Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[TigerKnee]

I think Samurais can't naturally use a lot of Polearms in regular Wiz8 - giving them Polearms access was a Wiz 8 Enhancements change.

Lots of things to say about Wiz 8 balance/class design but I don't have time to go in-depth right now.

 

[Whipping Post]

what should your end party ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS be when playing Wiz 1 - 5??

it should be: Lord, Lord, Ninja, Samurai, Ninja, Bishop.

What kind of party would you run through a VI, VII and 8 marathon?

 

[aweigh]

yeah i forgot about the gay ass changes in Wiz 8; samurais have used pole arms since Wiz 3 man.

ugh wiz 7 and 8 are such decline. they are casual as FUCK.

i need to go play some wiz 5 right now.

 

[aweigh]

for 6, 7 8? a completely normal, not min-maxed all 6 chars there to serve/cover a traditional and specific purpose and no multi-classing.

so probably Fighter, Lord, Ssamurai, Thief (the only one to eventually class into something else; obviously ninja though this is less important in wiz 6-8 as bradley gimped them to hell and back and made the class completely worthless)-- priest and mage. oh, yeah i forgot, the priest will class into a bishop upon graduation of priest school and the mage will class into a priest so he use some M-range weaponry.

the fighter, lord, samurai will almost 100% certainly stay in original classes. the fighter's super high HP will be very useful and his top-notch AC/gear; throughout all three games.

note that upon reaching wiz 8 the lord will become worthless... might even want to change him to a monk or even to a regular fighter as they are much better than lords in wiz 8. if he could get a sex change def change him to valk.

also feel free to substitute the thief->ninja for a bard since from wiz 6 onwards bradley decided bards are easy mode for every scenario. in wiz 6 the sleep lute the bard starts with will make the beginning areas an absolute cakewalk. tbh bards are better than thiefs and ninjas in wiz 6 - wiz 8.

 

[aweigh]

you know i i'm kind of itching now to fire up wiz 8 and roll 6 valks. no fucks given.

 

[Lady_Error]

ugh wiz 7 and 8 are such decline. they are casual as FUCK.

8 yes, 7 no.

 

[Scroo]

And Wizardry 8 is still a good game due to the excellent character advancement system.

Also aweigh what's it with the tripleposting you started recently, did you adblock the edit button?

 

[aweigh]

i always feel if i post something and i immediately receive further insight that i should make a seperate post because if i edit the original one then there is a high risk that the person who is going to reply to my post only read the first version of it; and he or she is currently busy writing his own wall of text and therefore will not be aware that i have now modified my post.

this person will then post his post and then a common scenario is probable: i would have to remind the person that i have edited my previous post.

so i realized a few months ago the best way to eliminate that worry and keep conversations rolling and the think tank sperging is to not edit your posts-- otherwise the person responding might just miss reading your edit.

 

[Essegi]

Thanks guys for insight... At least i guess i got first part of party ok...
Switching mage to samurai and priest to lord looks cool... Still... If i keep them single class (if that term applies...) can i have some issues (i mean, will the game be really hard? I don't care to have one of the most badass squads)?
Or maybe i can switch just one just to try a full fledged caster and a multiclass... I just dunno wich in that case. I've understood that mage is so frail... But priest seems not to be so so exciting (and Valk has some diivne magic...).
Or maybe i should just start playing with plain classes and stop chatting.

don't have enough patience to deal with sound bug of 6

There has been a fix for audio popping for a long time. Here is a link to a Wizardry 6 and 7 Automap Mod DOSBox build that fixes audio popping and as the name implies, has an optional automap for both games.

Thanks, i didn't knew about automap for 6 and 7. For sound bug i know about dosbox builds, last time i tried it it wasn't perfect (i tried also freedos but i wasn't able to run Wiz6 in it).

 

[TigerKnee]

Ok, I'm back on the topic of Wiz 8 design.

I think there was some transitional confusion in the design paradigm of the classes that could have been fixed out if they had an additional game to work on but moot point because they didn't and the Japanese just went back to 1-5 so it's basically a dead end branch.

The problem is that the classes "charge" (as in make you pay for it in extra XP and stat requirements) for "theoretical potential power" and not the actual end result given how the skill points system work - giving a static amount of points per level that is basically only enough to tune up around 3 skills per level.

To elaborate: On paper, a Ninja can fight in melee, in range with throwing weapons, can do thief stuff like lockpick and finally cast Alchemy spells. So it gets the "Elite" highest EXP to level rate alongside Bishop. In practice it can do at most TWO of them because that's how far your level up skill points get you unless you want to participate in very tedious lock/spell grinding. So that EXP penalty was unwarranted (and somewhat fixed in Enhancements).

