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Wizardry 6 is just so good

Whisper

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Wizardry 6 is just so good, i somehow missed this gem.

Only question to ask, is full pure casters party is viable on expert? I am kinda worried about high resistance mobs. Looking at some of them have 125% resists to each magic damage type, how to bypass 125% resists?

Also how Int is useful to mages? Pie increase mana amount, but i dont see benefit from Int (it does not increase amount of skill points).
 

Serus

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Going from experience with Wizardry 7 (almost identical mechanics afaik) INT (and other stats) make difference only when they are very low or very high. So you won't see any difference between say 12 and 15 INT but once you reach 16+ INT it might increase spell damage... Same with Vitality and hp/level or STR and weapon damage. I could be completely wrong on the subject so don't quote me...
And again going from experience with W7 i wouldn't recommend a pure mage party. Magic is good and all but you will probably run into monsters that are very resillient to magic sooner or later. The main purpose of mages will be buffing/debuffing/healing/killing weak mobs when your frontliners kill the tough monsters with weapons. At least that is the case in W7.

Edit: There is a wizardry series thread, full of experienced Wizardry players, including W6 - i suggest asking there.
 
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As above, but I'd also add that the 'standard' strategy in Wiz 1-3 and 5-7 (4 is its own beast for obvious reasons) is strategic mutliclassing of your entire party. Can't do it all at once - even though there's no AD&D-style artificial bar on immediately using the skills from your previous class, you'll be stuck with a party where all the specialist roles have taken a hit to their viability (even if through nothing else other than the absence of further advancement in that role), without anyone else having developed their new classes enough to help out.

You need to be smart about when you change classes (i.e. how many moderately good fighter turned fledgling healer can you carry at one time), and about which classes you multi too (which of your abilities carry over? You still need front line fighters, so how badly will the class they're switching to hamper their HP/accuracy advancement? If your fighter/samurai is going to a low-accuracy-advancement class, will your earlier cleric-turned-fighter be ready to fill in?).

There are some changes between 1-3 and 5-7, but the obvious class-change strategies in both are switching from hybrid to caster (of the same magic type) and vice versa, so that they keep advancing in terms of what they've got (even if it's just added spell accuracy) while gaining another skill-set.

Note: class-changing is not necessary for having a power-gaming party in 1-3, possibly with the exception of Wiz 2 (because you import your characters from Wiz 1, and the difficulty curve assumes you'll at least have one elite class like a ninja or lord due to certain late-game items in Wiz 1).

Ultimate powergame party has always been that every character should have at least 2 classes, and some may even have more (class synergy in terms of having some common skills core to their 'main' role is key if you're going 3 classes though). Not at all necessary for a win on normal, and plenty of people have gone through on expert with minimal class-changing (never heard of someone winning it with no class-changing, but I'm sure there's people who have done it), but if you want to maximise your chances, that's the strategy to adopt.

There's a number of easily googleable and excellent guides on class-changing strategies (re what classes to combine, when to do it, and which ones to do when) for both the Wiz1-3 and Wiz5-7 rulesets. I wouldn't suggest looking at them for Wiz 1-3, as working out the hidden mechanics was a core part of those games appeal at the time. But I wouldn't consider that stuff to be at all spoilering for Wiz 5-7 - the 'everyone has at least 2 classes' powergame party was well-established by Wiz 5, and whilst there are massive changes to the overall game mechanics compared to the first 3 games, the class-changing is still designed with the assumption that players know that it's the key to powergaming and likely necessary if you want to win any of the optional boss-fights (the Wiz developers are a rare example of a company that deliberately made games on the assumption that their target audience were veterans of their previous games).
 
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Whisper

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I finished W8 with full caster party (6 bishops). I am asking if in theory it is possible to play only with casters (mages, alchemists, psionics, priests,bishops) and finish it? If multiclassing, only to caster classes from caster classes.


