Although this is my first guide, for some reason this game more than
others has compelled me to find as many "unofficial" ways to play the
game as possible. This guide details what I've found so far.
All comments and criticisms welcome. Please send any finds of your own
so that I may add them to the FAQ (properly credited of course).
I want to thank Michael Leonard for submitting more than a dozen exploits
and bugs of all sorts to this FAQ. Especially for the XBox exploits as
I do not own one myself.
Michael Levin
risujin@risujin.org
http://risujin.org/
LEGAL
This FAQ officially lives at http://www.gamefaqs.com/. While I only update
at that address, various versions have filtered down to similar websites.
Permission is granted only for complete and unmodified reproduction and
distribution of this document and its preceeding versions. If you wish to
distribute this document in accordance with these conditions, please do
not email me about it, just do it. :)
By submitting to this FAQ, you grant me the right to publish, modify, and
distribute via this document and its future versions any and all parts of
your submission. The original author of all non-duplicate (judged at my
discretion) submissions will be clearly labeled unless requested otherwise
by said author.
All trademarks and copyrights contained in this document are owned by their
respective trademark and copyright holders. This FAQ is neither official
nor authorized.
0.8: - Change of contact information.
- Added a bug by Shippo-Demon.
0.7: - Added legal information.
0.6: - Updated contact information, some minor tweaks.
0.5: - Improved NPC-beating exploit by Eric Raabe.
- Added XBox vs PC section.
0.4: - Added a good number of exploits by Michael Leonard plus a few
more of my own.
- Minor fixes, spelling, etc.
0.3: - New trivia section.
- Added force push exploit.
- Formatting fixes.
0.2: - Added physical shield spell exploit.
- More bugs, general touch-ups.
0.1: - This is the first version.
INTRODUCTION
Fable being, of course, a Lionhead game has received a fair amount of
developmental attention to the look and feel while the gameplay mechanics
go overlooked. Some of us may remember the show-stopping bugs in Black &
White that in many cases crippled the creature permanently. Fable is no
exception to this trend and abounds in glitches and bugs. Many of these
are in the player's favor.
Using this guide you will be able to completely max out all upgrades for
your character in a matter of hours without completing a single quest.
Obviously, this will render the game ridiculously easy. I highly recommend
you complete the game on your own first and follow this guide on a second
play-through. You have been warned.
XBOX VS PC VERSIONS
I should mention that I'm playing the PC version of the game. Submissions
for the XBox version are included in this FAQ however.
There are some differences between the two versions with regards to the
controls. While the PC has the benefit of the mouse, it proves largely
useless aside from making the bow a bit easier to use. The XBox controller
is a thing of exploit beauty however, with numerous glitches made available
by using the target switch and turbo attack buttons. These glitches are,
sadly, unavailable to unaided PC users.
TRIVIA
I maxed out my character force pushing gray guards and civilians while
under physical shield at the Guild of Heroes. My combat multiplier got as
high as 170x at one point. Each multiple of 5 adds one circle to the
multiplier. After 40x, the number on the last (red) circle just keeps
growing.
After you have maxed out your character, enemies continue to drop and you
continue to receive experience points, which simply collect in your
experience pool and do nothing. Same for experience gained in other ways.
The total amount of experience required to max out your character is
2,007,997 points.
EXPLOITS
*** Free Bed ***
Waiting for a store to replenish its supply of goods? Sleep for free,
no marital home or inn purchase necessary. There is a bed next to the
produce trader in Barrow Fields which is never used by an NPC. The game
will tell you that the bed belongs to someone else but you can sleep
there without being fined.
There are many other such beds around Albion, you can usually spot them
by wandering around at night. If you see any unoccupied beds, you know
you can sleep there for free.
*** Thieving Distance ***
When using the steal skill, its is only important that you are not seen,
not the object. If you stand far away enough from the shopkeeper you can
steal things from right under his nose.
*** Sleepwalking ***
When you use a bed the game screen will fade but you can still move.
You can run around during the fade in and fade out to get an early start
on the day.
*** Hero Save ***
If you don't mind a bit of repetition, you can replay quests and acquire
over again all experience and items by hero saving just before completing
the quest and then loading that save. This is a good trick to pull on the
Arena quest.
