Skill Points... Why do I need skills?

Skills, in the game, are as powerful as a good weapon or spell. Rogues are wildly famous for their skills as they are the only ones able to effectively find and remove deadly traps.
For most other classes, skills are merely a side note that enhances the toon in some small way.

For instance, the jumping skill affects not only how far you can jump, but also how easy it is to control your jump. Balance affects your "balance" on grease and when teetering on the edge of a ledge or just catching the ledge as you get near it.
Swim affects how fast you can swim and slightly affects how long you can hold your breath. Strength and how much weight you have on you greatly affects your time to hold your breath.

Concentration for spellcasters isn't needed if you have a good group that can keep mobs off of you. Instead of concentration, invest in Diplomacy that convinces the mob to stop hitting you and go somewhere else! After all, why take damage if you have a good warrior nearby who will take it for you?

UMD - Use Magic Device... This is a tricky one as it usually pertains to rogues and halflings. Anyone who has point invested here can use weapons or wands or scrolls that normally would not be allowed for them to use. For instance, a wizard could use a Wand of Cure Light Wounds. A cleric could use a Wand of Web or Fireball that would normally be disallowed to them.

There are many skills that for most classes are secondary to their powers or melee abilities, but for the rogues, skills are what make them valuable as a scout, lock picker and trap finder/disabler. They can see further, see hidden or invisible mobs, unlock locked chests and doors and spot hidden doors as well as sense, find and disable traps. A high intelligence is essential for a rogue to exist well within the game. Assassin rogues, though useful, are not as sought out in the game as a rogue that can find and disable ANY trap. They are as coveted as a cleric and as vulnerable to attack.

I hope this helps when deciding on a few skills. Let me know if you have any questions!

Extra Experience

We all know we can buy Elixers from the DDO store in the game. This is awesome but only lasts a few short hours. If you want a more permanent solution, try these two things out:

• Mantle of the Worldshaper - Cloak: Heroic Inspiration (+5% addtional xp from quest completions), Regeneration, Scarab of Spell Absorption (5/5 Charges) (Ruins of Threnal end reward)
• Voice of the Master - Trinket: +1 Good luck, Heroic Inspiration (+5% addtional xp from quest completions) (Delera's Tomb end reward)
• Set Bonus - True Seeing 

Unfortunately they don't stack together so even with both, you only get +5% experience from completed quests.
Both are easily attainable with a group as an end quest series reward.

Go and get them!!

I'm a what?!?!

There are roles in any good party. A great party knows what roles they will be needing before going into a dungeon or raid. The following are some common roles seen in parties...

The TANK: this is the primary damager in the party. Their job is to gather as many mobs on them as possible and to swing away until everything stops moving.

The Healer: this is the TANK support person. Their job is to make sure the TANK remains alive through buffs and heals.

The Buffer: this sounds retarded but there needs to be one in every group. Usually the HEALER is also the BUFFER, but this isn't always the case. The Bard has awesome spells like stoneskin that GREATLY increases the survivability of any group.

Missile Expert: The TANK has a lot to do, so the next single greatest damager is the ranged person. This can be a Wizard, Sorcerer or Ranger.... and even a bad Cleric or Favored Soul.  The Missile Expert isn't necessary, but comes in handy as they can hit or stop approaching mobs, distant objects and even assist the TANK in damage dealing from afar. They are great with dealing with mobs before lowering a bridge or mobs unreachable by any other means.

Trap Master: Rogues... They are a necessity. I've seen TANKS get dead in one swipe of a giant rotating blade or a room of fire traps. Without Trap Masters, groups come to a screeching halt in various dungeons. Get one or be prepared to die alot.

So there are 5 primary roles and 6 spots in a group, what do you double up on? I suggest a secondary TANK that can help keep the mobs at bay.

You should know your role going into a party. A party with one healer and 5 tanks will die VERY fast as a healer cannot keep up with 5 tanks for long. Keeping an eye on the party build will limit the number of deaths within the group and can make a tough dungeon very easy.

Now when you enter a dungeon, working together as a team is best. I've seen yahoos run in and just start to quickly clear a dungeon and then get ticked when they die cause no one followed THEM. Listen to your group, see if someone steps up as a natural leader. Stay near your Buffer and Healer and watch/ listen for timers until the need to rebuff comes up and your staying power will increase 10 fold. Remember that Healers and Buffers do not have fast running or extraordinary swimming. They can't keep up, so watch out for them. Once they die, you are not far behind them.

I hope this helps you in understanding party roles and how a party should work! Be cool and see you in the game!

Just a little funny

For those of us who need a break from our day, here is a forum post about what a player has learned over time while playing DDO. Enjoy...