I.e. are there any monsters that completely immune to magic so i am stuck at them? I saw some monsters with 125% resists to all, would i still do dmg to 125% resists? Or they are immune?
 

SausageInYourFace

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You need to be smart about when you change classes
and about which classes you multi too
Ultimate powergame party
There's a number of easily googleable and excellent guides on class-changing strategies

I think the importance as well as the complexity of class changing is in Wizardry 6 is greatly exaggerated, at least on normal difficulty.

I do think the whole notion scares away new players. Before playing Wiz6 I read so much in the Wizardry thread about optimal party composition and I went through so many guides I found online and it all seemed so confusing and hard, I almost abandoned the game before I even attempted playing it. It felt more like studying for a math exam than learning a game.

Once you actually start playing however, you get used to the mechanics very quickly and it almost becomes self evident what class changing does and how to do it and all that complexity dissolves. Its clear when a character reaches a certain XP threshold, it goes without saying that you shouldn't multiclass all characters right away, its common sense where certain skill sets and classes go really well together, and so on. In short, its not really that big of a deal tbh.

Sure, I understand the interest in optimization and powergaming but I just wanna emphasize that its not all that necessary and really nothing to break your head over for new players.
 

octavius

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Yeah, class changing is not really needed in Wiz 6. It's more needed in Wiz 7, which you should play after Wiz 6 when you have learnt how the game mechanics work.
 

Whisper

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Guys, can we talk if full caster (= pure caster) party is viable or not in W6?
 

Melan

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I wouldn't think about multiclassing in Wizardry VI either. Through the game, you can get your characters up to maybe level 16 or 18, and that's about enough to master one class path. In Wizardry VII, you can mix classes to your heart's content, but here, I'd stick with balanced single-class characters.

And I sure as hell wouldn't try a full caster party. There are many combats where you have to get ready for a war of attrition. For that, you need fighting classes who can consistently dish out melee damage, and can't rely on frying all opponents. I have some personal experience in this matter, since the first time I acquired a copy of Wizardry VI from, ah, *questionable sources*, it was either broken or FUBARed by the failed copy protection, and among other bugs, my characters could almost never hit with melee weapons. This meant I had to rely on casters, and most battles were a nightmarish exercise of load/reload/load/reload. I had my ass kicked by giant rats and crawling vines.

Anyway, yeah, it is one of the great games out there. Wizardry VII is my personal favourite, but VI is just beautifully well designed. :)
 

Whisper

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Pure caster party is not good idea. But you might try it anyway. Don't forget to share impressions.
I finished W8 with full caster party (6 bishops).
how was it?

Even better than my 5 thieves+1bishop next run.

Most battles end in 1-2 mins top. I didnt use any npc, so this party can tank too (monsters just dont get to group).

There is trick to hide behind corner and initiate combat, by fireballing enemies from far, thus getting surprise round + next round you AOE same spot too.


TL&DR: fastest kill speed with 6 AoE'ers.
 

Fowyr

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You need resilient and hardy first three characters. There are not enough good mage armor in Wiz6 even for two mages.
 

Lady_Error

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Don't you spend 99% of the game walking backwards spamming arrows anyway?

In Wizardry 6 and 7, you can't walk in combat and you can't shoot arrows outside of combat.
 

Lady_Error

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One thing I always liked doing in Wizardry 7 is to change classes in such a way that everyone will have the hiding skill eventually.
 

Whisper

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You need resilient and hardy first three characters. There are not enough good mage armor in Wiz6 even for two mages.

I cant nuke out with 6 mages enemy group before they hit me?
 

Fowyr

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I cant nuke out with 6 mages enemy group before they hit me?
Theoretically speaking, you can. Practically, some of them could be too fast or make their saving throws. Also it's giant waste of mana.
 

Whisper

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I cant nuke out with 6 mages enemy group before they hit me?
Theoretically speaking, you can. Practically, some of them could be too fast or make their saving throws. Also it's giant waste of mana.

