*Still works on #1 Remake!*
*Works on clone phone games like Sorcerer and Wandroid series*

So you want to breeze through the early games? Here’s how!

Start the game with 3 priests and 3 mages. On creation, max out magic influencing stat. The priests are comparable to fighters (I believe in the 1st game they can wear all the same armor) and having 3 healers will prolong excursions longer than a little more damage per hit. Mages assist by sleeping enemies or using spells or group damaging spells.

Only outfit your priests. Give them the best you can afford.

Play the game, ignoring chests. You are just building up levels and buying gear for your priests. Most enemies you encounter will not touch your back row, your mages will be fine. Look for enemies that give decent EXP, like Creeping Coins. (Wiz 1, lvl 2) Use them to level to your hearts’s content.

If you have the patience, level everyone until they can get all spells. Then swap classes! Mages become priests and vice versa. Level everyone again, this time being mindful of final class choices.

You’ll end up with 6 characters knowing all spells. Now, go spelunking!

The magic stats don't actually affect the power of your spells; all they affect is the chance of learning spells at level up. Furthermore, in Wizardry 1-3, there's one spell of each level that you are guaranteed to learn when you unlock that spell level.

Going to level 13 takes too long.

Some things I'd do differently:
* Take smaller parties so you get more XP. It is more important to get access to higher level spells on soneone than to have more characters with lower level spells; this is especially true if the spell is something like MAKANITO (in Wizardry 1; that spell isn't as useful in later Wizardry releases because of higher level monsters) or MADI.
* Rather than reaching level 13, I'd consider changing when you reach a high enough level to learn the most important spells; this would be level 9 for mages who don't need MALOR/TILTOWAIT (those spells are powerful, but it takes so long to learn them) and level 11 for priests. Class changing at this level is a particularly good idea if you fail to learn the important spells (a level 11 priest who doesn't learn MADI will want to change class unless you have somebody else with the spell already). (Alternatively, if you can manipulate spell learning (via save states or backing up saves), it may be worth doing so in case you fail to learn an important spell.)
* The important stat is actually agility, since that affects initiative. (Note that the SFC version has a bug here.) Starting a mage with high agility is very effective if you learn the right spells. If you can manipulate stat gains, favor agility. Vitality has its uses before class change, but less important after class change, until you reach the point where your stats are maxed anyway.

Worth noting that some Japanese Wzardry-likes do make stats affect spell power; this is the case in both Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls and Elminage Gothic, for example. I think it's better to have just Mage spells and 18 agility than it is to have both sets of spells but poor agility (assuming the party also has someone else with at least MADI).

(In the Apple 2 version, you can use a glitch to give any character 4 casts of MADI without having to change class; this may be all the priest spells you'd need. Some people consider the glitch a cheat, but the authors of the old publication Wizinews did not.)


By the way, none of this applies to Wizardry 4.