Grimoire Thread

[solemgar]

I have lost my notes somewhere so it’s even harder

How many games do you guys find this notetaking necessary? I tried it in exactly one game(u5 Lazarus) and turns out I remembered the stuff anyway.

U5 Lazarus, a fellow connoisseur

 

[Nikanuur]

Guys, does Lethe Harp work for you? For me, it's like this: When my Bard plays the Lyre of Slumber for example, I see combat log messages of unsuccessful or successful 'music attack'. But when she plays the Lethe Harp, there's just the graphical part—the sparkling magical ball being hurled—but no message appears in the combat log whatsoever, and then the next character goes. Consequently, I never saw anybody in the combat being paralyzed. So, either I am doing something wrong, or it is bugged, or idk.

 

[Reinhardt]

Race: Drow, male

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

 

[Dorateen]

Guys, does Lethe Harp work for you? For me, it's like this: When my Bard plays the Lyre of Slumber for example, I see combat log messages of unsuccessful or successful 'music attack'. But when she plays the Lethe Harp, there's just the graphical part—the sparkling magical ball being hurled—but no message appears in the combat log

How are you using the instrument? Is it equipped in your bard's hand, or do you activate it from the inventory bar. Whichever method you are using, try the opposite and see if that makes a difference.

 

[Nikanuur]

Guys, does Lethe Harp work for you? For me, it's like this: When my Bard plays the Lyre of Slumber for example, I see combat log messages of unsuccessful or successful 'music attack'. But when she plays the Lethe Harp, there's just the graphical part—the sparkling magical ball being hurled—but no message appears in the combat log

How are you using the instrument? Is it equipped in your bard's hand, or do you activate it from the inventory bar. Whichever method you are using, try the opposite and see if that makes a difference.

Equipped, using it through 'fight' icon as a weapon. Same as the other harp which works. It doesn't have 'uses' as for example the flute had, and it really produces a graphical effect when being used this way.
But oki, I'll try what you say the next time I run the game, thanks.

 

[Namutree]

About to reinstall and play this again. Made a character in D&D who's a fairy, and I really like my guy, so I'm glad I can keep playing a fairy character via this game.

 

[Lady Error]

Reminder for everyone that the Grimoire wiki is at:

https://grimoirewiki.neocities.org

 

[Kliwer]

TLDR: All in all I have learned to love this game. To enjoy Grimoire you have to understand its systems (which are very un-intuitive and not transparent) and get used to a very clunky interface. But after that – you will find a great dungeon crawler with enormous sense of adventure and discovery. The game is still unpolished – but almost every great game is. Personally I still prefer Wiazards&Warriors and Might&Magic 3-5 (my favorite blobbers), but Grimoire goes into my top 10.

Question. Some skills are a mystery for me. What is the purpose of: Meditation, Astral Vision and Nature Lore (for now I had developed this skills to 30 and stopped adding points because I see no benefit)?

----------------------------------------------------------

This time I’m in a different mood – maybe it’s why I have started to appreciate this game. It’s really great. One of the best gaming experiences of my life. This game, of course, has a lot of flaws and shortcomings – like all the brilliant games I've experienced. In the long run, however, these disadvantages do not matter. The whole thing is just a great, evocative fantasy adventure. I don't think I'm too far yet: I've cleared Briarpatch Woods (whit all its dungeons), Crowl (here I still need to do something at the Museum of Magic, but I don't know what), Gardens of Midknight (with purple cave, Tomb of Saint George, The Eyrie with Sky Barge and Raptor cave, Cenotaph). Now I’m finally going into depths of Samhain. My party is on 6-7 levels of experience in their first classes. I’m going to advance them to 8 level and I will change class after that. I’m planning only one class change per character – I know this system is designed for multiple class changes, but I do not like this feature. I prefer each character to represent a specific archetype and fulfill a specific role. I’m playing on Improved difficulty (3. level) and with random monsters set on Rare (it’s still quite annoying when I have already cleared the location and have to solve some puzzles).


Some things I do not like.

