How to Not Die

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Note: This was written by Natilena back in September of 2003 and was present on the Tel'Quessir following website. Natilena has not been afraid of anything in a very long time so additions and suggestions to this article are welcome.


A Paranoid Elf's Guide to Not Dying (otherwise known as how to avoid pk)

WHO/WHOZ

I can't say this enough times .. WHOZ! Along side this is knowing who is in your range and if they might attack you. Ask for high level detect spells from Myronides or a mage, check the who list often to make sure nobody new has logged on. Get to know the people in your range, if you don't know who a person is ask around to find out if they may attack you. We are neutral so in theory you may be fair game for any alignment, not just evil. If you are xping I recommend whoz ever other round and check who every 2nd kill. Many clients can be configured to run a command on a timer (i.e. every 15 seconds).

RECALLS

Generally always be ready for an attack. Keep at least 4 recalls in your inventory and at least 1 teleport potion/vial. ALWAYS carry potions, never rely on the spell. The potions can be quaffed anytime, even when muted or standing in a nospell room. Setting up a hotkey to automatically flee/quaff some people recommend but the first time you hit that key by accident you might regret it. An alias (ie #ali bail {flee;quaff 2.recall} ) works as well and is not as easy to hit by accident.


KEYWORDS

Never use the keyword red for quaffing recalls. To help yourself get out of the habit of using the keyword red always use recall for buying, moving, and giving recall potions. A standard trick an attacker may use is to give you a red item so that you try to quaff the item rather than the potion you intended. Along this same line is to always quaff the 2nd potion in your inventory. This is to guard against an attacker giving you a recall scroll or another item with recall as its keyword and you trying to quaff that item. By always using 2.recall you'll skip over any item they've given you.


TRAPPED

Trapped! Can't flee, cursed or locked behind a door. This is when you teleport. It is a gamble, you still may be dropped in front of the brass dragon and die anyway but you also might land in the middle of the Guild. Its a chance.


BLINDNESS

Blindness kills. Carry glowing potions even if you have the cure blind spell. That is all.


ZONES

Before xping in a zone get to know it a litte first. Walk through and learn all the entrances to it, try and find its secrets, check out the closest safe room and ask around for warnings about it. Mages! Set your alarms! More the better! Don't set just for evil either, you may still be attacked by an unaligned character or even a good one. Set alarms inside the zone and out, you want to know someone's coming before they actually reach you. There are some absolutly beautiful zones out there that have only a single path in and by alarming up the path to them nobody can sneak up on you. Higher level mages can walk past your alarms and not set them off so the more alarms you have the better change you have of catching them.


TRACKING

Tracking is a skill given to rangers and thieves, (Natilena was last here, traveling south.) they can easily follow you wherever you go. Whenever possible use pass w/o trace or a fly to avoid leaving tracks.


INFO

Don't be afraid of a thief's info2 skill. It sounds cool and useful to be able to find out someones zone but it can take forever and personally I find it to be just a pain. Info3 though is much more powerful. FTELL and CANT are the only ways around it. An example for this is pretty straight foward. Thieves have a chance to overhear what you say. So if you say "I'm going to the Ents to xp!" well that doesn't make it very hard to find you now does it? Another way info3 can work against you is when you use shopkeepers. Shopkeepers are very loud and gossipy, they love letting thieves know when they're selling something. When you interact with a shopkeeper very likely a thief will pick up the info. Not such a big deal when you are in the LL Inn but if I get an info that Baen in Altibia has nothing to sell today I can be pretty sure there is someone out in that zone xping.

CLEANING

Always be sure to clean your zone. Its common that locate is used to find corpses or steaks left lying around when someone is in a zone. Always dispose of corpses quickly. Further than that a knowledgable player can locate on items that always appear on certain mobs, a weapon, a distinctly named piece of armor, etc, and discover quickly if someone is xping in the zone.


HOMETOWNS

Stay out of the hometowns. Particularily Midgaard, Nydia, Hovelton and Kuroth but the rest as well if possible. Even better if you can walk around them when you are on your way somewhere as well. This means stay out of the xp zones inside the hometowns as well. I'd swear most of the pk deaths happen in and around the Temple Area, Midgaard and Elemental Canyon (Zone removed).

OTHER

A few extra paranoid common sense things. Don't draw attention to yourself, stay off gossip and other public channels. They just make the killers realize you exist. Never follow a mage you don't know and trust. They can easily portal you to your death no matter what level you are. Its always a good policy to leave as soon as attacked. Flee, recall/run to safe. Don't stick around to 'see' how you'll do, run and wait for another day to launch your own attack when you are better prepared.