My party have left the monestary, and are now on the road to Arnika. I'm having trouble dealing with vines. They are blinding my group, and also poisoning them. I notice that some effects wear off, but am I right in thinking that poison doesn't wear off - you must drink a cure poison potion, or cast a cure poison spell to get rid of this condition? My party don't have a cure poison spell yet, and so if my cure poison portions run out, will that mean death to any affected party member?

I've found that if I lob flash powder at the vines, they are for a short while blinded, but then they just run off, and by the time I've caught up with them, most have overcome blindness and begin to attack my group again.

I'm looking to learn a tactic to use against these creatures, so that I have the upper hand, and don't waste too many resources fighting them. Thanks for any advice.

Poison actually does wear off on its own, but you probably have too many cure poison potions anyway.

Plant monsters are immune to insanity, fear, nausea, and hypnosis. They are not immune to any other status ailments. Therefore, spells like sleep and paralyze (and freeze flesh) work if you have them.

If you want to use flash powder, the best strategy is to fight them for a bit, then when your party is worn down, throw flash powder at them. This will give you a few rounds in which to recover. Don't try to catch up with them; instead, wait for them to come back to you. You can recover from status ailments and regain stamina this way, and the enemies will use up stamina running away from you and then running back into their attack range; this can cause some enemies to run out of stamina. (This strategy is also good for using fear effects, provided you aren't fighting an enemy immune to them.) If any enemies resist the blindness, you can focus on those enemies specifically without the other enemies attacking when the blindness wears off. (One other thing: If enemies are blind when the game decides the battle is over, those enemies will not initiate combat; you can go right next to a blind enemy and then start combat manually to get some easy double damage hits if that happens.)

Another strategy is to run away towards your destination, perhaps using blind effects (and fear, if other enemy types show up) to get the enemies out of the way; if you can reach Arnika-Trynton Road, the enemies can't follow you to the new zone and the battle will end.

Thanks a lot. I will try these ideas out in the morning. Regarding the sleep spell for instance, at least 3 of my party have this, perhaps 4 I can't remember atm. When I cast sleep, or any other spell for that matter, I'm finding that my hybrid spellcasters (Ranger, Samurai, Ninja, Monk, and also Valkyrie) are pretty lousy at it, and more often than not will mess things up with either the spell fizzling, or even worse backfiring and negatively affecting the group. My Samurai is so bad at spellcasting for instance, that I no longer trust him with the terror spell, as he almost always makes a mess of it, and terrorizes the party instead of the enemy!

Do you have any tips as to how I can help to improve my party's ability to successfully cast spells please? Thanks.

First of all, if your hybrid's current level is 5, your spells can only be 100% reliable at power level 1, so unless you are willing to take a risk, don't try to use the spell at a higher power level yet.

That said, it is the realm skills (Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Mental, Divine) that affect whether a spell succeeds or fizzles. By practicing those realm skills, you can increase them, and your spells will become more reliable.with practice. There are a few technical notes about what counts as practice, but the basic idea is that you need to use the spell and not obviously waste it (Heal Wounds on a character with full HP won't count, for example). Casting more expensive spells gives more practice per cast, and having a spell fizzle or backfire is actually worth more than having the spell cast successfully. (Hint: Not every spell can backfire.)

When you go to cast a spell, you will notice that the power level buttons have rings around them. If the ring is green, the spell will not fizzle or backfire (unless something happens to change the situation, or the environment prevents it). If the ring is red, there is a high chance that the spell will fizzle or backfire.

Run away! :P
I say that jokingly, but I did exactly that yesterday. I had to leave the map, which doesn't happen that often.

Like dtgreene said, you can often skip on the cure potions. I think different strengths plants have different strengths of poison, which can do more damage and last longer. Just watch your health while the poison purges. Now if you haven't seen them yet, I won't tell you about the ones that paralyze instead of poison...

I got level 3 paralyze to work pretty well against them. Makes them sittings ducks and they take double damage. Otherwise, they're affected by certain things like slow, but I know they're immune to certain mind things. I forget which. Just try to debuff them, and AoE damage the big groups.

