New player guide

Under reconstruction

Note: This page is copy of Arelith Player Reference Guide and needs rewriting. Less information and more links to relevant information on other pages.

The place to currently look for more compact information is players' handbook on Arelith webpage

New player guide

Arelith guide for new players is intended to provide basic introduction, answers to most common questions and links to other articles that may interest you.

Please, refer to this article first for any questions. If you can not find your answer here, then try the search function. You can also ask on Arelith forums or Arelith chat.

New to NWN

For players completely unfamiliar with the game, it can be beneficial to play first the Prelude of NWN Single Player campaign. It will give the basic ideas about controls and game mechanics without need to read the manual. Just remember that the Prelude is not really "in character". (They talk about what keys to push on keyboard and such.)

Playing the whole main campaign itself may hurts more than help before playing Arelith. The campaign was made so more or less anyone could beat it (knowledgeable of builds or otherwise), so they tossed a lot of high-magic items at players to more or less make it so characters couldn't die.

Someone coming from the main campaign into Arelith has pretty much the opposite. The tools they've got at their disposal are teamwork (instead of just overpowered team mates) and skill (instead of overpowered items).

It is better to get after prelude online and learn more gradually by discovering things in character. It is not advised to fight until characters know what they are up against. In real life is also better to proceed with caution and not risk own health and life trying to beat everything around.

Hints and tips for Non-English-Speaking Players

Mithreas wrote: "I have absolutely no problem with non native English speakers playing here. A load of people have joined the server with only rough English and seen their English skills blossom as a result. BUT - if a person cannot make themselves understood in English, this isn't the right server for them."

One can with luck however make a char that has low intelligence at the start in order to practice and improve the English skills, such as making a Goblin, Orog or half-orc. Most players don’t mind spelling errors and the like coming from these sorts of races, and you can make your bad English a part of the Role-play. It’s an easy way to practice, and you can make the out of character learning process to an in character one.

Ask, if you’re unsure of what an English word means. Asking the player is the best option if you do not use a translator in the background. I often play Neverwinter Nights in a window in order to have a translator at hand. Most players on Arelith are friendly and more than willing to help you if you send them a tell.

New to online gaming

The game is no longer focus around single player who can do whatever they want. There are rules in online communities that needs to be uphold to make the experience enjoyable to all involved. Use Arelith forums, Arelith chat or contact DMs if you run in any serious problems or obscurities.

New to Arelith

It is highly recommended to start the first character on surface. There are more hints and guidelines for new players, more characters that are friendly and willing to assist new arriving characters in character (IC). This allows new players to get familiar with the Arelith mechanics and possibilities in friendly IC environment while roleplaying.

The Underdark is harsher environment, where are many friendly players out of character (OOC), but life there in character is much harder.

Tips by Fire Boar:

• RP with folks! Then you get an RP bonus and start levelling up all by yourself, without killing anything.
• Don't kill non-hostile creatures in front of others (PCs and NPCs), don't attack NPCs and only attack non-hostile creatures if it's in character to do so.
• Complete the Speedy Messenger Delivery quest to get to level 3 if you play surface race. If you started on Underdark then look around for important NPC of your race, speak to it and read carefully all that they have to tell you.
• Be tactical. Cautiously pick off the mobs slowly, and at low levels ranged weapons are a must.
• Party up with people. You actually earn sub-par XP alone. Take a party of 4 people of a similar level along and you'll all get better XP, have more fun roleplaying and find it easier. Anything more than 4 people and the XP starts to suffer again.
• NWN is not anything like WoW. Especially so on Arelith. The "Good XP" stuff is challenging. In early levels, that means everything. In later levels, there will be easy stuff, but they will offer a mere 1 XP per kill.
• The mobs on the server are geared toward groups. The things that eat you alive when you're alone are a breeze if you travel with 3-4 other people. It's all about encouraging and perpetuating roleplay.
• Take bandage rolls or healer's kits along. They're very inexpensive, and if you search the player-owned shops you can sometimes find packs of 10 at bargain prices. At low levels, a +1 healing kit is enough to heal you all the way, especially if you've invested points into the Heal skill. Even if you don't though, healing kits tend to be better than healing potions because potions give your opponents an Attack of Opportunity.

