Best character for special slot?

Discussions and help for Bard's Tale I: Tales of the Unknown
Ankie
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Best character for special slot?

Post by Ankie »

What is the best character for the special slot. I am loving the WIDR but is there any better?

Anne
jrodman
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Post by jrodman »

My frustration was always that most of the special slot things die all the time, and the Wind Dragon felt like the first one who would stay alive fairly reliably. The breathe attack is a nice bonus.

The Wind Giant is a bit more durable, but no group attack (if I recall correctly).

The Greater Demon starts out with L0 armor class, but seems to waste turns with useless actions sometimes? Or possibly I'm making that up, my memory is hazy.

I think the Wind Dragon is definitely the best offensive summon/creation, though probably not the best meat shield. Realistically I think he stays alive well enough through the end of the game, so probably the best directly created by spells.

That said, I didn't experiment that much with Soul Binding various monsters into my party, or using found Figurines that much. Maybe there are better things like Thor, or a Vampire Lord?
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Darendor
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Post by Darendor »

I always found Spell-Binding the Grey Dragon that guards Harkyn's Castle to be quite useful.
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toper
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Post by toper »

I almost always do WIDR (Recasting again and again until I get something with 100+ HP). I've seen a few people say that the THOR Fgn is a good one, but I've never had one drop for me in the game since I started playing again (They don't drop in the MS-DOS version, and haven't made it to the top 2 floors of The Tower to see if they drop in the GS version).
jrodman
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Post by jrodman »

toper wrote:I almost always do WIDR (Recasting again and again until I get something with 100+ HP). I've seen a few people say that the THOR Fgn is a good one, but I've never had one drop for me in the game since I started playing again (They don't drop in the MS-DOS version, and haven't made it to the top 2 floors of The Tower to see if they drop in the GS version).
There's a special event on floor 4 where you're guaranteed a figurine. I haven't tested but i suspect leaving the floor and coming back will reset the event to give you another, such as Apport Arcane to an illegal floor, giving an instant reset-in-place. So you could stock up. I guess, if that seems more valid than duping the object.
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Darendor
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Post by Darendor »

jrodman wrote:
toper wrote:I almost always do WIDR (Recasting again and again until I get something with 100+ HP). I've seen a few people say that the THOR Fgn is a good one, but I've never had one drop for me in the game since I started playing again (They don't drop in the MS-DOS version, and haven't made it to the top 2 floors of The Tower to see if they drop in the GS version).
There's a special event on floor 4 where you're guaranteed a figurine. I haven't tested but i suspect leaving the floor and coming back will reset the event to give you another, such as Apport Arcane to an illegal floor, giving an instant reset-in-place. So you could stock up. I guess, if that seems more valid than duping the object.
The event in question is contingent on two things.
a) Not already having a Thor Fgn in the party.
b) Getting the answer to the question correct.
tpth
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Post by tpth »

Huh, I always went with the various demons. I could never keep the wind dragon alive long enough for it to be useful, and the unpredictability of the breath attack meant you could never rely on it to kill groups (so you end up having to attack them anyway, and you waste your spells/attacks if the dragon does breathe.) If nothing else, the Demon Lord is one guaranteed kill every round, and if you summon one with enough HP, it should stay alive indefinitely unless you're really unlucky.
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Darendor
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Post by Darendor »

The only way to find a Demon Lord is to fight Mangar isn't it? And frankly, if you can defeat that battle it kind of also defeats the point of going around the game looking for fights...
DMan
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Post by DMan »

WIDR is good until it starts being disbelieved on a regular basis (Kyleran's Tower onwards), and there's usually a bit of a gap until you get the GRSU spell, at least in the MS-DOS version...

Not a problem on the Spectrum version, as there's what I'm assuming is a bug that allows you access to all the figurine special types when brooms and magic mouths start to drop in the Castle. These will seemingly cast any spell in the spell book randomly (or summon any of the figurine specials).

I used to love summoning the Old Man as he's hard as nails - guaranteed to either critically hit a monster or do serious damage to a group with a Shock Sphere spell every round :)
Ankie
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Post by Ankie »

Darendor wrote:I always found Spell-Binding the Grey Dragon that guards Harkyn's Castle to be quite useful.
Tried this and he only had 22 HP's, gutted.. Is there some kind of guide as to which colour dragon is the toughest so I can go catch one. :wink:
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toper
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Post by toper »

Ankie wrote:
Darendor wrote:I always found Spell-Binding the Grey Dragon that guards Harkyn's Castle to be quite useful.
Tried this and he only had 22 HP's, gutted.. Is there some kind of guide as to which colour dragon is the toughest so I can go catch one. :wink:
WIDR Gives you a red dragon, second best according to XP (Haven't captured a Black Dragon, so I don't know the stats on them.)

Here's what I know about dragons...

Image
Ankie
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Post by Ankie »

Nice one toper, thanks for that, will stick with the original plan, happy hobbit hunting.

Anne :wink:
tpth
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Post by tpth »

Darendor wrote:The only way to find a Demon Lord is to fight Mangar isn't it? And frankly, if you can defeat that battle it kind of also defeats the point of going around the game looking for fights...
Nope - in the DOS version, at least, GRSU summons a Demon Lord some of the time. Can't speak for other versions.
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ZeroZero
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Post by ZeroZero »

GRSU also summons a Lord frequently in the C64 version, I can confirm this
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toper
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Post by toper »

Just cast GRSU 10 times in Apple 2GS version, got Demon Lord 3 times.
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