A Detailed List of Races/Skills/Guild/Sub-Guilds...

[Mad Max]

  New players and even old alike need some kind of skill sheet or comprehensive list of what can and can not be done in game.  The descriptions for both the main guilds and sub-guilds are pretty vague.  I understand it should be an experience to learn about your character in game and to grow with it over time, but for a game that has such stringent rules in character creation and also validation, I would assume you would want to make it as much an enjoyable experience as possible for both the players and the admins.   I am sure it takes time and effort on the part of the admins to validate each and every submission.  And they get 'Tells' left and right about new players and maybe old ones re-rolling about what such and such does.

 I think it would be far easier to just have the info known.  I am not saying it has too be a 100% tell all sheet, a little mystery and intrigue is fine, it doesn't have to be presented in anything as nice and eye catching as spread sheets and graphs, but more than the bare bones there are now.  Most games give a detailed account on what you can or can not do, either in game before/during character creation or also on their websites.  However, this game doesn't as far as I can tell and I have seen more than one thread on the same topic, but they were a few years old.

 If the admins are busy, surely there are others with such knowledge willing to post their gems of wisdom for the general populace.  Not random thoughts or here says mind you, we need confirmation from other reputable players as well, but a list should be able to be created and stickied, so as to always be at the top of the forum.  A lot of other forums do this as a work around, so as to save time for admins.

 I took the time to go to both the main website and the forum.  I looked through the first few pages of many topics and threads, even random ones that looked like they might help and I even used the search function, but found nothing to what I was really looking for, although one thread hinted at a few ideas and I am sure there are specific threads of a particular skill, but I am talking about a 'one thread to rule them all' type thing and one very easily accessible.  And undoubtedly in the end players will still probably have questions to ask here and in game, but the amount of questions and the amount of replies should be greatly lessened, as too the frustration of not really knowing what the players are getting into in the game.

 If this information is actually some where and I missed it, my apologies in advance.  I do not want to rub any shoulders the wrong way, I did not want to necro any old threads nor beat a dead horse, but something like this would be really nice and help new players and older ones who are frustrated and free up time for admins I would assume.  I am sure no matter what you do players will still have questions, but this should drastically help.  Thank you for your time, patience and understanding.

[slvrmoontiger]

First of all Welcome to Armageddon.

To address this I wanted to say the reason skills aren't mentioned too much in the help files for the different guilds is because that's the way staff probably wants it. They want things to be a mystery. The other thing is that other MUDs that list are not as focused on RP as Armageddon is. With Armageddon you aren't judged by how quickly you can max out on skills, or what skills you have in the first place. If other PCs are doing this I don't think they should be. First and foremost you should develop a character. Take time to learn things and have a persona. In a place where an being an Assassin doesn't mean you have to be around just to kill other players... Or being a hunter doesn't mean you can't just be a vegetarian.... Skills just aren't important.

The help files for each particular guild gives a lot of an indication as to what each one is able to do. Granted being a new player it might not be as easy to discern. I urge you to read each guild and subguild and extended subguild help file several times over. Even as a new player you should get a lot of things out of them that should allude to what each is capable of having for skill.

[Jherlen]

Hi NewPlayer! Welcome to Armageddon!

Your question sounds to me like you're uncertain about what differences might be between certain guilds or subguilds? The helpfiles do cover most of what a guild can be expected to do, but they're written in paragraph form instead of skill list form. For example, from help warrior, we can see:

Code Select Expand

A warrior's skills involve only the many aspects of fighting. Every
warrior possesses an aptitude for all weapons, and can learn to master them
far beyond the meager abilities of other guilds. Unarmed combat, expert
battle maneuvers such as disarming, the ability to hurl missiles, strategic
withdrawal, and the eventual expert use of bows and arrows are all part of a
warrior's skills.  Some master warriors can learn to bandage the wounded.


It looks like what you were hoping to see is more along the lines of something like this?

