L. O. R. D. Legend of the Red Dragon A role playing game created by Seth Able Robinson by Kiteria SKILLS AND WHAT THEY MEAN TO YOU Upon entering the realm your first decision will be who you are, your second which will be the easiest of the three will be what sex you are, and lastly you will decide on what skill, or "profession" you will work on first. Each one has a unique feature that makes it useful throughout your never ending battles with the forest guardians, and fellow players. Here we will discuss each one in close detail, covering what is required of you to "master" it, then to become "superior" at it, what you can do with it and to whom, and what it can do for you. THIEF While in the forest you will be confronted by the Thieves Guild, if you give them a gem they will give you a lesson. In the game the successful completion of this is called a "skill" point. After four successful lessons, you will be given a "users" point. This means that you have earned the right to the use of your skill one time. Let's recap: With 1 gem you get 1 lesson, with 4 lessons you get 1 use, therefore to get 20 uses of your thieving skill which will be Master Level, you will have had to successfully given the Thieves Guild 80 gems. There will be times when you are confronted by the Guild and you will not have a gem. If you are unable to give the Guild a gem at that time, your choices are to spit at them or mumble. Either way the Guild will release you, but if you spit they will compliment you, if you mumble they will insult you. MYSTIC Learning the art of magic takes a long time, your user skills are just a little more deadly than a Thieves and SOME are more deadly than the Death Knights. You will be taught six magic spells each one capable of more damage than the other. While in the forest slaying the guardians, you will come upon the house of an old mage. You have the choice to knock or bang on the door. Sometimes he won't answer if you bang and sometimes he won't answer if you knock. I have found that if you bang the first time of each set of four lessons, you will get an answer more often than a knock, otherwise he will not be at home. Then knock, don't bang the other three times, or he won't be at home. Of course this is not a 100% thing, so go for your gut feeling and do what your vibes are telling you. If the old man is answering his door at the time, he will have you guess a number he is thinking of between 1 and 100 within six tries. Many have a formula for this, perhaps they work, and perhaps not. It is up to you to find what will work for you but I have found that simplicity is the most successful. Start in the middle at 50 and go from there, either higher or lower, relatively in halves. To help you visualize what I'm referring to, I will lay it out. Let us say the number is 52. Guess 1: 50 higher Guess 2: 75 lower Guess 3: 65 lower Guess 4: 55 lower Guess 5: 53 lower Guess 6: Here is where you have a 50 - 50 chance. It's not much, but at least the odds are a lot better than when you started out. It is my observation that odd numbers appear more frequently than even numbers, but again, this is not ALWAYS true, there are those times when I am awash in even numbers. Below is a list of the spells the complete Mystic will have. SPELL USERPOINTS DAMAGE REQUIRED PER USE Pinch 1 Basic, a bit more than a sword Disappear 4 Escape from foe no loss of forest fight. Player opponent never knows you were trying to do him in. Heat Wave 8 Quite powerful equal to 1 Death night skill. Light shield* 12 Reduces damage TO YOU by half Shatter 16 Awesome power! Equal to two Death Knight skills at one blow Mind heal* 20 Completely heal yourselfright in the middle of a battle! *may use on players equal or lower level than yourself. Please understand that it takes 20 USER points to use the Mind Heal, if it takes 4 SKILL points to earn 1 USER point, you can see that you have to guess 80 times CORRECTLY to achieve 1 use of the mind heal. It will take time and a lot of patience. You will be learning some very powerful magic and used with your sword attacks, you will be able to stand your ground and most likely be successful in killing players one level higher than you, possibly two. Use common sense though, know when to take off if that player or forest guardian you are attacking is doing sever damage no matter what you throw at them. Remember, there are two forms of the magic skill that you are allowed to use when battling a player on the same level as you are, or one level lower. It is the LIGHT SHIELD, and the MIND HEAL. This is another aspect of this profession that makes it far superior to the other two in my opinion. DEATH KNIGHT The moment is upon you, you are led to the dungeon by the Death Knights, the prisoner is there and it is up to you to