Knights of Pen & Paper 2 Strategy Guide

This game - is awesome! If you grew up in the 80s and lived for paper and pencil games, owned a drawer full of dice, a bookcase full of games, a 4' x 6' all-purpose gaming table made of plastic and felt which was equally home to the D&D (1st edition mind you) beholder's dungeon and your Warhammer 40k army battles, and had several dozen hand decorated pewter figurines specific to your characters, that is. In that case this is awesome. Otherwise, it's just great. Seriously great.  I've never come across any game that so reverently and irreverently encapsulates what that experience is, for single person enjoyment, on a dinky little phone much less a console or PC. I haven't been able to find a decent strategy guide for it anywhere, and this game deserves one by golly, so here goes:

{Nota Bene: This guide is good and accurate for the Steam PC version, which I think of as the 1st Edition of this game, and the only one worth playing. If you're playing on iOS or Android, my condolences, and this is because you are now forced to play the Free edition - which is to say the new and deteriorated version whose purpose in life is separating you from your money, demolishing any sense of balance, fun, or respect for the player. That said, the primary difference is that all gold, damage, health and energy values have (inexplicably) been multiplied by 20. The attribute and resistance rolls are still based on a D20, so in that respect this guide is correct. As far as strategy, much was added to the corrupt free version, all completely heedless of game balance in their quest to sell you an overpowered item, so I'm not sure how much of the tactics in here are still usable. I'm not about to lay hands on the abomination that is the mobile version to find out though, so proceed at your own peril...}

## The Basics

I'm gonna skip the basics. Mostly. Well, right now at least. This guide is about strategy, so it's assumed you've come here because you're halfway through your first play-through or starting your second and you want to know how different it would have been if you'd had your Ninja be a Dwarf or a Goth or leveled different skills. Or something. But you should know the basics. At least the basic basics - which are all covered in the game in the handy dandy guide they have anyway. You really ought to read that if you haven't. But anything I cover later on that requires a little basic explanation will have it. That's it for the basics.

## Player, Race, and Class

After a couple dozen playthroughs I'm here to tell you there is no such thing as a bad class here. Lackluster, perhaps, but never bad. Nor are there any bad skills. There are good skills, great skills, and S.A.K.A. skills (Super Awesome Kick Ass skills). There are a couple players that really serve no purpose unless you just like their style or need their stats to fill out your team, but every class and each skill they have is perfectly usable, especially when combined with other skills in your team.

## Players

Players each have a passive ability and a boost to one or more of each of the 3 attributes (Body, Senses, and Mind). And each attribute is (at least in theory) the core stat for the 3 types of player in this game: the fighters (Body), the casters (Mind), and the specialists (Senses). I've given each one of them a rating (good, great, SAKA - which means Super Awesome Kick Ass), which is little more than my personal opinion, but then all of this is, isn't it? The abilities have, for the most part, far more impact than the attribute boosts. The fun here is that you can have counter-intuitive combinations, such as a Knight Lab Rat because you want that extra trinket slot despite the lack of Body boost. But if efficiency is what you're going for - I know it's what I'm going for - then I have some recommendations for each player.

### Jock - SAKA

Pair with any of the 5 straight up combat (fighter) classes. For the record that's the Paladin, Warrior, Barbarian, Monk and Knight. The Body boost is the highest there is (3), so your damage, health and threat all go up. Not to mention your Body resistance rolls (for traps and conditions and opening chests). The Big Hands ability is the selling point here, as it lets you increase your damage by 50% or so. Or you could use a shuriken with your giant 2 handed hammer which allows you (kind of unexpectedly) to reach the back row. Or, if you're a Monk, it gives you +27 instead of just +18 damage using bare hands with the right skill maxed. It also lets you use the one 3-handed weapon you'll find in the game if you investigate the Graveyard. Compared to the weapons you'll be crafting this giant weapon will be a let-down, but if you aren't crafting or just like the idea of 3 hands on a weapon, it's there for you.

### Cheerleader - good (great with the Thief)

Okay, so 1 point for Body and 2 for Senses. So she belongs with the specialist classes. Along with the Ninja, Hunter and Druid. Her special ability is to heal 5 HP and 5 MP to the whole party whenever she blocks an attack. It is however strategically inadvisable to block (Take Cover), *ever*, in this game. Why is that? Because all taking cover does is reduce your Threat to zero. It makes you a non-target, although group attacks will still get you, but it's just the least productive response to low health. Meaning that, if you're in a fight and your Psion is one hit from death, there are any number of actions (an offensive spell to end the fight, a heal from someone else, a potion, a warding spell, even escaping to come back to the fight at full health) that would be better than taking cover, which doesn't even guarantee that the Psion won't get hit. Admittedly, sometimes it's a good move to Take Cover only because it lets you skip a turn, thereby not killing that Zombie who's literally on his last leg after you've wiped out the rest of his cohort and you want your Cleric or Paladin to get one more heal in before you move on to the next room in the dungeon. And actually, with the advent of the Knight, other players blocking increases his potential critical percentage. But you never want to block for the sake of blocking. Point made. So the only good reason to use her is with the Thief, who has a skill that gives automatic block when she's hit, which then means any time she's hit the party gets healed 5 HP and MP. In this case the block is an unqualified positive, since it's free, but the 5 healing is minimally effective even at low levels and unnoticeable at higher levels. The MP boost is a better bonus because max energy levels are lower overall, but again at high levels makes little impact. Still, if you have a Hunter or Ninja who already took the Rich Kid player, the only other option with a good Senses boost is the Goth. And the Goth is lame. The Goth herself, especially, is aware of this. It's why she's so macabre all the time.

### Surfer - great (SAKA with the Barbarian)

2 Body and 1 Senses makes him good enough for any of the fighters, but not quite as good as the Rocker (who rocks, naturally). Also a decent choice for the specialists. And shrugging off 1 condition per turn is pretty good, although sometimes a little superfluous. The conditions that are consistently annoying are Confuse and Stun and Rage. Weakness hobbles your fighters, especially the builds focused on Criticals, but makes no difference to the casters. The other conditions can work well when you inflict them, but the enemy versions are almost invariably weak (very low damage per turn), and so you'll barely even notice them. So, in effect, conditions are a real threat only about half the time - at least as far as your party is concerned. The beauty here is that the Surfer can shake off Stun, and the only other way to do that is with a Cleric if you're lucky enough to have him Purge you before your turn. Shaking off Poison 4 is pretty pointless though, and if you do have that Cleric purging maybe Surfer isn't the best way to go. One place where he shines though is with the Barbarian, for a specific build, as it removes the Rage he generates each time you attack with his skill, meaning you can use the skill every turn. We'll see about that later.

### Rich Kid - good (great with the Ninja)

Your specialist Player extraordinaire (+3 Senses). Well, actually, not so extraordinary. Time for a little blurb about gold in this game. At the start, it's scarce, and there are several temptations out of your reach. However, by the end of a full playthrough, you'll have a couple to several thousand gold (depending on how profligate you've been), which carries over to your next game, so, long story short, any gold boost items or abilities are kind of a waste of space. Me, personally, I bought the 10'000 gold package, twice, completely unnecessarily, just because I want to support the game. Anyway. So you might think: "Ooooo, yay! 10% more gold!!!" But not really. However, this is the only player with 3 in Senses. If Critical and Initiative are what you're going for, ain't nothin' better. Paired with the Ninja Elf you get the highest possible Senses score, you know, for all those resistance rolls and maxed out Criticals. Something to consider.

### Rocker - SAKA

So, seriously, this guy rocks. Especially with the Knight and Druid (more on that later). Clearly a fighter (2 Body), but that 1 point in Mind makes him just that much better if you want a fighter who's blasting away with skills all day - like the Warrior and Paladin and skill-intense Barbarian, or not like the Monk and (dumb as a post) Barbarian. The Knight's kind of in the middle ground on this one. But that ability, that beautiful ability, which lets him ignore the armor penalties on your energy. The heaviest armor reduces your MP by 30%. If you have a shield as well, that's up to another 15%. So the Knight, for example, who benefits most from good armor, would have almost only half his MP if you pair him with any other player. Muy significativo, this is. Which, again, means more skill-time for your fighters. But also means that you can tough up your, say, Warlock with righteous armor if you're willing to sacrifice a couple points in Mind. Compared to a Warlock with the higher Mind value and no or light armor, the armored Warlock will have less energy (Mind determines energy levels), but he'll be much tougher - that's the trade off. The Druid in particular benefits from this if you build him up as a frenzied bear, giving him the protection he desperately needs without reducing the energy he needs to maul monsters twice each turn. Let me put it this way: I have never played a game without the Rocker.

### Goth - lame (good as an opening pick)

You've already had a taste of my Goth hate, so no surprises coming. The attribute boosts (2 Senses, 1 Mind) are of course fine for any specialist. The point in Mind is nice for MP, but unlike the fighters you don't have a plethora of health as a specialist, so the Cheerleader's Body point is more appealing. The only exception is if this is one of your first characters on your first play-through. Her special ability negates some of the frustrations of the learning curve, saving you gold while you feel out new encounters. The amount of gold this saves, depending on the player, is small but significant early on, and when you are flooded with gold a character reset is cheap and painless.

### Lab Rat - SAKA

Another one of those "never played a game without him" players. The obvious choice for any of your casters (Cleric, Mage, Warlock, Psion) with the 3 in Mind, which ensures they'll have enough MP to blanket the world of Paperos in spells. The extra trinket slot is delicious, no matter how you slice it, but also tempts one with some interesting choices. Say you want a Barbarian who, in addition to his Stunning hammer, has each of the four trinkets that give a condition (Rage, Fire, Poison and Wound). And say you have a Paladin as well who goes around causing Weaken all the time and the Game Room item (Weapon Rack) that lets you cause Sudden Death with 6 instead of 7 conditions. So that every time the Barbarian scores a crit, he causes Sudden Death. Something to consider.

### Hipster - great

More useful than you might think. The 1 point in each attribute makes him the obvious choice for any Swiss gamers, yet not so clear on how to use him. But basically, he's good enough to be any character. The real question is, what's with his ability? Does that help? What's the point? The point is, the best weapons and armor in the game are ones you craft yourself. And there's no special secret quest, you just have better and better items available to you as you level up. So, yeah, if you'd like that +2 War Axe instead of the +1 War Axe (which is a 4 point damage and Threat difference), and better armor, something like 5 levels sooner, then yeah. This is actually pretty important since you'll be spreading the glory to the whole team. So long as you can afford all the upgrades.

### Exchange Student - good

Okay, so two things. Three actually. First is, you have to buy this guy (crazy Europeans!), but just with in-game gold. No biggie, fine. Second, attributes are a little off, as he's clearly magic oriented (2 Mind), but your weak magey guys are hardly ever going to be hitting anything. Still, more HP with that 1 Body point (although more Threat too - booo!). Like the Goth, you might want him because his attributes are the best option if you've got, say, a slew of casters in your team. But (and here's my third point), his ability is not actually as awesome as it sounds. What with the XP scaling, what it means is that your Exchange Student will consistently be 1 level above everyone else. At level 5, this is moderately important. At level 20 you really can't tell the difference. So, not awful, but also not a clear reason to bring him. Leave him in the game room with the Goth, I say, so they can exchange existential love poems and kiss violently behind the pinball machine.

### Bookworm - great

And for our final entry, a welcome third lady friend. On that, while it's a little disappointing that there are only 3 girl players in this game, that's actually not very realistic. Lady role-players are about as rare as chartreuse winged unicorns with golden fiber manes and super-heated plasma tails - so really it's nice they put any girls in here at all. So her attributes are rather welcome for the magic lovers, as she's only the third player with more than one point in Mind (2). And with the Senses boost (1) she's a natural fit for one of the specialist classes with a build that focuses on (the specialist version of) spells, which most of their efficient builds do. Her skill is actually pretty good, but you have to know how to use it. What it does is fill up the details in your Bestiary twice as fast. I'd rather get in to the Bestiary later, but I do need to get in to it here just to explain what her skill actually brings to the table:

Basically the Bestiary lets you know more about your opponents, such as their attributes and vulnerabilities, which can actually be really helpful if you take the time to research it all (like a proper Bookworm) so you know what abilities to use on them most effectively and stuff like that. Granted, it would be a little peculiar of you to bring a Druid with Grappling Vines just so you can do 50% more damage to Beetles. Meaning, you're gonna level the skills you're gonna level, and every so often an enemy will take more damage from them, but at least this way you'll know which of your skills will be most effective in any particular fight. So you get to know the baddies better by slaughtering them in large numbers. Isn't that nice? Whatever happened to a friendly conversation over a cup of tea? Without the Bookworm it takes 28 kills to learn all there is to know about a beast. With her it's half, obviously. I think the idea there is that if you have your game room set up so that you can plop 7 monsters on the field per fight, it's only 4 (or 2) full fights and you're there. Most of my teams need other perks though, but still at 5 per battle that's only 6 (or 3) fights and you'll know all there is to know. Unless of course it's a Large or X-Large beast, who still need 28 (or 14) kills, which can then get pretty tedious as you can't fit too many on the field at once - nor can you necessarily handle 3 XL beasts at once, depending. And then there are the few beasts that you can't set up fights with, like Cave Bats that are only in the Nearby Cave, meaning you have to wander through that cave until you find enough of those bats - so that's a little annoying too. Worse still are the few monsters you only encounter once or twice, like Brass Beetles, and they never show up in quests or random encounters again. The good news is that, with the last update, there are 3 new caves with 3 levels each, and each of those corresponding to a range of levels of monsters. All the monsters (outside of bosses and certain special encounters - neither of which show up in the bestiary anyway). For the low and high end ones, you'll find them pretty easily. But the mid range ones, of which there are just way too many, you may well have to wander through those caves, over and over, trying to find those doppelgangers or swamp bandits that you only encountered once or twice by following the story. A (kind of) lame trick you can use, in particular with doppelgangers (since they change to something else on their first turn and then the kill is for whatever it changed into), is to kill as many as you can once you find a room with them in it, then escape the fight. They might bop you on the way out with a single hit, then down a potion or two if you need to and go back into the same room. You'll encounter another group of monsters (often not the one(s) your looking for), but it's better than wandering through all the traps and empty rooms on the one level those elusive beasts you're hunting are found. But anyway you get a bonus if you max out your knowledge for every critter, as the last thing you get is +2 damage against it. Which can be helpful with the low level enemies. But even with the Bookworm you'll have to set up battles to kill enough of some of them to get the bonus. If you just follow the story you'll be moving on to higher level beasties before you fill out each entry. But that damage bonus remains at +2 for everything, which is really just symbolic with any beast above level 10. But again, while the damage boost ultimately is just a nice gesture, knowing more about them helps your gameplay if you let it and it's also just fun to know, I think. More concretely, there's a series of quests later on (at lvl 25) that involve filling out the Bestiary, up at the Laboratory, which leads to some fairly challenging group boss fights (and you'll need that Doppelganger entry filled to get the second and third fights), so there's that. But by the end of a full playthrough - which gets you to about level 45 now - where you just follow the story without stopping for extra slaughtering time, you'll only get about halfway through the Bestiary entries for almost all the critters without her. With the Bookworm, again just following quest to quest, most of them will be complete. That's the difference.

## Race

So, your choice of race has the least impact of your 3 choices. Nevertheless, it's a choice, you need to make it, so let me break it down, with the obligatory rating (i.e. opinion) attached. I will say part of the fun is just what they look like. A Cheerleader with a thick beard just makes me chuckle.

### Dwarf - great

Your basic combat class. He gets a Body point (or two, with the right Game Room item) and 2 damage reduction. The body point gives you another point of damage, another point in Threat (which you're only going to want with a fighter anyway), and a boost to HP. I haven't figured out the exact formula for what each point of Body contributes, and it does change slightly depending on which class you are, but it roughly translates to a level's worth of HP per Body point per level. (So, to be clear, an extra body point when you level up to 12 will give you about 12 extra HP, then about 31 extra HP at level 31 - not to be obtuse about it). Which makes it valuable through the game. Unlike the damage reduction, which is huge at level 1, pretty nice at level 8, and hardly noticeable at level 20 and beyond.

### Elf - great

Don't let the 20 extra MP fool you, this is your specialist class. The extra MP is like the Dwarf's damage reduction, less and less significant as you gain levels. The point (or two) in Senses then is the main reason to go elf (unless you just want your Mage to feel good about himself for the first few levels). Senses, however, only affects Critical and Initiative. Critical can be important, depending on your overall strategy, which means it can also be largely or wholly irrelevant if you have a different strategy. Initiative is nice, always nice to strike first, but not really clutch in battles. Well, with the exception of the Hunter and the Thief, who can actually make good use of Initiative. But if you want that highest possible Senses score with your Rich Kid Ninja, Elf is the way.

### Human - SAKA

I'll just come out and say it, this is your best choice (most bang for your buck), for any class (with the possible exception of the "pure Rage" Barbarian). Yes, your Warrior will strike a little less hard, have a little less resilience, but he'll be more skillful and have more energy to use those skills. The point (or two) in Mind is like Body, giving around 1 level's worth of extra MP per point per level. There's no analog to the Damage and Threat boosts, though. But MP is important. In fact, if you don't have that Cleric in your party constantly refilling your MP, you're never gonna really feel like you have enough MP (unless you happen to be a juju-swapping Monk) - especially in dungeons. But still this is going to be better than your elf's MP boost in the long run (actually, not even that long - you'll make up those 20 MP by about level 6), and then you get that extra skill point. It's not game changing, but very nice.

## Classes

So here's where it gets complicated and more fun. Each of the classes has four skills, one or two (sometimes three) of which are passive. I'll give an overview of what each skill is like (good, great or SAKA {Super Awesome Kick Ass}) and it's general usage. This is a fine place to note that skills get an extra boost every 3 levels, so that's the multiple of which most of your skills (especially secondary skills) are going to be. I'm also going to give each class an overall rating. This isn't just an average of what their skills are, but an overall opinion based on what they can do, how many different things they can do, and how it all compares to their peers. I'm not going to mention the Class attribute boosts, as that's not what you're basing your decision on. You're basing your decision on what, exactly, can that new Warlock you just unlocked do. You choose your player and race based on what supports that. That said, most classes have a single target high damage attack, a group target lower damage attack, and then other stuff (that makes them unique). Let's see what they're all packing:

### **Cleric - great**

Oh boy, is it hard to not take this guy along in any party. He's your quintessential support character. He's the one you bring along to keep everyone healthy and peppy enough to keep slugging away for hours on end. No resurrecting, interestingly, but then again... Phoenix Feather. He does have a damage skill, which is a mixed bag, but there's basically one (right) way to play this guy, which is the only reason I ever don't bring him ('cause I have ADD, OCD, and a short attention span and I like some flippin' variety, dangit). Actually, there is a sound tactical reason not to bring him if you just don't mind using potions fairly regularly and want to maximize your damage potential. Nothing quite like building a team that blasts through almost everything in one or two turns.

