Table of Content
This section discusses and describes topics related to your characters or team.
It does not speak about a class specific character but covers general topics that
can be applied to each class or team. Get your topic:
If you want to bring your own contribution to this FAQ, I'm entirely
open to all your propositions. If you have other questions that needs quick
answers fell free to ask and contact me.
Characters
Age
Description
Like in real life, time is ticking. The world of Jadame is not an exception and
time is also present. And when you speak about time you think about age.
Each character of the game has a certain age. When the time passes your
characters will become older.
For simplification the designers of the game has fixed a default birth date for each
character. This date is the 1 st of January. Each character has one a birth year
that is used to define the age of each of tem.
Causes and Effects
The age of your characters will affect the attributes in good or bad.
When you build up your character, boosting the attributes is always
one of the goals you seek. But in the mean time you can have external
conditions that will modify the attributes as well.
Aging is one of the most difficult modifiers to avoid and is always
applied a positive increase (you cannot become younger!). Each character
has a base age (his normal age) and a current age
that is always equal or higher then the base. This age can be
modified by different sources. These are the different ways to age:
-
When you play your character will age according to the time spend in
the world. This is a natural process and affects your base age
only.
-
Some monsters have a special attack that will increase your age as
well. Most of the time undead monsters have this capacity. This will
affect your current age. There are not such monsters in
MM8.
-
Casting Divine Intervention (Light GM spell) will add 10 years to your
current age each time you cast it. This will affect your current
age only.
When your character ages, each attribute is modified according to a table.
The following table takes as base 100 point in each attribute and the result
in what you will see on the characters attribute screen. For example an
intelligence of 100 at 55 years will
result in a 150 value. Yes you
become smarter when you get old :).
Attribute | 0-49 years | 50-99 years | 99-149 years | +150 years | Might | 100 | 75 | 40 | 19 | Intelligence | 100 | 150 | 100 | 10 | Personality | 100 | 150 | 100 | 10 | Endurance | 100 | 75 | 40 | 10 | Accuracy | 100 | 75 | 40 | 10 | Speed | 100 | 75 | 40 | 10 | Luck | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
On the characters attributes screen the increased values appears in
green and the negative effects in
yellow.
If your current age is higher then your base age you can
revert the process. In MM8 only one way is
possible: drink one black potion of Rejuvenation. Your current
age will be reset to your base age.
The only benefit of aging is for pure spell casting classes that don't relay on physical
attacks to survive. The only classes that can take a serious benefice out of it are the
Necromancer or the Cleric classes.
Links
TELP's Attribute Analysis
Conditions
Description
During your journey trough the world your team members can be affect by a
condition. A condition will always affect the potential of
your character and mostly its attributes. A condition is only applied
to one character at time and does not influence the others.
Conditions effects are cumulative. This means you can be weak, poisoned
and cursed at the same time. In other to restore yourself you must apply a cure to
each of them. Character's condition is cumulative with the aging, but
aging will be applied first.
Causes and Effects
The causes influencing the character's condition are multiple. Lack of
sleep or food can make him/her weak. Several monsters have the special ability
to have a leap attack that influence the condition such as Death, Eradication or
others.
In standard conditions is Good. In this condition each attribute
is expressed at 100%. Some conditions will not affect the attributes but other
parameters:
Condition | Result | Weak | Lower maximum hit point and increase Recovery Time. | Cursed | Characters actions fail 50% of the time. | Asleep | No action | Dead | No action | Paralyzed | No action | Stoned | No action | Unconscious | No action |
Unconsciousness/Death: If a character's hit point fall to
or below zero, the character becomes unconscious or dies. Death results when a
character's hit points are reduced too far below zero.
The following table show the conditions effects on the
Attributes and the percent change of each of those values.
