Beginner's guide to playing an empath

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Empaths have the natural ability to transfer wounds from others to their own bodies. They then use their recuperative powers drawn from the spiritual realm of magic to heal themselves.

Not merely healers, their studies into anatomy and the workings of the mind have led empaths to develop powerful offensive magics that can unbind flesh and bone from their enemies, or inflict paralyzing fear and indecision. With dedicated training, they are also very much capable of using weapons and armor in battle.

Character Creation

Race

Practitioners of empathic magic can be found among all the peoples of Elanthia.

Statistics

When you create your empath, you receive 660 points to distribute between your initial statistics, each of which may range from 20 to 100. You receive an automatic +10 to your prime requisites, which are Wisdom and Influence. The stats may be placed as you like, with the restrictions that:

  • Only one stat may be placed above 90 (not counting the prime requisite bonuses).
  • Only four stats may be placed above 70 (not counting the prime requisite bonuses).

There is no one ideal placement of stats, as it depends on how you want to play.

A fairly well-rounded set of statistics, for example, might be:

Strength has the slowest growth rate of all statistics for empaths, so setting it high at the start is advisable. It is a major factor in using martial weapons, and is useful as well for carrying equipment without becoming encumbered, dragging your dying friends to safety, and even deflecting attacks with a runestaff.

Wisdom is one of your prime requisites. It contributes directly to the effectiveness of all your warding spells and to your starting mana pool. It grows very quickly, so placing it at 70+ (80+ after the prime requisite bonus) should be plenty.

Dexterity affects your proficiency with ranged weapons and bolt spells, and reduces your roundtime with melee weapons. It grows fairly slowly, so set it high at the start.

Agility significantly helps your physical defense, and also reduces your melee roundtime. It grows fairly slowly, so set it high at the start.

Aura determines your spirit points and how well you can defend against elemental warding spells. Empaths draw their magic from the spiritual sphere and can defend well against spiritual spells, but against elemental attacks they are more vulnerable. Having a high Aura can help alleviate this weakness.

Influence is the other prime requisite for empaths, reflecting the dual spiritual and mental nature of empathic magic. It contributes to your mana pool, but unlike Wisdom, it does not make any of your spells stronger. Still, you should set it relatively high to get the training point benefits.

Logic affects the rate you absorb experience, and setting it fairly high is very helpful for that reason alone.

Discipline affects your ability to meditate, and is a factor in many society and guild skills. It grows quickly, so starting with a medium-to-high value should be sufficient.

Constitution affects your maximum health points and resilience against physical attacks, giving you a small amount of critical padding. It grows at a medium rate, and you should not see many ill effects from setting it fairly low at the start, as you can always heal yourself when you take damage.

Intuition affects physical defense to a small extent. It is one of the less directly useful stats for empaths, and as it grows at a medium rate, you will have no problems setting it low at the start.

Skills and Training

After you allocate your statistics, you will have the opportunity to set your initial skills. Skills can be trained at any time thereafter by going to CHECK IN at an inn or through the GOALS screen. Each skill costs a certain number of Physical Training Points (PTP) and Mental Training Points (MTP), which are accrued as you gain experience. Overtraining in a skill by taking more than one rank per level doubles the cost each time. For example, First Aid costs 1 PTP for the first training each level, then 2 PTP for the second, and 4 PTP for the third.

If you have insufficient PTP or MTP for a skill, the trainer will automatically try to convert one to the other at a rate of 2:1.

Every time you level up, the trainer recalculates the total cost of your skills, so you will never permanently lose training points due to overtraining or conversion.

Armor Skills

  • Armor Use: 1x per level up to 8 ranks at least.

When you wear armor, there is a chance that your spells will fail due to hindrance. Training in Armor Use reduces hindrance, and with 8 ranks you will be able to wear double leather armor without any possibility of spell failure. More experienced empaths may choose to wear hard leather armor such as brigandine, or even chain mail, but those armors require more Armor Use skill and there will always be some chance of spell failure while wearing them.

  • Shield Use: 1x per level if you also train in a one-handed weapon skill.

Weapon Skills

Training in martial weapons is expensive for empaths, so you should choose one style to specialize in instead of dabbling in several. Whichever you choose, you should train 1x in that skill every level. It is also possible to not take any weapon training and instead use runestaves for defense.

The Brawling skill determines how well you can attack and defend without holding a weapon, or with hand-to-hand weapons such as the cestus or sai. It is also the primary factor in the unarmed combat system, which is an alternative way to resolve combat. The system is considered slower and more complex than regular combat, and empaths are not ideally suited for it.

Some empaths choose to train in both Shield Use and Brawling for purely defensive purposes. With this style, they hold only a shield for defense and exclusively use their magic to attack, leaving an open right hand to take advantage of channeling. There are some advantages to this style, such as immunity to Disarm and Weapon Fire. However, this requires a heavy investment of training points, and most pure spellcasters forgo the use of shields and martial weapons entirely to concentrate on magical training.

Thrown weapons require fairly specialized training and equipment and are not suited for novice empaths.

Combat Skills

  • Physical Fitness: 1x per level at least. Most empaths train very heavily in the starting levels to maximize their health points, which are needed for empathic healing.

Combat maneuver (CM) training is mainly useful for empaths who wield a melee weapon as their primary means of attack. Each rank in CM increases your attack strength with melee weapons and gives you an additional CMAN point that can be spent on a variety of combat abilities. This is very expensive to train in, and it may not be possible to pick up a rank every level, especially early on.

