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Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

octavius

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I read somewhere that there is a 0.5% chance of that happening in the Nintendo versions.
Best I rolled in DOS version of Wiz 1 were 2-3 characters with 28-29 bonus points.
 
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I recently started playing Wiz8 for the first time. I avoided Wizardry games before because I wanted to finish JA2 first since I tried to get into it 3 times. JA2 is a good game but fighting soldiers, capturing cities, training militia, resting, ordering stuff online, carrying stuff over and over again gets repetitive with nothing to make it less bland besides fighting worms and tigers.
I rolled a Drake fighter, a Felpur samurai, a human priestess, a human gadgeteer, a Mook psionic and a Faerie mage. So far the drake is just great, he has high damage (especially when berserking) and his breath attack makes it easier to deal with groups, priestess is a rather meh first-line warrior but her spells and especially the prayer ability (free spell) are very useful, mage is nuking hard like she should. I have my doubts about psionic, right now he provided some support with his debuffs but is generally inferior to the mage, I took him mostly because I had nobody with high senses and psionics rely on senses, he also provides support with mythology and communication since they they rely on senses and inteligence and are his class abilities. Gadgeteer is meh, he provides ranges support and deals with locks but I didn't find anything that would let his engineering ability shine, I'm still in the monastery though. Now, there is Samurai. I took him mostly because it's exotic to have samurai in traditional wRPG. He's basically useless. Everything he does is standing in front row taking damage, ant dealing mediocre (compared to fighter's) damage, he didn't use his trademark lightning strike even once. Does he get better after getting spells or later? I'm thinking about starting the game with some other caster-hybrid. I'm paricularly interested with a Dwarf monk, the manual advertised him as being a great tank due to combining both dwarf's and monk's defence bonuses. Is it worth it?
 

TigerKnee

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Samurai only useful for providing Wizardry school Buff spells in Wiz8.

Gadgeteer's gadgets get VERY good later on, but they definitely aren't great early on. Give them good ammo and use them as status ailments delivery service
 
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
Samurai only useful for providing Wizardry school Buff spells in Wiz8.

Gadgeteer's gadgets get VERY good later on, but they definitely aren't great early on. Give them good ammo and use them as status ailments delivery service

Anyone interesting I can replace him with? I was thinking about a Valkyrie or a monk but I don't think I need anyone with a priest's or psion's spellbook. Are ninjas or bards suitable for the front-row?
 

Major_Blackhart

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Keep the samurai. They become amazing if specced correctly.
Psionic Mook I'm not a fan of. Go Faerie. They always seem to be just better at mind games.

The big issue with the samurai is they're a long term investment kind of class. I've never been disappointed with one, be it felpur, dracon, mook, human, hobbit, or lizardman.
They are VERY mutable, but it just takes a while for their awesomeness to shine, that's all. Plus, they have specialized gear, so that can be annoying as well.
Besides that, priest gets better, but not so much at fighting. Rather, they get good at soaking up damage and healing like crazy.
Psionics are amazing because of the status they can inflict as they get better spells. It just seems unfair at times.
Gadgeteers are the friggin absolute worst in the beginning. THEY BECOME GODLIKE later on, absolutely nuts.

The fighter starts off good, but becomes MEH as the other classes kind of move into their own growth spurts. The fighter just stays the same mostly in what he can and cannot do. Kind of a bummer really. Would have been great for the fighter to get some additional abilities.
 

Monstrous Bat

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The fighter starts off good, but becomes MEH as the other classes kind of move into their own growth spurts. The fighter just stays the same mostly in what he can and cannot do. Kind of a bummer really. Would have been great for the fighter to get some additional abilities.
Fighters don't need any additional abilities when they are able to dish out 400+ damage in a single turn. Other classed can do their job, but when it comes to killin' a fighter's efficiency is unmatched.
 

Jaesun

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Yeah that is well said Mr. Blackhart. Samurai are very much a long term investment, but dear GAWD do they get powerful much later on.
 

Major_Blackhart

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Well, the big reason is that Samurais really involve a number of stats and skills. You want them to be one hit kills, then you've got to focus on senses to get that critical strike up.
You want them to be slice and dice machines? Dexterity and speed. You want them to penetrate an opponents defenses? Strength. Spells for buffs and ranged damage? Intelligence AND a bit of Piety for magic.
Overall, there one of those classes referred to in Pathfinder and D&D type games as MAD, multiple attribute dependent. BUT, once you get them going, they fucking rock.
 
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RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In
I'm keeping it just as it is then, thanks for asistance everyone, would be bothersome to start the game again. Won't fire the mook though, since I already have one fairy and the character has already started to grow on me.
 

