Help with choosing a new character and template

[King Durango]

Hail,
Although I’ve been playing UO on and off for seven years I’ve always felt like a total amateur. For the past many years now I’ve played exclusively on Lake Superior and I have a few developed characters and still some underdeveloped characters. Today I registered for a seventh character slot but until now I only had an account that allowed five characters. I’ll list my current characters below and I’d like suggestions for professions for the new characters I can create and guidance or corrections for the templates of the existing characters. Thanks.

Bard Mage – I’m happy with this character right now
Skills / Current / Target
Musicianship / 110 / 110
Magery / 100 / 100
Meditation / 100 / 100
Provocation / 97 / 100
Peacemaking / 96.7 / 100
Eval Int / 90 / 90
Discordance/ 68.6 / 70
Resist Spells / 57.7 / 50

Blacksmith Warrior – I only play alone so this template works for me but…
Skills / Current / Target
Blackmithing / 110 / 110
Mining / 100 / 100
Swords / 100 / 110
Tactics / 100 / 100
Anatomy / 90.2 / 100
Healing / 90.1 / 100
Magery / 47 / 0
Arms Lore / 52 / 100
Resist Spells / 30.7 / 0

Fisherman – He needs his archery and magery because I play alone…
Skills / Current / Target
Archery / 104.8 / 105
Anatomy / 100 / 100
Tactics / 100 / 100
Fishing / 100 / 100
Healing / 93.9 / 100
Magery / 78.2 / 80
Resist Spells / 72.7 / 80
Eval Intel / 52.2 / 55
Cooking / 18 / 0
Fencing / 0.2 / 0

Tailor Carpenter Craftsman -
Skills / Current / Target
Tailoring / 112.3 / 115
Carpentry / 100 / 100
Lumberjaking / 98.8 / 100
Tinkering / 81.5 / 100
Cooking / 72.1 / 100
Arms Lore / 67.4 / 100
Mining / 57.5 / 80
Healing / 53.4 / 0
Magery / 40 / 0
Lockpicking / 32.5 / 23
Snooping / 2.5 / 0
Blacksmith / 2 / 2

Alchemist Scribe – this character is a mess, guidance please
Skills / Current / Target
Meditation / 90ish / 100
Inscription / 70ish / 100
Alchemy / 70ish / 100
Eval Intel / 50ish / 100
Magery / 45? / 100
Poisoning / 40? / ?

Now what character class am I missing the boat on? What’s really fun to play or a valuable resource?

 

[Black Sun]

Alchemist Scribe – this character is a mess, guidance please
Skills / Current / Target
Meditation / 90ish / 100
Inscription / 70ish / 100
Alchemy / 70ish / 100
Eval Intel / 50ish / 100
Magery / 45? / 100
Poisoning / 40? / ?

First off let me start by listing what I currently have on my account. This has pretty much been the setup for my account for quite a while now. (Since AOS I think)

Swords/Paladin
Pure Mage/Scribe
Mule (smith/carp/lore/tinker/tailor/miner)
Archer/Bard
Mage/Tamer
Stealth/Fencer
Mule/Trainer/Goof-Off (Chef/Begger/Fisherman/Lumberjack/Carpenter/Alchemy)

That's my account in a nutshell, Just to give you some insight into where I'm coming from. Now, Here is my thoughts on your template. First, drop the alchemy & poisoning, or move them to another character if possible. You're really not getting the total benefit of poisoning unless you have it on a character who uses poisoned weapons. If I were to rework that template here's what I'd make it:

Magery 100 (or higher if permitted)
Meditation 100
Eval Int 100
Magic Resist 100
Inscription 100
Alchemy 100
Misc 100

I would either fill the misc slot with Spell Weaving or Necro. Depending on what your playstyle is. Or you could stone alchemy off to someone else and put in a weapon skill and tactics or anatomy, depending on your tastes. Personally I prefer to keep my mages pretty much magic users only. The tank mage was never a usable template for me.

 

[GFY]

WOW your not asking for much! LOL

Bard Mage – I’m happy with this character right now
Skills / Current / Target
Musicianship / 110 / 110
Magery / 100 / 100
Meditation / 100 / 100
Provocation / 97 / 100
Peacemaking / 96.7 / 100
Eval Int / 90 / 90
Discordance/ 68.6 / 70
Resist Spells / 57.7 / 50

I take my Disco, Provo, & peacing and swap them in and out with soul stones. Put the skill you'll be using, Provo or disco for hunting, and peacing for taming, and keep the others on stones. Your template will be stronger and have more flexibility.

