[][][][] [][] [][][][] [] [][][][] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [][][][] [] [] [][][][] [] [][][][] [] [][][][][] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [] [][][][] [][][][] [][][][] () () ()() ()() () () ()()() ()() ()()() ()() () () () () () () () () () () ()() () () () () () () () ()()() ()() () () () () () () () () () () () () ()() ()() ()()() ()() ()()() [ Fable (for X-Box) - Experience Guide ] [ by SotiCoto ... a.k.a The5thSeraph ] [Version 1.04] ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [0.00] <(( Contents ))> See those little numbers surrounded by square brackets? Ctrl+F is your friend. This is quite a long guide. #~ [1.00] Short Introduction #~ [2.00] Attributes & Spells ---- [2.01] Strength ------ [2.02] Physique ------ [2.03] Health ------ [2.04] Toughness ---- [2.01] Skill ------ [2.02] Speed ------ [2.02] Accuracy ------ [2.02] Guile ---- [2.01] Will ------ [2.02] Attack Spells -------- [2.02] Enflame -------- [2.02] Fireball -------- [2.02] Battle Charge -------- [2.02] Multi Strike -------- [2.02] Lightning ------ [2.02] Surround Spells -------- [2.02] Force Push -------- [2.02] Turncoat -------- [2.02] Slow Time -------- [2.02] Drain Life -------- [2.02] Summon ------ [2.02] Physical Spells -------- [2.02] Physical Shield -------- [2.02] Berserk -------- [2.02] Heal Life -------- [2.02] Ghost Sword -------- [2.02] Multi Arrow ------ [2.02] Magic Power #~ [3.00] Experience Cost List ---- [3.01] Total Mastery Costs (Base / Minimum / Pure Evil / Pure Good) ---- [3.02] Strength ---- [3.03] Skill ---- [3.04] Will #~ [4.00] Experience, Age and Appearance ---- [4.01] Experience and Age ---- [4.02] Age and Alignment to Appearance ---- [4.03] Attributes to Appearance ---- [4.04] Error 404 ---- [4.05] Total Appearance Factors #~ [5.00] Levelling - Places and Means ---- [5.01] General Tactics ---- [5.02] Gear ---- [5.03] Moneymaking ---- [5.04] Glitches and Tricks ---- [5.05] Levelling Spots ---- [5.06] Theories #~ [6.00] All Other Nonsense ---- [6.01] Version Stuff ---- [6.02] Copyright Stuff ---- [6.03] Contact Stuff ---- [6.04] Credit Stuff ---- [6.05] There is no 6.05 ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [1.00] <(( Short Introduction ))> Lets keep this curt. This is precisely what it says it is: an experience guide to Fable, on the X-Box. The purpose of this guide is to give you as much information relating to the experience system in the game as is possible for me... the author. Because I'm generous, the guide also goes over several things relating to or affected by experience too, of which there are quite a few. The primary focus of the guide is the list of experience costs found in section 3, and all else besides that is an additional bonus. And why precisely might you want a list of all the experience costs in the game? I'd say the clearest answer is to know precisely when you have enough experience to go and level up precisely what you want to level up and how much. This guide does expect that you have at least a basic understanding of the game though, and will not go through controls or any of the like. So without further ado, lets get to it. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [2.00] <(( Attributes and Spells ))> This section serves to give you descriptions for the different attributes that you can level up during the course of the game, both the official descriptions and my own personal judgement and description on both the purpose and general usefulness of the various aspects. Unlike some others I won't be giving them particular ratings, as in some cases its purely a matter of style and choice. So... to the descriptions... [2.01] -~{ Strength }~- Official:- "Use Strength Experience to improve your Strength, Toughness and Health. Become a better fighter, wield heavier weapons, and protect yourself from damage. With each advance you will become more muscular and powerful." This is the group of attributes favoured by melee warriors, in case it wasn't obvious enough. These attributes collectively determine most of your performance in close combat, the other important factors being speed and weapon type (spells not included). Later on, they can also play an important part in the aquisition of a weapon called the Harbinger... but thats not so important. Stating the obvious a little here, but you can raise Strength attributes with either Strength experience or General experience, the former before the latter. You gain Strength experience by hitting living things (melee weapons or fists) and by consuming red meat. Theres also the Ages of Strength potions to consider, though those are rare. Consuming vast amounts of red meat when you have a high combat multiplier is an easy way to get extra Strength experience, though it will make you obese for a while (not that such makes much difference). [2.02] [Physique] Official:- "Physique dictates the force with which you can swing a weapon, and thus the amount of damage you can cause. With greater strength also comes the ability to wield heavy weapons." Physique is strength in the classic sense. Its the most expensive of the 'Strength' attributes to raise and in addition to that the most expensive of all the game's attributes overall, but also the most worthwhile of the 'Strength' attributes as higher levels translate directly into more melee damage with all close combat weapons (including fists). A physique level of 3 is enough to allow you to wield heavy weapons effectively, which sacrifice speed for extra damage and range. [2.03] [Health] Official:- "The healthier you are, the more damage you can take. Your health attribute defines the length of your health bar." Health is obvious enough. Its only useful effect is to lengthen your Health bar. Despite being more expensive than Toughness, I don't consider this as worthwhile as you can get the same effect from consuming 'Elixir of Life' potions. The only way to maximise your Health bar is by using both the Elixirs and maximising the Health attribute, though its quite possible for a decent warrior to get through the game without even raising this a single level, albeit a little more difficult. If you get hit often, then it might be worth raising early on. [2.04] [Toughness] Official:- "Toughness is your basic resistance to damage - your 'natural armour'. The tougher you are, the less damage you will take from each blow. True enough, taking levels in Toughness has an equivalent effect to wearing heavier armour, at least as I've found. The 'precise' way this and armour class in general influences battle isn't entirely certain, but it does result somehow in your taking less damage. Its the cheapest of the 'Strength' attributes to raise, and I believe its more useful than Health as rather than being able to take more, you take less anyway. This wouldn't make much of a difference normally, but if you think about Health restoration, it becomes a little more obvious that the same amount of your Health bar is restored regardless of your physical attributes, thus a higher proportion is restored if you have a lower Health bar (having spent the points on Toughness for instance). Of course, if you're intending to go through the entire game wearing platemail and a chainmail helm, it won't be so important to have high Toughness. More useful if you're considering the Will-User path though. [2.05] -~{ Skill }~- Official:- "Use Skill Experience to improve your Speed, Accuracy and Guile. Become a better archer, a more nimble thief, an agile ranger, or a keen trader. With each advance you become more lithe and agile." The 'Skill' attributes are a good general group for anyone and everyone to raise up. Certain aspects of the group are useful in just about all elements of the game. Unfortunately, besides trading in expensive goods (which is unlikely to net you much experience unless you find travelling NPC traders while you have a high combat multiplier) or consuming many 'Ages of Skill' potions (which are understandably rare), the only way to raise Skill experience is via the good old bow and arrows, so as much as only two of the attributes might seem useful to a warrior or mage for instance, you might want to consider raising Accuracy as well in order to raise your Skill experience more efficiently. Of course, if you're going pure archer, then you'll be going mainly for Accuracy anyway. And not to forget the obvious factor here, but you can raise Skill attributes with both Skill experience and General experience, so I suppose if you gather enough General experience you might not need to bother with the bow and arrows at all. [2.06] [Speed] Official:- "Speed affects your agility in combat, giving you a better rate-of-fire with ranged weapons, and also more dexterity in melee combat." Whatever way you look at it, Speed is an important attribute to raise, and its also the cheapest of the 'Skill' group. Having a high Speed rating decreases the time taken to perform your attack manevures, be that swinging your sword or drawing back the bowstring, not to mention hitting things faster even barehanded (which is useful sometimes, such as in the Fist Fighters matches). I'm not certain, but I believe it may allow for faster spellcasting too, so its better to take it to be on the safe side. Its also possible that it lets you run faster, but this is just theory and I couldn't make out any discernible difference in land speed anyway. [2.07] [Accuracy] Official:- "Accuracy defines your precision in ranged combat, and hence the amount of damage you can cause with a ranged weapon." The basic primary attribute of the archer. Accuracy is for ranged weapons what Physique is for melee weapons, translating into more damage per unit time drawn when using a longbow or crossbow. Also, when using first-person view with a ranged weapon, having a higher Accuracy means less quivering of the crosshair for more precise shots, and lets face it, few things in the game are as fun as decapitating an unsuspecting foe with an arrow. As previously mentioned though, Archery is the key to gaining Skill experience, and a few points in Accuracy will even help Melee and Will users to gain those extra levels in the other attributes. A pity maybe that its the most expensive attribute of the group. [2.08] [Guile] Official:- "Guile makes you more cunning, giving you the Skills to barter with Traders for better prices and an increased profit. You will also become more stealthy, making it easier to approach people and creatures without revealing your presence. With later Guile levels you will also learn the arts of the thief." Guile is another good attribute for everyone to learn. It has three purposes to it, essentially. Firstly, a higher Guile rating gives you better prices from all traders, both when buying and selling. It'll cost you less to buy things, and you'll get more when you sell, so less time need be spent aquiring that extra cash by other means. Secondly, a higher Guile means people are less automatically aware of you, which is not only useful for sneaking about town to steal things from peoples houses without them noticing and calling the guards, but also of key importance to snipers and assassins for dispatching foes before they have a chance to get their guard up (there are a few parts of the game to which this is absolutely essential). For the record, your choice of costume also has a similar influence on how visable you are. Thirdly, there are two expressions (or skills) which can only be learnt via the higher levels of the Guile attribute: Steal and Unlock. As I recall, you gain the Steal expression at level 3, and the Unlock expression at level 6, but I may need to be corrected on that. 'Steal' allows you to make a 'five-finger-discount' on objects left out in the open (such as in shops), so long as nobody is watching (performed by holding down the relevent button until the bar in the upper right corner fills out). Unlocking is performed the same way, but is used for opening locked doors in order to gain entrance at night for instance. Of course, once inside its important to hold down the left analogue stick to sneak about, otherwise your efforts are wasted. All part of the attribute of Guile. Very handy. [2.09] -~{ Will }~- Official:- "Use Will Experience to aquire new Spells, and Improve those already in your repertoire. Become a better magic-user, a master of aggressive or defensive magic, defining yourself by the set of Spells you use. With each advance, magical energies will gather around your body, crackling at your finger tips." Chances are sooner or later that everyone is going to want to use SOME spells, and they can make a truly massive difference in the game. Its worth noting a few odd things about the Will group though: Firstly, its clearly got the most 'attributes' or spells of any of the group, thus it takes substancially more overall experience to max out the lot (if you're that way inclined). Thankfully though, all spells have four levels, and not seven levels like the other attributes, though this only really makes a minimal difference to the cost (as most spells cost considerable amounts per level). Secondly, and as a direct consequence of it having so many attributes, I've noticed that if you go overboard raising your Will experience and maxing out as many spells as you can, that your class (visable in your personality screen) will become 'Will-User' and stay that way for the rest of the game, regardless how much smacking stuff with a sword you do from then on. If you want to be known as a barbarian (for instance), don't level up too many spells. Back to the point though, you gain Will experience by using Spells, eating fish and consuming 'Ages of Will' potions (rare as the other 'ages' potions). Some spells gain experience by being used on enemies (such as Enflame) while others will net you some experience just for being used (such as Summon). To the obvious, you can use both Will experience and General experience to level up Will attributes (spells and Magic Power). Thankfully, Will experience is that easy to get that you needn't spend too much General experience on spells unless you're desperate to max something out quickly. Better to save it for essential 'Skill' attributes unless you're an archer. [2.10] {Attack Spells} Official:- "The branch of magic dealing with offensive battle spells includes: Enflame, Fireball, Battle Charge, Multi Strike, and Lightning." Included here are several spells no self-respecting battlemage should do without. Mostly not so useful for melee combatants or ranger types, though Multi Strike is an effective spell for the warrior characters. [2.11] [Enflame] Official:- "Blasts the area surrounding the caster with a wave of fire. Higher levels spread fire across a much larger area, causing much more devastation." The official description isn't joking. This spell is the most expensive in the game for a good reason: Its broken. That is to say anyone with this spell in their repertoire and a healthy dose of mana will be practically untouchable. It is a moderately close-range spell, causing fairly serious damage to all opponents within range in a circle around the caster, knocking them instantly off their feet as well. With higher levels it does considerably more damage and influences a wider area, until at Master level it will destroy most enemies in a hit or two and reach all but the furthest archers. Naturally its strongest against those enemies which are weak against fire magic. As if that wasn't enough, this spell will only damage hostiles, and is 100% safe around commoners and followers (so don't be afraid to abuse it when you have someone to protect). For these reasons it is ENTIRELY worth the cost. Essential to battlemagi, useful for everyone (though you might want to reconsider if you're a true warrior, as after finding this spell you might never draw your sword again). Enflame gains Will experience by the enemies it hits. [2.12] [Fireball] Official:- "The Mage's favourite! This creates a ball of fire in the palm of the caster's hand which flies toward the target when released. Higher levels allow the caster to charge