Make sure these 2 options are on initially, we will be turning some of them on or off depending on the situation.


General logic to follow throughout the guide :
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON" when you are travelling with less than 6 party members.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF" right before a new party member joins or when you are travelling with 6 party members.
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON" right before you do a skill check with your MC.
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "OFF" the rest of the time.

After demons appear tell the halfling to give you his crossbow and that you want to fight (not related to XP but you need this choice in case you want to go for the secret ending)

Advance and talk to Seelah, make all the skill checks.
Once you see the END CONVERSATION button, press ESC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF".
END CONVERSATION, Seelah joins with the same XP as your MC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON".
Advance and meet Camellia.
Once you see the END CONVERSATION button, press ESC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF".
END CONVERSATION, Camellia joins with the same XP as your MC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON".
**********************
Move through the dungeon killing bugs until you meet Lann and Wenduag
**********************
The conversation with Lann and Wenduag should push you level 2.
Loot everything and click the statue with your MC to get the xp on them.
Click the pile with the gear in the corner to advance the conversation with Lann and Wenduag.
Once you see the END CONVERSATION button, press ESC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF".
END CONVERSATION, Lann and Wenduag join with the same XP as your MC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON".
Do the mobility check with your MC
**********************
Advance until you get to Neatholm
**********************
If your MC's persuasion is lower than someone else then :
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "OFF".
Talk to Horgus Gwerm, make the diplomacy check.
Loot everything in the village, then sell junk and weapons you don't need to Dyra.
Click on the tent to rest.
**********************
Once at the shield maze :
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON" before you do a skill check your with MC and "OFF" if you do something with another character.
Read the tome of the Minotaur in the library to get +1 with Glaives, good idea to use them for now as you will get masterwork Glaives in this area.
Clear the shield maze, don't forget to grab Radiance (Yellow, blue, red, Yellow).
Sell everything you don't need to Dyra again before leaving.

If your MC is a really powerful build that is very strong early, normally melee builds with mounts are very powerful early on (Sohei, Gendarme, Demonslayer, , Bloodrider, Mad Dog) and depending on the difficulty. Sohei motherless tiefling gets a mount and 4 attacks from level 1 (2 fists, 1 bite, 1 from the horse).

If you have enough skills covered with few characters, you could do the entirety of Acts 1 and 2 with only a few characters like 4 for example, while keeping "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON" pretty much all the time except right before recruiting someone new, but you don't put them in your active party.

This will make your active 4 characters and MC level up faster than normally and far outpace the other characters that are not being used.

If your MC is not a super strong early build or playing on very high difficulties this will make things significantly harder as you have to rely only on those characters for a fairly large part of the game while you don't really have powerful mythic ranks to help you either.

Near the end of CH2 when your camp gets attacked by Gargoyles, this makes all your party members leave your party, and you will gradually get them back as you advance the story, what this means is that if they had fallen behind on exp, which they will with this guide as we are trying to funnel as much exp into the MC as possible, you can turn the option back on just before getting them back and they will rejoin with the full XP that your MC has.

You need to decide if you want to go this route before starting CH1, you can decide which characters to bring the first time you leave Defender's Heart, it is not recommended to switch methods halfway through if you feel like you can't make it with 4 characters or less, because the characters you add will be far behind in levels.

The guide will still have your MC getting ahead of the others through skill checks while delaying picking up party members but from the end of CH1 will be using 6 party members.

*************************************************************************
Addition, credit to rdj1 in the comments for telling me about this :

This will require more fiddling around with dismissing companions and going back to the inn to get them back but can squeeze yet a bit more exp from the game, I'm gonna put it in this section as it fits with the extreme leveling more and its entirely optional :

You can get level 9 pre- Leper's smile if you additionally play around with removing companions for non combat experience in Act 1. If you change order and get Wolgif at the beginning of Act 1 and only do his quest line with the 2 of you, the MC will get 50% of that experience. in the SE corner of Market square, clear the corner but don't talk to the drow or fix the bridge. Then go to the map and dismiss all companions. If you can get through 2 bug fights using the crusaders hanging around, you can solo 1) creating the bridge, 2) the conversations with the prelate, 3) find the thieflings, 4) talk to the drow. 5) all the skill checks in the area. Additionally you can dismiss all active companions except Camellia after clearing her house to gain additional experience from the conversation at the end.

I wanted to do a run to see how high I can push the XP by doing everything possible solo. This requires heavy cheesing and a very specific character with a mount.

Here is the character I made.
Ranger (Demonslayer)

Keep stats positive to not get penalties.
17, 12, 14, 12, 14, 8 (I'm an aasimar so +2 char lands me at 10 cha)
Get pickpocket background for the initiative and have trickery as a class skill.
Raise Athletics, trickery, stealth, a few points in knowledge world to be able to make the forn check at 26, and persuasion. You should be able to make every single skill check in CH1 with your main character.

Go 2 hander route and use a glaive we got good glaives in CH1 plus you get a +1 from the book in the prologue.

You still go through the prologue normally with 4 characters, still using the regular exp optimising techniques of this guide. After getting to the inn in CH1 you leave everyone there and go on your own to Market Square.
Help the crusaders with the initial fights, repair the bridge.
Drag all the bandits in the inital area to the crusaders so they help you kill them.
Soon enough you should get level 4 and a mount so you can kite enemies using a bow as a horse archer.
Proceed to clear the entire market square solo.
You can shoot an enemy and then keep kiting or if there are too many, shoot once then run away and wait until they reset then go back and shoot them again, slowly killing them all.
You should be able to clear the entire market square solo this way and get around level 6 to 7, doing all the quests you can. This will take a very long time.
After that is done you can clear the rest of the other areas because your character will be very powerful at level 7-8 in chapter 1 with a +4 bonus to attack and damage against demons, and on a mount, you can easily kill the hard fights of act 1 on your own. You can bring in party members with heals in your group before resting to make sure you heal to full. Use the other methods to delay meeting the messenger as long as possible so you have time to do everything you can in act 1.

Once all the random areas are cleared you can proceed to add the companions, you can do Woljif's quest with just you and Wojif, do Camelia's quest just you and her. After you get the new companions don't forget to turn off the only active party members get experience option just for meeting them so they join at your level, you can get Daeran, Ember, Ulbrig and Woljif to join you at level 8 this way. Nenio will probably join around level 7 when you need to go back and forth from the market to the inn to sell loot.

Doing the Inn defense solo actually pushed me to level 9 in act 1 which is pretty crazy, half the inn got burned down because you can't be everywhere at once but you're one shotting multiple enemies every swing, minotaur died really quickly and can't hit your horse.

Afterwards you can clear the new fights in Market Square again solo, the Nabasu + Ghouls is too much to take on in melee they will still kill your horse so pull that +2 bow you got from the basement and kite them across the map, the Nabasu will drain a couple of levels from your horse but its not a problem since animal companions get cured of everything on rest, he gives a whopping 1800XP when you kill him solo.

This Is my XP bar after doing all the initial game before going to the Grey Garrison solo.



Now I don't recommend doing the Grey Garrison solo, because 1, its very long and there's a lot of loot you won't be able to carry all solo, and 2, there are some hard fights in there, even if you managed to beat them, if you get stuck not able to beat Minhago solo you would have to restart the entire garrison with Party members which would be a pain. Plus already having achieved level 9 before Grey Garrison is pretty amazing considering you're usually around level 5 there normally. You can still hog all the skill checks in the Grey Garrison and could possibly go in with fewer characters but its probably not worth it.

After clearing all the content available and then going into the Gargoyle attack on the camp I was level 10 and halfway to 11. So comparing to even the optimised run by going with multiple characters you get a net of around 2 extra levels by doing act 1 mostly solo.

I wrote the difficulty of many skill checks in the game while I was making the guide playing on Core difficulty.

I just realised when I am doing another playthrough on Unfair difficulty that the checks are actually higher on Unfair, so if anyone sees a different number in their game its because of the difficulty setting.

So during the prologue and future acts you can rest as much as you want. But the beginning of Act 1 works a little differently.

Once you leave Defender's Heart the first time you are on a 3 day timer to the inn attack event.

What actually happens is that once 3 days have passed in game, whenever you are travelling on the Kenabres map, there is a chance you will have a random encounter with a messenger from the inn who is getting attacked by demons. Now saving this messenger or not doesn't matter, if he dies he will have an item on him that tells you to go back to the inn ASAP and if he lives he will tell you himself.

If you go back to the inn after talking to the messenger the NPCs will have moved and you will have to rest at the inn and then the inn attack event will happen where you have to defend the inn from a bunch of demons.

