Clan Titan

I know how to earn guts and charm, but how do you earn extra wits?

Wits are earned by doing actions that require "intellect" (Helping, Riddles, etc), or by using Mesmerize abilities.

In the past i would go to the court and Dice till i broke the bank (meaning lose horribly lol) and by doing so would gain a fair amount of wits... though as i bought trader skills i started winning and gaining money but fewer wits and lost alot of fame/favor

Since I almost got 2k wits I must be able to answer this question for thee.

I myself have tons of Wizard skills and I mezmerise the creatures that when you flee from the do not give you any experience.
For example I always mezemrize the guy with the rifle in his hand and in astec I mezmerise the Warriors and in Hi Brasil I mezemrise the gladiator.
I avoid mezmerising creatures that can mezemrise you as well. For example the jaguar or the harpy.

I always flee from monsters like the "plague" since they do not drop anything I would use and when you flee from them they give you exp and you have a chance you will keep your quest and you get a chance to gain wits! For the same reason I also always avoid the Harpy. Or the Serpent, you could do the same with the Golem, eventho the Golem can drop the Crystal Gauntlet, correct me if I'm wrong tho. (Haven't found on yet, too bussy slaying Dragons :p)

Once I have used all my skills I mostly go to the court in order to dice since even with my amount of wits I still pick 1 or 2 wits from dicing.

Hope that helped.

memory...fuzzy....can't...recall. i think the court is where i used to go. the char name was tawnos6, a seneschal, and i quit playing and he got reaped. i am rebuilding him and i haven't made it that far yet (lvl 13) but a few years ago the court was the best place for guts wits and charm. hie brasil and shang were also very new when i quit playing. this may not help much, but it was my best:P

Montorro got it right.

Since being mesmerized is almost the only risk a high level char can run, that is what you should build your char to counter. Beginners find it easy to just rank up in sage guilds, but that will leave you lacking later on. What I suggest is to go all in for trade skills and use backstab.

There are 3 advantages:
1. You should backstab all monsters that can mezz. You get a bonus to your skill lvl and should have a good chance of getting in the first hit, you also double your damage roll, and for a moderately good char, that means you kill the critter before it even tries to mezz.
2. Creatures that mezz also tend to have sage skills, so if you end up with a low roll in the "who gets the first hit" contest, the monster will (often) use sage instead of mezz, and as a consequence you do not use your tradeskill and get a second attempt to knock the critter down (if it survived the initial hit)
3. Each tradeskills give a 10% bonus to succesfully running away, and as Montorro described, running is the way to go if you want to optimize wits. With high tradeskill it is almost guarenteed that you either get your quest back ( plus the occasionaly gain of 1 wit point )

The stat gaining bonuses for backstab (*3 for guts and *2 for charm) combined with the running gives you a char with solid stats.

In Azteca I would
Warriors: straight attack
Jaguars: backstab
Priests: help, and run if you fail
Anacondaes: run