My Strategy Guide to Fable - The Lost Chapters
Well, this is a guide to the PC/XBOX game Fable. It wasn't good enough for GameFAQS (due to "lack of content") so I decided to post it here!. Please don't copy it and name it your own because it is immoral and bad karma etc. (lol)
Intro:
------
This guide is not a walkthrough the quests of the game. In fact, it is intended to have zero spoilers. It is only intended to make the game more fun by suggesting general strategies to beat the game. Feel free to improvise, don't take this guide as a bible. Please note that I played the game mainly as a melee fighter so my view may be skewed in that direction.
Abbreviations:
--------------
XP experience
pts points
aug augment/augmentation(s)
str strength
Weapons Setup:
--------------------------
You will encounter many "unique" weapons in Fable. However, none of them can compete with a well-augmented commercial item. This is particularly true when in the advanced state of the game where most become available to you. Thus making it possible to have an outright perfect setup.
However, there is one exception to this rule, "Arken's Crossbow". This weapon is found in a 20-silverkey chest located near the bordello entrance. It packs 220 damage (10% more damage than a master crossbow) and includes flame, sharpening AND piercing stones. However, as you read on you will see why you probably wouldn't want to use it (Unless you choose to play mainly as a ranged attacker, in which case it is possibly the best weapon in the game!)
MELEE:
There are 2 "best" melee weapons depending on your progress in the game:
* Initially, the best "available" weapon is sitting right at the Hero's Guild shop, "Master Greatsword". I recommend leaving one augmentation slot free (you will need it later to use for a silver augmentation for a story quest).
The cost is pretty steep, 30K gold. However, as you will find later in the guide, money is not that much of an issue once you make the first few 1000 gold.
* Eventually, you will gain access to Bowerstone North (It is the area where in the beginning of the game a guard stops you whenever you try to go through the doors in Bowerstone South). This is where you can buy what I found to be the ultimate melee weapon is, "The Solus Sword". It carries whopping 314 damage, and comes with sharpening, flame and health augmentations!
This is great, because it gives you constant healing while out-matching the damage from any other weapon. This leaves mana regeneration to be desired!
RANGED:
NOTE: Crossbows generally have more damage than bows. However, the bow has the advantage of rapid fire. Thus making it my ranged weapon of choice.
Combined with the lack of a Mana stone, this rules out "Arken's Crossbow". What you need is to get a master bow, add to it a Mana stone (the first incident where you can locate one is by pursuing the "Lady Grey's Invitation" quest to the point where you get in the duel). Add to it 2 more stones of your choice and you are all set.
The exception to this (as mentioned earlier) is if you choose to be mainly a ranged attacker, in which case you should augment a Master Greatsword with the health and mana stones and possible use Arken's Crossbow as your main weapon!
Armor Setup:
-------------
NOTE: I was unable to locate ANY plate-set head piece except the ones hidden in The Lost Bay. I welcome any related info.
The ultimate armor set is the bright/dark plate suite. You can find components from the Dark set in "Darkwood Camp" weapon shop. However, the complete set is found in both Twinblade's camp shop and in Knothole Glade. The Bright set is harder to collect (you will find some components here and there). However, you can acquire both sets by checking with the random traders found in the wilderness.
If you don't care about alignment then you can acquire the highest armor rating as soon as you can afford it (total cost close to 30K) by purchasing the standard plate suite found in Bowerstone South clothing shop (near main city entrance).
Magic Use:
----------
Fable contains a relatively diverse yet simple number of magic spells. However, I personally felt that a few spells didn't need to exist due to redundancy.
Generally, magic can be categorized as follows:
1) Primary attack magic (best used for a "wizard" type player):
- Lightning: I found this to be the best "main attack" if you choose to fight primarily with magic. Higher levels cause the "bolt" to extend to additional victims (up to 4 total). It is also great to build up magic xp pts.
- Fireball: I do not see why I would use this instead of lightning!
- Enflame/divine fury/infernal wrath: area effect magic attacks
- Turncoat: cool spell, target the biggest guy in the group and engage spell until he turns "purple", he will become allied with you temporarily - beware: doesn't work on undead
- Ghost Sword: The wizard's best friend. Level 4 creates 4 ethereal swords to fight for you, allowing you to use your magical attacks on your enemies without being in danger!
