Noncombat guide

[Malek]

Verbing is a thing of the past!

No, not really, but I do think a non combat playstyle is a completely valid and even extremely powerful way to play! In the current state of the game, I think this goes somewhat overlooked so I wanted to provide a lil guide (and by lil I mean I'm probably going to flood this with posts even though no one cares) detailing my perspective on this playstyle and little bits to inspire you if you decide to pick it up. Note, I currently play Taipan Lewra at the time of making this guide, and I had ONE character prior that I didn't even play for a whole in game year I'm pretty sure... so I'm generally inexperienced, but I think even if I get things wrong on the state of the game this can at least offer some inspiration for characters or development paths, most of my experience comes from playing like this in tabletop games and westmarches so I think it can hopefully help. 

also I'm sorry I don't know how to make my posts visually appealing I literally went on cooltext.com 


Let's get this straight, noncombat doesn't mean "no combat" , it doesn't mean "no risk", or "no antagonism" and it also certainly doesn't mean "sit around your friendly territory and just be a heal/craft bot". 

Noncombat, to me at least, is just a playstyle where instead of focusing on building your own stats and hidden portfolio or winning rpbs, you instead prioritize social navigation, resource acquiring and production, and creating interesting noncombat solutions to the problems you face. 

"Oh so it's just rping good and thinking outside the box?" Kind of, but also not really. Any character can put the noncombat mindset to use... but I think it's extremely effective when you BUILD around it. To me, noncombat is kind of its own combat tree if you're actually willing to spec into it. You can do some really cool things that I think are just straight up impossible if the majority of your character is verb centric. 

This playstyle is viable even if you're a good verber... but I do not think you can truly follow through with this while also INTENTIONALLY picking and winning fights all the time, the implication here is that your character focuses less on fighting to prioritize everything surrounding fights, when you sacrifice your fighting capabilities I personally feel you can accomplish much more (and if that's not the case, I think it should be).


A very obvious reason to pursue this path is to cover your own weaknesses/interests as a player. You might be too laggy to verb, it might make you anxious, or you could be worried your combat build is going to fall out of meta and not keep up with your ic. From what I've seen, a lot of players run into the issue of losing a lot of fights and feeling that it makes their character feel useless. With noncombat, that's just your character working as intended, and if you don't rp yourself as a fearsome and undefeatable foe in terms of combat prowess and raw magical power you don't become disappointed when the young teenager with the exalted stance two rounds you. 

The BEST reason however is that there's a lot of people that generally find these playstyles interesting and you might be one of them. If you've ever played D&D you'd probably know there's two types of people, ones that are really into stat minmaxing and enjoy telling people about how much damage their build can do and another group that loves playing a chef or a bard that only picks up utility rituals and would love to tell you about the amazing plan they hatched to get their party out of trouble. I think these are both valid ways to play, but I fit into the latter category, and I think a lot of people enjoy having the latter type of characters around as well. 

Also keep in mind, just because you're noncombat doesn't mean you're noneffective. At least in my opinion. If you play noncombat you are just as (if not more in the current meta tbh) capable at defeating and capturing your enemies as an experienced verber. 

Keep in mind, noncombat characters can't replace combat characters OR vice versa. They compliment each other.

Before we begin, please know that not everything here is necessary to run a noncombat character! You can run an incredibly effective and strong noncombat character and playstyle literally through social navigation alone. Does it really matter if you can't fight or craft if you're the king of Osrona? If you can create fun, effective, and creative plans then you can play a good noncombat character. Also, just because I'm going to go over the crafting trees doesn't mean you have to max out all your gathering and crafting skills to function well. Generalization of skills implies lack of specialization, being both an artificer and alchemist allows you to create unique and fun items that mix the two, but I would always assume a sole practitioner is going to develop more experience in their field than a dual practitioner. If that doesn't make sense to you, keep reading. You'll understand my thought process as I go over everything. 

The one thing to keep in mind is your character should probably have a schtick, it's important to decide this schtick at creation. 

Something that makes them unique, something they have or will have that other people will want, and that they can only get (or can only get at the best quality) from YOU. "I want to play an alchemist!" is going to get less done than "I want to play a grenadier! Someone that specializes in making bombs and explosives!". "I want to play a medic!" is going to get less done than "I want to specialize in curse application and removal!". 


This refers to the spell trees you're going to invest your RPP into. "Wait" you say, "RPP spells are mostly just combat abilities, unless you just want me to pick up healing ones?"

Wrong. One, like I said just because you're noncombat doesn't mean you're combat immune. You're still going to have to fight when people ask, and it doesn't hurt to be able to defend yourself (but if you want to play a character that CAN'T defend themselves I think that's also a neat angle to pursue). More importantly however, the magic you invest in describes what your character can do.

This is going to be a common theme for this guide. FLUFF will ALWAYS trump stats, always prioritize your fluff and aesthetics over stats.

So what should you pick? It depends entirely on your schtick. If you want to be an alchemist extraordinaire, bio attunement and spells should help. Producing fun poisons should be easy for a poison mage that can literally command and alter venomous liquids and gases. Wanna build robots? Metal and lightning get you partly there... but what if you picked up metaphysical attunement to try and create a consciousness for it?

When you build for non combat it's going to mostly be conceptual. Currently I'm playing a metaphysics mage, illusion, shadow, light. Being attuned and specialized so heavily in the metaphysical means I can probably try to expand my repertoire into a completely uncharted metaphysical territory, 'law' and through it I'm trying to create a niche for my character that does not yet exist. On top of that, as an alchemist and artificer, I use my spells to my advantage, by using illusions to magnify the visual size of objects and then commanding pitch blackness with shadow magic and using light magic to shine on it for perfect contrast, becoming a walking microscope essentially. This lets me justify extreme chemistry, as well as analyzing energy that's invisible for the eye to see. All magic can be used creatively this way, fire? No one can melt metals like you can, you can create incredible self sustaining sources of fuel, same with lightning, wind, and water. Sound? The effect music has on us is undeniable, mastery and understanding of sound can let you make tools and music that empower others or even influence their minds. 

Basically, though you can function with any magic build... tailoring your magic to your fluff rather than doing the reverse is not only easier, but I think it lets you justify a lot more. Don't pick the most meta exalted hiddens. Yes the stance/aura combo is busted right now, but if you pick up runecasting? That cements your character as a rune master, you can justify doing a lot more with runes. Golemancy? So many projects you can make. When you're going noncombat, pick your hiddens to support your schtick. A benefit to noncombat is that you stop building characters to follow a meta, you build them for your aesthetics and reap the rewards. 

