Magic and Abilities

In the Dragon Quest franchise, characters and monsters have access to various magic spells and, in later installments, abilities for use in combat.

Spells

Full article: Spell List

Magic spells have been around since the first Dragon Quest. They have many uses such as healing characters, damaging, enemies, inflicting status effects, and teleporting. Unlike skills, all spells require MP to use. Generally, the better a spell is the more MP it will cost; some even require all remaining MP to cast.

Skills

Introduced in Dragon Quest VI, skills added a new dynamic to combat (especially melee characters, who could only use the generic Fight command). They have a wide range of effects like spells do, and some even cost MP; however unlike spells, some skills do not MP to use.

Traits

Introduced in Dragon Quest VIII, traits are passive bonuses obtained after allocating skill points. Most of these just offer flat bonuses to attributes, but some feature unusual benefits such as increased evasion or reduction in MP costs.