curi

Where can you get piercing crystals in exile 1? I know there is a shop with piercing crystals near Sulfras. Do any other shops sell them? Do any dungeons have guaranteed piercing crystals (I think Grim Cavern has one)? I'm working on a speedrun and getting 2 piercing crystals could be useful but traveling near Sulfras is too far. You need to dispel two barriers in the tower of magi to get the blessed athame. If you learn dispel barrier you need to reach level 3 on a 6 int mage to get around a 5% chance to dispel there – it's unfortunately a 0% chance at level 2, so I'm considering getting extra xp I don't otherwise need or cutting a priest from my party to deal with this (level 5 mage spells + 9 int costs 59 skill points, so that should work at level 2, but there's no way for my primary mages with level 7 mage spells to reach 9 int at level 2). I finished an exile 1 run in 54:29 yesterday with several minutes of time loss due to my mage being underleveled when I reached the tower of magi, and several more minutes of time loss on the grah-hoth fight.

tested only in exile 1 so far: protection spells stack. maybe i shouldn't be surprised, but i'd kinda of assumed that would be OP and it wouldn't work that way. well it does. cast protection 3 times on the same guy, get triple duration invulnerability. there's no diminishing returns. and 80 gold mana potions give 15 mana, enough to cast protection twice. and protection is available at the start of the game for a mere 8 mage lore. so for a really cheap potion you can get around 10 rounds of invulnerability on a character, assuming only 4 int. 12 rounds with 6 int, 14 with 9, 20 with 19int. i already knew protection was ridiculously OP, but i didn't know you could prebuff it a bunch of times before a fight. i thought it had to be monitored during fights because of the short duration, instead of just stacked up to last a whole fight and not worry about it. i was always trying to wait until it ran out before recasting Protection in the past. this will make fighting grah-hoth easier.

because you only need to win once to win. if you think reaching the surface is faster feel free to route it and beat my time

the ideas about a passive bonus (or missing passive bonus left at 0 strength) don't explain why you can activate the gauntlets like using a potion (but no obvious effect).

got 1:09:27 by skipping heartfinder (2 steel saber good enough) and giants (thralni over river near erika), and doing all the hard fights better (e.g. before grah i cast minor haste on the fighter, with all mages, until they ran out of spell points. pre-buffing a very large amount is better. next time i think i'll do some more honestly, cuz haste ran out before the fight ended. and for sss-thss fight i used slow group. fort remote and the big demon fight special i just ran for it without trying to fight.) i did waste a few minutes in the slith castle. i ended combat with my fighter standing on a special in front of the door to the stairs up. didn't realize. tried to unlock and bash the door for several minutes. then kinda gave up, moved up, saw the special where you put in the key. oops! i also wasted a minute early by having someone die to a neph special behind the fort and i stupidly hadn't saved right before it. all the time improvement this time was in the second half. i was just 80 seconds ahead leaving almaria, then gained 20 min in the ending areas with the improved strats. now thinking under an hour to beat exile 1 is probably possible. i think it will be tough though. removing the 2 significant mistakes from my last game will get it to around 65 minutes. i think the last 5 minutes will have to come from lots of little optimizations. one funny thing is i only had 2 PCs left at the end. a mage died on the big demon special fight when walking up to grah hoth. i can live with that, that fight can waste time, kept going. then after grah hoth i dropped both mage/priests out of my party so i'd have fewer people to run away on any more fights. then while holding down on fights while going home my other mage died. so just the fighter and priest made it to the victory lol.

