Excellent Trait! - double your experience points

The Trait - 'Crusade' is offered for training at the temple to Paladins who have reached 5th level at the Priests Guild. This grants them double experience points for undead. This rockets them up levels in Skull Castle, since the respawn rate is so high. Also useful in Anephas' Shrine.

I cycled 4 of my characters through Paladin class, just long enough to get this one Trait. You can also get some low level Spirit spells (healing) which can be useful in a pinch.

I've only been playing a few days and I'm really stuck on when to promote characters and to what? What has worked for you (other than the Paladin thing which is a must try).

Here's a brain dump for beginning characters and changing classes.

Play what you like. All classes can complete the game so it's a matter of what you enjoy. One possible exception is that you will need a Rogue character who specializes in picking locks and builds up that skill as quickly as possible. Most treasure and quest items are found in locked, trapped chests. You can also open chest with the lock picking tools that can be found or purchased. This is an expensive route to take.

Basically, the game is designed to encourage you to change classes many times. It adds some interesting twists and I found it more entertaining than staying with the same class for the entire game. After level 12, it takes a long time to gain enough experience to go up a level and you don't get much for it, so it is refreshing to change levels and go charging up levels again.

Plan ahead. That means deciding which elite characters you would like to play and creating characters that meet the minimum requirements for stats like strength, intelligence, etc. The minimums are listed in the players guide at the end of the description of each class. Continue planning ahead so that when you gain ability points for going up levels, you know which stats need to be increased to meet the minimum requirements for the next class you will switch to.

I preferred the classes that combine fighting and spell casting: Paladins, Rangers, Samurai, Ninja. (You won't be able to complete the Ranger quest till late in the game).

The only class in the entire game that has Stone Magic is the Wizard. Check out those spells in the guide. There are some useful ones like: stone to flesh, Lavawalk, and Reflect Damage that aren't duplicated by equivalent magic in any of the other realms.

Take spell casters to at least level 14 and get as many spells in your spell book as possible before switching classes. Spell casters can only learn spells at half the level they reached before switching. So if you switched at level 9, you only can get spells up to level 4. (Spells are available up to level 7).

You can never go back to a class once you leave it.

When creating new characters - add up the total of the ability scores and the bonus points you get to assign to see if you got a good roll. The starting characters are random so don't accept a weak character. Good totals are around 70-77.

The Character race can have a dramatic effect on how the initial pints are distributed. You can get really low starting values in some abilites. This may limit your choices later. Humans and Elves have a pretty balanced distribution. Sex of the character also has an effect on this.

You will have to carry a lot of items around with you. Weight allowance is calculated for each character. A Pixie is lucky to carry it's own weapons and clothing. A strong, large warrior is useful for lugging stuff around.

One warrior with good plate armor (can only be worn by some fighter classes) can shield the rest of your party from monsters attacks. This character will benefit from high points in the 'presence' ability as well as the leadership skill.

A priest will be able to learn ancient lore and gain the artifacts skill by completing quests at the temple. This will give them the ability to identify items you find. This will improve your money situation immensely. You won't have to pay to have items identified and you will be able to sell items for more gold if you identify them first.

Merchant skill gives an advantage when buying and selling items and weapons. Combine this with the 'presence' ability for more effect. The temple teaches merchant skill to its members (priests, warlocks, monks, paladins).

Oomphaz characters need to find special armor designed for them. It is very rare when I played. I guess they are better suited to wearing robes - a wizards class limitation anyway.

Swords are the best weapons. If your class isn't restricted to other weapons, focus on improving the sword skill.

That's about it, other tha to say that you might want to read other postings regarding joing multple guilds and and getting multiple characters to complete the various guild quests. This part of the game can be tricky to learn at first. It doesn't always work, but basically each character can complete each quest even though it seems that it should on;y be able to be completed once (kill a certain creature). You can't kill the same creature more than once, however the quest will get offered to every character who asks as long as it hasn't been completed yet. Once completed, each character who had previously accepted the quest can get credit. Other characters won't get offered these quests once the first character has completed it.

Good luck, have fun and share your experiences here with others!

[carg]

A few remarks to Thorny's excellent advise:
- try to get the spells spirit eye (spirit 2) and illuminate (sun 3) quickly: they help a lot with dungeon exploring.
- Ranger quest: you can do the ranger quest early in the game, before Ishad N'ha. Quests you need to be beyond Ishad N'Ha for: Samurai, Ninja.
- Officially there are two more classes that have Stone Magic, but that's so late in the game it is not useful.
- About races: check the manual for the special traits they have; some, like the Whiskah night sight, are fairly useful.
- Merchant skill is only taught by the rogue guild, not the priest guild. You cannot get it in Valeia.
- About weapon proficiencies: one character with staff isn't bad; you'll find a few nice ones, and once you can use weapons in your off-hand you might want to get the dagger proficiency as well.

Thanks for the update Carg;

Noted correction on availability of Merchant skill. There is a good on line reference for traits and skills at: /http://www.seastop.com/wwtraits.htm

How do you complete the Ranger quest early? I was asked to return with a Raptor Egg, but the only Raptors I ran into were west of Brimloch Roon. Is there an undocumented bug?

You can find a Raptor just off of Snake River. Follow direction to the Caves of Ishad N' Ha. Before you get there, there is a path on the left that will lead you to a Raptor's nest. Here you should be able to pick up 2 eggs. The Raptor drops one and there is another one at the end of the same path... Happy Hunting!

[carg]

I believe all bugs in the game are undocumented.
The raptor only appears after accepting the quest, so it's very hard to find when you've already mapped that part. (Just like the assassin you need to kill for the Bushi Guild, Shrew Shiki or something.)

Thanks for the explanation moonlight_assassin and carg. It all makes sense to me now, since I have has some similar experiences with the - must get quest assigned first - feature. I am used to being able to get the quest item first then hand it at the same time as being quested (M&M style).

It never occurred to me to go back and re-explore areas that were empty the first time through. I also don't have all day to explore empty areas. Personally, I much prefer when things don't magicall appear after you speak to an NPC.

Another example of this 'feature': The Ring of Saints definitely was not at its appointed place (2nd time through game), so I had to complete another temple quest. then get the quest for the Ring, then go back to where I had already visited, but now the ring had magically materialized. I don't thing this added confusion helps gameplay, but I'll accept that I am playing in a changing world and that does present some interesting challenges.