Blacksmith Warrior – I only play alone so this template works for me but…
Skills / Current / Target
Blackmithing / 110 / 110
Mining / 100 / 100
Swords / 100 / 110
Tactics / 100 / 100
Anatomy / 90.2 / 100
Healing / 90.1 / 100
Magery / 47 / 0
Arms Lore / 52 / 100
Resist Spells / 30.7 / 0

If your mining or smithing this should be fine but if your going to do some serious monsters this template needs some help. I've swapped out chivalry for magery on all my warrior templates. It's much easier to work with and the buffs work really well for warriors. Something like this should be able to handle any wandering monsters:

Blacksmith 120
Mining 100
Arms lore 100 (a must for item crafting bonus)
Weapon skill 100
Chivalry 100
Tactics 100 (for weapon specials)
Resist 100 (for any casting monsters)

Fisherman – He needs his archery and magery because I play alone…
Skills / Current / Target
Archery / 104.8 / 105
Anatomy / 100 / 100
Tactics / 100 / 100
Fishing / 100 / 100
Healing / 93.9 / 100
Magery / 78.2 / 80
Resist Spells / 72.7 / 80
Eval Intel / 52.2 / 55
Cooking / 18 / 0
Fencing / 0.2 / 0

This is a very crowded template. You could drop the warrior skills and be a mage/fisherman. Summons a deamon or 2 and let them tank whatever monsters you fish up. If you really WANT archery you could drop healing and heal with mage spells.

 

[King Durango]

Wow, thanks for the responses so far folks. I know I've asked a lot. Mind you, I'd never even heard of soul stones so you can tell I need the help. Crazy!

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

There's a soulstone FAQ stickied up top. Basically they allow you to hold a skill off the scroll or even allow another character on the account to use it. Nice to have at least a couple for use.

 

[GFY]

I had something come up and had to leave. I'll give you a bit more of my 2 cents worth if ya can stand it!

Tailor Carpenter Craftsman -
Skills / Current / Target
Tailoring / 112.3 / 115
Carpentry / 100 / 100
Lumberjaking / 98.8 / 100
Tinkering / 81.5 / 100
Cooking / 72.1 / 100
Arms Lore / 67.4 / 100
Mining / 57.5 / 80
Healing / 53.4 / 0
Magery / 40 / 0
Lockpicking / 32.5 / 23
Snooping / 2.5 / 0
Blacksmith / 2 / 2

My tailor and blacksmith are on the same template. He has magery to travel and the rest is devoted to crafting skills. I have separated mining, and blacksmith on one character and wood working and lumberjacking on another. Lock picking can be a worthwhile skill but it takes a while to GM and you really need GM to open those really good chests. I combined it with cartography so I could dig up chests and be able to open them. This skill is good solo at lower levels but when doing 4th level treasure maps or above, it can be really hard solo.

Alchemist Scribe – this character is a mess, guidance please
Skills / Current / Target
Meditation / 90ish / 100
Inscription / 70ish / 100
Alchemy / 70ish / 100
Eval Intel / 50ish / 100
Magery / 45? / 100
Poisoning / 40? / ?

OK now were into magery! :bowdown:

Mages come in at least 3 different flavors at the moment and all of them are very strong in PVP and PVM.

The classic mage (also called wrestle mage):

Magery 120 (so you never fail a spell)
Evaluate Intelligence 120 (for good SDI)
Meditation 120 (for good mana regen)
Resist Spells 120 (I hate being paralyzed for long periods of time)
Wrestling 120 (Your defense skill so monsters don't stand next to you and hit you every dang time!)
Inscription 100 (for SDI and you can make and sell spell books)
Focus 20 (for a bit more mana regen)

The Necro mage:

Magery 120
Eval 120
Med 120
Resist 120
Spirit Speak 120 (For max SDI on necro spells and a good way to heal)
Necromancy 120 (to cast all necro spells)

A necro mage doesn't carry wrestling so instead of a defensive skill you can use a mage weapon -0 for defense. (Staff of the magi) This allows you to hold the weapon and use your magery skill as your defensive skill.

The Spell Weaver Mage:

Mage 120
Med 120
Eval 120
Resist 120
Wrestle 120
Spellweaving 120 (This is a stand alone skill and doesn't require a SDI skill)

This is a very good template that is used mostly for PVM. The spellweaving spells work very well with magery and makes this a very balanced template.

As you can see a lot has changed. (And we haven't even discussed warriors yet!)

