Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Grampy_Bone]

2) Bards are a terrible melee class. No heavy armor OR stealth? Forget it. Ideally a bard should be playing music every round. If you really want a frontline bard, consider multiclassing to Ninja or Rogue after you get 18 Bard levels (Max needed to play all instruments). Its not recommended though.

Dunno (if we talk about wiz8), by mid game my bard is usually second or third (if i have fighter and rogue) best melee attacker. A bit more vulnerable because of lower defenses, but dealing huge damage and being fast/agile too given that only basic stat for music you need to up is INT, which is usually at 100 by level 7 or smth, which means that you can start maxing STR/DEX/SPD asap. With ST it needs very little investment as two rings of traveler (or what were they called) bard gets instant whopping +40 ST. Bard's armor set although not best for juggernaut has very nice stat bonuses too. Give him Fang and he's maxed out on ST very early meaning that it's possible to max out DEX and SPD relatively early making him both strong as ox and fast/many attacks/initiative even earlier than fighter.

I don't bother with much VIT for any of my characters ever but lizard fighters or similar 100% tanks. Nor bards or gadgeteers gain much from maxing it. Instruments/gadgets still take away stamina ridiculously fast making them useless and vulnerable if only using instruments/gadgets so in long fights i only bother to use insanity/haste/healing type of spells here and there, while going melee/guns 2/3ds of rounds. Guzzling stamina potions every second turn is just meh. Also omnigun isn't shit at all. It's only shit in early game and it's main problem is humongous weight of shooting stones. It's damage/status effect output summed with the fact that it's ranged weapon and can deal with elusive targets without spending a round for moving cannot be understated.

So the in best cast scenario a Bard is a third-rate fighter? That just proves my point. No Berserk, no backstab, no critical strike, bad armor, no stealth. You also admit that stamina loss from instruments makes the Bard too vulnerable for them to use Music often. So by your own description putting a Bard into melee range gives you an inferior combatant who is prevented from using their best talents. Weak. You might as well use any other hybrid fighter/caster who can at least use magic without knocking themselves out. Hell a melee Ranger would be better.

The omnigun has no damage bonus from Str so it's not even a contest. Any bow will outdamage it, the doubleshot crossbow, even the blunderbuss. Piddly 1% status effects do not make up for a 50-70% damage loss.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Bard is third rate fighter only if you also have both pure fighter/s and rogue/s in the party, which in my case isn't always so. It's about on par with any other class that uses melee on fairly regular bases, certainly not worse than samurais, lords and other rubbish hybrid classes, who aren't nearly as good of a fighters than pure tanks and are useless for spellcasting anyway. I never found the ''eastern'' types like monks, ninjas, or samurais any good. Used mostly for fun of having theme characters. They suck dick compared to fighters and critical hit isn't much of a game changer. Samurais are also as vulnerable as bards, when put in front in my experience.
Anyhow, my point stands only if you don't use pure tanks in every party. Obviously they aren't best at this, but also not nearly as useless as you say. Using instruments till they drop is detrimental regardless of where they stand. They will still be knocked out often if drained so it's better to use instruments only sporadically. With unorthodox parties that don't have lizardfighter and rogue they are next best thing for front line, especially by mid game with full bard equipment. Mostly because of how quickly they can develop all melee stats.

The omnigun has no damage bonus from Str so it's not even a contest. Any bow will outdamage it, the doubleshot crossbow, even the blunderbuss. Piddly 1% status effects do not make up for a 50-70% damage loss.

Uh, why would powder weapon have bonus from ST anyway? It get's bonuses by gaining levels and wtf do you mean by only 1% status effect. I don't remember exact numbers, but by later levels it always has several status effect chances in 10-15% besides the 1% instakill. Maybe it comes from ammo types, but what's the difference. He also shoots like 6 times per round and often, along with my other ranged guys kills/disables lesser creatures before they even get near. You also neglect the very fact that ranged weapons are sometimes convenient to to take care of the radius so as to not waste rounds for moving. Of course, if you always create minmaxed parties with only absolutely overpowered classes/races in every position, this might sound weak to you, but not nearly ''useless''.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Bard is third rate fighter only if you also have both pure fighter/s and rogue/s in the party, which in my case isn't always so. It's about on par with any other class that uses melee on fairly regular bases, certainly not worse than samurais, lords and other rubbish hybrid classes, who aren't nearly as good of a fighters than pure tanks and are useless for spellcasting anyway. I never found the ''eastern'' types like monks, ninjas, or samurais any good. Used mostly for fun of having theme characters. They suck dick compared to fighters and critical hit isn't much of a game changer. Samurais are also as vulnerable as bards, when put in front in my experience.
Anyhow, my point stands only if you don't use pure tanks in every party. Obviously they aren't best at this, but also not nearly as useless as you say. Using instruments till they drop is detrimental regardless of where they stand. They will still be knocked out often if drained so it's better to use instruments only sporadically. With unorthodox parties that don't have lizardfighter and rogue they are next best thing for front line, especially by mid game with full bard equipment. Mostly because of how quickly they can develop all melee stats.

