Softcore Roadmap
© 2007,2008,2009 by Jef Poskanzer
When I started playing Kingdom of Loathing I jumped into hardcore
almost immediately.
I wanted the stainless steel and plexiglass equipment, and playing
hardcore is the only way to get it.
Now that I have all the stainless and plexi I wanted, plus
a bunch of Mr. Store equipment, I play softcore so I can actually
use the equipment I worked so hard to get.
Softcore turns out to be significantly different from hardcore.
It's not just 'easier'.
Managing the trade-offs between turns and pulls is fairly complicated.
This guide gives you a roadmap to a fast softcore playing style,
and will also help you understand the trade-offs so you can
add more optimizations on your own.
Note: this is extremely spoileriffic.
Table of Contents
Prep
There are a few things to do before starting your run.
-
Accumulate skills!
Here are some you'll want:
The more skills you have from this list, the faster your
runs will get.
-
Stock up on
equipment
and
consumables
to pull from Hagnk's.
I've highlighted these throughout the guide.
If you expect to chain multiple sub-Ronin runs, you'll want
to stock up for more than one run at a time.
-
Here are some suggestions for food/drink/spleen items to get.
They are selected to optimize adventures gained per pull
and to not be outrageously expensive.
KolWiki's
Best Foods,
Best Booze,
and
Best Spleen
tables are useful for making lists like this.
Sort by the "Adv" column, then look them up in the mall to
make sure they are not too expensive.
| food | drink | spleen |
any level |
|
mixed drink (3) |
|
level 2 |
|
white Xanadian (2, muscle)
shot of nepenthe schnapps (2, myst)
bottle of realpagne (2, moxie)
|
|
level 3 |
Hell broth (4)
|
|
|
level 4 |
Knob sausage stir-fry (3, muscle)
bat wing stir-fry (3, myst)
rat appendix stir-fry (3, moxie)
|
Advanced cocktail (4)
|
not-a-pipe,
glimmering roc feather, or
agua de vida (4)
|
level 5 |
delicious spicy noodles (3, myst)
|
|
|
level 6 |
Hell ramen (6)
spaghetti with Skullheads (6, muscle)
gnocchetti di Nietzsche (6, myst)
fettucini Inconnu (6, moxie)
|
Superhuman cocktail (4)
|
|
level 7 |
cold/hot hi mein (5, muscle)
spooky/stinky hi mein (5, myst)
sleazy hi mein (5, moxie)
|
|
|
level 8 |
|
Supernova Champagne (3)
|
|
-
If you are stocking up on
not-pipes or
roc feathers
you should also buy a few
mojo filters.
These lower your spleen usage by one, up to three times a day.
Using one of these would let you non-smoke four not-pipes / roc feathers
instead of the usual three.
That's usually not an optimal pull, but maybe sometimes you'll
want just a few more turns or some stats.
-
Donate or meatfarm to get some nice
Mr. Store
equipment.
They have no stat requirements so they're great for low-level
characters.
Here are some old ones that are still reasonably priced:
Eventually you will want a Mr. Store weapon of each type - melee, ranged, and chefstaff.
Also get at least one Mr. Accessory Jr..
-
Do a cycle of hardcore runs to get stainless steel / plexiglass /
Brimstone equipment.
-
Choose your
zodiac sign.
You want to pick a muscle sign so that you can make the
bitchin' meatcar without farming.
If you're a muscle class, go with
Mongoose
for the muscle stats.
Otherwise,
Wallaby
for extra familiar lbs or
Vole
for extra crits.
Day One Pulls
Your twenty pulls on day one are a critical resource.
Twenty is definitely not enough to pull everything you want to
have on day one.
You must prioritize and pull only the things you absolutely need.
For instance, if you're pulling
Epic Weapons
from various classes so
you can cast buffs with greater duration, do you need all of
them on day one?
Maybe you can postpone pulling some until later.
My current day-one pull list looks like this:
- clockwork pirate skull (you can use this to make a clockwork maid and get an eyepatch for later)
- Rock and Roll Legend (for playing songs)
-
Your Mr. Store equipment.
I currently use:
-
Some spleen items:
You could also pull a
mojo filter
and one more not-pipe / roc feather / agua to fill up your spleen.
That would be two pulls for an average of 8 more turns, or
four turns/pull - usually not optimal.
But remember, they give stats as well as turns!
If another kick in the spleen could get you to level 5 (or 6)
without eating, then you could pull&eat better food so it
might be worth it.
That is twelve pulls.
It may be less for you if you don't have as much Mr. Store gear.
Your food and booze pulls depend on whether you're going to eat at
level 4 and drink at level 6 or vice versa.
Eating at level 4 is simpler but takes more pulls:
-
five class-appropriate stir-frys (level 4, 3 fullness, 7-14 turns):
-
three class-appropriate
supercocktails
(level 6, 4 drunkenness, 14-18 turns):
- milk of magnesium
That is nine.
Alternatively, you can drink at level 4 and eat at level 6.
This can be a little more complicated to manage but uses fewer pulls,
possibly a lot fewer.
The basic pulls are:
That is seven - because reagent pastas are so filling, the basic
consumables with this strategy use fewer pulls.
For a few extra turns, try making it to level 6 on only two
advanced cocktails instead of three;
then you can pull and drink a supercocktail.
However it's possible to do even better than that.
The Typical Tavern quest gives you three
flagons of swill
as rewards, and you should complete it before hitting level 4.
