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Newbie Skill Guide
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Flincher14
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 7:26 pm      Reply with quote

I have seen a couple newbies enter the game picking various skills that don't work well for the inexperienced, or in tandem with other skills. Such as picking chemistry without biology and vice versa when those skills are critically related. So Alphabetical order.

Important note: If you take 4 skills you will start with higher skill levels than if you take 8. 4-6 skills is a comfortable amount of skills to take. 7-8 will leave you weeping in most areas.

Artistry:
Artistry allows you to do a variety of really neat role-play focused things. You can put designs on people's gear and weapons. You can make sculptures and customize what they look like. You can also make paintings of just about anything you want and these paintings might just out-live your character. However artistry is a flavor skill, it'll provide a roleplay tool for you to use but it wont feed your character or provide any tangible benefits to your clan aside from perhaps your boss asking you to put up a mural on your family turf or put propaganda pieces on other peoples turfs.
Newbie Friendliness: The syntax for artistry is complicated but the actual skill only requires creativeness and an ability to make beautifully descriptive pieces of art.
First character rating: 1/5

Armorcrafting:
Armor is very important to player survival and therefore every combat and even most non-combat characters want the best armor they can get. This makes armorcrafters very valuable. Armor types vary from, padded, leather, hardened leather, plated leather and Kevlar.
Newbie-friendliness: Resources within a clan are very abundant for making armor and the crafts are easy to branch and learn. If there was something to complain about armor its that it doesn't have much variety and once a clan has a stockpile of armor you are there to repair it and replace armor pieces too damaged to be repaired.
First character: 4/5

Butchery:
Butchery has multiple useful functions. The first is butchery is your ability to skin an animal and retrieve a useable hide. These hides are directly used in the creation of valuable armor. The next function is butchering skinned carcasses to be cooked and eaten. Butchery also contains all the cooking crafts, if you want to cook meals and turn raw meat into something edible then butchery is for you.
Newbie-friendliness: This is a good newbie skill because it is versatile. It is a must have skill for independent's who do not have a family to feed them. This is because butchery allows you to turn rats and small lizards into meals your character will need to survive and function alone.
First character: 4/5


Biology:
This is an important craftset for clans. You extract chemicals for chemist to use in important things, you can grow food in family greenhouses, you can grow herbs for the purpose of extracting chemicals and there are some practical uses to biologist as they can extract useful materials from wilderness plants.
CRITICAL NOTE: You MUST take chemistry with biology. They are inter-twined on the most basic level and the skill-sets directly compliment each other. As a newbie with only one of these skills you will get very frustrated to discover you need to enlist a chemist to perform some of your functions, and that chemist will likely be able to take over your biology task and leave you obsolete.
Newbie Friendliness: Pretty friendly for first time crafting characters. The materials are easy to get and clans have resources in abundance to support you while you learn.
First character rating: 4.5/5

Bludgeoning:
This is one of the basic weapon skills for melee, it lets you deal special type of damage in the form of bone fractures which are quite effective against PC's. Not as popular as long-blade.
Newbie-friendliness: In my opinion bludgeon is inferior to long-blade because you will inflict bleeding wounds with an edged weapon which provide a very immediate advantage in battle while a fracture is more of an annoying wound to recover from.
First character rating: 4/5

Brawling:
This is a flavor skill. You will never really need brawling for your survival but if you take brawling you can push around anyone who doesn't have the skill. You are allowed to brawl in the neutral market but you can't draw weapons so the ability to beat anyone down gives you a distinct advantage in the market. Also bragging rights are nice.
Newbie-friendliness: There isn't a real benefit to this skill except you can insult people freely in the bar and not worry about getting a beat down.
First character rating: 2/5

Chemistry
Essentially the next step after biology, you can turn chemicals extracted in biology into medicine, flavor crystals, you can make propellant and a multitude of other useful things that are hugely valuable in clans. Must take with biology.
Newbie friendliness: Same as biology
First character rating: 4.5/5

Dual-wield:
One of two fighting styles. This lets you fight with two weapons or a weapon and shield. The fact you can use a shield effectively with this skill makes it very valuable to survivability. Also you need one of the two fighting styles to be effective but not both.
Newbie Friendliness: Highly recommended for combat characters. You're at risk of dying easy so anything that provides a defensive boost is helpful.
First character rating: 5/5

Education:
This is basically your characters ability to read and write. It provides a significant boost to crafting sets allowing you to craft items with a higher success rates in fields such as biology and chemistry. This also provides a significant boost to medicine and healers with Education will prove more successful.
Newbie Friendliness: For crafters its a must. For combatants its flavor.
First character rating: 4.5/5


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Flincher14
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 7:49 pm      Reply with quote

Electronics:
This is a neat craft-set because it lets you make radios, flashlights, ROBOTS, ceiling lights, etc. Its a fair bit more complicated than some craft-sets and the resources for crafts are moderately harder to acquire for a clan. Electricians can gather extra materials from some scav-items that are found in wilderness and that is a very valuable ability.
Newbie-friendliness: Its a good craft-set and it isn't dependent on another craft skill to do much. Education is good to have with this.
First character: 4.5/5

