Bard's Tale The Bard's Tale Series

[KeighnMcDeath]

Is there a level cap in BT? I’m thinking a big fat NO.

 

[octavius]

255.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Is that all ports including BTT?

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Is that all ports including BTT?

Hmmm… wiki says: https://bardstale.fandom.com/wiki/Experience

In the IBM PC version, there is a bug. Once you surpass level 255, the Review Board will let you raise your levels at will. No additional experience necessary. This only works if you pass level 255 by actually gaining experience as opposed to getting hit by a Vampire and healing at the temple. After level 256, if you Do get hit by a Vampire, you will end up with very little experience. It seems to subtract 256 off your level. Even healing at the temple doesn't give them all back.

After level 99, your level in the character screen shows up as **. Also, after you get more than 9999 HP or 9999 SP, they will show up as ****.

I have no clue for NES but I bet it is annoying. Well, I never hit the 255 I guess in the first game (I don’t think) and I know I didn’t hit 9,999 or ***** for HP or SP. Well damn, I’ll have to remedy that on all platforms sone day to earn the coveted

THE BARD’S TALE - TALES OF THE UNKNOWN OCD GRINDER MEGA AWARD!

Some day maybe.

Psh… I asked this before on GOG.
https://af.gog.com/forum/the_bards_tale_series/experience_level_maxes?as=1649904300

I forgot? Sheesh…

 

[octavius]

Now that BT1 and 2 are fresh in my mind, it's easier to compare BT3 with them than the first time I completed BT3 some nine years ago.

Aram Knives now have charges instead of working like boomerangs, and monsters can resist them.
Flame Horns have become useless in the Festering Pit when all monsters seem to repel the attack.

Levels have unpredictable sizes, which is good, but they are wrap-around as far as detection spells go, which is not so good. Also, the use of spinners, darkness and such seem more random, and less the result of a diabolical dungeon director.

Monsters with same names come in different "sizes". So an Ape Soldier in one dungeon level is not the same as an Ape Soldier in a later level.

Character portraits should have been discarded all together when you only have two each per sex.

My guys have trouble hitting things, which may be due to the stats for transferred characters being capped at 18.
But overall the balance is good so far and the monsters will eat the party if I don't pay attention.

Lack of shops is annoying, since they were a convenient place to "store" items, as well as quickly find out the class restrictions on items from the buy menu.

Bard songs seem to last a much shorter time, which is annoying.
But most annoying of all is that now I have to order 40 separate drinks to completely slake my lvl 40 Bard's thirst! I think this must be a bug. And Wineskins don't work either. So my Bard is forced to use a Song Axe instead of a real weapon.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

AppleII version? I’d seriously hope if it was the BTT, that inxile would have fixed any bugs. It is good to note what does and doesn’t work on various platforms. Even the best bardstale sites are often not completely thorough.

 

[octavius]

DOS version with UOP.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

UOP?

 

[octavius]

Unit Of Patience.

Unofficial Patch.

Some other things that were a decline in BT3:
The artwork. The artwork for 1 and 2 was top notch, but for 3 it was just mediocre.

There is no longer any representation of holes in floors and ceilings; instead the game will tell you in text form.

There is more of a story, and Hawkslayer is involved. But he has no interjections at all, and leaves the party after Arboria without as much a "so long, suckers".

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Honestly, I didn’t even know of the UOP so it’s NEWs to me. I’ll look at it.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Stuff like this was classic.

OF COURSE YOU CAN JOIN!

… now I can jot your stats down.

 

[octavius]

That's another decline in BT3; you can't view the monsters' stats, only their AC and HP, and they can't carry items, only gold.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Where was this patch located? I saw the addict mention another poster in his blog mention it. I guess I need to check the responses.

