Incline Elminage Gothic (former Japan only dungeon crawler)

[Haplo]

Do you guys follow any kind of internal rule or something like this to keep yourselves from reloading? I remember that at some point, aweigh told me that the Bishop (I think) get some spell that can resurrect dead party members. Is that a game changer in your opinion?

I'm asking this because I really want to beat the game when I try it again, so I need some help in this sense.

Thankfully, you can save anywhere in Gothic.

Rule of Thumb of mine: If reloading will require more time and effort than any of the possible solutions, then I'll go straight ahead to the solution.

Same for me, more or less. I reload quite a lot. But recently I was left with only my Thief in Original and had a narrow escape trough 3 forest levels. That was fun also. My main motivation not to reload was that I often wiped on those enemies (penguins + Lamias) and wanted to have their file in my monster book.

Sure, raise dead IS a game changer in the necessity to reload. A Bishop would learn it very late in the game though. A Lord would be faster, Valkyrie faster yet, while a Cleric would know it soonest. Seriously, for a Bishop to learn all spells you need TWICE the experience needed for a multiclass Mage/Cleric character to master all mage+cleric spells. So it's generally a good idea to multiclass your character and teach him spells, before settling for a Bishop (who will eventually have lots of spell slots from both these schools).

Generally you want to have raise dead/resurrect on at least 2 characters, in case your primary healer kicks the bucket. In case of Gothic, be wary of serious risk of raise dead/resurrect failing and the character turning to ashes (depends on cleric Piety, Holy Attack + Cleric spell boosts and target Vitality). A high level Cleric is your safest bet (gets big boosts to Cleric spell power after level 26; Bishops get small boosts after level 32, while Valks+Lords get no boosts and can only rely on items granting Holy bonus). In Gothic only the town temple can save him then. The risk seems very small in Original, and I think Resurrect can actually recover from ashes there.


You can also save anywhere in the Original PC port, by the way. Only one save slot though.

 

[Dungeon Lord]

I am very very sorry but I cannot do savescumming. The UI so terrible, so when I get 1 HP at level up then I get 1 HP. Who cares? Anyway won't be this a big problem afterwards?

 

[Haplo]

It will be less of a problem once you have raise dead. But the risk of a party wipe... or a chest blowing a Cleric Blaster or Demon Eye in your face always exists.

 

[newtmonkey]

aweigh Haplo Sigourn Matador Dorarnae and everyone else.

Let me ask you guys something that's been bothering me: Just how much reloading is too much?

One this that is wonderful about this game is that it's up to you to decide (compared with orig Wiz which writes the state to your disk constantly [though there are ways around that, too, of course]).

At the start of the game, I would reload if any character died because money was scarce.

A few hours in, I would only reload if I got a party wipe.

You can really decide how "hardcore" you want to go. If you want the added thrill, just take what happens and react. If you are more interested in just playing the game, exploring, and getting through it, restore if anything really inconvenient happens.

 

[aweigh]

Only times I'd do an intentional reload was if I got level-drained.

When playing Elminage: Original on PSP sometimes I'd abuse save-states just to see what the game would seed, and it seeds everything; even the trap from a chest is already seeded by the time you're battling the enemies.

I'm not a big fan of limited saving because the power can go out at any moment and losing progress is horrible, so if a game lets me save then I would save.

When playing actual Wizardry games I would periodically back-up my save-file every few character levels or so since it would be a pain to grind up that XP again (and losing characters permanently is something that can legitimately happen at any moment in Wizardry versus being a rarity in Elminage).

 

[Major Seven]

Elminage Gothic is on sale (-80%) on gog.com

https://af.gog.com/game/elminage_gothic?as=1649904300


!

 

[Haplo]

Wow that's cheap. Grab it while it's hot!

 

[aweigh]

I remember buying E: Gothic (PC) for 4 bucks.

!!

This was after finishing it on a pirated PC copy; I simply wanted to support Starfish.

 

[newtmonkey]

recently i downloaded the mecha-crawler LOST HEROES, psp version, both to play it and to see if i can do a menu translation of sorts.

Every once in a while I read through all the Wizardry and Elminage threads to pick up on hints as stuff I don't realize as I play through all these games, so please forgive the reply to post from years ago.

Did you ever play this one? I picked it up on 3DS cheap used, put about 2 hours into it and hated it. I guess if you really love Kamen Rider, Gundam, Ultraman, etc., you might get a kick out of it, but as a dungeon crawler I found it to be decline, pure and simple. It's like Etrian Odyssey in that it expects you to spend points on abilities when you have no idea whatsoever what will be useful or a waste of points, but seemingly to make up for it the challenge is basically nonexistent.

