This is an old revision of the document!
Updated June 8, 2022 - Oracle tutorial updated to give specific stat recommendations and also add an offensive spell to ease getting through Kilgore Keep
Note to everyone: This tutorial should be periodically reviewed and updated to account for MUD changes.
This is meant to be a guide to mechanics for surviving on Sundering Shadows MUD for new players. It does not cover player interactions as that would be an entire guide unto itself.
This guide is not comprehensive, but it is meant to help bridge the knowledge gap between experienced players and newbies, minimize frustration for true newbies, and give new players a leg up to getting started learning how to play the game (and possibly teach some old dogs a few new tricks).
It by no means tells you how to create the most optimized character, but it will give you a good start and a base of knowledge to build on, including where to find equipment experienced players would consider indispensable.
It covers everything I did playing an elven wood elf fighter up to level 10, which is the one of the simplest classes to learn & play. The elven race has the best vision, so you won't need to bother about lanterns and oil, and the wood elf sub-race grants bonuses to strength and dex, perfect for keeping fighters alive and killing things.
By level 10, you'll do enough damage, and have enough equipment and experience to allow you to explore the under 20 areas west of Shadow and around Tabor.
A caster tutorial (Oracle) is after the fighter tutorial. Casters are more difficult mechanically but the tutorial should help a first time player figure things out. PLEASE NOTE: The Oracle section has been updated as of Nov 2021, please mention on newbie line if anything appears outdated.
If you get stuck, you can always ask for help on the lines (help line use), especially the ooc line.
Essential to a good experience is a decent mud client so you can see all the pretty colors, but bear in mind scripts and triggers are not allowed.
I use Zmud, but there are plenty of good clients out there.
–Cyric
out
out
city
This will take you to Offestry town square, where a map will appear in your inventory.
alias 0 score
, now when you type 0, you will see your character sheetalias ga get all $*
, typing ga
will pick up everything on the ground, 'ga from corpse' or 'ga from chest' will let you pick up items from corpses or chests or wherever else you need.alias gc get coins $*
, typing gc will allow you to get coins from the ground, 'gc from corpse' or 'gc from chest' will let you get coins from corpses or chests or wherever else you need.nickname att attacker
, will let you type att when targeting attackers, useful for the impale and rush feats, which needs to target an enemy.discern
will let you know how much base damage a weapon does and how much protection a shield offers.alias wa watch
, allows you to watch your back for thief stabs by typing two letters instead of five.alias kl kill $*
, now you don't have to type out the whole word “kill” to attack something.alias 1 sweepingblow
, you will use sweepingblow a lot in combat, better to just type a single character.alias 2 impale att $*
, you will use impale a lot in combat, better to just type a single character. Note the nickname used, which was added above.prompt %^GREEN%^%^BOLD%^$h%^RESET%^%^BOLD%^/%^RESET%^%^GREEN%^$H%^RESET%^-%^RED%^%^BOLD%^>
Note: You can bypass
the entire newbie area and start at level 6 but this is not recommended for first time players.
At least get a handle on how to drink vials and manage your inventory first.
Starting out:
As soon as you enter offestry city, you will have a 'mass' in your inventory that will start talking to you and provide hints.
We're going to follow along with this mass.
This thing is meant to help newbies. It provides useful commands and training, but is entirely optional.
you can always ask tasks
, or explain my task
to get an idea of what you're supposed to do next.
explain bio
is the first thing it asks us to do, and after doing this you can ask tasks
to get the next task. If it seems to get stuck and quits responding, typing explain
without any arguments should wake it up.
It then asks us to find a gem in the meadow north of offestry and find a gem, then feed it to the mass. We're going to equip ourselves first before we do this, because there are rats to fight in the meadow
feats add sweepingblow
feats martial blade block
feats martial impale
2w;n
, to the weapon shop
buy two-handed sword
, wield two handed
Note: If you log off and re-enter, you'll need to wield your weapon again
s;w
from offestry center to get to the general store
list
to see the items, show item 1
, show item 2
etc. to make sure you're buying the right one.
buy large sack
and buy climbing tools
i
inside of a shop, it will show you what you can sell at that shop for how much gold
Climbing tools will let you climb
walls and descend
into holes more easily
Note: If you choose to drop NoPK flag later, worn and wielded items can't be stolen by other players
Armor is optional as the newbie mass will provide armor to you when you reach level 3.
e;e
from town center and n
, to the armory
buy banded
or buy banded 2
, whichever is normal/medium size (show banded, show banded 2, to make sure you get a medium size)
buy great helm or buy helm 2, whichever is medium size (show helm, show helm 2, to make sure you get a medium sized helm).
If you don't have enough money yet, just save up until you can buy banded.
If you get injured and you don't have enough healing vials, you can heal and buy more at the healer.
The healer is located at e;n from the offestry town center.
read list
will show you the services and prices.
bnp #
will buy newbie potions you can use, at a heavily discounted price.
If you run out of kits or gold, you can use the heal
command to restore hps with the healing skill.
Note: If you see an orc named Musond, don't attack him. This is a quest giving NPC.
ask task
- the mass will teach you about the bio command
explain bio
- you receive an info dump of the bio command
explain my task
The mass instructs us to head to the meadow north of offestry and dig up a gem.
Head north from the Offestry main square until you reach a meadow. There you will be able to use the dig
command.
You'll need to dig around for a while to find the gem the mass has asked you to find; it's in a random area of the meadow.
You can use your new commands, sweepingblow (which we aliased above), and impale (which we also aliased), to damage the rats and snakes there
You can use con all
to see the relative health of all your opponents
Starting at level 2 you can also use flash
to expend some stamina and possibly do some minor damage. I used this to great effect in the first few levels.
bury corpse
to regain some hp, or bury all
to bury all corpses at once and leave whatever they were carrying on the ground
Once you've found the gem, return to the offestry town square and feed gem to mass
wear ring
wear plate
skills add 1 to perception
to max out your perception skill, so you will have better defense against sneak attacksskills add 1 to spellcraft
to help identifying cursed items by studying them, study item
skills add 1 to athletics
to help with standing up faster, and for blocking attacks, once you have the relevant featsskills add 1 to endurance
to give you more stamina to run around and swing your sword longer at later levels
There are a number of things the mass asks you to request explanations on:
explain stats
, explain skills
, explain advance
after that, you can explain my task
The mass asks you to go meet an NPC east of offestry and get a task from him.
After hearing about the task, head east (7 rooms from the board) out of offestry until you see Sirith, an NPC.
say hello
, and he'll ask you if you can help him.
say yes
(twice) to receive the quest to journey to the graveyard to the south and fight the undead there, to retrieve the item he asks for.
In the cemetary, there are rats and snakes to kill (undead varieties and zombies, skeletons, and bats at night).
If you're short on hit points, kill them and bury the corpses individually to recover hp, or drink some healing vials.
From Sirith: s;s;e;e;se;w
to get to a musty tomb.
Inside the tomb, you can search the coffins for a random drop or enemy.
There is a hulking zombie inside the tomb, who carries a signet ring. kill it and take the ring, this is the item Sirith (or the mass) wants.
One of the walls has an axe we can take, and another a shield. We don't really care about either since we're using two handed weapons, but maybe we can sell them in town.
The axe can be sold at the weapon shop, and the shield at the armorer.
Return to the offestry town square and feed ring to mass
This will give you a quest completion
You advance to level 3
you receive new items, wear belt
, wear greaves
you now have two feats you can add. We will pick:
feats martial light weapon
- prereq for strength of arm
feats add strength of arm
- more damage, to kill things faster
The mass again asks us to explain things.
explain hunger
, explain thirst
, explain repair
, explain movement
, read through at your leisure, then ask task
and explain my task
Our job is to head west from offestry and find a Jessa NPC. We say hello to her, and she asks if we will help her.
She wants us to find the pieces of a staff from the keep ahead and assemble
them.
We head north into kilgore keep, and inside we can use the actions
command to find out what kind of things we can do in each room
offer (item)
to get rid of stuff in your inventory you don't want, or offerall
to get rid of everything on the groundbury corpse
after something dies to regain a few hit points. heal yourname
to recover hit points if you need to, the only thing this costs is time.golden bands - behind the hidden room in the study on the second floor, in a chest guarded by a trap and two steam mephits.
from the helpful sign at the entrance: 5n, e, n, u, 2s, e open door, e, search bookshelves, l southern bookshelf, l lever, pull book, s, 2w (heal from the trap if necessary), open chest, kill the mephits, open chest, get bands, get skeleton key (and whatever else is lying on the ground that came out of the chest)
carving - from the xvart shaman in the abandoned kitchen on the first floor
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, 3e, s, e
stave - from the carrion crawler on the first floor, dig
through the rubble at the end of the hallway
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, 3e, s, 2e, 3s, dig south, s, search lair, get stave
odd stone - from the study on the second floor
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, e, n, u, 2s, e, open door, e, search desk, get stone
orb - in a hidden laboratory behind a hidden passage through the armory. You will need an odd stone to open the hidden lab.
