¶ Getting Started
- Get the game set up, Access And Play The Game
- Make sure to read and understand the Server Rules
Additional Information
¶ Creating your first Character
For your first character, it is highly recommended to go with a melee-based character (swords, mace fighting, fencing) or gatherer (mining, lumberjacking) in order to quickly make some initial gold and provide for your other characters. Some skills will be very expensive to raise, and as such, it can be difficult to start a fresh character with those skills as you cannot keep up with the gold required to make the character functional.
Please see Common Character Builds for suggested builds, specifically in the warrior/dexxer section.
Your goal here is to establish yourself in the game, so don't worry if your first character doesn't have the skills you'd really like it to have. Once you have a couple characters up and running and you can support yourself with money etc., you can always re-skill your first character anyway.
You can buy any skill up to 40.0 skill points from NPCs in town using gold. Just right-click an NPC to view their training list, then select the skill you want to train up to 40.0. You'll need to find the right NPC in town who offers the skill you're looking for. When you start as a new player, you’ll receive a nice amount of gold in your bank box. Spend it wisely on the essential starting skills!
When you log in for the first time or enter Britain, you may not see many players in town. Most players are in dungeons, hunting overland mobs, gathering resources, or crafting in their houses. If you need help or are looking for a companion, feel free to ask in the in-game World Chat or join the SOB Discord to connect with other players. SOB has a small but dedicated and friendly community that is happy to assist you when needed. SOB players come from all over the world and play in different time zones, so don’t worry if you don’t get an immediate response. Someone will see your message and reply when they’re online.
There are two main builds that all new players are recommended to make. Either a melee necromancer tank character, or a gatherer.
A necro tank can easily skill up and can easily solo some of the strongest mobs in the game. The build would be a melee skill, tactics, anatomy, healing, parrying, forensic evaluation, and a skill of your choice (usually camping or resisting spells is recommended). A gatherer just has mining and lumberjacking, and the rest is completely optional. Keep in mind that occasionally when harvesting, you can spawn a mob that drops resources, so being able to fight it is beneficial.
Lumberjacking at the moment is one of the best and fastest ways to make money in Shards of Britannia as new player. Each Wooden Plain Board you make is 20-30gp. You only need maximum 64.9 lumberjack skill to produce max Wooden Plain boards. You easily can make 1000 boards with a pack mount in a hour. So that is at least 20k gold a hour. If you getting really handy with lumberjacking you can make at least 1600 plain boards a hour by chopping trees. You only have to post the Wooden Plain boards or Iron ingots on the SoB Discord Trade channel or find a in-game Buy Order vendor that will buy up your Wooden Plain Boards or Iron Ingots. As Miner you will get about 20-30gp for each Iron ingot. While mining and lumberjacking, you build up strength to 100.0 in just a couple of hours, which gives you a higher max health. Wooden Plain boards and Iron ingot prices can change depending on market demand.
¶ Training Skills
Training skills is the meat and potatoes of Ultima Online. Most skills have a training section on their associated Wiki page. However, here's some general tips for rapidly skilling up some of the more useful skills for a new player.
¶ Active Gain System
Shards of Britannia has implemented a system that rewards players who are actively using skills instead of macroing them. The details on the system are unclear, but for the majority of the time it seems to work when fighting a mob. The skill gain rate is DRASTICALLY higher when benefitting from the active gain system. To make skill-gain not trivial up to GM, there are daily limits on how much you can get through the active gain bonus. Therefore, the best way to quickly skill up a character is to go out in the world and fight.
When you've hit the limit on the active skill gain bonus for the day (resetting at 00:00 UTC), you'll likely get a system message in the chat box saying so. If you want to check, you can type /exhausted, and see which skills you've hit the limit for.
You can still gain skills once you've used up your active gain bonus; the rate is just back to the normal, much slower, gain rate.
¶ Melee Skills
Each weapon class has a training weapon, aside from archery. For Swordsmanship, it's a skinning knife. For Fencing, it's a pickaxe (don't ask…), and for macing, it's a fishing pole. If you're looking for maximum gains with the least amount of running around, grab a training weapon and head into Covetous Dungeon. The first level is full of Headlesses. They are extremely weak, respawn relatively quickly, and give fantastic gains for all combat skills. The groups of 3 of them can also be used to great effect for gaining parrying quickly.
