LegendMUD Newbie Guide Chapter Four: Advancement

"Given time, I grew in power, until I came to dominate the known universe, in utter control of all I surveyed...!"

LegendMUD does not use PRACTICE or a guild system for acquiring skills. Rather, you can learn skills from mobs who would reasonably be expected to know that skill. Most teaching mobs will answer to the question "teach" or "learn" and tell you what they are able to teach you, though they usually require a small quest or a flat fee to do so. If a mob looks at you like they don't understand what you just said, it means they have no response to any of the keywords you just asked them.

Hezekiah and the water clock, from the Bible Moralisee: Paris, c.1235-45

If you are looking to learn the fishing skill, then you would check to make sure you qualify for the skill and try to think of possible mobs who might teach it. The most logical choice here would be to go look for fishermen type mobs. Once you find a fisherman, type ASK FISHERMAN TEACH to get a list of the skills the mob teaches. Some mobs only teach one skill many don't teach at all. If the mob responds favorably by claiming to teach the skill you wish to learn, then type ASK FISHERMAN FISHING. The mob should then teach you the skill. This formula of ASK mob TEACH and ASK mob skillname should be sufficient to learn any skill available on LegendMUD.

ALLSKILLS lists the skills you are qualified to learn based on your current stats and level. You cannot 'train' your stats up, but we do provide stat-boosting equipment, and some quests with stat-boosting rewards. If the skill you attempt to learn is not in your allskills you may still be charged the practice by some sneaky, mean or just plain busy mobs who don't have the time to waste their time teaching people who cannot learn their skill. Skills marked with a + are skills you have already learned.

SKILLS tells you what skills and spells you currently know. Some of your skills will improve the longer you know them, thus you need only spend one practice on each skill. Someone who learns bash at level 2, when it is first offered, will always be better at it than someone who waits until level 20 to learn it. If you've learned a skill, and it appears in SKILLS, you may only use that skill if it ALSO appears in ALLSKILLS. Skills marked with a - are skills you have learned and cannot currently use because you do not currently qualify.

QUERY skillname may be used as a shorthand way of finding out about one skill in particular giving a message based on your knowledge of a skill. It lets you know whether you can learn it, have learned but can't use it, know it, or cannot learn it.

NOTE!! Not all skills are implemented yet. Those that are not will have a warning in their respective helpfile. If you qualify for a skill in allskills, you can read the helpfile.

Mobs and barehanded combat get one attack every 18 pulses--one per round. There are several factors that reduce the number of pulses it takes you to get in a blow, however.

The first of these factors is your highest fighting stat. Your highest stat among STRENGTH, DEXTERITY, and CONSTITUTION determines which kind of weapon you handle best. Strength is associated with slashing and slicing weapons like swords, dexterity with stabbing and piercing weapons, and constitution with bludgeoning and pounding weapons. You enter the game supplied with the best type of weapon for the order in which you chose your attributes.

The second element that affects your attack rate is the QUALITY of the weapon you are wielding. This means that a poorly balanced blade may SLOW your attack while a finely balanced one will enhance it.

The last element that increases your rate of attacks is WEAPON PROFICIENCIES (or profs). These are skills you can eventually learn, with names like swordsmanship, fencing, and arms training. Each applies to a different type of weapon. Different weapon TYPES give different messages in combat and have different abilities. Different types also have radically different effects when they hit items, in terms of damaging them. For example, slashing weapons will damage cloth armor much worse than they will metal armor, whereas bludgeoning weapons will hurt metal badly by denting it, but don't do much against leather armor.

There are also several exotic weapon types (flame, freeze, poison, dissolve, shock, and blast) that are unaffected by weapon proficiencies or the wielder's stats and will always get one blow every 18 pulses.

The magic system at LegendMUD is comprised of a set of words, taken from Sanskrit and other languages, that represent different magical powers. The spells are broken into three categories -- spells of divination, spells of creation, and spells of causation. The school of Divination deals in knowledge. Creation magic can summon elementals, make useful objects where the other school, Causation, makes things happen -- good and bad. Any mage can accumulate spells in the Divination school. But once you choose you must follow either the Create mage's path or that of the Cause mage.

Words are learned in a fashion similar to skills. You will see the words you can learn by typing ALLWORDS, and all the words you currently know by typing WORDS.

The spell words are the words used in chanting to make up the spell that is being cast. Any spell will contain one verb, and up to two subsequent words describing what that spell does in magical verse. Using the chant skill, you would CHANT spellword spellword spellword EX to use a spell.

See HELP ALLSPELLS for how to figure out valid combinations as not all combinations of the WORDS you have learned will produce spells. For the ones that do you can ask a mob 'teach' or 'learn' to see if a mob knows any magical words. Note that they will usually want something in return, just like regular skill teachers.

After you find a combination and you cast the spell the first time it will be added to your SPELLBOOK -- a listing of all the spells you successfully cast once. It lists spells by name and gives the word combination required to cast the spell.

When you are ready to leave the game, you must find an inn and RENT out in order to save your equipment until you come back and play again. QUIT Y will NOT save your equipment at all here. Inns should be fairly centrally located in most towns, and may even be the room you at which first enter the game, so remember where you started the game!

LegendMUD has no rent fees, but it does impose a limit on the value of the items you carry. This rent limit also frees players from 'level restrictions' on items. Anyone can use anything as long as they can rent it or are within 1000 gp of their rent limit.

Please note that if you cannot save successfully, you run the risk of losing everything if the mud crashes or you lose link and are auto-rented even if you can still equip items. We keep a save_log and it has final say in cases of reimbursal requests--you won't be reimbursed if your last save was a failed one.

If you find you must leave the game in a hurry, make sure you save successfully before you cut your link. After about 15 minutes real time your character will be auto-rented and the failed save situation of losing all your equipment still applies.