The omnigun has no damage bonus from Str so it's not even a contest. Any bow will outdamage it, the doubleshot crossbow, even the blunderbuss. Piddly 1% status effects do not make up for a 50-70% damage loss.

Uh, why would pwoder weapon have bonus from ST anyway? It get's bonuses by gaining levels and wtf do you mean by only 1% status effect. I don't remember exact numbers, but by later levels it always has several status effect chances in 10-15% besides the 1% instakill. Maybe it comes from ammo types, but what's the difference. He also shoots like 6 times per round and often, along with my other ranged guys kills/disables lesser creatures before they even get near. You also neglect the very fact that ranged weapons are sometimes convenient to to take care of the radius so as to not waste rounds for moving. Of course, if you always create minmaxed parties with only absolutely overpowered classes/races in every position, this might sound weak to you, but not nearly ''useless''.

Nope, you're wrong. Bard can play music every round with Stamina regen equipment, they will wake up each turn and can keep playing. This is only a problem if they are in the front row, where falling asleep makes them defenseless and take double damage. It's not an issue if they are in the back line. Furthermore if you think the hybrids are "useless for spellcasting" then you really have no idea what you're talking about.

Justifying the Omnigun's weakness for thematic reasons is a non-sequitur, who cares why it gets less damage, less damage is less damage. Omnigun has 1% chance at level 26 to do a bunch of status effects which you'll never see and 10% K.O. chance. Decent, but nothing spectacular and not worth the huge damage loss. Regular bows will do 60-90% more damage at max strength, blunderbuss has better instakill, and a Tripleshot crossbow will destroy it via rate of fire. Probably the best argument to take a gadgeteer is to get engineering 70 and make tripleshot crossbows for the whole party.

The original question was whether a Bard makes a good front line tank, and the answer to that is definitely No. Now sure, you can make almost any party work, and if you want to follow a specific theme or challenge yourself with non-standards setups, great, have fun. But that's not what we're talking about here, we're talking about a single classes's overall utility and ability to fulfill a specific job (front line tank), which the Bard is markedly inferior to compared to half the other classes.

 

[Gnidrologist]

Bard isn't inferior to samurais, lords, rangers and whatnot. The later die just as easy as the former and are subpar damage dealers compared to proper tanks, so you could make the same argument about every class that isn't fighter or rogue. For minmaxing you should take them and only them for your front row.

Hybrids are useless for spellcasting for the same reason bards are, in your opinion, useless as front rowers. They are half arsed casters that will constantly fail/backfire and devlop their casting skills way too slow. You also don't want them wasting rounds for casting, when they could be developing theior melee skills instead. So basically you got weak caster, who will never excel at it and will also have slower rate of melee training. What's the point? Better get pure casters and defend them by pure tanks if we're talking minmaxing.

I wont argue about omnigun further, because i haven't played wiz8 for some time, but am sure that it had bunch of status effects in 10-15% success rate instead of 1% you're talking about. It's also corroborated by the fact that i clearly remember blinding, knocking down and otherwise fucking up enemies with like every 3-4th shot so the 1% theory of yours must be wrong. Maybe you're using plain ammo for this point? Not saying that other ranged weapons aren't better though.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Lord gets heavy armor + regen, so no they don't die just as easily as a bard. Valkryies get heavy armor and revive themselves. Samurai are fragile but get more attacks + critical (better fighters), better weapons (muramasa), ninja and monks get critical + stealth.

Jeez man you have no idea what you're talking. Sure you can double down on a 5 and still win but that doesn't make it a good idea.


P.S.
Omnigun effect list at level 26:

Blind 10%
KO 10%
Kill 2%
Sleep 1%
Plyze 1%
Hex 1%
Disease 1%
Fear 1%
Drain HP 1%
Drain SP 1%
Drain Stamina 1%
Poison 1% (Str. 5)
Nauseate 1%
Insane 1%
Attacks +1

Blind and KO 10% is okay, but death by damage is better.

