Updated. March 20, 2007
This is a work in progress it still may contain errors but for the most part it should still be helpful to a new player.
Does contain spoilers. Not so much a walkthrough but there are spoilers below.
This will probably update from time to time as game content is added or changed.
Firstly I want to keep this short and to the point. There are more thorough content guides out there. We aren't replacing them, but rather making a quick stop for new players.
1. What should I be doing?
2. Buffs/Skills/Food/Booze
3. Bosses/quest
4. Ascension
5. Utilizing already published info.
- 5a. Wiki/Spoilers
Acronyms and Abbreviations Used in KOL
- KOL = Kingdom of Loathing
- Run = An ascension. Going through all quests up to level 11, then beating the naughty sorceress to ascend.
- Softcore (SC) = An ascension run that is not hardcore.
- Hardcore (HC) = An ascension where you choose to go hardcore. This means you cannot receive items/meat from other players or use items/meat from previous runs
- MMJ = Magical Mystery Juice. The best bang for the buck mp restorer. Gains are based on level. (Only available to Myst classes and Accordion Thieves)
- LTS = Lunging Thrust Smack. Seal Clubber melee skill.
- TS = Thrust Smack. Seal Clubber melee skill.
- Eye = Eye of the Stoat. Seal Clubber passive skill.
- MMG = Money Making Game. (Want to lose everything you have? Then this is the game for you! For every big winner in this game there are 100 people that have lost most of their meat.. Your call.)
- RNG = The game's random number generator. This decides which monsters you fight, what items drop, a huge factor of the game. You will often hear people say "Rng hates me today." They are having horrible luck.
- Stasis = A skill based strategy requiring multiple ascensions. Extending a battle to the maximum amount of rounds to gain the most from it. Taking small amounts of damage to replenish MP through saucespheres. (Very Advanced Technique)
- Teflon = A top-speed ascension that does not utilize the most expensive of the traditional equipment sets.
- LTSynergy = A skill based strategy requiring multiple ascensions. Relies on maximizing damage, chance to hit, and chance of getting the first hit.
- Buffbot = An account that is online 24/7 and will cast buffs on you when sent the correct amount of meat.
- NS13 = A forecoming content update, where the Naughty Sorceress quest will be pushed back to level 13, with new quests to fill in the difference.
- MCD = The Super-Secret Canadian Mind-Control Device. You won't see this until after you ascend.
- MAS = Misshapen Animal Skeleton.
- HiTS = The Hole in the Sky.
- Ode = Ode to Booze. An AT buff.
1. What should I be doing?
1a. Where should I adventure?
Adventure where you are comfortable. Don't worry about speed right away; your first run is supposed to take a while as you learn the game. Spending several weeks or even months is perfectly fine. In general, new areas appear as you become ready to adventure in them, although they might be too hard when they first appear. A lot depends on what class you are and how you like to play (do you use lots of skills or buffs, or just rely on a good weapon?) So we have a general rundown of levels and places based off of the story line quest. We will say this is where to go and these are items that you shouldn't sell because they may be needed later on in the game.
Level 1-3
Level 4-6
Level 7-9
Level 10
Above the Beanstalk - Hardest place in the game for you so far. I recommend getting buffs/good equipment if you haven't already. Use an Enchanted bean after the quest is given to you from the council.
- The Penultimate Fantasy Airship - (Don't sell Metallic A, Photoprotoneutron torpedo) Any kind of Non-combat boost will help here since you are at the mercy of the RNG. Collect four Immateria first, then the S.O.C.K. and Giant castle map will drop.
- The Castle in the Clouds in the Sky - Adventure until you get the Turn the Wheel choice adventure. Turn the wheel clockwise: Pay the bills. Return to the council to complete the quest. (Don't sell: Thin black candle, Chaos butterfly, Giant needle, Awful poetry journal, Furry fur, Wolf mask, Heavy D, Original G)
- Hole in the Sky - To open: Go back to the Castle and adventure until you get the wheel adventure again. Turn it to Guard the door. Then use the Giant Castle Map. With a Giant needle, Furry fur, and Awful poetry journal in your inventory.
Level 11
Naughty Sorceress Quest - Hopefully this little walkthrough will get done before NS13 :P
In the meantime. Use this:
1b. What is a familiar?
A familiar is like a pet. There are many different familiars, some more obtainable than others, and each one does a different thing. The number can seem overwhelming, but it is actually not too complicated.
You get your first familiar during the Spooky Forest Quest. This familiar is the mosquito larva.
To turn it into a familiar, buy a terrarium at the market, then use it from your inventory. This terrarium will be the home of all your future familiars; you never need to buy more than the one
Then use the Mosquito larva and it will be placed in your terrarium. Go to your campground to give it a name and take it with you.
