The Skin Trade
- Rangers have the unique ability to skin, tan, and sew mob corpses into wearable items that provide stat, health, mana and regen bonuses. The skinning process is semi-random, and the ability to craft valuable, rare skins increases with the Ranger's LEVEL and DEX and WIS statistics.
Here's the in-game help file for the SKIN skill:
SKIN
Level: R9 Cost: 65 movement
Target: one monster corpse When: non-combat
Delay: one combat round Duration: permanent
Effect: Skin creates a semi-permanent object that only rangers may
wear. This object only lasts for the remaining portions of
the current uptime.
Skin can make many types of items. A complete list appears
below in the usage portion of the entry. These items will
have up to two affects added to them.
Dex will help with the success of the skinning, while both
dex and wis affect the quality of the skin. Exceptional
stats help even more.
Usage: skin corpse <item type>
Item types include: boots, breeches, cape, cloak, gloves,
hood, jacket, necklace, shield, belt, wristband,
sleeves, and waterskin.
Where Should I Skin?
- Find a glowing mob that has a ton of hit points. The best mob, one that veteran rangers have selected over time, is the Pope in Ravenna. The Pope is glowing and PZARs, keeping himself healthy and churning through your seemingly endless onslaught of Call Ones without difficulty. The Pope is located 4e s and 2w of the Port of Ravenna.
- The next best mob, close to water sources and regen recovery locations, is the Obi-wan Kenobi Statue in Midgaard, just a few spaces south of Midgaard Temple recall.
- Make sure that you have a supporting cleric to provide restores/rejuvenates as you skin. Set up a trigger if you have a client that support triggers.
The Process
- Make sure you understand the strategy of using pets to attack mobs. Mobs will switch their attack to the summoner if they remain followers of their summoner.
- To achieve independence of your pet swarm so the target mob will not "follow" their attacks back to you, set up this alias:
> cast 'animal call one'*group all*or fol hit $1*ungroup
Why Animal Call One?
- The spell Animal Call One uses a small amount of mana per cast, and will allow the caster to summon a large amount of pets per casting cycle. The idea is to get any many pet corpses as possible per skinning session. Keep in mind that corpse "value", that is, the level of the mob that is now a corpse, has absolutely no bearing on the potential value of your skin-to-be. As they say in the skinning trade, "... a corpse is a corpse is a corpse." At least they say that in Ofcol -- I've been there.
Watch Your Mob
- As you pile pets onto the mob you've chosen, watch the mob's health, if you've chosen a boss that doesn't PZAR. If you have a supporting cleric / healer, make sure you heal your source mob when it is low on health. The Obi-Wan Kenobi Statue typically has the equivalent of about 3000 health (Obi-Wan glows). A better skinning mob target is the Pope in Ravenna. The Pope will heal himself when he is hurt.
Watch For Fidos
- Because the bots in Midgaard (and rats, other creatures elsewhere) fido, that is, they eat corpses, you'll want to make sure that a wandering fido mob doesn't ruin your corpse party. These mobs can cut through a corpse stack in a matter of rounds.
Watch Your Ranger
- You'll need a supporting cleric to help you restore/rejuv as you skin. Skinning requires a large amount of movement points and you'll find that creating a set of triggers to let your cleric know that you're out of moves will speed your skinning process.
Watch Your Inventory
- Because skins take keywords that may match your regen, damage, stat, or other regular equipment, be sure not to mistakenly junk a precious item from your inventory while you are purging unwanted skins. I would suggest clearing your extra inventory items into a container before you begin skinning.
What Skins Should I Keep?
- Skinning provides a wide range of skin types, from pure stat bonus skins, AC skins, SAC skins, and +DAM bonus skins. Typically, rangers skinning for a full damage set will donate SAC skins (over 20 SAC) and announce their donations over the gossip channel for those that are nearing sacrifice. You may only use one skin of when you sacrifice, but the SAC value of ranger skins can be as high as 50 SAC points.
Skinning Fails
If the average of your WIS and DEX does not exceed 18, you have a 30% chance to fail the skin. You'll see this message:
Unfortunately, you botch the job and are left with nothing more than a bloody mess on your hands.
- Your skinning skill proficiency also directly affects skinning success. Multiply your proficiency (see table below) by your LEV / WIS / DEX odds for your total skin quality odds.
Logic Behind Skin Quality
From the code:
quality = (SKILL(ch, SKILL_SKIN) + GET_DEX(ch) + GET_WIS(ch) + GET_LEVEL(ch) + number(0, 30)); if (quality < 140) quality_range = 0; else if (quality < 160) quality_range = 1; else if (quality < 170) quality_range = 2; else quality_range = 3;
- To make consistent sets of +3 skins, consider that your character's LEVEL, WIS, DEX and skill practice level (0-100: 100=superb) are totaled with a random number (1-30). If the sum of these numbers equals or exceeds 170, you will produce a +3 skin with up to three attributes: +3% regen, +3 stat, +3 dam, +hp, +mana, or +mov. As of JediMUD 6.1, Rangers with exceptional WIS and DEX may now generate skins with up to five attributes.
