Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[DraQ]

The main purpose is to remove the temptation to grind realms with these spells

Stop right there, criminal scum!
Removing the temptation to min-max, powergame and metagame by cutting core mechanics or content is bethesda way.

Improv'd.

Besides, you can grind alchemy by mixing pots, and grind realms and schools with detect secrets, x-ray, light, chameleon, armorplate, hypnotic lure, missile shield, magic screen, sonic boom and enchanted blade.
You can grind locks and traps by fiddling with any high level lock too, and grind most skills by running back and forth finding combat encounters.

Why single out charm, mindread and knock-knock?

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Remove Charm, Knock-Knock and Mindread from the castable spell list

These are the only means to get hybrids to at least passable casters like 40-50 points of skill (oh no! ninja could cast earth Alchemy spells, the weakest spells there are! horror!), they are unique and fun, and removing anything from game like that just seems wrong. Mod should fix things that are not fun, add new stuff, not scrap vanilla game of content intended to be there by developers.

The reason why that is (kinda forcing you to grind on hybrids), is that you just can't really spare points into realms, schools *and* fighting skills as it is. You'll be spreading yourself too thin, and hybrids are already lacking in melee compared to pure fighters even with equal skill. The question is, then, how do we motivate a player to invest in spell realms/schools, while keeping hybrid class up competitive in the melee/ranged department? Well, why don't we just give hybrids better unique gear (with +skills and +stats)! That way, they can keep investing in magic while not falling too much behind on fighting.

Re: "but devs wanted these spells to be castable by these classes in the game!" A Ninja with a 30 min of spare time can get his Alchemy + Earth to 80+ if not above IIRC. *that* is broken. Grinding Charm and Mindread is slower (1hr to max out?), but it's still broken. I really doubt those progress avenues were intended by developers. If that makes hybrids weaker, buff them in other places (like I mentioned).

I've already addressed the "fun" point. These spells will be kept in expendables - more than enough to make the most of "Mindread" flavour, while making lockpicking skill more valuable now that Knock-Knock usage is limited. It's actually more fun that way, IMO.

It seems like you guys are attacking a straw man (as if I wanted to remove these spells from the game entirely...)

Besides, you can grind alchemy by mixing pots, and grind realms and schools with detect secrets, x-ray, light, chameleon, armorplate, hypnotic lure, missile shield, magic screen, sonic boom and enchanted blade.
You can grind locks and traps by fiddling with any high level lock too, and grind most skills by running back and forth finding combat encounters.

Why single out charm, mindread and knock-knock?

The point isn't to remove grind. It's to remove the easiest, most broken avenues for grind. It takes very little time, comparatively, to max out respective skills with Charm/Knock-Knock/Mindread.

Casting the other spells you mention is not really worth it by just *grinding* (rest - recast - rest - recast), it would probably be faster to just play the game normally. Alchemy levels up fast when you mix potions, but that's OK IMO since it makes far more sense and is still way slower than spamming the same spell on the vault door.

An even easier workaround would be to adjust the speed by which they level, but I don't think that's possible via Cosmic Forge editor.

Stop right there, the temptation to min-max, powergame and metagame should only be removed by the players themselves, not the game.

See post above. Min-maxing is fine, but maxxing out that takes no time at all should be considered an exploit (like the quests that are bugged so you can get reward infinitely).

 

[Black]

More like Casualsaurus.

 

[Shadenuat]

I agree with DraQ, grinders gonna grind. Not like there is some other hidden meaning behind the whole Wizardry 8 fun. It's a game where you weee and nyaaa when numbers go up, spells unlock and your characters, after hours and hours of rape by rats, bats, bums, bugs, rhino furries, cute naked fairies... list goes on and on... become merciless gods of carnage.
I say grind, kill, grab, sell, meta and repeat if you want.
Or not.
Play how you like it.

and don't do anything to Arnika road

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Then why so many people talk about modding it in the first place? (Buff axes! Make *light sword* a fixed drop!)

Stuff like removing easy and broken avenues for grind is a significant gameplay improvement, in my view, provided the hybrids are buffed to compensate.

 

[Shadenuat]

Because adding something or making something a fixed drop is about enriching experience from a single played game ("I want to play a ninja with sai's, but I don't like to reload and grind place x*10 times or make 10 parties to do it, and I don't want to use save editor"). OMG TEH GRIND IS BROKEN is, on the other hand, a subjective matter.

 

[DraQ]

Also, if there is no way to adjust leveling rate manually, it's probably tied to spell's difficulty which might be tied to spell lvl and MP cost.
Make mindread lvl1 and cost 1SP.

There, solved. It's almost purely flavour spell anyway.

