Charisma build S&S II (in-depth guide)

In this guide, I will show you how to build charisma focused gladiator in Sword & Sandals II.

The beginning

Start by putting all 9 points into charisma, which should result in 10 total.

What to do after fight with fearful prisoner?
1) Go to magic shop and enchant rusty knife with any tier 3 enchant (it's free and you will never buy another weapon anyway). This will result in enemies sometimes skipping their turn which is super helpful.
2) Go to armoury and get your first pieces of armour. I suggest you buy brigand greaves, shinguards and boots.
3) Go and level up in duels, every level up put 4 points into charisma.
4) Participate in your first tournament and enjoy an easy win. With the taunt damage, there is no realistic way to lose a boss fight.

Practical tips

You might have noticed that taunt is somehow unreliable source of damage. It very rarely misses, but even if it doesn't, it doesn’t necessarily result in dealing damage. It might result in pushing enemies back, taunting them to charge you, or simply damaging them. You also cannot taunt enemy who is in close range. Those are the reasons why you will need to invest heavily into magicka later in the game. Magic is limited by number of slots, but never misses and can be cast independently of proximity to the enemy.

Win the crowd is very useful ability which you will unlock early in the game. The more charisma you have, the more effective this ability is. With only few levels in, you'll be able to massively increase earned gold, and this, combined with charisma discount, will let you buy spells and armour without much trouble. Important thing is, if enemy you fight have a lot of agility and will be able to shorten the distance between you and him quickly, don't try too hard on winning the crowd, as without spells that might result in you losing the fight as you will not be able to neither taunt him nor escape him in order to taunt him.

You do not really need much armour points during early stages of the game. Enemies will die too quickly to be a threat, and they do not have spells or powerful enough ranged weapons to kill you before you kill them. Gold saved by not needing to constantly upgrade armour (and weapons) can be used to buy spells which tend to be very expensive.

Build & Tournament tips

Second tournament is also relatively easy, but I suggest you buy a Veteran chestplate before the tournament, so even if you get extremely unlucky, you will not lose boss fight. And additional armour points will come in handy anyway, as enemies will start dealing ranged damage soon enough.

You do not need many armour upgrades, so you should save the money for spells at this point, and only buy new pieces when specifically told in the guide.

Level 9
Stop at 40 charisma, put your first 2 points into magicka at this point.

Level 10
Since now, every levelup should consist of +3 magicka, +1 charisma.
So, at this point, your level 10 gladiator should have 41 charisma, 6 magicka.

Buy two gales (spells) in magic shop as soon as possible. With these spells, you will be able to use win the crowd ability more freely, because even if an enemy comes close, you'll be able to push gim back, in order to taunt him to death.

You might want to buy Retarius shoulderguard and gauntlets before attending fourth tournament.

As soon as you reach enough magicka (30), you should buy hell fireball on third inventory slot (keep gales).
As soon as you reach enough magicka for dire fireball, replace gale with dire fireball (do not replace hell fireball).

Level 18
Buy Warlord helmet and Shield (massive improvement to your armor, but necessary one to win fight with Wizard Sagan).
After you reach 51 charisma, start putting all your points into magicka, untill you reach 60 magicka.

Buy third dire fireball before seventh tournament, the boss of this tournament is quite tanky, and will use command spell, and this will render your taunt damage useless. You might want to taunt him before he uses the spell, so even if you get unlucky with spell damage, you should still be able to deal enough damage to kill him.

Level 24
Buy paladin chestplate, greaves, shinguards, boots.

Level 26
Since you just reached 60 magicka, you should no longer invest into it. Further points in magicka would be wasted as it doesn’t scale up damage or anything. Magicka is only needed to unlock spells.
You should swap hell fireball for molten death.

Level 27
Stats should be: 51 charisma, 60 magicka, 5 stamina.
Buy paladin shoulderguard,gauntlets,helme,shield.

Level 28
Keep on investing all your points in charisma. 5 stamina is enough and you do not really need other stats at this point. Might want to invest into vitality later in the game, but not yet.

Level 30+
Buy additional molten death. (Empty slot)
Swap one dire fireball for molten death.
Swap last dire fireball for molten death as soon as possible.
As soon as you get fifth molten death, you can just outright buy new armor pieces as soon as they become available. You will not need money for anything else, besides sixth molten death later on.

Level 45+
You might want to start putting some points into vitality which might come in handy, but not necessarily.

Fight with the Emperor:
Surprisingly easy fight, mostly due to the stupidity of the AI. He will lose time buffing himself, jumping around and giving you just enough time to kill him. You should try to deal some damage before casting spells, as they might not be enough to kill him, since escaping him after he commands you might be impossible.