Grinding echoes at almost PoSI levels?

I’ve recently started trying to grind money for better gear, but I’ve been having some trouble doing it. In the appropriate gear, I have 136 Watchful, 102 Shadowy, 95 Dangerous, and 100 Persuasive (Yes, I know I&quotm unbalanced). What’s the quickest way to earn money at this point?

Apparently the Fate-locked Soul Trade offers a rather lucrative opportunity. Barring that, perhaps you’re in a position to exploit the investigations at the second stage of the University, or The Hunt is On! in the third coil of the Labyrinth of Tigers? Those storylets close once you progress past them, but with your Dangerous you shouldn’t be past the third coil. Though it might be quite painful at that level, so you might want to delay PoSI until you’ve finished all your bottles and half-full tinctures of vigour.

If you have 4 or 5-card lodgings you could instead hurry up to become a PoSI and start doing heists against the offices of Baseborn & Fowlingpiece, using Well-planned villainy to cover for your low Shadowy (that’s why you’d need to be PoSI). Kind of ‘intense’, but the money’s good, and with enough cards on hand you’re unlikely to get caught even without using inside information or anything else. You’d also be Making Waves, which is very handy for your Notability.

As far as your stats go, they seem surprisingly balanced to me.

If you’re that close to 100 after gear in Dangerous, I’d just go ahead and try to get to 100 already (or spring for gear that gets you over 100). After that, complete the POSI quest and start fighting a war of assassins, accumulate a couple of collections of curiosities, hand them in when the tomb colonist card happens around, and sell the resulting maps.

If you’re determined not to go for POSI yet, then Mahogany Hall is your best bet. There are two sequences where you can educate a devil or clay man, and they pay out in glim/brass that can be vendored for cash. Unlocking the hall can be a tiny bit expensive, but it’s not terrible.

Once Mahogany Hall is unlocked, you can pretty much vendor most/all of your glim and brass, since you now have an easy source for large amounts of both those items.

If NONE OF THAT works, then there’s “wars of illusion.”

This takes a bit of luck to start, but the actions that can be used to start it are moderately profitable in and of themselves.

Start by shadowing courriers/the tricks of the courrier’s trade in the Flit. These build seeking and investigating. Then Raid a Message Drop/Intercept a Message/Drop the Eaves with the seeking and investigating you’ve built up. Eventually a rare success will get you into the wars of illusion, which have a bunch of progress/spending carousels.

This is the advice I was given when I had a similar question, but just getting POSI ASAP is honestly the best thing you can do.

Probably buy into mahogony hall and then work on grinding up to starting the affair of the box. Since those options pay a decent amount and you need to grind a bunch of Tales of Mahogony Hall to do anything there.

Becoming PoSI and just grinding unfinished business in LAdybones Road is probably fine too. (really anything would be okay for getting money right now the main downside is you wont succeed 100 percent of the time)
edited by WormApotheote on 1/20/2015

First off, don’t worry that your stats are unbalanced. That’s normal and not terribly important.
30 points ahead isn’t all that unbalanced anyway.

If you still have content to explore, I would suggest you explore it and the Echoes will make themselves.
Just about all actions give some kind of reward and naturally exploring the game should get you all the Echoes you need.
Don’t worry about &quotgrinding&quot at all until you’ve hit a content barrier. There will be plenty of time for that later.
You don’t want to do anything dull and repetitive while there is still so much story left.

There isn’t any equipment so crucial that it can’t wait.

I both agree and disagree with Nigel’s advice. As someone who hurriedly became a POSI and did a lot of high pressure grinding in the last MONTH (I really wanted that five card lodging, ok?) I have a new perspective on Fallen London, grinding, etc.

I’ve found that it’s convenient to always have an &quotaction sink,&quot something you can sort of automatically put a lot of actions into if you have a full candle and only a few minutes. Something where you’ve already read the text. That’s what I use the War of Assassins/Collections of Curiosities for. I know that the CoC/Tomb Colonist grind is the most efficient echo-maker in the game, but it’s limited by how often the Tomb Colonists come up. If I make sure I have a handful of Collections available, I can space out the grind and take advantage of every time the card comes up.

That said, when I have time to actually sit down and read the text, I do a storyline, or something I haven’t done before. I’m doing the labyrinth of tigers right now for the first time, and it’s great.

Buying gear shouldn’t be a priority. If you are trying to hit POSI, it’s better to just do some dangerous stuff. Labyrinth of Tigers might be good if you have plenty of healing potions or a friend you can ask to heal you from time to time. Just get your nightmares and wounds as low as you can before you go - those are the two menaces that are increased most often while down there. A good hint I heard was to go there on a day pass (the one you get from the card) and play around in the first coil until you finish the storyline there, which will give you enough rats to open the area permanently.

If the labyrinth doesn’t sound promising, consider going to the Singing Mandrake forums and make some friends to invite to sparring matches, then use your hard-earned lessons to boost your stat. Having contacts will help you later (especially in the upcoming feast) and this is actually a more efficient way to &quotgrind&quot a stat than farming up cash for gear.

Honestly most of the gear that actually MATTERS is phenomenally expensive, because you really want the top level items that grant bizarre/dreaded/respectable, or the equipment that will later help you advance through the story.

So yeah, just play as you normally would. Stick around Wolfstack or explore the Labyrinth if you want to get POSI quickly. Once you get POSI, grind when you don’t have time to read, do storylines when you do.
edited by CulturalGeek on 1/20/2015

A good option for an action sink (for POSIs, anyway) is the 5-action POSI option under &quotPreparing for a Big Score&quot in The Flit. If you have a Gang of Hoodlums you can use their 5-action option instead.

These give boosts to Casing… , which, assuming you’re not planning to leave London (which would reset the quality) can be saved and used later in Thefts of a Particular Character. Stealing Tales of Terror is a good option, as converting those upwards gives Making Waves boosts.

Obviously the Affair of the Box and the War of Assassins are more profitable, but this is a useful method where you have limited time or are on a phone and don’t want to spend ages clicking through a series of options.