[2007] Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Sequel [by skunkbelly]

Jan 3, 2007
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DISCLAIMER: Please do NOT post in this thread yet. We still need to migrate all posts from the old thread on diabloii.net to this thread. If you want to help, feel free to do so :)

This tournament has already ended. It was originally started by @skunkbelly on Jan 15, 2007. The last post was made Sep 4, 2007.
(link to original thread on diabloii.net)




Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Sequel

Announcing Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2:

THE SCAVENGER STRIKES BACK

Boris the Barbarian felt rather proud. He was resting in the Rogue Camp, enjoying a grilled mutton chop and pondering the best moments of his victories. Not only had he conquered evil, but he conquered it with style... and with an ever-changing collection of 99 weapons and other equipment items. It was a struggle, but in the end, he prevailed.

But now Charsi was giving him that look. Not that amorous "Wow, you're a Barbarian, huh?" look. It was that "we Rogues have a big problem" look. That "evil is afoot in the land" look.

Well, poo.

Charsi began to cry. "Boris, it's just awful... those prime evils are back, with all their pesky monster friends! And there's nobody to help us at all."

Boris sighed. "I'll help, baby. But when I get back..." He wagged his scoundrel's eyebrow at the flaxen-haired lass.

Charsi grinned. "You're on, big guy."

**

After defeating Andariel, Boris hitched a ride to Lut Gholein with Warriv. It was a long journey, and by the time they arrived, the hero was grumpy and tired... and his nose was still filled with the smell of that wicked vixen's poisonous breath.

A nobleman and two guards greeted him at the gate. "Are you Boris the Barbarian?" they asked.

"I am he," replied Boris.

"Great. Welcome to Lut Gholein. We'll need you to get right to work. Cain is waiting for you in the city center. But first... strip."

"Strip?" Boris asked, confused.

"That's right," replied the nobleman, "Let's see you drop them pants. That's right, take 'em right off. We'll let ya keep one thing, boy. What should it be, fellahs?"

The guards spoke to each other softly. Then one whispered something in the nobleman's ear.

"OK, the men have conferred, and decided you can keep that amulet of yours."

"Nothing else?" replied Boris.

"Nothing. But feel free to shop here in town, gamble, or pick up anything you find lying around."

"Fine," grumbled Boris. It was time to get to work.

***

This tournament combines two tournaments into one monster challenge: My own "Pass It On" Tournaments and Wolron's "Tournament of the Scavenger." The latter tournament was easily the most fun tournament I've played here in the SPF, and the combination should lead to some very, very challenging play.

As usual with the "Pass It On" tournaments, there are many rule changes, and some very important stipulations, so please read VERY CAREFULLY before committing yourself to this.

Attention! The rules were updated and the most recent version can be located here - Hrus

BASIC RULES

-- HC only.

-- Version 1.10, 1.11 and 1.11b are permitted. RWM/RRM are permitted. If you play RWM, you may not use any RWM-only runewords.

-- No Multi-Player permitted. No trading permitted.

-- You may play on any players setting you wish, and change that setting whenever you like. Re-running areas is allowed.

CHARACTERS

-- You will be given a character class and character name to begin playing.

-- You will play each character you receive for ONE ACT. You must complete ALL quests in the act, and venture to the town in the next act. Finding WPs is optional.

-- You may visit previous acts and difficulties for shopping purposes only (this includes merc switching), or to switch maps.

-- Upon completing an act, send your character WITH ALL OF THEIR EQUIPPED ITEMS to the next player in the table. You may keep only gold, charms, potions and socket-fillers for your next character. Only the .d2s file needs to be sent... don't send map files (they're useless anyway, since you can only play in the act you are working on). You will also need to send a Word file with some additional important info (see EQUIPMENT RULES).

-- As the character you are playing gains levels, you may assign their skill and stat points as you see fit. Please do NOT post in the forum anything about what skills you are using with a particular character, or even what items you are wearing. Part of the pleasure (and challenge) of the tournament is not knowing what you're going to have to deal with until it arrives.

-- In order to prevent complete stupidity in building characters, the following skills may NOT receive more than one skill point: Increased Stamina, Find Potion, Psychic Hammer.

-- You should never be playing more than one character at a time. If you haven't sent your current character onward, and you receive a new character by email, DO NOT examine the new character until you have sent your current character onward.

-- If the character you are playing dies, you are out of the tournament. Please remove your name from the "living" list in the table, and add it to the "RIP" list.

