Wizardry 8 Party Creation Advice

Speed and Dex (swing often and hit when you swing), then STR and VIT. Senses is a dump stat for everything except rangers and pure psionics. Well, perhaps "dump stat" is a little strong since monks have the 55SEN min, but I wouldn't put anything into it. Your monk will suffer a bit from the lower SEN when casting, but if you're expecting a spell from your monk to be the difference-maker in a fight...

Martial arts. critical strike, stealth. All other stats need not apply. Well, I'd drop 1 point in thrown weapon and ranged attack at the beginning just so they're not zeros (the difference between 0 and 1 is much larger than 1 and 2) and I'd drop 3 points into psionics and a point into mental when he gets spells and then go right back to the big 3.

With your party, the bishop will be a wiz/div. That will get you the buffs you need, the healing you need, and enough crowd control to get the job done.
 
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Wow. I can't believe this thread is still going. I got Legend of Grimrock the other day. Great game, but it really made me want to load up Wiz8 again. I picked up Wiz8 when it first came out, but never really got far.

I'm thinking about a dracon fighter front and center to soak up damage and look cool. A gadgeteer for L&T duty. I've seen recommendations for human or hobbit. What say you? Should the Gadgie be male or female?

Originally I seem to recall not being overly fond of the ranger. I may bring a Mook ranger this go around and have him build up his alchemy skills. What is so great about the ranger again? They detect secrets better than the rest of the party?

Scorpia's guide suggests bringing at least two magic users. The consensus here seems to be go beatstick heavy. How difficult is it to build up hybrid class magic skills? At the very least I want a priest or a bishop. Should I bring a Mage or not?

So that leaves one or two additional slots depending on the Mage. I definitely feel I need at least one more meat shield to accompany my dracon in the front ranks, but I'm not sure what to take. In the past I always brought a samurai. The dual mace lord sounds interesting. What about the faerie ninja? Worth it or no?

I am planning to bring RPCs along for better or worse. Vi and that monkbot, so I don't want to bring my own monk or valkyrie.


PS. I keep seeing mention of Nero Mansers party creation guide, but never with a link. Anyone know where it's at?
 
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Well, if "wolfie" has taken on a new user name for the interwebz, then you'd lose your bet by a mile, JDR. Otherwise, you might get decent odds, if I may be so bold. ;)

@jtgribs
First off, to drag my well-worn soapbox out... The beauty of Wiz8 is that any party can be made to work given patience and care. If there's something you like or don't like, go with it. Nothing worse than running a party you don't like.

OK, so we've a dracon fighter and a female human gadgy (to answer one of your questions--human has better stamina than hobbit, even though the hobbit has the best stat set for it; female because there's a female-only stamina item that will prove very helpful in the early and mid-game).

The main attractions of the ranger are the autosearch, ranged criticals, and the availability of skill points to build up alchemy for potion mixing without starving the important skills. The mook has a good set of starting stats for the job and there's a very good mook-only sword (note, not ranger-only) available in the mid-game if the mood strikes you. It's a very rare party of mine that doesn't include a ranger, but it's not like it's mandatory.

Building up magic skills on a hybrid isn't terribly difficult if you're willing to work at it a little bit. So, for example, rather than having your samurai shoot an arrow in round 1, have him cast frost. Sure, you'll sacrifice damage and the sammy will fizzle the spell for a while, but if you keep at it eventually you'll get there. Dropping 3 points into the book skill for 3-4 levels will go a long way toward making them functional enough so that having them cast something isn't a complete waste of time. By the time you get to level 15 or so, your hybrids will be effective casters for specific spells.

Priest or bishop is totally up to you, particularly if you're taking a second caster. Between the two, I prefer priests because they develop faster and they actually make decent melee types, but it's not a huge advantage. You want someone in the party adept with the wizardry book for several crucial buffs, so if you take a priest, you're kinda locked into taking a mage. That's not really a bad thing, though.

If you do a ninja, make it a faerie and develop him to use staff-n-wand. Otherwise, there's just not much point.

The "usual" formula is 2 tanks, 1 L&T, 1 healer, 1 offensive caster, and a ranger. Since many classes can overlap multiple functions, there's actually quite a bit of flexibility within that formula. With your commitment to grabbing RPCs (filthy XP sponges!), you're already getting extra melee, so you can drop a tank in favor of something else that interests you if the mood strikes. Just don't count on the RPCs too much, because they'll abandon you from time to time.

Welcome to the boards, by the way!
 
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Thanks DTE.

So far I've been having a blast. My party's been doing some serious damage, and I only had to run like a little girl once on Arnika road.