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, 3e, s, e, 2s, open door, w, search racks, search spears, twist spear, w, s, l chest, l scratches, move chest, lift trap door, d, n (heal from the trap), l archway, insert stone into hole, e, complete the circle.
assemble
the staff and give it to jessa, you will now advance to level 5, and you also receieve a cloak you should read and wear, and bracers you should wear.
feats martial weapon focus
stats gain strength
explain quest areas
, explain rumors
, explain roleplay
explain my task
The mass gives us a choice of which leader to kill, and since we're playing a wood elf, we're going to thin the herd of evil kobolds
wear boots
explain church
, explain description
, explain adjective
explain enter the world
this puts you in a prep-room for entering Sundering Shadows.You should set your description and adjective now.
Your description is the physical description of your character.
Your adjective is what is seen on the who list (type who) and what people will see when they first encounter your character in a room
describe
) and adjective.
recognize YOURNAME as YOURNAME
adjective (insert description here) $R (insert description here)
Now you can advance further. Just type advance
.
Once you advance to level 6, you will be dropped into a room with a portal. portal
will drop you in Tabor, the low-level town of Sundering Shadows
Go 1 north to the town square (Caerveron Square).
We're going to use this room (and the yard of the crown and castle inn) as a central point for directions going forward. The town square is near the southern side of Tabor.
We also have a new feat we can add.
feats add weapon specialization
We also receive a helmet +1, study helmet
, wear helmet
The bank is n;n;e from the square.
deposit X gold
From the town square, head to the crown and castle inn, s;se;se;e (open door)
There's a list of mini-quest items here.
read list
to see the list of mini-quest items. claim itemname
to gain the xp listed.rumors
command, or directly ask to RP on the ooc line.
l board
to see what you can do with the board, other players make posts here. read
to see what they say, post title
to make a post of your own, and reply Post #
to answer someone's post
Make sure you are not hungry/thirsty (score), if you are, buy some food and drink some water from the restaurant to the south (read menu, buy item
, buy rose water, eat food, drink drink)
Head back to the square.
From the square, go n;e to the scribe's office
draw tabor
and draw area
.
withdraw X gold
to retrieve ithelp shop
when in the shop for the syntax
Offer your newbie kit because you can’t use it anymore.
Once you're familiar with Tabor, go to the goblin stronghold
if you're quick, you can block down
before the goblin archers and rangers in the towers do, which will let your wimpy work if you get in trouble
The goblin king may be difficult to kill, don't forget to set wimpy and wimpydir
After clearing out the stronghold (it's not very large), return to tabor and visit the weapon shop to sell your loot.
When you have enough gold, buy field (or preferably full, if you have the gold) plate armor from an armor shop in Tabor or Shadow, for an additional +1(or +2) AC
study
items to see what they are, and whether they have magical properties, whether they're cursed
discern
armor to see how much defense it provides
going through here once and picking up a chalice from the goblyn rogue and claiming it in tabor was enough to advance to 7
feats martial lethal strikes
- doubles crit threat range
The easiest way to get to Shadow is via the the Tabor-Shadow River ferry
buy ticket for shadow-tabor
out
to exit the ferry.look map
to get a map of the area.draw map
, read map
When you run out of goblins to kill, head to echoes mountains, west from Shadow's west gate and north from the large wooden sign
from the Shadow dock, go out the west gates of Shadow.
After the trolls head down to the 2nd level (you passed the entrance on the way to the trolls)
From here you can go west to kill some lizards, once again you can search this room for a random drop
head back the way you came, and then north, then east when you can (if you hit the dwarven mine or the sloping cavern, you went the wrong way).
Just before you hit the 'tunnel between caverns', you'll see the entrance down to level 3 of echoes mountains.
The main ogre pit is at the start of level 3 of echoes mountains. There are mats you can search to get random drops.
Some ogres have +1 weapons, they will be of exceptional quality if you look at them. Don't forget to check for curses before you wield anything.
half-ogres use spells, but have bracers of defense
Study
them, identify curse on item
at a church, or have another player (caster) identify it for you
If you run out of vials, head back to town to sell your loot and buy some more from the healer (shadow is probably easier from echoes mountains).
After you get your second attack per round, head northeast from the main ogre pit
Keep an eye out for cloth, wood, or metal dropping from the ogres (and mobs in general).
climb
if you have climbing tools or if you've got enough skilldescend
to get outAfter beating the ogre king and clearing out echoes mountains (and picking up an item on the quiet forest road) I had enough xp to advance to 8.
stats gain strength
unfortunately we don't gain any feats this level, so we'll just have to keep going.
There are two entrances to the DDC, one is north of Shadow (enter hole
from a straight north-south stretch of dragon pass road) and requires climbing tools to descend
into.
The other is connected to echoes mountains, it's called the tunnel between caverns. From the wooden sign at the entrance of echoes mountains, go 2n, d, 3e, 4n, 3e, 2n, e, n. Follow that tunnel to the dragon den caverns.
Inside DDC there are hordes of kobolds and rats. The kobold children will steal from you, the mages cast spells, and the thieves will try to stab you
There's also a quest inside DDC, you'll have to find and solve that on your own.
This is a good spot to find +1 equipment for extra AC.
There are multiple entrances/exits, make sure you have climbing tools.
open grate
The entrance to Yntala forest is out the southern gate of Tabor, just past the Goblin Stronghold.
Yntala is really meant for characters leveled to the teens, but we can take it at level 8-9 with the right equipment, and if we're careful
kit with kit
to put them togethertake # from kit
to split them upwatch
to keep the hags from stabbing you all the timeThrow
throw item at target distance direction
That just about does it. If you've gone all the way through this fighter tutorial, you should easily be able to get to level 10 and should be able to keep fighting in Yntala all the way to level 19, picking up martial feats as you go. I suggest taking the toughness and damage resistance feats but you'll have so many options as a fighter that you can try different ones and figure out what works best for you. I encourage you to get out and explore new areas because that's where the fun is, but this guide should give you a basic understanding of the game and how to recover from xp loss (self-inflicted or otherwise).
Happy Mudding!
–Cyric
This tutorial has been updated as of Nov 2021, please mention on newbie line if anything looks outdated.
By general consensus, Oracle is the simplest caster class to learn. After playing through this tutorial, you should have the basics of how casters work and can move to a more complicated caster class like mage or cleric.
pick oracle and human for your class and race, and heartlander for your subrace.
select 18 for age
pick charisma for your stat mod
Pick str 18, dex 12, con 18, int 14, wis 12, cha 18 for your stats
pick chaotic neutral for alignment
pick kismet for religion
pick heavens for mystery
create your character, go through the in-game tutorial, follow the commands until you come to tutorial room 5.
After completing it, the man will ask you to “unnickname mynickname”
out
out
city
This will take you to Offestry town square, where a map will appear in your inventory.
alias 0 score
, now when you type 0, you will see your character sheetalias ga get all $*
- ga will pick up everything on the ground, 'ga from corpse' or 'ga from chest' will let you pick up items from corpses or chests or wherever else you need.alias gc get coins $*
- gc will allow you to get coins from the ground, 'gc from corpse' or 'gc from chest' will let you get coins from corpses or chests or wherever else you need.nickname att attacker
- will let you type att when targeting attackers, useful for casting spells at anything attacking you, rather than typing out their specific name.discern
will let you know how much base damage a weapon does and how much protection a shield offers.alias wa watch
- allows you to watch your back for thief stabs by typing two letters instead of five.alias kl kill $*
- now you don't have to type out the whole word “kill” to attack something.alias ms1 cast monster summoning i
- we're going to be casting this a lotalias prep1 prepare oracle level 1 times 50
- an alias to prepare spells all at once, this will prepare your level 1 spells for casting.alias cl cast cure light wounds on $*
- you're going to want to heal yourself after fights.briefcombat
(this will let you see more descriptive combat messages, which is more fun and will let you know if you do something like start fighting without wielding a weapon).prompt %^GREEN%^%^BOLD%^$h%^RESET%^%^BOLD%^/%^RESET%^%^GREEN%^$H%^RESET%^-%^RED%^%^BOLD%^>
Note: You can bypass
the entire newbie area and start at level 6 but this is not recommended for first time players.
At least get a handle on how to drink vials, manage your inventory, and prepare and cast spells first.
Starting out: As soon as you enter offestry city, you will have a 'mass' in your inventory that will start talking to you and provide hints.
We're going to follow along with this mass.
This thing is meant to help newbies. It provides useful commands and training, but is entirely optional.
you can always ask tasks
, or explain my task
to get an idea of what you're supposed to do next.
explain bio
is the first thing it asks us to do, and after doing this you can ask tasks
to get the next task.
