The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Choosing a battleclass had taken him weeks of looking through the Redlands forums when he had free time from upgrading headsets.

The crazy discussion he'd recorded at Hazelnutsward bistro had been very helpful in narrowing down the choices for him.

A Redlands player had four major Stats: STR, DEX, MND, VIT.

Strength influenced damage and critical strikes.

Dexterity also influenced critical strikes, as well as attack evasion and attack speed.

Mind Focus influenced everything magic related, from power to adaptability.

Vitality influenced health, endurance, as well as recovery from various attacks.

To choose classes for maximum monster hunting potential, he had to keep the Stats in mind.

"I'll take the Enchanter as my crafting class." Eli stated first, to get it out of the way.

The Attendant, about to introduce the classes, was unperturbed. "Are you certain?"

"Yes."

The Attendant waved a hand, and the fourteen other craft classes disappeared.

Having chosen Enchanter as his crafting class, a great deal of his stat gain in the future would go to MND.

The battleclass he chose should also be attentive to MND, so increasing his Stats would increase the ability of both his chosen classes.

There were a few magic-related battleclasses that had attracted him.

He'd briefly considered Golem summoning, but he had to build the golems himself and that was expensive. So very, very expensive when at low levels the golems would be destroyed at every battle.

Wolf Warrior would be excellent if he could get people to ignore the fact that draculkar looked down on the vargvir race even though they were nominally allied.

If he transmigrated to Zushkenar as a draculkar Wolf Warrior….

Eli chortled at the notion.

It would be interesting, but maybe too interesting for him.

And the Forged class?

No way.

He'd be run out of the whole Hallagon mountain range by the outrage of the entire draculkar race. They were too proud of their blood and perfect bodies to countenance any 'improvements'.

Oh, come to think of it, maybe it was a good thing he hadn't chosen to hybridize himself.

"I'd like to see what data you have on Spellcaster, Battlemage, and Sharpshooter. Oh, the Barriermage too, please. I won't choose from the rest."

All but the four cards disappeared.

Eli touched the cards to enlarge their descriptors. Not much was different from the information he already had.

The draw to Spellcaster was that it gave an additional 3 Spell Slots, and a +1 to Magical Aptitude.

Aptitude was how powerful a magic-user could be. All players were given 6 Spell Slots. A Spell could be bought or gained from a quest, or created by a player.

The level of Spells a player used didn't depend on their game levels but on the Aptitude they had and their MND.

MND was the one stat in Redlands that everyone raised by using items and accessories.

Because of this, regular players could do nearly as much as a Spellcaster with just the regular 6 Spell Slots if they had a good Aptitude roll and put together some good spell-chains.

The Spellcaster class didn't hold weapons, and was too limited unless the player got lucky and gained a few excellent Spells early. Or bought them from the shops. Of course, if they were also lucky enough to gain a couple of MND items, then all the better.

If Eli remembered correctly, a rank-three Spell cost about 1200 golden drax. Then a rank-four Spell about five or six times that. A single MND item was even more expensive.

When the Quake happened, Eli was still doing quests that rewarded in silver serpens, not gold drax.

A class that used weapons and had additional Spell slots was the Battlemage. It was pretty tempting, really. But with Battlemages, there was no recourse without a weapon to channel the magic.

Then again, the Spell slots would take care of that.

He contemplated the Barriermage. It would be really useful in corralling the prey he was hunting.

Bringing out a Barriermage's full potential at low and mid-levels was too dependent on terrain. Barriermages usually took up long range weapons, rifles or bows, to offset the disadvantages, but the Hallagon mountains was full of trees and canyons.

Barriermages worked best in open areas unless they had high Aptitude and a high level, then they were a terror anywhere.

Eli had seen a few battles with high-level barrier mages; their ability to control the battlefield was truly horrifying.

It would be really useful for a newbie solo monster hunter. In the plains.

There was little known about Sharpshooters on the forums. A class based on crossbows, bows, pistols, rifles, darts, blowguns, slings, the description stated.

He'd spent an hour reading through all the facts and speculations and calculations the forums had on sharpshooters, but couldn't gain much data compared to the Battlemage he was leaning toward.

A stealthy battlemage would be a terror anywhere.

There was an already tested magic rifleman build using the draculkar race, but the OP concluded that it was too much trouble. To maintain a reasonable amount of efficiency in the upper levels, the player needed to make their own bullets as the standard mage-bullets in shops were only effective up to Lvl 40 opponents.

Like the battlemage class, it was dependent on weapons.

He was going with a battle/crafter build anyway, so bullets wouldn't be too much trouble.

