The amount you get out of each point of your 5 main stats goes up with your level:

Stat Scaling Multiplier:
Levels 1-9: x1
Levels 10-19: x1.5
Levels 20-29: x2
Levels 30-39: x2.5
Levels 40-49: x3
Levels 50+: x3.5 (note, not reachable on Insane difficulty)

Strength
- See damage section

Dexterity
- Hit rate up +2 to +7 per point
- Evade up +1 to +3.5 per point

Toughness
- 5 HP to 17.5 HP per point

Knowledge
- Arcane up +1 to +3.5 per point (doubled for healers/wizards)
- Hybrid types only: Evade up +1 to +3.5 per point
- Fighter types only: Crit up +0.5% per point (no scaling)

Willpower
- 3 MP to 10.5 MP per point

On the status screen, you can see the range of damage your attacks will deal. This is accurate, but how each factor affects it is not explained. Here it is:

Average Damage = (Level Bonus + Stat Bonus) * Weapon Factor

Level Bonus:
1.33 x Level (Warriors, Troll Slayers)
1.11 x Level (Knights)
0.88 x Level (Rangers, Champions, Mage Knights, Battlesmiths)
0.66 x Level (Bards, Troubadors)
0.44 x Level (Healers, Wizards, Sages)

In other words, a warrior's average damage goes up +1.33 per level, before weapon mults.

These correspond to the x2 through x6 mults in the manual.

Stat Bonus:
0.38 x Stat (at levels 1-9)
0.56 x Stat (at levels 10-19)
0.75 x Stat (at levels 20-29)
0.94 x Stat (at levels 30-39)
1.13 x Stat (at levels 40-49)
1.31 x Stat (at level 50+ -- not reachable on Insane difficulty)

Thus, your Strength contributes more to your damage as your level rises. This keeps it relevant. This uses the same scaling as other stats.

Weapon Factor:
This is as listed in-game. For serious weapons, this ranges from +100% to +190%, i.e. x2.0 to x2.9.

Armor that increases damage is applied here, additively. For example, if you equip a Sword (+100%) and a Spiked Shield (+15%) you'll deal x2.15 damage.

The Battlesmith "Sharpen" spell is also applied additively here, which unfortunately makes it much, much worse than it sounds. Because weapons have such high mults to begin with, you'll get an actual damage increase of between 3-5% out of it (5% early game, 3% late), not the 10% that you might hope for.

Critical Hits:
Crits deal x2 damage, so they are a pretty big deal. There are very few sources of crit chance:

+10% base chance
+10% dwarf wielding an axe
+33% weapon of Slaying
+0.5%/point of Knowledge (warrior types only)

Unfortunately, Knowledge crit scaling is the one use of stats where there is no scaling for level range. This means that Strength will always be preferable to Knowledge for warriors.

The dwarf axe bonus is nice, but as you can see, using a weapon of Slaying makes a much bigger difference -- in fact, it's the single biggest way you can boost your damage. And while there are no axes of slaying, there are tier 3, 4, and 5 flails of slaying. The tier 3 and 5 ones are even sold in shops (and on Normal, you can afford as many as you need).

Accuracy:
Despite the name, the Accuracy ability has nothing to do with hitting. Instead, it lets you roll twice for damage and take the better roll. I did the math out, and on average you'll deal about 11-13% more damage with Accuracy present. (13% early game with a smaller damage range, 11% late game.) This isn't game-breaking but it's the next best way to increase your damage output, after Slaying. There are several helms which provide Accuracy; use them.

Armor uses similar scaling to stats. Early on this is useful, but later in the game, even on Normal, armor becomes less impactful. On Insane, this happens quickly.

Protection:
The Protection item ability gives you best-of-two on armor rolls, and so is subject to the same math as Accuracy: on average, it will increase your damage reduction by around 13%. This means that with an Armor total of 8, adding Protection is about as effective as adding +1 Armor. With an Armor total of 16, it's as effective as adding +2 Armor. So in reality, it's not an exciting ability at all.

Evasion:
The math on hits and misses is opaque. It might be a ratio; it might simply be subtractive. Whatever it is, even boosting your Evasion as much as possible doesn't result in an easily measurable increase in opponent misses, nor in your own hits. Not worth investing in.

