Official Site -
Wikia Page -
Turbine Points Info -
Guild Page -
Official Compendium
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Recent DDO Store Sale: (no date)
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out of date
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UPDATED Guild Info and New People
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So the people playing have scattered and moved on to where there doesn't seem to be too strong a presence. Cannith may still have forumers there but not much. But I do have an update which I posted and will reiterate here.
Yesterday a thread was started in SE++ for DDO, so there's a fresh batch of players there.
Here's a link to the thread if you want details or want to participate. Try to have fun and not take the game seriously.
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Previous Guild Info and New People
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DDO is free to play. While there are microtransactions, just about everything you can buy with your real money can be earned by playing the game. Which means you're not necessarily missing out on anything by playing a free account; you're mostly just missing out on having it ASAP.
I still urge everyone to read the Turbine Points section to familiarize yourself with it.
The Lookouts are a group of PA'ers who play the game for fun (and glory!). But mostly fun. We don't have any strong convictions regarding what you play or how you play it. Well, as long as you don't outright suck like trying to make a pure caster who melees all the time. Feel free to play whatever class you want! We certainly have our favored needs or have-enoughs, but don't let that stop you. Otherwise it's not a fun experience for you doing what you want.
Server: Cannith
Guild: The LookoutsOur guild page - Roster has officer list for inviters
The PA Ventrilo Server Thread, brought to you by Pikapuff (some of us use this)
Official Compendium - This is basically a wiki run by Turbine.
Character Planner Download -
Tutorial (note: has broken, incorrect, or out of date information)
Different Tool, same purpose?Finely detailed into about Turbine PointsGetting Started to play:
- Go to this page.
- Click on "Click HERE to get started!" as this will make your Turbine account.
- Download their download client (lolz). When it finishes, it'll autorun the installation.
- When opening the game you'll have a splash screen; this is how you login + pick servers.
- At the character select screen make a character of your choice. Enjoy the tutorial.
- SPECIAL NOTICE: Character name use is spread across all servers. Example: I used "Henroid" so Henroid can't exist on any other server ever.
Turbine Points are the points you use to buy content when you have a free-to-play or premium account (a premium account being an account that has paid real life money to Turbine either by subscribing or buying points). The points are earned by either gaining favor (every quest gives a minor amount) or by outright buying the points from Turbine (it's just under $7 for 400 points, the lowest pricing option). Aside from temporary buffs and experience gains and potions and items, these points are used to buy some more important permanent things:
- Adventure Packs (a series of quests and area associated)
- Shared bank between all characters
- Unlocking the Drow and Warforged races
- Unlocking the Favored Soul and Monk classes
- Unlocking more character slots (buying a slot applies to all servers)
Earning points:
Turbine Points are rewarded by playing the game in the following methods. The first is applied to a per-server basis. When you earn certain amounts of favor for the first time on a server, you are rewarded with Turbine Points. The amounts are as follows:
Favor.........TP Rewarded
5................50
25...............25
50...............25
500..............50
1000.............100
2000..............100
3000..............100
What the above can translate into is that rolling at least one character on each server, and then doing a few quests at the start can net you 300 TP easily. Or, if you want to be more dedicated to earning points easier, you can go for the 50 favor mark and have 600 points total (and 50 favor doesn't take a terrible lot of time).
The second method of earning Turbine Points by playing the game is on a per-character basis. Every time you earn 100 favor on a character, you will gain 25 Turbine Points.
Buying Content:
You might be hesitant to spend hard earned TP on content.
The link at the start of this section provides information on how many quests are in the packs as well as the favor they earn you, plus it notes what favorable aspects there are to the packs (great favor amounts, rewards, leveling speed, etc). It is very much worth a read if you are going to buy a pack.
Drow Race and Favored Soul Class:
You don't have to spend Turbine Points to play as a Drow or Favored Soul. When you earn 400 favor on a character on a server, you can unlock the ability to make a Drow character. When you hit the 2,500 mark for favor, you can unlock the Favored Soul class as well. HOWEVER, this method of unlocking these two elements is locked to the server. If you hit these milestones on the Cannith server, you cannot take advantage of them on any other server.
Class and Race Pricing:
The pricing on monk, favored soul, drow, and warforged aren't exactly set in stone. The costs of these are on a rotation. The normal price is 795 points, but one of them will be 595 for a period of time before changing back to normal.
Character Slot Info:
Character slots through the DDO store cost 595 TP. An alternative method to get 2 slots available is to make your account premium; this means buying Turbine Points with real money or subscribing to the game for a month. The game allows for 30 character slots per server total.
