Aidyn Speedrun Notes

Hi I'm Gandair. These are my notes which I use when speedrunning Aidyn Chronicles: The First Mage on the Nintendo 64. You may notice the formatting is only so-so at the moment. That is because I dumped these notes in a bit of a rush before a stream. I added a few things to the general guidelines. Honestly I keep forgetting to open this and edit it. Sorry! Remind me if you see me around somewhere. (Edited on Jun 15 2018)

A NEW ROUTE IS BEING WORKED ON but because I don't know it too well yet my original notes stand for now

you can find my stream at www.twitch.tv/vato_gandair and videos at youtube.com/gandair

General gameplay guidelines:
-I refer to Alaron by name, as MC, Boot, or Joker sometimes in these notes
-I define the phases of the game as follows, very early game is until poisoners, early game is until reaching ogres, mid game is until Shamsuk is killed, late game is until Lugash is killed, very late game is everything after Lugash
-A "roll call" is when you use all available characters to attack, this can be to try and damage an enemy down before it is able to finish killing a character or also so that enemy may put damage on a different character which may prevent a lower hit point character from dying
-at times it is faster and more effective to skip your turns and let enemies move to you by skipping their movement animation with an "A" button press than it is to move your character toward the enemy due to animation time. This works best in the very early game when Alaron is alone or when fighting high movement speed enemies.
-don't move characters that won't be doing anything, in the early game this is often everyone except Abrecan and Brenna, in some late game fights this is everyone except Rheda, it will vary so remember moving a character expends time and so does attacking with a character who is unlikely to hit for meaningful enough damage, as an example Rheda might hit for 11, but Abrecan can throw 22 and if the enemy has 22hp or less in such a situation it's better to use use one Abrecan animation instead of a pointless Rheda animation followed by an Abrecan animation
-attacking from behind increases hit chance
-use the camp function to manipulate the time of day, characters are most successful during the day due to solar aspect
-sometimes the sneak skill will allow you to pass an enemy but other times that same enemy will see you, I theorize that it works on a D&D styled "check" system where the sneak "roll" is made hidden
-saving and then loading a game will reset the position and "aggro" status of an enemy that is moving toward you which late game is used to assist in skipping encounters on the beach and getting more total run time vs sneak time
-Brenna can be one-shot by numerous things early game and even some things in the mid game like trolls and plague zombie, do not tempt fate
-wraiths in the mid game can randomly stat-kill characters with 12 or less in a stat with an unlucky wraith touch cast
-you can only spend xp immediately following a battle in the post-battle level up menu
-to affect 4 targets with a single cast of a spell you must be effectively wizard level 7 or higher
-whenever convenient/safe/possible use Alaron's troubador (sometimes called bard, sing, or perform) skill because there is a chance it will level up by using it and that helps Pandara RNG later on as well as it affects enemy morale throughout the game which is important for causing enemies to flee
-when Rheda attacks she takes a step back after doing so if equipped with a staff animation or sword animation weapon, if you place her at the very edge of her attack range she will often step back and not get locked into combat with an enemy, this can be used throughout the game to safely attack some enemies
-certain enemy combat encounters (varies by map layout) make them predisposed to go after Brenna or Alaraon, in such cases move the appropriate character toward the party as to not draw enemies further away from Abrecan or Rheda, this is more important in the early game than any other time
-enemy AI follows a few hard rules, they will always cast certain spells in a certain order and ranged enemies can be manipulated in a way that keeps them from attacking by getting into range, forcing a weapon switch to melee, then moving away and forcing a weapon switch to ranged, then repeating, generally an enemy will cast defensive spells first, offensive debuffs second, entrapment magic third and damage spells fourth, casters seem to only use melee attacks when completely out of stamina and endurance to cast spells but bizarre targeting LoS (line of sight/vision) issues can sometimes cause them to break from this AI pattern
-on the subject of LoS it is most commonly noticed during the ogre grind but other occasions may occur when a character will attempt to cast a spell and be unable to affect an enemy despite it being in the spells range, moving the character so that it can "see" the target fixes this, enemy models in a narrow seemingly centralized column to their model will block LoS, this means there may be situations where you are surrounded by enemies or surrounding enemies and spell behavior will change possible causing changes in enemy AI behavior when they know there are valid targets for a spell in their AI sequence but cannot "see" them to target them so they may make a melee attack off the script instead.
-the game does crash randomly with seemingly no provocation, so far this has been proven rare on the speedrun route but I personally know multiple different ways to force the game to crash and have experienced other totally unexpected ones, there may be others out there who know of even more crashes
-known crashes, if you equip two of the same ring and then equip another ring to replace one of them without manually unequipping one of the existing rings will case a crash, if too many spell effects are active at the same time and another one is cast the game will crash, and if you walk off the bridge on chaos isle on the wrong side (I forget which sorry) it causes a "falling through the world" style crash, if during combat you use a strength increasing effect and then equip a weapon which you normally would not be strong enough to equip and leave that weapon equipped after battle then open the menu or attempt to save the game will crash
-other observed crashes, once while running from port saiid to the jundar gate the game randomly crashed, once immediately upon entering talewok and once when exiting kitarak's tent a "falling through the world" crash happened, and another time the game crashed when I camped on the port saiid bridge. I have not seen duplicate crashes to those but I also have not attempted to recreate them.

