October 31, 1999
Part 1: Introduction
Sooner or later, you will most likely enter a CPK room, for experience points or equipment. CPK (Chaotic Player Killing) rooms is a place where human players can choose to kill each other for experience points and equipment. CPK is *very* dangerous. If someone kills you, you may lose eq, will lose all your money and you will lose millions of xp. The amount of experience points lost depends on how much xp you got during the current level divided by two. So if you recieved a total of 1 million experience points on this level and get CPKed, 500,000 points is added to your xp required till next level. As you can see knowing this is very important. So when you are almost near levelling and you get CPKed, the amount of xp lost is tremendously high compared to someone who is far from levelling.
The main difference of CPK from NPK (Neutral Player Killing) is that when people kill you, you don't get transported out of NPK, but you corpse as if you were killed by a mob. During the mere minutes lying dead in a room, before you turn into a undead corpse, people who are in the room may loot ( take) your equipment. If a mob kills you in CPK players who are in your room can still loot your eq. After you corpse, you are transported out of the zone, so people cannot loot you any further.
Getting CPKed can happen instantly or slowly and being CPKed is not fun. You can lose your equipment and have to spend more time xping. You can get killed instantly by backstabs (up to 400-500 damage on a single) or slowly by harmful hits from spells or melee attacks.
Good CPKers can kill single classers in no time, while high level multi classers take longer to get CPKed because of spells and high amounts of hitpoints. Thanks to the gods, that we have a new rule about CPK. Heroes who CPK single classers will have their "(HERO) tag taken away from them, temporarily - this makes "heroes" less willing to kill you.
Part 2: Survival
Now I will tell you how to prevent being intentionally CPKed. Lets talk about survival. There is a possibility that the backstabbing opponent will lunge ( miss) his or her backstab, although many skilled CPKers that backstab hardly ever miss, because of their high hitroll.
Now, if you have very low armor class (ac) there is a higher chance that your opponent is going to miss those bses. Yet even with CPKers backstabbing at 60- 70 hr it is still a valuable a precaution. If they miss their backstab you don't take damage. Going about -100 ac is the best priority whilst below -100 AC, any extra AC is ignored. How are you going to get it that low? Well here are some decent and cheap ac reducing equipment for lower levelled players.
| Location | Equipment | AC Deductions(approx.) | Zone |
|---|---|---|---|
| (Shield) | Shield of New Ashton | -40 ac. | New Ashton |
| (Hold) | Smooth dark stone | -40 ac. | Warren of Moshata |
| (About) | Icy white cloak | -30 ac. | Mahn Tor |
| (Waist) | Belt of Protection | -30 ac. | Horneg's Keep |
You can get these equipment easily on the auction or from the zone (more difficult).
You can get potions, wands, Magic Regen items that lower your armor class as well:
| Spell | AC deductions | Class | Potion if Available |
|---|---|---|---|
| Armor | -30 | Cleric | Magenta Potion |
| Shield | -20 | Mage | Potion of Protection |
| Stone Skin | Variable | Mage | Potion of Protection |
| Invisiblity | -40 | Mage | Cloudy Potion |
Magenta potions for Armor can be obtained from the wizard atop the Great Tree (up from the cloud). Potion of Protection for Armor, Shield, Stone Skin are found in Mynoric Garrison. There are also shadow cloaks and amethyst bands that when you "use item" them they will give you invisibility. You can get the band in Medievia/Goblin Castle and the cloaks in Tear/Karlisna.
Sanctuary is a spell that will help you immensely surviving in CPK. It reduces the damage dealt to you by half. If you are or were a cleric then cast it before entering the CPK room or cast it constantly inside CPK areas. It is okay if you as thief, warrior, or mage can't cast sanctuary - get green/blue orbs or Flask of Holy Water. The flasks load in the Graveyard in the Church from the monks. To use these flasks all you need to type is "quaff flask". The orbs can be found on auction or from corpses. One other thing, if you have Phantasmal Images (a spell) use it... they help to avoid you being backstabbed and potentially help you dodge massive amounts of damage. Protection from evil / good spells are very useful - if you are evil aligned cast protection from good, and visa-versa. They reduce the damage from the opposite aligned opeent by about 20-30% so it is quite useful in addition with sanctuary. If you have the ability to cast the spell, great, cast it.
