Help System

III.    Attributes and Vital Statistics

Your character's attributes represent his innate characteristics and
capabilities: strength, sanity, stamina, knowledge, wisdom, agility,
personality, courage, luck, and vitality. Attribute values are quite
important, as they systemically affect everything about your character, and
each attribute value will affect him in a different way. You can increase
the primary attributes through working with a Trainer, or they can be
magically increased through spells or items.

Attribute values can be as low as 3 points and as high as 25 points. How
high and how low your attributes can go is affected by the race of your
character. Additionally, each class has a "prime" attribute, one that the
class needs most of all in order to learn the skills of that class.

Individual primary attributes are defined as follows:
    
Strength:    This is a measure of the brute force one can bring to bear in
any given endeavor. It affects how much you can carry, how much damage you
do with weapons, and will allow stronger characters to wield heavier armor
and weaponry.

Knowledge:   This is a measure of the intelligence of your character. The
higher the knowledge of a character, the less effort he or she will need to
expend in spell casting and learning new skills.

Wisdom:      This is a measure of the "common sense" of a character. It
allows for self-improvement, and in some cases, helps a character resist
certain works of deceit. Having greater wisdom also increases the amount of
practice sessions you gain as you progress through levels of experience.

Agility:     This is a measure of the speed and precision of a character. It
affects many things, but its affects are most obvious in a combat role, as
agile characters are more likely to accurately hit a target, and conversely,
cause an opponent to miss them.

Personality: This is a measure of a character's charm. It is not just a
measure of how likable a character is, but helps to measure his or her
ability to lead, negotiate, or otherwise interact with other characters.

Vitality:    This is a measure of a character's general health and well-
being. More robust characters are able to take more hits in combat, travel
farther distances, and tend to need less sleep than normal. Vitality helps
in the regeneration of hit points and stamina as well as increases the
amount of hit points and stamina you gain as you progress through levels of
experience.

Luck:         This is a measure of how lucky your character is and affects
random probability.

Courage:     This is a measure of a character's ability to conquer his or
her fear. Some monsters (also known as NPCs, for Non-Player Characters)
generate a magical fear which instills a completely irrational terror in
nearby living creatures. Courage can help a character override this fear and
act normally for a period of time. Courage can also give characters the
inner strength to break free of some magical bonds, such as webs.

Sanity:      This is a measure of a character's ability to resist insanity,
and his or her ability to control magical forces. Characters with a high
sanity characteristically recover from their spellcasting efforts in less
time, and can sometimes force a spell to finish regardless of the absence of
material components.

Vital Statistics

Hit points, spell power (spell points), and stamina are often referred to
as vital statistics. These statistics will all be altered via normal game  
play and will regenerate regularly as time passes, so long as your character
is not hungry or thirsty.

    
Hit Point:   Hit Points (also known as "hp") is a value that is reflective
of how healthy your character is. These points can be used up by receiving
damage through combat, magic, and other miscellaneous factors. When your
character's hit points drop to zero, he will die.

Spell Power: Spell power (also known as "spell points" or "sp") is used when
your character casts magical spells, uses certain magical or esoteric
proficiencies, or makes use of certain magical items. If your character's
spell power drops below the amount required for a certain spell, he will be
temporarily unable to cast that spell.

Stamina:     Stamina (also known as "st") is used when your character moves
- either through combat actions, normal walking, making use of certain
magical items, or other miscellaneous actions.

Training Attributes and Vital Statistics

Through use of the TRAIN command, you can increase the attributes
(strength, intelligence, etc.) or vital statistics (hit points, spell
points, stamina) on your character, thus increasing his effectiveness.
Training sessions cost practice points. Additionally, there are limits on
how much any attribute or vital statistic can be trained, depending on your
character's race.

You may only train at a designated trainer (sometimes called Guildmasters).
These trainers can be found in most major cities and in some remote
locations.

Secondary Statistics

You won't see all of these statistics when you are in the process of
creating your character, but they are important as you progress in the game
and it will be helpful to have some knowledge of them. Some of these
attributes will appear under AFFECTS if your character is affected by the
Detect Magic spell.

Experience Points and Level

Your character advances in power by gaining experience points. Experience
points are a way of keeping track of how much your character has learned
over the course of his or her lifetime. You can gain experience through
combat, completing quests, and other methods.

