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Completed Let's play Wizardry 4!

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Since you're off making kodex kwuality kontent, I suppose I can keep waiting for Wizardry 4 LP updates.

candlelight-vigil.jpg
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I'm so sorry, but I promise I'll pick this up in the middle of July. I had so many things to do, and what little energy I had left was consumed by Codex interviews, etc. The next two weeks will be extremely busy for me as well, but things should become less hectic after that and I'll get back to this LP, I promise.

Also, is that a bee cookie? :D
 

Great0ldOne

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Occasionally Fatal has gotten as close as any Codexer will ever get to eating Bee. Well done, bro!

(come on, someone had to say it).
 

Crooked Bee

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6: Realm of the Whirling Dervish

Surprise, we're back, and not just back, but back to the second most assholish floor in the entire game.

05wizfour511.png


B6F is called the "Realm of the Whirling Dervish," but contrary to the regular Sufi whirling it is your and not the Dervish's body that gets spun around here, time and time again. And if you ever wondered who would win in a one-on-one stand-off, a Dervish or a 100-year old evil wizard, it is on this floor that the answer becomes painfully obvious.

B6F_edited.png


Composed of 16 basic 4x4 clusters (of which there are 4 types, arranged horizontally) surrounded by corridors with a spinner at every intersection, B6F is basically a one-trick floor. But it is a very cruel trick. As you might know, spinners are the worst enemy of a dungeon cartographer, alongside hidden teleporters and shifting walls. The main reason they are so bad is that they always catch you off-guard, and it is only post factum that you can even learn there is, or rather was, one in your way. Many a dungeon crawler would find herself walking down a seemingly linear corridor only to discover she's back to where she started from, or worse, be tricked into thinking she's making progress when in fact moving in circles within the confines of a single room. The way spinners work in Wizardry 4 only makes the matter worse. There is no message or sound signal to tell you you've been spun around, nor any spinning animation or change in the surroundings to indicate you are now facing a different direction. On the contrary, every four-way intersection is designed in such a way as to make you see exactly the same picture no matter the direction you're facing, leaving you without any visual clue:

06wizfour_0041.png


Contrary to spinners in some other RPGs (Dark Heart of Uukrul's spinners, for example, always turn you to face a predetermined direction), there is no fixed pattern to the spinning either: it's just a throw of a four-sided die that determines the new orientation. It also doesn't help that the hallways loop, which gets in the way of mapping and makes the standard 20x20 grid feel endless and confusing. Finally, to add further insult, accessing the Camp menu when standing on a spinner only serves to trigger it again - or, to be more precise, the spinner re-triggers right after you exit the camping mode - meaning the only spell that could be useful here, Dumapic (the mapping spell that reveals your coordinates and the direction you're facing), becomes no longer relevant after you're done casting it. The only concession the game provides to make your life a bit easier is that the hallways are encounter-free, but although exploring them is thereby made safe, the sheer pain involved in mapping them out eventually makes you wish you were fighting rather than doing the mapping.

There is, of course, also the question of how the player, when mapping, would even learn there are spinners around here in the first place. Normally there is only one way to discover a spinner - by chance, as you notice something is off that you suspect might be the result of a spinner and then attempt to track down its location. In this case, however, there is a somewhat easier way that has to do with Wizardry IV being targeted at experienced Wizardry players: namely, the player is supposed to recognize the similarity of this floor to Wizardry I's B3F, also a spinner floor. Despite some differences, both floors have the same underlying design principle to them, and one certainly seems to hearken back to the other. (But at least the one in Wizardry 4 doesn't have pits in addition to spinners.)

Now, there are only two ways to proceed after you've been spun around. One involves casting Dumapic, but only after you move one step off the spinner so it doesn't trigger again. Your spell points are, however, limited, so you should use Dumapic sparingly and ideally only after discovering the whereabouts of at least one of this floor's pentagrams (which replenish your spell points), and even then you should take care to leave enough uses to be able to find your way back. The other involves doors. As shown on the map, not all doors that you see are real; most are fake, and there is a pattern to this. The first thing you should do is check the door to your right - if it's real, it means you've been spun to face north. If it isn't, check the one a bit farther away to your left. If this one is real, the spinner took you south. If both doors are fake, however, that can equally mean east or west, and unfortunately there's no way of telling these two directions apart without casting Dumapic. (Keep in mind that you can also cast Dumapic by using the Jeweled Amulet, and you can even save scum if need be since the hallways are free from encounters anyway.)

The troubles do not end here, though. Your ultimate goal is to locate the stairs leading up to the next floor, but, in an attempt to make sure you map out most of the floor before you find the way out, the level designer surrounded the stairs at (17,4) by teleporters that prevent you from reaching the exit without following a rather simple (once you've learned it) but completely unobvious procedure that will teleport you right on top of the stairs, to be covered in this update. The two teleporters, marked 2 and 3 on the map, not only make it impossible to access the stairs the normal way, but also contribute to making the exploration even more confusing than it already is, transporting you to 2' and 3' respectively without any kind of warning.

To sum it up, Dervishes don't take shit from evil wizards, they just spin them around and leave them clueless. So what is a poor evil wizard to do?

06wizfour_0069.png


Well, first off, Werdna must find his way to the next pentagram. Some of B6F's do-gooders are considerably stronger than those on the previous floors, and we should be well-prepared before we face them. Starting off at (7,6), the nearest pentagram is at (1,7), with the only entrance to the square block that contains it being at (0,5), so that there are at least two spinners we must get past in order to reach it. This isn't exactly easy, but eventually, after some liberal use of Dumapic, we make it there in one piece.

06wizfour_0070.png


Getting to a new pentagram means new summoning opportunities for Werdna, so let's see what we have here.

