Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[iZerw]

Ok, it is not written in manual from Wizardry Archives, so I'll write here how to import your party in Wiz2.
1. After you moved your party, copy file SAVE1.DSK to Wiz2 folder.
2. Launch the game. Edge of town -> utilities -> move, select your previously exported characters.
Now you can choose them in the tavern. BTW, the copy of the game from Wizardry Archives already have a decent party (12lv).

 

[iZerw]

I used 2 convenient reference charts during my playthrough. Want to share.

Spoiler

 

[octavius]

Thanks iZerw, you do credit to your name.

 

[octavius]

If you play it in DOSBox, don't forget to set it to CGA to have the magenta replaced by red.

That's good advice. Every Let's Play I've checked have those magenta monsters. Even the the avatar gallery of this monocled site has the magenta.

 

[Gragt]

From what I could see, this version with magenta is designed to be played on composite monitors. For some reason it becomes the default on VGA adapters, which explains why the majority of screenshots and videos show magenta, but the version with red is the default on CGA adapters—Wizardry was designed for CGA devices for those who have doubts about it; you can easily check screenshots of other versions and see that all of them have the Wizardry logo in red and not magenta. Fun bit of trivia: you can change the colours by holding a key when booting up the game, though you might need to set the DOSBox cycles very low, like 250, to do this—I have the cycles set to 500 for regular play and it is too fast to test this: hold the CTRL key down and you get the magenta/composite version, and you can get the black and white version by holding down the ALT key during boot.

 

[Desktop Commander]

if I can't be bothered to roll a Ninja on character creation.

How the hell do you roll a Ninja on character creation? 28 bonus points, which is by far the most I've seen, is not even enough to create a Lord.

Sorry, a bit late on this but anyway: There is a (very, very) low chance for an obscenely high bonus point roll. See here for an example of such a roll (47) and its probability (1 roll out of 200). There might be different bonus point roll limits for all the different versions of WizI-V, though I'm not sure about that and don't think that anybody ever investigated this thoroughly.

In addition, it is apparently also easier to roll a Ninja in some versions of Wiz V, where they reduced the stat requirements for Ninjas from the flat 17's to something more reasonable. I am not 100% sure on that, however, as I prefer to play the PSX-versions on a PSP with CFW, and they kept the all 17's requirement for that version of Wiz V.

EDIT: In retrospect, it might be that my mind is messing with me and I'm actually referring to Samurais and Lords. At least when trying to think back now, I do not remember ever rolling a Ninja on chargen. I do remember trying out several versions of Wiz V a year or so ago. Maybe I succeeded once on one of the version with lower stat requirements, which my mind then mixed up with my reluctance to re-roll enough times to start with Samurai+Lord.

 

[octavius]

I was just about to run the gauntlet to Werdna's Lair when I Lost my Thief. Later I also Lost both my mages, so I've been grinding on lvl 9, both for XP and to try to get more than one Blade Cuisinart (deals twice the damage of +1-2 weapons), but all I've gained so far is about 100,000 XP for my back rank and -200,000 XP for my front line due to those accursed level drainers.
I've always scoffed at people complaining about level drains in other games where you can (mostly) restore them, but in Wiz 1 there's nothing I hate more than being surprised by Nightstalkers.
I've also come to realize that when playing Iron Man Luck and Vitality is probably the most crucial stats for the front line, and Agility and Vitality for the back rank. 18 Luck gives a 15% bonus to avoid monsters' special attacks, 18 Agility means a high chance of unleashing spells before monsters move and high Vitality is just vital to both avoid getting killed in the first place and to have a good chance of being brought back to life if losing your head.

 

[octavius]

Finally!

Apart from reading up on what various items do, and re-rolling characters until I got at least 15 (or 18 for the Samurais) Bonus Points, I played 100% Iron Man untill the very last encounter. I made it almost to the end with only one party death (which would have been avoided had I not been greedy). I made a copy of SAVE1.DSK before entering Werdna's Lair, which was a good thing, since my warriors barely scratched him before he unleashed a dreaded TILTOWAIT, doing on average about 70 points of damage to my pimple faced 15 year old heroes. With only two guys left standing I tried to run, but to no avail.
But on the second try I got lucky and surprised Werdna and his cronies. He didn't even get a chance to say WAIT before he was cut down, and the vampires were dealt with without mishaps.

