Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Courtier]

Craft the dice of fate with alchemy to see your exact rolls, I'm not sure about the calculation regarding status resistances.

School resists work against all damaging spells and status spells including instant death, but not against debuffs such as robuti (raise AC). They have a chance to negate the effect completely, but don't do anything else if that fails. To mitigate damage from spells/breath you want elemental resists. Dark resist protects against cleric instant death spells and Argeiss, you want that in particular. Stat res of course protects against all sources of the stat (except tarot cards), including spells, breath and attacks.

Masteries are listed per class on the wiki. In just the maingame you won't reach huge damage boosts or ridiculous Ninja/Brawler AC, but you will greatly benefit from just unlocking them (e.g. double Valkyrie damage with two spears, immediate summon powerup w/ Summoner, Hunter pursuit sweep)

 

[Haplo]

Thank you very much for your answer, Courtier.

I've actually crafted the Dice tonight. Maybe need to slow down the combat flow and see if I understand more.
Good point about the elemental resists. I've just suffered from encounters with with groups of basilisks and poison giants spamming poison breath, so I guess aoes are slowly starting now.

From what I've read I want to try to play with a Summoner, sounds like a fun class to have.
Only I have trouble fitting him in my party. I would also like to have a Samurai. Plus I think I should have a bishop. Choices, choices....

Currently I have:
Gnome Cleric level 11 with Chi Wave -> maybe multiclass him once he reaches level 13 and go Summoner? Maybe Gnome wasn't the best choice. Pure Cleric would also work... but then I wouldn't fit all I like.
Fairy Brawler level 10, Cruelty: Quite nice, usually goes first, does a lot of damage with Cruelty (though highly random). Still uses the Brass Knuckles with a minor sleep enchantment. Probably will need to be replaced eventually... Maybe with a monster Brawler if I use the summoner?
Devilish RedCap Ninja level 9, Mysterious Bag: Recruited her with a test Summoner. Stats still kinda low, but love the 29% beheading chance. When on a lucky streak, the heads roll... For extra fun I've enchanted her swords with Sleep and Petrify (though those do not happen often so far).
Dwarf Valkyrie level 11, Swallow Killer: Solid damage dealer, with a bit support magic.
Human Alchemist level 11, Divination: Nothing special here. Either multiclass him and make another character the main alchemist or leave him pure (but then he'll idle a lot). Maybe human wasn't the best choice.
Elf Mage level 11, Magic Essence: Guess I'll probably multiclass. Prolly the Bishop... or maybe Cleric->Bishop... or Alchemist->Bishop.... Pure mage would be an elemental powerhouse, but again, I wouldn't get to play with some cool classes and wouldn't Identify.

There's too many awesome classes and too little time.

Any recommendations?

 

[Courtier]

I had the same problem with fitting in everybody I wanted, and because you really need smithing changing the Alchemist's class is not an option. What I did was just switch out the Alch and keep them at the bar for smithing (getting them a few levels occasionally), and switched in a Summoner who had gone through all the other magic classes first. I had them pure and in the party most of the time until about level 150.

Pure Cleric is not that good. You're right about the Mage being strong but I also made mine into a Bishop for quality of life, just have them learn a few casts of Diomente first (!)

I'd say race doesn't matter that much, just pick what you like. Though your fairy might get dangerously close to dying of old age later

 

[aweigh]

Haplo

i recently came across a somewhat hidden "index" in the japanese wiki where i found a still working link to the elminage: original japanese wiki author's first wiki on the original PS2 release of the game (Elminage Original debuted first on ps2, then it went to PSP and lastly to nintendo DS, and more recently to PC).

- First off, here's a link to the Misc. Data page of the japanese Gothic wiki: http://translate.googleusercontent....F.html&usg=ALkJrhg545e-xNbedI4vr73uRNrwbK0fDQ

now, on to the main links which are all from the wiki(s) for the first game in the series, elminage: Original. the ps2 wiki for the game contains some interesting breakdown of how the game calculates a lot of stuff hidden away so i thought i'd post it here:

*EDIT: the only change in Gothic from the stuff explained here for Original was the powering-down of the spell Enterook Mista; for Gothic they removed the Thunder-element affilation for the spell in order to cap its possible damage output. Everything else such as the number of attacks, the stuff about AC, formula for stealing success, etc, is all the same.