-- The player who survives the longest will be declared the winner - no other score-keeping is required.

MERCENARIES

When sending your character forward, please send your mercenary ALIVE, and carrying the gear they used during the act.

Mercenaries are exempted from all equipment rules. You may equip them as you see fit... but you may not save merc gear in your ATMA stash, so you will have to use the gear the merc was wearing when you received the file, or re-equip them on your own when you begin play (by shopping, gambling, etc.).


EQUIPMENT RULES

This is an untwinked tournament. No muling in items (you may mule off items you wish to save for non-tournament characters, of course). You may use an ATMA stash for the following items only: socket fillers, potions, scrolls, keys, tomes, charms, gold. No equipable items... with one exception (see below).

When you complete the act you are playing, you must pass along your character with all of their gear: all of their weapons, armor, and jewelry must remain on them. You should only mule off potions, gold, charms, and other items that are allowed for the ATMA stash. When sending your character you should also send along their companion Word file.

When you receive your act 2 character, you will have to make a very important decision: you will have to choose ONE item in the character's inventory to "scavenge," and that item will remain on that character PERMANENTLY. You will also need to keep all other items selected by other previous players (which will be listed on the character's Word file). Then, all remaining items must be sold to a store in town... you will have to find replacements for those items, no matter how good they are.

EXAMPLE:

Boris the Barbarian completes act 1. Along the way, he was equipped with:

1. a rare Ring Mail
2. a lightning resistance ring
3. a Ring of Craftmanship
4. a rare amulet
5. a berserker's helmet
6. a large shield with three open sockets
7. a Crushflange mace
8. Death's Sash
9. Death's gloves
10. a pair of white chain boots
11. a three-socket long bow on switch

When the act 2 player receives this character, they will need to select one item for Boris to wear permanently. In this example, our act 2 player decides to keep Death's Sash... it's not ideal, given the number of slots, but Cannot Be Frozen is a good mod for any character to have, and it can be a hard one to find untwinked.

Having made this decision, the act 2 player sells all other items back to Drognan. He then makes a note of his decision in the character's Word file (the file name should simply be the character's name) in this format:

Character: Boris
Item saved from Act 1 Normal: Death's Sash (chosen by Skunkbelly).

The player then plays through act 2. When the next player receives Boris, they will need to not only keep Death's Sash, they will need to select one other item:

Character: Boris
Item saved from Act 1 Normal: Death's Sash (chosen by Skunkbelly).
Item saved from Act 2 Normal: 2-socket Bone Shield (chosen by Wolron).

And so on. Eventually, all equipment slots must be filled, including weapon and shield switch positions (and of course, if a two-handed weapon is selected, then it will not be possible to equip a shield on that switch position).

COURTESY REQUIREMENTS:

1. You must send your character forward with the items YOU USED to complete the act. It is not permissible to defeat the act boss, then switch your gear to junk before sending the character along. You are on your honor.

2. Players may not make a weapon selection permanent until act 1 NM (meaning that an item found in act 5 normal could be selected by the act 1 NM player, if they desire). All other equipment slots are fair game.

3. It is not permissible to send low-quality items forward, or to make a low-quality item permanent. Ethereal items also may not be sent forward or made permanent, unless the item in question has the "self repair" or "indestructible" mod.

4. If your character can only equip their gear due to strength or dexterity bonuses granted by charms, then those charms should be sent along with the character... it would not be fair to send along items a character cannot equip!

EQUIPMENT FOR HELL DIFFICULTY: Once a character has ALL equipment slots filled (which will occur in act 1-3 Hell, depending on whether weapon/shield combos are used), then the player receiving the character may choose to delete an item and replace it with something of their choice... or they can simply keep all of the character's gear as it is. If you do choose to replace an item, you must do so IMMEDIATELY, before shopping, playing, gambling, etc. If an item is replaced, then the replacement item is made permanent.

THE ONE EXCEPTION TO EQUIPMENT RULES:

The Act 5 Personalization reward, once again, will actually be useful. There are two ways you can use this reward.

OPTION 1. During normal difficulty, you may keep ONE weapon or armor item in your ATMA stash. You may not use the item until you personalize it with the Act 5 quest reward. Once you've personalized the item, you may use it on ANY character you play in the tournament. A personalized item may be used even instead of an item that another player has made permanent... if you use a personalized item instead of a permanent item, please keep the permanent item in the character's in-game stash... the next player will need it.

