Hero
The Hero is the main character, and there can only be one. In the original version, the Hero could be male or female, but the text would often refer to them as a "he" or "son" regardless, but the remakes are more careful with this. While the Hero may start off slow, he or she will quickly become one of the most powerful and indisputably the most versatile characters in the game. The Hero can equip most of the weapons and armor that soldiers can and a few that they cannot, including the most powerful equipment in the game. The Hero learns a mix of Pilgrim and Wizard spells, often much later than those classes, and there are a few spells that only the Hero can learn. Generally the Hero will be an attacker, only using magic in emergencies or when the others run out of MP due to a fairly low Max MP. The hero is a good candidate for Wisdom Seeds and Mystic Nuts, as dedicated casters will generally have more than enough MP already.
- See also: Hero magic
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NES sprite
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Super Famicom sprite
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Game Boy Color sprite
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Hero figure
Party members
Apart from the Hero, there are eight possible classes (only seven in the original NES release), which you will choose when you create your three allies. There are two important restrictions:
- You cannot create additional Heroes, nor can you ever remove your Hero from the party (unless, in the remakes, you cleared the game and brave the bonus dungeons).
- You cannot create Sages from scratch: another class must be promoted to a Sage.
Note that gender affects marginally any class's starting attributes, but it doesn't affect growth or available spells. There are a few Weapons and Armors that only women can use. The most significant value of these is that women of any class can use all but one of the female exclusive armors, making them useful for classes with limited armor options, and that many reduce the damage taken from magic attacks, an effect rarely seen otherwise.
See the experience charts for how many experience points it will take to raise each class and the spell lists for what magic each class can learn (if any).
Each character has five attributes. Each class specializes in a different attribute, has a different secondary attribute, two "average" attributes and one that is lacking.
| Character class |
Main attribute |
Second attribute |
|---|---|---|
| Soldier/Warrior | Strength | Vitality |
| Fighter | Agility | Strength |
| Pilgrim/Cleric & Wizard/Mage | Intelligence | Agility |
| Merchant/Dealer | Vitality | Intelligence |
| Goof-Off/Jester | Luck | Vitality |
| Thief | Agility | Luck |
| Sage | Intelligence | (any) |
When a character reaches level 20, you can change his/her class at the Shrine of Dhama. This process allows you to turn, for example, a Pilgrim into a Soldier, or a Fighter into a Wizard. It is also where you go to create Sages. When you change classes:
- Your level resets to 1
- Your attributes are halved (including HP and MP)
- You do not lose any spells that you know, which means you can create spell-casting soldiers
There are, however, a few restrictions:
- The Hero cannot change classes, and no one may become a Hero.
- If you change from a Pilgrim, Sage, or Wizard into a non-magic user you will not learn anymore spells, nor will your Maximum MP increase.
- With the exception of Goof-Offs, you need the Book of Satori to become a Sage.
- Characters may not change into a Goof-Off, so you have to go register a new character if you want one. In the GBC/SNES ports, this restriction was removed.
Soldier/Warrior
- Main attribute: Strength
- 2nd attribute: Vitality
Soldiers, known as warriors in the remakes, have two abilities: dealing massive amounts of damage to enemies and absorbing massive amounts of damage from enemies. Soldiers can equip almost all of the best equipment which, when combined with their high strength and vitality, makes them walking tanks. They have two disadvantages: first, they are incredibly slow (the slowest class) and second they cannot learn any magic. These two disadvantages can be mitigated or even completely negated by turning a Fighter or magic user into a soldier late in the game.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Warrior should improve Strength, but not Intelligence.
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Male soldier figure
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Female soldier figure
Fighter
- Main attribute: Agility
- 2nd attribute: Strength
Fighters have a lot in common with Soldiers: they are incredibly strong, have high HP and vitality, but cannot use magic. The major difference is that Fighters are incredibly fast, but cannot equip much in the way of armor. Fighters will take more damage than Soldiers, but since they almost always attack first the enemy may not live long enough to deal damage. Fighters allow you to play more offensively while Soldier are more defensive. While Fighters have poor armor options, a female Fighter can still equip Female-Only armor, significantly increasing the quantity and quality of her armor options compared to a male Fighter. Due to their unique weapons, Fighters actually work well with a physically focused Hero, since unlike the Fighter there is no need to decide which of your two sword users gets the swords you find in dungeons and which is behind in gear.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Fighter should improve Agility, but not Intelligence.
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NES sprite
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Super Famicom sprite
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Male fighter figure
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Female fighter figure
Pilgrim/Cleric
- Main attribute: Intelligence
- 2nd attribute: Agility
Pilgrims, known as clerics in the remakes, are characters that focus on magic. In particular, their spells are useful for healing and protecting the party. They learn a couple of offensive spells but, the vast majority of the time, they will either be attacking or using healing spells. Pilgrims are surprisingly good physical fighters. They have fairly high HP and strength (usually dealing about 50 - 75% of what an equivalently leveled Soldier would do). They can equip a lot of high level armor and weapons, though they do fall behind a bit late in the game.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Cleric should improve Intelligence, but not Strength.