It never hurts to have more skills, but it also never hurts to specialize like I said in the introduction to the build section. I'm going to go over what you can get, their benefits, and the cool stuff you can do with them. 

Artifice: Oh artifice is first because it's the best right? That's how you make unique items. It's how you make uniques, and if you wanna make something really cool you need artifice yeah? No. Artifice is good, it's great, and has a lot of potential, but that's no reason to sleep on any of the rest. Everyone has an idea of how good artifice is, so I gotta talk it down unfortunately. For one, I don't think only artificers can app for uniques or dev items, I think this is a misconception. If I'm wrong about this then I would hope this changes immediately. I'm going to go over how good everything else is to explain why artifice shouldn't be overvalued, but for now I'll tell you why artifice is great and why it may be worth picking up. 

I don't need to talk about the in game benefits, there's a basic recipe list of stuff you can reliably make and by now you should all be familiar with them and the fact that you can make money with them. I'll just explain what artificing entails and what I think it can do for your character. There's 4 aspects (to me at least) with artifice. 

These are smithing, technology, structures, and runewriting. An artificer is typically going to be pretty capable at producing all of these, but you BENEFIT (at least I hope) from specializing. If you get runic inscription on your unique from a character that SPECIALIZES in it then I think that ought to (and hopefully does) produce better results, and runewriting is unbelievably versatile fluff-wise. Similarly, focusing on technology/magi-tech should mean you can create items with more complex circuitry and maybe expand to making robots or drones or things of similar nature. Structure items are rare but INCREDIBLY slept on, because a structure is locked to a certain place that means you lose it if that place is taken over, and I think admins value that added risk in your item and let you create more meaningful and powerful things that way.  

All in all artifice is incredibly versatile, it could be worth picking up depending on your character, there's usually going to be SOME physical components to your projects if they're not all consumables and that's where artifice shines. The main benefit everyone sees with artificing is that it's easier to justify unique production since most characters use traditional manufactured weapons like swords, guns, and staves... but as I'll discuss later, uniques are highly overrated. 

Alchemy: very very slept on. I rarely ever see any unique alchemy projects, it's always artifice. People do still pick up alchemy, but they never look past the apparent in game benefits. Yes it's a nice money maker right now, but thinking purely in terms of what is CURRENTLY mechanical is boring. You are a crafter, the possibilities are limitless. 

As an alchemist, you are likely going to be creating consumables. People sleep on consumables, why would you ever make them over something like a unique that will permanently boost your character's power? It's because since consumables are one and done uses, you can likely justify an extreme bonus. One item I've seen in game is a dev item smoke bomb that allows you to get a 9999 flee roll, but the item is lost immediately afterwards. This is cool, for a one and done consumable item you can escape ONE encounter with FULL guarantee. This can save your character's life, having it on hand can completely change a terrible situation to have it favor you. Consumables can get A LOT done if you're smart with their creation and their application. Magibane is unbelievably slept on, and a dedicated alchemist can create way more potent and interesting poisons as well. 

Still, just because you're an alchemist doesn't mean you HAVE to create consumables. We already see true flights and alchemist's eyes. With enough development and ingredients, I don't see why you can't produce alchemical potions that will permanently affect your character. Alchemy knowledge can also help with unique crafting, oils and poisons to coat your weapons with. 

You can do SO much with alchemy, it's insane. Poisons, potions, remedies, mutagens, smoke bombs, gas bombs, homunculi, elemental weapon oils, grenades, explosives... please do more alchemy projects they're so fun.

Cooking: What? Cooking? That's not a crafting thing is it? You just cook once every five hours and max out your cooking energy. Regardless of where you're at, you can produce food of the same stat quality as everyone else too if you just get lucky. 

Wrong. I think cooking is also just generally unexplored. Sure the current system might not be the best, I'm not entirely a fan of the energy progression system or how most of the food feel samey and you don't feel as rewarded for being a dedicated chef, to most it's just a big money maker. I don't think it has to be though. 

Like I said, the idea that only artificers can make dev items should be treated as a misconception imo. Same with "Only artificers or alchemists can make dev items". Why can't you, as a 100% energy chef gather a bunch of ingredients and try to make a custom dish to submit as a dev item?

The same thing I said about consumables in the alchemy section applies here. You should be able to make some very powerful cocktails and foods if you can think of an interesting enough unique buff and develop and apply for it as a dev item. 

Edit, I got confirmation that not only is this possible, it has been done and has even created repeatable in game recipes you can dev towards. We wanna see more unique foods n drinks, chefs! Here's some example apps: https://chronicles-of-esshar.com/forum/s...00#pid8600 https://chronicles-of-esshar.com/forum/s...3#pid38743 https://chronicles-of-esshar.com/forum/s...8#pid44658

If you want to play a master chef or master drink mixer then go all out, imbue your stuff with some magic and rare ingredients and make the most delectable and also useful dishes and drinks you can. You can change cooking forever (and hopefully make it less hated).

Gathering Skills: Mining, fishing, and farming are the only skills with actual in game progression systems (though they're sorta cooking style in they're just do x become better at x). Despite this, I've actually never seen a mining, fishing, or farming centric character. It's Lumberjacks that I've seen the most of (2 to be exact) despite wood having little uses, only having one type, there being no progression system, and wood selling for almost nothing. I actually absolutely love that, so I'm going to include woodcutting here, possibly foraging as well. 

If you want to delve into the uncharted territory of making a dedicated gatherer, I don't see why not. Surely Malek isn't going to suggest unique/dev item crafting with GATHERING skills is he? He is. I might be a little insane, but I do not see why a legendary fisherman can't submit a dev item app listing the perfect combination of bait with sugarcaps to sweeten the bait, and glowshrooms to attract the fish on top of their A tier fishing rod dev item to start catching dev item unique fish, going on an event to hunt down a mythical fish monster, then combining your dev item fish together to create the perfect bait to fish out a particular and incredibly stealthy swordfish, then using that swordfish as your unique weapon. I might be a little crazy yeah, but in terms of a progression I think that's a fun concept. 

