Quelgash's Guide to Rangerly Skill Gaining
Also, please contact me if you have any knowledge of some things I lack, or other ideas to gain experience. There's really no limit to how big this file can get. :)
That is, unless Olwydd starts threatening me about the boatload of HTML I make him do.

Climbing: Climbing gets you from point A to point B using a generally vertical route. This skill can be quite handy in getting to some interesting hunting spots and is also useful for dragging those people who died in these interesting hunting spots.

Climbing Compounds:
Novices:

• The grating into the sewer in Crossing
• The trail to Stone Clan (Northern Trade Route)
• The tree at the Arthe Dale swimming hole (n, n, w, s from inside Arthe's gate)
• The pole in the Empaths' Guild (down, climb pole, go stair to get out since you will never climb that pole ;) Note that you will not succeed at all of these immediately, but they still teach very nice climbing, to start with.

A little beyond:

• The tree in Arthe still works!
• Combine the bent willow out Crossing's North Gate with Arthe's tree, and you will have a lock in no time.

Later on, the island of Aesry Surlaenis'a teaches climbing basically just by living there. After you can beat Snowbeasts easily, the La'tamis on Aesry are accessed by cliffs which send climbing flying. Just remember that climbing spots have timers (usually 7-10 minutes) on them, so you can't learn repeatedly.

Disarm Traps: With the new version of disarm, the entire system of disarming changed. Disarming now takes a series of steps, which I will list here. Disarm Traps currently only disarms traps on boxes, however, this skill will be converted to "Traps" sometime in the future, and will allow for an (animal?) trapping skill.

Disarm Dilemmas:
To disarm your chest, have it in either hand, with the other hand free, and type disarm my <boxtype> identify first. This identifies the type of trap on the box. Next, for the actual act of disarming, you type disarm my <boxtype>, followed by one of the following, in order of difficulty: careful, quick, or all. If you follow <boxtype> with nothing, it will be the "normal" disarm (between quick and careful).

Note that some boxes have multiple traps and you will need to repeat the above identify and disarm steps.

Remove all armor before disarming traps. Not only does it interfere with your ability to disarm the trap, it can be damaged by some traps if they set off.

Be wound free. Wounds interfere with disarming, especially hand and eye wounds.
As a Ranger, be in the wilds when you disarm. You get a bonus.
The Senses of the Tiger and Cheetah Swiftness spells both assist with disarming.


Escaping: While Escaping is still a skill that is being worked on as of now, the Ranger requirements have been changed to include it. It replaces lockpicking, which no longer counts toward a Ranger's survival total. There are very few ways to learn this skill, but I will list some here.

Escaping (is evil. 'Nuff said.):

• The tunnels out Riverhaven's west gate. This is the home of dusk ogres, and if you walk through this area, you will walk into webs. This will teach escaping up to 30 ranks. You can also try dancing in a room here, this will also set off the webs and you won't have to change rooms.
• The nightweaver, nightreaver, and nightstalker unyns also teach escaping. In order of difficulty, nightweavers teach from 20-60, nightreavers teach from 30-80, and nightstalkers teach up above 100. (If anyone has a cap on this, please tell me.) It is best suggested that if you have the combat skills, that you move up the ladder before you reach the cap (i.e. go to reavers at 50, stalkers at 70).
• Kartais in the Leth Deriel manor teach up to 120-130 ranks, based on people's experience. Kartais probably teach better than just about anything in game (for the ranks), but they are a little dangerous to hunt. It is recommended you are in the 150-175 defenses range before heading into the mansion.
• Wolf spiders up in Theren Keep also teach to about 20 ranks, however since they are harder than dusk ogres and teach to lower ranks, I'd advise against using them. They're just here in case someone has the combat skills to hunt them instead and wants to do so.

Evasion: With Survival as a primary skill group, Evasion is your primary defense. This will be the one that skyrockets above all others, though you can learn parry ability and shield usage quite well. (And unlike me, realize that continuing to train a shield could be a good idea!)

