Phantasie series

[Francois424]

On another note, we had a discussion about the monster races having less points value than the basic 6 races, making them less interesting as character Picks
So I reworked the table to equilibrate them. The total excludes Charisma, as to the best of my knowledge it is a "Dump Stat"
No abilities uses Charisma, and training costs are easily ignored after you reach midgame and can easily farm tens of thousands of Gold Pieces in a few fights
Luck is the same for all races... Technically Constitution is useless too in Phantasie 3 as well, but I counted it all the same as I would fix it if I ever tried to remaster the series.

Changes of note:
- The manual states that Charisma is a secret of elves but yet they had 18, which is equal to a human. So I gave them 19.
- Dwarves and Gnomes apparently already were the best basic Races (score-wise) if we exclude Charisma from the total.
- I tried to accentuate the advantages of each monster race without going overboard.
- This table takes into account a change I would like to see, which is that monster races can pick any classes (tho a Troll Wizard or Priest might not be the idea of the Century :-p)

What do you guys think of this reworked table ?

 

[Francois424]

I mentioned above that armor works by (armor value + Protection spell value). If you are Parrying, also add the point value of your shield, but only once per combat round. You can therefore block up to 41 points of damage (11 points for God Armor, 10 points from Protection IV buff, 20 points from God Shield) once per combat round, and 21 points thereafter.

I'm also going to list things I want to fix, because I don't have it all in one place yet:

• The current RNG isn't a good one and is slow. (Technical detail: it's a linear congruential generator with a = 125, c = 0, m = 2796203, which at least does throw away lower-order bits properly like many programmers back then failed to do. The problem with this is that dividing by an integer greater than 65536, that isn't a power of 2, on a 16-bit processor is glacially slow. Passable on 32-bit mainframes back then, but not on a 16-bit home computer. Changing this to be a = 64389, c = 1, m = 4294967296 should both be faster and be a better RNG. A xorshift RNG would be even better; it's possible to write on a 16-bit computer but it'd be much more work. PC only, don't know enough about Apple ][ to look at that.)
• The RNG isn't seeded properly; this is why the game often doesn't act quite random when you start the game up. (Technical detail: the game uses the number of centiseconds on the clock and calls the RNG that many times. The clock on a PC back then was only accurate to ~5 cs at most. This also causes perceptible slowdown whenever you enter a town. Fix to use whoie system clock, once only -- this will still be vulnerable to clock attacks, but it's hard to defend against a modern attacker on DOS anyway. PC only, don't know enough about Apple ][ to look at that.)
• The game doesn't correctly tell you the number of experience points needed to reach level 2 for a brand new character. (Both Apple ][ and PC. The way the game does the calculation, it's making the assumption that you are level 0 if you have 0 XP -- what it actually tells you is how much XP is needed to reach level 1, which you already are.)
• The way the game rolls starting stats is absurd, rolling 1d20 instead of 3d6-with-loaded-dice. (PC only.)
• When calculating average party level, the game can only tolerate up to 15. Elementals and undead are level 20 and may cause strange errors if that pushes average party level to 16 or higher. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• When the game picks an item to sell out in a shop, it never picks MAGIC 10 because of an off-by-one error. (PC only.)
• There are 45 items that can be randomly placed in shops -- this is level-dependent. However, only the first 15 ever appear. (PC only; can be more than 15 if the level averaging bug above also happens.)
• Aging bug #1: if you add a character in town, he always ages 4 fortnights (the fortnight is the base unit of age for your characters); this should only happen if the character isn't in the same town. (PC only.)
• Aging bug #2: outdoor travel ages your characters twice as fast as should happen. This happens because the game converts days to fortnights by dividing by 7; the division should be by 14. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Sprites have a shorter lifespan than apparently intended. (PC only -- comparison with Apple ][ calculation.)
• Magical armor requires more Strength than the manual suggests. (PC only.)
• The mystic's score calculation doesn't quite work right. (Both Apple ][ and PC. On the latter it's definitely a "whoops forgot to initialize variables to 0" bug.)
• Anyone other than Fighters get fewer spells than they ought to, especially if they are Monks or Rangers. (PC only -- comparison with Apple ][ calculation.)
• There's no reason to limit characters to 255 hit points. Hard to fix on the 8-bit Apple ][, but I don't see a reason not to change this to 999 on the 16-bit PC. Only Fighters and Rangers can easily break the 255 cap, which helps game balance anyway.
• Casting Transportation forces you to redistribute gold and removes any elemental from your party. This isn't necessary and exacerbates the autosave bug. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Swimming 10 miles in the ocean is faster than walking 10 miles on grassland, somehow. You can swim faster than the best Olympic swimmers while wearing heavy armor. You can't get random encounters in water, either, so that's another advantage to swimming everywhere you can; I can make swimming take much longer. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Appleton should be a town on the map, not an inn. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Inns have a chance to increase maximum MP even when it shouldn't; there's an off-by-one-error in the percentage roll. (PC only. It makes more a difference than it sounds, because sometimes character resistance rolls are made against maximum MP.)
• Pools don't give you enough stats if you have 13 Luck. You should get +2 for 8-10 Luck; +3 for 11-12; +4 for 13. There's a rounding error in the way the PC version does math with 13 Luck. (PC only.)
• The bridge near Northford has a fight with WARRIOR (#57). If you make a table of monsters (they're in tiers of 12 monsters each), you can see that the game has a concept of a trollish monster, except there's a off-by-one error here; this should be TROLL (#56). Bridges are expected to have trolls, right? (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Outdoors fixed combats (like that bridge combat) don't set up combat surprise properly. (PC only.)
• A random outdoors encounter where the monsters hear the party, but the party doesn't hear the monsters, causes the monsters to try to surprise the party. If that fails, this should result in a standardized outdoors combat, but instead starts a combat using an invalid value for the first monster. (PC only. The invalid value will always be 1-49 so it will result in a valid-looking combat, but this is what causes outdoors combats in low-level areas to sometimes be dangerous.)
• Any Healing spell sometimes has no effect. (Apple ][ only.)
• The Binding and Weakness spells have each other's effect. (Apple ][ only. You can actually see the mild hack made to fix this in the PC assembly code.)
• Sleep only cancels monsters' action for the current turn; it doesn't actually put monsters to sleep. (PC only.)
• Mindblast and Flamebolt don't quite do their full damage. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Player Mindblast spells are irresistible. (PC only -- PC monster Mindblast, Apple ][ Mindblast, and Phantasie III Mindblast all do properly allow resistance.)
• Monster friendliness is not properly reset after battle. (Apple ][ only.)
• Monsters should get an attack bonus against sleeping characters. (PC only.)
• There are some places where the Apple ][ version calculates 2 ^ X. The PC version changes these to X ^ 2. X is always 0 to 4 so this actually doesn't have too much of an effect, but I'm inclined to change the PC calculation to the Apple ][ calculation anyway.
• The monster Sleep spell might say that it put a dead character to sleep. (PC only. At least it doesn't raise the character from the dead.)
• The monster spell that "reduces party armor" actually has the effect of the Weakness spell. (Both Apple ][ and PC. Will probably fix the text, since your characters don't have an armor-reducing spell either.)
• That same "reduces party armor" or "weakness" spell also has a randomized magnitude on PC. That doesn't happen on Apple ][ and it's sort of contrary to what the manual suggests, probably will fix.
• Monster melee damage is reduced by 1/3 on the PC version compared to the Apple ][. This is deliberate, but I don't see the reason for this; this makes it too easy to reduce melee damage done to 1.
• SAPPHIRE C and SAPPHIRE D are reversed. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• The Priest monster can cast Quickness II, but the way monster Quickness spells work, this actually weakens them. (Both Apple ][ and PC, probably will fix by changing to Quickness III.)
• Fire Elementals probably shouldn't be carrying around random scrolls. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)
• Higher-level dungeon traps are actually easier to evade. (Apple ][, haven't looked at PC.)
• Dungeon random encounters are too frequent. (PC only. They're supposed to be common at first and decline dramatically in frequency during a single visit, but that decline doesn't happen on PC.)
• Dungeon random encounters should be similar to dungeon fixed encounters. (PC only.)
• If the monsters are demoralized enough to try to run away, it wakes them up. (Both Apple ][ and PC. Miiight be a feature, not a bug.)
• The calculation for checking if monsters successfully flee checks terrain -- even in a dungeon, where it shouldn't happen. (PC only.)
• The chance that you find an item after combat is 1% too high. (PC only.)
• Maybe I can fix the 655,360 XP cap per expedition. (PC only, would be tough, but that limit is annoying isn't it?)
• The PC fully supports lower case, I can convert most of the SCREAMING there to lowercase.