It then asks us to find a gem in the meadow north of offestry and find a gem, then feed it to the mass. We're going to equip ourselves first before we do this, because there are rats to fight in the meadow
feats racial spell power
feats spellcraft hardenedminions
feats add improved spell power
Spells:
We're going to pick a few spells, and see how many spells we can prepare at each level.
master
- we see we can learn two level 1 spells. spells oracle by level
- this shows all available spells you can master.master monster summoning i
- we're going to use our summoned monsters to protect us. help cantrips
, recall cantrip spells
, cast cantrip resistance on me
, cast cantrip guidance on me
Can't go wrong with +1 to all saving throws and +1 to hit and damage. Each of the cantrips has their own help file.master cure light wounds
- this allow us to heal ourselves for free.master list
- this shows us a list of all the spells we already know (due to our heavens mystery), this will come in handy later, but you can use help spellname
to see what each spell does.hardenedminions
- you need to actually type the command every time you log in to make sure the feat works prep1
- this (which we aliased above) will prepare level 1 spells for you, so you can cast them. You can cast anything on your list of spells (master list
). recall oracle spells
recall oracle spells
- see how many spell slots you have available and prepared, we see we can prepare up to 5 spells at level 1.cast innate coat of many stars
- As a heavens mystery oracle, we have access to revelations help oracle revelations
. The first one is coat of many stars, which we need to cast each time we log in. This revelation gives us a bonus to AC and influence.
Weapons:
From Offestry center, 2w, n, to the weapon shop
buy large spear
- we'll leave it unwielded for now.
alias 1 unwield spear
, alias 2 wield spear
General Equipment:
s;w from offestry center to get to the general store
list
to see the items, show item 1
, show item 2
etc. to make sure you're buying the right one.
buy large sack
and buy climbing tools
i
inside of a shop, it will show you what you can sell at that shop for how much gold
climbing tools will let you climb
walls and descend
into holes more easily
Note: worn and wielded items can't be stolen
Armor
Armor is optional as the newbie mass will provide armor to you when you reach level 3.
2e from town center and n, to the armory
buy banded
or buy banded 2
, whichever is normal/medium size (show banded, show banded 2, to make sure you get a medium size)
Healing
If you get injured and you don't have enough healing vials, you can buy more at the healer (for out of combat healing, use cure light wounds).
The healer is located at e;n from the offestry town center.
read list
will show you the services and prices.
bnp #
will buy newbie potions you can use, at a heavily discounted price.
Note: If you see an orc named Musond, don't attack him. This is a quest giving NPC.
ask task
- the mass will teach you about the bio command
explain bio
- you receive an info dump of the bio command
explain my task
The mass instructs us to head to the meadow north of offestry and dig up a gem.
Head north from the Offestry main square until you reach a meadow.
wear robe
if you haven't already.
ms1
to cast monster summoning 1, and some prisms should appear.
They should grow to double normal size and begin to glow. If not, you need to hardenedminions
.
dispell
will let you see what spells are active and how long you have remaining on the spell's duration.
dispell #
will end a spell early.
2
- if you used the alias above, to wield your spear before you go fighting things.
In the meadow, you will be able to use the dig
command.
You'll need to dig around for a while to find the gem the mass has asked you to find; it's in a random area of the meadow.
You can use con all
to see the relative health of all your opponents
cl me
to cast cure light wounds on yourself to regain hp. Don't forget to unwield your spear first 1
.
bury corpse
to regain some hp, or bury all
to bury all corpses at once and leave whatever they were carrying on the ground.
I did not need to cast any spells other than monster summoning 1 to wipe out everything in the meadow.
Once you've found the gem, return to the offestry town square and feed gem to mass
wear ring
wear banded
skills add 1 to perception
to max out your perception skill, so you will have better defense against sneak attacksskills add 1 to spellcraft
to help identifying cursed items by studying them, study item
skills add 1 to athletics
to help with standing up faster
cl me
to heal yourself of the new hp you earned at level 2 - this should use the cure light wounds alias we used above to cast it on ourselves to heal us.
prep1
There are a number of things the mass asks you to request explanations on:
explain stats
, explain skills
, explain advance
after that, you can explain my task
After hearing about the task, head east (7 rooms from the board) out of offestry until you see Sirith, an NPC.
say hello
, and he'll ask you if you can help him.
say yes
(twice) to receive the quest to journey to the graveyard to the south and fight the undead there, to retrieve the item he asks for.
In the cemetary, there are rats and snakes to kill (undead varieties and zombies, skeletons, and bats at night).
You shouldn't really get hit and you should be able to recast your spells and heal yourself between fights.
From Sirith: s;s;e;e;se;w to get to a musty tomb.
Remember that negative energy spells (cause light wounds) will actually heal the undead in the graveyard, and cure light wounds will damage them!
Inside the tomb, you can search the coffins for a random drop or enemy.
There is a hulking zombie inside the tomb, who carries a signet ring. Kill it and take the ring; this is the item Sirith (or the mass) wants.
One of the walls has an axe we can take, and another a shield. We don't really care about either since we're using two handed weapons, but maybe we can sell them in town.
Return to the offestry town square and feed ring to mass
This will give you a quest completion
You advance to level 3
you receive new items, wear belt
, wear greaves
you now have a new feat you can add. We will pick:
feats add spell penetration
- we are building towards perfect caster
cl me
to heal yourself to max hp
master
shows us we have a free level 1 spell slot.
master cause light wounds
- this gives us a targeted offensive spell in case our spear and minions are not getting the job done.
alias clw cast cause light wounds on $*
, then you can clw <target>
to target a specific enemy, or clw att
to target a random creature attacking you.
The mass again asks us to explain things.
explain hunger
, explain thirst
, explain repair
, explain movement
, read through at your leisure, then ask task
and explain my task
Our job is to head west from offestry and find a Jessa NPC. We say hello to her, and she asks if we will help her.
She wants us to find the pieces of a staff from the keep ahead and assemble
them.
We head north into kilgore keep, and inside we can use the actions
command to find out what kind of things we can do in each room
dispell
to see how much duration remains, and recast if necessary.kill
something if it doesn't.offer (item)
to get rid of stuff in your inventory you don't want, or offerall
to get rid of everything on the groundbury corpse
after something dies to regain a few hit points, or bury all
to bury all the corpses at once.1
to unwield it and cast cause light wounds on your enemies, though you'll have to prepare spells again between fights. (note: can we spoiler the quest info somehow, so players can click on them and read if they wish?)
golden bands - behind the hidden room in the study on the second floor, in a chest guarded by a trap and two steam mephits.
carving - from the xvart shaman in the abandoned kitchen on the first floor
stave - from the carrion crawler on the first floor, dig
through the rubble at the end of the hallway
odd stone - from the study on the second floor
orb - in a hidden laboratory behind a hidden passage through the armory
assemble
the staff and give it to jessa, you will now advance to level 5, and you also receive a cloak you should read and wear, and bracers you should wear
stats gain charisma
master
lets us see we have two level 2 spell slots now, Yes!alias prep2 prepare oracle level 2 times 50
prep2
master boneshaker
, alias bon cast boneshaker on $*
- this is a nice direct damage spell.cast innate lure of the cosmos
master list
master lesser restoration
, alias lr cast lesser restoration on $*
- this spell will allow you to relieve status effects, and has the added bonus of fully restoring your stamina, useful when you're running around as if you're fast enough, you can drain your stamina even with lure of the cosmos.
explain quest areas
, explain rumors
, explain roleplay
explain my task
The mass gives us a choice of which leader to kill, and since we're playing a human, we're going to thin the herd of evil kobolds
wear boots
explain church
, explain description
, explain adjective
You should set your description and adjective now.
describe (physical description)
.yourname
as yourname
)adjective is a (insert description here) $R (insert description here)
Once you advance to level 6, you will be dropped into a room with a portal. portal
will drop you in Tabor, the low-level town of Sundering Shadows
Go 1 north to the town square (Caerveron Square).
We're going to use this room (and the yard of the crown and castle inn) as a central point for directions going forward. The town square is near the southern side of Tabor.
We also have two new feats we can add. feats spellcraft greater spell power
, feats add perfect caster
. This will allow us to use area effect spells without damaging our fodder or party members.
We also receive a coif +1, study coif
, wear coif
We also open up our first level 3 spell slot, excellent.
alias prep3 prepare oracle level 3 times 50
, prep3
master searing light
, alias sear cast searing light on $*
- there are a lot of great spells at level 3, but we're going to pick up our first real offensive spell to use to take on some toughter monsters.
sl att
to cast searing light at attacker, which will hit whatever you're fighting.
heal yourself with cure light wounds to go to max hp.
The bank is n;n;e from the square.
deposit X gold
From the town square, head to the crown and castle inn, s;se;se;e (open door)
There's a list of mini-quest items here.
read list
to see the list of mini-quest items. claim itemname
to gain the xp listed.rumors
command, or directly ask to RP on the ooc line.
l board
to see what you can do with the board, other players make posts here. read
to see what they say, post title
to make a post of your own, and reply Post #
to answer someone's post
Make sure you are not hungry/thirsty (score), if you are, buy some food and drink some water from the restaurant to the south (read menu, buy item
, buy rose water, eat food, drink drink)
Head back to the square.
