Strategy Guide

[whyattblack]

1. OLD SCHOOL OPTIONS:
You can click old school options and roll randomly, generating the stats for brand new characters, these points can really give a lot of attribute points. I've seen as many as 28 points to distribute. You can reroll these infinitely before continuing.

2. STATS:
STRENGTH: 16-18 grants +1 stat apiece for a max of +3. 18 strength front-liners vastly outperform characters without a strength of 18.
AGILITY: Affects speed in battle and trap removal, also trap detection.
INTELLIGENCE: Affects how many spells are learned when leveling. MAY affect resistance piercing to arcane spells. Affects INSPECT.
PEITY: Affects how many spells are learned when leveling. MAY affect resistance piercing to divine spells. Affects INSPECT.
VITALITY: Affects HP gains at each level. Getting this to 18 quickly on a first class and by level 12 or so on a multiclass to Fighter type is important for HP gains. Also affects Resurrection chance.
LUCK: Affects Saving Throws: Resilience Reflex Resolve.
RAISING STATS WITHOUT LEVELING: Some monsters do level drain. When this happens, you will lose some maximum HP and a "level", go back to the temple and cure the level drain, this allows you to re-level in the Inn, this can increase your stats, but may result in less maximum HP; or could even result in more maximum hp.

3. RACE:
Affects starting stats and saving throws.

4. CLASS:
Affects Saving Throws. (description with recommended stats in best order IMO)
THIEF; Fastest leveling, detects traps, can backstab from the rear line (multiple attacks is also applied), but is otherwise useless in combat; best for handling treasure chests. Possible strategy is to start with a thief, but eventually discard that thief (maybe to a ninja or just save as a secondary savior character) and multiclass a high level wizard or cleric (evil only) into a thief, so you have a thief with options. Strength and a multiattack short sword will allow a thief to do damage almost every other round, but a multiclass from wizard thief is also amazing. Agility, Luck, and Vitality are the best stats for handling traps. Agility/Vitality/Luck/Strength
BISHOP: Low Level Spells only, bad attacks, identifies items. Best as a side character in town, maybe something to multiclass out of or mutliclass into, but overall, just not a great character class to adventure with until you reach dungeon level 10. When you find unidentified items, switch them to other characters, pull in your bishop, identify, then go on your merry way. Multi-classing into a bishop with high level spells from mage and/or cleric results in gaining low level spells slots in both classes.. It is nice to instantly identify found items though, while in the maze.
Piety/Intelligence/Vitality/Agility
CLERIC: Great class for healing, which you need, has resurrection later, can stand on the front line, Best spell: Light spells and Big Shield which lasts the entire dungeon crawl. Multiclass into it from wizard or out of it to wizard, samurai, thief, etc at level 13/14. Stay in it if you want more high level spell slots and you multiclassed into it. Piety/Vitality/Strength/Agility
WIZARD: Great class for damage and debuffing and mapping the dungeon. Best spells:
Suffocation, Tiltowait, Deadly Air, Clarity. Great to multiclass into from a fighter if all you want is a high HP wizard; IMO, go into from Cleric instead. A great precursor to thief or Lord (good). Intelligence/Agility/Vitality
FIGHTER: Pretty much a front line beat stick, needs vitality and Strength for HP and hit ability. At level 5 and 10 gains an additional attack, maybe at 15 as well. At level 14, still has 3 attacks. These attacks don't transfer to a new class. Great for HP in a second class, other than that, useless as a multiclass from. You will only get 1 HP per level when you multiclass into this class, until the game deems you as "behind" in HP. Strength/Vitality/Agility/Luck
SAMURAI: Pretty much a neutral/good Fighter with low level mage spells. If you want a good list, you need high intelligence or reroll levels in the inn until you get what you want. Strength/Vitality/Intelligence/Agility/Luck
LORD: You can only multiclass into this class with 15's pretty much across the board in your stats. This is a good Fighter with low-mid level priest spells. If you want a good list, you need a high piety or reroll levels in inn until you get what you want by closing the game. Strength/Vitality/Piety/Agility/Luck
NINJA: You can only multiclass into this class with 17's? pretty much across the board in your stats. This is an evil Fighter with rogue skills and a possible instant kill mechanic. Strength/Vitality/Agility/Luck. May have better attacks/defense with no armor later.

