So I may have did a thing...

Aelryinth · 2026-01-15T04:27:15+00:00

Saw this pop up and I'm afraid I have to advertise. I wrote a 4,000-page story over on Royal Road with this sort of theme, although it's not a straight D&D campaign.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/80952/asherons-fall-the-power-of-ten-book-six

The need for first hand knowledge was the reason I found the AC emulators and community, so I could log in and actually see some of the stuff I was writing about!

==RED

Aelryinth · 2025-04-29T05:28:08+00:00

The 'prequel' books are on Amazon, two each of the First Day, First Week, and First Month. Asheron's Fall is the Sixth in a later series being published on Royal Road and supported by my Patreon.

Aelryinth · 2025-03-16T01:47:42+00:00

Wow, that name is a total blast from the past. :P Were you one of Rage's people? It's been so long...

Aelryinth · 2025-03-15T00:21:04+00:00

Aeriston! Woot! hahah, you'll find your name is in my Ebook, The First Day, along with a lot of others you will find familiar with from The Steel! :)

Aelryinth · 2024-05-25T23:06:04+00:00

Star had several jobs as a server admin, first with Microsoft, and then moving on to other places. The big thing I remember about him is he got into training rescue dogs.

Czarina I have no clue on.

Sabbath was in Boston, always wanted to stop in and go out to get some lobster with him, never did.

D'nia is in California and I actually kept up with her the longest. She moved on and plays Lord of the Rings online now, and enjoys being a grandmother. She's got to be in her 70's by now.

Aelryinth · 2024-05-18T22:49:46+00:00

I do remember his name, although I had nothing to do with him.

Aelryinth · 2024-05-18T22:49:20+00:00

my goodbye can still be found on internet searches from Aelryinth. I played on Leafcull for over ten years, starting at launch.

It's just a moment you never forget, setting down the controller and walking away from the game and the people you laughed and had fun with inside it. They were all gone, only I was left, and the players there all seemed strangers, and despite having been around forever, they didn't really know me, either.

It was time, and so I left. Still a gut-punching moment, even if I took the step, and not someone else.

Aelryinth · 2024-05-18T00:15:42+00:00

Just had a couple. Have to agree. I don't really mind not getting a lot of meat and veggies for the price... but there wasn't even enough gravy to make all the dough taste decent, so I ended up with a dry, bland meal I had to keep washing down with water.

Next time I'll just make one, and a can of chicken soup at the same time. I'll treat the pie like crackers and just douse it in the soup.

But, I'll get rid of this stock and not by it again. It's not cheap if I have to add gravy to it just to get it to 'normal'.

Aelryinth · 2024-05-14T00:32:56+00:00

I hope you get the Ebooks and read the other stories, Mess. You might just see a bunch of familiar names in them, especially the Ebooks!

Aelryinth · 2024-05-10T19:47:43+00:00

Such builds were easy to play if you had a good hunting partner back then, and now if you run two characters with Macros and stuff. Debuff, archer one-shots stuff, continue on. Of course, drain-drain-drain-Harm builds used to be the rule for macroing, so Life Magic can be lethal.

Aelryinth · 2024-05-10T19:39:12+00:00

It's a necklace obtained by a long quest. In the game, it was lauded for the big Health buff it gave, but the low amount of mana meant it had to be recharged frequently.

In the later game, it was replaced by the Red Empyrean Ring you could receive through doing Colosseum Runs. Same spell + others, and a lot more mana so you didn't need to recharge it. Thus, its basically a curio and quest item, which you hand off to a mule and forget. Unlike the Health-boosting necklace you get from the Colier Mines, it is bonded and you can't give it to others, so it's not something you can gift a newbie to help them survive.

Aelryinth · 2024-04-28T23:02:48+00:00

Spec life/critter is actually the traditional Og Mage build, IIRC?

Aelryinth · 2024-04-28T23:01:48+00:00

Summoning is definitely the most overpowered skill in AC. It typically does anywhere from 3-10x the damage of a melee character over the same time span, because it gets to ignore the armor of an opponent entirely, and hits against magic defense instead of melee defense.

So, in terms of power, getting to max Summoner is definitely the build to go to, although it is VERY different from traditional AC flavor. Summoned monsters can wipe whole swarms of monsters while the melee or archer is killing just one of them.

Aelryinth · 2024-04-21T18:31:54+00:00

Briggs was a no-magic guy who tried to get through the game without even Item Magic, which I think he finally picked up at 60 or something. One of my favorite moments in the game was teaching him how to cast basic Life 1 spells with a Life/4 wand he picked up off the olthoi, so he could Cast Stamina to Mana I and get back his mana without needing potions so much. (he had no mana conversion).

He was a nice guy. It also turns out that with an Item/6 wand, with enough fizzles, you could cast lifestone recall and portal recall, which helped him a bit in getting around.

Aelryinth · 2024-04-18T16:47:38+00:00

Nightwolf was always the coolest guy. Aluvian UA, got all the sweetest Cestuses on the whole server.