- general misc. data from the original PS2 wiki of the game: http://translate.googleusercontent....F.html&usg=ALkJrhiCko-TH0He4xVT59ikzAGXvZxJJw

- Under the heading of misc. "small stuff" class ability data (psp version Wiki): https://translate.googleusercontent...D.html&usg=ALkJrhjmpTKUwjwf99z63axfPRhB_Z-AkQ

- elminage: original "Race and class data" (from the PSP version wiki): https://translate.googleusercontent...D.html&usg=ALkJrhjmpTKUwjwf99z63axfPRhB_Z-AkQ

- breakdown of the relationship between AC and damage (from the PSP version wiki):
https://translate.googleusercontent...6.html&usg=ALkJrhhpbPuBhweyfTNO9SXVYJvZzN65-Q

i posted those links from the elminage: original wiki(s) because they contain number-crunching info that is not covered in the Gothic wiki because the author... already covered it. i've actually learned more about the under-the-hood stuff after reading the Original wiki(s) because originally i mistakenly assumed the japanese Gothic wiki contained everything (it does not; i.e. it contains everything related to Gothic only but does not cover a lot of general/misc. data stuff that was already covered in the Original wiki).

 

[Dorarnae]

elminage original came on ps2, then nintendo ds and then psp.
it's elminage 2 that came out on psp first and then ds.

 

[Haplo]

Thank you for your answers Courtier and Aweigh.

Dice of Fate are nice, but they only seem to display my own rolls, not the monster opposed rolls.
At least I've semi-verified that enemy resistances are not substracted from your status activation chance. I've managed to behead a Minotaur, who has 50 behead resistance with my 29 behead chance RedCap. Only once though - over the course of several encounters. I wonder if there may be other hidden modifiers like Level, Agility, Luck, Vitality score (for attacker? defender?).
I've never managed to behead a pertified Neck Chopper Floor Master... but he has the King's Proof defensive skill.

With spells its even more complicated. It SEEMS that higher level status effects (Charm, Petrify, Confusion) have a much better chance of landing then the basic low-level ones like Sleep and Paralysis.
At least for me they seemed much more reliable.

Regarding the wapanese wiki, well, with Google Translate its significantly easier then reading the Moon Runes. But for me its still not easy to deceipher and I find myself scratching my head often. One take away from that is that I may not bother with a reserve Thief, as they need to be rather high level to succeed at disarming/stealing. Well unless I somehow level him to 26 end-game/post-game and just try to sweep the lower level Floor Masters.


I mentioned sub-optimal races for 2 reasons:
1. For mostly passive classes, like the Summoner, but also Alchemist, Dragon Newt seems like it may have been a good choice to breath fire when they are not casting. Chi Wave is kinda nice, but number of uses is extremly limited. Plus for an Alchmist Divination seems to be a must.
2. Gnome should make a good pure-caster Cleric, but not necessarily a good multi-classed Cleric/Mage/Alchemist/Bishop (not that I want to go trough that many). Or a Summoner for that matter.

Well, if I persist, I may recruit some monster Brawler/Samurai/Mage later on. Maybe even uprgade my precious RedCap Ninja. But that's for the long run, when/if I get there.
And still don't know where to fit that Samurai or Da Mag Mage. Also heard Lord is kinda needed later on... don't see a slot for him in my party, unless I switch my Valkyrie for him. Or the Ninja (nope?).

 

[Dorarnae]

I find dragon newt to be good with class like fighter and cleric because breath dmg depend on your hp, so you want a class that gain hp quickly. Eventually your alchemist or summoner will have enough hp , but it can take a while(in particular summoner because it probably takes longer to lvl up) and breath attack is mostly to make beginning-mid game easier. it can still be good later but...
also their agility is quite low if I remember, I like when my alchemist is fast, so I can run away with their spell before I get killed.

