The naked character challengeFollow

This is interesting to me because it'd circumvent my complaint about all my gear being Prestige if I was to reinstall. I'll have to think on this -- might be entertaining with my Shadowknight (seems a bit too easy with my mage or bard).

lol8.2gbdownload

Inlee Moondark, lvl 72 Shadowknight was dusted off for this little experiment. She started naked except for a few empty bags which was mainly a function of my bank slots being fairly full. I started in Paineel and thought at first to grab a sword from the Warrens and then progress from there. Killed King Gragnar and his shaman buddy which netted me a bronze katana and that one light stone the shaman carries. I had the idea to go to Stonebrunt and see if any cold iron plate dropped and headed out, killing a few extra kobolds along the way. Nabbed a hunting bow but nothing much else.

In Stonebrunt, I made it up to the Raging Highland Kobold camp and started cracking skulls. A few pieces of the splint bamboo dropped and I realized the immediate flaw in my plan. A naked Erudite has a strength of 70 and that kobold armor is heavy. At least I had some pants now.

Went to Gunthak to use the book and had the notion to hit the beach and see if I couldn't farm some bone chips for pets (I killed a couple skeletons in Paineel before starting). Got insta-ganked by some pirate skeleton near the water who hit me for 1120 a blow. Oh well. Didn't lose my level and doubt this is a long term project anyway. I decided to go to Runnyeye and see if I couldn't grab some blackened alloy armor which is a heck of a lot lighter.

Runnyeye was fairly profitable. Had blackened alloy pants and gloves drop. Simple (?) defiant chest piece dropped soon after as well as boots and a shield. Found Lord Pickclaw up and he dropped the blackened alloy crown and the blackened alloy ******* sword. Now we're rockin'! With the slow respawn rate in Runnyeye, I decided to head out and step up my game. I trotted across the Karanas (technically my unholy hell-pony trotted; I sat) and killed the named ogre chief guy along the way but he didn't drop anything. Went into Jaggedpine thinking I'd kill a few griffons and see if the griffon claw earring dropped. Instead, I got distracted wandering the Darkpaw tunnels. A few fights in, I had an ornate defiant longsword drop along with gloves. I found Barduck Darkpaw up and decided to engage despite him conning green to me. My half-naked self was getting knocked around pretty good until I harm touched him and ended the fight. He dropped the Sabertooth tunic thingie which was exciting until I noticed it had worse AC than the breastplate I got in Runnyeye. For that matter, a stone-studded buckler dropped which was also inferior to the shield that dropped in Runnyeye. All sorts of things you could say about itemization at that point.

After that I kicked around Jaggedpine a little, killed some griffons (no drops) and one of the named poachers who dropped a magic neckpiece (collar of stalking?) with a little AGI boost on it. That was actually nice to see since my base agility score is a dismal 65. Camped out after that.

As expected, magic makes a lot of the fighting fairly trivial. I think my buffed pet was outdamaging me sometimes since it was hasted and I was using old ratio weapons. The defiant drops took a lot of the planning out of it -- no sense in tracking some named for a drop that will be inferior to random trash-style drops. If I make another run at it, I may hit Velious for orc claw earrings or maybe somewhere in Kunark. I don't have anything on my fingers or ears yet.

Tongue-in-cheek I'm sure but, yeah, the most entertaining classes for this would likely be hybrids (less downtime) or melee classes. Pet classes would barely be changing their style and nukers wouldn't be changing much... just getting annoyed at low mana pools. At least a shadowknight or monk can keep whaling on things.

The more I think about it, if I continue I'll probably institute a "no defiant" rule and drop the few bits I picked up. Otherwise, the process is really "farm level 40ish stuff until I get full Ornate Defiant; move on to level 60ish stuff and farm that instead" with no consideration for zones or zone-specific drops.

After purging myself of the Defiant stuff when I logged in tonight, I now have...

Orc Fang earrings (x2)
Orc Fang Necklace
Ry'Gorr Chain Coif
Ry'Gorr Chain Wrists (x2)
Sabertooth Forged Ringmail
Blackened Alloy Spaulder
Blackened Alloy Gloves
Bamboo Splint Skirt
Bamboo Splint Legs
Boots of Stalking
Blackened Alloy ******* Sword

Still no rings, back slot or sleeves

Yeah, the only lowbie zones I haven't done much of are out of Crescent Reach and, really, I never cared so much for those. Although I was in Crystal Caverns last night which I haven't been in much.

Many of my maps are missing which has been fun. I did not instinctively know where to find the Ry'Gorr fort in the snow and dark after three and a half years away I know I can download map packs, I was just expecting it to be there out of old habits since it didn't occur to me I had just reinstalled.

Server seemed mighty dead unless there's a new hang-out these days that's not PoK or Guild Lobby. I never saw another person except for maybe 10 people between those two zones and once passed a young necro in Qeynos Hills.

It's been an interesting experiment because, absent any real risk so far (aside from Barduck), I notice other struggles -- almost all my stats are under 100 still; strength has been a chore. I had hoped to get the WR bag in Crystal Caverns but no dice (it now occurs to me that I might have one in the bank and the Lore tag would have prevented me from looting it). My resists are almost all base. Was funny to see myself rooted by Ry'Gorr Mystics last night; it never lasted long but it landed. I have no haste and feel as though I'm attacking through heavy syrup, especially with the delay on my BABS. Also how sparse some gear seems to be: no place I've gone through has had a magic ring in the loot table, for instance and my fingers are still bare.

You also really feel the impact of mudflation as you move from era to era and level tier to level tier. Defiant drops at level 20ish make everything in the old world from level 20-50+ obsolete. No real moral judgement on that, it's good for the new players to catch up and get somewhere in an empty world but you really feel how much old content is just... there, being old.

I camped in Eastern Wastes last night and will probably make a single clear through, hoping for an arm drop. Then perhaps LGuk to see if I can luck into a FBSS or other usable armor.

Edited, Aug 15th 2013 8:37am by Jophiel