MUME

Hi.
Havn't played this game for 6 years and i wasn't really good back then either.
Now a friend lured me back in and I got all excited about a dual class character.
So I picked up a Thief-Mage stats from Jahara's page: Str:11 Int:16 Wis:14 Dex:19 Con:12 Wil:11 Per:17 (train down per, train up str & con).
Now I'm level 16, have 20 pracs and I'm stucked with pracking.
Should I go for backstab now? How many pracs are needed to max it?

So far I have:
cure light 6 (it's must as i understand. should i go for cure serious later?)

awareness 7 (do I need it before PK at all?)
bandage 5 (no comments)
climb 3 (no comments)
ride 3 (no comments)
swim 5 (no comments)
track 7 (is it too early for it?)
wilderness 15 (thought 1 prac per level would be needed)

dodge 14 (went with 1 prac per level)
missile 11 (my main offence sp far)
sneak 14 (needed for backstab. it enhances the damage of the first shot if undetected?)
hide 6 (is it needed?)
pick 1 (handy)

parry 15 (1 prac per level ok?)
endurance 8 (figured i need 1 prac per 2 levels)

Please give some advice what to do next - what to prac, what to forget?

Civril wrote:cure light 6 (it's must as i understand. should i go for cure serious later?)

awareness 7 (do I need it before PK at all?)
bandage 5 (no comments)
climb 3 (no comments)
ride 3 (no comments)
swim 5 (no comments)
track 7 (is it too early for it?)
wilderness 15 (thought 1 prac per level would be needed)

dodge 14 (went with 1 prac per level)
missile 11 (my main offence sp far)
sneak 14 (needed for backstab. it enhances the damage of the first shot if undetected?)
hide 6 (is it needed?)
pick 1 (handy)

parry 15 (1 prac per level ok?)
endurance 8 (figured i need 1 prac per 2 levels)

I generally do the following when I level a thief:

6 practices in cure light (and don't go to cure serious unless I am a cleric-combo)

max wilderness (moves are nice)
30% bandage
30% climb (75+% at legend)
30% swim (thieves dont need it)
no track and awareness (until legend)

maximum sneak, piercing, backstab
decent missile (it'll work okay still), decent dodge
no hide (until hero and pracs are available... it might be more useful to get escape at hero level now days)
1 prac pick

30% parry (30% endurance at hero level)

Jahara wrote:

Civril wrote:cure light 6 (it's must as i understand. should i go for cure serious later?)

awareness 7 (do I need it before PK at all?)
bandage 5 (no comments)
climb 3 (no comments)
ride 3 (no comments)
swim 5 (no comments)
track 7 (is it too early for it?)
wilderness 15 (thought 1 prac per level would be needed)

dodge 14 (went with 1 prac per level)
missile 11 (my main offence sp far)
sneak 14 (needed for backstab. it enhances the damage of the first shot if undetected?)
hide 6 (is it needed?)
pick 1 (handy)

parry 15 (1 prac per level ok?)
endurance 8 (figured i need 1 prac per 2 levels)

I generally do the following when I level a thief:

6 practices in cure light (and don't go to cure serious unless I am a cleric-combo)

max wilderness (moves are nice)
30% bandage
30% climb (75+% at legend)
30% swim (thieves dont need it)
no track and awareness (until legend)

maximum sneak, piercing, backstab
decent missile (it'll work okay still), decent dodge
no hide (until hero and pracs are available... it might be more useful to get escape at hero level now days)
1 prac pick

30% parry (30% endurance at hero level)

not gonna lie, i love you etc jahara, but i think you couldn't be more wrong on the pracs you chose, talk to me on msn, innoculateyou@yahoo.com, or on mume for better info, i'm playing darkie lately!

Wtf syd. If you have some other information and tips, post them here for everyone to see.

Syd wrote: not gonna lie, i love you etc jahara, but i think you couldn't be more wrong on the pracs you chose, talk to me on msn, innoculateyou@yahoo.com, or on mume for better info, i'm playing darkie lately!