I went with a male gadgeteer unfortunately. I really, really wish I could use the endurance necklace. I'm not above cheating if anyone knows of a way to make it work for a male character. I just couldn't stand to make a female gadgeteer. I needed an old, borderline senile man to fill that role.

I gave my dracon fighter bloodlust. Is there any point to me setting my fighter to attack in berserk mode? Does it make any difference since the sword seems to drive him berserk anyway?

My lord has been running around with two maces, managing to hit virtually nothing. But he soaks up some damage and he's a decent healer for the time being.

I went with a bishop for my magic specialist. I'm focusing on psionics and wizardry for the moment as divinity is pretty well covered between the lord and Vi and my ranger has alchemy. So far the bishop hasn't exactly been stellar, but that's to be expected I suppose.

I think my gadgie gets VIP status. That jack-n-the-box thing is amazing. It's helped me win so many fights by scaring off huge herds of enemies.

I thought my faerie ninja would be insanely fragile, but he's yet to die. Of course he also does almost no damage. I'm in Trynton now, planning to kill Don Barlone. I'm woefully underleveled for the encounter, but if I take him I imagine my ninja will start to pull his own weight.


Is there any way to identify items short of scrolls and spells? Are there any vendors or NPCs I can hire to do the job?
 
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I went with a male gadgeteer unfortunately. I really, really wish I could use the endurance necklace. I'm not above cheating if anyone knows of a way to make it work for a male character. I just couldn't stand to make a female gadgeteer. I needed an old, borderline senile man to fill that role.
I warned you... ;) Back in the day, somebody developed a trainer (which they then used to figure out the easter egg dungeons). I haven't heard a peep about it for years, so it might not even exist anymore. That would be your only hope, and the trainer might not manipulate those areas of the savegame.
I gave my dracon fighter bloodlust. Is there any point to me setting my fighter to attack in berserk mode? Does it make any difference since the sword seems to drive him berserk anyway?
No difference. You don't get a double bonus.
My lord has been running around with two maces, managing to hit virtually nothing. But he soaks up some damage and he's a decent healer for the time being.
Yep, he's gonna suck rocks until the very end of the mid-game. Until you get the right weapons, you'll be disappointed. Once you get them, you just might think the wait was worth it.

I went with a bishop for my magic specialist. I'm focusing on psionics and wizardry for the moment as divinity is pretty well covered between the lord and Vi and my ranger has alchemy. So far the bishop hasn't exactly been stellar, but that's to be expected I suppose.
Yep. The synergies are actually div/psi and wiz/alch, but the advantage is teeny.

I think my gadgie gets VIP status. That jack-n-the-box thing is amazing. It's helped me win so many fights by scaring off huge herds of enemies.
It gets even better. Don't forget to use that omnigun. You want that skill topped out by the time you get to the high teens.

I thought my faerie ninja would be insanely fragile, but he's yet to die. Of course he also does almost no damage. I'm in Trynton now, planning to kill Don Barlone. I'm woefully underleveled for the encounter, but if I take him I imagine my ninja will start to pull his own weight.
"Woefully" might be a bit optimistic... ;)

Is there any way to identify items short of scrolls and spells? Are there any vendors or NPCs I can hire to do the job?
The artifact skill allows you to identify items. With a bishop's bonus, you should do fairly well with it even if you never put a point into it. Right click on the item to try your skill. There's no randomness to it--if you've got the necessary skill, you ID the item; if you don't, you'll never ID it until your skill increases to the threshold.
 
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I took the Don out on my second try. My party was split between levels 9 and 10. It was a pain, and I didn't think I was going to make it. First I killed his henchman in a rather nasty way. I spoke to Milano or whatever his name was, acted all nice, then as soon as he turned his back I killed the poor guy.

After that I quaffed and cast every buff at my disposal, charged into the Don's room and debuffed the hell out of him, and proceeded to miss. And miss. And miss. When I didn't miss I did no damage. I used a canned elemental directly behind him, and got a whopping air elemental out of the deal.

It mostly missed, too, but it landed one good hit for something like 130 damage. After that I stopped fighting the Don and instead focused entirely on defense and healing. It took a very, very long time, and I lost three members of my party, but the elemental managed to land a couple more hits like that and it was game over for the Razuka king.

My, what a fine weapon the Cane of Corpus is. My ninja who's done virtually nothing the entire time managed to one-shot one of the patrolling Rapax. That's when I knew he was worth bringing along.

Is it worthwhile to have my ranger pursue modern weapons now? I've maxed out my bow skill, and since I'm bringing along two melee oriented RPCs I really don't have the need or the space for him to be a frontline fighter, so I see no point in spending points on swords or anything.
 
