Ultima IV: Blatant powergaming

 

It seems I'm settling into a pattern - spend cash, buy stuff, farm reagents, visit a dungeon, check in with Lord British, repeat. This pattern makes perfect sense for this session; I'm full on cash, low on some supplies I want to use, and I know where I want to use them.

To my surprise, I'm actually running quite low on peering gems - I thought for sure that the initial 80 or so I bought last time I went to Vesper would last the entire game. These can only be bought at Vesper - I Gate to Minoc and walk there, buy all the gems I can carry, and all the torches and keys too for good measure. I still have $8,439 after this.

Next I Gate to Skara Brae, buy thousands of rations, and all the reagents I can craft into spells, from both the seller here and the seller at Paws. I don't skimp on the exotic spells this time; I can always farm more mandrake and nightshade, and I can do it rather efficiently. This leaves me with $4,115, but gets me a good supply of powerful magic - more Gates, lots of Kills, Negate, and Tremor. That exhausts my supply of mandrake and nightshade.

Moonglow comes next, and I weave its cheap spider silk into some staples - Blink, Heal, Xit, Yup. I max out on all, and still have $3,414.

What I really want, though, is resurrects, and I need more mandrake for that. So I farm 99 of it, and 99 nightshade too. And craft them and other exotic spells.

I repeat this loop. More mandrake. More ash and ginseng. More crafting. More ash and moss. More garlic and pearls. More silk. By now the money is starting to run low, but Mandrake is free. So, more mandrake. More crafting.

 

Once I can't craft any more because I'm out of mundane ingredients, I refill on both mandrake and nightshade and Gate to Skara Brae and spend almost my last penny. And craft some more.

Waste of a perfectly good Saturday morning? Perhaps. But I rationalize that all this magic could come in handy, and if it doesn't, then I never have to do all this again.

 

Now then, I have some unfinished business in Hylothe - first I refill on gold in the Balron's basement, and then I farm the NDE orbs, using my Resurrect stockpile so that I can revive their victims as I collect them. Within about a half hour, everyone's stats are completely maxed at 50/50/50.

The most immediately obvious benefit from this is that my spellcasters have more MP than ever. Ahab, the mage, gets 99, Jaana the druid 75, 50 for Iolo Dupre and Shamino, 25 for Julia, and not a drop of mana for Katrina. They also rarely miss in combat, and I assume they do more damage too but this is difficult to confirm.

 

There's one more part of this pattern - the checkin and free healing.

Sweet - finally at level 8!

Geoffrey awaits in Jhelom's inn. After weeks of play, my party is complete at last.

While I'm here and full of cash, I visit the armory.

Magic plate runs $7,000, and I can only carry $9,999. Dupre the paladin is the only character allowed to wear it - even Geoffrey the fighter cannot - the best he can do is Dupre's old magic chain. So I spend another $2,000 on standard plate mail, which can be worn by Dupre, Julia, or Geoffrey. Julia, who cannot wear magic armor of any kind, gets it, and Geoffrey gets Dupre's magic chain hand-me-down, plus a crossbow sold at the weapons shop across the street. That leaves me with $399 - exactly enough to buy 57 black pearls at Paws, which I craft along with some leftover mandrake into 57 iceballs.

One last thing I gotta do.