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Athenaeum : Tips & Tricks // Browsing(64) Playing(170) Pfiles(80,726) Clans(104) LiveFeed(down)

Information that is perhaps not so obvious but useful is provided below. If you have any to add, e-mail me (saga[@]ingenii[dot]com). Make sure it is something not commonly known. If it is, be certain that the information is genuinely helpful. New entries are appended to the beginning.

-The Alignment system isn't fully implemented, but it is still wise to keep it in mind when riding mounts or using certain equipment.

-Lost in the maze of a suburbs? Track! or get someone who can.

-Even when silenced, bard heal can still be played. It can be considered a cure light.

-Hands of Wind only works indoors, but an unformed friend with a Bloodbane Mask would eventually scatter your opponent's form.

-Make the full use of the Angel of Sanity's services by ordering Zehn to go to the same room or adjacent to your target mob.

-Want an free, extra but semi-permanent tree in your house's garden? Bury the correspinding seed and you shall get one in a few ticks. Examples are Acorns for Oak Trees and black seeds for special healing plants (these are one-use only but has the save-loc flag).

-Some low level light sources such as War Banners or Gryphon Feathers add stat bonuses like +ar and +knowledge respectively.

-Some mounts do not require to drink as they don't suffer from hunger nor thirst like Sigil's Binky or Swiftmoon from Rune.

-Poisoned food could eventually kill low-level mounts, so be careful with what you feed them with.

-Poison gas poisons EVERYTHING possible in the room, including food stuffs.

-Lots of things can be Cursed and Poisoned. You can cast Curse food, equipment and even fountains. And on that note, you can also Poison lots of things... including fountains!

-The owner-only flag is very helpful and sometimes fun along with restrung items, but be wary that when there is a reboot, the owner of the item resets to none and the very first person to pick said item will be the new owner.

-Knowledge not only helps you get more Spell Points every level, but it is a major attribute in getting betters.

-Bribing an Archon Hunter usually causes them to cast Silence...

-We all know that Luck affects everything, so think about it when purchasing the Amulet of Wealth contribute item.

-You can actually get betters in the Magical Items skill through use of Magical items such as staves, scrolls and such. You don't have to try to attain the rare Vandemaar's Compendium of Magical Artifacts from the elusive Terra Ohellium.

-1st class tourmaline limit is 600.

-Maleficarium roots now kill you instead of descending you a level in the Domain of Arbaces.

-There are 197 shops in the Alyrian Bazaar.

-To save any item of level x when you quit, your character must be at least level x-45. (For example, to save a level 150 item when you quit, you must be at least level 105.) The only exception are containers, which have no minimum level requirement.

-To wear an item of level x, your character must be at least level x-5. (For example, a level 45 item can only be worn by a character that is at least level 40.)

-To avoid the space (" ") before the argument when creating a custom colored communication/channel alias (ft, ct, relay, etc.), put an extra pipeline | after the alias. Example: alias ct ct |R|

-At repop (also known as an area reset, when monsters respawn), doors will become magically unlocked if they were previously magic locked or barred by a player.

-Although it isn't mentioned in the HELP WHO file, you can stack your searches by including multiple keywords. For example: 'who saint guide dar* 180 240' will return all 4th class guides whose names begins with "dar" and has the reputation of a saint.

-The Merdraco completes a full route of Rune to Sigil to Pirates Cove to Tellerium to Templeton and reverses past all those towns to Rune in around 30 real life minutes. Although the paths are automated, Captain Pierot is affected by the winds, so actual travel times may vary slightly.

-When making an alias for the clan talk channel, set your alias to "alias ct ct whatever_tag" instead of "alias ct clan talk whatever_tag". This is because "ct" can be used while tracking, but "clan talk" cannot.

-Some useful moon tips! If the phases are full/full, there are no archon hunters and sp regen is high. If the phases are new/new, there are many archon hunters and sp regen is low! Be careful.

-Players who wish to own houses in Tellerium can request a Pylon - which will allow magic use in the non-magic town. The construction cost is 5 million gp.

-Walking to the center of an active or inactive worldgate and using the CLAN GOHALL command will allow you to travel to your hall, even if it is crosszone. The only exception here is the worldgate at the Void. In which case, you should just enter it and then gohall.

-Need to disable your alias? SET NOVICE ON and all of your aliases will be disabled until you turn novice back off.

