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Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

Tse Tse Fly

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Dec 26, 2017
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Properly developing a bishop in Wizardry 8 is not an easy undertaking. I have one bishop in party for whom I designated the role of an 'Earth Mage', i.e. I want him to learn only spells from the Earth Magic realm. And in order to be able to get the Armorplate spell he must have at least 30 in Divinity. How to get the skill to the required level? If we consider achieving this solely by investing skillpoints on a level-up (disregarding training the skill through casting spells from this magic realm), the bishop should reach 30 only at level 10, which is a bit too late. Then, if I am going to be raising Divinity through practice, I must get at least one spell for my bishop which he will be actively using for the training. One of the good choices could be the Heal Wounds spell, which the bishop can spam to heal the wounded party members (there is a convenient place in Arnika where you can get you characters hurt for that purpose). But there is a problem: the Heal Wounds spell is shared among three magic schools: Divinity, Alchemy, and Psionics. And if a spell belongs to more than one magic school, only that associated skill in which a character has the most points gets increased when you successfully level it up casting that spell. So, for the Heal Wounds spell, as I want to train Divinity by using it, I must keep the Divinity skill of the bishop above both Alchemy and Psionics, which can be quite difficult as I'm raising a bishop who focuses on the earth realm aiming for mastering Alchemy (the Alchemist gets the most awesome earth magic spells), and I'm already having a hard time trying to get through Gregor. Therefore I will have to either go with the Wizardry magic school instead (actually, I feel it would be a better idea because then I will be able to train Alchemy by mixing potions and Wizardry by spamming Knock-Knock) or pick another spell which I can abuse to train Divinity. A similar dilemma arises if you decide to use Charm to develop either Divinity or Psionics (the latter is for Armormelt, though I can get it from the Wizardry school). Or maybe I should give up the whole idea of acquiring spells from other schools for my bishops and have a more natural playthrough. I need to sort it out. :?
 
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megidolaon

Kyoto Cybernetics
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I was hoping I could cheese through the middle part of Wizardry 3 -- avoiding the need to change alignments -- by just leveling up everyone until my Mages finally learned Malor so I could then teleport into Floor 3 where I'm still not allowed due to being Goodies, but it tells me to fuck off and sends me back to my original location.

Importing a party of evils from Wiz 1 and stocking them up full of horded +2 equipment and then grinding for hours to levels that can handle the third floor will probably be a better approach than running around hoping to find Friendly monsters to attack with some miniscule chance of changing to Evil... both approaches seem like massive time sinks, anyway

:negative:
 

newtmonkey

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megidolaon
I don't which version you are playing, but I played the DOS version and it was very easy to change alignments when I needed to. There are a lot of fixed encounters with guards in the lower right corner of the first level, and it's easy to encounter friendly enemies there.

There's also some trick to it I forgot already, where you don't have to be 100% good/evil to enter those levels. I think the MAJORITY of your characters need to be the matching alignment to gain access (or maybe it was that it allowed a mix of neutral and good/evil characters), but I can't remember for sure. You might want to look up what the restrictions actually are, because it might be very simple process depending on your party.
 

Piotrovitz

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Or maybe I should give up the whole idea of acquiring spells from other schools for my bishops and have a more natural playthrough. I need to sort it out. :?
Man, you are overthinking this way too much. Just make two dual school bishops (wizardry/psionics and divinity/alchemy worked best for me) and you'll be fine. On level ups you put points into relevant schools and the realm that is hardest to train. Realm-based caster is a bad idea.

Alternatively you can go with one bishop (wizardry/psionics, or wizardry/alchemy if you have a bard) and have the divinity school covered by valk or gadgeteer.
 

Tse Tse Fly

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Joined
Dec 26, 2017
Messages
622
Or maybe I should give up the whole idea of acquiring spells from other schools for my bishops and have a more natural playthrough. I need to sort it out. :?
Man, you are overthinking this way too much. Just make two dual school bishops (wizardry/psionics and divinity/alchemy worked best for me) and you'll be fine. On level ups you put points into relevant schools and the realm that is hardest to train. Realm-based caster is a bad idea.

Alternatively you can go with one bishop (wizardry/psionics, or wizardry/alchemy if you have a bard) and have the divinity school covered by valk or gadgeteer.
This is a 'challenge' run, and this time I wish to complete the game with a party of 6 bishops, each of which will focus one of the six magic realms. I've chosen such a setup mostly for flavour and challenge, not aiming at achieving maximal effectiveness or anything. But if I do find out the training to be really frustrating, I might switch to the 'plain' magical classes (say, taking 2 mages 2 alchemists 1 psionic 1 priest).

