Combat

Fight is the action you will do the most time while playing War of Gods. Fighting is the act of initiating combat with another living object. It is the basis of advancement here at War of Gods insomuch that through fighting and subsequent killing of other living beings you gain experience points, items and coins.

Fight can be initiated with command kill or with an offensive spell or ability, e.g.

kill <target>

Killing of monsters will give you enough experience points to gain levels, but killing of other players is much more risky and it has its own rules why and when you can kill a player (see the topic 'help pk').

Also monsters might be aggressive to players and initiate fight automatically and you will be forced to defend yourself against them.

While fighting, you can use spells ('help magic') or abilities you have learned before. The higher level you are, the harder is to kill you.

Once you start a fight, you can't just walk away from it. If the fight is not going well, you can attempt to flee, retreat or another player can rescue you. You can flee from a fight by typing

flee

You may also set it up to flee automatically once you go below a certain number of hit points by using wimpy. To use your wimpy, type

wimpy <number of hit points>

It is important to use automatic wimpy if you are not skilled in retreating from battle, especially when you are newbie.

A monster or player can only have maximum of three opponents at the same time.

Skills are features, that are applied automatically and have permanent effects. This means you do not need to type anything for these to happen, but that your character will automatically (try to) do them at the appropriate times.

Some of the more common ones are: second attack, long-blades proficiency, dodge, armour piercing or fast healing.

Abilities are effects similar to spells with the difference that they require fatigue points instead of mana. They can be use both in combat and also out of combat. To apply an ability, you need to type its name usually followed with a target, e.g.

move silently
backstab mage

If target is not defined, passive abilities are targeted to yourself while aggressive ones are targeted to your primary opponent.

Abilities, like spells, also often require some preparation time - some are fast are are applied next round while other are slower and it might take several rounds to see the actual effect.

Another common feature with spells is that abilities can also be aborted in the preparation phase, either by yourself (you type a command or another ability) or by your opponent (usually bashing you, aborting your concentration).

Finally, one significant difference to spells is that only a couple offensive abilities can be used to open a fight (like 'charge' or 'headbutt').

Each ability (as for all learning) has its own level when it can be started to learn, when your character gain adequate level you have to visit your guild master and 'learn' it.

Before you can cast a spell, you have to learn it. Most spells raise on usage, thus the more you practice it, the higher chance you have of success when casting. Casting spells costs mana. The mana cost slightly increases with your level for most spells.

To cast a spell simply type the command cast followed by the name of the spell enclosed in apostrophes(').

Example:

cast 'magic missile' snake

Also there is no need to type full name of the spell, you can abbreviate it.

Example:

cast 'cone' skeleton

instead of

cast 'cone of cold' skeleton

You do not need to specify the target if you cast a passive spell on yourself, or if you are fighting someone and would like to cast an aggressive spell at him/her.

Casting a spell uses up your mana and it may require a component. It also takes some time depending on the spell cast. This means that some spells will be cast next round, while other need concentration time of two or more rounds. For certain classes, while concentrating on some spell, attacks are reduced to zero.

Be aware, that you may loose your concentration when your spell knowledge is low. Then your spell simply fizzles. Your concentration can also be aborted by either yourself (by typing another command) or by your opponents, if they e.g. bash you. In both cases you will partially waste your mana without any real effect.

For darkies it is also very difficult to cast spells on sunlight, due to severe penalties that significantly lower the chance of successful spellcasting.

Trait is a special ability of your character that he/she can use in combat or also out of combat. A trait can be automatic like skill or non-automatic like ability and you have to type a command to use it.

Each trait (as for all learning) has its own level when it can be started to learn, when your character gain adequate level you have to visit your guild master or a special place or a legendary monster and 'learn' it.

To learn a new trait, you have to gain a 'trait point'. Normally, your character will gain one trait point each tenth (or eighth - for orc and human) level. Additional trait points can be gained by solving a special quests.

Each trait has two levels of knowledge, each of them is quite powerful. So you can choose - learn a new trait or raise a previous one to the maximum.

As for skills, spells and abilities also some traits may have prerequisites. That means that you must learn all the prerequisites to be able to learn such a trait.

Hit points, fatigue points and mana will recover slowly over time. There exist several ways how to speed up regeneration of your hps, fatigue or mana. You can eat food, drink water or other non-alco drinks, sleep, rest or meditate. You can also use magic potions and spells to recover your health, fatigue. There are even magical items and traits that help regenerate hps, fps and mana.

The best activity for regeneration is to sleep, but it has several disadvantages:

• you see nothing and
• you aren't aware of your surroundings, so make sure the place is safe enough before you lay down.

