Playing

Okay that's for people that haven't gotten it or just got it.  The following is
for people who have been playing without reading the manual.

~Q) Sometimes when I play, all of a sudden, one or more of my characters
develop a mind of their own and start playing for themselves.  What
gives?  Is this a bug?  How can I stop them and regain control?

A) You characters are "in retreat".  This is not a bug.  It's a condition that
can be brought on by certain monsters' attacks.  It is similar to your
character getting charmed.  To regain control, cast a dispel magic
spell on that(/those) character(s).

Q) How do I target spells (or missile weapons for that matter)?  How do I

target stuff that's off the screen?

A) After you select the spell (or the weapon) you get a line that starts at
your character icon and ends in a little box.  The number in the box
tells you how many targets you may select.  Move the box onto the icon
of the monster and hit "T" for "T"arget!   If you are allowed more than
one target, repeat this step.  If your target is off the screen and yet
still within range, pull the target box to the edge of the screen and
click the mouse button.  This will scroll the screen over in that
direction.  (warning: some users have complained about crashing the
program by trying to hit targets off screen, though this has never
happened to me.) When you're done, hit the space bar. 

Hit <return> to rotate spells like Wall of Fog, Wall of Force, Wall of
Ice before targeting.

~
New feature in v1.5.  Spells requiring line of sight (i.e. can be
blocked by walls, trees, mushrooms...) are signified with a little eye
in the targeting box in the spell selection screen.

~
Descriptions for spells that are "non-damage" inflicting can be seen
by selecting the option in the preferences menu.

Q) How do I use a missile weapon?

A) Equip the character with it (most characters can be holding a melee weapon and a missile weapon).  When in combat mode, click on the little icon next to the character's weapon.  It is a small rectangular icon just
right of the character's weapon icon and it has a small scimitar and
a bow in it.  Click on it, and you'll switch weapons.  The weapon icon
of a missile weapon will be "raised" and you can click on it and you
target it like a spell.

Q) What's the difference between Guard, Delay, and Finish?

A) You can end a character's attack turn in one of the following ways:
attacking something, or one of the above.  Guard will "save" your
attack for later when a poor unsuspecting monster wanders too close
to you.  Delay should be done before you move.  It's good when the
character is trapped behind other characters, you can "wait" to move
until after another character has moved.  Finish simply ends the round
with no attack.

Q) What is a thief's backstab?  How do I use it?

A) For certain character classes, there is a percentage of the time that they
can inflict lots of damage.  Take backstabbing for instance.  You don't
need to do anything (like "getting behind" a monster) in order to back-
stab it.  Simple attack as usual, and a certain percent of the time,
depending on what level you're on, your thief's skillful ability to
impale it's victim in a vulnerable and "physiologically" crucial spot,
your thief inflicts triple damage.  Fighters, rangers, paladins, and
monks can inflict "critical hits" which implies some critical damage
(e.g. crush skill, decapitate, maim, etc...) which causes double the
"normal" damage.

Q) How can I check to see what abilities and stamina a monster has [left]?

A) Use Command-Click and where normally you're player's combat info is
displayed, the monster's combat info will be displayed.

Q) How can I get information on items to see whether a certain character can
use it or what it's attributes are?

A) Use option-click to look at info on items before picking up or buying.

Q) When I'm buying and/or trading, I want to sell something I'm wearing.  Do I

have to go back to the items screen every time I want to unequip an

item?

A) You can put on/take off anything by clicking on it with the command key down and you can "quick trade" it by clicking on it with the shift key down.

Q) The text during battles is too fast!  I can't read everything!  What can
I do?

A) You can slow the game to a crawl if you change the preferences setting.
What I find helpful when attacking with spells and missile weapons is
to look at the text box when hitting the space bar.  Sure you miss out
on seeing your spell/weapon hit the monster, but you can see the text
if you're attention is on it.  (I work in a vision lab, trust me, you
can see if you try.)

Q) Why do I have negative experience points? 

A) Because experience in this game is counted down not added up.  You attain the next level when the counter gets up to zero and then it resets to
a more negative number.  

Q) After I go to a shop all my money disappears!  What happened?

A) You have to remember to "share" your money before you leave (since you had to pool your money to buy stuff when you came in).  Turn the "Forget
money protection" ON in the preferences menu so that it will ask you if
you want to get the money before you leave.

Q) How do I put scrolls in scroll cases?

A) You can't put the scrolls you find into scroll cases.  You can USE them
whenever you want.  Create your own scrolls, buy yourself some blank
parchment.  Set up camp and the character with the scroll case and the
parchment will have a create scroll button.  Then create the scroll and
it will give you the usual spell window and you cast the spell as you
would usually.  A scroll will appear in your scroll case.

Q) Why can't I use scrolls?  Can I use a scroll more than once?

A) Some characters can't use some scrolls.  I think clerics can only use
cleric's scrolls (a clerical spell in scroll form).  See above about
putting scrolls into scroll cases.  To check whether a character can
use a scroll (or any item for that matter) go to trade and put that
character in the left side and start clicking on stuff.  A red stop
sign will show up on the item and you'll get a little clunk sound.  Try
giving the scroll to a character of a different class, or one with 
more wisdom/intelligence (depending on whether cleric or magic user).

Scrolls are good because they can be created before a battle.  During
the fight, when a spell-caster runs out of spell points, he/she can
then use scrolls, which already used spell points to create and now
can be used.  Each scroll in a scroll case disappears after being used,
but picked up scrolls will have an Nx after it to tell you how many
times it can be used.

