Guide to advanced character statistics

Introduction

Ever since NEWS 2157 characters in MUME have been able to improve and neglect base abilities as a replacement for partial rerolls that were previously given out after a month of retirement. This "training reroll" acts as a second partial reroll along with the "retirement partial reroll". The obvious benefits of using both these features in conjunction is the improvement of old characters that were previously unplayable due to changing game mechanics.

However, training can also be (ab)used with new characters to improve practice percentages! Read the following from HELP TRAIN:

   Note: Unlike rerolls, training does not affect your practice percentages. The
   percentage to which you can practice a skill is only based on your base abilities.

This means that characters can be created with "unplayable" base abilities that result in higher practice percentages can then be adjusted into something even more powerful through training! All it takes is the careful application of what certain statistics do and whether or not they are required in the final result of the character. After deciding what abilities ('stats') to slowly train/neglect it takes about a month's worth of time for the character to reach the limit of the reroll.

A small aside: this kind of tweaking is fun for some people. But if you just want to play, don't worry too much about stats more than what is mentioned in the Newbie Base Abilities guide. You'll still be nearly as potentially powerful as other players.

Statistic Effects

The following table provides exactly what each stat helps with; if you want to see how max practice percentages vary with what stats, I suggest you look at a stat generator.

• Strength: Wieldable Weapons, Carrying Capacity/Fleeing, Offensive Bonus
• Intelligence: Maximum Mana, Armour Spell, (Herblore?)
• Wisdom: Maximum Mana, Herblore, (Sanctuary Absorb?)
• Dexterity: Natural Dodge Bonus, Fleeing Rate, Maximum Moves
• Constitution: Maximum Hit/Movement points, Movement Regeneration
• Will: Resisting/Casting Influence of Hostile Magic, Regeneration, (Sanctuary Absorb?)
• Perception: Detecting hidden things (also enhanced by Awareness), Taking aim, Line of Sight

Generally training is primarily useful for improving strength; dexterity and constitution are also useful, but the best really depends on a player's style of play. These physical stats give the most improvement for a character outside of practice percentages. On the flip side, the best stat for neglecting is perception due to its relatively minor effects. Because of this training is less useful for characters that have very little perception and more useful for magic users, thieves, and tracking warriors.

A Couple Examples

Say we take a powerful cleaving dwarf that has absolutely no chance of tracking (63% according to the statgen).

Str:19 Int: 9 Wis: 7 Dex:15 Con:19 Wil:16 Per: 7.  (Dwarf: Pure Warrior)

By adjusting the stats slightly we are able to take away from Wil and Dex and boost Int and Per giving us 85% track. This is better considering the amount of stat points spent and the resulting practice percentages. The character that we would therefore create and start leveling would be using the following stats:

Str:19 Int:12 Wis: 7 Dex:14 Con:19 Wil:15 Per:10.  (Dwarf: Untrained Tracking Warrior)

After creating the character we can then train neglect Int and Per and train improve Dex and Wil back up to the values in the previous stats. Since Wil and Dex aren't that important for practice percentages we are able to neglect them for the purposes of learning track while still creating an extremely tough dwarf who will be able to dodge and regenerate moves on par with the original model that we based these stats on!

This technique is far more effective with combo classes where we boost the two main class skills at the cost of survivability. Here is an example of a bolting thief with 100% thief and 98% mage skills:

Str:13 Int:16 Wis:14 Dex:19 Con:13 Wil:11 Per:14.  (Elf: Unplayable Thief-mage)

This is mediocre overall, if not impossible to play. Instead of trying to placate both basic physical and mental abilities we will instead boost perception which is necessary for thief skill percentages and reduce constitution and strength (the stats that benefit the most from training). After the modification of the previous model, this character will have 104% thief skills from the 17 perception:

Str:11 Int:16 Wis:14 Dex:19 Con:12 Wil:11 Per:17.  (Elf: Untrained Thief-mage)

The next step then is creating the character where we then train down perception and then train up Con/Str for better physical stats so that he can take more punishment and wield better bows while still retaining the thief percentages of 17 perception!

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