| Where last we left off:
OK, so in terms of your general quest status, we’ve just finished the Protect Orchard Farm quest. Along the way, we’ve been buying as many will Potions as we can find, and if we’re rich enough and lucky enough, Emeralds. It’s also a good idea to buy as many Crunchy Chicks as you can for later as well.
As many know, it’s crucial to save your ‘Ages of . . . ‘ potions till you have a high Combat Modifier, because you get 1,000 XP per CM. By this time you should have gotten an Ages of Might in the house southeast of the Barber in Bowerstone and an Ages of Skill in the Pond at Lookout point. The question is when to use them? I’ve experimented with a number of character builds. One option is to save them all the way to the Arena when you’ve got a CM of like 60+. I don’t really like this option because it stalls your progress too much. Another Option is to wait until the end of the Escort the Traiders quest when you face the Stone Troll. When you are here, you can target the troll with your bow, and continually charge it up. If you get close, he’ll use his less damaging area attack, which you can back away from, and then get close to him again. I usually let him do his jump attack about 20 times (refilling my Will power as needed) then let go of my bow string. Since you’ve been charging your bow the whole time, one hit will kill him and give you a CM of 25 or so. This is a good time to use your Ages potions and also chow down on Red Meat (for Strength XP) which you can get a lot of at the Darkwood Camp store, Fish (or Will XP), and Carrots (for Skill XP) which you can buy a lot of at the Bowerstone store.
A side benefit of chowing down on a lot of produce at the end of this quest is you can then go to the Demon Door in Barrow fields, which wants you to be fat, which you will be after eating 50+ Red Meat and 50+ carrots, and nets you a Will Masters Potion. From here you can go to the Grey house, fish for the silver key, and if you’ve gotten all the other ones along your way you should now have ten to open the chest with the sharpening augmentation. You’ll also get a couple more Ages potions that are really handy.
There is one problem with this second way. IMHO, you want to have Physique 3 and the Master Greatsword before going on the Escort the Traiders quest. It’s not necessary at all, but it makes it nice and easy when you’re killing all the bandits with just one hit. To get the Strength XP prior to the quest, I have sometimes used the Ages of Might potion after getting my CM up around 10+, usually in Greatwood Gorge. I hate grinding, so I don’t like running around killing guys just for Strength XP. You can use a little General XP to get your Strength up there, but generally I try and save my General XP for Will powers. Also, if you use it now and have a little left over, you often can jump from STR1 to STR4 in one go. In my mind, getting three advancements early on is more valuable than getting one advancement late game, especially cause you’ll have more STR XP than you know what to do with later in the game.
On Oakvale:
The Gamebanshe walkthough states there is no ‘Evil’ way to handle the Ghost and opening up the Chicken kicking competition. This isn’t true. There is a very simple way to speed this quest up and keep all the loot for yourself. Right after you talk to Maze and he takes you down to the shore line, run over to where the widow hangs out – then kill her. No really, it works. I got so pissed off at having to run all over Bowerstone that I finally just took my aggression out on the poor widow. Lo and behold, when you run over to the chicken kicking competition, the guy says ‘I need a Hero to get rid of a ghost. Oh, you already have. Well come play chicken kicking.’ All the buried treasure is available for you to grab for yourself as well. So for a little murder, you get less hassle and more gold.
One thing I’ve seen some people complain about is having played chicken kicking dozens of times and never getting the silver key. This contest is different then the fishing contest in that if you do too good, you don’t get the lower rewards. You need to kick between 150-249 to get the key. After I’ve gotten at least 150, I’ll often kick the chicken down the center, or walk over the line, just so I don’t risk getting 250 or more and not getting the silver key.
My first stop is usually to the general store to buy the owner out of produce and Emeralds. I’ve found the ‘Buy all/sell all’ trick works fastest when you focus on just one or two items and accumulate a large quantity of them. So I usually focus on Emeralds. While buying him out, I take note of how soon it will be before he restocks. After the chicken kicking competition opens up, you can make use of the bed in the house nearby for free and without danger of the guards. I’ll sleep there however many days it was until the next Emerald supply comes in, and then go buy him out again. You can do the ‘Buy all/sell all’ here for just a little while and get hundreds of thousands of gold.  |