Vials, Tomes and Accolades: Who gets what?

How to distribute in-game items among your characters for best results (in my opinion).

Tomes (Manuals) Part 1

POTENTIAL TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 1 (On the map)
What it does: Grant a character the potential skill, which increases exp gain by 50% and overrides any prevailing exp growth handicaps the character may have (such as special classes).
Ideal for characters that: you intend to use frequently, become very powerful at higher levels, are special classes (40% exp gain penalty) will stay with you to the end of the game.
Recommended recipients: Zayid(*), Sheela(*), Drake (*), Karajan, Slayne

Since this is a linear game with a fixed no. of chapters (26), the value of this tome diminishes the longer you wait to use it, so I really recommend giving it to a character latest by chapter 4, and preferably earlier. Also note that this skill can be accessed via any of the 3 tradeable accolades you can earn, from chapter 17 onwards. There are two schools of thought when deciding who to give this tome to. The first is to give it to a character that has trouble leveling either due to his/her role, or isn't frequently available for deployment. The second is to give this to a strong character to help him/her get to max level as quick as possible. As I prefer the latter approach, I'd normally give this tome to Zayid, Sheela or Drake, who should also obtain the Art of War manual in chapter 3 for the best leveling combo (fast level + better chances for good stats). Slayne is also a decent choice if you intend to keep him to the end of the game, since getting him to max strength as early as possible will make subsequent chapters a lot easier.


LURK TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 4 (House at the upper right)
What it does: Grants a character the Lurk skill, which increases the evasion benefits of terrain by 50%
Ideal for characters that are: prone to being attacked, able to access mountains/water, and have good mobility
Recommended recipients: Sujata(*), Castore/Polluck

The benefits of this skill look better on paper than in reality. Its rare that you will consciously park a character on evasive terrain and engage in prolonged combat, and even when you do, the 50% bonus doesn't make a huge difference. So no need to think too hard when deciding who to give this tome to. Personally, I'd usually just give this to Sujata to make her even harder to hit, or one of the sailors, since water gives +25 evasion by default. Note that flying units do not benefit from any terrain bonuses.


TOUGH LOVE AND YOU
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (Examine the scarecrow)
What it does: Grants a character the taskmaster skill, which allows them to refresh the actions of an adjacent ally; this is the same skill possessed by Roleck and Phoros.
Ideal for characters that are: not usually performing an attack/heal each turn, sturdy enough to be at or near the frontline, have good mobility, and whom you will always deploy if available.
Recommended recepients: Sujata(*), Drake, Lilia

After multiple playthroughs, I'm of the view that this skill is tailormade for Sujata, as she ticks off all the boxes above. Making her a taskmaster doesn't interfere with her primary role as a blocker or counter-attacker (with her 2nd PW) in any way, and in fact enhances her utility and exp gain even further. If you somehow prefer giving this tome to someone else, my only other recommendation is Drake. He'll be reduced to a counter-attacker for many turns, but its not too bad since he gets critical reprisal when equipped with his PW. Please don't waste this skill on Zade; he should be at the frontline chopping things up every turn.


WRATH TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (Capture a pirate enemy)
What it does: Gives a character's counterattacks a 25% chance of causing a critical hit.
Ideal for characters that are: frequently getting attacked, reasonably accurate, have ranged attacks, sub-par crit rates and are durable (you can't counterattack if you're dead)
Recommended Recipients: Abrahm(*), Penneloupe(*), Zade, Bertoullia, Claude, Lucion

This tome can greatly enhance a character's offensive capabilities during the enemy's turn...if he/she can survive the initial assault. Aggro magnets like Abrahm and Penneloupe are ideal candidates for this reason. In the case of Penneloupe, having this skill activate while she's equipped with her PW will usually mean a full healthbar refill. Zade and Bertoullia are also decent choices if you want some overkill. Otherwise, they usually do enough fatal damage without the skill. Its mostly pointless to give this tome to a character who will usually/always attack first, or has the critical reprisal skill. Zayid has this skill by default.