Even if you don't meet the messenger if you go back to rest at the inn after 3 days that will also trigger the inn attack event as well.

It is generally advised to clear all the content before the inn attack because enemies in different areas might no longer be there after that event or some might have changed. Some NPCs and companions if you have not grabbed them before the Inn attack event are also lost forever.

The optimal way to clear act 1 is to clear the entire act before the inn attack, then after the inn attack there are a couple of new enemies that appear the market square that you can clear as well.

Now I have found a workaround around the resting and time limit.

If you find clearing a large area like market square too difficult without resting, you can actually rest in the market square as much as you want.

Make sure you save before leaving and once you move in the Kenabres map, move a little and save often, if you ever encounter the messenger event, reload the save. The inn attack doesn't actually happen after 3 days. Its the messenger event that is the trigger so as long as you never meet the messenger nor rest at the inn itself, the attack will not happen. So you can explore all act 1 and rest inside each area as much as you want but keep saving often and reload to avoid the messenger event.

GREY GARRISON

After the first few battles you will get some easy religion and mobility checks.
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON" and do these checks with your MC, then turn it off again.
Minhago will 1 shot you with a lightning bolt and you will wake up in Defender's Heart. If you've been doing everything properly you should be level 4 by now.
**********************
DEFENDER'S HEART

Our next objective is to gather as much xp as possible as easily as possible while delaying picking up party members for as long as possible.
Talk to everyone in the Inn to pick up all the quests and unlock all map locations.
Anevia, Staunton, Horgus Gwerm, Gemyl Hawkes, Jernaugh, Hilor, Irabeth, Seelah, Camellia, and either Lann or Wenduag depending on who you picked.
Forn Autumn Haze has a Knowledge World 26 check, which you might not be able to make this early in the game, if you cannot make it, avoid talking to him for now, if your MC is your highest character with that skill and you can make it, make sure to turn "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON" before you do the check. it gives 270 XP, turn the setting OFF after.
Outside, loot everything, show radiance to Joran Vhane
Basement, loot everything, talk to Woljif to pick up his quest.
Solve the puzzle : Lever closest to the button raised, the other two lowered, then hit button.
Talk to Irabeth about bringing Woljif with you but don't free him yet, he still has to serve some time while we get more XP.
Talk to Indarah in the corner and make some checks for some extra exp, if your MC has high persuasion or knowledge world, turn the skill exp setting on before talking to her.
Make sure you sell all your junk before you leave the Inn.
Buy the bag of Holding from Gemyl Hawkes.
Buy the Lesser Extend Metamagic Rod from Vissaliy Rathimus.
Put other stuff you wanna keep but don't need right now in your chest before leaving.
**********************
SILKEN THREAD ATELIER

*****Make sure to read the resting section above before leaving the inn for the first time, you can either avoid resting altogether or play with save and reload to avoid the messenger.
Moving south on the map you should discover a location called Fallen Horse that has some crafting mats, pick it up on the way.
Disarm both traps, kill the group outside, loot everything.
Kill the guys inside and loot.
Leave.
You should discover a location south called Dead Duelists loot the crafting mats.
**********************
TOWER OF ESTROD

Heal to full before the next fight.
Make a different save in case you mess up before moving in.
Stealth your whole party.
If your MC has half decent Mobility :
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON".
Make all the mobility checks in both directions with your MC.
If your MC has half decent Athletics :
Click the column to make it fall and kill a bunch of enemies.
Greybor will rush in and kill the leader.
If your MC can't make the checks leave the setting to OFF and do it with your other characters.
Now your characters with bad stealth will get detected if you try to go up the stairs, so leave them on the right side where the column was.
If you have at least 1 character with decent stealth and trickery, move him/her north up the stairs.
If its your MC Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON", if its not your MC put it OFF.
Disarm the trap up the stairs.
Move left after going up the stairs, you should find a 2nd column
Push the column to kill yet more stuff.
Don't click the mobility checks on the left yet.
Bring your stealth character back to your team.
Should be just 5 enemies left now. Kill them.
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON" and make the left side mobility checks with your MC.
Go to the basement, do whatever you want with the cultist.
Loot everything, there's 3 traps in the north room for some more XP.
**********************
DEFENDER'S HEART

Sell all the loot and junk.
Keep the magical and cold iron weapons. So far you should have Radiance, 1 cold iron long sword, cold iron javelin, the cold iron + 1 kukri.
By now you should have cold iron weapons on almost everyone.
Talk to Irabeth to turn in the "Spies Amidst Our Ranks" quest and collect XP.
Don't rest, you want to do more stuff before advancing time.
Optional : Buy a resist fire (communal) scroll and / or a protection from fire (communal) scroll for the brimorak fight.
**********************
MARKET SQUARE - SOUTH EAST CORNER

Welcome to the most difficult part of the game. You will mostly want to keep cold iron weapons on hand here.
Depending on your MC this might be a lot easier for some builds than others.
There are some really tough fights here for a low level party, if you can't handle them, avoid them until later, notable hard fights : specters, vrock demon, shadow demon, brimoraks.
We will be clearing it in sections.
Easy arcana check upon entering, switch the xp skill setting on and do it with your MC, you should know the drill by now. Shake down the thiefling for 112g if you want.
Move south then south east, killing the demons then marauders.
WARNING : DO NOT approach the bonfire to trigger the Ember event yet, we will save her, just not yet.
Move north then north west past the broken carts.
Kill more marauders.
Another group to the west fighting some crusaders.
Move south along the brick wall.
There is a hidden loot cache near the zone exit.
You will see Kaylessa, if you haven't spoken to Forn Autumn Haze in defender's heart because your knowledge world was too low, avoid talking to her for now, if you did and you have the quest called "The Outcast", talk to her. Perception check for 25 XP and advance quest for 276 exp, I suggest letting her go.
Now move north along the wall, more dretches to kill with cold iron weapons.
Time to build the bridge, its an easy check, turn the skill xp setting ON and do it with your MC. 105xp to MC and 225 to everyone.