1st Split: Chaos Sword
-chest is optional, run and stay to the right, kendall's hat optional, lose to the goblins
don't buy anything from orianna, follow her lights, stay to the right of the light balls until sharp turn, take it wide and don't pan -the camera too far left, there is a bat encounter and a dialogue that can be skipped here but I'm not too sure on the exact path
-continue out of forest, stay to the right, pass the bridge, sneak past the rat, go straight across the farms, pass left side of house, sneak past other rat encounter, go into gwernia castle
-recruit rheda, recruit abrecan, go into courtyard and up the red stairs then through the door, go down into the labratory and then down to activate the portal, go back up and exit the castle, recruit brenna
-MENU unequip everything except weapons from rheda, MC, and brenna, for abrecan remove iden scale and equip hat if you looted it
-exit town and fight wolves, turn around and return to town, go up to orange shop on the hill
-SHOP sell anything that is NOT equipped, healing potions, spices, herbs, or gemstones, buy 3x buckler and 4x cloth armor
-TRAIN rheda alchemy 1, shield 1 and brenna warrior 1
-MENU equip bucklers and cloth armors to everyone
-exit town and go up the ramp by the left sand to the chaos sword, save before chest in case it explodes, brenna must be at high health and preferably during daytime for better success chance
-after looting sword activate chaos major dialogue then end split

2nd Split: Txomin
-save and camp if needed to manipulate time of day, fight rats on bridge and run down that direction, fight every rat, wolf, and boar you find along the running path, go down ramp and left, loot chest at dirt piles for gold and healing potions, follow road past intersection
-after intersection look right until you find gap and see minotaur, camp/heal/daytime and save before minotaur encounter, do this for both minotaur encounters, consider using the kite shield for the minotaurs, bandit boss, and goblin poisoner encounters
-during the minotaur encounters get troubador/bard/sing/perform skill up with alaraon, use abrecan mostly during these fights and keep the girls safe, rheda can take a hit but two can kill her and she can do ok damage to minotaurs, she can do this damage safely if you carefully use her attack range to it's maximum, brenna should only be used for finishing minotaur if needed as she can take only one hit and only sometimes
-from the first minotaur you turn left and walk for a bit then turn right and walk along the wall to the second minotaur, after that minotaur encounter turn around and go back to the intersection nearby and fight the wolf, then do the bandit boss encounter
-bandit boss encounter is dangerous, you want to kill the two human bandits as soon as possible, bandits will easily kill anyone with enough swings and they can one shot brenna from behind, you want to kill the two melee ones and then kill the two ranged ones, then handle the wolves and the bandit boss is last, ideally you want the bandit boss and wolves to flee, you can manipulate the bandit boss' AI to kill it much more safely, when the bandit boss switches weapons to the broadsword and shield immediately move away, only attack when he is holding the bow and leave melee range when it has the broadsword
-after this proceed down the road to erromon (there's a sign you can click near the intersection if you get lost) back in the direction of the second minotaur encounter, follow the road, stay to the left to avoid a bandit encounter at the top of the hill, kill the bats then head right to a path off the road through the trees where the poisoner goblins are
-poisoner goblins are the last annoying fight of the early game, their AI is weird in a way I can't quite describe, they will walk in weird directions during combat to throw darts at seemingly random targets, they are hard to hit because of their shields so it is important to attack them from behind, if they all switch to melee they can easily beat down any of your characters, spend xp after this fight
-LEVEL UP xp can be spent after and only after any battle, at this point you NEED to increase rheda's alchemy to 3, at this same time you may want to increase abrecan's strength (need 25 before kitarak), and brenna's thief (need 5 before wizard hat) but doing it at this point is optional
-continue down the off-road path, turn right at the end (if you mistakenly did not level up off the goblin poisoners there is a backup boar encounter if you turn left), walk for a bit until the ground slopes down, turn a left before the hill and cross the road to pass the hill across the road on it's right side, walk along that hill a short distance then go up a slope and turn left, stay on the upper ledge of this slope to avoid a bear encounter, turn right when you hit the road and go into erromon
-in erromon go to the bridge by the crystal obelisk, cross the bridge and go up the ladder to the left of the shop, then follow the path and turn left when you can to go to another ladder, go up that ladder to the Witch Ring chest, make sure brenna's hit points are full, then save the game
-loot the Witch Ring, this may take a while, my best is 3rd try, my worst is 11 minutes without it appearing, good luck
-save after looting the witch ring and equip it to rheda, switch abrecan's shield back to the buckler, if you have looted any boots from bandits along the way Leather Boots priority is Abrecan, Brenna, Rheda, then Joker, maybe save again
-descend the ladder after the witch ring, go down the path and then left into the first cave, turn left again and walk down the cave until you get to the two miari vendors, talk to the female miari vendor
-SHOP sell everything that is not the following, Chaos Sword, Spice, Herb, Gemstone, Healing Potion, Curing Potion, Stamina Potion, buy gemstones until 99 and then spice until 99, you need both in equal amounts
-ALCHEMY go into the menu and navigate to rheda's alchemy skill, craft restore potions until you run out of components
-CYCLE rebuy gemstones and spices to 99, craft and sell restore potions again
-BUY Shielding Wand and Scroll of Stupidity
-do the buy/sell cycle until the following occurs, bank 84,500 gold + the cost of 60 gemstones, 60 spices, 90 herbs (crafting), and then 99 herbs (inventory for spellcasting)
-ALCHEMY craft 15-20 (WR does 20, I've started using only 15 since) of Dexterity Potion, Defense Potion, and Strength Potion, the resulting number will vary because some craft attempts will fail, crafting 20 gets you a number in the teens, crafting 15 can get you as low as 7 but usually yields 10-12
-SHOP at the male miari vendor next to the one you have been buying spice and gemstone from, buy 4x Miari Cloak, 4x Mercenary Belt, 2x Jundar Gauntlets, and 1x Plate Gauntlet
-leave back the way you came and turn right down the first tunnel and exit the caves into a store, go up the ramp and talk to the vendor on the right, buy 4x Dragon Leather then exit the shop, cross the bridge and head left to the wide area left of the Inn, go to the leftmost shop, once inside turn to the character's right and talk to the vendor there, buy 1x Debilitation Scroll and 2x Bardic Gloves
-OPTIONAL if after all this for some reason you have extra money due to interesting restore potion sales RNG you can consider talking to the vendor to the character's POV left of where you entered and buying a boots of adamant, it really isn't worth the time to buy/sell for
-MENU equip Shielding Wand to Rheda, Dragon Leather on everyone, Mercenary Belt on everyone, Mirari Cloak on everyone, Jundar Gauntlets to Brenna and Abrecan, Bardic Gloves to Alaron, Plate Gauntlets to Rheda, and if you have those boots by chance remember Boots of Adamant are better than Leather Boots, boot priority is Abrecan, Brenna, Rheda, then Joker
-exit shop, leave the wide area, go right and run to Txomin's building.
-after journal entry split

GOOD FORMATTING, SPELLING, AND GRAMMAR ENDS HERE FOR NOW, BELOW IS A RAW COPYPASTE OF MY NOTES
I will clean up this up someday but it's a low priority thing to do. In my personal notes I don't really care about spelling errors or formatting which is why they look butt-awful.

