The Adventurers' Guild
http://www.bardstale.de
The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unkown
MS-DOS Character File Format


 

Note: I don't guarantee that this info is 100% accurate. Don't blame me if you mess up your characters.

Characters and parties are stored in *.TPW files in the Bard's Tale directory. Characters are always 109 bytes long.

Offset (Dec) Length Purpose: Notes:
0 14 Character Name (null terminated) ASCII
14 2 null  
16 1 01h Determines whether the file is a party or a character. 01h = character, 02h = party.
17 1 Status

Bitfield:
Nuts=80h
Poss=40h
Para=20h
Ston=10h
Pois=08h
Old=04h
Dead=02h
Alive=00h

18 1 ? null?
19 1 Race

00h=Human
01h=Elf
02h=Dwarf
03h=Hobbit
04h=Half-Elf
05h=Half-orc
06h=Gnome

20 1 ? null?
21 1 Class

00h=Warrior
01h=Paladin
02h=Rogue
03h=Bard
04h=Hunter
05h=Monk
06h=Conjurer
07h=Magician
08h=Sorceror
09h=Wizard

22 1 ? null?
23 1 Current Strength Drops when character is Old
24 1 ? null?
25 1 Current IQ Drops when character is Old
26 1 ? null?
27 1 Current Dexterity Drops when character is Old
28 1 ? null?
29 1 Current Constitution Drops when character is Old
30 1 ? null?
31 1 Current Luck Drops when character is Old
32 1 ? null?
33 1 Maximum Strength  
34 1 ? null?
35 1 Maximum IQ  
36 1 ? null?
37 1 Maximum Dexterity  
38 1 ? null?
39 1 Maximum Constitution  
40 1 ? null?
41 1 Maximum Luck  
42 3 ? null?
45 2 HP  
47 2 Condition  
49 2 Total SpPT  
51 2 Current SpPT  
53 16

Equipment:

Offset 53 = Item #1 Code
Offset 54 = Item #1 Status
Offset 55 = Item #2 Code
...etc...
Offset 68 = Item #8 Status

Codes: See Bard's Tale Item Values.

Status: 00h = unequipped, 80h = equipped.

69 3 Experience  
72 1 ? null?
73 3 Gold
76 1 ?  
77 2 Level  
79 3 ?  
82 1 Conj. Level  
83 1 Magi. Level  
84 1 Sorc. Level  
85 1 Wizd. Level  
86 7 ? null?
93 1 Number of Bard Songs left  
94 15 ? null?