Bards Tale IV announced

[peacedog]

@Coldsteel

Looking a the spells available, Wizards seem far, far more useful than Sorcerers, who seem rather pathetic. I’m not really sure why I’d want one except for maybe the spell that brings a dead character back to life. Some of the summons spells might be useful if I didn’t already have a caster in the 7th slot. I really question if dropping a caster for the ability to summon would be a more effective approach. I like having all those extra spell points and spells to use.

You’ve got that backwards; it’s Wizards who get summons and the raise dead, the Sorceror’s who have more overall versatility (some key party buffs, lots of damage especially the hit-everything MIBL). You’re not wrong but a few comments:

1. REDE (Repel Dead, Wizard 1) is pretty awesome. It does way more damage than MIBL and it’s cheap. And undead are nasty in this game. You’ll never get the ability to heal a number of conditions they inflict, and later undead level drain.

2. In the classic games, you only got six party slots and had an S slot that could be filled by summons or a wandering monster. the Wizard got, by far, the best means to fill that slot: GRSU (summons a greater demon or occasionally a Demon Lord). The Demon Lord was pretty awesome. Nigh unkillable, powerful, and usually does a very awesome group attack (a breath attack). Yes you get a lot of blasts from casters but he was still very powerful. Obviously that’s not a huge consideration here since you can just toss in another PC.

3. BEDE is very important, as is DISP. DISP is the only way to remove possession (which is rare, granted) without going back to town.

4. Because there’s no Legacy stuff yet, Wizards get spells from their BT 2 spell list and get a huge damage upgrade. Ironically, because we’ve only partially implemented BT 2 mechanics, this is sort of a double-buff (in the second game, their damage spells have specific ranges rendering them ok to very good overall but in BT 1 they can just hit anything).

5. You do need them to get Archmage. Which is only a BT 2 thing (and BT 3), but it’s possible they back ported Archmage to BT 1 (or some of it).

Overall, Sorcerers are better. Also in the classics you could class change out of Co/Ma and eventually back into the class you already “completed”, if memory serves. You started over at 1 but it’s a much easier leveling experience than So or Wi. That’s not possible here, so the best order is Co/Ma → So → Wi → whichever you didn’t start with. Also I swear I think Ma got a sligtt xp break over Co but I might be wrong.

Up to level 11 and spell level 6 now. My front liners have some better stuff finally. Mithril plate, shield ring, mithril bracers, etc.

Very nice.