5. MULTICLASS:
A: You lose all your stats.
B: You carry all your spells and a base number of spell slots based upon spells known to your new class. You will not gain more slots if the new class does not have those levels of spells. However, you can learn new spells of levels you already knew which will give you more slots; meaning, a Fighter who has already learned every spell for every level will never gain another spell slot, but a fighter who is missing a spell may learn that spell on level up and gain a slot to cast that spell.
C: You carry all your HP to your new class.
D: Good combos: Priest/Wizard, Wizard -> Rogue, Wizard -> Lord, Priest -> Samurai, Samurai -> Lord, Priest -> Wizard -> Bishop, Wizard/Priest -> Ninja
E. If you want Lord or Ninja, plan early, because they both require high stats and can only be gotten through multiclassing into them.
F. Best to multiclass out of Wizard/Cleric at level 13, when you get the last tier, unless you are holding on for more HP with a Cleric or just want more high level spell slots and plan not to multiclass; because you can still learn new spells from any class at all if you are missing them.

6. LEVELING:
You level up in town at the inn by clicking on the character. Save before doing this, if you get only 1 to 3 points, close the game before confirming the level, then try again to get more stat points. Every 5th level, saving throws go up by 5%.

7. EXPERIENCE:
A. You can get experience at Murphy's ghost on Level 1, ensure you have fighters with at least 2 attacks on the front row. raising AC is important for this battle, though murphy only does 2 points of damage, Murphy has an AC of -3, which is hard to hit. Good strengths and a +1 weapon with darkness or terror are good ways to hit murphy. Prayer will raise AC. Murphy can be fought infinite times, but it takes a bit to take him down. Suffocation, Tiltowait, Harm Incredibly, and Word of Death work on Murphy. Murphy grants ~740 xp per ghost, two can appear in the same fight. There are ways to fight murphy automatically using spacebar and ctrl alterations every second. beware, a party can fight him this way for a limited time before dying depending on HP and AC on the front row.
B. Alarm level 4. you can walk in and out of the two treasure rooms on level 4 repeatedly and get lots of level 4 treasure while killing various enemies. Sometimes these enemy groups provide more xp than murphy, other times not so much. It might be faster to level here if you do it manually.
C. Farm Red Dragon with Blizzard spells and 3 attack front line fighters with maximum strength.
D. Farm Level 9.

8. DANGER:
A. Level 4 has a boss behind a door that will annihilate you and you will not get your party back until you can beat him. So, be careful and do not fight that encounter until you are beyond sure you can take on about level 6 or 7 of the dungeon.
B. Level 6/7 on the console have teleport traps that will keep you from getting out of the dungeon easily.
C. Level 7-8 Console: Once past the boss on Level 7, if you use the hidden teleport, you will be unable to return from the dungeon without finding the escalator on level 8 or casting the DEADLY spell teleport.
D. Pit traps can't be spotted and they harm everyone if they don't make their saving throw, keep everyone at about 10 HP per level of the dungeon to avoid trap death. Traps do (dungeonLevel)x(yxDice) damage.
E. Red Dragon on lower level
F. The Teleport Spell that you cast yourself has the greatest chance of permanent party loss.
G. Some traps turn your location or teleport you, if you pay attention to your torch or surroundings, you can see this and cast dumapic to see your new direction face or location.
H. Darkness automatically cuts off light spells.
I. Antimagic areas make it impossible to cast spells in or out of battle and some of these areas are quite large. It does not dispel Big Shield if Big Shield was cast before entering. Fortunately, this also affects monsters. So low level test spells can sometimes tell you if you are still in one of these areas.
J. Some monsters on level 10 cast Tiltowait.
K. Poison Giants and Greater Demons have major magic resistance and can wipe your party fast with AoEs.

