Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale Trilogy - remaster by Krome Studios

[AbounI]

What's considered to be a good time/level to change your mage's class?

You don't really need a Rogue, since the Hunter is a better killer and mages can just cast the cheap TRAPZAP spell at no risk.
EDIT: Although the Rogue's ability to Hide and attack monster that are far away should be quite useful at times.

Remembering one of my old battles in BT 3, my front line was battling hordes of creatures near me while the boss was sitting in the back laughing at me.
My rogue slowly crept up to him in the shadows though and took him out with a critical hit. The satisfaction was immense... I hope to experience this again.

Sadly, here it doesn't work : hide in shadow+ranged attack doesn't give a critical. Hope that will be fixed.

 

[Mortmal]

What's considered to be a good time/level to change your mage's class?

To quote from an old post (slightly editied) of mine:

In general I recommend developing Sorcerers, Wizards and Archmages ASAP. Start with base Conjurer or Magician class, then change to Sorcerer at level 7/spell level 3, and if possible switch back to the other base class after having gained the Sorcerer and Wizard lvl 7 spells. Gaining levels in the base classes is much faster than for the advenced classes, and current class level determines initiative (I'm fairly certain) and saving throws.
There are some differences between the games; no Archmage class in BT1, for example, so this is general advice.

Recommende parties:

BT1-2:
Paladin
Monk Hunter (assuming the Critical Hit bug is fixed).
Bard
Conjurer
Magician
Conjurer/Magician

Turn one mage into Archmage (learn all the spells), one into master Sorceror ASAP and the third into master Wizard ASAP.
In BT1 have them all end their careers in the opposite base class of that which they started in.
In BT2 the Archmage is a class.

You don't really need a Rogue, since the Hunter is a better killer and mages can just cast the cheap TRAPZAP spell at no risk.
EDIT: Although the Rogue's ability to Hide and attack monster that are far away should be quite useful at times.

Rogue is absolutely mandatory for bard's tale 3, its called thief of fate for a reason....

 

[Gregz]

I don't remember very well.

Is there any real benefit to carrying your BT1 party into BT2, or can you just reroll a new party and have the same power curve?

 

[Crispy]

It might not be altogether fair to allow a rogue to sit in the back with a bow and deal out crits after hiding, though. It makes more sense to force him or her to hide and "sneak up" on their backs in order to deliver a killing blow.

As long as the enemies' back row(s) can be reached with that, I'll be happy.

 

[Gregz]

It might not be altogether fair to allow a rogue to sit in the back with a bow and deal out crits

Drawing from my experience of playing a zen archer, I can confirm that this is completely fair.

 

[RatTower]

Is there any way to get the beta patch on GoG?

 

[aweigh]

The best beta patch is the one that unlocks DEVIL WHISKEY: The Bard's Legacy (available on GamersGate and other platforms):

 

[octavius]

Is there any real benefit to carrying your BT1 party into BT2, or can you just reroll a new party and have the same power curve?

Barring any unforeseen balancing done with the Remaster, I strongly suggest creating a new party for BT2.
An imported party will make BT2 too easy and boring, and the beginner dungeon in BT2 is very good.

 

[Dedup]

Interesting, in the beta patch the following two options have been added:

Add combat option to equip/unequip an item to make ranged combat more accessible.

Bows can now be equipped alongside melee weapons.

Interesting enough, I've discovered that you don't even need bows to fire arrows. You can equip just the arrows while having a melee weapon equipped and then in combat, using the arrows as an item fires them as if you had a bow equipped.

 

[Crispy]

Yeah, that's a bug that they fixed in the beta patch.

I've been using the beta patch now for several hours and it's great, especially the large world view option. Highly recommended.

 

[fabrulana]

It might not be altogether fair to allow a rogue to sit in the back with a bow and deal out crits after hiding, though. It makes more sense to force him or her to hide and "sneak up" on their backs in order to deliver a killing blow.

As long as the enemies' back row(s) can be reached with that, I'll be happy.

Yeah, this is what I meant with my story - it wasn't a ranged attack...

 

[fabrulana]

Is there any way to get the beta patch on GoG?

Don't think so, guess we will have to wait till it is released...