 

[Haplo]

Thank you Dorarnae. Good point about the agility.

Guess I will stick with what I have for now and will change my Cleric to Summoner after hitting level 13 and my Mage to Bishop after he has 3 casts of Diomente.
Or maybe mix it a bit and make
Cleric -> Alchemist
Alchemist -> Summoner
That would delay the high level Alchemy skills a bit, but would offer slighly more diversity (one more character with Alchemy spells). Could be good for Speed up/down spam in a tough fight.

Ideally I would want to train one more character in Mage's magic as well... but don't want to delay actually progressing through the game too much.
Perhaps some day will recruit a Samurai with magic skills... only to replace... whom?
Brawler... but by then he'll have good AC, deal crazy damage and his skill will be highly usefull for difficult Monster contracts
Valkyrie... an offensive powerhouse plus full suite of Cleric spells
Ninja... my precious killer.

 

[aweigh]

the way i see it resistances aren't absolute and i've inflicted sleep and have beheaded enemies in post-game dungeons with 90% resistances to that fairly often. if you have a 10% to inflict something then you really, truly have a 10% chance; unlike some other RPGs where percentages don't seem to mean shit.

it also means it is very much worth raising those resistance %'s on your chars as every single point counts.

EDIT: not that often but i'll give an example:

skillving enemy from ibag's tower has 90% to everything (except confusion) and i've beheaded him maybe... three times out of the dozens of times i've fought him. for whatever reason i've slept him many more times than i've beheaded him but that probably has to do with the fact that

- chance to inflict a status ailment from a spell utilizes INT or PIE in the formula depending on the spell school (alchemy uses INT, btw)

- beheading doesn't utilize any other stuff in the formula

but my main point stands: every single point counts. and yeah, Agility is like the single most important stat for chars that you want to be casting spells. going before the enemy is often invaluable especially in the post-game but in the final post-game dungeon the most annoying enemies will have Lightning Strike ability so the AGI importance evens out.

glad that you're enjoying the game Haplo it is one of the best RPGs i've had the pleasure of playing.

as for which classes are OP? the Ninja is the only OP one. Some will argue that the Valkyrie comes in 2nd place due to her ability to dual-wield spears upon class mastery but that depends on what spears you can find. I find Valkyries boring and prefer to roll with a Lord/Fighter/Samurai trio for post-game, mainly just because the Lord can equip all of the heavy arms, the fighter can equip almost anything including bows and spears and the samurai can equip the awesome katanas.

i hate finding shit and not having anyone to give it to. Of course the best trio is a Valkyrie-or-Lord/Ninja/Samurai as that trio gets to equip pretty much everything you will find (bows, spears, katanas, heavy armor, shields, hammers, etc) while being the top 3 damage dealers.

the brawler technically out-damages even a Valkyrie but they get less fancy loot. that's the whole reason i use others instead of the brawler. I like swords, hammers and bows and spears and stuff like that. but yeah, a brawler will deal some mighty damage throughout the entire game and their AC Decline class ability, just like the Ninjas, will be completely OP by post-game.

 

[Haplo]

Aweigh,

Yes, its a great crawler, I'm having lots of fun.

Currently level 12, started the Degus Ice Cave. Igdra Church was getting quite brutal. Went to 3rd level and encountered some liches spamming Enterook Mista. But what kills me the most are the various breath weapons so far. Guess I really should start working on the resistances... but there are 5 elements and only so many slots and quality ores. Plus ideally I'd want status resistances as well. Hm, maybe I need my Cleric actually wear that Holy Shield I've found... as long as he's still the Cleric.
Can hardly wait to be able to teleport... but levels come so slow now.
Also will want to make the class changes soonish. But everything has a price, I guess. After I change my casters, not only their level, but their stats will be abysmal.... Int, Piety, Agility.
That will be quite painfull, I guess.

