Grinding for gear: Fire Dragon on Floor 7

[Ninth Hour]

If you have patience, the Fire Dragon on the 7th Floor (2E, 9N, through a whole series of secret rooms) provides probably the most efficient way to grind for high tier loot.

I did so for about 2-3 hours per day, over a span of 3 days, and brought in the following haul:

2 Lords Garb
1 Ring of Health
1 Ring of Pro Undead
1 Muramasa Blade
1 +3 Evil Plate Armor
1 Evil Helm (I think it's +2 or +3)
2 amulets of Makanito
2 Rods of Fire
1 +3 Breast Plate

A bunch of +2 Longswords, +2 Maces, +2 Shortswords, and suits of +2 Plate Mail and +2 Leather Armor

A whole bunch of Dragonslayers (which I consider useless, as it is outperformed by the +2 Longsword)

I also picked up an array of useless scrolls, potions. and cursed items (which I mostly dumped on the spot to make room).

Sadly, the item I was aiming for, the Cuisinart Blade, was nowhere in sight, and it's a tier lower than the Muramasa blade. RNG will be RNG I guess.

What makes this method so efficient is how quickly you can reset it. After beating the dragon, simply Save and Exit back to Title Screen. When you reload, you will be in the room where you just fought it. Simply turn around to the opposite wall, head out the secret door, turn back to the secret door, and reenter the room. The dragon will respawn.

This certainly beats going back to the stairs and coming back up to reset the encounter, as some other players have suggested.

While the drop rate of the best items is really low (much less than 5%, if you consider that cursed items can also drop in the high-tier category), you will eventually find something worthwhile, just through the sheer number of fights you can generate in a short span of time. It's superior to grinding on Floor 10, where you aren't guaranteed to meet the enemies that drop the highest tier loot. And the single dragon is much less dangerous than most encounters on the lowest floor.

[Slux]

That would be a lot of grinding. Stats indicate a roughly 1 in 3,700 chance per encounter on level 7 to get a Thieves Dagger or better, so to equip one character with top tier equipment would take around ten thousand encounters.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by Slux:

That would be a lot of grinding. Stats indicate a roughly 1 in 3,700 chance per encounter on level 7 to get a Thieves Dagger or better, so to equip one character with top tier equipment would take around ten thousand encounters.

If you grind the Dragon, I think the odds are significantly better. It would normally be extremely difficult to get high tier gear just through random encounters but the Fire Dragon always has a chance to drop something rare, so just eliminating the randomness of finding the right monster already helps. Nothing else on Floor 7, as far as I can tell, drops the same level of loot.

And as mentioned, it is easy to spawn the dragon for multiple back to back fights, as long as your party can take it.

I was able to get not just 1 but 2 Lords Garbs and 1 Muramasa Blade and 1 Ring of Health (which is in the same tier) over a total grinding period of 9+ hours spread over a few days. I didn't keep precise count, but that was probably 100+ fights. At the very least, it was nowhere near 10,000.

[Slux]

Ah, the dragon - yeah that wasn't enabled in the original version of Wizardry - not even sure if it ever was enabled on the Apple ][. Could see the data there on the disk, just didn't get the specials or the encounter.

Anyway yeah that would probably make all the difference, but as far as the standard drop rates go this version is extremely similar to the Apple version.

[Jok'Xan]

Man thanks to you i just drop vorpal blade and Murasama, was a game changing omg haha my frontlane is literally more powerful than my mage now xD I'm gonna jump to the lvl 10 now :D

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by Jok'Xan:

Man thanks to you i just drop vorpal blade and Murasama, was a game changing omg haha my frontlane is literally more powerful than my mage now xD I'm gonna jump to the lvl 10 now :D

Yes, Muramasa Blade is practically an "I win" button as long as you have a properly leveled samurai.

Mine happened to be a level 13 Priest converted over to a Samurai, who was level 12 by the time I faced Werdna. Being able to kill him in one or two hits really saves your party major grief.

Most swords show up in your inventory as an unidentified *Sword*, but if you get an unidentified *Weapon*, it's cause for rejoicing, as it means either a Muramasa Blade or a Shuriken dropped. I think those are the only 2 weapons that get labeled as such when they are not identified.