¶ Magery
The active gain system gives magery a major boost in gain rates. Using a spell level appropriate for gains will net you around a 50-75% gain rate, up to around the high 80s. The same as melee: grab a bunch of reagents for spells like lightning, energy bolt, mana drain, and flamestrike (whatever's appropriate to your level), head into Covetous Level 1, and cast it on Headlesses.
¶ Combat Mode
Press space bar to enter and exit combat mode.
¶ Young Status
When your character is first created, you will have the status of being a “Young” player. This status provides gear protection for the first 72 hours of gameplay (or upon reaching a threshold of skill level.) If you die, all of your items you had on your character will be in your bag when you are brought back to life. If a young player commits ANY criminal act, they will immediately lose their young status. This includes your Blade Spirits and Energy Vortex attacking other player's pets. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to take advantage of this 72 hours, that means, do not train AFK with a new player, since you will burn those hours too quickly. Raise stats, go out, and have fun, since you will not lose stuff on death. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity to easily collect gold without the risk of loosing it, much too valuable to waste it on afk macroing.
See Young Status for more info.
¶ Lord's Boon
All new players receive a Lord's Boon item in their pack upon character creation. This item lets you teleport directly to an Inn of your choice, but you’ll need to set it up first:
- Go to the inn you want to bind your Lord's Boon to.
- Right-click the Lord's Boon in your inventory and select "Bind to Location."
Once bound, your Lord's Boon is ready to use!
Important Notes:
- Using your Lord's Boon cannot be interrupted by mobs or other players (PK), even if you're under attack.
- After using it, there’s a 2-hour cooldown before you can use it again.
Pro Tip:
Drag your Lord's Boon to your button bar to create a quick-access button. That way, you can teleport to safety with a single click!
¶ Containers
Containers are items that can store additional items inside for organizational purposes. Most bags and chests can hold 125 items. You can right click a bag to set it as a “Loot Bag”, “Craft Bag”, “Harvesting Resources bag” and more options. All items that are picked up with the auto loot feature will be placed in the “Loot Bag”. Items that are created during crafting will be placed in the “Craft Bag”. If you double left click on bag or chest the bag or chest will open and will show you the inventory listing. You can scroll up and down inventory listing if a large amount of items are in your bag. At Britain bank and other banks there is always a Chest outside near doorway that hold free items for player with new player status. The items inside that chest where dropped by other players. Bags and pouches cant be crafted. You can buy bags and pouches a Provisioner in town. There is provisioner shop. Just go north just two screens away from Britain main bank.
¶ Mounts / Pets
You can buy a horse from a stable for 550g or tame one yourself—if you have at least 50.0 taming skill. Alternatively, you can ask another player to tame a horse for you, often for free or for a small fee.
There are also pack horses and pack beetles available at the stable. In addition, some player vendors sell rideable pack beetles—check the Vendor Search Stone section for more info on where to find them. Rideable pack beetles aren’t always in stock, but you can always ask around and see if someone can help you get one.
Important: Make sure to bond with your mount! If your mount dies and it’s not bonded, it’s gone for good. If it is bonded, a high-level animal tamer can resurrect it—just ask politely.
To bond a pet:
Right-click the pet and choose "Start Bonding".
Pets bond after 10 days.
You can reduce this bonding time by using "Give Affection" once every 20 hours. Each use shortens the timer by 1 day, down to a minimum of 5 days.
The safest method is to just stable your pet every day till it's bonded.
You can also buy ethereal mounts via the Vendor Search Stone. There are several types, with the ethereal horse being the cheapest—usually around 60k. That’s a lot of gold when you’re just starting, but you’ll soon realize normal horses die often. Ethereal mounts are a game-changer: they’re blessed, so they don’t disappear when you die. Just click the ethereal mount statue, and off you go again.
You can also buy different ethereal mounts at the Donation Vendor in Yew Abbey, using donation tokens (which are purchased with real money). These mounts are part of the Donations /Patron system.
All mounts move at the same speed, but pack animals can become overloaded and move slower if they’re carrying too much.
You can feed your pets with apples if they're hungry.
¶ Vendor Search Stone
The vendor Search Stone can be found on the roof of Britain's main bank. You can access the Britain bank roof by clicking on one of the ladders around the bank. This is how you reach the Vendor Search Stone on the bank roof.
The Britain bank roof is fully protected, meaning no stealing or killing is possible there. By double-clicking on the Vendor Search Stone, a vendor search window will appear. The Vendor Search Stone has access to all player vendors on the map.