(WARNING) [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
Be careful as doing this glitch during certain quests (Bargate Prison)
or by playing multiple quests at once (i.e. fighting Thunder for his soul
during "The Ransom Victim" quest) will permanently disable World Save
and leave you with only Hero Save. If this happens you will be unable
to save your quest progress (although you can, in theory, beat the game
without ever reloading).
*** Rolling Invulnerability ***
Not only is rolling (middle-click and a direction arrow) a great way to
get out of a hairy situation but you are actually invulnerable when you
do it. About to get hit by a troll smash? Roll! It doesn't even matter in
what direction, you can roll AT the troll and you won't be harmed.
*** Easy Money ***
Background:
Making money in Fable is pretty much done through either gambling or
doing quest missions (and boasting). Needless to say this is tedious,
boring, and downright detrimental for those of us who want to max out
our character without doing a single quest. Thus, through the miracle
of incompetent programming, I present to you: the easy way to make
tons of cash.
First, a little bit of background. Fable has built into it some amount
of basic economic realism in that prices vary depending on the amount
of the item in stock. That means, buying when there are a lot of an
item is cheap (per item cost) and selling when there is hardly any
(or none) of the item yields a high price (and lots of profit).
Now you might ask yourself, why would this be an exploit? In theory if
you sold some amount of an item, the price would gradually adjust as
you were selling. You can see this behavior by selling an item one by
one. However, Lionhead in their infinite genius added the "sell
maximum" and "buy maximum" features. In theory again, these ought to
be equivalent to selling and buying incrementally -- the price would
float as you were selling. However, thats not what happens! Taking the
lazy way out, Lionhead implemented these features using a
multiplication -- no gradual price adjustment!
Exploit:
So, what does this mean for us? When you sell an item, you never get
the full price and when you buy it is overpriced again. You will lose
money buying and selling one item to the same store. But, and here is
the exploit, if you buy out a store of one item and sell it all back,
if the quantity you buy and sell at once is enough to shift the price
difference to more than the store's natural overpricing/underpricing
you will make money buying from and selling back to the exact same
store!
An example: Run down to Oakvale and drop by the items store. You
notice the store has say 100 perfume and that the price has shifted
down to 25 gold. Buy it all for 2500. Now look at the price, even after
giving you a lower price for selling the price will be something like
75. Sell your perfume for 5000. Voila, you just made 2500 gold.
Tips:
Remember that you need to overcome the natural price markdown when
selling and markup when buying with your quantity, this will not work
for all items everywhere, all of the time.
Gift items, especially gems and wedding rings are what works the
best with this method. The more you have, the more money you make. Try
to stock up on large quantities of expensive gifts (200+).
This method does not work with weapons, clothes, style cards, or books
because you can only have one of any one type of item at any time.
Stores will restock their gifts after a certain amount of game days.
Buy them out and sleep until the next delivery. Some places are better
than others too. Oakvale will give you 14 emeralds every 4 days,
but Knothole Glade will give you diamonds.
Upgrading guile will help you get more profit this way. Getting the
"elite trader" upgrade after maxing out guile will earn you about 25%
more profit. This isn't a big improvement, as you will eventually be
getting as much money as you want after you have collected a large
enough amount of gems.
Once you have massive amounts of cash you can make a donation to the
Temple of Avo to instantly shift you into great goodness. Don't be too
generous though, as you get more out of multiple donations of about
40,000 gold then you will out of one donation of millions.
I would suggest you use this method to earn at least 100,000 gold
before entering the arena so you wont miss your chance to buy the
Solus Greatsword at the arena store.
*** Easy Experience ***
Background:
The experience system in Fable is a lot of fun. Every time you deal
damage, your combat multiplier increases. This multiplier is applied
to any and all experience you receive, regardless of the source (!).
The more damage you are dealing, the faster this multiplier will build.
If you are hit, the multiplier drops to the next lower multiple of 5.
If you do not hit an enemy in so much time (shorter with each higher
multiplier) it will start to drain down.