Spellcasters get it bad in general and I think this is sadly a Wiz 8 fault for splitting it into too many sub-categories - you can barely focus your points into your main spellcasting skill (e.g Magery. Psionics) and 2 "Elements" (out of like 5 total) whereas I believe Wiz 6-7 only had the main spellcasting skill leaving them free to develop some secondary skills outside of spellcasting.

There's also the lack of good "breakpoints" for Direct Damage magic where you have a "good enough offense" and can spend points on more important areas - you always want to max your offense because of HP bloat and thus DD hybrids get the shaft - there's just not enough points to be good at fighting physically AND magically. The Buff spells are different because if you only want your Samurai around to cast Enchanted Weapon/Element Shield and other practically mandatory buffs, you need only a modest investment instead of maxing them out.

This is why Fighters-types are good in Wizardry 8, especially if you use a 2H weapon - all you need then is Close Combat and (Weapon Skill), then you have a whole bunch of choices for your 3rd - Artifacts/Throwing for better consumable usage, a utility like Mythology (although those could definitely be made stronger) and so on. If you want to go into Dual-Wielding then that's sadly a bit more skill point hungry because you potentially need 4 skills maxed out then (add in Dual Weapon and usually another weapon skill because only Dagger and Maces have good Off-Hand choices)

You take these points and you can draw upon them to figure out why Valkyries are good - their weapon of choice (Polearms) is 2H, and their spell school is buff-orientated... in other words, it minimizes the "skill point requirements" while inherently providing a strong core package and offering some flexibility on the side.

What I suggest for a theoretical Wiz 9 is for the classes to be naturally competent in all their stated areas and skill points be used to either specialize even further for a competitive or branch out - instead of giving you just enough to barely hit the standard effectiveness rate for most classes.

 

[TigerKnee]

Thanks guys for insight... At least i guess i got first part of party ok...
Switching mage to samurai and priest to lord looks cool... Still... If i keep them single class (if that term applies...) can i have some issues (i mean, will the game be really hard? I don't care to have one of the most badass squads)?
Or maybe i can switch just one just to try a full fledged caster and a multiclass... I just dunno wich in that case. I've understood that mage is so frail... But priest seems not to be so so exciting (and Valk has some diivne magic...).
Or maybe i should just start playing with plain classes and stop chatting.

Wizardry 8 has been beaten with just about every possible combination of party as long as you aren't intentionally gimping yourself like 6 Fairy Ninjas.

Learning proper skill point distribution helps a lot more than class composition - Hybrids are much harder to build than single-class, a party with 2 Bishops may be stronger than the one with a Mage/Priest, but only if you know what you're doing - otherwise it's way too easy to make a worthless jagoff in the hardest part of the game (the early game)

 

[Essegi]

Thanks guys for insight... At least i guess i got first part of party ok...
Switching mage to samurai and priest to lord looks cool... Still... If i keep them single class (if that term applies...) can i have some issues (i mean, will the game be really hard? I don't care to have one of the most badass squads)?
Or maybe i can switch just one just to try a full fledged caster and a multiclass... I just dunno wich in that case. I've understood that mage is so frail... But priest seems not to be so so exciting (and Valk has some diivne magic...).
Or maybe i should just start playing with plain classes and stop chatting.

Wizardry 8 has been beaten with just about every possible combination of party as long as you aren't intentionally gimping yourself like 6 Fairy Ninjas.

Learning proper skill point distribution helps a lot more than class composition - Hybrids are much harder to build than single-class, a party with 2 Bishops may be stronger than the one with a Mage/Priest, but only if you know what you're doing - otherwise it's way too easy to make a worthless jagoff in the hardest part of the game (the early game)

Thanks, i think that solves my doubts. I'll just go with plain classes (wich i had chosen thinking about skills) and learn the game.

 

[Ninjerk]

Thanks guys for insight... At least i guess i got first part of party ok...
Switching mage to samurai and priest to lord looks cool... Still... If i keep them single class (if that term applies...) can i have some issues (i mean, will the game be really hard? I don't care to have one of the most badass squads)?
Or maybe i can switch just one just to try a full fledged caster and a multiclass... I just dunno wich in that case. I've understood that mage is so frail... But priest seems not to be so so exciting (and Valk has some diivne magic...).
Or maybe i should just start playing with plain classes and stop chatting.

Wizardry 8 has been beaten with just about every possible combination of party as long as you aren't intentionally gimping yourself like 6 Fairy Ninjas.