-Note that using any of the auction commands will turn the auction channel on (even if you purposely had it off in the first place).

-Ogres and dracons gain a bonus to their AR due to their hides toughening. The bonus is +2 to AR to start, and +1 point each class change, which would give you a maximum of +6 AR.

-Being an outlaw usually invokes the more aggressive side of guards.

-No matter where the Wandering Sidhe is, if you die there, you will always resurrect in Rune.

-At Archon, augment aura adds around 21 damage to your weapon damage before other calculations like accuracy, target, or riding. Note that there is a random deviation (positive or negative) of several points.

-Charm resistance and paralyzation resistance will help ward off a sleep spell, as will an "awaken" spell. There's also an automatic 75% chance to resist a sleep spell, in addition to everything else.

-Remember that irritation is aggressive and plague non-aggressive, meaning you can cast plague on mobs without having them auto-attack you.

-Don't attack guards when they're in the same room with other guards. Even if they're not formed before you attack, they'll form up after you start fighting. Tricky bastards.

-If you want to remove your handfasting (torque) ring, you can do so at Rune Jewelers. Just take a look at the jeweler's description to find out how.

-Alyria is pronounced uh-leer-ee-uh, not uh-lie-ree-uh.

-There is always a ten percent chance for the web failure if you are affected by web unless you are casting a spell or using a proficiency that you have learned 100% (that does not include music or bash).

-When you have a spell affect on you that constantly drains sp (such as 'telekinetic shield' or 'combat blink'), your sp regen is capped at 225sp per tick.

-When you master a spell (get it to 100% learned), that spell is no longer affected by the web filter. Note that skills such as bash do not have this absolute benefit (although they do have a higher chance of going through the filter when you're more learned at said skill).

-The "web failure" check is based upon the level of the web spell, and the learned percentage of the skill (spell or proficiency) being checked against it.

-Whether the web spell lands or not is also dependent on your opponent's agility stat (on top of normal save-versus-paralysis). The higher the agility, the higher the chance of saving against web like spells.

-If you have haste on, your regeneration will slightly decrease. But this decrease is negligible considering the benefits of the spell. Also note that halflings are autohasted, and their form of haste does not decrease regeneration.

-It's a good idea to practice useful skills. -Fruitwall entry #4031

-Your regeneration per tick is capped at 200hp, 250sp, and 250st. Note that mobs do not have this restriction.

-At 75%, battle rage does 2.5x your normal damage. At master (100%), it does 3x.

-While having low sanity is bad in most cases (especially with spell casting), it helps slightly with the skill battle rage.

-Level betters are based on your class' primary stat. Knowledge helps with your normal betters.

-The higher your sanity, the more likely you are to resist the unforming effects of telekinetic wave.

-For the proficiency 'battle rage' to kick in, you have to be wearing a weapon.

-If you just bought your first house, changing recall points from 'the nearest recall point' to your house incurs a charge of up to 30,000 gold (depending on your level). You should just log out and log back in; your default recall point will then be your new house.

-If you are a deceased Sidhe looking for the Sidhe King, be wary which castle you are in. If you are in the wrong castle and meet the Queen, she'll zot you instead. This goes vice-versa for Feys as well.

-Putting an item in a forge identifies it. This is because 'identified' is a flag, and forging an item restores all stats and flags.

-Not much of a tip than an oddity: If your current gender is female, try certain socials with Lady Undya "for a good time".

-The 'plane travel' spell randomly places you on another plane (faerie, underworld, void, or normal). Whether it is day or night does not affect which plane you're placed in.

-Be wary when using transportation items such as the Broom of Baba Yaga over bodies of water. You might be buffeted by crosswinds! If you do, your broom won't be in the same room. Check the adjacent rooms quickly. Note that you can't be buffeted while the transportation item is in motion, luckily.

-Plague and irritation are slightly different. Plague has a longer duration but irritation has less strict saving rules. Plague is completely cancelled if a saving throw versus spell is made. Irritation still lands if the save throw was successful (albeit at half duration).

-Telekinetic shield has a chance to block enemy projectile spells no matter what defensive style you have set.

-When any of the two moons are in the phase, "New", spellpoint regeneration slows down. Likewise, when any of the two moons are in the phase, "Full", spellpoint regeneration increases. The effects stack, so you can expect your spellpoint regeneration to slow down to a snail's crawl when both moons are "New".

