FAQ, Tips and Tricks

Here are some questions you might asked yourself over time. Also some nice tips and tricks are listed here, which you may find informative.

Meta - About the Game and the Client

What is the relation between Deliantra and Crossfire?

Deliantra was originally a Crossfire server, but by now most of the code has been rewritten. Still, most maps are very similar or identical to Crossfire maps, so the games share a lot.

The major differences are a better client, better graphics, a stable server (i.e. no crashes every few hours with players and maps getting reset) and the ability to let more players play, by using less resources and having a fully asynchronous design, and full support for sound effects and background music.

I found a bug, how can I report it/what do I do?

Mail us at support@deliantra.net , which is best, unless it is a small, temporary, or urgent issue. If it is, then tell schmorp, elmex, or Asarth.

The client is very sluggish and slow, what can I do about this?

Most likely, you don't have accelerated OpenGL support. Try to find a newer driver, or a driver from your hardware vendor, that features OpenGL support.

If this is not an option, the following Setup options reduce the load and will likely make the client playable with software rendering (it will still be slow, though):

• Video Mode should be set as low as possible (e.g. 640x480)

• Enable Fast & Ugly mode

• Disable Fog of War and Map Smoothing

• Increase Map Scale

The client doesn't correctly react to keypresses or mouseclicks.

Make sure Numlock is off.

Some Microsoft Windows versions/keyboard layouts do not report modifiers for the numerical keypad keys while Numlock is active.

Make sure no other Modifier is "pressed".

Mircosoft Windows versions have some accessability features that could interfere with games like Deliantra. You might want to switch these off in the keyboard settings. Sometimes modifiers can be "unstuck" by pressing them down once.

Fullscreen switches confuse the keyboard modifiers.

Fullscreen switches on Microsoft Windows sometimes confuse which keys are pressed and which aren't. Doing another switch to/from fullscreen might help.

My client doesn't start anymore/graphics are corrupted!

Sometimes you hit a bug in the client. To reset the state of your client you can delete your client database directory (your client will have to re-download music and images and you will lose your minimap contents).

To do that, on Unix:

rm -rf ~/.deliantra/client-*

On windows:

Do Start => Run, enter %APPDATA%, press return, and in the window that will open, first open deliantra, then delete the directory starting with client-.

Alternatively you can delete the .deliantra or deliantra directory itself, but this will also delete your settings and keybindings.

Game Mechanics

What is this place I go to when I die?

When you die, you go to a place called the nimbus. In the nimbus, you are able to play minesweeper for your experience. If you win and have applied all the spaces except for bombs, you will automatically be teleported to a hallway you can walk down to be teleported back to life, with your experience intact.

If you lose by applying a bomb, you are teleported to a hallway with a flower, and you can walk down to be teleported back to life, without your experience you lost when you died. There are rumors that the Key to Life can let the losers walk in the winner's hallway, however...

I lose health, but I can't see why! Or how do I cure diseases/depletion/poison?

Here are the typical reasons why you lose health:

• You are being attacked.

  Sounds obvious, but sometimes you can't see the monster attacking you. Check the Log tab, as you usually get a message when this happens.

• You are out of food.

  When your food reaches 0 you will start to lose health. Eating (good) food will replenish your food level.

• You are poisoned.

  Poison will reduce your health. When your body heals fast enough it will eventually get over the poison, otherwise you should seek professional help such as the House of Healing in Scorn, or a player with the cure poison spell. It is rumored that neko san might sometimes cure poison.

• You have a disease.

  Some diseases have such drastic effects on your organism that you can lose health. Get help in the House of Healing in Scorn, or ask a player who can cast cure disease on you.

• Your stats change.

  Switching items or being restored from depletion can affect your stats, which in turn can affect your healthpoints. While this is not a regular effect (it only happens when you change items or are restored from depletion), it can sometimes look as if you are losing health. You can restore depletion by drinking a potion of life.

How do diseases work?

Diseases are obtained by things like traps or spells. Usually, they will reduce some of your attributes, like strength. They might also cause damage to you, or slow you down. Some of them infect monsters and players around you, spreading the disease.

If your disease can be cured naturally, and if you do wait until it is cured naturally, you develop immunity for that level of disease. Higher level forms of that disease will still infect you, but you can wait it out to get better immunity.

Some diseases, like rabies, cannot be cured by waiting. Instead, you will have to cure it magically. For information on how to do that, see the above entry.

I lost an item! How?

Well, we don't know. If you don't know, either, here is a partial list of ways people typically lose stuff:

You accidentally dropped it in a shop (or elswehere).