up an extremely powerful fireball that deals a devastating explosive force on impact." Just for the sake of sarcasm, I'll note its not quite favourite here, and its the fireball which flies toward the target and not the caster's hand. That nonsense aside, I'll admit that this is a very useful spell for a mage, but best not taken by anyone else (as, lets face it, a longbow can be more effective at no mana cost). What isn't immediately obvious about the fireball is the charging mechanism. It isn't so much continuous as with the drawing of a bowstring, but dependant on those odd noises it makes as you charge it at the higher levels. Level 1 Fireballs can be rapid-fired and make decent weak sniping tools to get the attention of an enemy. Higher levels of the spell allow you to make the ball more powerful by charging it for longer (as expressed by the cute noises). A fully charged level 4 Fireball will do more damage than master Enflame to an enemy it hits directly, and will also do a fair amount of splash damage to enemies it doesn't directly hit nearby as well (this includes non-hostile npcs though, so be careful). Be warned though that you cannot combat-roll while charging the fireball, and can only shuffle about, so while you're charging the fireball you are vulnerable. Fireball gains Will experience per successful shot. [2.13] [Battle Charge] Official:- "The Battle Charge propels the caster forward at great speed, smashing into any in its path, and blasting all nearby aside. Higher levels are much more powerful." A pretty-looking spell, but it isn't good for much. As a meaningless side-note, this seems to be Whisper's favourite spell. Its immediate effects are to send you forward some distance, to knock back any enemies you plow through in the process (not quite 'all nearby' as it says), and do some small measure of damage in the process. Higher levels increase the distance and the damage, perhaps the proximity from which enemies are hit too. I can't think of much more to say about it than that. Don't bother taking it unless you're the brutal sort for whom Assassin's Rush is too harmless. Useful for a quick get-away, I suppose... when you cannot be bothered to fight. Experience gain, uncertain. [2.14] [Multi Strike] Official:- "This spell imbues the user's blade with the ability to strike twice with a single blow. Combined with other spells, this little trick is devastating." Not precisely true, but thats only a matter of detail. This is a melee warrior's spell through and through. Be careful though, as the first thing you should understand about this spell is that it takes a lot of mana to cast for its relatively short duration, and excessive use eats through your mana bar like steroid-pumped termites on a toothpick. Simply put, for each level of this spell, when its used you get an extra strike on your next melee attack. Level 1 will make one strike into two, while mastery will result in a single hit becoming five. Theres a few things about this which make it truly brutal though, and they have little enough to do with most other spells. Firstly, and most importantly, the extra attacks bypass defence, or in other words they will hit the opponent even if the triggering strike is blocked... and theres nothing your helpless foe can do about it. Secondly, whatever effects determine the damage done by your first hit (discounting blocking), stack with every successive hit... meaning it will do the same damage for every strike. If you hit someone with the Sword of Aeons (most powerful weapon in the game), with master Berserk active, with a flurry attack (the B button when it flashes yellow), and you happened to have your weapon set to master Multi Strike... you will do a ridiculous amount of damage not once but five times. Even with a lesser legendary weapon, its usually enough to rain down devastation on most enemies you'll encounter. The last point worth noting is that you'll get the full Strength experience for every single hit granted by the spell: useful for gaining the experience faster, killing enemies before they hit you, pumping up that combat multiplier. You get the point. Oh, and before you get your hopes up too high, this spell only works once. You have to re-cast it after hitting the once with it. If it had a time-limit instead it would be entirely too broken. [2.15] [Lightning] Official:- "This spell creates an arc of pure energy which leaps from the fingertips of the caster to the target. Higher levels can strike more than one foe at a time." Your basic starting spell. Its a standard enough offensive spell, but despite the description its not all that handy against many enemies even at the higher levels. It does weak damage, drains mana constantly while delivering its damage in jolts, and is... in a word... unspectacular. Its a spell best levelled by magi who have mana experience to spare. There are perhaps only two saving graces to this spell: Firstly it can stun enemies, and whats more decapitate them somehow (which is fun, and gets recorded, but is little good besides). Secondly, once you've got it started on one opponent, you can just hold down that button and it will track their movements, only losing them if an obstacle gets right in the way, and even then it'll just switch to the next nearest foe. For this reason, its a slow but reliable means of killing off Nymphs if you aren't a good shot with a bow or fireball (just be careful to have the mana potions handy, as it eats through that blue bar). The spell gains Will experience for every jolt of damage done to a foe. [2.16] {Surround Spells} Official:- "Surround Spells allow you to manipulate the world around you, and include: Force Push, Turncoat, Slow Time, Drain Life, and Summon." A reasonable little selection of general-purpose spells which may be handy to both magi and other classes. Includes two evil spells and one good spell. [2.17] [Force Push] Official:- "This spell creates a powerful blast of energy which radiates out from the caster, sending nearby enemies sprawling. Useful when greatly outnumbered. Higher levels of the spell create a more damaging force." Or as I like to think of it: Enflame's little brother. In many respects its effects are similar to those of enflame, but considerably weaker. Its an area affect spell which influences a circular region around the caster, doing damage to those within the area and knocking them off their feet, though more importantly also knocking them away forcefully. What isn't mentioned in the official description is that higher levels considerably increase its range too (and consequentially the distance that its victims are thrown). Theres certain elements to this spell though which make it uniquely useful. Firstly its instantaneous. It can be rapid-fire-abused even more quickly than Enflame, though the cumulative damage is considerably less. For this reason though it perfectly serves its purpose of getting annoying enemies out of the way so you can hack at them without them ganging you. Secondly its a cheap spell to cast and cheap to buy, meaning that you get that much extra Will experience to spend on other things and using the spell won't do much to your mana bar (so you can keep casting it for every enemy if you like). Thirdly, and this is the vital point... Force Push is THE 'general use' spell for Evil mages, and I say this with good reason. Enflame, as mentioned earlier, only hits hostiles. Force Push on the other hand will smack EVERYONE away from you, and its low damage levels are still enough to kill the average village idiot with a few hits. Absolutely great party trick, and a strangely satisfying way of demonstrating your power on hapless bystanders (0 to 60 in under a second). Charging through Oakvale showing off this trick to your homies won't gain you any friends though. It remains a personal favourite. Force Push gains Will experience according to the number of people it hits. [2.18] [Turncoat] Official:- "This insidious spell manipulates the enemy's mind whilst the caster is close enough, gradually turning the target into an unwitting ally. Higher levels allow control of the victim's mind for longer." The first of the marked 'evil' spells, its worth noting here and now that how much this spell costs to purchase at every level varies depending on your alignment when you do the buying. If you purchase it while good, it will cost more experience, and if you purchase it while evil, it will cost less. It can also only be mastered if you're fairly evil at least, if you feel inclined to do so. That said, I have never found a use for this spell, and to be honest I'm not sure why its a particularly evil spell either (surely turning an enemy to your cause rather than killing them seems like a good alternative). Since I've never actually made any use of the spell, I couldn't tell you how useful it is or isn't, nor whether it works on some enemies and not others, nor even what happens if you turn an enemy to your cause and then attack the individual in question. Look elsewhere for your answers. Considering the cost though, and the nature of the effect (and you're going to have to kill that enemy eventually anyway), I wouldn't say its worth the bother really, unless you're fighting two White Balverines at the same time and want to turn one against the other (*cough* foreshadowing *cough*). I'd imagine that it gains Will experience per use though, as it does seem to be an 'evil' equivalent of Summon. [2.19] [Slow Time] Official:- "This Spell affects the very fabric of time itself: slowing everything around you to a crawl while leaving the user or caster immune. Higher levels allow the caster to maintain this state for longer, and bring the world nearly to a standstill." Another one of those useful-for-everyone spells, Slow Time is this game's equivalent of the generic speed spell, with some benefits and some drawbacks.Drawbacks mainly focus around the fact that it 'slows time down relative to yourself' rather than 'speeding you up relative to everyone else'. By this I mean it won't get you anywhere any faster in realtime, so if you're lazy like I am (in any game with a generic speed spell, I will cast it just going from place to place), don't bother casting outside of combat except in special circumstances. Another downside is that while it slows down most everything else in the game, it doesn't slow down your combat multiplier, so that counter is going to be running down while you're waiting for that rock troll to hurry up and die. Those out of the way, this spell is quite heinously useful. Its rather expensive on the experience and moderately so on the mana too, but its worth it for that. At the higher levels, everyone will literally slow to a crawl around you, giving you the oppurtunity to run behind them and smack the hell out of them with your weapon, move on to the next enemy and repeat... or simply to run past them and not bother fighting because there is nothing they can do to chase you. Also handy when you're against the clock, as this slows the timer too (and that includes mini-games such as 'card sorting' and 'spot the addition'). Important point to mention here is that Slow Time will automatically cancel whenever you enter a cutscene, so don't bother casting it before entering battle with a boss if theres still a cutscene to get through as you'll only be wasting your mana. Slow Time gains Will experience for each casting. [2.20] [Drain Life] Official:- "A singularly unpleasant spell, Drain Life allows the caster to heal himself by sapping the life force of his enemies. Higher levels drain more from the victim with each use. Only the evil can master this Spell." Random comment: I've kept the capitalisation accurate in the official descriptions, and I wonder why sometimes they give spell a capital 's' and sometimes not. This is the second 'evil' spell in the selection, and somewhat more understandably so than the first. It takes health points from the enemy and gives them to you, the caster. Naturally you may want this spell if you're playing a true Evil mage, but if you already have Heal Life (or a huge supply of food / potions) then I wouldn't suggest bothering. The damage is weak compared to that of most attack spells, and its only really useful if you happen to be particularly damaged and in need of all the extra health you can get. I don't use it enough to understand the intricacies of the spell, so I hope you'll forgive if I don't mention them here. [2.21] [Summon] Official:- "Summon wrenches a creature's soul from the netherworld to help the caster. If this creature kills another it is replaced by the soul of the newly fallen victim. Higher levels allow the caster to keep the creature summoned for longer." Supposedly this is the first good spell. As with the evil spells but the other way around, this spell will cost more experience to purchase if you're evil at the time of levelling, and on the flipside it will cost less experience if you're good at the time. Precisely why this is good (and Turncoat) is evil isn't something I understand, and had I been making the game I would have put them the other way around (summoning monsters seems fairly evil to me). Now, I haven't ever really made extensive use of this spell for combat, but I know its useful in several abstract ways. The precise way this spell gets more powerful is dependant on what you use it on. As it says, the soul is replaced by the 'newly fallen victim'. What this literally means is that if your summoned creature performs the deathblow on a more powerful monster, it will then become the more powerful monster instead. It doesn't work the other way, allowing the creature to become weaker, so it will always remain as the strongest thing it has killed. Also, it doesn't work on trolls, so don't even bother (though White Balverines are fair game, if your monster can kill them). Thats not so important though as the main element to be concerned with in this Guide: Summon is THE spell for gaining Will experience. If I rightly recall, it gives you 3 Will experience for every time its cast. It takes nearly no mana at all to cast, and happens instantaneously (on a similar timeframe to Force Push). Rapid-firing the cast button will cause your Will experience to shoot up, and if done with a high combat multiplier and an itchy trigger-finger it can be truly broken. ~ Update: WARNING ... any enemies your summoned creature kills, you do NOT get General Experience for... so while its a good spell for gaining Mana XP, if you're out to harvest General XP by killing enemies you should leave the critter behind. [2.22] {Physical Spells} Official:- "The field of physical magic includes: Physical Shield, Berserk, Assassin Rush, Heal Life, Ghost Sword, and Multi Arrow." A good selection of spells useful to Will-Users and non-magicians alike. Includes two good spells and one evil spell. [2.23] [Physical Shield] Official:- "Surrounds the caster with a protective sphere of energy that will absorb all damage at the expense of Mana, until the caster has no Mana remaining. The shield will be removed if the spell is cast again. Higher levels allow for absorption of more damage." Mislabelled, incidentally. Its a magic shield which protects against everything, there being little physical about it. Its not spherical either. Nit-picking out of the way, this is the 'other' essential spell for everyone besides Enflame. This is the defensive to Enflame's offensive, and possibly an even more broken spell besides. To describe its function accurately, while the spell is active, it turns the caster's Mana-bar into a secondary Health bar essentially. The main differences are that while protected by the shield, the caster cannot be knocked back, interrupted in the middle of a move, nor have their combat multiplier interrupted. Essentially, nothing can do much of anything to the caster while protected by this. The damage that would be done to the Health bar normally is done to the Mana bar instead, and less-so at higher levels of the spell. The downside of this spell is that the Mana bar will not replenish normally while the shield is active, and can only