This guide is intended for players who have a bit of experience with the game and are tired of their current character or want to start a new one that can progress into the late game more easily.
Starting anew[]
Preparations for retirement of a current character[]
1. Try to get the secret experience of Lomias. Use it to give your next character a nice starting necklace.
2. Catch something (or some things) strong with a Monster ball, but don't let it out. In Elona+, investing in Lend the taker in Melkawn can make extremely high-level balls available.
3. Convert all Small Medals into inheritable items (Hermes Blood cannot be inherited), convert gold into cargo goods. Materials cannot be transferred, so turn them into the most valuable things you can (usually more cargo). Spend all Casino Chips on blackjack and all Yen Coins on treasure balls for chances at potions of cure corruption and more excellent equipment. Inherited potions of cure corruption can solve most early-game financial concerns.
4. Make a gene. Make sure to strip your pets of their great gear and pick up miracle and godly artifacts in your house beforehand. Include salable cargoes and your monster balls in your inventory. You can hold 200 items/stacks, and it doesn't matter if you're so overweight you can't move, as long as your pet/spouse is within interact reach.
Note that you can inherit undecoded ancient books; this provides easy access to the Mages' Guild for those rerolling as a caster.
Character creation[]
- Main article: Character creation
Race[]
- Main article: Race
For min-maxers, only racial feat and equipment slots matter. All other stats and skills you can get through normal course of play. You can even change the name of the race later with a Philosopher's stone mask in Elona+.
Notable races:
Mutant - Interesting choice, can be the best damage-dealer in the game, or can land on position "still better than snail". Good if you don't mind savescumming to get the slots you want. Something of note is that in Elona+ you can get up to 27 equipment slots (if you don't mind playing with something freakier than a Hindu god fused with a pair of Siamese twins), by visiting Doctor Gavela before reaching level 3, so that you get to 15 equip slots through his services before gaining the 12 that mutants normally get from level-ups, totaling 27 slots. The anon responsible for this particular edit does not know the details of how one would go through with this, nor does he want to find out, but he assumes it involves starting the game with a horde of strong pets to do the killing for you, and rushing through Lesimas as soon as the game starts, while avoiding any experience gain (including from training stealth, which involves simply being close to a NPC) like the plague and keeping some potions of descent for emergency.
Fairy - Its built-in resistances are really outstanding, however one should note that they only start with 40 Life, while the most typical amount for player races is 100, meaning they may take less damage from elements but have considerably less HP as well. Moreover, the equipment weight limitation can be crippling, as most interesting precious artifacts would need dozens of scrolls of flying. Consequently, fairies are forever barred from decent weapons for Two Hand skill, and can never wear Medium or Heavy Armor (nor use the special actions requiring them, in Elona+), thereby limiting their playstyles. But you may not care if you have a lot of excellent randomly-generated robes and gear that you can reroll to a lighter material and pass on.
Snail. A joke race for those who love grinding. Snails should probably avoid any city staffed with humble cleaners even after they become powerful. Perhaps one of the few races justified in nuking the capital.
Extra (extended) race choices:
Asura can be almost as damaging as a mutant with multiple hands, but lack armor slots. Metal and quickling get ridiculous speed at the expense of fragility and equipment slots (metal in particular cannot wield weapons). Catgod has good speed, hands, and far more life than metals and quicklings, but still lacks some slots. Catsister is the fastest race that has standard starting slots, but may be slightly hard to start due to low life and poor racial skills.
Anything without standard slots and no compensatory gimmick like speed or multiple hands should probably be avoided on the Snail principle. Note, however, that almost all races can eventually get standard slots in Elona+ versions 1.17 and later, as Doctor Gavela can give you random new slots at the expense of life, so you can make up the ones you're missing with a bit of luck and then eat Hero cheese to recover. Exceptions to this would be races with excessive amount of the same slot, like 4 hands + 4 rings on Yith.
None of the extra races have any feat associated with them.