Gnidrologist

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I would really want to play old wiz games, but can't get past the grafixx that are too dated even for me. I can bear with any isometric game no matter how ugly, but having only colored squares and numbers on screen is too much. :graphicwhore: :imershun:
 

octavius

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And thus my party (with some substitutes) who started out as snotty nosed pimpletons in Wiz 1 completed their quest in Wiz 3 (EDIT: OK, the Wiz 3 guys are supposed to be their descendants):

X0BR770.png


It seems evident that there was supposed to be a sequel to this game, where the party fights the revealed threat, but I guess sales for Wiz 3 was not that good. I can't find many mentions of people who actually played it when Googling.

I got a bunch of XP for completing the quest; enough for 1-2 level ups. This was my winning party and their two evil henchmen at the end. Notice the poor stats for all but Killi, and the lack of any super items like Cusinart Blades or Lord's Garb:

LRHDKV0.png


GfpDGyb.png


QpveEZz.png


tj6waYA.png


haIEb2E.png


U2idy4o.png


Q6dVAQa.png


q6aNTjj.png
 
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Major_Blackhart

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I fuckin love Wizardry.
And you know what, I don't care how good the old games are, my fav is still 8 because it was the first one I played.
Sorry guys. Nostalgia rules in this case.
 

Gnidrologist

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Yeah, but fighters are ultimately a Meh class. Boring.
They are boring, but they do the ultimate damage as far as my wiz8 experience go. Especially a lizardman fighter, who gets his strength and endurance to 100 at level 7/8. Though i don't know how he holds up to rogue. Relatively recently i played a solo rogue and he became fucking invincible somewhere about level 12-15. while hitting hard criticals on dual wield with 2 attacks and 2 swings with both hands, even better later with 3.
 

TigerKnee

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Rogues are nuts with Bloodlust (whatever the Always Berserk Sword was called) because it lets them stack Berserk bonus damage + "Backstab" damage
 

Gnidrologist

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Anyhow, i played with lizardman/fighter + bishop once and it was great fun. Probably the best combination for wiz8 party. After the first few playthroughs i never played with full6 party in wiz8. It's better to have few, but distinctly specialised chars. And the XP flow. itz heavan.

Btw, did anyone tried to enter Arnika with low level party and try to kill the 20 or smth level savant minions that spawn there? I tried in my first time, when i encountered this shit without knowing, but couldn't do shit. All Arnika patrols and monks were obliterated in few turns. Are there any success stories?
 
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octavius

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if your curious enough to invest time in to those early versions
{and the computer set-up sometimes required}
you could vicariously experience these via CRPG Addict's blog
--------->
http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2010/02/game-5-wizardry-proving-grounds-of-mad.html
<--------
He does pretty good job of illustrating what these games were like.
I crossed quite a few early games off my to-play one-day list due to his write ups {Added a few to re-play or blind-play too}
Huge time saver - but possible spoilers if your on the fence about a particular game.

Actually, I think he made the games sound much harder than they really are.
But I think the mistakes he did was to not reroll characters until getting 15-18 bonus points (doesn't really take that long), nor checking what the stats actually do and how high they need to be to get the bonuses, and not playing cautiously enough. Or else he was just not a very good player back then.
So when I reread his blog entries about Wiz 1-3 to compare notes with my own recent playthrough I was surprised that he had that much difficulty with them.
 

DraQ

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I recently started playing Wiz8 for the first time. I avoided Wizardry games before because I wanted to finish JA2 first since I tried to get into it 3 times. JA2 is a good game but fighting soldiers, capturing cities, training militia, resting, ordering stuff online, carrying stuff over and over again gets repetitive with nothing to make it less bland besides fighting worms and tigers.
I rolled a Drake fighter, a Felpur samurai, a human priestess, a human gadgeteer, a Mook psionic and a Faerie mage. So far the drake is just great, he has high damage (especially when berserking) and his breath attack makes it easier to deal with groups, priestess is a rather meh first-line warrior but her spells and especially the prayer ability (free spell) are very useful, mage is nuking hard like she should. I have my doubts about psionic, right now he provided some support with his debuffs but is generally inferior to the mage, I took him mostly because I had nobody with high senses and psionics rely on senses, he also provides support with mythology and communication since they they rely on senses and inteligence and are his class abilities. Gadgeteer is meh, he provides ranges support and deals with locks but I didn't find anything that would let his engineering ability shine, I'm still in the monastery though. Now, there is Samurai. I took him mostly because it's exotic to have samurai in traditional wRPG. He's basically useless. Everything he does is standing in front row taking damage, ant dealing mediocre (compared to fighter's) damage, he didn't use his trademark lightning strike even once. Does he get better after getting spells or later? I'm thinking about starting the game with some other caster-hybrid. I'm paricularly interested with a Dwarf monk, the manual advertised him as being a great tank due to combining both dwarf's and monk's defence bonuses. Is it worth it?