- Summon: In simple terms, calls in a Wasp, if somehow it managed to kill something, the "control" transfers to the dead creature until it runs out!
2) Melee/Ranged attack support:
- Battlecharge: Basically the best way to make an entrance into a fight. at level 4 you will crash into your target, hurting anyone in the way and bumping all around him to the ground before you start hacking and slashing!
- Multi-strike/Multi-arrow: very nice if you have a small... gun (note: multi-strike affects only the single next melee attack - not multiple like multi-arrows)
- Forcepush: a lesser version of Battlecharge
- Slow-time: Prince-of-Persia style (higher-level = longer effect)
- Assassin Rush: Great concept, but lacks a long enough distance and needs the camera to switch around better to be really effective.
- Berserk: (The Incredible Hulk) your attacks become stronger, faster and knock your enemies down temporarily (note: big chunk of mana is used up when you fire up berserk)
3) Support:
- Physical Shield: For those of us who really have no use for Mana basically uses your mana bar as an additional health bar while active.
- Heal-Life: Another way of turning your Mana into Health, albeit indirectly. Caution: uses up a big chunk of Mana every time.
- Drain-Life: Typical "evil mage" type spell. Basically, it damages your enemy while healing your character.
Magic Conclusion:
Personally, I found the following spells to be best:
- Battlecharge/Berserk: for melee players
- Multi-arrow/slow-time: for ranged attackers
- Lightning/Ghost Sword: for wizard types
Experience:
-----------
Fable is not the kind of game where you can only be an expert in one or two fields alone. First of all, even if you are mainly melee, your ranged attacks will often be necessary due to certain situations. Magic is very useful both with direct offensive spells and with spells which augment your melee ability (e.g. Berserk).
Fable has an unusual XP system; you collect stat-specific XP by exercising that stat (e.g. you get Strength pts by using melee attacks). However, you also collect "general" XP pts every time you kill a foe or finish a quest. Those you can spend on upgrading ANY of the 3 stats.
You will find further below that there is no need to exercise skill (e.g. by shooting arrows). Moreover, IF you ever do, you will find that gaining skill XP pts is very easy and quick. Thus you should NEVER waste any general XP pts on skill.
Having said that, the rational way to use your XP pts is:
1. Use the techniques mentioned later under "Trading - Experience" to load up on skill XP pts. Again: NEVER use general xp pts to upgrade your skill tree!!!
2. This makes the Strength and Will trees mutually exclusive (even more so considering that each of them is very expensive from an xp pts perspective). So basically:
a) a fighter usually generates a lot of str pts. So try not to use general xp pts to upgrade your str tree.
b) Likewise, a wizard (specially using the lightning spell) cashes on lots of will pts. So keep the general ones for your str tree.
NOTE: a wizard should never upgrade his "Physique" stat; it is the most expensive stat in the whole game!!!
- Experience Potions:
Throughout the game, you will acquire xp granting potions, called "Ages of ...” (... being Might, Skill or Will). These potions are subject to your experience multiplier. Since they provide 1000 pts of experience normally, using an "Ages of Skill" (for instance) potion while your multiplier is (say) 25x will result in your gaining of 25,000 pts of skill. So make sure you do not waste them when at low (or none) xp multiplier levels.
- Trading Experience:
You may not know, but you get "skill" experience points every time your trading session proves to be profitable. Moreover, it is subject to the experience multiplier as well, so if you just came out of a fight and your multiplier is in the twenties then it is a great time to trade.
Basically, the number of skill pts you gain is based on the final net profit of your entire trading session, multiplied by your experience multiplier.
When you have a lot of money, you will be able use to this to max out your entire skill experience tree without any need for fighting. This is especially great because most items in said tree require a somewhat low number of xp pts to purchase.
Trading - Making Lots of Money:
--------------------------------
Fable has a somewhat "dumb" commerce system that can be easily exploited. The main concept is very simple: Basically, the price of an item in the trade screen is based on the dealer's stock of that particular item. Usually, if a dealer has 10 or less then he would try to make a killing on it. If they have more than 10 then usually he sells it on the cheap. This means that by using the "buy/sell maximum" button you can instantly manipulate the item price in your favor.
