Wizzie Leveling for Newbies by Jahx

Prequel - Character Creation and embracing the caveman leveling philosphy
<I have edited this guide as of 1/12/19. It didn't include the rather popular method of leveling using only multiblade. This prequel is to guide you down this path>
Create an elf, select the class as a wizard, and put all points into Intel. Make sure to select the alignment as Good. If you fail on either of these three points, delete the character and start again.
Eat your vegetables and water, then take off all your clothes and leave the house. You need the weight savings.
At the East Lienster Teleporter, talk to the Teleporter, and go to Arimithor (Town in the middle of the desert, top left hand of the map). Go one up, and into the shop. Talk to the nice man behind the counter, and buy Proficient Sorceries. Leave the shop, go one down, and talk to the teleporter, and go back to East Leinster (Middle of the map, two towns side by side, East Lienster is the one on the right). Once back in East Leinster, head left two screens to the magic shop and go inside. Buy the spell Multiblade, and 100 gold worth of mana. Read the Proficient Sorceries book, and then the Multiblade book. Leave the shop and go three screens right. Enter the tent. Go down the trap door. Now go in the left hand door closest to the Faery, but not the stairs up. Now kill everything in this cave with multiblade. Use your heal spell if when you get low on health. 
Once you are done with the cave and have flipped the lever and been taken back to the nice fairy, go back upstairs and sell, and buy mana. Then go back downstairs, and open the next door over from the one you just finished. Kill everything in this one. With multiblade. Heal as needed. You will die a couple of times. Once done, go back upstairs and sell. Cast home. Leave your house, and from the East Lienster teleporter, go back to Arimathor. Go one up, into the shop, and buy Expert and Master sorceries. Read the expert Sorceries book. Now go one down to the Armithor Teleporter and go back to East Leinster. Go two left and into the magic shop, and purchase teleport and shift. Come back out, go three left and back into the tent. Go back down stairs and clear those first two dungeouns again. Repeat the clear sell process till level 11, then read the Sorcery Mastery book. Keep going until level 18. 
Now cast teleport (isn't this handy) and go to Arimathor. Go one up, and buy Sorcery Grandmastery, and the first three meditation books. Read the sorcery book. Teleport to Drune, go one up to the magic shop and spend all the rest of your money on mana. Now teleport to Wen. Go six up and six right. You will get jumped by monsters. Just flee and keep going. Once you get to the sarcophagus go in. Navigate to the cave entrance. Go in. Go in the sarcophagus. You see those three bats? Cast shift, then fight them. Cast Multiblade to kill them. Loot the bodies. Heal if needed. Go one down. More bats. Cast shift. Fight. Cast multiblade till dead. Loot. Go one up, go in the sarcophagus, go up the stairs, go in the sarcophagus and poof you're back outside. Do this over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Read your meditation books as you level. Leave at somepoint to sell and get more mana. Get more books. GM meditation, then do the other schools. Doesn't really matter what order because your going to kill these bats for 60 or so levels. 
And that is that. It is faster. You make about the same amount of money. But dear god it's boring. 
=== Step one - Character creation ===
<I have edited this guide as of 1/12/19.  It was wildly out of date and didn't work well. >
Create an elf, select the class as a wizard, and put all points into Intel. Make sure to select the alignment as Evil. If you fail on either of these three points, delete the character and start again.
Once your character is logged into the game, eat and drink the two bottles of war/vegetables in your inventory. Trust me on this.
Upon leaving your house, you will find yourself at the East Lienster teleporter. Head right, into the wilds of ratling run.
=== Step two - Leveling (or creative murder for profit) ===
Once in ratling run, attack any gray/black/brown ratling, or any orange bat that has 32 or fewer hit points. These are your primary targets. You will find that your Acid Sphere spell does 16 damage. You will also find that rats/bats with 32 or fewer hp can't get to you before you get two of these off. Murder. Murder them all. Until you hit level 4. Also pick up everything they drop, as you will need the money. You will find rings and amulets here - if they sell for 500 gold or more, identify them with scrolls purchased from the magic shop. You will likely score rings of strength (stuff is heavy, and you spent your time in the library, not the gym), rings of endurance (ditto) and maybe even intel rings/ammies (always good to have). Rule of thumb, keep the intel stuff at your house for later, and wear two endurance and one strength item, if you find them.
=== Step two - Skills. Mad Skills ===
Having reach level 4 head back to the East Lienster teleporter. Talk to them, and have them send you to Arimithor (Upper left hand side of the map, middle of the desert). Once in Arim, head up 1 screen, and enter the shop. Talk to the shop keeper, and sell your loot. Talk to him again, and buy Sorcery Basics (50g) and Expert Necromancy (400g). Read them. Head out of the shop, head 1 down and talk to the teleporter. Now we head to East Leinster (middle of the map east & west side by side). Once in East leinster, head Left two screens and go into the magic shop. Buy the Sorcery spell Home. If you did well with loot, buy Necromancy spell Summon Undead, or dump the rest in mana. Now leave the shop, and head up into North Havenwood.
