Cheating in Ultima V
Ultima V has fewer cheats than the later Ultimas. Yet there are some bugs that can be exploited.
General Cheats[edit]
Maxing Stats[edit]
Your karma determines the EXP loss upon resurrection of a dead character. Hit [CTRL]+K to see your karma. The higher your karma the less experience you lose upon resurrection. The character's experience is set to (karma + 1)% of their previous experience (rounded downward), with the exception that no experience loss occurs when karma is 98 or higher. Contrary to some sources, there is no minimum experience loss.
Therefore, for example, you can get your characters to around 220 experience, get your karma to around 85, camp until Lord British appears to set everyone's level to 3 and then die. You will go back to level 2, but you will not lose the stats. Repeat the process until you reach 30-30-30. The results are amazing: your party will be overwhelming in battle.
Note that the experience loss occurs upon *resurrection*, not upon *death*, so when a character dies, you can choose to wait until your karma is at the desired value before resurrecting that character.
Castle Britannia's Bottomless Vault[edit]
At the bottom of Lord British's Castle is a magically locked door, beyond which can be found three chests that are always filled with goodies. You can find basically anything in these chests, including the valuable magic throwing axe. These chests respawn if you go up-and-down stairs, but that also relocks the magical door. The best way to revisit the chests without having to waste a skull key every time is to sleep for 1 hour. There are 2 beds on this level of the Castle, so make use of them when they're not occupied!
This does cause you to lose karma, about 6 points each time you empty the stash. Thus it should only be done after already having finished a shrine quest, so that karma can easily be restored by donating at the shrine in question.
Infinite Skull Keys[edit]
Kristi in Serpent's Hold will sell you 5 skull keys for 100 gold. So long as she never asks you for your name (prompted by saying "visitors" to her), you can keep asking her to sell you more keys. Infinite skull keys can also be acquired from searching the tree in northwest Minoc. Every day 5 more will be deposited by Shenstone and he will never notice the theft.
Invisibility Rings[edit]
Ophidian Dragon said [1] that invisibility rings seem to have the curious effect of reducing a monster's HP to near zero, so you should even be able to kill dragons in one hit! This works because the game needs to make the enemy leave the field if all of your party is invisible. You still cannot kill Lord Blackthorn this way, though.
Invisible rings will randomly vanish when you use them, so you cannot use them in every battle.
Easy EXP and Loot[edit]
There are numerous way to quickly gain EXP.
- In dungeons, if you leave one enemy alive in a room, all the enemies will have respawned when you return. Couple this trick with the invisibility ring trick above, find a room full of dragons, and you should amass XP and treasure quite quickly.
- There is also a dungeon room in Wrong or Covetous which has a monster chained to the wall. You can kill all monsters but that one, which cannot attack you. It is filled with wisps, so wear the crown and use a halberd-weapon to attack it inside the walls where they will be stuck.
- Also, even though this will hurt your karma, attack the guards. Then, either drink a black potion or cast Invisibility on the character you want to receive experience. Have your remaining party escape. Now, when the guards think your whole party has escaped, they will start to leave. Immediately cast An Tym (time stop) or use an An Tym scroll to stop the guards in their tracks. Use your magic axe to kill them all. You get 37 experience for each guard you kill. Their loot is not worth picking up. To fix your karma after this, go to a shrine whose quest has been completed, and meditate, chant, and give 900gp. Your karma will be restored. Alternatively, you can approach one of the guards who demands a tribute to Blackthorn (many towns have one near the entrance). Refuse the tribute, then refuse to come quietly when they arrest you. The guards will attack, and you will not lose karma by fighting them.
- You can prevent losing karma and still get the experience of killing the guards by the method above by going to the top of the castle and talking to the guard on the roof. He will approach you and order you to leave. If you refuse, he will attack you and you will not lose karma in the attack.
