Just curious: Avoiding the 4x99 Berserkers?

[Janichsan]

I'm not sure if anyone here is aware of that, but the original 1980's versions of The Bard's Tale had a way to avoid the combat against the 396 berserkers. Not by avoiding the appropriate square through teleportation or phase dooring, but while waltzing through the door and just walking by the berserkers with nothing more than an acknowledging nod.

What you had to do for that was fighting the six berserkers in robes on the first level of the castle. You might have noticed that after the fight, you get a message that the berserkers left their robes behind on the floor. What was implied in the original version is that your party puts on the robes (the game did not explicitely state that).

When now move up to the barracks on the third level without leaving the castle in the meantime, you could just walk past the berserkers without combat.

This is mentioned for instance in the official clue book[bardstale.brotherhood.de] to the game and I also heard some first-hand accounts of this solution working back in the day (but only after I already was past that point in the game on the C64, so I didn't try it myself).

Out of curiosity, I tried to replicate this solution in the remaster, and it does not seem to work there.

Now I'm wondering if anyone who knew about this trick had success in doing that in the remastered version. This wouldn't be the first thing not correctly implemented in the reconstruction (another example would be the stasis chambers on Catacombs lvl 3 and in Kylerian's tower).

[kanoobi]

Yea it's been spoken of before. I guess with one-shot Berserkers in this version they didn't want you to be able to avoid the combat. The stasis chamber has been spoken of too, but the devs don't want to have a situation where a player has to quit the game because of being eternally stuck. I agree with that and am happy to let the stasis chamber go.
When the legacy version arrives, this should allow things to play as originally intended. :)

[weasel.wizard]

Originally posted by Janichsan:

I'm not sure if anyone here is aware of that, but the original 1980's versions of The Bard's Tale had a way to avoid the combat against the 396 berserkers. Not by avoiding the appropriate square through teleportation or phase dooring, but while waltzing through the door and just walking by the berserkers with nothing more than an acknowledging nod.

What you had to do for that was fighting the six berserkers in robes on the first level of the castle. You might have noticed that after the fight, you get a message that the berserkers left their robes behind on the floor. What was implied in the original version is that your party puts on the robes (the game did not explicitely state that).

When now move up to the barracks on the third level without leaving the castle in the meantime, you could just walk past the berserkers without combat.

This is mentioned for instance in the official clue book[bardstale.brotherhood.de] to the game and I also heard some first-hand accounts of this solution working back in the day (but only after I already was past that point in the game on the C64, so I didn't try it myself).

Out of curiosity, I tried to replicate this solution in the remaster, and it does not seem to work there.

Now I'm wondering if anyone who knew about this trick had success in doing that in the remastered version. This wouldn't be the first thing not correctly implemented in the reconstruction (another example would be the stasis chambers on Catacombs lvl 3 and in Kylerian's tower).

This is not an 1 to 1 conversion of the former bard tale..so i encountered 45 wights in the catacombs in the high priests chamber and with my party no tricks were needed..so to say when u cast one strong spell on them they all killed by this one spell and no more..this should be no problem but problems begin when severeal groups of mages are facing ur team in different distances..so to say some weak spells are able to harm foes in the second row strong spells only foes in front of ur party..for the distance u ve arrows so u can find extremely powerful arrows in the dungeons by looting them not buying! by boss fights u got the problem that e.g. blue or red dragons can attack over a wide distance so u need much life points to survive the following attack waves and one more disadvantage in boss fights they attack first..so take care!

So as u talk about berserkers i didnt met them so far in the castle but golems..i heard user in the forum talking about 99 skeletons in the catacombs also a rumour risen from the old bards tale but i found only „45“..so here s the same case u dont need a super weapon to destroy them (e.g. the myth shrouded fire horn) but only a strong spell and the chance to attack first..

this game has a moderate difficulty level and depens from the way u skill and play but from my point of view everybody can bring it to the END..^^

so relaxxx..

