Stats
Depending on the additional skills you want to give your Tamer, your stats will
change rapidly from what you start out with. Magery-related skills will make
your INT go up quickly, Bardic Skills will cause your DEX to skyrocket. The
hardest stat to raise is STR, period. For the best chance of survival, your
starting skills should be:
- STR -- 60
- INT -- 10
- DEX -- 10
In order to keep your stats balanced, you might want to practice
Macing and Wrestling
to prevent your Strength from dropping if you are training Mage or Bard
skills along with Taming.
Skills
As mentioned above, the only two skills required are Animal Taming and
Animal Lore. Take some time to think what you want your character to be. Each
template has it's advantages and disadvantages for different playstyles. If
this is the first character you create, it's crucial to choose one skill that
will get you a steady income to make a living. Equipment and reagents are not
free in UO, and you will have to be well-equipped at all times in order to
survive (Tailoring is definitely the best choice, since you will always be able
to acquire large numbers of hides).Other than that, you need to be able to
defend yourself (Magery/Evaluating Intelligence/Meditation/Resisting Spells or
weapon skill of your choice), keep yourself alive (Magery or Healing/Anatomy),
and heal and cure your pet (Magery/Meditation or Veterinary/Animal Lore). You
will be able to drop the skills you don't need for your Tamer template once
your character has matured.
Some skills are harder to raise than others. Taming and Animal Lore don't cost
you anything to train up, and until you hit the mid-70s they raise fairly easy.
How you start out depends on a number of decisions: Do you want to raise your
Taming from 0 to 50 by taming very low level critters for an hour or two, or
are you too lazy? Do you have other characters to support your Tamer with
equipment and gold? Unless you absolutely want to start with 50 Taming and
Animal Lore, you can always buy them up to 30-35 from an NPC Animal Trainer at
your local stable.
Here are some suggestions on starting different Tamer types and which skills
to start out with in order to avoid a long training period in your secondary
skills:
- For the New Player:
50 Tailoring, 49 Healing, 1 Weapon Skill of Choice
Tailoring provides a steady income and healing will keep you alive. Wool is
free and you can spin it, make cloth from the yarn, produce a variety of
tailored goods and sell them to NPC shopkeepers. 1 point in a weapon skill of
choice distributed in order to get a practice weapon to start with. This
template can be modified easily once the character has matured and you have
decided on a final template.
- For the Mage/Tamer:
50 Magery, 50 Meditation or other skill of choice
This choice will allow you to train Magery much more effective than just buying
what little you can from an NPC Mage.
- For the Bard/Tamer:
50 Musicianship 50 Provocation or Peacemaking
Provocation is very hard to raise, while Musicianship goes up rather quickly.
If you start with 50 Peacemaking you will actually have a chance of stopping an
attack and get away with your life, even if you don't have much else to show in
the defensive department.
- For the Warrior/Tamer or Ranger:
50 Healing 50 Weapon Skill of Choice or
50 Healing 40 Bowcraft/Fletching 10 Archery
A Warrior/Ranger template is mostly preferred by Roleplayers. Starting skills
are recommended optimized for starting equipment and survival. A Bowyer with 40
skill can already make arrows and bolts without failing.
Which City to start in
Several cities of Britannia are a good choice for starting out. Make your
decision depending on your starting level of Taming and your secondary skills.
Moonglow has a lot of shops to sell goods for
the new player to build a nest egg. The cotton fields supply a small but steady
income, sheep can be shorn for wool to make cloth for Healing and Tailoring
practice. For the aspiring Mage/Tamer, reagent shops aplenty. All types of
Tamers can take advantage of a good number of animals that can be tamed to get
you to about 60 skill, then you should move on to other destinations for
advanced Taming practice. Last but not least, the portal to the Lost Lands
(T2A) is easy to get to in case you want to go Papua or Delucia.
Skara Brae also offers a good variety of shops
and a stable. Easy access to the mainland is provided by a ferryboat service.
Just go aboard and tell the Tillerman you wish to cross. For travelling to
other cities, the Skara Brae moongate is located very close to town.
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