be restored with Mana potions or a Mana Augmented weapon equipped. Thats alright though, as the spell can be deactivated for no cost at any time by pressing the same button and restoration of the bar will resume as normal. This spell is useful particularly for two things (besides simply staying alive): keeping a high combat multiplier, and winning the 'Not a Scratch' boasts. Unfortunately, this spell counts as armour for the sake of the 'No Protection' boast, and so you'll fail that boast if you activate this spell during the quest (so only take one or the other, depending on whether you choose to use this spell or not). Many players choose not to use this spell as it makes the game masses easier, and that much less of a challenge, but the game is easy enough without anyway. In other news, its a good spell, so you buy it with less experience if you're good and more if you're bad, and can only be mastered by reasonably good characters. If you want an easy game, take the time to be good for a while and master this spell. Physical Shield gains Will experience (5 experience to be exact) every time it is activated. As a subnote, it gives you a blue glow while active that pulses the same relative amount regardless of the camera distance (so when the camera is further away, it seems to cover a lot more space relative to yourself). [2.24] [Berserk] Official:- "This spell sends the caster into a hulking frenzy, increasing speed and strength, while conversely decreasing reason and civilised manners. Higher levels allow the caster to become even more powerful, and to maintain this state for longer." The inspiration for this spell was obvious, and sufficed to say if it made the character go green rather than red, Marvel would sue. Precisely as the official description goes, this spell allows you to go 'Hulk smash!' on just about anything that might have needlessly irritated you, all while being as red as a bloody beetroot. The downsides to this spell include the relatively short duration, and the comparitively lengthy activation lag (while you roar and become muscley). That and it can be a little bit expensive to cast, and even more expensive to buy (experience-wise). At the higher levels its more than worth it though to any melee character. The increase in damage at mastery level is huge, allowing you to kill most enemies in one hit with a decent weapon, and even those who are a bit tougher are easily felled when coupled with a Multi Strike. An interesting point to make as well is that it lets you wield heavy weapons one-handed for the duration, which quickens the whole process considerably. Being that its an evil spell though, it costs more for good characters to purchase levels in it, and less for evil characters, plus of course only the substancially evil can master it. I believe it gains Will experience for each casting, though honestly I was too busy watching the pyrotechnics to pay attention to experience gain. As mentioned, useful for melee chars, but not so handy for mages. [2.25] [Assassin Rush] Official:- "This spell propels the caster through space in the blink of an eye. If the victim is targeted, the spell enables the caster to move behind this unfortunate instantaneously. Higher levels propel the caster even further." Some find this spell incredibly useful, while others find it kinda useless. In all aspects it is a very 'slight' spell. It is the cheapest spell in the game as regards experience cost to purchase levels and is an incredibly cheap spell to cast as regards mana. You get what you pay for though, as the single effect of the spell is to throw you forward a short distance. Its like Battle Charge, but faster and without the damage or throwback, and of course admittedly if you're targeting an enemy you'll still be facing them after you've rushed past them (its not teleportation). Still, very handy if you're not using Physical Shield, as a means of avoiding being hit while continuing to assault an opponent (though as the video demonstration shows, its easy enough for your opponent to turn around and block your next strike anyway). Gains about 1 Will experience point per use, minus combat multipliers. [2.26] [Heal Life] Official:- "This allows the caster to trade in his magical energy for health. Health can also be passed on to non-hostile entities in the vicinity. Higher levels provide more health with each use. Only the virtuous can master this Spell." For the record, repeated uses of this spell at the same higher level don't allow greater amounts of health to be restored each time relative to the last. This is the generic healing spell of the game. How it works is the classic way: minus Mana, plus Health. Its very costly in Mana though, and thus theres only two real uses for it, especially if playing a mage character who needs all the Mana they can get: Its first is obvious, being when the character has no healing potions or food. The latter is the only real reason to buy the spell, and a good enough reason at that: to heal followers. NPCs that follow you are always weaker than you are, and usually prone to getting killed. This is the ONLY means of restoring their health, and it does so effectively at higher levels. If you plan on getting people to follow you a lot, this spell is essential, but otherwise you might want to spend your experience elsewhere. It being a good spell, its cheaper for good characters and more expensive for evil ones, and is only masterable by good-aligned characters. Naturally, you also get 'some' Will experience for casting the spell effectively. [2.27] [Ghost Sword] Official:- "This spell summons an ethereal blade from the netherworld to do battle on behalf of the caster." What that non-descript 'description' means is that the spell, at first level, summons a single ghostly-looking floating sword that will 'fight' for you as an ally (like the Summon spell), and that at higher levels it will allow you to summon multiple such swords on the spot equal to the numerical level of the spell. Notice first of all that this is an expensive spell to purchase as regards experience, and unlike some others its not entirely worth the cost in my opinion. The swords are quite weak comparitively, and only really serve as a distraction in battle (something for your enemies to strike at which isn't you). If you are a fan of quick fighting as I am, then don't bother with this spell as it will tend just to prolong the process of battle, though admittedly it is a slightly funky effect to watch and amusing if you like to have four swords following you about. As far as I'm aware it gains Will experience per casting. [2.28] [Multi Arrow] Official:- "Once this spell is cast, each arrow fired is magically transformed into a multitude of lethal projectiles, causing much greater damage. Higher levels generate even more arrows." In a way, this is like Multi Strike but for archers. You do more damage to a foe which you are shooting down and... pretty self-explanatory. Its not just single-use though, which is useful. Casting the spell manifests in the form of a number of little motes of light that circle around the caster. Each time an arrow is fired it uses up one of these motes of light, and once the last mote of light is used up then the spell is over. The real reason why this isn't entirely as useful as Multi Strike is because as many people know, you can generate more power in a bowshot just by holding down the button (keeping the string back) for longer. So its entirely your choice whether you want to expend Mana for more powerful arrow-shooting or whether you simply want to expend time instead. That said its still a fairly useful spell for archers, and indeed the only archer-focused spell... so if you're playing a ranger or whatever, you might as well get it for the sake of image. I only use the spell because it reminds me of Panzer Dragoon <3. [2.29] [Magic Power] Official:- "The more Mana you have, the more energy you have for casting spells - magic power defines the length of your Mana energy bar." The only Will attribute that isn't a spell. This is for your Mana bar what the Health attribute is for your Health bar, and precisely the same thing applies. Its certainly useful, but the same thing can be achieved by drinking Will Master's Elixirs, meaning it isn't a vital attribute to raise. The Mana bar can only be maxed by doing both though, so if you want a massive Mana pool (i.e. if you're a mage), then you will want to do this. Needless to say its that bit more useful to have more Mana than more Health much of the time. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [3.00] <(( Experience Cost List ))> This is what I built this entire guide around, and the reason for my making the guide in the first place. It can help to be able to plan precisely how much experience you're going to need ahead of time, and that is precisely what I made this little list for. Most of it should be 100% accurate, regardless of what sort of character you happen to be playing. There are a few points of syntax to go over first though (i.e. how its set out). #1. Level - Successive levels of each attribute cost more. This is obvious to anyone who has ever played the game for any length of time. This indicates the Level of the attribute being purchased, obviously. #2. XP Cost - This is the base cost of the attribute to purchase. In most cases this is precisely what it shows you on the screen when you highlight a particular attribute for purchasing. In the case of alignment-modified spells however, this is the base cost for a completely neutral character (modifiers discounted). #3. Cumulative - Getting a little more complicated, this is the 'cost so far' for the attribute. In other words, its the full cost to raise it up to the level shown. For instance, the cumulative cost for an attribute to be raised to level 4 is the combined costs of raising it to level 1, 2, 3 and 4 added up. Modifiers are not included at this step. #4. Modifier - This only applies to six spells, three evil and three good. The symbols shown beforehand show the relative difference it makes compared to the order of the alignment bar as shown on the personality screen (+/- means more for evil, less for good, therefore good spell. -/+ means less for evil, more for good, therefore evil spell). The number shown is the extreme value for the modifier gained from being either 100% evil or 100% good. Being partially one or the other will result in a lesser number (and I'm not going to try applying all that into my calculations). For Modifier spells, the last value for level 4 is going to be negative either way because only one alignment can master those spells, and its noted which. Finally, the numbers in brackets are the cumulative modifier costs, NOT the cumulative costs with the modifiers counted in.). So, now we get to the numbers. Before we go to the costs themselves, you should realise that there is a limit cap on how much experience you can gather in one go, though it only applies to General experience. This maxes out at 999,999. Other experience types can go over a million, and whether there is an actual cap on them I'm not sure. Before I go on with the full list, I'll cut straight to the brought spectrum. In other words,the full experience costs of maxing out a character in particularways. This may well be, afterall, what you set out to find here.You might be challenging yourself to spend the absolute minimum amount of experience or something. For the record, I'm not certain as to the maximum experience costs yet as I don't know the lower alignment requirement for mastering the modifier spells. Good and Evil costs imply that modifier spells of the opposite alignment cannot be mastered at all. [3.01] [Total Base Mastery Experience Cost] = 1908000 [Total Minimum Mastery Experience Cost] = 1836376 [Pure Evil Mastery Experience Cost] = 1742575 [Pure Good Mastery Experience Cost] = 1746200 In the game that I played through to record all the figures that will follow shortly, its worth noting that I achieved the perfect figure for minimum-cost mastery, achieved by not putting any points into modifier spells until one is perfectly aligned to the extreme of the requisite alignment, and then maxing them while there. What follows is several hours work noting down numbers (apart from the several hours work noting down descriptions). [3.02] -~{ Strength }~- Total Cost = 351950 [Physique] Level 1 : XP Cost = 500 , Cumulative = 500 Level 2 : XP Cost = 1200 , Cumulative = 1700 Level 3 : XP Cost = 3000 , Cumulative = 4700 Level 4 : XP Cost = 9000 , Cumulative = 13700 Level 5 : XP Cost = 24000 , Cumulative = 37700 Level 6 : XP Cost = 45000 , Cumulative = 82700 Level 7 : XP Cost = 86000 , Cumulative = 168700 [Health] Level 1 : XP Cost = 400 , Cumulative = 400 Level 2 : XP Cost = 1000 , Cumulative = 1400 Level 3 : XP Cost = 2500 , Cumulative = 3900 Level 4 : XP Cost = 6000 , Cumulative = 9900 Level 5 : XP Cost = 13500 , Cumulative = 23400 Level 6 : XP Cost = 28000 , Cumulative = 51400 Level 7 : XP Cost = 58000 , Cumulative = 109400 [Toughness] Level 1 : XP Cost = 350 , Cumulative = 350 Level 2 : XP Cost = 900 , Cumulative = 1250 Level 3 : XP Cost = 1800 , Cumulative = 3050 Level 4 : XP Cost = 4800 , Cumulative = 7850 Level 5 : XP Cost = 9000 , Cumulative = 16850 Level 6 : XP Cost = 19000 , Cumulative = 35850 Level 7 : XP Cost = 38000 , Cumulative = 73850 [3.03] -~{ Skill }~- Total Cost = 330900 [Speed] Level 1 : XP Cost = 350 , Cumulative = 350 Level 2 : XP Cost = 800 , Cumulative = 1150 Level 3 : XP Cost = 1800 , Cumulative = 2950 Level 4 : XP Cost = 4600 , Cumulative = 7550 Level 5 : XP Cost = 8700 , Cumulative = 16250 Level 6 : XP Cost = 21400 , Cumulative = 37650 Level 7 : XP Cost = 42000 , Cumulative = 79650 [Accuracy] Level 1 : XP Cost = 400 , Cumulative = 400 Level 2 : XP Cost = 1100 , Cumulative = 1500 Level 3 : XP Cost = 2900 , Cumulative = 4400 Level 4 : XP Cost = 8000 , Cumulative = 12400 Level 5 : XP Cost = 20500 , Cumulative = 32900 Level 6 : XP Cost = 39000 , Cumulative = 71900 Level 7 : XP Cost = 81000 , Cumulative = 152900 [Guile] Level 1 : XP Cost = 350 , Cumulative = 350 Level 2 : XP Cost = 900 , Cumulative = 1250 Level 3 : XP Cost = 2200 , Cumulative = 3450 Level 4 : XP Cost = 5000 , Cumulative = 8450 Level 5 : XP Cost = 10500 , Cumulative = 18950 Level 6 : XP Cost = 27400 , Cumulative = 46350 Level 7 : XP Cost = 52000 , Cumulative = 98350 [3.04] -~{ Will }~- Total Cost = 1225150 Min Cost = 1153526 {Attack Spells} Total Cost = 381090 [Enflame] Level 1 : XP Cost = 3500 , Cumulative = 3500 Level 2 : XP Cost = 8100 , Cumulative = 11600 Level 3 : XP Cost = 22000 , Cumulative = 33600 Level 4 : XP Cost = 58000 , Cumulative = 91600 [Fireball] Level 1 : XP Cost = 500 , Cumulative = 500 Level 2 : XP Cost = 4500 , Cumulative = 5000 Level 3 : XP Cost = 17800 , Cumulative = 22800 Level 4 : XP Cost = 54000 , Cumulative = 76800 [Battle Charge] Level 1 : XP Cost = 750 , Cumulative = 750 Level 2 : XP Cost = 5400 , Cumulative = 6150 Level 3 : XP Cost = 17500 , Cumulative = 23650 Level 4 : XP Cost = 52000 , Cumulative = 75650 [Multi Strike] Level 1 : XP Cost = 1200 , Cumulative = 1200 Level 2 : XP Cost = 4680 , Cumulative = 5880 Level 3 : XP Cost = 15700 , Cumulative = 21580 Level 4 : XP Cost = 43500 , Cumulative = 65080 [Lightning] Level 1 : XP Cost = N/A Level 2 : XP Cost = 5760 , Cumulative = 5760 Level 3 : XP Cost = 18200 , Cumulative = 23960 Level 4 : XP Cost = 48000 , Cumulative = 71960 {Surround Spells} Total Cost = 339710 [Force Push] Level 1 : XP Cost = 600 , Cumulative = 600 Level 2 : XP Cost = 3600 , Cumulative = 4200 Level 3 : XP Cost = 12600 , Cumulative = 16800 Level 4 : XP Cost = 40000 , Cumulative = 56800 [Turncoat] Level 1 : XP Cost = 3200 , Cumulative = 3200 , Modifier = -/+480 (480) Level 2 : XP Cost = 6500 , Cumulative = 9700 , Modifier = -/+975 (1455) Level 3 : XP Cost = 16000 , Cumulative = 25700 , Modifier = -/+2400 (3855) Level 4 : XP Cost = 45000 , Cumulative = 70700 , Modifier = -6750 (10605) Evil [Slow Time] Level 1 : XP Cost = 2000 , Cumulative = 2000 Level 2 : XP Cost = 6580 , Cumulative = 8580 Level 3 : XP Cost = 18800 , Cumulative = 27390 Level 4 : XP Cost = 47500 , Cumulative = 74880 [Drain Life] Level 1 : XP Cost = 2800 , Cumulative = 2800 , Modifier = -/+560 (560) Level 2 : XP Cost = 6800 , Cumulative = 9600 , Modifier = -/+1350 (1910) Level 3 : XP Cost = 16500 , Cumulative = 26100 , Modifier = -/+3300 (5210) Level 4 : XP Cost = 44000 , Cumulative = 70100 , Modifier = -8800 (14010) Evil [Summon] Level 1 : XP Cost = 1800 , Cumulative = 1800 , Modifier = +/-270 (270) Level 2 : XP Cost = 5030 , Cumulative = 6830 , Modifier = +/-754 (1024) Level 3 : XP Cost = 14400 , Cumulative = 21230 , Modifier = +/-2160 (3184) Level 4 : XP Cost = 46000 , Cumulative = 67230 , Modifier = -6900 (10084) Good {Physical Spells} Total Cost = 403150 [Physical Shield] Level 1 : XP Cost = 900 , Cumulative = 900 , Modifier = +/-135 (135) Level 2 : XP Cost = 5350 , Cumulative = 6250 , Modifier = +/-803 (938) Level 3 : XP Cost = 17700 , Cumulative = 23950 , Modifier = +/-2655 (3593) Level 4 : XP Cost = 45500 , Cumulative = 69450 , Modifier = -6825 (10418) Good [Berserk] Level 1 : XP Cost = 1600 , Cumulative = 1600 , Modifier = -/+240 (240) Level 2 : XP Cost = 6210 , Cumulative = 7810 , Modifier = -/+932 (1172) Level 3 : XP Cost = 20500 , Cumulative = 28310 , Modifier = -/+3075 (4247) Level 4 : XP Cost = 51000 , Cumulative = 79310 , Modifier = -7650 (11897) Evil [Assassin Rush] Level 1 : XP Cost = 400 , Cumulative = 400 Level 2 : XP Cost = 2700 , Cumulative = 3100 Level 3 : XP Cost = 8100 , Cumulative = 11200 Level 4 : XP Cost = 20000 , Cumulative = 31200 [Heal Life] Level 1 : XP Cost = 2300 , Cumulative = 2300 , Modifier = +/-460 (460) Level 2 : XP Cost = 5850 , Cumulative = 8150 , Modifier = +/-1170 (1630) Level 3 : XP Cost = 15900 , Cumulative = 24050 , Modifier = +/-3180 (4810) Level 4 : XP Cost = 49000 , Cumulative = 73050 , Modifier = -9800 (14610) Good [Ghost Sword] Level 1 : XP Cost = 2500 , Cumulative = 2500 Level 2 : XP Cost = 6300 , Cumulative = 8800 Level 3 : XP Cost = 17200 , Cumulative = 26000 Level 4 : XP Cost = 51500 , Cumulative = 77500 [Multi Arrow] Level 1 : XP Cost = 1000 , Cumulative = 1000 Level 2 : XP Cost = 5140 , Cumulative = 6140 Level 3 : XP Cost = 19500 , Cumulative = 25640 Level 4 : XP Cost = 47000 , Cumulative = 72640 [Magic Power] Level 1 : XP Cost = 500 , Cumulative = 500 Level 2 : XP Cost = 1200 , Cumulative = 1700 Level 3 : XP Cost = 2800 , Cumulative = 4500 Level 4 : XP Cost = 6200 , Cumulative = 10700 Level 5 : XP Cost = 11500 , Cumulative = 22200 Level 6 : XP Cost = 25000 , Cumulative = 47200 Level 7 : XP Cost = 54000 , Cumulative = 101200 There you go. I hope my hard work and persistance with the numbers there hasn't gone entirely to waste. I know it should prove an important record for my ownuses, even if not everyone is as entirely obsessed with getting the numbersright as I am. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [4.00] <(( Experience, Age and Appearance ))> This is just one of those things which happens to be purely aesthetic in Fable. Before I get started here I would like to note a few things, in numerical order since thats my style: #1. The maximum age of the game is 65. After you reach that grand old number,you never age any more... unless for some reason you become more youthful. More on that later. #2. It has already been noted that its purely aesthetic. Your age only makes a difference to the way you look and that little number in your Personality screen. It makes absolutely zero difference to the rest of the game as far as I'm aware. #3. You do not die of old age. Not ever. Kinda counters the fact that you can't have children either, supposedly. #4. Nobody else in the game ages, or at least not properly. Other charactersthat are young when you're a child at the start are adults when you're an adult later, but thats the only difference. While you can become a white-haired and wrinkly OAP, they only become 'adult'. You can watch meet kids in Bowerstone South when you're 18, come back when you're 65 and they're still kids. Doesn't make sense, but some things are just like that. #5. There are some mild spoilers in this chapter. That out of the way, we can get to the purpose of this section of the guide... [4.01] -~{ Experience and Age }~- Simply put, your age is, but for one exception (which is a spoiler to be noted soon), entirely dependant on your experience and the spending thereof. I suspected at first that the appearance-based aspect of age might be dependant upon experience gained, but then I realised that the changes I saw were attributable to something else. What is certain though is that your age changes when you spend experience, and that your appearance changes very gradually with your age, much to a degree you would expect it to. One calculation I have yet to do (but may do at some point) is to find out precisely how much experience it takes to get to age 65, and to some degree what the ratio is of experience spent to years gained. I'm 100% certain that there is a positive correlation there though. It does make some level of sense in some respects. In the classic non-game sense, you do gain experience with age (rather perhaps than the other way around), and that the older you are the wiser you are or something like that. Rest assured, if like me you attempt to level up as quickly as possible and gain heavy portions of experience before tackling the various (few) quests of the game, you will inevitably find yourself an OAP for the greater portion of its duration. If (like me) you don't much like the look that gives you, then you can do something about it about halfway through the game. [4.02] -~{ Age and Alignment to Appearance }~- As already noted, the whole matter of age is aesthetic. It changes the way you look, and not a great deal else. Now the precise change made by age alone to appearance isn't the easiest thing to explain as there is another important factor which changes often at a similar rate throughout the game: alignment. The two basic things which change the way you look, direct levelling influences and style choices (haircuts, tattoos and clothing) aside, are age and alignment. The alignment appearance differences at the extremes can be striking, as even people who have only heard of Fable might know. There is also a subtle interplay between the two aspects though. Being evil will most obviously gain you horns which start small when you're slightly evil, and get pretty large by the time your evil scale maxes out. The horns themselves will, unless you choose the bald route for sake of being 'attractive', result as well in a receding of the hairline relative to their size (the bigger your horns, the further back your hair starts). Don't worry if you go evil and plan on going back to neutral or good, as your hair comes back the way it was. Evil characters generally have an unpleasant expression on their faces, an evil grin or frown or whatever. The more evil you become, the more unhealthy your skin will look, going perhaps a bit yellowed at first then becoming more veiny, cracked and eventually covered in 'burnt' patches on your forehead (around the horns), hands and feet. The final aspects of pure evil are red smoke around the feet, flies that circle around you, red glow from the eyes, and what isn't always obvious: black eyes themselves (behind the glow). Note also that the hair of an evil character will generically be black in colour, though this is also the default for pure neutral characters Being good doesn't quite have so many glaringly obvious influences upon your appearance, though a few are particularly notable. Your skin will become slightly lighter in tone the more good you are, and generally will look healthier though not by much (more apparent early on in the game). The expression of a good character is usually a fairly caring or benevolant-looking one, though you might just think (as I do) that it makes them look dopey. At the extremes of goodness, your character will gain a halo which manifests when he stands still, as well as a little collection of ethereal butterflies (which sometimes land on his nose, though he doesn't seem to notice). In darker areas you can also see smaller faint motes of light floating around above the character. The most important aspect of being a good character as regards this chapter is the hair colour, since as you become more good, your hair goes from black through shades of brown to a very distinct blonde. Now... a young character, you know what they look like basically because they are the default. Its how you start out. The effects of age on appearance are as follows: Your hair will get lighter in tone and lower in saturation. That is to say it gets lighter and greyer. Your skin will also lose its colouration and become rougher in texture. Tattoos will gradually fade and battle-scars will lose their colouration too, becoming more skin-colour. To some extent your character looks a little bit more wrinkled, though this has as much to do with other aspects as it does with age. The interplay here is mostly in the skin effects and hair colour. Being older gives you lighter hair, as does being more good, while being more evil gives you darker hair. Therefore a young evil character would have pure black hair while an old evil character would have dark grey hair. A young good character has striking blonde hair while an old good character has hair as white as chalk. In general, old good characters end up looking very white in just about all aspects, and if you add in the glow of Physical Shield and the effects of the lamp switched on, the character becomes a human glowstick practically. On the flipside, few things look quite as unhealthy as an old evil character. Combine together the cracking, the veins, the roughness, the discolouration, the burnt patches, the old scars and you end up looking a bit of a mess. Thats alright if you want to seem particularly inhuman. Thats about that really... but theres still more. [4.03] -~{ Attributes to Appearance }~- Levelling up has another direct effect upon your appearance quite aside from the increase in age. It actually states so in the descriptions for the difference attribute categories. Some aspects of it are more obvious than others though, and theres only really two main things to consider here. Strength attributes have the most profound effect upon your character's build. Many people seem curious as to how to get more muscles in the game, though I'm forever wishing not to get them. The answer isn't quite what most are expecting. Physique does play a part, yes, but its not all the part. If you watch the video for the Health attribute, you might be left thinking that was it, but thats not entirely it either. What determines the build of your character is dependant on ALL levels gained in Strength attributes cumulatively, that being Physique, Health and Toughness. You start out the game scrawny and with a head too big in proportion to your body when you leave the Hero's Guild for the first time. If you max out all the Strength attributes later on in the game, it leaves you looking like Arnie on steroids (especially in certain outfits). As far as I'm aware, all levels have an equal and not exponential effect upon the musculature of your character. That is to say that 2 levels of Physique, 2 levels of Health and 2 levels of Toughness should have roughly the same effect as 6 levels of Physique alone. There isn't much more to say on that matter. It SAYS that gaining levels in Skill attributes makes you sleeker and more lithe. I cannot yet confirm this though, as any difference it does make to appearance is apparently too subtle for me to be able to work out. I suspect it wouldn't say such without good reason though, and if anyone can tell me for sure the effect of raising Skill levels on appearance then e-mail me. ~ Update: I could be completely wrong here, but I believe adding points to Skill attributes makes your character taller. Characters start off comparitively short and when maxed out are taller than almost anyone else in the game. Having made a character who has maxed out Skill attributes and not put ANY points into Strength attributes, I've found that the character has still gained height. This is purely theoretical for the time being though. Raising Will attributes (spells and Magic Power) has the other profound effect upon appearance. Everyone will have seen Maze's markings at the start of the game. I'll tell you right off the bat that your own markings will never look as extreme (and high-contrast) as Maze's ones, but they can become considerably more intricate. A non-magical character will have no such markings, and they take quite a lot of levelling to manifest. Before that, you might start to notice that your character's hands start to give off an ethereal blue glow, and his skin colouration will seem a little odd (which can be mistaken for other effects caused by becoming older and / or more good). A bit more Will-experience spending later, and these colouration differences begin to stand out a little more distinctly and the hand glow becomes brighter. If you are looking for a neat set of tattoos that cover the entire body, all you need do is completely max out all your Will attributes. By the end of it you have a distinct set of light-blue body-markings all over, and two brightly glowing hands (block to bring them together and make the glow brighter). Oh, and one more thing: lots of Will levelling makes your eyes the same shade of blue too, though not the same flowy, glowy way that the red comes when you're particularly evil. It just clouds a blueness over your eyes until eventually the pupils are a little difficult to discern. [4.04] -~{ Error 404 }-~ This has no relevence whatsoever, but shows my twisted sense of humour. [4.05] -~{ Total Appearance Factors }~- Heres the list of all the things that affect the way you look. Enjoy, or don't. Whatever suits. #1. Age - Hair and skin colour #2. Alignment - Hair and skin colour, special features #3. Attributes - Bodysize (build), blue tattoos, hand / eye glow #4. Weight - Stomach size #5. Clothing - Bodily decoration #6. Weapons - Bodily decoration #7. Hairstyle - Head hair shape, chin hair shape, lip hair shape #8. Tattoos - Dark (or coloured) skin markings #9. Armour Cover - Influences scarring #10. Spells - Blue glow (Physical shield), huge muscles & red colouration (Berserk) That should be about it. If I've missed anything out, e-mail me. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [5.00] <(( Levelling Up - Places and Means ))> So what good is an experience guide that doesn't tell you how to aquire the aforementioned experience? This isn't supposed to be a walkthrough of the game by any means, and the information in this chapter is based mostly on my personal experiences but with a few loosely intersperced additions of second-hand info that I've picked up during my short time at the Fable GameFAQs boards (I suppose it also includes things that I found out there and tested myself that I might not have found automatically without guidance). What this section IS supposed to tell you, in fairly clear and easy terms, is where you can go to get some quick and easy levelling up done, so that you too can be maxed out before you get to Witchwood (and perhaps even before you get to Twinblade). Not to say that I'm going to cut it short at either of those points though. Lets just get on with it. [5.01] -~{ General Tactics }~- This certainly could have done with being covered earlier, but thats not important. In just about any game in which you gain experience and 'level up' or somesuch, theres usually a preferred and idealised means of doing so which is generally more efficient than just randomly going around and killing stuff. Naturally, in Fable there are certain things you can do to make the experience gaining process easier, and certain things you should know. Naturally, the most straightforward ways of gaining various experience sorts are through killing things, and the particular cases will be covered here, along with general ending notes. -~- Strength Experience For hitting an enemy with your melee weapon, you get a base value of 3 Strength Experience. This is the same regardless of what weapon you choose. Naturally, the higher your combat multiplier, the more experience you'll get for each hit, that being 3x your combat multiplier. I believe executing a more damaging hit upon an opponent results in a higher combat multiplier boost, but effectively if you are quick you should get the same total boost regardless of how many hits it takes for you to kill the enemy. Not only that, but changing the damage of your hit with a melee weapon requires changing the weapon itself. Its safe to say that the more times you hit an enemy, the more Strength Experience you're going to get from it, hence if you want to take the risk, the best way of getting a lot of Strength Experience is to use a weak weapon, such as the Iron Longsword, or if you're daring... the Stick. Just remember that unless you have the Physical Shield spell active, you're in danger of getting hit and losing your combat multiplier the longer you tarry around though. Don't forget to combat-roll a lot against evasive opponents like the stronger bandits, and its usually much more effective against a group of them if you do NOT use the left trigger button to target them (not only that, but if you don't target, you won't hit friendly NPCs) but instead direct toward them quickly with the analogue stick. Just keep rolling frequently to avoid being hit, and beware those few enemies like Balvarines who can catch you in a roll. There may be ONE exception to the 3-strength-per-hit rule, and I believe that comes with using your bare fists, though I may be wrong. Don't bother either way, as its risky, and I believe it only gives one strength per hit. -~- Skill Experience The base value for hitting an enemy with an arrow or bolt is 6 Skill Experience, and this is completely irrespective of how long you hold the string back for. So yes, you get the same experience per hit if you just fire a quick arrow as if you hold the string for three minutes and let go. Since bows give you a great deal of control over how much damage you can do, theres practically no need to switch weapons at any point, or even use a particularly weak weapon. Your best bet for getting a lot of Skill Experience is to work yourself up a meaty combat multiplier with heavy shots on a few enemies in quick succession, then when you're satisfied with it, lay into them with a barrage of quickfire low-damage shots which will rack up the Skill Experience. Just remember not to let the enemies get too close to you as you want to avoid getting hit, and learn to combat roll to avoid ranged attacks like bandit arrows or hobbe-lobbers (my name for those blue ball things). Get the hang of charging arrows while rolling to quickly lay the damage down on the enemy. If you happen to be fighting a Troll, either Earth or Rock, you might want to try the old three- minute trick to get a whopping combat multiplier... that is before approaching the troll, you start charging the arrow and continue holding it on the string for around three minutes, and when you finally release it, the damage done is huge and can kill a Rock Troll in one hit. Just remember that while the three-minute shot gets you a massive combat multiplier, its still only the one shot. -~- Mana Experience The basic way you could do this is by frying a lot of enemies with offensive spells like lightning, fireball and enflame, but unless you're talking about the wholesale NPC slaughter near the Boasting platform with Force Push (see section 5.05 #3) its usually much easier to use another method. And that other method involves a high combat multiplier, lots of mana potions, and the Summon Spell {3xp per activation} (though activating and deactivating Physical Shield works in a pinch {5xp per activation, none for deactivation}). Rack up your combat multiplier through whatever means to an epic level, ensure you have a full mana bar, then rapid-fire the Summon spell over and over again until you run out of mana. If your combat multiplier is still high, refill your mana quickly and continue. If you have a nicely itchy trigger-thumb (or finger), you should find your mana experience sky-rocketting. Of course, this may seem a bit of an unfair method to some people, and not inkeeping with the spirit of the game. In that case I strongly recommend using a high level Enflame spell on large groups of enemies in tight spaces where possible to crank up that heavy experience quickly. Best use Physical Shield to avoid losing combat multipliers (you might as well if you're going to restore your mana with potions), or else just stay rapid with the Enflame so your enemies don't get a chance to recover. Just remember that different spells give you different mana experience... I couldn't possibly list them all here. -~- General Experience This one is easy enough. Those little green balls that the enemies drop when you kill them. You knew that already though. Different enemies drop different amounts of general experience depending on their type. Killing tougher enemies will net you more general experience. This much is also obvious. Besides that, the only thing that makes a difference here is the good old combat multiplier. Rack that up high enough, and all the general experience gets multiplied up to higher values. There are tricks to it though. As you already know, general experience is the only type that drops in the orbs, and thus you don't automatically pick it up when you make the kill. It tends to flocculate (stick together) into larger orbs and roll downhill if you leave it alone. Unfortunately, if you leave it along long enough without collecting it then it fades away and is lost forever. Now the trick to this is to wait to pick up your collection of general experience until you've racked up the very highest combat multiplier that you can get, as then it will apply to all the experience orbs you pick up, rather than picking them up early when you have a lower multiplier. Just be careful not to lose that multiplier before you pick up the experience or the plan messes up entirely. Practice your combat-rolls or use Physical Shield to avoid that. -+- Other Notes A little something I discovered recently has proven itself rather a useful indicator, though how I managed to avoid noticing it before I'm not sure. If you go to your Experience screen (Back > Statistics > Experience) you can see the brightly coloured bars showing you how high your levels are in each attribute. If you look carefully to the right of that you may notice darker faded-colour bars before it becomes black completely. These faded bars indicate how high you could potentially raise the attribute in question if you were to dedicate all possible experience to it, and can show you simply if you have enough experience to level something up. For instance, if you have Speed Lvl.3, 3000 General Experience and 2000 Skill Experience, then the little faded portion of the Speed bar should lie just over the line for level 4. Don't forget though... Just because all faded bars for a group might appear to be maxed out does not mean you can necessarily max out all three of them. More likely just one or two if you're lucky. [5.02] -~{ Gear }~- Lots of this stuff is just general equipment you find through the game and has no particularly special relevance to gaining experience or levelling up, but I might as well mention it as its all an integral part of getting the most out of the game as you can (i.e. becoming ludicrously powerful well before you're supposed to). I suppose I should list the important things in order of relevance to the guide from most to least then. Here goes. #1. The Murren Greathammer - With the right exploitation of the Hero Save trick (noted shortly, for those who don't know), this item can be obtained very early on in the game and proves useful right up until the point where the character is maxed out. It is, as the name implies, the legendary Greathammer-type weapon of the game. Being as its a heavy weapon you need a Physique score of at least 3 to wield it properly. It is as far as I know, the 3rd most powerful melee weapon in the game behind the Sword of Aeons and the Solus Greatsword, making it an effective artifact in its own right. What makes it particularly useful here is that it has a built in Experience Augmentation right from the start, meaning that when this weapon is equipped, you get more experience, which is precisely what we want. The only other experience augmentations in the game are in the Sword of Aeons and for sale at Hook Coast respectively, both of which are far too late to be of much use. Location: Inside a 20 Silver Key chest in the Heroes Guild, between the melee training ground and the bridge to the Will training ground. #2. Red Meat / Carrots / Fish - Basic food worth stockpiling if for its Health restorative properties if nothing else. Theres something which sets meat, carrots and fish apart from other food though: they give you experience. Eating meat will give you Strength experience, carrots will give you Skill experience, and eating fish will give you Will experience (the white ones more than the orange ones). None give you very much (about 3 each as I recall), but if you consider how cheap and easy to aquire they all are (meat can be found about the place and fish can be aquired by fishing with a rod, and all can be bought from produce traders about the place), they can be considered a reasonable source of experience. Its best to stockpile them where you can buy them cheaply. The average going price for meat is 14, and for fish is 12, but in some places you can get them as low is 4 or 5 gold each, which generally means you should buy the whole stock. Carrots I believe are naturally cheaper than the other two, but I don't remember by how much. Whenever you get a Combat Multiplier of above 15, its worth scoffing a few of whichever. If you get your multiplier above 30, which shouldn't happen too often, then scoff your entire supply in one go I recommend. ~ Update: I was wrong about something before. How 'fat' you are as a result of your eating habits DOES make a difference to your appearance, though its only minor. It doesn't change your build any, but the 'fatter' you are, the more your belly protrudes, and by the time you've got to obese you tend to have quite the beer-belly going on. It can be easily worn off by exercise though, and doesn't show through heavy armour. Incidentally, people do seem to make comments occasionally based on your weight. Location: Various traders, in barrels, dropped by balverines and other creatures, fished up with a rod, etc. #3. Ages of Strength / Skill / Will Potions - These are rather rare, so when you do get them its worth saving them until you really need them. Each potion when drunk gives you a base value of 100 of the relevant experience. They are influenced as with all experience things by combat multipliers though, so the best time to drink them is when you have your multiplier at its highest, and never lower than 20. Location: Fished up from rippled water, found in barrels, rarely about the place, etc. #4. Experience Augmentation - Aquired a bit too late in the game to be particularly useful, but if you still have some levelling up to do later on then this can get it right out of the way quick as you blink. The only one of these in the game not already built into a weapon is at Hook Coast, which you only access right near the end of the game. It is worth noting however that you first access Hook Coast during a quest, and since there is only one of these, you CAN just Hero Save trick to buy it over and over and over. Fill up a Master Weapon with these (costs about 135000), and you'll have the perfect weapon for getting the last of whatever experience you might possibly need. Location: Purchased from the weapons shop at Hook Coast for about 45000 gold. #5. Skorm's Bow - The most powerful ranged weapon in the game, and you can aquire it as soon as you leave the Heroes Guild (if you fancy a bit of a challenge), or at least before you do your first Guild quest. Theres practically whole FAQs on how to aquire the bow, but I've never had much trouble since I think I know the gist of it. Generally speaking, it helps to start the gaming being good, as the more good you are, the more easily you get the bow. Getting as good as you feel like getting, make a visit to Bowerstone South first of all, then just having activated the Cullis Gate, nip on south to Darkwood. Fight your way through to the Darkwood Camp, then take the path from there to Skorm's Temple. The trick here is you need to have someone following you. A mercenary (even the psycho from Bowerstone South's tavern) should do fine, or one of the two merchants who start the later quest through Darkwood with you if you wait that long. Provided you're good enough, you sacrifice your follower at some time after midnight (supposedly the closer to 6am without going over, the better) by talking to the hooded man in the temple. For the exceptionally dull-witted, midnight is when the upward arrow points to the middle of the dark region on the timer clock, the divider line being horizontal... while 6am is when the divider line is vertical with the dark side on the left and the yellow side on the right (i.e. as night is turning into day). If you're good enough already (thus have that much more evil to become) and sacrifice at a good time then you should get the bow. From that point onward you need never change your ranged weapon again (unless you are a mage who feels like getting a Master Bow with Mana Augmentations). Location : Skorm's Temple #6. Silver Keys - Used to open Silver Key Chests, but you probably knew that already. You'll need plenty of these, the full 20 will do, though you don't have to gain them legitimately. You can easily get 20 by Hero Saving and repeating either the first Orchard Farm quest or the Hobbe Cave quest later on (easier). I won't list all of them, but the one in Orchard Farm is fished from the water just beyond the end of the last jetty at the eastmost point beyond the orchard itself, and the first one in the Hobbe Cave quest is dug up in the ring of flowers to the left of the building at Rose Cottage (theres another one in a ring of mushrooms in the deepest room of Hobbe Cave, but wheres the point in going all that way over and over just for the second silver key?). You'll need 20 Silver Keys for the chest in the Heroes Guild that contains the Murren Greathammer, and that will suffice for any other chests you find about the place too, including the 15-key one which contains the Katana Hiryu in Lady Grey's bedroom. Location: Various. See above. #7. Solus Greatsword - The most powerful heavy weapon in the game, and by far the most powerful weapon overall with the ONE exception of the Sword of Aeons, but that one doesn't really count anyway. The Solus is a truly funky-looking weapon with a wavey blade, coloured in hot tones and rippling with flame. It has a whopping 314 power and can cut through most enemies like a knife through butter. With its Health Augmentation it also regenerates your Health bar while running around, so you can save your food for emergencies. It CAN be aquired early on in the game, but doing so is a challenge as you aren't 'supposed' to be able to get it until after the Arena later on. This is of course because its located in Bowerstone North, and costs a hefty sum of money to aquire (though supposedly later on, if you marry Lady Grey, she can give it to you randomly as a gift). Its not so important as to require immediate aquisition early on though provided you have the Murren Greathammer, but its always nice to get. If you have the skill with the digging glitch, then I'd suggest as soon as you've completed the wasp Quest early on and met Maze in Bowerstone, that you get playing Card Pairs in Bowerstone South tavern to build up your cash to 90000 (takes a little practice and a lot of patience), then nip round the back of the tavern and dig your way to Bowerstone North. Save yourself the trouble of doing it again by heading to Lychfield Graveyard and back, then