COBRAHN HIT POINT QUESTS

There are four quests in Cobrahn that each add +100 to your hits. These float on top of your base Nork hits and do not affect your ability to max your Nork base hits. Two of the quests can be completed within an hour of going to the Cobrahn segment for the first time, while the other two are a bit more difficult to complete. Here they are in order of difficulty.

Tree Town Guard Quest: Talk to Drizzle about the Changing of the Tree Guard Desert Town Ring Quest: Carry tokens of friendship between Ionas and Juntes Tree Town Shackles Quest: Free a prisoner in Kaldor Castle and give the Shackles to Drizzle Graagh Halberd Quest: Defeat Graagh and bring his halberd to the duke beneath the castle

GOLD PLAN BONUSES

At some point, you may want to make the transition from a free account to a paid account. I strongly recommend you go right to the Gold subscription plan. For the extra few dollars a month, EACH slot on your account will get bonus hit points on TOP of any you can get from the methods I mentioned above.

The number of hits depends on your class. A Paladin will get +16 hits for each month the account is on the Gold plan, up to a maximum of 12 months. As of the writing of thie guide, I have been a gold member for the full twelve months, so I get +192 hits just by entering the game!

CURRENT HITS

My base Nork hits are 811 at level 28. I have managed to recover all of my lost hits and more at the survival trainers. Currently, my hits are completely maxxed.

Add the +192 bonus from the Gold Plan, and I can carry 1003 hits into the Nork dungeons before donning hit point gear. This is a lot of hits for Nork, but it took well over two years of play to achieve this size, starting with the game on the old IeN service.

With the current structure of the game, it is possible to grow to this size in a much shorter period of time, but still expect to play several months unless you are a real intense gamer. My Cobrahn hits are 1403.

Choosing a Weapon

The way to develop a Paladin into a powerhouse is to obtains FOCUS abilities (more about them later). And FOCUS abilities require high weapon skill. So you have to choose a weapon class early on and put all your energy into skilling that.

HALBERDS

By far, the most popular weapon skill for Paladins is polearm (halberd), for several reasons.

Halberds are great blocking weapons.

They do excellent damage.

There is a wide selection available to both the new player and the advanced paladin.

The ability to strike an opponent from 1 hex away makes dangerous dungeons more accessible to the young fighter. Attack, then immediately stack a move to an empty hex. Few monsters can move and hit in the same round, so there is a small window between the end of the attack and the completion of the move where a monster could possible take a swing at you.

The extra reach of the hally allows the Paladin to effectively use some of the attack focuses in big lair hunts were 'proning' is a major strategy for dealing with dangeous creatures. I will talk more about this in the section on FOCUS.

I recommend the following setups as you progress. The details of each of these items is presented below.

Nork Beginner: Store Bought Hally (enchanted to +3 or +4) Nork Intermediate/Advanced: Tehru Prison Minotaur Quest Hally Nork Top: Fire Giant Hally Cob Beginner: Timmy Town Store Hally (poisoned) Cob Intermediate/Advanced/Top: Forged Hally

Nork Halberd: A starter halberd can be purchased from the weapon shop in south part of Nork town. Ask around the lockers for a mentalist to enchant it to +3, or +4 if they are skilled enough.

Minotaur Halberd: In the basement of Tehru prisons is a trader that will take an evil minotaur axe and convert it into an excellent hitting halberd. The minotaur lair is at the end of a mze below the prisons. The weapon has +4 attack adds, glows, is silver and prones. It hits for nice damage and blocks even better. You will find this weapon most useful for a very long time.

Hill Giant Halberd: In Frore, there is the Hill Giant that wields a +5 halberd (glowing, silver, proning, untied). This is a very dangerous, but exciting hunt. However, you will be hard pressed to notice a difference between this hally and the minotaur quest hally, but some people want nothing but the best.

Fire Giant Halberd: The ultimate Norkian halberd is obtained from the Fire Plains Fire Giant. This has +6 adds (glowing, silver, proning, untied) and the same description as the Minotaur Quest, and Fire Giant halberds, but it is superior in terms of hitting power.

Cobrahn Halberd: Once you get to Cobrahn, choices become very limited: store bought, random, or forged. There is a seller in Timmy Town that sells a +2 halberd. (+2 Cob adds are MUCH more powerful than +2 Nork adds.) When I first went over to Cob, I found it useful to poison the weapon to up its damage potential. Still, this is a good starter weapon for this segment.

Random Drop Halberds: In Grraagh castle ground floor, the berserkers and named barbarians sometimes drop various polearms. Combat adds are 0 to 1 that I've seen. I am not sure how they compare in damage to the Timmy Town store halberd, but the monsters that wield them (berserkers and NPCs) hit pretty darn hard with them.

Forged Halberd: This is the ultimate Cob Hally Pally weapon, but is very difficult to obtain without a strong, experienced party. You will need Kaldor's dagger and the tanned hide of the lair beetle, plus a halberd with NO combat adds. You can buy such a halberd from the Tree Town seller. Many consider the forged halberd among the hardest hitting weapons in the game.

Firestorm Halberd: Some critters in the Undead City randomly generate with a flaming weapon that discharges firestorm with each attack. You will see the monster holding a stick that looks like it is on fire. The halberds that drop up to the UC3.5 level have power 20 firestorm. Multistrike will quickly level a zoo in the easier areas, but isn't very useful in the tougher dungeons.

Black Halberd: You will see some Cobrahn players wielding a black, double-edged looking halberd. It is obtained by completing a special quest to gain access to the special monster that wields it. It is non-proning, which has its uses, and hits hard, but not quite as hard as a forged halberd. The bearers of this weapon are sworn to secrecy, so I cannot reveal any details for obtaining it.

LONGSWORDS

This is the second most popular weapon skill for Paladins. The choices for starter weapons is limited in Nork, but you have a better selection once you get to Cob. So the early life of an LS Pally can be tough in Nork but a bit easier than a Hally Pally when first entering Cob.

The main advantage of longsword skill is the ability to wield a shield in your left hand without penalizing your longsword attack. There are some great shields in the game and I will talk about them.

There are two pretty significant disadvantages to longswords.

Your most powerful focus attacks will frequently miss in hunts were proning the monster is a major strategy of the hunt, while a hally pally will still hit with a focus attack if the monster is proned up to 1 hex away.

You have to belt either the longsword or shield in order to drink a healing potion. With the proper macro keys setup, this is straightforward, but may open you up to a second attack and hit before you get a chance to drink the potion.

My personal experience with swords and shields comes from running a mid-sized longsword barbarian. With some input from some big longsword paladins, I recommend the following setups as you progress. The details of each of these items is presented below.

Nork Starter: VT Gemmed Hilt LS (+3/+4 enchant), Steel Shield Nork Intermediate: VT Gemmed Hilt LS (+5 enchant), Baskie Shield Nork Advanced: Slicer LS, Breshard Shield/Duke Shield Nork Top: Silver Saber, Breshard Shield (+5 enchant)/Duke Shield Cob Starter: Curvey Silver LS, Steel Shield Cob Intermediate: Curvey Silver LS, Moon Shield/Footman Shield Cob Advanced: Forged Longsword or Broadsword, Moon Shield/Footman Shield Cob Top: Improva Longsword, Kite Shield

Nork Longsword: Common iron dungeon trash, or buy it from a Nork store. If you can get a ment to enchant it to +3 or +4, you will have a decent starter weapon.

Silver Longsword: Slay a griffin and search its corpse. It drops a longsword that is silver and glowing, so it is a general purpose weapon. Wimpy damage once you approach skill level 10 or so. Get one enchanted to about +4 and use when hunting minotaurs.

Gem Hilt Longsword: In Volcano Town, a storekeeper will sell a steel longsword with a gemmed hilt. If you get it enchanted to +4, it is a fairly good hitting weapon. If you can get it enchanted to +5 so it glows, it will be even more useful. I recommend you get this and have it enchanted as soon as possible.

Broadsword: Broadswords are dropped by critters in the Frore Fate Pools and in Aleria. This is another decent hitting starter weapon. The Fate Pool BS drops with a +4 enchantment. The Alerian BS drops with random adds up tp +2 I beleive.

Slicer Longsword: You have to slay an NPC in Nork-6 named Slicer. This is an excellent advanced weapon. If you can get one while small, even better!

Silver Saber: Defeat Uther of Frore and trade his sword in Frore for the Silver Saber. This is the biggest hitting weapon in the Nork segments. It is silver, glowing and a power weapon, meaning it can damage the dreaded Snow Beast and Chipuda. Many feel the saber is the hardest hitting weapon in the entire Nork segment.

Cobrahn Longsword: This is a silvery-white looking sword made of exotic metal. You can buy in Timmy Town stores or find on the ground.

Curvey Longsword: As its name implies, it has a curvey looking edge and hits very hard, especially in the hands of the NPCs that you have to kill to get it. They don't always drop the sword when they die. Even advanced players continue to use this sword as it is non-proning, which can be an advantage in some situations. Timmy -1 is the best place to hunt for this weapon.