Evasion Etiquette:

• Type stance. This shows your current defensive stance. You have up to 180% to allocate to the three skills. Typically you will want to type stance evasion, then stance skill-you're-not-using 0' then stance shield 80 or stance parry 80, depending on which second defense you want to work.
• Burden (type enc) interferes with evasion. No burden means no evasion penalty. Evasion is affected by the Ranger bonus. Stay in town too long and you will dodge as well as a slug. Stay in the wilds to avoid that.
• Sphere of Protection will greatly enhance your ability to evade. I highly advise using it, as well as making it your first spell.
• Contrary to some beliefs, you want to type parry, not dodge, to best use your evasion ability. Don't ask, I don't know why it's that way.
• Reflexes will help you evade. As a ranger, training your reflexes is a good idea. You'll also find the Senses of the Tiger spell will boost your reflexes and give you a pretty obvious evasion bonus.

First Aid: At some point, you're going to get a bleeding wound that you need to tend, and that's what First Aid helps with. At first, you will only slow bleeding, but later on you will be able to stop it, and in greater amounts as you gain more experience. To tend a wound, just type tend <person> <bodypart>. If you are tending yourself, <person> becomes my.

Tending tips:

• Start off tending someone else for a couple circles, at least. That way, you don't need to carry around a wound it takes you forever to tend. If you get one that you want to keep, though, by all means do so. Just don't go fighting with it until you can tend without suffering a long roundtime.
• Unless your hands and arms are what you are tending for experience, keep them wound-free. Hand and arm wounds increase the length of roundtime taken to tend your wound.
• When you first start tending, tend only 'slight' wounds. Anything else, and you will only succeed in making the bleeding worse.
• A good place to learn First Aid is the empath's guild. Plenty of bleeders to go around.
• A good way to pick up a bleeder is to take a friend with you to Falken's Tannery in Crossing. Steal from them a few times. You'll get conked over the head with a cudgel. Do this until you have a bleeder of a size you'd like, then tend away. Be aware, though, that head bleeders prevent you from performing many activities.
• Because of the new disease system, bleeding wounds now will develop gangrene, which requires immediate attention from an Empath. If you intend to use bleeders to learn First Aid, stay within a civilized area so you can seek out an Empath when (and I do mean when, not if) your wounds get infected.
• With more experience in First Aid and skinning, a great place to go to learn a lot of skills at once is Crocodiles. Removing blood worms will teach you mechanical lore, skinning, first aid, and animal lore. Just walk around until you get some on you, then, with a knife in your hand, type remove worm with knife. I would not advise doing this before reaching 100 in skinning and first aid personally.
• Compendiums are another way to learn first aid. They are not as effective at teaching first aid as many other more active methods, but they will help.

Foraging: Foraging is the skill used to find useful plants, herbs, wood, and other things in the wild. As a Ranger, you are far more skilled at using this ability, and can find better herbs than almost every other Guild. To use the basic skill, type forage <name of item>. Freaking out for Foraging:
The base skill is useless for training purposes.

The best way I have personally found to train is to use another form of forage, forage careful. To use this, type forage <name of item> careful. In order to best determine what will teach you, use the foraging difficulty list located on this site. Once you have found an item that gives you an eleven or twelve second roundtime, you can either use this item, or downgrade ever so slightly to reach the first ten second item on the list.

Another form of foraging gives you a better herb. Typing forage precise <name of item> will utilize this skill.

The last type of foraging is collecting piles of items. Type collect <name of item> to do this. The amount of items in your pile will raise with experience.

Hiding: Being able to slip into hiding always has its uses, and is one of the Ranger's most used survival skills. Typically, it is used to either guard your money while you wait somewhere, or to get an advantage on an opponent in combat. To use it, just type hide.

Handling hiding:

• Some wounds (mostly legs) can interfere with hiding ability. Get them healed to hide well. Armor types aside from leather need to have hindrances trained off through experience in the armor to not hinder hiding. To hide well, stick with leather (and you're a Ranger, you should anyway!)
• With hiding's recent changes, a lot about hiding is different. Only about three hiding attempts per creature will teach you. This is a change from the previous way on learning hiding, in which there was no limit to the amount of times you could hide. I would like to state that this new version of hiding completely sucks. Most of the Realm agrees. But, I digress. Here's some ways to learn hiding...
• First, hide in front of large groups of critters. Be sure that if you are doing this in other people's hunting areas, that you get their permission first! Nothing is more lame than a guy running into your room, hiding and unhiding a few times, and moving on. It's also likely to get you pointed out, thus ruining your ability to hide further (as when people hide in hunting areas, it's quite often a prerequisite to theft).