I haven't analyzed placed dungeon events on the PC yet (either in general, or in any specific dungeon).

Probably not going to fix because they'd be complicated:

• There's no exit to DOS. That part is easy; the hard part is reversing the strange memory allocation. (PC only.)
• Autosave corruption bug: yeah, autosave can corrupt your saved game. I might yet figure out an easy way to fix this, but I don't see one, and in the meantime I can just tell people to not use autosave. (PC only.)
• The game doesn't handle the clock rollover at midnight gracefully. (PC only. Don't start your game just before midnight, that can screw up the calculation the game does when it calculates your computer's speed. The game can also freeze during combat at midnight, but you can break that particular lock just by pressing any key.)
• Monster Evaluation has strange effects when cast on some special outdoor squares. (Both Apple ][ and PC.)

I don't think this is actually that many bugs, incidentally. It's about what you can expect when you deeply analyze pretty much any game.

Hey Harlin,

I don't know if you're still working on that project, but in the event that you are...
I really thought things over after the failure that was the Phantasie Memorial Set fiasco of last Christmas, and beside the updated sounds/graphics from P3 (and even basic ones from P1) both on AtariST, the feature that I miss the most from the old games is the keyboard shortcuts added in Phantasie3 (AtariST).
Basically almost everything could be done with keyboard shortcuts, shaving an insane amount of time (and mouse misclicks) in the total length of the game. So if you're still working on this... How would you feel in adding said shortcuts?

For the town it was these :
A ) Shop at the Armoury
B ) Enter the Bank
C ) Cast a Spell
D ) Re-Distribute Equipment
E ) Examine Characters
G ) Trade an item Between two Characters
I ) Rest at the Inn
L ) Learn some Spells
M ) Consult the Mystic
N ) Create a New Character
O ) load a Game
P ) Purge a Character (Permanently)
S ) Save the Game
T ) Training
U ) Use Item (Potion/Scroll/etc).
V ) View Party (Party Status)
X ) eXit the Town
+ ) Add Character to the Party
- ) Remove a Character from the Party
? ) Info - About Game (Gives game name, version info, and limited credits)

Most question/confirmation screens was "ENTER" or "(O)kay" for accept, and "C" for Cancel (instead of Escape for more modern games, but C is good too).

In the overmap/wilderness it was these :
C ) Cast a Spell
E ) Examine Characters
P) Party Status ( Gives the current expedition info: Days out, XP, Gold, and the items found breakdown)
U ) Use Item (Potion/Scroll/etc).
? ) Info - About Game (Gives game name, version info, and limited credits)
( + ) Fast Speed
( = ) Normal Speed
( - ) Slow Speed

In battle main menu these where (monster screen) :
(F)ight, (T)hreaten, (G)reeting, (B)eg for Mercy, (R)un Away, (M)onster names, Party (H)ealth, (+) Fast Speed, (=) Normal Speed, (-) Slow Speed.


Once you get into the fight to issue commands to characters :
You needed to click each character to get the next line of choices, but I would recommend putting number 1-6 to select the character (it might already be like this in dos version tho, the 1-6 I mean)
(T)hrust, (A)ttack, (S)lash, (P)arry, (L)unge, Fire (B)ow, (M) Aim Blow, (C)ast Spell, (1) Move Back, (2) Move Middle, (3) Move Front, and finally "(F)ight!" to begin the round.
-> Upon selecting an action that gives the choice to pick which row... In Phantasie 3 there only 2 rows so they used the standard "Enter" or "(O)kay" for row 1 and (C)ancel for Row 2. In P1/P2 those could be 1, 2, or 3 respectively instead.


Also when Distributing, it's not in, not even in P1 thru P3 on the AtariST, but would be nice to hit 1-6 to give an item to a specific character, or (S)ell.
And finally on character creation, allow all classes for all race would be super nice, and when generating a new character, instead of just OKAY and CANCEL, please add (R)EROLL ?? Pretty please? Would make creating a minotaur, sprite, or w/e monster I want MUCH more convenient.

