Is there a way to hack myself like a million gp

[Dropship ThundeR]

Just had three chests in a row(95% chance to disarm btw) explode, killed 4/6 of my level 12 party, and the rez spells all failed, meaning my choices are to shrug and start over with new characters, cheat in some way, or play something else. I'd like to just undo this or whatever, using cheats if possible - and yes I've heard it all before, you're supposed to like completely random chance ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ killing your characters, that is actually the fun, but this is my third party, and I'm tired of the grind. Can someone help?

[ebeneezer13]

nope
unaware of any cheats a la WizFix or Identify 9, S or J

sounds like you didn't ScumSave, so kudos to you (:

a lot of folks run 2x parties, one good & one evil, so they can rescue each other's corpses after TPK
plus (if made, a mighty BIG if...) you need both good & evil for Knight of Diamonds (fingers crossed !)

Questions

which classes survived & what are their HP ?
& are they still in the maze or in the Castle ? I'm guessing in the maze & without enough gold to resurrect via Temple of Cant - which has better odds than spells
If in the maze, do you know where & how tricky will it be to reach them ?

Game Economy notes

ur money woes should be over once you sell your identified Floor4 Monster Allocation Centre Deadly Ring (250k), sadly sometimes after it kills your clumsy, clumsy bishop...
maybe you can farm Deadly Rings (doubtful, I'll check eventually)

I recommend Bishops to identify equipment so you can sell it to Boltac
A few levels on them means they accidentally equip cursed items (say a Deadly Ring) less often thus avoiding further Boltac's costs
mine sit in the maze at 0,0,0 to identify equipment on the way out (& 'mule' Werdna's amulets)
eventually you'll recognise gear by the icon alone & instantly turf trash

Farming the L7 Fire Dragon (sorry, more grind...) can also net you big $$$ relatively quickly
& Taking a (50 HP) Bishop means you can turf trash & only lug the best gear

Possible Solutions

noting you can combine some of these options

If in the maze, shrug & make the other alignment party & rescue them
I did this, and when rescued my new party was already better (:

likely your best option is to grind (sorry !) Floor1 Murphy's Ghost
preferably with your Lvl12 survivor(s) assuming one/they can cope
not what you wanted to hear, but it'll get you fast $$$ & handsome XP

dirty & tedious
make heaps of new Priests & give their all their equipment to your survivors & then delete them via the Training Grounds, then have your survivors sell their gear to Boltac
80 GP per Priest = tedious indeed !
fwiw, Fighters & Samurai 77, Bishops 50, Thieves 42 & Mages a whopping 12 GP
QED: Murphy is a lot quicker @ ~150 GP & 4,450 XP per Ghost

Rescue parties

If they're not in the castle but in the maze
The 2 surviving characters may be enough to rescue them if you get lucky
&/or hire Mercenaries with gold from above
Mercs don't have to survive, either...

If using MS-Windows, before attempting I'd manually backup your characters (regularly)
C:\Users\%YourShortUserName%\AppData\Local\murphy\Saved\SaveGames

use TWO Save Game slots to try & rescue them
consider using a 3rd slot for an emergency backup just in case...
1st slot strictly to play from
2nd slot strictly to overwrite slot one should they (inevitably) fail
I also suggest rescuing your meat-heads & Priest(s) first

ie: ScumSave & brute force the rescue mission(s)
brute force (repeated attempts) means more grinding );

Pioneer a hack:

what could possibly go wrong ?
The original Apple][ hacking guide might be relevant (or might not...)
https://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/wizardrygame/pages/w1/cheat.htm



Lemme know how you go, and questions welcome

Errata: relevant In-game options

Options > Old School Options > Maze Options > Bad Stuff on Party Wipe (enabled/disabled) - they may have been pillaged already....

Options > Old School Options > Maze Options > Distribute Extra Gold = enabled, otherwise rounded gold is silently discarded (take care of the pennies...)

Options > Old School Options > Cast Options > Character Recruiting > Enabled = Custom
(this might let you recruit decent mercenaries once you get some capital from Murph)

[rn_archl0rd]

It may be considered save scumming but save before opening chests. can reload if you blow up or if you don't like what you get.