2nd run took 1:30:12. much smoother. finished at levels 20/6/6/6/6/6 can definitely get under 1:15 with better play. this game is a lot shorter than i thought! main sticking points were sss-thss fight (didn't have protection yet, and didn't buy slow group. definitely buying slow group next time), fort remote fight (my casters are squishy. after a few failures i just hasted everyone and ran away. should do that from the start next time), demons on the way to grah hoth's fort (especially you have to do an encounter where you started slowed/cursed. one mage/priest died there which is fine, and it took some reloads) and the grah-hoth fight itself (took a couple early restarts that were my fault, and just generally took a very long time and i had some difficulty keeping my fighter hasted). new party build. paren is level. brackets is number you see and spells above level 3. numbers are totals except hp numbers are skill points to spend. ftr: 12str 4dex 4edged 5traps (1). 9edged 6dex 7traps (5). 11edged 19str hp mage/priest: 1mage 3priest 4int 4magelore 25mana [13] 13hp [32]. hp mage/priest: 1mage 3priest 4int 4magelore 25mana [13] 13hp [32]. hp mage: 7mage 4int 9hp [24] (1). 4hp (2). 6int (3). mana [protection, major blessing] mage: 7mage 4int 9hp [24] (1). 4hp (2). 6int (3). mana [protection, major blessing] priest: 7priest 6int 10hp [26] (1). 5hp (2). mana [cure all poison, revive, revive all] for the route now, i skipped the bandit fort. silver first for the sword + 30 gold on armor + 70 gold of food (enough for whole game), then just straight to the bronze key dungeon then the main neph fort. then sell/train, get a steel saber at draco and energy pots and spells at formello. then dispel barrier, orb of thralni, and straight into slith castle. then take boat left and run down through fort emerald, visit castle then sell/train at almaria and buy a big pile of mana pots. then go get protection, revive and athame. then back the other way for heartfinder, revive all and fort remote. then up to set grah free, get giants boat, then go kill grah. dispel barrier is necessary to use twice in the game to get the athame, and a key for the slith castle is right next to the tome. thralni is necessary to get to grah-hoth's fort at the end. athame is necessary. the 2 neph forts at start and slith castle are necessary for royal questline. i thought giants were necessary for the boat but maybe you can just orb of thralni over the river near erika!! you're down there anyway. heartfinder saves some time fighting at skarragath and grah-hoth, could be skipped though and just buy a 2nd steel saber earlier, it doesn't take that long to get though.

FYI i tested this some. piercing crystals did work. and my level 3 mage could dispel the barrier (low odds) when edited to 6 int. i also checked a bunch of towns and didn't find any piercing crystals for sale, i'm not sure you can buy them. according to the boe code, level is the main factor for dispel barrier and town difficulty is minor (it's divided by 10, whereas for unlock it isn't). i'm a bit skeptical that exile 1 works the same as that though. i also kinda doubt Int is required though, i bet higher level and 4 int would be fine too.

can anyone tell me which towns sell piercing crystals in exile 1? i just found out that you cannot dispel barriers in the tower of magi with a level 3 mage (4int), even if you save/load and cast the spell 50 times.