Code Select Expand


Weapon skills
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
piercing weapons              (novice) slashing weapons          (novice)
chopping weapons              (novice) bludgeoning weapons       (novice)


Can I ask why the skill sheet approach would be more useful to you than a helpfile? I personally wouldn't see anything wrong with showing the initial skill lists of the 0-karma main guilds, but I think you run into trouble when you start revealing what skills branch what, or what the maximum skill level a certain guild can reach in a particular skill is, because if people know OOCly that warriors can reach Master in chopping weapons but just Advanced in piercing, suddenly no guild_warriors will ever want to use piercing weapons even when it might make sense ICly to do so. (My example is totally made up, btw.) And you definitely don't want to expose the skill lists of any of the karma guilds, since such things can be found out IC if you are unfortunate enough to ever meet one.

Can you be a bit more specific in what you're trying to figure out exactly, and maybe we can offer some more advice?

[RogueGunslinger]

This was a problem back when the helpfiles were more vague and sometimes even missing skill references, but that's been mostly rectified from what I've seen.

[Nyr]

Hey there, welcome to the game!

The descriptions for the main guilds are a bit vague but they do detail for the most part what one can expect.  However, all subguilds detail every skill they get (it is not in a specific list format, but in written paragraph form).

I'm afraid that we are not going to create a list of the skills each guild gets.  For the most part, this can be discovered through the helpfiles for those guilds as well as the helpfiles for those skills.  We expect a certain amount of discovery in-game for some things, and this is one of those things.  It's pretty rare for a starting skill to not be mentioned in a guild helpfile, though, as I recall...

[Mad Max]

First of all Welcome to Armageddon.

To address this I wanted to say the reason skills aren't mentioned too much in the help files for the different guilds is because that's the way staff probably wants it. They want things to be a mystery. The other thing is that other MUDs that list are not as focused on RP as Armageddon is. With Armageddon you aren't judged by how quickly you can max out on skills, or what skills you have in the first place. If other PCs are doing this I don't think they should be. First and foremost you should develop a character. Take time to learn things and have a persona. In a place where an being an Assassin doesn't mean you have to be around just to kill other players... Or being a hunter doesn't mean you can't just be a vegetarian.... Skills just aren't important.

The help files for each particular guild gives a lot of an indication as to what each one is able to do. Granted being a new player it might not be as easy to discern. I urge you to read each guild and subguild and extended subguild help file several times over. Even as a new player you should get a lot of things out of them that should allude to what each is capable of having for skill.

  I can understand and actually appreciate this game being RP focused opposed to simple level grinding.  However, I do not want to pick a race, a guild and a sub-guild to totally find I gimped my character in the short or long term.  I never expect to be the best of the best, it clearly wont happen, but I also do not want to have skills that overlap if they do not need to be or get skills I simply wont need for the character I am playing.  I am also assuming there are more skills than listed or basic skills all races or certain races start with that makes other skills gained by joining a guild or sub-guild useless.

  And I actually have read the help files or at least what I am assuming the help files are, several times.  I have narrowed my choices down to but a few.  However, I still do not want to gimp my character, plus I am thinking of others in the same boat such as my self for future reference.

[Barzalene]

I would think the help chat might be the way to go.

[Jherlen]

First, don't worry about races in terms of skills: in Armageddon, races don't get special racial skills or powers (e.g. not all elves have the steal skill). Any of the four starting races is codedly viable for any of the six starting guilds. Socially, you will probably find it much much easier to play a human.

In terms of guilds having skills you won't need... pretty much every guild has some skills you'll use quite often, and some you may not touch at all. That's just the nature of the game no matter what class you pick. The helpfiles on subguilds and guilds are pretty good about identifying overlap; if it sounds like there might be one, there probably is. This isn't necessarily bad; for example, a Warrior with the Guard subguild will be better at guarding than a warrior with the Armormaker subguild, but he obviously won't be able to craft armor. Focus on what skills sound the most interesting on day 1, and pick those! If your character lives long enough and goes in a totally different direction, you can request that staff add/change your skills via roleplay.

