Grinding XP Recommendation

[Nutrageous69]

Not sure how many people are out there trying to platinum this game, but I figured I'd give what I found the quickest way to grind out XP for what is probably most people's last 2 trophies (level 20 and all runes). The key to getting the fastest XP is to max out a challenge and win games. Maxing out a challenge gives good xp, but takes several games (like 10 or so) based upon the type of challenge while winning a game gives 750 flat and then 1500 when you complete the win games challenge. Not sure how many XP you need for each level but winning a match and getting several other minor partial challenges complete looks to net about 12-13% completion each time.

 

Ok now the fun grindy part.

 

1) Setup a match with Talisman Bloodbath enabled in the house rules setting. This results in characters not being reborn when they die so if everyone else but you dies you win. Don't choose any expansions. Not sure if that matters or not, but the less variables the better.

2) If you have some runes already then enabled runs if you have a +4 or +5 craft rune, otherwise don't enable runes as they ad an additional couple of clicks for every game (not much time but when you will be grinding what is likely 100+ games then a couple clicks adds up).

3) Choose 2 characters. I chose Troll for his high strength (6) as my character and prophetess as local player (she starts in the lower left spot on the board). With the +4/+5 craft rune the my character will also get the highest strength and highest craft challenges completed slightly so ever 10 or so games I'll complete those challenges for free. They also don't take any extra gaming time and also all the best chance to win fights against creatures spawned from adventure cards (little extra XP in some games)

4) Start the game and if you can have one character attack the other. With the troll at 6 str and Prophetess at 2 you should always be able to win the match as the troll netting a little XP for that win. Otherwise try and have the troll hit adventure cards for chances for followers, random gold to be used to spend to get a little xp for spending the most gold, or fights. Otherwise have the prophetess always try and go into the center zone by passing through the sentinel. With the sentinel having a 7 strength and the prophetess having 2 you can auto lose which speeds the combat up a little. Once the prophetess is at the Sentinel space then you just keep sending her into the middle zone and auto lose.

 

If you follow those steps above you should be able to complete a game in 2-3 minutes a pop by finishing in 2-6 turns depending on how many turns it takes to get the prophetess to the Sentinel and how many times you are able to have player vs player battles. You should get 750 to 1500 XP for the win, and 0 to all of the following: Highest Strength, Highest Craft, Most PVP battles, Most Minions, Most gold spent, Most battles won with craft, most battles won with strength, most trophies turned in (usually only if you get lucky and defeat a dragon. you could use lower count str/craft turn ins if you have the runestones, but that takes time to select for something that might not happen so probably breaks even time wise). Netting at least 13% per match and maybe 25-30% depending on if you complete challenges completely or not.

 

You can select other characters most likely, but those two worked consistently due to where they spawn and their stats so I stopped playing around with the choices and went with what I knew.

 

Enjoy and good luck grinding.

[SnowVixen]

I started out using your method and it worked pretty well, but I disliked the randomness. This might have been because I got unlucky and didn't get the craft runestone until fairly late into my grind (it was under the toad runestone that seemed useless), many of my attempts, I wouldn't be able to get any of the secondary rewards (kills, followers, etc) so I messed with some options and here's what I came up with:

 

1) Enable Talisman Bloodbath and Runestones in house rules. Enable both the City Expansion and Sacred Pool Expansion.

2) Use the Runestones of Brawn (starting strength), Thought (starting craft) and Wealth (starting gold). Until I found the Thought stone, I used Power (trade in less trophies for strength)

3) Player 1 selects the Assassin. The Assassin begins in the top left square (the City) adjacent to the City Expansion area. Player 2 selects the Cleric who will start in the lower left corner on the Chapel square, two away from the Sentinel.

4) The Assassin was selected for two reasons. The first is that they can skip fights via the "Assassinate" ability if their strength is equal or higher than the enemy. Die rolling back and forth takes a lot of time, and being able to just hit "Assassinate -> Auto-Win" saves time. Even at default values, the Assassin will always beat the Cleric as well, which is nice.

The other reason is the expanded City area. It basically consists of a straight path (which can have random encounters) with a shop adjacent to almost every square.

5) The Cleric was selected instead of the Prophetess because she starts with only 3 life. Strength is also low enough that the Assassin can always beat her (if attacking) and the Sentinel can auto-win, skipping the fight animations.

6) My plan was to send the Assassin through the linear City (optimally) to the Menagerie square. The Menagerie square lets you buy a pet (follower award) for 2 gold (gold spent award). In going through the city, I would usually hit two other encounters. If I got a follower in one of those, I would just swing into whatever shop was nearby. Creatures tend to be physically weak and the Assassin could kill almost all of them without entering combat with the strength runestone maxed out.

If I rolled a 6 on the first turn, I would instead go attack the Cleric directly for the PVP award credit.

7) The cleric would always directly attack the Sentinel, auto-lose then select to take damage.

 

With this setup I was consistently getting XP for followers, gold spent, highest strength, and highest craft (eventually).  Sometimes enemies killed / trophies used, etc too. I timed a few of the games and was getting times like 1:03 or 48 seconds. I believe my fastest was something like 18 seconds with a specific encounter (Assassin encounter lets you pay gold for damage. 3 gold = 3 life = Instant kill on the Cleric).

Nothing wrong with your method. Just thought I'd add my version,

[Nutrageous69]

Yeah, the more ideas the better. While I grew up on this game as a kid and was excited to play it once I heard it went digital, I couldn't imagine actually playing enough games naturally to get the XP for all the runes. Heck its even possible to play a 4 hour game and not get any XP lol.

[GamerCrazy2]

So this is old now but I used a different method that may or may not be faster. I would do multiplayer games with the same Bloodbath rules but I would play any character I want (ex. Prophetess) and the 2nd player would be the Ghoul. On the Ghouls turn I would have him fight the Sentinel to cross the bridge since he spawns so close. A couple of turns and he dies and I automatically win since Bloodbath is on. Game goes extremely quick if your farming for just xp.

 

Also you get more XP in multiplayer games, when you finish your Games won challenge you get 1500XP offline. If you complete it in an online match, you get 3000XP. So if your lucky to have a friend (not me sadly) you can win games really fast to bring the meter to the end and have your friend help you with the last match for a large xp boost.

Edited May 20, 2019 by GamerCrazy2

[Reign_Of_Fire88]

@GamerCrazy2this was an excellent way to get "Immortal"  &  "No Contest" very easily as well. Can't connect to the online servers currently so the dreaded offline local co op feature maybe the fastest way to level 20.

 

Edit 2: Just got the platinum. You'll need to get to level 34 to unlock all the runestones. Over 50% of your time will just be spent grinding XP to level up. I obtained the level 20 trophy in airplane mode. If you're not connected to the server leaderboards you won't be able to see what level your character is though. So all the trophies are obtainable and none require online. 

Edited June 5, 2022 by Reign_Of_Fire88