Expected Gear: What you should carry always

Falling happens. A lot. Ground gives out, quest starts a few hundred feet below the entrance, chimney drops to the next floor, and so forth. Some falls are too far for a spell: you don't want to have to keep casting it over and over, and clickies run out. Some monsters will cast Reverse Gravity, making you 'fall up' into the ceiling, only to plummet down and taking falling damage again. Additionally, featherfalling will extend the distance you can jump, helping you reach locations further than normal.

The only exception to this would be high level monks who get it innate. The rest should carry featherfall items, even if just carrying them to toggle on as needed.


There are many long swims in the game. Crucible has an underwater trapped maze, some of the Druid quests require you to 'be as a fish', Three-barrel Cove is chalked full of swims. A high swim score (which no one takes) can get you through some of these, but armour and shields reduce your score (shields especially). Some swims you just can't make regardless. Once again, the spell would be too short.

Now as DDO doesn't truly have underwater combat (Red Fens capstone having special circumstances) and even the most encumbered player has a few seconds before drowning starts, this item is definitely a toggle. Just carry a weak helm or necklace or boots (Boots of the Mire being my fave, but Ring of the Buccaneer is better at higher levels. Also, Bubble Belt just rocks as it has swim, just need to endure Sorrowdusk to get it.) and switch to it as required.

Naturally, warforged don't require this. Oxygen never reaches their brains anyways :P


Platforming is pretty much expected everywhere. If you cannot make a jump, you are stuck. Most jumps are reasonable, but some are tricky, and some (usually for optionals) border on ludicrous. Now an arcane or primal caster can cast the Jump spell - if they took it. It also requires there to be one in the party. The spell levels up and has sufficient duration to be a viable crutch, but for those times when it's not available, have a jump item. Potions will work for low levels, but by level 10 you'll want the most jump you can. The +n refers to having the highest value of jump you can equip (up to +15 in your teen levels).

Anyone maxing jump each level will still want this. Unless you have a 30 in jump, you can always use more.


Crits hurt. Sneak attacks add up. REGARDLESS your class, this can mean being one-hit killed. To prevent this, wear the best fortification gear you can get: as soon as you can get heavy fortification, and once you hit epic, try to eek out exceptional fortification until you're 'safe' at 150% crit negation. Epic mobs are learning to run in precision stance :P


Insta-death magic sucks. You roll one lousy 1 on a saving throw, and suddenly you're a crystal. Five seconds ago you were laughing at 300 hp and cleaving through the mobs, and now you're Neg10 xp. Deathblock will prevent things like vorpal strikes, finger of death, slay living, phantasmal killer and so forth. Mind you, won't help from a disintegrate as that's damage now.

DeathWARD, the spell, is much nicer, but it doesn't come permanent on items. It is on some items (Flesh-render Visor is one I believe) as a clickie, on potions (from challenges and Cleric trader in Eveningstar), and a divine casters can cast it..but it's a spell. Beholders will erase it off you in a blink, then laugh as they finger of death and slay living you. Cleric enemies will dispel it off you. Having deathblock leaves you a one last tier of defence in these situations before needing to pray you don't roll a 1.


Healers can die too. Especially common when the party healer is a henchie. Par for the course when the only healer henchie is controlled by one of the rogues and they forget to use 'Stay' . When this happens, you're on your own...so have something for when you're on your own. Something that will last you until (if even) the healers are resurrected. Plenty of times it comes down to a final push to kill the boss while the healer has fallen (or some times starts that way when they all decide to just jump into acid pools). For those moments have something to tie you over. Cure potions are great if you're a melee. If you have some divine/primal or UMD you could consider wands - additionally allowing you to drop back to heal the rest of the party. The ultimate would be if you had sufficient UMD to use Heal scrolls, taking over the healer position.

Of note, you can drink potions while swimming. You can also eat ham. This is useful in situations where you've underwater traps and noone can disarm them.
Mmm... tasty ham. It's hamtacular.

At the lowest levels it's not so bad. Once you start getting to the teens though, this becomes more important. Mummy rot will slowly kill you. Healing Curse will leave you unhealable in a pitched battle. Stacks of poison will leave you vunerable, stat damaged, save penalised and having a stacking DoT ticking away your life. Meanwhile the party healer is faced with this happening to the entire party at once. Additionally this can become a considerable drain on spell point resources.