EXAMPLE: Duriel drops you a nice pair of rare boots. You put them in your ATMA stash. Diablo then drops you a Peasant Crown. You stash the Crown, and delete the boots. When you kill Nihlathak, you have the Crown personalized. You may now wear the Crown on your current player, and any future players, even if they've already had a helmet made permanent by another player.

OPTION 2. If you wish, instead of personalizing an item you have kept in your stash, you may personalize an item that a previous player has made permanent for your act 5 character. Once you personalize the item, you may remove it from the act 5 character and use it for all of your future characters (obviously, this then voids the selection made by the previous player).

EXAMPLE: Boris reaches act 5, where Skunkbelly plays him. When Boris arrives, he is wearing a "Lore" helmet which was created in act 3 and made permanent by the act 4 player. Skunkbelly likes the Lore helmet, and uses his Nihlathak quest reward to personalize it. At the end of act 5, Skunkbelly can remove that helm, and put it in his stash for future characters... and Boris no longer has a permanent head-gear selection.

These rewards repeat in NM and Hell Difficulties, so by the time you reach the end of act 5 hell, you could potentially have three wild-card items.

Obviously, there are many strategic possibilities here. You can use the personalization reward to give yourself a great item for future use. You can use it to remove a crappy permanent item from a character (especially if you don't want to wear it to fight the Ancients, for instance). You can use it to "steal" a great item another player made permanent. And so on. Use these rewards well.

MODIFYING ITEMS:

There are many ways of modifying items in the game. Some are permitted, and some are not, depending on the situation:

"Permanent" items may be modified only in the following ways:
- Rune words may be made in socketed items.
- Sockets in items may be filled.
- Sockets may be added to items using the quest reward.
- Items may be personalized using the quest reward.
- Items may be upgraded using cube recipes.
- Items may have their sockets cleared using cube recipes.
However, blue and rare permanent items CANNOT be re-rolled using cube recipes. The only way to re-roll a permanent blue or rare item would be to first personalize it: then it's no longer permanent!

Any non-permanent items may be modified in any way you choose.


TOURNAMENT ADMISSION/REGISTRATION

Registration is open now. The tournament will not begin, however, until the SUTC #1 is over. Given the current schedule, that should be in 4 weeks.

There are a couple of registration hurdles:

1. If you cannot commit to playing in a tournament where weekly progress will be required over a period of up to three months, please don't register. It's a drag when someone quits halfway through. If you quit in the middle of a previous "Pass It On" tournament, you may not register for this one.

2. The tournament is limited to 21 players. First come, first served.


REMINDERS:

All players should plan to play one, and ONLY one, act per week. This will keep things moving at a reasonable pace. Please be honest with yourself when registering for this tournament. If you cannot reasonably expect to play one full act in a week, then please don't sign up... it slows things down for everyone. Players will be removed from the tournament, at the discretion of the host (me), if bottlenecks become problematic.

If you are going to be away for a week or longer (vacation, exams, etc.), and unable to play, please make sure we know by posting in the thread. That way, we won't get excited and kick you out ? We'd rather be patient than lose you.

Final Rules:


The Rules - Final Version

Announcing Skunkbelly's Ultimate Tournament Challenge 2:

THE SCAVENGER STRIKES BACK

(The cute introductory story can be found in post #1.)

***

This tournament combines two tournaments into one monster challenge: My own "Pass It On" Tournaments and Wolron's "Tournament of the Scavenger." The latter tournament was easily the most fun tournament I've played here in the SPF, and the combination should lead to some very, very challenging play.

As usual with the "Pass It On" tournaments, there are many rule changes, and some very important stipulations, so please read VERY CAREFULLY before committing yourself to this.


BASIC RULES

-- HC only.

-- Version 1.10, 1.11 and 1.11b are permitted. RWM/RRM are permitted. If you play RWM, you may not use any RWM-only runewords.

-- No Multi-Player permitted. No trading permitted.

-- You may play on any players setting you wish, and change that setting whenever you like. Re-running areas is allowed.

CHARACTERS

-- You will be given a character class and character name to begin playing.

-- You will play each character you receive for ONE ACT. You must complete ALL quests in the act, and venture to the town in the next act. Finding WPs is optional.

-- You may visit previous acts and difficulties for shopping purposes only (this includes merc switching), or to switch maps.