HAGGLING FOR FOOLS
Obtained in: Chapter 7x (Capture an enemy)
What it does: Teaches a character the haggler skill, which grants a 25% discount when buying from merchants.
Ideal for characters that are: available for deployment in maps with shops, not part of an attacking force, usually behind the front line, and have good mobility.
Recommended recipients: Ouron (*), Slayne

Not sure if its just the way I play, but I don't find this tome that beneficial since your main logistics character (Jonathan) already has this skill, and is force-deployed in both 'resupply' chapters (14 and 20). Not all maps from chapter 8 onwards have shops either. I'd usually just give it to Ouron, since he's too weak for frontline combat, is force-deployed near an exotic weapons shop in chapter 18 (Roswell/Borte's town), and is speedy enough to do emergency delivery work, especially in chapter 20. Don't bother giving this to Bertoullia since she's banned from entering shops.

Tomes (Manuals) Part 2

DISPEL EFFECTS TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 18 (On the map)
What it does: Makes the character immune to effects that have modifiers against the character's class e.g. arrows vs. flying units.
Ideal for characters that are: flying units, mounted (horse-riding), likely to get attacked, and have sub-par defenses
Recommended recipients: Bertoullia(*), Alexander, Hestion, Aslanne, Amlute

Comments: While every class in this game is vulnerable to specific weapons, your aerial and mounted characters face more dangers as they typically have less armor or poorer evasion compared to heavy knights or light infantry. Despite her high defense, Bertoullia is still vulnerable to multi-hitting archers, and if you plan to send her on alot of solo missions / use her as a battering ram, she will benefit greatly from this skill. Otherwise, any of the other characters above will benefit as well, if you use him/her frequently. Orphelia and Laffine already possess this skill, and Zade can learn it from Vaughes at Chapter 18 if you spare him in Chapter 10.


CRITICAL EDGE TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (Enemy drop)
What it does: Grants a character the Critical Edge skill, which increases his/her critical hit chance by a % equal to his/her dexterity.
Ideal for characters that are: high in the dexterity stat (duh), damage dealers only
Recommended recipients: Zade (*), Aslanne, Abrahm, Orphelia, Alexander, Laffine, Amlute, Ouron

Your choices for this Tome are limited because most of your physical damage dealers with high dexterity including the mediocre Baymonk already have the critical edge skill. A safe (and boring) choice would be Zade, if you're in the mood for some overkill. If not, I recommend one of the other characters in the list who has decent dexterity (at least 13) and whom you intend to use often. Ouron can be a decent choice given his innately high dexterity and growth, but I personally don't see the point in trying to make a weak damage dealer into a decent one, when you can instead turn a decent damage dealer into a stronger one. From my testing, this skill also applies to magical attacks, so you could give this to a mage with decent dexterity if you wish.


AMBUSH TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 8 (Enemy drop)
What it does: Grants a character the Ambush skill, giving him/her a (5 x Agility)% chance to attack first.
Ideal for characters that are: high in agility, defensively poor, not using weapons that already allow them to strike first, and good damage dealers
Recommended recipients: Sheela (*), Penneloupe (*), Haldyn, Amlute

This is a very useful tome as it greatly increase the survivability of its recipient, so long as it can activate frequently. As the formula suggests, this skill will always activate if a character has at least 20 agility, but don't be shy about giving to a character with slightly less (16 is my cutoff), including characters not in the above list. Personally, I prefer giving this to archers or certain light infantry because of their vulnerability and lack of first-strike weapons. Cavalry, flying units and mages can access this skill using Longspears or Chimnirs, while axe users can use hatchets. Giving this to Zade or Drake will turn them into unnecessarily overpowered grid erasers.