I think getting those shortcuts are more important to me than even the enhanced graphics and sounds... Obviously everything makes the game much better, but getting keyboard shortcut would make the game play much faster and be far more interesting to me.

Just felt like putting this out there.
Regardless of if you're still working on it or not, thanks for reading !

 

[IronEye]

On another note, we had a discussion about the monster races having less points value than the basic 6 races, making them less interesting as character Picks
So I reworked the table to equilibrate them. The total excludes Charisma, as to the best of my knowledge it is a "Dump Stat"
No abilities uses Charisma, and training costs are easily ignored after you reach midgame and can easily farm tens of thousands of Gold Pieces in a few fights
Luck is the same for all races... Technically Constitution is useless too in Phantasie 3 as well, but I counted it all the same as I would fix it if I ever tried to remaster the series.

Changes of note:
- The manual states that Charisma is a secret of elves but yet they had 18, which is equal to a human. So I gave them 19.
- Dwarves and Gnomes apparently already were the best basic Races (score-wise) if we exclude Charisma from the total.
- I tried to accentuate the advantages of each monster race without going overboard.
- This table takes into account a change I would like to see, which is that monster races can pick any classes (tho a Troll Wizard or Priest might not be the idea of the Century :-p)

What do you guys think of this reworked table ?

It's hard to give a careful evaluation of all that data but I suspect the weaker races like kobold orc etc were universally disliked as choices, so balancing them out makes sense. In my opinion Charisma would still be included in those totals even if that means finding some additional use for the stat in the game, but I'm not certain that'd even be necessary. It was a pretty significant stat in groups with multiple beast characters, and though you rightly point out that it becomes a non-stat once into mid-/late-game, it's pretty torturous to level them up before that. Maybe if you know optimal item farming it becomes less of a problem (I think I recall a comment from you recommending to farm the wraiths near Shady Sands for Dagger +1s). Charisma probably shouldn't have been a stat upgrade choice for the soup from Nikademus though.

By the way Francois, you should do a Let's Play on P3. You know quite a lot about the game and there aren't many playthroughs online.

 

[DaveO]

Francois is probably a bit busy with LIFE issues to do a playthru of P3 online. I put a poll on my YouTube channel for next vid project after upcoming Wing Commander 4. My renamed channel name is: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTkyWNItgtp40ZryZZBBuTQ

I would be willing to nuke my previous P1-P3 party for a Let's Play on ST. I also have the most recent experience on P1 to P3 and am aware of the issues. With that out of the way...
P3 should make Castle of Light and Castle of Dark MANDATORY. My big gripe #1. Lava should be P2 damage level, not *bleeping* avoidable. Nik or Lord Wood need serious HP buffing and be 10x more lethal(minimum). Encourage more bow use(1 or 2 with P3) with more potential for even at low levels(this one could wreck balance though). Fix spell bug issues in P3 with Mindblast and Firebolt. Makes a Wizard borderline useless in P3 compared to Monk. Progress transportation spell 54 for Monk to level 4 and not 3. It gives a price/cost more along the line of whether you want LESS spells for quicker access to moving around the map faster. Nerf the Sleep spell. Gods I hated the monsters that made your party basically useless in P2. Make Quickness and Strength spells Monk available earlier with the same spell learning limit(and they are quite limited). Do something to make Wizard more attractive. I've done monk 'cause Wizards eat more XP shares, have less HP than monks, and generally only have the spell point advantage(keep that). PLEASE FIX LEVELING UP. At the moment advancing in ST means two levels to train and not one to avoid getting bad rolls(or ones you can live with). Make Fireflash scale better from 1-4. None of the 1-100 horse hockey. I propose current limit to F1. For F2, 10-30 damage. F3, 20-60 damage. F4, 50-100 damage. Makes casting the *big bang* attack(DBZ) much more desirable. Give Wizards a spell progression advantage(transport is ALSO level 4 for Wiz), mass damage spells max level to 12 and not bleeping 14. Move summon Elemental to level 10 to open spot on level 12 for Flamebolt 4(again level 14 is way too high). Move Quickness 1 to a level earlier than 11(9 or 8).

I'll think of other things later.

And thank Francois more. He helped me even get started for P3.

 

[Francois424]

It's hard to give a careful evaluation of all that data but I suspect the weaker races like kobold orc etc were universally disliked as choices, so balancing them out makes sense. In my opinion Charisma would still be included in those totals even if that means finding some additional use for the stat in the game, but I'm not certain that'd even be necessary. It was a pretty significant stat in groups with multiple beast characters, and though you rightly point out that it becomes a non-stat once into mid-/late-game, it's pretty torturous to level them up before that. Maybe if you know optimal item farming it becomes less of a problem (I think I recall a comment from you recommending to farm the wraiths near Shady Sands for Dagger +1s). Charisma probably shouldn't have been a stat upgrade choice for the soup from Nikademus though.

By the way Francois, you should do a Let's Play on P3. You know quite a lot about the game and there aren't many playthroughs online.

Heh heh heh. My plan for the charisma would've been to NOT cap it at 15k gold. Some races would be exorbitantly expensive to level with low charisma. For example, in a rework table I made, it costs 102k gold to level from level 14 to 15, and by the time you reach level 20 it's about 750k.
To note that it is possible to farm this amount of money and bank it (with the P3 banking system) but good luck getting your characters leveled at that price. So there's that for making Charisma more important. Changing distribution selling prices and armory shopping prices is also something I would do.
But Charisma would still be useless stat. Ppl would just reroll and avoid anything below 7 and leveling from 14 to 15 would cost around 50k. Still a lot, but nothing hard to do at all. The only way to make charisma more effective, would be so it buffs the spell defense, but then magic would become crappy and even harder to balance. I like the money factor, it's easy to code and makes CHA more important as well.


P3 should make Castle of Light and Castle of Dark MANDATORY.
- I thought it was? I always did them anyways.