For empaths who primarily use ranged weapons or magic, it is still worth picking up some CM ranks and spending the CMAN points in Cunning Defense to protect against hostile maneuvers.

Some empaths may pick up a few ranks of Multi Opponent Combat later on, as it can be useful for area attack spells and offsetting the defense penalty from engaging several opponents at once.

The rest of the combat skills are too expensive to train in for the minimal benefits that they provide.

Magic Skills

Harness Power determines your maximum mana pool and mana regeneration rate. Mana is required for spellcasting, both for combat magic and for healing. Every empath should train at least once per level, and pure spellcasters may consider investing even more heavily.

Spell Aiming determines how well you can attack with bolt spells. As empaths primarily use warding spells instead of bolt spells, not all empaths choose to train in this skill. If you do want to be effective with bolt spells such as Empathic Assault (1110), Fire Spirit (111), Web (118), and the wizard bolt spells commonly available in wands, you should train in this 2x per level.

Mana control skills determine how well you can share mana with other adventurers by using the SEND verb. They also affect mana regeneration rate as well as the effectiveness of certain spells. Empaths derive the most benefits from Spiritual Mana Control.

Spell Research

Empaths have access to the Empath Base, Minor Spiritual, and Major Spiritual spell circles. You should train once per level in Empath Base, and divide the rest between Minor Spiritual and Major Spiritual.

Eventually you will be able to learn every spell, but the order in which you research them is important. Most empaths try to learn Bravery (211) by level 11 and Heroism (215) by level 15 to enhance their offensive capabilities.

Empaths who use warding spells as their primary means of attack will often train more than 2x per level, and may take additional ranks in Empath Base than their current level. This is known as overtraining and increases their casting strength with empathic warding spells at the cost of delaying learning spells from other circles.

Lore Skills

Elemental and sorcerous lores are not useful for empaths.

Spiritual lores increase the potency of numerous spells. None of the lores are required training, but they offer an additional level of specialization.

Generally, spells affected by Blessings confer additional protective or physical benefits, while spells affected by Summoning can be used more effectively for direct attacks.

Mental lores affect many of the spells within the Empath Base spell circle.

Generally, healing spells are improved by Transformation, while attack spells are improved by Manipulation and Telepathy.

General Skills

  • Perception: 1x per level up to 30 ranks at least. 2x if you use bows or crossbows.
  • Climbing: 1x per level up to 15 ranks, more later on as needed.
  • Swimming: 1x per level up to 10 ranks, more later on as needed.

Perception, Climbing, and Swimming allow you to navigate the wilds more easily. For example, with just a handful of ranks of Climbing, you will be able to scale the gate to the Graveyard near Wehnimer's Landing.

First Aid and Survival are mainly useful to empaths for skinning animals. Skins can be sold at the furrier or turned in for bounty tasks.

Disarming and picking treasure boxes is a dangerous but profitable activity that is typically undertaken by rogues. It is not unheard of for empaths to learn these skills, though learning to do so requires a heavy investment of training points and is not advised for beginners.

However, even if you never work with boxes yourself, you should at least be aware of the various traps that could be set on them. Empaths are often called as first responders to the scene of a botched attempt at disarming a trap, and reacting to the situation properly can save many lives.

Empaths can never learn to hide effectively in combat. Picking the pockets of other adventurers may be fun--or dangerous, depending on who you try to steal from--but it is not particularly advisable for beginners.

Trading affects the prices that you get for buying and selling goods. For a novice adventurer, there is very little reason to train in it. Later on, when you start handling valuable furs and gems on a regular basis, you may find it more useful.

Sample Training Plans

Two-Handed Weapon Wielder

This empath focuses on using two-handed melee weapons and is trained to wear hard leather breastplate armor. Combat maneuver training is nearly at 1x by the 30th level. Melee attack strength is further bolstered by researching Bravery (211) and Heroism (215) as soon as possible.

# PTP/MTP Skill Level 0 Level 10 Level 20 Level 30
15/0 Armor Use 1 8 15 15
1x 13/3 Two-Handed Weapons 1 11 21 31
12/8 Combat Maneuvers 0 4 13 27
2x 2/0 Physical Fitness 2 22 42 62
4/0 Climbing 1 11 15 15
3/0 Swimming 1 10 10 10
0/3 Perception 1 11 21 30
2x 1/0 First Aid 2 22 42 62
1x 0/2 Arcane Symbols 1 11 21 31
1x 0/2 Magic Item Use 1 11 21 31
1x 0/4 Harness Power 1 11 21 31
1x 0/3 Spiritual Mana Control 1 11 21 31
2x 0/8 Spell Research
Major Spiritual 0 9 19 19
Minor Spiritual 1 3 3 13
Empath Base 1 10 20 30

Pure Spellcaster

This empath is trained as a caster proficient at a variety of spells, wearing double leather armor and using a runestaff for defense. Spell research into Empath Base is overtrained for additional casting strength.

# PTP/MTP Skill Level 0 Level 10 Level 20 Level 30
15/0 Armor Use 1 8 8 8
1x 2/0 Physical Fitness 1 11 21 31
4/0 Climbing 1 11 15 15
3/0 Swimming 1 10 10 10
0/3 Perception 1 11 21 30
2x 1/0 First Aid 2 22 42 62
1x 0/2 Arcane Symbols 1 11 21 31
1x 0/2 Magic Item Use 1 11 21 31
1x 0/4 Harness Power 1 11 21 31
2x 3/1 Spell Aiming 2 22 42 62
1x 0/3 Spiritual Mana Control 1 11 21 31
2.3x 0/8 Spell Research
Major Spiritual 0 2 11 19
Minor Spiritual 1 10 11 13
Empath Base 1 14 27 40
0/6 Spiritual Lore, Summoning 0 0 10 20
0/6 Mental Lore, Transformation 0 0 9 21

Health and Anatomy

Before you start playing a healer, it is important to have a thorough understanding of how health, wounds, and ailments are represented in the GemStone IV setting.

