You share a pool of points between three stats. They rise on their own as you play: strength and dexterity from fighting and working, intelligence from casting spells. Your starting choice only shapes your first few hours, so don't agonise over it.

One number does matter: keep intelligence at 11 or more. That gives you the 11 mana you need to cast Recall, the spell that takes you home to a rune you've marked. Even a warrior wants it.

You want to be	Lean towards	Why
A mage	Intelligence and strength	Mana to cast, and enough hit points to survive while you learn
A warrior (sword, mace)	Strength, then dexterity	Hit points and heavier blows
A "dexxer" (fencing, spears)	Dexterity, then strength	Speed: high dexterity swings faster
A crafter	Strength	Carrying ore and logs, and the odd fight on the way home

You pick three starting skills and share a pool of points between them. Town trainers will teach any skill up to around 30 for a little gold, so never spend starting points on a skill below 30. Put almost everything into two skills, and use the third as an item skill:

• Main skill, about 50: what you want to be. Magery for a mage, Swordsmanship for a fighter, Blacksmithy for a smith.
• Support skill, about 49: the one that makes the first one work. Resisting Spells for a mage, Tactics for a fighter, Mining for a smith.
• Item skill, 1: picked for the blessed item it starts you with, which you keep even when you die. Healing gives bandages, Magery and Alchemy give reagents, Tailoring gives scissors, Lumberjacking gives an axe.

Character	Main	Support
Warrior	Swordsmanship, Mace Fighting or Fencing	Tactics
Archer	Archery	Tactics
Mage	Magery	Resisting Spells
Tamer	Animal Taming	Veterinary or Animal Lore
Thief	Stealing	Snooping
Blacksmith	Blacksmithy	Mining
Carpenter or bowyer	Carpentry or Bowcraft	Lumberjacking

Some skills climb to Grandmaster in an evening on their own (Anatomy, Evaluating Intelligence, Animal Lore, Item Identification, Snooping), so don't waste starting points on them. On the Endless shard you get a fourth skill and more points; the same idea holds.

• Fighters and mages: Britain. The biggest city: banks, trainers, shops, and other players to group with.
• Crafters: Minoc. A mountain to mine on the doorstep, forests all around, and a forge and anvil in town.
• Everyone: make your first runes. Buy a blank rune and a spellbook with Recall, then mark your bank and your hunting ground.

• Bank often. When you die, what you carry stays on your corpse, and on Felucca anyone may take it. Only blessed items stay with you.
• Felucca is dangerous, by design. Other players may attack you outside the guarded towns. Start in Trammel on Renaissance and Shadows, where nobody can attack you without your consent, until you're ready.
• Red names are murderers. Guards in towns will cut them down; outside, you're on your own.
• Train in your house with a macro if you like. That's allowed. Just don't leave a character gathering resources unattended (see the rules).

Nobody learned UO alone. Ask in #new-player-help on our Discord, or in game. Veterans with the green Mentor role are there because they enjoy it.

Veterans: you were new once, and someone handed you a bag of reagents and showed you the way to the bank. Pass it on.