3rd Split: Kitarak
go to the Ogre fight, kill the ogres, dump all the XP Rheda has into the stupidity spell until it gets to 9 which is necessary to kill Ogre Bosses at Wizard Rank 7 during a grinding portion later
Joker continues banking XP
Abrecan and Brenna must meet their strength goals before Kitarak fight and it usually happens in the fight just before it
Rheda's Naming School spell Stupidity kills enemies using Dungeons and Dragons logic. If you reduce their Intelligence (int) stat to zero (0) or lower it immobilizes them, takes them off the turn list, and the game considers them dead, however if reinforcements are in the battle stat/immobilize killed enemies must still be HP-killed in order to create space to respawn the reinforcements
after ogres stay right off the road through the trees, take a left turn and go up the narrow snowy path, if the ogres are convenient to fight then fight them
at the intersection turn right and skip the loot that's on the right, fight any encounters along the way until after the gemstone spawn
descending the ramp past the gemstones stay to the right, don't talk to the goblin just run by to skip both the talk goblin and a wandering goblin encounter, go up the ramp on the other side, pass the first tent and continue staying to the right
sneak turning left after going up a small ramp to skip a hobgoblin encounter, go to the door to Kitarak's place, camp to make sure it's daytime if necessary then enter the room, go into menu and equip Abrecan with the Chaos Sword, equip Brenna with Trahern's Sword, and save for safety
backup XP can be gained from the patrol at bottom of ramp fo 1125xp, the talk-to goblin is a different more annoying encounter
during this run save any time you have a funny feelings, this game crashes a lot, be paranoid, respect how fickle the game can be
Start the Kitarak fight, the most important things are as follows, Rheda uses Starlight Shield from the wand on her first turn, Brenna and Abrecan use Dexterity potions on their first action, Joker uses Perform on his first action Brenna and Abrecan use Strength Potions on their second action
Use Brenna and Abrecan to kill everything, attack from behind whenever possible, focus Kitarak down first, there is no reason to attack with Joker or Rheda, Hobgoblins buffed with Spirit Shield take so little damage from them and their hit chance is low, sitting through their move and attack animation is just not necessary and saves time
Loot everything from Kitarak, equip the Warfang to Brenna, save, go outside, split happens at journal entry

4th Split: Crystal Vision
sneak past the Hobgoblin again as you are exiting, follow the path back the same way, don't camp because it triggers a dialogue scene which costs time, you'll fight goblins and ogres on the way out, ogres at this point should be stupidity killable along with wolves, rats, bears, and boars
XP continues to be banked on Joker, Rheda continues levelling up Stupidity until it gets to Rank 10, Abrecan and Brenna start increasing Dexterity. The next big skill goal is Wizard 6 on Joker followed by Dexterity, Stupidity 10 on Rheda followed by Dexterity 30, Dexterity 30 on Abrecan followed by Strength, and Dexterity 30 on Brenna followed by Strength
Combat in this section involves using stupidity to kill most enemies, then HP killing any remaining enemies, in the case of reinforcements move Rheda into a position where she can stupidity them (if that kills them) as they spawn, if they can't be stupidity killed just don't use her and let Abrecan + Brenna do all the work, Joker just uses Perform during this time, this same strategy applies to the ogre grind phase later
Potions, against hard to hit enemies like poisoners and shield-wearing bandits you can consider using strength and/or dexterity potions at your discretion
talk to Txomin,  then leave and go across the bridge, turn right past the bridge and go up the first ladder, then walk down a short distance until you see a ladder leaning up and outward from the wall at what would be a really annoying angle to climb IRL and go up that ladder to Gotzone and Zurene's house, after that cutscene pass downstairs through their house to the underground, turn right and go into the Yeraza cutscene, after the this go into the second to last hallway in that room and activate the Erromon portal to Gwernia, if it doesn't work because you forgot to activate the portal in Gwernia castle basement you either have to kill the run, go back to Gwernia to activate it, or just be prepared for a different late game route
go back into Gotzone + Zurene's house, it has a gemstone growing on the upper right side of the door and is on the border between the minimap with Yeraza cutscene and the one bext to it, mash a brief cutscene, then exit and exit Erromon backtracking the same path backwards until you get to the bandit boss intersection, take the road to Talewok
stay to the right side to sometimes avoid a bear encounter, when heading south on the road before the first bend fight the bear encounter, continue back off the road to fight the ogres, then go down into the cave and get the Wizard Hat, equip this to Rheda and save in case something dumb happens, exit the cave and continue, by hugging corners you can skip some encounters with wolves and bears which is completely ok, the ogres later are just as easy to kill and give more XP than these fights do
when you come to an area that you can walk straight toward a gray divide (usually just after the chaos scout encounter) keep away from the right wall a bit, hang wide around and walk as directly to the gray rock wall thing as you can, this is done to avoid a bandit encounter because again, ogres are easier to kill and give more xp later, plus bandits cannot be stupidity killed making their fights long, once you round that gray rock you can go straight to the talewok door
go to the inn, straight back from the entrance and then on the right, a gray building not part of the other connected L shaped buildings, talk to Gavinn (inside on the left) and pick the option about "the great wizard" or Ardra in order to gain access to the wizard school
leave and go to the wizard school whcih is down a long road through some greener area almost directly across from where you're facing upon exiting, veer left around the L shape to get to it, there is a fountain at the intersction for it then you left down the road to the school
at the door dialogue pick the long nonsense word option to get inside, go character-left once inside and stay out of the inner circle on the floor to avoid having the camera go insane on you, go up the stairs and head camera-left, talk to the guard outside and pick "something to show her" and "magic stick of the miarai" to gain access, go inside and talk to Ardra then leave her room and subsequently the school
outside the school make a right and go behind the building
SNEAK past the minotaur and spirit wolf encounter, both cost a lot of time and are avoidable, it is rare but sometimes you can sneak right immediately in front of the spirit wolf, sometimes though it sees you and you'll have to reload a save if caught because spirit wolves have darkness and the party is awful at fighting at night, you can take a longer path wider around both enemies instaed of cutting close
describing the inside of the disorienting brown of the dryad forest is hard even after over a decade of playing this game, hang out on the left-ish side past the male dryad at the entrance, walk for a bit and keep looking to the right until you see space to go onward, look for the green rocks that give away where Pandara is, talk to Pandara to make the Amaranth grow, leave there walking away from Pandara usually in the direction the camera is facing, keep looking to the left and along the wall will be the amaranth in a sort of corner with some mushroom and a tree that can be unlocked for loot, return to Pandara with the Amaranth and talk to her again
talking to pandara the second time is required and unskippable, you can keep mashing text until your Troubador skill works and triggers the event that ends the scene when you sing to her, this is an additional reason for looting the bardic gloves earlier
leave Pandara the same direction you went to the Amaranth but stay to the right and walk until you can see the outside then exit sneaking past encounters the same way as you entered, you can generally start running again once you pass the tree as you're nearing the front of the school
go back into the school and talk to ardra again to get the crystal vision scene, split ends at journal entry

