GUIDE Starting from Scratch. Idiot-Proof Starter Characters. Get Rich Fast!

[folo]

Just started my UOO journey and followed this guide. A few takeaways:

- I'm not completely sure if leaving Shelter Island asap is the most wise thing to do. I spent my whole time as young in Newbie Dungeon and when time was up I had made 20k in cash and some more in real assets (including a level 2 t-map, arcane scrolls, aspect cores, seeds, ~15 magic items). All while enjoying a really smooth sail. Most skills were at 70 as well. The Shelter Island town is fantastic too, everything you need cramped into a few screens. The npcs will only interact with young players.

- Don't keep grinding forever on mongbats and zombies, move to the rear end of level 1 and fight ettins, cave bears and trolls when your skills allow for it. There is also a single drake spawn not to miss.

- Loot the afk macroing tamer kills - which you can find in the rear end of level 1. If you see a tamer spamming "all guard me" and a huge heap of corpses around him you've scored a jackpot. Just stand in the heap of corpses and use the skinning knife on yourself to skin/open all grey corpses. You'll likely find 3 or 4 afk tamers, loot all their corpses and then go kill some monsters on your own. Repeat the tamer looting every 10-15 minutes.

- At the later stages of the young period I didn't bother looting the meat off corpses, the hides is where the gold is. Save yourself the time and hassle. On the other hand I might be the guy doing it wrong by looting manually...

- It literally takes 10 minutes to get music/peace above 50 with active play in newbie dungeon. I saved my training credit tickets for later.

 

[Khalil]

I decided to give this a whirl with a new character last night. As have a lot of other people judging by how many folks I saw running around with shepherd's crooks or clad in ringmail and brandishing a staff.

My main character isn't fully trained up yet and is more of an RP template as opposed to anything optimal and so I need a money making character to keep restocking him every time he gets whacked.

So far so good, still on Shelter Island, skills in the 60s for the most part, hoarding leather (maybe for a future tailor or to sell bulk to a player, 1gp seems too cheap to sell at?) and feathers, selling meat and making steady progress.

I'm probably going to stay in the newbie dungeon until I'm close to 70s before venturing out. I doubt I'm every going to do high level mobs, even when I'm approaching an end game template, it will just be a character I can hop on and earn a little cash on to keep me ticking over.

As I approach the cap limit and with that end game template in mind, I'm going to have to put some of the skills on the down arrow. I'm guessing this template posted earlier is going to be more along the lines of what I'd be looking for?

Macefighting / Tactics / Anatomy / Healing / Parrying / Alchemy (120) / Resist.

So this means dropping the likes of Music / Peace / Tracking / Forensic Eval and also picking up Alchemy?

As a game mechanics newb can @ViolentBeard or anyone else give some insight into why I'd pick up Alchemy over keeping Forensic Eval for instance?

And when I do need to start lowering some skills, which ones should I drop first and at what point should I add Alchemy if I do?

I hope that all makes sense? And thanks again @ViolentBeard for putting this guide together for us newbies!

EDIT: Wow, I can certainly see the benefits of having Alchemy but it sure looks like it will be expensive to train up! What would be the NEXT BEST skill to have in it's place?

 

[JR One]

I decided to give this a whirl with a new character last night. As have a lot of other people judging by how many folks I saw running around with shepherd's crooks or clad in ringmail and brandishing a staff.

My main character isn't fully trained up yet and is more of an RP template as opposed to anything optimal and so I need a money making character to keep restocking him every time he gets whacked.

So far so good, still on Shelter Island, skills in the 60s for the most part, hoarding leather (maybe for a future tailor or to sell bulk to a player, 1gp seems too cheap to sell at?) and feathers, selling meat and making steady progress.

I'm probably going to stay in the newbie dungeon until I'm close to 70s before venturing out. I doubt I'm every going to do high level mobs, even when I'm approaching an end game template, it will just be a character I can hop on and earn a little cash on to keep me ticking over.

As I approach the cap limit and with that end game template in mind, I'm going to have to put some of the skills on the down arrow. I'm guessing this template posted earlier is going to be more along the lines of what I'd be looking for?

Macefighting / Tactics / Anatomy / Healing / Parrying / Alchemy (120) / Resist.

So this means dropping the likes of Music / Peace / Tracking / Forensic Eval and also picking up Alchemy?

