Useful Information

Here may be found useful information about general day-to-day Mud things.

Guild Points

Guild points - a measure of your capability

Whenever you perform special commands like Hack, Slash, Sneak or Steal, you use what are called Guild Points, (GP), to perform these commands. The amount of GP you have is essentially a measure of your ability to perform these commands before needing to rest. You GP will gradually regenerate over a period of time.

Each command will have a GP cost associated with it, crush, for example, has a cost of 45GP. To see each command in detail, and their associated GP cost click here.

Your total number of GP is determined by your fighting.points skill. You may use all of your guild points for fighting commands, your GP is also proportioned into how much of your total you may use for other commands such as Sneak or Steal.

You can see how many points you are able to use with the GP command.

> GP

You have 468 (510) guild points.
* You can use 236 (249) for covert commands.
* You can use 142 (155) for crafts commands.
* You can use 214 (227) for faith commands.
* All of your guild points can be used for fighting commands.
* You can use 183 (196) for magic commands.
* You can use 252 (265) for other commands.

This proportion of how many GP in total, (the figure in brackets), you may use on each skill is based upon your .points score in the associated skill tree, covert.points for Sneak and Steal for example.

Multiple Opponents

When you are attacking a single opponent, you are able to use special commands, like hack or behead without problem. However when you are fighting multiple opponents, you need to focus your skills on a single person if you are to use of the special fighting commands.

The command to do this is concentrate.

You slice your thief's dagger deeply into the slow mugger.
The stupid mugger joins in the fight.
You parry the slow mugger's scimitar with one of your thieves' daggers.
You parry the slow mugger's scimitar with one of your thieves' daggers.
You parry the stupid mugger's stiletto with one of your thieves' daggers.
You neatly fillet the stupid mugger with your thief's dagger.
The stupid mugger tries to leave east, but you block his way.
> riposte against mugger attack with thief dagger
You are not concentrating on the slow mugger.

The above example shows combat with one opponent, and during the fight, a second opponent joins the affray. You are no longer focused on a single opponent, and cannot direct special attacks against them.

To do this you would need to issue the following command,

> concentrate on mugger

You would then be focused on one opponent, and could issue special commands against them. It would look something like,

> concentrate on mugger
You parry the slow mugger's scimitar with one of your thieves' daggers.
You parry the slow mugger's scimitar with one of your thieves' daggers.
You parry the slow mugger's scimitar with one of your thieves' daggers.
You are now concentrating on the slow mugger.
> riposte against mugger attack with thief dagger
You prepare to riposte against the slow mugger with the thief's dagger.

Failing Special Attacks

There are a multitude of weapons on Discworld, some are harder to use than others. Enchantment may also affect how hard a weapon is to use. Generally there are two types of way to fail with a weapon. You can fail to prepare the attack or you can actually fail the attack.

Failing to Prepare

Failing to prepare means you are not sufficiently skilled in setting up the attack, and fail to perform any attack that round. If you see a message similar to,

You attempt to prepare a special striking attack but the sledgehammer feels too unwieldy and you lose the initiative.

This means you require more fighting.combat.special.weapon to use your chosen weapon.

Botching the Attack

If you find that you are able to prepare for the attack, but fail to hit your opponent with a message similar to the following,

You manage to botch your use of the two-handed axe and barely launch a mediocre attack at the palace guard.

That generally means you have insufficient skill in the relative weapon type, fighting.combat.melee.sharp in this case.

NOTE: Remember that some weapons are harder to use than others, and also that enchantment plays a large part in making a weapon harder to use.

Enchantment

Witches, and to a greater extent Wizards, are able to perform spells to fill items with various levels of enchantment.

What does this mean? Enchantment affects items in two ways.

Firstly, enchanted items are generally more durable then un-enchanted items. That item of armour for example which always requires repairing, may require repairing slightly less often if enchanted.

NOTE: Enchantment does not affect the damage absorbed by items of armour, it only affects the durability of an item.

Secondly, enchanting a weapon is more likely to increase the damage done by the weapon in question. Because damage is generally very variable, it is hard to be specific, but in general terms the higher an enchant on a weapon is, the more damage potential you may do.

NOTE: While enchanting an weapon is likely to increase the damage dealt, it also makes the weapon in question much harder to use, the higher the enchantment, the harder to use it becomes.

Enchantment Levels

level	Description
1	Pulses with octarine light
2	Slight octarine glow
3	Pulses in dull octarine shades
4	Steady, but dull, octarine glow.
5	Steady octarine glow
6	Intense octarine glow
7	Bright octarine colour
8	Brightly Pulses octarine
9	Brilliant octarine shades
10	Radiates pure octarine brilliance

Only Wizards and Witches can actually see the enchantment on an item. Another way to measure the enchantment on an item is to measure it's Thaum rating.

