Here is the story of how my Cavalier, Troyhune, got to level 50. I'm sort of still recovering from the game, but I'll try to keep it organized.

Why go to 50? For a lot of reasons. A level 50 character is like a marathon. You have to love to run to complete a marathon, likewise you have to love to play Diablo to go for 50. In the case of a variant class, it is a tribute to the class and the creator, as well as the game. In this case a level 50 variant Rogue is also a gesture to the Variant Community in general.

Why this character in particular? Troyhune was my first variant in regular Diablo. I had played variants in VKHellfire and Purgatory previously, but this is my eldest Diablo character, her .drv file is about a year old. She also had the best Clevel/CL ratio of all my many characters. The extremely low AC would ensure excitement over the long haul too.

Why is she called Troyhune[CAV] instead of Morgane[CAV] or something? Although I don't have the typing skills to adequately express it during games, all my characters sort of have their own little personality and behaviors. I'm never just Morgane in games with other people, I end up being a sort of 'Committee' with my character.

Meet Troyhune: While some of you are familiar with my personality, hardly any of you are familiar with Troy's 'Personality'. The archetype for her character is an overmannered 17th century Warrior/Noble like the kind you see in a 3 Musketeers movies. She struggles to uphold the old values of chivalry in a changing world as the musketeers did, but in her case it's complicated by the fact that her bloodline is tainted by Incubus/Succubus ancestors. In her own mind she is the ultimate latter-day knight - courageous, merciful, self-effacing, and loyal. In reality, she has turned her back on the king, cares more about how she looks in her armour than how it should protect her, and enjoys war so much that she has stayed in the dungeon well past her time. She isn't evil, but she's not the perfect 'flower of chivalry' she thinks she is.

House rules: The Cavalier is an underrated variant with lasting appeal as it is. Of course, I had to meddle with it. I changed the allowable weapons to Dagger, Shortsword, and had Scimitars, Sabers, and Longswords representing the Foil, Saber, and Epee of fencing. Clubs and Maces are ok too, but not heavier weapons. Capes, Heavy Leather (Buff Coat), and Chainmail are archtypical armours. I found the Bounty Hunter role very entertaining and I can't recommend it enough to prospective Cavaliers.

Since Troyhune is in small part demon, she has a tendancy to use items that are more fitting for an NTS than a sensible Cavalier. While she is very able to (and did) use stuff like Civerbs, Dreamflange, and Holy Defender, she'll find excuses to trade it in for Obs/Vampire daggers, Brutal/Sorcery sabers, and Stormshields. This tendancy only intensified as she grew older and by the time she started her run to 50 at level 38, she was in full NTS drag. A Stars ring is more appealing to her than a Heavens ring for the same reason. Since Troyhune is an unaligned Cavalier, she avoids prefixes like Kings and Lords but would find Knights acceptable. Because she's a noble, Soldiers is out too. Her normal equipment is a TC, Jade/Harmony Chainmail (still looking for Obs), a Drag/Zod necklace, an Obs/Stars ring, and her trademark Serp/Wiz ring. Armament is usually a Masters/Haste Epee, and a Tower Stormshield. She constantly carries a Needler and often a Rift Bow. Some of you are probably recognizing the roots of my Drow variant in these rules.

Special Tactic- Troyhune's Bloodstar Buss: Troy uses her level 17 Bloodstars to stun Magic vulnerable or resistant creatures while she runs in to carve them up with her trusty Masters Longsword of Haste. She needs first strike against melee creatures, and she doesn't like having her witchy relatives escape. So she prevents this by sending 1, 2, or 3 Bloodstars at her quarry and running or Teleporting in after them to complete the stunlock. Witches can't run when they're jerking around while locked up. I call a level 15 with 3 kinds of witches a 'Troyhune's Family Reunion' or TFR, and this tactic, often with Needler bolts as a substitute is sure to be used on such an occasion.

