I beat Legends of Amberland, got all the achievements, and you can too.
 
This guide is about the tactics and strategies to succeed, and to beat the achievements as well.
 
 
Legends of Amberland can become considerably easier by understanding how it works, and using that knowledge to best effect.
 
 

Building a Party

When I first played LoA, I attempted to make a party only to discover there were a lot of options, and bog down in the general confusion of choices and options. I didn’t create a custom party until my second playthrough, so let’s start by building a good party.
 
 
We have seven character slots for our player characters. We want to use all 7, and it’s to our advantage to do so.
 
 
Slot 1 Slot 2 Slot 3 Slot 4 Slot 5 Slot 6 Slot 7
 
 
Slots 3,4 and 5 are front line slots. This is where melee hits are going to go against your party, unless you’re in the late stages of being defeated.
 
 
Slots 1, 2, 6 and 7 are back line slots. Some foes can get two targets, and hit #2 and #6, but generally 1 and 7 will never face attack.
 
 
So we’ll want to put full casters on 1 and 7, and hybrid casters on 2 and 6.
 
 
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Cla*s Choices:

 
 
I strongly recommend a setup including:
 
 
Bard / Healer and Battlesmith / Wizard
 
 
Healers are the best healing cla*ses in the game. Vitality is the best spell in the game, while Power Cure is undoubtedly the most convenient.
 
 
Bards and Battlesmiths get additional buffs that improve the combat performance of your party. These directly increase the survival of your party members and their damage output.
 
 
Wizards’ Haste can potentially clean kill easy foes before they can do damage, but the real power here is improved resistances. This can heavily nerf whole dungeons based on one element.
 
 
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The middle three slots need to be full fighters, but I’ve run things like warriors, champions and knights and not found a lot of difference. High powered magic items are not so common that you’d want to run three identical cla*ses but aside from that, pick what’s fun.
 
 
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Racial Choices
 
 
Elves should not be picked unless they are a full caster. The XP penalty will see them a level behind later in the game. I use humans for the faster XP, taking elven casters, a dwarven battlesmith and a dwarf/human/human frontline.
 
 
This winds up being a somewhat stronger party than the ‘quick play’ option.
 
Names, Gender and Portraits are cosmetic, so make people you like.
 
 
You can also add your own image files to Amberland if you want a custom image for a character.
 
 
 

Combat Logic

 
Legend of Amberland is about fighting monsters, and those monsters quickly escalate from Goblins and Bandits to more dangerous foes.
 
 
Although there are many different monsters, the logic generally works like this:
 
 
1) Every Party member gets to act once per round. Generally, your Slot 3, 4, and 5 characters act before your back line.
 
2) Monsters will either hit 1, 2, or all of your party. Some monsters get in two attacks, so they can single+ everyone.
 
2A) This isn’t random. Enemy spellcasters generally favor hitting everyone, brutish foes generally hit a front line character hard.
 
3) Some effects, like poison (loss of HP), Fear (chance to not act) may or may not hit.
 
4) Zero Hit Points defeats a monster–you want to do this as quickly as possible.
 
5) Zero Hit Points KOs a party member–you will need to revive them with a ‘restoration’ effect from a healer or bard spell list, use the healer’s special “recovery” power, or pay for revival at a town.
 
 

 
You can fight up to three foes at once. And you should definitely try not to do this, as all three foes will then throw attacks upon the party. Several locations inside Amberland will quickly destroy the party if you fight 3 foes at once.
 
 
Fights that are not over quickly can see foes reinforceeach other. This is foes at their most threatening. Foes move 1 square for each round of combat, which does not mean that everyone will mob the party–indeed, there are a lot of fights where foes seem to move randomly instead of intervene.
 
 
To balance this out, the party can fleefrom giant pileups. The party can generally flee if they move into a square with an enemy in it, although there are situations where a foe is now in that square and this is not possible.
 
 
It takes 10 hours to run from an encounter. And if you flee, rest and try to go at the foe again, they will be at full hit points. If you defeat one foe and leave others behind, you get full experience and gold for defeating them.
 
 

 
Your characters can make attacks, wait or flee. Two other important options are available.
 
 
You can cast spells. The most important spells in a fight are the ones that keep your front line alive and active–revive, healing, or removing disabling effects. Wizards deal direct damage through most of their spells, but healers and bards keep a fight going.
 
 
Finally, each character cla*s has their own special ability. Healers’ restore is by far the best ability, as it revives and heals everyone. Stun can cause a boss/elite to skip an attack. Most cla*s abilities are less helpful. Cla*s abilities are 1/rest, and some of them (like guaranteed hits) are unimpressive.
 