5th Split: Arrive Ogre Pit
leave the school, turn a right at the fountain and leave across the bridge out of town, take a right, stupidity kill the cyclops encounter, run down the road, there are two bandit encounters that are difficult but possible to sneak past, if you fight them remember you probably have starlight shield charges and potions leftover to use
potion use, on an encounter that feels bad to you have rheda use starlight shield at the beginning of the fight if she isn't going to stupidity kill anything, always use dexterity potions first, then use strength potions, it's uncommon to need defense potions as starlight shield and the character equipment is usually enough but it may help vs the difficult bandit encounters, if a bandit encounter has them equipped with throwing irons it's a good idea to use potions to make the fight go faster, Rheda and Joker will not him them often so keep them away from enemies during difficult bandit encounters, Rheda can sometimes hit a bandit for decent damage from behind (everyone should attack from behind when possible) but since she is fragile be careful.
after the two bandit encounters at the start of the road run down it staying to the right until you near the part along the water, then just before the end of the water veer to the left, then back right again shortly after to avoid a bandit and ogre encounter, when you can see the road curve in the distance move to the right off the road and take a wide turn around the corner to avoid two more bandit encounters then go to the bridge
Arturo, "but I want to cross anyway" "do you want to be challenged" "Are you sure you understand the knighthood" "do you have any skills" "I'll ask in port saiid" to pass him. When you pass the bridge there is a bear that is annoying to skip but easily killed with stupidity, then an ogre encounter by some spice that is easy killed.
In the sand pit is an orgre, do not enter the ogre pit, stop at a small triangle of green ground ground outside it.
Split ends when you reach that triangle and it's a good place to save.

6th Split: Dexterity 30 (Ogre Grind)
without leaving that triangle run around in small circles to attract the ogre in the pit, if it doesn't see/hear you save and reload to reset it's position and try again instead of trying to chase it, if the encounter starts when you are not in the pit and are in that triangle the ogres will instantly respawn, otherwise you must go into port saiid and then exit it to respawn them and there is a difficult chaos sorcerer encounter between here and there which we deal with later
in the ogre fights simply use stupidity to kill them instantly with Rheda, when there are reinforcements move her up the kill behind her so she is in range when they respawn, just have Joker Perform, if one or two reinforcements just use Abrecan to kill ogres, if there are 3 or more reinforcements use Brenna and Abrecan to kill them. If there are 5 or more reinforcements apply the same math. If after the four respawning ogres are int killed there are 1-2 alive just send one character up the hill, if 3 or 4 more send both, the goal is to limit movement time as much as possible to save time.
XP priorities here in order of importance, Joker Wizard 6, Dex 30, other core stats at least 13, Abrecan Dex 30, Strength 30, Warrior, then Sword with any excess, Rheda needs Stupidity 10 if she doesn't have it already, Dexterity 30, all other core stats at least 13, Int 30, Wizard, Brenna Dex 30, Strength 30, other core stats at least 13, Warrior, Thief, then sword
It is important for Brenna, Joker, and Rheda to have all their main stats at at least 13 to avoid a rare stat kill caused by wraiths later in the game, for Brenna's skills try to level them up together as in getting all of them to five, then all to six, and so on, same goes for Abrecan with his extra XP
Keep it daytime for maximum success.
When the herb count gets to 10 save and leave to fight the chaos encounter outside of Port Saiid.
In the chaos encounter the most important thing right away is to dexterity potion Abrecan and Brenna, Rheda stupidity the chaos monsters to reduce their spell success chance and Strength potion the entire party, the high strength stat helps resist the powerful Web of Starlight spell the Sorceror will puke all over your team. The Sorceror can easily kill the the party with that spell if it is not killed quickly, focus it down at the exclusion of all else unless it literally cannot be reached due to scouts being in the way. Joker can Perform during this. Once the sorceror is dead kill the scouts, sutpidity the warriors and enter port Saiid.
Always enter and exit port saiid quickly because if you stand around at outside idle a bandit encounter will wander over and fight you.
It is possible to finish the stat grind before going back to town and if so great. In either case when go into town go to the shop a purple/gray builing a distance across from the entrance and rebuy all your herbs. At this time since you're in the shop already you can buy your gemstones and spices here since those will be used later on. Sell any stealth potions, enemy-dropped equipment, hides and sapphire gems. Make sure to keep the Debhilitation Scroll and possibly Trahern's sword in case you want to boost Rheda's strength slightly and give it to her. After you leave the shop there is a path behind the first building in town hidden behind some rocks and trees. Go back there and down to the sand then into the cave.
In the cave go character-right (camera-left), loot the shamsuk amulet if you want (it provides spell battery like the namer's ring, I skip it due to superstition), pick up the lighthouse scroll in the middle and then exit the cave.
Leave the town and go back to the ogre grind as before if necessary.
Hard requirements for leaving town, Wizard 6 and other stats above 13 on Joker, Stupidity 10 Dexterity 30 and other stats above 13 on Rheda, Dexterity 30 and other stats above 13 on Brenna, Dexterity 30 on Abrecan
If Joker's Dexterity is at 28 with ~10,000 xp banked toward next rank you can probably leave just fine since Joker will still be Performing more than anything else for some time still but this does mean ~32,000 XP less for wall of bones later if you do so
When satisfied with your stats leave down the road that you haven't gone down yet and fight the ogre encounter near the chest. Split ends after that ogre encounter dies.

