Character Creation
Creating your first Character
Welcome to Valhalla Lost! On behalf of the staff, I would like to thank you for choosing our shard. If you have not already, please read our Rules and Regulations.
Regardless of whether you have never played on a private shard before or you are a veteran of Ultima Online, this version is likely to be a new experience for you. This part of the guide will assist you in creating your character.
Step 1: Customizing your Character
After getting your username/password, log onto our server using our custom client and set up a new character by choosing your character looks, race and skills. You can use preset skills but it's better to set them yourself.
Race
Humans, Elves and Gargoyles work with Valhalla Lost, however, we use our own race system so this is just for the paperdoll look. It is preferable you do not choose gargoyle as there is no clothing set up for the gargoyle.
Names
Please do not choose a name containing a historical god/goddess nor can it have the word god, goddess, lord or lady preceding the name as these are titles. We are a role-playing encouraged shard so please pick an appropriate name. If the name size does not fit, you may page later and ask for a name change. Family names are for those who have it first.
Skills
You can pick a preset set of skills or choose your own. It is preferable to pick your own as we use a class-based system meaning you can only pick certain skills for your primary and secondary slots to gain the maximum values.
Step 2: The Hall of Heroes
Select any city to start as you first travel to the Hall of the Dead then continue your journey to the Hall of Heroes. Once the Greeter has finished talking, take the gateway to the Hall of Heroes to enter the character creation gate. There are three basic parts to this process.
Choose Your Race
Valhalla Lost has several different races you can choose to be. Each race gives you some special skill cap bonuses (which will be explained later). For a list of available races on Valhalla, check out our Race Guide. For more information go to Races page.
Choose your Class
Your class determines how much of each skill your character will be able to learn (Valhalla Lost uses a select system for skills meaning primary skills should have skills from the primary selection to get the maximum value), armor limits and special abilities to be learned. For more information go to Classes page.
Extras
If your class permits it, set your alternate graphic and name. For example, the fey, being the mischievous creatures they are, can take the form of forest animals. Check it by using the dot command .shapechange. If you are not satisfied, enter the change gate again.
After you finish this process, walk the Hall of Heroes to the boatswain and enter the world of Valhalla Lost.
Setting Up Your Character
Now that you have arrived at Asgard, it is a good time to set up your character. If you wish to look around first, check out the Starting Guide. The most important thing to set up right away is your skill specializations.
Specializations
This guide will take you step-by-step how to set your specializations for your character. The system of skill caps on Valhalla can be a little bit complicated. If you have further questions about skill caps after reading this, page for a GM and someone will gladly help you if a GM is available, or look .online for player volunteers.
Your skills [as shown in your skills book by pressing ALT-K] is what makes your character you. Mages will have skill sets towards magery while warriors will have fighting skills. All skills have a skill cap, meaning they will only be able to advance so high.
- You can see your skill maximums by clicking the Skill Caps at the top of the left page.
Once you have chosen your class, the next step is choosing which of your skills you want to specialize in. Type .spec and a book will open up where you will choose the skills you want to specialize in. If you don't remember which primary and secondary skills are available to your class, refer back to the class guide. There are three skill caps: primary skills which can go to 120 points, secondary skills which can go to 80 points and other skills not in the list can go to 60.
All your available primary skills are shown as a blue text. Pick three skills from the primary list and place them in your primary slots. Each of these skills will go to 120 points. Any skills not picked from this list will go to 95 points. Your special skill is shown as purple text. See below for more information about special skills.
All secondary skills are shown as an orange text. Now pick three skills from the secondary list and place them in your secondary slots. Each of these skills will go to 80 points. Any skills not picked from this list will go to 75 points.
- Even though you can put primary and secondary skills into each others slots, they will only raise to the [i]lesser[/i] of their skill cap or slot cap. A primary skill in a secondary slot will only rise to 80 (being the secondary skill cap). A secondary skill in a primary slot will only rise to 80 points (since a secondary skill will only rise to 80).
- Crafting skills, except for alchemy, is exempt from this restriction. You can place a crafting skill in your primary or secondary slots and it will rise to 100 or 80, respectively.
Turn the page in the specialization book and pick your trade skill. These skills are identified as a large green dot. You cannot put any other skill other than a trade skill into that slot.
Finally, remember to save your changes. If you change your mind later, you can always type .spec again and change your specializations.
Some notes about skill gain:
- You will get automatic gains in specialized skills for awhile as you explore the world. Note: for some reason, alchemy in the first primary slot will not get these gains. To get these gains, put it in your second or third primary slot.
- Placing a trade skill in a primary slot will cause vendors to give you jobs for that skill instead of your trade skill slot.
