NPCs

This will not be a page describing the NPCs in the Wizardry games. This page serves to give a brief overview of what NPCs are for the Wizardry games, what they can do and what you can do to them, and any fun or extremely profitable and game-breaking glitches that involve them.

Description of NPC-dom
In all eight installments of the series, NPCs (non-player characters) cross the heroes' path, or we cross theirs. In the early games, interaction with these characters is rather limited. In later parts, some of them join the party.

Wizardry V - Heart of the Maelstrom

 * 1) The Mad Stomper
 * 2) Mafretti's Ghost
 * 3) Davy's Ghost
 * 4) Andy's Ghost
 * 5) Robby's Ghost
 * 6) Ironnose the Dwarf
 * 7) Pete the Pick
 * 8) The Snatch
 * 9) The Taistik Man
 * 10) John Fingers
 * 11) Busted Brian
 * 12) John Fingers
 * 13) Le Dombo

NPC Glitches
Here's the fun stuff.

1. Buy my Leather Gloves for 120,000 gold?

Requirements: An NPC who sells at least 1 item, enough gold to buy the entire stock of the NPC, and a thief with ONE free inventory spot.

How it works: Now, let me give a brief disclaimer. I've performed this glitch twice, once when I first discovered it, and again on purpose. It doesn't always trigger, so make a quick save (Save the party and return to town) before you engage the NPC. I discovered the glitch with The Mad Stomper, and got it to work on Mafretti's Ghost. I will tell you exactly how to make the glitch happen, whether it triggers is hit-or-miss.

First, encouter the NPC and charm him/her. Then Pool Gold to a character (this is important) and buy every item the NPC is selling. If one character can't buy them all, Pool Gold to another and buy the remainder of the NPC's stock. Then, use the Steal commad and have your theif (with ONE free inventory slot) steal and item--your thief MUST steal an item WITHOUT stealing gold. Select the Sell command and try to sell that item back to the NPC.

There are a few things that will happen at this point, either the NPC will want to buy it for 0 gold (your thief had more than one free inventory slot) or they will want to buy it for somewhere around half its value (the glitch didn't trigger). If the glitch has been triggered, the price the NPC will offer for every unequipped item will look like this: 3=>15 or 12<-5 (the two I've seen, but generally it will be a combination of symbols and numbers). This indicates a selling price of more than 5 digits, anywhere from 35,000 to 120,000 gold!

Why it works: This is all speculation, but I think when you buy an item from an NPC it sets a flag for pricing, usually reading the item's value that you just bought and determining the NPC to buy items from your characters at half value. If you steal an item, it reads "item" as text and tries to translate both the item and the word "item" into a price. I think that if the item you steal is more at least 5 characters, e.g. ?sheild or ?equipment, it causes an overflow, and the game will insert letters into the value and try to determine a price. This translates into 5 or 6 digit prices! When I performed the glitch on Manfretti's Ghost it took about 220,000 gold to buy out his inventory, and I sold every extra item I was carrying back to him--netting a whopping 1.3 MILLION gold! Of course, this meant I could now outfit my party with Armors of Defense and Gloves of Myrdall, and buy enough Ankhs to manipulate one of my Lv13 clerics into Lord!

Kcrescenzi (talk) 19:06, December 3, 2012 (UTC)