Such an answer to the (newbie) question creates a real cozy feeling.
And there is a talk about marketing here and introducing the game to the new players
Thanks a bunch.

Anyway I dacayed misc skills for 30 pracs and maxed sneak, stab and piercing. Thanx you Jahara for the advice.
Don't have clue about playing a scout though. Sneak takes so much moves so I constantly run into darkies while riding a horse. And I'm also out of newbie tps but if i go traveling east / south i'll fall to darkies no doubt.
Have 5 pracs left - thought about armour. Someday get shield too but there is probably no point to get it less than max.
Plan to get lightning bolt on the next level. I know max is good but 10 pracs should be ok for a start?
Then after 2-3 levels go for earthquake and store maybe - it should speed up solo exping somewhat. Should I go for full 16 pracs or just to get some %? Is there a huge difference between 90% and 100% store?
And I still think about replacing cure light with cure serious for 6 pracs.

I have no experience with thief-mages, but I have some experience with thieves and with combos in general. While exping a combo of any sort it is a good idea to not prac it as a combo but rather more as one of the pure classes, if not you will most likely end up with a character that is poor at a lot of things but can't do anything decently. So my suggestion is to be more or less a pure scout, or mage if you prefer that, until you reach level 25 then you can reprac to more of a combo and see how you like that.

Scout: Get cure, bless, remove poison and possible create food/water if you find food a bit annoying. If you have serious problems with moves you can get breath of briskness too, just be prepared that it could have a substantial and negative effect on your ability to backstab things.

Mage: Earthquake, store and charm are the best spells for solo exping any mages and warrior-mage combos IMO. Since you have such high base DEX you could get some dodge instead of shield spell (which will be kind of poor and not last too long at lower levels anyway) for more or less the same DB but no need to use mana on casting shield every 10 minutes. As a mage you also want a lot more spells like cure, remove poison, cure critic, breath of briskness, shroud, armour, create food/water, lightning bolt and possibly strength.

Regarding the difference between 90% and 100% in the store spell, yes there is a significant difference. With 90% in store and without a lot of levels you will fail a lot of stores, causing exping by using store+earthquake to become a matter of sleeping for mana 90% of the time. You wouldn't even get 90% in store as a mid level combo, so the problem would be even worse for you.

Traveling south from Bree towards Tharbad, then east and south towards Rohan is usually not that dangerous. Traveling between Bree and Rivendell is usually a lot more dangerous. (With some experience neither is very dangerous most of the time.) While traveling you should try to keep enough moves so you can spam back to some safe place, so taking many but shorter breaks to regen a little moves is generally a good idea. You could also bring an extra mount since the weaker mounts tend to run out of moves fairly fast. Once you get close to Rohan you are more or less safe, if you know how to find the ford in Isen and the rohir encampment there, and from there you have a lot of new areas to explore and to get exp/TPs in.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so rude, I was work while I posted that. I'll be posting it through the course of the day, the guide that I'm writing for combo-mages.

First off, this guide that I'm writing will be based off of how _I_ level thiefmages, combos, basically characters in general. If you do not agree with what I'm saying, then feel free to give constructive criticism, but I've done this more times than you could possibly imagine!


First off, I'll run you through my experiences with Syd, my thiefmage at the moment. The very first thing I did was pray Lorien, find the ranger man, and practice 2 bandage 3 swim 3 climb 4 ride. Then run your little elven legs through Lorien, run them through the Misties, run them through Fangorn, Rohan, Dunland, Eregion, and Tharbad, then take a 5 minute afk so you don't get burned out. Then, run to Bree, get citizen, run Fornost, get citizen, then run to Grey Havens and get citizen. Then go to BM, run around and die. Repeat until you are bored out of your mind. Then, the fun begins!

From this point on, I won't be giving exact pracs because I'm at work. I'll give you the %'s I generally go for at level 26, as well.

