Wizard's Crown

[KeighnMcDeath]

You can find virtually anything. You'll be surprised on the shit you can find like crowbars that cast fireballs (well, maybe).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, this is where I did use a lot of quick combat just to get loot and check magic items the mobs had & what type of magic was on it. I actually recorded every item but alas, those pages got destroyed by water & bug damage in storage (just pulp)

You know, i think finding out what treasure mobs had in various games and slowly deciphering creature abilities was why I grinded in every game. Some people hex edit or w/e I just grinded.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

You can find virtually anything. You'll be surprised on the shit you can find like crowbars that cast fireballs (well, maybe).

It is strange. On the looting screen it was ?LEATHER. My mage was looting. Somebody take it into the inventory. Then it became evaluated. Of course it was a basic leather armor.

 

[Zombra]

It is strange. On the looting screen it was ?LEATHER. My mage was looting. Somebody take it into the inventory. Then it became evaluated. Of course it was a basic leather armor.

Yeah. I don't know the exact process but your mages will keep trying to identify things. Don't throw away something that might be good. Of course what this means can change over time as you learn patterns. An unidentified knitting needle dropped by a broke-ass bandit is unlikely to turn out to be Excalibur.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Most important thing: you get no ambushed. That is deadly.
How far should go forward the on point man (my thief)?
Stealth and scan skills are the important. Any else?
What can I do if a character has been paralyzed? On the video 3 chars are paralyzed from 1 paralyze spell (?)

 

[Zombra]

Most important thing: you get no ambushed. That is deadly.
How far should go forward the on point man (my thief)?
Stealth and scan skills are the important. Any else?

Just Stealth and Scan. Sorry but I think you're going to have to "feel it out" to figure out what distance works. The better your skills, the farther ahead you should go.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Sometimes the Dosbox save state is not working. Load save state -> game hangup.
I am trying the Apple II version. For ED too. With keymapper.
ASchultz is funny about keys:
812
7 3
654

By the time you get used to it the game will probably be over.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

Turn undead - There are no undead in sight - why?
Do you want protection? - what does this mean?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I'll quote a prominent guide on some of this:

Skills(besides karma--1XP/point and power--3XP/point) improve as follows: for
1-100, you get a random boost of 1-8. 101-150, 1-4. 151-200, 1-2. 201-250, 1.
Beware that if you improve something at 250, the computer will suck the
experience will disappear.

The following skills need 3 XP for improvement:

* Close combat
* mace
* first aid
* haggling
* evaluate magic
* combat awareness (useless in WC, as are below)
* Swimming
* crossbow
* hunt

4 XP:

* sword
* spear
* picklock
* treat poison
* treat disease (useless in WC, as are below)
* turn undead
* read ancient
* scan
* shield
* track

5 XP: (all useless in WC)

* bow
* stealth
* disarm trap
* alchemy

6 XP:

* axe
* flail
* luck
* cast spell

WEAPON SKILLS, COMBAT AWARENESS, SCAN: I generally try to go with 2-handed
weapons for maximum damage. So shield isn't valuable. I also don't care about
intangible skills. I doubt they programmed too much into the game about using
them in quick combat anyway. My recommendation is to increase your initial
weapon's skill to 100. Wait until you start getting "real" magic items(not +1/+5
but magic or doom) and then distribute items according to who gets them. If you
get a very good magic item it's worthwhile to give up on any character
improvement to switch over. You can get back up to 100 easily enough.)

SHIELD: I didn't really worry about this. Even if you can use the shield for
offense as well as defense, they break against axes, so you can get a nice fancy
shield and it breaks and why bother?

SWIMMING: Kind of useful in one dungeon if everybody is moving around, which
won't be the case if you want to stay sane.

STEALTH: You should be able to beat up every enemy, so no need to hide.

HUNT: Not used here. See Eternal Dagger.

TRACK: Also not used here.

FIRST AID: Very useful, but only your ranger, who probably has nothing else to
improve, really needs it. He needs bandages, which appear randomly after fights
and get used up. They can be found in stores on the west edge of the inner wall.

SEARCH: Good search helps you find secret doors easier. It's hard to tell what a
good minimum is to get through the game. But a high search apparently lets you
find more loot after beating monsters. Very highly recommended, after haggling.

DISARM TRAP: You should be able to withstand most traps, so don't worry about
this. Since "traps" is barely plural in this game, anyway.

PICKLOCK: Marginally useful early so you don't have to be casting spells. But
eventually you'll have great spellcasters and this won't matter. I don't even
bother with dungeons until my casters are decent.

HAGGLE: Very very very useful. But not quite as useful as Search.

TREAT POISON: Critical because characters can die and get rubbed out by its
effects, even after an otherwise easy win. Improve this as quickly as you can.
In fact it's worth improving for one of your priests at the temporary expense of
karma until it gets to 100! 100 should be enough to cure most anything at first,
but morale loss will drag it down. This is the ultimate insurance policy.

TREAT DISEASE: Diseased players don't regain morale with rest. This isn't used
at all in WC.

TURN UNDEAD: Very useful for your clerics, but not the main stat. I would max it
at 70% of karma.

ALCHEMY: I found this neat concept useless for practical play.

LUCK: Prevents magic damage, so I think it's very worth it. Note that it and
turn undead are bounded in practice by karma. So you don't want 120 luck and 100
max karma. I capped my luck at 175.

READ ANCIENT:
One person needs this skill, and not much of it(to 100?)

EVALUATE MAGIC: The better this is for one player, the more magic items you will
find/understand. Therefore it's in your interest to get someone to max this out,
but only one person.

CAST SPELL: Affects if you cast a spell successfully. Very important for mages.

