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BREATH OF FIRE III FAERIE VILLAGE MINI-GUIDE Version 1.2
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by Alex Pelton
(c) 1998
This guide covers just about everything you might want to know
about the faerie village in Breath of Fire 3. Although it is still
incomplete, you will find much more information on the subject, here
than anywhere else that I know. In case it is not obvious, there are
serious SPOILERS included here, so if you read on, consider yourself
warned.
I. GAME MECHANICS & GETTING STARTED
When you are first allowed access to developing the village, you
will start with only three faeries and one room. Talk to the faerie
outside the small hut to learn about development and to assign
faeries to certain tasks.
The three basic tasks that faeries can do outdoors, are hunting,
clearing, and building. Hunting is essential to sustaining your
faeries and expanding population. Clearing is necessary to expand
the village. And building is necessary to create new rooms.
Each faerie is endowed with four different statistics to represent
skill in various areas:
Red: Hunting/Exploring
Green: Clearing/Building
Dark Blue: Merchant Skill
Sky Blue: Intelligence
Obviously, you want faeries to be assigned according to their skill,
but when it comes to hunting, clearing, and building, raw numbers are
more important than the actual skill level (ie. two faeries with 50%
skill level are more effective than one faerie with 100% skill).
When it comes to clearing and building, it is important to use several
faeries, preferably three or more to get the job done. One or two
faeries, even with 100% skill level will take an extremely long time
to clear or build structures.
For any given task to be completed, it takes time, and a specific
kind of time at that. Faerie development progresses from advancing
the plot of the game and fighting battles. Spending time in the
village, walking around the overworld, and fishing will not allow the
village to advance. Fighting battles (regardless of experience), and
moving the story along will do the trick, so check back periodically,
especially after finishing dungeons or doing some level building.
When you enter the faerie village, make sure you check the bulletin
board to find out exactly what progress has been made since your last
visit.
In the beginning, it is important to increase your food stock more
than anything else. Thus, you should put two of your initial faeries
into hunting. By increasing your food stock, you can increase your
population. Though if roughly a quarter to a third of your population
is hunting, you will be able to sustain life, you must increase food
stock for more faeries to be born. Your third faerie should become a
scholar, the first indoor job that you may use. Keep at least one
scholar until you have achieved maximum culture level and discovered
all jobs. Scholars may develop culture, up to a MAXIMUM of LEVEL 7.
Although the specific effects of culture advancement are unclear,
higher culture will allow you to advance more rapidly and think of new
jobs. There are NINE different jobs that scholars may create:
Merchant (Weapons, Items, Handyman)
Inn
Gift
Fortune
Explorer
Antiques
Music
Casino
Copy
Each job will be covered in detail later in the guide.
To assign a faerie to any one of these specific jobs (including
scholar), you will need a room for her to operate. Up to three
faeries may be assigned per room, with certain advantages offered
by using extra faeries, depending on the job. It is also possible to
create more than one room for a specific job. Merchants, gift shops,
and copy shops are prime examples of shops for which you might want
multiples. Although you CAN change a shop at any time, you must be
careful in so doing. If you change a merchant shop, the inventory will
reset to the beginning; the music player will reset to just one song;
and the copy shop will lose any item it is currently working on, so
watch your step.
At first you will want to keep 50% or more of your population hunting,
so that you can have a rapid birthrate. It is a good idea to keep this
ratio or close to it at least, until you reach ZPG, at 20 faeries.
Once you have 20, you will not have any more births unless there is a
death first. At this point, you can cut back to about 1/3 hunting and
you should be fine. Monitor your food level to be sure, and if it
begins to drop, you need to increase your hunting.
When new faeries are born, always keep in mind their strengths and
assign them accordingly. When you've got enough, start clearing and
building to expand the village. You may clear up to a MAXIMUM of 3
times (I think...), and build up to 7 additional rooms (for a total
of 8). If you are uncertain as to whether you need to clear more
space or not, assign a faerie to build, but none to clear, then talk
to the faerie in person. If the faerie says there's no more room to
build, you need to clear first. If you are unsure as to whether you
cleared all you can, assign a faerie to clear, but none to build and
talk to that faerie. If she says there's no more room, you've cleared
all that you can. You can also check on your scholars this way. If
they say they cannot think of any new jobs, they've reached the peak
and need to be reassigned.
II. JOB DESCRIPTIONS
This section explains in detail all of the functions/uses for each of
the jobs created by scholars. The benefits the faeries provide to you
through these jobs are the whole purpose of developing the village.