If in a shop, if it was money, you can just go there and pick it up again: shops do not "buy" money. For other items you will have to buy it back.

Thieves or monsters stole your items.

Yes, thieves and many other monsters (such as demons) can actually steal stuff. They can steal about anything that you don't currently wield, and if they are good, you don't even notice it. Your only chance of getting the item back is to kill the thief or steal the item back with the steal skill before the map he is in resets.

Many adventurers find that the old road to Navar harbours a lot of thieves and is best avoided by the beginning adventurers.

How do I uncurse/undamn items?

You need a spell to uncurse or undamn items, but luckily, magic shops commonly have scrolls of remove curse or remove damnation. In addition, all of the gods except the Devourers can remove curses, and Gnarg, Lythander, Mostrai, Gaea, and Valriel can remove damnation. Gaea also grants the remove damnation spell at 300 grace.

To actually remove the curse or damnation with a scroll, you need to mark the item, and then apply the scroll.

When I log-in, I keep dying! Why is this?

What happened is that you died of a cave-in. Cave-ins kill you when you unsafely log out. An unsafe log out is when you disconnect without using a bed to reality, or when you time out (after 10-20 seconds without reply, the server automatically kicks players). Safe log outs are when you log out using a bed to realtiy, or when you are disconnected when the server crashes or restarts.

If the disconnection was safe, then you will appear where you were before you got logged out. If it was unsafe, and more than one hour has passed, you will die of a cave-in. If the map you were in reset, but one hour has not passed, then you will be recalled to your bed to reality.

Where do I find beds to reality?

Inns usually have them, and apartments almost always have beds to reality. Almost every city has an inn. Taverns sometimes have them, and they might be in surprising places. Scorn has an inn that is located in the southern area.

How does the identify spell work?

The identify spell identifies your items, making it give it's full description. The spell goes through your inventory in a psuedo-random order, skipping past identified items. If it identifies all the items in your inventory, or they are already identified, it then checks for identified items on the ground, again in a psuedo-random order. If it identifies all the items on the ground, then the remaining power is wasted.

The identify spell counts stacks of items, such as arrows or gems, as one 'item'. It can only identify a certain amount of items. Therefore, the only way to choose what it identifies is by dropping what you don't want identified on the ground.

What do altars do?

There are different types of altars. Altars found in churches and chapels are aligned to gods; they usually have decoration based on the god they are aligned to. You can pray at these altars to start worshipping the god the altar is aligned to, or pray to get over your normal grace limit, get grace faster, or any other effects the altar might have.

Pink altars usually require a sacrifice, which can be seen by rolling your mouse over it at the bottom of the screen. If you drop the sacrifiice, it will activate something, like a gate, or maybe it will teleport something.

How come I don't get any change from an altar?

Altars do not give change. This means that you might drop a platinum piece on a table that identifies for 2 gold, or equivalent, and get only one identify. The equivalent means that you can make the price up in smaller currency, like 200 silver, but higher currency won't get you any more identifies.

What diseases cannot be cured naturally?

Tapeworms, leprosy, and arthritis are all unable to be cured naturally, and thus you cannot have an immunity against them.

Where can I use building materials?

You can only use them in tiles that are buildable. These tiles are found in guild storages, and in some apartments.

How can I Prepare/Improve/Enchant Weapons?

This is done in two steps: first you have to prepare your weapon for the desired number of enchantments, then you apply the enchanments (weapons remember how many times they can be enchanted further).

To prepare a weapon, wield it and mark (e.g. using the popup menu in the inventory) it. Then, as a sacrifice, drop some diamonds on the floor then read the Prepare Weapon scroll. The square root of the total number of diamonds sacrificed this way determines the number of enchantments the weapon accepts: one diamond for one enchanment, nine diamonds for three enchantments, 100 diamonds for ten enchantments, and so on.

Remember, once you prepare the weapon, it can only be wielded by you.

After that, you can apply improvement and enchantnment scrolls:

Improve Damage

Each scroll read will increase the damage by five points, and likewise the weight by five kilograms.

Lower Weight

This "improves" the weight of your weapon: each scroll reduces the weight by one fifth (20%). It will not, however, create weightless weapons.

Enchant Weapon

Each scroll read increases the magic by one point.

Improve Stat

This scroll improves one of the basic stat improvements (Strength, Dexterity and so on). For this it needs a further sacrifice in form of stat potions. The stat potions must be of the same type and will determine which stat gets improved.