I found a Lord's Garb on lvl 10, but alas none of my characters are ready to do the transition [yes, the Codexers will like that word] to Lord.

This is my victorious party. Notice the abysmal Hit Points of my Samurais. I think a front line of 3 Evil (to use some nice Evil restricted Shields and Helms that are better than any I already have) Fighters with max Vitality and Luck may be the best option for an Iron Man party.

 

[octavius]

I wrote this yesterday but forgot to post it: Now let's see how difficult Wiz 2 is compared to Wiz 1. Will it be the same dramatic increase as from Dungeon Master to Chaos Strikes Back? I'm feeling both anticipation and dread at the prospect...I can certainly do with even more mapping fun like spinners, darkness and anti-magic zones, but I don't want to see even more level draining monsters.

One day later and the thing that annoys me most so far is HP bloat. It takes forever to kill Kobold Kings and Were Amoebas.

Only had one character loss so far: my Thief who took an Exploding Box in his face. The Temple priests failed to resurrect him, so I thought I was screwed having no Thief. But then I discovered that my previous Thief, who I thought was Lost, was merely Dead, and he was sucessfully brought back.

Wiz 2 seems to have lots more interesting items than Wiz 1. I found a Metamorph Ring and turned my Fighter into a Lord. In retrospect maybe that was a mistake; waiting until I found a Lord's Garb would probably have been better and he would gain levels faster as a Fighter. But it's always nice to have a backup character to cast Priest spells.

EDIT: Just noticed that my new Lord has no spells in his spell book. Is that normal? Does he have to level up before getting the spells? Or is he screwed due to his 31 Piety (which is really -1 Piety)?

 

[octavius]

I found a Stone of Piety which increases Piety by 1 if invoking its special power. But it doesn't work on my guy with 31 Piety. The Stone didt'n even disappear.
I'm starting to think that the stats dropping when leveling up may be a bug after all. If not, surely the programmers would not have allowed stats to go below 0 to 31?

 

[eric__s]

How did you get your guy to 31 piety?

 

[octavius]

How did you get your guy to 31 piety?

It just kept decreasing to 0 and then to 31, which is why I think the decreasing of stats is a bug, since it can lead to this.
I was just surprised he didn't die when reaching 0 Piety; it would have been within the spirit of the game.

 

[octavius]

So, in Wiz 2 I found a Wand of Mages which when Invoked changes all number of spells (including Priest spells) to 9. This means my Mage would be able to cast all Priest spells as well if he could only actually learn the spells first. As it happens I have a second Metamorph Ring which could turn him into a Lord.

Now the questions are:

Is him being Neutral a problem, seeing as being Good is a prerequisite of Lord?

When leveling up, will his Hit Points be recalculated as a Lord? He already has very decent HP for a lvl 14 Mage (77), but as a Lord with 18 Vitality it should become even better if recalculated.

Incidentally I've almost finished lvl 4 and the difficulty has actually become lower. Bats and Snakes are far too weak to be any threat and so far I've not met any Level Drainers (that I know of). Most dangerous foes are packs of Ninjas.
The unlimited healing from Kod's Shield has been extremely helpful, so I rarely have to use any healing spells, which means less frequent returns to the surface.

 

[Crooked Bee]

If I remember correctly (which I may not),

- the Metamorph Ring is alignment-independent

- no, I don't think so

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

Cursed race and class restrictions. I just found a sword with great stats and extended range with my Wiz 8 party. I have four guys who prefer front position which means one of them has to take the humiliating arrow-plinking role. The sword would have allowed one of my melee guys to take wing position and still stay in melee range in most fights. Of course the sword was mook-only...

Good thing is that at least it's loot I know for sure I can sell. I seem to have a habit of collecting way too many 'alternative' weapon and armor sets. (and it's a nice feature anyways, even if frustrating)

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Ahh, the giant's blade. The best Mook Weapon and one of the better swords in the game.
Get a Mook Samurai, give Giant Blade, and enjoy lightning strikes.