9. AC:
AC is better the lower it is, while Hit and Damage is better the higher it is. This matches THAC0 mentality.
A. The best Hitters are Fighter Types. A fighter with 18 strength does 1d8+3 damage = 4-11 damage. However, with a +1 weapon, they do 1d8+4 = 5-12 damage per hit. Each weapon has a hit bonus associated with it as well as a minimum strikes. Minimum strikes only matters if there is more than one and the character does not already have more than one, so, a +1 longsword with minimum strikes 2 best helps a fighter below level 5, when they get one more attack, but continues to help with hit chance and +1 damage at levels above that. Special Mention Thiefs: The only ones that can attack from back line with hide. They can only potentially attack every other round. Having a short sword with multiple attacks allows them to hit more often and strength is good if you want them to hit.
B. Spells combine for bonuses, with the exception of Big Shield. Big shield gives everyone -2 AC for the duration of the dungeon crawl. but never stacks Casting Prayer from two different casters gives -4 for each one, meaning, with big shield, two casters can give a -10 bonus to AC to everyone in round 1. The lowest AC is -10 (maybe lower), and then it is displayed as "LO". Also, spells from the SAME caster stack, so blessing and zeal, prayer x2, and big shield all stack for a total of -12 AC to the group over the course of 3 rounds. Characters can also parry to raise AC.
C. Multiple debuffs also stack, and even multiple debuffs from the same caster stack, so darkness and two terrors make ac +8. I have gotten this debuf stack into the teens. Be aware of this when facing monsters that may be doing it to your party.

10. TELEPORT.
BEWARE PERMANENT PARTY LOSS. Recommend testing it with a character you don't mind losing before needing it in camp. Cast Dumapic before use. Up is closer to the town, down is closer to the boss e.g. level 1 is up from level 2. North is up on the map (y axis), South is down on the map (y axis). West is left on the map (x axis), East is right on the map (x axis). The coordinate to where you want to warp are based upon your current location and then addition/substraction along the y and x axis. For example, 1N, 1E will move you diagonally 1 square up on the y axis and 1 square right on the x axis. If cast on level 1 at position 0,0 to go 1N, 1E, you lose your party forever because this puts you in stone at 1N,1E. The dungeon exit is at level 1 position 0N,0W. E.G. To warp one block north along any path the coordinates are N1, W0., no matter which direction you are facing when you cast it. E.G. To warp from the up staircase on level 2 to the level 1 exit staircase, the coordinates are (always double check with dumapic, count for yourself if you try it) South 7, West 12, UP 1. TRIVIA: There is a hidden section of Level 9 accessible only by Teleport, the initials spell AC.

11. Mahaman/Haman,
Easily the most powerful (and costly) spell in the game, with a random effect. Sometimes this silences enemies, sometimes it makes enemies vulnerable to spells, sometimes it auto-defeats enemies. Don't cast this spell lightly.

12. Resurrection.
In the remake, sometimes you lose vitality when you raise dead on your own, sometimes you do not. The church has a higher percentage chance of raising the dead, but it still has a chance of failing. Each character gets two chances to be brought back to life, the first failure turns them to ashes, the second failure loses them and their equipment forever.

13. Mapping:
Dumapic is a great spell to map levels so you don't get lost. Obviously, you can do this by hand as well, however, if you run into an anitmagic area or a place that can't be mapped, as long as you don't close the game, you can cast dumapic and have it affect everything you explored, sometimes resulting in maps from a previous exploration being created.

