Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Anyone have experience with parties based on books and movies?

Yes, but not for Wizardry:

 

[octavius]

So what's the formula for learning spells in Wiz 8?

I want my Priest to change to Lord now that he has learnt the Resurrection spell. But depending on how much he has to level before he can pick lvl 7 spells, maybe it's better to wait. He has a skill of 73 (91) in Divinity and 75 in Divine magic.
My Mage has 82 (102) Wizardry and 57 Fire Magic can not choose Nuclear Blast, so I guess he needs several levels yet.

OTOH, I'm not sure I gain much by changing to Lord. As a Priest he does the same amount of damage dual wielding Diamond Edge and Winterwand. Lack of heavy armour is not a big deal since the most dangerous attacks are magical ones.
So the thing he misses out on as a Priest is the opportunity to increase his dual wielding skill from 20.

 

[notpl]

Leveling as a lord will give him more HP and more to-hit/damage. Wizardry 8, at the end of the day, is heavily modified d&d: your characters have something akin to a base attack bonus, and leveling in a martial class increases this more than leveling as a priest.

That being said, it won't make much difference. Most people switch from priest to lord at level 1, only using priest to put more initial points in spellcasting skills to reduce the weak refractory period. I only change classes at such late levels if the new class provides something unique, like changing to Fighter to gain access to the Berserk command, which just straight up doubles your melee damage.

 

[Jasede]

The benefit of being a Lord is the regeneration, I think it's +1 every 10 levels. So he's good with cursed items.

 

[octavius]

I'm keeping him a Priest for now. OTOH my Priest does have 87 skills in Staffs&Wands, so would be a good candidate for the Staff of Doom if changed to Lord. But then, who will use the Diamond Edge? Hmm....

But I finally switched my Bard back to Monk. It took ages to go from 99 to 100 in Music. I gave him the Staff of Doom and he should now insta-kill on a regular basis. Too bad cursed items don't allow auto-switching, since he would be the perfect recipient for the Boomerang Shuriken. But I could always convert my Fairy Mage to a Ninja. He already has high skills in Ranged and Throwing, but still has lvl 7 spells to learn.

 

[Humbaba]

You change that Priest to a Lord immediately and have him dual wield Diamond Eyes and a good sword by the endgame, like Ivory Blade. Lord was nerfed quite a bit in 8 but the dual wield bonus he gets is very useful and infinitely more valuable than a priest, who sucks in combat in comparison.

Keep the Bard as a designated Bard. She's better off using the stamina to throw out mass disables with all those nigh-OP instruments you'll find, rather than attack. You DID make her a woman right? The stamina regen amulet is girls-only after all.

 

[octavius]

I actually had a female Bard in 6 and 7, but at some point in 7 I changed her to Samurai.
When I transfered the party to 8, her Senses (I think) rating was much too low to switch back, so my male Monk had to be the Bard.

 

[The Limper]

Anyone have experience with parties based on books and movies?

For example a Lord of the Rings party:
Strider - Human Lord
Boromir - Human Fighter with Polearms skill ('cause the front gets too crowded otherwise)
Gandalf - Human Mage
Gimli - Dwarf Fighter with Axe skill
Legolas - Elf Ranger
Frodo - Hobbit Rogue

The main weaknesses is no Bard or Gadgeteer, and no Priest or Psionic means it takes longer to get Magic Screen and Soul Shield.


Or a Dragonlance party:
Tanis - Elf Fighter
Caramon - Human Fighter
Raistlin - Human Mage
Tasslehoff - Hobbit Rogue
Goldmoon - Human Cleric
Riverwind - Human Ranger
Flint - sorry, you are the weakest link, goodbye

A bit more balanced than the LotR party.

No Sturm?! Blaspemy!

 

[octavius]

Well, Sturm was kind of an outsider.

BTW, any (subtle) hint on the Stone Circle? I activated all the glyphs and planted a Longsword in the center stone, but I can't see that anything more happened.
I have previously activated all the glyphs in the Graveyard and went back and checked, but no change. The corner stone still needs an item to activate it, but I have no idea which one. The longsword in the stone was intuitive, but the graveyard stumps me. I tried using a Skull, but that didn't work. Maybe it's a mundane item again?