[Lizzie]

It sounds like you might be confusing "guild" with "clan." Guilds aren't things you join in this game. They're skillsets you pick during the character creation process. Using warrior as the example - here's what you can expect:

A warrior's skills involve only the many aspects of fighting. Every warrior possesses an aptitude for all weapons, and can learn to master them far beyond the meager abilities of other guilds. Unarmed combat, expert battle maneuvers such as disarming, the ability to hurl missiles, strategic withdrawal, and the eventual expert use of bows and arrows are all part of a warrior's skills. Some master warriors can learn to bandage the wounded.

So - ALL weapons. That would be melee and ranged weapons, plus unarmed. Notice this does not mean a warrior will be able to do everything with all weapons - only that they will have an aptitude for them all. It's been clarified in the forum at some point, that warriors would -not- have backstab as a skill. However, they can master stabbing weapons. Backstab is a style of fighting, not a type of weapon.  So this makes sense, both ICly and OOCly.

Disarming - disarm is a coded skill. Warriors get that.  Strategic withdrawal - this means flee. Flee is a coded skill. *eventual* expert use of bows and arrows - implies that warrior doesn't start out with archery but will eventually branch it.

"Some master warriors can learn to bandage the wounded" - means again - your character wouldn't start out with it, but you can eventually branch it.

So a warrior won't merely get all the weapon types - they will be able to master all of them. This is something no other guild can do. It might be better to clarify that warriors won't come with all weapon types at start-up - they'll come with several, and the rest can eventually branch.

I don't need a spreadsheet or pre-fab list to know these things, though certain terms might not be intuitive. If you see something about knocking someone out with an abrupt blow to the head - that skills is called "sap." It's a skill, and there's a help file for it. I've always been a proponent for "reverse dictionary" type help files, and the staff has done an amazing job in providing cross-references. But I can understand how some of it might get missed along the way. Just like backstab is not a weapon - it's a fighting style, so you might need to check combat strategies rather than weapon types, in the help files, to find references to it.

You really -will- find most of what you want to know, right in the guild and sub-guild help files. There is no way you can possibly gimp your character, unless you are asking for something that the game simply doesn't have, no matter which guild you pick. And to find that out - you need only to use the search engine for the term you want to find, and if there's no help file for it, then it's likely what you're looking for isn't a coded skill. But - you don't necessarily need a coded skill to achieve what you want your character to achieve. It depends on what you want, really. I mean - if you intend for your character to become the master male whore of Zalanthas - the only coded thing you "need" is the emote system. There's no coded mudsex skill. If you plan on your character trying to draw a master mural on a wall - okay there's no coded painting skill. But if you were to send a note to the staff, and choose Merchant as your main guild (which is the guild that can master all the existing crafting system), I'm sure they'd be happy to hear your reports of your attempts, over time, and once you've shown a steady and reasonable progression, they might accommodate you with a finished coded object or wall mural (check the artwork throughout Tuluk - most of it was created by PCs through roleplay and implemented by staff).

If you're looking to play a predominately combat-oriented character, then you -might- gimp yourself if you pick merchant - because they don't come with any weapon skills. If you're looking to create a masterpiece of art, you -might- gimp yourself if you pick warrior, with a thug sub-guild, because neither of those will master any crafting skill.

But this information is evident in the help files for each guild and subguild. Another thing that you might not know, as a newbie - is that if there's a reference to knowing how to navigate in storms (or similar verbiage) then there is a coded skill called "direction sense" that applies to it.

Other than that, it's pretty clearcut: archery - bows and arrow USE - fletchery - arrowMAKING..but not use. Critical strike of a pointed weapon - backstab skill. Ability to reach heights = climb skill. Ability to find hidden crevices = search skill.

And so on and so forth.

[Narf]

I actually agree that knowing the starting skills for main guilds would be a really good idea. Leave the discovery to 'what will I branch to' and not 'what skills appear on my sheet after my character is approved'.

I absolutely think players should know what skills will be on their begining skills lists, because they might have actually written references to these skills in their background or they might have a plan for a character and find out after character generation that they don't even have the basic skillset to do what they intended.

That said, I'm not advocating for the list format over the paragraph format, and the subguild descriptions I think are fine. What I think would be best for new players is for the main guilds to follow the subguild's example.