Character Creation

There are articles for New Character, Making your first Drow, plus explanations on making a proper subrace on pages for each subrace.

Races, Subraces and Character Creation

Arelith features a number of races and subraces, a guide to which can be found here. There are a few things to note when creating a character for Arelith:

• Don't use the subrace option. If you wish to have a subrace, simply select the appropriate base race and upon entering the server you'll have the option to then select a subrace that corresponds with your race and RPBonus.
• When your character arrives in the entry way to the Arelith world, you'll see a few signs, a pair of mirrors, a doorway, and a lever. Wait for a few minutes and don't do anything. A dialogue box should pop up asking you about your character's subrace and background (if this dialogue box doesn't show up, pull the lever once and only once).
• Don't create a character that you can't find on that subrace list, or don't have the appropriate RPBonus to create. Your invisible-winged half-balor will meet a quick end if a DM spots you. Rather than focus on making your character unique through what he is, focus on what he does. Memorable characters are memorable for what they do, not what their subrace box happens to say.
• Unique features such as wings, horns, or tails are illegal, barring a 5% Roll.

Selecting a Class

Main article: Class

You are welcome to play any class and alignment available to you upon character creation, but you are also expected to roleplay that class and alignment as well. Every character class has a place on Arelith, but don't expect your RPBonus to rise if you take a class for purely mechanical reasons. Once your character gains some levels, prestige classes will be available to you, but only if you have the corresponding RPBonus needed to access them. All prestige classes require DM permission before they are acquired, so if you have any questions, a DM could answer them for you.

For details about changes to classes and prestige classes follow this link.

The Mark of Destiny

After selecting a subrace, you will be asked if you want the Mark of Destiny. This is entirely optional, as it raises your RPBonus automatically, but also gives your character a limited number of lives at his or her disposal. See the Mark of Destiny page for more detail.

Selecting a Background

After selecting a subrace, you will be given the option to select a background for your character. Backgrounds give small mechanical bonuses based on your character's history and personality. This is entirely optional, as you will also have the choice to ignore this and select no background for your character.

Outfit Customization

Main article: Customization

Upon character creation, you should see a pair of Mirrors in the entry area. Using these you can change the style and color of your character's outfit. You may also use the Radial Menu Crafting System to perform the same functions as a distorted mirror. More of these mirrors can be found in various places throughout the island, be it in public places like the Rosewind or private places like certain Quarters. Every outfit can be customized, including armor, cloaks and helms created by other players.

Walking

As Arelith is a roleplaying world, you will be expected to roleplay as much of your character's actions as possible. This includes walking, rather than running. Try to imagine your character as a real being. Is a dwarf in full plate really going to last very long running around at full speed in the full heat of the day? You have several ways to set your character to walk:

• Hold down the shift key while you walk
• Go into detect mode (doesn't work for elves)
• Setup a "walk" key in your keyboard options. (It's suggested to do this anyway, specifically to get rid of the "rest" [r] hotkey. It will save some embarrassing situations)

Other Scripted Quests

There are very few scripted quests on the server, beyond the starter quest given to all new characters. Besides that, they are few and far between, an example would be turning in "Head of a Leader" items to the respective authorities for the bounty. Rather than scripted quests, the server focuses on a dynamic, player-run world. If you wish to take part in a quest, you have the freedom to do whatever you want to make it happen, as long as your actions fall within the server's Rules and aren't a detriment to the server as a whole. In other words, don't wait for mechanics or DM interaction if you get bored; instead, create something for yourself and others to do.

Gathering a Party

Arelith is blessed with a wonderful system which allows you to win a greater amount of experience by killing enemies in group, rather than spliting the points between the party.

