Equipment

Identify

To determine the stats of any piece of equipment you're carrying you can use the identify command. It does not cost mana or any resource and can be freely used on all items.

Level Requirements

There are two kinds of item level requirements in Alter Aeon: main level and total levels.

• A main level requirement is indicated only by a 'Level: X' in the identify string. Your highest level class must be at least this level to equip the item.
• A total level requirement is indicated by a 'Total levels: X' in the identify string. Your total levels as shown by show total (or by simply summing the levels in all of your classes) must be at least this number to equip the item.

This can be complicated further if an item has a class flag. For examples of how to figure that out see the below section on class flags.

Flags

For a player new to Alter Aeon it can be overwhelming determining what is a good piece of equipment and what you should throw away. In addition to the normal stat management you might be familiar with from other RPGs where you want to pick the right stats for your class, there is the concept of flags. Flags are properties of equipment that may restrict who can wear it or even what other equipment it can be worn with.

Class

Equipment can come with a flag of a certain class, e.g., WARRIOR, THIEF, etc. When an item has one or more of these flags you must meet the level requirement indicated by the item in all of the flagged classes.

Example 1:

• Item requires Level: 15
• Item has no class flags
• Character is level 20 Warrior, level 10 Thief, level 5 cleric

This item CAN be worn because the item does not require any class and their main class is at least level 15

Example 2:

• Item requires Level: 15
• Item is MAGE flagged
• Character is level 20 Warrior, level 15 Thief, level 10 Cleric, level 5 Mage

This item CANNOT be worn because even though they are level 20 Warrior they are not a level 15 Mage

Example 3:

• Item requires Level: 15
• Item is WARRIOR MAGE flagged
• Character is level 20 Warrior, level 15 Thief, level 10 Cleric, level 5 Mage

This item CANNOT be worn because they meet the level 15 requirement for the WARRIOR flag but not for the MAGE flag

Example 4:

• Item requires Total levels: 63 (and 20 thief)
• Item is THIEF flagged
• Character is level 29 Warrior, level 24 Thief, level 19 Cleric, level 14 Mage

This item CAN be worn because even though their main class is Warrior their Thief level is higher than 20, and their total levels is higher than 63.

Alignment

There are two types of alignment flags: ANTI flags and what we'll call active flags. An ANTI flag on a piece of equipment is one of ANTI_EVIL, ANTI_NEUTRAL, or ANTI_GOOD. An active flag is one of GOOD or EVIL. Items with ANTI flags cannot be worn if either the player is that alignment OR if the player is wearing an item with an active flag of that alignment.

Example 1:

• Item A has the flag ANTI_GOOD
• Item B has the flag GOOD

These two items CANNOT be worn together regardless of the character's alignment. Likewise this is the case for ANTI_EVIL/EVIL.

Example 2:

• Item has the flags ANTI_GOOD ANTI_NEUTRAL
• Character is EVIL

This item CAN be worn because the character's alignment does not conflict with either ANTI_GOOD or ANTI_NEUTRAL

Example 3:

• Item has the flag ANTI_GOOD
• Character is NEUTRAL

This item CAN be worn because the character's alignment does not conflict with either ANTI_GOOD and the item doesn't have an ANTI_NEUTRAL flag. The character doesn't have to be EVIL aligned to wear an ANTI_GOOD item, they just can't be GOOD aligned.

Note there is no NEUTRAL flag on items but there is an ANTI_NEUTRAL flag meaning NEUTRAL aligned characters cannot wear it.

Cursed

Items with the CURSED flag cannot be removed once worn. You will need to find a cleric or otherwise a wand or scroll to cast Lift Curse on yourself. If the curse is successfully lifted the item will be removed and placed in your inventory. Mid-level clerics have access to the Cursebreaker enchantment which can permanently remove the CURSED flag from an item.

Hum

Items with the HUM flag make a lot of noise. You cannot sneak with a HUM item either equipped or in your inventory. Picking up a HUM item will immediately cause you to stop

Finding good equipment

The key to finding good equipment is first to understand what stats are important to your class. See the in game helpfiles for your class or the relevant page on the wiki for that information. Here we'll go over the more general rules of thumb for acquiring equipment:

• NPCs that are themed after a class will generally drop gear relevant to that class. E.g., an undead necromancer will probably drop necromancer gear, a gnoll warrior will likely drop warrior gear, a drow rogue will likely drop thief gear, etc.
• If an enemy seems like a boss of an area they probably have a good piece of gear.
• Some equipment is not always dropped directly from an enemy but is instead in a chest or other container nearby. Like any good adventurer, loot all the chests!
• The main quests on the newbie islands (Sloe, Kordan, and Archais) all either directly hand you good gear as a reward for completion or direct you to an area with good gear.
• Keep an eye out for equipment which is character or account bound. Binding equipment, while not always amazing, is generally binding because it's better than other non-binding items in the same area.
• Not every piece of equipment loads in an area every time. You may need to wait for an area or instance to reset and try again. It's worth running an area at least a couple times to find all the goodies.
• As a last resort every major city on the islands has a donation room. A room where items from the donate <item> command are sent and you may take from freely. The shop command list is used to see and filter items available. Likewise if you're adventuring and find an item you don't want but may be useful to another player feel free to donate it to the needy!

Preventing accidental dropping/selling

To prevent accidentally selling or dropping an item you can use the set keep <item> command to apply the KEEP flag. Items with the KEEP flag cannot be dropped, sold, traded, or donated. To remove the KEEP flag you can use set unkeep <item>. You can additionally restrict an item from even being put in a container with set noput <item> (Note that this is a toggle and you run the command again to remove the flag)