skunkbelly
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Re: Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011
OFFICIAL FINAL RULES - Please Read Carefully, there are several changes!
Skunkbelly’s Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011
Boris the Barbarian sat in the Rogues’ Camp, warming his toes by the fire and ogling the scantily clad “maidens.” Again. He was getting tired of it. How had he earned this terrible, eternal torment. He’d killed those Prime Evils so many times now, he couldn’t count them all… not that math had ever been his strong suit. Or any barbarian’s, for that matter. But he had detected a pattern… kill ‘em all three times, then the rules all seemed to change. And the last time he heard the Cow King moo his last, it was a multiple of three.
Boris smiled. If only his mother had been here to hear him think the word “multiple.” Maybe all those sages in Kurast were rubbing off on him after all.
Anyway, when that old hag Akara approached him with that same old look in her cloudy eyes, Boris sighed deeply. Again?
“There is a place of great evil…” Akara began.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m on it,” Boris grumped. But the moment he stood up, he knew something was wrong. He seemed to only have a few of his old powers… the basic Barbarian stuff, sure. He was still tough. But he used to know… well, at least 20 or 30 tricks. Now he only had a few. And his gear… it was like it was made by mortals or something.
“Gods… here we go, I guess.”
***
It’s been a while, but in honor of the long wait for Diablo 3, I thought it was finally time to have another SUTC tournament. In this tournament, like all previous SUTC tournaments, you will not want to get too attached to your characters. You will play your character for one act… then you will pass it on to the next player, who will be randomly determined each week. They will then takeover that character’s fate… while you will have a new character to push ahead with. And so on and so on, until all characters either achieve Guardian status or take a more humble title, such as Daisy-Pusher-Upper.
As if that wasn’t enough challenge, there are several skill and item restrictions that will affect your gameplay. The idea, this time around, is to give magic a different feeling… a more “realistic” feeling. Magic items are harder to come by, and must mostly be made, not simply found. Characters will also have certain key abilities, and then some special additional Powers, but in general, the number of skills that may be used is smaller than usual.
BASIC RULES
- Hardcore characters only.
- V 1.13 only, please.
- No S&E to avoid death, or other similar cheese. Be honorable.
- You may play on any /players setting.
- Respecs are banned for this tournament.
- You must complete all quests before passing along your character to the next player. This means the icon on the quest page must be turned to gray. Please check before passing.
- You do NOT have to visit all waypoints… whether you get waypoints is entirely up to you.
- Any mercenary may be used, but they are subject to the same equipment rules as characters are. Also, if you wish to select a new merc, you cannot go backwards in time to a previous town to select one… you may use the merc passed along to you, or you may hire a new one in the act you are playing. No exceptions.
- You may re-run areas for the act that you are playing, but you cannot go “back in time” to a previous act, except to shop in town (which is permitted… you may even switch difficulty levels for shopping purposes). However, you are limited to killing the Countess and all act bosses a maximum of *10 times* per difficulty level.
- We will switch characters every two weeks. Therefore, you must be able to play through an act in two weeks’ time. If you cannot, you will be disqualified. Act 4 will only be given one week, due to its brevity.
- All items must be found within the game… no bringing in items from your other characters. You may, however, mule off items that you cannot use to your own stashes, if you so choose. You may also keep a stash for your characters (see equipment rules for details on this).
- No cooperative gameplay… you can only play solo.
- In order to join, you must sign up in this thread by December 25th.
- The tournament will begin on December 27th. All starting characters and classes will be posted then.
- When you sign up, list your forum name and your email address (necessary for sending character files).
- Please do not discuss the characters you are playing/have played until we reach ACT 5 in normal difficulty. After that, discussion is fair game.
EQUIPMENT RULES
1. All jewelry may be used, without exception or restriction.
2. All charms may be used.
3. All Crafted items may be used. Please note that this does NOT mean simply using the Cube to make an item… it means making an item using one of the Crafted Item recipes (i.e., Hit Power, Blood, etc.).
4. All unique quest items (The Gidbinn, the Viper amulet, etc. etc.) may be used while they are in your possession. Wirt’s Leg may also be used throughout the game, if you’re that hard-up.
5. Any white, gray socketed item, or non-magical ethereal item may be used.
6. Aside from the categories listed above, items must meet one of the following requirements:
- Items that have been imbued by Charsi.
- Items that have been personalized using the act 5 quest reward.
