I feel like writing a post explaining how to reach high levels in some of the early Wizardry games, so I am doing so. The one rule I am assuming is that only the Wizardry games published by Sir-Tech may be used; cheat programs like WizPlus are out. Glitches, however, are allowed. (I bet some of you can predict my Wizardry 1 method right now.)

Wizardry 1:

There is a well known way to get tons of experience in the Apple 2 version. Just have a Bishop Identify the 9th item in the inventory (for those unfamiliar with early Wizardry, each character can only carry 8 items). When this succeeds (15% chance at level 1), the character will gain 100 million experience points, enough for over level 200! (Note that actually gaining these levels will take a while.) I recommend getting at least one level 18+ Bishop so that you can reliably identify items (and hence reliably use the Identify glitch).

What about the rest of your party? Well, it turns out that by identifying item 's', you can give the experience bonus to the *next* character in the party. (I don't know what happens if the Bishop is in slot 6; it might be worth testing.) Now, everyone gets 100 million experience.

But wait, you say? You think that is not *enough* experience? Well, there is a way to easily get nearly 200 million experience. First, get 100 million with the glitch, and level up by resting in the stables until you can't level up anymore. Now, get level drained on purpose. (Casting HAMAN or MAHAMAN is the easiest way to do this.) Make sure that you either win or run away from the battle. This will lower your experience to below 100 million. Now do the identify glitch again to get another 100 million experience.

One warning: If you decide to experiment with the Identify glitch, be aware that it can corrupt a character's password if you identify a certain "item"; if this happens, the only way to recover the use of the character is a cheat program or hex editor.

Wizardry 2:

It turns out that there is a way to get even more experience in Wizardry 2, and the method isn't even version specific! First, you need to be a high level to begin with. The higher the level, the better! For the purpose of this part, I will assume that the character knows (MA)HAMAN and is in one of the faster leveling classes. (If not, that is easily fixed by invoking a used Coin of Power and reviving the character.) Also, you need to get a Coin of Power to do this trick.

First, invoke the Coin of Power. This will change you to a Samurai, Lord, or Ninja. Ninja is ideal here because that class takes the most experience to reach any given level, but Samurai and Lord are not horrible here.

Next, cast (MA)HAMAN, then win or run away from the battle (or just choose the teleport monsters option). This will cause you to lose a level, and your experience will be set to the minimum for your new level. This would normally be a loss of experience, but because your class changed, you will actually *gain* experience when this happens.

Third, invoke the same Coin of Power again. This will change your class to one of the other 5 classes. Thief is ideal, but anything other than Bishop will work nicely here. (Bishop isn't a total loss, as Bishops still level faster than Samurai, Lords, and Ninjas, but this might be a time to reload if you have the means to, even if it takes a while to reboot the system.) Unfortunately, this comes with an unpleasant side effect: the character is now Dead. (Note that this happens even if the character is Lost; yes, you can restore Lost characters this way.)

Fortunately, there is a reliable way to restore the character. First, try casting Kadorto *once*. If it succeeds, you lose one point of Vitality (easily regained by leveling) and don't need to use the other method. (The Temple of Cant isn't recommended, as it ages the character, which is harder to fix.) If it fails, the character is now ashes. To restore this character without any risk of failure, use MAHAMAN. This may fail to provide the option to revive, but it won't make the character's condition any worse. Note that you can avoid the experience loss (but not the level loss) by using MALOR or LOKTOFEIT to teleport out of the battle. (Game Over-ing will also work, but won't solve the problem of your characters being Dead or worse, and has a risk of characters becoming lost and deleted.) Now just rest to regain the level.

Now that the character has been revived, just rest and you will gain plenty of levels. You can repeat this when you get another Coin of Power. Say "hello" to 4-digit levels!

Wizardry 3:

So, those characters you built up in Wizardry 1 and 2 can't be used in Wizardry 3 without undergoing the rite of passage, and doing so reduces the character to level 1, right? And these tricks don't work in Wizardry 3, right? Well, I have found a way to work around that issue, at least in the Apple 2 version.

First, create the character in Wizardry 1, transfer to Wizardry 3, and undergo the right of passage.

Now, here is the trick: Load Wizardry *5*, and use that game's utility program to transfer the character back to Wizardry 1. Once there, raise the character to a high level.

Once you've done that, you can now transfer your character to Wizardry 3 and use the character there without having to undergo the right of passage again. Enjoy your 3 or 4 digit level characters in Wizardry 3!