Ranger new player guide

This is a page for the Ranger specific page for the Newbie Help Guide. Whenever possible, overlap with the general guide should be minimized.

For details, rules, and the other pages involved, see Category:Newbie Guide Contest.

Getting Started

Welcome to the Ranger Guild!

It is assumed you've already found the guild structure and have already joined the Rangers' Guild, if you have not you can use the DIRECTION command to locate the area. But now that you've done that, and made use of the JOIN command to become one of us, what' next? And, just what exactly is is that Rangers are supposed to do?

Starting Stats

Setting up your new Ranger for success. Each person has his or her own ideas on starting stats for a ranger, but here is one that can be used without too many problems and will enable you to advance fairly quickly in your profession. Rangers have three stats in our main sphere of influence. These are Reflexes, Agility, and Strength. In addition, since we are a combat guild, we need stamina and discipline. Since we do things across all the spectrum (survival, weapons, armor, magic, and lore), we tend to need to start out boosting our stats to be fairly even so we can train fairly well with just about everything. Each race comes with a specific stat set up and you have 600 TDP's (Training Developement Points) to adjust your stats for your first hunting session. The final set up you end up with is determined by the race of your character. As a starting point get stamina to 14 for races with 10 or more starting stamina. This is good to enable you to use more weapons including heavier ones, wear most armors without too much difficulty, and to take a few hits without going down on the first hit. If your race starting stamina is under 10 then get stamina to 12. Then as a basic rule of thumb try to get the rest of your stats to 12, specially the 5 key ones and intellingence and wisdom. Any TDP's left over can be placed where you want them. But bottom line, use all the TDP's you can use. Any that are left over will carry over to your next circle. To raise your stats, use DIR LIST TRAINING to get to the various stat training areas. Once there TRAIN, then STUDY to gain 1 on your stat. Each stat is also a command that will give you information on the stat and how many TDP's it will take to raise it one. For instance, using STAMINA will give you the basic information on the stamina stat.

For more information see TDP

For more information see Info command

Survival Skills

Rangers are survivalists first and foremost. The majority of your training as a Ranger will focus on improving your survival skills. You must dedicate yourself to actively training at least eight different skills within the survival group at all times in order to advance within the guild. While there is some flexibility on which skills you choose to focus on, there is a hard requirement to train our guild-specific skill of scouting.

• Evasion - Simply put, evasion is the skill which determines how well you avoid attacks. Aside from classes in the subject, the only way to learn is to get out there and stand at melee range in combat.
• Athletics - The main use of the Athletics skill is to overcome natural obstacles, such as climbing a tree or swimming a river. Provided below are some simple suggestions where to practice this skill based upon which area you have chosen to start at within the game. You can learn Athletics through swimming by just moving from room to room that has water, such as a brook or river. Deep water requires you to use the SWIM <DIRECTION> command. Likewise, learning by climbing requires you to use the CLIMB <DIRECTION> command.
  • Crossing - The easiest place to start learning Athletics near the Crossing is a brook out the West Gate. Once out the West Gate go down the path and head west until you hit the brook. The brook can be seen on this map RanikMap4. You can also try asking at the Ranger Guild and a fellow Ranger or player can guide you there. This brook should teach to about 100 ranks.Caution: The path to the brook is a hunting area with Musk Hogs on the road so be careful traveling to it.
  • Riverhaven - Outside of the West gate of Riverhaven, near Goblin Shaman, there is a creek you can swim in. Once out the gate go nothwest go down the path and then down the trail to enter the mud flats area. The creek can be seen on this map RanikMap32.Caution: Stay within the southern regions of the creek, the northern parts are inhabbited by Scarlet Crayfish which may be too hard for a new character to fight.
• Perception - This skill can be trained by using the SCOUT command, the HUNT command, the COLLECT command, or the FORAGE command.

For more information see Perception.

• Stealth -
• Locksmithing - As the popular adage goes, "Waste not, want not." In this instance you are required to train survival skills, so why not make use of the various boxes that creatures drop in order to facilitate that training. It is this line of thinking which has given rise to the popularity of Locksmithing skill among the Ranger guild. For beginners, you might want to do some hunting of Louts outside the East Gate of Crossings or Zombie Goblins outside the North Gate of Riverhaven. As a warning, if you do decide to visit the Riverhaven Zombie Goblins, it is recommended that you have a few ranks in combat skills before adventuring to the area. Efficient training of the locksmithing skill requires a lockpick.