7th Split: Arrive Chaos Isle
XP allocation here is the same as in the ogre grind portion, if you feel a little timid you can put some points in Brenna's stamina and endurance for more hit points but generally continue levelling Warrior, Thief, and Sword on her, Rheda should push her Int to 30 and Wizard for the rest of the game (she probably doesn't max by end of game), Abrecan can continue levelling Warrior and Sword
Combat here, Joker performs, Rheda opens with stupidity against int killable and casters, Brenna and Abrecan kill anything you encounter, if you get the tough bandit encounters consider using potions
leave from where you fought that ogre by the chest, stay on the cliff side of the road to avoid an ogre encounter, follow the road, there is an unavoidable bandit encounter, after it (and a bridge) hug the right wall to avoid another ogre fight, go up the ramp toward the lighthouse, sneak past the bandits and go inside, sneak past the bandits here too and go up the ramp, some distance up the ramp you can start running, light the lighthouse then sneak back down the ramp, outside, and sneak past the bandits outside, when a fair distance away run back to town using the same path you took to get there but in reverse to Port Saiid
before port saiid make sure it is daytime
in Port Saiid talk to Amaan at the dock two times, after the second time walk down the dock to get on the Ex Ponto (the ship), stupidity the gryphon encounter, once on chaos isle consider saving
split ends at character control on chaos isle

8th Split: Cradawgh
XP allocation is same as 7th split
combat is same as 7th split but also focus on killing sorcerors and spellweavers as soon as possible because they can easily entrapment kill the entire party, in fights with sorcs and weavers use strength potions on the turn you advance to the enemy and consider dex potions as well but now that you are dex 30 it matters somewhat less
on chaos island sneak past the first two tauric crab encounters, hang around near the right side wall after passing them and sneak past another tauric crab encounter, then sneak left along the water to skip a chaos scout encounter, continue sneaking and go around behind a chaos mauler encounter, sneak some more and stay on the water line behind it to pass both a chaos scout and tauric crab encounter
loot the wall of bones wand from the chest and equip it to Rheda, this is important
sneak back behind the chaos mauler and patrolling scout then run up the stairs to the temple, there is a chaos warrior encounter which I don't believe is sneakable due to sneaking uphill being wonky, the encounter is stupidity-able chaos warriors and two kite shield poisoner goblins usually, when you get to the door of the temple enter it, do not move once inside unless you are holding Z to sneak, turn around 360 degrees (or however many degrees it takes to face the door) and exit the temple
outside run back down the stairs, sneak hard left at the bottom past the scout, and the three tauric crab encounters then talk to Amaan and leave
when you arrive on Namer's Isle go character left toward the hill, there is a root just out of the water you'll pass by, there is a small pathway to the inside of that hill which is easy to miss, save before going in there then go in and fight the chaos mauler encounter
chaos mauler fight, wall of bones the sorcerer immediately preferably before it gets a turn, then on Rheda's next turn cast Stupidity, the stormer's lightning can do a lot of damage and possibly one hit kill Rheda, Wall of Bones the Mauler next, stupidity kills the other two enemies, additionally be glad there is no scout to haste them in this fight, the goal here is to wall of bones the sorceror before it casts starlight shield on it's allies, the mauler can be killed easily with hit point damage when it does not have a shield, stupidity is Rheda's second action, the mauler is last because it's first action is to cast vs elemental which does nothing for it's allies because the player party does not use elemental magic and this effectively wastes it's turn
after defeating the chaos mauler talk to Cradawgh then return to Amaan who is near the water by a building across from where you exit the mauler fight area
split ends when gain character control in Port Saiid

9th Split: Niesen
optional, refill on herbs/spices/gems here otherwise do it in Terminor
leave port Saiid quickly to avoid the bandit encounter outside, take the road right and cross Arturo's bridge, take the corner wide to avoid bandit encoutners, stay to the right before the water to avoid an ogre encounter (but not too far or you risk hitting a bandit encounter), at the intersection go right, there are two chaos scout encounters that are not easy to skip, chaos scouts are responsive, fast, and have a high sight/hearing radius, follow the road for a while and it bends to the left, a short distance after this bend turn right and head towards a sandy looking pit, go past it and cross the bridge there, go onto the road, stay to the left to avoid a bandit encounter, then go to the right to skip the troll encounter
skipping the troll encounter is important
go into terminor, talk to Tamberlain outside and mention Ardra, pay double the rates for hospitality, go inside the inn and do the pome survivor scene there, talk to Tamberlain again and go into the shop, buy 4x Ring of Healing and 4x Boots of Speed, max on herbs/spices/gemstones here, go outside and you can mash through text to drop Abrecan from the party in exchange for Niesen.
important, never equip two rings of healing to the same character, it's really easy to crash the game when that happens
Menu, remove Namer's ring from Rheda (if you have it), equip Niesen with the equipment Abrecan used to have except for the shield and sword because Niesen cannot use thosem, equip Namer's Ring on Joker, equip Boots of Speed to everyone, Equip Ring of Healing to everyone, use the Debhilitation Scroll on Neisen to teach him that spell
important, there are no more stops to purchase herbs/spices/gemstones for the rest of the game until Erromon Caves, you must stock up now as it is your last chance to do so
split ends after the menu