Thaumometer

The thaumometer is a device for measuring the Thaum rating of an enchanted object. The higher the enchantment, the higher the Thaum rating. In order to interpret the Thaumometer you need a bonus of more than 200 in magic.methods.spiritual.divining which, for a Warrior is not easy to get.

The other thing which makes interpreting Thaum information is that it is typically different for each item, which makes it very difficult to determine the enchantment on a item by item basis.

Quatrocentro has much useful information on his site about enchanting and Thaum information. http://www.quatrocentro.com/San_ench.html

Where can I get Enchanting and What does it cost?

Both Wizards and Witches are able to enchant items. However due to the nature of the spell used, Witches are only typically able to reach level 5, (Steady). Wizards are able to enchant items to the highest levels, (Although it must be remembered that this is a hard feat to achieve).

High level enchanting is expensive business, almost all Wizards will charge a fee and also the cost of the components used. The spell used to reach the higher levels of enchantment uses powder from purple nuggets. These nuggets are typically expensive, somewhere in the region of xx dollars per nugget. The spell often uses more than one nugget.

Enchantment Decay

It is important to note that high enchantments decay down to level 5, (Steady), over time. This means, for example, that you will constantly need to have a weapon topped up, if you want to keep it at it's maximum damage potential. Once an item reaches level 5 it will remain at that level indefinitely. It takes somewhere around 2 to 3 weeks of game time for an item to decay from level 10 down to level 5.

Enchanting Summary

Increasing the durability of items certainly makes enchanting items very attractive. Also the damage increases, make it definitely something to consider.

Many people, myself included tend to have things enchanted to level 5, (Steady). Mainly because it becomes extremely expensive to continue to enchant your weapons on a day by day basis. You will still see a definite improvement from level 0 to level 5 enchantment on most weapons.

Also creative use of enchanting can keep the sweet spot in terms of weapon difficulty extended just a little bit further, which may benefit people who are interested in the Task Master, (TM), system.

Task Master

The Task Master, (TM), system is a mechanism to allow a player to improve a certain skill by practicing that skill.

In every skills related task you attempt, there are three regions.

Firstly, the region where you will always fail, simply because you lack the skill to achieve the task.

Secondly, you reach the point where you will always succeed, primarily because you have mastered the skills required to perform that task.

Finally, between the two previous regions, lies the area where you will sometimes succeed, sometimes fail, and sometimes, learn something new about the task, gaining a level in the relevant skill, and succeed, this is what is known as a TM.

For example, attempting to use the hack command with a nodachi could improve your skill in fighting.combat.melee.sharp.

You prepare to hack at the druid with the nodachi.
You feel that your skill with a nodachi has increased.
You take a massive swing at the druid swinging your nodachi straight at the neck
of a druid.

In other words, reaching the area where you sometimes succeed and sometimes fail, gives you the best chance of gaining new levels.

Sharing TM's

It is possible to share TM's from other people if you are working together as a group with them. Click here to learn more about groups, and grouping.

Nymph L'Femmes chops the giant spider into pieces with her two-handed axe.
By watching Nymph L'Femmes, you feel you've learnt something.

It is sometimes difficult to work out exactly what skill you have increased by sharing TM's. The message should come after a person in your group has performed a skills related task, this however, might be hidden in additional game messages.

Teaching and Guild Resources

Teach - teach things to other players

The guild is able to teach you skills in the fighting tree, with the exception of fighting.combat.special.tactics to level 300. This is because these skills are Warrior primary skills. The Guild also has the ability to give you a rudimentary grounding in many other skills, but typically only to level 25. In order to learn, either fighting skills beyond level 300, or skills external to the guild, such as covert skills, other resources must be found.

There are three ways in which you may acquire these skills.

Firstly, You may gain skills via the Task Master system as mentioned earlier.

Secondly, you may learn skills from a player who has a higher bonus in the relevant skill than yourself.

Finally, you may teach yourself.

NOTE: Learning skills from the guild is ALWAYS the cheapest way, aside TM's, of advancing a skill. When learning from Players always try to find a teacher who has a bonus twice that of yours and some, this is the second cheapest way. Teaching yourself is ALWAYS the most expensive way to advance a skill.

Repairing

During it's life, especially in combat, most things sustain damage. Given enough damage an item will break and be destroyed. If a container breaks, it spills it's contents all over the place, which, in the middle of a fight, is rather irritating. Use of the Condition command will show you when it is time to repair an item.