Warrior templates have become a bit more complicated with new skills. Chivalry, Bushido, Ninjitsu and Necromancy to name a few!

I'll give you 2 templates that are very powerful and fairly easy to work up.

ABC Archer (ABC = Archery, Bushido, Chivalry)

Archery 120 (Best chance to hit)
Bushido 120 (Great skill for DI, luck, and quick heals)
Chivalry 100 (great skill for healing, curing, traveling, and buffs)
Healing 100 (I play in groups and like to heal others in 2 seconds)
Tactics 100 (need at least 90 for both weapon specials and DI at 100)
Anatomy 100 (damage bonus at 100)
Resist 100

There are many variations but this is my current template and I like the versatility because I pvp and pvm. Use the bushido special; lightning strike for max HCI, Confidence for a quick heal, honor your opponent for healing and luck bonuses. Use chivalry buffs; enemy of one for DI verses the one monster your fighting, Consecrate weapon to put your damage to your opponents weakest resist, and divine fury to get back your stamina quickly and keep youe swing speed maxed.

With any warrior template you'll need good armor and weapons. (Slayers are a big plus for monster hunting) For armor you'll also need good mana and stamina increase and regen as well as at least 60 in all your resists. [I say 60 because if your hit with the curse spell (happens a lot!) all your resist drop to 60 but not below 60]. And for weapons slayers are very nice but so is mana leech, DI, Life leech to name a few specials.

Lastly there's the Samouri. This has become the warrior of choice, but there are many different variations of the samouri.

Weapon skill (not archery) 120
Bushido 120 (bushido and parry work together to allow you to block blows
Parry 120 with a weapon other than a bow)
Chivalry 80 (For buffs and traveling)
Tactics 90 (for both weapon specials)
Anatomy 100 (for DI bonus)
Healing 90 (Use enhanced bandages and this is almost as good as 100... almost)

With this and similar templates and good weapons and armor you can solo some of the biggest monsters in the game including some peerless.

If you have any questions you can send me a PM and I'll get back to ASAP

 

[Black Sun]

Lock picking can be a worthwhile skill but it takes a while to GM and you really need GM to open those really good chests. I combined it with cartography so I could dig up chests and be able to open them.

Not 100% true. I GM'd picking in about a week. Because of the changes they made that enable you to pretty much use one box rather than 50 or so, you can GM it pretty quickly. I just grabbed myself a box of the appropriate skill level and macro'd away while bank sitting or hanging out at my vendor house chatting with customers. Once I hit about 85 I went into twisted weld and macro'd away while discorded. I think maybe only 2 or 3 visits to the weld and I was at GM.

 

[Sir Kenga]

GFY why do u use 40 magery on crafter for travels? I use runebook charged with recall scrolls for years, it takes 0 magery. U sure could use 40 points somewhere else. Also why do u target minig to 80? i don't see any point in that. Mining useless untill 100, and then u should wear +5 gloves to get to 105, to smelt better.

 

[Black Sun]

GFY why do u use 40 magery on crafter for travels? I use runebook charged with recall scrolls for years, it takes 0 magery. U sure could use 40 points somewhere else. Also why do u target minig to 80? i don't see any point in that. Mining useless untill 100, and then u should wear +5 gloves to get to 105, to smelt better.

Some people stick extra points in magery so they don't fizzle when using a rune book. I don't have magery on any of my characters that aren't casters, and even the humans (with the 20 from JOAT bonus) still fizzle more than I'd like them to even when using a charged runebook. There seems to be the false idea that you have a 100% chance of success when using a runebook charge with zero magery floating around. It's simply not true.

 

[GFY]

I'm an old school player from WAAAY back. I never bothered taking the magery off the template! BTW the template mentioned was another posters not my personal template.

I have 2 separate crafters, one for wood working and one for tailoring and mining. This way I can combine the best skills that go together for each template, (like mining for smithing and lumberjack for carpentry).

 

[Sir Kenga]

There seems to be the false idea that you have a 100% chance of success when using a runebook charge with zero magery floating around. It's simply not true.

Well maybe i'm too lucky but i don't remember any fizzle for long time.

 

[Black Sun]

Happens to me almost daily.

 

[Black Sun]

I have 2 separate crafters, one for wood working and one for tailoring and mining. This way I can combine the best skills that go together for each template, (like mining for smithing and lumberjack for carpentry).

I also have 2 crafters, It's really the only way I can get all the crafting skills I need/use without having to swap skills around all the time with soulstones.