Dungeon Antiqua Guide: Picking Jobs Based on Gender and Gear

2025年11月24日2025年11月25日

This post is also available in: 日本語 (Japanese)

Let’s break down job choices and job change plans in Dungeon Antiqua, focusing on gender and gear.

Think of this as a handy reference to find your own best setup—or just something fun to make you grin while messing around in the character creation screen.

I’ve also put together another post with general tips and strategies for Dungeon Antiqua, so check that out if you want to get even more out of the game.

This article includes feedback and comments I received from the developer, frenchbread.
Thank you so much for creating such a wonderful game!

Differences by Gender?

How Gender Affects Stats?

In Dungeon Antiqua, a character’s gender changes both their stats and their gender-specific gear.

Let’s start by looking at the stats:

Male: High Strength and Vitality
Female: High Agility, Intelligence, and Piety

Here’s what each stat does speculated from my experience to have defeated end contents boss:

Strength: Higher values increase your chance to hit with normal attacks. Just like in classic Wizardry, characters attack multiple times per turn based on level. So, higher accuracy means your multiple attacks are more likely to hit, resulting in higher and more consistent damage.
Vitality: Higher values increase maximum HP.
Agility: Higher values make you act faster.
Intelligence: Higher values speed up learning and increase uses of wizard magic (doesn’t affect spell power).
Piety: Higher values speed up learning and increase uses of priest magic (also doesn’t affect power).

Basically, if you want a frontliner who deals solid physical damage and can take hits, go male.
If you want to act first, cast buffs/debuffs, AoE, or heal, female is better.

Damage difference from Strength: roughly 15–25%
HP difference from Vitality: roughly 1.06–1.12×

So, males have the edge for straightforward frontliner roles.

For magic, Intelligence and Piety make females learn spells roughly 1–2 levels faster and gain more uses.

You might think, “1–2 levels? That’s nothing…”

But in my playthrough:

Normal mode: backline characters finish at level 13–14
Hard mode: level 17

Especially in Normal mode, level 14 is basically the clear level. So even a 1–2 level advantage is significant.

As I mentioned in the strategy guide, actively using magic during the dungeon is key, so female backline characters are just easier to manage, since they can learn spells faster and get more uses.

Also, the only in-game gear that grants Silence resistance—the GOLD HAIRPIN—is female-only. (Though you can only get it at just before clearing.)

Going Against the Grain: Job and Gender

Surprisingly, putting a female in the frontline and a male in the backline isn’t that bad at all.

For example:

Let your female frontliner finish enemies off with quick normal attacks.
Let your male backliner use FLAIL-type weapons to save spell uses (he can hit about as hard as a same-gender thief).

These unconventional setups can actually cover some niche situations really well.

As for Vitality, by the time frontliners hit late 80s, their HP is maxed out regardless of gender. So in the end, it doesn’t make much difference.

In fact, by that level, you can easily one-shot enemies on around the 6th floor of the dungeon, so the difference in damage output doesn’t really matter much either.

Gear Differences by Gender

In Dungeon Antiqua, there are only two gender-specific pieces of equipment:

GREAT SWORD – Damage 10, Hits +15. Usable by Warrior, Samurai, Lord, and Ninja. Male-only. You can get it around B3F.
GOLD HAIRPIN – Protects against Sleep and Silence. Headgear usable by all classes (AC bonus 0). Female-only. Available ~~B6F after clear the game~~. The dev told me you can actually pick it up as early as B5F.

Basically, the male-only GREAT SWORD is a strong frontliner weapon for the main dungeon, while the female-only GOLD HAIRPIN is key for preventing magic users from being shut down in the post-game dungeon.

The real game-changer is the GOLD HAIRPIN.

Why? Because it’s the only gear in the entire game that prevents Silence. And it’s not treated as a rare item—once you buy it to the General Merchant, you can supply it to your whole party.

Sure, there aren’t that many enemies who use SILENCE, and even when they do, you can usually just hit them and be fine. But if you’re thinking, “No way I want my magic users to get shut down!”, it might be smart to make your magic users female from the start.

Job-Specific Gear

You might spot the FALCON DAGGER on B5F, but aside from that, every other piece of class-specific equipment is found only from B6F onward, meaning it’s basically all post-game loot.

MURASAME!

Samurai-only. Damage 15, Hits +30, and it is strong against “Human.” A true family heirloom.

It has the highest raw damage in the game, and its Hits bonus is second only to the FALCON DAGGER. In terms of pure DPS, it’s absolutely top tier.

