Game 452: The Bard's Tale

Read the manual here:

https://www.mocagh.org/loadpage.php?getgame=bt1

The Bard's Tale is one of the few really major releases so far that I truly have no prior experience with at all. I've understood it to be a missing link between Wizardry's linear and punishing dungeon crawl, and Might and Magic's semi-open world hack 'n slash fest, but while I've played through both of these series' early entries years ago, I'm going in blind this time.

The Bard's Tale was one of the Commodore 64's first RPG hits, predating Wizardry's eventual release by over two years. This is almost certainly the best-selling and most famous version, and perhaps the logical successor to Cranford's C64 dungeon crawler Maze Master, but I will be playing the Apple II original, which was the target platform for most of Interplay's games at the time.

As a game published by Electronic Arts in their early, computer-focused years, it comes in an album-style box, featuring a scene on the front that looks more like a medieval college dorm than a barroom, a map of Skara Brae, a brief backstory, and a mini-biography of designer Michael Cranford. Enclosed are the game disks and EA's typically high quality manual and reference card.

The story - evil wizard Mangar froze the city with ice magic, summoned lots of monsters, and killed all of the watchmen. Go get him.

The manual describes a very Wizardry-like gameplay structure, with first person exploration and party-based combat, but there are some differences.

• The city of Skara Brae is itself an explorable level, and the various establishments (and entrances to multiple dungeons) are locations within it, much like Oubliette, except Skara Brae is no save haven. The Adventurer's Guild is your home base, where characters are created, recruited, and where you must return to save your game.
• There is a default beginner's party available to those who don't wish to create their own, but the manual advises that creating one is better in the long run.
• A total party kill doesn't save the game state to disk unless you request it, and rebooting the computer restores everything to the last state that you did save; nobody gets stranded in the dungeon because of an "accidental" blackout.
• Character backups are explicitly encouraged. You can restore an individual character from a backup disk if you can't afford the temple resurrection fee (or if the character is beyond divine help). 

Eight basic character classes are available, though your party only has room for six:

• Warriors are simple fighters who gain extra attacks every four levels.
• Paladins are fighters with enhanced protection against evil. The manual describes no disadvantages compared to warriors.
• Hunters are fighters with critical-hit ability.
• Monks are fighters who specialized in unarmed, unarmored combat.
• Rogues are mediocre fighters but specialize in trap detection and disarmament.
• Conjurers are magic users whose spells focus on creation and destruction.
• Magicians are magic users whose spells focus on enchantments and manipulation.
• Lastly, the Bards of the series' namesake are a special class of magic user who can fight to an extent but their real power is in song, which bestow a variety of party buffs depending on the song played and whether in combat or exploration mode. This power is, of course, fueled by beer.

Two elite spellcaster classes are also available, but only as multiclass options to advanced characters:

• Sorcerers' spells focus on illusion and clairvoyance.
• Wizards specialize in summons.

By multiclassing, a spellcaster can learn magic from any of the four disciplines, and by mastering all becomes an archmage. We're told that you need to have one, and will want to have two. This will take a lot of grinding; you must reach level 13 in a class before the highest level spells become available, and changing resets you to level 1, but keeps all spells learned. 

I decide my initial party will have one of each class except hunter and monk, and from rolling several disposable characters I conclude that:

• Dwarves are the strongest class, but have poor luck. They may not be spellcasters.
• Gnomes are the most intelligent, but have poor luck and constitution. They may not be paladins or bards.
• Half-Orcs are the most hardy, but have poor luck and intelligence. They may not be paladins, monks, or bards.
• Hobbits have the best dexterity and luck, but poor strength and constitution. They may not be paladins or hunters.
• Humans, elves, and half-elves don't really excel at anything but aren't poor at anything either. Humans are a bit stronger and hardier, elves a bit smarter, more dexterous, and luckier, and half-elves between. Elves may not be hunters, and half-elves may not be paladins.

I aim to outclass the default party, which isn't as tedious as it is in Wizardry; you can discard and reroll new characters very quickly.

Stock Custom Name Brian the Fist Ahab Race Human Dwarf Str 12 18 IQ 9 6 Dx 14 12 Cn 10 17 Lk 6 10

Stock Custom Name Samson Kurisu Race Dwarf Half-Orc Str 18 18 IQ 10 5 Dx 9 15 Cn 11 17 Lk 10 11

The bard doesn't get his own portrait!

