DrKvothe's Guide to Your First Character

[DrKvothe]

I'm fairly new to p1999, and one of the most shocking things I've noticed is the number of new players. I started as a barbarian shaman, and I must have met a dozen new players before leaving the everfrost/blackburrow area to adventure. This is a guide to choosing your first race/class for new, untwinked players. I'm clearly still a newb, but through my in game experience, extensive browsing on the forums and wiki while at work, and the helpful feedback in this thread, I believe that this guide will be useful to many people.

I should start by saying rule number 1: If you think you'll have fun playing it, play it. If you want to be a bard, be a bard. If you want to be a shaman, be a shaman. This guide is just aimed at determining the easiest class/race combinations for starting characters. These characters typically won't be the best at lvl 50+. These are the characters that will let you hunt and travel effectively on a limited budget (what you can earn from your local newbie zones) and that play roles in groups best suited for new players (healing or dps, not tanking or pulling).

You might ask what the point is of playing a character that won't be worth much 50+. Well, 50+ is a long way away for a new player. If you do decide to reroll, this will be a character that can raise the money for a more gear intensive second character, and a character with which to explore the land and learn the various dungeons. You may fall in love with this char and take it all the way. You may not. But these are, as far as I can tell, the easiest classes to gain a foothold in this challenging but rewarding game.

Format:
class - race (reason for race) exp modifier
Reason for best/good/bad rank.

Best:
druid - halfling (exp bonus) 0.95
Ports = cash, gear independent, fast leveler, self-bind. Get one to late 30s and you can raise a few plat whenever you need.

magician- gnome (pets look huge by comparison!) 1.1
Fast leveler, very gear independent, great solo and grouped, self-bind.

necromancer- erudite (stats, no iksar disadvantages) 1.1
Fast leveler, great solo, ok group, very gear independent, self-bind.

cleric- dwarf (gear + stats) 1
Fast leveler, highly desired in group, self-bind

Ok:
ranger- Human (stats) 1.4
Dirt cheap gear, not much expected from you, track, but not great solo and slow leveler

rogue- Barbarian (slam + stats) 0.955
Fast leveler, cheapish gear, not much expected from you but you MUST group to level.

enchanter - dark elf (sneak) 1.1
Decent exp ratio, Gear independent, good/great solo, fantastic group, self-bind. Very powerful class, BUT your group lives or dies by your skill.

paladin- dwarf (highest stats) 1.4
Dirt cheap to gear, expected to tank but not expected to be great at it. Slow leveler.

Bad:
bard - half elf (stats) 1.4
Bad exp bonus, carpal tunnel, everyone thinks you should be better than you are. One of the most powerful classes if played well, but very difficult to play well.

wizard- erudite (stats) 1.1
Fast leveler, gear independent, self-bind, can port for cash, but boring and not well liked in groups. Better off playing a different caster.

shadowknight - ogre (stats + stun immune) 1.61
Horrible experience penalty, gear dependent but not too pricey, and expected to tank well.

warrior- ogre (stats + stun immune) 1.035
Fast leveler, gear dependent but not too pricey, expected to tank well.

shaman- troll (regen + JBgear) 1.2
Incredible class from 34-60, just flat awful from 1-33. One of the most powerful classes in game when twinked. Must more enjoyable with ~3k worth of twink gear, flat out OP if you can fully twink with Fungi and (46+) JBB. Best left for when you're not broke.

monk- human (no iksar disadvantages) 1.2
Incredible class, but incredible things are expected from you. You will be asked to pull and you will be asked to tank. Possibly most popular melee, thus gear isn't as cheap. If you want to carry around anything at all, you'll need some weight reduction bags. Expect to be poor. If you can afford to twink your monk (iksar, probably), you'll be very popular.

Discussion
You'll notice some clear discrepancies between the information here and the information provided in Loraen's guide, which concludes:

"So in my opinion we have the overpowered classes (Enchanter, Bard, Shaman, Monk), the solid classes (Cleric, Magician, Necromancer, Shadowknight), the raid-specialized classes (Warrior, Rogue, Wizard), and the weak classes (Ranger, Druid, Paladin)."

Notice none of the overpowered classes are in my best category. Notice the 'weak classes' are ranked either best or good in my guide. Here's why: I'm assuming that you're starting absolutely broke, and that you care more about learning how the game works and getting some pp to deck out future chars than you care about endgame or raiding. This is, after all, your first character. That said, here are some general explanations I feel must be made:

Money: Getting a few hundred pp early on is relatively straightforward. Loot spider ling silk and low quality pelts to make leather padding, and loot HQ bear skin. These sell for lots of platinum. In your early teens, greater lightstones dropped by willowisps each can be turned in for a 10pp item in north karana. Under-played classes can often buy extremely powerful weapons for cheap. This is a good reason to play ranger, rogue, or paladin. You can get a silver swiftblade, 16/24 ranger only 2h, for ~100pp. Suddenly rangers don't seem so crappy, huh? Also important to remember that most items will hold their value. If you spend your hard earned 1kpp decking out your ranger and end up hating the class, send him to east commonlands to get your money back.

Faction: It's much easier to play an evil race after you've learned the lay of the land and know how to travel. Traveling without dying is difficult enough without kos guards! It's simply easier for a new player to not have to worry much about faction. I never hesitate to ruin a faction on my barbarian shaman, and I still have tons of places I can bank.

Haste Melee classes get a 21% white damage boost when they can afford a 12k pp FBSS. This is on top of all the extra damage from str gear a twink might have. Caster twinks have a larger mana pool, allowing them to attempt more challenging fights, but they don't do more spell dps than their untwinked counterparts. However, due to the economics of p1999, while a melee character will be severely gimped when not twinked compared to a p1999 melee twink, the nontwink will still be significantly stronger after spending 200pp than any similar level melee 'back in the day.'

Tanking/Pulling/CC: You really don't want much expected from you in groups. Trying to hold aggro from an epic rogue twink (which are pretty darn common) with an untwinked (no haste) warrior isn't fun. Being the puller in a dungeon you don't know isn't fun. You're better off waiting until you can semi-twink before attempting these classes. If you CAN tank, you'll be expected to. I've moved paladin up a bit, simply because people don't really seem to expect anything incredible from paladins! While being able to CC is incredible for breaking tough camps, being expected to make a group work when it really shouldn't is a tough burden.

Binding: Classes that can cast bind affinity have a huge advantage. You will die in this game, and long corpse runs can discourage exploration. For your first char, your best bet is a class that can cast bind affinity.

Wizard: I probably don't know enough about this class to make much of a judgement call, but it seems particularly limited. All the caster advantages, but none of the fun. I may be way off here.

Shaman: I know what you're thinking: but you said you play a shaman! Why is this ranked 'bad'? Loraen says shaman in OP! Shaman doesn't really have much to offer in groups until 29 (when you get greater heal and haste). At 34, you get a pet and a new powerful dot, basically tripling your dps at 33 while simultaneously improving your mana efficiency. If you can afford a Poison Wind Censor (~2kpp), I hear things are way easier from 20-34.

Necromancer: Necromancers leech from their health to increase their mana regeneration rate. This is very well described on the necromancer page of the p1999 wiki. However, the downsides to playing iksar are substantial: kunark mobs have more exp, iksars suffer an additional 20% exp penalty beyond class penalty, and iksars are kos pretty much everywhere. New players are going to want relatively easy access to EC. Erudite necros, when compared to iksar necros, have lower hp regen but much larger mana pool (important before you can afford to cap int), level 20% faster, and has less faction issues.

Any comments are appreciated! Thank you for reading this!