There are rare potions in the game ("Ages of ...") that give
experience. Also as kind of a cute reward, Lionhead decided to add
produce to the game that gives you experience. Well, it'll be a little
more than cute after we get done with it. It breaks down like this:
Item | Experience Reward
--------------------------------
Red Meat | +3 strength
Carrot | +3 skill
Fish | +3 will
Ages of Will | +1000 will
Ages of Skill | +1000 skill
Ages of Might | +1000 strength
Needless to say, put two and two together for a massive experience
bonus.
Exploit:
The trick here breaks down into two parts:
a) Preparation -- stock up on as much produce as you can buy.
Teleport from town to town and raid the stores. Sleep until they
are restocked and raid them again. You will need some amount of
cash to pay for this so come prepared. Your goal here is around
200-300 of Fish, Carrot, and Red Meat.
Also save any Ages potions you find, do not use them right away.
Open up inventory and drag the icons for each of these onto your
quick key bar at the bottom. Its a good idea to put them all
together.
b) Build your combat multiplier as high as possible.
c) If you have ages potions, quaff them now while the multiplier is at
its highest.
Rapidly hit those quick keys to make your character eat his massive
hoard of produce. At 100x multiplier thats 300 experience per item!
100 x 3 x 300 = 90000 experience for just eating food.
Tips:
See the physical shield and force spell exploit for help with building
your combat multiplier.
*** Physical Shield Spell ***
Background:
The physical shield spell is an inexpensive will power that will
channel any damage you receive to your mana bar. Instead of losing
health you will lose mana. There is a small mana cost to turn it on
and no mana drain while using it.
You need to be virtuous to master this spell. There is little
difference between the four levels of physical shield to make it
worthwhile. Just upgrade to level one or two and stick to that.
Exploit:
The exploit here is that when you get hit while under physical shield
it does not register as a real hit. Your character does not do the
pain animation, cannot be knocked down, and most importantly of all,
the combat multiplier does not decrease!
Needless to say, once you have a few hundred will potions using the
cash method above you are invincible.
Tips:
Attack civilians in a town with lots of guards and fight them. The
guards will respawn behind your back when you're not looking. Turn
on your physical shield spell, quaff will potions when you're low on
mana, and reap the rewards of a huge combat multiplier.
Throughout the game you will receive three mana augmentations. Reserve
either a master bow, sword, or the frying pan for just holding these
augmentations. When you have your mana augmented weapon equipped
(not necessarily drawn), you will regain mana while under physical
shield!
*** Force Push ***
Background:
Force push is a delightful little spell which is much more interesting
in Fable than it ever was in the Jedi Knight series. When activated,
all enemies around you out to a certain radius are knocked down and
dealt damage depending on how high the level of the spell is.
Exploit:
This spell deals damage only to living enemies. However, if you use it
repeatedly to kill an enemy you will notice that you can keep using it
after the enemy is already dead and, while it will deal no damage, it
will keep hitting the corpse and the combat multiplier will continue
to increase. You will also receive will experience doing this.
Tips:
Use in combination with the physical shield spell and a large supply of
will potions to build your multiplier killing guards as high as you
have the patience to do.
The combat multiplier increases for every hit by force push. To make
the best use of your time and mana, try to use it on large crowds of
guards and civilians (alive or dead).
If you have killed all of the apprentices at the Guild of Heroes,
they will respawn in one huge group in the bar. Force pushing this
crowd earns a good +30x multiplier. Other towns work the same way,
once everyone is dead they will respawn at a town center on the
second night. Find out where this is and wait for them to spawn at
midnight.
*** License to Kill *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
Background:
Splash damage is not counted as direct assault by the game. It does
not set off alarms or count as murder when you kill an NPC by splash
damage.
Exploit:
There is a way to kill people without committing a murder and
catching the guards' attention. Upgrade the fireball spell until it
has a significant splash radius and damage (level 3 or 4). Now, find
your target and wait until they wander next to some fixed scenery
object or wall. Align your character so that your fireball hits the
object and not your target. Shoot your fireball and harm your target
with the splash damage. If you do it right, your target will be hurt
or killed and no alarm bells will ring.
Tips:
Note that you cannot use the mouse to help you and you can't lock on
to your target.
NPCs killed this way drop gold but not experience orbs. These kills
also do not earn you evil points.
