Wizard's Crown

[DaveO]

There is a tavern at the northern part of the outside map. It's located along the "road" leading outside the town. Just enter, and you may have to do it a few times for it to become day. If you get stuck in the ruins at night with little Karma left, getting to one of the scattered temples and saying 'Shalpa' will help you avoid more combat.

Anything Evaluated with magic properties always has a * to emphasize that it has something special.

If you really foul things up, you could just use the disks to reset and start over with some knowledge on what to expect early.

 

[Saxon1974]

Cool thanks. Didn't realize taverns passed that much time as I tried that but only once....I might have to just create one new fighter priest as that's who got killed outside.

Its been a long time since I played a game where I really needed tips. Old school

 

[octavius]

I almost regret skipping this game (and Wizardry 1) in my play games in chronological order project...

 

[DaveO]

I'd recommend starting over if you have to reroll a character, especially since the game has a time limit on defeating Tarmon. For best results, you want to be ready to go thru the end around day 150 to 175 at the latest. The game year only has 200 days.

When rolling the starting characters, an initial weapon skill around the high 20s or low 30s is what you want. Since experience gets harder to come by as you get better, I'd use the initial experience points to improve the weapon skills. You can have the Thieves develop skills with low experience costs(Mace, Sword, Spear). You could have two characters using Maces since Flail is not a very good weapon choice for the high experience cost to improve it. Axes are worth the skill improvement since the sequel has two good axes to buy, and in both games the axe damage may break an enemy shield.

Since at the early part of skill development, a skill can improve from 1-8 points you may want to save before improving a skill and restoring if the skill improvement is below 50%. I took rolls of 6-8, but only if the combined total was 14 or higher for two improvements.

 

[Saxon1974]

Ok, started again hopefully will go faster now that I understand the game a bit. This game is not easy to get going at, total opposite of current games. I find that sometimes its more rewarding this way though. Thanks for all the tips.

 

[DaveO]

So what is your party makeup for the restart?

Regardless of how you develop your characters, there will definitely be points where some characters have better skills and stats than others in the party. You definitely want to improve Dexterity when you can up to 20(even before any strength improvements), and you can safely give some characters a lower Strength(8 would be the lowest I would go) score. The broadsword requires 12 strength to use, so definitely don't skimp there. Shields are only useful at the starting part of the game. Once you find defensive potions, it's better to improve them.

What makes this game hard is that you have characters with low expertise in the plethora of skills given, and you're given only basic equipment with the exception of the +2 broadsword for saving the girl from the thugs. Early on, the important skills are the weapon skills, Evaluate Magic, Haggle, Search, and Karma. Once you get those skills over 100, your party gets a bit better at handling things.

 

[Saxon1974]

So what is your party makeup for the restart?

Regardless of how you develop your characters, there will definitely be points where some characters have better skills and stats than others in the party. You definitely want to improve Dexterity when you can up to 20(even before any strength improvements), and you can safely give some characters a lower Strength(8 would be the lowest I would go) score. The broadsword requires 12 strength to use, so definitely don't skimp there. Shields are only useful at the starting part of the game. Once you find defensive potions, it's better to improve them.

What makes this game hard is that you have characters with low expertise in the plethora of skills given, and you're given only basic equipment with the exception of the +2 broadsword for saving the girl from the thugs. Early on, the important skills are the weapon skills, Evaluate Magic, Haggle, Search, and Karma. Once you get those skills over 100, your party gets a bit better at handling things.

Im going with this this game, I seem to be doing ok now. I can go outside and survive for a while now. I haven't seen a way to improve your base attributes only skills. Did I miss it somewhere?

Party:

Fighter x 2
Ranger fighter
Fighter priest
Fighter thief - for stealth and scan
Fighter thief - for search and haggle
Priest
Sorceror

 

[DaveO]

You have to reach over 100 experience points before you can improve attributes.

 

[Saxon1974]

Interesting..I didn't see that in the manual. At what point is it a good to start using xp on attributes and not skills? When your major skills are 100?

 

[DaveO]

If the weapon skills are around 150 and most of the useful skills are over 100, you can start to consider attribute improvements. Dexterity by far is the most important. I'd only improve Strength or Life if you need it for a weapon/armor or are nearing the end-game.

In terms of useful skills, the weapon skills are the most important. Scan is useful for a few characters, Search helps to find magical items, Haggle to sell stuff for some decent money, Evaluate Magic helps to identify the magic items, Luck can be considered almost gamebreaking since it affects how often a physical attack hits. Spellcasting and Power are not hugely important before building up for your first night fight. Turn Undead is quite handy for any Priests, and Treat Poison/First Aid are not bad skills to improve.

 

[octavius]

Luck can be considered almost gamebreaking since it affects how often a physical attack hits.