Stock Custom Name El Cid Sunfall Race Elf Hobbit Str 12 11 IQ 9 12 Dx 16 18 Cn 6 8 Lk 6 16

Stock Custom Name Markus P-Tux Race Hobbit Hobbit Str 9 8 IQ 10 10 Dx 17 18 Cn 6 12 Lk 10 17

Stock Custom Name Merlin Viila Race Gnome Gnome Str 10 12 IQ 17 17 Dx 7 10 Cn 9 9 Lk 12 11

Stock Custom Name Omar Scribe Race Elf Gnome Str 11 13 IQ 16 17 Dx 11 11 Cn 8 10 Lk 11 10

For good measure, I also create two pinch-hitters from the two outstanding classes. 

Class Hunter Monk Name Grub Redslayer Race Dwarf Dwarf Str 18 18 IQ 12 11 Dx 14 10 Cn 11 17 Lk 6 8

 

For convenience, I save this party under the name "B-Team." The entire party can be loaded from disk in one command this way instead of six.

 

We leave the guild and head in the direction of the blacksmith.

Nice, scaling effects!

But before we can find it, the party is torn apart by a pack of wild dogs roaming the streets.

Maze Master: Won!

Eat it, you basement-dwelling, spandex-wearing, ant-headed freak!

 

It all ends on level 5. You can't magically teleport there, but you can teleport directly to the stairs on level 4 that lead down to it, and the balrog's lair is just a few secret doors away. I found him almost immediately, and he wiped the floor with us. There's only one of him, but he strikes first, always hits, and instantly kills whoever he hits.

But let's back up for a second. Each of the upper floors has a clue hidden somewhere, which I have shown in the maps but not mentioned yet. Said clues are:

1. I HAVE LAID 3 CLUES TO BRING YOU TO ME...
2. I AM DESTINY PERSONIFIED
3. TOWARD THE NE WARE THE STOP ELSE MAGIC TRIES TO MAKE YOU DROP
4. MY NAME IS IN THE LOWER 4 MAPS

The walls of maps 2 through 4 contain one identifiable letter each. F-A-T. I don't think it takes a riddle master to figure out what comes next.

 

To beat the balrog, I assembled a team of three Freds. Magic is good for zipping around and eliminating crowds, but the balrog fights alone. I need concentrated damage, I know protection magic won't help, and I can get three good warriors by dismissing my wizards and restoring Fred's character code twice.

This means no teleportation, so we walk to level 5. No big deal. I have maps, and the path is clear. There's just one mandatory fight along the way, a square of infinite monsters on level 4, but each Fred can hit up to four times now, and you can pass through the square after winning the fight - it just doesn't "clear" for the future the way others do.

On reaching the hidden lair, we are presented with a riddle to enter.

FATE. You are FATE.

We enter and fight to the last Fred.

After winning you are trapped in a 2x2 room with no way out.

 

And, well, that's it. I didn't even need to explore level 5 or train further. I just had to slightly abuse a questionable character management system.

Maze Master defeated CRPG Addict, who wrote in 2014 that it would have been "fun" to be the only person online to beat the game, and later did with hacked supercharacters, save states, and spoilers. I may now be the only person online to beat it without doing any of that, and it wasn't that much fun.

GAB rating: Below average. Borderline bad, really. There's nothing dysfunctional about Maze Master, but it is emphatically not fun or interesting to play. Wizardry was good in spite of its bare-bones look and feel because of its deceptively deep combat engine, but there's no strategic depth to this imitator whatsoever, nothing of interest at all to find in these mazes, and once you gain enough power to do any serious dungeon exploration the combat becomes and remains pathetically easy, which is admittedly better than the more common alternative.

 

I found some spoilers regarding the magic items, and all of them except the Ring of Accuracy are useless.

• Staff of Light - Useless. Its just a permanent Cat's Eye spell, which should be no problem for you to cast as needed long before you can afford this staff's $5000 pricetag.
• Ring of Accuracy - A +25% chance to hit. Mainly useful for the fighter, but not a bad effect. The Accuracy spell does the same thing, but has to be cast during combat, so having this as a permanent buff is convenient.
• Amulet of Healing - Nearly useless. Heals one HP every ten seconds. Who wants to wait several minutes between combats to heal up? Especially since wandering monsters will certainly interrupt your rest. Just teleport to the surface to heal.
• Hawk Blazon - Useless and outrageously expensive. It sets your AC to -10, which is as low as it can get. You'd have the same effect for less money by buying the best armor and shield and casting Shadow Shield which lasts the entire trip.

Last call for inclusion in Cranford's follow up, Shadow Snare The Bard's Tale! The guild roster of Skara Brae's chapter includes so far Scribe as a magician, P-Tux as a hobbit rogue, and Viila as a to-be-determined class with a death wish. To be clear, you won't be actively participating; you'll just be represented ingame, at least for as long as your pragmatic and pitiless patrol captain deems your person useful.