THE BROKEN CROSSBOW TRICK
The Ultimate Money-Making Scheme

[WALK] [TRICKS] [CROSSBOWS]

We are extremely grateful to SiR Havoc for sharing this wonderful discovery with us!

You may think I'm joking when I state that a Broken Elven Crossbow is the most precious item in the game, but I'm not! It is - and here's why:

Any Crossbow-buying Shop will buy a BROKEN Crossbow at ONE ROYAL (0.01). You can then buy back as many as you want (at the same price), buy a corresponding number of Bowstrings, restring the Bows, and sell the resulting 100% Crossbows at a HUGE profit! Of course the appropriate String needs to be available from the Shop (and often is), but this can easily be taken care of by first selling it to the Shop.

A Light Crossbow is too cheap for this to work well, and the Medium one won't appear in a Shop until Chapter 3. The Bessy Mauler doesn't appear until very late in the game. Of the three others, the Elven Crossbow is the most expensive, and thus ideal for performing this trick.

At the LaMut shop, for example, you will make a profit of approximately 250 Gold Sovereigns per each Elven Crossbow. You only need to sell 40 of these in order to make 10.000 Gold Sovereigns!

The best thing about this trick is that you can work it at the very Start of the game, when money is at its scarcest. In fact you can do it without leaving Zone 1 (the Yabon/LaMut/Zun/Hawk's Hollow/Loriel/Tyr-Sog circuit). The key to this is the fact that the LaMut shop has Elven Crossbows for sale, as well as Light Bowstrings. The Crossbow costs 797.5 Gold Sovereigns, but with patience Owyn can haggle it down to 638.0 Gold. So what you need to do is, first, afford the Bow, and then Break it. There's a small catch here: In order to Break to Bow you will have to use it 40 - 50 times, so enough Combats are needed in order to achieve this. This means that you must first collect the necessary money without killing all the Enemies in the Zone.

My preferred method of doing this is to utilize the road from Tyr-Sog (via Yabon and LaMut) to Zun for collecting the money. I've managed to collect almost 800 Gold Sovereigns in this area, buying nothing except a Whetstone, an Armorer's Hammer, and a Shovel. After the Bow has been bought, I utilize the combats on the road from the Temple of Killian (via Hawk's Hollow) to Loriel to Break the Bow. This procedure is described in more detail below.

Please note: All Weapons and Armor must be repaired before they are sold. It is a good idea to repair them as soon as they're found, just in case they are in better condition than the Weapons and Armor held by the Characters. Always give the best to your Characters!

Also note: Owyn doesn't need any of the Spells found in the area, and he will soon be able to get them anyway. In Combat, let Gorath and Locklear take care of close encounters, while Owyn judiciously applies DESPAIR THY EYES from a distance (resting in between, in order to regain lost Stamina points).

HOW TO BECOME RICH IN CHAPTER 1, ZONE 1:

Start a New Game.

• STEP 1:
  • Pick up Items from Haseth's Body and a nearby Chest, and the SPIDER Chest to the North.
  • Pick up Armor from House in Yabon. Make sure Owyn has Armor.
  • Sell extra Armor and Shell at Yabon Shop. Buy Hammer and Whetstone.
  • Repair ALL Swords and Armor.

• STEP 2:
  • Go North, towards Tyr-Sog, and clean out all Caches. They are: Dirt (N of first Combat), Dead Body (near Trap), SHADOW Chest, CANDLE Chest, Chest in Graveyard, House in Tyr-Sog.
  • There are only 3 Combats here, easily taken care of.
  • Pick up every single Item (except bad Rations).
  • Do NOT read the Scrolls (!) - because you're going to sell them soon. (Owyn can get along fine with DESPAIR THY EYES and INVITATION.)
  • In Tyr-Sog buy a Shovel, in order to get the Weedwalkers from Pul Dudding's Grave.