From the square, go n;e to the scribe's office
draw tabor
and draw area
.
withdraw X gold
to retrieve ithelp shop
when in the shop for the syntax
Once you're familiar with Tabor, go to the goblin stronghold
if you're quick, you can block down
before the goblin archers and rangers in the towers do, which will let your wimpy work if you get in trouble
The goblin king may be difficult to kill, don't forget to set wimpy and wimpydir
After clearing out the stronghold (it's not very large), return to tabor and visit the weapon shop to sell your loot.
study
items to see what they are, and whether they have magical properties, whether they're cursed
discern
armor to see how much defense it provides
When you have enough to advance to level 7, you'll need to find a board (like at the crown and castle), a church, or a dock.
Advancing to level 8:
stats gain charisma
alias prep4 prepare oracle level 4 times 50
alias rp cast rainbow pattern on $*
master shield of dawn
- this will create a moving shield that damages anyone who attacks us.alias sod cast shield of dawn
Advancing to level 9:
feats add toughness
master spiritual ally
, alias ally cast spiritual ally
, alias com command ally to $*
help spiritual ally
protect
you, for additional defense above what your prisms do. You can use it scout areas ahead of you and trip traps that may be blocking exits. With your high cha, monsters are unlikely to attack you, so you can command your ally to attack them first if you're not sure how strong they are. Try out different commands and see what works with it. freeme
to try to unstun yourself.master resist energy
, fire is usually good but if you know what spells are going to be cast against you, you can protect yourself somewhat.Advancing to level 10:
alias prep5 prepare oracle level 5 times 50
, prep5
alias sere cast oracle serenity
Advancing to level 11:
feats spellcraft greater spell penetration
master monster summoning v
because we have enough damage spells (one area and one targeted is really all you need) at level 5 and our level 1 prisms are getting beaten up by more powerful and numerous monsters we're fighting.alias ms5 cast monster summoning v
ms1
.Advancing to level 12:
stats gain charisma
feats add improved toughness
; there's no substitute for more hps.alias soss cast spray of shooting stars on $*
. This is a nice area attack spell.alias prep6 prepare oracle level 6 times 50
, prep6
rumors
command to see where you can go.
The easiest way to get to Shadow is via the the Tabor-Shadow River ferry
buy ticket for shadow-tabor
out
to exit the ferry.look map
to get a map of the area.draw map
, read map
When you run out of goblins to kill, head to echoes mountains, west from Shadow's west gate and north from the large wooden sign
from the Shadow dock, go out the west gates of Shadow.
After the trolls head down to the 2nd level (you passed the entrance on the way to the trolls)
From here you can go west to kill some lizards, once again you can search this room for a random drop
head back the way you came, and then north, then east when you can (if you hit the dwarven mine or the sloping cavern, you went the wrong way).
Just before you hit the 'tunnel between caverns', you'll see the entrance down to level 3 of echoes mountains.
The main ogre pit is at the start of level 3 of echoes mountains. There are mats you can search to get random drops.
Some ogres have +1 weapons, they will be of exceptional quality if you look at them. Don't forget to check for curses before you wield anything.
half-ogres use spells, but have bracers of defense
Study
them, identify curse on item
at a church, or have another player (caster) identify it for you
When you've got the hang of the ogres, head northeast from the main ogre pit
Keep an eye out for cloth, wood, or metal dropping from the ogres (and mobs in general).
climb
if you have climbing tools or if you've got enough skilldescend
to get out
There are two entrances to the DDC, one is north of Shadow (enter hole
from a straight north-south stretch of dragon pass road) and requires climbing tools to descend
into.
The other is connected to echoes mountains, it's called the tunnel between caverns. From the wooden sign at the entrance of echoes mountains, go 2n, d, 3e, 4n, 3e, 2n, e, n. Follow that tunnel to the dragon den caverns.
Inside DDC there are hordes of kobolds and rats. The kobold children will steal from you, the mages cast spells, and the thieves will try to stab you
There's also a quest inside DDC, you'll have to find and solve that on your own.
This is a good spot to find +1 equipment for extra AC, and it's also a common spot for the mini-quest board items.
There are multiple entrances/exits, make sure you have climbing tools.
open grate
The entrance to Yntala forest is out the southern gate of Tabor, just past the Goblin Stronghold.
Yntala is really meant for characters leveled to the teens, but we can take it at level 8-9 with our fodder (I was able to do it at 6 straight out of offestry so a newbie at level 8-9 should be ok) if we're careful.
con target
to see their healthkit with kit
to put them togethertake # from kit
to split them upThrow
throw item at target distance direction
That just about does it. If you've gone all the way through this Oracle tutorial, you should easily be able to get to level 12 and should be able to keep fighting in Yntala all the way to level 19, picking up feats as you go. I suggest taking the toughness and damage resistance feats by about the teens, and using your spellcraft feats to pick up magic resistance or magic crafting track (like enchant and scribe scroll etc). I encourage you to get out and explore new areas because that's where the fun is, but this guide should give you a basic understanding of casters and how to recover from xp loss (self-inflicted or otherwise).
Happy Mudding!
–Cyric
Playing a thief is a little bit more involved than fighter or oracle. Unlike running up and smacking things with your weapon or nuking the entire room with AOE spells, with thieves you need to figure out how to get sneak attacks, which may not be readily apparent to new players. You also should learn how to manage scrolls and the special items available in the fencing shops.
This guide is geared towards getting to level 21, and then branching into the shadowdancer prestige class, which adds a ton of much needed utility for the build, and then goes through shadowdancer set up.
help human ethnicities
, I picked attayan for the fear immunity
out
out
city
This will take you to Offestry town square, where a map will appear in your inventory.
alias hs hide_in_shadows
, type hs to hide.alias 0 score
, now when you type 0, you will see your character sheetalias ga get all $*
, typing ga
will pick up everything on the ground, 'ga from corpse' or 'ga from chest' will let you pick up items from corpses or chests or wherever else you need.alias gc get coins $*
, typing gc will allow you to get coins from the ground, 'gc from corpse' or 'gc from chest' will let you get coins from corpses or chests or wherever else you need.alias gac get all coins
, typing gac will get all coins off the groundalias bac bury all corpses
, typing bac will bury all the corpses in the vicinity. This will only heal you once though, so if you need the HPs, bury them individually.nickname att attacker
, will let you type att when targeting attackers, useful for the impale and rush feats, which needs to target an enemy.discern
will let you know how much base damage a weapon does and how much protection a shield offers.alias wa watch
, allows you to watch your back for thief stabs by typing two letters instead of five.alias kl kill $*
, now you don't have to type out the whole word “kill” to attack something. Be aware that typing kl by itself will attack the next creature in the room (allowing you to quickly enter combat with everything).prompt %^GREEN%^%^BOLD%^$h%^RESET%^%^BOLD%^/%^RESET%^%^GREEN%^$H%^RESET%^-%^RED%^%^BOLD%^>
Note: You can bypass
the entire newbie area and start at level 6 but this is not recommended for first time players.
At least get a handle on how to drink vials and manage your inventory first.
Starting out:
As soon as you enter offestry city, you will have a 'mass' in your inventory that will start talking to you and provide hints.
We're going to follow along with this mass.
This thing is meant to help newbies. It provides useful commands and training, but is entirely optional.
you can always ask tasks
, or explain my task
or explain
to get an idea of what you're supposed to do next.
explain bio
is the first thing it asks us to do, and after doing this you can ask tasks
to get the next task.
It then asks us to find a gem in the meadow north of offestry and find a gem, then feed it to the mass. We're going to equip ourselves first before we do this, because there are rats to fight in the meadow
feats racial rush
feats add improved rush
2w;n
, to the weapon shop
buy two-handed sword
, wield two handed
Note: If you log off and re-enter, you'll need to wield your weapon again
s;w
from offestry center to get to the general store
list
to see the items, show item 1
, show item 2
etc. to make sure you're buying the right one.
buy large sack
and buy climbing tools
i
inside of a shop, it will show you what you can sell at that shop for how much gold
Climbing tools will let you climb
walls and descend
into holes more easily
Note: If you choose to drop NoPK flag later, worn and wielded items can't be stolen by other players
Armor is optional as the newbie mass will provide armor to you when you reach level 3.
e;e
from town center and n
, to the armory
buy studded
or buy studded 2
, whichever is normal/medium size (show studded, show studded 2, to make sure you get a medium size)
If you don't have enough money yet, it's probably easier to follow along with the mass, which will give you equipment as you advance.
If you get injured and you don't have enough healing vials, you can heal and buy more at the healer.
The healer is located at e;n from the offestry town center.
read list
will show you the services and prices.
bnp #
will buy newbie potions you can use, at a heavily discounted price.
If you run out of kits or gold, you can use the heal
command to restore hps with the healing skill.
Note: If you see an orc named Musond, don't attack him. This is an obsolete quest giving NPC.
ask task
- the mass will teach you about the bio command
explain bio
- you receive an info dump of the bio command
explain my task
The mass instructs us to head to the meadow north of offestry and dig up a gem.
