Dungeon Siege III

To get to level 30 in this game there's no way around the fact that you're going to have to grind a little bit to accomplish it. Completing every sidequest will not be sufficient enough but in conjunction with fighting every enemy you come across will help in the scheme of things.

The best place to do this, in my opinion, is the East Forest right before you fight the final boss. There is a save point within the forest after fighting off a few dark archons and your first daeva. Make a save here and then make your way to the final boss, killing all the dark archons and daevas along the way. When you get close to the boss (you'll know because the scenery gets a little darker and your ally will say something) just make a 180 and some of the enemies will spawn again. The dark archons aren't worth a ton of XP, but the rarer daevas are worth quite a chunk. You can keep running back-and-forth between the save point and the final boss area as you see fit, though your first pass through the forest will offer more XP than subsequent runs. To remedy this, just save your game and then reload the same save to make all the enemies appear as they should.

You can try grinding in other areas of the game, but there are hidden level caps in each spot and therefore they have less of a payoff when you can just get all of your grinding done in one go. Also, it is much easier to get XP on lesser difficulties unless you just love the unnecessary challenge.

Edit: Downloading the DLC will allow your character to level up beyond level 30 naturally during the course of the DLC. Whether you want to fork out that extra dough or not is up to you ;).

To reach level 30 I had to earn 350,000 XP.

I was playing as Lucas, and had also completed all 28 side-quests (see 'Perfectionist' for details on how to earn).

I entered The Spire around lvl 26, and I faced the last boss having just levelled-up to lvl 29.

I earnt this by not going for the kill straightaway - without spoiling anything, the last fight allows you to decide when to attack the main boss - should you decide otherwise, in true video-game fashion, lots of minions are dispatched your way.
I made sure I killed sufficient minions to get that lvl 30, then started attacking the last boss.

In theory you could farm XP here for as long as you need, so bear that in mind if you need it.

A word of warning - AFAIK you do NOT get any XP for killing the final boss.


This Cheevo will ping as soon as you level up.

Good luck!