Thanks, that thing about AC not being relevant always is good to know. Truth be told AC did not seem so important in MM1 and MM2 either (in MM2 my Knight had AC 50+ in late game and true, lame monsters like goblin and orcs were missing all the time but monsters on the same level had hits pretty much all the time). I guess offense (AoE spells :-D) is always better than defense in these games.

Agreed that selecting spells is tedious in MM3, shortcuts would be nice. A few steps forward and one step back :-)

Disappointingly, attack magic doesn't scale that well in MM3-5; this becomes especially apparent at high levels. The best way to do damage at high levels is to cast Holy Bonus (perhaps in conjunction with Heroism if you're having trouble hitting) and just attack.

The problem is worst in Darkside of Xeen, due to how high levels get, combined with the fact that, not only does Holy Bonus affect the entire party at once, but there's a spell that casts a bunch of spells (including Holy Bonus and Heroism) on the entire party at once with a fixed cost. (In Clouds, you can't train past level 20, so your level doesn't get high enough for this to become a serious issue.)

Also, in the Xeen games, the problem is worse on Adventurer mode, due to your physical attacks doing 3x damage. For this reason, when playing World of Xeen, I recommend the harder Warrior difficulty. (Note that I recommend Adventurer for Swords of Xeen; that game has some major balancing issues, and Adventurer difficulty should help mitigate them a little.)

By the way, one thing I forgot to mention earlier: Gendered physical immunity, present in MM2, is gone. The only difference between male and female characters in MM3 is that there is one sidequest that requires a male character, but a hireling can let you pass it (and it's theoretically possible to do it with an all female party, but you need to get hit by a certain enemy's status ailment on purpose, which isn't that easy). In the Xeen games, gender doesn't matter at all.

Clouds of Xeen is designed with the level cap of 20 in mind. (It's technically possible to get slightly above that, through means other than training, but not to super-high levels without going to the darkside.) You can only train to level 10 in the starting town, level 15 in one of the other towns, or level 20 in a place that is not immediately accessible. The reason for the low levels is so that a party that has completed Clouds can then go to Darkside and not find everthing to be entirely trivial.

With that said, there are a few things about the scaling in World of Xeen that might be nice to know before starting:
* World of Xeen is actually two games in one. While you start in Clouds (MM4), if you use one of the pyramids scattered about, you will end up on the Darkside, which is MM5.
* The Darkside scales to significantly higher levels, with it being possible to train to level 30 in the *starting* town, and level 50 if you're able to reach the second town (not as easy as it sounds). Also, there are some huge XP rewards early on, which could easily break MM4 if you go there too early.
* Therefore, I highly recommend that you avoid using any of the pyramids until you have defeated Lord Xeen and seen the ending of Clouds of Xeen; otherwise the game will fail to provide a meaningful challenge.
* Unlike in MM3, in later MM5 (and the areas that require both sides to access), enemies will actually give you trouble even if you're at a high level. So, being level 100+ doesn't trivialize content quite the way it does in MM3, as there's plenty of content designed with such high level characters in mind.
* World of Xeen is a bit too stingy with money later on. Once you reach the point where you can train past level 50, if you try to fully train your characters, you're going to run out of money. With a certain dungeon demanding absurd amounts of protection money, this could be a problem. (It's also one of my criticisms of the game, as it makes all that XP useless later on.) You *can* manage without training past 50, as there are plenty of permanent level bonuses you can use, and even a huge temporary bonus.
* As an example, there's one chest in particular that your high level Robber/Ninja might fail to unlock, and if you do manage to unlock it, the trap is dangerous enough to outright kill high level characters if you're unlucky.

My recommendations for World of Xeen are to play on Warrior mode (Adventurer mode, I believe, triples your melee damage, making combat boring), avoid the pyramids until you defeat Lord Xeen, and to watch your money when training past level 50.

(Note that this Warrior mode recommendation doesn't apply to Swords of Xeen, as SoX has balancing issues that can cause trouble even on Adventurer mode.)

Thank you, this is a very useful info.

I enjoyed playing MM3 last year. After I’m done with Fenyx Rising, I think I’ll dive into World of Xeen, following dtgreene’s advise. :)

This point can't be stressed enough.

Do not go into Darkside of Xeen, until you defeated the main Clouds of Xeen boss. The XP unbalance otherwise will spoil the game completely.