What or where to get proper skillbooks while in Fort Joy

[Cmdr Wispa]

My characters are level 4 and I'm still on the default skillbooks and with limited money. About 1300 coins. 2 questions:

Is it normal to be on the default skillbooks while still at level 4? I'm new to DOS and I find this game to be quite the challenge so not sure how far I should be progressing at this point.

And are there particular vendors I should be buying skillbooks from? I have a thief, ranger, figther, and battlemage in my party.

[Yojo0o]

Something you might be missing is that almost any NPC has a "trade" button in the top-left of their dialogue box. While most NPCs have just a handful of junk here, anybody with a "Trader" tag under their name is almost certain to have a fully-stocked store to check out, regardless of if they have a dialogue option to present it to you.

Off the top of my head, in Fort Joy, there are Aero and Hydro trainers near the tents to the right as you enter the fort, various members of Griff's crew sell scoundrel and huntsmen books, the lizard in the cave with the elves sells warfare, there's an elf on the beach that sells geomancy, there's a necromancer sick in a tent near the magisters, the doctor outside the elf cave sells polymorph, the lizard dreamer who stole the oranges has pyromancy, and the tinkerer on the left as you enter the fort has summoning. I think that's everybody? If any of them have been killed or are otherwise unavailable, don't worry, you'll have access to a new hub soon enough.

Note that thievery goes a long way in this game. Pickpocketing skill books can really help you.

[DrunkPunk]

Level 4 is when new skill books become available, so this is when you'll want to start expanding your aresenal. Yojo0o gave you all the rest of the relevant information. Thievery is especially helpful in the beginning because it's tough to get your party geared up AND complete with new skills that early in the game.

[BigRockWall]

Kill the vendors and take all their books. You get through act 1 fast enough its not really worth keepin them around. The power gained by just having all the skill early on is totally worth it. Note just the vendors in and around ft joy. They dont carry over to act 2. After act 1 what the other guys said about thievery.

[Cmdr Wispa]

I have 1 skill in Thievery for Fane. Is this enough to pickpocket successfully in Fort Joy?

Originally posted by Yojo0o:

Something you might be missing is that almost any NPC has a "trade" button in the top-left of their dialogue box. While most NPCs have just a handful of junk here, anybody with a "Trader" tag under their name is almost certain to have a fully-stocked store to check out, regardless of if they have a dialogue option to present it to you.

Off the top of my head, in Fort Joy, there are Aero and Hydro trainers near the tents to the right as you enter the fort, various members of Griff's crew sell scoundrel and huntsmen books, the lizard in the cave with the elves sells warfare, there's an elf on the beach that sells geomancy, there's a necromancer sick in a tent near the magisters, the doctor outside the elf cave sells polymorph, the lizard dreamer who stole the oranges has pyromancy, and the tinkerer on the left as you enter the fort has summoning. I think that's everybody? If any of them have been killed or are otherwise unavailable, don't worry, you'll have access to a new hub soon enough.

Note that thievery goes a long way in this game. Pickpocketing skill books can really help you.

[Chaoslink]

Thievery. Steal what you need. You can only steal once per NPC per character.

On an unrelated note, make sure you’re focusing only one attribute per character between the three main damage scaling ones. You mentioned a battlemage, which works, but not as the game defaults it to. You don’t want to split between strength and intelligence as you’ll only be using half your invested points each attack. That preset Is usually the prime example of what not to do with your builds. That said, a staff melee mage going full intel works or a full strength user who buffs weapons with magic effects also works.

[Yojo0o]

Originally posted by deen wispa:

I have 1 skill in Thievery for Fane. Is this enough to pickpocket successfully in Fort Joy?

Originally posted by Yojo0o:

Something you might be missing is that almost any NPC has a "trade" button in the top-left of their dialogue box. While most NPCs have just a handful of junk here, anybody with a "Trader" tag under their name is almost certain to have a fully-stocked store to check out, regardless of if they have a dialogue option to present it to you.

Off the top of my head, in Fort Joy, there are Aero and Hydro trainers near the tents to the right as you enter the fort, various members of Griff's crew sell scoundrel and huntsmen books, the lizard in the cave with the elves sells warfare, there's an elf on the beach that sells geomancy, there's a necromancer sick in a tent near the magisters, the doctor outside the elf cave sells polymorph, the lizard dreamer who stole the oranges has pyromancy, and the tinkerer on the left as you enter the fort has summoning. I think that's everybody? If any of them have been killed or are otherwise unavailable, don't worry, you'll have access to a new hub soon enough.

Note that thievery goes a long way in this game. Pickpocketing skill books can really help you.

