Hi-
I'm still playing Wiz1 on UWA. My characters are Level 10 or 11 now. When it is time to level up, I almost always lose more skill points than I earn, and gain only one hit point. I spend about 20 minutes per character resetting via the keyboard escape button, but even though I try and try, I eventually end up settling for only one hit point plus the least amount of skill reductions. One of my fighters usually gains 3-5 hit points, but the other fighter, the thief, the mage, the priest, and the bishop all have low hps after 10 levelups with poor results. I feel like I'm leveling down!! Excluding a character editor, is there some trick to getting good levelups? I've tried staying at the posher Inn options, but the results are the same.

Thanks.

• Alea iacta est,ShadowCrust, 01:23 PM, Aug-06-02
  • RE: Alea iacta est,DT (Guest), 04:25 AM, Aug-07-02
• RE: Question about Leveling up,Mark (Guest), 06:11 PM, Aug-07-02
  • RE: Question about Leveling up,DT (Guest), 06:13 AM, Aug-08-02
    • RE: Question about Leveling up,Dragon2k, 10:17 PM, Aug-08-02
      • RE: Question about Leveling up,DT (Guest), 03:19 AM, Aug-07-02
        • RE: Question about Leveling up,grundir (Guest), 04:55 PM, Jul-15-03
          • RE: Question about Leveling up,Brambo (Guest), 10:16 AM, Jan-03-06

There seems to be a bug in the UWA versions concerning level-ups. It isn't so bad for me, though, since I hardly get an attribute decrease; only the hitpoints seem to be very low most of the time. I have to try maybe five or six times to be satisfied with the result of the level-up. But in the end it doesn't matter that much, you can defeat Werdna with very lowly characters, too.
I don't know about a trick how to get better statistics, sorry.

Thanks, Shadow.
You're lucky that you only have to try 5-6 times. My first 20-25 times give me a 1 HP increase and 2-3 skill losses. I was gonna take my party up to Wiz 2, but I don't think they're worth transferring. Rolling my characters was dreadful, too--I spent about 15 hours realtime, and finally settled for 16-18 bonus points.
I'm starting to understand why so many people use character editors...I'm considering cheating as well, but it isn't usually my style in rpg. Sigh.

I used to have a similar problem with my mage - he would never gain strength. What I did was when I saw that he had enough experience to make a new level, I would take him into the maze on his own, and have him fight some kobolds or orcs on the first level. (And I mean *fight*, without using any spells). After he killed them (which could take a very long time), I would bring him back up, go up a level, and he would usually gain strength.

Thanks, Mark. I've noticed that you do not want to go straight from Gilgamesh's to the Inn. Fo me, that's a sure way to get a lousy level up. I've tried the message you suggested, also tried taking the whole party in order, tried fighting with randomly ordered groups of 3 and 4, you name it, I've tried it. Still only get 1 HP per level up. After 20-25 tries, I usually take either 1HP plus no skill loss or 2-3 HP plus one or two skill losses.

I have a new problem, too. When my Level 14 Mage casts Malor in camp, most or all of my party dies. The only way I can escape Level 10 after killing Werdna is to fight again and trigger a Teleport trap, then make my way out from there.

Are you sure you are using it correctly? teleport +9 or -9 levels, and don't bother with the n/s/e/w co-ordinates. I forget which way you go, but you obviously don't want to go down, for all is solid rock.
side note - if you cast MALOR in combat, you will randomly teleport, like a teleporter trap

I'm very careful with Malor. I use it only in camp, and I double-check my coordinates on my maps every time. I've discovered that I can malor up to Level 4 near the elevator with a good rate of success. If I try to teleport to a level nearer the surface, 3 or 4 of my characters arrive just where I wanted them, but 2 or 3 end up D/O.

I think my copy of UWA is buggier than usual. It's really starting to tick me off, and I'm thinking about moving to KOD now, even though my guys are only level 14.

malor in werdna's usually 9 up and 3 east, been a while, gotta stand in just the right spot too, puts ya right on the stairs to the castle

Vitality is HUGE in hp gains for level ups.

Leveling up a ninja that I made with the thieves dagger I found that he got lousy hp increases until vit 16 and then he started getting really big ones.

If you want to test this out...take the character you are leveling up and and use a hex editor to bump that vitality. Then try a few more times and you'll be blown away by the hp increases that you can get.

I wish I had known this when I rolled my characters they all would have been giving significantly more vitality on startup.

I also noticed that hp increases really got stingy after about level 10. But with devent vitality you could still get good ones