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Character Info
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There are a lot of very specific details about your character when it comes to D&D that aren't necessarily reflected in other RPGs. If you're unfamiliar with D&D at all, you should give this a read to save yourself trouble. I also recommend going to
the official compendium to gather up specific details if you need them at any time. If you're somewhat familiar, give it an eye over so you can make sure you at least know what you need to or clarify information.
Item Stats / Bonuses:
Bonuses from items of the same type do not stack. This is probably the most important information you'll need to know. Allow me to clarify. If you have a ring and a pair of gloves, and both of them add +1 strength, you will not have +2 strength total. You will only have +1. If the gloves add +2 and the ring adds +1, the ring is null and void; the glove bonus will take precedence. This applies to all bonuses. Two items adding to your will save won't stack, the highest value will apply. There are some rare exceptions that explicitly state stacking bonuses.
Please note this pertains to your items. Bonuses from feats or enhancements won't clash with your item bonuses.
Leveling, Ranks, and Enhancements
Leveling up in D&D is no small feat, and something to be cherished more than the standard RPG. This is reflected in DDO, but to keep the pace MMO-like, the developers added Ranks to classes. There are five ranks associated to each level. The first four ranks will provide one ability point each. These ability points are spent on enhancements, which are similar in function to Feats only you get them more often. Enhancements available to the player are based on their class and their race. Enhancements get unlocked as you both level up and spend enhancement points you have. They can also be saved, and spent at a later time. The fifth rank grants you the ability to level up. All of these things must be done at the class trainer.
Prestige Class Bonuses:
In DDO, most classes have the option of taking up prestige enhancements. Some classes don't have a choice in prestige enhancements, but others such a the rogue or paladin do. Prestige enhancement provide bonuses toward a certain playstyle, for example the paladin has prestige sets that will buff his / her ability to do damage to ghosts, and another that boosts their ability to Turn Undead. It is highly recommended you use the character planning tool to at least look at the enhancements and see their requirements. Though, you can reset your enhancements on existing characters in-game anyhow.
Capstone Enhancements:
In DDO, when every class hits level 20 there is a new enhancement available to them. This enhancement costs 2 AP (which means two rank ups) and is beneficial to the class no matter what the playstyle is. This Capstone Enhancement is only available to a level 20 class, not a character level, which means you must be a pure class (no multi-classing).
Magic in D&D / DDO:
D&D is perhaps one of the better and more complex games when it comes to magic, and anyone not familiar with the system should be given a proper introduction. Otherwise you're likely to fall into peril when you discover things first hand, let alone not understand why.
The first rule of magic is casting requires a spoken chant and specific gesticulation / hand movement, which means you cannot do so under water. Going hand in hand with this, some spells require reagents to use such as powders or candles. Likewise, you can't cast under water because your materials would be destroyed. Aside from that, spells take concentration to cast. If you're being whacked around in a fight while trying to cast a spell, something may go wrong. Like the spell failing.
The second rule of magic is there are two types; arcane and divine. Divine magic works similar to how you've probably seen in other games; any caster in any kind of armor can cast spells without failure. Arcane magic is different. Wearing light, medium, or heavy armors will produce spell failure rates, which you absolutely cannot afford and no you should not try to be a maverick wizard / sorcerer who wears armor to be a badass. Stick with robes.
The third rule is spell prep. DDO is more lenient in this than the pen and paper D&D. Most spell casters have to prepare spells to use. This means that out of all those wonderful spells you learned, you have to pick a select few to take with you on a journey. You can prepare spells while at a tavern or immediately after having used a resting stone in the game. Not all classes have to prepare spells, and in DDO clerics automatically have an extra prep slot that is reserved for their cure spells.
Aside from those the mechanics you need to know about are the following; Spell power does not regen on its own unless you're in a town or in a tavern. The only way to regen it aside from that is to drink (expensive) potions that restore it or to rest at a shrine (or complete a quest and exit the area).
There are also eight spell levels. That doesn't mean magic missile 1, 2, and so on; it means magic missile is spell level one, and command undead is spell level two (which is first available to level 3 wizards or level 4 sorcerers; yikes what a wait!). On top of that, you can only learn a set amount of spells per spell level at any given time. This will raise as you level, and as already noted, so will your access to spell levels.
