I'm curious about what a speedrun would look like. I'm still early in the game (party just reached level 4), and I am not into speedrunning myself, but I'm curious about how a speedrun would look like.

Here are some early ideas I have:
Play on the easiest difficulty, This makes combat easier, which is important because of mandatory combat to open up paths to new areas.
Don't be afraid to spend money on blessings and consumables. Getting a full set of blessings will make early combat much easier, allowing you to open up paths at lower levels.
Food is an important issue that needs to be planned for. Remember that you can run on empty (I hear that doesn't work on Hardcore, but it does on Normal).

I'm wondering what time a speedrun would achieve. Think completing the game in less than 8 hours is possible? (Assume the player is familiar with the game, has practiced running it, and is skipping optional content unless the reward is worth it.)

Also, would the Talisman DLC be useful in this sort of run?

A few more thoughts:
I think the ideal party would have at least 3 mages. Spells are useful because they always hit, and some can be useful. Fighters, on the other hand, need to get high attack ratings to hit strong enemies and deal decent damage.

Anyway, looking at lower level spells, we have:
Sparks: Does decent damage early, and unlike Stone Arrow, you start with it (and hence reach level 5 sooner)
Stone Arrow: Does decent damage early, and unlike sparks, you can hit the back row.
Icy Touch: Sorry enemies, but you don't *get* to act.
Shocking Touch: See Icy Touch, may work better on certain enemies. (Also, can make physical attacks (like bleeding/wounding strike auto-hit)
Flames: Burn damage. Needed to take out high HP enemies in a reasonable amount of time (don't expect Fireball to be viable unless reaching level 20+ ends up happening)
Hammer of the Destroyer: Wounding. Wound a boss until it can't hurt you, then burn the enemy with Flames.
Blizzard: Might be useful against large groups of low HP enemies.
Icy Shards: If you can't burn 'em, bleed them to death.

I don't know what level is practical to reach here.

One more thing: I believe you can get one character to level up faster by having everybody else run away. Alternatively, you can purposefully leave characters dead so everyone else gets more XP.

You can't make speed run in this game in common sense of the word (and that is probably a good thing.
3 Mages will cause you to die left and right, as you either have no Cleric in party, or one of the Mages is in front row (on normal difficulty, 1st opponents can one-shot mages if they are in front).

In order for their spells to be useful, they need be of high rank. It all sounds good on theory, but on practice it requires pretty high levels to be anywhere near efficient.

Talisman usually gives bets returns later in the game. it works like this:
It is slowly charging from 0 to 100 when you acquire experience. At 40 charge you can get 1 stat point for 1 character. At 50 and 100 charge you get skill points but they are worse return for Talisman's charge.

So now I am at level 4 too, but had only 1 stat point for 1 character. However, there are 50 (?) power spheres in the world, each of them increases charge by 20%. It is better to save them for much later (as exp->charge ratio is reliant on level), so it will give 25 stat points with spheres. It might work on easiest difficulty, but on higher difficulties those dead characters will quickly turn into luggage. There is no reason for having one character be several levels higher than others.

I was thinking about solo walkthrough, but I am afraid it will involve tons and tons of time spent on getting full resist gear to avoid cycles of hurting in many encounters (you didn't fight those big mushrooms yet?).

Edit: and 8 hours speedrun? Nah. Unless someone will use exploits, it isn't possible. You need to do too much stuff, and can't skip too much encounters. Later bosses are quite formidable opponents.

How important is a Cleric really from a speedrun perspective? Remember that you can use potions/salves/scrolls to heal during battle and can just rest to heal afterwords.

Having one character be several levels higher than the others is useful because certain characters learn certain abilities at certain levels. Some abilities can make a huge difference.

The idea for boss fights is something like this:
0. Enter with blessings (of course).
1. Try to keep the boss from getting to act as much as possible. (Freeze/Stun)
2. While the boss doesn't get to act, Hammer (of the Destroyer) it with wounds.
3. Once the boss has been significantly wounded, hammer it with Flames/Icy Shards until the enemy dies due to damage over time effects.

Depending on the boss, it's possible step 2 might not be necessary.

Also, don't forget that things like scrolls exist. (Of course, if these turn out to be important, than the speedrun becomes more RNG dependant.)