- Anya rescue quest reward class-specific items.
- Items that have been socketed by Larzuk through his quest reward. (Yes, this is a nice change!).
- Please note that ALL quest related rewards must be used before you leave the act. They may not be saved for future players.
7. Sockets in any item may be filled with anything you like. This includes “vanilla” runewords. Ladder-only runewords are banned.
8. You may use the Cube in any way you like, at any time… but in order for a Cube-created item to be equipped, it must meet all other applicable equipment rules.
9. You may obtain items by gambling, shopping, or picking them up off the ground… but again, in order for you to equip them, they must meet all applicable equipment rules.
10. All potions, keys, tomes, arrows, bolts, and scrolls may be used without restriction.
11. Staff mods, skill charges, and oskills on any item *may* be used, assuming the item itself meets the restrictions above.
ATMA USE
You may keep an ATMA stash for your character; however, you may only use it to hold gold that cannot be contained in-game (because your in-game gold bank is maxed out), or to hold socket-fillers, extra potions, and extra charms. All other items must be held in your in-game inventory, with one important exception: at all times, you may keep TWO items in your ATMA stash to save for the possibility of using them in either the Act 5 personalization or Larzuk rewards. But that is all: two items, socket-fillers, extra potions, spare charms, and gold you can’t hold in your in-game stash.
PASSING CHARACTERS
Before each switch day, I will post a list of who must send their character to whom. Then, assuming you survive the act, you will email your .d2s file (and nothing else!) to the next player WITH ALL OF THEIR EQUIPMENT AND GOLD, including equipped charms and potions. The ONLY items you may keep for yourself are items that you are permitted to keep in your ATMA stash (see above).
If you are going to have a problem passing your character on time, please be sure to communicate that. We can be a little flexible, if we know where things stand… but if you just vanish, that’s a problem.
For the purposes of switching acts, the Cow Level is considered part of Act 5. It is, however, completely optional. You may go back to Tristram to retrieve a Leg, if necessary, but you may not pick up anything that you find along the way. If you are fortunate enough to become a Guardian, do NOT play the Hell Cow Level… it will be used for tie-breaking purposes.
CLASS AND SKILL RULES
For each class, a character may use the “Core Skills” listed, and *three* additional skills, which we’ll call “Powers.” These Powers will be determined by the people who play the characters, with the following rules in mind:
1. A point may only be put into a skill if it is a Core Skill, a Power, or a prerequisite for a Power or Core Skill.
2. If a skill is only a prerequisite for a Core Skill or a Power, it cannot have more than one point in it. These skills can only be used in Normal difficulty.
3. Once more than one point is put into any non-Core skill, it becomes a Power skill. This includes all synergies… if you want to put points into a synergy skill, it must be either a Core Skill or a Power.
4. Power Skills, and prerequisites for those skills, may be assigned at the following times:
- NONE in act 1.
- In Act 2, players may not select Power Skills. HOWEVER, they may assign *single skill points* to non-Core skills (with the idea that those skills will either be selected by later players as Power Skills, or used as prerequisites for Power Skills that are higher up the skill tree).
- ONE in act 3 normal
- ONE in act 4 normal
- ONE in act 5 normal
5. After completing Normal difficulty, you may not use skills except for Core Skills and Power Skills.
6. You are never obligated to assign a character’s skill points… feel free to leave them for the next player. If a player in act 3, 4 or 5 Normal does not select a Power Skill by placing more than one point into it, then the next player to receive the character may use the opportunity (so if the act 3 player does not select a Power Skill, the act 4 player could select *two*).
CLASSES AND CORE SKILLS:
Sorceress Core Skills: Elemental Masteries, Teleport, Shiver Armor, Warmth
Barbarian Core Skills: Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Battle Orders, Howl. ALSO, for barbarians, a single point may be placed into each weapon mastery (including double throw) without them counting as a Power Skill. If more than one point is placed into a weapon mastery, however, that skill then becomes one of the character’s three Power Skills.
