[2006] The 99-Item Tournament [by skunkbelly]

[Grisu]

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This tournament has already ended. It was originally started by @skunkbelly on Jun 8, 2006. The last post was made Aug 29, 2006.
(link to original thread on diabloii.net) ​

The 99-Item Tournament

"The 99 Items Tournament"

Boris the Barbarian walked into the Rogue Camp, and approached the ragged crowd gathered by the campfire. "Greetings, stranger!" cried out one man, but most remained silent, warily watching as the muscle-bound warrior took in his surroundings.

Finally, Boris addressed the Rogues. "I hear you've got some evil running around," Boris began. "I'd like to fight for you, but I don't have much equipment... just this silly little axe and shield."

An old woman stepped forward. "Well, hero... perhaps we can help!" She took a golden key from her belt, and unlocked a large wooden chest next to the campfire. "Feel free to use anything in here. We're sorry if some of it isn't much good, but we didn't know what sort of hero the gods would send us, or what sorts of skills the hero would have. I hope you'll find something useful."

Boris looked over the stash with curiosity. He didn't know what to make of the strange wands and animal pelts, but there were some powerful looking weapons and armor in the chest, too. It wasn't terrific, but it could certainly be worse.

***

RULES

1. HC only.

2. Version 1.10 or 1.11 permitted. You may play if you use RWM, but you may not use any runewords that are unavailable in unmodified SP play.

3. No Multi-Player permitted. A limited form of trading WILL be allowed (see TRADING below).

4. You may play on any players setting you wish, and change that setting as you see fit. Please do NOT engage in cheesy "kill monsters on players 1, open chests on players 8" tactics.

5. Whether you find WPs or solve quests is entirely up to you. However, it will be to your advantage to do so for scoring purposes. If you skip WPs, you may not return to a previous act or difficulty to find them. If you skip quest rewards, you MAY return later to redeem them.

6. You may re-run areas for items or experience, if you wish. But there aren't many instances where this will be particularly profitable.

CHARACTERS

7. You must randomly determine your character class. The easiest way to do this is by using the random integer generator at www.random.org. Once you receive your character's equipment stash, you may choose a different class... if you are willing to incur a 20 point penalty.

8. You may use any skills you wish, with no restrictions. Some character builds will have score penalties, however (see SCORING below). You may also use any skills from items, or items with "Chance to Cast" mods, as long as the item is permitted by the rules (see EQUIPMENT below).

9. You may use any mercenary you wish, but they are bound by the same equipment restrictions as your character (see EQUIPMENT below).

EQUIPMENT

10. Before the tournament begins, you will be given an ATMA stash of 99 items. These items will *mostly* be found from a combination of Hell Countess, Meph, Lower Kurast, Eldritch and Pindleskin runs, or by gambling. Items will include weapons, armor and jewelry. **These 99 items will be the only items you are allowed to use in the tournament!** I will ensure that you have a minimum of five items for each possible equipment slot (so you will receive at least 10 rings, 5 amulets, 15 armors, 15 weapons, 10 shields, 5 boots, 5 gloves, 5 belts, 10 helms). The stashes will include no crude items, but otherwise item quality will vary: everything from white items to uniques will be present, and at a variety of level requirements.

11. QUEST REWARDS: You may use all items from your quest rewards, as follows...

Malus Imbue Rewards: You may imbue items, but they must be items from your stash of 99 items (you cannot pick up a white item from the ground). If you don't like your imbued item, you may sell it for gold.

Akara/Ormus Ring Rewards: you may use these rings, if you wish, or you may sell them.

Anya Rescue Reward: you may use the item Anya gives you, or sell it for gold.

Hellforge/Barb Rescue Rewards: see #10 below (you may keep and use ANY socket fillers you find, including these).

Socket Quest Reward: the item socketed must be from your 99-item stash.

Personalization Reward: should you wish to bother with this, then you must personalize an item from the 99-item stash, or a quest reward item.

Viper Amulet/Horadric Staff/Gidbinn/Hell Forge Hammer/ Khalim's Will - you may equip and use all of these items, if you wish, for the short time that they are available for your use. I suppose if you wanted to skip the rewards, you could use a Gidbinn or Hell Forge Hammer forever! (But I'm not sure how smart that would be...)

12. ITEMS YOU MAY FIND AND USE: You may pick up and use any charms, socket fillers (gems, runes, jewels), keys, potions (including throwing pots), arrows and bolts, and scrolls/tomes that you find. You may also pick up and use any quest-related items, and any gold you find. You may NOT pick up any other items, not even to sell them. If you accidentally pick up an item, you aren't disqualified"”just drop it when you realize the error.

13. ITEMS AND SERVICES YOU MAY BUY: You may buy potions (of all sorts), scrolls, keys, arrows and bolts, and tomes. You may pay to have your equipment repaired. You may pay to have mercenaries resurrected. You may pay to hire new mercenaries. You MAY NOT gamble or purchase any other equipment.

14. SELLING ITEMS: You may sell items from the stash I provide for you, if you wish. You may also sell socket-fillers, charms, potions, keys, arrows and bolts, and scrolls. Finally, if you do not wish to use quest reward items, you may sell them.

15. ATMA: You may mule any permitted items back and forth from your character's ATMA stash whenever you see fit (including socket-fillers, charms and potions). If you find other treasures that you wish to keep for other characters, you may only mule them off. PLEASE, if you do find items you wish to mule off, don't accidentally put them back in your tournament item stash.

16. ITEM MODIFICATION: you may use the Cube to modify the items in the 99-item stash in any way you see fit. This includes socketing, crafting, imbuing, re-rolling, etc. You may also make runewords in items from the 99-item stash, so long as they are words enabled in standard 1.11 play (no ladder only runewords are permitted). You may fill any socket in the items in your 99-item stash with any socket-fillers you like.

17. TRADING: upon reaching NM difficulty, you may trade *one* item with another player in the tournament. Upon reaching Hell difficulty, you may trade for an additional *two* items. If you do not use your NM trade before reaching Hell, you lose it. All trades must be one-for-one swaps, and all trades must be conducted publicly in the tournament thread (no PM trades). Post the ATMA read out of the item you wish to trade, or the type of item you are seeking, and see if you get any offers!

DEATH

18. When your character dies, please send your character's item stash back to me at tworiversreview (AT) juno.com. Any items you did not sell, or were not wearing at the time of your death, will become part of the prize stash.

SCORING

1 point for each WP found, including the Rogue's Camp.

2 points for each quest completed (completed means that the quest box is turned to gray... if you don't redeem your reward, you don't get the points).

-10 points for using any of the following skills, either from hard skill points or equipment: Battle Orders (1 point permitted with no penalty), Teleport, Skeleton Mastery, Lightning Fury, Shadow Master, Blessed Hammer (1 point permitted with no penalty), Summon Grizzly.

-20 points for changing your random character class after seeing your 99-item stash.

Points will not be deducted for levels gained, but in the case of a tie, the character with the lowest level will be declared the winner.

LOOT

The winning player will be permitted to select any items they want from the final prize stash. Any remaining items will be made available to the second place winner, and so on, until all items are gone. But the real reward, of course, is glory and honor!

REGISTRATION AND START DATE

Registration is open now. The tournament will not begin, however, until Wednesday, July 5th: this will give several other tournaments a chance to wrap up, and will ensure that I have enough time to do the necessary MFing for the item stashes. In order to make my life a little bit easier, the number of participants for this tournament will be limited to 20.