Wizardry 8 party looks similar the party in Wizardry 7, in fact you even have the option to import a party from 7. There are some rule revisions and a new Profession. Wizardry 8 is the final chapter in the Dark Savant Trilogy. If decide you want to start in Wizardry 6 instead, check out Party Planning.
“There are things you must know.”
Wizard
What is new?
Personality and Karma statistics are removed and newly added is Senses which governs skills like Scouting, Close Combat and Critical Strike. Statistic values are now 1-100 instead of 1-20.
Skills have been reworked. Now each skill is governed by a Primary and Secondary statistic in addition to the skill level. Each Profession is a specialist in one skill. The Gadgeteer is a new profession which specializes in Modern Weapons.
Swimming and Climbing are removed completely. Diplomacy is replaced with Communication. Oratory has been replaced with individual Realm skills that govern fizzles and backfires in that realm. Modern Weapons is now a Weaponry skill available to multiple professions. Engineering is a new skill available only to the Gadgeteer. Check out all the changes in the Skills Database.
The most exciting change is the addtion of Party Formation. Instead of a generic front row back row formation now there is Front, Rear, Left, Right, and Center. This creates real tactical considerations during combat!
Character Generation
You can take a few paths to reach your character and party goals.
Path 1: Play the starter party of six characters that is already created.
Path 2: Import your party from Wizardry 7. To do this, you need to find your SAVEGAME.DBS in your Wizardry 7 folder and copy it to \Saves\Import in your Wizardry 8 folder. In Wizardry at, start a new game and select the 7->8 Icon.
Path 3: Make 6 of your own characters with Race and Gender of your choosing. No more randomized bonus points. You can now make any Race/Profession combo that you want however some combinations will result in a Statistic Debt that must be paied back at level ups before you can select statistic allocation of your choosing.
Profession Change
It is possible to change professions during your playthrough similar to previous games in the Wizardry series however in Wizardry 8 there are severe limitations which make profession change less viable than before.
- Limitation 1: Spell casting is limited by current Character Level so if your Level 20 Mage decides to change to a Ninja, the high level spells will be unavailable until your Ninja also reaches a high level.
- Limitation 2: Skill effectiveness is now partially governed by Statistic values and since changing profession reduces your statistic values your skill effectively goes down after a profession change.
You can still make robust characters through profession change but the optimal way to do it is in Wiz6 and Wiz7 and then import. You want to reach your final profession before importing into Wizardry 8. Unique to Wizardry 8 is a limitation that the Music skill is only imported on a Bard and the Scouting skill is only imported on a Ranger. If you want a Gadgeteer, you will need to change profession for that charcter in Wizardry 8.
Attribution
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