Are there any monsters or bosses almost immune to all magic?


Also, wtf enemies almost never resist debuffs, even bosses. I fought 2 Fat rats in castle, they both were blinded.

In wizardry 8 if one enemy out of every three got affected - you are lucky, i mean usual enemies, trash mobs even.
 
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You need to be smart about when you change classes
and about which classes you multi too
Ultimate powergame party
There's a number of easily googleable and excellent guides on class-changing strategies

I think the importance as well as the complexity of class changing is in Wizardry 6 is greatly exaggerated, at least on normal difficulty.

I do think the whole notion scares away new players. Before playing Wiz6 I read so much in the Wizardry thread about optimal party composition and I went through so many guides I found online and it all seemed so confusing and hard, I almost abandoned the game before I even attempted playing it. It felt more like studying for a math exam than learning a game.

Once you actually start playing however, you get used to the mechanics very quickly and it almost becomes self evident what class changing does and how to do it and all that complexity dissolves. Its clear when a character reaches a certain XP threshold, it goes without saying that you shouldn't multiclass all characters right away, its common sense where certain skill sets and classes go really well together, and so on. In short, its not really that big of a deal tbh.

Sure, I understand the interest in optimization and powergaming but I just wanna emphasize that its not all that necessary and really nothing to break your head over for new players.

I agree re normal - OP was asking about expert difficulty. And yeah, even then you can win on expert with a 'max out your class to the point of negligible returns, then switch if you feel like it, or don't' strategy, but it's a lot harder, especially if you're going for a 'get all the optional goodies, win all optional bosses, etc' victory.

Didn't intend it as a 'must have'. But if the guy is asking for build advice (espec on expert), why not give him the best build?
 

Whisper

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Didn't intend it as a 'must have'. But if the guy is asking for build advice (espec on expert), why not give him the best build?

I dont need mutliclass advise, i ask IF it is possible to win with no physical damage dealers.
 

Whisper

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Seems it is possible to win with only pure caster classes but requires a lot reloads/backtracking for mana. Also normal difficulty.
 

Deuce Traveler

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So I finally beat this game with a final party of one samurai, two valkyries, one ninja, and two bishops. If I was to do it all again, I would have save scummed on level-ups to make sure I had the stats to switch character classes around levels 5 or 6, and swapped more often to pick up more skill points and spells for all my characters. I found level 5 was really easy to reach, level 8 came fast enough, but levels above level 8 were gained at a crawl.

Wizardry 6 was fine, but not always engaging. It felt like a grind at times, and inventory management got to be a pain towards the end as I had a number of quest items that I couldn't drop despite having resolved the associated quests. On a plus side, I felt each character class did have their use (never did get an alchemist or monk though), and because of the varied sorts of monsters you encounter, you really did need a balanced party throughout the entire game. Oh, and when I finally did get a samurai with muramasa he ended up being a complete badass. Best melee character in game. For me anyway.

At the end...

... I ended up taking a silver cross from the evil queen, which made sense to me since I just fought a vampire. Unfortunately, this set me on an evil path. I killed the vampire lord and his demon daughter, but then found a dragon who was mad at me for killing them and beat the monster after a tough fight. There was never a chance not to fight Rebecca or the dragon, and I later read that I would have had to not take the silver cross to have a chance at a peaceful resolution. So somehow I'm on an evil path, with my party working for the bad guy at the start of Wizardry 7. Meh.
 

Grampy_Bone

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That's a good summary. Muramasa is the best weapon in the game; importing it into Wiz 7 is definitely worth it, otherwise you're limited to the comparatively lame Bushido blade for most of the game.

Ending spoilers:

Isn't there a way you can still get a sorta-not-as-bad ending if you keep the cross? I'm not sure. I thought the only really bad ending was if you took the pen.

In any case, the whole "drop this important-seeming quest item to get the good ending" gimmick has to be one of the most infuriating gotcha-endings in the history of CRPGs.
 

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