Lava should be P2 damage level, not *bleeping* avoidable.
- Phantasie II went overboard with that. I'm glad they adjusted it in Phantasie III. Tho swimming in lava always made me chuckle. Since ressources are limited and not every party is equal (ESPECIALLY in P3)... Making it harder might just make the game impossible to beat for some. I don't think it would be such a good idea. P2 almost made Sinatar rage-quit the game because the lava was hardcore as you want it to me. I would be open however to making it deal damage based on swimming skill. 100 swimming would be like now and scale damage appropriately.

Nik or Lord Wood need serious HP buffing and be 10x more lethal(minimum).
- Nikademus strikes 9 times in a row and killed 1/3rd of my party when I got there the first time (killed my 2 mages). But I agree both him and Wood need more HPs. Absolutely easy to adjust to top it all.

Encourage more bow use(1 or 2 with P3) with more potential for even at low levels(this one could wreck balance though).
- I already use a lot of Bows... Usually 4 ppl in my party fire bows all the time, except when casting or wounded. Phantasie III is already great with that, honestly ! P1/P2 needs bows 2 (throw rocks kinda blows in P2)

Fix spell bug issues in P3 with Mindblast and Firebolt. Makes a Wizard borderline useless in P3 compared to Monk. Progress transportation spell 54 for Monk to level 4 and not 3. It gives a price/cost more along the line of whether you want LESS spells for quicker access to moving around the map faster. Nerf the Sleep spell. Gods I hated the monsters that made your party basically useless in P2. Make Quickness and Strength spells Monk available earlier with the same spell learning limit(and they are quite limited). Do something to make Wizard more attractive. I've done monk 'cause Wizards eat more XP shares, have less HP than monks, and generally only have the spell point advantage(keep that).
- Yeah I would fix that, but in a smart way. Right now, Priests, Thieves, Monk and Wizard gain access to Fireflash IV. Rangers and Priests both can cast Healing IV and Resurrection. And the spells are of the same power. What I thought, is to add an intelligence bonus to spells for pure caster (so Wizard and Priests only). That would mean say a 18int Priest would do 10-17 with Healing 1 (1-9 + half_int_rounded_down), healing 4 would do 1-99 + 54 (INTx3)... So Healing 1 is +1/2 INT, Healing2 is +INT, Healing3 is +2xINT, and Healing4 is +3xINT. I would do the same thing for the Wizard as well for offensive spells. That way it makes Priests better than Rangers, and Wizards better than Thief/Monks/Priests (yes, priests can cast Fireflash IV).

PLEASE FIX LEVELING UP. At the moment advancing in ST means two levels to train and not one to avoid getting bad rolls(or ones you can live with).
- I have not tried to skip levels to gain more HPs, but I have been savescumming to get the best outcome possible. P3 as a bug which ignores positive constitution but penalizes you for negative score (Positive = above 10). The constitution bug would definitely be fixed again if I where to actually recode the game, and as stated by HARLIN, HPs would not be limited to 255 anymore, and MP could reach 30 for pure wizard and pure priests. I'd also add a setting to get max HP on levelups, or force average (like D&D, so if your base class gains 1d12, you gain 7hp/level). I always assume players will reload for better rolls anyways, but it would be optional.


Also, I have thought about doing let's plays of Phantasie 3 and maybe a bit more but mostly that one, as there's next to no LPs online.
The problem is that I have a mike/webcam but have no idea what to download, from where, do I get a paid version? and how to go about doing it. Maybe one day I'll take the plunge, but without mentoring it's a hard learning experience for me.
And yes, LIFE is very demanding too, so even if I did do that LP, it would not be regular uploads.

 

[DaveO]

I should be able to do a fresh P1-P3 run. I have a desktop machine with a few recording programs. I'll try them both with VirtualDub self-editing. Should be pretty doable. And no losing the party I had on the other computer.

I completely bypassed Dark I think. My memory for some reason is fuzzy here. That was probably my complaint. Make party do BOTH.

For some odd reason, save scumming never worked on my laptop. It might on the desktop. If so, I have WC to continue past day 1 on ST.

 

[DaveO]

Instead of nuking the characters, I created six new ones but I'll make sure the party transfer is not snuffed with a 12 character roster. I have two characters out of the gate to progress to God knives in P1 and my intention is to go for Zeus which means a high level party. Then the party will take out Pluto in P2. I'll beat Nikademus and go for a more involved dungeoneering experience for Phantasie III. I skipped quite a few dungeons in P3, so a recorded experience with those skipped dungeons would be worth it. Francois, let me know which areas in P1 get good experience so I can do more than just Woodville runs.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I hate that limited xp/gold per run crap. So much running back & forth.

 

[DaveO]

Beats limited spell points, but the game is low-magic setting for the adventurers.

 

[Francois424]

Strangely enough, in manuals, a Mana potion can regain up to 30 Magic Pts. Which leads me to believe that at some point there might have been more than a 20pts maximum.
20 is mostly OK, given that you return to town often. Except maybe late-game where you have the lasting power to spend a lot of time grinding, and one bad encounter means A LOT of healing needed.
That said, getting 30pts on pure mage and pure priest in a remake of some sort would make sense... especially Wizards, since Priest are relatively good in Melee late-game, not so for Wizards.

 

[DaveO]

I got my laptop back from some much-needed data repairs. Eternal Dagger(Apple emulation), Wizard's Crown and Phantasie files were unaffected. Given what I know about Combat Awareness for WC I will likely increase the skills there when I can. For Phantasie, the party only has two for-sure God Knife wielders. The Gnome will probably take time to get good and by going Wizard instead of Monk this time I should have better spell progression. Two Rangers and two priests for the party so that lava in P2 won't hopefully be too terribly bad.

I just want Fighter to be a worthwhile class, but unfortunately Fighters are pretty worthless except as dungeon entry in P1 for the Dosnebian temple. With laptop back up and running, I will test a few programs to see which one records best.

 

[Francois424]

Or you replace your fighter by a Ranger... It does limit the number of races tho (can't make it a Minotaur Ranger, unless you hex-edit the save file - of course).
Looking forward to it should you start the LP for that eventually

 

[DaveO]

LP is dependent on me finding my hard drive which I misplaced around Memorial Day. I'm pretty sure the drive is in the same room as this laptop, just got to find and attach it.

Also, my Steem only works with the attached hard drive. Other implementations just come up with files that won't load.

