New Player Guide - FF Archive

**Warrior:** A powerful fighter who primarily relies on melee attacks.

**Wizard**: A spellcaster who uses magic to deal damage.

**Thief:** A nimble and stealthy fighter who is primarily melee but relies on their speed over strength.

**Adventurer**: A “jack of all trades” type hero who excels at nothing in particular but can do a lot of things competently.

A warrior or adventurer is a good pick for your first character, as these tend to be more survivable and easier to level.

### **Attribute Points**

In the Realm, the race and attribute point distribution of your chosen class will matter for how successful you are at certain things in the future.  For example, if you wish to be a skilled enchanter with the lowest chance of destroying gear, you should create an elf wizard and place all your attribute points in intelligence.

You will receive 8 points when you create your character.  You are unable to change your attribute points distribution later so choose carefully!

### **Optimal Build Recommendations**

Intellect affects your spellcasting, Strength affects your weapon damage with most weapons and how much you can carry. Dexterity affects your damage with daggers, claws and throwing daggers, and your accuracy with all weapons, as well as acrobatics, pickpocket and other thieving skills. Endurance determines your health points.  Your movement speed in combat is determined by your strength and dexterity.

### **Other Aspects**

Alignment can be selected but has relatively minimal impact on the game.  I recommend starting with “Good” as you can sometimes get free heals out in the world from certain mobs while at a good alignment. If you are creating a wizard, your starting alignment effects which spells you begin with: Good starts with 2 Thaum, 1 Sorc; Neutral starts with 2 Elem, 1 Sorc; Evil starts with 2 Nec, 1 Myst.

Gender and appearance is cosmetic and will not impact anything with the exception of sex restricted items at higher level - generally the female variations are less expensive.

## **Basic Information**

### **Home**

When you log into the game with your character, you will start in your house.  Your house is password protected, and in the second room there is also a password protected chest.  You may store your valuables here.

There is a Sorcery rank 1 spell to teleport home, but you can also ask the NPC at the entrance of each village to teleport you.

### **Towns**

There are 12 towns in the Realm, typically abbreviated by their initials in chat.  Most types of shop can be found in multiple towns, but not every town will have every type of thing.

Once you have the level three sorcery spell “Teleport” you can warp to any of the town gatekeepers from any place you wish, but until that point the town gatekeepers can “Teleport” you if you ask.

### **Exploration**

The Realm is not a seamless world, with everything being divided into rooms.  As a result, you may obtain directions to things in the form of phrases like “3R, 4S” meaning go three rooms to the right and four rooms south or down.

### **Currencies**

Gold is the currency in the Realm and it is used to buy everything.  Gold is stored in your inventory but can also be dropped in your house or in your chest if you only want to keep a small amount on you.  Mana crystals are the currency used for spellcasting.  They must be purchased in advance from shops at the cost of 5 gold each and carried in your mana pouch (Shown in the bottom right corner) to allow you to cast spells.

### **Food & Drink**

Your character No longer needs to drink or eat to survive.

### **Items**

Most items you find in the world are useful for something, whether it is food to eat, gear to wear, or items to use in crafting.  However, while you are new it is usually safe to sell most things you find so you have access to gold if it is not something you can immediately use.  You can sell items to any shopkeeper NPC.

Some items will need to be identified when found, either via a Scroll of Identify (purchased at magic shops) or through the second level myst spell “Identify”, or the level five sorcery spell “Greater Identify” - which tells you what magical properties the item has.  These can include scrolls, baubles, elixirs, potions, and unnamed gear and weapons.

### **Chat**

There are six chat tabs on your screen for interacting with other players in the game.

**Room**: The room you are in.  This will contain “out loud” messages to/from other nearby players, as well as any relevant combat or room-related activity.

**Gossip**: These are the public and private chat channels you can join to connect with players and talk with everyone no matter where you are in the world.  Sometimes guilds/clans will make private channels for discussion amongst their own members.

**Group**: If you group with other players for hunting or dungeoning, that chat will be here.

**Friends**: This is your friends list

**Mail**: Mail can be sent and obtained here.

**Tells**: These are private direct messages to/from other players.

## **Useful Shortcuts and Commands**

**There are also some chat shortcuts for basic emoticons:**

 Alt + J
 Alt + L
 Alt + 1
 Alt + 2
 Alt + 3 through 8
 Alt + 9
 Alt + 0
 Alt + -

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> * Shortcuts are in '[ ]' brackets.
> * All actions support {at person} option.
> * Note that although all these emotes support direction toward a specified person, many of them result in everyone on the screen being told they are the object of the emote. In other words, the "Others See" column often receives the "{Person} Sees" text. For example, /hug {person} results in everyone on the screen (other than the sender) seeing the words: {Sender} hugs you. Don't be surprised if a stranger thinks you hugged him/her.
> * **Tip:** You can use any of the directed emotes, i.e. those requiring a {Person}, to check if the person is on a screen, including inside a combat cloud. For example, suppose you are hunting for MECHSuperJerk who just pick-pocketed you and then ran off the screen. You chase after him but soon lose the trail. Perhaps he is hiding behind some trees or has ducked into a combat cloud. By typing, for example, "/fro MECHSuperJerk" you can determine if your good buddy is on the screen. If he is, the Realm server will reply with "You frown at MECHSuperJerk" and you've found him. If he is not, you will receive the message "You can't find MECHSuperJerk to frown at" and you can go on to the next screen to check for him. (copied from http://web.archive.org/web/20070610040417/http://www.realmoracle.com/emotes.htm)
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## **Gear**

The type of armor you will wear will depend on your class and encumbrance.  Better armor generally weighs more.