The number of stat potions you need to improve it is twice the number of stat points the weapon currently gives, plus one (the minimum is two stat potions, however). That is, a weapon which gives no stat bonus needs two (0 × 2 + 1 = 1 which is less than two, so two) stat potion, one that already gives Str +2 and Int +1 will need seven (3 × 2 + 1) stat potions. Negative stats are summed normally, so Str +4 and Int -2 will result in needing five stat potions only (2 × 2 + 1).

Keep in mind, however, that your character can only handle a limited number of weapon improvements, see the skills command. Item power will also increase.

How can I enchant Armour?

Enchanting armour is easy: each time you read an Enchant Armour scroll, the magic value will be increased by one, the speed, armour (physical resistance) and weight are increased by some amount, as well as the item power.

What is this item power business?

In general, the more interesting/powerful items have higher item power values. Your character can handle only handle only a limited amount of power - for each overall level you can handle 1.25 item power points, so if you are level 16 you can handle a total of 20 item power points (see the skills command for your current limit and remaining item power points).

All the equipment you wear adds to this limit, so if you wield a weapon of item power 30 plus two rings of item power 14 each you will need 58 item power (and a level of 47).

Generic how do I...

How do I uncurse/undamn items or unwear cursed/damned items?

You need a spell to uncurse or undamn items, but luckily, magic shops commonly have scrolls of remove curse or remove damnation. In addition, all of the gods except the Devourers can remove curses, and Gnarg, Lythander, Mostrai, Gaea, and Valriel can remove damnation. Gaea also grants the remove damnation spell at 300 grace.

To actually remove the curse or damnation with a scroll, you need to mark the item, and then apply the scroll. Once the curse or damnation is removed, you can unwear the item.

How do I use range weapons such as bows?

First, you have to apply the bow, then it will show up in the lower right corner in the Range: slot. If it is already shown as (applied) but not in the Range: slot you have to unapply and reaply it.

When you have a bow (or similar weapons like guns or crossbows) applied, you just shoot as with spells or other range attacks - Shift+direction key.

You need to have arrows (shells, bolts etc.) in your inventory or an active container for this to work.

You can influence how you shoot via the Bow Mode in the Playerbook => Settings tab.

How do I thaw icecubes? Or: How do I ignite a torch?

The right-click context menu in the playerbook inventory has an entry ignite/thaw, which will ignite something or thaw icecubes. You will need a flint & steel "flint_and_steel.x11" in $ARCH for this to work!

An alternative would be to use the mark and apply commands like this:

mark icecube
apply flint and steel

You can bind these commands to a key and invoke them repeatedly.

How do I cast a cone spell all around me (burning hands, holy word etc.)?

Use the 5-key on your keypad. This will cats spells "onto yourself" which has the desired effect with cone spells.

How do I pay for items from a shop?

You need to have the unpaid item in your inventory, and then walk out of the store with the shop mat. It will automatically pay for the item, if you have enough money. If you don't, you will be prevented from leaving, until you drop the unpaid item, or if you obtain enough money.

How do I sell items to a shop?

Just drop the item in a shop. Some tiles in a shop might not be shop tiles; usually, shop tiles are white brick floors. Try going over one of them and dropping the item. If the shop is not interested, the item will not leave your inventory.

How do I increase my attributes?

To increase your attributes (strength, dexterity, etc.) you can wear items that can increase them as long as you have them worn. You can get your attributes up to 30 like this. To increase them permanently, you can drink a stat potion, which have special colors and a letter on the potion named 'potion of <attribute>'. These potions can increase your attributes up to the natural maximum of your race; which can be viewd with the statistics command. It increases your 'natural' attribute, up to the 'maximum' attribute.

How do I get my literacy experience up?

You need to read books and scrolls to get literacy experience. You can also use the literacy skill to identify scrolls and books. Identifying them gives you literacy experience, and you are still able to read them once you identify them.

How do I rent and maintain an apartment?

Payment for an apartment is done in 3 steps. First, there is an entry fee in the apartment map that you need to pay only once. Then, the apartment rental fee depends on the apartment model, not you. The taxes depend on your character level, and need to be paid, even while you are offline (the rental fee is only paid while you are online.)

You can rent apartments in Scorn's Apartment Shop, and the hourly fees are deducted from your bank account.

How do I use passes/keys?

Whatever looks at your pass or key opens automatically, if you have it in your inventory or in an applied container. Some keys might just open a locked door, not a gate, and can be used by moving into the locked door.

How do I find out where the key is to a locked door?

Usually, bumping into the locked door will tell you what kind of key you need. This key is probably hidden somewhere in the same or close maps. Some of the characters near by might give you hints or explain something.

How do I see how much an altar or table costs to use?

You can move your mouse over it, and it will tell you how much currency it needs.

How do I join a guild?