This is a great way to kill shop keepers and murder building owners
so that you can steal goods and buy properties without being chased
by the guards.
Be careful where you shoot your fireball as it can actually go through
certain objects and/or accidentally hit windows, doors, or bystanders.
*** Murder in Bowerstone *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
Background:
You cannot use magic in Bowerstone and you cannot punch anyone to death
no matter how hard you try.
Exploit:
While YOU cannot deal any damage that certainly doesn't mean you can't
bring along someone who can. Hire yourself the toughest bodyguards you
can find and head over to Bowerstone South or North. Get close to your
target and attack them. When the guards run over and try to fine you,
do not pay. Run around and distract them while your bodyguards kill
your target.
Tips:
Did you know you can own property in Bowerstone? You can! Kill shop and
home owners with your bodyguards and buy up the town!
Its difficult to keep your bodyguards alive when they are engaging
the town guards because you cannot heal them and the town guards
respawn. Try to avoid direct encounters as much as possible.
*** The Wife Beater Workout *** [ Submitted by Eric Raabe. ]
Background:
When you attack certain NPCs (usually those crucial to the plot or
anyone in Bowerstone), they receive no damage from your attacks and
scold you in return. Every time you attack however, your combat
multiplier increases a little.
Exploit:
For the patient among us, you can raise your combat multiplier by
attacking invincible NPCs (Rhodri, Maze, etc). Every time they are hit
they will scold you but your combat multiplier will increase. For the
rest of us, there is a better way.
Since all NPCs in Bowerstone are invincible to your attacks you can
attack a normal civilian (who won't scold you every time) and do this
much faster. You must keep away from other NPCs who might call the
guards. An ideal choice is your own wife (if you have purchased a
marital home and gotten hitched in Bowerstone South or if you married
Lady Grey, come to her in the middle of the night) since she or he
is alone in your house.
Tips:
It helps if you use the multi-strike spell to speed the process along.
If you are playing the XBox version and have a turbo controller, save
your controller some wear and tear and use the turbo attack.
See the section on easy experience for other tips to make the most of
your multiplier.
*** Lightning (Part 1, XBOX only) *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
(This exploit does not work with the PC controls.)
When facing multiple opponents begin attacking one with lightning and
then rapidly switch targets with the right thumbstick. You will be able
to attack much faster than the spell's natural cooldown would allow and
your combat multiplier increases with every attack.
*** Enflame Invulnerability *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
Sick of hoarding Will Potions to keep your protection spell fueled? No
problem, simply start your enflame spell right as you're about to be hit.
During the few seconds that your hero bends down to the ground, you
cannot be damaged!
*** Drug the Shopkeeper *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
Intoxicate a shopkeeper by giving him a good number of beers and he wont
call the guards if he catches you stealing or even if you punch him!
Your steal meter will reset but the shopkeeper will not call the guards.
Be careful not to be seen by other villagers though.
*** Evacuated Stores *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
During certain quests, certain towns (Knothole Glade, Hook Coast) will be
evacuated. Fortunately for us, they've left all of their wares behind.
Walk into any store and steal to your heart's content. You may also use
the hero save exploit to reset the items in these stores for another
round of thievery.
*** Boasting Followers *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
The more renown you acquire, the more people will watch you boast at the
boasting platform. Pick up a quest card and setup your Recall teleport
to be the Chapel of Skorm. Now get to the boasting platform and go around
telling every member of the crowd to follow you. You will need some
bright, attractive clothing and a boast or two will get them to like you.
Now when you recall back to the Chapel of Skorm, unlike normal villagers
all of the boasting platform villagers will follow you! Now reap your
reward of pure evil. If you don't turn completely repulsive from that,
come back to the platform for another helping.
BUGS
*** Door Jam ***
If you are standing inside of a store (after lock-picking your way in),
next to the door and the store keeper walks in, the door will open into
you and you will be stuck. Teleport out to be able to move again.
*** Spinning Mug ***
For some reason one of the beer mugs at the Oakvale tavern gambler's table
will spin like crazy. Not sure how to reproduce this behavior.
*** Chicken Glitching ***
You are bounded by the map pathway but chickens obey geometry hitboxing.
When you give them a good kick they will go flying onto rooftops and
outside of town walls etc.