 

[Desiderius]

Well, Sturm was kind of an outsider.

BTW, any (subtle) hint on the Stone Circle? I activated all the glyphs and planted a Longsword in the center stone, but I can't see that anything more happened.
I have previously activated all the glyphs in the Graveyard and went back and checked, but no change. The corner stone still needs an item to activate it, but I have no idea which one. The longsword in the stone was intuitive, but the graveyard stumps me. I tried using a Skull, but that didn't work. Maybe it's a mundane item again?

Check the picture that comes up when you rest.

 

[Desiderius]

Leveling as a lord will give him more HP and more to-hit/damage. Wizardry 8, at the end of the day, is heavily modified d&d: your characters have something akin to a base attack bonus, and leveling in a martial class increases this more than leveling as a priest.

That being said, it won't make much difference. Most people switch from priest to lord at level 1, only using priest to put more initial points in spellcasting skills to reduce the weak refractory period. I only change classes at such late levels if the new class provides something unique, like changing to Fighter to gain access to the Berserk command, which just straight up doubles your melee damage.

Berserk has a -4 to hit malus so depending on the class you're switching from and your weapon skill you could be looking at some whiffs.

 

[The Limper]

Well, Sturm was kind of an outsider.

BTW, any (subtle) hint on the Stone Circle? I activated all the glyphs and planted a Longsword in the center stone, but I can't see that anything more happened.
I have previously activated all the glyphs in the Graveyard and went back and checked, but no change. The corner stone still needs an item to activate it, but I have no idea which one. The longsword in the stone was intuitive, but the graveyard stumps me. I tried using a Skull, but that didn't work. Maybe it's a mundane item again?

Sturm was the ultimate selfless knight. The biggest hero of them all. Outsider to the Heroes of the Lance, no way…..without Sturm the heroes are nothing more than the Knights of Myth Drannor.

 

[octavius]

Place where I get stuck

Heh, this must be the most stupid puzzle in the game.

 

[octavius]

BTW, any (subtle) hint on the Stone Circle? I activated all the glyphs and planted a Longsword in the center stone, but I can't see that anything more happened.
I have previously activated all the glyphs in the Graveyard and went back and checked, but no change. The corner stone still needs an item to activate it, but I have no idea which one. The longsword in the stone was intuitive, but the graveyard stumps me. I tried using a Skull, but that didn't work. Maybe it's a mundane item again?

Check the picture that comes up when you rest.

Hmm...the dagger?
If so, what's the rationale?

Also, any way to recruit Rafe the freed Rapax?
Tried to tell him that the Lava HP Sponge was dead, but it didn't register.
The Rapax army guarding the entry to the Staff of Ash yielded 300K XP, which is about 6 times more than anything before.

 

[octavius]

Nothing like a Pandemonium song backfiring when facing 20 Rapax...
Had to retreat with 3 characters dead, and the rest barely alive. I was afraid I would not be able to leave Castle Anthrax Rapax in combat mode, but breathed a sigh of relief when I could.
So still only two party deaths and two rests, making Wiz 8 the easiest of all the Wizardy games (but I must admit it may also be the best one).

 

[Desiderius]

Hmm...I already have in-fighting in the party for ammo. But yeah, stopping the Gadgeteer career now would be a bit of a pity.

Hunter's Quarrels, Viper Arrows, and Impaling Stones are really all you need. Umpani, T-Rang, and Crock can hook you up.

Gadgeteer (and specifically Omnigun) gets better the higher you level. No reason to stop now. Modern Weapons are a little bit of a trap. They share stats with Daggers but the good Daggers are Cursed.

 

[octavius]

Yeah, now that he can use all ammo and regularly knocks out and blinds enemies the Gadget man is becoming more useful.
My Mage is starting to get more useless, though, now that enemies have so high resistance.