Since “Human” appear in large numbers on B8F—the practical final floor—the MURASAME! just tears through everything with ridiculous firepower.

And thanks to its “strong against Human” trait, it also completely shuts out the ninja-type instant-death attacks, which is a very welcome perk.

With a MURASAME! a Samurai basically becomes flawless on both offense and defense.

AURORAL ARMOR

Lord-only armor. AC -9, Heal +1. Strong against Undead. Grants resistance to Dark Death and Paralyze.

Paralyze is definitely a scary status effect, but since literally any class can counter it with a SHIELD RING, it’s not exactly a game-changing resistance.

As for Undead: when you first reach B6F, Vampire Lords can hit pretty hard, but by the time you’re deep enough to get the AURORAL ARMOR, their damage may not feel that threatening anymore.

The Heal +1 effect also feels pretty underwhelming at this stage—your max HP is high enough that it barely matters.

That said, it does have the best AC of any armor, so your physical damage taken will noticeably drop.

So, the real standout feature here is basically the Death resistance. And that’s a clear win.

Not only does it keep your frontline from collapsing, but it also makes your Lord—who’s also a priest spellcaster—much more stable since they won’t get randomly deleted.

…Though between you and me, if all you want is Death protection, the ANGELIC B-PLATE you can get on much earlier floors works as a substitute.

EXCALIBUR

Warrior / Lord–only. Damage 12, Hits +30, strong against Demons.
And if a Warrior uses it, they can instantly change job into a Lord.
A straight-up assassin sent over from Final Fantasy.

It’s got top-tier damage—second only to MURASAME! and on par with SHURIKENS—and even comes with a Demon-slaying bonus. Oh, and it turns you into a Lord on top of that. Talk about luxury.

The “strong against Demons” effect absolutely shines on B6F, where demons are everywhere you look.

In particular, Greater Demons, who start appearing on that floor, come in groups, spam party-wide ice attacks, and endlessly summon more allies. They’re demons in every possible sense of the word.
But with EXCALIBUR? They turn into snack-sized EXP piñatas.

The synergy between the classic Greater Demon farm that Wizardry fans love and EXCALIBUR, the holy grail for FF fans, is just perfect.
You can really feel the developer’s love for both series in this one weapon.

Interestingly, the dev told me it even shows up in Wizardry III, which Dungeon Antiqua is based on.

SHURIKENS

Ninja-only. Damage 14, Hits +25, and it can hit from the back row.
Grants resistance to Dark and Death.

Aieeeee!! Ninja!? NINJA WHY!?
A direct guest appearance from Wizardry!

In terms of raw power and damage output, it’s basically on par with EXCALIBUR.
It’s the only weapon that lets you snipe enemies in the back row… but by the time you actually get this thing, most enemy formations are already using party-wide attacks anyway, so the back-row targeting isn’t as impactful as it sounds.

When you hear “Ninja,” you probably think “one-shot assassinations!”, but in Dungeon Antiqua, the Shurikens’ sheer base power turns the job into a high-damage attacker who can also fish for instant kill procs. It’s a really strong role.

As for resistances: Dark isn’t much of a threat at this point, but blocking Death is a massive deal.

If a Ninja wants Death protection without Shurikens, they’re basically forced to wear the ANGELIC B-PLATE, which prevents them from equipping the HEROS’ ARMOR—the one that blocks fire and ice.

And since Ninjas tend to lag behind on job changes (due to their insanely high stat requirements) and also need tons of EXP per level, they end up with low HP for quite a while.
That means they get blown up by party-wide fire or ice damage way more often than you’d like.

Once your Ninja gets Shurikens and can finally use HERO ARMOR in the body slot, all of those problems vanish overnight.

FALCON DAGGER

Thief / Ninja–only. Damage 5, Hits +50.

That massive +50 Hits is wild.
It does let a Thief deal decent damage for once… but since the base damage is so low, the final output still tops out at just “pretty decent,” nothing more.

THIEVES BANGLE

Thief-only. Grants a 100% success rate when disarming traps.
Also hidden in an absurdly hard-to-find spot.

At first glance it sounds amazing, but by the time you can actually get your hands on it, your Thief is already high-level enough to disarm any trap with a natural 100% success rate anyway.
So in practice, it never really gets a chance to shine.

Still, as a collector’s item?
Oh yeah—super satisfying to pick up.

WIZARD’S ROD

Mage-only. Damage 5, Hits +10.
Using it casts Freeze 2.
Also grants resistance to Cold.

