Unfortunately no. The map format is nearly identical, but enemies and weapons work quite differently between the two games. Reskins are possible.
I would only recommend the game to fans of the Elder Scrolls who want to deep dive, or people who are capable of overlooking the quirks of a DOS era action RPG. The game is more interesting than it is good. At its core, the gameplay and character creation mechanics are nearly identical to Daggerfall. However, there are no simulationist aspects, and no quests as such. It's like a really jank Dark Messiah.
Alright, time for the master class... on class editing.
You'll need a hex editor:
https://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/
An alt-code table:
https://www.codetable.net/
And something that can decompress DOS executables:
http://unp.bencastricum.nl/
With these tools, we can begin to modify Arena. We're going to focus on the CD version, since that's the version I've chosen to base all my mods on.
It'll be helpful to know the default class order, because this is the same order in which everything else is sorted.
Mage
Spellsword
Battlemage
Sorceror
Healer
Nightblade
Bard
Burglar
Rogue
Acrobat
Thief
Assassin
Monk
Archer
Ranger
Barbarian
Warrior
Knight
Next up is the location of the data for the various class properties. These are the offsets. In HxD, click SEARCH, then GO-TO, and input the offset for the data you're looking for. I'll go into detail about how to interpret and edit these properties as we move along.
39F84 favored attributes
3A2D5 weapon proficiency
3A2F9 weapon lists
3A321 shield proficiency
3A354 armor proficiency
3AE5E XP
4238E lockpicking
423A0 class IDs, sorted
423B2 class names
4243E class IDs, alphabetized
42525 hit die
FAVORED ATTRIBUTES
This is just fluff. It has no effect on the game whatsoever, except to communicate to the player, based on their class, which two attributes should be focused on. The text is separated by a null character. If you do change anything, make sure you don't exceed the allotted space.
WEAPON PROFICIENCY
The way this works, there are two characters per class. Two null characters means a class can use any weapon. One character followed by a < symbol indicates that a class is restricted to a specified weapon list. So let's have a look at the data to get an idea of what's going on.
I<......L<Q<W<_<..d<j<..............
We know that the Spellsword comes second, and given that the Spellsword is able to use any weapon, we should expect the third and fourth characters to be null, and they are. But what about the Mage? The Mage comes first, and we see an I, followed by a <. That's a weapon list alright. Here's where things get complicated.
WEAPON LISTS
That letter I, what does it mean? Well, it's the start of an address space. An address space that begins with I and ends with p. Maybe that sounds weird, but in the wonderful world of hex it means 49 to 70. I've laid out both the address space and the data so you can see exactly how it works. Each of the weapon lists are separated by the value FF. Before the first FF, we find two characters. If the Mage's weapon list begins at I and ends at J, that means they can use only two weapons. If you're familiar with the game, you'll know that Mages can use only daggers and staffs. We're on the right track. We just need to know what characters represent what weapons. Fortunately this has all been figured out.
IJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnop address space
☺. ☺.♂♀ ☺.►☻♦ ☺☻♥♦♂♫► ☺☻•► ☺☻♥•► ☺☻♥♦♫► weapon lists
. staff
☺ dagger
☻ shortsword
♥ broadsword
♦ saber
♣ longsword
♠ claymore
• tanto
◘ wakizashi
○ katana
◙ dai-katana
♂ mace
♀ flail
♪ war hammer
♫ war axe
☼ battle axe
► short bow
◄ long bow
SHIELD PROFICIENCY
The way shield proficiency works, a class can use the largest shield they're proficient with, as well as any smaller shields. The Mage can use a buckler, and only a buckler. The Spellsword can use a kite shield, a round shield, and a buckler. As you can see, the < symbol is used again.
û<¢<ÿ<ò<ÿ<û<¢<ò<¢<ò<û<ò<ò<ò<¢<ƒ<ƒ<ƒ<
ƒ tower
¢ kite
ÿ round
û buckler
ò none
ARMOR PROFICIENCY
Armor proficiency works the same as shield proficiency. Classes proficient with chain can also wear leather.
♥☺☻☺☺☻☺☻☺☻☻☻♥☺.☺..