  • Fighters are good but they just hit things, so later on they can be a bit boring.
  • Samurai are late bloomers and require focus in development. Nevertheless you can find a great (cursed) sword in what will likely be your first town, that is of much more benefit to non-fighters and should bring your samurai in-line with your fighter in terms of damage potential. If he wields a cursed weapon he will also benefit from his spells (because of no ranged attack). There are some neat samurai weapons but the best samurai exclusive sword is unfortunately random.
  • Priests are generally kind of plain. They can actually stand in the first line and both dish and take some damage, but don't expect them to ever do something awesome. OTOH they are great at healing and buffs.
  • Mook psionics always make me kind of sad because of certain weapon in game only Mook can swing but not a scrawny caster one, but they get good points and psionics are awesome (although their most essential lower level spells can be mimicked by a pair of bard and gadgeteer).
  • Gadgeteer is another late bloomer, but will provide hilarious rate of fire and obscene damage late in game, along with status effects, and some useful ranged weapons for your other classes (fighter in your case, possibly samurai if you don't use cursed main weapons), also gadgets. Plus you need someone to disarm stuff.
  • Mage may take a little dip in usefulness late in game, because of reliance on direct damage and fire spells.
Mostly what Major_Blackhart said.
Also, Samurai aren't the most problematic hybrid out there - that would be Lords.
OTOH the Valkyrie are probably the easiest hybrids to develop, but you'll get to recruit and likely keep one, so maybe use her to try the class out first.

Bards can make competent frontliners but generally won't surpass Samurai and will suck at first.
If you find Samurai disappointing and/or hard/slow to develop, don't even think about rolling a Ninja.

My first party to complete the game featured both Lord, Samurai and Gadgeteer (I think), BTW.
I don't think it featured a Rogue or Bard.

Rogues are nuts with Bloodlust (whatever the Always Berserk Sword was called) because it lets them stack Berserk bonus damage + "Backstab" damage
Dracon Rogue with Bloodlust + Thieves Dagger.

Why Dracon?

Because rogues don't cast and having nothing to do at range because you have awesome blades permastuck to your hands kind of sucks. Meanwhile Dracons always have their breath weapon to fall back on.
Also because Dracons' stats make them prime tank and heavy hitter material if you quit pretending that rogues are about subtlety.

Btw, did anyone tried to enter Arnika with low level party and try to kill the 20 or smth level savant minions that spawn there?
Bwuh? Level scaling, man.
I would really want to play old wiz games, but can't get past the grafixx that are too dated even for me. I can bear with any isometric game no matter how ugly, but having only colored squares and numbers on screen is too much. :graphicwhore: :imershun:
I think 6 would be hard on my eyes, but 7 looks quite gorgeous (apart from close up portraits with tiles).
Not interested in playing earlier ones.
 
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Console versions of Wizardry have better graphics. There's translation patches for Wizardry 1 through 4 and 6's SNES versions. Wizardry 5 doesn't need a patch.
 

Gnidrologist

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Goddamn that was an old post you revived there, DraQ.
Bwuh? Level scaling, man.
Uh..? Have you never experienced this? After i found out that mobs level scale in wiz8 i was usually trying to pass the route from monastery to arnika with maximally low lever party as i knew that monsters would spawn according to my level, which means a lot of trouble if you have aprox level 8 party at that point (which you usually have).
So this one time i entered Arnika at lvl 4 or something. There were savant minions (those fat furry dudes, you know) and android berserkers or what was the highest rank androids anyway. I rushed to forums to find out wtf and it appears that if you enter Arnika underleveled (game expects you to be at least 5-8 level at that point) the game gets confused and spawns the max level mobs at you from the get go. And they don't get away even after you exit/re-enter Arnika. Didn't you know that?
 

Gragt

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I would really want to play old wiz games, but can't get past the grafixx that are too dated even for me. I can bear with any isometric game no matter how ugly, but having only colored squares and numbers on screen is too much. :graphicwhore: :imershun:

As mentionned earlier in the thread, try the PSX remakes. If you want to play Wizardry 1 to 5, it's either the Ultimate Wizardry Archives versions for the original feel or the PSX remakes for a modern update.
 

Sceptic

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As mentionned earlier in the thread, try the PSX remakes. If you want to play Wizardry 1 to 5, it's either the Ultimate Wizardry Archives versions for the original feel or the PSX remakes for a modern update.
The PSX versions have PC ports, and there are language fan patches for both. I didn't play any of the games to completion that way but dicked around with them, and IMO it's the best way to play the game now. All of the modern stuff (new graphics, automap, etc) is modular so you can play as close to the original as you want, or add some of the new features. IIRC the gameplay and design is identical to original Apple and to DOS, except the stat reductions are I think more reasonable.
 

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