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"Toasted Mage, anyone?"

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Spirantho (2 posts) Click to EMail Spirantho Click to send private message to Spirantho Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Apr-08-09, 11:07 PM (Pacific)
"Toasted Mage, anyone?"
Hi everybody.

First post, so Hello!

Now, on to the question.

I'm playing Wizardry I (the 1987 release) on my PCjr (yes, really!). I've got a nice party going now, my two fighters have an AC of -2 before spells, my priest is adept at everything up to level 5 spells, my mage also up to level 5, my bishop is handy with mage spells to level 3 and priest to level 2, and my thief rarely misses a trick. They're all level 9 or 10. Fighters have 84 and 53 hitpoints(!), priest has about 80, mage 22(!), thief about 55.

I've got down to level 5 now, but it's hard. Or rather, it's HAAAAARD. I know this game is difficult, but take what happened last night:

Trundling along the corridors in level 5, when...

5 LVL 5 MAGES
A LVL 5 MAGE CASTS MOLITO *blam*
A LVL 5 MAGE CASTS MAHALITO *blam blam* my mage dies
A LVL 5 MAGE CASTS MOLITO *blam*
A LVL 5 MAGE CASTS MOLITO *blam* my thief and bishop die
A LVL 5 MAGE CASTS MAHALITO *kerblammo* my weaker fighter dies

I actually did kill one of them, my better fighter got a palpable hit in, the rest of them were dead before they could lift a finger.

Obviously, I ran. Fast. And limped back to the castle where luckily I had enough to heal three of the characters. Of course, this being my luck, the bishop promptly got turned to ashes. Bloomin' cheap priests in temple, reckon he was on work experience.

Anyway... I've worked hard on this party getting them up to level 10. I've got a stack of 12 adventurers' corpses stacked up in the Monster Allocation Centre where they keep dying. Yet I cannot find a way to defend against breath spells and magic group-attack spells.

Is this something you just have to live with or am I missing something really important here? I've bought pretty much everything there is to buy at Boltac's, so anything else I have to find in the dungeon. I'd like to level up more but that'd take a year and a half using only level 4 creatures, and even then occasionally I get surprised by 5 gas dragons and my entire party gets flamed (bye bye mage). Is it normal for the mage to just keel over and die whenever you chance across anything that can breathe or cast spells? 'cos they have so little hitpoints!

Naturally, cheating is not an option!

It is a fun game, though, isn't it? Just soooo hard (which is a good thing!)

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Snafaru (37 posts) Click to EMail Snafaru Click to send private message to Snafaru Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Apr-09-09, 03:40 PM (Pacific)
1. "RE: Toasted Mage, anyone?"
Hi Spiranto,

The trick is to roll up a Mage with Vitality 18 so that he would get 2 extra hit points per level, so you level 10 Mage would have closer to 35-40 hit points and survive.

Another trick is to have 3 fighter-type characters in the first 3 slots with an Agility of 18 as soon as possible, this way they would hit the monsters first before being hit or spell casted or breathed upon.

Also fighter-types get up to 4 attacks per round, others likes priests get a maximum of 2 attacks per round.

Not absolutely necessary, but if you find the Dagger of Thieves, you can use its special power to turn you thief into a ninja.

So for your scenario and the suggestions above your 5 level 5 mages would be chopped down to 2 by your fighters, and then your Mage should have enough hit points to survive the spells from the last 2 and cast his own mahalito or lahalito.

Fighters and thieve go up in levels very fast and fighters especially have lots of hit points thus a fighter, fighter, fighter, priest, mage, thief can finish the game without too too much trouble.

Another note, a fighter-type with strength of 18 gets 2 extra hit points of damage per round… so 4 swings x 2 = 8 more free damage per round per fighter.

And make backups of your disks so that if your party is whipped out by some bad luck you can recover.

Snafaru

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Spirantho (2 posts) Click to EMail Spirantho Click to send private message to Spirantho Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Apr-10-09, 02:33 AM (Pacific)
2. "RE: Toasted Mage, anyone?"
Thanks for the advice!

I don't think agility makes any difference as to who surprises whom, though does it? So given that the game cheats, in as much as monsters can use spells when they surprise you, but your spell-casters can't when you surprise them, 5 level 5 mages could still destroy a party quite easily.

My thief is actually approaching 17 in all his stats... I may well turn him into a ninja when I get chance. That may help a little.

I used to use 3xfighters, by the way, but one of them accidentally became good so he refused to play nicely any more with my other characters. That's when Mr. Bishop came out to play....

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Snafaru (37 posts) Click to EMail Snafaru Click to send private message to Snafaru Click to view user profile Click to check IP address of the poster
Apr-11-09, 06:19 AM (Pacific)
3. "RE: Toasted Mage, anyone?"
LAST EDITED ON Apr-11-09 AT 06:56 PM (Pacific)

When they surprise you then there is no way to escape but to absorb the grunt of the damage, that's why you want to level up your Priest to level 13 a.s.a.p. so that he can use the Kadorto spell to resurrect your dead Mage. To achieve that level 13 quickly with your priest, simply go visit and beat up the Murphy's Ghosts’ on level 1 with 2 fighter-types and your Priest as they give tons of hit points and since you share the experience with only 3 characters, they will go up in levels incredibly fast.

Indeed, once you get your ninja, you can ditch the weakest of you fighter-types and replace him with either another priest or mage and use the Murphy’s Ghosts approach to level that replacement up to at least level 10 in a snap. Zilwan hurts the Murphy’s ghosts a lot if you have that spell available. Make sure to have Maporfic up (it should be up all the time anyways).

In order to not have your characters change alignment, never fight an encounter of friendly monsters, if you fight friendly monsters, then your characters can change alignment (by the way this how you turn your ninja to a good alignment if you wish to make a party that includes a ninja and a lord).

Another tip: I like to level up a Mage to level 13 a.s.a.p. myself in order to get the Malor spell, then go into the maze, if I'm getting weak, teleport back directly to the stairs to the castle and escape many deadly situations by not having to crawl back with a weak party to the castle.

Snafaru

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