That should sort of give you the idea of what you can do. We already have mythical metals, why can't miners opt to apply for dev items with hundreds of their ores to acquire an incredibly pure and potent version of it? If you've got 200 pieces of Tyrium from your mining and your character is mining centric, why not use them as ingredients for 99.6% purity tyrium as with so much mining of the metal PLUS your skill in it you could have been able to extract such a rare and pure version of the metal, one so pure it sucks all the mana out of the entire room and needs to be safely contained for handling by magi. 

Lumberjacks should be able to app for rarer and rarer woods and go on events for them, ones with magical properties, such as spirit infused wood and such, and make dev items through woodcarving and structure building. A lumberjack can perhaps make magical totem dev items, the sky should be the limit. 

Farming is especially cool to me, go on an event to acquire a rare seed or roleplay cross-pollinating the crops/flowers you have to create a new and cool breed. Farming created unique items are really cool to me because you can justify them gaining power by how much time you leave them for before apping, occasionally stopping by to have roleplay scenes where you care for the crop and nurture it, you can list the years this crop has been growing for as part of your materials and having a magic crop that takes a large and SPECIFIC amount of in game years to properly grow will likely justify a better reward. Rock the druid lifestyle. 

Don't sleep on gathering centric characters either. Also, yes I know that pretty much everyone passively levels their gathering skills to extreme levels, but if your character clearly isn't a miner and you don't dev them as such, you have much less room to ask for more when you app for these kinds of things. 

this part below is going to have horizontal rules because for some reason line breaks don't work I'm FUMING you have no idea how angry I am 

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Existing hidden professions: Medic, White Magic, Fleshcrafting. I don't need to explain their noncombat value, that's what they're for. I love these skills, Fleshcrafting especially, and I think professions should follow a similar progression path to it and possibly require a similar level of sacrifice and development. I don't need to explain why these skills work and what you can do with them, except Medic, which I currently thing isn't used as well as it could be, I'll also touch on how you can be more creative with Fleshcrafting and White Magic. 

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Medics are cool, I like em. I love em, but at the moment people seem to pick up medic to be a heal bot when necessary. I think this is fine! Though if you're dedicating your character to being a medic, you can do a lot more than simply use the in game trauma kits. Being a medic implies intimate knowledge of the body, and how to fix it up. This includes getting rid of foreign agents in the body such as chemicals, or even completely metaphysical ones such as lingering illusions or mana. There is no reason you can't use that information. 

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You know full well how the body works, if a character wanted to create augments that can enhance player's bodies, I think medic is actually the best for this instead of artificer. An artificer can follow the schematics a medic creates, but would they necessarily know how to enhance the body without destroying it without having knowledge of medicine or alchemy? I don't personally think so. 

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Also, as it stands medics can heal any type of injury... but I think there is something to be gained from refusing to heal certain types of injuries, justifying that it is not your specialty. I'm considering picking up medic, but if I do I'll make it explicitly clear that I can only heal minor physical afflictions, and that my specialty is metaphysical injuries and lingering curses. If you want to make dev items that can get rid of specific perms for example, I think that specialization and self imposed debuff can go a long way. I hope that by doing this, I can justify my character healing those types of injuries better than others.

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You would also gain better knowledge of how to afflict them. You are a fantasy character in a world with some very messed up individuals... the Hippocratic Oath is more of a Hippocratic Suggestion. Heal enough curses and you might be able to find out how to ritually create some. 

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For Fleshcrafting and White Magic, you don't necessarily have to do what's on the tin. (A lot easier for White Magic since I don't think much is on the tin at the moment). Fleshcrafting, similar to medic, should give you intricate knowledge of how the body works and how to modify it. Creating ECs shouldn't be the only thing you can do, you can also work on projects to mold and enhance the bodies of the living, giving them mutant traits. I'm not actually too sure on the lore and IC for White Magic, I genuinely don't actually know how it works but uhhhhhh make an angel. I'm sure you can do it if you try, good luck buddy.

 

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New Profession Hiddens: What if you wanna make a completely unique character that's never been seen before in Esshar? Well you can already do that with everything that exists, like I said there's unbelievably amounts of untapped potential. But what if that's not enough? What if you want to make your own hiddens? Well... you can. I wasn't around back then, but I believe Fleshcrafting wasn't a thing until Nidaz right? Or at least it wasn't there back when I played my first character I don't think. 

Making new combat abilities is a bit iffy, it takes coding, spriting, intense balancing, and generally any hidden you wanna make can likely already exist well enough as a resprite of another hidden. I think this is slightly different to profession/noncombat hiddens. 

For one, if you structure your profession well enough, then you usually don't need coding, or spriting. You will need balance regardless of course, but it's less resource intensive if you just make use of already existing features in an interesting way. An example is the current profession I'm trying to make, Contract Binding. 

 

It might not be accepted, but I think it offers a nice guideline if you want to create your own hidden profession in SOME areas. Balance might be iffy, but luckily it doesn't need much coding or spriting since it makes use of already existing game mechanics. That's how I want you to think if you're considering making a new profession. For contract binding, all that's needed is player trust, and the in game Paper and Signatures and normal dev item crafting, these are existing systems so you don't force admins to work to implement it for you. This applies to crafting in general. A consumable item that gives you a flee roll of 9999 doesn't really NEED to have an admin spend time coding it in, just make it. Give it the description and get it approved, you don't need to PHYSICALLY change your flee roll, other players can look at the item description and accept it and you can give it to an admin instead of coding in that the item is a consumable. 

Edit, Contract Binding has been approved! What it can currently do is in this post, https://chronicles-of-esshar.com/forum/s...?tid=10420 . If you wanna use it on your own noncombat character, dev towards it or have Taipan Lewra teach you as at the time of this edit he's the only one that knows how.

This might not be accepted, and I might be missing balancing issues, and that's all entirely fine. I still think things can be learned from it, mainly as I stated being less resource intensive, but there are some philosophies you can also apply to your own stuff. For one, contracts highly value player consent, I'm hoping it would be very difficult to unknowingly mess up a character through them considering by definition they can not affect a player without them WILLINGLY signing them, and the lore puts measures against trying to fool a player into signing something then going "haha you're fucked now". When you make your hidden, think of how it affects other players and how it can ruin their fun if you leave it unchecked. If you make a "curse creation" hidden profession for example, at least put measures to make it fair so you can't pile on permanent injuries on people long distance without a fight. Make it so that if you want to place curses on people you have to acquire locks of their hair, capture them and keep them in captivity for a certain period of time, etc., the more you want to accomplish, the more opportunities you should leave for players to either disengage with your systems or counter them.

