Ok, I'm getting to the point where Thomas cant compare to me. Soril lasted less then a week. Now, granted, I do play non-combat optimized characters, but still, it cant be that hard to live. Before I make my next character, Is there anything I can do to lengthen my characters lives? Plz?

Thanks xD

This is the short answer:

https://efupw.com/efu1-forum/topic/15/15073/why-characters-die-the-true-story/index.html

Tons of things. Take it from me, I play some wretched builds. The first step though is to make a character that will keep you interested longer than a week or a few wretched deaths. I'm having a terrific time with a character that in two weeks hasn't gotten past level 4 once.

To piggyback Oro, its all about concept.

Optimized builds can be fun, because being a competent warrior or fighter, and then another build on top of that, can be fun.

However the ultimate thing is a concept you have fun at, so even when massive amounts of shit is thrown at you, you can persevere through it.

True, and with Soril, I could have used "spawn in a safe place". But, when hit back to level 2, with a impossible monster looming over you, having already pwnt you twice and likely taken out some vital organs, I don't see any good, IC reason to click the button. :?

But that thread did point out some mistakes I make, as in i never buy potions or wands, have a history of madly running at impossible monsters and such. >.<

Now to figure out my next character.

You have yet to beat my get executed in three hours.

Yeah, gotta get the potions and wands. Even if your on a budget, the cure minor/damage cantrip wand will save your butt. You also might want to stick to some HP/AC heavy builds until you get into the swing of things. A non-optimized arcanist can be a real chore, at times.

A few common things.

Invisibility potions - They may be costy (around 150 gp) but they are a life saver in certain situations. Never hurts to have a few of those. Remember, what they can't see - they can't hurt (often).

Travel with others - The worst things to happen is to meet a group alone, someone stuns you with a spell and then you get to watch your lifebar slowly creep towards oblivion. Take someone with you when you travel, if they watch your back and you watch their back those monsters will have to be real slim to come behind you.

Know your place - You are a warrior? Then don't stand behind the mage eating rothe while your teammembers becomes monster meal. In any group, it is good to discuss between yourself what you will do in the group, or just go ahead and do the prefered duties. Mages cast spells, warriors fight and clerics preach.

Potions - Or consumeables in general is a good thing to stock up. Blessings on bottles, become attuned to the tree you always wished to become and sip down life restoring brews. All potions have their uses, and that is what they are for. Use them.

RP - If you are a barbarian storming off to every battle... well, then it's the barbarians fault he gets himself in trouble. Have fun with your character, let his or her personality develop and see for yourself how the character changes. Fun is an important factor to it all, don't think so much on optimizing.

Thomas_Not_very_wise You have yet to beat my get executed in three hours.

Hah. My goblin was murdered by a Duergar slaver within half an hour.

Be a moth!

Goblins and kobalds don't counts for records. It can take multiple tries just to make it out of the Crone spawn point alive. As for living longer then a few weeks?

Well,

Roll Playing and Role Playing are two completely different worlds here that sometimes inter-lap. The most fun I've ever had is when I'm really not caring at all about the numbers, and just focusing on the person created. I mimic RwG- Tis all about Concept > Build.

Everyone cant be the Biggest badass. :P

Just remember not to Over handicap your build when playing a concept.

For instance, if you make a sickly old wizard with 8 con... expect to die frequently as you'll be one shot by rats.

If you fight rats.

Ebok If you fight rats.

My point is that an overly gimped character simply will not survive combat of any sort for long. All it takes is one non targeted AoE to wipe you off the face of the earth. One AoE trap set off by someone else that you were -very- carefully avoiding.

Ebok Roll Playing and Role Playing are two completely different worlds here that sometimes inter-lap.

Oo, Ebok I like that, did you come up with it yourself?

And again, I agree with Ebok, once you come up with a great concept for a character it really doesn't matter if they end up in that annoying dead city dozens of times and you keep loosing levels or end up PD'ing. Just work toward having your character make an impact to other players and the server.

