Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[McPlusle]

I'm making a backlog of CRPGs I've owned for over five years and may be streaming them as a sort of motivator to push me through all these games I know I need to play, and part of that backlog is either Wizardry 8 or the Dark Savant trilogy as a whole. Should I run through the whole thing or is Wiz6 going to wipe the floor with me? I remember trying it and I think I spent two hours on the first floor like a dumbass, but I also tried Wiz8 and got to the first town before getting sidetracked by other games.

 

[Grauken]

They are all easy

 

[The Old Kiwi]

Wizardry I-IV were that (easy). I never got into V; VI and VII were difficult enough to want to cheat.

8 wasn't in the same class as those two.

.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Here's a question that might possibly be very dumb:

does sling count for ninja thrown crits in wiz8?

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Auto penetrate and thrown crits do not work for slings, but you will still get crits from special ammo etc of course.

 

[Leitz]

Is it true for Wizardry games that you can prefer one direction for spinning on a tile if you want more random encounters? I read somewhere that one direction gives you more. Can somebody confirm this?

 

[aweigh]

You can spin in any direction. I've honestly never read that spinning left, right, northwards or southwards gives more or less random encounters.

Personal experience: I almost always, in the rare instances I do wish to provoke a random encounter without moving deeper into a floor; I almost exclusive choose to spin to the 'left'.

Why? Biblical connotations sun!!! Heh.

 

[octavius]

Is it true for Wizardry games that you can prefer one direction for spinning on a tile if you want more random encounters? I read somewhere that one direction gives you more. Can somebody confirm this?

It depends on which hemisphere you are when playing.

 

[Leitz]

You can spin in any direction. I've honestly never read that spinning left, right, northwards or southwards gives more or less random encounters.

Personal experience: I almost always, in the rare instances I do wish to provoke a random encounter without moving deeper into a floor; I almost exclusive choose to spin to the 'left'.

Why? Biblical connotations sun!!! Heh.

I guess I read this a long time ago and remembered it, seems like he doesn't talk about encounters though. You gotta love old sites that create myths.

https://www.resonant.org/games/wizardry/wiz6/wiz6advice.htm

I avoid the Rest command. I get much better results, and some experience too, by holding down one of the "turn" keys - either the left or right arrow, although the left seems to work faster, or even the down arrow, but be careful to leave it in "TURN" mode later. This way, I get monster encounters without anyone being asleep.

 

[Liosliath]

Hi to all.

I suppose such kind of questions should have been asked many times here but I'm not so good in searching abilities, all the more so in 230 pages, so I beg pardon in advance.

I need some advice in building the party of adventurers that would be viable through all the three last Wizardry games, from 6th to 8th (it shall be my first Wizardry playthrough ever).

Class/race/sex combinations and so on, every piece of wisdom from Wizardry veterans would be priceless.

Thanks in advance.

 

[V_K]

Shemale fairy ninja obviously.

 

[octavius]

One of your characters should be a Bard to get free Sleep spells in the brutal beginning.

Don't obsess about class changing in Wiz 6; it's not really that important except maybe to change to classes like Lord and Samurai. You need a Lord (IIRC), a Samurai and a Valkyrie to use the best weapons.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Liosliath

I am by no means a super master expert at these games, but here's what I did in Wiz 6:

Mook Fighter > Ninja > Lord
Human Fighter > Ninja > Monk
Hafling Fighter > Ninja > Samurai
Human (Female) Priest > Lord > Valkyrie
Elf Mage > Priest > Mage > Priest > Bishop
Rawulf (Female) Bard > Samurai > Mage > Bard

The goal was to take this party through all three games. Three fighters level fast in the beginning, use good weapons, and have good HP. I rolled them all to start with enough stats to change to Ninjas at any time. It was REALLY painful to get the Mook to a Lord because the default Mook personality is like 6 or 7, so I had to save scum every level up to ensure I got up to 12 personality within a reasonable time. I don't recommend trying this for a first time run. The monk and Mook were made to take advantage of long reach weapons in Wiz 8, the Samurai was made to take advantage of the Muramasa sword in Wiz 6 and 7.