[Pale Horse]

Chiming in to say that I am glad you enjoy the game enough (or at least it's concept) to offer up suggestions on ways that might make it better or smoother.  It may sound like you get some rough critiques from the GDB base upon occasion, but it is because we all love this game deeply.

[Fujikoma]

Breeds get a special ability, spelled out in the helpfile. I think, if I remember the answer to a question I posted before correctly, if there is skill overlap between guild/subguild/race, then I think your starting skill may be higher, but the cap is the highest one out of the three, so likely guild, but maybe subguild, or possibly race, all things depending.

If you plan on going outside, I'd reccomend a subguild which contains direction sense, I'm not sure of the other races but I don't think city elf gets it. If you want some extra coin while being stuck inside the walls, I'd suggest a craft subguild. I know you can make decent money with one of them, not sure of the others, though. If you're a ranger, I think you'll definitely get direction sense. It pays to carefully consider what you may be getting into, but any character is playable, even if you get slapped down on stats and end up with all the wrong skills, you can still do things with that character, I've had the most fun with some of my most "unplayable" characters.

So there's really no wrong way to do it. If you want combat, pick warrior, you can make a decent living as a skilled warrior hunting, grebbing, brawling, what have you. If you want sneaky scouty skills outside, ranger. If you want to play around with the crafting system and stack up tons of sid, merchant. The others may be more difficult to get into, especially at first. It just takes trial and error, I think. I've still got much to learn, didn't start too long ago, but the more I get into it the more possibilities I see. as someone mentioned, helper chat is your friend.

[Mad Max]

First, don't worry about races in terms of skills: in Armageddon, races don't get special racial skills or powers (e.g. not all elves have the steal skill). Any of the four starting races is codedly viable for any of the six starting guilds. Socially, you will probably find it much much easier to play a human.

In terms of guilds having skills you won't need... pretty much every guild has some skills you'll use quite often, and some you may not touch at all. That's just the nature of the game no matter what class you pick. The helpfiles on subguilds and guilds are pretty good about identifying overlap; if it sounds like there might be one, there probably is. This isn't necessarily bad; for example, a Warrior with the Guard subguild will be better at guarding than a warrior with the Armormaker subguild, but he obviously won't be able to craft armor. Focus on what skills sound the most interesting on day 1, and pick those! If your character lives long enough and goes in a totally different direction, you can request that staff add/change your skills via roleplay.

Qapla'!  Technically, I was referring more to the skills of the sub-guilds and when they begin to over lap and make skills already found in use by the main-guild or even the race redundant.  I have read some where, as I recall, that if you pick two of the same kind of guilds, although your choices for expanding on other skills are mostly wasted, the said main skills are strengthened because of the two similar guilds.  I just simply do not want to gimp my character.

  I like reading the story paragraph version, as it seems to flow and I find it interesting and well written.  But at the same time, as already previously stated, rather vague.  A skill sheet is more of wanting to see what your character for race/guild/sub-guild can potentially become or it can at a glance tell you what is possible.  (Like a link that says click for more info under the story paragraph that brings you to the skill sheet.  I do see the 'See Also' links, but they too are a bit vague...)

  As you stated, if in fact I wanted to be a warrior who wanted to master the pole-arms, so to speak or spear, but could only advance in it opposed to master it, to me it would make more sense to use what can be mastered, since the game puts a physical limit on advancement of said weapon that I had no idea of in the first place.  (I wouldn't want to bring nun-chucks to a fight and use them haphazardly so to speak, when I could simply use a sword or staff or even hand to hand which I am very well proficient in.)  Days, weeks, months or even years later I come to find that all along I had picked the wrong guild and or sub-guild.  Kind of a set back even if you did make all those friends and enjoyed your time, my initial focus, (Including back ground info and RPing, was wanting to be a spear-man, possibly like my father such and such...) however was wasted.

  Specifically I guess I should ask can Half-elves see in the dark like other games or stories or can humans for that matter in this setting.  (Heck, does the day and night cycle, thus the sun and moon cycles even play a role in the game?)  If H-E's prefer to be on their own and hunt their own food do they start out with stats already attuned to that?  I see they are between a Human and an Elf in power and stature, so I can picture the out come at least in that regard middle of the road between the two.  Do all races start with the same starting 'basic' skills or only some?  Do some start better at some said skills?  Are some forbidden or extremely hard to acquire?  (I heard about pure Elves wont or refuse to ride or use a mount...)

