The Adventurers' Guild

Has anyone noticed that the spell distances in the manual do not seem to match the game, at least for the c64 version?

So far I've discovered:

War Strike - Documented to hit distances of 20' hits 30' (I think only 30')

Shock Sphere - Documented to hit 20', hits 40' !

Mind Blade - Documented to hit 30', hits 40'

I hope later in the game I get to test spells more thoroughly by using For Foe on some type of creature that advances only 10' at a time, right now my testing is fairly haphazard.

The three spells you've mentioned have diminished effect the further away a foe is.

I believe the thresholds are 30', 60', and 90'.

So a MIBL is going to do maximum damage to foes up to 30', diminished damage from 40' to 60', and minimal damage (or none, as the spell could be resisted) from 70' on.

Huh, is that in the manual somewhere? I must have missed it if so.

Oh yes, I guess all spells go 2x as far as stated in the listing:

' signifies a spell that hits with full effectiveness up to the listed range, and at reduced effectiveness when it hits at double the listed range.

An odd way to describe it. The game behavior makes a lot more sense now -- changing misleading title.

Hm, well the manual *does* say that, but then Spectre Touch is listed as hitting at 70' and does not hit 80' at all. Not even for a wander mage or whatever.

I wonder if the single target spells don't have this double-distance thing.

Some other values, these seem outright wrong.

Fanskar's Night Lance is documented in the manual to hit 90'.
I just had it say 'too far' for 70'.

Meelee Men says it will work on creatures up to 50'. For me it works on 60' distant enemies (not 80' though.. have to test 70').

Perhaps this is another bug in the original code, akin to the traps issue we found earlier in the year.

Hm, I've been using meelee men a lot lately, and it seems reliable against 90'
It is possible I looked at the wrong caster when I thought it said "too far" at 80' previously, or maybe it failed for unknown reasons. If I manage to reproduce "too far" for meelee men again, I'll update this.


The traps issue is completely obvious. I don't bother to use trzp in the dungeon anymore. With 3 casters with mage staffs the spell point drain wouldn't even be noticable.

jrodman wrote:The traps issue is completely obvious. I don't bother to use trzp in the dungeon anymore. With 3 casters with mage staffs the spell point drain wouldn't even be noticable.

If it's "completely obvious", and you don't use TRZP "anymore", then it begs the question of: At what point did it become completely obvious, where before you had relied on it to disarm dungeon traps?

It wasn't obvious to a fair lot of BTII players for a very long time.