In general, familiars have the same effects regardless of weight, although they get better at performing their function as they gain more experience. When you win a fight while your familiar is with you, it gains experience. Its weight goes up as the square root of its experience, until it reaches the maximum base weight of 20 pounds (400 experience). Buffs and certain items can increase its effective weight, but the base weight maximum is 20.
1c. What familiar should I use?
It is best to farm or buy one of these familiars as soon as possible: Leprechaun, Blood-Faced Volleyball, Baby Gravy Fairy. Start building the weight up during regular adventuring. The leprechaun increases meat drops, so that whenever you fight a monster that normally gives you meat, you will get more. The volleyball increases stats gained during battle, which helps you gain levels more quickly. The gravy fairy increases the chance of getting items after battle. These are more useful than fighting familiars because instead of just making combat a bit easier, they give other benefits. We won't get into more advanced familiars here, but since they play a big part of the game, you should read up on the KOLWiki when you have free time to start looking into more of them. At some point in the game, you'll be required to have certain other familiars besides these three, though, so don't sell the rest of your familiar hatchlings!
2. Buffs/Skills
2a. What Are Skills?
Skills are the name of the game, and without them you will never maximize your game potential. Skills are purchased from your guild, and the skills available to purchase are one of the significant difference between classes. There are 4 types of skills:
- Buffs (B) These can be used on yourself or you can use them on other players.
- Combat Skills (C) These are skills you can use in combat.
- Noncombat Skills (N) These are skills you can use outside of combat, such as healing skills or buff-like skills that cannot be used on other players.
- Passive Skills (P) These are skills that are always active, meaning you don't need to cast or use them.
When you cast a buff or some noncombat skills, you will gain an effect. These effects vary and work in conjunction with others to increase stats or help maximize gains.
Each class has 17 skills- 15 from their guild, one from Spookyraven Manor, and the skill with which you begin the game. One new skill appears to be purchased with each level you gain, through level 15, so remember to check back! There are also 5 skills available from the Gnomish Camp- a location you can visit after ascension under a specific Zodiac Sign.
2b. How can I get Buffs?
As mentioned, the buffs can be cast on other players and has created the demand for buffbots. Buffbots are automated characters that will cast buffs on you for a specific amount of meat. To make sure you get your buff as soon as possible, you should make sure the bot is online before you send meat: enter chat, and type /whois botname, where "botname" is the name of the bot you want to use. If the green description that appears does not say the bot is online, it might not sent you your buff promptly.
Some philanthropic clans and adventurous players have created their own buffbots. A list of these can be found on the Wiki.
Clan Buffbots
So, if you want an Elemental Sauscesphere, you would send 210 meat to l00ki3, and l00ki3 will buff you with 300 turns of it. Repeat as needed for desired buffs.
Asking for buffs in the chat channels /newbie or /clan or /trade may get you some free buffs, but NO BEGGING, as the community really frowns on that. This means that when you ask for buffs, you should offer to pay, and not ask for "free" anything.
2c.What Skills should I Get?
As you go through an ascension, don't forget to check for newly available skills. You can check out the description of each skill, and decide if you think it would be helpful, or just a waste of meat. If you don't think you'll ever use a skill, of course it won't be worth the price.
As you ascend, you get to keep skills permanently, one at a time. So, what skills should you make permanent? You need to ask yourself what you want to do in your next life. Do you want to ascend more quickly, or make more meat? While you can eventually keep enough skills to maximize both ascending and earning meat, this won't happen for a while, so we'll leave skill order for you to decide after you've done a couple of runs.
There is a core set of skills that will make your ascensions a little easier overall though. Once again, we aren't going to give you an order in which to get these; that is your decision to make. What we are saying is that these skills will help, no matter what you choose to do.
Making some food is good, but you can save yourself three runs and just save up the meat to buy what you need- your choice:
- Advanced Saucecrafting (Sauceror)
- Pastamastery (Pastamancer)
- Advanced Cocktailcrafting (Disco Bandit)
Fatten Those Familiars:
- Amphibian Sympathy (Turtle Tamer)
- Leash of Linguini (Pastamancer)
- Empathy of the Newt (Turtle Tamer)
A good attack skill set is crucial:
- Lunging Thrust smack (Seal Clubber)
- Eye of the Stoat (Seal Clubber)
- Thrust Smack (Seal Clubber)
- Intrinsic Spiciness(Sauceror)
- Immaculate Seasoning (Sauceror)
Other passive skills that will rock your socks:
- Wisdom of the Elder Tortoises (Turtle Tamer)
- Overdeveloped Sense of Self Preservation (Disco Bandit)
- Nimble Fingers (Disco Bandit)
- Mad Looting Skills (Disco Bandit)
- Expert Panhandling (Sauceror)
- Spirit of Ravioli (Pastamancer)
- Hide of the walrus (Seal Clubber)
Some excellent buffs and non-combat skills:
- Springy Fusilli (Pastamancer)
- Astral Shell (Turtle Tamer)
- Cannelloni Cocoon (Pastamancer)
- Stevedave's Shanty of Superiority (Accordion Thief)
- Polka of Plenty (Accordion Thief)
- Fat Leon's Phat Loot Lyric (Accordion Thief)
- Ode to Booze (Accordion Thief)
This is a good list to start with, but don't let it limit you; take whatever skills seem to fit your playing style, even if they are not on the list.
