New Player Guide

Welcome to An Empire Inherited! This guide exists to help introduce players new to AEI and Borrie's D20 SWGEmu to the D20 mechanics, combat and roleplay etiquette. If you have previously played on other D20 SWGEmu servers, you will likely know most of what is outlined in this guide already.

## Getting Started

The first step on your journey through An Empire Divided is to download the launcher, and install the client. You can find out how here.

Once you have installed the client, you can enter your desired username and password into the login box. If the username is not in use yet, it will create an account on AEI automatically.

### Creating Your Character

Once in the lobby, click the create button, and create a character as you would on any other SWGEmu server. There are no race bonuses or malus to consider other than language availability, all choices at this stage are cosmetic and have no impact on the game.

Once you have created your character's looks, pick a name that you would like. As with all SWGEmu servers, the first name of your character has to be unique on the server.

After you've completed the character creation process, you will be placed into a lobby room with a travel console. You will be prompted to choose if your character is Force sensitive or not. This decision is quite important, and will deeply influence the way you play your character. Force sensitives can obtain a great deal of power, but they are also living under a constant threat of death. Being known to be Force sensitive is an **automatic casus-belli** for PvP, and becoming too visible publicly will cause the Empire, or worse, to hunt them.

It is highly recommended to not start on AEI as a Force sensitive, especially if it is your first exposure to Borrie's D20 SWGEmu. Force-sensitives are particularly at risk of permadeath, and have many powerful forces arrayed against them.

After having chosen your Force sensitivity is a good point to consider your character's attributes and skills, as you are still removed from the actual play space. It is **strongly** advised that you read the Rulebook at this point and consider your build for your character. Once you have decided on a direction, type **/train** into the chatbox, which will open the attribute and skill training menu. All players receive **30** attribute points to spend, and **15** skill points for non-Force sensitives, while Force sensitives start with only **10**.

All non-Force skills can be trained without having to seek trainers, the **/train** menu is available at all times to players.

### First Steps

Now that you have your character ready to go, type **/rest long** to restore your Health, Action, Will, and maybe Force bars, and approach the travel terminal. At the time of writing, only **Mos Eisley, Tatooine** is available.

Once in your starting location, head to the tailor's to create your character's look. AEI provides all standard, statless clothing SWG has to offer at the various tailors, and all clothing can be recoloured without cost, so feel free to get creative! You may also wish to find the weapon and armour vendors. Be aware that every player starts with **100** credits in cash, and **1000** in bank, so you will likely need to find a banking terminal before you can gear up.

With all these steps followed, you are now ready to roleplay!

### Roleplaying

If you are a veteran SWG roleplayer, you can safely skip to the combat portion of the guide.

In general, your player character is always considered **In Character** by default. This means that you should speak and act as your character would in universe. The **/emote** command can be used to create a third person narrative of what your character is currently doing, so for example The character "Mitth'raw'nuruodo" typing "/emote stands at the helm of the bridge." will be seen by other as "Mitth'raw'nuruodo stands at the helm of the bridge."

Be aware of how your character may be perceived by other characters around you. A big Trandoshan, covered in Wookiee pelts, is likely to be regarded with suspicion, while a person wearing a cloak sitting at a table alone is likely to be ignored. If you find yourself not able to get involved in RP, consider switching things up to be more approachable!

Occasionally you may want to perform a skill check, prompted by a DM, another player, or maybe even for yourself to better immerse yourself in your character. You can, at any time, roll dice using the **/d20** command. Using it on it's own will bring up a menu to pick skills, attributes or dice numbers from. Alternatively, you can type something like **/d20 Strength** to automatically roll the strength attribute, for example. this also works for other attributes, and all skills, including ones you have no points in.

### Combat

An Empire Inherited features a robust and fun D20 combat system, powered by Borrie's D20 SWGEmu, however, for a new player it is often quite daunting to learn. This section of the guide will give you the essentials to get started with combat!