1. MERCHANT
USE: Six unique stores, selling rare items
SKILL: Dark Blue
The first new job you will learn is the merchant. There are six
different stores you can create, each with a specific inventory list
that it can develop. Each merchant store you create, will begin with
just one rather worthless item, and increase its inventory over time.
The higher the faerie's merchant skill, whose running the store, the
more rapidly the store will accumulate new inventory. 100% merchant
skill faeries will gain inventory much faster than anyone else.
Adding additional fairies to the same shop will allow the faeries to
generate new inventory more rapidly as well.
There are three basic types of stores: Weapon, Item, and
Handyman. For each type, you can choose either "Speed" or
"Ability." "Speed" stores will acquire inventory more rapidly, but
have a bit different, and generally not as good items. Although
looking at the inventory that each shop gets, you might think that
there is an element of randomness to it, each of the six different
stores has a specific list that is generated and never changes.
This means opening more than one of an identical store is
pointless.
Among the stores, there are two very useful items that you will
unlikely find anywhere else in the game. Weapons "Ability" will get
the Ouroboros, an excellent weapon for Nina (+80Pow, +10Int), and
Handyman (either type) will get the Angling Rod, the best rod in the
game. Although it isn't quite as strong as the Spanner, it has a much
longer range (50M), which is almost required to have any hope of
catching fish like the Barandy and Whale (I know, not actually a
fish). Here is a complete list of items and prices available in
stores:
WEAPON (SPEED) ITEM (SPEED) HANDYMAN (SPEED)
Pointed Stick- 10 Green Apple- 5 Berries- 5
Waistcloth- 210 Vitamin- 50 Beef Jerky- 50
Bronze Sword- 240 Panacea- 100 Clothing- 50
Buckler- 1100 MultiVitamin- 300 Flame Chrysm- 500
Wind Cutter- 2200 Ammonia- 200 Napalm- 800
Crepe Cape- 1300 Talisman- 500 Bell Collar- 10000
Flame Talons- 3300 Life Sandals- 500 Angling Rod- 2000
Laurel- 1800 High Boots- 3000 Belladonna- 200
Royal Dagger- 6200 Titan Belt- 3000 Royal Dagger- 6200
Spiked Gntlts- 6800 Dream Ring- 1000 Holy Mantle- 10000
Ice Halberd- 12500 Balance Ring- 1000 Soul Gem- 3000
WEAPON (ABILITY) ITEM (ABILITY) HANDYMAN (ABILITY)
Pointed Stick- 10 Green Apple- 5 Berries- 5
Waistcloth- 210 Vitamin- 50 Beef Jerky- 50
Bronze Sword- 240 Panacea- 100 Taser- 200
Crepe Cape- 1300 Ammonia- 200 Tiger Claws- 3800
Flame Talons- 3300 High Boots- 3000 Angling Rod- 2000
Amber BPlate- 6100 Lion's Belt- 3000 Lion's Belt- 3000
Piercing Pike- 7400 Napalm- 800 Bell Collar- 10000
Katzbalger- 9200 Dream Ring- 1000 Soul Gem- 3000
Protectors- 11000 Balance Ring- 1000 Holy Mantle- 10000
Tiger's Cap- 5300 Barrier Ring- 3000 Molotov- 10
Ouroboros- 22000 Diamond Ring- 3000 HiddenDagger- 7000
Once a store has filled the menu with all 11 items, it is a good idea
to buy anything and everything that you want from it, then change it
to a different store or job.
2. INN
USE: Resting, saving, special party information
SKILL: Dark Blue
The Inn is just that: a basic inn, like all others in the game. It
costs a very reasonable 10Z to stay and allows you to save. Later in
your faerie development, having a save spot is very convenient and
highly recommended for those players who like to use explorers and
casinos. If a second faerie is added to an inn, she will tell you
how many hours you have been playing, the number of enemy encounters
you have engaged, and the total zenny you have accumulated since the
beginning of the game each time you visit. And if a third faerie is
added, she will tell you how many people's drawers you've looked in,
how many treasures you've found, and how many times you've gone
fishing since the beginning of the game.
3. GIFT
USE: Free stat-boost items
SKILL: None
The gift shop is a very appealing idea, but is actually one of the
less useful jobs to do. Each time you visit the gift store, assuming
at least some time has passed, you will be rewarded with a free gift.
