Main Walkthrough

Although the majority of Princess Maker 2 is spent in your house, making schedules for your daughter, it's possible to send her out into the field on adventures. Known as Errantry, these quests will test your daughter's combat prowess, social skills, and general know-how about the world. Errantry is dangerous, but it's also extremely lucrative, and not something you should ignore.

This guide will teach you the ins and outs of Errantry in Princess Maker 2. There are four different areas you can explore, though we won't get into many specifics about any of them in this guide. Look below for links to area-specific guides.

Scheduling and Prep

Setting up an Errantry excursion for your daughter is relatively simple. Go into the Schedule menu, choose Errantry, and choose the area you want your daughter to explore. When that block of time comes up, boom, your daughter will be in the field. You can walk her around using the arrow keys and explore.

Should you send your daughter out on adventures right away? Probably not! The world is quite dangerous, and although your daughter can't die out in the field she will be send home immediately if her HP is reduced to zero. This leads to a big waste of time, as all the days your daughter missed while knocked out are just skipped. 

There are a few things you should do at a minimum before sending your daughter out on her first trip:

  • First, build up your daughter's Stamina. Every point of Stamina translates to a hit point (HP), so the more Stamina you have, the more hits your daughter can survive. Working on the Farm is a good, early way to build Stamina, as it also boosts your daughter's Strength, which in turn helps improve her Combat Attack stat. 200 Stamina is a pretty safe HP benchmark for the first area.
  • Second, send your daughter to either Kung Fu or Fencing classes to build up her Combat Skill and Combat Attack. If you want her to be a magic guser you can send her to Magic classes as well, but regardless of your build you should increase her Combat Skill, so enemies aren't constantly hitting her. Get Combat Skill to the 70 to 80 mark and your daughter should be fine for the first few areas. Note that you'll also need to send your daughter to Science, Poetry, Theology, and / or Strategy classes for Intelligence if you plan to use magic, as Intelligence correlates to MP.
  • Third, get your daughter some equipment. The town's Armory has a bunch of equipment available for a relative pittance. Leather Armor and a Club are the bare minimum in terms of equipment, though if you have more cash on hand you should probably buy something better. Make sure you equip everything before you leave!

If you don't want to fight but still wish to explore these areas, you have another option: Build up your Sensitivity score. If your daughter has a sufficiently-high Sensitivity score she can choose to speak to the monsters she encounters instead, and they will respond politely and let her carry on her way. A high Sensitivity score can also lead to your daughter running away from home randomly, so it's not a flawless approach.

That should be enough for your first adventure. Shall we?

Errantry Destinations

There are four distinct areas that your daughter can visit when going on a quest. From easiest to most difficult, they are as follows:

Each has its own geography, set of enemies, NPC interactions, and general uses. You can visit them in any order you like, though during your first playthrough you'll probably want to stick to the order above. Note that there isn't a huge difficulty spike between the Western Desert and the Northern Mountain, though you'll run into the game's most difficult enemy on the mountain.

Unlike other activities, Errantry does not incur a Stress penalty. You can send your daughter to three different destinations in one month and not see any behavior changes.

Errantry Exploration

Errantry plays like a standard JRPG, albeit a somewhat clunky one. You can use the keyboard (or controller, on other systems) to move north, south, east, and / or west. You can open chests, enter doorways / caves, or converse with NPCs by approaching them on the map. If you approach any roads leading to the edge of the map you'll have the option to send your daughter home early.

Time passes as you explore, whether your daughter is moving around or not. Once day turns to night you'll move on to the next day of your journey, and once all of the allotted days of the trip are gone your daughter will immediately head home. Depending on how she did combat-wise during her trip your daughter's Fighter Reputation or Magic Reputation may get a little boost once you're back on the scheduling screen.

For the most part exploring each area is straightforward: Follow the path, climb ladders, go around obstacles, etc. That said, there are two little navigational roadblocks that you should keep in mind:

  • While in the Eastern Woodland you'll come across holes. Stepping into a hole will transport your daughter to another part of the map. The holes are connected, so you can step back into the hole and return to the previous area. Some of the holes are in the Eastern Woodland's swamp areas, and you won't known you've stepped on one until it sucks you down. Memorizing the locations of the swamp holes will save you time.
  • While in the Southern Riverside you'll need to walk through water. Although the water looks like it should be freely traversible, there are invisible paths that you need to follow to move from one island to another. This takes some fumbling, but it's unavoidable if you want to fully explore the area.

