As  I prepared Tharius for the upcoming IOQC I realized …. I have no clue where my bloody +1 STR blue, glassy chain is.  I had used it recently for levelling but on checking all my clerics and mages I came up empty.  Well maybe one of my half orc fighting class characters bogarted by accident.  Newp.  Ok we’re over 30 characters checked here for 1 STR, so we are quickly losing that loving feeling.

Oh, it was in the storage container with the other 5 chains waiting for homes (I level lots of things that can wear turquoise anklets).  So right there the decision was made to rename this sucker and never again to have to identify a plethora of ankle wear (imagine this is in the real world… excuse me sir can I see your ankles?)

Already I hear groaning.  85 glory in and all you get is a STR.  Well yeah … but I get a STR on a character that desperately needs it who happens to be the first character I ever avatared on Realms.  I’m stubborn about using Tharius for quests wherever possible … a ranger isn’t specialized as wonderful for anything, yet makes a very nice general class with 25 str, 22 dex using fighter gear and hitting with gash.

Once that decision was made I started eyeballing my other glory totals and realized I could bring Lareawan up to 1800 hp.  My goal is 2k, but 1800 is a very nice plateau too.

<used as light> the sigil of Bron’trel
<worn on finger> (Humming) Set’s ring of Power
<worn on finger> (Humming) Set’s ring of Power
<worn around neck> Collar of Abyssal Servitude
<worn around neck> Collar of Abyssal Servitude
<worn on body> black leather mutant armor
<worn on head> the shade helm
<worn on legs> the black ring mail greaves of the Falcon
<worn on feet> the black leather boots of the Falcon
<worn on hands> Inescapable Grasp of Doom
<worn on arms> The Intricate Tattoo of the Legendary Guild of Origin First
<worn about body> A shroud of darkness
<worn about body> (Humming) the cloak of Death
<worn about waist> (Glowing) (Humming) a scarlet red belt
<worn around wrist> a spiked leather wristguard
<worn around wrist> Guard of Raven Black
<wielded> a bright shiny bottlecap
<dual wielded> Darkfire thrasher
<worn on ears> Demonic Whispers
<worn on eyes> subversion
<worn on back> a thick piece of lizard hide
<worn over face> the facade of the Hannya
<worn around ankle> a demonskin ankle bracer
<worn around ankle> a demonskin ankle bracer
You report: 1800/1800 hp 666/666 mv 88239232 xp.
Your base stats: 17 str 9 int 9 wis 18 dex 15 con 11 cha 16 lck.
Your current stats: 20 str 13 int 10 wis 25 dex 16 con 12 cha 20 lck.

The Tattoo item is the GoW leader sleeves which were passed from Hubris to Ravith to me.  The decision to wear them cost me 3 dr and a dex but gives me renewed reason to get off my butt and get a Falcon mask on this character.

The cloak of death is +29hp and the Guard of the Raven Black is +20.  All in all I’m sitting at 120 dr in this build but a little rearranging will bring that number up a little more.  I’ve always looked at 120 dr as the “decent” number though I know lots of people out there have pushed further beyond that into truely stunning levels.

The bottlecap is a Lifebane.  So I see a great number of routes to move forward, I am on the pop list for a Raelin light.  I need to get back to work on Edo necks.  Another guard or a better hat might be nice … but the topic at hand wasn’t to make a shopping list of what next 🙂

Spending the glory evoked a number of comments at recall, primarily “what a waste of glory, I would have saved it all for DR”.  I’ve got 3 DR+ spent in HP right now.  I debated whether to go DR or HP when I first started spending and I’ll tell you why I strongly disagree with the comment that was made.  First DR operates under the assumption that the gloried gear will always reside on a thief or other hitter class reliant on DR as a main stat.  For me this is utterly false.  I quest on rangers, thieves, druids, vampires … it’ll go where I need it.  The next point is that I don’t only use this gear for quests, it comes out and goes on the road.  If I’m stepping up to tank I want every possible HP with me… big gas and heavy mpdamage programs are fairly common out there.  I can take 2 800hp damage programs back to back and still have 200 hp … if I can’t quaff back 600 hp before the unlikely 3rd damage program hits, well I should start looking at the screen while I tank.

So there it is.  For me hit points are useful on every single character I slap a death cloak and guard on.  Any mob I face is going to look at my HP and try to make it 0 but isn’t going to care about my DR (I have NEVER been chased out of a fight for being too low on DR 🙂 ) I’m not disparaging spending on DR … getting to the 150 DR plateau is a goal of mine, but it’s longer term.  My HP goals have been much more rapidly obtainable giving me a continual sense of achievement.

If at some point I need to add on more stats I probably won’t add it to these items, but there’s lots of slots to go.  If I get desperate for dex maybe I’ll hunt down one of those 20 AC golden bedsheets through dedicated deck hunting (or cough up some ridiculous amount for one) … or of course, there’s always the other ankle.

Happy questing in YOUR pursuit of glory and thanks to Destre for her dedicated efforts in merging tiny HP amounts every couple o’ quests! 🙂