As a game mechanics newb can @ViolentBeard or anyone else give some insight into why I'd pick up Alchemy over keeping Forensic Eval for instance?

And when I do need to start lowering some skills, which ones should I drop first and at what point should I add Alchemy if I do?

I hope that all makes sense? And thanks again @ViolentBeard for putting this guide together for us newbies!

EDIT: Wow, I can certainly see the benefits of having Alchemy but it sure looks like it will be expensive to train up! What would be the NEXT BEST skill to have in it's place?

Anatomy - 100
Healing - 100
Tactics - 100
Swords / Fencing (poisoning) Mace - 100
Magic Resist - 100
Parry - 100
Poison - 100 or Arms lore - 100 for disarm and hamstring

 

[AreYouKidden]

Macefighting / Tactics / Anatomy / Healing / Parrying / Alchemy (120) / Resist.

So this means dropping the likes of Music / Peace / Tracking / Forensic Eval and also picking up Alchemy?
As a game mechanics newb can @ViolentBeard or anyone else give some insight into why I'd pick up Alchemy over keeping Forensic Eval for instance?
And when I do need to start lowering some skills, which ones should I drop first and at what point should I add Alchemy if I do?
I hope that all makes sense? And thanks again @ViolentBeard for putting this guide together for us newbies!
EDIT: Wow, I can certainly see the benefits of having Alchemy but it sure looks like it will be expensive to train up! What would be the NEXT BEST skill to have in it's place?

Hi Khalil,
This is a great guide to get started on, glad VB put it up, and glad you found it. As you dive into the game you'll learn the ins and outs, there are definitely a lot of them when it comes to template building. One thing you'll notice is some people swear by some old school notions like 7x templates, that you have to be GM in everything to be effective, I'm here to tell you that's not necessarily true! There are plenty of very good 8x templates for the solo player, just yesterday we theory crafted this one up in the templates discussion channel in discord.

700 skill template - add 20 into something if you decide to go 720 (more unnecessary expense)
Mace 100 +special - pierce target - reduces target AR by 50, can stack, if you reduce AR to zero it then starts stacking damage up to 30%
Tact 100 +100% dmg
Resist 80 +absorb spell dmg, return it back in your melee strike for more dmg
Heal 80 you get a decent amount of healing + carry potions as a backup
Parry 80 +taunt ability - doubles AR of your shield for a time, while pulling aggro
Forensic 100 +25% dmg, +extra leathers to sell, +hamstring due to having Track also
Tracking 80 +20% dmg, +passive red tracking for a red alert system
Arms Lore 80 +8% chance for specials (now 18% for fast stacking) - with macing is increased dmg, +disarm which also gives a +25 dmg boost in PvM

I run alchemy on my template over heal - alchemy is very expensive to train to 120, I wouldn't say it's worth it on a PvM template, I do it because I vendor and sell kegs, otherwise I wouldn't. You can still use potions on top of bandages without alchemy, plus you get those 40 points back to put into something else. The biggest reason for taking alchemy in my eyes would be the extra long str/dex pots - still not sure it's worth it.

Healing @ 80 (32-48 health - costs 2 gp) + gheal pot (20-40 hp - costs 18 gp if required) - combined 52-88 health every 10 seconds.
Alchemy @ 120 (32-64 health - costs 18 gp) every 10 seconds - 60% bonus to health pot at 120 alch.

I'm sure you'll ask why not Anatomy - the reality is it adds 20% damage which you make back in the additional damage with other utility skills above, and about 20% to your bandage heal (8-12 health) which I think you can see will more than suffice, in PvM if you are taking up too much damage, just kite until your bandage goes through. If you are playing with friends you won't be able to resurrect them, or cure yourself (use pots), that's the biggest drawback to no anatomy here.

 

[ViolentBeard]

Basically Alchemy is only if you want to make the tankiest dexxer possible. With Forensic Eval instead you get a more reasonable character with a bit higher DPS.

 

[Khalil]

Thanks guys. Plenty of food for thought as my template takes shape.

 

[AreYouKidden]

bump because this is great for new players.

 

[Snake]

After around a 15 year break from UO, this guide was the only one i could follow. Thank you for this idiot-proof guide, i am ready to leave the island now

 

[rangermania]

Hello all, this is amazing work and I appriciate it a lot! I have already given it a try and got to some "riches"

I have some questions though!

