Lords of Xulima – FAQ/Strategy Guide

Copyright 2015, James Gagne

I loved Lords of Xulima until the very end. I completed every quest and spent 120 hours in the game. I supported its development on Kickstarter. Xulima is unique in several ways, but the only online help has been on the Steam site, which misses some important points. So here is a discussion of how the game works and tips for getting maximum satisfaction while playing it. This post contains a few minor spoilers but concentrates on overall strategy without revealing individual areas or quests.

I. Overview

Though it resembles the Dungeons and Dragons and Dark Eye games, Lords of Xulima uses its own ruleset. It is at once unique and familiar. It features the usual medieval fantasy fare: warriors and wizards, clerics and thieves, swords and magic, kings and princes -- but no dragons. The story is that eight of the nine gods have abandoned the world, and the ninth god (Yul, Lord of Darkness and Death) is now trying to take over. The other eight gods have asked you, the Herald, to stop him. Combat is turn-based and quite well done. You'll find excellent online resources on the Steam site for various apects of the game.

II. Combat overview

Combat is turn-based and occurs in rounds, often five to fifteen rounds per battle. The Speed attribute is critical because it determines how frequently a character attacks. You have up to six characters: three or four in the front (melee) row and two or three in the back row (where they can used ranged, magic, or polearms). Enemies can occupy two rows of up to five per row.

There are basically four types of damage: physical, magical, wounds, and status effects. Physical and magical damage are essentially the same as with any other RPG, except your weapons will hit enemies less often than in most games. Your attack score (likelihood of successful hit) increases with weapon skill, agility, and a number of other factors. It is as important to maximize as the Damage score.

Wounds are similar to the Dark Eye system: they impair combat abilities. When your character or a monster has accumulated more than a few wounds, they hit much less often, do less damage, and are easier to hit. Wounds persist but can be healed through resting and with potions and certain healing spells. (Some monsters can heal their wounds, as well.)

Status effects either impair fighting (for example, stunned or frozen) or cause damage in their own right. Damage-causing effects are critical to understand, because they can lead to the rapid demise of your characters or your opponents. They include bleeding, burning, and poison. Poison and burning slowly diminish with each combat round. All three of them persist, stack during combat, cause ongoing damage, and never miss. So, for example, late in the game it's relatively easy to cause 25 points of bleeding, 18 points of burning, and 16 points of poison each combat round. Even if your opponent has over 2000 hit points, they'll go down quickly: 55 points of extra damage the first round, 110 points the second, etc. (In practice you miss often enough so that you wouldn't get in all three effects every round.) So long as they persist, bleeding, burning, and poison cause damage every round, even if your other attacks miss.

If you can stun or freeze an opponent, every melee or ranged attack hits while this effect persists. So being able to stun or freeze a monster means every ally will damage them until it resolves, greatly aiding in battle. Monsters can stun or freeze your characters, but monster allies won't all then attack the NPC who is stunned. So immobilizing your opponents works better for you than for them.

Although some people found Arcane Soldiers underpowered, I found their combination of Flame Strike and Frost Strike (which inflict Burning and Frozen status respectfully) to be quite helpful, although these attacks do have the same chance to hit as other melee attacks and miss frequently. Arcane Soldiers also learn the Blizzard spell at about level 10. Blizzard kills low-level enemies and freezes some of the pack facing you, making it much easier for allies to attack successfully.

Melee-type characters can do a Powerful Strike (doubles the damage and improves Attack Score), Aimed Strike (higher chance of a successful attack), and attacks that cause bleeding, wounding, or stunning. Higher-quality weapons can cause bleeding, wounding, or stunning on their own. The quality of weapons and armor improves very slowly during the game.

III. Exploring Xulima (pronounced "SHOO-lee-ma")

After a brief tutorial, you'll enter the first village. Each major region has its own village, which are all virtually identical. There is an inn (good for "rumors" and resting), food seller, merchant, and trainer. Most villages also have a temple, where you can receive healing and "blessings" that improve your statistics for 24 hours. There are a number of villagers, who provide hints as you pass by. All the village inhabitants stand outside their homes or businesses 24 hours a day. Though Xulima has a day-night cycle, the only effect is that at night, it's hard to see without a torch (though villages are well lit). The trainer provides side quests and sells "training": you purchase those essential skill points at an ever-increasing price. There are no enemies within village walls. Do buy all the rumors at the inn. There are about half a dozen and help you figure out what's going on.

Monsters abound outside the villages. About half of the monsters are fixed in place. You can see them well ahead of engaging them, which is important because you'll often encounter enemies that are way too strong for your current level. Engaging them too soon means certain death, so you'll have to avoid them until you've advanced enough. There are also wandering monsters who ambush you and can't be seen until they initiate combat. Usually the strength of the wandering monsters roughly matches your own. You can also choose to avoid combat, either by running away or using Gaulen's Camoflage skill. Once you kill all the fixed and wandering monsters in an area, you get extra experience for having cleared that region, and no monsters respawn. (I do this after I've done most of the quests in a region.)

Most areas also have a mausoleum, where long-deceased royalty is buried. Mausoleums are locked with a high-level lock, but keys can be found on a corpse somewhere in a neighboring region. (I found keys hard to locate, so mostly I just picked the locks.) Mausoleums do have enemies, but mostly they contain a series of traps and puzzles. They contain decent but not outstanding loot and often a large amount of gold, so they're worth the effort. There's a Steam Achievement if you conquer all eight mausoleums.

