Beginner's guide

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The Beginner's Guide

Welcome to the Kingdom of Loathing wiki! Although this guide is meant for players new to KoL, it assumes that you have completed the Toot Oriole Quest. Armed with that basic knowledge, you can use this wiki to discover more about how KoL works.

Although the wiki contains detailed explanations of various quests and puzzles, it can be more fun to figure them out on your own. Of course, if you get stuck, the wiki can help get you back on track.

Turns/Adventures

In this game, Adventures are your limitation to your actions. You already know how this works from the tutorial, but here are a few things to note.

First, you can do ANYTHING that does not require adventures in an unlimited amount. You can be adventuring in a cave and go back to town, buy stuff, sell stuff, explore, and head back to the cave in ZERO adventures! Basically you can effectively 'teleport' anywhere. This makes for a very user-friendly experience.

The next obvious question is, "How many turns do I get and how do I get more?" Every player starts with 80 turns, and gains 40 turns every realtime day. However, many more turns can be obtained with several methods. The three most common are:

Food

• Food - Eating food increases your adventures. The higher quality the food, the more adventures gained. Some food also improves your stats. You can eat up to 15 'fullness' per day, where an average food item takes 3 fullness, but this varies from 1 to 6. Note that you have no way of knowing what your fullness level is, except by manually keeping track.

Booze

• Booze - Drinking booze works the same way as eating food, except it uses a visible Drunkeness/Tipsiness/etc counter. If you drink more than 15 tipsiness, you are UNABLE TO ACT for the rest of the day! So be very careful with drinking once you approach the limit. Be sure to top off your adventures when you are out with one last nightcap, since they will carry over.

• Items/Amenities - There are several items and clan amenities that give you a certain number of free adventures per day. A clan can have a calendar for +3, an inspirational bookcase for +5, and a +1 item. In addition, you can carry or have items which boost adventures. However, many are fairly hard to come by, so by the time you can get them, you will be well beyond the scope of this guide. An easy one to get is the dead guy's watch, but you need to be wearing it at rollover for it to work.

A beginning player can expect about 100 adventures per day or more.

Extra leftover adventures are added to your allotment for the next day, up to a maximum of 200. Even if you cannot spend time adventuring, try to log in briefly to eat and drink, so you can get those significant bonus adventures added to your total.

Quests

Your main Quests come from the Council of Loathing in the middle of Town. At each level, you are eligible for another quest regardless if you have finished the last one(s).

In addition, you will find many side-quests available from various locations.

You have as much time as you need to complete any particular quest, so there's no need to rush.

Combat

A combat is always a 1 vs 1 affair that takes one adventure. Each monster has a certain Monster Level which determines its combat stats. In combat, initiative is rolled. When you attack, you have a certain chance to hit, based on your Muscle (melee) or Moxie(ranged). There is otherwise no advantage to 'ranged' attacks. If you hit the monster, you deal damage based on the Weapon's Power and your Muscle, minus the monster's damage resistance/reduction. When the monster attacks, its chance to hit is directly based on its stats and your Moxie. As such, Moxie is the primary defensive stat. If you are hit, Moxie determines how much damage you might avoid taking. Other stats are Damage Resistance and Damage Reduction and Elemental Resistance which affect damage taken. Upon winning a fight, you gain subStats based on the monster level as well as a certain amount of Meat and possibly an item drop.

Other events that may occur in combat are...

• Fumble - This is one of the most damaging things that can happen at lower levels. You miss your attack and damage yourself. It happens 4.22% of the time. Certain items can negate this and are worthwhile to seek.

• Critical hit - You will occasionally get a critical hit which deals about double your normal damage output. This is a base 9% chance for the player.

• Familiar does something - There are tons of familiars, many of which periodically do stuff in combat. Sometimes they attack, or give MP to the player, delevel the foe, etc.

• Use of a combat item - Several items exist which have various effects on the monsters. Many of these are beneficial to yourself and/or detrimental to the foe. These should be used wisely.