-If your walk speed over oceans is unusually slow, make sure you have haste casted and are not burdened by too much weight.

-Giving useless items or gold to Archon Hunters will usually result in something bad happening to you. :p

-Practicing shift only affects the length of time you are shifted and not the kind of NPC you plan on shifting into.

-Saying -anything- when your mount slips and falls will have it stand up.

-There is a rumor that luck affects how often you can successfully receive a quest...

-Whenever you need to regenerate and there is furniture around you, (such as the bench east of Rune recall), be sure to sleep on the furniture to speed up your regeneration rate.

-Having the spell 'haste' cast on you will greatly help your seawalking adventures.

-LPK battles show up under "arena battles" in your score.

-Memory drain, telesmatic force, disrupt sight, forget, induce aggression, spook, most of the telekinetic spells, teleview, confusion, insanity, and immobilize all check against mental resistance.

-You can only restring items that still have taints.

-Keep in mind that donation items like the Ring of Lord Agrippa are created with the random stat generator turned off. So if +4 svs is advertised, that is the exact amount you will get.

-Although using 'combat aim head' scores you extra damage per hit, keep in mind that your accuracy drops. So unless you're mounted (which doubles your accuracy at 100% riding) or have high accuracy, I would be wary about aiming for the head.

-Druids, psionics, and bards don't need spellbooks, memorization, or scrolls to cast any of their spells.

-There is no preset number for getting betters. It depends on the skill complexity plus the time you received your last better.

-Certain rooms, like Lord Maldra's Throne Room, is flagged double-damage. Be careful when fighting in such rooms, as everyone takes 2x normal damage. Of course this can be used to your advantage if you spam high damage spells... such as telekinetic explosion or ice whip.

-Roomshield and momentary darkness can block players from televiewing you.

-Lightning vulnerability increases damage from lightning based attacks by 25%. Something to seriously consider if you are going to be a dwarf.

-The psionic's sensory enhancement spell has the nice side effect of notifying you if someone close by is tracking you.

-Colored asterisks (*) next to player names represent different spell effects. Red represents 'fireshield', white 'sanctuary', cyan 'pass door', green 'invisibility', and dark blue 'lightning shroud'.

-When trading items of high value with another player, make sure to ask a guide to oversee the transaction.

-If you still have time remaining on your quest timer (e.g. quest status gives you "You have 10 minutes remaining before you can quest again."), and you want to find out if you're at your quest limit for a specific questmaster. Just type quest request at that questmaster. You'll know if you've hit the quest limit for that questmaster. If you did, you can spend those 10 minutes or however much time you have left in your timer walking to another questmaster, instead of waiting.

-Protection from good/evil will reduce damage received from coaligned enemies by 5%.

-As you level up, the practice requirement per percentage for skills increases on a sliding scale. Therefore, it is wise to practice everything you need early.

-If you are in a formation, and your 'tank' enters combat first, try typing 'kill (mob)' before you are automatically entered into combat. If you're fast enough, you will gain another round of combat.

-If you have to die to get out of a place or for whatever other reason, you don't have to use 'pray death'. You can 'remove all', and then repeatedly cast a damage spell at yourself. You'll die, and the death timer will be a lot shorter than if you used 'pray death'.

-Keep in mind that the donation Ring of Lord Agrippa only heals you when you are below half your max HP (when your HP turns yellow).

-If you kill a mob, and get this message when trying to sacrifice the corpse: "The corpse of a :insert mob: cannot be sacrificed," run away! It's going to blow up and hurt you. :p

-Different weapon types have different stamina drain rates. For example, attacking with a lance drains more stamina than attacking with an axe.

-Saving throws are not a 1:1 ratio. Therefore, while resistance adds a 25% bonus to the computations, this does not necessarily mean that you will have a 25% chance of resisting something that uses the effect type to which you are resistant. The level of the affect on the player (level at which spell is cast) as well as the level of the player himself is utilized. As you level, all players gain natural resistance to lower level spells, that is the way the saving throw system is set up here.

-Bard hinder and wizard slow are essentially the same skill, slow just has a longer duration than hinder. Hinder also takes away 2 agility vs. slow's 3.

-If you are silenced and need to speak with other players in the room you can use the emote command to say what you need to until the spell wears off. If it's a private message to a single person that's not necessarily in the same room, then try using the page command (note that the other player has to have paging enabled).