Oops... incomplete info:  Paladins can use clerical scrolls and thieves
can eventually use magic user's scrolls.  And you can also option click
on an item at anytime to see an information window that tells you all
about it and who can use it.  (Thanks to Dave Wetzel -  Editor: "Oh
yeah... totally forgot about that, but I often determine who gets what
after a fight when I'm dividing up the plunder in the trade screen".)

I've discovered that my 8th level paladin has a 100% chance of
successfully reading magic users' scrolls.  Go figure.

Q) When I'm picking locks (bending bars, breaking down doors...), and I see
these yellow/green bars and the timer, what does it mean?  Is there
something I am supposed do during this to increase my chances of
success?

A) (After being informed by Benjamin Porter that I should read the manual
more carefully) The bars change color based on the character's ability.
There is a certain amount of time the bars flash.  If you hit return or
click the mouse when they are all yellow or green you will have
successfully completed the task.  Or for those of us that do not have
good hand-eye coordination, we just sit
and hope the percentiles are in
our favor and all three will be green at the end of the time allowed.

Q) Do monks and thieves increase their ability with levels?

A) Hmm... I know monks fight better.  As far as I can tell, improvement depends on your ability scores.  Characters with good constitution tend to get
more stamina points at advancement time.  And I also know that my thief
has improved from 9% to 14% success on backstabbing someone.  I assume
all her other scores have improved too (note that I chose a female
thief because of the dexterity bonus).

Something else to keep in mind: more constitution gives more stamina at
promotion time, more wisdom for clerics/paladins for more spell points;
more intelligence for enchanters/magic users more spell points _and_
more spells.  Dexterity for thieves...

Q) Sometimes a magic-using character is not given the opportunity to cast
spells even when they are conscious and have plenty of spell points.
What gives?

A) Ah ha!  I guess it's hard for a character who has been hit during a turn to
cast any spells.  If you think of all the things that happen in one
"round" of a combat as simultaneous, then I suppose it would be hard to
concentrate on casting a spell while someone is beating you to a pulp.

But they can use a scroll instead of a spell if they've been hit.

Q) What the heck is an ion stone for?

A) Each color of ion stone is for a different class of character.  You can
equip it to increase that character's performance.

Q) Why am I a 3rd level cleric with only 2nd level spells?

A) Clerics get all the spells for a certain level all at once, but they only
get new spells something like every other level.  Consult the appendix
in the manual for advancement.

Q) I get a dialog box that asks if I want to do something, and I decide I
don't want to do it because my party is too wimpy.  When I return the
monster or situation is gone!  What gives?

A) You only get one shot at nearly all of the quests.  If at any point you get
these types of dialogs, say "YES"!  Risk it!  You won't have a second
chance if you run away.  Just save more often, and you can restore to
the previous state before you get killed be the quest.  You can say no
to random encounters like giants, orcs, kobalds, goblins, shantiles...
But never pass up an opportunity to fight a demon, dragon, wizard...
Same thing holds true if you take the dagger from the old woman, her
shop stays closed for the rest of the game.  High price to pay for
being greedy.  How do you select the answer to the questions?  Try to
choose the most noble, proud, brave, fool-hardy thing.  Don't be afraid
to take risks, but don't be unkind.

"It's better to be dragon chow than to sit in the tavern at the city
of Bywater telling everybody that _you_ were the one that got away"

-Matt Hicks

There are a FEW exceptions to this rule.  The beastmen corral will ask
if you want to do it later.  You can do it later.  There are many ways
to get into the spider tower.  If you refuse to help the king's cleric,
you can still do a frontal assault through the front door or a sneak
attack through the secret passage.  You can also decide to leave and
come back later to the town brothel.

If you've already blew it on some of them and want a second chance,
register your game and restart the adventure with your old characters
in a "new" party.  You'll feel more confident with your entire arsenal
of weaponry and armor.

Q) What's the main difference between novice to veteran difficulty?  Is the
veteran mode have harder monsters but less treasure and experience or
is it harder monsters with more experience and treasure?

A) It's the latter.  You get more experience, more gold, the same "magic" items but I noticed that the shops carry better stuff (especially Madam
Otik's Magic stuff shop).  I found it much easier to attain higher
levels and hoard treasure near the beginning of the game.  You will
attain levels faster if you have low level characters in a veteran's
game.  Each scenario has a "recommended number of levels".  For the
City of Bywater it is '6', which means best for 6 1st level characters
or one 6th level character.  As you exceed the recommended levels, you
will not get as many XP.

Q) For one reason or another (encumbrance bug, missed quest...) I want to drop a character and add another one and it says levels exceeded, or I want
to take my characters back through the same adventure and keep all
their possessions, what do I do?

A) Register your game!  When you do; there will no longer be a restriction on
levels (although the number will still be there to indicated the 
difficulty of the scenario) so you can put any level character back
into the party and they keep their possessions when saving the game.
That is, the "character" file is update as well as the save file.

Q) How do I know when I finished/beaten the City of Bywater scenario?

A) You won't.  Due to the non-linearity of the game (you can complete quests
in any order) there is no way of knowing if "you're done".  EXCEPT for
the Bywater scenario, there is a "tip sheet" included with the game.
If you've done everything on the list, then you've done everything
there is to do.  So now what?  Start over with a different party.
Start over with a smaller party.  Start over and do everything
differently than you did before (agree to fight the orcs instead of the
goblins; fight your way into the Spider Tower instead of finding the
Undead Army...).  OR wait for the new scenario to come out

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