Thank you for the recommendation on classes. I'm pretty set on trying the Summoner, as it seems to be one of the most unique and interesting systems in this game. From what I've read, a Brawler is almost mandatory to accompany the Summoner in order to have a shot at recruiting Monsters with high Summon resistance.
Otherwise, yeah, I'd maybe replace him with a Samurai or something. I also love putting all that phat loot to good use and being able to cast mage spells as weel sounds great. But isn't the Samurai a bit of a Glass Cannon? Many of his weapons are S range, so he should probably be a frontliner. His armor selection seems poor. End game/post game he may somewhat compensate with the Swallow Return parries... but I imagine that's still not very reliable, especially if capped at 50%. And what about his survivability in the main game?
If I ever decide I don't care much about the summons, I'll have much more flexibility in how to build my party. And hopefully a few nice monster recruits with unique traits
Or a Medal of Power to make a Lord or something without loosing levels.

Kinda regret now I haven't read and followed your advice to make all casters elven or werebeast. Their balance of stats important for casters seems really superior to all races, especially when one considers multiclass caster careers. Well, at least my Mage, who will turn bishop, is an elf.

 

[Courtier]

With a high level brawler, you're going to get a ton of clean hits. Remember that only the 4th hit can be one and generates a special message (fainted). Unequip their fist weapons to have them do as little damage as possible, disable the monster (petrification/paralysis) and punch away. Have your other dudes run away, they're not doing anything. Set turn order (page up-key on keyboard, I prefer using a gamepad by the way) Brawler=>Summoner. Once you're all set for the punchings, it's just a matter of using the repeat action command until you succeed with the contract. It helps if the monster regenerates.

Note about monster adventurers: if you change classes, they will lose their innate abilities such as behead and resistances, but not their spellcasts. This limits them quite a bit, though I really only get mon-adventurers for the portraits+devilish race. Jap wiki lists what classes monsters turn into when turning them into PCs.

 

[aweigh]

oh, and don't worry too much about levels: the overall XP gained from encounters starts to increase substantially right from Igdra Church onwards (and within Igdra church you will find the first opportunity to XP farm enemies by letting Demons call allies on purpose and leaving one always alive to continue calling allies)

 

[Haplo]

Courtier
Thank you very much for the detailed poke-balling methodology. I'm sure it will come in handy.
As well as the class list from Jap wiki.

Of course, I realize that the monster adventurers are probably usually best left pure... but I'm surprised that you mention it as a serious limitation and mostly get them for the portraits and race. I can see how it is a limitation, however I didn't think it'd be a problem to keep at least some classes, such as Ninja, Samurai, Valkyrie, Lord pure. Maybe even Fighter or Hunter, especially if they also learn some magic and have unique properties.
Though if I understand correctly, it may be better the keep the Valkyrie Innnocent, while Lord is better non-devilish (and from the ??? gender)? On the other hand, in some cases the benefits seem huge: major elemental and/or status and/or spell class resistances built in, turn recovery, status recovery, huge elemental attack boosts (particularly for pure mages), miscellanious monster abilities, such as weapon/armor break, breath weapons, unlimited range and last, but not least built-in status affliction chances, such as beheading, charming, petrifying.
Sure a lot of these characteristics can be emulated with items, but there's only so many slots and the magnitude of those effects is also sometimes more then you can realistically smith, I think? Plus have some areas covered by natural resistances leaves the item slots to cover the rest. Plus do I understand correctly that some monsters even learn additional spell schools, if they previously had casts from that school?

And good to hear about the xp, aweigh, thank you.

I made a little detour to early levels of Hastrana and earned the Star Rod for my Fairy Brawler. She misses a bit more then with the Brass Knuckles (-2 vs + 2 ToHit), but generally kicks even more ass now. Especially in Animal encounters, with the Tiger Loincloth, I've seen hits exceeding 90 damage... and if lucky she can strike 4 times. Of course such numbers must seem very puny for Ibag Tower veterans, but made my humble self excited.