These can be mixed with all three of the Advanced Cocktailcrafting
garnishes, so instead of pulling
advanced drinks you can pull a bartender-in-the-box
and mix your own advanced drinks.
This saves two pulls.
Similarly, if you spend a few turns in the
Knob Kitchens
while looking for the lab key, you can easily pick up two Knob mushrooms
or sausages.
Then you can pull a chef-in-the-box and cook your own
reagent pastas, saving another pull or two.
If the above contingencies work out, you end up with maybe
five spare pulls (plus you get your chef and bartender installed).
You can use the extra pulls on more Mr. Store equipment,
a chefstaff, ring of conflict, or whatever.
Skip ahead to the Day Two Pulls section
and pick something.
Day One, Levels 1-3
Your first goal is to reach level 4 without eating or drinking,
using only your initial 40 turns.
This is fairly hard.
You should adventure in the highest-level areas you have
access to.
The
Safe Adventuring
page will help you pick an area.
Don't worry about completing all the low-level stuff now,
you can come back to it later.
-
If your clan has a
Mr. Klaw "Skill" Crane Game,
you get another three plays after you have ascended.
Go fish!
-
Visit the Toot Oriole and get your letter from the previous
incarnation of King Ralph.
Leave the clover disassembled so you don't accidentally use it.
Sell the pork gem - you can't make jewelry under a muscle sign.
-
Visit the Degrassi Knoll General Store and buy a
detuned radio.
Set it to 10 and leave it there for your entire run.
-
If you need hat and pants, you could also buy a
maiden wig
and
frilly skirt
here.
-
Use a volleyball-type familiar for now.
Don't forget its familiar equipment.
The
Frumious Bandersnatch
is a good choice since you can use its familiar equipment to
tune your stat gains to your mainstat.
The three forms of the equipment:
-
DO NOT visit the Pretentious Artist.
You won't finish his quest since you won't even be
visiting the Sleazy Back Alley;
therefore the pretentious palette and pretentious paintbrush
drops would just be two wasted adventures.
Do not want!
-
If you have
Summon Candy Hearts,
summon your first two right away.
If you get green, orange, or white, eat them.
-
You need to spend some turns getting to level 2, but as
a level 1 character you don't have very many choices.
It's only a few turns, though, so don't fret the decision too much.
First choice is the
Outskirts of Cobb's Knob
to try for the encryption key which you will need later on Day One.
If the key shows up before you get to level 2, switch to the
Haunted Pantry
to try to open up Spookyraven.
Don't get sucked in - stop when you hit level 2.
-
Do the level 2
Spooky Forest
quest, but just enough to get the mosquito larva.
Later you'll need to come back and open up the Hidden Temple,
but right now that takes too many turns in a low-stat area.
However you need to complete this quest before you get
any subsequent quests, so do it now.
-
Now that you are level 2 you have access to some more areas
for levelling up to 3.
If you can buff your mainstat to 13 you can get into the
Bugbear Pens.
Visit
Mayor Zapruder
to open them up.
-
Do the level 3
Typical Tavern
quest, but don't bother looking for Baron von Ratsworth, just turn
off the rat faucet as soon as you find it.
The rats are reasonably tough when you are level 3 so it's
not a waste of turns, and this quest is a pre-requisite to
the level 6 quest so you have to do it at some point today.
-
Finally, level up to 4.
If you can buff your mainstat to 20 you can get into the
8-Bit Realm
(and pick up some pixels while levelling).
Day One, Levels 4-5
Your next goal is to get to level 6 with either eating but not drinking,
or drinking but not eating.
This is a little easier.
-
If you are pulling
not-pipes /
roc feathers /
mojo filter,
use them now.
-
Now is the time to decide whether to eat at level 4 and drink
at level 6, or vice versa.
Pulling & eating five stir-frys should get you to level 5
right away, while drinking three advanced cocktails now will
probably only get you halfway there.
-
Join your guild.
If you're a myst class then open it up all the way to the store
so you can get
MMJs;
other classes should only go as far as
getting the meatcar quest.
-
For some reason, opening your guild also makes the
Barrel full of Barrels
appear.
If you decided not to pull your day-one drinks, then go
farm some drinks in the Barrel.
Summon garnishes, mix up some Advanced drinks, and booze it up.
You'll probably also want to farm bottles of booze
for the first few days of your run.
-
Visit the Untinker and fetch his screwdriver.
Since you're a muscle sign, this doesn't take any turns,
just go see Innabox in Degrassi Knoll.
-
Make the
meatcar.
As a muscle sign you can buy everything
you need in the Degrassi Knoll General Store except for
the sweet rims.
To get those you'll either have to fish around in the
sewer for a few turns, or else pull them from Hagnk's - they
are not a quest item.
Actually if you're pulling, you might as well pull
the dope wheels instead, also not a quest item.
If you do pull the wheels, remember to untinker your
meatcar after showing it off.
That way you get the wheels back for next run, and you still
have access to the beach.
-
Remember that clockwork pirate skull you pulled?
Now is the time to use it.
Untinker the meatcar, then the clockwork pirate skull, then
the enchanted eyepatch.
Buy a maiden wig and frilly skirt in the Degrassi Knoll General Store.
Now paste it all back together into a clockwork maid,
and use it.
Stick the leftover eyepatch into your closet for later,
and autosell the lihc eye and dope wheels.
-
And now start grinding for stats.
Look for the toughest area you can survive in, and keep at it.
You might spend the turns to open up Cobb's Knob so you
can get to the
Harem,
Laboratory, and
Menagerie Level 1 /
2 /
3.