For more information see Locksmithing.

• Thievery - While not very common of a skill for most Rangers to train, the Thievery skill is none the less part of the survival skillset and can be used for circling within the guild. You can steal an item from a shop by doing STEAL <ITEM>, such as STEAL WATER. You can start training this skill by stealing small in-expensive items. In the Crossing you can start with water from Chizili's Alchemical Goods. This should teach to about 40 ranks. You should only steal from the same shop about once a real-life hour. You can steal from multiple shops to do a "stealing run". As a general rule of thumb, smaller and in-expensive items are easier to steal, larger more expensive items are harder to steal. See Stealing List as a general stealing guide on what to steal where. The more proficient you get in stealing you can steal multiple times from the same shop within that hour time frame. It is also highly suggested to HIDE while stealing. This not only makes it easier to steal an item, but you can also learn some stealth during the process. Thievery can also be taught. However, teaching or listening to Thievery within the City limits can get you arrested. Be careful! Caution: You may also try to steal coins or gems from another player using STEAL <player name> though this teaches rather poorly. Be warned that stealing from another player is considered a Player vs. Player action and will leave your character open to PvP for 4 hours.

For more information see Stealing.

• First Aid -
• Outdoorsmanship - One of the most widely used skills within the guild is the Outdoorsmanship skill. This skill can be trained by using the FORAGE command or the COLLECT command. When first starting out, you may find that you are unable to collect piles of things. It is recommended that use forage instead to find single objects until you gain enough skill to collect piles of objects. Use of this skill can also gain you a bit of coin by gathering wood (forage for sticks or branches) for Mags in Crossings, or gathering weaving supplies (forage for grass, twigs, vines, or sticks) for Old Maisie in Riverhaven.

For more information see Outdoorsmanship.

• Skinning - One of the most popular choices of survival skills, skinning also has the benefit of being one of the easiest to train. However, in order to make use of it you must combat creatures which can be skinned. A good critter to start on would be Rats in Crossings or Frogs just outside of the Riverhaven East Gate. In order to skin any creature, the use of a bladed weapon is required.

For more information see Skinning.

• Scouting - This is the quintessential skill that makes Rangers what they are. The scouting skill uses our ability to use all of our senses to efficiently track pray, travel off the beaten path, and uncover hidden pathways. As someone just starting out, you should make use of HUNT more often than not when you are in combat areas.

For more information see Scouting.

Combat Skills

Beyond being a master survivalist, Rangers are also adept hunters. We pride ourselves in our ability to go nearly anywhere and fight nearly anything. Because of this, the guild requires that you keep up with not only weapon skills but also armor skills as well. The choice of what weapon and armor to use are purely yours to make, however this guide will give you a little advice in what to choose and how those choices will impact your advancement later on.

Weapons

As a member of the Rangers' Guild, you will be required to learn the use of at least two weapon classes in addition to the parry skill. In order to facilitate that parry learning, it is encouraged that one of your weapon choices be something that you can use at melee with an opponent.

In order to make full use of our abilities later on, it is also encouraged (but not required) for you to practice use of either a bow, crossbow, or sling. Skill with these weapons will serve you well when using either the Dual Load or Snipe abilities described below.

• Dual Load - Once you have gained a significant amount of skill with your bow weapon and have the appropriate physical stats, you will be able to use this ability. The Dual Load allows for a Ranger to load their bow with two arrows and fire them at the same time.

For more information see Dual Load.

• Snipe - Upon achieving your 40th circle within the guild, you will be allowed to learn the Snipe ability from Guildmaster Tolle in Langenfirth. This ability will allow you to fire your weapon from hiding and remain hidden, it can also be used in conjunction with the Dual Load ability.

For more information see Snipe.

Armor

For your first circles (1-10) you will be able to advance by just training a single armor skill in addition to your defending skill. Afterwards, Rangers must train two armor skills to advance within the guild. In order to make this easier, it is common for many Rangers to train their shield skill while in melee combat.

Magic Skills

While not one of our primary focuses, Rangers still make use of the magic skillset to accomplish feats that are beyond our natural abilities.

