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Getting Started

First Day

Welcome to the Ranger Guild! Glad you decided to join us.

First things first. Your equipment. You need to decide what sort of hunter you are going to be. You can always change your weapon lineup later, but changing weapons gets a bit more difficult as you go down the line, simply because it will be less and less likely that you can use a new weapon in the same area you normally hunt, will have to "step down" in your hunting to train it, and will take longer and longer to catch up with your current weapons and join the lineup.

Blunt weapons will require good stamina to avoid wearing yourself out. Bows are best if you rely more on agility and don't plan to stay at melee range much (don't forget we do have armor, parry and evasion requirements to fulfill, so you will need a melee weapon of some kind). Races with difficulty getting stamina should consider sticking to smaller weapons, especially blunts. On the other hand, you can be looking forward and figure life will be difficult now but later on sticking to that heavy weapon pays off because you eventually have the strength and stamina to wield it well. Don't concern yourself with getting fletched bows or forged weapons/armor at first, store-bought will serve you well for now. Especially since being cheap means not having to worry too much about high repair bills ... or even repairs much altogether if they don't get damaged much, just wait and replace them if needed.

There are 5 types of armor: leather, light chain, heavy chain, light plate and heavy plate. For the metals, light/heavy is basically set for armor on the torso but for accessories the rule is slightly different. Each piece has a median weight (which store-bought versions usually are, with a few exceptions). Those above the median weight are heavy, those below are light. Those at or near the median weight are both and will use/teach whichever of the two skills you have more ranks in.

For armor, I recommend leather. Don't listen to the naysayers who moan and groan about how paper thin leather is supposedly. Wearing leather keeps the hindrance from your armor low so you can evade better. Evasion is king as defenses go, and it is a primary skill for Rangers. It also offers less hindrance for activities such as climbing, swimming and stealth. After achieving your first 10 ranks or so in leather it may not be a bad idea to think about a metal accessory or two if for no other reason than for the TDP's.

Armor has two properties: protection and absorption. Protection is how well an armor can be used to simply deflect/redirect an incoming attack and absorption is how well an armor just absorbs the attack itself, preventing it from reaching the person underneath. Absorption is a constant but protection is compounded by your ranks. Since at first you have no or few ranks, the protection is nil and you are relying on your defenses (evasion/parry/shield) to eliminate an attack before it reaches your armor or at least reduce it enough for your armor to absorb what's left. As you gain ranks in that type of armor, your protection will increase, leaving less left over for absorption to deal with, if any at all.

For your first hunt, I recommend you strip off any armor covering your torso and instead use up to 3 pieces of armor covering hands, arms and legs (least hindrance this way) and only one of each type. Heading into rats, your hindrance will be so low as to make it relatively easy to evade and to either parry or block with a shield what your evasion doesn't avoid outright. But since you are still wearing the armor, you will gain ranks in it and be ready for later hunts, when total body coverage will be more of a necessity. Even with no armor at all, it is unlikely you will get more than scratches if you first hunt in the shipyard and go after the rats. So just these few small pieces will protect you fine, teach you armor and still stay out of your way.

If you don't really have an idea what weapons to choose, I recommend the best universal setup: one each of the three types. Get a blunt, a blade and a bow. Again, for general purposes, I would recommend a medium edge (scimitar, rapier), a medium blunt (hammer, mace) and a longbow. Medium weight weapons still carry enough punch for most purposes but light enough to avoid problems with fatigue in most cases. The longbow is slower to load than a short bow but makes up for it with power and vice versa compared to a composite bow. All of these weapons can be found for reasonable prices at Milgrym's weapon shop in Crossing (can't remember the name of the Riverhaven shop, but there's one there as well). Ask around in the Guildhall, likely one of your guildmates will be happy to help you get started. Some will even carve you a bow better than the store offers. For bows, don't forget to get some arrows as well. The store sells them in bundles, so only buy one and you have 10 arrows. Barbed arrows are the best store-bought arrows for price and effectiveness. Later on you will become familiar with other arrowhead types and their uses.

Also, stop in the Guild and ask around or head out to Knife Clan and get yourself a knife. A carving knife will do (and will come in handy for other things) but a skinning knife is even better for this purpose. Any blade (any weapon with a slice rating, basically) can be used to skin one's kills but a skinning knife is the best tool for the job and will make it most likely you will succeed, Make sure you don't parry with a skinning knife, though, they dent very easily. Stop in the tannery (one room east of the gate to the Guild in Crossing) and ask Falken for rope, he will give you a bundling rope for free. He's very generous, he will give you as many as you ask for as often as you need them, so don't worry if you lose it.

You have armor, weapons and basic supplies, let's go hunt.

First Hunt

Both Crossing and Riverhaven have an area populated with ship rats. In Crossing, it is the shipyard, down by the river, southeast and across the bridge from the bank. In Riverhaven, it is the area just west of the gate on the southeast side of the city. Careful, there are also salt crabs in the area in Riverhaven. They are a bit tougher, although not much if you have the right weapon (look at those crab shells and realize why even a blade wielder would want a blunt weapon handy).

