Guide to Banditry

Banditry in Ratwood Keep

So, you want people to hate you and love you. You’re either a diehard commie, in it for the money, or a Graggarite in a silly hood. Maybe you’re in it for the ERP. Maybe you just like seeing the light leave the eyes of the despots that call themselves king. Maybe you just wish to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women. Or, you just want triumphs. Whatever reason you pick, Banditry is a diverse and fun role.

The first thing you should do as you decide to play bandit is decide what your goal for the round is. Some common ones are;

Triumphs
Combat
Greentexts (Interesting Stories)
Roleplay and/or ERP

Each of these “corners” of the bandit quadrangle are necessary and good. You might look down on the Triumph bandit as someone abusing mechanics, or the “Roleplay” bandit as someone who just ERP’s, or the Combat bandit as a braindead fragger, but the truth is that at the end of the day bandit and ratwood are about having fun. If you’re a good bandit, people will complain about you - that is simply life. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be trying to make sure the people around you are having fun, quite the opposite, actually. Thus;

Rule Zero - Band-Etiquette

Everyone you rob, rape, murder, whatever - you should at least make a small attempt to not ruin their round, and possibly to make things more interesting for them.

Remember that you’re playing a game with other people. Think back to the last time you were robbed by a bandit. Did you die? Did they roleplay with you at all? What happened after? If someone is playing a surgeon and gets robbed of their tools, they kind of just have to kill themselves - same with blacksmiths. Especially in the early game, bandits can shape other people’s rounds - remember rule 1.1.

Be conscious of what others want. If someone is clearly not roleplaying with you, maybe you should cut the scene short and ransom them off or set them free - after taking their stuff, of course. You do not have to be heartless to play bandit. The main target is putting valuables in your idol - it’s not to make other people miserable. Have your fun, don’t be a dick.

Rule One - The Idol is your best friend forever

In the top right corner of the bandit camp, there is an Idol of Matthios. Every time you put 100 gold worth of value into it, it gives you a triumph and some loot. Luckily, the two most important bonuses you get you get right at the start - the first 100 gold you put in will give you a backpack and some health potions. Then, the next 100 will give you a bottle bomb and some moondust.

Experienced fighters on Ratwood know just how game changing health potions, bottle bombs, and moondust are in combat. They are your friend - use the damn consumables. The other upgrades you get from the Idol are things like Armor, more Moondust, and a dragonscale necklace at the end, but trust me when I say that Moondust and Bottle Bombs are a free fight win, and a health potion is almost like a second life for you or a friend. Use them, and your success rate as a bandit will go up tenfold. These are what make you able to compete with other combat classes consistently!

Rule Two - Get robust!

Robusting in Ratwood is made up of three things - Game Knowledge, Spacing, and Preparation.

Spacing is the most simple, but also takes the most time to master - can you hit your opponent more than they can hit you? Can you move erratically enough to the point where they whiff attacks? Can you run away to an advantageous position? Aim is also important - can you get your attacks off?

Game Knowledge is the most difficult - where are you aiming? What weapons are you using? Where is your opponent vulnerable? Most people will give you the advice “Aim for where they aren’t armored!” or “Aim for the legs!” but this isn’t always possible. Knowledge of intents, how weapons work, common weak points, and how to effectively use every part of your kit like wrestling and charges all play into this.

Preparation, also known as “Cheating”, is the third and honestly most important part of being robust. Ratwood’s combat is very luck based, and even fights with a towner have a small chance at going horribly wrong, so if it looks like things might go sour just throw a fucking bottle bomb at them! There’s no social contract here, no such thing as a fair duel. Kick your opponents off of ledges, make poison arrows, put them in 1v2’s, get your friends to hold someone down while you cut their head off, stunlock them with pins while picking their throat with a dagger, snort that moondust and fire those crossbows. Nothing is off-limits - do not restrict yourself, ever. You are an antagonist - if you play by their rules, they will outmuscle and outgun you. They respawn, you don’t - you do the math.

So, you might be wondering: How do I learn these things? Here’s a very simple, three step plan:

Reach out to talented, robust players in the community for tips and advice.
Play squire to learn from a knight in a controlled environment.
Trial by fire yourself as a boggard, and die horribly over and over again.

As long as you remember to space well, keep learning and experimenting, and never fight fair, you will win a majority of the fights you get in. You’ll still lose plenty - sometimes the numbers just don’t favor you, or you can’t dictate the terms of the engagement, but most of the time the average player will not be able to keep up with you.

Rule Three - Bandit Macro

Let’s face it - as a bandit, you need friends. There are three friends you need to have with you in (nearly) every bandit game. In order of importance, these friends are;

Allied Smithies, preferably with a Great Furnace.
Your Hedge Knight
Your Sawbones

Starting off with your Smithy, treat them like a god because they are one. A smithy with a great furnace can turn three iron bars - worth 75 mammons - into four steel statues, worth a whopping 240 mammons. If you have a bog smithy, the returns on stealing metal objects quadruple. A good bandit-aligned smithy can make or break the entire game for you, so treat them well. Here’s a list of the four most common items you will be feeding to the idol; As a reminder, each of the ten tiers of rewards the Idol will give you are worth 100 mammons.