Gathering parties isn't only fun for mechanical reasons, a party with good role-players will provide a remarkable adventure. Low level characters are strongly recomended to party, since dungeons are often very difficult. Do not expect to have your third level rogue clear the entire first dungeon alone, as would be expected in most other RPGs. RP is not built alone. The interaction between players is what make Arelith unique. Think twice before attempting to clear a dungeon by yourself and claim all the riches for your personal hoard. The key to Arelith is to enrich roleplay for all characters. Ask yourself, "Would this adventure be more fun alone or should I share it with other people?"

In the end, what's the point of having an uber half-balor with a powerlevel over if you keep your mightiness only to yourself?

Party up with the same old fellas, always new parties, a faction, a guild, or just to protect your homeland, but never go it alone!

• The experience bonus is set by the highest level character + the party bonus. A group of three in the sewers led by a level 15 character will be lucky to earn more than 2xp per monster.

The World

Roleplay

Role-playing is just that, playing the role of a character. Any character you create should have a personality, just like people in real life. The goal of most Rper's is to have the most realistic character they can play while making the server more fun for everyone. An important thing to realize about RP is that it is character action and reaction. It shouldn't ever have anything to do with the player playing the character.

Languages

Main articles: Languages

Arelith has an integrated language system. To access what your character can speak/understand, type "-" into the chat bar. On the right hand screen a list should come up telling you what is available. Available languages are linked.

Banks

Main article: Bank

Upon entering the server and exploring some of the first areas in your starting city, you'll no doubt notice just how empty your character's pockets are, particularly when faced with the cost of adventuring gear. One can't kill dragons if they can't even afford padded armor, so a solution is in order. That's where the Banks come in.

Open up a dialog with any banker and ask to draw an amount. He'll give you a loan of up to 1000 gp, which is plenty of gold to buy some basic gear and weapons, and perhaps even try your hand at the enchantment basins to give that gear a boost.

It is highly recommended that you use the banks as much as possible, given that if your character is killed, that character's gold is automatically dropped and up for grabs to the first character that happens upon the body.

• You'll notice that there are many bankers around the world. Your account balance will always be the same, no matter where you go.

• Reminder: If you die, you will drop your gold. Putting gold in a bank is the best way to 'keep it safe.'

Portals

Main article: Portals

For those characters that want a quicker, more convenient way to travel, Planar Portals are available to use. Once a portal is visited, a character can then use any two-way portal to travel to that location instantly.

Important Note

Do not carry dead bodies through the portal. Corpses will instantly be dropped to the ground and character will portal through without them.

Logging on server and changing servers

Make sure to know how to do connecting though direct connection to reduce lag.

Arelith servers keep record of characters' location. Player characters (PCs) should be in the same area where they were last time saved.

If server was not restarted from the last time a character was logged on, then several effects will be applied on the character by the "GIGASCHATTEN NWN Engine...maintained and enhanced by MITHREAS". The character will gain:

• The same amount of hit points (HP). A message will appear when this is applied: "Someone damaged someone for X Points (X Magical).", where X is number of HP below characters maximum HP when it was logged off.
• Spell that were used will be still used.
• The same spells that were in effect, if their time has not expired yet.

Please, note that whilst information about Spell Effects and Spells Cast are kept separately for each server, "state" values (Hunger/Thirst/Rest/Sobriety/Piety) are now persistent across servers. When changing servers with a character by any in game transition, Spells will revert to scratch, but a character will stay as Hungry/Pious/etc. as they were on the previous server. For example:

1. Johny leaves Surface by portal while being tired (0% rest), having used all his spells and with newly cast Protection from Evil active upon on him.
2. Johny portals from Surface server to Underdark server.
   1. Johny was not on the Underdark server from its last restart. Therefore he will have all his spells ready to use, but no spells active on him. He will still, however, be tired at 0% rest.
   2. Johny on the Underdark server fully rests to 100%, casts Protection from elements and Stoneskin on himself.
   3. Johny sees a Drow and decides to run again back to Surface server by portal.
3. Johny portals back from Underdark server to Surface server.
   1. If there was no server restart while Johny was in Underdark, he will still have all his spells used. He will have the spell Protection from Evil active upon him, if he returned within 24 in game hours (which is the duration of that spell). He will still have a rest value of 100%, since he rested up to that on the Underdark server.
   2. If there was a server restart while Johny was in Underdark, then he will have all his spells ready to use again, but no spells active on him. He will still have a rest value of 100%.