MARKET SQUARE - NORTH WEST CORNER

You are about to get ambushed.
Avoid the athletics for now, move west through an archway, go first with a tanky character, preferably someone on a horse.
Keep moving west to meet Hulrun and Ramien.
Now you can play this encounter how you want, but its recommended to keep both alive, I will be doing this for this guide. You can attack Hulrun and kill him, he has a pretty good sword for this early in the game but its a difficult fight and IMO not worth the trouble.
Advance the conversation and show the light of heaven to Hulrun. Make the chaotic choice and Ramien will run away. Advance the conversation more to get a hidden Knowledge arcana check and some free exp.
Move north east towards a tower to see some crusaders fighting some worms.
19 mobility check to do with your MC if you can, toggle the XP skill setting on before. 102 XP
17 Lore Nature check after going across. 102 XP
Do the mobility check again to go back to the tower 102 XP.
Now go back to where Hulrun is and move north west between the buildings.
Click the blue sparkles to start the Aeon mythic quest and get the purple stone knife. Needed for secret ending, no exp here but its a free + magic dagger and gives a slight buff to evocation spells.
More dretches north, cold iron weapons time.
Loot the midnight bolt, you wanna hold on to this.
West are the most annoying enemies in the game and worse than basically all bosses, swarms, thankfully these are the least worst of the swarms. Equip blunt damage weapons (maces and stuff) on your characters, and try to kill them without getting diseased to oblivion. If you catch a disease my advice is reload. Once the swarms are dead you can put the blunt weapons back in the dumpster where they belong.
Now go up the stairs.
There are thieflings and one is stuck under rocks.
Pick the first choice twice in the conversation : Who are you? -> Don't lie to me.
Get 552 free XP. Do the good boy Athletics check for 103 XP.
*******The 3 Tieflings and the trap : BIG DECISION TIME*******
You now have a choice to tell the tieflings to go to the Defender's Heart. (Choice 1)
Or just send them away. (Choice 2)
Now why is this a big decision : In the last dungeon of chapter 1, the Grey Garrison, there will be a giant trap that requires a whopping trickery 35 DC, now depending on who you bring and how you build your characters it might not be possible to make this check this early in the game, you will be around level 5 by then. Its a big deal because disarming the trap yourself gives a staggering 5600 XP, if you bring the tieflings they disarm it for you and you get nothing. So if you think you can disarm it yourself later, send the tieflings away, and if not, send them to the Inn with Irabeth.
*********************
Move south in front of the broken church for more demons.
Easy mobility check with your MC with skill setting on to the south. Do it both ways and get back to the south side.
Your MC should hit level 5 soon if not already done.
Move east along the wall. Kill the fighters.
Keep moving east, kill the cambion and his crew.
Talk to the mongrels, skill check for some xp.
Go back along the wall to the west and climb the ramp heading west.
Easy lore religion check to do with your MC with the skill option ON.
Kill the demons to the east.
Don't go into any buildings for now.
Head all the way back across the mobility check to the north.
Move north in front of the broken church where the tieflings were, go back down the stairs to the market square.
If your MC has the highest knowledge world in the group, put the skill xp setting ON.
Move north west following the blood on the ground.
You will meet Arendae's servant and trigger an automatic skill check. 54 XP to MC or 13 to everyone if the setting is OFF.
Accept to help him to reveal a new map location.
Move north and talk to Ramien near the church of Desna.
Grab the pet cat and loot south east of Ramien.
Exhaust all conversation that doesn't involve attacking him or Hulrun and get some xp. Ilkes will show up with some more exp in their conversation.
Can't do anything inside the church so no need to go in for now.
Keep going north on the left side of the church. Secret loot on the left.
Now go back and to the right side of the church, some cultists to kill.
Move east from the church following the zone wall.
Now be careful when you hear the music change to ominous music and you see blood on the ground, there is an invisible demon who will ambush you.
Secret loot on the eastern wall.
Head back to Ramien and move east along the cliff.
Kill the demons, don't go into the house yet.
Keep going east, some ghouls will climb the cliff.
Meet curl to advance Seelah's quest, exhaust dialogue options.
Go east across the chasm, watch the nabasu prelate delete some crusaders.
Fight more ghouls.
At this point I started getting encumbered, you might wanna leave some heavy low price stuff on the ground when that happens. You can pick it up when you leave or later. Most armors weigh a ton and aren't really worth much.
Easy lore religion check to do with MC with skill setting on. 102 xp.
Equip magic weapons on your characters, you will come up against shadows soon and normal weapons aren't gonna do anything, ideally magic slashing weapons because zombies are vulnerable to slashing weapons.
Keep going east to the graveyard to fight a bajillion zombies, KILL THE SHADOW ASAP, channel your inner Woody Harrelson and kill them. Double-Tap!
Easy lore religion check to do with MC, same drill as usual.
Secret throwing axe +1 in the graveyard.
Move back out of the graveyard and climb some steps to the south, NOT SOUTH EAST YET, ghouls will come out.
Move south west now and kill some bugs.
Switch to cold iron weapons and kill the dretch further west.
If your MC is your highest athletics skill user, turn the skill exp setting ON now, otherwise leave it OFF.
Now that the place is cleared, click the hand icon to free the actors trapped in the rubble.
Some of your companions should be getting level 5 now.
South west of here is the athletics checks we skipped after building the bridge, we went all the way around, you can make the checks with your MC and xp skill setting on now if they have decent athletics, otherwise leave the setting off and do it with someone else, don't forget to do it both ways.
*********************
So now we've done all the "easy" fights in the market square, time for the difficult ones, depending on your MC, these fights could be a lot easier for some builds.
*********************
Go back in front of the graveyard, equip magic weapons on everyone, this time we're going south east, there are A LOT of shadows, and they drain stats which is incredibly bad at this point in the game. You will see zombies initially but zombies are just a distraction, focus the shadows.
I strongly suggest you save before doing this and reload if you get drained too much.
If you have mounted characters try to send them in first so the shadows drain the mounts, all mounts fully restore everything and rez when resting so its best to take ability and level drain or other annoying status effects on pets/mounts.
Another tip : if your MC is a Bella fan Dhampir, he's completely immune to the shadows attacks, so send him/her up front to start the fight, and watch all the shadows do 0 drain for the whole fight while you laugh at them.
Hopefully all your characters are level 5 after this fight, you will really need it.
Seelah finally gets a horse so she can stop being a terrible melee character on foot.

Save before moving south, even harder fight coming. Stealth your entire team.
A gnome raises some zombies, all the cultists are fairly high level 5 to 6, and there's more of them than there are of you, but if you've been following the guide you are at least mostly on equal footing, a normal playthrough would probably only be level 3 by now.
Open up with something like grease in the middle of them if you have it, otherwise try to sleep stuff with Camellia if you picked up the sleep hex, which you should have.
Try to CC/KILL the necromancer ASAP, he will just summon more stuff.
After the fight loot Dark Horn a cold iron magical Glaive that is basically the best weapon you have found yet.
We have now cleared the entire market square outside, all that remains is the fights inside and to free Ember, she will have to wait a little while yet. We are now decently high level to take on those tough fights.
*********************
Go SW toward the broken church and statue of Iomedae, climb down and then go up the stairs to the house at the complete SW corner of the map.
Keep cold iron weapons equipped cuz its full of demons, save before you enter.
Time to use those resist fire (communal) and protection from fire (communal) scrolls I suggested you buy earlier, if you didn't buy them, well try it and hope for the best.
Brimoraks will try to nuke your team to oblivion with fireballs.
Try to put your team near the first doorway but only send a stealth character with a decent stealth skill in so you can start the fight in a surprise round, if you have mounted characters try to move in quickly and take out the dretches so they don't cast stinking cloud.
Loot the nice Abrupt Force cold iron +1 scimitar. Leave the house after looting everything and disarming the trap for extra xp.
*********************
Go to the house SE of the temple of Desna in the north west corner of the map, time to kill a shadow demon. You need a cold iron magical weapon to damage this next opponent, if you have been following the guide, you now have 4 of them, one for each character, how about that!
So Dark Horn glaive, and Grace of Peace Kukri, the Cold iron short spear +1 and that scimitar we just got.
Go down the basement, loot the faerie fire and see invisible scrolls.
Position your ranged characters and squishies at the stairs and tanks down the stairs.
Cast faerie fire near the pillar as shown here to reveal the demon.
He does a fair bit of damage but as long as you came prepared with those 4 weapons he will go down quickly, you can use a few buffs first.
Athletics check to do with your MC and skill setting on if you have a decent score on it.
Pick up the nice composite longbow +2.
The only things left to do here is free ember and kill the Vrock boss, we aren't gonna do either of those things yet, because we don't wanna pick up Ember yet and we can't get the Vrock boss without freeing Ember, so pick up stuff you left on the ground, try to stay at medium encumbrance and leave the map.
*********************
WORLD MAP

Start moving towards Pitaxian wine cellar.
Its very likely/almost guaranteed that you will meet Nenio on the way there. There are 2 lore religion skill checks in the conversation so if your MC is the highest in that skill, put the skill xp setting ON before moving towards Nenio, otherwise leave it OFF.
There's a bunch more lore religion checks after the fight.
You will find a location called Hanged Cultist on the way with crafting mats to grab.
You will find a location called Lost Bag on the way with crafting mats to grab.
Avoid Blackwing Library for now, we want to avoid getting Ulbrig for now to keep a party of 5, so we will do this later.
*********************
PITAXIAN WINE CELLAR

Wights here can level drain which is really annoying this early in the game, try to win the fights without getting drained on your characters.
Secret loot in the big pile in the second room.
*********************
DEFENDER'S HEART

You can pick up the stuff you left in market square on the way if you want.
You will be very exhausted by the time you get to the Inn.
Talk to Seelah, Nenio.
If you had not picked up Forn Autumn Haze's quest, talk to him too, Nenio should be able to make the Knowledge World check if your MC couldn't. If you already had the quest and talked to Kaylessa you can finish it here.
Sell all the junk you don't need, put extra stuff you might need in your chest.
I suggest keeping magical blunt weapons around and not selling them yet, you will need some later.
Double check your spellbooks before resting. Recommended to have a delay poison communal and resist energy communal on Camellia for level 3 spells.
We'll allow ourselves one rest now before moving on.
*********************
TIRABADE RESIDENCE

You will probably get loads of random encounters on the way, hey its free xp and money.
Once there, keep cold iron weapons equipped, the entranced guards are just distractions, a bunch of demons will jump you.
My advice is to setup on the east side, and drop a grease between the cart and the building, all the enemies will try to come to you and have to pass through the grease spell, hopefully a bunch fall down and you and pick them off a few at a time.
Go inside, trap in front of the door, stealth your sneaky trap specialist and disarm it before starting the fight.
Again grease in the door, pick off the 2 guards as they fall down or come in, and then dispel your gease, move in with tanky characters, preferably on mounts, there is an invisible succubus inside with concealment and really high AC, do your best to down her and hopefully none of your characters get level drained.
*********************
TOPAZ SOLUTIONS