And grind is inevitable consequence of how Wiz8 does use-based component of its hybrid levelling system. You won't escape it by spamming nerfs and cuts left and right, because its core mechanics that's broken.

Don't go fucking bethesda on this game, it doesn't deserve such treatment.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I love Last Starfighter, but as far as I know, it's not a Carpenter movie...

Yes you're right, I don't know why I always thought it was. I probably confused it with "Star man".

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Because adding something or making something a fixed drop is about enriching experience from a single played game ("I want to play a ninja with sai's, but I don't like to reload and grind place x*10 times or make 10 parties to do it, and I don't want to use save editor"). OMG TEH GRIND IS BROKEN is, on the other hand, a subjective matter.

Both are subjective, btw... You say "I want to play a Ninja with Sai's", but that's purely subjective since there are other offensive options for a Ninja as well, you can do perfectly well without those (I remember I did), and Ninja is designed as a mainly ranged class (ranged crits ftw) not a melee anyway with the CoC-wielding Faerie Ninja being a hidden option. Yet it's an improvement in your mind and, well, it's a valid opinion since that's what the RPG discussion is for. To pretend that your idea is in some way objective while mine is subjective, well, is strange. An objective improvement is probably a bug fix, but that's it.

Also, if there is no way to adjust leveling rate manually, it's probably tied to spell's difficulty which might be tied to spell lvl and MP cost.
Make mindread lvl1 and cost 1SP.


There, solved. It's almost purely flavour spell anyway.

I don't think the relationship between spell cost/power and leveling is anywhere that simple. E.g. Knock-knock is a higher power and costlier spell than Charm, but is way faster to level.

And grind is inevitable consequence of how Wiz8 does use-based component of its hybrid levelling system. You won't escape it by spamming nerfs and cuts left and right, because its core mechanics that's broken.

Wizardry 8 almost never forces you to grind, since you progress naturally through exploration and combat and the game only gets easier with the occasional difficulty spikes (Rynjin, Nessie). The exception, like Shadenuat mentioned, is the hybrids that encourage you into boring and broken grind to bring them up to par in magic (spamming Knock-knock on thate vault door, or your risk your ninja being forever gimped in Alchemy).

Again, since a lot of mods aim for balancing, it's quite hard to balance for both those who take those easy/broken routes and those who don't. Removing easy/broken routes altogether makes balancing less of a headache.

Don't go fucking bethesda on this game, it doesn't deserve such treatment.

You mean cutting content? How does turning charm, knock-knock and mindread into expendables qualify? Surely, this should only make it even more fun and "hardcore" since you'll have to save your best lockpicks for the hardest locks, and mindread will now be accessible to any party comp so you'll be able to get its flavour even if you don't have a psionics caster in your party? Even if you think that it's good to restrict mindread flavour to specific comps as a "hidden reward", there are ways to do this for "mindread expendables" (e.g. a "mind focus" that only Psionics can use), that's not the issue here.

 

[Shadenuat]

To pretend that your idea is in some way objective while mine is subjective, well, is strange. An objective improvement is probably a bug fix, but that's it.

Oh you fucked my mind allright.
From a more practical viewpoint - there is no reason to put effort into something you may avoid by yourself and what is, eccentialy, is a choice of playstyle; while it is better to add more choices in your play (via larger amount of spells, equipment, ecetera).
Guess I just repeated myself with just a different word selection so whatever.
By the way you probably should add your opinion on the matter in the Workshop forum.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

From a more practical viewpoint - there is no reason to put effort into something you may avoid by yourself and what is, eccentialy, is a choice of playstyle; while it is better to add more choices in your play (via larger amount of spells, equipment, ecetera).

You did say yourself, though, that grinding easy spots like the vault door is the most viable way atm of bringing hybrids, like Ninja, up to par in magic. You could, say, put 6+ skillpoints into magic schools at levelup, but then you'd gimp yourself severely in the fighting department. Getting better through use isn't that great of an option either, since you start with 0 and casting lowly spells in-the-red simply wastes combat time and is simply boring (even the low-level backfires are pathetic).

Grinding the easy spots, though, is a bit of an overkill - suddenly, your Ninja has max Alchemy and Earth!

So then, why not buff hybrids by giving them better equipment, and the same time remove the opportunity for "super-grind"? You would feel free to put 6+ points into magic every level while letting your fighting skills go up naturally, but won't feel gimped in fighting since your swords 'n stuff will be just that good. Not necessarily good in the sense of "raw damage" (that's Fighter's privilege), but more % modifiers like Poison, Paralysis etc.

 

[Shadenuat]

the vault door

Just FYI, you really don't need vault door for that. Any door with 2 pins would do the trick, just cast Knock with 1 power on it and skill will raise. Wanted to get that "VAULT! VAULT!" from the way. Really.