Acquiring all the spells from a specific magic realm is not going to be an easy task indeed, for I'll have to maintain the magic school skills of all the bishops on certain relative levels and use specific spells to train them. For example, for the 'Fire' bishop, if I want to get the Lightning spell (I have never got to use it much in my replays, and it's an awesome spell which I absolutely want to have) for him, I must have Divinity as high as 75 at minimum, but before that I must make sure my bishop is able to cast Heal All for quick training, for which he has to have at least 50 in Divinity, and before that I should be using Heal Wounds (which is shared among Psionics, Alchemy, and Divinity). But there is also the Haste spell which requires at least 45 in Psionics, and if I'm going to use Charm to train it I must ensure that the Psionics skill rating of my bishop is less than Divinity all the time (because Psionics and Divinity both have this spell), so first I have to raise Psionics to 30 so that I can get Mindread and use that spell for the subsequent training. This is a really unfavourable scheme given that the group is comprised of spellcasters only who are terrible at close combat, therefore the main magic school of my bishops must be Wizardry as it has neither Heal Wounds nor Charm. I think I could get Divinity to 50 in 3-4 hours for one character (though considering they all have poor scores in Intelligence and Piety at the moment...), but in order to be able to do this I must get through the murderous Arnika Road. For Alchemy and Psionics it will require more time.
 
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TigerKnee

Arcane
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
1,920
Regarding magic skills, the core magic skills (Wizardry / Psionics / etc) apparently does effect casting success, though at a lesser rate than element skill.

The biggest factor to spell success rate seems to be Caster Level though - if you do a lot of magic skill grinding to push your skills above "regular play" levels you'll definitely notice spells at red suddenly become castable after leveling up even if the actual skill numbers haven't changed. Also explains why Hybrids are mostly terrible at offensive casting.

You should have looked for a SFW picture on CRPG Addict's blog instead. Right, TigerKnee?
You made me reread his Rance review for a laff.
 

EverlastingLove

Learned
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
97
Soooo in Wizardry 7 I switched my Samurai back to Valkyrie, but my base AC remained at -3. Is it normal? I can't complain, but I wonder what caused this to happen? I don't know if this is relevant, but that character has 100 points in Ninjutsu.

Edit: nvm it's back to normal
 
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samuraigaiden

Arcane
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Dec 28, 2018
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RPG Wokedex
So I had this nice well rounded party again. All level 13 except a level 11 fighter. All pure breed stallions carefully selected in the training grounds after dozens and dozens of re-rolls. I took them down to the 4th floor to murder some beasts, maybe get some sweet loot. I know some areas of the level are only accessible if you are caught in a teleport trap, so when I got a teleport rigged chest, I intentionally triggered it. It took me to the hallway before the monster allocation center. I immediately recognized where I was and decided to get out immediately. I was still suffering a bit of PSTD after getting mauled by the fuckers that greet you in the allocation center. I thought, hey, it's a great time to debut that malor spell, right? Just teleport back to the stairs. So I did that. Or I tried to. But I got it all wrong. I thought the down/up indication was in reference to the floor I was in. As in, I want to stay on this floor so I leave it at 0. Now they are all dead.
 
Joined
Apr 14, 2019
Messages
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Hey folks, I'm thinking of finally checking out the Wizardry series in earnest by starting with the Super Famicom English translation of Cosmic Forge (VI). From what I gather, it has a number of QOL improvements/ bug fixes, so I'll be diving in on real hardware using a CRT TV via flashcart :smug:.

I've read the DOS manual, and scoured many internet threads with party advice, so I have a solid understanding of the character mechanics already. I would, however, like to get the input of y'all to "rubber stamp" my party before sending them off into the dungeon
thumbsup.gif
.

I should preface by saying that I'm not interested in powergaming/min/maxing, so I'm not really into abusing class changing, as I gather it's not at all necessary, and perhaps not even designed as a strategy. I'd prefer to get the needed starting rolls at the outset, and ride the same classes all the way to the Cosmic Forge. Having said that, I'm all ears to any critiques/ suggestions to the contrary, that could improve my experience in having a fun time.

My current concept for a party revolves around rolling 18+, although from what I understand, the SFC port has a few immediate advantages that perhaps mitigate the necessity of super high rolls, those being:

- encumbrance/carry weight/ mana regen are NOT tied to starting stats in this version (.e they scale with increasing stats?)
- the REST function works much better than the DOS version; (i.e mana & stamina recover generously now)
- there are no level-up stat rollbacks, only increase (which may be predetermined/linear?)

