A lot of things look interesting about this game to me, but reading through some forums, looking at item stats, etc, I was just completely baffled about how things worked and what things meant.  Is it really that hard to pick it up when playing, or do you need to have a pretty solid understanding of D&D rules to function properly in this game and enjoy yourself?

I'm the same as you Margulis, I never played the pen and paper D&D.

I've asked the same questions, searched the Internet, and either came up empty or the answers from others are way above my head.  At the end of the day, I just winged it. I would spend a lot of time just comparing one item to another and just take a good guess.  You would think someone would make a sticky here or better on ddos web page, but that is just not happening !!. Instead people just give you a one liner, or refer you to a ridiculous old D&D pen and paper web site., with no value at all.

D&D is so good, that I would play it anyway and wing it like i'm sure most of us do. I'm a little pissed about the free to play, and am gonna take a break from it until people get the FTP stuff out of their system.

I would recommend playing the FTP content only without paying for anything ( kind of like a free trial ). Then paying the monthly $14.99, it's a much better deal, infact its THE ONLY DEAL.

anyway have fun :)

If you can't find help in-game, try checking out your server's forums. If you're F2P  you won't be able to post, but there might be a thread there directing new players to more advanced players who can help them. If you play on the Khyber server, '  /joinchannel Help ' will be really useful. The Advice channel is nice, but it's zone-specific, and the Help channel is playermade and server-wide... and it's there for the specific purpose of answering any new player questions.

Yes, if you've never played any D&D based game, things can be crazy confusing. Such as: Multiple types of the same bonus won't stack. For instance, a Ring that gives you a +2 Deflection Bonus to your AC will not stack with a +1 Deflection Bonus AC item- they're both Deflection and the higher one will win out.  However, a +2 Deflection and a +1 Shield Bonus to your AC *will* stack- those are different TYPES (Deflection & Shield). There are a very few exceptions to the rule, but knowing that one right there can save you some troubles.

It's advisable not to put a great deal of agony and worry into creating your first character. Your first (and maybe second, and third, and...) will likely be 'experiments' more than anything else. You'll make a character, play it for a bit, gain a level or 4 and realize- dang, I really didn't need all these points in WIS, and I'd really like more STR... so that character gets remade. Some things are easily fixed, such as enhancement choices, and feats (which can be swapped out one at a time). Your starting stats and your skill choices are not currently available for respecs, but any other 'bad choices' can be fixed. So don't stress it all too much, it'll come over time and experience.

Have fun in-game, and I hope you're able to find someone to answer any questions you have!

Hay just a little more since I'm sitting here waiting for everyone in the house to wake up.

Now Like i say I'm defiantly no expert, but how I see it is that you only have to concern yourself with your WEAPON,SHIELD AND CHEST PEACE. All other slots are like trinkets, including belt, feet, fingers, and and neck.... most slots, are to help you swim, jump and resist fire and such.

This is just how i see it, maybe we will have that miracle person to post a better expiation in English :)

The Very first thing you do is learn how to move / attack / climb ...yada yada yada.  No need to read every edition of D&D rules.  Just play.  It explains it as you go.  There is also advice from other people/characters.  Also RL Voice chat. Playing since beta and  pnp since 1980.  2 different animals in the same family ... like gorilla and chimps.  ok done ... going for some banana  pudding now......

The new DDO:Unlimited manual is a good place to get the basics of the game. There is so many things that are different in DDO compared to other MMOs so take it slow and dont worry about knowing everything from the start.

I would roll a Barbarian or Fighter using one of the pre-made "paths" so you dont have to worry about making an awfull character. Combat is pretty easy at first as a melee character and you can solo the newbie island without to much problems.

And dont be afraid to ask questions both in the general/advise channel but also if you are in a group with more experienced players. i have found that people likes to help and give you tips how to be a better player.

Originally posted by page

or refer you to a ridiculous old D&D pen and paper web site., with no value at all.

Try being someone who played a little p&p back in the day and then playing this game.

You put on new armor and your AC goes up? Blasphemy ... Things didn't work like that in D&D's original or even old revision rules. You tried for sub-zero AC so it was harder for you to hit. I mean in beta I was really having trouble wrapping my head around this and that there is no THAC0. I couldn't bring myself to ask for directions (I am a guy after all...) on what to do because in theory I knew what to do already. Heaven forbid if when I get to FFXIV that I don't understand something after years and years of FFXI. It finally took my putting on Leather Armor then putting on Plate Armor and watching my AC go up did I start figuring it out. What determines a hit is still a little foreign to me, but I guess it is like every other MMO or RPG out there. Mob has a score to hit them and with a random roll if you get above that you hit and below you miss. idk ... I just click really fast and hope i kill whatever.

