As I’m starting to think about class/profession change at the mid/end game point, I also began wondering whether or not the party I came up with was the best one for the job. When I first played Wizardry 6, I had another party that did not fair well and I didn’t realize (at that time) you would be able to change professions in the game. As a result, I came up with a very skilled team that I was very strong and did well up until I ended up getting jammed on a quest until I purchased the cluebook. Eventually, I had beaten the game and changed professions a few times and later would play the follow up Crusaders of the Dark Savant with the same party. Since I decided to give Wizardry 6 another serious try, I attempted to repeat my initial success with a small modification (using an elf monk instead of a Rawulf Monk). Along the way, I read numerous articles on the “best” starting party where you have drastically differing opinions, each with valid points. So I wanted to add my five bucks to this discussion based on my past and present experience.
Before doing a deep dive into the ideal party, I think it’s best to first explore each class and what they offer. I won’t go into races nor sex as some of that becomes a personal choice, even though there are advantages and disadvantages for your selection. But I will only begin address those issues once I start talking about an ideal party.
Classes / Professions
- Fighter – Very basic class. Easy to roll but having nothing special at the start. The main advantage here is early game survival through good hit points, fast leveling and accessibility to decent gear. You will gain multiple attacks and more than likely will use the Fighter as a tank to soak up damage as well as dish out damage while your spellcasters recuperate.
- Mage – No thrills spell caster. Now, something I did NOT know was that your spell regeneration rate is determine at the start of the game where the best classes are the Mage and Priest. In the past, I’ve taken two Bishops but they are nowhere near as good as a pure Mage. By choosing a Mage, you will have a high spell point regeneration from the start and be more focused compared to hybrid classes.
- Priest – Similar to the Mage except focused on utility (buffing/debuffing) and healing. You do have offensive spells and some group attacks but not as great as a Mage. Truthfully, the nice thing about having a dedicated healer like a Priest is that you will get more of the condition based restorative powers faster. Instead of depending on rare and expensive potions (most notably Cure Poison), you can race to push your Theology to get your school of Air spell power going and obtain the Cure Poison spell, which you will want.
- Thief – Outside of having a more concentrated Skulduggery, there’s not a lot that a Thief offers that other prestige classes don’t.
- Alchemist – Not an actual “spell caster” per say as this class does not use Oratory which means that their spells can’t be silenced and have less of a chance to fail. But as a class itself, the Alchemist offers little on its own that a Ninja or Ranger can’t do better.
- Ranger – This is a good mid-tier hybrid class. You get Ninjitsu (hide in shadows), ranged attacks and alchemy. It’s not a hard class to roll and you have less to worry about spending points on. You do have access to Skulduggery and Legerdemain so this class feels similar to a Ninja except easier to roll. The main difference is that you still require gear to lower your AC, you have to worry about ammo, there’s not a lot of great gear to help with armor, the best arrows are found only towards the end game and there’s only one really good bow in the game. This class would be far better if augmented by Kirijitsu because then you can have a critical hit chance that would be useful against single targets hiding behind two groups of foes that neither spell nor melee can reach (e.g. Liches). Otherwise, I don’t think it’s a great class. On the other hand, one could argue that the Ranger is similar to a Valkyrie in that you can use one to substitute as a weaker Ninja type of early character, where leveling is more forgiving. Also, if you don’t intend to take at least 2 rear positioned spell casters, you could place a Ranger in back and still have the character be effective during the early game.
- Bard – Everyone has said that the Bard is a MUST HAVE starting character class. The trick with the Bard is that she starts with a Lute which effectively gives your party unlimited Sleep spells while allowing the Bard to constantly train up their Music skill. Because Mage spells early on are incredibly weak, you might be able to get away with having only one spell caster (healer) in the 6th position while a Bard occupies the 5th spot, just lobbing spell songs at opponents. On top of that, Bards can pick locks which means if you have another class like a Ninja, you won’t need to devote any points to Skulduggery and let the Bard handle both Mage and lock picking/trap disarmament duties early on. Also, since Bard’s have low experience requirements, they make for a great mid point class to swap.
- Psionic – I believe during my early play throughs I profession swapped to a Psionic. There’s honestly not much that’s remarkable about this class whereas a Monk can pick up these spells and be far more useful as part of the front line tank group.