When you click on Items, you'll see the option to "Add Waypoint." Click on it, and then click on one of the marker icons. This will show you where the vendor is located. You must travel to the chosen vendor location to buy the item. Don't bring gold with you! When you buy from any vendor, the gold will be taken directly from your bank account.
¶ Armor
Armor protects you when you're hit in melee combat. The higher your Armor Rating (AR), the less damage you'll take from attacks. If you're playing as a mage, you might want to avoid wearing heavy armor, as it prevents you from meditating. (Mages can, however, meditate while wearing Leather Armor.) You can find armor pieces by killing mobs or by purchasing them from player vendors.
¶ Weapon Skills and Classes
There are several weapon skills you can train: Archery, Fencing, Mace Fighting, and Swordsmanship. Each weapon falls into one of four weapon classes: Interrupt, Light, Medium, and Heavy.
¶ Weapon Classes
- Interrupt Weapons: These weapons are designed to interrupt spellcasting due to their extremely fast speed. However, they don't deal much damage, especially against armored targets.
- Light Weapons: More damaging than Interrupt weapons, but also slower.
- Medium Weapons: These deal more damage than Light weapons but are also slower. Additionally, they benefit from special, chance-based abilities that depend on the weapon skill being used.
- Heavy Weapons: These are the slowest weapons available but deal the most damage. Like Medium weapons, they also benefit from special, chance-based abilities tied to their weapon skill.
¶ Magic Items
You'll likely discover unidentified weapons and armor during your adventures. These can be identified with the Item Identification skill. There is extensive detail about weapon and armor modifiers on this page.
Briefly for weapons, the amount of additional damage a weapon deals is determined by the strength of its magical enchantment.
The enchantment strengths, from least to most additional damage, are: "of Ruin," "of Might," "of Force," "of Power," and "of Vanquishing."
It's worth noting that exceptional crafted weapons that players can create are in between Might and Force.
There's also accuracy modifiers, that are, in order: Accurate, Surpassingly, Eminently, Exceedingly, and Supremely.
For armor, the modifiers that give additional armor rating are, in order: defense, guarding, hardening, fortification, invulnerability.
¶
¶ Slayer Weapons
Slayer weapons are special armaments attuned to defeating a specific type of enemy. They inflict significantly more damage on their designated foe than regular magical weapons.
If you plan on fighting a particular creature type for an extended period, it's a smart move to invest in a slayer weapon specifically designed to combat that creature. See the Creature Compendium here for a list of all monsters and their slayer type
¶ Arrows
Arrows are required to use your bow. They can be made by using the Fletching skill.
¶ Custom Hotbar Buttons and Macros
¶ /custom Command
Typing /custom allows you to create custom buttons for your hotbar. The most commonly used one is for interacting with bank guards. To set this up:
- Simply type
say bank guardsinto the Command field. - Press Save.
- Choose an icon.
- Drag the newly created button to your hotbar.
That's it! You can also create hotbar buttons to command your pet. Examples include:
say all follow mesay all stopsay all attacksay all guard me
And many more. For more specific commands, you can replace "all" with your pet's name.
¶ /macro Command
With the /macro command, you can set up various macros and then drag them to your hotbar as well. Popular examples include an automatic bandage healing macro or skill training macros, both of which can be conveniently placed on your button bar.
¶ Map
There are two in-game map commands. The first one is /map, which opens a static map. The second is /webmap, which allows you to zoom in and out the map.
¶ Healing
You can heal yourself in multiple ways:
- The healing skill, which uses bandages. Create bandages by buying cloth from an NPC tailor, and cutting it twice with scissors.
- The magery skill, which can cast the Heal / Greater Heal spell
- If you're undead, you can use Spirit Speak to heal out of combat, or multiple necromancy spells that give back health.
- Potions, such as Lesser Heal, Heal, and Greater Heal
¶ Lost Items
If you drop an item and can't find it, press and hold the Ctrl key. This will display the names of all nearby items on your screen. While holding Ctrl, locate the missing item and pick it up.
Sometimes, items stored in your bank box, house, or secure chests might appear to vanish. In 99% of these cases, this is merely a graphical bug. To resolve this, try logging out of the game and then logging back in. If that doesn't work, restart your computer and launch the game again. If the issue still isn't resolved after these steps, you can contact the Dev Team for support.
