I dug out my copy of Wizardry – Proving Ground of the Mad Overlord and started reliving the magic.
Sort of. Wizardry has this odd way of naming spells. A few are completely memorable, such as Dios for heal, while others are totally opaque as in Milwa.
Mages and clerics cast only their own spells, clerics also have some physical ability to fight. Mages will die if they try to melee. Wizards cast both types of spells and are able to melee. They have the disadvantage of having to be good or evil, never neutral. Samurai are Fighters with mage abilities. They must be good or neutral. Lords are fighters who can cast clerical spells by their great goodness. They obviously must remain good.
The following characters are not spell casters – thieves, ninjas, and fighters. They may use magic items such as potions. Lords and ninjas are impossible to create at the start, while wizards are easier to create than samurai.
Wizards, lords and samurai gain spells a lot slower than the pure clerics and mages. Wizards gain spells at the same rate as mages and clerics, but the spell levels are divided between the two types making them weaker but more diverse casters. Lords and samurai gain about half the spells of the two pure casters.
Cleric level 1:
Badios – Harm. Injures one monster.
Dios – Heal. Restores some HP of one character.
Kalki – Bless. Improves the AC of all characters by one.
Milwa – Light. Increase sight range when in dungeon. Also increases chance of finding secret doors. This spell has a time limit and is canceled by entering darkness. Do not cast in the dark, it just burns a spell.
Porfic – Shield. Affects only the caster with an improved AC. Drops AC by 4. Critical if your cleric is in the front rank.
Cleric Level 2:
Calfo – Detect traps. Allow the cleric to see which trap is on a chest… most of the time.
Manifo – Stone. Turns some monsters to stone, affects all creatures in a group.
Matu – Blessing. Lowers the AC of all party members by 2.
Montino – Silence. Prevents the casting of spells and affects the whole group.
Cleric Level 3:
Bamatu – Blessing. Improved party’s AC by 4.
Dialko – Curing. Removes paralysis, manifo (silence) and katino (sleep). Of course, if you are sleeping or silenced, you can’t cast this spell. Remember, casting while silenced will burn a spell.
Latumapic – Identify. Reveals what type of monsters.
Lomilwa – Light. Continual light spell. This spell has no time limit but is canceled by entering darkness. Again, do not cast in the dark, it just burns a spell.
Cleric Level 4:
Badial – Pain. Blasts one monster for a good amount of damage.
Dial – Heal. One character recoves 2-16 HP.
Latifmofis – Cure Poison. One character only.
Maporfic – Shield. Lowers the party’s AC by two and has no duration. Cast this one on entry into the dungeon.
Cleric Level 5:
Badi – Death. May kill one monster instantly. It does not do damage if it fails.
Badialma – Pain. Causes 3-24 HP damage to a single monster.
Di – Life. Non-combat spell. Heals one character to 1 HP. It causes damage to Vitality and can accidently turn a character to ash.
Dialma – Heal. Restores 3-24 HP to one character.
Kandi – Locate. Give the cardinal direction to a lost person. It is relative to where you are in the maze.
Litokan – Kill it with fire. Strikes a group of monsters for 3-24 each.
Cleric Level 6:
Lokotfeit – Recall. Teleports the party to the castle, but causes the loss of all gold and equipment.
Lorto – Ginsu! Creates a tornado of blades that slashes whole groups of monsters to pieces. 6-36 points of damage.
Mabadi – Pain. Reduces a single monsters HP to 1-8. It does not kill all on it’s own.
Madi – Restore. Heals all damage and removes all status effects. It does not raise the dead.
Cleric Level 7:
Kadorto – Resurrection. Restores a character to full health outside of combat, even if the character is ash. If it fails, the character is gone forever. Sorry.
Malikto – Death. Causes 12-72 HP of damage to all monsters. A real crowd pleaser.
Mage Level 1:
Dumpic – Sight. Gives the coordinates of the party, relative to the castle stairs. Should have been called “dumbic”.
Halito – Bad breathe. Singes a monster for 1-8 HP.
Katino – Sleep. Causes one or more monsters to fall asleep. Affects one group of creatures.
Mogref – Armor. Reduces the caster’s AC by two.
Mage Level 2:
Dilto – Dark. Lowers the AC of one group of monsters.
Sopic – Armor. Reduces the AC of the caster by 4.
Mage Level 3:
Mahalito – Fireball. Cooks a group of monsters for 4-24 points of damage.
Molito – Lightning. Zaps a group of monsters for 3-18 HP. Very unreliable.
Mage Level 4:
Dalto – Ice Storm. Causes 6-36 HP damage to a whole group of monsters.
Lahalito – Big bad breathe. Burns whole groups of creatures for 3-36 points of damage.
Morlis – Shock ans Awe. Causes the group of creatures AC to drop by 4.
Mage Level 5:
Madalto – Icestorm. Causes 8-65 points of damage.
Makanito – Poison cloud. Kills most monsters less than 8th level.
Mamorlis – Terror. Causes fear.
Mage Level 6:
Haman – Change. Drains caster of one level, so if this is the highest level you can cast, you won’t be able to do it again. Can have the following effects:
- Augment all magic cast by the party.
- Cure entire party of all status effects.
- Silence all enemies.
- Teleports enemies away.
- Heals all party members as if Madi was cast.
Lakanito – Suffocation. Kills monsters, but doesn’t affect certain monsters.
Masopic – Armor. Reduces AC by 4.
Zilwan – Dispel. Will destroy one undead creature per cast.
Mage Level 7:
Mahaman – Change. As Haman, except more. Remember, you lose a level so it is unlikely that you will be able to cast it a second time.
- Augment all magic cast by the party.
- Cure entire party of all status effects.
- Silence all enemies.
- Teleports enemies away.
- Heals all party members as if Madi was cast.
- Restores characters as if the Di spell was cast on them.
- Reduces AC by 20 for all party members.
Malor – Teleport. Randomly teleports the party from combat. Can be bad. If cast in camp, you can select the target area. If you teleport into a wall, you are gone. Should be used with dumapic.
Tiltowait – Nuke ’em. Does 10-100 points of damage to all monsters.
Spell casting is tricky. Once a spell is selected, you cast it even if all the monsters are dead. What a waste. As the levels go up, you can encounter several groupings of monsters. For example, you may face off against:
5 kobolds
3 slimes
4 clerics
In cases like this, fighters should confront the fighting creatures while spell casters should sleep or silence the casters. Once you have the casters tied up, focus on killing the melee creatures. Once that is complete go back to the casters and kill them with weapons. Casters do not have a heck of lot of melee ability so they should be safe to tackle once silenced.
There will come a point where you start every combat by having all casters flinging spells. This is critical because of the AC modifying spells can pile up. A modifier of -4 and -2 will stack to -6. Don’t go overboard, I believe there is a limit of -9. Once your AC is stacked, try to reduce the enemies AC.
At early levels, place a cleric in the front rank. Clerics have the ability to “dispel” undead. This is a life saver, and it doesn’t cost any spells.
As I work my way long, I will post more observations. I can’t wait to get back into this one, it has literally been decades.