By the way, I'd like to make sure about one thing. If you change a class, say an Alchemist to a Mage and then you'd like to go back to the previous career (Alchemist in my example), you start from scratch anyway, right? From Alchemist level 1, regardless what level you've previously had in that class? Only you keep the 3 casts/spell level previously known. Is that correct?

 

[Courtier]

Yah because most of the monsters will turn into pure fighters if you use Spirit Pact on them, while you might prefer a Samurai/Valk/Lord. But some of them are really great, I kept one that came as a Brawler, had high charm inflict chance + a bunch of cleric and mage spells by default.

E: I think you don't get weapon/armor break or special abilities (except maybe the breath element), resists and ailment inflict are good and the spells too, many monsters have casts from several different schools. About smithing, come postgame you want a high level Alch to pump up the values with their mastery and smith everything possible with +30-50 points. A lot of gear has plenty of resists that you can supplement to get immunity

If you change a class, say an Alchemist to a Mage and then you'd like to go back to the previous career (Alchemist in my example), you start from scratch anyway, right? From Alchemist level 1, regardless what level you've previously had in that class? Only you keep the 3 casts/spell level previously known. Is that correct?

That's correct

 

[Haplo]

Well, I've read on other forum (GOG I think), that weapon break supposedly carries over for monster adventurers as well. Kinda makes sense, since it's listed on the same page as Turn Recovery and Status Recovery, which are also carried over.
Maybe I need to test it when I start playing with a Summoner.

Could make an interesting early warrior from Guatella Grotto Greater Slimes, I guess (also have 20% paralysis chance and 100% behead resist).

 

[aweigh]

hackncrazy Haplo desocupado

100% behead resist is redonkulus, which is why i avoid using monster adventurers (even though it's a huge timesink and it's not easy to get them so it's not like the game is broken; it's just that they have the potential to be the undisputed best characters in any party because enemies come with ridiculous shit like item breaking on hit, the aforementioned 100% resistances to stuff right out of the gate, and other insane enemy-specific stuff).

i modified all enemy HP, HP Turn Recovery to 2x their base amounts (it's still a dice roll the game makes but now it's a 2x dice roll) and i also lowered by 25% the summon resistance of all enemies in preparation for a new playthrough concentrating on raising a kick-ass monster-adventurer party.

you can get some truly mind-boggling shit with end-game enemies if you manage to capture them and then level them up as you can find some crazy stuff like monster adventurers with AC Decline, Behead, high special attack resistances and access to spell casting and item breaking on hit and crazy high elemental resistances, stuff like that.

but like i said, in the end it's not really that OP because you actually need to put the work in into first capturing them (which is almost impossible without partnering your Summoner with a Brawler) and then you need to put more work into levelling them up; and in the end even having resistances to everything and all that shit doesn't mean you're safe either: post-game enemies can come at you with a lightning strike and hit a character 4-6 times in a row and easily do more damage than they have HP, or my personal favorite is when they use Tarot Card ability and just sleep or charm everybody and then skullrape your party, no wait, sorry my real personal favorite is when they just cast MIRACLE spell and teleport you into solid rock and instant game over haha.

btw, let me know if you want some specific modifications or the like. i'm currently running a new playthrough with:

- 2x hp for all enemies

- 2x hp recovery for all enemies

- -2 AC for all enemies (this is good for them)

- summon resistances on enemies lowered by 25%. funnily enough when i made that change it also lowered some of the player races' summon resistances, lol. if enemies could poke-ball my chars i might've been trouble.

- M-range on all 2-handed weapons which affects you and enemies equally (since there are more enemies than there are you in a given fight this turns out much deadlier for you than for the enemy since normally harmless front-line enemies with 2-h weapons who can only target your front-row tanks can now target your soft back-row)

- increased damage for Enterook Mista, Zeo Nadaar and increased damage for Elnam plus made it so Elnam hits 1 entire row

- all game items (ALL) available for purchase right from the beginning of the game, BUT, (BUT!), everything costs 25x times default cost. this means you will only be able to afford something you want to buy only if you save up GP for a long time so even though everything is available you won't be able to afford anything worth buying until end-game so just like in the normal game you still need to get your loot via dungeons.