The "dungeon design" is a bunch of mazes, even though the dungeons are supposed to be real world locations (i.e. modern buildings and such). I gave Generation XTH shit for having an intro dungeon that is basically a bunch of empty rooms along some hallways, but that is certainly preferable to linear "mazes" that were probably randomly generated.

There is a ton of extremely childish dialog constantly interrupting things, and I don't even mean childish as in your typical JRPG nowadays, like written literally for adolescents.

In sum, I hated absolutely everything about this one, and I wonder if you ever got around to putting any time into it?

 

[aweigh]

nah i dropped this like a hot potattotee almost immediately.

 

[Dorarnae]

recently i downloaded the mecha-crawler LOST HEROES, psp version, both to play it and to see if i can do a menu translation of sorts.

Every once in a while I read through all the Wizardry and Elminage threads to pick up on hints as stuff I don't realize as I play through all these games, so please forgive the reply to post from years ago.

Did you ever play this one? I picked it up on 3DS cheap used, put about 2 hours into it and hated it. I guess if you really love Kamen Rider, Gundam, Ultraman, etc., you might get a kick out of it, but as a dungeon crawler I found it to be decline, pure and simple. It's like Etrian Odyssey in that it expects you to spend points on abilities when you have no idea whatsoever what will be useful or a waste of points, but seemingly to make up for it the challenge is basically nonexistent.

The "dungeon design" is a bunch of mazes, even though the dungeons are supposed to be real world locations (i.e. modern buildings and such). I gave Generation XTH shit for having an intro dungeon that is basically a bunch of empty rooms along some hallways, but that is certainly preferable to linear "mazes" that were probably randomly generated.

There is a ton of extremely childish dialog constantly interrupting things, and I don't even mean childish as in your typical JRPG nowadays, like written literally for adolescents.

In sum, I hated absolutely everything about this one, and I wonder if you ever got around to putting any time into it?

I tried one on psp a bit too a few years ago and stopped after a few hours. I bought the game because I heard you could use custom music in the game, so I thought it was like elminage...but it's only during animation of special move I think.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Hi guys,

my favorite games are first person party, tile and turn based dungeon crawlers. I do like turn based startegy games like Civ, Heroes (M&M), Master of Orion and the likes too, but nothing draws me in like a good blobber. I don't care about graphics and style. What I mean is, if a game has great gameplay I can happily tolerate (let's say) the chibli style which i don't like. If I want to see good graphics, I'm going to see a blockbuster superhero movie, if I want story, I read a good book. So thank you Japan. Without you, I don't know if I'd still be a gamer. You dare to try new ideas, even if they sometimes don't work very well. But like in music, I prefer an artist who tries something new and fails compared to an artist who is stuck writing the same album. Example: The PS2 gem Ring of Red. It plays unlike everything else I have ever seen.

I'd consider myself as a combat fag, but not as much as I'm a character and party building fag. Neverwinter Nights 2 is a character builders dream. Tons of requirements to fulfill. You can multiclass. You need specific feats and all kinds of prerequisites to qualify for the prestige classes. The combat isn't very good, but the character building is, so I loved playing it.

So for me it's: Char/party building > combat > exploration > reactive world/C&C > story > graphics

I have some basic Wizardry experience from playing Wizardry 8 and a PS2 Wizardry title. Yesterday I was remembering having that Wizardry like game for the PSP emulator and wanted to give it a short try before going to bed. You can guess, it didn't end up short.

My party is:

Lord / Samurai / Valk
Bishop / Summoner / Thief

I'm not unhappy how they are proving themselves, but by superquickreading this thread an alchemist is recommended.
So should I replace or change the class of one of my characters ? The bishop ? the summoner ? I find the summoner class to be very exiting. Maybe I can live without her, but I don't want to.
I can imagine to live without the bishop. I have another (equipment free) bishop back in town, who does all the identification work. Does a level 20 bishop have a better chance identifying compared to a level 1 one ?
Plus I'm having 2 secondary healers with the lord and the valkyrie.

Eventually I'd like to have a ninja, but right now the game doesn't let me have one in my party with good and neutral characters. Is there a way later in the game ? My thief is a neutral character. How bad do I want to have a thief ?
I take it, his prime feature is to steal equipment for brawlers, but I'm not having and I don't want a brawler in my party.
So maybe I can live without a thief and let someone else pick the closed doors. That would mean I'd have to get or change to a hunter.
I have red in this thread, that an alchemist can change to a hunter without loosing any of his spells. This sounds tempting.
How comes he is the only exeption in this regard ? Or do I want a single class high level alchemist ?

