EDIT: Sorry for the typo in the topic!

Hi there,

I climbed into the Monastery using the grappling hook, which I found on Day 1 in the Adventurer's Hall. But... how do I get out? The Hero tries to climb the wall, but his Climbing skill isn't high enough. And I can't get through the door as I never picked up that item you would need for the door to open (I read about this item just now, as I was searching for solutions). I cannot use Magic either; playing as Thief.

Am I screwed? Stupidly I didn't save a separate save game before entering the Monastery! Or is there a trick to it?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the reply. Sounds as it's as I feared then – may have to Restart.

I'm luckily not that far in, only a couple of days. I have picked up a lot of items, and spoken thoroughly with everyone I've met so far, but I guess wouldn't take too long to get to the same stage if I just speedrun through it.

It's odd, though, that there's no way to get around this particular situation, and the game gives you no warning prior. I guess it was just an oversight by the devs :)

I'm sure this has happened to most of us Sierra gamers at some point! I'm glad you're only a few days in. Are you new to this game? Because I'd like to warn you about something that might come across as a spoiler.

Haha, glad I'm not alone then!

Yes and no. I spent many hours in this game when I was a kid, but I don't think I ever got very far story-wise – mainly due to the still undeveloped... er, 'logical thinking' on top of a mediocre understanding of English (not my native language). Most of my gaming was just spent running around the forest, clicking through dialogue and understanding only half of it, and getting though puzzles / quests by trial and error.

I *think* the furthest I got was, possible, the castle. I remember a girl sitting in a room with some large creature. But I cannot now remember how I got there, or whether I got further than that.

I don't remember ever being down in the Monastery's cellar, though, and have no memory of that short nightmare cut screen when you drink the wine. But if this is a prerequisite event to the stage that includes the girl and the creature, then there are obviously holes in my memory!

Anyway (sorry for rambling), as I never seemed to have gotten very far in the story, it's likely that the something you thought I should know will be a spoiler for me :) Perhaps best to just remind myself to create restore points more frequently!

UPDATE!

I asked this question on Reddit too, and someone just suggested that (as with earlier QFG games, apparently) your Climbing skiill may actually increase when you simply keep trying to climb.

Lo and behold, whilst keeping an eye on the Climbing skill, I just kept trying to climb / falling down the wall, and noticed that on every 10th try (or so) my Climbing skill increased by 5. When it hit 239, I successfully climbed up the wall and exited through the window! Yay!

Luckily I hadn't done a Restart yet, haha.

In the future, there's actually an easy way to train your climbing skill - if you go outside town and click the hand icon on one of the trees, you might get a message about you either attempting to climb the tree, or climbing it and seeing nothing. This doesn't have an animation associated with it.

Hold down enter and you'll repeatedly do this, quickly grinding up your climbing. This will make it much easier to climb in and out of the monastery.

Also, if you decide to play as the wizard, a warning - you can levitate into the monastery, but you can't levitate out. The game won't let you. So you can be stuck for good that way.

Thanks for letting me know about the trees, this info will come in handy! Even if you were playing as a mage and levitated inside, you wouldn't be permanently stuck right, as your Climbing skill would still slowly increase each time you tried climbing the inner wall – ref. the solution in my previous comment. Or is there a cap for a Mage's Climbing skill, which would prevent it to reach the required skill level for that wall?

Since the Climbing skill is more associated with Thieves (and Fighters/Paladins in QFG4), a Wizard player would have needed to assign skill points to it first. I often gave my Magic Users the Climbing skill back in QFG1 before I realized they didn't require it. I've never had trouble escaping the Monastery, though, because I always picked up the Dark One's Sign from the archway.

Yeah, you can't practice a skill if it's at 0, and Wizards don't get access to the book that teaches Fighters and Paladins climbing.