declare his guilt or innocents. Choose wisely and you either free an innocent man or you call down the death penalty upon a heinous criminal, choose poorly and the opposite is true. This is also a hard to achieve skill, but unlike the Mystic skill that gives you six chances to nail it down, you have a fifty- fifty chance, which isn't as easy as it sounds. Unless you have a little ESP going for you, you can only hope that your best guess is THE guess. The grizzled warriors tell many rumors at the DARK CLOAK TAVERN about this one! It's hard to know who or what to believe, if any. I've heard them all and tried them all, and I have not found one anymore successful than the other. There is the odd day of the month rumor, select the odd number on odd days, even day even number. It is even being stated that you should look at the stat screen by pressing "1" at the main menu and see how many days the game has been running. Then select "2" if it has been running an even amount of days, and "1" if it's run an odd number of days. Then there is the "formula" I use, press "1" OR "2" EVERY time, it has to give it to you at least every 6 times. (It says here in very small print!!) Kj Radkey, the co-author of Castle ColdDrake, swears by her formula. She says that if she guesses it wrong the first time, then she will guess the other option the next time. She's a powerhouse of a L.O.R.D. player so I'm giving her suggestion serious consideration! I hope you see my point though, everyone has their own way and they are all as good as the next persons. Only through trial and error will you find what works for you, and you may come up with something that no one's thought of! By all means, if you have a theory, work it, and then come and tell Kj and me!! Some players start out by getting a little of all of the skills starting with thieving skills simply because it's so easy to obtain. Stay with it long enough to have three user skills and at the lower levels, it makes a fairly good addition to your weapon. Some players like to start with the Mystic skill because it does take a lot more time and effort to get the skill points, then transfer to the Thieving or Death Knight profession. Regardless of which skill you choose to go for first, you will work long and hard to MASTER it. Once MASTERED you will have twenty USER points and the initial of your chosen profession will be to the side of your name on the roster. To become SUPERIOR at your chosen profession, you must do it twenty more times and then you will have a white initial of your chosen profession next to your name on the roster. Once you have become SUPERIOR in your chosen profession, your Master will tell you that he can no longer teach you anything and offer the selections for you to choose another skill. At any time in the game you can change your skill by going to the DARK CLOAK TAVERN and talking to Chance the barkeep. He will present you with the same choices to select from as you had the first time you entered the game. It's also wise to keep in mind that certain IGM's cater to certain professions, with a horse you can take advantage of all three that are offered, if you have the time to run back and forth to the DARK CLOAK TAVERN to change your skill. I don't consider this cheating, I just consider it "maximum utilization of available resources." You will not master a skill the first trip through the levels on your way to killing the dragon. This is one of the reasons there are the HEROIC DEEDS. By the time you are ready to kill the dragon for the 10th time to become the HERO OF THE REALM, you will not only have mastered all three professions, you will more than likely be SUPERIOR in all three. Once you have become SUPERIOR in all three skills, you may choose the one you prefer to be for the rest of the game. I generally choose to be a Death Knight, because when you meet them in the forest, they will not only give you an extra user skill for the day, they will refill your hit points. The other 2 will give you another use (or uses) of your skill for that day, but they do not refill your hit points. As you work on your skills throughout your adventure from level 1 to level 12, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that these skills will stay with you even after you have slain the dragon and started over as a lowly level one. Each time you slay the dragon and start over, you become a much more dangerous warrior. Because you are not only armed and armored, you have a skill. Do you have a question, comment, suggestion or complaint? Contact me at my Email address: Kiteria@juno.com, or Kiteria@rland.wfbbs.com. Please stop by and visit the web page http://web2.airmail.net/bat/kiteria. Have phun(tm) and remember....it's just a game! Suzanne Franklin Co-SysOp RabbitLand II Dallas, TX