There are also many magic items that can be obtained at higher level.  These have special names and often special appearances.

High level wizards can enchant gear to provide extra buffs, although this is usually not worth doing until you have good gear.  Enchanting has a chance to destroy the item, so make sure the wizard you ask is an all-intell elf for the best odds.

You can dye your armor using purchased dye from various shops around the Realm.  Be careful not to dye anything with a special appearance, however, or you will lose its unique look forever!

## **Combat**

Experience points (xp) are the key to leveling.  You earn experience points by killing creatures around the world.  Harder fights with high levels or multiple enemies will award more experience than easier fights with lower levels or single mobs.

You can initiate combat with mobs in the game by clicking them and selecting “Fight.”  Some mobs may attack you first if you are in the same room as them.

Combat is turn-based in the Realm.  You can use one action per turn.

All classes have access to the same spells (for example, a warrior can still heal and a wizard can still melee) but their success and quality of those attacks will depend on their class, attributes, and training.

As with traditional tabletop RPGs, proximity and space within the combat area is relevant in the Realm.  Your turn and your enemy’s turn may involve movement rather than an offensive attacks if you are not nearby each other in the combat space.  You can also use movement to create distance between you and a melee attacker.

When entering combat, you will have eight options:

**Attack:** melee with your weapon

**Use:** use a scroll, bauble, or item

**Charge:** Rush into melee, focusing your first hit on the target without countering

**Move:** Move to a particular spot in the combat room

**Guard:** Take up defense and attack within range, works with throwing weapons

**Eat/Drink:** Drink a potion or elixir

**Cast Spell:** Cast a spell from your spellbook

**Flee:** Attempt to leave the fight, fleeing indoors has lower success, and the longer you are in the fight the lower success rate is. You lose 500 exp for fleeing any time except the first round that you are attacked.

If you select nothing within the time limit, your character will guard by default.

### Death

Death is not without repercussion in the Realm so choose your fights wisely and attempt to flee if you know you can’t win!  Death results in a loss of XP as well as a chance to drop some of the items you are carrying or wearing.  Sometimes you can pick these items back up, but often they will be picked up by other players or NPCs.  If that happens, you can try killing whatever picked it up, but your items dropping to get back is not guaranteed!

## **Hunting & Dungeons**

The places you will want to hunt on your character will depend on your level.  You want to try to fight enemies that are close to you in level to maximise xp gains without too much risk to your life.  You can explore and look for similar-leveled mobs to fight (you can see their level by looking at them), or you can start in one of the general areas below.

Each level range below is approximate based on the most common mobs present.

 5-10
 10-20
 20-40

**There are also dungeons appropriate for each level range.  These are harder and you may wish to group with others for them, but they can drop superior loot.  They are instanced, which means no other players will be able to wander into the same dungeon as you at the same time.**

 Wen Cellar

 For location, directions, and maps of each dungeon, please check this site:  http://realm.holtgard.com/maps.html

## **Skill Training**

To be able to successfully do almost anything combat related, you will need to first train the skills on that character by purchasing the relevant skill books and spending your build points.

Build points are achieved through leveling.  You start with three, and then each level you gain after will grant one additional build point.

To see what skill rating you are already in a particular area, click on yourself, select “Look At” and go to the “Skills” section.

### **Training Ranks**

 2
 3
 4
 5

[Note: You will start familiar with some skills depending on your class]

The amount of build points each rank costs to learn will vary depending on your attribute points.

To find the shops that sell the appropriate skills, talk to the gatekeeper in town.

### **Combat Skills**

For weapons training, each level you increase your proficiency with a weapon gives you both more attacks and the ability to hit more often while using that weapon type.

Weapons Skill Books

**Combat Skill Books**

 Acrobatics
 Meditation
 Theurgism

**Magic Skills**
Magic skills are more complicated than the other training skills, as in addition to training in each school of magic, you will need to train the specific spells within those schools.

**School Skill Books**

 • Mysticism
 • Elementalism
 • Sorcery
 • Necromancy

**Each rank within each school has its own unique spells.  These are purchased separately at Magic Shops which can be found in several towns like 2L EL.**

To see a full list of all the spells for each school of magic and their purpose, please see this document.

### **Non-Combat Skills**

 Trap Detection
 Lock Picking
 Alchemy
 Armorsmithing
 Weaponsmithing

### **Skill Priority By Class**

Not all skills are useful or a high priority to every type of class.  As a wizard, you will probably choose to focus on magic skills first while a warrior may focus on their preferred weapon type.

The following is a general guideline for which skills are the most useful -- and therefore highest priority -- for each class type.  Critical skills should be the first things you obtain to begin leveling.  Everything after is an approximate ranking for what skills you should focus on next.

I have not included crafting skills like smithing or alchemy.

Sorcery level one, being only 1 build point regardless of stats, may be considered higher priority for it gives the “Home” spell, which is very useful if you are lost in the wilderness, or a dungeon.

### **Adventurer**

Acrobatices, Meditation,
2nd Weapon class.
Shield if One-Handed weapon is choice.