CRITICAL DODGE TOME (2 copies)
Obtained in: Chapter 13 (NPC in green house); Chapter 18 (Enemy pirate ship drop)
What it does: Makes a character immune to critical damage. He/she will still take normal damage however.
Ideal for characters that are: squishy, prone to taking damage, low HP or have crap luck.
Recommended recipients: Amlute (*), Penneloupe(*), Sheela, Zayid, Fauve, Accorte

I wouldn't recommend giving this to squishy characters that already have other reliable ways of avoiding or mitigating damage (e.g. characters with skills/weapons that give ambush, first blood, life drain, 50% DR). Amlute is an ideal recipient of one tome because he checks off all the above boxes, particularly his horrible luck. As for the second tome, I'll usually give it to one of the 3 villagers (Sheela, Zayid, Penneloupe). Accorte is also a decent choice as well if you REALLY like using her.


ACUMEN TOME
Obtained in:
What it does: Grants a character a (2 x Dexterity)% chance for his/her attacks to be unavoidable.
Ideal for characters that are: only fairly accurate (medium dexterity), using low accuracy weapons like axes.
Recommended recipients: Zayid (*), Fauve, Sujata

Acumen is a skill thats difficult to make sense of, because it relies on a character's accuracy stat (dexterity) to improve... his/her accuracy. And you can't get any more accurate than 100%. Its like being rewarded free food equal to the amount that is already in your gut. Sharpshooters don't need it, and inaccurate characters won't benefit much from it. Because of this, I tend to give this item to one of my axe users with average dexterity (at least 13), to get some noticeable mileage. Most other weapons types in the game (including spells) already have decent accuracy ratings and are used by characters with acceptable dexterity. I've never tried this tome on a spellcaster, but I assume it works for them too.


BLIGHTED TOME
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (enemy drop); will be permanently bounded to the character landing the killing blow.
What it does: Grants a character the Imbecile skill, causing all allies in a 5-square radius to lose 10 accuracy and evasion, 1 attack, defense and resistance.
Ideal for character that are: designated to die, will be mostly unused/unavailable for the rest of the game, have mitigating buffs.
Recommended recipients: Roleck (*)

I believe this tome was put into the game as a trade-off for earning the powerful Capheinic totem, which is nevertheless still worth obtaining. The tome cannot be transferred to the stockpile nor to another character, and there's no way (as far as I know) to nullify its horrible debuff. Unless you have another character you are planning to kill off later, or bench indefinitely, Roleck is the only ideal recipient, since he'll be gone after chapter 14, and will only return in chapter 25 if you choose to send Bennette home. His Frontier Imperator buff will also help mitigate some of the skill's negative effects. Giving this to Accorte is risky even if you intend to kill her before chapter 20 (to keep Slayne), because you are forced to use her in the next chapter on a map with very little space. Having this debuff affect your entire team will usually result in a few of them getting killed.

Vials & Flasks

LIQUID MOBILITY
Obtained in: Chapter 7x (NPC house)
What it gives: +1 mobility
Recommended recipients: Bertoullia (*)

Increased mobility benefits EVERY character, so the question is more of which character(s) benefits the most. And to me, its flying characters with the hit-n-run skill, since you can fully enjoy the extra mobility without being affected by terrain. Based on this criteria, I can only recommend Bertoullia because having her base 7-square mobility increased to 8 coupled with hit-n-run and ranged attack will turn her into a rapid response death machine.


LIQUID MAGIC (2 vials)
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (Examine pink flower); Chapter 16 (NPC in Northeast red house)
What it gives: +2 magic power
Recommended recipients: Bertoullia (*), Laffine (*), Aslanne, Orphelia, Karajan

Bertoullia should be given at least one vial, unless she is lucky enough to be at/near the magic power cap. I'm quite sure that the cap is not 30, despite what the wiki says, and more like 16 or 18. With her multistrike skill, the effect of every additional magic point is doubled. Apart from her, magic weapon users would benefit most from this vial, and I'd usually give it to one of the 3 girls mentioned above, depending on their magic power growth & deployment frequency. While giving this to a mage unit may seem like the obvious choice, I don't think they need the damage boost because they already do good damage when sufficiently leveled, and when equipped with the right spells. Still, if you really want to, I'd recommend giving it to Karajan, to improve both his healing and damaging spells. With his life-draining PW, more damage = more self-healing.