 

[octavius]

Decided to wait with the assault on Castle Rapax until I get the Death Wish spell (Death Bomb was quite effective, so hopefully DW will make a difference against the 20-30 Rapax guarding the entry hall) and try the Water Caves again. This time I only faced two of the dreaded Death Rays (but even with full protection I still had two deaths) and pushed through to the next level.
At lvl 18-19 Nessie was a bit of a pushover:

The only useful of the six items in Davy Jones' Locker was a Ring of Regeneration.
Already have a Spear of Death, two Bat Medallions and several Ring Pro Frost.
The Saint Bastard is worthless at this stage, and the Locket of Reflection is Female only while my Bard and Gadgie are Male.
I guess this is where the weak of will go into a savescumming frenzy?

 

[PaquoCastor]

I never got w8 to run due to missing disk; can you swap out roster on the fly or are you locked with your guys for the whole game?

You can replace a character, deleting him in the process:

For those wondering how to get to this screen, click on the character's name in the inventory.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Heh, this must be the most stupid puzzle in the game.

I felt so dumb, I've beaten the game at least 5 times but totally spaced on that one.

So what's the formula for learning spells in Wiz 8?

It's purely based on skill. Main class skill + School skill. Once they reach a high enough level you gain access to the next level of spells. I think they're weighted differently so the main skill counts more than the school skill. If you're worrying about where to efficiently put points, max the class skill every level and let the school skills go up organically.

In theory a Samurai is as good as a mage plus the ability to fight so there's no reason to take a mage, although mages get different equips. Any character that tries to be a hybrid though pretty much requires grinding to be good at casting. But as you've also found offensive magic kind of sucks in the game.

 

[notpl]

It is absolutely not based purely on skill, there is a minimum caster level to learn each level of spell. And a samurai is not in theory as good as a mage, a samurai not only has a lower innate caster level which means every enemy effectively has +40 to each resist, but the samurai's higher XP requirement also will see it underleveled relative to opponents on average.

 

[Desiderius]

My Mage is starting to get more useless, though, now that enemies have so high resistance.

Do you have Power Cast unlocked? Anybody with high Mythology? Main point of pure casters is to power through Resists in a way that Bishop (let alone Hybrids) can't. Still have to target weak save though, and Elemental Shield from Rapax is major frown (which is why I prefer Psionicist over Mage for pure caster).

the Locket of Reflection is Female only while my Bard and Gadgie are Male.
I guess this is where the weak of will go into a savescumming frenzy?

Locket has another use though.

 

[octavius]

My Mage is starting to get more useless, though, now that enemies have so high resistance.

Do you have Power Cast unlocked? Anybody with high Mythology?

Yes, Power Cast currently in the 40s, and Mythology at 99.

Main point of pure casters is to power through Resists in a way that Bishop (let alone Hybrids) can't. Still have to target weak save though, and Elemental Shield from Rapax is major frown

Yeah, that's what I too have concluded with.
Fire Spells were quite effective against the fishmen.

 

[Darth Canoli]

So still only two party deaths and two rests, making Wiz 8 the easiest of all the Wizardy games (but I must admit it may also be the best one).

Truer words were never spoken!
It's a proof even miscreants can see the light!

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Wizardry 6 is not a game I see myself playing again after I'm finished with it - at least, not the DOS version. Going through it fresh and mapping everything out is fun, but when you're repeating areas you've already mapped out (as I am currently), it's a slog because of the shitty controls and lack of QoL. The menu-driven interface (likely motivated by either mouse support or joystick support) is decline from earlier Wizardry games which used the entire keyboard, and it's the biggest problem with the game. I'm replaying Ultima 5 right now, and even though I've already got that game mapped out and know where everything is, it's still fun to replay because it's comfortable to control.
Maybe one of those Japanese console remakes improve on this, but I don't know, it seems like a real pain in the ass to play a Wizardry game on a gamepad. You'd need to play it on a desk so you can make a map at the same time, and I think the best way to play a game with a gamepad is from a couch, or otherwise far away from the screen.