Hello, I am new to Lusternia. I messed around with the basic mechanics of the game, and had an idea for a character.
I am a big fan of trade skills, and also like to travel and explore.
My idea is this : make a neutral tradesman.

I have several questions, because I am not sure this idea will even work.

1. If I don't join a guild, is the combat skill tree effective enough to allow me to hunt for resources?

2. If I do join a guild to get some basic defenses and abilities, then quit the guild, will I keep the skills I already have. Further, can a player or denizen still train me in those skills after I quit.

3. This kind of follows question 2. If you are a neutral, is there a denizen anywhere in the game that can train you?

Please let me know if this is a valide idea

I have no clue if this will work

1) No. Combat is defensive, oddly enough.
2) If you pass novicehood, then yes, you could quit and keep the skills. Players could still teach you the guild skills, yes.
3) Nope, not in Lusternia, because it discourages rogues.

It can work but will require lots of resources on your part.

You can "bash" using the influence skillset.

Most skills you would use for PvP combat will require power which you can not get without belonging to a community.

There is nobody that will teach you outside of a community such as a guild, but other players can teach you.

As a novice in any guild I believe you are able to learn common skills as high as you want.

However, you lose quite a bit of convinence from not joining a guild.


I had orginally thought about doing this myself, but after just comming from Imperian where my charachter was a merchant 24/7 I wanted a change.

But if you got enough credtis to trans your tradeskill, and influence, you could get by... If you had all the money in the world I would suggest the follow.

Trans your Tradeskill, Arts, Environment, Planar, Influence, and buy a shop in each community. Pick a race with good eq balance and charisma and avoid pissing off anybody.

No


If you're not a novice



Player yes, NPC no.



No

Rogues are heavily heavily discouraged in terms of game mechanics. Take it from me, it's a miserable lifestyle

I think the biggest barrier to this is twofold even if you don't mind foregoing combat skills. One, the game builds very strong emphasis on communities, which in turn builds factional loyalties. Thus I expect there to be a trend whereby people will want to associate with members of their own groups (cities and communes), as opposed to a less factional society where people will associate with anyone who is at least not a member of an enemy organization. Obviously not everyone will be that way, but you will probably find more people are like that than other games.

Secondly, since everyone has trade skills, it creates very large competition. This means that there would not be anything overly special about being a tailor or a chef or whatever since every city and commune will already have some as citizens, so there is no economic deficiency being fulfilled by such a role that is not already fulfilled internally within each city and commune. Plus since there are not just strong bonds within fellow citizens, thus encouraging them to utilize their fellow citizen's tardeskill abilities over those of outsiders, it also means that you lack important market communication channels to those cities and communes (namely, the CT channel and private news boards). For obtaiing shops, if city leaders distrust your loyalties, which is likely if you are not a member of the city or especially if you joined their guild merely for the skills and then immediately quit, then they may not let you have a shop in their cities. Thus you would be limited to the market channel for selling goods, which is quite confining, and trying to build a network of trade partners, which is also difficult since you would create middleman mark up for your product. This I think is the biggest barrier to being a non-aligned merchant.

As an aside to your specific questions, you can be trained by players regardless of citizenship and guild membership, so long as the player knows more in the skillset than you do. I don't believe there is a denizen for that, though others may know better than I on that. And regarding acquiring resources, what the others said on influencing is correct. That skillset will let you gain experience without combat, and it also lets you beg for gold.

I actually used to enjoy what you say, trade and exploration, but hated combat. When I had a mortal in another game before coming to here, I used to do those things, and even made #1 explorer for quite some time. But I still was partial with guild and city loyalies, etc. So I found it was possible to engage in those activities without the neutrality and being guildless. In fact being in such an organization helped me make the contacts I needed, even contacts in other cities, to create more trade than if I were alone.

I'm pretty sure you can learn from ardrak, at least common skills... Dunno about guildskills though

Maybe a better question would be... "Which guild allows its members the greatest freedom and demands the least loyalty?"

I don't think he teaches non-Magnagorans.

And being a rogue can be miserable. There is a heavy emphasis on communities here.

I kind of miss it though.

I was always a bit more of a recluse than Visaeris was. He wanted to go around and fight and stuff, while I almost never used power (you have to be in a city or commune to get power for certain skills, unless you have an artifact, which only then as a rogue will power non-specific power skills, like pulp or haymaker). Lacking all the channels was nice, and I actually got to do things, like RP, hang with the family, have no responsibilities.

There is only one place you can kind of join, as a rogue, and that's my city. It was originally intended to be a rogue haven, but now it's just my project. There's a channel, newsboard, and lots of rooms. Just another option, if you wish.

Only go rogue if you can deal with it, and you know you're not going to get bored.

I remember it is that you can learn from the nexus watchers in either city and commune in all skills along with guild skills until master. But you have to be novices, if I remember correctly.

I know that when I made a novice... Cityless mind you, I was able to learn influencing from ardrak...