#### Radiance (passive) - SAKA

This lets you restore energy to your compadres, but passively, meaning it happens automatically when you use any of your active skills. Now, you could make a build without this skill, but really, why would you? This by far the best way to restore MP. The Knight is good for this too, but his skill is only a third as powerful and unlike the Cleric he won't be casting it every turn (he does have to strike out with a noble yawp now and then). The Mage and Monk skills are only for their own selves, and there's the Cheerleader Thief when she gets hit, and the Game Room blocking thing for individuals, but they're pretty weak. Your Cleric is definitely the premier energy boosting specialist. Fully maxed this will give the rest of your party +32 MP, every single turn the Cleric uses any skill (which, usually, is every turn), which is enough to keep just about anyone in skill blasting heaven. Trick is, seeing as this is passive, you require another active skill for this one to kick in. So which one to choose? (Note: This skill does *not* regenerate the Cleric's MP, which is why you're going to have to rely on MP regenerating Trinkets (preferably), or potions, or good old fashioned rest from time to time.)

#### Restoration - good

While this is a good and effective skill, it's the least useful of his 3 active skills. The AI in this game is not clever (or perhaps just not ruthless) enough to focus all damage on one character to wipe them out (which is what you'll mostly be doing to the enemy). So the problem with the skill is that it's major overkill (healing up to 312 HP max) except for the rare times when a Troll gets a crit on you or a few of the boss fights. But that's what your potions are for. If there were twice as many skill points to throw around this would be a great backup skill for those rare huge hits. But there aren't. So really, it's a waste, and the other two active skills are better options.

#### Purge - SAKA

Ah, to gloriously be purged of all your sins, through every combat. To live the dream. As far as healing, this is going to be plenty, almost all the time. Because of the aforementioned dispersal of damage you'll mostly be encountering, even just getting this to level 3 (10 heal) is enough to pretty much carry you through about level 15 or so. Likewise level 6 will carry you through to level 25 or so, allowing you to focus on leveling Radiance throughout. Max this out and you're healing 80 HP for everyone, every turn. Hard to kill that team. What makes this SAKA instead of just great is that you also remove conditions from everyone (including the Cleric). Even Stun if the turn order is right, although that part won't apply to the Cleric. If you really want a condition-impervious team you could make your Cleric a Surfer, making him (almost certainly) immune to Stun, but the absence of a Mind boost will be felt. Better off just giving your Cleric the Stun immunity item if this is important to you. At level 3 you'll be dispelling 2 conditions for the team, which is usually plenty for a bit there as conditions don't stack up much in the beginning. Later on, with Dragons and Jesters and conditions flying at you all the time, you'll probably need all those 9 conditions removed from your whole team with this skill maxed. This is the obvious active skill choice.

#### Divine Judgment - good (SAKA on a stunned target)

So, depending on the situation, this can be pretty devastating. But it does have significant limitations. The glory here is that even at relatively low levels, you can do massive damage with this. 0-30 at skill level 3, 0-240 at full glory. If it does hit with all three bolts, this is the highest unmodified single target damage in the game. But you might have noticed those zeros. The drawback here is that it's all based on resistance rolls. Even low level bosses seem to resist everything you throw at them almost all the time. So you could easily cast this and cause zero damage. Meaning you'll be looking for the lowest level enemies on the screen and cast this on them, often with a one hit (well, technically 3 hit) kill. Which is fine, someone has to mop up the dregs. Except of course if your target is stunned. Stunned critters lack the ability to resist anything, so if you can time it right (like, ideally, with a bomb-crazed Ninja stunning the field all the time) then this will electrically boogaloo your victim to a charred crisp in the most glorious way the game allows for a spell for a single target (Thanks, Ekitchi, for educating us about this in the comments). The mage’s Lightning in particular (as far as magic) and other skills will cause more total damage in a turn; and no spell can match the max weapons can do; and the bosses you’d most want to judge this way will be the hardest to stun - but it’s still a killer combo and makes leveling this as your second skill totally legit with a stun-focused team. One way to try and counter the frequent resisting of this skill is to pour all your points in this from the get go. This is a solid strategy (for many Classes actually), but only makes a difference for the first half of the game or so as that's when having this skill at high level can overcome the relatively weak resistances of your enemies and even bosses. By the time you're level 25 or so, it's back to focusing on weaklings, and even so, using your Cleric purely offensively like this is kind of fun but can often make for an unbalanced team and really isn't the best use of him (i.e. if you really want offensive magic in your team, there's a perfectly good Mage sitting over there waiting for the chance). But still, you can legitimately level this a little once you have Radiance and Purge up to a level you're happy with, this is then a good third skill to use when you want your MP but don't need no HP.

### **Paladin - great**

I'll admit, I have a soft spot for Paladins. For when you wanna play support, but still be someone you'd hate to meet in a dark alley. Although it wouldn't be that dark, because Paladins have a tendency to wear shiny things, have shiny skills, and just be shiny in general. This game doesn't stray far from the norm, and the Paladin is your basic support tank - although more tank than support.

#### Armor of Faith (passive) - good... okay, sorry no, not that good.

So I'm realizing I might have lied back when I said there were no bad skills. Or, perhaps, just misspoke. This skill, its stats that is, is actually okay. You're just never going to use it. It lets you use energy as health and, when that happens, makes you hurt enemies that attack you (for up to 80 damage, which is respectable, if you were foolish enough to max this skill out), and that as many times as you get hit in a turn (which, assuming you can survive it, can get up to 240-320 damage easy). With a Jock Dwarf your MP will be almost only half of your HP, but if you go with a Rocker Human, they'll be almost equal - so just 1 point in this and then you've come close do doubling the damage you can take, and in the process maybe get one or several free attacks. That's the glass half full perspective. The glass half empty perspective is that, in order for this skill to kick in and allow you to damage anything that attacks you, your health needs to be all gone. So you haven't made yourself twice as tough, you've made yourself slightly (to significantly - if you're that Dwarf Jock) less tough (lower MP than HP max no matter what), and the stuff that's keeping you alive (your MP) is also what you need to use to effectively attack back. So then even with a Cleric and a Knight spending their time regenerating your MP as fast as they can, you'll still need either MP potions (thereby wasting a turn doing that), or just have to give up and accept some regular healing to stay in the fight, rendering your investment in this skill pointless. This is what you call a lose-lose situation. So while you might be tempted to put just 1 point here so you have a backup HP reserve, you're much better off using Lay on Hands as a defensive skill and just not let your HP get to zero (which is what everyone else is doing anyway).

#### Guiding Strike - good

This is your high damage single target smashing skill. It's a slightly weaker version of the Warrior's version of this: Power Lunge (high Damage and Threat increase). But the damage is a little less (at max level: 308% of weapon damage instead of 324% like the Warrior and Barbarian skills - you know, just to put him in his place because he hasn't dedicated his *entire* existence to killing - that's 16% less for you buddy), the Threat boost (56 max) is impressive but you lose it every turn, so in a long battle (which is when you'll really want your Threat) the Warrior will serve you better. Plus his skill reaches the back row. But, we're not talking about the Warrior here, are we? Well yes, this is where your party choices come in. Meaning, if you want to bring someone who's going to use this kind of skill, the Warrior (or Barbarian or Monk {or Ninja or even Thief and Hunter if used right and it's not the Threat you're after}) have slightly better (higher Damage) versions of this skill. So if you do want a Paladin, you're not really going to want to bring him for this. You're going to want him for the next two skills.

#### Lay on Hands - great

In no gaming universe ever created does the Paladin not have this skill. It's what makes him a Paladin. The hand that kills can also heal, sayeth Aragorn, and all that. Not to confuse you with a reference to a Ranger/King doing Paladin stuff, but anyway. This is essentially like the Cleric's Restoration skill. It's a little weaker... well, sort of. It actually heals the same amount of total HP per cast since, as an added (and pretty original) bonus, the Paladin heals himself at the same time for half of what the other guy gets. (And yes, the Paladin can cast this on himself for a 150% heal). So he can heal 208 HP with this skill maxed out, with an added 104 HP for himself, or 312 HP combined if he wants to be extra greedy. In fact I'd say this skill is better than Restoration (great instead of good after all) as it splits up the good vibes. And as mentioned before, you are very rarely going to need all of that 312 HP heal on one adventurer. It can also be worse, where the Paladin needs no healing and your Barbarian is near death and only gets brought up to half health. But most of the time, this is better. You are for sure bringing this to the party if you brave the world of Paperos without a Cleric, and even if you have one, this is a great secondary skill to fill in the healing gap for the occasional high damage ur mewling little weak Mage gets. More to the point, if you max out the upcoming SAKA skill - like you should - this skill is a better balance than leveling up Guiding Strike, which is going to be weaker than Smite even for a single target for the first 10 levels or so.

#### Smite - SAKA

Okay, so maybe you're asking yourself why this is SAKA. It's just a weaker version of Guiding Strike (212% weapon damage at best) and it doesn't even do group damage. Weakness my friend. Glorious Weakness is the answer. Conditions, you might have heard, are useless in this game. This is very not true. They serve several functions, and they sometimes suck, and I'll get into that later. They are susceptible to resistance rolls, so your Bosses will often just laugh this off. But most of the time the majority of the group in any battle is gonna get hit with this. And this is the only character that can cause group Weakness, and the only way at all other than weapon crits and the Warlock's 1-in-7-chance-of-this-condition skill. But unlike Wound or Poison or Fire (that require high levels just to be useful), Weakness is very useful right out of the gate. It reduces attack damage by half and prevents critical hits. So a Paladin spamming this skill makes your fights pretty dang easy. You will, in effect, feel twice as powerful as they struggle to make a dent in your armor. And I haven't even gotten into the Monk's skill, the Thief's skill, the Druid's skill, Criticals and Sudden Death and how all that works together. Use this skill, or don't bother with the Paladin.

### **Warrior - SAKA**

This guy, is good. Your trouble is going to be more what skills you can stand to leave un-leveled rather than which ones you want. He's your best all-round fighter and (unmodified) damage dealer. He's also not terribly complex. He doesn't work in Criticals or Initiative or Conditions (mostly) or subtlety. Just point him in the right direction and SMASH.

#### Riposte (Passive) - good

This is for sure good, but a few things keep it from greatness. What's awesome and unique about it is that you get a free attack with it, every time you get hit. Well, not exactly every time, not even close, hence the loss of awesome. See, it's based on your Senses attribute. Meaning you need to roll higher (well, lower technically) than your Senses. Your standard Jock Dwarf Warrior starts out with 4 senses. And unless you get some items for it, that's where it's gonna stay for the whole game. Meaning it kicks in only 20% of the time. You could try to improve that by having maybe a Surfer Elf, which has it kick in 30% of the time, but the damage decrease to his attacks is fairly substantial. Now, if you wanna get crazy and have a Rich Kid Elf Warrior, your senses will be 8 (or 9, thanks to the new game room item), which you can boost, conceivably, to 14 by the very end of the game, which means riposte will work almost 3 out of 4 times. At the end of the game. About half the time before that, and by committing to this you're not as strong or tough as, well, you aught to be. Worth the sacrifice to your all-around damage-itude? I don't think so, but I'm not playing your game. This skill gives a pretty high passive Threat bonus though, +32 if you commit fully, and there's nothing wrong with that. So if you're going for the giant-silverback-gorilla-stomping-through-the-jungle look, pair with Power Lunge and enjoy the agro. Nevertheless, the damage starts off pretty weak and only gets up to 128%. But still, even so, it's nice to see it in action, it's "free", and putting 3 points in it is doable with just about any build.

#### Pommel Strike - good

Remember that Paladin skill that causes Weakness? This is that, although even weaker (188% weapon damage max), but with Stun instead of Weakness and just for the victim of your attack. Okay, it's not really anything like that skill - not sure why I mentioned it. But this is a fine skill, yet there are better stunning options out there (like the Ninja or Mage) and, more importantly, if you level this you're not leveling Power Lunge or Cleave, which is what you should be doing. Also less attractive as a 3 point skill because they can resist this, and at level 3 it's only -2 to their roll. That and at low levels it's hardly better than a normal attack. So, if you love stunning things and you want this skill, probably better to commit all the way and skip Power Lunge.

#### Power Lunge - SAKA

Don't skip this skill. This (and the Barbarian's version of this) is the most damage you're going to be doing to a single target with a weapon in the game (324% weapon damage), not counting crits. The Threat bonus looks small at first (up to +18 Threat), but it levels up quick and, unlike the Paladin's Guiding Strike, your threat increases with each use of the skill. After 2 or 3 hits, they're hardly going to see the other players (unless there's a Knight in the mix) and hit only you. If you have Riposte and the added Threat that comes with it, all the better. The fact that you can hit the back row with this as well is just sweet delicious blood-flavored icing on your death-dealing cake.

#### Cleave - SAKA

Cleave. Lovely word. Very straightforward. The low damage is frustrating at low levels (starts at 54%), as yeah you'll hit the whole row but not very gloriously. One tactical element that needs to be mentioned here is that as your team hacks away at the edges of the front row, you'll gain access to the edges of the back row. If you strike that back row enemy with Cleave, even though you can't actually directly target those other back row guys, It'll still get the whole back row. And as you level up, and item up, this gets to be pretty respectable (130% weapon damage at its most vicious). There are some better group damage skills out there, but this one can be a good compliment to those. A lovely combo is with the Mage's Lightning, which is the only other row damaging skill in the game (direct damage at least - the Druid's skill can, occasionally, fail completely), so you can then blast your way through the game one row at a time. And in fact what makes this SAKA instead of just great is because it's weapon based. Meaning you can score criticals. Lightning does more damage more consistently, but each hit with Cleave has your Warrior's base critical chance, and every once in a while (oh, like 10-20% depending) it'll cause 100% more damage (to an individual enemy, not the whole row). Not bad. If you get the game room item that lets you have 7 creatures in a fight instead of 5 (the Go game), 4 of those will be in front and you can maximize this skill. Riposte pairs well with this so you have at least some Threat boost, or you could level Power Lunge as well so you're more versatile. Either way, any team will be lucky to have you.

### **Ninja - SAKA**

The Ninja: master of stealth; looking cool in black; small sharp things that hurt more than you'd expect; and, in this game, lots and lots of stunning and/or critical hits. This will be your first unlockable character. Early on. So early on that he can easily end up as your 4th or 5th player even on your first playthrough. The Ninja, what with all the stunning and/or criticals, is another one of those hard to leave behind classes. And his other skills aren't too shabby either.

#### Black Arts (Passive) - good (SAKA for Sudden Death)

So if Sudden Death sounds like a lovely way to vaporize your enemies to you, put 1 point in this. This is just so that his attacks add wound on a critical hit. In fact, this is what makes the Ninja the Sudden Death dealer of choice, since any other Class needs to be paired with the (normally non-fighter) Lab Rat player to get 5 Conditions in one attack. Now, if you want the wounding itself to actually make a difference, you really aughta max out this skill (which gives you Wound 32). Wound, along with burn and poison, always has a value. Wound 1, Burn 24 - the number denoting the base damage it causes each turn the affliction lasts. The beauty of it is that it can stack, and Shadow Chain can make this devastating - adding up to 96 Wound in just one turn. If all three hits are criticals (which is less likely as you'll only have enough skill points for this and Shadow Chain, with little to nothing left for Vanish) and the condition isn't entirely purged at the start of the target's next turn - which mitigates the awesomeness level here. But Wound that Caveman a couple times and he will literally bleed out. Yet, while good, this skill is a clear 4th place compared to the others. So, all that considered, if you want to skip this skill, you wouldn't be wrong in doing so.

#### Vanish (Sort of but not really Passive) - good/SAKA

So here's a cool one that can be devastating with the right build. It's good if you want to just put 1 point in it. It turns on automatically at the start of battle, makes you a little less threatening and gives a little boost to critical. Now it's SAKA if you max it out and combine it with the Shadow Chain skill. See, it's all about the criticals. This, right here, used to be how you got the highest possible critical chance in the game. The Knight has changed that, and while I'm very impressed with him for that, I'm a little miffed he's dethroned the Ninja here. The Ninja is still the king of Criticals though, and you're about to find out why. Maxing this skill gives you +64% Critical chance until you get hit. And your chances of getting hit are as low as programmingly possible because you're gonna have -32 Threat, which is ridiculous. Bunch of dudes can raise their Threat here; the Ninja is the only weirdo who has even thought of going negative with it. Do note that your Threat will never get below 1, unless you Take Cover. If you do get hit, by a group attack like Lightning or something, you waste a turn switching the skill on again, and that can be annoying. But that's pretty rare, as most often you'll be slicing your enemies into cubes before that happens anyway. And your base critical chance with all the perfect items, weapon, and a Rich Kid Elf is 22% (19% if you stick to Almighty Rings, but that's a whole other story - and 15% if you're hunting for Sudden Death and have all the condition trinkets). Which means you'll be traipsing about with 86% (or 83% or 79%) critical. By the end of the game, with better items, than can get up to about 90%. Which is only the third of it because your 3 attacks with the Shadow Chain skill each have the same chance. Which means that you're statistically more likely to score a critical hit on *every* attack than not - with the not wholly unlikely chance of 3 critical hits. This, it goes without saying, is pretty fracking badass. The runner ups in the critical category are the Barbarian, Thief and Monk (in that order), who all max out at about 45-50% (~65-70% with the Barbarian, if you know what you're doing), and don't have multiple hits (except the Barbarian, kind of, more on that later). The Knight, who I'm still grumpy about, can actually get to a full 100% chance if you really want him to. But really that's just a gimmick that you won't be using, probably ever, as it would require everyone else to Take Cover in a turn (as if they were, like, sitting down by a tree as a group, pulling out a pipe and sharing it among the four of them while they lay out a picnic, at which point they glance over at the Knight facing 5 Ice Trolls, telling him: "You got this, man"). The only caveat here is that if you level this and Shadow Chain, you've got nothing left for stunning with your Smoke Bomb. It's just a question of either/or, and each build is pretty awesome. Good thing you can play through this game more than once!

