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I just finished playing QfG5 again. It's a fine game, even if it's nearly 20 years old.

Some background info first, because I'm confused. My hero was a paladin who had both magic and thief skills, but he never actually joined the thieves' guild (but he made the thief sign in front of Ferrari). He tried to romance Erana with all the right steps (flowers, magic seeds, bon bons, ask for a kiss, give Hera's ring), but she sent him to Nawar instead. When Arestes robbed the bank, my hero caught him and got Julanar to heal his arm. Then, just for a goof, I got my hero to unlock the door of the bank (after Arestes actually robbed it and got healed), but not actually steal anything. My hero also - just for a goof - didn't give the Hydra teeth to Elsa.

Then, at the end of the game, I told my hero to take the throne of Silmaria. (Bear in mind that Ferrari thinks that the hero is a thief). My hero became king - and then Ferrari spread a lot of rumours that the new king a dirty thief who broke into the bank and did other things, even though my hero was a paladin who found the actual bank robber etc.) This destroys my hero's reputation, and the game finishes with "Ferrari does not make idle threats. He really wanted that Blackbird."

This is confusing, because Ferrari accepted the Peace Statue in exchange for Gnome Ann's Deed and, after his initial conversation with my hero, he never said anything about the Blackbird. Also, my hero never got the chance to break into Minos's house and steal the Blackbird.

So... why is my paladin a dirty thief who robbed the bank? He never robbed the bank at all! I'm confused.

Thanks!

Sounds like your multiclassing confused the game logic. That'll happen sometimes, where "having thief skills" is taken to mean "is a thief" and thus "did the thief things".

Hmm, OK. So next time, I guess that I shouldn't multi-class in QfG? I'm still a little baffled, because I've never seen such a thing happen in QfG before.

I can't tell you what you should or shouldn't do. I'm just saying that this is the sort of thing that can happen. The QfG games aren't exactly bug-free, and these types of issues can occur. I also recall warnings about this particular issue, though that was many years ago and I don't recall the details.

Personally, I do have more fun with non-hybrid characters. The different classes give different gameplay experiences, and this is at its greatest when you can't use off-class skills. Being good at magic is more significant when that's what you're relying on to survive than if you could instead just take a sword and stab everyone. A thief needs to be good at stealth, climbing, and lockpicking, but a thief with magic can basically skip those things by using fetch, levitate, and open. Also, a Paladin just has no legitimate use for thief skills. That's just a personal preference, though; the game does explicitly allow hybrid characters (just not in an entirely bug-free way).

Ah! Fair enough. Maybe I just used the wrong word, then (i.e. "should"). I simply meant that, if I want more of a challenge (by not having multiple ways to defeat the same puzzle, as you pointed out), then I should only stick to the skills that the game gives my character.

So, for instance, a fighter should have high scores in strength, weapon use, attack, defence etc. A wizard should rely on intelligence, dexterity and magic (along with others), whereas a thief would rely on his "special skills" (climbing, stealth, pick locks, acrobatics etc.) and his dexterity stat. Have I got this right?

P.S. What about the Paladin? Naturally he needs to focus on the same stats as the fighter, but he also needs a high honour stat... but IIRC, we can't see what his honour stat is until the 4th game (or even the 5th? Am I right?) so it's hard to tell whether the Paladin is behaving "honourably enough" to attain special skills or not. *shrug*

It's not about focusing on specific skills and attributes, just about not granting a character skills their class don't already have naturally. If you don't have any cross-class skills, any remaining approach will be legitimate for your character's class.

All games from QfG2 onward show an honor stat in your character screen. In QfG3, you get abilities based on paladin points instead of honor, and the character screen will also indicate how many of those you have. And, of course, when you hit a milestone that gives you a new ability, the game will let you know.

I also don't see much point in playing as fighter (as compare to paladin) from QfG3 onward. Playing as fighter is a bit harder than paladin, since you don't have access to the paladin abilities. However, fighters don't really approach situations differently, and there's almost no fighter-specific content. If you play as a pure thief, pure magic-user, and pure fighter-who-becomes-paladin, you've experienced about everything.

Thanks for the detailed answer, adeyke.

I'm not sure about "everything", though - I've heard that you can get funny answers from the game characters (especially in QfG5) if you offer them items that should go to someone else (e.g. giving Sarra's basket to Toro or to Gnome Ann, or offering Hera's ring to just about anybody). I've also seen this in action - for instance, if you give flowers to Toro, he will take all your flowers and eat them, saying: "Toro like smell pretty flowers. Like eat pretty flowers, too."

So I'm sure that there are hidden 'silly clowns' in QfG5. Are there any others I could try?

Incidentally, are there hidden 'silly clowns' in QfG4? I know that in QfG2, you can use Keapon Laffin's X-ray glasses while Zayishah is changing clothes. I also know that in QfG3, you can sometimes see the Awful Waffle Walker (if you're in the savannah and haven't packed food); you can see Laurel and Hardy in the savannah (although I forget if that's random or not); and you can see (and talk to!) Arne the Earth Pig, if you sleep in the savannah - but again, I forget if that's random or not. Is it?

"We dig - earth pigs!"