 

[HalloSchwester]

Does anyone know the AC values of the monsters? I found the following stat table in a walkthrough:

Monsters:

|            |   |ITM|ITM|   |       |     |
NAME         |MAX| HP| 1 | 2 |U|TREAS| EXP |
-------------+---+---+---+---+-+-----+-----+
Skeleton     | 5 |  3| 66| 67|U|   20|   77|
Sniverling   | 5 | 10| 65|  8|N|   35|  150|
Drip Slime   | 5 |  1|  0|  0|N|    0|   97|
Undead Gnome | 3 | 15| 65|  6|U|   90|  406|
Wild Cat     | 5 |  4|  0|  0|N|    0|  108|
Giant Bee    | 5 |  3|  0|  0|N|    0|   73|
Viper        | 2 | 20|  0|  0|N|  200|  731|
Wild Dog     | 4 | 11|  0|  0|N|    0|  164|
Orc          | 5 |  6| 23| 66|N|   25|   87|
Kobold       | 5 |  5| 22| 65|N|   15|   52|
Ranger       | 5 | 12|  9| 67|N|   65|  234|
Scribe       | 5 |  3|103| 22|N|   30|   87|
Small Devil  | 4 | 20| 69|  8|U|  200|  336|
Zombie       | 4 | 12| 68| 23|U|  111|  245|
Ghoul        | 5 |  5| 66| 23|U|   70|  133|
Dark Elf     | 5 | 10| 43|  8|N|    0|  290|
Sting Beetle | 5 | 10|  0|  0|N|    0|  199|
Constrictor  | 2 | 16|  0|  0|U|    0|  616|
Panther      | 4 |  8|  0|  0|N|    0|  339|
Troll Baby   | 5 |  5| 66| 12|N|   70|  136|
Goblin       | 4 | 20|  0|  0|N|  100|  752|
Barbarian    | 5 |  9| 69|103|N|  100|  192|
Illusionist  | 5 |  6|112|103|N|  150|  325|
Lesser Wizard| 4 |  7|113| 23|N|  200|  416|
Undead Dwarf | 4 | 22|  8| 69|U|  600| 1393|
Wight        | 4 | 20|116| 82|U|  200| 1414|
Death Fly    | 4 | 56|  0|  0|N|    0| 2600|
Beeping Blob | 5 | 14|  0|  0|N|    0|  920|
Killer Bee   | 5 |  8|  0|  0|N|    0|  633|
Cobra        | 5 | 12|  0|  0|N|    0|  794|
Baby Dragon  | 5 | 16| 83|148|N|  300| 1613|
Wolf         | 5 |  0|  0|  0|N|    0|  878|
Gremlin      | 5 |  8| 71| 23|N|  225|  507|
Dwarf        | 5 | 13| 72| 12|N|  325|  731|
Dwarf Lord   | 5 | 12| 73| 25|N|  250|  934|
Priest       | 5 | 10|  9|106|N|  350|  759|
Devil        | 3 | 30|118| 88|U|  500| 4424|
Wraith       | 4 | 32|147| 24|U|  800| 3605|
Giant Wasp   | 4 | 63|  0|  0|N|    0| 5197|
Hissing Skuz | 5 | 14|  0|  0|N|    0| 1473|
Viper Moth   | 5 | 10|  0|  0|N|    0| 1753|
Asp          | 4 | 56|  0|  0|N|    0| 3958|
Small Dragon | 4 | 37| 33|153|N|  325| 3552|
Valley Giant | 2 | 40| 25| 76|N|  400| 3335|
Dark Gnome   | 5 | 34| 74| 16|N|  500| 3377|
Dark Dwarf   | 5 | 72| 26| 87|N| 1600| 5477|
Gnome Mage   | 5 | 22|109| 46|N|  550| 3825|
Gnome Lord   | 5 | 23| 75|118|N|  775| 3384|
Demon        | 4 | 39| 26| 77|U| 1200| 8666|
Vampire      | 2 | 70| 27|118|U| 1800|12957|
Giant Ghost  | 5 | 18| 34|153|U|  700| 4305|
Creeping Skum| 4 | 38|  0|  0|N|  800| 4266|
King Cobra   | 2 | 77|  0|  0|N|    0| 8557|
Mud Elemental| 2 | 77|  0|  0|N|    0| 8529|
Dragon       | 2 | 87|153|162|N| 2200|17006|
Forest Elf   | 5 | 18|109| 90|N|  500| 2824|
Troll        | 4 | 42| 17| 78|N| 1300| 6478|
Undead Lord  | 4 | 20| 89|153|U|  700| 9996|
Illusion     | 4 | 24|  0|  0|N| 1000| 9789|
High Ranger  | 5 | 27| 17|109|N|  800| 6968|
High Demon   | 4 | 96| 36| 94|U| 1800|18515|
High Devil   | 2 |110| 35| 79|U| 2000|20300|
Creeping Mold| 2 | 83|  0|  0|N|    0|11042|
Leopard      | 3 | 97|  0|  0|N|    0|13016|
Spirit       | 5 | 25|  0|  0|U|    0| 5663|
Sludge       | 3 |101|  0|  0|N|    0|12932|
Dragon King  | 2 |133|165|175|N| 2200|23593|
Storm Giant  | 2 |115| 19| 79|N| 1800|14472|
Cloud Giant  | 2 |122| 28| 92|N| 2000|19827|
Great Troll  | 4 | 98| 18| 91|N| 1300|10783|
Wizard       | 5 | 24| 36|119|N|  700|11098|
Overlord     | 5 | 37| 27|109|N| 1000|11602|
Guagle Beast | 1 | 90|  0|  0|N|    0|25000|
Great Beast  | 1 |150|  0|  0|N|    0|36000|
Ancient Beast| 1 |200|  0|  0|N|    0|60000|
Light Fairy  | 1 |204|  0|  0|N|    0|64150|(150K on Apple)
Boo Boo Kitty| 1 |203|  0|  0|N|    0|64100|(100K on Apple)
Nikademus    | 1 |212| 98| 39|U|    0|64999|(300002 on Apple)
Nikademus    | 1 |209| 98| 39|N|64099|64300|(999999 on Apple)
Lord Wood    | 1 |209| 97| 38|N|64099|64500|(500000 on Apple)

 

[Francois424]

Not sure that information is available. Maybe if we're lucky and Lord Wood still roams this forum he will enlighten us.
Based on some information I found, there was a LOT of calculation under the hood to establish if a monster was hit, it was a project dump of someone wanting to remake Phantasie 2 for PC.
It was rather complex and I did not understand much of it. You might be able to find the data dump if you search for it, and maybe you can make more sense of the data tables (which are readable with the regular "notepad").