Health Points

Each player character has a pool of health points (HP), which is an abstraction of how much blood is being circulated to critical regions of the body. If HP ever drops to 0 or below, the body can no longer sustain life, and the character dies instantly.

Disease and Poison

A character can become diseased or poisoned, for instance from being bitten by a rabid squirrel or eating harmful mushrooms. Diseases and poisons are represented by gradual HP loss, and the effect typically diminishes over time. For example, a disease may inflict 10 damage on the first round, 9 damage on the second, 8 damage on the third, and so on until it has fully run its course. A character can suffer simultaneously from multiple diseases and poisons.

Diseases and poisons can be neutralized by the spells Undisease (113) and Unpoison (114). Every separate disease and poison requires an additional cast, so if someone has two active diseases, Undisease must be cast twice to remove both of them.

Wounds and Scars

Independently of their HP, each character also has fourteen separate body locations. These locations fall into four categories:

  • Limbs: left arm, right arm, left hand, right hand, left leg, right leg.
  • System: nerves.
  • Head: head, neck.
  • Organs: left eye, right eye, chest, abdomen, back.

Each of these locations may have wounds or scarring. A wound is a fresh injury, such as those suffered in combat. A scar is an old injury, usually the result of treating a wound with herbs. Wounds and scars each have three ranks of severity. Minor wounds and scars (rank 1 severity) do not greatly impair effectiveness in combat, but major ones (ranks 2 and 3) will. For example, someone with a rank 3 wound or scar to their right hand cannot hold or attack with a sword in that hand, nor be able to cast most spells.

Repeated injuries to the same location will exacerbate existing wounds. If someone has a minor wound on their head, and is struck again with an attack to the head that would have caused a minor wound, the head wound will become a major wound and start bleeding, causing the character to lose HP over time. In general, two rank 1 wounds to the same location become a rank 2 wound, and two rank 2 wounds become a rank 3 wound. Taking a rank 1 wound on top of a rank 2 wound does not cause it to become rank 3, but will likely increase the rate of bleeding.

Visual Symptoms

You can see the extent of someone else's injuries by using the LOOK or APPRAISE verbs, and check your own health with the HEALTH verb. The specific messaging for the various wounds and scars depending on their location are:

Location(s) Severity Wound Scar
Arm, Hand, Leg 1 minor cuts and bruises old battle scars
2 fractured and bleeding mangled
3 completely severed missing
Nerves 1 strange case of muscle twitching developed slurred speech
2 case of sporadic convulsions constant muscle spasms
3 case of uncontrollable convulsions very difficult time with muscle control
Head 1 minor bruises scar across face
2 minor lacerations and a possible mild concussion several facial scars
3 severe head trauma and bleeding from the ears old mutilation wounds
Neck 1 minor bruises scar across neck
2 moderate bleeding old neck wounds
3 snapped bones and serious bleeding terrible scars from some serious neck injury
Eye 1 bruised black-and-blue
2 swollen severe bruises and swelling
3 blinded missing
Chest, Abdomen, Back 1 minor cuts and bruises old battle scar
2 deep lacerations several painful-looking scars
3 deep gashes and serious bleeding terrible, permanent mutilation

Herbal Remedies

When adventurers take wounds in the field and there is no empath on hand to assist them, they may choose to heal those wounds by ingesting herbal remedies. Healing a wound with an herb will reduce the severity of the wound by one level, and leave a scar of the same level as the prior wound. If the wound has fully healed and there is only a scar remaining, then it is possible to use specific scar-healing herbs to reduce the scarring level. Herbs for scars will not work if there is still a wound on that location.

Some of the common Elanthian herbs are:

Location(s) Minor Major
blood loss (HP) acantha leaf yabathilium fruit
limb wounds ambrominas leaf ephlox moss
limb scars cactacae spine calamia fruit
nerve wounds wolifrew lichen bolmara potion
nerve scars torban leaf woth flower
head/neck wounds rose-marrow potion aloeas stem
head/neck scars haphip root brostheras potion
eye/torso wounds basal moss pothinir grass
eye/torso scars talneo potion wingstem potion
missing eye (scar) bur-clover potion
missing limb (scar) sovyn clove

In general, one should use the EAT verb for herbs in their harvested form, such as leaf or moss, and use the DRINK verb for potions.

Without empaths, it is very expensive and time-consuming to fully heal a wound. For example, if someone suffered a rank 3 chest wound, they would first take two bites of pothinir grass, reducing the wound to minor and leaving a rank 3 scar; then they would take a bite of basal moss, healing the wound; then, drink two sips of wingstem potion to reduce the scar to minor; finally, drink one sip of talneo potion to heal the minor scar. Each of these steps could potentially take substantial time to finish.

Further information: Herb

Bleeding and First Aid

Major wounds usually cause the victim to bleed, losing HP over time. The exact rate depends on severity and location, and can worsen if the same location is struck again. For example, a broken arm will usually bleed less than a gushing neck wound, but taking yet more blows on the arm can cause it to bleed quite severely.