The road to 50: I just tried to pace myself and get 10 million XP a day, no matter how I felt about playing. A routine developed where I'd put a quick 10 mil on Troy while metabolizing my morning tea, then I'd get on to whatever else I was doing. Sometimes I'd time how long it took to get a million XP; frequently 2 min 45 seconds came up at maximum killitude. It wasn't always that fast of course, because with her utter lack of AC, Troy can be held in block/stunlock for several seconds by a single dog. The constant risk of death kept things fresh too. So although she was not as fast as a Rogue in good armour it only took me from this summer 'till now to get to 50. Because Hell/Caves was just as dangerous as Hell/Hell with no AC, I spent most of my gametime in H/H especially at level 49.

The big 5-0: I got Troy to within 10 kills of level 50 before emailing my friends Charis and King of Pain and asking them to be with me in this most important game. As you know, these guys can play, so 10 kills was plenty of room. I optimized Troy for SC with a few of the many Drag/Zods she's found over her career, plus I was sure they'd end up dressing as Cavaliers. Then I waited for the game day.

When V-Day arrived, I was agonizingly ill. I considered postponing for fear of becoming delusional during the game and screwing up, or worse yet acting rude and short-tempered. To add insult to injury my graphics card was on the fritz, and the CRT screen was the harshest 80's fuschia you can imagine. No colours were discernable at all. On top of this the 'r' key only works some of the time, slowing down my already snaillike type speed. We greeted each other in channel and went into the game. Charis brought in Cobrago the Ostrogoth King, while KoP brought in the omnivariant Warrior, Glass Tiger. Of course, they went in a low-AC/Art/CAV mode as I imagined they would : ) Play started in town where KoP put together a huge '50' logo out of gold piles and embellished with potions. After I'd taken a few Screencaps, we departed to Hell/Hell.

Level 13: SteelLords and Snow Witches were here. I nicked a few while Cobrago and GT unleashed a slaughter. I lost focus and got Troy killed in a flurry of ugly 80's pink Bloodstars. This was the only bump in a smooth ride to level 15. Charis had a TP up on 15 before 14 was on my screen, so we were off to see the wizard.

Level 15: Azures and some kind of fuschia witch were here. By the time we were outside of Laz's house Troy was a little over 20K off 50. I shot down Red Vex after KoP delivered her. I was so dizzy

I thought she was Bloodlust, the true target of my Needler's wrath. We barged into Laz's office, and I spotted Lazarus and began hosing him down with bolts. I think Blackjade or some other witch was standing in between us and I had to chew through her to get to him. My screen jumped and flickered after Laz vanished in a puff of smoke. I pressed 'C' and brought up stats over the empty room. Troy was level 50. At first I wasn't sure if it had really happened, or if it was good for her (I recall hearing about a nasty bug). After a few seconds I realized it was true and that Troy was O.K. Charis asked about my XP and I responded with '50'. Because of a bug in the game they could not see that Troy had leveled until I rejoined the game, so no-one but I knew what '50' meant. Charis and KoP very quickly noticed that I was fighting alongside them and became concerned that I'd accidentally level, I told them that I'd gone up shooting Laz and they could not see it 'till I rejoined.

After a few seconds I was back in town after rejoining and we began to celebrate my new level. Because Charis and King had a few seconds to work with, a TP was up on 16 near Sir Gorash, the last guy on my hitlist. After an aborted attempt at kicking him to death, I returned with some common sense and initiative and Gorash was booted. He dropped what turned out to be a Kings/Blood Scimitar- just what I wanted : ) We all left the game by Teleporting into Diablo's unopened Lair and killing all the occupants while taking no losses ourselves.

Good thing she doesn't wear a Full Helm. ; )

Thank you's go out to Charis and King of Pain for taking time out of their Ironman game on V-Day, and to all the people who've played along with me and Troyhune over the past year.

Posted on Dec 08 1999, 01:43 AM