10th Split: Enter Tower
XP allocation, all of Niesen's XP goes into Debhilitation spell which is used later to strength-kill wraiths, Rheda continues putting XP into int/Wizard, Brenna continues to put XP into Warrior, Thief, Sword and optionally stam/endurance if you want her to have a little more hp, Joker continues banking XP for when he learns Wall of Bones
leave Terminor, make sure it is daytime because there is a wolf encounter outside at night that wastes time, besides you need to fight trolls and always fight during the daytime whenever possible
fight the troll encounter on the road, this is important
troll fight is easily dealt with but not consistent, stupidity will int kill trolls but they have high magic resistance, Niesen's fireball spell does a lot of damage to them, they hit really hard and can instakill an unbuffed Brenna easily so use some of your remaining charges of Wand of Shielding and/or Defense potions if necessary, to kill trolls faster use Strength potions, a good indicator of when to use potions and shielding wand if if 3 or 4 trolls resist the stupidity spell because the trolls will then have time to advance and attack people if they cotinue resisting, use the XP from this encounter to boost Niesen's Debhilitation spell right away, this is the priamry reason for doing this encounter
leave down the road back the way you came, stay to the wall side (right) to avoid the bandit encounter before the bridge, cross the bridge, pass the sand pit, turn right and continue until you see the road, loosely follow along the road to the swamp and enter the swamp
swamp is a nightmare of navigation much like the dryad forest, it's hard to see and the colors are all quite similar
walk east but also every so slightly south for some time, there are some encounters here but between stupidity and fireball things should not be difficult, you will cross a river or possibly two depending on the direction as you get near the tower, the tower area looks like a tall wall or hill from a distance, closer to it you may see the ground begin to slope downward into the area (much like how you walk "into" the hill on Cradwagh's Isle), when you go down to the tower you can skip the golems outside or stupidity kill them for more xp
climb the east wall, go across down the left open-ish pathway and loot the key there, walk away from the key and turn a bit left then walk to another small "room" section of the roof and loot the Etherial Ring, go back to where the key was
menu and equip the Etherial Ring to Brenna, really she needs all the help she can get since her HP is so low and she does not have a shield, it is rare but possible for a plague zombie or more likely a wight to instakill her, double check equipments, save, and this time make sure it is night before entering the tower
camp until night before entering the tower, this seems to go against what you've been doing but is important, you cannot camp inside the tower and time passes normally, in the time it takes you to adventure to the bottom of it and subsequently outside it will be daytime by then for the harder encounters if you enter the tower at night in the first place
split ends once inside the tower

