Provide your input, since there are things still missing..

Basics:
Start by reading 'help leading' !

The main job of the party leader is to smoothly and safely guide a bunch of disorganised idiots to victory. :)

• In exp-parties the party leader is expected to provide a good "rate" to the rest of the members. This is
  practically done by 1) knowing your exping areas beforehand, 2) minimizing travel-time and 3) minimizing regen-time. Deaths are rarely acceptable in exping.
• In eq-parties the party leader is expected to get the eq-mob down. (In cynical minmax parties this also has to be done fast). The most important rule in eq is to overcome the monsters regen by the damage being dealt. In practice this means minimizing protting- and regen-time of the party and of the monster.
• Explore is usually a slowpaced event. Here the party leader just tries to find ways ahead without too many deaths (and eq-losses!).

Minimizing regen-time:

Here are things what the leader has to do:

• In exp, try to use up all sp from all members.
• Regenning should be done with as little battleticks as possible, so always regen from 0 to max.
• Skip turbo and/or Phys Immune monsters.
• Know the good "effort vs exp" monsters.
• Don't kill your partymembers.
• Try to enter right after a heartbeat to ensure everyone gets an "entryround". Either right after anyones tick or use a stethoscope.

Here are some things what members have to do:

• Mages - don't overkill. An nd monster does not require your biggest blast... usually they require no blast at all.
• Mages - use power reagents.
• Don't aggro a monster.
• Druids - wither flesh only if you know it takes mana (watch your mages analyse or tank's Combat Damage Analysis)
• Druids - Don't wither flesh an almost dead target or if your tanks are in need of urgent healing.
• Healers - Don't overheal. Always leave the heal some 0-50hp too short. Use party heals (but not blindly) and don't heal during regen unless it's necessary.
• Tigers - Watch what your barbarians and other tigers are doing. Time your claws evenly and don't claw vbs/nd mobs unless you have to.
• Nomads - Just watch your eps :) Build fires.
• Everyone - Check who your raisers are before the party. If accepting from the party is possible, try to accept fast and from the proper member (remember priests and watch healer sp's!). Usually, you don't accept resses during eq, since you will die again anyways and you should have trained before party.
• Everyone - turn off dig/looting when doing a quest for someone. Decide who gets souls/burns/etc

Minimizing protting-time:

First, get to know who you protters are.
Then, get to know what the average times for prots are.
Then, know which prots are required for the task at hand.
And last, make sure everyone is protted accordingly.

Sounds simple, but in reality the leader will be dealing with a varied mix of people which makes the thing interesting.
Basically, it is a good practice to tell the protters (conjus, druids, priests, tarms, nuns, bards) which prots are needed and who will be protting who.
After that, the leader just has to keep the protting breaks to a minimum.

Some ideas here....

How to deal with monsters that:

• Cast area spells - Depending on your partymembers: if you have enough party healing power and can get hps high enough on each member to survive, then you can stay in battle for as long as possible. Protting against area spells is not recommended unless it is only 1-2 members. If none of the above is possible then the monster has to be killed in short runs and hope your casters are fast enough to get their blasts off.
  
• Regen fast/heal themselves - This is a place to use Spider Touch, Degenerate Person and Curse of Tarmalen. It is good to have a trigger which times these curses so you know when to renew them. The best place to curse the monster with these spells is just before your upcoming regen break, since the monster will not be regenning too much while battling you. XXX some info on curse lengths here. XXX
• Track - It is good to know your escape route and have a command for running several rooms away to avoid ambushes. This is a good practice since a manual escape tends to lead to an ambush in the next room (ie, party moves, mob follows, party tries move again -> ambush) Also be prepared to use clairvoyance and shelters to prevent further ambushes.
• Have/Summon helpers - Summoned helpers can be deadly since they usually ambush too. So, watch for the summon and don't leave until you are sure you're ambush-free. Or have a high leadership and rescue leader.
• Grapple/Summon - Some alternatives: 1. Kill the bugger. 2. have someone move out of the room and summon the grappled person. Rest of the party must wimpy when summon occurs (or have people behind wimpy beforehand to avoid potential rips). 3. give leads to grappled person who then chains escape until grapple is broken.
• Mess up party formation - Use 'party store' and 'party restore' commands to fix party formation quickly.