And yeah, do your best to avoid being on your own in the underdark.

Hammerfist0 Soril lasted less then a week.

Damn dude, you did get pwnt.

My first survival tip is this: whatever you were doing when that happened, stop doing it.

Other than playing a character concept you like and can stick with for more than a month or two, my best survival tip is a simple one.

NEVER RESPAWN.

I am dead serious, no pun intended.

The first thing you must do in order to fully enjoy EfU is break your video game thinking habits. There is no place to insert your coin. There is no reset button. There are no second chances, unless someone else gives you one.

This, more than anything else, will put you in the right mindset for playing EfU. You will never go out alone unless you know what you are doing. You will never go questing unless you have a pack full of expendables, and you will come back from each one with most of it gone. You will do all of this because you will know in your bones that each and every time you do something foolish, you could lose everything.

My current character has died a grand total of three times, and each time he was brought back to life by other characters. I've come so close to losing that character, but ironically enough, the very things that keep him alive are the same habits I developed when I decided that it was okay for him to die.

There is a wonderful side effect to this style of play: the fear factor. When you're getting chased out of Chazbash by a pack of monstrous thralls three times your size, you really do feel like you are about to die. Your heart pounds in your chest, your blood gets hot, your fingers go numb. It beats any roller coaster I've ever been on.

I've done things with sorrel and he's quite good even if he was'nt built immensely you play quite well. Instances of bad luck happen what you need to do is basically expect the worst but embrace the dangers anyway.

Never do anything without at least one other you know you can trust not to let you down. Bring along another one or two whom you don't know so they can watch and learn! Don't travel around alone in the wilderness without mind warding potions, invisibility potions etc.

Really does'nt matter how your character is built so long as your with somebody you know you can trust. Kiaring was the epitome of gimpy builds and she survived! She had horrid survivability stats but she played smart and even played characters that were HIGHLY aggressive. It's all about playing it smart.

From what I've seen of soril I can only imagine he died to A) Bad Luck! or B) Bad companions! always choose your companions wisely.

Any sensible character knows that its better to have somebody along you know won't run away with damp plate leggings at the sight of a goblin.

PlayerCharacter:

Sometimes, shit just happens. You can die to lag; you can die to a crash; you can die to alcohol-induced bouts of idiocy. There's a whole bunch of ways to die in a less-than-fun way that you either had little control of or came to regret a lot afterwards (if it wasn't exactly character stupidity, but rather player stupidity that caused the death). Try telling people your universal guideline of "NEVER RESPAWN" in those instances.

I say instead that you should ALWAYS respawn if it's allowed and if you feel that the death was not a fitting ending for that character. What's important is the enjoyment you get from roleplaying with others, so it's sheer stupidity to forget about a concept that you felt was amazing and were really enjoying, just because some NPC monster pwned you and there was no one around to raise you. Moreover, if that was the case, odds are that the people you were RPing with enjoyed your character too and would be disappointed to hear that you dropped them due to a random death where respawning would've been allowed.

The above is assuming, of course, that you really put some thought into the character. The #1 reason why characters die (permanently) is that the player didn't flesh out the concept well enough to bother with losing all the XP and possibly equipment too associated with a death. These things matter zero if you were really, really enjoying the interaction you were having with other PCs when playing that character. If you find yourself dropping characters all the time due to deaths while exploring or while on scripted quests, you might want to check your motivations for playing these kinds of characters.

Anthee nailed it.

I think you're confusing Sorell Greynn with another Soril, Naga.

Hammerfist, my advice to you is to get Naga to take you under his wing, and then follow him around on his questing circuit. Doing this will give you a wealth of tips and information on how to survive dangerous quests. Mainly, just watch what he does, then emulate it explicitly. It should put you in a position to destroy pretty much anything that comes your way in terms of player-versus-monster encounters.