11th Split: Shamsuk
XP allocation is the same as 10th split
combat in here is the same as 10th split, but there are wraiths, wraiths cast darkness, this is just an unavoidable fact of life, they have high dex and attack a lot, they can be str-killed with debhilitation so it is important to funnel Niesen's XP into that, don't worry about stupidity on Wraith fights just use Wand of Shielding's Starlight Shield to protect the part and have Brenna chug pots then kill them slowly. More about wraiths later. Spirit Wolves also cast Darkness and ruin everything. Wights have Frozen Doom so use Niesen to cast mirror on Niesen, Brenna, Joker, and Rheda in that order on such fights, Brenna benefits from potions during wraith encounters too
Brenna carries the tower in a big way and it's important to buff and protect her properly to avoid having to revert to an earlier save
herbs can become critically limited here if you don't cast stat killers somewhat conservatively, you can quickly kill most skeletons with hp damage, if you cast stupidity and it only hits two targets just hp kill what's necessary, don't waste herbs spamming int and str kills on a single enemy who resist a lot because it can make your late game lose lots of time if you run out of herbs, it is hard to say how best to use reagents with hard numbers, if only a few weak enemies are alive just kill them, if it's 4 plague zombies between you and immediate victory maybe consider cast stupidity a few more times as usual, believe in your own justice and never spam for multiple turns on a single remaining enemy just murder it with Brenna, she likes that (allegedly)
walk into the room and follow the walkway on the floor to a wall and press A to hit a hidden door, there is a lot of that going on in here, in that room int kill the dust devils, remember Rheda's success rate drops dramatically at night and so does everyone else's, halfway through the dust devil room there is an invisible path to a hidden door, go through it and fight the lizard men, use the hidden door in this room and do not move after the transition (to the left of where you enter, this is a handle on the wall indicating it)
sneak past the hellhouds, this is important, they will dragon flames you into another dimension and you die a lot
sneak down the ramp and go left, sneak past the wight, save and reset if you get the fight, it's very possible to sneak past it, go in the door beyond it
in this big room sneak to the right or run only if you have a keen sense of the wraith's position and enter the double door there, in the maze head down the hallway a bit, turn right, kill the minotaur lord for the key (can be int killed but high resist rate, generally dies to Brenna before Stupidity lands), loot the Wall of Bones Scroll
menu and use the Wall of Bones Scroll to teach Joker the spell, save because paranoid and/or convenient spot, from now on dump Joker's banked and future XP into Wall of Bones until it is at 10, then go for Int, then Wizard
sneak away through the doorway closest to the wall of bones scroll, there is a straight hallway to the door with tomb rats and giant skeletons, sneak past that throught the room alongside it, those encounters take a while again due to night resists
it's noteworthy as well that giant skeletons and plague zombies tend to resist stupidity a lot
go down long hallway to blue door, there is a difficult to skip plague zombie encounter here and then a hallway with a very difficult to skip wraith encounter, skip success on both of these is so low and takes so many resets you may as well just fight them most of the time
wraith+skeleton encounter, give melee buffs to Niesen and Brenna, use them to kill wraiths, focus fire down wraiths one at a time whenever possible, Rheda can generally fight smaller skeletons on her own, have Joker Perform, because wraiths will always cast darkness on their first action and the cast wraith touch until all party members are affected by it there is always time to spend setting up the party's buffs as well
rare but important, if you get a turn before the wraiths cast darkness they are vulnerable to Wall of Bones and Debhilitation for isntant kills, Stupidity is useful as well because it lowers their spell success chance which can sometimes cause their spells to fail and delay them from attacking for a few actions, do not bother spending herbs on spells (both stat kill spells use it) during darkness unless otherwise noted
go through the colorful or weird looking smooth door, here you must fight three encounters as you advance toward the middle of these rings, skeletons, wraiths, and a wight must all be killed here and cannot be avoided as far as is known now 10/24/2017 3:59 PM AZ MST
go right to find the skeleton encounter, afterward make sure any xp is spent on the appropriate skills if possible, run along the inner wall of the ring mashing A until you find a hidden door, do not move once passing through the door, menu, unequip rheda's witch ring and wizard hat, equip the wizard hat and witch ring to niesen, save, then go find the wraiths
wraith fight, this is the one encounter where you should spam debhilitation, even in darkness niesen at a buffed Wizard 13 has a decent success chance of landing it on wraiths even in darkness, starlight shield, dex and str pots on Brenna, put hp damage on wraiths not killed with debhilitation, the reason for spamming str kill here is because there are only four wraiths and once they are all immobilized or killed the encounter ends
after the fight menu, remove witch ring and wizard hat from Niesen, equip Witch Ring and Wizard Hat to Rheda, run along the inner wall of the ring mashing A until you find the hidden door, proceed to the next round room and do not move, save before the wight
wight fight, if Rheda gets a turn in daylight stupidity the enemies, otherwise stand around, Joker Perform as usual, Niesen cast mirror on Niesen, Brenna, Joker, and Rheda in that order, Brenna eats buffs and hp kills the wight hopefully before it Frozen Dooms the party, just reset if Brenna or Niesen get first-turn Frozen Doomed, Niesen's melee attack success chance is ok and you can use him to melee the Wight too, it is actually great if Nisen randomly dies here as long as Brenna can carry the fight to compeletion because if so it skips a dialogue scene at the end of the tower
after the wight press A a few times in the middle of the room where the light collumn is
exit the room through the door marked X V I, then go left to the next exit outward, then go left again until you find the translucent section of wall to go onward
menu, remove the Witch Ring and Wizard Hat from Rheda, remove the Ring of Healing from Joker, equip Farris with the equipment from Nisen, equip the Witch Ring and Wizard hat to Joker
Shamsuk fight is potentially a bunch of resets, ideally you get a turn before wraiths and Wall of Bones Shamsuk immediately
optimally, everyone goes before wraiths (exceedingly rare), Farris Perform, Rheda Stupidity, Brenna dex pot, Joker Wall of Bones Shamsuk or a Wraith in that priority order depending on what's in range
in darkness have Farris and Brenna potions and start beating up the Wraith which cast darkness, Rheda starlight shield everyone, Joker spams Wall of Bones on Shamsuk until he dies, you can lost Rheda and either Farris or Brenna to Wall of Bones from Shamsuk and still win the fight with Farris or Brenna and Joker, if you lose both melee fighters Joker's melee hit is too low to complete the fight in any sort of timely manner so just reset and do it over
after Shamsuk go back to the Oisin Forest portal and use it to warp back to Shamsuk's Tower's ruins, save, leave the ruins and do the dialogue with the spirit about joining, insist "you begin" to avoid a fatal battle
menu, remove Witch Ring and Wizard hat from Joker, equip With Ring and Wizard Hat to Rheda
split ends after the spirit dialogue

12th Split: Jundar King
xp and combat are the same as recent splits, XP allocation, Joker Wall of Bones, Int, Wizard, Rheda, Wizard, Brenna Warrior, Thief, Sword, you can consider picking up some stamina on characters here too if you feel it necessary
combat have Joker perform, Rheda stupidity, and Brenna murder, you only have three party members here so skip as many fights as you can since they are inherently slower should you have to hp-kill enemies
run south until you get to the sand, there is a lizard man fight you may skip if you see it in time, once at the sand (your cross a stream of water along the way) stay to the right near the wall, sneak past wolves encounter and run along the gray ledge above the sand hugging the right wall to avoid a bunch of encounters, sneak past the troll encounter because it's a long fight and continue until you go upwards, you can skip the cyclops encounter too if you want
descend into the rocky valley, stay left initially then move somewhat to the right when you see bats in the distance, save/load position reset them if you want, do not get too far to the right or it triggers a dialogue scene with Farris, be cautious looking at the left side near some trees, skip the hellhoud encounter it is dangerous and long, there is a cyclops encounter further south to the right of the Jundar Gate so go a bit left when beginning to approach the gate to avoid it
Jundar Gate, "say your riddle" then pick the dialogue options that end with "...", then choose "I know my greatest gift." in order to gain access.
Pass through the Jundar Gate, walk to the left somewhat, go toward a sandy hill looking spot with a bit of a gap on the left between it at the wall, go to the rightmost end of that hill and move left along the inner curve of the wall to avoid a scorpion, continue on and go between two hills past a chaos encounter, watch where the chaos caster is pathing and run wide around or sneak past it, then go left like 45 degrees toward a short hill and some bones, go over the hill, pass the bones on the right then run slightly right toward the water bordering Ugarit, if you go too far right there is a dust devil encounter which we want to skip, once you get really close to the water make the hard right and go into the door
In Ugarit, save, remember to save any time you get a funny feeling, it costs time but the game does like to crash really unexpectedly, you can be brave and save time if you dare
go right from the entrance to the end of the road and up the stairs into a building, talk to sholeh who stands in black clothing and is hard to see in the back, you can mash A through text to recruit her
menu, equip Sholeh with the Jester's Mace and then the other equipment that Niesen had
leave the inn, go right and descend the staircase to the next level, run down the path and cross the bridge and go right again down another staircase to the final level, enter the palace and go up the ramp to talk to Zaratas
split ends after the journal entry when the Zaratas conversation ends