just did my first timed run. got 2:14:27 from "create party" button to victory at micah. here are my notes on route/party from before i started this run and then some more notes after. (main thing i changed is i found out grah-hoth isn't that hard so i tried to cut out a lot of optional stuff like crystals, the fort that gives magelore, bat cave, and cotra prisoners). new shorter route: start timer when clicking "Make New Party" button silvar get sword, scroll, food and buy fighter armor. clear bandit fort (don't walk in), neph fort #1 (silver ring prot ring bot right worth 750, bronze key top left). 2 neph encounters, rest behind fort. main neph fort. clear main floor some, go up, grab gold necklace special, do bronze key area than anastasia. then her passage down, plate armor + 3 chest on bottom level bottom left, then leave secret door top left. go iden/sell duvno. formello train, mayor reward. buy slow group (250), cure all poison (150), MANA POTS (80*7). go draco buy steel saber (1000), steel helm (400). buy boat in cotra (250), go get dispel barrier. swamp right across from dranlon. go top right area. then up/left for tome and slith castle key orb of thralni. take first waterfall, go right, then left, then down to arrive. inside, take boat around to right. top/right body outside door. say "steal" to dranlon mage. take boat down to almaria, iden, sell, train, more MANA POTS. Heartfinder, Revive all (1500). get Protection from ogres (up a little then right into building, up a little, then left and back down), buy revive (800), get blessed athame (left barrier). refresh tower junk shop to spend remaining gold? slith castle: secret entrance bottom left, stairs up in bottom middle. floor 2: up the left side and back around to top middle. prebuff for big fight. gila cloak through secret door on left top. to the right, use the bottom button only to cross bridge. walk down by blosk, talk to micah. iden/sell/train/MANA POTS at almaria. (buy a fire resist ring if fighter lacks resist) STOP LOOTING. go fort remote. walk up to abyss then down left to skaragoth. 2 buttons, fight. free grah. giants. key is middle left in basement in secret door in the bottom left of building. take giant boat to grah-hoth. fly to angel left wall. enter. above east statue: 6N, 3NW, 2SW, 1W, 4N, 3NE pre-buff heavily for grah fight. bless/haste/resist. run casters out of room. protection on fighter. kill grah. run back to micah stat builds. numbers in paren are the level you get it. hp numbers are the amount of skill points to spend on that specific level. ftr: 16str 4dex 1edged 2traps (1). 3edged (2). 6edged (3). 8edged (4). 11edged (5). 19str (7). 6dex (8). hp. [note: next time get like 7 traps] priest: 4priest 4str 6int 11hp 17mana (1). mana/hp [cure all poison] priest: 7priest 4str 4int 7hp (1). 2hp (2). 6int (3). 9int (4). mana/hp [revive, revive all] mage/priest: 3mage 2priest 4str 4int 9hp 5magelore (1). 1hp 8magelore (2) 6int (3). mana/hp [note: kinda sucked, do something else next time] mage: 7mage 4str 5hp 2int (1). 4int (2). 4hp (3). 6int (4). mana/hp mage: 7mage 4str 5hp 2int (1). 4int (2). 9int (5). mana/hp [slow group] [note: no slow group next time] notes after the run: for sss fight was at: 18/5/5/5/5/5 entered giants at: 21/6/6/6/6/6 ending: 24/6/7/7/7/7 (2nd guy died to poison near end and i saved, oops) big problems: can't disarm fire trap for heartseeker, ppl die, need protection first (or higher traps skill might work?). can't dispel barriers in tower of magi, i assume because i was level 3. can get athame with 2 piercing crystals and save/load. gold was an issue at some points. i bought like 8 mana pots in formello and then had to rest a few times and kill some wandering monsters to afford cotra boat. cut slow group and be careful. get mana pots last and make sure to save 1650 (saber + helm + boat). turn in slith tome immediately after you get it. next time i want to do slith castle right after orb of thralni so i don't have to go back there and the reward gold + selling loot will let me buy revive and revive all. when i went to almaria i had nothing to sell. in run i got piercing crystals by using save/wait at the tower of magi shop, that sucked, find out where to buy them. had around 2500 extra gold at end. grah-hoth fight takes quite a while but is very easy with all casters outside the room and fighter invulnerable, just bring plenty of mana pots. dual wield from the moment i bought a steel saber worked fine. run from hard fights. like the demons on the way to grah-hoth, protection the fighter, major blessing, run everyone out of fight. main problems with my run were trying to get heartfinder, giving up, then having to shop piercing crystals to get athame, wasted a lot of time in that area like 20min. also i got lost trying to find dharmon wasted a few minutes lol, need notes about where it is (similar height to castle, like 2 full screens left, i think). didn't split very accurately but finished neph fort at 21min, got boat in cotra at 33min, slith tome and thralni done at 21min, had athame at 67min, started slith castle 79min and finished it 91min, got into skarragath at 103min, into giants at 111min, enter grah hoth forst at 122min, and won at micah at 2hrs 14min 27s.