Displacement:
OTOH, a flat 1/3 chance to dodge anything physical, that doesn't require any investment beyond 1 accessory slot, is the best defensive effect in the game.

HP:
Fighter types will have plenty of HP by default. On Insane, you'll still get one-shot in the late game (most of the time, by the dragons; 50/50 by a few other enemies). However, you can't really add enough HP to consistently survive all these hits, either. And since higher max HP has no impact on healing spells, its effect is minimized in any battles with lots of healing.

Because the MT damage that hits end spots is usually less extreme, though, it can be worth topping up healer (or wizard) HP totals. A high level healer will get more than 3 levels worth of HP from 1 point of Toughness. 300 HP is a nice target since it helps you make the most of Mass Power Heal.

Healing:
Speaking of healing, Mass Power Heal is so much more efficient than everything else that once you get it, you should abandon other heal spells whenever possible. This even goes for regular Power Heal -- if you have even 2 PCs worth healing, the Mass version is better.

Healers generally want to end up at 500 Arcane, to max out the Power Heal spells. On Normal, you only need to scrounge 11-12 added Knowledge to get here by game end. On Insane it's very doable, but you do want to pay attention to where your stat points go:

- With just a 15% arcane weapon, your target Arcane from level + stats is 435.
- At level 45, level provides 225 arcane.
- This leaves 210 arcane, which (at level 45) equals 35 Knowledge.
- Healers start with 9 Knowledge, gain 5 naturally as they level, and can get 1 point from the Knowledge Trainer. That leaves 20 Knowledge.
- At level 45, you'll have just enough free points (5 at creation, 15 from level ups) to finance this. But there are other sources as well.
- A few items (not always great ones) come with Knowledge. The 5% arcane helmet effectively does the same work as 3 points of Knowledge.
- Several lineages provide either 3, or 5 points of Knowledge as you level up.

Other than a few points of Toughness, Healers don't really have pressing needs for stats. (More Willpower is nice, but without any investment you'll hit close to 400 MP by level 45 anyway.) So as long as you pick a racial lineage that provides Knowledge and/or Toughness, you should be pretty comfortable.

It's widely recognized that a lot of the classes in Amberland are not great. Actually, that's an understatement if anything: only 3 out of 12 classes are really worth considering at all.

Classes to Use:

- Warriors are the gold standard for damage and simply have no drawbacks.

- Healers are obviously necessary for healing. Bring two to make your life easier, especially on higher difficulties. Only 2 classes can cast Mass Power Heal, and Healers are the better option by far. Healers also bring the unique Vitality buff (which allows you to stop using slots on Paralysis immunity items).

- Bards end up with 60% of a Warrior's personal damage potential if you put all their points into Strength. However, their Inspiration buff adds about 5% of a Warrior's potential to all 5 physical attackers, bringing their effective contribution to 85%. In exchange for this loss, they can serve as a backup healer (eventually with Power Heal and Restoration) and offer the unique Heroic Ballad buff. Heroic Ballad might not ever proc on Normal, but on Insane, it's absolutely worth the drop from 500% to 485% party damage output.

Not Worth It:

- Wizards are a frustrating class. Even after the "wizard rebalance" update, their damage doesn't justify their inclusion, and they are especially bad against the endgame bosses. Haste is convenient for exploration, and Amplify Resistance -- their best selling point -- is good for defense. It's even good against the dragons! The problem is that physical attacks are generally more punishing than elemental ones; most elemental attacks are weaker MT attacks, especially when resisted, and can conveniently be MT healed. So Amplify Resistance is nice, but doesn't help you where you most need it. And ultimately, the wizard buffs aren't worth the loss of damage (or the twiddly MP management).

- Knights trade a chunk of a Warrior's damage (about 12%, come endgame) and a bit of HP for... a higher encumbrance limit. There are times this is convenient -- there are some nice plate armors -- but it's never essential, especially on Insane.

Strictly Worse Than Other Classes, Period:

- Troubadors are nearly identical to Bards. They learn some healing spells a few levels later, and have lower MP cost for their buffs. The only reason they're on the "strictly worse" list is because they are required to be Human.

- Troll Slayers have almost the same damage potential as warriors. They autocrit trolls -- but trolls aren't the most common, or the most threatening, of enemies. In exchange for this bonus, they lose two equipment slots. In theory, you could get by with a Troll Slayer in slot 2 or 6, but it'd be taking on a penalty for no gain.