¶ Where can I buy a house
You need to purchase a house placement tool at a Carpenter shop. You can find out more on the Housing page.
¶ How do I delete a character?
Type /delchar in-game. This only works once your character is at least 7 days old. (Commands)
¶ What are the skill and stat caps?
700 skill cap. skills
225 stats cap (Str/Dex/Int). stats
¶ Engraving Tool
Used to rename bags, pouches, boxes, chests, etc. Extremely useful tool when trying to stay organized.
¶ Tools/Crafting Stations
There are a variety of tools and crafting stations on SOB. Some allow you to gather resources while others allow you to perform specific functions or give you access to craft items with the appropriate skill. You can find most tools or crafting stations available to use in the cities.
- Engraving Tool - Used to rename containers. Does not require any skill.
- Pickaxe - Used to mine ore/stone or smelt ore/items with Mining.
- Hatchet - Used to gather wood from trees with Lumberjacking.
- Hunter’s Knife - Used to skin creatures, usually for Tailoring or Cooking.
- Loom/Tailor Scissors - Used for Tailoring and cutting cloth.
- Alchemy Table/Mortar & Pestle - Used for Alchemy to create potions.
- Carpentry Table/Dovetail Saw - Used for Carpentry to create items.
- Anvil - Used for Blacksmithing to create metal armor/weapons.
- Forge - Used by the Mining skill to forge ore into ingots and smelt metal items.
- Inscription Table/Scribe’s Pen - Used for Inscription to create spellbooks, scrolls and runes.
- Stove/Cooking Pot/Campfire - Used for Cooking to create food.
- Tinker's Tools - Used for Tinkering to create a vast assortment of items including tools.
- Fletching Knife - Use in Fletching to create bows and arrows.
- Cartographer’s Pen - Used in Cartography to create items, such as blank scrolls.
¶ Spellbook
Your Spellbook is where you permanently store your spells. You can open it by double-clicking it or right-clicking and selecting "Open." To add spells, right-click on Scrolls and choose "Add to Spellbook," or simply drag and drop the scroll directly onto the spellbook.
A spellbook functions perfectly while it's in your backpack; you do NOT need to equip it. Equipping it will cause it to wear out and eventually be destroyed.
¶ Reagents
Reagents are the consumable components used to cast spells. You can buy them from Mage Vendors or Alchemist Vendors in town. They can also be harvested in small amounts randomly throughout the world.
¶ Scrolls
Scrolls are single-use items that allow a player to cast a spell with a much lower skill level than normally required. They are consumed upon a successful cast.
¶ Runes
Runes can be magically marked by mages using the Mark spell to save a specific location anywhere in the world. Once a rune has been marked, you can use the Recall spell or the Gate spell to instantly teleport to that saved location.
¶ Banking and Vendors
Banks: Your bank storage can be accessed by visiting the “banker” NPC’s inside the cities. Say “bank” in say chat and the bank box will open. You can store goods here and access them at any other banker in the world. Banks are not shared between characters. Bankers have commands that you may speak to deposit gold, withdraw gold, create checks or check your bank balance. Checks can only be remade into gold with the bank box. Place the check in your bank box and double click it to make it return to gold. Checks are blessed items. They cannot be stolen or looted. Use these for safe transfers.
| /say deposit “Number” | Will deposit gold from your bag in the amount listed. |
| /say deposit all | Will deposit all gold from your bag. |
| /say withdraw “Number” | Will withdraw gold from your bank in the amount listed. |
| /say check “Number” | Will write a check in the amount listed and place it in bank. |
| /say balance | Will announce your bank balance in say chat. |
These commands are intended for making custom commands. You can simply walk up to a banker and say "deposit all" without "/say" in front.
NPC Vendors: These are the vendors in cities and towns across the world. They will have goods for sale. You can either double click them, right click them or speak to them to interact. Some vendors will buy specific items from you. (The items a vendor will buy from you have been limited to stimulate the player economy.) I would advise NOT buying any tools from NPC vendors as they are very overpriced. You should visit player vendors for the majority of your needs.
Player Vendors: Players who own a house can hire vendors to work for them and sell their goods. You can access them in the same way as NPC vendors. Some player vendors store everything they are selling within the vendors bag. You can hover over items to see the price and right click if you wish to buy the item. Not all vendors are set up like this, other players may put the good for sale on tables or in chests on the tables. If a vendor is empty, look at the tables to see if he/she is using this method. I suggest using the drop down menu within the containers to make for easier browsing of a vendors goods.
