I'll say first off that I've been, well, trying to play CF for years now. It hasn't been very successful, but I'm really going to committ myself to this next character. I'm pretty good at roleplay; I love writing roles and I've been empowered in the past. I also have a working knowledge of gameplay and areas. But I'm still a newbie in one sense: I've never had a character get past about the 20th level. And with all the changes that have occurred over the years, I really want a solid, decent character with good survival skills.

Here's my concerns with possible classes:

Warrior: I've heard that warriors are heavily gear-dependent. I can usually find decent items, but it's not as if I can go from being full-looted to a good set in a matter of minutes. I've also never played around with specs or legacies, and I always feel vulnerable as a warrior without access to detect invis/hidden.

A-P's: I've read that too many people try to play A-P's without knowing enough about them. Since I know nothing about them, I feel like I should stay away. Besides, I think I should save being a badass for my second or third real character.

Mages (any kind): I could handle the spamming spells and running away from warriors until attaining a certain level, but I always hear people discussing preps and A/B/S and I just don't have any idea where to gather those items. Besides, I imagine mages aren't the best for surviving the teen ranks. I have been told shifters are easy to play, but I'm worried I might get bored.

Thief/Bard/Ranger: I'm willing to look into this, but I'm not familiar with any of the skills, especially the thief skills.

Assassin: It seems that this is an obvious choice. I'll go with it, but I'd like to know other's opinions.

Paladin: I love playing paladins and I love roleplaying them. But I always end up trying to get empowered by some God who's dormant or actually runs Empire or Outlander or something like that. The exp. penalty hurts a bit, too.

Shaman/Healer: My dream is actually to play a shaman, but I worry it's not the best choice for getting my feet wet. Healers are apparently great for exploring, but it's hard to kill anything unless you get some fantastic mace - it seems. I'm confident I can get empowered, but less confident I can avoid getting PK'd over and over again.

So, again, I'm wondering: what's a good race/class combo that can survive the mid ranks, isn't heavily gear or prep-dependent, and is interesting? I know any combo can work, but I've had a long string of failed lowbie characters in the past, and I'm looking for something that won't make me discouraged before I even enter PK range.


Thanks in advance.

Try a bard, for the reasons suggested below. You will be useful to pretty much everyone in some regard. Gear is not terribly important, and you will likely be dragged along to some cool places with other people to help them get gear when you hero.

Ragers won't try to kill you, in fact, they'll likely want to have your babies. You can do some damage, some maledictions, some damage reduction, some healing, and you get lore at 100%.

Most importantly, you seem to have a solid grasp at roleplaying as one of your strong points. You like to do this and you can write roles. Just forget: bards don't just have to be musicians. They can be historians, writers, painters, sculptors, weavers, riddlemasters, and a whole host of other things as well.

Arials dodge pretty well (with 25 dex and all), which would make you assassin a good tank.

Bird RP is fun.

Assassin I recommend due to the good survivability, and the class is definitely interesting, even if you would choose to PK at some stage (as there are many tactics you could employ as an assassin), though you could rank to Hero first and PK then (or try some assassinations around rank 36 or so, if you choose to do so), that way you would get your first Hero, and people don't die so easily at Hero ranks.

You could read my little assassin survival guide previously posted on this forum as a reply to similar question. Assassin gear would be a balanced set consisting of hp, hitroll and damroll. Fungors (my Herald arial assassin) hero set gave something like (150 hp, +20 hit +30 dam).

If you like writing and artistic stuff, going Herald could be fun for you. Having friendly cabalmates and being a part of some cabal is a fun experience which will increase your deleting treshold (also, Heralds are pretty helpful, and being one could earn you a nice set (even though you don't have cabal pit to gear yourself from as a Herald), though it is not the reason you join the cabal).

It's dead. He'd be completely lost, without guidance and cabalmates. It'd be depressing and challenging for him. When its more active, yea, good idea, but the best thing for him right now would be either solo or Trib.

when I played Fungor, meaning that I was the only Herald online (I would see another Herald once a week or so). Three chars online at once was a crowd (me and two others). And besides, aren't the empty cabals the ones who need the members most? And Herald doesn't really have any demands from a char, exept for the art part and no raiding other cabals. I always saw being a Herald more as something like a nice addition than actual advantage, a nice RP-touch addition to the character.