- See also: Pilgrim magic
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NES sprite
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Male pilgrim figure
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Female pilgrim figure
Wizard/Mage
- Main attribute: Intelligence
- 2nd attribute: Agility
Wizards, known as mages in the remakes, learn incredibly powerful offensive spells and have enough MP to cast them more than enough times. They are not supposed to attack in physical combat; actually, they have access to numerous weapons that can be used to cast spells for free, instead of attacking physically. Unfortunately they are the weak link when it comes to defense. Since they have low HP and vitality, and cannot equip much armor, they will likely be the first to fall in battle. As such they are a prime candidate to turn into some other class which removes all of the disadvantages but keeps the Wizard's redeeming qualities. This class suffers slightly in the remakes, as items that cast spells are more abundant, and whips/boomerangs that hit multiple enemies reduce the value of their multi-target spells. Aside from Sage this is the only class to get the Bikill/TwinHits spell, which doubles a character's offense, but this spell is not obtained till relatively late at Level 21.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Mage should improve Intelligence, but not Strength.
- See also: Wizard magic
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NES sprite
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Super Famicom sprite
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Male wizard figure
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Female wizard figure
Merchant/Dealer
- Main attribute: Vitality
- 2nd attribute: Intelligence
Merchants, known as dealers in the remakes, are useful through all the game. They have the special ability to find extra gold from enemies (in addition to what is normally dropped), which can come in handy early in the game. Merchants also have the ability to appraise items, giving the player meaningful info when they examine items, but few items have abilities beyond attack/defense increases. Merchants are a very useful support class, but not great fighters. They aren't able to use many types of equipment, and their strength falls behind that of the Hero and battle-oriented classes (Warriors & Fighters). Their Intelligence (and Maximum MP) is mostly wasted without changing classes as they don't actually have any (or only one) spells to use this MP with. Despite their flaws, Dealers have the fastest level growth in the game, both at early and high levels, requiring 67.58% as much experience as the Hero to reach level 20 and 93.33% as much to reach level 99.
In the remakes, Merchants are given a special set of spells that are exclusive to their class, including Excavate and YellHelp. The Merchant class is the key to a subplot later in the game, however you can just register one right before you need them.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Dealer should improve Vitality, but not Agility.
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NES sprite
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Male merchant figure
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Female merchant figure
Goof-Off/Jester
- Main attribute: Luck
- 2nd attribute: Vitality
Goof-Offs, known as jesters in the remakes, have the highest luck of all classes, which can come in handy if you're trying to get certain pieces of equipment from enemies. Another benefit of a Goof-Off is that they can turn into a Sage without the need of the Book of Satori. On the other hand, they are nearly useless during battle. In addition to having low strength and defense, and not being able to equip much, they will often fail to do anything in battle (including parrying).
In the remakes, they are given one spell Whistle, which attracts enemies to the spot and initiates a battle. This is very useful for quick grinding or to look for a specific item drop.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Jester should improve Luck, but not Intelligence.
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Male jester figure
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Female jester figure
Advanced classes
Sage
- Main attribute: Intelligence
- 2nd attribute: Luck?
Sages are a particularly powerful class: they have the high MP and intelligence of the Wizard, the strength and defense of a Pilgrim, plus they can cast almost every spell in the game. There are a few high level weapons and armor that the Sage can equip that the Pilgrim cannot, but for the most part they are Pilgrims that know offensive magic. The only disadvantage of a Sage is that they require much more experience to level up than any other class; often 1.5 times as much. While you can often use the extra power of the Sage to push through dungeons earlier than you could without one, it will often catch up to you suddenly (usually when you reach a boss).
The actual attributes of a Sage are hard to state since it carries over much of its attributes from the original class. If you turn a Wizard into a Sage he/she will have more MP but less Strength than if you turned a Soldier into a Sage. That said, for the most part, no matter who you turn into a Sage, you're better off.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Sage should improve Intelligence.
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Male sage figure
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Female sage figure
Thief
- Main attribute: Agility
- 2nd attribute: Luck
The Thief class is a new class that was introduced in the Super Famicom remake of Dragon Quest III. Thieves have high agility, and have the ability to steal after battle (essentially a second chance at getting a dropped item, but with a chance that increases by level). Their small assortment of spells is very helpful. These range from Smell, which tells you how many treasures are left in the area, to TipToe, which lowers your random encounter rate. They are also the only character class that can use powerful whips in the game which attack not only a single monster but an entire enemy group making them able to handle the crowd control duties one normally uses a Wizard or the Hero's limited MP for. Despite what one would expect, a Thief in Dragon Quest III is actually rather durable against physical attacks due to the game using Agility to determine defense, though they have no particular defense against non-stats magic due to their relatively low Stamina/Max HP growth (a female thief can shore this up with female exclusive armors that reduce magic damage). Their increased chance of obtaining item drops is significant, and a moderate level thief can farm stat increasing seeds at a decent rate. Thieves also have a relatively fast experience growth rate, with only Dealers and (just barely) Jesters beating them to level 20, and only Dealers beating them to level 99.
In the remakes, a fitting Personality for a Thief should improve Agility, but not Intelligence.
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Super Famicom sprite
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Game Boy Color sprite
Summary
The difference between character classes can be summarized in a triangle diagram.
A villager early in the game suggests the Hero to start off with a party consisting of a Soldier/Warrior, a Pilgrim/Cleric and a Wizard/Mage: these are the three corners of the diagram below. The Hero is a well balanced character, therefore he's in the center.
The Fighter (top) has lots in common with the Soldier/Warrior, the difference being in the higher agility and lower armor. The Sage (bottom) is by all means a sum of a Pilgrim/Cleric and a Wizard/Mage. The Goof-off/Jester (bottom) seems useless but can spontaneously be turned into a Sage. The Merchant/Dealer (left) has some abilities that can support the party. The Thief (center) has a few spells that can be considered neither White nor Black magic.
- Top: characters with no magic abilities;
- Bottom: characters with great magic abilities;
- Left: character with healing spells;
- Right: characters with offensive spells.