Tips, Exploits and Cheats

Getting more bang for your buck in a combat round:

• The paladin, ashikari, bard and ranger don't end their turn when they cast their enhancement spells. Since it doesn't waste any time at all, make sure to have Omnipotent Glory on your paladin, or Way of the Tyger on your Ashikari. Other spells (typically those that affect other characters or enemies) still use up the turn normally.
• The Ashikari also have a cool feature: If they finish off an opponent with their melee weapon, but have not used up their swings, they will take their remaining swings on another opponent (assuming there is one in melee range). So try to maneuver them next to more than one enemy at once. (This ability makes them perfect for mopping up almost-dead opponents; send your fighter or paladin ahead to engage healthy enemies, to avoid wasting their damage potential.)
• Magic: There is no spell that gets you as much bang for your buck as Aynstyne's Accelerated Action (I and II). Letting your toughest warriors act twice per round will net you far more damage overall than any direct damage spell. (Of course, if you can afford the spell points for Mass Domination, your party can just sit back and enjoy the show.)

Piecemeal armor: Avoid armor that takes up multiple body spots, in favor of single-location items, to take advantage of more magical enhancements. You would think that a sleeve mail coat (defense 25) is better than mail sleeves (5), a mail shirt (10) and mail leggings (5) (total 20). But a sleeve mail coat++ (defense 45) can't compare to combination of mail sleeves++ (25), a mail shirt++ (30) and mail leggings++ (25) (total 80). (Down sides: You may not find all of those ++ items, and your inventory may get crowded with piecemeal armor. Up sides: There are other improvements available to piecemeal armor; most characters can wear gauntlets instead of mail sleeves, and a thief can wear the Cloak of Thieves instead of a mail shirt.)

Save/reload exploits: You do this in every game, right? Save the game before training, to avoid getting jilted on skill points or hits, or to make sure you get that new spell list. Boxes and chests yield random loot, some of it very good in the tougher dungeons, so save the game and try opening them several times.

Deadly Strike is a battle-winner. It's not just that your thief can drop an enemy in one hit; it's that their turn then resumes as if they had made no attacks at all! As long as you have movement remaining, you can walk from one enemy to another, and swat them like flies. Once you use up your movement, you can still make a bow attack. If you can get the thief's movement high enough (with a Ring of Speed, a Thieves Ring, a Belt of Speed, a Cloak of Thieves, and/or a Swift Killer), they can mop up an entire battlefield before anyone else bats an eyelid. (Note that some monsters (like giants) are less susceptible to Deadly Strike, so your other characters won't be useless.) I hit "P" after a Deadly Strike to avoid taking unfair advantage of this glitch.

Items that can be used (by pressing "i") do not have to be equipped. This even goes for weapons! You could give that awesome Staff of Minds (which can only be equipped by a Mentalist) to your Fighter (or whomever), who can use its special power to cast Mass Domination, without ever putting down their Grey Sword. Sneaky!

If you start a new game in a particular save slot, but quit during character creation, the party that was in that save slot beforehand will be introduced into the new game, the next time you load that slot.

The Power Ring and the Ring of Power give a character ten extra bow shots. This is almost certainly an oversight, as it allows a decent low-level archer to effortlessly rip through mid-level opponents. These rings aren't rare: They can be bought at a few shops.

You can run right past all of the monsters in a dungeon. Hit "R" to run away from every fight, and go straight for the nice loot, the quest item, or the boss battle. (The monsters will still be there when you pass that way next.)

There is a glitch in how the game handles character swapping, that you can use to duplicate items and money. Exactly how to do this is explained in an Open Office document sent to me by volti-115.

First off, there's the character editor. Sure, editors can be used to make games absurdly easy, but they can also be used to make slight adjustments, to change things about the characters that you aren't quite happy with. You can save inventory space by ditching armor and editing characters' defense to reflect the armor they had. Or adjust a hireling to have the skill levels that you would have given them, had you created them. Or pretend that you have enough skill points when training to check every slot.

Saved games are broken up into several files, which you can use to your advantage simply by moving them around. Party.dat holds your party statistics and equipment. So try this: Go into a dungeon. Save the game in slot 1. Drop a really nice piece of equipment. Save the game in slot 2. Copy the party.dat file from the SAVE1 subdirectory to the SAVE2 subdirectory. Now load the game from the second slot. Your party (with the nice item) can now pick up that same item from the dungeon floor. Now you have two of them! Try this with both, and you'll have four! I advise saving also to the third or fourth slot beforehand as a backup, just in case you screw something up.

If you're feeling really munchkinish, you could win the game, save, start a new game in a different slot, then copy your game-winning party into the new game. (Now you'll have a use for that stupid Champion Sword! Seriously, what were you supposed to do with it after winning the game?) The map.rsc file records which parts of the dungeon maps are exposed and which are still black, so if you copy that over as well, you'll be able to see where you're going. (Theoretically, that is. I haven't tried it yet this way.)

The file stores.dat holds the current store inventories. So if you really wish some store had a larger supply of rings of speed, or elven longbows, you could copy the stores.dat file from a new game in a different slot, and buy the "restocked" items.

The file T1.rsc holds the current state of the dungeons. You could move either that or party.dat to do things like repeat a dungeon crawl, or multi-loot a box or chest.

Many aspects of the save files have not made it into my character editor, but you can play with them yourself. Just make sure to save a backup in case you break the save files.