buy the sword from the shop. You won't regret it. Location: Purchased at the general shop in Bowerstone North for approximately 85000 gold, or given as a present by Lady Grey when married to her. #8. The Katana Hiryu - I'm mentioning this because it is the most powerful katana in the game, and with the exception of the Sword of Aeons its also the most powerful light weapon in the game, meaning that its exceptionally quick. It has a power rating of 215, a fair 99 under the Solus Greatsword, but that doesn't make it much less useful, especially against quick opponents like White Balverines. Plus of course you don't need a Physique of 3 to wield it. Its every bit as difficult as the Solus Greatsword to aquire, though not as much as some might think. If you intend to get it later on in the game as you're supposed to, then you HAVE to marry Lady Grey in order to get at it (as it resides in her bedroom), but if you dig into Bowerstone North before you're supposed to, you can access Bowerstone Manor and the bedroom already. You can get this weapon at least after the first Orchard Farm quest if you Hero Saved to collect the Silver Keys. Location: In a 15 Silver Key chest behind the bed in Lady Grey's Bedroom, within Bowerstone Manor, Bowerstone North. #9. Assassin Suit - The entire thing, if you so wish to aquire it, can be gained in Twinblade's camp, and there is no other place before or after where you can get the whole thing. You might have aquired boots or gloves before then, and the trousers are in a chest in Twinblade's elite camp, but the rest is bought from one of the traders in Twinblade's camp. And why might you want this one suit in particular? Besides the fact that it looks damnably cool, its perhaps the best outfit in the game for sneaking around in. Its a bit evil and a bit scary, so don't wear it if you're trying to impress people, but I could not recommend any better clothing for sneaking into peoples houses and robbing them blind. Don't forget to have a few points of Guile too though, as this won't do it all for you. Location: Purchased from leftmost merchant in Twinblade's Camp. [5.03] -~{ Moneymaking }~- Just a minor section this, hopefully. You'll need money for many things in Fable, so I might as well list a few quick and easy ways of aquiring it. #1. Card Pairs - In the tavern of Bowerstone South, which you can get to as soon as you leave the Guild, there is a guy who will play 'Card Pairs' with you. This is essentially the one way I make most of my money for most of the game. You could play other tavern minigames throughout Albion, but this always seems the easiest to me, as well as the first encountered. The game is quite simple, if you haven't encountered it. You have 16 cards laid out before you face down, and turning over 2 at a time you have to match them up in pairs (8 pairs total) before the time runs out. The time limit is 40 second. Now lets consider this... The maximum bet is 1000 gold, so thats how much you can get per round. My record for Card Pairs is 14.3 seconds, and my average game takes around 20 seconds (plenty of practice). Thats 1000 gold every 20 seconds. It adds up quickly. Of course, you need a reasonable memory, a lot of patience and some sort of a system to be particularly profitable at this minigame, and if you can't manage that then you might have to try some other means of making money. #2. Rent - You can purchase houses in the game. Theres usually one upgradable house in each town which you can buy, and then pay to upgrade. You can then rent these houses out for money, deposited in front of the sale sign every day (maximum 3 days collection). The more upgraded the house, and the better the trophies hung up in it on the boards, the more rent you'll get. You can also aquire and rent just about every other house and shop in the game too, but that requires the removal of the existing tennants. First of all, I don't suggest you buy the shops or taverns at all, but that said, the houses are useful and needn't be upgraded. There are effectively three ways you can remove the tennants: Firstly, if you're charismatic enough (being good / attractive / reknowned helps) you can get people to follow you. Just take them outside of the town and tell them to wait. Their house will be waiting for you when you get back. Secondly, if you're evil enough and don't care about the consequences, you can go on a slaughter rampage through the town, openly killing people left, right and center without regard for the guards or their stupid fines. Be warned though that the slaughter approach will leave everyone who witnesses it (except the guards) terrified of you forevermore, which leads to them making stupid shrieking noises whenever you come near them... and yes, they remember when they respawn too, poor people. The third and perhaps preferred option for an evil character who doesn't want people yipping like idiots is subtle assassination. This involves eliminating everyone in the town one by one without the guards finding out. Its usually necessary to isolate the victims one by one where nobody else can see them and headshot them with a bow. Once the people are evicted, buy the houses, set them to rent and wait. Once three days are passed (slept away in a house for instance), just run past every house in the town, collecting the rent... rest and repeat. Easy money. Oakvale and Knothole Glade are good places to do this. Be warned though. If you take too long aquiring the cash to purchase the houses in a town, the people will respawn and you'll have to get rid of them all over again (takes about 2 or 3 days). #3. Trophy Trick - See those upgradable houses I mentioned before? It goes like this: Buy house. Go inside. Break the doors. Put up your most valuable trophies on any available boards. Go outside. Sell the house. Go back inside and retrieve the trophies. Repeat. There is a downside to this: Any tennants you have renting the house will be temporarily evicted and it takes about 2 days for them to come back. Thats 2 days with no rent. Can make a difference. #4. Quests - How you're 'supposed' to get money. Theres several subpoints to make though. Firstly, in a quest area, leave all the goodies alone for Hero Save aquisition later, such as the 1500 gold you can get through the Hobbe Cave quest, over and over (don't forget to cut down the weeds next to the house before you take the quest if you're being good though). Secondly, boasting gets you extra money if you can live up to it, and Physical Shield will help you live up to the 'Not a Scratch' boast where it shows up. Thirdly, the Arena... If you leave after you beat the rock trolls, Hero Save and repeat, thats an easy 18000 gold and lots of experience. #5. Resale - Some people just love this way of making money. It can even net you Skill experience, though unless you have a combat multiplier then it won't make a huge difference to your game. If you're not sure precisely what I mean, I refer to buying things from one trader and selling them at a profit to another. The thing is that it can be unreliable at best. Some things are cheaper from certain traders and more profitable to sell to others. Travelling traders are always new, so you can sell to them and they won't keep the items in order to reduce your profit next time, but it can be a challenge to find just the right travelling trader, as there are quite a lot of them and they're entirely random. If you insist on trying it though, the Rubies in Knothole Glade, Diamonds in Bowerstone North and Sapphires in Hook Coast are supposedly the way to go for the big money (good luck finding the right buyers though). [5.04] -~{ Glitches and Tricks }~- More useful aspects to the game that are used simply as a means of getting at what you need, though not necessarily linked directly to experience and its aquisition. In some way though, this can make a big difference. Theres only really two main things to exploit in the game, but there are many ways in which to exploit them. Pay attention if you don't already know. #1. Hero Saving - Its a simple enough concept to work out, yet is entirely exploitable in the most extreme of ways. It goes something like this: When you Hero Save, i.e. save during a gold or silver quest (when World Save isn't an option), it records your character statistics and inventory. What it doesn't record is the state of the world and the changes you've made to it, such as what you've removed from it or added to it, hence when you reload (from the Hero Save), those items are still in the world, even if you took them out of it the first time. What does this mean? Well simply it means that you can start a quest, aquire all the various loot from areas the quest takes you through, and before completing the quest you Hero Save and immediately reload from that save. You're back at the start of the quest with all the items you gained from it and you can go back and get them again. More money, more semirare items, and most importantly more experience. This is particularly useful for aquiring Augmentations, Silver Keys and certain larger-than-usual stashes of money. Theres one thing it doesn't work on though: Legendaries. Hero Saving won't save any legendary weapons you might have aquired. #2. The Dig Glitch - First you need a spade. You can get one of these at the earliest in Darkwood Camp, so you might as well head there at least as soon as you've done the Wasp quest. Once you have the spade, its safe to say you have a very useful tool. Theres a few things you should know about digging. Firstly, when you finish doing it, you're always facing North as I recall. Secondly, you can only do it on bare ground, as opposed to concrete, paving slabs etc. Thirdly, and the key factor here, is that when you dig, whichever way your character was facing when he started digging, when he finishes he will be a very short distance back from that point. This works much like the old Dreamcast PSO trick that let you get through locked doors backward. By facing yourself away from anything which directly impedes your progress (by blocking your motion), you can (provided you're on bare ground) dig and take a tiny step backward through it. Tap your analogue stick very gently once on the other side to rotate yourself on the spot to face away from the direction you want to go and dig again. Repeat until you are through the barrier. #3. Respawning NPCs - The spade can do something else useful too. Lookout Point is a particularly special place in that it spawns random NPC commoners for the purposes of cheering you on when you have something to boast about. Provided you have a quest taken that you can boast on, there will always be people at Lookout Point (outside the Heroes Guild) when you go there. But theres more. If you dig in Lookout Point, anywhere around the boasting pedestal is good, more people will respawn there in addition to those already there. You can keep digging over and over to make more and more people, and you'll know roughly how many by the little eye thing which shows how many people are aware of you. Don't go over 100 as things get seriously glitchy there. So, the point of summoning so many people? Firstly, you can show them your trophies for some major reknown, and since they should mostly be grouped in one place its easy enough. Secondly, this is the easiest place in the whole world to perform acts of mass slaughter with absolutely no consequences and become horribly evil, and as a side-result its also a good experience-gathering point for evil characters, as will be noted later. #4. Early Bowerstone North - When you first try to get into Bowerstone North, inevitably before you complete the Arena (which is when you're given official access), you'll be told by the Guard where to stick it, essentially. However, it is possible to get into the region immediately after the Wasp quest, assuming you have the spade. There are others who have put serious effort into explaining this, so I'll only make this one short. Go behind the tavern by the cellar door and dig-glitch your way backward up the slope toward the wall where the dirt goes a bit over it. Dig-glitch carefully right through the wall, through all three planes of it to the grassy area the other side. From there, sneak (important) over to next wall to your right (the sneaking can be difficult, so move the analogue stick around until you get it). Dig backward through that wall too (the south-to-north wall) and you'll find yourself in the area leading to Bowerstone North. Walk toward the opening leading back to Bowerstone South and you'll hit the loading screen. If you don't hit the loading screen, its probably because you attempted this before the Wasp quest, and it doesn't exist before then... sorry. Once you're in Bowerstone North its highly recommended that you head out through the northwest gate and make your way through Bowerstone Jail, Windmill Hill, Gibbet Woods, Headsman's Hill and to Lychfield Graveyard in order to activate the Cullis Gate there. That way you can come back later without all that stupid digging. There are undead along the path to and from the graveyard even if you're weak, but they shouldn't be too tough to kill. If you're a bit stronger you'll get bandits in some places instead and they're a bit tougher to beat. The best reasons to get to Bowerstone North so early in the game are the two weapons: the Solus Greatsword and the Katana Hiryu, locations noted earlier. #5. Silver Key Quests - This has already been mentioned in the Gear section of the chapter, but its worth mentioning again here. The two best places to use the Hero Save trick to get Silver Keys are in Orchard Farm and Rose Cottage. There are two quests taking place at Orchard Farm, though both are on a bit of a timer and you'll not want to get the Silver Key while attempting the quests properly. The key is off the end of the jetty in the water in the area over the bridge beyond the orchard to the east. Theres also a Will Master's Elixir in the pool of water near the house to fish up while you're getting the key, so you might as well get that a few times too. The other key spot is in the Hobbe Cave quest. If you're only after the key, you need only take the quest, run into the Rose Cottage area, dig it up from the ring of flowers near the house and Hero Save... load... repeat. It is however worth getting the chest of 500 gold further back near the house at least, if not going into Hobbe Cave itself to get another 1000 gold, a Flame Augmentation and beat up a load of Hobbes for easy experience. Be warned, beating up Hobbes is good, so if you're evil you might have to compensate. #6. Twinblade's Camp Empty Quest - This is a bit of a dodgy one. Firstly, you need access to Oakvale. Whether you've spoken to Maze there or not isn't so important, but just make sure you don't go and take the Blind Seeress quest card from the Guild yet. Having got that far, go through the cave on the beach to get to the path beyond where you'll make your way uneventfully through to a pair of unpassable gates, or at least thats what they think. Dig-glitch back through the gates to be able to go to the next area. You'll find yourself along a so-called Abandoned Road (I believe), and it really is abandoned at the moment. Of importance here, moreso than running blindly from one end to the next, are the chests along the way that contain the pieces of the bandit costume, the only one in the game. Keep all of those and make your way to the next area. This is Twinblade's camp. Most importantly though, this is where there is a Cullis Gate, and you just activated it. You can dig through to the camp itself if you like and purchase the assassin gear if you so wish, but you'll be back here soon anyway. Now... Teleport back to the guild and pick up that quest card. The Blind Seeress quest is now yours. I recommend boasting for it, and I don't know if the usual ones make any difference at all, such as doing it naked etc. Boast all you like really, in order to make the most money. Now teleport STRAIGHT BACK to Twinblade's Camp. If you recall inside the gates, all the better, but if you arrive outside