Statistics

Stats

You chose your character's stats when you create it, and have to live with the decision thereafter. There is no one perfect way to set up an individual character class. Much of it depends on your playing style, your preferences and the decision you make as to how you want your character to make his or her way through the world. Below are the basic descriptions of how the stats affect the characters.

Strength

This is probably the most important skill for tanks. Strength affects your maximum damage cap, the average damage you do, how much stuff you can carry and how quickly you learn many offensive skills. If you plan on wearing heavy armor and carrying around a lot of extra equipment, you will need decent strength. With a high strength you can carry more loot and armor and go longer before having to run back to town to sell. If you plan on soloing, you may want to put extra points into strength, even if you are a magic user. It is definitely important for a fighter type to have good strength, but you should also consider some of the other attributes.

Stamina

Stamina increases your maximum hitpoints. Different classes get more hit points per point of stamina than others. Stamina also determines your maximum air supply when you are underwater or in an airless zone. One of the most important stats for all classes.

Dexterity

Dexterity affects your chances for special melee abilities such as combat effects, critical hits, and activating magic effects on weapons. It increases your chances to gain points in most combat skills and rogue skills. It is also a factor in determining how often you hit with your bows (no impact on damage). Bard Only: High dexterity decreases the chance you will miss a note while playing a song.

Tradeskills: If your dexterity is higher than your intelligence or wisdom, it determines how quickly you gain skill in Fletching and Make Poison.

Agility

This determines how often you get hit or missed by an attack and how much damage you take when you get hit. It also affects how quickly you learn defensive skills. Since you will take less damage and have a better chance of not having your spells disrupted if you have a higher amount of agility, this is useful for both fighters and magic users. However, for magic users, its usefulness diminishes as you go up in levels and spend less time in actual melee. I wouldn't bother with this stat too much for a magic user who plans on grouping most of the time, but a solo magic user should probably have a high agility.

Intelligence

The most important stat for the basic caster classes. For Wizards, Magicians, Enchanters, Necromancers, Shadowknights, and Bards the higher your intelligence, the more mana you get for each level. This is obviously very important since without mana a magic user is basically worthless. The higher value of intelligence or wisdom is used to determine how quickly you will learn most of your skills, which makes having one or the other high useful for all classes. Many would suggest that a magic user put all of his points here. Certainly, if you plan on spending most of your time in a group, intelligence is the most important stat to boost.

Wisdom

The same effect as intelligence for the deity-based magic users: Cleric, Shaman Druid, Paladin, Ranger, and Beastlord. The higher your wisdom, the more mana you get for each level. Very important for the deity-based magic users, but much less important for everyone else. The higher value of intelligence or wisdom is used to determine how quickly you will learn most of your skills, which makes having one or the other high useful for all classes.

Charisma

The biggest effect of charisma is in the amount you will get buying from and selling to NPC’s. If they like you, they give you a better deal, which is not to be ignored in the cash starved world of Norrath. Charisma also affects the initial saving throw for charm spells and critical resist for lull spells.