MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION

RACES

There are many different races in Nanvaent, and every single one is playable as a cleric. The way to find the best races are to look at the hiscore tables. The race breakdown for the top 15 clerics is as follows: Centaur 6, Pegasus 5, Ent 2, Satyr 1 and Slann 1. You can no longer become a pegasus, and I would seriously advise against being an ent unless you are level 70 or more. Historically most clerics were centaurs, however dark elves have recently become popular because although they get crap wisdom bonus they get good overall stat bonuses, especially when special Dark elf armour is worn. Satyr, Giant, Slann, Minotaur, Sasquatch. Sasquatch, Minotaur, Centaur and Slann are all viable alternatives. Giants get crap wisdom bonuses, but they have the advantage of extra hitpoints and guildpoints. Satyrs have an increased gp recovery rate. Ents get excellent stat bonuses and a big wisdom boost. They also get lots of hitpoints and guild points so they make excellent healing machines. Unfortunately they are useless at fighting and are very susceptible to fire damage. Ents are best suited to level 90+ (when you have holy prayer of healing) and for teaming.

STATS

Players can become very obsessed with stats. This is a general guide to stats I would recommend. This advice is based on experience and not known formulae. If you know different please nanmail me! The stats you choose should be ones that suit your style of play. As a general rule they should not be excessively high or low. That said however, my stats as a player were: Strength : 30 Constitution : 21 Intelligence : 4 Wisdom : 22 Dexterity : -2 ! These stats suited me fine but would be utterly useless for a normal cleric. The best starting point is the stats which I recommend for newbies: Strength : 12 Constitution : 12 Intelligence : 10 Wisdom : 20 Dexterity : 12. Standard basic equipment for any cleric should be 2 rings (either spider rings +2 dexterity or obsidian rings +2 wisdom) a wisdom cloak (+1 wisdom) an amulet (either quest one, or if not available get a magical amulet of protection from the school of magic +1 constitution), some mail which will affect dexterity according to type and a magical staff or holy weapon. If you want to wear big mail and/or carry lots for selling purposes then you would be well advised to increase strength to 16 or 17. If you prefer going out fighting things solo, and only heal yourself, I would advise reducing constitution a bit and increasing dexterity up to 14. This will make your offensive prayers better, and also improve symbols and staff skills so you can do more damage with your weapon. If you prefer to get your xp mainly by healing other things then I would suggest reducing strength (don't bother with mail) and increase intelligence to 14 and constitution to 17 ish. This will improve your healing skill and also give you more guild points. Unless you are a newbie with few magical items I certainly wouldn't recommend a wisdom of less than 20. The optimum wisdom range I have found is 21-24. Above this the small increases in skills are not worth it, and higher increases could be obtained by increasing intelligence for example. Below it bonuses to faith skills are just inadequate.

WEAPONS

Weapons available to clerics are either unarmed (in the case of ent, pegasus and wolf), faith staves, and enchanted weapons. Clerics can also use non bladed weapons e.g. war hammers, but their effectiveness is based on fighting skills. At higher levels faith will be much higher than fighting skills so these weapons are less useful. One-handed non sharp weapons e.g. maces, hammers and morning stars can be enchanted using prayer of weapon enchantment so that their effectiveness is based on faith.symbols rather than fighting skills. Fire and Ice staves level 1-3 available from the Drow smith. Fire and Ice level 1-5 and Electric level 4-5 are available from the cleric shop in Mimbre. Fire and Ice level 1-2 and Electric level 1-3 are available from the cleric shop in Shamaroth. Other specialist cleric weapons include the staff of Gharyna, the Bishop of Grudul's sceptre and a holy caduceus.

ARMOUR

The armour you use depends on your style of play really. As a newbie you really don't need any armour. Basic starter armour is steel scale mail, elven steel chain mail, steel chain mail or steel plate mail. Steel plate mail offers the best protection of these, but is also very heavy and has a -2 dexterity penalty so already you will need a decent strength and dexterity to wear it. Standard mail for higher level clerics are rarer and harder to obtain: elven steel plate mail and adamantite plate mail. Elven steel plate mail affords good protection and is relatively light and has no dexterity penalty. Adamantite plate mail is a bit better but is more heavy and has a -1 dexterity penalty. The best available is adamantite full plate armour, but is very heavy and has a -3 dexterity penalty. If you are a dark elf the best compromise is drow plate mail.