Learning proper skill point distribution helps a lot more than class composition - Hybrids are much harder to build than single-class, a party with 2 Bishops may be stronger than the one with a Mage/Priest, but only if you know what you're doing - otherwise it's way too easy to make a worthless jagoff in the hardest part of the game (the early game)

Every time I've started Wiz8 I've gotten this feeling that I need to know the advancement system before I even start the game and it's kept me from trying to go very far on the RtA. Good to know this isn't necessarily the case.

 

[aweigh]

wiz 8 system is very simple. it's actually simpler than the same system in wiz 6. i tihnk if you even remotely like wiz 8 you should stop what you're doing RIGHT NOW and go play wiz 6. and if it gives you trouble on dosbox motherfucking play it on snes it's the same shit. sadly it is the final good Wiz game.

yes! the FINAL. THE FINAL GOOD WIZ GAME. except maybe parts of Wiz 8. I SAID IT'S THE FINAL GOGODNAO GAMER FOGOIUNDAW

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Something like that:

Warrior (because kicks major ass and i like weapon experts, even if it falls a bit on late game)
Valkyrie (sounds like a damg good class)
Ranger (maybe not the strongest but if helps searching smoothing gameplay it's a big plus)
Gadgeteer (become strong late game and can pick locks, seems that it suck on early game tho)
Mage
Priest

Heh, partybuidling in Wiz8 is a great topic. TigerKnee already said the most important thing: you can make any party work and the best idea is to try what you want and have fun learning the ropes.

That said, if you want some quick pointers:

1. Priest can cast the best/most important spells in the game the quickest and can become a respectable fighter + doesn't really need intelligence which is a boon to his fighting abilities. Unfortunately, all this doesn't stop it from being the worst class in the game. Additionally, you've picked a valk, and having one of valkyrie or lord in the party makes priest almost completely obsolete.
2. Ranged characters (ranger, gadgie) are problematic and definitely not very user friendly. Their killing power is horrible at the start and the ammo weighs a lot and will frequently make your party suffer initiative penalties. Also, advanced characters burn through ammo in no time. Gadgie is the suckiest class in the initial phase of the game, but becomes a serious asset later on. Advanced ranger can impress with high-tier ammo and some crit kills, but in general I'd say it's the second worst class after priest. Oh, and one minor point - gadgie can spam magical searching non-stop as soon as you get the proper components.
3. Bard and rogue are awesome and definitely recommended for your first party. Bard is the ultimate support than can also become a very capable melee/ranged fighter. Rogue is unsurpassed in killing potential, gains levels quickly, can get epic skills the quickest and has awesome defense thanks to the stealth skill.

status affecting and party buffing spells are where its at in Wiz8 and you don't need a specialized caster to do those things .

Uh, you do in exactly the same way you do with direct dmg spells? The only difference is for casting the pre-buffs for which you can savescum, but with non-pure casters it will take looong time before you get high dice for them.

A mage starts out with very high int at the beginning, and if you flip to samurai, you'll still have high enough intelligence to make a serviceable mage for the first half of the game without having to put another point into it. Intelligence will also help the samurai's close combat skill. You need to pour points into speed for more attacks, which casters need anyways for initiative. The realm skills you get from spamming magic which inevitably happens as you progress through the game; you'll be a little behind a pure mage in your skills, but it's worth it if you prefer the samurai's insta-kills to having extra damage spells, which I do.

Investing into intelligence is an absolutely horrible idea for any class bar mage, psionic, alchemist and bishop outside of the "I just want to try it for shits, giggles and larp" area. And in general - investing into any stat that you don't want to max is a bad idea in the end.

I think Samurais can't naturally use a lot of Polearms in regular Wiz8 - giving them Polearms access was a Wiz 8 Enhancements change.

Sirtech obviously decided to make weaboo classes larpy and give them access to mostly weaboo equipment. This is not a bad idea in itself and you have to give them credit for making a really impressive selection of weaboo stuff available. The problem is that most of this stuff is either not powerful enough and/or extremely difficult to obtain.

 

[aweigh]

btw, TigerKnee , excellent mini-break down there. i agree with everything and find no reason to argue any of that.

yes, it seems Bradley had been planning all the way back since Wiz 6 to change character classes into something more dynamic; i.e. a class that would continue to change both in its function, its skillsets and its strategic and logistical value for the playe WITHOUT the player classing them into another class. I think he wanted each class to be pure and NECESSARY and just the parts that made up the end-game Voltron robot of sammurai-lord-ninjas beheading everything in their path (hell yes!). but i'm sure i'm giving him too much credit here.

i would actually say the two best conceptualized and executed classes IN THE GAME in wiz 8 are valks and fighters. adding the berserker fury was really a great little something fighters need; not that they needed more power, i mean in terms of flavor/concep/etc. fighters have always been the best class when it comes down to brass tacks, in any wizardry.

