Fort Joy sources of pre-level 3 experience?

[Forblaze]

Getting to level 3 has easily been the hardest part of both of my playthroughs. What are all of the sources of experience available without initiating combat with something that's level 3 or higher?

Bonus: and without ratting on (even if you save him) or murdering stingtail.

[Sombrero]

Without initating any combat ? Honestly I've never thought about it but if you do the fights in a decent order of difficulty and play them carefully the first fights are a breeze. The difficulty spike in higher dififculty comes with Griff if you decide to kill him and then inside vs Knile (I think I got the name right).

The easier is to do the turtles, then the 3 thugs playing cards, Narrn if you have Red Prince on your team, the aligators with the magic glove, the crazed guy eating corpses (forgot the name, again), frogs in the cave and finally the arena and eventually Griff if you decide to fight him.
That's always the order I go through and I never feel underleveled.

Levels mean almost nothing on that scale, it gets impactful when you really have a big level difference. Very early on the huge factor is build synergy and the gear you are wearing.

[volx757]

Originally posted by Sombrero:

Without initating any combat ? Honestly I've never thought about it but if you do the fights in a decent order of difficulty and play them carefully the first fights are a breeze. The difficulty spike in higher dififculty comes with Griff if you decide to kill him and then inside vs Knile (I think I got the name right).

The easier is to do the turtles, then the 3 thugs playing cards, Narrn if you have Red Prince on your team, the aligators with the magic glove, the crazed guy eating corpses (forgot the name, again), frogs in the cave and finally the arena and eventually Griff if you decide to fight him.
That's always the order I go through and I never feel underleveled.

Levels mean almost nothing on that scale, it gets impactful when you really have a big level difference. Very early on the huge factor is build synergy and the gear you are wearing.

Sorry but I have to disagree with this. Levels absolutely matter at early levels, arguably even more than at later levels. Perhaps you don't play on tactician? But I definitely would not recommend taking on anyone above your level (except the 4 on 1 fights) before leaving fort joy. The magister knights are practically unkillable when you're level 3 and they're level 4.

Also side note, if you give the guy eating corpses a yarrow flower it opens a little quest that gets you a key to the magister fort along with some loot and xp.


Turning in stingtail and then saving him is a big chunk of XP that's very nice early on, but leaving that aside..

you can do the turtle fight, the card player fight, go into the arena for the epxloration (don't fight it yet), do the withermore quest (as far as you can within fort joy). Withermore then gives you access to the dungeons which gives you more exploration XP. Free the elf from Griff. Do the Magister Yarrow quest. Save the elf next to Ifan (only possible the first time you enter the fort then she dies). I believe all of that should put you comfortably inside level 3.

Next would be the crocodiles, the teleporter quest, the frogs, the red prince assassin, and a bunch of exploration XP for teleporting up and going inside the Fort (sneak past the trial scene to get another 1200 exploration XP I belive). Should put you at level 4 (maybe also need the arena tho) and be ready to start killing magisters.

[Sombrero]

The crocodiles can be done much earlier for instance. I don't say it's a cakewalk no matter your level but it's not any close to impossible either.

The thing is that it heavily depends on your starter presets. If you have a very weak team because of their presets then yeah it can be hard, but if you have a decently balanced team and a couple of defensive items it becomes very manageable.

[Chaoslink]

Don’t forget the starting ship. You can hit level two there by fighting all the magisters before the ship is wrecked. Just remember to block the door to the witch that blows it all up or she might be pulled in. That boost can help you reach three faster.

Then there’s the turtles.

You also have a small grave on the starting beach you can dig up to fight a zombie. Needs some wits to spot it though.

Fight the thugs as you enter and take on the gamblers up on the scaffolds. Take the Prince and go fight the assassin too. Should be enough right there, otherwise just do all the elf cave stuff. If that still isn’t enough, Migo the corpse eater should finish it up for you. I suggest the killing him route for the armor and ring. Even if it was a lower exp reward, it’s worth it.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by volx757:

Originally posted by Sombrero:

Without initating any combat ? Honestly I've never thought about it but if you do the fights in a decent order of difficulty and play them carefully the first fights are a breeze. The difficulty spike in higher dififculty comes with Griff if you decide to kill him and then inside vs Knile (I think I got the name right).

The easier is to do the turtles, then the 3 thugs playing cards, Narrn if you have Red Prince on your team, the aligators with the magic glove, the crazed guy eating corpses (forgot the name, again), frogs in the cave and finally the arena and eventually Griff if you decide to fight him.
That's always the order I go through and I never feel underleveled.

Levels mean almost nothing on that scale, it gets impactful when you really have a big level difference. Very early on the huge factor is build synergy and the gear you are wearing.