The TEND verb can be used to slow or stop the rate of bleeding with field bandages without healing the wound. The effectiveness of the bandages depends on the tender's First Aid skill. Not all wounds can be fully bandaged, and it may take up to several minutes to bandage very severe wounds. It is possible for a skilled tender to bandage someone else, but the patient needs to be lying down.

As an empath, you will generally not need to bandage wounds yourself as you have access to empathic magic. First Aid is still a very useful skill to train in, as it affects how quickly you can ingest herbs and how well you can skin animals in the wild.

Empathic Healing

Empaths heal others by transferring injuries onto themselves then using spells to restore their own health.

Linking

Empathic Linking is currently only required for F2P characters.

The command "TOUCH {character} LINK" can optionally be used to establish an empathic linking between healer and patient.

It takes approximately 15 seconds for the link to form, and the patient cannot be healed while it is still forming. Once the link is active, only the healer who initiated the link will be able to heal the patient. After the healing is finished, either the healer or the patient can manually UNLINK to break the link. Empathic linkings can last for up to 3 minutes.

Establishing a link is not a necessary step (except for F2P subscriptions) before healing, but it can be used to prevent confusion about which healer is responsible for whom.

>TOUCH Warrior LINK
As you touch Warrior, you concentrate on establishing an empathic link.

>TRANSFER Warrior
You meditate over Warrior.
You must wait for the empathic link to form before you can transfer any of Warrior's wounds.

You sense a successful empathic link has been forged between you and Warrior.

>TRANSFER Warrior
You meditate over Warrior.
You take all of Warrior's blood loss.

>UNLINK
You sense your empathic link with Warrior fade away.

Transferring Wounds

Empaths can use the TRANSFER verb to take another character's injuries onto themselves.

Using the TRANSFER verb without a location will restore some amount of HP, depending on the empath's level. The maximum HP that can be restored per transfer is 75. It is entirely possible for you to die from transferring HP if you don't have enough HP yourself, and the game will not give you any warning, so be very careful!

Example usage:

  • TRANSFER {character} HEAD
  • TRANSFER {character} LEFT ARM
  • TRANSFER {character}

Transferring only works on HP and wounds, not on scars. However, if a character has a wound and scar on the same location, then transferring the wound will also fully heal the scar.

Transferring a wound on top of an already wounded location will exacerbate the empath's wound. For instance, transferring two minor (rank 1) neck wounds consecutively will give the empath a rank 2 neck wound. An empath who already has a rank 3 wound in a location cannot continue to transfer wounds onto that location until healing it down by at least one rank. If you try to transfer with such a wound, you will see the message that you strain over the location but are unable to transfer.

A novice empath does not have the ability to transfer every wound right away, but gradually learns over the first ten levels. By level ten, an empath will be able to transfer wounds of any location and severity.

Whenever you transfer wounds from someone else, you receive a small amount of experience. There are a few exceptions to prevent abuse: you do not receive experience by transferring back and forth from other empaths, nor by restoring blood loss to someone who is actively bleeding, nor by healing self-inflicted injuries.

Healing Spells

As you gain experience and train in the Empath Base circle, you will learn spells that allow you to heal your own wounds and scars, whether they were taken in the course of your own hunting or through healing others. Each spell costs some mana to cast, depending on the severity of the wound or scar. The healing spells are:

# Spell Name Mnemonic Mana (Severity)
1101 Heal HEAL 1
1102 Limb Repair LIMREP 2 (minor), 7 (major)
1103 System Repair SYSREP 3 (minor), 8 (major)
1104 Head Repair HEDREP 4 (minor), 9 (major)
1105 Organ Repair ORGREP 5 (minor), 10 (major)
1112 Limb Scar Repair LIMSCAR 11 (minor), 15 (major)
1112 System Scar Repair SYSSCAR 12 (minor), 16 (major)
1113 Head Scar Repair HEDSCAR 13 (minor), 17 (major)
1114 Organ Scar Repair ORGSCAR 14 (minor), 18 (major)

These spells should be cast on yourself. The various Repair spells do not work at all when cast on others, and casting Heal (1101) on someone other than yourself turns it into Harm, dealing damage to them.

By healing a wound on yourself, you leave a scar just as you would if you had used an herb. Once the wound is fully healed you can then use the scar repair spells to heal the remaining scars.

Keep in mind that if the healing spell costs more mana than you currently have, then you will injure your nervous system by casting it, just like any caster who over-expends their mana.

Casting a healing spell incurs some amount of hard roundtime, preventing you from moving or taking most actions. The exact duration depends on the severity of the wound or scar being healed, and decreases as you gain experience. You can further shorten healing roundtime by training in Mental Lore: Transformation.

To prepare and cast (or incant) a spell, you can use its number or mnemonic. The following sequences of commands are all equivalent:

  • PREPARE 1102, CAST
  • PREPARE LIMREP, CAST
  • INCANT 1102
  • INCANT LIMREP

However, to have greater control over the location to heal and to avoid mistakes, it is highly recommended that you use the targeted healing functionality of the CURE verb.

Targeted Healing

CURE allows you to specify the location you want to heal. For example, 'CURE LEFT ARM' will reduce the wound or scar level on your left arm by one at the cost of some mana, as if you had prepared and cast the appropriate Limb Repair (1102) or Limb Scar Repair (1111) spell. In addition, using 'CURE' by itself acts as a more potent version of casting Heal (1101), by restoring all of your blood loss at a cost of 1 mana per 10 HP.

