Legacy of the Horadrim
quatl@hotmail.com
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LotH Readme
Last Updated for LotH(v) v1.6A
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Future releases, patches, and discussion of the mod can be found here:
http://phrozenkeep.it-point.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=151
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Legacy of the Horadrim is a mod for Diablo II Lord of Destruction v1.10(final)
LotH allows you to create your own character class by selecting any combination of
skills you desire.  To support your custom class you can enchant items in virtually 
any way you wish,limited only by character level and available gold.
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System Requirements:
Any Windows PC that can run Diablo II
Diablo 2 LOD v1.10(final) (Expansion is required)

If you don't have access to v1.10 dlls you can find them here:
http://phrozenkeep.it-point.com/forum/dload.php?action=file&file_id=1157

You can find additional Utilities for running multiple versions of D2 on 
one machine here:
http://phrozenkeep.it-point.com/forum/dload.php?action=category&cat_id=16
(several people have recommended "Iowan's Mod Launcher v1.04" for this.
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Installation:
Unzip this archive into your Diablo 2 directory
This will create a LotH(V) folder, containing the following files:

Readme.txt (this file)
 - Legacy of the Horadrim (shortcut)
 - D2mod.ini
 - PlugY.ini
 - D2gfx.dll
 - PlugY.dll
 - Utility.dll
 - NewTxt.dll
 - SklTree.dll
 - SkillShort.dll
 - msvcrtd.dll
 - MercMod.dll
 - CharStart.dll
 - d2Mod.dll
 - D2ModSetup.bat
 - Data (folder)
 - PlugY (folder)
 - Note: The LotH(V) folder should be inside the D2 folder 
 - "c:\Program Files\Diablo II\LotH(V)" for example

Copy the shortcut from the LotH Dir to your desktop (or wherever you find convenient) 
and edit it's properties to reflect your D2 installation directory 
make sure to change "Start in" path so it points to:

[your d2 dir]\LotH(V)  (for example "c:\Program Files\Diablo II\LotH(V)")

If necessary, change the "target" to point to your Diablo II folder:

"[your d2 dir]\Diablo II.exe" /mod:LotH(V) -direct -txt

Copy d2Mod.dll and D2ModSetup.bat to your Diablo II folder.  Run D2ModSetup.bat to install D2Mod. 

(This will alter your D2 Installation so that D2Mod can load the plugins used by LotH. To 
remove it simply run D2ModSetup.bat again.)
 
Use the shortcut to start the game.
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Quick Start for Folks who hate to read:

1: Create a new character
 - class choice has very little effect in LotH so pick one you think is fun.
2: Open your Inventory, then open your Horadric cube
3: Place the "Horadric Tome" and the "Cupric Orb of Binding" in the cube and combine
4: Open your Character window and spend your stat points
5: When you reach level two and gain your first skill point see Gheed in town about skills
6: Place the skill scroll (/book/tablet/whichever) in the Cube with the Tome and combine
5: Read the rest of the manual ;)

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Skills and The Horadric Tome:

Skills work a bit different in Legacy of the Horadrim.  Skills are not learned from the skill tree panel, but rather by using items. 

You begin the game with a Horadric Tome.  The Tome represents your character's knowledge.  You use the Tome to learn a new spell or technique, or to increase the level of knowledge of those you've already learned.

Adding or enhancing a skill requires a scroll or book containing the knowledge you desire.  Scrolls may be purchased in town, usually from the person who offers gambling.

Before you can add a skill to the Tome you must bind it to yourself using the "Cupric Orb of Binding".  New characters start with this object, as well as two other orbs.  These other two are needed once you reach a higher difficulty level.  You should store them in a safe place until then.  To bind the tome (or increase the power of the bond in Nightmare or Hell, difficulty) simply combine the Orb and the Tome in the Horadric Cube.

Once the Tome has been Bonded, you will see a few new properties on the Tome's description: "Bond of Destiny" tells you that the Tome has been bonded successfully.  The Tome will also show "+1 Pact of the Horadrim."  The pact discourages those who try to wield more than one Tome (in other words cheaters.)

After Binding the Tome you can Add Skills if you have an available Skill Point, and meet the requirements of the skill you want to add.  