Savegame.dat stores the party's current X and Y coordinates on the map at offsets 58 and 60, respectively. Fiddle with those to move your party around.

Item records (found in your characters' inventories and in item.dat) are 78 bytes long. Bytes are signed (except perhaps for use results).

Item Offsets and Values
0-1	Index	2-7	Cost (float)	8	# of uses	9	Name length
10-25	Name (unidentified)	26	Name length	27-42	Name (identified)	43	"Use Item" result
44	"Use Item" 2nd result	45	Movement	46	Extra shots	47	Defense
48	Spell Points	49	Pick Locks	50	Disarm Traps	51	Deadly Strike
52	Trading	53	Read Runes	54	Unarmed Combat	55	Handheld Arms
56	Bows	57	Item Identification	58	Hits	59	Extra swings
60	Maximum damage	61	Minimum damage	62	Difficulty to use1	63	Race restriction2
64	Body slot3	65	Class restriction4	66	Mythic Lore	67	Woods Lore
68	Mountaineering	69	Detect Traps	70	Perception	71	Cursed (1=cursed)
72	Equipable (1=yes)	73	Fire resistance	74	Cold resistance	75	Water resistance
76	Mind resistance5	77	Shock resistance5

1. Difficulty to use: Mage: 2 or less. Ashikari, Bard, Thief: 6 or less. Ranger, Rogue: 8 or less. Fighter, Paladin, Cleric: 10 or less.
2. Race restriction: 0=none, 1=Human, 2=Elf, 3=Half Elf, 4=Dwarf, 5=Hobbit. (Half-elves can also use items meant for Humans and Elves.)
3. Body slot: 1=1-hand weapon, 2=2-hand weapon, 3=bow, 4=shield, 5=head, 6=boots, 7=arms, 8=belt, 9=torso, 10=legs, 11=torso and legs, 12=torso and arms, 13=torso, arms and legs, 14=coif.
4. Class restriction: 0=none, 1=Fighter, 2=Rogue, 3=Thief, 4=Ranger, 5=Bard, 6=Cleric, 7=Elementalist, 8=Sorcerer, 9=Mentalist, 10=Conjuror, 11=Paladin, 12=Ashikari.
5. I refer to "Mind Resistance" and "Shock Resistance" based on the few items that invoke them specifically. They might be better termed "Mind/Body Resistance" and "Air Resistance".

Party.dat contains up to six character records, each 1886 bytes long. Bytes and integers are signed. Note that character statistics herein include bonuses granted by equipment and ability scores.

Character Offsets and Values
0	Name length	1-15	Name	16	Race length	17-32	Race
33	Class length	34-47	Class	48-49	Active Status1	50-51	Level
52-71	???	72-73	Weapon swings	74-75	Bow shots	76-79	???
80-81	Movement	82	Inventory size	83	???	84-89	Experience (float)
90-95	Gold (float)	96-97	???	98-99	Pick Locks	100-101	Disarm Traps
102-103	Deadly Strike	104-105	Trading	106-107	Read Runes	108-109	Unarmed Combat
110-111	Handheld Weapons	112-113	Bows	114-115	Identify Item	116-117	Defense
118-119	Hits max	120-121	Hits left	122-123	Spell Points max	124-125	Spell Points left
126	Strength	127	Agility	128	Constitution	129	Intelligence
130	Wisdom	131	Presence	132	Memory	133	Reason
134-153	???	154-169	Stat Bonuses2	170-185	Final Bonuses3	186-221	???
222-1781	Inventory	1782-1801	Equipped items4	1802-1821	Identified items5	1822-1823	Fire Resistance
1824-1825	Cold Resistance	1826-1827	Water Resistance	1828-1829	Mind Resistance	1830-1831	Shock Resistance
1832-1833	Detect Traps	1834-1835	Perception	1836-1837	Mythic Lore	1838-1839	Spell List
1840-1841	Woods Lore	1842-1843	Mountaineering	1844	Portrait	1845-1857	???
1858-1871	Spell lists known	1872-1885	???

1. Active Status: Value 21 indicates that this character slot is not being used.
2. Stat Bonuses: The bonus granted by each ability score to relevant skills, in the same order (from Strength to Reason) as above.
3. Final Bonuses: Stat bonus plus racial bonus, again in the same order.
4. Equipped items: For each item in inventory, in order, 0 means not equipped, 1 means equipped.
5. Identified items: For each item in inventory, in order, 0 means unidentified, 1 means identified.

Lobosolitario offers the following information (which I have not checked, but I trust him) regarding the contents of the stores.dat file. "The first part of the file is split up into entries 2541 bytes long, each covering one store in the game. These entries contain the following information:"

Store Contents Offsets and Values
0	Store name length	1-40	Store name	41	Item 1 name length	42-83	Item 1 name 1
84-2090	Item 2-50 names (same format as item 1)			2091-2096	Item 1 price	2097-2390	Item 2-50 prices
2391-2392	Item 1 ID2	2393-2490	Item 2-50 IDs	2491	Item 1 quantity in stock	2492-2540	Item 2-50 quantities

1. The item name does not need to match the item's "real name" in the item ID file.
2. This is the item's index in the item.dat file.

Lobosolitario suggests: "It would be possible to set up a 'Sneaky Pete's Bargain Magical Weapons Shop' where the item name states 'Broadsword ++' and the price is slightly higher than a normal broadsword, but the item ID is that of a normal broadsword. It would also be possible to set up a scenario where trading between towns was possible by setting different prices in different locations."

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