Edit….
From
https://bardstale.brotherhood.de/talefiles/forum/viewtopic.php?t=989

So I have a patched DOS thief.exe available:

https://github.com/downloads/ChrisAubuc ... thiefp.exe

Fixes:

• Monsters breathe properly and will also summon help
• Monsters' special attack now works properly
• The Divine Intervention spell converts illusions to real monsters as described in the manual
• The up arrow key does all of the same functions as the 'K' key
• Fixed a bug where the monster would never get to attack if their attack priority is lower than all of the characters in the party
• When the party hits a "high chance of battle" square, the "high chance" flag is removed after the battle. This should reduce the encounter rate significantly.

Still todo:

• Add BT1 and BT2-like casting of spells by the 4 letter abbreviation
• Add scrolling speed commands for battle
• Make the dungeon monster rosters more logical. No Roman Gladiators in Berlin for example
• Match Tarjan's attack with the 8 bit versions. I believe that Tarjan constantly summons Black Slayers but I need to work out the details. Any help from 8-bit land would be appreciated.
  

From 2012

Further updates on that page.

Some links are dead some aren’t. I’ll just make some new links and hope they are as up to date as possible.

BT1json.zip
BT2json.zip
BT3json.zip
BTitemviewer
thief.exe

 

[octavius]

Interestingly there's less hand holding in BT3 than in the previous games. You have to figure out yourself that you need to use Phase Door or APAR in the Festering Pit, or that you need to cast a specific sequence of spells to access the towers in the Ice Keep, for example. You don't see the writing on the wall in BT3.
Makes me wonder how "a modern audience" tackles it, when you have to figire things out yourself instead of being told what to do.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I’d hope experimentation. I tell you, GBA Ultima III the second part; you better be prepared to experiment and think. It was sone good stuff.

 

[octavius]

Man, this is lame...in anti-magic zones in BT3 your own spells (even TRZP and SCSI) fizzle, but the monsters can still cast. In 1 and 2 the monsters' spells fizzled too, but TRZP and Scry Site still worked. So BT3 is more hard-core, but in a lazy way.
Fortunately running away is far 100% success. Without it, the insane encounter rate would have driven me bonkers, and running out of mana is not really an issue (it helps I brought along Mage Staffs, of course).

 

[octavius]

My BT3 game is bugged.
Hawkslayer didn't leave after Kinestia, which I think he was supposed to do because

Also, the artifacts we had earlier given to the old man didn't show up in the storage house near the entrance to Skara Brae, neither can I give items to companions. Well, I can transfer them, but they disappear from the game since there's no way to access the companions' inventory.
Oh well, I can always use the save game editor to get the artifacts that way, so not a big deal. But it's weird that I didn't have any problems (that I remember) last time I played.

I also noticed that no monsters so far have the dreaded level drain attack, not even the vampire types in the Shadow Canyon.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

And you are using that BT3 patch? Maybe it is bugged.

 

[octavius]

After not having a single party death, and the only time I had to flee was from the six Black Slayers that killed Werra, the last four battles in BT3 finally provided some serious opposition.
So my party imported from BT2 was weaker than my the newly generated party I used the last time. But, first time I completed the game I don't think I used to Flee option at all (what a crazy nerd I was back then), while this time I only engaged enemy groups in which there were some I had not faced before. So my first victorious party would have had both better stats and items, as well as higher levels.
Overall this approach provided a more enjoyable experience, and while the random monsters were never a serious threat, at least they could be dangerous if I not stayed sharp.
Incidentally my party lead by a Paladin->Geomancer with Speedboots never once failed to Flee from battle. Never had to use the Sir Robin's Song.

So BT3 is definitely the easiest of the three BT games, even if it may have had the hardest final battle. I regretted having a Hunter instead of a third mage (or fourth counting the Geomancer).
I think the optimal party is this:
Paladin->Geomancer
Bard
Rogue
Chronomancer
Archmage
Archmage
And the 7th place to experiment with summons/joiners/spellbounds. Hawkslayer never once had any interjections, so it's perfectly safe to just ignore him from a role playing POV. Which is a great pity, since his death in the final level thus had very little emotional impact.
Fighters are not able to hit anything during the last stage of the game unless augmented by the Luck spell from the Chronomancer, so the Hunter was really a waste of space. The Rogue is actually the best physical fighter with his ability to hide in shadows and crit enemies.