Stay in the first room, move your characters around to the south so you can see the alchemist in the west room.
Either use that resist acid communal spell and hope for the best or try and sleep the alchemist, then take out the mimics while he's asleep.
Then put all your melees around him and either coup de grace or just attack him, he's got a lot of HP, hopefully you can time all your attacks and you also get attacks of opportunity when he tries to stand him, and dies.
North room has 2 other mimics, easy.
*********************
GWERM MANSION

Time to find out how Camellia spends her free time on weekends!
Talk to Horgus, you can cast a few buffs here if you want, there will be a couple of fights, but I would conserve most for the next location.
Go east through some rooms.
Some demons in the kitchen.
Unlock the south east room to find some loot and some kinky stuff.
Move west to the dining room and then library, kill the 3 cultists.
There's a bunch of books in the library but sadly none of them give a trait to your MC.
Keep going west, don't go up the stairs yet.
Kill the 2 cambions in the south west room, loot the silver robe.
South middle room(probably Camellia's) has a trap right inside, now it got from kinky to wierd, and not the good kind.
You can go up the stairs now.
North room from where you start has 2 low level demons.
Big room to the west, kill the wizard 1st. There's a stealth archer in the back.
2 slayers and another stealth archer in the room south.
Some scrolls hidden in the painting.
Open the room to the east, try to sleep the babaus to make the fight easier.
Trapped chest to disarm in the NE corner of that room.
Click the hand button to call Horgus.
Go in the secret room, loot the magic breastplate, and talk to Horgus to complete the quest.
We can leave now.
There should be a spot south that you discovered called Failed Ritual Site, you can loot this now.
So the only locations left to do will get us a 6th party member so its time to do this now.

ARENDAE PARTY HOUSE

NOTICE : You can get part of an achievement here if you manage to save all the courtesans. Turn based mode really helps but its pretty difficult to achieve as they run into demons and basically kill themselves.
As usual keep cold iron weapons on.
Use buffs for this. Time to use that delay poison communal. Remove fear as well.
Open the first door on the east side, there are some demons to the north.
The real fight is behind the door to the west.
After the fight a super easy knowledge world check on the painting DC 10 with your MC with the skill xp setting on.
There is another check DC14 on the harp.
There is also a mobility check DC 18 you might be able to do depending on your stats.
Talk to Aranka the singer to advance the desna quest, exhaust all dialogue options.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF". We will be leaving this OFF for the foreseeable future.
Talk to Daeran to have him join your group.
This pushed my MC to level 6. Nenio was almost 6 since she just joined recently, prologue characters are about 3/4 of the way to 6.
*********************
MARKET SQUARE - CLEANUP

All right time to save ember and kill a Vrock.
If you still haven't talked to Kaylessa, she's in the SW part of the SE corner of the map, which is where we start, talk to her now.
Now we can go save Ember in the middle of the SE corner of the map.
Make the check and send the crusaders to the inn.
If you have blunt weapons on you equip them, pre buff with short buffs like songs before entering the house, you will be attacked by rats right away when you enter.
Enter the house behind her.
Disarm the trap in the corner and loot stuff.
There is a secret door.
If your MC has good enough Knowledge arcana you can turn on the xp skill setting on to make the DC 20 check here.
Leave the house and go to the bridge that you built in the middle of the map.

Desna quest :
East of the bridge is a crusader that looks different from the others and is standing by himself.
Its actually a Desnan priest in disguise.
Talk to him to advance the Desna quest.
Hulrun will show up to arrest him, make the (Good) choice here then show Hulrun the light of heaven, I strongly suggest you do this even if you are an evil character, you will get to keep both alive and it will be useful later.

Move west under the arch and stop south of the tower, now the Vrock is a very tough fight, heal up, save game, etc.
Put cold iron weapons back on.
Move very slowly north towards the tower and turn right to stand on the grass near the fence, the game will play ominous music, you should see the Vrock north.
There's 2 ways to do this, the easy way or the hard way.
The hard way means you just charge in like Leeroy and hope for the best. (not recommended)
The easy way is you quicksave just out of agro range, then use Camellia's sleep hex on him, and quickload if it doesn't work, then retry until it does. He's got +9 on core difficulty to her 17 DC at level 5 so he needs 8+ on the dice to make it, so you have like 1 chance out of 3 that he falls asleep.
Once he's asleep, move all your melee characters around him, and use coup the grace, hopefully he dies in 1 shot, if not, you got a full surprise round + attacks of opportunity when he gets back up.
Loot the crusaders that he killed for a +2 Mythral Heavy Shield.

Go talk to Hulrun twice for some more xp and send him to the Inn to help.
Now to finish the Desna quest : Go all the way NW to the temple of Desna.
Talk to Ramien and send him to the Inn.
Go inside and talk to the priests.
Make the (Chaotic) choice to sing the song of Desna with them, this will let you unlock the Azata mythic path and will also teach you the song so you can do another quest later to unlock Arueshalae early.
Leave the map.
*********************
BLACKWING LIBRARY

Time to pick up Ulbrig. (You need the Last Sarkorians DLC for him)
Move west and trigger the Gryphon animation.
Move east and talk to the cultists disguised as crusaders. Make the perception and lore skill checks, then pick the (Chaotic) Trickster mythic choice and then listen to your gut for some more xp and to avoid the fight, some funny stuff will happen later.
Don't free the prisoners yet, loot everything 1st.
DC 24 Arcana check, as usual turn the skill only character gets xp setting on if you can pass it with your MC, otherwise leave it off.
Secret door in SE corner.
DC 25 World check, same drill.
Open your inventory and read all the books you picked up, some give a bonus trait to your MC.
Now you can free the prisoners, you get a free teleport back to Defender's Heart.
*********************
DEFENDER'S HEART

Talk to Forn to finish his quest if you haven't finished it yet.
Go to the basement and free Woljif.
Talk to Ember for a hidden Lore religion check and some xp.
Talk to Storyteller, show him the stone knife and exhaust all dialogue.
Sell loot, etc.
Ulbrig won't be here yet.
Everyone should be level 6 now.
Level up everyone check spellbooks, equip stuff, etc.
Rest up. Clean up diseases and other status effects if you have some.
*********************
THIEFLINGS HIDEOUT

You need to bring Woljif along for this.
Move up and start the conversation.
Tell them you will find the real traitor.
Back to the inn.
*********************
DEFENDER'S HEART

Ulbrig should show up now, make a few checks for some XP.
Now personally I think shifters is a really bad class, anyone who melees and doesn't have a mount is just bad in my book, but Ulbrig has some pretty useful items that I would "borrow" for now, especially that swarmbane necklace which will be very useful later on and essentially makes the Last Sarkorians DLC a Pay to Win DLC, you'll be able to get more of those later on.
Talk to Irabeth to learn the next location.
*********************
ANCIENTRIES AND WONDERS SHOP

Click the hand to get Finnean, and sentient weapon who doesn't know he's a weapon.
Give the pipefox to whatever character you want, equip it and enable it.
Click on the pile in the NE corner.
Exhaust dialogue.
DC16 Athletics afterwards, put the skill xp setting on and do it with your MC if their skill is decent.
Persuation checks in the basement, put the skill xp setting on and do it with your MC if their skill is decent otherwise put it off.
*********************
THIEFLINGS HIDEOUT

Talk to Kerismei : Give her the traitor : Melroun.
Diplomacy 20 check, then intimidate 22, same deal as usual with skill xp.
Open the vault, disarm the trap and loot it.
Secret door with more loot.
*********************
DEFENDER'S HEART

Talk to Woljif to complete the quest.
We have completed every quest and cleared every area and recruited all companions now.
You have a choice at this point, you could launch the assault on the Grey Garrison or you can wander around doing random encounters until a messenger comes to warn you that an attack is coming on the inn.
Both choices give roughly the same reward, and if you launch the attack right now you will not have to do the inn defense which some people hate doing.
The drawback is you will miss out on optional encounters that spawn in market square after the inn defense.
For the purposes of this guide we will do everything so for now just wander around the city doing random encounters until a messenger comes to warn you of the attack on the Defender's Heart, then hightail it back to the inn to rest.

DEFENDER'S HEART

Time for the inn defense, after you get back to the inn you will have a chance to rest once, before you do make sure you double check spellbooks again, you want access to the grease spell to put it at the gates entrances, and you also want delay poison (communal) and cast it on your entire party at the start. If you managed to save all the courtesans at Arendae's mansion, you can try to save the booze cart here for an achievement.