To join a player guild, such as the Black Shield or Laughing Skull (not the Adventurer's Guild, the Guild of Freedom, or anything else like them), you need to be given a key by one of its current members. The players might have special tasks and requirements for you, but all that is needed is to have the key to enter the guild building and use its features.

How do I drop items?

To drop items, you can right click on the item in your inventory screen in the playerbook, which you can get by pressing F5 or the Playerbook tab, and selecting drop. You can also shift + left click an item to drop it, or enter the command

drop <item>

This command drops items with the names that have <item> in it. If you are unable to drop an item, this will probably be because it is locked. You can unlock it by right clicking the item in your inventory, and selecting unlock.

How do I pick up items?

You can pick up items by pressing the comma key (,) or by right clicking the item on the floor, and selecting 'take'. You can also type the

take <item>

command.

How do I make money, fast?!

You should identify the items you sell. Unidentified items sell MUCH lower. Make sure you have the bargaining skill. It lets you save lots of money when you buy stuff, and gain more money when you sell stuff. You can level it up by buying items or selling expensive items. The higher it is priced, the more experience. You can get a scroll of bargaining in Scorn's gem shop.

Quests also might give you something valuable as a reward.

Playing Together

How can I communicate with other players?

There are five commands you can use to talk to others. All of them can be entered by just typing them in, followed by the message, followed by Return, e.g. chat hey guys, what's up?. If you have a tab open in your message window you can also just type a text in there followed by Return (this is especially handy as Return also activates the current chat tab as well).

chat <message> (short: c)

The most-used communications command. Whatever you chat will end up in the Chat tab of everybody else who is currently logged in.

Example:

c uh, that anchovis almost killed me

shout <message>

This is like chat, but "louder". Everybody will get your message in red in their Chat tabs. You should not use shout unless you are in an emergency or there is something really important to be said, otherwise you risk being ignored by people.

Example:

sh I am stuck! can anybody let me out?

say <message> (short: s)

This command can be used to talk to NPCs (without going through the NPC dialogue window), but all players anywhere on the same map can hear you as well.

Example:

s good that schmorp cnanot hera us here!

tell <playername> <message> (short: te)

This is your prototypical two-way, private, chat channel. You can talk to any other player that is currently logged in, and only he can hear you.

gsay <message> (short: gs)

The group say command sends a message to every member of the party/group you are in. This is useful when playing in a team, to avoid cluttering the chat channel.

In addition to these, there are a large number of emotes you can use, use the help command to get a list.

Can I form parties? Which benefits does party-play have?

You can form new parties using the party form <name> name command, and you can join existing parties using the party join <name> command. There are other party commands, use help party to find out more.

The main benefit of party-play is sharing experience: All experience you gain is distributed to all party members accoridng to their level (people with twice the level as you gain twice as much experience).

This is great for training skills you are bad in, but somebody else is good in, and of course vice versa!

Magic

How does an improvement potion work?

An improvement potion increases your hitpoints, spellpoints, or your grace, permanently. It does this by rerolling the rolls for your hitpoints, spellpoints, or grace, and increasing it. This way, if you drink enough improvement potions, your hitpoints, spellpoints, or grace would be as if you rolled perfectly.

However, only lower levels roll for hitpoints, spellpoints, or grace. After level 10, skills increase hitpoints, spellpoints, or grace by a certain fixed amount.

How do I control golems I summon?

You can control golems by holding down shift + a direction key. It moves in the direction you are holding.

How can I summon a specific monster with summon pet monster?

Higher (effective) casting levels of "summoning" in skill_description give you access to higher level monsters, but not all monsters have equal abilities. Instead of summoning the highest level monster allowed by your level you can also summon any other monster you had before by adding its archetype name after the command, i.e. to summon bees you would use the cast summon pet monster bee (short: cspm bee) command.

Level  Monster
    1  bat
    3  bird
    4  spider
    6  killer_bee
    7  pixie
    8  skeleton
    9  stalker
   11  devil
   13  beholder
   15  dark_elf
   17  skull
   20  angel
   25  vampire
   30  spectre
   35  lich
   40  demilich
   50  hellhound
   60  unusual_kobold
   70  chicken
   80  gr_hellhound
   90  dave
  100  laoch
  105  snitchangel

How does being attuned/repelled/denied affect casting level?

Some spells are attuned to one or more spell classes (such as wounding, summoning, fire and so on). The player can likewise be attuned to some of these classes, giving a bonus, or repelled to them, giving a malus, or denied to them, making her unable to cast the spell at all.

The skill level is the level of the skill that the spell uses (e.g. summoning or sorcery).

