I recently finished World of Xeen and I'm now playing through M&M 3, Isles of Terra. I'm looking for some starting tips as I'm not sure what to do or where to go, I've finished 2-3 quests and I've explored Fountainhead and most of Baywatch. Should I just go around killing things until something important happens?

Also, characters for hire in the various inns are new to me. Do seem to recall something similiar in M&M6. Are they actually necessary? Just seems like a waste of gold to me, so far at least.

i would start by exploring the first continent and see where that gets you. The hirelings in theninns are a good source for equipments and dungeon keys iirc

The hirelings are not necessary for finishing the game. You can hire them for support in hard battles if you want or just for fun. The dungeon keys they have can be found elsewhere.

There's no best way for playing the game. You're free to explore the areas in any order you like, if battles are too hard somewhere leave the area and go elsewhere and return when you're stronger.

Finding new towns is very useful since you can buy new spells, equipment and do other stuff there.

Thanks for the advice. Things are going well, either I'm having luck picking the right places to go, but the difficulty is just right so far. I've already got some more questions.

1) Is it possible to restore age like in WoX? I've been restoring every time something affects a character's age, but it's tiresome.

2) Is there some way to cast bless/heroism/super shield etc. on all characters at once? Not donating to the temples, that is.

3) I ran into a Wicked Witch that cursed all my gear. I restored my game and saved the encounter for later, but is there a simple way to remove the curse?

1. Pretty sure there is a fountain somewhere. That island east of Baywatch, perhaps?

2. Yes. Day of the Gods and Day of Sorcery are lvl 7 Cleric and Sorcerer batch spells.

3. Only way is to go to a temple.

1. Yes the fountain on that island but there was a quest you had to do before it works and watch out the crystals in the space stations they let you age permanently.
2. no the batch spells are not in MM3
3. Temple, I'm not even sure if divine intervention works.

If I remember correctly, you do need a character who can do a water walk spell at some point. If you are playing with the default party, you'll need a hireling for it. I think a ranger would have this spell.

You don't need the spell for the main quests but for some side stuff.

Thanks for all the help. Still not stuck as I keep finding places to go, thanks to Walk On Water, but this game gives so little feedback to what you do it's getting annoying. All these annoyances were fixed in Xeen. I guess it's just worse when you're used to something that suddenly doesn't work anymore.

Still haven't found that youth fountain. Easy of Baywatch? Might be really small island I guess.

The isle should be in b2 and I has all these whirlpools around it.

Did you visit all the towns yet? They can be cleared pretty early in the game. 3 of them are on the big isle you start on which 2/3 of the game play anyway. The Swamp Town can be reached with a boat but you should be careful outside of the town. The swamp is extremely dangerous (and has a tile that is bugged and freezes the game when you step on it).
The mirror code for the 5th town is found on a wall in the swamp town. Be careful with the enemies here because they are quite strong but since they deal fire damage you can easiely deal with them by casting protection from fire.

If you are level 17 or higher you can buy implosion and starburst in the 5th town and from that point on only the strongest enemies are a problem.

I am just starting Swamp Town. Is there anywhere around there that allows you to go to other places like the Isle of Fire etc? Or do I need to go through the whole swamp area first? Does MM3 have a fly spell like MM6?

You can find out how to get to another place by exploring the town.

There is no Fly Spell in MM3.

You can use the names of the elements on the teleport mirror to get to the main islands but will possibly end up somewhere where you might not find your way back or blocked by monsters.

The teleporter names are usually written on the walls of the cities or dungeons. The one for the city on the fire island is probably written on some wall in Swamp Town, or maybe the dungeon under Swamp Town.

Once seen the passwords will be noted in the Auto Notes section.

Finally found that fountain of youth. The island doesn't appear until after a quest/puzzle. So to those yet to play this, don't bother trying to find it from the start.

It's a fun game, but it's getting a bit repetetive. Might be that I finished World of Xeen before it, but generally the puzzles are just annoying, the dungeons are not as fun and the lack of quests leaves you just wandering around until you do something right, often by mistake.