My major question is WHY is there a penalty for moving and attacking in this game. I mean I could see in p&p you don't have much in the way of moving, but in an MMO you are moving a lot mobs walk away from you as you get closer and you have really no time to walk up stand still then attack before the AI is smart enough to take three more steps away. idk ... it doesn't translate well at all and I could never find any forms or anything to suggest crap for the beta anyway.

Thats how I learned, first puting on leather then plate and watching my stats.  But never learned the D8 and D6 stuff, find that in the manual ( one of five hundred examples, of stuff you will not find ).

 you want to have a small idea of it when you create a charac

dont use premade chose what you want then chose at the bottom to make it yourself youll see a tiny part of whats involved(evil grin)

The game is not too difficult, no more than your next mmo. They have set up a nice tutorial at the beginning to help you in to the game play. As for the charcter creation they have nice path, not the best but functional. You choose a class then a pre-determine path for that class ( 3 choices per class) base on a style of play description. You will learn more about the game through the online compendium and the rest is trial and error. You'll realize some things are better than other or somethings you like more than others and change that in game with payed respect or your simply make a new character.

Give it a try people will help you online or in the ddo forums with character build. ( actually there are some there already you could choose from) http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=175

good luck

Hey Icon... You're describing pre 3erd edition rules. The 3erd edition replaced negative AC and THAC0 with positive AC and Base Attack Bonus. Just another way of calculating the same thing. DDO is based off of 3.5 edition rules, and follows them quite faithfully.

Originally posted by ic0n67

My major question is WHY is there a penalty for moving and attacking in this game. I mean I could see in p&p you don't have much in the way of moving, but in an MMO you are moving a lot mobs walk away from you as you get closer and you have really no time to walk up stand still then attack before the AI is smart enough to take three more steps away. idk ... it doesn't translate well at all and I could never find any forms or anything to suggest crap for the beta anyway.

It is harder to hit a moving target than a stationary one, and the mobs know this, so ranged and casters don't make it easy for you (would you stand still and wait to be hit?). You can invest in feats to allow you to attack on the move, but possibly not worth it as you will get more accurate as you level anyway, to the point movement isn't really an accuracy problem.

I think most MMOs are lazy when it comes to combat, DDO makes movement a skill and it can be the difference between victory or defeat, rather than just your stats.

Originally posted by lufta

Hey Icon... You're describing pre 3erd edition rules. The 3erd edition replaced negative AC and THAC0 with positive AC and Base Attack Bonus. Just another way of calculating the same thing. DDO is based off of 3.5 edition rules, and follows them quite faithfully.

Yeah I know. It is still like trying to read Kanji when all you grew up on is English and have knowledge of more western alphabets ... its all Greek to me ... wait ... actually it would be all Japanese to me >.> ... anywho ... I was just expecting something that I was used to, didn't realize the rule evolved that much over time. Not saying it is a bad thing or anything, just will take effort on my part to learn something new.

Originally posted by lufta

Hey Icon... You're describing pre 3erd edition rules. The 3erd edition replaced negative AC and THAC0 with positive AC and Base Attack Bonus. Just another way of calculating the same thing. DDO is based off of 3.5 edition rules, and follows them quite faithfully.

damn this is where i went wrong in NWN2

always wondered why my palte wearing tank got killed faster than my mgical leather wearing rogue

Gonna look into this game see if its worth the time, until then its NWN2 and Dragon age when its released

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Originally posted by ic0n67

My major question is WHY is there a penalty for moving and attacking in this game. I mean I could see in p&p you don't have much in the way of moving, but in an MMO you are moving a lot mobs walk away from you as you get closer and you have really no time to walk up stand still then attack before the AI is smart enough to take three more steps away. idk ... it doesn't translate well at all and I could never find any forms or anything to suggest crap for the beta anyway.

 

It is harder to hit a moving target than a stationary one, and the mobs know this, so ranged and casters don't make it easy for you (would you stand still and wait to be hit?). You can invest in feats to allow you to attack on the move, but possibly not worth it as you will get more accurate as you level anyway, to the point movement isn't really an accuracy problem.

I think most MMOs are lazy when it comes to combat, DDO makes movement a skill and it can be the difference between victory or defeat, rather than just your stats.

