So, I did a run in 43 minutes and 42 seconds and without the main hero dying. With improved efficiency and some luck/RNG it might be possible to get under 40 minutes, but it would likely not be an easy task. A 4 minute gain is a 10% improvement at this point, which is difficult from both a RNG/luck perspective, as well as a human performance perspective.
Find the narrated speedrun at this link: 43 minute Bard’s Tale I speedrun
The strategy is fairly similar to the 53 minute run with some improvements. The major improvement being that a level 8 conjurer and a level 1 wizard with high luck/dex and infinite gold can farm the 9 wraiths near the entrance of Catacombs I. They’re like 25k+ xpm, which is a significant improvement from Ogres.
Some possible efficiency improvements might be:
- Add two stone golems to ogres. One round yields 14592 xp, so that 2 samurai and one round of golems/ogres and the grey dragon gets you level 1 to level 7 as a magician. One round of two ogres + stone golems is also enough to get from level 1 to level 6 as conjurer. Adds a lot of risk, saves maybe 1.5 minutes.
- Start wraiths at level 6 (or lower) as a Conjurer, saves 30 seconds or so, but high risk – also, if it takes multiple rounds to kill them, there’s not a lot of time savings, so farming wraiths at low level might be slower than ogres
- Initial Bard creation and use could be skipped, but exceptionally good RNG is required for an actual time saving of 30 seconds or so…
- Ignore all item drops and chests other than eyes and specter snare (saves 1 min or so)
- Enter Mangar at a lower Wizard level – about 1 minute saved for every three levels under 30
The last big area to make speed improvements is to enter Mangar at a lower level. But there are two critical issues: first, flee from everything in Mangar, and second, repel demon lord breath and Mangar/vampire lord instant death spells.
Flee always has a 1/8 chance to succeed in all cases. Almost all encounters in a speedrun in any level in Mangar are going to be fatal if you cannot flee. For example, Mangar level 5 has a fixed encounter with 5 Storm Giants, and they have a 15 to 22 saving throw. A level 16 wizard with no luckshield has a 2+0+3+8+3 = 16 saving throw. This means that you’ll have a slightly worse than 1/4 chance to flee (live) as a level 16 wizard (1/8 random flee chance + (1/8 * 7/8) saving throw flee). But there are also several other fixed encounters (only some are avoidable) like specters and also forced encounters with random critters on the path to the specter snare. As a result, a level 16 wizard has something like a maximum of a 1/64 chance (3 successful flees at 1/4 odds each) to just make it to Mangar.
At level 24, a wizard with no luckshield has a 2+0+3+12+3 = 20 saving throw. This boosts your flee odds up somewhat. A level 24 wizard has a slightly less than 2/3 chance of fleeing. Across 3 encounters that’s a 8/27 chance of making it to Mangar alive.
At level 30, a wizard with no luckshield has a 2+0+3+15+3=23 saving throw. They will always flee from everything.
And then you have to deal with breath and death spells. The demon lords do approximately 40-180 damage with a breath attack. Enough HP can compensate for this damage, and two breaths in the first round of the encounter is somewhat unlikely. But vampire lords also hit hard, and will almost certainly hit you at least once, probably twice or more. As such, it’s risky to rely on being able to tank all the damage.
Also, the vampire lord and Mangar death spells (DEST) are cast relatively often. They can be repelled, but, the general rule is that you have to make a saving throw of 4 or higher to repel the spell, otherwise you instantly die. Vampire lords throw a 13 to 20, Mangar throws a 14 to 21, requiring a saving throw of at least 24 to repel vampire lords and a 25 to repel Mangar. A level 30 wizard has a saving throw of 23, which means that Mangar has a 3/8 chance to one-shot you if he casts. Vampire lords have a 1/8 chance. And Vampire Lords also drain levels (and thus your saving throw) every time they hit you….
In any case, the time difference between level 25 and 30 wizard is just like 2.5 minutes or so. As such, there’s not a lot of time gains to be made by entering in at a low level. And the difficulty of completing the game rises quickly and exponentially with decreasing levels.