The gift you get depends on the time elapsed since your last visit, so
don't go too often if you want something nice. Note: Even if you visit
the village, as long as you don't talk to the gift shop owner, your
item won't be determined until you finally speak to her. The items
start out as worthless things like Antidotes and Healing Herbs, but if
you wait a little while, you'll get stat-boost items, like Life Shard,
Magic Shard, Power Food, Protein, Swallow Eye, and Fish-head (this is
roughly in order from shortest to longest amount of wait). If you want
a specific type of stat-boost, visit the village fairly frequently, and
save before talking to the owner. If you wait too long, the final item
is a Wisdom Fruit, so more waiting won't do you any good after you are
rewarded with this item. When you claim an item, the cycle repeats,
and you must wait again if you want another good item. The gift shop
is totally unskilled labor, so any faerie will be suited to this task.
But again, this is one of the less useful jobs and you're probably
better off using the space for something else. If you want a particular
type of stat-boost item, it is generally faster and easier to copy the
item at the copy shop (see below). Adding additional faeries will allow
you to collect one gift per faerie per visit.
4. FORTUNE
USE: In-game secrets revealed, humor
SKILL: Sky Blue
The fortune teller is a fun, though rather low-priority job that you
can do, recommended for those who have already cycled through all the
different types of merchants. Visiting the fortune teller will give
you a fortune, which can be anything from a cryptic message, a silly
comment, or a special insight about the game. If you didn't realize
it already, you can learn from the fortune teller that Garr has
natural resistance to fire (though not immunity like she says),
healing magic harms undead, breath attacks are affected by current hit
points, and you will encounter fewer monsters by walking instead of
running.
Some things that she says are interesting but still remain a mystery:
-Using a certain item in combat will increase zenny and experience.
-The stronger your flame magic gets... You'll meet monsters with more
and more experience.
-What you're looking for is to the west. (At the end of the game--this
one is probably just nonsense, but perhaps not)
So if you get enough fortunes from the fortune teller, you're bound to
hear something interesting, maybe even find out what your name was in a
former life. :) Note that intelligence affects fortune telling, so if
you want more useful fortunes more often, assign a smart faerie for
this job. Assigning additional faeries will allow you to get one fortune
per faerie per visit (so three faeries will give you three different
fortunes every time you go).
5. EXPLORER
USE: Finding special items, killing off substandard faeries
SKILL: Red
This is the job that is least appealing to most players at first and for
good reason. This is the one job that can be (and often is) fatal. But
it is also one of the most rewarding, and if used correctly, can result
in finding plenty of useful or valuable ($$$) items.
Exploring is the one indoor job where the red bar affects performance,
so try to use faeries with 100% skill in this area. Since each faerie
who is assigned has a chance of finding an item, you can benefit from
having 2 or 3 in the same house for this.
When you create explorers, you must tell them the distance of the
exploration: Daytrip, Nearby, or Distant (in order from shortest to
longest). The closer the trip, the quicker the faeries will return,
and the less dangerous it is. But the item quality will be less, so if
you want the best stuff, only make Distant explorations.
Now, if you decide to explore, making distant explorations, you will
want to SAVE just before entering the faerie village. When you enter,
check the bulletin board for results. If you have waited long enough,
there will be a message that your faeries have succeeded or failed.
Failure results in death, and means you should hold SELECT + START for 2
seconds to reset. Reload until you don't fail, then check to see what
you've found, or SAVE FIRST, if you have an INN. Because failure is
frequent, you should never use more than 2 faeries for exploration, lest
you find yourself reloading many times to avoid having one of them die.
An interesting use for exploration, however, is to intentionally kill
faeries. Once you've maxed at 20 population, if you have a faerie who
is just plain worthless, and you need one with better skills, send the
little under-achiever to her death. A new one will be born in no time.
For those using INNs, you can save once you know the expedition has been
successful, but before you actually receive items, then reload if the
haul is not up to satisfaction for random items every time. Note:
Distant trips by faeries with high red skill, USUALLY yield items, but if
they fail to find anything, reloading once inside the village will not
help. In short, whether or not they found anything is determined once
you step inside the village. The actual item, however is not determined
until you speak with them.
Here is a list of available items from exploration. There are a few I
know are missing, but wasn't able to verify once I started compiling a
list. Only included are those items I am 100% sure about. The items with
numbers after them are antiques, with their resale value denoted (in the
Antiques shop only).