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=299672

Specialize in killing mobs? Sign me up!

Some classes have the unique ability to specialize in killing certain types of mobs. Rangers are especially adept at this. One of the most common questions is "How do I know what category the mobs fall in?".

Here is the list: (list provided by DDO Source)

• Aberration - beholders, drow scorpion, rust monster, mind flayer
• Animal - black wolf, dog, wolf, hyena
• Chaotic Outsider - fire reaver, flesh render, tharaak hound
• Construct - any golem, warforged, iron/adamantine defender, portal, pillar
• Dragon - any dragon
• Dwarf - dwarves, drugar
• Elemental - elementals (fire, earth), creatures with the elemental race trait
• Elven - elf, drow
• Evil Outsider - fire reaver, ice flenser, flesh render, thaarak hound, hell hound, quori stalker, fire efreeti, (Demon Queen creature type = meralith?), bezekira, jarilith, rakshasa
• Extraplanar - elemental, mephit, fire reaver, ice flenser, flesh render, thaarak hound, hell hound, quori stalker, fire efreeti, bezekira, jarilith
• Giant - any giant, ogre, troll
• Gnoll - gnoll
• Gobblinoid - hobgoblin, bugbear
• Halfling - halfling
• Human - human
• Lawful Outsider - hell hound, quori stalker
• Magical Beast - winter wolf, worg, phase spider, razor cat
• Monstrous - humanoid minotaur, gargoyles, wildman
• Ooze - oozes, jelly, slime, pudding, living spell, gelatinous cube
• Orc - orc
• Reptilian - kobald, troglodyte
• Undead - ghast, ghost, skeleton, spectre, wight, wraith, zombie, vampire, mummy ,umbral gargoyle, shadow, umbral worg
• Vermin - scorpion, spider

Any more questions?

Green Steel... maybe it's mold??

If you aren't level 12 or close to it, don't worry about this yet. Green Steel accessories are automatic 11th level requirement. Green Steel weapons require level 12. So somewhere in this area is when you should begin to research and collect items to create your Green Steel stuff.

Accessories are necklaces, helms, goggles, bracers, belts, weave gloves, weave boots and weave cloak. Weapons are, well, weapons. Things you beat others up with.

Green Steel items are blanks. They start at +5 for weapons and are considered EVIL for means of bypassing damage reduction. Accessories (WARNING!!) will acquire penalties when worn together if they haven't gone through the Essence of Cleansing.

Creating Green Steel items requires an alter. Most alters are within The Shroud and can only be accessed when not on a timer for the raid. Other alters are on guild airships.

Once created, Green Steel items can be endowed with multiple (and I mean multiple) spells and stats that can create VERY powerful weapons and accessories. Think of a weapon that does fire, ice, good, evil, gold, silver, fear and light based attacks on every swing. That means there would be virtually no creatures that would be immune or resist your attack. On every swing, you can add force damage, fire damage, ice damage and more. You could make many many combinations of items that make you a force to be reckoned with.

So level yourself, collect all, and look forward to your new items as you break the halfway point to 20.
Here is an article on DDOWIKI that can explain more in depth to what is needed to create Green Steel items.

See HERE for more information on the Essence of Cleansing and what it takes to get those items clean!

Inscribe or Prescribe...

Since there isn't a pharmaceutical class, let's talk about inscribing or inscription.

Inscribe
     definition: written (by handwriting, printing, engraving, or carving) on or in a surface
     DDO definition: writing spells into your spellbook from scrolls found or bought

The ability to inscribe a spell in DDO is an enhancement for wizards. This takes a scroll and inscription material. Each scroll requires a certain level of inscription material in order to be written.

Inscription materials up to level 2 can be purchased at Dagoward's Apothecary in The Harbor
Inscription materials up to level 8 can be purchased at the Feather's Fall Apothecary in House Jorasco.

Inscribing spells into your spellbook means not having to wait until the next level to get them. It also means you may get access to spells that aren't available through normal leveling. Once inscribed, the scroll is destroyed and the wizard can then use the spell like any other. So at inns or rest shrines, they can switch out with the new spell.

The following instructions are from DDOWIKI:

To inscribe:

1) Place the Inscribe Scroll Feat in your hotbar.

2) Open your inventory.

3) SINGLE-click in inventory on the spell scroll to be inscribed.

4) DOUBLE-click on the Inscribe Scroll Feat. A pop-up progress bar labeled "Inscribing" appears in the upper middle screen. If a pop-up error appears reading that you do not have the appropriate material, then you do not have the Inscription Material matching the spell level.

5) Wait until the progress bar completes and disappears. The spell is now available to be moved from those that are simply known, to those that are currently active.

