Skilling up by Cadyenie

So you've just started playing Therian Saga and come across a task you can't do. First thing many do is ask, "how do I raise XYZ skill?". Well, there is no possible way for anyone to answer such an open ended question, the possibilities are endless. Sure, sometimes someone can give you a walk through like: "Go to Crane Harbor, recruit a guide, finish training, go to Hawkoria Merchant District, buy a tabard, go to Visitors District, recruit a Page" but at the end of that, you have 2 companions, a few skills ups and still no clue why.

Skill Definitions

To raise your skill in Therian Saga requires you to learn some math. Don't like math, maybe not the best game for you. Press C, will bring up your character stats. Mouse over prospecting (I choose prospecting because besides leadership it is the most asked skill) and you will see a lot of numbers. I will use the most common questions, which is trying to do the calamine quest with 13 effective prospecting. I say effective because that is a very important distinction. Your effective skill is made up 4 parts (plus magic, more on that after). The 4 parts are your hero skill level, your companions skill level (you did recruit one when the quest said to, right?), your tool quality, and your location quality. For many tasks, your location will be 0, for prospecting this will almost always be the case until you build a concession (more on that later too). These 4 parts are given a weighted average, 40%, 30%, 20%, 10%. So the highest of these 4 parts is given 40%, the second highest 30%, the third 20% and the lowest 10%. Using the prospecting issue, you look at these numbers and your hero has 13 x 40% (highest possible skill from copper), your companion has 13 x 30% (same as hero), your manual is 5 x 20%, and location 0. You can't easily change location so we'll ignore that for now. The second lowest is your manual. In the early game, this is usually the easiest to fix (though not always cheap). Buying a silver sieve in Hawkoria Merchants District for 1g (You didn't go buy the overpriced 5g on the market, right?). When you equip that everything changes. Now you have tool 19 x 40%. Hero 13 x 30%, Companion 13 x 20%. and location is still 0. This gives a final result of 14.1. Much better than the 8.5 you had at the start for 1 simple change. Until you reach around 40 skill, your tool should always be the 40% (unless you have a fantastic guild location bonus). If it isn't higher than your hero, it's time to upgrade. The tools can get expensive, but the alternative is wasted time, and lots of it.

Skilling Up

Now that you have a decent tool, it's time to find something to do with it. At 14.1, you still are unable to mine calamine and copper no longer gives skill so what do you do? Turn to the game guide (no this isn't a spoiler walk through, it's a database of game information). Press escape and click the game guide button. Choose prospecting and you will see that chromium is 12 and silver is 15. Clicking on chromium shows that it's available in silver mountain. Clicking on silver shows hills of 7 mirrors...where's that? That's a region you won't have access to in Lanfar. Silver is an oddity in the game guide as it is missing the most important location to get it. The game guide only lists items specific to a region, like chromium can be prospected at any camp in silver mountains. Silver nuggets are only available in the silver pit NPC location in the silver mountains. You can find the location of silver pit on this map. Head to the area and start prospecting chromium. When you receive a couple skill points, head to silver pit and mine silver. You will probably need to spend some time on silver to reach the 17 needed for calamine.

Magic

No, not the spell casting wizarding kind. Jewelry and potions are classified as magic on the character stat sheet. A simple 0.8 ring is available for most skills at the location where the trainer offers the trade. For metal / prospecting, this is in Teasan. That 0.8 might not sound like much, but it is not modified by the 40/30/20/10 rule so is worth about 2 hero skill levels. Looking on the market you can find higher quality rings(Fashion/Jewelry) but they are often expensive so the 0.8 will probably have to do for a while. Potions are great later on, and even necessary at one point, early on they can be fantastic, but like market jewelry they will be very expensive if you don't make them yourself (Flora/Herbalism),

Terrain

Terrain is just like any other skill in game. It follows the 40/30/20/10 rules. It has potions, jewelry, companions and in a few spots even location bonuses. The first terrain wall you will probably run into is mountains or caves (if you chose mountain at the beginning). The biggest difference between terrain and other skills is that terrain doesn't have a tool (ignore the torch, it isn't really a tool). Clothes are the equipment bonus of terrains. Higher quality clothes have higher bonuses. Different fabrics have different preferences. Linen doesn't do well in forests while hemp does. The 5 best pieces of clothing are added together and averaged to give the tool score. You have 7 clothing slots, only the best 5 count. 2 of those slots, head and feet, are armor slots. Get in a habit of keeping armor in those slots and not depending upon them for terrain skills. This will become very apparent the first time you forget and get hit for 85 damage.

+15 Rule

Tools follow a +15 rule. You can not equip a tool more than 15 points above your hero's average score. The hero's average is made up of the trade level and the skill level. In the example above, metal and prospecting. These skill up separately. The trade level can be raised by all 3 of the sub skills. This can present some benefits. It can allow you to use a tool much higher than without the trade skill. It also lets you do recipes with much higher skill up chances.

Location bonuses and Concessions

The final part of your effective skill comes from location. I overlooked this so far because it is very difficult to find early in the game. The most likely place to get this is on a concession or guild domain. While concessions can be used for passive gathering by companions, they really shine when using a workshop. Workshops can ignore the +15 rule on tools. They can provide mills for substantial increases in resistance strength (blade/fuel quality). The location bonus along with a high quality tool can easily double or triple your hero score in the beginning. Later on, they become absolutely essential to making just about anything. They can also provide free places to sleep, some with substantial quality bonuses. Getting a concession and a workshop up and running is a substantial investment (5g+) but is well worth it both in leveling speed and convenience. You can build the workshops you want, all the in same location, so you don't have to move much.

I hope this guide is helpful. I will try to add some screenshots soon. I can be contacted in game as Cadyenie or Kelody on the Wojtek (english) server.