Head north from the Offestry main square until you reach a meadow. There you will be able to use the dig
command.
You'll need to dig around for a while to find the gem the mass has asked you to find; it's in a random area of the meadow.
You can use your new command, rush, to damage the rats and snakes there
You can use con all
to see the relative health of all your opponents
bury corpse
to regain some hp, or bury all
to bury all corpses at once and leave whatever they were carrying on the ground
Once you've found the gem, return to the offestry town square and feed gem to mass
wear ring
wear hide
skills add 1 to stealth
to max out your stealth skill, this will give you a better chance of hiding, staying hidden, and sneak
ing between roomsskills add 1 to thievery
makes you better at stealing and picking pockets, see the stealing and fencing section below. skills add 1 to perception
helps us notice things and catch people trying to stab us in the backskills add 1 to athletics
to make us quicker at standing up, and also used for blocking attacks later with the scramble featskills add 1 to dungeoneering
the better to find, set, and remove traps, and pick locks.skills add 1 to spellcraft
the better to study items to identify curses
There are a number of things the mass asks you to request explanations on:
explain stats
, explain skills
, explain advance
after that, you can explain my task
The mass asks you to go meet an NPC east of offestry and get a task from him.
After hearing about the task, head east (7 rooms from the board) out of offestry until you see Sirith, an NPC.
say hello
, and he'll ask you if you can help him.
say yes
(twice) to receive the quest to journey to the graveyard to the south and fight the undead there, to retrieve the item he asks for.
In the cemetary, there are rats and snakes to kill (undead varieties and zombies, skeletons, and bats at night).
If you're short on hit points, kill them and bury the corpses individually to recover hp, or drink some healing vials.
From Sirith: s;s;e;e;se;w
to get to a musty tomb.
We are going to try to sneak
our way past them, by using the sneak direction
command. This will use our stealth skill to try and get to the boss without combat.
Since we are level 2, we kind of suck at sneaking, but every room you can get by without combat helps.
You can use the rush
command by itself to rush the next eligible target you are in combat with.
I found a number of scrolls on the zombies, which I sold at the mage tower (west part of town) for gold to use at the healer to bnp #
buy newbie potions and cc
cure critical wounds to heal myself.
Inside the tomb, you can search the coffins for a random drop or enemy.
There is a hulking zombie inside the tomb, who carries a signet ring.
It doesn't auto-attack us, so we can stab
it, to deal sneak attack damage with an opening attack. You can then rush it to try and stun it and get more sneak attacks.
Kill it and take the ring, this is the item Sirith (or the mass) wants.
One of the walls has an axe we can take, and another a shield. We don't really care about either since we're using two handed weapons, but maybe we can sell them in town.
The axe can be sold at the weapon shop, and the shield at the armorer.
Return to the offestry town square and feed ring to mass
This will give you a quest completion
You advance to level 3
you receive new items, wear belt
, wear greaves
you now have a feats to add. We will pick ambidexterity:
feats add ambidexterity
- allows use of two weapons of the same size. We can head to the weapon shop and buy a second longsword to dual wield, or stick with our two handed. I found fights went a little faster using two longswords but at our level it doesn't really matter much.
The mass again asks us to explain things.
explain hunger
, explain thirst
, explain repair
, explain movement
, read through at your leisure, then ask task
and explain my task
Our job is to head west from offestry and find a Jessa NPC. We say hello to her, and she asks if we will help her.
She wants us to find the pieces of a staff from the keep ahead and assemble
them.
We head north into kilgore keep, and inside we can use the actions
command to find out what kind of things we can do in each room
offer (item)
to get rid of stuff in your inventory you don't want, or offerall
to get rid of everything on the groundbury corpse
after something dies to regain a few hit points. heal YOURNAME
to use the healing skill to recover hit points if you need to, the only thing this costs is time.Using sneak, you may be able to get past some enemies without combat. We're only level three though, so it's going to be tough. I was able to sneak past about 1/4 of the enemies.
golden bands - behind the hidden room in the study on the second floor, in a chest guarded by a trap and two steam mephits.
from the helpful sign at the entrance: 5n, e, n, u, 2s, e open door, e, search bookshelves, l southern bookshelf, l lever, pull book, s, 2w (heal from the trap if necessary), open chest, kill the mephits, open chest, get bands, get skeleton key (and whatever else is lying on the ground that came out of the chest)
trap find on west
from one of the rooms behind the hidden doorway, and trap remove on west
to try and disarm it using your dungeoneering skill. carving - from the xvart shaman in the abandoned kitchen on the first floor
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, 3e, s, e
stave - from the carrion crawler on the first floor, dig
through the rubble at the end of the hallway
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, 3e, s, 2e, 3s, dig south, s, search lair, get stave
odd stone - from the study on the second floor
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, e, n, u, 2s, e, open door, e, search desk, get stone
orb - in a hidden laboratory behind a hidden passage through the armory. You will need an odd stone to open the hidden lab.
from the helpful sign at the entrance, 5n, 3e, s, e, 2s, open door, w, search racks, search spears, twist spear, w, s, l chest, l scratches, move chest, lift trap door, d, n (heal from the trap), l archway, insert stone into hole, e, complete the circle.
assemble
the staff and give it to jessa, you will now advance to level 4, and you also receieve a cloak you should read and wear, and bracers you should wear.
stats gain strength
ask tasks
explain fence
explain guilds
Our mass wants us to find the thief guild in Offestry. It is located in the Dancing Ogre bar, w, w, s from the town square.
l curtain
curtain
This will get you into the fence. Any stolen items, or gold pick pocketed can be fenced or laundered here, and the credit can be used to purchase special items. There is a more extensive thief training course in Shadow though, after we get through the newbie area, and we're never coming back here, so we leave the fence and push on with our next task.
Once I entered the guild I had to explain
again, and then I advanced to level 5, where we pick up danger sense, which is a nice passive feat.
explain quest areas
, explain rumors
, explain roleplay
explain my task
The mass gives us a choice of which leader to kill, and (assuming we are neutral or evil) we're going to go kill the gnome leader. For the kobold leader see the fighter guide above
block
exits to keep him still.wear boots
explain church
, explain description
, explain adjective
explain enter the world
this puts you in a prep-room for entering Sundering Shadows.You should set your description and adjective now.
Your description is the physical description of your character.
Your adjective is what is seen on the who list (type who) and what people will see when they first encounter your character in a room
describe
) and adjective.
recognize YOURNAME as YOURNAME
adjective (insert description here) $R (insert description here)
Now you can advance further. Just type advance
.
Once you advance to level 6, you will be dropped into a room with a portal. portal
will drop you in Tabor, the low-level town of Sundering Shadows
Go 1 north to the town square (Caerveron Square).
We're going to use this room (and the yard of the crown and castle inn) as a central point for directions going forward. The town square is near the southern side of Tabor.
We also have a new feat we can add.
feats add whirl
- this attacks everyone in the room once, but if you miss all your attacks, you are stunned. Probably not so great for now, but we need it to get two weapon fighting.
We also receive a coif +1, study coif
, wear coif
This is a good item, as it scales up it's enhancement bonus as we advance, +2 at level 12, and +3 at level 18.
Don't forget to add your skills for level 6.
The bank is n;n;e from the square.
deposit X gold
From the town square, head to the crown and castle inn, s;se;se;e (open door)
There's a list of mini-quest items here.
read list
to see the list of mini-quest items. claim itemname
to gain xp.rumors
command, or directly ask to RP on the ooc line.
l board
to see what you can do with the board, other players make posts here. read
to see what they say, post title
to make a post of your own, and reply Post #
to answer someone's post
Make sure you are not hungry/thirsty (score), if you are, buy some food and drink some water from the restaurant to the south (read menu, buy item
, buy rose water, eat food, drink drink)
Head back to the square.
From the square, go n;e to the scribe's office
draw tabor
and draw area
.
withdraw X gold
from the bank to retrieve it, if you lost your gold upon death.help shop
when in the shop for the syntax. You might also want to make friends with someone who has the mending cantrip.
Offer your newbie kit because you can’t use it anymore.
Once you're familiar with Tabor, we want to obtain a pair of swords of insanity as quickly as possible, so we go to the goblin stronghold to find the goblin witch. The sword of insanity is key for us because it conjures rabbits. One of the ways to get sneak attack is when your enemy is attacking something else that round, so we need other things for them to attack. Plus the swords of insanity will dispose of corpses for you and restore your HP, and the rabbits sometimes have random drops if you kill them. The manna it drops can be eaten for 1 HP each. All around a great low level item, but make sure to check for curses (study insanity) before wielding them.
if you're quick, you can block down
before the goblin archers and rangers in the towers do, which will let your wimpy work if you get in trouble
The goblin king may be difficult to kill, don't forget to set wimpy and wimpydir
After clearing out the stronghold (it's not very large), return to tabor and visit the weapon shop to sell your loot.
study
items to see what they are, and whether they have magical properties, whether they're cursed
discern
armor to see how much defense it provides
Once we have a pair of swords of insanity +1, it's time to head to Shadow, and the newbie thief training area.