And if the cabal is empty, there will be no-one kicking your ass and you can do whatever you want in it (Fungor wouldn't have held a single event unless he hadn't been told to do so by the cabal Imms.). ;D

The fact that people seem to think that Herald has no expectations are the primary reason it died, and has died in the past. They don't need more people who wouldn't hold a single event unless they were told to do so by cabal imms, who, by the way, are all gone now.

Not to mention the fact that your situation was unique. There were many Heralds who played daily, three or four actually, their times simply didn't mesh with yours. I was one of them.

>The fact that people seem to think that Herald has no
>expectations are the primary reason it died, and has died in
>the past. They don't need more people who wouldn't hold a
>single event unless they were told to do so by cabal imms,
>who, by the way, are all gone now.

Actually, I didn't even know I was supposed to hold an event, as Fungor was more like a writer Herald and a seeker of knowledge who was a Herald for his own sake, not for others. But when told to do so, Fungor held an event.

>Not to mention the fact that your situation was unique. There
>were many Heralds who played daily, three or four actually,
>their times simply didn't mesh with yours. I was one of them.

It was really funny how High Herald and people spoke about Herald being full and that only exeptional people are to be taken in when there was practically no-one present at my hours (presence of other players was something I liked when I played Tribunal cabal, as it tended to have someone on besides Agantas, while Fungor was often the lone Herald of Thera, as others probably played the American evening hours, during which I sleep).

Bards are very good for this sort of thing. They're not heavily gear dependant, instruments are easy to find, people want them in their groups, and they are interesting. They can sing while resting, they can tank to some extent, they can lag, and they can put out a fair amount of damage. Most of their songs are area or group affect, so you have to be careful in that respect. Basically, you'll play support, and get dragged around, but you'll be a good fighter in a cinch. For PK, they have trip to lag, dirt kick, and roundhouse puts out good damage as well as a chance to lag. Healing, prep, and damage songs mean that the only preps you should really be concerned with as a PKer are fly and teleport. They don't have anything by the way of haste/slow/enlarge/reduce, but for starting out you shouldn't be worried about that anyway. For gear, anything you can scrounge plus a really good sword. Hang onto that sword like it's your life. In general, bards have low hit and dam, and a sword really augments that well. If you really have a choice in the matter, favor gearing for mana up until around 30, afterwards you'll want HP. I can't think of anything else right now, but yea... Bards are great.

I don't really recommend thieves if you're uneasy about all of the skills. The path system can be confusing, frustrating, and disappointing if you go multiple paths. Guild dues can be hard to collect. Stuff like that. I get the idea that you do have a fair amount of experience though, and it shouldn't be too hard to grasp. They're good for variety, and I recommend a city ties thief for starters, train in udgaard or join galadon. There really aren't any enforcable obligations to joining a guild, except staying away from the bottom of the donations list, which isn't hard, especially with a huge guild like galadon. A city ties thief has the least confusing skills, involves the least amount of gathering of ingredients, and provides the most stealth for cautious players. If you want to be more bold and PK worthy, a thug thief may be the way to go. Also, the path you choose and the guild you join do not have to coincide. This is a common misconception, that binder thieves go to hamsah, city ties go to galadon. You can have a thug galadon, or a poison galadon, or a ties hamsah, etcetera etcetera. Thieves have looooads of options and customization with pure paths, and infinitely more complications and customization if you cross them. Best advice is to stay within one path for the first thief, then dabble in multi-paths later. I can't give you as much more detailed information as I did with bards, but... thieves are stealth. Don't expect them to tank or to PK extraordinarily well. They are all about survival and trickiness. A city ties thief can live very well and competitively outside of PK, i.e., blackjack, steal, and stealing from merchants. Its all about the sneakiness. I'm too tired to add more. Toodles!