MMMMMMM MMMMM MMMM MM MMMMMM MMMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMM MMMMMM MMMMM MMMMM MM MMMM MMMMMMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMMM MMMMMMMMMMM MMMMM MM MMMMM MM MMM MMMM MM MMMM MMMM MM MMMM MM MMM MMMMM MMMMM MM MMMMMM MM MMM MMMM M MMMM MMMM M MMMM M MMM MMMMM MMMMM MMM MMMMMMMMM MMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMM MMMM MM MMMMMM MMM MMMM.MMMM. MMMMMMMMM MMMM MMMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMMMM MM MMMMMM MMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMM MMM MMMMMMMMMMM MM MMMMM MMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMM M MMMMMMMMMMMM MM MMMM MMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMMM MMMMM MMMMM MM MMM MMMW MMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMMMM MMMMM MMMMM MM MMM MMMMMM MMMMMMM MMMMM MMMM MMMM MMMMMMMM MMMMM MMMMM MM MM MMMM MMMM M MMMMMM MMMMM MMMMM MM OF MMMM MM MMMMM MMMMM MMMMM MM MMMM MMMMM MMM MMMMM MMMMMMM MMMMM MMMMMMM MMM M MMMMMM MMM MMM MMMMMM M MMM MMM M MMM M MMM M MMMM M MMM MMM MMMM MMM MMMMMM MMM MMM MMM MMM MMMM M MMM MMM MMMM MMMMM MMMMM MMM MMMMM MMM MMMMM M MMMM MMM MMM MMMMMMMMMMM MMMM MMM MMMM MMM MMM MMMM M MMMM MMM MMM MMMMMMMM MMM MMM MMM MMM MM MMM M MMM MMM MMM MMMMMM MM MMM M MMM M MM MMM MMM M M MMM MMM MMM MMM M MMMMMMM MMMMMMM MMMM MMMMMMM M MM MMMMMM ================================ KNIGHTS OF LEGEND FAQ/WALKTHROUGH January 13, 2006 Version 1.0 By: Ian Kelley Email: masakadokou@yahoo.com ================================= This Document is Copyright 2003, 2004 by Ian Kelley. All Rights Reserved. It is protected by US and International Copyright Law. It is for private and personal use only, and cannot be reprinted in or reproduced in part or in entirety without the express written consent of the author. This document is intended to be free and may not be used for any sort of commercial venture, be that selling it, giving it away as a promotion, or making otherwise making available for profit. It may not be used or distributed by any website, organization, or individual, nor may it be used as a refererence or altered by anyone (such as strategy guide authors/publishers or magazine staff) without express permission of the author. =============================================================================== IMPORTANT NOTES: =============================================================================== HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE: ====================== This document is formatted to look right with a fixed-width font, and looks best in around a 9 point font in an 79-column window. This guide is divided into two sections--an FAQ, under which all the pertinent data regarding the game's system and so forth is covered, and a walkthrough as a step-by-step guide through the actual game itself. EMAIL/CONTACT POLICY: ===================== I get a ton of email about the various guides I write, and I don't have the time or the inclination to answer it all. I actually do not answer the majority of the email I get regarding my FAQs, because most of them are not worth respondingt to. If you are writing me an email and want me to respond, keep the following things in mind: * I have a very low tolerance threshold for stupid questions. If you need to ask a question, make sure the answer isn't already in this FAQ. The "Find" option of your text editor is your best friend. * Put the name of the game you're asking the question for in the subject line at least, and at least in the body of the text! I write a lot of FAQs and it'll help if I know what game you're talking about. Plus it will greatly increase the chance of my reading your email and not accidentally deleting it as spam. (Viva la 21st Century Internet and the spam flood it spawned...) * I'm not going to be anal about it, but try and keep a decent semblance of grammar and punctuation. Also refrain from using AOL-netspeak; use "you" instead of "u" and the like. It's only two keystrokes difference, come on HOSTING THIS FAQ: ================= If you want to host this FAQ on your site, your site must be either A) GameFAQs.com or B) a Knights of Legend-specific site. If you are B) email me first to ask so I know. If you have just a general-purpose game FAQ repository site that leeches off GameFAQs, do not even bother to email me to ask for permission to host this FAQ as the answer is no. I explicitly deny the use of this FAQ to the FAQ thieves at cheatcc.com, Cheatcc.com may not use this guide in any way, shape or form. If you find this, or any of my other guides, at cheatcc.com, it does not belong there, and the webmaster has stolen it. Email their upstream providers at Yahoo and complain, as they never pay any attention to complaints themselves. =============================================================================== = CONTENTS =============================================================================== = SECTION A: INTRODUCTION A.01 WHAT IS KNIGHTS OF LEGEND? A.02 KNIGHTS OF LEGEND VERSIONS A.03 FAN EXPANSIONS? SECTION B: CHARACTER CLASSES AND BUILDING A PARTY B.01 STATISTICS B.02 CLASSES B.03 CLASS ANALYSIS B.03a HUMANS B.03b ELVES B.03c DWARVES B.03d KELDERHEIT B.04 BUILDING THE PERFECT PARTY SECTION C: GAMEPLAY C.01 THE TOWN C.02 TALKING TO TOWNSPEOPLE C.03 THE ARENA SECTION D: COMBAT D.01 THE ROUND D.02 PLANNING PHASE D.02a PREDICTING ENEMY MOVES D.02b ACTION ICONS D.02c MOVEMENT ICONS D.02d ARMED ATTACKS D.02e ATTACK TARGETING D.02f DEFENSE TYPES D.02e UNARMED ATTACKS D.02f FINAL COMMANDS D.03 ACTION PHASE D.03a ATTACKING AND DEFENDING D.03b FATIGUE AND WOUNDS D.03c NUTRITION D.03d MAGIC D.04 COMBAT STRATEGY D.04a TYPES OF ATTACKS D.04b MISSILE WEAPONS D.04c MAGIC D.04e ARMOR D.04f WEAPONS D.05 THE "AMBUSH" STRATEGY SECTION E: MAGIC E.01 BASIC SPELLCASTING RULES E.02 SPELL EFFECTS E.03 STORE-BOUGHT SPELLS E.04 MAGIC ORDERS E.05 CUSTOMIZING SPELLS E.06 GUIDELINES FOR MAGIC STRATEGY SECTION F: MONSTERS F.01 MONSTER STATS F.02 MONSTER ARMOR F.03 ENCOUNTER MESSSAGES F.04 ENEMY DESCRIPTIONS F.04a HUMAN CLASS F.04b ELEMENTAL CLASS F.04c GIANT CLASS F.04d LEGENDARY CLASS F.04e UNDEAD CLASS SECTION G: QUESTS G.01 THE QUEST SYSTEM G.02 QUEST THREAD SYNOPSIS G.03 THE QUESTS G.03a BURGLARY AT STEPHANIE'S (Ruffians) G.03b THE KNIGHTS' STANDARD (Bandits) G.03c THE WITCH'S QUILL (Ghouls) G.03d BRETTLE'S TRUTH SWORD Goblins G.03e THE FINAL BATTLE (Cyclopes) G.03f THE KELDER'S CROWN (Binderaks) G.03g NOBJOR THE PIRATE (Hobgoblins) G.03h MUGGING THE MUGGERS (Thugs) G.03i OUTING THE SPY (Muck Things) G.03j CHASING RUMORS (Great Orcs) G.03k GETTING THE DEATH BLADE (Mist Giants) G.03l YARDLEY'S FOLLY (Walbars) G.03m CONTROLLING THE SERPENT (Skeletons) G.03n THE MEANING OF RHORDING (Ogres) G.03o DECODING THE MAP (Sylphs) G.03p INTHOS THE MAGE (Stone Ogres) G.03q SEARCHING FOR OIL (Brigands) G.03r ALCHEMIST'S TOOLS (Orcs) G.03s TREASURE HUNT (Minotaurs) G.03t TROLL HUNTING (Trolls) G.03u BRYOR (Ettins) G.03v CUDDLY DJINN (Djinn) G.03w THE RING OF SHADES (Cliff Trolls) G.03x SHELLERNOON'S WARD (Sledges) SECTION F: TOWN AMENITIES F.01 BRETTLE F.02 THIMBLEWALD F.03 HTRON F.05 POITLE LOCK F.06 OLANTHEN F.07 AMAZON VILLAGE F.08 KLVAR WOODS F.09 FALLEN KEEP F.10 KAZHAD F.11 HALFWAY HOUSE F.12 BRETTLE CROSSROADS SECTION G: EQUIPMENT G.01 STANDARD EQUIPMENT G.02 UNUSUAL EQUIPMENT G.03 QUEST EQUIPMENT SECTION H: CHEATING H.01 ITEM DUPLICATION H.02 HEX EDITING H.03 SAVE FILE SETUP H.04 EDITING YOUR MONEY, ADVENTURE POINTS, ETC H.05 EDITING YOUR STATS H.06 EDITING NAMES OF ITEMS/EQUIPMENT/SPELLS H.07 EDITING WEAPON SKILLS H.08 HACKING ITEMS H.09 "SECRET" ITEM CODES H.10 EDITING SPELLS H.11 EDITING QUEST STATUS THANKS COPYRIGHT NOTICE =============================================================================== SECTION A: INTRODUCTION =============================================================================== A.01 WHAT IS KNIGHTS OF LEGEND? =============================== Knights of Legend is a little-known RPG that was released by Origin Systems in late 1989. The idea behind the game was to make a very realistic, multi-part RPG. The first installment was to cover the land of Ashtalarea, and future expansions were planned for other lands called Salynn, Bamidor, Tsadith, and Astrikan. (according to the manual) However, Knights of Legend didn't do so well, and the future expansions were never released. If the reviews I read were any indication, people didn't really warm up to the system and thought it was too complicated. It's a shame, because once you get past the learning curve, Knights is a really great game. Even to this day, over 15 years later, I have yet to see an RPG combat system that comes even close to the level of depth and detail in Knights of Legend. So why bother with a Knights of Legend FAQ now? Partially because it's one of my all-time favorite games, but also because despite how good the game is, there really isn't much in the way of information about it out there. I was able to find one very old FAQ floating around out there that was written about the time the game was released, but it was somewhat limited in scope and inaccurate in a few parts too. Hopefully this FAQ will generate interest in the game so that people will give it a whirl; it's one of the best games ever made in my opinion. In terms of where to find the game...eBay is probably your best bet. (I've seen it there a couple of times in the recent past, usually the Apple II version though) You might be able to find it at abandonware sites, but you really need the manual--and more importantly, the map--to play the game effectively, so you'll be better off finding a real copy, if you can. A.02 KNIGHTS OF LEGEND VERSIONS =============================== There are two versions of Knights of Legend; one for the Apple II, and one for DOS. I've played both versions; the Apple II version I played to death during high school, and the DOS version I found more recently at a garage sale. The two versions are virtually identical, but this FAQ is primarily based on the DOS version, as that's the one I was playing as I wrote it, and information on the Apple II version is mostly based on memory. In terms of which version to play, there are advantages and disadvantages to each. The DOS version has substantially better graphics, (the portraits, character icons nad paperdolls especially are a lot nicer than the Apple version) but there are gameplay elements in the Apple version that are missing from the DOS version. Here's a quick overview of the non-graphical differences I've noticed: The DOS version can be installed to the hard drive, whereas the Apple version requires extensive disk swapping. Missile weapons act more realistically in the Apple version; your arrows and bolts can hit any character in line with your target. In the DOS version, when you fire an arrow, it will always hit the square you target. In the Apple II version, characters will only be frozen in terror when attempting melee attacks on "terrible" enemies; missile attacks and spells are not penalized. In the DOS version, ANY non-movement action can result in a character being frozen in terror when facing "terrible" enemies. Fewer enemy types in the DOS version are "terrible" than in the Apple II version. In the Apple II version, spell customization is broken; when you go to customize a spell the screen freezes up with weird graphic artifacts and you have to restart. Or it could just be that I was extremely unlucky (I thought my disk was bad, so I exchanged it at the store but the new disks did the same thing) In terms of which version is "better," when pressed for a choice I'd say the DOS version because you don't need to disk-swap and spell customization works. If you could get spell customization to work in the Apple version and didn't mind the disk swapping and worse graphics, then it would probably be the better choice. Overall though the differences are very minor. A.03 FAN EXPANSIONS? ==================== As far as I know, no fan expansions for Knights of Legend ever exist. However, if anyone more code-oriented than I knew how to reverse-engineer the KOL system and would be willing to work on a fan expansion, drop me a mail and I'd be happy to help however I could, and lend what knowledge I've gleaned from the hex-editing I've done on the game so far. I've pretty much completely decoded how the save game file works and have made some progress toward figuring out where the monster data is stored (in the Apple II version only, I've come up empty trying to hack the DOS version) but don't know how town text, store data, or map data is stored, or any of the graphical data. If anyone is willing to help on a KOL fan expansion, this is the kind of data I'd need to know. =============================================================================== SECTION B: CHARACTER CLASSES AND BUILDING A PARTY =============================================================================== There are a lot of different character classes in Knights of Legend, all of whom play very differently. On the surface, the only difference between character classes is their statistics and starting Weapon Skills, but in Knights of Legend, where statistics are more or less static, that makes a huge difference in the long run. While this is covered in the manual, here's a brief overview of the seven Primary and three Secondary Statistics, and what they affect. B.01 STATISTICS =============== STRENGTH: Strength determines several things; it gives you combat bonuses to hit and to damage your enemies. Most importantly, though, it affects how much weight a character can carry on his or her person and not get fatigued. QUICKNESS: Quickness affects how soon a character will move in a combat round. A faster character will act earlier in a combat round than a slower character, though this is affected in great part by the type of action being performed. SIZE: Size is a unique attribute in that it's the only one where a high value is not necessarily better than a low one. Very large characters can take more punishment and deal stunning blows to enemies more often, and can take High Shots at tall enemies that shorter characters could not. However their armor weighs a whole lot more, which is a downside. HEALTH: Health's primary function is to determine fatigue regeneration rate. It says in the manual that it also staves off disease, but I've never seen a character get sick. It figures into two of the secondary statistics, so is extra important in that sense. FORESIGHT: Foresight affects how late in a character decides his or her actions when picking what to do in a Combat Round. The higher the Foresight, the later in the round the character picks--and the better the chance to see what enemies with lower Foresight have already decided to do. CHARISMA: Charisma--well...I don't know what it does. It doesn't seem to affect anyone's reactions, nor does it do anything like change prices in stores. It may be a useless attribute. INTELLECT: Intellect affects the chance for a character to interpret an enemy's "body language" and decipher what action they are going to take in a combat round. It also affects spellcasting and the ability to join mage's guilds. BALANCE: Balance is the average of a character's Strength and Intellect. Certain creatures in the game are "terrible" and can strike fear into the hearts of the toughest adventurers, causing them to freeze in terror when attempting to do anything but run away. Characters with high Balance values have a better chance to muster up the courage to fight these creatures. ENDURANCE: Endurance is the average of a character's Strength and Health. It affects the amount of Stamina that a character has, and the ability to resist wounds. It's a very important attribute for all classes, as Fatigue is critical in this game. BODY: Body, or Body Points, are the average of a character's Size and Health. They directly affect how much damage a character can take before getting knocked out or having an arm or leg disabled. B.02 CLASSES ============ The following is a list of all the classes in the game and their average starting attributes. Note that they differ substantially from the manual, which is mostly flat out wrong. I got these values by rolling up 12 characters of each class and taking the average, so these numbers are obviously not absolute. They should, however, give you a better ballpark estimate of what each class is like than the manual does. The Weapon Skills are listed as Offensive/Defensive skills (or just Offensive in the case of Missile Weapons) HUMAN MALE CLASSES: STR QUI SIZ HEA FOR CHA INT BAL END BOD GOLD WEAPON SKILLS Barbarian: 90 60 70 70 66 60 60 75 80 70 1500 *Greatsword 10/5 Halberd 5/5 Ranger: 75 70 66 66 70 100 70 72 70 66 1500 *Broadsword 10/7 Long Bow 10 Warrion: 68 60 66 88 60 62 68 68 78 77 1500 *Battle Axe 12/10 Squire: 70 70 70 78 70 70 78 74 74 74 2000 *Broadsword 12/5 Self Bow 5 Darkguard: 72 70 70 75 70 55 80 76 73 72 2000 *Mace 12/5 Lt Crossbow 5 Watchman: 75 66 68 75 66 72 70 72 75 71 1500 *Battle Axe 10/7 Long Bow 7 Plainsman: 54 88 63 65 63 70 88 71 59 64 1500 *Long Bow 12 Longsword 5/0 Hunter: 54 82 64 68 80 75 74 64 61 66 1500 *Self Bow 10 Long Spear 7/5 Regular: 69 69 70 68 68 94 69 69 68 69 3000 *Long Spear 10/5 Battle Axe 10/10 Highwayman: 82 62 70 82 62 62 68 75 82 76 1500 *War Hammer 12/7 Longsword 5/0 Pirate: 70 70 68 75 62 75 75 72 72 71 3000 *Scimitar 12/7 Self Bow 7/0 Rogue: 54 83 68 62 75 63 76 65 58 65 3000 *Longsword 10/10 HUMAN FEMALE CLASSES: STR QUI SIZ HEA FOR CHA INT BAL END BOD GOLD WEAPON SKILLS Tigress: 69 78 64 65 63 75 75 72 67 64 1500 *Halberd 12/10 Longsword 7/5 Amazon: 75 63 67 68 68 75 75 75 71 67 1500 *Broadsword 10/10 Self Bow 10 Huntress: 54 85 67 63 74 75 76 65 58 65 1500 *Long Bow 12 Short Spear 7/7 Plainswoman: 54 88 61 62 61 75 75 64 58 61 1500 *Long Bow 10 Long Sword 12/7 ELF CLASSES: STR QUI SIZ HEA FOR CHA INT BAL END BOD GOLD WEAPON SKILLS BREKLAND: Male: 61 87 61 55 61 69 80 70 58 58 1500 *Longsword 12/5 Female: 56 89 60 54 75 70 69 62 55 57 1500 *Long Bow 12 KLVAR: Male: 70 74 62 62 68 68 75 72 66 62 1500 *Longsword 12/5 Female: 63 74 62 61 74 66 76 69 62 61 1500 *Long Bow 12 MELOD: Male: 61 80 58 62 62 101 83 72 61 60 1500 *Long Sword 12/5 Female: 63 80 56 63 76 75 68 65 63 59 1500 *Long Bow 12 PYAR: Male: 54 77 70 63 62 76 95 74 58 66 1000 *Elf Bow 15 Female: 47 75 61 60 75 76 88 67 53 60 1000 *Elf Bow 15 THISM: Male: 55 94 61 55 60 63 82 68 55 58 1500 *Long Sword 12/5 Female: 47 94 58 62 75 63 68 57 54 60 1500 *Long Bow 12 USIP: Male: 54 80 55 60 70 83 87 70 57 57 200 *Elf Bow 25 Female: 48 74 53 61 75 82 89 68 54 57 200 *Elf Bow 25 DWARF CLASSES: STR QUI SIZ HEA FOR CHA INT BAL END BOD GOLD WEAPON SKILLS Tunneler/ Digger: 88 54 48 89 54 62 70 79 88 68 3000 *Short Spear: 12/7 Ratguard/ Spiderguard: 74 80 54 68 62 69 69 71 71 61 1500 *Battle Axe 12/7 Trollbane/ Orcbane: 69 69 52 75 75 76 69 69 72 63 1500 *War Hammer 12/7 Militia/ Levy: 68 60 51 81 67 75 76 72 74 66 1500 *Battle Axe 5/5 Lt Crossbow 10 KELDEN CLASSES: STR QUI SIZ HEA FOR CHA INT BAL END BOD GOLD WEAPON SKILLS Cliff Guard: 83 60 77 70 68 61 75 79 76 73 1250 *Greatsword 10/10 Rock Ranger: 68 69 79 83 62 62 76 72 75 81 1250 *Longbow 12 Far Seeker: 76 63 84 77 68 62 73 74 76 80 1250 *Greatsword 5/5 Longbow 5 B.03 CLASS ANALYSIS =================== The following is a detailed analysis of each class and how they fare up against the others, with both advantages and disadvantages to taking each one, plus some of my own commentary as to how useful I find them. These are not be-all- end-all evaluations, as just about any party makeup will work, but hopefully will help you decide what kind of a party to make. B.03a HUMANS ------------ There's so much variety among Human character classes that it's hard to sum them up easily. Some are good front-line, heavy warriors, some are better as scouts, some are better as light warriors or archers. The only thing that Humans are rarely good at is magic. (Though Plainsmen can be a match for any other class in the game in that arena) Humans tend to be pretty large (though not as giant as Kelden) so they're generally best with medium to light armor, though this too varies. Unlike Elves, there are separate classes for male and female Humans. And, it's unfortunate to say, the women got the short end of the stick. Among the four female classes, two are geared toward melee and two for archery, but there are better classes for both roles amongs the ranks of human men. Humans will never be booted out of any establishment or house in the game due to their race, though they may be ejected due to their class. Human classes are very versatile overall. KRAG BARBARIAN: The Krag Barbarian is one of the better Human classes; a very solid warrior geared toward front-line melee fighting. Their Strength is better than any other class in the game, and their Endurance and Balance values are generally quite good. They can afford to wear heavier armor than most other Human classes, and they have great starting weapon skills; since you can get a magic Greatsword and Halberd, that adds to the bonus. The downside to Barbarians is that they're slow and stupid, so they rarely ever forsee enemy attacks, and they also make lousy archers. They also have less Body points than you'd hope for a front-line warrior. Also, the Barbarians are not welcome in several places in Thimblewald. The guard station and pub don't matter much, but getting booted out of the Thimblewald Abbey hurts quite literally; there are lots of quests given in the Thimblewald vicinity, and not having access to easy healing is a real downer. DREZIN RANGER: Drezin Rangers are a versatile and very well-rounded character class. They can be used as either an archer or a melee fighter with little problem. Their Charisma is higher than practically any other character class. (Though Charisma is of little use in KOL in general...) Because of their high strength and smaller size than other Humans, they can afford to wear slightly heavier armor, though not to the same extent of a Highwayman or Barbarian. Also, since Rangers are welcome everywhere in the game, they make good party leaders. The downside of Rangers is that they don't really excel anywhere; their Body points are a little low for a melee fighter and their quickness, foresight and intellect are a little low for an archer. Still, they're a solid, all-around character class. KRELL WARRION: Staying power is the name of the game with the Krell Warrion. The only classes that can take more punishment than a Warrion are Kelden. But since Kelden are huge and Warrions are (comparitively) small, Warrions can afford to wear much heavier armor. Also, since Warrions only start with one weapon skill, you have a lot of leeway as to what weapons you want to give them. Plus, their one starting skill is at a much higher level than that of most other character classes. The downside of Warrions? They suck at everything else. They're slow and have crappy foresight, and all the their other stats are mediocre at best. With a lot of work and effort, you can turn a Warrion into an able fighter (melee only, they're not great as archers) but they start at a disadvantage. However, Warrions are welcome everywhere, so they make an acceptable party leader. HOBEAN SQUIRE: Despite the fact that their name makes them sound like a half-baked character (who wants a squire instead of a Knight?) the Hobean Squires are one of the best classes in the game. They're the only class that doesn't have a single stat that averages below 70. They're good at pretty much everything--melee, archery, magic--a Squire can be effective in any of these roles. (Though their high Health makes them better at melee overall) There aren't a lot of downsides to being a Squire, except that they start out with Self Bow Skill, and the Self Bow is a crappy weapon; it's a shame to have to waste points in them. Also, they don't have the strength to back up their Size so heavy armor is more or less out for Squires; medium armor like ring or scale is your best bet. The prisoner in the Hobean keep is the only character in the game that won't speak to Squires, so they also make a decent party leader. DARK GUARD: In terms of their stats, the Dark Guard are probably the most well-balanced class in the entire game. Their only bad stat is Charisma, which is pretty much useless anyway. They've got decent enough Strength and Health to wear heavy armor, and they're one of the few Human classes that can be outstanding mages. Their average Balance is also better than any other Human class. They also start with Mace skill, which means that if you kill a Binderak early on you can use their Spiny Maces, which make fantastic weapons. There is a downside to being a Dark Guard, though--a really big one. As former minions of the evil Pildar, the people of Ashtalarea HATE the Dark Guard. The Dark Guard get kicked out of more places than any other race or class in the entire game; more than half of the shopkeepers in Shellernoon will refuse to do business with a Dark Guard outright, and numerous other houses and shops across the land in other cities will too. What especially hurts is that the Dark Guard will get kicked out of two trainers, severely limiting their choice of weapons. Not to mention the fact they start with skill in a crappy weapon (Light Crossbow) as well. They're a fun character class to play, but dealing with the prejudice of Ashtalareans can be a real pain. SHELLERNOON WATCHMAN: The Shellernoon Watchmen are a lot like the Drezin Rangers, except that they trade off the Rangers' speed and Foresight (and Charisma, but who cares about that anyway) for extra Health. This means that they don't make as good archers as Rangers, but are still pretty good all-rounders. They're slightly taller than Rangers, but can still afford to wear heavy armor as their extra Health will make up for it in their increased Endurance. The downside for the Watchmen is that they're somewhat slow and have mediocre foresight so they rarely strike first or can predict their enemies' moves. Another problem with the Watchmen is their main starting weapon is the Battle Axe, which you can only train up to a skill level of 30. Still, they're a solid class, and they're not unwelcome anywhere in-game so can make a decent party leader too. LINTLE PLAINSMAN: Lintle Plainsmen are pure archers and/or mages. They have fantastic speed which allows them to run from nasties well, and their Intellect allows them to forsee enemies' moves quite frequently (though their Foresight is a little on the low side) and makes them excellent mages qualified to enter any of the magic orders. Their comparitively high starting skill in Longbow makes it even better. They also won't get ejected from any house in the game. The downside to Plainsmen is that archery and magic is basically all they can do. They absolutely suck at close-quarters combat; if you put them into a melee combat situation they'll get knocked out really quickly, as they neither have the strength to do much damage or wear heavy armor, or the health and size to have any lasting power. They can make good scouts, but the fact of the matter is that Elves do a better job. If you must have a human male as an archer/scout, the Plainsman is a good choice. I'd pass, though, as I like to have my scouts and archers female. (though that's mostly just for party diversity reasons) OLANTHEN HUNTER: Olanthen Hunters are a whole lot like Lintle Plainsmen. They're pretty much pure archers, though if you must put them into a melee situation they'll survive a better than a Plainsman would because of their increased Health. They're fast which makes them good scouts, but what's really the Hunter's main advantage is their incredible Foresight, which is better than any other character class in the game. They've got a decent Intellect to back that up too, so you'll "forecast" enemies' actions with Hunters more than just about any other class in the game. While a minor advantage, the Hunters won't get kicked out of any places in the game. The downside to Hunters is that like Plainsmen, they also suck in melee combat, plus their starting weapon, the Self Bow, is a lousy weapon. Their Foresight is a real boon, but that by itself doesn't make it worth having a Hunter in your party, unless you're shooting for an all-male party, in which case the Hunter is a good candidate for your Scout. BRETTLE REGULAR: The main advantage to the Brettle Regular is their starting Gold, which ties for the highest amount of any character in the game. They also have high Charisma, decent starting weapon skills and none of their stats are particularly low either. That's about all you can say for the Regulars though. They're pretty much mediocre at everything. They don't make great melee fighters, and they don't make great archers either. Not to mention that, but they'll also get booted out of the Bakery in Olanthen and Zachary Bladeshure's house in Htron. The Bakery is no big deal, but Zachary Bladeshure is one of the best trainers in the game. Plus, the Regulars have to waste a skill on Battle Axe, which can't get any higher than 30 unless you cheat. I advise passing on this class, unless you're looking for a challenge. DUKE'S HIGHWAYMAN: Big, strong, and tough; that about sums up the Duke's Highwayman. The Highwaymen are actually one of the best character classes in the game, and an ideal candidate for party leader, as they don't get booted out of any places in the game. Highwaymen are similar to Barbarians; they're geared toward being front-line melee fighters. They're slightly weaker than Barbarians, but have better Health and Body Points instead, and are also slightly faster. Their Foresight is lousy, but their Intellect is decent, meaning that they'll get forecasts more often than a Barbarian would. The main downside to being a Highwayman is that their starting weapon skills are not really ideal for the class. The Warhammer is indeed the best of the one-handed weapons, but Highwaymen really shine with big heavy two-handers, and Longsword skill is really out of place. They also are totally ineffective as archers and/or mages so they're limited as well. To get the most potential out of a Highwayman, you'll have to choose another weapon type and train it from scratch. Still, the Highwayman is an excellent character. HTRON PIRATE: The Htron Pirate is actually quite a solid character choice. They're a very well-rounded character that can do well as both a melee fighter and and an archer, or even a mage. They also have a high starting Gold level, which means you can deck out a Pirate in decent equipment at the very start of the game. If you use the Pirate as a melee fighter (which is probably better) then he's best suited for one-handed weapons with medium armor; they're not strong enough to wield heavy weapons or armor. Still, they can hold their own quite well, and while their starting weapon, the Scimitar, isn't particularly powerful, you can build your Scimitar level higher than any other weapon in the game. The downside to being a Pirate is that as they're jacks-of-all trades, they're masters of none, much like the Rangers and Watchmen. In fact, they'll probably be slightly less effective in combat than either of those professions as they're slightly weaker. Their Foresight is also pretty poor, meaning that they won't forsee attacks very well. And, like some other characters, they start with Self Bow skill, which is kind of a waste. Pirates will also be booted out of the Thimblewald Armorer, though this probably isn't too big of a deal, as you can equip your Pirate at many other places. POITLE ROGUE: Rogues are best used as archers or low-level mages; their Quickness, Foresight and Intellect are all quite good, which suits archers well. They also start out with quite a lot of gold. That's about it that's good for Rogues though; in my opinion they're the worst Human class in the game. They're potentially good archers, but start out with jack squat in the way of archery skill, and are next to useless in melee combat; they don't have enough strength to wear anything but the lightest armor, and their Health is even worse than Plainsmen. They can make a decent scout, but not nearly as well as a Hunter or Plainsman. (to say nothing of Elves) They also get kicked out of the Fishmonger in Poitle and the Wailing Peacock Inn (the good one) in Htron; though the former is no big deal the latter is a pain. There's really no reason to make your character a Rogue unless you're looking for a challenge or want to have your party a typical "RPG archetype" one. (But as there are no treasure chests to pick or traps to disarm, the archetypal RPG rogue is pretty much out of place in this game) I suggest you pass on this class. GHOR TIGRESS: The Ghor Tigress is one of the more balanced classes in the game. In fact, their starting weapon skills are better than any other class in the game, making the Tigress the deadliest character class in terms of their starting stats. Tigresses can make both good archers and passable mages as well. Overall Tigresses are best as melee fighters, and they can use any type of armor, though they're probably best with medium armor due to their Strength and Health values. The down side of Tigresses is that while they're excellent warriors, the fact of the matter is that there are human male classes that are better at it. A Tigress can do great damage and is nimble and quick, but they just don't have the stamina and staying power to truly excel. Still, they make excellent light fighters, so are worth a look. TEGAL AMAZON: The Amazons are, pound-for-pound, the best melee fighter amongst human women. They're a little on the slow side, but they've got great strength, good health and foresight, and excellent Intellect, making them a very well-rounded character class overall. They're about on par with a Watchman, Ranger, or Pirate in terms of overall skill. If you want your party leader to be female, the Amazon is the class that you should probably go with. Amazons don't have much in the way of disadvantages, except that their Body Points are a little low for a melee fighter, and they are another class that wastes their skill points with Self Bow skill. And, like the Tigress, there are male classes that are potentially better at melee than Amazons. OLANTHEN HUNTRESS: The Olanthen Huntress is very much like their male counterpart, the Olanthen Hunter; in fact the two classes are practically identical. Huntresses are very slightly faster and smarter than Hunters, but their Health, Endurance, and Body points are inferior. While a Huntress' Foresight is still good, it they don't enjoy the exceptional level of the Hunters. Overall, the Huntress is geared to be an archer or scout. Like the Hunter, the Huntress is not a good melee fighter at all, and should shy away from that profession. Her Health is also pretty mediocre, and her strength is low, so putting anything other than the lightest armor on her is a mistake. If given a choice between the two professions, I would say that the Huntress is slightly superior; the speed and Intellect bonus is worth the Foresight tradeoff, but more importantly, she starts with Long Bow skill instead of Self Bow skill. If you want a human archer/scout, the Huntress is probably your best bet. LINTLE PLAINSWOMAN: Plainswomen are a lot like Plainsmen. They're geared primarly to be archers, with very high Quickness, and good Intellect to forecast enemies' moves. They also can make passable mages as well if you choose to go that route. They also have much better starting melee capabilities than Plainsmen, with a much higher Long Sword skill level; they have a much better defense once they've run out of arrows. The downside to Plainswomen is that compared to their male counterpart, they suck. They've got lower Health, Foresight, and MUCH lower Intellect, and all three of their secondary statistics are inferior to Plainsmen, markedly so in the case of Balance. There's really no reason to be a Plainswoman instead of a Plainsman unless you want a really gender-balanced party. Still, they're not THAT much inferior, and they make pretty good archers and scouts overall. With a little work, you won't notice that much of a difference between the two. B.03b ELVES ----------- Elves are geared toward being archers, scouts, and mages. They are the fastest race in the game, and have exceptional Intellect, so they have a lot of leeway in terms of magic orders they can join. Certain Elf races come with skill in the Elf Bow, the most powerful missile weapon in the game. (while Heavy Crossbows can do more damage, the fact that you have to reload them after every shot negates any advantage they would have) They have generally strong Foresight as well so can predict enemy moves with reasonable regularity. Elves make terrible melee warriors though. Their speed is such that they're excellent in getting in the first hit, but it rarely takes one hit to kill enemies, and very few Elves have the strength to make using a melee weapon worthwhile. The healthiest elf profession is at about the same level as the sickliest human (to say nothing of Dwarves or Kelden) so they tend to have very poor Body Points. Unlike Humans, Elven females do not get the short end of the stick, but are generally superior to their male counterparts. While they generally have lower Strength and Health than male Elves, they all have better Foresight, which is more important in an archer. Not to mention the fact that most Male Elf races start out with no missile weapon skills at all. Overall, Elves are ideal scouts and archers. BREKLAND: Like other Elf classes, the Breklands are most geared toward archery. They are the second-fastest Elf class in general, and their Strength is at about the midpoint amongst Elves. Brekland Males also make good mages as they have a very high Intellect. (Brekland Females don't share this trait) Conversely, Brekland