you lose 1 stack of bless and haste every 4 rounds (not 4 rounds based on when you cast it. there's just one timer, may be started when combat starts or you enter the town or something, not sure). if your bless or haste is negative then you're losing a stack of curse or slow instead, it moves towards 0 over time. also i found Strength. it gives 3 stacks of bless. so it's 50% better than minor bless!! also using the duration information, i tested bless stacks in exile 1. minor bless is indeed 2 stacks, strength 3, and bless is indeed level * 3/4 +1 +bonus. my level 19 priest with +2 in bonus is giving 17 stacks with one cast of bless (exactly 68 stand ready for it to expire). my level 9 priest with +0 int gets 7 stacks (28 duration). then i cast 3 blesses on one guy for 17+7+7 stacks. those 31 stacks should last 124 rounds. i left combat, did 40-move wait 3 times, then stood still twice and it ended exactly as predicted. (to get the stacks, round the duration up to the closest multiple of 4. you lose 0-3 rounds of duration based on when you cast it vs the global timer). i also tested bless party and it was level/3. (btw everything rounds down, it's integer math. so level 8 = 2 stacks from bless party). so then i tested haste. it is level/2 + bonus in exile 1, based on duration. major blessing really was 3+bonus haste and 4 bless. minor haste is 2 stacks. slows use the same global timer as bless/haste durations. when the timer is an even number, slowed heroes skip their turn. haste from items doesn't check for 8 stacks of haste max (i figure this is a bug, though not very important). the 4 mage haste spells all do cap at 8 stacks in the boe code. however in testing in e1, haste stacks are not capped. that must have been added later. i just gave a guy 60 haste stacks and it lasted over 200 rounds. i think i underestimated the power of haste because the group haste spells give low stacks. if you are level 20 with 12 int then the haste spells give: minor: 2 haste: 13 major haste: 6 major blessing: 6 or with 4 int the stacks are : 2, 10, 3, 3 (bigger difference). haste is the only one which benefits a lot from level. once you level up pretty well, you can get really huge haste stacks with it. i had been overestimating party buffs before. though with an 8 stack haste cap in boe, all you need is 6int for a +1 bonus and then you can use 2x major blessing to hit the haste cap. alternatively, get to level 8 and get 9 int and then 2 casts of major haste would hit the cap. however in boe you should still strongly consider using the haste spell if you get slowed. if you are at 0, you can only get 8 stacks. but if you were at -8 haste (worse possible), then a single cast of haste from a level 32 mage with 4int would get you straight up up to +8. 8 or more stacks of haste gives you triple action points, 1 to 7 stacks gives you double action points, according to the boe code. (exile 1 is different with 6+ stacks giving triple action points, and 1-5 being double). when i play exile 2 or 3 again, i'll definitely have to test the haste stacking rules using minor haste. i tried to look at how luck effects drops. it's super confusing, but it adds up the luck of your whole party then does 2 things with it: 1) seems to add 1% better chance per luck to a loot check of some kind 2) seems to add 1 level to some dropped items per 3 luck it's very hard to tell but my best guess is that this is good. if i try a game with my 20luck guy idea, maybe i'll be able to notice a difference, maybe not. (plus it could be different in exile 1, who knows )

here's some additions from looking at the code: light heal, heal, major heal: no scaling, average 5, 20, 35 healing light heal all, heal all, revive all: 3, 6, 7 base d4 of healing. plus your bonus (like from int). after rolling, if it's revive all, double it. level irrelevant. i think major heal and heal all are pretty much useless. i also looked into where you end up when you end combat. it finds a random alive PC and uses that location. looks impossible to manipulate. haste is 8 stacks max. bless can raise or lower your damage by 8 max. i think the limited haste stacks is why pre-hasting isn't nearly as effective against slows as pre-blessing is vs curses. protection invulnerability duration is: 2 + bonus + 2d2 (2 to 4) the general idea with minor bless/haste is it adds 2 stacks, and then the regular spell factors in your bonus and your level divided by something, and has a minimum of 2. so use the minor spells early and just stack plenty of them, and switch later on. i've tested a lot of this stuff in exile 1. not many differences. i suspect heal and revive all have 1d4 less of base healing in e1. here is the skill bonus table, it's very important: short skill_bonus[21] = {-3,-3,-2,-1,0,0,1,1,1,2, 2,2,3,3,3,3,4,4,4,5,5}; it's saying your bonus from an attribute. the first number is for 0. you get a +1 bonus at 6 str/dex/int. +2 at 9, +3 at 12, +4 at 16, and +5 at 19. major haste stacks: 1 + level / 8 + bonus major blessing stacks: haste: 3 + bonus bless: 4 slow group: 5+bonus ravage enemy mage slow/curse aoe spell (exile 1/2 only): 5+bonus slow, 3+bonus curse haste stacks from items (like helm of speed): item level / 2 minor haste: 2 stacks haste: level/2 + bonus (or 2 minimum) i think bless party is level/3 stacks i think minor bless is 2 stacks and bless is level*3/4 + 1 + bonus (2 minimum) i think that means bless is so amazingly good that it may be more useful than bless party. like suppose you are level 20 and have 9 int (+2 bonus), bless party would give 6 stacks per person. minor bless would give 2 stacks. bless would give 18 stacks. that's so huge i'm wondering if it actually works that way in exile 1 (the game i've been playing lately). in that scenario, if you have 3 people who are doing combat, you could bless them each once for the same stacks, and with the same AP, as casting 3 bless party. for 40% of the mana cost.