13th Split: Horn of Kynon
xp allocation same as previous split, Sholeh XP goes into Web of Starlight
combat, generally as before, new changes are Joker can wall of bones some tough to kill enemies if it is daytime, Sholeh fights just like Brenna does but also has two important spells, she can use Web of Starlight (and she is night aspec so this works better in Darkness/at night) to immobilize kill Wraiths, Wights, Barrow Guardians, and we use it on Lugash too, the other spell is Dispel Star which can be used to dispel and "cure" a party member of the Frozen Doom and/or Web of Starlight statuses. Wights however have high strength and regularly break out of Webs of Starlight after only a few actions under it.
important to remember is that if you save load from a death, enemy position reset, or something else Sholeh's int will go to 3 for some reason and must be quickly raised back to 30, if you raise it back to 30 and reload again it will not revert to 3 a second time
leave Ugarit the same way you entered but skip going to the inn since you already have Sholeh, travel back the way you came, stay left away from the bones a fair bit to avoid a Chaos Lieutenant encounter, avoid the pathing chaos encounter on the bridge again, hug the same wall to avoid the scorpion, once past the scorpion there is a long wall across from you, go to the left side of it, pass the wall and hug the right side to get to the Barrow, there is a fight along the way, outside the barrow is a Wight encounter and a Zombie encounter that often includes 2 Wights
Wights as reinforcements can be dangerous, if an enemy encounter contains such a thing kill enemies in such a way that any Wight reinforcements spawn 1 at at time and move sholeh to the point where they spawn to immediately web of starlight them in order to minimize their party wipe potential, Sholeh cannot dispel star herself if she becomes frozen and it will make the fight more difficult since we no longer have access to Niesen's mirror spell
when the enemies outside are killed (difficult to sneak) begin the process of clearing the barrow, guardians must be awoken and killed in order, guardians are easily killed with Sholeh using Web of Starlight, refer to map picture for information about that, in the underground second of the barrow there are enemies that can possibly be sneaked around but generally get aggro'd and need to be killed
after killing the barrow guardians according to the map turn in all the drake items to the dragons in the other area of the underground, once they are turned in run down along the drake turnin wall and take the first left before the left hallway at the end, go down this path to a room with some wooden door and unusable lever in it, go down the ladder into the pit
down at the bottom sneak past the golem, fight lugash, kill lugash with Sholeh's web of starlight, sneak left through the tough to see hidden opening in the wall and loot the horn of kynon
split ends after the journal entry from looting the horn

14th Split: Sheridan Cutscene
xp and combat are the same as split 13 and remain so for the rest of the game unless otherwise noted, should a character max one of the listed skills you can give them more stam/endurance or just skip spending xp at that point to save time, once you get to a certain spell power level singularity where stupidity, wall, and web are working consistently then you really dont need to use xp on anything anymore, if Joker is Wizard 10 (and he should be post merging with the spirit since that gives him extra wizard levels for free), Int 30, and Wall of Bones 10 you literally don't need to do anything else in the game except fight Sheridan and Pochanargat
sneak back out of the barrow the way you went down, sneaking is important to avoid wraith fights
once on the surface backtrack along the long wall and U-Turn around the end of it but swing right in advance of the Jundar Gate and meet the spirit, do the dialogue and initiate the fight where you join with him
there is a cutscene here that requires no inputs
after joining with the spirit Joker gets a bunch of XP and free wizard levels
backtrack down the same path avoiding the same fights until you get to Shamsuk's tower, then use the portal to go back to the forest
leave the forest going to Gwernia, sneak past the goblin encounter, sneak past the rat encounter, stay to the right and skip the chaos warrior encounter, sneak past the rat at the other end of the farms, go into Gwernia castle and take the portal in the bottom of the tower to Erromon
if you have no gemstones or herbs buy a few of each from the vendor you performed the buy/sell sequence at earlier, you need at least 1 herb to beat the game but if you have to buy then buy 1 herb and 1 gemstone
from the caves in Erromon leave away from the portal down the cavern, the door to the dragon area is at a point of the map where there are two lanes going downward and one going upward, look around to find the brown wooden looking door, go through it, mash through the Yeraza dialogue scenes
after the door run down along the right side, but when it forks stop hugging the right wall and go to the left a bit then resume staying on the right side, you will come to another door, go through it
in the miari room stay on the right side and go into the little pathway that juts out from the wall, go up that short ramp to get the dragon key, leave and continue along the right wall
when you pass the single mushroom in the hallway sneak past the firelord and the fire elemental encounter after it, run across the long room to the dragon's platform, hit A on the platform because it works like a door, on the other side walk over and talk to the dragon
there is a cutscene here that does not require mashing
after the cutscene exit the same you entered and skip the two fire encounters
pass the mushroom boss, that single mushroom is sometimes difficult to walk over due to crappy collision detection or it's channeling the spirit of castlevania SoTN, you make walk at it like an idiot for a while before you pop over it
continue to exit the caves the way you came in and take the portal back to gwernia castle, go up the tower and outside to the courtyard, go into the doors to the room you recruited Rheda in, go right from the door to the stairs and take the stairs up to battlements, this skips three long encounters with chaos monsters, run a third of the way down the battlements, menu, remove the Witch Ring and Wizard hat from Rheda, equip the Witch Ring and Wizard Hat to Joker, save, this is the final save point in the game
split ends when you walk forward and load into the Sheridan dialogue

15th Split: Pochanargat
cast web of starlight on Sheridan to kill him
Pochanargat, this fight is only completeable if you get a turn to cast Wall of Bones before pochanargt casts mirror, there are two ways this happens, Joker gets a turn before mirror and casts wall of bones to win the fight, or Rheda gets a turn to cast stupidity, the boss gets a rare spell fail, and then wall of bones gets dropped
if mirror is successfully cast on the boss reset immediately and retry
split ends when "party is victorious" appears on the screen