Ranger Magic

Even though rangers are not big with magic, we have a nice set of spells that aid us in hunting, and performing other tasks. There are 8 areas of magic that can be trained. These are Life Magic (our primary magic), Arcana (use of magic devices), Attunement (ability to harness life magic), and the five magic areas where all spells are placed, Augmentation (those that boost your abilities), Utility (those that are general use), Warding (defense related), Target Magic (Attack spells), Debilitation (hindering spells). Most ranger spells are of the Augmentation and Debilitation type, though we have other spells. These two magic skills are in the ranger spehere of influence, that the guild is intimately familiar with and thus have a higher cap when enhancing. When you start out as a ranger you have 1 spell slot to use in order to choose a spell. You must ASK GUILDLEADERNAME ABOUT MAGIC two times to get the list of spells you are able to learn (though currently I think there is a problem here and you may not get the list, if you don't get the list, then you can CHOOSE SPELLNAME and get the spell). The three introductory spells you can choose from are Eagles Cry (Target Magic attack spell), See The Wind (Augmentation boost to Ranged weapons), Athleticism (Augmenation boost to swimming and climbing). Each of these three spells takes up 1 spell slot, so you can choose one of these spells. To choose a spell with the guild leader you use CHOOSE SPELLNAME. In addition, since the spell compost does not take up any spell slots you can also CHOOSE COMPOST and learn the compost spell. This will give you two spells to use as a starting ranger.

Many rangers try to get a spell that will train each of the magic areas in the first 7 spell slots. This is entirely up to you as a new ranger. But the spells easiest to use and train with are Eagles Cry (Target Magic 1 slot), See the Wind (Augmenation 1 slot), Athleticism (Augmentation 1 slot), Compost (Utility 0 slot), Essence of Yew (Warding 1 slot), Devitalize (Target Magic 1 slot), and Devolve (Debilitation 2 slots). These are the easiest spells we have in each magic area. Each spell has a difficulty rating from Intro (easiest), basic, advanced, Esoteric (hardest needing close to 280 skill to cast). So choose your spells wisely.

For more information see spell slot progressions.

For more information see rangers.

For more information see spheres of influence.

Lore Skills

Like with Magic, Lore is not a primary focus of this Guild. However, you are still required to learn a bit from this skillset in order to advance within the guild. The requirements are minimal, however they must still be met.

Other Information

There are a number of other aspects to the Ranger Guild which can help you, or in the case of the Ranger Bonus harm you. While some are purely optional, meaning you decide if you want to make use of them or bother learning them, some have a direct impact in how efficient you are able to be.

Ranger Bonus

A Ranger's surroundings have a direct impact in how well the Ranger can complete many of their tasks, this is known as their "bonus" and can both be gained or lost. The level of bonus a Ranger has is large influence on how well that Ranger can complete actions which are governed by the survival skillset.

For more information see Ranger Bonus.

Beseeches

When you have reached your 10th circle within the guild you will be granted access to the first of these abilities, and while they are not required to learn, many of them do provide a noticeable benefit to the Ranger who uses them.

For more information see Ranger Beseeches.

Animal Companions

Like beseeches, having a companion animal is not required by the Ranger guild and exists as a fun perk. Animal companions provide little benefit and have a limited range of abilities. Despite this, many Rangers take pride in having them and consider it one of the cornerstones of the guild as a whole.

For more information see Ranger Companions.

Slips

While most abilities can be learned from a Guildmaster or are granted upon reaching a specific circle within the guild, the use of slips is not. Achieving access to the slip abilities must be taught to you from either a fellow Ranger or another who has access to them. Slips do not grant any sort of edge when training, but can offer the Ranger who knows them a little bit of versatility when using them while hiding. These abilities automatically grow with you as you gain more circles and Rangers are able to perform the first at 30 circles.

For more information see Slip.

Signs

Another fun feature of being a Ranger is the ability to use our very own form of sign language. This allows Rangers to communicate with each other from adjacent rooms and can also be done while hidden without betraying your location.

For more information see Ranger Sign Language.

Role Playing a Ranger

There are a number of books published in game which focus on the Ranger lifestyle and are highly recommended for any Ranger to read. You can view most of them in the Boar Clan guildhall, or click the links below to read them here:

IssQR

Quintessential Ranger

IstNRSA

No Ranger Stands Alone