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It seems after a certain while your post stops having line breaks even if you put them in, so I've split the first post into these two! This is the continuation of the first post. 

Here's another example of a hidden profession I'm not going to make or apply for, to hopefully spark your own imagination. 


Bardic Arts - I believe we have had (and still do have) a number of bard characters, it's a bit sad though that what bard means is essentially "I picked up the sound tree". Here's a little progression system for what a Bard profession could be like. 
Beginner: Performer's Guile, with this you can use your charisma to calm the nerves of those around you. Essentially just hex, except it's limited to giving people an influence to cease aggressions for the moment, justifying not needing essence for it. As it stands plenty of people already ignore impulses brought on by hex (They shouldn't without good reason, unless it's an unbelievably cheap hex like "you should kill yourself NOW"), people can justify why this impulse doesn't apply to the current situation, but it can be a handy tool to get an enemy to maybe back off you or your friends if their ic beef isn't that high. You can make it only applicable on the same person once per year to prevent abuse too. Also, "The ability to aid in Bard's performances", which is a feature that'll be explained later, but it's generally handy to allow beginners to aid the more experienced so that they can get their own development. 


Intermediate: Bard's Performance, similarly to how you make dev items or uniques, you can instead dev for a public event. Through this event, everyone that attends will be given a buff. The details of the buff are going to depend on how much effort and development you're willing to put into this event as well as your own skill as a bard. Get artificers to make disco lights, get other bards to help you, and get chefs to make unique dev item foods and drinks that will be consumed upon event completion to empower the buff people receive. This will be the "meat" of the bard, factions will want to hire you when they want to have events, if war is coming they'll want to have a bard's rousing performance to empower and inspire their men to action. Say Osrona is going to finally try to eliminate the dreadwoods, they can request bards to help make a preparatory speech that'll empower their knights by granting them some occult def for the next 5 years to cover the duration of the war. The stats you want are going to need to be apped for, and SIGNIFICANTLY deved for of course, and I'm going to assume they're going to be temporary. A performance that grants a permanent buff to attendees might not be out of the question... but I'm going to assume it's going to be the culmination of a bard's life at mythic tier. 


Master: Bardic Inspiration & Vicious Mockery, if a bard witnesses a fight, they can support their allies and inhibit their enemies in more ways than just fighting alongside them. By ANNOUNCING that they are aiding their ally in this way, a bard can grant their ally a +1 on their injury/capture rolls on their defeat, or grant their enemy a -1 on their injury/rolls on their victory. Yes, this is a luck potion and the inverse which usually requires an event, however it's one the bard can not apply to themselves, and they NEED to be present to apply it. Remember, this is MASTER tier. At this point Fleshcrafters can freely produce ECs. Still, I agree, it is too strong as it stands, which is why we start incorporating counterplay. Let us say this feature can be interrupted through successful intervenes, you can't flee when you attempt to use it, and you can't actually apply it unless you WIN the fights (every intervene you are forced to accept, so up to 3) that try and stop you from using it. This allows players to counter your ability. If this isn't enough, we'll also make it so that in the case of bardic inspiration (giving your ally a +1), the VICTOR can choose to attack you, and if they win the bardic inspiration doesn't apply. We can also say this feature doesn't have any effect on cap 0s, so you can't +1 a cap 0 encounter to capture an enemy that agreed to a cap 0. Might still be strong, but remember that if you put equivalent amount of dev into fleshcrafting you acquire the permanent ability to create your own ECs. Wanna decrease strength more? Let's say you can't apply it on the same people more than once per in game year. Also, being a master implies you can produce BETTER bard's performances and so can ask for better stats. 


Mythic: If a character reaches Mythic stage of a profession, THAT'S their character. They're a culmination of that occupation, one that's going to be forever talked about in legends, if you're not using your profession to shake the world and create some interesting things and events, you oughta! For Fleshcrafting, I thiiiiink you straight up gain immortality. That's pretty neat. Keep in mind not all professions have to be equal, we don't necessarily need bardic immortality, keep in mind that when you dev for fleshcrafting you are taking SIGNIFICANTLY more risks than when you put on concerts or art galleries, you're either acquiring dead bodies or making them, spooky stuff. A good idea for a Mythic ability for a bard would be a charm right? We have charm potions, why not let bards be able to apply that on people? I think it could be good temporarily, but the issue is if your profession comes with abilities, you usually want them to be things everyone in your profession would be willing to use. Being able to essentially mind control people as a bard could be fitting, if you're playing an evil bard, but 'bard' doesn't really scream evil like Fleshcrafting does, and DESPITE how evil fleshcrafting is IC, abilities to create ECs isn't inherently evil. You notice how I never mention MUSIC, although that's what you'd expect for a bard? It's because by not doing that, you can have more variety in your bards, you can have painters, interior decorators, public speakers, practically any art that requires some level of charisma. So for our Mythic ability... How about Magical Secrets? You get a 'hidden slot', by studying the magic of others you can replicate it through your own art, your music can produce magical effects, your paintings can come to life, and by doing a short scene to study another player's hidden, you can use your hidden slot to match them. So if someone has runecasting, a Mythic bard can do a short scene where they study them, and then Ahelp to receive the runecasting hidden in the place of their slot. The bard can study another's hidden spell, say occult nullification, and replicate it, replacing the runecasting hidden in their hidden slot with it, specifically ahelping to remove runecasting and replace it with occult nullification. Remember, this is the CULMINATION of a bard's life so we can go a bit haywire, and I don't think this is too crazy. It might not match thematically with what we currently have, but when I think bard I think D&D bard in terms of being a jack of all trades and having incredible versatility. Honestly the real meat of reaching Mythic would be just the title, yes, the title, because you can ask for some incredibly unique Bard's Performance buffs and work on your own bard dev items and projects and be allowed way more free reign. Magical Secrets is just a bonus. 


We're about done now! Remember, this profession requires no coding or additional spritework. All these mechanics can be handled through player trust and ahelps, they also don't demand constant ahelps or scene freezing for said ahelps. This is very handy, professions are a lot easier to deal with when the only concern is the balancing. 


