Early Game Checklist: Difference between revisions

 

The early game is where many people struggle, causing them to get very weary of Red Rock very fast, forcing them to stop playing before they can see the rest of what Qud has to offer. This is going to be a non exhaustive guide on preparing for the challenges ahead! If you want a more interactive and lore friendly experience, this guide is just a written version of [https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2128235668 Caelyn's tutorial mod]

 

Everything else is found relatively the same way. The only thing that is near required to be bought is the lead slugs. Everything else can be easily found off snapjaw corpses and in chests.

You need these to be properly prepared for things outside of the saltmarshes:

**[[studded leather armor]] (3), [[leather cap]] (1), [[boar-skin gloves]] (1), [[leather boots]] (1)  

**musket, borderlands revolver from chests, desert rifle from [[Issachari rifler]]

* Lead slugs (bought from village trader)

** [[witchwood bark]], [[salve injector]]

* Good light source ([[Warden Ualraig]], trading, loot drops) (recommended)

** [[glowsphere]], [[Symbiotic firefly]], [[Electrobow]]

* Bandages (Tam)

* Recoiler (optional, but HIGHLY recommended) (starting village quest, glowpad merchant)

6 is just an easily achievable number and allows most attacks from early game creatures to not penetrate multiple times and keep damage managable.  

Snapjaw scavengers and hunters are killable by most characters as long as you're fighting them one by one. They will be the source of the majority of your early game gear. Just wandering around doing the starting quests will net you lots of gear.

* Body: studded leather armor (3 AV)

* Hands: boar-skin gloves or leather gloves (1 AV)

* Head: Leather cap or knollworm skull (1 AV)

* Feet: Leather boots or crocassins (1 AV)

Characters who are [[two-headed]], or who have [[multiple arms]] or [[multiple legs]], will need the equipment on all appendages in order to average up to the full 6 AV.

Lead slugs are ammunition for a lot of powerful missile weapons, all of which will likely be the hardest hitting weapon in your arsenal for most of the early game. Missile weapons have static PV, meaning that they do not depend on your character's strength. At point blank range, it's hard to miss, too. This is important because this means that with a good missile weapon, near every character can survive the early game given enough ammunition.

a musket can be bought off of Tam, or if the player is skilled, a desert rifle.

===Getting a Desert Rifle ===

The strongest early game weapon that you can consistently get is the {[favilink|desert rifle}} from sneaking into the desert and taking one off of a {{favilink|Issachari rifler}}. You'll know which Issachari these are because they have a red rifle in their sprite. They only have 4 or so bullets, so stay far away to cause them to miss ([[Spry]] and [[Acrobatics]] help here) and melee them once they run out. The desert rifle is a very powerful gun and can hold 6 shots before requiring a reload.  

Characters only start out at about 14-20 HP, and enemies can dish out much more than that, especially over extended periods of combat without time to heal in between. This is where Joppa starts and the Saltmarsh village starts shine again. Both of these village starts teach [[Harvestry]], which allows you to harvest [[Witchwood bark]] from bright red [[witchwood tree]]s. Witchwood bark heals you to full right now (at least for the first few levels), but will cause confusion if your character has low Willpower. Confusion is manageable if you memorize the map before hand and where the stairs are. Eat a bark and run back upstairs and wait until the confusion wears off.

If you don't have harvestry, the [[Six Day Stilt]] has [[apothecary|apothecaries]] that sell them extremely cheaply. If you have the ego to afford them cheaply, salve injectors are sold there too. If you're lucky, Tam will have them stocked. If you don't want to make the trek for any reason and have harvestry, witchwood trees have a chance of spawning on the outskirts of Joppa as well as the surface of the [[Rust Wells]] and [[Red Rock]]. You can tell that they're ripe if their bark is {{qud shader|dark red|dark red}}. They won't "grow" ripe, so if you can't find any, you'll have to look elsewhere.

If you have the ego and start in Joppa, you can buy Warden Ualraig's guaranteed glowsphere. It has twice the radius as your torch allowing you to see even farther underground and at night. Most characters can trade all their torches plus a moderate amount of water for this.

 

If you have a very low ego stat, are [[Socially Repugnant]], lack the funds, or did not start in Joppa, you have to look elsewhere. It is a somewhat rare drop to find, and village merchants stock them rarely.

Right, which is why finding a good light source is recommended but not required. Torches will keep you safe temporarily, as long as you travel mostly during the day, and you won't be running out so there's no need to buy more. They can also be thrown to set enemies on fire for some bonus damage over time!  

Special mentions go to the symbiotic firefly and the electrobow that characters can randomly spawn in with. Both have the same light radius as the torch, but are in a slot other than the hand, freeing up a space. They are also really good items (symbiotic firefly gives +400 insect rep, electrobow is a highly accurate low power missile weapon.)

By default, your escape strategy is sprinting and running away until you can escape to the world map. While you're doing this, be sure to break line of sight with your pursuers so they are unable to attack with ranged attacks and might eventually lose track of you. This will be the most common escape tactic when True Kin due to not having any mutations like [[Teleportation]].

As a general rule of thumb, <code>L</code>ook at any new creature and check their [[difficulty]] level. If it's "average" it will be tough one on one. More than one is probably not survivable unless you know what you're doing. Anything hostile that's "very tough" or "impossible" means you should run away immediately.  

Legendary creatures which are purple in color are also much tougher than their normal counterparts. Seeing one at an early level is also cause for running away, and they are also surrounded with a posse so you have a number disadvantage as well. Leave them alone for now.