- Sages have all the bad Wizard spells, but none of the good buffs; on the healer side, they
do get Mass Power Heal, but they lack Restoration and Vitality (and even regular Power Heal).

- Champions are knights that deal extra damage to enemy wizards, but less damage to everything else -- and give up a bit of max encumbrance. None of the endgame bosses are wizards, and in fact wizards tend to be some of the less threatening opponents generally.

- Battlesmiths have about 70% of a Warrior's personal damage potential. Their Sharpen buff adds about 3% of warrior potential to all 5 physical attackers, bringing them up to an effective 85%, like Bards. Unlike Bards, they don't offer any utility to make up for the loss.

- Mage Knights get one convenient Wizard buff (Haste), but are down to about 70% of a Warrior's damage output. Pretty bad.

- Rangers too have about 70% of a Warrior's damage potential, but all they get in return are direct damage spells. Also pretty bad.

Total stat impact of each race/heritage at level 45:

Human A: +1 Level, +45 HP, +5 Knowledge, +2 Dexterity
Human B: +1 Level, +45 HP, +5 Strength, +3 Dexterity
Human C: +1 Level, +75 HP, +27 MP, +1 Encumbrance

Half-Elf A: +45 HP, +9 MP, +4 Strength, +3 Dexterity
Half-Elf B: +81 MP, +5 Dexterity, -1 Strength

Elf A: -1 Level, +63 MP, +5 Dexterity, +3 Knowledge, -2 Strength, -1 Encumbrance, Resist Confusion
Elf B: -1 Level, +63 MP, +5 Knowledge, +3 Dexterity, -2 Strength, -1 Encumbrance, Resist Mesmerize
Elf C: -1 Level, +99 MP, +5 Dexterity, +3 Knowledge, -2 Strength, -1 Encumbrance

Dwarf A: +105 HP, -18 MP, +7 Strength, +1 Encumbrance, Axe+
Dwarf B: +45 HP, -18 MP, +6 Strength, +3 Encumbrance, Axe+
Dwarf C: +75 HP, -18 MP, +2 Strength, +3 Knowledge, +1 Encumbrance, Axe+, Resist Fire
Dwarf D: +60 HP, +9 MP, +2 Strength, +1 Encumbrance, Axe+, Resist Cold

How do these options look for the 3 good class options?

Warrior: Axe crit chance is a nice backup for when Slaying weapons aren't available. (On Insane this may be much of the game.) But beyond that, the best Human option (B) is flat-out worse than Dwarf A -- best for both damage and HP.

You might also consider Dwarf C which trades 5 Strength and 2 Toughness for +1.5% crit and Fire Resistance. It's not necessary, but this does make it easier to get complete resist sets and stop fussing with equipment. Fire is a relatively common element, whereas there are tons of combined Ice/Lightning resist items and very few that combine fire. This is especially helpful on your front line, since they will be trying to fit in a lot of effects: Displacement, Accuracy, as many status resistances as they can fit, and possibly girdles and Spiked Shields as well.

Healer: With extra MP being less of a priority than both Knowledge and HP, Elves are a hard sell. (Possibly the worst thing about Elves is cluttering up your Healer spell list with the useless Elven abilities.) Dwarf C is the real winner, with the arcana equivalent of 3 Knowledge, HP equivalent of 5 Toughness, and free Resist Fire + encumbrance. Other options are Human A (6 Knowledge (thanks, level up!), 3 Toughness); or Human C (1 Knowledge, 5 Toughness, but some extra MP and Encumbrance).

Bard: Bards ultimately just care about Strength; they have a bit more HP than Healers, and because Strength increases damage additively and their damage starts lower, it's proportionally even more relevant for them. Plus, because your Bard is likely in an end slot and less concerned with defense, Encumbrance isn't huge. So Dwarf A is an easy winner.

Elemental Resistances:
These are important for everyone. Early game you can skimp on them, and certain areas will emphasize particular elements (spiders and beetles use acid; icy monsters use ice; etc.). But areas where you'll encounter at least 3 elements are common enough that you'll just want to bake these into your regular equipment setup. For the endgame, you'll want all 4 resists on everyone.

