The Essentials

The twenty or so commands that carry a new character through their first hours in Rogue.

These commands cover moving, carrying, fighting and talking during your first hours. help <command> gives the full syntax of each, and the Command Index lists the rest by activity.

The game expands short forms before a command runs, so i reaches inventory, l reaches look and n reaches go north. The help files use the full names, and so does this page.

Finding your feet#

help#

On its own, help opens the general index. Given a topic or command name, it opens that page. If you are not sure what to do next, a bare ? asks the game and answers with the commands to type.

help
help combat
help inventory
?

look#

Describes the room you are in. Given a target, it describes that instead: an item in your pack, an item on the floor, or another creature. It takes a name, an inventory number, or an ordinal when several things share a name.

look
look sword
look 3
look sword 2

go#

Moves you from room to room. Every direction has a short form, so north or n on its own works as go north does, and go into works as enter does. The room description lists its obvious exits.

go north
go into the cave

glance#

Shows the room name, its exits and everyone and everything in it, without printing the description again.

glance

rest#

Sits you down to recover health, spell points and endurance. Each second you get back 1% of each maximum, or 2% where a healer has laid out a bedroll. Inns, shelters and some provisions speed it up further. It ends by itself when you are full; combat ends it sooner, and you cannot start it in a fight or in the saddle. Type rest again, or stand, to get up early.

rest
stand

Carrying things#

inventory#

Lists everything you carry, sorted so that like sits with like: weapons, then armor and clothing from head to toe, then potions, food and scrolls, then loot, crafting materials, bags, corpses and keepsakes, each group by name. What you wear and wield comes at the bottom. The same things pile into one line as they come to you, so a hunt's pelts read fox pelt {4} rather than four lines.

Each line has a number, and any command that wants an item takes it: drop 5, look 12. The numbers follow the current list, so check it again after things come and go. Name a kind of thing to see only that group. settings inventory changes the order, the layout and whether numbers show.

inventory
inventory weapons
inventory loot

get#

Picks things up from the floor or out of a container. It takes names, ordinals, inventory numbers, counts and all.

get sword
get all
get 3 torches
get potion from backpack

give#

Hands things to a player or an NPC in the same room. Take off anything you wear or wield before you give it.

give bread to marla

wear#

Puts on armor and clothing. Two pieces for the same place on your body cannot both be worn, so a breastplate and a chainmail shirt will not go on together. wear all puts on everything you carry that can be worn.

wear helmet
wear all

wield#

Takes a weapon in your main hand. A two-handed weapon cannot be used with a shield. offwield or offhand puts a second weapon in your other hand, and unwield puts one away.

wield longsword
wield dagger 2

ready#

Does the work of wear all and wield in one step: it puts on every piece of armor you carry and takes up one weapon. unready takes it all off again.

ready

gear#

Shows what you have equipped, a row for each place on your body from your hands to your feet, then your jewelry. An empty place shows ---, so you can see which places you have nothing for.

gear

Fighting#

consider#

Compares a creature's level with yours and says roughly how the fight would go. It goes by level alone; equipment and abilities change the outcome too.

consider wolf

attack#

Starts a fight, with whatever you have wielded or your bare hands. It takes a number when several creatures share a name, and attack all takes on every hostile creature in the room.

attack wolf
attack warrior 2
attack all

flee#

Runs from a fight by an open way out. It does nothing unless you are in combat. A boss can hold you in the fight, and so can a wounded leg or being knocked down.

flee

hp#

Prints your current and maximum health, spell points and endurance on one short line. It is the quickest health check in the game.

hp

Growing#

score#

Your character on one panel: your seven attributes, luck included, your vitals, level and experience, and the details of who you are. summary adds the bonuses your gear gives, your armor and your resistances.

score

skills#

Lists your guild's abilities, those you have and those still ahead. By default it shows the whole grid from level 1 to 100; skills all adds the separate panel of mastery powers for levels 61 to 100.

skills
skills all

advance#

Spends experience to gain a level. You must stand beside your guild's trainer, and any powers that open at the new level arrive with it. level tells you whether you have enough experience.

level
advance

join#

Joins a guild. You must be an Explorer of at least level 10, standing at the guild's entrance. The Warrior, Healer, Mage, Rogue and Psion guilds take anyone who gets that far; the Merchant's Guild wants admittance first, from Hollis Pell. Your guild is your class, and joining starts you again at level 1.

join warrior

quest#

Beside a questmaster it lists what they offer and lets you take work on or hand it in. Anywhere else it shows the quests you carry and how far along each one is.

quest
quest list
quest accept coin and compass
quest accept all
quest complete

Talking and traveling together#

say#

Speaks aloud to everyone in the room. It can be aimed at one person present, which makes it clear who you are talking to without making it private.

say good evening
say to marla have you seen the gate guard

tell#

Sends a private message to a player anywhere in the game. reply answers whoever last sent you one.

tell akram do you want to run a quest

who#

Lists everyone online, grouped by their part in the game. users gives the names alone.

who

group#

Forms and runs a group. Members follow the leader, and the leader decides whether the group attacks, loots and buries together. A message that is not a group command goes to the group as chat.

group create
group invite marla
group accept
group heading for the north gate

Money and making things#

buy#

Buys from a shopkeeper, barkeep or stall in the room; list shows what is for sale. sell goes the other way, and shops pay very little for what you find. Take off anything you mean to sell first. sell all sells everything loose the shop will take, but never a bag or anything in one, and never an item you have set aside with keep.

list
buy rations
sell dagger

gather#

Collects raw materials where you stand. On its own it opens the gathering panel with your skill levels; scan lists what is here. mine, chop, harvest, forage and dig each work one kind of material, and most need a tool. A gather takes ten seconds, and leaving the room breaks it.

gather
gather iron ore
mine

craft#

Turns gathered materials into finished things. No class is barred from any craft, but your level in the craft must reach the recipe's level and you must know the recipe. Every crafter starts with the refining work and the ordinary recipes up to level 8. The rest are sold as folios in the Hall of Patterns at the Crafter's Guild, and the rarest are recipe scrolls found in the world. Each recipe is made at its own station, such as a forge or a loom. Bare craft opens the recipe browser, and craft <recipe> makes one; recipes browses without starting work.

craft
craft iron dagger

settings#

Opens the settings: colors, the display (screen size, brief descriptions, time zone), inventory layout, combat messages and prompt, tells, and a screen reader mode. Use it to fit the game to your client.

settings
settings display
settings combat