Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress/Character creation

Character attributes
There are six attributes. Your character can get different bonuses on the attributes according to class, race and sex.


 * 1) Agility rules the probability of hitting an enemy (or succeeding in stealing); it also determines the best weapon that can be used.
 * 2) Strength determines the amount of damage dealt by a successful attack; it also determines the heaviest armor that can be worn.
 * 3) Stamina increases defense.
 * 4) Charisma allows to obtain discounts in shops.
 * 5) Intelligence allows to obtain discounts in shops; for a Wizard, it also determines the amount of damage dealt by a "Magic Missile" spell.
 * 6) Wisdom determines the probability of successfully casting a spell (Wizards and Clerics only).

The maximum value for all these attributes is 99. You are not supposed to raise all your attributes to 99. If you try to, your greed will be punished (even if Humility is officially introduced in Ultima 4): any attribute that gets past 99 is reset to zero. You should simply raise your attributes until one gets to 96, then stop: all your attributes will be anyway between 75 and 96. These values are lower than in Ultima 1, indeed, but definitely higher than in Ultima 3.

Charisma and Stamina work in a slightly different way than in the previous title. In fact, unlike in Ultima 1, items cannot be sold, therefore Charisma was modified. Also, there is no risk of getting seduced at the pub (i.e., get drunk and robbed), therefore Stamina only affects defense.

Create a character according to your playing style. For example, a male dwarf fighter will have maximum strength but no other features; while a female elf cleric will be quite balanced, with smaller bonuses on 3 different attributes and the ability to cast 6 spells.

Charisma and intelligence
The prices in shops are affected by the value of the sum of Charisma and Intelligence. The algorithm considers their values as hexadecimal, therefore the discount process is not completely straightforward.

From the graph below:
 * At the beginning of the game you can get a 38% discount if C+I equals 10+30 or 20+20 or 30+10.
 * When the sum C+I reaches the value 86, you get a 62% discount in all shops.
 * If the sum C+I reaches the value 160, prices will skyrocket suddenly to about 4 times their base value!



Character creation strategy
* GOLD * is overwhelmingly important in Ultima 2: (1) to buy initial equipment, (2) to keep buying food, (3) to keep restoring Health Points, (4) to keep increasing your attributes. Therefore, it would be best to create a character that optimizes gold usage.


 * If the sum of Charisma and Intelligence is 40 or more, the Stranger gets 38% discount in any shop.
 * The only way to earn gold is to defeat enemies in physical combat. Fighting prowess is ruled by Agility and Strength, with agility being slightly more important.
 * Wisdom is used by Wizard and Cleric only. Since raising attributes involves a random process that costs lots of gold, a Fighter and a Thief would waste about 4500 GC because of their upgraded but unused wisdom.

The most powerful character
This said, the most powerful possible character is a Female elf/dwarf Wizard.

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Let's see how a different character would be inferior:
 * Male gender results in a total bonus lower by 5 points.
 * Human race results in Cha+Int equal to 45, without effect on price discounts; the effect is that Agi+Str is lower by 5.
 * Hobbit race and Cleric class result in Agi+Str lower by 10.
 * Fighter and Thief classes result in a waste of 4500 GC on random upgrades of their unused wisdom.

The best possible starting characters, per class:

The most balanced character
Although the Wizard can be the post powerful character, the Cleric is the most suited to explore dungeons, thanks to the "Surface" and "Passwall" spells.

If you distribute the starting attributes in a very balanced way, you have a better chance that they will be upgraded evenly.

In the example below, the attributes are chosen with these criteria:
 * Agility=21 is the minimum to wield a bow (weapon n.4);
 * Strength=19 is the minimum to wear chain armor (armor n.3);
 * Charisma=20 and Intelligence=20 are the minimum to get a 38% discount in shops;
 * Wisdom=20 is the minimum for a Cleric class;
 * Stamina=15 is the rest of available points.

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Other statistics

 * Health points, or HP, are lost in battle; if the Stranger's health gets down to zero, she dies.
 * Food is depleted as the Stranger walks; transportation can reduce food consumption; if the Stranger remains without food, she will immediately die by starvation.
 * Gold is essential to buy equipment and food, to raise HP and attributes, and to learn important hints.
 * Experience affects the amount and frequency of monsters. Every 1000 experience points earned, the Stranger gains a level and the monsters appear more frequently.

All characters start with 400 HP, 400 food, 400 gold and zero experience. The maximum value for all these attributes is 9999.

Solution for the 9999-rollover bug
Many players complain about the so-called "9999-rollover bug". It simply prevents the character from maximizing the attributes at 99, adding an element of randomness to the game.

If an attribute or statistic reaches its maximum, any further increase will reset it down to zero. E.g. if you have 9950 meals and you buy 100, instead of getting to 9999 or to 10050 meals, you drop down to just 50 meals.

Let us see how to avoid this problem, case by case. It is quite easy, after all.
 * Attributes at 99: when upgrading the Stranger, one random attribute is raised by 4. When one attribute reaches 96 or more, stop upgrading your character. According to the mathematical laws of statistics, the other attributes should be between 75 and 96 anyway (better than in Ultima 3!). Accept the fact that randomness is an intrinsic part of Ultima 2.
 * 99 copies of one item: most items are obtained randomly after fighting a thief. Therefore, when the amount of one useful item reaches about 90, run from thieves instead of fighting them.

For the remaining statistics it is even more easy to avoid the problem:
 * 9999 health points: just stop paying tributes to the king when your Health Points reach near the maximum.
 * 9999 portions of food: just stop buying food when the amount reaches near the maximum.
 * 9999 gold coins: very, very unlikely, because of the high need for gold in this game; in the unlikely case you get there, then you did not need gold anymore in the first place.
 * 9999 experience points: experience level rules the amount of monsters; less enemies near the end of the game is an achievement, instead of a problem.