How to start playing JAVATAR
Mar 18, 2018 2:42:44 GMT
Post by Admin on Mar 18, 2018 2:42:44 GMT
A tried and true method to begin playing JAVATAR
Learning to play a new game is difficult. Many players tend to give up after a few levels because the difficulty of the game increases, and thru inefficient building, their chars just can’t keep pace. Additionally, if you build your characters poorly, you run the risk of doing permanent damage to them. Logically, if you want to build a HEALER, you would look at the help file, set a new char’s stats to the best you could manage and create a HEALER and start building. JAVATAR isn’t that straight forward. By doing the logical thing, your char would be way behind by the time it reached level 15 and almost unplayable by the time it reached level 50!
First, a few basics. Your character is defined by his alignment, race, guild (or class) and stats. All of this is pretty straight forward to anyone that has played a RPG. The single most important stat is CON because it affects how many hit points you roll when you make level (up to your guilds max rolling level), your saving throw versus magical attack and your ability to survive a raise without COMPLICATIONS (see below.) When you are mapping out your party and choosing race/guild combinations, always consider CON very carefully. I suggest you always chose high CON races, over lower CON races. Another key attribute to each race is LUCK. This value isn’t changeable, a particular race’s luck is set in stone. LUCK affects a wide variety of things, but the most important is saving throw. A high LUCK value can help to negate a lower CON, or can improve the saving throw on a high CON race. From my testing and playing, the effects of LUCK are small in comparison to the CON factor, but should not be ignored.
The single best race in the game is OGRE. If I could make all my chars OGRES, I would do so in a heartbeat. OGRE has the best natural max CON in the game (26) and has an above average LUCK of 5. GIANT has a max CON of 24 and a LUCK of 6. GIANTS get destroyed (magical attack from a monster that kills you outright) alot more often than OGRES -- which is why I suggest high CON over high LUCK. See the help file for guidance on races and guilds.
Alignment (Good, Evil, Neutral) affects which guilds you can join, and which items you will use. Most items have Alignments, and you only derive the benefit of those items if it matches your char’s alignment. A Neutral char could swing a weapon that is either Evil or Good, but it won’t perform nearly as well as the same item in the “N” (neutral) flavor. Stat raisers that are off by one align factor, do nothing at all. If they are off by two (IE Good using Evil) they actually reduce the char’s stats instead of adding to them. A piece of equipment that is the polar opposite alignment will curse your char, and you will have to visit the store and pay through the nose to have it removed-- so always pay attention to item alignments and change them (often referred to as “flipping them”) when they don’t match your chars, or sell them to the store (called “splashing”) if they are too expensive to change. Some items don’t have alignments and can be used freely by any char.
Enough of the basic stuff. Lets talk about how to begin a winning party in JAVATAR.
The early game, is a struggle for finding stat raisers (tomes, potions and a couple scrolls) and gold. If you just start out your first “real” char without having any stat raisers saved up, his ATT/DEF will be low and he will roll subpar hits everytime you make level. By the time you make level 30, you will be seriously behind. We can avoid this by making our first chars as “throw away” characters. Below you will find three different methods for acquiring enough gold and stats to start a “REAL CHAR.”
--Method One: Traditional
Open three game windows. One the first create an Ogre char and set the CON, STR and DEX to the maximum values. Divide up the remaining stat between INT and WIS. Set the alignment, sex and name (remembering that this char will either be deleted, or used for item storage when we are done-- so don’t put your favorite char name on this one.) and then bring him/her into the game. (Sex has no effect on game play whatsoever-- choose whichever you wish.) This char will have a decent ATT/DEF of 10/10 before any items -- and be resistant to poison and paralysis--two early char killers. Using the second window create a Osiri and set this one’s stats with 13 INT 13 WIS 6 STR 19 CON and 21 DEX which will net out a char with 10/10 ATT/DEF before items, and be able to wear all the beginner stuff and eventually throw “charm of opening” to let you access locked boxes. If you want to try and make this char a THIEF you have to set the STR to 8 and the dex to 19. This reduces ATT/DEF slightly. Again, probably not your favorite name on this char.
Each new char starts the game with a 500 Gold loan from the bank. Buy leather armor, cloak, leather boots, leather cap, leather bracers, leather gloves and then use them along with your hands. This will give you an additional +8/+10 ATT/DEF on each char. You can bank the left over gold, to reduce your chars debt to -19 gold each, or just hold onto it, because you may need it to make levels-- totally your choice. If you carry gold in the dungeon, there is always a chance it will get thieved, which is a pain, because the monster usually takes his treasure with him when he runs away after stealing from you. You cannot give items or gold while you are in debt to the bank.
