>Marcoh
The perfect start is Lockpicking, extra Agility, Bob & Weave and Pep Pills. Killing Intent vs Escape Plan makes very little difference. Killing Intent is perhaps slightly useful early, so the weakest villagers don't chase you, and you can ignore die Scheiß-Hunde. The strategy is super simple. Go to the sewers, Lockpick, loot easily accessile stuff. 50 Shillings should be easy, if you don't get enough random drops, just gather a few glass shards and do Moonless first. You can enter the Woodsman's House first and gather glass shards there (and check the bookshelf, get some food) first, because you're only going to the sewer gate, the Eye of Rher is not a problem. 15+10+20 Shillings is guaranteed from Levi's stash in the forest, Renka cafe and Tanaka's doppelganger. Once you beat Moonless, you can just unlock the elevator, then go back with Black Steel in hand and buy a Small Thing's Amulet. And just like that, you have evasion into two turns for every combat, and a very high chance to escape from battle with most enemies (18 Agility). You get your Betel's Stone from the church (no dangers on the way there from the elevator) for faster/food-free infinite mind, your Leechmonger's Ring from the department store (the enemies on the way are easily dodgeable) for faster basically infinite health (either by keeping a bobby around, or attacking enemy limbs during extra turn then running away). Ideally, all you need is a Vinushka Bible so you can get yourself infinite food (delicious turnips) as a backup strat. None of the exploits are needed at all. All you need to purchase extra is Hardened Heart for 99 Shilling, easily doable even after your 50 Shilling investment. You can ignore Bare-fisted proficiency if you don't want Counter Stance from the first Hexen (you don't need to fight the first Platoon, which is where it's relevant with Hardened Heart) and if you got Arm-guards and/or Salmonsnake Rune, or like to live dangerously, ignore Perfect Guard too.

>O'saa
The perfect start is going through the Fear & Hunger dungeon/full text adventure. Most of the other choices are up to your preferences really. I pick Soul Stone over Chac Chac, since you can random a Chac Chac eventually & there's a guaranteed one in the Museum, but Chac Chac gets you magic damage earlier. Meditation over extra affinity might be the best choice, but that's because it's bugged & giving you +2 Rev instead of +1, so you can go guard > double attack (+guard, at 16+AGI). +1 Affinity for Grogoroth let's you get 2 affinity without drawing a single circle, & that's good enough because Blood Golem & Black Smog are the most irreplacable spells there. Alternatively, you can go +1 Sylvan & then jerk off on the pre-made circle to get healing spells without any circle, but you probably would rather draw Sylvan than Gro-goroth. If you already got Ending A on Easy/Normal difficulty, then Red Arc to the head beats all other damage spells in the game, except for some bosses, even if you can't reduce the cost or double it with Spice Forge. La Danse Macabre vs Hurting doesn't really matter much, you eventually get both to get skils that follow in their trees. The best bible to pick is Sylvan for safety or Rher if you want to get skillful with infinite traps early (Chalk is basically guaranteed with 3 Shillings). In the dungeon, you might as well use your Small Key on 2x Bear Traps anyway (you'll get some replacements in the game sure enough), because Thorned Ring is bugged & doesn't protect you from much (same with Gas Masks). Iron Spear over Officer's Sword & Pipe + Tobacco. Most importantly, search the tents in the camp (where you get the Lantern) three times & you start with a fucking Small Thing's Amulet. Then you just need to make it with 50 Shillings to the magic shop, buy another one, & you basically won. You don't have to fight anyone you don't want to fight, 20 Agility is 100% escape chance via Esc -> Run!, no matter how many times you use it in a row.

>Olivia
Has access to Short Circuit. I unironically recommend getting it over Undergrowth Awareness even though it gimps your build initially. If you find a small key early, this let's you secure an early safe route from Tunnel 7 to the sewers. If you don't, you can enter the sewers from Tunnel 5, which only requires one electric lock & no keys, IIRC. Then, for max consistency, you should pick Vinushka. If you're really skillul with dodging, you can do Tunnel 1 straight from the train, the only danger is one Owl Cultist on the way. The Centaur is braindead, just bait it to run into the shrubs in the south, then go to T1 through the north. Good place to pick up extra herbs, which goes well with Alchemillia Vol1+Advanced Botanism from your starting skills. Living Flesh is slow & simple to dodge, Stitches you can either bait from one end of the fence to another & then just walk around her, or shift a crate diagonally to open up a shortcut. You don't need to get a small key for the Meat Grinder because you are a meek woman who can't use it anyway. If you want to go exploiting early, you can take the debug tile's bolt cutters & use them to open woodsman's basement & get early Pinecone Pig, but if you do T1 & Tunnel 7, you have a good chance of getting r&om cutters anyway &/or a winch, on top of a plenty of glass shards & ammo. You can then get your guns when you do the safe route from the sewer puzzle to PRHVL Bop. Moonless I would only attempt once you have some DoT sources (i.e. extra Gasoline Canisters from the Tunnels) because she can still knock you off your wheels with a lucky hit when blinded, but you do have access to better healing/regen in combat from Advanced Botanism. The main "expolit" here is patiently shilling the pig until you get 99 Shillings -> early Hardened Heart, congrats, you are now almost unkillable with the One-Winged Necklace (has a similar effect to Cameo) + Hardened Heart. Just careful with DM's if you don't r&om Arm Guards/Salmonsnake Rune.

