*Still works on #1 Remake!*
*Works on clone phone games like Sorcerer and Wandroid series*

So you want to breeze through the early games? Here’s how!

Start the game with 3 priests and 3 mages. On creation, max out magic influencing stat. The priests are comparable to fighters (I believe in the 1st game they can wear all the same armor) and having 3 healers will prolong excursions longer than a little more damage per hit. Mages assist by sleeping enemies or using spells or group damaging spells.

Only outfit your priests. Give them the best you can afford.

Play the game, ignoring chests. You are just building up levels and buying gear for your priests. Most enemies you encounter will not touch your back row, your mages will be fine. Look for enemies that give decent EXP, like Creeping Coins. (Wiz 1, lvl 2) Use them to level to your hearts’s content.

If you have the patience, level everyone until they can get all spells. Then swap classes! Mages become priests and vice versa. Level everyone again, this time being mindful of final class choices.

You’ll end up with 6 characters knowing all spells. Now, go spelunking!

The magic stats don't actually affect the power of your spells; all they affect is the chance of learning spells at level up. Furthermore, in Wizardry 1-3, there's one spell of each level that you are guaranteed to learn when you unlock that spell level.

Going to level 13 takes too long.

Some things I'd do differently:
* Take smaller parties so you get more XP. It is more important to get access to higher level spells on soneone than to have more characters with lower level spells; this is especially true if the spell is something like MAKANITO (in Wizardry 1; that spell isn't as useful in later Wizardry releases because of higher level monsters) or MADI.
* Rather than reaching level 13, I'd consider changing when you reach a high enough level to learn the most important spells; this would be level 9 for mages who don't need MALOR/TILTOWAIT (those spells are powerful, but it takes so long to learn them) and level 11 for priests. Class changing at this level is a particularly good idea if you fail to learn the important spells (a level 11 priest who doesn't learn MADI will want to change class unless you have somebody else with the spell already). (Alternatively, if you can manipulate spell learning (via save states or backing up saves), it may be worth doing so in case you fail to learn an important spell.)
* The important stat is actually agility, since that affects initiative. (Note that the SFC version has a bug here.) Starting a mage with high agility is very effective if you learn the right spells. If you can manipulate stat gains, favor agility. Vitality has its uses before class change, but less important after class change, until you reach the point where your stats are maxed anyway.

Worth noting that some Japanese Wzardry-likes do make stats affect spell power; this is the case in both Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls and Elminage Gothic, for example. I think it's better to have just Mage spells and 18 agility than it is to have both sets of spells but poor agility (assuming the party also has someone else with at least MADI).

(In the Apple 2 version, you can use a glitch to give any character 4 casts of MADI without having to change class; this may be all the priest spells you'd need. Some people consider the glitch a cheat, but the authors of the old publication Wizinews did not.)


By the way, none of this applies to Wizardry 4.

I generally cycle through classes when I play Wizardry 1, but starting with 3 priests as your front line is a bit painful, because you have only 1 melee attack per round unless you get magic weapons, and I don't usually find a magic mace until the 7th floor or below.

If I am leveling a character in both mage and priest spells, I usually only go to 11th level for the priest spells, since I don't use KADORTO (I raise dead characters in town) and MALIKTO is just a weak version of TILTOWAIT. I do go all the way to 13th level for mage spells though as TILTOWAIT is really good and MALOR is amazing.

I try to aim for having at least two mages on my back line, or 3 if I can get a ninja on my front line so I don't need a thief.

If you want a ninja or lord you may find you need to do this as your second career since getting the required stats on your third career is impossible unless you get yourself level drained a lot.

I wrote a class change guide for the Remake here:
https://www.gog.com/forum/wizardry_proving_grounds_of_the_mad_overlord/wizardry_1_class_change_guide

The problem is that level 13 takes way too much XP, and I would rather ensure that I get MAKANITO sooner rather than wait for TILTOWAIT.

Of course, I do eventually train someone to 13th level (especially if importing to Wizardry 2), but if I don't learn MAKANITO right away, it makes more sense to change that character's class to get more opportunities to learn it, and train somebody else for eventual TILTOWAIT/MALOR.

Reaching level 9 takes very little XP in comparison to what you need to reach level 13.

Note that some Wizardry games may have different strategies:
* Apparently, in Wizardry 3 leveling is very slow, so reaching even 9th level is painful. That's one reason I haven't been interested in that particular game.
* Wizardry 5 has a different spell list, as do Japanese spin-offs.
* Some of the Japanese spin-offs start getting to rather high levels. In this case, it might make sense to remain as a Samurar or Lord (or Valkyrie/Ranger/Monk/Ninja, if present in the game) rather than try to learn the spells ahead of time. On the other hand, there's the issue of leveling speed; fast leveling is more important than being in ad "advanced" class.
* And, of course, Wizardry 4, 6, 7, and 8 are very different and therefore merit different strategies. (In Wizardry 4, you don't even level up the traditional way, so this discussion is completely irrelevant.)

In Wizardry Gaiden 3, for example, there are some different considerations:
* 3 types of magic to get, not just 2.
* The game takes you into higher levels; I'd expect you to be at least level 20 or so by endgame.
* Classes that don't exist in Wizardry 1-5. In particular, Valkyrie and Bard level up faster than the corresponding full casters, and eventually learn the same spells. (This is also true in Wizardry 6, incidentally; they copied some of the game's balance issues, including Rangers leveling slowly.)

