QUICK UPDATE, AUGUST 10TH 2025: So, I haven't played the game since the big 3.0 update dropped, which really boosted the size of the game. There have been big changes to how combat mechanics work now, particularly with the Technique Menu, which allows your party to unlock contextual, special skills that flow from the basic Pin, Charge, Kick and Attack options. With so much more content added and big changes to combat mechanics, PLEASE do not take the outdated contents of this guide to heart. While this guide isn't rendered completely irrelevant or anything, I want to point out that the developers recommend leaning more on your core skills that you chose at character creation during the early game, and relying on trainers to boost weaker skills later on in the game. I feel sure that with so much content added, players now have a bit more freedom to how they tackle the early game, so the big focus on flexibility that I espoused in this guide probably isn't as crucial anymore. I do intend on rewriting this guide once I've played again and am more familiar with the changes and new content, but I may wait until the game leaves Early Access. In the meantime, thank you to everyone who awarded this guide and pointed others to it.

END UPDATE
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This is a guide I'm throwing together to help out new players, since it is a bit daunting having to create 4 characters immediately after the prologue. Don't expect this to be a complete and detailed guide, I'm only going to cover what I'm familiar with. Most of this is just basics, but I will include a section on some more unique mechanics at the end in case you would rather figure out how things work on your own. Let's get started.

You should have a grasp on a lot of this after doing the Prologue, and I am just repeating stuff you can read in the Tips screen, but I'll break it down anyway. Banquet For Fools uses Real-Time-With-Pause (RTWP) combat. This means your characters can only take an action (attack, cast a spell etc.) when their action bar is full. After an action is taken, you have to wait for the action bar to fill up again. Your characters can move freely while the action bar fills up. The heavier your weapon, the slower your action bar fills up. You can switch between your equipped weapons and your characters (who you control) at any time, and some actions like playing songs trigger independently of the action bar.

BFF's combat includes some neat mechanics that you need to be familiar with. Enemies will accumulate Fatigue as the fight goes on, from attacking, taking damage, and moving. This is expressed by the sweat drop icons that appear on the enemy; the more fatigued they are, the slower they attack and the lower the chance they evade attacks. Some enemies also have armor, expressed by a shield icon, and will simply absorb regular damage. To get around this, you need to use weapons that can break armor (weapons with this capability include it right on the stat screen that pops up when you hover your mouse over the weapon). Once it's destroyed, the shield icon disappears, and the enemy will take more damage and will no longer be immune to Knockback.

Speaking of which, Knockback is a prominent part of BFF's combat. Depending on your weapon and the type of enemy, they will be knocked backwards and temporarily incapacitated when your attack lands. Until they get back on their feet, they are completely unable to avoid your attacks or take any action. Making optimal use of Knockback is integral to managing fights, especially when your 4 heroes are greatly outnumbered. When your characters have full Stamina, they can also use the Knockback skill on the action select bar to knock down one or many foes at once.

Pinning is another option available on the action select bar, and allows a character with enough stamina to hold an enemy in place for a time (depending on stats) so your other characters can land free hits on the pinned enemy.

Lastly, all characters have access to Rally. Rally consists of weapon-dependent special attacks that cause extra damage, completely break armor, cause a status effect, and so on. How powerful a Rally attack is is affected by a simple quick-time event that pops up when you choose a Rally attack, so take time to do a little practice with it before you need it. Your characters can chain Rally attacks together with each other for more damage at once. Keep an eye on the Rally gauge in the bottom right of the screen to know when you can use it.

You have to create a party of 4 characters to start playing the main game. Both the chosen Race (Taratorith, Amythevian, Pasaaren, Varuchov and Yeti) and the position of the 'Sex' slider will affect your stats, the other options on the left side are merely cosmetic. On the right side, you are given three tokens to allocate for your core attributes (Strength, Agility, etc) and three tokens for your Skills (Short Sword, Bow, Large Shield, and so on). You get two gold tokens to massively boost two different attributes/Skills, and a silver token for a decent boost for a chosen attribute/skill.

Like any other RPG, your attributes and skills need to compliment each other. You can learn more about any attribute or skill just by holding the mouse over it; be SURE you use this to check that your builds make sense. Some weapon skills can use different attributes for the same feature, like attack damage being based off of whichever skill is highest between Strength and Agility, for example.