- Fire is fairly common on individual pieces of armor, though most aren't top picks.
- Ice/Lit appear together on some extremely common accessories.
- Fire/Ice/Lit appear on 2 guaranteed plate armors midgame, and on 1 guaranteed accessory.
- Fire/Ice/Lit/Acid appears on a powerful accessory; 2 copies are guaranteed late game, and there's 1 in the magic shop for 120 crystals.
- The only other sources of Acid resistance are a unique body armor (midgame, and excellent); helmets (not ideal); and accessories (Acid alone, or Acid/Poison).

Status Resistances:
These are important, but not for everyone. There seem to be no enemy attacks which can afflict PCs in the rear (spots 1, 7) with statuses. And the central 3 slots will get hit more often.

- Paralysis is important in the early midgame, but you can ditch it as soon as you get the Vitality spell.
- Petrification is important from the early midgame on. It doesn't tend to land as often as other statuses, so you can get by with 2 resist copies and save/reloading.
- Confusion is important as soon as it's available. It's not deadly, but it can interfere with your damage output, and that can be deadly.
- If you have a Bard, Fear resists aren't crucial but are definitely nice. If you don't have a Bard, they're essential.
- Mesmerize is mostly just an annoyance, provided you don't have spellcasters in tank slots. (On Insane it's a somewhat bigger annoyance since you don't want to waste gp healing it.)

Status resists are much more scattered on equipment. There are 2 guaranteed petrify shields early-ish, and 2 guaranteed petrify/fear helmets midgame. There is also a nice confuse/fear/mesmerize plate armor that I've found multiples of in every game, but I don't think it's guaranteed.

You can find 176 crystals in the game (for the magic shop).

For the regular shop, there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 210-220k gp in the game. About 10k will go to fixed costs (like boats). Training will cost about 41k on Normal, or 87k on Insane (3x cost, but fewer levels gained). On Normal, the remainder is probably enough to buy whatever you want. On Insane, with triple prices, it's not -- not even close.

Chest treasures, including which top-tier items show up, and how many of them, can vary significantly between games. There are also a handful of very good fixed items. (On Insane, this may mean you want to wait as long as possible before making purchases, so you don't waste money on something you'll find later.)

Suggested armor purchases:
- Visor Helms (with Accuracy). Helms of Accuracy have higher Armor, but these are good enough.

Suggested accessory purchases:
- Girdles of Strength. Available early, and cheap. Even on Insane you can afford a few.
- Cloaks of Displacement. Magic shop, 10 crystals each.
- Alchemist Gloves. To complete the party's Acid resistance. Mainly an endgame buy, though they can help with spiders and eyes early.
- Either the Ultimate Cloak of Resistance (120 crystals) or the Gloves of Strength (50 crystals).

Suggested weapon purchases:
- Grand Flail of Slaying. Hands down, best weapon in the game. Requires all 5 craftsmen, and isn't cheap. On Insane you can probably only afford one.
- Flail of Slaying (Normal only!). Requires only 3 craftsmen, and is a great upgrade, but on Insane you likely want to skip it to save gp.

Speaking of weapons, if you take into account all stat/damage/crit effects, the best weapons in the game are (in order):
1. Grand Flail of Slaying (x4.12) -- shop
2. Mighty Mace of Slaying (x3.90)
3. Noble Mithril Axe (x3.67 for Dwarves) -- unique, 1 copy guaranteed
4. Flail of Slaying (x3.60) -- shop
5. Glorious Axe / Grand Whirling Axe (x3.47 for Dwarves) -- shop
6. Mighty Whirling Axe (x3.29 for Dwarves)
7. Blade of Heroes / Sword of Slaying (x3.23) -- 1 copy guaranteed, semi frequent chest item
8. other +180% weapons (x3.19)

CHARACTER CREATION
On Normal you can probably be successful with any party that includes at least 1 Healer (preferably) or Sage. 2 will be more consistent (and convenient). But it never hurts to optimize further!

Insane: I recommend the following min-maxed party:
- 2 Dwarf Warriors (Heritage A)
- 2 Dwarf Warriors (Heritage C)
- 2 Dwarf Healers (Heritage C)
- 1 Dwarf Bard (Heritage A)

Keep 1 healer in the middle row (spots 2/6) and 1 in the back row (spots 1/7) so enemies will act in between them.