Forged Longsword: Give the forged trader a Kaldor Dagger and the tied hide of the lair Beetle, and he will reforge a common longsword into a very powerful weapon.

Forged Broadsword: Same process as forging a longsword except use a broadsword with no combat adds. Some players claim a forged broadsword hits harder than a forged longsword or even an Improva longsword (see below). I have not personally checked this out, but worth some additional research on your part before forging your first weapon.

Firestorm Longsword: A flaming longsword is sometimes wielded by skeletons in Undead City. Kill them and take the sword for your own. Each hit discharges a firestorm. Combined with the MultiStrike discipline, it can deliver fierce 1 round damage to the monsters, to you and to all your friends.

Improva Longsword: Improva, a trader on Undead City 1 level, accepts 4 elemental scrolls (earth, air, fire and water), then converts a forged LS into a really nasty piece of work. The sword appears dark colored with greenish diadems along the blade. This is the ultimate Cobrahn longsword. A few Paladins have told me that the Improva has a higher top damage than a forged broadsword, but its damage range is wider. They also claim it is a vicious proner, which can be a mixed blessing.

The scrolls are so difficult to get, that few have completed the quest. Three of the scrolls are random drops, mostly in the extremely difficult Undead City levels 4 and 5. The final scroll is a random drop from the Deathsasquatch, one of the most dangerous beasts in the game. I have never seen a random drop scroll in Undead City, and I have only seen a couple of scrolls drop from the Deathsasquatch. So be prepared for a lot of hunting.

SHIELDS

There is a big and excellent selection of shields in both Nork and Cob. Some come pre-enchanted with combat adds. Ments can enchant Nork shields and increase the adds on them. Some say it improves the blocking. I have shields enchanted up to +5, but I never tested blocking improvement. If you can get the enchants for free, then get it.

Wooden Shield: You can buy a wooden shield in Volcano Town. Better than nothing for hunting the first few levels of Nork.

Ogre Shield: Ogres in the volcano town fisheries sport an improved version of the wooden shield. It looks like it has a green bubble in the middle.

Steel Shield: Tough for small players to get but most established players will get you one free for the asking. Ask. Good protection through N-5.

Baskie Shield: You must slay the Volcano Town basilisk and trade its tanned hide. Very dangerous hunt so get a party together to help. This is the standard shield sported by mid-sized Nork Paladins.

Breshard Shield: Arguably, the top blocking shield in Nork. You must slay Breshard to take his shield. A hunt for big players and strong parties.

Duke Shield: Duke Talinar of Aleria will grant his shield to those completing a series of quests, or you can just kill him and take it directly. It gives +30 hitpoints when wielded and is a decent blocker. Some prefer it over a Breshard shield.

LordKoss Shield: LordKoss wields a green shield similar to the ogres in the fisheries. But it is anything but ordinary. It ties when lifted and seems to block at least as well as a Breshard Shield. Certainly, it blocks well while in the hands of LordKoss! I could not detect any special features or adds to the shield.

Exotic Steel Shield: Commonly dropped in Cobrahn Timmy Town dungeons. Grab one as soon as you get there. Decent protection to start.

Bubble Shield: This is a cool looking green shield with gold bubble and trim. It is a random drop in some Timmy dungeons. You will see the monster carrying it. A step up from the steel shield.

Snake Shield: Random drop in Timmy dungeons. It contains the formable spell of energy shield. Just a novelty.

Footman Shield: Random drop in the Undead City. It looks like an Alerian Duke shield. This is actually a very good blocking shield. If you can get strong enough to hunt the first undead city level, you might be able to get one of these.

Moon Shield: Arguably the top blocking shield in Cobrahn, it is obtained by completing a series of quests that starts with finding wooden bolt and ends with a dangerous run through a spectre lair.

Titanium Shield: Once you have a moon shield, kill and tan a large yeti (the ones wielding clubs). Take the shield and fur to a trader in Undead City -2. He will convert the shield into a shield that gives +100 hit points when wielded! Decent blocker too. But some claim the Moon Shield and the Footman Shield are much better blockers. So you need to decide if you prefer better blocking or the +100 hits.

Kite Shield: Kill and tan the Deathsasquatch. Take a Titanium shield and the fur to a trader on Undead City -2. He will convert the shield into a cool looking gemmed shield that is 0/5 combat adds and gives +200 hits when wielded. It is said to be an excellent blocker.

OTHER WEAPON CLASSES

Greatswords and maces are two other weapon classes that are successfully sported by paladins, but are much less common, so I will give a brief summary. You can research the details for yourself.

Greatswords

Nork Starter: Bisento (Maeling-2 Ogrelord, drops with +4 adds) Nork Intermediate: Seldari GS (Seldari-2 Blademaster, get +5 enchant, hits hard!) Nork Advanced: Slicer GS (N-7 Slicer, hits hard!) Nork Advanced: Borovar Greatsword (I am sworn to secrecy! Drops with various, random adds, but can be enchanted.) Nork Top: Excalibur Greatsword (Trade Warden Heart on Nork-10, has oncontact Earth Crush!!) Cob Starter: Timmy-1 Greatsword (random drop with adds to +4) Cob Intermediate: Boris Greatsword (Boris Twins Lair, Rarely dropped by them.) Cob Advanced/Top: Forged Greatsword

Maces (Most can also be wielded with shields! See longsword setup list.)

Nork Starter: Footmans Mace (N-6 for decent adds, lizardking has a glowing one), Steel Shield Nork Intermediate: Ogre Hammer from Aleria (enchant to +5), Baskie Shield Nork Advanced/Top: Smasher Morningstar (N-7 lair creature), Breshard Shield/Duke Shield Cob Starter: Timmy Town Dungeon Mace, Exotic Steel Shield Cob Intermediate: Tree Ogre Hammer, Bubble Shield Cob Advanced/Top: Forged Mace, Moon/Footman/Kite Shields

Paladin Skills

SPECIALIZATIONS

At different experience levels, a paladin can specialize in a weapon. A specialization appears to help you land a blow. I am unsure of any damage increase. More importantly, a specialization counts as a skill level when determining what FOCII a paladin can use. Thus, a paladin can get powerful FOCUS skills at lower skill levels by specializing in a weapon.

At experience level 15, you can choose to specialize in a weapon. Go to the paladin trainer, hold the weapon in your right hand, and say:

trainername, specialize.

At experience level 17, you can specialize in a different weapon, but I strongly recommend that you NOT do this. Instead, wait until experience level 19. Then you can double specialize in the weapon you selected at experience 15. This will give you +2 to skills for determining what FOCUS you can use with that weapon.

At experience level 19, you can specialize in a third different weapon. But a Paladin should hold off until experience level 24. At this level, you can get a third specialization in the weapon you selected at levels 15 and 19, and get +3 to FOCUS skills.

I have 3 specilizations in polearm (halberd).

Skill 15: CHARGE

Once you obtain skill 15 in a weapon, you will be able to use the CHARGE command to storm across the dungeon and unleash an attack against an enemy in one round. At this point, equipped with a proning weapon, you will be welcomed as a 'stick' on the bigger lair hunts. As the monster is knocked about, you will be able to continue your attacks every round. Many guilds will not even consider a Paladin for membership unless thay have attained at least this level of skill.

You need to be a natural level 15 in order to charge. Weapon specializations are not counted towards your level to determine if you can charge. At skill 15, you can charge up to 2 hexes. At skill 16, you can move and hit up to 3 hexes away. An agility of 24+ will give +1 to your charge distance, so at skill 16+, you will be able to charge anything on the screen with an agility boost.

Skill 17: FOCUS PARRY

Skill plus specialization of 17+ will enable you to parry with a weapon. I have a macro button set to

FOCUS PARRY

with auto-return enabled. I assigned the “ENERGYSHIELD” disc picture to it (picture of a shield). A simple click puts me into a parry stance. Many monsters will outright miss with their attacks while you parry, and your weapon blocks catch just about anything else, especially if you wield a halberd.

Once parried, you can walk about, search corpses and pick up loot and still maintain the parry stance. It is especially helpful for searching for the corpse of a fallen comrade in the middle of a battle, or for baiting a lair monster while others attack it.

Some paladins claim that if struck while parried, you must reform parry. I have not been able to personally verify this, but if I am baiting a dangerous lair, I will frequently reform parry just to be on the safe side.

There is also a theory that lair critters tend to attack players that are doing lots of damage. So if attacked, if a Paladin parrys, the lair critter will switch to another player. My personal feeling is that lair critters are programmed to randomly switch targets after a random number of rounds. I have had Grraagh and Deathsasquatch latch onto me and not let go for quite a few rounds while parried. But it might be worth experimenting a bit to decide for yourself.

Skill 18: FOCUS STRIKE

Your first attack focus will become your standard mode of attack for some time. Create a macro with

FOCUS STRIKE

and target lock set. I use the picture for ENERGYSPEAR on the macro button. It will operate just like the attack macro. Strike hits a bit harder and has less of a chance of being blocked than a normal attack.