When attuned, the bonus is up to 16 levels, but never higher than the skill level itself, i.e. at level 2, the bonus is 2 also, resulting in an attuned casting level of 4, at level 5, the bonus is 5, yielding a casting level of 10, and at level 50, the bonus is 16, yielding 66.

When repelled, the malus is 16 levels always. If you are both attuned and repelled at the same time, the effects will add.

These are added (or subtracted) to the skill level when checking whether the player can cast the spell and when calculating the effective casting level.

The effect on strength is as if the minimum spell level is lower (when attuned) or higher (when repelled), and the strength will increase the same as without any attunement.

What is the "effective" casting level?

Effective casting levels start at 1 (lowest spell strength) and go up to 100 (highest nominal spell strength). Higher levels are also possible and make the spell correspondingly stronger.

The effective casting level is calculated from the skill level, after adding/subtracting any bonus from attunements.

If the skill level plus bonus is lower than 100, then the minimum spell level comes into play: the minimum level is not only the minimum level a caster is required to have, it is also the level where the effective casting level equals 1. From there it grows till it reaches casting level 100, where the effective level will also be 100.

If the skill level plus bonus is 100 or higher, then this is the effective spell level.

That means, when you have a spell with a minimum level of 90, then it's effective range will be spread evenly over the 90..100 range, e.g. when you cast this spell at skill level 90, the effective casting level will be 1 (lowest). Casting at level 91 gives casting level 11, skill level 98 gives effective level 80, up to skill level 100, which then gives effective level 100.

Praying, Gods and Cults

How do I pray or get the praying skill?

First enter the "praying mode" by readying your "praying" in skill_description skill (by default bound to Alt-P, or by typing rspraying), then hold and keep holding Shift and a direction key (e.g. Shift-Up).

You will now pray as long as you keep pressing the keys.

However, if you do not have the praying skill, you can obtain it by reading a scroll of praying. This will let you learn the praying skill depending on your intelligence. You can also use a holy symbol to use the praying skill, as long as you have the holy symbol in your inventory. Holy symbols can be found in shops and random dungeons.

How can I summon a specific monster with summon cult monster?

You can't, your god selects the monsters for you.

How do I join a cult/become a follower of a god?

That is simple, just find an altar of a god of your choice and start "praying" in skill_description. Eventually, the god will recognize you.

How do I change gods?

That is far more difficult: gods really hate it when you defect them. Expect to lose a lot of "praying" in skill_description experience in the process.

First you should pray long enough to your god, until you gain 95% resistance to god power. Then quickly go to the altar of your newly-chosen god and pray on her/his altar. Your old god won't make it easy, but if you are persistent your old god will let you go at one point.

Exploring / Quests

What areas are there to explore?

First, you should explore Scorn and find the port pass (and maybe also the gate pass). Make sure you don't miss out the old city of scorn, many a dangers, but also many treasures, can be found there.

When you finished most of the quests in Scorn you should investigate how the pirates escape from the prison. This will lead to a number of nice quests in and around Port Joseph.

Another nice series of quests, from low to medium level, can be found in the King's Palace in Scorn. Who wouldn't want to meet the princess in person?

The areas you can reach through the various transportation modes in Scorn are Pupland (which has a lot of puzzles and quests from very low to very high level), Stoneville and Santo Dominion (low and medium level quests, also nice shops), and the Aldwulf Archipelago (which is more dangerous).

Through the gate you can reach Euthville and Santo Dominion to the north, Brest (medium level) and Lake Country (medium to high level) to the south, and Navar (medium level quests) in the east (a long travel).

From Navar you can travel to Darcap in the far north (medium level quests), near the mystical country of Azumauindo, to Wolfsburg somewhere on the ocean, a rather dangerous area with many thieves and pirates (medium level quests) and Valleynoy to the south, with medium and high level quests (did you find the southpole yet?).

Also, it is said that Navar somehow has access to the mystical City de Clouds, the biggest city ever seen (high level and very high level quests). There are rumors about lands beyond (St. Bartholemew and other cities) and other even more mystical places, but little is known about that.

Where is that damn Goblin Chief?

In his cave to the north-east of the Scorn Gate. It is the one that starts with a random maze (yes, there are multiple caves). Keep in mind that the Goblin Chief's Head is fastened to his body, so you have to find and kill him first.

Where can I find the comet spell?

In the tower of stars, which is almost directly south of Scorn (but not too near to it). You have to talk to people to solve this quest, and it does not involve a random maze.

Authors

The following people contributed to this document: Robin Redeker, John O'Donnell and Marc Lehmann.

cpanm Deliantra::Client

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Deliantra::Client