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Dehumanizer]

This is just personal preference, but to me a big part of the fun in games such as BT, Wizardry, Etrian Odyssey, etc., as opposed to, say, Dungeon Master, Eye of the Beholder, Grimrock and such, is switching around party members, leaving some in the Guild while you take others in expeditions, trying out different combinations, etc.. Simply creating an "optimal" party and never changing it, IMO, limits the game (though, by all means, do so if you prefer), besides meaning that you never use certain classes. I also find it more fun to have my current party members *not* be of exactly the same level (which would be the case if you never switched characters). And it's fun to add a level 1 character to a level 15 party and have him get almost a level per battle... as long as he survives.

 

[Gord]

Fun detail I just noticed: when you have a Bard play a song and change the instrument, so does the instrument of the music playing.
Don't know whether that was present in the originals, too. Anyway, nice touch.

 

[Dehumanizer]

Fun detail I just noticed: when you have a Bard play a song and change the instrument, so does the instrument of the music playing.
Don't know whether that was present in the originals, too. Anyway, nice touch.

I think only the Apple IIGS version did that.

 

[ProphetSword]

I'm actually really enjoying this version of the game. I haven't played Bard's Tale this much since I initially discovered it on my Commodore 64 back in like 1986. I had always felt it hadn't aged as well as other RPGs of the era.

 

[octavius]

So how is the combat mechanics?

The original BT 1 and 2 had a very crude system by which AC also governed chance to hit enemies. Has that changed?

 

[Gord]

So far my impresion is that to-hit is 100%. At least I don't really remember having read that I missed. But I'm only down to lvl 3 of the sewers...

Have been wrong there, misses do happen occasionally...

 

[CyberWhale]

I've been using the beta patch now for several hours and it's great, especially the large world view option. Highly recommended.

Pics?

Better, but still not big enough IMO. I like the smooth 3d scrolling when moving. Looks really IMMERSIVE.

 

[Sceptic]

You don't really need a Rogue, since the Hunter is a better killer and mages can just cast the cheap TRAPZAP spell at no risk.
EDIT: Although the Rogue's ability to Hide and attack monster that are far away should be quite useful at times.

With the way they seem to have redone the mechanics, I believe the best most fun party would be Paladin Hunter Bard Conjurer Magician, and either a Bard or Rogue in BT1, then whichever you didn't pick would fill the 7th slot in BT2-3. In the classic games I'd definitely have Monk initially and dump the Rogue whenever you need an NPC, but then you'd have a high level Rogue for BT3 when you need him. With the way the new combat works Rogue is more useful in BT1, but you could still rely on Trapzap. By the time the Monk starts becoming useless in BT3 it's time to turn him into a Geomancer. I had 3 Archmages for BT2-3 but always felt the 3rd one didn't do much.

 

[Gord]

So far my impresion is that to-hit is 100%. At least I don't really remember having read that I missed. But I'm only down to lvl 3 of the sewers...

I have to correct myself, I just had a few misses in the combat log. Seems I didn't pay attention before. Doesn't happen very often, though, at least against weaker enemies to-hit is close to 100% for my warrior, paladin, rogue and bard.

 

[Breshard]

Since a lot of stuff from later games seems to have been added into the remastered BT1 just curious if you can archmage in it now as well. Anyone gotten that high to check it out yet? That would be massively op in first game.

 

[Gord]

I started out with 6 heroes, but have now recruited a 7th (a Hunter). Thinking about getting rid of my Rogue in favour of my Hunter, to open up that last slot for summons again.
I'm using Trapzap ~90% of the time anyway, due to Disarm being much more dangerous while Trapzap is risk-free andg cheap. Also, to do any real damage, the Rogue has to go into hiding first, which fails quite often.
OTOH the Hunter has that crit chance for every attack and I just found a good hunter-only axe...

 

[Breshard]

I started out with 6 heroes, but have now recruited a 7th (a Hunter). Thinking about getting rid of my Rogue in favour of my Hunter, to open up that last slot for summons again.
I'm using Trapzap ~90% of the time anyway, due to Disarm being much more dangerous while Trapzap is risk-free andg cheap. Also, to do any real damage, the Rogue has to go into hiding first, which fails quite often.
OTOH the Hunter has that crit chance for every attack and I just found a good hunter-only axe...

Iirc there is a dagger that crits that is thief only in bt1 but it's a drop from like the later levels of Mangar's so you may not wish to stick with a thief until then.