Shattered Kingdoms

Couple quick questions:

first, easy one--does anyone know a reasonably good estimation of an in-game regen ticks in seconds? I spend a lot of time sleeping and would like to set a tick-timer to check score approximately once a tick while doing so.

second--and if the answer's fofy, just let me know--any advice on attribute point spending would be right useful. I maxed int/wis early and as far as the rest go, have 100 lbs carryable before adding 1.5 per level, can carry 12 items max naked, and am healthy con 3-4 stat points away from durable. Sociable charisma. I've just been saving attribute points so far figuring it can't really hurt to wait until I know what's going on. I assume I'll be putting most of those points in mana/art?

I'm not worried about having the perfect char, but I'm very much into participating in PK on muds and don't see any of my characters being total pacifists. Not worried about dying horribly as a newb, but I'd like to at least have a shot at being competitive, and don't really have a clue how to build a character here.

My understanding of sorcs, weak as it is, you'll always be fighting behind someone/something else. If you plan on PvP, art is mandatory to beat their saves. You don't need str but you do need a bit more dex, likely in mods. I don't know tick time, other than it's roughly a minute each tick.

Well, you could start loading up in your ART points or if you want to (i don't know a single sorc that does this) MANA. Art's good because then your spells have a better chance of landing. Since everyone and their mother enchants (at least, the proper people), you'll need this.


I also suggest CON since you can die. But it isn't as big of a deal with you don't mind dying ridiculously fast. Con being just in case you end up in the front row during a fight OR some monster has reach and you're waiting for your tank to rescue you.


As for tick timers -- Just don't bother. The lag and whatnot I hear is killer for some (and for me depending on which location I am in the silicon valley - wireless ftw!)

As said before ticks are roughly a minute although I would not recommend setting a trigger to automatically check score only because that can get you in trouble.

As a sorc you need max charisma. Order lag is associated with charisma and a sorcerors bread and butter is his charms. Max int,wis,charisma, and art for sure. Any points you have left I would suggest evening out your stats to an even number (i.e. nimble dex would be 16 dex) so you can get near max or max with 1 +great mod. Since sorcs can shrink things you can really cut down on weight so str isn't very important. In fact I would put more emphasis on dexterity because sorcs do get dodge. If all else fails you can never go wrong maxxing constitution either on any character you ever roll.

He's right. Time spent on the game is supposed to be present and active enough to respond in a few moments. I know its not always possible to be present every moment. If you aren't thats why the void exists. Eventually you will be disconnected for inactivity. That is good because you actually aren't playing. If you start playing again before void or disconnect, there's no problem. There are several reasons for this. There's no reason to take up a connection and associated game resources if you don't intend to play. There's also various parts of the game which track hours spent. Using such a timer to inflate these hours, be it for jail, leadership, or to avoid the time bandits, is against the rules, specifically the rule about botting.

Well, depending on your race, you may not want to train mana. If you're a gnome, for example, just don't, because you'll have so much mana from your 25 WIS that you'd be better off without them. As say, a sprite, you'll have less, and you -might- consider it better.

If it was me, I'd train art at least 8 points, get my CON to durable (more HP and better fort saves is looovely) and maybe get my dex a little higher too. Train con though! Even though you should never directly be in combat, there are plenty of things that can still hit you: Group affect spells like color spray, holy words (If you're evil you might worry about those), flamestrikes, fireballs, bows/xbows, hellion hellfire, other sorc's acid blasts, blah blah blah. All your extra points in art and mana won't matter if you're dead.

One other thing you might have trouble with is carrying capacity... but honestly, training strength would be a horrible waste of stat points. You can shrink, so you'll be fine. Keep all your non-armor slots (neck, fingers, wrists) one size smaller than you to help on weight, and shrink all the staves/scrolls/wands you find to size tiny. One thing that you might not know is that dodge starts taking penalties if you are carrying over 1/2 your carrying capacity. Not that you should have to use dodge that often, but just saying.

Oh yeah, and keep a high CHA. Charisma is very nice for sorcs: Better charm lag, better xp.

You don't have to max CHA with stat points. Once you hit GM, high unmodded cha means nothing. Just use stat mods to up your cha.

Don't both wasting stat points on maxing art. I can tell you from relatively recent experience, maxed art still fails to land on naked NPCs frequently. On enchanted kits, it won't help any more. 5-7 art (and I recommend always having an odd-numbered art score--for some reason art is more effective in odd numbers) is all you will need.

Depending on race, mana might be a worthwhile train (as was stated above). For gnomes, probably not, but sprites, helves, griffons, or possibly even humans, it might be worth it to take 3-4 points worth.

Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is DEX. Having it within 4-6 points or so of max (the rest can be modded quickly) is somewhat worthwhile. It will help you duck dirt kicks (assuming they're not from NPCs, in which case even having 25 dex will still leave you dirted 3/5 times) which can completely shut you down in PvP. A relatively high dex score is more important for a sorc than a high con or str score. If you're taking hits as a sorc, you're probably doing something wrong anyways. I can't think of a class with less base HP than sorc.

Seriously. Does art not affect NPCs? I seem to always fail a lot spells against NPCs, no matter if I'm a shaman with 9 art, a sorc with 13~ or a warlock with 3.

I will say I disagree with putting points on DEX as a sorc. Unless you're a deep-elf. Mirror Image should be enough to stop dirt kicks I'd think. If a PC kept trying they'd probably land one eventually through high DEX anyways.

Art is almost pointless. Even at max on a sorc (which, aside from necro, I think gets the most art trains of any other class) it only helps raise spell success from 2/10 to about 4/10. It's not worth wasting something like a dozen stat trains to get that bonus, when you get almost the same bonus from ~7. I had a max art sorc recently have SEWER RATS IN EXILE (read: level...5ish NPCs?) outright resist petrification spells. OUTRIGHT. Art is a bloody waste of points.

As to your point about mirror image and dex. You're wrong that you can count on MI to save you all the time, it isn't guaranteed to soak a dirtkick, just as it isn't guaranteed to soak any hits. Additionally, and this is pure speculation as it was a long time ago, I seem to recall dex improving your chances of MI being effective in soaking hits. As in, hasted, Rikka's MI was more effective than without haste. Also:



That second or third necessary attempt could buy you enough time to land a long-casting spell like petrification or charm, whereas if you get dirted on the first attempt every time, you're just meat waiting to be ground up.

... Nice try. Art doesn't affect nekkid people. For example, RATS. It lowers the saves added from EQ (At least that's what I've gathered from IMM information over the years.) So... if you're having rats resist your petrifications, they probably just got lucky. Either that or petrification just has an appreciable chance of not working even if someone saves.

But yeah, D-A's right about DEX. It's useful.