Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake: Best Classes to set up and create your best party

One of the very first tasks you'll have in Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake is to create your party of adventurers. Unlike most later games in the series where characters will join you as part of the game's story, here you can create your team from scratch. If you're on this page, you're probably wondering what the best party to make is, and we're here to help with some pointers.

After speaking with the Aliahan King and setting off on your adventure, you'll be tasked to head to Patty's Party Planning Place, found on the northwest side of Aliahan. If you talk with Patty at the main desk on the first floor, she'll have a few pre-built characters for you to choose from, typically a Mage, Priest, and Warrior. These are fine if you just want to grab-and-go, but to actually create characters with your desired names and classes, you want to head upstairs.

Head to the upstairs NPC at Patty's Party Planning Place to create your party.

At the upstairs desk, you'll meet the NPC who introduces it as the Premiere Adventurer Listing Services, or PALS. The steps to creating a character are the following:

1. Choose a name. You *can* change this later in the game, at Alltrades Abbey.
2. Choose a class. The available classes are Warrior, Martial Artist, Mage, Priest, Merchant, Gadabout, Thief, and new-to-the-remake Monster Wrangler.
3. Choose a gender. You can pick male or female for any class.
4. Choose a look. Each gender/class combination has four different sprites available, so choose what you like best. You *can* change this later, at Alltrades Abbey.
5. Choose a hair color. There are 14 different hair colors to pick from. You *can* change this later, also, at Alltrades Abbey.
6. Choose which stats to allocate five starting skill seeds to. This will affect the Personality that the character receives. The NPC will give a quick summary of how the Personality will affect the character's growth rates, so there's no guessing what a Personality may mean.
7. Choose a voice. There are 18 voices to choose from, 9 male and 9 female. You can pick any voice for any sprite. This only affects battle barks.

The Personality choice is important, as this will affect how the character's stats will grow as you progress through the game. In short, your Personalities affects your stats. There are several dozen personalities available, and not only does the character creation NPC tell you how each one affects growth rates, you can also check out Personality details in the Traveller's Tips section of the menu. 

If you're wondering what Personalities you should use, just use common sense. A physical fighter should probably specialize in a Personality that boosts Strength and Stamina, while a Priest should focus on Wisdom.

A popular personality for characters is Vamp, as it offers the highest overall stat growth as well as a well-rounded distribution that can work for just about any character/class. It is worth noting that not every class can achieve every personality, however. Also, many, many accessories in the game will change your character's personalties as long as they are wearing it. Also also, there are several consumable Book items found throughout the game that can change the personalities of a character. The short of it is, you can work around your starting Personality should you choose to.

While Vamp was female-exclusive in earlier versions of Dragon Quest III, in the HD-2D Remake either gender can be Vamp.

If you want to get a certain personality for your characters, you can cancel out of the character creation process in between steps 6 and 7 above, which allows you to go back to distributing your Skill Seeds to your new character. The personality you get is semi-random. So for example, if you want to achieve the Vamp personality, make sure to put some seeds in Agility and Luck, as those are two stats that receive higher growth under Vamp.

It's also worth noting that there is a good handful of equipment in the game that's restricted to female characters only. As far as I can tell, there is no male-only armor.

Dragon Quest III HD-2D Best Classes

So what classes should you pick? First let's give a quick overview.

• Warrior: A tank and damage-dealing class. These units have high strength and stamina, but not many options for healing. A classic mainstay.

• Martial Artist: This class specializes in agility and luck. They can act fast and rely on dealing critical hits.

• Mage: A magic damage-dealing class with plenty of buff spells.

• Priest: A class that focuses on healing and buffing, although they can also do damage with Swoosh abilities.

• Merchant: A class that is not useful for combat but comes with a bevy of field-support abilities, such as Service Call which can call an Inn, Priest, or shop. Merchant's final skill Call to Arms can call powerful mercenaries for a price, and it can genuinely be useful for end-game bosses when you have more money than you know what to do with, but this class is best used as a stepping stone to a later one.

• Gadabout: Unlike some earlier versions of Dragon Quest III, Gadabouts will learn some skills they can use at will. They learn some healing and light-damage moves, but most importantly, they can charge up their next physical attack or magical attack for the next turn, alongside some support abilities. However, Gadabouts will often act on their own, sometimes wasting turns. Gadabouts do have the special distinction of being able to promote into a Sage without a special item. Still, Gadabouts are best used as a stepping stone to a later class.