- I love blobbers, however there is one thing I do not like in this style of cRPG: our party. Heroes are just tables of numbers without any personality. Some games can liven up our characters a bit: with interactive portraits (Might and Magic 3-5), paper dolls (M&M 6-8), voices and banners (Might and Magic X or Wizardry 8). But this is not the case. In Grimoire our team is extremely soulless.

- Character system is mediocre. Classes have not enough special features or skills, everything is so similar. Spellcasters are barely different; after some time all of them have similar spell repertoire (because everyone can learn every spell from books). I like advancing heroes into prestige classes, but the whole development is too quick and not very special. Advancing thief into pirate gives what…? one new skill? I have to compare this system to my beloved Wiazrds&Warriors, where every new class gives us new special abilities or traits. And development is much more engaging because of guilds and promotions by quests. In Grimoire we have - in fact - 3 classes: fighter, backstabbing fighter, spellcaster. The end.

- I have never liked this type of encounters where enemies appear out of a blue. Much prefer World of Xeen style, when we can see monsters in a distance. It’s especially terrible in case of friendly NPCs. I do not understand why they can’t just stand in their locations all the time. It’s particularly great when given NPC is moving around the location (or even between locations). Finding Sir Coffergus (to give him an item) took me about half an hour… (because this fucker moved without a word from Eyrie into the Tomb). I had to use Detect Person spell to find him – but the spell is cumbersome to use; you have to scroll through huge list of all NPCs presented in the game. Yea, this aspect is really shitty.

- World, lore etc. The game looks like a themepark without any cohesion. Well, it is too early to fully judge this aspect but… Everything looks so random. Some knightly orders without any story or background, some surface empire of drows, a lot of furries (lion-men, rat-men, dog-men… gosh, I hate this), alien races, religion cults using some random real-live deities names… Worldbuilding looks very weak. I have no problem with some unconventional or crazy stuff (because it enforce the feeling of discovery; all those stories about Samhain, Duroh’Mal etc. are great) but everything looks here like a random mish-mash of tropes. It is even wors when the art-style also clashes (in the village of Crowl we have cool-looking robed monks along with awful anime-like girl with glasses… and she is standing next to the Ackme Snickers distributor…) – yea, disgusting. I like light tone in cRPGs, I have nothing against easter eggs and jokes… but Grimoire comes too far. This Ackme thing is worse than anything by Larian…

- Economy does not exist. Maybe later it will change, but for now I have tones of gold and nothing to spend it. In most games, at last at the beginning, money is useful. But in Grimoire there is literally nothing to buy. BTW: I have noticed that good economy exists mostly in those games, where leveling-up or learning new skills costs money (like: Might and Magic, Wizards&Warriors) or where designers are very careful with rewards + they can ensure a constant supply of new goods in subsequent stages of the game (Gothic and especially Archolos). In Grimoire we are receiving gold rewards after every battle (even if it’s absurd – why do carnivorous flowers provide gold?), loot mostly contains trash to sell + shops are empty (and easy to rob). It is almost as bad as in Gold Box games.

- The game is still unpolished. There are a lot of minor bugs. To name a few:
a) Character creation is broken. Barrower metalsmith received no bonus points. Other characters did not receive their race bonuses. Ex. rat-thief rolled 46 bonus points. Nothing were subtracted for class requirements and he should have received 10% race bonus. But after starting the game he has only 46 points of attributes to spend – so the plain roll. The same is true for all others.
b) There are minor mistakes in dialogues. Sometimes when I’m asking NPC some topic he answers me “to ask @NPC” (so placeholder instead of a proper name).
c) This is the funniest thing, showing how weird game’s code must look like. Sometimes when I’m adding a note to the map the text of this note is added to my party’s name. So, for now, my party name is: “Hammerfall+Barracks”.


Except of this – everything else is good to great. Some other thoughts:

- Writing is inconsistent. Sometimes very atmospheric, even poetic, sometimes very “modern” (eq. “mining company” – not “guild”, not something medieval, just “company”) or try-hard funny. But when it’s good it’s very good. Most of dialogues, descriptions, “Dungeon Masters” comments and narrations are excellent. This is one of this things which build the sense of adventure. Different smells and odors in dungeons, strange items descriptions, distant views from the mountain top (looking through windows of Sky Barge, enforced by narration, was a better experience than any 3D view from Skyrim or other open-world hiking sim). Imagination works together with limited but stylish graphics (I love this dark-blue dungeon walls…) in perfect proportions. Yes, the game could benefit from more varied tile-sets (even some simple color changes would be cool), but the narration is so good (mostly), that every dungeon feels different.