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Update: First playthrough complete, victory has been accomplished!
Second run through - New party is going to be NPC free, something I have never done before.
Dracon Ranger, Fairie Ninja, Mook Monk, Dwarf Bard, Human Bishop, Gnome Gadgeteer.
I killed Croc after our first meeting (after conducting business) and I can now say what happens. You take the idol, get gassed and pass out; but no one is missing afterwards.
 
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For your second playthrough, I highly recommend you try out one of the mods. It's the only way I could do back to back playthroughs because it mixes it up enough to feel new.

Wizardry Vault

I liked Dodd's and deathstalker's
 
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Dodd's mod is quite good, although it's pretty challenging.
 
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Ouch - got a trojan warning from avast when clicking the link :(

It's got to be a false positive. That website is perfectly fine on my end and I've never had any problems with it before.

There is always Snafaru's site if you want to be on the safe side.

Dodd's mod is quite good, although it's pretty challenging.

Definitely challenging, but in a very good way :D
 
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I am using the only mod I've ever installed, FlameFinalMod. I will, however, be checking both those out soon. Not a real problem on the back-to-back burn out as I burned through most of my free time on the first run, and this next one will take weeks, at best. Real life is just so friggin intrusive.
 
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With a few exceptions, I prefer to play my games vanilla so I don't have much experience with mods. In particular, I avoid content mods. Dodd's mod was good enough to clear that hurdle, plus he swings thru here at the Watch from time to time. I like to think we helped him develop it. ;)
 
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I just realized that I can't have everything in a single party. So, I'll just keep replaying this awesome game.

Latest party
Dracon Fighter
Faerie Ninja (for Cane of Corpus)
Human Valk
Faerie Bishop (Wiz/Psi)
Human Gadgeteer
Mook Ranger

Thoughts?

For my next party, I'm planning Fighter/Lord/Samurai/Bishop/Gadgeteer/Ranger.
 
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I just realized that I can't have everything in a single party.
And that right there is the key. That's one of the major aspects that makes Wiz8 a masterpiece. So many games these days allow "all of everything" parties or even characters, and they're really missing the boat. I think the reason is that you have to be extremely good at balancing and "alternate paths" in order for a game to work when the player can't have it all. It's much easier for lazy designers to just throw the doors open and not worry about it.
 
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Yeah, I would replay with as different of a party as possible from the first go around, and may actually be able to do it with no repeat appearances. :)
 
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Did you ever talk to Rattus Rattus and do his quest? Unfortunately, it's bugged so you can't "cash it in", but doing what he asks can be fun.

I was just searching for some things about Wizardry 8 and found this forum, where I just registered ;).

As long as you don't rob the bank it works and you can deliver the quest correctly back to Rattus. Yes, you can cash it in, but I don't remember what you gain as a gift.

I also got a second quest from him later, but I can't remember what it was. I did the quest but afterwards I couldn't find Rattus anymore to deliver it. Then after lots of progress later when I was almost Level 20 I suddenly found Rattus Rattus again travelling around in another part of the map where I had never expected him actually. I really found this kinda funny that he wandered around through different maps! (though it was still grass/wooden territory) e.g. if you compare it with games like Dragon Age where monsters and NPCs always stay in the same place). I could finally deliver the 2nd quest to him without a bug. Afterwards he hadn't any quest for me or I don't remember anymore. It's been to long ago^^

What I wanted to ask you folks is, if anything of the following is possible:

1.) As you remember somewhere in the Rattkin Tree is a group of Rapax within a certain room which you must defeat. Is it possible to actually join the Rapax before going into the tree and then you'll be friendly towards this group?

2.) Is it possible to join anyone of the Rattkin to your party? I found the Rattkin quite tough and would have loved to add one of them to the party.
 
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1.) As you remember somewhere in the Rattkin Tree is a group of Rapax within a certain room which you must defeat. Is it possible to actually join the Rapax before going into the tree and then you'll be friendly towards this group?

2.) Is it possible to join anyone of the Rattkin to your party? I found the Rattkin quite tough and would have loved to add one of them to the party.
1- Theoretically, it should be possible, but it would be a major contortion. You'd have to skip a fair bit of content to avoid seeing any Rapax at the wrong time and that would make it a little tricky to have enough levels to survive getting to the Rapax Castle to become a Templar. Plus, you'd have the whole lovesick penalty hanging over your head for a significant amount of time as you backtracked to Trynton.

2- Nope, no Rattkin RPCs.
 
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Ah thanks for the quick answer :) I might start a new playthrough in some future time to try this out with the Rapax, although I agree it would be a PITA. IIRC one also needs a minimum level to enter the Rapax Rift, otherwise it's blocked.

Ah what a pity, that there are no recruitable Rattkins :(
 
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