Should have listened when I read all those forum posts about mages being slightly diffecult for a first character. Too far along to try again now, don't have so much time to mud like I used to.

Only one way to learn, really..so if anybody sees a certain newb human nec roaming about the mud in a state of semi-confusion, that's me. Just beat the #### out of me. I promise I won't whine or cry, ha.

My question, really, is am I wasting my time? I've been mudding for a long time (10+ years) so I am certainly not a newb. I must admit this rp thing is new to me, as I generally have played strictly PK muds. I play D&D and #### though so the concept isn't foreign. What I want to know is, is it going to be possible for me to learn what I need to know before my char condies? I'm unsure how fast this actually happens here. I've only been pk'd twice (although teleport has got me about 5 times ha)so the character itself isn't hopeless. I've got the instincts and the edge, but I really have no concept of how big this place is. Is it possible to play a mage as your first and get anywhere? I'm not doing so badly so far, but I spend most of my time hiding so I can't say really.

Necromancers, the class every newb wants, but no newb should play!

Since you started one already, I too would suggest sticking with it and learning the ins and outs of the class. Necromancers have to be one of the biggest newbie killers also, so it will greatly benefit you down the road when you go up against some.

I'll echo some of the other advice here in that it is a very frail class, however you have one of the most tide-turning spells in the game being Sleep.

My suggestion to give you the best benefit in PK, pre-wraith form gain Pass Door potions, and learn all the major cities locked rooms, IE Hamsah Towers, Galadon storage room, Balator room in the Inn, etc. Many areas (even the prosimy) have locked door rooms that you can use to your advantage. Sleep a foe, Then summon them into one of these rooms and break them down with your spell set of maledicts before trying to fight head to head. This is a very tried and true tactic for necromancers, and the more rooms you can set yourself up with, the more ease you have of not only keeping PK's from running off, but seperating groups without groupmates able to knock your block off while you are maledicting your victim.

Also, you will have Summon, and a great way to get other players to help you find gear, wands, things like that, are to summon mobs for them for their own needs like gear and such. Try to get a few buddies you can rely on time to time and most people are happy to help a learning player learn how to better their game.

And don't get too frustrated, I'll echo again, Necromancers are Very frail, and more often than not a failed sleep can mean dead.

After everything is said an done, my suggestion to you is to play a shapeshifter, a ranger (animists are like mage rangers) or an assassin to get a better grasp on CF fight mechanics as well as be able to hold your own earlier on in the game.

I hope you enjoy, and welcome to CF!!



"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." - John Adams

Since you don't get bash protection until level 36, be cautious when approaching people who can bash you into the ground. Generally speaking, anyone with bash is going to outmelee you. And command denial for a mage is very bad.

If they are a gnome/svirf, don't worry about being bashed. Just worry about trip and/or specialization skills (misdirect, pincer, etc.). If they are human size, go with enlarge. If they are giant size, go with reduce. If you can at least trick the person you're going to fight by either not being able to bash you at all, or missing because you're too large, you'll have the opportunity to land the sleep spell, or whatever else. Blindness also works as a good opener. Just be prepared to absorb a good amount of damage from initiating combat with a spell.

My worst deaths are always because I forgot fly or bash protection. Those are the ones I really kick myself for.

First of all - Evil Roleplay. Expect everyone to be a #### to you :D Even if they don't want to, it's expected that you'll backstab, betray and bitch to every other evil align.

Necromancers are exceedingly frail, and require a pretty good grasp of game mechanics and CF PK in order to pull off right. Once you get zombies, you can start doing some killing alone but you'll pretty much get whooped in PK. They rely heavily on either landing Sleep (and spelling up people so bad they're screwed) or using pets to do physical damage while surviving and getting off a few choice spells. Knowing exactly which spells, when, and how to use summon are things best learned when other players use them on you. You learn to watch for the locked rooms, and know that you're going to die if a necro gets you inton one :P

Overall, I'll back what's been said in the other post - burn it out identifying and exploring. Learn to regear. Don't expect to grasp wands (yet) and if I were you, DEFINETLY roll a good or neutral align next time. Good aligns are ALWAYS happy to help out each other, and neutrals see much less abuse in PK territory (Which can be overwhelming at first, but it sounds like you've got a handle there).

