Introductory Guide for New Pkers by Thragnoth

November 25, 1999

Introductory Guide for New PKers -- by Thragnoth

Introduction: PK, short for player-killing. Depending on how you look at this, player killing can be a fun and at the same time skill sharpening past- time. Whether you want to PK to strike fear into other players, to become famous and also a formidable foe, or merely to defend yourself off from others who try to player kill you I have created this guide as a means to get you started. I will review all classes, warrior, thief, cleric, and mage respectably throughout this guide.

WARRIOR

Although when most people think of "PK" and then you think of "The most unlikely of classes" you think of Cleric no doubt. However, I beg to differ. Sure, Warrior associates with strength, swords, shields and armor but some people fail to realize that warriors have the worst saving spell. What I mean by this is that if a warrior (generally single class) were to fight one on one against a mage that knew what he was doing, he'd probably get killed. There are other factors that come into play for instance if you were to go against a mage using manashield it would take a little more skill as he/she would have the upper hand.

How you avoid this you ask? Simply by wearing equipment that totals to a preferable amount of -9 saving spell and trying to maintain a minimum of -60 AC. This can be easyily achievable with equipment that you can get off of auction. (eg: a mirror shield is good for -4 ss and if you happen to come across a ring of magic resistance for possibly another -4 ss). Although please stay reminded that this kind of equipment may sometimes cost a small fortune. However, this would ensure you that you would take the least damage if you were ever to be in a situation against those nasty spell-flingers.

Setting up Melee Equipment Modes (applies to both Warrior and Thief class)

I have compiled this section to help people realize about equipment modes that can be a determining factor in a grueling fight. By equipment modes I mean different sets of equipment for different situations which I'll go into further detail. First I shall deal with:

Damage Mode

Most players in the game go for the highest amount of damroll they can achieve just loving to see types of inflicting damage such as "Obliterate, Annihilate, Horribly maim" and things of the such. Although this is pretty impressive to show off, I'd have to disagree with this under certain circumstances. First off, if you are going to pk, it is likely that many times a case you will engage in a fight with a multiclass and/or spellcasters. Always, always have negative 6-9 ss in pk as it's not very humorous when you get blinded on their first try. Secondly, for all you massive damage players out there, do you have at least 50 hitroll? Even close? Well if you don't I truly believe that I'd rather have stats such as 52/50 than something like 38/64. Example: For a total of six slashes with the above poor hitroll, suppose you hit 3 of 6. Each slash might horribly maim for 101-130 damage, but I'd rather hurt less and hit more frequently, such as obliterating each time for about 90 damage. 90 times 6 definitely hurts more than 3 times 115 average.

The point is to land most of your hits and in the long run you'll damage more. In the duration of 3 rounds, I'd rather land 6 of my hits for moderate damage, than just get about 3 of those 6 slashes.

HP Mode

If you are in CPK (not recommended for warriors without sneak) or NPK, you usually want to sway toward more hitpoints and not worry too much about damroll - the reason being is the survival of the fittest, you want to last as long as you can. So I now say, start off with good hp, good hitroll, and don't worry too much about the damroll. This applies moreso against opposing melee players. Against spellcasters, it is up to your own discretion, although I still recommend hitpoints until the following case:

In the case that your hitpoints are getting low, don't be scared to flee, switch your equipment to damroll and return to strike the last final blows after weakening them previously. When switching to damroll equipment, try to still have a good amount of saving spell as saving spell is the last thing you want to sacrifice. Always bash against spell casters as they will be stunned for about 2 rounds of lag, therefore letting you slowly kill them with melee and not worrying about being spelled to death. Lastly it helps if you make aliases to switch from various eq - if you have trouble creating aliases a good idea would be to consult your clannies upon this matter of scripting.

THIEF

In short, when you think of a thief's job, it is usually what first comes to mind. Sneaky and cunning. So you're a current class thief, play like a thief. They have many skills to be utilized and can cause some of the most severe damage in the game. First piece of eq to cover is the backstabber (dagger). Since backstabbing is the primary attack for a thief, you want to make sure that you have a good backstabber (dagger). Daggers are generally rated, in my opinion, mainly by their damage dice as explained below.

