The Ways of the HalfWulf

Basic Halfling Strategy &

Advanced Halfling Strategy

So you have decided for some obscure reasons of your own to let go of all other character classes and create a Halfling. Halflings have great brains, and ah… umm…

That’s it really. Great brains. Spectacular brains. Also decent strength to be fair. Their speed is more than just ok, but you mainly have to depend on your luckout and melee to survive. Magic level is amazingly low.

Before you start a Halfling take a long hard look at the scoreboard. Right. Now since you insist… let’s go on.

To start with some bad news, what really cripples Halflings is their magic level. You need to get to level 42 to get teleport. Which means you degenerate some walking to and fro to posts. It means your force field is extremely weak. It means you need to get to approximately level 200 to have the mana to kill a size 36 Leanan. It also means you’ll be needing cash for that mana.

Your defense is also weak, if we consider defense to be not evading but your ability to take a blow. Think of any character with a 20k shield, and having used a force field. The Halfling will be the one to die to the lightest blow. A mage’s force field is amazing, a fighter’s or elf’s is very good, and so on. With the Halfling your force field is like hiding behind a petunia. So you need a bigger shield. Or you need to never take that blow. A bigger shield, again, needs cash, no discount for Halflings as yet.

As a mage’s magic level goes a bit down with degenerations, and a fighter’s strength goes down too, a Halfling’s brains go down too – though at a much faster rate. So, yes, you need cash there too to keep your brains up. As you level, degenerations will hit harder. You will see your brains going from Einstein status, to Lawyer status, and then down to Politician status in as little as 4 degenerations.

So what are the good points? One good point is that once you keep your brains at a fairly decent level you will be able to luckout anything with the exception of some 90-99 monsters. Another good point is that if you face a monster you cannot bolt, luckout or melee you are safer to evade and more able to evade with a Halfling than any other character. And I mean you can evade Ungoliants, Leanan, and so on. Another good point is you need one move to kill a monster. Luckout. Done. This means fewer degens. A fighter for example may need to force field, paralyze the monster, increase strength three times, and melee. This is 10 or more moves whereas a Halfling will only need one move. Another very good point is you need a lot less charms to kill the Dark Lord than any other character does, and it’s something that makes a big difference in the game. And last but not least it’s their ability to resist special attacks…

Now, before you go on to the actual leveling techniques a big part of which were contributed by Insanitie, a great player at Halflings, let’s look at some tactics.

I tried to level Halflings using three different ways. One was to play trying to increase magic level. The second was to try and increase my basic asset, brains. The third was to play like a fighter.

Let’s have a look at the first one. To increase magic level you need Merlyn. You can get Merlyn by using luckout on Red Caps. They also give quicksilver, which is not that bad. Unfortunately as I soon found out, after having effectively performed a Red Cap genocide to the point that it was soon declared to be an endangered species in the Realm my magic level went up so little that it made no real difference. So – do luckout Red Caps if you need some easy Quicksilver – but other than that no point.

Bad idea.

The second one wasn’t Half bad (pun intended). Investing in brains means you get a smaller shield but your chances of luckout are tremendously increased. It also means you save money on mana since you can luckout more monsters. Getting pick scrolls I always picked Cerberus and used luckout. He is a real D & D monster. Dumb and Deadly. Keep both in mind. If you don’t succeed in luckout, bolt him straight away. If you luckout him, which works like a dream, you get gems or charms or whatever without having used any mana at all. Very good strategy, especially as your brains go up, but risky.

Third strategy was to play as a fighter. Better than the first strategy, worse than the second. Instead of buying books you buy a huge shield and a huge sword and hang out at fighter taverns telling stories of how you meleed that Ungoliant. Downside is you neglect your brains by spending all your cash on metal and you end up with a fighter who has just better brains and a bit worse melee. However, it should be noted that this strategy is safer than the second one. If you definitely value survival more than good stats…

And now to confuse you further, you can use a combination of the above strategies at different levels. To outline how this would happen I would need a generous sponsor, a crate of decent brandy, a month off work and a Led Zeppelin cd playing indefinitely. Apart from the last bit, it’s not likely to happen.

Hmmm…. Let’s just say you could start off using the second strategy and as soon you have the surplus gems to invest in a big shield or a big sword. Up to you.