Class[]
- Main article: Class
Farmer starts with the highest Learning and good Constitution. Roll and re-roll to confirm their max starting values for your race, lock them in, and then get Strength. In vanilla Elona, a character with 300 Learning gets 45 skill points on level up. In Elona+, the gain is capped at 15 points per level (reachable at 83 Learning). Decent Strength and Constitution mean good health and carry capacity. Additionally, Elona+ classes have unique feats and while the Farmer's is rather lackluster, Elona+ has the Business card which can change it later, obtainable through blackjack or rarely dungeoneering. So, you can choose starting stats and skills for an easier beginning, then re-select the class feat once you're established. Gardening, Cooking and Negotiation skills will make for an easy life.
Pianist may also be a good choice if you are inheriting a lot of powerful pets through monster balls. You would still want to lock in the highest Learning, Constitution, and then Charisma, instead of Strength. Starting with the first at 15 Charisma, every five points in the stat allows for another pet to join your party, and you can train it cheaply through Performer. The Weight Lifting skill will help with the carrying capacity you miss out on by not rolling for Strength, and Pianists also start with trained Riding skill. Use scrolls of Inferior Material on your Piano until it becomes paperwork and can reasonably be part of your everyday carry, then make Gardening and Cooking some of your first acquired skills to train up your Learning.
Feats[]
- Main article: Feats
Hypnotism and Ascetic come strongly recommended for survivability. Natural Leader for pet masters, Shield Bash if you plan to use a shield. Dimensional Move can be useful in a pinch, especially if you're confused or otherwise can't cast reliably, though teleport spells are relatively easy to come by and cost little in terms of MP or stocks. Exorcist provides a unique ability and can save you from some inconveniences, but it also makes it harder for you curse your own stuff on purpose through Scrolls of Curse, as it blocks the effect very often. Other feats mostly replicate stats you can already earn or provide niche special actions.
First steps[]
1. Accept tutorial for some free items (or don't, if you chose a Snail). Leave cave.
2. DON'T ENTER VERNIS.
If you incarnated a gene[]
3a. If you don't mind dying - go to Puppy Cave and hunt for deeds of heirship or salable items. Otherwise complete quests in another town and buy a deed of heirship. Deed is almost always available for sale in Embassy.
4a. Use deed, reclaim monster ball, use it and force the pet to kill Lomias and Larnneire for their weapons. Alternately, reclaim expensive items, sell, and use cash to buy more deeds of heirship. Then reclaim monster ball and continue as above.
If you started from scratch[]
3b. If you don't mind dying - accept Noel's quest and buy a nuke in Derphy. Use it in your house to kill Lomias and Larnneire. It weighs 120 stones, so you would need at least 60 carry capacity to move with it. Look for equipment with bonuses to Strength or Weight Lifting if you didn't start with them.
4b. Otherwise, gather static small medals, buy rod of domination and get Silver/Gold bell. Give him machine gun and ammo (Cyber Dome has gun merchant). Force pet to kill Lomias and Larnneire.
5. After killing them for their gear, you may visit Vernis as normal.
Early game[]
Accept Ehekatl as your god in Truce Ground.
Start with power-leveling your Learning stat first.
Easiest way is to settle in Yowyn and repeatedly complete The Harvest Time quests (after learning Gardening, where applicable). Try to complete Ambitious Scientist when able, and spend gold on Gene Engineering horses, conveniently sold in Yowyn as well.
When Yowyn runs out of quests, go to Palmia, and train Fishing + Cooking. Alternately, train Performer if you started with it instead. Pick up Fishing as soon as you can and start it. Sell well-cooked fish for a decent amount of gold (don't forget to check quest board for Fussy Taste quests) and sacrifice kitchen refuse to Ehekatl.
It disturbs your growth[]
Equipment attribute, which often spawns on cursed equipment. Your character randomly loses raw experience, can't lose level.
Using set of equipment with this attribute gives 4 advantages:
1. You can avoid taxes by staying below level 6.
2. You have longer time between level ups, which gives more possibilities to train stats. Though, only skill point gain from level ups isn't retroactive.