the gates you'll have to talk to the guy beside them with the bandit gear on. Blah blah blah. The rest of the quest until its end is like it would normally be, and I won't spoil it for you. Do what you need to get to Twinblade's Tent and defeat him as usual, and when you're done (either killing him or walking out) you'll have completed the quest... which is odd, since you never got the screen for starting it. You'll notice here that it counts all the experience you've aquired in the game thus far, as well as the gold and reknown, as 'quest' stuff. Well since you've finished the quest... you might as well start it. This is where you go back to Oakvale, enter that cave again to get back to the path... and you'll get the start of the Blind Seeress quest with the bandits you have to sneak past etc... and the quest screen will be blank. From now on you can just continue with the game as normal, but only being able to Hero Save. The point is that this counts as a Hero Save trick for the entire world. You can go through the game, Hero Save and load at any time to repeat from just after the Twinblade quest along with all you aquired in the meanwhile. This is important in certain locations. Supposedly you can even do it complete the entire game, get the Sword of Aeons then go back and use this sword throughout the game again, but I've never bothered to try that. ~ Update: WARNING. I've been informed that once you start the empty quest (i.e. go to Clifftop Path and are told you have to sneak past the bandits), that if you do actually sneak past them and continue to the Abandoned Road, that you may get a black screen from which you cannot escape. It is thus advised that you DO NOT attempt to access the Abandoned Road while in the empty quest for ANY REASON (this includes the Lost Trader quest later on in the game). Confirmation of this would be helpful. #7. Infinite Mana Augmentations - This requires that you've done glitchy tricks numbers 4, 5 and 6 first. You'll need a spade and at least 15 Silver Keys for this. You will also need to either open up the empty quest at Twinblade's Camp or be on the first Find the Archaeologist quest to work this, as well as having gained access to Bowerstone North (or more specifically Headsman's Hill), so having activated the Cullis Gate at Lychfield Graveyard helps. So lets start. Outside of any quests now, head to Headsman's Hill via whatever route you wish. At the point where there is no fence at the top of the cliff (where Thunder should later knock you over), turn your back to it and dig-glitch off the edge of the cliff (easy since you're headed South, and digging leaves you facing North). When you're a short distance down, just force-sneak (sneaking and wiggling the analogue stick if you get stuck to the right direction) down the cliff-face right to the bottom. Head into Headsman's Cave. You can see the chest right before you, but do NOT open it yet. It may be worth saving here in case you get something wrong. Teleport to Oakvale and immediately save and reload from the quest there. The reason you save and reload is to keep Headsman's cave available easily as the recall point for when you teleport. From Oakvale, either head into the entrance on the beach to start the empty quest (activated in #6) or start the 'Find the Archaeologist' quest if you have that card as I believe that works just as well. Once you've started the quest, immediately Recall back to Headsman's Cave. Open that chest and get the Mana Augmentation. Hero Save and Reload it. You should find yourself back in Oakvale with Headsman's Cave as the Recall point. Repeat the quest start, Recall and chest system until you've got as many augmentations as you like. VERY nice in Master Weapons if you choose to be a Mage and want constantly recharging Mana. Not so nice to sell, since only one place buys them (Hook Coast weapon shop). ~ Update: If you're doing this via the 'Find the Archaeologist' quest, its important to be careful of your teleporting. Make sure that when you teleport from Headsman's Cave to the next area (it needn't be Oakvale for this case) that its an area with a Cullis Gate. Save and reload from the savegame, then STEP INTO THE CULLIS GATE to go to Witchwood and start the quest. If you teleport with your Guild Seal to Witchwood, then your current location will be saved as the recall point, and you won't be able to recall to Headsman's Cave. #8. Restoring Youth - Theres a good reason why in passing I said earlier that you might want to get all your attributes maxed before you go to Witchwood. The reason for this is that if by this point in the game you've spent all the experience you're going to spend, then you won't age any, so its the perfect time to reverse the aging process if you want to look young forever. Its simple enough. Both the temples of Skorm and Avo can reduce your age ONCE each by a small few years, but it can be Hero Save tweaked during the 'Find the Archaeologist' quest, the first quest which takes you to Witchwood (and the Temple of Avo). You will need quite a bit of cash for this trickery (40000 or more), and if you want to get the Sentinus at some point then being evil helps too, but its NOT NECESSARY for reversing the aging process. Take your money and start the quest to Find the Archaeologist. You start in Witchwood so hack through the thorns. Run past the Rock Troll when it spawns, unless you still need to finish up your experience gathering. You may or may not want to grab the Ages of Will potion on the other side of the Troll too. Run to Witchwood Stones, through the area and onward to the Temple of Avo. Once there run straight to the altar and Hero Save if you didn't save immediately before starting the quest. Now the tricky part. Click the altar once and it brings you to the donate screen. Press UP on the analogue stick until all your money is selected for donating, then press A again. The guy on the right should say: "Avo is pleased with your donation. Very pleased". When he is done, get ready... then repeatedly tap the A button as quickly as you can and stop once the other guy tells you in a similar scene that you need to donate to receive Avo's blessings. You may or may not get the Sentinus after you leave this screen, though you won't if the first guy says "Your donation is very generous" instead the first time. You should still have all your money though, as well as a nice dose of good points. Now go to the donate screen again by clicking on the altar... donate 1gp (one gold piece) normally, press A and accept. One of the guys will then speak to you to say: "A rare miracle has occurred. Avo grants you the gift of youth!". When that happens, you can Hero Save and load, and you'll be back where you started but younger, and unless you still have to spend more experience you'll not be getting much older again. Repeat to your heart's content (though be warned, you'll be VERY good by the end of this). As a sidenote... realise that the 'Find the Archaeologist' quest is the only quest in the game (besides the empty quest) that counts ALL areas of the game as quest areas, thus technically allowing you to go anywhere you can access, nab the goodies and hero save to get more. [5.05] -~{ Levelling Spots }~- This is what this chapter has essentially been leading up to. You should have aquired at least some of the necessary gear for all of this, and having the Murren Greathammer will make its small difference to all the experience gathering you do, which is exactly what we want it for. Now technically you can level just about anywhere in the game where theres things to kill, but some are obviously better than others. Since this guide concerns itself especially with experience (it being an Experience Guide), I will be good enough to make note of any specific alignment tendencies in the various spots and which attributes are best levelled there where specific. #1. Greatwood Entrance / Lake Alignment Tendency : None Attributes: All (good for Skill) This is essentially the first levelling spot in the early game for most characters. While its lost its usefulness quickly a bit later on, its probably going to be the most visited area early on. Plenty of enemies spawn in Greatwood Entrance, first wasps then bandits and eventually nymphs (damn them all), and since its a wide open space its excellent for ranged attacks and sniping practice (headshot decapitations galore). Greatwood Lake also has wasps and bandits, and a bit later on spawns Earth Trolls too, which are ok. Though killing bandits is essentially good, you also get traders going through both areas and guards in Greatwood Lake too, and if you're feeling evil you can kill them as well as the monsters for extra evil points. #2. Lookout Point (Guards) Alignment Tendency: Evil Attributes: All I wouldn't suggest you try this until you're reasonably tough, or at least tough enough not to be bothered by the attacks of town guards. There are two guards in the Lookout Point area that respawn and both are initially located (whenever you enter the area) down by the entrance to Bowerstone. You'll only want to do this if you're intending to go evil, so you might as well kill the commoners on the way to the guards as well. When you head down the hill toward Bowerstone, you should see one guard crossing the bridge away from you and the other by the gates themselves. Kill both the guards and the fun can begin. The same two guards will respawn after a short set amount of time in the nearest of any of the respawn points outside of your range of view. They love respawning behind you, so be ready for this, and they'll all be red dots on the map from now on, so you'll know where they are easily enough. For easy harvesting, you'll want to hang out near the statue in the centre of the area, as three of the respawn points are there, at the entrance to each of the paths. The other two respawn points are one down by the entrance to Bowerstone, and one right outside the Heroes Guild. These guards will keep respawning forever, so you can keep killing them forever if you like, but they take time enough to do it that you'll probably never get your combat multiplier above 22. I've also noticed that if you're attacking them from range, they have a tendency to run off to a number of spots in the area for no apparent reason than just to get away from you. The worst for this is the path to Greatwood and the picnic area if you're on the statue side, as the guard will run off round the corner and you'll have to follow him. If he spawns in that same spot and you're on the path side, he'll run into that indentation where the path to get the silver key is, and shoot at you from there. If he spawns in the path nearest the guild, he'll run toward the guild and hide behind the rockface near the boasting pedestal. Thats about all you need know about this tactic. #3. Lookout Point (Villagers) Alignment Tendency: Evil Attributes: Mana Remember number 3 in the glitches section? The respawning NPCs at Lookout Point? This is it. Also remember number 7 (the infinite Mana Augmentations) as that helps here too. Now if you want to casually gather Strength or Skill experience, or even General experience here, its easy enough and risk-free, though its a VERY slow process on its own. Throw in the following trick though and you have yourself a MAJOR experience well. The difference between an experience pool and an experience well is that the wells don't dry up, and in Fable (thanks to the combat multipliers), its hard to convince yourself to drop the oppurtunity to max things out and just leave the area (to climb out of the well). Explanation: First you need the spell Force Push, the higher level the better, though nothing is stopping you doing this trick multiple times as its much easier with higher levels of the spell. Simply put, you position yourself on the slope between the path and the boasting pedestal, and with your spade hotkeyed (I have it set to Down), you start digging. Make sure first of all that you have a quest card that allows you to boast though, as otherwise you'll be wasting your time. As already outlined, more and more NPCs will spawn, just outside the camera range, but you'll know they're watching you. They may try to walk up past you to leave the little area, but an intermediary Force Push assault will send them sprawling and stop them escaping. Now once you have around 40 or more people there (the more you have, the more it'll slow down the game), turn and walk toward them, and start using Force Push. The little gimps will be knocked flying like rag dolls in all directions, so follow them and keep hammering that spell. If you have a weapon (e.g. master longbow, so you can keep the Marren Greathammer equipped too) with three Mana Augmentations in with you, have it equipped at this point so you don't have to use Mana potions. Walk around hammering Force Push even if you don't see people, as you'll notice your combat multiplier just rockets up. When it slows down, go back to the same spot and repeat the process. Respawn people and when theres enough, lay into them with a repetitive Force Push assault. It may take a short while, but each bout of this can take up the Combat Multiplier by huge amounts. I got it from 0 to 60 in one round before. Naturally, once you've got it up around the 160 to 200 mark you may want to slow down. You should already have shedloads of Mana experience from using Force Push, but with a multiplier like that, this is the BEST time to use any Ages of Strength / Skill potions you might have too, as well as eating meat. Or of course you could spawn more NPCs and beat them up with the Murren Greathammer for huge Strength experience, or shoot them with arrows for huge Skill experience, and don't forget, each one drops what is normally 1 General experience, which has by this point become around 160 to 200 General experience for each person killed. Cosmic. Very VERY evil though. ~ Update: Seems the number of people that spawn may be dependant on reknown, though this is just a guess. What isn't a guess is that you get +10 reknown for each peon you kill, so you need not get your trophies out here to make yourself well known. #4. Hobbe Cave Alignment Tendency: Good Attributes: Strength & Mana Hobbe Cave, during the Hobbe Cave quest, is a great place to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, or even many birds. Its full of Hobbes, obviously, for easy experience (though the close quarters makes it difficult to fire off arrows well). The quest also is a Hero Save point for silver keys, and into the bargain you can get 1500 gold per try at LEAST from the chests. Add to that a Will Master's Elixir and a Flame Augmentation that you can sell for extra cash if you wish and its practically perfect. Combat multiplier can get as high as 30 in some parts of the caves, which would be convenient if only you could get it outside to that demon door which needs 15 or higher to open, but it won't happen inside the quest as the Earth Trolls only spawn outside after you've done with the quest (which I never do). A good systematic way of handling it is to go into the cave first, head to the door on the left which goes to the Silver Key chest room, killing all the hobbes on the way. This chest has the Will Master's Elixir in it, and around there is usually some meat and a health potion too. From there head back (killing hobbes) to the room where the bandit is kept, kill the hobbes and bring the bandit with you back out of the room. More hobbes have respawned outside by now, so you can kill the lot of them and go down the stairs at the end to the next chamber. Kill the hobbes in the room with two chests, and when you're done, immediately kill the bandit as well for a few extra good points (everyone knows backstabbing your partner is good, right?) and a dose of combat multiplier. Eat any meat you may have found in the cave on the spot, as quickly as you can, and use a spell like Summon rapidly to up your Mana experience before the combat multiplier runs out. When you're done, pick up the loot dropped by the hobbes, raid the two chests for 1000 gold and a