 

[octavius]

So in Wiz 2 I collect all five KOD pieces for that dried up old cunt Gnilda, but she just recited her old speech. So I figure I need all items on one character - same result. So I head back to town and ditch all but my Lord. En route he's slain by a fucking Priest. After the tedium of getting him back on his feet again he finally reaches his destination, but instead of getting on with business suddenly I'm required to give the answer to the Sphinx's riddle.
HOW THE HELL CAN I ANSWER A FUCKING RIDDLE I HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD?!?

Grrrr!!! Now I have to collect all the pieces again. Oh well, shouldn't take long with the Teleport spell, but it's fucking annoying.
And that bloody Sphinx better be on lvl 6 which I haven't explored fully yet.

 

[octavius]

Beat Wiz 2 at last, without any party deaths and hardly any character deaths at all. Only had to replace one character.

I found it easier, shorter and less fun than Wiz 1. I hope it wasn't sold at full price when it was released?

The end game was confusing and disappointing. I went down to lvl 6 and found the Sphinx who made a long speech about finding three clues on the level. But then he asks for a password. Looking up in the manual I figure the answer must be either Alavik, Prince Alavik or The Knight of Diamonds. Turned out it was the last one. But instead of just letting me pass it teleported me right back to lvl 1, in front of Gnilda's domain, where I used the same password to gain access and win the game.

So bottom line: not really an improvement on Wiz 1, except for more fun items to play with.

 

[Sranchammer]

Does Wizardry 8 get better?

 

[Jaesun]

Does Wizardry 8 get better?

Wizardry 7 is about when they got the mechanics about right. In my opinion.

 

[Sceptic]

I found it easier, shorter and less fun than Wiz 1. I hope it wasn't sold at full price when it was released?

IIRC it was. I think Wiz1 was the best of the wireframe "regular" Wizardries (Wiz4 is its own thing entirely, so by that I mean 1-2-3-5) and Wiz2 is the worst. Wiz2 was basically an expansion pack sold at full price, with some novelties in items but a smaller and less well designed dungeon.

 

[Crooked Bee]

I found it easier, shorter and less fun than Wiz 1. I hope it wasn't sold at full price when it was released?

IIRC it was. I think Wiz1 was the best of the wireframe "regular" Wizardries (Wiz4 is its own thing entirely, so by that I mean 1-2-3-5) and Wiz2 is the worst. Wiz2 was basically an expansion pack sold at full price, with some novelties in items but a smaller and less well designed dungeon.

Personally I think Wiz3 is better than Wiz1 & 2 in at least some respects. It has alignment-restricted dungeon levels, for example, which is a really neat idea.

Also, I think Wiz5 is its own thing too. Its dungeon design is so different that it's hard to compare it to Wiz1-3.

 

[octavius]

Personally I think Wiz3 is better than Wiz1 & 2 in at least some respects. It has alignment-restricted dungeon levels, for example, which is a really neat idea.

So you need two parties? Hmm...I was toying with the idea of making a "perfect" evil aligned party in Wiz 1.
Anyways Wiz 3 is definitely much harder than Wiz 1 and Wiz 2. I don't think it's possible to avoid party deaths no matter how careful you are. First battle I was surprised by two groups of Creeping Kelps and one of my guys went down in the first round. Later my Thief fumbled and set off an Alarm trap summoning two parties of Garian Raiders. I tried to run and they got a free attack. I tried again, but I forgot there's only one way out of an Alarm trap - kill the monsters, and the next group of monsters killed my party.
So I won't play Wiz 3 Iron Man, at least not until my characters get some better stats, spells and items.
One big problem is that the lvl 1 characters' stats are capped at 15, and only 16+ stats make a difference.

 

[DraQ]

Does Wizardry 8 get better?

Better than what?

 

[octavius]

I restarted Wiz 3, and this time I played ultra carefully, retreating after each and every battle and copying SAVE3.DSK, and I've been able to level up my guys to lvl 4-5 without any party deaths and only 2-3 (temporary) character deaths.
This game is much slower due to having to retreat to restore spells all the time, and I still haven't mapped all of lvl 1. Haven't found a single useful item yet and the encounters are too samey; only about 10 different monsters on the entire level, most of which don't mix with each other.
Also I could swear that even more of the stats go down in Wiz 3 than in Wiz 1-2. All my guys in the back rank have seen their key stats (Piety, Luck and IQ respectively) go down from 15 to 12-13.
So all in all less fun than Wiz 1-2 so far.