[Dropship ThundeR]

Another question is how the hell do you even get to Werdna? I've been grinding, I have a party level 10-13 and they're all pretty good, but this game requires you to use spammy nuke spells to get through most doors unless I just savescum to make sure the encounters are easy, but I mean, is that seriously required? That ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks if that's the case, I'd much much much rather just literally be able to kill all of Werdna's guardians permanently and then prepare for the final fight. Like what am I supposed to be doing here?

Please do not say "Grind a lot" because the leveling completely drops off after level 10 and the risk is never worth the reward, enemies can nuke you and the reward is like 700 xp.

[rn_archl0rd]

make sure your mage has tiltowait x3+ and lakanito. priest should have malikto and mabadi.

[ebeneezer13]

hahaha ! gr8 to hear your made it floor 10 !!
How'd you do recover your peeps, Murph & a Merc ?

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

Another question is how the hell do you even get to Werdna...

There's only 7x floor 10 Guardian (chest) encounters total on Contra-Dextra avenue plus random encounters; you might get luckily Malored straight to Werdna's lair from a trapped chest, so as few as only 2 floor 10 fights - usually I land somewhere on floor #1 thx u fat fingered ninja...
Half of the encounters are Bleebs that flee before you can kill them (occasionally with ninja) or Lvl 10 fighters who are too stupid to flee, all giants have the same weakness, Gorgons are too slow to build up their breath & Dragons come in 3s.
So AoE is the danger (Chimeras & Mages) plus rare life drainers (scumsave...)

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...grinding, I have a party level 10-13...

as @n_archl0rd succinctly pointed out, level 10 & 11 characters are "most unlikely" to cut the mustard, unless you fluke it, especially without Vorpal blades & alike.

I loaded up my 1st successful Werdna tilt party and frankly, they're pathetic...
mono class level 13s, 2 +3 evil shields their best gear for AC -7, a solitary life drain dodging Undead Ring & and peasant stats : lots of 11's, 8 was fashionable & my thief (I took a thief hahaha ) a mere 7 IQ, "delightful" pre-custom portraits & a best kill tally of 259 - but they've banked 1,042,516 GP & were enough for Werdna so there's hope !

Importantly they have 5x Tiltowaits as 2x Mages [FFPTMM] - but their job was to amass amulets for mules (bishops). Oh cute ! there's another party dead in the maze somewhere I might fetch for the heck of it.
but they're so lame they were never switching classes due to the XP required to lift their stats for eligibility.

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...unless I just savescum to make sure the encounters are easy, but I mean, is that seriously required?

thus the fix is better stats & top notch gear, or blind luck and (yet) another rescue mission (:

I typically only scumsave at the start of a floor or when find something nifty, which happens on Fl10. so yeah, I did laps, deliberately looping back to the start after 6 Guardian rooms & then scumsaved at the shute landing sign.

The good news is every now & again you get hefty XP from the very high magic resistance foes & the odd top piece of gear (:
conversely their high magic resistance is also the bad news...

also helps if you know thine enemy well to gauge what you can get away with, being before the (game breaking) QoL Combat Action Redirection options.

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...Like what am I supposed to be doing here?...

Gathering massed amulets for your mules' amulet library of course !
everyone carrying amulets like yo-yo's breaks the game entirely !!
sure, hand one in for your Honor Guard chevron - better check your Honor Guard options first tho...

now I farm Greater Demons, so my squads are beyond over powered & I don't cast much of anything (& everyone can cast everything). Yup, Werdna fights are FFFHPP (:

You'll also have to learn to live with that inescapable hollow feeling & public humiliation of not completing the Bestiary achievement,,, ,,,it's a grind so you might as well grind now & capitalise on it.

once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,,,

[BJWyler]

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

Just had three chests in a row(95% chance to disarm btw) explode, killed 4/6 of my level 12 party, and the rez spells all failed, meaning my choices are to shrug and start over with new characters, cheat in some way, or play something else. I'd like to just undo this or whatever, using cheats if possible - and yes I've heard it all before, you're supposed to like completely random chance ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ killing your characters, that is actually the fun, but this is my third party, and I'm tired of the grind. Can someone help?

Don't know about this version, but there were programs you could use back in the day to edit the files and your characters.

At the end of the day, this is an old school RPG. Grind is the name of the game. Your best best is to save early and save often. I would also recommend using every save slot you have and rotating through each time you make a new save.

