Players manual

Here you'll find a list of helpful tips and commands for the game.

''See also PnP differences if you're familiar with the D&D system.

UI Tips

 * City areas and taverns are zoned. If you look in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, you'll see a dropdown that reads something like '5-The Harbor' which means you're in zone 5. If you're trying to meet up with someone, make sure you're both in the same zone. Change zones just by opening the dropdown and picking the one you want to transfer to.


 * The game has voice chat built in that allows you to hear and talk to your groupmates, but it's disabled by default. Many players recommend enabling voice chat so you can at least hear what people in your group are saying, even if you don't have a mic or don't plan on talking over it yourself. You can tell who's talking because their name is highlighted in green in the party area of your screen.


 * Hit 'm' to open your map, and hover over the different symbols to see what they are. If you want to travel to that place/NPC/whatever, left-click it on the map, then close the map. You'll now see a small, white arrow pointing in the direction of that map symbol in the mini-map.


 * To see detailed information about a person or item, click on them to target them. Then, in the focus orb, click on the magnifying glass button, or hit 'z' by default.


 * Icons representing skills, feats, items, spells, and enhancements can be dragged to the quickbar for quick access during combat.

Combat Tips

 * When you swing your sword, mace, club, etc, or fire and arrow, throw a dagger, whatever, it always goes out in the direction your character is facing. Therefore, you must keep monsters in front of you in order to attack them.


 * You can block in combat by holding down the Shift key, even without a shield. This adds +2 AC making you roughly 10% less likely to be hit by attacks (although it works better with a shield due to damage reduction). Use this to your advantage by swinging your weapon in between the enemy's swings.


 * Monsters cannot pass through characters and characters cannot pass through monsters. Therefore, your presence in a doorway will keep enemies from being able to pass through the door. Also, a large group of monsters can block you in place if you allow them to.


 * Movement during combat should be kept to a minimum. Any attack made by a character while moving (or for a short period of time after movement stops) is made at a -4 penalty to hit.  You can avoid this penalty by tumbling during combat instead of moving. [citation needed]


 * Rogues do more damage through sneak attacks than they typically do with their weapons. If you are playing a rogue, it can be a good idea to attack a monster that is actively engaged fighting another PC, in order to maximize the sneak attack bonus.


 * You'll receive a flanking attack bonus of +2 when you attack something that is facing away from you. So if two fighters are battling one especially tough monster, the one who isn't being attacked can circle around behind to get the attack bonus, while the one in front shield-blocks to protect himself.  When the monster changes targets, switch roles.


 * While using ranged weapons, you take a -4 penalty to your AC. It is generally accepted that switching to a melee weapon is advisable if a monster presses melee combat on you.


 * Ranged attacks against an enemy who is partially behind cover sometimes won't work if you use Tab to target them, because the game aims at midsection level. Aim manually to shoot at their upper torso or head. Also, if an enemy is running around, it might step out of the path of your arrows before they hit. You can compensate by untargetting the enemy and "leading" the target with manual mouse-aiming, as in a FPS game.  Untargetted shooting also works when you believe there are monsters in a certain direction, but can't see them yet; in many situations, your shooting range is greater than your visual range.


 * Conversely, ranged attacks by an enemy when you are partially behind cover won't work (except for a homing projectile like Magic Missile). You can apply this to exploit terrain geometry for your protection.


 * At lower levels, reload time is the bane of Ranged weapons. Since you do not get your extra attacks figured into ranged combat, the only way to speed it up is by feats suchs as Rapid Reload.  Bows and throwing weapons reload slightly faster than crossbows, but the difference in neglible.  This has caused the Repeating Crossbow to become the weapon of choice amongst the most lethal ranged attackers, as it fires three shots per reload.


 * Thrown weapons, such as Darts and Shurikens reload at about the same rate as a bow. This makes them a highly substandard choice from a to-hit and damage perspective (since bows/crossbows can have a benefit as well as the arrows/bolts you load in them).  ✅


 * Many of the monsters in DDO have problems tracking characters over uneven terrain. It can be to your advantage to scout the terrain before a large battle and find relatively protected positions from which to fire ranged attacks at the enemy, although many enemies have started using more ranged attacks of their own.  Some monsters will be ranged attackers primarily and will attempt to use these same tactics on you.