My current idea for a party is as follows:

M Fairie Monk
M Fairie Ninja
M Felpurr Samurai
M Rawulf Lord
F Dwarf Valkyrie
F Hobbit Bard

My uncertainties revolve around the following:

1. Party class composition

I gather that bishops are looked down upon in Wiz VI, and I already have a preference for not using dedicated spellcasters. Also, I love me that Eastern trinity of Ninja/Monk/Sam, so if possible I'd like to make that work. The above party seems to cover magic adequately via Thamuaturgy for Sam and Bard, Theology via Lord and Valk, Alchemy via Ninja, and Theosophy for Monk, right?

One issue that with the above party that I'm struggling with, is ordering. Using Hands & Feet with the Monk and Ninja seems like the way to go, but from what I gather, that would mean they need to be in slot 1&2. That means Sam in 3 - although he only starts off with S range weapons? Same issue with Lord if in slot 4, right? Valk and Bard are obviously 5&6, which should work I think. How should they be ordered? I know the Monk can use a Bo, but Hands & Feet for Monk and Ninja up front really appeals to me- you know, punches in bunches and whirlwinds of kicks causing all kinds of mayhem.

Another issue, is that I rolled a similar "test" party yesterday, and got my chars to I think level 3 or 4. My fairie Ninja, upon level up, received NO skillpoints at all repeatedly, giving me no opportunity to start raising Alchemy/Kirijitsu? A rolled 19 Fairie Ninja gave me 0 bonus starting stat and skillpoints to allocate at the beginning, so that seems like a rough start? How/when can I start raisng Alch/Kirijitsu?

BTW I know Valks are better than Lords in Wiz VI due to level progression, but I prefer party variety, so 2 Valks is boring to me, which leads me to:

2. Party Race & Sex

-As I said, I'd prefer variety in the racial composition in my party, but as it stands I have two Fairies and Felpurrs - could/should these picks be diversified?

I've heard how awesome Fairie Ninjas are, Felpurr Sam, etc, but should they be kept as is, or pick a different race/sex?

-What about Monk? Elf? Fairie? Felpurr? Same thing with Bard- Fairie? Elf? I like the idea of a Hobbit Bard, which is clearly statistically inferior to the Fairie, but would be fun. Bad idea?

- Give me advice on the male/female choice for the toons - are there any considerations I'm missing by going all Male except for Valk obviously?

Finally, if I do get into Wiz VI (and I think I will), I'd probably be interested in checking out Wiz 7 and 8. I actually played a decent amount of Wiz 8 and really enjoyed it, but shelved it for one reason or another (could have been something to do with the level scaling and combat time…
undecided.gif
).

Realistically, as I'll be playing the SFC version, I was thinking of "gifting my Wiz 7 party whatever the awesome endgame items from VI are via MadGod's Editor, but not necessarily recreating the same toons to import, as I gather there are different classs/race balances and affinities that make certain previous combinations inferior. The way I justify that in my head, is that my new Wiz 7 party will ha stumbled upon the remains of the Wiz 6 party, and thus acquired their gear
wink-.gif
.

Anyways, those are the issues that I could use advice on before getting deep into this trilogy, any and all insights from you gents would be much appreciated! :salute:
 

Strange Fellow

Peculiar
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Jun 21, 2018
Messages
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It'd be a shame to forego party import by playing a console version, in my opinion, but I know not everyone cares about that stuff. You'll also miss out on the parser-based dialogue, which is a pity.
Having said that, I'm all ears to any critiques/ suggestions to the contrary, that could improve my experience in having a fun time.
Changing classes and watching your regular Joe Single-Class become obscenely powerful in a matter of minutes is fun as hell. Your call, though.
- there are no level-up stat rollbacks, only increase (which may be predetermined/linear?)
This is also the case in the original version.
M Fairie Monk
M Fairie Ninja
M Felpurr Samurai
M Rawulf Lord
F Dwarf Valkyrie
F Hobbit Bard
Too hybrid heavy for my tastes, but I suppose you can make it work. I do think it's too light on magic, and I would trade either the Lord or the Valk, which are essentially the same class, for a pure caster - preferably the Lord, since Valks get a bitchin' weapon later in the game. You'll be severely hurting for skill points with that setup, and viable caster-melee hybrids take a looong time to get gong without class-changing. I would also be prepared to at least class-change the Bard at some point, as she will become rather useless as you get into the second half of the game.