Summarizing, should I turn the bishop into an alchemist and when he has all his spells, turn him into a hunter who can take over the thiefing duties. The empty slot, I'm going to fill with a newly made ninja, right ?

Oh shit. I just recognized, this is the Elminage Gothic thread. I'm playing Original. Perhaps the questions/answers are
the same for Orignal or a moderator can put my post in the right thread. Sorry.

 

[Jason Liang]

You actually rolled a Lord?

You'll make (and want to make) a lot of characters in this game, not just six. Some thoughts:

a) Go with fast leveling characters to start like Fighter, Mage, Cleric and Alchemist. Don't go with Bishop or Ninja to start.
b) Alchemist spells lvl 1-5 are enormously useful and I would recommend every character that's going to class change to take Alchemist to at least level 5 spells.
c) Some classes like Samurai and Ninja you are better off with Devilish race characters (that you capture and convert later on with a Summoner's Spirit Pact ex skill) so either you class-change into Samurai from another magic class like Alchemist or Cleric or wait for later Devilish characters. Basically there's no reason to start with a Samurai from one of the normal races.
d) Speaking of Summoners there's a couple of rules about them ~
i. Don't take the Spirit Pact ex skill on your actual summoner. You can create a lvl 1 summoner with Spirit Pact to use the skill.
ii. Summoners gain spell slots very slowly and the spell slots don't increase in power. Hence there are only two types of Summoners you want to invest in-
- an actual Summoner, but you will want this summoner to start as Alchemist and/or Mage and/or Cleric first, learn all the spells before converting into Summoner as a final class, since a Summoner has no other skills
- a character with some Summoner spell slots but then class change into a different final class. This can be pretty much anyone but the point is that you will use this character when you DON'T want to bring a Summoner so you might want to think about what class you might take instead of a Summoner, for example you might want to make him a final class that can Hide like Hunter or Bard since Summoners can't Hide. This character will be a very weak summoner but better than nothing. You can start the game with this character, but either make him Dragonnewt or give him Song of Destruction so that he can actually do things in a fight, and class change him around level 9 when you get level 3 summoner spell slots.
iii. if you have a Summoner to start, you wont need a thief since the Summoner can summon a thief to open chests for you.

So your starting party should consists of some front-row classes that you don't plan on class changing (such as Fighter, Brawler, Thief and Valkyrie) and back row characters that you plan to class change to learn all the spells (cleric, mage, alchemist). So I would recommend starting with:

Fighter (no class change)
Brawler (no class change)
Cleric (change to mage, alchemist, final class hunter)
Valkyrie (can attack with Spears from back rank, no class change)
Mage (change to alchemist, cleric, final class summoner)
Alchemist (change to cleric, final class maybe bard if you like, or lord)

Alternatively:
Brawler
Cleric
Valkyrie
Mage
Alchemist
Alchemist --> class change this alchemist at level 9, 11 or 13 (up to you) into a front row class Fighter or Lord
This is slower to start but you'll have a Fighter (or Lord) with some useful Alchemy spells, overall a better character.

Eventually you'll want to drop the brawler and pick up some devilish samurai, ninja, brawlers, thieves and fighters.

 

[Hrymr]

Does a level 20 bishop have a better chance identifying compared to a level 1 one ?

Yes, especially when it comes to high tier items. Level 1 Bishop still can identify them, but lower chance means more tries are needed and getting "Fear" status constantly can be annoying.

Having at least one Alchemist is highly recommended. You can create new one and only use him to forge things - his level doesn't do anything until he reaches the class mastery (lvl 26), so he can stay at level 1 just sitting in the town.

I would keep the Thief, because stealing is fun and in the Elminage Original there are many cool things to steal, even if you don't use the Brawler (although many of those items are cursed). And most importantly having the Thief allows you to farm ores easily - you can just steal them from the garbage collectors guys.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Jason Liang, thanks for answering, much of your advise is very much welcomed, but I have the feeling some of it makes no sense for Elminage Original. I am an idiot for posting in the Gothic thread, while playing Original, but e.g. I believe there are no "ex skills" (what ???) in Original or at least I somehow missed them.

No, I didn't roll a lord, but a very good fighter and I could change him to lord in his very low levels (4 or 5).
The samurai is actually a devilish character. The best I rolled with a 35. I had a werebeast fighter and wanted to roll a servant, but decided to keep the 35 character, make her a samurai and ditch the werebeast fighter.

