| Sometimes four groups of monsters against one character just doesn’t
seem fair. To compensate for this, a player is able to organize a
party of up to 4 characters to run around together, fight together, and
interact with each other (e.g. cast Heal/Resistance spells on each other,
or trade items).
To create a party, a character must “ask” another character to join them.
This is done by pressing ‘a’ and then selecting or typing in the name
of the character that the user wishes to
add to the party. Once a character becomes a member of the party,
they can interact with all other characters in the party.
One can also Ask a character who is dead to join, but the character
being asked must have a “raise” spell cast on them already. Once
asked, the player will be prompted to accept the raise or not. If
the raise is accepted and successful, the character will join the party
as soon as they are alive.
One of the major advantages to having a group of characters running
around versus a single character is that the player will generally be able
to take the group deeper into the dungeon and have a better chance of all
characters surviving the trip since they can depend on each other.
Characters that are oppositely aligned cannot be in the same party together
(e.g. a Good character can’t join a party that has an Evil character in
it).
Control is based on the currently “selected” character. For example,
if a player has a party of three characters, the player can select which
character they wish to “bring up” or enter commands for by using the mouse to
click the portrait of the player (in the Party Window) or by pressing Alt-<character
number> (e.g. Alt-1). Once the character is selected, the interaction
with the game is the exact same as if the character was running by themselves.
Creating
a Party
The way you create a party is by ‘a’sking other existing characters
to join the current character that you are running. In order for
other characters to join you, they must be in the same room, or in the
city with you, and alive. Once a party of characters is formed, the
program will automatically remember and reload the party
when the party leader is loaded again. A party is only automatically
reloaded if the party leader is run from the Main Menu. Parties are
limited to a maximum of 4 characters. You can remove a party member
by asking them to ‘L’eave, or use the options menu presented when you right-click
on a party member.
For a more detailed list of commands in reference to Parties, see the
Commands section of this Online Information
System.
The Party
Window Section
This section of the lower Window Pane is the control center for the
party, displaying each character’s status, and allowing certain options
to be selected. Of course, in Multiplayer mode you can only
control your own character, and many of the options given below won’t
work there.
Party Order
A player can change the order of the party (and swap character positions)
by Dragging and Dropping the character pictures in the Party Window.
Giving Items & Gold
You can also give an item to another character by Dragging
& Dropping the selected item from the Items Window
to the picture of the receiving character in the Party
Window.
Asking a character to
Leave
You can ask a character to leave you party by right-clicking on the
desired character and selecting the Leave option or by pressing Alt-l.
Setting Character Combat Default
Options
You can change the default combat options for a character by right-clicking
on any portrait in the party, then clicking on options. This allows you to
define the ‘start combat mode’ for each character during combat. Options
are: None, Fight, Defend, and Buffer. For example, if you set Character
#1’s option to buffer #5, then every time that character enters a room with
hostile monsters, they will default to casting/using buffer #5.
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Character
Interaction
Any character that is a member of the party can interact (i.e. cast
spells on, give to, etc.) with any other character that is a member of
the party. In Multiplayer mode, relative location (in the same room,
on the same square, ...) is usually more important than whether or not you’re
in a party with the other character.
If a player wishes to Give items to another character, but doesn’t want
to run around in the dungeon with the other character, simply add the other
character to the party, give the items, then have the character Leave the
party.
Moving
Around
Walking around and casting movement spells (e.g. Teleport, Ethereal Portal) can be done
by any member of the party. If the party leader hits a teleporter
that’s random, all members of the party will probably disappear, and the
leader will be alone, returning to single-character play. Keep in
mind that if the Leader of the party casts Teleport and lands in Rock,
all members of the party will also land in Rock.
Combat
Combat is where the fun starts. Since it takes place in real
time, a player must be quick at the keyboard with switching between characters
to select what option they wish carried out for the current round.
If a character has a default option other than “None” set for combat, that
option will automatically be executed every round unless it has been interrupted
by the player.
In the dungeon, when the player presses Alt-<character number>, the
Dungeon Commands window ‘focus’ is switched to the specified character
and the character’s buffer window is updated to show the current character.
Once a character is ‘switched to’, all commands made will be the selected
character’s commands for combat. Below is an example of a combat situation
with a party of three.
Example
The party walks into a room containing three groups of monsters, which
the player realizes are pretty nasty. Since focus is on the party
leader, the player hits Shift-5 to cast a spell from buffer 5.
They then press ‘n’ to move to the next character (i.e. Character 2) and
press ‘2’ to select monster group 2 then ‘f’ to engage in fighting.
The user then presses ‘n’ once again to select party member 3 and presses
‘3’ to select monster group 3 and then Shift-6 to use an item that is in
(that character’s) buffer 6.
And now, when the round takes place, character one will cast a spell
on monster group 1, character two will attack the 2nd monster group, and
character three will use their item (#6) on monster group 3. After
the round is over, the player can then choose their combat options once
again.
Experience
Experience isn’t distributed any differently for a party than for
a single character. Whoever hits the monster and/or kills the
monster will receive the experience – nobody else. However, the amount
of experience that a character earns for hitting/killing a monster (or
casting a spell, etc.) will be less for larger parties. For best
experience, run solo!
Quests
If one or more members of a group are quested for a specific monster
that was just killed by the quested character (or a companion) or another
character, all members that had that monster for a quest will receive credit
for the kill.
Messages
Certain messages will appear when something out of the ordinary happens
to a character, or when a character is close to death. Some examples
of messages:
“Crashland” has been paralyzed!
“Sork” is now a statue!
Crashland - “Help! My hits are 15/250!”
Thief - “Thanks for the Potion of Fitness, Sork!”
It is very important for a player to keep an eye on all messages that
appear, since they may be of importance.
Treasure
& Traps
All gold found after combat or from a chest is split evenly between
all characters that are still alive. Any magical items found will
be given to one of the party members, selected randomly.
If a character other than the
leader opens a chest and triggers a Teleport trap, they will disappear
from the party. If the Leader opens a chest and triggers a Teleport
trap, they will disappear and the next character in line will become the
Party leader.
Dying
When a member of the party dies, they automatically are unloaded
and treated like any other dead character. If the party leader dies,
the character next in line will become the new leader. If all members
of the party die, the last “selected” character will become the main character.
Summary
All in all, the game functions for parties just as it does in single-character
mode, except that the player has the option of switching between characters
and having the characters interact with each other.
Also, keep in mind that regulating a party of characters takes some
time to learn and can be tricky, so be sure to be patient and careful when
running around with a group of characters. It is recommended that players
new to this feature run the upper levels to get the feel of controlling
multiple characters in combat.
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