Skills to Steal the Bills: A Guide to Rogue to Redemption’s Skills

True to any Quest for Glory game, Rogue to Redemption is all about becoming more skilled and developing your abilities to their best.

Of course, there are many ways to raise your traits and many traits to develop. Below is a guide on all the different traits and the most effective way to raise them.

Introduction

True to any Quest for Glory game, Rogue to Redemption is all about becoming more skilled and developing your abilities to their best.

Of course, there are many ways to raise your traits and many traits to develop. Below is a guide on all the different traits and the most effective way to raise them. They are broken down in the game into categories: Abilities and Skills.

• Abilities: These are the cornerstone of Shawn’s potential and filter down to others raw skills, combat and options in the game. These are often the most tricky to raise, but can have some of the most dramatic results.
  
  
• Skills: These represent specific talents, which are influenced and supported by Abilities. These are usually very easy to raise (or, at least, more predictable in how you raise them) and often are the gatekeepers of puzzles or challenges.

As a note - Training (in terms of using the Practice Rooms or reading a book) is often the LEAST effective means of raising a trait. I’ll outline the best methods of the “learn by doing” approach, however... some abilities or skills are ONLY effectively raised by Training. If Training is the only way to raise a trait, try and build your daily schedule around that Training to progress.

Abilities

Agility: The signature trait of any Rogue! Agility influences a lot of the “thief” skills, such as Stealth and Lockpicking. But it has a much more important function - it determines your chance of getting hit. Anyone who has fought more than five seconds in Hero-U can tell you how much of a life saver a Miss or Glancing Blow can be.

• Agility is VERY difficult to level up unless you know what to do. If you go the entire game, you may not get 10 points higher than you start with if you are not actively working on it. It is added sporadically when you climb a rope or dodge a hit, but the single most reliable way to train it is to walk the tightrope in the Exercise Room. This also, conveniently, raises your Climbing skill, raising two hard-to-get traits in one go. You should DEFINITELY build your day around walking the tightrope once. In addition, playing Billiards is also a great way to raise this ability (either practicing by yourself before dinner or playing games against your classmates). With this training regimen, you can max out Agility before Day 15, when it would have barely budged past the starting stat normally.

Charm: The ability to smooth angry mobs and woo lovely ladies, Charm is a method Shawn communicates with others. Unlike the other two “Talking” Abilities, Charm doesn’t have another purpose beyond speech options - Moxie increases health and Smarts influences your tests. However, this is also the most effective Talking skill, so keep that in mind.

• Training Charm can be done by always choosing the Charming speech options, by Flirting (especially with Sophia, who has lots of Flirt options available to stretch those silver tongue legs) and, perhaps most reliably, reading the “Making Friends” book in the Self Help section (Q2, right next to the Rogue Disbarred Bards section). This takes time to raise to 100, although anything above 50 will be able to handle most any situation where Charm would be required.

Fitness: Muscles, brawn, things that make Fighters! So we can just brush this skill off, right? WRONG! I will be heretical here and say Fitness is one of the, if not THE, most important traits in Hero-U. You see, I was a Hero like you... until I took a Gog Spear to the knee. For my first Shawn, I tried to avoid combat and, if necessary, fight at a distance. But Fitness is important to the sneakiest Sneaker, the most deft of Dagger Throwers, the most smooth of Smooth Talkers. It is one of the strongest drivers of your Stamina, meaning Shawn won’t be a one-hit wonder. And it is also the primary driver of your melee damage - too many creatures later in the game have massive HP pools or are even immune from Throwing, meaning melee is a foregone conclusion. To be able to take a hit and to also do significantly more damage makes Fitness crucial for EVERY Hero.

• There is pretty much only one way to raise this stat - pumping iron! Start with the dumbbells everyday. By the time you work up to kettlebells, you will have two or three times your starting health bar and be able to one-shot Drats and Proaches. Much like Agility, making this part of your daily Training will allow you to avoid countless reloads.

Luck: From the occasional skill check that goes your way to dodging that last bit of danger, Luck controls many things but directly controls little. One of the biggest boosts it gives you is increasing your Critical Hit chance, which makes combat swing your way much more often. It also turns more hits into Glancing Blows, which can be the defining difference between life and death when you are standing toe to toe with a Wraith. In addition, Luck also drives your results when getting cards in Poobah, so it pays to have it as high as possible.