Shoot-flee is quite possibly the most effective way to xp, before the changes. So, get a few mercenaries, and shoot _everything_ until you level a few. Then get at least 85% swim, at least 75% climb, about 75% wilderness, like 4 pracs in bandage total, and at least 90% ride. Once you legend etc, get whatever number of pracs you want in track. We track nicely.

Once you get to be able to stab, around level 15, when you should get 5-8 pracs in escape, you also NEED awareness. It'll cut your regentime in half, because nothing will be able to see you while you stab, basically. 95%.

Hide is also more useful then a lot of people believe, because in combination with swim, you never, ever die. Don't get more than cure until level 21 at least, then you should have spare pracs to ALWAYS max armour. Keep going as a thief, sneak-stab-escape-repeat, until 26. Then, this is where the fun starts again, and you get to completely personalize the thief to your liking.

Some people prefer spending 3 pracs on nightvision at around this level, but I prefer awareness. It's worth the pracs. I like to keep sneak/stab at 100, but the lowest I'll go is 98. I get spells like armour, bob, block, cure, bolt, create food, store and earthquake. You can do whatever you want, but make sure to always max attack spells like bolt/quake.

I'm being very vague here because I'm at work, but I love talking about this so let me know if you need clarification.


For the record, I've tried : storequake, charm, blind, bash etc all on this char, so, just let me know!

How does one balance the practices so that one's spells aren't crippled? And how does one set one's starting stats for a hybrid character?

Sarai wrote:How does one balance the practices so that one's spells aren't crippled? And how does one set one's starting stats for a hybrid character?

Levels. Stats. It's all good.

Elmir wrote:

Sarai wrote:How does one balance the practices so that one's spells aren't crippled? And how does one set one's starting stats for a hybrid character?

Levels. Stats. It's all good.

So...higher level characters are less affected by multiclassing?

"20 more levels are going to fix any character"

Timodeus wrote:"20 more levels are going to fix any character"

Is that a "yes"?

i worked well at level 35, and you can do whatever spells you want as long as you keep a minimum of 99% sneak/stab. i will be training off and going to a defense mage, however, because i'm not in the mood to reprac as far as escape

Caerroil wrote: Traveling south from Bree towards Tharbad, then east and south towards Rohan is usually not that dangerous.
<snip>
Once you get close to Rohan you are more or less safe, if you know how to find the ford in Isen and the rohir encampment there, and from there you have a lot of new areas to explore and to get exp/TPs in.

Props:
I found a map for that area. Big hanks te everyone who have ever posted a map on the net. I would never have the time/skill to map all by myself. I have done a map from BM to Shire and it doesn't look very nice and doesn't have much additional info on it.
Questions:
Are there mobs SE of Isengard and in Fanghorn aggressive to darkies and not whities? Any hints of who might protect a lone whitie there?
Any mobs aggressive to some darkies but not others Orc/Troll/BN?
Getting ahead of myself and probably getting killed:
How to target a Black Numenorean without spelling it all out and without a risk of hitting a mob/player who is also "black" or "man"? Does "hit bn" work?

Any other hints about travlling south?

See you there next summer or the next one or the next one after that (whenever I can get away with a looong session without hearing overwhelming whining).

Thanks a lot for the replies so far and for the replies coming. I don't think I will stop asking any time soon.

Most of the humans around Rohan are aggressive to darkies, with some that aren't aggressive to BNs. The rohir encampment is generally safer than Bree, due to the extreme rareness of large forces of darkies in the area.
Trees in Fangorn are aggressive to orcs and trolls, but not BNs. However BNs can be at a severe disadvantage in Fangorn, if you just know what the Ents dislike.

Cross-race targeting is preferably done with *man*, *orc*, *troll*, *elf* and so on, with the usual possibility to specify 2.*man* and so on.

Syd wrote: The very first thing I did was pray Lorien, find the ranger man, and practice 2 bandage 3 swim 3 climb 4 ride.

Yeah. Tried that.
How do you find the ranger guildmaster on level 1 if he sneaks?
Where does he usually can be found?

I don't know how powerplayers do it, but I just go room to room typing "prac" until I see ranger pracs pop up