To add the skill you combine the scroll with The Horadric Tome, in the Cube.  If you qualify the skill knowledge will be added. The skill's icon will appear in the speed bar. Each skill point added increases the Knowledge Level requirement of The Tome by one.  Skills also add to the level requirement of the tome (in a way that is equivalent to vanilla D2's Skill System.)

In order to qualify for adding a given skill bonus you (and the Tome) must meet some requirements.  Firstly your character's level must equal or exceed the level requirement of the skill.  Each skill is also capped to a maximum of level 20, so trying to exceed this rank will cause the combine to fail. 

In addition, for mechanical reasons, some skills are restricted to certain classes only:

Barbarian Only:
 - Double Throw
 - Whirlwind

Assassin or Barbarian:
 - Double Swing 
 - Frenzy 
(Note: Double Swing looks odd when used but, it does deal proper damage.)
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Character Classes, and player stats:

There are none, really.  All character classes have access to the same skills, and gain the same benefit from the various attributes.  All classes fight as well as each other, move at the same speed, drain and regenerate stamina at the same rate, and mana at the same speed.  Don't feel like you have to play a Paladin in order to use auras, or a Sorceress in order to cast spells effectively.  Unlike in the regular game any class can be effective with any type of skills you wish.

There are still some differences, see the section about the Horadric Tome for some of them.  The others are animation speeds, some classes are faster or slower than others when casting, or wielding different types of weapons.

Be careful about assumptions you might have from playing vanilla Diablo II.  Classes previously had vary different rates of mana per Int and Hps per Vit.  Most classes now gain significantly less of one or both!  You will need to invest points in one or both of these in order to survive.

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Skill Affinity and Skill Performance:

Affinities are the most dramatic difference between LotH and other flavors of Diablo II.  Affinities influence nearly every aspect of the game, so it's helpful to understand what they are and how they work.  Affinities fulfill the roles that both mastery skills and skill synergies do in other flavors of Diablo II.  

Affinities come from your skills.  If you look at the description of a skill book or scroll you will see a line like this:

Affinity: Bolt; Elemental Fire; Evocation

These are the skill's Affinities. Every skill has three of these.  When you learn a skill your character also gains a point in each of it's Affinities.  Each skill in turn draws power from it's Affinities as well.  Fire Bolt for example does more damage for every point of "Elemental Fire", "Bolt" and "Evocation" Affinity your character possesses.  By focusing your skill choices into various affinity groups your character becomes more potent.  

One way to think of Affinities is that they are like synergies, however this view is over simplified.  The connection between a skill and it's affinities is far more intimate.  For most skills the skill-level isn't a factor in the skill's performance at all. It is the combined level of the character's Affinity for the skill that determines damage or range or any other quantity of the skill's performance.

For example, lets say you have two characters "Firebolticus" and "Spellcasticor".  FireBolticus has ten levels of Fire Bolt and nothing else.  Mean while Spellcasticor has only one level of Fire Bolt but his other skill Affinities (along with those from Fire Bolt) have ended up granting him 10 Fire Affinity, 10 Bolt Affinity and 10 Evocation.  Both of these characters Firebolts will do the same damage!  

The story is more complex for other skills but the principle is the same.  This may tempt some of you to invest heavily in one or a few skills.  This would be a mistake in the long run.  The way Affinities overlap ends up rewarding moderate variety over "one trick ponies."  If you pick a set of thematically linked skills your affinities should take care of them selves.  Of course for those of you who enjoy min-maxing, there's plenty of room in LotH for you to express that aspect of your selves.

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Skill Affinity and Items:

Affinities are also important for equipment, in particular for melee and ranged weapon based characters.  

Weapons:
Weapon mastery is a factor of your affinities and the weapons themselves.  All weapons grant the appropriate mastery skill, which draws it's potency directly from weapon oriented affinities.  Specifically Melee, Ranged, Thrown, Prowess, and Alacrity Affinities influence your weapon damage directly through these masteries.  

The skill tree interface has place holders for these skills, which will show your current effectiveness with various weapon types as you hover your mouse over there icons.

Note that while each sword (for example) grants 1 point of sword mastery, wielding two swords at once does NOT increase the stats you gain from weapon mastery.  Only the Affinities are important.

Armor:
Light armors in LotH grant Dodge, Avoid, Evade in proportion to Affinities, while medium and heavy armors grant physical damage reduction, but also penalize your speed.

