Part I - The Beginning


I was asked by Dizz our host here some time ago to contribute to this forum by sending in the diary of my adventures as a battlemage apprentice in Dereth. I will begin by telling everybody interested the basics about myself and the way I like to play this game, Asheron's Call (AC).

Our home is Leafcull. I am certainly as far from being a veteran of AC as you can be. I got my first copy about one year after the game was introduced in retail, in December of 2000. Before that I used to play war sims like Shogun-Total War (that is where I got the ID "Tokugawa" , Shimazu Tokugawa is my STW ID I still use for the EZ boards) and lateron Homeworld and Mechwarrior IV. In MW4 a fellow gamer told me to check out AC rather then EQ if I was interested in MMORPG, and that was the time the story starts.

Our first chars were totally gimped, newbie-chars. I lost my first melee at LvL17 after I actually knew a bit about templates, still not enough as I started my second melee without live magic, something I would never do again. Anyway, Tokugawa So is LvL 30 today with Sword, Melee D, Healing, Item and Creature, using all the portal spells and he is basically a Cit loot collector now at the top of our XP tree and he will be the Sub tied portal mule once I have his Item skill high enough to cast "summon portal".

After two months of playing a melee up to LvL 29 I re-assessed my gameplay, what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go. AC II was announced around that time. My melee-play looked for hours kindoff like that:

hack-hack-hack-hack-XPs-heal-heal-heal-slurp(stamina)-hack-hack-hack……..you get the picture.

I think I was ready for a mage. I researched all templates I could find and I actually liked the one with AL speced, Live, War, Melee D, Mana C trained, then Item and Creature. It is a famous template in Brell's Allegiance as the monarch plays this template as his second char, Rune. I played this one to LvL 10, but then I came across two others that I liked and that seemed to be very strong at higher levels, Animals battlemage template and Og's war cleric. Two things came together, I knew from the other mage that I liked blowing things up and with AC II being announced I decided this to be my last reoll. Therefor I decided to try the BM, trying to find out if I have the patience and endurance to bring this template to LvL 50.

In early March 2001 started by rolling the template on TD and played my BM there until LvL 15, just getting to know the basics of a BM, I returned to Leafcull lateron as we got a second computer and a second account as I play together with my wife (UA spec/Life trained) in AC and therefor had to stay on the Cull. This also ensured two mid-level melee chars to bring in the cash I was going to burn, a significant problem on TD.

When you read this diary you need to know my playstyle. I am a very cautious player. I love pretty armor outfits and hate to loose them. I have a fetish for color-coordinated Amuli (Syyn can tell you…). I level slow and safe, I know many do it much faster then me. I like dungeons due to the ease of body recovery, you never miss the body. I use war magic a lot even in dungeons like the Cit and had excellent experience with it. I hardly ever have vitea, when I have 5% I go to a safe spot to get rid of it. I think I never had 15%, ten was the most. I like quests and these take time. As of now I did Green Mire, Baron's Amulet, Frore and working on the Imp Staff. This takes away time from leveling.

STATS! I approached this differently as until LvL 20 I put XPs into health, stamina, quickness/run, focus and self/mana. I did not put one into live/war. So at that time I had 200 run but was still lingering around with mostly LvL III spells in live and war. Therefor I will not put up any stats until after LvL 30, I pretty much follow Dizz Stats and Zarya's Stats now until LvL 50.


Tokugawa the Mage, Battlemage at Leafcull was created on March 17, 2001 on the Leafcull server.


As many others I was with this board from its start and I am deeply indebted to Dizzarian, his advice and the discussions we had here saved us many hours of search for leveling grounds and helped us to get our templates running, I don't know how many would have given up in frustration without this site. This is not an easy template to play in the early levels and the fact that so many of the early regulars like Syyn, Raecyn, Toadkiller, Aolin, Warhead and myself are still running strong tells about the invaluable service this forum has provided for us. We will complete that glorious LVL 50, so Asheron help us!

Battle on friends, may Lord Asheron look favorably upon your path!


Strength & Honor,


Tokugawa

Original Post : Diary of Tokugawa the Mage, Part I - The Beginning