Maybe what would help is someone who knows how to be ready and defend against pk's post a guide.
First off, I am writing this guide with the assumption of the readers are new to UO so that everyone may benefit from it's content.
My information is by no means a definitive guide, additions and comments are very welcome. I will be discussing my personal method of avoiding PKs and reducing the amount of time it takes me to re-equip. Also this will be based on my Mage character, but the ideas presented here can be applied to all characters with some modification to the method.
I will first itemize the resources to keep on hand:
1. I keep absolutely all of my runes in the bank, organized in a bag for quick recall, with the exception of my chosen bank rune which stays in my reagent bag on my character. It is also a good idea to keep a rune which was marked in a stable so that buying mounts would be much faster than running. For those who don't know, you can recall from the runes in your bank by opening your bank box, casting recall, and clicking on the rune in your bank. This way you never ever need to worry with loosing your runes. You'll always have a bank rune on you, so anytime you wish to go somewhere else, you just recall back to the bank, open bankbox, recall to desired location.
2. I have 2 - 3 pouches containing 25 of each reagent and a copy of my chosen bank rune, which I call "mage kits". (This method can be tailored to your character ie: a fighter can keep a bag with a weapon/shield, bandages/potions, recall reagents only and a rune to your chosen bank)
3. I also keep a pouch in my bank that contains a stockpile of reagents I try to keep stocked to 200 reagents each.
Attempting to avoid PKs:
Rune locations: eventually a player will build up a library of runes leading to many hunting areas. Some of those hunting areas may be hotspots for PKs. When marking a rune to your favorate hunting area, never mark it near the action. Go outside of the chosen dungeon, a few screens away from the entrance and mark your rune there. This will prevent you from recalling in the middle of a PK camping your hunting grounds, and would give the PK a huge advantage over you. It's always easier to get away when you run up on a PK then it is to recall in the middle of a camped PK
Hiding: I find hiding extremely useful. When you begin hunting in your favorite spot, and finish clearing out the initial spawn, most of the time spawns take a few minutes to come back around. During that waiting period, STAY HIDDEN. When a new spawn is visible, reveal and attack, when you are finished, HIDE AGAIN. I can't count how many PKs I have avoid this way
Razor: I created a macro in razor to cast recall and target my bank rune. You open up razor, select the macro tab, click "New", enter a name for this macro (I used "Escape"). Now click on the record button, and go to the Ultima Online window and cast recall on your bank rune. Immediately after recalling, click on razor in the system tray again and click "Stop". Be careful you didn't record any other accidental actions, like walking a step forward by accident. Once we have our recorded macro, within Razor click on "Hotkeys". Find the category named "Macros" and expand it. You should see the macro you just recorded in that list, select it and on the right hand side, click in the blank field labeled "Key" and press the key you wish to associate with this macro. I used my "Delete" key. Once your desired key shows up in that field, click the "Set" button, you are all done.
Concerning the macro described above, if you are ever killed and loose the bank rune you were using, you simply go into Razor, select the "Macro" tab, then select your "Escape" macro. On the right are the list of actions that were recorded, find the action labeled "Absolute Target". Right click on that action, and choose "Re-Target" then select your new bank rune inside ultima. You must do this anytime you loose your bank rune since the target changes.
To use the previous Razor Macro method is simple... as soon as you see a murderer, or theif, or even a suspected blue murderer, you hit that assign key "Delete" and hope your spell doesn't get interrupted. Using Razor for this greatly reduces the latency that is experienced when human reaction times are involved (manually hitting recall, then targeting the rune yourself by hand).
Reducing downtime after being murdered.
Reagent Kit: Since I am a mage, we all know reagents are our most important resource. I mentioned that I keep 2 or 3 pouches of 25 reagents each in my bank, along with a copy of my chosen bank rune. This proves useful for me, since when i'm murdered I obviously loose all my reagents. Normally one would have to run back to the nearest bank, pull what gold they have and buy new reagents. There are two things regarding getting back to town after a murder. I personally only ever go hunting in hotspots in pairs, I always try to bring a buddy. This way one person will have a very good chance of getting away. In the event you had a buddy, and one of you was murdered and the other got away. Your friend who got away can recall back to where you normally recall in at, and this is where you would want your runes marked several screen away from the hunting area, usually around a healer if possible. This way, your buddy can come back, give you recall reagents and allow you to recall from his bank rune. If solo, your stuck running to the bank.
Once you arrive at the bank, you simply grab your backup reagent kit, recall from your rune marked in a stable, buy a new mount, and now depending on what you want to do next you can either recall back to the scene of the crime and see what was left on your body (risky), or you can restock the most used reagents from your stockpile and go somewhere else to hunt. This will reduce time spent re-equipping tremendously.
The above method has reduced an extraordinary amount of stress being PKed. Since I know i'll be back in the game within 5 minutes, I am able to simply shrug it off and continue. Sure you are going to loose what loot you had collected, but that brings about another practice to make use of. BANK OFTEN! When my buddies and I are hunting for the purposes of loot, we always bank after collecting 2k gold. This may seem too often, but it depends on your preference, how much you are willing to loose, and how risky the area your in is.
Restock Agent
I wanted to include one of the replies in an edit on the original post. RoadKill made an addition a few posts down, that I did not think of. I wrote the "Downtime" issue based on the player loosing everything, not just needing to restock in the middle of a hunt. Although, this applies for both situations. Thanks RoadKill, I totally forgot about this.;
Just to add a quick note for the restocking part.
Go to Razor-->Agents, drop down to Restock Agent 1. Add each reagent to the list and give it a quantity. Go to Hotkeys-->Agents-->Restock Agent 1. Select a hotkey. Now when you need to rereg or completely restock, you just hit the hotkey, target the pouch in your bank with your 100s of each reg, and it will pull the proper amount. This saves time and item space compared to making a few bags with 25 of each reg in them.
I have a macro that use restocks 60 of each reg, 20 bottles, and then uses the kegs in my bank. Then I get a bag, set Organizer Agent to move my potions & regs to my bag.
(sorry pk's, I know its your business to kill us)
