So you want to level up a new character, have fun and make money in the process? Follow along with us, this is how we do it (written by Dr Doom, and tested by Wand of Chaos HG).
Goals
Let's start out with some goals.
Goal number one, have fun. If you're not having fun, what's the point?
Goal number two, level up - this goal goes hand in hand with goal number one. Leveling is fun. Being stuck at the same level for a long time, not so fun.
Goal number three, obtain gear, items and MMDs.
Assumptions
We're going to assume that:
You have high-level buffs available, such as from a buff bot or a friend. If not, you're probably not going to be able to follow this guide.
You have some sort of housing so that you can put the stuff you get into storage. If you do not have a house, then you can 'mule' your items to a second character. Do not try and carry everything you get on your one character, you will become burdened and die more easily.
You actively kill enemies, loot corpses, pick up select items off of corpses and you have enough pack space to hold said items.
If you want to do any crafting, you pick up all crafting items and crafting-training items such as Gromnie Teeth and Siraluun Claws.
If you want to do any tinkering you pick up and process salvage.
You check weapons and armor on corpses as you go and actively upgrade your gear.
You keep up on supplies such as mana stones/charges, spell components, fletching supplies, etc.
You spend your experience points to raise your stats and your skills in an efficient manner as you go.
You train skills that will help you be effective, and you get Item Enchantment at some point so you can use portal spells.
You choose a melee and/or missile specialization that reflects what weapon you wish to concentrate on. See Weapon Mastery for details.
Preparation
Start by creating your character and exiting the training dungeon (either do the training dungeon or just skip it altogether).
Follow the directions given to you by the game - talk to the people in the blue armor, buy the contracts from the barkeep.
Once you have the contracts, talk to the Pathwarden and give them your Pathwarden Token. Get all of the gear out of the chest.
If you are a mage or an archer, wear the robe and the gauntlets (and the helm if your robe doesn't have a cowl).
All other characters should wear the armor.
Make sure you equip the Pathwarden Trinket. If you are unable to activate it, then put it on after you are buffed.
Turn the rest of the Pathwarden gear that you are not using back to the Pathwarden NPC.
Buy some Health, Stamina and/or Mana potions from one of the local healers.
If your character is a mage or archer, you'll need to get supplied.
Archers should buy blunt and armor piercing bundles of arrowheads, and some bundles of arrowshafts (quarrels if xbow, atlatl dartshafts if thrown).
You will also need a weapon:
A rended, non-weild requirement weapon is best. Bludgeon, Slashing or Critical Strike rends will be most effective.
Surprisingly, the Explorer weapons are great starter weapons because they all have Biting Strike. The wiki currently does not reflect this for many of the weapons, and the Explorer wands has not been verified yet.
For Heavy (Unarmed), Missile (Thrown) and Two-handed characters a better bet may be the weapons you get from doing the Frest Greevling's Haunted Mansion quest. These also have Biting Strike or Crushing Blow. You will be getting other weapons later, but for now if you have at least Biting Strike (or Crushing Blow) on a weapon you are ahead of the game.
Make sure you use your Blackmoor's Favor gem at the start and after you die each time.
Go and use a Buffbot to get level 7 spells, or ask your friendly neighborhood mage to buff you. If you don't know how to use a Buffbot, just tell them 'help'. Make sure you keep an eye on your buffs and get rebuffed as needed.
Standard Actions
Kill enemies as you go through the quests. You don't have to kill everything, but you should be killing at least some of them. Certain dungeons are easy to just run all the way through - this can be more fun but less profitable.
Loot as you go:
Many armor pieces you loot will be worth a lot of pyreal. Also head, feet and hand clothing is generally worth a lot (even non-magical clothing). An item is worth picking up if the value of the item is at least ten-times the burden of the item. For example, if a breastplate weighs 1000 burden, then it should be worth at least 10,000 pyreal.
Also watch for special drop items. For example when first starting out pick up all items such as Lucky Gold Letters, Coalesced Mana and Phyntos Wasp Wings. These types of items can earn you extra experience points or assist you in quests. This walk through does not include turning-in any of these items for experience but feel free to do so.