  I am thinking of being a Ranger and I see that their skills with poisons and healing is "ok".  If I want to be a really good healer, I would assume I would need to take the Physician sub-guild.  But maybe a Ranger can heal good enough to get by and or make his own bandages, etc, if not starting out, later in game.  The description is there, it wets my palate, but when it is all said and done, does not give me knowledge of what can really be achieved.  And there are quite a few sub-guilds that have parts of Rangers skills already in it, yet have their own unique stuff as well, at least opposed to Rangers.

  And the Bard I like the idea of being able to play an instrument if it served some real purpose, but I am more interested in the ability to story tell in other languages.  It seems like a bonus opposed to just being a Linguist, yet I really do not know since there is no detailed info on what either truly does.  I mean are there Bard spells like other games or you simply 'pretend to play the lute' at taverns and people hand out coins cause it is part of the RPing?  If that is all there is to it, would a Linguist just be better off in that sense and "this" Linguist can just 'pretend to play the lute'...  Also I am reading there are nine or so different languages, but the Linguist only knows three...  With time does the Linguist learn them all or can any one from any back ground and guild/sub-guild learn any and all languages?  Does being a Linguist make it easier (Not counting the three languages you start with.) because of skills in learning a Linguist might have or being a pure Elf due to higher intelligence and or wisdom?

  There are many more questions like this for all guilds/sub-guilds, but these are just a few of my most predominate ones, but other players might have their own which is why I posed the question of making a more detailed list.

Note:  This post is replying to both your replies, so sorry if it sounds a little weird or redundant.  Also I did not know that Admins would let you change your skills eventually, I thought you were stuck with them, although like you said, the character would have to be around long enough to be worth a change and for RP purposes.

[Mad Max]

They're skillsets you pick during the character creation process. Using warrior as the example - here's what you can expect:

A warrior's skills involve only the many aspects of fighting. Every warrior possesses an aptitude for all weapons, and can learn to master them far beyond the meager abilities of other guilds. Unarmed combat, expert battle maneuvers such as disarming, the ability to hurl missiles, strategic withdrawal, and the eventual expert use of bows and arrows are all part of a warrior's skills. Some master warriors can learn to bandage the wounded.

For me at least, I guess what it really boils down to in a nut shell is, "such as"...

Well what else can they do?  I get this example, but I was also referring to the many other sub-guilds and all the other little nuances of the game.  Do warriors get to dual wield only, or get to use shields only, or wear the best and heaviest of armours, etc.?  Do they even get to forage (Or if so, suck at.) or hunt or if a Half-elf gets to start with that skill even if a Warrior class would not provide such a skill?  Or do all races have the basic skills and are the same level starting or each race has their own stats in said skills.  (I am not talking Str, Dex, Con, Wis, etc.)

[Mad Max]

I actually agree that knowing the starting skills for main guilds would be a really good idea. Leave the discovery to 'what will I branch to' and not 'what skills appear on my sheet after my character is approved'.

I absolutely think players should know what skills will be on their begining skills lists, because they might have actually written references to these skills in their background or they might have a plan for a character and find out after character generation that they don't even have the basic skillset to do what they intended.

That said, I'm not advocating for the list format over the paragraph format, and the subguild descriptions I think are fine. What I think would be best for new players is for the main guilds to follow the subguild's example.

Exactly!  However, even some sub-guilds only have two sentence long descriptions.  I would assume there is a lot more to these guilds than that.

[Narf]

I actually agree that knowing the starting skills for main guilds would be a really good idea. Leave the discovery to 'what will I branch to' and not 'what skills appear on my sheet after my character is approved'.

I absolutely think players should know what skills will be on their begining skills lists, because they might have actually written references to these skills in their background or they might have a plan for a character and find out after character generation that they don't even have the basic skillset to do what they intended.

