This is the complete user reference for the Panumbra 2.0 demo version. If you need a quick intro only, read the Jump Start.
Table of contents
Introduction
In the current version of Panumbra, your main objective is to find your way in the underground mines (not an easy task), fight monsters, gain experience levels and improve your skills, and most importantly, chat with other players and form parties to fight the beasts together. Your character has a race, which ultimately determines its abilities, and a template (profession) which is basically what skills he/she is training in. The race will always remain the same, but the template is changeable, what's more, you can hand-manage what skills you learn if you can get an understanding of the skill training customization...
Keep in mind that this is just a demo. Items are coming soon in version 2.1, gold, trading, cities and outside world will be implemented in version 3.0. Also expect some bugs and technical problems. Maps of the mines can be found on Klank's Panumbra page.
Jump start
Here are some quick instructions to get you started. If you need more details, read the rest of the manual, or ask the Paladins of Panumbra for help. Pals are helpers in the game, and their name beings with "PAL".
 | After you logged in, you need to create your first character. Select a race and a template. If you are new, you should select a warrior or a sorcerer template, and don't try to change any of the default statistics or skills. |
| Press Play to start playing. |
| Once you are in, you will see a first person view of the dungeon. Use the arrow keys or click on the movement buttons to move. Remember where the Fountain of Youth is - you will need to come back to it to get healed. |
| To see who else is on, click "Options -> All characters" on the menu bar. |
| Head south for monsters. When you see a monster in the view, hit your skill buttons to fight the monster. Watch your hitpoints, mana and stamina bars go down (the red, blue and yellow bars in the bottom left corner of the screen). If they go down, you should run and find a fountain to regenerate. |
| If you die, you lose permanent hitpoints, mana and stamina. If you die too much, your character soon becomes useless... so be careful. The best strategy is to hit and run. |
| You should soon make your first experience level. A red "make level" button appears. If you press it, you make a level, and depending on your template, you may gain skill levels, or even new skills. Check the skill tab for any changes. |
| To see other players, press the Chars tab. To follow an other player click their name and hit "Track". |
| You can view your statistics in the "Char" tab. |
| To send a message, simply type into the message entry box (bottom right) and hit Enter. To send a message to only one person, type "to character_name:" and your message. Use the ">" character to send messages to the same person over and over again. |
| To change your skill button defaults (useful if you have more than 8 skills), click on the Skills tab. Click on the Assign button. Select a skill from the skill list, than click the button you want to use for that skill. Press "Stop Assignment" when done. |
| There are also keyboard shortcuts for the skill buttons: the number keys from 1 to 8.
|
Game Concepts
This section discusses what are the major features and what do they do.Game Concepts
Character
Races
Templates
Experience
Skills
Skill training
Parties
World and proximity areas
Monsters
Character death
Saving your character
Character
The character is your person in the game. You can have as many characters as you wish, and manage them using one login id. You can also play as many at the same time as you want, although that will take some window-hopping.
The character's race is the most important when you create a character. It determines who you are and it is not changeable. The template is your profession within a race, and you can change it, or define your own training plan.
Your character's main abilities are called statistics. Statistics are innate abilities, which determine who you are, and they do not change much during a character’s lifetime. They are mostly determined by the race, but there are individual differences. You can improve your statistics by training in them, but it takes a long time.
All characters have the following statistics:
| Strength - obviously - tells how much physical power the character has by nature. It is very much related to natural muscle structure. |
| Agility is a physical talent, too, and describes the character’s flexibility, ease and grace of movement and precision. |
| Willpower gives you brain capacity - mental power above the others. |
| Intelligence is the capability to organize your mental powers and use them the best way. |
| Charisma describes how well you deal with people and other creatures. Your social skills are greatly dependent on your charisma. |
| Hardiness is your general ability to sustain hardships and recover from wounds. Hardiness helps especially to endure death. |
Statistics points range form 1 to 100, 50 being the average. Statistics greatly influence how you perform your skills. Statistics below average mean penalties for using certain skills, above average statistics give bonuses.
Vitals describe your character’s current physical and mental condition. Vitals change a lot while you are fighting, and the permanent vitals can be increased at a rapid rate.
| Hitpoints (red) describe how healthy you are. If your hitpoints drop to zero, you die. |
| Mana (blue) is magical power needed to perform magical skills (in other words, cast spells). |
| Stamina (yellow) describes your physical condition, i.e. how tired you are. Stamina is needed to perform physical skills. |
You can monitor your vitals on the graphics screen, by looking at the three colored bars on the bottom left: red for hitpoints, blue for mana and yellow for stamina.
