open/close all folders
Introduced in Tower of Doom
Fighter (default Crassus & Jared)
"By the abyss!"
He can use any melee weapon in the game and is capable of Dual Wielding swords. The only thing he is missing is magic.
- Dual Wielding: His only unique ability. It does, however, allow him to chew up enemies as quickly as the Dwarf.
- Lightning Bruiser: High speed, high attack strength, decent range. His attacks and dashes are slower than the Dwarf's, though, and he has no magic and only a very limited special gimmick. He can lean more towards a damaging type or a tanky type depending on whether he dual wields or uses a shield.
Elf (default Lucia & Kayla)
"I'm not done yet!"
The original Squishy Wizard of the first game. She compensates for low hit points with high speed, ranged attacks, and offensive magic. In the second game, she can use the same special gear as the Fighter and Dwarf, making her much more survivable than the Magic-User.
- Action Girl: While a bit squishier than the Fighter, Cleric, and Dwarf, the Elf is still more than capable of handling herself in combat.
- Bow and Sword in Accord: She has unlimited arrows while still having all the sword options of the others.
- Elite Tweak: If given one of the late-game swords (such as the Dragon Slayer), she can use it as well as anyone else; this completely eliminates the weakness of her shortsword attack.
- Expy: She's pretty much Deedlit minus the big shoulderpads.
- Forced Transformation: One of her main offensive spells is polymorph.
- Jack of All Stats: In Shadow, where she is contrasted against the Magic-User. She can cast spells (but not as well as the Magic-User), fight (but her attacks are on the weaker end for the party), block with a shield, and take a hit (but again, her HP are not as strong as the tanks').
- Master of None: She maxes out her levels fairly early, which makes her dead useful for the first half of the game, but leaves her severely lacking in the later boss fights.
- Magic Knight: Elves are actually a class in of themselves in the original Dungeons and Dragons rule set on which the game was based, and are mechanically a hybrid of the Fighter and Wizard classes.
- Magic Skirt: Despite how short her skirt is and how acrobatic some of her moves can be, there's never a Panty Shot in sight.
- Also becomes a Stealth Pun, seeing as she's a wielder of magic wearing a miniskirt.
- Minidress of Power: Her skirt is tiny, and she's the token Action Girl in Tower of Doom.
- Red Mage: Mostly learns offensive magic, but she also picks up a few useful Buffs along the way.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The girly girl compared to the Thief.
Cleric (default Greldon & Miles)
"Broke the shadow!"
He can heal and provide Status Buffs and Debuffs. All his weapons are blunt and have either poor range or are slow. He can also Turn Undead, which in the game works as a Smart Bomb against skeletons, zombies and the like. His faith forbids him from having sword proficiency, so he only has one possible magic weapon in Mystara.
- Church Militant: He's a D&D cleric, duh.
- The Medic: Obviously.
- Stone Wall: Unlike the other two magic users, he knows how to take a punch. His shield definitely helps.
- Turn Undead: What he can do instead of a desperation attack. In Shadows it is highly likely to roll the Disrupt (instant-death) result for common undead.
Dwarf (default Dimsdale & Hendel)
"Orc spawn!"
He can hit treasure chests to squeeze more treasure out of them. Very slow, but hits a lot of times per swing.
- Lightning Bruiser: He's a quick dasher and fast on the attack, as well as rather hard-hitting and extremely durable. However, his range is not very good, and it takes some skill to use his acrobatic fighting style to its fullest potential.
- Our Dwarves Are All the Same: Bearded, horned helmet, main weapon is an axe, has the Stonesense skill (which comes up in Shadow of Mystara), retires to forge gear which hopefully exceeds even the Sword of Legend, yeah, he's a typical dwarf.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: The Thief opens locked chests with skill and finesse. The Dwarf smashes the chest open.
Introduced in Shadow Over Mystara
Thief (default Moriah & Shannon)
"Is that your best?"
Ms. Fanservice incarnate, who has a ton of fighting options, trap detection, and a stealing ability to compensate for low hit points and lack of shield proficiency. She can also pick locks, which is useful for getting rare treasure.
- The Cameo: Moriah's costume appears as the alternate outfit for Rose in Street Fighter IV.
- Expy: Moriah's design seems fully lifted from an artwork
Clyde Cadwell did for a cover for a novel Red Sands. - Fragile Speedster: Owing to her low Constitution, low hit dice size and absent shield, she's about as fragile as the Magic-User. On the other hand, she has excellent battlefield control.
