Okage: Shadow King In-Depth Guide to Experience Point System Version 1 (2002-Aug-26) Richard Bury rdbury@yahoo.com This document Copyright 2002 Richard Bury To my knowledge, the experience point system for Okage hasn't been covered in any of FAQ's available and since I thought this information would be useful I decided to post a guide explaining it. Knowing experience points is a quick indication of how tough a given monster is and can help decide whether to fight a battle or head for the hills and come back when your characters are a bit stronger. Okage's system for giving experience points (EP) is different from most Role Playing Games. In the usual RPG, each monster is worth a fixed number of points and the number points and the number of points to reach the next level gets progressively larger as the level gets higher. In Okage, the number of EP required to get to the next level stays fixed at 1000 but the number of EP assigned to each monster gets progressively smaller as your level get higher. The effect is more or less the same in each case, the benefit from beating the same monster gets smaller as you progress, encouraging you to find bigger and better monsters. In Okage, the rules are complicated enough to make it a bit hard to tell how much progress you're really making when you defeat a monster. I've done some investigation and figured out how to predict how much EP to expect from a given battle and how this affects playing strategy. Here are the rules I've found. Be aware that all I can say is that they are consistent with what I have observed so far. I haven't played through the entire game yet so I don't have information on all the monsters, and the rules I've found may need to be modified if conflicting information appears later on. 1) You must win a battle to get any experience points, in other words you don't get partial credit for defeating a single monster and then retreating as you do in, say, the Final Fantasy series. So if you're going to retreat from a battle then do it as soon as it starts. If the monsters retreat then you get the experience points for the monsters that were defeated before they go. If all the monsters retreat before being defeated then a single experience point is awarded. 2) Experience points are given to all the characters who are conscious at the end of the battle, the number of experience given to a given character is the number of experience points assigned to the group of monsters for the level of that character. If a character is unconscious then his or her EP are lost, not, as in some games, distributed to the other characters. 3) A character can get a maximum of 1357 EP for any battle. For example, Ari's first battle in the Tenel church basement should be worth 1535 if you use the rules given below, but actual amount is 1357. This rule means it doesn't do any good to pick a fight with some monster that's way out of your league hoping that by some miracle you'll survive and shoot up 3 or 4 levels in one fell swoop. You're just as well off picking a fight with a monster that's slightly stronger than you and gain a single experience level. 4) Except for rule 3, the amount of EP for a battle is the total of the EP assigned to the monsters for your character's level. If all your characters are at different levels then they will probably get different amounts of EP for the same battle. 5) When a character reaches 1000 EP, he or she is advanced one level and the EP is set back to 0, any remaining EP are then added. The amount depends on the character's starting level and not the ending level. Note: This can have a curious effect. Suppose you fight the Sewer Evil King with Ari at level 4 and 950 EP, Rosalyn at her starting value of level 5 and 0 EP. At the end of the battle, Ari gets 1069 EP and advances 2 levels to level 6 with 19 EP. Meanwhile Rosalyn gets 544 EP and stays at level 5. Ari is now a level ahead of Rosalyn even though he started a level behind. In general, the characters at lower levels will tend to catch up with the ones at higher levels until they are all