“Double Quest Rewards†Tournament Idea
Wouldn’t it be nice to get twice as many rewards for completing quests? Sounds great, huh? But here’s the kicker, those rewards will be your only source of items, skills, & attribute points. Although you get skill/attribute points each time you level up, you will not be able to use/place them until you complete a quest that has them for a reward. The good news is that you will get to use/place double the points of what you receive for the quest. There will also be additional fundamental rewards for quests that will allow skill/attribute point placement throughout the game (see the Skill & Attribute sections below). Keep in mind that any time I mention a quest as being completed, I mean grayed out in the quest log.
[highlight]Basic Rules[/highlight]
1. Hardcore or Softcore, but once you die that character is finished.
2. Version 1.10 or later is permitted. RWM and RRM are allowed as long you don’t use realm-only rune words.
3. You may play on any players setting you wish and change it as you see fit, but please do not abuse it.
4. You may not use the escape key to bail out of a rough battle. If you cannot run away or portal out, accept your death.
5. ATMA is allowed as an extended stash. No twinking though, only items that you find, buy, gamble, or cube using your character are allowed.
6. You may rerun areas in your current act only. Once you advance to the next act, you may only return to previous acts to hire a different merc. So be sure to collect/use quest rewards before going to the next act.
7. The (optional) Cow Level is considered part of Act 5 and you may go back to Harrogath after killing the cows to collect/use quest rewards.
8. You may enter up to 7 characters, one of each class.
Game Play
[highlight]Attributes[/highlight] - No restrictions on where you place points, but you’ll only be allowed to place points when a quest is completed. You will receive double rewards for the following quests: The Golden Bird (A3Q1), Lam Esen’s Tome (A3Q4), & Rite of Passage* (Ancients – A5Q5). So, once you complete A3Q1 (the wild goose chase) you will give yourself an additional 20 life by placing the appropriate number of points into vitality as follows: Amazon=7, Assassin=7, Necro=10, Barb=5, Sorc=10, Druid=10, Pally=7. As far as the other 2 quests (A3Q4 & A5Q5), you may use/place 10 points after completing each of them. You will also earn the fundamental reward of placing 5 points for each & every quest you complete. This is in addition to the normal quest rewards that you receive (mentioned earlier). So for example, both Lam Esen’s Tome & the Ancients are worth 15pts total.
[highlight]Skills[/highlight] - No restrictions on where you place points, but you’ll only be allowed to place points when certain quests are completed. The following is a list of quests for which you will receive double rewards: Den of Evil (A1Q1), Radament’s Lair (A2Q1), The Fallen Angel (A4Q1), & Rite of Passage* (Ancients – A5Q5). So, you may use/place 2pts for A1Q1, 2pts for A2Q1, 4pts for A4Q1, & 2pts for A5Q5. You will also earn the fundamental reward of placing 2 points for each set of three quests you complete (an entire row in the quest log). This will be in addition to the normal quest rewards that you receive (mentioned earlier).
*Although the Rite of Passage (Ancients) quest does not specifically give skill/attribute points, for the purpose of this tourney I’m considering it to be a normal reward of 1 skill point & 5 attribute points. (It won’t matter if you don’t actually go up a level by killing them or if you happen to go up 2 levels.)
If by some chance you don’t have enough skill/attribute points to use as a reward, you may use what you have but you will forfeit the remainder. So, you may want to consider leveling up before completing quests when you are low on skill/attribute points. I doubt this will be a problem, but just in case it does happen you’ll know how to handle it.
(By completing all quests, you will get to use 28 skill points & 31 sets of 5 attribute points per difficulty level.)
[highlight]Items[/highlight] – You may use your starting equipment for as long as you wish, along with any potions (both throwing & drinkable), scrolls/tomes, arrows/bolts, keys, & any quest items (for as long as they’re around). Although you won’t be able to use items you find right away, you will need to store the “good” ones for use as possible rewards later. The rewards for the following list of quests will be the only items you may equip (other than those mentioned earlier). In the following descriptions, only items in your possession at the time you collect your reward qualify for your second reward (with the exception of the Tainted Sun quest).
