and your party initially consists of only four characters, but once your characters have gained a level or two and acquired some magical equipment, the game becomes much easier and more interesting. The multiplayer game won't be as much fun for those who aren't controlling the party leader, since other players can't always control their own characters and can never stray far from the party leader, but the random dungeons do give the game good replayability.

The core combat can be enjoyable and gets more interesting as higher-level spells became available--it never gets old using chain lightning and fireball spells to clear out a room. Yet even if you're just looking for a dungeon crawl to hack and slash your way through and aren't looking for a deeper RPG, you're unlikely to be entirely satisfied with Ruins of Myth Drannor. D&D fans may enjoy experiencing some aspects of the game's rendition of 3rd Edition D&D combat, but they're also likely to be frustrated by some of the game's compromises. And those expecting Ruins of Myth Drannor to be an epic game of comparable scope to Baldur's Gate II will be sorely disappointed. While it's refreshing to see a D&D game by a publisher other than Black Isle Studios, Ruins of Myth Drannor doesn't measure up to recent D&D role-playing games, or even its predecessor.

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