Alsherok

Now that you've entered the game proper, here are a few basic commands and words to know. Firstly what do those little numbers and letters inside your prompt mean? These numbers signify your hit points, mana and movement points respectively. Hit points is your character's health. When it nears zero, it means that you are near death, so be careful. Ways to lose hit points (hp) include getting hit in combat, getting hit by a destructive spell or falling victim to a trap. Mana points (m) define the amount of magical energy which your character has. It is used up whenever you cast a spell and when using certain skills. The last numbers are your movement points (mv). This is basically how many steps your character can take when moving around. When the mv goes to zero, then it is time to rest or sleep as you will not be able to travel from room to room. All of these important points are regenerated naturally as you progress through the game. The rates at which the regeneration occurs can be sped up by resting, sleeping and eating and drinking often. To see your hp, m and mv much more clearly, just type the command 'repo' or 'report'. To know about your character's full statistics, type in 'sc' or 'score'. This will show you a menu of all your character's important statistics. Most are basically easy to understand but I'll outline some important ones for you.

Level shows your character's current level. Level is how high in expertise your character is in his or her chosen class. When you first begin the game, your character will be at level 1 but will soon increase in level by gaining experience points. Experience points can be earned mainly through killing creatures and mastering your skills and spells. As levels increase, so will your character's overall abilities, hit points, mana and movement points.

Race shows your character's chosen race. Your race can have a big impact on how the game progresses.

Class shows your character's chosen class. Your class determines what skills and abilities you are able to use and thus has a huge impact on how your game will progress.

The Align or alignment rating defines how good or evil your character is. The numbers range as follows:

Good	+1000 to +350
Neutral	+350 to -350
Evil	-350 to -1000

Alignment points are very easily gained or lost. Kill good creatures if you want to become more evil or decrease in alignment and adversely, kill evil creatures if you want to become more good or increase in alignment. A healthy balance of killing can also help maintain a neutral alignment should you choose to do so. The short sentence beside your alignment score briefly tells you how good, neutral or evil your character is. Also keep in mind that certain deities and character classes such as the Paladin or Druid require you to keep within their suggested alignment constrains lest harm befall you. Also, certain types of armor or weapons require you to be of a certain alignment before you can wear or wield them. Don't be too surprised when something falls off your character after he or she kills something. It is more than likely that your alignment switched immediately after the kill. So, keep a close eye on your alignment score and don't be caught unprepared in a dangerous area.

Next will come your seven attributes. STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHA, LCK. Numbers in parenthesis are your character's original attributes while those outside are your character's modified attributes. Attributes are usually modified by wearing or wielding magical items. Items which increase attributes should be well sought after as they give your character a much needed edge. The exact meaning of these attributes have been explained earlier.

Pracs shows your character's current number of practice points available. Practice points can be used to learn new spells, skills and languages at your character's guildmaster. Remember, don't waste them as they can only be increased whenever you gain a new level. Typing the 'prac' command will show you all your learnable skills.

The Hitpoints, Mana and Movement tells you your remaining hit points, mana points and movement points respectively out of the maximum points that your character has. Make sure these don't go too low or it will hazardous to your character's safety. Over time, you will slowly gain back lost points. Usually, if you want to regain your points back faster, just find a safe place and 'rest' or 'sleep'. Eating and drinking frequently also helps as you will not gain back lost points when you are starving or dying of thirst. Some spells and potions also restore lost points and it always helps to look out for a friendly player who can heal you with magic. You can also type 'repo' or 'report' to tell everyone in the same room as you about your current point totals. This helps a lot when you adventure with groups of friendly players as they can heal you when you are in trouble.

To Hit and To Dam show your bonuses when hitting opponents and when calculating the damage done per hit respectively. A higher To Hit means your character will hit opponents more often in a fight instead of missing while a higher To Dam increases the damage done as your blow hits. Naturally you would want these bonuses to be as positive as can be. To Hit and To Dam bonuses or penalties are often determined by your strength rating, wearing magical equipment or by having spells cast on your character such as the bless and curse spells.

AC is your current defense value. The lower the number, the harder it is for enemy creatures to hit your character during combat. Note that armor values can go well into the negative range and that is what your character should strive for. The armor value can be improved by wearing various articles of clothing, especially magical or metal types. Also, your dexterity and certain spells such as the shield spell or the stone skin spell can have an effect on your armor score.

Wimpy is an important setting. It defines how low your hit points are allowed to go before you flee from combat. This is quite essential to staying alive as it acts like a safety feature from dying. Keep in mind that the wimpy system is not perfect. Sometimes you might actually fail at running away and get killed by a nasty creature. So, don't put your wimpy setting too low. Wimpy can be set by typing 'wimpy hitpoint' where hitpoint is any positive integer number within your character's hit point range. The recommended wimpy setting for beginners should be one third of your maximum hit point total.