A Samurai only starts to gain Mage spells at level 4, therefore Lvl 3 Samurai, or Kimonoed Men as they were called in Wizardry I when unidentified, are but pure Fighters, with AC of 5 and no special abilities to speak of. The only attractive thing about them is their ability to attack up to 3 times per turn (for 1d4+1, 1d6+1, 1d4+1), but the resulting damage is still a bit too low compared to, say, that of Master Ninjas, much stronger Fighters who not only strike 3 times for 1d10+3, have a high initiative, AC of 3 and up to 40 HP, but also, as Ninjas are wont to, decapitate the enemy on a critical hit. Interestingly, despite being magic-less Fighters, in the original Apple II version of Wizardry I Master Ninjas have the same character portrait as higher-level Mages.

There are also other Fighters among this pentagram's monsters, such as Minor Daimyos, Hobgoblins and High Corsairs. Minor Daimyos, who look just like Samurai, have even lower AC than Master Ninjas, even if merely 1 point lower, but can only strike once per round for 1d12 points of damage. Like Lvl 3 Samurai and Master Ninjas, they come from Wizardry I, whereas Hobgoblins and High Corsairs originate in Wizardry III. (As you may have noticed, Wizardry I and III provide the bulk of monsters in the fourth game, with monsters exclusive to Wizardry II being largely ignored for some reason.) High Corsairs are lvl 2 Fighters with AC of 3 and maximum HP of 35 who only attack once per turn for average damage, making them inferior to both the Ninjas and the Daimyos. Hobgoblins, equal to High Corsairs in AC and HP but dealing a measly 2d3 points of damage per hit, aren't too amazing either. If you have to summon Fighters at this pentagram, Master Ninjas are your best bet - unsurprising given that, in general, Ninjas are perhaps the most powerful front line class in Wizardry.

The two mythical creatures available here, Centaurs (from Wizardry III) and Werewolves (from Wizardry I, again the standard combination), have too high AC and too low damage output to be worth summoning or speaking about in detail. Grave Mists, Lifestealers, and Nightstalkers are pretty strong undead monsters who first appeared in Wizardry I. The unseen entities known as Grave Mists are the least useful of the three, being the only ones among them who do not have the level drain ability. They can, however, paralyze on hit and strike up to three times in a row for some noticeable damage. Nightstalkers (upgraded skeleton lookalikes) level-drain for 1 level, while Lifestealers (same character portraits as Wights), the most powerful of the three and the ones with the lowest AC, drain a whopping two levels on a critical, killing low-level enemies outright. They are also capable of poisoning their enemies and turning them into stone, as well as casting Priest and Mage spells of up to the 3rd tier. That would make them the best summon at this pentagram if not for the Wights (from Wizardry III), who also drain two levels whenever a critical hit connects. I'd say it's almost a tie here between Wights and Lifestealers: the former have lower AC and the latter higher HP; the former can paralyze and the latter can turn to stone. However, Wights have access to Dalto, a lvl 4 Mage spell, which Lifestealers don't, and paralysis seems to connect more often than flesh-to-stone, so Wights are arguably the better choice of the two, especially if you take Bishops along as well. Bishops are, as you know, the Mage/Priest hybrid, and their healing magic should definitely come in handy.

In addition to Wights and Bishops, we can summon Goblin Shamans from the previous pentagram for more combined Priest+Mage firepower. An alternative party composition would include Lifestealers instead of or even alongside Wights. (Lifestealers have some Priest spells at their disposal, so I believe you can comfortably substitute them for Bishops or Goblin Shamans.)

06wizfour_0095.png


Werdna is now level 5, his attributes all 13s and 5th tier Mage spells available to him. The first of these is Mamorlis, or "Terror", the industrial version of Morlis that causes darkness and fear to affect not just a single group of enemies, but all enemy groups at once. (This makes a lot of difference in Wizardry 1-3, but none in Wizardry 4, as the do-gooders you face always count as a single group.) Next comes Madalto, or "Frost", an upgrade of Dalto dealing 8d6 points of cold damage to a group. And finally there's the fatal Makanito, the "Deadly Air" spell already mentioned in the previous update, that has a chance to instantly suffocate to death any air-breathing enemy. The chance depends on the do-gooder's level and HP, so for now it will only work on relatively weak low-level goons. Still, it's a powerful spell, and extremely useful when you face a party of frail do-gooding spellcasters.

06wizfour_0131.png


Naturally, it doesn't take long for do-gooders to appear. Luckily, they can only appear within the 4x4 square blocks. Not so luckily, they are now more powerful than they were on the previous floors.

Wacker is relatively weak, though. Just a low-AC Fighter with 80 HP, no tricks up his sleeve.

06wizfour_0207.png


Next, however, we encounter Chiquita, a high-AC neutral Mage. She can't be much of a trouble, now can she?

06wizfour_0209.png


It only takes one turn to find out she can, Lakanito being one of the spells we should beware the most at this point. A more powerful, 6th tier version of Makanito, it has a chance to instantly suffocate even higher-level targets. It works on Werdna pretty much every time it targets him, so the key to getting the upper hand in this fight is to get to act before Chiquita casts the spell. Which is pretty much dependent on luck and nothing else.

An even more dangerous do-gooder on this floor, who I haven't encountered this time, is a Bishop named Tiltowait, capable of casting the spell of the same name. Now, Tiltowait, also known as "Nuke 'em 'till they glow", is famously the most powerful Mage spell in Wizardry, creating a large explosion that deals up to 100 points of damage to all enemies, so it should come as no suprise that a single Tiltowait will more often than not wipe away everyone in Werdna's party, himself included. Therefore Bishop Tiltowait is better avoided - fortunately, he doesn't show up too often.

Other, less notable B6F adventurers include Fearless Farley, Little Conan, Cadidelhop and Ascii the Fighters, Pedro the Ninja (not really related, obviously, but I can't help sharing this), Armondo the Lord, Gor-Y the Samurai, Tharagorn the Mage, and Boz the Thief.

06bonus01.png


There are also two named do-gooder parties on B6F, and the first of them is Gomez's Gorillas.

06bonus02.png


Out to get you with an apt motto.

