The Vagaries of running an all Bishop party

[sloucho]

Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

Everyone who plays games like Wiz 8 does so for their own reasons, but my primary reason for playing is that I'm just incredibly fond of magic. I know there's a lot more mouse-clicking involved in magic than in melee, and it's nice to have a fighter party that you can leave on auto-pilot while you run downstairs for a sandwich, but I don't play Wiz 8 because I want a sandwich; I play it because I want to cast death wish and asphyxiation.

So I ended up running an all bishop party. I suppose it would be interesting to solo as a bishop, but 6 bishops gives me six times as many chances to cast spells.

Here are some observations I have that might be of interest to anyone interested in doing the same sort of thing:

1) Spell Books -
Almost all spells up to 5th level can be bought from Sadok, Kunar, Crock, Braffit, Anna, and Ferro. My bishops all had 19 spell picks when they reached level 18, and they were able to pretty well fill up their spell books by level 22.

The spell books that I was unable to find in shops were:
A) Mind Stab
B) Holy Water
C) Instant Death

The only 6th level spell I was able to purchase was Banish, but I found that Braffit had it in stock quite frequently. I actually bought 6 copies of banish before I was able to get 6 copies of charm from Anna.

2) Charm, Knock Knock, Mindread, and Mixing

I don't have a tremendous amount of patience for practicing magic skills, but I made a point of doing it with any leftover spell points at the end of each day. It was important to keep my divinity skill ahead of my psionics skill so that when I cast charm, it would improve my divinity skill. Once that hit 90, I started working on Psionics with mindread.

Similarly, I made an effort to keep Wizardry ahead of Alchemy so that when I cast knock knock, it would improve my wizardry skill (since I could increase alchemy through mixing potions--and since I had to mix A LOT of potions to buy all those spellbooks).

By the time I had an obscene amount of money, however, I decided to let one bishop's alchemy skill pull ahead of his wizardry. I was tired of mixing potions, so knock knock increased his alchemy skill. His wizardry skill soared simply by casting the typical buff spells that most parties cast at the beginning of each day.

3) Going beyond level 18

I know what you're thinking. By the time my bishops reached level 18, I must have been itching to turn them into fighters of one kind or another. Well, I confess that I was. But I didn't. I had read a comment by Mage77 about how spellcasters only cast very weak 7th level spells at the 18th level of experience.

It's true. No matter how high your wizardry skill, your fire skill, and your power cast skill, your 18th level bishop will only get the green circle for a level one nuclear blast. At 19th level, it's possible to get 2 green circles. 3 at 20th; 4 at 21st; and 5 at 22nd. My bishop named Oakley is currently 22nd level with 100 wizardry, 100 fire magic, and 100 power cast, and she only gets 5 green circles on nuclear blast.

4) Grooming for the switch

Experience is not a problem for a bishop party--at least not the way I play it. Since magic is their muscle, I let them sleep A LOT. Monsters are always respawning as my party sleeps, and it's easy to get slashers/minions + gunners for roughly 100k/character around Arnika. When 6 folks are power casting death wish, it takes about 30 seconds to get 100,000 experience points.

All my points have gone to intelligence and speed, so I usually don't even need to spend a round setting up buff spells (since my party members almost always go first in combat). Rapax warlocks are a lot more resistant to spells like Death Wish than are berserkers, warmages, and samurais, but the Warlocks' resistance actually works to my advantage. The support troops (such as berserkers) are wiped out by death wish in the first round. Without the berserkers to help them, the warlocks aren't very dangerous (since they waste most of their attacks casting web and freeze all). I usually get one warlock for every 5-6 castings of death wish, and the fact that I have to go through a few rounds to get through 4 warlocks only pumps up my bishops' divinity/divine magic skill.

Still, there are more resistant creatures ahead, so I'll want to have some decent melee attackers in the future. Here's what I've set them up to become:

Wesley and Inigo (human bishops) will both become samurais at level 23.
Oakley (human bishop) will become a gadgeteer at level 23.
NattyBumppo (human bishop) will become a ranger at level 23.
Borgia (human bishop) will become a ninja at level 23.
Tink (faerie bishop) already made the switch to ninja at level 23.

5) The surprise

I changed Tink to a ninja as soon as I got her to level 23 because I was eager to start using the CoC. I was astonished to see how drastically her spell casting effectiveness dropped. She had been casting Death Wish with 5 green circles, but now she can only cast it with 2.

The others have been ready to level for a while now, but I'm trying to get the potential samurais up to 98 or 99 in alchemy/divinity/psionics and the potential ninjas up to 98 or 99 in wizardry/divinity/psionics. Why? Because the samurais will be able to improve their wizardry and realm skills again at level 27, as the ninjas will be able to improve their alchemy and realm skills (except for mental) at level 27. I know most people finish the game before level 27, but I'm a very SLOW goer, with lots of sleeping and respawning and fighting. Considering how difficult it is to push skills beyond 95, I expect most of the characters to be ready to jump to 25th level by the time I'm ready to switch them.

[Pyrates]

Wow, sloucho, that sounds like a fun experience... I'm also quite fond of magic, but for me it is enough to carry around 2 bishops, focussing on all 4 spellbooks... Greats guys, simply my overall-ever-favorite-in-every-RPG char's

Never forget your towel, cheers
Philipp

[Nightowl2]

Hmmm...interesting. I was wondering when someone would go for an all-magic party like that. Too fond of fighters myself to give it a try. But...

Why a gadgeteer? At first level, that character isn't going to be too effective. Even if you go slow, it will take a long while before you bring the gadgeteer up to usefulness.

Nightowl2

[sloucho]

Nightowl,

When I started this party, it was meant to be my grand finale. I want to uninstall Wizardry and get back to having a normal life (you know, including an occasional conversation with my wife).

My thinking was that I wanted to see how many levels I could get before becoming sick and tired of the game. (Apparently, a lot.)

The gadgeteer option is there IN CASE I decide to go to some obscenely high level. If I don't go very far past 27 (and I probably won't), I'll end up with one weak character in the party. I can live with that.

[Bear]

If you need a party that goes even slower than your current 6 bishop party, you could always try a 6 Lizardman Bishop party. I bet that you would have to do a LOT of camping with them. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Nightowl2]

Sloucho, if gamers had normal lives.......they wouldn't be gamers

Good luck with your party - let us know how high you got at the end.

Nightowl2