First-aid:
This skill lets you treat small to moderate wounds. Its not very useful on its own as small to moderate wounds will heal over time and you are only hastening the heal rate if providing any benefit at all. You need first-aid with medicine and education.
Newbie-friendliness: Healers are intensely useful as wounds are frequent occurrences, but its a three skill commitment as you need first-aid, medicine, education, to be effective.
First character: 3/5

Gunsmithing
Making guns and bullets. That is your prime directive and your only use. Resources are extremely hard for even the richest clans to come by and you'll be twiddling your thumbs often waiting for instances to use your gunsmithing skill. HOWEVER guns are intensely useful and powerful and having one gunsmith in a family is critical and very useful.
Newbie-friendliness: Not a friendly skill at all. To niche while having very little to do, determining whether a clan has a desperate need of a gunsmith after your first character is a smart way to find where you will be most useful.
First character: 0/5

Handicraft:
This lets you make bins for organization and furniture but more popularly it lets you make clothing. Theres hundreds of clothing styles and combinations you can make and tailors are the best for providing characters with that 'perfect' outfit. Handicraft isn't generally useful to a clan as they generally have enough furniture and bins available for use and clothing doesn't put food on the table or protect fighters from lagato bites.
Newbie-friendliness: Its an easier craft-set to learn and use, resources are extremely abundant. But you wont be extremely useful. Handicraft is more of a supplement craft-set rather than something to focus your character on.
First character: 3/5

Hide/sneak:
These are useful skills and they go hand in-hand. You can hide within a group to avoid being attacked first by attacking mobs, and you can dangerously sneak around the wilderness solo where if you were not hiding you would die. Important note: IF you are hidden and you sneak into another room without any mob or pc there, you will 100% not be revealed from hiding, you do not need the sneak skill to actually sneak but it gives you a good chance to sneak into an area with mobs/pc's without being revealed.
Newbie-friendliness: Hide/sneak requires some player skill to use effectively as a solo-scavenger but its still useful for the fact you can hide in a group.
First character: 3/5


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Roadhawk
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We lurk inside your brain, we hide inside your mind.

Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 8:17 pm      Reply with quote

Top quality posts.

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HAL
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Senior RPA

Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 8:18 pm      Reply with quote

Exceptional. Can't sticky from my phone, but this needs to be.

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Flincher14
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 8:30 pm      Reply with quote

Handgun:
This is all about using pistols and revolvers to drop your enemies. You can shoot up to two rooms away and inflict a heck of a lot of damage with bullets. You don't need the skill to shoot a handgun but it will greatly improve your chance to hit.
Newbie-friendliness: Handguns can't be used in group melee because you will shoot your friends, there are not many instances to use a gun other than in pvp which is rare. However a gun makes a mediocre skilled fighter far more scary as bullets are deadly.
First character: 3.5/5

Hunting:
This skill has two uses, one you can find wildlife and human tracks in the wilderness, you can follow blood trails of wounded people/animals too. The other function is laying traps, traps need a rework in my opinion, most of them don't provide a significant use other than to inflict light damage on a person/group that happens to trip the trap. There is a tripwire trap that will knock down people and creates for 10 valuable seconds that is by far the most useful trap.
Newbie-friendliness: Trap laying and tracking is simply not useful to most characters. There is a small niche for hunters in the game and hunting is only really valuable if you intend to take a shot at hunting solo. Which I don't recommend as a newbie.
First character: 1/5

Long-blade:
This lets you wield swords effectively along with other slashing weapons. These are capable of providing bleeding injuries which will kill your target faster and weaken their combat effectiveness.
Newbie-friendliness: This is the go-to weapon skill for melee, its better to kill your target faster and bladed weapons are in the highest supply.
First character: 5/5 for combat characters

Mechanics
Mechanics are maintain machines that clans own but don't generally create many craft products themselves. Mechanics can extract valuable resources from some scav items which is very useful because most of said scav items are too heavy or inconvenient to carry unless broken down by a mechanic.
Newbie-friendliness: You will be an unsung hero. You will be maintaining and fixing things for your clan but most wont be aware of how helpful you are being because you are not producing stacks of bullets/medicine etc. Some mechanic crafts directly work with Electronics but not as closely as chemistry/biology work together.
First character: 2/5

Medicine:
Exactly the same blurb as with first-aid. This lets you heal any severity of wound and makes you intensely valuable. Need education to be more effective.
Newbie-friendliness: Needs 3 skills to work well. You provide a coded service in healing peoples wounds but your job is very focused on roleplay and medical flavored emotes while treating people.
Newbie-friendliness: 3/5