Weapon blocking ability will suffer when using any of the various STRIKE focii, but you may be hard-pressed to notice it until you get around skill 22. In Nork, by the time you are skilled enough to get a strike focus, the decrease in blocking is still good enough to handle most Nork critters.

In Cob, critters will hit right through your weapon, whether you are striking or not, until around skill 22. So armor if more important and you should strike away!

At around skill 22, you may want to consider using a regular attack rather than striking when faced with large zoos in the most dangerous areas of Cob. You will see a dramatic increase in halberd blocks when switching to regular attack over strike.

Use of Strike instead of Attack does not seem to adversely affect skill gain.

For lair hunts, alternate CHARGE/STRIKE. The charge places me on the monster's hex, then the strike unleashes a heavy hit, even if the monster has been proned one hex away after the charge. If you are not using a halberd and need to be on hex to hit, then this becomes a less reliable combination.

Skill 19: FOCUS BLINDSTRIKE

Blindstrike unleashes a full weapon attack agains a random critter on your hex, even if you cannot see it! You do not actually have to be blind or in darkness in order for it to work. This is especially useful against critters that have a limited hide spell on and so blink in an out of view on your hex, like the Nork wraiths or Cobrahn wraiths, spiders and archers. It will attack them even if they are visible, like just before they blink out.

Blindstrike will target friendlies on your hex, so you need to use this with caution. I have a macro assigned to a button with the “BLIND” disc picture assigned to it. The macro is:

FOCUS BLINDSTRIKE;@+++ BACKOFF! BLINDSTRIKE! +++

I don't have any options set so I must explicitly hit the return key or right click to send the command. This helps prevent accidental execution should I mistakenly click on the button in the heat of battle.

Skill 20: FOCUS MULTISTRIKE

This is a truely awesome attack and will transition your Paladin into the company of the great warriors of the land! The focus targets critters on your hex and in the order they appear on your target list, friend or foe, and unleashes a full combat attack on each. If you have 6 attacks on your profile (like I do at Level 22), then up to 6 critters will be attacked! It will even target hidden and invisible critters, so it is like a super blindstrike! Very useful when a mob of those pesky wraiths are blinking on your hex.

I sometimes use CRITSORT ENABLE so critters on my hex are sorted first on the target list. I think it helps me track critters better when facing large mobs of monsters. I recommend assigning CRITSORT ENABLE and CRITSORT DISABLE to macro keys so you can turn it on and off. It is hard to explain the differences between the two views. Play with them a bit and you will see the targeting advantages and disadvantages of each.

I think each attack may actually be more powerful than FOCUS STRIKE, but I haven't rigourously tested it. Let's just say the bodies will pile up rapidly.

There is some indication that you do not get the full skill for killing a critter with this focus, so a common strategy is to MUTLISTRIKE until a critter is near death, STRIKE them dead, then resume MULTISTRIKE until more critters are weakened. Using this approach, I have gotten great skill gains at skill 18 while hunting solo in Cobrahn, and it continues even at my current skill of 23. Another tactic that I sometimes need to use is to switch to CHARGE instead of STRIKE when critters are near death as some critters will rapidly flee.

Multistrike will target friendlies on your hex, so you need to use this with caution. I have a macro assigned to a button with the “FOLLOW” disc picture assigned to it (picture of two people walking in line). The macro is:

FOCUS MULTISTRIKE;@+++ BACKOFF! MULTISTRIKE! +++

I don't have any options set so I must explicitly hit the return key or right click to send the command. This helps prevent accidental execution should I mistakenly click on the button in the heat of battle.

I avoid the use of MULTISTRIKE when group hunting unless I have an explicit understanding with those in the party. The risk of killing a player is too great, especially on an excellent or proning hit.

Once I obtained the armorstrike focus, I found myself using multistrike a lot less. The rate at which I can kill things with armorstrike frequently exceeds what I can do using multistrike tactics outlined above except in the weakest of areas.

Once i got the maxstrike focus, there was no need to multistrike in tough zoos. The multistrike focus is relegated to special hunt situations, like hitting invisible critters or wielding weapons that discharge a spell on contact.

Skill 21: FOCUS BOOST

BOOST will add +2 to your agility and +2 to your strength for some small amount of time. It does not last very long. Hopefully, the duration will increase with higher skill levels. For now, I use it just before entering a lair to give me an added edge.

BOOST makes a noticable difference to hitting power in the Nork segments, mostly due to the STR adds. I connect for more excellent and proning attacks when it is up.

Entering the FOCUS BOOST command gives a “clasps hands together and exhales” message for everyone nearby to hear, and stuns you for a few rounds, so do it in a safe place.

Skill 21: FOCUS THRUSTSTRIKE

You get two FOCII at skill 21. The second one is a slightly beefed up version of the CHARGE command. Create a macro

FOCUS THRUSTSTRIKE

and set Target Lock on. Then assign the macro to a command button. Clicking the button makes it the active attack command. You then need only click on the icon of the monster you wish to charge.

You will charge up to 2 hexes, although at skill 22, I can now move and hit from 3 hexes away. I use it for lair hunts instead of CHARGE. With my Cob agility adds, I can CHARGE up to 4 hexes, so I use that for general hunting. It costs 5 hits per use (CHARGE costs 1 hit per use). It hits a little bit harder and penetrates armor a bit better than CHARGE.

Skill 22: FOCUS POWERSTRIKE

This is a more powerful version of FOCUS STRIKE. I replaced my STRIKE macro with POWERSTRIKE and use it instead of strike. It hits significantly harder than a normal attack.

I seem much less likely to be armor blocked when using this FOCUS.

I have not detected any huge increase in aging due to its use, but I have gone from young to middle aged faster than from very young to young.

I could not measure any penalty to skilling while using it, so I use it instead of attack.

See my comments about weapon blocking under FOCUS STRIKE. It applies here too.

Skill 23: FOCUS DEFEND

This focus is a bit of an oddity. Your enter FOCUS DEFEND [playername] and everyone around you will see cool a message “…leaps to defend…”. The character you seek to defend must be on your hex. It is a popular focus to use in town to role-play a paladin coming to the aid of a damsel in distress.

I tried it a few times in the dungeons, but I could not tell if I was actually protecting the player I was defending. More experimentation is needed to see if this focus can be used for anything useful.

Paladins that find this useful say one should first focus parry, then focus defend. The belief is it will transfer your parry defense to the defended player.

Skill 24: FOCUS SUPERBOOST

SUPERBOOST will add +5 to your agility and +5 to your strength for some small amount of time. It also gives +1 to movement. You will see a “SPEED” disc appear on your disc bar, as well as STRENGTH and AGILITY discs.

I am not sure if speed counts as a mini-haste. I sort-of think I attack faster, but it is hard to tell. Certainly, the +1 to movement is worthless in lair hunts as you will typically be within 3 hexes of the lair critter throughout the fight.

It does not last very long. I use it just before entering a lair to give me an added edge.

SUPERBOOST makes a noticable difference to hitting power in the Nork segments, mostly due to the STR adds. I connect for more excellent and proning attacks when it is up.

Entering the FOCUS SUPERBOOST command gives a “clasps hands together and exhales” message for everyone nearby to hear, and stuns you for a few rounds, so do it in a safe place. But for the most part, you will find little use for this FOCUS because of its short duration.

Skill 25: FOCUS ARMORSTRIKE

This is a truely great focus and will give a tremendous boost to your damage potential. Once you achieve this focus, you can be considered among the most powerful warriors of the lands. This is because armorstrike unleashes two full combat attacks against a single target in one round!

I created a macro…

FOCUS ARMORSTRIKE

with target lock set. I use the picture for ENERGYSPEAR on the macro button. When you click on a target, you will get two full attack messages, just as if you had attacked the critter twice. Make this your standard attack to replace POWERSTRIKE for general dungeon hunting.

When you need weapon blocking, switch back to normal attack, as armorstrike dramatically decreases your weapon blocking ability.

If you slay the critter on the first hit, the second hit will be wasted (“… you strike a lifeless corpse…”). The focus does not retarget another creature in mid-swing.

The second attack is executed even if the first attack misses or is blocked. So it truely is two seperate attacks on a critter for the price of one.

Halberd users can armorstrike from 1 hex away, making it effective even with proning weapons.

There is a chance that the attack will break the critter's armor if your attack is armor blocked. As long as you are hitting, it appears to have no effect on the opponent's armor. In all the many rounds I have used this focus, I have succeeded in breaking the opponent's armor but once. A long solo of the King Minotaur came to a rapid end once I busted his armor that was blocking many of my attacks. I then switched to maxstrike and finished him off rapidly. But it took a great many blocked attacks before the armor was broken.