• Use of a skill - Players have a number of skills available with varying effects. These are typically better than a standard attack and have no chance of fumbling. They cost a certain number of MPs to use.

• Run away - You can attempt to run from an encounter to avoid getting beat down.

Your Character

There are six classes in the game. Seal Clubbers and Turtle Tamers are Muscle-based classes. Pastmancers and Saucerors are Mysticality-based classes. Disco Bandits and Accordion Thieves are Moxie-based classes.

Main Stats

• Muscle - Determines your maximum hit points. Determines your chances of hitting with melee attacks, as well as how much damage is dealt with ALL weapons. Most melee weapons and shirts have minimum Muscle requirements. Muscle is an important stat for all characters. Note that the two muscle based classes gain a 50% hit point bonus.

• Mysticality - Determines your mana point maximum. Also determines spell damage, which really is most important for the two spellcaster (mysticism-based) classes. Many accessories have minimum Mysticality requirements. This stat is really only important for the spellcaster classes. Other classes will gain enough mysticism naturally from advancement.

• Moxie - Determines your defenses; how likely you are to be hit and also how much damage you take upon getting hit. It also determines your hit chance with ranged weapons. Note that muscle still determines ranged weapon damage. Most ranged weapons, hats and pants have minimum Moxie requirements. Due to combat formulas it is possible to be almost invulnerable to being hit by a given monster with sufficient Moxie. As such, moxie is one of the most important stats, even for Muscle/Mysticism classes.

SubStats

By now you have adventured and noticed that you have gained an alarming variety of different oddly-named stats. Here is the deal: To advance a main stat (muscle, mysticality, moxie), a certain number of substat gains is needed in order to get 1 point of that main stat. Also, each main stat has many different substat names, as shown below for variety's sake:

• Muscle - Beefiness, Fortitude, Muscleboundness,Strengthliness, Strongness
• Mysticality - Enchantedness, Magicalness, Mysteriousness, Wizardliness
• Moxie - Cheek, Chutzpah, Roguishness, Sarcasm, Smarm.

In other words, gaining +5 Smarm is the same as +5 Cheek. It adds 5 subpoints to your moxie stat. When your bar-graph is full and you have collected a certain number of these moxie substats, then you gain a single point of that stat. The higher your main stat, the more points worth of substats you need to acquire for a point in your main stat. More on this below...

Levels and Advancement

You gain main stat advancement by getting the appropriate number of substats as described above. The most common methods of acquiring these are:

• Combat - Every fight will give a certain number of substat points, which are distributed as 50% to the primary stat, and 25% to each secondary stat. This is based on the Monster level.
• Non-Combat - Some non-combat adventures will give you a certain amount of a substat. This amount is typically based on the difficulty of the adventuring zone itself, though some scale based on your current level (to an upper limit), resulting in higher stat gains the higher your stats already are.
• Eating/Drinking - Most foods and booze grant substat points, in addition to giving you extra adventures.
• Other usable items - There is a huge variety of usable items, some of which grant substat points when they are used.

You gain levels by achieving a certain number of your main stat (which is determined by your character class). This increases as you level. From level 1 to level 2 only requires 2 points of your mainstat. Getting from level 9 to 10 requires many more points of mainstat advancement.

Your level is used to determine which quests you can go on, as well as what you can eat or drink. If you have not yet ascended, your character level also determines when you can buy/sell from other players (in town at the Mall or Pawn Shop) or join a Clan.

See Advancement for more information.

Mana Points

One note of importance is that your MP has a different name based on your class. Muscle classes have "muscularity points", Moxie classes have "mojo points", and Mysticism classes have "mana points". They all work the same, mechanically. You can replenish MP by drinking certain 'potions', adventuring with certain familiars, equipping certain accessories, and by resting at your campground or clan hall.

Hit Points

When you reach 0 HPs, you are unable to adventure. You cannot actually DIE however. If you run out of HPs in combat, you lose the fight (and the adventure/turn) and get a 'beaten up' status effect that halves your stats. You generally want to rest and then do something non-combat related (or easy fights) for a few turns until the Beaten Up effect goes away.