- Bishop – I would argue that Bishops are where the concept of a true elite or prestige class begins. Having played with two different parties of Bishops where I doubled down in using two Bishops, I’m beginning to feel that my decision to use these early on have made my life that much more difficult. Splitting your precious skill points (where you get VERY little for a long time) between two different spell schools is very difficult to manage. I like the concept of having someone capable of pulling off both offensive and curative spells but the leveling process for a Bishop is rough early on. The gear is very limited too and your spell book will barely reach a useful state by the time you start hitting the more difficult areas. And you really need to have at least one person with Cure Poison. If you’re like me and conclude that at some point it’s better to specialize one of the two Bishops into a specific school, then you realize just how badly you might have screwed up in choosing a party. That said, I think as an end game character, Bishops will really shine. But you should first play something like a Ninja to give the Bishop the much hailed Ninjitsu and Kirijitsu as well as a complimentary spell school.
- Valkyrie – I feel like Valkyries are one of the best starting classes in the game. You get good armor, get quick access to Theology (Priest) skills and have an extended weapon (Spear) that allows you to hit opponents from rows 4-6. Most likely, you’ll keep the Valkyrie in the 4th slot because they still can make an excellent tank if someone in front goes down. But they also are easy to level, have decent hit points and are easier to roll than a Lord. Mid-game might be where Valkyries begin to fall off because they don’t start receiving multiple attacks until around 11+ (can’t recall exactly when). But their quick leveling help counter balance this issue. Don’t let being a female fool you into think this is a weak class. The -1 strength penalty for females still is worth it as this is definitely one of the best all around hybrid classes in the game. Also, the late/end game allows Valkyries to use some top notch weapons. If you manage to change professions into a Valkyrie and have Ninjitsu and Kirijitsu trained up, then the Valkyrie becomes one hell of a force to be reckoned with at later levels. And if you choose to change professions into a Valkyrie, they have a reasonably fast leveling curve compared to the Lord.
- Lord – Lords are the typical fantasy Paladin type, combining the Fighter and Priest classes into one, having access to most of the best armor and weapons in the game as well as having high hit points and later attacks per round. Unfortunately, the Lord has some of the most stringent prerequisites, which is why I recommend a Valkyrie early on if you want one to play the fantasy hybrid of a Fighter/Priest. However, Lords do have better hit points and can use virtually all weapons in the game that a Fighter and Valkyrie can. I do think Lords make for one of the best front line tanks because of their armor. Ultimately, I think it’s better to transition into a Lord rather than start off with one unless you enjoy spending hours trying to get the perfect stats.
- Samurai – I really love my Samurai. I really do. But the one major downside is that mid to late game, they simply lack good gear. There’s almost no upgrades for a very long period. There’s a few armor pieces you can find but once you hit the Enchanted Forest zone, be prepared to get slaughtered. Samurai honestly make for a better late game transition because of the end game gear. If you want another Mage type either go with a Bard or a Bishop. If you need Kirijitsu early on just to be able to level it throughout the game, choose a Monk or Ninja. Without Ninjitsu, Samurai are nowhere near as good as Monks and Ninjas and even with Ninjitsu, you’re simply too vulnerable until you can start obtaining that end game gear.
- Monk – Monks are truly amazing. They start off weak because they have almost no gear and their main spell school is Psionics which by itself isn’t all that special. But once you get their Ninjitsu properly leveled and their Hands & Feet skills up, they become quite a force. Since they don’t require much gear, they make great mules by default. Also, because there aren’t any particularly great spells for them to learn (Mind Flay being the one that’s decent), they aren’t bad to swap to swap early on.
- Ninja – Ninjas fall into the “doing too much at everything” category. However, once you get them leveled up high enough, they become one of the best classes in the game. The good news? They don’t need to change their gear like Monks. Also, their armor and damage scales with your Ninjitsu and levels. The bad news: they have the worst leveling progression. Their deadliest spell is Deadly Air which is worth picking up but is very niche. If you do pick one of these up, factor them for the end game. And if you do plan on changing classes, expect it to take a while before a swap occurs just because of mileage and experience requirements.
The Profession Change Decision
So part of choosing a good starting party involves figuring out when (or even if) you want to change professions. Many people agree that you’ll probably want to take advantage of this unique feature in the game at some point. If so when? What are the consequences of swapping professions? Is it really necessary or just a fun thing to do?