Example usage:

  • CURE HEAD
  • CURE LEFT ARM
  • CURE

Healing with the StormFront Client

If you use the StormFront client to connect to GemStone IV, you can create a convenient visual representation of a character's wounds by using the APPRAISE verb. As an empath, appraising someone else will tell you whether they are wounded and open up a window with a picture of a body and a (1), (2), or (3) symbol over the various wounded locations, corresponding to the level of the wound. Clicking on a wound symbol will transfer the wound, just as if you had typed in a TRANSFER command.

Visual healing windows will only appear if you have SET DIALOGS ON.

StormFront also has an Injuries window that shows your own health condition with a similar visual design. Your own wounds are shown with a number in red, and any scars you may have are shown with a number in yellow. Clicking on a wound or scar symbol in the window will prepare and cast the appropriate healing spell.

Common Healing Practices

Generally, when your fellow adventurers are looking for a healer, they will go to the main gathering spot in town, such as:

They might actively ask for healing, or simply be in visible distress and constantly eating acantha leaf to counteract their bleeding. And often the bodies of the dead will be dragged in and will need their injuries mended before a cleric can resurrect them. If you want to help them, there are a few general guidelines you should follow:

Communicate with fellow healers

Try to learn who the other healers in the area are. This will let you know if you must personally see to every patient or if others can assist, and they can also be very helpful in reducing the amount of time you need to heal scars. You can 'SPEAK EMPATH' to switch to speech that can only be heard by other empaths in the room.

LOOK, APPRAISE, DIAGNOSE

LOOK or APPRAISE will tell you what wounds someone is currently suffering from. Often that is enough for you to fully heal them. However, it will not tell you if someone is diseased or poisoned, how quickly they are bleeding out, or their exact amount of HP.

If you need additional information, you may consider using the DIAGNOSE verb. Diagnosing someone will tell you if there are any diseases or poisons, and if they still have any blood loss even without wounds. You can also use 'DIAGNOSE {target} FULL' to get a comprehensive read on someone's health, including the exact severity of every wound and ailment. A full diagnosis incurs a small amount of roundtime.

Acknowledge patients

When you have determined that someone needs your help and they are willing to accept it, you should acknowledge in some way that you are about to heal them. Traditionally this is done with a simple NOD, though you can do something else that feels appropriate for your character. This step is not always necessary but some people might consider it rude not to.

Keep yourself alive

As you start healing someone, you should make sure that your own body is able to take the injuries that you are about to transfer. If your own health is very low, transferring someone else's blood loss can potentially kill you. Likewise, if you are still very low level and can only heal minor wounds in a location, then you may want to heal your existing wound before transferring another that would have made it more severe.

Aid the fallen

Before an adventurer can be raised from the dead, it is important to heal them so their body can sustain life. Since resurrection spells can restore some HP, you will not have to heal all of the blood loss from a dead body, but you should always transfer any bleeding wounds.

You should also make sure that the body is properly preserved to prevent it from decaying. Clerics can use the Preservation (305) spell to keep bodies preserved, but in their absence white flasks are a temporary substitute. POUR a white flask into the body to preserve it.

If no clerics or paladins can be found, you may need to drag the body to the local town cleric.

Hunting and Combat

To survive in the wild, whether to protect and rescue fellow adventurers or to hunt the dangerous creatures of Elanthia, empaths should also learn to be proficient in battle by acquiring the proper equipment, training, and general combat knowledge.

Basic Hunting Checklist

Before you head out into the wilds, make sure of the following:

  • You are wearing your armor.
  • Your weapon is held in the proper hand.
  • Your shield, if you use one, is held in hand (and not worn over your back).
  • Your health, mana, and spirit are full.
  • You have no outstanding injuries except for possibly minor scars.
  • You are not encumbered.
  • You are properly spelled up with all the defensive spells you can cast.
  • You have read the maps and know how to get to the hunting area and back.
  • If you are using martial weapons to hunt undead, you have had the weapons blessed by a cleric or a member of the Order of Voln.

Optionally,

  • You have picked up a bounty task from the Adventurer's Guild.
  • You are wearing a crystal amulet to be able to listen to the thoughts of fellow adventurers, and call for help if need be.
  • You have set a gold ring to a safe spot in town.
  • You are carrying the proper herbs for any potential injuries that you might not be able to heal yourself.
  • You have a deed from the Goddess Lorminstra to lessen the penalties if you should happen to die.

Equipment

Every newly created character is equipped with a set of starting gear appropriate to their race and initial set of skills, including a set of armor and a basic weapon. For levels 0-9, the starting gear should serve well enough, though you can visit the local shops if you prefer different items.

When you reach level 10, you will be able to use equipment with up to +20 (also known as 4x) enchantment bonus. Enchanted gear can give a substantial boost to your combat capabilities, and it is advisable that you acquire some as soon as you have set aside enough silvers to do so. A piece of 4x equipment with no other special properties usually costs about 35,000 to 50,000 silvers. Generally, you would be looking for weapons and shields made from vultite or rolaren (for metals), and faewood, orase, or ruic (for woods). Enchanted leather armor is not as easy to identify, but you can ask around on the ESP network or check the player run shops.

Most hunting areas are balanced for wearing full 4x gear, and many adventurers have used them all the way to level 100. More highly enchanted gear, and those with special properties such as flares, weighting, or padding, are rarer and more costly, but they can give you additional advantages if you should ever find them.

Physical Combat

Melee

Melee is the most common form of combat in GemStone IV. Even if you plan to use magic exclusively, you should still understand the basics of melee combat, as the majority of creatures will use it when attacking you.