NOTE: Be careful from taverns, their prices are "fixed" in such a way that they are always premium. You should never attempt the following strategies there. There are some rare vendors that have that same issue, but as I said, they are very rare.
With the correct tools and "infrastructure" you can easily make infinite amounts of money.
First the "infrastructure" part, you need to:
1. Have the best possible alignment (use a bright-armor set for that)
2. Look the best (everything attractive is good)
3. Make the dealer love you (if possible) before starting to trade (an example of this is the trader in Hook Coast, he is prone to your sexual approaches)
4. Have a decent "guile" skill level (using this trick you will end up with infinite amounts of skill experience pts anyway so you can start by maxing out the guile skill to accelerate the process)
Now comes the actual process:
1. Start building up stock on items to use. I recommend gifts (specially the more expensive ones, forget roses and/or chocolates) and potions (usually you should end up with multiple hundreds of health and Will potions).
2. Find a dealer that deals in those items and make sure the tips above are already in place.
3. Sell him your entire stock of all the items in question.
(This causes his selling price to become very low)
4. Buy back the entire stock (including his own stock) which because of what we did will be really cheap for you. This causes his stock to become ZERO (thus forcing him to be "desperate" and buy the item for top dollar)
5. Sell him back the entire stock again.
6. Repeat until desired amount of money (Or skill XP pts) is achieved.
7. Leave the trading screen BEFORE buying back your items. This insures that you get the max possible skill XP pts for the session (instead of the price of the items being deducted from your profit).
8. Buy back your entire stock from the trader before you leave!
Using this strategy becomes extremely profitable eventually. An example is "Jet", I have around 70, every time I execute this process I end up buying it for around 135 and selling it for around 450 (yep, around 300 profit per unit).. Total profit of: do the math!
Yes, money is important in Fable. Unlike other games, some items are only available through trading. Some of them are very powerful items that cannot be beaten even by "unique" items you may find in the game.
Conclusion:
-----------
This marks the end of this guide. I hope it helped make this cool game a lot more fun without ruining the story! Comments/suggestions welcome!
Intro:
------
This guide is not a walkthrough the quests of the game. In fact, it is intended to have zero spoilers. It is only intended to make the game more fun by suggesting general strategies to beat the game. Feel free to improvise, don't take this guide as a bible. Please note that I played the game mainly as a melee fighter so my view may be skewed in that direction.
Abbreviations:
--------------
XP experience
pts points
aug augment/augmentation(s)
str strength
Weapons Setup:
--------------------------
You will encounter many "unique" weapons in Fable. However, none of them can compete with a well-augmented commercial item. This is particularly true when in the advanced state of the game where most become available to you. Thus making it possible to have an outright perfect setup.
However, there is one exception to this rule, "Arken's Crossbow". This weapon is found in a 20-silverkey chest located near the bordello entrance. It packs 220 damage (10% more damage than a master crossbow) and includes flame, sharpening AND piercing stones. However, as you read on you will see why you probably wouldn't want to use it (Unless you choose to play mainly as a ranged attacker, in which case it is possibly the best weapon in the game!)
MELEE:
There are 2 "best" melee weapons depending on your progress in the game:
* Initially, the best "available" weapon is sitting right at the Hero's Guild shop, "Master Greatsword". I recommend leaving one augmentation slot free (you will need it later to use for a silver augmentation for a story quest).
The cost is pretty steep, 30K gold. However, as you will find later in the guide, money is not that much of an issue once you make the first few 1000 gold.
* Eventually, you will gain access to Bowerstone North (It is the area where in the beginning of the game a guard stops you whenever you try to go through the doors in Bowerstone South). This is where you can buy what I found to be the ultimate melee weapon is, "The Solus Sword". It carries whopping 314 damage, and comes with sharpening, flame and health augmentations!
This is great, because it gives you constant healing while out-matching the damage from any other weapon. This leaves mana regeneration to be desired!
RANGED:
NOTE: Crossbows generally have more damage than bows. However, the bow has the advantage of rapid fire. Thus making it my ranged weapon of choice.
