If you get the XP rewards when they're still significant, you will get some levels sooner, which in turn causes higher level enemies to spawn sooner, increasing the rate at which you earn experience.

It's like exponential growth: If there's a fixed boost you can get, the long-term benefit of getting it early will be significantly higher than what you'd get later.

In particular, if you're going to speedrun to, say, level 30 (or higher, of course), the strategy would be to try and do the XP rewarding quests as soon as possible (or, alternatively, find high level high XP fixed spawns and kill them early, but that might not be so easy), then kill the stronger enemies that spawn for more XP. (Alternatively, you could take advantage of the bug that makes high level enemies spawn when you're below the minimum level for the area, but actually killing those enemies and surviving isn't exactly trivial.)

What I'm doing (high-level power grinding) almost ensures that Death, Disease, and Draining won't happen to my party (I managed a deathless run last time, ascending a level 37/38 party).

In Arnika, I can now get level 21 Savant Slashers and level 22 Savant Minion, the highest for that area. Until I reach level 25 or so, the game will match me with those monsters. After that level, once I've gotten too high-level for that area, I could get any spawns.

Having a fast-leveling character lose XP due to being killed isn't really a problem; the rest of the party will just get more XP from battles (not quests) to make up for it. In fact, doing this may help balance out the levels of characters. Just keep your bishops and ninjas alive.

Draining isn't a permanent risk as long as you make sure to not level up when drained. (Side note: It might not be a good idea to level up hexed characters for a different reason; the skill penalty for being hexed will affect the learning of new spells. Same if you level up an RPC in an area they don't willingly go (though you might be able to get around that by doing so instantly after an area transition), or leveling up an enthralled character outside of Rapax territory.)

For disease, I'd just check the combat log every round to be absolutely sure that there's no stat loss (I think the message would appear at the end of the log, along with things like poison damage and cloud effects), then immediately cure it when the battle is over.


By the way, one strange thing that's apparently possible, and involves a different death-like condition:
* Solo the game up until the Mine Tunnels. Do not kill Crock.
* Recruit RFS-81.
* With your solo character and RPC, get Marten's Idol. Your solo character will be taken away.
* Now beat the game with just RFS-81.

(You *might* need to dodge the Al-Sedexus quest by taking only one artifact at a time.)

I am actually thorough enough to have all party members fully rest, restoring their HPs, Stamina, and Spell Points fully, while making sure that no buffs remain, before levelling up. This is to ensure their base stats, skills, and resistances are up to par.

I consider the 3 Ds (Death, Disease, Draining), to be permanent, so I will reload if that happens. It's all about RNG, similar to how I will save/reload if desired item doesn't drop. This game is full of bugs, particularly that hole in Trynton near the entrance to AT Road, that will instantly kill your party, or the Umpani obstacle course.

Having said that, while there are many flaws with vanilla W8, and many unfair battle occurances (Death, Disease, Draining while you're unable to cure them), also, sometimes, the game will spawn higher level enemies than you can handle at the moment, overall, this game is fair. You can surprise enemies, and be surprised in return. With X-Ray, you can see them coming long before they pose a threat to you.

I consider it "Schrodenger's W8", where there are multiple occurances of the same battle. There are multiple universes, and it's up to you to pick the best universe (result) of said battles, where you triumph, and maybe gain skill ups, and decent items.

Having said that, and calling me softcore, I will remind critics that I DO indeed, once I'm powerful enough, 100% the game fairly. I will fully explore all maps, grab all obvious and hidden items, open every treasure chest, fight all set battles (fairly killing all bosses), do all quests, max all skills fairly, with no cheese (except those 5 previously discussed).

I still consider Humans as the supreme race, for the simple reason that, even in the worst-case scenario, Humans would max their first four attributes by level 31 (Valkyrie or Bishop).

Give them four levels, by level 35 or so, and they should have had enough time to also max 4 expert skills, while their 3 dump stats should have evened out by then.

They then have the highest stat sum, four stats maxed, and four expert skills unlocked and maxed.

Yes, but if you compare the races by their best stat, Humans are worst, with their best stat being only 45.

Or, choose any stat. Then Humans do not have the best starting value in that stst.

Or, choose any expert skill. Assuming simple classes (like non-casters or specialist casters), there's a race that gets that expert skill faster than Humans.

It's a comparison to fastest to max a stat vs overall stats, and Humans lose in the short run, but win out in the long run, if you're patient enough.

A Human is guaranteed 45 to all stats, while a more specialized race gets 50, 55, 60 to a given stat. You're probably looking at, on average, a 2 or 3 level advantage of the more specialized race over the Human, in terms of maxing out 4 attributes first.

Note that Humans are the one race (I think), where you won't start out as an apprentice, due to their stats being mediocre.

Put it this way: If you were blindfolded, and had to pick at random from the 15 professions, which race would you go with?

According to the manual, a human, elf, gnome, hobbit, or felpurr cannot be an apprentice.

If I had to roll for classes, I'd go for dracon, where the worst there is a bishop. But it's still a bishop. But hobbit is the right choice, where the worse there is, arguably, a monk. But, I like breath, and beast races are best races, then stout. (Now, I do like humans generally speaking, but I also like those two groups a lot.)

How about a Human Rogue by level 28? Now we're talking!

By that level, the Human would max Strength, Dexterity, Speed, and Senses, while having the highest stat total.

I finished the game 8 Levels ago

Wouldn't a Hobbit Rogue max those four attributes at level twenty-six? And stamina/rest-all fixes any stamina issues low piety brings. Sure, duel-wielding is a stamina hog, but I don't see it being worse.

Level 26 (Hobbit) vs level 28 (Human).

As example of the Human vs other races. Yes, the other races will max 4 attributes sooner, but the Human will overall be better, and once the Human catches up, will be objectively better (that is, once those 4 expert skills are maxed).

But the game may be over before the human catches up.

For a more favorable example (to the Human), consider a Human vs Lizardman Fighter:

For the early game, the Lizardman will enjoy the early advantage, having high Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, and Speed (but low Senses, and everything else).

The Lizardman Fighter will dominate everything, preventing anybody else but him/her from getting any melee skill ups.

The Human Fighter will start out ok at first, getting skill ups along with the others in melee. However, once he gets going, him (and the Rogue), start to get all the skill ups, and kills, in melee.

The Lizardman Fighter starts with a high Vitality (and obscene HPs), which is unnecessary for a Fighter, who already gets the highest HPs in the game. He/She will have terrible Intelligence, Piety, and Senses, which makes them slower overall (the last one matters, since they will be slower, and won't get Eagle Eye).

I don't consider resistances important when picking a race, since any deficiencies can be fixed with Magic Screen, Element Shield, and Soul Shield.

While the Lizardman may get some resistance bonuses, they also suffer from Mental and Divine maluses (again, generally not a concern).

By the time that a Human Fighter maxes out Strength, Dexterity, Speed, and Senses (level 29), I would argue that they have outclassed said competitor.