THE WESTERN CONTINENT
The goblin caves are quite easy, but are a good place to practice tactics that you'll use constantly later. Fight enemies one at a time whenever possible (and it's almost always possible). Sometimes this means dancing around a bit before you fight. And do fight everything; you want all the XP you can get.

General progression: goblins, island dungeon, ogres, snakes, north tower, south tower (boat required), trolls, forge, red knight's castle, spiders, bees, southern caves.

Insane: Level ups will come slowly, but will make a visible difference in what you can handle. Do not be afraid to clear the easier parts of a dungeon, and leave the harder parts for later.

- This is especially relevant for the ogre castles, which have areas with random goblins and ogres... and others with heavily armored ogre bosses, and clustering enemies you can't fight solo.
- Always grab "free" XP as soon as you can. This applies to the royal wizard's errand quests, and to bringing fairy dust to the north tower.
- Due to the way stat scaling works, level 10 will be a particularly big jump in power for you.
- You'll probably need to save the Spider Queen for later. However, you can sneak past her, grab her armor (usable for the entire game), and leave without fighting her.

THE DESERT
As noted in many forum posts, the enemies in the desert are much harder than what came before -- and than much of what comes after. However, you don't have to fight them to cross! The desert is just a big overworld section, and you can "run past" most of the enemies if you pay attention to their locations.

Insane: With patience, some reloads, and clever exploitation of the gryphon, it's possible to avoid nearly every fight in the desert. The yellow snakes can be fought if needed, but the scorpions, and the squat snakes at the end, can and should be 100% skipped for now. The hermit is surrounded by a lot of scorpions and should also be avoided; there's no point in visiting him until you have all 5 flowers, anyway.

Key notes
- Enemies will only move so many squares from their starting positions.
- You can use the gryphon any time you are at least 3 squares away from all enemies (diagonals do not count).

SAILING THE WORLD
There's a lot to explore. Except for the swamps and the ice troll areas, you can cover most of the overworld without difficulty. Most of the available dungeons offer incremental progress towards one of the three orbs.

General progression:
- Easiest: lizards, ice lizards, ice labyrinth, dwarf overworld goblins, crystal cave (northern island), eastern lake tower, southern twin tower
- Next easiest: beetles, desert dungeon (SE), dwarf caves (eyes), mountain goblin cave, mountain trolls/cave, northern twin tower
- Varied difficulty: 3x lava towers, ivory tower (main quest dungeon)
- Tougher: ice trolls, remaining ice caves, desert overworld enemies
- Save for the endgame: swamp overworld and cave, deadly dungeon of doom, red dragon, green dragon, mountain tower, dark knight, dark castle, black dragon

Insane: Things potentially get much, much better here. First, this is because, if you're cunning, you can nab some very powerful fixed equipment without fighting. Second, the easier enemies you can fight will help you hit another stat scaling milestone at level 20 (with Heroic Ballad to boot).

Big treasure rooms to loot immediately:
- The Ice Queen's Castle. I'm not sure what the entry requirements are, but I think having a very high Strength is enough. A Dwarf type A Warrior with free points in Strength will do it very, very early.
- The Black Dragon's lair. Notably includes guaranteed 2x Black Plate Armor and 2x Black Helmet, which make resistance stacking much easier, and has high level random items. Sneaking back out is somewhat trickier but is doable with strategy -- go hang out away from the dragon's zone so it will pathfind to a different corner. You may need to encounter it for 1 square, but you can Flee and escape if positioned correctly. Make a backup save just in case.
- The Red Dragon's lair. Same general idea, but sneaking is a bit more random and you have very little room to maneuver; make a backup save.
- You can also complete the chef's quest without any fighting for some free XP and a free Crystal Armor.
- You can sail to the Masters of Strength and Knowledge with no fighting.

THE BLUE AND RED ORBS
Each orb quest provides well over 10k XP in quest rewards. Fairy dust, for the blue orb, is the easiest to complete. Mithril ore, for the red orb, will probably come next.

Insane: Between these and the easier dungeons, you should make level 30, which is another big milestone: improved stat scaling and, crucially, the Mass Power Heal spell. This spell makes everything simpler and better, especially the lava towers.