Several paladins have told me that armorstrike will break a monsters hide, like a dragon's scales. I have not been able to personally do this. I killed several lair beasts with this attack and the hide needed to be only repaired after tanning. But for long lair hunts where the prize is tanning the critter for its hide, you may want to avoid using this FOCUS just to be safe. Certainly, if the prize is armor that can be stripped from the corpse by searching, you do not want to risk breaking the armor with this attack.

Armorstrike combined with the HASTE discipline allows the Paladin to inflict immense damage in a short period of time, but at the cost of rapid aging. I wait until I am ancient before drinking a youth potion. I cannot see a significant decrease in combat or blocking skills among young, middle aged, and old. At very old, I can notice some degradation in ability to land a blow and inflict damage. At ancient, there is a dramatic decrease in combat abilities.

My feeling is that there is no discernable skilling penalty for armorstrike, or if there is a penalty, it is not more than half skill. Since one is killing twice as fast with this focus, skilling rate is no worse than using other, less powerful focii.

Skill 26: FOCUS ULTRABOOST

ULTRABOOST will add +8 to your agility and +8 to your strength for some small amount of time. It also gives +1 to movement. You will see a “SPEED” disc appear on your disc bar, as well as STRENGTH and AGILITY discs.

See all the comments under the previous BOOSTS. They all apply. This one ages you and lasts for far too short a time to make it useful for general use.

Some paladins recommend using it when doing death pile recovery, running through dangerous dungeons or baiting lairs at the start of a hunt. The +8 agility boost is said to greatly enhance defense.

Currently, I limit my use of ultraboost to lairs will I will be the one responsible for disarm, but just to get the hunt started.

Skill 27: FOCUS MAXSTRIKE

This focus gives yet another big boost to your damage, but at the cost of rapid aging. Like armorstrike, it unleashes two full combat attacks against a single target in one round!

I created a macro…

FOCUS MAXSTRIKE

with target lock set. I use the picture for ENERGYSPEAR on the macro button. When you click on a target, you will get two full attack messages against a single target, just as if you had attacked the critter twice.

I still use armorstrike as my general hunting attack, but have the maxstrike macro button right next to it. I switch to maxstrike when dealing with dangerous monsters with lots of hits, like giants and very dangerous lair beasts.

A pair of hasted, maxstriking paladins with proning weapons can control a majority of the lair monsters in the game. The amount of damage they can inflict is enormous. However, they will age from young to ancient in a matter of hours, so it is an attack that is reserved for special situations.

Halberd users can maxstrike from 1 hex away, making it effective even with proning weapons.

I have not rigorously tested maxstrike for skill penalties. As of this writing, I feel there isn't any penalty to skill for using it. But make sure you test it for yourself.

Skill 28: FOCUS DISARM

A great lair-hunting focus! This knocks the weapon of an armed lair beast to its belt for several rounds! For most other monsters, they will drop their weapon to the ground. If the monster wields a returning weapon, like the MinoLords on KM4, the weapon will immediately return to their hand, so they cannot be disarmed.

The macro targeting system cannot be made to work with this focus, so you need to either manually enter the command, or edit a macro just before a hunt that includes the name of the lair beast.

I created a macro that I edit just before fighting a monster that I want to disarm.

FOCUS DISARM monstername

with auto return set. If the disarm fails, you will get a “you fail to disarm” message. If the disarm succeeds, you get no message, but you will see the weapon disappear from the monster's hand if it is non-returning. You MUST be on the same hex as the monster in order to disarm it, regardless of the weapon you wield.

The basic technique of disarming a lair monster in a party hunt is to setup the disarm macro for the lair monster before the hunt. During the hunt, have THRUSTSTRIKE set as the active attack. Get a healer to case AIDE and AGILITY on you, and a mentalist to cast HASTE so you get a lot of disarm attempts. Thruststrike charge by clicking on the lair monster's icon to attack and get onto its hex. Then click your disarm macro (or press a function key assigned to it) until the beast is disarmed or it is proned off your hex. Once off your hex, execute another THRUSTSTRIKE attack to get on its hex.

Lair monsters remain disarmed for a fairly long length of time, so it is a very useful focus. At skill 25 + 3 weapon specs, I could disarm Uther and LordKoss in 1 in every 8 attempts or so. At skill 28, I can disarm most lair critters in a few attempts, especially if I am ultraboosted before entering the lair.

Some monsters you do not want to disarm, as they possess frightening martial arts skill. The Deathsasquatch and Vanidor are two lairs that are typically fought without disarming.

Disarming a player does not count as a hostile action. In fact, they won't even know who disarmed them. They get a message that their grip goes weak and they drop the item in their right hand.

Skill 28: FOCUS HEALINGTOUCH

One of the last focii you achieve is also one of the greatest. These are the main effects:

Healingtouch will restore you to the lesser of 1020 hits, or your maximum hits less 80.

If you are blind, it will instantly restore your vision. This is an especially nice feature of the focus, as certain areas are notorious for blinding players.

If you are poisoned, it will instantly cure the poison.

Except in the most dreadful of lairs, you no longer need IH bottles and can fight endlessly with little need to return to town to restock.

I created the following macro and assigned it to my F2 key:

FOCUS HEALINGTOUCH

with auto return set. When I want to heal or cure blindness or poison, a quick keypress is all that is needed.

You cannot heal other players. It is a personal focus. it does not appear to age. I have not verified if it lowers your weapon defense. Some paladins think it does not.

Healingtouch takes a full round to execute. This is in contrast to the *drink macro, which takes a short round. So in lairs where being killed in two hits is a possibility, you may prefer to drink IH rather than rely on healingtouch.

Skill 29: FOCUS PIERCE

The last paladin focus is a major disappointment. It unleashes a single attack, with big bonuses to strength and damage die rolls. But sadly, it fails miserably to live up to its description. The attack seems to be armor, weapon or shield blocked as frequently as any other attack. In other words, there really is not any bonus to penetrate an opponent's defense. Armorstrike and maxstrike, with two full combat attacks, will consistently do much more damage than pierce after factoring in missed and blocked attacks.

I created a macro…

FOCUS PIERCE

with target lock set.

It might be useful if some big bonus to hit was added to it, or if it was modified so it had a percent chance to hit based on skill, completely ignoring the defenses of the monster. For now, do not waste the macro space for it.

Focus Stat Bonuses

Attack focii give temporary boosts to strength and attack rolls. If you are encumbered, sometimes you will see the encumberance icon change when executing an attack bonus as your strength boost temporarily unencumbers you. Here is a table that summarizes the bonuses. These are applied on top of any bonuses you get from gear, active spells or paladin boosts.

ATTACK FOCUS BONUSES

Skilling

This is a topic that is dear to every player's heart, but it is especially important to the skill-based paladins. Wherever paladins gather for a chat and a brew, you can bet the conversation will turn to recent skilling experiences.

Basically, to gain skill, you must slay opponents. The faster you can free the lands of Nork from evil, and the more dangerous the monster, the faster you will skill.

For skills 1 thru 5, good old Nork-1 is all you will really need. Just circle the dungeon, bashing critters as you go. You can consider forays to N-2 if properly equipped and of sufficient hit points.

If you rerolled a character and rested to level 13 and have a goodly number of hit points and a strong weapon, then the yeti island surface caves is the place for you. You can go from unskilled to skill 6 or 7 in less than an hour untrained.

For skills 6 thru 8, N-3, N-3.5 (Rat Burrow), are good, especially for the smaller levels. Yeti surface caves and N-4 can take you up to skill 9, but towards skill 9 you will be grunting a bit.

For skills 9 thru 12, you need to consider more dangerous areas where psionic damage becomes a concern. N-5, Tehru Prisons and the Maeling surface caves all yield exciting play and good skill. Hunting bears and wolves on the surface are also good options. Once you approach skill 12, your choices start becoming more dangerous!

If you have managed to max the Paladin's hits by this point, Maeling -2 becomes an option, but a lot depends on your number of attacks and gear with combat adds. Many critters on M-2 have a lot of hit points and you have to be able to hit hard to advance quickly. If you have an FG hally (+6), you might be able to hit hard enough to make this level work at this low skill.

The 'secret' area of N-5 (gnolls, berserkers) is also very good skill but requires one of the better weapons and good armor. This is an excellent party area beacuse of the high regen rate.

For skills 13 thru 15, consider Maeling -2 (M-2). This is a tough go early on, but soon gets easier and more rewarding in terms of skill, experience and loot! Skills 14 and 15 can try the Alerian ice floes (sanquins give great experience, skill and loot if you can hit with some power), the Alerian sewers (tons of rats and goblins), and the Volcano Town Fisheries (great skill, but really dangerous and poor loot.)

Sadly, as of the time of this writing, N-6 sucked big time for solo skill. It is very poorly balanced in terms of the time needed to kill things versus the skill it yields. Same for N-7. By the time you are big enough to hunt these areas effectively, there are much better places to skill and coin. So reserve these areas for skill parties.

The same holds true for most of Frore. You have to be quite skilled and well-geared to hunt effectively in most Frore areas, but the skill earned at those levels is quite poor.

