Many of you may remember what Asheron’s Call was like back at the start. As you know a lot has changed the last decade. These days you can start a new character and either buff them with 7’s and make 35-40 in a couple hours or you can use a Gem of Knowledge and get from level 5 to 49 in seconds. Then after getting a smaller gem that puts you over 50 you can go to Withered Beach and soak XP to your hearts content. Then many of you will UCM in fellows until you are 275.

Back in 2001 I created an extreme “Brashest” archer that is high melee d and high magic. Started with 5 health (a stiff breeze might have killed me) and it was a royal pain trying to carry the bow and arrows with only 10 strength. There were no buff bots back then and no skill re-distribution quests. Had no arcane lore trained and didn't train creature until 65 (with Railea’s skill credit quest). Took me 6 months to get to 65 and some of my guildies told me that my template was gimped and to re-roll. I stayed with it and turned into a very powerful archer at the time, but that’s another story.

I was missing the old days 4 months ago and decided to challenge myself. Started an archer on a server that I had no resources (there were a few low characters there, but I deleted them all). Wanted to start with no help at all. My personal challenge rules were simple:

1) Start on a server with no resources from existing characters
2) Start with nothing but a level 5 character (used to be level 1, but no way to start at that level any more).
3) No buff bots or buffs from other players allowed. Any buffs must be self cast or come from items using arcane lore (armor, jewelry, etc.)
4) The skill re-distribution quests are off limits. If you start with an extreme character such as 10 endurance, then you have to play with the starting health of 5.
5) No other characters can be made on the server to aid you. As in no alchemist if you are an archer. No extra tinker. If you want tinked weapons than you must train this skill on your sole character. (of course you could make several support characters when the game started, but this was an extra challenge to offset the increased quests to gain XP.
6) No Decal allowed. So no UCM’ing. And no grinding in dungeons or anywhere else (killing the same critter over and over again unless it is for a quest). You know what I mean
7) I didn't use the gear from the Pathwarden – that was not there at the start of the game. I bought gear from the armor vendor from my starter allotment of pyreals.
8) I have no mules. If I didn't need it now I probably won’t use it later.
9) No player housing. That wasn't available before, so why use for this challenge.
10) You can hunt with others doing this challenge in a fellowship and share XP. However the levels have to be almost even. Back when the game first started a high level was a level 30 to 40.
11) Can’t except gifts from others (I turned that option off) unless it is from someone else on this challenge. Like they are in your fellow and loot a weapon you could use.
12) If you solo, using a second account to buff you kills the challenge. Again, the buffs must be self cast – makes it more fun this way – trust me!


So who is the judge? You are! If you cheat and use a buff-bot, you will know that you cheated and the challenge is over. From there you can play the character just like you did before or delete them and re-start the challenge. Believe me, once you get a challenge character to 50 or higher, you will feel the achievement you just earned. It might just be the first REAL character you ever built. I didn't play my first challenge character every day. Just when grinding was driving me insane I would switch to this character and the stress was gone. I would actually stay out in the wilds for weeks at a time. Buying and selling from peddlers that I would find. When supplies got low I would go into town, stock up and then head back out into the wilderness again. I would not go into some dungeon and grind out levels. Only went there to do a quest and then leave.

You will reach 50 much faster than the old days due to the number of high XP rewarded quests, but don’t expect to be 275 anytime soon. Maybe years from now or never. Took me 4 months to reach 62 so...

My first challenge character was an archer. He started with 50/10/100/10/100/60. At his current level of 62 he is specialized at nothing. He is trained in missile weapons, melee d, 3 school w/mana c, weapon tinkering, fletching, alchemy, lockpick and healing. It has been a very versatile character to play. He died a lot at first with vitae as high as 22%, but he is over the hurdle now. I plan on starting another personal challenge character soon. It was really the most fun in the early levels

If you want to team up with me just let me know here. Maybe we could get 9 in the n00b challenge fellow!