I have been wandering around the server trying to find some of the more obscure quests. This has bought me a lot of pleasure, when server veterans have PMed me with expressions of surprise "there is a quest here?". Much fun.

Then I came across something called the "Gem Hunt" in the Hold. This looked like a quest, it had the quest level written on the quest giver, hell, it even it came up in my quest log. Foolishly, this led me to believe it was a quest, and I took a party to try it out.

It turns out "Gem Hunt" is actually a noob catching extended practical joke. I laughed and laughed and haemorrhaged consumables.

It was an extended torture session. There are large numbers of medium tough mobs, no complaints there. But you are regularly required to put your character through massive conflagrations just to continue through the quest. More over every piece of loot was guarded by traps not spottable with 13 search. That meant every fire agate I picked up (all 11 of them) came with a 15-20 point bang.

After all this, we returned to the quest giver with a measly single small diamond, which he said at the outset was worth one hundred gold. This was pretty insulting to start with, but when he didn't even actually pay us when we returned (a bug?), I admit I did something unpleasant to my keyboard. The A and S keys may never be the same again. The fire agates were worth 2 gold each to a vendor.

I cannot say how much I spent on that quest, maybe 10 cure serious, a wand of cure minor, a dozen elemental wards, plus the usual buffs. For my trouble I received 48 xp and 117 gold worth of gems, split three ways.

I hope the hilarious DM who invented this "quest" laughed so hard when he/she was making it, they suffered a massive hiatus hernia and now lie suffering in some small hospital ward, alone with their pain. I would send them some of my healing, but unfortuntaly I used it all.

The reward output on this quest has always been broken. It's definately not meant to be like it is.

Also, you're not required to launch yourself unprotected through the flames. The excellence of this quest is that you can go as far as you deem safe, as there's no end boss to destroy so you can return whenever you want to.

I agree, though, and many others do as well, the reward for this quest is broken and has needed to be fixed for a while now.

The quest reward is pretty much broken, sadly, but there are some things that will make it feasable as is. A high reflex save rogue, plus some elemental protection, can make it so you take just about zero damage on the quest. Also, what is populated in the piles is randomized. You can come out with many more diamonds, and sometimes none.

In it's current state, I'll agree that the quest could be softened just a bit.

Ah damn it! I had to log out in the middle of it for that. I thought the reward sounded a little hard to believe, especially when I've never done it before. Now I'll have to wait for the reset before I can safely use one of my characters again, but my fighter's reflex is teh fail.

Yea, it was pretty bad, the experience from the monsters was okay (ranging from 1 to 22)

Maybe he could chuck out a few elemential resist potions in the begining?

Icy Parapets, if you want further suggestions to come across better, you could tone down the sarcasm a bit. When I read suggestions, DM questions, or posts that contain rants or points slathered in it, even if the point is valid, it makes me less likely to spend the time adjusting things to make it work.

Just a thought for the future.

I seem to recall there being a pretty clear warning message in the quest journal entry saying, "Warning: This quest is buggy and unrewarding, try at your own risk"

Less sarcasm, I'll take that on board and see what I can do.

Regarding the quest log message, mine just said "You have decided to go hunt some gems" or words to that effect. If there was a warning I missed it. A more prominent warning would be great.

I haven't done this in a bit but Howland is correct. It is not in your log I do not think but hopefully you took the time to read the dialogue as you were talking to the guy at the Hold? I am pretty sure it is during that dialogue that it is clearly stated in green letters (?) that it is to be taken at your own risk. And yeah, sarcasm is best left for an arrogant character ig. Fun playing. :D

I agree that this quest has always been rather 'odd' in my book - though ICly it's necessary considering how many people the hold typically has to rez on a daily basis.

However, in regards to Strife's comment about the high reflex save rogues being able to make it through undamaged, I don't totally buy that.

I took my most agile rogue through that mess and still took some serious damage (though admittedly Evasion does wonders).

It does have a low payout, but the groups I've always played it with always turn back before we go through too many of the 'traps'.....usually stopping before or just after the first one.

There are ways to get around the fire too, my bard (10dex) avoided fire twice (making 4 saves in total to avoid)