exile 1 does not let you craft mana potions but you can buy weak energy potions (15 mana points) for 80 gold and i think i can spare thousands. (you can also buy medium mana, 30 points, for 200 gold, if space becomes a problem. but my back 3 characters have only been getting helm/shield/armor, no weapons/jewlery, so i have a lot of space). if i can skip enough stuff, then hopefully i can get it so the xp from respawning enemies is all useful. i don't wait in dungeons (except bat cave to cross the lava) but a lot of stuff respawns anyway. i use a lot of minor bless and minor haste early so i don't run out of mana. + having 5 casters.

here are my current notes for speedrunning exile 1 for the grah-hoth mission. some stuff in these notes ought to be skipped i think, though it's hard to tell b/c i'm not quite finished. i've done the earlier parts a bunch of times but haven't killed grah-hoth since years ago, will kill him today though. looking for suggestions/feedback. party: fighter who gets most of the xp mage/fighter priest/fighter priest priest mage turn sounds off and the game goes WAY faster supplies, sword, bandit fort (clear, get mace, leave) + cache + bats (gauntlets+ambrosia). underground fort (silver ring prot ring bot right to sell for 750, bronze key top left). iden/sell + buy 2 lockpicks. get train+sword+fireball+food+armor. go buy a 250 armor at cotra. cotra neph fort (prisoners in the middle, ruby a little left), 2 neph encounters behind main fort, rest back there, magelore fort (take boat south), draco buy steel saber + shield, another shield or helm if gold. rest at inn. main neph fort (clear main floor some, go up, grab gold necklace special, do bronze key area than anastasia. then her passage down, plate armor + 3 chest on bottom level bottom left, then leave secret door top left). cotra reward, buy cotra boat and sail it to silvar. iden, sell, train. then go get protection (up a little then right into building, up a little, then left and back down). stop by tower of magi to buy revive (800, buy 2 if money, can also get major haste for 500). around level 14/4/4/4/4/4 then rob formello (top one hurts more) + buy spells and energy potions, rob motrax (say bribe first and grab brooch to his left), draco want 3 helm 2shield 1saber. then boat to almaria, get fire resist ring (1200) and wine. then get heartfinder and buy revive all (1500). then crystals: 2 islands kinda near cotra. right about dranlon up river to right. go left from dranlon under swamp then do top right slave camp, same screen. south a screen from dranlon is island fort mid river (boat top right, south a little on island for crystal; go bottom left then secret door to up right has plans + chests), and then directly left of island fort is passage to hungry drake. then dispel barrier. swamp right across from dranlon. go top right area. then up/left for tome+key, and up/right then secret door south for chests [chests not worth effort?]. say "steal" to turn in tome to mage, say "plans" to mayor slith castle: secret entrance bottom left, stairs up in bottom middle. floor 2: bottom middle secret passage has boat to get bow [skip?]. then you go up the left side and back around to top middle. prebuff for big fight. gila cloak through secret door on left top. to right use the bottom button only to cross bridge then orb of thralni. take first waterfall, go right, then left, then down to arrive. inside, take boat to top right. orb on body outside, giants, lich and shockwave tome inside [skip?]. special on way out has beholder fight with cryos armor. buy food, train, blessed athame at tower of magi go get smite. armor is in the middle, have to walk through a little explosion special then send up fighter. then go up top to find smite (a little left of center) [skip this probably?] then go abyss. talk to the mayor guy "check" [not sure if i ever need to leave once i go through] before going through gate. do giants fort, giant key is middle left in basement in secret door in the bottom left of building. then take boat and grab +1 dex, bottom/right in water area [could probably just train the mage/fighter and priest/fighter to 4 dex myself and skip this] then go free grah-hoth and go up to his fort and kill him and win [i just freed him and went up to bargha yesterday, still need to test the ending but i think i'm almost done and have more than enough levels.] got 11/6/7/4/4/4 after turning in necklace reached giants fort at 21/12/12/7/7/7 after freeing grah hoth and unnecessarily talking with erika, 25/19/19/9/9/9 [i think this is significantly more xp than i need, especially on the fighter/mage and fighter/priest. thinking 25 fighter and rest all 8 would be enough with enough mana potions, major blessings and protections for the end. needs testing though.] the basic method early is bless/haste the fighter and have him run through a dungeon and clear it. then end combat and walk party through empty dungeon. one tricky part is robbing motrax. don't cast any light spells. take his stuff. cast major blessing several times and 1 protection. save. then land on short next to him. he attacks but probably no one dies. go combat mode. your entire party is now on the same square next to motrax. moving can get people killed. use WAIT a ton to do the following steps in order: 1) cast protection on fighter 2) move fighter 1 step away, motrax can't hurt him due to invulnerability 3) move a character onto the fighter. swapping places means motrax doesn't get an attack on you. then run him away. 4) move fighter 1 square away again 5) move another character onto fighter 6) after you run away 5 characters for 2 turns of movement, and invulnerable fighter stands by motrax, end combat and flee.