I think BT3 is also the weakest of the three games.
It has some improvements like less predictable dungeon level sizes, two new classes, more inventory space and more items to find, and the added abilities of the Rogue.
And while the level design was overall quite good, it never provided the same mapping challenges as the best parts in 1 and 2, and the placement of Darkness!, spinners and anti-magic squares felt more random.
The visuals are a huge decline from the previous games. Not just from the glorious Amiga and Apple IIGS versions, but also compared to the DOS versions.

I played using the UOP, and there still are problems with the game.
The Bard has been nerfed; now songs last only one round in combat, and since the bard usually goes after the monsters he ended up just spamming song 7 (Trebuchet spell). So no room for any cleverness with the Bard. But the Death Horn and Horn of the Gods were nice (except for the few charges).

I think there may be an overflow bug with the chest traps, since in the second half of the game the only trap I ever saw was Death Blades.

So I suspect the Remaster may actually be the optimal version for playing BT3.

Overall I'm rather surprised at how much I enjoyed replaying the BT games.
And it made me appreciate the fact the the Flee option may actually improve a game, even for a combatfag.

 

[Sceptic]

My BT3 game is bugged.
Hawkslayer didn't leave after Kinestia, which I think he was supposed to do because

It's not just you, I think I had him bug out too, but eventually unbugged him on a repeat visit or something like that, so he did end up leaving by the time. I knew exactly why he bugged out in my game (specific sequence of events) but I don't remember anymore. Shame, I wanted to see if I could have both Hawkslayers with me when I found his corpse in Malefia.

Strange you had problems hitting with the Hunter, I remember mine did great and was critting everything, he was a huge help in fights with small number of enemies. But then I turned him into a Geomancer, so I don't know if that's about the point where he becomes less useful. I liked having the Paladin because of the morale boost to saves (or however that works). I personally thought I had too many mages, my 3rd one didn't get to do much most of the time because everything would be dead by the time his turn arrived and his spells fired.

Agreed on the 3rd game being the weakest but still has its fun sides, and I remember thinking Malefia was an absolutely glorious final dungeon. I'll have to try the remasters next time I play the games.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Couldn’t you remove him from the party and store him in the guild?

I did that dirty trick on DOS pools of radiance & curse of azure bonds. I might have tried all NPCs stored on disk by loading saves and removing players somehow. I forget the details but I had like 4 SkullCrushers in POR and a few Alias dolls as NPCs though, I hated Akabar’s and their jihad friendly fireball attacks vs my party. Hate that dude.

Any plans for trying Dragon Wars next? And which version?

 

[dumbuglyorc]

Is there a level cap in BT? I’m thinking a big fat NO.

Is that all ports including BTT?

I have no clue for NES but I bet it is annoying.

Turns out that levels are capped at 36 on the NES.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Slightly different Bard’s Tale topic and that is the music. Each game has different bard songs and each platform console/computers plays the songs differently or omits and replaces a few. I like remasters as well but it seems the c64 really gets mixed up with the rest and the Sanctuary Score seems to be excluded from most archives. I finally found a link to the song’s actual name and that was something I was going to look for on each song along with the cleanest versions of the original songs, remixes, remasters, and new versions of them as well. Here the c64 Sanctuary Score was inspired by this original:


Found from steam forum

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Anyway, I also need to check the number of songs in BTCS, and other Bards products. I don’t recall if the inxile trilogy remastered the songs in the game on their own or from a music artist on YouTube from say PiecesofEight

Bah, I keep forgetting BT1 is The Traveller’s Tune. Still, the ones I find for c64 seem incorrect.
Edit again….. seems they are correct in most cases except I found no remasters. Maybe my mind is overly foggy lately.
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/the-bards-tale-trilogy-remaster-by-krome-studios.103577/page-28