Over the years, I have with some regularity decided to try refreshing my perspective on the server's content from a new character's perspective. I obviously can't get the new player perspective, as I am by now too familiar with the server to ever really drop all that knowledge. But with enough time in between, having a fresh restart lets you forget some stuff, and indeed some stuff has time to change!
Back in early april 2021, I had just returned to the server after a year and a half hiatus. In order to both figure out what the RP scene was like, and to get a fresh perspective on the content, I made an entirely new character under an alternative account (the only time I have actually done this!). I muled nothing - no items, no gold - and I started from level 1, 0 experience points with a dual wielding human ranger. After about a month where at least 75% of my time online had been pretty much pure RP, I was level 18 and had fairly decent equipment. I don't remember how much gold I had earned in all that time, but it was probably around half a million. That was about the time when I rejoined the DM team and discarded the character to focus on DMing.
The State of Leveling thread that was started 8th of April this year, inspired me to do this again (although there were other factors too that made me want to do this). So, the next day 9th of April, I started a level 1 character, human with a fun and viable build, but by no means a powerbuild. I muled absolutely nothing, no gold and no items, and I didn't RCR. This time I haven't RPed as much, largely just soloing dungeons. My mind isn't capable of prolonged circle grinding, so I haven't really done any of that. I instead enter a dungeon, loot it and complete it. Do all of those in the level range that gives me loot and I can manage to solo.
Today I reached level 19 and it's been almost a month, so I felt like it was time to take stock of how it has all gone. I will also say that I have probably earned around 1,5 million gold on this character in this time. I have sold almost nothing on Mudds (perhaps a total of 60-70k), so most of that gold has come from just selling stuff to merchants. A lot of 1400g items. Hard to say exactly how much, since much has gone to consumables, and others to various equipment. But here's some significant items I have picked up along the way, all of these from buying them off merchants, not Mudds or with the help of other appraisers:
- Belt of Growth (Around 250k?)
- Melodic Chain Mail (around 300k?)
- Bracers of Blinding Strike (110k or so)
- Trollbane (a light flail from blushing mermaid: 180k or so)
- The Flaming Bastard (350k - I bought this today!)
The journey has been interesting. I have died more times than I care to count, and in every case due to greed or carelessness. Holding off on drinking that Heal potion because the enemy is Nearly Dead and then get crit by their axe, and instead I am dead. Indeed at no point can I say that I have felt the death was undeserved.
I have been in 0 DM events (unless you count that one where DM Autumn made the entire Friendly Arm Inn hostile and I was chased by Mudds, a horse and a child...!).
As mentioned, I also am incapable of prolonged circle grind, so I am effectively a very slow leveler here. Indeed, here's what's been extra fun about this journey: I am not the only one who went on it. HDM Ink also did. And that madman has leveled three characters to 20 in the same time. Same rules, and at least one of the characters was a rather deliberately trash build. Ink can perhaps speak a bit of his own experience with this journey.
Lastly, I want to mention that very recently a real life friend of mine who has no experience with Neverwinter Nights, Dungeons and Dragons or even RP has just started playing on the server. I have deliberately been avoiding helping him beyond explaining very basic concepts around D&D mechanics (like AB and AC). He has been playing for about two weeks, though he is a family man and doesn't get to game a lot, so those two weeks are not of high activity. He is now level 9 and has earned around 250-300k gold. Again, with barely any help from me.
Now, that is not to say that everything is perfect here. We made observations of things that can definitely be improved upon, especially for entirely new players (like my recently joined friend). It's not obvious for example that you can cook wolf, bear, rat, bat, badger and boar meat for some nice lesser vigor consumables, by just having 1 modified survival, and these are actually extremely useful, especially before you can afford one of those regeneration cloaks (and even after, as the regen stacks). Speaking of those cloaks, they too aren't easy to find for a new player, or even to know that they exist.
We also found some areas had slight bugs, or outdated/broken functionality, and some that were rather too harsh on low levels (another DM's fresh character died to a heat stroke in a low CR area!). The street kid guide outside of Baldur's Gate doesn't function either, and this certainly should be fixed, and perhaps even be expanded upon.
My conclusion though is that both leveling and gold/item aquisition is almost trivial (and I'm kind of fine with that), and I had especially a lot of fun in early levels. There are some very nice low level dungeons. If it's been a while since you have done this yourselves, I highly advise giving it a go, as it is super cool, and it can refresh your perspective on the server too.
