Potion duration? + even moer questions guh

[Shiloh]

Sooo, I have a pile o' questions:

1) What's the deal with potion duration? I have a bunch of potions in my inventory that have 1/2 duration and are essentially useless. Is there anything you can do with them besides throwing them out?

2) I was also wondering what the stat requirements are to upgrade from a fighter to a barbarian? Or ANY other stat requirements that you know of for promotions would be really, really awesome too (omg please I'm clueless halp).

3) Is there a level cap for "battle" characters?

4)I am thinking about creating a mule. Are there any important rules that I should know about? I'm just asking because the rules regarding them that I have read seem rather vague/lax and I'm suspicious as to whether there are more or not

Umm, I think that's about it for now

[Maeve]

1) Yeah, that's part of the strange aspects of the battle system. See, if an item reached 0 duration, it would be automatically removed from your inventory (because it's "broken"). Now, it wouldn't be a real problem with potions, spells, or even cheap weapons, but since some event items and monthly items can also be used as weapons... well, I guess you can see how frustrating it would be if you used them one too many time. So they are taken off the usable items list when they reach 1 duration.
Note: Armors (and other things you can equip prior to battle) are not subjected to that, so they will disappear if you use them too much. There not especially useful either, but if you choose to use them anyway, I'd suggest checking them often in your inventory to make sure they're safe (if you want to keep them, of course).

2) Generally, you can upgrade when you reach level 10, and level 20 for the second upgrade (outside some upgrades that are not really upgrades because they are also available as starter classes if you have good enough stats). I'm guessing that having a good score in whatever stat is the most useful to your character (20+ maybe) could also be a requirement, but I haven't done much research on that topic.

3) No? Seriously, I don't think so. I've seen people with characters above level 30 and they were still growing. So if there is a cap, it's so high it'll take a really long time to reach anyway.

4) There aren't much rules about mules. You can only have 2 (or three accounts in total). You cannot use your mule(s) to have a conversation/role-play with yourself (like, posting with your main, then with your mules, then with your main, just to get more silver). And that's pretty much it. Of course mules also have to follow the same rules any other account is subjected to.