#### Shadow Chain - great/SAKA

So, using this skill in combination with Vanish is, I believe, well established as super awesome as well as kick ass. Without it, it's still pretty great. It's up to you how to split points between this and Smoke Bomb, but this is your single-target-blasting skill. Whatever your critical chance, you still get the 3 shots at it, which is a good thing. And the damage may seem unspectacular at first (44% weapon damage per hit), but maxed out (120%) you'll be doing over triple damage. That's nice. Okay, that's terrific - unparalleled, percentage wise. The Warrior or Barbarian are likely still going to get better single attack damage because of their high Body attribute, and this does also mean damage reduction applies to Shadow Chain three times instead of once, but this skill is easily on par with those.

#### Smoke Bomb - SAKA

So unless you go with the slice and dice critical beast mentioned above, this is gonna be your bread and butter skill. It does reasonable-ish damage (49 max) to the target, but most importantly stuns everyone on the field (if you have the game room thingy that makes "adjacent" skills hit all enemies - I maybe should have mentioned that before). After a resist roll, of course, which is the only reason this skill isn't profoundly godlike. But stun, once inflicted, cannot be recovered from: the turn is always lost. The Ninja will always have at least decent initiative, so you're likely to be one of the first to strike, and it's not uncommon to go through a regular battle this way without the beasties getting even one shot off. Plus there's some glorious synergy with the Thief's Barrage of Knives skill. Hard to resist, this one.

### **Barbarian - SAKA**

So, you're not gonna be Conan the Barbarian here. I mean, you are - in fact when you unlock this class you're fighting what looks exactly like Ahhnold's Conan, plus some Terminator shades. It's very much that kind of game. But that dude is crazy. He's got like 4 extra skills your barbarian doesn't have and he gets 2 attacks each turn, for some reason. One of the toughest battles in the (pre-dragon) game, actually. So you're not that barbarian. You're more like Thrud the Barbarian. And if you get that reference, then you grew up with me in the 80s. Anyway. Take the Warrior, strip him down to one active skill and make him a regenerating critical powerhouse and, voila. Barbarian. The Barbarian is unique in that his skills are mostly passive, which are all valuable and usable at any level (unlike skills that cause conditions on enemies for example, which you want to max out to be effective). So it's pretty much a given you're going to max out his one active attack skill, but then you have free reign to spread the points around his 3 support skills. Really the only class you can build in this... relaxed kind of way. Sort of unexpected since this guy is all about the Rage. But however you build this guy, he's going to kick some major behind. And the front. The front too. He's gonna kick that too, 'cause he's enraged after all.

#### Anger Management (passive) - great/SAKA

So there are two ways to use this skill, one which is really effective and one which pretty much makes your Barbarian immortal. This skill gives him a boost to his attributes when, and only when, he's enraged. Sounds pretty good, but in fact it's spectacular. Fully maxed out (level 24, for a skill, is the max, by the way), he gets +32 Body and +16 Senses. That means +32 Damage, +32 Threat, +a shucks ton of (potential) HP, +16 initiative and +16% critical. The HP boost is kinda weird, actually, as when you get to higher levels you'll think your Barbarian just sliced his arteries open and lost most of his blood as he enrages, but really it's just that his max HP went up. Way up. At level 40, that's about 40 x 32 (1280) more potential HP. Which is about 3 times his normal. But don't be tempted to try and fill that up with healing, at least other players healing him, because as soon as he loses his rage he goes back to his normal but still substantial HP. However, there's no logical build with the Barbarian that doesn't include that one active skill, Frenzied Strike, which is the thing that gets you enraged, so really if you're doing the Anger Management thing you have two ways of going about it: First is the great way which is to respect the Barbarian's innate dullness and try to keep up the Rage as long as possible, in the process using as little MP as possible. So long as you don't add any Mind points to this Barbarian, he only has a 10% chance of shaking it off each turn. This is the build that makes the Cleric not welcome in your party, at least one that's purging conditions every turn. But the only advantage to this option is how it makes your Barbarian sip MP. Option 2, the SAKA way, has you make your Barbarian a Surfer, ideally, or failing that invite that Cleric to purge purge purge, and also maybe be a Rocker or Hipster or something that'll bring that Mind up so he can shake off the Rage a little better. Because the synergy here is amazing. See, Frenzied strike makes you heal yourself in addition to enraging you, for 104 HP at best. And, remember, when you enrage your max HP goes up astronomically. But really you only need to get this skill up to mid-level to take advantage of this magical healing loophole. Because, in effect, this means that when you can use the active skill every turn, you have a 104 HP buffer. The enemies need to do more than that much damage to actually bring your non-enraged HP down at all. And even if they manage that, they need to do it every turn or Thrud here will just keep healing back up to maximum. The only thing to fear then is running out of MP. Which won't likely be an issue if that Cleric is at your back, and even if he isn't, one regular 75MP potion gets you back in the fight for a few turns. While the next two passive skills are good, you could skip them easily and just focus on this one. And it would be unwise not to put any points in this one at all.

#### Pain Endurance (passive) - good

So, unlike the above opus to one skill, this will be brief. There is nothing wrong with this skill, it adds health and damage reduction. Were you to max it out, you would be nigh unkillable. To be specific, that's 208 extra health and 9 damage reduction at skill level 24. Problem is, it's unnecessary. You're plenty tough enough anyway, and you need your points for the 3 (or 2) other skills. That said, if you want to put just 6 points in this it'll give you damage reduction like medium armor (4) and a fair amount of health (52), and you can afford that much.

#### Rampage (passive) - great

This skill is the "critical powerhouse" part. It increases your critical chance by up to 32%, but more importantly gives you an extra hit after a critical with the potential for more criticals and more hits. To maximize this concept you do need to devote the rest of your points in Anger Management, but even without it this is an awesome skill. There is absolutely no reason not to put at least the 1 point in this. Your crit chance will be half of what it could be - or less, but there's still a chance and it'll be lovely to watch when it does happen. There's this little goat head that swipes across the enemy's noggin' and it feels like Christmas every time.

#### Frenzied Strike - SAKA

First, this is as strong as the Warrior's Power Lunge, damage-wise (324% weapon damage). But instead of a Threat boost and a long reach, you get to be enraged and heal for, ultimately, a ton of HP, 104 to be exact. I've actually kind of spoiled the reveal on this skill having explained the healing magic you can get with it back in Anger Management, but suffice it to say that, no matter your build, this skill is likely gonna be your priority.

### **Mage - SAKA**

Ahh the mage. The third archetype. Your glass cannon, your bedazzling spectacle, the guy that - deep down - you really want to *be* because, let's face it, Gandalf is the shiznit. Can you defeat a Balrog? Didn't think so. But here you can pretend you can, and this mage is everything you'd expect. Multiple paths to glorious magical carnage - all of his skills are great, although Lightning outperforms by a scosh. He's got the most versatile tool box and every skill is worth bringing to the fight. I'd say he's got the highest replay value - I've never leveled him the same way twice. I did do one playthrough without him, just once, and at the end I felt hollow inside, like the magic was missing from my life. Which it was. So what's he got?

#### Arcane Flow (Passive) - great

While the energy regeneration here is lovely, really it's the damage boost that makes it great. Take this to level 24, and you have yourself +32 spell damage and +16 energy regen every turn. You can benefit from this any number of ways: focus on this and one attack skill to get the highest magic damage imaginable, or spread out your points between all four skills and maximize the damage bonus you get here. All good options. I will say though that, after about level 30 or so, your Mage is going to have such a large MP reserve that regen doesn't have that much of an impact. You could even get through the average dungeon without it. The damage bonus remains awesome though.

#### Frostbite - great

So this is his single target skill. I think I've already established the general superiority of Stun as a condition, and in addition to some very good damage (136 at max level), you'll stun your hapless victim as well. After the obligatory resistance roll of course. Thing is, unlike the other two stunning skills, the Warrior's pommel and the Ninja's bomb, the stun is kind of just a bonus to the excellent damage you'll get out of this, especially if you boost it with Arcane Flow (for an unparalleled grand total of 168 Damage). Thing is, both Fireball and Lightning are perfectly serviceable even against single targets, so if you're looking to be hyper efficient you'll likely invest in one of those and your boosting skill. You can also, perfectly validly, spread your skill points out evenly among all of the Mage's skills. Like I said before, highly versatile.

#### Fireball - great

I still remember the very first time I sat down to play D&D. I played a mage, tiptoeing at the back of my party, holding in my mind a few magic missiles, a couple of mirror image spells, and 1 very precious fireball. Soon enough this gelatinous cube shows up, literally sucks the weapons off of our Ranger and Fighter and starts digesting them (the weapons, not the warriors - yet), when I decide it's time to bring out the big guns. One fireball, and it's toasted jelly on the floor. Fireball is, well, what mages are all about. I don't know a game where the mage type doesn't have this, and with good reason. Now, if you look at the damage, here in this game, you may well be disappointed at first. Even leveled to 24, the skill only does 56 to the target, and no direct damage to the group. But Burn baby Burn, is what makes this great. The Burn is proportional, so 32 maxed out, and it stacks, and gets harder to resist every 3 levels. So what this means is that you are literally going to torch all the weaklings facing you to ash. After 3 hits, they're burning for 96 damage. This is all great, but starts looking even better combined with the Thief's Barrage of Knives, or a group that lays on the conditions so you're getting a Sudden Death once every battle or two. As an added bonus, there is no initial resistance roll against this (there never is against Burn), although they get one at the start of their turn. (This might have you wondering, at this point, about how many resistance rolls your average condition gets in the game, and that it might be unfair, and I'll get in to that later.)

#### Lightning - SAKA

Lightning. For the evil lord in all of us. And really, the only way this is not going to go your way is if you haven't been paying enough attention to your evil apprentice's feelings. Seriously, decades of ultimate obedience and then his son shows up for, like, a day, and poof - he turns to mush. You just can't find good evil help these days. So, remember that Cleave skill? This is that, but better. You can hit the back row, and maxed out you're doing 104 damage. Which is pretty close to that 136 from Frostbite, all things considered, except it's going to hit up to 4 creepies at once. Which is 416 points of damage in one go, and the only other skill that consistently gets up in to those numbers is Barrage of Knives. So, as nice as it is to set everyone on the field of battle on fire, this is your better all-round damage skill. 'nuff said.

### **Warlock - good**

Oh the mysterious Warlock! What vile secrets is he hiding up his threadbare sleeves? Can he summon demons? Control the dead? Bring that Thief who's just been sliced in half back to life? The answers are: Yes, no, and kind of. And "kind of" is a pretty good way of thinking about this guy. He's kind of awesome. Kind of sucks. Kind of disappointing, ultimately. But maybe that's my fault. I think Warlock, I think a dude in armor black as night perched gloriously on top of a mound of corpses and fending off an army of vile beasts all by himself with those corpses of the fallen and, for some reason, intense lime green living mist at his command. This guy is more like that guy's apprentice. Like, the apprentice who just barely qualified and keeps being disappointing. The only skill that really shines is Touch of Blight, and it's almost just like Frostbite, and so you'll be asking yourself "why didn't I just bring the Mage in the first place?" 'Cause you don't need a Mage with a less powerful side-kick second mage in your team, really. Do you? Perhaps this is a curse shared with the Exchange Student, because both that player and this class require nothing more from you to unlock than a paltry sum of gold. But there's still some good here, and while his stats are mostly lackluster, he's fun to play and can do things no other class can.

#### Brink of Madness (Passive) - good... okay, yeah, also not that good.

While I do love the name of this skill, it'll about as useless to you as the Paladin's Armor of Faith, which is kind of the mirror image of this skill. Run out of energy? Use your health instead! This, already, sounds like a not so great idea. What makes this decent is that you regain up to 24 energy when this does happen. And that's fine, although not as fine as a 10 gold +75 energy potion, but there are only so many skill points in a game. And trust me, you are going to need all of them for his 3 other skills if you want him to measure up to his teammates. Just 1 point here though, and you have a backup energy reserve, so that you could do.Although you could put 1 point into this and use life transfer on yourself which basically makes the skill free.

#### Touch of Blight - great

So this is that lime green mist skill I was talking about. And it's pretty great. It hits any row, and the damage is equivalent to the Mage's Frostbite. Therefore the best damage (136 maxed) magic is going to do to a single target in this game. (Although the Mage can boost his with Arcane Flow - just saying... you know, who the real master is.) One good aspect though is that unlike any other skill but the Hunter's (and Burn from anyone), there is no resistance roll to what you inflict. It still means that, other than Stun, they get to roll at the start of their turn, but it's better than nothing. But anyway, instead of just Stun, this skill inflicts any 1 of the 7 conditions in the game. Including Stun, so 1 time out of 7 this is, in fact, the Frostbite skill (although better, 'cause the Stun can't be resisted). It used to be the only way of inflicting the Confuse condition. They fixed that now with the Eyeglass, kind of, which takes a weapon slot though and you can't upgrade it so using it reduces Damage (and Threat and Critical) a lot. Too much I say. This is all a little lame, I think, as confuse is a great and fun condition to inflict, and you're only going to inflict it 14.29% of the time with the Warlock. And that's the downside of this skill. While it's always good to inflict a condition, it can be pretty inconsequential too. If you inflict Burn, Poison or Wound with this, it's at level 1-9 (1 point every 3 levels of the skill). And 8 Burn doesn't stack up to much. Rage is a little pointless to inflict as for the most part they just straight attack you anyway. So about half the time this inflicts a condition that's actually worth inflicting. I'll take Frostbite over that, thank you, even with the resistance roll. And don't bring this thinking it'll help with Sudden Death. You need to know what condition you're inflicting so you can line them all up - this skill is almost worse than nothing in that respect. Still, the Warlock is worth bringing just for the damage this skill can inflict. But if you're in to the Warlock for the fun of his abilities, regardless of how effective they are(n't), then it's his next two skills you'll be groovin' on.

#### Life Transfer - good

Steal some life! Feel better! So, along with the Paladin (and the Cleric obviously), this is the only class that has a heal skill. The Knight has a kind of ancillary healing effect to one of his skills, but it's pretty weak. And the Monk has a healing loophole, but that's just for his own self. Thing is, Life Transfer is just a little too weak. At max level, you can heal for 32 HP per enemy. Which means, if you have seven opponents on the field, you can heal for 224 HP - which is a lot but still less than the Paladin or Cleric skills. This also translates to 224 overall damage, and that's pretty darn good. And if you think of it as an equation, and whoever you heal actually needs all that HP, in the best possible scenario it equates to 448 damage (224 done and 224 healed), which is totally wicked. Except that scenario is rare. Very rare. More often you'll have 3-5 baddies, which is 96-160 damage to the group, which is, compared to the other guys chuckling at you as you cast this spell, not all that impressive. And rarely will your guys need that much individual healing, especially at the start of a fight, so there's no fiddling with the math to feel better about things. Furthermore, as you start picking off the enemy, one by one, this skill gradually becomes fairy useless even maxed out. And I've been talking max level. Before you get there, this thing will feel extra weak, and like you aught to be spending your skill points elsewhere. Thing is, his other skills being generally lackluster as well, you might just level this up anyway for the fun of sucking the life out of things. One dubious bonus that needs be mentioned is that he can also resurrect a killed player, if only for the duration of the battle. This if fine, this is cool, but again... phoenix feather. And here especially, as once the battle's over you're going to need that phoenix feather anyway. In fairness though it does have the bonus of not using up a feather if your player gets killed over and over in the same battle, which he well might as he's always coming back with low health. Unless there's 7 monsters on the field and he gets brought back at close to full health. So there's that. But then there's Dragons, which must have a pet peeve about Warlocks, because you can't resurrect around them.

#### Summon Demon - good

Come to me, servant of Beelzebub, and obey my every whim! Other than the Hunter's hat that he places on the table, which is remarkably resilient, this is the only summoning skill there is. Gets points just for that. I will note that your demon is not that scary - looks more like a little fluffy dragon plush someone plopped on the gaming table. But that fits the feel of the game really, so I can't complain. Although I just did. So you bring this little dude up from the netherworld, and he (again, at max level) attacks for 80 damage and only gets dispelled if you get hit for 56 or more damage at once. The attack is decent, and at higher levels he'll rarely get dispelled as your Warlock is going to be pretty low Threat. A minor problem is that the target is random, so not much strategy there. But this can work really well if you combine it with Touch of Blight. Summon your demon first, and then cast Touch of Blight every turn after, and you're dishing out a max of 192 damage every turn. You know, after all the quests at the tail end of the game when you can get two skills to level 24. So more realistically like 170, near the end of the game, around 120 before that, plus that first attack is only whatever the demon can muster by himself. And he might disappear any turn. So... maybe not all that awesome. For me at least, it just doesn't feel powerful enough for all the skill points you need to pump into it, so I just can't bring myself to bump this up to the 'great' category.

### **Thief - great**

The thief. As you will have come to expect from playing numerous thieves in numerous gaming worlds, they are highly skilled and agile, but they are pretty fragile - although not as fragile as that Mage over there in the thin cotton gown - and, if the circumstances all line up, they are capable of the highest damage one can dish out. In this here world, most of that is true. More than most combat classes, the Thief will rely on the special qualities of her skills rather than direct attacks. As far as damage, that part is true about one of her skills in particular, which if used well with a compatible team will have you shredding your way through the game at top speed. Her other skills are pretty fun and useful as well, but don't expect her to be the critical monster you can create with the Ninja and Barbarian.

#### Stealth (passive) - good

So, this skill is about as simple as they get. Gain up to +32% critical and take the shield action when hit. To be clear, the shield action does nothing in the moment, no damage reduction. But it reduces your Threat to zero, so you're unlikely to get hit again. Until your next turn that is. So really that part is mostly pointless unless you like Cheerleaders, in which case you get that nice little HP/MP regen bonus. If your Thief is cheering, definitely put a point in here. Otherwise, it's up to you, but for my money I'd put my points in the other skills. If you max this skill you'll have a respectable Critical chance, but the Ninja, Barbarian and Knight are all better at it, and her other skills are definitely worth investing in.