Equipment

You can equip a hat, pants, either a two handed weapon, or a 1handed weapon plus an offhand item, one familiar-accessory, and three accessories. Later on, you gain the ability to wear a Shirt which is an additional slot.

Like many adventure games, getting better equipment is important. Early on, you can head to the equipment shop in town to get basic equipment. At level 3, you can buy from other players through an auction-house style shop. Items that are equippable can have many attributes. These are the most common:

• Power - For weapons, this factors into your character's offensive capability - namely, it makes you do more damage when you attack. For hats and pants, this boosts your character's defense, causing you to take less damage from opponents when they attack you.
• Stat boosts - Many items give a stat boost. You should almost always equip items that boost your primary stat (or Moxie if you are boosting defense).
• Regain MP and/or HPs per adventure - Getting one of these items early on from the Mall/Flea Market is a great thing and well worth the money! Every adventure you go on, this item restores a certain amount of HP/MP. These are essential for avoiding wasting adventures resting or wasting healing/MP items. They are great for keeping yourself buffed.
• Bonus Damage - This is a strong ability early in the game, when your damage dealt is very weak and you can one-shot opponents. Note that muscle/moxie boosts are generally twice as effective however.
• Damage Reduction - This attribute directly subtracts from damage taken.
• Damage Absorption - NOT the same as Damage Reduction. This uses a formula which effectively reduces a PERCENTAGE of your damage taken.
• Elemental Resistance - Reduces damage taken of that element by a certain percentage. Resistance does Stack, so 3 slight resistances is equal to 3 points of resistance, which is equal to serious resistance.

Buffs/Skills

In the tutorial, you buffed yourself for 5 turns with one of your skills. Buffs always stack for duration. Hence, if you cast a particular skill 5 times, you would have 25 turns of buff instead of 5. Depending on your class, buffs can be a very good way of spending MPs. By level 3 or 4, you will likely want your buff active at all times. Whenever you have extra mana, you will probably boost yourself. Some classes are better at this than others, but you will quickly discover that some class combat skills are pretty weak. Buffing yourself is generally a better use of MPs for these classes.

Familiar

Every character can have 1 active Familiar, and several more in storage. More info is available at Familiar. There is currently an overwhelming number of familiars available, but you will be given a Mosquito for your level 2 quest reward. This is a decent one that fights in combat with you and occasionally heals you. Familiars become more effective as they gain levels, which is represented by its weight... from 1 lb to 20 lbs naturally, plus modifiers from buffs and equipment. The Cake Shaped Arena is a place where your familiar can adventure. Upon winning 10 fights, you are awarded with a special item that takes a 'familiar equipment' slot and increases the effective weight of your familiar.

If you want to try other familiars, here is a short list of some that are pretty easy to get by level 5 or less and are useful.

• Star Starfish By level 5, you can spend about 650 karma and get 6 stars, 4 lines, and a star chart from your clan coffers. You then use the star chart and assemble this familiar. He restores TONS of MP in combat while dealing damage, making him really good for Mysticism classes or any character that uses expensive buffs and combat skills.

• Blood-Faced Volleyball Gives you more stat gains per combat. Go to the hermitage and get a Seal Tooth and a Volleyball. Use the Tooth, then use the Volleyball. Use the blood-faced-volleyball item and you're done. Total cost is about 3 turns, 400 meat.

• Leprechaun Gives more meat per adventure. Go to Spooky Forest with a Clover for a Lucky Charms drop. Eat it for a 50% chance for this familiar. Repeat as needed. Cost 200 meat +3 turns.

Another trick is to visit the Flea Market under the Familiars section to browse the various hatchlings for sale. This will give you an idea of approximately how challenging each one is to obtain.

Guilds/Training

Every class has a Guild Hall where they gain a number of quests and can train their skills for a substantial meat cost. Before you can do anything though, you must pass a certain number of tests...all of which are based on your primary stat. Therefore, equip yourself with every primary stat equipment piece you can find, use any potion-like item that will temporarily boost your main stat, and use any skills that boost your primary stat. In this way, you can get through many of the challenges all in one visit.