Thus it falls upon the player to be able to partially help themselves. Not ALWAYS fix themselves, but at least have the ability in a pinch. If they can use a Wand even better as they can then help their fellow players

Suggested potions/wands to always carry: Remove Disease, Remove Curse, Remove Blindness, Neutralise Poison. Lesser Restoration is nice, but full Restoration would be better as curse negative levels as well as stat damage.

This borders on 'must have', only not being on that list by virtue of all DR being different severity. Damage reduction can range from a paltry 3~5 damage less per hit, to a crushing reduction of 50 or more. Also with all the various types and such, and the advent of things like 'align weapon' it's not as hyper critical. Still, some types you should have. Good weapons are commonly needed. Adamantine is important if you expect a lot of golems or warforged. Silver helps fighting lycanthropes, and serves double duty with Silver+Good for devils. Less needed are Cold-Iron for demons, and Byshek for aberrations from Xoriat. Even more hyper-specific is Crystal for Quori, but as they are only in two chains and don't have the greatest DR values, we're spared having to face them with dual-wielded Muckbanes :D The most rare would be needing Mithril for the Stormreaver, but for that you have to fall back on Metalline, as the only mithril damaging source is the named sword Skybreaker and some shields.

A Metalline weapon of Pure Good would serve as an all-purpose dr breaker, only failing on things like Maruts that require Anarchy.

'nuff said.

Better to have and never need, then need and not have.

Scrolled if not memorised, it's useful in many quests- some optionals require, and some quests it speeds things up considerably.

Heroism is good. Greater Heroism is better. Bonuses to saves, attacks, skill checks, immunity to fear...it's an all around nice buff. Arcanes can give you this, but it's pricey and not until higher levels. Heroism potions however are plentiful. Quaff them before important checks or fights. Greater Heroism can be cast from the Planar Gird found in the Xorian Cipher quest. Worth the farming effort (requires a lock picker/wand of knock).

Sometimes this is bloody obvious. Sometimes it's not.

• Tanks should have the best +Intimidate they can to grab and keep aggro. A +Balance could also help if they are low in dex but heavy in armour.
  
• Not-tanks should have +Diplomacy to shed aggro, helping the tank to control the mob. Hit the diplo after a hard attack to lower your threat.
  
• Sneak attackers should consider +Bluff to make the target vulnerable to sneak attacks. It's also useful to solo-pull individual mobs from a group by stealth bluffing.
  
• Trappers should have a bunch. +Spot until you get a trap warning, +Search while searching, then +Disable Device when finding it.
  
• Lock pickers naturally should have +Open Locks

But then you get into the NOT so obvious ones..

• Social skills are important. +Diplomacy,+Intimidate and +Bluff will open up new options in dialogues: bypass fights, start fights, win optionals, avoid having to pay, extra information. Now you might not have any ranks in it, and you probably dump-stated charisma (have an 8 ). But so what?
  
  
  0 ranks +2 (+6 Charisma item) +15 (skill item (Competence)) +2 (Heroism (Morale)) +1 (d20 (Luck)) = 20
  
  If a monk is in the party add 7 more (Walk of the Sun and Moment of Clarity). 27 is a far cry from useless, and it is possible to eek out another 5 for 32 (+3 skill potions, exceptional stat bonuses). Couple this with the new trend is rather than a static check, you actually roll a d20 then add your score... you now can reach a 50+ for those checks.

Which finishes into the weird...

• Newer quests are asking for different skills, skills commonly ignored as useless. Started off with the Repair skill helping you fix ballista, requiring less parts the higher the skill. Later Heal checks for healing dying npcs. But now? Concentration checks to solve puzzles, Haggle to get extra information from NPCs. No clue what else is out there. Obviously be nuts trying to carry an item for every skill, but if you know what might be expected, having one in the bank to bring in could be a good idea.

Get there faster. Run away faster. Especially helpful in wilderness areas as over time the speed differences are more notable. Also useful for everyone but the monk, in keeping up with the monk. One can semi-cheat with Expeditious Retreat.

Naturally this list is not totally comprehensive and subject to dating. :P