From the city, you can enter ‘z’ to go to the starter dungeon. Think of this as a dungeon with training wheels. The monsters are weakened, and tend to drop stats more often. Additionally, if you die in the starter dungeon, the city guards will perform a free rescue. This can be handy, but the goal is not to die at all. Head down to the starter dungeon after equipping all your items and your Hands. It is time to kill some monsters and take their stuff. If you take any damage at all, X out of the encounter and run back to the city to get your hits back. This is important. You don’t want to die. Kill stuff. Open boxes. Repeat. Things to look for are Wererats (sometimes show up as Giant Owls) and Training Golems-- both are good experience. If you get diseased or poisoned...run to the city. Don’t go too far into the dungeon until you have made level 2. You need that quick return in case things get a little hairy. When you have enough EXP to make level, the EXP indicator on your char will turn BOLD. When you are pinned and incapable of making any more the EXP and the number next to it will both be BOLD. Note: you can only enter the starter dungeon when you are levels 1,2 or 3. Once you make level 4 that option is closed and you will be making trips to the regular dungeon where the monsters are tougher, less likely to give stat raisers and dying will become very expensive very fast. To maximize our returns, you want to make levels 2 and 3 as soon as you have enough EXP to do so. After you make level 3 you want to hold off on making any more levels until you are PINNED. EXP and the number next to it will both be BOLD. When both chars are pinned-- return to city and make level 4. You will be 1 EXP point short of level 5, and hopefully you don’t get quested. Then when you have to enter the real dungeon, you will only need 1 EXP to make another level. Got it? Around level 5 or so, your Osiri char can start casting charm of opening. It will be really expensive, and he can only cast it once per run. When you find a magically locked box, cast it then return to city. Hoard up all the papers, flasks, you find. Dump them all on a third char that you will never leave the city with. Use this third char as storage for stuff that you don’t want to lose.
Gold is the big limiter in the early game for most chars. Sometimes it is hard to acquire enough just to keep up on making levels, let alone have any extra to ID items. If you are lucky, a bigger char make take pity on you and drop you some cash. If not, we will talk about how to best get the gold you require. When you find items in the dungeon, you partially ID them based on the combined intelligence and wisdom of the char it lands on. Our chars are going to be stupid, so you won’t be able to tell the difference between a scroll and a book or between a shield and a hammer. Sorry. That is just how it is. The good news is that the first ID in the store is very inexpensive. When you find Paper and Flask-- take them to the store and ID them the first step. If the value of the item jumps into the +100K range, stop. It is most likely a stat raiser. Move it to the char you are using for storage. If you pay attention-- the item will show you it’s alignment when you pass it over. I tend to group items of various aligns on different pages on the holder char. Makes it easier to count later. If the item’s value doesn’t jump so high-- it is probably not a stat raiser, and you can sell it or ID it again and sell it. The game will give you more money for stuff (ie it is worth investing in the second ID) even if the store is full of them. The last ID is not that way. If the store is full, you will not receive enough extra value to negate the cost of the final ID. It is a money losing proposition-- so keep it or splash it to the store depending on how much you need cash at the time. The cost to do a second round of ID on Manuals and Potions that are stat raisers will vary wildly. Baseline Manuals are around 95K each. Once you pay this, the item will show up as “Tome of Agility (e)” but is still not fully ID’d. You can use it like that but cannot stack them. By that I mean… If I have 7 tomes of Agility (e) that are all fully ID’d, I can combine them all into one item slot so that I have Tome of Agility (e) [7]. This helps reduce clutter on chars, but has no effect on the item other than that. So don’t fully ID anything unless it is an align you intend not to use, there are less than 7 in the store and you intend to sell it for gold. Again-- the final ID is only cost effective if there are less than 7 in the store already.
--The no CON method. (not recommended)
Do everything above, except don’t put any initial stat points into your char’s CON. Max STR and DEX and divide up the remaining among INT and WIS. This results in higher initial ATT/DEF but produces chars that don’t have many hitpoints and will not survive death.
--The starter dungeon exploit method
[ Use this if you don’t mind feeling like a cheater. ]
Create a holder char and a single OGRE (you will need the CON)
Set the stats to max CON, DEX, STR and divide up the rest among INT and WIS. Take this char to the starter dungeon and build him normally to level 3. At level 3 we stop killing most things with this char. Now we are going to walk thru encounters and look for monsters with boxes. When we find one we are going to SHIFT “O” the box. That means we Open the box with the monsters still alive. They are going to get a really good chance to hit us, and another really good chance to hit us again when we leave the room. You will die. Take the city guards raise when you do, and hope you don’t COMP. If you are careful, and if your char rolls decent hits, you will not die THAT often. Run back to the city whenever your hitpoints fall below 18-20. If you roll bad hits on level 2 or 3, make another char and transfer all the stuff from the first to the second. You will also do this if/when you COMP. This method takes advantage of the generous nature of the starter dungeon-- don’t try this in the regular dungeon-- you will get obliterated. If you COMP on a raise, create a new char, transfer the stuff and delete the one that COMP’d. Repeat as needed. Random items in the boxes tend to have a higher percentage of stats in the starter dungeon, so you can make out pretty well. Again. This is sort of cheating.
