[GUIDE] Diablo II Beginners' guide

Gold


Gold has long served as the sole reliable currency in the world of Sanctuary. This precious metal is melted into small gold slugs, which are then pressed and stamped with the heraldry of the kingdom that created them. Each coin throughout the realms possesses the same value, regardless of the coin's shape or size.

Your character can carry 10,000 gold per level. For example, a 10th-level character can carry up to 100,000 gold. A level 99 character can carry 990,000 gold. The maximum amount of gold a character can carry with stash is 3,490,000, at level 99. Gold does not share space with items or weapons in your backpack as it did in Diablo.

If you are killed, your character will lose a percentage of the total gold both carried and stored in the Stash. This percentage is equal to your character's level but will not exceed 20%. After this 'death penalty' is deducted, the remaining gold your character was carrying falls to the ground in a pile. If the penalty exceeds the amount of gold you were carrying, the remainder of the penalty is deducted from your Stash.

In Single-Player, dying will not deplete your entire gold supply. No gold is lost from your Stash, and 500 gold per character level is exempt from the death penalty. For example, if a 10th level Single-Player character with 5,000 gold dies, he will lose no gold.

Your Stash


Near your starting location in each of the five Acts, you will find a large chest -- your private Stash. It is a secure, permanent, SAFE place to store any precious items and gold you find in your adventures. Use your Stash to hold any items you intend to keep but do not want occupying space in your Inventory. Items left on the ground will disappear after a few minutes.

You are the only one who can access your Stash. Another player cannot look inside or access your Stash for any reason.
The items in your Stash are saved during the game and when you exit the game. You only have to worry about losing items in your Stash when you die in Hardcore Mode. You can learn more about Hardcore Mode here.
Stash carries across acts and difficulty levels
Items in your Stash carry across Acts. The same items and amount of gold will remain in your Stash, regardless of the Act or difficulty level.

Scrolls

There are only two types of scrolls -- Scrolls of Town Portal and Scrolls of Identify. Both types are extremely useful during your character's travels and can be used by right-clicking on the scroll. If you cannot find enough scrolls, vendors in town sell them.

A Scroll of Town Portal opens a magical blue gateway from the wilderness to the nearest town. The Town Portal remains active until your character enters it from town and returns to the place where it was originally cast. Casting a new Town Portal will close any other portals previously created by that character.

Scrolls of Identify are used on unidentified magically enchanted items, helping you decide whether to equip or sell them. When you use an Identify scroll, your cursor will change into a question mark. Move the cursor over an unidentified item and left-click to make the magical properties of the item appear in its description. Magic items cannot be used until they have been identified.


Town Portal


Using a Scroll of Town Portal opens up a portal near your character. This portal is a gateway to the nearest safe stronghold, town, or city. A portal remains active until your character re-enters it and returns to the place from which the portal was originally activated. Newly created portals will cancel out any portals previously cast by your character.

The destination of the Town Portal is listed above it, as is the name of the character who opened the Town Portal.

Town Portal use is restricted to party members only. Other players must join your party to use your Town Portal. Similarly, you must join a party before you can use other players' Town Portals.

If you go hostile with another player your Town Portal will close. You also will not be able to use the Town Portals of other players or Town Portals created by a Portal Shrine.

When fighting powerful bosses, Unique monsters, or huge groups of monsters, your character may wind up dying a lot. Have two party members cast Town Portal a few screens apart. If monsters begin to camp around or guard one Town Portal, you can enter using the other one. Party members can continue to use these portals without recasting, as long as the original Town Portal casters do not use their own portal when returning from town or create any new Town Portals. This method is very handy when you are low on Health Potions and need to return to town frequently to heal, refill Mana or buy more Healing Potions.

Remember to make sure that everyone in your party has used your Town Portal to return to battle before entering it yourself. Otherwise, you might close your Town Portal leaving someone in town. You do not want to have to use another Town Portal scroll to reunite your party.

When going through large areas between Waypoints, It is a good idea to open up a Town Portal as a quick escape route. You can use it to retreat from danger or to get back to your body much more quickly if you die.

Town Portals are also your best escape from other players who are trying to kill you. If a player turns Hostile on you, quickly use a Town Portal to escape to the safety of town if you want to avoid player-to-player combat.

Town Portal Restrictions

You cannot enter Town Portals cast by other players in areas beyond the "blocking quests" without having completed those quests: e.g., Canyon of the Magi/Seven Tombs/Duriel's Lair (The Summoner), The Harem/Palace Basement/Arcane Sanctuary (The Tainted Sun), Durance of Hate (The Blackened Temple), The Worldstone Keep (The Ancients), The Secret Cow Level (Terror's End in DII classic or Eve of Destruction in DII: LoD). NOTE: A player who kills the High Council (but doesn't use Khalim's Will to smash the Compelling Orb) may take a Town Portal into the Durance of Hate.

This is to prevent higher level players from helping lower level players to advance further in the game without working for it. If a player is unable to enter a portal, this means they need to complete a quest.

Identify

Identify scrolls are extremely important, as they enable your character to ascertain the properties of magically enchanted items, allowing him to equip and use those items. Right-click on an Identify scroll to activate it. The mouse cursor will change into a question mark. Move the cursor over the item in your inventory that you wish to identify and left click. The item's properties will now appear in its description.