A melee attack's chance of successfully hitting the target is determined by the following formula:

[Attack Strength] - [Defensive Strength] + [Attack-versus-Defense] + [d100] > 100

  • Attack Strength (AS) measures the attacker's melee proficiency. It is determined by stance, Strength bonus, skill training in the chosen weapon and in combat maneuvers, the enchantment bonus on the weapon, and temporary enhancement spells. Combatants who are not at full health or spirit may suffer an AS penalty.
  • Defensive Strength (DS) measures the target's ability to defend against melee attacks.
  • Attack-versus-Defense (AvD) measures how well the chosen weapon is suited for the armor it is trying to penetrate.

The result of adding up these factors, plus a d100 roll, is called the end roll. If the end roll does not exceed 100, then the attack misses. If the end roll is greater than 100, then the attack lands, and the difference between the end roll and 100 is known as the endroll success margin (ESM). The ESM is then multiplied by the weapon's damage factor (DF) to determine the initial base damage dealt by the attack. Additional damage and effects like stuns, knockdowns, and even instant death, may be inflicted by criticals based on the severity of the initial damage.

Each attack incurs some amount of hard roundtime. The exact duration depends on the weapon type and your combined Dexterity and Agility bonuses. If you are encumbered from carrying too much equipment, you will suffer additional roundtime penalties. Combat roundtime applies to creatures who attack you as well, and can vary greatly depending on the type of enemy. A lynx attacking with its claws can make very quick consecutive attacks, while a troll swinging a massive hammer might only attack once every twelve seconds.

For player characters, the base roundtime of melee attacks is 5 seconds. Heavier weapons, which include most two-handed and polearm weapons, are slower to swing and have varying speed penalties. You can offset some or all of the speed penalty by having high enough combined Agility and Dexterity bonuses, also known as AGIDEX. Generally, swinging a weapon in 5 or 6 seconds is considered acceptable.

In general, if you want to use melee weapons as an empath, you should:

  • Set Strength high in your initial statistic placement.
  • Set Dexterity and Agility high as well, to let you attack with minimal roundtime.
  • Prioritize training in combat maneuvers and the Major Spiritual circle for AS-enhancing spells.
  • Use a weapon with a high damage factor. Small, quick weapons like daggers and rapiers are not ideal for empaths.

At lower levels, it is usually best to start in defensive stance and wait for your opponent to attack first, putting them in roundtime. Once you have waited for your opening, switch to offensive stance and use the ATTACK verb to swing your weapon. If you managed to stun or knock down your opponent, you should follow it up with another attack. Otherwise, it is safer to switch back to defensive stance and wait for the next round.

Like you, creatures can also switch stances, and they may use a more defensive stance if they feel the battle is not going in their favor.

As you gain experience, you will start facing tougher foes possessing special abilities where you may not want to let them make the first move. By that point you should have learned the skills to strike preemptively, by using either a combat maneuver or a spell to disable them outright, then follow that with your own attack.

Archery

Archery requires a few extra steps than melee combat. It is resolved with the same AS/DS/AvD formula, but creatures may have different DS against ranged weapons. For example, creatures that hold shields tend to be better equipped to defend against ranged attacks than those that use two-handed weapons.

As with melee, you should start in a defensive stance, holding your bow in your left hand, and wait until your enemy has attacked. Then, take a single arrow into your right hand, switch to offensive stance, and use the FIRE verb. The attack will incur some roundtime depending on the type of bow and your Strength bonus.

After you have successfully defeated and searched your enemy, there may be many arrows lying on the ground. You can reuse the arrows by using the GATHER verb to collect them into a bundle and put them back with the rest of your arrows.

Typically, you will perform these actions in a cycle:

  • GET 1 ARROW FROM MY QUIVER
  • STANCE OFFENSIVE
  • FIRE
  • (wait for roundtime)
  • STANCE DEFENSIVE

Then, after the battle,

  • GATHER ARROW
  • PUT MY ARROW IN ARROW IN MY QUIVER

For crossbows, you must COCK the crossbow first, then LOAD a bolt before you can fire. Cocking a crossbow can take up to 10 seconds and forces you into offensive stance. Due to the lengthy preparation roundtime, it is not recommended that you use a crossbow as a primary weapon. However, it is possible to keep a loaded crossbow (or several of them) on you and fire it quickly in combat.

Combat Maneuvers

Empaths have access to a fairly limited list of combat maneuvers. You can use the CMAN verb to learn and use maneuvers.

Activating a maneuver costs some amount of stamina, which regenerates at a rate of 20% to 30% per minute. If you drop below 0 stamina, you become overexerted and are unable to use additional maneuvers. Casting Adrenal Surge (1107) will cure the overexertion.

Some of the more commonly trained maneuvers are:

  • Feint. Lowers an enemy's stance. Useful as an opener or when the enemy is wounded and has switched into defensive stance.
  • Disarm Weapon. Knocks an enemy's weapon to the ground. Learning this also confers some protection from having your own weapon disarmed.
  • Cunning Defense. A passive skill that increases your defense against hostile maneuvers.

Aimed Attacks

Melee combatants and archers can choose to aim their attacks at specific body locations. It can be an effective way to inflict critical effects such as knockdowns and fatal injuries.

Aimed melee attacks are made with the AMBUSH verb. To aim at a specific location, use the command 'AMBUSH {target} {location}'.

Example usage:

  • AMBUSH GOBLIN LEFT LEG
  • AMBUSH SNAKE HEAD

This technique is also known as open ambushing, to differentiate it from hidden ambushes that are typically performed by rogues and rangers. Open ambushing takes Combat Maneuvers and Ambush skills into account. If your combined skill is too low, you will likely hit a different location or entirely fail to make an attack.