That said, I'm not advocating for the list format over the paragraph format, and the subguild descriptions I think are fine. What I think would be best for new players is for the main guilds to follow the subguild's example.

Exactly!  However, even some sub-guilds only have two sentence long descriptions.  I would assume there is a lot more to these guilds than that.

Err, no, actually all the subguild descriptions are complete. Even the ones that are only two sentences. I think I've actually gone through all of them to check, and I know Nyr has. You can consider them reliable and complete.

[Fujikoma]

Anyone can wear any armor so long as they have the strength to wear them. Some sneaky skills may become impossible with heavy armor, I'd tell you more, but I don't usually play sneaky characters. Being encumbered heavily impacts combat abilities, so you may wish to pay careful attention to your weight, or just pile on the silt horror plate and say forget it.

I'm not sure any race gets infravision, maybe gith, but I don't think you can play those. If you wrote up an app for a mutie maybe you could get it, with some form of downside... I think there are ways to acquire it temporarily, but that would be a find out IG thing, myabe.

The difference between classes are the skills, and a small stat bump up or down depending on class and stat. Warriors don't get a bonus to heavy armor, but they have very, very good parrying abilities and some nice, small stat bumps, as well as unbelievable combat skills. Just, good luck with getting ambushed.

That said, I've heard it said before three maxxed warriors will find themselves at the mercy of a single well played ranger outside the gates, unless any of them can scan well, and even then, well, I wouldn't know because I haven't seen it, someone with more experience would have to spell that out. Suffice to say every class gets some huge advantage somewhere, the three recomended classes just get those advantages somewhere easiest for new players to take advantage of and learn with.

[RogueGunslinger]

I actually agree that knowing the starting skills for main guilds would be a really good idea. Leave the discovery to 'what will I branch to' and not 'what skills appear on my sheet after my character is approved'.

I absolutely think players should know what skills will be on their begining skills lists, because they might have actually written references to these skills in their background or they might have a plan for a character and find out after character generation that they don't even have the basic skillset to do what they intended.

That said, I'm not advocating for the list format over the paragraph format, and the subguild descriptions I think are fine. What I think would be best for new players is for the main guilds to follow the subguild's example.

Exactly!  However, even some sub-guilds only have two sentence long descriptions.  I would assume there is a lot more to these guilds than that.

Save for branching skills, the main guilds are the same way. If you find a skill where this is not true then staff can fix it if you send in a request or typo/bug/idea it.

[Jherlen]

New Player, I love that you responded to my post in Klingon. I like you. I think you're gonna do well here.

It seems like you have lots of detailed questions, which is awesome. Let me echo Barzalene and definitely suggest you check out the Helper chat. Beyond that, some general advice: very few players, even veteran ones, survive long enough on a character to reach the coded maximums of skills for our guilds or subguilds. So I wouldn't fear the choice of guild/subguild much, or the skills you start using once you start, because in all likelihood, whether you pick Subguild Bard or Subguild Linguist won't make much difference to save you from a templar or a scrab.

Again, pick what sounds fun and give it a try! The most important thing is to pick a concept you'd like to roleplay.

[Lizzie]

Again, pick what sounds fun and give it a try! The most important thing is to pick a concept you'd like to roleplay.

I think this can't be emphasized enough. Pick a concept you'd like to roleplay, -instead- of picking a skillset you'd like to max. Use the available skillsets to support your concept, instead of making up a background to support a skillset.

So - if your concept involves a real outdoorsy type, try a ranger. If you want your outdoorsy type to have some kind of income-producing hobby on the side, add a crafting subguild. Use common sense for this - if your outdoorsy ranger is going to spend most of his time away from major trade routes, you might want to avoid clothworking as an option, because you can't forage for silk in the dunes; you have to buy it. On the other hand, if you plan for your outdoorsy type to be a stolid city-dweller who just really loves going out for fresh air and hunting, you might do great with clothworking as your subguild. Or...you might prefer to pick Merchant as the main guild - and hunter or scavenger for a subguild, which would give you the *very basic* survival skills you'd need outside the safety of city walls.