Day One, Level 6
Now comes the really hard part: getting your day-one
Liver of Steel.
If you make it to level 6 with at least fifty turns left,
you have a good chance.
If you don't make it today, it's not a disaster, just finish up tomorrow.
But getting day-one Liver will help your whole run, and it
means you're really starting to be super speedy!
-
Finish up your drinking or eating for the day, either
supercocktails or reagent pastas.
-
You don't need to level up any more on Day One, so you can now
switch from your volleyball-type familiar to something else.
You could switch to a
hovering sombrero,
which gives more stats from higher-level monsters,
but actually stats from combat are going to be less important
from here on.
You'll mostly be using non-combats in Spookyraven Manor to level up.
A familiar that gives lots of MP would be a perfectly reasonable
choice - maybe
a Dandy Lion,
or the good old Star Starfish.
Remember to switch your familiar equipment too.
There are also some familiars that combine the volleyball stat
function with MP generation -
the Spirit Hobo,
or the Gluttonous Green Ghost.
You could use one of those for your whole run.
-
Do the level 6
Friars' Gate quest.
You'll want to increase non-combats.
If you're spellcasting and have
Flavour of Magic,
the monsters here are vulnerable to
stench and sleaze.
If you get a wussiness potion here, put it in your closet
for the NS quest.
Also save three hot wings, you can use them later to sneak into
the orcish frat house when you are opening up the pirate ship.
-
After you've cleansed the gate, you can get a free buff
once a day from one of the three brothers.
I always get
Brother Corsican's Blessing,
which increases familiar learning rate.
-
Continue adventuring in the Friars' Gate to do
Azazel's addendum.
You will need 40 turns total.
The unicorn, lollipop, and tutu show up every ten turns,
so +non-combat has no effect here - it always takes exactly
30 turns to get them.
After you get the items, there's a little trick you can use
to get the pencil-necked demon to show up without spending
any more turns here.
Just go somewhere else for at least ten turns.
When you come back, you'll get the demon immediately.
Don't forget to actually drink the steel margarita.
-
Before ending your first day, make sure you have some sort
of shelter set up in your campground.
If nothing else, buy a
Newbiesport™ tent
in the market.
Day Two Pulls
Time to pull all the stuff you really wanted on Day One but
didn't have enough pulls for.
My current day-two pull list looks approximately like this:
The milk of magnesium vs. goat's milk choice is because
if you're a Sauceror with
Advanced Saucecrafting,
you can summon a scrumptious reagent and cook that one glass of
goat's milk into three milks of magnesium.
Other classes only get one milk of magnesium, so they might as well pull
it directly and save the reagent.
Day Two Catchup
You skipped a lot of things on Day One in the race to get Liver of Steel.
Now is the time to go back and clean up.
-
Do the
Haunted Pantry
until you open up the rest of Spookyraven Manor.
If you get a razor-sharp can lid, put it in your closet
for the NS quest.
-
Go back to the Spooky Forest and open the
Hidden Temple
by finding the map, fertilizer, and sapling.
+non-combats will help here.
You may also pick up wooden stakes and a bar skin to make a tent.
Spices from the
Three-Tined Fork
adventure will be useful later - choose scorched and then moist.
And if you get spooky mushrooms, save one in your closet for later.
-
Do the level 4
Boss Bat quest.
If you have one of the elemental resistance spells then
farming for sonars is pretty fast, plus you might get a
broken skull
to use on the NS quest.
Or you can just pull
three sonars-in-a-biscuit
to skip right to the Boss Bat's Lair.
This is a good time to use the navel ring's free
run-aways - the first few times the Boss Bat shows up,
run away so you can fight more meaty meaty bodyguards.
If you get
Harold's bell
you can use it on the Boss Bat and fight 20 bodyguards in a row!
Or if you have the
V for Vivala mask
you can come back once a day and use the
Creepy Grin
to fight ten more bodyguards.
Mmmmm, meat.
-
Do the
Outskirts of Cobb's Knob
until you get the Knob Goblin encryption key.
If you get a Knob Goblin firecracker, put it in your closet
for the NS quest.
If you get a chef's hat, wear it - it gives a few MP/turn.
-
Do the level 5
Goblin King quest.
You need the harem veil, harem pants, and perfume.
However, don't pull them right away.
You will eventually need to adventure somewhere in the Knob
for a while in order to get the key to the laboratory; this
is required later for the level 11 quest.
So you might as well do that adventuring now in the
Harem
and see if you can get stuff for this quest while you're at it.
As soon as you get the lab key, stop; pull any of the
veil/pants/perfume
that you haven't gotten yet, then go see
the Goblin King.
Don't forget to take off the harem outfit afterwards (unless you're
into that kind of thing).
In the unlikely event that you get all your Knob quest stuff
in the Harem before getting the lab key, switch to the
Kitchens
to get some yummy cooking ingredients.
-
Shore
to open the Island.
This takes 15 turns (5 trips @ 3 turns/trip), which is a lot,
but you have to do it eventually.
It also costs 2500 meat, which you should have by now.
(You can pull the dingy planks
if you want but it's not really worth it.)
If you get a stick of dynamite / tropical orchid / barbed-wire fence,
save it in your closet for the NS quest.
Note: if you plan to be pulling all your drinks instead
of cocktailcrafting, then you can save three turns by
postponing your five Shore trips until level 11, after you
have started the MacGuffin quest.
-
You can also shave four turns off the tail-end of your run
by spacing out your shore trips.