Items fall into three categories,

Metal based items, swords, armour etc.

Leather based items, backpacks, Brigandine Armour etc.

Clothing, Shirts, trousers and so on.

Metal Based Items

Metal items may be fixed in a smithy, there are many of them around the Disc. The Fix command is used to repair these types of items.

There are two skills involved in repairing items of this type,

crafts.smithing.black.armour

crafts.smithing.black.weapons

You must have 15 in crafts.smithing.black in order to learn the fix command. You will need to learn more in the relevant sub-skills to repair items that have sustained more damage.

There is also a charge levied by the smithy, in the local currency, for use of the whatever materials are required to repair the item. The more damaged the item, the more the cost will be.

NOTE: If your skills are insufficient, you may still be able to repair the item to some degree, since the amount of skill required is proportional to the amount of damage the item has sustained.

Leather Based Items

Items that are made of leather may be repaired in a tannery. This requires use of the Leatherwork command.

The leatherwork command uses the skill crafts.material.tanning and requires a score of 10 or more in order to learn the command.

As with metal based items, the tannery will levy a charge for the materials used, the greater the damage, the higher the cost of repair.

NOTE: If your skills are insufficient, you may still be able to repair the item to some degree, since the amount of skill required is proportional to the amount of damage the item has sustained.

Clothing

Clothing is typically very susceptible to damage, but maybe repaired in a number of ways.

Gapps Altar

Here damage items of clothing may be placed on the low alter in Gapps Temple. The amount of Guild Points, (GP), you are able to allocate to this task, (Based upon your faith.points score, see Guild Points), dictates how much damage you are able to repair in one go. Since priests can use all their GP for tasks such as this, having one handy will save you a lot of time when repairing in such a way.

WARNING: By placing an item on the Altar, you run the risk that another Player may attempt to grab and run away with your possessions. This is considered poor form by most, and a case against such behavior may be raised in the Ankh-Morpork Council Building.

Gappic Priest Ritual

Gappic Priests are able to perform a ritual, mend, to repair an item in much the same way as placing an item on Gapps Altar.

NOTE: Some priests may charge for this service.

Add some things about sewing...

Boosting your Stats

There are a plethora of Spells, Rituals, potions, and items that allow you to temporarily boost your Stats. The affect of this, of course, is to increase your bonuses for the duration of the stats affect. This can be quite useful if you are not quite able to succeed at something with your skills currently, this can help your bridge the gap.

Berserking might need a bonus of 160 in fighting.combat.special.tactics, since this skill is based upon Intelligence and Wisdom, a Warrior with a bonus of 130 might bridge the gap enough to berserk by using a Bronze Helm. This boosts Intelligence and by a lesser extent Wisdom, and might raise the Warriors Bonus sufficiently to be able to berserk.

WARNING: Care must be taken whilst using certain stat items. Whilst they positively affect some of your stats, they can also negatively affect other stats,

The following is a brief look at each form of Stat Enhancement.

NOTE: This page does give information on how to attain these items.

Bronze Helm

The Bronze Helm is an item that gives a boost but at a cost, while it gives you +3 Intelligence and +2 Wisdom it also affects Constitution by -3. This item specifically tends to benefit those who are more disposed towards Magic, broadly speaking Wizards and Witches.

This not not to say that Warriors cannot use it, should they find a need to boost Intelligence.

While the Bronze Helm does not have a GP cost associated with it, it is generally unwise to use it for a prolonged period, it has been known for people to expire whilst wearing them.

Black Leather Gloves

Black Leather Gloves, often referred to as, "Dex Gloves", boost your Dexterity by +2 while worn. Unlike Iron Gauntlets they are not armour, and not terribly robust and are damaged quite easily.

Like Iron Gauntlets, they also drain GP. Once again running out of GP causes the effect to stop.

Flat Cap

The Flat cap is very similar to the Bronze Helm, but only in as much as in the way it works. It grants a benefit to two stats and a deficit to an other. The Cap gives +3 to Wisdom, +2 to Intelligence and -3 to Strength.

Like the Helm, it is not recommended that you use this item from a prolonged period of time.

Iron Gauntlets

Iron Gauntlets give you a +2 modifier to your Strength while worn, they of course also double as armour.

The negative aspect of these gauntlets is that they drain your GP while used, which if you are using many specials in combat can lead to a lack of GP, which then causes the effect to wear off.

Thief Daggers

Thief daggers are somewhat of an oddity, they are the only stat enhancer that are a weapon, they come in pairs, and you must have two in order to gain the affect.

When wielded the Thief Daggers give a +1 modifier to Dexterity, beware, they are easy to accidentally combine with other Stat enhancers.