By the way – the game is great to learn English… I’m (obviously) not a native speaker, but I haven't had a problem with playing games in English for a long time. Yea, from time to time I come across an unfamiliar word, but most of video games texts are clear for me. Not this time. After last 4h long session I wrote down 111 new words to learn… Thank You, Cleve. May your cadaver never be distended, swollen, squirming, wriggling, reeking nor puckered!

- This time I have started from the “Imprisonment” prologue. I like it more than “The Shrine” (my previous choice): at last I have some equipment at the beginning. It was a bit harder (especially random encounters in the village are scary for low level party) – but I prefer to start in a town hub than in the middle of nowhere.

- “Crafting skills” (metallurgy, sharpening weapons etc.) are cumbersome to use because you have to find a proper crafting station. Without this limitation they could be quite nice.

- My bard, for now, is ridiculously overpowered. She has about 50% of all kills. Her main tool is some lyre which casts Cone of Cold on 7. power level. She is relatively quick (I’m not going to change her class so all attribute points are spent immediately) so she acts mostly before anyone else. In case of most easy encounter she just cleans the screen in first or second round. In case of hard encounters with single powerful enemy (lich, spider demon, strange creature from Sky Barge etc.) the paralysis spell is a way to go. My Aerob sage almost always succeeds with this spell, although he is slow so my party has to surview the first turn (sometimes pre-buffing is required). But after that the paralysis spell almost always works (even when casted on 1 power level… strange). The only enemy type which I can’t handle are Dragon Flies – they appearance = reload. After some hard time at the beginning the game is relatively easy and plays almost like World of Xeen or something (I’m just mowing through encounters with occasional harder and more interesting fight with a boss). Tactical system is cool enough – boss encounters are great, but I can’t imagine this game with more or harder random encounters (respawn is set to Rare) – it would be a chore. Defensive spells are mostly useless because they are single-target (ex. Fire Shield) – it is much quicker to reload a bad roll than casting this on all party members. My dwarven metalsmith has a bit too few hit points for a first line (66 on 7. level; giant fighter has more then 100) but it will change after promotion. The armorplate spell is my main defensive buff. I have 2 characters with a lethal blow skill (dwarven metalsmith and drow ranger) but it is not useful for now because I do not have proper weapons for them.

- Consumables are, as usual, too numerous and not powerful enough to bother.

- I decided to not reload after level-ups (with exception of my drow ranger and rat thief – both of them need a lot of points to qualify for their prestige classes). It is why some of my characters are a bit weak; ex. dwarven thaumaturge has rather few spell points (even drow ranger has more…). But fuck this, it is too cumbersome to reload, especially when two or three characters advance at once. Plus it is hard to judge a good/bed rolls because you have to count: HP and SP gains, attributes gains, skill points gains… I do not like that advancement is so random in this game, but I can live with it.

- Skills are weird. Some of them are extremely easy to grind (ex. robbery), some are impossible to upgrade through usage. And so only non-grindable skills are important to improve during level-ups. For example I have put only 10 points into my thief’s robbery and now this skills has a value of 54 (after pickpocketing NPCs in a village). I made some mistakes, especially in case of my bard (I have spread her skill point too widely) but I hope it will be not a problem in a long run.

- Interactions with NPCs by keywords are great. It is a much better system than typical dialogue trees. You really have to think what is your goal. I would only wish that NPCs could answers for more topics. It would also be nice to have a list of topics that were successfully used. In general - in-game notepad would be great. For now I have to play in a window mod with Notepad opened all the time.

- Exploration, dungeons, puzzles and riddles: these are the game's strongest points. It is hard to imagine how different all dungeons looks and feels like, even with only one graphical style. For now I have no problems with puzzles, everything were maybe a bit too obvious (only very careful exploration was required; you can screw yourself if you will neglect scanning every single dungeon tile with Detect Secrets ON). We'll see how it goes in later dungeons. Maybe locations are not as packed with content as in M&M games (caves are a bit boring, as usual), but still very good. Grimoire has some virtues of point&click adventures, which I like very much. I wish more cRPGs would follow this style of puzzles.

