The manual lists that each class prefers a certain type of weapon. Is this actually important or is it just flavour text?

While I am still trying to gather up enough gold to equip everyone, I'm not sure if I should go with those recommendations, or just kit everyone up with the most expensive weapons I find.


Thanks in advance!

It's... semi-important. What the manual's mostly getting at is that not every class can wield every weapon. Fighters can use every non-magical weapon and Magic Swords, for instance, while mages are limited to the staff, dagger, sling, flaming oil, or Magic Wand. The general recommendation is to equip everyone with the best ranged weapon they're able to wield:

Magic Wands for the mage, bard and druid
Magic Bow for the tinker, ranger and paladin.

Unfortunately fighters and shepherds can't use magic ranged weaponry, so they'll have to either use a crossbow and sling respectively, or a mystic weapon once you get your hands on them.

Gotcha, thanks!
Is there any particular benefit to choosing a melee weapon over a ranged one?

Not really, except in regards to attack power - if I recall right, Mystic weapons have a much greater attack strength than even Magic Wands, the most powerful ranged weapon in the game. But that comes at the expense of usability - melee weapons only hit one square in each of the four cardinal directions, so you're going to have to close in to melee range first, and if enemies start moving away from you you're going to have to chase them down before you can hit them again, instead of just continuing to whack at them from range.

Basically the advantage in raw attack power melee weapons have over ranged ones is diminished by the fact that you can land more hits with ranged weapons. If the enemy has melee attacks you will be able to land hits before it closes in and if has ranged attacks you won't have to eat damage until you get close enough to hit.

Makes sense. Thanks guys!

I am wondering about weapon stats as well. roaringlion510 mentioned that magic wands and magic bows are the most powerful ranged weapons. Where did you get this information? I can't find it in game anywhere, or in any of the included texts. Is there a wiki or something?

Specifically I'm wondering: Are bows more powerful than slings? And are swords still more powerful than bows?

Yep, there's a listing on the Ultima Wiki [url=http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Weapon_Values#Ultima_IV:_Quest_of_the_Avatar]here[/url]. In general, when it comes to the early Ultima games, a good rule of thumb is that the more expensive and/or later in the weapon list that a weapon comes, the more powerful it is.

best thing to do is keep both melee(for those who are worth giving it to) and ranged on hand in inventory. when an enemy is far away, throw ranged attacks at them, when they close in to you(avatar)switch via "ready" command to use the most powerful melee weapon available to your chosen class. in the case of the others, only Geffrey and Dupre should ever equip melee weapons! Katrina too, if you manage to get her to higher levels. but early on it is your fighter classes, paladin, tinker, fighter, that should(besides your noble self) be in such personal danger if your other party members loose too much hit points you loose an eighth I do not know which virtue it is but it pertains to you entering the abyss(and I think) the main objective in there once you do! justice is a difficult virtue to attain in the first place, once lost it is impossible! same with honor only so many "quests" to be solved. the Halberd was a favorite weapon of mine in Ultima V. in Ultima IV it was abominable! but you can have these characters stand directly behind you in a closed dungeon room and wield to great effect also ready a bow or a sword or something after you finish the job.

Actually, Magic Axe > Magic Bow, so Tinker and Paladin should be using that weapon (even though it's cheaper, it *is* more powerful).

In the NES version, things get interesting with respect to this weapon (called the +1 Axe in this version) for a few reasons:
* A character equipped with a Sling or (any type of) Bow) can also equip a melee weapon, which weill be used instead if the enemy is in melee range.
* A character equipped with a +1 Axe or Wand must equip it as a melee weapon, but can use it at ragner if not equipped with a bow (and the +1 Bow is not as strong as the +1 Axe or Wand)
* In the NES version, melee weapons are much stronger than ranged weapons of similar price; the +1 Sword is stronger than the +1 Axe, for example. This means that, for Paladin and Tinker (who, by the way, can't use the +1 Bow in the NES version), you have to choose between strong melee + bow, or not-so-strong melee but stronger ranged with the +1 Axe.
* (This dilemma doesn't apply to non-Avatar Wand users; neither Mage nor Druid can use strong melee weapons, and Bard can't use the Wand in the NES version.) xu4, the open source re-implementation of Ultima 4's engine, has an XML file with weapon stats. I believe the relevant ones are as follows (Strength is added but capped at 255):
* Magic Bow: 80
* Magic Axe: 96
* Magic Wand: 160
* Mystic Sword: 255 (note that Strength is useless when using this weapon)

The NES version uses different values (and ranged attacks use DEX (well, INT, but the developers mixed up the stat names and DEX is used instead of INT and vice versa) instead of STR). Interestingly enough, because damage and enemy HP are rather consistent in the NES version, there are very few situations on NES where, at maxed stats, Wand > +1 Axe.

In Ultma 5 (PC version, let's not talk about the NES version unless you *really* want to discoss that abomination of a "port"), my preferred strategy was to dual-wield the Magic Axe (strong ranged weapon that's one handed and (unlike bows in that game) doesn't require ammo) and the Morning Star (one-handed weapon with the targeting properties of the Halberd, including the ability to attack through walls). Bows are more powerful that slings. In the Sega Master System (SMS) version, I note that, additionally, slings have a range limit that bows do not.

In the NES version, swords are more powerful than bows (same strength as the +1 Bow, actually), but I don't remember how they compare on PC. In addition, the +1 Sword (replaces the Halberd in this version) is as strong as the Wand IIRC, which makes the +2 Sword (Magic Sword) and +2 Axe (NES-only melee weapon that is found in the mountains and only usable by a Fighter) even stronger; just remember that they don't work at range.