General Class Descriptions:
Fighter
The fighter is the basic melee character. They're proficient in heavy armors and shields. Fighters are unique to other classes in that they get faster feat progression. You gain a bonus feat at character creation, and after that every even level gained grants another feat. In this way they become naturally stronger, though not necessarily any more skillful.
Barbarian
The other melee class some would consider typical. They're proficient in medium armors, and have class feats that grant them flat damage reduction to all sorts. Barbarians have a special class ability, rage, which grants a bonus to your strength and constitution, with a penalty to Armor Class (AC) for a period of time. When it runs out you will be fatigued, moving slower and having some penalties for a minute. Barbarians are able to spot and listen for things better than fighters.
Paladin
Paladins are perhaps similar to fighters, minus the feats progression. Rather, paladins begin to learn spells at level 4, which are of a divine nature and thus do not suffer from a failure rate penalty when armored. Paladins also have passive simultaneous auras that provide bonuses which can be augmented via enhancements, being very group friendly. Paladins have the notable ability Lay on Hands, which provides healing to allies and damages enemies. Their spell ability is based on the Wisdom stat.
Monk
Monks are a melee class specializing in, you guessed it, fighting unarmed. Or nearly. Monks get weapons in the form of hand wraps. Monks rely on a special stat bar, Ki, to perform abilities and combos. Ki will raise as you strike enemies (and later you gain Ki when you meditate), and combo attacks and finishers will provide buffs to friends or debuffs to the enemy. Monks pick an animal path that provides some sort of bonuses and penalties to them (such as Crane; more Ki on crits, but less fortitude). Later in a monk's life, he must choose the path of light or dark. This generally means you must choose between being more buff oriented or being debuff and damage oriented.
Sorcerer
One of the harder classes to master perhaps due to their reliance on magic. Sorcerers have more spell points than wizards and can also cast spells much more quickly as well. Unfortunately, the trade-off is that sorcerers don't gain as much spell access as wizards. Pick spells carefully. Their spell ability is based on the Charisma stat, and their spells are arcane, meaning there is a penalty for success rate of castings if proper armor is worn.
Cleric
As the name suggests, this is the primary healer and buffing class. Clerics must pick and prepare spells such as wizards do (described below), with the exception of their actual healing spells per spell level. Despite being the primary healing class, they are quite capable of standing on their own. Their spell ability is based on Wisdom, and the spells themselves are divine in nature (granting no penalties from armors worn).
Wizard
Wizards are perhaps the opposite of sorcerer in spell mechanics. They will cast slower, and have less spell points, but they can learn much more spells. You can't bring all your spells with you though. At either rest shrines or taverns, you have to pick which spells you will have available on hand. Wizard spell ability is based on the Intelligence stat, and like sorcerers, utilize arcane magic.
Favored Soul
The Favored Soul is to cleric as sorcerer is to wizard. They have a larger spell power pool, but cannot learn all the spells a cleric can (but unlike the sorcerer does not cast quicker, nor do they memorize spells). Favored Souls, like paladins, receive a bonus to a type of weapon of their choice through alignment with one of the Deity groups. They are also more melee-capable than their counterpart. Spells are divine, meaning no failure rate from armor use.
Ranger
The primary ranged class in the game. Rangers are one of the two skilled classes capable of scouting, disarming traps or spotting other dangers. Although implied to be bow / crossbow reliant, they are capable of fighting in melee situations. Rangers can learn divine spells (meaning no failure rate from armor), and rely on Wisdom for it.
Rogue
The primary skill based class in the game, rogues gain the most skill points out of any class in the game. They are most suited to picking locks, disarming or spotting traps, and scouting information regarding enemies. Rogues have a sneak attack ability that automatically applies extra damage in specific circumstances. Rogues who are built for combat are probably reliant on their Bluff skill, which tricks an enemy into allowing the rogue to perform a sneak attack.
Bard
The primary buffing class. Bards play songs to provide bonuses to the party and debuffs to the enemy. Bards are quite capable of melee combat. They rely on Charisma to augment their spell ability. Bard spells are of the arcane variety, though they are a special case in that light armor does not produce a spell failure rate for them.
Posts
Also for anyone thinking of doing a prebuild character, let me give you this advice: Dont.
They will allot stats and skill in odd places, and you are much better off building your own, you'll be stronger and more unique in the long run.
I will PM you a full one later. That'll fix it. Best way to find out? In game click on the guild button, and click on rank, and it will sort the members by their rank and show leader and officers at the top.
I'd echo all the warnings against doing it. After making a few characters on my own I find them a lot more fun to play.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
Spoiler cause it is big.