Thanks for the advice! Just to clarify something about spells - if I increase points in a mastery skill (eg Wizardry), that gives me access (not necessarily proficiency) to higher level spells, but it's realm skill (eg fire) points that help to determine whether any particular spellbook (eg Mage) spell (eg Energy Blast) will work or not.

btw, I have explored about 3/4ers of the Arnika road section, and now headed back to the initial crash site - to rest! I tried doing this in the Arnika road area, but after waking, I discovered that my adversaries were even tougher than before, and so I reloaded my position then headed back to the Monestary...

I think I'll just stick around there for a while, and try to build up my party's level to around 8, then head back to the Arnika road, then just run through it towards one of its exits, and try and build up my levels further in other parts of the game...

PS, dtgreene, why is your rep value negative? I keep clicking the + button next to your posts, but the rep value seems to be going the other way, towards a larger negative number. Do you know what's up with that??!

This is approximately the case, though each of these skills *does* have a minor effect on the things the other skill has a major effect on. This is actually not a good idea, as reaching higher levels will cause higher level enemies to appear, making things more difficult. Especially troublesome is that, once you reach level 6, Pestilent Rats, which can cause disease, will start to appear in the Upper Monastery. Disease is *nasty* if you can't cure it; it does not go away on its own, and can, I believe, cause permanent stat loss if not cured soon enough. A better strategy is to rush to Arnika as quickly as possible; once you get there, you have access to NPCs who sell items and spellbooks, and you can then use the Alchemy skill (of your Ranger or Ninja) to mix potions to get money to buy better spells and equipment. (Once you reach Arnika-Trynton Road, you are very close to Arnika.) The Rep system on this site has been abused to the point where it is no longer meaningful. In my case, I blame sexism and transphobia.

OK thanks! I'll head to Arnika right away!

I just wonder - is it ever worth returning to 'earlier places' in the game? I really like the idea of playing an RPG that rewards you for patient, thorough and careful/detailed exploration. Could you perhaps recommend an alternative title(s) that would suit this requirement?

Also, unfortunately I seem to have donned a cursed item (Puck's Cap) that I am unable to remove. By using a spoiler free answer please (perhaps just "y" or "n"), can this be removed at some stage, or am I really stuck with it forever..

The game sort of has a hub set-up, in which other areas branch off the overworld. You will, in fact, need to return to earlier areas as parts of quests. Also, returning to Arnika may be a good idea to pick up more supplies.

There is one room in the Lower Monastery that you can't enter on your first trip; it might be worth returning there (just make sure you have the means to cure disease). You will need a certain item found in Arnika to reach that room. Also, regarding Arnika, there is a plot critical item in the town that you have no way of obtaining yet. Anyway, I would say that Wizardry 8 *does* reward careful exploration, as the areas have many hidden treasures, many of which are quite nice.

For removing cursed items, there's the Remove Curse spell, and you might find a certain NPC in Arnika selling scrolls that duplicate that spell. Also, Bishops can remove curses without needing to use the spell, provided that the Bishop's level is high enough. (Unlike many older RPGs, you keep the item after removing the curse, which is good because some cursed items are worth equipping in this game.)

Definitely a good idea! Arnika is a total oasis.

As far as I know, disease is the only thing that permanently lowers statistics, but some time has to pass. There might be more immediate dangers, but that one's just harsh on the long term!

And yeah removing a curse is fairly common. On a strange side note, sometimes cursed items are actually good, they just have the side effect of being unremovable.

ooh I just found a woodsman's axe in the cave in the Arnika road area, and it does double damage against plants, and so I might have found a useful weapon against vines! :D

yes its one of the better axes for a while but fyi you are going the wrong way for Arnika

OK back on track! I went south from the cave, and exited the Arnika road section there, and went in to the Arnika Trynton area, then went straight to Arnika.

Hope you know that axes are widely considered the worst weapons.

Now dtgreene once made a valid point about them not being half as bad as their reputation suggests. If you neglect random finds and go for reliable equipment you may not find them all that bad. They have a good start. Especially for Fighters, since they can't use the otherwise best mid game weapon efficiently. You'd need to do a Retro Dungeon, a hidden location with very powerful enemies, to find your reliable late game axe. Axes are really slow and heavy. They get the job done though.

I assume you are talking about two handed axes?

My Valkryie always takes axe and the Plague Axe is what I carry late game... each to their own
http://www.zimlab.com/wizardry/recovered/flamestryke/wizardry8/itemsw8/weaponwiz8/axes-plague.html