Sleuth Home - Message Boards - Newbie Questions

Mar-20-2006 21:41

I'm pretty new here, and I think I'm doing ok so far, but I have a few questions. Any input would be appreciated :)

Is there a "political" genre that is "better" than the others or doesn't it matter?
Is it worth it to save money to buy the special equipment from the Order of Socrates? (or anyone else if it applies)
How well do you have to be doing to learn special skills or learn about treasures?

Also any advice would be awesome :) Thanks

Mar-21-2006 00:53

It depends what archetype you are or maybe what gear you have. For example, hynotism is better for the Charming arhetype/gear while Pugulism works for tough. I think Surveillance works with smart gear-is this right? But it kind be used for the tough or charming archetype. However, could someone answer about Surveillance :D

Other skills like Underworld Connections/Pickpocketing are good general ones while Safe Cracking is only good if you're in an agency. However, you'll probably find someone in your agency already has it. I know detectives that are over a year old that still don't have it.

Also, you might want to look at what gear the faction have and what you want with that. In an agency, you might want to make sure you have a member good with each faction to open hunts.

You need to be at 10 (+) points to open hunts, 25 (+) for a new skill and 30 (+) for the cheapest price on gear.

Another thing is, that faction skills might not be worth getting until you have a complete set of interview skills (charming or tough depending on archetype, these are such things as rule bending or imtimidation) and smart skills (such things as hair analysis).

Mar-21-2006 01:02

Also, as for general advice, the Reaper's Agency site really helped me when I was a newbie. You can find that through communtiy sites and here a few general skills/factions links :)
Happy Sleuthing.


http://newyork.hypoware.com/map/cityhall/post.spy?id=10371

http://newyork.hypoware.com/map/cityhall/post.spy?id=6316&first_record=60954

http://newyork.hypoware.com/map/cityhall/post.spy?id=10371

Mar-21-2006 05:27

Remember also that you have to be subscribed to travel from city to city.

Mar-21-2006 07:26

Also remember that you lose faction points every day so try to pay attention to it and do some research on the factions its very interesting.

Mar-21-2006 09:09

I would say that generally speaking you can ignore the factions until you become more experienced. Concentrate on getting all your basic smarts skills and either tough or charming skills. You can then look at which faction skills will round out your agent. If you are relying on Charm, then you could go for Hypnotism or Underworld Connections, or if using Tough then Pugilism is a very useful skill.
As regards items, you will find most faction clothing is expensive for the points given, and probably not really worth the money until you start doing Incredibly Hard (and harder) cases. In fact some of the best "general" clothing comes as rewards for doing Almost Impossible cases, and if you subscribe and join an agency, they will probably give you a set of clothes received from solving these. Also faction gear might give a big +ve to charm or tough, but generally give a -ve to smarts, so you need to be in an agency and able to swap clothing to make best use of them.

Mar-21-2006 15:05

Thank you all for your help, I really appreciate it :)

Mar-22-2006 01:52

One more thing - although you need to be at +10 to learn about treasures, they won't reveal anything to you unless you're in an agency - no single-player treasure hunts available at the moment, I'm afraid :)

Mar-22-2006 12:54

2nd more thing - factions aren't 'forever' the way contacts are. You can change them by only taking the cases with the faction you want to move to, and always quitting cases that move you up in the one you want to leave. This is much easier (as most things are) if you are in an agency, and can swap cases.

Mar-23-2006 15:07

3rd thing - Once above +10 points with a faction, after every day change you will "lose" some points with that faction. So to keep in good with a faction you have to be concientious with it.