Basics of Training and Skills

Ours is a Path unique in both its opportunities and challenges. Part of that is due to the very width of our Path, the number of options in training and concentration available to us as members of the Monk's Guild.

This general introduction and Guide in getting started is meant to mostly address this unique aspect of starting on the Monk's Path, and is in no way meant to replace more comprehensive guides. There are many approaches to training and improving oneself, and this is merely one such approach. It is highly recommended that you also look at Sensei Revenant's excellent Getting Started guide, and the Kwon scroll on Basic Tactics, both of which expand on what is here presented.

First, it is recommended that you attain an Ivory Carved Katana and one of our various coloured robes as soon as you are able. Besides letting others know in a readily visible way that you have been accepted as a Brother or Sister, they will serve you well in your first steps exploring these Lands... better than the robe and bluesteel katana you probably found yourself with upon arriving in Moorgate. (You will also find you have in your possession a "Faint Aura." For a word on this, please see the Manifestations of Spirit scroll.)

General, Fundamental Skills:

One trains in skills by contributing gold to the Guild and using up the lessons available to you (spending Build Points.) As you advance and gain access to restricted areas of the Guild, you will be able to meet new Guild Tutors who will be able to train you further in these areas and even offer new skills. For help understanding how one advances so, see the "help guildtithe" scroll. It should also be mentioned that much of this assumes that you are a Monk both by Guild and class. If you are not of the Monk class, some of this will not fully apply, and you are encouraged to seek advice from your Brothers and Sisters in what training might be best suited for you.

It is usually recommended that all young Guild Members learn as much from the Guild Tutors as they can in the skills described below, before learning others:

Martial Arts: This skill governs how effective you are with both Martial Arts weapons and in empty-hand attacks. There are weapons designed specifically for martial arts practitioners, weapons that are basically ineffective in any other hands, such as the various Katanas and the Kusarifundo. You will gain access to some these weapons only later, as you advance. Your chances of landing a strike successfully and how much damage is done by that strike are both affected by your prowess in Martial Arts. At the same time, a Monk's most devastating attacks can be those made without any weapon other than one's own body... once one is sufficiently trained in this skill. At high enough levels of expertise in this skill, Monks become some of the most feared and respected combatants in the Lands.

Physical Training: Training in this ability governs both how quickly you recover your life force, and how much life force (how many hit points) you gain as you advance in stature (gain levels.) As such, it can make a huge difference in your ability to survive confrontations in these Lands as you advance.

Spiritual Karma: Training in this ability provides benefits unique to Monks because of the way it works in combination with our other trained abilities. As it does for all who train in Spiritual Karma, this ability affects your mana (spell points) much as Physical Training affects your life force (hit points): the more adept you become, the more quickly you will recover mana and the more mana you will gain each time you advance in stature. It has an added benefit for Monks, however. As you learn more Spiritual Karma, you will be able to face opponents with empty hands that would normally require a blessed or otherwise magically enhanced weapon. In short, your body itself becomes a blessed weapon when needed, and blessed more intensely the more this ability is trained in.

General Combat Skills:

Riding: Riding governs how well you are able to ride a mount. Being able to ride a mount is an important skill. Even getting on some of the more powerful mounts available to you will require much training in this area, and many mounts will help absorb the force of your opponents blows, or increase your chance of dodging the same. More importantly for many though, being on a mount allows one to charge. This means that instead of needing to advance an opponent before striking them, you can advance and strike at the same time, by commanding your mount to CHARGE. Those first, charging, attacks can do more damage than your normal tacks, and that damage increases with advanced training in this skill. *Note well though: it takes longer to recover your balance from making such attacks, and increasing your Riding ability does not change that. That unbalance time decreases instead with improvement in the Martial Arts skill.*

Toughness: Training in Toughness allows your body itself to absorb more damage from an opponent's attacks. Once you have trained enough in this area, it is much like wearing an additional layer of armor.

Dodging: This skill allows you to better dodge an opponent's strikes. Until you have become quite expert in this skill though, its benefits are reduced to next to nothing any time you engage an opponent in your "berserk" stance.

Resilience: This skill helps you resist the affects of certain types of spells and attacks. With enough training in this, you will find that the damage you take from attacks such as fire and ice is reduced greatly, or eliminated completely. In addition, it helps one resist being stunned from physical blows or from various spells.

Spell Resistance: Training in this helps one to resist the effects of many spells, some of which resilience is unable to help in resisting. However, this skill has very little, if any, effect at all until you are able to train in it to a Very high degree of expertise. Few recommend training in this at early or even intermediate stages on your path.

Unique Considerations with Combat Skills as you progress:

Just as training in Spiritual Karma provides benefits unique to Monks, other skills as well work in combination more effectively for Monks than for many others. Some of these skills will not be available much, or at all, until you have advanced far in the Guild, and for good reason. Before being entrusted with such truly lethal knowledge, you are expected to demonstrate patience and wisdom.

Multiple Attacks: For all, this ability governs how likely one is to pull off more than a single strike at a given opportunity. For most, this means they will be able to make an additional strike in the time normally taken to pull off one, with more frequency. For those of the Monk class, however, it also allows even more strikes to be made so. Trained sufficiently in this skill and the skill of Martial Arts, you will be able, as you advance, to strike three, four or even five times in the time it takes others to strike once or twice at best.