[WRuddick]

Any versions of this for people that selected the ones maps and not original maps? I'm sick of 10th floor resetting to find the right enemies for drops

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by WRuddick:

Any versions of this for people that selected the ones maps and not original maps? I'm sick of 10th floor resetting to find the right enemies for drops

Not as far as I know, But if you want to grind level 10 more efficiently, just apply the same principle I mentioned. Instead of running through most of Floor 10 for the Room encounters, then leaving the floor and coming back to reset the rooms, simply Save and Exit to Title Screen after a successful Room battle. When you reload, you will be back in front of the door and can reenter to generate another fight.

This way you can just grind the fights in the first room of Floor 10 without ever having to go further in.

It's nowhere as efficient as Floor 7 Fire Dragon, as the encounter you generate may not be the appropriate one- i.e. Fire Dragons, Frost Giants, Poison Giants, Raver Lords, Flacks, High Masters (I think), Demon Lords, and similarly high level monsters are the ones you want.

[Neuro JItsu]

Would agree, though it falls under the range of RNG I suppose.

On this version I have grinded the 6 guardian rooms and the dragon in a loop enough times that by selling my haul, I have over 3 million gold. My squad is low 40's in level.

I have yet to find a Muramasa or Thieves' Dagger.

On the Apple IIe, I had found all of those (and two Muramasas) with no grinding and when my PCs were 17-18th level.

RNG giveth and RNG taketh away, I suppose ;-)

[Nemo2342]

I got lucky and the first fight dropped a Dragonslayer sword, so I guess it was meant to be.

[Ninth Hour]

Yes, RNG is a fickle mistress.

Last night, after grinding the dragon some more, I got yet another Muramasa blade. I still cannot find the Vorpal Blade, which I really want as a replacement for my Lord's venerable Longsword +2.

Sure, another Muramasa is great but including a second Samurai on my team isn't part of my plan, which is front line of Ninja-Lord-Samurai. I already have all 3 team members. Ninja has a Shuriken, which makes him quite formidable, and Samurai already has a Muramasa. I just need a suitably awesome weapon for the Lord.

I guess I could make it Ninja-Samurai-Samurai and just have my Lord spectate in the fourth position. Since he can cast both Arcane and Priest spells, he isn't totally useless from the back.

[SlickRCBD]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

Yes, in the Apple II version, you won't naturally find the best gear just through exploration. You have to specifically grind for it, which makes it an exercise in old school tolerance.

Considering that it is the first game of its type, the grandfather of them all, I believe the Apple II version of Wizardry is about as old school as it gets.

[rn_archl0rd]

also another difference in versions i that the PC version let you roll a ninja or lord from the start so you didn't have to class change to get one.

[kbrow0]

I made a quick video on how to "abuse" this. This is the console version of the Map, I use Dumapic to show exactly where the dragon is once I fight it. Thank you OP for posting this gem of a secret as my party is very strong after HOURS of farming some great equipment here. Sure beats fighting Flack or Greater Demons on Floor 10.

https://www.youtube.com/live/MDRD8eiQ5YM?si=nW0sl_C6hakuwxOt

[Madd Overlord]

Originally posted by kbrow0:

I made a quick video on how to "abuse" this. This is the console version of the Map, I use Dumapic to show exactly where the dragon is once I fight it. Thank you OP for posting this gem of a secret as my party is very strong after HOURS of farming some great equipment here. Sure beats fighting Flack or Greater Demons on Floor 10.

https://www.youtube.com/live/MDRD8eiQ5YM?si=nW0sl_C6hakuwxOt

Nice! I like that you brought your Bishop with you to identify on the fly. Good idea.

Here's a video I posted on how to abuse the same Fire Dragon on the "console maps" version of the Digital Eclipse remake using Malor (6D, 5E, 10N) to quickly get to the Dragon on Floor 7. Once you get Malor you can cut all the running out.

https://youtu.be/mTcEvyribt4?si=_iLN1yawGthZgs6y

[jaycox]

Originally posted by Thrandarian:

Thanks for all the info. I guess I'll stick with the new...Messing with save files can be sketchy. =/

I made the console map choice too . the square before the dragon's door is:
Down 6
East 5
North 10
It's the same dragon