By the time you hit skill 15, it is time to start thinking about Cobrahn. There are several articles available on the Internet that talk about making the journey to this land. It is a trip not to be taken lightly, as it is unique from the Nork segments in several important ways. But if well planned, the rewards to a Paladin are many.

Skills 13 thru 17 call for an exploration of Aleria, particularly the ghoul lord dungeon, clicker caves and north caves. At higher levels (15+), the Seldar forrest offers good challenge and skill.

In Cobrahn, the Timmy Caves are just about your only choice until you get properly outfitted and can party in more dangeorous areas. At skill 17 and with FOCUS STRIKE, Timmy caves starts becoming a lot easier and remain good for skill, but rather boring. An exploration of the forest north of the Timmy climb is advised. Bears are easy kills, plentiful and worth lots of skill and experience, but no loot. Stay away from the south, as tree ogres take a long time to kill and there are wandering dragons to contend with.

Once you hit skills 17 to 20, and are properly outfitted, solo or group hunts of Graagh castle give excellent skill, experience and coin. Strong parties in the giant's keep (Pillar area and Upper keep) are also excellent for skill, but are very dangerous. I would not attempt them without a top weapon and very good gear, even in a party. With the proper party and hunting technique, you can continue to skill in Graagh castle at least thru skill 22.

For skill over 20, the Giant Keep Sewers are very good solo skill, but THE way to skill is with skill parties in the Upper Giants Keep, the Pillars area of the Keep, and Undead City levels 2 thru 3.5.

For those times when you cannot get a skill party together, but you are very well geared defensively, try the Giant Keep Sewers for solo skill at least thru skill 23. This is potentially an extremely dangerous level because of the sheer numbers of axemen and skeleton leaders wandering the level.

At skill 24, the best skill and experience I have gotten has been on the Undead City levels.

UC-2 is a great solo or small party area at this skill level. You will need a ningi helm (stun protection) and a source of infravision. Nin helm and lori robe provide adequate psi protection, but I also recommend a source of pAssault and pEnmiss. I use a pAssault ring or twig, and pEnmiss bracers I found on UC-3.

UC-3 is a bit intense for solo hunting without lots of psi protection. A source of big assault and enmiss protection makes it much easier. Again, you will need a nin helm for pStun, and a source of infravision.

UC-3.5 is actually 3 dramaticaly different areas: an outer ring with no psi attacks (skeleton guards only), inner rooms with big stacks of very dangerous melee and psi-attack critters, and the Guntver lair which yeilds some starter psi-user gear.

Lots of smaller players like the outter ring because it can be done without any psi-protection. It is decent skill and experience, but by 24/24, there are better places, IMO.

The inner rooms are great skill and experience with the proper party. Ment to keep everyone IVed and cast absorption, and healer to keep pAssault up. What many people do not know is that it can be a great solo area for the properly geared paladin. There is a hall along the extreme western wall that has several small rooms along its length. In each room, stacks of specific undead spawn. The first 4 rooms, from north to south, are very doable as a solo hunt: mummycommanders in the first room, quazsargents in the second, ghostbishops in the third and ghastlings in the fourth room. The next room down has radas that are much too tough to hit when they are unstunned.

UC-4 is a dreadful place, but high experience and coin. Gems seem to be worth 50k and up here. You need a source of psicrush protection on this level and deeper. I use a pPsicrush ammy I found on UC-3, but you can also use a pPsicrush bracer from Graagh castle or Timmy Caves. I use a pEnmiss bracer from UC-3.5 to control the eSpear attacks. A ment casting a strong Absorption spell is a big plus. Move very slowly. You want to fight no more than 2 or 3 critters at a time.

Skill Parties

In recent months, the game has seen a lot of frustration over the party system as the gameops struggled to bring it in line with the new kill-based skill system. There are still some things that seem buggy about it, especially if there is a big mismatch in skill or experience level among party members. So what I am going to list here are some guidelines that I know work well. Other variations may be possible, but I recommend carefully noting how the party hunt operated and measuring skill to see if it was worthwhile.

Limit skilling parties to 5 players or less if possible. I have seen very good skill with larger parties, but I have also seen horrendous skill. Some people think there are skill 'nerf' factors that kick in with parties over 5 members. I have not personally confirmed this.

Differences in skill or experience level don't seem to be a big concern IF the area is challenging for the biggest players in the party. A low skilled player seems to skill well in a party of bigger players if the area hunted is appropriate for the bigger players. If the area is much too easy for the bigger players, the skill seems to be poor for everyone.

A good way to raise skill is to properly outfit a low skill player to survive a tough area and have them do the best they can to survive and attack monsters. They do not have to be good at killing the monsters, but they should be able to damage the monsters so they contribute to the rate at which monsters are slain. If they mostly miss or are blocked, then they won't be contributing much to the hunt or to skill.

ALL players in the party must focus on attacking. Everyone seems to get a large share of the skill for each kill, but everyone has to pull their weight. If a party member needs to return to town or go AFK for a bit, they should leave the party.

Also, all party members should remain in shouting distance of the party leader. If you are not hunting a high regen area, designate one player as the party leader and have ALL other players keep that player in sight. Party members hunting different levels seem to ruin skill gain for everyone. Also, if you wander too far from the leader, in many areas you will get zero experience when you kill something.

Skills 1 thru 4 are gained very rapidly in the game. It can take a matter of minutes if you have a decent weapon and focus on killing in the easiest of dungeons. Once you hit skill 5, there is a skill cap per kill of 0.3% No matter how tough a dungeon you hunt, you won't earn more than 0.3% towards four next level. This is a generous cap, but means that advancement per level will be measured in hours instead of minutes if you hunt solo.

Therefore, starting at skill 5, you need to think about finding hunting partners who are intertested in forming skill parties in high regen areas in order to keep skill gain moving at a fast pace.

Each new skill level requires double the effort of the previous level to advance. You can easily see how forming larger parties can be invaluable in offsetting this doubling effect.

Up until about skill 10, you should have little problem finding and survivng in dungeons that hit the skill cap per kill. At this time, the skill earned from a kill in most Nork dungeons will begin to fall below the skill cap. This will make skill advancement slow down even more. Skilling into the low to mid-teens in the Nork segments can be a miserable proposition if you like to hunt solo. But with partying, you should be able to hit skill 15 with a few to months of play.

The transition to Cobrahn can be a shock, especially for solo players. The critters give great skill, but take so long to kill that you may find it tougher going than playing in Nork. Partying is very important until you get a top weapon and about skill 17/18. Then it becomes a bit easier to skill solo.

Training

To train or not to train? That is a question that has plagued many a paladin. Much depends on your gear and how dangerous an area you can hunt given your skill. Remember, you need to kill quickly to gain skill. Buying training from the fighter trainer will increase the gain rate, but at the cost of spending more time gathering coins and selling gems, an activity that many consider exceedingly boring.

Moreover, with each new skill level, the cost of training doubles. By the time you hit skill 18, 1m coin buys just a few percent of training, hardly enough to stay ahead.

Ultimately, it comes down to a matter of personal preference. I coin in streaks, then buy a bunch of training all at once. But will frequently go long times with zero paid training. I have always been able to skill very well, even when untrained. Some players I know have attained quite high skill without spending a single coin at the trainers, while others are fanatical about keeping fully trained no matter what the cost.

On the IeN version of the game, being slightly trained doubled your gain rate. Being fully trained (44.5% paid training), increased the gain rate by a factor of 3.5. The gain factor tapered off from 3.5 to 2.0 as you used up your paid training. When all training was used uo, the gain factor dropped to 1.0. On DrakkarZone, I have verified that being trained at least doubles your gain rate. I haven't researched the effects of being fully trained.

Each point of charisma above 14 increases the training you get by a factor 1.05, and the bonus ends at charisma 20. So a person with charisma of 20+ will get 34% more training for each coin spent than someone with charisma of 14-.

The Guild House trainers will tell you how much paid training you have. I spend one coin if I just want to measure my skill and training. The trainer complains you don't have enough coin, but tells you your skill and paid trarning anyway.

Once you get to Cobrahn, and if you have Upper Guild House, you will be bale to take advantage of the 'chit' trainer. In Timmy Town, there is a trainer that will sell you training chits (scrolls). He will take the coin right out of the bank. All you have to do is tell him what training you want:

neb, halberd

He will take 1m coin out of the bank and give you a scroll with a halberd on it. Take it to the upper Guild House and seek a trainer in the NE corner. Hold the scroll in your right hand and click on the trainers talk head. He will take the scroll, give you 1m worth of training, and about 500k in experience! You can also pay beyond 44.5% if you are so inclined. This is a great deal. Many people take advantage of it because it converts coin into experience.

Gear

Paladins can wear all the best defensive gear in the game, and should spend time understanding what is available and gathering equipment. For a good part of a Paladin's early life, gear needed to hunt the appropriate skill areas can be obtained solo or with modest hunting parties.