Regarding the range, yeah you'll have trouble unless using (E)extended range weapons on at least two characters (you can keep the bard on full-time casting duty). Keep in mind, however, that the Ninja's and the Bard's Hide ability allow them to attack with any weapon from any position within the party order, if they can pull it off. Once your Ninjutsu is at a decent level you'll be able to Hide with some consistency, at which point it might be worth it to put your Ninja in the back row.
Another issue, is that I rolled a similar "test" party yesterday, and got my chars to I think level 3 or 4. My fairie Ninja, upon level up, received NO skillpoints at all repeatedly, giving me no opportunity to start raising Alchemy/Kirijitsu? A rolled 19 Fairie Ninja gave me 0 bonus starting stat and skillpoints to allocate at the beginning, so that seems like a rough start? How/when can I start raisng Alch/Kirijitsu?
Some classes "steal" a certain number of skill points on each level up, which are then automatically allocated to class-specific skills, until those skills reach a certain threshold. Apparently with the Fairie Ninja that's ALL your skill points.
-As I said, I'd prefer variety in the racial composition in my party, but as it stands I have two Fairies and Felpurrs - could/should these picks be diversified?
Since you're not planning on doing much/any class-changing, the race picks really don't matter all that much. You'll want to pick the race that requires the smallest possible stat point investment in order to reach the required class thresholds. Say you have a class that requires 13 STR and 14 PER - you'll want to pick the race that comes the closest to (or exceeds) those numbers, thus giving you more "free" stat points to allocate as you please. Alternatively, pick races that have points in stats you want - INT/PIE for casters, VIT/SPD for everyone, et cetera. However, stats really don't matter much in the grand scheme of things, and thus neither does race. Don't worry too much about it.
- Give me advice on the male/female choice for the toons - are there any considerations I'm missing by going all Male except for Valk obviously?
There are a handful of female-only items. There are no male-only items. That's it, IIRC.
I actually played a decent amount of Wiz 8 and really enjoyed it, but shelved it for one reason or another (could have been something to do with the level scaling and combat time…
undecided.gif
).
The slow pace of combat has been fixed by mods. Unless you have very bad taste indeed, you'll have a blast with 8, even if you end up not enjoying 6.
 
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Tse Tse Fly

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Dec 26, 2017
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622
The slow pace of combat has been fixed by mods.
I wouldn't call that 'fixed', honestly, but rather mitigated. The flashing of the icon indicating the type and the moment of action, which occurs before your character makes his turn, makes up a fair bit of the length of the delays, and it's still not fixed (if I'm not mistaken).
 
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Apr 14, 2019
Messages
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Thanks for the reply, Strange Fellow. I got the impression that taking 1-2 Valks/Lords is advisable , but if I'm to cut the Lord, what pure caster would be a smart choice? Between Ninja, and Bard-->Ninja, Alchemy should be good, and Samurai/Bard got Thaumaturgy, so maybe a Bishop? Having only one Valk, would I be light on Theology, and thus should take a Priest? Maybe Psionisit?

Hypothetically, if I'm to go the class change route of Thief-> Ninja, Mage-> Samurai, etc., when is it a good idea to start staggering class changes?

And to be clear, I really enjoyed the time I spent with Wiz 8, but shelved it due to leveling up too early and finding my progress turn into a slog due to the aforementioned level scaling. I found that rather counter-intuitive, that one should save-up and stagger your character's progress; that's one of the biggest payoffs and most enjoyable aspects of RPGs of this sort - watching your chars grow stronger. Arnika Road wasn't too bad, but Trynton was pretty brutal, due to being "overlevelled" at the time (those wandering Rapax around Trynton base were brutal). Also, I installed Wizfast, and while reduced, as you know, combat can still drag on at times.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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Only take a Bard in wiz 6 if you want to completely cheese thru the first half of the game. You can abuse the sleep-inducing instrument all you want and have effectively infinite katino because there is no instrument breaking percentage (something implemented in spiritual successor Elminage games).

If you don't want to, or don't plan on abusing bard instruments then there is no other reason to take one, so you can free up that slot for a different class; since this is your first time playing however it might not be a bad idea to take a bard and abuse their instruments though. it won't break the game by any means, it's just much more useful than almost anything else early-game.

TLDR bards in wiz 6 make the first half of the game too easy but then became kind of useless in the 2nd half as their instruments stop being as useful. Might as well just use some other class altogether.