06bonus04.png


(The screen shows other monsters alongside Werdna than the ones we summoned earlier in this update - disregard this, some of these screenshots are from a bit later on.)

Of these, Dagady the Ninja is the most fearsome opponent, due to the sheer number of hit points he has and his decapitating ability. Still, this isn't the strongest of do-gooder parties, only including two spellcasters, Gomez the Priest and Blackstone the Bishop, who can deal at most 6d6 damage to one of the groups we have in our party (with Lorto and Lahalito respectively). Not too much to be worried about, really. (That is to say you will only die a handful of times before you defeat them.)

06bonus07.png


Among the items dropped by the Gorillas when defeated is a unique and fairly useful one, Holy Reliquary.

06bonus10.png


Upon closer inspection, it is revealed to be the St. Rimbo Digit, a special kind of gauntlets that, once equipped, allow Werdna to cast the dreaded Tiltowait for a limited number of times (until the item breaks, that is). Naturally, a well-placed Tiltowait can make even the toughest encounter significantly less of a challenge.

06bonus12.png


The second adventurer party on B6F is Myriad's Marauders. Do-gooding marauders.

06bonus13.png


Marauders in the good sense of the word, ready to turn you into burgerbits.

06bonus15.png


Now this party means business. Obviously, with his 135 HP and his ability to cast Dalto and Lakanito Zodac is one pesky spellcaster and your main problem in this fight, but the other three spellcasters aren't exactly pushover either and their combined spellpower can bring Werdna down in under a single turn. Most of them can of course be finished off quickly with a Tiltowait from the St. Rimbo Digit, but that is provided you have it by this point - and that still leaves Zodac standing anyway.

The Marauders don't drop anything useful when slain, so all things considered this is a pointless fight that you're better off avoiding.

06wizfour_0153.png


As far as exploration goes, there isn't much to see on B6F. (13,3) has an easy riddle for us to answer. Of course, the riddle is only easy if you bothered to read the backstory given in the manual (or, alternatively, in the third post of this thread). Werdna hungers for power, and the power is contained within the stolen amulet.

06wizfour_0159.png


We input "Amulet", and are rewarded with a Cape that shows up as Good Hope Cape (an obvious jab at the Cape of Good Hope) in our inventory. It is a nice reward.

06wizfour_0178.png


When equipped and invoked, the Good Hope Cape lowers Werdna's AC by 2 and increases his to-hit, giving him one extra attack per turn and boosting the damage output. Not bad at all, even if Werdna still remains a rather subpar melee fighter.

As for the Twilight Cloak, into the Black Box it goes.

06wizfour_0242.png


Because of the teleporters flanking them, there is in fact just one way to get to the stairs leading up to B5F, and you can only find it out by experimenting - the game doesn't give you any clues for this. It involves confronting the Chepachet Druid at (13,2), marked by the key sign on the map.

However, it isn't quite as simple as it sounds. Note that the door at (13,1), the one that leads to the druid, is marked a bit differently on the map. It is a secret door, but an unusual one. Namely, there is no way to see it even with a Light spell active. The only way you can guess (yes, guess, not know) there is a door there is by comparing the layout of this 4x4 cluster with that of the neighboring ones after you've mapped them out carefully and figured out their pattern. Otherwise, if you don't pay attention to the layout, it is unlikely you will even bother bumping into what looks like a solid wall even with Lomilwa on.

That can lead to an endless exploration of this floor, and it is in every way as bad as it sounds.

06wizfour_0244.png


The druid inside is a powerful magician called Jesse The Smith. St. Rimbo Digit should come in handy in this fight - or you could just spam Madalto. Anything goes.

06wizfour_0253.png


Jesse The Smith's most dangerous spell is Lakanito, and our chief (and only) concern is that it doesn't target Werdna himself.

06wizfour_0262.png

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The fight is a joke if you don't get too unlucky, as it only takes a successful level drain and a couple of follow-up attacks to bring him down.

06wizfour_0266.png


Jesse drops two items of note. One is a Conical Hat that shows up as Initiate Turban in the inventory, and the other is a Tale of Madness, identified as Arabic Diary.

06wizfour_0271.png


The Arabic Diary is a plot-critical item that will be of use to us later. For now, let's just store it inside the Black Box. The Initiate Turban lowers your AC by 1 and allows you to cast Halito (obsolete at this point). In a way, it is a mysterious item, due to what was most likely an error on the part of the Questbusters magazine, who wrote in their walkthrough of Wizardry 4 that you should "hold onto it [i.e., the Turban] for the end game". This was repeated in some of the later walkthroughs, but as far as I know no one has been able to find any actual use for the Turban at the end game and, having beaten the game myself, I know for certain that you don't need it for any of the endings. Still, maybe I'm forgetting something or the person who wrote that walkthrough knew something I don't.

06wizfour_0287.png


Killing Jesse The Smith instantly teleports us to the stairs up, easy as that. We enter another ticket validation code and find ourselves on B5F, leaving the horrible spinner level behind... for now.

06wizfour_0302.png


Creatures of Light and Darkness await us, so stick around.
 

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Mrowak

Arcane
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Project: Eternity
It's alive Jim! :eek:

Edit: I envy your perseverance. I loathe levels like this one.
 
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I wonder how long it took for players to complete this monstrosity back then, without faqs and internets. At least it was probably cathartic to see the villain from the other game being bumfucked so vigorously.
 
Joined
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:incline:

Wait a second...
Twitter fail: Social network goes down due to technical problems
Millions of people were unable to give a 140-character piece of their mind this afternoon when social network Twitter went down due to technical problems.
Bah, and here I hoped Bee is back to LPing for realz.
 
Repressed Homosexual
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Ottawa, Can.
Crooked Bee, how do you manage to avoid Trevor's ghost constantly, especially since he apparently moves in real-time in the Apple II version of the game?
 

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
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Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Crooked Bee, how do you manage to avoid Trevor's ghost constantly, especially since he apparently moves in real-time in the Apple II version of the game?

