Shattered Kingdoms

I found out that if you have a darky or lighty, you get extra experience for killing the opposite.
I'm certain everybody else knew that.
What other little tips can I be given on leveling?
For instance, how big of a penalty do you get when you know the place like the back of your hand (and the last one). Do those penaltys only have to do with killing things, or also with quests you complete in the area?
I think it'd be against the rules to post up spots for mid-early leveling, but any advice that can be given on the subject, I'd love to hear.

One last thing is that a bunch of people all in a row mentioned that leveling is easier than it used to be. I don't remember how it used to be, so don't think I'm denying it. I would like some examples of how difficult it used to be, though.

The bonus for opposite alignment levelling seems to be considerably larger for lighties than for darkies, to the point where using really good areas even though they aren't opposite to your alignment seems to be well worth it for darkies.

That being said, the same kind of applies to area familiarity. For areas that are very good it is worth it to take them well into yellow, if not all the way to red familiarity. Whereas areas with less than optimal circumstances, it might be worth it to split a "status" over more areas to keep the exp bonus from having recently discovered them.

There also seems to be things you can do to slow down the familiarity gain, but I am not sure it would be kosher of me to post them here.

Also, if leveling something that hits stuff, take the time to have someone enchant your weapon to at least +5 damage. Considering that a character with just second attack will probably do around 1000 attacks while going through the outpost, those 5 enchants really really add up to a lot of damage.

Familiarity seems to go up VERY VERY slowly, if you're leveling and are grouped with a GM.

Everybody is going to hate me now.

It does seem like leveling is quicker than it once was. Here are some things that help me.

1. Try to fight things that are a "tough challenge" or better. Unfortunately, there are some things that fall into that category that might kill you and the only way I know to find that out is trial and error or to ask in game. If you find something that's "much more powerful" that you can fight, that's a wonderful bonus but most of those will kill you.

2. Each class has it's own best way to go about leveling. Some are easiest if you stand behind pets. Some are better if you don't have a pet. You can ask around in game or on here. I've had people give me great suggestions.

3. I don't really know if this is true but I've been told that if you cut off the monsters arms so it can't hurt you then you don't get as much experience. For this reason I always set my aim at "aim upper" and aim for the head. You don't hit as often but you do more damage and you don't cut off arms that way.

4. Never. Ever. Ever. Ever. Reincarnate. If you have to wait days for a priest to be on, do so. I know it's embarrassing to die all the time. Believe me, I know. But embarrassment is better than having to retrain a level.

More experienced people will have better suggestion. Welcome to SK. Thanks for being here.

This was exactly what I was reluctant to post, not to say that I mind you doing it.

I've seen characters milk 8 - 9 levels out of Chancel when grouped with a GM, and the same in Gypsy camp. Party on.

As a comment on the above post, when leveling in a group, aiming at different parts of the monster, upper and lower might be beneficial if you find you're running out of NPCs to kill in the area.

It used to be more difficult because it used to take more XP for the lower levels, and the areas now give much more XP than they used to, in addition to having more areas overall in every level range.

Main tips, in order of importance:

Sleep in between fighting NPCs. Killing 2-3 NPCs, sleeping, then waking up and killing 2-3 more is much more time-efficient than killing 7 NPCs, sleeping for four ticks, waking up and killing 7 more; This is much more noticeable when it comes to casters.

If you're melee, find a weapon of a good subtype that's low level and get someone to enchant it to humming. If you're a caster, make sure your WIS is maxed asap through trains or mods and find someone to mentor you in meditation.

Find the good leveling areas. Some NPCs just flat-out give more experience than others, ask around ICly for the right places you should go. Train on opposite auras, and utilize weaknesses. If you're training on halflings or gnomes, use blunt weaponry. If you're training on elves, deep-elves or half-elves, use cold-iron. If you're a caster, don't train on elves, deep-elves or halflings because they're magic resistant (Unless you're a necro using vamp touch on elves). Leave most areas at yellow, unless you find someone who will level alongside you is less familiar or the place is really good for XP. Don't stay in an area that's red unless you have no other choice available.

Only learn important leveling skills at your current status and one status below. Since the lower levels now take less XP to level up, it takes much more XP relevant to your level to train skills.

Keep water and food on you at all times. If you find yourself running out of NPCs as a melee character aim lower. If you're grouped with another person and are having trouble running out of NPCs, have the weaker one aim upper and the stronger aim lower.

You can level up even the worst of character leveling builds to champion within 50 hours with these tips, and that's including RP and all that boring crap.

<--Is currently a mentor with 45 hours, and no RP at all.

Then you're either an extremely lame (edit:leveling) class, or doing something wrong

noob

Wow. I always felt that leveling was the boring part and RP was the fun.