From: bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris)
Subject: Re: WIZ7 - Best Party Configuration?
Organization: Motorola, CCR&D, CORP, Schaumburg, IL
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 00:12:06 GMT
Keywords: Party, Wizardry 7, configuration

In article <1992Nov19.205745.12632@seas.gwu.edu> monoman@seas.gwu.edu (Jonas J. Lee) writes:
)In article <1992Nov16.174759.22024@tom.rz.uni-passau.de> stoeter@valentin.fmi.uni-passau.de (Armin Stoeter) writes:
)>I got a female felpur Lord
)>        male rawulf samurai
)>        male lizardman ninja
)>        femal rawulf munk
)>        female elf bishop
)>        male mook psionic
)>
)>this party is hard to get because of the bonus points needed.
)>But you can do very well with it.
)
)The best party configuration is monk, monk, monk, ninja, ninja, ninja.
)After ninja, ninja, ninja, monk, monk, monk, after
)bishop, bishop, bishop, bishop, bishop, bishop!

This is fine if you've got a sector editor, but isn't really practical
to 'grow' and develop a party, IMO.

Here's my starting party:

Male gnome fighter                      (goes to priest)
Male dwarf ninja                        (goes to saumari)
Female lizardwoman priest               (goes to valkyrie)
Female mook bard                        (goes to thief)
Male fairie mage                        (goes to bard,alchemist)
(??) dracon alchemist                   (goes to mage)

This party will look a little 'weird' to the more experienced player.
It's designed to switch classes and still keep some 'balance' between
magic and fighting.  (When the gnome  fighter switches to a priest, the
lizardwoman switches to a valkyrie, for instance).  After several rounds of
back-and-forth class switching and a few round-about detours, the party wound
up as:

gnome priest
dwarf saumari  (staying at a ninja might have been better!)
lizardwoman valkyrie
mook ranger
fairie alchemist
dracon ninja

The character I'm least happy with is probably the mook.  He is an
accomplished thief though.  He might have been better of as a male, or
maybe a rawulf (and a priestly bent), I dunno.

Initial design constraints were

1)  I really wanted an initial  bard  (infinite sleep spells are *very* nice
at the begining of the game - this means starting out with a non-fairie
bard (for some reason, fairie bards do not start out with the lute!).
2)  I wanted to be able to qualify for most of the auxillary classes at
some future time (to use their neato special items when I found them)
3)  I wanted a pair of classes to switch between to gain skills rapidly
(listed in parenthisis)
4)  I was willing to skimp on psionics, not being impressed with them from
earlier w6 experience.
5)  Preferred races with relatively high vitality for good hitpoints with
class switching approach.


The main thing my party is lacking is a good 'lord' candidate - the gnome
will eventually qualify, but getting the personality from 7 to 14 is a very
long term affair.  (He's an 11th level priest with a per of 11 right now.)
However, I haven't run into any 'lord-only' items (yet).

A few times I re-fought battles when the stats didn't go up in a direction
compatible with my class-switching plans.

I noticed that the fairie tended to get very tired quickly playing 'bard'
instruments - much more so than the mook.