What all these methods have in common.
The chars we use are throw away chars. We don’t invest stats in them. We move the stat points we find to a holder char that safely remains in the city. We need about 20-30 stats and 5 CON to begin a real char. We flip alignments of CON to whatever our first char is going to be. We sell just enough stuff to let us afford to do the above. We do not fully ID any stat raisers, unless there are 6 or less in the store and WE INTEND to SELL it for cash. If you are lucky, you will find a potion that is mis aligned (you intend to run a Good/Neutral party and this one is Evil) that the store has very few of. During my most recent test of this I found a Potion of Persuasion (e) that I was able to fully ID and sell for enough cash to cover all the rest of my expenses. At the end of an hour I had a total of 4 CON and 24 non-CON stats to start a real char. Oh-- I was using the Starter Dungeon Exploit method. So factor that in. I would need to run another fifteen mins or so to find 1 more CON-- but once I did-- I would be good to go. Don’t feel bad about using the exploit. The game designers left his one open-- so use if it you wish.
What to do next:
You have run and run and run some more. You have saved up 5 precious CON and a goodly store of other stats. You’ve sold some stuff you don’t intend to use and raised enough money to start flipping stat points. Great. The REAL GAME is about to finally begin.
Your first char:
Traditional wisdom in Avatar (the original 1970’s era game and all of its many descendants) was to tell you to create a box opener char FIRST. Most of the old timers suggest building an Oisiri Thief or an Osiri Scavenger. While that works, My testing shows me it is far from the ideal path.
Before we go much further, I need to explain a few things… so If you are familiar with Avatar start skimming. If you are familiar with RPG’s-- you better pay attention. If you are a novice, read this section TWICE. Peruse the help file and look at the guild tables. There you will notice that the Guild NOMAD rolls large hit dice for its first 30 levels and then gets only 1 hit per level thereafter. In a traditional build, you start as a NOMAD, make level 30 (but not 31) and then switch over to the class you want to be-- where your hits will be frozen until you make level 31+ on the new guild. Make sense? This is because a THIEF for example that builds 30 levels as a NOMAD, and then starts over as a THIEF will have about 90 more hitpoints than one that just starts out building THIEF. NOMAD levels go by pretty fast, since they require little experience and they have a wide assortment of equipment they can use at an accelerated pace. A MAGE for example will build alot slower than a NOMAD, and will roll 2 hits less (on average) but will only roll hits for the first 18 levels. A true Mage will be 100+ hit points behind a mage that starts out as a NOMAD first at level 30. Got it?
In the face of traditional wisdom, I recommend that the first char you build is an OGRE NOMAD. Not just the first 30 levels, but keep building as a NOMAD until you reach level 68 (where they will have access to a 3 swing Mithril Sword) and use this char as an escort/ substitute box opener until the rest of your party will be able to function without him. NOMAD outstrips every other class for survivability and pure punching power at this level with the possible exception of NINJA (that can lay out more damage--but is much more fragile.) Other warrior type classes do not gain the Mithril sword until level 105, and this gives the NOMAD a huge advantage. The draw back is that every level you put on the NOMAD you are falling 1 hitpoint behind because NOMAD only gains 1 HP/lvl while every other class gains 2 HP/lvl. NOMAD is a weak box opener down to about dungeon level 6 or so and a very respectable fighter all the way down to dungeon level 14. Below that, his lack of ATT limits his ability to fight. But understand if you continue to build the char as a NOMAD you are going to either require an infusion of hit point producing resources, or he will be dangerously behind on hits by the time he reaches level 350-ish. As an alternate course of action for those that want to limit the building damage they do to their first char-- you can stop building the nomad in the low thirties and just leave him equipped with a DOMINATOR. It only gets 2 swings, but those swings are VERY BIG Swings. I have seen a NOMAD kill two things outright on level 6 with a DOMINATOR.
This char is going to be your fighter/box opener and provide valuable cover for your next char(s) to build. If you want to later turn this char into a SEEKER or a Warrior* or even a SCAVENGER or THIEF (gasp-- Ogres make really good THIEF chars too-- the low dex doesn’t hurt them that much) you should consider stopping the building process at level 31 (where he can swing the DOMINATOR) and use him in that roll until such a time that the new party no longer needs him.