See, there's a behind-the-scenes hack in the game that
guarantees you get the dynamite/orchid/fence if it has
been 30 turns since your last shore trip.
So, take one trip to start the counter, wait 30 turns,
shore at the Dude Ranch to get dynamite, wait 30 turns,
shore at the Tropical Paradise to get an orchid, wait 30 turns,
shore at Donkey Mountain to get a fence.
Then you can take your fifth shore trip without waiting.
This way you'll get to the NS's tower with all three
shore items, so you'll save one turn to find out which one
you need and three turns for another shore trip.
-
Do the Haunted Billiards Room.
You need to get the pool cue and a handful of hand chalk.
The hand chalk is an easy drop so don't use a pull on it.
However that means there's a (very small) chance that you'll
get a pool cue before you get hand chalk, so don't pull
the pool cue until after you
get hand chalk.
Once you get the pool table adventure, the sequence you
want is Let the Ghost Break, Go for a Solid, Go for the 8-ball.
Don't forget to re-equip your regular weapon afterwards.
Level 7
You should reach level 7 early on day 2.
-
At level 7 you can eat hi meins, yum.
If you're a myst class with the appropriate skills, you can cook
them yourself.
Otherwise it's worth pulling three per day.
Cold and hot hi meins give muscle;
spooky and stinky hi meins give mysticality;
sleazy hi mein gives moxie.
-
Do the level 7
Cyrpt quest.
If you're spellcasting and have
Flavour of Magic,
the monsters here are vulnerable to
hot and stench.
-
Each of the four defiled areas has a four-way choice adventure
where you can pick stats, meat, an item, or nothing.
I generally choose nothing, to save turns.
Another strategy would be to just pick stats where it's your
mainstat, and pick nothing in the other areas.
The stat choices are as follows:
- The Defiled Alcove: fancy coffin - muscle
- The Defiled Niche: first urn - myst
- The Defiled Nook: first skull - moxie
- The Defiled Cranny: crawl inside - all three stats + HP & MP
-
Midway through level 7 the
Dungeons of Doom
quest opens up.
Skip it!
You got the three hero keys by eating pies on Day Two.
You will need a !-potion to get through the Three Gates,
but you can get that by pulling some
large boxes.
-
You should have gotten a bunch of skeleton bones and loose teeth
while doing the Cyrpt quest.
Turn one into a skeleton key and save it in your closet
for the NS quest.
-
Start setting up your pyjamas outfit, to maximize rollover
turns/MP/HP.
If you got a
dead guy's watch
during the Cyrpt quest, that's an extra turn/day.
If you didn't get one, pull it.
And eventually, when you can equip them, you'll want to pull the
sword behind inappropriate prepositions
and
General Sage's Lonely Diamonds Club Jacket.
-
Do the Haunted Library.
One of the three monsters here is vulnerable to
hot and stench.
If you are a muscle class, open up the Haunted Gallery as well
as the 2nd floor of Spookraven.
If you get an inkwell, save it in your closet for the NS quest.
-
When you can get your mainstat up to 68, do the
Haunted Bathroom.
This gives good stats, especially if you increase non-combats.
The choices for the
Don't Hold a Grudge
are:
- Armwrestle it - muscle
- Declare a thumb war - myst
- Shake it - moxie
Two of three monsters here are vulnerable to
hot and stench.
If you like, you can use the mirror adventure to prep the
Guy Made of Bees for the level-12 Arena side quest, but
that's actually not the most optimal way of doing the Arena.
If you get fancy bath salts, save one in your closet for the NS quest.
-
When you can get your mainstat up to 85, do the
Haunted Bedroom.
Increase non-combats, and if necessary run away from the combat
encounters.
Or CLEESH them.
Your goals here are to get Lord Spookyraven's spectacles from
the ornate nightstand, and the ballroom key from two encounters
with the wooden nightstand.
The easiest nightstand choices are as follows:
- Black:
-
"Check the top drawer" to get a coin purse.
- Ornate:
-
The first time, "Look behind the nightstand" to get Lord
Spookyraven's spectacles.
After that, "Open the bottom drawer" for a big myst stat boost.
- White:
-
"Look in the bottom drawer" for muscle stats.
- Wooden:
-
First time, "Check the top drawer" for moxie stats and
a clinking sound.
Second time, "Check the bottom drawer" for the Spookyraven
ballroom key.
If you plan to use the Guy Made of Bees in the Arena quest,
you may want to stick around for a third wooden nightstand
so you can fight the jilted mistress and get an antique hand mirror.
She is vulnerable to hot and
stench.
If she's too tough to fight now, come back later.
-
When you have the
Haunted Ballroom
open, go there with +non-combats until you get the
Strung-Up Quartet.
Pick 'Sono Un Amanten Non Un Combattente' to increase non-combats,
this will help speed up a lot of zones.
All the monsters here are vulnerable to hot
and stench.
Levelling Up
Now that you have Spookraven all opened up, you can use it to
level up between quests.
- Muscle Class:
-
Hang out in the
Haunted Gallery
with +non-combats.
Your goal is to get the
Louvre
and map it out to find the muscle stats option.
It's near The Scream.
If you have Transcendent Olfaction, you could use it on the
cubist bulls - they drop a lot of meat, and the broken swords
pulverize to elemental nuggets you can sell.
- Myst Class:
-
Use the
Haunted Bathroom,
again with +non-combats.
When you get
Don't Hold a Grudge
choose "Declare a thumb war" to get myst stats.