- however this also means that when you are in the post-game and have money to spare you can buy anything you're having trouble finding as a rare drop. Oh! and there is only 1 available of every item, so it's not like you can buy however many you want. Also gives access to normally enemy-only weapons like the Dragon Flute that a post-game boss uses (needs to be stolen) that is insanely hard to steal so i gave it a price cost of 4 million.

- this also allows a non-Thief party the possibility of buying up 1 of an item, like the Dragon Flute, that can normally only be gotten through theft for a hefty cost of several million. Another easy example are the Avi Shield and the Avi Buckler, and the +2 Frying Pan. i'm still tweaking the pricing on some weapons but at the moment everything that is a rare drop, can only be stolen, is a quest reward or is an item that cannot be gotten by the player in a vanilla game (like a Flux Gem, which btw, sucks) all cost many millions of GP.

If you're interested let me know so i can upload the modified files and post the links but if you want something specific like say, making Staves M-range or making more Bows and Whips accessible to Caster-classes let me know as i can whip that up in a few minutes. I like to experiment with the weapon balance since i've played this game so much and one of the neatest tweaks i've made recently was I tried out making all BOOK Weapons 2-handed and increasing their # of attacks and making them L-range and tweaking their damage but giving them an AC penalty and it is giving tons of new life to the normally useless book-weapons. My alchemist and bishop are very much enjoying their new L-range 2-handed books.

EDIT: however i 100% recommend playing your first playthrough with default weapons, as the game is rock-solid balance wise. it is actually the most well balanced of all Elminage games! keep in mind that i'm only changing shit because i've played it so much and the game is SO RICH in its systems that it allows for different experiences playing by making changes to the items or enemies that actually feel natural and good because everything falls into place very organically.

this means the game is fun to mod but it also means the reason it is fun to mod is because it's default state is already perfect.

One thing you might actually truly want to mod is changing ex-skills via hex-editing the save game files and this was a very requested feature that they added into the game for the 3DS remix release; i.e. in the 3DS remix release they added the ability of changing ex-skills by paying money at the training hall.

if you want to change them upload the save-game file you want edited and post the link here and post what you want to change the ex-skill to; i will do that and then upload some photos i will take of the process and write the steps of what i did in MSPAINT. it is all very simple and all it requires is opening the file in a hex editor and changing 2 numbers.

 

[aweigh]

RACE.csv: https://firedrop.com/5e65b3e366f00b709d5e4f0c22a24991 (makes all races live up to 300 years so humans and fairys don't fucking die on you during post-game dungeons; note that i decided to keep their level up STAT progression the same so even though they'll live up to 300 years short-lived races will still rarely gain stats on level up once they reach their default "old age", this is just so that humans and other short-lived races don't fucking die on you when they're clocking 100+ years during post game. Normally the way to combat this is by Alchemizing ores into the alchemy-item "Treasure Chest" which rejuvenates by 1 year of age but it's fucking tedious so i just did this instead for my recent playthroughs)

TREASURE.csv: https://firedrop.com/6aa8f8a0fc11a8cd3926b28d9f6cb9a4 (this increases the drop rate of low-tier Alchemy Ores, Stat-boosting Ankhs and Elemental charms. I went through each dungeon's dozens and dozens of drops and included these into the drop lists in corresponding tiers, dungeon floors and the like. Basically this means you will find more low-tier Ores throughout the entire game in treasure chests, and in mid game onwards you will find more stat-boosting ankhs and elemental charms as rare drops; oh! and i also included more drops of Shaman Charms as they were criminally hard to get)

you only need to place these files in the same directory the game's .executable is located and they take effect. like i said, if you want to change ex-skills post the save games here so i can do it and snapshot the process or if you want a specific change let me know.

my current playthrough, the one where i want to eventually make a kick-ass monster party, is modded to hell and back but it's all mostly to make the game harder (much harder) so for first-time players posting the other modified files i did isn't useful. The game is hard as fuck in vanilla anyway and its balance is nearly perfect.