OK, NEW PROFESSION OVER, TIME TO DISCUSS HOW TO DEV THEM, you don't app for a character that starts with the new profession you want to add, you don't do a little rp of becoming a bard then toss your system at the admins and hope they'll add it. You want to slowly but surely implement the features you want, give the admins a little taste. How do you do that? Dev items. It helps to use existing crafting abilities to create the dev items necessary, but there's no reason you can't commission an artificer to make them for you. Make a dev item guitar that GIVES you performer's guile, make a dev item paintbrush that allows you to attempt a Bard's Performance. Do it bit by bit, develop your character and their professional abilities, getting approval from admins every step of the way, you want to GRADUALLY show them that your systems are interesting and that they can work. Once you've gotten some approvals, and had the chance to incorporate your features without issue, that's when you can app for your profession becoming an official hidden you can share with the rest of the player base. 


This is a very long entry to the skill section, so I'm just going to throw out some more profession ideas that I'll possibly explore in the future/on different characters, but I have no problem with people beating me to it or making characters centered around them, if ANYTHING in this guide inspires you in any way please by all means go wild. Mutagencraft, Alchemy resultant profession, go witcher mode. This one might require some coding because the way I'm thinking of it is essentially having another /potions slot that only accepts mutagens that are permanent effects. Taking one mutagen replaces your old mutagen, it'd allow for witcher type characters that really like being prepared, studying their enemies magics and preparing a +(spell) def mutagen in advance, replacing them when necessary, etc. This doesn't NEED to require coding, you can just make dev items and ahelp a permanent buff/replacement of it every time you take one. I think you can probably do interesting things with this. Ritual Casting, being able to dev towards rituals that affect the world and other players, if you acquire significant dev with a single player, you might be able to apply to injuries to them or teleport them to you from a remote location if you prepare your rituals well. You can also perform divining rituals to try and acquire meta information by ahelping admins, like "Who owns this unique currently?" or "Where is our ally being held captive?". Augmentation, essentially unique creation that replaces limbs with enhanced ones rather than being equipables. Improving your skill in this profession improves the augmentations you can create, apply, and maintain. 


There's a bunch of other ones like proper druidcraft, being a grenadier/demoman, Automaton development (This one's funny, my idea for it is actually ooc coding gathering bot characters yourself, like runescape auto farmers, justifying their existence by creating them IC and sending them on their path. Code them to always wait on a pursue, give them fun little lines like "Warning! You are currently interfering with Barsburg Gathering Bot proceedings! Damage this unit and you will be fined, a distress signal has been sent out!", make them always accept RPBs and not fight back then drop all or half their items on a loss. So on one hand you've got gathering bots, but people can try and rob/capture them for the ingredients they've gathered before they return them to your base for storage. I dunno if something like this'd EVER work, I just think it's a funny idea to have actual sanctioned gathering external party bots)
ALRIGHT WE'RE DONE WITH THIS LET'S MOVE ON TO THE LAST SKILL THEN I'LL CLOSE OFF THIS FIRST POST.


Negotiation, Diplomacy, & Planning: These skills don't and CAN'T have a gameplay system supporting them. For a combat character, this'd be equivalent to YOUR OWN personal skill with the combat system, this skill can't manifest onto your character without you having it as a player. That's why it's a shame that I consider these skills to be THE most beneficial ones to have on a noncombat character, and it's why I stressed that noncombat doesn't mean no risk, or no skill. I think skill in planning and diplomacy can have as much, if not more, depth than mechanical skill. 


So what do these mean? Negotiation and diplomacy are easy, you need to be a smooth talker, you need to be able to get what you want without having to fight for it yourself. To get something you want from someone else, you need to have what other people want. You need to ACTIVELY collect and keep it, and exchange it with them for what you want. The easiest form of these things is money, but it never hurts to learn what other want to acquire it yourself so you can make a favorable trade. This also includes building rapport, much easier to do if your character isn't already aligned with a faction, because the meta is currently FILLED with zealotry, basically characters that are staunch enemies of whole factions and will never talk to you and even outright try to kill you for even ASSOCIATING with the faction they don't like no matter how you try and justify yourself. I think zealots CAN be fun, but as a noncombat character, zealots are pitfalls you need to learn to dance around, and I think that adds to the fun. Of course you can become a zealot yourself and never deal with an enemy faction, but this limits your power as a noncombat character, it's my opinion that you can maximize your development from developing through multiple factions, I'll explain this later if I ever make another post. 


PLANNING, is the in my opinion the most overlooked, but the STRONGEST skill in the entire game. People don't plan, the game is typically played in a very straightforward fashion of "roleplay, develop enemy, find enemy, rpb enemy, die or live to find next enemy, repeat". This cycle isn't even limited to individuals, it applies to entire factions. People forego diplomacy and negotiation in favor of zealotry, yes, but that's not even what I'm talking about. People don't choose their battles, they don't have the necessary potions on hand before a raid to maximize chances of victory, they don't try to set up ambushes or rely on others to defeat their enemies for them, I feel like at least 80% of characters come to the natural conclusion of "I must defeat and kill my enemy in honorable pvp, there is no other way to progress my arc", which is FINE, but there are other ways to play it as well. You don't have to kill your enemies when you can gaslight their loved ones into thinking they've wronged you to pressure them to apologize to you. 


Planning doesn't even require lying or manipulation if you don't want to play that kind of character, planning just means you A. absorb and maintain information that could be useful B. Analyze that information to come up with neat ways to use it for your advantage and C. You apply your ideas into a cohesive plan that helps you in your chances of success. 


People go into raids without securing an artificer to enchant their fighter's equipment, or an alchemist to brew everyone's preferred combat potion, people willingly fight characters they've lost to several times, they ooc (and surely ic) know they'll never beat because their build counters theirs. People also sleep on several existing mechanics and don't use them in interesting ways. Luminite sells for 50 a pop at the moment because people don't know what they can do with invisibility potions, but it's the ultimate tool to trick your opponents. No one ever makes magibane, because no one sets up an ambush or gets close enough to their enemies to the point where they can get them to drink it. 


A good planner looks at all the existing tools the game offers them and figures out the best way to use them to turn the situation to their advantage. THEN they think of non existing tools they can possibly create to prepare for future situations. A good planner makes sure they are prepared, and that fights are on their terms, an INCREDIBLE skill for a noncombat character. 


