MM7 - Insane power pump near Lasiter's home...

[Mace the Councillor]

OK!

This is for the person who wants to power up their Might & Magic VII party as far as possible at any cost. Be warned, however, because this can seriously send game balance and challenge out the window. Also, you might want to make a separate save before you start doing this, just in case you would like to finish the game normally later on. You can't do this until late in the game, anyhow. Enough talking, this is what you need to do...

Requirements: You need to have grandmaster Protection from Magic (or, you might not need to, but it may take literally 100 times longer if you don't, making it terribly inconvenient otherwise). To clarify, this means that you will need a character with the Body Magic skill at Grandmaster level who also has the Protection from Magic spell. Since the Priest of Light and Priest of Dark are the only professions that can reach Grandmaster level in Body Magic, this cannot be accomplished unless you started the game with a Cleric. Sorry!

What to do: Go to Eofol (The Land of the Giants), to the home of Lasiter the Slayer, the Armsmaster Grandmaster instructor. It is pretty near where you entered Eofol from the tunnels initially, and you don't accually have to pass through a territory of enemies to get there. Once you are near his home, you will see there is a well there. Cast Protection from Magic with a character who has Grandmaster in Body Magic, and drink...lots.
This well yields gold, experience and, above all, skill points. However, the drawback is that occasionally stones, kill or eradicates the drinker. This is where Protection from Magic comes in. The spell, at Grandmaster level, blocks effects that kill or eradicates characters in addition to the effects it blocks at Master level (which includes a number of less extreme status abnormalities, "stoned" among others). Be careful, though, because each time the spell prevents an effect from happening, one charge is subtracted from it, and it has as many charges to begin with as the caster has ranks in Body Magic. Therefore, make sure you renew (by casting again) the spell and save on a regular basis. Setting Protection from Magic as the Quick Spell for the character in question might be a good idea that saves a little time.
Drink away (I suggest holding down the spacebar button)!! I went on for a couple of hours yesterday, and attained 20000 skill points for each character, which I used to improve skills. My gold rose to about 70 million and I was eligible to train to nearly level 130 afterwards (and it was 60 or 61 before I began). I got rank 60 (the highest possible) in pretty much anything and everything that was important. Go as far as you feel like, and as you have patience for. If you do this, it may be a good idea to raise Body Magic for the caster of Protection from Magic early on in order to increase the number of charges the spell has.
You can later level up using the experience you so gained, although that takes a lot of in-game time, and you might not want that.


Here is a summary of the effects of that well that I am aware of...

Positive:
Skill points (10 at a time for the drinker)
Experience (amount unknown, although I suspect it is 10000 at a time for the drinker)
Gold (10000 at a time)
Rejuvenation (removes unnatural aging)

Negative (all for the drinker):
Stoning
Death
Eradication
Reduced Armor Class (temporary, goes away with resting, which you should definitely do after this, as it will almost definitely be 0 after a while).

I hope this helps somebody who likes to be insanely powerful in games. If this trick has already been discussed on these boards, I apologize, but I think someone might be happy to know about this (I didn't find it out the first time I played the game).

[Bandobras Took]

Ah, the Cleric -- the single most vital class for MM7.

[jeff]

Clever, I have used that well in the past but never used the GM magic protection, never thought of it , though I did use Lloyd’s Beacon to beam back to the temple that would cure most of the effects and reloaded when necessary.

[Justice]

Tried it some years ago... Not funn at all it gets boring with that party and not even impressive since you know it is cheating...

But it is good if you want to set reccords in the game as in finishing it as fast as possible

[Nerissa]

It's not really cheating since the tools for it all came with the game, rather it's something that can be abused by those who figure out how.

[Gaidal Cain]

You do realize the very same things can be said about cheat codes, right? It's just a matter of were every individual draws the line.

[Alamar]

You do realize the very same things can be said about cheat codes, right? It's just a matter of were every individual draws the line.

[To me] there's a pretty big distinction between going to the console to perform an action the game doesn't support and a developer not understanding how their feature could be exploited.

One is clearly cheating and one isn't cheating but creates a terrible bore.

Of course in a SP game who REALLY cares about what you do?

[jeff]

Sorry, this is clearly not cheating, most of the wells you drank once and that was it. Whether you agree or not, the developer decided not to put that limitation there. It is just as legitimate to say you were foolish not to drink as much as possible. Perhaps that’s what they intended.

[Bandobras Took]

It can be abused, but I find it quicker and much more convenient to simply win the game at that point.

[jeff]

It can be abused, but I find it quicker and much more convenient to simply win the game at that point.

Well by the time I got there my party was already developed enough to win, so I did not re-use it repeatedly. If you get there very early in the game, then your party probably does not have the abilities to transport back and forth. So continuously reloading would be the only option, and some would consider that cheating on that point I might agree.

[Mace the Councillor]

OK, I am back!

I know this can make the game boring. After all, it is why I recommended people who were going to try this to save before they do so, so that they can back up and finish the game normally.

I do not think it is cheating, though. It is not a cheat code. You are just exploiting an unbalanced feature in the game itself. Using blasters while you have Hour of Power on for a very effective Haste effect can be devastating as well, but you wouldn't consider that cheating, now would you?

That said, whether you like to pump your characters in this fashion is up to you. I just wanted to make players aware of the possibility to do so.