Other Stuff

Clans

You can very easily join a Clan starting at level 3. I HIGHLY advise you to do so, as it costs you nothing and you get big gains from doing so. In a genius move by the Developer, clans show up on the big listings based on how much money they spend on advertising! This means that any 'dead' clan will quickly fall to the bottom. Hence, pick any clan on the front page and you will likely be accepted within 1 day.

Clans allow you to 'sell' your items efficiently, and you can take stuff from the clan coffers based on a 'karma' currency system which is a good way to get certain items for quests and easy mid-level food/booze. In addition, you gain bonus adventures per day for free, and can get free meat and free items that boost your stats temporarily. Different clans have differing goodies, but they are all great for you!

Ten Leaf Clovers

You might have noticed ten-leaf clovers at the Hermitage. They are interesting in that they automatically trigger special 'super encounters' at many adventure locations causing one clover to disappear. These are non-combat adventures that give you a boost, far in advance of anything you would normally receive. You can 'use' these clovers to disassemble (deactivate) and reassemble them as desired.

Buying and Selling

At level 3 you can buy stuff from The Flea Market in town. This is a pretty big deal, since you can boost your power significantly by picking up solid accessories, plus fill in any missing equipment slots. The best use of the Flea Market is to get food and booze. The stuff you find early on is pretty bad. For 100 meat each, you can buy fairly low-level food that is a big boon for you. For example, using a 3 drunkenness wine for 3 adventures is ok, but for 100 meat you can drink a margarita and gain 7 or 8 adventures for the same 3 drunkenness. That means 500 meat buys you 25 or more adventures for that day! Same with food.

At level 5, you can go to The Mall of Loathing and buy stuff instead. This is almost always cheaper, but a lot harder. The reason is because stuff is not sorted nicely as with the Flea Market. This requires heavy usage of the KoL wiki.

Winning the Game/Ascendance

KoL designers have cleverly created a scheme for beating the game. Once you beat the main quest, you can ascend and restart the game as any class. However, you can keep the stuff you already have, which makes the game easy. BUT, you can choose from several game modes which increase difficulty and add restrictions. You can get Trophies for certain in-game accomplishments, and in-fact many adventures and areas are ONLY usable by ascended players that have given themselves restrictions. Finally, when you ascend you can usually keep one of your existing skills to be permanently usable for all other incarnations. Hence, you can continue to build up your character by cherry picking skills from all 6 classes!

Hints and Strategies (Warning: Spoilers)

If you want a bit of extra direction on how to more efficiently play during your first few days, read these tips.

• Visit the Artist Hovel in the Wrong Side of Town immediately. His quest takes you to three different adventure locations and provides a decent hat for a reward. In addition, he now buys Rat Whiskers for 50 meat each which is solid early on.

• The Spooky Forest has a Vampire Hunter encounter which will give you Wooden Stakes. Equip these to fight Vampires, as the hunter will occasionally show up and give you a very strong consumable which boosts your stats significantly. You can also combine the Wooden Stake with a Bar Skin to make an improved Tent.

• Early use of Clovers can be of great assistance. You can obtain 3 to 5 of these per day from the Hermitage that you visited during the tutorial. They can be used in the Cobb's Knob Treasury (level 5 needed) for 1000 meat, Hidden Temple to boost all your stats, and many other uses that you will discover.

• At level 3 when you get the rat quest at the Typical Tavern, you can use this as a decent opportunity to make money. Each drunken rat that you defeat will drop typical meat and give stat gains. In addition, each whisker can be sold for 50 meat, making this one of the more lucrative early-game adventures.

• At level 4, visit your Guild. You can pick up your Epic Weapon quest which is relatively easy to accomplish, has no combat required, and will boost your character significantly.

• At level 4+, the Bodyguard Bats are particularly valuable for their 200ish meat drops. When you do encounter the Boss Bat, you may wish to use Harold's bell to drive it off. Doing so allows you 20 more turns of Bodyguard Bat encounters which is a great assistance at low levels.