¶ Rune Libraries
As a new player, you can utilize a player-run Rune Library for fast travel to various important locations such as Town Banks, Dungeons, Graveyards, Overland Mob spawns, World Bosses, Taming Areas, Quests, Factions, Treasure Chests, and more.
If a Rune Library has Sacred Rune Books, you can charge them with 75 gold to recall without needing any skill. Simply drop 75 gold onto the rune book you wish to use, and you're ready to go. However, without any Magery skill, you might experience a few failed recalls. A recommended 30 Magery skill ensures zero recall failures when using a Sacred Rune Book. You can perform both normal Recall and Gate spells from Sacred Rune Books.
Currently, a Sacred Rune Library has been located near Britain for a long time. It's situated about one screen away from the Britain Moongate, right next to the road. The Sacred Rune Books are conveniently hanging outside the house for easy access.
¶ Looting
When you successfully kill a creature or player, a corpse will appear on the ground. To loot it, simply double-click the corpse to open its inventory and drag items into your bag. Alternatively, you can right-click a corpse and select "Auto Loot" to automatically transfer all items to your bag. The quickest way to auto-loot is to hold down the Alt key and left-click the corpse.
¶ Item Decay
Be aware that if you drop an item or leave it on the ground, it will disappear after 5 minutes.
¶ Dying
Should your character take more damage than they have hit points, you will die. Upon death, your corpse will fall to the ground, and your character will transform into a ghost. As a ghost, you'll need to run to a healer or shrine to be resurrected. Veteran players with the Healing skill can resurrect others using bandages, and mages can do so with the Magery skill. When you are brought back to life, you'll be naked. Your corpse will decay after 30 minutes, and anything left on it will be lost forever. Remember, while you are dead, other players can loot your corpse! (Note: Young players will not lose items upon dying.)
¶ Mounts
You can ride mounts and even attack while mounted. To mount a pet, double-click on it or use the /mount command. Mounts, like players, can die. You can purchase mounts from stables in cities or tame them yourself. Mounts can also be "stabled" for safekeeping by the stable master for a small fee.
¶ Stable Pets Slots
You get 6 stable slots. With 100 Animal Taming you get +2 stable slots. With 100 Animal Lore you get +2 stable slots. With 100 Veterinary you get +2 stable slots. You can get a max of 12 stable slots.
¶ Misc
- Server Status "Full": If you see the server status as "Full" when trying to connect, it typically means the server is still loading after a restart. It's not actually full; just give it a couple of minutes.
- Training Dummies: Training dummies will only raise your skills up to a maximum of 30.
- NPC Trainers: You can purchase skill training from NPCs in town, up to a skill level of 40, for a cost of up to 400 gold. A list of available trainers can be found on the Skills page.
- "Blessed" Items: A "Blessed" item signifies that you will not lose it upon death.
- Runes are not Blessed.
- Runebooks are Blessed.
- Cursed Runebooks are not Blessed.
- Container Organization: You can right-click containers to designate them as a Loot Bag or a Craft Bag, which helps keep your inventory cleaner.
- Health Display: Clicking once on an enemy's health bar will display their health in numerical values.
- Toggle Displays:
- Pressing J shows health bars.
- Pressing H shows names (the Insert key changes the filter for what names are displayed).
- Auto-Looting: Holding down the Alt key and left-clicking a corpse will Auto Loot it, provided you are close enough.
- Blessed Item Location: For blessed items to retain their blessed status (and not be lost on death), they must be in your main inventory, not within another container inside your inventory.
¶ Murderers/PKs
A lot of information about this can be found on the Notoriety page.
- To see your kill count type “I must consider my sins” in chat
- It takes 5 kills to go Red
- You can still enter towns when red, but you won't be able to interact with NPCs, including the banker or healer, and wandering guards will rapidly chase you down.
- Red vendors can be found in Buccaneer's Den
¶ How to open multiple clients
Your allowed to run max 4 clients on one pc at the same time.
You can open multi clients by click on Windows system tray then click on SoB Launcher icon.
¶ Handy video's about SOB
This is a link to player-made videos about SOB — very handy for new players!
They cover topics like setting up macros, using commands, running dungeons, and much more.
(Note: Some videos may be outdated.)
https://www.youtube.com/@Balzorx/videos