If you have a 5d5 weapon, in form XdY, means that it has 5 dice with each 5 sides, and therefore totalling for max damage of 25, although your average will proabably be around the area of 16-23. It is almost like an art of picking a good dagger. Compare a 3d10 weapon to a 10d3. What's the difference you ask? At first glance, you know that they both have max damage of 30, however, the 10d3 has less sides meaning that there will be more possibility of scoring a high roll for all 10 dice. In the case with 3d10 you can have for instance 3 dice that roll 4 or 2 or some low number and that wouldn't be good now, would it? A rule of thumb, with two weapons ranging same damage, think, would you want a 30d1 or a 1d30? Think :)

If you're a single class thief, refer to the above modes for warrior as it basically can apply to thief. If you are a thief/cleric and you cross paths with someone reasonably stronger than your character, simply do not backstab like most people's reflexes are. In fact I strongly do not suggest backstabbing someone with sanc that can PK you with no problem. Instead I urge that you weaken them in some way first, whether it be casting a few spells till they flee or tripping them to play around with them. If you do this 99% of former thieves or current class thieves will flee to get that oh so desired backstab on you. To this I say, chase them, if they engaged in melee when they were sneaking and they fled, it will tell you which direction they head off to. Go in that direction and continue the process of annoying them till they are slowly weakened. Then, and only then, you should finally lay a backstab, and if you're lucky, you'll double backstab them dead.

CLERIC

Cleric, the second hardest class to pk with, depends on the way you look at it. Clerics need not worry about melee (hitroll, damroll, weapon damage etc) or anything of the sort as it pertains to the warrior and thief department. They have the second best saving spell in the game so you might not have to be concerned as much with ss as opposed to a thief or a warrior. Clerics are reknowned for their high stats, equal balance of both hp and mana. Before you start wasting too much on auction, I'll give you a couple of hints. When you hit lvl 25 or so, strive for about a minimum of 500 mana as you want to focus more on your ac and hp equipment. Although nice mana equipment is a little more difficult to afford or find, generally try to get your hands on some hp equipment. When you get the hitpoints, the ac will most likely come with it. If you're not in a formation in a PK zone most likely you will want to survive those backstabs should they come.

Always keep spelled up and if you have phantasmal images - use it. It is indeed a funny sight to see someone triple backstab your images and leaving you with full hitpoints. Secondly, if you have the hitpoints, use fireshield (not sanctuary) and only in pk. Using fireshield is far more rare than sanctuary and if you do use it, I urge that you have over 800hps with images. So in response to this after you get attacked with a powerful blow, you can counterattack with all you have because of the lag that they will be suffering. INTERESTING NOTE: If in the case that you are a thief and/or warrior cleric multiclass and you see a mage with fireshield, try sanctuary upon them. It is funny to do so, and what more, you won't take the fireshield damage back. There is a downside to this. First you waste 75 mana (fireshield merely costs 45). Secondly you have to keep in mind that they will now have 3 ticks of sanctuary (half damage). I only advise doing so if you have little hitpoints to withstand the backlash from fireshield.

MAGE

Mage is one of the harder classes to pk with. One tactic that a mage can be good at is wearing down the opponent over a slow time. The trick is to play with the person you are trying to PK. If you have shockwave, and it is at a reasonable level, such as lvl 27, it won't cost as much as when you first practiced it. If you haven't learned the shockwave spell yet, use frost shards and I assure you they will do just fine.

As a mage you will need to know your opponent, know who you want to pk and know their weaknesses. Versus a warrior you're in luck, just walk in and spam a spell about 3 times (that's about how long before they flee). As soon as they do flee chase them in the direction they went and immediately be persistent and do so till they are dead.

With thieves, it will be a little more difficult as opposed to fighting other classes - you will most probably need good mana, 900mana and up for manashield (combined with fireshield). Same routine with warrior, spell them about 3 times and wait for them to flee, follow their #direction and persist till death. In the case that you are backstabbed and still living, go for a full blast of spells. You can probably get about 6-7 spells on them and if you're luck they'll be dead by the time the 3 rounds of backstab lag is done through. As far as malediction goes, if you want to use this spell, you'd better be confident and have 1000 mana and up. And remember, you can't have phantasmal images with this spell, so an option you might want to do would be to flee, cast phantasmal images and come back in with your ordinary spells. Hope this information helped the ones who did not know as much about PK.

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