If you are a thief, before you enter CPK, turn on sneak. When you enter a room, the sneak doesn't tell the people in the room that you entered the room. If they can't see you entering a room, that stops you from being an easy target. You are almost happy to live through a CPK zone if you can stay sneaked all the time.
Next, if the attacker does get a Backstab on you, you must have enough Hit Points (HP) to survive it. HP is relevant in CPK - the more Hit Points the better. As the saying goes: "survival of the fittest" and to be fit you need HP, a lot.
Part 3: Learning the Zones
So you are walking around CPK for xp or a trade run you should be sure whether or not the zone has people in it. First you need a misty potion / amber potion of some sort, to detect all the hidden and invisible people. To find the invisible people in the zone you can find this out by typing "who -z" or "where". "Who -z" or "where" doesn't detect the hidden life forms. There might be scores of people waiting for a tasty target to CPK. If you see "You sense a hidden life form", leave the room, it is most likely a CPKer or just someone avoiding being CPKed. In either case do not enter rooms with hidden life forms. You can try to cast faerie fog to see who is in hiding (inside the room) but casting faerie fog wastes time. So what if you found out who was hiding? Now they know that you are there casting the spell, therefore you are a direct target for an attack.
Before entering the CPK area, be sure you know the rooms well. It's a must! Exits, special secrets, everything. You do NOT want to get lost in CPK. Getting trapped in a room is not at all entertaining. The question comes up, "how can you know the rooms well if you haven't been to the CPK zone?" There are limited amounts of zones actually having CPK rooms with a few of the famous ones being Fire Giant's Keep, Temple of Bloodstone, Elysium, Dark Woods, CPK duel area, etc. These maps and secrets can be found on the Internet and many sites provide maps and tips for the zones. I recommend going to http://birk113.studby.uio.no/ website which provides many great detailed maps pertaining to CPK zones.
Learning the CPK duel. To learn the zone, it is quite easy - get a honest and true friend to go to the CPK duel in Medlink. Promise each other that you won' t CPK each other, and then walk around the map and navigate for 30 minutes. The CPK duel arena is set up that after 30 minutes if no one had died, it will transport every one out to safety, and the duel is over.
Part 4: Before Entering CPK
Now before entering CPK, you need to get prepared. Spell up and rest for a moment, have at least 90% mana (for spell casters) intact. Get the spells, ( armor, bless, invisibility, protection from good or evil, phantasmal images, sanctuary, etc) on yourself. Now you enter CPK. If you are a thief, sneak and scan a lot for people.
Part 5: Escaping an attacker(s).
So you are xping and someone backstabs you or attacks you with spells - ouch, you are in pain, but alive. 3 choices, get out of CPK or fight the person out (which is not the smartest thing to do) or teleport out of CPK. Assume all CPKers are better than you - don't take the chance, unless you have good skills and smart tactics. Fleeing is okay, but there might be "cherry pickers". Good CPKers does this, expecially in a form, immediately go the direction you flee to backstab or attack you. Suppose that if you manage to flee, run out of CPK fast, or else the person will attempt to kill you again. The smarter way after someone attacks you or backstabs you is to cast Teleport as it is an instant ride out of CPK and out of harm. You must do this fast! Note: You can cast teleport and word of recall during combat. Recall will return you to your last zone (that has a recall point) you visited. Teleport potions are available. There are 2 that I know of: Clear Potions and Menthol Potions. Recall potions are the "blue and white swirling potions" available in many potion shops. So instant typing is necessary; c teleport or c word (word of recall) after being attacked. Then return to CPK later when you feel you are ready to re-enter.
Part 6: Final Word
A final note, don't enter CPK with expensive eq. Losing full tweaked or good eq is a hassle, you have to go look and spend money to get them back. Don't enter with charred tooths, helm of the high forests, bloodstones, portable holes, plume of the maats, etc - swap them for something in a cheaper value. Bag of holdings, seashell necklaces, holy symbols, they work fine - keep those expensive equipment on another character or place them in your locker for safe keeping. Trust me I have been CPKed before and had good equipment looted from me. So have fun in CPK for once. If you can survive through CPK, you will have advantages over people, better xp in CPK zones, and better equipment you get from CPK.