The priest was a backup healer, female so she could be a Valkyrie and poke with spears from the back row. The mage is a nuker/backup healer, I class changed him back and forth between mage and priest to max his casting skills and farm spell picks. The Bard ended up as support/backup nuking. I class changed her to get her extra spell picks and skullduggery (lockpicking). She's female because there are good stamina restoring accessories which are female only in Wiz 8.

In Wiz 7, I had to rotate the front rank through another round of ninja - samurai to farm skill points and max out their ninjutsu and kirijutsu. The valkyrie, bishop, and bard I just did the same class changes over again for spells and skill points.

In Wiz 8, I learned that when you auto-import characters it assigns the bonus points for you, in very annoying ways. I like melee characters to have Str & Dex maxed which only Fighters get when they import, so I class changed the Lord, Monk, and Valkryie into fighters before import. The Mook stayed as a fighter to use Blade of Giants, the other two reverted back to their classes of Monk and Valkryie right after importing. The Samurai I converted to Ranger before import since I was going to stick him in the back row. The Bishop and Bard I left alone.

This party was intended to avoid all RPCs in Wiz 8 and use all extended reach weapons. Extra RPCs make this party easier and you can use whichever weapons you like.

 

[aweigh]

I don't recommend importing parties generally, regardless of which Wiz game it is. The only instance it is mandatory is in the Apple II version of the original release of Wiz 2 where you need to use MALOR (Teleportation Spell) in order to access the 2nd Dungeon Floor.

My preference/recommendation of not importing parties stems from a simple thing: one of the most enjoyable aspects of any Wiz game is Char-Gen and making new and different party and racial permutations and trying out combinations new and different from before; importing the same people through games cuts down on that aspect.

I get more enjoyment out of beginning every new playthrough of a Wiz game, or a Wiz-clone, by intentionally making a different party for every game. Never personally understood why people placed so much cachet on importing the same characters from one Wiz to another: especially since Wiz 6-8 do not carry over the Chevron of Champions from all other Wizardry games onto the next adventure.

(If you don't know what the Chevron of Champions is then you've never played a real Wizardry game).

In any event: Liosliath, have fun! Wiz6 and Wiz8 are good games. The recommendation above about abusing the 'broken' Bard instruments is a good one, at least since you're a first-timer.

I never found spamming Lute every single combat encounter for the first halves of Wiz6-8 to be any fun though...

 

[Darth Roxor]

Never personally understood why people placed so much cachet on importing the same characters from one Wiz to another

to equip the ring

 

[Grauken]

Bela wants it back at the end

 

[Leitz]

I don't recommend importing parties generally, regardless of which Wiz game it is

This must be a world view thing. I think it's the greatest thing to import a party to a another game. Even if there is no benefit at all. I just love to do it!

 

[Bocian]

There also isn't any combination which makes the games unwinnable either, though that holds less true with Wiz 6-8 where the class balance isn't as good as in other Wizardry games.

Do you think that going with less than 6 party members (let's say, 3) would make the game possible to complete as well? Does it mean that the characters are going to level up faster?

 

[Leitz]

Does it mean that the characters are going to level up faster?

Yes because they earn more XP per character.

 

[aweigh]

I actually don't remember off-hand right now but I *think* you do indeed receive more XP with less party members. It may depend on the Wizardry title and I'm sure a quick google will give you the answer. At least in Wiz8 less party members do indeed receive more XP, and from my brief googling this holds true for every single Wizardry game, including the most recent ones, like Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls.

This question really caught me off-guard because i've never bothered rolling with anything less than a full party in all my hundreds and hundreds of hours of Wiz-play time; but yes, from my googling it seems the phrase "exp was spread equally amongst survivors" is the key here.

A Wizardry enemy (any Wiz) has specific amount of XP to give and giving it to 3 people means more for those 3 than if the monster gives its XP to 6 people. I'm confident this holds for all Wiz titles.