Destard – The Cheap Way[edit]
The last cluster of rooms in dungeon Destard is very difficult. However, it is possible to cheat (at least on the PC version) by entering the southeastern room and leaving it to the south. This puts the party into a wall square, which can be left by just walking to the west and thus to the ladder to the Underworld. However, this only works on the way towards the Underworld, on the way back you either have to beat the rooms, or kamikaze to return to Britannia.
Way to the Underworld[edit]
The eighth level of the dungeons before the Underworld in general is very hard. However, an oversight with the spell Des Por means, that just standing in a corridor in that level and casting it automatically transports to the Underworld exit of the dungeon. This is obviously an oversight, since the spell can be disabled by programming. However, this does not cover the way back.
Reusable Glass Sword[edit]
While any character above the character using the glass sword is dead, the glass sword will not shatter, despite the combat message saying otherwise.
Apple II Cheats[edit]
Infinite Reagents[edit]
Similar to the C64 cheat below, on the Apple II, if your reagent count went to -1, it would be set to 99. So if you got all your reagents to 99 and always mix everything in batches of 50, you could easily mix all spells without ever worrying about reagents.
Land Of The Wrong Disk[edit]
When the player is wandering across Britannia or the Underworld, the game loads a few screens worth of the map at a time, but does not check whether the correct disk in the drive. Having the opposing disk (Britannia if in the Underworld & vice-versa) in its place will load the equivalent part of its map instead of the correct one; the other disks fill the area with random tiles they contain, such as manacles on the Dungeon disk or a harpsichord from the Castle disk. Both methods can be used to circumvent water, high mountain peaks, or other obstacles – assuming what they load in its place isn't equally impassable – which can be invaluable when trying to reach special locations or quest items.
C64 Cheats[edit]
More Reagents[edit]
In the C64 version, if you have between 11 and 15 of some reagents, then mix a spell using only those reagents, and mix 16 of the spell. You should get 16 of the spell you mixed and 90+ of the reagents. That happens, due to the counter going into the negative, resulting in a high positive number of reagents.
More Food[edit]
Clever Avatars can use a bug in the C64-port.
In the pub of Empath Abbey there are provisions without a "other people's stuff"-tag. Meaning: you can take them and it is not stealing. Climbing up and and down the ladder exploits another bug, as the food will re-appear. This means without paying or karma-loss you can get lots of food.
Cheap Way to the Underworld[edit]
There is a very easy way to enter the Underworld, thanks to sloppy programming.
After entering the wilderness of Britannia, replace the Britannia-disk with the Underworld-disk. At first nothing will happen. However, wait until you are drawn into a battle. After winning or fleeing, you will find yourself at the same coordinates in the Underworld. Of course this can also mean being stuck in a mountain, so try to figure out, where in the Underworld you will appear.
The same trick can be used to return to the surface, by again swapping the disks and getting drawn into a battle.
POKE-Cheating[edit]
On a real C64 with a cheat module like the Action Replay VI, or on an emulator with a cheat function, the following POKE-codes can be used during the game. Note that if there are two POKEs for the same effect, it means that both have to be entered for the cheat to work.
| POKE | Effect |
|---|---|
| POKE 4480,153 POKE 4481,153 | 9999 food |
| POKE 4482,153 POKE 4483,153 | 9999 gold |
| POKE 4484,153 | 99 lockpicks |
| POKE 4485,153 | 99 peer gems |
| POKE 4486,153 | 99 torches |
| POKE 4499,153 | 99 skull keys |
| POKE 4232,153 POKE 4233,153 | 9999 hit points for 1st character |
| POKE 4248,153 POKE 4249,153 | 9999 hit points for 2nd character |
| POKE 4264,153 POKE 4265,153 | 9999 hit points for 3rd character |
| POKE 4280,153 POKE 4281,153 | 9999 hit points for 4th character |
| POKE 4296,153 POKE 4297,153 | 9999 hit points for 5th character |
| POKE 4312,153 POKE 4313,153 | 9999 hit points for 6th character |