#### Backstab (passive) - good

So, first thing you'll be asking yourself is: "How can Backstab be passive?" Second thing: "Does this mean I have a Thief who can't actually Backstab?" Well, not really. It's just a little different, and understandably so. So what this does is add up to +16 Initiative and +56 damage to a weapon attack against enemies *with full health*. The enemies in this game literally do not have backs, so full health is what they came up with to fill in for the concept. The bonus to Initiative, while nice, doesn't make too great a deal of difference in your average battle. The idea, I think, is that if the Thief strikes first she'll be sure to get that bonus, which is true as far as that goes. Which isn't that far. Now +56 damage can be quite nice, but if you have anyone using a group damage skill in your group - which you really you aught to for balance - then she's only going to get that bonus for 1 maybe 2 attacks. All in all, not worth it, unless you do a special group with everyone focusing on single attacks. In which case you'll want that Grappling Hook.

#### Grappling Hook - good (great, just for me)

So this hits a single target for a little less than your average fighter's comparable skill (220% weapon damage at skill level 24), which is the same oomph as the Hunter's hat can muster. Your special skill here is dragging a back row opponent to the front (unless they resist). This does have some practical applications, such as providing another victim for Cleave and Lightning, or just getting that back row caster up front so your Barbarian can properly pummel him. But, if I'm being honest, this is a little tactically superfluous. Meaning there are better skills to invest in, or items to buy, or players to bring to deal with the whole back row/front row situation. It is, however, the most fun solution to that issue, which is why it's great for me. It's a completely unique skill, and it opens up avenues of strategic thought that don't exist without it. That said, this isn't crazy powerful, your Thief's base weapon damage is going to be less than a fighter's most of the time, and the Barrage of Knives skill (that I must have mentioned 6 times by now already) is just so very tempting that you might skip this altogether. Just to say though that the natural compliment to this is Backstab. Kind of the only reason to level Backstab, I think, as then you'll be showing up the fighters, at least for 1 or 2 hits a battle.

#### Barrage of Knives - SAKA

So, if you're me, this is why you brought the Thief to the party. First of all, do note that this skill is not affected by the Body attribute. It's more like a spell (although sadly not improved by spell damage boosters). So if you were feeling insecure that your damage-dealing Thief came with only 4 Body - be not afraid. So, at top level, this will hit all enemies (or all "adjacent" enemies if for some reason you forgot to set up your Board Games in the Game Room) for 56 damage. Wait, what? How is that badass? Doesn't Lightning hit up to 4 enemies for 104 damage each? What about the Hunter's skill, that's the same and is only great? What's the deal? The deal is that 56x7 is close to 104x4 (392 and 412). Actually no, I lied. I mean that is true, the damage is about as good as any group attack you'll find in the game. But it's actually twice as good. The secret ingredient is... double damage when used on an enemy that already has a Condition. So at it's very best, with 7 opponents with, say, Weakness or Fire or Stun Conditions provided by a helpful ally, you're getting 112 damage each, which is a grand slammin' 784 points of total damage, potentially, in just one attack. There's nothing else like it in the game. You set this skill up right and, honestly, it almost feels like cheating. Now, getting that supreme 784 damage will be rare, as having the timing work so that all 7 baddies have conditions when you throw your knives won't happen much, and unless you set up battles yourself having 7 baddies at all is pretty rare. But even if you have just one enemy on the field with a Condition, that's 112 damage. That's close to Frostbite damage and totally worth the MP it costs to cast. Or even if you hit 3 enemies without Conditions, still good at 168 damage. This is *the* OP attack in the game. Two things to add here is that this costs a lot to cast, so you'll want as much Mind (therefore MP) as you can get. Also, you'll either want a high Senses score or a really low one. For the latter, you're better off not getting too many Senses as really you'd rather be striking after your Mage or Paladin or (more likely) Ninja. So being a Human Lab Rat Thief, just in this case, would be a very good choice. Alternatively, for the former, you could still be a Human Lab Rat, but level Backstab along with this for the Initiative boost (and a basic attack that's actually worth something if you're the first one to hit them), so that you're nearly always the first to strike. How this becomes a good thing is when you have a low Initiative player as your Condition delivery system who goes last or close to last out of everyone (including the enemy), thus setting up the whole field with Weakness (that would only get the initial resistance roll here) or Fire (that will get no resistance roll at all) for the next turn, when the Thief will strike first and lay waste to your hapless enemies. (Important note: as this skill is not weapon based, Backstab won't kick in here. Which would be crazy awesome because then you'd possibly reach a total damage of 900 or something - but then what fun would the game really be.)

### **Hunter - good**

Better known as the ranger in, well, like everywhere. This is your crafty woodsman, your archer supreme, your tree-huggin' turf-sniffin' beast-trackin' wild man. Or man of the wild, more precisely. I like the Hunter. Or rather, I really want to like him. I like the style of his skills, the look of his hat, the overall cut of his jib. Unfortunately, he doesn't stack up to a terribly efficient dude. His skills are all cool, everything you'd expect Legolas to have in his elven tool belt, at least in concept. In practice they kind of all fall flat, except for the last two - the group skill in particular. But that group skill will have you asking yourself why you didn't just bring the Thief with the mark 2.0 version of the Hunter's skill. And if you answer yourself: "because of the cool hat!", then you've found yourself a positively smashing reason to play him. If that answer was: "because he's the better warrior... or stealth-or... or critical-or... or even initative-or...", well, you'd be wrong. Part of his problem is that, along with the Thief, he's an Initiative specialist. But once again his Initiative skill is a step behind the Thief's. Still, much like the Warlock, he has some unique skills and can be fun to play. And if you thought that hat was cool just on his head...

#### Ambush (passive) - good, pretty great when fully leveled

Here is, for once, a concrete reason to care about initiative. Well, at least a little. At best this will give your Ranger +16 Initiative (just like the Thief's Backstab), and since no other skill (but Backstab) and few items give a boost to Initiative, this will mean he'll pretty much always be one of the first 3 to attack. Thankfully that's not it, as this will add up to +32 damage to any foe behind you in the turn order. Which means there will almost always be at least one baddie that you can attack with this bonus. Thing is, the bonus isn't that much. You may recall that Backstab gives a +56 damage bonus. Why is the Hunter's half that? I don't know, but it doesn't really seem fair, does it? It does add a layer to your strategy, but a restrictive one (limiting who you should attack to those behind you in the turn order). The only way this is really worth investing in at all is when used with Hail of Arrows. But, like Hail of Arrows it's only really great by the time you max it out, with the high initiative and the bonus 32 damage to everyone on the field of battle (or almost everyone). However, until you max both skills out, you're not always first, you're not getting the damage bonus to all your targets, and you're not hitting everything out there. Once again, like the Thief, but worse.

#### Prepared Arrow - good

Be thee not fooled! Despite the fact that a weapon is in the name, this is a spell. The difference being the damage is not variable nor affected by weapon or damage bonuses. The one weapon in the game that you'd think you'd want for this guy is the bow. Just the bow, no crossbow, longbow, composite bow or anything. Just a bow. And that weapon is the only 2 handed weapon in the game that adds no damage (and, I'll tell you right now, you're better off with the shuriken and anything else in his other hand). Just lets you attack the back row (and be more threatening and stuff). But with this skill in mind, that might make sense then - except it doesn't because this skill hits the back row anyway. You may be starting to feel like the Hunter is the neglected step-child of all the developers' children. And you'd be right. So this skill maxes out causing 112 damage with another 32 as either Burn, Poison or Wound. Which means it's a weak version of Touch of Blight or Frostbite, but with conditions that actually have good stacking damage. So again if you focus on weak opponents the conditions will likely stack, and that can add up to a lot. But your average weak opponent isn't likely to survive more than two hits from this. And then you'll start asking yourself why you brought the Hunter instead of the Mage or Warlock... or Thief, Ninja, Paladin... anyone else really. And if Sudden Death tickles your fancy, this skill won't help (just like Touch of Blight doesn't), as inflicting random conditions is pretty frustrating to have to try to work around. Pair this with Ambush though and you'll have 126 damage per hit with that 28 stacking condition. If the condition sticks that's 154 damage for the hit, which is better than any other spell (which this is), but if you do that this is all the Hunter is good for. Meaning your Mage or Warlock might not quite measure up to the perfect version of this skill, but they'll have another skill, like Lightning or Life Transfer, which really makes for a better player. Well, despite all the doom and gloom so far, the next two skills are actually alright, and redeem the Hunter.

#### Decoy - great

Love the hat? This is the hat trick skill. So the Hunter plops his hat on the table, gains up to 56 Threat (which is massive even at high levels), takes a hit for absolutely no damage, and then counter-attacks for up to 220% weapon damage. Which is, well, not super great as it doesn't even measure up to some of the fighters' secondary attack skills. But it's still mighty fine. What with the Threat, he's sure to be attacked soon no matter who else is thumping his chest in your group. But don't be fooled into thinking you're getting a free attack (like Riposte), you took a turn carefully placing that hat down on the table, remember? So what this actually does, it's ultimate tactical benefit, is to nullify whatever attack comes his way. And seeing as you'll get hit more than once in almost any battle, this can be pretty handy. The skill does strike back for up to nearly double damage, which is great, but is mitigated somewhat by the fact that who you attack is taken out of your hands. So if you're going for a defensive play style, here you have - finally - a good reason to bring the Hunter. This also means you can spare him the energy cost of wearing armor, meaning more Decoys. All good.

#### Hail of Arrows - great, at least fully leveled up

And lo! Another good skill for the Hunter! Toss a bunch of arrows in the air, and they fall down for up to 56 damage, to... a specific number of enemies. 2 random enemies to start with, then one more every 3 levels. Which means that maxed out you're hitting all of them, but until you get there, you're not. Why this restriction? You know, compared to the other classes? I'm not sure, but I'm putting it down to the mysterious antipathy the programmers clearly have for this guy. What it does mean is that you don't need those Game Boards in the Game Room so you can have your Go game instead. Which does what? Allows you to fight up to 7 instead of just 5 enemies. Which is... not so great until you level up this skill. So, again, why the hate, devs? But still, despite these minor flaws, hitting the enemy for a max of 392 total damage is nothing to laugh at. Combined with Ambush, in a perfect situation, you're doing 616 damage. At the very end of the game with both skills maxed (compared to the Thief who gets to those numbers with one skill maxed halfway through the game assuming he has help from his team). Before that end-game massive damage, the Hunter is just going to be looking over in envy at every other group damage skill his friends are dishing out. But if your team is focusing on group damage skills, bringing the Hunter with this is still a natural fit.

### **Monk - great**

The penultimate of the unlockables. Fittingly, the mysterious Monk class is the least obvious to unlock. And, by the way, do yourself a favor and buy the Monk's campaign, straight away preferably. The whole game feels more complete with it, it's more fun and challenging if you start it at level 14 as designed (not level 25 or whatever), and at the end of it you get the Monk! But what makes a Monk a Monk? Is it the bald head? 'Cause that always seems to be part of it. Or is it lightning reflexes? The ability to harness the power of Chi and blow down small straw houses in one blow? Or is he just the most proficient pugilist ever to walk the earth? Well, I'm happy to report, pretty much yes to all of the above. As much as they got the Hunter wrong here (sorry guys), they got the Monk right. He's the most skilled warrior of the bunch, with some skills that, if used correctly, make him burningly impressive. I could have said stunningly impressive, but really it's all about the burn. Reveal your secrets, Monk!

#### Martial Arts (passive) - good

This is the "I like causing criticals" skill, shared in basic form with the Thief and Barbarian and Ninja. What's nice, and frankly better about this one, is that the secondary perk actually levels up with you, for once. This is where those bare hands start to look deadly. At max level, it's the standard +32% to criticals. And then every 3 levels you get +1 damage per empty hand slot. Now, when I first unlocked this guy, I made him a Jock in the next game, because what's better than two +9 fists? Three +9 fists! And this is, verifiably, true. Only problem is that, even if you pour all your points into this from the get-go, you will always have equal or better options from your weapons, at least if you know how to craft them yourself. And all weapons come with perks that your fists don't. Inflicting conditions on criticals, added threat or range or whatnot. So as far as efficiency, this is a waste. And with 3 fists it's just 50% more of the same and an equal waste. So there's nothing wrong with this skill, but you're most likely better off investing in something else. Most likely, that is, unless you skip the next skill and its perk, going for a non-threatening warrior. The better the weapon, the higher the Threat, up to +25. So if you have another tank in the mix, you could let him take all the hits and focus on damage. This also means you'll have less use of the Monk's crazy regenerating abilities. So many choices!

#### Acrobatics (passive) - good/SAKA

So here's another one of those skills that is amazing when used right, and not really worth the skill points otherwise. So, apparently being all bendy and agile appears threatening to the baddies, as you'll max out with +56 Threat on this one. For the record, that's more than anyone else (for a passive Threat level). The part that is thoroughly awesome is that if you have this skill (at any level) you negate all incoming attacks from enemies with conditions. You might remember I alluded to this way back with the Paladin, about the benefits of group Condition infliction re the Monk. So, if you want to do this perfect, bring a Mage with Fireball and a Paladin with Smite. Between the two of them and any other Condition inflicting skills your party has (including the Monk's flaming fist), and with the crazy high Threat, your Monk will get most of the hits and not feel a thing. Or, I suppose more accurately, dodge all the attacks. So you will always want at least one skill point in this, because Conditions happen even if you're not trying, and now and then the enemy will waste an attack. Make this the heart of your Monk's tactics though, and you'll think the enemy forgot their spiked clubs at home and brought over-cooked spaghetti instead.

#### Na Palm - great

Here's a hot steaming serving of fire in your face! So, just to give the Warrior and Barbarian an official edge, this does the same damage as the Paladin's Guiding Strike (308% weapon damage). Except that this one also inflicts Burn (32 at max level). As with all Burn inflicting skills, this one has the added bonus of bypassing the first resistance roll. So, assuming the Burn isn't resisted at the start of their turn, this is in fact the best fighter attack in the game. Burn stacks, so that's always nice, and combined with the Monk's Acrobatics it gives another chance to avoid any damage from a monster that's on fire. Seeing as this is the Monk's only genuine attack skill, it's unlikely you'll leave this one entirely unleveled. In fact, I don't recommend it. I've played through with a Monk focusing on this skill and one focusing on Martial Arts for the bare-fisted awesomeness. I can assure you this is the better investment.

#### Second Wind - SAKA

So this one is just, well, absurd. What this does is let you restore up to 160 MP and then swap your MP and HP. At level 32, say, that's about half of your energy restored. Which is super groovy and more than you'll ever need, seeing as your only active attack skill is Na Palm. But the real magic here is the swap. And specifically because the Monk is a low energy user. So, just to illustrate: You're in battle, your HP is down to 40/260, and your MP is down to 60/240. You use this skill, which has you end up with 220 HP and 40 MP. Then next turn you use it again, and you're at 200 HP and 220 MP. Once more would be a total waste though, so time to bust out that flurry of fists, or War Hammer, or whatever you're using. So no matter what the enemy is throwing at you, so long as you have this at a high level and use it for 1-2 turns, you're back up close to full health and energy. No other class can do this. And the more likely scenario is that you're slightly hurt, and just use it once to come back at almost full strength. So, kind of surprisingly, this all means that the Monk is your best defensive player. He can't take as much direct damage as the Warrior or (especially) Barbarian, and doesn't have a love affair with armor like the Knight does, but he doesn't have to because of his wily skills. There are many builds to get there but if you level up this and Acrobatics in kind of any variation, your Monk will likely never fall to the enemy's wrath.

### **Knight - SAKA**

Paragon of justice, jouster of renown, rescuer of princesses and slayer of dragons: The Knight. That, or he's just another stuck up noble jock with too much inheritance and nothing better to do than play games with other nobles and eat lamb by the roasted leg. In this game, he's somewhere in the middle, as far as the story goes. The devs did us the favor of letting us have him even if we don't get past the Great Paywall. But you should get past it, 'cause really, it's all about the dragons. And the dragon fights are something else. I don't mean that they will necessarily blow your mind, but it's a very different and very difficult kind of fight. But back to the Knight. He's actually more subtle and more complex than I was expecting. By far. The biggest surprise is that he's the only class that can get up to 100% critical. Well, I mean that's technically true, but actually more of a gimmick. In practice you'll get up to around 85% to 95% critical. Although you have to want it, wait for it, and you have to build your party around helping that - but it can be done. Other than that, he'll be your new defensive combatant extraordinaire. And his strong focus on defense makes him less able to be a critical beast like the Ninja (who is not dethroned, no matter what the stats are). He takes advantage of damage reduction in a way I didn't even know was possible before he showed up, he uses energy as health but intelligently for once, and he can build himself up to be the most threatening fighter on the field and take all the agro away from your casters and specialists. He kinda likes to be the only bad boy (read: fighter type) on the team though, which is fine, but it does mean he's dictating who you're bringing along with you to slay those dragons. You can bring the Paladin or Warrior if you want, but they're all going to be competing for agro attention which is less efficient than letting the Knight do his thing. He's a worthy final addition, so let's get into the details:

#### Second Skin (passive) - good

You know that thick plate armor Knights always seem to wear, this is that. It's like the Barbarian's version of this skill but without the health boost and a twist instead. The twist is that it increases the maximum effectiveness of Damage Reduction, which I didn't even know was a thing but I'm guessing has been part of the game mechanics since the get go. I tend to have an aggressive play style, and don't pay too much attention to what damage my guys are suffering so long as they're staying alive, but what this means is that the Knight is better at this than the Barbarian. The damage reduction bonus here gets up to +16, which is the same protection as the Barbarian would get. The difference is that, maxed out, the Knight's effectiveness goes up to 82%. Where the default effectiveness (that every other class is stuck with) is 50%. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what this means, but the following is what I'm assuming it means: So if the Barbarian gets hit for 32 damage or more, he'll block 16 points of damage. But if it's less than that, say 16 damage, he won't actually block all of it, he'll only block 8. The Knight would block 13.12 of the damage, which I'm assuming with standard math means 13. This is assuming they're both naked, by the way. This isn't that great a difference, but later on when the Knight is not naked but has a damage reduction around 40 or 50 with all his souped up gear (which is what you will obviously have him wear if you invest in this skill), this makes more of a difference. With 50 damage reduction, instead of only blocking 25 of a 50 damage hit, he'll block 41 of it. Still, having explained all that painstakingly, it's a lot of skill points for not that much impact. Meaning you're better off investing your points in his other skills, which are all better.

