Create a Loremaster with the following stats:

7 Strength
8 Dexterity
6 Constitution
8 Perception
7 Intelligence
4 Charisma

Don't invest into any skill points yet.

Loremasters do not get their own extensive questline (neither do Drifters, Grifters, or Mercenaries). However, Loremasters can choose to join any of the guilds that do have game-spanning questlines (i.e., Merchant, Thief, Assassin, or Imperial Guard).

Explore your starting room, receive:

+1 Lockpicking
+1 Lore

Sidenote: Don't worry about min/max any source of SP from "trainers." If your skill level is too high to get the training, you will be given extra SP instead.

• Lore 3
  
• Persuasion 3

Talk with Feng, talk with the Merchant, receive the Map, 100 gold, and a metal sphere.

Talk with the Miner at the Inn if you want, but we don't care about his artifact and we don't care about his skill checks.

Return to Feng and prepare to kill Cassius by equipping the Khanjar from your inventory. Find Cassius at the Inn, lure him to the abandoned house, attempt to critical strike him and fail (but he still gets injured). Spam fast attack with your Khanjar and he will die easily.

Return to Feng, exhaust his dialogue.

• Do not accept a shady man's offer for cheap weapons.
  
• Do not wander behind the Tavern and interact with a woman.
  
• Do not investigate a tower with hobos and dead bodies.
  
• Do not buy a kebob in shanty town.
  
• Do not join any Guild.
  
• Do not sell anything made from iron; we need that iron for crafting.

All of these things are best saved until later for various reasons.

The following steps build skills useful throughout the game for almost any run and allow us to infiltrate the palace:

• Lockpick 4
  
• Sneak 3

Climb onto Feng's roof and lockpick the hatch (+1 SP).

Sneak into the blacksmith's house through the back window. Get +1 crafting, lockpick the chest, and inspect the pile of ingots in the other room.

• Sneak 4

Rent a room in the Inn. Open every door and loot every chest EXCEPT for the chest on the top floor that you sense a trap for. Don't worry if you get caught sneaking, it affects nothing and you can still come back later.

Go to the graveyard, and look for a dead body with climbing gear.

Head towards the palace. Talk to the preacher and be nice to him.

Go to the house to the right on the way to Palace, knock on the door, come back at night. Sneak into the house and get all the loot and +4 total SP.

• Crafting 4

Before you go to the Palace, confirm the following:

You have the climbing gear from the graveyard.
Your sneak, lockpick, and crafting are all at 4.

http://steamproxy-script.pipiskins.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=875722593

(I only list meaningful selections, so you can't just spam these exact keys without reading)

• 3. Look for an alternate way.
  
• 4. Climb over the palisade.
  
• 1. Sneak into guardhouse.
  
• 2. Explore the back of the guardhouse.
  
• 2. Lockpick the chest.
  
• 1. Take the loot and go back.
  
• 3. Sneak back outside
  
• 3. Quietly work your way to the other side of the compound.
  
• 2. Climb to the roof.
  
• 1. Lockpick
  
• 2. Sneak into the dinner room.
  
• 2. Check out the display room.
  
• 1. Examine the displays.
  
• 2. Too risky, don't roll.
  
• 1. Grab the scroll, you can't read it yet but can later with higher lore.

Finally, show Antidas the map. Pledge allegiance to him if you feel like it - it will make him like you more and the other noble houses like you less (No SP bonus). Don't show him the ring yet, just leave.

Upon leaving, talk to Dellar and ask to help. Get the 2 sidequests.

There are a lot of different, interesting ways to solve these 2 quests. I solve them the following way to get word of honor +1 which is necessary to unlock a minor sidequest worth +6SP (and 400 to 1200 gold). And because Streetwise is a very useful dialogue skill for all paths anyway.

• Streetwise 4

Go back to the Palace and give Antidas the ring now that you have higher streetwise. Talk with Dellar again and ask him if there is anything you can do to help.

Go to the world Map and head to the bandit camp. Tell him you want to negotiate, then go back to Dellar. Upon returning to town, walk up to the gate and you will meet some refugees. Talk with the refugees and accept their leader's offer of 10x repayment to let him in.

Once talking with Dellar about the bandit camp, use your intelligence to suggest killing two birds with one stone and then pass a persuasion check. Return to the bandit camp and convince the leader with the Streetwise check.

After following all the dialogue you will end up at the mine. Keep your word to Esbenus, explore and loot the mine, do not repair the machine.

Once back in town, find Aemolas in the southwest corner of the merchant square. Accept his 150 repayment (he will not give you more) then ask him about his town to get his quest with your +1 word of honor.