To be honest, by the time you reach this floor, Freeze 2 just doesn’t cut it anymore.
It does work well against the “Hell” enemies who love spamming group fire attacks, but outside of that, the damage is simply too low.

If anything, the real value here is that it gives Mages Cold resistance… but let’s be real: by the time you’ve reached B6F, keeping a character as a pure Mage instead of job-changing them into a Bishop (who can do basically everything) is just not an efficient move.

So yeah—cool idea, rough timing.

ROBE of EVASION

Mage-only. AC -5.
Protects against Sleep.

For Mages, this is basically the only wearable body armor besides the plain robe.
That said… sticking with a Mage just to use this? Honestly, there’s not much of a reason to.

Thoughts on Jobs

Warrior

With high HP, solid attack power, and a wide range of gear, Warriors are consistently strong.

They also need less EXP to level up compared to advanced classes, so their fast growth makes them excellent as straightforward frontliners.

At least up until clearing the main dungeon, there’s really no need to change class—they can just crush everything with raw power.

Warriors start to fall behind post-game, when endgame-level gear becomes available.

Since there’s no “Warrior-only” gear that gives a clear advantage, they lack a unique edge.
Plus, on post-game B7F, normal attacks are prohibited. Unlike Lords or Samurai, Warriors have no magic attacks to fall back on, so things get rough.

Thief

Early on, honestly? Thieves don’t deal much damage, and they get knocked out pretty easily—so they can feel like a bit of dead weight.
Even their supposed specialty, disarming treasure chest traps, isn’t super reliable, with success rates hovering around 38% or so.

That said, there’s a mechanic where “if you fail to disarm a chest trap, the quality of the loot goes down” (according to in-game adventurers).
So just having a Thief in the party helps ensure you get decent-quality drops.

A Thief really shines when you start leveling up for the post-game dungeon.
Around level 25, they can disarm all treasure chests up to B4F with 100% success.
By level 39, even B6F chests are 100% success.

At that point, the chances of getting rare items skyrocket, and you start grabbing endgame gear left and right.

Once your party is fully equipped, you have a choice:

Job-change your Thief into a Warrior, Samurai, or Ninja to boost combat power.
Or keep them as a Thief to manage treasure and save money for when you need it.

Either way works—it’s all about how you want to run your party.

Mage

Mages handle both attack and movement spells, giving them early access to AoE attacks and party-wide debuffs, making them great at crowd control.

You might think that means they struggle against single bosses—but not really.
Debuffs like TERROR and DARKNESS still work pretty well on single bosses, so Mages can fulfill a minimum support role. Depending on level, they can also use GOD FIST, a single-target attack spell, so there aren’t many situations where they totally flop.

Equipping them early with a ROD of SILENCE lets them act as a debuffer without consuming resources, giving your team more flexibility.

Movement spells like BIRD EYE and TELEPORT are so convenient that once you start using them, life without them feels impossible.

Here’s the catch: a Mage’s strength is tied directly to the highest-damage spell they currently have.
So if you switch to Bishop too early, your character can quickly become a bit of dead weight.

That said, Mages fall behind late-game compared to other classes—final gear isn’t great for them, and B8F, the practical last floor, is a magic-restrected zone.
Without a way to attack from the back row, surviving there is really tough.

If you plan to job-change, it’s best to learn all three spells at each level first, and do the switch before entering B8F.

Priest

Priests are the backbone of your party, handling healing spells and even using Level 4 RETURN to instantly teleport back to the castle when needed. Truly a life-saver.

Their Level 2 SILENCE spell, which inflicts Silence, is extremely useful from early game all the way through late game. Offensive spells are weak until they learn Level 6 PUNISH, but once they do, Priests can become a strong secondary AoE damage dealer, just behind Mages.

Being able to equip FLAIL-type weapons is also a huge plus—they can swing from the back row when healing isn’t needed.

In terms of raw damage, Priests are about the same as Thieves, so they’re not reliable as main DPS. But as a support damage dealer, they do just fine.

Timing for job changes is arguably even more important for Priests than for Mages.

Here’s why: Level 3 HEALING 2 only restores around 25 HP, while your frontliners’ max HP skyrockets into the 80s or 90s.

Since Level 5 HEALING 3 restores full HP, even if you’re eager to class-change, you should wait until your Priest learns all three Level 5 spells.
Plan carefully based on your party’s overall strength and gear availability before making the switch.

Bishop

Bishops learn all Mage and Priest spells and can wear the same gear as Priests—meaning they can equip FLAILs and attack from the back row.

Unlike classic Wizardry, the spell usage counts for Mage and Priest spells are shared.
So it’s not uncommon to get caught thinking, “I spammed all my attack spells… now I can’t heal!”