LIQUID FORTUNE
Obtained in: Chapter 10 (Enemy barracks)
What it give: +3 luck
Recommended recipients: Anyone you like.

Controversial opinion perhaps, but +3 luck is too insignificant to make a noticeable difference in gameplay, since luck by itself is a mediocre stat that only reduces a character's chance of receiving critical damage (which can only happen if you get hit) and affects just one uncommon skill (benison). Instead of cracking your head to figure out who will get the most out of this item, just feed it to a character you like and will deploy often.


LIQUID STRENGTH
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (Examine skeleton)
What it gives: +2 strength
Recommended recipients: Drake (*), Zade (*), Amlute, Sujata, Slayne,

While every physical attacker benefits from increased strength, some characters are more reliant on the stat to function effectively, especially if you frequently have to use them. For this reason, I'd prioritize giving this to Drake or Zade, if their strength growth is lagging. Drake absolutely needs to be at or be near his strength cap (15) by the 2nd half of the game to remain top tier, while a noodle-armed Zade will quickly wear out his Edelstern. If both characters are strong enough, you could consider giving it to Amlute, whose strength growth isn't too great. Sujata and Slayne are interesting choices, if you intend to have Sujata attack frequently and intend to keep Slayne to the end of the game respectively.


LIQUID AGILITY (2 vials)
Obtained in: Chapter 14 (Capture a pirate enemy); Chapter 18 (Enemy pirate ship drop)
What it gives: +2 agility
Recommended recipients: Hestion (*), a character with multichance and ambush (*)

Agility, like mobility and defense, is a universally helpful stat that also affects two very important damage-dealing skills - multichance & ambush. Because of this, I'd prioritize boosting characters who have either or better yet both of these skills. Suitable recipients include Hestion (innate multichance & ambush via Longspear) or a character with multichance who was also given the ambush tome. As mentioned earlier, ambush is guaranteed to activate if a character's agility reaches 20, and any amount above that in the context of this skill is wasted.


LIQUID VITALITY
What it gives: +3 HP
Obtained in: Chapter 4 (Examine the mushroom)
Recommended recipients: Zade (*), Karajan (*), Aslanne, Lilia, Ezrel

Unlike most other stat boosting items or tomes that should be used as soon as possible, I'd normally keep the Liquid Vitality vial until around Chapter 8-9, when I have a clearer sense of which of my regular characters need a HP boost due to unluckly RNG. Zade, being the main hero, should always get first dibs if his HP isn't at least 38 by Level 15. Otherwise, I'd give this to a flying unit like Aslanne or squishy spellcaster like Karajan (who has no evasion skills nor 50% DR from Sphirian spellbooks) or Lilia (low HP cap and no evasion skills). Ezrel could also be a decent choice if his HP growth is REALLY bad, but the little runt usually gets enough protection via his skills (high evasion, bloody sustenance, aegis and lurk), and 50% DR from his holy spellbooks.


LIQUID DEFENSE
Obtained in: Chapter 9 (Examine sea shell)
What it gives: +2 defense
Recommended recipients: Karajan (*), Zade (*), Zayid, Sheela, Penneloupe

+2 defense is roughly equivalent to the benefit received from most bond buffs, so it does make a noticeable difference. Zade should be given this if his defense isn't at least 14 (before any buffs) by level 15, since he'll be fighting most of the game's bosses and heavy hitters. Otherwise, I'd recommend giving this item to the same character whom you gave the liquid vitality or critical dodge tome to.