There are a lot of websites that detail gear, so I am going to focus on some suggestions for gearing up as your paladin advances. Remember, overgearing is meaningless if you cannot rapidly kill critters. Skill is everything to a Paladin. It is far better to hunt easier areas that you can kill with little gear, than to be overgeared to hunt areas where it takes several rounds to drop each critter.

I start with a core set of gear, then swap in different gear to match the area I am hunting. Here is a plan of attack divided into Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Top for Nork.

NORK BEGINNER GEAR (Skill 1-10)

Yeti Fur (Yeti Island), Yellow Robes (Maeling Caves)

The two most important items are small yeti fur (for its armor blocks and pCold), and a yellow robe (for its pFire). These items will allow you to freely explore the rather extensive beginner areas, like Rat Burrow and Nork -1 to -4.

The yeti spawns on the island just south of Nork town. You will need a hand combat weapon to hurt it. Tan its hide for excellent starter armor.

Next, make a run to the west surface caves of Maeling and sift through the dungeon floor for a yellow robe that will tie to you when you lift it. Very dangerous area for a small player, so you might want to do the run with a trash slot and expect to die a few times. While in the caves, also pick up leather gauntlets. The ones in that dungeon have combat adds.

Helms

On Nork-1, look for green glowing helms. A nice boost to your defense. On occasion, you may see a large helm with a heavy face guard that has an amber glow. This is a hit point helm! They drop just about anywhere and can give you up to +40 hits. Keep an eye out for one of these.

Rings

Your beginner's wardrobe is completed by obtaining some combat rings. You can do the N-1 goblinlord quest, kill the N-2 lizardking, or bring Mr. Hobart of ratburrow some spider queen eggs to earn your rings. Also, look for random drop rings that have gems in them on all dungeon levels. They have various attack and defense adds. I always wear the rings that have the biggest defense adds. 1/0, 0/1 and 1/1 rings are rather common.

NORK INTERMEDIATE GEAR (Skill 10-15)

Raksasha Cloak (Tehru Prison)

The dungeons you are hunting are becoming more challenging, so some gear upgrades are in order. First, you want to add a raksasha cloak to get protection from assault psionic attacks. This will open up a great area to you, Nork-5. Go to Tehru prisons, the building across eastern sea from Nork. On the ground floor you can find and kill a rak. Tan its hide. The rak cloak also has fire protection.

Rings

By this time, you should have found rings with around +3 defensive adds, or maybe even +4. These give a big boost to your armor blocks, so make finding them a priority.

Combat Sash, Ruby Amulet, Ivory Bracers

You are set to make runs to N-5. Here you can find red combat sashes (2/2) and glistening ruby amulets that offer additional fire protection. Ivory bracers can be found on all the upper levels for even more fire protection.

Lizard Boots

A variety of special boots should be making thier way into your lockers. The most important is green lizard boots, because they have fire protection. Spot a trend? You need all this pFire because you should be preparing yourself for your first big lair hunt: the Red Dragon of Volcano Town.

Red Dragon Scales (Volcano Town Dragon)

Red dragon scales are excellent armor for the areas you need to hunt to transition from Intermediate to Advance play. So think about slaying and tanning one to get its scales. There is not much you can do to lessen the claw attack damage of the dragon, so the hunt preparation should focus on having enough hit points to survive a couple of attacks, and pFire gear so you do not have to worry about damage from its breath. Two yellow robes, ivory bracers, a ruby amulet and lizard boots should do the job.

The Volcano Town dragon is much easier to get to, and does not seem to be as nasty as the one hidden away on Nork-5. It will claw for about 75 hits, but can prone for over double that amount. If you are proned, you will probably loose a round due to the knockdown and the dragon will get in a second attack before you can drink a heal pot.

Your ideal party has a ment that can cast featherfall on you so you can avoid lost rounds due to a proning hit. But that is a fairly high ment skill. A lower skilled ment casting EnergyShield and pFire is also very useful to ease the claw and breath damage of the dragon. A healer is a plus, but not a necessity since you can drink IH pots when damaged.

With the addition of red dragon scales, you are all set to transition to advanced lairs. Your main objectives at this point are too:

Max your hit points at level 13 Get to skill 15 so you can CHARGE

NORK ADVANCED GEAR (Skill 15-20)

The exciting world of major lair hunts is opening up to you, but a variety of specialty gear is needed to up your survivability. Also, the more challenging areas are presenting a greater variety of psionic attacks. Add a few more hangers to your locker and prepare to go shopping…

Fullplate (Frore Leviathan)

Leviathan fullplate is your big priority. It has built in EnergyShield, so it will absorb combat damage on every hit. It also has good pFire and pCold, as well as 5/5 combat adds. For most paladins, this will be the best armor they ever obtain. But the hunt is not too difficult with the right party.

Find yourself some shark skin boots for the oncontact respirate spell. The Levi's lair is a secluded lake so you do not want to be drowning while battling it. That's about it for special gear. Grab your best weapon, a sackfull of IH and rustle up a party.

An all stick party with charge skill and proning weapons should have little trouble taking down the levi. The proning is important to reduce the number of rounds that the leviathan can attack. Expect a long fight though. It has a lot of hits. Like the Red Dragon fight, having a ment available to keep you FeatherFalled is a big, big plus, especially if you are a little light in the hit point department. Energyshield is also desireable.

When slain, levi turns into an egg. There is no corpse to search. Trade the egg for fullplate. The trader is in a hut just east of Frore town. You need to be experience level 15+ to make the trade, but any slot on your account can wear the armor regardless of experience level.

Enmiss Robe, Amulet, Bracers

Your next priority is a Reggie cloak. This is the glowing raksasha cloak you see players wearing. It has 3/3 combat adds and a percent chance to reflect all the energy from a psionic attack. But its real value is in its built-in EnergyShield. This and your fullplate will enable you to battle larger monsters and armies of evil critters and survive to tell the tale in the tavern. But before you obtain this cloak, you need to make a few side trips.

The path to a Reggie cloak begins with amassing some enmiss/espear protection gear. Make your way to Frore and the Fatepools-2 area. There, slay a couple of spectres and take the black and gold trimmed robes for the enmiss protection. The big danger in Fate Pools is the stun disc cast by the harpies. A well skilled healer to cast pStun is needed, or an Upper Guildhouse pStun twig to keep you safe.

With a mentalist friend to cast Infravision on you, learn how to hunt Maeling-4 and obtain the special purple gem that gets you into the Tengu lair. The lair gems are dropped by ninjas. On M-4, these nasty pieces of work hit for about 50% of your hits everytime they land a blow, so two hits and you are dead. The north central lair on that level is the one that houses the tengus. They cast enmiss, and one occasionally spwans that has a super enmiss robe: about double the protection of a Fatepools robe. Hunt in the lair until everyone has at least two of these robes each.

Your hunt for enmiss/espear gear is almost complete. I recommend hunting the Maeling dungeons for an enmiss amulet (glowing diamonds amulet). By this time, you should also be exploring the wonders of the Aleria g/g quest in order to become a Champion of Carenna. The details of the excellent Alerian quests is beyond the scope of this guide. You will find yourself admitted to the Tree House where you can purchase pEnmiss bracers.

Silver Ninja Robe (Ninjas)

While on M-4, keep an eye out for a ninja that wears a silvery-white robe. This robe has large pFire and pIce protection on it and will come in handy for some advanced lair hunts to help out your psionicist friends gear up.

There is also a double ninja lair on M-4 that is tough to get into and very dangerous to fight. One of these lair ninjas drops a silver robe.

Finally, on rare occasion, a ninja spawns in the Frore Dark Tower that wears the silver robe.

Large Yeti Fur (Frore Ice Plains)

OK. Two super enmiss robes, an enmiss amulet and enmiss bracers. To give yourself an extra edge, slay and tan a club-wielding yeti on the Frore Ice Plains. The armor it gives, large yeti fur, is a psicutter and will reduce psi damage by at least 1/2. Wear it instead of your fullplate. Arm yourself with a silver weapon. You are now ready for a Slith Hunt.

Slith Cloak (King Mino Slith Lair)

Slith is a floating, multi-eyed ball of destruction in the King Mino dungeon. Six eyes, six espears per round. All of which can target a single player. You are here to defeat it and get a slith robe and its psiCrush protection. Everytime you slay slith, you really slay just one eye. All six eyes need to be killed before the beast itself is dead.

Before entering the lair, get absorption and featherfall from the party mentalist. Antistun is important from the healers. ESpear attacks can stun, and AntiStun seems to be the most effective disc to stop the stun.

Sliths drops a piece of amber and a key. The key is used to access a trader that gives another key. The second key opens the door to the trader that takes the amber and gives a slith robe, the thin robes you with many eyes you see some players wearing.

Reggie Cloak (Lair Raksasha)

Cloaked in your slith robe, you are ready to face Reggie, the lair Raksasha. This monster can unleash a nasty psiCrush disc, thus the hunt for a slith robe before attempting this lair. Two slith robes are better than one. But, if you cannot get even one robe, I recommend wearing a large yeti fur for its psiCut power, and have a ment cast absorption and featherfall on you before entering Reggies lair. Healer pAssault, pStun and Aide are also helpful discs for this hunt. Aide comes in handy because Reggie can spawn with MA skill and be very difficult to hit.