Keep in mind, plans don't eliminate risk, they mitigate it. A good plan is actually going to have QUITE A BIT of risk, because through that increased risk you can derive increased reward. People don't walk into enemy territory or ambush people in their own territory because they can be outnumbered, but if you have people wait outside with invisibility potions and try to lure them out with an ally willing to betray them? That's a good plan, you're risking that ally's allegiance and their life if the enemy catches on, you're risking that they won't backstab you and bring the whole faction to where you're waiting, but if it works you can outnumber a high value target. You need to accept risk to be a good planner, you just need to calculate whether the risks are going to be worth the rewards, and you need to have complete situational control as best as you can achieve it. 


Playing a manipulator character? Send letters to some faction members detailing your intent to support them on their projects, you can get letters back that prove your intent and you can KEEP THOSE LETTERS HANDY. If you get stopped by a faction member, you can show them the letter as proof of your allegiance. This helped me a lot with Osrona, and because I had a letter that made it seem like I was willing to help build their bridge, I became very trusted among them even after one of theirs attacked me for colluding with the dreadwoods. Proper preparation and social awareness lead to social pressure on my aggressor, and me getting in good graces with some higher ups. 


Just in general, think about what you can do to achieve your goals, think about all the tools you have, think how you can achieve this socially, think on who you know that's beaten your enemies before and maybe instead of fighting your enemies directly, just hire them to do it. This is the bread and butter of Noncombat antagonism & leadership, and I'll discuss that topic in the next post if this one is well received. 


That's it for the first post, knowing me I've probably written way more than I realized, but if you guys like this one I'll make a second one detailing the playstyle including specific tactics you can incorporate for noncombat antagonism & leadership. For now I hope this at least sparks some imagination for how you play your characters, or maybe inspires some new characters that focus on overlooked systems. Bye for now!


god DAMN it copy pasting it gives it a weird font size and stuff I'm so mad you have no idea

[Malek]

POST 2, NONCOMBAT BOOGALOO
Fun Fact! The original post is at least 7500 words, I really like typing.


Alright, I've talked a bit about the various tools at your disposal when playing a noncombat character, I've talked a bit about schticks and I've alluded to some concepts such as dev items being better than uniques. I'll expand on this and give you ways to actually deal with problems and affect the world as a noncombat character. Just because you're noncombat doesn't mean you can't defeat your enemies. 

Here is a general overview of your playstyle. The point of noncombat is that you are SACRIFICING combat potential (Possibly accepting a low win rate, going for less combat hiddens like stances and auras in favor of fluff, preferring dev items over uniques) for more OUTER combat capabilities. 

Why does this sacrifice need to be made? It's because everything you want to achieve, you are USUALLY sacrificing something else to achieve it. Let's say if a known super high winrate flashsword blademaster user wanted to delve into some noncombat progression, do you think if they out of nowhere apped for a ritual that'll buff them or their friends permanently, they'd just get the ability to perform those kinds of rituals? Probably not. 

If your character's main schtick is the development of rituals, and preparation of social navigation tools? They'll have a much easier time apping for something like this in my opinion, because there's sacrifices to achieve that. 

This philosophy applies to my claim, DEV ITEMS ARE BETTER THAN UNIQUES. and it's probably time I explain that. Currently, people only think of dev items as "Oh these are ingredient rocks for certain potions or my uniques. Also, if it's attuned to my element, I can really quickly rp messing around with it to finally get thunderking! Otherwise they're useless". Sure, SOME dev items function that way, but generally you can make ANYTHING out of dev items, and you can ask for things that are WAY crazier through them. When you go for high tier dev items (A to SS, ones that explicitly require dev item ingredients), you make it clear that you're SACRIFICING things that you could instead put into a unique that essentially permanently buffs your stats. When I made my quill, I don't think contract binding would've really come about if I also asked for it to be a permanent +60 pow I can rely on as well. By not asking for it, I could do A LOT more with the creative process of creating a magic item, and now thanks to it, I have a viable method to "fight through RP" (Getting people to sign contracts).

The less you ask for in terms of clear and defined mechanical power level increase, the more you can ask for in terms of creativity, and in my opinion enough creativity and build up can beat characters of any power level so long as you're fun and smart about it. 

This idea applies to any sacrifice, I've done "Risky Artifice" 3 times now, basically in the process of making my dev items, I announce in looc that I'm going to roll. 1-2 gives me a perm injury, 2-4 gives me a temp, and 5-6 lets me get out completely fine. So far I've rolled 5 twice (bless) and 1 once, which is the reason behind Taipan's cane. Self imposed sacrifice also counts (At least I believe it does). For one, I've also refused to heal my character's injuries conventionally which I think helped me create a method of transferring injuries through contracts. It helps to also rp your injuries FULLY, My leg doesn't let me move normally? I'm mentioning that almost every other rp. My arm is no longer functioning on -10 perm? That's cool, I'll rp being armless and finding creative ways around it for years until I can get it fixed. I feel like a lot of people aren't fans of the emphasis I put on perms and expect them to not be treated as big deals since mechanically they're just some -vit that everyone has, and you can just for the most part fix them with a visit to the doctor, but getting crippled and risking that SHOULD mean something for your character, and it's why perms count for so much in terms of being significant dev. Basically, never underestimate sacrifice when you try to expand upon your schtick. 

That's the playstyle, the tl;dr is this noncombat characters SACRIFICE combat minmaxing for the sake of empowering their dev for creative noncombat solutions and benefits. The rest of the guide is going to focus on leadership and antagonism tips, you can benefit from reading them, but it's those roles I'm focusing on.

Be creative! Create fun items and systems! Create interesting scenarios! Make the game more fun for other players and yourself. 

Before I get into ANYTHING else, there's some things you need to know about enemy management. These are just some very basic principles you need to understand. The more you're willing to affect the lives of others, the more enemies you are willing to accept. As a noncombat character, you can't (and really shouldn't even if you can) beat your enemies consistently in just... 1 on 1 no preparation honorable pvp. As I'll explain later, noncombat characters win their fights through preparation, alliance management, and planning. Here's a few factors to consider to make sure you're not biting off more than you can chew. 

