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Anyone who's played enough Bard's Tale 3 with a fresh party (or at least one that is less than level 35) will remember what I am calling the Brillhasti boost, which is an enormous reward that you get by defeating Brillhasti. (Note that this boss, and the dungeon he's in, is actually optional; you can skip it by changing one of your casters into a Chronomancer and using the spell the Old Man gives you to start Arboria, but I don't recommend this unless you're playing with a high level imported party.) In any case, the boost seems to work as follows:

* Characters who aren't lesser mages get enough XP to reach level 35, provided thier level is lower than 35.
* Lesser mages (Conjurer, Magician, Sorcerer, Wizard) become Archmages; they are given 20 in all stats, 375 HP, and 350 SP. (Note that this will not lower stats.) Such characters will only be level 1 after the change, however, and will have no experience points.

Note that no character can get the boost more than once.

With that said, however, this boost can be exploited by giving it to a greater mage (Archmage, Chronomancer, or Geomancer). Just get an Archmage or Chronomancer before killing Brillhasti, and you can now easily get a level 35 character of that class, getting access to powerful magic early, perhaps earlier if intended. (For the Archmage, you can skimp on Wizard spells if that character isn't your only Archmage; aside from DISP, you really don't need the other Wizard spells on more than one character (resurrection can be provided by the Archmage spell HEAL).

Another trick: Create a Warrior, don't take them with you when killing Brillhasti (but I recommend leveling up to 13 for the easy stat boosts for those levels), change the character into a Geomancer when the opportunity presents itself, and then kill Brillhasti with them in your party; this will raise them to level 35, giving you immediate access to all Geomancer spells and allowing the character to actually be at a useful level. No need to take time out to train your new Geomancer; they're off casting spells like JOBO right away!

By the way, random observation from trying to skip Brillhasti; my level 23 Bard could not hit Arboria enemies with her Flame Horn (without multiple casts of Anti-Magic), but my level 1 Archmage and Chronomancer could hit them decently often (though not 100%) with the Dragonwand and the Rimefang spell.
One thing to note: Getting a 600,000 point reward from the Review Board (and possibly other things that set quest flags) may prevent the characters in your party from getting the Brillhasti boost, so it's probably best to only take the character to the Review Board alone (I've made it there with an empty party, so getting there with just one level 1 character shouldn't be a problem).