-SaRF

Name a reason, and I have Died to it.

I had a guy of mine die because he was drunk and decided to take out 2 kobolds and a goblin alone.

He lost, obviously, but still, it was an awesome fight.

Here is my advice to those desiring to be PWNT less:

- Spend your gold. Although I like coming upon a nice backpack full of gold in the wilds as much as the next guy, I can't help but wonder what might have been if the person had spent the 500+ gold they were carrying on equipment/supplies/potions/wands -before- traveling outside of Sanctuary.

- Bring friends. I know this has been said already but it cannot be stressed enough. Believe it or not there exist several people on this server who will gladly accompany you even if it does not involve a scripted quest. If you want to simply explore the areas around Sanctuary, then conduct a "sending" and ask for companions to do so. I find cartography as fun, relaxing, and an all together good time and reason to go exploring.

- Invisibility potions. Bring enough for everyone. Seriously, I was once given some good advice to always carry at least three invisibility potions at all times. This really saves your butt, when after drinking the first one, you accidently click on a creature to attack instead of the spot behind them...

- Coordination of the group. This is key. Every group should have a desingnated leader. Every character should have a few quick keys ready with sayings such as "Retreat", "Regroup here", "Stand and Deliver", "Drink your Invisibility and Run!",etc. to coordinate the group in times of chaos. Nothing is worse than when a group gets stuck trying to find their "fight" or "flee" instinct, except perhaps when half the group finds the former and the other half, the latter.

-Kalos

It should be self-evident to anyone who dies from a crash or some other OOC reason that they should go ahead and respawn. That hardly bears mention, but just in case it does, there you have it.

Any character can, at any time, terminate the life of any other character permanently. Aside from that and the aforementioned OOC exceptions, if you are experiencing "random deaths" you are doing something terribly wrong, most likely because you have grown used to respawning and become comfortable with it.

If you got pwned by a monster while no one was around, then at some point you made a decision to put yourself into grave danger without taking any precautions whatsoever. Unless you are playing a character with a wisdom of 8 or less, the "sheer stupidity" occurred long before the death, and it was entirely out of character. Again, I blame overuse of the respawn function.

Death means dead. It's not timeout, it's not punishment, it is death. That hollow sense of loss you feel at the news of another character's death is entirely natural. That's how death is supposed to feel. It's not something to be celebrated, it is something to be avoided at all costs.

This is Escape from the Underdark, not Frolic through Elysia. Which is more immersive, realistic, and conducive to amazing role-play: an Underdark where death has meaning, or a Underdark where everyone well-liked is immortal?

In my personal opinion, the respawn function is OOC, and should be reserved for OOC situations. In my estimation, overuse of the respawn system cheapens the value of the server setting and everything in it, including the role-play.

Death is a part of life, and whether you want to get pwnt less, or just have a more immersive and enjoyable role-play experience, you should respect the Grim Reaper. All of these tips and tricks for staying alive are not simply OOC gameplay tips, they are IC survival strategies, all of which you will quickly develop on your own if you simply cultivate a healthy fear of death.

In real life, unlike the Underdark, no one gets out alive.

Thomas_Not_very_wise Name a reason, and I have Died to it.

Have you died from giving a reach around to a spider monkey in a public restroom?

Oona

Thomas_Not_very_wise Name a reason, and I have Died to it.

Have you died from giving a reach around to a spider monkey in a public restroom?

O.o you know. . . I do not know how to reply to that one. . .

Now for my input on the low intel and/or low wisdom thingy. One thing to remember is that this is mostly only true with humans and race with the same mindset as humans. This might be true, or might not be. This could be a thing for people comformed for civilized life. Basicly, their 'flight or fight' instinct becomes very dulled. Because (Is using this from a phycology paper) think of it this way. You work at a job, you boss pressures you to do something very hard in the next day or be fired. Under this pressure, your brain would normally trigger 'fight or flight'. But we all know that punching your boss in the face, or running off screaming in a panic will not help the situation, and will only make it worse. So we have to just deal with that pressure, and live with it. This does two things, it causes the very human concept of stress and dulls those natural instincts.