How many games do you guys find this notetaking necessary?

Well, in quite a lot of games, mostly older ones. Those without any in-game journal (Eye of Beholder) or with very shitty one (Wizards and Warriors). And especially games, where dialogues are based on keywords (Amberstar, Ambermoon, also Grimoire of course). If you have dialogue trees (or a list of topicks) it is easy to scan trough all options and find a proper solution. But if you have to write the correct word by yourself (in dialogues or in case of some riddles) you have to be more careful. I love those games, where you have to find useful information in a sea of lore dumps and rumors. Even in case of some newer games I have a piece of paper on my side – to note places to come back later (ex. in Dragon Age: Origins I took notes about chests to open when my lockpicking skill will be high enough). In some games I’m using map notes to record quest information (ex. Divine Divinity). Heh, playing Baldur’s Gate Trilogy (with lot of quest mods) I had to make extensive notes by myself because in those times a lot of mods had not proper journal entries. Luckily in BG games you can edit in-game journal by hand. I wish all cRPGs have a possibility to make map notes and to edit in-game journal.

In case of Grimoire I’m playing in a window mod with 3 separate Notepad files opened. One – for lore information + alchemical recipes. Second – fore quests, NPCs, items, puzzles, keywords etc. Third one – for new English vocabulary.

 

[Lady Error]

The interface seems to be the main criticism in the reviews too. Hopefully Cleve improves on that in his upcoming games.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

For those playing in Steam, you can now take notes directly through the Steam UI while playing, which I find handy.

 

[Catacombs]

For those playing in Steam, you can now take notes directly through the Steam UI while playing, which I find handy.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Cleveland Mark Blakemore]

The interface seems to be the main criticism in the reviews too. Hopefully Cleve improves on that in his upcoming games.

The next one coming is mostly prompting of the player for anything significant so there is far less hunt'n'click. The turn based combat always needed to be prompted like Wiz 7, only realized it after it was released. I thought my system was more flexible but it can be confusing for people who have never played Wiz 6-7 previously.

 

[ShaggyMoose]

For those playing in Steam, you can now take notes directly through the Steam UI while playing, which I find handy.

Can you elaborate?

A recent version of Steam introduced note taking directly into the Steam overlay. You can flip to this easily while playing or even superimpose it permanently over the game, allowing you to take notes without Alt+Tab. Its really great for games that, for whatever reason, hate Alt+Tab (Skyrim and DDOS I am looking at you). The formatting is pretty basic, but at least it has bullet lists and multi-notes with an index.

 

[Rarre]

Where can I get high resolution art of this game? I am in love with the art style, like this one:

 

[Kliwer]

Run, you fools! Trough the Samhain Gorge!

 

[Kliwer]

Could someone describe how aging works in this game? I'm starting to worry about that I'm resting too often. Vitality goes down quite quickly and other ways to replenish it are so cumbersome (dringking from fountains, eating food) that I ususaly just rest.

 

[Jarpie]

Could someone describe how aging works in this game? I'm starting to worry about that I'm resting too often. Vitality goes down quite quickly and other ways to replenish it are so cumbersome (dringking from fountains, eating food) that I ususaly just rest.

There's also spell Refresh...no idea about how aging works though.

 

[unseeingeye]

Haven't been on the codex since April or May, I forget exactly when I stopped coming here, but Grimoire has got a hold of me again and I just had to thank Lady Error for sharing the new link to the wiki. I have all the files downloaded on my phone lol but a site makes things so much easier to navigate. I put in a few hours yesterday but decided to start over again with a new party, and my memory is so awful so I'm needing to relearn everything again.

I don't want to live in a world without the genius Cleveland Mark Blakemore has access to.

 

[unseeingeye]

I know this question must have been asked before, but I can't seem to find an answer specifically to what I'm curious about; I gathered that it is not necessary to recruit NPCs in order to finish the game, but what I'm wondering is whether or not recruiting any NPCs initiates any quests, or significantly alters the direction or consequences of any quests?