Once you get the hang of roleplay in Armageddon, AND you've experienced personally how the skills "work" - only then will you really be in a position to pick a guild, and build your character concept around the skills. It's not that you shouldn't do it at all - I think a lot of us do. I know I do. I almost always pick the guild I want to play, and then create a character concept. But I was only able to do that AFTER I did it in reverse - pick the role, then apply the skillset. Learn how the two work together - then try a different role and different skillset next time. And just do that for a few RL months until you really get the hang of the mechanics.

[jstorrie]

However, I do not want to pick a race, a guild and a sub-guild to totally find I gimped my character in the short or long term.  I never expect to be the best of the best, it clearly wont happen, but I also do not want to have skills that overlap if they do not need to be or get skills I simply wont need for the character I am playing.  I am also assuming there are more skills than listed or basic skills all races or certain races start with that makes other skills gained by joining a guild or sub-guild useless.

It's pretty easy to avoid overlaps - just don't pick a subguild and a class whose helpfiles say they do exactly the same thing. Warrior/guard, pickpocket/thief, and ranger/hunter, for example, are obvious overlap cases. Beyond that, there isn't a lot of 'gimping' (uncool word choice, by the way) to worry about. I would only advise three things that aren't made explicit in the helpfiles:

- Easy-to-kill wildlife will generally flee from you while wildlife which does not flee from you will generally kick your ass if you're a new character (warriors included) - so if you intend for your character to hunt alone, you will probably need to have either archery, throw, or sneak from your guild/subguild. Warriors don't start out of the box with any of these.

- Thievery is more difficult if your character doesn't have sneak/hide, so if you are slapping the thief or cutpurse subguild on a non-thief guild in order to do a little stealing on the side, be aware of that.

- The average character does not have the ability to ride a mount without a free hand. If you intend to play a combatant who roams around outdoors on a mount while going sword-and-board, or while using a weapon in two hands, you may want to select a guild, race, or subguild whose helpfile mentions aptitude at riding.

[Mad Max]

New Player, I love that you responded to my post in Klingon. I like you. I think you're gonna do well here.

It seems like you have lots of detailed questions, which is awesome. Let me echo Barzalene and definitely suggest you check out the Helper chat. Beyond that, some general advice: very few players, even veteran ones, survive long enough on a character to reach the coded maximums of skills for our guilds or subguilds. So I wouldn't fear the choice of guild/subguild much, or the skills you start using once you start, because in all likelihood, whether you pick Subguild Bard or Subguild Linguist won't make much difference to save you from a templar or a scrab.

Again, pick what sounds fun and give it a try! The most important thing is to pick a concept you'd like to roleplay.

  Thanks, I was actually studying Klingon for a little bit until I found it unpractical, fun, but totally useless in the real world.  (Same with Egyptian Hieroglyphics, although at least that has real world history...)  I  have been studying Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, Spanish and a brief stint of Russian.  And I plan on learning Korean and probably something else along the way if I can stay focused... maybe Russian again... or even Klingon just for something fun.  (One of the reasons I was interested in the Linguist or Bard sub-guilds, but then I was told I can learn the languages with out those sub-guilds, they just take a very long time.)

  I did try the Helper Chat actually and although I found it very convenient, not really helpful in terms of what I was really looking for.  But then again, I might of been asking impossible questions...

  Yea... about that very few players surviving long enough to worry about maxing out their stats... I actually had not realized there was a permanent death for the game... I some how over looked that intro part and went straight to character creation.  Only found out when I was researching more and came across it by accident.  Will probably save me from throwing my lap top across the room...

  However, that brings me to my next question.  Do I have to come up completely with a new character and back ground every time I die and have to wait to become oked to play, or can I just jump right back in?  Can I reuse my old back ground story as long as I remember to play it as a new character?

[FreeRangeVestric]

  However, that brings me to my next question.  Do I have to come up completely with a new character and back ground every time I die and have to wait to become oked to play, or can I just jump right back in?  Can I reuse my old back ground story as long as I remember to play it as a new character?

You make a new character, complete with a new backstory, each time you die. This does require waiting for approval for each character, yes.