Lockpicking: Once you disarm your traps, I should hope you want your coin and gems from your box... and every box has a lock. Unless you feel like paying the locksmith to open all your boxes (and a hefty price he charges!), you'll need to learn how to pick a lock.
This skill is no longer required in the Ranger's survival total. However, it is advised this skill be trained alongside Disarm Traps so you can open your own boxes.
The basics for lockpicking are similar to that of disarming. You first need to do a pick <box type> identify to identify the type of lock. Then you'll need to actually perform the pick with pick <box type > where you can also append careful or quick in order to get some more experience out of it. Once you've identified the box, it typically tells you how hard the box is to pick. If it's fairly easy, you may want to use pick it quick so you can milk some more experience.

Picking Propaganda:

• You should follow the same rules as you would for disarming a chest.
• No wounds, no armor, and so on.
• Be sure you have disarmed the trap before you pick the lock, or the chances of your blowing the trap are extremely high. You can do this later on boxes that are way too easy for you.
• When you start out, buy a stout lockpick at the locksmith in Crossing. Don't use slim or ordinary lockpicks, as they break too easily. Later on when you have enough coin, buy Thief-made lockpicks, professionals are excellent, master's are even better. Don't mess with grandmaster picks if you see any, their benefits are near invisible to non-Thieves.

Perception: This is a rather universal skill, aiding in foraging and disarm/lockpicking skills, but its primary use is to see people or creatures hiding, stalking, and stealing. It's also one of the survival skills that is easiest to learn (it's said Rangers learn perception by breathing, practically), and as such, you should pick up lots of it to contribute to that survival average.

Procuring Perception:

• Lesser gains in perception occur from other tasks, such as foraging and disarming traps.
• One way to gain perception is to pick up an item somewhere that you can juggle, such as colorful beanbags. Beanbags are the easiest, and you should start with those. They can be purchased from Aesry, but since that trip's long, you just may want to check and see if someone has some, or not even bother with them at all. The gain from this is not as large as with other things. (Note that juggling items have changed. Only an item that is the correct weight for you will teach perception properly. The best way to tell is to look for something that you can juggle about three (no less, no more, greater than two, less than four... hey, that rhymed!) of regularly.)
• Noticing people hide, or sneak, or steal will give you perception experience. Noticing people on your level or better in these skills teaches much more. Noticing someone steal from you grants you more than seeing them steal from someone else. A good way to gain perception this way is to tell someone who asks for 'open pockets', which means that you won't accuse them of stealing from you, that you do indeed have open pockets.
• Another way is to go into a crowded area (the bank in Crossing is a good start). Search there for people in hiding. Every one you catch will give you perception experience. Do not point at them, however, without reason (this pulls them from hiding)- if you do, it's liable to make people mad.
• The new trailmarker system will teach you perception just by running the trails, and does so at a very good rate. This is my personal suggestion for perception, once you can run the trails- it's good for your bonus, and you learn two skills at once.

Scouting: The Ranger-only survival skill, it allows the Ranger to follow a person practically anywhere they go. It also allows a Ranger to utilize the Trailmarker system, to later make their own trailmarkers, and to be able to send one's companion to find someone, then track it down.

Seeking Scouting:

• The first use of tracking is to track people or creatures. To do this, type track <creature>.
• The first 50 lessons in scouting are horrible, tedious, and just plain stink. Even our own GMs say so. The best way to learn at this level is to go to the community garden in Arthe Dale, and track the scarecrow or the kitten.
• At 35 lessons, you can begin using the trailmarker system. I'll leave most of the trails for you to find, or you can review our trailmarker section. To use the trails, simply go to a room where there is a trailmarker, and type scout trail. If there is no trail in the room, or if you don't have the skill to see it, you will get a "Huh?" message. Once you find the trail, type go trail to follow it. The first trail you will use is located nw, w, nw, nw, nw from outside the west gate in Crossing. Once you appear on the other side, go north, and take the next trail. To return to the first trail, go ne, ne, nw, nw, nw from where you come out.
• At 175 lessons, the Personal Trailmarkers are accessible. More will be included about these in the trailmarker section.
• If your bonus is too badly shot, you will not be able to see the trails to scout them.

