You're returning to the JediMUD, or you're actually old-school enough to start a set of characters from scratch. Which character class should you invest in, when, and why?
Let's break it down.
ANTIPALADIN
Besides offering great starting stats, especially in strength, antipaladins can level in a wide variety of mostly good aligned zones, putting their underhanded tactic skills and other spells to effective use.
The single most compelling reason to have an A30 is the spell protection from anarchy, which, when active, will block a mob's ATK_TANK defender proc, otherwise known as an entropy attack. Entropy removes a tank's buffs, and usually their life if not summoned or re-buffed during melee. Keep in mind that PFA will only block the entropy attack on the antipaladin. If the mob also has the ATK_DEF_ONLY proc, grouped members of the melee party can be attacked with entropy.
While most entropying mobs also toss, there are a few mobs listed here that can be defeated by an antipaladin with support from a cleric. Not essential to have an antipaladin, but they can help run specialty gear when you are ready.
BARD
A remort class character, the bard is both an offensive and defensive powerhouse, and second only to the cleric in overall game strategy usefulness.
As a defensive player, the bard's wide variety of buffs and debuffs allow for the defeat of all but the most upper tier boss mobs.
As an offensive player, the petrification spell, when used in conjunction with high CHA and a fat mana cleric, can take down upper tier stepping mobs.
The scare and confusion songs also allow for the solving of some tricky mob drop scenarios: moving mobs in previously !magic rooms out of those rooms for combat, or moving mobs into room occupied by other mobs in order to get them to interact in your favor.
I would suggest a 7 remort bard eventually so that you can take advantage of the max cha benefits to all bard songs. Some players take a mage or thief to six remorts, then remort to bard in the final remort and pay for stat re-rolls in order to avoid the massive 80m per remort xp cost. (Standard character remort costs are 40m per remort.)
CLERIC
Well you gotta have a cleric to start. The most versatile of classes, a cleric of any alignment can quickly gather equipment, both mana-related and damage related to build your character base. A battle cleric can quickly rise in level to gain the most important of healing and buffing spells, and then by using the powerful earthquake area effect, can get to level 30 in short order. Start with a cleric.
JEDI
Running a jedi good-aligned until you can practice brain implosion is the new mage squad in the duo multi JediMUD strategy era. Jedis get an OP weapon at level 14, the lightsaber, and if you can procure one without have to build it, you can begin fast leveling early. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until level 25 to build your own. The series of collection quests involved in the saber assembly is doable with a C/J multi team.
Once you have a high intelligence evil jedi, and i would suggest a 7 remort jedi, the brain implosion spell is a devastatingly effective spell attack that will bring down only the most elusive of boss mobs: those that reflect spell damage or reside in !magic rooms.
Grab the blackened wand from the Master Spellbinder on the top floor of the High Tower of Sorcery, (3x disintegrate), and use it with a good jedi to instantly lose 200 alignment points. A quick way to go from good jedi to evil.
MAGIC USER
To locate items in game, you'll want to have a locating mage of at least level seven. To set up a gate to the area to check mob resets once the keys dissolve, you'll need a mage with the inner gateway spell, level 24. To enchant weapons and armor, you'll need to level your mage to at least level 26.
In the solo game days, wodding mages, level 29, were created in squads that could be gatewalked to a mob to deliver successive attacks to take down tossing, entropying mobs that were difficult to defeat without a grapple team. Generally squads have been replaced by evil jedis with the brain implosion spell.
Having a locating, gating, enchanting mage is helpful as you gather more powerful equipment for the rest of your character set.
NINJA
Ninjas block the toss/ bodyslam defender procs that most upper tier mobs possess and were common to eq groups of yore. The higher the dexterity your ninja possesses, the more likely your ninja will not miss a karate chop block of a mob toss. When you are ready to tackle the most difficult of mobs, you should have a multi-remort ninja available.
PALADIN
Paladin was super useful in the solo game days. It's not so much nowadays. Handy in a pinch when a group needed re-alignment, there are now items in the game that prevent alignment shift. Righteousness, a skill that provides additional damage to undead or demon mobs, (when combined with weapons knowledge, a large dice sword like the Iris, and a prior round stun or bash), can produce huge damage rounds. Chivalry, a level 29 skill, provides auto-protection for grouped clerics from the HATE_CLERIC defender proc that some mobs, like Augustus, feature.
Sadly, the paladin has been obsoleted by duo multiplay, poor healing spell bonuses, and lack of a class skills upgrade since 1993.