I do realize it is harder to hit a moving target. As stated I haven't played D&D for a while and in my experience we played with an actual grid and game pieces like how must tactics games are today. You can move so many spaces per turn and you can do so many actions per turn once all those are used up for all players then you start over. I still love those old school early 90s PC games they had for D&D and I'd play them if I had a floppy disc drive still. So I still see D&D along a grid -- again my fault there -- and I just don't see a translation to a non-grid field. 

I have played other MMOs, primarily FFXI, where you are still sort of rooted to a spot. Even when I play WoW (I am not a fanboi, okay game, shitty player base, omg I'm probably going to get another warning for badmouthing WoW players because the admins of this site are freaking obsessed with it and boot anyone who talks bad of their Jesus game) I end up standing still even though I can run around.

Its cool there are feats later on that you can move and attack better because honestly that one mission in the first major town you hit, the one where you have to kill 200 kabolds and that one trog -- you know which one -- kicked my ass so badly. All those archer/mage types throwing attacks at you while and by the time you get to them and swing they just run away. I ended up feeling like I was cheating when I beat it. I ended up calling a cleric companion and hanging out next to the resurrection stone. I got to about 75 left before we died and she was out of MP. If my bleeding stopped I would just get up and try to get her resurrected. If the bleeding didn't stop I died, but was right next to the shire so I could resurrect. Knock out one or two and then repeat. Took about 10 times of doing that just to kill the Trog. It felt exploitative; I know it wasn't how I was supposed to do it, but within the rules somehow. I can't see how anyone can do that mission at level 3 like the game suggests. I tried doing it during the beta, went in and maybe 10 kills in I got a message about the servers resetting in a half hour and I didn't finish before they reset. Maybe I am just doing something wrong .....

Originally posted by ic0n67

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Originally posted by ic0n67

My major question is WHY is there a penalty for moving and attacking in this game. I mean I could see in p&p you don't have much in the way of moving, but in an MMO you are moving a lot mobs walk away from you as you get closer and you have really no time to walk up stand still then attack before the AI is smart enough to take three more steps away. idk ... it doesn't translate well at all and I could never find any forms or anything to suggest crap for the beta anyway.

 

It is harder to hit a moving target than a stationary one, and the mobs know this, so ranged and casters don't make it easy for you (would you stand still and wait to be hit?). You can invest in feats to allow you to attack on the move, but possibly not worth it as you will get more accurate as you level anyway, to the point movement isn't really an accuracy problem.

I think most MMOs are lazy when it comes to combat, DDO makes movement a skill and it can be the difference between victory or defeat, rather than just your stats.

 

I do realize it is harder to hit a moving target. As stated I haven't played D&D for a while and in my experience we played with an actual grid and game pieces like how must tactics games are today. You can move so many spaces per turn and you can do so many actions per turn once all those are used up for all players then you start over. I still love those old school early 90s PC games they had for D&D and I'd play them if I had a floppy disc drive still. So I still see D&D along a grid -- again my fault there -- and I just don't see a translation to a non-grid field. 

I have played other MMOs, primarily FFXI, where you are still sort of rooted to a spot. Even when I play WoW (I am not a fanboi, okay game, shitty player base, omg I'm probably going to get another warning for badmouthing WoW players because the admins of this site are freaking obsessed with it and boot anyone who talks bad of their Jesus game) I end up standing still even though I can run around.

Its cool there are feats later on that you can move and attack better because honestly that one mission in the first major town you hit, the one where you have to kill 200 kabolds and that one trog -- you know which one -- kicked my ass so badly. All those archer/mage types throwing attacks at you while and by the time you get to them and swing they just run away. I ended up feeling like I was cheating when I beat it. I ended up calling a cleric companion and hanging out next to the resurrection stone. I got to about 75 left before we died and she was out of MP. If my bleeding stopped I would just get up and try to get her resurrected. If the bleeding didn't stop I died, but was right next to the shire so I could resurrect. Knock out one or two and then repeat. Took about 10 times of doing that just to kill the Trog. It felt exploitative; I know it wasn't how I was supposed to do it, but within the rules somehow. I can't see how anyone can do that mission at level 3 like the game suggests. I tried doing it during the beta, went in and maybe 10 kills in I got a message about the servers resetting in a half hour and I didn't finish before they reset. Maybe I am just doing something wrong .....

 

 

If it is any consolation not everything acts like a Kobold, they know they are weak so try not to get hit, an Ogre for instance will quite happily go toe to toe with you, as will most large mobs. Best way to deal with Kobolds especially casters is to reduce their movement with your body or the scenery, so back up to a corner and let them come around it, if you do chase don't hit them in the back, try and get around in front and block them, then hit.

