My chars is fighter (no magery). I have some issue handling caster creatures like dread spider. I can heal only vie bandages and potions but no matter what i do, 1 combo (expl + *whatever*) blows me because i'm constanly poisoned - and it does good 23 dmg per tick. My resist is low yet - 35ish. Is that the problem? If i have like 80-100 will it chage anything, because honestly I don't see what generally will change. Instead of giving me 80 dmg with the combo i will take about 55 if i resist one of the spells. But the poison still rips me off in seconds. P.S. Not used to pre-AoS and magic creatures are quite the challenge for my non-mage chars.
Won't make a much of a difference, taking on caster mobs without a bard skill is very difficult. Especially a lethal poisoner like a dread spider. You want a bard skill there. Get Music and Peacemaking and your problems will be resolved. It's a shame that pure dexxers are useless here, unless you have 3-4 of them at the same time.
I was browsing the internet and found an old FAQ in stratics about archery that states there is no stregth damage bonus for ranged weapons. Is this true about UO:R? Source: http://uo.stratics.com/content/professions/archery_old/archery.shtml
I spent 1 year trying to play a pure dexxer and now I know it was a waste of time after I've decided last month to drop Resisting Spells and Hiding to GM Musicianship and Peacemaking. Just do it, you won't regret. I'm not even spending bandages anymore.
Yep, straight dexers have a lower ceiling, just like in the olden days. Add a skill to your template that can absorb/avoid damage, and you'll be in good shape (peacemaking, provocation, taming). Someday, I hope Parry or Resisting Spells get a PvM boost to make them two more worthwhile options. You might want to give ore golems & ore elementals a shot too (they spawn from gargoyle pickaxes and shovels). Great gold per hour and dexers are great against them.
Qnidopi, I also ran into this problem when starting here with a melee/dexer. I came up with a ossytank solution that some like, it may or may not be for you.
Qnidopi, archery takes it's damage bonus from dexterity. I have taken Keza's template a bit further, and made my trio hybrid: fencer/ mage/ tamer. I'm still in training but if you click my signature, you'll see where it's going to. I'm planning 100 fencing, taming, lore, magery + 90 tactics + 80 anatomy, veterinary + 50 meditation. An agility potion allows me to bandage in 3 seconds, which is why a drop in veterinary makes the template a bit more viable. Also between 100 and 120 stam weapon speeds only differ by 0.1 second, so you're not losing a lot of swing in terms of dexxing. Stats are: 90 STR/80 DEX/55 INT.
Great ideas guys. Thank you for the info. Never heared before that the damage bonus for archery comes from dextirity. It's not like it's not logical but never seen it. I'm planing to replace the ossy with my wife. I hope she will be able to withstand the burst from casters with parry and resist.
Make sure you cross-heal! Bandage timer is something like 4 times faster when you're not bandaging yourself.
If you don't mind 'double boxing' you can also make an alt character on a 2nd account to act as a meat shield. If you give your alt's name 'a dwarf' I'll give you bonus kudos. I did that to start here and I was able to take on Gamayun with a brand new fencer/archer+swords character. My archer healed the dwarf, while the dwarf cut that two-byte harpy down to size! Since that long time ago when I started here, I have been able to make friends and going out dexxing with them has been very rewarding too. We've taken on Balrons, Ancient Wyrms, and Shadow Wyrms.
Some off-topic. I notice that the skill Detect Hidden takes no bonus from stats as it is supposed to (http://www.uorenaissance.com/info/?page=g_info_t2&id=214). Is that a bug and you guys report such things?
I don't think the developer(s) see that as a bug here. The detect hidden skill as it applies to lockpicking as well as tracking is pretty cool here and also slightly different. Hop on test with a couple of characters one with hiding/stealth the other with detect hidden/tracking and you'll get a nice system message when using tracking (for example)