ITEM WEAPON ARMOR OPTION
Moon Tears AP Shells Breastplate Artemis' Cap
Wisdom Seed Demonsbane Flame Shield Hawk's Ring
Wisdom Fruit Ghostbuster Force Armor Ivory Charm
Life Shard HiddenDagger Ice Shield Ring of Fire
Magic Shard Lacquer Helm Spirit Ring
Power Food Magma Armor
Protein Mind Shield
Swallow Eye Mithril Helm
Fish-head
Moxa
Clay Vase (100Z)
Marbles (500Z)
Moldy Vase (1,000Z)
Dirty Rags (1,500Z)
Tea Cup (2,000Z)
Beads (3,000Z)
Rare Book (4,000Z)
Old Painting(6,000Z)
Myria Icon (8,000Z)
Ladon Icon (8,000Z)
Lithograph (15,000Z)
Dragon Tear (30,000Z)
The Ivory Charm and Spirit Ring are two of the most useful option items in
the game. The Ivory Charm grants protection from all attacks (which means
resistance to all elements), regenerates hp (both in and out of combat),
and improves effectiveness of healing magic cast on the character (roughly
doubles the amount of hp healed by any give spell). The Spirit Ring cuts
AP consumption by 50% (though it cannot be stacked with a second Spirit
Ring or a Shamans Ring). If anyone confirms more items for this list,
please send them to me.
6. ANTIQUES
USE: Selling antique items for full value
SKILL: None
The antiques shop is the only place in the game where you can sell (most)
items that have a description "Appears valuable" for their true value.
Since this shop has such a limited use, it might be one that you only
create when you have antiques to sell, then immediately change back to
something else (but remember to be careful about changing shops). Once
you've sold all of your antiques, or if you are not in need of cash, this
is not a productive use of space. There are no skill requirements for
antiques dealers. A second and third faerie will just offer comments
telling you there are 12 different types of antiques and one of them (the
most valuable) is the Dragon Tear. There are actually more than 12
"appears valuable" items in the game, but a few of them are not true
antiques, and the antique shop will give you the same price for these
items as any other store.
7. MUSIC
USE: In-game music test
SKILL: None
This is basically a "for-fun" establishment that is the in-game music test.
When you first open a Music shop, only one song will be available to hear,
but as you progress, more songs will rapidly be added until all 40 songs
are available for your listening enjoyment. The last song you will have
access to is "Castle in the Sky," so if this one is available, you know
you've gained them all. Unfortunately, not every tune in the game is
included amongst these 40 (didn't realize there was that much music did
you?) There are no skill requirements for musicians. Adding additional
faeries will allow them to generate songs more rapidly.
8. CASINO
USE: Gambling for money & special items, changing names
SKILL: None
Ah, yes... just about every good RPG has to have one of these, and here you
can win big if you have some brains and a good dose of luck. There are two
different games you can play at the casino: High & Low and Numbers Guessing.
High & Low is a game where you must guess based on one or more upturned
cards, whether the next card will be higher or lower than the last. There
are 9 cards, one for each number between 1 and 9. You can wager from 1-100
zenny, and get bigger payoffs, the more correct cards you guess in a row.
You can guess on just one card, all eight, or any number in-between-your
choice, but if any card is off, you lose the entire pot. When you win, you
can risk it all and continue or quit while you're ahead. Note that if the
pot gets too big, you will be prevented from continuing.
The way this game is structured, guessing on just one or two cards will get
you nowhere, as the payoffs are terrible. The only reason to guess on just
one (and guessing on 2, statistically is pointless), is if you are gambling
with a large pot (after already winning) and trying to preserve it, in hopes
that a later deal will give you a better chance of winning. This can be a
good strategy, as occasionally, more than just the first card are revealed.
As many as five may be revealed before you begin, so take advantage of these
opportunities when they come along.
The pay-offs for correct guesses are as follows:
1 correct: X 1.0
2 correct: X 1.1
3 correct: X 2.4
4 correct: X 9.2
5 correct: X 29.0
6 correct: X 58.0
7 correct: X 217.0
8 correct: X 560.0
As you can see, the pay-offs for 1-2 are pathetic, especially for 2, while
7-8 are astronomical. It's actually not too hard to get 7 or 8 right,
especially if you get a few key cards revealed ahead of time, so don't
bother going for just one or two or three guesses: you'd just be wasting
time.