14. Farming Level 10:
SETUP. Multiclass from Priest to just about everything (Except Lords, Lords have a decent Priest spell progression) so you have tons of healing. Have lots of multiclass wizards, especially a wizard/rogue. Have one Bishop who has gone through both wizard and cleric, and now you have the ability to disarm traps, make your rogue useful during battle, and identify what you find in the dungeon. Farm level 9 first, or with level 10 until you have decent items that give you at least a -5 AC with the -2 Big Shield protection buff.
SURVIVAL: Once you have at least 90 HP on everyone in your party, and at least 110 on your front line, with an AC of -3 or less, you can farm pretty easily... but there are some encounters that will still kill you. Werdna is beyond the short U Shaped Hall, and that room after the U Hall is the last turnaround point. If you get beyond that point and don't want to fight Werdna, you can risk casting teleport in battle, or if you are sure of your coordinates, you can cast teleport in camp to leave. If you get into a battle and clearly see you are losing, you can turn off the game or teleport out of the fight, and the game will save everything that happened in the fight, but kick you out of the fight. CONTRA DEXTRA AVENUE. CONTRA = against, DEXTRA = Dexterity (most people are most dextrous in their right hand), AVENUE = path. So, with that information, there is a way to wind up back at the beginning of level 10 every time, where there is a portal back to town. Don't be afraid to cast some prayers for that bonus -4 AC, If your AC isn't LO, you can probably be taken out by some monsters that can one shot you.
DOING THE ROUNDS: So, go through level 10 until you pass the U shaped hall and come to that room. Fight the monsters inside, then after opening that final chest, save and quit to title. This room, like many of the other rooms, and level 4, and the dragon room has a dangerous area where you cannot disband your party. Because of this, saving the game won't keep you in that spot, it will move you just outside the door. When you load back in, open the door, fight the fight again, exit stage right, and go through level 10 again, fighting everything until you get to the room beyond the U Shaped hall, save just on the other side of the doorway and quit to title. Rinse and repeat until your inventory is full, then head back to town with your candy bag and those exp meat morsels.

15. Credit For Werdna:
The ones who get credit for beating Werdna are the ones who bring back the amulet, not the ones who defeated him. I killed Werdna in one round with 18 Strength 18 Agility frontliners equipped with a +2 longsword, vorpal Sword, and a murasame. Each frontliner had 4 attacks, meaning they were level 15 or higher. I barely scraped by killing Werdna with a lower level party with 2 survivors who were not level 15, and casting lots of HEAL spells with a lucky MAHAMAN that silenced him.

[whyattblack]

The autoleveler for murphy C# code is:
Keypresser.csproj:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

<PropertyGroup>
<OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
<TargetFramework>net8.0-windows</TargetFramework>
<UseWindowsForms>true</UseWindowsForms>
<ImplicitUsings>enable</ImplicitUsings>
<Nullable>enable</Nullable>
</PropertyGroup>

</Project>

program.cs
namespace KeyPresser
{
internal class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
long iteration = 0;
Console.WriteLine("Open your app after the following question:");
Console.WriteLine("How long do you want me to run in minutes: input an int");
var length = Console.ReadLine();
var times = int.Parse(length) * 30;
Console.WriteLine("starting in 10 seconds, open your app. press p to pause");
Thread.Sleep(10000);
while (iteration <= times)
{
if (iteration % 30 == 0)
{
Console.WriteLine($"minute: {iteration/30}");
}
SendKeys.SendWait("^");
Thread.Sleep(999);
SendKeys.SendWait(" ");
if (Console.KeyAvailable && Console.ReadKey(true).Key == ConsoleKey.P)
{
Console.WriteLine("press enter to resume; press p to pause again.");
Thread.Sleep(999);
Console.ReadLine();
Console.WriteLine("Resuming");
}
Thread.Sleep(999);
iteration++;
}
}
}
}

[Abscondrel]

autoleveler?

[whyattblack]

Originally posted by Abscondrel:

autoleveler?

Yes, for your programming buddies or people who want to learn about programming, download visual studio, look at, understand, and copy this code, you may need to install a package or three, but then open up wizardry. then run the program as a console app. The console app will tell your system to press ctrl and spacebar alternately in whatever program you have open, so if that happens to be wizardry and you are standing in front of murphy's altar, ctrl will bring up your map and close it, then spacebar will click on the stand, ctrl will auto battle and spacebar will confirm, etc. until you kill murphy! You choose how long the console app runs, and boom... you have a program fighting murphy for you. Beware though, if you battle too long, your party will die. I imagine you could do it in powershell as well, but here is the c# version.