2x the amount of HP than everyone else @ the same level is THE BEST POSSIBLE CLASS SKILL ONE COULD EVER HAVE. plus can equip anything.

 

[aweigh]

i would say by far the shining star of wiz 8 is the formation system and how the game utilizes it. it is hands down the best system of that type i have ever seen or played with in a first-person blobber.

props.

 

[Gnidrologist]

If you're playing with hybrids, and scattering points in a bunch of different skills/attributes then you're doing it wrong; focus on three skills and two attributes to max out from the beginning. You become specialized in one area first, master it, then specialize in another.

You become maxed on those specialized attributes/skills around the time you hit level 20, which the time you're nearing the end game unless going around and grinding against flying serpents and such. I don't see how that's working so casually the way you explain.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

That's quite an exaggeration, if you specialize you'll max out the selected attributes and reach the 75 skill threshold in your skills of choice way earlier. Your point still stands though - without dragging the game artificially there's not really enough time and content to enjoy maxing out and reaping the benefits of further attributes.

 

[Gnidrologist]

I think it also depends on initial level of attributes. Fir examples, lizard-warrior has already incredible amount of ST&EN, so he gets it maxed out at around lvl 10 if i remember correctly. Similar with rogue and Dex or mage and Int. Haven't played hybrids, but overall depending on class/race combo it's not always like that and probably especially with hybrids, which you need to initially create with attributes that are balanced for turning hybrid in early levels so no maxing out on any one attribute that would be okay with single focus char.

And what's the point of maxing out ''one side'' of the hybrid first and only then switching to other around the mid-late game? I thought it was about balanced sawyered char, who can do both from the early stages and have more various benefits than a focused one. You're basically gimping your primary stats for the first part of the game to have a dubious luxury to add additional layer to your skill set at the stage of the game, where it's not that important and you could just go all the way becoming a demigod in your primary profile.
Only variant where i see benefits in the early game is the cheesy ''start with stealth based character, cheese the stealth up with mudcrabs in monastery and then turn into preferred class'' shit.

I may be wrong on all of this as i'm shit at math and sperging.

 

[Essegi]

Heh, partybuidling in Wiz8 is a great topic. TigerKnee already said the most important thing: you can make any party work and the best idea is to try what you want and have fun learning the ropes.

That said, if you want some quick pointers:

1. Priest can cast the best/most important spells in the game the quickest and can become a respectable fighter + doesn't really need intelligence which is a boon to his fighting abilities. Unfortunately, all this doesn't stop it from being the worst class in the game. Additionally, you've picked a valk, and having one of valkyrie or lord in the party makes priest almost completely obsolete.
2. Ranged characters (ranger, gadgie) are problematic and definitely not very user friendly. Their killing power is horrible at the start and the ammo weighs a lot and will frequently make your party suffer initiative penalties. Also, advanced characters burn through ammo in no time. Gadgie is the suckiest class in the initial phase of the game, but becomes a serious asset later on. Advanced ranger can impress with high-tier ammo and some crit kills, but in general I'd say it's the second worst class after priest. Oh, and one minor point - gadgie can spam magical searching non-stop as soon as you get the proper components.
3. Bard and rogue are awesome and definitely recommended for your first party. Bard is the ultimate support than can also become a very capable melee/ranged fighter. Rogue is unsurpassed in killing potential, gains levels quickly, can get epic skills the quickest and has awesome defense thanks to the stealth skill.

Nice infos, thanks. I could swap ranger for rogue though i was thinking to give alchemy to ranger... O can i just live without?
Also considering to turn Priest to Lord at 2... (lol i and in my last post i was convinced :D).

 

[Whipping Post]

Uh, you do in exactly the same way you do with direct dmg spells? The only difference is for casting the pre-buffs for which you can savescum, but with non-pure casters it will take looong time before you get high dice for them.

What I'm saying is that direct dmg spells require a specialized caster to be effective, and that even with more effective spells a pure caster is under powered compared to hybrids in the latter half of the game. The essential spells are buffs, and you don't need a top notch caster to use them effectively.

Investing into intelligence is an absolutely horrible idea for any class bar mage, psionic, alchemist and bishop outside of the "I just want to try it for shits, giggles and larp" area. And in general - investing into any stat that you don't want to max is a bad idea in the end.