The common argument I read is that around the mid-game (levels 9-11 or when you arrive at the River Styx), the experience required to level starts becoming astronomical. I would say that there are three great level grinding zones in the game:
- The Belfry (where you swing on the rope to summon the bats) – Great early leveling experience
- The Mines sub level 2 next to the fountain (good to go from ~5/6 – 9/10) because of the difficulty of the zone and being near the fountain
- The Enchanted Forest next to the stairs from the Castle Basement (great for anything past level 10 or 11 but do expect plenty of deaths and reloads)
If you decide not to cheat (i.e. use a trainer) and still want a relatively smooth leveling process without wasting too much time grinding out experience in a single zone, then the choice becomes clear that you’d want to switch classes at around level 10-11. Anything above level 11 becomes really tough unless you hit up an area like the Enchanted Forest, which is a very difficult area unless you know exactly what you’re doing and have the patience for grinding out long hours and dealing with endless reloads.
But if you change classes around level 10-11, you should be able to still catch up fast enough by returning to the aforementioned Belfry and/or Mines zone to get around level 6-8 with some time investment before returning to the normal quest line (and I do recommend grinding periodically for levels). Because of the significant stat drop, I don’t recommend swapping all classes simultaneously unless you don’t mind retreating to a lower level zone for fast levels.
If you’re like me though and have modified your characters or are at a different part of the game where you want to change at a later stage, then you need to figure out what your goals are. I think at minimal you should try to pick up 7th level spells (except for Resurrection) as well as getting a few points in Ninjitsu and Kirijitsu (if they’re available to you). Unless you’re a super masochist (like I was back in the day) and decide to return to your original classes, then think of this process as a one way street and that you’re not coming back.
The Consequences of Changing Professions / Classes
The biggest issue in changing a character’s class is that their stats are reduced to the minimal requirement for the class they change into along with their base stats for their race. In addition to having their attributes reduced, they become level 1, lose access to their previous class’ statistics as well as the number of attacks. Until their new class’ level exceeds their old class’ level, they won’t be able to use much of their old class’ abilities. They do have access to their old spells but at a limited spell casting ability and still can get multiple attacks in a single hit but that part seems reduced.
So why bother swapping when you receive such a huge penalty? Skills are one thing they won’t completely lose. If you have a skill like Kirijitsu, you can continue to level it and use it as you progress to match your former class’ level. Your total hit points won’t go down nor will your spell pools. I do believe that you will only receive one hit point per level until you exceed your previous class but I think spell pools’ increases remain relative to your Intelligence and Piety (I mean if you changed from a Fighter to a Mage, it would suck only to gain 1 spell point per level…).
But the biggest benefit to changing professions (besides eventually gaining the abilities of two classes) is that if you switch at the right time, you will level up quicker. The biggest wall occurs between levels 9 – 11 where the mid-game experience becomes extremely steep. The game provides very little quest experience so you’re forced to grind monsters. The only reliable zone I’ve found is the area with the locked gate that’s accessible in the Castle Basement, which really leads to the Enchanted Forest. For a solid party that can handle it, that is by far the best grinding zone in the game. However, it can be really frustrating for newcomers as the monsters are insanely powerful. Unless you have the right combination of skills and spells to match specific monster groups, you will more often than not be forced to reload frequently.
To offset this issue, the compromise is to change professions mid-game. The idea is that you go with a fast progressing team with an emphasis on low level survival that is easy to roll but lose little in transitioning to a more skilled team. For instance, if you start with a generic but well rolled Dracon Fighter, you’d lose nothing besides attacks per round by switching to a prestige class. A class combo like that would make a good candidate to swap to a Lord, Monk or Ninja as they either can repurpose their gear or not suffer too great a hit in losing their armor especially around levels 9-10.
Should I Change Professions?
This really is a personal decision but the game does encourage using the option to change classes. You could theoretically just cheat (i.e. use BaneEdit.exe) and give yourself all the skills/spells you want but it defeats the purpose and disallows you to experience the game in its entirety. If you started out with a party filled with prestige classes, then there’s probably less of a reason to switch professions. Most likely though, you’ll be forced to do heavy grinding especially once you reach the mid-game.
Changing professions/classes really work best for parties that use a more low level strategy survival setup. What I’ve found is that at low levels, prestige classes are difficult to manage due to splitting their skills up, requiring more stats in unattractive areas (personality) compared to more vital ones (strength, vitality and speed) and (lo and behold) the problem of spell regeneration which is defined at the start of the game. And if you don’t have the patched game, then strength becomes a HUGE issue due to your carrying capacity not changing as that too is defined at the start of the game.
