First off, I made a rather balanced (or at least what I considered balanced) party. Two knights for physical strength, two sorcerers for magical strength, and one cleric and a druid.
I also made sure to have 18-20 in their most important stats, while still keeping the rest of the stats balanced appropriately.

Except... my sorcerers are completely useless as the only spell they know is light, and can't learn any new ones until they level up. But being squishy wizards are usually killed in 2-3 hits, even with armour.
(I'm talking about monsters in-town not the trolls outside)

I think my problem was relying too much on magic? Though keep in mind that in M&M1 I relied heavily on spellcasters mainly due to more or less killing undead 1-hit KO.

EDIT: Oooh, I was playing and just realized I have to equip the spells before battle. That makes it somewhat better :3

You don't really equip spells. You can choose any spell in battle too through spell submenu.

First town is harder than first outdoor area, so you might consider doing outdoors first.

Also, later you invariable need someone who can disarm traps.

I always went with Paladin - Barbarian - Ranger - Thief - Cleric - Sorcerer, sometimes a Knight instead of Barbarian. Also, I never used Elves because of their negative hitpoint bonus.

As for the order of exploration, I startet in Fountainhead with the open areas, only battling the green bubble beast in the southeast. After making sure everyone hat a bow or crossbow, I left the town and fought the goblins directly outside, getting quickly to the goblin hut round the corner and with a little luck back to the town, before being spotted by orcs.
Destroying the goblin hut gives enough experience to get to level 3, which makes it easier to do the rest of the northwest part of the map, still killing only goblins, maybe giving the mushrooms a try, then the rest of the town.

For the sewers under the town I recommend level 5-7 (better 7 for the boss rat).

Yeah, except the first thing I did in my save was go outdoors. I was slaughtered by two dwarves almost within seconds. I'll try the crossbows :3 thanks

You can give a weapon (staff is very good, but even unarmed can do some damage) to your sorcerers and have them hit the monsters, at level 1-3 all the classes get only 1 attack per round.

The beginning is easier when you trade the items from the pregenerated party to your characters and equip them. The two hirelings also help a lot early on, attacks targeted at them don't hit your own party members.

You can enter the temple and have everyone donate until he gets blessed for a very big temporary boost in the beginning.


Your party is very magic-heavy, 4 of 6 are pure casters but combat shouldn't be too difficult on the long run.

But without a robber or ninja you don't have anyone to open the chests you find which leaves you low on the equipment side and reduces the fun exploring.

Therefore I strongly recommend replacing one of the knights with a dwarf ninja (gets attacks as fast as the knight) or a robber.

For a better balance between might and magic I'd take a party consisting of barbarian (far stronger than the knight), ninja, archer, cleric, druid, sorcerer.

Personally, I think I'm going to start over now that I have these tips :3

One other thing: you don't need the spell points a druid gets. All the important druid spells can be used efectively by a ranger, including the important Walk on Water spell.

Druid is still a good choice. Just don't take both a druid and a ranger. One character to cast the druidic spells is enough.


In a party you should have at least:

1 sorcerer or archer for sorcerer spells
1 cleric or paladin for cleric spells
1 druid or ranger for druid spells
1 robber or ninja for opening chests

Also remember you can get hirelings. I believe a druid hireling is easy to get.

There is a spot that can be used to give a character every skill for a fee. This includes Thievery.

While I wouldn't recommend it to a newcomer, you could pass on taking a robber or ninja and instead try to reach that spot as soon as possible.

Therefore, taking a robber or ninja is not actually necessary.

Note that in World of Xeen, the spot that gives you every skill does not give you Thievery, so you need one there. (Then again, you don't need a druid or ranger because they no longer have unique spells.) If you decide to play Swords of Xeen, however, don't bother with Thievery.

Nothing is necessary in the game, you can solo with any character if you know the game in and out.

But if you want to have fun playing the game instead of replaying spoilers pick someone who can handle locks and traps from the beginning.