What is in a NAME?

The game we are playing is Dungeons and Dragons: Eberron Unlimited (formerly Stormreach Unlimited).
Many people have asked what is Eberron. Is it the city, county, state? It's the entire world...

This is a little confusing as you don't go from one city to another in Eberron, but as Turbine (the makers of DDO) continue to add modules, they expand us further into the world. To read more about the RPG version of Eberron, you can go to a Wikipedia article on it.

Stormreach

Xen'drik is a continent in Eberron. It lies to the south of Khorvaire, a jungle continent of vast size and varying climate. Stormreach, the city where DDO is primarily based out of, is the most populated frontier city of Xen'drik. It is a former pirate city, built upon a gigantic ruin of ancient civilization of giants.

This gives rise to the underground sewer and giant quests seen in the city itself.

With the advent of airships, DDO is quickly opening up new territories to play and venture out to with each and every module. This means that as you rise in level, join a guild.

DDOWIKI has more information on this, but as you know, you may need a lot of free time and a bottle of Tylenol to go through it. Enjoy and I hope this clears up some questions.

Experience Points (XP)

Experience Points and Favor... Those are the two magic numbers to be gained in the game. Favor opens up patrons and quests and prizes while experience raises you up in level.
Unlike traditional MMO's, DDO does not grant XP on kills. This prevents people from "farming" XP by standing in one spot and killing mobs over and over again.

Quests, even sudden quests upon appearance of special mobs, are the only way to gain XP. There is an extreme table that shows how much XP you need to raise in levels. Below you will also find modifiers for XP during the quest run. You can see these modifiers during a dungeon run by hitting the "X" key on your keyboard anytime during the dungeon.

The modifiers below are taken directly from DDOWIKI. Read them, you may learn something.
The only thing not taken into affect here are the DDO Store Elixers. They will increase your final XP by 10% or 20% accordingly. HERE you will find information about items found in-game that will increase your XP also.


Quests

• Complete optional objectives inside a quest. Common optional objectives include slaying a boss or named creature, exploring certain areas of a map, or clearing side areas of threats. Some optional objectives are shown from the start of a mission, while others remain hidden until triggered. Optional objective XP is granted instantly.

• Complete all main objectives inside a quest. Some main objectives remain hidden until triggered. Main objective XP is usually higher than that of optional objectives. The main XP is bestowed upon completion of the quest and can be modified by the following conditions. Changes to these conditions that occur after the main XP is awarded don't affect the amount (though they may incorrectly change the amount reported in the quest log - see below).
• First-time completion: (individual) Completing a quest for the first time on Solo/Casual, on Normal, and on Hard difficulty each grants a +25% bonus. Completing a quest for the first time on Elite difficulty grants a +50% bonus.
• Repetition: (individual) The first three completions have no adjustment. Completing a quest for the fourth time (i.e., the third repetition) carries a -10% penalty, with an additional -10% penalty for each further completion, for maximum penalty of -90% from the 12th completion on. Also, beginning with the 13th completion, the main XP reward is capped at a maximum of 10% of its base value regardless of bonuses. All completions at all difficulty levels count toward this penalty. This penalty (including the 10% cap) is waived if there is a "first time" difficulty bonus, though that completion still counts toward increasing the penalty on later attempts. If the player is at the current level cap then the repetition counter is not incremented upon a successful completion, however the quest is considered 'completed' at that difficulty for the purposes of the First-time completion bonus.
• Level of quest vs level of highest character in quest: (party) Compare the quest's level to the level of the highest-level character to have entered the quest (even if they later left). If that character's level is below, equal to, or one level above the quest's level, there is no adjustment. If it's +2, there's a -10% penalty. +3 = -25%, +4 = -50%, +5 = -75%, +6 = -99%, and at +7 or higher there is no XP regardless of bonuses. Casual difficulty subtracts 1 from the quest's level (if possible) for purposes of this adjustment, Hard difficulty adds 1, and Elite adds 2. Solo difficulty does not affect it.
• Power-leveling penalty: (individual) If you are exactly 4 levels below the highest-level character in the party, you receive a -50% penalty. If you are 5 levels below, you receive a -75% penalty. If you are 6 levels below, you receive a -99% penalty. If you are 7 or more levels below, you receive no XP regardless of bonuses.
• Death: (party) There is a +10% Flawless Victory Bonus if there are no deaths. (Unconsciousness is not death unless the player releases.) There is a +5% Survival Bonus if there are one or more Hireling deaths but no player deaths.
• Re-entry:
• (party) There is a +10% Persistence Bonus if no one leaves the quest (for any reason, including death & release to bind point, recall, or exit) and re-enters.
• (individual) Each of your re-entries confers a -20% penalty to you, to a maximum of -90% for the fifth. Re-entry penalties do not apply on Solo or Casual difficulty, although the Persistence Bonus can still be lost.
• Late entry:
• (individual) If you first entered the dungeon ten or more minutes after it spawned, you'll have a -80% penalty if the time between your entry and completion is less than a quarter of the dungeon's lifetime at that moment. If it's at least a quarter but less than half, you'll have a -50% penalty instead. (Explained by dev Phax here)
• Killing monsters: Killing a large portion of the monsters present can confer
• +10% Aggression bonus
• +15% Onslaught bonus
• +25% **Conquest** bonus
• Not killing monsters: On the flip side, completing a mission while slaying very few enemies can grant
• +5% Discreet bonus
• +10% Devious bonus
• +15% **Insidious Cunning** bonus
• Disarming traps: Disarming a large portion of the traps present can confer
• +8% Tamper bonus
• +10% Neutralization bonus
• +15% **Ingenious Debilitation** bonus
• Finding secret doors: Finding a large portion of the secret doors present can confer
• +8% Observance bonus
• +10% Perception bonus
• +15% **Vigilant Sight** bonus
• Destroying breakable objects: Destroying a large portion of the breakable objects (barrels, vases, caskets, etc.) present can confer
• +8% Mischief bonus
• +10% Vandal bonus
• +15% **Ransack** bonus
• Note that the not-killing-monsters bonus isn't listed in the XP log until after quest completion, while everything else is.
•     * All bonuses are added together and can make a quest worth the time and effort to complete even if there are penalties. However, there are two cases where a quest's main XP reward will be 0 regardless of bonuses. The first is if you meet a condition that explicitly prohibits XP. The second is if there are enough penalties to reduce the reward to a subtotal of 0 XP before bonuses are applied. Due to roundoff issues, you may or may not get XP if your

