OK..You'll thank me for this!!!

[Swisspike]

Having played this game for hundreds and hundreds of hours, here is a viable starting strategy.

Create a character for your new party. Save.

Create a second person, maxing out alchemy. REALLY max out alchemy, make him or her older than dirt. Save. Go into the game, transfer all the potion over to character #1. Save.

Delete the second character, who is now naked, with no potions. Re-create the same second character, loot him, delete him, rinse and repeat as often as you want.

To do this right will take a couple of hours. Your #1 character will now have a couple of hundred gold worth of potions.

Create party members 2, 3, and 4, the ones you are going into the game with.

You will now have sufficient money to kit out all of your characters very, very well. This makes the first fights trivial, until you can get the skills you need to progress into the wilderness. Good stuff!!!

[GPpentacle]

Ingenious exploit. Bravo. I too have hundreds of hours logged offline with successful play-throughs yet never thought of this.

[Swisspike]

This is my daughter's exploit, from more than 20 years ago. As a teenager, she memorized the location of every vendor selling the good quality goods, and memorized every single saint, and their effects. She played this game a LOT. I had to buy her a computer, just to play Darklands. Terrific game, that absolutely remains the best RPG out there. Love to see a remake.

[Nuee]

With whatever coin is in their pockets you can buy gear as well. If you have extra coin, change it into a note at one of the guilds... (pretty sure that works... plus you can dump them create more characters and repeat I think.

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by Nuee:

With whatever coin is in their pockets you can buy gear as well. If you have extra coin, change it into a note at one of the guilds... (pretty sure that works... plus you can dump them create more characters and repeat I think.

Yeah, that's the whole point. Create, strip, sell, fire, rinse and repeat until you have enough money to get your team GOOD gear.

[󠀡󠀡]

So I'm a total newbie to this game, but when I try this (create an alchemist) and I have him/her enter the party, they dont have any equipment whatsoever. Am I missing something?

[Nuee]

They may need to be of a certain age to have crafted potions. The older and higher skilled they are the more potions they have. Generally I dont know about mundane equipment.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Nuee:

They may need to be of a certain age to have crafted potions. The older and higher skilled they are the more potions they have. Generally I dont know about mundane equipment.

Yes I make them max age (70 I think) master alchemists, so I dont know what's wrong.
Perhaps need to max another skill?
edit:
Ok so I just made a few new characters at the starting inn, and they all start with 0 equipment, completely empty.

[Swisspike]

Originally posted by Sam:

Originally posted by Nuee:

They may need to be of a certain age to have crafted potions. The older and higher skilled they are the more potions they have. Generally I dont know about mundane equipment.

Yes I make them max age (70 I think) master alchemists, so I dont know what's wrong.
Perhaps need to max another skill?
edit:
Ok so I just made a few new characters at the starting inn, and they all start with 0 equipment, completely empty.

Doesn't make sense...they should have least have a crappy weapon and armor. The alchemist should have several potions that can also be sold.

[Nuee]

I think... if you already created four characters and added them to the party any additional characters created (or possibly replacing those first four) after that will not have gear. So... I think what you want to do with fresh game is to create a holder character (keeper) and three alchemists... Transfer potions. Kill the alchemists, add in the rest of your chose that will not have gear. Howeer the sale of the potions (I tend to keep some of the more useful ones) will net you enough coin to kite out the entire party better than they would have been otherwise. Also buy stuff with the coin in pocket before retiring the old quack or he takes a bit of the coin with him when you retire him.

BTW below is a long hint/walkthrough bit. Also advice on starting a party.

An excerpt: "You may or may not want to add a fifth character depending on whether or not
you feel it's cheating. If you create a fifth character and let him grow to
a ripe old age, he will bring to the party many wonderful (expensive
potions). Transfer these potions to your leader and retire the old rascal.
Then bring into the party the permanent fourth member and sell the potions.
You should be able to generate enough money to buy some semi-decent armor for
each member. Of course, you can generate additional veteran members and
carry this theme further, but remember that the retiring member will take 1/5
of the party's wealth."

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/564659-darklands/faqs/1897

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Nuee:

I think... if you already created four characters and added them to the party any additional characters created (or possibly replacing those first four) after that will not have gear. So... I think what you want to do with fresh game is to create a holder character (keeper) and three alchemists... Transfer potions. Kill the alchemists, add in the rest of your chose that will not have gear. Howeer the sale of the potions (I tend to keep some of the more useful ones) will net you enough coin to kite out the entire party better than they would have been otherwise. Also buy stuff with the coin in pocket before retiring the old quack or he takes a bit of the coin with him when you retire him.

BTW below is a long hint/walkthrough bit. Also advice on starting a party.

An excerpt: "You may or may not want to add a fifth character depending on whether or not
you feel it's cheating. If you create a fifth character and let him grow to
a ripe old age, he will bring to the party many wonderful (expensive
potions). Transfer these potions to your leader and retire the old rascal.
Then bring into the party the permanent fourth member and sell the potions.
You should be able to generate enough money to buy some semi-decent armor for
each member. Of course, you can generate additional veteran members and
carry this theme further, but remember that the retiring member will take 1/5
of the party's wealth."

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/564659-darklands/faqs/1897

Thank you, that was the problem, I have to do it before I get into the game, not once Im already in.
Much appreciated

[Swisspike]

I thought I stated on my original post to create your first keeper character, then create the throw away character, loot, delete, rinse and repeat.

[󠀡󠀡]

Originally posted by Swisspike:

I thought I stated on my original post to create your first keeper character, then create the throw away character, loot, delete, rinse and repeat.

You did, in hindsight. I'm just unfamiliar with the game.

[Swisspike]

Upon review..it is the LAST profession you choose that gets you the in-game gear. So..make the last profession a bandit, or soldier, or any other relatively martial profession, for a couple of reasons.

First, you will get one weapon, using the highest rated weapon. Don't get a club, clubs are cheap. Get a bow, or edged weapon.

Second, try to get at LEAST studded leather, instead of cloth or leather. Personally, I prefer chain to start. With the techniques used in the original posts, you can continue to create/loot/delete until you get the gear you want to start.

I wouldn't worry about building up weapon skills for your characters..this will happen soon enough, if you spend a week farming bad guys in the docks and other side streets...use the extra EPs for religion, virtue, writing, woodwise, stealth, etc, or to boos up your other critical skills, such as healing, alchemy, and artifice.

[Yasha]

When developing the game, we used to call this the "rolling drunks" strategy. In any tavern where you can create and add a character, you deliberately add someone for the possessions or wealth they have, then "assume" you get them stinking drunk, club them over the head, and toss them out (into a conjectual back alley, or whatever).

The playtesters used to do this regularly so they could test out things in the game otherwise hard to duplicate because they lacked the item, wealth, or whatever.

So, in gaming, as in life, it's all about how "ethical" you want to be. There is no penalty for doing this in the game - it's a deliberate cheat that allows players a head start, but only by investing extra time in the character generator.

[Nuee]

It never happened like that... Those poor old alchemists passed peacefully in the night... What was I supposed to do with all those sacks of potions and reagents but use them to fund an expedition to honor their names. Yup.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.