Using a few plain classes like a Fighter and Priest as part of a low level team allows you to aim for more concentration in certain areas like gear access, healing as well as easier leveling. Fighters themselves are one of the best candidates for a class switch as they don’t have to worry about aiming for higher level spells and Priests can make up for a class switch by choosing a prestige class like a Bishop or Ninja to focus on more end game spells as well as broadening their overall skills.
Similarly, even with what I call intermediate classes like a Bard, these don’t fare as well as towards the end game where you’ll probably want them participating in melee or high level spell casting. And while a Bard can eventually gain access to the more powerful Mage spells, melee combat is where it’s at. So you probably will want the Bard to eventually swap to something like a Monk or Ninja to further augment their skills with Kirijitsu and another spell school. Same thing with Rangers and Valkyrie where the Valkyrie in particular makes for a very good mid level healer but lacks high level combat without Ninjitsu and Kirijitsu to bolster their moderate melee abilities.
Finally, you can always swap back into some of the classes later on because some professions like the Valkyrie level quite quickly and have great end game gear that is worth picking up.
Party Compositions
Mid Tier Party
- Male Dracon Fighter
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Female Elf Ranger
- Female Elf Bard
- Male Gnome Priest
This is an easy to roll party that emphasizes mid game switching or possibly later game switching. A raw Dracon Fighter provides a solid tanking ability along with being able to hurl acid breath on opponents which is very useful during the start of the game. The Rawulf Monk I think are a natural race/class pairing but allows you a long term fighter with some healing and offensive abilities. But you really want one of these for the mid to late game tank capability once his Ninjitsu is trained up. Valkyries can be good tanks and you can use that Sword of Striking and the Heraldic Shield to be a complimentary tank to your fighter (who probably will use that Vulcan Hammer once you have the funds). The Ranger gets Elm Arrows and a bow in one of the towers early on but mostly will be developing Ninjitsu and Alchemy while leveling up quickly. The Bard obviously will be the Mage of the group and dunk your opponents to sleep. Finally, having a dedicated Gnome Priest will be around to rush towards Cure Poison and Divine Trap to help your Bard, who will mostly likely be the main trap disarm and lock picker of the group. Outside of the Monk and Valkyrie, this group will probably have an easier time transition during the mid game to a new class to continue leveling at a reasonable pace.
The fighter in particular here is mostly used to get the party to the mid-game and would probably swap to a Ninja or Samurai or even a Lord (to reuse his gear). The Priest might become a Bishop or swap to a Monk to gain Ninjitsu, Kirijitsu and another spell school. The Monk would do a late game swap to a Bishop and the Valkyrie could become a Samurai or Ranger. The Ranger would be more ideal for the gear swap but the Samurai would add Thaumaturgy and Kirijitsu to the Valkyrie’s skill set. Then the only key missing component would be Ninjitsu, which I think is necessary for the final few bosses. The Ranger would probably change to a Bishop but lack Kirijitsu which in all honesty is a nice to have. But if you’re going with an end game pure spell caster, the Bishop serves much better than a single skill that works randomly.
There’s obviously more room for change but I’m looking at this as a faster team that gains levels quickly early on, has decent survivability and swaps around the mid-game as you’re about to hit the River Styx. The downside with this team is that it seems a little bland and probably needs more work if you want to min/max because of how two characters have bare minimal skills. But rolling the team should be easier than most and seems balanced.
Variations on the Mid Tier Party
Taking the base party above, here are some possible variations where we alter the composition with one or two classes.
- Male Lizardman Fighter
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Male Dracon Ninja
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Female Elf Bard
- Male Gnome Priest
Here, we go for a slightly more melee focused group. We remove the Ranger in exchange for the Dracon Ninja and change out the Fighter’s race for a Lizardman. The Lizardman will be tankier than the Dracon whereas the Dracon makes for a good starting Ninja. We move the Valkyrie to the 4th slot where the Ranger was and the Bard becomes the primary trap and door specialist. Using this composition does mean that the Ninja will take the longest to level but you won’t have to worry about changing classes to obtain Kirijitsu. And the Bard being available gives the Ninja breathing room to focus on Alchemy while building up his melee skills. Lastly, there’s no need for any gear change for the duration for the Ninja.
- Male Dracon Fighter
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Female Elf Ranger
- Female Elf Bard
- Male Gnome Bishop
This party exchanges the pure Priest for the Bishop. You will end up relying more on the Ranger and Valkyrie in the short term for racing towards the Cure Poison spell but you can cover more ground in terms of spells. Unfortunately, having a Bishop as part of a starter party does mean a very long grind to learn those precious high level spells. So you’ll be stuck with this class for a while.