• STEP 3:
  • Now head towards LaMut, and stop at Yabon (where you can sell the Moredhel Lampreys).
  • Don't miss the Caches between Yabon and LaMut: A Locked Chest, the DIE Chest, and a Dirt.
  • Dig up three graves in the LaMut Graveyard: Rosel Lamutian, Klamontala Pechta and Goldie Crowe.
  • Enter LaMut, and don't miss the Bridge Cache.
  • Sell everything at the Shop, including the Scrolls (and don't forget to make sure the Weapons and Armor are in full repair).

• STEP 4:
  • Go South, towards Zun.
  • There are three Combats here as well, all easy.
  • The Caches are: Locked Chest near the Mac entrance, Dirt South of this, a House in Zun, a Chest and a Dirt in the valley East of Zun.
  • Now return to LaMut with your spoils.

• STEP 5:
  • After selling everything in the LaMut Shop, you should now have approximately 790 Gold Sovereigns (I've managed 791.0).
  • Now buy the Elven Crossbow. Owyn can haggle this down to 638 Gold. It may take some time (and patience), but I strongly recommend that you do this, because you need a bit of extra cash to buy Quarrels (the cheapest ones).
  • Quarrels [50] should suffice, but buy 75, if you can, just to be on the safe side.
  • It might also be a good idea to buy some extra Rations at the Tavern.
  • Give the Crossbow to Locky, his Crossbow skill is lower than Gorath's.

• STEP 6: BREAK THE BOW!
  • I don't have the exact statistics here, but it seems that an Elven Crossbow breaks at 35%. I've managed to do this by using 43 Quarrels. To begin with the Bow's condition seems to go down by 1% - 2% with each Quarrel fired, but at a certain point (70%?) it starts going down by a definite 2% with each Quarrel fired.
  • There are now 12 Combats left in Zone 1, so this shouldn't be a problem. I've managed this in 6 Combats. The trick is to change your Combat Tactics, so as to allow Locky to fire the Crossbow as often as possible (which basically means that you try to postpone the end of the Combat as long as you can!). Some Enemies will stubbornly go after Locky, and make it difficult for him to get into an Archer's position. Owyn's DESPAIR THY EYES Spell will come in handy here. Try to place Locky as far away as possible from his target. This will make him miss more often.

  • In case you're interested, here are the results from my first attempt:

    Combat 04 (West of Killian)	9 Quarrels fired	Condition: 88
    Combat 05 (West of Hawk's Hollow)	8 Quarrels fired	Condition: 79
    Combat 06 (Near Charnel House)	7 Quarrels fired	Condition: 72
    Combat 07 (Ambush House)	7 Quarrels fired	Condition: 58
    Combat 17 (NW of Ambush House)	9 Quarrels fired	Condition: 40
    Combat 15 (Spellcaster in Trap)	3 Quarrels fired	Condition: BROKEN

    I could probably do better on my second attempt!

• STEP 7:
  • Now go back to LaMut with your treasured BROKEN ELVEN CROSSBOW. Sell it. Then buy it back. Now you only need a few coins in order to buy the first String, and then you're in business! It won't take you long to be able to afford those Greatswords available at the Yabon Shop, and Elven Armor for all your Characters. You can also buy back those Scrolls you sold earlier. And before you leave, why not keep one of those Broken Crossbows, and a Light Bowstring, just to make sure you can repeat the exercise in a future Shop?!

NOTE: There is, of course another possible way of achieving this (not tested by me). The LaMut Shop also has a Tsurani Light Crossbow for sale (at 330.0, haggleable down to 264.0). The cash needed to buy this can be collected faster, and once broken, you only need to sell a few in order to afford the Elven one. The problem is that now you need to break TWO Bows instead of one! There are probably enough Combats in Zone 1 to do this, especially since the Tsurani Bow's condition drops faster than the Elven one's. If you prefer this method, by all means go for it. The above is just my personal preference.