Faction: Associating with a faction can give you a lot of benefits! Territory, allies, markets, artificers & alchemists... but to accept those benefits you need to accept the baggage. As mentioned previously, a lot of characters are zealots and openly supporting one single faction can cause you to have ALL of the enemy zealots on your back. You need to accept that, loyalty and security of one faction means accepting their enemies as well. Of course, you can try and play a manipulator character that tries to appease all the factions, but that comes with its own difficulties (having something all the factions want enough to tolerate you, and no single faction that will fully support your endeavors.)

Leadership: If you've found yourself in the position of leadership, you're going to have enemies. Not only the enemies of your faction, but probably the occasional person that will want to capture you and ransom you back to your own faction. Leadership demands a big amount of responsibility, and most players assume this responsibility begins and ends at "verb good". I disagree, clearly, since I'm writing this guide and most of that will be described in the leadership section. 

Antagonism: The most obvious source of enemy creation. A lot of people assume antagonism means "Playing a witch or nethradin", but it's my opinion that an osronan knight is as much of an antagonist as a witch, or they can be. Antagonism isn't a measure of "how evil aligned" your character is, and this isn't space station 13 where it's entirely 'role' reliant. Antagonism to me, is exactly what the word means. How much your character is willing to be antagonistic, picking fights, capping characters, putting up bounties and turning people against each other. The more you're willing to mess with the lives of others, the more willing you need to be to accept them messing with yours.

As a noncombat character you need to balance these three aspects. For one, you don't have to seek any of these to play a good noncombat character or a world shaker. You can just play a hermit druid that constantly perfects their nature arts, offering guidance and therapy to any weary souls that stop by that weird ass cave with the giant butterfly, remaining completely neutral to people's factions and conflicts and purely be a source of good for other people's lives. This doesn't make you IMMUNE to enemy generation, mind you, ogres don't tend to care that you're nice when they attack you (though there are exceptions.) but you shouldn't expect to be faced with much risk of death if you avoid appealing too heavily to any of the three factors listed. 

Even if you want to heavily play into one faction/start your own, even if you want to take a leadership position and guide a faction to raids and wars, even if you want to be ultra antagonistic and have /players function as a pretty accurate list of your enemies... as a noncombat character you can't impulsively rush into things. Even as a good verber/not noncombat character, you need to keep this all in mind. Actions have consequences, your allegiances matter, the strength you've built up matters. Solo antagonism can be fun! But it does not protect you from any GROUPS you anger, just because you want to go solo doesn't mean other characters can't rely on their ties to take you down. If you want to play a noncombat character, you benefit from your early game focus on building your own social power and creation of things that make people want your character on their side, as well as forming alliances before delving into leadership and antagonism. 

Just play smart, or don't! But keep in mind that if you don't, you might die, but we don't need to play for maximum character longevity, just maximum character fun both for ourselves and others.

Note, you don't have to play a 'manipulator' type character when going for a noncombat! This section only describes tips and tricks for dealing with factions. Generally, individuals are cool, but you're not going to be able to avoid developing a faction-wide reputation so it is useful to tailor that. 

Getting factions on your side is simple. 

---

1. You need to appeal to their culture and standards, Osrona is going to try and take you down for being an occultist so you should recognize that you need to hide that. Generally you also should treat faction leaders with respect if you don't want to be banished from their lands. 

2. You need something they want, this can either be something they SPECIFICALLY want that you seek out for bargaining power (a holy relic to get Osrona's attention, etc.) or a schtick they can make use of. New Tannen might be happy to help you out if you peddle a recipe for a new drug to them, for example. 

3. You need to not be helping their enemies, at least as far as they know. This can be the hardest part for some, but generally if a faction believes you to be way too big of a benefit to their enemies they'll want you out of the picture. You can still do it, either publicly maintain FULL neutrality (which'll likely prevent the factions from supporting you more than dealing with you when necessary) or just hide your affiliations with other factions (please don't do this by just being vaguely nonthreatening, if you plan to betray or manipulate a group you should actually integrate yourself with them somewhat so they recognize you).

Like I said, you don't need to play a super smart behind the scenes manipulator, just keep these in mind if you wanna befriend a faction, and keeping them in mind helps you not be surprised when the ebonblooded start attacking you because you've been so gung ho about rebuilding the bridge for Osrona. 

As I mentioned before, people expect the responsibility of leadership to begin and end at "be a good verber, win your raid fight". I gotta ask though, why? Not just why the responsibility ends there to most, but why it even needs to be a responsibility to begin with. Don't get me wrong, this is a fantasy game where every player is assumed to be a mage by default, so of course we're going to have plenty of King Arthurs that charge into battle with their Excaliburs, but does every leader need to be a King Arthur?

I don't think so! In fact a lot of Arthurian legend ends in tragedy! I don't understand the concept that the leader of a faction needs to be the strongest personally, I have a different set of responsibilities for faction leaders, and since they don't require combat capabilities they benefit the noncombat guide very well! Still, I generally think good faction leaders should abide by these responsibilities regardless of whether or not they wanna go noncombat. 

1. A good leader needs to bring people together, this makes sense and generally describes what a leader is. You need to be able to inspire and enforce some level of loyalty in others, or someone that can do that better has every right to depose you. Additionally you also need to be able to recruit more people. So many leaders completely ignore this and just hope that out of the blue, people will flock to their faction purely because it IS a faction. Put up some emporium projects to recruit fresh blood, make your faction's culture accepting of visitors and show them the benefits of joining, host public events to drum up support. People ignore this because the current assumption is that a leader's responsibility is JUST winning their raid fight, and their faction ends up outnumbered by their enemies and they have less breathing room to develop and grow. 

2. A good leader needs to empower those that follow them, rather than focusing purely on your own character's strength as a leader, your focus should be on the strength of your whole faction in my opinion. Acquire assets, make sure all your allies have reliable access to potions and enchanted armor, help them out with their dev, fund their events to make sure they return safe. Why invest so much of your nation's resources into your own unique when you can either make one for your strongest verber and accomplished soldier, or work on projects that are going to benefit your whole faction?

3. A good leader needs to set good goals, you are the leader. An entire civilization could be at your beck and call, and this is a magical fantasy realm. Why have your goals be "Acquire the hiddens I want for my build, and crush my enemies", which is something EVERY character passively works towards? You set your goals for the entire faction, you reasonably have more resources at your disposal than the active player and can generate significantly more project dev by rping "Put a national focus on the research of x" than them. Think of interesting things your faction can work towards! Build some cool pillar that generates power! Summon a god your faction worships into the world! Create an Esshar wide drug network with the backing of your faction!