Combined with the lack of a Mana stone, this rules out "Arken's Crossbow". What you need is to get a master bow, add to it a Mana stone (the first incident where you can locate one is by pursuing the "Lady Grey's Invitation" quest to the point where you get in the duel). Add to it 2 more stones of your choice and you are all set.
The exception to this (as mentioned earlier) is if you choose to be mainly a ranged attacker, in which case you should augment a Master Greatsword with the health and mana stones and possible use Arken's Crossbow as your main weapon!
Armor Setup:
-------------
NOTE: I was unable to locate ANY plate-set head piece except the ones hidden in The Lost Bay. I welcome any related info.
The ultimate armor set is the bright/dark plate suite. You can find components from the Dark set in "Darkwood Camp" weapon shop. However, the complete set is found in both Twinblade's camp shop and in Knothole Glade. The Bright set is harder to collect (you will find some components here and there). However, you can acquire both sets by checking with the random traders found in the wilderness.
If you don't care about alignment then you can acquire the highest armor rating as soon as you can afford it (total cost close to 30K) by purchasing the standard plate suite found in Bowerstone South clothing shop (near main city entrance).
Magic Use:
----------
Fable contains a relatively diverse yet simple number of magic spells. However, I personally felt that a few spells didn't need to exist due to redundancy.
Generally, magic can be categorized as follows:
1) Primary attack magic (best used for a "wizard" type player):
- Lightning: I found this to be the best "main attack" if you choose to fight primarily with magic. Higher levels cause the "bolt" to extend to additional victims (up to 4 total). It is also great to build up magic xp pts.
- Fireball: I do not see why I would use this instead of lightning!
- Enflame/divine fury/infernal wrath: area effect magic attacks
- Turncoat: cool spell, target the biggest guy in the group and engage spell until he turns "purple", he will become allied with you temporarily - beware: doesn't work on undead
- Ghost Sword: The wizard's best friend. Level 4 creates 4 ethereal swords to fight for you, allowing you to use your magical attacks on your enemies without being in danger!
- Summon: In simple terms, calls in a Wasp, if somehow it managed to kill something, the "control" transfers to the dead creature until it runs out!
2) Melee/Ranged attack support:
- Battlecharge: Basically the best way to make an entrance into a fight. at level 4 you will crash into your target, hurting anyone in the way and bumping all around him to the ground before you start hacking and slashing!
- Multi-strike/Multi-arrow: very nice if you have a small... gun (note: multi-strike affects only the single next melee attack - not multiple like multi-arrows)
- Forcepush: a lesser version of Battlecharge
- Slow-time: Prince-of-Persia style (higher-level = longer effect)
- Assassin Rush: Great concept, but lacks a long enough distance and needs the camera to switch around better to be really effective.
- Berserk: (The Incredible Hulk) your attacks become stronger, faster and knock your enemies down temporarily (note: big chunk of mana is used up when you fire up berserk)
3) Support:
- Physical Shield: For those of us who really have no use for Mana basically uses your mana bar as an additional health bar while active.
- Heal-Life: Another way of turning your Mana into Health, albeit indirectly. Caution: uses up a big chunk of Mana every time.
- Drain-Life: Typical "evil mage" type spell. Basically, it damages your enemy while healing your character.
Magic Conclusion:
Personally, I found the following spells to be best:
- Battlecharge/Berserk: for melee players
- Multi-arrow/slow-time: for ranged attackers
- Lightning/Ghost Sword: for wizard types
Experience:
-----------
Fable is not the kind of game where you can only be an expert in one or two fields alone. First of all, even if you are mainly melee, your ranged attacks will often be necessary due to certain situations. Magic is very useful both with direct offensive spells and with spells which augment your melee ability (e.g. Berserk).
Fable has an unusual XP system; you collect stat-specific XP by exercising that stat (e.g. you get Strength pts by using melee attacks). However, you also collect "general" XP pts every time you kill a foe or finish a quest. Those you can spend on upgrading ANY of the 3 stats.
You will find further below that there is no need to exercise skill (e.g. by shooting arrows). Moreover, IF you ever do, you will find that gaining skill XP pts is very easy and quick. Thus you should NEVER waste any general XP pts on skill.