Races
Races ultimately determine who your character is. They set minimum and maximum limits on statistics. They determine what kind of skills you can learn during your life time. Different races learn different skills at different speeds, for instance dwarfs would be generally learning physical skills a lot faster than elves, but magical skills a lot slower. Races also advance in different speeds in general, i.e. it takes them longer or shorter to make experience levels.
Once you created a character, you cannot change its race.
Templates
A template is a carrier or profession. Since different races have different skills, templates exist within a race. For example, if you are an Orc, you can choose to be an Orc Shaman or an Orc Warrior, but not a Human Mage. Templates regulate what skills you train in, and how much time (training points) you spend on training each skill.
You should use a default template if you are new, you prefer role-playing over number-crunching, or you just simply don't want to deal with trying to understand the details of how to customize your training plan. Otherwise you may choose to customize your template. Customizing generally yields better results, but it takes experience and effort to use it well.
Experience
You gain experience every time you use a skill successfully. You get more experience if you hit more experienced targets. When you gather enough experience to the next level, you gain an experience level and you get skill points, which you use to train in your skills. You get the same amount of skill points every time you gain a level, but it will be increasingly difficult to make levels. Different races gain levels at different speeds.
The amount of experience you get depends on the skill you use, and the difference between your experience level and the target's experience level. Generally you get a lot more experience if you fight monsters higher level than you, and get gradually less experience if you fight lower level monsters.
Skills
Panumbra has a skill-based system. Everything comes down to how well you can perform your skills. In Panumbra each ability is a skill, including spells. Skills differ in what they do, their chance to hit (accuracy) and how well they hit (power). When you gain a skill level, your skill will improve in accuracy and power.
Using skills have a cost. Physical skills require stamina, magical skills mana, but there are skills which use both, some of them even take some hit points (some higher level ones, of course). The cost of the skill stays always the same, regardless of the level.
Using a skill takes time. Your skill takes effect immediately, but you get tired and have to rest before you can use any of your skills again. This means you get a time delay after you use a skill. The time delay differs for different skills.
Most skills have a one-time effect, but some of them stay around. Such spells maybe protection spells (like stone skin), or attacks which effect you more than once until they wear off (like poison or acid).
Skill training
Skill training is probably the most complicated part of Panumbra. If you want to avoid getting into the details, you can use templates and simply play an experience-level based game. However, customized characters always turn out to be better. An overview of the mechanics of the skill training system follows.
You get a fixed amount of skill points every time you make an experience level. Your template defines what skills you learn, and how much percentage of your skill points you spend on a skill. These percentages are called training points.
When you make an experience level, the gained skill points are distributed among your skills. Each skill gets the a percentage of the total skill points based on its training points. Here is an example:
| Let’s say you gain a total of 500 skill points when you make an experience level (this is the current setting). You invested 5 training points (5 %) into your tooth picking skill. |
| You will gain 0.05 * 500 = 25 skill points in your training skill, assuming your learn speed of tooth picking is 1. |
You learn skills at different speeds. The race determines your learn speed for each skill you can learn. A learn speed of 1 means that you learn at an average level. The learn speed is a direct multiplier of how many skill points you receive. Following the previous example:
| If you learn tooth picking at learn speed 3, you will get 25 * 3 = 75 skill points at the end instead of the default 25. |
| If you learn it at a speed of 0.4, you will get 25 * 0.4 = 10 skill points overall. |
You need 100 skill points to gain a skill level. Only the skill level improves the accuracy and power of your skills. Your skill level is simply your skillpoints without the last two digits. Example:
| Your tooth picking skill has 487 skill points. Your skill level is 4, and you need 13 more skill points to get to level 5.
|
Parties
A party is a group of characters who move together. You can form a party by tracking someone. If you track someone, he/she becomes the leader of the party, and when the leader moves, you follow him/her automatically.
Some skills do not work on your party members (e.g. attack skills), other ones may only work on your party members (e.g. mass healing). A party is always in the same map square and they see the same screen. The chars tab shows characters grouped by party, and the party leader is always the first in the list.