Reloading pushes him back to the starting position, and since you die a lot, reloading also happens a lot so he's rarely a problem. In fact, he's only a major problem in your first playthrough when you're mapping out a level for the first time (i.e., when you don't know where to go and what to do yet). Basically, the longer you survive while staying on a single floor, the more he is of a trouble, but Wizardry IV's nature is such that you rarely survive that long.

I wonder how long it took for players to complete this monstrosity back then, without faqs and internets. At least it was probably cathartic to see the villain from the other game being bumfucked so vigorously.

I believe I linked to this earlier, but Brenda Garneau, now Brenda Brathwaite (John Romero's girlfriend), beat this game in "a couple of weeks" without any help when she was a tester on it:

Brenda said:
They sat me at an Apple II, and gave me a finished but buggy alpha version of the game. Norm Sirotek, the president here, tells me that the game is 'expert level.' Naturally, considering that it's my job to know more than the rest of the planet about Wizardry, I figure: "cakewalk." I was super wrong, but man, I did not let that game get the better of me. I think I would have died of thirst and starvation first. They wouldn't tell me anything about it or give me a single hint on any of the puzzles. I finally finished it a couple weeks later. I think I was ticked off at the design team and half the office for the next two weeks, though.

Most players never even got out of the first room, though. :P
 

Crooked Bee

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7: Creatures of Light and Darkness

Hard to believe it, but we're already halfway there. Halfway until Werdna reaches the surface, free to bring about his dreams of infinite power and avenge those who did him wrong. Will he make it? Will it be as he imagines it? Will this LP live long enough for him to see the day?

In any case, it's B5F for now. I've got to say I'm glad to be here. This level is practically a free break for coffee (and bagels) compared to the previous one, and I just happen to like it a lot.

B5F.png


Surprisingly, apart from a couple of unpleasantly placed teleporters -- child's play in the world of Wizardry IV -- B5F doesn't have much in the way of unfair gimmicks intended to screw you up. Sure, it has this quasi-checkerboard design where normal tiles alternate with dark ones, making it a bit hard to orient yourself ("a bit" compared to the kind of hard that we experienced in the last update), and the do-gooders are again much stronger, but that's about it. They didn't even put a single secret door here, which honestly baffles me. With darkness squares extinguishing all light spells, it would've been exactly the kind of design move that the game thrives on. But no. It's almost like they wanted you to relax and let your guard down... for whatever reason.

06wizfour_0309.png


Just as a reminder, you can't see anything when on a darkness square, not even what's right under your nose.

Note also that the amount of light and darkness squares is uneven. There are typically more darkness tiles near walls, but more light tiles near certain events or landmarks, such as the floor's entrance and exit.

06wizfour_0315.png


We hurry to reach the pentagram, but stumble on a do-gooder party on our way, the first of the two on this flor.

06wizfour_0317.png


Horin's Holy Rollers worship St. Trebor, meaning Trebor has been beatified for defeating our protagonist and casting him in prison, which only adds insult to Werdna's already deadly injury.

06wizfour_0326.png


The Holy Rollers aren't quite a pushover, so it's a bit unfortunate we met them before we got to the pentagram and not after. It is a full-spellcaster party with three Lords, one of which (Horin, the leader) has a whopping -8 AC and 174 HP.

You might as well call it a game over because we don't stand a chance. The game even hints at how screwed we are by giving Horin and the other two Lords a new character portrait with a Blade Cusinart' on it, and you don't mess around with a Blade Cusinart'. Nor do you actually mess around with Malikto, also known as "Word of Death", a heavy hitting 7th tier Priest spell (let me remind you there are precisely seven spell tiers in total) that sends a shower of 12d6 meteors on all enemies standing in the caster's way.

06wizfour_0362.png


The thing is, you can't just avoid or run away from the Rollers; you have to defeat them so you can loot a plot-critical item, "A Furred Cone", showing up as Magician's Hat in the inventory -- and we do manage to defeat them eventually, but only after a level-up. Taken by itself, the Magician's Hat is useful but not too powerful, lowering Werdna's AC by 2 and allowing him to cast Sopic, which you might remember as a spell that reduces the caster's AC even further and amounts to pretty much a waste of turn since tasks like that are better left to Werdna's priestly followers.

Its true purpose will become apparent to us later, but for now we don the Magician's Hat because -2 AC never hurt anyone.

06wizfour_0374.png


But back to the pentagram -- some pretty exotic monsters here, including gargoyles, dragons, hellhounds, and other creatures of myth.

There were no Gargoyles in any of the three previous Wizardry games, so they are introduced here for the first time. Expectedly, Wizardry IV turns gargoyles from stone creatures to creatures who can turn others to stone. Aside from being capable of petrification, Gargoyles can also attack up to five times per turn for a maximum total of 43 points of damage, have 10d7+5 HP, which is the highest among this pentagram's monsters, and AC of 5, which isn't particularly great. Ghasts, arriving from Wizardry III (I'm linking their character sprite from the C64 version, because in the Apple version they have the standard Unseen Entity portrait that I already linked to earlier), are undead monsters who can inflict paralysis and drain 1 level from their opponents. Together with their AC of 1, that would make them a decent summon if they didn't have only 4d6+6 HP and their regular attack wasn't so weak. Komodo Dragons, who are incidentally a real kind of lizard and not just a fantasy one, also come from Wizardry III (PC version sprite), and are substandard in just every possible way, even if you take their mass target poison breath into account (poison in general is pretty much useless at this point, in contrast to paralysis or level drain). Hellhounds are the rarer case of a Wizardry II monster making its way into this game's summons (looking through the bestiaries, however, I can't find Hellhounds in the Apple II version of Wizardry II, so I believe they may have been first introduced in the PC version). Having a pack of hellish supernatural dogs accompany Werdna would admittedly be pretty awesome, but even though their HP is higher than average and their AC is as low as 2, Hellhounds can only attack once per round and their single special ability is acid breath -- again, not particularly helpful at this point. Hellhounds can call for help, though, so that more appear to replenish their ranks, and there can be up to 8 of them in your party at once, so you might still want to consider summoning them as "tanks" if it suits your playstyle.

