Wizardry The Wizardry Series Thread

[Clockwork Knight]

And it very usefully includes the manual (in pdf form). The magic-words list is useless, since you can get through the password screen by pressing enter.

Oh. I was just looking through it. Since 6-7-8 are on my giant must-eventually-play list, I'd wish to know if there's a similar way of dealing with wiz7 (namely, this "copy shortcut and be done with it" method). Once I installed Wiz7 Gold and it run ok, but then you people said it was shit compared to the original and I kind of lost the will to play, since it was running kinda weird anyway.

 

[sirfink]

What's the verdict on Wiz7 vs WizGold? Gold is 7 but with better graphics and an auto-map? Are there other differences?

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

Finished it on the Amiga when it first came out. Haven't played it again as yet.

 

[Suppression]

Played it, mapped it, finished it, all without help.

Nearly lost my mind at some points, though.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

wiz7 (namely, this "copy shortcut and be done with it" method).

Sure:

http://www.oldgames.sk/en/game/wizardry ... rk-savant/

It's the first one of the two downloads. Oldgames.sk is where I got the Wiz6 as well, I just noticed that a minute ago.

You can update it to the newest dosbox version simply by copying and overwriting the related files (dosbox exe and the two dll's).

You can get the manual here.

Does anyone know if the world map (also downloadable at Abandonia) came with the original game? Or is it an instrument of cheating like the hint book?

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

What's the verdict on Wiz7 vs WizGold? Gold is 7 but with better graphics and an auto-map? Are there other differences?

The first thing that put me off was the audio narration in Gold. There was more faggotry in the graphics as well (mainly the portraits from what I recall).

 

[Mattresses]

fuckin' look at this shit.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

awesome. Thanks Nomask, forgot about that site.

edit: Belnar seems to be drawn in a different artstyle

 

[Mangoose]

Is creating powerful characters important for all three games (6, 7, and 8), or just a balanced party? I want to know if I'm just sucking it up or if I didn't put up enough patience while rolling characters. Without looking at any walkthroughs.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Wiz6 will be difficult as hell if you don't have a superb party. I'm fairly certain the developers expected the player to spend some time abusing the character-creation system. I spent probably two hours creating and deleting and creating characters for my party. It's still tough enough to keep all of them alive in tougher encounters, and the beginning was a bit rough in general.

edit: of course, my party is balanced. The combat encounters would probably be easier if my party consisted of just a couple of fairy ninjas.

 

[Mangoose]

What about Wiz7? I made a party just using the first rolls and besides having a Fairy Samurai my party is pretty balanced. But doesn't survive against the first non-random fights.

 

[sirfink]

I have restarted Wiz6 with a new party. My first party sucked because I didn't know what I was doing. I couldn't be bothered with re-rolling to get better stats and just went with the first roll. I got sick of the constant dying. And constant reloading.

Now I've got a bad-ass party: Samurai, Lord, Monk, Ninja, Bard and a Bishop. They didn't start with those classes but as soon as they qualified I switched them, or multiclassed them or whatever you want to call it. Everybody is blasting spells left and right. In fact, they all suck at melee combat but that should improve eventually.

 

[mondblut]

But doesn't survive against the first non-random fights.

Here is your answer:

I made a party just using the first rolls

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Everybody is blasting spells left and right. In fact, they all suck at melee combat but that should improve eventually.

In Wizardry, as in Oblivion, skills improve when you use them, although there seem to be some unrelated inbalances between classes. My fairy ninja is already an amazing fighter with bare hands and feet, and much better than my actual fighter at killing things.

I also noticed that first-roll characters sucked when I first started the game a couple of days ago. I then compared them with the ready-made characters that came in the box, and started rerolling to see if it was actually possible to roll characters that good, etc.

 

[Mangoose]

But doesn't survive against the first non-random fights.

Here is your answer:

I made a party just using the first rolls

Thanks, that was my question.

 

[mondblut]

But doesn't survive against the first non-random fights.

Here is your answer:

I made a party just using the first rolls

Thanks, that was my question.

The expanded answer is "yes, you do have to roll for bonus 20+ characters for hours to survive the first non-random fights, your first roll characters are useless".

 

[Mangoose]

But doesn't survive against the first non-random fights.

Here is your answer:

I made a party just using the first rolls

Thanks, that was my question.

The expanded answer is "yes, you do have to roll for bonus 20+ characters for hours to survive the first non-random fights, your first roll characters are useless".

Yeah, I thanked you the first time you answered me.

 

[sirfink]

The thing that isn't explained well in the manual is how/why/what ability scores go up when a character levels. Unlike Wizardry 8, where you get a certain number of points to distribute when you level up, ability scores gain a point (or 2?) seemingly at random when you level up. Stranger still, ability scores will sometimes go down when you level up. The manual even says this, with no explanation whatsoever. My Samurai, who started the game with Vitality at 10 or so (and 1 hit point!), now has Vitality at about 6. So you never really know what ability scores will go up and, therefore, when you'll qualify to switch classes.