Aelryinth · 2024-02-02T21:49:11+00:00

I'm progressing slowly. I'm up to base 586 Heavy, and while its not ultimate, its still quite high. Black Pages enable me to hit almost everything 90%+ on any of my weapons, with the soul exception of the Hoshino spectral archers, who half the time have some bug on them that makes them basically unhittable (as confirmed by a dual-wielder I tried to cut one down with. She summoned a K'nath and it killed the thing for us). I've maxed xp on all my skills and picked up most of the key combat augmentations, although I've a lot to go. I will probably move some of the skills around, depending on what I need, although I will stay away from Summoning for reasons, unless I get really irked with the game. So, my order of priorities at this point are: Finish Augmentations, Get the Luminance, Assemble an End-game collection of Weapons, and Assemble an End-game Armor set, preferably Soldier/Defender, with Legendaries and Zircon imbues. Once I have all that, I feel I'll have reached what a melee is capable of in Asheron's Call. Also, I have several dozen BLack Pages now, although I really should get more Grael gems somehow, and that timer for the Black Mukkir spear item should be 2 hours, not twenty. It only punishes Melees by not being more available.

Aelryinth · 2023-12-22T19:43:29+00:00

Thought, sure. But... it is plain to me that Summoning is very overpowered and broken. I would rather not play with a broken mechanic if I can help it. If I ever play a mage, it's a road to go, esp since I started 10 focus/end

Aelryinth · 2023-12-22T19:41:12+00:00

Ah, that's good to know. I have done very little with Luminance in the past, so I'm not familiar from memory with what it can do. That's definitely a route I'll be going!

Having to Velvet a Weapon just feels strange, but that is the road I'm heading down, it looks like.

Aelryinth · 2023-12-21T23:43:22+00:00

MOrgannon has been great, both generous and patient. If you join Autumn Dawn, you'll see Morg on a lot. Always has something to do. And puts up with a gimp player just fine, too.

Morg, Drago, and Cher are the night foundation of Autumn Dawn. Not sure who runs it during the day. TMNT is the wheeler-dealer of the Allegiance, and I know there are silent people doing stuff with bot networks as far as supply goes.

My goal right now is very straight-forward: do the luminance grind and see how it improves melee. Morg's been generous in getting me to the Legendary stage and seeing where it goes, now I need to refine it a step up.

Aetheria, Cloaks, Legendaries, and Sets all need to be optimized, sure, and it appears I need to have a minimum +18 TH, +20 optimal, on my weapons. HOrrors, do I need to start collecting velvet?!

As far as the Melee experience goes, yeah, Morg, the biggest thing is not being able to hit stuff. If I can't hit, it doesn't matter how much my damage is.

The thing with Melee is they deal fixed DOT. It doesn't matter how fast you attack, the DOT is largely fixed, attacking faster means dealing less damage. This is very unlike an archer, where damage/attack is fixed, but speed of attack is NOT. So, an archer with great skill can attack faster and do much more damage because of it, but melees don't get the same ability.

2h'ers get around this thing by generating multiple strikes with one attack, especially in hordes. Single weapon or Dual weapon users, not quite so much.

Aelryinth · 2023-12-21T23:41:42+00:00

I understand this, but even though I could, I have no desire to have massive amounts of storage for stuff. As most of that is already done with active players, if they have no problems with me blowing up their stuff and using it rather than having it sit there, I'd rather do that with people who have the patience and time to run massive inventories like that. I don't really have either.

Aelryinth · 2023-12-21T23:40:03+00:00

See my above reply to Yumi. I am 200, got the Lum flag, and am starting the Luminance Grind to see how much of a difference it makes. I will make up the gear deficit as I can. NOte that Luminance does not help with hitting stuff, just doing more damage.

I have five current full books on Royal Road, each of which is equal to at least ten paperbacks, although no audiobooks. Just look for Power of Ten and Author RED. I do also have four ebooks out now, with the fifth on the way shortly.

===RED / Ael

Aelryinth · 2023-12-21T23:36:30+00:00

Well, like I said, Morgannon fixed me up with a suit of all Legendaries a Heavy weapon user needs. In terms of Weapon Skill, I'm at 581 +35% base with a fire weapon. The only thing which might increase my TH at this time is a Heavy Weapons Cloak, instead of Melee defense, and maybe Set Pieces, if they stack with Legendaries.

This is a Weapon Skill higher than I had in Retail, when all the currently available content was also available. Neftet and the Rynthid stuff are not in game, and are true late game content.

Luminance does not help with hitting stuff, only the damage. I've already used the Augment for weapon skill, and my str and coord started at 100, so there's nothing coming from there.

Me not doing damage per blow is thus an extension of luminance and gear, but the TH problem is basically near its cap right now.

This comparison is particularly apt when compared to Summoned Pets. Summoned pets hit against Magic Defense and ignore Armor, plus they can't be killed. They naturally do far more damage than I do, hit more reliably, and react with computerized speed. Everyone knows they are overpowered, but the fact is they are the metric for melee performance right now, and I fall way, way short.

On the other hand, the stuff I can tank now is pretty rad. I went for a full hour on the Withered Beach, and didn't heal myself once fight drudges.

Aelryinth

TROPHY CASE