Character creation

Guild Guide

Guilds are analogous to classes in table top games. In RetroMUD guilds offer training in skills and spells. Therefore, your choice of guild membership will affect what skills and spells you have access to.

💡It is strongly recommended that you put your first 20 levels into the same "primary" guild that you started with

We will look at more complicated guild options in the "progression" section of this site. 

Primary guilds

While Retromud offers countless possibilities of advancement in primary, secondary and tertiary guilds, it is the primary guild that primarily determines the roles your character can most easily assume in a party.

Tanks fight in the front row protecting the other party members. Fighters, Fallen, Paladins, Monks and Jomsvikings are the best suited for tanking, closely followed by Assassins, Rangers and Sentinels.

Mages, while physically fragile, excel in elemental offensive magic, often working together with Alchemists who can sentisize enemies to a particular element. Templars, Cultists, Psionicists, and Bards are esteemed for their proficiency in non-elemental magic.

Biomancers are the experts in healing magic, and together with Druids are responsible to keep the party alive. Templars and Cultists learn solid healing spells as well.

Assassins, Rangers and Sentinels often let the tank keep the attention of the enemies, while they deal terrible damage from the middle row with their ranged skills. Alchemists and Merchants, while competent magic users, can be often found shooting thundersticks and crossbows. 

Necromancers devote their lives to forming undead creations, pets, who can aid them in fighting. Druids are often seen accompanied by an animal or a faerie.

Abjurers, specializing in protective magic, are indispensable when fighting the most powerful enemies. Bards and Psionicists learn some unique protective spells as well. Alchemists can enchant equipment to protect and strengthen the owner, and Merchants can protect the equipment itself. If you fail to hire a merchant for your party, you will find yourself paying them later for repairing your gear!

When you first begin playing, you will often not be in a party. When playing by yourself ("solo"), you will need to use different tactics than when in a group. A Fighter's solo strategy is pretty simple (hit things until they die, leave if you are about to die), but other guilds will require a more nuanced approach. Guilds like Mage and Bard might have trouble keeping themselves alive long enough to kill their foe, while Abjurers and Biomancers sometimes struggle to do enough damage to take down bigger opponents. Every guild is capable of some level of soloing, but some race/guild combinations are definitely better at it  than others. As you level, it will become easier to find other people to play with, so you can face bigger challenges. 

Race Guide

Races in RetroMUD are more like species and don't refer to the real world concept of race. For example, in RetroMUD the werewolf is a race and so are humans. 

Retromud has a large list of races for you to chose from. Each race is different than any others, and offers its own array of benefits/disadvantages. 

Race-Specific Needs and abilities

Races have different physical characteristics. For example, giants are large and leprechauns are small. Vampires can see in the dark, and selkies can see magical auras. You can see a whole list of all the physical characteristics on the official webpage.

💡The human race is a good all-rounder, with no specific strengths or weaknesses

Stats

Strength - Affects how much physical damage you do with wielded weapons

Agility - Affects how nimble you are and how good at dodging damage

Constitution - Affects the size of your health point pool

Dexterity - Affects your ability to land hits in melee combat

Intelligence - Affects the size of your spell point pool and makes certain spells more effective

Wisdom - Also affects the size of your spell point pool and makes certain spells more effective

Perception - Affects your ability to sight down the barrel of a gun, bow, crossbow

Charisma - Affects your ability to influence NPC's, for example getting better prices in shops

Size - Your height. One effect of size is that it's easier to stun opponents if they are much smaller than you.

Alignment

Some guilds require maintaining certain alignment, while some races receive only half experience at certain alignments. Devil paladin is not a recommended starting combination.

Skill and spell training limits

In RetroMUD the cap on training for skills and spells is 100. However, not all races are able to reach this limit. For example, arcanus can only train skills to a maximum of 75%. This makes them a more difficult choice for guilds that rely on a lot of skills.

For magical guilds it is advisable to choose a race with high studying potential in appropriate type of magic: spiritual or hermetic. A kanku can be a great alchemist with 90% hermetic spell maximum, but a poor druid with only 30% spiritual spell maximum.

Slots

A slot is where you will wear armor.  For example, if your character has a "head" slot then you could wear a helmet there.

Each race has a set of slots that are available. For example, a dragon will have a tail but a human will not.

Magical armor can contribute a lot of stats and abilities to your character at higher levels.

Number of limbs

Humans have got two arms, but the argus (a great big floating eyeball) race has none. This means that a human can wield weapons but the argus cannot. Some races like the kreen (a very big preying mantis) have got four limbs. 

💡Note that to be able to effectively use a weapon in limbs beyond two, you will need a special guild

Vision

Some places in the Retroverse are darker than others. We split light levels up into categories: ultra-dark, dark, light, ultra-light

Most races can only see in certain light levels. For example, vampires can see in dark and ultra-dark but humans can see in light and ultra-light. Magical equipment will allow players to overcome the limitations of their vision, but races with fewer slots may have more difficulty finding the appropriate equipment. Many guilds also get skills or spells to temporarily improve a player's vision or summon sources of darkness/light to actually change the light level in the room.