Then you should focus on killing arsonists asap.
You can either use ranged characters to kill people on the walls and not send anyone up there, or use ranged characters to kill enemies fallen into the grease spells, and if you have mounted characters, they can climb up the stairs on the walls really quickly. Only send up characters that can get back quickly so mounted ones, you will mostly want to bring them back when the minotaur arrives.

How difficult or easy this fight is will vary depending on your party composition, but its not that hard.
After the fight : Go outside and loot the cart.
After the battle is done we are no longer on a time limit, we can rest as much as we want.
Sell stuff and rest up, we're tackling optional new fights in market square now.
*********************
MARKET SQUARE - FINAL VISIT

Go to the bonfire where Ember was, buff up, you want delay poison communal, you should probably keep it up at all times from now on.
There are rat swarms to the north.
West of there is 3 plagued horses.
Move north to the bridge.
Complete SW corner of the map, up the ramp, more plagued horses.
NW corner at the temple of Desna, there are some demons to the east.
NE corner of the map some ghouls in front of the graveyard.
North of the bridge, more rat swarms.
Go south of the Graveyard, save and buff up, big boss inc.
The prelate that we saw on the first visit that turned some crusaders into ghouls will be there, at the spot where we killed the necromancer, he has a gaze attack that drains levels, really annoying stuff.
Thankfully the drains only last 10 hours so I wouldn't worry about it too much, just as long as none of your characters die you should be fine, just pile up on him, debuff him and he should go down quickly.
A bunch of ghoul adds will show up but they aren't really a problem.
Loot some low level magical items and enjoy your achievement.
Back to the inn we go.
*********************
DEFENDER'S HEART - FINAL VISIT

This is the last visit before we move on to the Grey Garrison which will mark the end of ACT 1, sell stuff, rest up, the usual, if you want to buy something do it now, if you still haven't bought the bag of Holding from the innkeeper, this is your last chance.
Check your inventory for severed heads, sell them to get rid of them.
You should have enough cold iron magical weapons to outfit your whole team by now, fill gaps with Finnean, the grey garrison is full of demons so you want everyone with one of those weapons.

There is A LOT of loot in the grey garrison so you want to travel light, put unneeded stuff in the chest.
Talk to Irabeth to start the Assault.
*********************
ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - BASEMENT

Buff up with long duration buffs only for now : Barkskin, Delay poison (communal), mage armor, magical vestment.
Move up, the mages will cast a Haste spell that last 1h30 mins, this means you shouldn't rest or you will lose it.
South east is a trap, the interact button to disarm it is right where you started.
South west is another trap, the interact button to disarm it is is the SE room.
Loot Irabeth's Scabbard, you can give it to her later in Act 2.
Use your short duration abilities like songs if you have any before going up the stairs, you will be in combat right from the start.
Go up the stairs.
*********************
ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - FIRST FLOOR

Kill the enemies, then loot the NW room and SE room.
Go up the stairs.
*********************
ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - SECOND FLOOR

2 Demons to the east.
Unlock the west door and loot the room.
Move east through the door.
See Irabeth in the cutscene.
Enemies to the north.
More cutscenes.
Secret loot pile east of the stairs.
Go down the stairs.

ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - FIRST FLOOR

Enemies to the east.
DO NOT go south yet unless you fancy being ambushed by 3 groups of enemies.
Click on the blue glowing door to have a mage following you open it.
There should be some patrolling enemies around, take em out.
Move east to find an easy DC16 Athletics check you can do with your MC with the skill xp setting on. 144xp
This will clear the rubble and there will be enemies to the south.
In the room you just cleared is an easy DC16 knowledge world check, same drill as usual. 144xp
Short duration buffs like songs before going into the eastern room, you will be ambushed by a bunch of dretches out of knowhere and laugh at them all casting stinking cloud and you being immune because you were a good boy and had delay poison (communal) on like I told you earlier.
If you don't have it on, well best of luck to you.
After the fight, easy DC14 lore religion check with your MC on the southern wall mural, same drill as usual. 144xp
Move back to the east where the Athletics check was, open the north door.
Loot some gloves and equip them on an animal companion.
Move to the door to the west, stealth your group before clicking the door otherwise you will get in combat right away and possibly get swarmed.
There are a lot of enemies here, I suggest dropping a grease in the door and let them come to you peacemeal. Sleep the named guy Othirubo with Camellia or Ember, he's only got +1 will save.
After the fight you get a belt of +2 DEX for your archer.
Knowledge arcana DC21 check in the room, depending on your MC you might not be able to do this with them, leave the setting off if you do it with someone else. 144xp if you do it with MC
Secret door in the room on the east side.
Ignore the stairs for now, we will finish clearing this floor.
Back out of the room and go west.
Short buffs before you go too far in the room, you will meet a Succubus who got a bunch of crusaders to simp for her. This makes Camellia really horny for some reason.
You can get one of the mages following you to use dispel magic to turn off her cam filter temporarily and they will realise they wasted their money on her and join your side.
Now turn your camera so the altar is to the bottom of your screen, and press the buttons like this :
The falchion is a great weapon because of its high crit range, and you get your first horse armor (thankfully this one isn't a microtransaction like that other game).
Again hold on to any magical blunt weapons like the flail even if you don't use it right now.
Move north through the door.
*********************
BIG TRAP
Now on the east side is the giant trap that takes up the entire hallway. Remember in part 2 of the guide we rescued some tieflings and you could either send them to the inn to help you later or just tell em to go away? This is the second part of that decision, if you sent them to the Inn they will be with you now and disarm the trap for you, if you sent them away the trap will be there, its a DC35 trickery check on core, 39 on unfair, now if you have a high DEX character say 22(+6) with the belt we just got, with 6 points in trickery cuz we are level 6, if you've made the +1 skill food and have the +1 lockpicks that's +14 total, if they have trickery as a class skill that's another +3 so +17 so they CAN make the check, you can also use the special item signet of house vespertilio that gives a +5, so the theoretical maximum you could have right now would be +22 trickery which is ok to make the check. If you can't make it, don't worry there is another way to disarm the trap but it won't give you any XP. Disarming the trap yourself gives 960 XP to the whole group, seems even if your MC is able to do it and you turn the skill setting ON the XP is till shared among your grp, still a really good deal and a big boost of XP.
*********************
Go around the trap on the west side.
There's a cambion in the room south, when you kill him he will yell and others will come from the door to the west.
You can grease the west door before if you want but its not a particularly difficult fight.
After the fight you can disarm the trap from where the lone cambion was, there is also a hidden button you can press to disarm the big trap.
Secret loot in a grate to the NW of the map.
Avoid the stairs for now.
Open the room east of the stairs.
2 more demons, secret door to the south.
Back out and south in this hallway is a lever that opens the locked door from where you initially started the Grey Garrison.
Go back where the big trap was and go through the hallway.
DC17 knowledge world check you can possibly do with your MC. Same deal as usual. 144xp
Open both doors to the south and loot stuff, you get 2 more cold iron +1 weapons.
Take the western stairs to the second floor.
*********************
ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - SECOND FLOOR

Loot corpses and open the south door.
If for some reason you need to rest now, you can rest in this room and then click the golden glowy to clear corruption. I still advise against resting because you will lose the haste buff.
Back out and there are a couple of demons to kill to the east.
Big big fight in the room to the north, I would advice to use your highest stealth character to go in to trigger it, so you don't start in combat immediately, then you want to focus the boss ASAP because he summons swarms.
Some really good items here, cloak of resistance +2.
Secret door to the west with minor loot.
Back out and move east.
If you tricked the cultists in the library by following the trickster path, this is the payoff where they blow themselves up.
North here is an insanely high DC37 on core, 41 on unfair locked door. Has a +1 dwarven warxaxe.
Loot the other room to the north, get the Elven Notes(Important item for Storyteller's quest and this is your only chance to get them).
You can click the lever to the south to unlock a door you couldn't open before at the start of the dungeon.
Open the door east, 2 babaus patrol this area, you want to kill them before doing anything else.
Open the other door to the east, just go a short ways in but don't start the fight yet.
This is where I would suggest you cast resist fire (communal), there are 2 brimoraks in here that will toss fireballs at you.
In this room is a pretty high DC24 knowledge world check, proceed as usual with all skill checks.
Secret door to the north, it leads to the first floor that we already fully cleared so no need to go back.
Back outside and open the door to the north to see Areelu.
Open the other door to the north, DC 20 and 18 mobility checks, proceed as usual with skill checks.
My MC actually hit level 7 here but depending on which checks you have been able to make so far your experience may vary.
Move south send your perception and trap specialists to disarm the first trap.
Go around the 2nd trap, short buffs before opening the door because you'll be in combat right away.
Mix of minotaurs, dretches and cambions, you can put a grease in the door and let them come to you or charge in depending on how strong your party is.
After they're dead loot and disarm the trap, my party started to get heavy encumberance now, I have 3 characters on mounts which help with carry capacity, this will vary depending on what your party composition is.
If you are annoyed at the heavy encumberance drop some heavy armors that aren't worth much money, prime candidates are things like tower shields, studded leather armor, padded armor, leather armor, etc.
Its not a big deal right now because the dungeon is almost over.

ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - SECOND FLOOR CONTINUED

Back out and open the SW door.
Bunch of crusaders turned undead in here, they are really easy, just put them out of their misery.
After they are dead, decently hard DC24 lore religion check you can do with your MC if you can. 144xp.
You can click the hand icon to clear the basin and have a useable to clear corruption if you need to rest. (Again you will lose the haste buff)
Open the door west to see Minagho trying to get Staunton to simp for her yet again, depending on who you brought, you can get some pretty hilarious comments from your companions.
Up the stairs to the 3rd floor.
*********************
ASSAULT ON THE GREY GARRISON - THIRD FLOOR

Short buffs before moving forward, a minotaur boss will appear and most likely charge your MC.
Easy mobility DC14 check to do with your MC, and 12 from going back, apparently only the 2nd check gives XP.
Buff up, heal up, save game and slowly approach the wardstone carrying 8 metric tons of loot.
Click the hand to trigger the final battle of ACT1.
Make your choice depending on which mythic path you want to follow in the future.
And now because the game is dumb all your characters get dismounted.
After the fight Staunton will finally fall to being a simp and open the door to give Minagho a tier 3 sub and escape with her.
Exit the area to start ACT2.

You start in your camp with Irabeth following you.

IMPORTANT : Talk to Storyteller to the south right away, he will leave soon and you will not see him for a long while. Get him to repair the belt to get the covenant of the inheritor, one of the more useful items in the game, exhaust his dialogue to hand him over the page we got in the Grey Garrison for more exp and start his quest.
I advise equipping the covenant of the inheritor in the belt slot of the mount of a character who will be in melee all the time, that way you keep your own belt slots free. Don't put it on Woljif because he will leave at some point in the future.
We'll steal everything in the camp and resell it back now.

Go west in Tirabade's tent and steal all their stuff while Irabeth says nothing, funny stuff. South in Nurah's tent and steal her stuff.
Make a clockwise loop around the camp and loot everything.
You wanna talk to the quartermaster in the middle of the camp, and inspect different units camps, NE, SE and West where Ember is.
Go in the medic tent on the east side and loot stuff.
Go in the commander's tent to the north, don't talk to anyone, just loot stuff and get back out.
Sell junk to Wilcer Garms the quartermaster, again, keep those magical blunt weapons you picked so far. (Check the Other tab, the last one on the right, there might be some junk items that the bulk selling button doesn't pick up, if food shows up in this tab and not in the ingredients tab, then its not "real" food you can use to cook, so just sell it, might be some severed heads again too.)
Level up characters fix spellbooks and pick out mythic abilities.
Back in the commander's tent, put stuff you don't need right now like those blunt weapons in the chest.
Talk to Galfrey.
NOTE : If you are aiming for the Swarm mythic path, do not ask Galfrey to remain with the army.
Back outside, apparently boxes have now reappeared in the camp so we can make another loop and loot junk again. There is new stuff to loot in the chapel.
West of your tent, talk to Ulbrig to start his quest.
Talk to Irabeth, give her the scabbard you found in the Grey Garrison for some exp.
If you have decent Knowledge world skill on your MC, turn the skill xp setting on.
East of your tent, talk to Liotr to stat Daeran's quest, get exp from the skill check.
Further east, talk to Daeran to advance the quest further.
Talk to Sosiel to start his quest.
More stuff to loot in Tirabade's tent and Nurah's tent.
Talk to Nurah to make a perception check for some exp.
Talk to Horgus to get a free amulet.
More junk to loot in the field medic tent again.
Resell all the junk again to the quartermaster.
Level up Sosiel and check his spellbook.
Leave the camp for 2 mins to start on the crusade armies.
*********************
CRUSADE START
You have the smallest army ever with 100 footmen, just terrible.
Recruit Setsuna Shy for your first general, if he's not in the choices, close the window and retry until he is. Spend some gold to buy finance points so you can recruit all troops available, move up the recruits and merge with your army.
Move north, beat the first army, then east at the fork till you run out of movement points.
*********************
MARTYR ZACHARIUS'S CEMETARY

Switch back to your party and go back in the camp to rest because you leveled a bunch of characters and they won't have their new spells ready.
Bring Sosiel for his quest and Seelah for her quest right after, move east toward the cemetary.
Before you set off click on the rest button on the map and assign people to positions, mostly the stealth and guard positions so you don't get ambushed on the map.
You start dismounted which is just terrible.
After the fight buff with duration buffs, barkskin, delay poison, etc.
East of the graveyard you started in is a DC21 trickery check. 222xp if you can do it with your MC.
South of there is a mobility DC18 check. 222xp from each side to your MC.
Open the gate east.
Kill the zombies around and loot stuff.
Loot stuff, there's a zombie in an alley east with a chest.
West is an Athletics DC16 check. Do it both ways for 222xp each to your MC.
Downstairs loot the chest, another Athletics check DC15. Again both sides for 222 xp each.
Go back to before the checks, big fight inc.
Pre-buff with songs, etc
Move a lil bit south to a big fight, I suggest charging in with a heavily armored character preferably on a mount so they enemies target them.
After looting the bodies, pre buff again before entering the church to the west.
Decide what to do with the necromancer.
Now the game will teleport you back to the entrance of the area without looting, this is really dumb.
Run back to the church to get the loot.
Leave the area.
*********************
CRUSADE - 2
Your army should have refilled movement points now.
Keep going east to kill the other level 1 army.
Once the enemy advances move your melee forward so they don't go attack your archers.
Should be an easy fight, don't need to use mana and you should have no losses.
Can't really beat the level 4 army yet so move NW to another level 1 army.
You will get 7 rangers now, merge them into your army.
North east to a lvl 1 castle.
After the castle you get some more rangers, not sure if these spawns are random or not, merge them to your army.
Move north east to another lvl 1 army.
Kill archers 1st always.
NE then E to a lvl 2 army.
Your general should level again now, pick master of maneuver II.
W then NE and you should run out of movement now.
Back to your MC's party.
*********************
HOUNDHEART CAMPSITE

2 hidden loot spots south of the map.
Kill the deer for extra xp.
Hidden loot spot east.
Knowledge world DC19 check in the camp. 222xp if your MC can make it.
Mobility DC 20 check to the west. 222xp, unfortunately you only get xp 1 way.
Loot the whole camp, one chest in the north will trigger a Quasit you have to chase around.
When he goes to the middle of the camp, buff before going there.
After the fight, loot, heal up, remount (they really love dismounting you for absolutely no reason).
Leave.
*********************
CRUSADE - 3

Move your party NE to the crossroads, this should advance a new day and your army will regain movement.
Switch to your army and move east to fight the level 3 army. Kill fire and water elementals first with your range units.
Move your army back west and cross the river. Move south, you will run out of movement before the castle.
*********************
WILDERNESS ENCOUNTER

I advise you to rest with your MC's party now because your characters will be tired/exhausted, you will have used up a bunch of spells in the cemetery and you will get a pretty large battle as a random encounter soon.
At the fork move east toward Nightingale grove.
You will trigger a forced random encounter now, remount and buff up massively with everything before moving forward.
For max experience you want to keep the conversation going and make all the skill checks, don't take the drink from the strangers (didn't your mom tell your never to do that?) and don't attack right away, after you make the first 2 checks keep asking questions and then say you want to leave, it will trigger more will checks and more skill checks for more xp.
The checks are :
Knowledge World DC 24
Perception DC 22
Will DC 22
Lore Nature DC 24
Will DC 20
Unless your MC is somehow the highest in all those skills / saves, leave the xp skill setting off.
Secret loot north of the map.
Pretty crappy loot for how many people you had to kill.
*********************
NIGHTINGALE GROVE

Short buffs before moving, a bunch of bandits will attack you. Loot everything. 2 useful cloaks.
Leave and move north to the fork, which should change the day and your army regains movement.