Even though total spell uses are the same as a Mage or Priest, the spell list is doubled, so deciding when to use what becomes super important.

The good news? With flails, your Bishop can at least swing a weapon from the back row to do some basic work whenever needed.

On the downside, Bishops level up slowly and their spell learning and usage growth are also slow.
They’re basically a late bloomer.

Because of this, it’s highly recommended to wait until your party is strong enough post-main-dungeon—strong enough to power-level easily—before switching anyone into Bishop.

Lord

Lords can learn Priest spells and sometimes protect downed allies.

The exact conditions for when they’ll step in aren’t super clear, so you’ll often see them standing by while a teammate goes down.

According to the developer, frenchbread, the “Protect” effect triggers when:

Your HP is above 1/4 of your max,
The ally being attacked has HP ≤ 1/4 of their max, and
You are not suffering from any status ailments.

They also noted that if the ally being attacked has more than 1/4 HP and gets overkilled, the Lord might just stand by and do nothing.

Their signature gear, the AURORA ARMOR, is powerful but… honestly, not that exciting.
If you fully stack status resistances, you often lose slots for elemental resistances like Fire or Cold, which is a bummer.

EXCALIBUR hits hard, sure, but it’s not quite as ridiculous as what a Samurai can pull off.

Where Lords really shine is high HP + Priest spells + decent attack.

The ability to revive allies with REVIVE is huge.
In fact, Lords are often more reliable than Bishops for holding the party together.
Bishops tend to get taken out by AoE spells, and without a Lord around, you’d sometimes have no way to Return to town in a pinch.

That said, even though they can use Priest spells, Lords learn them slower than Bishops, so don’t count on them as your primary spellcaster early on.

Samurai

Samurais can learn Mage spells and occasionally deal double damage on normal attacks.

Testing a Level 13–14 Samurai on B5F, hitting enemies 100 times, double damage triggered 14 times.
That’s an expected damage boost of about 1.14×—so honestly, until you get MURASAME!, their raw attack isn’t much stronger than a Warrior’s.
Warriors already hit hard naturally, and aside from MURASAME!, both classes can equip similar weapons.

Where Samurai really shine is their signature weapon, MURASAME!, which is strong against “Human” enemies.
This becomes a huge advantage on B8F, letting them survive the instant-death chaos from Hanzo and the Master Ninja army.
So, despite being thought of as a damage powerhouse, the Samurai’s real strength is stability and survivability.

MURASAME! has the highest damage in the game, and only once you acquire it does the Samurai clearly out-damage a Warrior.
This means the class is highly dependent on MURASAME! and truly shines post-main-dungeon.

Unlike Warriors, Samurais aren’t helpless in B7F’s no-normal-attack zones—they can still use spells to take down enemies, which is a big plus.

Ninja

Ninjas have a chance to one-shot enemies and gain AC when leveling up if they’re not wearing any gear.
At level 75, their AC can drop below -10, showing LO on the status screen.

They also seem to have trap-detection abilities, though I personally didn’t feel much benefit from it.

To test the one-shot chance, I had a Level 10–12 Ninja attack enemies on B5F 100 times.
One-shot attacks triggered 12 times—so about a 12% chance.

Best Gear Suggestions

These are just my personal examples—take them as a reference, not the “only way.”

Warrior – Top Setup

EXCALIBUR – Damage 12, Hits +30, strong against Demon
BLESSED SHIELD – AC -4, prevents Petrify
HEROS’ ARMOR – AC -7, protects against Fire and Cold
IRON HELM or EVIL HELM – AC -2 / -3, for Evil character only
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Thief – Top Setup

FALCON DAGGER – Damage 5, Hits +50
BLESSED SHIELD – AC -4, prevents Petrify
FROSTY CHAIN – AC -6, protects against Cold and Sleep
LEATHER HELM – AC -1
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Mage – Top Setup

ROD of SILENCE or WIZARD’s ROD – Damage 3, Hits +5, casts SILENCE / Damage 5, Hits +10, protects against Cold, casts FREEZE 2
ROBE of EVASION– AC -5, protects against Sleep
GOLDEN HAIRPIN or MAGIC CHARM – Protects against Sleep and Silence (female only) / may resist spells
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Priest – Top Setup

ROD of SILENCE or MORNINGSTAR – Damage 3, Hits +5, casts SILENCE / Damage 9, Hits +15, can attack from the back row
ANGELIC B-PLATE – AC -5, protects against Death and Petrify
GOLDEN HAIRPIN or MAGIC CHARM – Protects against Sleep and Silence (female only) / may resist spells
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Bishop – Top Setup

