(more pic to come)

With the re-launch of Shadowbane right around the corner, people have been talking with me about the possibility of playing – and with that comes the request for a “Mark Patte” post about how to prepare. Gee, it must be nice to have other people thinking for you and making all of your decisions. I wonder what that is like?

Anyhow… let’s begin by making a quick checklist of things to download, or things to have open while planning your character:

1. http://chronicle.ubi.com/ The official website, and strangely enough one of the best resources for game information. Be sure to start downloading the client if you haven’t already. You can plan and mess around until this Thursday, March 20^th. Just remember your character will be wiped come the re-launch
2. http://www.mordkessel.com/wiki/mediawiki/index.php?title=Main_Page
   This is the only other really good website I could find for SB. It is arguably better than the official website, while the information is the same, it is in an easy to follow minimalistic wiki setup
3. http://www.epeon.net/charbuilder This character builder is supposed to be the best. Too bad the website seems to no longer exist. I am listing it in case it returns with this re-launch.
4. http://www.mordkessel.com/wiki/mediawiki/index.php?title=Character_Creator sadly, this is your best option. It is overwhelming and confusing. It is an excel spreadsheet that the owner set up I guess for himself. It is primarily set up for use as a bard, but it still functions for any class (despite their skills not being listed). It is highly recommended for the INITIAL CREATION PHASE, which is probably most crucial. It works properly for all classes in this stage, and I highly recommend you read up on some ideas for your class and implement them here to test it out. That is assuming you subscribe to the max/min logic that I do when planning a character.
5. http://ubbforums.ubi.com/ubbthreads.php?Cat=&C=4
   Official Shadowbane forums. I suggest you begin with the “New-Player Guide” section. There are only guides for about 40% of the classes, but there are enough to start to understand how to plan. After you read up on the classes themselves on the wiki, you might want to browse the official forum for your class. This is how I came to the conclusion on how I wanted to build my character.

“OK, I did all that… now what?”

Well now it is time to open up your spreadsheet and start planning. For those that are in the dark, I will again give you a step by step process on how I believe you should plan your character. But first, let me give a little background to how your character actually exists.

In Shadowbane, you character is built on 10 different runes. Every decision you make consumes one of the rune slots. Essentially, your character is not just a Priest, for example, but in fact a combination of all 10 runes, Priest being only 1 of those runes. Each one of the following decisions will define your character, and consume a rune slot:

• Race, Base Class (Healer, Rogue, Fighter, Mage), Profession (Priest, Druid, Berserker, etc), Starting Runes, Disciplines or Stat Runes (more on the last three later)

Now that you understand how your character is made, let’s have a look at what I feel is the best order for planning your character

1. Choose a Profession

I highly recommend you begin by browsing and choosing a profession. This will control about 70% of how your character operates. You’ll quickly notice there are about 9000 different classes. There are some unique ones, and some standard ones. It would help to have SOME type of idea on what you want to play.

1. Choose a Base Class

Unlike any other game you’ve probably played. Just because you say “I’m going to be an Assassin” does not necessarily define to someone else what you are playing. Take Assassin as a perfect example. You can be a Rogue Assassin – which will play closer to a traditional-sensed killer including stealth and dual wielding of daggers. Alternatively, you could be a Mage Assassin. These classes retain the stealth of the Assassin, but rather than creep up and stab someone in the face, they creep around and start fireballing and lightning bolting. Both are Assassins, but they are completely different. Have a look around, not all base classes are available to each Profession.

1. Pick your Race

Surprisingly, this could again drastically affect how your character plays. Just like in other games, when you create your class in Shadowbane you have starter points to add to stats like dex or con, or you can use them to buy upgrades. The first upgrade you’ll buy will be your race. Humans do not cost any points, but everyone else does. Why you ask? Well race choice in this will give access to completely new spell lines, or give you inherent abilities not available to other races. Example? Picking a Nephilim or an Aracoix will allow your character to fly (because they have wings…duh). Picking a Vampire will mean that your character does not have Mana (for spells) or Stamina (for abilities) whatsoever. Instead, Vampires consume their own health when using abilities. They also get access to special lifetap and lifedrain runes to keep themselves up.

It is also important to mention that picking Human is not a bad thing. While Humans do not excel in any stat, nor do they get access to any special abilities, they are awarded 1 extra train per level (11, rather than 10). This means any human end game will have a larger sum of training points that they can assign to their abilities. More on training abilities later.