EDIT: i notice you have two faeries in your party? they're not especially useful or good for anything noteworthy and are really more trouble than they're worth IMO. would recommend going with only 1 faerie character, or none.

EDIT 2: after you're done with wiz 6 on snes I highly recommend checking Wizardry gaiden 4 with the english translation patch, also on snes. it's a fantastic wiz game that mixes the best elements of 5 and 6, cherry-picking the best features of both games, with some fantastic level and area design and some great puzzles.
 
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octavius

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The beginning of Wiz 6 is quite brutal (much more so than for example Wiz 1), so you really need those free Sleep spells.
 
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Messages
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I hear you guys on the cheezwiz nature of the Bard's instruments early on, but I'm always partial to bards in RPG's, what with being passionate about music, and string instruments in particular, so ima definitely roll one. Since race doesn't sound like a major consideration, I may as well roll my jolly Hobbit Bard then. I've seen kmonster on this board say that Bards actually stay useful till the end in another Wizardry thread, but I suppose I'll cross that bridge when I get there, whether to switch classes.
I have two fairies in my party, because I think they're e simply fabulous. :dance: Seriously though, I thought their bonus AC would make them extra hard to hit in the front row as a Monk and Ninja tag team, plus they have a higher base INT than say a Felpurr Sam or Ninja, and better Magic resistance.

Thanks for the recommendation of Wizardry Gaiden 4 aweigh; I looked it up and it looks great. I'm all about great puzzle design, so that should be right up my alley.

I think I'm going to roll my initial party, albeit with some slight tweaks, and see where that gets me- thanks for the help fellas :salute:
 
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aweigh

Self-Ejected
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like in life, race does matter. it determines eventual maximum ranges for damage output, hit point pool, turn order, probability of spells landing (such as buffs), spell damage, and lots of other things. your attribute caps and upper ranges are determined by your race as racial cap +10.
 

octavius

Arcane
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EDIT 2: after you're done with wiz 6 on snes I highly recommend checking Wizardry gaiden 4 with the english translation patch, also on snes. it's a fantastic wiz game that mixes the best elements of 5 and 6, cherry-picking the best features of both games, with some fantastic level and area design and some great puzzles.

It has some flaws, like rather uneven combat difficulty, and some of the levels are not original.

Tip to anyone giving it a try: do not lockpick doors, unless you can find no other way. You will miss puzzles if you do.
 
Self-Ejected

aweigh

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all doors have a key i believe, except for one or two. it's a credit to the game that it allows you to lockpick them if you can't figure out how to open them otherwise.
 
Joined
Apr 14, 2019
Messages
16
Hey bros, so I've put a few hours into Wiz 6 now, and am about lv 6-8 with my toons, everything going solid.

I think I might have encountered a bug/screwed something up, and wanted to run it by the Codex to be sure. I've I lost the damn Jailor's key - it disappeared on me while trying to manage my inventory by merging items while in the jail (I had tons of Iron keys taking up space, and may have tried to merge a stack of Iron keys with the Jailor's key). I know from searching the net, that the Jailors key is supposed to disappear eventually, but what gives me pause is that I only opened a few cells in the jail, and the key was still in my inventory, when it disappeared.

I had the Jailors key on the second page of a character's inventory, and I was attempting to somehow move it to the first page for convenience, when it vanished. The attached image shows the cells that I opened before this event (in green), and the red circles show those that I didn't have the chance to poen.

Furthermore, I'm assuming the numerous other Portuculis(s)? throughout the Castle that look similar can be opened with the Jailor's key? What's the verdict fellas - do I need to re-roll my party and start over?

Wiz%20VI%20Jail_zpsrjyidofz.gif
 
Joined
Apr 14, 2019
Messages
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The grates marked in red aren't opened by the Jailer Key. You're good. You've found the Deadman's Log, right?
.

Yeah, I got the Deadman's Log. It just seemed like a bug, because I was in the process of some "inventory management when it vanished. Sound like I'm good to contnue.

In terms of progress, I've since retuned Snoopcheri to L'Montes, and have since come across a Silver, Gold, and Spade Keyx2, so there's some avenues of exploration I'm aware of.
 

EverlastingLove

Learned
Joined
May 2, 2018
Messages
97
How can you kill Blienmeis (Wizardry 7)? He seems to be immuned to every spell and he has very high initiative. My party (10-11 lvl) can't even touch him, he even kills my powerful summoned creatures (lvl 7 spells). I can't blind him, I can't use Lifesteal of him, I'm running out of ideas. Or maybe I'm severely underleveled?
 

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