As for your point, it is indeed the, not viable, but the easier way to do so for characters with Psionic and Alchemy books. And while I could agree that re-balancing classes to the point that it would be possible to make their magic and fighting abilities develop as fluid as they do for Mage and Priest books ("Magic Screen... Light!.. Magic Screen... Light!... Mag--..") would eccentialy be *good*, the way you proposed it (just cut the shit out!) is not worth it IMO. Rather, a better selection of spells would do the trick, with combination of some skills and weapons (Ninja really throws well even without skyhigh Throwing skill, even when dual wielding).
There is also other way to develop hybrids without exploits. That is to level-up them with 2 stats like STR/INT, SEN/INT, PIE/STR and concentrate heavely on casting, and use items and Superman to make them on par with front line fighters. It's just that Ninja is an elite class and he is the only one who has the most difficult leveling curve throughout hybrids.

If I would be allowed to dream, than I would fix spellbooks of hybrids by adding unique spells for them. For example, Ranger could get animal summoning spells, Ninja unique bombs, like that. But it kinda goes beyond the simple "Put the damn Muramasa into the game already!" which seems to be easier and everyone wants that.

Make mindread lvl1 and cost 1SP.

It's just that low-level spells should carry you only so much. Like, "Outside of combat, level 1 spells would not raise that skill if it is already > 10". And so on. There are ways to balance stuff. But they all would require some sort of hard-coding if not to break the balance of the game.
Using Mind Read on people to level up psionics is pretty natural and fits the free-roaming style of the game.

And you know what guys, I am not even dabbling into the whole nature of spellcasting in Wizardry 8. You know, that nature that battle magic actually sucks big elemental-shielded rapax dick? If anything, Knock and Mind Read are the lesser evils in this game. So my Ninja can cast Knock like a pro. Whatever. It's not like he can cast anything else like pro.

 

[DraQ]

Both are subjective, btw... You say "I want to play a Ninja with Sai's", but that's purely subjective since there are other offensive options for a Ninja as well, you can do perfectly well without those (I remember I did)

Not if you build dagger ninja only to discover that your only viable, Ninja exclusive weapons didn't drop.

and Ninja is designed as a mainly ranged class (ranged crits ftw) not a melee anyway

Ninja is far less ranged than Ranger or Gadgeteer, with much lower effective attack range, skill boost useful for both ranged and melee combat, and an array of exclusive melee weapons.

Wizardry 8 almost never forces you to grind, since you progress naturally through exploration and combat and the game only gets easier with the occasional difficulty spikes (Rynjin, Nessie). The exception, like Shadenuat mentioned, is the hybrids that encourage you into boring and broken grind to bring them up to par in magic (spamming Knock-knock on thate vault door, or your risk your ninja being forever gimped in Alchemy).

And you can grind those hybrids using myriad of other spells *BECAUSE* level system is broken.

If you're willing to spend your time staring at vault door instead of playing, then you're also willing to spend slightly more time casting and resting. Same mindset, really.

Actually, you'll probably be more inclined to cast those other spells, since those grinding exploits are not location constrained and can be used in small quantities while actually playing rather than staring at tumblers 'till your brain drips out of your ears.

Again, since a lot of mods aim for balancing, it's quite hard to balance for both those who take those easy/broken routes and those who don't. Removing easy/broken routes altogether makes balancing less of a headache.

Same with removing any other routes. Less of an RPG = easier to balance, duh.

You mean cutting content? How does turning charm, knock-knock and mindread into expendables qualify? Surely, this should only make it even more fun and "hardcore" since you'll have to save your best lockpicks for the hardest locks, and mindread will now be accessible to any party comp so you'll be able to get its flavour even if you don't have a psionics caster in your party? Even if you think that it's good to restrict mindread flavour to specific comps as a "hidden reward", there are ways to do this for "mindread expendables" (e.g. a "mind focus" that only Psionics can use), that's not the issue here.

Flavour from expendables means hardly anyone will actually experience it, due to hoarding expendables for whenever they might be needed.

Removing Knock-Knock spell will limit the number of viable party builds due to relying on limited consumables for progressing through the key points of the game.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Both are subjective, btw... You say "I want to play a Ninja with Sai's", but that's purely subjective since there are other offensive options for a Ninja as well, you can do perfectly well without those (I remember I did)

Not if you build dagger ninja only to discover that your only viable, Ninja exclusive weapons didn't drop.

and Ninja is designed as a mainly ranged class (ranged crits ftw) not a melee anyway

Ninja is far less ranged than Ranger or Gadgeteer, with much lower effective attack range, skill boost useful for both ranged and melee combat, and an array of exclusive melee weapons.