-- Upon completing an act, send your character WITH ALL OF THEIR EQUIPPED ITEMS to the next randomly selected player, whose identity will be revealed on a weekly basis by Your Humble Host. You may keep only gold, charms, potions and socket-fillers for your next character. Only the .d2s file needs to be sent... don't send map files (they're useless anyway, since you can only play in the act you are working on). You will also need to send, in the body of your email, the character's Equipment History, which will include lots of important info (see EQUIPMENT RULES).

-- As the character you are playing gains levels, you may assign their skill and stat points as you see fit. Please do NOT post in the forum anything about what skills you are using with a particular character, or even what items you are wearing. Part of the pleasure (and challenge) of the tournament is not knowing what you're going to have to deal with until it arrives.

-- In order to prevent complete stupidity in building characters, the following skills may NOT receive more than one skill point: Increased Stamina, Find Potion, Psychic Hammer.

-- You should never be playing more than one character at a time. If you haven't sent your current character onward, and you receive a new character by email, DO NOT examine the new character until you have sent your current character onward.

-- If the character you are playing dies, you are out of the tournament. Please remove your name from the "living" list in the table, and add it to the "RIP" list.

-- The player who survives the longest will be declared the winner - no other score-keeping is required.

MERCENARIES

When sending your character forward, please send your mercenary ALIVE, and carrying the gear they used during the act.

Mercenaries are exempted from all equipment rules. You may equip them as you see fit... but you may not save merc gear in your ATMA stash, so you will have to use the gear the merc was wearing when you received the file, or re-equip them on your own when you begin play (by shopping, gambling, etc.).


EQUIPMENT RULES

This is an untwinked tournament. No muling in items (you may mule off items you wish to save for non-tournament characters, of course). You may use an ATMA stash for the following items only: socket fillers, potions, scrolls, keys, tomes, charms, gold. No equipable items... with one exception (see below).

When you complete the act you are playing, you must pass along your character with all of their gear: all of their weapons, armor, and jewelry must remain on them. You should only mule off potions, gold, charms, and other items that are allowed for the ATMA stash.

When you receive your act 2 character, you will have to make a very important decision: you will have to choose ONE item in the character's inventory to "scavenge," and that item will remain on that character PERMANENTLY. You will also need to keep all other items selected by other previous players (which will be listed on the character's Word file). Then, all remaining items must be sold to a store in town... you will have to find replacements for those items, no matter how good they are.

EXAMPLE:

Boris the Barbarian completes act 1. Along the way, he was equipped with:

1. a rare Ring Mail
2. a lightning resistance ring
3. a Ring of Craftmanship
4. a rare amulet
5. a berserker's helmet
6. a large shield with three open sockets
7. a Crushflange mace
8. Death's Sash
9. Death's gloves
10. a pair of white chain boots
11. a three-socket long bow on switch

When the act 2 player receives this character, they will need to select one item for Boris to wear permanently. In this example, our act 2 player decides to keep Death's Sash... it's not ideal, given the number of slots, but Cannot Be Frozen is a good mod for any character to have, and it can be a hard one to find untwinked.

Having made this decision, the act 2 player sells all other items back to Drognan. He then makes a note of his decision in the character's "Equipment History," which will be sent to the next player in the body of the email. Please use this format:

Character: Boris
Item saved from Act 1 Normal: Death's Sash (chosen by Skunkbelly).

The player then plays through act 2. When the next player receives Boris, they will need to not only keep Death's Sash, they will need to select one other item:

Character: Boris
Item saved from Act 1 Normal: Death's Sash (chosen by Skunkbelly).
Item saved from Act 2 Normal: 2-socket Bone Shield (chosen by Wolron).

And so on. Eventually, all equipment slots must be filled, including weapon and shield switch positions (and of course, if a two-handed weapon is selected, then it will not be possible to equip a shield on that switch position).

COURTESY REQUIREMENTS:

1. You must send your character forward with the items YOU USED to complete the act. It is not permissible to defeat the act boss, then switch your gear to junk before sending the character along. You are on your honor.

2. Players may not make a weapon selection permanent until act 1 NM (meaning that an item found in act 5 normal could be selected by the act 1 NM player, if they desire). All other equipment slots are fair game.

3. It is not permissible to send low-quality items forward, or to make a low-quality item permanent. Ethereal items also may not be sent forward or made permanent, unless the item in question has the "self repair" or "indestructible" mod.

4. If your character can only equip their gear due to strength or dexterity bonuses granted by charms, then those charms should be sent along with the character... it would not be fair to send along items a character cannot equip!