Keep three special items in reserve for the Assassin's Roost Quest. These items are Drudge Charms, Mud Golem Hearts and Green Phyntos Wasp Wings. Drudges are plentiful so don't worry about charms as much, but if you see any Mud Golems or Green Phyntos Wasps as you travel, make sure that you always kill and loot them. Note: if you are killing a Sludge Lord, always kill the Mud Golems around it first or you will not be able to loot them.
Contracts
Buy contracts from the starter towns and from the barkeeps in the Town Network. You can only have 100 active at a time, so only buy ones that require you to be less than level 100 or so to start.
For repeatable quests that don't have contracts yet, be sure and manually track their timers in your journal.
Starting Out: Leveling to 10
The first quests you do are not important, you just need to get to at least level 10. There are many Starter Quests that you can do, but I suggest The Missing Necklace, The Beacon and Alfrin's Stolen Supplies, since these are quick, easy and give you the needed experience points.
You don't have to do every quest with every character. You can get all of the items ahead of time with a different character (some need Ivory salvage added) and just turn-them-in on each character to level up. When you combine the turn-ins with the Tusks and Pincers you are able to get to the next section of the Facility Hub. If you decide to go the turn-in route, some quests you will need to do regardless:
Always do Dagger of Tikola - once you know the route it's a fast run through the dungeon and you need the shard of metal in the final chest on each character for Bur flagging anyway. See Asheron's Departure Lower for details.
Do Mines of Colier if you are a crafting character (cooking, lockpick, alchemy or fletching) - there is a stone at the end of this dungeon that you will want to collect for the Crafting Golems quest.
For Tibri's Fire Spear - you don't have to collect the spear with each person, but go through the portal and hand it to Tibri with each character. She doesn't keep the spear, she just gives you xp.
Always do Lilitha's Bow - there is a good chance you will find a Contact Instructions in Hunter's Leap when you do this quest, so do it with every character. The enemies are also great experience and drop valuable gear, and there are three chests that spawn items at the end. If you have lockpick there are two more chests guarded by a Lich and a Lich Lord that you can reach after the room with the three chests and the broken bow. If you are an archer character, the bow is great at 110% and Biting Strike. If not you can turn in the bow after the Hub reward for even more experience.
Always do Mi Krau-Li's Jitte - you have to do this with each character since the turn-in item isn't ivoryable, but for finesse (mace) characters this weapon (especially the remastered version) is a must-have.
Always do Mountain Sewer - make sure each character goes down and gets a portal gem for Bur flagging. See Asheron's Departure Lower for details.
For Branith's Stolen Possessions - Branith's Staff from this quest has Biting Strike so it's good for starter mages.
For Haunted Mansion - the reward weapons have either Biting Strike or Crushing Blow, so are good for starter two-handers, heavy (unarmed) and missile (thrown) weapon characters. The housing item Evil Couch is also located here.
Leveling to 40 and then 45
If you haven't reached level 40 by this point, here are some quests you can run to get there:
If you found a Contact Instructions in Hunter's Leap it is a good time to do the beginning of the Assassin's Roost Quest. If you didn't find instructions, then you can camp Hunter's Leap to get one - it doesn't take long to get one to drop.
The Simulacra Infiltrators quest now grants up to 7 million experience points. But don't turn in the last shard until you have to - save it for use at 44 to get you to 45.
This is a good time to finish Asheron's Departure Lower, the turn-ins will give you a few million experience points.
These quests won't level you much, but they are fun and you end up with some great items:
Elysa's Favor Quest - this quest's reward ring grants 1 minor spell and +15 health, plus it's a fun quest. Also if you're wearing the Baron's necklace for +15 health, you'll want to free up your necklace slot by switching to this ring.
Ulgrim's Casting Stein is a fast and easy quest which grants you a stein with Stamina to Mana - very handy if you are a non-mage and buffing your armor.
If you are doing any crafting there are a number of quests you can do regularly to up your skills. See Category:Crafting Quest for a list of quests.
Also if you are crafting then the Focusing Stone is invaluable. You can solo this quest if you have the lockpick skill and there is an item for the Crafting Golems quest there.