This will inflict minimal building damage on the char. If you chose to build him to level 68-- understand that he will be 38 hit points behind. Further building will just increase this number. NOMAD’s are fun to run, because the build so fast. You will achieve level 400 before you know it, and most likely while the rest of your party is struggling to get to level 200. This char can be valuable all the way until your party starts running level 14, which most likely will be in the mid 300’s. It’s up to you. Early on the NOMAD can fill the rolls of box opener and fighter. Later, the box opener will simply be beyond him/her and you will need to start a REAL boxing char.
{*A brief NOTE on the WARRIOR-- the ultimate fighter in the game as long as he is equipped with an ELIMINATOR. I wouldn’t build this guild until I had that sword-- without it, NINJA is better in almost every way.}
If you choose not to build a NOMAD NANNY (someone to watch over your young party) char-- then I would steer you towards starting with a TROLL NINJA. In the early game. NINJA has no equal for pure fighting power. By level 109, the NINJA is getting 5 swings that can put down alot of monster in a hurry. Boxing is beyond this char, tho. Yes he can unlock chests (via charm of opening) but he will never be anything other than a dude that rips the lid off and hopes the trap isn’t too bad. Run this char up fast till he gets to 4 swings. By then, you should have saved up enough CON to start another char. This one needs true KILLING power-- and in JAVATAR that pretty much only means SORCEROR. Mage, Wizard, Healer are all pale shadows of the offensive juggernaut that is the SORC. They start out a little slow, but by the time you reach level 33 (Wands) you will be starting to deal out impressive amounts of damage. By the time you reach level 90 (spheres) you will be a whirlwind of death and destruction.
About that time, you will be ready to start a 3rd char, and here the path isn’t nearly so clear. Usually, most people need a box opener by now, and if so-- you can go THIEF or SCAVENGER and I would give the nod to THIEF. Don’t get hung up on the lack of ATT/DEF or killing power the THIEF has. Sure SCAVIE is vastly superior in this regard, but you aren’t building a char to try and replace a true fighter. The THIEF will be opening boxes like a champ by level 160 ish while the SCAVIE will still be opening boxes like a chump well into his 600’s. Yeah, SCAVIE has some nice items he can wear to vastly increase his killing power-- but chances are those are only really useful if your sorc is dead, or if you are just trying to build the SCAVIE. I have built both, and I wish I hadn’t built the SCAVIE first. At level 999 he is a pretty poor boxer on 15 and the ubers.
You may also want to consider a char that can teleport or recall around. Seeker and Wizard are options here-- but I have no love for the WIZARD guild at all. My wizard is ineffective and loves to flop on the floor at the first hint of real monsters being ahead. Seeker is a hopeless fighter -- and is really only useful for moving around and locating people. He gets a reasonable DEF, so he serves some purpose to stand in front of the party and absorb damage.
You might want some healing ability. HEALER is the hands down winner in this regard-- tho he is both expensive and slow to build. Mage is another choice, but he lacks the biggest heals and the ability to raise dead, trading those in for some unique and effective spells and the ability to charm. I have run both, and I would give the nod to HEALER. Paladin and Villain both have some healing abilities, but they are pretty small. At end game their lack of fighting power limits their usefulness on level 14-15.
At the end of the day, JAVATAR like its predecessors leaves you to make some choices. Killing power, versus defense, versus healing versus travelling versus buffing versus weapons. The main difference with JAVATAR is that you are only limited by the size of your computer display and your ability to switch between multiple windows. I always ran 6 chars at once. Other people seem to struggle with 5. I have ran as many as 8 simultaneously in the party when ubering… and it is really hard to do so well. This ability to super-size your party makes it ideal to choose the BEST guilds at each function. Why run a MAGE who is not as good at healing in preference to a HEALER, if at some point you can actually run BOTH if you chose to? Why try and make do with a PALADIN as a fighter and a healer when you can just run another window and add a HEALER to the NINJA you already have?
I will leave you with words concerning the WARRIOR class spoken to me by my gaming mentor. “Build the Guild when you have the SWORD.” What he meant was-- a WARRIOR without the ELIMINATOR is not really worth the effort to build. When you have acquired the weapon, you will be large enough that you can powerbuild a WARRIOR to swing it in very little time. When I acquired my second ELIMINATOR, I was able to build a new WARRIOR (ogre, of course) to level 511 in about 6 weeks.
I hope you enjoy the game. It is well worth the price of admission. (wink)
JF
NOTE: I deleted the previous threads in this vein because they were written at various times as my ideas on this subject evolved. Looking back at them, they seemed contradictory and confusing.
Another NOTE as promised above:
When a char fails saving throw versus CON during a raise attempt, the result is COMPLICATIONS. The char will lose a percentage of its hits, -3 to each stat except CON (-5) and will age 15 years. This is why dying is bad. Eventually you COMP and after 5 or 6 COMPS-- you are in bad shape.