- Moxie Class:
-
Go to the
Haunted Ballroom
with +non-combats,
look for the
Curtains
choice adventure, and pick "Watch the dancers" for a big moxie
stat boost.
Also boost +items so that the
zombie waltzers
drop more
dance card.
When you use one of those, three turns later you get a huge moxie stat
boost.
If you have Olfaction, by all means use it on the waltzers - you
will get way more dance cards than you can use, and the extras sell
well in the mall.
Also, if you have any clovers, go ahead and use them for
levelling - the Gallery for muscle, the Bathroom (not Bedroom)
for mysticality, and the Ballroom for moxie.
Level 8
You should get to level 8 late on day two or early on day three.
-
Do the level 8
Mt. McLargeHuge quest.
If you want to spend nine pulls, you can do it in zero turns.
Go talk to the L337 Tr4pz0r and see what kind of ore he wants.
Then pull three ores and
six goat cheeses.
Fire up Elemental Saucesphere or Astral Shell, or just
go get your exotic parrot, and talk
to the Tr4pz0r again.
He'll go through the whole quest in one screenful!
-
Here's a cute little optimization.
On the 1/3rd of your runs where the Tr4pz0r wants chrome ore,
pull two ores and one
heavy metal thunderrr guitarrr.
Then untinker it to get your third chrome ore plus
a free acoustic guitarrr for the NS quest.
-
If you don't want to spend nine pulls, it's perfectly reasonable
to just do the quest.
Start in
Itznotyerzitz Mine
to get the Mining Gear.
If you increase non-combats you can get the gear pretty quickly via
the three choice adventures:
- 100% Legal:
- Demand loot: miner's helmet; Ask for ore: miner's pants
- A Flat Miner:
- Loot the dwarf's belongings: miner's pants; Hijack the meat vein: 7-Foot Dwarven mattock
- See You Next Fall:
- Give 'im the stick: miner's helmet; DOOOOON'T GIVE 'IM THE STICK!: 7-Foot Dwarven mattock
-
Put on the Mining Gear and play the little mining mini-game to
get the three ores you need.
-
Bring the ores to the L337 Tr4pz0r, and he'll tell you to bring
him goat cheese.
WHILE STILL IN MINING GEAR, visit the Goatlet once
to clear away rocks.
-
Farm the
Goatlet
for six goat cheeses.
Olfacting dairy goats will help.
-
Then as mentioned above, get some form of cold protection
and visit the Tr4pz0r one last time.
-
Level up to 9.
Level 9
Some time on day three.
-
Do the
Strange Leaflet.
Set up your house.
If you got a spooky mushroom back in the Spooky Forest, cook
yourself a nice
grue egg omelette
for tomorrow.
-
If you're an Accordion Thief, when you reach level 9 go
back to your guild and talk to Shifty again, cause it's
time to open up your store.
Not that you need anything from your own store, but access
to your store means you can also access Gouda's store in
the League of Chef-Magi, so you can buy
MMJs.
-
Do the level 9
Orc Chasm quest.
To start, you need the Swashbuckling Getup to access
Barrrtleby's Barrrgain Bookstore.
Get your eyepatch out of the closet.
For the other two items you have three options, depending on how
many pulls & turns you want to spend:
-
Farm for it in
The Obligatory Pirate's Cove.
Zero pulls and maybe 20 turns.
There are non-combats that give you all the pieces of gear:
- Amatearrr Night:
- What's orange: stuffed shoulder parrot; What's gold: eyepatch
- The Arrrbitrator:
- Jack Robinson: eyepatch; Sergeant Hook: swashbuckling pants
- Barrie Me at Sea:
- Sammy Skillet: stuffed shoulder parrot; Captain Ladle: swashbuckling pants
-
Pull
The Big Book of Pirate Insults
and collect insults while farming for the Getup.
One pull and the same number of turns, but you'll save
turns later on the level 11 quest.
For this option you want +combat.
-
Just
pull the Getup.
This takes two pulls and zero turns.
Once you have the Getup, you can just walk
into the bookstore and buy the
abridged dictionary.
Take it to the Untinker to get the bridge (you remembered to
fetch his screwdriver, right?), then go to the Orc Chasm to
install the bridge.
-
Pull a 668 scroll and
a 64067 scroll.
Turn off auto-attack.
If your familiar has a plastic pumpkin bucket, unequip it.
Adventure
Beyond the Orc Chasm
until you get the adding machine,
and feed it the scrolls to get your 64735 scroll and complete
the quest.
If you found extra 334 and 30669 scrolls while looking for the
adding machine, you can make a 31337 scroll too, but otherwise
don't bother.
If you get a meat vortex or Tasty Fun Good rice candy here,
put them in your closet for the NS quest.
Pulverize the drywall axe, you may get a wad.
-
Since you need to level up anyway, now is a good time to
do some more work on the Pirate's cove.
Put the Swashbuckling Getup back on and visit
Barrrney's Barrr
to help Cap'm Caronch and play
Insult Beer Pong.
-
Then visit
The F'c'le
to collect cleaning supplies.
-
Do not proceed to the Poop Deck - you can't do that
part until you have read your father's McGuffin Diary in level 11.
-
Midway through level 9 your mainstat will reach 75 and you
can start to use your
plexiglass equipment.
If you're a myst class, pull the
plexiglass pocketwatch
for both the +30% myst and the +3 rollover adventures.
For non-myst classes this may not be worth pulling since
you'll only get to equip it for one rollover, or two if you're
slow.