 

[Gnidrologist]

I'm writing from my own experience not spreadsheets from walkhtroughs. Maybe i'm not optimising my builds to see the results you posted above or smth. Besides, bard still has an advantage of also having strong spells via instruments as well as being good melee fighter (though fragile, yes), while the hybrids you listed suck at spell casting and should be used entirely for physical attacks unless you're playing solo or very small party. By your own logic, it doesn't make sense to use sub par personel for given tasks, which disqualifies most hybrids and theme builds.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Hybrids are perfectly fine spellcasters. Yeah, you need to skill-grind on a chest or a lock with Knock-knock/divine trap, but its pretty easy and doesn't take long. Skill level 60 is enough to cast all the useful spells. Secondary casters can take the load off the party's caster(s) by casting long-term buffs, provide useful utility spells (whatever you're missing), act as a secondary healer, layer multiple buffs in a single round (soul shield/element shield/superman), not to mention the obvious utility of having multiple Set Portal casters; and they do it all without keeling over from stamina loss, something I've repeatedly pointed out, so no by my arguments they don't have the same problem as a frontline Bard. Also, more HP, more armor/defense, more offense, etc. If you can grind drops/chests/shops for perfect bard equips you can spend ten minutes getting your Monk's casting abilities up to snuff.

Even if you don't build up a hybrid's casting abilities you still have superior stats and skills to the Bard for a frontliner; more AC via stealth or heavy armor, more offense via Critical strike or Lightning swings, better gear, etc., which I keep pointing out and you keep ignoring. "I didn't use hybrids well therefore they suck, but I used a Bard in the frontline and reloaded whenever it died, and didn't use spells because they would knock him out, but they are still better than every hybrid!" Okay buddy.

I don't insist on playing with a mathematically perfect party. My current game has a Monk and Valkyrie who could both be Fighters and I'd have stronger overall offense, but less versatility. It's a tradeoff. The point though is that neither character is in a spot or role that they are specifically bad at. I didn't spec my Valkyrie for ranged attacks, put her in the back slot, have her use a sling the whole game, and then declare that Rangers were useless because my awesome Slinger Valkryie did okay in one build.

 

[Gnidrologist]

So, you're spending hours to grind/rest the shitty low level hybrid casters with like all red rings in all the realm disciplines that can fire only a couple of failed spells before needing rest, therefore i ''failed to use hybrids well''. Okay. Look, if you don't put skillpoints in magic, the grinding from zero to hero takes fucking forever. If that's your kind of fun, so be it. Take care. And no, i don't need to ''reload a lot'' or something because of bard dying a lot. From the typical front liners it's usually samurais, lords, valkires and rangers that die most quickly, which is why i'm not fond of putting them up front much either. Having ST and DEX maxed out early and adding up lot of SPD by mid game, makes bard pretty damn sturdy in fight, especially if putting the potions of supermen/stonewall and such to good use. Also having dulcimer of mending, pandemonium, freez all makes it worth to keep him even with sub par defenses. Spells that you can't realistically get to work for hybrids even in late game unless grinding as fuck or putting points in the magic at levelups, which retards their combat development.

I agree that bard is not bet for front lines, but having great early strong spellcasting that you can't get from hybrids and their great unique item set compensates for weaker armor and combat traits, just like having stronger armor and better combat specific traits, makes the mediocrity of their spellcasting acceptable for hybrids (though i wouldn't bother with their spells at all, except getting additional portals later on) . Pure tanks in combos with pure casters is still practically more effective solution so having this debate only makes sense if we go power gaming route.

Bottom line: bards aren't useless in melee, and not the best either. Hybrids are sligthly stronger for front line, but ''useless'' for casting (and no, i don't need to take a load off specialist casters, at least the way i develop them - it's actually better to have the entire load on them so they develop to demigodness faster).

 

[Dungeon Lord]

If I level up, will my resistances increase?
Fire, cold, light and paralysis resistances of my valkyrie are 34% at Level15.
At Level16 they are 34% as well, wtf?
Every res stayed same.
I am using the Cosmic Forge editor to see these values.

I am grinding before the last Xorphitus battle.
Honestly these battles are very enjoyable. Slowly I am learning the right tactics against twisted sylphs and priests of ramm.

I have only one problem, I forgot to drop the cross so I have to fight the Bane King.
That's the silliest battle of crpg history when I have to use wooden sticks and holy water instead of a Muramasa Blade to fight.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

*Some resistances should go up with level. It's different for every class though. No idea what Valks get.

 

[felipepepe]

A nice bro finally wrote me the Wizardry 1-3 AND the Wiz 5 reviews for the CRPG Book:

Spoiler

Any feedback?

 

[Lady_Error]

That "DB" is David Bradley? Seriously though, have you tried contacting him again for an interview?