So my point is, that if you are a character who is a barbarian, ranger or druid who has always lived in the wild of where ever, should always know when to fight or run, regardless of wisdom or intel because it is a learned adaptation of the mind to survive as long as they have had(which does happen to both animals and humans). While a city person, would probably need to be smart enough or show enough caution, since they do not have learned reactions or sharpened instincts to depend on.

So what I am coming down to, is that stats might have something to do with it, but class, background and race could be a very big factor in determining how bad of a situation might get if they try to do it.

I hate my schools crappy computers O.o it did a delayed reaction which caused a double post. . . or something.

I think I also quite disagree with the 'No respawn' concept. I can see why it would be good for rp - but it could also be terribly bad for the social side of the server.

Let's be honest - your character has probably died more than once either on quests or just stepping outside of Sanctuary.

If we perma'd every character that died, everyone would be starting brand new characters really often and have little chance to develop backgrounds, character experience and relationships with other characters.

The characters are the key to the EfU world evolving - and if they don't evolve what chance would the server have?

And...as awesome and as realistic EfU is (especially compaered to other RP servers) it's still just a game! And one thing I love about games...unlimited lifes...

Also a helpful, but very vague tip. SUCK LESS! *totally not constructive.*

One reason why some people die on this server do because they do not know how to preform basic evasive menuveurs *from lack of practice.* If you can learn how to stop AOE's from going your way, you will live long on these servers ^_^.

I swear, we need a boot camp for all these dieing noobs >_> Like Soril!

As for a IC way to avoid getting yourself killed. . . I have nothing to say which has not already been said.

Okay, some general advice for you. Most of this has probably been said already, but I've not really read the bulk of these posts yet.

- Builds are pretty meaningless in the long run. The key to survival and not being 'pwnt' will be all about who you meet, and what your relationship with these people is. Gather allies to your cause, and keep tabs on your enemies. Adventure with these allies you come to trust and know well, and try to at least have one of them with you at all times if you intend to travel outside of the city.

- Keep yourself well stocked with Invisibility potions, and Expedious Retreat Potions. Lord Bunge sells these cheaply (40 coins or so) and they will likely save your life many times over. Gold in your inventory that goes unspent is likely simply dead weight. Try to spend it all on healing.

- If you're newer to EFU, a useful skill to take is ranks in Heal. Healing kits are light, and with enough ranks in the skill most quests will be cost effective.

- Consider your situation. Then re-consider it. Sometimes it's much better to run from a situation, than it is to engage it in combat. Sometimes it's better to use social skills (bluff/intimidate/persuade) to solve a problem, than it is to fight!

- There's absolutely nothing wrong with respawning. If you want to play EFU on hard mode, of course you're welcome to enforce a personal no respawn policy, but that should hardly be considered a norm.

That's all I got in me. Hopefully you will die less.

Yes, it should be pointed out that my "no respawn" dictum is for me alone, and while I advocate it for others, it is not the norm around here.

Another thing you should do is buy some books on adventuring from the bookstore and read them. There is some very good in-character advice in there, and most of the adventuring books are under 100 gold.

The School of War is training citizens to get pawned less. (says Dalman who just got pawned :D ).

Spend your coins. Use your items.

As much as I like the idea of a no-respawn policy, I have to admit that I don't have the willpower for it.

Another way to be "pwnt less" is to play a coward. Your party starts losing the fight? Not a problem ... just run and hide until they either all die or prevail. You can probably think up ways for your character to justify his or her own actions. "I was going to get help, I promise! Then I just happened to notice you guys had everything under control, so I figured ..." etc. Not only does this increase your survivability (until you go on a job with that guy who just can't take it and smashes your face), it makes for some interesting conversations mid-quest.