Condition | Might | Intelligence | Personality | Endurance | Accuracy | Speed | Luck | Afraid | 120 | 50 | 50 | 100 | 50 | 120 | 100 | Disease 1 | 60 | 100 | 100 | 60 | 60 | 60 | 100 | Disease 2 | 30 | 60 | 60 | 30 | 30 | 30 | 100 | Disease 3 | 10 | 30 | 30 | 10 | 10 | 10 | 100 | Insane | 200 | 10 | 10 | 150 | 100 | 120 | 100 | Posion 1 | 75 | 100 | 100 | 75 | 75 | 75 | 100 | Posion 2 | 50 | 75 | 75 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 100 | Posion 3 | 25 | 50 | 50 | 25 | 25 | 25 | 100 | Drunk | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 200 | Zombie | 100 | 1 | 1 | 100 | 50 | 50 | 100 |
On the characters attributes screen the increased values appears in
green and the negative effects in
yellow.
To set your condition back to Good you need to visit a
Temple, caste a curative spell (according to the condition) or
drink a curative potion related to the condition. Just resting in
an Inn or in a camp outside will only heal Weak and
Drunk conditons.
Quirks
It is interesting to note that Insane condition is very good
for pure Might classes. Since you don't need spell point, Intelligence
and Personality are not important and the gain on the other attributes is
substantial.
Another quirk is that if all your team members are under a "no action"
condition the game considers it as death. Even if your entire group has full
hit points. This implies, in a solo game, that unconscious condition
results as death even if you have regeneration.
The Drunk and Zombie condition do not
appear in MM8, even though the graphics for them
exist.
Links
TELP's Attribute Analysis
Experience
Description
One of the major points in RPG games in to make progress your characters (team).
In order to let them progress: you need to play with them. Progression trough
the story will bring them experience. In RPG games, experience is expressed
with point ( Experience points or XP). In Might
and Magic each character has a certain amount of experience (see each
character state screen).
The XP awards sources are different according to the different activities in the
game. Three major groups rule the XP awards: Quests, Promotions and
Killing. Each group has its specific way of rewarding and depends of your
team.
In Might and Magic VIII you have a team from 1 to 5
characters. Some rewards are proportional to the number of characters in the team
other not. Let's have a more detailed view...
Experience Point Awards
Quests
When you complete a quest your current team receives experience points. This
amount is fixed for each character and for each quest. Each member of the group
receives the same amount. The health condition of the character makes no difference.
Even postmortem a character gets his reward.
For example if the reward for a quest is 10'000 XP, each member will receive
10'000 XP. If the group has 1, 2 or 5 members the reward is still 10'000 XP for
each member present for the award. If you change team members and go back later,
there is no additional award given to them.
There is one known exception: Stanley's Pirate Treasure Quest awards
only 15'500 XP to the character that talks to the quest-giver. It is important to
use 'you' (the main character), and not a Hired NPC, when asking for the award from
this quest. Also the quest award is given immediately to the character that asks for
the quest, if you have discover the treasure before the quest.
In the whole game you can receive:
Total for the quest in each region
|
1'682'600
|
Alliance (Priest of the Sun)
|
50'000
|
Bounty (Master)
|
1'320'000
|
Possible Total XP:
|
3'052'600
|
The Priest quest gives a better reward then the Necromancer alliance. This gives
an approximation of the experiences points you can receive for your main character.
The class promotion is done in the form of a quest, but with some special
computation. When a class promotion quest is completed, there is always an
XP reward, even if there is no character of that class in your team at the
time. A single, total award is divided among the number of characters in your
team at the completion point. If anyone in the team gets the Promotion as
well, that character gets a bonus.
For example, in a team composed of Necromancer and a Cleric that does the Lich
promotion, only the fresh promoted dead bony corpse (here the Lich) receives a
bonus. The base award for the Promotion is divided equally between the
team-members present ( NOTE - this bonus is not awarded to qualifying
characters if you go back later).
All promotions quest have as reward 25'000 XP as base per character (assuming
you have a 5 character team) and a bonus for the actual Promotions of
10'000 XP. There is one exception - the Knight promotion. In this case,
the Promotion is worth 35'000 XP, and the bonus is 15'000 XP.
There is an extra bonus given to all members of the team of 5'000 XP from
Blazen Stormlance's daughter, Leane Stormlance. The Knight Promotion
Quest can be completed without talking to her first, but the quest says to
talk to her and then Don Quixote.