The easiest way to get to Shadow is via the the Tabor-Shadow River ferry
buy ticket for shadow-tabor
out
to exit the ferry.look map
to get a map of the area.draw map
, read map
Several cities have thief guilds. You will have to find most of them on your own, but the newbie thief training area is in Shadow.
From Magistrate's Plaza at the center of Shadow, s;s;e;e;n to the Bestiary tavern. You will need to make thief sign
to get into the guild (step
if you are hidden; they can't see you making the thief sign if you are hidden)). From here you can training
and down
to start the newbie thief training area. Look at the scratches to get an idea of what to do in each room.
Room 1: sneak
to hide while moving from room to room, and hide_in_shadows
to hide in the current room. Use step
or say something out loud to stop hiding.
Room 2: stab
a target to open a combat with a sneak attack
Room 3: steal
items from someone's inventory, pp
pick pocket gold from someone, plant
an item in someone's inventory. Note that this is easier the more creatures are in a room, so steal stuff from a room full of people or shifters who summon monsters to avoid getting caught. Just make sure you have space in your inventory or you'll drop it after you steal it, revealing yourself to everyone in the room.
Room 4: hide
items from the floor or your inventory on your person, or hide an object in the room. Tip: Hiding something on yourself also moves it to the top of your inventory, so you can use it to organize your sacks and packs and kits and whatnot.
Room 5: climb
and descend
without climbing tools (though tools will give you a bonus.
Room 6: trap
- finding, disarming, recovering, and setting traps. FYI you need to have a modified dungeoneering score of 15 to set traps, which we won't have until later. This is also modified by a hidden armor check penalty, so you'll be better without armor. Traps do not have any encumbrance, but you can only use one trap per exit.
Room 7: pick
locks, but you need thief tools (a leather case of tools) in your inventory to do this.
Room 8: spy
and make thief sign
- spy lets you look over someone's inventory without them noticing (unless they have a high perception). Make thief sign sends an echo to other thieves in the room that you are also a thief.
Room 9: Final exam.
Room 10: Reward for passing the exam. You receive a small, newbie friendly item that will help you in your thiefy exploits until you find something better for the limb it takes up. make thief sign
to exit the thief tutorial.
There are fences in many cities, but outside of Shadow, you'll have to find them IC.
You have to launder
(stolen) money and fence
stolen items to gain credit with each particular guild. You can then use the credit earned to purchase useful items from the fence. If you are into player killing, stripping someone of their items or money also counts as stealing, and you can fence and launder it.
Be aware that getting caught stealing will lock your commands for a few rounds.
Wearing armor makes it harder to steal. More creatures in the room makes it easier to steal.
Heavier items are more difficult to steal
account
will tell you how much credit you have with each guild.
This means you have a choice with anything you steal, whether to sell it in a store for gold, or launder it for a bit of xp and guild credit to purchase your thiefy items.
We won't be able to use most of the items until we reach level 10 and 13 and earn the feats Tools of the Trade and Use Magic Device, but there are items worth purchasing from the guilds:
1. Powder - this blinds and stuns your opponents (if you can hit them) and opens them up for sneak attacks. They only have a few uses each though.
2. Caltrops - spread these over an exit and they will trip anyone who tries to walk through
3. Poison - apply these to your weapon or some to objects or doors to poison your enemies. You'll have to experiment on a friend to find out just how effective they are. ‘’help poison *player commands’’ for more information:
4. Scrolls - Thieves can use scrolls which adds a lot of versatility, if you can find them. If you desperately need one you can buy them from a fence or magic store (usually in mage towers), but they're going to be expensive.
5. leather case of tools - lockpicks, need these to pick locks. They can break if you use them on too difficult of a lock, so a good idea to have a spare set or two until you pick up the minor creation spell with the Shadow Dancer prestige class.
6. Rope - used for binding other players after they're unconscious.
There a few gnomes with triceratops at specific locations, and they ask us to find “shifters”, kill them, and exchange the tokens they drop for items. The tokens come in several varieties, copper, silver, gold etc. The copper gnome is west from Shadow, at the western end of the quiet forest road, just before the meadowlands. We head there and retrieve box
. This drops a box we can use to store all our tokens (should we kill any shifters). read list
gives us the location of the shifters. We're probably too low level to kill them, but they are great to steal from because a lot of them summon fodder if you sit in the room with them. That will allow you to steal their kits to fence or sell. If you are going to try to kill them for the copper tokens to exchange for the low level items the gnome has (upgrades for your leggings are tough to come by), steal their kits and whatever else you can from them first. Block the exit you intend to wimpy out of if you get caught stealing, because the shifters will try to block you in and prevent you from running. Be aware that getting caught stealing will lock your commands for a few rounds.
Go directly west (17 from the magistrate's square) from shadow and you will see a forest outpost and Sault, a young mercenary captain. Here you can hire mercenaries to travel with you to fight. Normally I don't bother with these, but as a thief, having a party member with you, even if it is an NPC, will help you get sneak attacks and can make your life easier until you find a friend to party with or can reliably create other combatants on your own.
Just north of the mercenaries is an OOC Dummy testing room, where you can see how much damage your attacks and items do.
throw item at target distance direction
When you run out of goblins to kill, head to echoes mountains, west from Shadow's west gate and north from the large wooden sign
from Magistrate's Plaza, go out the west gates of Shadow.
After the trolls head down to the 2nd level (you passed the entrance on the way to the trolls)
From here you can go west to kill some lizards, once again you can search this room for a random drop
head back the way you came, and then north, then east when you can (if you hit the dwarven mine or the sloping cavern, you went the wrong way).
Just before you hit the 'tunnel between caverns', you'll see the entrance down to level 3 of echoes mountains.
The main ogre pit is at the start of level 3 of echoes mountains. There are mats you can search to get random drops.
Some ogres have +1 weapons, they will be of exceptional quality if you look at them. Don't forget to check for curses before you wield anything.
half-ogres use spells, but have bracers of defense
Study
them, identify curse on item
at a church, or have another player (caster) identify it for you
If you run out of vials, head back to town to sell your loot and buy some more from the healer (shadow is probably easier from echoes mountains).
After you get your second attack per round, head northeast from the main ogre pit
Keep an eye out for cloth, wood, or metal dropping from the ogres (and mobs in general).
climb
if you have climbing tools or if you've got enough skilldescend
to get outstats gain strength
There are two entrances to the DDC, one is north of Shadow (enter hole
from a straight north-south stretch of dragon pass road) and requires climbing tools to descend
into.
The other is connected to echoes mountains, it's called the tunnel between caverns. From the wooden sign at the entrance of echoes mountains, go 2n, d, 3e, 4n, 3e, 2n, e, n. Follow that tunnel to the dragon den caverns.
Inside DDC there are hordes of kobolds and rats. The kobold children will steal from you, the mages cast spells, and the thieves will try to stab you
There's also a quest inside DDC, the starting NPC is in the dwarven mine. We will wait to complete this quest until after level 15 (see below).
This is a good spot to find +1 equipment for extra AC.
There are multiple entrances/exits, make sure you have climbing tools.
open grate
The entrance to Yntala forest is out the southern gate of Tabor, just past the Goblin Stronghold.
We can take Yntala forest at level 12 or so, if we're careful
kit with kit
to put them togethertake # from kit
to split them up
We are going to skip doing actual quests until we get to level 15. This is because the collector items change at level 15, and the mid collector list is significantly tougher for us than the low level list. The quests, however, scale xp with level, so we will save the quests until the lists change over and then do them all.
Quest list to help get you from level 15-21:
Muileann Crypt - in Muileann, east and north of the corn field north of Shadow, east from Dragon Pass Road
Muileann Tower - in Muileann, east and north of the corn field north of Shadow, east from Dragon Pass Road
Piaf's Dilemma - near the stream east and north from Tabor.
Dragon Den Caverns / Pipe Quest - Starting NPC is in the Dwarven mine in Echoes Mountains.
Nereid Riddle Quest - near the stream east and north from Tabor.
Swords Quest (must be level 19 to start) - starts in a room with an old woman, west off Dragon Pass Road north of Shadow. You will need to purchase or rent a boat from the dock directly south of the Bestiary to complete it.
Open the Drow Temple - Underdark, North past Muileann, past Dagger and the drow cave roads.
These should get you close to level 21, and if it's not enough, you can pick up items from Shadowlord Forest on Deku, Laerad Wasteland / Gods Plains / Swamps of the Dead / Parnelli Forest without too much trouble (sneak around to skip most enemies), and can fight in Shadowlord forest on Deku (which also has random drops on room searches), on the dark trail east of Antioch, or Yntala forest for an easy time. To get to Laerad, take the ferry from Shadow docks pay 5 gold
. (there are two sets of docks, the one with the ferry that travels to Laerad, Deku, and Graez is directly south of the Bestiary). You can also recognize people for the first time, fence things, and earn RP reward via the reward
and reward all
commands from other people for XP.
