All right, experts.

Alright, experts, I'm one of those people that gets loads of characters in the 20-30 range, and then either gets pissed off and deletes from a mob death or gets bored and stops playing the character (generally also from a mob death). Now, I know that's ridiculous, but the only relevance it has is this: I 've never has a character at 50. Shame, shame. But, aha, I feel it coming guys. I'm almost 29, training, and this time I'm going all the way. What I need, though, is pk advice. I can run like crazy, but anything else would be appreciated.

I only recently getting better at PK so the most basic advice is this (you are going to hear this alot). Make sure you are prepared all the way, if not then flee and try and prepare. Depending on what class you are get the scroll/potions/staves/wands and what not. Make sure you are flying, Protection from said alighnment, and sancturary and potions of recall. If they get the jump on you and you feel you are not ready FLEE, prepare and get the jump on them.

This is from personal and advice from people. Any others may add to it and disagree if they want. My pk skill are improve abit and is mostly because of what I said before.

Have vials, gyvels, flights, recalls, backup weapons, and whatever other little boosts to your armor and general fighting ability you can.

buy a tiger.

buy me ima tiger! rawr!

My advice is learn how to track first, all the pk skill in the world isn't going to help you if you can't catch them.

While tracking, you don't have to stay on there toes, you just have to stay in the same area. Start a pk in Drkshtyre? They run to valmiran, run to the south square, spam where a few times till you see which direction they goto from central square, run to cs and check where one more time, then follow them out the gate they go. Think of minor check points to stop at and do where's at.

As far as pk advice, the essay section has a bunch of information from Viri and Layabout, well worth the read.

From me, I give this advice, make a human warrior, master only the defenses, then power rank to 50, don't join a cabal, don't go for a quest race, just power rank to 50 and attack the hell out of anything that moves. Odds are you will die a lot, and long before you are considered a mass pker, you will have pissed everyone off enough that you won't need to attack them anymore, they will search for you. Since you are a human the power ranking isn't as long, since you are a warrior most people will want you for a tank. Also, being a warrior forces you to rely on potions to compete, so you learn lots about how to suplement your character, also you are very equipment dependant so it forces you to learn where the equipment is.

WC

I never thought of that. That's a really good idea. Maybe I'll do human something else though...My forte is thieves, but I don't think that would help me, cause I would never try to pk, I'd just annoy the heck out of people. I'll have to think about it.

Thieves aren't a bad idea either, just make it easier to avoid pk. but does teach timing and preperation a bit better.

WC

Thieves require a lot of training to be good, and they are also hunted like nobodies business. Id say try a human cleric, but #1 WC is right about warriors in that it will force you to learn about locations of stuff, and #2 I never rolled a cleric either so who am I to tell you too.

A human, evil cleric will let you kill most things, always be a hit at parties, and that way you can ID things, so you know what to wear when you play that warrior. Personally, I like them because I hate gathering vials and such. And if you do go try to PK like nobody's business, you get a damage bonus to your Path, eventually. Not to mention if you start to do badly, you can always minister them and run away.

What about a feral cleric? Any thoughts on the subject? I know the weakness to fire is killer, but how about it?

Rheydik was a feral cleric. I dont think fire bothered him much shiver

You might try a feral warrior. I always wanted to see one in action.

Away from specific advise I'd say go read LA - basic PK essay..Don't just read it, learn the Bugger...every time I lose a PK I go back to that essay..re-read it and go DOH! THATS WHAT I DID WRONG!

I've played too many invokers that walked over ferals to seriously recommend them as anything but a rogue. But that's just my personal opinion. I have yet to lose to a feral.

I figured with fury they would have half a chance, combined with some serious saves vs afflictive that is.

They do.

Especially blademaster.

Even a feral ranger with high afflictive saves can put a serious, serious hurting on an invoker.

Warrior...dual flails and fury, with high afflictive saves.

For sheer survivability, try a halfling BM if you don't care for caster types.

You get some lags skills, some lag protection, and massive AC due to your high DEX.

To get a basic understanding of PK, I'm gonna say Human Paladin, Good balance of Melee plus communing power. Once you have the basics down I return to Virigoth's Advice..Human DK, I know there not necessarily as strong as they might be atm, but still an excellent class to learn pk with. With easy routes into 'RPABLE PK' rather than just mindless PK.

We've all been there.

Here's my advice:

Learn the lands.

1. Learn the cities by playing a thief and running people down by WHERE instead of SCAN.
2. Learn the world by playing a character that can survive.

Learn equipment.

1. Learn where gear is with that exploration character.
2. Learn what gear does by playing a character with IDENTIFY.

Learn how to survive.

1. Learn to keep the basic "survival gear".
2. Learn how to run. It goes back to knowing the land.

Learn how to fight.

1. Log all your fights.
2. If you can't log your fights, expand your memory so you can cut and paste.
3. Log all your fights.
4. Find the style that fits you: Warrior/zerker vs. invoker/bmg vs cleric/shaman vs. thief/ninja vs. dkn/paladin.
5. LOG ALL YOUR FIGHTS. And then read them.

Survivable/exploration/learning characters have several things in common:

Can create food and/or water.

Are usually neutral.

Have a "special advantage" or two. Special advantages cut into combat power (for balance) but it is worth it.

Examples:

Human/stone/feral ranger:

1. Can butcher corpses.
2. Can camo. Few rangers hunt rangers.
3. Has pets. They're great for taking hits while you run away.

Avian invoker

1. Create food. Create water. Create spring.
2. Neutral.
3. Sanc, pro shield, flight, recall. Who is going to kill you?

Here's the dirty secret:

None of this matters if you aren't into your character. I must have created, written descriptions for, and played at least 1000 characters on FL. Only 10% make it above lvl 10. Only a couple have made it to 50. I've had vamps I couldn't get to 50. I started playing FL like 6 years ago maybe. (It was the November after it opened.) For all that playing, the only characters I've had that anyone MIGHT remember is Myrek (almost deleted, but kept cuz I liked the rp), Llyros (kept for a neat rp angle), Wicanna (got to keep your first vamp), Ahmose (didn't last long once cabaled), Abacien (flame bait thief that never made it to 40).

Play until you find the character that you like enough to not delete, to properly train, to fully develop and flesh out. Once you find that character, your skill will increase because you will sink the work into making it increase.

That will be 10 dollars please.

Here's two freebies:

Learn to love dying because 1. You will die and 2. Pissing and moaning about it won't help you any.

Get zMud if you play from a personal computer.