The AIM verb can be used to preset the aimed location for all ambushes. Subsequently you can simply 'AMBUSH {target}' without specifying the location, and the attack will be made against whichever location you had aimed at. You can change the preset at any time by using AIM with a different location, or clear it with 'AIM CLEAR'.

Example usage:

  • AIM LEFT LEG
  • AIM HEAD
  • AIM CLEAR

If the target already has a major injury on a location, you will no longer be able to aim at it. For example, it is not possible to aim for the left leg if that leg has already been severed. Any aimed attack against that location will simply hit a random location on the body.

Depending on your relative size to the target and its physical state, you may not be able to aim at any location. For example, a dwarf will not be able to aim for a giant's head if the giant is standing up. However, if the giant has been knocked to the ground by a heavy blow to its legs, the dwarf can then swing at its head.

Ranged archery attacks can likewise be aimed. Unlike melee attacks, there is no separate verb. Simply preset the location with AIM, then use the FIRE verb as any other ranged attack.

Magical Combat

Empaths are a primarily magic-using profession, and even the most physical-focused empaths will employ some offensive spells in battle.

Mana

Spells require mana to cast. For empaths, maximum mana is determined by the statistics Wisdom and Influence, and the skill Harness Power. The mana pool regenerates over time, usually at a rate of 15-30% of maximum on pulses that occur approximately every two minutes. Empaths can additionally meditate to enhance mana regeneration.

If you cast a spell without having enough mana, you will suffer an injury to your nervous system.

Most spells have a static mana cost equal to their level. For example, the level 1 spell Calm (201) always costs 1 mana, and the level 6 spell Bone Shatter (1106) always costs 6 mana. There are exceptions to this rule, so you should read the spell descriptions carefully to avoid accidentally overexpending your mana. In particular, all of your healing spells have varying mana costs depending on wound severity.

At lower levels, you may find it difficult to use spells for very long before running out of mana. You can make use of the mana-free spell Arcane Blast (1700), use wands to save mana, and accelerate recovery by meditating in town whenever possible. By training in Spiritual Mana Control, you will also be able to share mana with other spiritual mana users, and they may be willing to send some to you when needed.

Warding Spells

Warding spells are the mainstay of spellcasting empaths. Warding ability does not depend on stance, making this a very safe hunting style as you can remain in a guarded stance while casting. Melee-focused empaths may still find these spells useful, as many creatures will switch to a defensive stance when they are badly wounded, making it difficult to land a killing blow. Warding spells bypass stance and can be a good way to finish off that last sliver of health.

A warding spell's chance of successfully hitting the target is determined by the following formula:

[Casting Strength] - [Target Defense] + [Cast-versus-Armor] + [d100] > 100

  • Casting Strength (CS) measures how proficient the caster is at casting from the given spell circle. For empathic warding spells, it is determined by your Wisdom, your spell research ranks in the Empath Base circle, and to a lesser extent your ranks in other spell circles.
  • Target Defense (TD) measures the target's ability to defend against warding spells. Most lower level creatures have TD about three times their level.
  • Cast-versus-Armor (CvA) reflects how easily spells can penetrate the target's armor, and can range from +25 (no armor) to -13 (full plate).

The result of adding up these factors, plus a d100 roll, is called the end roll. If the end roll does not exceed 100, then the spell is warded off, having no effect on the target, and you lose the mana of casting the spell. If the end roll is greater than 100, then the spell lands, and the difference between the end roll and 100 is known as the warding margin. The higher the warding margin, the more powerful the spell's effects will be. Unlike melee combat, there is no unified relationship from warding margin to final effect. The formulas can vary widely across different spells.

At lower levels, when you have a small mana pool, it is especially important to land your spells with high warding margins and make every mana point count.

If you use warding spells as your primary attack, it is advisable to:

  • Set Wisdom high in your initial statistic placement.
  • Train more heavily in spell research, especially in the Empath Base spell circle, to increase your casting strength.
  • Choose targets that have a high CvA. Animals wear no armor, and many of the mindless undead shamble around in tattered rags, giving them +25 CvA. By contrast, more organized factions of orcs and krolvin wear mail or plate armor, making them much harder to hit with warding spells.
  • Use heavy quartz orbs to temporarily enhance your casting ability.

Channeling is a technique specific to the spells Bone Shatter (1106) and Wither (1115). To channel a spell, you PREPARE it normally, but then use CHANNEL instead of CAST. Channeling a spell incurs 3 seconds of hard roundtime. If the channeled spell successfully hits with an end roll above 100, a phantom amount is then added to the warding margin to determine the spell's damage cycles. The exact added amount depends on your stance and the number of open hands, achieving maximal benefit of +40 with both hands open in full offensive stance.

Arcane Blast (1700) is the first warding spell that empaths learn, and is the only spell that costs no mana to cast. Unlike other spells, it will put you into 5 seconds of roundtime when you cast it. The warding version can be cast from defensive or guarded stance. It is a very good early attack spell when you still have very little mana.

Harm (1101) deals around 15-20 points of damage if you successfully ward the target. It is a very weak attack spell, perhaps the weakest direct damage spell in the game. Still, it only costs one mana to cast and can be used to whittle down an enemy's health.

Calm (201) can be very helpful in dealing with multiple enemies if they are giving you trouble. By casting this at the enemies that you are not actively attacking, you can greatly reduce the risk of being caught off guard and overwhelmed.