Flame Augmentation, Hero Save and repeat. #5. Ancient Cullis Gate Alignment Tendency: Good Attributes: Strength & Skill This one was a rather recent surprise addition to my knowledge. Having been informed about it by the delightfully helpful folks at GameFAQs, I had to try it out for myself. The Ancient Cullis Gate is located in Darkwood, between the Darkwood Camp and Darkwood Weir. This is a decent enough levelling spot if you happen to go there outside the Trader Escort quest (and if you are anything like me, you may not have ever tried... Darkwood isn't the friendliest-looking of places) and for just the one area and reason. Around the cullis gate circle area itself you will either find hobbes or bandits if you're particularly low levelled (not much experience gained)... or if you're a bit higher you get an Earth Troll instead. Once you have killed what is there (usually the Earth Troll), if you run to the bridge by the circle (you don't even have to touch it, just run in front of it) it will trigger the Troll (or whatever) to respawn again. Kill, trigger, kill, trigger, etc. Each Earth Troll as I recall nets you +2 good points, +90 reknown points, and will net you 120 base General Experience. Repeating the process quickly enough will raise your combat multiplier up to around the 20 level, though it can get as high as 25. Not only that but Earth Trolls drop either a Ruby or a Health Potion when they die... and it just so happens that the traders that will buy Rubies from you for the most wander right through that area... so this is also a reasonable means of making easy money too (and a LOT of Skill Experience if you sell a whole load of Rubies while you have a high combat multiplier). #6. Oakvale Alignment Tendency: Evil Attributes: All Most people probably wouldn't consider this a levelling spot, but if you're as sick-minded as I sometimes can be, feel like 'reinacting' the raid on your hometown personally, and don't mind putting up with the consequences (screaming villagers) foreverafter, then Oakvale is a really good place for wanton villager slaughter. Its not the villagers that are the real key to experience here though, but the guards. That fine will rocket up to loan-from-Bill-Gates levels soon enough, and you may notice that after a short time of killing blue guards, you will get red guards, and after killing those a while you'll get black guards, each successive type tougher than the last. Theres some nice experience to be had here if you're tough enough to withstand the attacks of the black guards, and I can tell you, they take a few hits with the Solus Greatsword to kill. They'll keep respawning on and on, albeit a bit slowly, but I've heard that if you kill enough of them (over a thousand and some), that you'll eventually get White Balverines instead. I don't know whether this is true or not, but if you want to be killing that many guards in Oakvale then feel free to try. #7. The Arena Alignment Tendency: Good Attributes: All The classic levelling spot, though a 'little' bit late for my liking. More importantly though it gets you easy money as well. Theres two ways you can do this: the pure experience way or the money way. The money way involves fighting through the arena until just after you've beaten the two Rock Trolls, then leaving the arena itself to get the money, Hero Save and reload. The pure experience way involves fighting the Skorpion King as well, then Hero Save immediately after collecting the experience, to reload. Not much to say here except to be careful. The enemies come at you from all around, and they can all see you from the outside. You don't get much chance to breathe between waves of enemies, so make sure you're equipped for it all with decent weapons for the different monster types. Don't forget: Whisper is a good distraction. The Sentinus kills Balverines nicely if you have it from the Temple of Avo, and also does a real number on Undead. The Murren Greathammer is the weapon of choice for raising experience, and especially against the Trolls. If you choose to go up against the Scorpion King, use a weapon with Sharpening and / or Piercing Augmentation. Solus Greatsword is a solid choice, as is the Murren Greathammer. The Harbinger, if your 'Strength' attributes are maxed out and you managed to get it, is a good quick sword for hacking away at that scorpion hide as it has both Sharpening and Piercing Augmentations. #8. Cliffside Path Alignment Tendency: Good Attributes: Strength and Mana Most famous levelling spot in the game, though also the latest, so not worth your while if you've been following my advice with the others thus far. Its the second major experience well in the game, addictive enough not to want to step out of, and responsible eventually for massive combat multipliers (if you have the patience). AFTER escaping from Bargate Prison and helping the 'other character' out of the area is when you go back to Cliffside Path (back through the room with the pool, through the next three-pathed area, and its the area after that) and encounter the infinite undead. Technically its only two undead, but they respawn forever, every time you kill them, and they respawn INSTANTLY near you, so you can keep hacking and hacking and they'll always be there, or you could boom away with Enflame instead for easy Mana experience. Its the 'near you' factor that makes shooting them with arrows a little bit difficult, and if you try to back too far away from you, they will vanish in the distance and respawn right beside you, just to be annoying. They're slow enough though to make it possible at least, but I'd suggest getting a high Combat Multiplier in melee or magic combat first. So thats just about it for the levelling spots of the game, and if you haven't found a way to get completely maxed out early on in the game yet, then I haven't really helped you at all, have I? [5.06] -~{ Theories }~- A somewhat later addition to the guide, this section is intended simply to be a part where I can stick over a little leftover guesswork that I can't be sure of, but suspect of being true. A confusing description I guess, but I'm sure you'll understand if you check the rest of this little subsection. #1. Armour and Scars - I've heard from various people at the GameFAQs message boards, though not too frequently, that if you wear heavier armour that you're less likely to get scarred. I cannot confirm for certain whether this is true or not, but I believe there may possibly be an element of truth behind it. I have played through the game with various character themes, two of which were a naked warrior and a full platemail warrior respectively. Naturally this was difficult in the latter case as I had to fight a few battles before I was able to get full platemail armour, and sustained some wounds in the process, especially to the face. It did seem though by the end of the game that my naked warrior had more body scars than the fully armoured character had. I've also noticed that my Mage characters have a tendency to end up with a fair portion of scars as well, implying that Physical Shield doesn't help protect against wounding. Further testing is needed. #2. Armour and Speed - Now this is something which I consider much more vital to the gameplay than the matter of Scars. Having played through the game with the two warrior characters, the naked 'barbarian' one and the fully platemailed one, there was something that caught my attention. I'd had absolutely no trouble with the naked character attacking enemies while using heavy weapons, and I seemed usually able to break their combos. When playing through as the fully armoured character, when I got to fighting the tougher bandits a bit into the game, I found that they could continuously combo me without my being able to stop them while wielding a heavy weapon, and I could only stop it by switching to a light weapon or using the Force Push spell to smash them away. Both characters had maxed out their Speed attribute, so thats not the issue here. I suspect that wearing heavier armour counters the effect of having a high Speed attribute. Its difficult to prove though. #3. Heavy Weapons and Speed - I know what you're thinking: "Duh! How is this a theory?!" ... but what I mean isn't to do with the swing-speed of Heavy Weapons, so much as their effect on everything that doesn't involve their use. This is much the same as theory number 2, except it regards a heavy weapon being equipped rather than full armour. This is just a hunch I have, and I cannot be sure of it, but I suspect that having a Greatsword (for instance) equipped might result in slower rate of fire with a bow than if a Katana (for instance) is equipped as a melee weapon. Its for this reason primarily that I don't give heavy weapons to pure Archer or Mage characters if I can help it. #4. Melee Range - Theres much more evidence for this than for the other theories, but there are still many elements to it which I don't understand. It all revolves around one little idea: Why should I use a Longsword if I can use a Katana? And my answer is this: because a longsword has a longer blade than a katana. The only time I've actually taken close measures to check this is when comparing the Harbinger to the Katana Hiryu... and found that the Harbinger's blade is in fact longer by a significant proportion. What I'm not so certain about, and possibly cannot be certain about, is whether this actually makes any difference as regards hitting range in combat. I haven't compared all the different weapons against one another yet as regards length (obviously), but I have a sneaking suspicion that it may sometimes be beneficial to wield a weaker weapon that could have a longer reach. The Solus Greatsword I believe is shorter than the Murren Greathammer, and shorter than the Murren Greataxe too. And I know for a fact that the Sword of Aeons is truly massive for a Longsword, and genuinely does reach further than most. Hence the theory to all this is that weaker weapons may in general have greater reach (with the exception of the Sword of Aeons). #5. Weapon Speed - This one I just snatched out of the air, but it occurred to me while I was wondering what possible benefit there could be in wielding a weaker weapon type (besides the possibility of range difference). I figured that it could be possible that certain weapons within a weight category could swing faster than others in order to compensate for the loss in power. It would make things a little more fair... but this is pure theory at this stage. Just remember though, Crossbows take longer to fire than Longbows, so its not an illogical theory. #6. Fishing Difficulty - I'm fairly sure of this one, though its not like its drastically important for the most part. Its just a simple little difficulty curve. The more things that you fish up out of the water, the more difficult the fishing becomes. It does this by making each time you press the A button when the fish is tugging on the line more costly, and thus it requires less accidental A-button presses each time in order for the line to snap. If you like to fish just for ordinary fish, it quickly gets to the point where just one click out of place will snap the line. Advice: fish for essentials only, and save unimportant things for later. ____________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________ [6.00] <(( All Other Nonsense ))> So... erm.. this is where stuff goes that isn't really part of the guide, but relates to the guide itself, the making of it, the creator of it, and all that stuff that goes on the end of an FAQ or Guide that nobody really wants to read anyway unless they're just into that stuff. This little bit here is essentially just a mini-rant. It serves about as much purpose as section 4.04 of the guide. [6.01] -~{ Version Stuff }~- Initial Version: 1.00 Updates: None. Its initial. Duh. Version: 1.01 Updates: Master Physique XP-cost corrected & 1050 added onto all connected values as a result, Minor point related to reknown added to the respawn levelling strategy at Lookout Point, Carrots added to food that gives experience. Version: 1.02 Updates: Corrections made to numerical data (error in cost of Multi Arrow spell at mastery level of precisely 1000 points... hence a 50 point error still suspected somewhere in the results), Minor clarifications made to certain guiding paragraphs following a sequence of e-mails, Additional section added for theories, Extra updated added to appearance section concerning the possible effect of Skill attributes on height, and finally... warning added to description for Summon spell. Version: 1.03 Updates: Ancient Cullis Gate added to levelling spots section. Version: 1.04 Updates: Correction made to matter of 'weight' affecting appearance where it features in the text, General Tactics section added to part 5 of the guide. [6.02] -~{ Copyright Stuff }~- All this Guide crap is copyright © 2005 SotiCoto. Thats not my real life name (which is Robbie Brunton), and nor is it the name I use on the GameFAQs message boards (which is the5thSeraph), but its the name I call myself, and other people call me, and it is unique to me, so thats what I use (until I get it legally changed to that, then it'll be 100% legal). Point being, this guide is my creation. If you claim credit for it then you're a very naughty person and you'll go to hell for it, though if you don't believe in hell you'll probably get away with it too because I sure as hell aren't likely to find out. Even if I did find out, I'd probably never meet you in order to extract your spleen with a rusty spoon, and pressing legal charges over some XP Guide to a game would be more effort than I'd bother to put in to anything. So just don't bother... ... Please. Its not yours, and let it stay that way. Besides that though, and so long as its acknowledged as being my hard work, you can do whatever the heck you like with it. It was meant to be stuck on GameFAQs to help nice people, but if you want to stick it on your website, go ahead (tell me first to make me happy). If you want to memorise it and chant it out word for word like a mantra then sure, go on. If you want to print it out, roll it up and stick it in your most intimate body cavities then... erm.. sure, be my guest. Whatever you do though, DO NOT claim that I don't have a sense of humour (as opposed to many folks who write game guides). So yeah... whatever. Ask me if you wanna quote me too. I like to be quoted. Oh, and nearly forgot... Fable © Lionhead Studios Limited The Hulk © Marvel Panzer Dragoon © Sega (These guys DO press legal charges). [6.03] -~{ Contact Stuff }~- I don't know why you'd want to contact me. Maybe if you're an amateur psychiatrist you might be interested in my weirdness. You might just want Fable Help, but theres enough folks on the GameFAQs boards who know more than me to help you (and they could do it without ranting on for hours, as I'm VERY wordy). But if you insist. Webname : SotiCoto (check it on Google. Its all me.) GameFAQs : The5thSeraph (when I'm around.) E-mail : SotiCoto @ gmail.com (remove spaces.) Website : insolenz.echoing.org (no Fable content.) DeadJournal : www.DeadJournal.com/users/SotiCoto LiveJournal : www.LiveJournal.com/users/SotiCoto Random Link : www.mycathatesyou.com (<3 that site) [6.04] -~{ Credit Stuff }~- Thanks to the folks at the Fable board at GameFAQs for informing me of certain things. Particularly to Shadow Stevie and johnblk73 for helping me with the empty quest and infinite Mana Augmentations stuff. Thanks to the folks who write other guides at GameFAQs for helping me through the game, and allowing me to find other things out for myself... or just improve on them in many cases. Thanks to the folks at Lionhead for making the game, even if so many people complain about it (like they could do better). Double thanks to whoever put in the line: "Thats not big, and its not clever!", which left me laughing for over 10 minutes. Triple thanks to whoever implemented the Pelvic Thrust expression, which is legendary. Thanks to everyone else in the world for reasons undisclosed. [6.05] -~{ I Lied }~- The End.