Amazon Core Skills: Inner Sight, Critical Strike, Slow Missiles, Decoy, Penetrate
Assassin Core Skills: Claw Mastery, Cloak of Shadows, Burst of Speed, Fade, Weapon Block, Shadow Warrior
Paladin Core Skills: All Defensive Auras, Holy Shield
Druid Core Skills: Werewolf, Werebear, Oak Sage, Heart of Wolverine, Dire Wolf, Cyclone Armor
Necromancer Core Skills: All Curses, all Golems, Bone Armor
BANNED SKILLS
The following skills may not be chosen as Power Skills: Increased Stamina, Psychic Hammer, Telekinesis, Ravens, Solar Creeper, Find Potion, Grim Ward
A NOTE ON THE SPIRIT OF THE TOURNAMENT (aka, “The Brak Clause”)
One of the fun things about this tournament is the not-knowing, and also the ability to have input into a character and then pass him/her along to become someone else’s, who will do whatever they like in their own turn.
Anyway, as many have pointed out (and some of us remember all too well), the temptation is certainly there to make some characters into “bombs,” doomed to explode (implode?) at some point in their journey.
All players should understand that the idea of the tournament is to make characters who are Hell-viable. It’s going to be hard enough, with the gear restrictions and the skill limitations. Some skills have been banned as Power skill selections, to prevent the most obvious intentional nerfing of characters. But I expect everyone to adhere to both the letter and spirit of these two basic rules:
1. You will pass your character to the next player with the gear you used to beat the act, and with the gear that you honestly think is the best / most useful you have in your possession.
2. You will assign skill and stat points in ways that you think will benefit the character, and make them playable late in the game.
You know what these rules mean. Everyone still playing this game 10 years after it came out has a certain basic ability level and knowledge—especially the Diablo geniuses on this SP forum. And honestly, even with these things in place, there is so much variation in play-style and attitude that there’ll be plenty of chaos. My favorite two sorc builds are not particularly popular, but I got one to NM act 5 (inferno/static), and the other achieved guardian (nova)… so they’re doable. An Increased Speed/Bash/Leap barbarian probably isn’t.
Anyway, it all comes down to this: if you honestly assign each skill point and stat point in a way that you truly believe benefits the character, you’re fine. If you don’t, you’re missing the point. And as moderator of our journey, I reserve the right to punish you… probably by making you play your own silly character at a more difficult stage of the game. If you feel that you have received a character that has been intentionally sabotaged, send it to me for review.
I will post the characters that each player will create to start (including their name and class) by the 26th. You may begin playing as soon as I have posted the list.
OFFICIAL FINAL RULES - Please Read Carefully, there are several changes!
Skunkbelly’s Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2011
Boris the Barbarian sat in the Rogues’ Camp, warming his toes by the fire and ogling the scantily clad “maidens.” Again. He was getting tired of it. How had he earned this terrible, eternal torment. He’d killed those Prime Evils so many times now, he couldn’t count them all… not that math had ever been his strong suit. Or any barbarian’s, for that matter. But he had detected a pattern… kill ‘em all three times, then the rules all seemed to change. And the last time he heard the Cow King moo his last, it was a multiple of three.
Boris smiled. If only his mother had been here to hear him think the word “multiple.” Maybe all those sages in Kurast were rubbing off on him after all.
Anyway, when that old hag Akara approached him with that same old look in her cloudy eyes, Boris sighed deeply. Again?
“There is a place of great evil…” Akara began.
“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m on it,” Boris grumped. But the moment he stood up, he knew something was wrong. He seemed to only have a few of his old powers… the basic Barbarian stuff, sure. He was still tough. But he used to know… well, at least 20 or 30 tricks. Now he only had a few. And his gear… it was like it was made by mortals or something.
“Gods… here we go, I guess.”
***
It’s been a while, but in honor of the long wait for Diablo 3, I thought it was finally time to have another SUTC tournament. In this tournament, like all previous SUTC tournaments, you will not want to get too attached to your characters. You will play your character for one act… then you will pass it on to the next player, who will be randomly determined each week. They will then takeover that character’s fate… while you will have a new character to push ahead with. And so on and so on, until all characters either achieve Guardian status or take a more humble title, such as Daisy-Pusher-Upper.
As if that wasn’t enough challenge, there are several skill and item restrictions that will affect your gameplay. The idea, this time around, is to give magic a different feeling… a more “realistic” feeling. Magic items are harder to come by, and must mostly be made, not simply found. Characters will also have certain key abilities, and then some special additional Powers, but in general, the number of skills that may be used is smaller than usual.
BASIC RULES
- Hardcore characters only.
- V 1.13 only, please.
- No S&E to avoid death, or other similar cheese. Be honorable.
- You may play on any /players setting.
