QCF Design Community

Agreed; fire heart the better item now since it's more beneficial at lower levels. Still might purchase a battlemage ring at higher levels, but it's not doing nearly enough in the early-game to be worthwhile as a preparation.

I've actually put the Vampiric Blade back in my locker. I'd booted it out earlier since it absolutely sucks for higher-level characters, but with many of the better options now gone it's making a comeback for me. Combine it with the shield (-2 damage) and you're able to absorb 7 points of punishment as a 1st level character. Great combo with poison, healing, or resistances, but becomes horribly insignificant after you've gained a few levels. Too bad it doesn't combo with the Earthmother, otherwise I could literally see tanking level 5's and 6's as a level 2 character... uh, I'm gunna go play a Paladin with a vampiric blade and go scum for Earthmother now, I SO wanna do this.

Awesome idea! I haven't had the blade in my locker for ages, but I don't know what to boot...
(Orb of Zot, Keg of Mana, Trisword)

I'd boot trisword, personally. Although with halflings and a keg of health that could be a pretty solid item... ugh, just so many combos I wanna play, but so much scumming to locker the requisite items over and over again.

My locker is currently Fire Heart, Dragon Shield, Vampiric Blade, Avatar's Symbol, Battlemage Ring (gunna dump it), and Mageplate (also gunna dump it; was trying out some PISORF-based tacitcs).

Fire heart is terrible! 3 extra damage at max! Why would you ever?

Ohhhh.... my mistake.....

Elven Boots are awesome for a Paladin! Gets rid of their only weakness! (Magic attacks)

I still say Dragon Shield is the best choice for paladin. You get magic resist and you boost their physical resist almost up to the same level as monks. Still, if you can buy elven boots on top of that, then great

Exactly what I did, I bought them!

Well, mucking around with Amulet of Yendor and Orb of Zot is an effective cash sink if you locker them. Both have been proving useful in some tricky situations. (Orb of Zot was a big help for Complicated Tasks pt. 5, since it interacts with berserk thresholds).