3. You can use potions of descent to de-level and getting the level back, which provides easy skill points.
4. Mutant can use this to avoid complicated body trait or, in Elona+, get even more slots.
Latest Elona+ versions (observed at least in 1.22) decrease frequency and change formula of experience removal. Some items, which allowed the PC to stay below level 6 for 3 in-game years in vanilla Elona while having bright life, barely could keep up in Elona+. Amount of experience loss in Elona+ is based on "Next level", at level 30 was observed 10k experience loss per activation.
Elona+ also reduces taxes and removes chance to drop potions of descent from zombies, so points 1 and 3 are insignificant.
Gods[]
- Main article: Gods
Ehekatl as first god is most useful for her second reward -- it improves the magnitude of enchantments on spawned equipment. Her dagger is an amazing item too. Black cat pet can further improve your drop. Once you have these, abandon her for a god with a better inherent bonus.
As a rule of thumb, powergamer would want every secret treasure and god weapon. As for god pets, only Black cat has a truly unique ability, but the others can be useful. In normal Elona you are limited to two god pets active at any time.
Kumiromi of Harvest is highly recommended as your last god in vanilla Elona, because he is the only reliable method of obtaining seeds.
God-switching[]
After switching gods and returning, you lose all favor, and would have the opportunity to re-earn the god's rewards. You would get another pet, another gemstone, another weapon (which would morph to a randomly-generated artifact if you still had the first)...
Multiple gemstones[]
How it works: while the gemstone definitely is a precious item, it doesn't have a common counterpart to transform into when picked up. Gemstones also don't share cooldowns.
In vanilla Elona[]
You can abandon Kumiromi for Mani, get his gemstone, return to Kumiromi, get his gemstone, and repeat this indefinitely. Let's take a storehouse with 190 Gemstones of Mani and one container, and make a chain of "open safe - transform - open" every 24 hours. Every chest/safe has a chance for valuable ores, small medal, artifact equipment...
190 Kumiromi's Gem stones mean that you can gather harvest from one seed 95 times every 72 hours. This works well with high Gardening for good chance of seed regeneration. Bear in mind that farmland tiles in vanilla Elona decrease chance for re-growing seeds.
In Elona+[]
When you would try to get reward from god for second time in late Elona+ versions, your God will give you potion of cure corruption as second reward, and third tier would be treasure map. You still can get copies of Kumiromi's gemstone through Little sister quest. Old Gemstones of Mani convert to energy crystals of matrix which can do the same thing as before, but containers can no longer be changed. Yacatect's new Gem stone of god metal can create platinum, but each stone shares the hidden 1-month cooldown, so you still cannot get more than 10PP/mo from them.
Kumiromi's gem stone still works as before; though you can turn spare rotten food into organic fertilizer (added in 1.18) for the same effect, a stack of gemstones will have a much better turnaround time when used with herbs instead of fruits/vegetables. Farmland tiles were fixed in Elona+ and are the best places to plant.
Mani's new gem stone can deal massive damage to entire maps and is safe to use without Contingency in version 1.19 and later, meaning you can easily clear dungeons of a high level completely solo with ten or twenty of these in inventory and a bit of caution. Hunting/panic maps are an even easier proposition. Mind that you don't obliterate your pets with them.
Hunger game[]
So, you gather 95 herbs every three days, thanks to Kumiromi's gemstones. To eat them in a sane time frame and get your stat bonuses, you would need some help from hungry demons. Likewise if, in Elona+, you find a bunch of equipment with stat bonuses such as speed rings, and want to turn it raw and eat it while under the buff from "It maintains [stat]" equipment.
You can populate one of the static dungeons (Vernis has easy ones, Yowyn has a most convenient one for our farmer if you can beat Cacy) with a demon by using rod of summon monsters, summon monsters spell and by failing reading of spellbooks (you can use potions of confusion for this). If your Magic Device or spell level are too high to get lower-level monsters reliably, it may take many tries.
You can also do this in a basement of your home, so you can seal the demon inside a wall with your house board when you're not using him and thereby use the floor to store herbs or other items you plan to eat in bulk. The demon will conveniently return to the same tile he initially spawned on every time the floor is loaded, so you can predict which spot you need to wall off. Unless he has cursed gear (which is easily fixed), he'll remain inside until you let him out, for an on-demand buffet waiter.