*** Force Push Glitching ***
Similar to kicking chickens, enemies can be force pushed into strange
places from which they can't escape.
*** Interface Bugs ***
The main menu interface buttons are misaligned so that their mouse
hitboxes are shifted downward by about half their width. To click on them
you must click lower than you would think you would.
Lists in the game will not allow you to scroll back up to the first item
after you scroll down.
*** Multiple Profile Banter ***
If you start a second profile, the villagers and various NPCs you meet
along your way will still give you banter from your first profile. For
example, they will say "Theresa owes her life to you!" or "You banished
the sword to the underworld!" before you have ever even taken a quest!
Worse than this, even after you have made these decisions differently in
the second profile you will continue to hear some this banter.
*** Disappearing Guild Seal ***
There are times during certain quests when your guild seal is removed
from your inventory. If you complete the quest as you are supposed to, it
will be returned to you. If you reload or otherwise fail the quest, the
guild seal will not always be returned to you!
Having no guild seal is not a game breaker. As long as you can reach a
cullis gate by walking you can continue playing the game as usual.
Eventually you will play another quest where your guild seal is taken
again and if you complete it correctly you should get your guild seal
back.
Another consequence of the constant removal and addition of the guild
seal is that it moves around on your quick keys bar. Very annoying.
*** Autosave on Load ***
Whenever you load a game, the game autosaves. Aside from being annoying,
this can lose you your game if you go back to earlier saves without
saving. Do not rely on the autosaves to keep your progress.
*** Northern Wastes Banter ***
Villagers in Snowspire can be heard saying things like "the Northern
Wastes are open, I wonder if I still have family there" even though they
live in the Northern Wastes.
*** The Wife of Jack of Blades ***
(SPOILER)
If you choose to become Jack of Blades (wear the mask) at the very end
of the The Lost Chapters and wait through the credits until you can play
again you will notice that your character now has the mask permanently
attached to his face. The mask is actually a hat and if you visit any of
your wives, given that you're on good terms with them, they will remark
that they like your new hat. :)
*** Lightning (Part 2, XBOX only) *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
When your lightning spell is at a high enough level, you will emit
secondary arcs of lightning from any enemies you hit with it. Use the
lightning exploit on four or more targets (part 1). You will notice that
after hitting one target and switching to another, they will continue
to emit secondary arcs even though they are no longer being struck with
lightning.
*** Expressive Lightning *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
When you cast lightning, the bolts will emanate from your hands wherever
they may be. Move some expressions to your quick keys bar. Now start an
expression (air guitar is a nice one to do this with) and then quickly
attack an enemy with lightning. The hero will be zapping the enemy with
his air guitar lightning.
*** Chapel of Skorm (XBOX) *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
(I haven't seen this bug in the PC version.)
You need to have captions turned on to get the most out of this bug.
If you sacrifice a large number of people (see boasting platform exploit)
at the Chapel of Skorm, you may see a glitch where the acolyte will
start saying his line "The die is cast... the means of sacrifice has been
determined..." and then with no voice the captions will read "StringA6".
*** Bodyguard Duplication *** [ Submitted by Michael Leonard. ]
Hire a bodyguard and leave the bodyguard's home area so that when you tell
him to leave he begins to teleport. Now get close to an exit and tell your
bodyguard to get lost. Before he finishes teleporting quickly run out the
exit. Now if you go back, the bodyguard will still be there. If you return
to the bodyguard's home area you can hire a second one!
While this bug allows you to collect a small army of bodyguard clones, it
did not make it to the exploit section because these clones are pretty
much useless. They are essentially the bodyguard in "hire me" mode with
the exception that you cannot talk to them and can only hurt them with
splash damage or ranged weapons in manual aim mode. The clones do not
fight anyone.
*** Empty classroom *** [ Submitted by Shippo-Demon ]
When you do "The Book collection" quest, go find a book. Then, go to the
school in Bowerstone South. Use the follow gesture on all of the children.
Now go talk to the teacher. Agree to give up your book and he will begin to
give a lecture, but no one is sitting in the classroom!
You can custimize your class, by selecting who has has to follow you, and
who doesn't. That way, some childern are in the class and others are not.