Thank you too Hrymr, okay, I think I will keep my thief.

I see now, taking a bishop and a summoner as starting classes is not the best way, but can I class-change them to alchemist/mage/cleric and back to bishop and summoner again ? Or is it better to start with 2 fresh characters ?

How do you actually do the identification work ? I mean when your bishop is equipped there are 3 spaces left.
Do you un-equip him before identification ?
After coming back from a dungeon haul I have almost ever 20 items to identify. I'm storing them and let the bishop take them out again, identfy them and distribute them back to the characters that can use them. Is there a quest, later in the game, that can make more storage room for (don't know) maybe 40 items. Or do you create characters just as storeroom expansions and name the characters like materials, weapons and armors ?

 

[Ventidius]

Hi guys,

My party is:

Lord / Samurai / Valk
Bishop / Summoner / Thief

I'm not unhappy how they are proving themselves, but by superquickreading this thread an alchemist is recommended.
So should I replace or change the class of one of my characters ? The bishop ? the summoner ? I find the summoner class to be very exiting. Maybe I can live without her, but I don't want to.
I can imagine to live without the bishop. I have another (equipment free) bishop back in town, who does all the identification work. Does a level 20 bishop have a better chance identifying compared to a level 1 one ?
Plus I'm having 2 secondary healers with the lord and the valkyrie.

Since you are playing Original, multiclassing is not as much of a necessity as it is in Gothic, that said, you still might want to class change the back row guys while keeping the front line steady.

Some advice for party building:

Front-line: Werebeast Lord, Dragonewt Samurai (for that Breath AoE), Devilish Brawler, and Dwarf Valkyrie are all good options. Rolling them in their advanced class from the get-go is useful if you do not plan to class-change for spells, as some of these classes have good synergies with Innocent Gear (equipment only available to non-class-changed chars).

Back-row: Human Cleric that changes to Alchemist at level 13, Human Alchemist that changes to Bishop at level 13. The idea is to have a bunch of spell charges of both schools, they learn all their spells at level 13, but do make sure they do indeed learn all of the necessary spells before class-changing, as the spells learned are randomized. Also, during early game keep a pure Mage around (elf is a good race) to cast Diomente (teleport), crazy good utility, though you have to get him to lvl 13 first.

Reserves: Keep in your reserves a Bishop to identify stuff during early game, if he is too low level, level him up a bit, but do not make him a mainstay. Do the same with a pure Thief, except that in this case do try to keep him up to snuff so he can learn to steal items, which is useful.

Also, note that what the above user said regarding the Devilish race requiring Summoners applies to Gothic, not Original. In Original, the Devilish race is available from the get-go.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Thank you, Ventidius, I see, I made some unlucky choices with races, but I'm willing to live with those. Yes, I think it's a good idea to bench my bishop. What would be a good level ? Right now she's level 11. Should I keep her in the party to level 13 before I'm going to replace her ?

 

[Ventidius]

How do you actually do the identification work ? I mean when your bishop is equipped there are 3 spaces left.
Do you un-equip him before identification ?
After coming back from a dungeon haul I have almost ever 20 items to identify. I'm storing them and let the bishop take them out again, identfy them and distribute them back to the characters that can use them. Is there a quest, later in the game, that can make more storage room for (don't know) maybe 40 items. Or do you create characters just as storeroom expansions and name the characters like materials, weapons and armors ?

It's not like Baldur's Gate, you don't need to unequip, or even have the unidentified item on your Bishop. You just need to have your Bishop in party and click the Identify option in the Party menu, it will automatically show you all identifiable wares, and you will be able to just click to identify. Just make sure your Bishop's level is up to snuff, as its success rate depends on that.

Eventually I'd like to have a ninja, but right now the game doesn't let me have one in my party with good and neutral characters.

Make a Good cleric, I usually make a Hotlet or Human, get him to level 13. After you beat the first dungeon and unlock world travel, you will have access to Wayne Ruins. In the Northeast of the second area of the Ruins there is a repeatable friendly encounter that you can use to make your characters evil. Take your lvl 13 cleric - make sure he has all the stats to be a Ninja too - and make him Evil there, then class change. You can do that, or you can wait to get an item that allows you to change into Ninja, but the former method allows you to do it much sooner. Just bear in mind that if you make your Ninja Evil and the rest of your party stays good, you will not be able to put your Ninja back into a Good party if you remove it, so make sure you have a permanent free slot. IMO, the best time to put the Ninja in is to replace your Mage when he ceases to be efficient (around the time your Samurai and Bishop get some Diomente charges up their belt). All of this assumes, of course, that you want a Good party, if not, you can just skip the making the character evil part and just change from lvl 13 Cleric to Ninja. Why Cleric? Because you can never have too many Cleric spells and you probably need to class change to get Ninja stats anyway. Then again, Alchemist probably works too, and fits better thematically too.