Skinning: One of the best skills in a Ranger's arsenal, this is how the true money is made. When a creature with a skin is killed, the Ranger can skin the beast, get its pelt, and sell it at a tanner for money. When a Ranger becomes ardent in skinning, they gain the ability to arrange the skins of what they kill. This ability multiplies the value of the skin by a great amount, sometimes as high as triple what you would get without an arrange. While it is more difficult, the rewards from the process are worth the challenge indeed. There are a lot of ways to take advantage of skinning, too, and make your skinning attempts better and more valuable.

Scoring Skinning:

• Skinning is tied to the Ranger's wilderness bonus, so be in the wilds a little bit before you hunt. However, this is also a double-edged sword. If your bonus is lost, skinning becomes more challenging, so more experience will be gained from what you skin. However, my personal suggestion is to keep your bonus intact and just skin more- that bonus helps in a lot of places you don't want to hinder.
• Use a light-edged type weapon to skin your kills, preferably a skinning knife. The smaller the blade, the easier the skin. If the creature you are fighting still gives you difficulty in killing it, but you skin it perfectly every time, then move up to a larger blade. This challenge will grant more experience for each successful skinning.
• If you are not currently fighting anything, kneel down before what you kill. Do this by typing <kneel creature>. This is for obvious reasons- you're closer to the creature, and can skin it easier than if you were standing.
• If the creature you are fighting makes you constantly fail your skinning attempts every time, and you never see a successful skin, you should probably move down to a weaker creature.
• Pick up a hide scraper at a tanner's shop. To use it, type scrape <skin/hide/pelt> with scraper <quick/normal/careful>. Quick scrapes take less roundtime, and you're probably better off doing it this way unless you are concerned about losing money by destroying a skin. This process is also a part of tanning, but that will be discussed in another section of the website. This process also teaches mechanical lore.
• Hands of Lirisa will help with skinning. The more mana used, the better the effect. Arranging, gained at 100 ranks (or less with a Hands of Lirisa cast on you), will allow you to learn skinning off creatures that were once too easy for you. Type arrange number creature, where number is the creature's order in the room. This command does not default to the last creature fought, like skin. This will add a 50-100% difficulty increase (the amount is random) to the skin, and give you a 5 second roundtime. Then type skin as usual.

Stalking: The ability to sneak about and follow creatures and people, stalking provides the Ranger with what can sometimes be an extremely required stealth mode. This ability, while more suited to a Thief's realm, helps us follow our prey about while we prepare to kill, skin, and search it.

Snagging Stalking

• The stealth change also affected stalking (or will, when it is completed). Like hiding, only three stalking attempts will teach you. In combat, simply follow up a successful hide by typing stalk creature. When you are able to do this without roundtime, you should do it against every creature you hide against. I'll also add another plug for the new stealth system sucking here. Also, keep in mind that stalking while advancing teaches as well. You may find that hiding at missile, stalking, then advancing will teach better than the more typical hide at melee, stalk and ambush. You can extend this by advancing to melee, retreating and then starting over again. (Thanks to Dustcatcher for bringing this up.)
• The second best way is by hiding, then sneaking back and forth through large crowds of people. The best places are the bazaar and outside the bank in Crossing. To sneak, you merely need to hide, and type the direction you want to go. Sneaking will automatically be added in for you. If this option is turned off in your Wizard, type <sneak direction>. This also works against groups of creatures, if you sneak through a room full of them.
• The third, and worst way (but sometimes necessary for the Novice) is to stalk people. To do this, just type stalk <person>. If you succeed, you will follow them around if they move, while still in hiding.
• Sniping is supposed to be one of the best ways to learn the new stalking when released. Senses of the Tiger aids in stalking.

Swimming: Our ability to learn swimming sometimes grants us access to places no one else could think of reaching. With enough of it, we can skip the ferry trip to Riverhaven by swimming across the river, and some areas where creatures are cannot be accessed without some knowledge of the skill. Basically, it's the ability to cross bodies of water by kicking your legs- as if you didn't know that already. Until 10th circle, you will need four ranks per circle in this skill- more than any other survival skill.

