Serendipity variant

[Jude]

Serendipity variant

Diablo II LOD Serendipity variant

A variant for "playing the hand that you're dealt and wooing Lady Luck"...

Anyone who plays Diablo II Lord of Destruction in single-player mode is welcome to give me some feedback here! I am using the 1.10 patch.
This variant may also play well under other versions of D2X and even under Diablo 2 without the expansion, but I've only played it with Diablo II LOD 1.10.

For a few months, now, I have been experimenting with a variant set of rules for a single-player character (NO muling or trading allowed, and NO battle.net games):

Create a new single-player character. This character will only be used using these variant rules.
Everything normally possible in a single-player game using the chosen character is allowed EXCEPT:
No Buying Anything (found items only!--those items picked up or won, created with the cube or a skill or awarded) with the following exceptions:
Scrolls of Identification
Hiring Mercenaries
One Tome of Teleportation per difficulty level (to enter the Secret Cow Level)
Repairing equipment
Gambling


Just to clarify, the character cannot buy buy anything from the townspeople, except for Scrolls of Identification & Mercenaries & One Tome of Teleportation per difficulty level, but can interact with the townspeople, get healed/refilled, complete quests and receive quest items, imbue, talk, gamble, and repair equipment. The character can also do anything not involving the townspeople that they could normally do.
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Notes:
When I first thought of this, having gotten a bit bored with Diablo II LOD, I tried playing a character using only found items(those items picked up or won, created with the cube or a skill or awarded)--no gambling, no purchased ID scrolls. This lasted until my character was at level 4! Then I got tempted by something I saw in Charsi's inventory while repairing my stuff. When I tried again with more will-power, I quickly realized that there were 2 main problems:
Until you rescue Deckard Cain, there aren't enough found ID scrolls to identify all your loot, and not enough places to store it until you rescue him;
and after a while you have so much gold that you can't hold it all, and nothing to spend it on but repairs.
That's when I added the Gambling and Scrolls of identification rules and tried again. While I was playing, I realized that tomes almost never seem to to show up as found items, so I added the rule about purchasing one per difficulty level so that a character can enter the Secret Cow Level.
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Let me know what you think. I will take your comments into consideration before writing up the final version of the rules.

Thanks.
Jude

 

[Jude]

Anybody?

No one has any comments or suggestions--good or bad?
Jude

 

[corax1]

most people dont like to hear. your idea is teh suckzor nooblar.

lol j/k though. looks like a sound idea, well thought out and implemented.
is it for a tournament?

 

[DurfBarian]

It's usually possible to score some tomes in Act 1 from bookshelves, once you get to the buildings later on in the act. (That's a long time to wait in that first act, though.)

It looks like a cool idea . . . Sort of a live-off-the-land adventurer, but not quite so masochistic. I might try one out someday.

 

[Jude]

Suckzor?

most people dont like to hear. your idea is teh suckzor nooblar.

lol j/k though. looks like a sound idea, well thought out and implemented.
is it for a tournament?

That's all right, I couldn't understand what you wrote there anyway!

Thanks, I've been playing it with several different characters, at least one of each of the 7 types, and it does seem to make the game more fun because it forces me to considering strategies that I normally wouldn't choose, based on what I find or gamble for.

I hadn't planned on using for a tournament, mainly because I've never done a tournament, and I'm not even sure how to go about it. But anyone is quite welcome to use it. I was hoping that other players might find some good in it and play it.
Jude

 

[theGrimm]

I seem to recall hearing some mention of a "living-off-the-lands" barb or somesuch. Seems similar.

Comments:
-Gambling should stay restricted. My best equipment comes from monsters and gambling, I get virtually nothing from merchants. Got extra cash? Donate it to charity.
-The hardest and most interesting aspect is potions...many 1.10 builds rely on the fact that mana potions are cheap and easy. Putting points into energy will be quite important, now, as will life be even more important.

In D1, I used to play ironman games, where you'd see how far you can get without ever returning to town. This is a little like that, and seems kind of fun. The packrat in me will always prevent me from being true to this style, though, with ATMA around :lol:

A tournament like this would be nice to observe.

 

[Jude]

It's usually possible to score some tomes in Act 1 from bookshelves, once you get to the buildings later on in the act. (That's a long time to wait in that first act, though.)

It looks like a cool idea . . . Sort of a live-off-the-land adventurer, but not quite so masochistic. I might try one out someday.

Only one of my Serendipity characters has managed to find a tome of town portal so far and most of them are at least into ACT II. I guess I could change that part, but I don't want to keep players from getting into the secret cow level for each difficulty level.

I have a buddy who plays a live-off-the-land variant, and I've tried it, but it seems like such a waste when you have so much money it's falling on the ground, and nothing to spend it on but repairs, so I added the gambling aspect, which does add a different sort of sense of adventure to the game!

Jude

 

[Jude]

I seem to recall hearing some mention of a "living-off-the-lands" barb or somesuch. Seems similar.

Comments:
-Gambling should stay restricted. My best equipment comes from monsters and gambling, I get virtually nothing from merchants. Got extra cash? Donate it to charity.
-The hardest and most interesting aspect is potions...many 1.10 builds rely on the fact that mana potions are cheap and easy. Putting points into energy will be quite important, now, as will life be even more important.