Good luck !

 

[HalloSchwester]

Thanks!
I found a Dungeon and Sprite Viewer and the Maps if anyone is interested:
http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/Phantasie/news.php5

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ah yeah. Kroah's site. He really deconstructed Alternate Reality. I was going to link him but I didn't see anything on defense for Phantasie.

 

[HalloSchwester]

@

Francois424: I've seen your post with the Phantasie I map in the style of Phantasie 3. Very cool! If you can post the tile sheet, I might be able to touch up a few of the tiles and provide a deep desert tile, though I can't remember Deep Desert from Phantasie I. Was Deep Desert not passable like Deep Ocean?​

 

[Darth Canoli]

So, did Harlin release a patch/mod for the PC version of any Phantasie game?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Does anyone know the AC values of the monsters? I found the following stat table in a walkthrough:

Monsters:

|            |   |ITM|ITM|   |       |     |
NAME         |MAX| HP| 1 | 2 |U|TREAS| EXP |
-------------+---+---+---+---+-+-----+-----+
Skeleton     | 5 |  3| 66| 67|U|   20|   77|
Sniverling   | 5 | 10| 65|  8|N|   35|  150|
Drip Slime   | 5 |  1|  0|  0|N|    0|   97|
Undead Gnome | 3 | 15| 65|  6|U|   90|  406|
Wild Cat     | 5 |  4|  0|  0|N|    0|  108|
Giant Bee    | 5 |  3|  0|  0|N|    0|   73|
Viper        | 2 | 20|  0|  0|N|  200|  731|
Wild Dog     | 4 | 11|  0|  0|N|    0|  164|
Orc          | 5 |  6| 23| 66|N|   25|   87|
Kobold       | 5 |  5| 22| 65|N|   15|   52|
Ranger       | 5 | 12|  9| 67|N|   65|  234|
Scribe       | 5 |  3|103| 22|N|   30|   87|
Small Devil  | 4 | 20| 69|  8|U|  200|  336|
Zombie       | 4 | 12| 68| 23|U|  111|  245|
Ghoul        | 5 |  5| 66| 23|U|   70|  133|
Dark Elf     | 5 | 10| 43|  8|N|    0|  290|
Sting Beetle | 5 | 10|  0|  0|N|    0|  199|
Constrictor  | 2 | 16|  0|  0|U|    0|  616|
Panther      | 4 |  8|  0|  0|N|    0|  339|
Troll Baby   | 5 |  5| 66| 12|N|   70|  136|
Goblin       | 4 | 20|  0|  0|N|  100|  752|
Barbarian    | 5 |  9| 69|103|N|  100|  192|
Illusionist  | 5 |  6|112|103|N|  150|  325|
Lesser Wizard| 4 |  7|113| 23|N|  200|  416|
Undead Dwarf | 4 | 22|  8| 69|U|  600| 1393|
Wight        | 4 | 20|116| 82|U|  200| 1414|
Death Fly    | 4 | 56|  0|  0|N|    0| 2600|
Beeping Blob | 5 | 14|  0|  0|N|    0|  920|
Killer Bee   | 5 |  8|  0|  0|N|    0|  633|
Cobra        | 5 | 12|  0|  0|N|    0|  794|
Baby Dragon  | 5 | 16| 83|148|N|  300| 1613|
Wolf         | 5 |  0|  0|  0|N|    0|  878|
Gremlin      | 5 |  8| 71| 23|N|  225|  507|
Dwarf        | 5 | 13| 72| 12|N|  325|  731|
Dwarf Lord   | 5 | 12| 73| 25|N|  250|  934|
Priest       | 5 | 10|  9|106|N|  350|  759|
Devil        | 3 | 30|118| 88|U|  500| 4424|
Wraith       | 4 | 32|147| 24|U|  800| 3605|
Giant Wasp   | 4 | 63|  0|  0|N|    0| 5197|
Hissing Skuz | 5 | 14|  0|  0|N|    0| 1473|
Viper Moth   | 5 | 10|  0|  0|N|    0| 1753|
Asp          | 4 | 56|  0|  0|N|    0| 3958|
Small Dragon | 4 | 37| 33|153|N|  325| 3552|
Valley Giant | 2 | 40| 25| 76|N|  400| 3335|
Dark Gnome   | 5 | 34| 74| 16|N|  500| 3377|
Dark Dwarf   | 5 | 72| 26| 87|N| 1600| 5477|
Gnome Mage   | 5 | 22|109| 46|N|  550| 3825|
Gnome Lord   | 5 | 23| 75|118|N|  775| 3384|
Demon        | 4 | 39| 26| 77|U| 1200| 8666|
Vampire      | 2 | 70| 27|118|U| 1800|12957|
Giant Ghost  | 5 | 18| 34|153|U|  700| 4305|
Creeping Skum| 4 | 38|  0|  0|N|  800| 4266|
King Cobra   | 2 | 77|  0|  0|N|    0| 8557|
Mud Elemental| 2 | 77|  0|  0|N|    0| 8529|
Dragon       | 2 | 87|153|162|N| 2200|17006|
Forest Elf   | 5 | 18|109| 90|N|  500| 2824|
Troll        | 4 | 42| 17| 78|N| 1300| 6478|
Undead Lord  | 4 | 20| 89|153|U|  700| 9996|
Illusion     | 4 | 24|  0|  0|N| 1000| 9789|
High Ranger  | 5 | 27| 17|109|N|  800| 6968|
High Demon   | 4 | 96| 36| 94|U| 1800|18515|
High Devil   | 2 |110| 35| 79|U| 2000|20300|
Creeping Mold| 2 | 83|  0|  0|N|    0|11042|
Leopard      | 3 | 97|  0|  0|N|    0|13016|
Spirit       | 5 | 25|  0|  0|U|    0| 5663|
Sludge       | 3 |101|  0|  0|N|    0|12932|
Dragon King  | 2 |133|165|175|N| 2200|23593|
Storm Giant  | 2 |115| 19| 79|N| 1800|14472|
Cloud Giant  | 2 |122| 28| 92|N| 2000|19827|
Great Troll  | 4 | 98| 18| 91|N| 1300|10783|
Wizard       | 5 | 24| 36|119|N|  700|11098|
Overlord     | 5 | 37| 27|109|N| 1000|11602|
Guagle Beast | 1 | 90|  0|  0|N|    0|25000|
Great Beast  | 1 |150|  0|  0|N|    0|36000|
Ancient Beast| 1 |200|  0|  0|N|    0|60000|
Light Fairy  | 1 |204|  0|  0|N|    0|64150|(150K on Apple)
Boo Boo Kitty| 1 |203|  0|  0|N|    0|64100|(100K on Apple)
Nikademus    | 1 |212| 98| 39|U|    0|64999|(300002 on Apple)
Nikademus    | 1 |209| 98| 39|N|64099|64300|(999999 on Apple)
Lord Wood    | 1 |209| 97| 38|N|64099|64500|(500000 on Apple)