 
 

Combat Strategy

Since so much of Legend of Amberland is about the combat, performing combat well is critical. There are a few different strategies to make the combats easier and the outcomes most favorable.
 
 

 

Before every fight:

 
 
Heal up. Magical healing takes no time to do, and while it can be repetitive, getting as many ‘full uses’ of healing as you can increases your ability to prevail.
 
 
Buff up. Magical buffs work until midnight, so a buff cast at hour 1 is far more useful than one cast at hour 22.
 
 

Splitting up your enemies:

 
 
All foes move 1 square (or none) for each one you move. You can use the ‘wait’ function to see if monsters will move towards you, randomly, or be stationary. If you can easily beat three of your foes at once, this is less important.
 
 
You may also want to move around a foe instead of directly into them. Facing does nothing in combat, and a situation where only one foe can move into your square may be advantageous.
 
 
Moving in between multiple foes can lead to 2 or 3 of them moving into you at once.
 
 
It can be worthwhile to wait a few times and observe what the enemy does. They generally do not change their pattern when the party is nearby.
 
 

 
All out attack.
 
The simplest idea, having everyone use the attack action against a foe. Foes that don’t do enough damage to KO a party member, even with repeated hits, are best to take out quickly.
 
 
Heal for damage trade
 
Using a healer and bard to heal damage extends the fighting ability of your party, although it also means that once you run out of MP, you’re basically out of ability to continue fighting. You’ll largely be doing this for most of the game.
 
 
Revival spamming
 
I used this for some of the very difficult fights of the game (Red and Black Dragons, the Level 32 matchup against the Black Knight). The Vitality spell means that characters stay up at 1 HP 50% of the time; this means that bringing people back with minimal HP again and again can prevail.
 
 
This has one serious cost: your frontline in particular is going to be a lot weaker if their strength is halved. But if you’re fighting a very difficult foe, you may not have much choice.
 
 
No matter where you are in the battle, you want to be focusing on one foe at a time. There are items that allow you to attack multiple foes at once; there are abilities as well and magic, but they’re non-competitive with focusing on one foe at a time.
 
 

 

Resting

 
 
Your buffs are not removed when you rest.
 
All foes HP is returned to full when you rest.
 
 
A short rest removes the weakened condition, restores 50% HP but no MP.
 
A long rest regains all HP and MP.
 
 
To rest, you’ll need to be three squares away from any enemy (in absolute terms, including through walls).
 
You’ll often wind up resting at midnight because your buffs wear off at this point, but taking a long rest at hour 16 maximizes the usefulness of buffs.
 
 
 

Equipment

 
Your party starts with some basic equipment. To my surprise, you’ll never actually do better than +30% Arcane on a wizard’s wand. Just about everything else will slowly be improved over the game.
 
 
The most basic attributes you’re going to run into are:
 
 
+Attack: Directly increases damage. Weapons start at +100%, and increase to perhaps +180%. More damage is always helpful.
 
 
+Armor: Reduces physical damage. Armor is very important for frontline characters, although it’s very unlikely slot 1 and 7 will ever benefit from Armor.
 
 
Immunity: Gives immunity from a specific condition. Eye monsters can inflict petrification on the Front Line. Paralyze, which can be stopped by the Vitality spell, is a serious fun killer under level 20. Most other conditions are annoyances and can be fixed easily after a round of combat.
 
 
Resistance: Reduces damage from one of four types of damage. Acid, Cold, Fire and Electrical. Legends of Amberland is very guilty of monochromic environments; towers dedicated to everyone dealing fire damage, similar regions with cold or acid damage. Electrical is somewhat less common as a damage type.
 
 
+Ability Score: Improves an ability score. +STR is the most useful, as it directly increases damage. Willpower improves MP. In general, these items become slowly less useful; increasing STR from 5 to 10 is a giant increase in damage; increasing STR from 65 to 70 is a lot less pronounced.
 
 

 
While the basic items are fairly straightforward, there are a few items which I’ve found to be particularly invaluable.
 
 
The cloak of Displacement is probably the MVP item of the game. Having your frontline ignore a killshot is worth vast amounts of armor. Displacement does not appear on any other item in the game, and at 10 crystals, it is absolutely worth stacking your three front line fighters.
 
 
The Belt of Strength gives +5 Strength, which is a straightforwardly good choice, if uncreative.
 
 
Mithral items allow a lot of encumbrance shaving. There are some formidable heavy armors in the game, but Mithral simply allows easier access to more armor.
 
 
The Protection trait (reroll hits against the party) gives another chance of having foes make a weaker damage roll. I relied upon Displacement/Protection to edge past very hard fights.
 