When changing servers, all items and experience points acquired on the other server will be kept.

Mechanical Information

Changing CD Keys

There are no rules preventing players from getting a new CD key, but it is certainly not recommended. There are several things tied to your CD key, including:

• Quarters, Shops and Guild house
• RPBonus
• Portals
• Bank Balance

If you change CD keys, then upon the next server reset all of these things will no longer be recognized as attributes of your characters. Shops will be lost, your bank account will vanish, and your RPBonus will be reduced to 0.

The 5% roll

Main article: The 5% roll

The 5% roll becomes available to characters of level 21 or higher. You have the option to retire (meaning, delete from the vault) the character and be given a 1 time chance to get a special skin/template or item. Upon approval from Jjjerm you get a 5% chance of using your character's sacrifice to gain access to these special features. If you fail this attempt, you will still lose the character permanently.

More information about the 5% Roll can be found in article Epic Character Retirement Program.

Death and Dying

Main article: Death

Gods

Main article: Deity

One of the few items given to your character upon creation is the Arelith Book of Deities, an item in your character's inventory allowing you to choose for them a patron deity for whom to serve. The benefits of having a deity are detailed in this article about divine intervention.

All spell casters on Arelith are required to have patron Deity to cast higher level spells, including Arcane casters. All worshippers have to follow the restrictions posed in Forgotten Realms D&D on Clerics' Alignments. See the article Deity to learn more about Gods, Domains, Power and Presence of Gods on Arelith.

Crafting

Main article: Crafting

Arelith uses an integrated tradeskill system which allows a variety of items of different types to be crafted from components and resources found around the island.

Welcome to Arelith!

What is Arelith?

The Server

Arelith is a Neverwinger Nights Persistent World Roleplay Server. This means that the server is active twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. (Except during maintenance and power or internet outtages.)

Arelith's main body consists of three servers: Cordor, The Surface, and The Underdark. Movement between these servers is seamless, and occurs automatically when a character touches an area transition leading to a different server.

The Setting

Arelith is a small island located somewhere on The Trackless Sea, west of The Sword Coast and The Moonshae Islands. It is populated with a broad variety of races, who inhabit a number of settlememnts spread across the island. Beneath the surface of Arelith is The Underdark, where a separate society of monster races lives. These worlds don't often collide, but when they do, the results are usually quite interesting.

Roleplay

Arelith is a Roleplay server. As such, all players are expected to remain in character at all times, and play their characters in keeping with the contents of their character sheets. To maintain the ambience and environment, OOC chat is not allowed. (ex: //Hey, this is OOC!) Players are encouraged to use Tells to communicate with other players.

Roleplay Bonus

Arelith has a special Roleplay Bonus system, which rewards players for staying in character at all times and creating enjoyable roleplay for others, through small XP bonuses every game hour.

Rules

Players on Arelith are primarily governed by the 5 Golden Rules, which can be found on Arelith's Homepage. Clarifications for specific cases are available, however common sense and cooperation with the DMs is usually sufficient.

Character Creation

Arelith has been heavily modified from base Neverwinter Nights mechanics.

When creating a character, new players may wish to view the changes that have been made to the following character aspects:

• Race - Arelith has 26 subraces, beyond the original 7.

Note: Do not use the subrace option during NWN character creation. Subrace selection will become available after logging in.

• Class - Many classes offer alternate Paths which change the way they function, to varying degrees.

Note that certain Prestige Classes require staff approval.

