Not So Newb Guide

So this will be for people who understand the basic game, the areas, some common eq, etc, and generally how to do stuff. Not going to take time to explain things here, I'm presuming you get the game sufficiently at this point.

Leveling

You're going to need every class, so one aspect is simply grinding chars. However to do so, you want to set up support chars to fetch gear, store gear, and buff yourself.

Self Sufficiency

I would bang these guys out first:

Paladin: Good Gear Gatherer for 'hardish' things or stuff you're not confident about

Ranger(s): For storage holding of gear. Nicer than warriors cuz they get identify. Set their base int/wis to max to level them as fast as possible. Gear them with generic +STR stuff just so they can carry 1000lbs. Don't bother gearing them more, they should never leave DH really.

Mage+Cleric: for spells. Again I wouldn't bother dressing them especially well, just throw on as much +mana gear as possible, and figure out some sort of spell casting triggers so you can become self sufficient with your own buff bots instead of relying on the bots people leave in DH. Level the clerics evil for necromantic touch leveling, and make the mages Path of Defense once they av.

Gear Gathering

After you have an AV and some sort of storage char, it'll behoove you to go spend a bit of time gathering leveling gear onto your storage for future usage.

You should try to be efficient, don't store unnecessary stuff if you have a better piece. Don't store gear for every 2 levels you get. Get some stuff you can swap on around level 20, then get some upgrades around level 35, and that should be enough.

Some of this can be fast/easy gear, but a lot of 'good' leveling gear requires a small bit of effort and is really quite fun to spend time getting. So, you can break up the monotony of grinding out chars by switching over to exploring for a nice piece of leveling gear from time to time.

Easy Gear

You can pull some things from my Lowbie Eq page, look them up on rodpedia for more info. Off the top of my head some stuff you can quickly just go out and grab:

Sentinel gear, lion-crested bracers, Coral Depths area pops (red satin sash, delicate silver bracelet, suit for diving, thick leather jerkin), quilted leather sleeves, iron nasal helm, eltor hide leggings, Ocean Keep stuff (ring of kings navy, sailor's earring, sharktooth necklace)

Involved Gear

This should also just be considered "Lowbie Stuff to Do" which is fun and rewarding and will help you learn the game!

You'll have to look up more info on these items on rodpedia or go into the areas and actually play the game to figure out how to get them.

1. go to The Sentinel and make it into The Gauntlet, lots of good gear. Fun area as a newb. Go around lvl 15.
2. Blorin in DH Town Hall gives a quest every 10 levels for ok gear that is player-tagged. Decent stuff and easy.
3. Bands of power
4. a squirrel fur cloak / a bear fur cloak / a minotaur fur cloak
5. Dragon's Helm / Dragon Gloves Dragon_Gloves/Helm
6. a tiny, darkly stained, crystal disk (can be a handy item for lowbie detect_hidden)
7. a gryphon etched ear cuff (and a rampaging gryphon)
8. a bronze shield / a golden braid (https://rodpedia.realmsofdespair.info/wiki/SMR_Items)
9. a black lacquered ring
10. eight monkeys
11. the ring of the dragons
12. the embrace of the fallen goddess
13. spike leather armguards of the tribesman and other Brutus gear
14. a polished wood ring
15. a pair of diamond earrings

There's a bunch more, those are just off the top of my head. Ask around, spend some time doin this stuff, its fun and helps.

Fast Grind

Once you've got some gear on hand, its time to just pound out the levels.

The fast grind way to level is quite easy, and quite boring. You really do not need to go anywhere but here to AV:

Level 2-6:   Shattered Refuge: assistance scientists & scientists
Level 6-15:  Coral Depths: crab guards, young merman
Level 15-20: Welmer's feet/hands. Love/Confusion in DAG Spectrum painting
Level 20-40: Spectrum
Level 30-50: DAG (Spectrum, Phunbaba, Grotok, Storm Giant, Enormous Elephant, Aram Dol), Temple of the Moon
Level 40-50: Mahn-tor Catacobs*

For Catacombs you'll need to know a bit how to get in there, it requires killing Mahn-tor with your AV then planting a mage inside so you can summon your lowbie in. That's a bit more advanced and you'll probably need to ask around for more info on that.

Here's a novel trigger that will make leveling a TON easier... you can adapt/expand very easily I hope you see:

#TRIGGER {Your Strike} {strike}

Avatar

Once you AV, and have a little family of AV's, here's some ideas about how to set yourself up for success.