 

 
Vials
 
 
Vials are worth additional ability score points at elven healers. Stacking STR and DEX on your frontline, Willpower and Knowledge on your casters, and raising your lowest overall toughness isn’t a bad way to do it.
 
 
Selling Items
 
 
Items sell for very little value. In my first playthrough, I simply didn’t sell anything–I played the game up to Level 52, was well geared and had converted my inn room into a personal arsenal.
 
 
You can probably sell items that you know you’ll never use again, but items like elemental resistance + other effects can be hard to gauge. Fortunately, there is no inventory limit or stash limit.
 
 
Trade Offs
 
 
There are a few other abilities to explore, as well.
 
 
Whirling: 5% chance to hit everyone. You don’t want to fight more than one foe at a time anyhow, and this item is nowhere near enough to change that logic.
 
 
Accuracy: Rerolling misses might be great in a game with a 50% miss chance; LoA is a lot closer to 20%. Accuracy is not a terrible attribute, and it’s more useful than a Dexterity stat boost, but this is unimpressive.
 
 
Slaying: Crits are fun; blitzing out a critical hit can potentially allow the party to defeat foes with one or even zero hits. I would pick up Slaying, although +20% attack is probably worth more.
 
 
+Arcane: Legend of Amberland does not have items with more than +30% Arcane, which would be an obvious progression. Getting +10% Arcane on a slot 2 or 6 character that does take a swing at foes may be worthwhile. You’re never going to ‘top out’ of Arcane, as late game spells require vast amounts of Arcane to optimize.
 
 
Carry: Badly overpriced in the crystal shop, Carry takes a slot so that you can get, +2 armor or so? Skip Carry and go directly to Mithral items.
 
 
 

Walkthrough: Part 1 – Civilized Lands

 
You’re going to find Goblins to be very easy foes to defeat. The two caves nearby should also be done early, as all of them are inhabited by Goblins, and Goblins are the weakest monster in the game.
 
 
You DO want to buy the boats in this game. In this case, the Fisherman’s boat is worth access to another dungeon–the bandit lair. Bandits are easier than just about everything, except perhaps baseline ogres. The reward for clearing the Bandit Lair is freeing the Griffin Taxi.
 
 
Griffin Taxi is invaluable to speedrunning the game, has serious value in trying to beat the Desert of Cruelty, and helps you avoid retracing too many steps. It’s free and takes zero time.
 
 
Slipping past the northern river gives access to the Great Library and the Royal Castle, two major locations for beating the game. Your first quest involves going upstairs at the royal castle, then going to the Great Library and being quested to get the three orbs. You’re not going to be able to make further progress on this quest.
 
 
Ogres aren’t that scary, but Ogre Elites in the Southern Ogre Fort are; the bas*ment of the Great Library has just a single Giant Lizard, and while Green Snakes are very dangerous in groups, split and fought by themselves they’re manageable.
 
 
The dungeons get harder and matchups more difficult. Definitely try the northern wizard’s tower–even sorcerers are a lot weaker than other foes you’ll encounter. The Northern Wizard will agree to help you scry the blue orb, but you’ll need 10 bags of faerie dust to do it.
 
 
Buying the second boat gives access to another dungeon–the Unknown Sorcerer’s tower. This doesn’t pose many more challenges than the Northern Tower. It also gives a chance to look at a future foe–The Eye of Morgoth is vastly more powerful than everything else you’ve encountered.
 
 
After thumping various insects, including vast numbers of wasps, spiders (Cave of the Spider Queen is another dungeon to clear out), you’re going to discover the Desert of Cruelty. This is a difficulty spike in the game, and clearing out Grey Trolls, Champions and the Red Knight, and even the Salamander treasure room is easier than fighting a scorpion.
 

The Desert of Cruelty

 
 
The Desert of Cruelty is harder than just about every other region in the game. Four monsters–Sand and Red Scorpions, Cobras and Vipers inhabit the desert, and their AI is designed to pursue the party. You will probably die against a 3 on 1 matchup, and need to give serious thought about trying to reduce their numbers.
 
 
The strategy of kill a single foe, teleport to a fountain/friendly home and kill again will make grinding progress. I found to my frustration that a single Red Scorpion can potentially trash the party by itself,
 
 
The Desert has essentially four features:
 
-The Last Friendly House, an invaluable place to stretch your buffs.
 
-The Southern Sage, who quests you to find five flowers.
 
-Grey Snake Dungeon, in the Southeast corner of the Desert,
 
-The Seven Seas Fisherman and a settlement. This boat gives access to MOST OF THE WORLD.
 