Sucking up for Swimming:

• You should have no burden when attempting to swim. Having a burden tires you out, and makes swimming many times more difficult.
• The best place to start swimming is the swimming hole in Arthe Dale. Just wander around in there for a bit, and you will pick up swimming fast. To swim, just move like you would normally walk around. After about 20 lessons, change to the brook to the far west of the goblin area, and this will carry you to your required 40 lessons for 10th circle. After this, Aesry is the place to be- the sea near the docks carries you for many, many ranks.
• The Faldesu River, near the ferry to Riverhaven, begins teaching around 80-85 ranks. Currents play a big factor in how much you learn while swimming. The harder the current is, the more you will learn. The same applies if the current is against you.

Appraisal:

• This determines value of all items and power of some items (armor, weapons, etc). To use this skill, type appraise <item> <quick/careful>. With nothing after <item>, it defaults to normal.
• The best way for an early user to learn this is to compare two pieces of their armor by typing compare <item> to <item>. Only do this until you can use one of these other methods.
• If you have a bundle full of skins, hang onto it for a few minutes to appraise it a couple times, or carry a full gem pouch on you (do not tie it). Wait about three minutes between every two appraisals, because it is a timered skill. Also, give it about 15 seconds between each of those two appraisals.
• Also, the braiding skill in the Mechanical Lore section below teaches appraisal well (and that's even for lore primary guilds!).

Mechanical Lore:

• Helps with tanning and the making of bows and arrows. To learn this to start, combine tufts of grass, vines, or twigs together by typing combine <item> with <item>. After this, get a mortar and pestle, and place a crushable item in it, and type crush <item> with pestle. Or, you can use the hide scraper method mentioned in skinning.
• Later on, you can braid ropes from tufts of grass (easy), or rough vines (hard). To do this, simply have one of those items in your hand, and type braid my <item>. You will need more pieces as you go along; simply forage them up and continue. You cannot combine grass and vines. Also, remove your hand armor when you do this, as it hinders your efforts. When you first start braiding, you may not see experience gain. This is normal. *grin* When your roundtimes begin climbing above 5 seconds, but you are still getting messages implying progress, you will learn at a steady rate. If you no longer see progress, it's time to discard the braids, or pull them to create a rope.

Primary Magic:

• It's what determines how powerful your spells are. Until 5th circle, you will not know a spell, and must learn magic through classes. Ask a Ranger for a magic class, and they will probably happily oblige. When you circle, Kalika will give you some free magic experience until 5th circle. Do not seek favors during this time, as you will waste that freebie and need to gain it through classes. Instead, wait until you absorb the free magic knowledge (go to "Primary Magic: learning or clear" on your experience listing) before you seek favor. When you reach 5th circle, choose Sphere of Protection as your spell, as it teaches magic the best.
• To cast magic: Type prep <spellname> <amount of mana>. To start, you will type prep sop 5, to prepare Sphere of Protection with 5 mana.
• Wait for the message "You feel fully prepared to cast your spell". Type cast to cast it on yourself, or cast <person> to cast it on someone else. Remember though, that many people do not want magic cast on them, especially Barbarians.

As a note of which weapons *I* think you should use, I would go with Medium Edged and Longbow to start, in whichever order suits you. Light Edged weapons are very fast, but lack a lot of the punch of Medium Edged weapons (and I know this from experience, I am a Light Edged primary user, ugh). You do need two weapons to circle after 10th circle, and will later require a third weapon. Choose whichever weapon you like for the third one, but get it started early, and you will never realize you have any weapon requirement but your primary one.

There isn't really much to say about this one, other than "go with leather". You can try light chain if you want, some Rangers do use it for the added protection- but do so at your own peril. Armor is learned basically any time you move in your armor- from attacking, to parrying, to using your shield. As an interesting note, this is the one skill in DragonRealms that, if you lock it and keep learning it, it will not harm your mindstate. This is due to the extreme ease with which armor reaches mind lock, compared to your other offense and defense skills.
Also, all armor types have innate hindrances, which are trained off by gaining ranks in the armor. For a basic set of leathers, this hindrance is gone at about 50 ranks. This hindrance affects your stealth abilities, and your ability to evade attack. This is the reason why a Ranger typically goes with leather- the quicker the hindrance is gone, the quicker they can more easily hide and stalk. Chain armors will lose their hindrance slower, and will also have the most remaining hindrance when you train it off. As for plate armors, let's not go there. If you want plate, go roll a Paladin. ;)