Next in line are Priests of Fung, originating in Wizardry III but equal in their spellcasting abilities to Wizardry I's High Priests, which means they're capable of casting 5th tier Priest spells. The former have four times the latter's HP, though, and their AC is lower; plus, as you know, Werdna can always use some Priest spells to back him up, so there is little choice for the player but to summon them. As for Masters/Dragons, they are exclusive to Wizardry IV, and I think their name should be interpreted as "Masters of Dragons" -- or at least that is the way New Age of Llylgamyn seems to treat them: as humanoid warriors with 10d5+5 HP and AC of 4. Their regular attacks are strong and deal up to 48 points of damage per turn, but you can summon merely up to three of them and they have no special abilities to speak of, so I wouldn't summon them if I were you.

Now this isn't quite Shin Megami Tensei, but we can even recruit Seraphim at this pentagram. Wizardry IV wasn't the first game in the series to introduce Seraphim; it was Wizardry III (their Apple and PC portraits are generic so I will link to the New Age of Llylgamyn one and the PC Engine one instead), and they were classified as "demons" there, in contrast to their traditional image as beings of light in the Christian theology. Here they are treated as demons too, given that Werdna can recruit them. "Seraphim" is plural in Hebrew, but you can only summon one Seraph at a time. However, it can call for a friend, so you aren't really stuck with just one, and it knows Mage spells of up to 3rd tier.

Weretigers, arriving from Wizardry III again (their character sprite looks pretty weird in the original Apple II version of the game, and not really a lot like tigers), are one of the worst summons at this pentagram, weak and only able to inflict poison. Boring Beetles, true to their name, are indeed as boring as it gets, having no special abilities or strengths whatsoever. You might remember them from Wizardry I; they weren't much of a threat there, and neither are they here. D'placer Beasts, standing for "Displacer Beasts," are again exclusive to this game, originating not in Wizardry but rather in the 1975 Greyhawk supplement to the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons and described there as a puma-like creature with six legs and two tentacles growing from its shoulders. (Gross, I know.) A Displacer Beast is notoriously hard to hit due to its "displacement" ability, an illusion it creates that makes it appear to be a few steps away from where it actually is. Obviously, Wizardry IV has no positioning and therefore no way of implementing such an ability, but it imitates it by lowering the Beasts' AC to zero, thereby also making them harder to hit. Apart from that, like Hellhounds and Seraphim they can call for help, but unfortunately lack any offensive abilities, so their usefulness is limited. Corr. Slimes are actually Wizardry II's Acid Slimes, albeit with a slightly different name, and they have up to 50 HP and AC of -4, which is very low; but yet again, they can only poison the enemy and not much else. Finally, Gas Dragons (from the first game) are, like Seraphim, capable of casting 3rd tier Mage spells, complementing that with a poison breath attack targeting all do-gooders at once, HP of up to 40 and AC of 3. By itself poison breath isn't that great, but overall the Gas Dragons are more or less worth summoning.

We also summon Wights from the previous pentagram in order not to lose the level drain ability.

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Werdna himself is lvl 6 now, which raises his attributes to 14s and his HP to 60, and makes 6th tier Mage spells available to him. The new spells are Lakanito, or "Suffocation", the more powerful version of Makanito that I already described in the previous update; Zilwan, or "Dispel", which destroys one undead monster -- useless to us, useful to do-gooders; Masopic, or "Big Glass", the group target version of Sopic that lowers the entire party's AC by 4; and finally the mysterious Haman, or "Change", a spell so powerful that the caster loses one level of experience (!) just to cast it. Haman is a random spell, in that there are several effects that can occur when you cast it: it can augment your party's magic so that spells have greater effect; it can cure the entire party of status ailments; it can silence all enemies; it can heal up the party; or it can teleport all enemies out of the combat area. It sounds crazy, and it is. (Un)fortunately, Haman doesn't actually work in Wizardry 4 so there's no point in casting it. If you try to, the game just tells you that "The gods do not hear you."

But let's go back to exploring the floor.

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Raiden's Raiders is the second do-gooder group on B5F.

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Mechanics-wise, their motto doesn't really make sense in the world of Wizardry: there is no formation to speak of, and therefore no way to spread out.

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The Raiders are a pretty average do-gooder group, and they don't carry anything useful either. "Average", however, still means deadly in Wizardry IV, and it doesn't take long for Werdna to die to Aurelius' well-placed Lakanito.

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Apart from the groups, there are naturally also solo do-gooders around these parts, such as this neutral Mage going by the name of Interface. There's also another Mage called Login at this floor, but I haven't been able to discover anyone named Password.

Other do-gooders include Sultan and Zandor the Fighters, Mage Marian the Mage (capable of casting the aforementioned Zilwan, aiming to dispel the undead in your party), Seleg and Aurelia the Priests, Fingers the Thief (why yes, it's a pun), and Chryseis the Bishop. Then there's also Telima the Thief, who drops a Cape of Hide (AC -2, casts Malor once and Dios thereafter) when defeated.

Regular do-gooders are not, however, what this floor is really about. The sign at the entrance speaks of "creatures of light and darkness", so let's meet these creatures too.

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There are five light and five darkness creatures on this level (some of them are repeated multiple times, though, meaning there are more than just ten encounters with them in total), designated as L-1 to L-5 and D-1 to D-5 respectively. All of them are fixed encounters marked on the map.

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These are A Pair of L-5 Pioneers, found at (7,1), and they are unique as far as the creatures of light and darkness go in that they have a motto, just like regular do-gooder parties. The Upward! motto even makes some sense, given the nature of what we're up against...

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Butterflies: Wizardry IV's innovation in fantasy monster race design.