Other than that, I'd suggest the maps on the DIKU wiki (http://diku.qhcf.net/) and just enjoying the rich roleplay environment. My own personal tip: Learn how to hide in unusual places. People can't kill you, if they can't find you :)

Yhorian

If you're at least in the 20s, you should grab a few pets and explore some lowbie areas. Identify the things, get a good grasp of the equipment, know the layout of the areas. And in your spare time, practice pk'ing people. Start with sleep or blindness, that'll help you control things. If you happen to rank, awesome, if not, learn.

Learn how to chase people. Learn how to walk from Udgaard to Hamsah blind.

Then after that, roll up a duergar, fire, cloud, or arial warrior and play it up. Or make a neutral assassin. You'll be great for ranking groups until the late 30s, but at that point you may have learned enough to finish out and hero.

Or make a neutral bard, hero, explore. Everyone will love you.

Yeah, my issue being that I've never enjoyed warrior types. Not necessarily RP wise, but mechanically. I've always enjoyed the versatility and speed of reaction that mages have given me in the past on varying muds..

I don't have a problem with people not being helpful, although I must say I probably won't make a good character any time soon. I like being able to pk who I want for whatever whim my character wants.

I've done a bit of exploring, I can pretty much get to most of the cities now. Still a few I'm unsure of, as a certain imperial divine sect cabal mate would testify to with a bit of irritation. And I'm very close to 25.

You're basically stating what I already figured, but I wanted to be certain. Thanks, though.

To be fair, I lost patience with this class quickly. I'm going off of the tricks that necros have used on me and general game knowledge. At 23 and on, you shouldn't have too much trouble killing people provided sleep goes off and you don't get beat up too much prior.

If you have time, you should put a mob to sleep and count how many ticks it lasts, preferably by poisoning it. Then, in a real PK you can keep those ticks in mind that pass while you land things like crimson scourge and poison on an opponent. Crimson Scourge does the bulk of whittling your opponent down to halfish health (at half health there is a chance the damage from each tick will wake them up, surprising you and letting them simply walk off before you react, which means you should engage just before they drop to gushing with blood)... and then if they are cursed, you concentrate on doing more damage to them than they did to you. If you're successful, they will often either die right there trying to walk blind to a healer (which you can run ahead of them to if you have an idea where they are running and then finish them off that way instead of just try to catch up to them) or if they quaff a teleport potion, chances are you will be able to use gravesight to get to their corpse before they do unless they died to an aggro mob, in which case you'll be wanting to camp their pit provided no tribunal are around. Wraithform will allow you to summon people into locked rooms, which is devastatingly effective but on the other hand requires your opponent to be stupid, have no saves, and you need to be very lucky because it costs you a ton of mana before you even get your opponent to sleep.

You should keep in mind too that even if the occasional newb makes it to hero, skill scales with level and plenty of players can make simple mistakes that turn a fight to your advantage. For instance, you should be carrying flight potions all you can, so you don't simply get tripped to death by someone geared up for damage, and you also don't want to stupidly lose a fight to trip and someone's hand to hand skill due to poor luck because you forgot flight, bash will be bad enough from otherwise crippled foes, especially the ones wearing light weaponry. You should definitely keep carrying potions until you get word of recall.

Anyone who you suspect of having good spell saves is a difficult target to beat, and also it makes energy drain less appealing (when it works, it drains half mana and half moves, but it works rarely for this reason against anyone who has a tiny bit of saves or int, so you should only plan on attempting this once or twice). Luckily, at your level (25)ish, saves versus spell is usually the last of people's concerns. Usually.

Also anyone who resists poison/disease means that you should think twice about attacking duergar/svirfnebli/gnomes/dwarves, two of which are very popular races and one of which can see invisible inherently. They don't resist sleep, but it may cost you so much mana to apply your affects, and they will resist the damage to boot each tick, that you may not deal enough damage to actually kill them. There will be times you want to kill these races, but in those cases you may want to use zombies. There is explore gear people can wear to resist poison as well, and possibly disease.

Depending on the corpses you can safely produce using wands, zombies tend to be pretty strong. Even one or two can turn a fight, and they are handy if your tanks suck in levelling. They can pass through water, but can't fly or pass through doors. They sometimes fail to rescue, but the autoassist damage can give you quite a boost in an offensive push against an opponent. What zombies will NOT do is let you win a fight you're already losing, and if a paladin/shaman wants to harrass you or prep you to be killed by a goodie, they will very often try to summon the undead away from you.


"I have to admit I hate pretty much all of these ideas. :)" - Nepenthe, on New Ranger Skills

You could potentially play a necros very differently now to how one tended to pre-edges.