Dragon Warrior III/Spells

Defensive spells
These spells raise your stats or protect you against attacks. Generally these spells are not necessary for common fights, but are absolutely necessary for boss fights. Cast these spells in the first couple of rounds so you can then devote your magic casters to healing or attacking.

Healing spells
Restores HP (and possibly your life). With the exception of Healusall, the more powerful the spell, the more cost-effective it is (in terms of HP restored for MP used). The revival spells are almost always preferable to paying to have an allied revived at a House of Healing. If your caster(s) are dead, pay to revive one and then have them cast Vivify or Revive on the other dead.

Status spells
These spells add or remove status aliments to the target. Most have an equivalent item, but it is almost always better to use a spell than an item. While the defensive ones are an absolute necessity, the offensive ones are generally not worth bothering with. Enemies will usually either be to strong to be inflicted or to weak to bother inflicting.

Offensive spells
These are the Wizard's specialty, and pretty much the only reason to bring one along. Not only can they sometimes do more damage than physical attacks, but you can often attack more than one enemy at a time. The sooner you kill all of the enemies, the less damage they can do to you. Be aware that the game considers your party to be a single group, so spells (such as Fireball) that target a group will hit all four members.

Misc. spells
These spells work more as tools than anything else, and will not help you win battles. Some are more useful than others. The Return spell can be used to escape from battle (assuming you are outside at the time), Outside is useful for escaping caves once you find whatever you're looking for, X-Ray can tell you if there is a Mimic or Man-Eater Chest before you open it, and Stepguard protects you from poisonous marsh and energy fields. Chance does something at random, but due to the fact that it can give you an instant game-over, it is rarely worth the risk.

Casters
Sages will learn both the Pilgrim's and Wizard's spells. The Hero has a handful of exclusive spells, but most are ones that either the Pilgrim or Wizard will learn (though the Hero often learns at a much higher level).

The level listed is the one that the character should learn it at, however there is a slight chance that they will learn it one higher than normal. If you have to have the spell at the earliest possible time, save your game right before you level up, then reset if you don't get it.

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Hero
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Pilgrim
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Wizard
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