how to level up

[roelvvv]

Hi guys,
So far i've only been luring bandits to town, i got like 4k right now but there's no low lvl mobs I can train on.
All npcs are bandits that want to kill me and they beat me up easily!
Could anyone please help me?

Thanks.

[Blxz]

Step 1: Beak out of MMO mentality

Step 2: Continue luring bandits to towns.

Step 3: Actually do something and try and help those guards out instead of stand and watch.

Step 4: Check stats, notice growth, rejoice.

EDIT: Basically, numbers are important early on. The guards provide a good local increase to your 'army' strength. Use them as part of your squad by luring bandits back and then joining in the melee. If you find yourself getting hit too much just turn on 'block' mode for a boost to defense at the expense of no more attacking. (Don't forget to turn it off when the enemies change target away from you)

As you participate you will gain both attack and defence skill and loot. Use the loot for equipment and selling. Use the money for better equipment and hiring new guys. There will come a point where you and your squad will begin to be able to survive fights on your own. That is when you are entering mid-game. Good luck to you.

[Scotterius]

These are good strategies. You can also follow traders to more towns where you can recruit more people.

Another thing you can do is once you hire all the swords in town, save then start a new game while importing your squad. Now you can hire them again. This is kind of cheating.

[sumo0]

getting your dude knocked out in battle will also make defense go up faster.

[iSuck345]

getting your dude knocked out in battle will also make defense go up faster.

It's safer if you blow all of your money on medkits for that

[Duck]

Buying medkits is a safe idea in general.
What I did was roam the land in between brink, capitol, and trader's edge.
It's sort of a triangle, plenty of people to fight, and plenty of patrols to help too.
Three decent towns, with good trade potential, and beds.
Just travelling, and trading with my group got my combat skills up nicely.

[Tolwrath]

I recently started a game where I vowed to never intentionally lead anyone attacking me to town guards. This results in getting beat up a lot. A pro-tip to help you survive being beaten: have at least one character partially bandaged before everyone in your squad gets knocked out. This will ensure that character will slowly heal while passed out, instead of slowly losing health from having all red damage on body parts. This one person can then wake up after combat and bandage up your whole squad. This allows them to get actual combat experience without much risk of death and without the gimmick of leading tons of bandits to town guards.

Edit: oh, and if your characters are wearing backpacks, take the time to pause the game and move the backpack into your inventory. This will increase the weight load on your character, preserve all items that were in the backpack, and remove the penalties associated with having a backpack equipped.

[Wicked001]

I'm having kind of the opposite issue. My main swordsman is between 30 and 40 for most important stats. Finding mobs that will give skill increases is getting difficult. My low level guys who aren't even in combat are leveling faster than him. I will often put everyone on block except for him and let him kill everyone, but dust bandits, hungry bandits, and sand ninjas are just grain for the threshing. Leveling him up is so slow, and letting him 1v10 usually ends up in his falling.

Is there a better way to get my guy some more points? To make things worse, I swapped him from katana type weapons to sabers to try and level up his strength/saber skills. This took just as long to level from 2 to 3. Am I going to penalize my main weapon skill by learning new weapons at such a high melee level?

Also (this is a little non sequitur but), The tool tip for "Dexterity" does not include the method for increasing dex. It is obvious that you can raise Strength by increasing your carry load and walking around or using a heavy weapon in combat. Is dex only increased by using a "light" weapon in combat, or do you also get points in it for traveling unencumbered?

Also, as another separate question... What are the best weapon types to focus on? I really love the katana and saber, but I've found little or no reason to try out hackers and (I forget the last type). I tried the search feature, but it claims that "Best Weapon" is too commonly used to give me any results. This string only allows me room for 4 more characters to search for. If anyone has a "weapon" thread already, please post me a link!

First post (thanks!),
Wicked001

[Meynolt]

I'm having kind of the opposite issue. My main swordsman is between 30 and 40 for most important stats. Finding mobs that will give skill increases is getting difficult. My low level guys who aren't even in combat are leveling faster than him. I will often put everyone on block except for him and let him kill everyone, but dust bandits, hungry bandits, and sand ninjas are just grain for the threshing. Leveling him up is so slow, and letting him 1v10 usually ends up in his falling.

There is an xp rate multiplier based on level difference. If you are 10 levels below your opponent, you level up twice as fast. At same level normal xp, and this reduces linearly to 10% at 25 levels above. *[the formula uses 0% for the linear approximation, but caps at a minimum of 10%].

Is there a better way to get my guy some more points? To make things worse, I swapped him from katana type weapons to sabers to try and level up his strength/saber skills. This took just as long to level from 2 to 3. Am I going to penalize my main weapon skill by learning new weapons at such a high melee level?

I found this too. I think it's related to the xp reduction rule above. I'm guessing it's based on attack skill rather than weapon skill, and honestly I think it is a bug.

Also (this is a little non sequitur but), The tool tip for "Dexterity" does not include the method for increasing dex. It is obvious that you can raise Strength by increasing your carry load and walking around or using a heavy weapon in combat. Is dex only increased by using a "light" weapon in combat, or do you also get points in it for traveling unencumbered?

Yep, using light weapons. Katanas definately raise dex. Pretty sure hackers and planks do not. Not sure about sabres. Running around unencumbered only raises athletics skill.

Also, as another separate question... What are the best weapon types to focus on? I really love the katana and saber, but I've found little or no reason to try out hackers and (I forget the last type). I tried the search feature, but it claims that "Best Weapon" is too commonly used to give me any results. This string only allows me room for 4 more characters to search for. If anyone has a "weapon" thread already, please post me a link!

I tend to stick to katanas, just because. I did test out planks though, and although they attack slower, they usually 1-hit kill things because all the damage is done to one spot rather than being spread out among multiple body parts. I might suggest using a weapon to raise dex before swithcing to planks, but then this makes it harder to raise the next weapon's skill.

[Koren]

Sabres do raise dex. I know this because they are one of the highest damage weapons you can get easily when you first start out. Many of the bandit leaders carry them. You can get some free stat boosting while away from the PC on a training dummy, but it basically caps out at 6 attack. After that the best way I found is to fight with block on, with a party member just out of range waiting to heal you after they take you down. And remember when your pulling the bandits into the guards, to look and see if you have any leaders. The bandit leaders and Ninja Jounin usually have a bounty you can collect in town. I did a lot of the pulling your talking about when I started. load myself up with the loot, and load the rest of the loot on one of the bodies (especially if they have a bounty) then walk back to town. Get loads of str from doing that pretty quick.