If you're on track for a 4-day non-myst-class run you won't get
to equip the pocketwatch at all!
-
Level up to 10.
Level 10
Some time on day three.
-
Start the level 10
Giant Trash quest.
Go to the Beanbat Chamber to get an enchanted bean.
In theory you could pull it, but it's almost guaranteed to drop in
one turn.
Use the bean.
Put on your +non-combats and adventure in the
Airship
until you've gotten the four immateria and the S.O.C.K.
If you get super-spikey hair gel or a photoprotoneutron torpedo,
put them in your closet for the NS quest.
Then go to the
Castle,
still with +non-combats,
until you get the Wheel in the Clouds in the Sky.
Give it a turn and you're done.
If you get a thin black candle, one or two chaos butterflys,
Mick's IcyVapoHotness Rub, or a plot hole,
put them in your closet for the NS quest and the Farm side-quest.
-
The giant trash reward you got may pulverize into a twinkly wad.
-
If you're on pace for a six-day run, don't bother with the
Hole in the Sky.
You can either pull the
8 stars /
7 lines /
star chart
you'll need for
Richard's star key,
or else you'll be out of Ronin by the time you need them.
If you think you can do a five-day run, you should open
up the Hole in the Sky now and farm at least some of the
star stuff.
The constellations are vulnerable to
cold and
spooky, but the Astronomer is not.
You'll need 5 stars and 3 lines for the
star hat,
and from 5 to 7 stars / 4 to 6 lines for the star
sword /
staff /
crossbow.
Total is 18 to 20 stars and 14 to 16 lines.
-
Level up to 11.
Level 11
You should get here on day four, or if you're speedy late
on day three.
-
Start the level 11
MacGuffin quest
by going to the
Black Forest.
You'll want to increase item drops, since the sunken eyes
and broken wings are not guaranteed drops.
If you get an adder bladder or Black No. 2 here, save them
in your closet for the NS quest.
If you get a black picnic basket, see if there's black pepper
in it, that is also an NS item.
If you get equipment drops from the Black Knight, you
can pulverize it into twinkly wads.
-
Do the little dance with the Reassembled Blackbird, the map,
the forged documents, the Shore, and the diary.
Remember to get your regular familiar again.
Don't forget to actually read the diary.
-
Start by doing the first part of the
Arid Extra-Dry Desert - just
the initial bit where you get a bunch of negative effects.
Then do the
Hidden Temple,
because the negative effects don't matter there and you can use them up.
After these two bits you can do the rest of the level 11 side-quests
in whatever order you like.
-
Do the
Spookyraven's Basement part.
Spend a few +non-combat turns in the Haunted Ballroom until you get
the We'll All Be Flat adventure.
Head down into the basement.
Look at the glyphs on the back wall and jot them down on a sheet of
paper.
Go to Hagnk's and use the magnifying glass icon to figure out which
dusty bottle of wine
has which glyph on it.
Pull the three you need and pour them into the hole in the
proper order: top, lower left, lower right.
If you'd rather farm for the wine, the monsters here
are vulnerable to hot and
stench.
Once you have opened up the summoning chamber, you can
take the spectacles off.
Now you get to fight Lord Spookyraven.
His first attack is very powerful; elemental resistance will
help you survive it, so cast Elemental Saucesphere or Astral
Shell and maybe go get your exotic parrot or splash on some
black paint.
He too is vulnerable to hot and
stench.
-
Do the
Hidden City part.
No particular shortcuts here.
One of the pygmies is vulnerable to cold and
spooky.
If you get pygmy pygment or a pygmy blowgun, save them in your
closet for the NS quest.
-
To start the
Palindome part
of the MacGuffin quest you need to visit the
pirates
again.
Your myst should be 60 by now, so you can use the
pirate fledges
instead of the Swashbuckling Getup.
You are looking for two
snakehead charrrms.
If you have already done Barrrney's Barrr and The F'c'le back
in level 9, then you can now proceed to
The Poop Deck.
Once you get the password there, head
Belowdecks
and look for the gaudy pirate, who is the only one that drops
the snakehead charrrms.
You don't need +item gear because the charrrms are 100% drops,
but you may want to use it anyway to try and get an acoustic
guitarrr from the grungy pirate in the same zone.
-
Paste your two snakehead charrrms into a Talisman o' Nam and head
for the
Palindome.
If you get the candy / photograph / ostrich egg but the
ketchup hound and
stunt nuts haven't dropped yet,
go ahead and pull them.
The correct order for putting the items on the shelves is:
- photograph of god
- hard rock candy
- ketchup hound
- hard-boiled ostrich egg
When you go to the
Laboratory
to look for Mr. Alarm, you want +non-combat.
When you go to
Whitey's Grove,
use +item stuff, since again
the bird rib and lion oil are not guaranteed drops.
If Whitey's Grove isn't there, go see the meatcar guy in your
guild so he can ask you for some hamburgers, that'll make
the Grove appear.
-
Once you have cooked up the
wet stunt nut stew,
go back to the Lab and Mr. Alarm will appear immediately.
I guess the smell attracts him.
Then equip the
Mega Gem
and go back to the Palindome - Dr. Awkward appears immediately too.
Once you beat him, you can pulverize the
Drowsy Sword
to get one or two wads.
-
Do the rest of the
Arid Extra-Dry Desert part.
You want +non-combats here.
