Characters

[dregger3]

I have just started Ryzom and had a quick question about the skill system. It appears that everyone can be everything. Is that true. Is it a world of super tank mages that can find their materials and build a nice set of armor to boot? That is not necessarily a bad thing I just wanted to have an understanding.

Thank you

[chessack]

No, it's not a world of super tank mages. You can be anything you want, but you can't realistically be everything at once. To tank effectively you'd need heavy armor and some sort of a weapon. The weapon and the armor will both assess you an "action malus" or penalty. This penalty will slow down your spellcasting and will make spellcasting cost more "Sap" (magic endurance or mana). The difference in spellcast times just from say holding a 2H sword (with no armor) and being barehanded is rather extreme, and add magic amplifiers and it's even more so. I tried being a "fighter/magic-user" in the classic sense a bit and it just is not practical at all. Casting time is not workable other than maybe (maybe) to "pull" something (use a ranged attack to get its attention, then switch to melee to finish it off). In heavy armor even that would become impractical, I think. (I ended up pulling with taunt instead rather quickly.)

Also, you simply can't be everything just in terms of XP. I started out saying, "I will get to level 50 in every skill and then leave the island." I have been there 3 weeks.. I am not even close. I have 51 in melee fight, and 56 in forest forage... but I'm still in the 30s in the various crafting disciplines, 44 in offensive, and 22 in defensive magic. The skills branch as you go, and the XP you get is specific to the branch. You can only level defensive magic by doing defensive magic spells... offensive magic spells won't level it for you. As a result, if you wanted to level everything, it would take forever... so most people pick one sub-branch and specailize. Even within melee you'll have 1-handed, 2-handed, etc, specialists.

The game is well set up in that, you can be good at fighting and magic on the same character, but not really at the same time. If you want to heal for the party, you really need to do that -- wear light casting clothes, equip magical amplifiers, and focus on healing. Trying to do that and tank at the same time would be rather difficult (probably impossible).

C

[karmelit]

Yes it can be done, but I don't think you will find that many yet who have mastered most skill branches. It takes time.. and then some