=== Step three - More murder ===
Your primary targets here are ghouls. The tactic is to attack the Ghoul, cast summon undead at the midway point on the screen, usually twice and guard until dead. You will at some point need to go back to town to sell due to weight conerns, or to buy mana. Good news, you can head south till you hit the town, or cast home for one mana, head south to the teleporter, teleport to East Lienster, head left two screens, do your shopping, then head back up, and you are back in the thick of it. Do this until you are level 10. Now cast home, go one south, Teleport to Armithor again for your skill book, go one up, into the shop, sell your swag, and then buy master Necromancy, and read the book.
=== Step four - Death by a thousand very small cuts. ===
Go 1 south to the Arim teleporter - teleport to Murias (bottom left hand side of the map). Once there, go one screen south and head into the magic shop. Purchase the Necromancy spell, Shadow Warrior. Leave the shop and head north, past the teleporter and into Wexfordshire Valley. Look for Bounty Hunters and Theives. Attack these things, and only these things. Nothing else here will jump you. DO NOT GO TOO FAR NORTH (Or too far East or West for that matter). There is a forest full of evil creatures that will one shot you with spells before you can run away. Stay south, young man, stay south. Your tactics for these are fights are to cast Shadow Warrior at the midpoint of the screen. Over and over again. Keep five shadow warriors out. They will keep the Bounty Hunter busy and away from you, as well as dealing a couple hundred damage a round. Once you have out five, start casting Hold Monster. Bring out new Shadow Warriors as needed. Kill till level 23. Now when it comes to loot, Bounty Hunters are stingy, but what they do drop sells well. Keep in mind, it will cost you 63 mana per bounty hunter (or 315 gold if you prefer), so getting the thieves is important, as they only cost 18 mana (or 90 gold) to kill, and always have something to pick up. Once you hit 17, cast home, head 1 south, teleport to Armithor (See a pattern here?), and buy Necromancy Grand Mastery. Read it. Then head 1 south, and teleport to Murias. Head one south, into the shop and purchase the spellbook Summon Daemon. Go back up two screens to Wexfordshire and continue to murder. Now, you just summon out two Daemons, and then wait for them to kill for you. Much more mana efficient, quicker, and you'll actually start to make money. Personally, I kept doing this until 71. The next section that deals with theives hole is optional, as I found it quicker to just murder bounty hunters, as I couldn't carry enough loot to make thieves hole worth while.
=== Step five - Mass Murder ===
This is an optional path if you're tired of murdering Bounty Hunters, and feel like you're ready to step to genocide. Once you hit 31, and have gone to Arim and picked up Myst Prof/Expert/Mastery, and bought the identify and fear spells,head to Drune, and go one down, the left ten screens until you see a cave entrance. It's a sneaky little bugger, so count your screens.
Before entering the cave, go to http://realm.holtgard.com/map_thieves_hole.html - this is a map of the dungeon. Enter the dungeon. Start killing thieves. Single thieves = Hold and Acid Sphere to death. If more than one, first round, cast fear. Second round, cast mass drain. Continue to cast mass drain until there is only one theif left then use Acid Sphere to finish them. Pick up any Mithril/Obsidian/Adamantium weapons. Leave tempered steel or lower to rot. Get used to casting empower on yourself in order to pick up loot. Once you clear the dungeon and loot both chests, cast home, head 1 south, and teleport back to drune. Head 1 north to the shop and sell everything except belts/rings/amulets/etc. At this point you are just going to keep going back and clearing Theives hole until your eyes bleed. Luckily you will hit level 30 very quickly, which takes us to our next step.
=== Step six - I hate thieves hole ===
Ok, you hit level 51. Good job, you got your permanent house, and you have 21 build points. Go to Arimithor, one up, and buy all five Thaumaturgy books. learn them. Go back to drune, buy Light Dart, Heal, Greater Heal, Wrath of the Gods and Invulnrability. Then back to thieves hole. You can start casting Wrath of the Gods instead of Mass Drain, and Invulning between fights. And hey, you GM'd a school of magic! Go you. Sadly you are still stuck in thieves hole. But you get to leave again at 71, when you will go to Armithor again, buy books 2-5 for sorcery, learn them, then head to Drune where you will buy basically all the sorcery spells. Now I know what you are thinking - "Wooohooo!! Enchanting!". No. Not yours. Shift, extend, improved invisibility, teleport. These are why we bought sorcery.