 

[aweigh]

hackncrazy Haplo desocupado

link to Wizardry Empire 2 for windows PC, fan-translated by MrRichard999 and Helly: http://frd.li/e362b9a95a05adf0 (game is long out of print and only way to buy it is through japanese auction sites, plus it was never officially localized so fan-translations are fair game)

link to Generation XTH: Code Hazard for windows PC, translated by a big group whose names i don't know: http://frd.li/531a23e5a0c769e6 (exact same situation as Wiz Emp 2; game was never released in the west and was fan-translated so fair game to post and it is a GREAT Wiz-clone to play, very good game, and i prefer it to Stranger of Sword City which is this studio's most recent 'crawler)

remember to go get the most recent english-patch for Wiz Emp 2 from MrRichard999's thread before starting. Both are just "unzip this into anywhere and begin playing" deals no need for installaing anything.

 

[Haplo]

Aweigh

I really admire your dedication towards the Wizardry games and this one in particular.

And wow, thank you very much for the links! I've had a look at the translation topics, but then I've checked if I can get those games... and obviously found nothing. So I just kinda gave up on them. Seems like something I could really enjoy... and if Empire II makes my eyes bleed too much (actually the first and only Wiz I played was No. 8), well, at least Xth looks pleasing to the eye.
With my available play time.... seems like I may be covered on the crawler genre front for years

And wow, twice HP, HP regen and increased AC on all mobs? For me the game is kinda hard already, what with a Surprise Attack knocking my characters out before I even get my turn or breaths/spells killing my characters in 1 turn. And it's just the start. I equipped everyone with Thunder resist... and it clearly helped in Hastrana... but sometimes a random lucky roll against my lower HP characters, like Ninja, Mage or Alchemist would still one-hit-kill them.
I wasn't beheaded much yet (due to decent AC on front row), but I'm sure this will change, especially when beheading enemies will use ranged weapons to reach the (9)7AC back row.
The modification to the two-handed weapon reach made a lot of sense... then again, like you wrote, it would only make the game much more brutal for the player...

So like you wrote, first time going trough, I will just play the game mostly as intended. Well, I use the infinite maps cheat, with my orientation skills and little experience in hardcore crawlers would be a nightmare otherwise.
And I guess I will use the 2 mods you have hacked, since I don't want my characters (especially the humen, who started as Alchemist) to die on me if I ever play the post-game. Pixie Brawler will prolly be replaced before/when I get there with some monster adventurer with some crazy stats/abilities.
About the increased drops I actually have mixed feelings, as I have a lot of trouble with inventory management already (I do have the Mysterious Bag on my Ninja... couldn't live without that skill). But perhaps it will become more manageable once I get Diomente and afterwards a permanent Bishop party member.
Wonder what you mean about low-tier ores. Sub 10 AP? Sub 15 AP Sub 20 AP?
Sub 10 are not very usefull I'd say, but above that could sure come in handy.
Anyway, thank you very much for providing them.

I'm also tempted to try the buy-anything-at 25x-the-price-mod, since I don't want to bother training a high level Thief or specifically hunt for some rare gear.
Though I'm not in a hurry, will be long before I reach the post game and/or can afford something. For now all my gold will go to training a character/characters after class changes.

 

[Dorarnae]

there are traps that reduce your age by 1. or you can change your character to devilish near the end of the main story.

 

[desocupado]

So, I reached the spot on the Diazaporlia tunnel where I should meet the boss, but instead I get a "you feel a sinister presence" text, and nothing happens. Do you need to read the diary to trigger the fight? And if so, how the hell do you open the door without a thief in your party?

I am going to need to create a thief, add it to the party, and walk all the way to that door to open it, aren't I?

Sigh.

 

[aweigh]

Haplo

RIGHT in the area where you first get the sinister presence, wait, wait... in the Tunnel? i don't remember that. oh, do you mean when you beat the first mini-boss (or i think he just runs away? can't remember jesus chrsit, and i've played this for 1000+ hours) and then you descend the stairs? Right. Ok.