It's important to note that your characters aren't stuck using only what you choose at character creation for the rest of the game. Any character (except Yetis) can equip any weapon and start using it, and you will get bonus points to improve that skill when you level up. On top that, any Skill under level 60 gains levels faster than skills over 60. As long as your character has the attributes that compliment the weapon or skill, they can become dangerous without too much trouble. Your goal at character creation is to create a solid base of 4 characters that can hack it through the early game while they build up other skills. The early game is obviously the best opportunity for your guards to level up weaker skills, and gives them some versatility to make the most out of difficult situations later on. If you're in a tough fight, you can always switch to the weapons/skills you boosted at character creation to make things easier.

Melee Weapons

These are going to be your primary damage-dealers and, most importantly, your armor-breakers. Two-handed weapons do more damage, break more armor, and keep your enemies down longer, but at the cost of a slower attack speed. Melee weapons can also hit multiple enemies at once (especially the two-handed weapons, obviously), which you should take advantage of as often as you can. I really like the Scepter skill, as it includes both one-handed and two-handed weapons, which means your Scepter fighters can switch back and forth if you want to include a shield. Scepters have the highest armor-breaking value as a general rule. Short Swords (especially if you add dual-wielding via Multi-Hand) on one character help to keep the pressure on enemies and make up for the slow attack times on your two-hander fighters. You can maximize this by using daggers, and the very first weapon shop sells daggers that can break armor.

Poles are a decent option as well, nice reach and good armor-breaking. I find Axes and Long Swords to be a bit lacking, but that is probably just user error. Whips are cool for their reach and can also hit multiple enemies at once, but it seems the AI tends to miss with them. Unarmed requires some unique Stat distributions (it's the only "weapon" that's tied to Aura), so it's a decent choice for certain builds. Yetis are GREAT to utilize in the domain of melee since they can dual-wield two-handed weapons. The crucial thing is to make sure you factor in armor-breaking weapons so you can level the playing field with armored enemies, otherwise they can really disrupt your party's flow. Their armor has to be gone before your ranged and lighter melee weapons can do proper damage to them.

Ranged Weapons

Slings are nice because they allow you to fight at range while still breaking armor, but please note that Slings are going to become strength weapons when Dart weapons make their return. Don't forget to buy slingstones! Bows are a good choice as well, since the ammo is plentiful and they do solid damage once your skill level is high enough. Elyxirs are a decent choice as well, but be aware, the AI seems to miss with them more than bows or slings. I never touched Darts (when they were included) at all. It's important to note that specialty ammo for ranged weapons can only be used during Rally.

Armor and Shields

The larger the shield and the heavier the armor, the slower the character. You really have to experiment to find a balance of armor vs. speed that suits you. I suggest creating at least two characters that are proficient in a class of armor during character creation. One shield user from the start is fine if you want, but if you'd rather save that boost token for another skill, just wait and buy a shield to train with shortly after you start the game.

Pagans (Runic) and Musicians (Instruments)

These are basically support skills that function the same way; you need a songbook or a spellbook, and you fill those books up with songs and spells to use. These books can't be found, only bought, and spellbooks are expensive. If you want to make use of them, be sure to choose these skills at character creation so that your character already starts with a book and songs/spells. Pagans in particular can be difficult to train from scratch after the fact, so just save yourself the headache and make one at the start. I definitely suggest having at least one Pagan and one Musician from the beginning. Once you have the funds, buy a different instrument and a songbook so another character can start training Instruments.

Rogue

Lockpicking and Bartering are non-combat skills but very useful, each probably worthy of a gold token at character creation (on two separate characters, of course). Lockpicking gives you easy access to treasure, and bartering reduces your purchase prices at shops (note that you have to be playing as ((controlling)) your bartering character for the discounts to show up, ONLY buy items when playing as your dedicated barterer!) , which is crucial early on when you're strapped for emeralds (the game's currency). Having a dedicated Sneak character is also a good idea, but the duration and effectiveness of Sneak seems generous enough at level 60~ so just throw a silver token on it with one of your characters if you want to use it. It's not substantial enough to put a gold token on. The best thing about your dedicated Rogue is that they can find hidden treasure and paths around the maps, the latter of which makes some fights easier.