Sorry but I have to disagree with this. Levels absolutely matter at early levels, arguably even more than at later levels. Perhaps you don't play on tactician? But I definitely would not recommend taking on anyone above your level (except the 4 on 1 fights) before leaving fort joy. The magister knights are practically unkillable when you're level 3 and they're level 4.

That is not true at all. On tactician, with a party of 4, with only your starting 3 skills from character creation, you can take out the Houndmaster fight at level 2 and then proceed to clear out the entire fort from there. Been there, done that.

It is just a question of how well you know the game and the choices you make building your characters.


My last game was a solo run, without using lone wolf. Just one regular character on Tactician. There is a tremendous amount of stuff you can do without fighting anything. You can get to the swamp, get to Amadia's sanctuary, enter the secret cave and make it to, and loot, the treasure room without fighting anything. Then report back to Amadia for even more xp.

[Sombrero]

I get that, but in most cases people are cheesing the houndmaster fight big time too (pulling him far away and spamming fire for instance).

My point is that most fights above the surface are much easier to tackle compared to the houndmaster. And realistically when you first get into the game you find the houndmaster way after anything else.

[PK_Ultra]

Exploration Exploration Exploration. Lots of free EXP just from visiting places for the first time.

Dont forget the crumbled bridge at the Beach starting area near Fort Joy.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by PK Ultra:

Exploration Exploration Exploration. Lots of free EXP just from visiting places for the first time.

Dont forget the crumbled bridge at the Beach starting area near Fort Joy.

Good point. There's a very nice unique 1 handed weapon by the crashed blimp that will be the best you find for quite a while.

[Sgáthach]

Originally posted by PK Ultra:

Exploration Exploration Exploration. Lots of free EXP just from visiting places for the first time.

Dont forget the crumbled bridge at the Beach starting area near Fort Joy.

You can get there only with Teleportation or jump ability. Teleportation can be obtained with the gloves, which is a lvl 3 (minimum) fight.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Don’t forget the starting ship. You can hit level two there by fighting all the magisters before the ship is wrecked. Just remember to block the door to the witch that blows it all up or she might be pulled in. That boost can help you reach three faster.

The problem I have with that is that if you recruit new party members after you reach level 2, they automatically allocate their level 2 stats, although I suppose you can use a mod to add a respec mirror to Fort Joy if needed.

Originally posted by Sombrero:

I get that, but in most cases people are cheesing the houndmaster fight big time too (pulling him far away and spamming fire for instance).

I do that when I fight him at level 3 too. That's not cheesing, it's using your head and not fighting him in an area where there are two archers with high ground advantage.

[fragonard]

"Finding Emmie" alone gives 3000xp. That and Withermore should be plenty. You should be able to get half way to level 4 without any fighting at all.

[iAndy]

You can also kill each of those silent monks (I think that's what they're called) in the hound jail area for a bit of exp boost. They are just standing there doing nothing, although the hounds will aggro you after you've fought them. (which is more free exp if you pull them out of their room). They are higher than 3 if I remember right, but they are always solo (the other ones never aggrod me)

[Pyromus]

If it hasnt already been mentioned, you can sneak near the houndmaster and grab the key to get to the area with Emmie and the monks without fighting the houndmaster first.

*Edit*
This adds in the actual Emmie quest, birdie, the ability to 4 v 1 a handful of monks, and finish the withermoore quest. Not to mention a nice bit of exploration xp and if you let the cutscene play out with Dallis and Alexandar, you can give Kniles Atusa's leg. I haven't done the leg with kniles in a long time, but I would imagine that gives some xp.

[Imyo]

Originally posted by Forblaze:

Getting to level 3 has easily been the hardest part of both of my playthroughs. What are all of the sources of experience available without initiating combat with something that's level 3 or higher?

Bonus: and without ratting on (even if you save him) or murdering stingtail.

Im a fking adict of starting the game over even before finishing it and i played easily 10 times already just for joy, let me help you with my way of doing things.

Do everything you can JUST to kill the croccodiles to get the teleportation gloves, thats ALL you need, if your build isnt terrible you can do it at lvl 2 with ease if you have some consumables, or you have some burst dmg to kill 1 and flee. Once you get the gloves, just explore the fort, the prison, by just exploring you ll be able to get like 2k gold to buy spells and probably reach lvl 4, then do the quests that involve moving around BEFORE leaving (cos you ll be a wanted man when doing so), like the source hunter soul jar, the thugs in the entrance, the cards game, the yarrow flower one, etc, once you are done, just leave , escape and explore without fighting, reach the seekers camp and all , everything you can do without fighting, you ll be like lvl 5, or almost lvl 5, and with tons of gold to spend on spells, by that point you can go back and fight your impossible encounters inside, and they ll all be a cakewalk, finish all quests inside and then go for it outside, soon you ll find yourself leaving the island. in a few hours of gamplay (if you skip dialogues :O) and leaving the island gives you 18k exp so there is that too.