CRUSADE - 4

Move your army south to attack the level 4 castle. Scorching ray asap on the skeleton sharpshooters. Then shoot them with your own archers to finish them off. After that focus the ghouls, the gargoyles are a tank unit, you should always ignore tank units since they deal no damage.
Keep south and fight the level 3 army. Scorching ray on each cultist group and shoot the brimoraks with archers.
You general should level up, pick cure wounds.
Leave the level 7 army there and move back north to kill a level 1 one.
After its dead move the army back south near your camp.
*********************
RAVAGED CAMPSITE

Switch back to your MC's party now and go east toward ravaged campsite.
Loot the crafting mats.
There's nothing to the east so move north west then south to get to conundrum unsolved.
Use this guide to solve the puzzle : https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2931018658&searchtext=conundrum
Get the barding and elven notes.
Some of your characters might be getting exhausted now, we're almost back to camp.
*********************
ARMY CAMP

Move north to your army's camp. Meet Yaker of the Hellknights at your camp. Agree to help them.
Talk to Wilcer Garms, agree to put scouts on horses so you get a new unit.
Talk to Seelah to complete her quest.
Sell junk, put blunt weapons or other stuff you wanna keep in your chest.
Rest up.
*********************
CRUSADE - 5

Not much to do this time, you should have mounted scout reinforcements from Kenabres, move em north and merge them into your army.
*********************
RELIABLE REDOUBT

Switch to your MC's party and move SW to help the hellknights.
You will get a message that Horgus has sent reinforcements with some shield bearers, they are pretty ♥♥♥♥ but since you have nothing else ATM, move them north and merge into your army.
Keep moving your MC's party south to reliable redoubt.
You're in for a lot of fighting here so mount up and get those long duration buffs up.
Use songs and short duration buffs and move down, a bunch of gargoyles will attack you.
Move down and fight more gargoyles, then talk to Yaker.
Keep moving down, kill the gargoyles in the camp then loot everything.
Lore nature DC17 check in the camp. 270xp if your MC can make it.
Move east to the cave.
Buff before going too far in the cave, you will meet Regill and then gargoyles will ambush again.
After the fight, loot stuff.
DC23 mobility check in the cave. 270xp to your MC, sadly only gives xp one way.
Talk to Regill.
Exhaust conversation options and he will join you as a companion.
You get 10 Hellknights which you should bring to your army, swap out the shield bearers.
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CRUSADE - 6

Move your MC's party south to primitive altar, loot the mats.
There's nothing south of here to head back north to your camp.
The day should change and now your armies can move again.
Move the shield bearers north across the river and north again.
You'll discover Leper's Smile, leave the shield bearers near it.
Your army should now be strong enough to take out the level 4 army to the east that you couldn't take on earlier. This will complete a quest and give you a bunch of xp.
My MC actually hit level 8 from this.
Move your army east of the camp, stay on this side of the river.
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ARMY CAMP

Check spellbooks, sell loot, change party members if you want, rest up.
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MOONDANCE MEADOW

Move east and enter the location. (Your armies can move again but there's nothing left to do.)
Move south and kill 3 smilodons.
Leave the area.
Move MC's party north to the fork.
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CRUSADE - 6

You should be able to recruit new troops now.
Recruit all normal troops and some more hellknights.
Move the reinforcements north and merge into your army.
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CHILLY CREEK

Move your MC's party east and loot the mats from "Carcass of an unknown creature".
Move north then east to chilly creek.
Buff up when entering, there's a couple of fights here, move east and climb the hill.
Fight the smilodons and bears, move NE then E exploring the map, fight some wolves.
Climb the hill east, kill the elk.
Keep east, kill all the megaloceros.
Back down the hill, then east again for more wolves.
Get back to where you entered, move north - north west along the shoreline.
Kill another elk.
Cross over a little island on the west side for some loot then keep going north.
Kill the Hydra.
Meet some peasants, exhaust dialog options to complete the quest.
NOTE : You can kill people here with an evil choice, I advise against it even if you are evil because there will be another quest here later and you will miss out on a small dungeon and some bosses.
Loot stuff at the docks, some magic gloves.
Keep following the shore, looting stuff, you will arrive at the village, loot everything.
There should be now only a spot in the middle of the map to explore, with another megaloceros and some elk to kill.
Leave the area.
Head back to crusader camp.
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ARMY CAMP

Your armies will get movement again, time to set up for Leper's smile, split your army up and leave everyone east of the camp across the river, bring your general up north and put the shield bearers in your main army, then send all the other troops to the same spot east of the river near your camp.
Its really important that you only have the shield bearers in your main original army because its this army that will take damage from Leper's smile, so we take all the damage on ♥♥♥♥ units like shield bearers.
Sell loot, rest up, sell the hydra eyes because they aren't used for anything and take up carry capacity.
Bring Nenio along we'll be going part of her quest next.
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NAMELESS RUINS

Buff up and move down, some ghouls will charge at you, after the fight, keep going down and go into the cave.
Go north into the cave, careful there a lot of traps in the northern room.
After the fight, DC19 Will check in the cave. 222xp if you do it with your MC with the skill setting on.
Check the east path now for some extra ghouls.
Back outside, keep going down, get ambushed by gargoyles.
Further down are 2 bears, then after the bears there's a trap in an archway.
You will get to the lion puzzle, solve it by clicking like this :
Go down to advance Nenio's quest and find out she was a furry all along.
Run back up and leave.
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ARMY CAMP

Back to camp. Sell stuff, rest up.
Now remember I've been telling you to save up magical blunt weapons in your chest. This is the time to pull em out, outfit your group with them, don't bring Sosiel because he has another job to do. Be careful with the Tyranny of mind Heavy Flail because only evil characters can equip that.
If you have the Last Sarkorians DLC and can "borrow" Ulbrig's necklace the character that has it will do full damage to swarm no matter which weapon he uses.
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LEPER'S SMILE

I actually had a guide written for this so I'll put the link here :
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2925736627

There's 1 lore nature check DC 19 to do on the east side of the map.
After you kill the queen make the choice to keep some of her goo (if you want to unlock the swarm mythic path later) or not.
There is a whole dungeon to explore underground, we'll go back to camp first.
Leave.
*********************
CRUSADE - 7

If you did what I detailed in the Leper's Smile guide, you should have lost only 1 shield bearer from this, no big deal since we aren't using them anyway.
Reform your army under your general and move them north.
Probably won't have enough movement to do anything yet.

*********************
ARMY CAMP

Bring your MC's party back to camp.
Go to Nurah's tent, hopefully you make the perception check to find her bottle of "perfume", talk to Nurah and exhaust dialogue.
Sell loot, hold on to the blunt weapons for a little while longer, level up, check spellbooks, rest up.
*********************
LEPER'S SMILE - UNDERGROUND
UNDEAD SECTION

Time to explore that underground dungeon. Head back to Leper's smile and go down into the cave.
Rebuff. Keep the blunt weapons on for now.
Kill the swarm ahead then move west.
Some wights.
Trap to the west, go around with your trickery expert to disarm.
2 more undead.
Keep heading north west following the water.
Don't wait to loot stuff, you wanna push NW quickly untill you see a green glowing box.
You will see an interact button on the box "Wand of Zacharius" click on it asap.
You will get different choices, select to put the wand in your bag (Adventurers are there for loot after all). This is necessary to access an optional dungeon later and to unlock the lich mythic path.
Finish off all the undead.
After they are dead now you are free to loot everything, notable loot : a cooking recipe, belt of dex +2, elven curve blade +2, rapier +2, good stuff.
You should see some silvery thing on a broken cart east of where the wand was, click on it and grab the piece of Terendelev's Claw. This is necessary to unlock the gold dragon mythic path later on.
Now head back to the entrance and head north.