i'm looking at speedrunning exile 1. i've been experimenting, optimizing the early areas and party build, and will finish a run through the grah-hoth quest soon (yesterday i did a run from game start to just outside his fortress, gonna finish that playthrough today). my current best party concept looks like this below. str values are all after the +2 from the 6 crystals. i've also found the +1 dex after u get giants boat which is not included. hp numbers are the amount of skill points to spend on it. all spells i care about above level 3 are noted on the character who will use them: (remember stat bonuses are at 6, 9, 12, 16, 19) (magelore you get +1 to everyone early. so buy 2 points and you get 8, enough for major blessing, protection and graymold recipe. don't know anything else requiring i get more yet, don't need the other spells that take more) 1) fighter. he does most of the killing and will greatly outlevel the party. gets 19 str, 6dex, 1traps, 7edged, 20luck 2) mage/fighter. 7mage, 9str, 4int, 3dex, 5hp, 7bash, [need around that much hit chance for dual wielding i think], rest mana. [slow group, ravage enemy, major blessing, protection] 3) priest/fighter. 5priest, 12str, 3dex, 2hp, 7edged, 2defense, 1luck, rest mana [curse all, bless party] 4) priest/fighter/alchemist 5priest 6str, 4int, 2magelore 10hp and get up to 20-25 mana. [cure all poison, bless party]. either gets alchemy or dex/edged. 5) priest 7priest, 6str, 6int, rest mana [bless party, revive, revive all] 6) mage 7mage 6str, 6int, rest mana [flamestrike, major poison, major blessing, protection] i'm pretty unsure what to do with character 4. he can do alchemy but i think you only need that for killing hawthorne mission. having a third priest is definitely helpful at the start but later on it just casts the occassional bless party and sits around. a 4th melee fighter isn't very useful since i do a lot of stuff only using 1 buffed character and skipping everyone else's turn anyway, and i don't really want to kill stuff with this extra character and get xp on him or worry about getting him weapons. actually while writing this i had a better idea. he can either be priest/alchemist if i need alchemy, or else mage/priest. a 7/1 mage/priest would let him spend mana on healing early when necessary, and on major blessing and protection later. so 6str 4int 7mage 1priest 2magelore. rest mana. might be useful i guess. 3 mages seems like overkill though but prob beats a 4th melee fighter, and i'd rather be casting some extra major blessing than bless party, and he does not use healing after the early game anyway. a different idea is just to get him 20 luck (so finished at level 9) and use him as a pure decoy. honestly that seems kinda smart. i could just run up to formello and buy some early mana potions to make up for losing a priest. anyway i would like to hear suggestions about party. also which is the fastest path to win the game, do people think? i haven't relearned the late game very well yet. i read a bit to remind myself but i don't have a good sense of how long the assassination or escape missions are. also one problem with them is i need to go into the neph for anyway to get major blessing and while i'm there it's gotta be worth it to get the mayor's necklace to get the reward (and while visiting, rob her with protection. then i go rob motrax with protection to avoid the fight).

