Considerations for Avians
Avians (also affectionally called beaks) represent the ranger class. Usually
one of the first additional classes to be added to a MUD expanding its base
classes, these scouts combine excellent offensive capabilities with powerful
reconaisance skills. There are always a fair number of avians around, if
only for track, their single greatest advantage. Because they are also
birdmen, the avian can also be called to move around drunken spellcasters,
providing the only truly reliable means of transport for such people (short
of buying a vehicle, almost as expensive as an enhance). They have virtually
no use for mana, only needing
a little to feed their track skill. All their other skills, including
flight, are free! Finally they can level like greased lightning, letting the
other classes watch their dust. Their main drawback is that, because of the
shape of their wings, tail and claws, they can virtually wear no armor. Body
armour goes first, cloaks second, the girdle third and finally boots are
lost to the
talons. Needless to say, this makes the avian rather vulnerable.
Weapons policy: The avians are somewhere between the dwarf and the human,
having up to 4 weapon, and 2 unarmed attacks (claw). That, and the fact that
the augmenting skills equal, if not surpass the damage done by weapons, a
balance should be struck between raw damage output and bonuses. Usually this
means that the avian will have one weapon set for pure damage output, and
the other for bonuses. This doesn't mean that the damage weapon should not
have bonuses, it just means that the weapons total damage output is as high
as possible.
Armor policy: Avians can never reach the to hit/damage bonuses dwarves or
kender can have, nor the armor class a human or illithid will sport. They
will have to do with getting as much bonuses out of what little they can
wear and try to kill the mob before they can do too much damage. As such,
all emphasis should be placed on bonuses, only letting AC or other
considerations play part where the difference is significant (like onyx
bracer VS white bracer).
Grouping considerations: Avians are a true support class. Their
vulnerability makes them even worse tanks than druids, but in the second
rank they can just as easily make mincemeat out of their opponent with their
powerfull skills. Also, they can be invaluable guiding a group through a
maze or finding new opponents in large areas with deadly accuracy. Avians
can group with any class that is able to catch the blows for them, even
sufficiently advanced elves! Just as
long as they don't group up with other avians, in which case vulnerability
augments vulnerability.
Most prominent weakness: Avians have extremely little in the way of armor
and should therefore at all times possible use sanctuary and either group
members or charmies (easily gained trough glare) to keep from getting hurt.
The best approach to killing an opponent after tracking it down is to simply
use the kill command, followed by chucking a few feathers into the fray.
After that windblasts will have to do. If the opponent is really nasty, a
tailsweep can be done before the feathers are flung, after which windzone
and peck will have to suffice until the opponent gets up and blast can be
used again. IF the enemies' blows are bothering you too much, get a charmie
and write some aliases, making use of the fact that ALL charmies have rescue
capabilities. Unlike other races, avians can simply learn EVERYTHING they
can possibly learn, because they start with a low ETL and they got few
skills as it is. you never know if one of the less used skills can become
usefull sometime. Even throw has its use! Always have hover and vision on,
they are free anyway and can prevent a lot of agony. And use birdseye
liberally while exploring unknown terrain or mazes, or simply when you want
to see if that big bad agro has returned. A final tip, tan can
be really useful in getting rid of nodrop or noremove weapons!