Many new guests pick up a blade for entertainment. Some walk the warrior's path and dedicate themselves to combat. But only a few become true masters of the sword...
On this page, you'll learn more about how to obtain and spend Mastery Points to increase your character's combat skills to legendary levels!
The Mastery Point system is a skill progression system used for martial skills for martially specced characters in Castle Marrach. The purpose of the system is to provide a "late game progression" system where by characters can master and improve upon skills they had already learned to the soft cap within the game's normal teaching system. The use of a Mastery Point represents a character going off on their own, to further hone and master a technique they had already been taught all there is to teach about it by their own instructor(s) and master(s).
The soft cap begins at +4 levels above what all new characters' martial skills start at, or +5 for skills they don't start with at all. A skill that has reached its soft cap is denoted with an asterisk (*) next to it in your @skills list, and a skill that has been mastered is marked by a plus (+) for each level of Mastery Point into it. These soft caps are as follows:
There are a number of sources in the game world for Mastery Points. A martial character is essentially 'guaranteed' their first 2 Mastery Points if they choose the martial specialization and play long enough; the rest are earned for particular in-game story-related feats.
Mastery Points are consumed with the @mastery command, which requires you to have both a Mastery Point, and the prerequisite amount of CombatXP typically required to gain a skill of that level. Upon doing so, your skill level will be immediately increased and CombatXP deducted.
When a Mastery Point is used on a skill, that skill level becomes unlocked, which means if your character should die and lose that skill level, you can use the @mastery command to gain it back; regaining a lost mastery skill will not cost a Mastery Point, but it will require CombatXP be spent to re-purchase.
Mastery of weapon skills are given free of Mastery Point cost for your first 3 Mastery Points. Each time you master a duelling skill (such as those listed above) you may afterward use the @mastery command to gain a level in a weapon skill. This can be done up to 3 times, the first 3 times you use a Mastery Point on a duelling skill. The cost for weapon skills gained this way is also discounted to a flat 500 CombatXP. The intention of this is to allow characters to pick a weapon fighting style they wish to focus on as their signature weapon, without being forced to choose between weapons or duelling skills for their first few points.
A character can obtain up to 10 mastery levels in their duelling skills, and 3 in their weapon skills, for a total of 10 Mastery Points used plus the 3 free weapon skills. Once this cap is reached, no more Mastery Points can be spent even if you possess them. This limit applies to both player characters and Veteran Characters. Your current mastery level can be viewed with @stats if you have spent a Mastery Point - this displays your total number of mastery level duelling skills, though does not include weapon skills which are treated as horizontal progression moreso than vertical.