World and proximity areas
The world is comprised of world areas. For example, every Mines Level 1 is a world area. Crossing form one world are to another involves complex server operations, so it may take longer. The world areas are usually divided from each other by doors. The demo only has mines, but later we will have many more type of world areas, notably caves, cities and outer world.
You move from one map square to another. You can see others (characters and monsters) in your proximity area. Your proximity area is as big as far as you can see, i.e. 3 map squares in each direction. If someone can see you, you can see them as well, so there are no hidden surprises in your back.
All characters in your proximity area shows up on the character list, and all monsters show up on the graphics screen, and on the monster tab. You get event messages about everything happening in your proximity area.
Monsters
When you venture around, you will see monsters or corrupted people (generally just called monsters). There are many type of monsters, and within each type, they could be of many different experience levels.
In the demo version, monsters will always attack you if they can. But it takes some time until they notice you when you walk into their area, so you can have a chance to retreat or run past them without being attacked.
Monsters will be regenerated at periodic intervals. In the demo, they do not move and they always re-spawn at the same place. There is a random chance that a different group of monsters will re-spawn in the same place.
Monsters are based on the same concepts as characters. They have races, templates, statistics, vitals, and skills - except they are controlled by the computer.
Character death
When you die, you will lose permanent hitpoints, mana and stamina. If your Hardiness is high, you lose less. The amount you lose is a percentage of your permanent vitals points, and it is not always the same (there is a random factor).
In the demo, characters re-spawn in the starting spot of the same world area where they died, fully healed (with their vitals lowered, of course).
Saving your character
Your character will be saved in the spot you leave the game and it will come back in the same condition as when it left. You should make sure not to leave the game in a spot where monsters re-spawn, otherwise you may get a nasty surprise when you try to enter the game. The best locations to leave are the mine entrance, and the spots where dead characters re-spawn in every area. A fountain of youth usually indicates safe places.
You also get saved when you leave to the tome of souls, or when you make a level. If your browser tends to crash, it is advisable that you leave to the tome of souls from time to time to save your character.
How to..
This section of the manual is a step-by-step guide to each function.How to..
Start the game
LoginManage characters
Create a characterDisplay characterChange character (Customize training plan)Kick out
Play the gameMove around
View othersForm partiesFight monstersUse skillsChange default skill buttonsMake a levelSend text messages to othersSaveUse the menu bar options
Start the game
Go the Play Demo page. Click on the Panumbra button on the right hand side. If you use Netscape Communicator, click on the second link, otherwise click the first link.
You will get to another page, which will start the download of the Java client. The download takes about a minute, and the Login screen will appear.
Login
If this is the first time you play, press the "New user" button. Type in your chosen user name and your password, and press OK. Your user name is NOT your character name, and other users will never see it.
If you already have a user name, enter it and enter your password. Press OK . If you get the error "Login failed", check if you typed your user name and password correctly.
After successful login, you should get to the Application menu. Choose Panumbra (the only choice now), and press OK. You should get to the Tome of Souls.
Manage characters
The Tome of Souls is the screen where you can manage all your characters. A list of characters should be displayed already - unless you don't have one yet. You can perform various functions on your characters, assuming they are not currently being played.
Create a character
| Press the "Create" button on the Tome of Souls. |
| On the "Choose a body" screen, select a race and a template, and type in a character name. The character name must be unique, you will get an error message if someone has already chosen the name you wanted to have. Press Done. |
| Your default character will be created based on the race and the template. You can change the default statistics of a character, and you can customize its training plan. If you do not wish to do any of it, press Done. If this is your first character, you should not change any defaults. Your character is created and you are back to the Tome of Souls. |
If you do not like the results, you can press the Previous button and start over with a new race and/or a template, or press Cancel which takes you back to the Tome of Souls screen without creating a new character.
If you decide to customize your characters, you can modify your default statistics and your skill training plan.
Change default statistics at character creation
Modifying the default statistics requires thorough knowledge of how they affect the character, therefore it is only recommended to experienced users.
You can modify your default statistics on the Customize character screen. The statistics are displayed with an up and a down arrow next to them. You start with 0 points to distribute, so you need to reduce some statistics before you can increase others. Simply press the arrows next to the statistics to take off or to add points to them. The "points to distribute field" will help you count.
Your race sets limits on your starting statistics. When you reach the upper or lower limit of your race, your arrow keys will not let you add or decrease more points.
