Did you ever wonder what happens to your character when a Vampire or Spectre or something goes and drains a level from him? Well, it's quite neat. You take your character to get healed (11,700 gold) and you are back to normal. However, you have also been given exactly enough experience points to go up to the next level. So if you are at level 42 and get drained down to 39, go to the review board after you are healed and you will go up to level 43.

Now here's the trick. Equip a warrior with a Spectre Mace (or a hunter with a mournblade) and go into party attack. Attack each character once, end the attack and heal them all at a temple. Go to the review board and advance everybody. Repeat as necessary or desired. You are basically buying an experience level for 11,700 gold. Since a high level wizard needs 1,300,000 experience points to go up a level, 11,700 gold is a bit easier to get your hands on.

If you can't find a Spectre Mace anywhere, you can cast Spell Spirit and bring a spectre into your party to do the draining. It's a bit slower, but it works. (You have to unequip all of your characters' armor so it can actually hit them). This way is a bit more expensive because you have to cast Beyond Death and Restoration every once and awhile when the spectre gets too excited and kills one of your characters.

Obviously, the first thing you must do is assemble your party. There is a BEGINNING party (supplied with the game) already equipped with a basic level of Armour, Instruments, etc. A much better and unique option is to transfer characters over from either WIZARDRY or ULTIMA III! These characters come over as fairly senior level characters and make the beginning of this game much easier. This is a highly desirable alternative.

If you create your own characters - which you MUST do for your Bard - pay special attention to the DEXTERITY attribute. This attribute determines who strikes first in combat, and can be the difference between an easy encounter and one which is a struggle.

Magic users should have a HIGH IQ, while Fighter classes should have a HIGH STRENGTH. It is recommended that you choose a Monk as one of your Fighters. Their Armour class drops as their level rises. Eventually the Monk will have an Armour class of 'LO' wearing only a robe. They can also do the most damage unarmed in actual combat!

Summon Stone Elemental For the DOS version of Bard's Tale, when your party is anywhere in the city,you can hit the "z" key on the keyboard. Instantly, a Stone Elemental will appear and join the party. I like to think of it as a poor man's summon spell.Now here is a way to raise low level characters up a few levels relativelyquickly. Enter the city with only one member of your party. Hit "z" toget a Stone Elemental. Then go down the street to the Samurai Statueblocking passage to the Scarlet Bard. The elemental will kill the Samuraiwith one hit, and your character will gain over 1000 experience pointsinstantly. Go back to the guild, enter it, leave again, and repeat.After gaining a few levels, your character can seek out the Stone GiantStatue and the Golem Statues near Harkyn's Castle. Be careful though, theStone Elemental seems to have a bit of a problem killing the Golems foryou, but the Stone Giant is not much of a problem.

This trick allows you to duplicate a rare item. This only workson the Apple ][, as far as I know.

1. Sell the item in question to Garth

.2. Go to the Purchase screen.

3. Open the door to the disk drive containing your Character disk

.4. Purchase the item.

5. Exit the purchase screen.

6. Close the drive door and repeat steps 2-5 as nescessary. This worksbecause when the drive door is open, the fact that you've bought the last one of those items at Garth's is not written to disk. The next time you go back, it'll be there again.Note that this is only useful for items that you don't find very often,or that you need more of quickly. This does cost money, but it can beworthwhile. :)