Bless

Bless is a targeted ritual which may be performed by Gapp, Gufnork, Hat and Fish priests. It may also be performed with the aid of one of the many rods which may be found on the Disc.

The act of, "Blessing", someone gives a temporary boost of +1 to all of their stats this effect lasts about 10 minutes.

Since this is not a Stat Item, this can be combined with the effects of any other Stat items.

Hardened Clothing

Coming Soon

Death and Dying

Dying on Discworld is usually something which is inevitable, especially as you start out. When you die, you will become a ghost, you will even see your corpse on the floor. Death will come charging into the room and calmly announce that you have died.

Do not despair, he eventually tells you that you are allowed to stay, another crack of the whip as it were. He leaves, some naughty dwarves leap out of nowhere and had you a book which contains some information on what to do next.

Raise and Resurrect

This maybe somewhat cryptic at first as you are still a ghost. Essentially you need to get one of two things, either a Raise, or a Resurrection. This will grant you a new body and take one of your lives.

There is an important difference between getting Raised, and getting Resurrected. When you die, you will lose all of the experience points,(XP), that you may have gathered, getting a raise will not restore any of the XP you have lost. Furthermore, a raise leaves your Stats in a somewhat traumatised state. Your Stats can be normalised with a a ritual known as Restore, but this is a separate ritual.

Resurrect is a a ritual which firstly does not level your Stats when you are revived, and secondly recovers some of your lost XP. The amount of XP recovered depends upon the Priests skill in the relevant faith area.

A Raise may be obtained from priests who worship Gufnork, Pishe or Sek. Resurrect and Restore on the other hand, may only be obtained from Priests who worship Pishe.

There are a handful of NPC's and Places where you can also be Raised, (This is exactly the same as the ritual). There is an NPC, Harry, in the Temple of Small Gods, in Ankh-Morpork, who is able to Raise players. The Temple of Small Gods in Ohulan Cutash will also Raise you.

Both of these things are handy if you need to become somewhat more substantial in a hurry, perhaps to recover your equipment.

Once you have a new body, you are then able to go back to where you died and attempt to recover your equipment.

WARNING: Whether you are Raised or Resurrected, (That is unless the priest who performs the ritual for you, also heals you), you will have minimal Hitpoints, and no equipment. So beware when attempting to recover your equipment.

Lives

When you begin as a new player, you are granted 7 additional lives. Each time you die, and are Raised or Resurrected, it consumes one of your lives. This means you are able to die 8 times before you are what is known as completely dead.

You are able to prevail upon the Goddess Pishe and attempt to convince her, by way of financial sacrifice to give you a new life. Pishe has a temple in the Temple of Small Gods in Ankh-Morpork, and also near Mad Stoat.

NOTE: As you get more and more lives, the sacrifice required to appease Pishe, increases.

WARNING: The process of being granted a new life is somewhat traumatic. Whilst you do not take any damage, you will find however, that your Stats are lowered for a short time, while you recover from the ordeal. You may of course prevail upon a friendly Pishite Priest, and ask for a Restore.

WARNING: You must make sure your Stats are in top condition when you begin to offer your financial sacrifice to Pishe. If for some reason they are not, you have just been Raised for example, you will find that Pishe will not honour your request, and you will waste your money.

Wards

Warded Items are items that are protected by the power of the god of the priest who perform the ward ritual on the item.

The point of a warded item is to alert the own to the fact that it is being stolen.

NOTE: It is important to remember that Filch, Snatch, Steal and Palm set off wards, whilst you are not likely to use the first three by accident, it has been known for people to accidentally kill themselves by palming their own warded items.

There are currently three types of wards available on Discworld.

Minor Ward

These explode in the most obvious way possible, when stolen, but they are of relatively low power and do not cause much damage to the target.

Major Ward

Major wards work in much the same way as minor wards, with the exception that they cause much more damage. In the past, it has been known for thieves to die from stealing items with major ward.

BANG!
A warding glyph explodes near Remus.
The drops Retribution in shock.

Silken Ward

Silken ward works in a completely different way. It does not explode when stolen, it does however send a telepathic message to it's former owner explaining who has stolen it, and where they are going.

For example if you have been stolen from you will see,

You hear a faint voice in your head: Padishar! It's your blood red cloak. I'm currently being carried by Silvara L'Femmes in the same room as you.

If you are the stealer, you will see the message,

The blood red cloak squirms in your grasp, and you could swear that you heard
help.

NOTE: All wards are once only, so once an item has been stolen, and a ward used, you must seek out a priest, and have them re-warded.