The fire ants in the desert are vulnerable to
stench and
sleaze,
while the scarab beatles in the Oasis are vulnerable to
hot and
stench;
so, stench is your Flavour of Magic
element of choice here.
If you haven't found a drum machine
by the time you need it, you could pull it.
If you get a bronzed locust, save it in your closet for the NS quest.
After using the worm-riding hooks, don't forget to re-equip your regular weapon.
-
Do the
pyramid part.
You can get through this quite fast by pulling
eleven tomb ratchets.
The sequence to use them is:
- use four ratchets
- bucket on the left, empty room on the right, to get the token
- use four ratchets
- pile of rocks on the left, vending machine on the right, to get the bomb
- use three ratchets
- empty room on the left, and pile of rocks on the right, to open the chamber
That is only three turns.
-
Finally, fight
Ed the Undying.
He is a pretty good source of stats.
In fact if you need to do some levelling up to get to 12,
you can run away from Ed's seventh form and he resets.
You can fight him as many times as you like, at a cost
of one run-away for each six battles.
And if you have the navel ring of navel gazing, the
run-away doesn't cost a turn.
-
You may want to save Lord Spookyraven / the Protector Spectre /
Dr. Awkward / Ed the Undying for later - it can be useful
to flyer them as part of the level 12 Arena side-quest.
Level 12
The Island War.
Day five.
-
If you need olives to cook serums of sarcasm for the war,
buy them before the war starts.
During the war the hippy fruit stand is closed until you
clear the filthworm infestation.
-
If you are a myst class, it's time to switch chefstaves.
The
Staff of the Walk-In Freezer
is good against both hippies and frat orcs.
-
Pull the
Frat Warrior Fatigues,
increase non-combats, and adventure at the
Hippy Camp
until you have started the war.
You're looking for the
Blockin' Out the Scenery
adventure, where you choose "The Lookout Tower".
-
Do one turn on the battlefield - the first turn there is
always a special non-combat giving you some items.
-
Go back to the Haunted Ballroom, with +non-combats, and
get the
Strung-Up Quartet
again.
Change the music to 'Provare Compasione Per El Sciocco' to
increase monster level.
-
Now you have to kill 1000 enemies on the battlefield;
but you don't have to do it by yourself.
The general idea here is, the more side-quests you do,
the fewer turns you have to spend on the battlefield.
As you complete more side-quests, each of your kills
on the battlefield is accompanied by other kills for free.
If you have completed N side-quests then each of your
kills counts for 2N.
-
There are six side-quests available, however you can't
get to all of them right away.
Initially you only have access to three of them:
the Arena, the Junkyard, and the Lighthouse.
Access to the fourth, fifth, and sixth side-quests opens
up later, after you have made enough kills on the battlefield.
-
Each side-quest has some things you can do to shorten it:
-
The Arena side-quest.
If you have prepped the guy made of bees then this won't
take too long.
Go back to the Haunted Bathroom with +non-combats and find
the mirror again.
Say your fifth "Guy made of bees."
Slap the flyers onto him and you're done with the Arena quest.
If you have
Ambidextrous Funkslinging
and you got or pulled the
antique hand mirror,
you can use that along with
the flyers to win the fight and get the
guy made of bee pollen,
a nice spleen item;
otherwise you'll get beaten up, but the side-quest will
still be complete.
Without the guy made of bees, you just need to post flyers
on enough high-level monsters.
More about this later.
-
The Junkyard side-quest.
The idea here is to let the gremlins hit you until either
they use the molybdenum tool you're looking for, or you
determine they don't have it.
The trick is that there are actually two gremlins of
each type, one with the tool attack message and the
other with a different attack message.
If the attack message from the non-tool type shows up,
you know that gremlin doesn't have the tool so you can
go ahead and kill it.
If you get gremlin juice here, put it in your closet
for the NS quest.
-
The Lighthouse side-quest.
For this one you just increase combat percentage as
much as possible and kill five lobsterfrogmen.
Pull
monster bait,
cast Musk of the Moose and Carlweather's Cantata of Confrontation
if you have them permed, and if you have a Jumpsuited Hound Dog
then don't forget to use it.
If you have a
Spooky Putty sheet
then you only have to find one lobsterfrogman and putty him,
then kill four more putty lobsterfrogmen which is much easier.
-
The Orchard side-quest.
Just put on your +item stuff and go for it.
All varieties of filthworm are vulnerable to
cold and sleaze.
-
The Farm side-quest.
You don't need +non-combat during the initial Barn part - the
choice adventures are superlikelies, not non-combats.
There's a special secret trick to this one.
Use a chaos butterfly
in combat on one of the ducks;
then when you get the non-combats, choose: Fence, Lantern, Drum.
You'll get a white tornado, which blows away half the ducks.
Then clearing out the rest of the ducks will take only
15 turns unstead of the usual 30.
Ducks in different locations have different elemental weaknesses.
If you use the above trick, the three locations you have to
clear out are:
-
The Nuns side-quest.
You want +meat here.
If you know the demon name from the Spooky Forest, summon
him to get the
Preternatural Greed
effect.
And pulling a
Mick's IcyVapoHotness Inhaler
will help too.
-
When you get to the battlefield, the hippies are vulnerable to
cold and sleaze,
while the frat orcs are vulnerable to
cold and spooky,
so set your Flavour of Magic appropriately.
-
The straightforward way of doing the war is:
- Do your side's initial three side-quests.
- Eight turns on the battlefield.
- Do the fourth side-quest (for Frat Warriors: Orchard; for War Hippys: Lighthouse).