i'm looking to do a speedrun of exile 1. can anyone tell me exactly what the Silver Gauntlets do in exile 1? i searched and they aren't in the blades source code. the gauntlets are weird because they are a usable item which has no visible effect when used. if anyone knows any major changes btwn exile 1 and blades, which could affect good strategies, i'd like to hear that too.

Hi, I am working on speedrunning exile 1. I really like the game and beat it a long time ago. i've been trying to figure out the best, fastest ways to play through it. it's a big game so i'm still looking around, though i have the early game pretty optimized. i like the 3 win conditions, too, so i'll have to make 3 routes and try them all to see what's fastest. i'm also considering trying to beat the game with no reloading (still caring about time, not just completely overleveling everything). i've been looking at this info and the blades source code and done some testing about what applies to exile 1. it's really helpful to understand things like hp gain from leveling formula, how main attributes work, and how base hit chance works based on your weapon skill. and i looked at how a bunch of spells calculate stuff, like it's great to know how minor bless is a fixed 2 levels of bless even if you have 1 int, while bless is much better at higher level with good int. i already kinda knew that from playing but it's clearer now. haste works similar but is capped at 8 levels of haste which is why casting a bunch of haste before a fight wouldn't make me totally immune to slow, while bless is uncapped so it will often stay on much better even if they caste curses. i wanted to ask a question. one thing i really want to know is how the Silver Gauntlets work in exile 1. unfortunately i searched for them and they don't exist in the blades source code. i don't suppose anyone has exile 1 code they can check? they say they offer "Protection", they don't have an item level, and they are usable in combat. but using them has no visible effect. does anyone know exactly what Silver Gauntlets do?

You just get something to chase you then run all the way to her. She went into Terrified mode when an enemy got near her, ran *towards* him, and died in one hit. lol. That's what happens when you try kiting until daze is ready to cast again... It worked really well too, got them all split up and won easily, but had to reload to save her. Next time I didn't kite that far and fought a larger group together.

i realized what 9 AP is good for: kiting. most stuff has 8 AP like you. with 9 AP you could run 8 times and shoot once...

I found another way to take advantage of the AI. if you charm something then back up, when its charm ends monsters can revert to out of combat if you're far enough away (or they don't have vision, not sure which). at least with salamanders. i wonder if it also works with summoned units dying, summoned units expiring, or party members dying. if it works with party members then having a party of 2 would be really powerful: just make sure no enemies get next to one character, and after you kill a few guys just run him away and then let the tank die. maybe i'll retrain low str after equipping shock troop shield... 10 AP every turn sounds really tempting. i don't mind doing NPC quests. i don't expect a second play through and don't want to skip stuff. i did jenell. i didn't spend any stat points and left her with her starting gear. then i kind of alternated between running her away from fights, letting her die, or actually using her (one time she did over 30 damage. her rate of actually hitting is pretty abysmal). whatever. i also did a lure with jenell. just ran her up to die and ran my main character back and then two enemies came for me. not entirely sure how the AI works for that. i was out of sight and further away than with the salamanders who lost track of me due to charm. maybe has to do with monster level. edit: just split up cave widows at bezara woods with daze and run for it. got around 30 squares away from the dazed ones and they didn't come. about to get level 17 now. edit again: daze+run works really well. just split up 2 basilisks. and got level 17. stats currently with gear: 6 str, 15 dex, 13 int, 15 end. 200 max hp. edit: btw daze has unlimited range so that's nice when kiting. i don't think it affects stuff you can't see though. edit: lol you can lure stuff and get calantha killed, then steal all her stuff. she doesn't respawn if you leave the zone and come back though, so not gonna do it cause it looks like she has quests later. i could leave an enemy alive on the map to kill her with later i guess. edit: daze can hit stuff you don't have vision of!