4. A good leader needs to know how to pick their battles, yes this applies individually, but more importantly I'm talking on a FACTION level. I think people are way too eager to declare war and decide enemies, they don't think in terms of alliances at all, and they're fine with any conflict at any time. I think this is because people tend to have a verb centric way of thinking. "Verb decides all. Whether our faction has a right to exist will be determined through the verb. Factions are simply raid after raid, we accept all raids and we win our rpbs, if we do not, we die. Such is the circle of life.". You need to realize the ramifications of making and having enemies, for one, anyone associated with your faction becomes a target for the enemy faction. If your faction consists of various sub 200 rpl teens, then you are dooming them to contending with the established adults when you go to war with their factions. There is nothing wrong with relying on diplomacy and choosing WHEN to pick fights. You also need to realize and accept when you just can't beat an enemy faction, I've noticed everyone rping a constant belief that they are the strongest... but if the enemy faction consistently beats you and your people, then you have ample IC reason to attempt a change of course, there is no need to suicide an entire nation. Generally, when you play a leader, think of all the npcs your decisions kill, if you're willing to throw away your city for an IC grudge you are dooming hundreds and thousands of your civilians to death, not just your faction's magi. For some character's that's a sacrifice they're willing to make, but for others you need to ask yourself if swallowing your pride for the preservation of your settlement is something your character would do. 

5. A good leader needs to be able to stay safe, "Wait, so they need to verb good?" yes and no. I still don't think a leader necessary has to be 'verb master extraordinaire' with the most powerful ebuild out there, but they need to at least keep themselves safe. If they're captured or die, their entire faction can end up in disarray and become absolved completely. If you're not confident in your fighting abilities, keep verb monkeys around, don't constantly pick wilderness cap 3 fights when no allies are around for some personal grudges if they've got nothing to do with your faction and everyone in your care. If you're going to take risk, make sure to use proper planning to mitigate those risks a bit, so that if something happens to you your faction doesn't have to deal with "Oh uh... king's gone. An ogre took em. Who's in charge while we try and get em back?". Again this doesn't necessarily rely on YOUR verbing capabilities, just your ability to be SAFE. This doesn't mean complete risk avoidance, dreamline bombs and relying on allies to roam are all valid methods of risk mitigation. 

6. A good leader needs to be a good antagonist, might not apply to perfectly neutral factions, but those are preeetty rare. Even if you go for neutrality yourself, your followers are bound to pick fights on their own which might force you to act. This is explained better in the next section! 

These guidelines are best suited to helping a noncombat character, but I don't see why combat oriented leaders can't pick them up and try to follow through with them as well. If you break these rules, I don't fault you or anything by the way! Sometimes it fits character, these don't necessarily apply to Elysia for example, but I think they were a very fun addition to the game regardless and it makes sense to ignore some of these rules considering they were a hyper militant fascist nation. Once again, prioritize your own fun and the fun of others, I just think following these can create a successful and happy faction.

Probably (hopefully, but knowing me it won't) a short section. Antagonism has always been in the game, you guys probably know how to create your own grudges and interesting character dynamics, I don't gotta teach you how to do that. The thing is, like leadership, people assume you can't antag if you're a noncombat character. I don't think this is true, but if you want to effectively antag while sacrificing your combat capabilities, you need to plan. 

If you're a good verber and you're planning to make a verb centric character, then who cares? You can start picking fights as soon as you get rid of your brown starting shirt (before, even). Or you can just start as a monster and antagonize through consistent verbing and fighting. If you're going to make a noncombat character... then that doesn't really make much sense does it? So you're going to need to dedicate your early game to building up your noncombat abilities, and building alliances with people that can fight for you. 

Here's a fun fact! If you manage to get magibane on someone, even if you're not good at verbing, you can PROOOBABLY beat them. Unless this character can consistently beat you with over 50% of their health, magibane should turn the fight in your favor. So think of interesting ways to magibane them! Get someone they trust to hand them magibane laced food, or do what I do and share a cup of tea from the same kettle, magibaning both yourself and the enemy, weakening you, but also making it so that any allies you have in the area have a better chance at victory! (Please, I beg, just because I included this in this guide doesn't mean your character should just assume that they're dealing with people that are willing to literally poison themselves. Don't suddenly be wise to this possibility because I mentioned it, or I'll just be unable to share fun tricks with other people. Follow your IC.)

Gain allies. You need them as a noncombat antagonist, you can't win fights and it's really hard to ever disable people without them, and other people are how you defend yourself. Put up bounties, but accept that by putting them up you accept the risk of retaliation. Turn people against your enemies, make use of invisibility potions to surprise them, come up with interesting magic items and rituals that can turn enemy strengths into weaknesses. Focus a majority of your efforts on buffing your allied verbers that you know are better counters than you are. If you KNOW a character has defeated your enemy once, then seek them out and ask for their specific help, you have the knowledge IC that they are capable of beating them, why throw yourself at enemies you know you can't beat when you can play smart?

Essentially, you need to get creative and abandon the mindset that "a fight = the verb". I've said this multiple times in character, and it's just generally true imo, but a fight isn't even half of a fight. A fight is majority the circumstances surrounding it, THEN the fight itself. 

Despite this, you're only after risk mitigation, not risk prevention. You can't ruin people's lives and expect no ramifications. You can't perm or cap people and expect players to "either verb you for revenge or just let it slide". You can't create magic items that insta-kill your specific enemy from the safety of your own territory. 

The thing about the plans I suggested is that they still offer counterplay, players can still hunt you down, you still generally put yourself in the line of fire, you just delegate the responsibility of the verb itself on others since you are playing a character that is ready and willing to lose when truly cornered. empower your friends, plan properly, and delegate. 

That's how you do successful noncombat antagonism, you're still prone to death seeing as you're sacrificing combat power, but that doesn't mean you can't fight back. If you plan well enough you can be on even footing with established verbers, maybe even beating some, but don't expect all your plans to go off without a hitch. Like any character, expect to eventually lose them. 

I think that's all for now! I can't think of much else to share in regards to the noncombat playstyle, but I hope more people go to pick it up. I personally think it's fun, and remember that everything I stated is just the point of view and opinion of a relatively inexperienced player!

Fun fact! Only 3800 words this time, slowly but surely I am beating my typing and overexplaining addiction.