Ps: dont avoid them cause u got exp for several level ups (max 18)

[Janichsan]

Originally posted by weasel.wizard:

This is not an 1 to 1 conversion of the former bard tale..so i encountered 45 wights in the catacombs in the high priests chamber and with my party no tricks were needed..so to say when u cast one strong spell on them they all killed by this one spell and no more..this should be no problem but problems begin when severeal groups of mages are facing ur team in different distances..so to say some weak spells are able to harm foes in the second row strong spells only foes in front of ur party..for the distance u ve arrows so u can find extremely powerful arrows in the dungeons by looting them not buying! by boss fights u got the problem that e.g. blue or red dragons can attack over a wide distance so u need much life points to survive the following attack waves and one more disadvantage in boss fights they attack first..so take care!

So as u talk about berserkers i didnt met them so far in the castle but golems..i heard user in the forum talking about 99 skeletons in the catacombs also a rumour risen from the old bards tale but i found only „45“..so here s the same case u dont need a super weapon to destroy them (e.g. the myth shrouded fire horn) but only a strong spell and the chance to attack first..

this game has a moderate difficulty level and depens from the way u skill and play but from my point of view everybody can bring it to the END..^^

so relaxxx..

Ps: dont avoid them cause u got exp for several level ups (max 18)

You're somewhat missing the point of my question, but thanks anyway.

[weasel.wizard]

why simple when things can be made complicated..^^

quotation:ihr beitrag ist völlig aus dem zusammenhang gerissen und für niemanden nachvollziehbar..aber das war doch sicher auch so von ihnen so beabsichtigt..oder?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[Ankh]

It does work. You can avoid the zerks in the remastered wearing robes just like in the original.

[Janichsan]

Originally posted by Ankh:

It does work. You can avoid the zerks in the remastered wearing robes just like in the original.

Did you do anything special or did it work for you the way it did in the old versions (i.e. kill the 6 berserkers on level 1, go straight to the barracks on level 3, as described above)?

[Ankh]

you also need to equip the robes for it to work

[Janichsan]

Originally posted by Ankh:

you also need to equip the robes for it to work

Ah, that might have been the issue.

[astrosha]

You needed to have everyone equip those robes in the old version. I'm not sure if you still only get 6 robes or if they'll give you seven; I don't recall actually getting the robes in the BTT playthrough anyway! Kind of hard to equip them when you never got them ... but since they are a one-shot fight and not an every-time-you-visit-the-floor fight, it makes sense that you'd not need to avoid them after you beat them.

[steve2727]

Originally posted by astrosha:

You needed to have everyone equip those robes in the old version. I'm not sure if you still only get 6 robes or if they'll give you seven; I don't recall actually getting the robes in the BTT playthrough anyway! Kind of hard to equip them when you never got them ... but since they are a one-shot fight and not an every-time-you-visit-the-floor fight, it makes sense that you'd not need to avoid them after you beat them.

Out of interest, did you need to equip the robes found on the 6 zerkers, or would any robes do? The zerks' robes didn't look any different in your inventory to ones you could buy down Garths, I always suspected the 6 zerker encounter was just a clue that you needed to wear robes (which is kinda redundant in the remaster, which makes it super obvious on the sign on the door to the encounter).

[astrosha]

I honestly do not remember if there was any real difference between those robes, and the robes sold by Garth.

[Maven 👽]

MIBL
MIBL

[MAJLich]

I say kill them all, I did then and now! It was a great XP haul. However, the remastered version only allows the battle once even when returning to the dungeon.

[Slooge]

can phdo around them as well.

[noblesse_oblige]

The orignial dropped 6 robes because you had a party of 6. In the remaster, last time I checked, a single robe was dropped, even though the message still calls it a pile. However, the event is not disarmed after triggering, so you can go across the tile multiple times to get the robes. They are ordinary robes, iirc. You could buy them at Garth's. (An easy test is to sell the ones from the Berserkers at Garth's - if they don't appear in a separate shop slot, then they're the same.)

Since the remaster allows you to have 7 party members, the fight with 6 Berserkers should really be a fight with 7 Berserkers now.