Each time in the past that I've started a new game (obviously I haven't finished it) I always left either one or two spots open for NPCs, anticipating such a thing. But, although I like some of the NPCs I've met, I would very much prefer to create my own full party of 8, yet always refrain from doing so because I worry about missing quests and such. I know that you can let go and rehire GPCs, but my main thing is that the NPCs skill levels dwarf my own in the beginning, and I regret losing points in physical or martial skills to an NPC who I may end up not keeping.

Surely it is stupid, but this is the main reason I keep bouncing off the game after so many hours in and I feel like if I had certainty on this that I could then plan my guys and see the game through without constantly needing to restart. Hopefully somebody here knowledgeable can help deliver me from this mental anguish inhibiting my Grimoire experience?

 

[Dorateen]

There's at least one quest, where you need to rescue and bring an NPC back to safety. I can think of another spot having the NPC in the party will change some interactions. But these are few. You can always make the full eight, and have a character stay at the raptor shrine to open up a spot when you need or want to temporarily have an NPC join.

 

[SpoonFULL]

The interface seems to be the main criticism in the reviews too. Hopefully Cleve improves on that in his upcoming games.

The next one coming is mostly prompting of the player for anything significant so there is far less hunt'n'click. The turn based combat always needed to be prompted like Wiz 7, only realized it after it was released. I thought my system was more flexible but it can be confusing for people who have never played Wiz 6-7 previously.

I played Wiz 6 and 7 and their friendly user interface (in addition to their world building, writing, design and simulation aspects) is one of the things that got me hooked to them. I don't think that Grimoire UI is similar, but in fact I think its is much closer to Wiz 8 (which I dislike). The text font size in Grimoire is all over the place, and in many places very small where I find it hard to read on my laptop screen.

I wish that there is some font size scaling and better use of the screen space (like classics did). This is not criticism of the game in general, as I am discouraged from continuing playing the game due to the above issues.

 

[unseeingeye]

The metallurgy skill does something now?

I'm wondering this too; would I perhaps be better off using an Aeorb Sage and putting some points in Metallurgy, or is crafting something that is significant enough to warrant a dedicated Metalsmith?

If I were to make, for instance a Giant, would a Metalsmith work well or am I better off to make him a Berserker?
Normally I always made a Giant Berserker because I wanted to be able to put points into Lethal Blow right out the gate, but later on I realized that Metalsmith also has access to this skill, unless I'm misremembering?

I'm still planning out my new party so I'm trying to resolve some lingering uncertainties where possible. Certain GPCs and the main skills I am thinking to focus on are:

Human Berserker (Male) (Lethal Blow, Scout)
Barrower Cleric (Female) (Litany, Diplomacy)
Feyfolk Bard (Female) (Music, Inspection, Lockpicking)
Aeorb Sage (Male) (Sorcery, Ancient History, Assaying, Scribing)
Drow Assassin (Female) (Lethal Blow, Robbery, Stealth)

So that leaves me with two spots that I can't make up my mind about, while retaining one vacancy for NPCs. Some skills and roles that I used to focus on when I first approached the game but later began to question the significance of are such like as Mephistics, Evasion, and Nature Lore. I also am not clear on how Backstabbing works; I thought I needed to hide on one round, then attack on the next, but either the skills were too low at the time or I'm mistaken on the functions of both, because despite numerous successful hiding attempts, I've never had any indication that a backstab was landed.

Anyway, for the other two GPCs I usually went with some combination of a Saurian Metallurgist or Berserker, a Wolfin Ranger, a Giant Berserker, or a Durendil Templar. But I'm wondering if I ought to make a Necromancer, maybe talking to the dead is possible and I don't want to miss any important conversations or secrets otherwise inaccessible?

If anybody has any ideas or suggestions I would be most appreciative. Historically I've always included a Giant Berserker male named Cleve, and I always picked the portrait of the tough-looking dude with the face camo. That is so convenient an option because that is how I imagine him to be like on real life.

 

[Dorateen]

If anybody has any ideas or suggestions I would be most appreciative. Historically I've always included a Giant Berserker male named Cleve, and I always picked the portrait of the tough-looking dude with the face camo. That is so convenient an option because that is how I imagine him to be like on real life.

