Welcome to the Ultima Online basics class - the bread and butter everyone should know when venturing into any Ultima Online shard. To find other classes please visit the binding post!
All about Health:
Keep your health bar visible at all times! Regardless if you are using the whole screen as the "play area" or just a windowed section, be it graphical or numerical, you need to keep an eye on your stats all the time. Generally the -best- time to heal is the second you take damage. On some shards you can even start bandaging before taking damage which is even better! The reason for this is because the more hurt you get, the more chance your bandaging will fail. Potions should only be used in emergencies (like, bandaging fails) and on some shards where you have to have a free hand to drink can equal a quick death when you drop your shield, weapon, or spellbook.
Target Practice:
First thing you should do when an enemy shows up is "drag" its health bar out. This makes it easier to target them later on (just target their stationary bar). You can do the same for all your allies if you want to keep an eye on their condition too. Travelling too far from them makes the bars vanish though. Also, if you are trying to target something in a swarm or the enemy is something like a small snake or bird you should also have an "all names" macro at the ready, because "the enemy name" can potentially have more clickable pixels than the enemy itself.
Speed of Aggro:
If you run around crazily, monsters are going to aggro you quick. If you walk slowly on some shards, it takes them a few seconds before they realize you're there - even if you are not hidden. Can be handy if you want to try tame stuff, scout quietly, or setup a gex pile trap. Also handy to drag their health out while they aren't moving around so much.
Push them around:
On almost all shards, you cannot walk "through" an npc (friendly or otherwise) unless you have full stamina. This means you should keep a stock of stam pots handy for those situations where you really need to literally push past some beastie to better terrain, or to extracate yourself from a swarm of lesser critters who have pinned you down. Obviously if big things surround you, either you've put yourself there intentionally and can take it or you are about to die. It is unlikely you'll need a stam pot in either of those. ;p
Lure and Kill:
Unless you are confident in your skills it is often safer that your first action upon enemy contact is to pull back to where you just came from, that way you know you have clear space to deal with the threat, and what exactly the threat "is". This is assuming you aren't just running past other monsters and you are not misfortunate enough to run into freshly spawned critters (by GM or otherwise). It will take slightly longer than the gung ho method, but will make for easier combats (to win or flee from).
Order of Combat:
When faced with more than one enemy, who to target becomes a matter of priority - and I think the "chain" of targetting should look like this:
Weak Mages, Weak Archers, Strong Archers, Medium Melee, Strong Melee, Weak Melee.
Strong Mages should be dealt with individually and not engaged at the same time as any other foe. Also it is important which foes NOT to kill first: the ones that do weak melee damage. Being swarmed by little cats is much more favorable than being swarmed by the ogres milling around them.
Running Like a Girl:
Most things in UO are pretty straight forward to get away from, either you just flee or take cover then flee. On some shards though there are critters that can/will outrun player characters (even when mounted). I've found the best way to "lose" them is zigzag away. The way it works is simple: NPCs turn on the spot before stepping forward, be this for going to the market or chasing down a player. The more moves it spends turning on the spot because its prey is running like a girl left and right, the more squares away it puts you from it. ;p
It possibly also makes them dizzy!
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