The Bard's Tale: Catacombs

Sewers, catacombs, castle. This is the manual's recommended order of tackling The Bard's Tale, and so the catacombs underneath the Temple of the Mad God comes next. The high priest shows us in after daring us to whisper the name of the Mad One, which had been revealed to us in the sewers, and I bring along P-Tux and Houdini to see if I can drill some usefulness into them.

A Stairs up B Message C Combat D Wights E Ghouls F Trap G Smoke H Skeletons I Zombies J Stairs down K Spinner

Monster XP Magicians 100-1536 Conjurors 100-1536 Orcs 100 Skeletons 110 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Barbarians 200 Mercenaries 220 Wolves 256 Jade Monks 256 Half-Orcs 256 Zombies 512 Swordsmen 512 Sorcerers 768-1536 Wizards 768-1536 Werewolves 1024 Black Widows 1024 Assassins 1024 Samurai 1024 Statues 1024 Ogres 1024 Wights 1024 Bladesmen 1280 Goblin Lords 1280 Master Thieves 1280 Ninjas 1536 Ghouls 2304

 

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of undead monsters here, along with plenty of the usual mainstays. Wights inflict a withered status, crippling our attack and defense power until it is cured with an expensive temple visit. Ghouls hit accurately and hard, doing 20-30 damage per strike, and also inflict a withered status. Some tombs hold upwards of 60 skeletons, which are easily destroyed with a group-targeting spell, but not worth that much XP at this stage.

P-Tux is unfortunately pretty useless. There are traps here, but he can't do anything about them; only my conjurors and their Trap Zap spells help, and the only way to know where a trap is, is by walking into one and remembering the spot. A trap locate spell won't be available until we make the upgrade to sorcerer.

There are also some smoke gas traps, which blind the party and limit vision to a distance of one tile. These can't be Trap Zapped, and I haven't seen a cure except for going outside.

I eventually swap in Sunfall for a bit. The Fire Horn is pretty neat; using it inflicts around 40 damage to everyone in a group. Unfortunately it only works once. The Traveler's Tune is also now twice as effective as it used to be, and this seems to be determined by the location.

Clues:

• Fifteen doors east and thou art there
  On souls they feast in the dark one's lair
• The ancient witch king yet still lives...

 

The stairs down lead to more catacombs.

 

A Stairs up B Message C Combat D Trap E Soul Sucker F Stasis chamber G Spinner H Master Sorcerer I Stairs down

Monster XP Orcs 100 Skeletons 110 Wolves 256 Jade Monks 256 Half-Orcs 256 Zombies 512 Swordsmen 512 Magicians 512-1536 Conjurors 512-1536 Sorcerers 768-1536 Wizards 768-1536 Werewolves 1024 Black Widows 1024 Assassins 1024 Samurai 1024 Statues 1024 Ogres 1024 Wights 1024 Bladesmen 1280 Goblin Lords 1280 Master Thieves 1280 Ninjas 1536 Stone Giants 1792 Dopplegangers 1792 Spinners 1792 Scarlet Monks 1792 Stone Elementals 2048 Jackalweres 2048 Ogre Magi 2048 Blue Dragons 2048 Soul Sucker 3584 Master Sorcerer ?

 

Rows of tombs surround the entrance to this floor. Most contain random encounters, which mostly comprise familiar foes and a few new ones, mostly melee-focused ones who are low risk and medium reward. Not so low-risk are Blue Dragons, whose breath attacks can one-shot the mages in the back if I don't one-shot them first.

One tomb in the south opens up to the southern half of the map, where traps abound at regular intervals, and contrary to the manual, the levitate spell does not protect you. It's easy enough to reckon their placements, though.

The southmost row is quite dangerous. To the east, a series of one-way doors leads to an encounter with a very deadly Soul Sucker enemy, and the only way out is Scribe's Phase Door spell (or a teleport which I don't have yet). To the west, there's a "stasis chamber" that even Phase Door won't get you out of. At least it's labeled.

Another tomb in the initial rows conceals a treacherous, winding labyrinth of traps and darkness, and at the end of it, a priest's secret chamber.

He summons a Storm Giant, who takes out my party one member at a time while we utterly fail to land a scratch. Reload!

The way forward is hidden in one of the southern chambers.

