Gameplay Notes – Eschalon: Book I

Please read this guide for information about the walkthrough and advice about playing the game.

Walkthrough

None of the quests in the game have names. Thus, we’ve organized the side quests by their location and quest-giver, and we’ve listed the main quests in order with their main objective as the title.

Quest walkthroughs only contain information relevant to the quest. For more information about each location, please refer to the location guides.

Characters

Part of the fun of the game is creating your own character, but if you don’t want to do this, then you can use pre-made characters. To select a pre-made character, press F1 (fighter), F2 (rogue), F3 (magick user), F4 (healer), or F5 (ranger) on the character creation screen. The pre-made characters have fairly decent attribute rolls and skill selections.

There are six skill trainers in the game, and they teach nine skills: Alchemy, Bludgeoning, Bows, Cartography, Cleaving, Divination, Elemental, Swords, and Thrown. Skills only cost 100 gp per rank (so purchasing rank 2, for example, costs 200 gp), and trainers can instruct you up to rank 5. You should try to use trainers as much as possible.

Most skills have a skill book that you can read to learn the first rank of the skill (if you don’t know the skill yet) or two ranks of the skill (otherwise).

Enemies won’t re-spawn on maps, but they will spawn when you camp. So while technically there is no xp limit in the game, you’ll probably finish around Level 17.

If you plan to play a ranged character, you’ll probably have trouble accumulating enough ammunition early in the game, so make sure you give yourself a backup method for dealing damage.

Equipment

Containers are almost always random in the game, with their contents not being decided until you open them up. That means you can save your game first, and then load until you get something useful. You can also use this strategy with shopkeepers to change the random part of their wares. Just save before talking to them.

Bludgeoning weapons and cleaving weapons are the best choice for bashing open doors and containers. You should always keep such a weapon around so you don’t break your good weapons. To attack an object, press the shift key and then target the object.

You can use any container to store your excess equipment. Your items won’t disappear.

With two Loremaster’s Rings, you can identify anything.

As you gain more levels and reach more distant towns, better equipment will start showing up for sale.

Miscellaneous

When you press the tab key, you’ll see the name of the map you’re on, you’ll see the coordinates of your mouse cursor on the map, and you’ll also light up enemies (when it’s dark or they’re behind things).

Poison is deadly. Always carry some Detox Serum with you.

If people see you committing a crime, then they’ll attack you. But if they only hear you committing a crime, then they won’t do anything.

To use alchemy, you must right-click on an ingredient (either a reactant or a reagent). This will bring up the “mix” interface, where you’ll need to supply a reactant, a reagent, and a vessel. The vessel can be an Empty Flask (for potions), a weapon or armor (for enchantments), or a Lantern (to fill it back up).

There is no time limit in the game. Feel free to camp as much as you want.

The enemy pathfinding is not very good. If you’re facing multiple enemies, you can almost always get some of them caught up in trees or stuck behind walls, and then fight them one or two at a time. You can also retreat to doorways for the same effect.

To get an enemy to stop fleeing, simply save and then load your game.