Okay, more stuff from that page. This is good Japanese practice for me. For these I’ll do more of an actual direct translation, including the titles. I was already kind of tired/threadbare yesterday when I was doing the ones before, but it’s earlier in the day for me now and I’m more on the 元気 side.
A miraculous phenomenon at drain time
If, as a result of a level drain attack, the character’s level becomes 0 or less, their status will immediately change to Lost. However, if they still had some HP at the time of the attack, and within the same turn their HP is reduced to 0 by a breath or magic attack, their status will change from Lost to Dead, and their level will become 1. (A ring of poison or death will suffice.) Since the character can no longer be the target of an attack once the turn changes, this only rarely works out.
Determining evasion with very low AC
If there is a difference of 20 or more between your character’s AC and the enemy’s accuracy, you will avoid their attacks 100% of the time, without ever failing the roll (from me: in the Apple II version at least, there’s always a 5% chance of getting hit at minimum). On the main map, an AC of about -14 or less will suffice to avoid all melee attacks (meaning the character will be protected from critical hits and level drain). However, on the supplementary maps there are many enemies with boosted accuracy, so because you can’t lower a character’s AC below -26, you can’t achieve this on those maps.
Also, when determining AC, a bonus is applied in practice based on the character’s level. At level-up time, though, you’ll hardly see any change, whether the character is a ninja or any other class.
Alignment change and alignment-specific weapons
When a character is using a good- or evil-exclusive piece of equipment, if their alignment changes as a result of making the wrong move with a friendly party, the equipment will immediately become cursed. The curse will not lift even if you switch the character’s alignment back to what it was before; instead you have to pay the shop to destroy it, remove it with Loktofeit, etc. If the item is more important to you than the character, you can also use the following technique.
Equipment when changing class
When you change a character’s class, all of their equipment will be removed. This includes cursed equipment, which will return to normal.
When a ninja activates the Dagger of Thieves
When a thief uses the Dagger, all their equipment will be completely removed, but not if the character is a ninja (although the dagger will still break). Instead, any active curses will remain, and their level, experience, and MP will stay the same.
Magic items breaking without use
If you activate a scroll or flask or the like and then cancel on the character select screen, the item will still break, even though the effect will not be applied.
Failed bishop appraisals
If a bishop fails to identify a cursed item, the curse will activate immediately. The effects will stack if the bishop is able to equip multiple weapons or armor at that time.
You can’t “rejuvenate at the inn” (me: I’m not quite sure what they mean, this is a very literal translation…maybe that you can’t rest in the stables? I’ll have to actually play the game )
Characters start at age 14–16, and age in increments of 52 weeks. Messages such as “Happy Birthday!” are not displayed. When you change class, the character will age by 252 weeks. The maximum age is 255, and after that it won’t increase anymore.
The Amulet
If no one in your party is carrying the Amulet of Werdna, Werdna will appear again, and you can fight him and get another Amulet. This is true whether or not anyone in the party has the Trebor’s Honor Guard insignia (>
). Note that if you return to the castle while the party is carrying any number of Amulets, you’ll only get the experience and gold for a single one, and all of them will be removed at once. Also, although in the PC version the Amulet is worth 999,999,999,999 (a trillion minus 1) gold, in the WS version it’s set to 99,999,999 (a hundred million minus 1).
The two-step save on party wipe
When your party wipes, the game saves your characters in two stages, once on the screen with the gravestones and once when you press A to return to the castle. At the time of the former, Lost characters are not yet deleted, whereas in the latter case, characters that are in rock or that have drowned in the moat are actually cleared.
As a result, if you reset on the gravestone screen, a party that was warped into rock by a teleport trap or that drowned in the moat or the like will remain in place and be put into Lost status. There is no way to rescue or retrieve them, so all you can do is go to the Training Grounds, select the party, pick “Resume Adventure” (you’ll be able to see the coordinates of the Lost party at this point), then press A when the gravestone screen appears to delete them.
In other versions of the game, characters that were submerged in the moat can become Dead and arrive at the Temple of Cant. This makes it possible to sell the Amulet at Boltac’s, or restore Lost characters to a Dead state.
In the case of a teleport trap, there’s actually a 3-step save in total. That is to say, when your party is moved into the bedrock at the time the “You have teleported into solid rock” message is displayed, their health status is still as it was before, although they are saved at the new coordinates. It’s possible at that point to reset, resume, and then teleport away. However, you can’t teleport away on the supplementary maps.
Castle save timing
The game saves when you return to the castle screen from the tavern, shop, or inn. Because of this, if you don’t like the results of a level-up, you can immediately reset and try again. An exception to this is that the item list at Boltac’s will update immediately the moment you’ve bought or sold an item. Even then, though, your character’s data is not yet saved. You can take advantage of this opening and reset, making it possible to duplicate items. That said, you can’t use the shop to duplicate unlisted cursed items or the like, and of course you’ll have to fork over gold to get the duplicate item (^^;