 
I was having a hard time at level 20 on hard difficulty, but made some progress by killing single foes. When you approach the Desert Castle, Vipers [Monster Level 30] magnet onto the party. Instead of fighting them, drag them away from the castle. They will not follow you beyond the edges of a map section, so get to 3 squares away and then call a Griffin Taxi to your point of furthest approach. This will get you behind them, into the seven seas ship, and into a much more freeform part of Amberland.
 
 
 

Walkthrough Part 2 – Main Quest Scavenger Hunt

 
The quest for the 3 orbs is now the major focus of what the party has to do, and there are essentially four different quest chains.
 
 
The Blue Orb requires 10 bags of faerie dust. You’d want to hit the sorcerer lair near the ogre forts, the Unknown Sorcerer Tower in the Southwest corner, the Southern Twin Tower, the Tallest Tower, or as a harder option, you could try one of the pyromancer’s towers (the ones on the lava). Bring a lot of fire resistance, and be ready for fights against ma*s attackers with 800HP. After you take the faerie dust to the Northern Sorcerer, you just go to the nearby dead tree and wait, you’ll get the Blue orb.
 
 
The Red Orb requires Adamantium Ore, and the Dwarven Anvil. The Dwarven Mines are overrun with eye monsters, which essentially require vitality and your frontline to be immune to petrification. After you have that, you will just spam full attacks until they’re dead. Mountain Goblins and Trolls do not do a whole lot better.
 
 
Except you don’t have enough Adamantium. You’ll have to go to Ice Forest Land to engage in some pointed diplomacy with Ice Trolls to get enough ore to make the ingot, make a super pick, and then go to the miner in Wasp Valley and pay 5,000 GP to get the Red Orb.
 
 
The Green Orb means either getting the northern sage or southern sage to give you permission to review the great library’s works.
 
 
The Southern Sage wants flowers (such as from the little girl, inside one of the southern dungeons, and the uninterested maiden near very tall tower.). The Northern Sage wants magic rings, all of which are in Ice Forest Land. Ice Forest Land is more difficult but has better gear. Once you have the approval, go to the Great Library, read the secrets on how to ignore the enchantment of the enchanted forest, go to the ancient tree, do a back and forth, and you’ll be tasked to get the approval of the wizards’ council to break into the Mad Wizard’s tower.
 
 
Simple: Northern Tower, Northern Twin Tower, The entry area to Elven Forests (past the second major bug forests on the other side of some mountains) and the Royal Wizard himself. Go to chancellor, he gives you the McGuffin to unlock the Mad Wizard’s Tower.
 
 
The Mad Wizard’s tower has more powerful casters: Warlocks, Masters of Illusion and Young Warlocks. Packing magic resistances with the Wizards’ raise resistances is generally enough to make this dungeon straightforward.
 
 
You’ll be asked to talk to the Portal Hermit (Teleport to him using a portal in the north of Ice Forest Land) and the second portal will open, going to the final boss hideout.
 
 
The Black Knight was a complete pansy at Level 52 at normal, and a 1 in 10 fight against level 32 at hard. Behind him lies the Crown of Amberland, which if given to the King of Amberland, wins the game. The Black Knight is simply a strong melee combatant that can attack everyone, and I beat him using displacement/protection/vitality strategies, although it was far from easy.
 
 
 

Walkthrough Part 3 – Dungeon Crawling for Fun and Profit

 
One of the great joys of Legend of Amberland is that there are many more dungeons and challenges to enjoy beyond the original game.
 
 
There are three dragon fights (Green, Red and Black). Dragons are high damage high level foes gifted with a high level (50) that are more than equal to the party. But you can get a major advantage by going to the bas*ment of the Ice Queen, talking to the dragon trainer, and then dealing double damage to dragons.
 
 
Dragons have incredibly good loot, corresponding to the boss fight that they are. They are well harder than the Black Knight.
 
 
The Southeast Wasteland holds Cliche Evil Castle, which is perhaps the most dangerous fight against mundane foes in the game.
 
 
Snake Land #3 was too hard for me to really enjoy, but it’s out there.
 
 
Hidden Ice Forest Tower has relatively weak foes and is a good stomping match.
 
 
Finally, breaking evil mirrors is worth a gigantic XP award, 100,000 XP. I didn’t go looking for these, but one of them is in the bas*ment of an Ogre Fort. Evil Mirrors are always found near an eye of Morgoth, but even at high levels 100K XP is worth a level.
 
 

 
 
I hope you enjoy the Survive and Succeed – Legends of Amberland guide. This is all for now! If you have something to add to this guide or forget to add some information, please let us know via comment! We check each comment manually!