Like most lairs, the big stick strategy is proning weapon attacks to keep the beast down and stunned so it has few opportunities to attack. The tanned hide will yield a cloak that is core gear for advanced paladins. Two cloaks are standard running gear for big pallys because of the EnergyShield and psiMirror effects.

Dancer Boots (Nork -7)

To round out your gear, set aside some time to quest for some 3/3 combat boots, commonly called Dancers, because it makes you move about randomly when stunned and gives a so-and-so dances! message. You need to find a wooden bolt, typically dropped on N-6 and N-7. Next, hunt the N-5 berserker area for a key. The key unlocks the door to the boots trader on N-7. Trade the wooden bolt for the boots.

Rings

Plan some time to visit the Dark Tower in Frore. Fill your sack with all the gold gemmed rings you can find, then sense them to find a variety of big add rings. I have 4/4 and 5/5 rings from here. Another good place to find big combat rings is Evil Nork.

On King Mino -4, gemmed rings drop that can range from 3/3 to 0/6. Some even have on-contact energu shield built into them! The ES from these rings appear to stack with the ES from other gear, like fullplate and reggies. I am told rings with bigger ES discs drop on KM-5, but I have not extensively hunted there.

NORK TOP GEAR (Skill 20+)

At this point, you have all the gear you really need for Nork, but there are some extra-special items that you can strive for to give yourself an extra edge.

Paladin Fullplate (Seahag)

The seahag lives in a lair down a secret hole between Volcano Town and Frore. She and her greysailors have slain and stripped countless adventurers with little hope of recovering their gear. You need a very strong party, and the hunt can range from easy to a nightmare depending on how well organized it is.

The main danger is direct combat attacks. Hag and the sailors can hit for up to 500+ an attack. Seahag will sometimes scare a victim, sending them running mindlessly through the lair for several rounds, or charm them, forcing them to drop their weapons and gear. The main strategy is divide and conquer. The party should advance slowly so as to engage only 1 or 2 critters at a time.

Wear your best combat gear. A silver weapon is needed to damage the greysailors. Get Infravision and Featherfall from the party mentalist. During the battle, accept Haste whenever possible.

The hag, when slain, turns into a cloak rather than a corpse. The cloak trader is in the Frore Town wall and will fashion the cloak into Paladin armor, or a Thief cloak, depending on the class that makes the trade. Besides looking slick as all get-out, Paladin armor has a stronger built-in energyshield than levi fullplate and better combat adds. I believe you need to be experience level 19 to trade the Hag cloak for the Paladin Fullplate.

Some paladins have expressed the opinion that levi plate is better than seahg plate, or feel that the energy shield is missing or much less on seahag plate. My personal experience is that seahag plate is superior to the levi fullplate, but you may want to conduct your own tests to be sure.

Power Helm (Chipuda)

Power gear is a generic term for gear obtained in the Frore King's Treasure House. The Treasure House is a long, slender building east of Frore Town. You must first gain access to the Treasure House by defeating the Snowbeast and trading its skull to the king for the treasure House key. Some people have a key and will let you in for the asking.

This is a psi-cutter, meaning it will at least half the damage from each psi-attack other than earthcrush. Most advanced lairs pose extreme psi danger, so this gives a boost to your survivability. You trade Chipudas staff for the helm.

Chipuda is arguably the most feared lair in Nork, mostly because of the permanent hit point loss one suffers whenever struck by his staff. Because Chipuda also casts BIG psi attacks (shockwave, lightning, acidbreath), it is quite a challenge to select the perfect gear for the battle. Blackdragon scales (for pAcid and defense), pHelm (for psiCut), Lightning ammy and bracers form a good base to the hunt. Two reggies to reflect psi attacks and defensive adds are a big plus. Wear your biggest defense rings, and sashes and boots with defense adds.

Get featherfall, infravision and absorption from a mentalist, and pStun and pAssault from a healer to protect you against the big evil healer NPCs that spawn in his lair. Now pray he doesn't suck all your hit points out of you with his staff!

Attack Sash (King Minotaur)

You trade the axe from the King Minotaur and a Rat Burrow sash to a trader for an attack sack (+1 to attack stat.) This sash adds an extra damage dice roll to your weapon attack. Wear your best combat gear (defense adds, oncontact energyshield). A Guild House pStun twig or a healer pStun disc will enable you to make the run to the King Mino lair without too much trouble. Get featherfall from the party mentalist to deal with the proning attack danger on the lower levels of the King Mino dungeons. The battle itself is straight forward. Slay the king and take his axe.

COBRAHN BEGINNER GEAR

Gear is much more critical in Cob than in Nork. I was doing major Nork lair hunts in red dragon scales for quite sometime before I got levi fullplate. But in Cob, undergearing usually means a quick death. So Cob players as a general rule help out new-comers with some decent beginner armor.

But it is possible to gather items yourself if you are the adventurous sort and don't mind dying a few times in the process. Here is some suggestions for filling your Cobrahn lockers.

Exotic Metal Plate

This is available for sale in Timmy Town or dropped in the Timmy caves. Better than nothing and it seems to absorb some psi and physical attack damage.

Combat Rings

Your next stop is a store in Timmy Town that sells 3/3 rings! Buy two and slip them on your fingers. Now armed with your favorite weapon, go a-hunting in Timmy Caves!

Padded Helm

Find any common helm in the dungeon and wear it. Now you want to go meadow bear hunting for its fur and pad your helm using the padder NPC in Timmy Town (Melton).

Bears are found on the forest floor, mostly to the north of the climb up to the Timmy Caves. They are not too difficult to kill, but there are other, really nasty critters that wander the surface, so be careful. You want to kill and tan a couple to use as padding in other gear. Pad your helm for some extra defensive adds and combat damage absorption.

You can try wearing the bear fur in place of the plate and see if there is an improvement. I did not test it very much, but it seems to absorb some decent damage.

Sash and Bracers

In Timmy dungeons, you can find a red combat sash (2/2) and a black combat bracer (0/1). Also look for ivory bracers. They have fire and cold protection.

Yellow Robes (Evil Timmy)

Random martial artist NPCs generate in Timmy Caves wearing yellow robes with +4 combat adds. You want to get two of these to improve your damage absorption and armor class. Alternately, you can get up a hunt of Evil Timmy on Timmy-2. Evil Timmy wields an eSpear bow and drops a +4 yellow robe. When hit with the bow, the eSpear disc discharges and has a chance to stun you and knock you down. Featherfall, absorption and pStun or aStun will help in the hunt.

Yeti Fur

You are now geared to go small yeti hunting. The yeti level is a climb up from a snow hex just a bit south of the Timmy caves climb. Small yetis hit hard but die fase. The fur tans to 0/4 armor. Use it to pad another helm to replace your bear fu padded helm. It will absorb a bit more damage and get an extra defensive add.

There is a climb on the yeti level to a second level that has a pair of lair yetis that wield clubs. They tan to large yeti fur that has an extra defensive add. This is an extremely dangerous hunt for small players as the twins hit very hard and strip. Items padded with this fur seem to absorb a little more combat damage, IMO, but other people disagree and say small yeti fur is just as good.

Suicide Run Armor

There is some really nice armor you can get if you don't mind living on the edge (or can find a generous person to help you obtain.) None of this gear ties so bigger players sometimes give this gear to people just for the asking.

Swordsman Leather: In the SW caves you will find swordsmen that wear a lightborwn armor. It sense as +4 combat adds. This is verygood beginner armor. The SW caves has fire, darkness and eSpear danger, and the run to the caves can result in a chance encoutner with giants and dragons. You have been warned.

Padded Black Dragon Scales: The northwest surface has a climb down hole to the basement of the Psi Tower. The basement is ruled by an NPC that wears mamma black dragon scales padded with large yeti. He throws acidbreath. Nice defensive armor with extra ice protection built in. You can frequently find these scales just lying on the floor, so consider making a mad dash through that level and looking for a pair.

Padded Gold Dragon Scales: The next floor up in the tower is ruled by an NPC that wears mamma gold dragon scales padded with large yeti. He casts a big earthcrush, so this is a more dangerous run. The scales have attack combat adds on it and give a nice boost to your ability to land a blow.

COBRAHN INTERMEDIATE GEAR

Things start to get very tough and exciting now. Hopefully, you have been making friends, partying and maybe even joined a guild. Here are some things you and your friends should be hunting for…

Cthon Amulet, Agility Amulet, Strength Amulet (Psi Tower)

Every time you die in Cob, you loose 2 hit points unless you are wearing a Cthon amulet. You need to trade a cthon egg in the desert tree town to get the amulet. Cthons spawn in the Psi Tower, not a place for an intermediate players to solo. The have high MA skill and are almost unhittable below skill 22. So get a party up and go hunt for your egg.

