Crispy™ Let's Play Wizardry 8 - Crusaders of Codexia

[Sacred82]

Hello all,

after the resounding success of my Dungeon Siege II playthrough (WIP), I felt like doing another for a game I've never completed, Wizardry 8. I find these really helpful in pushing you to keep going... sometimes.

As the title signals, our merry band consists entirely of that most famous family in modern entertainment, The Codexshians. Grab a beer as you follow their shenanigans all over the world of Dominus.

But that's not all. Since our men and women are strong followers of the Incline, no evil deed may be committed by them. This includes:


· Killing any NPC unless in self-defense

· Picking pockets (basically just less of a nuisance)


and


· Working for an obviously evil faction, such as T’rang, Rapax or Ratkin.


I thought about other restrictions such as not stealing from locked containers, but that might be a tad too restrictive.


Onward, then!



Meet the heroes


DU aka Drunk Underlord : Agressive Lizardman Fighter

"Yeah, slice ´em, dice ´em. no sense bein‘ nice to ´em! That’s my motto."

DU, or Drunk Underlord as the other squires took to calling him, is a crusty reptile from Down Under. Infamous for the pranks he plays on others, he generally assumes a no-nonsense stance against jokes at his expense, and swiftly metes out punishment with his wicked hammer-cum-sceptre.

DU is the party’s main tank. Simple. He can put the hurt on enemies with Powerstrike early on.

Weapons: Mace&Board, Bows

Attributes: Str and Vit on every levelup, Dex and Sen afterwards


Fraeulein "Scrooge" Mueller: Kindly Hobbit Ninja

"An adventure? Why, I’d be delighted to help you. It sounds most entertaining."

Fraeulein Mueller was just about to marry her betrothed, a pure-blooded whiteskin hobbit with a full shock of hair, when ghastly news reached her ears and made her drop her ring right where she stood. Hordes of unwashed, hairy creatures from a distant realm were surging against the fortifications of her home country, wishing to flood onto the fertile soils and plains. After many months of assassinations and infiltrations, she has come to Dominus to find some weapon that may help turn the tide on her home planet.

Scrooge is a competent alchemist, and she’s also handy with a throwing weapon. We don’t use her thief skills, except raising her Stealth as she covers the party’s right flank. Artifacts is an important skill on her as she’s fast and can get a scroll off before the enemy acts.

Weapons: Throwing&Sling

Attributes: Spd and Dex on every levelup, Int and Sen afterwards.


Brother "Zyklon" None: Chaotic Gnome Ranger

"Ordinary men fear the power of darkness. I revel in it."

Brother None, or "Zyklon" as he is sometimes called in reference to his mood swings and gut winds, comes from a reclusive fraternity of rock dwellers living in exile. It’s easy to see why, as None also refers to his wit, social skills and personal hygiene. What he lacks in graces he makes up for in skill with the bow. None often scours the vast plains of his home planet, searching for anything worth his attention. And once he’s found it, he mercilessly hones in on it.

Zyklon scouts, which is nice. He’s also a pretty good sniper. He covers our back… as long as it suits him. He has okay carrying capacity and can wear some armour.

Weapons: Crossbows

Attributes: Dex on every levelup, the rest split between Sen and Vit.



Lilura: Burly Dracon Valkyrie

"Very well. Our enemies shall feel my wrath!"

A pious and introverted creature, Lilura only talks about things she has researched in detail. People who are less single-minded irritate her, and she likes to taunt them whenever they give her an opening. She mostly lacks the sardonic wit to make her words sting though. That’s where her six foot halberd comes into play.

Lilura is a capable tank as well as damage dealer, and she covers our left flank. She’s also the party’s main priest.

Weapons: Polearms, Bows

Attributes: Str on every levelup, the rest split between Dex and Pie


Crispy: Eccentric Mook Gadgeteer

"He was happy to join. He thought it would make an exciting chapter in his new book."

There’s nothing on Earth (or Dominus) that Crispy can’t fix. Or so he likes to think. And indeed he is a very capable tinkerer, once he sets himself to the task. Which can take a long time. You see it’s hard to tell with Mooks, with their fur all over, but Crispy is probably older than any other member of this expedition. He’s older than the concept of expeditions. Still, he can snipe a fly off the nose of a Rapax. If it sits still for a very long time.

Crispy is our locksmith, engineer, and sniper. Girls love guys with lots of skills.

Weapons: Modern weapons, throwing

Attributes: Sen on every levelup, the rest split between Dex and Vit


Sensuki: Intellectual Felpur Bishop

"You’re going to need someone of my superior intelligence. Some call it ego, but I call it talent."