Turbine Tuesdays

Turbine, every Tuesday, selects an item and makes it 50% off. Today it's Hireling Folder. This allows you a set number of hirelings to only take up one inventory slot. This is VERY useful if you use many gold seal contracts. Get a small Hireling Folder today which will hold 20 hirelings and won't cost alot!

To make sure there aren't any issues, access the DDO store from inside the game.

Feet?? Yeah, I've got two of them!

FEATS are natural abilities your character possesses and can be expanded upon as you go up in level.
They can do everything from increasing your SPOT skill to granting you proficiency in a specific weapon.

If you are a Fighter type, this includes fighters, paladins, warrior clerics and barbarians, PLEASE take the Feat called Diehard. As you may know, your character dies once they reach -10 hp. If you reach 0, you are just incapacitated and you are bleeding slowly. If you have Diehard, you immediately stop bleeding and start healing naturally. No need to wait on a cleric or favored soul to heal you before you die during a battle. Diehard is a must for anyone that wants staying power.

If you are a wizard or sorcerer, choose a Spell Focus. If you don't know what school your spells are in, look at the spells article on this site to find out. Spell Focus will raise your DC in that school of magic, making it harder to resist your spells.

On DDOWIKI, you can find a very comprehensive list of Feats and their descriptions. Take a look and see what may interest you as you go up to your next level.

What is DC?

DC - Difficulty Class :
     definition: The Difficulty Class is a number associated with an action that represents how hard that action is to do or resist.

This is not the easiest concept to grasp but it is part of the new RPG rules. For instance, when a spell is cast on you, you are given a DC. The DC is 10 + Spell Level + Casting Stat Modifier + Items + Feats = DC. Clear on that? You then use your (as us old timers would put it) saving throw modifiers from Wisdom, Constitution or other stat + feats + items and roll the 20 sided dice to see if we succeed in saving against that spell.

So in general, if you are an attacking type or crowd control, you want to raise your DC score in your primary attack form.

For those of us who are support types (Clerics, Favored Souls, Bards) and do NO attacking, we do not require a DC bonus as we are buffing or healing our party. There is one exception to this. Support types do need a DC to remove diseases, web, hold or any other spell that has been placed upon their party member.

Here is the DDOWIKI article on it if you really want to be confused.

Dragonmarks in all their glory

Dragonmarks are a per server unlock. They give your character extra bonuses based on race that would help you and your group out considerably. Halflings can get Dragonmarks that allow them to heal themselves. Can you imagine a Halfling Thief that can heal him/herself? Or a Half-Orc or Human that can raise the level of the chest you are about to open so that you can get better treasure?

To unlock these feats, you must take a quest that is primarily a quiz from Lockania in the Marketplace.
See DDOWIKI for more details on how to beat this quiz and unlock Dragonmarks for all your characters on the server.