Nudists Variant
Breakdown
- No armor or weapons allowed with the following exceptions:
- A festival hat (0 armor) may be worn and infused
- Starter weapons may be used. Players may use Candy Cane weapons and focii or their equivalents post Ascension provided they have no modifiers.
- Pre-ascension characters are limited to skills they can acquire normally during game progress, irregardless of unlocks and individual character progression.
- Heroes and henches can only be used as a last resort to sub for players; in that event high armor heroes/henches, especially melee cannot be used.
History and Concept
The idea behind nudists goes all the way back to the original days of Diablo, when some people found that playing the mage was too easy, due to how powerful some of the spells were. As a result, the suggestion was put out there to play without any armor at all so as to make the game that much harder. That tradition carried on through the years into Diablo 2 and its expansion and has now landed in Guild Wars, where a team is currently trying to make its way through the Prophecies campaign.
The use of armor in Guild Wars differs from the way it's used in Diablo, which creates its own unique set of challenges. While armor in the Diablo series was responsible for your chance to be hit, attribute and skill modifications, as well as many of the other ways to modify a character (including, but not limited to, spell resistances), in Guild Wars there is by default a 100% chance to hit and be hit with attacks and armor plays a direct role in how much damage you take. A character without armor on, or an equivalent of 0 armor, will take roughly three times the amount of damage as a character with the baseline 60 would. Additionally, Guild Wars sets your health at a baseline of 480 at level 20 (the maximum level), which can only be altered through armor; there is no Vitality attribute to increase your health. When these two items are combined, playing the game without armor in the later game areas can prove to be quite challenging.
The Prophecies campaign itself provides a unique challenge not present in any of the other Guild Wars campaigns, a type of monster called the Mursaat, which possess the skill
Spectral Agony that is very deadly and the main defense against it is to infuse your armor, which is not an option for nudists. Fortunately, having just 1 piece of armor infused is enough to lighten the effects of the skill. This can be accomplished by nudists through the use of festival hats, pieces of headgear that offer no armor and no other inherent bonuses.
As you can see, playing a nudist brings on a lot of challenges and is possibly one of the hardest variants in Guild Wars to play. The team playing the variant has been working on it, on and off, for almost three years. There have been snags in missions that have required thinking outside the box and finding ways of completing them other than the standard methods employed by the general community. There have also been long periods of time when the team has taken a break for several months, due to players being unavailable or because of a lack of interest. Even so, progress still continues, even with the various setbacks.
Rules
The rules of the nudist variant seem simple enough at first glance, but there are a few details that add to the complexity of the variant.
The first basic rule of nudists is that you cannot equip any armor other than a festival hat. This is the basic concept of nudists: no protection at all from monsters. It also forces the player to work without the inherent energy bonuses gained from armor; that is, the increased energy pool and energy regeneration. Festival hats are allowed because they have an armor rating of 0 (the same as not having armor equipped) and do not grant any bonuses to energy/regen. Festival hats also serve the purpose of giving players a small amount of protection from Spectral Agony.
The second rule of nudists is that you can not use any weapon other than a starter weapon until ascension, when candy cane weapons become allowed. The original plan was to allow only starter weapons for the entire game, but that was deemed a bit harsh, so it was decided that once the team ascended they would be able to use candy cane weapons. Also note that the starter weapon rule means that casters are not allowed to use staves or focus items that give energy, which is one reason why candy cane equipment was allowed post ascension; it gives players an additional 5 energy or 8 armor, depending on whether they used the focus or the shield.
The third rule deals with what skills the players are allowed to use. Before the desert, players can only use the skills that would be available to them at the time. This means that if a skill cannot be bought from a trainer without it being unlocked, they cannot use it. Once players reach the desert, they can use any core and prophecies non-elite skills. Their elite selection is limited to what a team of nudists can reasonably capture on their own.
The last rule deals with henchmen. Simply put, henchmen are only to be used as a last resort if the team cannot fill up a full team of nudists. In addition, healers and high armor characters (i.e. warriors and rangers) cannot be used.
Image Gallery
See the nudist team in action
here.
Progress
Nudists finished the Prophecies campaign on 11/25/08, 37 months after the team started.
Links
Read the Nudist story in
The Nudist Journal
Current Nudists thread
Thread about updated nudist rules for post ascension
Thread for Desert Nudists discussion
Nudists revival thread
Original nudist rules discussion thread
Original thread for Nudists
Related Links:
Variant Hub