• Thief: A utility class that, while limited in combat, can help out in other ways. Padfoot is useful for lowering encounter rate, and Nose For Treasure & Snoop can help find treasures on the world map. In battle they can dish out several status effects, and Assassn's Stab may one-hit kill an enemy.

• Monster Wrangler: New to HD-2D remake, Monster Wrangers will gain new abilities as you find Friendly Monsters around the world. By the end of the game, if you collect monsters, these units can easily be your most consistent damage dealers. For HD-2D remake, I strongly recommend having a Monster Wrangler in your party. Their healing abilities are also not affected by effects that block spells, which can be useful in a pinch.

• Sage: Sage is a special class that you cannot actually recruit at Patty's Party Planning Place. It's the only class that cannot be created from scratch (Not counting the Hero). Instead, you need to promote a character to Sage at Alltrades Abbey later in the game. Sage's have all sorts of magic, including heals, attacks, and buffs. In order to promote a character into Sage, they need to be level 20, and you need a key item, with the exception of Gadabouts. It is strongly recommended to turn a Priest or Mage into a Sage when they are ready to promote.

You can change classes for any non-Hero character later in the game. This is not done in Aliahan, but at a later location called Alltrades Abbey. In short, you can change a class to any other class (with the exception of Sage). While this will halve stats and return the character to level 1, they'll retain all the abilities of their previous class, and their level 1 stats will be higher than a brand-new level 1 characters. In short, changing a character into a new class will ultimately make them more powerful or versatile in the long run.

The Hero can never change class. So that's one character you don't have to make any decisions about, at least.

Dragon Quest 3 HD-2D Remake Best Party Recommendation

Based on the descriptions above, my recommended party for starters is Thief, Monster Wrangler, and Priest.

• Thief will be your least useful unit in battle, but they will still able to apply some status effects with Sleepy Slap and Hypnowhip. They may also get lucky in landing a OHKO on a Metal Slime with Assassin's Stab. Thieves are most useful for Padfoot - which reduces encounter rate, Nose for Treasure - which lists how many hidden items are in an area, as well as Snoop, which highlights hidden items with a sparkle.
  • If you don't care about Thieve's utility in finding items / mini medals around the world, feel free to swap them out with a Warrior, who will be more useful in battle. Or just go for another Monster Wrangler.
• Priest will be your primary healer, status effect remover, and buffer, while also being able to deal some offense when needed with Swoosh/Kaswoosh. While the Hero can do some healing on their own, a Priest is a slam dunk choice for your party, leaving your Hero to spend their turns dealing damage, only healing as a backup when necessary.
• Monster Wrangler will start out a little plain, but having one in your party will make finding the game's Friendly Monsters a trivial task, as all monsters will join you as soon as you find them. If you don't have a Monster Wrangler on you, Friendly Monsters can still be recruited, but may flee on sight, requiring a little more effect to obtain. The skills you get for finding monsters are worth it in the end. Wild Side lets you act twice per turn for several turns, while Monster Pile-On is a very consistent damage-dealing attack (Wild Side + Monster Pile-on is a very potent combination). Plus, Soothing Song and Emergency Groom are useful in dungeons like the Pyramid, where your Priest won't be able to heal.

All these classes can have the Vamp personality, too. That was my party throughout Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake - a Hero, a Thief, a Priest, and a Monster Wrangler, all women, all Vamps.

A Final Note

If you are an achievement hunter, you probably noticed the 'Able Conjurer' achievement, which requires you to learn all spells and abilities throughout the game. This means, in short, you have to train up every class, since you have to get every ability.

Using my starting party of Thief, Priest, and Monster Wrangler, I went through the following upgrade paths (note that your Hero can never change class):

• Thief --> Merchant --> Warrior
• Priest --> Gadabaout --> Sage
• Monster Wrangler -> Mage --> Martial Artist

This is certainly not the only route to cover all nine non-Hero classes, but it's an efficient route that covers all your bases. Your final Warrior will have all the utility skills of Thieves and Merchants while being able to hold themselves in a fight. Your Sage will know practically every spell in the game and be able to boost themselves with Gadabout skills. Your Martial Artist will be very quick, able to either buff your party or deal damage with Monster abilities.

Any questions or concerns? Let us know in the comments!