When you are satisfied with the results, press Done, or go on to modify your training plan.
Modify a default template at character creation
If you want to create a custom template for your character, the best way is to choose an existing template which you think is close to what you want, e.g. a Warrior or Sorcerer of that race at character creation, and modify it.
Follow the steps described in "Customize training plan".
Display character
This button will retrieve the selected character's main statistics and vitals on the right side of the Tome of Souls screen. You can toggle between the Character and the Skills view.
Change character
The change character button takes you to the Training Plan screen, because the only changeable attributes are the template and the training points.
You can change your template by selecting a new template from the list, and hitting Done.
Customize training plan
The best way to train your character is customizing its training plan. You can create a custom character which you like the best.
Your training points must add up to 100. A "points to distribute" field will help you count.
| Click the Customize button next to the Training Plan list box. Your template will change to "Custom". |
| Select a skill from the Training Plan list box. |
| You cannot edit the list box directly. You will see a field called "Training points" under the list box. Type in the new percentage for the selected skill, and hit Enter. The training points field in the list box should change. |
| You may have to reduce training points invested in other skills to create points to distribute, if you have 0 points to distribute. |
| Hit "Done" to save your new training plan. You can only hit done if your "points to distribute" field is 0. |
RemarksWhen you use a predefined template, you may notice that the training points do not add up to 100. This is because your template may contain "hidden" skills, i.e. skills that you did not learn yet. Those "extra" skill points are not lost, but distributed among your available skills. Once you learn the "hidden" skill, the template will automatically allocate the "extra" training points to it.
If you learned a new skill, and you have a custom template, you need to go back and change your training plan so that you train in the new skill.
Change character is also available from the menu bar, under the Game menu.
When you make a level, you can change your training plan BEFORE you press the make level button, using the "Change character" button under the make level button.
Kick out
If your character gets stuck in the game (for instance, your browser has crashed, or there was a server error), you can try to kick him/her out on the Tome of Souls. Kick out removes the characters from the game, so that you can play them again.
Kick out is tries to get around unexpected server errors, therefore it may not always work. Currently it seems that it works about 80 % of the time. If it does not work, you have to wait until the server is restarted to be able to play your character again.
Play a character
Select a desired character on Tome of Souls and press Play. You will have to wait until the images are downloaded, than you will arrive to the main game screen, the Panumbra screen.
You should pay attention to your vitals bars on the bottom left corner: the red bar means hitpoints, the blue is mana, the yellow is stamina. You should run to a fountain if any one of them gets low, especially the red one!
The numbers of the bottom right corner of the graphics indicate the number of characters (red) and the number of monsters (blue) in the area.
Move around
Press the movement keys on the keypad, or click the movement buttons under the graphics.
View others
To see who is in the game, select Info -> All characters from the menu bar.
When the red number in the bottom left corner is more than one, it indicates that there are other characters around. Press the Chars tab to view a list of characters in your area.
The character list on the Chars tab of the information panel displays characters in parties, each party is separated by a line from each other. The party leader is the first name in each party.
Form parties
Parties are groups of characters who move together. When you track another character, he/she becomes the party leader. When the leader moves, everyone else moves. It is advisable to choose leaders who the other people trust. A leader with better a faster Internet connection can move the whole party around faster.
When the party leader untracks or dies, the party dissolves.
To track a character:
| Select the Chars tab on the information panel. |
| Select the character you want to track and press the "Track" button. |
You automatically move to the map square your leader is in and get the same view. When the leader moves, you move, too, and your view is automatically updated.
Pressing the untrack button will untrack you from any party any time. This is the only way party leaders can untrack.
If you press any movement buttons or movement keys, you will automatically untrack, unless you are the leader.
Fight monsters
Sooner or later you will bump into monsters. Monsters will show up on the graphics as an oval picture (some people call it a "sticker"). The monster's name will be displayed under the picture, and a number in parentheses will tell how many there are, e.g. Orc Soldier(12). The monsters tab will display information about every single monster in the area, for instance that is the only way to tell their experience level.
To fight the monster, press on any of the skill buttons you wish to use. You will get a message of the result of your attack in the event window on the right side.