This is a fun way to learn about programming, using an old title like this to learn a cool lucrative skill like C# is a fun way to make this remake even more valuable.

For even more fun, see if you can modify this program to explore and fight as an AI. See what you can make it can explore on its own.

[YoshimitsusMixtape]

pretty bad when people gotta bot in a 40 year old single player game

[whyattblack]

Originally posted by YoshimitsusMixtape:

pretty bad when people gotta bot in a 40 year old single player game

I guess you hated it when Pokemon had a bunch of people playing the original. The 40 year old games are the harder games in the world, most of the new games are so easy it's laughable... Games like this, you have to think or put in the time, and it's fun to see if you can figure out what makes the game tick, or how it was built, or the mechanics without some guide from the company itself telling you how it works, or someone telling you what the best build was. Isn't funny to build a bot for a 40 year old game, one that doesn't auto-aim? Or an actual hack or virus that corrupts the game? That's the difference between games today and games from 40 years ago. Some people just don't feel like putting in that time to make the game "easy" or to get all the achievements such as 18s in every stat, especially, if they actually work. So, I built a bot, because I have a job in programming and thought it would be fun since I've never built a bot. And I provided that code for anyone who wants to learn and/or tinker with a very, very simple bot. Not thinking, not discovering, not building, won't help in life. But this, "bot" requires someone to put in the research enough to figure out what a C# program is, and how to use visual Studio at a very basic level. So I'm sorry if sharing knowledge enough to help people learn about coding tweaks trolls noses, but go to level 6 if your going to troll.

[Wizardsmana]

Thanks for sharing the code base! That's cool that your making a bot for the first time and experimenting around. Like you I love to code with C# as Visual Studios for my IDE and Unity for making my own games. Enjoy the experiments...it's a fun part of the journey!

[YoshimitsusMixtape]

Originally posted by whyattblack:

Originally posted by YoshimitsusMixtape:

pretty bad when people gotta bot in a 40 year old single player game

I guess you hated it when Pokemon had a bunch of people playing the original. The 40 year old games are the harder games in the world, most of the new games are so easy it's laughable... Games like this, you have to think or put in the time, and it's fun to see if you can figure out what makes the game tick, or how it was built, or the mechanics without some guide from the company itself telling you how it works, or someone telling you what the best build was. Isn't funny to build a bot for a 40 year old game, one that doesn't auto-aim? Or an actual hack or virus that corrupts the game? That's the difference between games today and games from 40 years ago. Some people just don't feel like putting in that time to make the game "easy" or to get all the achievements such as 18s in every stat, especially, if they actually work. So, I built a bot, because I have a job in programming and thought it would be fun since I've never built a bot. And I provided that code for anyone who wants to learn and/or tinker with a very, very simple bot. Not thinking, not discovering, not building, won't help in life. But this, "bot" requires someone to put in the research enough to figure out what a C# program is, and how to use visual Studio at a very basic level. So I'm sorry if sharing knowledge enough to help people learn about coding tweaks trolls noses, but go to level 6 if your going to troll.

what is this incoherent mess, stop being daft

[hidareju]

If you want to take the time the best route for 2 of the back row casters is to Go down either the Mage or Cleric path until you know every single spell for every lvl. Then Switch to the other path until you know every single spell.

Once you have all the spells you can multicast into either Samurai, Lord, or Bishop. You will always have a minimum number of spell points equal to every spell you know for every lvl. Picking a final class with its own casting will give you more spell points of each lvl to cast.

This is why a final path as bishop is not bad as a caster as you can get more spell points for each type of spells. But it has the worst equipment options.

As the OP suggested at least one of your casters should take thief as an option so you can open chests for loot in the lower lvls.