- Glass Cannon: She can do as much damage as the Fighter or Dwarf, or even more considering that her potential level is the highest of the party, but she can't take a hit.
- Hot Gypsy Woman: Moriah had been modeled as one, having most of the attributes of the trope, like the olive skin, raven hair, midriff-baring blouse and jewelry.
- In the Hood: Starts with a Thief's Hood, and always appears to be wearing it even if she changes headgear.
- Master of Unlocking: She can unlock any metal chest without keys.
- Roguish Romani: Moriah is the party's Thief and has stereotypical Romani looks.
- Spider-Sense: She has the Detect Traps skill, which automatically reveals all traps as well as their type.
- Tomboy and Girly Girl: The tomboy compared to the Elf.
Magic-User (default Syous & D'Raven)
"You!"
He can barely fight physically but starts every level with a high amount of offensive magic spells. Also doesn't have shield proficiency, and is the only character who lacks sword proficiency.
- Crippling Overspecialization: His Strength and Constitution are so low that he can't even pick up treasure chests or push heavy objects. He also has no good offensive or defensive options which are not limited by finite uses. He does, however, have some very strong spells that allow him to possibly solo any boss.
- Difficult, but Awesome: The Magic-User's Crippling Overspecialization completely disappears in the hands of a player that has mastered the class. The Magic-User can actually string together his attacks in such a way that he can perpetually juggle enemies and do damage more quickly than the actual melee classes. The reason this is not very common is because most players never learn how to cancel out of animations (which is the entire reason the Magic-User can be an effective melee in the right hands) and because it involves very precise timing to actually pull off. A knowledge of your enemies and spells the Magic-User still can use in a certain battle is important: "Cloud Kill" creates poison gas clouds around the Magic-User, but skeletons (who have no lungs) will NOT be affected. However, they CAN be affected by other spells like "Lightning Bolt," "Magic Missle," "Fire Ball" and "Ice Storm."
- Dark Is Not Evil: Looks quite menacing with his pale skin, dark clothing and shredded-looking All-Encompassing Mantle, but he's just as heroic as the rest of the party.
- Deadly Gas: "Cloud Kill" creates poison gas affects those enemies around him that can breathe.
- Flash Step: His Teleport skill works this way.
- Squishy Wizard: Even more so than the Elf.
Others
Dark Elf 1
Tel'Arin
- The Dragon: To Deimos in Tower Of Doom.
- Demoted to Quirky Miniboss Squad: This is what happens to him in Shadows Over Mystara; while he's still a formidable member of Synn's army, the other "Great Dark Lords" consider him the weakest of their number.
- Magic Knight: He handles both a sword and magic spells with equal mastery.
- Sissy Villain: In addition to the outfit (or lack thereof) below, he has extremely high-pitched voice clips, and drops perfume upon defeat in Tower of Doom, implying this trope.
- Stripperiffic: A rare male variant, as he fights wearing a cuirass, a loincloth with a skull belt, thigh-length armored greaves, and nothing else.
Deimos the Lich
- Big Bad: Of Tower of Doom.
- Black Mage: He uses destruction magic a whole lot.
- In the Hood: His robe comes with a big hood.
- Necromancer: As "the Lich", this should come as no surprise.
Synn
- Big Bad: Of Shadows Over Mystara.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: When you have your first encounter with her, she casts a sleep spell that renders the heroes comatose. Does she then proceed to finish you off right then and there? Nope! She tosses you into a hostile forest and leaves you to die. That came back to bite her in the end.
- Breath Weapon: She's a Red Dragon. They breathe fire. Needless to say, you do not want to be standing in front of her mouth when she does this.
- Final Boss: The final battle with her is suitably epic.
- High Collar of Doom: Art of her human form's elegant costume.
- Kill It with Fire: More specifically, dragon's breath, spread-shots of fireballs from her claws, and calling down incendiary meteors.
- One-Winged Angel: An interesting case, as she busts it out right away instead of fighting you in human form.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They can take human form, for one thing.
- Stripperiffic: In her human form.
- Taking You with Me: Tries to do this in a way, by using the last of her power to complete the summoning ritual for The Fiend. Only the fantasy version of a Gunship Rescue prevents this from succeeding.