- Rescue Cain (A1Q3) – The ring Akara gives you & one other ring (any color text).
- Forgotten Tower (A1Q4) – ANY item that pops out of the Countess’s chest (both hers & the one on the floor) the first 2 times you kill her. (The second time is optional.)
- Tools of the Trade (A1Q5) – Any item you choose to imbue & one other RARE item (excluding jewelry since it cannot be imbued).
- Tainted Sun (A2Q3) – You may use the Viper Amulet & an amulet you already have. Then at the end of the act when you have to use the Viper Amulet to open the chamber, you may choose one more amulet to take its place. (Since you don’t get to keep the Viper Amulet, this will give you additional time to find a decent amulet to use as your reward.)
- Gidbinn (A3Q2) – The ring Ormus gives you & one other ring (any color text).
- Hellforge (A4Q2) – Any item (you already have) that you choose to socket with the gems or rune you get for smashing the soul stone. (You may create a runeword using the dropped rune.)
- Shenk(A5Q1) – Any item you choose to socket & one other item (any color text) that has at least one socket in it.
- Rescue Anya (A5Q3) – Reward #1 – Any combination of charms with +resist(s) that have a MAXIMUM combined total of 10% resist(s) (20% in Nightmare, & 30% in Hell) for each of the 4 elements (just like the scroll(s) of resistance gives). A charm may have more than just +resist(s), but it must have +resist(s) as one of its properties to be used.
- Rescue Anya (A5Q3) – Reward #2 - The class-specific item that Anya gives you & one other class-specific item (any color text).
- Nihlathak (A5Q4) – Any item you choose to personalize & one other item of your choice (even though you can’t put your name on it).
- All Act End Bosses – You may use any or all of their drops from the first 2 times you kill them. (The second time is optional.)
[highlight]Mercenaries[/highlight] – You may hire/replace any merc at any time & equip them as you see fit. However, you will have a limited number of resurrections granted as quest rewards, so you’d better treat them well! Each time you complete a quest where the reward is the use/hiring of mercs (Blood Raven - A1Q2, The Gidbinn - A3Q2, & Rescue the Barbs - A5Q2), you will receive 2 future resurrections similar to the “Get Out of Jail Free card” in Monopoly. If your merc dies & you don’t have a resurrection available, you must proceed without them until you complete one of the quests with a resurrection reward (mentioned earlier).
Tip: If you want to keep your Melee merc alive when there’s a chance of Iron Maiden, remove their weapon. They probably won’t kill anything, but they shouldn’t die instantly either. Also remember that you can replace them temporarily.
You can print the table below to help keep track of how many resurrections you have available.
Code:
[b][u]Normal[/u][/b] A1Q2 A3Q2 A5Q2Reward Received [ ] [ ] [ ] Resurrection Used [ ][ ] [ ][ ] [ ][ ] [b][u]Nightmare[/u][/b] A1Q2 A3Q2 A5Q2Reward Received [ ] [ ] [ ] Resurrection Used [ ][ ] [ ][ ] [ ][ ] [b][u]Hell[/u][/b] A1Q2 A3Q2 A5Q2Reward Received [ ] [ ] [ ] Resurrection Used [ ][ ] [ ][ ] [ ][ ][highlight]Scoring[/highlight] – I’m going to keep this part really simple by making your score equal to the number of waypoints you have activated (including town WPs).
I’m considering removing the Hellforge reward since it doesn’t quite seem to fit in with the others. I only added it since there aren’t any item rewards in Act 4 (other than killing Diablo). I also thought about allowing the use of the gold from the Countess to buy/gamble item(s) of your choice instead of the way it’s stated now. But that would require making sure to put previous gold in your stash before picking hers up & I wasn’t sure there would be enough to buy anything worthwhile, anyway.
So, is there anything else you think needs to be clarified or changed? I’ll fine tune the rules using any comments or suggestions. I still have a couple more tourney ideas cluttering my mind, but I don’t know if I’ll develop or post them yet. Instead, I’m thinking of posting a poll to see which (if any) of my recent ideas you think I should turn into an actual tournament.
