Selling, auctioning, and trading

There are many ways to get money, weapons, and the armor you desire. You can get them in quests, or as rewards, but there are other ways to get the equipment you need that are sometimes more expensive, but much quicker. If you haven't noticed yet, the vendors often will give you low prices for things you wish to sell, but sometimes (and this occurs most with the potion vendors in my opinion) they will make their products over the base value of the object, but your lucky if you get half the base value of an object! So they're making a killing! If you are pay to play, then you can buy stuff in the DDO store, but if your free to play like me, you have to find another way to get objects cheaper, and sometimes sell them for a higher price. This is where the auction house comes into play. The auction house is located on the map by the two red axes crossing each other. The products here can be overpriced, but you can find good prices on bids and auctions, and sometimes get expensive objects dirt cheap! You can also auction off things as well, there is a small posting fee, and the auction house takes a portion of your sale. The longer you post an auction, the bigger the posting fee. Free to play players can post one auction at a time, while pay to play players can post 50 items at a time. Trading can be difficult, and unless your in a party, and someone with you wants to trade with you, its difficult to do this. If you have no one to trade with, just type in your trade in the general chat box, and ask if someone is interested, if they are, you're going to want something they want, so you can trade, this strategy can be effective, but only if you have items that others would like, otherwise this wont work out so well.

More on Crafting - Bound or unbound?

While deconstructing will get you crafting experience, creating shards and crafting weapons will give you more experience. Bound shards are easier to make, giving the crafter a broader selection of recipes to create. The down side is, like anything bound, its yours. No auction, no trading, it will be with you forever and ever.
Unbound shards allow the crafter to make weapon enhancements that can be sold or traded. The downside to the unbound is the selection is less because the crafting difficulty is higher.
What I have found helpful is to create some bound weapons for yourself first - if you hate them you can always break them back down again. Once your crafting level increases, try your hand at the unbound weapons. DO NOT equip an unbound weapon to check it out - it becomes bound to the person who equips it.

Crafting in Kundarak

Crafting in Kunarak gives players the opportunity to play around with weapon building skills. To build weapons, you need essences and other ingredients. To increase your characters crafting skill, you can deconstruct, build shards or add shards to items.

Deconstruction is the process of breaking down items to remove essences or to turn an item into a craftable one. This is also a great way to build up your crafting skill.

The crafting hall in the Kundarak Enclave has two vendors, one on each end of the crafting hall. This is where players can purchase their deconstruction materials, learn about crafting or transmute essences. In the next few posts there will be more about essences and how to transmute them, but for now let's stick with the deconstruction.

Anyway, besides these vendors, there is a mailbox, a bank and an auctioneer. It comes in handy if you have other business to attend to while unloading your loot at the deconstruction table.

The vendors sell four items used in the deconstruction process. Each one does something a little different, based on the essences or enchantments that you wish to remove. They are:

Liquid Knife Poison - removes enchantments +1, +2, +3, etc. on an item.

Lorinda's Ultimate Remover - removes suffix on an item, which is the ending description on a weapon.

Parfett's Leading Disolver - removes prefixes, acid touch, frost touch, etc. It is the description at the beginning of a weapon.

Dust of Disjunction - removes all enchantments and effects before making an item craftable. This is the only time you will get an item back. Deconstruction using a suffix or prefix remover will give you essences and Liquid Knife will give you the enchantment back.

So, if there is a +2 Firetouch Long Sword of Lesser Goblinoid Bane, the Liquid Knife in conjunction with the long sword would give you back the +2 enchantment. Lorinda's Remover would give you back the essences for the bane and Parfetti's will give you the essences for fire touch.

On sale at the DDO Store

In yesterday's post I talked about hirelings. Available now through July 14th save 20% on hireling purchases at the DDO Store. Enter the coupon codeHIRELINGS20 and the 20% savings will be applied.
Other sales at the DDO Store include 20% off the Monk kit and 20% alignment changes. No coupon code is necessary for those two items.
Lastly, the DDO Store is discounting weapons purchased by 35%! After selecting the weapon you want, enter the coupon code WEAPONS35. 35% will be reduced from the original price! Shop till you drop, just remember to use your coupon!

Handy hirelings

Everybody needs a little help from time to time, and DDO characters are no different! There are two ways to get the help you need at an affordable price.
The first is the the hireling vendors. The hireling will last for an hour and will work along side of you as long as they don't die. You can rent a fighter, a cleric, a Favored Soul, Bard, Wizard, Sorcerers or a Barbarian. You are allowed one hireling at a time when using the hirelings from the in game vendors and they must be summoned at the beginning of the dungeon. I have not seen any thieves mixed in with the in game hirelings, which takes us to the other option for hirelings, the DDO Store. Besides a different selection, the DDO Store hirelings are "gold sealed" and have a few special extras.
The gold seal hirelings can be summoned from wherever your character happens to be. Another extra, besides being able to rent a thief, is the option to have more than one hireling! You can pretty much build your own party and they can be brought into play anytime anywhere in the quest!

Choosing the right race

Pic Courtesy of Yahoo! Images

When creating a character, there are many different customizations you can make for your character, which is a very enjoyable feature, but did you know that the race you choose influences the way you play the game? For example, the drow elf race has a + 2 dexterity, + 2 intelligence, + 2 charisma, and a - 2 constitution. This means that drow elfs are have a bigger advantage by playing as a rogue, bard, ranger, sorcerer, or wizard. They also have + 2 to enhancement saves, they inherit spell resistance, a + 2 to listen, search, and spot. The dwarf race has a + 2 to constitution, and a - 2 penalty to charisma. They also have racial toughness, spell point enhancements, bonuses to saves against spells and poisons, and bonuses when fighting goblin, or giant creatures. So dwarves would make good fighters and barbarians. Elves have a + 2 bonus to dexterity, and a - 2 penalty to constitution. Some benefits include immune to sleep, as clerics they can bring fallen allies back to life at level six, and + 2 to search, spot, and listen skills. They make for good rogues, clerics, rangers, and wizards. A half elf has no bonuses, but no penalties either. They have access to both elven, and human feats since they are half elf, and half human. Half orcs have a + 2 to strength, but suffer a - 2 to intelligence, and charisma. they make good fighters, barbarians, and paladins. Haflings are the smallest race, and add a + 2 to to their dexterity, but a -2 to their strength. They add a + 1 to armor class + 1 bonus to attack rolls with thrown weapons.They recieve a + 2 to jump listen, and move silently skills, a + 4 to hide, they also get + 1 to all saves, and a + 2 to saves against fear. Their flaw is that they can only carry 75 % of what the other races can carry in their inventory due to size. They make good monks, and excellent rogues. Humans get 1 extra feat at the first level, get 4 additional skill points at creation and 1 additonal skill point per level. They take no penalties, and are the most well rounded race, and can excel at any class. Warforged have a + 2 constitution, a -2 wisdom and charisma. They are immune to poison, sleep affects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, and exhaustion. Since they're warforged, cure and heal spells from clerics are reduced, if you want a fully effective heal for your warforged character, you must have a player or hireling with a good repair skill. Warforged characters would make good fighters and barbarians with their bonus constitution and immunity to fatigue.

Add some D&D to your desktop

If you are one of those players who can't get enough of DDO, this is the link for you! Follow this link for a redecorating adventure! With a great variety to choose from, DDO has wallpaper for your PC that will remind you of the game everytime you see your desk top! There are three recently added ones that include a quaterly calendar. Check it out and download your favorite.