The Promotion Quests are unbalanced in terms of complexity compared to reward.
The condition of a character has no influence on the reward distribution. Even
if the character is dead they will still be promoted... and they will still be
dead ;).
If your main character completes each quest alone (Dismiss the other characters
before getting the award), the total XP amount to:
7 Promotions * 5 at 25'000
|
875'000
|
1 Knight Promotion * 5 at 35'000
|
175'000
|
One Class Bonus
|
10'000
|
One Leane Stormlance bonus
|
5'000
|
Possible Total XP:
|
1'065'000
|
If your main character is a Knight add another 5'000XP. This
'Dismiss and Grab' technique boosts the final score by about
840'000 above the base.
Killing
This is another fun element of the getting experience. Many parameters
are used to calculate the experience points you get when you accidentally
slain a monster. Each monster has a base point-value ( experience given).
Each member of the team present when the monster is returned (cf. Blade
Runner) gets a portion of the points. The points awarded to each character
is uplifted a percentage based on their Learning skill.
Two important things here are the condition of your character and the
learning skill. A member of the team will only receive XP if he/she can
do actions. A dead, eradicated, sleeping, etc condition will automatically
disable the award. Weakness, Insanity, Cursed etc. conditions on characters
are still active and still share the prize.
In equation this gives you:
XP = P/n*a
Where P is the base point value for the poor dead monster,
n the number of active characters and a the learning skill
factor. A learning bonus of 12% implies an a factor equals to 1.12.
Get a Necromancer/Lich with Master Dark skills as early as possible.
Armageddon can clean an outdoor area very quickly but there are limitations -
3 times a day at Master, 4 times a day at Grand Master. The inner regions -
Dagger Wounds Island, Ravenshore, Shawospire, and
Alvar can be cleaned with three; Garrote Gorge (except for the
Dragon Pets), Murmurwoods, Ironsand Desert, and Ravage
Roaming require four (not completely cleaned but close). The three outdoor
Planes require five or more. If you have two Necromancers with Master Dark,
take the combination to the Planes and use everything you have.
It is difficult to evaluate the number of monster XP available in the game if
you kill every single living entity (including Villagers and friendly guards).
In a 'typical' game the average for your main character, in a team of five
Adventurers, is 1'300'000 XP. The learning skill rises as points are applied.
If your Primary character rises to a Learning skill of level 10 Grand Master, you
can achieve about 2'000'000 XP from the Killing by the end of the game - even if
you have a Five-Member team.
Levelling Calculator
If you really want to know how much XP you need to level up a character to a certain level,
here is a tool you need. You can choose between the level you want to reach giving you the
minimum XP need or for a given amount of XP what is the level you can reach.
For the one interested in the algorithm to compute the XP amount out of a level this is a
code written in JavaScript:
function levelToXP (level)
{
return 500*level*(level - 1);
}
And of course the counterpart, the algorithm to compute level out of the XP amount:
function XPToLevel (xp)
{
return Math.floor(Math.sqrt(0.25 + xp*0.002) + 0.5);
}
Conclusion
Experience is vital for your characters in order to evolve. Once you have enough experience
they can train to gain new abilities. In Might and Magic
the final score is a direct equation based on the Experience, the more you get the higher the
score will be.
Links
- Scoring in Might and Magic VIII
Reputation
Description
Reputation is basically the general estimation in which the public
holds a person. The better a reputation is the better the public is
willing to deal with the person. This can have many influences one
the game.
Reputation is present in the game since Might
and Magic VI. The implementation has been various trough the
games, but always without great success. Only Might
and Magic VII was able to manage something acceptable (if you
played the Light side). If reputation makes it back in Might
and Magic IX it is to hope that it will be well implemented
else scrap it!
In Might and Magic VIII the reputation
is still present but useless. You cannot change it. In fact the
reputation can be seen on the general team state screen but has
not effect and is not activated. It is an old remains of the previous
games.