A restless spirit, there’s always some latest thing that demands Sensuki‘s undivided attention. Unfortunately, he tends to become too emotionally invested in his research, and reacts with frustration if the rest of the party don’t accept his clearly superior suggestions and conclusions. Such is the way of cats.

Sensuki specializes in Wizardry and Psionics. He’s fast and can cast either Element Shield or Soul Shield early on in combat.

Weapons: Staff, Throwing&Sling

Attributes: Int and Spd on every levelup, Pie and Sen afterwards



And so it begins.

 

[Sacred82]

Hello and welcome to our first update. By the way, I’m playing on Expert difficulty. No Ironman though, because reasons. I’m also playing without the speed mod for extra autism.

We’ll take along one expendable goon who is replaced with DU at the start of the game. Priest is the only class that starts with a mace.

The order in which you add characters to your party has a large influence on their initiative. We want Scrooge and Sensuki to go first in combat to get off those precious spells. Lilura is last, so she can heal the others at the end of a combat round once she unlocks priest spells at level 5.


Part 1: Out of the flying saucer and into the fire

Spoiler

The intro explains how Grimpak the Mook – a race of starfaring apes – hired our heroes to act as his bodyguards. He took them on a journey to the planet Dominus, where they are to investigate a ritual called the Ascension. Some unnamed artifact recovered by the Mook also plays into this. As we enter Dominus‘ orbit, a ship headed by an entity called Dark Savant shoots us down, and we crash.

As we come to, we find ourselves on a beach. The ship is ruined, but there’s no trace of Grimpak. Maybe we’ll run into him later.

First we get rid of Neogaf and add DU to the party. We could buy the fighter starting equipment for him, which includes some armor, a sword or axe and a shield, but we don’t have the dough so we just slap the priest’s robe and mace on him.

Lilura can’t wait to go exploring in her bikini armour.

But first we fix our marching order. Sensuki and Crispy in the middle are protected from melee attacks on all sides.

There’s a conveniently placed chest on the beach, and some crablike monsters behind.

The chest holds some potions and, most importantly, ammo. Much of the loot in the game is randomly generated.

Crispy is itching to use his toy, an omnigun. Gadgeteers improve their omnigun as they level up. Right now it’s a pretty crappy weapon that fires sling bullets.

Sensuki casts the only offensive spell he has right now, Energy Blast, which is of the fire element and belongs to the school of Wizardry. We can select a power level. Power level determines the strength, cost in mana, and difficulty of casting a spell. Right now we can only choose between two power levels. Level 2 is marked in red, which means it would most certainly fizzle.

Sensuki gets his spell off.

Our heroes still miss quite often. Weapon skills improve with use. DU hits, but fails to do damage. This could be because armor has a hidden „vs. penetration“ value.

Thankfully, Scrooge throws a mean shuriken. She’s a ninja, so her thrown weapons automatically penetrate if she hits.

Sensuki casts a healing spell at DU who got roughed up. Heal Wounds is a spell that belongs to several schools of magic, but since we raised Sensuki’s psionics skill higher than the others, it will serve to improve that school.

There’s a nice big rock on the beach behind which it looks like we can safely rest after the battle.

Refreshed, we open the door that leads into a large stone building.

The gloomy hallways don’t exactly look welcoming though.

Lilura can literally sense the Decline.

Our feeling was right. As we round the corner, we run into some slimes. Let’s see if Sensuki’s battle skills are as great as his modesty.

The slimes are no match for our skills. We have to be careful though, as our low hit points make us easy to kill.

The Mythology skill gives us information about our enemies. At least their HP are even lower than ours.

Bye slimes.

After resting again, we advance deeper into the building. It pays off to walk up this ramp backwards, since you can be ambushed from behind by monsters.

And there they are.

Bats have pretty low HP.

We find a bundle of arrows above the ramp. Pretty nifty for Zyklon.

We can now turn left or right. To our left is another ramp, but we know that at the top a Noxious Slime waits. Noxious Slimes are level 3 monsters that can shoot acid at our weak casters and kill them in one or two hits.

We go right, and encounter several pests along the way.

We follow the winding hallways deeper into the building. Zyklon automatically scouts for hidden items, such as these boots that now grace DU’s reptilian feet.

We come to another junction. The green glow on our left gives away the presenc e of another slime, a Noxious Slime again.

The rat to our right seems like the lesser evil. We can’t fight him here though, as that could alert the Noxious Slime, so we decide to retreat a bit.

At the end of our jog it’s smart to turn around again, so we can face the rat head-on.

After disposing of the rat, we can follow the path to a little room. Apparently, it’s filled with religious texts.

As we prepare to leave the room through the other door, we’re ambushed by 9 monsters. That’s very bad news for a level 1 party. We can’t hit for shit, and our HP are dangerously low.


Will our brave band survive this perilous situation? Find out in the next update.