As most D20 combat systems, AEI's combat is turn based, meaning at the start of combat, the DM will establish a turn order. In simpler fights the turn order will simply be ordered by the first person to attack, then their allies, then the person who was attacked and their allies. In fights that are less straight forward, the DM will establish a turn order based on **awareness** or **sense** rolls.

When it is your turn, the DM will send a notification. The Rulebook goes over all options available to you, but the two most commonly used actions are **/attackrp** and **/rpmove**.

Moving in combat is a minor action performed by using the **/rpmove** command. The first time the command is used, it will activate a waypoint on your current location, and print how far you can move in spatial chat. Move normally to any point you like within that distance from the original waypoint, though in some situations, particularly in interiors, DMs may enforce more complex movement rules. Once you are done moving, type **/rpmove** again to end your movement action. This will print the distance you have moved from your last location, and can be used by DMs to correct movement if you've moved further than allowed.

Once you are done with your turn, type **/endturn** to notify the DM, and to tick any status effects on you.

## Character Builds

Building your character, meaning selecting your starting **attribute** and **skill** points, is a vital step to get right when starting out your journey in An Empire Inherited, but also a daunting one when first starting out. This section of the guide aims to give directions and clarifications to better help you build the right character for you.

### Attributes

**Attributes** represent not only their own value, but are also used to cap their associated skills at it's level. Refer to the Rulebook to see which attributes govern which skills. With this in mind, you should consider which skills your character is supposed to be good at. Are they a master slicer? A capable combatant? Maybe a charming, smooth-talking scoundrel?

When you have decided on what you need, assign your main skills' attributes a good portion of your available points. Values of 6-8 are generally competent to highly skilled, while 9-10 represent true mastery of a skill. For combat characters it's quite important to invest points in **constitution**, as each rank of that attribute grants +2 to your maximum health. **Dexterity** is also important, as it both increases your action pool by one at each level, as well as allows you to skill in **athletics** and **maneuverability**, both contributing your character's movement distance.

If your character is **Force-sensitive**, you may wish to place points into **mindfulness**, as it governs all Force skills. This is naturally not *required*, especially if your character is not going to be focusing on their Force-based abilities.

### Skills

Picking your starting **skill** points is a relatively straight forward affair compared to picking your attributes. You will only receive 10/15 points (depending on Force-sensitivity), meaning you will not be able to max out more than one skill. For Force-sensitives, it is generally most efficient to pick a single skill and levelling it up to it's maximum. The cost of skills ramp up quickly, meaning the value that the free skill point represents becomes far greater at higher levels. For non-Force-sensitives, it is viable to split your starting 15 points over two skills.

Generally, avoid putting fewer than four of your starting points into a skill, as the first three levels are very cheap in XP cost.

## Useful Commands

### General

* **/rp who** - Shows all online players and DMs.
* **/rp planetwho** - Shows all planets and the amount of players on them. This can give you an indication of where to find RP!
* **/rp mood** - Opens a menu of a large variety of animations you can play instead of your idle animation. Very useful for better immersing yourself in a scene, or to sit on objects that you typically can't sit on.
* **/rp meditate** - A shortcut for the above to select the meditating mood, and sitting down.
* **/rp cprefix [prefix]** - Adds what you entered as a prefix to the beginning of every spatial message sent. You can clear it again using /rp cprefix clear. NOTE: The discord bot does not pick this prefix up.
* **/rp switchgrip** - switches lightsaber animations from one-handed to two-handed. **ONLY** works with lightsabers.

### Combat

* **/rp tohit** - Shows your to-hit DC from your current position, with your current weapon.
* **/rpmove** - Begin and end your movement action, as described above.
* **/attackrp** - Perform a basic attack with your equipped weapon.
* **/powerattack** - Perform a power attack with your equipped weapon.
* **/flurryattack** - Perform a flurry attack with your equipped weapon.
* **/aimedattack** - Perform an aimed attack with your equipped weapon.