What the sharpshooter had that the battlemage class didn't was a long-range option. It was weak in close combat, but the draculkar race had the second highest base dexterity stat in the game.

Dodging was a viable battle action. So was tactical retreat.

Not to mention, it could possibly mesh better with shadow control than the battlemage class.

The main problem was that he needed to cart bullets around.

He'd have the inventory system for a year but after that, hauling around a full kit would be a pain.

The inventory system of the players didn't work in Zushkenar. So everyone woke in another world with their items strewn all around them.

The lucky ones were those who acquired dimension-space items.

Eli realized he was planning as if he'd chosen the Sharpshooter class already, and sighed.

Was he influenced by the gun lessons or did he take the lessons because he'd already had Sharpshooter in his heart from the first?

He liked it for the massive potential for a versatile fighting style, because mage-bullets came in many flavors and shapes. Eli didn't know where to look to find Spells for his Spell Slots, but mage-bullets were available in every large town and city.

And also because, it was not inherently a close-range battleclass.

He could admit to that.

"I'll choose the Sharpshooter class."

The Attendant confirmed his choice.

Enchanter had good synergy with a Sharpshooter, as both of them required a specific amount of MND to do well. Sharpshooter needed DEX, which went well with the stealth and speed build he wanted.

"I'll take Scout and Butcher as two of the subclasses." He hesitated, then nodded in resolve. "For the last, I'll take Tinkerer."

"You will sacrifice two subclass slots to choose Tinkerer," the Attendant reminded him.

"I know. Let's do it."

The detection abilities of the Scout subclass were invaluable, and an active Butcher subclass added two butcher knives to the weapons holdout of the player after gaining First Apprentice rank: one heavy butcher knife, one light butcher knife.

The added weapons would be helpful.

Not to mention, the Butcher subclass allowed monster hunters the ability to take monster ingredients from slain animals beyond what the game's item-drop system offered.

Taking Tinkerer was an important part of his strategy of surviving after the Quake.

Tinkerer took two subclass slots because it was a jack-of-all-trades build, allowing the player to pick up an additional 9 subclasses. The catch was that all these subclasses could only be leveled to 101% xp of First Apprentice.

Subclasses had nine skill-ranks: third apprentice, second apprentice, first apprentice, third wright, second wright, first wright, master, high master, grandmaster.

Considering the really useful skills were learned in the wright ranks, limiting advancement to First Apprentice meant that most people considered Tinkerer a roleplayer subclass for casual gamers.

The reason it was so important to Eli was because all subclasses got a boost after the Quake. It was discovered early that while all the skills the player learned in the major classes was ingrained into the body and mind, the subclasses got a different kind of boost.

Someone who never used his subclass suddenly found that he could build sellable items with it, for instance the former player could brew acceptable wine and beer, or bake acceptable breads.

The consensus was that the subclasses got upgraded by an entire tier. A third apprentice got the skills of a third wright, a third wright got the skills of a master, and masters presumably got insane prodigy skills in their craft.

The great majority of low-level transmigrators after the Quake owed their survival, the reason they didn't starve to death, to these suddenly usable skills.

Eli included.

With Tinkerer subclass, even if the skills he chose could only level to First Apprentice in-game, they'd be ranked First Wright after the Quake.

More skills meant more chances of survival, meant more options.

"What are you choosing for your Tinker subclasses?"

"Tracker and Scribe."

Tracker meshed well with the skills of the draculkar race, in fact added a couple of points to VIT when leveled up. Eli could deal with using only apprentice-rank Tracker skills in-game if he could master Scout.

Then Scribe, because after the Quake, only scribes, historians, and bards kept their ability to read the languages of Zushkenar.

It was easy to magic the knowledge into the brain, but Eli didn't want the hassle. And combined with the Enchanter class, Scribes had the ability to write simple contracts at First Apprentice level.

"Attendant, can I gain merchant quests with the Accountant subclass?"

"Yes, but with less incidence than actually taking the Trader subclass."

"Which of the two deals better with developing land?" He needed a financial subclass for his plans to buy and develop land after the craft update.

"As a draculkar, the Accountant."

Eli paused. "If not a draculkar?"

"Then the Moneychanger subclass."

"Why?"

"Wouldn't you like to find out yourself?"

Eli lifted a dumbfounded brow at the Attendant. "I know you know."

"Where would the fun be in having all the answers at once?"

"It would be over-powered curbstomping fun, Attendant."

"But it wouldn't be fun for those who are curbstomped and ground under the heels of the powerful, would it?"

Eli laughed, without humor. "I hate it, but you're right."

The Attendant just stared at him with that evaluating empty façade.

"I'll take the Accountant. And then the Soldier."