SWARM SECTION

More swarms.
Keep north, you will detect a trap and can't pass this way unless you trigger it, so head back to the fork and turn north west.
A guard and a bunch of swarms to fight here.
Head north.
Meet some pretty big bugs.
After the fight you can disarm the trap you detected earlier and should detect a new trap to the east.
Move north again.
2 swarms + 1 big bug.
Loot a magic mace and go SE to disarm the 2nd trap, you will detect a 3rd trap.
Go back around to disarm the 3rd trap.
Go back SW to the big room that had lots of swarms and go SW.
Detect a trap, head back to the room to do the Athletics DC 22 check in the NW corner of the room, 1 hour will pass and you will probably lose a couple of buffs. (This is why we do this part last in the dungeon) 180xp to your MC if he can make it.
Rebuff as needed you will fight a big spider boss now.
Loot the spider, disarm the trap, secret loot on the skeleton near the pit.
All my characters are level 8 at this point for reference.
Head back SW where the trap was.
Follow the tunnel, you will be ambushed by 4 swarms.
Keep going to meet 3 Vrocks, thankfully we are a lot more powerful than we were in market square so no need for fancy gimmicks this time, just charge in and kill them.
Loot the stuff and leave the map.
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CRUSADE - 8

Your army should have its movement back by now.
You might have some cleric reinforcements but don't have room in the army for them, oh well.
Move the army north to fight a level 3 army.
You probably can't take on the level 5 castle to the east yet without severe losses so avoid it for now, go north. Move east to engage the level 6 army of giants (trust me this army is a joke and much easier than the level 5 castle).
Your general should hit level 5 now, move him back west and you will run out of movement.
*********************
ARMY CAMP

Bring your MC's party back to camp.
As usual sell stuff, rest up, you can probably sell the blunt weapons now.
We're doing Ulbrig's first quest now. Bring Ulbrig along obviously.
*********************
INCONSPICUOUS CAMP

Move your MC's party north, and enter this location. Talk to the kobold, loot stuff, some hidden loot on the east side, then leave.
Move north then east to Currantglen.
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CURRANTGLEN

Buff up with long duration only for now, move into the village.
Watch Ulbrig being delusional, hidden loot near the skill check.
DC27 Lore nature check. 222 xp if your MC can make it.
Keep going, hidden loot on a skeleton further ahead.
Go down the ramp and watch the cutscene.
On the tree you can do a DC 21 Knowledge world check and athletics DC 26 check, this will use your highest character automatically even if you click the tree with your MC so double check your skills before doing the check to know if you should turn the skill xp setting on or not.
Head north.
You will see a well with some skeletons playing at being dead, pre buff with songs or other short buffs and shoot them.
Trap at the house entrance to the north west.
Loot the house then go into the cave to the east.
Move up and disarm the trap.
Move up and talk to the ghost, persuation DC 26 check.
Don't loot the corpse yet, we wanna complete the quest first.
Keep going, watch the cutscene and Ulbrig being in denial yet again...
Pre buff and click a weapon to get attacked by a bunch of floating weapons.
Hidden loot north in some spiderwebs.
Leave the cave, click on the corrupted totem on the west side and put the blessed amulet in. This will make the elementals not attack you.
Move east across the river and disarm the trap.
Kill all the elementals they give xp.
DC 24 lore nature check. 222xp to your MC if he can make it.
Loot the mask of rapid bites which is really good for either motherless tieflings or a shapeshifter with a bite attack.
Go into the next cave.
Buff up, kill the shadows, loot the reach wand.
DC 26 athletics check on the east side. 222 xp and only gives xp 1 way.
Trap in front of where you arrive, go around to disarm it. Loot everything including a nice +2 Falchion.
Leave the cave, go back to the first cave to the north.
Talk to the ghost lady to turn in her quest.
You can loot her corpse now.
Back outside and go south east of the map.
Buff up and click the stone, watch Ulbrig finally realise he's in denial, some giant mosquito will arrive and summon some demons.
After the fight, click the tree to make it fall to the other side.
DC 17 Athletics check to cross over. Do it both ways, 222 xp for each side.
Leave the area.
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CRUSADE - 9

Your army got its movement back.
Move it west then north to kill a level 3 army.
Move it north again to kill a level 5 army.
Back south then east for a level 4 army.
Move your army back towards the south.
*********************
ARMY CAMP

Move your MC's party north to loot the mats at "Shallow Grave".
Head back to your camp south.
On the way your army will regain movement, move it back south at the crossroads near the castle that you can't beat to the south east.
Enter camp with your MC's party.
Talk to Ulbrig.
Sell and rest.
We're in a bit of a bind now, if we take the castle to the west, we will trigger lost chapel, at which point this guide will end because that's the point where our party members leave and rejoin.
We can't really beat the castle to the east without more troops. And that castle is locking us out of a quest and some areas for more xp.
*********************
CRUSADE - 10

Press skip day once and more recruits should be available, try and get extra hellnights as well.
You can save and press the button to search for new recruits, if its not hellknights, reload untill it is.
Spend money to buy more finance points, recruit all the troops you can.
Move reinforcements north. Skip day when they are out of movement and merge into your army.
So for 3 skip days we now have a strength 7 army. We should be able to take that east castle now, just spam heals on whatever unit the other general is nuking, should be your archers.
I was just able to beat the battle without suffering any losses.
Your general should hit level 6 now.
You have a bunch of armies you can take out now.
Once all the armies in that corner are dead move your army back west and start heading south, you should be strong enough to kill the level 7 army we couldn't kill at the beginning.
Once your army runs out of movement switch to your MC's party.

HEAVEN'S EDGE

You need to bring Daeran for this.
Move your MC's party east towards the location, if the day changes on the way, your army regains movement, switch to your army for 10 seconds and keep moving it south, you will need all the movement you can get.

Once you get in, move up to see the speech, loot everything around. Go through the door on the NE side and at the end of the hall loot a box.
Move west to the main room and loot bottles.
South west go back outside for a DC 20 knowledge world check. 312 xp.
Back inside and loot both SW and NW rooms.
Go back to entrance and talk to Daeran, make him leave then talk to Liotr.
NW room, make Daeran leave again.
Main hall make Daeran do a drinking contest against Seelah.
Talk to Liotr to finish the quest.
Leave.
*********************
CRUSADE - 11

Some time will have passed at the party. Your army probably got its movement back. Time to kill that level 7 army in the south now. You need to kill their archers asap and charge in so they don't come for your archers, Hellknights will do loads of damage, most of your spellcasts will be healing. Once done move back north till your run out of movement.
*********************
UNDERGROUND HIDEOUT

Move your MC's party west then south west to get to this location.
Buff up, move south, loot the dagger and kill the elk.
Head west, perception DC19 check. 312xp to MC.
Head north in the canyon, disarm the trap, loot the bag next to it.
Head inside the cave.
Move up north, kill 2 incubus, then disarm the trap on the ramp.
Go down the ramp, some will o wisps will ambush you.
Move east down another ramp.
Some incubus to fight.
Loot some pretty cool stuff, Chainmail of comradery is an awesome armor for anyone on a mount, gives +2 damage when flanking and +4 if you have outflank, and when you're on a mount you're always flanking.
DC24 Lore nature check in the room. 312 xp.
Leave.
*********************
HOLLOW TREE

Move your MC's party back to the fork and head south on the road.
Its very likely a day will pass and your army will regain movement, move it north then a lil bit west but don't attack the level 5 castle on the way to Drezen yet, doing so will trigger the gargoyle attack on your camp and we want to finish other stuff first.
Loot the mats at Hollow Tree.
Move north to Marked rock.
Most of your characters are probably exhausted at this point, its fine.
Head back to the fork and move west toward Drezen until you get stopped by the castle.
Camp and rest.
This is all we can do before triggering the gargoyle attack.
*********************
CRUSADE - 12

Move your army west and attack the level 5 castle.
Move south and take out a level 4 army.
General should get level 7 and fireball, yay. You also get extra light cavalry to put into your army.
*********************
GARGOYLE ATTACK

We can still milk some extra exp during this.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF"
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "ON"
Move your MC's party into camp which is now right next to you.
There will be an easy skill check during the first conversation. 66xp.
You will be joined by either Lann or Wenduag depending on who you picked at the end of the prologue, they will now jump to the same exp as you.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON"
Put "Only skill user receive skill check Experience" to "OFF"
Buff up then leave the tent.
Head west.
See Nurah, make the perception check during the conversation.
Some gargoyles jump you.
Move back east, then a bit south.
Lots of gargoyles show up but you have some npcs to help you.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF"
Move east again to meet Camellia.
Camellia joins at the same XP as your MC.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON"
Move east, more gargoyles.
Move south and a conversation with Seelah will start, make the diplomacy check for some extra xp.
After the check : Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF"
Seelah join you at the same xp.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON"
Head south for another fight.
After the fight a conversation with Ulbrig will start, apparently they couldn't be bothered to put an "End conversation" button for this one so make sure you switch right away when the conversation starts. Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF" right on conversation start.
Ulbrig joins with same exp as everyone.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "ON"
That's it for now, back to your tent.
Talk to anyone, get some exp during the conversation.
Put "Only active companions receive experience" to "OFF"
***THIS is the last time we will toggle these settings, upon leaving the game takes us to Lost Chapel automatically and Nenio will join right away meaning we will be back to 6 party members

At the end of all this playing as a Brown-Fur Arcanist MC I ended up with level 8 and 72071xp.
3K away from level 9. Not bad at all considering if you play normally you usually get around level 6 in Lost Chapel.