As you explore you'll run into the occasional random encounter. These take a number of forms, which we'll check out next.

NPC Encounters

While you're still close to the entrance / exit of each area you'll meet soldiers, merchants, and other travelers. You have three options when chatting to these folks:

  • Talk. Your daughter has a quick conversation, and you may learn something of interest about your current area, or one of the other three.
  • Ignore. Your daughter moves on without a word.
  • Fight. Your daughter attacks the NPC. This moves you into combat., which we'll discuss below If you win the fight your daughter will steal some gold, but there's also a chance she'll be arrested when she returns to town, reducing her reputation scores. This option is only recommended if you want an ending where your daughter turns into a criminal.

Combat

As you move further away from civilization your daughter will begin running into monsters. You're given a few options when interacting with a monster:

  • Fight. Your daughter attacks the monster, and combat begins.
  • Talk. Your daughter attempts to address the monster. If her Sensitivity is high enough the monster will respond amicably, and the encounter ends. If not, combat begins.
  • Flee. Your daughter attempts to run. If it works then you escape combat; if not, combat begins.
  • Hide. Your daughter attempts to hide from the monster. If it works then the monster leaves; if not, combat begins. This seems to work better if your daughter is strong.

Assuming you decide to fight - or none of the other approaches work - you'll now need to battle the monster. You can either hack at your opponent with your weapon, in which case your chances of hitting are dictated by Combat Skill and damage by Combat Attack, or you can use MP to cast magic, in which case Magic Skill and Magic Attack are the deciding numbers. You can also use items in your daughter's inventory to restore her health.

There are three ways a fight can end:

  • You reduce the enemy's HP to zero by attacking. The monster dies, and your daughter receives a small boost to her Sin total. You may or may not receive an item.
  • You reduce the enemy's Morale to zero by attacking. The monster may or may not flee before its HP is reduced to zero. If the monster runs then the fight ends.
  • The enemy reduces your daughter's HP or Morale to zero. In either case Cube will show up and carry her home.
You'll run into stronger enemies as you explore new areas, often denoted by changes in geography. In the Western Desert, for example, you'll fight the weakest enemies in the desert and the strongest enemies in the canyons to the west. Be careful of delving too deeply into unfamiliar territory.


Camping

Unless your daughter is incredibly powerful - or has enough Sensitivity to avoid battles - she'll probably wind up damage. You can heal this damage with items, gathered through exploration, or by setting up camp. Click the red orb on the right side of the screen to trigger the camping screen.

You have multiple options when you decide to camp:
  • Just sleep. Your daughter will restore some HP, MP, and Morale. You'll move on to daylight of the next day. If you were on the last day of the adventure then it ends, and your daughter heads home.
  • Use item. You can choose an item from your inventory for your daughter to try on herself. This is largely for the use of Healing Pills to restore HP.
  • Change equipment. Your daughter will somehow let Cube know that she wants to change her weapon or armor. He'll bring the new items the next day, and take the old ones back home for you.
  • Status. Reveals your daughter's stats.
Camping is a good way to replenish health after battles. It's also the fastest way to return home if you're tired of an adventure and don't want to look for an exit.


Bandits

As you explore there's a chance you'll run into one of three bandits, in the depths of the Eastern Woodland, Southern Riverside, and Northern Mountain areas. The bandits are not visible on the map, though all three appear in the same spots - you may just have to hang around their respective areas for a bit before they'll show up.

All three bandits will attempt to bribe your daughter into letting them go. If you agree your daughter will receive some gold, as well as some Sin. If you push a fight your daughter will need to trounce the bandits in combat. They're powerful opponents, though if your daughter can win the fight she'll be presented with a reward of gold from the kingdom upon returning home, as well as bonuses to her Fighter / Magic Reputation.

If your daughter loses the fight against a bandit she'll be carried home by Cube, per usual. If she has a high Charisma score, however - 100+ seems to do it - there will be an additional, unseemly cut scene with the bandit. Cube will still save your daughter, and their relationship will get a bit of a boost.


Non-Combat Encounters

In addition to the battles with the bandits there are many other spots in each Errantry area that can result in encounters. Many of them have prerequisites:
  • Sufficiently-high, specific stat score
  • Specific item in your inventory
  • Accomplished something else in the game first
These encounters will be addressed in the individual area guests. Generally speaking, however, these non-combat encounters are worth getting, as they often yield significant stat boosts - sometimes without a corresponding stat loss.

Main Walkthrough