The thing is, skill increases are more abundant than attribute increases; you can't raise stats outside of level ups, while you get as many opportunities to raise your skills. While the skills might stall, it's not as if the character has anything else to practice, or any other important skills to spend level up points on, plus fighters get the same high attack bonus per level that the hybrids get.

(Of course, that's assuming you're actually using the Fighter to fight; one could choose to focus on something like artifacts instead, or even do what I saw a speedrunner do and use Fighters for their stamaina regen so you can keep running longer before you get a Necklace of Endurance. Don't forget that fake combat can be used to quickly restore a Fighter's stamina if needed.)

Or, perhaps, a dracon fighter might want to raise VIT and PIE along with STR in order to max out stamina, allowing her* breath to be more effective for longer.

* Stamina-dependent characters should be female, as the most readily-available stamina-regen items are female only (excluding the two sold by a merchant you're not likely to reach until late game, and are extremely expensive even then).
You're welcome, but not everyone here is a guy.

Yes. Death Clouds spcl property was recognized during tests of new spells
where it was added, like some other classic spells, just for fun, respectively because I could;)
I estimate 30+ DCs during the tests, but did not keep track whether from Casters (lvl 20+ to 48) or item used by lvl 17 PC.
So I cant say much whether caster and/or target level have impact on success, would guess they do,
after all its a spell.
(Also, at resistance 255 the effect of caster and/or target lvl(here 15), respectively their difference,
seems to be quite insignificant, therefore the extreme resistance, it provides more reliable test results=

Similar for Alchemist in party, you will ofc be able to cast it earlier than a bishop (assuming no extreme training)
but cant say whether Alchemy skill >100 makes the spell stronger.
Would guess skill value makes a difference, but perhaps not enough to go for alchemist,
at least not with 4 school bis, nin and ran in party, along with mana stones in non casters inventory,
and the cheap tactic to cast DC out of surprise, hidden behind cover and using radar for target feedback,
then run til it wears off and cast it again on the surviving pursuers,
who had no chance to get a single attack or spell off if the terrain offers enough cover :)
(respectively you took care to attack from where these conditions are met)

Not sure whether undead are immune, at least think they should, like also robots
and given that RFS-81 does not need scuba gear also androids
(although I would rather make androids require air, definition of cybernetic organism does not exclude biological components)

Quicksand would only be better vs aeromancer or any other target with higher air resistance if you want to take it out asap.
In my tests the target with low air resistance succumbed to DC about 2 to 3 times faster than others,
but quicksand forces 1 saving throw for each target, while DC forces [number ot targets] x [duration] - [kills],
that should outperforms Quicksand if the targets earth resistance is not much lower,
assuming the party can survive the additional turns


"Also fun is having a Valkyrie with Resurrection. Tired of walking all the way out of Trynton? Well, just jump off the boardwalk (well, fall since there's no jumping in this game, but you get the idea), accept the death of most of your party, and then just have the Valkyrie revive everyone. (I wouldn't advise this on Iron Man mode, however, as there could be monsters waiting to eat you after you land.) "

I have seen valks die and not come back on landing (while Hadrian the 360+ HP Dwarven fighter with zero iron skin survived it)
so dont do it in IM game even if XRay shows no enemies



Based on my inexplicable knowledge, all the games side effects are spell like,
the resistance is realm related and Iron skin has no effect on avaoiding them
(with, as mentioned, the exception of Death Cloud, and unconsciousness which is afaik indeed vit based)
Also Iron Skin reduces dmg by percent, not a flat [-xHP] modifier,
so it wont even reduce the 1 dmg (required to get associated status effects to work) to 0.

" Likewise, Strength/Senses is actually a good combination for rangers. They don't care about power strike but the Dex master skill isn't likely to come up for them much either, and the damage boost from high strength doesn't come with a cost of increased stamina consumption (as Dex's extra attacks will). Plus, high Strength helps with another big problem: that ammo soon starts to become extremely HEAVY, and the high-Dex ranger will actually need to carry more of it to do their job."