So – to the leveling.

When rolling a halfling, these are the stats to look for:
Energy: 70+ (80+ if possible)
Strength: 25+
Speed: 35
Brains: 75+
Magic Level: doesn’t matter, its only going to be 1 or 2
Mana: Again, doesn’t matter, you won’t need it for a while

Basic Strategy

The basic strategy I am outlining here is a pretty bad strategy. Reason I’m putting it down is it’s a safe starter if you have no Halfling experience. If, however, you want to get a Halfling with good stats, you had better follow the advanced strategy outlined below. Halflings due to their uniqueness need to be leveled as fast and hard as possible. For your first go with them however, try the basic strategy. It is slow but will give you more time to familiarize yourself with what you can luckout or not. Also time to familiarize yourself with your mana bolt power.

Some might also notice that even in the basic strategy here I’m suggesting a faster leveling than I did for the basic fighter strategy. For a seasoned player it might seem absurd. The reason, however, is I do not expect someone who is totally new to the Realm to start a Halfling. They should start a fighter using the slow basic strategy. So, having said that.

Do not pick minimal amounts of treasure since it’s not worth risking a cursed treasure for 4 gold coins. Pillage but do not sacrifice virgins. Careful though, not to get your sin too high, or no guru will heal you.

Avoid stirges and morons. Stirges give you minimal experience; yet make you degenerate a lot. Morons, as in real life, are endless so just evade. If you find a Moron you can’t evade he is a mimic, so melee him, don’t keep trying to evade.

Start fighting to get level 1, and as soon as you do, move to size 2. Stay there until you get level 4. As soon as you get level 4 move to size 3. Watch for smurfs, they can be deadly. Stay in size 3 until you get to level 7, and then move to size 4 as soon as you do. Stay in size 4 and get level 9, as soon as you do move to size 5. You should have found a relatively small shield by now, if you haven’t you should have the cash for a shield of around +200 so get it if it makes you feel better.

Stay in size 5 to get level 11, as soon as you do move to size 6. Get level 13 and move to size 7. It is important to remember in P4 that one size up doesn’t always amount to the same difference in monster difficulty. For example transitions from size 8 to 9 or 35 to 36 for that matter can be deadly since new monsters are introduced.

To go on with the leveling – Stay in size 7 till you get level 15 or 16 then move to size 8. Stay in 8 till you get level 24 then move to size 9. Get a 1k shield as soon as you get 5k gold. Do not teleport to the 900 post to buy mana or shield though it’s closer, because you can’t handle it there yet. Teleport back to the 400 post to buy what you need.

Stay in size 9 until you get level 30, and if you haven’t opted for the trove, kill Sarumen for blessing. So, staying there a while longer should get you a blessed level 40 Halfling with a few more degens than you should have but a good future.