Intelligence controls realm skills, they grow faster the higher it is; if you want a samurai to substitute for a mage it's effective to invest some points at character creation when you have extra points to distribute. I definitely would focus on maxing out dex and spd first though as I level. Intelligence also controls close combat, which is a nice bonus. Maxing it out isn't difficult

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I think it also depends on initial level of attributes. Fir examples, lizard-warrior has already incredible amount of ST&EN, so he gets it maxed out at around lvl 10 if i remember correctly. Similar with rogue and Dex or mage and Int. Haven't played hybrids, but overall depending on class/race combo it's not always like that and probably especially with hybrids, which you need to initially create with attributes that are balanced for turning hybrid in early levels so no maxing out on any one attribute that would be okay with single focus char.

And what's the point of maxing out ''one side'' of the hybrid first and only then switching to other around the mid-late game? I thought it was about balanced sawyered char, who can do both from the early stages and have more various benefits than a focused one. You're basically gimping your primary stats for the first part of the game to have a dubious luxury to add additional layer to your skill set at the stage of the game, where it's not that important and you could just go all the way becoming a demigod in your primary profile.
Only variant where i see benefits in the early game is the cheesy ''start with stealth based character, cheese the stealth up with mudcrabs in monastery and then turn into preferred class'' shit.

I may be wrong on all of this as i'm shit at math and sperging.

Hybrids obviously won't max the chosen stats as quick as the pure classes can, but still earlier than level 20. Of course you can drag it out even more when trying weird builds, like maxing out senses on a lord or whatever. Still, valkyrie can be fine with st/pie build, pie/dex, dex/spd and so on, whatever, really, she'll be good at different things, but she'll work. The key is to focus to reap the most benefits and not pick "stupid" attributes unless you really know what you're doing.

And when it comes to hybrids, the magic school itself has much bigger impact than stats. If you pick a valk and invest 0 pts in piety you'll still get more bang out of your magic than ranger with 100 int (grinding not factored in). Divinity>>wizardry>>>>>>>>>>>>>alchemy>psionics when it comes to hybrids, it just works like that. Alchemy is still useful though, since potion mixing is a very nice thing to have.

Nice infos, thanks. I could swap ranger for rogue though i was thinking to give alchemy to ranger... O can i just live without?
Also considering to turn Priest to Lord at 2... (lol i and in my last post i was convinced :D).

The only spell school you will really suffer without is divinity, but don't be shy and check what bard and gadgie can do for you when it comes to replacing the casters.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

What I'm saying is that direct dmg spells require a specialized caster to be effective, and that even with more effective spells a pure caster is under powered compared to hybrids in the latter half of the game. The essential spells are buffs, and you don't need a top flight caster to use them effectively.

Yes, I know that's what you're saying and apart from the few pre-buff spells which you can savescum it doesn't make any sense. You need high skills and big mp pool for effectively casting buffs/debuffs like elemental shield or freeze as much as you need them for iceball or noxious fumes. Otherwise you need to keep them on low dice and there's no difference between buffs and direct dmg spells here.

Intelligence controls realm skills, they rise faster the higher it is; if you want a samurai to substitute for a mage it is quite effective to invest some points at character creation when you have extra points to distribute. I definitely would focus on maxing out dex and spd first though as I level. Intelligence also controls close combat, which is a nice bonus.

Protip - you can skip the :cpt.obvious: info. Investing into int has zero sense if you don't want to max it and if you want to max it for any character other than pure caster (priest excluded) you're doing it wrong and should pick a pure caster instead. Unless of course you feel like trying that particular weird build. Int's impact on non-casting skills is completely negligible in the big picture.

 

[Whipping Post]

You need high skills and big mp pool for effectively casting buffs/debuffs like elemental shield or freeze as much as you need them for iceball or noxious fumes.

Right, so you need to work on those realm skills.

Protip - you can skip the :cpt.obvious: info. Investing into int has zero sense if you don't want to max it and if you want to max it for any character other than pure caster (priest excluded) you're doing it wrong and should pick a pure caster instead. Unless of course you feel like trying that particular weird build. Int's impact on non-casting skills is completely negligible in the big picture.

I wasn't sure if you'd played the game yet. Anyways, I'm talking about using a mage/samurai multiclass that can function as the partys primary Wizardry caster and a secondary fighter, not a combat specialist. Why not max int? A human mage can start the game with int in the 70s. You can max it easily after you've maxed out the attributes you need to start landing crits. As for your comment about bringing a pure caster: why not a pure fighter? Why use hybrids at all? Versatility, optimization, and the fun of experimenting with different builds.