There was a subclass called 'Knight' that was better for solo battle but it required an oath to a noble which Eli really didn't want to deal with.

Oaths were important in Zushkenar.

The gamer knights who left the service of their lords after the Quake without the proper procedure were shunned as far as the offended lord/lady could publicize their dishonor.

Too much trouble.

Soldier was a good compromise, though it came without the massive leadership and horseriding stats of Knight. Both Knight and Soldier allowed the chance to gain added Reputation with a nation while leveling up a battleclass.

Eli took it mostly for the passive effects and the ability to gain government-supplied work. He had no intention of joining the army.

"Smelter. Does this work with stone?"

"In limited capacity, If you wish to melt stone, you need Stonesinger or Stoneforger."

"I mean, will it work with gems?"

"If added to the abilities of an Enchanter, yes."

Well, great.

"I'll take it then."

Eli needed Smelter to make the bullets of the guns. And the analysis of metals. Apparently it went well with the Enchanter class. Also a good way to acquire metalsmith quests.

He scrolled through the list of subclasses carefully, then caught a sentence.

"Wait, Clockmaker can analyze and cut gemstones? Those aren't Miner skills?"

"Miners are more utilized to finding gemstones and mineralogical analysis. Their skills in cutting gemstones are lesser compared to the Clockmaker."

He'd been looking for Miner to complement the Enchanter, but Clockmaker sounded more versatile.

The metalsmithing skills and knowledge of basic mechanics would come in handy, since the Mafmet race enjoyed a rabid monopoly on various mechanical skills.

As far as he could tell, the subclass Clockmaker was a Jeweler by another name. That meant Eli could acquire quests involving gems and precious metals, with added delicate machinery.

He'd just freed a slot for another subclass, as Jeweler would be redundant with Clockmaker.

"I'll take Clockmaker. Oh, Acrobat, I'll need that."

The Acrobat was chosen purely for the added Dexterity.

The increase in dodge chances and speed was important.

"I'll add Leatherworker and Forester." Eli finished. Then he peered at the list. "No, not Forester. Bombardier. That works with rifles, yes?"

He was planning to have a long-range option sooner or later.

The Attendant agreed. "It does."

The Leatherworker subclass worked well with Butcher, which meant greater EXP gain. Also, it was the subclass that saved his life. He knew it best out of all the subclasses.

Eli wasn't planning on making armor yet, but the curing solutions that dominated the apprentice levels could get him some potion-making quests. Not to mention it would make him money at low-levels.

Eli paused, then frowned. Bombardier was good for long range heavy attacks but if he was already making his own bullets, it would be redundant sooner or later, wouldn't it?

"Does the Bombardier subclass have effect on low-level mage-bullets?"

"It is more effective with more destructive bullets."

"That's not a helpful statement." Wasn't that obvious?

"Isn't it?" The Attendant murmured.

Eli sighed. It looked like Bombardier was for when he leveled Enchanter enough to make high-level bullets.

"Not Bombardier then. How about Ghostcaller instead?" Eli tapped one of the still numerous cards. "Can this Ghostcaller scout through walls?"

"It is a spirit class."

"Unhelpful."

Ghostcaller allowed him to summon 3 spirits. The description noted that the subclass allowed the spirits to take one hit for the player.

With the low VIT of the draculkar race, a subclass that increased survival chances was invaluable.

Eli planned to use them as scouts.

The Scout class was limited to visual range. If they could scout, Ghostcaller would be invaluable.

You can never have too many eyes when hunting monsters; especially if they are intelligent hunters, or operate in packs, or both.

"I'll take it. That's the last one, right?"

"It is." The Attendant made the rest that weren't selected vanish. "For your main subclasses, you have chosen Scout, Butcher, and Tinkerer. For your Tinker subclasses: Tracker, Scribe, Accountant, Soldier, Smelter, Clockmaker, Acrobat, Leatherworker, and Ghostcaller."

Eli considered again.

Choosing was difficult when a lot of the subclasses were added with the war expansion. Which meant the old craftmasters didn't have data on the forums for them.

Eli would have liked to acquire Forester or Herbalist, since it would allow him to better forage for useful plants, but most of the low-level Forester skills were about spotting useful items and plants. His experience in Zushkenar was enough to ingrain some of that knowledge in him.

Then there was a library quest for a herbarium of a kind, wasn't there? He'd remember which library it was sooner or later, probably.

And if he needed Herbalist, he could always take a quest with an Apothecary to gain the subclass.

It's not like players were prevented from gaining subclasses in-game. It was just easier to level a subclass chosen during the character creation.

The classes taken during creation have some influence in the craft quests given by NPCs as well.

That ended the class selection page.