Having said that, the rational way to use your XP pts is:
1. Use the techniques mentioned later under "Trading - Experience" to load up on skill XP pts. Again: NEVER use general xp pts to upgrade your skill tree!!!
2. This makes the Strength and Will trees mutually exclusive (even more so considering that each of them is very expensive from an xp pts perspective). So basically:
a) a fighter usually generates a lot of str pts. So try not to use general xp pts to upgrade your str tree.
b) Likewise, a wizard (specially using the lightning spell) cashes on lots of will pts. So keep the general ones for your str tree.
NOTE: a wizard should never upgrade his "Physique" stat; it is the most expensive stat in the whole game!!!
- Experience Potions:
Throughout the game, you will acquire xp granting potions, called "Ages of ...” (... being Might, Skill or Will). These potions are subject to your experience multiplier. Since they provide 1000 pts of experience normally, using an "Ages of Skill" (for instance) potion while your multiplier is (say) 25x will result in your gaining of 25,000 pts of skill. So make sure you do not waste them when at low (or none) xp multiplier levels.
- Trading Experience:
You may not know, but you get "skill" experience points every time your trading session proves to be profitable. Moreover, it is subject to the experience multiplier as well, so if you just came out of a fight and your multiplier is in the twenties then it is a great time to trade.
Basically, the number of skill pts you gain is based on the final net profit of your entire trading session, multiplied by your experience multiplier.
When you have a lot of money, you will be able use to this to max out your entire skill experience tree without any need for fighting. This is especially great because most items in said tree require a somewhat low number of xp pts to purchase.
Trading - Making Lots of Money:
--------------------------------
Fable has a somewhat "dumb" commerce system that can be easily exploited. The main concept is very simple: Basically, the price of an item in the trade screen is based on the dealer's stock of that particular item. Usually, if a dealer has 10 or less then he would try to make a killing on it. If they have more than 10 then usually he sells it on the cheap. This means that by using the "buy/sell maximum" button you can instantly manipulate the item price in your favor.
NOTE: Be careful from taverns, their prices are "fixed" in such a way that they are always premium. You should never attempt the following strategies there. There are some rare vendors that have that same issue, but as I said, they are very rare.
With the correct tools and "infrastructure" you can easily make infinite amounts of money.
First the "infrastructure" part, you need to:
1. Have the best possible alignment (use a bright-armor set for that)
2. Look the best (everything attractive is good)
3. Make the dealer love you (if possible) before starting to trade (an example of this is the trader in Hook Coast, he is prone to your sexual approaches)
4. Have a decent "guile" skill level (using this trick you will end up with infinite amounts of skill experience pts anyway so you can start by maxing out the guile skill to accelerate the process)
Now comes the actual process:
1. Start building up stock on items to use. I recommend gifts (specially the more expensive ones, forget roses and/or chocolates) and potions (usually you should end up with multiple hundreds of health and Will potions).
2. Find a dealer that deals in those items and make sure the tips above are already in place.
3. Sell him your entire stock of all the items in question.
(This causes his selling price to become very low)
4. Buy back the entire stock (including his own stock) which because of what we did will be really cheap for you. This causes his stock to become ZERO (thus forcing him to be "desperate" and buy the item for top dollar)
5. Sell him back the entire stock again.
6. Repeat until desired amount of money (Or skill XP pts) is achieved.
7. Leave the trading screen BEFORE buying back your items. This insures that you get the max possible skill XP pts for the session (instead of the price of the items being deducted from your profit).
8. Buy back your entire stock from the trader before you leave!
Using this strategy becomes extremely profitable eventually. An example is "Jet", I have around 70, every time I execute this process I end up buying it for around 135 and selling it for around 450 (yep, around 300 profit per unit).. Total profit of: do the math!
Yes, money is important in Fable. Unlike other games, some items are only available through trading. Some of them are very powerful items that cannot be beaten even by "unique" items you may find in the game.
Conclusion:
-----------
This marks the end of this guide. I hope it helped make this cool game a lot more fun without ruining the story! Comments/suggestions welcome!
posted by The One at 10:27 AM
2 comments