Can quarter staff be an end game weapon ? Back in the day it was just a Mage's decoration for us...

Is there a practical way to macro peacemaking/musicianship?

A general question at that, I think I have made a mistake to keep the tracking/armus lore on and now I hit the skill cap. How does the system work from there? I notice they go down (I have marked them down now) every now and then but is it preventing from skill gain every time?

Salutations from an old timer!

 

[ViolentBeard]

Hello all, this is amazing work and I appriciate it a lot! I have already given it a try and got to some "riches"

I have some questions though!

Can quarter staff be an end game weapon ? Back in the day it was just a Mage's decoration for us...

Is there a practical way to macro peacemaking/musicianship?

A general question at that, I think I have made a mistake to keep the tracking/armus lore on and now I hit the skill cap. How does the system work from there? I notice they go down (I have marked them down now) every now and then but is it preventing from skill gain every time?

Salutations from an old timer!

Hey there. Quarterstaff is the best 2-handed DPS weapon for macing. You can macro peace/musicianship at the Prevalia Zoo (southeast of Prevalia bank). If you have a skill that is marked down, it won't prevent skill gain in any way, or make it slower.

 

[rangermania]

Hey there. Quarterstaff is the best 2-handed DPS weapon for macing. You can macro peace/musicianship at the Prevalia Zoo (southeast of Prevalia bank). If you have a skill that is marked down, it won't prevent skill gain in any way, or make it slower.

Thank you VB! Yes I have noticed, it is just not notified every time both the decrease and increase. I have noticed it when I left the Skill Roll open. Fighting skills got really slow after %70, I'm pushing it in the second level of Aegis Dungeon but man it is slow!

I'll check out the Zoo!

P.S: When did the word Dexxer become a thing? Does it mean warrior?

 

[ViolentBeard]

Yes it means someone who uses dextereity

 

[AreYouKidden]

All the weapons are fairly close in DPS, with two handers slightly higher, but keep in mind with a 2 hander you have to unequip to chug a potion leaving you vulnerable to an attack.

They've also normalized everything based on swing timers so that faster weapons do not give you more of a chance to proc specials or aspect.

 

[Orbit Storm]

This guide is absolutely magnificent but one improvement it sorely needs is a better breakdown of how to evolve the starting template into something viable. AreYouKidden offered the best explanation for his build but — and no disrespect is intended here — there appears to be some limitations that might need to be compensated by actual skill, which really doesn't fit the mold of "idiot proof".

That said, thanks again for a fantastic guide!

 

[rangermania]

Thank you VB! Yes I have noticed, it is just not notified every time both the decrease and increase. I have noticed it when I left the Skill Roll open. Fighting skills got really slow after %70, I'm pushing it in the second level of Aegis Dungeon but man it is slow!

I'll check out the Zoo!

P.S: When did the word Dexxer become a thing? Does it mean warrior?

This video explains how to go further into the bard dexxer build. After a while the player needs to decide for his own.

The original suggestion here with two accounts and cross heal is not necessary since a single character can get strong enough for end game content with lyric armor and barding effect links.

 

[cophnia61]

Sorry but isn't against the rules to do dungeons with two characters? Or is it ok as long as you don't engage in PvP with both characters together?

 

[rangermania]

Sorry but isn't against the rules to do dungeons with two characters? Or is it ok as long as you don't engage in PvP with both characters together?

It was Ok for strict PvM if the two chars are in the same screen distance but last patch made it impossible with the IP block. The rules have been changed accordingly.

 

[AreYouKidden]

Sorry but isn't against the rules to do dungeons with two characters? Or is it ok as long as you don't engage in PvP with both characters together?

It was only very recently that the rules changed in regards to having multiple characters in a dungeon.

 

[Pucifer]

I really appreciate this guide it is full of helpful info. But as I'm less competent then my 9 year old on computers I'm getting hung up on the razor macro commands. Do I need to type all that in to write the script? Also my healing and weapons are going up very slow as I don't have a lot of time to play. Is it possible to make a macro to heal a second character while I hit him with a staff? I tried but it just keeps applying bandages one after another before it heals.

 

[oroechimaru]

we could probably share one on discord