I would take another Lethal Blow guy (or two!). It is such an important skill, especially later in the game when you want to take out enemies as quickly as possible before they can act. Maybe a Ranger, or Metalsmith.

 

[Lady Error]

I'm wondering this too; would I perhaps be better off using an Aeorb Sage and putting some points in Metallurgy, or is crafting something that is significant enough to warrant a dedicated Metalsmith?

Metallurgy is the skill to sharpen your weapons and increase AC of armor, but you need to do it again and again. I found that it is not really necessary.

Normally I always made a Giant Berserker because I wanted to be able to put points into Lethal Blow right out the gate, but later on I realized that Metalsmith also has access to this skill, unless I'm misremembering?

Metalsmith has Lethal Blow too: https://grimoirewiki.neocities.org/index.php/Classes

So that leaves me with two spots that I can't make up my mind about, while retaining one vacancy for NPCs. Some skills and roles that I used to focus on when I first approached the game but later began to question the significance of are such like as Mephistics, Evasion, and Nature Lore.

You don't need to keep a spot for NPCs. If you want to recruit one, you can choose which party member to remove. Later you can get them again at the Raptor Shrine.

As to which skills are important and which not, there are tips in this article: https://grimoirewiki.neocities.org/index.php/Skills

Spoiler

You can safely ignore these skills:

• Evasion The ability to make a safe strategic retreat without injury during combat.
• Throwing The skill of throwing objects so as to strike a target.
• Mephistics The art of applying poison to weapons so as to increase their effectiveness (Poisoning weapons goes away very quickly).
• Nature Lore The art of identifying and mixing ingredients in plants, powders and reagents (Only if you want to use crafting).
• Metallurgy The ability to forge powerful weapons and to construct them from components (Yeah, I don't think it's really necessary since the AC improvement of armor items seems to be temporary)

Nice to have, but not really necessary:

• Stealth The ability to hide oneself amidst shadows or behind terrain features (Especially later in the game, many fights will be resolved in just one round, so that hiding is not necessary. Put the weakest two characters in the back row where most enemies won't be able to reach them.)
• Robbery The larcenous art of relieving strangers of their valuables without discovery.
• Berserking A deadly art involving a special method of attack with weapons in combat (Berserkers fight just fine with Lethal Blow. Berserking also runs the risk of attacking your own party, until you max out this skill.)
• Barter The ability to bargain with merchants and get the fairest price in commerce.
• Incantation The ability to recite spells written on scrolls and cast the successfully.
• Have one of the guys study Invocation to use the magical items you come across, but also quite optional really.

Needed only somewhat later in the game:

• Ancient History Knowledge concerning the distant past of customs, peoples, locations and events (mostly used to read ancient inscriptions which sometimes have passwords for optional areas).
• Climbing The physical skill of climbing walls, ascending cliffs and dropping into pits (First needed after Samhain, skill goes up through use. Best to cast Featherfall and increase your climbing skill safely that way).

Important for spellcasters:

• Scribe Degree of literacy with written works and ability to accurately copy spellbooks (After you find the Read Magic spellbook, the Scribe skill becomes less important. Scribing Eldritch and Arcanum spellbooks will still require a high Scribe skill, even with Read Magic).
• The Magic Skill each spellcaster is using (marked in pink) is very important too - and the guys that will scribe Arcanum spellbooks should later put some points in the Arcanum skill as well.

Important for melee:

• Lethal Blow The knowledge of critical body areas and targets needed to strike a fatal blow (NOTE: Needs weapons which have *Lethal* in their stats when you assay them. Only some classes have Lethal Blow.)
• Specialize each fighter in one or two Weapons skills and the Shield skill can come in handy too.

Other skills:

• Inspection and Lockpicking are super-important to have on a Sage, Thief or Bard. You need both skills to open almost all treasure chests and some doors - until you learn the Knock Knock spell later.
• Music instruments can be quite good (unlimited spells basically) for attacking groups of enemies. The Music skill (only Bards, Sages and Jesters) also goes up through use, though relatively slowly.
• Put only a couple points into Swimming of each character at some point, because then you can increase that skill every time you step into water. Less than a couple points in swimming and you drown.
• As to Diplomacy, the skill is not super important I think, but it can help in some situations apparently.