>Marina
If you don't mind playing dirty, Marina is the best character for abusing exploits. The perfect candidate for a Trap run. You start with Chalk and you can random Rher -> infinite traps right after the train. Then you might as well pick up your debug rifle and bolt cutters (although they are irrelevant at that point, you can get both keys easily, you can even trap Death Masks in bear traps and they remain immobilized forever). Since you'll have infinite food in the apartment Rher dimension and infinite Shillings, you don't need Vinushka for the Pig. Might as well go Rher symbol on all Asymetrical Circles, except the Mayor's Manor, and put a Sylvan circle there. As if all that trickstering wasn't enough, sleep in the Mayor's Manor bed -> free 0 damage received kill on Samarie (talk to her every 2nd turn, pick the first option, she won't cast Hurting even once). Get Blood Sacrifice and Masturbation at the Orphanage hexen, go straight to the pre-made circles there, and voila, max Grogoroth, max Sylvan, max Rher, max Fear and Hunger, max Alll-Mer (I always do Blood Portals between BOP and the Church), and on top of it all, Marina can start with maxed out affinity for one god - choose Vinushka. All gods max affinity. You might as well get Black Kalev early as a joke, dump him/let him die once you get your Small Amulet and (hopefully early enough) Fear and Hunger Skin Bible. That's why you should start with occultism/Engrave - as soon as you get that, use +5 Agility from Engrave, then you get +5 from the amulet, 20 agility like O'saa. Basically, if you ignore ALL the exploits described in this section, Marina is a watered down version of O'saa - you have to then start with the Fear & Hunger God's bible, might take some reloading before you start, but it's locked in when you save your character history. You have worse weapons, less HP, but you can shoot.

Both Olivia and Marina would be at least A tier without any expolits.

>Abella
Basically, a watered down version of Olivia. Sure, you can still Wrench Toss but your damage is halved so it isn't nearly as effective, so Short Circuit is the safer pick so you can eventually get to the safety of sewers. Make sure to keep one Small Key in your inventory before you head out to Tunnel 1 - it is from the Western section of the city though, so Mob on the way might be unavoidable. So only go that way once you got solid equipment / skills from the Hexen table. Also, when you come back from Tunnel 1, always take the forest route. Not sure if the author intended for this to be too long so you get guaranteed moonscorching, but I tried it even with Olivia on wheels. If you go from Tunnel 1 to the tent with ammo, then you can get from the tent all the way to the house in front of the train just in time to avoid getting moonscorched. Of course, if you don't like living on the edge, you can always put a Rher circle in the Broken Shack, entering it also resets the Eye of Rher timer (which is approximately 60 seconds). Basically, Abella's honest exploitless run boils down to being a watered down Marcoh - slightly harder access to the safety of sewers and needs Engrave or 2x Small Amulets to get her extra turn, and has no defensive skills. Most importantly, try to avoid losing your arms, so you don't run out of circles to Sylvan. If you do have to give up on the Meat Grinder, you do have a near guaranteed Sandman's Kiss at least.

And the rest:
>Levi
He gets a few extra shotgun shells and a shotgun to start with, so you can shoot off the lock on the gate. I would personally choose +1 Grogoroth or Sylvan affinity over the +25 HP, since that doesn't make much of a difference on the hardest difficulty. And don't do drugs. Since all your Solitary soul skills are hot garbage, don't bother using the Orphanage Hexen until you have at least 2 affinity for the god of Fear & Hunger (+Agility, Mastery over Vermin) and either 2 Gro-goroth or 2 Sylvan. Maybe Marksmanship can be useful sometimes, but it's random so I never bother investing into the skill tree to get it. Most enemies are fuck after 2 shots/when you blow off their arms anyway. You could technically return to Tunnel 7 to get yourself a dead Chaugnar though, 5 rifle bullets and 1 pistol shot should do it.

>Daan
If you play as Daan, you don't have to fastforward through all of Pocketcat's dialogue when fighting him to get B on sadomasochism difficulty. If you like to have fun but only sometimes, Daan might be the man for you, because theoretically, with careful food management, you can start every combat with max HP and max mind. You turn food into mind by waiting in the train, and mind into HP by using Loving Whispers. I only played him with Analyze and crossed fingers. Starting with Analyze let's you skip useless skills like Diagnose (flavor text) and Precision Stance (almost on the level of Inverse Crown/Spontaneous Combustion). I can also see some benenfit in Organ Harvest, since that kind of makes you partially immune against bleeding/blindness/infections/poison/toxic (you can always get rid of them after combat, without utilizing any limited resources). And take the Pep Pills over pistol.

>Karin
Press Yes when asked to Skip Character History. Pray to the gods that Escape Plan will succeed when needed.

It's Rise of the Half Rher day today.

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>>3661705
Fake gameplay
Coin flipping simulator
Not interested