Learning to play a new game is difficult. Many players tend to give up after a few levels because the difficulty of the game increases, and thru inefficient building, their chars just can’t keep pace. Additionally, if you build your characters poorly, you run the risk of doing permanent damage to them. Logically, if you want to build a HEALER, you would look at the help file, set a new char’s stats to the best you could manage and create a HEALER and start building. JAVATAR isn’t that straight forward. By doing the logical thing, your char would be way behind by the time it reached level 15 and almost unplayable by the time it reached level 50!
First, a few basics. Your character is defined by his alignment, race, guild (or class) and stats. All of this is pretty straight forward to anyone that has played a RPG. The single most important stat is CON because it affects how many hit points you roll when you make level (up to your guilds max rolling level), your saving throw versus magical attack and your ability to survive a raise without COMPLICATIONS (see below.) When you are mapping out your party and choosing race/guild combinations, always consider CON very carefully. I suggest you always chose high CON races, over lower CON races. Another key attribute to each race is LUCK. This value isn’t changeable, a particular race’s luck is set in stone. LUCK affects a wide variety of things, but the most important is saving throw. A high LUCK value can help to negate a lower CON, or can improve the saving throw on a high CON race. From my testing and playing, the effects of LUCK are small in comparison to the CON factor, but should not be ignored.
The single best race in the game is OGRE. If I could make all my chars OGRES, I would do so in a heartbeat. OGRE has the best natural max CON in the game (26) and has an above average LUCK of 5. GIANT has a max CON of 24 and a LUCK of 6. GIANTS get destroyed (magical attack from a monster that kills you outright) alot more often than OGRES -- which is why I suggest high CON over high LUCK. See the help file for guidance on races and guilds.
Alignment (Good, Evil, Neutral) affects which guilds you can join, and which items you will use. Most items have Alignments, and you only derive the benefit of those items if it matches your char’s alignment. A Neutral char could swing a weapon that is either Evil or Good, but it won’t perform nearly as well as the same item in the “N” (neutral) flavor. Stat raisers that are off by one align factor, do nothing at all. If they are off by two (IE Good using Evil) they actually reduce the char’s stats instead of adding to them. A piece of equipment that is the polar opposite alignment will curse your char, and you will have to visit the store and pay through the nose to have it removed-- so always pay attention to item alignments and change them (often referred to as “flipping them”) when they don’t match your chars, or sell them to the store (called “splashing”) if they are too expensive to change. Some items don’t have alignments and can be used freely by any char.
Enough of the basic stuff. Lets talk about how to begin a winning party in JAVATAR.
The early game, is a struggle for finding stat raisers (tomes, potions and a couple scrolls) and gold. If you just start out your first “real” char without having any stat raisers saved up, his ATT/DEF will be low and he will roll subpar hits everytime you make level. By the time you make level 30, you will be seriously behind. We can avoid this by making our first chars as “throw away” characters. Below you will find three different methods for acquiring enough gold and stats to start a “REAL CHAR.”
--Method One: Traditional
Open three game windows. One the first create an Ogre char and set the CON, STR and DEX to the maximum values. Divide up the remaining stat between INT and WIS. Set the alignment, sex and name (remembering that this char will either be deleted, or used for item storage when we are done-- so don’t put your favorite char name on this one.) and then bring him/her into the game. (Sex has no effect on game play whatsoever-- choose whichever you wish.) This char will have a decent ATT/DEF of 10/10 before any items -- and be resistant to poison and paralysis--two early char killers. Using the second window create a Osiri and set this one’s stats with 13 INT 13 WIS 6 STR 19 CON and 21 DEX which will net out a char with 10/10 ATT/DEF before items, and be able to wear all the beginner stuff and eventually throw “charm of opening” to let you access locked boxes. If you want to try and make this char a THIEF you have to set the STR to 8 and the dex to 19. This reduces ATT/DEF slightly. Again, probably not your favorite name on this char.
Each new char starts the game with a 500 Gold loan from the bank. Buy leather armor, cloak, leather boots, leather cap, leather bracers, leather gloves and then use them along with your hands. This will give you an additional +8/+10 ATT/DEF on each char. You can bank the left over gold, to reduce your chars debt to -19 gold each, or just hold onto it, because you may need it to make levels-- totally your choice. If you carry gold in the dungeon, there is always a chance it will get thieved, which is a pain, because the monster usually takes his treasure with him when he runs away after stealing from you. You cannot give items or gold while you are in debt to the bank.