Best part is the last line.
"You were killed by something"
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
There are quite a few non-US players on the US servers.
Maybe we could use that link for the guild officers? seeing as it's updated by in game data.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
That was due more to a terrible group that had a cleric who didn't decide to try to heal until the second attempt of a n Elite quest though. I can see, though, how playing this sort of character would really hone your skills though. I like it, though I don't know if I'm going to waste a character slot on him. I really want to try out Bard just because I've always felt that is closest to what I like to be in an MMO. Was I a Galka Bard in FFXI?
Anyway. Glad to be apart of the guild with you dudes. Enjoying it!
Also, my Paladin is almost level 6... two rank ups, and he'll be Hunter of the Dead. I can't wait.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Edit:
The lowdown of my Rogue, who is right now level 6, is as follows:
STR 14
DEX 18
CON 12
INT 14
WIS 10
CHA 8
Skills are all fucked up. 6 out of a possible (so far) 9 ranks in Balance, 9 in Bluff, 6 in Diplomacy, capped Disable Device, Open Lock, Hide, Move Silently, and UMD, 3 Tumble, 5 Haggle, 7 Spot.
Feats are just TWF, Weapon Finesse, and Dodge.
Enhancements aren't too terribly important to list out, since I can change those whenever, but they're more or less just all the Assassin I prereqs, with the two initial +1 Dex ones.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Goodness gracious that's useful.
XBL/PSN/Origin/NNID: StrykerFL GuildWars/GW2: Anton Firemaker FFRK: erNA
*I still have to earn Drow Elf and Favored Soul
But I will be on later and probably looking for a guild invite. Are there still no real needs class-wise in the guild?
That depends, are you mouselooking and using a good bow / crossbow and set of arrows / bolts?
I don't know, I could see them but it seemed like as I selected the race or class the "next" button on character creation stopped popping up. I suppose I could have to do something in game that I can already do on a free account or VIP maybe to get them, I still don't know all that much about the game. The Drow thing was the only bad part, really. I'd like to make super-powered casters.
E: I think there's a Drow elf in the harbor with a quest Icon above his head. Could that be it?
I made a halfling ranger named Shroudfoot.
Is it me or does ranged combat kinda suck?
Even if you're VIP, you do not get Drow or Favored Soul. You either unlock them at 400 and 2500 Favor respectively, or buy them anyway.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
Query: I'm an old DnD geek (I have the 3rd edition books and such) and I've played through both NWNs. Do I have to read any manuals and such or can I just hit the ground running?
If you think ranged sucks you aren't doing it right. Mordrack is part of our regular group and he is a monster with a bow and can kite and tumble away from enemy melee.
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
having DnD experience will definately help you out in making your character in this game. Heres a tip: All skills are useful in this one. You may not use Jump and Balance that much in the beginning, but later on mid game after the harbour, you'll be kicking yourself for not putting points into a lot of skills you thought you'd never use.
As for ranged combat, ranged DPS is significantly lower than melee DPS. This is why you see so few primarily ranged ranger builds and so many melee STR based tempest rangers. Multishot (Many shot?) gives great burst damage, but the cool down timer is fairly long.
For the person that is buying all the packs, you'll want to pick up the Vale of Twilight ones as well. Once you're about L13 or L14, you'll want to be there rather than Gianthold.
Origin: Broncbuster
I accidentally left the island before finishing all of the quests there (I did the tavern defense one then accidentally left). I tried coming back, but the island was definitely different.
Did I miss out on enough that I should re roll?
When you leave Korthos and come back you can still do the quests all around the island. You can't quest with people who still see the village on the winter side though. And you can't pick quest rewards from doing Misery Peak again. At most repeating it on hard and elite will grant you more favor and experience, which isn't too bad really.
Also, just wanted to let everyone know there is a sale going on in the DDO store right now. Some adventures have been cut in price for a short time, like Devil's Assault (it's 105 points and it's a viable quest for level 6 to 16 people). And character slots are down to 400-some points.
This is a lie. If you haven't done it before you get the reward once no matter what.
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=198443
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=200549
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=163077
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=135360
I run a pure paladin as well...currently L17 or 18. PM me if you have some specific questions.
This is what I'm saying. Once you do the Misery Peak quest and get your reward, that's it. You can't repeat the quest and expect to pick from that reward list again.
This is fact, as I've done this process a lot of times on many characters over the last week. Tried and tested.
Also I decided to give another purpose to the OP: there's a section at the top that notes what sales are going on with the DDO store.