At this point, is best if you just play around and have fun. All I recommend is watching your balance and use basic maneuvers. For edged weapons parry/jab until you see you are nimbly balanced then parry/jab/draw. For slicing weapons, use parry/jab/draw/slice when you are incredibly balanced and overwhelming your opponent. For jabbing weapons, it's parry/jab/draw/thrust. For blunt weapons, the basic combination which works well is draw/bash (always start with draw). Better for balance (but worse for damage) is draw/feint. For a finishing move (once you're incredibly balanced), use draw/feint/bash. Blunts can fatigue you quickly, so watch your fatigue level. It is likely you will need to pause a few seconds between attacks to avoid rapid fatigue accumulation. Being winded is all right, being tired is tolerable but should be avoided. If you reach tired, I recommend just holding your position and wait for fatigue to recover a bit. If you reach exhausted or worn out, you will likely end up on your back, broken down by fatigue and in danger from incoming attacks. If you are using parry, switch to a blade as it fatigues you less to parry with a blade than with a blunt.

Death

Death happens in Elanthia, it is a recurring part of life here, but it is not the end if you are prepared. As long as you are first circle, you have your first five deaths "free". By this, I mean you simply type "depart" and you are transported to the nearest temple ... body, belongings and all. Except for whatever was in your hands at the time you died, they fell to the floor same time you did and are still there. The janitor (the automatic system that unloads unnecessary items from the system) won't bother your things right away, hopefully, so as long as you return to where you died quickly you will likely be able to retrieve them.

But after those first five (or once you reach second circle) dying means you risk walking the Starry Road; gone forever, the Ranger has reached the end of their journey. There are two ways to avoid this. The most important is favors. Favors are basically "Get Out of Death Free" cards from the deity you follow. You get a favor orb (I will discuss this below) and carry it with you. As you train your skills, occasionally rub the orb until it feels like the orb is properly prepared (the messaging will tell you if it is or not) which, when you only have a favor or two, only takes a few rubs. Each rub takes field experience from your skills. That is, experience you have earned but hasn't actually become ranks yet, it is till in your pools. So as you continue to rub you notice your skills sliding down from perplexed, muddled, etc until all of it is gone or the orb is full, whichever comes first. Once the orb is full, take it to the altar you were told to take it to when you got the favor and place the orb on the altar.

Orbs break when dropped and chances of dropping one by accident are high (one of the few items in the game that do this) if you handle them too much. I suggest you put the orb in your backpack and just rub it where it is, don't get it out until you are putting it on the altar. No one else sees you rubbing it, so don't worry about whether you are causing a lot of scroll for others to see because you aren't.

When you have favors, departing uses one of them. If you have no favors and no Novice departs remaining then you will most likely walk the Starry Road although once in a rare case the gods may take pity on you and return you anyway, as if you had a favor. When you depart all of your belongings stay behind in a grave. When you get back to your grave, just DIG GRAVE and it will open up for you, ready for you to retrieve your things. Armor or weapons not inside a container are damaged by being in a grave, however, so make sure you visit a repair shop and have them checked. A Paladin of sufficient circle can help you with this. Before you depart, they trace what is called a Glyph of Warding over you. Then you depart and as your body is pulled into the grave, your items are trapped by the glyph. Simply touch the glyph and all your items are back in your inventory, right where you left them. Paladins can also trace a glyph which will return fallen items into your hands, causing them to be in your grave/glyph when you depart.

An alternative is to wait for help and be dragged to a Cleric. The longer you stay dead, the more your memories slip. The Cleric can cast a Rejuvenation spell (multiple casts may be needed, depending on their magic ability and how far your memories have slipped) to restore these memories before you depart or are resurrected. On that note, the alternative. A Cleric who is able to use the ability can restore you to life on the spot. It has a heavy cost to them so don't rely on this. I recommend keeping a healthy supply of favors (3-5 is normally sufficient) and just depart as soon as you die. The memory loss at time of death is minimal, you will hardly even notice it.

Right after departing, your spirit will be empty but it will recover over time (about an hour for full recovery). Your vitality will also be empty but recovers even more quickly (roughly a few minutes). All wounds will be healed but the scars they leave behind when healed will still remain. Excessive scars can impede performance so visiting an Empath as soon as possible to have them healed is a good idea. Or, if you have them handy, certain healing herbs can help.

The Journey

The road of the Ranger is a long and arduous one. But it is also a rewarding one. One day you will look back at all your accomplishments and wonder just how you got there. Take pride in it, few can say the same.

Your circling requirements give you a basic idea of what you are expected to know, but there is no such thing as a skill you can train that couldn't come in handy in some way. For example, our requirements call for a mere 10 ranks of Primary Magic to reach 10th circle and never again. But a Ranger who forsakes training their magic skills will find themselves hard put later on when they are trying to perform tasks without the aid of their spells because they lack the skill to use them properly. Appraisal can help you determine the strength of your opponents (not characters, though) as well as the value of items. Mechanical lore is a necessary part of tanning, fletching, forging and many other tasks. Stepping back once in a while to train weapons and armor you don't normally use offers extra TDP's for raising stats.

Listen to your Guildmates, especially your elders. They have traveled this road before and can help. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Those who deride you for being curious and wanting to learn are only showing their own lack of an adventurous spirit. Hopefully, they also will not be someone you commonly meet. Read the message boards, at least the GM Announcements and General Discussions folders under Rangers and under Discussions with DragonRealms Staff and Players. These four folders tend to hold a large amount of useful information you can use.

I myself try to be available to anyone who needs help. I don't always know the answer, but even then I might at least know who to turn to. Feel free to contact me at ShadowRangerKrin@aol.com or my IM at KrinahdDR. I will do what I can to help. Please identify yourself (character name is fine) when IM'ing, I feel a bit disconcerted when people IM out of the blue and I have no idea who I am talking to, heh.

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