The name of this "party", "L-5 Pioneers", is now more clear: after all, Pioneer is a butterfly. It is also clear what "The Creatures of Light and Darkness" stands for: "creatures of light" are daytime butterflies, and "creatures of darkness" are nocturnal butterflies, or moths.

As for the two we're facing now, Mistress Flavia and John Ap Griffin aren't exactly the most frail representatives of the butterfly race. The game doesn't go so far as to introduce any butterfly-specific features or abilities, so they are just their description says: Good-aligned Lords with AC of -5 and HP of 200. In general, Lords can be pretty overpowered in this game, some more, some less; the players who submitted them were obviously expert enough to grind a lot and abuse class switching. You could say that Wizardry IV is not just aimed at expert Wizardry players - it is also full of expert Wizardry players. As you can imagine, they aren't the easiest kind to deal with.

These two are also real people apparently, or at least kind of. Baron John ap Griffin is a baron of the fictional kingdom of Caid, "created" in 1978 by the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), and "Mistress Flavia" is, from the looks of it, his wife. These LARPers must've submitted their names to SirTech to be included in the game. Either that, or Roe Adams (the lead designer on Wiz4) was involved with SCA himself somehow, which I don't find that improbable.

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Slaying these two is actually plot-important, because of the "Molting Leather" they drop.

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The leather turns out to be a pair of Winged Boots, and they are as useful as they sound. We put them in the Black Box for the moment being, but it won't be too long until we need them.

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At (11,3) there is a fixed encounter with A D-5 Creature.

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A Ninja butterfly by the name of Death's Head. As mentioned, "creatures of darkness" are moths, and therefore Death's Head is here a reference not to the Marvel character, but to Acherontia lachesis. Clever isn't it?

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And here we have A L-2 Creature.

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It's a butterfly Mage by the name of Silverstripe. Naturally, it is also a kind of butterfly.

Note that, interestingly, not only do different butterflies have differently colored wings, but the game even attempts to approximate the wing color of the real thing somewhat. It's a nice touch.

Other "creatures of light" on B5F include such butterflies as Meleager Blue (L-1, Fighter), Purple Emperor (L-3, Priest) and Golden Danaid (L-4, Bishop), and the "creatures of darkness" have among themselves such moths as Io (D-1, Fighter), Lappet (D-2, Mage), Gaudy Sphynx (D-3, Priest) and Emperor Tau (D-4, Thief). The classes were probably just assigned to them randomly, but you never know.

Too bad butterflies don't really belong in the Wizardry bestiary and we can't recruit them into our party. "Werdna the Butterfly Tamer" would make a great MegaTen-like Wizardry IV spin-off.

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Along the way, we finally manage to trap the Wandering Oracle again. Doesn't happen often in this playthrough.

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There are many things one can find in The Iliad. I seem to remember something about wrath, Hector, funeral games, a list of ships, Achilles' heel... I wonder what exactly the Oracle has in mind.

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As we approach the exit from this floor, we come across a body of someone less fortunate than us. In a way that reminds me of the multiplayer system in From Software's Souls games, he left a message for us, telling us to "beware the Cosmic Cube." Cosmic Cube? What kind of a stupid name is that?

It's probably nothing a 100-year old wizard can't handle anyway.

EDIT: Syrg Sapphire from SomethingAwful explains the Cosmic Cube reference:

hahaha this is the STUPIDEST reference but I just keep laughing.

(old Captain America foe "The Red Skull" was obsessed with creating and keeping a Cosmic Cube)

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There's not just a message here, but also some kind of ominous-looking mask.

But what's that about "the silent screams of the butterflies"? I guess it's time to make haste.

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Called "Breath of Life" as we pick it up, the mask later shows up as the Oxygen Mask in our inventory. When equipped and invoked, the Oxygen Mask protects us against all suffocation spells (i.e., Makanito and Lakanito). However, if you invoke it twice on a single floor, it will explode, so be careful.

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The beautiful symmetry of light and darkness ahead of us means we've reached the stairs up to B4F...

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...so we take them.

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Next time we'll poke around the Maze of Wandering, trying to watch where we step, with mixed results.
 

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CappenVarra

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Butterflies: Wizardry IV's innovation in fantasy monster race design.
:lol:

You also forgot another achievement of Displacer Beasts: being Fowyr's avatar ;)

Keep up the good work! :salute:
 

Fowyr

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Crooked Bee said:
Gross, I know
I always thought that displacer beasts are kinda cute. Moderately intelligent (9 if I remember 2ed Monster Manual correctly) big cats with tentacles and cool magical ability. Pretty cute, I say.

:lol:
You also forgot another achievement of Displacer Beasts: being Fowyr's avatar ;)
:D
:brofist:

Maze of Wandering... what a difficult dungeon. I remember it, one-way walls and spinners on every crossroads.
Carry on, Bee, Wiz4 was one of the few games, those ending driven me to manly tears. I'm sentimental, I know. ;)
 
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A Ninja butterfly by the name of Death's Head. As mentioned, "creatures of darkness" are moths, and therefore Death's Head is here a reference not to the Marvel character, but to Acherontia lachesis. Clever isn't it?
Acherontia lachesis is a large (up to 13 cm wingspan) Sphingid moth found in India and much of the Oriental region, one of the three species of Death's-head Hawkmoth, also known as the Bee Robber. It is nocturnal, and very fond of honey; they can mimic the scent of honey bees so that they can enter a hive unharmed to get honey. Their tongue, which is stout and very strong, enables them to pierce the wax cells and suck the honey out. This species occurs throughout almost the entire Oriental region, from India, Pakistan and Nepal to the Philippines, and from southern Japan and the southern Russian Far East to Indonesia, where it attacks colonies of several different honey bee species.

:eek:
 

Crooked Bee

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8: Maze of Wandering (or, It's Not All Butterflies)

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With B4F, the coffee break comes to an end.

