************************************* Wizardry VIII v1.7 Walkthrough - Part 1 ************************************* April 9th, 2002 Written by: Jack Leung Email: bullions27@yahoo.com URL: http://jbullions.topcities.com Email Policy: (read before e-mailing me!) If you are going to email me about this game, please put Wizardry 8 as your email subject. Also please realize that I am not hiding cheats or any other information, i.e. everything I know about Wizardry VIII is in this guide. If you see any mistakes, or have anything that you want to add e-mail it to me. I will give you full credit for your addition. E-mail addresses are not posted in the FAQ, unless specifically requested to be. Also, if you have a BUG of some sort, try downloading and installing the latest Patches first. There are several of them out now on the web, so go through them all. For version updates, check below the Table of Contents. ************************************ Notes ************************************* You will find the most up to date version of this FAQ at: http://www.gamefaqs.com/ http://www.neoseeker.com/ http://jbullions.topcities.com You will find all the latest patches for Wizardry VIII at the Official Site here: http://www.wizardry8.com Or these other host sites: http://www.3dgamers.com/news/more/1009418133/ http://www.fileplanet.com/index.asp?scope=0&file=82895 This FAQ was created using Courier New. This Document is Copyright 2001-2002 by Jack Leung Wizardry VIII is Copyright 1999-2000 by Sir-Tech Canada Ltd. I am not affiliated with Sir-Tech or anyone who had anything to do with the creation of this game. This walkthrough may be posted on any site so long as NOTHING IS CHANGED and you CONTACT ME telling me that you are posting it. You may not charge for, or in any way profit from this FAQ. ********************************************** Table of Contents: ********************************************** A. Introduction B. Creating your Party C. Recruitable Player Characters D. Gameplay Strategies and Tips E. Pick-Pocketing F. Annoying Things and Gripes Wizardry VIII Walkthrough I. Lower Monastery II. Upper Monastery III. Arnika Road IV. Arnika-Trynton Road V. Arnika VI. Lower Monastery Re-Visited VII. Arnika-Trynton Road Re-Visited VIII. Trynton IX. Trynton Upper Branches X. Rattkin Tree XI. Swamp XII. Northern Wilderness XIII. Umpani Base Camp (Umpani HQ) XIV. Mine Tunnels XV. Lower Marten's Bluff (T'Rang HQ) XVI. Marten's Bluff (Western half of Fort) XVII. Lower Marten's Bluff (Continued) XVIII. Marten's Bluff (Eastern half of Fort) XIX. Trynton Upper Branches Re-Visited XX. Arnika Re-Visited Appendices 1. Bard Instruments 2. Gadgeteer's Engineering 2a. Component Locations Version Updates April 09th, 2002 - Version 1.7 - Added in Umpani Base Camp, Mine Tunnels, Lower Marten's Bluff, and Marten's Bluff. Made minor updates to Arnika- Trynton Road and the Appendices. April 03rd, 2002 - Version 1.6 - Added in Swamp. Minor quest updates on Arnika, Trynton and updated the Appendices. March 24th, 2002 - Version 1.5 - Added in Rattkin Tree. Updated Arnika. March 21st, 2002 - Version 1.4 - Added in Trynton Upper Branches. March 20th, 2002 - Version 1.3 - Added in some Tips and Strategies. Added in the complete Arnika- Trynton Road walkthrough including Graveyard and Trynton. Added in a couple of gripes about the game. Added in some Appendices. March 18th, 2002 - Version 1.2 - Minor corrections. Added in Tomb of Ceirdan. March 15th, 2002 - Version 1.1 - Added in two new areas, and more miscellaneous information on RPCs, and Tips. March 12th, 2002 - Version 1.0 - First walkthrough. ***************************************************** A. Introduction ***************************************************** "The universe is on the brink of change. Vast forces are preparing for the final confrontation. A small group of heroes from afar must plunge into this storm and uncover the long-hidden secrets of the Ascension. A new era is about to begin." Wizardry 8 Manual **************************************************** B. Creating your party **************************************************** The tireless question to every single RPG with the option of party creation. First of all, there is no one grand party you can create in the game of Wizardry 8. Each of the classes has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it's only what you need that your party composition will be dependant on. Saying that, this is about as generic of a line- up as you can get: One Tank - Fighter, Lord, or Valkyrie One Healer - Priest, Bishop, etc. One Spellcaster - Mage, Bishop, etc. One Long Range Specialist - Ranger, Ninja, Gadgeteer etc. One Thief - Bard, Rogue, Gadgeteer One Support - your preference You would want to have at least one dedicated spellcaster for Portal spells. It is a pain to cover long distances and portal spells are there for your convenience. Make use of them. Mix and match with other classes at your pleasure. Second thing, offensive damaging magic isn't as