Advantages of dex over str for rangers have been mentioned.
Regarding stamina loss from carried weight and used weapon&projectile,
the armor with highest AC is not always the best, players should also consider weight,
i.e. go for chamail instead of chainmail, robes of rejuvenation, flak jacket mesh leggins robes of enchant,
or at max gown of divinemail since each rises vit by +15
Regarding ammo weight, 200 arrows should be sufficient for battles in the vanilla game,
that amount can easily be carried in personal inventory.
Have more in party inventory where they weigh less than in personal, and get used to restock a characters projectiles on regular base.

Ofc high rate of fire eats stamina, but certainly less than the use of gadgets and instruments,
but even without any in party you are literally forced to have Rest All in longer battles to avoid combat penalties,
else one PC will end up constantly trying to replenish stamina of the physically active PCs

Here is what I do know:
* To cast a level 7 spell at PL7 with no chance of fizzle or backfire, you have to be caster level 24. (I'm pretty sure about this, as it fits the pattern I've observed elsewhere.) For a ninja or ranger, this would mean reaching level 28.
* 100 skill in both the spellbook skill (Alchemy in this case) and realm skill (Air in this case) is not enough to reliably cast a level 7 spell at PL7; there will always be some risk of fizzle or backfire (and a Death Cloud backfire can instantly kill party members, so that is a real danger here). To eliminate the chance of failure, you need to boost one of the skills above 100 somehow.
* I believe this issue also applies to Music and Engineering; since there's no way to raise Engineering above 100, the NegatAir is never without some risk. Music can be raised above 100, but only if you have a Puck's Cap, which is a random drop and has the downside of lowering Piety (which affects Stamina) when equipped.
* Your spellbook skill affects the amount of SP you get, so an Alchemist with the primary skill bonus will get more SP than a Ranger or Ninja (assuming no class changing); for Bishops, the highest skill is most important, but all of them contribute some, I believe. (I think I read about the formula being something like highest + 2nd / 2 + 3rd / 4 + 4th / 8, but capped at 125 so Bishops don't get a better value here than pure casters (not that they need it).)

Whether it's worth using an Alchemist depends on whether you think PL7 Earthquake/Tsunami/Death Cloud at level 24+ is worth it, or whether you can just settle for PL6 versions of those spells. (Don't forget that PL7 also costs more SP than PL6, and you still need to actually raise those skills through practice.)

When fighting lower level enemies, particularly those with high HP (low level Rapax comes to mind), PL1 Quicksand is a very good way to save time. Assuming you're faster than the enemies, enemies that are hit with Quicksand will not get to act, so you don't need to wait for their turns to resolve, while with Death Cloud, the enemies will still get to act on the first round.

Also, Death Cloud, I believe, doesn't stack, so if you are having multiple characters throwing instant death attacks around, you'll need to have other ID spells to throw.

By the way, don't forget that Death Wish exists, and has the advantage that Element Shield won't affect it (but Soul Shield will); just be aware that it doesn't work on undead (but that's what Banish is for, right?).

Actually, X-Ray doesn't help here, as it only shows enemies in the current zone, and when you fall from the tree, you actually change zones (complete with a loading screen) in mid-air.

Actually, spells do not have those sort of characteristics in Wizardry 8. Undead are outright immune to instant death as far as I know; Quicksand will not work on undead, but works rather well on flying enemies (as does Earthquake, for that matter). The situation with RFS-81 not needing scuba gear underwater is different, as an entirely different code path is used here (the water does not behave like an instant death spell).

In other words, when it comes to spell effects, there is no notion of whether the targets need air or are flying; you only see creature types having resistance to certain status ailments. Resistance to a spell is only differentiated by the spell's realm and status effect. Yes, this means there's no difference, from a resistance standpoint, between fire and lightning, or between acid and ice.

You can check whether an enemy is outright immune to the spell or just successfully saving by turning on verbose combat messages; any enemy that is UNAFFECTED is not actually immune to the spell (or the effect of the spell) you just used.

Speaking of androids, did you know that they are *not* immine to insanity?