Final Tips

1. Don't try to min/max, a few points here or there won't make or break you. As long as you have good synergy between your stats and weapon/skill choices, you're set.

2. Remember, training in a new weapon is as easy as equipping and using it. You can train a melee fighter in a ranged weapon (or vice versa), just choose two weapons that benefit from mostly the same attributes.

3. Every character needs a gold token on one offensive weapon. You can't afford to have a pure "support" character.

4. Multi-Hand is a great way to give a melee fighter an offensive edge, but remember, the secondary weapon isn't influenced by your skill in that weapon, but only by your skill in Multi-Hand.

5. Not sure which type of Pagan to make? Try Vines, it's handy even outside of combat.

1. If you're training a character in a new weapon, they'll often miss with it. If you wait until one of your allies has already knocked the enemy down, you're guaranteed to hit. You'll also land more hits as the enemy gets more Fatigued.

2. The more enemies you can hit in a single attack, the better. The bigger the weapon, the more enemies you can hit.

3. Enemies that are knocked backwards can damage and even knock down the enemies they land on, so you can use knockdown to control the flow of the fight. If you can get your characters to keep enemies down in rotation, they won't have a chance to attack you. Unfortunately, this does often require micro-managing to pull off by constantly switching between characters.

4. Look for chokepoints on the map for serious fights. Using Form Up in these spots forces enemies to meet the full brunt of your party's wrath. You can even use only one melee weapon and have your other 3 characters act as ranged fighters if the spot is tight enough.

5. Hitting enemies while they're attacking disrupts it if you're fast enough. Because of this, ranged characters can act as a wonderful "saving throw" during combat. Play as one, hang back, and keep an eye out for an enemy about attack one of your party members. When you see the animation starting, launch your ranged attack to keep your ally from getting hurt.

6. You can kind of kite enemies by running around them, interrupting their movement and even make them stop to attack and miss. This also helps Fatigue accumulate on enemies.

7. Pinning can be useful, but beware of the character doing the pinning becoming surrounded by enemies.

8. Characters can switch between equipped weapons during combat. Always make sure your characters are using the weapon you want, as sometimes the AI will switch weapons when you don't want them to.

9. Keep an eye on your Tactics menu (the horn button on the bottom left). Always be mindful that your Tactics settings fit your situation, and remember that they can be changed even during combat.

10. Having all of your characters proficient with one melee weapon and one ranged weapon can be very handy.

11. Look for red orbs flying out of enemies during combat; walking over it will restore some of your character's health. Your AI-controlled allies will run towards these automatically. Since there is no healer class, these, consumables and resting are how you keep your party alive.

12. Abuse the option to rest at the fort during the early game, so you can build up your number of healing items.

13. Pagans need Spirit (basically mana) to cast spells. Spirit is gained by defeating enemies, using certain consumables, or being in locations with magic influence.

Pagans can learn new spells at Voltrees, which are found around the world. Different Voltrees can have their own, exclusive spells. The currency for learning new spells at the Voltree is Minerals, which are acquired by using a mortar and pestle to grind down the gems you find. You use sliders to select to specifics of how the spell functions (duration, area affected, etc); the more powerful the spell, the higher Pagan and Runic levels it requires. You also draw a rune to represent the spell; this is just what shows up for the spell when you open your spellbook, you don't have to draw the rune to cast the spell or anything like that.

Intercessions sounds intriguing, but how does it actually work? It's fairly simple.

In the game, some maps have a statue dedicated to a God or Goddess on them (the first one is in the fort, near the stonesmith). Interacting with the statue gives you the opportunity to take on a quest on the deity's behalf. Once the quest is complete you get a boost to your health and Intercessions skill, and you unlock the option to bless your equipment (purchased with emeralds). These blessings (intercessions) differ depending on which deity you're dealing with, and are checked via your Intercessions skill and Aura, and only characters with high enough skill in Intercessions can get their equipment blessed. Furthermore, the higher your Intercessions Skill and Aura, the more you can increase the effect of the blessing (this has to be done when blessing the equipment, blessed gear doesn't automatically scale with your Intercessions/Aura). Note that a high Pagan attribute counts against you for these blessings. You can think of Intercessions characters as Paladins using enchanted equipment.