Dramatis Personae

Since I plan to solo most of the game, and remembering my previous ventures into Dereth, I decide that a melee character is the way to go. Unfortunately, I hit my first stumbling block right at the character creation screen: I do not remember what initial stats for a melee are. I remember Strength and Coordination are supposed to be max and Endurance and Self are supposed to be min, but of Quickness and Focus, I remember only that one was supposed to be max and the other min. I wrack my memory for the solution, but I got nothing, and a trip to the AC Community Wiki reveals only old templates of dubious relevance. I contemplate posting a message to the forums along the lines of "How do I swung swords?", but finally decide "Eh, screw it." I set Focus to 80 and Endurance to 30. Because eff starting with 5 Health. Besides, since we can re-allocate stats these days, I can just change it later if I hit trouble.

Still, I get a dose of humility. I may brag about having played before years ago, but Asheron's Call can change a lot in a short time.  I'm a newb. A born-again newb, but still a newb. I'll be learning as I go, and probably embarassing myself along the way. But hey, what can you do with a blog if not laugh about your own dumbassery.

With skill selection, I'm a little more confident. I give the list a once-over and quickly rule out tinkering and assessing skills, plus random B.S. like Jump and Loyalty. Tinkering is powerful, I know, but also rather tedious and grind-y, plus since tinkering skills are cheap, I can always get them later if I need them.

I note with approval that we all get Arcane Lore for free these days. Good move, Turbine, it was always necessity #1. To it I add two other necessities, Lockpick and Item Magic. The first isn't technically a necessity, but since I'm on a mission to go everywhere, I can't be stopped by locked doors. The second gives you portal spells, without which travel can get annoying fast. I consider is there are any other necessities. Alchemy is tempting, for its psuedo-Life Magic and quest uses, but in the end I decide I can put it off. Cooking is also tempting, given the power of rations, but I should be able to get by with just store-bought potions for a while. Healing I look long and hard at before deciding to just see if I can get by with potions.

That takes care of the basics. Now to the fun part: combat skills. Looking over the new melee skills, I specialize both Dirty Fighting and Sneak Attack. Noting that the latter is linked to Deception, I spec that too. These look like they will seriously pump up melee DPS, which has me wondering if the community's been complaining about balance issues or something. I look at Recklessness too, but don't like what I see so much. It allows you to do more damage in exchange for taking more damage, which seems like a risky idea for a newb to embrace. So I leave Recklessness behind.

Now I have to choose what kind of a melee I want to be. It's a tough call. Back in the old days, you just picked Sword, Axe, or Unarmed (the others were kind of gimped), grabbed a shield to go with it, and sallied forth. Now we've got the choice of the more nebulous Light, Heavy, Finesse, or Two-handed, and all except the last can be played with either Shield or Dual Wielding. That's a total of seven options, and if I hadn't ruled out Recklessness they'd double to fourteen. I get analysis paralysis, and thumb through the wiki looking for guidance. I figure out that Heavy does more damage than Light, with the tradeoff that Light is four skill points cheaper. That doesn't seem like a terribly good trade to me, so I chuck Light weapons. I'm left with five potential paths that I can't decide among. Finesse is what Dagger used to be, a skill that allows you to eschew Strength. This is interesting, but also risky. Two-Handed might be powerful or weak, depending on the balance and how relevant Cleaving is. Dual Wielding looks fun but logistically tricky.

Suddenly, I realize: "Wait a minute, I have multiple character slots. Why not make use of them?" I'm trying to do everything, and there are four starter towns, each with their own newbie quests. I can make four different characters, play each one for a bit, and then figure out which I like best.

So, allow me to introduce the team:

Neria, Sho Dual Heavy wandering the world in search of mastery of the martial arts and better pants.

Elderwulf, aging but still badass Aluvian Shield Heavy.

Kalixia, Aluvian Dual Finesse with a quick dagger and a sharp tongue.

And our token non-human teammate, the stoic Gear Knight Ferrion.

(On that last one, it is WAY too hard to create a Gear Knight that doesn't look like either Iron Man or a giant plastic action figure.)

(Better photos to come once I have more photogenic gear.)

I plan to take Melee Defense as soon as possible (Kalixia can get it immediately, since Finesse is cheap) and Life Magic later (around level 32, according to a skill calculator I found on the wiki.) After that, there are a number of other skills I'm interested in, but with skill sellback, I can't make any decisions that are irrevocable, so I'll just play it by ear for now.

Next time, the adventure begins!