• If Luck be a Lady, then it’s a Lady who doesn’t want to give you her number. While you will see Luck raise randomly in combat or skill challenges, the most reliable way to raise it is by practicing Card Theory (can only be done once a day) or playing your classmates in Cards. This is a worthwhile activity whenever you are in the Rec Room between classes and dinner.

Moxie: Or, as some like to call it, the jackass “Talking” ability. This unlocks some of the most stinging comments and responses from Shawn and high points here makes people less likely to be upset with you for saying them. If you are going for the “un-Hero-like” Speech options, this is the skill to work on. That being said... Moxie also plays into Will, which affects Stamina. A Hero who maxes out Fitness and Moxie will faceroll even Lemures by the time everything is said and done.

• Training Moxie can be done through making every snide or Sarcastic option available. This is most often during classes, which can have negative consequences for your teachers. But, that aside, you can read the “Risk Taking” book in the Self-Help/Q2 section to raise your Moxie as well. (Also, you can get a one-time increase in Moxie by reading the Paladin book, right next to the dog portrait on the second floor.)This can be a great way to get the benefits of Moxie without ever needing to say lines that might make Aeolus cry.

Perception: AKA, listening at doors! Unlike most of the other Abilities, this can only be raised by doing, namely by... listening at doors! Every door you come to in the game will often have a Listen option, which will let you use this skill.

• Doing so is the best way to raise the skill (and costs nearly zero in time). Repeatedly listening to the same door back to back won’t raise Perception, but Listening to multiple (different) doors back to back will. So the Mezzanine and the Dorm Hall can be great places to quickly hit a lot of doors at once. Combine this with taking every opportunity you get with the doors you walk to through, every time and you will have a very high Perception before you know it.

Smarts: The third “Talking” ability, this is how Shawn reveals his inner nerd. These speech options nearly always reveal a perceptive analysis or deeper meaning to the response, which (to my nerdy tastes) makes it the most fun to use. In addition this gives you an Advantage on Herr Gerhard’s tests... or so the manual says. The questions seem about the same regardless of how high your Smarts score is, so I’m open to debate on the benefits this brings.

• Training Smarts is whenever you use a Smart-y dialogue response or whenever you read a book... ANY book. Reading about combat will raise Combat and Smarts. Reading about Lockpicking will raise Locking Picking and Smarts. Reading about Magic will raise Magic and Smarts... etc. Even if you read daily, you may not max out this Ability, but just like the other Talking abilities, it doesn’t take much to unlock nearly all the speech options.

Magic: Ah, Magic. The most useful tool in Shawn’s toolbox, but also the most useless Ability of all the Traits. Shawn will always start with 5 in Magic, meaning he can use any Rune he finds or makes in the game. If he takes the Magic Elective at least once, he also can learn how to Sense Magic, a semi-useful option that will give some more info beyond what your normal investigations will turn up.

• That is also the way to level up Magic - Sense Magic, over and over and over again. However, this doesn’t ever make Sense Magic more descriptive. It never makes your Runes more damage-dealing. It never makes any Spell you unleash more effective. You could skip the Magic Elective entirely, buy (or find) the runes elsewhere and be 100% equally as effective as a Shawn who took Magic as an elective twice and maxed out their Sense Magic skill. So... raising Magic is a cinch. The value of raising Magic is a mystery.

Skills

Climbing: No clever names here... Climbing helps you Climb. Especially useful once you get the Rope + Grapnel, this is a skill that gets you around... but isn’t one that is likely to need raising.

• Raising Climbing isn’t an easy one to Raise by Doing, simply because there aren’t many places to climb in the game (a few notable exceptions). In addition, the few places that do use Climbing (such as in the Sea Caves) I have yet to been unable to Climb up by the time I reach them. Level up your Agility by Tightrope Walking and this will always be high enough to cross any Climbing hurdle you come across. If you have maxed out Agility and need to raise Climbing, use the rope in the Training Room - it gives a boost of +4 each time you train.

Combat: The ability to hit your enemies! This applies in either melee and, to a lesser extent, Throwing. Hitting with every swipe is a great skill to have - not much to explain here.

• Raising combat involves being in combat and hitting things, shockingly enough! Higher Fitness makes this even more effective, as your more accurate melee attacks are coupled with higher damage. Don’t use the training dolls for this - you can get more Combat skill raises in ten minutes of slashing through Drats than you would an hour of Combat Training. Also, the books in the library can raise combat, but these often don’t give raises any better than spending time with the training dolls.

