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OK, recently some questions have come up concerning death and death items. I'm gonna throw down some basic info on how not to lose stuff you love and hope that others add suggestions as well.
First, finding that pesky corpse: In a dungeon, not a problem (at least you know the search area), but what about out in the wilds? Three things will help - run with the map up, take a screenshot if you are about to die (this will have your coords on it) and, if you are really bad at this and tend to lose a lot of corpses this way, use ACTracker from http://www.geocities.com/asherontracker/ to note your current location. Honestly, I don't use autorun at all on laggy days just to avoid the "I got dropped but my avatar kept running" thing. [Now with the new "death coords", this isn't as much of an issue, but the dreaded lag death may leave you without the handy message, so this is still relevant.]
OK, the corpse is missing and you have no clue where. What do you tell the search party? First, your starting and ending objectives are helpful. Not much folks can do with "I was just wandering around near a big hill". Try to at least note your current direction when you start to die or lose connection. Look for landmarks and types of spawns (note - the rarer the critter, the better). Note your time of death! If someone has to camp your corpse for you, the closer you can get to the time of decay, the less time they are gonna spend doing something boring AND dangerous. Corpses last a minimum of an hour now at all levels, 5 minutes per level in general. [Again, the corpse coords will eliminate much of this, but lag deaths won't, so these are good rules of thumb to live by]
When you start running a grid for the body, spread the party out so that each is barely on the radar of the next - you can cover a huge amount of area that way. Use the bracket keys to search the ground as you go. When you find the corpse, send YOUR coordinates to the rest of the party BEFORE going up to the corpse - if something spawns on top of you, that's just two corpses lying in an unknown location.
As to death items - this is expensive stuff designed to drop when you die. It should be pricey and have little, if any, actual use. Master robes are the most common type of death item (about 50k from the three racial archmages) and the archmage portal gems are climbing in popularity (22k from the same three mages). Expensive jewelry and orbs that have dorky (or no) spells on them are good as well (commonly called ubertrash) since drops are generally your most expensive items from a series of categories (armor, jewelry, weapons, cash, misc). The best death items are very expensive and very light (a ring over a gorget, a robe over an extra piece of armor, etc.). Greater mana stones or charges are also good, particulary at low to mid levels; I prefer charges in case I accidently use one I don't wipe out a cherished and needed piece of gear.
Orbs, wands, staffs, daggers are good for the weapon category as are the Orb
of Black Fire and Virindi wand.
Master robes are the way to go for armor.
I keep a small number of pyreals on me - it always drops. [And now that pyreals
are weightless, you have no excuses]
Portal gems, mana charges/stones, atlan glyphs I categorize as misc - I am dropping
portal gems with almost every death now, BUT they are notoriously unreliable
for covering high ticket armor and weapons. Remember, items drop in categories
- gems are hardly armor, so get some master robes to cover that uber hauberk
or perfectly matched Amuli.
Rings, light bracelets, light necklaces - higher in value than the ones you
need. Obsidian rings generally drop well through your 30's until you start using
those pricy Vs.
A few more things of note - the higher you are in level, the more you drop. Try to add death items as you go and keep ahead. Nothing like having that first 7-8 item drop and finding your Item orb gone (voice of experience). If you are going somewhere particularly risky, take enough for a couple of deaths since there is no guarantee of recovering the first before you die again. Also, when retrieving a corpse GET THE NON-PURCHASABLE ITEMS FIRST! Most folks go for those expensive master robes, but they can be bought with little or no effort other than raising the cash - expensive jools and orbs are rarer and you gotta find 'em, so grab them first. Don't automatically sell loot - look to see if it is worth more as a death item to you. If you can't appraise the value, drop it in the window by itself and see if it might be worth hanging onto.
Death items that I currently carry (as an example) - 5 master robes, a 20k heavy necklace (Mana C V, high diff), a 10K necklace (Person Attunement II), a 10K orb (Mana C III), 2 Mayoi Mage portal gems, a 7K bracelet (Fealty IV), White Virindi Wand, Obsidian Ring, and a small stack of pyreals. My last few drops have ranged from 5-7 items at level 48. [This has changed in my 50s - I carry an entire pack of DIs including 8 master robes, 2 20K portal gems, a series of 10K+ wands and jewels, etc.]
Finally, no drops and corpse retrieval gear. It really sucks to have your only orb drop and be grubbing around for something to cast with or lose that bow when your corpse is in the middle of a group of mobs. Ditto arriving at the LS with nothing below the waist or losing your shoes when what killed you was a rat. The Impious Staff, the composite bow/xbow, Atlan and ravenous weapons, GSA/C/K, MSA/C/K will make your life easier by at least maintaining the ability to fight back. Other useful items are a Frore robe (for folks with Item) or a hooded Faran (all mages should carry a spare)and some light shirt/pant combos. Hooded robes cover all but your hands and can be buffed to a reasonable level of protection. Ditto for shirts and pants.
[Addendum] With the new permits, corpse loss on quests has dropped dramatically and you can now uber buff a high level with permits to go get your stuff from that big pile of orange dots you landed in. This is a great feature, but DON'T rely on it to the point that you neglect DIs or your ability to recover your own corpse. If it is 4 am and you have insomnia, you really don't want your prized axe/wand/bow laying in the middle of the plains while you try and find someone to make a suicide run for it.
To do permits, the other person must first consent to looting corpses in general. They do this by typing /consent on (reverse is /consent off). You may then permit them to loot ONE of your corpses by typing /permit add [char name]. This gives them one hour to loot one corpse. If you have multiple, you must give them new permits AFTER each corpse has been looted. Very important - you can give permits and log off - they will remain in place, BUT, if the person you permitted logs off, they are lost. Make sure this is understood before you leave a corpse to head to the local barbershop that the other person should NOT do a bit of muling before collecting the crumpled heap that used to be you.
For more info on death recovery, there is a nice (but OLD) article on the zone at http://zone.msn.com/asheronscall/tips/ashetipsdying.asp
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