• Feats
• Spells
• Skills

Backgrounds & Gifts

After a character is created, the player will have the option to choose from a variety of Backgrounds and Gifts, to further customize their characters. Backgrounds apply bonuses and penalties to skills and stats, as a tradeoff, while Gifts apply only bonuses at the cost of increased Effective Character Level.

To use the custom bonuses and penalties for your chosen Race choose the Subrace Properties option from the Gifts menu in the Arelith Entry Area, after character creation.

Languages

Depending on your Race and Class selections, your character may be able to speak a language, or many languages, other than Common. (English) Languages can be activated by chat commands, and appear as color coded jumbled text. Languages are automatically translated for any characters who can understand them, and additional languages can be learned by any character with sufficient Intelligence.

Deities

Arelith's Deity System allows characters to choose a deity to worship, in order to gain the deity's favor and use high level divine magic. Characters may also call on their deity for aid in times of need.

Alignment

Characters are expected to remain within the range of acceptable behavior for their chosen alignment. Isolated incidents of abberant behavior will not result in punishment, however, characters habitually acting outside of their alignment may be approached by a DM to re-evaluate their alignment choice. Any player may voluntarily request such a review in order to have their alignment altered. Alignments cannot be altered by player/character action alone.

The Mark of Destiny

Any character may choose to take the Mark of Destiny during initial character setup. A character with The Mark of Destiny will receive an additional 20XP per hour, on top of any Roleplay Bonus which they already receive, but will be automatically deleted after ten deaths. It is recommended that new players read the entire Mark of Destiny article before choosing the option, in order to fully understand its ramifications.

Character Customization

Magical mirrors found on the island of Arelith allow characters to customize the shape and color of their clothing, weapons, and armor.

Character Editing Room

Portraits and Voices

Game Mechanics

Arelith employs a variety of special mechanics to enhance immersion and empower players to

Experience & Levels

Experience gain and leveling up on Arelith is relatively slow compared to most other servers, and the level cap is set at 30. This means that it can take months or even years for a character to reach maximum level, and some builds are not possible. Characters also receive additional experience when traveling with others, however it is not necessary to be in a party to receive this bonus.

Experience is primarily gained by killing NPCs or through the Roleplay Bonus, however other bonuses can be found in the module, and DMs can award one-time XP bonuses for exceptional roleplay.

Character State

Every character's state of health is measured by the following statistics: (aside from hit points)

• Food
• Water
• Rest
• Sobriety

Characters must eat, drink, and sleep regularly in order to survive. Drinking alcohol will cause characters to become drunk, and excessive drinking can cause death. Allowing any other statistic to drop will incur penalties and risk death.

Banks

Found in every settlement on the island, as well as a few other places, Banks will hold your gold for you, and allow you to access it at any other bank. Any gold carried by your character will be lost upon death.

Transportation

Travelers on the island of Arelith have a variety of transportation methods available for rapid movement.

Portals

Portals allow characters to travel instantly to any other portal destination which has already been activated. Portal sources are few and far between, and destinations must be discovered before they can be used.

Boats

NPC operated boats travel on demand along the coast of Arelith, but each trip costs a fee, and only certain destinations have ports.

Caravans

NPC operated caravans travel at regular intervals along inland routes. Passage is less expensive than boat travel and more accessible than portal travel, but often involves waiting. Caravans also do not travel at night.

What To Do

You've made a character. You're wandering around the island. Now, what?

Adventuring

The island of Arelith, while small, is riddled with dungeons, caves, settlements, and other sorts of areas just begging to be explored. Gather up a party of adventurers and get out there! Remember to bring food, water, healing supplies, and some means of defending yourself.

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.” -J.R.R. Tolkien

Crafting

Arelith features a robust crafting system, which allows characters to turn gathered supplies into useful equipment, weapons, consumables, and objects, through the use of Crafting Fixtures. The crafting system consists of six tradeskills - Forging, Carpentry, Art Crafting, Alchemy, Cooking, and Tailoring - the products of which are easy to guess. As characters level up, they will earn points which can be invested, non refundably, into these tradeskills in order to achieve a greater chance of successfully crafting items.