A Stairs up B Message C Combat D Ghouls E Trap F Wraiths G Spinner H Zombies I Teleport J Skeletons K Wights L Spectre

Monster XP Orcs 100 Skeletons 110 Wolves 256 Jade Monks 256 Half-Orcs 256 Zombies 512 Swordsmen 512 Magicians 512-1536 Conjurors 512-1536 Sorcerers 768-1536 Wizards 768-1536 Werewolves 1024 Black Widows 1024 Assassins 1024 Samurai 1024 Statues 1024 Ogres 1024 Wights 1024 Bladesmen 1280 Goblin Lords 1280 Master Thieves 1280 Ninjas 1536 Stone Giants 1792 Dopplegangers 1792 Spinners 1792 Scarlet Monks 1792 Stone Elementals 2048 Jackalweres 2048 Ogre Magi 2048 Blue Dragons 2048 Ghouls 2304 Wraiths 2560 Spectre 3328

 

This floor, where teleportation and phase door don't work, has a lot of openness in the middle, a tedious and claustrophobic maze of doors in the north, and cascading rows of tombs in the south. To keep things interesting (not really!), a few tombs have mega-encounters of undead, up to 99 of them. One very close to the entrance is stuffed with 36 ghouls, which is all but certain to get somebody aged with their draining touch if not killed, but the encounter is worth 13,824XP for each member if everyone survives, and easily repeatable. Another, against 69 wights, pays nearly as much XP as the ghouls. Just have the quickest mage cast Shock Sphere and crank up the speed. Two spots also have wraiths, which inflict disabling (but easily cured) insanity. Regular encounters are just the same as in the level above, but the fixed combats are the best grinding spots yet, by far.

Only one clue is found here: Seek the Mad One's stoney self in Harkyn's domain. 

Viila and Scribe very soon reach level 13, giving them access to their cool final spells in their respective classes; for Viila, a teleportation spell, for Scribe, an instant death spell, and for both, a group-healing spell. This also means I can class-change them as part of their Archmage path; both become Sorcerers, which gives them something important - Locate Trap. And a few levels after that, Second Sight, which supersedes it by detecting just about everything.

In this case it's just a spinner.

At the end of the maze, a teleporter zaps us to a walled-off region in the northeast; where a linear series of corridors of antimagic, darkness, and traps leads to an encounter.

 

The Witch King goes down in one round, but not before draining Kurisu of a level. Our reward for this is his eye, and a teleport back to the stairs.

 

Back in town, Kurisu is restored at the temple for over $10,000, now a pittance, but all of the XP he gained during the past session or two is effectively lost; he now has exactly 200,000XP, where Ahab has almost 250,000. Both will need 400,000 to reach the next level.

Scribe and Viila reach sorcerer level 9 and attain some new spells, including Disrupt Illusion, and Mangar's Mind Blade; the most powerful group-damaging spell in the game.

The Bard's Tale: Sewers finale

The sewers' third and final level finally introduces some new monsters. Combats, more often than not, grant thousands of XPs to everyone, and it's hard to resist that, even though fighting means more trips back to the surface, which are starting to get arduous. We also find two Mythril Plate armors, which go to Ahab and Kurisu. Cash soon ceases to be a problem.

Before long, the new monk Conrad reaches RedSlayer's level, and while RedSlayer hits harder, Conrad has twice as much HP, and is still the second-most damaging melee fighter in the roster. So RedSlayer goes.

Kurisu and Ahab do similar damage rates and attain triple-digit HP. I'm still not sure what the paladin's advantage is, but I keep both. Grub stays benched; perhaps his critical hit ability will someday be more useful than raw damage, but not today.

Houdini remains benched for now. He's not as good as Viila or Magic Mike, but maybe a third conjuror will be useful in the future.

The new party, plus a disposable orc. Viila's tenure is safe. Scribe is looking a bit squishy.

Back to the sewers, this last level has less darkness, but multiple mazes of doors make navigating a pain, and multiple sneakily placed teleporters will screw up your mapping effort until you realize something's wrong and a Locate spell reveals that you aren't where you think you are.

 

With level 5 spells learned by all, my conjurors' strongest damaging spell is Shock Sphere, and I see no reason to have them cast anything else in combat. It usually kills one whole group, so why waste time incapacitating them? The blinding light of Magestar could hypothetically be preferable under certain circumstances, but I don't encounter them here. Scribe's best spells are more utilitarian and therefore more varied; Stone Touch kills a single enemy, Animated Sword summons a powerful melee-focused ally, Anti-Magic makes enemy spellcasters ineffective, and he still has the old standbys Dragon Breath to deal out raw damage and Mithril Might to lower the group AC.