You should have read that entire paragraph instead of quoting this out of context. I wasn't arguing about Ninjas (as a matter of fact, I agree with Shadenuat on this one), merely illustrating the difference between subjective vs. objective fixes.

Wizardry 8 almost never forces you to grind, since you progress naturally through exploration and combat and the game only gets easier with the occasional difficulty spikes (Rynjin, Nessie). The exception, like Shadenuat mentioned, is the hybrids that encourage you into boring and broken grind to bring them up to par in magic (spamming Knock-knock on thate vault door, or your risk your ninja being forever gimped in Alchemy).

And you can grind those hybrids using myriad of other spells *BECAUSE* level system is broken.

If you're willing to spend your time staring at vault door instead of playing, then you're also willing to spend slightly more time casting and resting. Same mindset, really.

Actually, you'll probably be more inclined to cast those other spells, since those grinding exploits are not location constrained and can be used in small quantities while actually playing rather than staring at tumblers 'till your brain drips out of your ears.

If you're just playing the game normally (and not just spamming stuff when you can), I doubt your hybrids except possibly those with Divine magic will ever get out of the rut of being too shitty with magic to even seriously bother (I know my Samurais and Ninjas never did, unless I bothered to grind their skills like casting red-level Fireball for 1 point of damage just to get that skill up, or forfeiting their combat skill development). This is a gameplay issue to address, imo - the hybrids don't reach their full potential until it's endgame and it doesn't matter by then.

Again, since a lot of mods aim for balancing, it's quite hard to balance for both those who take those easy/broken routes and those who don't. Removing easy/broken routes altogether makes balancing less of a headache.

Same with removing any other routes. Less of an RPG = easier to balance, duh.

There's a difference between fun shortcuts and borderline exploits. In another example, vanilla Morrowind had a totally broken enchantment system (unintentionally). Should devs have tried fixing it by nerfing it with a patch, as they did, or tried to adapt the whole game to the people abusing enchantment?

You mean cutting content? How does turning charm, knock-knock and mindread into expendables qualify? Surely, this should only make it even more fun and "hardcore" since you'll have to save your best lockpicks for the hardest locks, and mindread will now be accessible to any party comp so you'll be able to get its flavour even if you don't have a psionics caster in your party? Even if you think that it's good to restrict mindread flavour to specific comps as a "hidden reward", there are ways to do this for "mindread expendables" (e.g. a "mind focus" that only Psionics can use), that's not the issue here.

Flavour from expendables means hardly anyone will actually experience it, due to hoarding expendables for whenever they might be needed.

Removing Knock-Knock spell will limit the number of viable party builds due to relying on limited consumables for progressing through the key points of the game.

It's easy to make such expendables very cheap (e.g. a cheap mindread expendable that you can buy from a store with 100 charges will more than suffice for 1 playthrough, and you can always buy more when the shop re-stocks).

It's hard to end up with a party that doesn't have at least one person that can pick locks (no Ninjas, Bards, Rogues, Gadgeteers), and even vanilla will punish you for it since there are quite a few locks that you face before even getting access to Knock-knock. Even then you can invite Myles, Saxx, Madras. On top of that, adding more lockpicking consumables should make even a lockpick-less party build capable of opening all locks (though it will cost more them, obviously - just make the best tools rare and expensive

the vault door

Just FYI, you really don't need vault door for that. Any door with 2 pins would do the trick, just cast Knock with 1 power on it and skill will raise. Wanted to get that "VAULT! VAULT!" from the way. Really.

Err, casting spell at more power makes it go up in levels faster. Sure, you can spam your lvl1 Knock on 3 tumblers, but it will take an eternity compared to spamming max lvl Knock on the vault door. VAULT DOOR! VAULT DOOOOORRRR! muahahahah

I agree with most of your other points, it's just that I'm surprised that replacing 3 castable spells with consumables would cause such an upstir - this would add gameplay content by adding a bit more resource management and trade-offs, if anything.

 

[Shadenuat]

Sure, you can spam your lvl1 Knock on 3 tumblers, but it will take an eternity

About 10 mins for 20+ skill points or more. I did't notice much difference.

I know my Samurais

Well you just put 3 points in Wizardry and some points into Critical Strike, Swords and Dual Wielding, don't forget to up INT every level 3 points, and then you get Missile Shield, Enchanted Blade and Light, and stuff will start to grow naturally. My samurai at level 11 can cast green Level 4 Fireball.

Afterall, planning is part of hybrid's charm. They should be pain that way.

