JabberJaw's Advice: Character Development for Rogues

(Being a useful post for other classes as well, just change the favored weapons referred to...)

Title: 'last few (esp tax man and paw)' // "The Cartoon Shark" <16> Wed Mar 18 17:55:03 1998

On the subject of advancing skills:

First of all I have had little trouble in both advancing
my experience and advancing my rapier skill. Experience is about
half as fast as before the new system, but I don't mind since I
am not in the same hurry many of you seem to be in. As far as weapon
skill lemme put it this way. In two days I have increased my rapier
skill by 10 points. Thats enough to satisfy me. And I am making money
and/or breaking even on top of that. I am making A LOT LESS money than
before the new system, but since I built myself a decent little nest
egg I am not too worried. As long as I can afford a good set of EQ I
am happy.

On the other hand, don't try to advance something like...
Longsword. I played with longsword for 3 straight days, A LOT of hours
each day, and did not advance it even one little point (thanks god for
that actually, see previous posts by myself) Its not going to advance
for you. Rogues are fast learners at knife, marksmanship and rapier.
(Yes, rapier) so if your not using those, please do.

What this board was supposed to cover was the following:

A. at low levels, hold off advancing LEVEL until you have
enough exp to advance to ANOTHER level after that, to help raise
skills. (eg. level 4 player waits till he has enough exp to advance
to level 6) The advance ONE level, and advance a bunch of abilities
(Str, Dex etc...)

B. Don't ignore int and wis. I wouldn't keep them exactly even
with str, con, and dex, but keep them close behind. (by even i don't mean
str=12 dex=12 con=12, int=12, wis=12, instead i mean even in the COST to
ADVANCE the stats. The INT and WIS required to advance quickly is RELATIVE
TO CLASS, so if you have decent INT and WIS for a rogue, you should be fine.

C. At higher levels don't advance until you have enough exp to
advance that level PLUS another stat or two. Your life only gets harder
by advancing level, but you'll see a BIG difference in dex=16 and dex=17.
It should more than make up for the higher level monsters you'll have to
fight. 

D. I've heard that crappy weapons hit more and that you should use
crappy weapons to advance skills faster. I've also been told that turquoise
dart is a rapier (boggle). I tried this and did not find it to be the case.
Just a waste of money in heals, not being able to kill stuff.

E. Don't be in such a hurry to advance, and trust me, starting over
will take you much longer than playing the cards you've been dealt.

-JJ, spreading the wisdom, which frankly isn't that high, but he's still
learning skills pretty quick.