Xulima's castles, mausoleums, and temples are full of hidden doors, which you'll spot if your Perception is high enough. Mostly what's behind the door is good loot, but finding and opening some of them is critical to progressing in your quest. It takes a while to learn how to spot the hidden switches that open these doors. Typically it's a tiny square tile on the wall near the door (usually at eye or knee height), but at times the switch is hidden in a pile of skulls and is impossible to see. Sometimes the only way to find the switch is to sweep the area with your mouse, looking for the pointer to change to the "action" symbol. Some hidden doors don't have a switch but require you to open up doors in nearby rooms. The switch to one door was a torch of a slightly different color than the others.

Xulima's interiors are full of traps and locks. Your thief needs high Detect Traps and Lockpicking skills, and even then they are tricky. Save incredibly frequently, because traps are so common and deadly and often don't show up until you first trip them. You have to stand nearby and walk back and forth in a small area before the trap lights up red and is revealed, even with a high Perception. I quick-saved before attempting traps and just used the instant disabling button, reloading if it went off.

You pick locks using a Minesweeper type game, trying to find the path on a square grid between the start and end points. Again, it works well to quick-save before trying a lock and quick-load if it requires too many lockpicks. Loot is random, so some may want to quick-save before opening any container.

Food is a major issue in Xulima. Food grows on a number of bushes in the countryside, which restock after three days. You also buy food in villages. As with everything else, its cost increases as you gain levels, but it becomes much more expensive as you buy more than enough for 2-3 days. Gaulen's Hunting skill becomes available at level 10, and I found it helpful to greatly decrease the need to return to town just to buy more food. If you run out, your combat skills degrade drastically, and you'll take damage if you starve. Except for resting at an inn, every action requires food, including resting outdoors.

Money is also a big deal in this game. If all you had to buy was food and equipment, there would be plenty. But most of your money goes to purchase Skill Points from the trainer, and there's never enough.

Each of the eight gods has a statue in a shrine, one in each major area in the game. The game has eight Divine Artifacts you can find as loot in major dungeons or after completing a difficult quest. Don't sell them!! Praying at a shrine for an hour provides a brief blessing, but if you can match the right Divine Artifact with the correct statue, their blessing becomes permanent, and it's worth the trouble. (No other offering produces any result, but you don't lose anything if you offer the incorrect item.) Mostly the Divine Artifacts you find match with the shrines in the same local area, but by no means always.

The most important thing to know in Xulima is though it's an open-world game, there are enough barriers and high-level monsters that you have to perform quests and explore various areas in the intended order. Otherwise you'll get stuck. No one tells you what to do next, though there are hints. In the first village, start off by doing the side quests from the Trainer until there are two you can't do (one target is far away and the other is too strong). Then you have to figure out the correct sequence of what to do next. Often this means finding your way to a completely different area to get the necessary item. The DLC "Talisman of Golot" is extremely helpful here, because it can tell you what's next. (The Talisman doesn't mention side quests, which are needed to increase your level.)

IV. Party creation

Your player character is Gaulen the Explorer, whose initial characteristics are fixed. He's sort of a fighter, but most of his skills involve scouting. Maximize his Knowledge of Terrain (otherwise you can't move in difficult areas) and Knowledge of Herbs. The latter allows you to find herbs scattered throughout the game that greatly increase attributes and resistances. You need ten herbs to get one point of boost. Because herbs don't regrow, many writers suggest not collecting any herbs until you've maxed out this skill. When you start you only receive one herb per location, but by level 30 you get five. I ignored this advice, first because you get level 30 skills so late in the game and I wanted the stat boosts as I went. Second, there are plenty of herbs scattered around everywhere. Finally, Gaulen's defensive stats are good enough that he works well as a front-row fighter-tank, but if you have a fighter-based party you can put him in the back with a bow. He's the only character who can do an Envenomed Strike, which is invaluable.

You can create up to five other NPCs to accompany you; you should probably get all five. Initial attributes and skills aren't important, because you have ample opportunities to improve both over the course of the game. But the costs of improving skills vary greatly depending on character class, and many skills are limited to a single class.

There are nine classes to choose from. Each class has its own unique skills and restrictions -- for example, warriors can't cast magic. There is considerable disagreement in the forums about which classes are the best. The Party Creation and Character Development Guide in the Steam forum's Guide section is my favorite discussion of this topic, although I don't agree with everything said. For example, I did very well with Arcane Soldiers (spellswords), which he despises. I completed the game with Gaulen, a Soldier, and two Arcane Soldiers in the front row, and a Thief and Paladin in the back row. Now I would probably include a Thief and Cleric in every party, plus either a Bard or a Mage, Soldier or Barbarian, and Arcane Soldier or Divine Summoner. You do need at least one NPC who can do magic damage, because some opponents have such high agility they are impossible to hit with a weapon.

Why is a thief invaluable? First, he is the only character who can boost lockpicking and trap disarming with a single skill point, and high levels of these skills are essential. Second, SHURIKENS, which only the thief can use. This is the most powerful weapon in the game, because it causes amazing levels of bleeding. They are cheap to buy but limited in quantity. You can get three shurikens per 24 hours at each of the merchants and more shurikens when defeating thief enemies. I used one or two shurikens per enemy when fighting especially tough opponents. (Except, no surprise, undead are immune to bleeding.) Be sure to increase your shuriken skill every time you level up, and buy them at every opportunity.

Though thieves aren't heavily armored, their high Agility scores make them hard to hit. So some use them in the front row with a sword. My thief stayed in the back with a crossbow, which is normally a slow weapon. But using her Quick Strike ability, she could get in rapid, repeated attacks as powerful as any of the melee fighters. And the crossbow was great at wounding opponents.