#### Discipline (passive) - great (SAKA with the Rocker)

Where the Paladin and the Warlock have failed, the Knight triumphs. This gives a boost, a very substantial boost, to both the Knight's Heath and Energy, +112 each, which together adds up to 224. As always, maxed at level 24. Adding them up is relevant, because this skill's other perk is that all incoming damage is divided equally between HP and MP. Just putting one point in this skill already makes your Knight a damage absorbing beast, the extra health and energy points are just gravy. The Knight has two active skills, which we'll cover shortly, and they're both pretty low in energy cost, not that it matters terribly as, kind of weirdly (seeing as you'd think the Mage or Warlock would have this) the Knight is the only class that can up his base energy with a skill. This is smart, unlike the Paladin who needs to nearly die for his skill to kick in at all or the Warlock who blows through energy like a crack addict does with his crack, and then starts drinking his own already small reserve of blood to do more crack (I mean, use magic). Also, this is going to make you more than tough enough, saving you the need to have a Second Skin. One thing to note here is how natural a fit the Knight is for the Rocker player, no matter how you build the Knight assuming you have at least 1 point in Discipline. It's a have your cake and eat it too situation, where the Knight can wear crazy heavy armor and shield(s) but still have full energy which actually counts as health. In fact, this skill qualifies as SAKA as far as I'm concerned if (and only if) you pair with the Rocker.

#### Bulwark - SAKA

This aptly named skill is what your Knight will use first, every time, in every battle. At least if you're being efficient. This touches on the Knight's only real weakness: it takes him forever to go on the offense in a battle, at least effectively. But, to stay on point, this adds up to 136 Threat at level 24, which is just a hilariously huge number compared to what anyone else is capable of. What places this firmly in the theater of the absurd is that he can keep adding to his Threat like this, every turn. His Threat does reduce with damage taken, but unless he's getting clawed in the face by that dragon (which he can easily shake off by the way), his Threat is going to remain floating in the stratosphere after one or two turns no matter what. Very crucially, his next skill (True Strike), allows him to convert Threat Percentage into a bonus to his Critical Percentage. Now, there is a very important distinction here between Threat and Threat Percentage, which is another concept that may have been around since before the latest magazine, but I had no idea. With this skill maxed and two turns of using it, your Knight will have around 200-300 Threat (hilarious, right?). Now, here's where it gets tricky, because your Threat Percentage is relative to the rest of your team. So if everyone else takes cover, your Threat could be 5 but it would still be 100%. That's just never going to really happen though, your other teammates need to have fun too, so there's a few ways of doing this. If you commit fully to this idea, you can make all your other players low Threat casters and specialists and also give them weak non-Threatening weapons so that after casting this once the Knight's threat is at about 85%, and a second time brings it to 95%. If you have a more reasonable approach, with everyone using buffed up weapons, then one cast will get this to about 65%. But if there's a Paladin guiding his strikes, a Warrior lunging powerfully, and a Hunter placing his threatening hat in front of him, his Threat is going to be anywhere from 35-45%. Which is still very good, and a pretty likely critical strike when the Knight eventually gets around to using his sword, but you're much better off having no other agro-loving guys in your team. Like that Monk who uses his non-threatening fists, or the Hunter who doesn't care about his hat. Guys like that. Now all this makes Bulwark totally at home in the SAKA realm already, but just to make it even better, he also regenerates up to 9 Health and Energy for everyone else each time this is used. The Health is inconsequential, practically, but the Energy regen is only a third of what the Cleric provides, and if they're both on your team kiss your MP worries goodbye.

#### True Strike - great

So this is a mid-range attack that hits for 204% damage at its best. It also is like the Barbarian's Frenzied Strike, restoring (only) 32 health to the Knight every time he uses it, which means you can focus on just this skill and Bulwark, with just one point in Discipline to get the shared energy/health perk - which, you can probably guess, is what I think is the best way to build this guy. Thing is though, since it's the Criticals you're after, you're going to have to use this to attack with (whenever you're done with Bulwark), to get that Critical boost. A straight up attack from the Knight is pretty lackluster. But even if you level this to just 3, that's 113% weapon damage, but you'll still get the critical, and if you're concerned about his health, put some points in Second Skin and/or Discipline to make him thoroughly undefeatable with only a moderate sacrifice to his potential damage. And if you're building your team around the Knight, they can all be focusing on max damage without having to worry too much about taking hits. Use your Knight for what he's best at, I say. Now, admittedly, it's this skill that helps make Bulwark SAKA in the first place, so it may seem unfair to call it just great. But True Strike needs Bulwark to have that Critical/Threat swap mean anything, and the damage here is unspectacular as is the healing. So, great not SAKA. And that's the Knight, in all his defensive glory.

### **Druid - good (great with the Rocker, SAKA with the "1 point ward build")**

Preserver of nature, lover of beasts (no, not in that way!), poster child for neutrality - the Druid. The first thing you'll notice about the Druid is his crown of... I wanna say thorns, but it looks a little more like ivy. A bit like thorns though. So yay, here we have another specialist to join the thiefy classes. Meaning, a class based in theory on the Senses attribute. Unfortunately, despite looking cool and having some genuinely groovy out-of-the-box-thinking kind of skills, kind of like the Hunter this guy is not terribly efficient unless you use him just right. Unlike the Ninja who specializes in Criticals or the Thief who still has the best group damage skill, the Druid (being super neutral about it all) tries to be too many things at once: caster, fighter, healer, speed demon - stacking up to a lesser version in all categories than several of the other classes here. Once again, kind of like the Warlock, if there were twice as many skill points to go around you could take advantage of this "I can do it all" attitude, but there aren't, so you can't. Except (very importantly) for his "1 point Ward" build, which is a paradigm shift for the Druid, and which I'll cover under that skill. Regardless of how you build him, the Druid is still very interesting to play and has a hamster. Or Gerbil. Pigmy shrew maybe? Whatever, a delightful little animal companion to plop on the gaming table. Good fun.

#### Animal Companion (passive) - great

Uh oh, somebody brought their pet Guinea Pig to the game. Quick, let's incorporate it! So this is pretty groovy. Mr. Druid will get up to +16 Initiative here, which is pretty darn swell, and just like what the Thief and Hunter can muster, so he'll always be one of the first to strike. Instead of a damage modification though, he gets up to an 80% chance for a second action in the same turn. This, really, is the most innovative and exceptional skill he's got, allowing you to stun and hit, or hit and heal, or heal and stun in a single turn. And this almost all the time. Except... not enough skill points. To be competitive by the higher levels in this game, you really need your skills to be maxed out, and this means each class is always better off focusing on just two skills. So if you max this out, you only get one other option, so it's hit and hit, heal and heal, stun and stun. Which is still double your pleasure, but also double your MP cost and you'll find that your Druid has developed an MP potion addiction and is hoarding them in a burrow back at Spawn Point Village. In theory, this skill kicks major ass. In practice, it's hard to make it work well, and hard to keep up the MP. Except of course if you use his next skill as a 1 point concept, as I've been teasing you with. Soon. Anyway, as far as the general MP suckage almost any Druid build will want from you if you use this skill, you could bring the Cleric to help with that, which means your Druid can focus on damage or incapacitation. And this is true, except other classes are better at both of those things. So... ultimately, this turns out to be another case of "why would I bring this guy instead of the other guy who's better at it?" And if your answer is: "because of the small furry mammal and the crown of tho... I mean, ivy!", then the Druid is for you.

#### Renewing Carapace - good (SAKA as a 1 point skill with Animal Companion)

And here we have another version of healing that tries to think out of the box, with mixed results. It's at least better than the Warlock's Life Steal, but that's a pretty low bar. In theory you can get the most healing out of this skill, if enough turns go by and your target doesn't get hit. But in practice, a little hard to make it work. What you get here is pretty good though as, unlike the Hunter's hat which only works for him, you can cast this on anyone and grant them immunity from the next attack they get. In the meantime they heal up to 80 HP every turn. Until they get hit. Which means after 3 turns you're on par with the Paladin and Cleric at their most healing-est, and after 4 or more turns you're crowned the new healing prima donna. The practical problem though is that it's the ones getting hit what need the healing (your Knights and Barbarians) and the ones who aren't getting hit who don't need it (your Mages and Ninjas). So it's a nice gesture to either spare your Warrior one hit and maybe get one 80 HP heal in, or to protect that Ninja who's not getting hit or damaged in the fight anyway, but it's not the best use of a skill. With the ferret-like thing in the mix, this does mean you can spend your time protecting two of your fellows each turn, one for the fighter each turn and one for each other player so, in a long enough fight, you're basically warding the whole party the whole time. And really that's the best case scenario here and a solid build. But... one lighting strike or fireball and all those wards go away - just saying. And that means a fifth of your party is never doing damage (a complaint you could equally level at the Cleric, to be sure - except he's better at the whole altruism thing), and that's a pretty massive MP drain. A mixed bag to be sure.

This is all true if what you're hoping to get out of this skill is some healing. If all you want is the ward, well, here you can have a beautiful thing and the best possible Druid build. Build your Druid with Animal Companion and either Feral Mauling or Grappling Vines as your two maxing skills, but put just one point here for the ward. So when you get a second action in a turn, which will be almost all the time later in the game, cast this ward on someone in your team (probably the tank {which might be you, if your a big green bear}) as your second action. It'll cost next to nothing, the Druid will still have the mojo to maul or vine every turn, and especially in a dragon-type situation when the ward negates a 200 HP hit, this will be invaluable. Even better, the ward lasts until hit, so assuming whoever you cast this on doesn't get hit in a given turn (that 1 Threat Ninja, say), you can stuck up a few wards in a battle. Mondo groovy. This is the druid's "1 point Ward" build mentioned in his title, and it is by far the best use of the Druid and makes him just as valuable as the Mage or Ninja in your party - and also the only the second class here (after the Paladin) that effectively marries offense and defense in the same build. There are other builds here that can be fun to explore, but this is absolutely the build of choice.

#### Feral Mauling - good (great if you're a Rocker & SAKA with the "1 point ward" build)

Turn into a bear! Shred some stuff up! While fun in theory, it's also fun in practice. This big ass ethereal green bear-shaped cloak thing envelops the Druid, he becomes super strong and angry. The Hulk, essentially. With one major exception, he doesn't get tougher, and that's the problem here. Similar to the Barbarian's skill, though much lesser, he gets a body boost of up to +16. But this just per turn, not until the rage goes away like the Barbarian. As long as the Druid has the MP to keep it up, there's no appreciable difference though. And then chomp the bejeesus out of the baddies for up to 324% damage - which is top tier stuff, Warrior and Barbarian statistics. Added to that is the +16 Damage and +16 Threat, and if you make your Druid a Dwarf Jock, you will indeed be doing some very major damage here. And if you have your rat-pug furball doing the double-it jig on the table, you'll be up there with Ninja Shadow Chain criticals and Barbarian smashing - although not quite all the way up there. Thing is, if you do that, focus on war, you are severely lacking in the juju you need to cast this every turn, much less twice every turn. Even with a Cleric you'll still be mainlining MP juice, sometimes having to waste a turn in a battle to keep it up. If that were the end of the downsides, this would still qualify as a great skill. But there's one more bad thing: your Druid just isn't tough enough. Yes, you can bring him up to 10 or 12 body or whatever, but he's still gonna feel paper thin compared to any of the Fighters and what they can handle because the body boost doesn't actually add HP and there's no synergy skill like the Barbarian has to take care of that. So then he's not just an MP hog, but a healing hog, distracting your other players from getting on with the enemy pulverizing as they struggle just to keep the Druid in the fight. And sadly Renewing Carapace can't make up for these problems as it takes a turn to get that ward up, and you may or may not get the 80 HP heal depending on if someone hits you (which they well might, since you're a big threatening bear now). In theory, great. In practice, just good. Except, of course, for the "1 point ward" build - which makes everything hunky dory, because then the toughness issue isn't an issue when you can ward yourself from all damage over half the time.

#### Grappling Vines - great

I don't know what it is, but Druids just have this thing with vines. Vines on their heads, vines squeezing the life out of enemies, and I suspect a heavy dose of the dried vine weed pipe at the end of a hard day battling evil the renewable green way. This is in many respects similar to the Ninja's Smoke Bomb. And, while we're on that topic, just a little shy of that skill's awesomeness. One of my favorite things about this skill is that it's, finally, another row-affecting skill, to compliment the Warrior and Mage skills. These little vine bundles pop up at the monsters' feet and they get to try and resist a Stun at up to a -9 Body roll. Which, by the way, is like the Mage and Warrior Stun, not like the Ninja which is Senses based. If the vines stick, they also do up to 56 damage, each turn. And this can get to be pretty significant, if you have it on a whole row, or even two rows (with the help of your fur ball or two turns to work with), meaning everyone. As a bonus, the vines will stay, strangling away, so long as the victim has ANY condition. So if you've got a Mage and a Paladin and possibly a Ninja causing conditions all over, the vines will stick even if the Druid's Stun fails. This is very good, necessary even to make this skill worth it, because the Stun, even if they don't resist it, goes away after one turn so you only get one 56 HP hit out of it. All the other Conditions stick around until resisted. So, really, I wouldn't invest in this skill unless you've got at least one dude supporting the Conditions situation (the Mage being the best as Fire is applied without a resistance roll). And again, if you do a build where you can cast this twice a turn, it's a major MP suck but also something of a waste to cast on the same row twice. A complete waste if the whole row gets stunned and vined, because neither of them stack. Also note this is pretty much completely worthless against bosses by itself, although you might get a solid squeeze in on them with someone else causing an irresistible Condition like Fire or the Warlock and Psion skills. And that "1 point ward" build is, of course, the best combo here, but unlike with the bear situation it doesn't make up for a weakness (the lack of bear toughness), so even though this skill is best used with that build, it doesn't change the value (or rating) of Grappling Vines.

### **Psion - good**

This guy is like, the coolest guy. Or, at least he thinks he is. But it's all in the mind anyway, right? Kind of like the Druid, the Psion has some truly original skills that look and act cool, but they are ultimately less impressive in practice than in theory. Kind of like the Warlock, none of his skills really measure up - and the one that does can't make up for the others. To be blunt, I'm rather disappointed here. However, he has the slickest looking headgear in the game, I think, this sort of macho tiara. He's essentially a different kind of Mage, focusing largely on damage (but more ineffectually...), with one protective skill just to mix it up and the super cool seeming ability to move monsters around the battlefield at will. Other casters in this game will outshine him in both individual and group damage, but his passive skill is as deadly as passivity gets.

#### Psychosomatics (passive) - SAKA (compared to other passive skills, that is)

Passive skills in this game tend to be, well, passive. Not just in the technical sense in that they happen without activating them, but they're all non-offensive: regenerating, protecting, boosting, things like that. But not this one. This one just straight up damages the enemy - all the enemies - every time the Psion uses any skill. It's not a boat load of damage, granted, maxing out at 32 per baddie. But say that's five on the field, that's 160 damage, and that's just in addition to whatever else your Psion is actually focusing on. However you use this, with his single damage skill, protection skill, or shuffle-the-enemy-like-a-deck-of-cards skill, it's worthwhile, effective, a good combo, and the animation is about as cool as it gets.

#### Misdirection - good

So this one is pretty original in that, along with the Druid, it adds only the second proper warding spell in the game (I don't think the Hunter's hat counts, because he can't use it on anyone else). It's best used on whoever your meat shield is, but can actually be legitimately used on even the frailest team member thanks to how tough it makes them. Grant any player an extra 56 Threat and 32 Damage Reduction until your next turn - that's what you get. So, in theory, pretty great. In practice, either a little superfluous or kind of a waste of a turn. If you use it on your big scary fighter, they should already have high Threat and decent to great Damage Reduction. If you use it on your weak little Warlock, yes, okay, he'll take less damage from the hit, but still, he got hit. Why'd you do that to him!? But in either case, you'd be better off just damaging the enemy to get the fight over with - protect your peeps through offense. Now, of course, use this with Psychosomatics and you have the tactical gratification of protecting and damaging at the same time. But the unfortunate fact is that you're better off just letting your defense take care of defense and focus on killing things, which really is what the Psion is best at. I mean, in so far as he's good at anything.

#### Mind Invasion - good

I think my favorite part about this skill is not only it's name, but how the Conditions it inflicts reflect what the name implies. If the Confuse is resisted (against a -9 Mind roll... like, for example, every time you use this on a Boss), Rage is automatically inflicted instead. Which makes sense to me, as I'd be pretty pissed at the guy who just tried to invade my brain. This is, damage-wise, the same as the Mage's Lightning at 104 damage max. For just one target. I'm not sure why. Both the Warlock and Mage max out at 136 in the single damage category, and they all inflict Conditions in their own way so, really, I don't get it. I suppose if you think Confuse is like the bestest thing to inflict it might make sense, except Confuse backfires more often than not. I think the devs might have heard my complaint filter through the ether, because before the Psion, the Warlock and Criticals where you replace your weapon with an eye-glass were the only way to cause Confuse - neither of which gave you a good chance at it actually happening. This fixes that and, now that I see it in action on a regular basis, I'm kind of sorry I complained. See, Confuse does just what it advertises, and your afflicted target will attack a random friend or foe. Thing is there's always five of you (well, almost always - doesn't have to be that way and I'll get in to that, but for the sake of argument...), and not always five (or seven) of them. So frequently there's just a greater chance Confuse will make them hit you instead of one of them. Which is why Confuse seemed like a good idea be able to inflict regularly, because it's dangerous for your team when they get confused by the enemy. Also, often your weakest players, who are normally protected by their low Threat, get that hit that was intended for your Barbarian. So yeah, I'd definitely take Stun over Confuse, or risk whatever you get with the Warlock, over this skill. The only reason I can come up with for this doing less damage than the other magic-user skills is as an offset to his passive skill, which can get up to 224 with 7 guys to hit with it, so 328 total possibly damage with both skills maxed. But you can't measure a skill by what you may or may not pair it with. So this is good, but not great like Touch of Blight or Frostbite, and certainly nowhere near SAKA like Lightning.