Incidentally, if you can manage to get to a late stage of the game at a low level and then win a battle, you should get a lot of experience, possibly enough for multiple level ups.

In terms of the Talisman and Power Spheres, it may not necessarily be worth saving them (if they are even worth the time to get); getting one point of Speed may mean the difference between acting before or after the enemy. (This gives me an idea: maybe choose the god that boosts combat initiative when speedrunning?)

By the way, I accidentally encountered a giant mushroom once and was annoyed at the fact that you can't reload unless one of your characters gets a turn. (At least it isn't as bad as Might and Magic 3-5's ridiculous "no loading during combat" rule.)

Without Cleric you simply don't live long. Potion are self-use only, and non-self use are very expensive. I highly doubt that you can even win this game without Cleric unless you don't mind enduring maximum frustrating gameplay. Really game-changing abilities require quite high level. Playing few man-party upto that point is ... tedious and frustrating. Scrolls, Blessings and such are very expensive. You can't use those frivolously without farming tons of cereals. Don't forget, that you can use gold to buy skill points here and they become gradually more expensive. Was it only 1 mushroom? Wait when you see 3+ of them in 1 fight and watch you characters dying in sleep due to poison. In this game it is enemies who use cheap tactics on you, not the other way around. Playing with 1-2 people died? Chances to get turn decrease by orders of magnitude.

What concerns deities, +Exp (Golot) beats absolutely any and all deities by miles. It means you will get to higher level at the end of the game, most likely meaning higher Speed, and thus higher Initiative AND Evasion.

You also didn't meet hounds yet? You still have a lot of surprises ahead...

I read somewhere else that Golot isn't that great, and that you would need to be a high level to actually get a full level ahead. (Not likely to happen in a speedrun)

Cleric might be useful if you can take a hit without dying. However,
1. you are missing a turn that could be used by a different class to stun or wound the enemy
2. if a character gets killed in one hit, there doesn't seem to be any way for a cleric to revive the character. Hence, healing is useless in this instance.

One other strategy I have thought about is the following:
1. Have your mages stun an enemy with a spell.
2. Have your soldiers apply more stun using Stunning Strike with maces. Attacks always hit stunned targets, and this will let you prolong stun, hopefully long enough to hammer wounds on the enemy.

By the way, do wounds affect evasion chance?

Also. on Normal (which is the difficulty one is likely to use when speedrunning), I have found that blessings are actually quite cheap. The issue is more managing game time so you can get as much done as possible with a blessing and return to town right when the blessings run out.

I haven't encountered hounds yet, but if I were to speedrun this game, I would try to figure out what exactly causes them to spawn so I can prepare and hopefully manipulate them.

(Possible speedrunning party: 3 mages, 2 soldiers?)

Experience growth is quadratic in this game, so at higher levels you might gain more than just 1 level.
It adds with all other experience bonuses, which for speedrun would be absolute must. Earliest game you can defeat all with blessings, but then you need actual levels and skills.

Also initiative =/= speed. initiative only decides who will go first in battle, while speed is actual speed. There are fights with a lot of enemies, who can hit same character repeatedly. Such fights would become a nightmare without Cleric. Stuns don't last for long. You need to use cheap SP-stacking strategy for such things to work. It affects hit chance of the wounded. Evasion is neutralized by stuns. If to look at game files, Normal mode is easy-mode (one of secondary difficulties, with most multipliers being based on "Real" difficulty), it was even called as such in Betaand Old-School veteran mdoe was called Normal. people became upset with difficulty, so developers changed difficulty names. New "Normal" is old "Easy"

Thus I don't consider it as viable mode for any kind of challenge. It is story mode where with enough patience you can brute-force Ogre at Lv 4. Also Bestiary and Game Manuals all list values of Old-School veteran mode (which is called "Real" mode in game files). In "Normal" mode you have higher HP/PP, mobs have lower HP/PP, they give more gold, AND price scaling is much smaller.

