Adventurers Primer

[Daisy]

Been thinking back to when I started my first char on Sloth .... what seems to me a long time ago ... I came from another mud, a good mud, but one I had outgrown and found what has been a welcoming and fun home.

The first thing I want to say about that is a big thankyou to both players and Imms for that.

The other thing I've noticed is that as a more expereinced player I can get a newbie char from lvl1 to lvl8 prime in a matter of hours (perhaps there's scope for a contest there?), but as a real newbie it took me days perhaps more I can't remember, I was wondering if there was scope to give newbie chars a helping hand there:

You recite a scroll of identify which dissolves.
Object 'primer adventurer adventurer's', Item type: UNDEFINED
Item is: NOBITS
Weight: 0, Value: 0, Worn in: TAKE

If this was modified to have some decent stats when say held low, but dissolved at lvl 3 (lvl 8?) it might make life a little easier for the true newbie looking for their first stash of gold and few pieces of equipment.

I was thinking maybe -1.8 ac +3hit +3dam.

As a lvl 1-3 item of eq only it shouldn't unbalance the game, but I don't even know if its technically feasible to do it ...

[Leaf]

Hello Daisy,

I don't see how primer (held low) item would have stats like that? Even if
it's only for lvl 1-3 or to 8. It's a good idea to help newbies, but really the
Imm won't ever do anything like that.

If there was going to be stats on a book, the only thing I can say is +1hit
for those lvls. Giving the person more exp and knowledge to hit something.

[12345]

Most experienced players can do the same.

The newbie primer was an attempt to teach newbies the game before proceding... as is the newbie school. The main issue being that sloth is VERY different from most other MUDs.

Another is that most prior players know a few methods to get themselves a holy sword, which greatly swings the power balance on a level 1 char. They can also pass down equipment, which helps quite a bit.

When I used to randomly roam Valk helping newbies, it seemed that once I got them a holy sword (quite the quest) they got along much better. The other issue that came up quite a bit was how to get coins for starting levels.

What you're suggesting isn't much more unbalanced than the holy sword is, however, since the swords are practically always in use, it becomes very cumbersome to get them high enough on whatever tablet to get something useful.

It would be quite helpful if Splork's temple ignored ranking on the tablet and if similar objects were in use if the player were under a certain level. This would basically give them the object you're speaking of and make holy items a lot easier to understand for newbies.

ie. If you're under level 5, you can pray for a holy sword at Splork's temple and actually get one. Probably with a warning along the lines of:

"You are now ranked 178 in sacrifices to Splork with 2 sacrifice points.
Type 'look at tablet' to see your ranking.
Type 'sac corpse' after you loot them to increase your sac points and ranking.
You must be ranked 150 or better when you reach level 5 or you will lose your holy item."

It would also help Splork's karma with newbies

[osric]

heh, some people don't really worry about karma