Abilities are Avatar unique skills you can perform that fit your Class. Warriors typically gain abilities that allow them to do more damage or survive attacks, while Rogues would gain something that allows them to sneak past their enemies or make use of something they cannot. Though they can be unique in other ways as well, such as the ability of flight or some such. Whatever your abilities are they are largely determined by who you are. Feats on the other hand are more specialized, but flexible in the fact that you can chose which one you’d like to use. Feats are tailored to fulfil different Archetypes for each class, but by no means defines what your Archetype would be if you chose them. That all depends on how you use them really.

Avatar Abilities differ from Feats in that they will remain consistent throughout your levels. While you can always lower your level to trade different feats, Avatar Abilities will always remain the same so long as you reach the level requirement. Avatar Abilities are also unique in that they are specialized for the character. They give your Avatar something unique about them that rarely any other character would have. These Avatar Abilities are linked towards your Class; however higher level Abilities can sometimes dip into other classes so long as they fit the flavor of your character. Every Avatar has 6 Abilities, but they will only obtain all of them at level 9.

Level 1 - Avatar Ability
Level 2 - Avatar Ability
Level 3 - Avatar Ability
Level 5 - Avatar Ability
Level 7 - Avatar Ability
Level 9 - Avatar Ability

These Avatar Abilities must also be reviewed and approved of by the GM before you actually use them.

Time, spent inside of combat (each post you do while fighting), on DGO is measured in units known as Rounds, which are in turn divided in sub-units known as Actions and Reactions. A Round is equivalent to one minute, while an Action is worthy 30 seconds, a Reaction doesn't take anytime to do, but can be made only once per Round, generally in response to a trigger that is determined by the type of ability you are using or action you are doing (e.g.: trying to attack someone that lowers their guard, ducking out of an attack line of effect, casting a shield spell, etc.).

Using an Action, a player can either move, attack (the number of attacks you can do on a single action depends on your attack speed, weapons, etc.) or activate an Ability or Feat, in any combination they see fit as long as it doesn't violate the 02 Actions per Round limit and every action can be accomplished in more or less 30 seconds. A special case lies with Minions (Controlled undead, demons, beasts, drones, etc.) since they only have 01 Action of their own per Round, the masters of such creatures must spend their own actions to have their Minions perform a second one. As a rule of thumb, Minions can't use Reactions, even under command, unless they have an ability that allows for such (e.g.: shields, intercepts, etc.).

The Cooldown of Abilities and Feats begins to count as soon as they are activated and works in a set way, based on a Round and its divisions. You must choose a Cooldown timer for your Abilities based on the following ones:

* N/A: This effect has no Cooldown, meaning that it can be used on every Action a player takes during combat. Passive effects have this Cooldown timer by default.

* One Action: This effect has a Cooldown of 01 Action, it can be used once every Round, independent of when you activate it.

* XX Rounds: This effect has a Cooldown of XX Rounds, you must wait a number of Rounds equal to the Cooldown number before using it again.

* XX Time Increments: This effect has a Cooldown of XX Time Increments, you must wait a number of Time Increments equal to the Cooldown number before using it again.

Lastly, remember that all these are guidelines on how to proceed through combat, even if you’re collabing during a fight, you should keep this in mind.

Time, spent outside of combat (that is, most non-combat posts), on DGO is measured in units known as Time Increments which are equivalent to 10 minutes for Open World maps and 05 minutes for Dungeons, this difference is because of the fact that inside of Dungeons the constant tension and adrenaline on your system, causes things to seem to move at a faster pace.

The biggest use for time increments is to measure the rate of regeneration for a players' resources, but other effects might depend on them as well. For every time increment that passes a player recovers 10% of their full Health and Mana (that is, 01% regen per minute), unless an ability or other things like being in a Sanctuary, where regen rates are 10 times faster (meaning, full regen in one Time Increment).

Lastly, if a player spends a Time Increment doing nothing but rest, generally sitting or lying down in a place, they can double the regen rates for that Time Increment.

Dissolutions and Outlaws don't simply sit around in one place and wait for other players to come and turn them into a nice little pile of EXP. They prowl the land in search of squishy prey to chew and hack into bits, that's why caution at all times is highly advisable for the adventurous soul.