EDIT: Don't worry too much about races. Making them all Human would be fine, for example. It is mostly important in order to roll the class you want more easily, and class changing.

EDIT 2:

Yes, I think it's a good idea to bench my bishop. What would be a good level ? Right now she's level 11. Should I keep her in the party to level 13 before I'm going to replace her ?

Just level her up when necessary. If she gets the classic "You touched it!" message too much, she needs some levels, if not, keep her benched.

EDIT 3: Regarding Storage, use the Alchemy Warehouse for materials, make mule characters for stuff you think might come handy later (like rare equipment you can't currently use), sell the rest.

 

[Miner 2049er]

Ah, I see, that's how identification works. So the ui isn't as hostile as it could possibly be. Facepalm (directed to myself).
Thank you for showing me the way to a Ninja, too.

 

[Ventidius]

No problem. Also, keep in mind that the UI was originally meant for console (PSP), so if you play it with keyboard only as you would with an emulator you'd actually have an easier time. The key bindings are easier to configure in Gothic than in Original though, in the latter you have to go to the game's folder and tinker with the config. In Gothic you can do it directly in the options menu.

 

[aweigh]

There's no reason to use the mouse. Much faster to use keyboard.

 

[duanth123]

There's no reason to use the mouse. Much faster to use keyboard.

Call me a heretic but I used a controller the entire game. It was a much better experience.

 

[aweigh]

i've used both. a keyboard is only a big controller anyway, very little difference.

 

[Haplo]

Frankly for Original I wouldn't concern myself much with multiclassing. It's much shorter then Gothic - and has much less high-level content. You tend to over-level the base game really fast. There are some serious challenges in the post-game, but you probably need to grind a bit to beat them. Can decide on such things once you beat the base game.
Also having a pure Alchemist is more of an almost-requirement for Gothic's post game (though I didn't have one and compensated with blood pact monster adventurers with powerful unique abilities). In Original you can live without one - at least till post game.
The Alchemist-Hunter multiclass is very good though. Hunter was pretty awesome in Original. His special, where he targets status afflicted enemies and attacks again at the end of turn is very potent, because it's free additional attacks that IGNORE enemy armor. Few weapon upgrades though.

And yeah, definitely keep a pure Thief and race him to his High Mastery skill ASAP (Thief gets new levels fastest of all the classes). You can supercharge your party early once he learns how to steal. I'd skip the Thief in Gothic, where there are much fewer steal-able items and fewer steal-exclusives still (prefer a ninja there), but in Original he's been a HUGE help.
Hint: Many of the heart of the forest mobs have some great equipment. Also the demon party that stalks you has some nice thingies (at least their later versions).

 

[Miner 2049er]

Yes, I'm playing it with my old battlehardened PS2 controller. If controllers could gain XP, this veteran weapon would have achieved the rank of a grandmaster.
I believe playing this game for hours with a UI like that with a keyboard would lead to hand spasms.

I'm still in the lowest difficulty dungeons/outside areas and there are some nasty things out there, oneshoting my characters.
For example the insect lord or the queen bees make me tremble in fear when I encounter them.
Sometimes I have the feeling the game really tries to get me Shodan like. I'm curious how much harder it's getting.
I have to confess I'm abusing the PSP emulators save states like crazy.
Thanks to the recommendation of Ventidius I made a good alchemist. For the save escaping spell alone, he's worth taking.
He's ready to become a ninja. He has the stats and already changed to evil from one single encounter. Now he has only make it to level 13.
To my surprise Marcia (at the inn) told me I could now mix characters of different alignments. I rescued her father, before I could get to Wayne Ruins.
Anyway, it's a super fun game that moves me emotionally, so it must do something right.

Party right now:

Lord / Samurai / Valk
Alch (Ninja very soon) / Summoner / Thief

I quite happy with my party with the exception of the summoner. I mean she's exiting and useful for summoning a dryad that heals the whole party in tight spots, but the alchemist -> hunter thing intrigues me.
So can I change (and a what level) the summoner to an alchemist (lvl 13) and later to a hunter ?

When the alchemist becomes a ninja, should I place him in the front row ? The valkyrie could work in the back row then.