Bone Shatter (1106) is the bread and butter direct damage spell for empaths. When you successfully ward an enemy, you deal initial HP damage followed by two cycles of impact criticals. At lower levels, enemies receive a substantial warding penalty against this spell, making it especially effective. Bone Shatter can be channeled.

Empathy (1108) is a disabling spell with a range of possible effects. It may induce roundtime, cause the target to run from the room in fear or become immobilized, or even instantly kill. This unpredictability makes it somewhat difficult to find the right situation for this spell, and there are other spells that disable more reliably, so most empaths do not tend to use this spell.

Bind (214) is one such disabler that, as long as you are able to ward with it, will reliably immobilize an enemy for some time.

Wither (1115) is a powerful high-level attack spell that requires fairly dedicated training. Like Bone Shatter, this spell can be channeled. At 15 mana per cast, the cost is nearly prohibitive for lower level empaths. Later on, if you train for a high enough casting strength and invest heavily in Spiritual Lore, Summoning for an additional damage cycle, Wither can become a deadly single-target attack with a very high chance of one-shot kills.

Web (118) is another disabling option, similar to Bind. Which option is more effective depends on your spell training and the specific type of enemy that you face.

Sympathy (1120) attempts to turn all enemies in the room against each other. It can be used to buy some time when there are too many enemies to handle at once. The duration is relatively brief, so you should not stand by and wait for them to kill each other. Identify the most dangerous targets and kill or disable them yourself. Disabling spells cast during Sympathy are particularly effective as affected targets will likely be attacked repeatedly by their comrades.

Bolt Spells

Bolt spells are magical projectiles hurled at targets using the Spell Aiming skill, and are resolved with the same AS/DS/AvD formula as melee and archery. Not many empaths exclusively use bolts, but they can be a valuable addition to the spellcaster's arsenal.

Casting an aimed spell requires you to switch to an offensive stance, but unlike physical weapons, it does not incur any hard roundtime. Instead, there are 3 seconds of casting roundtime, during which you cannot cast any other spells but can still move and switch stances. Many players use macros to quickly enter offensive stance, cast the spell, then return to guarded stance.

Arcane Blast (1700) can be cast as a bolt from more offensive stances. It is not as safe to cast as the warding version, but you may consider using it as a bolt if your target has very formidable warding defenses.

Empathic Assault (1110) has both bolt and warding components. The initial attack is made as a plasma bolt. If the bolt successfully lands, the target suffers additional cycles of HP damage based on warding rolls. For Empathic Assault to be effective, you would need to train heavily in Mental Lore, Transformation to increase the damage of the plasma bolt and in Mental Lore, Telepathy for the warding cycles.

Fire Spirit (111) hurls a fireball that can deal splash damage to multiple enemies in the same room. It is particularly effective against creatures weak against fire, such as trolls. To increase its damage and splash effect, you should train in Spiritual Lore, Summoning as well as a few ranks of Multi Opponent Combat.

Web (118) can be cast as a bolt if you have at least 20 ranks of Spiritual Lore, Summoning. In this form it only costs 9 mana and deals unbalancing criticals that have a high chance of stunning and knocking down the target. With additional Summoning lore training there is an increased chance of also webbing the target for some time, though at lower levels this will seldom happen, as the webbing effect requires 140 lore ranks to always work on same-level targets, and even more if the target is above the caster's level.

Wands

Wands and rods are commonly available from the treasure system, alchemy shops, and player crafting. Each wand contains a specific spell with a limited number of charges.

To attempt to activate a wand, use the command "WAVE MY {wand} AT {target}".

The chance of a successful activation is improved by:

  • Magic Item Use (MIU) skill bonus
  • Intuition bonus
  • Logic bonus
  • Stat modifier corresponding to the embedded spell circle (for example, Aura ÷ 4 for wizard spells)
  • Whether the player character knows or can learn the spell (+20 if same sphere, +40 if same circle, +60 if known)

The success chance is decreased by:

  • The embedded spell's level * 5
  • Encumbrance
  • Wearing armor without sufficient Armor Use skill

Because empaths cannot learn spells from elemental spell circles, wizard bolt wands such as iron/silver wands (Minor Shock (901)), aquamarine wands (Minor Water (903)), and golden wands (Minor Fire (906)) are more difficult to activate. For example, to have a 100% chance of success with an iron wand, an empath must have combined bonuses of 105 in MIU skill, Intuition, Logic, and (Aura ÷ 4). Since Intuition tends to be set lower, much of the total needs to be made from MIU training, likely with a MIU bonus of at least 70 (corresponding to 15 skill ranks). More powerful wands require even more training.

If you want to use elemental wands early on, you should train 2x in MIU up to about 30 ranks (120 bonus), enough to offset almost all of the spell level penalties.

Slender ivory wands and faceted amethyst wands contain spells from the Empath circle, and are much easier to activate, but they are only available through crafting by player alchemists.

Additional Abilities

Meditation

The MEDITATE verb allows empaths to recover mana at an accelerated rate while on a node or sanctuary. The exact bonus depends on Discipline and Wisdom. Most gathering spots in town are natural nodes, so this is a very useful ability when you are resting.

Teleportation

The spells Transference (225) and Spirit Guide (130) allow empaths to instantly teleport between locations in the same realm. Combined with Locate Person (116), they are commonly used for rescuing adventurers in need.

Guild Skills

At level 15, you will receive an invitation to the Empath Guild. Joining is entirely optional. If you join, you will have access to the alchemy system and can learn to make a variety of potions and trinkets.

See Also

References

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