Females are better archers as they have substantially better Foresight. Brekland Elves can wield heavier weapons and wear heavier armor than some other Elf classes, but anything heavier than Leather is probably a mistake. The downside to being a Brekland Elf is that they have the worst Health rating of any class in the game, and their Body points are quite poor. As such, they're utterly useless in melee combat, which gives Brekland Males a distinct disadvantage, seeing as how they only start with Long Sword skill. Brekland females are decidedly superior; they're faster and they have better Foresight, so make much better scouts and archers. There are classes that are better in this arena, but Brekland females will make solid archers nontheless. KLVAR: Klvar elves are the only Elf class that can really hold their own in melee. Though Klvar Elves are slower than the other Elf classes, Klvar males are the strongest of them, and their Health, while not good in comparison to other races, is decent as well. Because of their reasonably small size, they can wear heavier armor as well. Klvar females are better as archers, with their higher Foresight and Intellect. Plus they start with bows. The downside to Klvar elves is that they're really a mediocre character class when you get down to it. While Klvar males can be passable melee fighters as well as archers, they are really only average at best in either. Klvar females make better archers and scouts, but there are better classes out there for that job. If you must have a melee Elf, then go with a Klvar male; otherwise you're probably better off passing on these classes. MELOD: Melod Elves are like most other Elves in that they're geared primarily toward archery. They have better Health than any of the other Elf classes, which gives them a little better lasting power. While not the the same extent as a Klvar Elf, Melod elves can handle heavier armor than most other Elves as well. Melod males also make excellent mages with their high Intellect scores, but like the Brekland Elves, Melod females do not share the same affinity for magic. Melod males also have the highest Charisma of any class in the game, though this admittedly means little. In terms of archery, Melod males and females are about on even footing; females have better Foresight so they'll have more chances to read an enemy's moves, but males have better Intellect to interpret those moves. The downside to Melods are the same as other Elves; they're terrible at melee and can't take many hits. Plus Melod males suffer from having an inopportune starting weapon. Overall, they make decent archers and scouts, but there are better classes for this. PYAR: Pyar Elves are archers like most other Elves, but their real strength is in spellcasting; they are the best spellcasters in the game, especially Pyar males. They also have better Health ratings than a lot of Elves, and on average Pyars have better Balance and Body Point ratings than the other Elf races. Plus, both males and females start out with the wonderful Elf Bow as a weapon. As such, they make ideal scouts. Pyar females aren't quite as good spellcasters, and they're weaker than males, but not by much, and they have better Foresight. The down side to the Pyar Elves is that they have the lowest Strength rating of all Elf classes. Pyar males also have the disadvantage of being exceptionally tall for an elf. While this may not seem like a disadvantage as more hight equals more Body Points, it means that their armor is going to be a lot heavier, and since Pyar males excel as mages this poses a problem as spellcasting really drains stamina. If you do use a Pyar male, I actually suggest you send him into battle naked, or wearing nothing but a Cloth Aketon. Pyar females have a little more leeway, so I would lean more toward using a female than a male. Also, while they make great archers and scouts, pound for pound I think Usip Elves are better. Having a Pyar Elf AND an Usip Elf is not a bad idea, though.... THISM: The Thism Elves are the fastest character classes in the game, making them fantastic archers and scouts. Thism males also have high Intellect, making them great mages, too. Thism Females aren't great mages, but they have better Health and Foresight than their male counterparts. Plus they start out with Bows, making it easier to use them "out of the box." The downside to Thism Elves is that their Strength and Health (in the case of males) suck, so they make horrible melee fighters, and the worst Endurance scores of all the classes in the game. As Thism males start out as being equipped for melee, this makes them the most vulnerable of all classes in the game when starting out. Their Strength also prevents them from using any but the lightest of armor. (This isn't a big deal for Thism women, but men, it is) I wouldn't bother using a Thism male myself, but a Thism female makes an excellent backup archer or scout, should something happen to your primary scout. USIP: In my opinion, the Usip Elves are the most balanced and well-rounded of the Elf races. If you only have one Elf in your party, make it an Usip. Usips have high Quickness statistics (especially men) and come in only second to the Pyars in terms of innate spellcasting ability. (the females are better in this arena) What's more, they start with a whopping 25 points of skill in the Elf Bow, making them potentially quite deadly to start with. As they are the smallest of the Elf classes, their armor also weighs less than other classes. Overall, I would say that the Usip female makes the single best scout in the game. She's not quite as fast as one would like for a scout, but the better Foresight and Intellect more than make up for this, and the extra punch from the Elf Bow and magic spells means that she can hold her own in a pinch quite well too. The down side to an Usip is that like other elves, they're useless in melee combat, and are almost as weak as the Pyars. Also they start out with a pittance in terms of funds; your other party members will have to foot the bill for their initial equipment. Their Endurance and Body Points are also pretty low, but equipped in nothing but Cloth, they can still expend no Fatigue at all when sprinting uninjured. Overall the Usips are one of the better classes in the game, and definitely worth at least a look. B.03c DWARVES ------------- Dwarves are primarily geared for up-close-and-personal scrapping in melee. They're strong and hardy so they have fantastic Endurance and can dish out nasty damage as well. Also, since Dwarves are so small, they can deal with heavy armor better than any other race in the game. Dwarves are the only race that can be completely decked out in full plate armor and a heavy weapon and not have major Stamina problems. There are several down sides to being a Dwarf, though. First and foremost is their size; it allows them to wear heavy armor better than any other class, but you pretty much HAVE to wear heavy armor as Dwarves will be on the receiving end of mighty blows more than any other race without it. While their high Health makes up for it somewhat, they are low on Body points when compared to Humans or Kelden. The short stature of Dwarves also becomes a liability when you're fighting massive opponents like Giants, as it's hard for Dwarves to hit anything but the legs of these sorts of creatures. However, the biggest liability for Dwarves is their speed in battle; Dwarves cannot Sprint, which means they can only move one space per turn no matter what. (You could equip them with the Flying Cloak once you get it, but a Dwarf is MUCH better off wearing the Courage Coat) Another, minor problem with dwarves is that they get booted out of various establishments more than other races. Still, the fact that you can arm and armor a Dwarf to the hilt without suffering major Fatigue penalties make them very effective characters in melee combat. Having all your melee fighters Dwarves is not recommended (as there are going to be situations where you're going to need at least one or two melee guys to sprint) but they can be real assets to your party nonetheless. Note on Dwarf Classes: There are two clans of Dwarves, Ghor Dwarves and Mytrone Dwarves. There are four classes for each clan, each having an equivalent to the other clan. (For example Ghor Militia has Mytrone Levy as a counterpart) The counterparts are different in name only; all their stats, starting skills, weapons, etc. are identical. GHOR TUNNELER/MYTRONE DIGGER In my opinion, the Tunnelers and Diggers are the best Dwarf class in the game. Dwarfs "specialize" more or less in wearing heavy armor, and the Tunnelers and Diggers do this better than any class in the game. They've got incredible Strength and Health; the only class with better Strength is the Barbarian, and nobody has better Health than a Tunneler/Digger. This gives them really high Endurance. Plus, they're the smallest class in the game, which means their armor weighs less than any other class. You can deck out a Tunneler/Digger completely in Plate, give him a Kite Shield or a Greatsword, have him run into battle using nothing but Berserk attacks, and he'll STILL not lose any Stamina. While they'll never hit the head of a giant, this makes them incredible close- combat scrappers. Plus, they start out with a ton of money. The downside of the Tunneler/Digger is that while they excel in Strength and Stamina, they're not very good at anything else. Their Quickness and Foresight absolutely suck; in fact, they've got the worst scores in those two stats than any other class in the game. Also their starting weapon is kind of crappy too--they're much more suited for heavier weapons with more of a punch. And since they're so slow, until you can afford to buy the heavy armor that will soak up all the hits they'll take, these guys may die a little more quickly than you'd hope. Still, the Tunnelers and Diggers are great at what they do, and make a valuable addition to any party. GHOR RATGUARD/MYTRONE SPIDERGUARD: Ratguards and Spiderguards are quick little buggers. While most Dwarves are slow and plodding, these guys are faster than most other classes in the game. They've also got decent strength too, which makes them a very versatile fighter. They can weild medium-to-heavy weapons and still smack the enemies before they get an attack off, which is useful. They don't have the foresight or intellect to make them good archers, but that's not what Dwarves are for anyway. Their diminutive size allows them to wear heavy armor with little detriment, but their lower Stamina compared to other Dwarf classes makes it so that they can't always afford to run around in full plate and not get winded. They also have the problem of not having much in the way of Body Points, even for a Dwarf, and their Foresight is nothing to write home about either, though it's not nearly as bad as the Tunneler/Digger's. While close combat is the Ratguard/Spiderguard's forte, a "stick and move" strategy may be the best one to adopt if you choose to use one. They're a pretty good class though; if you want a heavily-armored fighter but don't want to sacrifice speed with a Tunneler or Digger, the Ratguard or Spiderguard may be a good choice. GHOR TROLLBANE/MYTRONE ORCBANE: The Ghor Trollbane and Mytrone Orcbane are the most well-rounded Dwarf Classes; they have generally high stats; none exceptional, but none terrible either. They're a lot like a very short Hobean Squire in many respects. One major advantage to the Trollbane and Orcbane is that they have much better Foresight than the other Dwarf classes, so they'll predict enemy movements more often than a Tunneler or Spiderguard would. They also start with the best weapon of all the Dwarf classes. The downside of the Trollbane and Orcbane is that they're really just an average character class. Like other Dwarves, their small size allows them to wear heavier armor, but not to the same extent as a Tunneler, and they don't have the speed of a Ratguard. They're a decent character class, but if you're going to use a Dwarf, you'll really want one that can make the most of a Dwarf's specialties, and the Trollbanes and Orcbanes can't do that. They're not a bad character class by any stretch of the imagination, but I think you'd be better off with one of the other ones. GHOR MILITIA/MYTRONE LEVY: Like the Trollbane/Orcbane, the Militia/Levy is a very balanced Dwarf Class, though not as across-the-board stat-wise. They are slower, have less Foresight, and are slightly weaker than the Trollbane/Orcbane, but they have a substantially better Health rating, which gives them better Endurance and Body points. Militia and Levy also have better Intellect than any other Dwarf class, so they foresee enemy moves more often than Tunnelers or Ratguards would, plus they're the only Dwarf class that really can be decent mages. The downside to the Levy is that they're less effective in close combat than other Dwarf classes because of their reduced strength, meaning theat they can't equip as heavy armor as the others, nor do as much damage. They also start out with the worst weapon skills of any Dwarf class (Their Battle Axe skill is very low, and Light Crossbows are useless) Dwarves are not made to be jacks-of-all-trades, so the Ghor Militia and Mytrone Levy take a back seat to some of the other classes. Still, they can be worth a look, especially if you're thinking of using more than one Dwarf in your party. B.03d KELDERHEIT ---------------- The Kelderheit are a very unique race. There are only three Kelderheit classes, and each is geared toward a different specialty. The first and most obvious difference between the Kelderheit and the other races is that they've got wings and can fly without use of magical items. This can be a huge tactical advantage, as frequently you'll want to use your Kelderheit to fly over rivers or over walls to scout out the enemy. The second feature of the Kelderheit is their huge size. Their size gives the Kelden an edge in several areas; most notably, it gives them a huge amount of Body points. It takes a ridiculous amount of punishment to knock out a Kelden, even one in light armor. Kelden can often take three or four hits that would knock out a Dwarf or Elf outright. Second, it gives the Kelden three advantages in melee combat. First, since they're so tall, shorter enemies will almost never hit the Kelderheit in the head or arms. Second, Kelderheit will deal mighty blows against smaller enemies a lot more often. Third, Kelderheit can target more areas of the body when facing larger creatures. However, the Kelderheit's large size has one serious drawback: armor weight. Because the Kelderheit are so huge, even the lightest armor weighs a ton and a half, simply because there has to be more of it. This means that Fatigue is more of a problem for Kelderheit than any other race in the game; you can't put heavy armor on a Kelden as it'll tire him out after only a couple of turns of combat. This also puts a damper in the Kelder's flying ability; flying takes a LOT of energy and even a moderately-armored Kelder's Fatigue will sink like a stone as soon as he takes to the air. And don't even THINK of making your Kelden a mage. This means that you're pretty much divided between making a Kelderheit a lightly-armored scout that flies (reducing their high Body Point advantage a bit by sacrificing protection) or a more heavily-armored melee scrapper that doesn't fly much or at all. Either way, you definitely won't go wrong with including a Kelden in your party, as they can prove very useful, especially at the early stages of the game. CLIFF GUARD: The Cliff Guard is the most melee-oriented Kelder. He doesn't have much in the way of quickness, and his Health is lower than other Kelden classes, but he packs one heck of a wallop with his high strength and size. Especially in the early stages of the game, a Cliff Guard can be an absolute juggernaut, taking down low-level enemies in only a few hits. (sometimes killing them outright in a single hit if you're lucky) They also have an extremely high Balance score, so they have better chances tangling with nasties like Giants and Cliff Trolls, before you get the Courage Coat. The down side to the Cliff Guard is that he's not made for flying; he's got lower Body Points than the other Kelderheit so he pretty much has to wear decent armor to make the most use of his melee affinity. Cliff Guards are also a little on the slow side, too. However, if you want your Kelden to be a melee fighter (and when push comes to shove, that's their better role in my opinion) the Cliff Guard is a prime contender. (though it's somewhat a tossup as the Far Seeker is very good at melee too) ROCK RANGER: The primary focus of the Rock Ranger is lasting power and Health; they have more Body Points than any other character class in the game. They can take a lot of punishment and still not die. Their lower Strength and greater Quickness (not to mention starting weapon) makes them more oriented for archery and scouting than melee scrapping, though Rock Rangers are perfectly capable in that area as well with a little work. Because of their lack of Strength, they're better equipped in light armor. However, while geared for being an archer/scout, the Rock Ranger is really not ideal in that role. First, his Foresight is far lower than what one would want in a scout (though his Intellect is not bad) and his Quickness, while not bad, is not good for an archer either. With a lot of work, the Rock Ranger can become a capable melee fighter, but this takes a lot of skill building and with his large Size and low Strength, he'll never be able to wear the heavier armor one would expect from a melee warrior. Still, being able to fly is a big bonus for a scout, so a Rock Ranger may be worth a look at. FAR SEEKER: The Far Seeker is like a cross between a Cliff Guard and a Rock Ranger. They're stronger than a Rock Ranger but weaker than a Cliff Guard, hardier and faster than a Cliff Guard but slower and less hale than a Rock Ranger. The Far Seeker can be used as either a melee fighter or a Scout. In some ways he makes a better scout than the Rock Rangers as the Far Seeker has better Foresight, and in some ways they make better melee fighters than Cliff Guards because they have more Body Points. However, I would say the Far Seeker is slightly more favorable as a melee fighter due to his Strength and Size. The major problem (and asset) to a Rock Ranger is their size. They're HUGE. This lets them target Cliff Troll and Giant upper bodies, but it makes their armor weigh a TON. Because of their lower strength, they can't afford to wear armor as heavy as the Cliff Guard, though the added Body Points make up for that. They're also slightly dumber than the other Kelderheit so they have problems interpreting enemy moves. If you want your Kelden to be a melee character, the Far Seeker is a pretty good choice. Compared with the Cliff Guard, though, I'd say that the Cliff Guard makes a slightly better choice; the added strength and armor capacity plus the greater starting weapon skill provides more of an edge. Still, the Far Seeker is definitely worth considering for the role as well. B.04 BUILDING THE PERFECT PARTY =============================== There are a ton of ways to build good parties in Knights of Legend, but some will make your life easier than others. First off, it's best to use all six slots of your party; it's possible to win the game with a smaller party, but a lot harder. Second, when creating your party, you should keep in mind what roles each of your party members are going to play. All characters more or less can fall into one or more of the four roles: Melee fighter, Archer, Scout, and Mage. An ideal party will be a combination of all of these roles. MELEE FIGHTERS: --------------- This is probably the most specialized of the character types, as it's very difficult, if not impossible to combine being a melee fighter with an Archer, Scout, or Mage. Your Melee Fighters are going to be your front-line warriors that deal out and take the most damage against the enemies that are fighting you. In many ways it's also the most important, as while it would be difficult to win the game with nothing but melee fighters, it would be next to impossible to win the game without any at all. Human Males, Kelderheit, and Dwarves make the best melee fighters, though Tigresses and Amazons make decent fighters too. Elves generally are poor candidates for melee roles. The most important statistics for a melee fighter are Strength and Health, as melee fighters need a lot of strength to wear heavy armor, and health to keep their stamina high. Quickness is also important, as getting in the first strike in a round can mean the difference between winning and losing a battle. There's a lot of leeway as to how you craft your melee fighters; you can make them heavy (but slow) warriors equipped with really heavy armor and a powerful two-handed weapon, that deal out tons of damage, or you can make them more defensively-oriented characters that wield lighter one-handed weapons and a shield, and focus on getting in the first strike. All melee fighters should wear decent armor; preferably some sort of metal armor. Classes like Barbarian, Highwayman, Cliff Guard, and Tunneler/Digger are ideal choices for being heavy melee fighters, and classes like Ranger, Darkguard, Tigress, and Spiderguard/Ratguard are best for being light melee fighters. ARCHERS: -------- Archers are primarily support classes that shoot arrows at enemies while your melee fighters are whacking them with close-range weapons. Archers on their own can kill enemies outright with enough skill as well, and do well with hit-and- run tactics. (and indeed, have to in the Arena) Elves excel at being archers, especially Elven females. The most important statistics for Archers are Foresight, Intellect, and Quickness; Foresight and Intellect to know where to fire their arrows, and Quickness to escape from enemies should they get too close. It's generally a good idea to have your archers train in a light melee weapon as well in case they run out of arrows, focusing on defensive training. Scimitars are a good choice, I find. (primarily since you can train them up so high without cheating) Because they'll rarely if ever be within melee range, light armor like Cloth or Leather is best for your archers. Archers also double well as Scouts and Mages. Pyar and Usip Elves make the best archers, as they have Elf Bow skill, which is the most powerful ranged weapon in the game. Plainsmen and Plainswomen also make excellent archers as well. SCOUTS: ------- You'll probably only need one Scout (though it can't hurt to have a backup) but they're an extremely important role in your game. They're of less use in random battles (where you'll probably want them to act as just an Archer or Mage) but are critical in quest battles, where you're facing huge numbers of enemies in complex setups. There, their primary role is to scout out and find out where the enemies are, and lure them back to where the bulk of your party is waiting so that they can cut them to ribbons one at a time. The most important statistic for your Scouts is Quickness, as being a Scout is a dangerous job and you may find yourself having to Sprint out of harm's way--fast. Foresight and Intellect are also very important as well, and should not be neglected. Stat- wise, in the long run the Thism Female is probably the best cut out to be a Scout, though my personal preference for a Scout is an Usip Female; her high Elf Bow stat, combined with her high Intellect, make her an excellent Archer as well as potential Mage, meaning she can better hold her own and take out enemies should she get caught between a rock and a hard place. Plainsmen and Plainswomen also make excellent Scouts. MAGES: ------ Mages are the only character type that are really optional (my first play through the game, I didn't use any) but used well, they are extremely powerful characters. Offensively, they can deal more damage more quickly than any other form of attack. Defensively, they can heal wounds, boost weapon skill levels, restore function to incapacitated limbs, and keep your melee fighters in good condition longer. The most important statistic for a Mage is obviously Intellect as it affects what order they can join and the potency of spells, but Health, and to a lesser extent, Strength are also useful (though not necessary) for a mage as they boost Endurance. Mages can double as Archers (and probably should) but not as melee fighters, as heavy armor causes a much greater stamina loss for a Mage. Mages should be clad in Cloth only if you give them any armor at all. Any class can be an effective mage, but Elves are best at it. Usips and Pyars generally make the best Mages. (and coincidentally, the best Archers as well) In terms of racial and gender makeup of your party, it's really up to you. You should definitely have a good balance, and at least a few humans, as a lot of places will refuse service to Dwarves, Kelden, or Elves--some of whom give critical hints as to the locations of quest entrances, too. (Darkguard should be considered a "minority" race too even though they're humans, as they're booted out of more places than any other class) I don't generally use Elven Males as I don't find them as useful as Elven females, but all other genders/races have their uses. Kelden are really useful as they're very mobile, are strong, and can take a beating, but are restricted to light armor; Dwarves are the opposite, they're slow and can't take much of a beating at all, but can wear really heavy armor. Here are a few suggestions for some parties: Ranger (Leader) Highwayman (Leader) Tigress (Leader) Usip Female Usip Female Usip Female Cliff Guard Cliff Guard Barbarian Pyar Female Thism Female Plainsman Tunneler Darkguard Ratguard Plainswoman Pyar Female Thism Female None of these are "ideal" though, you can do a lot of mixing and matching to get a party you like. =============================================================================== SECTION C: GAMEPLAY =============================================================================== Once you've got your party made, you can start the game proper. Like most RPGs, Knights of Legend gameplay can be divided into adventuring and combat. This section goes over the adventuring part of the game. C.01 THE TOWN ============= There are six major cities in Ashtalarea, all of which are stocked with amenities that your characters will want to partake of. You may want to adopt one as your "home base" or just move your characters to whatever city is closest at hand. Here's a quick description of each town: Brettle: You start in this town. It's an excellent "home base" for your characters at the beginning of the game. You can buy any weapon in the game but the Elf Bow here, and Hansard Forger is the only store in the game that sells Clubs and Quarterstaffs. Ludeman Armorers also stocks every class of head, torso, and leg armor in the game. The alehouse also doesn't boot out anyone. The trainer here, however, is not one of the best. Shellernoon: This city is located smack in the middle of the map. It's also got a great variety of stores. The Weapon and Armor shops are both great; the Weapon Shop sells the least expensive weapons in the game, and the Armor shop sells all classes of armor, and a few capes too. Location-wise, it makes the best "home base," but from a practical standpoint it's a little inconvenient. The pub refuses service to Kelden characters, and everyone hates Darkguard characters, but more importantly, the only place to sell your treasure is dirt poor, and won't buy anything worth more than 200 or so gold. Htron: Htron is located at the northeast corner of the map. It's located closer to the Arena than any of the other cities, so you may find yourself staying in the inn there a lot. It has nothing in the way of armor and very little in the way of weaponry though. The pub refuses service to Elves, which is a pain. The trainers there are excellent though, and the city is in close proximity to the Amazon Village, who has another top-notch trainer as well. Poitle Lock: Poitle Lock is located on the west coast of Ashtalarea. It's got several really good food stores, and a good smith, but is least suited for use as a party base, because it has no Abbey, which means there's no way to heal up your characters there. However it is located in close proximity to several quests, and is the home of the Secret Storm order, one of the better magic orders to join. Olanthen: Olanthen is located on the south coast of Ashtalarea. It doesn't have much in the way of weaponry or armor, but the cobbler here is the place to go to buy your characters foot armor. Olanthen is not a great place to base your characters out of because getting into the city is a pain; the entrance is to the south and you can only get there by circling around to the west side of the city first. The trainer in Olanthen is the best in the game, but will only teach very advanced characters. (so advanced that you'll have to hack your stats to get him to train you) Thimblewald: Thimblewald is located at the far northwest area of the map. In terms of services, it has fewer than just about any of the other towns. It's way out of the way, has an expensive inn, no trainers, and most importantly, no place whatsoever to sell the treasure you find, so it makes a pretty lousy home base. Barbarians also get refused service in both the pub and the Abbey, so if you've got any in your party, only come here for the quests. Most of your time in towns will be spent store-hopping; feeding your undernourished party, selling the loot you've gotten in battle, healing up at the Abbey, and saving your game at the Inn. While there can be specialty or hybrid stores, most stores fall into one of the following categories: ARMORER: -------- In addition to buying armor here, you can also get armor fitted. When you have armor fitted, its size and weight is reduced, reducing its Fatigue toll on the character. Characters can wear armor that is too big for them, but will have to carry around that extra weight. Characters cannot wear armor that is too small for them at all. Armor that is too small also cannot be fitted. (Exception: There are some stores that sell armor that, by default, is too small for certain characters. Sometimes when you first buy this armor they'll give you the option to fit it to a larger character. Any armor you're already carrying can never be fit to larger characters) WEAPONER: --------- With the exception of junk stores, you'll probably visit the Weaponer less often than any other store type, unless they're willing to buy items off you. (in which case you may go there to sell your loot) The Weaponer is where you buy new weapons. As weapons never degrade (despite what the manual tells you) once you've bought a weapon, there's no reason to buy a new one unless you lose it or decide to switch to a new type. However, some Weaponers will Forge any magic ingots you get from quests into powerful Custom weapons. FOOD STORES: ------------ There's a wide variety of food stores; some are bakeries, some are pubs, some are brewhouses or smokehouses. They all sell food, which your characters can use to restore lost Nutrition. You'll probably stop off at one of these every time you visit town. You can eat food that you buy immediately, or buy it "to go" and select it from your backpack later to eat it. The amount of nutrition you get depends on the food. ABBEYS: ------- The Abbey is where you get your characters healed. You'll visit them a lot as it's the only way to permanently heal wounds--magical healing is just a quick fix. The amount it costs to heal you depends on the severity and number of your wounds--the more hurt you are, the more it costs to heal you. INNS: ----- The Inn is the only place in the game you can go to save your game. When a character checks into an Inn, his/her current status is saved. There are two types of Inns; safe ones and dangerous ones. Dangerous inns are free, but the other tenants are sticky-fingered, and when you reload your game, you may get the message "Something is missing!" That means some of your Gold or more often, one of your items got stolen. Stolen items are gone forever. Safe inns cost money to rest in, but you'll never get anything stolen either. My advice: don't be cheap, stay in the safe inns. TRAINERS: --------- Trainers increase your Weapon skills. Each Trainer specializes in four types of weapons. You'll have to pay a fee to train, and then you pick a weapon to train in. Once you've picked your weapon, you choose whether or not you want to train Offensively or Defensively. Finally, you're asked how many Skill Points you want in that weapon. Each skill point takes 100 Adventure Points, and you can train up to 5 points at once. One thing to note about trainers is that they have certain skills in weapons, too. Every trainer will only be able to bring your skill levels up to a certain amount before there's nothing more they can teach you. Also, advanced trainers may require you to have a certain amount of skill with a weapon before they can teach you. Trainers will not teach you if by training 5 points in a weapon, you'll exceed their maximum level. For example, Morag the Merciless will train your Mace skill up to a level of 60. If you train Mace up to 56, though, he won't train you any more, because if you bought 5 skill points that would bring you up to 61, one point past his maximum. Since all trainers' maximums are multiples of five, it's best if you train your weapon skills five points at a time to be safe. It's also worth noting that when you train with a weapon, you gain skill in all weapons of that class. If you should find a special weapon either from a quest or dropped by an enemy that matches a class you've trained in, you can use your weapon skill for it too--for example the Truth Sword can be used with a character that has Greatsword skill. Check out the "Special Weapons" section for more info in this vein. Every 2,000 Adventure Points you spend at at a Trainer, you become eligible to gain a level in the Arena. Until you gain a level at the Arena, you cannot receive any more training. JUNK SHOPS: ----------- Junk shops and Specialty shops sell random garbage that won't do your party any practical good. For example there's a Ship Chandler that sells pipes and tobacco in Htron, which you can't do anything with. Most of the time you can ignore these stores, unless they are willing to buy your stuff, in which case you can use them to offload your loot. There are, however, a few junk stores with potentially useful items. For example you can buy a nice sword and helmet at the Jeweler's in Poitle Lock. STABLES: -------- Stables sell you horses. Horses increase your movement rate, and that has two big advantages in the game. First, your movement rate affects speed on the overworld; you can move more distance in a day when riding a horse and the better the horse, the greater amount of distance you can cover in the same time. Second, and more importantly, horses will allow you to run from battles before they start. If you're riding a horse, when you get into a random encounter, instead of going straight into battle, you'll see a text message, the contents of which depend upon what you've encountered. You'll be asked if you want to ride away. If you choose "Yes" then there's a chance you'll be able to escape; you'll always be able to escape from healers or Brettle Regulars (not that you'd want to) but if you'd be facing a monster there's a chance that you won't be able to. The better the horse you're riding, the better the chance that you'll be able to get away. Note that your party's movement rate is only as good as the slowest member of your party. If even one of your party members is on foot you get no horse bonuses at all. If five members of your party are on Heavy Warhorses and the other is on a Draft Horse, you only get the movement and evasion rates of a Draft Horse, and so forth. C.02 TALKING TO TOWNSPEOPLE =========================== Whether it's just a person's house or a store, you can talk to anyone you meet to get information. Some people offer no useful information whatsoever, whereas others will give you quests or other sorts of important clues. You can either "Listen" (ear Icon) or "Talk." (mouth Icon) Listen allows you to hear rumors, and Talk allows you to ask about a specific subject. Generally, if any topic is capitalized in conversation, you can Talk about it and get more information. At some point you might hear "I heard *** talking about that!" The "***" person will always be located in the same settlement; go talk to him/her about the topic and you may get more information. Also, it doesn't hurt to ask around about topics that may seem to be of general interest. For example, ask around about Pildar, the main villain of the game; there's at least one quest that you'll get by asking around about him. C.03 THE ARENA ============== The Arena is a special settlement. There's only one thing you can do there; fight! Anyone who is eligible for gaining a level can fight in the Arena. Arena fights are one-on-one battles, and the enemy you're up against is determined randomly from all enemy types. If you win the battle, you go up a level. If you lose, you don't go up a level, and the monster you fought gets to loot you. Before one of your characters enter the Arena, you can opt to bet on (or against) them, up to a maximum of 99 Gold. Each character in your party can only bet once. If you're low on cash, you can strip your unfortunate comrade of all their equipment and bet against them, then throw the fight...though there are better ways to make money. =============================================================================== SECTION D: COMBAT =============================================================================== The fighting system of Knights of Legend is where the game really shines. Even to this day, more than fifteen years after the game was released, I have yet to see a combat system in another game that even comes close to comparing to its detail and realism. D.01 THE ROUND ============== A KOL round is divided into two phases; a planning phase, and then an action phase. During the planning phase, you decide the actions of your party members and the computer selects the enemies' actions. Once you've finished entering all your characters' combat commands, the action phase goes into effect, and all the characters and enemies perform their commands. D.02 PLANNING PHASE =================== At the beginning of each Planning phase, all of the characters and enemies have a random number added (or subtracted) to their Foresight score. The order in which each character or enemy picks their actions for the next round is determined by the results, the lowest picking first. (In other words, the characters/enemies with the lowest Foresight usually end up picking their actions first) D.02a PREDICTING ENEMY MOVES ---------------------------- If you target an enemy, sometimes you'll see an action listed next to its status display. If you see this, it shows that your character has foreseen and interpreted the enemy's "body language" to determine what the enemy will do next turn. Whether or not you see this depends on both the character's Foresight and Intellect. You'll only get to see the actions of enemies who have already had their turn to pick their action, and as the order of who picks first is determined by Foresight, the higher your Foresight, the better chance the enemies will act first and you'll get a chance to see what it's planning. However, even if an enemy DOES pick its action first, that doesn't necessarily mean that you'll get to see what it picks. That chance depends on your character's Intellect. A high Foresight gives you the chance to pick your action later in the planning phase; a high Intellect gives you a better chance to interpret your enemy's body language. So, a character with high Foresight will get more chances to interpret enemy actions; a character with high Intellect will succeed more often in making the interpretation. Predicting enemy moves is incredibly useful in determining your course of action the following move. If you're a melee fighter, it can help you decide the best offense and defense to use against your target. If you're an archer, predictions will help you know where to aim your arrows the following round to strike a moving target. For this reason, high Foresight and Intellect are good things to have on all your characters. D.02b ACTION ICONS ------------------ Here is a description of all the icons you'll see in battle, and what they're for. OK (Thumbs up): Confirms your action. U-TURN (looping arrow): Go back a level or undo a choice. MOVE (Walking man): Move your character (see movement icons below) ATTACK (Sword): Enters melee combat with your weapon (see armed combat icons below) FIST (Fist): Enters melee combat with your fists and feet (see unarmed combat icons below) FIRE (Bow and Arrow): Fires a missile weapon at the enemy. You only get 20 arrows or bolts per combat. Select your target and then fire. If you're playing the Apple II version, there's a chance that any character, be it friend or enemy, that stands between you and your target will get in the way and take your arrow/bolt. Technically this is supposed to be possible in the DOS version too, though I've never, ever seen a missile hit anywhere but the square it was targeted at. Note that you cannot aim missile weapons at specific parts of the body; however, missiles can hit any part of the target, regardless of its size and the size of the character firing. LOAD (Crossbow with arrow): Reloads your crossbow. Every time you fire a bolt with your crossbow, you have to spend a turn cranking it up and reloading it before you can fire it again. DROP: (Sword with down arrow below it): Drops whatever you're currently carrying and puts it on the space you're standing on. Multiple items can stack. Note that if you're flying, you'll drop the item on the ground and won't be able to pick it up until you land. If you drop the weapon somewhere you CAN'T land (like on top of a wall or in water) you'll have to wait until the end of the battle before you can pick it up again. PICK UP: (Sword with up arrow above it): Pick up whatever's currently lying on the ground beneath your character. Note that your hands must be empty before doing this, or you'll just waste your turn. If you're standing on a pile of items, you will be prompted for each before you pick it up. READY (Sword in scabbard with up arrow): Pull the weapon currently in your belt out and wield it. Obviously an important thing to do; you don't want to fight enemies unarmed! SHEATH (Sword in scabbard with down arrow): Puts the weapon you're currently holding in your belt. Note this will NOT work for missile weapons like crossbows or bows. This is a useful command if you're faced with an overwhelming force and want to run; you won't drop sheathed weapons when fleeing battle. SWITCH (Sword and axe with arrow between it): Trades the weapon in your hand with the weapon in your belt. Note this will ONLY work with two melee weapons. Since you cannot belt missile weapons, you can't swap them; if you've got a melee weapon in your belt and are holding a bow, you'll have to drop the bow one turn and draw your melee weapon the next. MAGIC (Hand with sparks around it): Cast a spell from the character's list of known spells. Note that characters can only cast spells if they're not holding a weapon. You can specify whether you want the effect to be Positive or Negative (Positive for your friends, Negative for your enemies, obviously) and pick your target. If you're using a close-range spell, when the spell actually gets cast, you may also be asked what part of the target's body you want the spell to affect. LAND (Kelden with arrows pointing down): If your character is currently flying, you can use this command to land. Note that you can't land everywhere that you can fly over. (e.g. no landing in water) D.02c MOVEMENT ICONS -------------------- WALK: (Man walking) Walking will move your character one space. Walking takes very little if any stamina (only a character far too heavily armored for his/her own good and/or severely injured will lose stamina walking) but is the slowest movement type, and usually takes place later in the round, unless the walking character is extremely fast. RUN: (Man running) This is like walking in that it moves your character one space, but it's a fast movement so it tends to happen earlier in the round rather than later. It also takes more stamina to run than to walk. Any characters wearing Speed Boots will move two spaces Running. SPRINT: (Man running fast) This is the fastest ground movement; characters Sprinting will move two spaces in a round. Movement to the second space will always take place after all other characters have acted. Sprinting is good for covering longer distances quickly, but it takes a lot of stamina; only the most lightly armored character will be able to Sprint without taking a Stamina hit. Any characters wearing Speed Boots will move four spaces Sprinting. FLY: (Kelden with wings straight up) This command will have your character fly one space. After any flying movement, the character will be airborne and will not be able to do any land-based actions (like melee attacks) unless they land first. Flying is generally faster than walking, but has a heavier stamina drain as well. FLY FASTER: (Kelden with wings slightly down) Fly Faster is like Sprinting in the air; your character will move two spaces in a round. It takes a lot of Stamina so is not recommended for heavily armored characters. ZOOM: (Kelden with wings almost parallel to the ground): Zoom is the fastest movement; it's flying, only it moves three spaces in a round. It also takes an immense amount of stamina; even a lightly armored Kelden will take huge hits to stamina with it. Smaller races wearing the flying cloak, however, may be able to do this without taking a stamina hit... D.02d ARMED ATTACKS ------------------- Armed attack involves three choices; an attack type, an attack location, and a defense type. NONE: (Man shrugging his shoulders) If you don't want to attack at all (usually to devote all your effort to defense) pick this option; you won't attack at all the following round. HACK: (Axe chopping) This is a powerful overhead swing, using the force of gravity to add power to the weapon. It's the most powerful of the three standard attack types, and also takes the least stamina, but is also the slowest. SLASH: (Sword Slashing) Slash is a horizontal/diagonal slash with the weapon. It's not quite as powerful as a Hack attack, and uses a little bit more Stamina, but is substantially faster. THRUST: (Sword Stabbing) Thrusts are a quick, stabbing motion with your weapon. It's the most fatiguing and least powerful of the three attack modes, but it's also the fastest, which counts for a lot, as enemies that take a hit before they attack are less likely to connect. BERSERK (Berserker with shield): Berserk is a special attack; unlike the three standard attack types (Hack/Slash/Thrust) it cannot be targeted (it always targets the chest) and you cannot choose any defense (you'll automatically use a Standing defense) It's also more fatiguing and slower than any of other attack types, but it does a lot more damage, too. D.02e ATTACK TARGETING ---------------------- HIGH SHOT (Arrow at head): This attack targets the upper body. Upper Body attacks usually hit the arms, and can hit the chest as well, but will never hit the legs. If your character is targeting an enemy substantially larger than his or her height, they may not get the option to use this type of attack. (The height differential appears to differ by race--a 3' dwarf can High Shot a Sledge more than 3 times his height, but a 7' Kelder can't High Shot a Sylph that's a bit less than 2 1/2 times his height) BODY SHOT (Arrow at chest): This attack targets the middle body. Middle Body attacks usually hit the torso, but they can hit anywhere else on the body as well. LOW SHOT (Arrow at legs): This attack targets the lower body. Lower Body attacks usually hit the legs, and can hit the chest as well, but will never hit the head (and almost never hit the arms either). D.02f DEFENSE TYPES ------------------- Defense types pick the manner in which you attempt to avoid enemy blows. Note that this is separate from parrying blows; (that's determined by weapon defense skill) a character using no defense at all can still parry incoming blows. NONE (Man shrugging): Use this if you don't want to defend at all. There will be no chance to dodge blows if you use this, but it doesn't take any stamina either. (You can still parry though) Use this if your Foresight has shown that you're not going to be attacked the following round. STAND (Man Standing): The manual says that a standing defense is better than no defense at all, but as far as I can tell, there's really no difference, except that a Standing defense takes a little Stamina. Unless "but narrowly misses him/her" counts as dodging text (and it might, I don't know) I've never seen a standing defense successfully dodge anything. Maybe it gives you a boost to parrying. BACK UP: (Man backing up) Attempts to avoid an enemy attack by backing up. Backing up takes more stamina than a Standing defense, but is much more effective, though not as much so as Jumping or Ducking. DODGE: (Man dodging to the side) Attempts to avoid an enemy attack by dodging to the side. Dodging is very similar to backing up, and in terms of effectiveness, they don't seem to be too different. I have noticed that Dodging seems to be slightly more effective than backing up, though it may just be my imagination. DUCK: Ducking is a very effective evasion technique, but it takes a lot of stamina. Ducking is especially effective against High attacks, but be forewarned there's actually a minor dodging penalty for using Ducking against Low attacks. (You can still dodge a low attack by ducking, but it's harder) JUMP: Jumping is a lot like Ducking, only it's more tailor-made for avoiding low attacks. As with Ducking, Jumping gives you a minor defense penalty when used against a High attack. PANIC: (character running away with sword dropped) Panic Defend is the most effective form of attack in the game; your character will hunker down and cover him/herself up, which allows a very good chance for dodging or deflecting blows. The downside is that this kind of defense is very fatiguing, and you can't attack at all when using it. (If you picked an attack type before, it will automatically switch to "NONE" upon picking PANIC) D.02e UNARMED ATTACKS --------------------- Unarmed attacks are allowed an attack type and a defense type, but not an attack location; they are always aimed at the body. Unarmed attacks are also extremely ineffective, and, by in large, not worth using at all as offensive maneuvers; unless your character is ridiculously strong, even the most powerful unarmed attack will often be absorbed completely by even the lightest armor. The only advantage of unarmed attacks is that they are extremely fast, and if they do connect, will still reduce the target's chance of hitting. PUNCH: (Man punching) Punches are the fastest and most likely of the unarmed attacks to connect, but they do absolutely pathetic damage, and will almost undoubtedly be absorbed completely by the enemy's armor. BASH: (Man jabbing elbow) A bash is an elbow/forearm bash at the enemy. It does more damage than a Punch but is less likely to hit. KICK: (Man kicking) A Kick does about the same amount of damage as a Bash, only it uses the legs rather than the arms as weapons. Overall this is probably the most effective unarmed attack (which isn't saying much) as it uses your legs instead of arms, and the only time you'll probably be resorting to unarmed attacks is if your arms are disabled for whatever reason. HEADBUTT: (Man doing headbutt) The Headbutt is the most damaging of the unarmed attacks, but it rarely hits. If it does connect though, it does almost as much damage as if you were using a very weak weapon--if you connect, you're more likely to deal an actual wound with a headbutt than any other unarmed attack. D.02f FINAL COMMANDS -------------------- Once you finish inputting commands for your entire party, you'll get three icons: OK, U-TURN, and FLEE. (Run looks like the "PANIC DEFENSE" icon) OK starts the round. U-Turn starts the round completely over again so you can re-make all your decisions. However, when you do this, all the enemies re-make all their decisions too, and to keep you from cheating to forecast enemy actions, your Foresight and Intellect predictions become completely unreliable; quite frequently they will be flat-out wrong and monsters will do something completely different than what you predicted they would. Once the action phase for that round is finished, however, your predictions will go back to normal. If you choose to Flee, your party will flee the battle. (You'll be asked for confirmation) If you do choose to run, your party will always escape, but if they're carrying any melee weapons in their hands there's a chance they'll drop them. (about 50% chance in the Apple II version, and a much higher chance in the DOS version) Belted weapons and missile weapons will never be dropped. And, of course, any items left on the field are gone forever. Since unconscious characters automatically drop their weapons, you'll lose them if you run, unless you have another character pick it up. (and belt it, if it's a melee weapon) Bottom line is that running is a fairly safe thing to do, but make sure all your weapons are in their sheaths before you flee for the hills. There is one exception, however, and that is if any of your characters have been knocked out during the battle. Characters left unconscious on the field of battle when the party runs will generally be looted clean. D.03 ACTION PHASE ================= Once all characters and enemies have made their decisions, the action starts. Generally, the characters/enemies with the highest Quickness attributes act first, but this is modified by their armor weight, action choice, and a random number thrown into the mix. So, for example, a heavily-armored character with a high Quickness may move after a slower character with lighter armor, and a slower character that's using a fast action type (like Running or Thrusting) may move before a faster character using a slower action. (like Walking or Berserking) Characters that are injured or fatigued also incur Quickness penalties, so may attack later rather than sooner. D.03a ATTACKING AND DEFENDING ----------------------------- When one character targets another with a weapon, the first thing the system does is check to see whether or not the attack hits. The attacker's chance to hit is based on his or her Strength value and Offensive weapon skill, and the defender's chance to avoid is based on his or her Quickness value and Defensive weapon skill, plus a shield bonus if the character is equipping a shield. (All of these of course are modified with random numbers) The first thing the system checks is to see whether the blow is on target; this is the only thing that is checked for missile attacks, as missile attacks can be neither dodged nor parried. (Missile attacks also have a greater chance to miss, even with a high skill) If it is a missile attack, it may be stopped by a tree or a wall en route to the target. (Melee attacks are never stopped by trees or walls) If the blow is on target, the next thing the system does is check to see whether the target successfully dodges the attack. (Dodging being one of the defense types you pick) If the target does not successfully dodge the attack, then lastly the game checks to see whether or not the blow is parried, and this is decided entirely on defensive weapon skill. There are a whole bunch of modifiers that can be applied to make attacks more or less likely to hit. The biggest one is wounds and fatigue; a wounded and/or fatigued character will have less of a chance of hitting and dodging. Also attack and defense types can modify chances to hit; ducking a High Shot gives you a defense bonus for example. (and a defense penalty against a Low Shot) Also, the number of times a character has attacked or defended affects chances. A character that has been hit before his/her turn will be shaken up and have less of a chance of landing an attack. You have less of a chance to defend every time you successfully parry a blow as well; it takes a very high defensive skill to parry multiple blows in a single round. Also, you have a better chance of defending against the target you're attacking than other enemies that may be targeting you during the current round. If a blow hits, the part of the body hits is random, but is affected by the type of attack. (high vs. low shot, etc) The damage done depends on the attacker's strength and weapon type, subtracted by the armor rating of the part of the body hit. If the armor rating is higher than the damage done, the blow will "do little damage" and you won't actually be wounded. (However, penalties for being hit still apply) The actual damge done is subtracted from the body points alotted to that specific body part; if the body part runs out of body points, it is incapacitated. If the body part in question is the head or chest, then the target dies (if it's an enemy) or is knocked out. (if it's a player character) If an arm or leg is incapacitated, it has several effects. First, if the victim hasn't made any action yet during the combat round, his/her action is negated from the shock of losing the use of a limb. Note that this applies to every subsequent attack on that limb; if a character gets her left arm incapacitated, every further hit she takes on her left arm won't reduce its Body points (as they're already zero) but will still negate her ability to do anything for that round. If it's an arm that is incapacitated, you won't be able to make any further two-handed weapon attacks for the duration of combat. If both arms are incapacitated, you won't be able to make any weapon attacks at all for the duration of combat. If a leg is incapacitated, it reduces your movement speed greatly, vastly increases Fatigue cost for movement, and prevents you from Running or Sprinting. If magically healed, disabled limbs can be restored to normal function. If you're playing the Apple II version, disabled limbs work the same for the player as for the enemies; if you're playing the DOS version, the game cheats, and enemies with both arms disabled can still attack using their weapons. D.03b FATIGUE AND WOUNDS ------------------------ These are probably the two biggest things to keep an eye on in combat, as they greatly affect your proficiency in battle. A fresh warrior, unwounded and unwinded, is simply a better fighter than one who's been hurt and/or is tired. In terms of overall battle performance, Fatigue is more a factor than wounds; an exhausted fighter is less effective than one who's got full Fatigue but has a wound or two. The more Fatigued your character is, the worse his/her penalty; a character at 10% Fatigue will be hard-pressed to land or dodge any type of blow. Fatigue regenerates a little bit for each character every round, based on their Endurance and Health scores. This value is reduced depending on the action that the character takes, plus his or her total encumbrance. (mostly determined by armor weight) If the Fatigue regeneration value minus the action/encumbrance value is negative, then the character loses that much fatigue the following round, plus any penalties for hits and the like. Non-strenuous actions like walking will almost never reduce fatigue (unless the character is horribly over-armored or heavily wounded) and may even restore a little bit. Very lightly-encumbered characters may even restore Fatigue doing strenuous actions like Sprinting. Resting is the only action that has a "negative" Fatigue penalty. Casting a spell will ALWAYS result in a fatigue loss, no matter what the strength of the spell. In addition to action and encumbrance penalties, there are other things that will negatively affect your Fatigue during a combat round. First and foremost, if you take a hit during a combat round, that takes a good chunk of Fatigue from the shock of the blow. More importantly however, every time you are wounded your character "bleeds" from the wound, which saps a little bit of your Fatigue every combat round thereafter, depending on the severity of the wound; a terrible wound takes more Fatigue than a minor one. Even if a character's wounds are healed during battle through magic, this "bleeding" penalty still applies. Since you get bleeding penalties for every wound, a character with many wounds will see their Fatigue levels drain like water through a sieve. If you get wounded enough, you may get so that even Resting reduces your fatigue-- at that point, your character is basically out of the battle. Wounds carry over between battles, but not in a one-to-one fashion; that is, if you get your arm disabled in one battle, it won't be disabled in the next one. What the game appears to do is calculate all the Body Point loss you've taken and divide that evenly amongst all your body parts for the next battle; they'll all still be functional, but will take less damage to incapacitate than normal. Bleeding penalties carry over too; a character wounded badly enough will keel over when hit with a light breeze upon entering a new battle. One thing that's worth noting is that while characters can be beaten badly to the point of being worthless in battle, it's impossible for them to actually die. There comes a point when a character is so badly wounded that the most minor of wounds will knock them out, but that only detracts a little from your Health bar in the status screen. Once I practiced by beating up a hapless character with the rest of my party over and over again, knocking him out over 20 times. There came a point where no matter how many wounds he sustained, his health bar never depleted any more nor did healing charges increase. True, it was only taking one hit to knock him out, and walking one step in battle would reduce his fatigue by 3/4, but he wouldn't die. D.03c NUTRITION --------------- It doesn't make that big of a difference, but Nutrition can play a part in your combat prowess as well. It doesn't really show until your characters have been suffering for really bad malnutrition for a while, (ie your Nutrition bar is less than half) but poorly-fed characters do less damage with their blows, dodge attacks less often, and have their Fatigue drop more quickly. As wandering healers also fill your Nutrition bars this should rarely be a problem for you, but it's worth keeping in mind. D.03d MAGIC ----------- All in all, magic takes a back seat in Knights of Legend to melee combat, though it can still be quite useful in its own right. It's actually quite powerful in that it can essentially be used as a missile weapon with unlimited ammo that never misses, but it has its drawbacks as well, namely that it drains Fatigue faster than any other action in the game. For more info on the magic system in KOL, check out that section of the guide. Note that in order to cast any spells in combat, your character must either belt or drop any weapon they may be carrying; both hands must be free to cast spells. (Having one or both arms disabled or equipping a shield does not affect the ability to use spells though) D.04 COMBAT STRATEGY ==================== D.04a TYPES OF ATTACKS ---------------------- What types of attacks you'll want to use will vary depending on what weapon you're using. Some weapons are just not made for certain attack types; a Greatsword is a great hacking and slashing weapon, but is too big to stab with effectively. If your weapon is ineffective with a certain attack type, you should use another type, as the hit and damage penalty is pretty big otherwise. Overall, I find the Thrust to be the most useful attack type because it's the fastest; it may do less damage than a hack or a slash, but if you land a successful hit on an enemy before it has a chance to attack, it'll be far less likely to be able to hit back in the same round. However, it's worth noting that a lot of really good weapons aren't good with Thrusts; in this case I use Slashes with them if I'm going for speed, and Hacks if I'm not, or if I have another character Thrusting at the same enemy. The only time I ever use Berserk attacks is when I know that the character Berserking isn't being targeted; while the strongest attack type in the game, Berserk attacks are slow, easy to defend against, and the Berserking character is easier to hit. As for the unarmed combat options--don't use them, they're a waste. Most won't ever penetrate the armor anyway; the only time you should use them is if your character has had their arm(s) disabled and you're ready to let them get KOed by the enemy. D.04b MISSILE WEAPONS --------------------- Bows are incredibly useful in this game, as they cannot be dodged or blocked and in addition to be able to being able to damage your enemy from afar. Crossbows are not so useful, as you have to reload them every time you fire, which is a major detriment in most cases. You should probably have at least 3 members of your party be archers in some form or another. However, you are pretty much limited to having each character be primarily an archer or primarily a melee fighter; the two do not mix. The idea of shooting your enemy then drawing your sword when they get close, while good in theory, is not so good in practice. It takes two turns to go from being armed with a bow to being armed with a melee weapon (one turn to drop the bow, another to draw the weapon) and seeing as you cannot fire at an enemy more than 5 squares away, this means that more often than you like you'll be caught with your pants down trying to pull out your sword while the enemy descends upon you. Firing a bow is also a relatively slow action, so it's important for your archers to have high Foresight, and preferably high Intellect as well. Except when facing the slowest enemies with a very fast character, you're usually better off firing your bow at the space your target is going to move to, rather than the one they're already standing in. This is because since firing a bow is a slow action, frequently your enemies will move before you have a chance to get your shot off. If you target the space you know the enemy will be moving to, you'll find yourself shooting empty spaces a lot less. Archers should generally be lightly armored, as they may find themselves having to run or sprint frequently. Also, flying archers are very useful; you can shoot the enemies but they can't hit you. (they can still shoot back at you though) The ideal spot to be when firing missile weapons is in a doorway. When you are standing in a doorway, you are immune to all incoming missile attacks, as they will always hit the wall, rather than you. (Note that this works the other way around too; you cannot shoot a monster standing in a doorway) If there is no doorway available, then standing on the same square as a tree is the next best thing; frequently (but not always) enemy missiles will hit the tree rather than you. If you can shoot at the enemy when they can't shoot back, you've got a big advantage. D.04c MAGIC ----------- It helps to have one or two mages in your party. If you want a combat mage, you should have him or her buy spells from all the different magic schools in the game before actually joining one of them. I suggest having your combat mage buy at least: 1 spell from the White Pearl order (to affect Humans) 4 spells from the Black Onyx order, (for Legendary creatures), 4 spells from the Secret Storm order (for Giants) 2 from the Red Mist order (for Elementals) and 2 spells from the Dark Stone order (for Undead). Don't buy any spells from the Blue Gem order, as they are useless offensively. The rest is up to you. I find that Secret Storm and Black Onyx are generally the best orders to join, as there are more Giant and Legendary monsters than others. As Giants seem to be the most common, I prefer Black Onyx myself. As a rule of thumb, only buy Body-damaging spells as they are the only ones that are really effective. Note that as combat actions go, casting spells is quite speedy; unlike when targeting missile weapons, you're usually better off targeting your enemy directly, rather than the space it will move to, as odds are you'll get the spell off early in the round. A defensive mage is also very useful, and should have their spells exclusively from the White Pearl and Blue Gem orders, though this will depend a lot on your party makeup. (If your party is all Humans, there's no need for any Blue Gem spells, for example) Since stamina spells, and to a lesser extent, long-range healing spells aren't very useful, I usually have my defensive mage mod her spells of that type so that they affect attack/defense ratings. Modding spells, especially offensively, can make your mage deadly, but use moderation--don't give in to the temptation to make the nastiest spell you can, as you'll regret it. For example, a spell that does 4-48 damage to a Cliff Troll takes about half of my combat mage's Stamina. And it goes without saying that heavy armor on a mage is generally a bad idea, as that will make the Stamina loss much worse. D.04e ARMOR ----------- Heavier armor is better than light armor at the beginning of the game, when your characters have low Defensive skill in their weapons, but you may eventually want to trade in your heavy armor for lighter armor once you get good with your weapon for the Fatigue bonus. As a rule of thumb, you should pick out armor based on your character's Size and Strength; if your character is a melee character and loses any fatigue at all with anything less than a Berserk attack, your armor is probably too heavy. If your character is an archer or scout, and loses any fatigue when Sprinting, they're also probably too heavily armored--in fact, since archers and scouts will rarely if ever get in close and dirty, cloth or leather is about as high as they'll ever need to go. The extra protection afforded by heavy armor is good when an enemy's blow gets through, but once your fatigue bar starts to go down, you'll be far less likely to land and evade blows, and that can be a problem. In terms of what armor to wear by race for melee fighters: Kelden: Scale at the absolute most, and even then that will have to be mixed with some lighter armor. Ring is probably a more balanced choice. Elves: Ring is about as high as you want to go for an Elf; they're not strong enough to go any higher than that. Elves aren't cut out for heavy armor. Humans: Depends a whole lot on the character class. Barbarians and Highwaymen can afford to wear heavier stuff like Chain or even Plate. Other higher- strength Human classes like Rangers or Amazons can sometimes get by with Chain but are better off with Scale. Weaker classes like Hunters or Rogues are best off with light stuff like Cloth or Leather. Dwarves: Whatever you want, really. If you're a Tunneler/Digger, you can probably even afford to go for full Plate, though mixing some Chain or lighter is probaly a good idea too. Other Dwarven classes will probably do better with Scale-class armor. In terms of deciding what parts of the body should get heavier armor, I prefer to put the heaviest stuff on the head, as head armor is generally pretty light and the head doesn't get that many Body Points. The most important decision is what to use as Body armor, as that covers both the chest and arms. I usually have the Body armored one "level" below the head; while you want the body armor nice and protected, Body armor weighs a whole lot, so that needs to be balanced. For the legs, it actually doesn't matter too terribly much; I usually keep my characters' legs substantially less protected than the rest of the body; for example someone wearing Scale on the body would get something like Ring for the legs. This has two advantages; first, as melee fighters generally don't run around a lot, the legs don't need as much protection, so it's not worth wasting armor weight down there. Second, and more importantly, with the legs substantially less well-armored, it acts as "bait;" when fighting an uninjured character, enemies generally shoot for the least-armored area--in this case, that means lots of Low Strikes. Therefore, even if you can't foresee what an enemy is going to do, you can make an educated guess and have use Jump as your main defense, as they'll probably aim for the legs. Plus, if an enemy DOES connect with a low strike, the head can't be hit at all, and the chance of hitting the arms is greatly reduced as well. A final note: Never give anybody Fur, Cuirbolli, or Brigandine anything. Fur weighs more than Cloth but gives the same protection; Cuirbolli and Brigandine weigh exactly the same as Ring and Chain respectively, but also give less protection. D.04f WEAPONS ------------- There are a ton of different weapons that you can train in in Knights of Legend; with a skilled wielder, any will be sufficient, but here are a few that I feel are the most useful: CLUB: It sounds silly to waste training points in a weapon as weak and simple as a Club, but the Giant class of enemies drop ridiculously powerful clubs that do damage on par with any of the big two-handed weapons in the game. The caveat is that these Giant clubs are extremely heavy, so you'll need a very strong character to use them without massive fatigue loss. Some of the Giant Clubs (notably those dropped by Stone Ogres) are two-handed weapons that don't use Club skill though. MACE: The Mace by itself is not such a great weapon, but the Spiny Mace that Binderaks carry is one of the most balanced one-handed weapons in the game, and uses Mace skill. SCIMITAR: The Scimitar is an excellent backup weapon for your archers; it doesn't do much damage but it's light, and can also be trained to higher proficiency levels than any other weapon in the game without cheating. WAR MAUL: Trolls, Djinn, Sylphs, and Minotaurs all drop powerful War Maul-type weapons. The down side is that these weapons are very heavy, so you'll need a very strong character to use them effectively. HALBERD: Both the Death Blade and the Magic Ingot customized weapons are Halberds (you get both of them in quests) and are deadly weapons, so Halberd is a very good skill to consider investing in. Halberds on their own are also very versatile weapons, and one of the few two-handers that can are effective with Thrusting attacks. GREATSWORD: Greatswords on their own are very powerful weapons, but the Truth Sword you'll get early in the game is even better, and also uses Greatsword skill. The downside to Greatsword skill is that you can't train it very high without cheating. GREAT AXE: The best weapon in the game is a Great Axe. However, as it's the reward for completing the game, you won't be able to use it except until after you finish the game. ELF BOW: Simply the best long-range weapon in the game. To learn Elf Bow without cheating, you'll have to be a Thism or Usip elf, as the in-game trainer won't teach any characters from scratch. Especially with melee weapons, it pays to pick one (or maybe two) weapon types and stick with it throughout the entire game. At the beginning of the game it won't make much difference, but when you reach higher levels, enemies' weapons skills will increase rapidly, and if you've