Oh, that is easy:

Name of mob

Max is max # encountered possible per rank (usually due to size.) front rank, mid rank, rear rank (i believe you could have 3 rows or was it two?)

Hp is hit points (no random value they always have that Value I believe

Item 1 is chance for item with that value (i'm sure the value is tied to code somewhere and I'm surprised no one put the item down)

Item 2 (same deal as item 1)

U is whether being is Undead or not

Treas is max gold creature will have (probably per mob and maybe EXACT set value not random.. I'm not sure)

Exp is the experience value for that mob (per mob)

Simple really. I'd expand the table tbh, breath weapon y/n, spells available to cast, special ability, resistances, defense value, maybe more. I'm betting mobs have more values than what we see there.

Looking back at say Phantasie I we see a table like this:

MONSTER NAME      |MAX|SZ |EXP PTS|HP |TREAS |
------------------+---+---+-------+---+------+
          SKELETON|20 | 0 |      1|  0|   -75|
            BANTIR| 5 | 1 |    147| 10|    35|
        DRIP SLIME| 6 | 1 |     90|  1|     0|

This one has size.

So looking at phantasie III we have this list of treasures:

Begin shields.

1(hex 0x01). Glove
2(hex 0x02). Wooden Shield
3(hex 0x03). Wooden Shield +1
4(hex 0x04). Small Shield
5(hex 0x05). Small Shield +1
6(hex 0x06). Small Shield +2
7(hex 0x07). Small Shield +3
8(hex 0x08). Medium Shield
9(hex 0x09). Medium Shield +1
10(hex 0x0a). Medium Shield +2
11(hex 0x0b). Medium Shield +3
12(hex 0x0c). Large Shield
13(hex 0x0d). Large Shield +1
14(hex 0x0e). Large Shield +2
15(hex 0x0f). Large Shield +3
16(hex 0x10). Giant Shield
17(hex 0x11). Giant Shield +1
18(hex 0x12). Giant Shield +2
19(hex 0x13). Giant Shield +3

Begin armor.

20(hex 0x14). God Shield
21(hex 0x15). Clothing
22(hex 0x16). Robes
23(hex 0x17). Leather
24(hex 0x18). Hard Leather
25(hex 0x19). Ring Mail
26(hex 0x1a). Scale Mail
27(hex 0x1b). Chain Mail
28(hex 0x1c). Splint Mail
29(hex 0x1d). Banded Mail
30(hex 0x1e). Plate Mail
31(hex 0x1f). Cloth +1
32(hex 0x20). Robes +1
33(hex 0x21). Leather +1
34(hex 0x22). Leather +2
35(hex 0x23). Ring Mail +1
36(hex 0x24). Ring Mail +2
37(hex 0x25). Chain Mail +1
38(hex 0x26). Chain Mail +2
39(hex 0x27). God Robes
40(hex 0x28). God Armour

Begin bows.

41(hex 0x29). Self Bow
42(hex 0x2a). Self Bow +1
43(hex 0x2b). Self Bow +2
44(hex 0x2c). Short Bow
45(hex 0x2d). Short Bow +1
46(hex 0x2e). Short Bow +2
47(hex 0x2f). Medium Bow
48(hex 0x30). Medium Bow +1
49(hex 0x31). Medium Bow +2
50(hex 0x32). Compound Bow
51(hex 0x33). Compound Bow +1
52(hex 0x34). Compound Bow +2
53(hex 0x35). Gnome Bow
54(hex 0x36). Long Bow
55(hex 0x37). Long Bow +1
56(hex 0x38). Long Bow +2
57(hex 0x39). Crossbow
58(hex 0x3a). Old Bow
59(hex 0x3b). Crossbow +2
60(hex 0x3c). God Bow

Begin weapons.

61(hex 0x3d). Knife
62(hex 0x3e). Dagger
63(hex 0x3f). Club
64(hex 0x40). Mace
65(hex 0x41). Small Axe
66(hex 0x42). Staff
67(hex 0x43). Short Sword
68(hex 0x44). Flail
69(hex 0x45). Hammer
70(hex 0x46). Spear
71(hex 0x47). Axe
72(hex 0x48). Sword
73(hex 0x49). Heavy Mace
74(hex 0x4a). Trident
75(hex 0x4b). Large Spear
76(hex 0x4c). Large Axe
77(hex 0x4d). Pike
78(hex 0x4e). Long Sword
79(hex 0x4f). Bardiche
80(hex 0x50). Halberd

Begin magic weapons. Note that the magic weapons have been partially
scaled down to fit in the new bow feature for Phantasie 3.

81(hex 0x51). Dagger +1
82(hex 0x52). Dagger +2
83(hex 0x53). Club +1
84(hex 0x54). Club +2
85(hex 0x55). Flail +1
86(hex 0x56). Flail +2
87(hex 0x57). Spear +1
88(hex 0x58). Sword +1
89(hex 0x59). Sword +2
90(hex 0x5a). Sword +4
91(hex 0x5b). Sword +5
92(hex 0x5c). Sword +6
93(hex 0x5d). Halberd +1
94(hex 0x5e). Halberd +2
95(hex 0x5f). Sword +10
96(hex 0x60). Halberd +5
97(hex 0x61). Halberd +6
98(hex 0x62). God Knife
99(hex 0x63). God Mace
100(hex 0x64). God Sword

Begin healing potions. Number X heals X^2 hit points.