From the city, you can enter ‘z’ to go to the starter dungeon. Think of this as a dungeon with training wheels. The monsters are weakened, and tend to drop stats more often. Additionally, if you die in the starter dungeon, the city guards will perform a free rescue. This can be handy, but the goal is not to die at all. Head down to the starter dungeon after equipping all your items and your Hands. It is time to kill some monsters and take their stuff. If you take any damage at all, X out of the encounter and run back to the city to get your hits back. This is important. You don’t want to die. Kill stuff. Open boxes. Repeat. Things to look for are Wererats (sometimes show up as Giant Owls) and Training Golems-- both are good experience. If you get diseased or poisoned...run to the city. Don’t go too far into the dungeon until you have made level 2. You need that quick return in case things get a little hairy. When you have enough EXP to make level, the EXP indicator on your char will turn BOLD. When you are pinned and incapable of making any more the EXP and the number next to it will both be BOLD. Note: you can only enter the starter dungeon when you are levels 1,2 or 3. Once you make level 4 that option is closed and you will be making trips to the regular dungeon where the monsters are tougher, less likely to give stat raisers and dying will become very expensive very fast. To maximize our returns, you want to make levels 2 and 3 as soon as you have enough EXP to do so. After you make level 3 you want to hold off on making any more levels until you are PINNED. EXP and the number next to it will both be BOLD. When both chars are pinned-- return to city and make level 4. You will be 1 EXP point short of level 5, and hopefully you don’t get quested. Then when you have to enter the real dungeon, you will only need 1 EXP to make another level. Got it? Around level 5 or so, your Osiri char can start casting charm of opening. It will be really expensive, and he can only cast it once per run. When you find a magically locked box, cast it then return to city. Hoard up all the papers, flasks, you find. Dump them all on a third char that you will never leave the city with. Use this third char as storage for stuff that you don’t want to lose.
Gold is the big limiter in the early game for most chars. Sometimes it is hard to acquire enough just to keep up on making levels, let alone have any extra to ID items. If you are lucky, a bigger char make take pity on you and drop you some cash. If not, we will talk about how to best get the gold you require. When you find items in the dungeon, you partially ID them based on the combined intelligence and wisdom of the char it lands on. Our chars are going to be stupid, so you won’t be able to tell the difference between a scroll and a book or between a shield and a hammer. Sorry. That is just how it is. The good news is that the first ID in the store is very inexpensive. When you find Paper and Flask-- take them to the store and ID them the first step. If the value of the item jumps into the +100K range, stop. It is most likely a stat raiser. Move it to the char you are using for storage. If you pay attention-- the item will show you it’s alignment when you pass it over. I tend to group items of various aligns on different pages on the holder char. Makes it easier to count later. If the item’s value doesn’t jump so high-- it is probably not a stat raiser, and you can sell it or ID it again and sell it. The game will give you more money for stuff (ie it is worth investing in the second ID) even if the store is full of them. The last ID is not that way. If the store is full, you will not receive enough extra value to negate the cost of the final ID. It is a money losing proposition-- so keep it or splash it to the store depending on how much you need cash at the time. The cost to do a second round of ID on Manuals and Potions that are stat raisers will vary wildly. Baseline Manuals are around 95K each. Once you pay this, the item will show up as “Tome of Agility (e)” but is still not fully ID’d. You can use it like that but cannot stack them. By that I mean… If I have 7 tomes of Agility (e) that are all fully ID’d, I can combine them all into one item slot so that I have Tome of Agility (e) [7]. This helps reduce clutter on chars, but has no effect on the item other than that. So don’t fully ID anything unless it is an align you intend not to use, there are less than 7 in the store and you intend to sell it for gold. Again-- the final ID is only cost effective if there are less than 7 in the store already.
--The no CON method. (not recommended)
Do everything above, except don’t put any initial stat points into your char’s CON. Max STR and DEX and divide up the remaining among INT and WIS. This results in higher initial ATT/DEF but produces chars that don’t have many hitpoints and will not survive death.
--The starter dungeon exploit method
[ Use this if you don’t mind feeling like a cheater. ]
Create a holder char and a single OGRE (you will need the CON)
Set the stats to max CON, DEX, STR and divide up the rest among INT and WIS. Take this char to the starter dungeon and build him normally to level 3. At level 3 we stop killing most things with this char. Now we are going to walk thru encounters and look for monsters with boxes. When we find one we are going to SHIFT “O” the box. That means we Open the box with the monsters still alive. They are going to get a really good chance to hit us, and another really good chance to hit us again when we leave the room. You will die. Take the city guards raise when you do, and hope you don’t COMP. If you are careful, and if your char rolls decent hits, you will not die THAT often. Run back to the city whenever your hitpoints fall below 18-20. If you roll bad hits on level 2 or 3, make another char and transfer all the stuff from the first to the second. You will also do this if/when you COMP. This method takes advantage of the generous nature of the starter dungeon-- don’t try this in the regular dungeon-- you will get obliterated. If you COMP on a raise, create a new char, transfer the stuff and delete the one that COMP’d. Repeat as needed. Random items in the boxes tend to have a higher percentage of stats in the starter dungeon, so you can make out pretty well. Again. This is sort of cheating.