 * You will often have to use your Swim skill to take dives. Combat in water is impossible.  However, you will find some creatures can still get attacks on you.


 * Wearing heavy armor provides incredible benefits to you since creatures can’t hit you as easily. It does virtually nothing against magic, however.  Furthermore, wearing armor causes you to suffer an Armor Check Penalty to a number of skills.  Encumbrance (carrying items which near or exceed your Carrying Capacity) causes many skills to suffer.  In fact, you can become Overloaded, which slows movement and causes your attacks to suffer.


 * Pen and paper includes a mechanic called Initiative. It is an artificial construct designed to create an order in which players take actions.  Initiative does not exist in DDO.  Players take actions whenever they wish to, and many actions can be performed by different characters simultaneously.


 * As your character's Base Attack Bonus (BAB) increases, he/she receives additional melee attacks. Your initial attack becomes more reliable (+5% per point of BAB), and you gain more attacks per sequence.  The third and fourth attacks in sequence each receive a cumulative +5 bonus to hit, over your initial attack.  Ranged attack speed is faster at higher character level, and can further be increased by feats such as Rapid Shot, Rapid Reload, and Manyshot, but does not equal the speed of melee attacks at the highest levels, and never gets the increase in attack bonus of the third and fourth melee attacks.


 * Melee attacks in DDO have a real life component to them – range of threat. Example: Greatsword > Longsword > Dagger > Shield Bash.  Mobs are aware of this radius of threat and use it to their advantage.  For example, an Iron Defender will fire a pool of Grease and then step forward to bite.  Once the Grease is gone, it will step back and release more Grease.  While up close, even a shield bash would hit the Iron Defender.  While firing Grease only a long weapon can hit it.  When you factor in the risks involved to to-hit and Armor Class while moving, this gives two handed weapons a unique (and real life-like) advantage.  Needless to say, this also plays in heavily to the effectively of feats like Cleave and Whirlwind Attack.  Equipping a two handed weapon before making the attack could as much as double the number of targets hit.

Commands
All commands are typed into the chat box, and are preceded with a slash character (/).

/afk - The away from keyboard command allows you to notify others automatically that you are away from your keyboard. At this time (March 2007) there is no way to attach a personal message, but the default message lets people know why you aren't responding to their tells or group invitations.

/alias - The alias command allows you to assign a phrase or command to a short name that can be easily triggered.

/death - The death command allows you to commit suicide at any time in game, except in PvP matches.

/invite - The invite command allows you to quickly invite another player to your group.

/loc - The location command allows you to retrieve detailed coordinates for your current position directly from the server. This information is especially helpful to the GMs whenever you need to make a Help Request, such as when your character is stuck or when you have a problem in a mission.

/quit - The quit command allows you to log out quickly, even if your toolbar is hidden because of a graphical glitch.

/r or /reply - The reply command allows you to quickly reply to another character's tell. When you type "/r" and follow it with a space, it is automatically replaced in your text entry box with "/tell *character name*" to make sure you reply to the person who spoke to you immediately before you started typing.

/t or /tell - The tell command allows you to send a message to another player that no one else will see.

Emotes
All emotes are typed into the chat box, and are preceded with a slash character (/).

/cheer or /cheer2 – Your character claps, and does a little dance.

/dance or /dance2 - Your character starts to dance. Different races and genders have different dances. Dancing is continuous until another action is initiated. Other emotes are ignored until dancing is stopped.

/drink - Your character mimes drinking something.

/eat - Your character mimes eating something.

/gather - Your character gestures for the rest of the group to gather closely together, generally for a haste, bless, or similar AoE spell.

/laugh - Your character laughs.

/lfh - Your character searches the area for ham. A large red ham appears over his/her head, signalling other players that you are looking for ham.

/sheathe - Your character puts away all weapons and shields. These items are still equipped, and will instantly be in hand again if you attack anything, but they will not encumber your character during trading with merchants or at the auction house. (Sheathing your weapons has no effect on the game other than role-playing benefit.)

/sit - Your character sits on the ground. Different races and genders have different sitting postures.

/sleep - Your character lays on the ground and sleeps. Different races and genders have different sleeping positions.

/stop - Your character gets a large stop sign over his/her head, notifying the rest of the party that they need to stop for some reason.

/wait - Your character taps his/her foot, waiting impatiently for something to happen.