I did do a walkthrough on how to beat Kobold Assault on elite solo:

community.codemasters.com/forum/showpost.php

Originally posted by ic0n67

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

Originally posted by ic0n67

My major question is WHY is there a penalty for moving and attacking in this game. I mean I could see in p&p you don't have much in the way of moving, but in an MMO you are moving a lot mobs walk away from you as you get closer and you have really no time to walk up stand still then attack before the AI is smart enough to take three more steps away. idk ... it doesn't translate well at all and I could never find any forms or anything to suggest crap for the beta anyway.

 

It is harder to hit a moving target than a stationary one, and the mobs know this, so ranged and casters don't make it easy for you (would you stand still and wait to be hit?). You can invest in feats to allow you to attack on the move, but possibly not worth it as you will get more accurate as you level anyway, to the point movement isn't really an accuracy problem.

I think most MMOs are lazy when it comes to combat, DDO makes movement a skill and it can be the difference between victory or defeat, rather than just your stats.

 

I do realize it is harder to hit a moving target. As stated I haven't played D&D for a while and in my experience we played with an actual grid and game pieces like how must tactics games are today. You can move so many spaces per turn and you can do so many actions per turn once all those are used up for all players then you start over. I still love those old school early 90s PC games they had for D&D and I'd play them if I had a floppy disc drive still. So I still see D&D along a grid -- again my fault there -- and I just don't see a translation to a non-grid field. 

I have played other MMOs, primarily FFXI, where you are still sort of rooted to a spot. Even when I play WoW (I am not a fanboi, okay game, shitty player base, omg I'm probably going to get another warning for badmouthing WoW players because the admins of this site are freaking obsessed with it and boot anyone who talks bad of their Jesus game) I end up standing still even though I can run around.

Its cool there are feats later on that you can move and attack better because honestly that one mission in the first major town you hit, the one where you have to kill 200 kabolds and that one trog -- you know which one -- kicked my ass so badly. All those archer/mage types throwing attacks at you while and by the time you get to them and swing they just run away. I ended up feeling like I was cheating when I beat it. I ended up calling a cleric companion and hanging out next to the resurrection stone. I got to about 75 left before we died and she was out of MP. If my bleeding stopped I would just get up and try to get her resurrected. If the bleeding didn't stop I died, but was right next to the shire so I could resurrect. Knock out one or two and then repeat. Took about 10 times of doing that just to kill the Trog. It felt exploitative; I know it wasn't how I was supposed to do it, but within the rules somehow. I can't see how anyone can do that mission at level 3 like the game suggests. I tried doing it during the beta, went in and maybe 10 kills in I got a message about the servers resetting in a half hour and I didn't finish before they reset. Maybe I am just doing something wrong .....

 

 

It's funny, i know what you mean about that very quest. But thats kinda the beauty of DDO (at least one thing I find nice). If you can find a way to beat a quest, it's legit. That's why there's no XP given on a per monster basis (unless it's a monster called out as a quest objective)... if you beat it, then you earned it! None of the sillyness you get in some other games where a nastygram reminds you if you act exploity then you are cheating.

This gets really really interesting in higher levels as you have more and more spells and abilities opened up to you.

And FYI i am able to solo that quest at lvl 3, but it requires some preparation and the right class. A Favored Soul or Paladin would accel at a quest like that. A lvl 3 Wizard? not as much. Having a henchman to heal helps a lot too.

Originally posted by page

I'm the same as you Margulis, I never played the pen and paper D&D.

I've asked the same questions, searched the Internet, and either came up empty or the answers from others are way above my head.  At the end of the day, I just winged it. I would spend a lot of time just comparing one item to another and just take a good guess.  You would think someone would make a sticky here or better on ddos web page, but that is just not happening !!. Instead people just give you a one liner, or refer you to a ridiculous old D&D pen and paper web site., with no value at all.

D&D is so good, that I would play it anyway and wing it like i'm sure most of us do. I'm a little pissed about the free to play, and am gonna take a break from it until people get the FTP stuff out of their system.

I would recommend playing the FTP content only without paying for anything ( kind of like a free trial ). Then paying the monthly $14.99, it's a much better deal, infact its THE ONLY DEAL.

anyway have fun :)

Ask specific questions and you are likely to get answers. Asking a generic teach me DDO question is not going to get answered much as I could spend hours typing to try and help with that.

Also the F2P is not getting out of peoples system. This is Turbines new baby for DDO and so far looks like a hit. As a vet I was skeptical but I like the store to be honest. I hate general chat because it has attracted a large number of undesirables, but the changes have for the most part been positive to me.