Thievery level governs how much you can take from a given character, as well as lockpicking prowess. You can get some work done at level 1, but I'd recommend investing more points into it. You can also find gear that improves it to hold onto.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Yojo0o:

Originally posted by deen wispa:

I have 1 skill in Thievery for Fane. Is this enough to pickpocket successfully in Fort Joy?

Thievery level governs how much you can take from a given character, as well as lockpicking prowess. You can get some work done at level 1, but I'd recommend investing more points into it. You can also find gear that improves it to hold onto.

Very much this. Since you can only steal from each NPC once (per character with thievery) stealing with a skill of 1 isn't going to get you much. The higher the skill, the higher the limits of both weight of items and value of items you can steal. You want to get your skill as high as possible before you go about stealing in order to get the most from each chance you get to steal. Otherwise, you might just get two skillbooks from that vendor whereas you could have gotten all 7 and some gold and a few items they had on them as well. The difference is pretty significant. If maximized, it isn't too difficult for a single thief to leave act one (level 8ish) with all the needed skillbooks, some decent gear and consumables and something like 50k gold. This is assuming you get the highest thievery you can for the act (5 points) before thieving. This requires being level 6 (I think that's the second civil point level), taking the All Skilled Up talent and having both a glove and belt with +1 on them. Unless I'm forgetting something, that's the highest you can get in act one and it relies somewhat on the RNG chances of getting the gear with the bonuses.

[Kai]

If you max out barter and give the NPC roughly 250 coins for free you can raise their 'attitude' to you to 100% and get a combined total of like 64% discount.

[gregfromthepeg]

Another strategy, if you don't like stealing (I only steal from evil characters unless I am roleplaying an evil team), in Fort Joy, crafting weapons or armour to sell for gold is useful. Pick up/buy every single thread/needle/leather scraps/long branch/short sticks/sharp rocks and make weapons or armour and sell them. Thread/needle/rocks etc cost 2 or 3 gold and the crafted items go for more.

Kai's advice to donate and raise a vendor's attitude pays off hugely. In Fort Joy, I sell weapons and armour to Nebora as she doesn't sell them herself so it doesn't confuse you when you're shopping. Ie you shop for items from her, but not armour or weapons so you can ignore all the stuff you sold her. So donate enough to get her attitude to 100 then when you sell those crafted weapons or armour, she gives a solid payout, plus when buying the recipe items like thread from her, it is cheaper.

Being low on gold on your first playthrough is common in the beginning. Don't sweat it yet. It does get a bit better. I was in poverty for quite awhile during my first time through.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by gregfromthepeg:

Another strategy, if you don't like stealing (I only steal from evil characters unless I am roleplaying an evil team), in Fort Joy, crafting weapons or armour to sell for gold is useful. Pick up/buy every single thread/needle/leather scraps/long branch/short sticks/sharp rocks and make weapons or armour and sell them. Thread/needle/rocks etc cost 2 or 3 gold and the crafted items go for more.

Kai's advice to donate and raise a vendor's attitude pays off hugely. In Fort Joy, I sell weapons and armour to Nebora as she doesn't sell them herself so it doesn't confuse you when you're shopping. Ie you shop for items from her, but not armour or weapons so you can ignore all the stuff you sold her. So donate enough to get her attitude to 100 then when you sell those crafted weapons or armour, she gives a solid payout, plus when buying the recipe items like thread from her, it is cheaper.

Being low on gold on your first playthrough is common in the beginning. Don't sweat it yet. It does get a bit better. I was in poverty for quite awhile during my first time through.

Good notes here on the crafting aspects. If you play the long game, buying every arrow shaft or arrowhead and all the ingredients capable of making them, then save them all until act two, you can have enough to make between 400 and 700 arrows at the cost of maybe 1000-1500gold. If you then use honey jars to mass craft charm arrows, you can sell the bunch for well over 10k and make quite the profit. Sell with high barter and to a vendor you’ve gifted to 100 attitude and you’ll make a decent bit more.

[Cmdr Wispa]

Originally posted by Kai:

If you max out barter and give the NPC roughly 250 coins for free you can raise their 'attitude' to you to 100% and get a combined total of like 64% discount.

Interesting tactic. Obviously, my purchases would need to be greater than my donation of 250 coins. But something to consider!

[gregfromthepeg]

Originally posted by deen wispa:

Originally posted by Kai:

If you max out barter and give the NPC roughly 250 coins for free you can raise their 'attitude' to you to 100% and get a combined total of like 64% discount.

Interesting tactic. Obviously, my purchases would need to be greater than my donation of 250 coins. But something to consider!

I find raising attitude is more useful for your dedicated "selling" vendors. I always sell to the same vendors, to avoid clutter. So it pays off many times over.

As you hint at, you don't always buy from the same vendors so to get your 250 back, you need to buy a lot. And the amount to raise attitude increases as the game goes along.