Party Entry:

• When entering a room with a monster the party has already been fighting the first tank entering will take the first round of hits.
• If the leader is in the front rank this will always be him/her.
• If the leader is in the back then who takes the entry hits can be set with the "party entry <playername>" command.
• When entering a room with a special syntax which prevents party following, tanks must go in first and the leader must be one of
  the tanks. This way party formation will stay intact as long as everyone remembers to do 'pf'. A good practice is for the leader to chain 'party forcefollow' as long as everyone has arrived.

Party Placement:

Monsters don't equally divide attention amongst the front rank.
Factors that increase the chances of being a target are-

• Being the smallest tank, especially when there is no back rank
• Being a front rank leader
• Having the leader stand behind you
• Having healers/blasters standing behind you

A simple strategy to make one tank a preferred target (ideally your most durable) is to line up the leader or healers/blasters behind that tank.
Another thing to be wary of in party placement is that Wolfmen/Cyclops may flee when hit by certain spells. Avoid placing frail party members behind them.

Fleeing:

Yes, we all flee, no shame in admitting it. :)
Here are some things to remember which affect the decision to flee or not to flee.

• The monster is known to cast Single Blasts. The monster fails it's blast -> stay another 3 rounds if possible.
• The monster is known to track. Tank goes below 300hp -> Have your escape route figured out and escape several rooms _with delim_. This way your party will not be ambushed by the same monster during fleeing.
• Your tank gets entrycritted to 200hp. Usually it is not a good idea to run away the same round, the chances for an ambush are high. But, if your party is small, backrow has relatively high hps and not prone to ambush and you have rescue -> you can try fleeing, just remember to check that no-one was left behind.
• The monster is known to occasionally cast big areas. If your party can take one big area, then it is sometimes warranted than you stay in until you get hit by the big area. After that check if your tanks can stand and if so stay in for 3 more rounds, and then check can you take another one, etc... This is especially nice when the monster does other spells in between.
• Monster casts skill drains. If no prots against it are available then it might be nice for everyones sake to dodge the spells by doing short runs. Same applies to any other spells (single blasts, areas) that the party can not handle
• Member gets grappled. If finishing the mob is not an option, then two options remain: a) make grappled member party leader + 'party forcefollow' and try to outlast the grapple or b) have someone else leave the battle, summon the grappled member and flee when summon occurs.
• Backrow member goes uncon. Do not flee immediately (The monster will not be casting for a couple of rounds more.), unless you have really good rescue but even then think if it's possible to stay in. Try Deaths Door or Cardiac Stimulation, or try to kill the monster and then First Aid if the situation allows it. So in short, do not flee immediately unless you have 100% rescue. Remeber that members with low con die quicker to uncon than tanks with high con, so this being the case running away with a mage at -100hp might do no good anyway.
• Frontrow member goes uncon. Trickier. If there are people behind the tank and other tanks exist, try reviving him. But if you have nice rescue, it might be a good idea to flee right away.
• A good idea is to have Deaths Door and Cardiac Stimulation highlighted. There are some specials for reviving also. The party status (pss) shows a person "unc". Once revived the "unc" status will disappear, but hps might still be negative, this is a good time to flee :) It is very important that healers and priests co-ordinate before the party who does the in-combat reviving.

Planning and Preparing for a Party:
Leaders:

• Know what you're doing before leading a party. Meaning, that if you're doing eq, know how to get there and what the monster does. In exp, know your exping-route beforehand. Explore parties are an exception.
• Know what members you want. In exp, this means knowing what kind of party you are doing (offu-party, mage-party, hybrid-party, rep-train, etc) and getting appropriate members. In eq this is even more important if you are short on members. If you are overkilling then this is not as important. Use this rule of thumb: an eq mob should go down if you have at least one member more than the mob is worth in hundred k's of exp. For example a 500k monster should go down with a 6-man party... unless the party is full of one-guilders.
• Prepare well. Especially in lqs and some eq. You dont want to drag a 9-man party around collecting keys and pieces which you can do beforehand with a 3-man party. "Everybody likes to come to an already catered table." :P
• Don't be too picky. Asking for a front row full of hybrids, 4 conjumages and a druidtarmanunwanderer can be surprisingly hard when going to Artemis.