Names & Descriptions

Using any crafting fixture or enchantment basin, players may rename and add descriptions to their crafted items.

Fixtures

Among the items which can be crafted are fixtures; objects that can be placed in the game world by characters, which persist across resets, allowing players to add detail to the world.

Enchanting

Arelith features an item enchantment system, which allows characters to add special properties, such as skills, stats, saves, and more, to items found in the module or created through the crafting system. More powerful properties will have a higher cost and a lower chance of success.

Property Ownership

Characters can spend gold to purchase properties, which can be used for a variety of purposes. Note that all properties will cost a certain amount of gold per in game month as upkeep, and each player (not each character) may only hold one of each property type. Properties must be visited regularly, or they will automatically go up for sale, and all of their contents will be free for the taking.

Shops

Shops are used to sell items to other characters. A price is set when an item is placed in the shop, after which any character may purchase it, regardless of whether the owner is logged in or not. Gold is automatically transferred to the owner's bank account.

Quarters & Guildhouses

Quarters and Guildhouses may be purchased by characters. Typically they are used as homes or meeting places, but their uses are limited only by imagination. Guildhouses are similar to quarters, but have other quarters within them, and are usually much larger.

Ships

Ships are very similar to quarters and guildhouses in their purpose, with the added benefit that they are capable of sailing to a number of ports on the island of Arelith, as well as exploring the other smaller island in the local archipelago. Ships are boarded via skiffs, which are found at whichever port the ship docked at last. Sailing is not without risk. Traveling to distant and dangerous destinations may attract the attention of pirates or other inhabitants of the sea.

Storage Chests

Most quarters, guildhouses, and ships (but not all) contain a storage chest. Some even contain two. Storage Chests can be used to store items across server resets. Only a certain number of items can be stored, and if a chest is overfilled, some of the items will be gone after the next reset.

Settlements

There are several settlements on Arelith's surface, each with its own culture. Settlements have citizens, leaders, and officers, but the larger a settlement grows, the more resources it requires to thrive.

Citizenship

Any character can choose to become a citizen of any settlement, for a price. Only citizens may vote for the next leader of a settlement. Depending on the laws of a given settlement, citizenship may offer other benefits.

Leadership

After a period of time from the last election, any citizen may challenge the leadership of a settlement, and initiate an election. Becoming the leader of a settlement comes with both power and responsibility. Settlement leaders may revoke citizenship, evict Player Characters from properties, and exile unwelcome characters. Leaders who abuse their power, or fail to effect positive change may find it difficult to win another election.

Resources

For each registered citizen, a settlement requires a fixed amount of resources of varied types. Resources can be brought, and either donated or sold, to the city, by Player Characters. If the resource quota is not met by the end of a year, the settlement is forced to purchase resources with gold at an enormous markup. If the treasury cannot accomodate a resource purchase, the settlement will go bankrupt, the leaders will be impeached, and new elections will begin.

Death

The eventual end for most characters. Or not!

Corpses

When a Player Character dies, he or she is transported to The Fugue to await final judgement. However, their corpse remains on The Prime Material Plane, and may be returned to life by another character with the appropriate skills and resources. More malicious characters may choose, instead, to destroy a corpse, to ensure that a foe will not be returned to life.

Respawning

If your companions are unable to revive your corpse, or if you simply have no friends, you may opt to respawn at a previously chosen Respawn Point, somewhere in the module. Respawning comes at a steep price. The gods do not perform favors for free, and will tax your character a piece of their soul for the service.

Epic Sacrifice

THE END. When your character's story has come to an end, you may choose to permanently delete them from the server vault , using the -delete_character console command. Be very careful when using this command, as 'characters which have been deleted can never be restored'. If your character is level 16 or above, you will have the chance to receive a Retirement Award, which can be used to apply bonuses and special characteristics to a new character.