Rest is another type of regeneration, it is much less effective than sleep but you are always in, so you can't be surprised by sudden attack spell with casting of five rounds.

While sleeping or resting, you are lying on the ground, so when you want to end rest or you has been awaken, type 'stand' to jump on your feet. It is important because many abilities have bonuses against lying opponents.

Sleeping outside during winter is not possible unless you are a minotaur or there is a lit campfire in the room.

It is also not recommended to sleep in cold places as you can get sick.

When you are in an outdoor location, you can set up a campfire in order to get the most out of your rest/sleep. Healing rates are greatly improved while camping. The campfire will lit the place and most animals will shy away from it. You will also be able to cook food providing you have a pan.

Here is a summary of advantages and disadvantages of camping:

• healing rates are slightly improved
• it is safe to sleep outside during winter
• you can cook food if you have a pan
• animal shy away from the fire
• the place is lit
• the smoke is visible from afar

Meditation is a form of rest when the user falls into a deep concentration. Meditation restores much higher amount of mana than normal sleep but it doesn't recuperate hit points. You can stop meditation at any time you want.

NOTE that to use this command effectively, you have to know the skill Meditation.

As you are growing on strength, monsters you have to kill are more and more deadly so it is better to find help of other players belonging to your side. Team work is much more effective and less risky than lonely fighting.

Forming a party is the best way of venturing together with other players. It will give you many advantages when dealing with the hardships of the world. To form a party everyone needs to follow one person that you nominate as leader. Then the leader must create a party with command

party <party name>

The leader needs the consent of all followers. When he has the consent of all followers he can type

recruit all

to form a party with everyone, or

recruit <player name>

to group that one player.

If you want to recruit some new members you must be in the same room as them. You will share experiences and war points with them then so you will get only part of the normal experiences for killing, but skilled party should kill monster you can never kill alone.

Special party bonuses are also applied to each member of your party and higher magic-users are able to cast area spells without damaging any of their party members.

To kick someone out of the party, the leader must type

dismiss <player name>

To disband a party the leader can type

disband party

Formation is the special ability you can do only in parties. Calling of a formation you will try to form a special formation with your party fellow-combatants. If you will be successful, all the party members (according to each formation itself) gain some advantages.

Formations have several conditions specified in the help to each of them. If they are not fulfiled, you are unable to form such formation.

There are defensive formations, offensive formations and every one has different use so it is on you to think which one will fit your next fight.

Here is the list of known formations:

Only one formation can be formed in a party !

Note, that to make a formation, you must be a member of some party, usually with three or more players.

Once you start a fight, you can't just walk away from it. Players up to level 25 can use automatic wimpy - it is an automatic (but not failsafe) safeguard that forces you to run from battle when your hit points are lower then defined <hit points>. It is even possible to define a wimpy direction - then you will try to run in that direction but it is harder than running without any direction. If the direction does not exist in the room then you will fail to run away. If no direction is set then you will run in a random direction but be careful, because you can also run right to a closed door !

Death is very unpleasant but real fact that will meet almost each player. Take it easy and be warned for next time, because it depends only on your playing if you will be dead again or not.

There are a lot of truths about death, and a lot of garbage that players like to spread about it. Here is exactly what happens when you die.

When you die, and leave the death scene in your spiritual form, you end up in the one of the Halls as it is logical - darkie in the Hall of Darkness and whittie in the Hall of Light.

A corpse of your physical body is left in the room where you died. After a period of time the corpse will turn into a pile of bones only to crumble to dust as more time passes. All your items are in the corpse and you must find your corpse to retrieve your equipment.

A corpse will be turned into skeleton after 10 minutes then into a pile of bones after another 10 minutes and decompose after another 10 minutes so it will be saved for a total of 30 minutes. After that time the items will fall to the ground and anyone will be able to pick them up.

HINT: Always try to remember where you are, and if you die, remember where.

You will also loose a certain amount of experience but you will NEVER loose a level from dying, only experience points. This is not always the same amount and depends on several things:

If you are in the Hall of Darkness or Light and there is still your body, you can be raised or resurrected, and be brought back to life. This then lessens the effect of death upon you.

If you pray when there, you can start playing all over again ! You have to type 'down' then and you will be transfered to your home town.

Be warned ! When you attack anything, your target never forgets you until you will die in the fight with him ! It is better to finish each fight in your victory because you could meet such monster in some situation where it will be the last you will need.

There also exist some spells that do various tricks with dead players and some of them are VERY nasty, so be prepared on it !

Last tip how to stay alive - use your brain and choose your fights, use wimpy and retreat, know your enemy, hit him where he is vulnerable, be protected against his spells, attack as first, do anything what should give you an advantage against your opponent and you will eliminate the chance to be killed to a minimum rate.