But I'm wondering if I ought to make a Necromancer, maybe talking to the dead is possible and I don't want to miss any important conversations or secrets otherwise inaccessible?

I don't think that there is talking to the dead. The Ancient History skill gives access to a few secrets, for example.

 

[unseeingeye]

Thank you both, sincerely.

I've been replaying Wizardry 7 while I study the Grimoire wiki and get to a point where I comprehend the system well enough to plan out one or two class changes per character, at which levels, &c. Playing Wizardry 7 helps me to get back into that kind of mode of gaming, though of course there are significant differences I need to keep in mind.

Brief tangent:

Over the past weekend I did something which up until now I for some reason just assumed to be impossible - I managed to get both Wizardry 6 and Wizardry 7 to run on Steam Deck, (lightly) patched with the Cosmic Forge editor from Mad-God through Wine, and to launch in windowed mode with the automap which somebody on here made like 10 years ago appearing in a separate window next to it. There are still some problems I need to sort out, like for instance if I want to actually keep both the game window and the automap window visible simultaneously I have to be in Steam Deck 'desktop' mode, however the on-screen keyboard will not appear while running DOSBox, so making multiple saves, naming characters, talking with NPCs or anything of the sort is not functional without resorting to an external keyboard. If I play it in 'gaming' mode (which uses Gamescope) obviously I cannot view both windows simultaneously, however switching between the two is possible and it is merely a matter of pressing the 'Steam' button, pressing down on the d-pad to select the automap window, then pressing 'Steam" button again, and this can be done very quickly as often as necessary. The way I see this is, by changing the options to not include the tooltip overlays and retaining dark zones, it is not so different from using the in-game map with the exception of the map detail corresponding to the Mapping skill (which I raise on a character to use the Journey Map Kit anyway), so it is technically cheating but I mean, come on, its not that big of a deal.

Anyway, for Grimoire, I still cannot figure out how to get the music to work on Steam Deck. Perhaps I need to try yet another version of Proton?

I started a journal for Wizardry 7 and for Grimoire to make my notes and plan my parties, but haven't played very far yet. In Wizardry 7 I just finished the tutorial dungeon with the skeletal monster and then made peace with my boy Ratsputin, traded some secrets, chatted him up for a while. With Grimoire my previous party had only gotten to level 3 on average but I am definitely starting over to take another NPC with Lethal Blow, perhaps a Ranger as Dorateen suggests? I had made a great Wolfin Ranger who got a roll on bonus points of 42 which I thought was great, who I keep in my Library.. maybe I'll use him and forgo the Necromancer?

And as Lady Error mentioned Ancient History, I plan to raise this in conjunction with Sorcery and Assaying on my Aerob Sage - should be enough points to get it to a serviceable level? Although I was thinking to level Arcanum on him, too.. though maybe I only need to raise that on the Wizard that I plan on including? I always get so sad that the Drow and Humans have the lowest affinity for magic, because a Drow Wizard would be so ideal for me, especially with that one portrait of a caped vampire-looking girl, who I love. Also the one on the bottom right, kind of a Bard-looking girl but I love her too for a Wizard. I already have a Feyfolk Bard so I don't know what race to make for a Wizard that could work.. maybe another Barrower, and I can just pretend she's gorgeous? Haha

And if Metallurgy isn't a required skill for crafting weapons or suchlike, then yea I suppose I'll be ignoring the skill. Sharpening weapons and enhancing armor is basically like a temporary buff, then? And you can only do it at locations where the tools are available, you can't bring them with you, right? I thought the starting weapon for Metallurgist that I found whenever I created one, the Forge Hammer, possibly meant the weapon had more uses outside of pure combat, but I must have been mistaken. Since the Ranger gets Lethal Blow I probably should just go with the aforementioned Wolfin guy I made, I think I put his bonus points in attributes and that he had a pretty decent base HP.

My biggest obstacle overall was the NPC question, and since it doesn't seem that NPCs unlock any otherwise inaccessible quests, I may just go with the full 8 member party and only switch one out if I really, really like an NPC or to fulfill a quest requirement.