After writing this guide as I played, my character looked like this:



At this point, you have a ton of options. You have plenty of money if you sell your various loot (don't sell anything made of iron, we need the iron for crafting). You can choose any weapon and defense skill you want. You can join any of the guilds and have sufficient points to invest to pass their quests in multiple ways (the Merchant path, however, is somewhat limited by the build's low charisma, but this build can nevertheless complete the entire Merchant questline successfully).

To join the thieves' guild, upgrade steal to 3 before talking to Cado at the Inn. This will cause you to be a little short on points for crafting 6 (which I recommend below if you want combat to be easier), but this is easily solved by doing the first thief's quest before engaging in combat.


The following advice recommends investing in dodge and a 2 handed axe. However, you can be successful with any other weapon and/or block, although some combinations are harder than the suggested dodge and axe. WARNING: only one of either dodge or block is active at any given time (whichever is higher), so do not try to invest in both defense skills. Pick one and commit to it.

If you want to save points for more civil skills, follow the general advice below but don't upgrade your crafting to 6 yet (though you will want to craft a different armor that allows for 10AP because you can't lighten armor with crafting 4).

• Crafting 6
  
• Dodge 4
  
• Axe 4

Talk to the blacksmith and buy schematics for heavy metal armor, helmets, and axes. Decompose every iron item you have, including the iron armor and helmet you stole from the palace. Crafting 6 lets us craft with steel, but we don't have enough steel yet to make anything useful. As soon as you have 5 lbs of steel, craft a steel axe to replace your iron one.


Iron Lamellar Ordu Armor
- Lightened
- Masterwork

Iron Shadhavar
- Balanced
- Masterwork

At this point I didn't have enough iron for a helmet. You can buy an iron item from the blacksmith and decompose it to get enough iron to craft a helmet, or you can wait until you find some additional iron loot to decompose.

Finally, buy whetstones from the blacksmith. Whetstones are extremely important to melee effectiveness. Always make sure to have one active on your weapon for tough fights. Also, your armor will get dented over time. Make sure to repair it at a blacksmith as necessary.

Now go hit whatever you want with your big axe!

This guide is meant to provide a strong opening for any hybrid melee character. It does not claim to be completely optimal, but it does allow for every ending and a good mix of combat effectiveness and dialogue checks.

• Find an artifact in the hobo tower.
  
• Interact with the woman behind the tavern (if you go thief, send her to Cado).
  
• Buy a kebob in shanty town (don't expect to kill a guard with no repercussions).
  
• Investigate a shady arms dealer (Note: Miltiades' quest is easily one of the hardest optional fights in Teron. Do not judge general combat difficulty from his fight).
  
• Sneak into the window of the artifacts noble. (Requires sneak 5 and lockpick 5 to get his chests. Also trap 5 to not get shot, but you can choose to take a bolt to the chest instead of disarming the trap, then go get healed, then repeat for the 2nd chest).
  
• Lockpick the final chest at the Inn. (Also lockpick 5, trap 5 or bolt to the chest).
  
• Steal from all the sleeping people (requires steal 3) and all the merchants (requires steal 5 to get all of them).
  
• Go to Ameolus' village (hard to pass skill checks and/or fight. You can save this quest for later if you prefer.)

• If struggling in combat, it's generally useful to increase dodge (or block) before increasing weapon skill. Also, remember to buy every whetstone you can and have a sharpened weapon for every tough fight. Whetstones add more bonus damage with higher crafting skill and last longer the higher the quality of the weapon (e.g. iron sharpening lasts 20 hits while steel sharpening lasts 30).
  
• Alchemy is a fantastic supplemental combat skill, but is nearly useless for dialogue checks. Poison can be game changing, especially with faster and/or ranged weapons that can quickly spread the pain around (poison damage scales up with alchemy level). Alchemy 3 lets you make fire vials. Alchemy 4 lets you make bombs. Alchemy 6 lets you make extended neurostimulants which give +3AP for 3 turns.
  
• Persuasion and Streetwise are the overall best dialogue skills for all paths. 5 of each will get you through almost everything in Maadaron. 6 of each will get you through almost everything in Ganezzar.
  
• Steal, Etiquette, and Impersonate are niche skills that are generally not worth putting points into except for specific situations or specific roleplaying runs.
  
• Trap is completely not worth it even for thief runs, unless you want to roleplay at the expense of having fewer points for other skills.
  
• Lore is a great skill for enjoying the world and passing several dialogue checks. Eventually you will want to get it up to 8 for lore heavy situations, but you will never need more than 8.