Monsters, Combat, and Tactics

More than anything else, monsters are the source of the vast majority of treasure and experience in Dereth.  Quests provide experience and treasure too, but not nearly as much or as often.  There are a wide variety of monsters in Dereth and each uses different forms of attack, is vulnerable to different damage types, and provides a different treasure quality and experience amount.  It's a daunting task to remember which weapon to use against which monster, but as long as you can remember the most common monsters, you should be fine.  HERE is a reasonably complete listing of basic monster types and which damage type is most effective against them.  You can also learn more about your foes HERE.  Specific monsters will vary.  Once you know which damage type to be using, you're more or less ready for combat.  Make sure you're prepared though!  This means lots of extra tapers and scarabs for mages, plenty of healing kits and stamina elixirs or rations for melees, and ammunition for archers.  

Before you get started, it's time to cast some spells.  Practically every character will eventually want to have Item and Life magic, as well as Creature if you can spare the credits.  To do be the best killing machine you can be, you'll want to use item magic to increase your damage and reduce damage done to you, life magic also to reduce damage done to you as well as increasing your regeneration rates, and creature magic to increase your skills.  If you know what type of creature you are going to be fighting (ie, you are fighting in a dungeon populated by a specific monster), you can cast fewer buffs on yourself to save time - you don't need lightning protections if you are fighting Tuskers.  Of course, if you are adventuring overland or in a dungeon with which you are unfamiliar, be safe and buff yourself to the nines.

At some point, you will undoubtedly bite off more than you can chew and you will meet a grisly end.  When you die, you will lose a portion of the pyreals on-hand, several of the highest value items, and you will incur a vitae penalty, all dependant on your level.  The items you lose will all remain on your corpse, and depending on where you died, can be recovered.  You have a very substantial amount of time to recover those items, but don't waste time since your corpse will eventually disappear.  Vitae penalty is a temporary 5% per death penalty to all of your skills.  Removing vitae is as simple as earning experience again.  If you do die several times in a row though, vitae can become crippling, so try to burn off your penalty as soon as possible.  If you need help recovering your corpse, be sure to ask your patron or monarchy.  You can give a friend permission to loot your corpse by typing /permit add <name>.