update: level 16. got to the bezara pits at 14 (skipping all the sidequests in the zone) then went back to clear sidequests and skipped stuff from previous zones. did the library quest and got all the khemeria stuff done including jenell's sidequest. finishing the stuff under zethron next, then neray and the jereth wretch tribe. then i'll be caught up. after the pits i'll get an ivy rod and can use a shield with it. yay. using staff currently. there hasn't been a new rod since very early game. i haven't found a secret door for a long time. i wonder if i'm just missing them all. i retrained at level 14 to 4 unlock and 8 in firebolt/daze/focus mastery. now i also got 1 each in ward and magical masteries, and have that column specialized twice. the elemental absorb helps a lot. i want to max ward mastery and then i think i'll get haste which isn't that great but i don't have a better idea. level 8 daze is actually pretty good sometimes. it still says it lasts 2 turns but it can be more like 5. the elemental resist spell and haste was the same way: they keep saying they last 4 turns but at higher level you actually get more (7 and 5 respectively at level 8, if i recall correctly). the summon wand has gotten a lot worse since early game. i should have used it more. i overestimated how long it would stay powerful. i finished my first one but there is a second one to buy at the castle veb-something. i also conserved wands a bit too much. not that it matters a lot but i'm now trying to use them just to use extra AP. they make a difference sometimes. the main reason i didn't use them a lot before is i thought of them as being for AoE. but i'm finding AoE not very effective in general. but you can just shoot the wand at a single guy, no big deal. been using a lot of battle brew and getting low on those. already bought all the ones i saw in shops i think. didn't start buying the stronger battle elixirs yet though. still have over 20 heal pots and only bought out like 2 shops. battle brews brew healing saves a lot of heal pots. i find speed potion a bit awkward because you go from item+attack to 2 attacks and then i don't want to waste it healing. you can also do item+item+attack with it. but if you're using haste, a few food won't be enough. and if you're using heal potions, you don't need 2 at once. so it'd be getting you an extra food or wand use. at least the heal scarab is efficient with speed boost. with haste + speed, is it possible to get haste twice in one round? i've tried for it a bunch of times but never got it. if it's not then if you haste your first attack all it gets you is a bonus item use. haste is a bit awkward in that you don't know if it'll happen so you have to give up an item use in order to have a chance (like a 33% ballpark) for another attack. so attacking has to be worth more than 3 item uses for haste to actually do much, or if you don't have any items you really want to use. in a full party you'd have a lot fewer consumables per character to use and haste would have more value. it's still OK but not amazing. i remember exile haste and bless. those were way too strong. i like how spidweb games have good support spells and weaker dps spells. in D&D the bless and curse spells tend to be extremely bad, and damage/heal spells way better (unless they changed it in the new version). it's reasonably common in games that support spells aren't worth using. they're usually more interesting than dps spells though and require more planning or decision making. like with shadow charm you want to precast it before fights, and then when it expires you have to decide if it's worth recasting. i'm wondering if there's any use for fleet sandals. 2 extra AP would be amazing to attack twice. but i'm not sure what good 1 extra is. can sorceress use shock troop shield. if not, anything good to do with 1 extra AP?

Is there any gotcha or can you just retrain unlimited times for free? Thinking of getting 12 strength to use titansteel gear, then whenever i level up and it gives me strength, retrain to less.

wow you can lure ogres away from Chief Gnak'Snap just by casting a Ice Storm that he resists but which damages them, then running back. (some guys failed morale checks and were behind him).

the water chasing you part is awesome pretty near level 14. don't get hit all that much and frequently kill ogres in 2 hits. not even using much food. just shadow charm, attack stuff, occasionally heal scarab. don't kite.

Is there any way to tell in advance which greaves the sorceress can use? trying to plan. or can someone tell me? if smoky is usable i'll save neray for later instead of taking the bribe. which is the best one sorc can use? i'm reading the item thread: http://www.spiderwebforums.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=223636#Post223636 thanks for all the help, btw. edit: killed neray with a ton of items just to see. can't use

I missed Abi. Thanks.