Gear
Gear encompasses a vast array of items, from conventional weaponry and armor to shields, jewelry, runes, gadgets, bags, and clothing. It extends beyond combat essentials, catering to player imagination.
Naming Gear
Every item, no matter how ordinary, should possess a unique name. Even when purchasing a generic item, such as a Longsword, from the market, consider renaming it into something distinctive and convey that new name upon making the purchase.
Describing Gear
Gear descriptions should capture the item's essence and reveal its history, providing insights into how the character acquired it. Even for market-purchased items, players should exercise creativity to breathe new life into ordinary objects.
Purposing Gear
Gear attributes define an item's type, class, and enhancements, typically listed after the description in the Notes section. Beyond listed enhancements, many items possess unique qualities that extend beyond their combat applications, discoverable by examining the item's description.
Essential Gear
Essential Gear (EG) is a category of items with unique enhancement capabilities, significantly influencing a character's combat prowess. It encompasses accessories, armor, ranged weapons, relics, shields, and melee weapons. Solaris characters may possess all or some of these items, with the option to upgrade them as they progress. While upgrading Essential Gear is beneficial, it is not mandatory.
Quality Tiers
Upgrade your Essential Gear to significantly enhance your combat effectiveness. Each tier provides an improvement over the previous. The quality tiers are as follows: Common, Noteworthy, Exceptional, Ascended, and Legendary. Ascended is the highest quality tier attainable with gold and Legendary is only available through actively participating in major storyline content. See below for more details about Legendary Boons.
Accessories
Accessories directly influence a character's dodge rating. Accessories can be many things, ranging from a piece of jewelry to an article of clothing. Some may consider a necklace as an accessory and others could use their cloak, boots, or even a bracelet as an accessory. Accessories are considered an important piece of Essential Gear for all characters, as the ability to dodge during combat is critical.
Armors
Armor, along with shields, directly influences a character's physical armor rating. Armor is a critical component of Essential Gear. Armors include Cloth, Racial, Light, Medium, and Heavy. Cloth armors include armors made of fabric. Light armors include armors made of animal hides. Medium armors include armors made of chain or scale. Heavy armors include armors made of heavy plates.
Magical Relics
Relics directly influence a character's magic attack power and magic resist rating. A magical relic enhances a character's ability to cast magical spells and use the magical forces of Solaris. Relics come in all shapes and sizes. They can be worn as jewelry or wielded like a weapon. The choice is up to the player. Relics are considered to be Essential Gear to nearly all characters, even non-casters.
Melee Weapons
Weapons directly influence a character's melee attack power and deflect rating. Weapons are a critical component of Essential Gear. Weapons include Racial, Light, Medium, and Heavy. Racial weapons include claws, talons, fangs, tails, etc. Light weapons include knives, daggers, short swords, fist weapons, etc. Medium weapons include swords, axes, maces, hammers, etc. Heavy weapons include two-handed swords, clubs, mauls, axes, etc.
Ranged Weapons
Ranged weapons directly influence a character's ranged attack power. Ranged weapons consist of bows and crossbows or anything that fires some sort of ammunition over a long distance. The ability of a character to deal damage while out of harm’s way makes it a popular choice among many characters. All characters with a ranged weapon are considered to be carrying some sort of quiver or equivalent that contains mundane ammo and is assumed to have enough for a battle and never run out.
Shields
Shields, along with armor, directly influence a character's physical armor rating. Shields utilize the same upgrade system as other Essential Gear. Any race or class may use a shield, there are no restrictions on this. Shields come in all shapes and sizes. They can be made from any material, even energy.
Non-Essential Gear
This section covers non-essential gear, which cannot be upgraded and is not used in combat except for mounts. Clothing sometimes has special properties. Companions are pets, while mounts can be ridden. Gadgets are useful in and out of combat. Holiday items provide EXP or gold boosts.
Enchantments
Essential Gear can be enchanted by skilled Enchanters to imbue it with additional capabilities, granting characters an edge in battle. These enchantments, meticulously crafted by each Enchanter, possess diverse effects, ranging from enhancing combat prowess to augmenting a character's unique abilities. To explore the vast array of enchantments available, visit the market and consult with the Enchanters directly.
Gear Score
Upgrading your Essential Gear can give you a big advantage in combat! Your primary combat stats (Ranged, Magic, Melee, and HP) depend on the average quality rating of your gear. This rating is calculated by adding up the quality ratings of each item and dividing by the number of items. It is then applied as a modifier to your main stats, boosting them accordingly. This modifier is based on the assumption that most characters will upgrade at least three pieces of Essential Gear. Any additional upgrades will give you an extra edge.
Legendary Boons
Characters who contribute significantly to a major storyline are rewarded with a permanent and substantial stat boost called a Legendary Boon. These Boons, granted by a key figurehead, provide +50 to a primary stat and +25 to a secondary stat. To qualify, characters must contribute at least 5,000 words (2,500 for secondary characters). Legendary Boons can only be applied to fully upgraded gear, transforming it into Legendary status. Each major storyline allows for one Legendary Boon per character, applicable to a single piece of gear.