- Parts of the lava towers are quite easy if you get resistances on everyone, but they aren't open layout like the earlier towers, and in places it's hard or impossible to avoid fighting enemies 3 at a time.
- Thus, you might complete the lower floors well before the upper floors.
- When considering the reward for the rings of flame, the armor is unlikely to be useful given how much else goes in that slot. But look at your items; if you were lucky and found piles of Spiked Shields, the shield may be even harder to fit in.

THE HERMITS AND THE MAIN QUEST LINE
Completing either hermit's quest will set off a sequence of very juicy non-combat tasks (with free XP) leading up to the green orb. Once you have all three orbs, you get another sequence of non-combat tasks with XP and free items, followed by Ivory Tower access. The Ivory Tower isn't too hard, and completing the first objective there gives you the ability to find and break the 3 mirrors.

The mirrors are all guarded by lone beholders. These fights are dangerous but doable with resistance sets and Mass Power Heal. Breaking each mirror rewards 100k XP, which is enough for multiple level ups on any difficulty. This is huge.

Insane: The southern hermit's flowers are in easier dungeons, but the scorpions surrounding him are still pretty rough. Still, the XP rewards further down the main quest chain are pretty spectacular.

These areas are all tough enough that you may as well wait until after the XP bonanza from breaking the mirrors, before you take them on. For Insane, you'll want to have hit level 40.

The swamp enemies are fairly dangerous/obnoxious and there are no amazing rewards there, although you can get a guaranteed Blade of Heroes by completing the dungeon for the little boy's quest. They do provide a good chunk of XP.

The "Deadly Dungeon of Doom" (accessible early, on a far SW island) has a number of top tier enemies, including beholders. For the most part, you can avoid fighting them in groups. There are very nice rewards here, including a guaranteed Ultimate Cloak of Resistance and a lot of high level chests. It's all one square wide cave passages, so you can't sneak past the enemies.

The Red Dragon and Green Dragon are very dangerous, but if you have a high-DPS party and learned the Secret from the Ice Queen's basement, you can kill these relatively quickly. Killing the Green Dragon in particular opens up a massive slew of XP and gold rewards related to the Ice Queen. It also gives you access to the mountain tower, for more crystals and nice chests. The Mountain Tower allows you to complete the Elf King's quest, which in turn allows you to (rather anticlimactically) complete the Betrothed Knight's quest, for a rather anticlimactic reward.

The Dark Knight is the final boss. He's harder than the first two dragons, in part because he doesn't waste attacks on resistable MT elements, and in part because he has more HP and isn't vulnerable to the dragon-slaying secret. Beyond that, though, tactics remain similar: push as much damage as possible, stay healed up, and save/reload if you face too many random crit deaths.

The Dark Castle is the hardest dungeon in the game. Although the enemies there are weaker than beholders individually, they are more annoying (especially if you have status resistance gaps), more dangerous (thanks for random physical crits), and a number of them have to be fought in groups. Notably, this dungeon contains the fifth and final craftsman.

Finally, the Black Dragon is basically an optional superboss. Since it's possible to sneak past it, there is no specific reward for killing it. On Normal, if you've completed everything else, this shouldn't be too challenging.

BLACK DRAGON ON INSANE
The Black Dragon uses two types of attacks:

1) Very strong MT elemental attacks. Having all 4 elemental resistances on everyone is vital. Mass Power Heal will not always heal these in one go, but it should be enough to keep everyone alive, if timing favors the party. Getting Arcane to 500 is important to keep the healing relevant.

2) ST physical attacks that do way too much damage to survive. In theory you could sometimes survive by stacking on HP and Armor and Protection... but half the time these do 1000+ damage, so it's really not worth it. However, you can dodge entirely 1/3 of the time with Displacement, and can survive mortal blows at 1 HP another 1/2 of the time with Heroic Ballad (provided you've been healed since the last time this happened).

What the Black Dragon does not do is use any status effects. And since the physical attacks are so hard to survive, you can basically abandon Armor values as well, and choose your equipment solely to cover elemental resists and boost your damage.

With sufficient DPS and average luck on damage rolls, you can kill the Black Dragon in around 5-6 rounds. With Displacement, Heroic Ballad, 2x Mass Power Heal, and the Healer special ability for emergencies, surviving those rounds is less difficult than it first seems. It's a roll of the dice, to be sure, but with a fully min-maxed team, it shouldn't take many tries at all.

And when that happens, there's nothing left to say but: Congratulations! This journey was no cakewalk.