been dividing your skill points between multiple weapon types, you may find yourself outclassed by enemies whose skill levels greatly surpass your own. D.05 THE "AMBUSH" STRATEGY ========================== In most of the quest descriptions, I mention the "Ambush Strategy." The Ambush Strategy is the method I find to be the most effective when doing quests, which invariably pit you against a very large force of enemies. It's effective because it allows you to kill enemies without taking much damage, and sometimes with none at all. The basic concept of the strategy is to utilize the layout of the mission and spring a trap on the enemy by luring them into a spot where multiple melee fighters can all hit them simultaneously. To spring an effective ambush, you'll need at least three melee fighters, and one scout. Your scout should be a very fast but lightly-armored character, armed with a bow. Elves make especially good scouts, and the female Usip elf is my personal favorite for this role, as she gets skill in the Elf Bow. You'll also need to find a one-tile opening to spring your trap on. You'll want to set it up in the following manner (variations are possible, of course. S = Scout E E = Enemy <-----UNEXPLORED TERRITORY M = Melee Fighter S A = Archer (Optional) ########### ########### M M KNOWN "SAFE" AREA ---> A M A Your Scout will run into unexplored territory looking for enemies, then lure them into into the opening, where all three of your melee fighters will be able to attack it. Note that to start with, the central melee fighter is not parallel with the left and right melee fighter; this is to allow a space for your scout to slip behind your melee fighters. (If your scout is wearing the Flying cloak or for some weird reason you're using a Kelden scout, you don't have to do this; you can just have them fly over the ranks of your melee fighters) Note that you'll have to keep some distance between the scout and the enemy you're luring to pull this off effectively. Once your scout is safely behind your melee fighters, move your central melee fighter up like below: * Spot to attack in E ###########*########### MMM A S A At this point, you're perfectly in position. As there's only one space that the enemy "E" can move to get to your party, which is where you'll cut it to ribbons. Have all three of your melee fighters (and your archers, too, if you really want to add insult to injury) target the spot marked "*" with berserker attacks. True, there's no enemy at that spot at the moment, but at the next turn it's pretty much assured to step there, which will give you 3 (or 6) free attacks on it with it putting up NO defense. (Note that if your melee fighters are too fast, or your enemy too slow, you may end up attacking thin air the next turn, but that's not going to be a big deal) If you're lucky, you may kill the enemy outright without it even getting off a single attack. And even if you're not, the enemy will be injured and at a disadvantage the next round. This formation also keeps multiple enemies from getting to you at once. The following variation is the "concealed ambush formation." It's not as effective as a straight-up ambush formation, but sometimes it's the best method to use, either when you don't have a one-tile opening to work with, or for dealing with certain types of enemies; namely, those that make extensive use of missile attacks. In the standard ambush formation, missile-happy enemies will frequently stop chasing your scout and start taking potshots at your party when they get close. S ###########|########### A M \ A M --> Scout runs this way M This formation keeps your party out of the enemy's line-of-sight, so that they can't fire on you. When the enemy does finally get a glimpse of your main force, it'll be near enough that your melee fighters can close on it and force it into melee combat. You won't get that free attack that the standard ambush allows, but it will let you get a one-on-three fight. This strategy is especially important in some of the later quests, when you're up against bruisers like Giants and the like. A straight-up fight against powerful, hardy enemies like that is suicide, no matter how good your party is. =============================================================================== SECTION E: MAGIC =============================================================================== Magic takes a back seat to melee combat in Knights of Legend, but is still a very useful tool; spells can do more damage than any weapon in the game, though the price for using them is high. E.01 BASIC SPELLCASTING RULES ----------------------------- To cast spell in Knights of Legend, first you have to know one. The various magic schools in Ashtalarea can teach you spells for a price, and you can learn up to 16 in total. Once you've learned a spell, you can cast it in battle; however, your hands must be free, though you can equip a shield. Once you select a target for your spell, you can decide whether the effect will be positive or negative. (Obviously, there's no reason to positively affect your enemies, or negatively affect your allies) Casting a spell takes a lot of Fatigue, and the more powerful a spell is, the more fatigue it takes. As armor weight increases Fatigue loss, the weight of your armor will also affect the amount of Fatigue you lose when casting a spell. E.02 SPELL EFFECTS ------------------ Spells can affect any of a character's primary attributes, (except size) their Body Points, their Fatigue, and their Offensive or Defensive weapon skills. However, you can only buy spells that affect Body Points and Fatigue; if you want a spell to affect anything else, you will have to join a magical order and create a custom spell to do so. (More on that below) Spells can be either long range or short range. Long-range spells take more Fatigue to cast than Short- range spells with the same effect. Spells that affect Strength, Quickness, or Offensive/Defensive skills also require durations to be specified. Spells with longer durations also take more fatigue. Spells that affect Body Points work differently than other kinds of spells. First, when casting short-range spells that affect Body Points, you also get to choose what part of the body you want the spell to work on. So, you can target vulnerable body parts on an enemy, or specifically heal areas of the body on a party member that needs it. One thing you should keep in mind is that healing Body Points is a temporary fix, and not as good as "true" healing. First off, healing Body Points will not stop "blood loss" fatigue accumulation that you get whenever you're wounded. Second, healing Body Points will not negate combat penalties you get for fighting while wounded. Lastly, once combat ends, all your character's "healed" wounds will open again. The only way you can completely heal wounds is by bringing a character to an Abbey. That said, combat healing isn't totally a waste of time; it can prevent your characters from getting knocked out, and restore disabled limbs. Even a wounded character is better than one taking a dirt nap. E.03 STORE-BOUGHT SPELLS ------------------------ Store-bought spells in the game are always -nalon-, (Body Points, short range) -nalyr-, (Body Points, long range) -twelon-, (Fatigue, short range) and - twelyr- (Fatigue, long range) spells. Every one has a power of 1-12. If you read the manual you can find out what each spell does by reading the "magic language" there, but if you lost your manual, each Order will sell spells for the first four sub-races of whatever races they effect. (with the exception of White Pearl and Blue Gem, which sell spells for player-character races) E.04 MAGIC ORDERS ----------------- There are six Magic Orders in the game. Each specializes in spells that affect a particular race, or in the case of White Pearl/Blue Gem, two races. For a fee, you can join an order. You also have to have a high enough Intellect to get the option to join an order. So long as your Intellect is in the 70s, you will be able to join any order, except for the Black Onyx order, which requires a particularly high Intellect to join. The orders are: Name Location Fee Int Race(s) --------------------------------------------------------------- White Pearl Magicians Brettle 500 67 Humans, Elves Blue Gem Illusionists Amazon Village 450 60 Dwarves, Kelderheit Red Mist Wizards Thimblewald 550 70 Elementals Secret Storm Sorcerers Poitle Lock 610 67 Giants Black Onyx Conjurers Shellernoon 450 80 Legendary Dark Stone Mystics Olanthen 300 67 Undead The advantage to joining an order is that as a member of an order, you can customize spells at your order's headquarters. The downside is that once you're a member of an order, all other magic orders in the game will refuse you entry, and you won't be able to buy any spells from them. If you want to make heavy use of magic, it is definitely to your advantage to join an order, as none of the spells that you can buy direct from stores pack much of a punch; you will need to do heavy customization to be really effective as a mage. E.05 CUSTOMIZING SPELLS ----------------------- Once you've joined an Order, you can customize your magic spells at their headquarters. You can customize any aspect of a spell, from what attribute it affects, to the damage it does. to its duration. The only thing that you are limited in changing is the race that the spell affects. While you can change the sub-race of a spell no matter what Order you're in, you can only change the primary race of a spell to the race(s) that your Order specializes in. In other words, if you're a member of the Secret Storm order you could change a spell that affected Binderaks (a Legendary creature) and make it affect Sledges (another Legendary creature) instead, but you wouldn't be able to change that spell to affect Humans, as Secret Storm specializes in Giant spells. Customizing spells costs both Gold and Adventure Points. The amount that it costs varies depending on the strength of the spell. The type of target also affects the cost of the spell; sub-races are "ranked," and spells that affect lower-ranked sub-races cost fewer Gold and Adventure Points than higher-ranking sub-races. Note that the ranking of sub-races has nothing to do with how tough they are; for example, a Salamander is higher ranked than a Sylph, though Sylphs are much, much nastier enemies. Elementals 1)Golems 2)Sylphs 3)Djinn 4)Salamanders GIANTS: 1)Goblins 2)Orcs 3)Hobgoblins 4)Great Orcs 5)Trolls 6)Cliff Trolls 7)Hill Giants 8)Ettins 9)Ogres 10)Stone Ogres 11)Cyclopes 12)Mist Giants LEGENDARY CREATURES: 1)Minotaurs 2)Muck Things 3)Lizarions 4)Bloms 5)Binderaks 6)Sledges 7)Mist Grubs 8)Walbars UNDEAD: 1)Gremlins 2)Ghouls 3)Zombies 4)Skeletons E.06 GUIDELINES FOR MAGIC STRATEGY ---------------------------------- 1) WAIT TO JOIN AN ORDER Don't join an order until all 16 of your spell slots are full. You should have your prospective mages buy spells from multiple Mage Orders before committing themselves to one Order, as once you've done so, you can't buy any more spells from the competition. Just how many spells you buy from rival orders will depend on what kind of mage you want your character to be. 2) SPECIALIZE YOUR MAGES AS "OFFENSIVE" OR "DEFENSIVE" It's best to divide your mages into "offensive" magic and "defensive" magic. Your "defensive" mage will want to specialize in spells that affect player- character races. This character should probably join the White Pearl or Blue Gem orders after buying spells that affect all races that are in your party. They'll primarily focus on healing and buffing your characters, though they can double as offensive mages against humans. (Assuming you have some humans in your party) If the racial makeup of your party is limited you may want to throw a few enemy-race spells in the mix--for example, if you have only Elves and Humans in your party, you won't need to buy spells that affect Kelden and Dwarves, and can use those slots for something else. Before joining an order, offensive Mages should buy spells from all Orders in the game except for the Blue Gem. (as you never have to fight Dwarves or Kelden) They should probably buy one or two spells at most from the White Pearl order (to affect Human enemies) and split the rest amongst the Red Mist, Secret Storm, Black Onyx, and Dark Stone orders. You'll probably want the greatest chunk of spells to go to Secret Storm order spells and the fewest from the Red Mist, as Giants are very common and Elementals are very rare. Once you've got a good balance, you should pick any of the orders except the White Pearl or Blue Gem and join. Secret Storm is probably the best as there are more Giants than any other race and you may want to change a spell later, but any will really do. Black Onyx is another idea, as it's located in Shellernoon, which is smack in the center of the map and a decent "home base" for your party. 4) WEAR VERY LITTLE ARMOR Your spellcasters should only wear the lightest armor humanly possible. For this reason they won't work well as melee characters--or at least, not until you get very, very good defensively with a weapon. I usually give my spellcasters Cloth Aketons and Cloth Hoods, and nothing else except for a buckler. A "pure" mage is of limited use, so you should have your mage characters double as archers of some sort. 5) LONG-RANGE VS. SHORT-RANGE DAMAGE MAGIC Defensive spellcasting is best focused on short-ranged magic, though a few long-range spells won't hurt. Offensively, Short-range spellcasting is extremely dangerous, but also extremely powerful. If you have a mage with a custom spell to do lots of damage, you can pretty much score guaranteed kills with a single casting by targeting the head. The downside is that if you do this, you're a sitting duck as you can't put up ANY defense. Long-range spellcasting is not nearly as effective (as frequently you'll hit the limbs or completely undamaged areas) but much safer. Long-range offensive is also more versatile as you can hit enemies from afar. There is a way to make a deadly but reasonably safe short-range spellcaster, and that is to give him/her the Flying Cloak. If you're flying, you can cast short-range damage magic and target the body part of your choice, but can't be hit with melee attacks. The down side of course is that casting spells while flying is VERY fatiguing, and in many quests, you won't have the option of flying. Overall, I prefer ranged spellcasting for its safety and versatility, but it will depend on your own playing style. 6) USE MODERATION WHEN CUSTOMIZING SPELLS Though it may be tempting, don't always customize your spells to do really high amounts of damage. While the prospect of one-hit-killing a Cliff Troll is a tantalizing one, the Fatigue loss for casting a powerful spell can be monstrous. It is possible to make a spell that's so powerful it will knock out your mage instantly by casting it. There's also the matter of Gold and Adventure Points; creating super-powerful spells can be VERY expensive, especially in the Adventure Points arena. Unless you want your mage to be perpetually at a low level (since Adventure Points spent in spells don't go toward your leveling up) don't go overboard in the customizing. Similarly, make sure that the spells that you make are going to be useful in the long term. Don't waste your Adventure Points creating a spell that affects really rare creatures you'll almost never see outside of a quest. =============================================================================== SECTION F: MONSTERS =============================================================================== F.01 MONSTER STATS ------------------ The following is a list of the average stats of each monster in the game. I ripped these directly from the game code using a hex editor. Monsters don't have a Charisma stat (They only have 6 stats, and I had to guess which corresponded to which, though based on play experience, I'm pretty sure, especially with regards to Size) The Missile column indicates what kind of missile weapon, if any, the monster uses. If it uses a Boulder-type weapon I've listed the damage as well. (Note that some monsters may "Fire a missile" even if they use Boulder-type weapons--the damage is the same though) HUMANS: STR QUI FOR SIZ END INT MISSILE BRIGANDS: 80 64 58 6'7" 83 64 Self Bow BANDITS: 70 67 60 5'5" 83 62 Lt Crossbow THUGS: 86 64 62 7'3" 83 66 Hvy Crossbow RUFFIANS: 83 77 70 6'0" 77 86 Self Bow ELEMENTALS: STR QUI FOR SIZ END INT MISSILE GOLEMS: 167 50 80 13'0" 153 0 None SYLPHS: 153 50 83 16'6" 80 0 None DJINNS: 106 80 100 18'6" 143 0 None SALAMANDERS: 126 64 90 10'0" 80 0 None GIANTS: STR QUI FOR SIZ END INT MISSILE GOBLINS: 64 55 64 4'3" 73 100 Self Bow ORCS: 75 64 64 5'1" 75 83 Self Bow HOBGOBLINS: 83 75 69 6'0" 90 66 Self Bow GREAT ORCS: 91 83 69 7'0" 97 50 Lt Crossbow TROLLS: 124 64 51 12'0" 106 72 Boulder (70/1-10) CLIFF TROLLS: 146 57 57 17'0" 120 73 Boulder (90/3-30) HILL GIANTS: 120 57 34 14'0" 166 58 Boulder (80/2-24) ETTINS: 120 71 64 15'0" 147 66 Boulder (80/2-24) OGRES: 123 56 44 12'6" 100 50 Boulder (80/2-24) STONE OGRES: 126 80 86 14'0" 120 54 Boulder (80/3-24 or 5-26) CYCLOPES: 147 63 44 13'0" 100 44 Boulder (80/2-16) MIST GIANTS: 120 73 66 17'0" 153 80 Boulder (80/3-36) LEGENDARY CREATURES: STR QUI FOR SIZ END INT MISSILE MINOTAURS: 140 64 77 11'0" 100 66 Hvy Crossbow MUCK THINGS: 80 47 100 7'8" 66 0 None LIZARIONS: 93 86 80 5'2" 80 66 Lt Crossbow BLOMS: 106 54 30 13'0" 54 40 None BINDERAKS: 86 80 47 6'0" 73 40 None SLEDGES: 100 66 34 10'0" 66 34 None MIST GRUBS: 126 100 93 10'0" 40 0 None WALBARS: 113 73 90 10'0" 70 83 None UNDEAD: STR QUI FOR SIZ END INT MISSILE GREMLINS: 47 100 60 2'8" 50 100 Self Bow GHOULS: 84 86 80 6'0" 71 66 Self Bow ZOMBIES: 63 64 66 6'2" 64 0 None SKELETONS: 73 57 73 6'4" 85 0 Self Bow F.02 MONSTER ARMOR ------------------ The following is a list of the stats of the various types of "special" armor that monsters wear--for example the defense value of a Muck Thing's "Muck" and a Golem's "Earth." You can't actually get any of these items (without cheating) so I didn't bother to list their encumbrances, though they exist. I got these values by direct ripping them from the game code too using a hex editor. Name Prot: H/T/L ------------------------------------------ Hide* 4-7/4-7/4-7 Skin 1-3/***/1-3 Binderak Hide 1-3/1-3/1-3 Ettin/Sledge Hide 2-4/2-4/2-4 Lizarion Hide 1-6/***/1-6 Walbar Hide 2-7/2-7/2-7 Cliff Troll Hide 5-7/5-7/5-7 Stone Ogre Hide 4-9/***/4-9 Mist Giant Hide ***/5-11/*** Earth 1-6/2-7/3-8 Water 3-8/4-9/5-10 Air 1-3/2-4/3-5 Fire 5-8/6-9/7-10 Muck 2-8/2-8/2-8 Binderak Spines 3-13/***/*** Mist Grub Scales 2-8/3-9/4-10 Sledge Skull 2-16/***/*** Platemail ***/***/4-14 Fur Vest ***/2-12/*** Furs ***/2-16/*** Lizarion Breastplate ***/7-17/*** *This "Hide" is when "Hide" appears on any creature or body part not listed as a special type of hide. For example Mist Giant Hide is tougher on the torso, but "standard" hide on the legs and head. F.03 ENCOUNTER MESSSAGES ------------------------ The following is a list of the messages you'll get on horseback when you run into a random encounter. The messages are pre-set, and indicate what you'll be encountering if you don't run. I've organized the encounters by race, with a separate section for "Other," non-combat encounters. Note that many of the messages are phrased only slightly differently, deliberately to trick you. For example, the Ghoul and Skeleton encounters sound a lot like the Healer encounter. HUMANS: Brigands: The trees around you are covered in moss. "Perfect cover!" you say to yourself. Bandits: A cloaked figure can seen on the far hillock. As you ride up it waves a hand in greeting. Thugs: A smoldering campfire is an ominous sight in this remote place. You approach, cautiously. Ruffians: You think you hear a voice so you pull to a stop. Standing in the saddle you look around. ELEMENTALS: Golems: The earth around you is rough and broken. The grass is torn up as if dug by huge hands. Sylphs: The water looks so calm as you stare across it. Suddenly, the surface begins to boil. Djinn: The wind seems to have picked up and you have to squint to make out the path. Salamanders: You come upon a cottage which is engulfed in flames. Yet, the trees around it are untouched. GIANTS: Goblins: A high-pitched scream echoes through the vale. You hear a rustling in the bushes nearby. Orcs: The clang of metal echoes over the far ridge. Suddenly, you spy the glint of steel. Hobgoblins: A peculiar row of poles dances left and right on a hill to the east. The poles grow ever taller. Great Orcs: A battle cry pierces the air. Stillness follows. You scan the horizon but see nothing. Trolls: The hairs on your neck stand and you get the feeling you're being watched by unseen eyes. Cliff Trolls: You halt for a moment and listen carefully. On the breeze you hear a faint, deep growl. Hill Giant: A large boulder tumbles down the path you're on. It narrowly misses, but another soon follows. Ettins: Low, grumbling voices can be heard off in the distance. It sounds like Walruses arguing. Ogres: The snap of splintering wood draws you to a halt. Listening, you hear a low mumbling. Stone Ogres: The crack of stone on stone is followed by simian laughter. The gibbering grows louder. Cyclopes: You feel the ground tremble and see dust rising in the distance. A hoarse yell is heard. Mist Giants: A loud chopping sound is accompanied by a deep voice singing in a tongue unknown to you. LEGENDARY CREATURES: Minotaurs: An extremely pungent smell assaults your nose. Suddenly, you hear a strange noise. Muck Things: The stench of the bog attacks your senses. The slime around you begins to bubble up. Lizarions: The thick underbrush makes traveling slow. You see the tall grass moving in the distance. Bloms: The splintering of wood causes you to pull up. In the distance, a tree falls to the ground. Binderaks: You notice the spiders are awfully large in this area. Suddenly, a form bolts towards you. Sledges: A gentle breeze cools your brow, yet in the distance a tree whips wildly back and forth. Mist Grubs: A terrible cry echoes through the vale. It is soon followed by an even more horrifying silence. Walbars: Heavy footfalls shake the ground, and the clang of steel against chain is heard. UNDEAD: Gremlin: You ride through the scene of a recent battle. Around you the dead and dying moan. Ghouls: You ride upon the scene of a great battle. The fallen lie moaning on the field around you. Zombies: Suddenly, clouds cover the sky and a sick laughter begins. You can't tell its origin. Skeletons: You approach the scene of an an ancient battle. Bodies of the fallen lie rotting in the sun. OTHER: Brettle Regulars: You feel the thunder of hooves and see dust rising in the distance. The noise grows louder. Monks: Off in the distance you can see smoke twirling in the air. You begin to smell incense. Healer: You come upon the scene of a tremendous battle. Bodies of the fallen lie about the field. F.04 ENEMY DESCRIPTIONS ----------------------- The following is a list of general descriptions of what to expect when facing any particular enemy. They are guidelines and not the be-all-end-all of what you'll need to expect. The main variance factor when fighting enemies is their level. As your party's level increases, the enemies' level will scale accordingly. The enemy's general stats will not raise with level, but their weapon skills definitely will. This means that higher-level enemies will avoid your attacks with greater frequency, land their own with better accuracy, and deal critical hits more often. For this reason, an enemy that might not have been a big deal to a low-or-mid level party might become deadly to a high-level party. F.04a HUMAN CLASS ----------------- Brigands: Brigands are the easiest of the human enemies you'll deal with. Their stats are thoroughly average, and their equipment tends to be very sorry indeed. They only wear leather armor (though it usually covers their whole body, and they often have bucklers as well) and wield the weakest of weapons, like shortswords, maces, and the occasional short spear or battle axe. They do like to fire missile weapons a lot, so you have to be careful in that respect, but in all others, they're very easy opponents. Unless you're facing a full dozen or so brigands in a random encounter situation, you should be able to deal with them without too much trouble. Bandits: Brigands are easier to kill than Bandits, but not by much. Bandits are very similar to Brigands, actually; they also only wear leather armor and frequently sport bucklers, plus like to use missile weapons as well. However, in terms of staying power they're not as tough; two clean hits with even a relatively weak weapon is enough to send them down for the count, and a good hit with a strong weapon will kill them outright. However, they're better armed than Brigands, and tend to be more skilled at landing and parrying blows, so they're slightly more dangerous. Still, these guys are among the weakest enemies in the game, and should be easy fodder for even beginning parties. Thugs: Thugs are relatively weak opponents; they're only slightly tougher than Brigands in their equipment and stats. They generally only wield maces, longswords, or broadaxes, and only wear leather, though frequently this is mixed with cuirbolli armor as well. Like Brigands, they like to use missile weapons, though slightly less so, which is good, because their missiles pack a real punch! Being lightly armored, they don't get fatigued easily, but that's about their only advantage. Even low-level characters should have no problems dealing with Thugs, unless their levels are really high. Ruffians: Ruffians are the toughest of the human opponents you'll come across. They're not particularly skilled and nowhere as tough as some of the non-human enemies, but they're usually well-armored (usually a mixture of chain and ring) and frequently carry powerful weapons like halberds, so they're tougher to take down than other humans and hit harder as well. They also like sniping at your party and will frequently run out of melee range to do so, which can be irritating. Still, even with these advantages, a few well-placed hits will take them out with no problem, unless they're really high-level, in which case they can potentially be a force to be reckoned with. F.04b ELEMENTAL CLASS --------------------- Elementals are the rarest type of enemy you'll encounter in the game; you can play the game from start to finish without ever coming across an Elemental in a random encounter. There are four types of Elementals, one for each element. One thing that's notable about Elementals is that they cannot be killed by running out of fatigue; they can lose fatigue and take the combat ability hit that comes with it, but even at 0 fatigue they won't die. So the only way to take out an Elemental is by reducing its Head or Chest points to 0. Also this makes fatigue-damaging spells less useful against them. Elementals are all protected by their individual element, but the protection is not uniform across their bodies; their heads are less well protected than their torsos, which are in turn less well protected than their legs. Golems: Stat-wise, Golems are the toughest of the Elementals; they've got a higher Strength than any other monster in the game, and their Size and Endurance gives them hefty Body Points. They wield Stone Clubs, of which there are several varieties; the weakest version does the same damage as a War Maul, but the strong versions are bruiser weapons that can do ridiculous amounts of damage. However, Golems aren't generally all that skilled with their weapons, and they're pretty slow; you tend to get glancing blows rather than clean hits when a Golem connects. However, if you do get a clean hit, look out; Golems with the nastier Stone Clubs can knock out a Kelden in heavy armor in one hit. They don't wear any armor but are protected by "Earth," which is pretty poor protection. (About leather-armor class) Overall, Golems are pretty dangerous enemies, and should be avoided by low-level or poorly armored parties. Sylphs: Sylphs are extremely large, powerful, and rare enemies. They're so huge that not even a Kelden will be able to take High Shots at them. They always wield Sea Hammers, and have no armor, being protected by "water." (which can absorb damage from weak and medium attacks pretty well) They take a lot of hits to kill and have crazy high Strength, but their Quickness is not particularly good. Like all Elementals, Sylphs cannot die from Fatigue loss, though their combat effectiveness can be reduced by lack of Fatigue. Sylphs also cannot use missile weapons. One thing that's important to note about Sylphs is that like Golems, there are actually multiple types of Sea Hammers that they use. Their damage values are the same, too. However, Sylphs are generally much more skilled with their weapons, so a high-level Sylph can disable any body part protected by anything less than Plate in two hits at most. They're the most dangerous of the Elementals, and should be approached with caution, even by the strongest parties. Djinn: Djinn are probably the rarest enemy in the game. They're large, have a decent amount of hit points, and are relatively powerful, but not uncommonly so. They're not quite as tough as Golems, but substantially tougher than Salamanders. They wield Wind Maces, (which are reasonably powerful, though not exceptionally so) Wind Hammers, (which hit harder than maces) and Wind Swords, (which are very nasty weapons) and are protected by "Air," which is paper-thin armor. The main thing that makes Djinn unusual is their speed; their Quickness is much higher than most creatures of their size. All-in-all, they're at about the mid-point in terms of difficulty in the Elemental family; they should not be attacked by low-level parties, but mid-to-high level parties should not have too much trouble with them. Salamanders: Coming across a Salamander is a rarity; they're one of the more uncommon creatures in the game. They're also overall the weakest of the Elemental monsters. They wield Fire Staffs and are protected not by armor but by "Fire," which is the toughest of the Elemental armors. Fire Staffs are reasonably powerful weapons, but not as much as some of the monster clubs that Giants equip. Salamanders are also human-sized and not particularly Healthy, so they don't have that many Body Points and only take a few well-placed hits to kill, and their Fatigue drops faster than other Elementals. (Of course, like other Elementals, they can't die from Fatigue loss) There are definitely tougher creatures out there than Salamanders, but there are easier creatures as well-- they're a low-to-mid-range enemy overall. F.04c GIANT CLASS ----------------- The Giants are by far the most common class of enemy you'll come across, mostly because there are so many different types of them. There's also a lot of variety in the Giant class, running the gambit from the very weak Goblins to the incredibly powerful Cliff Trolls. Giants can generally be divided into two classes; "small" giants and "large" giants, though there are "hybrids." (like Trolls and Great Orcs) "Small" giants are generally human-sized, and balanced in their attributes. They also have a great amount of variety in their weaponry and armor. "Large" giants tend to be rather slow, stupid, and have poor foresight, but incredibly strong and hardy. They are usually lightly armored and wield heavy, brutally damaging Giant Clubs, and throwing boulders. Large Giants are usually more deadly than small ones, but small ones are usually better fighters. Goblins: Goblins are the weakest of the Giant class; they're clad only in cuirbolli or leather, wield weak weapons like Scimitars and Broadaxes, and don't have much in the way of staying power. They're fairly easy enemies to deal with, regardless of your party's level; the only potential threat from Goblins is that they like to use missile weapons, so could damage your party before they have a chance to get close. All in all though, they're one of the easier enemies in the game to kill, and even low-level parties should have little trouble with them. Orcs: Orcs are well-balanced enemies. They're often difficult to kill because of their skill and equipment. Orcs most often are equipped in ringmail-class armor, though sometimes mixed with leather. (most often on the legs) They always use mid-to-high-power one-handed weapons like broadswords and battleaxes, and are most often equipped with bucklers as well. They're strong enough to equip this stuff, so trying to make them fatigued due to armor is not likely. Orcs LOVE using missile weapons and frequently run out of range of your close-fighters, so are often difficult to close distance for melee. This more than anything makes them difficult to fight sometimes. Once you do get them in close quarters, their armor allows them to take quite a beating before they die sometimes. For a high-level party Orcs are usually not much of a threat, but will give a starting-level party a run for its money. Hobgoblins: Hobgoblins are a lot like Orcs in that they are very well-balanced enemies. They tend to wear slightly heavier armor than Orcs (mostly a mixture of Ring, Scale, and Cuirbolli) and use nastier weapons (mostly Bastard Swords and Halberds, though sometimes with only Short Spears) and also frequently sport shields. While they can and frequently do use missile weapons, they tend to favor melee combat. Hobgoblins tend to be pretty skilled with their weapons, so they can be tough to defeat. However, their Body Points are nothing spectacular, and they tend to be a little too well-armored for their own good, and can suffer Fatigue problems from extended combat. They're not the hardest enemies in the game, but not the easiest either. Great Orcs: Great Orcs are nasty enemies. They're not quite as tough as the real bruisers of the Giant class, but they're not to be taken lightly, especially in numbers. They're strong and powerful, usually wielding powerful two-handed weapons like Great Hammers, Great Axes, Greatswords, or Long Spears. They're also equipped with scale mail-class armor, very hardy, and extremely quick, so they're not easy to kill either. They can often take quite a few hits before going down. Great Orcs rarely use missile weapons, but every once in a while you will find an individual Great Orc that insists on using them, and their missiles are every bit as deadly as their melee attacks. Gang up on them one at a time or you will have a very hard time fighting them. And if you get into a random battle and are greatly outnumbered, it may be a better idea just to run. Trolls: Trolls are extremely tough, hardy, and powerful creatures. They don't wear any armor, and are protected only by their thick hide, but are very tough customers. They have an absolute ton of Body Points, and wield powerful weapons like Mauls and Great Axes, so deal really nasty damage--a high-level Troll can take out a human, dwarf or elf in one well-placed hit, and even a Kelden with a lucky shot. They occasionally use missile weapons that are almost as powerful as their melee ones. When fighting Trolls, it's best to do as much damage from a distance as possible, and, if you have to close in, gang up on them with multiple melee fighters as once. They're not the toughest of the Giant class, but are not to be trifled with. Cliff Trolls: While not the most expensive in terms of spell-brewing, Cliff Trolls are probably the toughest enemy of the Giant Class, and perhaps the entire game too. They're one of the few enemies that's so big that not even a Kelden can take a High Shot at them, and they have a very high Health too, giving them an absurd amount of Body Points. It'll take numerous good hits with even the deadliest weapons to take down a Cliff Troll, and literally dozens of hits with lighter ones. Cliff Trolls are also extremely powerful; they wield Giant Clubs and brutal Troll Mauls, and do enough damage that with a good clean hit, they can knock out any character in one blow. They're also fear-inducing, so without a Courage Coat you're at a severe disadvantage. The only real downside to a Cliff Troll is that their speed is only average, and their Foresight is not so great. Still, they make tough opponents regardless of the circumstances, and low-level parties should steer clear of them at all costs. Hill Giants: While not the toughest of the Giant bunch, Hill Giants can be pretty fearsome enemies. They tend to be much better armored than other Giants, sporting plate mail on the legs! (Though it's not as good protection as the plate you can buy in shops) Their weapons are nasty too--Hill Giants can be found carrying special Wooden Clubs that do more damage than any weapon in the game. This means which means that you can't take many (if any) hits from a Hill Giant without getting knocked out. However, they're slow, and their Foresight is horrible, so they're not too tough in that respects. Like other Giants, they're big so have lots of Body Points, and thus take a good number of hits to kill. Plus, their boulders do nasty damage. Overall, Hill Giants are at about the mid-point of the "bruiser giant" class--they're substantially tougher than Ogres, but not as threatening as a Cliff Troll or Mist Giant. Ettins: Ettins are mid-range in the Giant class in terms of difficulty. Like other big giants, they wield big Giant Clubs, but they tend to stick to the nastier ones- -the more powerful Stone and Iron clubs, so they can be dangerous if they hit you; like many other Giants, you can't take too many hits from an Ettin before getting knocked out. However, even high-level Ettins aren't terribly skilled with their weapons, so they're not as dangerous as many other Giants. They are taller than most other Giants (only Kelden can target their heads) but