Hey, look at it as motivation to learn to not die as quickly as possible. (=

[Mad Max]

Again, pick what sounds fun and give it a try! The most important thing is to pick a concept you'd like to roleplay.

I think this can't be emphasized enough. Pick a concept you'd like to roleplay, -instead- of picking a skillset you'd like to max. Use the available skillsets to support your concept, instead of making up a background to support a skillset.

So - if your concept involves a real outdoorsy type, try a ranger. If you want your outdoorsy type to have some kind of income-producing hobby on the side, add a crafting subguild. Use common sense for this - if your outdoorsy ranger is going to spend most of his time away from major trade routes, you might want to avoid clothworking as an option, because you can't forage for silk in the dunes; you have to buy it. On the other hand, if you plan for your outdoorsy type to be a stolid city-dweller who just really loves going out for fresh air and hunting, you might do great with clothworking as your subguild. Or...you might prefer to pick Merchant as the main guild - and hunter or scavenger for a subguild, which would give you the *very basic* survival skills you'd need outside the safety of city walls.

Once you get the hang of roleplay in Armageddon, AND you've experienced personally how the skills "work" - only then will you really be in a position to pick a guild, and build your character concept around the skills. It's not that you shouldn't do it at all - I think a lot of us do. I know I do. I almost always pick the guild I want to play, and then create a character concept. But I was only able to do that AFTER I did it in reverse - pick the role, then apply the skillset. Learn how the two work together - then try a different role and different skillset next time. And just do that for a few RL months until you really get the hang of the mechanics.

A few RL months just to get the hang of the mechanics is a bit of a long time for me.  However, I had from the start narrowed it down to a Half-Elf Ranger.  It was just I was worried about my sub-guild over lapping.  Scavenger, Rebel, Guard, Physician among a couple others all have what Rangers have to begin with, but with a little added extra incentive or better multiplying for said needed skills.  I do not do crafting generally, but I can see me role playing a black smith if I want to settle down some where in the future... Regardless, I just was not sure if only Scavengers can really climb a rope or go into a cave, how well a Rebels could fix their armour or even if spears and especially knives were useful in the game to be made in the first place. (Same with Mercenary...)  Rangers already have basic healing, so I was not sure how convenient or purposefully stacking a Physician would be and as far as Bards were concerned, I did not know if they worked the same as they do in other games, help supporting their group with magic songs, but I was told that music is all RPing based so that is a no no unless their language skill is even better than a Linguist, but I should doubt that.

[Mad Max]

However, I do not want to pick a race, a guild and a sub-guild to totally find I gimped my character in the short or long term.  I never expect to be the best of the best, it clearly wont happen, but I also do not want to have skills that overlap if they do not need to be or get skills I simply wont need for the character I am playing.  I am also assuming there are more skills than listed or basic skills all races or certain races start with that makes other skills gained by joining a guild or sub-guild useless.

It's pretty easy to avoid overlaps - just don't pick a subguild and a class whose helpfiles say they do exactly the same thing. Warrior/guard, pickpocket/thief, and ranger/hunter, for example, are obvious overlap cases. Beyond that, there isn't a lot of 'gimping' (uncool word choice, by the way) to worry about. I would only advise three things that aren't made explicit in the helpfiles:

- Easy-to-kill wildlife will generally flee from you while wildlife which does not flee from you will generally kick your ass if you're a new character (warriors included) - so if you intend for your character to hunt alone, you will probably need to have either archery, throw, or sneak from your guild/subguild. Warriors don't start out of the box with any of these.

- Thievery is more difficult if your character doesn't have sneak/hide, so if you are slapping the thief or cutpurse subguild on a non-thief guild in order to do a little stealing on the side, be aware of that.

- The average character does not have the ability to ride a mount without a free hand. If you intend to play a combatant who roams around outdoors on a mount while going sword-and-board, or while using a weapon in two hands, you may want to select a guild, race, or subguild whose helpfile mentions aptitude at riding.

Yes, thank you for the suggestions.  I already had my race and guild in mind, just a few sub-guilds giving me second thoughts.  However, what is wrong with "gimping", I thought that was the word used for these situations...  Should I use "derping" instead?