Skills also go up in strange ways. While my Lord has seen his spell casting skill get very high, my Bard (Bards can cast spells in Wiz6) hasn't seen her spellcasting skill go up much, despite casting constantly.

Sometimes this game feels like a kick in the balls, but I keep playing it. I'm gonna beat this damn game!

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

The thing that isn't explained well in the manual is how/why/what ability scores go up when a character levels. Unlike Wizardry 8, where you get a certain number of points to distribute when you level up, ability scores gain a point (or 2?) seemingly at random when you level up. Stranger still, ability scores will sometimes go down when you level up. The manual even says this, with no explanation whatsoever. My Samurai, who started the game with Vitality at 10 or so (and 1 hit point!), now has Vitality at about 6. So you never really know what ability scores will go up and, therefore, when you'll qualify to switch classes.

Skills also go up in strange ways. While my Lord has seen his spell casting skill get very high, my Bard (Bards can cast spells in Wiz6) hasn't seen her spellcasting skill go up much, despite casting constantly.

Sometimes this game feels like a kick in the balls, but I keep playing it. I'm gonna beat this damn game!

Interesting. Maybe you could make your bard cast harder spells (increased power level), which would force him to learn.

Also, skills seem to increase mid-level as in Wiz8 based on how much you use them. Or maybe they don't. I really haven't paid that much attention to skill progression. What I've noticed for sure is that sometimes when you level up you don't get skill points to distribute, but often you do. Remember, the more intelligence your characters have, the faster they learn AND the more skill points they should receive to be distributed at level up, poor intelligence often leaving none to be distributed. Maybe this is also the difference between your bard and lord?

 

[Jasede]

As far as I remember, some characters have easier times levelling up some skills than others. It's a little hazy in my memory, and I might even be wrong- but it seems reasonable that bards would level them up slower in exchange for having a large pool of skills to draw from. Everytime you use a skill, there is a chance it will improve. I don't remember what exactly modifies this chance, but I think it is IQ and the current skill level.

I recommend you not to put points into Oratory, Mythology and Artifacts as they increase quickly on their own. Use consumables/scrolls/etc. freely to help increase them. Kirijutsu increases very slowly naturally, so points aren't wasted. Ninjutsu increases very quickly when you use Hide so don't spend points there. It's important to have a high Skulduggery as early as possible.

The various skill-points you get on level-up aren't random as far as I remember- certain classes get more in certain fields, and a high IQ can give bonus points. But you never get more than 3 points to distribute in any field any level-up. (Someone correct me.)

Ablity points increase and decrease at random, like in Wiz 1-3 and 5. They are skewed slightly to increase on average.

Your low Vitality sounds like very poor luck or you using the revive spell too much. Reviving will permanently lower your Vitality by one and increase your Age. If you reach an age >40 (50?) your stats will decrease fairly dramatically.

Rolling for hours is a good idea...
A better idea nowadays is to use a program called "Mad God's"somethingsomething editor. You can probably find it with Google. It allows you to hack the character generation to dramatically increase your chances of a "good" roll. You will roll only 17-28 or such using that hack. I do not consider it cheating since you'd normally end up rolling for hours on end hoping for a 20+ roll anyway.

Another small piece of advice is to make everyone's STR decent- due to a bug, your carry capacity is fixed to your initial STR roll. That means if your Mage starts with 8 STR he will have as much carrying capacity as someone with 8 STR, even if his STR later grows to 18. This might be a hassle later on.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

I often get more than three skill points to distribute with my lizardman fighter at level up (intelligence 18). 7 skill points probably isn't above the average, and I would recall as high numbers as 11.

Undoubtedly karma plays a role in whether your abilities decrease or increase on average. Many of my characters have 18, most of them above 15, and I haven't noticed decreases in abilities.

 

[Jasede]

It is possible, I spent hours on my first time rolling the coveted Fairy Ninja (23 or 25 points needed). I think the maximum possible might be either 27 or 29, I can't remember the maximum from Wizardry 1 clearly anymore. One of the two, though. (People who played Wizardry 5 on the SNES actually had a 0.5% chance or so of rolling 60, probably to make the game easier).

Sorry about the skill points, I must have been confusing this game with another.

I never noticed Karma do anything- that's an interesting theory though. How did you manage to get good Karma scores? Luck?

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Pure luck with the Karma scores. I rerolled if I got a bad karma, and often I would get 17 or 18 without having to reroll more than once or twice, and the other points would be about the same. But I suppose my characters are pretty average on the whole. You can examine them if you download the Wiz6 package I uploaded.

Btw, thanks for the post, it contained some interesting things I hadn't thought of, some of which I should have thought of.

 

[Mangoose]

What's hard for me to get into Wiz6/7 is trying to make a strong party while coming up with own ideas for character builds instead of reading up some walkthrough. I know now it is important to plan ahead for class switching and to have 20+ bonuses. Anything else?

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

It is possible, I spent hours on my first time rolling the coveted Fairy Ninja (23 or 25 points needed).

Sorry, I misunderstood this part. The ability bonus points you get from rolling are so much decreased by the act of choosing some character classes that probably had something to do with my misreading.