Mechanically speaking, for every Time Increment a player stays outside of Safe Zones, while logged on Deep Ground, they have a 1 in 6 chance of running on/being ambushed by Dissolutions or Outlaws. Generally speaking, this ensures that around once every hour you'll run into trouble, unless the system is being a bastard and pitting you against foes after foes with little to no time to breath between the fights.

The Level of the foes you face varies randomly between two bellow and two above the Challenge Level of the area you are in, which is pre-determined by the System. The number of foes you face are generally between 1 and 6, but this can change according the foes levels. The conditions of the encounter (who's ambushed and who isn't, distance, positioning, etc.) are based on circumstances like your skills, your foes' skills and terrain layout, all of which can change from encounter to encounter.

Lastly, you can decide to ignore Random Encounters if you use any means of fast travel, like a travel by mount or vehicle, or if you have specific skills that allow for that.

The total EXP rewards from a defeated foe are based on both the foe's level and your own as explained by the NC System. The bases EXP reward per Level of the enemy is given below:

Level 01: 50 EXP.

Level 02: 100 EXP.

Level 03: 200 EXP.

Level 04: 400 EXP.

Level 05: 1000 EXP.

Level 06: 2500 EXP.

Level 07: 3750 EXP.

Level 08: 5000 EXP.

Level 09: 10000 EXP.

Upon your discretion you can choose to convert part, or even all, of the base EXP reward from an encounter into items or materials worth that much raw EXP, mins that any items broken down or sold for EXP are usually worth only half of their raw EXP value, with no modifiers to that amount, independent of your level. The raw EXP for broken/sold items is given bellow:

Poor/Materials: None, these items can be used to craft others, but are worth nothing in and off themselves. Their EXP value can be fully converted on items of higher quality as long as you know the proper crafting recipes.

Common/Rare: Half their base EXP value. Can be acquired normally by the method described above.

Epic: Full base EXP value. These items can only be acquired with GM permission.

Unique: Can't be broken. These items can only be acquired with GM permission.

Finally, a player can't equip/use any single item whose base EXP value is higher than the double of the current amount of EXP they currently have. Also, to keep things easy for all of us to keep track of your progress, include on the TOP of your posts in a visible way any EXP or item rewards your characters may have acquired on that same post.

Because of the effort one has to put in acquiring items of Epic and Unique quality, they are rewarded with a special feature that exists to prevent item theft. These items are bound to the first player who equips them and can’t be used by anyone else, regardless of class proficiency or any other factor (though there may be some avatar ability out there that allows it).

There are two ways of breaking an item binding. First, one can purchase an Ownership Certificate, that allows for a binding to be overruled, to prevent abuse, these items can only be acquired from a Colored King (much like Pardon Letters) or if the avatar who previously owned the item is deleted for some reason, like when a player reaches he age cap, though this method only matters for Unique items, since there’s only one copy of each item of this at any time on the whole Deep Ground. There are no known legal methods besides those two.

The pressing necessity of give the players formal help in guiding their future on the real world gave rise to the concept of Professions on Deep Ground. While most of them aren’t related to real jobs, they still teach the players about the value of working, organizational skills and striving to earn what they want of life as well as another multiple things. The Profession you choose will however, have some impact on your future, so think well before picking one.

Each player can have up to one Profession (plus any related skills) at any single time and they are freely exchangeable, but you lose any progress on your previous Professions if you choose to abandon them. To create an item, or use a profession in general, a player must have both the required raw EXP in Materials, a crafting recipe for that item, and the required profession skill level. Some profession might require additional features as well, like the need of a forge for Blacksmithing, each specific item also takes a time to build and some of them might have cooldown timers to prevent the spam creation of powerful items on the world.

Profession Skill Levels vary in a scale that goes from Novice, Adept, Journeyman, Master and Grand Master, though (much like the Colored Kings) there can only be one Grand Master of each Profession at once on Deep Ground. To raise one’s proficiency in a Profession, one has to keep trying and pushing their skill ever further, investing time and EXP on their quest for perfection.

Just like with abilities, there are as many professions on Deep Ground as there are stars in the sky, thereby a list of them would be impossible to do, just keep in mind what your character can or can’t do. Also, if you choose to have a Profession add it as a new field on your Avatar’s CS.