. plate
☺ chain
☻ leather
♥ none
XP
These values represent XP needed to reach level 2, after which some algorithms take over. There are two characters for each class. The second is multipled by 256, and the first is added. Mage is up first, and the calculation (3*256)+232 gives us 1000. Is that right? Well the game manual tells us that Mages require 1000 XP to reach level 2.
LOCKPICKING
For lockpicking, take 200 and divide by n, and that's the percentage assigned to a given class. The formula here isn't the whole story when it comes to lockpicking success, but from the data we can see that non-thieving classes get 25%, while the Burglar, who is best at lockpicking, gets 100%. I've provided examples that don't normally occur. You can use these to make classes who cannot steal, and classes who are even more exceptional at stealing.
◘◘◘◘◘♦♦☻♦♦♥♣◘◘◘◘◘◘
☺ 200%
☻ 100%
♥ 66%
♦ 50%
♣ 40%
♠ 33%
◘ 25%
╚ 1%
CLASS IDS, SORTED
Class IDs are the most convoluted part, so bear with me. They draw from several ranges of values, which I've discovered and will provide to you. As far as I know, the advantages and disadvantages are only associated with the default IDs. If you want a class who has the poison immunity of the Barbarian, you can only use the default Barbarian ID. That means no magery, and no critical chance. It's no good to use multiple IDs from the same position either, because the game will draw from the same properties, regarding things like class name, proficiencies, and so on. Magery and critical values appear to be static, unless altered by the default IDs. If you want a class with x2 magery, you'll have to use the default ID for either the Mage or the Healer--that's not to say you can't change everything else, because you can.
mixed
!"#$σµ╟╚╔╩╦LM♫☼►◄ default data
no spells, no crit
.☺☻♥♦♣♠•◘○◙♂♀♪♫☼►◄ Ranger, Barbarian, Warrior, Knight
magery x1.75
!"#$%&'()*+,-./01 Mage, Spellsword, Battlemage, Sorceror, Healer
crit
@ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQ Monk, Archer
magery x1.75, crit
`abcdefghijklmnopq unused
no spells, no crit
ÇüéâäàåçêëèïîìÄÅÉæ unused
magery x1.75
áíóúñѪº¿⌐¬½¼¡«»░▒ unused
crit
└┴┬├─┼╞╟╚╔╩╦╠═╬╧╨╤ Burglar, Rogue, Acrobat, Thief, Assassin
magery x1.75, crit
αßΓπΣσµτΦΘΩδ∞φε∩≡± Nightblade, Bard
CLASS NAMES
Just like with the favored attributes, these are separated by a null character. And if you make changes, be sure you don't exceed the allotted space.
CLASS IDS, ALPHABETIZED
This is the alphabetized class list which is used when the player starts a new game. It can actually be ordered any way you like. And interestingly, the player's class ID is drawn from here, not from the other list. What I mean is, the humanoid enemy class list can be completely different from the player class list. That's good, because you may end up creating classes that, as enemies, cause the game to crash. You're still stuck with the 18 slots, with all their associated properties, but it's possible, for example, to make any number of humanoid enemies the same class, or even use a weaker ID. You'll have to play around with it.
HIT DIE
Hit die is D&D parlance referring to the die a player rolls to generate hit points upon leveling. The Acrobat is 10th in the class list, and here we see a ♀ symbol, which is a decimal value of 12. So the Acrobat has a d12 hit die. Easy peasy.
♠♀◙♠◘◘◙◙◘♀♫◘♫►↕▲¶↕
And that'll do it. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
Short answer: kind of. Long answer: as far as I know, the special properties of classes are baked, like the knight's ability to repair their own equipment. So if you alter a class in order to give them magic, they lose those properties. Everything else would remain the same, however. My new classes mod has a wide range of class options, including magic users with heavy armor proficiency. If you want you can just use that. Otherwise in a hex editor in the CD version of the EXE, uncompressed, at offset 42446, you'll want to change ◄ to something else, ± probably.
THank you for that very fast reply!
I think I distributed the class mod uncompressed. You can tell the difference because the uncompressed file size is around 300 kb, while compressed is about half. The game doesn't care either way. It will run just fine.