I find more gear, too:

• A fire horn! Only the bard can use it, so I give it to Sunfall, but I haven't seen its effect yet.
• A mithril axe. Kurisu gets this - I assume it is better than his steel polearm, but there's no way to know for sure.
• A samurai figurine. Using it summons a samurai minion, but he doesn't last long, and the figurine goes with it. I find an ogre figurine later, and assume it works the same way.
• A mithril chain mail. This is no better than Garth's scale armor, which is wearable by the same classes (warriors, paladins, hunters, bards).
• A bardsword. Usable only by the bard, purpose unknown.
• Lak's Lyre. Also only usable by the bard, also unclear what it does.
• A mithril sword and shield, for Ahab.
• A mithril dagger, for Viila.
• Mithril scale armor, passed down to Grub.
• A mithril mace, for P-Tux.

 

A Chute up B Message C Combat D Black Widows E Spinners F Trap G Teleport H Stairs up I Spinner

Monster XP Orcs 100 Skeletons 110 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Barbarians 200 Mercenaries 220 Wolves 256 Jade Monks 256 Half-Orcs 256 Magicians 512-1280 Conjurors 512-1280 Zombies 512 Swordsmen 512 Sorcerers 768-1536 Wizards 768-1536 Werewolves 1024 Black Widows 1024 Assassins 1024 Samurai 1024 Statues 1024 Ogres 1024 Wights 1024 Bladesmen 1280 Goblin Lords 1280 Master Thieves 1280 Ninjas 1536 Spinners 1792

• "Spinners," not to be confused with the "spinner," are venomous arachnids that appear in groups of 3-5 in fixed locations and are worth lots of XP. Their bite poisons and hurts more than a Black Widow's, but poison can be managed and they're easier to kill than other melee fighters here.
• The solitary "spinner" on the west side of the map spins you around randomly. It's only moderately annoying; unlike in Wizardry, we've got a lasting compass spell.
• Spellcasters start to be a nuisance. Conjurors and sorcerers can hurt the low-HP spellcasters in the back row. Magicians occasionally wither a fighter with magic aging, which can only be cured at a temple. Wizards summon more monsters. Spellcasters also come in different levels, which is hidden information but higher level ones are worth more XP.
• A big maze of nearly identical rooms dominates the east side of the map. Hidden within is a long flight of stairs upward.
• There are two clues, both cryptic:
• The hand of time writes and cannot erase.
• Seek the Snare from behind the scenes.

 

The stairs lead to a familiar sight...

A look at the city signs shows that we are on Night Archer street, on the west side of the map, but in an unexplored part of the city.

A building here can be approached, but not entered.

This must be Mangar's Tower, indicated on the southwest of the album map, blocked off by a pair of iron gates. Thankfully, we can cross the gates from this side of them and return to the city without going through the sewers all over again, but we can't return.

We save, heal, and level up - everyone is at levels 10-11, and Viila is eligible for some new spells, but they're not very exciting. Instant Ogre summons an ogre, which I guess is okay but most of the time I'd rather just do group damage. Major Levitation is a longer-lasting levitation spell, but the minor one has been fine so far and costs less MP.

We also explore the northwest corner of the map - the golem here hits for around 100 points of damage, by far the worst monster yet, but we win. A temple heals our wounds, and one more challenge awaits in this quadrant.

 

Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Oof. I hope the spellcasters can gain enough HP to tank this eventually. The fighters already do, and destroy the dragon, gaining us the entrance to Harkyn's Castle.

 

No thanks - we've had enough death just getting here.

Speaking of which, the temple charges $9,000-$9,900 per resurrection, and I've only got $20,000, so I just reboot and reload.

Updated map:

A Guild of Adventurers B Credits C Garth's Equipment D Temple E Review Board F Tavern G Iron gate H City gates I Ogre Lord J Stone Giant K Golem L Teleport M Samurai N Scarlet Bard O Temple of the Mad God P Roscoe's Energy Emporium Q Sewers R Mangar's Tower S Grey Dragon T Harkyn's Castle

Monster XP Kobolds 60 Hobbits 70 Gnomes 80 Dwarves 80 Hobgoblins 90 Magicians 100 Conjurors 100 Orcs 100 Thieves 110 Skeletons 110 Nomads 120 Spiders 150 Mad Dogs 180 Barbarians 200 Mercenaries 220 Wolves 256 Samurai 1024 Stone Giant 1792 Ogre Lord 2816 Golem 3072 Grey Dragon 3072