-Yell has a 50 room radius while shout has a 150 room radius.

-The higher your agility, the less intrusive the web filter will be.

-As long as your strength is above 15, you will have a chance to automatically struggle out of web.

-The lower your ratio between current hp/sp/st versus max hp/sp/st, the faster you regenerate.

-Once you're blind, dodging effectively is determined by your luck.

-Let's say you're fighting an annoying mob with a lot of hp. If you have a good dagger, and have both skills 'dagger' and 'backstab' practiced, you can use 'backstab -foo-' 'flee direction' and repeat to get the mob down to very significant before fighting him toe to toe. This works especially well against spell casters, if you have a fast alias you can backstab the caster before his spell finishes, causing it to backfire. Against aggressive mobs however, you'll need a different tactic. If the area surrounding the mob you want to kill has another mob, you can try fleeing off the other mob and into the room with the mob you want to kill, and proceed from there.

-When you're starting a character, visit Telgan's Tavern and give him a strawberry. He'll reward you with 750 experience. Whee!

-If you're in a dizzy room with aggressive mobs and no means of dispel area, your chances of fleeing are greatly increased if you just type 'flee' without any arguments.

-If you're out in the ocean, you can sleep to help prevent being buffeted by crosswinds.

-On auction, you can tell if someone is trying to swindle you by looking at the number of taints at the bottom of the identified output. It will say something like: "*This item may be repaired x more times." A 'full taints' item usually has 7 taints available, but there are exceptions.

-To find the copper door quickly when you're in the void, walk to random rooms and type 'scan'. Even though the door isn't a mob, you'll eventually see "* A very unusual doorway which is..."

-If it's been a long time and Lord Glomus in Decara has not repopped, keep in mind he only repops 3 times every 6 hours.

-If you want to find out whether a character exists without having to try create the character, just type 'clan who PLAYERNAME' or 'notify PLAYERNAME'. If you get the message, "There is no player by that name," then no such character exists.

-If you want to find out if your between-quest timer is up without idling in the Lord's chambers, type quest status. If it says 'You are not currently on any quests.' you're free to quest. If it says you have to wait a number of minutes, then check later.

-If you're in the wilds near a town and you want to reach that town's recall point, you can just die (by attacking a strong mob or through 'pray death') and you will reincarnate later on at that recall point.

-Once you are about to archon, the vial you get (good or evil) will determine the color of your name on the who list.

-If you drop items and they sink to the ocean floor, they will appear in the ethereal void.

-If you want to see if it's shift time (and you don't have shift), just type 'shift'. If it says "your powers aren't strong enough at this time of day to do that," then it's not shift time, but if it says, "you don't know how to do that," it is shift time.

-Items (such as astrals) are randomly scattered around the world every 4 Alyrian days (24 real hours).

-If you're in a dark area with aggressive mobs that have sanctuary or fireshield, and you don't want to encounter them, just take a look at your compass and avoid the "lighted" areas. Since both the aforementioned spells light up a room, the compass will no longer show it as a "dark" room.

-If you want to get past an unprotected mob that requires a keyphrase, attack them and flee in the direction the mob is guarding. Note that this doesn't work for all mobs though.

-If you are in a formation with shifted players, type 'form' by itself to reveal who they are.

-If you want to do a name change, do so early on. After you pass level 45, your name is permanent.

-Telekinetic bash works like normal bash except it deals about half the damage (spell disruption still can occur).

-Completing all but one task on a quest will gain you the full QP (quest points) for the quest but will not gain you anything else (money, experience, practices, not even credit for the quest). This comes in handy if you want to stay at a certain level to get easy quests or quests that you're familiar with.

-Casting spells such as kill, enervation, energy drain, and swarm will cause your alignment to go down over time.

-If you want to reorder items (like trunks) in your inventory, locker the pieces you want reordered, and get them out again. The order you get them out will be the order the items will stack in your inventory - with newer items on top.

-If you 'shop taint' an item, it becomes identified.

-Remove curse does more than just removing curse... it can take away witch spells that pesky hunters like to cast on you (jinx, malediction, evil eye).

-It takes two sips from a decanter of endless water to fully satiate yourself when you are hungry/thirsty.

-You may be wondering why the stage illusionist in New Rigel doesn't always transport you to Tellerium when you say 'me'. This is because he has not offered the disappearing trick up to the audience yet. Wait in the Town Square until he announces it, and then say 'me'.