Advanced Strategy

Once the character is rolled, you are straight into it, no messing around. For the first few levels, its possible to play quickly and efficiently, but the following will provide a guide by which you can expect to have a decent level 20+ character in no time at all.
Level 0: As soon as you appear in the realm, hunt. Luckout (button 6) everything that you come across, and melee those you fail on. Don’t bother moving anywhere yet, as there is no point.
Level 1: Start moving away from the origin. If you don’t know how to do this, experiment with the compass keys in the bottom right corner, and see what they do to your co-ordinates (under your name and location). Move out till they reach +/- 90, +/- 90. You are ready to begin fighting size 2. Kill everything that appears when you hunt, until you get to level 2. Watch out for Trow, as they can hit hard, but give decent treasure like druids and shields. Evade all morons, as they are not worth fighting. If you find yourself low on energy, move inwards (numbers getting smaller) and rest in size 1 till you are healed, then back into size 2.
Level 2 & 3: Upon reaching level 2, you should have around 100-120 energy, more if you have a shield. Move until you are at +/-180 - this is size 3. Fight here, watching out for Smurfs, Orcs and Wargs, all hit hard, but again, like Trow can give some decent treasure. You shouldn’t have too much trouble evading monsters, but if you do, skirmish them (button 2) and then try to evade again (button 7). Fight in size 3 until you are level 4.
Level 4, 5 & 6: Slowly move towards size 4 once you have reached level 4, it starts around +/- 270. As before, there are some monsters to watch out for, and if you are not making the luckout, I suggest you evade rather than trying to beat them up, because they will kill you faster than you can kill them. DONT rape virgins, but do pillage up to 3, and only 3 villages. This will keep your sin low enough for a guru to cure you for free if you are poisoned, and give you gold and exp. (Explanation for this later). Fight size 4 until you are at least level 6, but if you can get higher then do so. Hopefully by the time you are ready to move to size 5 you will have a shield of around 50-100, if not, don’t worry, we shall fix that soon.
Level 7-10: Move to size 5, and keep moving till you are around +/- 400. This is where a post is located, and becomes very useful to you soon. At size 5, you want to hunt and find any of Cinomulgii, Chaladrii, Gwyllions and Peridexions. The reason for this is that you will hopefully find a +200 shield or better from one of them. If you fail the luckout on them, use a combination of mana bolt (press 4 for spell, then 2 for mana bolt in combat) and use about 100-200 mana if you have it, and mix up skirmish and melee. They should fall pretty easily. Collect all treasure, especially gold. Stay at the 400 co-ordinate until you are around level 10.
Level 10-20: This is the time of gold collection. You want to move to around +/- 500 and fight size 6, and size 5 when you take some damage. Eventually, by both defeating monsters (still using that luckout) and pillaging, you should reach 3000 gold. If you have more than this, and start to lose speed its a good time to get moving. If for some reason you are especially lucky, you might get up to 5000 gold before you start heading in; not to worry, as this will benefit you more, but makes it slightly harder to get back to 400. Go to the 400 post, and spend all your gold on books. This will increase your brains, and push you up to around 300 in total. Once this is achieved, you will find that monsters you were before failing your luckout on, will now fall easily to the power of your mind. You can safely move up to size 7.
Level 20+: Keep collecting gold as you mow down the monsters, and you should be making a couple of trips back to the post for more books. As you progress in level, keep moving further out, with a change in monster size every 3-4 levels, or a substantial increase in brains. All of the monsters you fight from size 1-8 have brains of 60 or less, so if you have 500 brains size 8 should be no problem. This does not mean you can’t go there until you have 500 brains, but it helps. From then on, it all amounts to more of the same - fight at a comfortable size, luckout all monsters but mana bolt/melee those you cant, and keep increasing those brains. A degeneration will occur sometime during these levels, or may have done so already – don’t panic, as this can easily be fixed up later on.
GENERAL TACTICS
1: Buy increasing amounts of books each time - every time you buy books the next lot wont beas effective, so buying only 10 at a time will be a very slow way of increasing your brains.
2: On pick scrolls, pick monsters such as Cinomulgus (number 59) or Owlbear. They both have low brains and give good treasure and exp.
3: If you can, find the trove. It gives a blessing and once this is gained, first hit whilst you have very low sin. It makes it a lot easier than mana bolting monsters numbered90-99 for a bless, as the halfling magic level means you have to wait a long time for enough mana to do so. The gems you get can be used for books.
4: Keep your mana at around 1000 once you get to size 10. That way, you will be able tomana bolt the biggies at this size as you will find it hard to luckout. They includeWraiths (500 mana) and Thaumaturgists (1000 mana).
5: It takes a long time for a halfling to gain the magic spells that the other characters getearlier - you wont get Teleport (very useful) until about level 40. Don’t despair, asunless you get teleported by a Thaumaturgist you won’t need it yet.
6: As you gain levels, choose the size you can fight safely by your brains - if you couldpossibly luckout a monster with 1000 brains, then fighting in size 12 should be alright. Isuggest printing out the monster page from the rules section and having a calculator nearby - multiply the monsters brains from the list by their size and you will get a good idea ofwhere you can be fighting. Also, this helps you pick monsters from scrolls at higherlevels.
7: Have a look at the other tips sections, some of the information there applies across theboard. Just because you thought that they were all different doesn’t mean similar thingsaren’t going to happen to you!
Good Luck, and don’t be too disappointed at the inevitable death, as hey, it only took you 30 minutes to get there, why not make another?
As mentioned before, an excellent and experienced Halfling player, Insanitie, outlined the advanced strategy. So if you die trying that one, blame him.

Again, I will be happy to answer any questions you mail to .