The second game you can play is the Numbers guessing game, where you put
up 500 zenny each game, to try to guess a number in as few guesses as
possible. The number has three digits, ranging from 1-9, with no number
used more than once. Each time you guess, you're told how many digits are
correct and in the correct sequence (called at "Hit") and how many digits
are correct, but out of sequence (called a "Blow"). Hmm... are we smoking
the 500Z pot here? By guessing the correct number within 8 attempts, you
win a prize, receiving better prizes for fewer guesses. Assuming you play
intelligently, you should typically be able to guess a number in 4-6
guesses. If it takes you 7 or 8, or you fail, you either had really bad
luck, or (probably) need to re-evaluate your strategy. If you have a
little luck, 3 guesses is not uncommon, but 1 or 2 guesses takes a great
deal of luck, and really no skill to accomplish. The odds of guessing in
exactly one try are 504 to 1; the odds of guessing in exactly two tries
are 63 to 1; and the odds of guessing in 1-2 tries are 56 to 1, assuming
you don't do something weird like guess more than one of the same digit in
the same guess, or make guesses that are inconsistent with previous results.
But I think the game might be slanted in favor of the player, as I solved it
in one guess, twice in less than 100 attempts (it came up 123 both times,
which is what I always guessed first). The possible prizes are as follows:
8 guesses: Croc Tear, Rice Ball
7 guesses: Green Apple, Rice Ball
6 guesses: Healing Herb, Vitamin
5 guesses: Panacea, MultiVitamin, Vitamins
4 guesses: Soul Gem, Wisdom Fruit, Vitamins
3 guesses: Wisdom Fruit, Light Bangle, Ascension
2 guesses: ShotgunShell, Lifestealer, Divine Helm
1 guess: Spirit Ring
Ascension is a decent (but not great) weapon for Ryu, while Lifestealer
is one of the best weapons for Rei--it's not quite as strong as the Holy
Avenger, but it is lighter, and has a chance of causing instant death.
The Spirit Ring is a very powerful item, but is easier acquired through
explorers (see above section). The Divine Helm is a strong helmet which
protects against death. There may be other prizes for succeeding in 1-2
guesses, but my data here is limited. Unless you want to stock up on
Wisdom Fruit or VITAMINS (not to be confused with VITAMIN), a good strategy
to save time, is to give up if you fail after 2-3 guesses, since there
really aren't any good items past 3. Once you've failed on the second or
third guess, just hit the button repeatedly until you lose and are able to
start a new game. Of course this strategy will deplete your zenny rapidly,
so only do it if you have plenty of cash (which you can win from high &
low), or if you have an inn in the village where you can save/reload (SELECT
+ START will reset) if you lose too many times in a row.
The casino requires no skill to operate, so any faerie may do this job
effectively. If a second faerie is added, nothing happens, but if a third
faerie is added to the casino, she will allow you to change the names of any
of the faeries in your village and any of your party members.
10. COPY
USE: Item duplication
SKILL: Sky Blue
The copy shop is one of the most useful things about the faerie village. If
you give up one of your items, the faerie will attempt to copy it, returning
two of the same item after a period of time. Since one shop can only work on
one item at a time per worker, you may want to open up two or three shops
later in the game. Although you can attempt to have any normal item copied,
you need to exercise a little caution here. First of all, you must live
without the item while it is being copied, and while copying usually doesn't
take terribly long, it's long enough to pose an inconvenience, depending on
the item. Further, the copy may fail. Failure is fairly common, but you
usually have a reasonable chance of it being a success. Since copying
requires intelligence, only use 100% intelligence faeries if you want to have
a high success rate. Finally, though it is not common, sometimes copying can
go horribly wrong, turning your item into a Rice Ball (a worthless piece of
mush). Though you shouldn't expect this to happen often, if you have a
particularly valuable or unique item being copied, make sure you SAVE before
entering the village. If you SAVE inside the village, once the copy is
complete, success or failure has already been determined, so reloading at this
point will not help. Adding additional faeries to the copy shop will allow
all faeries in the shop to work on copying different items at the same time.
III. FINAL THOUGHTS
Thanks to Capcom for making such a surprisingly good RPG and bringing it over
to the States.
Thanks to Jim Irwin for additional input and correcting a couple of mistakes.
If you have any information to contribute or comments, please e-mail me, Alex
Pelton: sparhawk@diac.com
If you are thinking of re-posting this info anywhere in any way shape or form,
plagiarizing it, publishing it, selling it, giving it away, or anything else
that might be considered at all morally reprehensible, without MY PRIOR WRITTEN
APPROVAL, think again. I swear I will make your life miserable for doing so.
I'm a nice guy, but I don't put up with people thieving my work.
Assuming you are not one of the slimy individuals to whom the above statement
is directed, I hope you find this useful. Enjoy!