about the same. 6) The EP assigned to a monster decreases by a factor of about 2 for each level your character gains. The exact formula is given below but this is a good approximation. This pattern continues until the EP reaches a minimum amount which depends on the monster. From then on the EP stays at this minimum amount no matter how high your level is. Here are the details: 7) Each monster has a base level and an experience factor (these are terms I made up). The base level is always a whole number and at least 2, the experience factor is always a whole number between 16 and 31. There is also a maximum level which is equal to the base level + 5. 8) To find the experience for a given monster for a character's level, step 1 is to multiply the monster's experience factor by 2 for each level your character is below the monster's maximum level. If your character's level is the same or greater than the monster's maximum level then don't multiply by anything. Step 2 is to multiply this number by .1125, drop any fractional part. Finally, step 3 is to add the monster's base level to get the number of experience points. For example, the Maneating Onion has a base level of 2 and an experience factor of 16. The maximum level for this monster is 2+5 = 7. To find the experience points Ari will get for defeating this monster at level 3, take 16 and multiply by 2 for each level Ari is below 7, or 16x2x2x2x2 which is 256. Multiply this by .1125 to get 28.8 and drop the fraction to get 28. Now add the monster's base level, 2, to get 30 EP. If Ari is at or above level 7, then multiply 16 by .1125 to get 1.8 and drop the fraction to get 1. Add the base level to get 3 as the minimum EP for this monster. This table shows the base level, maximum level, experience factor and some of the actual EP values for the monsters I have found these for so far. Tenel Forest: Monster BLv MLv ExF Lv2 Lv3 Lv4 Lv5 Lv6 Lv7 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Maneating Onion 2 7 16 59 30 16 9 5 3 Perky Frog 2 7 26 95 48 25 13 7 4 Airy Bunny 2 7 28 102 52 27 14 8 5 Chicken Chicken 3 8 22 161 82 42 22 12 7 Square Rhino 3 8 29 211 107 55 29 16 9 Wild Cow 4 9 23 335 169 86 45 24 14 Tricky Ghost 5 10 20 581 293 149 77 41 23 Madril Sewer Boss: Monster BLv MLv ExF Lv4 Lv5 Lv6 Lv7 Lv8 Lv9 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Lurking Rat 3 8 18 35 19 11 7 5 5 Sewer Evil King 8 13 16 929 468 238 123 65 36 Rumille Plain: Monster BLv MLv ExF Lv5 Lv6 Lv7 Lv8 Lv9 L10 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Perky Frog 2 7 26 13 7 4 4 4 4 Lurking Rat 3 8 18 19 11 7 5 5 5 Crafty Crow 4 9 16 32 18 11 7 5 5 Fierce Goat 4 9 24 47 25 14 9 6 6 Plucky Pachyderm 4 9 30 58 31 17 10 7 7 Walken Scarecrow 6 11 21 157 81 43 24 15 10 Young Trent 7 12 19 280 143 75 41 24 15 Aquatic Ruins: Monster BLv MLv ExF Lv6 Lv7 Lv8 Lv9 L10 L11 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Perky Frog 2 7 26 7 4 4 4 4 4 Plucky Pachyderm 4 9 30 31 17 10 7 7 7 Walken Scarecrow 6 11 21 81 43 24 15 10 8 Waving Seaweed 6 11 30 114 60 33 19 12 9 Sleazy Toad 7 12 16 122 64 35 21 14 10 Young Trent 7 12 19 143 75 41 24 15 11 Fleet Fish 7 12 22 165 86 46 26 16 11 Plodding Hippo 9 14 16 469 239 124 66 37 23 Chill Urn 11 16 20 * 1163 587 299 155 83 Aquatic Ruins Boss: Monster BLv MLv ExF L10 L11 L12 L13 L14 L15 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Compassion Crab 9 14 23 50 29 19 14 11 11 Bubble Evil King 14 19 16 935 474 244 129 71 42 Chairman Evil King Minions: Monster BLv MLv ExF L11 L12 L13 L14 L15 L16 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Walken Scarecrow 6 11 21 8 8 8 8 8 8 Plodding Hippo 9 14 16 23 16 12 10 10 10 Escapeless Abyss: Monster BLv MLv ExF L11 L12 L13 L14 L15 L16 ------------------ --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- Compassion Crab 9 14 23 29 19 14 11 11 11 Systematic Gear 10 15 21 47 28 19 14 12 12 Capricious Screw 11 16 29 115 63 37 24 17 14 JC Scarecrow 12 17 20 156 84 48 30 21 16 Tough Golem 13 18 16 243 128 70 41 27 20 Sparky Urn 14 19 19 561 287 150 82 48 31 * - Exceeds maximum of 1357