Heartbeat and regeneration potential

Every so often the MUD will process a "regen tick" for your character. During this tick you will regain a portion of health, endurance, and spell points. Some races will receive this tick more often than others (for example uruk receive it quickly compared to giants). 

The heartbeat statistic governs how often you will receive a regen tick.

Additionally, each race will regenerate a different amount of hitpoints. Humans will receive fewer spell points per regen tick than an arcanus, for example.

Maximum age

Some races, like the vampire and hephestian are ageless and immortal. Other races like humans have a maximum age. As your character ages they will receive mild penalties to their stats and eventually when they reach their maximum age you will be forced to reincarnate them. Don't worry overly much about this stat, it's not very common for characters to reach maximum age.

Natural armor and natural weapons

Some races have physical characteristics that gives them natural protection or weaponry.

For example, the kreen has a hard carapace that provides it with excellent natural protection from physical damage and homarids (they look like huge crabs) have dangerous pincers.

Natural weapons will only impact the damage of unarmed combat.

Advantages/Disadvantages

Some races have advantages or disadvantages that can really affect how suitable they are for beginners and how well they mesh to particular guilds. In general, new players will find it wise to avoid any race with a higher than 50% vulnerability to a particular damage type. Also, players who wish to be in one of the good or evil aligned guilds (Paladin, Templar, Fallen, Cultist) should pay close attention to the Half Experience if Good/Evil disadvantage, since a 50% penalty to XP would be crippling for a new player. Some form of flight (either wings or magical) is very helpful for a newbie. You can gain flight from equipment or guild abilities, but some race/guild combinations may have trouble finding an appropriate piece of equipment.

Recommended Race/Guild Combinations

There are many nuances to more advanced play that are too complicated to go into for a beginner guide. This section is more about suggesting some combinations that will work well enough for a player to understand how the game works, without any major disadvantages. 

If there is a particular guild you want to play, consider selecting human for your race. It may not be the most "exciting" choice, but it has solid stats, and most importantly, no major disadvantages. It also has plenty of slots, so you can find equipment to make up for human's lack of advantages. Human may not be the best choice for a particular guild, but it will never be the worst choice.

Beginner melee combos

Dwarf Fallen:

• Pros: Very good skill and spiritual maxes. Can see in 3 light levels. Most of its disadvantages don't affect you until level 20. Has lots of slots for EQ. Comes with a weapon (the Fellblade). Can wear the most protective armors. Good at solo play

• Cons: Small size means in the initial levels, it won't have as many hps as some other Fallen (in the long run, its high constitution will help offset this). The Fellblade is the only weapon you can use, and you have to build up its powers over time as you kill things. You do not have a good way to heal yourself. Must be evil.

Dragonian Paladin:

• Pros: Very good skill and spiritual maxes. Can see in 3 light levels. Can fly. Comes with a Shield of Honor. Can wear the most protective armors. Good at solo play

• Cons: The Shield is the only thing you can wield in your left hand, so you can not dual wield. You have to improve your shield over time. Paladin is heavily penalized for killing good aligned monsters, so you have to be more selective in what you fight. Must be good.

Werewolf Jomsviking:

• Pros: Can see in 3 light levels. Can do a lot of damage in melee, even at newbie levels. Has a variety of spells to help protect themselves. Excellent at solo play

• Cons: Has a 40% vulnerability to fire and psionic damage. Cannot use the highest bulk armors that some of the other tank guilds can use.

💡Many people consider Jomsviking to be one of the most self sufficient guilds on the mud

Catfolk Assassin:

• Pros: Can see in 3 light levels. Gets a bonus to stealth skills. Can solo, but can also be very effective dealing damage in a party standing behind a tank. Can sneak into places that other guilds would have to fight to get to.

• Cons: Can be difficult to obtain good weapons to maximize their damage. Some grinding involved to maximize their assassination ranks. 

Beginner spellcasting combos

Tortle mage:

• Pros: Has some strong natural armor and lots of hit points to help you survive. Can see in 3 light levels. Able to train mage spells to 100%. 

• Cons: Half experience if evil. 100% vulnerable to sonic damage (Which means they will take double damage from sonic attacks). Can not wear any shoulder, torso or belt armor.

Irrdu psionicist:

• Pros: Bonus to psionic spells. Can train psionicist spells to 100%. Versatile spell list, including both damage and support spells

• Cons: Half xp if evil. Can only see in 2 light conditions. Some monsters are immune to psionic damage.

Elf Alchemist:

• Pros: Alchemist can do damage in parties with spells and ranged combat. Elves get a bonus to ranged combat. Can do a wide variety of damage types. Has out of combat abilities for enhancing player equipment.

• Cons: Can only see in 2 light conditions. Has a stun vulnerability, so solo play can be more dangerous. There is a larger learning curve for alchemist spellcasting than for mage.

Beginner support combos

Boelir Biomancer:

• Pros: Can see in all 4 light levels. Has high wisdom (the affecting stat for Biomancer's healing spells).

• Cons: Can be difficult to solo due to a lack of offense. Has lower luck than most races.