Caves of Qud

Character Creation & Early Game

Check the game's Help section for some basic information, especially the Quickstart and Weapons & Armor entries are good to know. There is also a swathe of various adjustable game settings and keybinds that are well worth looking through after you've gotten used to the basics. At minimum showing the minimap and nearby objects is highly recommended if they're off, and the various automation options save a lot of effort as well.

Mutants are overall more beginner-friendly than True Kin as most of their mutation powers are available from the start, whereas True Kin cybernetics become available more slowly over the game.

Basically all characters benefit from a solid baseline of the physical stats (Strength, Agility, Toughness) while the mental ones (Intelligence, Willpower and Ego) depend more on what you want to do.

The Precognition mutation is very useful particularly for a beginner and in Classic mode, as it allows you to set a temporary "save point" you can return to within a set amount of turns even if you die during its duration, allowing you to experiment and try things out without danger. Just mind the cooldown.

The default starting village of Joppa has a number of predetermined features and quests worth visiting and doing. Argyve the town tinkerer in particular gets you started on the main questline. Exiting to the north from town will also always bring you to a shrine which gives you the location of a Historic Site, a mini-dungeon that always contains a reward at the bottom.

If you start in a random village, the ruins of Joppa will still spawn on the tile where Joppa would normally exist, at the intersection of Red Rock and the northmost rustwell. The ruins will have an item that lets you start the main quest, as a backup if anything happens to the questgivers in your starting town.

An early main story quest states in the journal it has extra rewards if you finish it by level 12 or by level 18. The former is likely not worth the risk unless you really know what you're doing, but managing it by 18 is quite doable and does net you a ranged weapon that's likely going to last you a while.

Faction reputation is quite important, and primarily gained or lost by either killing or water ritualing (via dialogue) with legendary creatures or certain named NPCs. For example, killing something that's loved by baboons but hated by robots will decrease your reputation with baboons but increase it with robots, while performing a water ritual with them has the exact opposite effect. Nearly everything in the game belongs to a faction, and even major threats can be pacified simply by being in their faction's good graces.

Using the Look command shows a number of information about NPCs, including what they have equipped and what various factions think about them.

The water ritual can also let you buy skills, items, secrets, and even allies with your faction rep. Don't sleep on it.

Accidentally angered NPCs calm down eventually once enough days pass, unless you anger their faction in the meantime of course.

Tinkerer NPCs can identify artifacts for a fee, recharge energy cells, as well as repair any broken or rusted items.

Penetration and AV (Armor Value) can be hard to understand at first, but the basic gist is that the more Penetration an attack has compared to the target's AV, the higher its potential damage multiplier is. Don't neglect your AV, even the dodgiest character will get hit sometimes and you don't want it to be at a 5x damage multiplier due to lack of armor! This also makes Penetration the "main" source of damage in most weapons rather than their actual damage die.

Most melee weapons have a maximum bonus to Penetration they can get from your Strength, higher tier weapons having a higher cap. The 'Display detailed weapon penetration and damage in weapon names' option found in the Settings (which might require enabling 'Show advanced options' first) allows you to see the cap near the name, for example ->7/8 means the weapon's maximum Penetration is 8 and you have enough Strength for 7.

Skills and bonuses that increase your defensive stats (AV and DV) are universally very valuable. Special note goes to the Swift Reflexes skill (+5 DV against ranged attacks) which can make the difference between life and death to ranged enemies in the early game.

Shields only give their AV bonus on a successful block but their DV penalty is permanent, so usually they're only worth equipping if you invest in the Shield skill to increase the block chance from the default 25%. Note that bucklers are worn in the arm slot, and "proper" shields in the hand slot. It's possible to equip multiple shields, but only one shield can block any given attack, so their AV bonuses don't stack.

Fresh water is the main currency in the game, but it's also quite heavy, making light-but-valuable items an easier way to carry "wealth" around. A special note goes to "Trade goods" which have their prices in yellow when trading and which have a predetermined value that never changes. For example a silver nugget is always worth 50 drams of water but only weighs 1 lb, making it far more portable than lugging around actual 50 drams of water. You still need some to drink though.

NPCs in towns won't take your stuff or open your containers, so you can safely bring a chest from a dungeon somewhere and make an item stash for things you don't need to carry around at all times.

Books are worth holding on to as they can later be turned in to an NPC for experience. The various types of useless scrap can also be turned into tinkering bits used for crafting with the Disassemble skill. Disassembling found scrap can (and probably should) be automated from the settings.

Cybernetics credit wedges are used by True Kin to increase their limit of installable cybernetics at installation stations ("Becoming Nooks"), but like cybernetics themselves, for mutants they're only good for trading or giving away. Historic Sites are one guaranteed source for them.

"You see a croc and stop moving." Unfortunately the croc is green and so is its background and so technically speaking you cannot in fact see the croc. How do you find it? Hold down the Alt key (on PC). This also works for finding containers, items, and sultan shrines. And it keeps track of immobile creature locations.

You can highlight world map locations you've learned about by selecting them in your journal's location list, useful for marking particularly important places like legendary creature lairs.

There's a chance for your character to get lost during overworld travel. Entering new unexplored zones has a chance to end this "status effect", so sticking to edges and corners to quickly transition between multiple areas is the best way to regain your bearings. The default Wayfaring skill (Mind's Compass) is very useful in making getting lost less troublesome.

Illnesses and fungal infections can be very troublesome but can still be prevented while they're incubating, primarily via the help of certain food effects. Their actual cures are partially randomized for each playthrough but are listed in a book titled 'Corpus Choliys', one copy of which can always be found in
the inventory of the mayor of Kyakukya, the mushroom village in the southern jungles on the world map.