Hi,
after finishing the game with my ancient (but still reliable) Wiz 6 party some questions remain:

1. What happened to Rattus Rattus? Did he betray his Don and was exiled or executed? Never met him again.
2. What are the doll armor and gloves for?
3. Does our friendly hogar ("Rexx" IIRC) have any purpose besides being a green dot?
4. Is the final fight always so easy on "normal" level? My most dreadful opponent never managed to hit a member of my party, never summoned any help and was finished in (almost) no time. Nasty Gregor was much more of a challenge.
5. What is the trick of triggering a lightning strike? My 25th level samurai got exactly 8 lightnings throughout the whole game. Not that much...
6. Is Ferro always so suicidal? When I entered Rapax Castle I faced almost three dozen not so friendly members of the local tribe crowding several rooms. I guess Ferro was the green dot near the edge of the radar map. According to the messages he charged, fought and got killed quickly. Brave and stupid like all Rapax. What a pity, probably the best shop in the game closed due to death of its proprietor.
7. Does anybody know how this spell power level calculation thingie works? Quite often my spellcasters could use a high power level in the first round (e.g. 5th circle was green), in the next round the same circle for the same spell was brownish red, the fourth yellow and only the first three green while in the third round the 4th (sometimes even the 5th) was green again.

1: Nothing. Broken quest. You never see him again after the first encounter.
2: IIRC it can be worn by fairies
3: None whatsoever
4: No idea. What level was your party?
5: I remember encumbrance being very important. Other than that, I don't know.
6: Yep
7: I never encountered that effect [img]graemlins/1ponder.gif[/img] Strange.

1.Unfinished quest probably due to money issues during development.

3. Same thing probably.

6. X-ray helps a lot in protecting him, when he gets into battles, or becoming a templar stops the rapax being hostile to you, and at the same time to him.

Rattus is one of the many unfinished side quests in the game.

The doll armor is for faerie characters; there is very little of the standard stuff they can wear. Personally, I felt this stuff should have been available somewhat sooner than the Rapax castle.

Rex the Hogar may have been part of another unfinished quest, or maybe he's just there for fun value.

Interesting he never called anyone; in my games (4 finishes), he always summoned some cannon fodder during the fight. Still, he wasn't anywhere as tough as I was expecting, either. The soul eater scared me a lot more than he did.

Wish I knew about the lightning strikes myself. I've seen maybe one in a whole game with my Samurai. There is always the possibility that this is bugged, of course.

Yes, Ferro has some great stuff for sale. I find it best to stay well away from his store until we have become Templars. Basically, you want to go to the left after you enter the castle. As quickly as possible. Best bet is to get into a corner after entering, and watch the patrols with X-Ray. Sometimes, i have been lucky enough to avoid them completely and just fight the guards by the inclines up to the Templar area.

Can't help with the power calculation, sorry.

<center>Nightowl2</center>

Regarding lightning strikes -

In my experience the chance of a lightning strike depends on several things

1) Initiative relative to enemy - which depends on speed, senses, and weapon, as well as enemy initiative and your own encumbrance/weight class of armor (see below).

2) Total encumbrance - should be about or less than one-third of capacity for a reasonable chance of lightning strike.

3) Weight class of equipped items - armor, in particular can be minimal, light, medium, heavy, or special in addition to its actual weight.

4) ?? sword skill and level relative to opponents level??

Currently playing a mook samurai putting all points into dex, speed, and senses equally, wearing only minimal weight class items (e.g. robes, buskins, skullcap), using either katana or bloodlust (+ wakisashi), keeping encumbrance to about 55-70 out of 180 capacity, I have been getting a lightning strike about once every 8-10 rounds or so, (so occasionally get two in the same combat!). Currently am level 8 or 9 and have not noticed any decline in lightning strikes but rather an increase since equipping bloodlust. I have never previously had this kind of success getting lightning strikes, but previously I played samurai more 'conservatively', equipping the best armor, putting some points into strength, maybe. After noticing initiative get lowered by heavier armor items (even with encumbrance still 'white'), I decided to play the way I am now, am am very happy with the results.

- Regarding spell casting ability going down slightly in subsequent rounds -

I have definitely noticed this, particularly with spell casters in who are borderline in their skills (casting a spell they were just barely able to learn/primary attribute not too high because I'm focussing on something else/etc.) The only thing I can think of that definitely goes down after one round of combat wherein you cast a spell is Stamina. I think that stamina may have a slight effect on ability to cast spells at higher power, and in the caster of borderline ability, this effect is noticeable (particularly as we are always trying to get one level higher out of our borderline casters)
If this is correct, then ability to cast at higher power later in the combat could be due to two things 1) someone cast stamina or rest all or drank a stamina restoring potion or
2) your skill level went up somewhere inbetween the earlier and later rounds. I notice this happening a lot, and not just when I notice the drop in performance first.

[ 12-09-2003, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: petertmorgan ]

Methinks it's somewhat random, plus stamina (or the lack thereof) has a part in it.

i dont think stamina matters. i was quite surprised when, last night, my new samurai lightning striked TWICE against the gregor and 6 wolf spiders. the second time came at the end of the fight when we were all in the stamina hurt locker.

i would also mention that samurai with dual weapons seem to lightning less often, and even my sam with one weapon did not lightning often, but probably because it was the sword of 4 winds, which has an initiative penalty.

I've been liking Sam's since Wiz-7, and i like the way the Lightning Strike works in W-8. I genrally take Attribute points in Str and Con as well, seems to be spread thin, but i alternate from level to level, so i'm still building Dex and Spd pretty fast and Sen 1/Level. I often start my Sams as Mage, for the extra points you get in not just the School but also the four Elemental Realms, and you can start your Dex higher. Most of my Bards turn into Sams by L15 or so (Muramasa). My Sam's get Lightning Strikes just as often with Dual Wield, as when using a shield--they just never get them with the Secondary, so it's fewer per attack. But with high skills in Dual, Close, and Sword, you definately get more total swings per round with two blades, esp if you got a Muramasa or Light. Something else with Muramasa and high Crit skill, many of my LS's are interrupted by the instawhack.
I don't hardly ever get a LS with Giant's Sword, but the Sword bonus makes GS a lot of fun anyway...

Thanks for all your answers.

petertmorgan:
Very interesting approach and very promising results. Encumbrance and weight class. That makes sense (even comes with a nice touch of realism).
I don't think that stats are that important for lightnings (at least not SPD and DEX). Always thought that agility fits better for a dual-wielder than brute force. So I concentrated on SPD and DEX till 100 before switching to SEN and STR and sometimes VIT (and got that lousy result of 8 out of a very very huge amount).
Anyway, next time I will play with two samurais. One using the standard samurai equipment, the other following your example. Keeping encumbrance as low as possible for both. Hopefully there will be a difference.

I rarely played Samurais in my games (only three or four times) but I am quite sure that I had more Lightning Strikes within the first 10 Levels than you in the whole game. And I build up strengh to max, vitality to 80 then dexterity, speed and senses.