Items that say Unidentified must be identified before you can equip them or see their stats.

Tomes (Books)


Tome of Town Portal: Designed to hold volumes of similar spells, each tome can store up to 20 scrolls of the same type. Vendors who sell scrolls generally sell tomes as well. Right-click on a tome to cast one of the scrolls stored within it. When a tome is empty, it remains in inventory until it is replenished with more scrolls, sold, dropped, or traded.


Tome of Identify: Add scrolls to a tome in your inventory or Stash by dropping the scroll directly onto the tome. Dropping one tome onto another consolidates both into a single tome.


You may also hotkey the use of a tome, so that, for example, when you click on your pre-selected hotkey, a single scroll from your tome will be used to cast Town Portal.

Fill Tome: By pressing the shift key while right-clicking on a scroll you want to buy, you automatically purchase enough scrolls to fill the first unfilled tome of that scroll type in your inventory.

Waypoints



The world of Sanctuary is huge, and often, great distances separate towns from their outlying regions. During the Sin War, the Horadrim devised a system of magic Waypoints to provide instant transport from one place to another. The magics at work have long since been forgotten, as the Horadric Magi have all but disappeared. However, these Waypoints remain as a legacy to the Horadrim's once-great power, and the value of these devices cannot be denied.

Within every town, and at various places throughout each Act there are Waypoints. Click on them to bring up the Waypoint Menu, displaying a list of destinations.

Waypoint Menu
This menu shows all possible locations to which you can travel. Be sure to click on Waypoints as you find them to add their location to your Waypoint Menu. The Waypoint destinations in gray text are ones you have not yet discovered and activated. You can jump to any Waypoint shown in blue text by clicking on its button in the Waypoint Menu. You may also access Waypoints from other Acts by using the Act Tab in this menu. Since Waypoints are saved with your character between games, they are a quick way to bypass areas you have already explored.
The most important thing to remember about Waypoints is to always activate new ones when you see them. Once you have clicked on a Waypoint, you will be able to move to that Waypoint from any other Waypoint.

Waypoints do not always look the same: The Horadrim Magi were wily, making some of the Waypoints difficult to recognize. Many of the Waypoints blend into their surroundings. Check your Automap often, as Waypoints are easy to spot on your Automap.

Party members do not share Waypoints with each other; however, players can help transport other players to a Waypoint's location by opening a Town Portal. Players who haven't activated that Waypoint location can now use this Town Portal to reach the undiscovered Waypoint. Once there, they can activate the Waypoint and add it to their own Waypoint lists.

When you use a Waypoint to switch between Acts, it is best to go first to the main town of the Act to which you are traveling. This way, you can safely load the Act in town, where you cannot be attacked. From there, you can use the Waypoint to go to other Waypoints in the Act.


The Belt

Belts play an important role in your character's survival. Designed to provide quick access to items, most belts contain multiple slots, loops, and cords from which to suspend potions and other vital items. The larger a belt then the more potions and scrolls it can store. Wearing a sash or larger belt expands the initial four-slot capacity of your character's belt by adding one or more extra rows of four slots. While only four slots are normally displayed on the Interface Bar, you can access the additional slots by highlighting any of the visible belt slots or by pressing the tilde ("~") key to toggle the belt open and closed.

You can drink a potion from your belt by right-clicking on the potion. Also, each occupied belt slot has a number, from 1-4. Pressing one of these hot keys is a fast way to drink a potion without having to click on it.

Larger belts have other advantages. When you drink a potion or read a scroll, the item above it drops down to replace the consumed item. If you have a potion or scroll in a hot key slot and you pick up another of the same type, the new item automatically stacks above the first one. This continues until the column is full. If there is no more room on the belt, the item is placed in your backpack.

Health, Mana, and Rejuvenation potions are automatically placed in the belt when picked up. You can also place scrolls of Identify and Town Portal, as well as the other drinkable potions, in your belt. However, items like scrolls are not automatically placed in your belt unless there is a matching item in one of your four hot key slots and there is an empty slot above the one with the matching item.

Holding down SHIFT and RIGHT-Clicking, when buying Health Potions, auto-fills any empty slots in the belt. This also applies to buying scrolls of Town Portal and Identify.

Holding down SHIFT and LEFT-Clicking on Health, Mana and Rejuvenation potions in inventory, will auto-move them to the appropriate column in your belt.

Holding down SHIFT and a Hot Key (1-4) or Right-Clicking on Health, Mana and Rejuvenation potions in the Belt, will give the Potion to the player's Hireling if the player has one.


Dungeon Randomization

Although many dungeons and areas have random layouts, some areas will always be the same. Here are some (not all) of the areas with the same layout:

Caves 2 (Cold Plains)
Forgotten Tower Level V (actually 2 variations)
Inner Cloister
Cathedral
Tristram
Catacombs Level 4
Some levels of the Palace
Duriel's lair
Sewer Level II
Kurast Causeway
Travincal
Durance of Hate level 3
The Chaos Sanctuary (last part)
Nihlathak's Temple
Arreat Summit
Throne of Destruction
The World Stone Chamber

 

Very nice guide. Manny thx