- Keep in mind that there are twelve different types of skin:, mana regen, mv regen, hp regen, mana, move, hp, str, int, wis, dex, con and cha, and combinations thereof. The odds of generating a damage skin is around 8%.
Odds Per Tier
- Here's a handy table to help you calculate your odds of producing valuable skins:
| TIER | BONUS | ODDS | ODDS
DAM |
|---|---|---|---|
| 130 | +1 | 0% | 0% |
| 140 | +1 | 33% | 2% |
| 150 | +1 | 66% | 5% |
| 160 | +1 | 100% | 8% |
| 160 | +2 | 66% | 5% |
| 160 | +3 | 33% | 2% |
| 170 | +2 | 100% | 8% |
| 170 | +3 | 33% | 2% |
| 180 | +3 | 100% | 8% |
Practice Level Values
| Prac Level | Value |
|---|---|
| Not learned | 0 |
| Wretched | 10 |
| Horrid | 20 |
| Poor | 30 |
| Below Average | 40 |
| Average | 50 |
| Above Average | 60 |
| Good | 70 |
| Very Good | 80 |
| Excellent | 90 |
| Superb | 100 |
Skinning Examples
So for example, a 30 lev, 7 remort Ranger with 25 WIS, 25 DEX Ranger and a SUPERB skinning practice value, starts with a 30 + 25 + 25 + 100 base value, or 180. Values over 180 automatically qualify for the highest quality skins, regardless of the random 0-30 roll. Keep in mind that there is about a 7% chance of getting a DAMAGE skin on any make (see skin type chart below). This means that when you do hit a DAM skin, you'll get +3. A 25 lev, 1 remort Ranger with 19 WIS, 19 DEX and a SUPERB skinning practice value, starts with 25 + 19 + 19 + 100 base value, or 163, which would require a random roll of 17+ out of 30 to achieve a skin score of 180. Couple this 50% chance of a +3 skin with the 7% DAM chance, and the odds of putting together a +3 full damage set dwindles.
+3 STAT Odds Table Per Level/WIS/DEX Tier
This table shows you your chances of getting a +3 skin in relation to WIS/DEX and LEVEL. And, to make sure the math is right, here's the formula in the first cell:
=(30-(171-(100+$A3+(B$2*2))))/30
Add up level and wis and dex. Subtract that from the goal value of 171. The remainder is the difference needed to roll on a 30-sided die. The top left cell requires at least 12 be rolled on a 30-sided die. That means 18 chances out of 30, or ~60% to get a score of > 170.
| AVG WIS+DEX | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LEV | 16* | 17* | 18* | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 20 | 7% | 23% | 40% | 57% | 63% | 70% | 77% | 83% | 90% | 97% |
| 21 | 10% | 27% | 43% | 60% | 67% | 73% | 80% | 87% | 93% | 100% |
| 22 | 13% | 30% | 47% | 63% | 70% | 77% | 83% | 90% | 97% | 100% |
| 23 | 17% | 33% | 50% | 67% | 73% | 80% | 100% | 93% | 100% | 100% |
| 24 | 20% | 37% | 53% | 70% | 77% | 83% | 100% | 97% | 100% | 100% |
| 25 | 23% | 40% | 57% | 73% | 80% | 87% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 26 | 27% | 43% | 60% | 77% | 83% | 90% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 27 | 30% | 47% | 63% | 80% | 87% | 93% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 28 | 33% | 50% | 67% | 83% | 90% | 97% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 29 | 37% | 53% | 70% | 87% | 93% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
| 30 | 40% | 57% | 73% | 90% | 97% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% | 100% |
- includes 19 - (character WIS + DEX / 2) * 10% chance of skinning failure
Determining Skin Stats
- Once you have cleared the quality hurdle, this next bit of code determines what stats, or combinations of stats are applied to the skin. Note that this loop can be applied multiple times, yielding a skins with multiple stats (up to 5 at JediMUD 6.0)
- From the code:
for (i = 0; i <= 5; i++) {
switch (number(1, 15)) {
case 1: apply = APPLY_NONE; break;
case 2: apply = APPLY_HITROLL; break;
case 3: apply = APPLY_DAMROLL; break;
case 4: apply = APPLY_STR; break;
case 5: apply = APPLY_DEX; break;
case 6: apply = APPLY_INT; break;
case 7: apply = APPLY_WIS; break;
case 8: apply = APPLY_CON; break;
case 9: apply = APPLY_CHARISMA; break;
case 10: apply = APPLY_MANA; break;
case 11: apply = APPLY_HIT; break;
case 12: apply = APPLY_MOVE; break;
case 13: apply = APPLY_HPR; break;
case 14: apply = APPLY_MNR; break;
case 15: apply = APPLY_MVR; break;
}