Have you ever used the Tripleshot Crossbow? It's heavy (so each shot takes a lot of stamina) and it gives you two extra swings per attack (each of which takes stamina); it will wear you out quite quickly, and I believe faster than at least some gadgets and instruments. (Higher level spells take more stamina to stamina cast, so something like Guardian Angel (level 2) only takes a little bit of stamina at the higher levels.)

Yes, nearly 2 decades ago, it did not take long to recognize that bows are superior than crossbows when used by rangers.
The triple shot crossbow must fire lightning bolts (8%kill, .4lbs)
to provide an additional crit chance from items to the rangers class ability
which is roughly equal to the range the different magic bow provide(1% to 5%)
in conjunction with mystic arrows (5%kill .2lbs)
(admittedly firing bows at the same overall rate requires a higher skill,
but the tripleshotXbows number of attacks/turn will suffer from the weight if stamina loss is not compensated by spell)
Last not least each mystic arrow has also a whopping 35% chance to paralyze the victim,
which can affect nearly all Wiz8 creatures and is together with "unconscious" nearly as good as dead.
The even heavier siege arbalest has at least the advantage of a comined crit chance of 13%
(i kept peacemakers out as they are not available in any shop)

That said, in a mod not yet released there is a crossbow with a pretty good weight/rate of fire/damage/kill ratio,
good enough that i would use it ;) The item description ~ says:
A Burleigh& Stronginthearm spcl edition double action triple cantilever crossbow,
it has a fully adjustable stock with lovely etched silver facings.
As a truly automatic weapon there is no need to cock the string, you must only load, aim and pull the trigger.

"Actually, X-Ray doesn't help here, as it only shows enemies in the current zone, and when you fall from the tree, you actually change zones (complete with a loading screen) in mid-air."
Yes, i thought of the rope shortcut in Trynton where you can also jump down an no teleporter catches the party.
However the game actually "knows" momentum, although not as irl its enough to not hit the teleporter trigger
when you run&jump in specific direction, i.e. its possible to crush on the borders defined for the locations 3D model.

Reminds me of how, if you glitch through the door at the Monastery's exit and wander too far, you will fall through the terrain and the game will decide that you get crushed. (Is there any place in the game where you can fall forever and not get crushed?)

It also reminds me of one time when I was in the mine tunnels, near the mine cart, and somehow a little piece of wood crushed my entire party.

This is assuming that you are interested in winning battles quickly and willing to use up the more expensive ammo; sometimes you would rather not do that. Also, critical hits don't work well on higher level enemies, making such strategies not particularly favorable when fighting a lot of higher level low HP enemies.

One advantage of the tripleshot crossbow is that you get more attacks than with other weapons, which in turn allows you to get more opportunities to increase your skill. The extra attacks also allow you to get rid of some of that weaker ammo so that it isn't weighing you down, yet doesn't let it go to waste (and common ammo sells for almost nothing).

Of course, one other question is whether the Doubleshot Sling or Wrist Rocket (I think that's what those items are called) is the better choice for sling users.

Incidentally, your mention of an automatic weapon reminds me of what is possibly my favorite bow in any RPG; the Gatling Bow. Of course, it happens to be in a game where other ranged weapons are quite terrible (particularly in comparison to spells), and this bow only shines because there's a way to get infinite (weak) ammo, and you can shoot 30 arrows per round with it.

Speaking of mods, I have thought of what I would put in a mod if I made one, and most of the changes would involve increasing the availability of certain items and giving SP regen to certain faerie only equipment; the only change that would likely make the game harder at all would be removing the SP regen from the Infinity Helm (it strikes me as quite silly that fighters and fighter hybrids can get better SP regen than pure casters).

Actually, if IEEE floating point is used, it is possible to set values to infinity. There's no guarantee that the game won't behave badly when this happens (like possibly crashing with some sort of floating point exception), but the hardware can still handle such cases.

Also, if falling velocity is capped, there is a certain point where you won't be able to fall any further because the floats are too far apart. See this nice video (of Super Mario 64) for some good education on the behavior of floats:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hdFG2GcNuA