What all these methods have in common.
The chars we use are throw away chars. We don’t invest stats in them. We move the stat points we find to a holder char that safely remains in the city. We need about 20-30 stats and 5 CON to begin a real char. We flip alignments of CON to whatever our first char is going to be. We sell just enough stuff to let us afford to do the above. We do not fully ID any stat raisers, unless there are 6 or less in the store and WE INTEND to SELL it for cash. If you are lucky, you will find a potion that is mis aligned (you intend to run a Good/Neutral party and this one is Evil) that the store has very few of. During my most recent test of this I found a Potion of Persuasion (e) that I was able to fully ID and sell for enough cash to cover all the rest of my expenses. At the end of an hour I had a total of 4 CON and 24 non-CON stats to start a real char. Oh-- I was using the Starter Dungeon Exploit method. So factor that in. I would need to run another fifteen mins or so to find 1 more CON-- but once I did-- I would be good to go. Don’t feel bad about using the exploit. The game designers left his one open-- so use if it you wish.
What to do next:
You have run and run and run some more. You have saved up 5 precious CON and a goodly store of other stats. You’ve sold some stuff you don’t intend to use and raised enough money to start flipping stat points. Great. The REAL GAME is about to finally begin.
Your first char:
Traditional wisdom in Avatar (the original 1970’s era game and all of its many descendants) was to tell you to create a box opener char FIRST. Most of the old timers suggest building an Oisiri Thief or an Osiri Scavenger. While that works, My testing shows me it is far from the ideal path.
Before we go much further, I need to explain a few things… so If you are familiar with Avatar start skimming. If you are familiar with RPG’s-- you better pay attention. If you are a novice, read this section TWICE. Peruse the help file and look at the guild tables. There you will notice that the Guild NOMAD rolls large hit dice for its first 30 levels and then gets only 1 hit per level thereafter. In a traditional build, you start as a NOMAD, make level 30 (but not 31) and then switch over to the class you want to be-- where your hits will be frozen until you make level 31+ on the new guild. Make sense? This is because a THIEF for example that builds 30 levels as a NOMAD, and then starts over as a THIEF will have about 90 more hitpoints than one that just starts out building THIEF. NOMAD levels go by pretty fast, since they require little experience and they have a wide assortment of equipment they can use at an accelerated pace. A MAGE for example will build alot slower than a NOMAD, and will roll 2 hits less (on average) but will only roll hits for the first 18 levels. A true Mage will be 100+ hit points behind a mage that starts out as a NOMAD first at level 30. Got it?
In the face of traditional wisdom, I recommend that the first char you build is an OGRE NOMAD. Not just the first 30 levels, but keep building as a NOMAD until you reach level 68 (where they will have access to a 3 swing Mithril Sword) and use this char as an escort/ substitute box opener until the rest of your party will be able to function without him. NOMAD outstrips every other class for survivability and pure punching power at this level with the possible exception of NINJA (that can lay out more damage--but is much more fragile.) Other warrior type classes do not gain the Mithril sword until level 105, and this gives the NOMAD a huge advantage. The draw back is that every level you put on the NOMAD you are falling 1 hitpoint behind because NOMAD only gains 1 HP/lvl while every other class gains 2 HP/lvl. NOMAD is a weak box opener down to about dungeon level 6 or so and a very respectable fighter all the way down to dungeon level 14. Below that, his lack of ATT limits his ability to fight. But understand if you continue to build the char as a NOMAD you are going to either require an infusion of hit point producing resources, or he will be dangerously behind on hits by the time he reaches level 350-ish. As an alternate course of action for those that want to limit the building damage they do to their first char-- you can stop building the nomad in the low thirties and just leave him equipped with a DOMINATOR. It only gets 2 swings, but those swings are VERY BIG Swings. I have seen a NOMAD kill two things outright on level 6 with a DOMINATOR.
This char is going to be your fighter/box opener and provide valuable cover for your next char(s) to build. If you want to later turn this char into a SEEKER or a Warrior* or even a SCAVENGER or THIEF (gasp-- Ogres make really good THIEF chars too-- the low dex doesn’t hurt them that much) you should consider stopping the building process at level 31 (where he can swing the DOMINATOR) and use him in that roll until such a time that the new party no longer needs him.