5. Though you may be the godliest player on the planet, and able to defeat the game stark naked, it is not permissible to send a character forward with empty equipment slots. All slots must be filled, including weapon switch positions.

EQUIPMENT FOR HELL DIFFICULTY: Once a character has ALL equipment slots filled (which will occur in act 1-3 Hell, depending on whether weapon/shield combos are used), then the player receiving the character may choose to delete an item BEFORE BEGINNING PLAY, and replace it with something of their choice (i.e., shopped, gambled, or personalized (see below)... or they can simply keep all of the character's gear as it is. If you do choose to replace an item, you must do so IMMEDIATELY, before shopping, playing, gambling, etc. Once you complete the act with the character, the item you finish the act with becomes permanent... so for example, say you receive a character with all items permanent, but you don't like their Lore helm. You remove it, then begin to play. Along the way, you find several helms, and the one you like best is a Harlequin Crest. That item becomes permanent for the character when you pass the character forward.

THE ONE EXCEPTION TO EQUIPMENT RULES:

The Act 5 Personalization reward, once again, will actually be useful. There are two ways you can use this reward.

OPTION 1. During normal difficulty, you may keep ONE weapon or armor item in your ATMA stash. You may not use the item until you personalize it with the Act 5 quest reward. Once you've personalized the item, you may use it on ANY character you play in the tournament. A personalized item may be used even instead of an item that another player has made permanent... if you use a personalized item instead of a permanent item, please keep the permanent item in the character's in-game stash... the next player will need it.

EXAMPLE: Duriel drops you a nice pair of rare boots. You put them in your ATMA stash. Diablo then drops you a Peasant Crown. You stash the Crown, and delete the boots. When you kill Nihlathak, you have the Crown personalized. You may now wear the Crown on your current player, and any future players, even if they've already had a helmet made permanent by another player.

OPTION 2. If you wish, instead of personalizing an item you have kept in your stash, you may personalize an item that a previous player has made permanent for your act 5 character. Once you personalize the item, you may remove it from the act 5 character and use it for all of your future characters (obviously, this then voids the selection made by the previous player).

EXAMPLE: Boris reaches act 5, where Skunkbelly plays him. When Boris arrives, he is wearing a "Lore" helmet which was created in act 3 and made permanent by the act 4 player. Skunkbelly likes the Lore helmet, and uses his Nihlathak quest reward to personalize it. At the end of act 5, Skunkbelly can remove that helm, and put it in his stash for future characters... and Boris no longer has a permanent head-gear selection.

These rewards repeat in NM and Hell Difficulties, so by the time you reach the end of act 5 hell, you could potentially have three wild-card items.

Obviously, there are many strategic possibilities here. You can use the personalization reward to give yourself a great item for future use. You can use it to remove a crappy permanent item from a character (especially if you don't want to wear it to fight the Ancients, for instance). You can use it to "steal" a great item another player made permanent. And so on. Use these rewards well.

MODIFYING ITEMS:

There are many ways of modifying items in the game. Some are permitted, and some are not, depending on the situation:

"Permanent" items may be modified only in the following ways:
- Rune words may be made in socketed items.
- Sockets in items may be filled.
- Sockets may be added to items using the quest reward.
- Items may be personalized using the quest reward.
- Items may be upgraded using cube recipes.
- Items may have their sockets cleared using cube recipes.
However, blue and rare permanent items CANNOT be re-rolled using cube recipes. The only way to re-roll a permanent blue or rare item would be to first personalize it: then it's no longer permanent!

Any non-permanent items may be modified in any way you choose.


REMINDERS:

All players should plan to play one, and ONLY one, act per week. This will keep things moving at a reasonable pace. Please be honest with yourself when registering for this tournament. If you cannot reasonably expect to play one full act in a week, then please don't sign up... it slows things down for everyone. Players will be removed from the tournament, at the discretion of the host (me), if bottlenecks become problematic.

"Switch Day" will always be on SATURDAY. Therefore, I will post the next randomly assigned switch order table at some point every Friday.

If you are going to be away for a week or longer (vacation, exams, etc.), and unable to play, please make sure we know by posting in the thread. That way, we won't get excited and kick you out... we would rather be patient than lose you.


To register, please add your forum name and email to the table below.

Code:
LIVING PLAYERS:
Forum Name        Email       
1 Skunkbelly        
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21

DEAD PLAYERS:
Forum Name                Character Killed
 
Diablo 4 Interactive Map
PurePremium
Estimated market value
Low
High