I seriously don't mind the rest of the game (seriously!), but this level is nightmare material. In fact, it is probably the most difficult to map in any CRPG that I know of. I can almost picture Roe R. Adams going "you may have gotten this far but it will be as far as you go" and laughing maniacally when designing it.

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We start out at (0,2), and what follows is a maze of rotators and one-way walls that leaves you no chance not to be caught into a trap. The sign at the entrance tells us to watch our step, but unfortunately that isn't even possible. When you face the direction that it leads in, you never see a one-way wall as a wall; it looks to you as if there was nothing there. As a result, the one-way walls mess with the geometry of the level so that the twisty little passages that the maze consists of aren't even seen as such by the player, who merrily marches onward into what seems like a perfectly viable direction only for a wall to close in on her from behind. Take a wrong turn to the left, and you might never find a way out; stray a little to the right, and you might lose hours of progress. This level doesn't value your time.

Speaking of rooms with no way out, B4F features what is probably Wizardry IV's most infamous trap: the entire enclosed section to the south of the pentagram at (1,7) is one huge dead end. Once you're in, there's no getting out. No warning, no secret doors, nothing. You can reload, of course, and if you already know Malor, the 7th tier teleport spell that we will learn in this update, you can also teleport out of the room -- but only back to B10F, the starting floor, or B9F at most. Not much of a consolation, unless you want to go back down there.

Apart from that, there are also several one-square trap rooms, or "cages", on this floor, such as the ones at (3,15) or (8,14). These do come with a message...

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...and there is also one additional way of getting out of them if you're carrying a certain item, more on which later.

Rotator rooms are another challenge. They suck you in, spin you around, and spit you out in a pre-determined direction. When you enter the one at (3,6), for example, you end up at (4,6), facing east. On top of that, many of the exits from rotators are one-way walls, which makes tracking the rotations difficult. I'm not sure I've been able to convey the horror that is B4F in mere words, but neither words nor maps can do it justice; only first-hand experience can.

In case you haven't noticed, there's also what looks like a large letter K close to the center of the map. It's actually pretty important! I will explain it in due time.

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Many of the do-gooders have new portraits, which means they are considerably stronger again, also evident in their HP and AC.

(Toranaga is likely a reference to James Clavell's Shogun.)

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For the do-gooders around here, Madaltos and Makanitos are just your run-of-the-mill spells, which turns encounters into even more of a Russian roulette.

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To give you a sense of this floor's geometry, in front of us is the pentagram at (1,7), to the right is a rotator room, and to the left is the huge trap room -- but you can never tell.

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A new pentagram brings with it a new monster roster; let's see what they're worth.

Scrylls are Wizardry II's skull-like monsters, described as simply "Skulls" when unidentified, with AC of -1, weak regular attacks, 25% magic resistance, and the level drain ability. Their hit points cap at 60, and you can summon 1 to 3 of them. (I've been checking the bestiaries for the early Wizardry games, and I'm now pretty sure that all monsters are available to be summoned in exactly the same numbers that they originally appeared in when you faced them in Wizadries 1-3. Obviously, it is something of a rule that the more powerful a monster, the fewer of them tend to travel together.) Carriers, who appear as "Mottled Figures" when you first encounter them, also originate in Wizardry II (Apple II; IBM PC); their sole special ability is to cause paralysis, and they attack up to 7 times per round, but only for a pathetic 1d1+1. With their extremely high AC of 10, they aren't of much use to us at this point. Myrmidons, introduced in Wizardry IV for the first time, are a reference to the legendary warriors from The Iliad, led by Achilles and known for their loyalty and skill in battle. Later, "myrmidon" came to mean a follower who executes orders without question or pity, or even a "hired ruffian." Hence their appearance among Werdna's minions in this game. Here, they are strong Fighters of up to 82 HP who strike twice per turn for 1d16+3 points of damage, resistant to instadeath spells but incapable of inflicting any status or level drain effects. (They also look pretty impressive in the New Age of Llylgamyn remake.)

You might recall Gorgons from Wizardry I as "strange animals" that appeared on B9F. As is to be expected, they can turn their enemies to stone, but that is hardly a useful ability compared to level drain. Lvl 6 Ninjas were also a common sight in Wizardry I starting from B6F onwards. Decapitation is a wonderful thing, but AC of 6 isn't something to be proud of this far into the game. Dark Riders should actually be "Dark Rider," in singular, since he only appears alone when summoned, just like he did back in Wizardry III when you encountered him as a "Shadowy Figure" (Apple II; PC) with AC of 2 and 4d6+20 HP. He can, however, call for reinforcements, and is capable of using 3rd tier Mage spells, so he isn't entirely worthless.

In the next column we have Doppelgangers, another Wizardry III monster, its AC (-2) the lowest among this pentagram's summons. You can have up to 8 of them by your side at once, making them decent "tanks" at their 6d9 HP. Apart from that, however, they aren't particularly useful, poison being their only special ability. Doppelgangers are supposed to be completely transparent, which accounts for their low AC, and have the standard Shadowy Figure sprite when not yet identified. Next come Giant Mantises, insectoid monsters from Wizardry III. They are basically Ninja insects, with their ability to decapitate on a critical and their AC of 0. The downside is that their regular attack is weak and you can only summon no more than three of them.

Evil Eyes (there are unusually many Wizardry II monsters at this pentagram) are good to have around if you want more spellcasting power at your disposal. Known as "Glowing Eyes" when unidentified and having the same sprite as Scrylls, they can cast 3rd tier Mage spells, and their group-targeting poison breath attack comes as a nice bonus. You can only summon a pair of them, but they are eyes, after all, so what did you expect? From Wizardry III, there are also Goblin Princes available to be summoned here, their sprite the same as for other goblins. They are a bit stronger than your average goblins, but not worth talking a lot about. Masters/W. Wind are exclusive to Wizardry IV, and the way their name is spelled reminds of the Masters/Dragons from the previous update. Just like the latter, Masters of West Wind are humanoid warriors, their AC equalling 3 and their HP 10d5+5. They have a powerful regular attack, hitting 4 times in a row for 3d6+3/3d6+1 damage (the maximum damage per round being a whopping 82), and the petrification ability. You can have up to 5 of them in your party, so overall they aren't a bad choice. Finally, Wyverns are, like Gorgons, strange animals from Wizardry I, and are more or less lackluster.