Since only Priests get the Luck "skill" does that mean that giving all characters the Priest class (at a cost of 7 of 25 points) is a good idea?

 

[TigerKnee]

Hey octy, tell me how you find this game after you're done with it.

 

[octavius]

I'll probably jot down my impressions as I go along.

One thing that annoys me is that it seems impossible to see character's class(es) on the character screen; you have to deduce the class from the skill levels. I guess I have to come up with even more unimaginative names than usual to keep track of all the eight party members and what they can do.

Took the pregens out for a spin and won a night encounter against 5 thugs easily enough. Sorceror kept miscasting Night Vision (how is it different from Foxfire anyway?), but keeping a tight formation the fighters performed well. I guess buying Torches is important so that you can see your opponents at night.

I like all the options and the details, so this could be fun.

 

[Country_Gravy]

Not just fun....it's fucking awesome. Try Eternal Dagger next.

 

[octavius]

Not just fun....it's fucking awesome. Try Eternal Dagger next.

Yeah, I'm contemplating doing just that.
But that would involve using another emulator than DosBox.
Judging from the screenshots the Atari (sadly only 8 bit) version looks best, and I think that's the version DaveO used too.
But is it worth playing the Atari version of Wizard's Crown too, in order to transfer the characters into Eternal Dagger?

 

[DaveO]

I used the Atari version for my Wizard's Crown Let's Play. You really get a good benefit when transferring a successful party of Wizard's Crown into Eternal Dagger. You'll have higher stats and skills and a larger pool of life.
In terms of Priests, you can have the whole front line become Priests. With 200 Luck a lot of the physical attacks miss. Even a Luck score of 100 can make a difference. Luck ALSO lets you abuse the defensive potions instead of taking the shield skill. Shield is useful early, but then it is overshadowed by Luck later. Now you COULD just have the left and right flank members be priests. Fighter/Priest is not a bad combo. You'll want ALL characters to take Fighter. Other classes are up to you. I did my LP with 4 Fighter/Sorcerers, 2 Fighter/Ranger/Priests and 2 Fighter/Thief/Priests. If you look at my LP, the starting attributes were not that great. You get plenty of time to improve the attributes, even with item enchantments. Just NEVER enchant a +1 item unless it has magic type of damage(Physical, Storm, or Life Drain) and a good skill bonus. Defensive items should only be enchanted at +2 or better.

Oops - I almost forgot to add that Night Vision is supposed to last the whole night, but Foxfire is better since it allows all party members and not the caster see.

 

[octavius]

DaveO, thanks for tips.
Any pointers to where I can get those Atari ROMs for the emulator? I reckon I need the OS-B ROM (ATARIOSB.ROM) and the BASIC ROM (ATARIBAS.ROM).

 

[DaveO]

http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/holmes cd/Holmes 1/ATR Games/index.html

You might need to go to the parent directories. The download links should work.
I played with the Atari 800 emulator program from that site IIRC.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I played this game (but never finished it) way back in the day on my Atari 130XE. It was a fun game, and if you like the Gold Box games you will appreciate how Wizard's Crown was where SSI began to experiment with their party-based, tactical RPG formula.

 

[octavius]

http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/holmes cd/Holmes 1/ATR Games/index.html

You might need to go to the parent directories. The download links should work.
I played with the Atari 800 emulator program from that site IIRC.

Found them at last, hidden away in a rather innocent sounding zip file, and they seem to be working well.
Looks like they may have been removed from some of the former locations judging by empty folders named ROM.

 

[octavius]

DaveO, did you remap your keyboard when using the Atari emulator?
The Atari uses keys 1-8 for movement, which is very unintuitive and clunky on a Windows keyboard. I'm trying to remap the movement keys to use the keypad instead, but it won't quite work. The weirdest thing is that Keypad 2, 4, 6, and 8 work after I also remap the arrows keys to Atari keys 5, 7, 3 and 1 . So I can get the straight movements, but not the vertical ones.

 

[DaveO]

No, I did not bother to remap the keyboard. It just takes a bit of time to get used to a new movement/keyboard scheme.

 

[DaveO]

I almost forgot to mention that the reward for retrieving the crown is 6 strength, 6 dexterity, and 30 life if you do it in the first year. The second year gives a bonus of 3 strength, 3 dexterity, and 15 life. Do both like I did, and you should be well prepared(and likely overprepared) for Eternal Dagger.

 

[TigerKnee]

You might need to go to the parent directories. The download links should work.
I played with the Atari 800 emulator program from that site IIRC.

What's the different between the D1/2 and G1/2 files for Wizard's Crown?

 

[DaveO]

D1 and D2 correspond to the dungeon data disks. G1 and G2 are the game disks. The data discs are for creating a party and the tactical combat engine.