Ahoy,

I'm just wondering if this is one of those RPG's where certain skills are nerfed or something, and some are more useful than others (like in Fallout).

I'm a Ranger and I picked Search and Sword. Is that decent? I plan to Look at a lot of stuff.

I really wish I could have picked Track, too, for roleplaying my ranger, but then I couldn't have picked sword. Is there some way I could learn it later?

Thanks.

Those skills will be fine.

You gain skills by meditating at shrines, and you need the mantra for whatever skill you want to increase.

The shrines are big gold Ankhs, you'll need to look around to find them on each level.

The mantras can be found on scraps of paper, writing on walls or the people you meet may tell you.

All the skills are useful to a point, there aren't any that I can remember that are completely useless.

Magic can be quite useful, although it's probably far more useful in the second game.

Thanks!

Rangers can't use magic, though, can they?

everyone can, its just to what degree you are skilled at it, based on your mana skill (how much mana you have) and your casting skill (how often your spell fails, or worse backfires)

I suppose this refers to an in-game action, but this made me laugh :D

Is there a general consensus on what the best character class is in UU1 (and UU2)?

What skills are most/least useful?

The classes just mean a slight specialisation in one thing or another.

Classes I used to use were Paladin, Tinker and Druid.

Combat skills are the most useful, since there is a lot of fighting in both games.

Magic skills can be very useful.

Other skills are a bit mixed, but I would generally avoid Track, Traps, Appraise and Stealth.

Lore can be very useful, as can Search and I quite liked having Repair even though there are some people who can repair stuff for you (at a price).

A certain level or lore is certainly advisable, or else you'll end up with a heap of potions that all look alike without an idea what each of them does.

I'd avsie against the repair skill. It determines your chances of success with - tada! - repairing weapons and armour. However, there's a dwarven smith offering his services, and I found that gold isn't really an issue by the time you get there.

By the way, although this game has excellent auto-mapping with the ability to place markers, you should put a piece of paper and a pen next to your keyboard. You'll need them for all those mantras that you learn during your adventure. And for the vocabulary of a language. :)

I've found that the druid (in UU1) is a good mix of strength (for carrying stuff and fighting) and intelligence (for magic).

As for skills, you want loads of your chosen weapon skill, loads of mana if you plan on casting (good idea), a little bit of casting skill (you don't need much, just 4-6 points), lore, and search. The other skills like the ones Andy mentioned, as well as swimming, are pretty worthless.

So you can't really do a stealthy build?

Sure you can, just not necessarily at character creation. There are skills that support a stealthy approach, namely "sneak" (for not being noticed too soon) and "track" (to notice others soon enough in turn). There are specific mantras for each skill, like Andy explained.

However, there are two classes of mantras. There are also the three mantras that give you skill points randomly scattered over a section of the skill list. These mantras are in the manual, you get to know them from the start. One is for combat skills, one for magic, the third for miscellaneous skills like lock picking, search, sneak, track, etc.

I never use the mantra for combat skills, as I always select a weapon skill in the beginning and wait till I get the specific mantra for that skill. But I do spend some of my first few meditations on misc. skills, as a basic groundwork of most abilities beyond combat and magic is definitely a good thing to have. I also fared well with using the mantra for magic skills once or twice in the beginning, so I could at least cast a simple projectile and a bit of healing.

For a stealthy approach it might also be a good idea to get your magic skills at least high enough to safely be able to cast the Night Vision spell. All sneakyness won't help if you run around with a signal lamp. ;)

I'm not sure if I want to be stealthy on this build or not, I was just wondering for a later playthrough maybe.


Is the magic complicated? I feel sort of apprehensive, because I heard in Arx Fatalis, a game similar to this, you have to get runes and draw them or something?

And in UU don't you have to memorize some runes or something?
Do you think my ranger should go with some magic? If anything, I'd go with healing.

Let me preface with I in no way mean to be rude.

That said, so much of what is great about this game is exploring and learning for yourself. If you'd rather experience it knowing how to overcome the challenges and to complete it simply and efficiently I would suggest downloading and reading the cluebook. It will give you at least most of the information your looking for in regards to character creation etc. If you have the fortitude to avoid the sections with spoilers the game will still keep the majority of what makes it great.

That's right, in Arx Fatalis you cast spells via mouse gestures. Ultima Underworld isn't quite that taxing in that regard. ;)

Quite early during your quest you'll find a rune sack. It contains all the runes of which spells are composed. You'll have to explore alot to find them all.
To cast a spell, you choose up to three runes which are shown right under the viewscreen. A mouse click on them triggers the spell. If it's some kind of missile spell, the mouse cursor changes to a red reticule for targeting. Failed spellcasting attempts don't cost you anything.

You don't have to search for most of the spells - they are neatly listed in the manual and on the reference card. If you have a printer, you'd better use it, or you'll have to constantly switch between Dosbox and some PDF reader. Few spells are acquired via quest or on scrolls hidden in dark and dreary places in the dungeon. :)

There are a lot of books and scrolls in this game. Some contain spells, mantras, letters and logs, last words of dying people... In fact, the story-related scrolls feel like the predecessor to System Shock's audio logs.