Iron Bars, worth 25 mammons.
Steel Bars, worth 40 mammons.
Iron Statue, worth 40 mammons.
Steel Statue, worth 60 mammons.

Check the smithing guide for more information on smithing!

Your Hedge Knight is your answer to heavily armored opponents - if a knight or archer is at the bog gate, they’re what punches you through. You’ll need them if you plan to do anything more than robbing pilgrims. However, if your Hedge Knight, for lack of a better term, sucks, don’t be afraid to go off without them. You don’t need them, but they are very useful.

Your Sawbones, or any bandit aligned surgeon, will do a lot to keep you alive. You can also get goblin eyes from them in order to see in the dark, which I cannot overstate the value of. Do not plunder their tools - on top of being one of the textbook most hated and hardest to recover from things in the entire game, at the time of writing a pull request is being made to prevent them from smelting down, so you won’t even get anything anymore. Let them align themselves with you - it’ll make life so much easier.

The Bandit Gameplan (For getting triumphs and glory, that is) is pretty simple, and goes like this;

Acquire a minimum of four iron items and smelt them down, feeding them to Matthios to get your backpack and health potions ASAP.
Find your bog smithy and get them to make you some steel (or at least iron) statues to take back to camp.
Get your moondust and coordinate an attack on the bog - you can either construct a tent with a stick and a cloth, or you can simply get an ally to throw you up onto the roof and climb the rest of the way to get past the gate.
At this point, you have a very good chance at succeeding in your attack - the bog gate is usually pretty understaffed.
Smelt down the stuff from the boggards and their armory, if possible. This alone should get you to 10 triumphs if you’re making steel statues.
Do whatever the hell you want! You’re now the most equipped, heaviest statted and possibly more robust people in the entirety of Rockhill. You’ve won. Rockhill is your oyster! That was easy, no?

But there’s also… another way. A different way. Yes, we’re sneaking a final segment on…

Rule Four - Noncon and You

(P.S - you can ignore this section if you like! This one’s just for the freaks.)

So, you want to robust another player down, take them back to camp, and do unspeakable things to them. To get the most enjoyment out of this, and make sure the player on the other end of your actions gets enjoyment out of this, there are a few questions to keep in mind;

Do they actually want to be raped right now? Even the least defiant bath wench bogwanderer in rockhill does not want to be skullcracked and dragged back to your rape dungeon two hours into an event round where they’ve been roleplaying their heart out with other people. Remember rule 1.1 - you have responsibility over them and their experience the entire time they’re in your care. They are not sex toys - there is a living, breathing human being behind every character in Rockhill, and if you’re going to dom them you should be making sure they’re enjoying themselves. There are so many people begging for you to take them - don’t take the wrong person at the wrong time.
Do you have chains? Are you significantly stronger than them? Can you beat them in a fight without gravely injuring them or yourself? A lot of your preparation will be moot if you’ve got your eyes set on someone who can actually fight back - you can’t firebomb someone you’re gonna fuck because they’ll probably just die. Same for using sharp weapons with moondust.
Are you going to eventually release them? Are you going to kill them after sex? Are you going to give them a smooch on the forehead and let them leave? Remember that taking someone back to camp is de facto round removal until the moment they leave - they can’t get out without you (as long as you put them in a chest before dragging them off to the bandit camp), so make sure to have an exit plan in mind if they want to get back to whatever they were doing. Always know what’s going to happen after a scene before you start one.

Skullcrack/paralysis is your best friend as a rapey bandit - they prevent someone from moving or biting you, and you can do whatever you want to them for as long as you want. You can achieve a similar effect by targeting someone’s head, grabbing them aggressively, and twisting until their spine snaps twice. You can also just use chain and put cloth in their mouth for a similar, less-permanent effect.

Also, make sure you actually ERP. Yes, I know it’s scary to put yourself out there to someone who might not even want you to rape them, but I promise you that just using the sex verbs is a million, billion times worse to be on the receiving end of. If the person you’re fucking is watching Youtube, you might as well slit your own throat right then and there - tell them what you’re doing, try to get a gauge on what they like and don’t like, and if they’re clearly starfishing (a term for going limp or AFK during a sex scene) it might be time to cut the scene short and just let them go. Yes, ratwood is IC focused - but it’s just the decent thing to do OOC, even if your character would totally fuck them while they’re shutting down. You can usually tell if someone is into what’s happening by the length of their emotes. An example of what you want to be happening is this:

> [x] tries desperately to struggle against the ropes binding her, tears streaming down her face as she screams for help. She desperately tries to pull away from you, shuddering at your every touch, each stifled moan from her as you continue to touch her bringing her such shame and anxiety that she nearly pukes on the spot - but holds it in as you grind on her.

An example of when you should check in and/or let someone go is this:

> [y] stares daggers at you. “Just get this over with, or kill me.”

