Useful Knowledge

General Game Knowledge

A list of general information for new players.

Websites

While the purest of the pure will only rely on in game text, the rest of us use a lot of supplemental resources.

• Rodpedia. The primary resource for all game info. You'll be here a lot.

https://rodpedia.realmsofdespair.info/

• Tokai's site
  • This is super old and now obsolete, has basically been moved into Rodpedia, but used to be the main help site.

http://tokai.ws/

I do really like his Misc Info section and his map is really good for wandering around without specific directions if you're into that: http://tokai.ws/misc/map.htm

• Silverwolf EQ Database
  • This is super old and super janky, but it DOES work.

http://silverwolf-den.com/cgi-bin/db.cgi?db=equip2&uid=default&view_search=1

They also have some basic eq examples outlined on the bottom of this page:

http://rangers.silverwolf-den.com/tips.php

There are other eq databases available, some maintained by private groups. Ask around you might be able to find one.

Death

• Upon death, you will awake in the Temple of Notre Dame. See 'help map'. It is #5 s; e; e; se back to Darkhaven Square.
  • The Academy, where you may have been initially exploring upon first entering the game, is #3 e, s; d from Darkhaven Square.

• If you die while under level 10, you keep all your gear and can just get right back to doing whatever you were doing.
• If you die after level 10, your corpse with all your gear remains where you died. You have 2 options:
  • Return to your corpse and get all your stuff out of it
  • Utilize your deity to 'supplicate corpse' and they will bring your corpse to you so you can get your stuff.

So, it is HIGHLY advised that you devote to a deity as soon as possible (level 5 I think) so you can die a ton and its easy to recover your stuff.

Deities

The deity system here is robust, but I'm going to oversimplify it for you: Deities bring you your shit when you die.

You devote to a deity by walking to their room and using the command 'devote <deity>'. Upon devoting:

• You will have 'favor' with your deity. Displayed in 'score'. See 'help favor_levels' to view all of the favor levels.
• You must have 'praised' favor or higher in order to 'supplicate corpse'.

Gaining favor with a deity varies by deity, however there are 2 that are basically easy-mode. You should use these at first (and kinda always honestly)

For Good align: [A'enari]       (Really all classes can be Good)
For Evil align: [Vl'aresch]   (Vamps, Nephs, Thieves typically are Evil as a newb.)

For these two, all you need to do is visit them to gain favor. Each time you walk into their room you gain favor. You can simply walk in/out/in/out of their room a bunch to reach "Praised" favor level and then will be able to supplicate your corpse.

So:

• Go devote to one of those (just follow the linked directions above to their room, and do 'devote <name>'.
• Walk in/out of their room a bunch until you're at 'praised' favor level.

Then you can go and explore and die whenever, when you do, just use 'supplicate corpse' and get all your shit back. Then go re-favor again back to praised.

When you're ready for more overwhelming information, see https://rodpedia.realmsofdespair.info/wiki/Deity

Handy Resources for Newb Lowbies

Free Heals

• Theggory in Along the Forest Path will heal you every time you answer his question (say 'A small camp')

Navigation

Darkhaven Gates:

The Darkhaven Gates close overnight. If you are very low level this can pose a problem, and can even be an annoyance at higher levels when trying to speedwalk somewhere. There are a few ways to get out if you're unable to kill a guard for the key, and a master key you can obtain to always have your own key to the gates:

• Tagerte's Conveyances: For characters under Level 25 this store #3 s, #3 e, n from DH[] sells transportation tickets to 17 different areas, including a free recall scroll. Simply 'buy <area>' to be sent to the area, and 'recite return' to recall back to DH.

• The Servant:

Along Justice Ave. typically between Vertic and Falcon is a Servant who will send you outside the north wall if you nod servant.

(Grey Aura) A short man dressed in ragged clothes stands against the north side of the wall.

This sends you along the trail outside of the DH in the NW corner of the city. Going #4 east would take you back to the North Gate of Darkhaven.

Sometimes he will prog when you enter the room to announce this feature. They do not need to prog to use their services however. They also give you a recall scroll.

The servant peers at you quizzically.
The servant wonders ''Ey you, what are you doing out here so late?"
The servant says 'Ohh, excuse me, I should have known from your ragged clothes, you must be a servant from the castle too! You looking for the
passage out? Give me a nod if you are.'

