Give a new player some advice :)

[Sitting_Bill]

Hi guys,

I've just started playing, and I have to say, I'm so impressed

So far I've been picking up skills fairly randomly, and for attributes I've just been increasing exploration - at the moment it is at 6. Any advice on what skills would be good to pick up for a wandering hobo type character? I'm thinking boatbuilding will mean I can move around a lot faster, and also get the bark boat curio, but I'm also wondering if I should spend LP on unarmed combat attribute, so I can raid anthills and stuff...

What do you guys think I should focus on first? Any ideas are welcome

Here is my character for reference:

Froderick
Character created at
2011-03-15 15:55
Last played at
2011-03-16 15:20
Direct ancestor
None
Learning points collected
669 (4004 total)
Age
No time
Values
Strength 12
Agility 12
Intelligence 10
Constitution 10
Perception 10
Charisma 10
Dexterity 10
Psyche 10
Unarmed Combat 1
Melee Combat 1
Marksmanship 1
Exploration 6
Stealth 1
Sewing 1
Smithing 1
Carpentry 1
Cooking 1
Farming 1
Survival 1
Personal Beliefs
Nature 0
Life 0
Civil 0
Night 0
Martial -2
Change 2
Skills
Carpentry
Fishing
Foraging
Hearth Magic
Hunting
Lumberjacking
Oral Tradition
Wilderness Survival
Stone Working
Primitive Tools
Unarmed Combat
The Will to Power

Cheers

Froderick

[bitza]

yeah, boatbuilding is a big one, you might want yeomanry to set up a camp somewhere to store extra stuff, exploration is always good, nothing wrong with a lil UA, and don't forget survival. raising that will increase the quality of your forageables

and do marksmanship if you want to get serious about hunting

[Mashadar]

Boat building has top priority, exploration comes next.
You don't need any unarmed combat for starters. When raiding an ant hill, run to shallow water. The ants will follow you and will start wandering away when they can't reach you.
Then you can go back and raid the ant hill. All other animals you can shoot with a sling from a boat, so you'll only need some marksmanship once you get a sling.

It also helps to make yourself a pair of nettle shirts and pants. Select your stinging nettles so that it will result in q10 clothes (don't forget to account for your sqrt(sewing*dex)).
A q10 set will give +4 UA, +8 survival and -4 agility (but a q11 set will give -8 agility).

[Sevenless]

Boatbuild = yes. The curio is nice, but the ability to wander and find more ant hills is critical.

That being said, ant hills require no UA to raid. Aggro the ants by raiding the hill, then run into shallow water. When the ants hit the water they will stop being able to follow you. You are then free to go and raid the hill. It's a well known method of raiding. Alternatively, to raid an inland hill do the same thing, aggro and walk away (they can't catch you even at walk speed). Now, run a bit, walk some more (in a straight line) until they lose you and the combat signals disappear. Then you can walk right past them to the hill and raid it. They will chase you, but you can raid the hill and get out before they get back.

I'm sure you know soldier/queen/empress ants are all very good LP curios to have.

As for your basic skills, the skills I advise are forage, hunting, lumberjacking, carpentry. You've got those, so now it's time to focus on your incremental skills. Exploration 10 is nice, but you can't forget about survival. Survival increases the quality of everything you bring in (including improving the quality and therefor the LP you get from ant curios). Since you're alone, boatbuilding should be a priority since it lets you find/raid so many more ant hills. Survival 10 is a good target so you can get max Q things from rabbits you hunt.

Also note: Make symbel carpentry items if you haven't already. All of them give discovery LP.

You're going to want to think about saving for Yeomanry or joining a group before settling down really. Otherwise mostly everything you have can be stolen. But if you want to protect more than your inventory holds, you can sleep with a crate and a bed in a leanto. That will stop anyone without theft skills from being able to take it. Can't protect the boat without a claim though.

[Potjeh]

Well, Unarmed Combat was a waste, but it's not that expensive so you didn't really lose that much. The character looks pretty good otherwise. You're raising exploration, which is the best skill to raise early on, especially if you play solo. You're right about usefulness of boatbuilding, and that should be your first priority now. After that just keep raising exploration till like 15 at least (more is better though), and then get some survival (5-6 for start) to get better quality foragables, which gives you more LP. Also, get nettle gear ASAP, it buffs your survival skill. Afterwards I'd work on some marksmanship for hunting (10 is enough to get started, but it's sloooow), as long as you stay in your boat and far enough from shore you're perfectly safe. But yeah, generally you should only buy new skills when you need them, primary use for your LP should be the raisable skills like exploration. As for ants, you don't need any combat skills to raid the hills. The trick is that you walk faster than them, so you just lure them far enough from their anthill, run back to it and then raid it before they can return. If you have a boat it's even easier, if you move away from shore they'll go to the water near you, and then their pathing will break (you can tell when they start wandering around randomly) and you can disembark and raid the hill without them attacking you.

*edit* Damn, so many ninjas. But I forgot to tell you one thing, and they forgot it too: you should focus on raising your int as much as you can, it lets you study more curiosities at once, and some higher end ones can't even be studied with 10 int. Blueberries are your best bet, and heath (pink terrain) is a good place to look for them. I'd recommend fish, but it's extremely rare these days (everyone is overfishing).

[bitza]

UA is never a waste, but it probably is better to wait on it a while.

[Potjeh]

Nah, I meant the skill that unlocks punch, waste of LP to get it before you can shoot boars.

[adamater]

If you cant steal a boat get boat building

[Sitting_Bill]

Thanks, you've all been really helpful

I guess I'll save up for boatbuilding now - will take me a while to get enough LP :S

Thanks also for the tips on anthill raiding - I've tried it before, but I nearly died due to not running away I still haven't managed to heal myself from that, I've been wearing leeches constantly but have only got from 36 HHP to 46 HHP... seems slow . Are there any other good early healing methods that I'm missing?

Cheers,

Froderick

[Potjeh]

Leeches are your best bet for now, and yes, they're very slow. Do note that bloated leeches can unbloat if you leave them in container for a while, which lets you reuse them. Reusing same leeches pushes their quality up (your con being the ceiling), and higher q leeches deal more SHP damage and heal more HHP.