Additional advancement:
- Stick with picking up items for the mini collectors and stealing from shifters or whatever else you can find that carries vials or other items to earn credit. Sell metal and scrolls for gold. We want to get to level 15 before completing any quests, and then do the quests to more easily get to level 21.
- Level 9: at this level we get another feat, and we take two-weapon fighting for an extra attack.
- Level 10: we pick up tools of the trade feat, this lets us purchase and use powder from the fence. Powder is good because it stuns and blinds, opening up sneak attack, assuming you can hit. You can also reveal
to show invisible creatures. alias tp toss powder at $*
. Don't forget to add your skills.
- Level 11: We have the option to multiclass at level 11, but we stick with thief, because this is a thief guide. The goal here is to get to level 21 and break into shadowdancer prestige class.
- Level 12: We pick up another stat point, and we add 1 to strength (we will go to 24 base). We also get a new feat, and we pick up improved two weapon fighting.
- Level 13: We pick up Use Magic Device, which allows us to read scrolls without the spellcraft skill. Experiment using the ones you find as random drops, and learn where the magic shops are so you can purchase scrolls when you need them. Pick up a scroll case so you can carry many scrolls without taking up your entire inventory. Useful scrolls are also available at the thief guild fences, so be sure to build up some account balances by fencing items and laundering gold. Spells set their caster level to your thief level when you pick them up, so you'll want to update them from time to time as you advance. FYI, unless you advance levels before using them, you will need an int modifier of 1 less than the spell level on the scroll to cast them without fail. See help magical devices for more details.
- Level 14: We pick up scramble, which is another defensive passive feat, that lets us dodge some attacks.
- Level 15: I got lethal strikes, to double my chance of critical hits. This becomes important later because one of the ShadowDancer's abilities blinds on a crit, which opens up sneak attacks and makes it harder for your opponents to fight.
- Level 16: We pick up our last point of strength here, getting to 24. From here on out, we can increase dex or con. Both are good options. Dexterity improves your armor class (to a point, unless you eschew armor and use the improved armor spell Shadowdancer's greater shadow conjuration provides, which is great until it gets dispelled), and you can never have enough max hit points.
- Level 17: We pick up Spring Attack, which lets us sometimes make an attack after scrambling away from an attack.
- Level 18: I picked up Death Ward, because you are going to face an increasing number of save-or-die rolls as you advance and fight tougher monsters, and you don't want to die.
- Level 21: I picked up Resistance, because I noticed I'm getting smashed by spells a lot. Other options are exotic weapon proficiency or blind fight, both of which you will probably want to get at some point. Options for feat trees are the spell power / perfect caster tree so you can use AOE without nuking your party members or fodder, the toughness / damage resistance tree to increase your durability, the combat maneuvers tree for more options in combat, or the powerattack / cleave tree for extra damage. Map out what feats you want to choose, and don't forget that when you go back to thief at level 31, you will receive bonus combat feats at 31, 36, 41, and 46.
At level 21 we break into the shadowdancer prestige class. Other options are assassin, bladeweaver, and cypher (if you pick up the scribe feat), but all of them are tough unless you really know what you are doing. Assassin and bladeweaver will suffer from lack of fodder, and cypher relies heavily on scrolls and requires a lot of upkeep to manage properly. This guide will focus on Shadowdancer it gives us a huge boost in utility, giving us defensive spells like monster summoning and wall of fire, as well as teleportation. The “problem” is that with three innate shadow spells, while great because innate spells use character level for caster level, gives us a boatload of spells that we have never used before, and figuring it all out can be a bit complicated. I have listed my shadowdancer aliases below to help you out.
bt cast innate greater shadow conjuration on black tentacles
chill cast innate shadow evocation on fire shield on chill - alternative to the default fire shield for when you're fighting fire elementals and whatnot.
co command shadow to $* - good for RP as well.
dark cast innate darkvision
dda cast innate shadow evocation on deeper darkness - makes it dark, because you like shadows
ddo cast innate greater shadow conjuration on dimension door on $*
dms dispell monster summoning vi - you can't cast monster summoning while one is active, so this dispells it first.
doub cast innate shadow double
dv cast innate darkvision
eau cast innate shadow evocation on elemental aura on $* - alternative to fire shield
fh cast innate greater shadow conjuration on faithful hound
fsh cast innate shadow evocation on fire shield on $*
ih cast innate greater shadow conjuration on infernal healing on $*
ms cast innate greater shadow conjuration on monster summoning vi
port cast innate greater shadow conjuration on teleport on $*
sb cast innate shadow body
sch cast innate greater shadow conjuration on secret chest - great spell, see below
sd cast innate shadow double
ss cast innate shadow stride on $*
tools cast innate greater shadow conjuration on minor creation on locksmith tools - this is useful if you find yourself at a lock with no tools :)
wof cast innate shadow evocation on wall of fire $*
Buff List:
Take a look at the buff command, it allows you to cast a bunch of buffing spells with a single command, like when you log on, when you die, or after you get dispelled and teleport away to a healer.
darkvision
shadow double
shadow body
fire shield Special: cast innate shadow evocation on fire shield on warm
infernal healing Special: cast innate greater shadow conjuration on infernal healing on YOURNAME
monster summoning vi Special: cast innate greater shadow conjuration on monster summoning vi
deeper darkness Special: cast innate shadow evocation on deeper darkness
Effect of Shadowdancer abilities:
These are the Shadowdancer abilities I used most, but you should explore the others and see if they work for you:
1. Monster Summoning vi: You are able to summon fodder to protect yourself and give your enemies other things to attack, opening them up for sneak attacks. You should always have this up when you are fighting. It's a good idea to con defender
from time to time to see how healthy they are. If they're getting weak or you see them getting destroyed, it might be a good idea to dms;ms to dispell monster summoning and cast a fresh batch before they're all gone (and you get stunned or something).
2. Shadow Body: Gives you damage reduction and protection from some elements, you should always have this up.
3. Shadow Double: Creates a greater summon, that you can command with the co $* alias above, like co protect yourname
4. Fire shield: Damages anyone who attacks you, this should always be up when you're fighting. You can see I have a separate alias for warm and cold shields, because sometimes you're fighting fire resistant monsters.
5. Infernal/Celestial Healing: Depending on your alignment you'll need to cast one or the other, but this restores hit points over time. You never know when you'll live through a combat with 1 hp before your vials kick in so this can be a life saver, and can help reduce kit burn in an area you're a little over your head in.
6. Deeper darkness: Create a ball of darkness that lowers light levels, because the Shadow Master class ability (Shadowdancer level 4) gives you a bonus to saving throws when you are in dim light.
7. Secret Chest: You can summon your secret chest anywhere. You can command it to pick up items, give you items, and you can dismiss it, and it will save the items. Use it to keep a spare bit of equipment or store stuff you intend to sell later. You can't summon it at the same time as your shadow double but since everything is innate you can dispell / dismiss one and summon the other.
8. Shadow Stride: Walk through locked doors, can come in very handy.
9. Teleport: First from Shadow conjuration, then from Shadow Jump (which you might as well replace your teleport alias with, once you get it at level 27), this is one of the most useful abilities in the game. While teleport is useful, even with a chance for misfire, Shadow Jump is the best telport ability in the game; it is instantaneous, and you can do it while in combat. You will need to remember here as location
to set your teleport spots. I strongly suggest setting at least one to a healer in case you get blinded and need to cb
at a healer to fix your sight. recall locations
to see where your spots are and how many free spots you have left, and unremember location
to forget it.
10. Wall of fire: Damages everything that attacks you, and doesn't require perfect caster to not roast your fodder, good AOE spell.
11. Improved armor: Use this when you don't wear leather (to make it easier to sneak, hide, stab, and steal).
12. Wing (help wing). Shadow body gives us flying, which adds the wing command. This ability lets you fly from outdoors to a number of different locations, including every major city. While not as fast as our teleport or shadow jump abilities, having every major city on the standard wing list frees up more locations for us to be able to jump to.
With these spells, you will be able to smash through areas you previously had difficulty with. Keep an eye on your fodder and recast them between battles if they are too injured. At level 21 I was able to take the natives and later the monks on Tonerra no problem. Dagger Marsh was a good place to find wands, scrolls, and metal to sell for gold, just be careful not to bring too many enemies into the room at once.
That just about does it. If you've gone all the way through this thief tutorial, congrats, it is one of the more complicated classes to play. You should try out your own build, maybe try going with damage resistance first, or a two-handed weapon build for extra crit & cleave damage. Or you could go pure dex build and pick up weapon finesse. However you build your character, you should be able to go pretty much anywhere with your shadowdancer abilities, and they will keep fairly good pace against anything except a pure spellcaster.
Happy Mudding!