 

[Monocause]

Started wiz8 again, this time in a following setup:

- Dracon Fighter
- Felpurr Samurai
- Hobbit Rogue
- Human Ranger
- Elf Mage -> Bishop at lvl2 (multiclassing a specialist into bishop at lvl2 makes an all-round better and more early-game useful character) specced into wizardry/divinity
- Faerie Alchemist -> Bishop at lvl2 (same as above) specced for alchemy/psionics

It's my first party without either bard or gadgeteer. TBH I always found the bard to be pretty lacklustre, lagging behind in both combat and "spellcasting" department. The gadgeteers get awesome with the omnigun, but it takes a long time. Another aspect about these two classes is that finding instruments/gadgets can be a chore, especially since I never finished the game yet so I don't really know where they all are - and I don't like to consult walkthroughs/faqs if I can avoid it.

My new party, on the other hand, feels quite nice to play, and everyone is quite useful. I've been wondering at making 2,5 specialist spellcasters (bishop specced for div and psi, wiz, alch) instead of the two bishops+ranger back row setup, once I finish the monastery with this party I'll roll another like that and see how they play.

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Sure, you can spam your lvl1 Knock on 3 tumblers, but it will take an eternity

About 10 mins for 20+ skill points or more. I did't notice much difference.

It starts to count later - the higher your skill is, the harder it is to get it up.

I know my Samurais

Well you just put 3 points in Wizardry and some points into Critical Strike, Swords and Dual Wielding, don't forget to up INT every level 3 points, and then you get Missile Shield, Enchanted Blade and Light, and stuff will start to grow naturally. My samurai at level 11 can cast green Level 4 Fireball.

Afterall, planning is part of hybrid's charm. They should be pain that way.

With just 3 points in Wizardry and 0 in schools, your magic spells will be in the red, even lvl1 stuff... I assume you just spammed the "red" Fireball in easy fights over and over and over to get it up? Wouldn't an alternative route of letting you put points in schools as well as Wizardry (and compensating Samurai with better fighting gear) feel a bit less "grindy"?

I think that's the go-to way of leveling a "magic Samurai" atm - investing most into magic at the expense of fighting. Thing is, this "late bloomer" blooms to late - by the time you can cast stuff comfortably *and* fight acceptably, it's the end already - unless you grind, that is.

 

[Shadenuat]

I usually put some into Fire and Ice realms, but not much. Just to feel more comfortable when casting level 1 spells.

Samurai has a decent gear. Able to use most of swords and medium armor is good enough. If anything I would't add new gear, but add new spells instead. For example, battle spells which somehow convert his sword damage into magic damage (animu-style).

 

[DraQ]

You should have read that entire paragraph instead of quoting this out of context. I wasn't arguing about Ninjas (as a matter of fact, I agree with Shadenuat on this one), merely illustrating the difference between subjective vs. objective fixes.

Making logical and legitimate build based on class exclusive weapons viable rather than relying on random chance IS an objective fix.

There's a difference between fun shortcuts and borderline exploits. In another example, vanilla Morrowind had a totally broken enchantment system (unintentionally). Should devs have tried fixing it by nerfing it with a patch, as they did, or tried to adapt the whole game to the people abusing enchantment?

They have "fixed" it by nerfing enchantement and removing it as skill (looks familiar?). In Oblivion. Guess what? Fix sucked more balls than the exploit ever did.

Of course, they could've fixed it by tweaking benefits from enchant skill, and making enchanted items drain when not worn (also CE charges when the item does something), similarly you could fix knock-knock by tweaking it, or make mindread only boost skills when you learn something new with it.

It's easy to make such expendables very cheap (e.g. a cheap mindread expendable that you can buy from a store with 100 charges will more than suffice for 1 playthrough, and you can always buy more when the shop re-stocks).

So you will just grind items or mix potions, then stock up on knockpicks to prevent vaultspotting.

Awesome.

It's hard to end up with a party that doesn't have at least one person that can pick locks (no Ninjas, Bards, Rogues, Gadgeteers), and even vanilla will punish you for it since there are quite a few locks that you face before even getting access to Knock-knock.

You get Poseur's Cap and knockpicks from the very beginning. I don't see any reason for those items other than legitimizing parties with no, or poor lockpickers.

With just 3 points in Wizardry and 0 in schools, your magic spells will be in the red, even lvl1 stuff...

Sounds like 4-school bishop everyone's been talking about.

I assume you just spammed the "red" Fireball in easy fights over and over and over to get it up?

And why the fuck not? You have moments in fights when your hybrids aren't doing anything particularly useful, so if your samurai or lord is wielding bloodlust, why not pop all the spells you can before the enemy gets in melee? If the enemy got uncomfortably close to your ranger or ninja, why not blinding flash or noxious fumes them? If your monk has high initiative, why not make the enemy insane or slowed? Why not cast some hypnotic lure before battle, or haste at the beginning, or eye for an eye if the enemy can spam AoE spells?