1. Pick your Starting Runes

The last step for creating a character is what Starting Runes you want to purchase. First things first, you should subtract 5 points from all 5 stats, which will give you an additional 25 stat points. Every stat has a top end cap based on your race. You will not lose anything by starting the game with 35 INT instead of 40. Your end game cap (which is quite low) will easily be reached halfway through the game - and it will not be lowered due to you starting with less stats. Basically no one is going to need to max all their stats, you will most likely only need to max 2, maybe 3. Refunding these points will give you more access to starting runes.

These runes are going to make big changes to your character. They will increase your max stats, increase your current stats, adjust regen rates, and even give you access to entire new weapon styles (i.e. a mage can take a rune that grants access to the use of a crossbow, should he wish to build that way). There are a lot of these. My best recommendation is to read up on what ones are best. Any rune that costs 12 starting points is generally accepted as really good. I haven’t seen any builds using the 2-3 point costing runes. So far the most common ones I’ve seen (keeping in mind I haven’t explored any fighters) are Brilliant Mind, Hearty As An Ox, Healthy, Precise, Wizard’s Apprentice, Raised By XXX.

Once you have made these four decisions, you are well on your way to finishing your character. The other decisions that you have to make wont come until end game.

As a brief overview I will cover the other types of Runes for you to get.

1. Disciplines

Disciplines are absolutely great. Throughout the world there are mobs scattered that carry these runes. Each rune is essentially access to an entire new tree of shared abilities. Anyone with that rune can use them. Do not get confused in to thinking that this is a class you will eventually become, (i.e. Human Mage Bard Archer – archer being the discipline). In fact, you can take as many disciplines as you have remaining slots for runes. If you wish you can take no starting runes, and no stat runes, therefore leaving you space to take up to 7 different disciplines.

Here are some examples of Disciplines:

• Traveller: Allows the user access to use the world teleporters – essentially giving anyone with Traveller to teleport both themselves and their party all over the world
• Archer: Grants access to all the archery weapon skills and awards 10 training points to each one
• Rat Catcher: Summon a pet, gives a weapon enchant, and gives 2 castable debuffs that prevent health recovery and mana recovery
• Summoner: Summon a variety of pets
• Berserker: Gives aoe melee damage, a stamina recovery buff, and “personal rage”

All in all, there are about 30 different ones that can all fine tune how your character plays.

1. End Game Stat Runes

Each of the 5 stats has runes that you can purchase that will increase your max cap. They range from 5 to 40 in increments of 5. As I understand it, you can take a 40 (Godly) rune to one stat, and a secondary one of 30. Some people have mentioned getting 2 godly runes, I’m unsure of how that works. You can also alternatively go with 2x 35 runes rather than a 40 and a 30. They are straightforward, and obviously necessary for end game.

I guess the last thing I should mention briefly is how training works in this. Every level you are awarded 10 training points (11 for humans). These training points will be how you spec your character. I neglected to mention that despite the fact that you are now a Vampire Mage Assassin with Huntsman, Traveller and Belgosch disciplines, you also only have limited training points. So again your buddy with the same class could be completely different. It is all about finding the proper support for your build. Each player will have access to different spell lines (think Elds getting Light, Mana, or Void – or Paladins getting Holy, Protection, or Ret for you WoW players). First you must train points in to the line itself. Having the correct amount of trains in a particular skill line will give only access to train a spell. You must then spend more training points in that skill itself. Essentially you are training each skill twice, once for the line, and once for the actual skill. Skills cap out at 40 trains for most, some at 20, and a few only require 1 train. This can be found when reading about your discipline and profession.

All in all, this should give enough information to start planning. Later in the week I’ll see about putting together some more generic info to Shadowbane about how end game works, PVP, guilds, etc.

Before I go, if anyone wants to see my plan for a character, it will be as follows:

Human Mage Bard, Con focus, Int secondary. Disciplines are Rat Catcher for anti-heal debuff, RuneCaster for single target heal, Commander for group stun break, and Archer for use of a bow. My goal as the bard is to be a full support character with both buffs and debuffs, but also to have shitty ranged damage that I can use for additional CC (Bow attacks have snares and anti-fly debuffs on some).