Exp or experience shows how much experience points you have amassed. Experience is very important in the game as it is needed for your character to grow and gain in power. You can get experience points by killing creatures and by mastering your skills and spells. Also, if you type the command 'level', you will see how many points you need to get to your next level.

Gold shows you how much money (in the standard gold coin) which you have. Gold coins are widely used as currency for buying equipment, potions. paying rent and such. So, collecting gold is also quite important. You can get gold from killing most monsters and ransacking their treasure hoards. You can also get gold coins by selling items which you do not need to the various shopkeepers in the land or by auctioning items to other players. You can give gold to other people by typing 'give amount coin name' where amount can be any positive integer number of gold coins you currently own and name is the name of the person or creature which you want to give your money to. Most of the time you won't need to use this command as the 'buy' and 'sell' commands at the shops are fully automated. However person to person exchanges of money between players are a fairly common occurrence. Don't forget to check your gold value after a transaction. You can see your current gold coin amount by typing the command 'gold'.

The Weight indicator tells you the total weight in pounds of all the things you are carrying, including worn items. Remember always that the maximum amount of weight you can carry is determined by your strength score. Thus, you will not be able to pick up new things if your weight limit is exceeded.

Items show how many items you are capable of carrying in your inventory. Note that this only shows items that you aren't currently wearing. You can view your inventory items by typing the command 'inv' or 'i'. It also helps to organize your inventory with the use of different bags so that you don't get overly confused when rummaging through your things.

Favor indicates how favored you are by the deity you have devoted to. Favor can be used to 'supplicate' for boons from your deity. You will not be able to devote to a deity until you reach level 10, but you should familiarize yourself with the ones that exist by looking over the 'deities' command in the game, as well as the deities page on this website.

Pager tells you how many lines of text will scroll by before the game displays a prompt to continue with the output. This is useful to keep large amounts of data from scrolling by before you've had a chance to read it.

Autoexit, Autoloot, Autosac, and Smartsac give you a quick glance at whether or not these flags have been enabled. These are discussed more in the configs section below.

You should now familiarize yourself with your config settings. Typing 'config' will show you all your different setting choices and 'help config' will show you what some of them mean. Don't worry too much about these settings. For the moment it is recommended that you type in the following config command settings: 'config -norecall', 'config +autoexit', 'config +smartsac', 'config +autoloot' and 'config +autogold'.

To move around, you only need type the letter or word of the direction you wish to go in. These include 'n' or 'north', 's' or 'south', 'e' or 'east', 'w' or 'west', 'd' or 'down', 'u' or 'up' and 'enter' for special entrances. Naturally there must be a visible exit in that direction for you to go through. The command 'exits' shows you all visible exits which your character can see. Sometimes typing 'open direction' or 'open doorname' is needed to make an opening for you to proceed in that direction. The direction stands for the direction of travel and the doorname is the name of the closed door opening. Naturally, the commands affecting doors also include 'close doorname', 'unlock doorname', 'lock doorname' and 'pick doorname'. For the locking and unlocking of doors, you will undoubtedly need a key that matches the door's lock or proficiency in lockpicking. You will sometimes need to read the room descriptions carefully to find secret or hidden exits as they are not shown in the 'exits' command. You also can look for secret or concealed doors by typing 'rap directionname' or 'rap doorname'. If there is a door in that direction, you will get a message saying that you are rapping on a door. However, rapping can also be heard by those on the other side of the door and may cause the creatures on the other side to react to your noisy searching, usually in a violent manner. Remember that moving around costs movement points so, keep an eye on your mv scores.

Another important function is the 'look' and 'examine' commands. These commands are important because they give you the descriptions important in exploring the world. To look about, just type 'look target' where the target can be anything from an object to a creature. This command also will work with the target being a direction. The 'look' command without an argument will show you the description of the room you are currently in. To look inside things such as drink and item containers or to check the conditions of weapons and armor, merely type 'look in itemname' or 'examine itemname'.

Since everyone wants to have a good idea of what things look like when they are playing in Alsherok, its generally a good idea if you come up with a description of how your character appears when other people look at you. Typing the command 'description' will put you in a writing buffer wherein you can enter your character's appearance. Naturally of course you would want a description that is consistent with your character's gender, race and class.

When you want to stop playing and store your character, you can usually just 'quit' where you are. If this is not possible the game will tell you. Some areas are not safe to quit in. Other areas are too crowded and you need to find an inn. You can also 'camp' out in the wilderness. All of these options carry some risk that your character might be robbed while you are gone, so in order to prevent that from happening you should seek out an inn and 'rent' there instead.