=== Step eight - Taking stock ===
Ok. Deep breaths. You are done with Thieves Hole (or in my recent revamp, bounty hunters). Woot. You should have 40-50k extra mana at home, plus whatever stuff you found. Hopefully you found an endurance amulet/ring. if you haven't beg/buy an amulet of endurance from the good folks on channel four. Gather up your mana. Hold it close to you. It is all about to disappear. Go ye forth to Usk, 2 up, 1 left, and in shop purchase a mithril helmet, bracers, and round shield. Come out. Go one right. Purchase robes/skirt, and the cheapest baldric. Now go ye forth down 3 (1 south of the teleporter) and 1 right. Go in the shop and buy a backpack. The next step is the hardest. Find a 189 enchanter. You might have to run TH again while you wait on four for some kind soul. Remember this kindness, for one day you will be a 189 enchanter, and some young wizard will need your help. Once you have found this enchanter, have them enchant Empower on EVERYTHING. Then have them put poison shield/acid shield on your baldric, fire shield/cold shield on your backpack, and lightning shield/missle resistance on your robes. For those counting this is 21 enchants, which is 21k mana, not counting failures/poofs. Figure another 6k for those, and then tip the chanter 3-5k mana. Now, I know what you are thinking - "But Jahx, what about dex?????". Well, if you have an extra 15k mana, get dex on everything except the baldric, backpack and robes. I didn't have the money. At this stage your carrying capacity should no longer be a bad joke, and you can finally stop casting empower on yourself all the time. Now eventually you want your enchant setup to look like this
Backpack	Str	Dex	Regen	Missile S.	 
Robe/Skirt	Str	Dex	Regen	Acid S.	 
Belt	Str	Dex	Regen	Cold S.	 
Amulet	Str	Dex	Regen	Fire S.	 
Ring 1	Str	Dex	Regen	Poison S.	 
Ring 2	Str	Dex	Regen	Lightning S.	 
Baldric	Str	Dex	Regen	Immo	 
Helm	Imp. Arm.	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Shirt Imp. Arm.	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Pants	Imp. Arm	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Cowl	Imp. Arm	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Wrist	Imp. Arm	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Feet	Imp. Arm	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Shield	Imp. Arm	Str	Dex	Regen	 
Weapon Str Dex
But that is a future plan. For now, we gird ourselves for our new home - Festering Hate Pool.
=== Step nine - Embracing your Hate. ===
Oh Festering Hate Pool. Such joy. Here is the map.http://realm.holtgard.com/map_festering_hate_pool.html  On your way to FHP you will be jumped - just flee. Once you get there go inside, then go into the sarcophagus. When you come out, head up to the junction, then left one, and up to the two dark faries. Start the fight, cast Wrath of the Gods, collect your loot, then go up till the junction and head right. Once you reach the troll kings, cast greater invisibilty and invulnrability and start the fight. Cast mass drain (see, there was a reason we GM"d necro) over and over again until the fight is over. collect loot. head up one, ignore the trap door, then go 1 left and check the bone pile - you will find stuff here occasionally, remember high boots with an armor rating of 25 are magical. go one right, take the trap door down. Ignore the cyclops, hes a chump. head one left, cast greater invisibilty, invulnrability and cast shift, then fight with the imp kings. cast mass drain till they are all dead, collect the loot. head one right, then up through the door. in this room go right down through the trap door. recast greater invis/invulnrability and shift, then go one down (devils like to jump). Start fighting the devils. Cast fear. wrath of gods until dead. collect loot. pull lever. recast invis/invulnrability, head two right, loot bone pile, start fighting devils. same strategy. Head 3 left, then one up. this is the lever room. pull the top left lever. loot the sarcophagus. belts of carry happen here. now, without stopping go one left, and then two up. I know you saw those lichs. those lichs are not for you. not yet. you need an Amulet of Death Magic Protection and at least 1k HP to do those without a high chance of dying. Go through the door and up another two. These 5 furies are also not for you yet. go one right, one up, one right, one down, and then 4 right. you should be back where you killed the troll kings.. go one up and through the trap door. go back in the door. go back in the trap door. go down one and pull the lever twice. now go one up. you are back in the lever room! Now pull the bottom left lever. recast greater invisibility/invulnrabilityand shift. go one right. attack the cyclops. cast fear. cast shift. mass drain till dead. loot. pull lever. go one up into the lever room. Pull middle right lever. go down two, left one, down one. cast greater invisilibility/invulnrability. start fight with medusas. cast fear. cast shift. cast wog until dead. loot. go one left. kill devil + warrior by casting fear/wog until dead. go one up. loot chest. come one done. pull lever. go one up. Yay back in the lever room! push both buttons on the floor. hit the top middle lever. you are back at the start. walk up through the door, then re-enter FHP and do it all over again.
12 years from now you will still remember this pattern as you will have done it so very, very many times. You are going to live in FHP for the next 100+ levels. All sorts of good loot here, and the fights get easier and quicker as you level up.