Welcome to Wizardry, the seminal first-person dungeon crawler RPG! I will be attempting, as best I can, to play through the game, manual open and sheets of graph paper at my side. This game is notoriously difficult, and there will be much death. You, Bay 12 forumites, shall be my characters. We'll get to that in a minute, though.
Here is first screen of the game, the castle. Here we can see a few places in town, which represent menu options. On the bottom of the screen is the list of members currently in our adventuring party- it's empty. Gilgamesh's Tavern is where adventurers who aren't currently in the party hang out (it also contains the option to inspect character details). The Adventurer's Inn is where you can rest and heal, and also level up. The Temple of Cant is where you can get party members resurrected- for a price. Unless somebody is leveled up or has really nice stats, we aren't going to bother resurrecting them. Boltac's is the trading post where we can buy arms and armor, and sell them back for half price.
Going to the edge of town shows us the remaining menu options. The important ones are the training field, where characters are created, and the maze, where characters are killed. So, let's create a character, shall we?
Your race determines your base stats (not random). Quoth the manual:
• Humans excel at nothing, but have no particular weaknesses, except for a
decided lack of piety.
• Elves are intelligent and pious, but not very robust. They excel at intellectual
pursuits, and are excellent spell-casters.
• Dwarfs are strong and hardy. They love fine weapons and armor and delight in
a good fight.
• Gnomes are pious and agile, probably from praying under-ground during
earthquakes. Due to their ascetic traditions, they make excellent Priests.
• Hobbits are agile and very, very lucky. They are a happy-go-lucky people, and,
with the right training, become superb thieves.
You also have to choose an alignment. The important thing to remember is that good and evil characters can never be in the same party. Some classes also have alignment requirements: Thieves cannot be good, Priests cannot be neutral, and of the four prestige classes, Lords must be good, Samurai may not be evil, Ninjas must not be evil, and like priests, Bishops cannot be neutral.
Here you see my base stats, just for being a dwarf, and my bonus points. I can assign my bonus points for a 1:1 ratio (this is long before third-edition style point buy curbed minmaxers, remember). Stats do, however, max out at 18. You can see I have 9 bonus points, it's possible to get up to 18 but I've only seen that happen once.
• Strength affects your skill in combat.
• I.Q. and Piety influence your ability to cast and resist spells.
• Vitality affects your ability to withstand damage.
• Agility helps you avoid attacks and open treasure chests.
• Luck comes to your aid in many mysterious ways.
You can see that I've dumped almost all of my points into strong, dwarven
muscles beard fibers. I also put a point into agility, why not. Now you can see, on the right the available classes for my character. I can only choose Fighter, because my character is strong and every single class has a stat requirement.
• Fighters need 11 strength.
• Mages need 11 I.Q.
• Priests need 11 piety and may not be of neutral alignment.
• Thieves need 11 agility and may not be good.
• Bishops need 12 I.Q. and 12 piety and may not be neutral.
• Samurai need 15 strength, 11 I.Q., 10 piety, 14 vitality and 10 agility and may not be evil.
• Lords need 15 strength, 12 I.Q., 12 piety, 15 vitality, 14 agility and 15 luck. They must be good.
• Ninjas need 17 in all their statistics, and can only be evil.
The descriptions from the manual are rather lengthy so I'll summarize: Fighters hit stuff. Mages learn spells as they level up, and cast them using spell points. Thieves can fight a little and are your best choice for getting hit with a poison needle trap, or at higher levels, not getting hit with a poison needle trap. Priests heal and resurrect. Bishops get spells from both the Mage and Priest lists, but they seem to start out with only mage spells, IIRC. Samurai are fighters who eventually get mage spells, Lords are fighters who eventually get priest spells, and Ninjas just kick ass while unarmed and unarmored, as well as getting the Thief abilities to
not get shot by a poison needle trap. The Lords and Ninjas can ONLY be attained by changing character class later in the game.
I've now finished my character, Sensei the Good Dwarven Fighter, and added him to the party. You can see he has an Armor Class of 10 (worst possible, with best possible being -10) and 8 out of 8 hit points (everybody's starting HP count). I'll get him equipment later.
So for now, we'll need a full party of characters (I can boot Sensei out of the party if need be). The manual strongly recommends that you start with the following party: Two fighters, two mages, a thief and a priest. We could probably replace a mage with a bishop or something too, or if we're really lucky someone can be a Samurai instead of a fighter. Lastly, remember that
good and evil characters cannot adventure together, so we should agree on an alignment for the party. Only Lords and Ninjas HAVE to be good or evil, so your call- thieves and fighters can easily just be neutral, unless they're aspiring to be those prestige classes.
So, to join the adventuring party, simply state your:
-Character name
-Race
-Alignment
-Desired class/prestige class
I can make characters even if the party is full. Let's try to get that two fighters, two mages, thief and priest build going!
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Topic: Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord (1981): Second Level (Read 10579 times)