Wiz enemies have Hit Dice and VITALITY modifer bonus upon enemy spawning but amounts of gold and XP are specific and preset; at least for all traditional Wizardry games. Amounts of an enemy (whether you get 2 groups with 3 monsters per group, or 1 group with 6 monsters, etc) is another dice roll that rolls against party level + dungeon floor level.

Wiz 1-5, Wiz: LoLS, Wiz Empire 1-3, Wiz Gaiden 1-6, Wiz: TotFL and Wiz: Chronicle utilize traditional Wizardry loot system where loot is seperated into 3 different tiers:

- normal
- rare
- very rare

The tier from which a drop (Chest) spawns is randomly rolled for after defeating "Fixed Encounters".

Loot tiers are tied to Dungeon Floors and have nothing to do with what enemy you face. Experience points however are obviously a higher amount the larger the amount of Monsters defeated, and since the dice rolls which govern the amount of enemies per Group and the amount of Groups that spawn at you is determined by rolling versus the Dungeon Floor Level that means, generally speaking, if you wish to level up faster (and gain more gold) it stands to reason that the further down (or up, whatever) the dungeon floor the more XP/Gold you will get; and remember that treasure chest tier lists are similarly tied to the dungeon floor Level as well.

 

[Liosliath]

Well, I never was a big RPGer. I prefered turn-based strategies, both sci-fi and fantasy (think of Master of Magic/Orion, Space Empires, Age of Wonders, HoMM, Disciples, my beloved Warlords serie), and real-time sometimes (like Warlords Battlecry). Sometimes I felt itch for action-RPG like Diablo, Titan Quest or Dungeon Siege (not true RPGs though). I played BG and BG2 (and IWD1, IIRC) long long ago (15-20 years, I think) and NWN1 but never finished any of them. Now I grew old and sentimental or I don't know what else... and with assist of mighty GOG I finally got all the legends of the Golden Past, I sat and looked at them and said to myself, "Man, you simply MUST at least try it". So I installed Gold Box, Infinity engine ones, Might and Magic and mr. Bradley's titles (up to Dungeon Lords). From quick overview I decided that I'd like Wizardry most.
So my question was a newbish one, I just saw the option to transfer your party from game to game, and I thought it might be cool (if such an option exist it should be for something, right?). And the second goal of my question was the economy of time, maybe When you are a 40-y.o. happy twice-father, and a toiler for behalf of your capitalist master, and everyone else - you have not much time to play computer games, alas. So I'd want to avoid the waste of precious time, having built the "wrong" party and realizing it after dozens of playhours
So I could narrow the question somehow, asking, "What are GLOBAL advices in party-building that are valid for all three Wizardry games in question (i.e. 6-8)?

Thanks again.

 

[Darth Roxor]

You really can't go wrong with your standard ~balanced~ RPG party composition of 2 fighters of whatever type + 2 casters + 1 thief-type + 1 whatever guy.

Fighters come down to preference; casters I would recommend wizard + bishop (either cleric+psion or cleric+wizard, because pure cleric is trash), but this is more of a recommendation for 8 because in 6-7 you'll be class-switching them so many times it doesn't really matter anyway; thief-type you wanna start with a bard for the sleep lute; 6th whatever guy I like to make a ranger for the free constant secret detection (which is also particularly mega-convenient in 8).

 

[Dungeon Lord]

Where can I buy weapons in Wizardry 7 dos version.
Trk.Rhallick attacked my party because of a failed truce attempt. He escaped the battle but the Umpanis do not like me anymore. When I went to Rossairan in New City, he attacked us as well. I killed the bastard but I have no weapons

 

[Dorateen]

Since you pissed off the Umpani, I guess you could try dealing with the T'Rang. Good luck with that.

 

[Leitz]

Where can I buy weapons in Wizardry 7 dos version.
Trk.Rhallick attacked my party because of a failed truce attempt. He escaped the battle but the Umpanis do not like me anymore. When I went to Rossairan in New City, he attacked us as well. I killed the bastard but I have no weapons

Kill the Cowbellys! (?) Maybe someone remembers what a T'rang during Wiz 7 really says. Anyway fuck the Umpani, they're only good for grinding.