Pokey,

Looking back through the thread, I see that you do have the expansion for Diablo 2. Can I suggest that you go ahead and install it and upgrade your character? You won't lose any progress, and the larger stash and better hireling interaction alone would make it worthwhile. Plus there are far more magic items and set pieces to find.

The only reason I could see for having a non-expansion character would be if you are joining friends in an unexpanded BattleNet game.

Pib, I'm considering it. It makes me a bit nervous because I read that there are things that some did not like about it and it adds difficulty. How big is the inventory? Mine is 40 spaces. I could do without a bigger stash. My hirelings are doing well, though I just lost another.

I am in Lower Kurash now. Hurray, the waypoint was right at the entrance!

Anyone know what might have happened to my hireling? We were walking around lower Kurast in the vicinity of the waypoint. All creatures had been killed and we were at full health. He would sometimes walk around the other side of a house or in it. I walked to the waypoint to teleport back and noticed that he was missing. I heard nothing and it was only about a minute since I checked. I'm perplexed--maybe I mssed something like a trap.

Go back and check for him. Especially if you still have his portrait showing. Sometimes they get stuck in places. Just bactrack until you find them. :]]]]
If he was dead you would NO longer have the portrait of them.

His portait was gone. It just happened so suddenly and we were in a cleared area of the village.

Hummmmm.... He's dead if his portrait is not there. Sorry I have no clue as to why if no one attacked him.
Maybe he ran into a ambush. They do sometimes wonder off and get into trouble.

Did the ruined temple in the Kurast Bazaar and got the tome. Time to rest up for tomorrow.

Hi all,

In my Sorceress game I kept loosing so many hirelings that it was down to about 4 left. Don't know if the list starts over with new people or you just don't have any more to hire.


I will have to see what happens when I play with her again.

I finally got it that they need the same type of weapons so my hireling from the second area has a better spear now and looking for higher damage ones as we go along.

I tried to give them healing potions and they said that they can't use that. I will try again but usually just wait it out once we clear out an area for them to heal before we go on.

The archers in the first area just healed themselves. Wonder why we don't get healing spells and have to keep using potions.

Did you know that if you keep clicking on gamble that you get to see different items evey time you click??? You do and I have gotten a lot of rare items by doing that. Its rare if it is in yellow letters.

If you have the expansion, drop a healing potion on their portrait, not in their inventory! My archer does heal herself, but sometimes she needs a bit extra. I drop a potion on her portrait and she says "thank you"

You can tell if a gambled item is going to be gold? Thanks, that is a very very useful tip.

When I lost my last hireling, I found that I could rehire him. He only gets 3-8 damage though. My best got 4-10 and he hasn't shown up on the list again. I find that the amount of life is more important. We have become quite a team. I keep him close and he freezes the enemies as they come close and I hack them and usually get no damage. Occasionly he will cast repeatedly and actually kill something by himself.

I'm going to check out that gambing trick.

Found the sewers but couldn't find the bit of Khalim I needed. So I'll need to clean out the sewer again. Urk, I hate this bit of Diablo.

That and the fact that I should check *every time* I return to town and see if the vendors have some new cool piece of equipment that I simply must have. I like it better if vendors only get new stuff once a day or once every couple of days. These guys get new shipments way too often.

I did the sewers and got Kalim's heart. Nothing very tough in there. Now to figure out where I need to go next.

Another hireling just died mysteriously. He was standing on the Kurast Bazaar waypoint and didn't seem to know how to get past the low wall surrounding it. I walked on a bit, figuring he would finally figure it out and his portrait disappeared. Maybe you just can't get too far from them.

I found the way to Upper Kurast. Going after the flail.

We've reached Travincal but are in a furious battle to enter the gate. Meteors and things are raining down and I can't even tell where they are coming from. We raced in and out of the gate many times but there are a lot of them and don't think we've made much of a dent.

That's a very tough area, Pokey, there are about 3 named enemies there, try pulling one away from the others, and fire resistance is helpful, as I'm sure you've seen.