This is a character creation guide for Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstrom
for the SNES. The baseline attributes for each race are provided, as well as the
requirements for all 8 classes. The unique feature of this guide is actually
breaking down how many bonus points each race needs to start as a given class,
along with providing some observations on the occurrence of extremely high bonus
rolls.
Hopefully this guide will provide a convenient resource for character
creating and provide some reassurance that it is POSSIBLE (given enough time) to
start ANY race as ANY class!
The first three columns denote Alignment Restrictions:
"X" means the class CANNOT start with the marked alignment.
"O" means the class MUST start with the marked alignment.
Character creation in dungeon crawlers is exciting and horribly tedious at
the same time. On one hand, the thrill of getting a tremendously high bonus roll
and being able to start with any character you choose can be extremely
satisfying. On the other hand, spending hours rolling characters before you
actually play the game can sap your energy quickly.
This guide should help you decide if it's worth the fuss to keep rerolling
or if you want to start out with a more basic party and change classes later in
the game after your attributes have developed.
NOTE: Table lists minimum bonus points required to start with a certain class.
Use section (III) to determine how to distribute the points correctly.
(IV.B) - Bonus Point Statistics
This morning I thought it would be a "fun" math experiment to record the
odds of achieving certain bonus rolls. I will give this more time later,
but for today I rolled 200 characters and here were the outcomes:
*Now, the important thing to remember is that I haven't rolled enough
times to get values of 18, 19 or anything between 20 and 47. I know from
past experience that 18 and 19 should show up just as frequently as 17 and
20, so I'll try this again when I'm bored and go for 1000 trials to see if
the distribution fills out a little bit better. I seem to recall that I
rolled a 37 back in the old days with my SNES;
I NEVER thought I'd get a whopping 47!
This implies that, perhaps, a 48 could be rolled, in which case even a
HUMAN could start as a NINJA!!! The 47 guarantees that any race could
start as any class, with the previously noted exception. I probably spent
half an hour rolling the values above, so it's certainly doable.
EDIT (V 1.1):
Over the last few months since this guide has been posted I've received
multiple emails from people who have clobbered my 47 bonus point record.
Here are the records:
Name: Bonus:
----- ------
Jacob 59
Tony 60 (numerous times -- a real Wizardry addict)
Matthew 60 (following a 47)
Warren (Drunken Genie) 60
Clearly, it's possible to roll a 60, which would have to be the maximum
limit, since you're restricted to a 10 point addition per category, over
six possible stats. Still...60 points...WOW!