their hide is very poor protection so they don't take an excessive number of hits to kill. As Giants go, Ettins have better Quickness and Foresight than most. Overall, Ettins are about the same level of difficulty as Hill Giants--maybe ever so slightly tougher, but not by much. Ogres: Ogres are big, powerful, and stupid. Ogres share a lot of characteristics with many of the "big" giants; they are rather slow, and their Foresight is bad. However, they have fantastic constitutions (Stamina-killing an Ogre is a rarity indeed) and can take a whole lot of hits before going down, though not as much as, say, a Stone Troll. Ogres are generally clad only in furs, but those furs are deceptively strong armor. In melee, they can be real brutes, wielding powerful Wooden and Stone clubs, which can deal really nasty damage; not many characters can take more than one or two hits from an Ogre, and they deal stunning blows with annoying frequency. Unlike many of the other "big" Giants, Ogres just love using missile weapons; they throw boulders all over the place, but fortunately they're not as damaging as they could be. Overall, I'd say that Ogres rank slightly below Trolls on the difficulty level. Stone Ogres: Stone Ogres are very similar to "regular" Ogres in their traits, and their equipment is almost identical (wearing "super-furs", though Stone Ogres wield the more powerful clubs with greater frequency) and they both love to throw boulders at your party. The main difference between Ogres and Stone Ogres is their skill. Stone Ogres are significantly better than regular Ogres at fighting, and deal terrible, grievous, and knockout wounds much more often; not even a Kelden can stand for long against a Stone Ogre, and the fact that they throw boulders with abandon makes them even more dangerous. Their speed and Foresight is also top class. Stone Ogres can take a lot of punishment, but it's easier to fatigue them than it is regular Ogres; however, like an Elemental- class enemy, you can't fatigue-kill a Stone Ogre. Still, a heavily-fatigued Stone Ogre can't hit the broad side of a barn, so once they're fatigued you'll have a good advantage. Straight-up, they're tougher than most other giants, and one of the more difficult enemies in the game; low-level parties should avoid them. High-level parties shouldn't have too much trouble, so long as they're careful and not outnumbered. Cyclopes: The Cyclopes are one of the "terrible" Giant enemies. They can be tough to fight without the Courage Coat as your characters may be frozen in fear, but they'll be frozen less often than with, say, Cliff Trolls. The only real advantage for a Cyclops is its immense strength; it's greater than any of the other Giants, and wielding heavy weapons like wooden and bone clubs, they can do very nasty damage if they connect. However, they're slow as molasses, their Foresight is absolutely pathetic--it's very easy to forecast their moves--and their staying power is not so great. Their furs absorb a lot of damage, but they can only take slightly more damage than a human-sized enemy, especially so if you target their head, which is extremely vulnerable. This is probably because they're only slightly bigger than human-sized; only Dwarves and Elves will be restricted from targeting their upper body. All in all, the Cyclops can be dangerous with their brute strength, but otherwise, are not terribly difficult for an experienced party. In numbers, however, you're better off not dealing with them. Mist Giants: Mist Giants are among some of the toughest enemies in the game. They're huge, enough so that not even a Kelden can take a High Shot at them, they're hardy, and more than anything else, they deal tremendous damage with their blows. They wield special Great Axes, which can take just about any light-or-medium armored character out with a single hit, and bring a heavily-armored character to within an inch of his or her life. Their boulders are even more brutal, and are the most damaging enemy missile in the game. The only advantage that you have over them is that they're not armored at all, only using their hide as defense. (However, their torso hide is actually pretty thick) This fortunately means that with a powerful enough weapon, you can kill a Mist Giant with just a few well-placed hits. Three formidable melee fighters working in concert can take down a Mist Giant in one or two rounds. If you get into a random battle with Mist Giants, and there are more than, say, 4 or 5 of them, run. When Mist Giants gang up on you, even the toughest parties won't stand much of a chance. F.04d LEGENDARY CLASS --------------------- There's not a whole lot you can say about the Legendary class as a whole, as it really is a miscellaneous category of enemies, containing everything that doesn't fall into the other classes. There are a lot of different types of Legendary creatures, but with the exception of Walbars, they tend to be pretty rare. (Though not as much so as the Elementals) Most Legendary creatures are human-sized, and wear/wield specialized equipment. Some of them can be pretty challenging (Minotaurs and Sledges) but most are only of average difficulty, and you rarely encounter large groups of Legendary creatures. Since they're a relative rarity, and they can give you some good rewards for defeating them, it's usually to your advantage to fight Legendary creatures when you do encounter them. Minotaurs: Minotaurs are the "weakest" of the Legendary class, but they're actually pretty tough. They're slow, only have average weapon skill, and don't wear armor at all, (instead, they are protected by their thick hide, which doesn't absorb much) but they pack one heck of a punch when they do connect! They usually wield bruiser weapons like Greatswords and Mauls, and even their missile weapons do heavy damage. They can often take out Dwarves, Elves, and weaker Humans out in one hit (providing they're not wearing heavy armor) and even Kelderheit can't take more than a couple of Minotaur blows without getting knocked out. Rule of thumb when fighting Minotaurs--don't get hit. Take them out at range whenever possible, or gang up on them with multiple melee guys at once. Muck Things: Among the Legendary class, the Muck Things are probably the easiest to deal with. They don't have any armor (though their "Muck" can absorb light blows) and don't use missile weapons either. They are reasonably skilled at melee combat though, and their Muck Branches are pretty nasty weapons, though they could be a lot worse. The one thing that's trickiest about fighting Muck Things is that their Foresight is ridiculously high, (though they're non-intelligent, so they'll never predict your moves) so it's often quite difficult to predict their moves. All in all though Muck things are not really worth worrying about, unless you're already wounded or weak. Lizarions: Lizarions are very well-balanced enemies. They've got good Strength and excellent Quickness, and their Foresight is also very high. Their missiles are pretty strong and they wield high-end one-handed weapons like Broadswords and Short Spears. Their greatest advantage is their high defense though; their Breastplates are platemail-class armor, and they often sport shields as well. However, Lizarions don't have that much in the way of lasting power. If you aim at their head or legs you can disable them very quickly, leaving them impotent in battle. Overall they're about on par with Orcs in terms of difficulty. Bloms: Bloms are pretty easy enemies to defeat overall. They rarely travel in large groups, and aren't heavily armored. (using only their hide) They wield Blom Hammers, which are like Great Hammers, only lighter and doing slightly less damage. For this reason, they don't hit particularly hard, (at least compared to some of the tougher enemies) and their Foresight is very low, so it's easy to predict their moves. They also don't appear to use missile weapons. (at least, I've never seen them use missiles) The one thing to the Blom's credit is that they can take a lot of punishment before dying, about the same amount as some of the mid-level Giant class, like Ogres. Still, they're not terribly tough, and even a low-level party might want to take a shot at fighting them, so long as there aren't too many. Binderaks: Binderaks can be challenging enemies, especially if you're facing a large number of them. They're very fast and pack a hefty punch with the nasty Spiny Maces that they wield; two or three clean hits from a Binderak is enough to knock out most characters. However, they have a couple of weak spots; first, they cannot use missile weapons at all, so you can take them out at range fairly easily. Second, despite their power, they don't have much in the way of lasting power, and they're not well armored (only their head, which is protected by their Spines, has anything greater than the most rudimentary prodection) so it doesn't usually take too many hits to kill them. Beware high- level Binderaks though; their high speed combined with their high weapon skill make them very deadly enemies. Sledges: Sledges are kind of an unusual enemy. They're really rare; you'll amost never come across them in a random encounter. But what's most odd about Sledges is that they're a fear-inducing "terrible" enemy like Cliff Trolls or Cyclopes, but they're really not all that tough, despite what the manual and the townspeople say. They're only man-sized, (even a Dwarf can target their head) they only wield War Hammers that are no better than what you can buy out of a store, and they have no body armor whatsoever, being only protected by their hide and their thick skulls. (However, their skulls are almost as tough as platemail, so it takes a heavy hitter to penetrate) They tend to be decent fighters, though, so they can give you a run for your money. If you're a low level and don't have the Courage Coat, you're better off not taking them on; otherwise they shouldn't give you too much trouble. Mist Grubs: The Mist Grubs are a lot like Sledges in that they are "terrible" enemies that induce fear in your characters, but are man-sized and aren't particularly tough. They're protected by their Scales, which can absorb a fair amount of damage (more than most other "natural" body armors) but they don't have that many Body Points so they don't take that many hits to kill. Mist Grubs wield four types of weapons: Grub Maces, Grub Axes, Grub Clubs and Grub Hammers. Grub Hammers are very weak, light weapons, on par with Maces. Grub Maces and Axes are medium-class weapons on par with Broadswords or Battle Axes. Grub Clubs, on the other hand, are pretty damaging. If you have someone with Club Skill, the Grub Club makes a fantastic one-handed weapon; it doesn't deal as much damage as some Giant Clubs but it also doesn't weigh nearly as much, either. Starting characters without the Courage Coat may have some trouble with Mist Grubs, but otherwise they're pretty easy to deal with. Walbars: Walbars are the "hardest" of the Legendary class in terms of the amount of money it costs to write spells that work against them, but they're actually not that tough, overall. They wield very heavy, powerful weapons like Greatswords and Great Axes, but they don't have much in the way of Body Points so generally take very few hits to kill. They also never wear much in the way of armor--a single piece of Cuirbolli-class armor at most, the rest of their body being protected by their thick hide. There are only two major advantages that Walbars have; one, that they have excellent Foresight, so it's very rare to predict their moves, even with a character with high Foresight and Intellect. Second, Walbars are often quite skilled with their weapons, especially defensively; they will parry blows with great frequency. However, unless you're fighting VERY high-level Walbars, this usually isn't much concern. All in all, they're not too hard to defeat. F.04e UNDEAD CLASS ------------ Next to the Giants, the Undead are probably the most common type of enemy you'll come across. Undead are united in the fact that they're generally pretty easy to kill. Skeletons and Ghouls can be tough for a beginning party, but with a little experience under your belt, even they are little more than speed bumps in your journey. Undead tend to use pretty light weapons, and with the exception of Skeletons, pretty light armor as well. They don't have much in the way of staying power (again, excepting Skeletons) so they are little challenge to any party. Gremlins: With the exception of Zombies, Gremlins are the easiest of the undead to kill. They are small and have fewer Body Points than any enemy in the game, so one well-placed hit with a medium weapon will usually kill them. They only wear Leather armor, so they don't have much in the way of protection either. Plus, they only wield the weakest of weapons like hand axes and clubs. However, Gremlins make extensive use of bows--most gremlins will start out the battle all firing at you--and their missiles do a substantial amount of damage when they connect. Their Foresight is pretty good too, so it's hard to predict their moves. Once you get close to them they die fairly easily, but it can be tough to get that close without taking a few hits first. Forest, Hills Ghouls: Ghouls are not terribly difficult enemies, but they're not that easy either. They only wield light weapons like Maces, but are extremely strong, so can do quite a lot of damage to a lightly-armored character; their arrows in particular seem to do heavy damage. They usually are only wearing a Cuirbolli chest, but that can be tough to penetrate for a beginning party. However, Ghouls don't have much in the way of staying power, so a few good solid hits will be enough to take them down. In general, you don't need to worry too much about Ghouls once you've got a few levels under your belt, but they can be a threat to fresh characters. Zombies: While not "officially" the weakest of the undead (in terms of spell costs and the like) Zombies are generally the easiest undead enemies to kill. They are fairly weak and use only the lightest weapons like clubs, scimitars, and longswords; characters equipped with medium armor will frequently absorb all damage from their blows even if they hit. Armor-wise they're not much better off; they only wear cloth. Furthermore, Zombies don't use missile attacks. They don't take many hits to kill, and rarely can parry attacks, but they are fairly good at avoiding blows. Unless you're greatly outnumbered, Zombies are usually fairly easy kills. Plains Skeletons: Skeletons are the toughest of the undead to fight; they usually equip heavy armor, have heavy one-handed weapons, and tend to be quite skilled with the weapons they wield, plus can take a fair amount of damage before dying. Even experienced fighters can have trouble dealing with a Skeleton. The one advantage to fighting a Skeleton is that their Fatigue is terrible, so they can't fight for very long at all before their fatigue loss makes them easy targets. Skeletons will sometimes kill themselves through Fatigue loss too. However, they should not be underestimated, as until they've lost that Fatigue, they can be difficult opponents. =============================================================================== SECTION G: QUESTS =============================================================================== G.01 THE QUEST SYSTEM --------------------- While you can do nothing but run around in the wilderness bashing monsters and taking their stuff in Knights of Legend, the real bread and butter of the game is undertaking the many quests in the game. Quests are special battles. Rather than taking place on a generic wooded field like random battles, quests take place in a pre-designed area, which differs from quest to quest. They can take place in castles, caverns, islands, and even a giant maze in one case. When you fight a quest battle, you'll always be facing a large force (8 at the absolute minimum, and more often 12) of enemies, which are placed in pre-set positions. (though by the time you get to them, they may be elsewhere as they move around) Your party is also placed in a pre-set position, which can be part of the challenge; sometimes your party is split up, making strategy more important. To get a quest, you need to talk to a quest-giver and ask them about the right topic for them to give it to you. You can learn these topics by hearing rumors around town, or by completing a quest and getting a hint. When you ask about the right topic, the quest-giver will give you a long description of what s/he wants you to do, and you will have the option to accept or refuse the quest. If you refuse, you can always ask again. Once you are on a quest, the "quest entrance" will open up on the main map, and when your party is located at the right spot, you will be given a short text description and will be asked "Will you Partake?" If you say yes, then the quest starts proper. Finding the quest entrance is often part of the challenge; sometimes the quest giver won't tell you exactly where you need to go. In this case, you'll have to ask around town to find out where you need to be. For example, hypothetically you may learn that you need to retrieve a Magic Wand from a band of Trolls, but that's it; in this case you might want to ask around town about Magic Wands and Trolls to find out where to go. Note that geography is VERY important when trying to find the entrance of a quest; you'll definitely need that map that came with your game! If you lost your map, search Google Images for one; I found a very good, detailed map of Ashtalarea, having lost my map myself. There are two ways to complete a quest. First, you can kill all the enemies in the battle. This is the "standard" (and most profitable) way to complete the quest. The other way to complete the quest is to find the quest item, which is always hidden away someplace in the level. A character (with empty hands, of course) can pick up the item, then run for the exit. When the character with the quest item reaches the exit, the game will ask "Do you want to flee?" and if you say "Yes," your party will leave with quest item intact. (ie you won't drop it like if you used the "flee" option in battle) You don't get any experience for this though, and once you leave the quest area like this, you can't return. Once you've completed the quest, you need to bring the Quest Item (it's also available to pick up once you kill all enemies) back to the quest giver. Upon returning to the quest giver, the quest will be complete, you'll get your reward (either an item or a hint) and your characters will get a medal signifying they've completed the quest. Whatever you do, DON'T THROW AWAY OR SELL A QUEST ITEM! If you do, you're screwed; you can never complete that quest, and by extension, you can never complete the game either. However, if you hack your save file (see the "cheating" section) you can fix things. Another option is to create a new party, have them re-do the quest, and hand the quest item to the first party that dropped it. (Of course then party 2 will never be able to complete the quest) One thing to note about quests is that unlike random battles, the enemies in quests don't scale in difficulty according to your party's level. So, if you're having particular trouble with an individual quest, you can try it again after training up your weapon skills and it'll be easier. G.02 QUEST THREAD SYNOPSIS -------------------------- The following is a list of all 24 quests in the game. These quests are listed in the order in which they appear on the "Medals" chart, and not in "chronological" order. In fact, by cheating you can take the quests in any order you want just by saying the right keyword to the quest giver. If you want to play it legitimately, you'll have to take some quests in a certain order, as quest givers will usually give as a reward a hint to take on a new quest. The item in parentheses is what your quest medal will look like in the DOS version. (In the Apple II version, it just looks like a bunch of static, or at least it did on my disks) If you're playing it legitimately, there are 5 quest "threads" in the game, plus two additional stand-alone quests. You can take the "threads" in any order that you like. BRETTLE QUESTS THREAD: ---------------------- ORDER: Quests 1, 2, and 3 (in any order) followed by 4. REWARDS: Truth Sword in Quest 4. All of the enemies you'll face in this thread are pretty easy, so this is a good place for beginning parties to start. Quest 1 should probably be the first one you take on; though its enemies are tougher than those in Quests 2 and 3 respectively, there are fewer and the setup is more conducive to a beginner party. HTRON QUESTS THREAD: -------------------- ORDER: Quests 17, 7, 15, and 19. REWARDS: Treasure Map in Quest 7, Red Ring in Quest 19 NOTES: The final quest in this thread is very tough, and the second-to-last can be tough too. (Though it can be easily won with extensive cheap-shotting) The items you win are pretty useless so this can be saved for an intermediate- to high-level party. POITLE LOCK QUESTS THREAD: -------------------------- ORDER: Quests 13, and then 8. REWARDS: Courage Coat in Quest 8. NOTES: This is shortest of the 5 quest threads, and also one of the easiest, as the enemies you face are either not tough (Thugs in Quest 8) or can be killed by doing nothing. (Skeletons in quest 13) The Courage Coat is an extremely valuable item, so this is one of the first quest threads a new party should undertake. THIMBLEWALD QUESTS THREAD: -------------------------- ORDER: Quests 9, 10, 12, 11, 14, and 16. REWARDS: Death Blade in Quest 11, Speed Boots in Quest 16. NOTES: Of all the "threads" this will net you the most valuable loot (the Speed Boots are especially great) but you also have to go up against some extremely tough enemies--Great Orcs, Ogres, Stone Ogres, and even Mist Giants. For this reason, it's probably not the first thread a beginning party should tackle. SHELLERNOON QUESTS THREAD: -------------------------- ORDER: Quests 21, 22, 23, 24, and 20 REWARDS: Ring of Shades in Quest 24, Great Shield in Quest 20 NOTES: This is the toughest quest thread, as most of the missions have you going up against "Terrible" monsters. Quests in particular 23 and 24 are both VERY hard, and pretty much require a buff party wielding the magic artifacts given in other quests. This is probably the last thread a party should tackle before attempting the final quest. STAND-ALONE HTRON QUEST: ------------------------ QUEST: Quest 6 REWARD: Flying Cloak NOTES: The reward you get for this quest is an invaluable item, and the setup isn't too hard (none of your enemies use missile weapons) so this is an excellent quest for a starting party. Do this quest as soon as you can--in fact, if you're confident, you may want to give it a shot as your very first. STAND-ALONE OLANTHEN QUEST: --------------------------- QUEST: Quest 18 REWARD: Magic Ingot (becomes the Custom Halberd) NOTES: The setup for this quest is pretty tough, but the reward is very good for a beginning party. I'd suggest tackling it after doing the stand-alone Htron quest, the Brettle quests, and/or the Poitle Lock quests. THE FINAL QUEST: ---------------- QUEST: Quest 5 REWARD: NOTES: As you can't do this quest until all of the other 23 are done, you have to do this one last. If you still can't decide for yourself the order you want to take the quests in, I suggest the following: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 13, 8, 18, 17, 7, 15, 19, 9, 10, 12, 11, 14, 16, 21, 22, 23, 24, 20, and finally, 5. G.03 THE QUESTS =============== G.03a QUEST 1 (Medallion): BURGLARY AT STEPHANIE'S Talk to Stephanie of Brettle, and she'll tell you that some Ruffians broke into her house and stole her Gavel and fled into the Tantowyn. Ask her about the Gavel and she'll give you the quest to track down the ruffians and get it back. Ask about Ruffians around town and you'll learn that Jonathan knows more about them; inquire at his forge, and he'll tell you that the Ruffians fled along the River Passing. Follow the river and you'll find the quest entrance; it's right where the river flows into the Great Wood. This is a good quest for beginning parties as it's pretty easy. Ruffians are the toughest of the human-type enemies, but you only have to face eight of them, and the mission setup is such that if you position your party right, you'll have an overwhelming advantage. Your party will start on a road going north over a river and into the Ruffian hamlet. The south side of bridge is an ideal spot to position an ambush; have your scout lead each of the Ruffians individually to your waiting melee fighters and you'll crush them; the Ruffians are heavily armored enough so that by the time they reach your ambush, they'll be so fatigued from chasing your Scout that they probably won't be able to hit you at all. The only thing you need to be careful of is that the Ruffians don't ambush you; some aren't right along the road, so if you continue primarily along the road and don't explore the surrounding areas, your scout might get ambushed. Still, you should be able to evade the Ruffians with your scout fairly easily, as they're well-spread out throughout the level. If you want to go for the Oak Gavel, the quest item, it's located in the last building at the end of the road. You should be able to kill all of the Ruffians without too much trouble though. When you complete the quest, bring the Gavel back to Stephanie; she will give you the word of the Alderman's Guild, "Kydar," and its letter, "K." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03b QUEST 2 (Tiara): THE KNIGHTS' STANDARD You'll hear from Ryan Ashley, the Bowyer of Brettle, that the Guild of Knights had their Standard stolen. Go talk to Stephen and ask him about the Standard, and he'll give you the quest to get it back, telling you that the Bandits that stole it have their fortress along the road. Go north out of Brettle and turn west on the Krell Way; keep proceeding until you find the bandit fortress. The bandit fortress is not terribly hard overall, if you attack it strategically. You'll enter from the east side, and to get to the keep proper, you'll have to cross a gatehouse bridge, then proceed up a path to the northwest so you can enter the fortress from its north entrance. The gatehouse bridge, being one tile wide, makes an ideal spot for an ambush, and you should indeed use it as such to take out the 2-3 bandits that are guarding the area. (Whatever you do, don't send your party single-file through the bridge without taking care of these bandits, as they'll be able to deal a good chunk of damage, and the real fight isn't until much later) However, the gatehouse isn't an ideal spot for a mission-long ambush strategy, as all the other bandits are a LONG way from it; you could, in theory, keep your party in that area for the whole mission, but it will take forever to finish that way. Once the bandits guarding the gatehouse are dead, move your party to the north entrance of the keep. It's not as good an ambush spot as the gatehouse, but will do nonetheless. Using your scout, lure the enemies in the courtyard area (there are roughly a half dozen of them) one at a time back to the keep entrance and cut them to ribbons with your waiting warriors. After the courtyard is cleared, it becomes something of a search-and-destroy mission; the remaining bandits are hanging out in the various buildings inside the the fortress walls. The alleyways in the southeast quadrant of the keep make a good ambush spot if you want to lure the bandits somewhere. As attractive as the houses might seem as spots to lure enemies into, don't, as enemies are generally not dumb enough to follow you inside. If you want to grab the standard and run, it's in a tiny house in the extreme southwest corner of the keep. Once you've got the Standard back, bring it to Stephen, who will take it and give you the Word of the Guild of Knights, "Aklom," and its letter, "A." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03c QUEST 3 (Goblet): THE WITCH'S QUILL The Witch Hegissa in Brettle is peeved that the Knights let a bunch of Ghouls go off with her magic quill. She'll tell you the Ghouls fled to the forest in the south, and asks you to go get the quill back from them. The ghoul city is located in the Klvar woods on the west side of the big tree that Tyrolliar the bow trainer lives in. There are 12 or so ghouls, but they are very weak and shoddily armored, so this quest is not too hard. Since ghouls are not very hardy, you can often kill them outright in ambush formation without them ever getting a single attack out. You'll start north of the bridge into the city. This bridge is an ideal ambush spot. One ghoul starts on this bridge, and three more right on the other side, so don't move your party across this bridge until all of them are dead. Once they are all dead, go ahead and move your party across and in formation east along the pathway until you get to the main gatehouse. There's usually a lone ghoul guarding the gatehouse but it should be easy to take care of. Then you can set your party across in ambush formation around the end of the gatehouse and send your scout into the city. There aren't any other really ideal ambush spots in the rest of the level, so you can spend the remainder of your time here, though it'll take a while. At the very least, though, you should lure the 3-4 closest ghouls to the gatehouse into the jaws of your trap before crossing through. The remaining ghouls in the city are very spread out, all the way into the far corners of the map, so finding them all can take quite some time. This quest can easily end up one of those search-around-till-I-find-the-enemy-I-missed missions. The quest item is located in a house toward the south end of the map; there's an area where there are two houses right off the road, a one-room one to the north and a two-room one to the south. The quill is located in the corner of the house to the south. Once you finish this mission, bring the Quill back to Hegissa. She'll give you the word of her guild, "Moram," and its letter, "M." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03d QUEST 4 (Gold Bar): BRETTLE'S TRUTH SWORD You can't get this quest until you've finished Stephanie, Stephen, and Hegissa's quests, as they give you the passwords you need to get it. (Well, you can if you know the password in advance, but that's cheating) If you've ever visited the Mayor of Brettle, you'll note he says he won't talk to you unless you're known by the Guilds of the city. Now that you've completed the three quests, you can tell him the password you got from the three guilds, "KAM," and he'll tell you that Brettle's Sword of Truth was stolen by goblins, who headed south, and asks you to get it back. The goblins are hiding out in the plains along the south coast, just south of the Klvar Wood and north of Lastan's Bay. This is actually a pretty tricky mission to complete. The mission area consists of a strip of open land to the south along the coast, with a big mountain to the north; the mountain contains many narrow tunnels, which is where the goblins are all hiding. The bad news about this mission is that the tunnels are very poor places to fight, as you can only proceed through them single-file and will be sitting ducks for the goblins when you come into their rooms. (Not to mention the fact that it takes forever to file your entire party in and out of those tunnels) The good news is that the tunnels are ideal for setting up ambushes; have your entire party wait at the mouth of the cave and cut the enemy to ribbons when your scout draws them out. However, as well-suited the mission is for ambushing in theory, in practice, it's not always so easy. The tunnels are winding and twisty, and goblins just LOVE to use missile weapons, often making it very difficult to coax them out of their hidey-holes and into the waiting arms of your ambush. The best strategy overall is to clean out each of the caves from west to east, setting up ambushes at the entrance of each tunnel. The cave furthest to the east is the biggest, with a lot of branching pathways; make sure to explore each before going further north, as you don't want to get trapped. It's also the most difficult to draw enemies out of so you'll need patience. At the very end of this cave are three rooms with doors; when you get to this point, you'll probably want to move your whole party to this area as it's very difficult to draw enemies outside of closed rooms. The northernmost room of this area has the Truth Sword, but it's not in a position where it's easy to grab and run; there are usually three goblins guarding it. For this reason, you're better off killing all enemies to win this mission. When you've gotten back the Truth Sword, bring it back to Benjamin; as your reward, he'll let you keep it. The Truth Sword is a great weapon; it's a very light Greatsword that does more damage than your standard Greatsword. It's an excellent weapon for a Kelder, as they tend to be strong, but overburdened with armor as-is. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03e QUEST 5 (Silver Chalice): THE FINAL BATTLE Yes, this is quest #5 of the chart, but the last quest in the game. (Nobody said the quests were numbered chronologically) Once you've completed all 23 of the other quests, go talk to Dundle in Khazad and ask him of Seggallion. Dundle will tell you that you need to rescue Seggallion, but he is not in Pildar's tower as rumored, but in the Ghor Hills. The quest entrance proper is in the middle of the Hills and tough to put a bead on a real landmark, but if it helps, it's directly east of the north edge of the Amazon village. For the final quest, you're pitted against some tough enemies--Cyclopes. Cyclopes are "terrible" enemies and require the Courage Coat to fight effectively. These particular Cyclopes are also very skilled, so you're in for a tough fight. In this quest, there is no quest item, so the only way to win is to kill all 12 of them. Being the final quest, it's not surprising that this is one of the most difficult, though it's not as bad as the Minotaur or Sledge quests. You start the mission in the northwest corner of the map. Move your party in formation southeast, until you reach a junction in the road which leads south and east. The east path leads along the mountains to the north, to the entrance of a cave complex. The south leads along the river and across a bridge. If you follow the south path to the end, it ends at a river; if you fly across this river you can reach a back entrance to the cave complex. The large field to the southeast of the junction holds about half of the Cyclopes that you'll have to kill. This is where things get tricky. There's nowhere at all that will serve as a good ambush spot, so you're going to be forced to do at least some straight-up fighting. Fortunately, the Cyclopes are somewhat spread apart, so if you use a scout to pull them toward your party one at a time, you can fight them one-on-one, though at not the same kind of advantage that a true ambush affords. Once all of the Cyclopes in the field and bridge area are dead, move your party up to the cave entrance and send a scout in. The cave entrance makes a decent ambush spot, but it's a LONG way into the bowels of the cave proper, so it's somewhat inconvenient as well. A ways into the tunnel you'll find a small 3x3 chamber with a room off to the west. Once you've had your scout draw back or kill the Cyclopes before and around this chamber, you may want to move your party proper here and use this as a staging point for your future ambushes. Be careful beyond here, as there are a lot of side passageways, and you could easily get your Scout sandwiched between two Cyclopes if you're not careful. Keep drawing individual Cyclopes back to your melee fighters and you'll eventually be able to win. If you're having extra trouble with this quest, you may want to consider creating an anti-Cyclops spell (beware, it'll be expensive) and have the mage with it wear the Shade Ring. It will take a very long time, but as the corridors are tight and they won't be able to see you, a lone invisible anti-Cyclops mage will eventually be able to kill all the enemies in this quest. Once all the Cyclopes are dead, you'll see the ending cutscene where you rescue Seggallion. (and it becomes painfully obvious there should have been more expansions that never came out) You'll get his Shackles. Bring them back to Dundle. He'll give you a Black Ingot in return. The Black Ingot can be forged into a Great Axe that does more damage than just about anything in the game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03f QUEST 6 (Silver Ring): THE KELDER'S CROWN Talk to Biblik the Sage in Htron and ask him of his Sadness. He'll say that he's lost his Crown and wants it back. Tildon knows where it is; he says that he thinks it's in a keep on the Tegal River. If you follow the river it's easy enough to find, but if you want to know the exact location, it's about right below the "a" in "Tegal River" on the map. In this quest, you'll be facing Binderaks. Note that there are no stores in the game that sell spells to deal with Binderaks, so if you want to use magic in this battle against them, you'll need one of your mages to create a spell to deal with them, though Binderaks aren't too tough so you probably won't need to. You won't get much of a chance to get your party into formation before you're thrown straight into the action here, as there are two Binderaks waiting for you right nearby. Both Binderaks are on the bridge into the keep though, so you can set yourself up for an easy 3-melee-fighters-on-1 setup at the end of the bridge if you're quick enough. In fact, it's generally a good idea to spend most if not all of the mission at the starting position, waiting at the end of the bridge, luring the Binderaks to your fighters one by one. Binderaks themselves are fast and powerful fighters, and can do heavy damage with those spiny maces; a lucky shot can take out a lightly-armored, weaker character in one hit. However, they can't use missile attacks so that gives you a huge advantage over them, and they aren't terribly hardy creatures either. All except 3 of the Binderaks in this mission are tightly packed into the small keep so this is a fast-paced mission; you can lure each Binderak individually to your party fairly quickly. Don't try moving your whole party over the bridge before the keep is cleared out, or else you'll be swarmed. The remaining three Binderaks are far outside the keep proper, hanging out in the wooded fields to the south/southwest. The Kelder Crown can be found in the southwest building in the keep itself. Note that the loot in this mission sucks, as Binderaks don't wear armor and you won't get any gold if you sell their maces. Bring the crown back to Biblik and he'll give you the Flying Cloak. The Flying Cloak gives non-Kelderheit the ability to fly; it's a great item to equip on your scout. It's also a great item to equip on Dwarves as it'll give them the ability to Sprint. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03g QUEST 7 (Magic Wand): NOBJOR THE PIRATE The Pirates that Sam was talking about in Quest 17 live on the eastern shore of Feglar's Bay, to the west of the Amazon village. Pegleg Pereau is the pirate who knows about Nobjor. He'll say that he'll give you the map to Nobjor's treasure if you find a shipwheel from the Erwenwald for him. The Erwenwald has four "squares" of thick forest in an "L" formation, and the entrance to the quest location is on the second "square" furthest from the right. This quest takes place in a Hobgoblin hamlet, though it's more like a castle with an outlying house. Naturally the Hobgoblins don't take kindly to your interference and are hostile. The hamlet is not an easy settlement to attack; Hobgoblins are wily opponents and the mission layout is not conducive to an easy victory. When you start out the mission, you're put straight into the action as your party is positioned just north of a house with two Hobgoblins in it. It can be tricky to get an advantage against these Hobgoblins as they're not easily coaxed out of the house; the door is only two spaces wide, so you can at most move two fighters in at once, which rules out the "overwhelming force" approach. Plus, the Hobgoblins will shoot at you from the house's window. Cleaning out the house isn't terribly difficult, but it may be tough to do so without taking a few injuries. Once the Hobgoblins in the house are taken care of, move your party over the bridge to the west, where you'll find a large castle; the remainder of the Hobgoblins are either in or around this building. The problem with this castle is it's difficult to attack; there are no good ambush spots and as all of the rooms are closed off by doors, it's tough to lure the Hobgoblins off. One good thing to try is to put the Flying Cloak on an archer/scout and have them fly over the wall of the ramparts and take potshots at the Hobgoblins up there; as you're over a wall you can't be hit by their missiles but you can hit them. If you're lucky you can take out a few of them to make it easier for the rest of your party. Also, the one-tile-long hallway between the gatehouse and the left tower can be used as a makeshift ambush spot. Aside from that, this mission is more of a straight-up fight; not easy, as Hobgoblins are well-armored and frequently wield powerful weapons. The Ship Wheel is located inside a small room on top of the west tower of the castle. Take the ship wheel back to Pegleg Pereau and he'll give you a Treasure Map and ask you to show it to Scotty and ask him about it. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03h QUEST 8 (Amulet): MUGGING THE MUGGERS You have to finish Quest 13 before you can do this quest. Go and talk to Sedfrey in Poitle Lock about his "Gold" and he'll say that his shipment of gold from Brettle was ambushed. Ask him about Brettle and he'll say that he's not worried about the gold, and more his family's coat of arms. He'll ask you to get the coat of arms back from the thugs that stole the gold and promises to reward you with a Coat of your own. Ask around about the Coat and you'll learn that the Deacon knows about it. If you ask the Deacon about the Coat he'll say that he's heard it was taken in the Tegal forest. The Tegal forest is pretty big, and far away, but head there nonetheless. The entrance is extremely difficult to find, as it's smack in the middle of the woods with no clear landmarks. The best way to find it is to go to the Amazon village in the Tegal and move to its very left-most edge; the entrance to the quest is directly south of this edge. If you're still having trouble finding it, it's located in the dead-center of the forest about halfway between the Amazon village and the Tegal River. You'll be up against Thugs this time around. You couldn't ask for a more perfect layout of the village in this mission; the area is filled with great ambush spots, and heavily wooded for great cover against enemy arrows. You start halfway through the western gates; it's best to move your party entirely to the west side of the gate, while using a scout to run through the village and lure Thugs back to the entrance, where you can kill them at your leisure. Most of the quest enemies are either in the main village plaza beyond the gate, or in the various huts therein. They're actually fairly spread out, so this mission could be fairly easily completed even without resorting to ambush tactics. The remaining handful of Thugs that aren't in the main plaza are in two large halls that are located at the north/northeast and southeast corners of the map. The north/northwest hall is slightly larger; its entrance at the north end of the map, roughly dead-center. (Proceed between the two north-south ponds to get there) It's divided into two sections, each containing a building. The entrances to both sections are ideal for ambushes, so you'll be at an advantage against the Thugs therein. The southeast hall is much smaller, and only contains a lone two-room building, usually guarded by only a single Thug. The Coat of Arms is also located in this building if you want to grab it and run. The Thugs themselves are not too terribly difficult; they mostly use one- handed weapons and Cuirbolli armor. Their armor is slightly too heavy for them causing them to get fatigued easily, but not enough so that you can count on them dying from blood loss. Overall they're not too terribly difficult, especially if you use the terrain to your advantage. Once the quest is finished, return to Sedfrey, who will reward you with a "Courage Coat." This Courage Coat is actually one of the most valuable items in the game, as it negates the need for Balance checks when facing "terrible" enemies. (In other words, characters wearing the Courage Coat will never be frozen in terror when fighting) This item you should probably cheat and use the dupe trick (or if you're really a stickler against that sort of thing, create multiple parties and do this quest over and over again) and give to most if not all of your party members, as some of the later Giant-class enemies you face are next to impossible to get a successful Balance check off, no matter what your class is. If you're playing the PC version, you'll want to give the Courage Coat to all your party, except maybe if you want to use the Flying Cloak on your scout(s). If you're playing the Apple II version, you only need to have the Coat on your melee fighters, as that version doesn't require Balance checks for missile weapons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03i QUEST 9 (Gold Pin): OUTING THE SPY Lieutenant Trimrose at the Thimbelwald Keep is upset because he thinks there's a spy amongst his army that has been feeding information to the Barbarians Thimblewald is fighting. Ask around town about the spy and you'll learn that Milinya knows who it is. Go to Milinya and ask her about the "Spy." She'll say she knows who the spy is, but won't tell you unless you get her some Changeling Oil first. Trabbik knows about Changelings. Ask him about them and you'll learn they're in Downing Swamp. The quest location is smack in the middle of the swamp, directly southwest of where the River Downing opens into the swamp. You'll be facing Muck Things in this quest. Overall, this is one of the easier missions, as Muck things aren't too terribly hard. They've got powerful Muck Branches as their weapons (which fetch no price, IE this is a quest with no loot) and they pack quite a punch if they connect, but they're also relatively slow, and use no missile weapons. In terms of strategy, you can use an ambush, but this is one quest where your archers and spellcasters can really shine. You'll start out on an east-west path, with the main Muck Thing fort across a wide bridge to the west. Note that from your starting position, there's a lone Muck Thing in the wilderness to the south; if you're going to kill all enemies in this quest be sure to take it out before you do anything, otherwise you'll have to come back and hunt it down later. Once it's dead, cross over the bridge. There should be only one or two Muck Things on the other side waiting for you, so dispatch them and move on. The bulk of the Muck Things are located in the main Muck Thing fort, which is across a narrow bridge over the "moat" to the north. The bridge entrance is a good place to spring an ambush, but if you use your archers effectively, you may not need to. The main Muck Thing fort has one central hallway with windowed rooms along the side. Almost all of the Muck Things are in these rooms. And, since Muck Things don't fire missiles, you can just bring your archers in and shoot at them through the windows, without them being able to do anything back. Even better, if you have a mage that has an anti-Muck Thing spell, you can do this and not have to worry about ammo. There are a couple of Muck Things in closed-off side rooms that you may either have to lure out or deal with using melee characters, however. (And if a Muck Thing comes out into the hall, which they often do, lure them back to your melee characters rather than risk your archers. Once the fort is cleared out, there's a small exit out of the fort heading north; there are usually one or two Muck Things wandering about out here, but they're easily dealt with. The Flask of Oil is located in a room in the southwest corner of the main fort. To get there, you'll have to go through the room to its north. Bring the flask back to Milinya and she'll tell you that Delmor is the spy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03j QUEST 10 (Flag): CHASING RUMORS You have to complete Quest 9 before you can do this one (unless you cheat). Tell Lieutenant Primrose in Thimblewald that Delmor is the spy, and he will ask your help in retrieving an Heirloom stolen by Barbarians. Trebbik will tell you that the Heirloom was stolen by Pirates. Zebin the Mage knows about Pirates, and he'll tell you about the Cloak, which Julian knows about. Julian tells you that the Cloak was actually stolen by Brigands, who fled with it up to the Krag Mountains. So, now you know where to go. Or actually, you may not, as the Brigands aren't actually in the Krag Mountains; they're in the Northwald Hills, which are right next to the Krag Hills. The entrance to the Brigands hideout proper is located at the northeastern tip of the Northwald Hill range. Oops! Looks like the information they fed you at Thimblewald is faulty; these aren't Barbarians or Pirates or even Brigands, but Great Orcs that you're facing! And Great Orcs are a lot tougher than Brigands are. This mission is tricky, because not only are the enemies you're facing tough, but your party will be split up. You'll start outside the giant Great Orc fortress by its north and east entrances. Odd members of your party (1,3,5) will start at the north entrance, and even members (2,4,6) will start at the east entrance. Getting your party back together is the trick. The best way to start this quest depends a whole lot on your party makeup. At least one of the entrances (preferably the north, as it's closer to most of the Great Orcs) should be stationed with three melee fighters; this will be your ambush point to take down the Orcs. (don't try this mission head-on; unless your weapon skills are VERY high, the Great Orcs will make mincemeat of you) It's best if you do this quest after you've done Quest 6, as the Flying Cloak will prove invaluable here. With three of your melee fighters in one position, odds are the other half of your party will have your scouts, archers, and mages. That half will not last long against the Great Orcs unless you do a lot of fancy footwork and missile firing (and those missiles will eventually run out) If you have your Scout equipped with the Flying Cloak, they can easily fly around the perimeter of the fortress to rejoin your melee fighters and act as your ambush decoy. The only other alternative is to sprint through the heavily-guarded fortress to rejoin your melee fighters. This is possible to do without getting seriously hurt or maimed, but not easy by any stretch of the imagination. It's even better if ALL of your lightly-armored characters have Flying Cloaks, as then you can have them all fly to rejoin your melee guys. Once your party is reunited, you can use a standard ambush strategy at the fortress entrances, as they're ideal. Note that even using an ambush, defeating the Great Orcs are not easy, as they're quite hardy, well armored, and can take a good number of blows before going down. They rarely use missile weapons though, which is to your advantage. They're slightly too well armored for their own good, so with some luck and skill you may entice them into dying of fatigue, but this is tough to do without giving them a few wounds first. You'll find that Great Orcs are smarter than a lot of enemies and know when to run, so it can be tricky luring them into your trap. I find that magic is very useful in this mission. If you've got a mage of the Secret Storm order, you can craft a spell to do extra damage to Great Orcs; otherwise you can purchase the Vornalyrmi spell in Poitle Lock, though it'll take a bunch of Vornalyrmis to take down a Great Orc. The quest item, a Silk Cloak, is located in the building in the southwest corner of the fortress. It's usually guarded by a Great Orc. Bring back the Silk Cloak, and you'll learn it's apparently not the Heirloom that Primrose was looking for; he gives you nothing. Guess that goes to show not to always trust rumors. However, he tells you to ask Sergeant Yardley about his Folly. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03k QUEST 11 (Emerald ring): GETTING THE DEATH BLADE The Warrior-Soul that Keldinarr tells you about in Quest 12 is Ballastar, in the Krag Keep. He'll tell you that he wants to get his family's Stone Mallet, which was stolen by raiders who fled into the woods to the east. In return, he'll give you his powerful Death Blade. The woods he's talking about are the Wesswald; the entrance to the quest area is smack in the middle of it. What Ballastar neglected to tell you is that the "raiders" are actually Mist Giants, some of the toughest hombres you'll come up against in the game. Fortunately, however, the layout of the quest is excellent (albeit not perfect) for an ambush. You start at the west of an entrance to a series of narrow caves, which all the giants are hanging out in. Set up an ambush at the mouth of the cave and have your scout lure the giants back there one at a time. With your entire party concentrating on each Mist Giant individually, you should have a lot less trouble. Having a spellcaster with an anti-Mist Giant spell is a bonus too, but it takes an absolutely obscene amount of Adventure Points to make a Mist Giant-affecting spell (over 4000, enough to raise a character two full levels) so you may not want to. (or cheat to do so) Your attacks should mostly be Thrusts to hit the Giants before they can hit you; (and reducing their chance to counterattack effectively) it's imperative not to get hit, as a single well-placed blow from a Mist Giant can take out even a heavily-armored, full-health Kelden. The layout of the cave is relatively simple; there's one, really long passage from the entrance to the far east end of the cave, which branches to the north and south at the end. The south end has a large room and a spiral-shaped corridor; the north end has a whole complex of rooms. Most of the Mist Giants that aren't in the main corridor are in the north wing of the cave. One thing that's a pain about this mission is that outside of the entrance to the cave, there really aren't very many good spots to spring an ambush, and the cave entrance is a LONG way from some of the Mist Giants, so this quest takes time. If you're feeling lucky, you can set up an ambush in one of the rooms deeper in the cave; the one right to the south of the main intersection could serve as a makeshift spot for ambushing. The quest item is probably not worth going for, as it's really tough to grab and run, and you'll need someone with flight capability. To get to it, head into the north section of the cave, ignoring the side passage to the west and continuing north around the bend. You'll get to a small room with doors to the west and south; (and usually about 3 or 4 Mist Giants) to get the mallet go through the west door. The corridor winds around until you get to a lake; fly over the lake and the mallet is close by on the other side. Bring the mallet back to Ballastar, who will give you the Death Blade, a light and powerful Halberd. He'll also tell you to say the word "Rhording" at the Fostering. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03l QUEST 12 (Shield): YARDLEY'S FOLLY Unless you cheat, you need to finish quest 10 to get this quest. (Though this is one of the easier quests to "stumble upon" as one of the topics you need to ask about is one you might think of asking even without knowing of this quest) Ask Yardley in Thimblewald of his Folley and tell him "Primrose" when he asks who's been spreading such rumors. From there on if you continue the conversation you'll learn that he needed a Vial from a Kelden. Go to Keldinarr in town and ask him about the Vial, and he'll give you the quest to get it from the Walbars. Ask around and you'll learn that Dingbar knows where the Walbars are; talk to him and he'll tell you that they hang out at the Windy Run. The entrance to the fortification is at the coast north of Thimblewald. There's a tiny little "bump" of an inlet on this coast; the fortification is located on the eastern shore of this "bump." You start this quest right by the entrance to the bridge leading to the Walbars' fortification, in the southeast area of the map. The bridge to the fortification is long and narrow, and not a place where you want to get caught by Walbars, so make sure you lure the one or two Walbars on the bridge out into the open before you bring your party across. The fortification itself consists of a large courtyard with two big multi-room buildings; one to the east and one to the west. There is also a miniature "keep" structure off to the northwest of the courtyard. All three of these buildings are filled with Walbars. Compared to others, this quest isn't too hard because of the layout and the enemies you're facing. The entrances of all three buildings in the fortification (as well as the starting bridge) are ideal for springing ambushes, so you've got a real leg up on the Walbars. That, and the fact that Walbars don't have that much in the way of Body Points, makes it so that this quest isn't too tough. The one thing to note, however, is that you probably won't be able to use your spellcasters against the Walbars. No shop in the game sells spells that will work against Walbars, so unless you custom-make a spell (which I advise against, it's not worth the money and Adventure Points since Walbars aren't that tough) magic will be out for this fight. Still, with decent tactics and the weapon skill that you should have by now, this quest will probably be no problem. The quest item, the Blue Vial, is located in the "keep" to the northwest. There's one room smack in the middle of this building, and that room contains the Vial. Once you've finished the quest, take the Vial back to Keldinarr. He'll tell you to seek the warrior-soul and ask him of "Scalfeth." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03m QUEST 13 (Pipe): CONTROLLING THE SERPENT In Poitle Lock, talk to Orofin, and he'll mention Poitle and the Serpent that's been attacking barges nearby. Ask about the Serpent and he'll say that Poitle used a magic wand to control the Serpent, but is now lost in his haunted Caves. He wants you to get it back for him. Christopher knows about the location of the cave, ask about it from him. He'll tell you it's located just a little upriver from the Lock. (The south river) Follow the river and you'll get to the cave. In this mission, you'll be facing twelve skeletons. At first glance, this quest looks like a nightmare. First, the geographic setup is sadistic; you fight almost exclusively in twisty, long, narrow tunnels that make the caves in the Truth Sword quest look like a walk in the park. Second, the skeletons are very tough customers, being skilled, heavily armored (wearing brigandine at the minimum, and more often chain) opponents that can take a major beating in melee with even the most powerful weapons and still not die. However, this mission has the potential of being the easiest of them all, as the skeletons are far too heavily armored for their own good; they don't have the strength or endurance to manage the weight of their armor and their fatigue drops with the lightest motion. Give them just a grazing wound and run away, and the gradual fatigue loss will kill them quickly. In fact, their burdens are so great that many of the skeletons are likely to spontaneously die from fatigue loss before you ever even meet them. I imagine if you just sat at the entrance and waited long enough, you could finish the mission doing nothing as the skeletons would all eventually die from fatigue, though that would probably take forever. To finish this quest in a "normal" way, the cave entrance is a good place for an ambush, but difficult to lure enemies into. The cave itself consists of one giant hall in the middle with corridors branching off at the southeast and southwest corners (the entrance leads into the northwest) that lead to rooms with skeletons in them. Your best bet is to clean out the enemies in the entrance corridor (and maybe the hall) using ambushes, then move your whole party into the hall and set up an ambush there between some of the pillars you'll find. The Serpent Wand is located in a house situated on a little island. To get there you have to fly, meaning that you either need a Kelden or someone with the flying cloak. To get to the island, take the southeast corridor and turn north at the opening. Keep going north until you get to a crossroads, then head west until you get to water. Fly over the water to get to the island. Needless to say, it's easier to finish this quest by killing all the enemies than grabbing the wand and running (and the skeletons may all spontaneously die by the time you tried) Take the wand back to Orofin, who will tell you to ask Sedfrey about his "Gold." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03n QUEST 14 (Golden Chalice): THE MEANING OF RHORDING After finishing Quest 11, head to the Fostering. The Fostering is the child- rearing house in the Amazon village, southwest of Htron. Go there and mention "Rhording" to Dunnigan there. He tells you that "Rhording" is a word spoken by one on a quest, and tells you to go to the Wood of Dreams and bring back proof of your victory. The Wood of Dreams is actually the Dark Wood, east of Poitle Lock and south of the Krell Swamp. The entrance to the quest area is at the north edge of the wood where the forest starts to become thick. You're facing Ogres in this quest, and you don't get any time to waste, as right at the beginning of the quest you're assaulted by 3-4 that are right near your party. It should prove a tough fight, but move your party so that your melee fighters are concentrated together and your archers, scouts, and mages are out of range of the Ogres; if any Ogre can get a single character alone, it works against you. This is the main challenge of the quest, though, as once the beginning Ogres are out of the way, cleaning up the rest is relatively easy if you play it right. Once the starting skirmish is over, get your party into formation and walk west along the path until you get to a bridge--one perfect for setting up an ambush at. This is actually a pretty good spot to spend the remainder of the mission, as the rest of the Ogres aren't too terribly far from the bridge; their village is rather small. Bring your Scout into the village and draw the Ogres back to your waiting melee fighters one by one. Ogres that like to throw boulders can be dangerous, but there are plenty of doors in the village; if you find an Ogre that insists on using ranged attacks, have your Scout sit in a doorway (when you're standing in a doorway, no missile weapons can hit you) and wait for the Ogre to tire of throwing boulders before leading it back to your party. (In addition, you can harass these boulder-happy Ogres with arrows or spells too) The quest item, a Gold Chalice, can be found in the first building to the west along the road once you pass over the bridge into the Ogre village. It's in the far room, and is usually guarded by a single Ogre. Go back to the Amazon village and talk to Dunnigan there. He'll tell you to say the word "Inthos" at the Hobe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03o QUEST 15 (Clover charm): DECODING THE MAP Bring the map you got in quest 7 to Scotty (located in the Pirate Enclave to the west of the Tegal wood) and will tell you that he'll decode it for you--for a price. He wants his Pirate Hat back, which is in Prazen Point. The entrance to the quest is smack in the middle of the peninsula. In this quest, you're facing Sylphs. There are only eight of them, so you don't need to make as many kills as in most other quests. This can actually be a pretty easy quest if you play it right. The quest area is a series of islands separated by lake and stream terrain. Some of the streams are small so can be crossed over on foot. There's no good place for setting up an ambush in this quest, (and they're too closely packed together for that sort of strategy anyway) but you shouldn't have to if you play your cards right. Since Sylphs cannot use missile attacks, you can move your characters to islands they can't reach and fire arrows at them. However, Sylphs are hardy creatures, so even if you use all six of your characters' 20 arrows apiece, you're unlikely to be able to kill them all unless you make extremely lucky shots. For this reason, you'll want to have someone with the Vonnalyrfe spell. (you can buy this in the Red Mist guild in Thimblewald) It will take a LOT of Vonnalyrfe castings to kill a Sylph but it can be done, so if you're patient you can kill all the sylphs in this quest with a minimal amount of melee contact. In melee the Sylphs pack a heavy punch if they connect so take care if you do go that route. While you can't ambush them per se, you can try luring them one at a time to the island your party is standing on to reduce chances of getting clobbered in numbers. If you'd like to go for the quest item, it's on the shore north of the island. Getting to it requires running through a gauntlet of all the Sylphs in the leve, but if you've got someone that can fly and is lightly armored enough to stand high-speed flight without severe fatigue loss, it's easy to grab and run, if you'd like to take that path. Bring the pirate hat back to Scotty and he'll decode the map for you, telling you that it says to seek out someone with the initials T.D. and ask them about the map. This is Tullianna Daverland, who lives in Htron. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03p QUEST 16 (Feather): INTHOS THE MAGE Once you've completed Quest 14, talk to Lord Stiveson Bonner at the Hobe and ask him about Inthos. He'll tell you that Inthos was a friend of Seggallion's and wants you to get his magical staff back for him. Talk to Sir Celegorn at the front gate about Inthos as well; he'll tell you that he was last seen running for the Downing Mountains. The entrance to the quest proper is located in the hills right next to the southwest tip of the Downing mountains. This time, you'll be up against Stone Ogres. Stone Ogres are pretty tough brutes that can take and dish out a lot of punishment, but fortunately the terrain can work to your advantage here. You'll be fighting in a large walled castle with a wide, sparsely-wooded field to the south and a medium-sized keep to the north. You start on the outside, on the east side of the outer walls, a little bit north of the door. There are a lot of Stone Ogres waiting for you on the other side of the door, but (fortunately in this case) monsters are usually reluctant to enter doors so you'll be able to get your party into position without too much trouble. While not ideal, it's best to spring an ambush right outside of the door with your melee men; this will prevent your archers from getting involved, but it's the best you can do in the circumstances, and prevents them from firing at you. Lure the Stone Ogres individually if you can, and if any of them seem keen to use missile weapons, have your scout/bait wait in the doorway until they've exhausted their supply of boulders. Once the Stone Ogres at the entrance are taken care of, about half of the remaining Stone Ogres will be in the keep, and the remaining half in the southern field. The keep entrance couldn't be better as an ambush spot, so you can use that for dealing with the Stone Ogres in there, but the Stone Ogres in the field are potentially a little more dangerous; it's tough to lure them all the way to the entrance, and they are wide open so can throw boulders--which Stone Ogres like to do a lot. What I like to do is have one or two archers with Flying Cloaks zoom to the southern castle wall and position themselves directly on top of the wall. There, all incoming boulders will hit the walls, instead of your characters. While floating over the wall, I have my archers shoot back at the boulder-throwing Ogres to weaken them a little bit. Once they stop hurling missiles at you, I have the archers lure the Ogres back to the melee fighters; (who are already inside and walking toward the keep by this point) while not as safe as an ambush, they'll be fatigued and wounded, giving you a real edge against them. Once the Stone Ogres in the field are taken care of, move your party right to the entrance of the Keep and ambush all the enemies in there. (If any Stone Ogres in the keep feel like throwing boulders, you can use the same "flying-over-walls" tactics to get them to use up their missiles before they come at your melee guys) The Hidden Staff is located in the keep; there are two rooms in the keep, and the Staff itself is in the north room. Bring the Staff back to Lord Stiveson Bonner and in addition to his thanks, he'll give you the Speed Boots. Speed Boots are a very unusual item; they increase your running speed so that when you Run, you travel two spaces (instead of one) and when you Sprint you travel four spaces. (instead of two) They're a very useful item to put on a Dwarf, since Dwarves can't go further than one space in a round; not only will it give Dwarves the speed boost but will also give them the ability to Sprint. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03q QUEST 17 (Cat Figurine): SEARCHING FOR OIL If you ask around about Pildar in Htron, you'll learn that Sam knows something about him. Ask Sam about Pildar and he'll call him a "Stod." Ask about Stod and he'll ask you to look for some Parth Oil for him. Yommel knows where to find Parth Oil--he says it's by Berthand's Bay. The entrance to the quest is right on the shore, just a little bit east of the peninsula that juts into the bay. You're up against Brigands in this mission. When you start, you'll be walking north to the entrance of the main Brigand village. The building to your left has a few Brigands in it. Be careful when setting up your formation, as the Brigands may snipe at you from the windows. Take care of the Brigands in that building, before setting up an ambush at the main entrance to the village. Most of the Brigands in this quest are in buildings, and they tend to go nuts with missile fire, so you can take advantage of this fact with your own archers. By positioning them in the doorway (or if they can fly, on top of the village walls) they can shoot at the Brigands with abandon and never get hit, as the Brigand arrows will always hit the door/wall. Inside the village are a bunch of buildings, all with Brigands in them. To the northeast is a medium-sized keep, which is well-guarded. Don't bring your whole party close as the Brigands on the ramparts will fire down at you; lure them out one by one. There's a final building on the other side of the keep, usually with one or two brigands in it. If you can lure the Brigands to your party, positioned strategically at either the entrance to the village or the entrance of the keep, you should have little trouble, as the Brigands are very lightly armed and armored. The Parth Oil itself is located in the building beyond the keep. Trying to grab it and run is easy if you can fly, but otherwise is probably not worth it as you'll have to run through a gauntlet of large numbers of Brigands. Bring the Parth oil back to Sam and he'll tell you to ask the Pirates about "Nobjor." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03r QUEST 18 (Beads): ALCHEMIST'S TOOLS Talk to Belinda in Olanthen. She's interested in Alchemy, and in particular is interested in an alchemical instrument, a golden chain. It was stolen by Orcs though and she asks you to go get it. Denswurth, at the gate, knows where to find Orcs; they hang out in the pass in the mountains of Lorr. They're fairly easy to find; they're practically right on top of the Kazhad outpost. This is not an easy quest. In terms of mission layout, the Orcs have a huge advantage over you as the small keep they control is perfect for defense. There are very few spots for effective ambush, and even fewer that are safe to use. Since Orcs love using missile weapons, "traditional" ambushes often don't work anyway; when your scout lures an Orc toward your waiting fighters, frequently when they see you rather than come in range to cross swords, they'll just sit there taking potshots at your fighters. The starting bridge seems to be a good ambush spot at first, but using a concealed ambush strategy on the north or south side of the bridge is better, as it allows you to evade enemy arrows better. The first few Orcs start on or about the bridge so this is a good place to start clearing them away. Once the bridge and surrounding area is clear of Orcs, things start to get tricky. The keep itself is very well protected. There's only a one-tile path in, and the courtyard is filled with Orcs so you can't file your melee fighters in effectively and safely. What's worse, the ramparts have Orcs in them too, who will rain arrows down on your party should you get too close. The Orcs in the ramparts are the single most annoying feature of this mission, as they're completely invulnerable to attack unless you climb up into the ramparts yourself to deal with them. Of course, to do this, you'll have to go straight into the keep proper, during which time you'll be a sitting duck to their arrows, and the one-tile-wide ramparts are a terrible place to fight. For this reason, there's no easy way to assault this keep. There are two main strategies you can pursue here. The first, though time-consuming, is to keep your main forces on the bridge out of the range of the Orcs in the ramparts, and lure each individual Orc out with your scout. The downside to this strategy is that you can't ambush well from the bridge and will have to fight the Orcs in a more straight-up battle. The second strategy is to bring your melee fighters right up to the one-tile keep entrance and slaughter the Orcs that come through. The downside to this strategy is that you'll have to soak up the arrows from the sniper Orcs; you'll want at least one long-range healer to keep your troops from dying. However, if you've got your Scout with a Flying Cloak, you can solve the arrow problem; have him or her don the cloak and fly right over the wall to the rampart before moving your party over the bridge. While you're hovering over the wall, arrows can't hit you, but that won't stop the Orcs from shooting at you. Once they've exhausted their arrows, you can bring your party across and hack them to bits at the keep entrance. The quest item, the Ruby Choker (Guess Belinda was wrong about it being a golden chain) is located in the small, southernmost building in the Keep courtyard. Because of the irritating Orcs in the ramparts, this is one quest where it's actually substantially easier to grab the quest item and run than kill all the enemies. (Still, I usually try for the latter, for the experience.) Take the Ruby Choker back to Belinda, and she'll give you a Magic Ingot. You can bring the Ingot to a forge to create a very light, but very damaging, halberd. You can name the weapon whatever you want. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03s QUEST 19 (Gold Ring): TREASURE HUNT After completing Quest 15, go to Tullianna in Htron and ask her about your map. She'll ask you to find the Iron Chest that the map indicates (she made it) in an area surrounded by water. Kimble Chandler knows where this is; ask him about the Iron Chest and he'll say it's in Ebbwater. The quest entrance itself is right off of the north shore of the Ebbwater inlet. You're up against Minotaurs in this quest, and it couldn't be harder; this is one of the toughest missions in the game. This area is a large keep with a north-south and east-west road traveling through it, crossing at a center courtyard. Your party starts out split up into four groups; characters 1 and 5 on the west side of the keep, 2 and 6 on the east, 3 on the south, and 4 on the north. And every group but the east has two minotaurs waiting for them right at the beginning. As minotaurs are very powerful enemies, having your party divided is an extreme disadvantage, and if you take them on straight-up, you're liable to have your party severely injured at best by the time you can regroup them together. Your first order of business here, before you do any fighting at all, is to get your party regrouped together. The two safest areas to do this are on the east side of the keep or in the central courtyard, as neither has any enemies in it. The best way to tackle this is to make extensive use of Flying Cloaks; it's to your advantage to set it up so that your entire party can fly. Either way, preparation is the key. How you do this will depend on the setup of your party, but I suggest to change your starting lineup so that your two heaviest melee warriors are at positions 2 and 6. This puts them on the east side of the keep, away from any opposition; if you have to have them running through a gauntlet of enemies to regroup it's very hard to get them in position without being severely injured or fatigued or both. Your two lighest- armored characters should be in positions 1 and 5, ideally both with Flying Cloaks, as if you have them run past the Minotaurs, they'll just follow you and you'll have little if any time to prepare your regrouped party to fight them. Players 3 and 4 should head northeast and southeast respectively, outrunning the Minotaurs to the east side of the keep, regrouping either there or proceeding west from there to the courtyard. (I find it's easiest to lose the Minotaurs to the north and south by running in this direction--if you fly that's even better) It's ALWAYS best for your characters on the north, south, and west end of the keep to fly to regroup at least part of the way, as most of the Minotaurs will ignore flying characters--they won't chase you. Once your party is regrouped, there are no really good places to set up ambushes, but you can lure Minotaurs one at a time to your party at least. I find the courtyard to be the best place for this simply because of its centralized location. Ideally you can get your party regrouped without anyone getting hurt, so you can take on the Minotaurs more on your terms. Even still, this can be a tough mission, as Minotaurs are extremely powerful enemies, that can take out even a Kelden with a lucky shot. If you want to grab the quest item and run (understandable in this particular mission) it's located in the northern room of the building to the northeast of the central courtyard. Bring the chest back to Tullianna and she'll open it only to find it completely plundered except for a ring, which she gives to you. The Red Ring she gives you is worth 1000 gold, but does nothing else. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03t QUEST 20 (Red Shield): TROLL HUNTING Once you've completed Quest 24, go talk to Denswurth in Olanthen and tell him that Norgan sent you. He'll ask you to clean out a nest of Trolls some of his subordinates were too weak to handle. Talk around and you'll learn that Rhunholland knows where to find Trolls. Ask him about them and he says that there were some Trolls in a keep on the Missip. The quest location proper is in the middle of nowhere, so it's hard to give good directions, but it's on the same east-west level as the northern edge of the eastern Zolod mountains, and on the same north-south level as the northeast corner of the East Mytrones. The fortress that the Trolls live in is heavily defended and in a tough spot to assault, but with good strategy it's not too bad. You'll start this quest in something of a tight spot--all six of your characters are jammed onto a narrow bridge, with a Troll waiting for you right on the other side. It's good to have a melee character in position 1 to deal with it. Once it's dead, be careful, as the wall in front of you is a rampart with several Trolls on it; if any of them like using missile weapons, you should have a Scout fly up over the walls and draw their fire until they're out of arrows. The rampart is in a "U" formation with the entrance in the center; an ideal spot to place your melee fighters to take care of the Trolls there. There are a few trolls on the bridge to the north of here; they may attack your fighters from behind so be prepared. Once all the Trolls in the "U" parapet area are dead, you can move your party across the bridge to the north. Right on the other side of the bridge is another long high wall with three Trolls on it; the only way up here is to fly, so if you don't have any flight-capable characters you'll have no choice but to grab the quest item and run here. Whether or not you kill the Trolls up there, move around the wall (to the east is good, as there's usually a Troll hanging around outside in that area you can take care of) and head to the north of it. The final Troll should be inside the building guarding the quest item, a Statuette. Bring the Statuette back to Denswurth as proof that you killed the Trolls, and he'll give you a Great Shield, a very light shield that offers better protection than any other in the game. You can also edit the appearance of the Great Shield in the Character Options. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03u QUEST 21 (Sapphire Ring): BRYOR When you talk to Rodrigard the Tollman at the Sheller Bridge, (he's on the parapet to the left) and ask for gossip, he'll mention "Bryor." Ask him more about that and he'll tell you to fight some Ettins that are hanging out on Sheller Ridge, kill them, and bring back one of their wristbands of Dwarven gold as proof. The entrance to the quest is closer to a city than any other in the game; it's on the east end of the Ridge, just northeast of the corner of Shellernoon. The Ettins in this quest are hanging out in a reasonably-sized castle with four buildings in it. It's very densely packed with Ettins, so you'll never have to go far to find an enemy. You'll start off at the north entrance, usually with two Ettins right near you ready to fight. If either of these Ettins feels like being a boulder-thrower it could be problematic as you'll have to get near them before you can kill them (with no cover) and may take some damage before you can start the fight proper. Assuming you kill the two Ettins, the remainder of the enemies are either inside the castle or just outside its east or south gate. There's no really good place to set up an ambush here, but the north entrance will do in a pinch; this is actually a good place for your party to stay for the duration of the quest, as going inside the castle will leave them open, and the quest area is small enough that it's not a huge pain to lure Ettins from the edges of the map to this exit. The one tricky part of this quest is not getting your Scout swamped or leading multiple Ettins to your melee fighters at once; the Ettins hang out in groups and it's often difficult to just lead one to your trap. Also, a lot of the Ettins are inside the four buildings inside the castle, and it's always tough to lure enemies outside buildings, though these Ettins seem to be more willing to chase you out than in other quests. If any of the Ettins seem set on boulder-throwing, have your Scout sit in a doorway until it uses up its missiles; Ettin boulders can do a lot of damage. One thing I've noticed is that when going out the two-tile north exit, the Ettins seem to prefer to hug the left wall, so position your melee fighters so that all of them have a good shot at this square. If you want to go for the Gold Bracer, it can be tough to get, being heavily guarded by Ettins, but it's in the southwest building inside the castle. Bring the Bracer back to Rodrigard and he'll congratulate you--turns out he was watching the whole battle from the tower. He tells you tell Aurin that the sky looks "Grey." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03v QUEST 22 (Round shield): CUDDLY DJINN After completing quest 21, talk to Aurin and tell him "Grey" and he'll ask you to retrieve an object stolen from him in the woods by Djinn (He doesn't he tell you WHAT the object is, though, Hmm....) Nobody on the Bridge knows about Djinns, so you'll have to go to Shellernoon to get the information you need. There, if you listen to Kelmore's gossip, you'll learn that when he was younger, he was on a mission in the Thanakesh to defeat some Djinns. So, that's where you're headed. The entrance itself is in the northwestern area of the Thanakesh hills, right in the middle of the hills. It's directly south of the "arm" of the Zolod mountains that jut out to the west. There are only 8 Djinn to face in this quest, but they're pretty tough. They hang out on what's basically a "Djinn Bridge." The mission area consists of a gigantic north-south bridge, which at the south end, turns west down a row of tiny little houses. The Djinn are fairly evenly spaced along this entire stretch, though there are two or three at the north end of the bridge, near where your party starts out. There's only one really ideal spot in the mission for an ambush and that's at the tail end of the mission, though the little "alcoves" along the main bridge, along with the north bridge entrance, will do in a pinch. As the Djinn are fairly wide-spread out, this is one mission you could probably do with just moving your whole party through the area in one big sweep, though you'd be restricted to using only two melee fighters. Djinn don't use missile attacks, and their melee attacks are not as powerful as their size would suggest, (unless they've got Wind Swords) so they're not too hard to deal with. If you play this mission out in a careful and normal fashion, you really shouldn't have too much trouble, as missions go it's not too terribly hard. If for whatever reason you find yourself having trouble here, you could take out the Djinn with flying archers and/or spellcasters, and they won't be able to retaliate, but even a low-level party should be able to do this mission without too much problem. The quest item, a teddy bear (Guess that explains why Aurin was so reluctant to tell you what he wanted) is in the northern-most house at the very end of the east-west road lined with buildings. Return to Aurin with his teddy bear, and he'll tell you to speak to the head Guardsman at Shellernoon and give his name. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03w QUEST 23 (Medal): THE RING OF SHADES Once you've completed Quest 22, talk to the Sheller Elite Guards in Shellernoon and tell them that Aurin sent you. They'll ask you to retrieve the Ring of Shades from Trolls that have it. Suzy is the only one in town that knows where to find Trolls--Cliff Trolls! So you've got a tough quest ahead of you. She'll tell you they can be found on the shores of Lake Sanat. The entrance to the quest proper is not directly on the shores of Lake Sanat, but on the Westwash a little bit west of the lake proper. This is an extremely difficult quest if your party isn't powerful, because Cliff Trolls are very tough enemies, and what's worse, your party starts split up at the beginning of the mission. There are two bridges into the Cliff Troll Village over a river; characters 1, 2, and 3 start at the north bridge and characters 4, 5, and 6 start at the south bridge. The only way to reunite your party is either to go straight through the village proper, or for one side to fly over the center river. The first is basically impossible to do without getting killed (the village is swarming with Cliff Trolls, which will get in your way) so you're best off starting off the quest by having one half of your party fly over the river. The south side of the river is a better place to position your party (the bridge makes an excellent ambush spot) so organize your party so your flight-capable characters are in the first three spots. Because Cliff Trolls can cause characters to freeze in terror, you want as few Flying Cloaks as possible (anyone who can should wear a Courage Coat) so if you have any Kelden, put them in the first three ranks as they can fly and wear a Courage Coat at the same time. You'll want at least one lightly-armored flight- capable scout to go fly over the walls of the village and draw fire from boulder-throwing Cliff Trolls before you start luring them to your trap; Cliff Troll boulders hurt a lot, and you don't want your melee fighters getting knocked out as you'll need them. An anti-Cliff Troll spell can work wonders in this mission too, if it's powerful enough. The village itself is extremely small (basically it's just three small buildings surrounded by a wall) so don't move your party inside, whatever you do; enemies in there are very tightly packed together, and even the strongest party can't survive getting swarmed by Cliff Trolls. The quest item itself is in the central building in the village; it's comparatively close to the quest entrance, though getting it and running can be a trick, due to the "population density" inside the walls. Bring the Ring back to the Shellernoon Guards and they'll take it, and tell you to tell Norgan that you're from the Silver Knot. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- G.03x QUEST 24 (Wreath): SHELLERNOON'S WARD Once you've finished Quest 23, go talk to Norgan, lord of Shellernoon. Tell him you're from the Silver Knot and he'll ask you to get Shellernoon's Ward back from Sledges that took it, and he'll reward you with a magical artifact. Asking around town about Sledges, you'll learn that Wilbur knows about them; he'll tell you he escaped some in the Sodden Hills. The entrance to the quest is in the dead center of the Sodden hills, about parallel with the southern edge of Pildar's castle to the east. There's only one word for this quest: sadistic. It's definitely one of the hardest quests in the game. All your characters are separated from each other and tossed into the middle of a huge maze, which is filled with Sledges. The quest item is at the exit of the maze, so you have to wander around with each of your characters to try to find your way out. Flying is right out in this mission as it takes place entirely inside. And Sledges are "terrible" enemies so you'll need all your characters with a Courage Coat. (If you hate cheating that much, make six different parties and have them all complete quest 8 over and over again, then trade the Coat you get with each win to each of your characters) Missile weapons are not much use here either as there isn't a whole lot of space to run from the Sledges. Below I've created an ASCII map of the quest, and have a detailed strategy to keep your characters as intact as possible. Q ########### ###################### # # # # # # ##### # # ############C####### # #A# # # # # # # # # # # # # #B# ### ##### # ### # # # # # # ####### # # # # # #1# # # ######## ##### # # # ### # ####### # # # Q = Sheller Ward, Quest Item # # # ######## ### # ### # ########### ### # # 1-6 = Starting locations of # D a # #######d##### # characters 1-6 respectively ##### ### #####E# # # # 2# # ### # ######## ##### A-K = Approximate location of the # ### # ##### # # # # # # Sledges (Sledges not marked # # # ######## # # ### # # with a letter are generally ####### # # ### # # # # hanging around outside the # # # # ######## ####### # exit to the maze, near the # #####F# # # # # # # quest item. Check the # b # # # ######## # ## # #### fields northeast of the # # # # # # # # # # exit specifically, as one # # # ### #G#################### # usually shows up there) # # # # # # ### # Note these positions are not # # # ### # # ######c####### ### # exact, and the Sledges move # # ### # # H # # # ### # around too. The strategy below # # # ### ###### # # # # # # assumes that each of the Sledges # #I### # # # # # # # # ####### are close to these points; if # # #3 # #6# # # ## # # # # they're not, you may have to ad # # ##### ### # # # # # ####### # lib it a little. # # # # # ## # # # # ############# # # # ####### # # a-d = Waypoint locations # # # #4# # #5# # # ########### # ### ######## ### # # K # # ################################## Your three best melee characters should probably start out in positions 2, 3, and 6, and your archers (assuming you have three) should be in positions 1, 4, and 5. Position 1 is best for your scout. Your archer most proficient in melee should be in position 4 to deal with Sledge H in case it finds its way to your start position. Upon starting the quest, character 6 will immediately be attacked by Sledge G, and will have to deal with it one-on-one. While this is taking place, character 5 should move toward waypoint c and wait there for a while. Characters 2 and 6 should move toward Waypoint and kill Sledge D. Once Sledge D is dead, have characters 3 and 1 move toward Waypoint a. Character 1 should get in Sledge A's field of view then lure it the long way toward point a, firing arrows as you go; that'll have it weakened by the time you get it to characters 2 and 6. Character 3 will probably also have Sledge F chasing him/her by the time s/he makes it to waypoint a, so the three melee characters will want to take care of it too. Once 1,2,3, and 6 are reunited and Sledges A, D, and F are dead, move the group to Waypoint b. Have Character 1 (assuming it's your scout) lure both Sledges I and K to your waiting melee fighters. Make sure there's enough space so that your scout can get by. Once they're both dead, move your entire party to Waypoint c. By this time you may have had to kill Sledge H with 4 and/or 5; if not, your melee fighters should take care of it. At this point, your party is reunited and can move together and eliminate each remaining Sledge individually. Because of the tightness of the passages, there is no good spot for ambushes, and you may have to use one of your melee fighters as your scout. Waypoint d is a good central point to deal with Sledges B, C, and E. Once they're dead, move your party out of the maze to where the Sheller Ward lies; the remaining Sledge should be hanging out nearby. Kill it to end the quest. Bring the Sheller Ward back to Norgan. He'll give you the Shade Ring and tell you to seek the Black Dwarf, Dundle. Actually, though, this is a bug; you're not supposed to seek Dundle, but instead Dunsworth, in Olanthen. The Shade Ring makes the character wearing it invisible to monsters unless they're right up close. It's best used on a mage; it can be problematic on archers as they won't be able to predict where to fire as well, and melee characters need to get close up to the monsters, which is more difficult when being ignored. =============================================================================== SECTION F: TOWN AMENITIES =============================================================================== The following section lists all the stores and amenities available to you in Knights of Legend, divided by town. Note that this is not a comprehensive list of everyone that lives in a town; it only lists places where you can get a service of some sort--lodging, shopping, healing, training, etc. F.01 BRETTLE ============ Trollsbane Inn: --------------- Lodging (safe) - 60G Saint Paul's Abbey ------------------ Healing Wizard's Tower: --------------- Join White Pearl Order - 500 Daynalon - 340 Daytwelon - 330 Arnalon - 340 Artwelon - 330 Daynalyr - 440 Daytwelyr - 430 Arnalyr - 440 Artwelyr - 430 Hansard Forger: (Dwarves unwelcome) --------------- Dagger - 80 Halberd - 280 Flail - 240 Shortsword - 96 Great Axe - 320 Great Hammer - 320 Scimitar - 120 Short Spear - 85 War Maul - 240 Longsword - 128 Long Spear - 185 Self Bow - 320 Broadsword - 160 Club - 40 Lt Crossbow - 240 Bastard Swrd - 320 Quarterstaff - 80 Hvy Crossbow - 320 Greatsword - 400 Mace - 120 Battle Axe - 80 Heavy Maul - 128 Broadaxe - 120 War Hammer - 160 Battle Axe - 200 Morningstar - 200 Weaponer: (Elves unwelcome) --------- Dagger - 80 Halberd - 280 Great Hammer - 320 Shortsword - 96 Great Axe - 320 War Maul - 240 Scimitar - 120 Short Spear - 85 Self Bow - 320 Longsword - 128 Long Spear - 185 Broadsword - 160 War Hammer - 160 Bastard Swrd - 320 Mace - 120 Greatsword - 400 Heavy Maul - 128 Battle Axe - 80 War Hammer - 160 Broadaxe - 120 Morningstar - 200 Battle Axe - 200 Flail - 240 Ludeman Armorers: ----------------- Fur Cap - 32 Cuirbolli T - 560 Brigandine L - 750 Fur Shirt - 185 Cuirbolli L - 480 Chain Coif - 200 Fur Pants - 180 Conical Helm - 100 Chain Shirt - 1400 Cloth Hood - 48 Ring Byrnie - 680 Chain Pants - 1200 Cloth Aketon - 330 Ring Pants - 560 Barbut Helm - 250 Cloth Pants - 280 Pot Helm - 150 Platemail T - 1680 Leather Hood - 45 Scale Amine - 840 Platemail L - 1440 Jerkin - 440 Scale Pants - 720 Buckler - 100 Leather Pant - 350 Basinet - 200 Target Shld - 200 Cuirbolli H - 85 Brigandine T - 890 Kite Shield - 300 Bowyer and Fletcher: ------------------- Long Bow - 400 Holcroft Stables (Dwarves unwelcome) ---------------- Draft Horse Lgt Warhorse Med Warhorse Hvy Warhorse Fortress of Brettle: -------------------- Training: 240 Longsword: 0-30 Broadsword: 0-30 Short Spear: 0-30 Battle Axe: 0-30 The Lonely Page Pub: -------------------- Stale Bread - Poor - 4GP Orc Nose - Poor - 5GP Ham Steak - Fair - 20GP Frogs Legs - Poor - 3GP Breaded Fish - Fair - 18GP Jerky - Poor - 1GP Salt Chicken - Poor - 16GP Turtle Soup - Poor - 10GP Corn Bread - Poor - 6GP Potato Soup - Fair - 12GP Beans - Poor - 10GP Steamed Duck - Fair - 40GP Minced Beef - Fair - 25GP Sausage Roll - Poor - 15GP Pigs Feet - Poor - 5GP F.02 THIMBLEWALD ================ Saint Hibiscus Abbey: (Barbarians unwelcome) --------------------- Healing Stiffnuckles Inn: ----------------- Lodging (safe) - 120G Fallerton Stables: (Dwarves unwelcome) ------------------ Draft Horse Lgt Warhorse Med Warhorse Hvy Warhorse The Wizard's Tower: ------------------- Join Red Mist Order: 550G Vonnalyrmu: 540 Vontwelyrmu: 530 Vonnalyrfe: 640 Vontwelyrfe: 640 Vonnalyrti: 740 Vontwelyrti: 730 Miller and Granery: (Dwarves unwelcome) ------------------- Ground Meal - Fair - 5GP Mixed Nuts - Poor - 5GP Grumbling Gut Tavern: (Barbarians unwelcome) --------------------- Beans - Poor - 10GP Meat Pie - Fair - 20GP Ham Steak - Fair - 20GP Pigs Feet - Poor - 5GP Salt Chicken - Poor - 16GP Fresh Bread - Good - 35GP Sausage Roll - Poor - 15GP Gin - Poor - 10GP Rum - Poor - 15GP Grog - Poor - 4GP Ale - Poor - 20GP Potato Soup - Poor - 10GP Lentil Soup - Poor - 7GP Armorer and Smith: ------------------ Dagger - 80 Great Axe - 320 Basinet - 200 Shortsword - 96 Short Spear - 85 Brigandine T - 890 Longsword - 128 Mace - 120 Brigandine L - 750 Broadsword - 160 Heavy Maul - 128 Chain Coif - 200 Bastard Swrd - 320 War Hammer - 160 Chain Shirt - 1400 Greatsword - 400 Morningstar - 200 Chain Pants - 1200 Battle Axe - 80 Flail - 240 Barbut Helm - 250 Broadaxe - 120 Great Hammer - 320 Platemail T - 1680 Battle Axe - 200 War Maul - 240 Platemail L - 1440 Halberd - 280 Scale Amine - 840 Kite Shield - 300 F.03 SHELLERNOON ================ The Commhobb Inn (Darkguard unwelcome) ---------------- Lodging (safe) - 65 Stone Inn --------- Lodging (unsafe) - Free Free Faith Fellowship --------------------- Healing Livery Stable (Darkguard unwelcome) ------------- Draft Horse Lgt Warhorse Med Warhorse Hvy Warhorse Weapons Trainer (Darkguard unwelcome) --------------- Training: 204G Long Spear Morningstar War Maul Heavy Maul Wilbur's Mage Things: --------------------- Iron Pot - 52 Linen Sheet - 24 String - 1 Gold Thread - 2570 Red Candle - 23 Saltpeter - 48 Tin Box - 26 Flash Paper - 245 Salt Cellar - 223 Black Hat - 25 Metal Mirror - 350 Whoopie Cush - 1 Plain Soap - 17 Charcoal - 1 Pottery Vial - 4 Large Tongs - 70 Journeys' End Stores: (Darkguard unwelcome) --------------------- Black Lotus - 780 Rushlight - 2 Jade Frog - 2500 Musk - 75 Oil Lantern - 65 Red Canary - 450 Narcissus - 25 Canvas Sack - 28 Pint Wine - 4 Ash Wood - 45 Tinderbox - 15 Bag of Coins - 1 Carnelian - 25 Waterskin - 36 Aquamarine - 42 Iron Chain - 35* Raw Jade - 35 Iron Spikes - 25 Opal Ring - 195 Brass Bowl - 185 Onyx Clasp - 95 Copper Ingot - 250** Pitch Oil - 35 Blue Paint - 23 *The Iron Chain is a weapon, but is bugged in both the Apple and PC versions. It'll freeze your game if you try to equip it. **This may be an "Ingot" but you can't use it to forge weapons. The Courageous Griffin: (Kelderheit unwelcome) ----------------------- Beans - Poor - 10GP Pigs Feet - Poor - 5GP Minced Beef - Fair - 25GP Sausage Roll - Poor - 15GP Griffin Duck - Good - 45GP Bronk Eggs - Poor - 30GP Eyren Clams - Good - 30GP Pork Roast - Great - 45GP Apples - Poor - 2GP Sordsmith Ecstrodinar:* ---------------------- Dagger - 60 Great Axe - 260 Lt Crossbow - 180 Shortsword - 76 Short Spear - 55 Hvy Crossbow - 260 Longsword - 92 Long Spear - 130 Broadsword - 120 Mace - 70 Bastard Swrd - 280 Heavy Maul - 94 Greatsword - 300 War Hammer - 100 Hand Axe - 60 Morningstar - 120 Broadaxe - 80 Flail - 180 Battle Axe - 140 Great Hammer - 260 Halberd - 200 War Maul - 160 *As you'll notice, all the items produced by Sordsmith Ecstrodinar are about 25% cheaper than the "standard price," but their quality is still as good as any other. (despite the game's description of the shop) However if you try to resell any items that you bought there, you'll only get the discounted price in return. Armorer Extraordinaire: (Darkguard unwelcome) ----------------------- Fur Cap - 32 Leather Pant - 350 Scale Pants - 720 Target Shld - 200 Fur Shirt - 185 Leather Cape - 200 Basinet - 200 Kite Shield - 300 Fur Pants - 180 Leather Helm - 85 Brigandine T - 890 Fur Boots - 33 Cuirbolli T - 560 Brigandine L - 750 Fur Cape - 150 Cuirbolli L - 480 Chain Coif - 200 Cloth Hood - 48 Conical Helm - 100 Chain Shirt - 1400 Cloth Aketon - 330 Ring Byrnie - 680 Chain Pants - 1200 Cloth Pants - 280 Ring Pants - 560 Barbut Helm - 250 Leather Hood - 45 Scale Helm - 150 Platemail T - 1680 Jerkin - 440 Scale Amine - 840 Platemail L - 1440 A Residence: ------------ Join Black Onyx Order: 450 Gold Varnalyrmu - 540 Vartwelyrmu - 530 Varnalyrfe - 640 Vartwelyrfe - 630 Varnalyrti- 740 Vartwelyrti - 730 Varnalyrmi - 840 Vartwelyrmi - 830 F.04 HTRON ========== Wailing Peacock Inn: (Rogues unwelcome) -------------------- Lodging (Safe) - 75G The Quiet Cove Inn: ------------------- Lodging (Unsafe) - Free Saint Vitrius Abbey: -------------------- Healing Training Grounds: (Kelderheit unwelcome) ----------------- Training: 260G Scimitar: 0-50 Mace Lt Crossbow War Hammer Zachary Bladeshure: (Regulars unwelcome) ------------------- Training: 280 Scimitar Greatsword Shortsword Bastard Swrd Yommel Kilandra: (Dwarves unwelcome) ---------------- Sapphire Pin - 55G Brass Goblet - 35G Oil Lamp - 75G Copper Box - 200G Earring - 135G Pin - 4G Leather Belt - 96G Woolen Cape - 85G Bronze Vial - 50G Gloves - 30G Silver Bowl - 230G Elf Bow - 750 Red Woolens - 300G Long Bow - 400 Silver Chain - 155G Pewter Mug - 50G Bracelet - 550G The Towne Merchant: ------------------- Comb - 12G Lamp - 70G Gold Clasp - 350G Headband - 16G Steel Mirror - 35G Medallion - 250G Earring - 6G Pin - 68G Medal - 275G Belt - 24G Cape - 110G Ruby Earring - 420G Orb - 50G Gold Chain - 2500G Tin Vial - 11G Choker - 10G Gauntlets - 90G Ivory Box - 290G Silver Fork - 160G Crown - 4000G Bronze Idol - 1500G Necklace - 85G Gold Chalice - 3500G Brass Buckle - 65G Hourglass - 50G Locket - 55G Pewter Cup - 23G Bracelet - 150G Silver Seal - 350G Ship Chandler: -------------- Briar Pipe - 15G Carved Pipe - 65G Tobacco - 1G Tobacco - 2G Tobacco - 5G Cigars - 3G Bronze Tin - 6G Leather Bag - 6G Matches - 16G Pipe Tamper - 1G Pipe Knife - 1G Ofter's Alehouse: (Elves unwelcome) ----------------- Stout Ale - Poor - 5G Turtle Eggs - Poor - 10G Roast Hen - Poor - 3G Squid Soup - Fair - 10G Pretzels - Poor - 2G Serpent Soup - Fair - 45G Ham Steak - Fair - 20G Fresh Crab - Fair - 20G Octopus - Poor - 10G Oyster Stew - Good - 10G Shrimp - Poor - 10G Seaweed Stew - Poor - 10G Tuna - Fair - 25G Kackel Backel - Poor - 15G Lobster - Good - 50G Eel - Poor - 15G Shark Fin - Poor - 25G F.05 POITLE LOCK: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Lonely Cherub Inn: ------------------ Lodging (Safe) - 57G Fishouse: (Rogues unwelcome) --------- Raw Fish - Poor - 2** Dried Fish - Fair - 5 **The Raw fish is "equippable" and will change you into a "Raw fish" mage. You'll be treated as a mage for all intents and purposes by characters in the game (ie get booted out of other mage towers) without any of the advantages, so don't equip it! Ma's Stables ------------ Draft Horse Lgt Warhorse Med Warhorse Hvy Warhorse The Mystic Tower: ----------------- Join Secret Storm Order: 610G Kumnalyrmu - 540 Kumtwelyrmu - 530 Kumnalyrfe - 640 Kumtwelyrfe - 630 Kumnalyrti - 740 Kumtwelyrti - 730 Kumnalyrmi - 840 Kumtwelyrmi - 830 The Boorish Widow: (Dwarves unwelcome) ------------------ Poitle Beer - Poor - 5 Poitle Wine - Fair - 25 Ale - Fair - 15 Bitter - Poor - 5 Ham Steak - Poor - 10 Beefsteak - Fair - 15 Tree Gum - Poor - 4 Biscuits - Poor - 5 Orcs Nose - Poor - 5 Pork Roast - Great - 45 Braumeister's Haus: ------------------- Cask of Ale - Poor - 120 Cognac - Poor - 10 Klvar Brandy - Good - 200 Sweetwine - Fair - 10 Darkbeer - Poor - 5 Schnapps - Poor - 20 Brandy - Fair - 15 Birch Beer - Poor - 5 Smoking House: -------------- Smoked Fish - Good - 12 Smoked Meat - Good - 12 Beef Jerky - Poor - 4 Salmon Stew - Fair - 20 Smithy: ------- Dagger - 80 Halberd - 280 War Maul - 240 Shortsword - 96 Great Axe - 320 Lt Crossbow - 240 Scimitar - 120 Short Spear - 85 Hvy Crossbow - 320 Longsword - 128 Long Spear - 185 Broadsword - 160 Mace - 120 Bastard Swrd - 320 Heavy Maul - 128 Greatsword - 400 War Hammer - 160 Battle Axe - 80 Morningstar - 200 Broadaxe - 120 Flail - 240 Battle Axe - 200 Great Hammer - 320 Jeweler: ------- Gold Earring - 550 Silver Knife - 500 Parade Helm - 2400 Copper Ring - 65 Sapphire - 1500 Topaz Pin - 250 Diamond - 4090 Silver Cup - 480 Diamond - 2780 Emerald - 1000 Opal - 1900 Ruby Ring - 1000 Broach - 1800 Pendant - 3400 Brass Medal - 280 Crystal Cup - 300 Onyx Statue - 2400 Silver Fork - 480 Inlaid Sword - 2400 Silver Spoon - 450 Sword Belt - 750 F.06 OLANTHEN: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Long Days Inn: -------------- Lodging (Safe) - 60G The Abbey of Olanthen: ---------------------- Healing Joolie the Mysticist: --------------------- Join Dark Stone Order: 300G Vornalyrmu - 540 Vortwelyrmu - 530 Vornalyrfe - 640 Vortwelyrfe - 630 Vornalyrmuti - 740 Vortwelyrti - 730 Vornalyrmi - 840 Vortwelyrmi - 830 Rhun Manor: ----------- Training: 350G Longsword: 45-90 Broadsword: 40-90 Bastard Swrd: 65-105 Greatsword: 40-105 Bophet's Steeds: ---------------- Draft Horse Lgt Warhorse Med Warhorse Hvy Warhorse Handcrafted Leathers: --------------------- Cloth Hood - 48 Conical Helm - 100 Wood Hammer - 25 Cloth Aketon - 330 Ring Byrnie - 680 Awl - 12 Cloth Pants - 280 Ring Pants - 560 Leather Seat - 19 Leather Hood - 45 Scale Amine - 840 Canteen - 24 Jerkin - 440 Scale Pants - 720 Wine Skin - 20 Leather Pant - 350 Brigandine T - 890 Paddle - 48 Leather Cape - 200 Brigandine L - 750 Scale Helm - 150 Leather Helm - 85 Kite Shield - 300 Fine Boots - 45 Cuirbolli T - 560 Leather Belt - 45 Shoes - 15 Cuirbolli L - 480 Leather Bag - 12 Gauntlets - 85 Cobbler: -------- Wooden Clogs - 3 Broad Axe - 105 Sandals - 8 Short Spear - 90 Slippers - 15 Buckler - 91 Work Boots - 35 Great Hammer - 300 Dwarf Boots - 55 War Hammer - 156 Better Boots - 75 Fancy Boots - 850 Riding Boots - 150 Dress Boots - 350 Dagger - 80 Hand Axe - 80 Ne'er Dry Pub: -------------- Ale - Poor - 10G Haggis - Fair - 4G Whiskey - Poor - 7G Black Puddin - Poor - 12G Grog - Poor - 4G Head Cheese - Poor - 5G Mutton - Fair - 25G Pheasant - Fair - 50G Venison - Great - 76G Roast Boar - Good - 46G Biscuits - Poor - 5G Waybread - Great - 40G Kipper - Poor - 10G Isobel's Bakery: (Regulars unwelcome) ---------------- Fresh Bread - Poor - 10G Black Bread - Fair - 15G Grain Cakes - Good - 20G Sausage - Fair - 13G Fine Cheese - Poor - 3G Butter - Poor - 7G Apples - Poor - 1G Gold Yummies - Fair - 5G Fresh Veal - Great - 75G Bran Muffins - Fair - 7G Goose - Fair - 25G Spice Bread - Fair - 25G Honey - Poor - 1G Nut Cake - Fair - 16G Wine - Poor - 25G Good Beer - Poor - 5G Aged Ale - Poor - 9G F.07 AMAZON VILLAGE: ==================== The Portal: (Darkguard unwelcome) ----------- Training: 300G Halberd: 70-105 Morningstar: 60-95 Flail: 0-45 Broadsword: 90-125 The Hostel: ----------- Join Blue Gem Order: 450G Tynalon: 340 Tytwelon: 330 Kelnalon: 340 Keltwelon: 330 Tynalyr: 440 Tytwelyr: 430 Kelnalyr: 440 Keltwelyr: 430 F.08 KLVAR WOODS: ================= Klvar Tree House: ----------------- Training: 400G Self Bow: 0-55 Elf Bow: 15-75 Long Bow: 10-35 Dagger: 0-60 F.09 FALLEN KEEP: ================= Frumpin Scalecatcher: --------------------- Scale - 100 Small Scale - 25 F.10 KAZHAD: ============ Kherrikvaad Smithy:* ------------------- Battle Axe - 200 Ring Byrnie - 680 Hand Axe - 80 Great Axe - 320 Halberd - 280 Barbut Helm - 250 Platemail T - 1680 Platemail L - 1440 Chain Coif - 200 Chain Shirt - 1400 Chain Pants - 1200 *Note that all armor sold in this store is dwarf-size; as the smithy does not offer fitting services, it is too small to be worn by other characters. T'a Kalla Tavern: ----------------- Klakkra - Fair - 30 Troll Filets - Fair - 50 Mavaldak - Poor - 38 Leg of Ogre - Good - 60 Rat Haunch - Poor - 10 Girak Helbak - Good - 35 Kackel Backel - Poor - 15 F.11 HALFWAY HOUSE: =================== Halfway House: -------------- Lodging (Safe): 56G Weapons Master: --------------- Training: 210G Club: 0 - 45 Halberd: 0 - 45 Great Hammer: 0 - 45 Quarterstaff: 0 - 45 F.12 BRETTLE CROSSROADS: ======================== Tower at Threeroads: -------------------- Training: 240G Broad Axe: 0 - 45 Hand Axe: 0 - 45 Hvy Crossbow: 0 - 45 Great Axe: 0 - 45 =============================================================================== SECTION G: EQUIPMENT LIST =============================================================================== The following section lists all the weapons, armor, and other equipment you can get in the game. (at least that I've found) The first list displays "standard" equipment that's widely available; the second has unusual equipment you can only find in specialized stores, in quests, or from monsters. G.01 STANDARD EQUIPMENT ======================= WEAPONS: -------- Name Hands Belt? Type Damage Enc -------------------------------------------------------- Club One Yes Hack/Slash 1-6 15 Dagger One Yes Hack/Thrust 2-4 20 Shortsword One Yes Hack/Thrust 2-6 20 Hand Axe One Yes Hack/Slash 3-6 25 Quarterstaff One Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 2-7 25 Scimitar One Yes Hack/Slash 1-8 25 Broad Axe One Yes Hack/Slash 3-9 30 Self Bow Two No Missile 2-13 30 Longsword One Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 1-8 35 Mace One Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 4-9 40 Broadsword One Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 3-10 40 Short Spear One Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 2-11 40 Battle Axe One Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 1-12 40 Long Bow Two No Missile 1-20 40 Elf Bow Two No Missile 3-22 40 Heavy Maul One Yes Hack/Slash 2-12 45 War Hammer One Yes Hack/Slash 3-13 50 Lt Crossbow Two No Missile 6-16 50 Long Spear Two Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 4-13 55 Morningstar Two Yes Hack/Slash 4-14 55 Halberd Two Yes Hack/Slash/Thrust 4-15 60 Bastard Swd Two Yes Hack/Slash 3-17 60 War Maul Two Yes Hack/Slash 3-18 62 Great Hammer Two Yes Hack/Slash 4-19 66 Flail Two Yes Hack/Slash 5-20 70 Hvy Crossbow Two No Missile 8-23 70 Great Axe Two Yes Hack/Slash 2-24 70 Greatsword Two Yes Hack/Slash 3-24 75 ARMOR Name Prot Enc: H/T/L* --------------------------------------------------------- Fur 1-6 6/54/36 Cloth 1-6 5/45/30 Leather (Includes Jerkin) 2-7 8/72/48 Cuirbolli (Includes Leather Helm) 3-8 10/90/60 Ring (Includes Conical Helm) 4-9 10/90/60 Scale (Includes Pot Helm) 5-10 12/108/72 Brigandine (Includes Basinet) 6-11 15/135/90 Chain 7-12 15/135/90 Plate (Includes Barbut Helm) 7-17 20/180/120 *The Head/Torso/Legs Encumbrance values here are listed for a character exactly 6'0" in height, or Size of 66. Fitted armor for characters shorter or taller than this will weigh more or less. For each inch above or below 6' a character is, their armor weight is raised or lowered by 1%--so armor for a 7'1" character would be 113% of the "base" weight, and armor for a 5'0" character would be 88% of the "base" weight. SHIELDS Name Prot* Enc: ----------------------------- Buckler 20% 20 Target Shld 30% 50 Kite Shield 40% 60 *The Protection value for shields is a direct bonus to your defensive roll; rather than reduce or eliminate damage like armor, shields give you a bonus to avoid blows altogether. G.02 UNUSUAL EQUIPMENT ====================== The following is a list of "unusual equipment." Unusual equipment is equipment that falls outside the scope of the equipment that's covered in the manual. All of the armor on this list, and a few of the weapons, can be found in "specialty" shops throughout the land--for example, most