If you absolutely can't seem to summon a hungry demon where you want it, you can also capture one as a pet, breed it, and then aggravate the ranch offspring by bashing them twice whenever you have a stack of things to eat. Aggravated demons will calm down again when you leave the map and return. Having to visit a ranch instead of in your home or the town you work in may be a bit inconvenient, but it's easier to get more demons if you want multiples or backups against accidentally killing one -- just wait. Conveniently, you can use a house board in a ranch to wall off space as needed, just like in your home. Be sure to put your breeder demon in a pen or in defensive mode (Elona+ only) and dismiss your pets to prevent them from protecting you and attacking the spawn.
While you eat, he will attack and use his touch of hunger ability, so you will continually be able to eat (or drink) without downsides like vomiting from anorexia. Don't forget to recall your pets, including your mount, before entering. If you have low speed the demon can actually kill you by starving you to death, so it would make sense to lose satiation level inside, and eat outside of the cave. Touch of hunger deals slight PV-bypassing damage, so make sure your regeneration can keep up or remember to heal occasionally.
Skills and training[]
Potential[]
- Main article: Potential
Potential determines how efficiently the experience from your actions is translated to growth in your skills. As you level a skill, its potential goes down; when each new level is attained, the new potential value is set to 90% of the previous level's value. Potential can be trained via the skill trainers in towns, and can also be raised while sleeping, either from a random dream or as a bonus at the end of the sleep. Better beds usually apply a better ending bonus, while the dreams themselves do not appear to be affected by bedding.
Skill trainers[]
Skill trainers in the various towns and settlements will raise the potential of skills in return for a fee. The exact price in platinum coins depends on the level of the skill, and is determined with the formula (2 + [skill level]/5). Note that decimal values are truncated, so levels 1-4 all cost 2pp, level 5-9 cost 3pp, and so on.
Ergo, a wise use of platinum would be to invest in your skills at levels ending in 4 and 9, and invest enough to carry you through to the next 4 or 9 level with little headache -- something like 110% potential rating is usually sufficient, although your slow-training or infrequently used skills like Faith and perhaps Traveling can often be left alone for multiple milestones and keep pace through sleeping potential, especially in Elona+ where the dream raises all skills instead of one. You can track skills you're interested in watching by highlighting them in the skill menu and pressing the * key, and this can be a good way to keep track of skills that are about to hit these milestones. In normal Elona, you can track three skills this way, and in later versions of Elona+ you can track up to ten.
Textbooks[]
While it's easy enough to train your skills by using them in most cases, some skills require rare items or annoying timesinks to level effectively. Case in point, training Lock Picking generally requires you to hunt for gamble chests of an appropriate level or spend ages performing the mind-numbing routine of casting the Door Creation spell over and over, then opening the created doors. Even worse, some skills such as Weight Lifting and Healing only level up or level up best when you self-impose a penalty -- hurting your speed by spending time burdened on purpose for Weight Lifting, or hurting yourself constantly to force healing or becoming sick or very sleepy so your regeneration slows down and damage does not heal.
You may circumvent or supplement these slow or expensive process by using textbooks. Reading a textbook of the relevant skill will add some experience to said skill, and you can level up and even train the associated stats a bit by reading them repeatedly. Most skills have an associated textbook, excepting weapon skills and a few others (Riding, Pickpocket), so using the books frees up your earned skill points for your chosen weapon. Keep in mind that the game will not permit you to study more than once every few days, except during bad weather. More on circumventing this below.
Obtaining the textbook for your skill[]
Textbooks can sometimes be found for sale on magic or goods vendors, but by far the easiest way to obtain a wealth of textbooks is by pickpocketing. A textbook of random skill can be found on the floor of the magic shop in Lumiest, and will respawn in a few days if taken. However, by exploiting bad weather, you may repeatedly enter and exit an innkeeper's shelter in any town, stealing the textbook inside and having it replaced on the next entry. Moderately-skilled pickpockets can lift the books even under the noses of the citizens inside the shelter, as the books weigh 0.0s and all the citizens are fairly low-level. You'll eventually get tired from stealing and ascending/descending stairs, so make sure to rest between each few attempts.