Defense: Being an evasive master of dodging, Shawn benefits massively from high Defense. When an enemy Misses or Glancing Blows you, it can turn the fate of an entire battle, so reaping the benefits here are self-apparent.

• Raising Defense is best done just like Combat - getting into the thick of things. High Fitness helps, as the times when the monsters attack and DON’T miss, it helps to not drop dead immediately. This is a great incentive to fight Drats long after you have surpassed them in difficulty - having a creature do next to no damage to you and who you can easily dodge only makes Defense go up more quickly.

Tool Use: First gained by reading the Beginner’s Guide to Lockpicking (read for free in the Library that also provides your first pair of lockpicks for free), this unlocks (pun intended) the ability to open locked doors + chests. The uses of this skill in a game titled “Rogue to Redemption” cannot be overstated - massive sections of the game depend on your ability to overcome locks.

• The Lockpicking training room offers the best way to train locks, but by staying AWAY from the Lockers and focusing, instead, on the locks on the table, which only take five minutes to pick, allowing you to squeeze in around 12 picks in an hour (as opposed to other locks, like the classroom door, which take 10 minutes to pick and allow 6 picks in an hour). KEEP IN MIND: starting out, once Shawn can successfully pick the locks, these gains halt. BUT, after Day 3 or 4, the gains return and never go away, even if Shawn is able to pick them. Keep in mind you can never raise a skill more than +5 in a single day by practicing/doing (although you CAN through a combination of practicing and Training through, say, reading a book).

Stealth: Learned in class the third day of Hero-U, this skill let’s you avoid the foulest monsters that plague Hero-U (and other creatures that aren’t Terk). One of the interesting things is that even with relatively mediocre Stealth, you will be like Harry Potter with the cloak of invisibility on - anything that’s not direct contact will likely keep you undetected.

• Sneaking is really only raised by doing. Just keep sneaking, walking up and down the dormitory hall, and you will have the skill raised before you know it. You cannot raise higher than 4 or 5 in a single day, so keep track so you don't waste any time.

Throwing: So... Throwing. A skill that, one might think, would be the cornerstone of Rogue combat. Throwing knives and other weapons at a safe range, exploiting both distance and Stealth should be the foundation of the Rogue’s fighting... right? RIGHT?

• Well, the upside is that Throwing is easy to raise (and even max out) by doing just that - stocking up on Throwing Daggers and tossing them in every fight you encounter. The problem is that Throwing Daggers do 4-5 damage per dagger. Fine Throwing Dagger do roughly 5-6. Adding in the Spark Rune and this goes up to 7-8. Starting out, this seems great - you can drop some Drats with the right space. But at higher levels, this becomes ludicrous - a monster with 50 HP means you will spend over 8 turns running as far as you can tossing knives over your shoulder (if you can even make 8 rounds - many monsters run faster than Shawn, so you will be in melee before you throw 8 daggers). Contrast that with the 15-20 you will do with melee damage at even modest levels of Fitness and you’ll quickly see that Throwing is rarely worth the time needed to sink into it. In addition, some of the bosses and later level monsters are completely immune to throwing damage, some taking 1 or even 0 damage from them. To fight these creatures, Throwing will simply not be an option.

Gaming: This may seem like a throwaway, just-for-fun skill. However, it can be one of the most guaranteed ways of earning money in Hero-U via Poobah or side bets that Sosi wagers against you when you challenge him one-on-one. In addition, there are quests that can be solved entirely through your Gaming skill, making it very useful even with unlimited funds.

• Training the Gaming skill is fairly straightforward - when you practice or play games in the Rec Room, you can raise your Gaming skill. Training some of the trickier Abilities, like Agility or Luck, are often done through games, which by proxy raises your Gaming, so they can be an effective “two birds with one stone.” Also, you can read two books on Poobah which will give a sizable one-time boost to your Gaming skill, one found on the coffee table in the Rec Room, the other found in the library under the Gaming section (2nd floor, left side). If you can get your Gaming up to 75, you will have a huge advantage in your weekly Poobah game and also be able to handle any of the quests that revolve around Gaming (such as trying to beat a, uh... BULL-HEADED opponent).

Perfect Training Regimen

In order to spend your day the most wisely, you should minimize the amount of time you need to Train, while maximizing the Tasks you do that will improve your skills (while, of course, balancing a busy social/adventuring life). No one said attending school was going to be easy!