It does take about 9 times as much total XP to get to level 13 as it does to level 9. And the way Wizardry calculates XP rewards, the rewards are more linear rather than exponential so grinding those higher levels does take much longer.

However, ultimately this is a matter of personal taste. MAKANITO is a really great spell for a lot of circumstances, though there are lots of encounters where it does nothing, and lots of other encounters where it will work but is not necessary.

Personally I find it really rewarding to finally get MALOR, and TILTOWAIT is icing on the cake. I usually switch after getting to 13th as a mage, though my "final" party will include at least 2 mages, possibly 3.

One thing you might want to do is "map out" how your characters are going to go in advance. That way you can make sure you have a variety of things at any time including enough front liners and casters.

MAKANITO can definitely save a lot of time in many encounters where it works, plus it lets you get tons of XP from fighting giants (unless you're playing the Soliton version (PSX/SS), where spell resistance applies).

I have a feeling that the time saved by class changing to learn MAKANITO quickly (if you fail to learn it right away) outweighs the time lost by having to train another character from scratch for TILTOWAIT, even if MAKANITO would have been learned at level 10.

On the other hand, you only really need one MAKANITO user, as that spell doesn't stack; if it's already been cast, there's no point in casting it a second time in the same encounter.

The idea is to be able to fully map out entire lower levels in one go. Retreating, resurrecting, healing, retracing your steps where you’ve already mapped - that’s time consuming and in my opinion much more tedious!

So I find and fight only high Exp battles and run from low-reward mobs and create a party where I can focus on the mapping, and the game is quicker, easier and more fulfilling. Which is exactly what is important about maxing those stats at the start.

Unlike HP, magic doesn’t reroll every level-up. You get what you get, and a bad level up hurts magic more than might.

Constitution is next for me because more HP is always nice, but they do reroll every level, so not as crucial.

Everything else is negligible because equips matter so much more than stat bonuses.

Your 18 AGI mage will lose that at class change. When trying to map, it’s more useful to have full heals and condition cures and higher HP to supplement, than a straight mage with ONLY max 9 casts of strongest spells to cast quickly in combat and then is useless and squishy for the rest of the trip.

And correct, none of this applies to Wiz 4, I didn’t think I’d have to specify that when discussing general tactics of “early Wiz series” but here we are.

You still get a separate roll for each spell you don't currently know at every level up, provided you already know at least 1 spell of the level.

Let's suppose you reached level 9 with an elf mage (18 INT) and did not learn MAKANITO. Let's further, to keep the math simpler, pretend that stats do not change at level up.

If you remain a mage and advance to level 11, you have a 54% chance of learning the spell at each level up, or a 46% chance of not learning it. For 2 levels, that.s (.46)^2, or about 21%, that you won't learn the spell.

For the same XP, if you change class you will have 10 INT and will therefore have a 30% chance of learning it per level, or 70% of not learning it. Over 8 level ups (roughly the same XP, assuming the target class levels up at the same rate as a Mage (all other basic classes level faster), that's a (.7)^8, or a bit under 6%, chance that you won't learn the spell.

Alternatively, if you're able and willing to reset until you get a good level up, you could do so to learn the spell. (Note that many versions autosave after the level up, but before you can check which spells are learned; you can't guarantee a specific spell, but this can still be useful to guarantee at least one missing spell is learned at even levels.) In the Digital Eclipse (DE) version, there's also the option of putting all your level up points into INT until you learn the missing spells you care about. (For Priest, PIE instead of INT, of course.) If you are playing the DE version, or are able to reroll level ups, you can force your agility to go back up after class change.

I find that having a mage cast quickly is incredibly helpful, as it means that many of those nasty enemies don't get to act. This isn't just for what I call "problem enemies", it's also good for those enemies that do things like breathing on your entire party for small damage, which is then annoying to heal because all practical healing spells are single target. (Wizardry Gaiden 3 adds a multi-target healing spell; it's 7th level and not that strong, but still good to use before resting at the inn, or if you get that one instrument that casts it for free.) If you're class changing, then VIT (it's vitality, not constitution, in these games) is nice to have before class changing, but once you've class changed, it's lower priority until you reach a decent level.

In the DE version, for most characters post class change, I'd go AGI, then STR (if you care about normal attacks; if you're planning on farming Murphy's Ghosts or Will-o-Wisps you'll want this sooner to boost hit chance), then VIT. Unlike many games (*shakes fist at Morrowind/Oblivion*), waiting until later to boost VIT won't hurt you in the long run, and unless you get level drained or need to be reivied, you won't need VIT at lower levels.

Equipment is not something you'll find early on; if you want to hit that Murphy's Ghost, you'll need that 18 STR.

Also, there's no substitute for AGI when it comes to initiative. (There is for inspecting chests; just use CALFO on every chest you see.)

Equipment can't replace Luck, but high levels can, as it turns out.

(One thing to note: In the Super Famicom version (a version that's commonly recommended), there's a bug that can cause an overflow (or underflow?) with initiative with high AGI characters; hence, AGI is not that useful if you're playing that particular version. It's also in the GBC version, but I believe only Hobbits can get their AGI high enough for it to be a problem there.)