#### Displacement - good

When I read what this skill can do, I was like totally absolutely for sure this was gonna end up being a SAKA skill. Keeping up with the Psion's super cool image, this skill is verifiably super cool. Remember that Thief's Grappling Hook thing, that I thought was so cool it was worthy of a personal note that it was great just for me? This is that, but for the whole field of battle and completely irresistible. The only thing this won't work against is a Dragon, 'cause they are the whole battlefield, but everything else in the game will get shuffled around including bosses. Well, almost, we'll get in to that. But in addition to the shuffle-palooza, each enemy takes up to 80 damage. After a -9 Senses resist roll maxed out. That's up to 560 damage if there's seven unfortunate targets out there. Which, if your Psion is also an expert in Psychosomatics, brings you up to a grand magnificent total of 784 damage which is exactly as glorious as the Thief's Barrage of Knives skill (if conditions abound) and so on par with the maximum group damage this game can let you deliver. Except, you know, it like totally obviously isn't because this skill is only good. How can this be? This can be thanks to a small host of pretty bad drawbacks. The most obvious and worst of which being that this is, as mentioned, resistible. So, depending on the monster, they may rarely resist this or, if they're Bandits or something like that, they can resist this more than half the time, even maxed out. This is the only other skill that has resistible damage, the first being the Cleric's books with 3 bolts thing. And this skill is just as terminally useless against bosses as that one. You could argue that shuffling things around, even without damage, is a bonus. And yeah, okay, maybe a very few times this will bring some kind of glass cannon opponent to the fore for proper pummeling, but really rarely - so rarely it's really not a boon at all. Because the shuffling is random but also not guaranteed. You can and will, at least once per battle and often much more, shuffle your intended target right back to where they started, in which case: no damage. Nothing. Like, literally, as if nothing had happened. This is problem number two, and only gets worse with bigger enemies. Most enemies are regular size, and you can fit 7 of them on the screen. The larger ones you can only fit 5, and this size is actually fairly common. The largest, only 3 at a time on the screen, though these are rare. Meaning with the XL monsters there's a 33% chance this will be useless. With the L size, 20% of the time useless. Regular, only useless 14.29% useless. But still, often useless. How lame is that? And those statistics, if you don't mind me being nerdy here, actually get worse, assuming the program works linearly in time. To illustrate with the XL size, the programming determines the first of your 3 monsters end up back where it was, which was a 33% chance. But now, there are only two places left to go, so each monster now has a 50% chance of no flippin' damage. And if the second one ends up back where it started, that's 100% chance of complete worthlessness on the last monster. I might be wrong, maybe there's an equation that calculates positions all at once, but I don't think that any of us can escape time, including digital brains, so I'm gonna go ahead and be miffed about that. Because, playing the game, it sure seems like Displacement doesn't work way more often than I expect it to. And that's not even the end of it. Because while the Thief's barrage does indeed need conditions on the enemy to be super kick ass, you can get up to max damage by level 25 or so because that's two different players using skills, so maxing them out in half the time it takes the Psion to max both of these out. So while the Thief is already turning the Paper Gang into mince meat a third of the way through the game (thanks to a friend), the Psion is struggling to do even half the damage. And remember, the Thief can do exactly half that god-like damage any day of the week without any help. So yeah, maybe, sometimes, really rarely and way at the end of the game, you will totally rule and blow the socks and everything else off a full host of nasties just with the power of your mind. More likely though, way before that, you're gonna realize how extra disappointing this skill is largely because of the promise it seemed to hold, and start your game over with a better Psion build. Like I did.

## The Game Room

The Game Room, which is the place where all this role playing is actually happening, is full of various pieces of furniture and games and decorations and whatnot, and they're actually a crucial part of your strategy. Well, a few of them are. Many of them are practically pointless and a good number do qualify as an advantage, but just barely. These get a different rating system: Meh, Fine, Solid, and Clutch. "Meh" items are the pretty pointless ones, and largely qualify as such because there is no scaling - like Damage Reduction +2, which is significant for your first 10 levels or so, and pretty meaningless after that - but still it's a bonus. "Fine" ones are good choices that have a benefit for the length of the game, but it's not much of a bonus. "Solid" ones provide a good solid benefit. "Clutch" ones, of which there are only 2 (Note i am edditing the article and added one more), are so important that they dictate how you play the game and are required for various strategic approaches. A few (too many) of them fall into my special category: "Why In The Name Of Glorfindel's Sword?!" (or WITNOGS?!), and we'll see why later. There are 5 of each of the 7 types of item in the Game Room, you can only have 1 of the 5 active at any time, and generally there's an obvious winner - but sometimes you do have to make a difficult choice between bonuses. An important thing to note is that you can interrupt your game at any point (even in the middle of a battle if you don't mind starting that fight over) to switch your bonuses around. This is not by any means necessary as you're not going to be switching your Clutch ones around, probably ever (you built your Team around them, remember), and the bonuses you could be switching to and from are generally minor. But, most likely, you'll find yourself checking back in to the Game Room more often than you expect. Alright, let's break it down. Be warned, not all Game Room items are deserving of a description beyond my rating.

Another user - will update and re-evaluate the usefulness of furniture and give some information. Hopefully the author will agree with my thoughts, as his information was really helpful for me. Will mark them with 1-5 score as 1 being least useful.

Will use the \*20 or the now being default values.

Note from the author: Hello other user, thank you for adding to this guide. I know it's a lot of work and it's always good to read from another lover of the game. That said, I do have three issues with what you've added and removed from this guide. In order of severity:

1 - Perhaps English is not your first language, or perhaps something else, but I would have appreciated a little more use of pronouns and adjectives. I take care to write well here. It is therefore a little jarring when you write "Will do such" instead of "I will do such", mixed in sometimes into my existing paragraphs. Also, the occasional joke goes a long way, and there's a reason my ratings have names instead of numbers: less dry.

2 - This is an open forum, so technically anything is fair here. However, I generally appreciate it when my content is not replaced with other content - adding to it aught to be sufficient. I understand why it seemed necessary to you to replace my ratings, and I'll get into that error next, but my real gripe is that you replaced my rating system with yours but left my description of my rating system intact. Leaving the piece as a whole confusing, disjointed, and sloppy.

3 - I'm guessing you missed my disclaimer at the outset of this guide where I state my unequivocal vitriolic loathing for what Paradox has done to this gem of a game. I feel about it probably how Obi-wan felt about watching Anakin turn into Darth. So. The reason you needed to replace my rating system was because you felt the need to update the data. A good impulse in a different context. In this context, I would call it a blunder. As now this section of the guide is nigh unusable by those playing the PC version, for whom it is designed. I do however hope players of the 'free' version appreciate what you've done for them here, even if they find little else here terribly accurate. Perhaps be more diligent in future, ensuring that you understand the full context before hitting that delete button (or backspace... more likely backspace probably - either way).

I am editing this article to fix the gross, badly thought out, changing of someone elses work, as someone who owns and actively maintains a (different) wiki, i know. So i have hopefully fixed the rating back to the original Authors system. I would fix the stats back to the non \*20 values, but, sadly i am stuck owning Knights of pen and paper +1 on pc and only owning Knights of pen and paper 2 on my mobile, so i can not confirm those numbers, if someone can i urge them to og through the article and change the numbers to a x/(x\*20) format.

### **Tables:**

Tables deserve special mention because it's the one item that carries over to the gaming world, front and center on the screen. For a couple of playthroughs I've played with a tactically inferior table just because it looks nice.

#### Wooden Table - Fine

"Slightly better item drops" - Increasing party level when calculating item drops, +1 per table level up to +5

Not that bad for the early stages of the game, but definitely nearly useless later.

#### Sacred Table - until level 10 Solid, levels 10-20 Fine, after level 20 Meh

"Shield action restores 50 Health & Energy per table level" - The Thief could benefit from this, with her automatic blocking, even a bit later in to the game. Up to 250 at level 5, this is extremely useful for the new games, when your heroes are under level 10 and that health and energy is considerable amount.

#### Stone Table -Meh

"Enemy Damage Reduction -10% per table level" - up to -50%. Don't find it that useful, but it's not bad against some monsters with high damage reduction

#### Glass Table - Meh

"Find more special encounters" - Only once did I finish a game without encountering all the special encounters, and it was the all important Pale Dragon one too, by the end of a full playthrough. At that point I came back and switched this on (and used the unique item that helps with this), and found the Dragon soon enough. So, in the supremely rare situation where you miss one or two encounters, this can be of use - otherwise it's just a very pretty table.

#### Golden Table - Solid

"Charms become available as item drops" - This is pretty huge, although clearly not clutch. I have to go on a little rant now to explain why:

The only way to get charms outside of this is to find them in dungeons (I've read, although I have not ever not once found one there in all my hours of gaming) and by combining 3 "Pound of Rock" items (pound of rocks can be brought at shops in certian places mostly getting lost but if you have no luck try investatgating outside of the castle DLC), which gives you a random charm. In any game you're likely to find only about 9 of these, so 3 charms total (Note, i am editing this in to point out that, it is posible and in fact in all of my games i do, find alot more). Basically, this table is the only way to make charms a real part of your game. And Charms can be, as mentioned, huge. Charms can be combined into your weapons (for a damage boost) and armor/shields (for a resist boost), one charm for each of the 7 conditions, giving you either a +10% to +50% (depending on the level of the scroll you're using) damage bonus against an enemy inflicted with that condition or a save bonus (+1 to +5) against the same. While this can give your Knight with armor and a shield a +10 bonus against Confuse, which is very good, the real glory is that it can give your Ninja +50% damage to a Wounded enemy, and with Shadow Chain and a high critical chance, the second and third hit will most likely have +50% each - meaning, in effect, Shadow Chain just got a 4th hit. This is very significant, and applies to your Barbarian Jock with an axe Charmed against Weakness with a Paladin in the group laying on the Weakness all the time. And a host of other combinations. As an added bonus, Charms sell for 60 gold each, so even if you don't want to use it, it's good money. Use this table.

### **Arcades:**

#### Arcade Machine - Solid

"Critical +1% per arcade level" - up to +5% A likely choice if you're focusing on Criticals and/or Sudden Death.

#### Rock-Paper-Scissors Simulator - Fine

"Enemies take 20% extra damage from skills they are vulnerable to per arcade level" - Going to +100% or basically dealing 300% damage with specific skills against specific monsters, a 50% increase in efficiency is not bad at all and can easily be used in some specific battles where you have difficulties. Because of it's specific usefulness and inefficiency against some enemies that doesn't have weaknesses it's in general bad choice.

#### Light Gun Arcade - Fine

"When able, basic attacks expend 4% Energy to deal 4% extra damage per level" - up to 20%.

This is rather difficult to asset, dealing 20% more damage with basic attacks for some classes who rely solely on their attack damage and not needing a lot of energy (or have ways to restore it really fast) can be devastating. On the other hand, not using abilities is most of the times counter-productive despite the higher damage. Some fun builds with Mages can be developed tho.

#### Pinball - Fine

"Initiative +1 per level" - up to +5. Not so important, but with some parties which rely on sudden death, applying mass de-buffs or bursting down single target can have the upper hand in plenty of cases because of it.

#### Pachinko - Solid

"Item selling price increased by 10% per level" - up to +50%. This mostly comes into play at the end of a full playthrough and you have a couple thousand gold worth of items to sell off to help the next group of adventurers. But it's a good choice for the game throughout as you'll be selling most of the stuff you stumble upon and, in particular, your old weapons and armor. So unless you want a small bonus to Initiative or Critical, just leave the Arcade choice set here.

### **Sofas:**

#### Red Sofa - Solid

"Damage +5% per level" - up to +25%. A considerable boost, perhaps the best furniture you can have for a sofa.

#### Black Leather Sofa - Meh (4/5 if you are poor on Diamonds)

"Damage Reduction +10% per level" - up to +50%. Not that good, but being the cheapest one is the most cost-efficient for new games.

#### Kawaii Sofa - Meh (Clutch if going solo Knight as tank)

"Threat -1 per level" - up to -5 Not sure what they were thinking with this one. At least for any normal team. Threat is relative, so if everyone gets Threat -X, yes, okay your Mage at 10 Threat will go to 9-5 and your Warrior with (in battle) 50 Threat will go down to 49-45, so it's a bigger difference for the Mage. But in practice the actual percentage difference is either non-existent or, maybe, possibly, few percentage at best.

Now, if you build your team around a Tank with 4 very low Threat companions, the difference the Kawaii Sofa makes is around 10% increased Threat Percentage for the tank. Which I think is only an upgrade to Meh, as even that is going to make very little difference to your gameplay and battles will largely play out identically.

But if that 1 tank is a Knight, that increased Threat Percentage translates to Critical Percentage with True Strike, and if you build your team up just exactly right (see the comments section to find out how), you can get a 15% boost to Critical Percentage with this (hideously cheesy) sofa in the room. Which is huge, and would be totally Solid as far as that goes, but becomes Clutch when you realize that, thanks to this sofa, Bulwark then becomes a largely wasted skill, even with the loss of the minor group regen, and so you can put your skill points into his two defensive skills making him just unconscionably tough while also delivering Critical hits 90% of the time with True Strike right out of the gate without having to prep with Bulwark. That's a total (clutch) game changer!

... But for any other team, super lame.

#### Royal Chair - Solid

"Energy +10% per level" - up to +50%. This is quite useful, especially for heavy energy users or Knights. The only problem I see is that it competes with the Red Sofa (which provides +25% damage). Energy is very useful, but killing your enemies faster is still doing the same thing as you mostly use energy to kill them anyway.

#### Divan - Meh

"+1 bonus to Rest rolls per level" - up to +5. Mostly useless I find myself resting very rarely but even then a single specialist will save you the trouble, still can be used in some cases. Still considering the other alternatives is perhaps the most useless one in here.

### **Sport Games:**

#### Bowling Set -Solid

"Receive 4% more XP per level" - up to +20%. Experience is never bad.

#### Table Hockey - Meh

"Receive 3% more gold per level" - up to +15%. If you spend your diamonds here, you could probably directly purchase gold. The benefit could be only used viably being filthy rich on Diamonds and switching at some points like daily dungeon or other bosses to get a huge piles of gold with your advanced party. I find the gold economy of this game a bit obsolete.

#### Robot Arena - WITNOGS

"Gain +1 bonus to Escape rolls per level" - up to +5. Almost the only time I ever escape a battle is when I get stuck with a lvl 1 monster battle while I'm traveling when I'm lvl 20 or something, just because it's annoying. That and you can't not Escape, the roll just determines whether or not you get hit on the way out - and even then, you only get hit once (not once for every enemy left). So even if, absolute worst case scenario, that Dragon kills your injured Barbarian as he's scurrying away with his axe between his legs, a few gold brings him back and a little rest gets him back to normal. Totally pointless, this one.

#### Minigolf Course - WITNOGS

"Battles won within the first round grant you 10% extra XP and gold per level" - up to +50%. The problem here is that the battles you can win in one round are, generally, full of lower level enemies and so your XP and gold reaping is very low. Any battle with a good XP and gold reward is gonna be very difficult to finish in one round. Not impossible though, and it's fun to set yourself this challenge throughout the game. But you're still better off, in the long run, with the Bowling Set if it's the XP you want. Table Hockey if you really like gold, but that wouldn't be my choice.

#### Race Car Track - Fine (Solid before Level 20)

"Restore 50 per level Health and Energy after each battle" - up to +250. The price is also decent. Basically giving you the chance to be always at full health after fights in the early chapters. From the choices in here tied with the Bowling Set for usefulness, perhaps better in the early game and getting out of date as the values are static.

### **Rugs:**

#### Zebra Rug - WITNOGS (Solid if you are easily frustrated by ambushes)

"Gain +1 bonus to Travel rolls per level " - up to +5. The only reason the is Fine instead of Meh is how annoying it gets to keep having to fight Troglodytes when you're passing through the Meadow even when you're level 40. There's no real tactical benefit here, it just mitigates the least enjoyable aspect of traveling around Paperos.

#### Superhero Rug - Meh

"Gain +1 bonus to Investigate rolls per level" - up to +5. However you feel about the whole "Investigate" mechanic in this game, you're gonna need many of the items you find this way, especially the immunity items. It would be a waste to leave your Rug dial set here for the game, but certainly in the beginning when you're finding a new location every few quests you could leave it here for a bit.

#### Bamboo Yoga Mat - Solid

"Gain +1 bonus to Resist rolls per level" - up to +5. You want this one. It's clearly the best rug as it'll help from dungeon fire traps to sewer poisoning to dragons confusing you. High combat and dungeon value.

#### Bearskin Rug -Solid

"Health +10% per level" - up to +50%. Most useful for more durable type of party, where the higher their base health is the higher the additional benefit will be.

#### Confuser - Fine (Solid if aiming for sudden death)

"At the beginning of each battle, 5% per level to inflict Confuse to enemy" - up to 25%. It's a free condition to some enemy. But outside of sudden death it's not that useful.

### **Shelves:**

#### TV Set - Fine

"Consumable restore +15% more health and energy per level" - up to +75%.

Solid bonus for those utilizing consumables. I personally value it less just because other choices for Shelves are better.

#### Board Game Collection - Fine (Solid once you have the Rabbit's Paw)

"The party gains 10% increased damage range per level" - up to +50%. First of all, this is a non-event for your casters as their damage is all set. Second, it's mathematically a non-event for your weapon users too as the damage will average out to exactly the same. So if you like a little more uncertainty in your game, this will occasionally make you feel like a badass.

Now, way late in the game, there's a dragon that drops a Rabbit's Paw, which allows your weapon wielder to always do maximum damage. It's astoundingly powerful, and this then makes it 50% more astounding.

#### Weapon Rack - Solid

"Non-boss enemies suffer Sudden Death from 1 or 2 less conditions" - So, you might have noticed earlier, several times during the class descriptions, how I talked about hunting for Sudden Death and building your Knight or Ninja or Barbarian to maximum critical-ness so they can Sudden Death the bejeesus out of everything. Well, this is what you need to do that. A Weapon Rack - which is, unlike a Rug, an acceptably cool item to build your team around. Any single weapon user is only ever going to be able to inflict 5 conditions at once (the Ninja is really the best at this as just 1 skill point gets him Wound and he doesn't have to be a Lab Rat) and that's all you need to inflict the condition with level 2 Weapon Rack ! This means you can use a Paladin spamming Weakness or a Knight or Barbarian (or Thief maybe) complimenting those 5 with their own Stun critical. Or a Druid or Mage or Warrior or Ninja Stunning away and, well... you get the idea. But getting all the way to 7 is actually harder than it sounds, and takes 3 different attacks instead of 2. So yeah, this is totally clutch if that's what you're going for.