–Cyric
Updated: 3/10/22 My primary leveling experience has been on casters, so some of the things I recommend may be more or less difficult for other classes. That said, the newbie friendly adventuring areas can be a slow grind if you do nothing just kill mobs, especially if it turns out there are other players cycling in the same area (this is fairly common with the goblin stronghold). If you can’t find them to party but the mobs are all dead, I’d suggest looking for some of the quests. I am including guidance on how to start several of the low level quests. I will also suggest do not get caught up in a grind - RPing with other players can often be better XP/hour than spending time stabbing goblins and frankly, is the actual point of the game. The daily demiplane found in the gnomes hut is also a good source of gold, enchanting materials, and XP. Each quest generally provides most or all of a level.
To reach the daily demiplane, starting outside the north gate of Shadow: 3n,nw,2n,nw,w,nw,2w,2nw,4n,2ne,n,nw,4n,2ne,nw,ne,2n,nw,2n,nw,ne,nw,w. You should be in a room with gnome. To open a demiplane, use the command: open demiplane. If you find yourself overwhelmed or outmatched, leave demiplane will allow you to escape.
For anyone who wishes to go in totally unspoiled, do not read past this paragraph until the next section break.
Ekibi Ridge Gnome Quest - Ekibi ridge is a low level area in the mountains west of Shadow and north of Tabor. In the ridge, you will find a gnome who will offer you this quest
Peryton King - The village elder of <town name> needs help with a Peryton problem. Casters should have no problem doing this quest, it may be somewhat riskier for melee characters.
Dragon’s Den Caverns - There are two NPCs to initiate this quest, one good and one evil. The good NPC is located in Echoes Mountains, and the evil NPC is located in the tunnel connecting Echoes Mountains and the Dragon Den Caverns.
Muileann Quest - Cyric mentioned this area but I will second it. Muileann has an excellent 2 part quest/dungeon, and is FREQUENTLY the location of the procedural quest objects. I generally do this quest around level 10-12 at the latest. To start the quest, once you’ve gone in to Muileann, make your way eastward through the city until you find the gate to the cemetery. You will need to locate the key to enter, but when you enter the graveyard a ghost will speak to you and ask for help.
The Rescue/Pit Fight - Near Antioch, you can find the remains of recently attacked caravan. Nearby, an injured man will ask you for help. Be aware is sets in motion multiple events in the chain.
Piaf's Dilemma - This quest can be found near the stream, south of the abandoned town of Koenig, northeast of Tabor
Nereid Riddle Quest - This quest can be found near the stream, south of the abandoned town of Koenig, northeast of Tabor, and will take you all over the lowbie area.
Swords Quest - This quest requires you to be level 19 to start and will take you to multiple locations. You can find the starting NPC off of Dragon Pass Road, north of Shadow.
Hansoth and the Sage of Laerad: This is a bit of a level jump from the last set of quests. As you might expect, this quest is found on the isle of Laerad. It's probably do-able in the 20s, though I first did it post 30. To begin the quest, you must locate the sage. His hut moves around within the Parnelli forest, so peer up and down the length of the place and look for an ‘enter’ option.
There are a number of helpful commands that can make your life easier. First is the actions. This command will display all actions in the room, including objects eligible for targeted search and look commands. It is not however, perfect. Some area designers hide options from this command.
Second is the keep command, which will flag an item as unable to be sold. Use this to keep from accidentally selling your sack full of scrolls, gems, enchanting materials or whatever.
Cyric mentioned plenty of useful aliases above, but I’m going to suggest some of my own.
This alias will allow you to type prep <spellname> <#> to prepare that specific amount of a spell. Main issue is that for spells with multiple word names, you will need to use the abbreviation found in the help <spell> file. You could also shorten this alias to just p if you want, or remove the ‘times $2’ element to prevent that issue.
This is the format I use to add and remove spells from my caster list
Two handed style:
1. Feats: Build towards strength of arm, then weapon specialization and damage reduction.
2. Equipment -
Plate progression (normal): full plate from armor shop, magical plate from Yntala area
Plate progression (large):
Plate progression (small):
Two weapon style:
1. Feats:
2. Equipment -
1. Feats: Start with Hardened Minions and the spell power feats, then build to perfect caster.
2. Great Spells: Monster Summoning (fodder), Restoration (recharge stamina), searing light (reliable damage), freedom of movement (breaks stun), spiritual ally (summons a large creature you can command), Serenity (area attack), word of power/recall (teleportation), rebirth (after you die, choose whether to stay dead or return with a full heal), entropic storm (large untyped damage over time to the entire room)
Feats: Start out the same as oracle: Rush hardened minions and Perfect Caster. You want to have both pretty much right after Offestry (or slightly after, if non human). Try and use your free cleric bonus feats on spellcasting feats and apply the every 3 level feats to non spellcasting after Offestry. Third Divine Domain is a FANTASTIC feat, though how fantastic depends on your gods domains. The extra spells and bonuses are nice, but the real point is when you get to Cleric's capstone feat, Divine Apotheosis. This feat grants UNLIMITED casts of your domain spells, as long as you prepare one copy. Outside of spellcasting feats, which you are going to want to take pretty much all of, I would suggest the Magic and Damage Resistance trees. Clerics are very hard to kill if you can't take them down in one round, and the harder it is to do that the better. Post 31, the Metamagic feats are also a great choice, though each is on 10min CD. Heavy armor proficiency can be a great option.
Spells: Unlike oracle, you get every spell on your list all the time. Downside is you have to prepare them, so you might have 10 9th level spells, but that's split up among all the spells you think you need. Most of the time, this isn't really a problem - by max level, it's likely you'll have well over 100 spell slots, and nearly 200 if you're going Hierophant for your Prestige Class (plus Hierophant has about a 50% chance not to use up the spell every time).
I always keep the highest level of monster summoning in my combat list, until I get access to 9th level. The upgrade from MS8 to 9 isn't worth the slot IMO. Available from level 1, use celestial/infernal healing (you can use either regardless of alignment). This gives you Fast Healing 1, which is nice, and it lasts a decent amount of time. Shield is another fantastic first level spell, though if you're using an actual physical shield they don't stack. I'd personally go with the physical shields until you have either a 2H caster weapon or dual wield caster weapons. Aid is a great 2nd level spell that remains relevant as it increases your max HP. Divine weapon is a solid choice in that level as well, as it lasts indefinitetly, doesn't interfere with casting, and scales. Also in the second level are the state enhancement buffs. Initially, you'll want to go with Owl's Wisdom, but once you cap your Wisdom at 30, I'd switch to Bear's Endurance. If Con is also capped, I'd probably go with Dex for a small AC boost, Str for more carrying capacity, or Cha for improved selling prices.
In third level, good hope is nice, though duration is short. However, because it's just a morale boost, you can stack it with a variety of other buffs. Resist Energy is a great defensive buff that lasts for your entire login - I generally default to fire if I don't have any idea what elements I'm going to be hit with. Searing Light is a good combat spell in this level. Insight is a good combat buff to your defenses.
4th level spells - Freedom of Movement is an absolute must. Evil clerics will want to use Unliving Inversion if they are not already undead so they can use their Spontaneous Harm ability to heal themselves. Shield of Dawn provides a damage aura. Spiritual Ally is your first greater summon, available at this level
5th level spells: Flame Strike and Maw of Stone are the main damage spells in this tier. Maw is a DoT spell. Sticks into snakes provides additional fodder, and telepathic bond let's you perform long range communication with other players.
6th level spells: Blade barrier will replace Shield of Dawn at this level, and heal/harm are great options. You can stack all of your memorizations based on your alignment - Good clerics can memorize all the 'Harm' casts they want and use them spontaneously as healing, and vice versa for evil clerics using Unliving Inversion. Un/Holy orb spells at this level are non-targeted AOE, which are useful against enemies with spell reflect or when blinded or other wise unable to target. Word of Power grants you teleports to any town or your gods temple, and Word of Recall allows you to teleport to any location you memorize.
7th level - Aura of Healing and Regenerate are my bread and butter standard healing - With both active you can out heal most mobs ability to damage you, at least as long as your fodder is up. Cometfall is my go to combat spell from this level. Rebirth grants you the ability to ressurect yourself from the dead at no penalty, though you will be right where you died - This sometimes means you just die again. After activating, the spell can't be recast for one hour.
8th level - God's Favor is your emergency escape button as a cleric. When you type 'now' you are instantly whisked to your god's temple. This does NOT allow you to escape a teleport proof area. THe aligned aura spells in this tier will generally replace your other damage AOE choices. Stormbolts takes over at this level for roomwide AOE of choice (Unless you're a Shadow Adept). Orb of the void is a solid choice for penalizing the room. Stone Body will basically be on full time from this point forward.
9th level - Gate grants you a much stronger alignment based ally. It also can be a travel spell, allowing you to open a standing portal to a place - handy for popping in and right back out, or for bringing in help from a prepare location. Entropic Storm, Polar Midnight, and Storm of Vengeance are all good roomwide AoE choices. You gain resurrection this level, which let's you negate the death of other players. Most clerics will probably be using a domain 9th level spell for their primary offense - Being able to spam a 9th level combat spell at will is hard to pass up.