Wouldn't an alternative route of letting you put points in schools as well as Wizardry (and compensating Samurai with better fighting gear) feel a bit less "grindy"?

If you put 3 points into class skill and another 3 into magic school, you're still left with 3 points to distribute as you see fit.

TBH I always found the bard to be pretty lacklustre, lagging behind in both combat and "spellcasting" department.

Bard is pretty malleable. You can make whatever you want out of him or her. Want to have combat bard? Bloodlust, good offhand dagger or staff, bard specific armour and rings, points in combat skills in addition to music and you're rolling, you just have to manage that stamina. Something slightly safer, but still built for combat? Amulet of Healing and Staff of Doom. Ranged? Find some good shootan and pelt enemy with projectiles in between playing.

Etc.

Interesting point about speicalist to bishop, BTW, must... resist... urge... to... reroll... and... test... new... shiny... party build.

 

[Shadenuat]

Bard can shoot Bow pretty well, because SEN is complementary to his Music skill. Two almost guaranteed bow shots for my bard now, with a messy combination of INT and SEN (for every "social" skill out there) and VIT and DEX for playing instruments and shooting.

And why the fuck not? You have moments in fights when your hybrids aren't doing anything particularly useful

M:

 

[Rpgsaurus Rex]

Making logical and legitimate build based on class exclusive weapons viable rather than relying on random chance IS an objective fix.

It's still only your opinion, meaning it's subjective (at least in the colloquial sense, objective describes a fact that can't be disputed). I can think of several perfectly logical counter-arguments to allowing an easy melee build on Ninja, one for instance being that they are already OP as a class (esp. if you powergame or try a solo/duo route), and flexible enough as is. You want more variety and more builds, fine, but that's not an objective truth of how Wiz8 ought to be.

You could fix knock-knock by tweaking it, or make mindread only boost skills when you learn something new with it.

Maybe with some advanced hex hacking skills, but not with what CF editor allows. We are talking about what's in range of a Wiz8 modder, not a Codex Workshop ideal game scenario.

So you will just grind items or mix potions, then stock up on knockpicks to prevent vaultspotting.

Awesome.

Quantity vs. quality difference. Stuff like mixing potions is a tolerable sort of grind since it takes a very long time and costs a fortune (assuming the Alchemy abuse is fixed as well), unlike spending 30 minutes to max out your Alchemy and Earth for free.

With just 3 points in Wizardry and 0 in schools, your magic spells will be in the red, even lvl1 stuff...

Sounds like 4-school bishop everyone's been talking about.

Bishop is a totally different scenario since all he does in combat is cast spells. As a Samurai, for instance, you're almost always better off slashing at opponents instead of spamming a weakly nuke in close quarters.

 

[Monocause]

DraQ:

Yeah, it's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about (ab)using the multiclassing system in Wiz8 and figured that specialist spellcasters are the best for converting into hybrids (at lvl5) or elites.

With specialist-bishop conversion it's pretty much a no-brainer. You get to keep whatever skills you learned, get access to other spellbooks and better equipment selection at the cost of the higher levelling cost for elite classes. IMHO the most profitable one to do is mage->bishop, as you get to keep the starting mage bonus to wizardry and 5 skill points in all of the elemental domains, which - needless to say - is a huge help early game in making your bishop carry his own weight.

At an added side, specialists have lower initial stat requirements which means that even when you add the required stats to be able to multiclass into a bishop you can put more points into intelligence and piety from the get go.

A short sidestep towards bishops here - many people on the net claim that a 4-school bishop is the way to go. It simply is not, unless he's the only spellcaster in your party or you love grinding and gimping yourself. First you need to brave the Arnika road with a dead weight instead of an able caster. Then you need to grind alchemy to sell pots to get the cash for spellbooks. Then you need to practice a lot to make the bishop barely able to cast anything at all, because since you weren't really casting all the way to Arnika pretty much only SP he's got in the relevant skills are from levelups and his domains are probably empty.

It's much better to focus your bishop on two schools from the get go. This allows you to be more liberal with spellpicks, cast away in the monastery etc. In Arnika, if you feel like it, you can buy some spells from neglected schools and grind him up anyway but I don't think it's worth it. In other words - having two spellbooks is a large advantage over having just one. Having four spellbooks is a meagre advantage over having the two of them.