This will inflict minimal building damage on the char. If you chose to build him to level 68-- understand that he will be 38 hit points behind. Further building will just increase this number. NOMAD’s are fun to run, because the build so fast. You will achieve level 400 before you know it, and most likely while the rest of your party is struggling to get to level 200. This char can be valuable all the way until your party starts running level 14, which most likely will be in the mid 300’s. It’s up to you. Early on the NOMAD can fill the rolls of box opener and fighter. Later, the box opener will simply be beyond him/her and you will need to start a REAL boxing char.
{*A brief NOTE on the WARRIOR-- the ultimate fighter in the game as long as he is equipped with an ELIMINATOR. I wouldn’t build this guild until I had that sword-- without it, NINJA is better in almost every way.}
If you choose not to build a NOMAD NANNY (someone to watch over your young party) char-- then I would steer you towards starting with a TROLL NINJA. In the early game. NINJA has no equal for pure fighting power. By level 109, the NINJA is getting 5 swings that can put down alot of monster in a hurry. Boxing is beyond this char, tho. Yes he can unlock chests (via charm of opening) but he will never be anything other than a dude that rips the lid off and hopes the trap isn’t too bad. Run this char up fast till he gets to 4 swings. By then, you should have saved up enough CON to start another char. This one needs true KILLING power-- and in JAVATAR that pretty much only means SORCEROR. Mage, Wizard, Healer are all pale shadows of the offensive juggernaut that is the SORC. They start out a little slow, but by the time you reach level 33 (Wands) you will be starting to deal out impressive amounts of damage. By the time you reach level 90 (spheres) you will be a whirlwind of death and destruction.
About that time, you will be ready to start a 3rd char, and here the path isn’t nearly so clear. Usually, most people need a box opener by now, and if so-- you can go THIEF or SCAVENGER and I would give the nod to THIEF. Don’t get hung up on the lack of ATT/DEF or killing power the THIEF has. Sure SCAVIE is vastly superior in this regard, but you aren’t building a char to try and replace a true fighter. The THIEF will be opening boxes like a champ by level 160 ish while the SCAVIE will still be opening boxes like a chump well into his 600’s. Yeah, SCAVIE has some nice items he can wear to vastly increase his killing power-- but chances are those are only really useful if your sorc is dead, or if you are just trying to build the SCAVIE. I have built both, and I wish I hadn’t built the SCAVIE first. At level 999 he is a pretty poor boxer on 15 and the ubers.
You may also want to consider a char that can teleport or recall around. Seeker and Wizard are options here-- but I have no love for the WIZARD guild at all. My wizard is ineffective and loves to flop on the floor at the first hint of real monsters being ahead. Seeker is a hopeless fighter -- and is really only useful for moving around and locating people. He gets a reasonable DEF, so he serves some purpose to stand in front of the party and absorb damage.
You might want some healing ability. HEALER is the hands down winner in this regard-- tho he is both expensive and slow to build. Mage is another choice, but he lacks the biggest heals and the ability to raise dead, trading those in for some unique and effective spells and the ability to charm. I have run both, and I would give the nod to HEALER. Paladin and Villain both have some healing abilities, but they are pretty small. At end game their lack of fighting power limits their usefulness on level 14-15.
At the end of the day, JAVATAR like its predecessors leaves you to make some choices. Killing power, versus defense, versus healing versus travelling versus buffing versus weapons. The main difference with JAVATAR is that you are only limited by the size of your computer display and your ability to switch between multiple windows. I always ran 6 chars at once. Other people seem to struggle with 5. I have ran as many as 8 simultaneously in the party when ubering… and it is really hard to do so well. This ability to super-size your party makes it ideal to choose the BEST guilds at each function. Why run a MAGE who is not as good at healing in preference to a HEALER, if at some point you can actually run BOTH if you chose to? Why try and make do with a PALADIN as a fighter and a healer when you can just run another window and add a HEALER to the NINJA you already have?
I will leave you with words concerning the WARRIOR class spoken to me by my gaming mentor. “Build the Guild when you have the SWORD.” What he meant was-- a WARRIOR without the ELIMINATOR is not really worth the effort to build. When you have acquired the weapon, you will be large enough that you can powerbuild a WARRIOR to swing it in very little time. When I acquired my second ELIMINATOR, I was able to build a new WARRIOR (ogre, of course) to level 511 in about 6 weeks.
I hope you enjoy the game. It is well worth the price of admission. (wink)
JF
NOTE: I deleted the previous threads in this vein because they were written at various times as my ideas on this subject evolved. Looking back at them, they seemed contradictory and confusing.
Another NOTE as promised above:
When a char fails saving throw versus CON during a raise attempt, the result is COMPLICATIONS. The char will lose a percentage of its hits, -3 to each stat except CON (-5) and will age 15 years. This is why dying is bad. Eventually you COMP and after 5 or 6 COMPS-- you are in bad shape.