2d.What is Food and Booze?
When you consume food and booze, you gain adventures, and usually some stats as well.
Each item of food has an associated fullness factor, which determines how much it fills you up.
Like food, every booze has an associated drunkenness factor, which determines how drunk you get.
- 14 drunkness is what you start with. Unlike food, your last drink might take you above the limit of 14. However, if you drink above this limit, you will not be able to adventure until drunkenness resets at the end of the day. Drinking until you have 14 drunkness, using all your adventures, then having another drink for a nightcap is smart playing.
- 19 drunkness is the limit if you have the Liver of Steel.
The best foods by adventures.
The best booze by adventures.
The top foods and drinks are far too expensive for everyday use, even for experienced players. Try to find something that balances gains with price.
3a. Guild
A guild is different from a clan. Clans are user-created groups of players, and you can choose which one to join. Guilds are places filled with NPC players who sell you skills and items, and sometimes give you important quests. Your class determines which guild you join. Everyone must go through their guild training. It is a required by the Council of Loathing. In each guild house, the top/left spot is where you will buy skills. The top middle will start the Meat car build and open up Degrassi knoll. The top/right sells class specific items.
Muscle Class (Seal Clubber or Turtle Tamer)
- The Brotherhood of the Smackdown
Mysticality Class (Pastamancer or Sauceror)
Moxie Class Accordion Thief or Disco Bandit)
- The Department of Shadowy Arts and Crafts
3b. Meatcar
This is a guild quest, and an early tricky spot. First you need a Degrassi Knoll shopping list. This is obtained in your guild house. Talk to the Middle/Top guy to receive it. Beginning this quest also unlocks the Untinker Quest. Talking to the Untinker in the right side of the tracks will start the quest to retrieve the screwdriver from the Degrassi Knoll. You might as well start this quest now, since you are going there anyway and you will more than likely happen to find the screwdriver while farming for meat car parts.
One part of the car must be bought or obtained in trade from the Hermit. Get a couple Chewing gum on a string and a Hermit Permit from The Market. Then adventure in The Sewer until you get a Worthless item. Trade it with the hermit for Sweet Rims.
Instructions on how to paste all the components together. It must be done a certain way, or the parts won't go together.
3c.Bosses
Bosses are easier than you might think. There's usually some sort of puzzle to figure out how to access them, but actually defeating them just takes a bit of knowledge of items/buffs.
A few items/buffs that will help by increasing your stats:
That should be enough to get you past all of the bosses except for the Sorceress. If you are still having problems, try upgrading equipment, then raising your stats and coming back.
4. Ascension
4a. What is it?
To put it simple, ascension is "beating the game." When you complete all required quests up to level 11, you can fight The Naughty Sorceress and Ascend.
- You reset to level 1.
- All but one of your familiars reset to 1 pound. The one that you have with you when you ascend will remain at its current weight.
- You can take one skill with you. (One skill each time. It is possible to make all but the "steel" skills permanent if you ascend enough times)
- You can choose to go hardcore. (No retrieving items from Hagnks or receiving anything from other players)
- You will be in ronin for 600 turns, although you won't notice the effects if you are also hardcore, because hardcore is more limiting. (20 pulls per day from Hagnks, and no help from other players; after the 600 turns, these restrictions are lifted and you can retrieve all your items)
4b. What type of ascension should I do?
Some people advocate immediately starting hardcore ascensions, but sometimes that can be overwhelming, so it might be a good idea to do a few Softcore runs and get the idea of the game. From there you might want to try your hand at hardcore. The rewards for Hardcore and Hardcore Oxy runs are some of the best in the game. The equipment is only obtainable by completing hardcore runs.
From there it is just a matter of preference. Play the game how you like to, not how someone wants you to!
5. Utilizing already published info
5a. Wiki/Spoiler Site
The KOL Wiki is the most useful page you will find for KOL. Bookmark it!
Got a question about an item, skill, location, or quest? Look it up in the search. Every item in the game is listed here with detailed information on effects and how to obtain them.
A good walkthrough/spoiler site.
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