I've been playing this game for 40 years and still haven't beaten Werdna.

[Dropship ThundeR]

Originally posted by ebeneezer13:

hahaha ! gr8 to hear your made it floor 10 !!
How'd you do recover your peeps, Murph & a Merc ?

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

Another question is how the hell do you even get to Werdna...

There's only 7x floor 10 Guardian (chest) encounters total on Contra-Dextra avenue plus random encounters; you might get luckily Malored straight to Werdna's lair from a trapped chest, so as few as only 2 floor 10 fights - usually I land somewhere on floor #1 thx u fat fingered ninja...
Half of the encounters are Bleebs that flee before you can kill them (occasionally with ninja) or Lvl 10 fighters who are too stupid to flee, all giants have the same weakness, Gorgons are too slow to build up their breath & Dragons come in 3s.
So AoE is the danger (Chimeras & Mages) plus rare life drainers (scumsave...)

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...grinding, I have a party level 10-13...

as @n_archl0rd succinctly pointed out, level 10 & 11 characters are "most unlikely" to cut the mustard, unless you fluke it, especially without Vorpal blades & alike.

I loaded up my 1st successful Werdna tilt party and frankly, they're pathetic...
mono class level 13s, 2 +3 evil shields their best gear for AC -7, a solitary life drain dodging Undead Ring & and peasant stats : lots of 11's, 8 was fashionable & my thief (I took a thief hahaha ) a mere 7 IQ, "delightful" pre-custom portraits & a best kill tally of 259 - but they've banked 1,042,516 GP & were enough for Werdna so there's hope !

Importantly they have 5x Tiltowaits as 2x Mages [FFPTMM] - but their job was to amass amulets for mules (bishops). Oh cute ! there's another party dead in the maze somewhere I might fetch for the heck of it.
but they're so lame they were never switching classes due to the XP required to lift their stats for eligibility.

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...unless I just savescum to make sure the encounters are easy, but I mean, is that seriously required?

thus the fix is better stats & top notch gear, or blind luck and (yet) another rescue mission (:

I typically only scumsave at the start of a floor or when find something nifty, which happens on Fl10. so yeah, I did laps, deliberately looping back to the start after 6 Guardian rooms & then scumsaved at the shute landing sign.

The good news is every now & again you get hefty XP from the very high magic resistance foes & the odd top piece of gear (:
conversely their high magic resistance is also the bad news...

also helps if you know thine enemy well to gauge what you can get away with, being before the (game breaking) QoL Combat Action Redirection options.

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...Like what am I supposed to be doing here?...

Gathering massed amulets for your mules' amulet library of course !
everyone carrying amulets like yo-yo's breaks the game entirely !!
sure, hand one in for your Honor Guard chevron - better check your Honor Guard options first tho...

now I farm Greater Demons, so my squads are beyond over powered & I don't cast much of anything (& everyone can cast everything). Yup, Werdna fights are FFFHPP (:

You'll also have to learn to live with that inescapable hollow feeling & public humiliation of not completing the Bestiary achievement,,, ,,,it's a grind so you might as well grind now & capitalise on it.

once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,,,

I just savescummed as soon as a fight started with an enemy I didnt want to fight. It was an ok game. Your suggestions were fine, but with permadeath and how slow leveling becomes I just cheesed it and moved on.

[shoobers]

Old school philosophy - Wiping is fun.

Truthfully, Werdna is surprisingly an easy fight when you realize 2 things. Mabadi sets his hp to 1, Zilwan exodia's the vampire lord, and Tiltowait or Dispell works wonders on the vampires. After that it is either A. Luck or B. everyone can survive a Tiltowait.

[ebeneezer13]

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

...how slow leveling becomes I just cheesed it and moved on.

that's why I farm Greater Demons - to gain multiple levels simultaneously after Lvl13, and humble fighters lower XP requirements means they pile the levels on (:

Originally posted by BJWyler:

Originally posted by Dropship ThundeR:

I've been playing this game for 40 years and still haven't beaten Werdna.

Brilliant !
I've been playing various incarnations of Wizardry for ~40 years & delight in snotting Werdna for kicks (avenging childhood trauma lols). I'm currently play as Werdna in IV (;

Pls report when you finally beat his accursed affliction that is Wizardry, noting there's plenty of sage advice here to help if you need (: