Living off the Land

[Lurker Wyrm]

The variant is complete! Great job everyone!

Most people enjoy living their glitzy lives, buying and selling what they want; however, there are always a few who live their lives by a different code; people who still cling to a form of the age-old rule of earning your way through life. Because of this, combined with their strict devotion to remaining free from the yoke of merchants and peddlers, they have chosen to live in the wild, spending as little time as possible among people who are too concerned with money and profit to realize their skills as warriors are declining. They are generally thought of as outsiders and anti-socials by people who don't understand their way of life; they only appear this way, however, since they refuse to use anything they didn't earn themselves.

That's the basic background. The idea of the variant is that you're only allowed to use stuff you find.
- This is going to be a Nightfall based variant. Our main goal will be to get to the end of the Nightfall campaign using characters created and brought up in Elona.

- The once per week meeting time will be limited to storyline quests and missions. Side quests are your own responsibility.

- The only things you're allowed to buy are ID and Salvage/Expert Salvage Kits.

- You may only use the skills aquired from skill quests and Sunspear/Lightbringer points. You may not buy skills from anyone, including Captain Greywind (the only skill merchant outside a town, IIRC).

- You can get collector armor but you're not allowed to craft any from an armorer.

- The traders in town (rune, dye, material, scroll) are considered merchants so you're not allowed to associate with them. If you want to dye/rune your armor or use experience scrolls, you have to find them on the field.

- The only weapons you can use are the ones that drop from enemies or are traded for at a collector. Buying weapons from a crafter are not allowed. You may use any preorder items you have.

- You may not take anything out of the stash, including gold.

- You may not purchase or borrow runes from another player. All the runes you use must be salvaged from a monster you help kill. **If you do kill a monster and it drops a rune you can use, but is assigned to another player, that player may drop it for you to take. You may not, however, get a rune from another player if you weren't there when it dropped. Example: if I'm using a W and am out with Zedf, using an E, and we kill a monster that drops a W rune and is assigned to Zedf, then he can drop it for me. However, if he's questing with his E without me and a W rune drops, I can't use the rune.

- You may use the characters outside the variant scope if you want, just be forewarned that should you choose to buy armor in a town, you may not use it when we gather for the events. You'll have to keep your set of collector-found armor on hand -- if you throw it away that's your own fault and you'll have to walk around without armor on. The same applies with weapons.

- Heroes may not be equipped with elite skills until after the Consulate Docks mission. Also, they may only use skills from the Core and Nightfall skill categories.

The team is, alphabetically, comprised of:
Aravis - Ginger Ramandu - Warrior
Fox - Ritualist
Hawkmoon - Wirr Ling - Dervish
Seijin - Kali Vashorron - Elementalist
Seth - Ivl Jenova Ivl - Dervish
Wyrm - Agnamar Gramelog - Paragon

Edits: updated the rules and spaced them out a bit for easier reading, added a current roster. New/updated stuff is in orange. Added collector info for Istan.

[WarBlade]

Well you've come pretty close to describing all of my characters there, although they're not under such harsh restrictions.

Well, that's all I've come up with and have written down.

I think you'll find that "Not allowed to buy Xunlai access" fits the bill too.

[Seijin]

You can't buy skills from the skill trainers, but what about cap sigs?

Would that be allowable? You could think of it as invensting in a means to hunt down the skills you want. This also would allow us to cap elites which we would never be able to get through skill quests.

And magi malaquire (I have to idea how his name is spelled) does give two cap sigs.

[Zed-F]

Hm, I agree that not picking up stuff in general goes against the grain. In the spirit of KISS I'd recommend allowing a LOL to pick stuff up and sell it or stash it. (A LOL is not going to have much use for gold anyway.) However, a LOL should never take anything out of stash, and may never buy anything other than ID and salvage kits, and perhaps cap sigs. I'd also make exceptions for bags and Xunlai access, since they don't affect the game and make picking stuff up for sale or use by other chars more convenient. Besides, someone who lives off what they find would reasonably *want* to be able to carry as much as possible. Perhaps buying cap sigs is only permissible to ascended characters.

I'd also recommend, as a KISS principle, to allow a LOL to use any collector item.

That would boil the core rules down to:
1) never buy anything other than ID, salvage kits, bags, and Xunlai access, and cap sigs (post-ascension only)
2) never retrieve anything from the stash.
That is nice and simple and easy to remember, which is the kind of variant I like -- a simple theme and some simple but far-reaching rules to go with it. The other rules feel like window dressing to me (e.g. I'm not sure what pull methods have to do with living off the land, frex.)

My monk has just recently left pre-searing, so I might set her on this path, especially if she's likely to have company. Although, I haven't been on playing GW all that much this last week -- busy with RL stuff. Still, if someone wants to arrange a LOL night, I'd be in when I could.

EDIT: additional comments concerning bags

[Lurker Wyrm]

I'm still a little up in the air about the whole Xunlai access and selling things... thing. From a convential standpoint that we're all used to it makes sense; however, one of the ideas in the thought process would be that the char is an outsider that doesn't concern itself with stuff like the marketplace and whatnot, so I guess that one would boil down to personal preference and how far you wanted to take it.

I'm going to say no to buying bags and belt pouches since those can all be gotten from collectors in both Tyria and Cantha. I know you can trade Monastary Credits for a Rune of Holding in Cantha, but I'm unsure of any other method of aquiring them (they might be available for Imperial Commendations as well).

About cap sigs and stuff... I had plum forgotten about them until this morning and was going to think about commenting on them, then I came back and found the replies... so... I was thinking of allowing them to be purchased, but now I'm not so sure. Malaquire gives you 2 sigs, and really, knowing you're only going to have 2 elites at your disposal adds a lot of strategy to the build. You'll have to think about the path you want to take and commit to it.

Keeping to the KISS principle, that'd make the basic rule:
- You can buy ID and Salvage Kits, everything else has to come from either a quest or collector.

if someone wants to arrange a LOL night, I'd be in when I could.

Well, to be honest, I hadn't really thought about doing this as a variant night thing since I'm not sure this could gather the interest it would need to form a solid player base from the current guild/alliance. Really, it was more of a throw-the-idea-out-there-and-let-people-try-it-if-they-want thing.

[KingOfPain]

Traditionally, in Diablo, a LoL does not trust other people and will have nothing to do with other people's items thus LoL is considered as "PureLegit". (Legit is almost a given when you play a variant) While these labels have little to no meaning in this community, being pure adds flavor to the LoL variant. A LoL would not take from other players, by trade or drop, any Identified item.

Now, whether or not we should consider Expert Salvaged runes (to identify the class of rune) a pure item is up for debate.

I would also like to see the LoL rule workout and expand it to make Ironman work in GW...

KoP

[Zed-F]

I'm still a little up in the air about the whole Xunlai access and selling things... thing. From a convential standpoint that we're all used to it makes sense; however, one of the ideas in the thought process would be that the char is an outsider that doesn't concern itself with stuff like the marketplace and whatnot, so I guess that one would boil down to personal preference and how far you wanted to take it.

Fair enough.

I'm going to say no to buying bags and belt pouches since those can all be gotten from collectors in both Tyria and Cantha. I know you can trade Monastary Credits for a Rune of Holding in Cantha, but I'm unsure of any other method of aquiring them (they might be available for Imperial Commendations as well).

Ok, I checked and you can indeed get a rune of holding for Imperial Commendations. So, alright, that works.

About cap sigs and stuff... I had plum forgotten about them until this morning and was going to think about commenting on them, then I came back and found the replies... so... I was thinking of allowing them to be purchased, but now I'm not so sure. Malaquire gives you 2 sigs, and really, knowing you're only going to have 2 elites at your disposal adds a lot of strategy to the build. You'll have to think about the path you want to take and commit to it.

Yikes. That means you're giving up a character slot to the variant permanently, pretty much. You'll never be able to respec for a variety of roles in a group. If char slots were free, I could go for that, but at $10 a pop? No thanks. I'd rather not have to have a LOL Monk (for instance) and then a real monk as well. In GW, the ability to put the variant 'on hold' for a bit so that you can participate in group activities where going in with the variant rules enabled would be ill-advised, seems to be pretty important.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Yikes. That means you're giving up a character slot to the variant permanently, pretty much.

Not necessarily. It just means that while playing the variant, you can only use those 2 elites. So let's say you decide to use your monk as a LoLer and choose WoH and BL as your two elites. That means whenever you play the variant you can only use those 2 elites. If you decide to use the char on a team build using MoR as an elite you can, but you have to make sure you leave the elite off your bar, along with any other skills you've bought, when you go back to variant land. That's why I'm really up in the air about the whole Xunlai access and merchant selling thing. It's a purity vs. practicality thing.

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting Nightfall, so I may try this with a Dervish and see where it leads, all the while keeping tabs on skills I've bought and the armor I'm using. Of course this also depends on how Nightfall PvE is played. If it's similar to Factions then forget it; if it's closer to Prophecies then it might be worth trying out.

Oh, and in case anyone was wondering, WoH = Word of Healing; BL = Blessed Light; MoR = Mantra of Recovery.

[Zed-F]

Would the same apply for regular skills too? Keeping track of which ones you acquired through quests, and which ones you bought for use when not playing the variant?

It could work, but might involve a fair amount of bookkeeping. I suppose that if you wrote down a couple particular builds you would stick with when playing the variant, it could work out.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Would the same apply for regular skills too?

Yes. I thought I said that, but I guess it was a little muddled.

It could work, but might involve a fair amount of bookkeeping. I suppose that if you wrote down a couple particular builds you would stick with when playing the variant, it could work out.

You could do that. There's also this page on Guild Wiki that lists all the skills you can get via quests. Canthan skills are easy to keep track of because, unless you're a Canthan char, there are no skill quests.

I noticed on the wiki that Minister Jaisan in Kaineng Center has a quest for a cap sig, so that would bring the elite total for the variant up to 3.