Also Blessings' price scale with level. Don't forget that gold is needed for skill points AND gear (as your main gearing path will be through vendor). I have thread on them somewhere on this forum. Sadly, it isn't as easy. Cursed Hounds spawn each time you uncover 800 Fog-of-War cells (+- random number). game starts tracking it when you get Lv.4 or so. The moment when hounds started to hunt you down isn't shown in the game. Warning Message appears long after game decided that it is time for hounds. No matter what you do with them, there is a high chance of getting very nasty and expensive surprise... Not on Old-School Veteran. You are free to try, but there are enemies which have way too much HP, can deal quite significant pain, and your party will die just because there is noone to heal them through all the punishment. Back row isn't covered from ranged and spell attacks, and your casters die just from looking at them. Also without severely crippling your Gaulen to the point of entire uselesness by investing in thief skills, you will have to farm tons of food to rest after each 1-2 traps as there will be noone to even heal the damage from traps. You can carry only 6 days worth of food, so you can't just farm it for year ahead.

You are welcome to try, but it will be highly frustrating. You simply don't know what kinds of nastiness await you without Cleric. It might look doable at first, but eventually game will become unwinnable (or requiring way too much efforts to even bother trying).

Initiative only affects who gets the first turn in battle, but getting the first turn will allow you to freeze or stun enemies before they get a chance to act, pushing their first turn back further.

For experience, if the XP requirements are truly quadratic, then the math works out something like this for the point where you get an extra level.

1.04x^2 = (x + 1)^2
1.04x^2 = x^2 + 2x + 1
.04x^2 = 2x + 1
If we neglect the 1 term (to simplify the math), it works out to something like
.04x = 2
x = 50
(In other words, it would take 50 levels to get a full level in this case.)

A bit of Python confirms this. In other words, Golot is not as good as it might sound.

As I've mentioned, a speedrunner would likely choose Normal because it's faster and might be more viable.

For traps, if the trap is on a treasure chest, one needs to determine if the loot is worth the trap and the damage from forcing the lock. Whether this is worth it depends on the chest and would need to be worked out when routing the game. If the trap is on the ground, it should be possible to avoid the trap. If the trap is invisible, then one needs only memorize the trap's location and go around it.

For the hounds, the idea is to plan for having the hounds attack at more convenient times, like when you're rested and fully blessed. I also read that apparently the hounds scale more slowly on Normal, and that curing the curses might not be necessary.

Also, on Normal, you can carry 8 days of food. On the other hand, blessings only last one day.

One other thought: If you have a divine summoner summon something, then an enemy's single target attack might hit the summon instead of one of your characters. Consider also that a level 1 summon is cheap. (I don't think this would be worth getting rid of a Mage or Soldier, but I could easily be wrong.)

A lot of dangerous enemy casters like to be in back row, so as melee you won't get them. As casters even if you will stun them for some time, it won't matter much if Speed is low. I saw people getting 70+ level. So we speak about 4 stat points and 8 skill points.
Btw, real formula: 46 + 50 * Lv + (Lv ^ 2.75) * 8. Not truly quadratic but I was confused by variable "Square" (which is equal to 8 in this formula). Rounding at some point goes to closest thousand. Not really. Enemies aren't challenge in "Normal" mode at all. it is like having blessings on yourself full time in comparison to "Real" mode. You get 50% Score penalty (0,5 multiplier in game files). It defeats the purpose of challenge (I am purist at that, I don't consider "easy" modes as viable for any challenge).

Btw what mode you are playing? i strongly recommend you "Old-School Veteran" if you don't already. There is a LARGE difference between the two. That's how the game was supposed to be played balance-wise. Remember Rat Cave - entrance has trap in it right across the passage? There are many traps, where you can't just go around them. Curing curses might not be necessary ... with Cleric :) Without Cleric it means longer fights, more opportunity for enemies to outlive you. Divine Summoners have summons which can serve as tank and as healer. They are actually quite strong in the beginning, but don't scale as well as real characters. Lv.1 summons are bad, but people exploit with renewing them by some Lv.1 ability which costs a little PP.

I'm actually playing on Normal right now. I might try Veteran if I get bored and decide I want to start over, but I'm playing Normal to get a feel for the game and not worry too much about making mistakes.

With the real formula, the situation is even worse; you need to be level 70 for Godot to give you a full level advantage.

From a speedrun standpoint, Normal has another advantage: routes that don't work on higher difficulties are available (like killing the Ogre early).

Also, I still have Pier Solar to play, which (despite also being a turn-based RPG) is a very different game.