In D1, I used to play ironman games, where you'd see how far you can get without ever returning to town. This is a little like that, and seems kind of fun. The packrat in me will always prevent me from being true to this style, though, with ATMA around :lol:

A tournament like this would be nice to observe.

Yeah, unless you play a Barbarian, potions can be a problem. I find myself hoarding them (sometimes using up most of my stash!), and once I get the Horadric Cube, I create and hoard a lot of Full Rejuvenation potions.

I tend to be a packrat in real life and in the first Diablo, but since I have a Mac (with no ATMA), I've learned to be ruthless about getting rid of stuff (at least in Diablo II LOD, if not in real life).

I've never tried an Ironman game. What happens after your new character gets killed? Do you retire him or her, or can you use that character again for another Iron Man game, or do you just play him or her in a regular-type games, then?
Jude

 

[theGrimm]

Well, in DI there was no hardcore, and I guess you could do what you wanted. But you also saved the full game status, so you could carry on straight from where you left off.

However, with DII hardcore, it would be even cooler. Hardcore live-off-the-land. Winner (if it were a tourney) is the player who gets the furthest without any town interaction. No stash, no quest rewards, no healing. Only allowed to enter town between sessions.

Also, no running allowed, once an area is cleared, you can't go back (within reason)...

Strict, and probably short :lol:

 

[jiansonz]

I am currently developing the rules for a tournament for barbarians, where the idea is that they are not allowed to use gold for anything. So no shopping, gambling, repairing or merc resurrecting (However, there will be "merc rewards" in four of the five acts). Stuff will break a lot, especially weapons.

Furthermore, I will only allow talking to townspeople when the have a "!" above their head. So the only times when you could get help from the healer and have Cain ID stuff are the times when they want to talk to you for some reason.

To make the variant playable longer into the game, I will ease the restrictions, somewhat like this:

NM:
*You can use Cain´s ID-ing and the town healer as much as you like (provided you have the means to get there!)
* During Act Boss fights, you may 1) buy healing potions, 2) buy TP scrolls and 3) repair throwing weapons that have the 'replenish quantity' ability. Basically, anything you could have solved by waiting or running to a waypoint.

Hell:
* Same as NM, but what is allowed against the NM act bosses is always allowed.
* Against act bosses, all potion types may be bought.


This tourney will allow self-muling (so you have the opportunity to save everything that might become useful) and buying a TP tome for the cow level.


(BTW, the only places I know of where you can find Tomes are Barracks and Jail.)

 

[simeonb]

That certainly looks like an interesting tourney jiansonz. :worship:

Just wait a bit before starting it will you - I'm still ploughing on with my Random pally...and then there's the TWD...and I'm thinking hard about joining Hrus's tourney...and...and...

Oh, when will they invent the 30 hour day!!! :lol:

 

[Hrus]

That certainly looks like an interesting tourney jiansonz. :worship:

Just wait a bit before starting it will you - I'm still ploughing on with my Random pally...and then there's the TWD...and I'm thinking hard about joining Hrus's tourney...and...and...

Oh, when will they invent the 30 hour day!!! :lol:

Yes, yes, yes common and join!

@Jiansonz: I wouldn't expect so much benevolence from you with these NM and Hell exceptions.... :lol:

My friend Ugla never buys a potion until reaching Hell difficulty...

 

[Quickdeath]

It sounds like a concept with internal integrity. But, I almost never buy a weapon or armor from the merchants unless I'm a paladin or necro looking for a scepter or wand (which drop so seldom!) I save my gold for gambling and resurrecting my mercs. So,the inability to purchase equipment would not be a big hardship for me.

The potential lack of potions and tp scrolls would be tough for certain characters, though. Quite honestly, I'm not sure it would increase the fun factor for me.

 

[Jude]

I rarely have trouble finding enough teleport scrolls. In fact, sometimes I buy the Tome of Teleportation early and just hang on to it (remember, you can only buy one per difficulty level!) because I have so may teleport scrolls that they are using up too much of my space, so I put them in the tome.

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. Anyone else have any comments?

Also, how does one go about running a tournament? Assume I know nothing about it (which is close to the truth).

Jude

 

[Jude]

Well, in DI there was no hardcore, and I guess you could do what you wanted. But you also saved the full game status, so you could carry on straight from where you left off.

However, with DII hardcore, it would be even cooler. Hardcore live-off-the-land. Winner (if it were a tourney) is the player who gets the furthest without any town interaction. No stash, no quest rewards, no healing. Only allowed to enter town between sessions.

Also, no running allowed, once an area is cleared, you can't go back (within reason)...

Strict, and probably short :lol:

I started up a new character, LaFemme de Fer (Rogue), in Diablo (Diablo I, that is), and tried out the "IronMan" variant you described. I only made about 2/3 through the 2nd level of the dungeon, and I didn't even get to complete any quests! Also, I had a backback full of magic weapons and armor that I couldn't identify since I didn't find any ID scrolls. After my Rogue died, I loaded up my last saved game (I saved regularly, luckily) and just continued playing normally. It seems that a couple of the magic items were quite useful once they'd been identified; in fact they were better than what I normally get or buy!

Thanks for the fun Diablo IronMan variant, theGrimm!
Jude