- Respecs are banned for this tournament.
- You must complete all quests before passing along your character to the next player. This means the icon on the quest page must be turned to gray. Please check before passing.
- You do NOT have to visit all waypoints… whether you get waypoints is entirely up to you.
- Any mercenary may be used, but they are subject to the same equipment rules as characters are. Also, if you wish to select a new merc, you cannot go backwards in time to a previous town to select one… you may use the merc passed along to you, or you may hire a new one in the act you are playing. No exceptions.
- You may re-run areas for the act that you are playing, but you cannot go “back in time” to a previous act, except to shop in town (which is permitted… you may even switch difficulty levels for shopping purposes). However, you are limited to killing the Countess and all act bosses a maximum of *10 times* per difficulty level.
- We will switch characters every two weeks. Therefore, you must be able to play through an act in two weeks’ time. If you cannot, you will be disqualified. Act 4 will only be given one week, due to its brevity.
- All items must be found within the game… no bringing in items from your other characters. You may, however, mule off items that you cannot use to your own stashes, if you so choose. You may also keep a stash for your characters (see equipment rules for details on this).
- No cooperative gameplay… you can only play solo.
- In order to join, you must sign up in this thread by December 25th.
- The tournament will begin on December 27th. All starting characters and classes will be posted then.
- When you sign up, list your forum name and your email address (necessary for sending character files).
- Please do not discuss the characters you are playing/have played until we reach ACT 5 in normal difficulty. After that, discussion is fair game.
EQUIPMENT RULES
1. All jewelry may be used, without exception or restriction.
2. All charms may be used.
3. All Crafted items may be used. Please note that this does NOT mean simply using the Cube to make an item… it means making an item using one of the Crafted Item recipes (i.e., Hit Power, Blood, etc.).
4. All unique quest items (The Gidbinn, the Viper amulet, etc. etc.) may be used while they are in your possession. Wirt’s Leg may also be used throughout the game, if you’re that hard-up.
5. Any white, gray socketed item, or non-magical ethereal item may be used.
6. Aside from the categories listed above, items must meet one of the following requirements:
- Items that have been imbued by Charsi.
- Items that have been personalized using the act 5 quest reward.
- Anya rescue quest reward class-specific items.
- Items that have been socketed by Larzuk through his quest reward. (Yes, this is a nice change!).
- Please note that ALL quest related rewards must be used before you leave the act. They may not be saved for future players.
7. Sockets in any item may be filled with anything you like. This includes “vanilla” runewords. Ladder-only runewords are banned.
8. You may use the Cube in any way you like, at any time… but in order for a Cube-created item to be equipped, it must meet all other applicable equipment rules.
9. You may obtain items by gambling, shopping, or picking them up off the ground… but again, in order for you to equip them, they must meet all applicable equipment rules.
10. All potions, keys, tomes, arrows, bolts, and scrolls may be used without restriction.
11. Staff mods, skill charges, and oskills on any item *may* be used, assuming the item itself meets the restrictions above.
ATMA USE
You may keep an ATMA stash for your character; however, you may only use it to hold gold that cannot be contained in-game (because your in-game gold bank is maxed out), or to hold socket-fillers, extra potions, and extra charms. All other items must be held in your in-game inventory, with one important exception: at all times, you may keep TWO items in your ATMA stash to save for the possibility of using them in either the Act 5 personalization or Larzuk rewards. But that is all: two items, socket-fillers, extra potions, spare charms, and gold you can’t hold in your in-game stash.
PASSING CHARACTERS
Before each switch day, I will post a list of who must send their character to whom. Then, assuming you survive the act, you will email your .d2s file (and nothing else!) to the next player WITH ALL OF THEIR EQUIPMENT AND GOLD, including equipped charms and potions. The ONLY items you may keep for yourself are items that you are permitted to keep in your ATMA stash (see above).
If you are going to have a problem passing your character on time, please be sure to communicate that. We can be a little flexible, if we know where things stand… but if you just vanish, that’s a problem.
For the purposes of switching acts, the Cow Level is considered part of Act 5. It is, however, completely optional. You may go back to Tristram to retrieve a Leg, if necessary, but you may not pick up anything that you find along the way. If you are fortunate enough to become a Guardian, do NOT play the Hell Cow Level… it will be used for tie-breaking purposes.