The specialist-hybrid conversion needs to be tested. I was thinking about making a dracon priest and converting her into a valkyrie at level 5. That way she retains her divinity skill remaining a competent healer which allows her to concentrate on improving fighting skills. On one hand this is the better way if you want a competent spellcasting hybrid; on the other I don't know what happens with spell selection at that point. By lvl5 an ordinary priest would have access to level 3 spells while a Hybrid would need lvl 9 for that; the question is if you lose the lvl2 spells you already had. Still, seems a better deal than sticking with the priest which seems to be a waste - if you want healing you can get an alchemist, if you want healing&buffs get a divinity-focused bishop.

I'm also considering dualing the priest into a lord at lvl5. That way he'd also have a bit of mace training to kickstart his fighting.


Let's philosoraptor a little about multiclassing in general:

FIGHTER: IDK if it makes much sense to start with a fighter and multiclass into something else. You could do it for better initial stat distribution, I suppose. Say, start out with a Felpurr fighter, get your speed up to 70 that way. You'd then be able to multiclass into a samurai at lvl 3 (need 5 more points spent on INT) and AFAIK there's no downside to this (aside from the samurai starting equipment which isn't that stellar) so it boils down to minmaxing. It would be a decent deal if you planned a non-spellcasting samurai. Different variations would be possible with other hybrids.

HYBRIDS: If you start out with these I suppose it's simply better to stick to them without multiclassing. I can't see any obvious benefits of changing classes; hybrids are cool due to their class-specific abilities (cheat death, lightning stike etc) and you lose them when you switch.

BARD&GADGETEER: The gadgeteer is out of the question UNLESS you are willing to abandon the omnigun. If so, a switch to modern-weapons based ranger is possible when you max out engineering; it will be so late in the game that there's the question whether it's worth it at all though. Same with the bard though I suppose it's easier to get music up than engineering. Due to these classes dependence on skills they're also a poor target to switch from something else.

ROGUE: Can be used for better stat distribution just like fighters and specialist mages - use it as a background for the monk, the ninja and the ranger. Also, a tempting idea is to get stealth up and then switch to fighter; I suppose the AC you'd reach with heavy armor and stealth could get ridiculous, and berserk can substitute for lost backstabbing ability. You also can build up swords instead of daggers so that when you switch to fighter you get a dual-wielding unhittable motherfucker. Switching a rogue into a samurai could work too.

SPECIALIST CASTERS: described above, with the caveat that the only real advantage specialist casters hold over bishops seems to be the quicker levelling. Priest's special is too random, Alchemist's special becomes useless once you get access to decent vendors, psionic's and mage's specials are all-round meh as you'll be casting shielding spells anyway. The bonus to relevant schools probably stops being so relevant around mid-game unless you're a masochist and chose a four school bishop in which case you can masturbate to having a useful character near the end-game or like the tedium of grinding charm, mindread and knock-knock.

The thing is - you can multiclass to a bishop anytime you want. A lvl2 multiclass makes a better bishop already but if you want to specialise further in a single school then you can wait a couple more levels before bishopification. Switching at lvl5 will make your primary spellbook well developed, and the skill points you've gathered in magic domains will help you learn other books quickly. I'd go as far as to say that a multiclassed bishop is pretty much always better than a vanilla bishop, even if you go for a 4-book one due to the fact that when you switch you can actually cast shit.

Another thing, also described above, is switching a spec caster into a hybrid. A wizard-> samurai or psionic->monk don't sound that good (both wiz and psi are exceedingly squishy while sam and monk are supposed to be out front), but an alchemist->ranger is better; the priest seems the best choice for hybridisation as the divinity spellbook is rather lacklustre on its own; switching him to a lord or a valk (keep in mind that you'll start with 0 polearms though) is the quickest way to get a competent fighter/healer/buffer.

An alchemist->ranger or priest->valk could be a decent 4th character, with their ranged/extended attacks and spellcasting. A priest->lord could make a decent frontliner with better spellcasting then your vanilla lord would probably achieve. An alchemist-> ninja is also a possibility since your DEX is high and you'd use thrown weapons from the start, but keep in mind that if you switch to a ninja you won't get the ninja armor which means that you'll be running around in robes till the end of the game.

 

[Monocause]

Just made some tests and came to surprising conclusions.

First of all, while the in-game character sheet never tells you that it keeps track of each class' levels separately - it does. This effectively means that a lvl5 switch from a specialist mage to hybrid isn't viable unless you're willing to wait these four more levels with your spellcasting in stasis. It isn't that of a bad deal actually - consider making a switch at lvl6. That way your hybrid would have access to lvl3 spells right off the bat and a fairly built up (in the range of 30-40 probs) school skill and some domain skills. It might be worth it depending on your expectations and your playstyle. From my experience it takes a couple of levels to get a hybrid's spellcasting to an acceptable level anyway

Alternately you might consider switching a specialist mage to a hybrid at lvl2. Your spellcasting ability will return at effective CL6 instead of 5, but you'll have the spellbook skill boost from the specialist mage to compensate for that, along with any SP you managed to train before the switch. The priest is still a good thing to base a hybrid off as an additional healer will come in handy during the early levels.