Polearm:
This is the least used weapon skill in the game. I would say it fills a niche role with characters who have really high strength and want to deliver maximum damage.
Newbie-friendliness: Polearms are rare, polearm wielders are even more rare. I believe the weapon style is slightly under-powered.
Newbie-friendliness: I wouldn't say Polearm is friendly to anyone, why handicap yourself when there is better options?
First character: 0/5

Rifle:
Lets you shoot up to three rooms away and is more accurate than a handgun. However it requires two hands to wield a rifle and therefore you can't carry a melee in one hand and a rifle in the other (niche fighting style). Its a soldiers weapon and your clan will keep stashes of rifle bullets for its members in the event of a family war. A rifle is also useful for hunters to get accurate shots off.
Newbie-friendliness: A rifle fills more roles as a clan member and solo-hunter. The handgun's main advantage is the ability to shoot enemies in melee with a gun in your off-hand and a melee weapon in your other. This is only viable in a 1v1+ situation.
First character: 4/5

Scavenge
This is by far one of my most favorite skills in the game. All resources in the game that are used for crafts are taken from the environment by the use of the forage command which uses your scavenge skill to function. Anyone can scavenge without the skill but the results of what you might find are random. A good scavenger can 'forage survey' to determine the possible scav items a scav room can provide and using an extended version of the forage command will allow you to look for specific items
Newbie-friendliness: Scavenging is straight forward and intensely valuble to a clan, as a scav group forms you will often hear from the leader what they are hoping to find on the trip and you as a skilled scavenger can focus on finding whatever that item is. This makes you a useful clan provider and if you are independent of any clan you can tag-o-long with clan scavs and try to search for things you can easily sell.
First character: 5/5
NOTE: You can earn this skill in game simply by foraging. It'll eventually appear in your skill menu at beginner. This will take a few days worth of playtime to accomplish but some players believe that because scavenge is easily acquired in game, that it is not worth taking in character creation. I don't subscribe to the philosophy and being a useful scavenger right out of character creation will prove valuable.


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Flincher14
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 8:45 pm      Reply with quote

Sole-wield:
This is the other option for fighting style as opposed to Dual wield. This is the act of holding a single weapon in one or two hands. The purpose of which is to allow you to deal greater damage swings at the cost of defensive bonuses afforded by a shield.
Newbie-friendliness: Its a perfectly fine fighting style, you don't have to worry about a acquiring an easily damaged shield and you can deal slightly more damage. Its an acceptable choice for a newbie, but dual-wield with shield will increase survivability which is why dual-wield is recommended for newbies.
First character: 4.5/5

Steal:
With steal you can slip between yourself and the room, or your backpack and your hand without anyone knowing. You can even steal directly from a person. However..if you get caught one time you are facing execution and you will get caught at least once. Its a skill that is out of place in the mud but its better to have it and not use it than want it but not have the option.
Newbie-friendliness: Do not pick this skill. You are going to get your first character killed. The risk for stealing is way to high for the potentially small reward.
First character: 0/5

Weapon crafting:
Everyone needs a melee weapon and there is a constant hope to improve the type of weapons a pc has and many of times a weapon becomes so damaged that it needs to be replaced. Not only can you create melee weapons with this skill, it comes with most of the trap making skills.
Newbie-friendliness: Anecdotal evidence says that it is very resource intensive and hard to branch new weapon-crafts and raise the skill itself. All pc's can start with a weapon and it takes a very long time for a weapon-crafter to produce weapons of better quality than what is available in the starter shops. Every clan should have one weaponcrafter but can function by outsourcing weapon-craft needs to independents.
Newbie-friendliness: 2/5


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Holmes
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Post Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2013 8:47 pm      Reply with quote

Stickied.

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Starmonger
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Void Dreamer

Post Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 1:38 am      Reply with quote

Love it

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Chrjo12
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 2:53 am      Reply with quote

Everything is awesome, but I disagree with your assessment of First-aid. It does not require education nor medicine. Those are really only necessary for more severe wounds, and even then the right item/first-aid combination can work for severes and on up. As a newbie, starting with first-aid is a good way to be immediately useful and get into RP as the 'combat medic'.

Another unlisted benefit of having first-aid to start with is a much cleaner diagnose command. Instead of getting a huge chunk (depending on amount of wounds obviously) that's hard to read, you're provided with a clean line-item list of wounds with their location and state (infected/bound/bleeding(iirc)/treated).

I'd actually put it at 4/5 for a newbie. It's a nice starting skill, imo.

Again in my opinion, a good true-newb combo is Style/Weapon/Scav/F-A.


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kog
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 24, 2013 8:54 am      Reply with quote

Agreed. Wormed out well for me with Toz , anyway I fixed whatever got broken on myself and brought back cool stuff. You can learn to craft if you bring home lots of stuff easier than you can learn to scav so you can craft, and f-a is tricky to learn on your own. Not having it, you have to wait for people to come heal you, run the risk of infection, etc.

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Featured artwork used on Parallel RPI given permission for use by original artists macrebisz and merl1ncz.