Edit: My "real formula" calculation is assuming you have no experience point bonuses from other sources. If you factor in other bonuses (like the one from Learning), the benefit of Godot is even smaller because XP bonuses only stack additively, not multiplicatively,

Ogre is part of the quest later on anyway.... Well, my high level party was able to slowly peel away Ulnalum Golem, which was supposed to be nigh invincible without special item, now that was really something... Btw, you can exploit Ogre by 1-man party with high enough Speed and ability to make enemies bleed. You can hit him couple times and move to opposite side of screen. If you get double-turn, you can try hit him for a bit more bleed. Eventually Ogre will die from bleed... Poor man's solution...

Maybe you are right at some point. Old-School veteran is truly another game from what is "Normal". I just raged over randomly encountered Rasmaga as I was without blessings and kept losing... Easy encounter on "Normal" (I played Normal a bit at first), but on "Real" mode this encounter is impossible to win without blessings (and farming resist gear)...

Thing with Exp bonus is that it can be stacked to incredibly degree. How much in % do you get Initiative bonus? Does it result in 1-2 at low levels? :)

With Golot Blessing, Golot deity and 1 Prophet item on each of chars, I got 15% EXP bonus. If you want to really find out why Initiative is extremely weak bonus, and why some setups aren't viable, benefit of each "+1" to stat you get, you are better to play Old-School Veteran :) When you will have to farm yet another few rounds of cereals and will wish for just having gained that 1 level earlier, you will understand true meaning of stats and why 3 Mages and no Cleric (or at very least Paladin) = world of pain.
Don't expect that much from it though. If you played Lunar, imagine it just without half of abilities, with only handful of enemies, very slow character progress (those "gather" mechanics make it even slooooower) and very strange balance. It is one of those games which make me remember better games of the genre I could be playing instead. What we like from the genre is mostly the same, so I am afraid you might be quite disappointed too.

In order to exploit Ogre that way, you need to be at least as fast as the Ogre with one character, and hope that character doesn't get killed right away. Then, you can have other characters inflect bleed, and then not care about character's dying. In the meantime, anyone else alive can try to inflect damage and bleed until they die. (Remember, in a speedrun, it saves time if you can kill the enemy faster.)

The Initiative bonus is 15%, so if you have at least 7 Speed, you will get at least some bonus. (By contrast, the Battle Speed bonus requires 20 Speed to benefit from.)

By the way, for a speedrun, do you think investing in Chameleon would make sense? (How high do escape PP costs go, anyway?)

Part of the logic behind playing Pier Solar is that it is a game where I do not have to think about party customization or character buiilds. As for very strange balance, I have played other games with strange balance and enjoyed them, including Final Fantasy 2 and Sword of Hope 2.

So, it solves nothing as first super-fast enemy (Askary Shaman) has 16 Initative. Either way need Blessing to go before him.
Camouflage (I think you meant that) is an unaffordable luxury. At Camouflage Lv.1 you can use it maximum 1 time before running out of PP at higher levels. Can abuse Reload skill to run from random encounters but you will quickly find yourself underpowered while doing so. Putting points in Camouflage will give no space raising combat skills, as you will need to have Knowledge of Terrains, Immunity, very pref. Learning and Knowledge of Herbs. Then - weapon and armor skills with body building, envenomed strike.

You won't have skill points for most of Gaulen's important skills, and Camouflage is far beyond the last skill to put points into.

Did you pass Sporia Plains yet? The ones with 4 big shrooms per group and where you can't save? I am about to cry there, as I am quite bad at dodging them. Brute forcing them is like 100 times harder than on easy mode. So I am running around, farming cereals and vendor for Absolute/Organic Resistance items...

Thankfully game disables saving only in 1 part (this one).

On easy mode it is manageable to nuke those shrooms with blessings. On real mode it is impossible without extensive farming of resist gear. I recommend you to get rid of them, as it is manageable, you will get couple more levels, so it will be easier to take out bees in next part.

It takes 50% longer for hounds to appear on easy mode (1 encounter per 1200 Fog-of-War Cells revealed). Also encounters with them will be scaled to 0,4 of your level instead of 0,8 as on Real mode..

I think I need to redo from start. People are right, you should raise Speed each level (on Old-School Vet mode) on all chars. Also I will get some more skill points and cheap absolute resist gear. I might forego "Exp" gear until I am resistance-capped, I saw there are monsters who can summon other monsters, I wonder if those summonables also give exp? Might be more efficient to farm them.