- Male Dracon Fighter
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Female Elf Valkyrie
- Female Elf Ranger
- Female Faerie Bard
We ditch spell casters completely in the earliest part of the game and focus strictly on combat. In taking two Valkyries, we ensure that we will have Priest spells available and that leveling still is far better than having a Bishop. But there will be some level of competition for gear in these early stages and healing will be rough until either one of the Valkyries hit level 3 (where they begin picking up Priest spells) or the Ranger hits level 3. However, you don’t want your Ranger to be the sole source of healing as their Magic pool is extremely low. On the bright side, you will be tankier overall in this early stage party but the first three levels will be very rough until your Valkyries getting some healing going. Until then you’ll probably be resting frequently which means tons of random encounters. The other upside of this party is that it’s not too difficult to roll.
The other major advantage of going with two Valkyries in the early game is that they are one of the fastest leveling classes in the game. The only thing faster is a Fighter while Alchemists share the same XP table as Valkyries. Just to put things into perspective, by the time your Valkyries hit level 4, your Bishop will still be at the half way point in level 3. So you’ll already have the equivalent number of Priest spells by then.
The major disadvantage in not having any pure spell casters in the party is that your spell regeneration will be bad since that’s another aspect determined when you choose your starting classes. Resting by itself doesn’t perform as well as wandering around when it comes to regenerating spells. So somehow you will have to figure out how to deal with this issue. I would say this may become more noticeable during the mid game when you’re starting to gain the powerful group affect spells but can only a single cast from one school of magic. Once you reach the Enchanted Forest, you will start running into large groups that maybe immune to your spells or require multiple casts of spells for entire groups to go down. One way you might compensate is to convert the Dracon Fighter into a Bishop if you manage to have the base stats. In that manner, at least you’d have a high hit point spell caster that can focus on either the Mage or Priest side while the other party members try to get their spell power up.
From my viewpoint, this might be one of the more interesting party choices because of how it’s more focused on offense and less on utility. The biggest pain points are going to be the early game but I suspect that it would suffer the same problems as my main party with the two Bishops since leveling with them is slow and getting the key spells for meaningful healing still took time to improve. As far as what I call the race to get Cure Poison, the nice thing about this party combination is that you can focus your Ranger for that job by having her continuously take Air spells to build up her Air spell pool while one Valkyrie concentrates more on Magic and healing.
In terms of class swaps, the Fighter will probably switch to a Ninja or Lord to continue to make use of his gear. The Ninja would require a lot of work to play catch up though and unless you have some spare Ninja garb lying around, then the Dracon is going to lose a lot of oomph in the mid-game for a while. You could swap the Fighter to a Monk as well because the gear requirements are really low. But if you do this during the mid-game, your Rawulf Monk will probably still not be powerful enough to dish out enough punishment and survive still. With that in mind, I suspect that the Lord would probably make the best mid-tier swap for a Fighter and be your first class swap of the game (only if you meet the prerequisites of course)
The Rawulf Monk will probably stick with the class until around level 15. I found with my own Elf Monk that her Theosophy hit around max level near that time and I was able to obtain Mind Flay at level 14. If you have an Elf Monk (like me), you probably could swap one of the Valkyries with this character. As a Rawulf, you might consider swapping to a Bishop. It’ll be a painful drop but at least your Intelligence won’t be stifled as badly.
The Valkyrie in slot #3 would benefit in swapping classes at the same time as your Rawulf Monk. Since you have two Valkyries, you can afford to swap classes earlier if you don’t care about maximizing your end game spells. The Human Valkyrie would be the better candidate for an early class swap and I think changing to a Monk is a good choice here. The gear requirements are low and would make the later swapping of your Monk to a Bishop easier on the group. Also, by this point, the Human Valkyrie should have sufficient spell power in Air, Magic and Mental to give the new Monk a great starting base.
The Valkyrie in the #4 position will probably end up being the main healer for a while both in and out of combat. I would push this class higher than the Human one to obtain the higher level Priest spells. Once that happens I could swap this character into a Ranger or Samurai. Samurai would be tougher without a Samurai’s weaponry. I know you can at least obtain a Katana in the Enchanted Forest and you can buy some starting armor from Queequeg. However, I would make a third profession change to a Ranger later on to get Ninjitsu (and Alchemy). In that manner, I can use the Elven Bow from the shadows and be able to critically hit opponents from the 3rd row and back.
