>Hmm. Thanks for the heads up, though I guess it's too late
>for my first char. Heh. Might I ask why, though?

Some forum personalities carry baggage. For instance, someone might really, really dislike "Isildur" the forum poster, and let that color their interaction with whatever character I'm playing at the time. Or they might really like Isildur the forum poster, and pass up an opportunity to loot/kill/doublecross my character in-game that they might otherwise have taken.

>As for dying, so I've been told. Somehow I've managed to avoid
>it for the most part thus far, though there've been some close
>calls.

Good work. Let me run down my short list of ways-to-avoid-dying:

1. As a healer, never walk somewhere when you can gate. Never, ever walk out of your guild after having sat in it for any length of time. Ditto for cabal. And your deity's shrine.

2. Always, always carry multiple teleport potions in your inventory. Don't keep them in a sack. When blinded, you can still see potions in your inventory.

3. If you use a client, set an alias to "quaff teleportation" (or whatever teleport potion you use). I don't know about you, but I don't trust myself to type "quaff teleportation" in the heat of battle.

4. When possible, try to carry a "not insignificant" amount of gold on your person for sitautions where your own healing ability doesn't cut it.

5. Keep stuff like sanctuary, protection, flight, protective shield, and detect invisible active as often as you can.

6. If you use "word of recall" to escape someone, assume that he's heading to your recall point as quickly as possible. Ideally you want to be elsewhere when he arrives.

7. As you continue to rank, you'll find that healers are generally pretty hard to kill. But they have their achilles heels. A few of them are: assassinate, worldbind and dispel from a shaman (or paladin if you're an evil healer).