SHRINES

Scattered around Nanvaent are shrines that enable devout followers of Aslonnadh to quickly meditate prayers. To use the shrines "supplicate" at them. Their effectiveness is based on faith.symbols.scroll

• Barkskin - Zorraneon Forest: ne;ne;n;n;n;n;n;ne;n;n;n;n;n;n;nw;n;nw;n;n;nw;ne;nw;nw;nw;w;w;sw;w;n;n;nw;ne;n;n;nw;n;n;n;n;nw;n;n;n;n;n from Nan C.

• Cure Light Wounds - Wuzzie Temple: w;w;w;w;w;w;w;sw;sw;sw;w;sw;s;se;se;se;e;se;s;u;u;s;w;s from Nan C.

• Cure Critical Wounds - Twee: w;sw;sw;w;w;ne;ne;ne;n;n;ne;ne;n;n;e;se;e;se;d;e;e;u;s;se;se;e;n;n;n;w;n;n;n;n;n;nw;n;nw;n from Cidri stones, then go east as far as possible then sw.

• Charm of Holding - Bootlegger area: ne;ne;n;n;n;n;n;ne;n;n;n;n;n;n;nw;n;nw;n;n;nw;ne;nw;nw;nw;w;w;sw;s;sw;s;s;path from Nan C.

• Prayer of Flame Blade - Drow smith: w;w;nw;w;s;e;d;d;s;w from Drow Portal

• Cure Serious Wounds - Woodland temple south of Cidri Planes: w;sw;sw;e;s;se;e;s;s;s;s;s;s;s;s;e;se;s;s;s;s;se;enter temple from Cidri stones.

• Cause Critical Wounds - Evil Cathedral: e;e;e;n;e;n;w;n from Shamaroth City Centre.

• Charm of Pacification - Nazca army camp - Explore and Discover!

• Holy Prayer of Healing - Corpus - Explore and Discover!

AUTOMATIC TRIGGERS

You may notice that some clerics will automatically heal or bless another player. This is done by aliasing prayers as soul commands which are elicited by another soul command.

An example. If you ping somebody then they will ack at you. To get it so that everyone that pings you will get a heal from you
type: "alias ack recite prayer of cure light wounds"

ALIGNMENT

Alignment in Nanvaent ranges from utter evil to perfect goodness. If you are evil then you cannot use shrines to supplicate and you cannot pray at the cidri hospice. There is however a shrine in the drow temple which you can use - should you be brave enough to enter!

ADVANCING AND TACTICS

There are two ways of advancing. The first is relatively even advancing, the second is overmaxing. When overmaxing a primary subskill is advanced to 100 then advanced over 100 by advancing backwards up the tree, e.g. sharp or blunt for a fighter, unarmed for a wolf, offensive for a wizard. A cleric wanting to overmax staff for example would advance staff to 100, then symbols to 100 then faith to 100. This results in a much higher subskill at the end of the day, but it takes a lot longer to advance in this way because more xp is required, and xp is generally harder to obtain. Also skill bonuses above level 100 are only 1/10 so level 150 staff is only equivalent to level 105 in real terms. To get good fighting xp the npc must consider tougher than you. Fighting xp consists of damage xp and a "kill bonus". If you overmax then in general terms it means you have to fight monsters over level 100 to get half decent fighting xp. There is some good news however. Healing xp and burying xp do not depend upon the target's consider. You always get 200xp for a bury, and you get about 1xp per hp healed on another player. This way you can follow a fighter. Kill something that considers really weak, but still get decent xp for healing them! The best player for a cleric to team with is a barbarian. A decent barb will have over 9000hp, and at 1xp per hp healed that means lots of xp for you because although barbs dish out lots of damage, they also take plenty. I have addicts in every guild and people often ask me how I advance so quickly. The trick is to choose your targets carefully and to advance evenly, i.e. don't advance subskills more than 10 levels above overall level and kill only things that consider tougher than you. As a cleric newbie I'd suggest starting off in the skuzzie tree, then at level 10 try draemar and cidri. At level 15 you get barkskin charm. Haldarc is a good place to visit. Once you get to level 35 you get charm of holding enabling you to kill much harder things. Try drow, copperlake bears, dwarf warriors, cidri, elven warriors in mhaolain, Grudul guards. Once you get to level 90 the fun really begins. You can get good xp by teaming with a fighter, especially a barbarian. Get them to protect you, and heal them in return. If you can get a forester to join in all the better... unlimited guild points with a decent fire! Try legion types like darac hordes and drow legions. If you find yourself often running out of guild points, consider becoming a satyr, use the cidri hospice to pray for guild points (you can do this a limited number of times), get potions of energy from Athenae (guild potions are crap because your magic skills are not developed). Don't forget to advance fighting.points to increase your hitpoints. Don't waste time meditating - use the shrines. But most important of all, which ever method or methods you use... have fun!