As you get bigger and more survivable, you will find it easier to do the Steve Quest to recover lost hits. At this point, you may find an agility (+4) or strength (+4) amulet more useful. These are random drops on the various scaler levels.

Beetle Full Plate

0/5, psiCut, pFire, +4STR adds, no wonder the most popular armor for Cobrahn paladins is full plate made from the hide of the lair beetle. The beetle corpse tans to beetle scales. The scales trade for full plate in Timmy Town. The STR adds are particularly helpful to offset the encumberance of the heavy gear, and the psiCut is invaluable in many psi-intensive areas of Cob. But you might find the combat adds of the padded GD scales a bit better when small and hunting non-psi areas.

The lair beetle is a short, but sometimes intense hunt. It casts darkness and shockwave, so you want infravision, absorption and featherfall cast on you. I have baited several beetle hunts and have gotten hit with big shockwave damage through 3 layers of psi-cut gear. Two decent sized Pallys with a support ment to cast protections and haste them can take the beetle down in short order, but you do not want to attempt a solo.

Giant Keep Helms

In the Giant Keep, there two different helms that drop that are excellent candidates for yeti fur padding. One is the “huge helm”, and the other is a green glowing helm. Either is a nice step up from your common padded helm.

Jasper Boots

Jasper is a wandering trader that will take a set of alligator scales and fashion some nice 0/4 defensive boots. Most alligators do not tan to anything, but an occasional one will yield scales. Abner is typically found in either the tent town in the desert, or in Timmy Town.

+5 Yellow Robes (Spectre Caves, Mr Alvarez)

Random wraiths in the spectre caves wear and drop a +5 yellow robe. These give an excellent boost to your armor class and seem to absorb combat damage too. The caves are at the top of a climb in the SW corner of the surface. There is a hex of bones at the climb up point. Halberd wielding NPCs dish out nasty damage, and the wraiths blink out, then in just as they attack. Spectres are percentage hitters, so will deal out big damage regardless of character size, but they die fast.

Above the Evil Timmy lair is his dad, Mr. Alvarez. He is a nasty crossbowmen than can prone and kill even a large player, but he drops a +5 yellow robe. This might be an easier option than the Spectre Caves if you can get together a strong party.

Rings

Rings with various combat adds and on-contact energy shield can be found in the SW caves. Give them a try and see if you like them better than the 3/3 store rings.

There is a climb down in the middle of the swamp west of Juntes tent. Gold gemmed combat rings drop here that can have adds up to 5/5.

At this point, most of your gearing is complete and you are ready to transition to hunting the top lairs for those nice extras.

COBRAHN ADVANCED GEAR

Ninghi Helm and Padding (Ninghizzio)

Ninghizzio is a lair serpent that is exceedingly dangerous to hunt and requires very good skill to hit, like 18+ to be of use on the hunt. It hits very hard, I believe in the 600 point range. I was too busy trying to stay alive the few times it targeted me to take close note of the damage. The hide tans to serpent scales that are typically padded with large yeti fur to yield the top defensive armor for psi-users. But your goal should be the red-winged helm it drops.

The helm has defensive adds, is a psicutter, and contains oncontact antistun. This will make you effectively immune to the stun disc, which is a huge danger in many advanced areas of Cobrahn.

Full plate cannot be padded with fur, but it can be padded with ningi scales. There is disagreement over whether this as any noticeable effect. I know a couple of Paladins who swear it improves armor blocks, while others say it does nothing. Personally, I feel I get hit less, and when I do get hit, the damage is about 100 points less than without padding. The ningi scales padder is in the same cave complex as the ningi.

Paladins of at least 26 experience level appear to be able to double pad their full plate with ninghi scales. I know level 22 is not high enough. So I cannot comment on what improvements one may get.

Padded Green Dragon Helm (Mamma Green Dragon)

The second biggest defensive armor is large green dragon scales padded with large yeti fur (0/7). But it is rare that people use the scales for armor. The scales are typically traded for a special combat helm. For many areas where there is little danger of a disc stun, this helm gives a big boost to your armor class. You will make this helm your standard running gear where combat protection is paramount.

The green dragon is at the end of a gauntlet of dragons in the Timmy -1 caves. You have to kill each dragon to get a key to open the lair to the next dragon. The green dragon has corspray breath that damages and sometimes destroys gear. Psicut gear, absorption and featherfall are useful for the hunt.

Snake Rings (8/8)

Most lairs drop a snake ring with 8/8 adds. As you help on various lair hunts, ask if a snake ring drops in the lair and if you can claim it. I wear two such rings and never swap them out for anything else, although there are rings with bigger defensive adds.

Sashes (5/5), (6/6)

Another lair drop item is a sword sash. Same comment as the snake ring. Make this your standard sash. Boris lair rarely drops a 6/6 sash.

Agility Gauntlets (Juntes)

Juntes is a special hunt that requires an experienced party to trigger his combat mode at defeat him. His gauntlets give +2 agility. Not a must-have item but look for an opportunity to get a pair.

Loriapi Robe (Loriapi Lair)

A Lori robe is a psi-cutter and gives a decent boost to your armor class. It also prevents stat loss when struck with Lori's staff during a Lori hunt. As a stick, your services will be needed on many Lori hunts to outfit your psionic friends and guildmates, so plan a hunt to get yourself one of these robes to wear on future hunts.

A +5 yellow seems to be better armor than a lori, but a lori is better armor than a +4 yellow robe. If you have two +5 yellows, locker your lori for lori hunts, or hunts where you have to swap out your fullplate for gold dragon scales for its EarthCursh protection. The psicut ability of a lori robe will NOT stack with the psicut of beetle plate,so wearing both for psicut effect is not useful

Amulets, Bracers, Rings

The transition to the top game lairs requires special psionic protections. Set aside time to hunt for the following amulets and bracers so you are prepared to do battle alongside the big warriors of the land.

Psicrush Bracers: In Graaagh Castle, and more rarely in Timmy Caves, you will find gold bracers that will tie when you lift them. These will have a big direct protection against psicrush, a serious danger in the upper reaches of the undead city.

Psicrush/Firestorm Amulet: In Undead City first 3 levels, you can sometimes find an amulet that also has a big proection against psicrush. Sense all amulets that drop. Some also have firestorm protection and can be usefull if you find yourself in possesion of a firestorm imbued halberd or longsword.

Enmiss Bracers: In Undead City first 3 levels, you can sometimes find a gold bracer with multi-colored dots on it the offers very goot protection against enmiss and espear. I am not sure if it absorbs damage from elance.

Firestorm Bracers: Undead City starter levels also rarely drop firestorm bracers. Nice for wielding firestorm weapons.

Ghast Eye Ring (0/10): The biggest defensive ring in the game can be found starting on the first level of Undead City. Personally, I only use them on my ment, but if you are the conservative sort, you may want to hunt for and experiment with these rings.

COBRAHN TOP GEAR

Vanidor Plate (Vanidor Lair)

Recently, a new Cobrahn area was discovered: the Undead City. There are five, increasingly dangerous dungeons, topped by the Deathsasquatch lair. Defeating “Sassy” gains one a key and access to a second lair: Vanidor. Defeating Vanidor yields a 6/6 full plate that exceeds beetle full plate in performance. The upper levels of Undead City, and these lairs, are for the largest and most skilled warriors.

Vanidor plate can only be worn by players of at least experience level 25. Skill 20 is about the minimum you need to have any real chance of landing a blow. A large, powerful party is needed as Van is capable of one-shotting just about any player in the game. Wear your best combat protection gear and pray he does not target you with his double axe attack. This is the ultimate in Cobrahn Paladin armor.

Guilds

As you transition to the advanced gear phase of Nork, and certainly by the time you start hunting Cobrahn, you should give serious thought to starting or joining a guild. It is fairly easy to get an invite into a guild. Just offer to join various hunts, party and have fun! That is what the game is about, socializing and having fun.

Some guilds have minimum requirements, while others are pretty lax in that department if they perceive you to be a good player and a fun and helpful person to be around.

I've never been much of a gear hog, and helped in many advanced lairs with less than optimal gear in order to learn how the lair was done and to make social connections in the game. You can get invites to hunts, or volunteer just by keeping your eyes and ears open in DZ chat, the Steel Flower tavern, and by walking casually by the smithy room in Nork or the Tree Town in Cob where many lair hunts are organized. Be honest about your hit points and weapon skill. You won't be much help or fun on a hunt if the odds are high you will die and leave a death pile.

There is also a strong free-booters “guild” in the game: non-guild players who regularly socialize and help each other. Keep an eye out for these players and offer to help on hunts to establish your reputation and learn about the game.

A pre-requisite for most guilds is access to a chat program with a small window that stays on top of the game so conversation and planning can occur while a hunt is in progress. The ICQ program was the most popular, but seems to have been replaced with IRC on the starlink.org network. mIRC is a popular program used by many guilds and free-booters to socialize and organize hunts.

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