of the foot armor is found in the Cobbler in Olanthen. The remainder of the weapons are found on the corpses of the various enemies you'll encounter. All "unique" weapons are categorized under one of the "standard" weapons for the purpose of what weapon skill is used when wielding them; I've organized them by weapon type here. In general, It's pretty easy to tell overall; the graphic of the "unique" weapon on your character's paperdoll will usually be the same as the graphic of the corresponding "standard" weapon. There are exceptions though--for example some two-handed Giant Clubs look like Clubs but don't use Club Skill. (or any other skill that you can train in without cheating) Rule of thumb--if you're not sure whether or not you're skilled in using an unusual weapon, equip it, and then look at the "WEAPON" part of the equipment list. There will be two or three numbers on the last line; the one on the far left is the damage, and the one on the far right is its weight. If there's a number in the middle, then you are trained in the use of that weapon. The number there corresponds to which of the character's skills is used for that weapon. For example, if "Club" is the second skill on your list of weapon skills, and you equip a Club-class weapon, you'll see a "2" in the middle. HEAD ARMOR: ----------- Fancy Boots: Prt 1-3, Enc: 10 Parade Helm: Prt 5-10, Enc: 10 BODY ARMOR: ----------- Fur Cape: Prt 1-6, Enc: 18 Leather Cape: Prt 2-7, Enc: 24 HAND ARMOR: ----------- Gauntlets: Prt 1-3, Enc: 3 FOOT ARMOR: ----------- Sandals: Prt 1-4, Enc: 4 Wooden Clogs: Prt 1-3, Enc: 5 Fine Boots: Prt 1-3, Enc: 4 Slippers: Prt 1-4, Enc: 3 Fur Boots: Prt 1-6, Enc: 12 Work Boots: Prt 1-6, Enc: 16 Better Boots: Prt 1-6, Enc: 17 Dress Boots: Prt 1-6, Enc: 17 Dwarf Boots: Prt 1-6, Enc: 18 Riding Boots: Prt 1-6, Enc: 18 NECK ARMOR: ----------- Black Choker (Secret Storm/Black Onyx Orders): Prt 1-3, Enc: 1 Pearl Amulet (White Pearl Order): Prt 1-3, Enc: 1 Red Necklace (Red Mist Order): Prt 1-3, Enc: 1 Stone Amulet (Dark Stone Order): Prt 1-3, Enc: 1 Blue Chain (Blue Gem Order): Prt 1-3, Enc:1 SHIELDS: -------- Scale: Prt 30%, Enc: 40 Small Scale: Prt 20%, Enc: 20 LONGSWORD-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------------ Inlaid Sword: 1H, Dmg 4-11, Enc: 35 CLUB-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------- Muck Branch: Dmg 3-13, Enc: 45 Dropped by Muck Things Muck Branch: Dmg 3-13, Enc: 50 Dropped by Muck Things Muck Branch: Dmg 3-13, Enc: 55 Dropped by Muck Things Club: Dmg 4-18, Enc: 80 Dropped by Trolls Bone Club: Dmg 2-20, Enc: 70 Dropped by Cyclopes, Hill Giants, Ogres, Ettins Grub Club: Dmg 2-21, Enc: 40 Dropped by Mist Grubs Wooden Club: Dmg 2-24, Enc: 90 Dropped by Ettins, Ogres, Cyclopes Stone Club: Dmg 3-18, Enc: 90 Dropped by Golems Stone Club: Dmg 4-25, Enc: 90 Dropped by Cyclopes Stone Club: Dmg 4-25, Enc: 100 Dropped by Hill Giants, Ettins, Ogres Stone Club: Dmg 5-26, Enc: 100 Dropped by Minotaurs Stone Club: Dmg 3-24, Enc: 100 Dropped by Golems Stone Club: Dmg 3-30, Enc: 110 Dropped by Golems Iron Club: Dmg 3-30, Enc: 108 Dropped by Hill Giants, Ogres, Ettins Wooden Club: Dmg 3-36, Enc: 90 Dropped by Hill Giants HAND AXE-CLASS WEAPONS: ----------------------- Grub Axe: Dmg 2-13, Enc: 40 Dropped by Mist Grubs LONG SPEAR-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------------- Long Spear: Dmg 4-22, Enc: 75 Dropped by Trolls Long Spear: Dmg 4-22, Enc: 90 Dropped by Cliff Trolls Long Spear: Dmg 5-23, Enc: 90 Dropped by Minotaurs MACE-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------- Grub Mace: Dmg 2-11, Enc: 40 Dropped by Mist Grubs Spiney Mace: Dmg 2-12, Enc: 35 Dropped by Binderaks Spiney Mace: Dmg 2-16, Enc: 40 Dropped by Binderaks Spiney Mace: Dmg 2-20, Enc: 45 Dropped by Binderaks Spiney Mace: Dmg 2-20, Enc: 50 Dropped by Binderaks Spiney Mace: Dmg 2-24, Enc: 50 Dropped by Binderaks WAR HAMMER-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------------- War Hammer: Dmg 6-12, Enc: 50 Dropped by Sledges WAR MAUL-CLASS WEAPONS: ----------------------- Sea Hammer: Dmg 3-18, Enc: 80 Dropped by Sylphs Wind Hammer: Dmg 3-24, Enc: 90 Dropped by Djinns Sea Hammer: Dmg 3-24, Enc: 90 Dropped by Sylphs Sea Hammer: Dmg 3-30, Enc: 100 Dropped by Sylphs Maul: Dmg 3-30, Enc: 100 Dropped by Minotaurs, Trolls Troll Maul: Dmg 5-32, Enc: 120 Dropped by Cliff Trolls GREAT HAMMER-CLASS WEAPONS: --------------------------- Blom Hammer: Dmg 4-14, Enc: 50 Dropped by Bloms Blom Hammer: Dmg 4-18, Enc: 55 Dropped by Bloms Blom Hammer: Dmg 4-22, Enc: 60 Dropped by Bloms Blom Hammer: Dmg 4-26, Enc: 65 Dropped by Bloms HEAVY MAUL-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------------- Grub Hammer: Dmg 2-9, Enc: 40 Dropped by Mist Grubs Heavy Maul: Dmg 5-32, Enc: 110 Dropped by Cyclopes GREAT AXE-CLASS WEAPONS: ------------------------ Great Axe: Dmg 4-26, Enc: 90 Dropped by Trolls Great Axe: Dmg 4-26, Enc: 100 Dropped by Cliff Trolls Great Axe: Dmg 6-28, Enc: 100 Dropped by Mist Giants MISCELLANEOUS WEAPONS: ---------------------- Large Tongs: Dmg 2-7 Enc: 45 Fire Staff: Dmg 2-12, Enc: 45 Dropped by Salamanders Fire Staff: Dmg 2-16, Enc: 55 Dropped by Salamanders Fire Staff: Dmg 2-20, Enc: 65 Dropped by Salamanders Bone Club Dmg 2-20, Enc: 70 Dropped by Stone Ogres Stone Club: Dmg 4-25, Enc: 100 Dropped by Stone Ogres Wood Club: Dmg 2-24, Enc: 90 Dropped by Stone Ogres Iron Club: Dmg 3-30, Enc: 108 Dropped by Stone Ogres Wind Mace: Dmg 3-18, Enc: 80 Dropped by Djinns Wind Sword: Dmg 3-30, Enc: 100 Dropped by Djinns G.03 QUEST EQUIPMENT ==================== The following is a list of equipment that you'll get from completing various quests. TRUTH SWORD: Quest 4 Reward Greatsword Skill: Dmg 4-32, Enc: 45 Notes: The Truth Sword is a Greatsword that does more damage and weighs less than an "ordinary" Greatsword. CUSTOM AXE: Quest 5 Reward Great Axe Skill: Dmg 6-36, Enc: 40 Notes: The Custom Axe is made from the Black Ingot you receive from Dundle. You will have to name it when you first have it forged. It does a lot more damage and weighs much less than a standard Great Axe. FLYING CLOAK: Quest 6 Reward Body Armor: Prt 1-3, Enc: 0 Notes: The Flying Cloak will grant flight abilities to any non-Kelden character class. (As Kelden already have the ability to fly, this cloak does nothing for them) It also grants Dwarves the ability to Sprint. Flying using the Flying Cloak takes the same amount of Fatigue as a Kelden using his wings. COURAGE COAT: Quest 8 Reward Body Armor: Prt 1-3, Enc: 0 Notes: Characters wearing the Courage Coat will automatically pass any Balance checks they make. In practical terms, this means they will never be "frozen in terror" when facing "terrible" creatures. ("Terrible" creatures being Cliff Trolls, Ettins, Stone Ogres, Cyclopes, Sledges, and Mist Grubs) DEATH BLADE Quest 11 Reward Halberd Skill: Dmg 5-27, Enc: 30 Notes: The Death Blade is a Halberd that does more damage and weighs less than a standard Halberd. It's very slightly more effective than the Custom Halberd, but is otherwise indistinguishable from it. SPEED BOOTS: Quest 16 Reward Foot Armor: Prt 1-3, Enc: 0 Notes: The Speed Boots will double the paces a character moves when moving on the ground at faster than a walking pace; in other words, 2 spaces for Running, and 4 spaces for Sprinting. Speed Boots will also grant Dwarves the ability to Sprint. (at the increased rate, of course) Speed Boots do not affect a character's speed in the air, nor do they affect a character's Quickness value (ie if they've got low Quickness, they'll act later in a combat round, Speed Boots or no.) CUSTOM HALBERD: Quest 18 Reward Halberd Skill: Dmg 4-27, Enc: 30 Notes: The Custom Halberd is made from the Magic Ingot you receive from a quest at a smithy. It has no "pre-set" name and you will have to name it when you first have it forged. It does more damage and weighs less than a standard Halberd. RED RING: Quest 19 Reward Ring Armor: Prt 1-3, Enc: 0 Notes: I'm almost positive this item does nothing. Looking at it in hex, the "magic effects" spot that gives the Shade Ring, Courage Coat, and Flying Cloak their special effects is completely blank. GREAT SHIELD: Quest 20 Reward Shield: Prt 50%, Enc: 40 Notes: The Great Shield is a Kite Shield that weighs less than normal but offers better protection. You can customize its look in the Character Options when starting the game. (The look of the Shield is based on character, not the item, so if you swap it between characters its appearance will change accordingly) SHADE RING: Quest 24 Reward Ring Armor: Prt 1-3, Enc: 0 Notes: The Shade Ring has the effect of making the character wearing it invisible to all enemies, though if they're close, there's a chance you'll be seen. This actually can make fighting monsters tougher, as it becomes difficult to predict their behavior, so your mileage may vary using it. However, if you want to finish quests without killing everything, the Shade Ring is great, as it allows you to slip through the ranks of enemies undetected. =============================================================================== SECTION H: CHEATING =============================================================================== There are many ways to cheat in Knights of Legend, and can actually spruce some life into the game once you've finished it. For example, once I've finished the game, I like to clear out all the quest flags so that my party can go on all the quests again, instead of being stuck doing nothing but random encounters for the rest of the game. Since they never programmed any expansions, sometimes cheating is practically necessary to advance your characters past a certain level due to the limited range of training facilities in Ashtalarea. Most of the cheating involves hex- editing your file, which is risky. BACK UP YOUR SAVE FILE before you do this! H.01 ITEM DUPLICATION ===================== This is the easiest method of cheating, and the only one that I know of that you can do without a hex editor. It's very simple: when a character goes into an inn, his or her file gets saved. To duplicate an item, all you need is two characters, one with the item you want to duplicate. Say you want to duplicate the Truth Sword, which character A has. Assuming Character A with the Truth Sword is checked into an inn, check him out, and make sure you have character B in the party. Give character B the Truth Sword and have her check into an inn. (DON'T check character A back in!) Now quit the game (CTRL-Q for DOS, you'll have to reboot on Apple II) and restart. When you load, now both Character A and Character B will have the Truth Sword. While this is cheap, I suggest you do this for items like the Courage Coat. If you don't have the Courage Coat on all your melee characters, the game becomes just frustrating when you find yourself up against fear-inducing enemies. H.02 HEX EDITING: ================= Just for fun, I've done a lot of messing around with the Character save file with a hex editor (and pretty much had to to get the stats for the magic orders and high-level trainers) and have been able to figure out how to all sorts of cool stuff in the file. If you want to try this, make sure to back up your CHARDATA file first--I take no responsibility if you screw up your characters without a backup. Also, before delving into hex editing, you are going to want to have at least a working knowledge of the hexadecimal system, and a calculator that can convert decimal to hexadecimal, and for some of the more advanced stuff, to binary as well. The built-in scientific calculator on both Mac and Windows offer easy conversions between the three to help you. And, of course, you'll need a hex editor of some sort. I recommend that you set up your hexadecimal editor so that each line has 16 bytes in it. You'll also really want a hex editor that displays the ASCII equivalent in your sidebar, as that will be immensely helpful in finding where one character's data ends and the next begins. I'm going to assume for the purposes of this section that you understand the 0- F hexadecimal system. Please do not email me with questions about it; there are many resources on the web to learn basic hex. Also a side note in that while hacking your save file is fun, I recommend cheating in moderation, as you can potentially ruin the balance of your game, which reduces its enjoyability. During a normal game, the only time I cheat is to "cash in" Adventure Points to "train" weapons without trainers (I.e. I hack my character's Adventure Points to a lower level and raise their weapon skills accordingly, as if I was training with a real trainer) or to rename armor. While I'll go over how to do it, I advise against doing more heavy cheating like hacking your stats really high, hacking your armor weight down to nothing, or creating uberweapons that kill Cliff Trolls in a single hit. H.03 SAVE FILE SETUP ==================== The "Chardata" file is set up so that each character takes up 760 bytes of information. In most hex editors, this makes things easy as in hex, each new character starts at +00000300 (Ie, character 1 at 0x00000000, 2 at 0x00000300, 3 at 0x00000600, 4 at at 0x00000900, 5 at at 0x00000c00, etc) It's easy to tell if you have an ASCII converter, as the first letter of your character's name is also the first byte in their datafile. Throughout this file I'll be using numbers as if you're editing the first character's data, but if you want to edit subsequent character's data, just add their amount to it. So, if I say to edit something at +000001AC, and you want to edit that stat on character number 3, you'd just add 00000600 to it, so that the data you edit is at 000007AC in the file. H.04 EDITING YOUR MONEY, ADVENTURE POINTS, ETC ============================================== GOLD: Gold is stored in offsets +000002A-000002C and is three bytes long, for a range of 0 to 16,777,215 gold. It's stored in standard hex. ADVENTURE POINTS: Adventure Points are stored in offsets +000000026 and +00000027, for a range of 0 to 65,535 points. They are stored in standard hex. HEALTH: Your character's Health is actually stored in terms of how seriously he or she is wounded. It's located at offset +00001C. The higher this number, the more seriously the character is wounded. Fees for healing will be 10x the value in this byte. It's stored in hex. NUTRITION: Like Health, a character's nutrition is stored in terms of how hungry they are. It's located at offset +0000009F. The higher this number, the more malnutritioned the character is. LEVEL: Level is stored in +00000029. It's a one-per-gain thing, where 00 is a Serf and 18 is a Knight-Baronet. Note that pumping your level does nothing but increase the level of the enemies that will face you--without pumping your weapon skills as well, you'll be at a severe disadvantage if you try to increase your level alone. RACE/CLASS: Your character's race and class is stored at offset +0000001D: 00:Barbarian 01:Ranger 02:Warrion 03:Squire 04:Darkguard 05:Watchman 06:Plainsman 07:Hunter 08:Regular 09:Highwayman 0A:Pirate 0B:Rogue 0C:Tigress 0D:Amazon 0E:Huntress 0F:Plainswoman 10:Brekland(M) 11:Klvar(M) 12:Melod(M) 13:Pyar(M) 14:Thism(M) 15:Usip(M) 16:Brekland(F) 17:Klvar(F) 18:Melod(F) 19:Pyar(F) 1A:Thism(F) 1B:Usip(F) 1C:Tunneler 1D:Ratguard 1E:Trollbane 1F:Militia 20:Digger 21:Spider Guard 22:Orcbane 23:Levy 24:Cliff Guard 25:Rock Ranger 26:Far Seeker DATE: The date that your character is staying in the inn is recorded in +0000007d- 0000007f. +0000007d is the year, (00=1100AD) +0000007e is the day (00=1st) and +0000007F is the month. (00=January) Note that this value only changes for the party leader. H.05 EDITING YOUR STATS ======================= I really strongly advise against doing this as it can ruin your fun, but here's how to edit your character's stats. Your character's 8 stats are located at +0000001D after the start of their data. They are: 1D:Strength 1E:Quickness 1F:Size 20:Endurance 21:Foresight 22:Charisma 23:Intellect The actual values for the stats in hex are 1.5 times the stat, rounding up. For example a stat of 79 will actually be recorded as 119, or "77" in hex. Your character's Weight actually is pre-set by race and gender: Human/Elven Males: 65*inches/12 - 195 lbs Human Females, Dwarves: 25*inches/4 -150 lbs Elven Females, Kelden: 35*inches/6 -210 lbs This makes Ashtalarea quite the Bizarro World, where women weigh more than men of the same height, and everyone is either buff beyond all belief or really really fat. It also means that if you drop your characters' heights low enough, they'll actually have a negative weight! (A 1'0" human male weighs negative 130 pounds!) H.06 EDITING NAMES OF ITEMS/EQUIPMENT/SPELLS ============================================ Knights of Legend stores the text for every item you've got directly in your save file. If you want to, you can change the name of anything to make it more interesting. If you want to rename your Scale Amine "Dragon Scale" you could do that, for example, without actually changing the stats of your items at all. The game stores every item name in an 8-byte string. The first half of the first byte says how many letters are in the string. The remaining 7 and a half bytes store the name, anything up to 12 characters long. To actually create the name, however, you'll have to write it in binary code. Every 5 bits represents a single letter, and the remaining 7 and a half bytes are an even 60 bits--12 groups of 5 bits. The binary code for each letter (plus a code for a space) are below. 00001 00010 00011 00100 00101 00110 00111 01000 01001 01010 01011 01100 A B C D E F G H I J K L 01101 01110 01111 10000 10001 10010 10011 10100 10101 10110 10111 11000 M N O P Q R S T U V W X 11001 11010 00000 Y Z SPACE So, in the example above, if you wanted "Dragon Scale" you'd first find the section of the file that has "Scale Amine:" 10011 00011 00001 01100 00101 00000 00001 01101 01001 01110 00101 00000 S C A L E SPACE A M I N E EXTRA* *The "Extra" can be anything. Since it's not used in the name, you can have any pattern of 1s and 0s in there and it'll still be a "Scale Amine" since those 5 bits are ignored. Convert this into hex and you get "9 8C 2C 28 02 D4 B8 A0" Since there are 11 characters (10 letters plus a space) there will be an "B" in front of it, so the final hex string you'll search for is "B9 8C 2C 28 02 D4 B8." Ignore the last byte when searching, because that "extra" string can be anything and will change the last byte accordingly. Now that you know where your Scale Amine is, you can change it "Dragon Scale." 00100 10010 00001 00111 01111 01110 00000 10011 00011 00001 01100 00101 D R A G O N SPACE S C A L E Convert this to hex and you get "2 48 27 7B 81 31 85 85." Add a "C" to the front (because "Dragon Scale" is 12 characters long and replace "B98C2C2802D4B8**" (where ** indicates the last byte) with "C248277B81318585" Presto! Your Scale Amine is now Dragon Scale! (though its stats haven't changed any) H.07 EDITING WEAPON SKILLS ========================== This is probably the most "legitimate" way to cheat; seeing as how no expansions ever came out, there's no way to train your skills higher than rather low levels for most weapons. Each character can learn skills in up to 4 weapons. Each weapon is indicated by 13 bytes, and the first weapon starts immediately after the text of what inn the character is staying in. (e.g. "STIFFNUCKL" for the inn in Thimblewald) This is +0000004A bytes after the start of the character. The first 9 bytes indicate what weapon the character is proficient in; the first 8 bytes are the encoded name of the weapon and the final byte is the actual code of the weapon type. The next 2 bytes indicate the character's offensive skill with the weapon, and the 2 bytes after that indicate the defensive skill. Each skill point is actually 10 skill points, so you multiply it by 10. E.g. a skill of 25 in-game will actually be a skill of 250 in the file. (or in hex, FA) So, the addresses for each weapon skill are: +0000004A-00000056 = Weapon Skill 1 +00000057-00000063 = Weapon Skill 2 +00000064-00000070 = Weapon Skill 3 +00000071-0000007D = Weapon Skill 4 Below is a list of the 9 hex values of each weapon. 89 95 86 00 9F 70 00 01 06 | Self Bow 86 3D C7 00 9F 70 00 00 0A | Longbow 72 B0 C0 13 EE 00 00 00 0B | Elf Bow B6 50 03 93 E7 31 3E E4 12 | Light Crossbow C4 5B 20 1C 9F 39 89 71 16 | Heavy Crossbow 41 B2 A2 00 CF 22 86 80 34 | Club 46 84 65 00 00 00 00 00 3C | Mace 89 8D 2D 4D 03 20 00 00 54 | Scimitar C1 06 74 0C 88 09 DE 44 56 | Bastard Sword A3 C8 A1 A4 EE F9 10 03 57 | Greatsword 62 04 E7 2C 8F 71 84 87 58 | Dagger A9 A1 F2 A4 EE F9 10 F7 59 | Shortsword 96 3D C7 9D DF 22 68 13 5C | Longsword A1 49 E1 24 EE F9 10 C0 5D | Broadsword 84 05 C4 00 70 50 00 42 74 | Hand Axe 81 49 E1 20 70 50 00 00 75 | Broad Axe 93 C8 A1 A0 03 82 80 00 76 | Great Axe A1 06 94 61 40 1C 15 27 7C | Battle Axe 74 05 82 2C 88 00 00 00 7E | Halberd B9 A1 F2 A0 72 02 86 44 9C | Short Spear A6 3D C7 04 E0 50 C8 00 9E | Long Spear A4 14 36 C8 1A 1A B0 00 B4 | Heavy Maul AB 86 40 40 5A D2 C8 00 B5 | War Hammer C3 C8 A1 A0 10 16 B4 B2 B6 | Great Hammer 8B 86 40 68 6A C0 00 00 B7 | War Maul B6 BE 4E 4B 8F 3A 06 40 D6 | Morningstar 53 30 29 60 00 00 00 00 D7 | Flail C8 D4 32 A1 65 3A 04 C6 DC | Quarterstaff If for whatever reason you want skill in a "monster weapon" or the like, the codes for their skills are as follows (of course, you'll never be able to train the below skills anywhere in the game world): A3 26 45 04 E8 13 18 00 DE | Fire Staff 97 9E 45 00 D9 51 00 00 36 | Ogre Club 9B A5 C4 03 42 32 80 02 3E | Wind Mace AB A5 C4 04 EE F9 10 94 5E | Wind Sword B6 06 47 28 28 F7 1E 60 20 | Large Tongs So, a Halberd skill of 35/20 would be: 74 05 82 2C 88 00 00 00 7E 01 5E 00 C8. (015E and 00C8 are 350 and 200 in hexadecimal respectively) This way, if you want to raise your skill enough so that you can train at the advanced trainers, you'll know what values to look for. Remember only to edit the last 4 bytes, as that indicates the skill level. Or, if you decided you trained in the wrong weapon and want to really cheat, you can replace one weapon skill with another entirely. H.08 HACKING ITEMS ================== Hacking items is the most complicated and difficult thing in the game to hack, so unless you feel really comfortable with working with both hex and binary, you may not want to try this. Read through the whole section before you start diving in there, as messing up a single hex digit can screw your items up pretty badly. Your character's items are located at the following offsets within their file: +0x00000030 = Weapon +0x000000A0 = Pocket 1 +0x000000B0 = Pocket 2 +0x000000C0 = Pocket 3 +0x000000D0 = Pocket 4 +0x000000E0 = Pocket 5 +0x000000F0 = Pocket 6 +0x00000100 = Head +0x00000110 = Torso +0x00000120 = Legs +0x00000130 = Body +0x00000140 = Hands +0x00000150 = Feet +0x00000160 = Shield +0x00000170 = Neck +0x00000180 = Ring +0x00000190 = Belt +0x000001a0 = Magic Order +0x000001b0 = Horse Type The first 8 bytes are the name of the item encoded. Check the "Editing names of items/spells" section to find out how the text is encoded. The second set of 8 bytes determine its stats, and this is where most of the nitty-gritty work is going to be done. Each byte (and in some cases, half of a byte) indicates a different property of the item, so this is a byte-by-byte analysis of what each does. FIRST HALF OF BYTE 1: This indicates a bonus or penalty to the numeric damage or defense of weapons and armor: 0:0 1:+1 2:+2 3:+3 4:+4 5:+5 6:+6 7:+7 8:0 9:-1 A:-2 B:-3 C:-4 D:-5 E:-6 F:-7 SECOND HALF OF BYTE 1 + BYTE 2: The monetary value of the item. This is direct hex conversion. BYTE 3: The weight of the item. This is direct hex conversion too. Note that hacking the weight for armor also changes its size. If you try to hack a piece of platemail in your backpack so it weighs nothing, that will also make it so small that nobody can wear it. However, if you hack the weight of armor that a character is currently wearing, it'll make it too small, but the character will still be wearing it. As soon as you take it off, though, you'll never be able to put it back on. Bottom line is that if you want to hack your armor so that it weighs nothing, do so when your character is wearing it. BYTE 4: Quality: This refers to condition, or for food, nutritional value. It's in direct Hex. BYTE 5: Equipment damage/protection + Item Type: This is done in binary conversion. The damage calculation is as follows: there is a "die roll" and then a bonus is added onto it. This byte determines what type of die is rolled, and how many times it's rolled, and whether the weapon is a missile weapon or melee weapon. The first three bits determine the number of die thrown, the second three bits, the "sides" of the die, and the last two bits, whether or not it's a wieldable item (Wield) a piece of armor (Wear) a beltable melee item (Both) or neither. (Item) From a really anal, technical point of view, the 7th bit indicates whether or not the item can be worn and the 8th bit indicates whether or not the item can be wielded as a weapon. ROLLS BIN DIE BIN TYPE BIN -------------------------------------- 1 000 d3 000 Both 11 2 001 d4 001 Wield 01 3 010 d6 010 Wear 10 4 011 d8 011 Item 00 5 100 d10 100 6 101 d12 101 7 110 d20 110 8 111 d100 111 The final damage the weapon does, or the protection the armor is afforded, is this calculation, plus the value indicated in the first half of the first byte, as covered above. So, a melee weapon that does 3d6 damage would be 010 010 11, or converted into hex, "4B." If the first half of Byte 1 (see above) was "A" that would be a penalty of -2, so the weapon would end up doing 3d6-2 damage, or 1-16 damage. If, for whatever reason, you skew your weapon/armor so that its effectiveness goes below 0, it loops around to 65535. So, if you gave your character a weapon that did 1d3-4 damage it would do from 65533-65535 damage. (Needless to say, this would be an uberweapon) BYTE 6: Item Type: Direct Hex. This indicates what type of weapon the item is, if any. The first half of the byte indicates the class of the item, and the second half indicates the sub-class. Below is a list of the classes and sub-classes. 0:ARMOR & MISC, AND BOWS 0:Armor/Food/Quest Item 1:Junk 2:Boulder 6:Self Bow A:Long Bow B:Elf Bow 1:CROSSBOW CLASS 2:Lt Crossbow 6:Hvy Crossbow 2:"OTHER" WEAPON CLASS 0:Large Tongs 3:MACE CLASS 4:Club 6:Ogre Club C: Mace E:Wind Mace 5:SWORD CLASS 4:Scimitar 6:Bastard Swd 7:Greatsword 8:Dagger 9:Shortsword C:Longsword D:Broadsword E:Wind Sword 7:AXE CLASS 4:Hand Axe 5:Broadaxe 6:Great Axe C:Battle Axe E:Halberd 8:MAGIC ARMOR CLASS 0:Misc 1:Shade Ring 2:Courage Coat 3:Flying Cloak 9:SPEAR CLASS C:Short Spear E:Long Spear B:HAMMER CLASS 4:Heavy Maul 5:War Hammer 6:Great Hammer 7:War Maul D:FLAIL CLASS 6:Morningstar 7:Flail C:Quarterstaff E:Fire Staff BYTE 7: Byte 7 can be divided into two parts. The first half indicates the place on the body the item goes when "equipped": 0 - Head 1 - Torso 2 - Legs 3 - Body 4 - Hands 5 - Feet 6 - Shield 7 - Neck 8 - Ring 9 - Belt A - Food E - Bow(hands) F - Boulder (used for monsters only) The second half of the byte indicates the armor's graphic on the body. For example, "13" would mean "Item is equipped on the Torso, and displays Torso Graphic 3 when equipped." (Or, "It goes on the chest and looks like a piece of Cuirbolli") Each body part has its own set of graphics depending on the armor being equipped. In the case of weapons, the graphic is derived not only from this number but also the weapon class (obviously, as there are more than 16 graphics of weapons) Also note that for shields, the graphic value is more than just decoration; it's actually what gives the shield its defensive value. (0=20%, 1=30%, 2=40%, 3=50%) BEWARE! If you give a value of a nonexistent graphic (for example, anything over "3" for a shield) the game will freeze when you try to view your paperdoll. Don't mess with this number unless you really know what you're doing. BYTE 8: Despite my messing with this, I can't figure out what this byte does. I believe that it's a pointer to indicate the size/weight ratio of armor, but I haven't been able to pinpoint the effects exactly. I suggest you not mess with this number; if you want to create, for example, really light plate armor, you're probably better off buying some light armor like cloth or leather, then change the graphic, quality, and defense values, rather than messing with this number and the weight value. H.09 "SECRET" ITEM CODES ======================== Here are some codes of items that only monsters carry but don't drop, and that you'll never be able to get otherwise. I ripped these direct from the game code and make no guarantees as toward their effectiveness or usability--they may crash your game when equipped on player characters, so be forewarned! Earth: (Golem Armor) 52 86 54 44 32 A2 1A 00 00 00 10 01 0A 00 00 C0 52 86 54 40 00 00 00 00 10 00 87 00 0A 00 10 C0 52 86 54 41 07 50 C8 47 20 00 2D FF 0A 80 23 42 Water: (Sylph Armor) 5B 86 85 90 00 00 00 00 20 00 0F 00 0A E0 0F 00 5B 86 85 90 00 00 00 00 30 00 32 00 0A E0 1E 00 5B 86 85 90 00 00 00 00 40 00 32 00 0A E0 2F 00 Air: (Djinn Armor) 30 A6 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0C 00 02 E0 0F 00 30 A6 40 00 00 00 00 00 10 00 48 00 02 E0 1F 00 30 A6 40 00 00 00 00 00 20 00 46 00 02 E0 2F 00 Fire: (Salamander Armor) 43 26 45 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 0A 00 0A E0 0F 00 43 26 45 00 00 00 00 00 50 00 67 00 0A E0 1F 00 43 26 45 00 00 00 00 00 60 00 3C 00 0A E0 2F 00 Head Hide: (Standard) 44 24 85 00 00 13 56 40 30 00 0C FF 06 00 02 40 Body Hide: (Standard) 44 24 85 20 E6 30 90 A0 30 00 6C FF 06 00 12 40 Leg Hide: (Standard) 44 24 85 20 E6 30 90 A0 30 00 48 FF 06 00 22 40 Cliff Troll Hide: 44 24 85 21 0A 1A 1C 41 40 00 0F FF 0A 00 02 40 44 24 85 20 E6 30 90 A0 40 00 6E FF 0A 00 12 41 44 24 85 20 E6 30 90 A0 40 00 48 FF 0A 00 22 40 Hill Giant Plate Leggings: 98 30 34 2B 42 96 12 04 22 BC AA B4 2A 00 28 C8 Ettin Hide: 44 24 85 00 00 13 56 40 10 00 0C FF 0A 00 02 40 44 24 85 20 E6 30 90 A0 10 00 60 FF 0A 00 12 40 44 24 85 20 E6 30 90 A0 10 00 41 FF 0A 00 22 40 Ogre Fur Vest: 83 56 40 B1 67 40 00 00 00 00 64 B4 2A 00 10 C5 Stone Ogre Hide and Furs: 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 0C FF 0A E0 02 00 43 56 53 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 42 FF 2E E0 10 00 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 32 FF 0A E0 22 00 Cyclops Skin and Furs: 49 AD 2E 21 0A 1A 00 B2 00 2D 08 FF 02 00 0F 60 43 56 53 20 E6 30 90 A0 00 1E 6C FF 2A 00 10 4A Mist Giant Hide: 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 30 00 66 FF 26 E0 12 00 Muck: (Muck Thing Armor) 46 D4 6B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A FF 26 E0 0F 00 46 D4 6B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 1E FF 26 E0 1F 00 46 D4 6B 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 14 FF 26 E0 2F 00 Lizarion Hide and Breastplate: 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A E0 02 00 B1 48 A1 9D 20 C0 D0 A4 50 00 7E FF 2A 00 18 40 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0A E0 22 00 Binderak Spines and Hide: 69 C1 2E 2C C0 00 00 00 10 00 0F FF 2A E0 08 00 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 3C FF 0A E0 12 00 44 24 85 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0F FF 0A E0 22 00 Sledge Skull: 59 AE AC 60 00 00 00 00 00 00 19 FF 2E E0 06 00 Mist Grub Scales: 69 8C 2C 2C C0 00 00 00 00 00 0A FF 26 E0 05 00 69 8C 2C 2C C0 00 00 00 20 00 46 FF 26 E0 15 00 69 8C 2C 2C C0 00 00 07 10 00 1E FF 26 E0 25 00 Walbar Hide: 44 24 85 20 C6 43 D0 C2 11 B8 48 FF 0A 00 12 40 44 24 85 21 0A 1A 00 B2 11 5E 30 FF 0A 00 22 40 Ghoul Skin 49 AD 2E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 E0 0F 00 49 AD 2E 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 E0 2F 00 Troll Boulder: 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 00 00 46 FF 31 02 E0 00 Cliff Troll Boulder: 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 00 00 5A FF 51 02 E0 00 Hill Giant/Ettin/Ogre Boulder: 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 00 00 50 FF 35 02 E0 00 Stone Ogre Boulders: 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 00 00 50 FF 4D 02 EF 00 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 20 00 50 FF 4D 02 FF 00 Cyclops Boulder: 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 00 00 50 00 2D 02 E0 00 Mist Giant Boulder: 71 3E AC 21 64 00 00 00 00 00 50 FF 55 02 FF 00 H.10 EDITING SPELLS =================== The last 16 sets of 16 bytes in a character's data information are the 16 spells that a character can learn. (If you open it in a hex editor where each line is divided into 16 bytes, that makes editing things much easier) The first 8 bytes are the spell's name--use the alphabet system above to change it. The second 8 bytes are what's important; they show the effects of the spell. The first byte of the second half indicates the race and sub-race that the spell effects: 10 - Humans 20 - Elves 30 - Dwarves 40 - Kelderheit 51 - Golems 52 - Sylphs 53 - Djinn 54 - Salamanders 61 - Goblins 62 - Orcs 63 - Hobgoblins 64 - Great Orcs 65 - Trolls 66 - Cliff Trolls 67 - Hill Giants 68 - Ettins 69 - Ogres 6A - Stone Ogres 6B - Cyclopes 6C - Mist Giants 70 - Minotaurs 71 - Muck Things 72 - Lizarions 73 - Bloms 74 - Binderaks 75 - Sledges 76 - Mist Grubs 77 - Walbars 81 - Gremlins 82 - Ghouls 83 - Zombies 84 - Skeletons The fifth byte indicates the stat the spell affects: 0 - None 1 - Strength 2 - Quickness 3 - Foresight 4 - Intellect 5 - Fatigue 6 - Body Points 7 - Off. Skill 8 - Def. Skill The sixth byte indicates the duration of the spell. If it's 00, it's a till- the-end-of-combat effect; this goes for Body and Fatigue, and stats like Intellect and Foresight. The last two bytes indicate the damage and range, which is where things get hairy. In fact, you pretty much have to convert the last them into binary to work with them. The first byte by itself has the numerical value of the damage plus the range stored in it. Let's look at a spell that does 4-24 damage at range. The first byte will be "B4" or in binary, 10110100. It can be broken into four sections: 1 011 010 0 A B C D Section A says whether or not the spell is ranged or not. If it's ranged, this will be "1." If it's close range, it'll be "0." Section B says the number of "die" rolled: 000 - 1 001 - 2 010 - 3 011 - 4 100 - 5 101 - 6 110 - 7 111 - 8 Section C says the number of "sides" of the "die" rolled: 000 - d3 001 - d4 010 - d6 011 - d8 100 - d10 101 - d12 Section D is always 0. So, if you wanted to make something at short range that did 8d12 damage you'd combine 0 (short range, section A) 111 (8 "rolls", Section B) and 101 (12-sided "die", Section C) and 0 (Section D) to get 01111010. Convert this into hex and you get 7A. I'm not really sure what the last byte does. I can tell that it differs based on the race and attribute being affected, but it doesn't seem to DO anything obvious. Putting random values in this byte doesn't seem to affect the spell whatsoever. Overall I'd only suggest you modify spells to change the race. (since once you join an order, you can't get new spells for other races) If you want a new spell for free, it's easier to cheat your mage's Adventure Points and Gold up and then make it at their Order's headquarters. H.11 EDITING QUEST STATUS ========================= Quest Status is located in 6 bytes, starting at +000001E2. It's a binary conversion, but very simple. There are four status values for each quest: 00 - Not given. 01 - Quest given, quest Map open. 10 - Quest Map cleared. 11 - Returned with Quest Item, quest finished Each of the 24 quests are located in the following positions within the six bytes: 4 3 2 1 8 7 6 5 12 11 10 9 16 15 14 13 20 19 18 17 24 23 22 21 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BYTE 1 BYTE 2 BYTE 3 BYTE 4 BYTE 5 BYTE 6 So, if you want to set a flag on a specific quest, just change the according binary digits, then convert the whole string back to hex. As the quests are the meat and potatoes of the game, you probably won't want to set any of these to "finished," but one thing I like to do is set all the quest values to "not given" or "Quest Map Open" once I've finished the game, so that I can play the quests over again. Otherwise the only thing to do once you've finished the game is bash monsters in random encounters, which eventually loses its charm. =============================================================================== THANKS =============================================================================== Thanks to Origin and the authors of the game for making such a classic! Thanks to that person on Fidonet that wrote that post on how to get Denswurth's quest back in '90 when I first played the game (I don't remember who you were, but thanks!) =============================================================================== COPYRIGHT NOTICE =============================================================================== (Cause you can't be too safe. More FAQ writers have been ripped off by people trying to make a quick buck than I like to think about) This Document is Copyright 2006 by Ian Kelley. All Rights Reserved. It is protected by US and International Copyright Law. It is for private and personal use only, and cannot be reprinted in or reproduced in part or in entirety without the express written consent of the author. This document is intended to be free and may not be used for any sort of commercial venture, be that selling it, giving it away as a promotion, or making otherwise making available for profit. It may not be used or distributed by any website, organization, or individual, nor may it be used as a reference or altered by anyone (such as strategy guide authors/publishers or magazine staff) without express permission of the author.