I'd suggest lowering the Righteousness skill to level 25, the mL for the best paladinable sword, the Sentient Iris to 25, and add a skill like Bladestorm (akin to shieldcharge when using any sword) and a spell like Protection from Anarchy to entice us to continue playing the paladin class.
RANGER
A remort class character, the ranger is both an offensive and defensive powerhouse, and third only to the cleric and bard in overall game strategy usefulness.
As a defensive player, the ranger's fumble debuff allows for the defeat of all but the most upper tier boss mobs. Fumble prevents a mob from pzaring (healing) itself.
As an offensive player, the various animal call spells, when used in conjunction with another charming class or calling ranger, can take down most upper tier mobs. The ranger's skinning ability can provide up to +39 damage bonus plus max STR, DEX or other armor affects if you choose. A fully skinned dodging ranger is a formidable warrior, especially at 25 DEX.
I would suggest a 7 remort ranger eventually so that you can take advantage of the max wis/dex/cha benefits to fumble, dodge and animal calls respectively Some players take a mage or thief to six remorts, then remort to ranger in the final remort and pay for stat re-rolls in order to avoid the massive 80m per remort xp cost. (Standard character remort costs are 40m per remort.)
SOHEI
Well, sohei. What can i say? The sohei strike skill is a formidable weapon, even as a 0 remort character. The 1000 raw damage, before modifiers is compelling, and more so if you take advantage of the multi-remort damage modifier: +25 damage per remort. One current player has over 160 remorts on his sohei, providing a raw damage number around 5,000 per strike. That's typically enough to take down an upper-tier glowing strikable mob in two rounds.
While a few mobs are !strike, most upper tier mobs can be defeated this way, utilizing a summoning cleric and some low level mobs for mana channelling. Effective, but a luxury if you're just starting or starting over.
Don't overlook the sohei's ability to buff your other chars, as sohei possess both the magic-user strength spell and unique to sohei class haste spell. Haste improves dodging and disarming duration as well as providing+2 dex to characters with < 18 dex and +1 dex to remort characters.
THIEF
Eventually you'll need a picking thief. There are a few doors out there that have no keys. You'll need at least a naked level three thief for the pick lock skill. Theives used to be great for lowbie zoo running to collect healing potions. Some weirdo still do this, even though a cleric, paladin, jedi or apaladin is a better alternative in the dual-multiplay era.
The newer area, Andrus' Toy Land, features a mob with a special trigger that demands a certain puzzle-solving performance in order to defeat it.
WARRIOR
The work horse of the character team, your warrior tank will help you in your early collection of gear from low to mid tier mobs. Warriors get double-hit at level 21, making the 60m run to level 30 rather fast, even with the additional 20m xp requirement. The xp you rack up from ANNIH melee rounds adds up. A W30 is a must. A seven remort W30 gets the additional STR and DEX benefits to damage and disarm and grapple, not to mention the leveling bonuses you'll enjoy to your final HP size.
SUGGESTED ORDER PATH
Try this.
C, W -> 30 simultaneously. This will allow basic gear collection, pushing your cleric to 18/18 int/wis stats for generally solid leveling and mana regen.
Using your C30, M -> inner gateway. Gates are handy, though less so in the era of the ascendant dark jedi brain imploding caster. Gating is a more advanced concept so make sure you talk to an experience player to explain the concept further.
Using your C30, T -> pick lock. Lock picking can be essential in some cases. Having a naked picking thief will prove essential.
Using your C30, T -> 30, remort B. Start another thief and remort it to Bard. Your choice of fast remort class is up to you, but a backstabbing, circling thief can really rack up the xp quickly.
Using your C30, B -> 22 (hopelessness debuff). Once you have your bard, level it up so that you can begin using it to buff your warrior class characters and debuff boss mobs so that you can harvest more sophisticated equipment.
Using your C30, T ->30, remort R -> R29 (fumble debuff). Take another fast remort class character and remort it Ranger. Use your ranger to fumble pzaring mobs. A pzaring mob is nearly impossible to defeat without a fumble.
Gather gear for supporting these characters. When you are ready for more esoteric items:
Using your C30, J -> 29 (lightsaber assembly, brain implosion)
Using your C30, N -> 27 (defend bodyslam)
Using your C30, S -> 29 (strike) ... and of course rinse and repeat at least 40 more times for the remort bonus 1000 damage.
If you choose to raise 7 remort B/R, then you'll spend more time with the pre-remort T or M classes getting them to 6 remorts. As you get bored with one class or another, raise and remort them as you choose.