Accolades

CORDEAN ACCOLADE
Obtained in: Rewarded at the end of chapter 20, if all villagers in Alexander's village survive.
What it gives: Weaponguard skill, Stat growth boost
Recommended recipients: Drake (*), Sujata (*)

Without a doubt the best of the 3 accolades, because of the awesome weaponguard skill. Whats better than an overpowered PW? One that has unlimited durability, and three characters' PWs stand out - Drake's, Sujata's and Karajan's. I always give this to Drake (who is also force deployed in chapter 21) since with weaponguard, he can go ham using his TWO PWs and effectively turn into the game's best character. But feel free to trade it around during a chapter especially if a character is going to clean out lots of enemies solo. Though it can only be equipped in 2 chapters max (21, and then 24 or 25), there's a cheesy way to make this item available for use in both chapters 24 and 25. Just pass this to Zade before he heads up the stairs into Athol's chambers, and it'll be transferred to the stockpile and can be accessed by the other characters in chapter 25.


ROSEN ACCOLADE
Obtained in: Rewarded DURING chapter 17, if you liberated the village without killing any conscripted villagers.
What it gives: Potential skill, Stat growth boost
Recommended recipients: A character who is strong at higher levels but is lagging behind in level/stat growth. NOT a character already at max level, or has the Art of War item.

The stat boosting buff from this item is the same as the effect gained from the Art of War item obtained in chapter 3, except that the accolade can be traded, and also comes with the potential skill for great synergy. And as far as I can tell, the stat boosting benefits do not stack with the Art of War. I can't really recommend a specific character to give this to since it depends a lot on the characters you use, and how the RNG has treated them. Giving this to Haldyn is risky because its actually harder for a strong (high strength) Haldyn to recruit Ravinia, thanks to bad game design. Speaking of Ravinia, if you do manage to recruit her and want to level her up, you should give her this or the People's Accolade in chapter 21.


PEOPLE'S ACCOLADE
Obtained in: Rewarded at the end of chapter 20, if all 6 NPCs inside the city survive. Evacuating them with Accorte is not strictly required.
What it gives: Potential skill, Stat growth boost
Recommended recipients: See Rosen Accolade
This item and its usage principles are the same as the Rosen Accolade, but can only be earned after chapter 20.

[Orca]

For stuff that is bad (or even just ok), why not even mention selling them? They're worth a good amount of gold that's far more valuable than like, Lurk or +3 luck.

I don't understand singling out Taskmaster Zade as a bad choice. It's a quite obviously powerful combination with other refreshers to be able to move Zade across the map at will.

Taskmaster Lilia when she has access to Impetus staves that do the same thing doesn't make sense.

Iirc you can use the Cordean Accolade in both 21 and 22 if you send it to the stockpile by trading it to Theo or Emilia before the end of the map. Been a while though so hope that's right lol (probably have to edit my guide at some point again).

Should just delete the stuff about Bertoullia's caps, it's unnecessary.

Would add a C16 unit to Haggler, Zade & Drake to Mobility, Bertoullia to Agility, Ezrel & Phoeve to Cordean, & not sure what the aversion to "unnecessarily overpowered grid erasers" is with Ambush since that sounds way more helpful.

[RejectedByAnthonyDavis]

Appreciate the kind words and suggestions.

Regarding Haldyn and recruiting Ravinia. I'm aware that Ashram can help make the recruitment process slightly easier but Asham shouldn't be required if Haldyn was not over-leveled. I'll remove the term 'even possible' for clarity.

On a side note, I prefer fielding Ashram in chapter 19 instead of 20.

[star_lightmeteor]

I really missed out on alot of items during my first playthrough. Thanks for the hard work.

[SilverWill]

Thank you for this guide!!

[Crunched]

> Giving this to Haldyn is risky because its actually harder or even impossible for a strong (high strength) Haldyn to recruit Ravinia, thanks to bad game design

If you attack Ravinia with Ashram's Balthas, it will give her the power of love status so Haldyn can reduce her to 1 without killing her.