I’ve genuinely made friends and then later done rape scenes with people who have done this to me - there’s genuinely no shame in recognizing when the other person just isn’t into you. Might makes responsibility - so be responsible, and don’t waste anyone’s time or emotional budget. It might just be pixels to you, but some people put a lot more thought and emotion into their characters than you do, and it’s very easy to accidentally upset people. Everyone makes mistakes, don’t double down, be excellent to each other.

Matthios and You - A note from Bobinater

As a bandit you fall under Matthios, the greatest thief to ever live; for he was once man, but after stealing fire from Astrata and maiming her in the process ascended to godhood. While yes, your mechanical objective is to feed valuables to the idol in the camp, that's not why you're playing bandit. You're here because someone has to put the terror in the bog.

He is, however, also the god of peasant revolts and comradery. Your only objective isn't just stealing, it's also empowering the masses. Do not exclusively target peasants and the weak; they are not the true enemies of the Matthios worshipper. Instead, target the rich, noble and especially clergy - you will never, ever gain Matthios's favor by robbing the poor of their last few mammons.

Tips of the Trade -

Having a shylock account means the king can zap you with his scepter - don’t make one for any reason.
Pick intent on a dagger or axes in general are the best ways to deal with Knights - also, if they don’t lower their sallets, eye stabs are very good ways to fuck them up.
Think of Moondusts and Bottle Bombs as free won fights - use them in every combat, if you’re able to. Resource management is a myth - you will get in much less fights than you think.
The bandit tier list is as follows, from left to right;
1. Hedge Knight, Brigand (Axe/Cudgel), Knave (Bow/Sword)
2. Brigand (Flail/Shield), Mage, Foresworn (Spear), Sawbones
3. Knave (Knives), Foresworn (Sword/Shield)

Speed is Power - if you show your hand too much, you’ll give the Steward enough time to get people stun maces, or have the bog build palisades on the roof. If you intend to siege the town, your chances dwindle with every second you waste. Either do it fast and decisively with your entire forces, or not at all.
Having goodwill with commoners, such as leaving them a few mammons to get past the toll or fending off monsters, can help you a massive amount. You never know when they’ll pay you back.
Soilsons will basically fucking love you by default - they never get robbed, or RP’d with, in any meaningful way. They’ll make you food, treat your wounds, and give you a place to stay in 90% of games - just ask. They’re STARVED for connection, and are the only towners you can actually trust more often than not.
Your hood is a great way to keep your identity hidden, but it also screams “I AM A BANDIT!!!!”. If you want to be a bit sneakier, go for a robe or a funeral cloak - pair that with an amulet, and you’ll reasonably pass for a member of clergy, which are usually exempt from having their faces shown, until someone gets busted.
If you get AHelped, which will absolutely happen if you’re playing bandit well, be nice to the admins. Even if it’s clearly bullshit, you will get punished 90% less if you listen to what they have to say and be courteous. Also, an apology to the person you round removed or aggrieved goes a long way.
The Boggard’s Armory is a great and accessible source of iron - with a bog smithy and a cart, it can get you to ten triumphs in just one trip.
Get familiar with the Terrorbog! Look at a map while walking around, and you’ll have the entire thing charted out in your mind in under an hour. It’s pretty easy to navigate once you’ve figured out where everything is.
Keep a goblin head on you. There’s no telling when you’ll find a friendly surgeon or sawbones and then gain the ability to see in the dark for the rest of the round.
Play whatever race you like most. Yes, Horc has the most strength and Tabaxi has the most speed, but Vulpankin are underrated crit fishers and ranged monsters and Wildkin are sturdy all-rounders. Also, fortune is very nice to have on a bandit. You don’t need to pick a race for the stats.
Play Boggard and Watchman to get familiar with the ways that more experienced bandits will fuck you up - it might be frustrating at first, but it’s actually pretty fun if you get good! Plus, you can steal their techniques for later.
If you get captured, just have fun with the RP - the reason kings kill you isn’t because they’re bloodthirsty, it’s because you’re boring them. Be adorable or witty or strike deals for your life - the round isn’t over until you’re six feet in the fucking ground. Don’t rat out the other bandits, though, that’s shitty.
A good steward is your biggest counter as a bandit. If you don’t want to deal with six people in full plate with stunmaces an hour into the round, try to send them little friendly letters through your Hermes - they, like the Soilsons, are starved for attention, appreciation, and RP, and will go along with whatever you do a lot of the time.
Using a polearm to negate terrain slowdown of the bog will help keep you alive. This includes; wooden staffs, spears, billhooks, etc.
Pair up with your fellow bandits. Pairs of two are able to cover more ground and having someone to watch your back is always a good thing.
Avoid rushing the bog-gate, it may be fun, however when all the bandits die in the first quarter of the round, it leaves things very boring for the rest of it.
Dealing with mages is tricky, however they can be countered by grabbing their mouth. (Mages typically are very weak strength wise.)
Don’t forget to have fun, always.

- Credit to: Flogbun and Bobinater