Special Skills
Each class also has a special skill as one of your primary specializations that will go to 135 points. For example, a paladin's special skill is parry. If you choose parry as a primary skill. you will get a special bonus to parry for a total of 135 points. If you do not choose parry in your primary specialization, it will only go up to 95 points.
Quick Guide to Class Special Skills
| Class | Special Skill |
|---|---|
| Assassin | Tactics |
| Bard | Musicianship |
| Cleric/Priest | Healing |
| Crusader | Armslore |
| Druid | Animal Lore (Druidry) |
| Fighter | Fencing, Macefighting, Swordsmanship |
| Knight | Leadership |
| Mage | Magery |
| Necromancer | Necromancy |
| Ninja | Ninjitsu |
| Paladin | Parry |
| Ranger | Archery |
| Revenant | Magic Resistance |
| Rogue | Lockpicking |
| Samurai | Ninjitsu |
| Spellweaver | Magic Resistance |
| Tamer | Animal Taming |
Race Bonuses
In addition to the class special skill, your race can also give you skill bonuses. Check the Races guide to which bonuses you get for your race.
Character Creation Example
Fernwood is a new character to Valhalla Lost. After looking over the class and race guides, Fernwood decides to become a human cleric.
As a cleric, he has these primary skills to choose from:
- Macefighting/Fencing/Swordsmanship
- Wrestling
- Anatomy
- Healing
- Magic Resistance
- Magery
- Meditation
- Tactics
and these secondary skills to choose from:
- Parry
- Necromancy
- Leadership
- Alchemy
- Poisoning
- Clerics have Healing as their special skill bonus.
Fernwood decides to pick Macefighting, Tactics and Healing as his primary skills and Parry, Poisoning and Lumberjacking as his secondary skills. His trade skill is Inscription. His primary skill caps will look like this:
| Skill | Max Value |
|---|---|
| Macefighting | 120 |
| Fencing | 95 |
| Swordsmanship | 95 |
| Wrestling | 95 |
| Anatomy | 95 |
| Healing | 135 |
| Magic Resistance | 95 |
| Magery | 95 |
| Meditation | 95 |
| Tactics | 120 |
Because he picked Macefighting, Healing and Tactics, they will all go to 120. All other primary skills will go to 95. And since he also picked Healing, his special skill bonus, his Healing will go up another 10 points to 135.
His secondary skill caps will look like this:
| Skill | Max Value |
|---|---|
| Parry | 80 |
| Necromancy | 75 |
| Leadership | 75 |
| Alchemy | 75 |
| Poisoning | 80 |
| Lumberjacking | 80 |
And his trade skill cap will look like this:
| Skill | Max Value |
|---|---|
| Inscription | 100 |
All other skills not listed here will have a skill cap of 60. The exception to this are the hardcore classes: Crusader, Spellweaver and Revenant. They have impaired skills that will only go to 40.
As a human, Fernwood also gets race bonuses of +10 Leadership, +10 Healing and +5 Tracking. His new skill caps for these skills will be:
| Skill | Max Value |
|---|---|
| Leadership | 85 |
| Healing | 145 |
| Tracking | 65 |
His Leadership, being at 75 unspecialized, will now be 85. His Healing, a primary specialization and his class bonus will go from 135 to 145. And Tracking, being an 'other skill', will go from 60 to 65.
It can be confusing at first but as you play the game and talk with others, the system will become clearer. And remember... you can always respec your skills!
Class Change
If you want to change your class (or race), you can visit |The Registrar. For a nominal fee, they will send you back to the Character Creation Room in the Hall of Heroes. New players just starting can page for a GM to return them to the Hall when one is available.
After you make a class change and you are not a new character, you will be given a special skill stone. This stone will store your previous primary and secondary skill points. When you have made any changes to your skill specs, you can then use the stone to reallocate points back to your primary and secondary skills. This will restore most of your points that you have previously trained. The stone is only good for up to one hour after the change and will disintegrate after the time period has elapsed.
- The skill stone does not reallocate stat points - they are reset given the base values shown in the .spec menu.
- The skill stone may not allocate all points back to you. If there are extra points leftover, such as already maxing out your available room, they will be lost.
- There are three pools of points: special, primary and secondary skills.
- Your special skill points are allocated to your new special skill first. Any leftover is added to the primary pool.
- Your primary skill points are allocated to your new primary skills based on weighted average. Each skill is allocated 1 point, looping, until all points are gone. There is the possibility it will not max out any one skill.
- Your secondary skill points are allocated to your new secondary skills. The same weighted average described above is used her.
- There is no reallocation for the tradeskill.
- There is no guarantee all skill points will be used.
- Any skills not at cap will have to be practiced again.