-Not really a tip, so to speak, but you can set combat defense to 'none' if you enjoy pain.

-You can increase the chances of automatically struggling (out of web) by maxing your strength and courage. Courage also helps in bash and in resisting fear-type spells.

-If you have an item with negatives (and no good positive modifiers you care about), you have a chance of "sparking" the negatives off. Remove the item and rewear it. Repeat until you get a message about the item sparking with a "thin trail of smoke." This will randomly remove a modifier from the item, starting with spells, and then moving on to stat modifiers. Note that with any item, spells will ALWAYS be the first thing to spark off.

-Don't blurt out vulgarities or do obscene emotes when you're at a questmaster. All of them can now kill/punish you. =P

-When you level, the new HP/SP/ST/pracs you gain are determined by your current stats. If you have not maximized your vitality, wisdom, and/or knowledge, it is wise to wear equipment that temporarily raises these stats before you level. It does not matter if this equipment is worse than your current set, only the +stat raises to vitality, wisdom, and knowledge matters. You can remove this "leveling equipment" afterwards, and put it back on when you are about to level again.

-If you are on Wizardry Isle (or any location for that matter) and you want to find out how many people are shifted or mimiced (usually indicative of moat-camping), type 'shout x' where x can be anything. Compare that to how many people you see on where, and you will know how many are shifted. Beware that people with the shout channel turned off will not show up in the shout tally. If you want a quick but superficial overview of potential threats on the Isle, you can also do 'who outlaw' and see any outlaws who may be on Wizardry Isle (denoted with an "Isle" flag in cyan).

-Alyrian time is four times faster than real time. (For example, 4 alyrian minutes is equal to 1 real minute; 1 alyrian minute is equal to 15 real seconds.)

-There always is at least a 1% chance of a spell failing, no matter how learned you are.

-If you plague or poison someone, their regeneration rate will decrease significantly. Make sure to cast plague or poison (preferably both) on your opponent if the fight will drag on for awhile (high HP mobs, players in PK).

-If you get attacked by a shifted person, cast dispel magic on them to reveal who they are.

-When you create a new character, the rolls for stats never go above 15 unless you are an ogre - in that case your strength may on rare occasions hit 16. (This does not count class attribute bonuses, such as an additional 2 strength in character creation from being the Barbarian class.)

-Vitality determines how much HP and stamina you get per level, knowledge determines SP, while wisdom determines practice points. It is always a good idea to get these 3 primary stats to a relatively high level early on.

-If you get an Orb of Vandemaar and you wish to use it, but you are afraid of dying on the trip to Rune, put it up on auction. Even if you die along the way, you will get money for the Orb (versus the Orb just vanishing from your inventory if you die).

-If you are fighting a hunter and you are webbed and/or blinded, with no hopes of winning, you can avoid dying by simply calming and quitting. Wait a minute, log back on, and your hunter should have rifted away. This can be a dishonorable way to avoid dying in PK too, but players generally have a bit more patience than hunters, so delay your login. Be wary that not all locations allow you to quit this way.

-Want a quick way to die? Just eat a maleficarum root anywhere except in the Proving Grounds. If you do eat a root within the Proving Grounds - or the Domain of Arbaces for that matter, you will automatically descend a floor (there is a slight chance of dying through this method, so trunk your good stuff before venturing in the CPK at the Proving Grounds). And be careful - if you are on the last floor of the Proving Grounds or the second to last floor of the Domain of Arbaces and you eat a root, you will die. Eating a root in the Proving Grounds will also help you escape from combat by descending a floor.

-Anti-botting code is implemented in Materia Magica to keep people from trying to force skill improvements by slowing them down if the code detects overuse of specific skills.

-Silence is checked against your save versus petrification (not save versus spell, as one might believe).

-There's a limit of 1,000 quests you can do at your first class.

-Once you train the skill martial arts past 50%, your hand-to-hand fighting will get a significant accuracy boost.

-The limit for the number of tourmalines you can deposit in your first class is 650. If you have over 650, you'll have to carry the rest around.

-You can get containers that are 30 levels above you. So you can obtain Vandemaar's Trunk (level 140) when you're at level 110. However, remember that Lord Maldra only gives you a quest when your level is greater than or equal to 120 (and you need to do a quest to buy the trunk from him). So if your level is between 110 and 119, you can only get the trunk from Terra Ophellum.