There are also several magic modifiers that grant various benifits derived from one Affinity or another.  For example: +Damage to Demons (Based on Conjuration), and +Fire Resist (Based on Elemental Fire) among many others.

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Item Crafting:

The crafting system in LotH utilizes Quintessence and Reagents. Quintessence represents the alchemical potential 
that reagents shape into specific magical effects.  Only an item with available quintessence can be further enchanted.  You can think of Quintessence as "enchantment points."

Adding quintessence to an item is simple.  You must obtain a Spectral Elixir, and combine it with an item in the 
Horadric Cube.  Spectral Elixirs can be purchased from the gamble screen in town, or found (rarely) in treasure.
Any equipable item may be enhanced.  Alchemical enhancements stack with any existing enhancements from other sources, such as magic prefixes or Unique Items.

The amount of Quintessence an item receives is dependent on your character's level. As your character gains in power so to will the power of items they can create increase as well.  The rate that this grows in not linear, so  a level 50 character will create items with much more than 50 times the quintessence a 1st level character can produce.

Combining an Alchemical Reagent with an item that has sufficient Quintessence available will add the Reagent's effect to the item.  Most reagents will stack, that is by repeatedly applying the same reagent you will gain an increase in effect's power.  Each Reagent lists the amount of Quintessence required in it's description.

Note: As a shortcut, you can combine five of the same reagent with an item for five times the effect (for effects that stack,) the quintessence cost is five times normal as well.
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Sockets and Gems:

Most gem properties have been changed, and several new gems have been added.  Gem level requirements have been altered.  They now roughly follow skill tiers.  Chipped require level 6, Flawed level 12, etc through Perfect gems at level 36.

Gloves, boots, and helms can spawn with sockets. Boots gain effects as shields, gloves as weapons, and helms as torso armor.

It is possible to remove and reuse items from sockets.  Purchase a Jeweler's Hammer from any gem dealer, and combine it with a socketed item to remove the gems from the sockets. (Note: If the gems cannot fit in the cube with the item they will be lost. Be careful with 2x4 size items)

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Hirelings:

Hirelings have the same equipment slots as player characters.  Paying attention to equipping your hireling properly will increase their effectiveness greatly.  Don't forget that you can Alchemicaly enhance their equipment as well as your own.

Hirelings will in general level faster, keeping pace with your characters level.  They are also more effective in certain situations than you may be used to (especially against bosses.) Treat them as a partner, and you will be rewarded.

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Critters:

The world is slightly more dangerous than in vannila D2.  Most monsters spawn in larger groups, and many are more aggressive.  Monsters are more willing to use their more potent or annoying skills and behaviors.  These changes are preliminary, feel free to complain if you think they are too weak (or too strong) in some way.
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Credits:
Moding by Quatl 
Much help was provided by various members of the PhrozenKeep community 
I couldn't have done this with out you folks!

Game Testers:
Skuttis
cj
Yopurzag
Malachai29
kmwill23
Phlebiac
Jounk33
Quatl 
(Possibly YOU! ;) Find me some bugs)


The miraculous D2Mod system [SVR]
with the following plugins:
PlugY Survival Kit     [Yohann]
D2MercMod Plugin       [SVR]
D2Mod Utility Plugin   [??? maybe someone can tell me who wrote this]
New Text Table Plugin  [??? maybe someone can tell me who wrote this]
5th Skilltree Plugin   [Talonrage]
Skill Shortcut Plugin  [RicFaith]
CubeOps Plugin         [Myhrginoc]
SetStat Plugin         [Havvoric]
msvcrtd.dll            [Microsoft] ;)
  
This mod contains additional graphics, some from community sources:
New (drinkable)Potions inv1XX.dc6
new gems		[FourHorsmen Mods]
TP/ID Book 		[ShadowTalen]
Arcane sphere		[Diablo I gfx from Incandescence]
all other new gfx 	[recolored from D2 by Quatl]

Special thanks to:
Erevos, and Maxx Power for making some suggestions, which led me to change my thinking about the Tome
Fish of Muu for providing tough criticism, and insight
Nameless for offering much needed advice.
Myhrginoc for encourageing me to civilize this release ;) and being generally supportive.
Nefarius for many bits of mechanical wisdom.
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