Sadly, ASchultz just like CRPG addict used mostly quick combat which, imho, isn't the main focus of the game at all. Tactical hounds will fawn over and delight in every combat testing their skills, tactics, and methods to best win every battle with different forces. Eh, a sign of the times maybe when games were more scarce.

CRPG addict on combat
CRPG addict revisits Wcrown (spoilers here but he again states he preferred quick and didn't really explore the nuances of spells)

• 5 points for magic and combat. Wizard's Crown errs on the side of making tactical combat too complicated, while quick combat is mostly just boring. The spell list isn't very long or impressive, with almost nothing except light spells and "Unlock" useful out of combat.

Fighting tactical combat as rarely as I did, I didn't really explore the nuances of all these spells.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Now, I can't remember if all enemies appear invisible at night or in the dark without light or a foxfire spell.

Bless can be cast multiple times to raise luck and I hear some use that tactic to win battles (not sure if counter magic or dispel magic destroys that.

Hidden and invisible means critters are going so scan a lot. I found sone would end their left over movement turns scanning.

Reveal enemy seems good too but can you spam it to raise +30 to scan and +20 to combat awareness repeatedly like Bless for luck. So maybe buff?

Magic Protection
Missile protection
Armor
Both decent party buffs but begs the question if repeat casts increase it more. Obviously dispel magics will destroy it.

Shatter can destroy weapons I believe.

Mass Invisibility (party)
Invisibility
This can be very nice.
If not adjacent and no opponent near even after attack, will you become invisible again?

Poison can NOT be dispelled

Life steal.
Valid to heal the sorcerer's wounds (life force? I don't know)

Change terrain
Clear, wall, rubble.
Does rubble cause those in square some sort of disadvantage or penalty?


Paralyze Has a 25% chance of paralyzing each enemy so that he may not move or defend himself for the remainder of the battle. Does not work on targets with magic
resistance.

Darkness Eliminates Foxfire spells and temporarily blinds all enemies so that that the party is engaged no longer. (See COMBAT.)

hmmm... a new foxfire negate darkness? Not engaged?

Engagement
If a character who was attacked by a melee weapon in the last action that an enemy performed is still adjacent to the enemy, he is ENGAGED. An engaged character may neither sneak nor move more than one square.
Interesting.

You'll want to thoroughly digest section VIII Combat to start formulating your tactics and party formations. Look at things that cause injury and bleeding and things that don't. Look at what attacks life force directly and various protection.

I don't recall if ED introduced elemental resistance but it seems in this game you have
Resistance from cutting
Resistance from Bashing
Resistance from Thrusting
Resistance from physical magic (physical)
Magic (magical)
Life Blast (magical)

And i'm not sure the resistance on magic other than that sorcerer spell and maybe items.

What various mobs have is an estimated guess by trial and error and taking notes. Some people just want to finish the game and shelve it but tacticians will delight in the long combats taking extensive notes.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

A note from CRPGADDICT on Eternal Dagger.

The new game won't let you have more than 3 mages or 3 priests (including multi-classed characters) in the same party; I guess it ruins the game balance. The new maximum for each skill is 500 points. They dealt with one of my concerns about having to specify the point man and distance every time you leave camp; Dagger lets you set a default. They did not, unfortunately, change the system of movement; you still use a nonsensical arrangement of number keys.

I don't recall this and I don't know if different computers make a difference. Tbh, I think only C64, atari8bit, and appleII even allow a transfer since some computers only had one or the other.

Wizard's Crown
Releases by Date

• 1986 (Commodore 64)
• 1986 (Apple II)
• 1986 (Atari 8-bit)
• 1987 (Atari ST)
• 1987 (DOS)
• 2021 (Windows)

Eternal Dagger
Releases by Date

• 1987 (Apple II)
• 1987 (Commodore 64)
• 1987 (Atari 8-bit)

 

[octavius]

Turn undead - There are no undead in sight - why?
Do you want protection? - what does this mean?

Do you want to try to destroy the undead, or to protect against them. I always went for destroying them (doesn't always work), and didn't try the Protection option, but I guess it may be useful in larger battles.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

* Resting in the Inn for 999 days actually gives you money, which tops you off roughly around 220 Copper per character.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

What are the combat skills? Is Close Combat an important skill?
Is this Cloak useless?

 

[octavius]

IIRC: Close Combat is not an important skill and that Cloak is useless.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

It even says so. YES. I don't think you can spend the gold to enchant non-magic gear or can you? It'd just probably end up +1 cloak.

 

[Zombra]

Rocking a stylish cloak is never useless.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Maybe it is moldy and moth-ridden with holes that was an Ogre's toilet paper.

 

[octavius]

Rocking a stylish cloak is never useless.

It could get you into trouble with the law.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

"That's why I recommend a ratio of 50% or so undead/luck to karma.
TURN UNDEAD: Very useful for your clerics, but not the main stat. I would max it at 70% of karma."

So is it 50% or 70%?

Should I use the Foxfire light spell during a night battle in the cemetery?

Where are the skeletons? Am I doing something wrong?

 

[octavius]

What version are you playing? It looks very ugly.
I didn't have any problem with the 8 bit Atari version.
I mostly avoided night battles, but IIRC Foxfire is very useful for them.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

What version are you playing? It looks very ugly.

DOS version. But I am using the CHGCOLOR dos program for unique coloring.

Edit: I changed it for you

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I warned them so they're hanging out at the pub. I owed them.

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

I am an utter lunatic. I am playing *every* combat. No quick combat.
Fighter/mage - should I use bows/crossbows or melee weapons like swords?

 

[TheDeveloperDude]

There are bushes and rocks on the battle map. Does it matter?