101(hex 0x65). Healing Potion 1
102(hex 0x66). Healing Potion 2
103(hex 0x67). Healing Potion 3
104(hex 0x68). Healing Potion 4
105(hex 0x69). Healing Potion 5
106(hex 0x6a). Healing Potion 6
107(hex 0x6b). Healing Potion 7
108(hex 0x6c). Healing Potion 8
109(hex 0x6d). Healing Potion 9
110(hex 0x6e). Healing Potion 10

Begin magic potions. Number X heals 3X hit points.

111(hex 0x6f). Magic Potion 1
112(hex 0x70). Magic Potion 2
113(hex 0x71). Magic Potion 3
114(hex 0x72). Magic Potion 4
115(hex 0x73). Magic Potion 5
116(hex 0x74). Magic Potion 6
117(hex 0x75). Magic Potion 7
118(hex 0x76). Magic Potion 8
119(hex 0x77). Magic Potion 9
120(hex 0x78). Magic Potion 10

Begin scrolls.

121(hex 0x79). Scroll I
122(hex 0x7a). Scroll II
123(hex 0x7b). Scroll III
124(hex 0x7c). Scroll III
125(hex 0x7d). Scroll III
126(hex 0x7e). Scroll IV
127(hex 0x7f). Scroll V
128(hex 0x80). Scroll VI
129(hex 0x81). Scroll VII
130(hex 0x82). Scroll VII
131(hex 0x83). Scroll VII
132(hex 0x84). Scroll VIII
133(hex 0x85). Scroll IX
134(hex 0x86). Scroll X
135(hex 0x87). Scroll XI
136(hex 0x88). Scroll XII
137(hex 0x89). Scroll XIII
138(hex 0x8a). Scroll XIV
139(hex 0x8b). Scroll XV
140(hex 0x8c). Scroll XVI

Begin treasures. Note that some of these are important items and some
are just ones you find as treasures. I don't want to spoil anything, so
I'll just leave things be.

141(hex 0x8d). Quartz
142(hex 0x8e). Pearl
143(hex 0x8f). Crystal
144(hex 0x90). Gold Ore
145(hex 0x91). Statuette
146(hex 0x92). Jade
147(hex 0x93). Onyx
148(hex 0x94). Statue
149(hex 0x95). Sapphire
150(hex 0x96). Azurite
151(hex 0x97). Coral
152(hex 0x98). Turquoise
153(hex 0x99). Topaz
154(hex 0x9a). Jacinth
155(hex 0x9b). Burnt Gem
156(hex 0x9c). Sweet Bottle
157(hex 0x9d). Foul Bottle
158(hex 0x9e). Black Jar
159(hex 0x9f). Ruby
160(hex 0xa0). Nice Gem
161(hex 0xa1). Opal
162(hex 0xa2). Star Ruby
163(hex 0xa3). Emerald
164(hex 0xa4). Blue Opal
165(hex 0xa5). Diamond
166(hex 0xa6). Amethyst
167(hex 0xa7). Fire Opal
168(hex 0xa8). Gem of Light
169(hex 0xa9). Black Urn
170(hex 0xaa). Dark Key
171(hex 0xab). Black Vase
172(hex 0xac). Light Key
173(hex 0xad). Golden Chalice
174(hex 0xae). Silk Tapestry
175(hex 0xaf). Painting
176(hex 0xb0). Golden Belt
177(hex 0xb1). Old Crown
178(hex 0xb2). Old Coin
179(hex 0xb3). Old Wine
180(hex 0xb4). Wand of Nikademus

Skeleton with item 66 & 67 might be as cross-referenced here: staff & short sword possible drop.

Let's take a different example:

Nikademus drop of 39 god robe & 98 god knife

Lord wood 97 halberd+6 and 39 god robe

You know, I see no mob dropping god armor or god sword. Go figure.

Barbarian 69 hammer and 103 healing potion 3.

Yeah tables could be updated. A lot of mobs you'd just have to take notes as you fought them.

 

[Francois424]

Quite correct on those items. I retro checked those last winter as I was doing an analysis of the game's structure seeing what would be required if someone was to (seriously) want to remake these games... Especially after the disastrous Phantasie "release" on Steam.
There where more weapons in Phantasie 1/2 and then bows where added in Phantasie3 but they removed some weapons (possibly to keep database same size or thereabouts), so I re-made the weapon database to include all of them. I did not however find anything about armor value or damage power, which probably exist (at least for damage), but some others are calculated from a lot of stats.
Finally I just started remaking Ultima3 in RPG Maker Instead... But who knows, maybe Someone will really remake the Phantasie series properly in the future.

Thanks for the post, KeighnMcDeath.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'd try Eldiron if you want to try something a little different. The dev would love more feedback on the engine. I was going to try putting ACS stuff into my custom. I hope his engine can cover a wide variety of rpg types. Way back I sort of did Ultima 3 in FRUA. That was kind of fun.

 

[Francois424]

So, did Harlin release a patch/mod for the PC version of any Phantasie game?

Not as far as I know. I did quote on his post last winter, but have not heard anything since his big post was made.
Still hoping as you never know, but... not much else.

 

[akkadian5]

I once heard somewhere that Phantasie for the Apple II was written in BASIC. Upon further investigation, it seems that it uses SSI's proprietary version of DOS and includes copy protection. However, I also found out that CiderPress can bypass this protection and allow viewing of the file system.

I’m not very familiar with how BASIC was typically handled during the Apple II era, but it seems that the original source files are stored directly on the disk in the case of Phantasie.

This is a language where GOTO statements were prevalent, so there is literal "spaghetti code" everywhere, not just as a metaphor. The variable names are cryptic two-letter codes. I'm not sure whether this is easier to decipher than disassembly or not.

 

[IronEye]

A remake made from the ground up has been mentioned a few times, so, to ask outright - how feasible is that legally?

Whether it's free or sold, I assume one would need permission from Douglas Wood first and foremost, as well as from EA (acquired Westwood?) and Ubisoft (eventually acquired SSI?) and any other devs/publishers involved with Phantasie(?). I don't know anything about copyrights really, so any insights would be appreciated.

(Ofc, it goes without saying that a Phantasie-like game written from scratch would be no problem, but I get the impression that's not the goal in this case.)