Effects
Well reputation has difference effects. First the prices of the
services and goods in a town or a village. The better you match the
reputation the town folk likes (it's generally a good reputation),
the better the services and the prices of the goods will be. Second
point, if you are in a good town and you made evil acts the local
authorities will throw you in Jail for a certain period. Finally
reputation can influence to willing of the NPC you encounter. For
example they will be more pleased to give you information or quest
to perform.
Causes
Your reputation will vary with time. Each time you do an action it
will change, for the good or for the worth. We find as modifier killing
a peasant, commoner, guard or other NPC that walks around. Donations
to a temple can grandly influence your reputation and most important
perform a quest will be most of the time very rewarding (for good or
worth).
Generally your actions will result in a better reputation but some
actions will make it worth. Killing innocents will not bring an aura
of glory on you but making a local town happy can be very rewarding.
The Game
Since the game does not make use of this feature you are free to make
donations to a church and then kill the priest to get your money back.
No one will care! So happy peasant killing...
Quirk
When you do donations to a temple you get not a better reputation but if
you give enough the priest will caste a good spell on you. Most of the
time "Hour of Power" (Light) or separate protective spells (self-magic),
this depends of the temple.
Training
Description
One of the major points in RPG games in to make progress your characters.
One of the best way to make them progress is by training them. Training
means to level up and gaining at each level new abilities.
In the Might and Magic games each level
trained means more hit point, magic point and development point (proportional
to the level). The development serving to advance your skills (abilities).
Training is not a requirement to finish the game, but it will grandly simplify
your game. MM8 has shown now many new type of
player that likes to do solo level 1 games.
To be eligible for training you need a certain amount of experience.
The experience is acquired by different means: Quests, Promotions
Killing. For more details see link about experience below,
there is a long explanation about the experience points.
Training Locations
To train your characters you need a training camp. Most regions of
Jadame offer such a facility. Each camp has some constraints, and
the price of training will increase with your level and the quality of the
camp. A camp that can train high level characters will be more expensive.
Here are the camps you can use around Jadame:
Name | Location | Intructor | Max Level | Skill Price | Guild Training Hall | Alvar (house 30 in the city) | Barin | 25 | 500gp | Rites of Passage | Dagger Wound Island (house 17 in the village) | Nishton | 5 | 500gp | Godric's Gauntlet | Garrote Gorge (house 15 in the village) | Godric | 25 | 500gp | Balthazar Academy | Ravage Roaming (house 21 in Balthazar Lair) | Gierd | 200 | 750gp | Gymnasium | Ravenshore (house 21 in the city) | Yarin | 10 | 500gp | Assassin's School | Shadowspire (house 19 in the city) | Lehava | 200 | 750gp |
In each training camp you can learn Body Building and
the Armsmaster. The price is in the last column and informs
you also which camp is cheaper to train. The Merchant skill
and Glamour ( Dark Elf) will affect the price of training
as well of the skill prices.
Important to Know
Might and Magic VIII has for the first time a level
limit fixed at 200 (training camp in Ravage Roaming and
Shadowspire). You cannot train higher even if the game allows
high level (using an editor allows it without problem). Why such a limit we don't
know but it doesn't affect much game play since reaching that level will take a
long time and you will probably have finished the game long before.
Training takes 8 days. When you enter the training camp each level you train will
take you 8 days later at 9:00am. So the best is to enter the training camp
at the last minute of the day before it closes (it closes at 6:00pm).
The total training time is compute by the maximum level up per character times 8,
so the best it always to train the same number of levels for each character in
order to save some time. In MM8 you can easily spend
years in training camps with the effect that your team members will become old,
with all the implication that it brings with.
A good tip is to train 1 level at time, then go fighting until evening and come
back for the next level. Since you have some spare time left over between each
level, use it wisely. Remember that you come out of the camp at 9:00am
and that the camp close at 6:00pm all over Jadame.
Links
- Scoring in Might and Magic VIII
- Soloing in Might and Magic VIII
- Experience
- The Character's Age
- The Character's Conditions
- The City of Alvar
- The Village of Blood Drop in Dagger Wound Island
- The Village of Garrote Gorge
- The Balthazar Lair
- The City of Ravenshore
- The City Twilight in Shadowspire
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