The simplest town to do this in is Noyel. Any rainfall at all will come down as snow instead in that part of the world map, which counts as bad weather for the purposes of entering the shelter. If by some chance you can't get the textbook you want before the snow ends, you can just exit town and wander around in the snowfield until snow starts falling again -- you won't even starve, as your character will eat snow whenever they become hungry on the world map (starving, in Elona+).
Marathon reading sessions[]
Usually, reading a textbook more than once a day results in the message "You are bored." and no further training occurs. However, your character willingly reads textbooks during bad weather, thanks to having nothing better to do. In your home, a shelter, or an indoor building you own advances the clock rapidly, meaning that you may only get one or two readings in before the weather changes and forces you outside again.
However, if you read in an outdoor map or a hostile dungeon, time passes normally, allowing you to read many, many times. Ergo, establishing several 'libraries' that you can retreat to during rain, snow, or Etherwind will allow you to make the most of otherwise annoying periods and raise your skills as fast as you can supply the platinum to train them. The only obstacle then is the food you'll need, which can be easily solved by stockpiling and blessing the stacks of excess stomafillia herbs you get from your farms or by stealing and storing fruit trees whenever you see them.
For non-Etherwind days, the best place for a library is probably the mansion of younger sister. Not only is it outdoors, in a snowy part of the map, and a valid Return target once discovered, it's also a static, non-regenerating map, which means you can just leave your books there instead of carrying them with you each time. However, it is unsuitable for Etherwind. The most appropriate library for those times is either Lesimas or the Mountain Pass -- you can Return directly to the former, and to Larna for the latter. The maps in either will generally not change once laid out. However, you'll want to build a small reading room around the stairs using Wall Creation to prevent monsters from interrupting you. A special note about Lesimas: after finishing the main quest, the 45th floor will continuously reset to a blank layout every time it is entered. If you have cleared Lesimas, set up your library next to the down stairs of the 44th floor instead, and just walk upstairs when you land on the 45th.
Once you have your library location(s) chosen, simply dump your books (and food, if desired) in a pile on the floor. Don't put them on the stairs, if in a dungeon. When you want to read them, stand on the pile and press space, then highlight the book you want and hold down the same button. You'll read the same book over and over, thanks to cursor memory, and the game will automatically interrupt you for a moment when you get a skill level or attain hungry or starving status. Make sure nothing but readable items and food are in the pile -- other menu types like tools (and the stairs themselves!) may have higher priority on the space bar, interrupting your reading. Additional synergy can be derived by having the ether disease that summons rain clouds which will change to snow in appropriate locations after one hour, and by riding a pet, as it will allow you to read at the same speed even if you enter the Need Sleep! and VERY Tired statuses. Once the weather changes, you can do something else for a while or you can go outside and wander around until snow or rain start again, then re-enter.
Gold[]
Money make the world go round.
Loot[]
Price of the item depends on 4 factors: Base type, Material type, Power of enchantment, Blessing.
Base type[]
Stone is used as a baseline due to being lowest denominator. This table can be used for on-glance decision about picking items. For example, one Composite Helm would give more gold than 10 claymores of the same material.
| Base type | Cost |
|---|---|
| Speed Ring | 529 |
| Aurora Ring | 449 |
| Seven league boots | 423 |
| Vindale Cloak | 317 |
| Pope Robe | 301 |
| Panties | 264 |
| Large Shield | 238 |
| Feather | 206 |
| Tower Shield | 190 |
| Plate Mail | 132 |
| Plate Girdle | 123 |
| Kite Shield | 105 |
| Fairy Hat | 101 |
| Composite Helm | 101 |
| Chain Mail Bulletproof Jacket Spear Breast Plate Engagement Ring Engagement Amulet Wing Heavy Helm Knight Shield Armored boots |
50-99 |
| Composite Mail Peridot Talisman Sickle Sniper Rifle Cloak Tight Boots Skull Bow Coat Shield Kitchen Knife Composite Girdle Ring Mail Knight Helm Neck Guard Composite boots Claw Shotgun Charm |
20-49 |
| Pistol Bejeweled Amulet Plate Gauntlets Armored Cloak Banded Mail Laser Gun Boots Magic Hat Decorated Gloves Grenade Scythe Feather Hat Light Mail Round Shield Composite Gauntlets |
10-19 |
| Gloves Shuriken Repeating bow Breastplate Helm Decorative Ring Katana Long sword Claymore Lightsaber Hand Axe Bardish Battle Axe Club Hammer Halberd Trident Long Staff Staff Dagger Scimitar Wakizashi Long Bow Short Bow Crossbow Machine Gun Small Shield Heavy boots Robe Armored Ring Composite Ring Ring Thick Gauntlets Bullet Girdle Light Gloves Shoes Decorative Amulet Light Cloak Arrow Bolt Cell Rock |
<10 |
| Stone | 1 |
Material type[]
Stone is used as a baseline.