Based on my suggestions above, there are a few skills or abilities that can only raised effectively by Training, so those should be the ones you Train (and no others). Structure your day around doing these Trainings every day, then working in ways to do Tasks, Electives and Scheduled Events (terms from my Time Management Guide) in the most effective way possible.

Daily Practice Room Training:

• Tightrope Walking (Agility/Climbing)
  
• Weight Lifting (Fitness)

Daily Reading Training:

• Risk Taking (Moxie) or Making Friends (Charm)
  
• Conversely, if there is a more appropriate book to read as, say, part of our school assignment, read that book instead, such as the Lockpicking books, the Climbing books or books on how to play Poobah.

Daily Rec Room Practice:

• Practice Card Theory the one time a day the game allows. Then play Billiards before dinner one to three times, if possible (or after curfew, if you can pick the lock of the Rec Room door)
  
• Challenge your classmates to games (at only 30 minutes each, this can be quite time effective). Cards or Billiards are good, Darts is just okay, since Throwing is a mostly sub-par skill that can be raised via combat more optimally.

Daily Tasks:

• Listen To Doors outside the Faculty Room and the Paladin/Darla room.
  
• Pick Locks on the table of the Lockpick Practice Room any time before midnight.
  
• Give Charming, Witty and/or Sarcastic responses whenever available
  
• Dive into the Cellar (or other dangerous dungeon) if you can - this not only earns you Lyra and finds loot, but will advance your Combat, Throwing, Defense and Lucky traits

Wrap Up

One last comment... be flexible! You may not raise every Skill or Ability to 100, or even raise certain ones like Luck even half that high - don’t sweat it! Enjoy the game, take time to explore and dive right into the heart of danger, Training optimization to the side. This guide should serve as a reference in how to advance Shawn’s skills when you are in doubt or when you have a chunk of time you don’t know what to do with, so don’t take it as a strict diet of what’s needed to succeed in the game. Have fun and be a Hero!

[Robineus]

Man I was replaying this and this is just what I was looking for, thanks for writing it, if I may there are 2 possible inconsistencies, tool use can be trained most effectively by attempting to pick the lock on the infirmary, you don't have to leave the dialogue screen it costs no time only patience if you pick it 20 times you can get +5 a day for no time use up to 40, 40-45 you can use the entrance to the sea caves, a good way to get ahead on the tool use.

Also sense magic does provide more info depending on your skill level at very low for instance the statue of Erana in the hall just outside the hall of heroes will tell you that it's magical but not much more when you're better it will inform you of the peace spell upon it.

Still it's nice to know exactly what all those things do though if you could add a description for whether perception effects anything else other than search then that would be great.

[yevhenia]

Another hint for raising Luck - I took the First Aid elective which allowed me to pick mushrooms. After serching under bushes in the school yard I always got +1 Luck. So after my elective finished I would go there and search for mushrooms and then Study card theory in Rec room before dinner

[Xander77]

I think dumbbells and kettlebells are essentially the same. You might be thinking about barbell's, which do require a specific Fitness score to use.

[Fast Jimmy]

I can definitely attest that your Charm doesn't go down without frequent bathroom visits... I would need to test how long the Charm boost lasts or if it does offer some incremental premanent boosts, but I was dead sure it was just temporary.

[HalloweenSax]

Oh, I thought it permanently raises it, since my Charm has been steadily raising despite only picking the Smart option (rarely Polite/Charm) in conversations, so I assumed it was due to that. I'll have to test it out, it seems strange that it would be only temporary increases - is it possible that the decrease is smaller than the increase perhaps, so your Charm does go up a bit when using it? Otherwise I have no idea what raised my Charm from around 20 to 48 in the first three weeks.

Originally I thought that your Charm goes down if you don't use the bathroom, so using it is a way to prevent Charm decreases and improve the stat.

[Fast Jimmy]

@halloweensax - this actually doesn't Train Charm, it only temporarily increases it for a few hours. But good call out!

[HalloweenSax]

You can also train Charm by going to the Gentlemen's bathroom and using Freshen Up and Clean Your Act - I think it's a great option if you want to go to sleep before midnight and can fit it in, or have a few minutes remaining before a scheduled event (or the elective if you go before 5).

[Hybrid]

Thanks for writing this guide. Very informative.

I'd like to note there is an important skill check for Throwing the grapnel in the Sea Caves. If you haven't trained it very much at all, Shawn will just keep missing the throw. It's probably wise to practice darts to about 40 Throwing skill or so before Day 20, since darts only takes a half-hour and improves gaming as well.