 

[TigerKnee]

Monk is a bit underrated IMO - well, Martial Arts builds as a starting character anyway because it's actually really good in early game - good damage and many attacks without the need to pump Dual Wield. Blind immunity is actually surprisingly relevant because of those asshole poppys that show up early and are quick that they'll spray gas over you before you can put up any sort of Status-Defense buffs so there's that. The Psionic Spellbook access is good for "Haste", I guess

It does fall off late game which is always the case with barehanded combat when super powered weapons exist but like I said before - I consider the early parts of Wiz 8 to be harder than the later ones. I also know that a lot of people think you shouldn't take one because RFS-81 exists but you get him after the point where the Monk is at his strongest and there's really nothing wrong with doubling up.

(There are Staff/Zatoichi Bo builds but I kind of like Fighter/Staff of Doom better if you want that)

 

[felipepepe]

Seriously though, have you tried contacting him again for an interview?

You have no idea how hard to reach & interview that guy is. Crooked Bee had been trying for YEARS. His publisher had to fake an interview when he was releasing Dungeon Lords, FFS:

I’ve done very few interviews in my life – I don’t like show business or the sounds of those screaming for the limelight pretending to be a star...

There was only one magazine “interview” when Dungeon Lords was released and it wasn’t even me - it was an imposter from the publisher, and what was printed in my name was garbage...

I honestly think this IGN interview is also fake. It's too bland & "PR-like" to be him. Compare that with this one, it lacks that charming touch of madness & brilliance.

 

[Darth Roxor]

maybe he'd agree if you caught him in the street and interviewed him as part of a random encounter

 

[felipepepe]

maybe he'd agree if you caught him in the street and interviewed him as part of a random encounter

 

[Lady_Error]

So after early successes, he had an idea of what people really wanted and worked for a long time on Dungeon Lords - which turned out to be not what people wanted. Maybe working at Sir-Tech simply rots your brain with delusions after a while - a sort of time-delayed virus.

 

[octavius]

A nice bro finally wrote me the Wizardry 1-3 AND the Wiz 5 reviews for the CRPG Book:
Any feedback?

Glad you found someone to to the reviews.

If I'd done the review, I'd mention Wiz 2 being rather small, easy and forgettable, and Wiz 3 being much more ambitious than Wiz 2, but having some balance problems, with stats being capped at 15 and thus no bonuses to stats whatsoever in the beginning making the early game extremely difficult.

 

[felipepepe]

So after early successes, he had an idea of what people really wanted and worked for a long time on Dungeon Lords - which turned out to be not what people wanted. Maybe working at Sir-Tech simply rots your brain with delusions after a while - a sort of time-delayed virus.

You're forgetting Wizards & Warriors which is actually really good. Dungeon Lords was just Wizards & Warriors 2 sacrificed at the altar of multiplayer.

 

[Lady_Error]

I left W&W out because it was already on the way of decline - a "by the numbers" soulless tech-demo, where some of the good stuff from Wizardry was still kept. Then in Dungeon Lords he implemented his "full vision" of a modern CRPG.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

-Install Wizard and Warriors
-Decompress town.avi
-Create party
-Take first quest
-Mon the Sculz one-shots everyone
-Uninstall Wizards and Warriors

 

[felipepepe]

I left W&W out because it was already on the way of decline - a "by the numbers" soulless tech-demo

 

[TigerKnee]

Someone tell me about Dungeon Lords.

On W&W - I quit because of the unskippable text animation, but I wonder if Cheat Engine speeds those up - unfortunately I tried it on Wizardry 8 and it doesn't really speed up the main game much.

 

[felipepepe]

Someone tell me about Dungeon Lords.

Bradley tires to make a multiplayer Oblivion - and fails.

It was meant to be played with bros, so you create a single character and explore an incredibly dull world doing incredibly dull quests and fighting in a MMO-like real-time/cooldown-based combat. Also, it's buggy as hell.

BUT it was made by a master of Wizardry, so the dungeons were quite fun:

Shame they are like... 1% of the game. And the rest sucks.

 

[V_K]

Dungeon Lords was just Wizards & Warriors 2 sacrificed at the altar of multiplayer.

W&W were also developed with multiplayer in mind originally, but it was later dropped. That's why there are inns in every city and the party composition is flexible.

but I wonder if Cheat Engine speeds those up

Given how unstable the game is on modern systems, it'll probably just crash. But I think you could just exit the shop before the NPC finished his monologue and get the whole text or something. Might be misremembering, ofc.

Mon the Sculz one-shots everyone

How did you even get to him? I thought the second exit from Valeia should be closed at the time?