CLASS AND SKILL RULES
For each class, a character may use the “Core Skills” listed, and *three* additional skills, which we’ll call “Powers.” These Powers will be determined by the people who play the characters, with the following rules in mind:
1. A point may only be put into a skill if it is a Core Skill, a Power, or a prerequisite for a Power or Core Skill.
2. If a skill is only a prerequisite for a Core Skill or a Power, it cannot have more than one point in it. These skills can only be used in Normal difficulty.
3. Once more than one point is put into any non-Core skill, it becomes a Power skill. This includes all synergies… if you want to put points into a synergy skill, it must be either a Core Skill or a Power.
4. Power Skills, and prerequisites for those skills, may be assigned at the following times:
- NONE in act 1.
- In Act 2, players may not select Power Skills. HOWEVER, they may assign *single skill points* to non-Core skills (with the idea that those skills will either be selected by later players as Power Skills, or used as prerequisites for Power Skills that are higher up the skill tree).
- ONE in act 3 normal
- ONE in act 4 normal
- ONE in act 5 normal
5. After completing Normal difficulty, you may not use skills except for Core Skills and Power Skills.
6. You are never obligated to assign a character’s skill points… feel free to leave them for the next player. If a player in act 3, 4 or 5 Normal does not select a Power Skill by placing more than one point into it, then the next player to receive the character may use the opportunity (so if the act 3 player does not select a Power Skill, the act 4 player could select *two*).
CLASSES AND CORE SKILLS:
Sorceress Core Skills: Elemental Masteries, Teleport, Shiver Armor, Warmth
Barbarian Core Skills: Iron Skin, Natural Resistance, Battle Orders, Howl. ALSO, for barbarians, a single point may be placed into each weapon mastery (including double throw) without them counting as a Power Skill. If more than one point is placed into a weapon mastery, however, that skill then becomes one of the character’s three Power Skills.
Amazon Core Skills: Inner Sight, Critical Strike, Slow Missiles, Decoy, Penetrate
Assassin Core Skills: Claw Mastery, Cloak of Shadows, Burst of Speed, Fade, Weapon Block, Shadow Warrior
Paladin Core Skills: All Defensive Auras, Holy Shield
Druid Core Skills: Werewolf, Werebear, Oak Sage, Heart of Wolverine, Dire Wolf, Cyclone Armor
Necromancer Core Skills: All Curses, all Golems, Bone Armor
BANNED SKILLS
The following skills may not be chosen as Power Skills: Increased Stamina, Psychic Hammer, Telekinesis, Ravens, Solar Creeper, Find Potion, Grim Ward
A NOTE ON THE SPIRIT OF THE TOURNAMENT (aka, “The Brak Clause”)
One of the fun things about this tournament is the not-knowing, and also the ability to have input into a character and then pass him/her along to become someone else’s, who will do whatever they like in their own turn.
Anyway, as many have pointed out (and some of us remember all too well), the temptation is certainly there to make some characters into “bombs,” doomed to explode (implode?) at some point in their journey.
All players should understand that the idea of the tournament is to make characters who are Hell-viable. It’s going to be hard enough, with the gear restrictions and the skill limitations. Some skills have been banned as Power skill selections, to prevent the most obvious intentional nerfing of characters. But I expect everyone to adhere to both the letter and spirit of these two basic rules:
1. You will pass your character to the next player with the gear you used to beat the act, and with the gear that you honestly think is the best / most useful you have in your possession.
2. You will assign skill and stat points in ways that you think will benefit the character, and make them playable late in the game.
You know what these rules mean. Everyone still playing this game 10 years after it came out has a certain basic ability level and knowledge—especially the Diablo geniuses on this SP forum. And honestly, even with these things in place, there is so much variation in play-style and attitude that there’ll be plenty of chaos. My favorite two sorc builds are not particularly popular, but I got one to NM act 5 (inferno/static), and the other achieved guardian (nova)… so they’re doable. An Increased Speed/Bash/Leap barbarian probably isn’t.
Anyway, it all comes down to this: if you honestly assign each skill point and stat point in a way that you truly believe benefits the character, you’re fine. If you don’t, you’re missing the point. And as moderator of our journey, I reserve the right to punish you… probably by making you play your own silly character at a more difficult stage of the game. If you feel that you have received a character that has been intentionally sabotaged, send it to me for review.
I will post the characters that each player will create to start (including their name and class) by the 26th. You may begin playing as soon as I have posted the list.
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