You can target monsters in several ways:
| Select the monster graphic on the screen. This will target the first monster in the group, if there are more than one. When you encounter monsters, the first group is automatically selected. |
| If you want to target monsters individually, select the Monsters tab, and select a monster from the list. You need to use this method if you want to target any other monster than the first one. |
Use skills
To use skills:
| The easiest way is to press the skill buttons under the graphics. |
| You can use the keyboard shortcuts to the skill buttons, 1 through 4 for the upper row and 5 through 8 for the bottom row. |
| You can also use skills directly from the skill list by double-clicking on them. |
You must have a target selected before you can use a skill, unless the skill is self-targeting (e.g. healing). You may not use attack skills on characters, unless you are in a Wild Zone.
| To target characters, select them from the Chars tab. |
| To target yourself, select yourself in the Chars tab.
|
Change default skill buttons
You can change the default skill assignment on your skill buttons. This feature is particularly handy when you have more than eight skills.
| Select the Skills tab. Press the "Assign" button. |
| Select the skill from the skill list. |
| Press the skill button you want to use for the skill or press the number assigned to the button (1 for S1, 2 for S2 etc.). The abbreviation of the skill appears on the button. |
| Repeat until you assigned all skills. |
| Press the "Stop assignment" button, or press the Esc (escape) key. |
Note: pressing the "Stop assignment" is important. If you forget it, your buttons will change skills rather than attacking monsters when you press them.
RemarksThe ` (tilde) character toggles Skill Assignment on and off.
The menu item Options -> Assign Skills toggles Skill Assignment on/off.
Currently your skill button assignments are not saved, so you have to redo it every time you enter the game. From version 3.0 your configuration will be saved.
Make a level
When you reach the next experience level, two red buttons appear on the graphics view. One says "make level" with a number indicating how many levels you made. The other one is a shortcut to change character.
If you want to make changes to your training plan so that it affects your newly made level, you must change your training plan BEFORE you make a level. To do so, press the Change character button, change your template or edit your training points, and hit Done. You will be back to the game screen, with your make level button still there.
To make a level, simply press the make level button. If you earned several levels, you have to press it several times. Your well-deserved skill points are distributed among your skills according to your training plan. Now you can select the Char tab to see if your vitals or statistics went up, and the Skill tab to see if you have made any skill levels, or select the "Change character" menu item from the Game menu to display the more detailed skill information.
Advice: the make level button usually appears in middle of fierce fights. Do not make the level until you finish fighting and you are in a safe place, you may get hammered otherwise.
Send text messages to others
Type your message into the text entry field under the text messaging window, and press Enter to send the message. The message will be displayed in the text message panel above.
You can select the default address type from the radio button group in the bottom right corner.:
| All sends your message to everyone in the game. |
| Party will send messages to your party members only. |
| Proximity will send the message to everyone in your proximity area, i.e. all characters on your Chars tab. |
| Newbie sends the message to the newbie channel. You can use the newbie channel to ask questions from the Pals how to get around in the game. |
You can turn off receiving messages from the Newbie channel and the All channel using the Options menu.
You can send private messages to one character. You need to type the "to" keyword, the name of the character, a colon, than your message. Example:
to Bonky Dog: What are you doing tonight?
will send the private message "What are you doing tonight?" to Bonky Dog only, regardless what address type is selected. Do not forget the ":" after the character name!
You can repeat the last "to" address if you type the ">" character. This way you can have private conversations with someone without having to type their name every time.
To use the emote, type ": " (a colon and a space) and your message. For instance, if I am Elfie and I type ": clears her throat", the others will see:
Elfie clears her throat
Save
You are automatically saved when you quit, leave to Tome of Souls or make a level. If you want your character saved at any time, just simply go to Tome of Souls and come back.
Use the menu bar options
Game menu
Tome of Souls will leave the game and take you to the Tome of souls.
Change character allows you to change your template or customize the training plan.
Quit will quit out of the game to the Application menu.
Info
All characters shows who is currently playing the game. This window is not automatically updated, you have to refresh it from time to time.
Options
Limit monster graphics is useful if you have a slow connection. You can turn off download of graphics for monsters when you encounter them. You will only see one generic monster picture, with the name of the monsters written below, but you will have a faster access.
Assign skills toggles the skill assignment mode on and off.
"Receive messages from all" can be toggled off and on.
The newbie channel turns receiving messages on the newbie channel on and off.
Help
The help menu contains links to players' guide documents on the web site.
Copyright © 1997 Manton Communications Corp. All rights reserved. |
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