ROD of SILENCE or MORNINGSTAR – Damage 3, Hits +5, casts SILENCE / Damage 9, Hits +15, can attack from the back row
BUCKLER – AC -1
ANGELIC B-PLATE – AC -5, protects against Death and Petrify
GOLDEN HAIRPIN or MAGIC CHARM – Protects against Sleep and Silence (female only) / may resist spells
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Lord – Top Setup

EXCALIBUR – Damage 12, Hits +30, strong against Demon
BLESSED SHIELD – AC -4, prevents Petrify
AURORA ARMOR – AC -9, Healing +1, strong against Undead, protects against Dark, Death, and Paralyze
IRON HELM or EVIL HELM – AC -2 / -3, for Evil character only
JEWEL RING – Strong against Giant, prevents Petrify, grants BIRD EYE

Samurai – Top Setup

MURASAME! – Damage 15, Hits +30, strong vs Human
BLESSED SHIELD AC -4, prevents Petrify
HEROS’ ARMOR – AC -7, protects against Fire and Cold
IRON HELM or EVIL HELM – AC -2 / -3, for Evil character only
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Ninja – Top Setup

Shurikens – Damage 14, Hits +25, can attack from a distance, protects against Dark and Death
BLESSED SHIELD – AC -4, prevents Petrify
HEROS’ ARMOR – AC -7, protects against Fire and Cold
IRON HELM or EVIL HELM – AC -2 / -3, for Evil character only
SHIELD RING – AC -1, prevents Paralyze, grants BLINK 1

Thinking About Job Changes

Early magic-job promotions are a bad idea

First off, don’t just think, “Oh hey, I can promote my mage to Bishop!” and do it. Promoting too early is a trap.

Bishops need way more EXP to level up than Mages or Priests, and they learn spells really slowly. In my playthrough, they didn’t learn all their spells until level 25+.

Because of this double whammy—slow leveling and slow spell learning—you end up with a sad character who can barely cast weak attack spells and barely useful healing spells a few times.

The safe move is to have your magic class learn all their starting spells (three per level for both Mage and Priest) before promoting. Otherwise, even grinding for EXP becomes a struggle.

And just a heads-up, on NORMAL mode, leveling is slower than HARD mode with EXP bonuses, so you might end up with a tougher grind than expected.

Promoting Warriors to Samurai or Lord is okay early

On the flip side, promoting Warriors to Samurai or Lord around B3F is totally fine.

Frontliners just need HP and decent gear to function as walls and chip damage, so leveling them isn’t too painful. Unlike Bishops, their early-game strength doesn’t suddenly drop after promotion, so you can get them rolling with just a bit of patience.

Even if low-level spells are all they have for a while, Samurai can use BIRD EYE (Lv2) to auto-move around explored areas, and Lord can use CURE (Lv2) to heal paralyze and sleep. This helps save the main magic-users’ spell uses for big group attacks like SPARK or crowd control like SILENCE, which is a huge strategic advantage.

Alignment-Specific Equipment

General notes
Most Alignment-specific gear isn’t strong enough to be considered endgame due to weak resistances—except for EVIL HELM.

There is no “high AC with resistances” headgear, so by process of elimination EVIL HELM can serve as final equipment. But honestly… someone might just say, “Why not use IRON HELM?” and there’s nothing you can argue. Yeah, it’s tricky.

Good-aligned gear

ROD of LIGHT – Usable by Priest, Mage, Bishop, Samurai, Lord. Damage 4, Hits +5. Strong against Undead, protects against Dark. Activates Spark when used.
MIRACLE RING – Usable by all classes. +1 Heal, protects against Dark. Can cast HEALING 2 in combat.

Neutral-aligned gear

NEUTRAL B-PLATE – Usable by Warrior, Samurai, Ninja. AC -6, protects against Paralyze.

Evil-aligned gear

EVIL CHAIN – Usable by Warrior, Thief, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. AC -6.
EVIL ARMOR – Usable by Warrior, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. AC -8.
EVIL SHIELD – Usable by Warrior, Thief, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. AC -4.
EVIL SABER – Usable by Warrior, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. Damage 13, Hits +20.
EVIL HELM – Usable by Warrior, Samurai, Lord, Ninja. AC -3.

Essentially, good and neutral gear tends to offer utility or minor resistances, while evil gear focuses on raw defense and damage. Only EVIL HELM really qualifies as a true endgame headgear.