- Eight turns on the battlefield.
- Do the fifth side-quest (for Frat Warriors: Nuns; for War Hippys: Junkyard).
- Eight turns on the battlefield.
- Do the sixth side-quest (for Frat Warriors: Farm; for War Hippys: Arena).
- Nine turns on the battlefield.
That is not necessarily the most turn-efficient method.
For instance, the Nuns side-quest takes a lot of turns,
so if you are a Frat Warrior it's probably faster to only do
the first four side-quests and then spend 59 turns on the
battlefield finishing up.
That sounds like a lot but doing the Nuns would be more total turns.
-
However!
There's a subtle trick you can use to shorten the war
by doing the Arena in effectively zero turns.
See, the problem with the Arena is finding enough combats during
the course of the war.
You can't use the flyers on the battlefield.
As a Frat Warrior you get the Arena at the start,
but your other two initial side-quests are the Junkyard and
the Lighthouse, and they don't have very many combats.
So you end up going elsewhere for the combats, or using the guy
made of bees.
But here's the trick: you can sneak into the side-quests early
if you're in the other side's uniform, or in no uniform at all.
You can't take credit for the side-quest until later when
it opens up for you in your real uniform, but you can do
all the combats.
And you can use those combats to post Arena flyers.
Let's run through how this works:
-
You put on your Frat Warrior uniform and visit the Arena to get
the rock concert flyers.
-
Then do the Junkyard and Lighthouse side-quests as usual,
posting flyers on every monster.
-
Now change into civilian clothes and do the Orchard quest.
You can't check in at the start of the quests to get
your instructions, but you don't need to - just go
flyer & kill the filthworms.
-
That's not enough to finish the Arena quest, so you'll
need to backfarm a little.
If you saved the level 11 bosses, go flyer and kill them now.
Visit the
Hole in the Sky
and farm
8 stars,
7 lines, and
1 star chart to make
Richard's star key.
And visit the
8-Bit Realm
to get
30 white pixels for the
digital key.
Olfacting for Bloopers makes this go pretty fast.
Remember to flyer every monster!
-
Then put your Frat Warrior uniform back on and visit
the Arena - you should be done with that side-quest.
-
After this the war is pretty easy: eight turns
on the battlefield, visit the Orchard to take credit,
then 59 turns on the Battlefield.
That is 67 turns total, plus one more to fight
The Big Wisniewski.
-
Pulverize enough of the equipment you found to get your
daily 15 wads.
You should have more than enough.
-
Trade in the rest of your captured crap for dimes/quarters
and buy stuff.
See the
Island War Meat Calculator
for guidance.
Do this now, not later, because after you end the war your
dimes/quarters disappear.
Be sure you have six
filthy poultices /
gauze garters,
either bought or found, to use on the Shadow.
-
Now go kill
The Big Wisniewski.
He's pretty tough.
-
If you need to level up to 13, killing stone age frats/hippys
gives lots of stats.
Level 13
The
Naughty Sorceress.
You get here on day six, or if you're super speedy late on day five.
-
If you're speedy, you're still in Ronin, but probably not by much.
If you have fewer turns of Ronin than you have turns to play today
(plus about 20 for the Sorceress quest),
then just futz around somewhere until you break Ronin and can
get all your stuff.
It won't cost you any extra days, and at this point it's daycount
that matters, not turncount.
-
If you don't have enough turns to break Ronin, you can pull
and backfarm the items you'll need.
-
You'll use from one to three pulls
on consumable effects items for
The Three Gates.
You are likely to have already collected the item for the
first Gate, all of them are from areas we visited.
The second Gate item is always from South of the Border which
we skipped, so just pull it.
The third Gate item is a !-potion from the
Dungeons of Doom.
Since you skipped it, pull three
large boxes.
Identify the potions by throwing them at some monster until you
find the one you need.
If you only had one of that kind,
pull a second one from Hagnk's.
-
Pull the
star hat and
star weapon.
-
You may also need to pull the
bone rattle and the
acoustic guitarrr.
You should already have an accordion-type instrument for
playing Accordion Thief songs.
-
Save six pulls for the
tower combat items - you may have
collected some of them along the way, but certainly not all of them.
-
Don't bother saving a clover to use in the skeleton's dice game.
If you're still in Ronin when you get there, just keep on trying
without one.
You'll get beat up a bunch, but you're not spending any turns.
You may spend a lot of meat healing yourself, but by this point
in your run you should have plenty of meat.
If you have broken Ronin, go ahead and use a clover.
-
Remember to make or pull the Wand.
-
Choice of familiar for the Naughty Sorceress battle is
a huge topic.
My current preference is the lowly
Levitating Potato
because it will occasionally block one of her attacks.
But basically I don't need a familiar here, the NS13-era
Sorceress is just not that hard.
Go in with full HP and MP and just keep hitting her with
your biggest attack.
-
Now comes
Willer
time.
Before Ascending
There are a few things you should do before starting your next run.
-
Cook your keys into pies.
-
If you like to pull the meat engine or dope wheels, make sure
your meatcar is untinkered.
If not, it will disappear, since the meatcar itself is a
quest item.
-
If you have a
meltable /
foldable /
squishable
Mr. Store item, be sure it is in the form you want.
Setting it properly when you are a n00b is annoying.
-
MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ACTUALLY LEARNED THE SKILL YOU WANT TO PERM.
-
If you want to use
Instant Karma
in your next run, discard some now.
Jef (#889940)'s pages / KoL pages / Softcore Roadmap