Organization

You're going to want end up with something like this eventually:

• Storage Chars: 3+ Rangers
  • Lowbie gear storage
  • Avatar gear storage
  • Items/scroll/consumables storage (random useful stuff)
  • Other.... (over time, you'll end up with a bunch of storages, can never have enough)

• Spell Bots:' As many pairs as you can be bothered to level. At least 2 pairs is nice:
  • Make the mages 'Path of Defense'
  • Park a set in DH
  • Have a set you take with you out to run mobs/areas

• Run Chars: Including specialized stuff:
  • Aug, Neph, Fatty, Thief, Pally, Ranger, Barb, Vamp, Druid
  • Paradox Mage
  • Immob Mage
  • Ranger Archer(s)
  • Storm Cleric
  • Tank Cleric
  • Necro Cleric
  • Eventually specific aligns of some classes for specific purposes.

Preparedness

You wanna keep your run characters clean, well stocked, and ready to go. They're not the chars to keep random junk on that you found somewhere and might identify later cuz you're not sure about blablabla. No. Keep that shit on your random storage chars.

Run Characters should carry the following stuff. I split it up between an "item container" and a "potion container".

Item Container:

 a fly object                      (a magical flying carpet, a flying broomstick, etc)
 recall scrolls
 cure blindness scrolls
 the ancient amulet of dispersal   (if you don't get 'dispel magic' spell)
 a round, blue stone               (if you don't get 'shockshield' spell
 Class-objects                     (a solomonic crucifix, a symbol of faith, a glowing crystal, etc)
 a jade cameo                      (group iceshield)
 a sorcerer's walking stick        (group shockshield)
 the Staff of Barad-Dur            (group fireshield)
 a laundry basket                  (a spare container in case yours scraps)
 an apple of life (20)             (double heals in case you get in trouble during a fight)
 a lump of decaying flesh          (flesh armor spell  (-50 AC))
 Playername's skeleton key         (unlocks all dh gates)

Potion Container: This is what I carry on my Ranger. If the char doesn't use mana, dump those and carry more heals.

 a glowing violet potion (350)
 the essence of forest (250)    (These are Guild of Nature mana potions)
 a sanctuary potion (10)
 a true sight potion (10)
 a create spring potion (5)
 a blazeward potion (2)
 an antimagic shell potion (2)
 a demonskin potion (2)
 a dragonskin potion (2)
 a grounding potion (2)
 a protection potion (2)
 an eldritch sphere potion (2)
 an ethereal shield potion (2)
 an ethereal web potion (2)
 a shadowform potion (2)
 a deep green potion (2)

Note: Never use 'a glowing blue potion' for mana. They weigh 2. Mana's from guilds or race hometowns weigh 1.

Note: You can use various things to obtain 'stone skin': a deep green potion, polishing compound, are both popular.

Stock EQ

• Once you AV you'll want to throw on some cheap and easy AV level gear so you can go start killing stuff for better stuff and running with friends.
  • Basic AV Gear. It helps to keep multiple of that stuff in storage so you don't have to go get it every time you AV a new char.

• Beyond that you'll need to start learning all the available AV equipment and how to get it.
  • Common Av EQ for comparisons of things you might hear about fairly often in game.
  • Gear Guides for more in depth listings of each class and wear slot.

Strategies

Please consider the following:

Stun: The warrior stun skill can neutralize some mobs easy peazy.

Poison: Learn how to make poison daggers. If a mob can be poisoned, he'll drop no problem after a half hour or so.

Flee Heal: Maybe the mob is kinda hard. Can you flee, heal-up, and get back to it? Does the mob heal while you're gone? If not, this may work to solo hard things.

Immob: Path of Balance mage can immobilize mobs while a hitter whacks away. If there's no ip check, you can do this solo.

Neph+Immob: Nephandi spells can increase mobs susceptibility to paralysis, making them immob-able.

Archers: Rangers can fire arrows into an adjacent room.

Chokehold: Barbarians chokehold move can be repeated if you quit/relog, or if another barb chokes after you. If no IP check, you can do this solo with 2 barbs.

CounterMagick: Path of Countermagick mages spell 'invoila magicka' blocks ALL magic/gas attacks. Also, if an IP+ penalty is magic/gas prog, you can IP+ safely.

Zurg Rush: If you can fight a mob for a minute, die, and run in another character while resetting the first guy, using a few characters so you're always fighting, that can work.

Armies: Of course, the above ideas can be extended to ip8 application:

• Barb Army: 8 barbs wreck house. Many mobs only check IP on the tank, so find a buddy to tank and 2 people can do 9 chars worth of damage.

• CM Mage Army: Since most IP+ penalties are magic progs, and invoila blocks those, you can ip8 stuff you shouldn't normally be able to.

• Archers: 8 rangers firing arrows into something can drop it surprisingly fast