In addition now you can spend slots for other benefits (like increasing critical chance) instead of applying all 5 conditions yourself. Mage's 'burn' from fireball cannot be resisted, keep that in mind when aiming for this strategy.

#### Physics Project - Solid

"Spell Damage +5% per level" - up to +25%. While less impressive for single target spells, the group spells benefit more substantially from this. That and, unlike for weapons, there aren't that many ways to up your spell damage in the game. So, decent.

#### Labeled Dresser - Fine (Solid before level 10)

"Skills cost 20 less Energy per level" - up to 100. Easily making first few levels a breeze, spells costing nearly no energy and restoring energy with some skill or another furniture. At higher levels it's just too little (as any other static values).

### Board Games:

#### Miniature Game - Meh (Fine if you desire a full Bestiary)

"You can set up fights with 1/2 more enemies" - I'm not much into setting up fights, I'm happy just following the story. But even if you want to, for XP or gold or items (in particular crafting items) or just to see a skill like Lightning or Cleave at it's finest, there's really not much difference than setting up with the regular max of 5. You'll end up with the same XP and items, ultimately. And setting fights up to watch fancy skills is not only cruel and unusual for your enemies, but a little on the narcissistic side. Now if you're really into filling out the Bestiary, then yes, this is quite the time saver, especially for the L and XL sized beasts.

#### Go Set - Solid (Clutch if you rely heavily on area damage)

"Anything affecting adjacent enemies can affects all enemies (50%/100% probability)" - Some of the group attack skills in this game don't need this, like the row damaging ones and Life Steal and Hail of Arrows, but most of them (and all the best ones) do. Without your Go Set, that Fireball and that Barrage of Knives most often won't hit all the baddies, especially as the fight goes on and you pick them off. So if you have any of those skills on your team, you really need to use this item.

#### Poker Table - Fine (Solid before level 10)

"Restore 50 per level Health for each Critical you land" - up to 250. The absolute best case scenario here is a high level Ninja with Shadow Chain healing for 750 Health each turn. Or 500 or 250 or 0. But let's say 750 each turn. For a high level Ninja, that's practically nothing in the way of healing. For any lower level class, the critical chance is going to be pretty low, from 10% to maybe 30 or 40%. And for your casters this is a non-event.

#### Block Tower Game - WITNOGS

"+20% damage to the Soft Spot bonus in the Bestiary" - Again, right at the start, against Troglodytes and Undead Cashiers, you'll at least notice this +80 instead of +40 damage increase. Past that from level 10 on, you might as well be blowing on them.

(It may be possible, exceptionally rarely, that increasing your damage by just 40 more points will make slaughtering that line of Vowlerines (that you have to fight a whole lot of in quests) be a one Lightning attack kill instead of a two attack kill. In theory. I've tried, with Barrage of Knives, and it's never been enough. If someone finds an instance let me know; it's not worth going through the bestiary and adding it up for each monster, comparing to each skill. I'm not that obsessed with this game.)

#### Dice Collection -Clutch

"Dwarves gain Body +1, elves gain Senses +1, and humans get Mind +1" - up to +2. Bonuses to Attributes are the best bonuses you'll find, as they have multiple positive effects, and outside of this it's just the (kind of expensive if you buy a lot of them) rings in the game (with the {more expensive} Almighty Ring {that you have to craft} for a bonus to each attribute being the best) that can give you bonuses here. At least until the mid-late game where a few unique items come into play. If you don't have one or more skills in your team that need the Go Set, take this instead.

### Window:

#### Creepy Curtains - 1/5

"Resurrection cost -15% per level" - up to -75%.

#### Blinds -Solid

"Lowers enemy resist roll with 1 per level" - up to 5. Useful if you aim for sudden death, or other status applying oriented builds. In my opinion outside of that can't compete to raw stats for your whole party.

## Weapons or Magic?

Just a quick note on the two kinds of damage you can dish out. One is with weapons (or weapon-based skills) and the other with spells. There's a third kind actually, which is neither a spell or a weapon, which only the specialists (Thief and others) have and it's not a good thing. But let's look at each separately:

Weapons can be upgraded, up to +5 (as a category), which varies a little in what it actually provides. Light one handed weapons get +1 Damage and Threat per upgrade, heavy one-one handed weapons +2, light two-handed ones (staves and bows) gain +3 of each, and the heavy two handed-ones gain +5. So a basic Two Handed Hammer gives you +5 Damage and Threat, where a +5 version of the same gives you +25 Damage and Threat. All of the fighter skills and many of the specialist skills are weapon based, so when your Barbarian or Ninja are dishing out 300-400% Weapon damage those bonuses are all similarly multiplied, and are again multiplied by another 100% on criticals. They also steadily improve the value of your fighter skills, like Cleave, so that the improvement is at a faster rate than the other damage skills. Meaning your fighters (and certain specialist builds) are going to get better faster compared to their peers. Lastly, increasing your Body attribute (through rings and other trinkets), also boosts your Damage, which is then again an amplified bonus with all the skills and criticals and whatnot. So while a Warrior's basic attack damage at level 40 is only gonna be hovering around 50-80 (as a range, not an approximation), with a nice skill like Power Lunge he'll regularly be dishing out 200 damage and more. The biggest damage dealers, the Ninja and Barbarian, built well and strong with the Criticals (and the Druid what with the two bear attacks per turn - so long as he can keep the frenzy up), are going to be delivering a punishing 300-400 damage each turn. (The Barbarian, in theory, can kill anything in the game in one turn with one sequence of critical hits.) One final note has to do with the sometimes invaluable quality of Criticals, as they are often the only way to inflict Conditions (like the hammer's Stun) on enemies that almost always resist the affliction when they have the chance. Sudden Death, for example, is simply not going to happen without weapon Criticals.

Spells can be upgraded as well, but by much less, and there's no multiplication involved through the spell skill itself or criticals or damage range boosters. That Frostbite spell is gonna max out at 136 Damage, which can get up to 168 if you commit to Arcane Flow for the damage boost. But after that, your options are few: there's one weapon you have to craft (with a static +3 spell damage bonus), one (unique) robe (+2 spell damage), and then an item you can purchase (for +2) and one unique item (for +3). The weapon is a no-brainer for any spell caster, but even the robe might be a bad idea as it offers zero protection. And then yes, your Lab Rat could max out at +9 spell damage from trinkets, so long as he's fine with not having any other items in his trinket slots. Which, especially as the game goes on and better unique items show up, is going to increasingly feel like a sacrifice. But even if you add all that bonus-ing up, including the Arcane Flow, that's a +46 damage bonus. And that's a fair amount, but only gets your Frostbite from 136 to 182. If you have a Lightning Mage that bonus is upped to +184 damage if there are 4 enemies to soak up the damage, and there you've really got a good thing going. But that's just for the Mage with Lightning. A Warlock, say, really gets the shellacked end of the stick here, as the best bonus he can hope for is +14 spell damage. Making Life Transfer a little more appealing, but still basically a wasted skill, and only getting Touch of Blight up to 150 Damage, which will start to feel a little weak late game when most everything you encounter has 300 HP or more.

The last category is in the middle-ground specialists are so fond of, the Thief and Druid, Hunter and Ninja. Each of them has a weapon based skill, and then one that isn't, but that is also not a spell. So the Thief's Barrage of Knives can't be given a bonus of any kind (fear not, it's still way kick ass though so long as Conditions abound). The Druid's vines somehow don't count as a spell, the Ninja's Smoke Bomb same. The Hunter's Hail of Arrows is also stuck in this no bonus zone, although at least his own Initiative based skill kicks in with it (unlike the Thief's Backstab for Barrage of Knives). While this is all a little sad, it makes sense, as the specialists are nearly defined by sacrificing damage at the expense of the special qualities of their skills and overall greater versatility.

So, the upshot being, that Weapons are, essentially, better. A Mage with Lightning and Arcane Flow maxed out is going to be impressive in the game from start to finish, but the other casters (and "casting" specialists) are gonna start to fall behind their weapon wielding compatriots the further along they all get. Furthermore, your single target skills are going to become increasingly valuable compared to the group damage ones as the bosses get tougher and dragons start showing up. With a properly built Ninja and Knight or Barbarian in your party, boss fights are gonna be fairly easy, no matter the boss. If all you've got is casters, it's gonna be a tough slog. One thing to note though is that it's expensive to upgrade your weapons. You have to buy new ones to use a new better scroll on it each time it becomes available, and you'll find that most of your money is going into crafting all these weapons and armor. Your casters and casting specialists have the decency to cost little to nothing to keep slaughtering the enemy. That said, you'll nearly always have enough gold just by playing the game normally (not hunting for gold or items or xp on the side) to fund the whole weaponized expedition. So ultimately this isn't really a factor.

## Let's put a party together!

Alright, so with all the classes and their skills covered, and the details of the Game Room that can (and usually do) have a profound affect on your party dynamics, and a better understanding of the types of damage, we can get into actually putting 5 of these weirdos together and seeing what they can do. The most important factor you should be considering as you go about this is synergy, aiming for multiple interconnecting levels of synergy if you can. All of your classes are going to be able to max out 2 skills by the end of a game. You could of course get all of your skills halfway to maximum, or some other mix, but in the majority of cases this is just a straight up bad idea - having you more multi-purpose but only dealing half the damage or healing half the damage that you otherwise could be - and the first time a dragon lands on you is the very latest point at which this realization will dawn on you if you choose not to heed my advice. So, with few exceptions (like the Barbarian and maybe the Monk), any build is going to focus on only 2 skills (not counting 1 point skills for a perk). Some synergies are obvious, like A requires B (Barrage of Knives requires Fireball or Smite to spread the conditions). Some less so, like bringing a Thief with automatic block and a Ninja with 1 Threat and 2 other low threat pals so that your 5th guy, the Knight, has a 70% critical chance all the time (with True Strike) before Bulwark even kicks in. Really, most of the fun of replaying the game is mixing and matching and having fun with it and experimenting. So I'll go over three teams that I like that represent a basic approach (defense, offense, and 'fun but kinda weak'), and leave further experimenting to you. I'm going to number the players 1 through 5, because why not, although this would also be the order in which you should accumulate players. This is in no way very important as, except for your very first playthrough, you'll have enough money to buy 3 more players at once as soon as you finish with the GEEK quest at level 7 or so, but it's just how I would do it. Also, while I certainly could recommend which trinkets and weapons to use - and that for every stage of the game and for every tough fight - that's probably just a bit too OCD and I should talk to my therapist about even considering doing that. Still, when there's a team that has a player who really needs to use a particular item to make the synergy work, I'll mention that.

### **Balanced Party:**

This team's focus is being diversified enough to handle both groups and bosses with relative ease as well as being as resilient and self-sustaining as possible as a team which, in other words, means basically building your team around your purging Cleric. Conditions and Criticals are not the primary focus here, nor is tweaking the whole thing to get maximum possible carnage; just good solid steady damage and regenerating, ensuring you'll get through everything even if it takes a few more turns than other more offensive teams:

#### 1. **Warrior Dwarf Jock with Cleave and Power Lunge:**

Your classic basic fighter, with a skill for bosses, and a skill for groups. Level Power Lunge and Cleave evenly to keep the versatility going (and to mirror the Mage who's doing the same with his skills), and your low MP also won't matter as much as you won't be using max energy with your skills until the high levels where you'll have enough of it.

#### **2. Ninja Elf Rocker with Smoke Bomb and Shadow Chain:**

The Smoke Bomb is the focus here, as it'll cripple the opposing forces, often before they get their first hit off - if they even get a hit off. Max out Smoke Bomb first, then level Shadow Chain so the Ninja can contribute for late-game boss fights. Being the Rocker will allow the Ninja to have enough energy to cast his maxed out stunning skill even at middle levels.

#### **3. Cleric Human Hipster with Purge and Radiance:**

Someone needs to be the Hipster for the Weapon and Armor goodness, and the Cleric is the one who suffers least from 1 point in each Attribute, especially as a Human. This is your cookie-cutter Cleric, and you're best off leveling him as described under his Radiance skill, leveling Purge 3 levels at a time, as you find it necessary, focusing on Radiance so that the whole team is pretty cozy in the energy department.

#### **4. Mage Human Lab Rat with Lightning and Frostbite:**

While a Mage who levels Lightning first and then pours the rest into Arcane Flow will indeed end up having single target damage identical to Frostbite (minus the Stun of course), this is a more balanced Mage for this team, leveling both skills equally, in particular because there's a Warrior in the pack doing the exact same thing, and so you'll be superior to that other Mage for the duration of the game, not just be really cool right at the end.

#### **5. Knight Human Surfer with Bulwark and True Strike:**

Here the Knight will be doing what he does best, pro-level defense. The Surfer is good here, not so much because it's the perfect fit, but because he's the only player left with 2 Body, and the other ones are more needed where they are in this team. But Bulwark, here, is the primary focus. The healing can't hurt, and the energy regen, mild as it is and in addition to the Cleric's, will ensure this team never, no really never, runs out of steam. It's a nice way to play the game, resting rarely and never having to buy or craft a potion. Put 1 or 3 points in True Strike to start, so that most of his strikes will be Criticals regardless, then max out Bulwark. This pairs well, actually, with the Warrior built for this team. The Knight's crazy high Threat boost will eclipse the Warrior's regardless, even when using Power Lunge when you're facing bosses and other high HP foes. But if you're in a tough fight and the Warrior can't handle any more agro, or an easy fight with a slew of weaklings filling the field, Cleave will serve beautifully.

### **Maximum Carnage Party:**

A number of classes and players in this game are, to put it bluntly, superior. This team capitalizes on that, bringing the most potent builds that still work together well. There will be no Cleric here, as his one offensive skill is just too frail as it can be resisted. So yes, resting frequently and bringing along potions and phoenix feathers will be necessary. Or at least advisable. The beauty with this team is that it's pretty rare that you'll find yourself in any real danger since you'll be killing everything foolish enough to cross your path most often in 1 or 2 turns. But dungeons are long, and while you may take little damage, you're going to start running out of energy possibly even before you get to the second level of the dungeon, so MP friendly items and potions will be a must. But ultimately, as in any team without a purging Cleric, your greatest challenge is going to come from late game Conditions falling on you all the time. Good thing though, as most of the game will be a non-challenging slaughter-palooza - and gratifying as that can be, it can get a little monotonous.

#### **1. Barbarian Human Surfer with Anger Management, Frenzied Strike, and Rampage:**

And here we have our primo A-grade Barbarian build. Anger Management is the key here, bringing his, well, just about everything up by massive amounts. You'll want to get that 1 point in Rampage ASAP so that the Critical magic happens from the get go, although it'll only be happening around 10% of the time at first. And you'll also want 1 skill point in Frenzied Strike ASAP so that he has something to be enraged about. After that it's Anger Management all the way. Now, after that's maxed, you have two choices: Build up Frenzied Strike so he heals every turn and is profoundly tankey but with a critical chance that doesn't get past 30%. Or build up Rampage so that he neither heals (much) nor does much damage with Frenzied Strike... unless it's a critical, which will happen around 60% of the time, and every hit after that has the same chance. I prefer the second, as this team is all about offense after all. It'll make Sudden Death a real option on bosses, and that build is how you end up hitting that Dragon once and then watch the goat head swipe across it's face over and over until it's dead. In one strike. In theory. I've never had the pleasure of that, but have seen the Barbarian boss (fittingly) pulverized in that manner. A legitimate third option would be to level Rampage and Frenzied Strike about equally, so you get half of the best of both worlds. Also, make sure to give the Barbarian an Axe so that, combined with the Ninja who only needs Weakness to round out his Sudden Death approach, you have a reliable way to cause Sudden Death on anything you can get two criticals on, which will not be unlikely with 60% and 80% chances for each of these Critical monsters.

#### **2. Ninja Elf Rocker with Vanish and Shadow Chain (and a point in Black Arts):**

And here's the A-grade primo version of the Ninja, with a similar approach. Put one point in Black Arts for the Wound perk, then start with just the 1 point in Shadow Chain and follow that by maxing out Vanish. By the middle of the game your Ninja will be striking out with about 80% critical 3 times every turn. Assuming you give him the 3 trinkets he needs to inflict Poison, Fire and Rage - and combine that with his Wound perk and a nice big hammer for Stunning and he's inflicting 5 conditions most likely every turn. This gives the Paladin a reason to exist in this party, as he'll be spamming Weakness and the Ninja can Sudden Death-ify probably once every battle if not more. For bosses the Barbarian will fill in with his Weakness-inducing Axe Criticals. And that's just the half of it since, as your Ninja approaches max level and gets Shadow Chain up in levels, your direct damage, regardless of Criticals, is going to be massive. Your only weakness then is Vanish, which will keep you at 1 Threat no matter how big of a stick you carry, until you get hit that is. Group attacks will find you, dragon's breath will make it quite the challenge to Sudden Death one of them, and the Crystal Caverns seem specifically designed to give Ninja's like this nightmares. Even so, it's only 1 wasted turn getting Vanish back up, and considering the payoff - being the best single target damage dealer in the game - it's worth the occasional frustration.

#### **3. Paladin Human Hipster with Smite and Lay On Hands:**

Weakness, Weakness, Weakness. As boring as the Paladin is, seeing as this is the only build of the Paladin worth playing, there is simply no substitute for spamming Weakness all the time. The halving of enemy damage is significant, but really it's the non-critical-hit situation that's the best, especially later on with Attack Beavers and other Critical specialists. The damage he does to his actual target isn't even that bad. In addition to helping the Ninja disintegrate anything he gets a crit on, he's the Thief's new best buddy as it's his Weakness infliction that makes Barrage of Knives glorious instead of just really good. The Paladin is the synergistic glue here, and after maxing out Smite he kicks in with the game's best individual healing spell, which is what he'll be using to keep the Barbarian alive when they all face the dreaded Blue Dragon at the bottom of the Crystal Caverns. Boring, but clutch.