| Base type | Cost |
|---|---|
| Dragon Scale | 2041,2 |
| Diamond | 1871,1 |
| Emerald | 1786,05 |
| Ether | 1632,96 |
| Adamantium | 1564,92 |
| Griffon Scale | 1360,8 |
| Rubynus | 1360,8 |
| Dawn Cloth | 1156,68 |
| Crystal | 1088,64 |
| Gold | 1088,64 |
| Mithril | 1020,6 |
| Spirit Cloth | 1020,6 |
| Titanium | 1020,6 |
| Chrome | 850,5 |
| Zylon | 850,5 |
| Obsidian | 595,35 |
| Platinum | 595,35 |
| Perl | 544,32 |
| Bone | 510,3 |
| Chain | 510,3 |
| Scale | 425,25 |
| Silver | 425,25 |
| Coral | 408,24 |
| Steel | 381,024 |
| Metal | 323,19 |
| Silk | 323,19 |
| Leather | 255,15 |
| Glass | 204,12 |
| Mica | 204,12 |
| Bronze | 119,07 |
| Iron | 56,7 |
| Raw | 56,7 |
| Cloth | 51,03 |
| Paper | 27,216 |
Power of enchantment[]
Additional multiplier of the cost, based on generated bonuses. You can increase it with Garok's hammer. Haven't tested Black cat. Magnitude between 20-80 was observed for miracle items.
Making money[]
So, if you combine information from these tables, you can see that dragon scale or diamond speed ring would have one million gold cost. You can add another 250k by blessing it.
Cost of the cheapest speed ring is 15k before negotiation, Moyer the crooked often sell them when invested.
Buy cheap rings, convert them with scrolls of superior or change material and sell them in your shop.
Another source: steal high base cost items, convert them into low cost material (cursed scrolls of inferior material almost guarantee Raw), sell to NPC shop, buy back, thus resetting "stolen" attribute, change material into pricey and sell them in your Shop
Pets[]
- Main article: Pet
- Main article: Recommended_pets
It should be noted that, due to how HP formula works, giving rubynus item to Metal race not always would result in quadruple HP. Life is a multiplier to stats and level, to get 1 additional health point for fresh silver bell you would need to increase its life by 9 and Constitution by 8.
Sadly, the best way to improve your pet would be replacement by higher-level alternative. It is pretty evident that Elona+ multiplies exp gain for pets and adds more training possibilities for them, but they still can't keep up with power curve.
In late game, your best source of high level monsters would be Panic quest. Mind that a monster ball saves only the monster type and would create fresh, low-level copy of the monster, so domination is the only way to recruit in these quests. Rod of domination is usually more reliable than the spell, as it works off of the easier-to-train Magic Device skill rather than its own spell level. Another method is breeding special recruitable NPC's at a ranch who breeds shades and hoping for the shades to change into a strong NPC.
Equipment[]
Due to the randomness in equipment generation in this game, you can't predict when and how you would get the best hat in your character's life, though Ehekatl's feat can help.
But you can use precious artifacts as money sink with decent results.
Generic Rail Gun
With stack of scrolls of superior material or through Little Sister quest you can get additional bonuses on it. Both nerve and lightning damage can paralyze target.
Which you can further improve with the help of Black cat, making truly Gun of Genocide.
