Month: January 2015

So, I finally decided to TR one of my characters (Einsof Malkuth).  Not that I have some sort of aversion to grinding some extra XP on my way back up, but it never really called to me like some other players.

I don’t have any GS items on this character (sad to say that I don’t have any at all…we’ll get to this in a future post, but shame on me) or raid items (see aforementioned parenthetical exclamation of shame), so it’s not like I’ll be god-like come mid-levels.  However, it was just another excuse to roll a new character with some added benefits, namely 2 build points and a Past Life feat.

After just a few days, Einsof is level 4 (banking 5), on an Elite streak of 17, and is having a blast so far.  The only hairy moment was when I was playing with my 6-year old daughter…

Back when I joined DDO as the ultimate noob, the very first toon I rolled up was an elven rogue – elven ’cause I liked the ears, rogue because I used to love them way, WAY back when I played a bit of PnP Dungeons & Dragons.

For various reasons, I rolled up Even a few days later and she quickly took over as my main, leaving my poor rogue to languish mostly unplayed for months. I went VIP and GRed Even to a 32-point build; I rolled up Acanthia and watched her take my playing time by storm. My rogue sat patiently at the bottom of my login screen with her 28-point “standard path” build (I THINK I followed the Thief Acrobat path, can’t even remember now, that’s how little I played her).

And then one day a friend of a friend of a guildie or something like that…

I’m a big fan of unconventional ways to learn things.  One thing I’ve found that helps to flesh out your knowledge – not just in DDO, but other games as well – is to try and intentionally screw something up.

And I don’t mean “man, I messed this up, but it’s still playable” screw things up.  I mean, “holy cow, this is so amazingly broken, Jeets is laughing at me” level screwed up.

Of course, as the game evolves, so does the art of complete bunglery.  With the new Harper tree, many of my previous go-to hosings have actually backfired, thanks to Intelligence-based fighters and barbarians suddenly being able to turn INT-to-hit and damage.

This has caused me to revisit an old hobby, and I figured what the heck – let’s make things a little more interesting, shall we?  Without further ado, I present to you…

The Incompetent Veteran Challenge!