Called Shot: This skill allows your attacks to do significantly more damage when they land successfully, and comes into play when you "AIM" your attacks. It is the "Aimed" attacks of advanced Monks - the combination of: spiritually blessed hands, lethal multiple attacks, stunning blows, and brutally directed force that comes with expertise in Martial Arts - that makes them so formidable when battle is required.

Warcraft: This skill allows you to strike at weak points of your opponents armor and/or body, so that less of the force of your strike is absorbed. It is the experience of many Monks though that it does more, and allows you to produce more force and therefore more damage initially. This skill, in combination with Called Shot, can help to make your strikes awesomely effective.

Stunning Blow: One of the skills that Monks are renowned and admired for honing is their ability to incapacitate opponents with Stunning Blows. This skill allows you to stun your opponents, effectively immobilizing them - even some of creatures that are immune to magical attacks that stun. When stunned, your opponent is unable to attack you, and is, obviously, less able to dodge your own strikes. As you train more in this, the likelihood of your strikes stunning your opponent, and the length of time that they remain stunned, increases. Some day you may be able to stun your opponents for 30 seconds or more, consistently. In combination with our multiple attack combinations - thus increasing the chances of stunning - and the damage done when your strikes land, this skill is one treasured by Monks.

Spells, Herbs and Pastes:

Even with all of this, as a Monk you are not limited to honing those skills applicable to battle alone. You will also find available to you the practice and refinement of gentler skills and arts, even at this early stage. Among these is the ability to both cast various spells of enhancement, healing and defense, and the treasured ability that allows us to transform herbs into powerful pastes.

As you progress, you may often be put in the position of deciding what to use your available lessons in learning. In early stages, that may come down to a choice of concentrating on learning how to work with herbs, or concentrating on learning spells and casting them effectively. Rather than advising one way or the other, it might be best to simply describe what is available, and the training necessary to take advantage of that availability.

First, Spells...

Heal: Casting this spell allows you to restore your own life force or that of a companion's after some injury has been taken.

Ogre Strength: This spell temporarily increases one's physical strength, and therefore the amount of damage that they do when landing a successful strike. As with all these spells, you or a companion can benefit from its affects.

Eagle Eye: This spell temporarily increases ones accuracy, and thereby the chance of any given strike landing successfully - without simply missing or having your opponent dodge. Further, it is claimed by some that strong enough castings of this spell also increase the chance of landing a stunning blow, but that is difficult to confirm for certain.

Light Shards: This spell creates a lightly shimmering and deflective shield, decreasing the chance of an opponent's blows landing successfully. It is most effective when one is in their "normal" stance, or when parrying. (For a word on stances in combat, see the Basic Tactics scroll.)

Antidote: This spell decreases or eliminates any poison in ones system. You will find that various creatures in the Lands are able to poison you, either through direct contact or through vicious spells.

To cast any of these spells, think "Cast [spell name]." Once its power is summoned, you then choose who you want to benefit from the spell by targeting it. To target a spell, simply think "Target (adventurers name)" if it is another, or just "Target" if it is you.

Naturalism Spell Use: Both the power of your spells and how long it takes to summon them is a combination of how much you have studied a specific spell, and how much you have trained in the general skill of Naturalism Spell Use. Training in this skill gives benefit to all "Naturalistic" spells that you cast. All of the above spells, and the others available specifically to Monks, are of this type. This is an ability you will be able to train more in as you advance.

Herbs and Pastes:

One of a Monk's most prized and useful studies is our ability to transform herbs and various ingredients into powerful and effective pastes. This is done by gathering the needed constituents and MIXing them properly (See Galthus' Guide on making Pastes) The herbs themselves and the ingredients needed for such are found within the Guild itself, but only after exploration and close inspection. It is recommended that as you explore the Guild, you EXAMINE anything that you can think of... our Guild will reveal many of its secrets that way, including where to harvest various herbs.

Those pastes themselves can produce affects like all of the spells above when eaten, and more. We are able to make pastes that allow one to fly, to breathe water, to hide in shadows, and even, for very skilled herbalists, to immediately restore all of ones life force or mana.

Herbalism: Making such pastes is a long study however, and is possible only with sufficient training in the skill of Herbalism. This skill governs how well you are able to mix the ingredients necessary to make a paste, reducing your chance of accidentally destroying those ingredients. As you advance in this skill, making pastes becomes easier. Indeed, our most powerful pastes can't be made at all until one has trained in this to a very high level of expertise.

Cabalism and Scrolls:

Finally, even with all of this, your choices in what major areas to train in are not exhausted.

Cabalism: Although it is not recommended that you train in this for quite some time (until more essential abilities and skills are attained and improved on greatly) you can also train in Cabalism. This skill allows you, with the proper inks, quills and parchments, to create and read scrolls that produce effects similar to those that Mages produce with their spells (such as creating storms of ice or summoning balls of fire.) Our scroll making is an art still in its earlier stages of growth, and we suspect that as we study it further, we will be able to create even more forms of magical scrolls.

Properly mixing the inks for these scrolls requires that one be well versed in the ways of Herbalism, as well. Cabalism and Herbalism, like so many of the abilities and skills offered by our Tutors, are meant to work together and compliment each other.

With this, then, we welcome you again to our Guild, and hope this has all been of some help. It can be bewildering at times, and ours is a Path that requires patience which will be richly rewarded. Feel free to approach any of us, and especially the Guild Officers, with questions, we are here to help!