The Ranger becomes a great candidate to swap to a Bishop and relieve a ton of pressure from your Valkyrie. Once that happens and your Valkyrie obtains the highest level Priest spells (which probably will happen around level 16-17), you can swap her to a Ranger and take over your old Ranger’s gear. That way she can start building up Ninjitsu quickly.
The Faerie Bard could switch to either a Monk or a Ninja. She can try to replace one of the Valkyries but there’s certain gear limitations for Faeries which makes Monks and Ninjas more appealing. But if you end up losing the Bard, you’ll need to figure out a replacement for her locking picking type of skills. By the end game, there won’t really be enough chests around so carefully consider when this happens. In that sense, the Ninja becomes quite appealing as you can continue using your Skulduggery (and developing it). I would suggest a class switch to Ninja only after obtaining the most powerful Mage spells though as well as doing so in the Enchanted Forest where ninja type of foes become common.
On a side note, I did read someone suggest taking two Valkyries and I have seen parties that started with no spell casters. In a similar vein, I saw another party with almost all spell casters (and one Bard). I have no idea how the latter party managed to survive though.
- Male Rawulf Lord
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Male Felpurr Ranger
- Female Elf Bard
- Female Faerie Mage
This is a much tougher party to roll mostly due to the Lord. Rawulfs seem like a decent choice though but you do lose the Dracon and their breath weapon. It felt too redundant having three priest spell wielders in the same party for an initial party so I swapped the Gnome Priest for a Faerie Mage to use special equipment later on. Also, having a Faerie Mage means high intellect and speed but you will struggle with low hit points and strength (carrying capacity) early on. Also, I swapped the Ranger’s gender and race for a few bonuses that make rolling this character easier. Again as with the two Valkyrie party, this one will suffer from having no initial healing. The Lord only was picked up as a Tank to replace the fighter while having more hit points.
- Female Elf Valkyrie
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Male Felpurr Ranger
- Female Elf Bard
- Male Gnome Priest
This party is very healing and utility focused. We get rid of the Dracon Fighter completely and enable magic across the board. While the gear doesn’t change that much from removing the Dracon Fighter, the biggest issue is damage and tankiness. We still have good armor from Valkyries but it will take time before they begin receiving multiple attacks per swing and per round. Leveling is almost on par with the missing Fighter but the big single target numbers are only going to come from one source, which is your Monk.
Because we keep the Priest in this party, there’s less pressure for either Valkyrie to push for Cure Poison and both mostly will be handling buffs and/or healing outside of combat since they will be in attack range until a class swap happens. If a class swap does happen early on, then it feels that you really don’t get enough bang for your buck in using two Valkyries outside of novelty.
High End Tier Party
- Male Felpurr Samurai
- Male Rawulf Monk
- Male Dracon Ninja
- Female Human Valkyrie
- Female Elf Bishop
- Male Gnome Bishop
This was my original party. Very hard to roll but the end game pay off is huge. Yes, I did swap professions a few times but ended up changing back to their original classes by the end of the game. In truth, I think this composition really is the end game party so in theory you probably could just bring this team along all the way through. The only thing missing is Ninjitsu on each character (if you do not perform a profession change). The only difficult aspect to me was dealing with traps early on. Having a low Skulduggery sucks and getting poisoned constantly is no fun. Also, splitting spellbooks per level and schools isn’t fun at all. Again it really is more about the end game with this party and how their skills come together.
Final Thoughts
Honestly, if I had to redo this game, I might go with the non-spell caster party just to see how it would perform. I think the first 3 levels would be the roughest without having in combat healing. There really isn’t a lot of need for healing that early on but a few fights can be nasty at that stage of the game when you’re vulnerable. The main problem though is that if I do want to start over, I must prudently copy my current SAVEGAME.DBS to a special spot before making the attempt (not sure if the SCENARIO.DBS file is also needed). I could just back up the entire directory and dump it elsewhere to start from scratch but I might as well power through my current game.
Outside of the test drive of this idea, the other motive in restarting the game is to see if I could handle certain scenarios better. I did end up dying a few times early on but saved. Also, I inadvertently locked myself of a few doors after jamming my picks. Part of the restart would be to see how much better this party performs and just how good an early stage Bard would be. I have to admit that in my earlier runs of Wizardry, I did use a Bard but she failed miserably for one reason or another and my party met their untimely demise a few frustrating times. Hence, I ended up creating that crazy party with numerous prestige classes. I suppose that failure is inevitable in a game that has as much random crap thrown in and at you as this one but I think this time I might be better prepared.