Strategy
Almost everyone running Expedition for profit in 0.5.5 defaults to Grand Expeditions. Lolcohol’s session went the other way: run ordinary in-map expedition encounters, stack expedition-specific tablet modifiers, and harvest the log books themselves as the product rather than the loot inside them. The result over roughly five hours of relaxed play was about 150 Divine in raw drops plus a large pile of perfect chaos, exalts and annuls — call it 200 Divine total, from a strategy he openly describes as slapped together.
The core insight is that runic monster markers — the double-flag icons on the expedition layout — are the things that drop log books. Everything in the setup exists to multiply those: more runic markers, more chance for each runic monster to drop a log book, and then duplication modifiers to copy the monsters after they spawn. Get all three lined up and single maps produce 12 to 22 log books.
This is a market-timing play as much as a farming one. The creator says so himself, repeatedly and half-jokingly, while watching his own sell orders drag the price down over the session.
Atlas Tree & Setup
On the Atlas, take the 25% chance for an expedition encounter and 1% quantity of items per runic modifier, plus the additional-explosive and chance-for-additional-runic-modifier nodes. City maps are the preferred base — bigger, denser layouts fit more markers.
Masters: Doryani, chosen for survivability rather than yield (“I’m using Doryani because I’m scared of dying”). The creator notes that a full Doryani spec would likely be stronger, and suggests Hilda as a more aggressive alternative worth testing.
Vile relics are part of the setup: duplicate-relic and log-book-marker-duplicate variants, bought cheaply across the board rather than optimised.
Investment & Returns
- Investment: mid — three expedition tablets, a six-mod waystone, and a handful of cheap vile relics per map
- Returns: roughly 200 Divine across five hours, with individual maps producing 7 to 22 log books plus incidental raw Divine drops and a 35 Divine ring
- Scaling: gold income is described as enormous — an entire Ventor’s box spend was recovered in a single session
Step-by-step
- Roll three expedition tablets targeting: increased number of runic monster markers, chance to duplicate runic monsters, quantity of log books, and expedition chance to contain vile relics.
- Use a six-mod city map waystone and set Doryani as your master.
- Enter the expedition and read the layout before placing anything — identify the double-flag runic monster markers, which are your actual targets.
- Open with a remnant that transfers a good modifier (bond rune, death rune) so it carries into the next remnants.
- Chain explosives to hit “runic monster duplicated” remnants first, then route through the densest cluster of double-flag markers.
- Avoid immunity modifiers that block your own damage type — this is the single most common way to waste a well-planned chain.
- Sell log books in bulk early in a session, before your own volume moves the price.
Risks
- Log book prices crash exactly because strategies like this get published; the creator’s own sell orders visibly moved the market mid-session
- The duplication modifiers are unreliable — Lolcohol says outright he does not trust them and suspects they are bugged
- Yield swings hard on layout luck: spread-out marker placement can turn a fully-juiced map into four log books
- Six-mod city maps with expedition monsters are genuinely dangerous; the Doryani extra-revive pick exists for a reason
- This is a stream VOD, not a tuned strategy guide — the creator explicitly says not to copy it exactly
Credits & Source
Method credited to Lolcohol. See the source video: PoE 2 0.5.5 - This Expedition Strategy PRINTED Currency.