You nod in agreement to him.
The servant peers intently about the area, looking for thieves no doubt.
The servant says 'Right then, no one's looking. We kitchen servants use this passage to sneak out unused food to our families after dark.'
The servant turns his back to you, and moves his hand over the wall.
He appears to press down on a part of the wall, however as he is  blocking the wall, you cannot see where he presses.
As the servant steps away, several bricks suddenly move back behind the wall, creating a large passageway!
The servant says 'Right then, this here will take you just outside Darkhaven, and close to the Shadow Grove. Careful as you go through now...'
The servant grabs your arm and drags you with him through the passage!
The servant says 'Here we are, now you've got to find your way back in yourself. I can't be out of the castle during the daytime, and if the guards
catch me outside of Darkhaven I'm as good as dead.'
The servant exclaims 'Most of the other staff just use a recall scroll to get back in. Here, I've got a spare you can have. Take care now!'
The servant gives you a recall scroll.
The servant scrambles back through the passage, and it quickly closes behind him.

• The Skeleton Key:

There is a quest available inside Darkhaven Art Gallery which will get you a Skeleton Key to the Darkhaven Gates. It is tagged to your player specifically, and is a permanent key item that saves when you log out.

This quest has 4 stages that are available at level 10-20, 20-30, 30-40, and 40-50. Completing each stage gets you a key modification that unlocks 1 more gate. So, at level 10, you can get the key and it will open 1 gate for example. Every 10 levels you can do another task to modify that key so it unlocks another gate. Complete all 4 tasks and your key unlocks all DH gates.

To begin the quest, go #4 s;w;n;n;give 5k coin recep; un n; op n; n;open w;w to meet Damian

I won't spoil how to complete this quest here, but it's fairly easy to follow Damian's clues and is worth doing if you find the locked DH gates an annoyance.

Game Fight Mechanics

Little is known about how things 'actually work'. Please closely read the help files for every character stat, hitroll/damroll/ac, saving throws (help saves), resistances/suceptabilities (help resist) for official information on how those work. Here are some theorized inner workings based on myth, rumor, and extremely old public SMAUG 1.8 code. Long story short... its like D&D so make some assumptions and it's basically the same type of system of rolls.

Hitroll: HR seems to impact melee damage. In SMAUG 1.8 code your hitroll was computed against a mobs AC, in a way that is basically straight out of D&D ala its "thac0" (To-Hit AC 0) system if you're familiar with that. For each X of HR you have, it negates Y mob AC. If your hitroll is sufficient to drop mob AC to 0 or less, then you will land a melee hit.

AC: Armor Class should theoretically work the same for players as it does for mobs, so this would roll against the mob's Hitroll. In the SMAUG 1.8 code, AC was also divided by 10 and rounded, so, there would be no difference between having 101 and 199 AC. Whether this is still how current game code works is unknown, but, its likely that AC and HR are still in some sense rolled against one another. High AC will prevent you from taking so much melee damage.

Damroll: DR is a theoretically a modifier of basic weapon/skill/spell damage. If your weapon hits for 10, your DR may get incorporated (somehow) onto that to determine how much damage you land on the mob. It is unknown if/how/when DR is used for offensive skill/spell damage modification, this likely is configured on a per-skill/spell basis. The quantity of damage landed on a mob impacts the XP you gain, so you do want to have high DR to maximize the XP you gain per hit where DR was a factor.

Saving Throws: Some equipment gives you "Saves". These are not visible in 'score' or anywhere in the game, you need to manually identify your items and add up your saving throws. These work just like in D&D as far as I can tell. When faced with incoming damage of a type for which you have some saving throw points, your character rolls a dice which is modified by your saving throw value. If you win the save, the damage you receive is reduced, likely by a percentage such as 1/4 or 1/2. Mobs also have saving throws. There did appear to be a 'cap' in the old code where above a certain value additional saving throw points did not have any further impact on the roll. I believe this was around -23, but I forget and suck at reading code, and that code is long outdated anyhow so who knows if that still applies at all. Long story short, 'the Ice Girth' is an item your AV characters will want if you are finding yourself stunned/paralyzed or your containers scrapping a lot.

Resistances/Susceptabilities: See 'aff by' for your list of current resistances/susceptibilities. The specific modification to damage these result in is unknown, but see 'news 1168' for some additional information from Gonnil.

Alpha Attacks

At Avatar level, these will be your primary attacks.

I've included what is believed to be the primary modifier where known.

• Augurer: Spiral Blast (HP Based)
• Mage: Quantum Spike / Paradox Flux
• Nephandi: Qlippothic Shift
• Cleric (dev): Virtue (CHA Based)
• Fathomer: Vindur Gong
• Thief: Circle (DR Based)
• Paladin: Shieldbash (WIS Based)
• Ranger: Gash (WIS+STR Based)
• Warrior: Smash
• Barbarian: Rend
• Vampire: Grasp (INT & DR Based - See 'news 1149')
• Druid: Nadur Dorn (MANA Based - See 'news 1171')