#### **4. Thief Human Bookworm or Exchange Student with Barrage of Knives and... something else:**

The Mage needs to be the Lab Rat for a couple reasons, so either of the 2 players with 2 in Mind will do here. Both have their minor advantages, but I'd go with the Exchange Student for the extra HP from the Body point. So it's all about Barrage of Knives which, along with the Paladin's Weakness and Mage's Lightning, provides the group control half of this team. The Ninja and Barbarian have got the single targets very much handled. Max the knives before anything else, although you could take the time to put 1 point in Stealth so you don't get hit more than once in a turn. And then, well, it doesn't really matter. You could level Grappling Hook to move foes around and, leveled up, cause more damage to individual targets. Or level Backstab so your basic attack on new enemies will actually be pretty good and your high Initiative will have you going first most of the time. Or level Stealth so your basic attacks are critical a third of the time. Thing is, you'll be using Barrage of Knives pretty much exclusively. So I'd go with Backstab just because it often means you strike first and the Paladin will strike close to last, meaning on your second turn you can get double damage on most of the monsters without giving them time for a second resistance roll.

#### **5. Mage Human Lab Rat with Lightning and Arcane Flow:**

There's no real subtlety here, nor anything in the way of synergy for this team, just fry everything in your path. The Arcane Flow will help here as there's no other energy regen in the party, but still you're mostly leveling it to add damage to Lightning. Prioritize Lightning, getting Arcane Flow to maybe level 3 or 6 in the process of maxing out your actual damage spell. This does mean he won't improve all that much from the middle to the end of the game, but he's still going to be dishing out the best damage magic can do in this game from start to finish. And aside from the extra energy the Lab Rat provides, the four trinket slots can be put to good use by filling them with Spell Damage boosters, at least until the end when the exceptional unique trinkets show up. (You could focus on Fireball here to help the Thief, but there's just no substitute for boosted Lightning).

### **Really Cool Party (aka Misfit Party):**

So, you know those weird guys sitting apart from the rest of the normal High School kids, usually the theater and/or goth and/or art class kids, hanging out and just feeling cool (or insecure - kind of a fine line there). This is those guys, all put together. There is some synergy here, but this team is not efficient. It's narcissistic members are not going to dish out the best damage, heal the best, or really handle anything in Paperos with an abundance of ease. But they will sure as Ra's solar bathrobe look cool doing their inefficient thing. And just because they aren't efficient doesn't mean they can't be effective, and every once in a while all the stars will align and they will lay waste to their pitiful foes in the (you guessed it) coolest way possible. This team has 3 casters and 1 specialist with a caster-like build, so Mind points will be in short supply, and potions will abound. One good thing is that this is the rare kind of team that doesn't need the Go Set in the game room to improve certain group attacks, meaning you can have your Dice Collection to improve their attributes.

#### **1. Monk Dwarf Rocker with Acrobatics and Na Palm:**

So, despite what I just said, this is the one efficient guy in the group. You'll want a few points in Acrobatics (3, 6, 9... ramping up as seems necessary) for the perk and some Threat, as this is the (only) tank for this team. But largely you'll be maxing out Na Palm for it's excellent damage and burning-itude. Be sure to use the latest crafted weapons and armor with this fellow, and all will be well.

#### **2. Psion Human Hipster with Mind Invasion and Psychosomatics:**

Mr. Cool personified, the Hipster seems particularly aptly placed here. He will have just the 1 extra point in Mind though, but that's okay as you'll be leveling both skills equally, and Psychosomatics is completely free (and it pairs well with the Hunter's Hail of Arrows). Mind invasion is a jolly good skill with pretty good damage, and it'll help with your acrobatic Monk, especially when the Confuse is resisted and Rage is inflicted instead, because Confuse ignores Threat. So use this on bosses, enrage them, and (after a failed second resist roll, one hopes) watch that 200 damage hit do totally squat to the Monk.

#### **3. Hunter Human Bookworm with Hail of Arrows and Ambush:**

While this Hunter will be a little disappointing in the early game thanks to Hail of Arrows' weird target restriction mechanic, and the slow to improve and not-always-kicking-in skill that is Ambush, she'll truly shine come the mid to late game. Level Hail of Arrows and Ambush together so the casting cost stays low, and watch her blossom from a grub-like 3 target wiffle-batter to a full battlefield decimator when she finally gets going. Completely useless against bosses, this one, but that's what the Monk's here for - and the Hunter just doesn't have enough skill points to diversify with any semblance of competence.

#### **4. Warlock Human Exchange Student with Touch of Blight and Life Transfer:**

Touch of Blight is well established as a solid spell, and unless the irresistible Condition it inflicts is Stun or Confuse, the target of this will likely go for the Monk next turn and do no damage. Life Transfer is the poster child for "cool but inefficient", but it'll give this team it's first healing spell, and it's kind of cool to resurrect your fallen friends even if it is just for the duration of the battle. Unless it's a Dragon, in which case, thankfully, you'll have Touch of Blight handy. I would level both skills pretty evenly, but with a little extra for Touch of Blight.

#### **5. Druid Human Lab Rat with Renewing Carapace and Animal Companion:**

With the combination of the little Vole-Rat on the table and this warding spell, the Druid here is tasked with keeping this motley crew relatively alive. It's not like you can spare the offensive power a vine-loving or bear-becoming Druid could bring, but trust me, you'll want the extra defense. The Lab Rat Human bit will provide enough energy to cast the ward twice a turn when that becomes frequent. And while you could protect your Monk from time to time, largely this is best used on your 4 weaklings this team is made up of, often actually getting the healing in every turn that goes by without them getting a hit. Leveling both skills at about the same pace is, like for most of the guys in this team, the best approach here.

### **It only takes two to tango... or slay stuff:**

So, you've played through the game a few times, you're feeling pretty done and you don't have a strategy guide to write that keeps you coming back (excessively) for more. If only you could max out 3 skills per class instead of just 2. If only you could level up almost every couple quests instead of every five or six. If only you could get 150'000xp for a single quest by the end of the game. If only you could get to level 75. Well, obviously, you can do all these things, and all it takes is the bold step to start and finish this game with just two players. In addition to just being a general all around challenge, you get to see what a Druid with 3 skills plays like, or just how badass the Barbarian can get with points in all of his skills. Or what a Mage with maxed out everything except Fireball plays like. Or a Knight who doesn't even have Bulwark since he's paired with a 1 Threat Ninja, only does Critical hits, and is essentially impervious to damage. And that Ninja with maxed Shadow Chain, Vanish and Black Arts is going to make the Ninja in the Maximum Carnage Party look like an underachiever. The dynamics of your party will entirely change, and the Cleric will be a bad choice because his groups powers are diluted, and his one attack skill is as flawed as it ever was. The only drawback is the relative monotony of your strategy. But it's worth it, for me at least, as you get to see what the OP version of every class is like. Especially ones that suffer most from insufficient skill points, like the Hunter, Psion, and Druid. And more especially the ones that are already kick ass, like the Ninja, Knight and Barbarian, but enter a new level of steroidal craziness with a whole new skill to add on. I'm not going to list any particular teams (although the Knight/Ninja combo I mentioned would be a good place to start), as that would be taking away from the fun of exploring. And you could also do a 3 or 4 person team, but I like extremes. If you do one of those mid-size teams, let me know how it works out.

### Ultimate Sudden Death Party:

This new build came about with just one thought. Is there a way to ensure that sudden death occurs during every single battle or even better still is it possible to inflict sudden death each and every combat round with close to 100% certainty, including against all bosses and dragons? Previously the ability to sudden death was subject to the mercy of the Paladin's skill of smite which unfortunately could be resisted especially by higher lvl enemies and doomed for failure against bosses and dragons.

But amazingly, with the introduction of the Knight class, Sudden death is now highly likely even aginst bosses and dragons!

The following is the recommended Game Room item selection with Weapon Rack, Kawaii Sofa and Arcade a must have to maximize sudden death.

Game Room: - Weapon Rack (1 less condition for Sudden Death), Kawaii Sofa (Threat -2), Arcade (Crit +2%),Yoga Mat, Go Set, Golden Table & Bowling Set

The Kawaii sofa will help reduce the threat value of all other chracters except the knight to 1. This will maximize the critical hit % of the Knights True Strike to almost close to 100% without needing Bulwark. Hence for this type of Party alone, the Knight's True Strike may be considered SAKA as it will almost certainly gurantee Sudden Death together with Ninja's Shadow Chain unless inflicted with stun or weakness.

The following Characters, Race & Classes are chosen in a specific way to minimize threat lvl to enable the Knight's True Strike to hit 98% critical without Bulwark while maximizing synergy of Classes within Party:-

1)Exc. Stud, Human, Thief (1 point stealth, Max out Barrage of Knives and then Grapling Hook) - Threat=1, Initiative=5, Weapon=Magic Staff, Trinkets=Glasses (Threat -1), Ring of Major Endurance x 2 (Health +60 & Energy +60)

2)Lab Rat , Human, Druid (1 point Carapace, 1 point Companion, Max out Vines and then Carapace) - Threat=1, Initiative=5, Weapon=Magic Staff, Trinkets=Glasses (Threat -1), Crystal Ball x3

3)Goth, Human, Mage (Max out Fireball and then Arcane Flow) - Threat=1, Initiative=6, Weapon=Magic Staff, Trinkets=Crystal Ball x3

4)Rich Kid, Elf, Ninja (1 point Black Arts, 1 point Shadow Chain, Max out Vanish and then followed by Shadow Chain) - Threat=1 (with Vanish), Initiative=11, Base Critical=16% (72% with Vanish maxed), Weapon=Hatchet +5(Weakness, + 2% Crit) + Pocketwatch (Confusion + 2% Crit), Trinkets=Troll snot (Rage), Viper Fangs (Poison), Volcano Rock (Fire)

5)Rocker, Dwarf, Knight (1 point True Strike,Max Discipline and then 2nd Skin) - Threat=35 (90%), Crit=8%, Initiative=6,                               Weapon=Maul+5 (Stun), Trinkets=Almighty Ring x3 (+3 body, senses & mind)

Hachet and pocketwatch for Ninja gives an additional 2+2=4% boost to critical giving this Ninja the highest possible critical of 72% with Vanish for a sudden death build. The Pocket Watch (Confusion) and Hatchet (Weakness) combination also gives the Ninja about 35% chance of sudden death within the 3 hits of Shadow Chain. So Technically it's possible to Sudden Death with Ninja Alone.

But with the addition of Druids vine stun and Knight's 98% critical hit stun, you will be almost guranteed to sudden death every turn! Reason for choosing Mage, Druid and Thief is synergistic effect of Fireball with Vines and Barrage of Knives. Mage as higher initiative than druid and thief so that by going first, the enemies get burned followed by being stuned by vines and finally the barrage of knives adds the icing to the cake. The idea is to clear the back row while the knight and ninja sudden death the enemies in front. Since this build does not have a paladin or cleric I decided to go for carapace after maxing out vines. This will offer some protection and healing if required during combat. Also based on my first playthrough with the Max Carnage Party, I always mantain 20 health potions, 20 life potions and 20 feathers which will be much, much more than sufficient for any battle or dungeons.

## My experience with Experience:

So, since the olden days when, one presumes, Gary Gygax came up with the concept of experience points (and, if he didn't, he's the one who [stole it and] spread the good word - thanks Gary), we have this just wonderfully practical way of quantifying what learning is like. Genius really, and there isn't even a remotely good second option that's cropped up in all these decades, so here in this game XP rules the world like every other world (except the real one).

Reminiscences aside, there are 3 ways to get experience in this game. Kill stuff, buy it, and complete quests. The buy it option comes in the form of mushrooms you can find in every shop, and that some monsters drop when slain. So, it's all pretty straightforward, and really if you don't want to there's no reason to worry about the hows and the whats, just follow the story and you'll be leveling up nicely and regularly as Gary intended.

But if you wanna tweak the system, if you want to squeeze the most out of this game and get to the highest level possible - well, I know how. First of all, there's a frustration here for a dedicated number cruncher like me, which is that no numerical values for your players' experience are ever displayed. How much XP they get is always front and center, but how much they need to get to the next level is just vaguely represented by a thin yellow line on their character sheet. Never fear, this doesn't really impact the strategy I'm about to go into, but it does mean I'm not going to be able to be very specific. Before the strategy though, I'll just explain how these 3 systems work, because they're all actually different.

#### The wages of death:

So, killing stuff gives you XP relative to your level. Now, I can't tell you how many XP it takes to get from level 1 to 2, but I can tell you that XP works vaguely exponentially here, like almost everywhere else. Meaning at level 1 you kill 5 Rat Traps, and you level up just with that. At level 12 you kill 5 Rat Traps, and you'll barely even notice the increase on that little yellow XP line. What this then means is that when you kill monsters at about your level, you get some noticeable XP. When you kill ones that are well below your level, you basically get nothing. And if you can manage to kill some high level monster before you're really supposed to, you get a healthy chunk of XP. This, so far, is all in keeping with what Gary intended. Therefore there is a healthy incentive to hang around, at all stages of the game, killing extra baddies to fill out the Bestiary say, or kill a bunch of blue Bandits to get blue powder which you need to craft the big potions - all when you're at about the same level as the things you want to kill. If you follow the quests, gain quest XP (which is different and I'll explain how later), and then come back to do these things, you will fill out the entries and get your ingredients, but you just won't get any XP (worth mentioning) for them.

#### Tasty, tasty mushrooms:

Now this is something you won't find in every gaming world, and honestly I don't think Gary would approve. But if you so choose you can buy (or occasional find as item drops from kills) mushrooms. Unlike the other two ways to get XP, what you get from mushrooms is precisely set - at 500XP (or 625XP, with the right Game Room choice). So, if you're gonna want to, well, basically cheat in the gaining Experience experience, do it right at the start of the game. Giving your level 2 Monk a mushroom will bump him up to level 3, maybe 4. Giving your level 20 Mage a mushroom will just give him a little indigestion, but you'll barely even see that XP bar move.

So the upshot is: mushrooms are a shortcut to level up quick at the beginning, in particular - or rather, only - if you don't want to hang around slaying extra cave bats. If you do want to hang around killing stuff at low levels, don't bother with the mushrooms. You'll get that experience from your kills, and if you down the 'shrooms, you won't get nearly any XP from kills, and just waste your gold. That and, they raised the price of mushrooms from 50 to 75 gold in the last update. So only invest in some mushrooms if you just want to skip the noob-level stuff at the beginning.

#### The quest for Quests:

There are main quests, and side quests. Main quests lead, when completed, invariably to new quests until you reach that last quest that ends the main story. There are 3 of these in the game. Side quests are either standalone (help the Noob) or a package of several (the Lich and High School) but not too many quests, and are, in theory, optional as they don't usually even relate to the main story. If you've ever played any role-playing game, ever, you know this. I'm not sure why I had to lay it all out like that. But I did, and it's staying.

But quests work differently here, in that (and it took me a while to figure this out) when you complete a quest, the XP you receive is not related directly to your level. Instead you get a percentage of a level, any level, as a reward. So if you complete a particular side quest at level 10, you will gain half a level's worth of XP, which is (and I'm just making this number up for the example) 1'000XP. If you should go off and do other stuff and come back to this same quest at level 20, you'll still get the same half a level's worth of XP, but now that translates to (totally approximately guessing but you get the point) 10'000XP. Which, to boil it down, means that quests give the same reward to your party no matter when you complete them, unlike both reaping death and eating 'shrooms. This is key to the strategy section coming up. Right now.

#### Tweaking the system:

So, you're one of those eh? The kind of gamer who wants to milk the system for all it's worth, even if that means doing weird things in a weird way in a weird order. Well, welcome to the club. Have a seat on our weird Kawaii Sofa and let me get you a pickle juice mimosa. Once you know that XP works in the above 3 ways, really, you know all you need to know. So at the start, you can use those mushrooms if you want to, but you'll get just as much XP out of taking it slow and slaughtering plenty of low level monsters when your team is low level as well - filling out the bestiary, for example. Which, if you're not just a tweaker but also a completionist, you'll want to do anyway so you can play all the quests in the game (you'll need a complete bestiary for that). Which will also mean another 3 quests, or 4 maybe can't recall, so more XP.

So the first part of the formula is: follow the main quests, and avoid every single side quest. Second part is: kill a whole bunch of stuff as soon as you encounter it. Set up battles, is what that means, and again filling the bestiary is a good reason to do this, as well as hunting for potion ingredients or other items to a lesser extent. Lesser because it's a short list of monsters that drop items either consistently or that are worth harvesting. But basically, kill things so long as they give you a solid amount of XP. Once you level up, maybe a few times, you'll notice you're not getting much from them anymore, so move on to the next stop on the main quest fun train. If you don't want to think about it too much, just make sure you don't bring the Bookworm and set up battles and go through dungeons again to complete each entry as soon as you meet the baddie in question. Do that and just move on with every filled entry.

And do this one-two combo until you finish all of the main quests (Paperos, Origami, Dragons) before you do anything else. Once that's done you can do the side quests in pretty much any order. You should be at a high enough level after the main quests and all that slaying that monster XP is going to be negligible no matter what, with the notable exception of the White Dragon and maybe some others. But the percentage of a level each side quest gives is about the same. About though, not exactly. So if you want to make sure you really suck the XP well dry, save the most menial tiny quests for the very last.

This will all of course be a little anti-climactic because, really, once you've dispatched the heinous Blue Dragon at the end of that miserable Crystal Cave, not even the White Dragon is much of a challenge. And the most certain path to maximum XP is doing the side quests in reverse order, which means your grand final gesture in the game - once you're a true legendary bunch of heroes bursting with power and loot - will be collecting apples. I think there's a delectable ridiculousness to that, which also happens to fit the spirit of the game. But maybe that's just me. However, some of the side quests (like the White Dragon) get you items you're likely going to want. To play with. For more than like 5 side quests. But you won't be losing much as far as ultimate maximum XP if you allow yourself a few key side quests along the way, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

Anyway, you'll be doing this pretty exclusively for the satisfaction of getting another 5-15 levels out of your game (depending on the number of players in your team). If you can dig it, though, it is pretty sweet getting to level 84 (my personal best with a 2 man team) with 3 skills maxed and the last still at half mast. If you're into that kind of, you know, super geeky stuff. If not... well, bet you're sorry you bothered reading this whole thing, aren't you?