ridiculously powerful as, say, Final Fantasy stuff. In fact, from the start to even the late stages of the game, you will probably never use magic to damage enemies directly unless you're trying to wipe out a swarm of minute-HP insects. Magic is spent to disable enemies by either slowing, making them go insane, paralyze, poison, and so on, while also used to protect your party with defensive spells. So if you don't have an extra spellcaster handy to focus on direct damage spells, there is really no point using them. You would need to dial up the power, and spend a lot of valuable spell points, to gain any significant results. There are also two slots available for RPCs (Recruitable Player Characters, see below). People complain about the 25% or so experience they take away. ???? I don't see the problem there. You'll end up with plenty of experience and levels by the time you're hitting the critical stages of the game (and that is with hybrids as well which take longer to level). My suggestion is, whatever is your cup of tea. I personally take them along for their comments and they add color to your group. - MULTI-CLASSING The rules are fairly similar to AD&D Dual-Classing. You can switch to a different class at any point in your career if you have the bare MINIMAL requirements for the class you are changing to. There are some changes to take note when you do: 1) You no longer have any of the Special Skills of your old class but you acquire the Special Skills of your new class. E.g. you will lose Cheat Death if you leave your Valkyrie class. 2) You keep ALL of the skills you've learned from your previous class but you can only improve the skills your new class can learn from. 3) You don't begin with a new experience table when you change to a new class, unlike AD&D. You will start at Level 1 on your new class but the amount of experience required to go to the next level is equal to the amount of experience you had left to advance to the next level in your previous class. You pretty much pick up where you left off. - WEAPONS I'm going to make this plain and simple. The Swords in Wizardry VIII pretty much dominate every other close-range weapon and the others are built for off-hand usage so keep that in mind. When I created my second party, all of my primary melee classes use Swords in primary hand, and the other weapon skills for off-hand (i.e Mace & Flail, Dagger). Valkyries are the exception because they maximize the most out of their Polearm skill. ************************************************** C. RPCS (Recruitable Player Characters) ************************************************** Some RPCS will not follow you into certain areas. You can cheat them into it by several ways (Portal spells being the favorite), but they may suffer drastic stat penalties, and not to mention them bitching to you about it every couple of minutes. Smart move Sir-Tech. :) - Myles Level 5 Human Rogue Found at: Arnika Entrance Return Location: Arnika Entrance Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all T'Rang and Umpani controlled areas, Ascension Peak Myles will try to recruit you right from the start for a mission to rescue a woman at the Crash Site. Grade: D+ Myles will supplement the role of thief if your party lacks one. However, he will not travel with you anywhere beyond the confines of civilization (beyond Arnika and Trynton) except for Rapax Castle, and thus isn't worth keeping around as there are other RPCs with far more valuable skills who will travel with you. - Vitalia (Vi) Domina Level 6 Human Valkyrie Found at: Arnika (Crash Site) Return Location: Arnika (He'Li's Bar) Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all Rapax controlled areas As a child, Vi Domina was taken into custody by the Dark Savant as repayment by the T'Rang. She is believed to come from the Cosmic Lord's Phoonzang's lineage and so earned interest from the Dark Savant. She grew up to become a fierce and capable warrior. Grade: B+ Vi has all the positives of the Valkyrie class with Polearm bonuses and the ability to Cheat Death. She makes a capable tank at handling damage and can wear some of the best armor out there. Her only flaw is that she won't travel with you in some of the more dangerous areas, like the Sea Caves and Rapax areas. She will, however, accompany you to both T'Rang and Umpani areas and most importantly, Ascension Peak. - Tantris Level 6 T'Rang Samurai Found at: Mine Tunnels Return Location: Mine Tunnels Uncorrected Bug: If you downloaded the latest patch, Tantris will forever vanish if you recruit and then disband him after. Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all Umpani controlled areas, Ascension Peak Tantris will join you if you make your intentions of alliance to Z'Ant. Grade: C As with many RPCs, Tantris will not accompany you to some of the crucial areas in late game. He has the powers of the Samurai in Critical Strikes, and Dual Wield, and he begins with a fairly decent polearm. He will travel to Rapax areas though which is a big plus. - Private Sparkle Level 6 Trynnie Ranger Found at: Umpani Base Camp Return Location: Umpani Base Camp Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all T'Rang controlled areas, Ascension Peak Unlike the other RPC you can acquire there, Saxx, Sparkle will join you right off the bat. She is a Trynnie, eager to please, and training with the Umpani in hopes to help her kind defeat the Rattkin at Trynton (hint). Grade: C- She can play the role of Ranger or another bow if you need one, and she has points into Axe skill. You can give her the useless Beastslayer Axe. - Saxx Level 8 Umpani Bard Found at: Umpani Base Camp Return Location: Umpani Base Camp Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all T'Rang controlled areas Saxx will join you if you make your intentions of alliance to Balbrak. Grade: C+ He can play the role of Bard if you need one or another. He is also one of the few who will travel with you up to Ascension Peak. However there are others who will also and he is perhaps the weakest and most useless. His personal instrument is one of a kind and is worth to pickpocket. - Madras Level 8 Trynnie Gadgeteer Found at: Trynton Upper Branches Return Location: Trynton Upper Branches Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all Rapax controlled areas, Ascension Peak Madras will join you if you complete his quest and clear out the Rattkin Breeders. Grade: C Madras is good to have with you if you're lacking a Gadgeteer and will follow you around the T'Rang and Umpani controlled areas. However, in more dangerous zones he'll leave making him pretty useless. - Urq Level 9 Mook Psionic Found at: Arnika (Mook HQ) Return Location: Arnika (Mook HQ) Will not go to: Sea Caves, Bayjin Shallows, Bayjin, all Rapax controlled areas, Ascension Peak Urq is part of the Mook exploration team from the ship Callisto. Grade: C- Urq wants to explore Dominus and will pay you 500 gold for each new area you take him. He won't follow you into dangerous areas so there isn't a whole lot of places you can take him. - RFS-81 Level 10 Android Monk Found at: Mine Tunnels Return Location: Wherever you Dismiss him Will not go to: Rapax Away Camp RFS-81 is a damaged Android you will find in the Mine Tunnels. His alliance is at Neutral, but will follow whomever that fixes him. Like the Terminator 2 movie. ;) Grade: A RFS-81 will follow you anywhere and everywhere (even underwater) except for the Rapax Away Camp when the quest is initiated. You have no choice really on that matter because you must have 2 free RPC slots. He complements your party with all the Monk capabilities except for magic which is really no big deal. He also has Android immunities (can not be poisoned, or diseased). - Sergeant Glumph Level 11 Umpani Fighter Found at: Bayjin Return Location: Cannot Dismiss him Will not go to: any T'Rang controlled area, any Rapax controlled area, Ascension Peak Sergeant Glumph was sent with a team of Umpani soldiers to explore the Sea Caves area. They were waylaid by Nessie and later Glumph was taken hostage by the Rynjin race. Grade: D You will find Glumph in one of the huts in Bayjin and will do nicely as a Fighter if you're fighting your way back. His only purpose is to return to General Yamir. He will threaten and warn you if you decide to take a stroll away from the Umpani area. Once you return him, he is gone for good. - Drazic Level 14 T'Rang Ninja Found at: Rapax Away Camp Return Location: Cannot Dismiss him Will not go to: none Drazic and his Umpani counterpart Rodan were both taken captive by the Rapax King. You must be at least Neutral to both races, you must have at least two of the artifacts, and you must be a Templar in order to reach them. Grade: B+ Bail him and his friend out and this will forge an alliance between the two opposite factions, the Umpani and T'Rang. He will follow you anywhere and everywhere until you destroy the Dark Savant's ship, and after that he is gone for good to help prepare for an assault on Ascension Peak. - Rodan Level 14 Umpani Lord Found at: Rapax Away Camp Return Location: Cannot Dismiss him Will not go to: none Rodan and his T'Rang counterpart Drazic were both taken captive by the Rapax King. You must be at least Neutral to both races, you must have at least two of the artifacts, and you must be a Templar in order to reach them. Grade: B+ Bail him and his friend out and this will forge an alliance between the two opposite factions, the Umpani and T'Rang. He will follow you anywhere and everywhere until you destroy the Dark Savant's ship, and after that he is gone for good to help prepare for an assault on Ascension Peak. - Sexus Level 18 Rapax Mage Found at: Rapax Castle Return Location: Rapax Castle Will not go to: Arnika Sexus is one of the Rapax Templars and is eager to go out to further their cause. Grade: B Sexus makes a more than capable mage but eventually you will have to lose standing with the Rapax and he will leave and possibly even attack you if you do that. *** More next issue - o -