I'm kinda disappointed TBH; seems like the multiclassing system offers much less choice than it seems to, and most of the time you'll be just gimping yourself. Wish there was more synergy between classes.

EDIT: my discovery also shows that there is a thing to consider if you'd like to try the non-vanilla bishop: your class level will be lower by one point which means that you'll get access to higher level spells one level later than a vanilla bishop or a specialist mage (4 for lvl2, 6 for lvl3 etc etc). I don't think that's a huge trade-off, personally.

 

[I_am_Ian]

Multiclassing seems to require training in most circumstances to compensate for the stagnation in growth. If you switch a level 18 Bard with max music skill to a fighter he is now a level one fighter for the next 500,000 exp points or whatever it is. So any level-dependent bonuses that a fighter gets will take ages to acquire multiclassing in this manner.

A better use of class switching is making a rogue and training stealth to max at level one and then turning him into whatever. The new class will keep all the stealth and be level one with level two exp requirements which seems like a decent compromise.

But I'm against this sort of metagaming so I do not ever multiclass. The game is easy enough as it is.

 

[Monocause]

I_am_Ian:

We were both wrong. I did some further testing and multiclassing is - again - not as useless as I previously thought.

See, there is no such thing as "level dependent bonuses" for a fighter. None. I used a savegame editor to grant a character tons of XP and experiment with levelling. Only the stats and skills make a difference. I created a dwarven lord, levelled him up to level 10, then gave him a level of a priest. He still had the same combat stats as the level 10 lord + the skill increases during the priest level up, and vice versa. Experimented with this in a lot of ways and I can safely confirm that fe. multiclassing your bard after you max out music, or multiclassing a mage after he learns all the spells is purely of benefit. You just need to plan how do you wish to expand your skillset. If your bard used the bow a lot then perhaps going ranger will be of benefit? You'd gain ranged criticals while your ranged combat skill is already pretty high meaning that you don't need much ranger level ups to rack up those instakills. Rogue for backstabs and stealth and fighters for heavy armor are decent choices too.

This means that multiclassing a rogue into a stealthy fighter is completely viable, even at higher levels (when your stealth skill can get high without grinding). You lose nothing except the backstab ability, which is offset by heavy armor and berserk; if your rogue used swords you get something that arguably is better than a pure fighter as it is nigh-on unhittable. Should you manage to get your rogue's stealth and lockpicking (and pickpocket, if you use it) skills to a level that is high enough for you there isn't a real reason to stick with a pure rogue.

I also found out that specialist->hybrid MC is better than I thought. See, the caster levels *do* carry over. If you, say, start a priest and multiclass into Lord at level 5 (not 6, as I previously stated) then once you reach level 9 (4 priest + 5 lord) you're treated as a level 5 spellcaster for all purposes and, if your divinity is at least 30 (and it should be by the time you multiclass) you're able to cast level 3 spells just like a standard level 9 hybrid could.

If you make a mage->bishop multiclass once you reach lvl3 (1 mage, 2 bishop) you will be able to learn lvl 2 spells in the wizardry school but for the others you'll have to wait one more level.

Another thing of note: this means that making a mixed mage-bishop build effectively means you have a half-specialist. At lvl 18 split evenly your bishop will have access to all the mage spells and lvl4 spells from other schools. This can be a nice middle-ground character and his level up tempo will be somewhere between a specialist mage and a bishop (probably will be lagging behind hybrids a bit but it will make a noticeable difference in comparison to a pure elite). If anyone tries that, I suggest picking a faerie for the intelligence and MP regen boost countered with equipment limitations which won't hurt you anyway since you wouldn't really benefit from bishop's better armor selection when crossing him with mage.

The point from a previous post of mine - that you can MC a specialist to a bishop whenever you feel like it - stands again. It'll expand your casting portfolio and equip selection at the cost of slower levelling.

This also makes the priest->lord MC superior to a pure lord - the only downside is that your dual wield is going to be neglected for a couple of levels and there'll be a minimal difference in total hit points. You can also alternate between priest and lord levels until switching completely to Lord at lvl9 to alleviate the dual wield issue somewhat at the cost of having access to worse equipment during the later priest levels. Combat-wise this build works pretty much the same as a pure lord - it'll have the same combat stats if you spend points correctly, and it'll have superior spellcasting to whatever you can reasonably assume to achieve by lvl9 with a pure hybrid.

An alchemist->ranger sounds viable again too. Just put these points into ranged combat on each alchemist level up and plan out your stats accordingly.