Challenge Road

[Duncani_Daho]

I have cut-and-pasted this bit on Milestones to see what the DDO forums community might have to say about a side project for a static group of True Reincarnated characters. The idea is to run notoriously difficult quests with level-appropriate characters so that the party is always facing a pretty deadly challenge right around the corner before they are allowed to level up.

Any thoughts? Anyway, here it is:

"Concerning challenge, maybe I'll make up a list of quests, a road map of pure challenge, and see if the PD community has any thoughts or cares to add to it. And then maybe run them all with a static group of True Reincarnated as a side project. Maybe we could even throw in Parvo's "no raise dead or resurrection" at all, ever, rule.

Each level your group must pass a Milestone Quest before you can level up. It might start off something like this:

Milestone 1: Kobold assault on hard before you reach level 3.

Milestone 2: Swiped Signet on hard before you reach level 4.

Milestone 3: Proof Is in the Poison on hard before you reach level 5.

Milestone 4: Necropolis "Tomb/Heart" series on hard before level 6.

Milestone 5: Taming The Flames on hard before level 7.

Milestone 6: Devil's Assault on NORMAL before you reach level 8.

Milestone 7: Xorian Cipher on hard before you reach level 9.

Milestone 8: The Pit on ELITE before you reach level 10.

Milestone 9: Threnal Ruins (west, east, south) on hard before level 11.

Milestone 10: Dreams of Insanity on hard before you reach level 12.

Milestone 11: Necropolis 3rd Tier series before you reach level 13.

Milestone 12: how are you still alive???

You get the idea. Additionally, there would be an overall restriction: must run in quests at least 1 level over the party. I think such a structure would provide a ton of challenge and excitement. Using the AH probably wouldn't help you that much, but it would be open for debate."

Last point: while doing it permadeath style is open for debate, at a minimum I'd like to see every quest require two bonuses upon completion: Flawless Victory (no deaths) and Perseverance (no reentry).

[Chai]

Pros:

I like the idea - it is similar to old school monks who had to seek out and defeat the current grandmaster of "insert title here" in order to become that grandmaster. It also keeps people together on similar level toons. You could say in a role playing sense, in PnP people train weeks x level gained to earn a new level, and their training assignment for their new abilities might be to use them to overcome specific obsticles before graduating to the next rank. This is how real life Shaolin Monks train.

Cons:

There may be issues in bottlenecking your talent pool however. Lets say two people make it to 7 or so but the other few people they played with either had a character death, RL interfered (oh god no :p) or something that made it so there isnt a full group to run the requirements with at that tier. This now means these individuals are now subject to others being able to get to that level in order to play the required content needed to level, simply based on leveling mechanics put in place and nothing more, in order to play that toon to higher level.

Conclusion:

A plan is as good as its execution. This will require some micromanagement of character levels to keep track. In a tight knit static group, this is likely easy. In a guild I think it would be harder to keep track of and would require self policing, as most PD pretty much already does.

[Duncani_Daho]

On second thought, I think Taming The Flames would be a better fit for Milestone 5.

Milestone 5: Taming The Flames on hard before you reach level 7.

20 point resists come at level 7, so let it sting a bit, huh? No freedom of movement, yeah. These are True Reincarnated toons-- primadonnas-- so it shouldn't be too difficult. Right?

Burn, baby, burn.

[Chai]

Milestone 12. Tor hard or elite. by level 14

Milestone 13. Rainbow on elite. Running with the devils elite. by level 15

Milestone 14. Coal chamber elite. by level 16

Milestone 15. Enter the kobold elite. by level 17

Milestone 16. Stop cheating and die already if you made it this far, gawd. :p

[Chai]

Do you guys plan to do any of the raids? - VON, Tempest Spine, Titan, DQ etc...

[Duncani_Daho]

Do you guys plan to do any of the raids? - VON, Tempest Spine, Titan, DQ etc...

Don't even have a group formed yet. A buddy of mine wants to do a few more raids with his level 20 Favored Soul so that he can reap the benefits of his 20th run. Then he will TR. Nicomo needs a few more epic dungeon tokes (what good are epic RAID tokens? I'm clueless) then he will TR.

First, we'll get a group and decide on playing times. Then we'll come to some sort of final consensus on the ruleset. Then we will try to complete every quest that is possible to be completed by a group of 6.

[Duncani_Daho]

I'm thinking the rules will have to be pretty hardcore for the challenge to be 1.) consistent throughout content level 2-20; 2.) worthy of accomplishment.

So banning purchase of consumable magic should be included. No wand, pot, or scroll purchase. After all, if you can buy 50 Protection from Fire pots before going into Taming the Flames on hard at level 5, where is the challenge?