[2012] The Three Stages of Life Tournament [by Smancer]

[Grisu]

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This tournament has already ended. It was originally started by @Smancer on Aug 20, 2012. The last post was made Oct 26, 2012.
(link to original thread on diabloii.net) ​

The Three Stages of Life Tournament

In life, we go through many stages. So too shall be the case for our hero...

Stage 1: Consumer (normal)
As a normal young man or woman, just starting out in life, our hero shall work hard to acquire wealth. With this wealth he will do what we all would do: improve his life. Like you or I, he will spend his gold on luxuries to help him get through life.

Stage 2: Gatherer (nightmare)
Just like your crazy cat collecting aunt, our hero will no longer spend his money on frivolous items. He will in fact look to improve his life by finding and collecting items along his way. Surely he will pickup and save any potentially valueable item for now, or his future life.


Stage 3: The Craftsman (hell)
Our hero now with a lifetime of experience will use what he has learned and acquired throughout his journey. Now a skilled man, he will put his knowledge to good use and only use that which he can make from his treasures collected along the way.


General Rules

In each difficulty you have a very strict set of rules you must follow to gear your character and your merc. Other than that, the only other rule is it must be untwinked, and HC (or SC but death results in RIP). Due to the restrictions of each difficulty, this tournament is NOT single pass. However you may not go back in difficulty.

You can keep equipped the items you have from the previous difficulty, but only the items you have equipped at the time of killing baal. All upgrades after that point must follow the rules for the new difficulty. Items in your stash or inventory do not count.
In addition you must completely re-gear your character with gear that complies with that difficulties rules before completing ACT 1 of that difficulty. After this point you may not go back to your old gear (unless you modify it per Hell rules).
Quest rewards are excluded from the rules. You may go back to use your imbue. And your imbued item may be used at any difficulty.

Normal

For Normal difficulty, you must buy everything you use. This is not to say you cannot pick up drops. Indeed you should, and you should mule them for the later stages. You will need materials.

You cannot use any item that you didn't buy in Normal. That means, no socketing with runes or gems. No cubing or altering any items. No selling and buying back items that dropped.

Everything must be bought (or gambled) and used as is, unaltered. This means you can not use charms in Normal. It also means you can only use scrolls of TP that you have bought from a vendor. It also means you can only use potions that have been bought from a vendor. That is not to say you cannot pick up and mule those items off for another time

Nightmare

You can now use those charms. Since they were drops. However any item in your stash or inventory that was bought in normal is now not usable (only your equipped gear at the time of beating baal).

In this difficulty you can only use items that have dropped. You may not alter the drops in anyway. This means, if you cubed up a rune, you cannot use it (same for gems). It must be an item drop that is unaltered. Monster drops, chest drops, shelf drops, they are all fair game.

This means you can not buy TPs, you must find them. YOu may also not use potions, you must find them. YOu can use the potions and gems, and runes that dropped from Normal, but you may not cube them in anyway before use.

Hell

Start cubing.

You can only use items which have been altered in some way in your cube. This means, upping armor, adding sockets, cubing up gems, cubing rune up runes.

Removing sockets does count. So if you found that perfect 6os eth CV and want to use it, socket it with El runes and then remove them, only then is it ok to use. But if you want to socket it with new runes, those runes must have been upped.

If you want to use any charms, they must be re-rolled from Nightmare (or Normal if you saved them). The rule is if you want to use it, it must have been in your cube.

Note that you can purchase items in hell, but you must alter them in the cube before equipping.

I will allow the purchase of TPs and Healing/mana pots in hell even though it technically using a bought item, I just foresee too much trouble since there is no recipe that allows you to create scroll of TPs.

EDIT:El runes are allowed to use.

EDIT: Thawing and antidote potions are allowed in hell only when facing the following: Andy, Maggot Liar, Lost Temple, Duriel, Meph, Chaos Sanctuary, Ancients, World Stone Keep.

Misc.

This tourny will officially start after the MFO as so many people will be doing that. I encourage signups now thought because it might take some planning

Scoring is as follows:

1 point for waypoint(per act: 9,9,9,3,9)
1 point for quest(per act: 6,6,6,3,6)
(100 - cLvL) upon Guardian.

So if you are level 99 when you hit Guardian you only get one point. But if you are level 80 you get 20. This is designed to reward players that beat baal at a low level.

Everyone is encouraged to write about the creative ways they get through each difficulty, and share readouts of their gear.

I'd appreciate it if someone could start a table for me (I don't know how). I will be entering this tournament with an Amazon named ZonWoman.