As you gain experience points, your character's overall experience (known
as "level") will increase as well. Level is broken up into two values -
class level and total level. Your character may gain a maximum of 60 class
levels in each class. Total level is the total amount of your class levels.
Your character can get up to a maximum of 240 total levels, at which point
he will become a Hero, having excelled in the four major adventuring class
archetypes (Fighter, Thief, Mage, and Cleric). Beyond that, your character
may choose to become an Archon (Level 241), which is a special class
available to Heroes. Once your character becomes an Archon, his total level
will stop rising and he will be able to gain up to 180 additional class
levels for a total of 241 total levels and 241 class levels.

Age and Birth Date

Age is the amount of years that have passed since your character was born.
Most characters do have lifespans, but since time in Alyria only moves four
times faster than real world time, it is unlikely your character will die of
old age during your game experience.

Alignment

Alignment is a number that can vary from -1000 to 1000 that describes your
character's tendency for good or evil. The lower the number, the more evil
your character will be. The higher the number, the more good your character
will be. Alignment affects what NPCs may be inclined to attack you, as well
as how well you can use certain magical items.

Practices

Practices are considered the amount of training sessions your character has
earned. Your character primarily earns practices through gaining levels, but
he can also gain practices through completing quests, performing special
tasks, and other methods. Practices are spent when your character wants to
learn more about a particular spell or proficiency.

Quest Points

Quest points are gained through the completion of quests. The members of
the Council of Seven - the Lords and Ladies of Alyria - will allow you to
undertake quests in order to gain quest points as well as other rewards,
such as practices, gold, experience points, and special items. Quest points
can additionally be saved up and used at any quest master to purchase
specially items.

Gold

Gold is used to purchase most goods and services within the world of Alyria
from shops, some NPCs, and PCs (Player Characters). You can carry a limited
amount of gold on hand before it starts slowing down your movement (this is
known as "encumbrance"). You can store extra gold in banks, which can be
found in most major townes in Alyria.

Reputation

Reputation is a value that ranges from -100 to 100 and represents your
character's notoriety to other PCs. A low reputation score marks your
character as someone from which to stay away, and a high reputation score
marks your character as a "safer". Reputation is modified in a negative
manner when you defeat other PCs in combat and will regenerate very slowly -
no more than 12 points in one real-world week.

Accuracy

Accuracy is a modifier that affects how effectively your character can hit
a target, whether using magic or weapons. It can be easily seen on weapons,
as all weapons have a base accuracy modifier. Accuracy affects spells in
that it will modify your character's chances of hitting a target with
specific spells.

Height

Height can be seen when you or someone else LOOKs at your character. This
is primarily for roleplaying purposes only. Height is based on race and
gender.

Equipped Weapon Damage

Equipped Weapon Damage will show up in your character's EQUIPMENT
information when he has a weapon equipped. This is an estimate based on how
much damage your character can potentially cause to a target that is not
wearing any armor or affected by protective spells.

Affects

Affects are active "conditions" on your character, whether magical or
physical. For example, if your character was affected by the "armor" spell
that improved his armor resistance, this would be considered an affect.
Affects usually, but not always, will wear off after a certain period of
time.

Armor Resistance

Your character is comprised of several body parts. While they may not all
be called by the same names in all races (and all may not be available to
all races), they can be classified into the following categories: head,
torso, arms, legs, wings, and tail.

Each body part has its own armor resistance, which is a way of measuring
how much damage your character can absorb if a hit successfully connects
with that body part. The armor resistance is further broken down into four
different types, namely armor resistance vs. piercing attacks, armor
resistance vs. slashing attacks, armor resistance vs. bashing attacks, and
armor resistance vs. exotic attacks (miscellaneous).

Each of these armor resistance types will have a value from 0 to 75, where
0 means that there is no resistance to attacks of that type, on through 75,
which means that the maximum resistance to attacks of that type is present
(75% reduction in damage).

Saving Throws

Saving throws are the chance that a player has when certain spells and
effects are used on the player. There are five different saving throw types,
namely saving vs. spells and magic in general, saving vs. petrification,
saving vs. paralyzation, saving vs. breath attacks, and saving vs. rods.
Saving throws may be modified through certain spells and enchantments on
some magical items.

Next you will learn about character skills and how attributes and vital
statistics help in their use and effectiveness.

NEXT: Skills (help guide_4)

SEE ALSO
Guide_1, Guide_2, Guide_4, Guide_5, Guide_6, Guide_7, Guide_8, Guide_9, Guide_10, Guide_11, Guide_12, Guide_13