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The pentagram also brings Werdna to level 7, giving him acess to the final Mage spell tier, consisting of just three spells. Tiltowait is the already well-familiar "Nuke 'em 'till they glow" spell that we could earlier cast with the help of St. Rimbo Digit, creating a large explosion that deals up to 100 points of damage to all enemies. Mahaman, or "Great Change", is the more powerful version of Haman, adding AC -20 and resurrection to the list of possible effects. Just like Haman, however, it is unavailable for Werdna to cast because the gods continue to "not hear you."

Finally, Malor, or "Apport", is the teleport spell that, when used in camp, lets you choose a destination to jump to by specifying its North, East and Down coordinates, even to the point of allowing you to jump between floors. When used in combat, however, it will teleport you to a random point on the same floor. Theoretically, we could use Malor to teleport Werdna to any point on any floor, which would make navigating the dungeon completely trivial...

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In practice, however, Werdna's teleportation power has not yet fully returned to him, and the only floors he can currently Malor to is B10F, the starting one, and B9F, the Catacombs.

Well, one has to start somewhere.

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The Wandering Oracle of Mron offers us another amazing piece of advice, and we continue to be on our way.

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At (5,14) we meet this game's second and last in-dungeon NPC. (The first was the Oracle.)

As NPCs are wont to, the witch has a fetch quest for us.

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She offers to brew us her "Blue Blood Special," but as it turns out she's missing some ingredients.

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There are six ingredients in total -- Camphor, Spanish Unquent, a Blender, Rabbit's Fur, Fe s-sub-2, and Tannic Acid -- and it looks like we already have three of them, with three more to find. If you've been keeping track of our inventory, you may wonder where we got the Rabbit's Fur, Fe s-sub-2 (or should I say "FeS2") and Tannic Acid from. None of the things in our inventory are actually called "Rabbit's Fur" or "Tannic Acid," of course, and the list of ingredients is a riddle rather than a straightforward list.

In fact, "Rabbit's Fur" is the Magician's Hat (because every magician can supposedly produce a rabbit out of a hat?), "Fe s-sub-2" is the Golden Pyrite (FeS2 is pyrite's actual chemical formula), and "Tannic Acid" is the Witching Rod (because, if you remember, we lifted it out of a pool of tannic acid). The remaining three are anybody's guess, although in fact you can probably guess what "a Blender" is if you've been paying utmost attention to the updates so far.

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Thankfully, the witch has x-ray vision and scans your inventory herself, including the content of the Black Box, so you can theoretically "solve" this riddle through trial-and-error by simply bringing her everything you find.

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We aren't required to solve this quest until later in the game, so we'll have plenty of time to find the three missing ingredients.

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The first do-gooder party on B4F is Dorion's Greys, which is as terrible as puns come.

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Their motto only serves to prolong the pun.

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The Dorion's Greys is a fairly standard Evil/Neutral party consisting of two Fighters, a Priest, a Thief, and two Mages. Their HP isn't too high, but the spells the Mages have at their disposal are pretty deadly. Dorion can even cast Tiltowait, and has enough hit points to survive a not too powerful Tiltowait himself. (A Lakanito does short work of him, though.)

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B4F's second do-gooding group is Khan's Kosmic Killers.

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Werdna certainly does, so the Killers don't really fit into his plans.

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Luckily, they aren't too tough, and you can always equip the Oxygen Mask to counter their Lakanitos.

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Among the items they drop is "A Yellow Card" that we would do well to pick up.

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It is a GetOutOfJailFree card that, when used, lets you escape any of the 1x1 cages in a random direction. It is a one-use item, though, so it won't rescue you twice.

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Other do-gooders on this floor include Dr X, Darwin and Starleto the Fighters, Shandra the Priest, Brud the Samurai, Swift-One and Trueno the Mages, and Deadly-Hand and Demonslayer the Ninjas. Quite a company.

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Pick up a marble (Y/N)?

We can also pick up a marble at (14,9).

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The "White Sphere" shows up as Aromatic Ball in Werdna's inventory. We're going to need it later.

After that, we make a detour to (6,5), marked by a water symbol on the map.

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There is a pool here. We could ignore it and still beat the game, but it is very important for plot-related reasons nevertheless.

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Oh Wizardry IV. :roll:

(Ron Wartow was a SirTech employee, a playtester on Wizardry IV, The Magic Candle II, and Might and Magic III, and a contributing editor of the Questbusters magazine. Speaking of M&M III, there was a Ninja by the name of Wartowsan you could hire in that game, also a Ron Wartow (self?) insert. I don't know the story behind his cameo here. "Lied" and "Tod" are "song" and "death" in German, by the way.)

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I guess this is supposed to be something like the death song of Ron Wartow?

Still, "his fate is still unlearned" has as much to do with Werdna as (supposedly) with Wartow, as we'll be sure to learn in due time.

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We choose to wade; a nice bath can sometimes do wonders.

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Werdna is now a bit less evil than he was previously, but this won't have any actual impact on the gameplay.

08wizfour233.png


Except that his alignment is now Neutral.

In the first three Wizardry games, you switched alignment by choosing whether or not to fight friendly monster groups. Wizardry IV has pools.

08wizfour257.png


We could now proceed straight to the stairs leading further up, but let us first revisit all the previous floors...

:eek:

... to see if we have perhaps forgotten something.

Next time: to Hell and back. Be there.
 

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spekkio

Arcane
Joined
Sep 16, 2009
Messages
8,273
Stop with these silly jRPGs and LP some manly, quality cRPG like Boulder's Gate or sth.

:decline:
 

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