Members:

• Be ready when the party starts.
• Tanks, if you plan on deffing, always bring a shield and leave that 30kg UberSword™ and +dam eqset home.
• Train before explore and eq parties, since you will die quite surely. If you lose a lot of exp in these parties it's mostly your fault.
• Remember to turn your wimpy off.

Party Etiquette:

• No-one likes a whiner.
• No-one likes an 'I-know-it-all-you-know-nothing' bragger. Just impress them with your skills, not your mouth. If you're lvl100 in a party of lvl40 people, just keep your mouth shut (this also includes comments to private channels) and enjoy the ride. :)
• Don't idle without notice.
• Give the leader a break. If he sucks, be constructive. If it doesn't help then let him suck and just skip his next party.
• Do your job, if you're constantly being reminded then you're doing something wrong. A good member does his stuff without being asked to do it.
• Battleships go down with their guns still firing! (tanks don't wimpy when some is behind them)
• If you have to leave, you have to leave. Tell your party right away and try to find a replacement.
• If things are going badly, try harder. If you start complaining or distracting the party, it will just go worse.

Nosunrises guide has some good points but it is not really a newbie guide as it assumes mages and druids and stuff.

Main problem with newbies leading is that they are overly cautious. They are so afraid that they will make mistakes that they freeze every time something happens. That freezing causes most of newbie deaths.

The idea is that you always know where to wimpy if things start to look bad, like some tank goes below 300 hp. Also you need to notice if someone is stunned/grappled/uncon or if some monster has just entered room as then it will ambush. And make bit longer escape route then just one room as monsters might track if they are turbo. So area knowledge is essential but that can be only gained by leading in that area, thus while exploring people will die. Also leading is something you will learn if you lead but while learning you will make mistakes and people will die.

Oo, cool stuff Nosunrise.

Here's some of my observations.

Party Entry:

When entering a room with a monster the party has already been fighting the first tank entering will take the first round of hits.
If the leader is in the front rank this will always be him/her.
If the leader is in the back then who takes the entry hits can be set with the "party entry <playername>" command.

Party Placement:

Monsters don't equally divide attention amongst the front rank.
Factors that increase the chances of being a target are-

• Being the smallest tank, especially when there is no back rank
• Being a front rank leader
• Having the leader stand behind you
• Having healers/blasters standing behind you

A simple strategy to make one tank a preferred target (ideally your most durable) is to line up the leader or healers/blasters behind that tank.

Another thing to be wary of in party placement is that Wolfman/Cyclops may flee when hit by certain spells. Avoid placing frail party members behind them.


Cheers,
Askan

Added Calmar's and Askan's ideas to first post. There are still many things to be added and some stuff I've written you might disagree with. So, keep those comments coming... :)

Delim no longer prevents ambushes, so do not wimpy with delim if there might be agro monsters in your wimpy route. The safes way is always to clear the route first but then there might be wandering monsters or repops. So always walk one room at time so you can see if there are agro monsters in room.

How to handle uncon players in battle. This is where the leaders skills are really in test. The course of action depends hevily on party members and monsters size.

If you have priest with Cardiac stimulation and you feel that the tank has a change to survive you can order the priest to remove uncon from the tank and tarma to heal the tank.

If you have only tarma(s) you can try heal+deaths door+wimpy. Just dd is normally useless because monsters target the uncon player and dd does not give any hp back, so any hit will just make the tank uncon again.

If you have good rescue you can try to wimpy and hope for the best. This is for smaller parties where you do not have major healingpower. You can also give leads to some other tank with good rescue and order him to wimpy.

If the monster is about to die, just kill it while tarma heals the uncon tank.

If the uncon player is from backrow, then just dd unles it happens to be the only tarma. Then you need to wimpy and hope for rescue.

In party when only tarmalen goes uncons and theres nobody to revive him, leads are usually given to member of highest rescue so he can try to rescue uncons player. You can try this repeatedly.

e.g. (safe dir is east)
You can try this: east,party shake,west,pff,east

There you try rescuing 2x and you might have better chance of success.

True. What I meant by delim was only that you move fast out and don't get ambushed in the next room if the mob tracks fast. I'll elaborate this to the first post.