Basically you will get that message (and more, saying shit like someone is laughing behind your back so basically it's someone asking for a head transplant) and just go through the doors on the East side of that room (probably also works on the other doors) and after the 2nd or 3rd door you enter a female Vampire and then you skull-rape her.

(enemy name: La Flanuse, she has -12 AC, 18 STR and can drain on hit as well as summon allies and she can also charm; however she is carrying a pretty super SWANK dagger for that portion of the game which you can steal... and don't worry, she is not "unique" you will fight tons of those bitches. REMEMBER TO CAST PSI DRAIN in order to nullify a possible LEVEL DRAIN when she or her vampire cohorts attack. Level drains are the only instances in Elminage where i just say fuck it and reload the save, as it takes too long to level up the lost HP).

Now, as for the door it is not necessary to complete that dungeon however if you do not have a Thief, a Ninja or a Hunter, or a Bard then you simply cannot open it. There are about 7-10 doors like that spread throught the entire game's dungeons, and one in particular found in a post-game dungeon grants access to the aura punch a supa-sweet L-range weapon equippable by *anyone*).

Remember to always have Erod/Eroma cast (a red flame appear sin the top-left corner of the screen) because this increases SUBSTANTIALLY the "secret door detection rate of success" of all thief-types, i.e. Thief/Ninja/Bard/Hunter. I just earlier reached floor 19th of Ibag's Tower and was totally lost without knowing where to go and bingo, my good ole trusty level 356 Thief spotted the secret door I needed :D

EDIT: Oh, i completely forgot that it is actually possible to open locked doors with *any* character, even if they are not a Thief-type: it depends entirely on how high their Luck is so a Hotlet is a good choice if you don't have a Thief. In any case the Vanilla Thief class is by far the fastest leveling class in the entire game and hence, me having a 330+ level Thief while my other 5 party members are still around 150-185 level (with the exception of my Innocent Alchemist who is level 228 or something like that).

so don't worry! it can be opened; but what i was going to write is that rolling a Thief (MAKE HIM HUMAN!!! HUMAN!!! fastest XP gain out of ALL races) and combined with the Thief class's ridiculous XP progression table you can level that Thief up like 20 fucking levels in less than 20 minutes fighting enemies in your current area. Also: remember that to maximize XP gained for a specific party member have the rest of your crew FLEE the battle and leave the one you want to get ALL of the XP to strike the final blow.

 

[aweigh]

Haplo desocupado hackncrazy

hehe, here's a video of some post-game enemies from the very last floor, the 20th floor, of the 3rd post-game dungeon and the TRUE ending of Elminage: Gothic... ibag's tower:


FUCK STARFISH STUDIOS

now, to cleanse that defeat from memory here is video of me wiping the floor with those same enemies in the same floor:

 

[aweigh]

Courtier Dorateen Dorarnae Deuce Traveler Viata Comte Mustawd Siveon

because i know when new to Wizardry level up mechanics a lot of people agonize over those "terrible 1hp levelups" the game keeps track of everything and after one too many 1hp level ups the game gives the character ALL of the hit points they were due:

and another one!

finally reached ibag's 20th floor:

...only to find some hooded faggot telling me i'm not worthy

...and just because i have no life and this is my form of swag: here's my absolutely ridiculous ninja behead rate:

 

[aweigh]

elminage-related: been making tons of progress on translating into english the PSP version of elminage 2.

**NOTE: The menu-textures you see on the left in red and yellow are still there in the screenshots because it is extremely easy to change them into english. What i did is I used uMod + Ninja Ripper to extract the relevant menu-textures from Elminage: Original (psp version) and then simply replace the elminage 2 menu-textures with the ones from elminage: Original.

Voila! Instant english! Sure, they will be colored blue (because i do not know how to graphics hack shit), BUT the most importnat thing is they all work flawlessly because Starfish did not or move around a single menu-texture from Original to Elmi 2. EVERY menu-texture-command is in EXACTLY the same place and does the EXACT same things. I'll post some pics of Elmi 2 w/ E: Original menu-textures in a bit.