Tips & Tricks

There are a lot of methods of cheating to get ahead in Wizardry (see the  Cheating page), but I believe that those methods diminish from the enjoyment of the game. Part of the fun is the rewarding feeling you get when your characters become powerful because of all the time and hard work you have spent on them.

Here are some tips to playing Wizardry that should let  you succeed:

Creating characters:

When you go to the Training Grounds (at the Edge of Town) and are creating characters, you will be given a random number of points with which to divide up amongst your character's abilities. Do not be satisfied when you are given a small amount of points to play with. If you are given anything less than 10 points, then you should choose not to create that character. Keep trying to create a new character until you are given at least 15 points to use.

Putting Together a Party:

When you are just starting out, and are not sure what kind of characters to put into your party, I recommend that you create 3 Fighters, 1 Thief, 1 Mage, and 1 Priest. At the beginning of your Wizardry experience, the Fighters will be the most effective, because you magic characters will not know very many usefull spells. You need a thief to open up all the treasure chests that you will come across in the maze.

Another school of thought is to put your Priest up in the front three (by removing a Fighter). Priests have pretty good hit points and can carry a Mace. This will open up a space in the rear three for another Mage.

The whole trick to making a great party is getting rid of your Thief. Thieves are a waste of space, because all they do is open up treasure chests for you. This is why you should be sure to make your party Evil. If you have an Evil party you will eventually be given the opportunity to turn one of your characters into a Ninja. Ninjas are great because they can be placed up front with the Fighters and they can also open up treasure chests. This will let you get rid of your worthless Thief and replace him with somebody else.  I recommend adding another Mage at this point, but another Priest wouldn't be a bad idea either. You could compromise and add a Bishop, but you must remember that Bishops do not learn new spells very quickly.

Ordering Your Party:

The way you order your party while in the maze is important. Because you are wandering around in tight corridors, only the first 3 members of your party my physically attack (or be attacked by) monsters. The rear 3 members may only attack through magical means. While starting out, you should definitely put your Fighters up front and your Thief, Mage, and Priest in the back.

Moving up quickly in experience:

Hidden in Level 1, is a monster named Murphy's Ghost. For a group of young adventurers, a battle with Murphy will be very rewarding (once he's dead). Each survivor will receive quite a bit of experience and gold. If you go out of the room and then go back in, Murphy's Ghost will be there again. Kill him once more and get more experience. Murphy's Ghost will always be there and by repeatedly killing him your party members will move up quickly through their earlier levels. A note of caution: Novice characters do not initially perform very well against Murphy, and magic spells tend not to affect the ghost. Kill some Kobolds and Skeletons for a while to move up your first few levels. The best thing about fighting Murphy's Ghost is that he never does more than 2 hit points of damage when he attacks (in fact he ALWAYS does 2 damage when he hits).  How do you find Murphy's Ghost? In Level 1 there is a  central area, where one way leads to darkness, one way leads to the stairs to level 2, one way leads back out of the Maze, and one way leads down a long hallway with lots of doors on one side. Go down that long hallway and kick through the secret door at the end of that hall. Keep walking. You will get teleported to a room with a bunch of doors. If you turn and face the wall with three doors, the room with Murphy's Ghost is the one on the right.

A Tip On Creating Bishops, Samurais, Lords And Ninjas:

Don't do it until the character that you are about to transform has a lot of hit points. Once you change a characters class he will make very minimal hit point gains when he moves up a level (ie. He'll gain 1 hit point per level). This can be a big problem if you switch your Mage to a Bishop too early!